The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV

by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

3. Once this is reached, the actual differences in degrees of power begin to make themselves felt, and to a greater extent than before (the reason being that on the whole peace is established, and innumerable small centres of power begin to create differences which formerly were scarcely noticeable). Now the individuals begin to form groups, these strive after privileges and preponderance, and war starts afresh in a milder form.

People demand freedom only when they have no power. Once power is obtained, a preponderance thereof is the next thing to be coveted; if this is not achieved (owing to the fact that one is still too weak for it), then "justice" i.e. "equality of power" become the objects of desire.

785.

The rectification of the concept "egoism."—When one has discovered what an error the "individual" is, and that every single creature represents the whole process of evolution (not alone "inherited," but in "himself"), the individual then acquires an inordinately great importance. The voice of instinct is quite right here. When this instinct tends to decline, i.e. when the individual begins to seek his worth in his services to others, one may be sure that exhaustion and degeneration have set in. An altruistic attitude of mind, when it is fundamental and free from all hypocrisy, is the instinct of creating a second value for one's self in the service of other egoists. As a rule, however, it is only apparent—a circuitous path to the preservation of one's own feelings of vitality and worth.

786.

The History of Moralisation and Demoralisation.

Proposition one.—There are no such things as moral actions: they are purely imaginary. Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their existence (a fact which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both acknowledged) but they are not even possible. Owing to psychological misunderstanding, a man invented an opposite to the instinctive impulses of life, and believed that a new species of instinct was thereby discovered: a primum mobile was postulated which does not exist at all. According to the valuation which gave rise to the antithesis "moral" and "immoral," one should say: There is nothing else on earth but immoral intentions and actions.

Proposition two.——The whole differentiation, "moral" and "immoral," arises from the assumption that both moral and immoral actions are the result of a spontaneous will—in short, that such a will exists; or in other words, that moral judgments can only hold good with regard to intuitions and actions that are free. But this whole order of actions and intentions is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral standard could be applied does not exist at all: there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral action.

The psychological error out of which the antithesis "moral" and "immoral" arose is: "selfless," "unselfish," "self-denying"—all unreal and fantastic.

A false dogmatism also clustered around the concept "ego"; it was regarded as atomic, and falsely opposed to a non-ego; it was also liberated from Becoming, and declared to belong to the sphere of Being. The false materialisation of the ego: this (owing to the belief in individual immortality) was made an article of faith under the pressure of religio-moral discipline. According to this artificial liberation of the ego and its transference to the realm of the absolute, people thought that they had arrived at an antithesis in values which seemed quite irrefutable—the single ego and the vast non-ego. It seemed obvious that the value of the individual ego could only exist in conjunction with the vast non-ego, more particularly in the sense of being subject to it and existing only for its sake. Here, of course, the gregarious instinct determined the direction of thought: nothing is more opposed to this instinct than the sovereignty of the individual. Supposing, however, that the ego be absolute, then its value must lie in self-negation.