III
Exposition
1
Morality as Impotence
From a biological standpoint the phenomenon morality is of a highly suspicious nature.[142] Cui bono?—Whom shall we suspect of profiting by this institution? Is it a mode of enhancing life?—Does it make men stronger and more perfect?—or does it make for deterioration and decay? It is obvious that up to the present, morality has not been a problem at all; it has rather been the very ground on which people have met after all distrust, dissension, and contradiction, the hallowed place of peace, where thinkers could obtain rest even from themselves.[143] But what if morality be the greatest of all the stumbling-blocks in the way of human self-betterment? Is it possible that morality itself is the social problem, and that the solution of that problem lies in the judicious abolition of morality? It is a view for which something can be said.
You have heard that morality is a means used by the strong to control the weak. And it is true: just consider the conversion of Constantine. But to stop here is to let half the truth be passed off on you as the whole; and half a truth is half a lie. Much more true is it that morality is a means used by the weak to control the strong, the chain which weakness softly lays upon the feet of strength. The whole of the morality of Europe is based upon the values which are useful to the herd.[144] Every one’s desire is that there should be no other teaching and valuation of things than those by means of which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them to the level of the weak; their chief weapon in this process was the moral principle.[145] Good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts no one, attacks no one, does not take vengeance but hands over vengeance to God; who goes out of the way of evil, and demands little from life; like ourselves, patient, meek, just. Good is to do nothing for which we are not strong enough.[146] Zarathustra laughed many times over the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had lame paws![147] Obedience, subordination, submission, devotion, love, the pride of duty; fatalism, resignation, objectivity, stoicism, asceticism, self-denial; in short, anemia: these are the virtues which the herd would have all men cultivate,—particularly the strong men.[148] And the deification of Jesus,—that is to say of meekness,—what was it but another attempt to lull the strong to sleep?
2
Democracy
See, now, how nearly that attempt has succeeded. For is not democracy, if not victorious, at least on the road to victory to-day? And what is the democratic movement but the inheritor of Christianity?[149] Not the Christianity of the great popes; they knew better, and were building a splendid aristocracy when Luther spoiled it all by letting loose the levelling instincts of the herd.[150] The instinct of the herd is in favor of the leveller (Christ).[151] I very much fear that the first Christian is in his deepest instincts a rebel against everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for “equal rights.”[152] It is by Christianity, more than by anything else, that the poison of this doctrine of “equal rights” has been spread abroad. And do not let us underestimate the fatal influence! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, of rights of dominion. The aristocratic attitude of mind has been most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls.[153]
But is not this the greatest of all lies—the “equality of men”? That is to say, the dominion of the inferior. Is it not the most threadbare and discredited of ideas? Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and select classes; everybody equals everybody else; “at bottom we are all herd.” There is no welcome for the genius here; the more promising for the future the modern individual happens to be, the more suffering falls to his lot.[154] If the rise of great and rare men had been made dependent upon the voices of the multitude, there never would have been any such thing as a great man. The herd regards the exception, whether it be above or beneath its general level, as something antagonistic and dangerous. Their trick in dealing with the exceptions above them—the strong, the mighty, the wise, the fruitful—is to persuade them to become their head-servants.[155]
But the torture of the exceptional soul is only part of the villainy of democracies. The other part is chaos. Voltaire was right: “Quand la populace se mêle de raisonner, tout est perdu.” Democracy is an aristocracy of orators, a competition in headlines, a maelstrom of ever new majorities, a torrent of petty factions sweeping on to ruin. Under democracy the state will decay, for the instability of legislation will leave little respect for law, until finally even the policeman will have to be replaced by private enterprise.[156] Democracy has always been the death-agony of the power of organization:[157] remember Athens, and look at England. Within fifty years these Babel governments will clash in a gigantic war for the control of the markets of the world; and when that war comes, England will pay the penalty for the democratic inefficiency of its dominant muddle-class.[158]
This wave of democracy will recede, and recede quickly, if men of ability will only oppose it openly. It is necessary for higher men to declare war on the masses. In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make themselves master. The middle classes must be dissolved, and their influence decreased;[159] there must be no more intermarrying of aristocracy with plutocracy; this democratic folly would never have come at all had not the master-classes allowed their blood to be mingled with that of slaves.[160] Let us fight parliamentary government and the power of the press; they are the means whereby cattle become rulers.[161] Finally, it is senseless and dangerous to let the counting-mania (the custom of universal suffrage)—which is still but a short time under cultivation, and could easily be uprooted—take deeper root; its introduction was merely an expedient to steer clear of temporary difficulties; the time is ripe for a demonstration of democratic incompetence and a restoration of power to men who are born to rule.[162]