774.
The disguised forms of will to power:—
(1) The desire for freedom, for independence for equilibrium, for peace, for co-ordination. Also that of the anchorite, the "Free-Spirit." In its lowest form, the will to live at all costs—the instinct of self-preservation.
(2) Subordination, with the view of satisfying the will to power of a whole community; submissiveness, the making of one's self indispensable and useful to him who has the power; love, a secret path to the heart of the powerful, in order to become his master.
(3) The feeling of duty, conscience, the imaginary comfort of belonging to a higher order than those who actually hold the reins of power; the acknowledgment of an order of rank which allows of judging even the more powerful, self-depreciation; the discovery of new codes of morality (of which the Jews are a classical example).
775.
Praise and gratitude as forms of will to power.—Praise and gratitude for harvests, for good weather, victories, marriages, and peace—all festivals need a subject on which feeling can be outpoured. The desire is to make all good things that happen to one appear as though they had been done to one: people will have a donor. The same holds good of the work of art: people are not satisfied with it alone, they must praise the artist.—What, then, is praise? It is a sort of compensation for benefits received, a sort of giving back, a manifestation of our power—for the man who praises assents to, blesses, values, judges. he arrogates to himself the right to give his consent to a thing, to be able to confer honours. An increased feeling of happiness or of liveliness is also an increased feeling of power, and it is as a result of this feeling that a man praises (it is as the outcome of this feeling that he invents a donor, a "subject"). Gratitude is thus revenge of a lofty kind: it is most severely exercised and demanded where equality and pride both require to be upheld—that is to say, where revenge is practised to its fullest extent.
776.
Concerning the Machiavellism of Power.
The will to power appears:—