And next slavery.
This is one of those ugly words which are the verba non grata of modern discussion, because they jar us so ruthlessly out of the grooves of our thinking. Nevertheless it is clear to all but those to whom self-deception is the staff of life, that as the honest Greeks had it, some are born to be slaves. Try to educate all men equally, and you become the laughing-stock of your own maturity. The masses seem to be worth notice in three aspects only: first as the copies of great men, printed on bad paper from worn-out plates; next as a contrast to the great men; and lastly as their tools. Living consists in living at the cost of others: the man who has not grasped this fact has not taken the first step towards truth to himself. And to consider distress of all kinds as an objection, as something which must be done away with, is the greatest nonsense on earth; almost as mad as the will to abolish bad weather, out of pity to the poor, so to speak. The masses must be used, whether that means or does not mean that they must suffer;—it requires great strength to live and forget how far life and injustice are one. What is the suffering of whole peoples compared to the creative agonies of great individuals?[252]
There are many who threw away everything they were worth when they threw away their slavery. In all respects slaves live more securely and more happily than modern laborers; the laborer chooses his harder lot to satisfy the vanity of telling himself that he is not a slave. These men are dangerous; not because they are strong, but because they are sick; it is the sick who are the greatest danger to the healthy; it is the weak ones, they who mouth so much about their sickness, who vomit bile and call it newspaper,—it is they who instil the most dangerous venom and scepticism into our trust in life, in man, and in ourselves; it is they who most undermine the life beneath our feet. It is for such as these that Christianity may serve a good purpose (so serving our purpose too). Those qualities which are within the grasp only of the strongest and most terrible natures, and which make their existence possible—leisure, adventure, disbelief, and even dissipation—would necessarily ruin mediocre natures—and does do so when they possess them. In the case of the latter, industry, regularity, moderation, and strong “conviction” are in their proper place—in short, all “gregarious virtues”; under their influence these mediocre men become perfect. We good Europeans, then, though atheists and immoralists, will take care to support the religions and the morality which are associated with the gregarious instinct; for by means of them an order of men is, so to speak, prepared, which must at some time or other fall into our hands, which must actually crave for our hands.[253]
Slavery, let us understand it well, is the necessary price of culture; the free work, or art, of some involves the compulsory labor of others. As in the organism so in society: the higher function is possible only through the subjection of the lower functions. A high civilization is a pyramid; it can stand only on a broad base, its first prerequisite is a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. In order that there may be a broad, deep, and fruitful soil for the development of art, the enormous majority must, in the service of a minority, be slavishly subjected. At their cost, through the surplus of their labor, that privileged class is to be relieved from the struggle for existence, in order to create and to satisfy a new world of want. The misery of the toilers must still increase in order to make the production of a world of art possible to a small number of Olympian men.[254]
11
Aristocracy
The greatest folly of the strong is to let the weak make them ashamed to exploit, to let the weak suggest to them, “It is a shame to be happy—there is too much misery!” Let us therefore reaffirm the right of the happy to existence, the right of bells with a full tone over bells that are cracked and discordant. Not that exploitation as such is desirable; it is good only where it supports and develops an aristocracy of higher men who are themselves developing still higher men. This philosophy aims not at an individualistic morality but at a new order of rank. In this age of universal suffrage, in this age in which everybody is allowed to sit in judgment upon everything and everybody, one feels compelled to reëstablish the order of rank. The higher men must be protected from contamination and suffocation by the lower. The richest and most complex forms perish so easily! Only the lowest succeed in maintaining their apparent imperishableness.[255]
The first question as to the order of rank: how far is a man disposed to be solitary or gregarious? If he is disposed to be gregarious, his value consists in those qualities which secure the survival of his tribe or type; if he is disposed to be solitary, his qualities are those which distinguish him from others; hence the important consequence: the solitary type should not be valued from the standpoint of the gregarious type, or vice versa. Viewed from above, both types are necessary; and so is their antagonism. Degeneration lies in the approximation of the qualities of the herd to those of the solitary creature, and vice versa; in short, in their beginning to resemble each other. Hence the difference in their virtues, their rights and their obligations; in the light of this difference one comes to abhor the vulgarity of Stuart Mill when he says, “What is right for one man is right for another.” It is not; what is right for the herd is precisely what is wrong for their leaders; and what is right for the leaders is wrong for the herd. The leaders use, the herd is used; the virtues of either lie in the efficiency here of leadership, there of service. Slave-morality is one thing, and master-morality another.[256]
And leadership of course requires an aristocracy. Let us repeat it: democracy has always been the death-agony of the power of organization and direction; these require great aristocratic families, with long traditions of administration and leadership; old ancestral lines that guarantee for many generations the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts. Not only aristocracy, then, but caste; for if a man have plebeian ancestors, his soul will be a plebeian soul; education, discipline, culture will be wasted on him, merely enabling him to become a great liar. Therefore intermarriage, even social intercourse of leaders with herd, is to be avoided with all precaution and intolerance; too much intercourse with barbarians ruined the Romans, and will ruin any noble race.[257]
In what direction may one turn with any hope of finding even the aspiration for such an aristocracy? Only there where a noble attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which believes in slavery and in manifold orders of rank, as the prerequisites of any higher degree of culture. Men with this attitude of mind will insistently call for, and will at last produce, philosophical men of power, artist-tyrants,—a higher kind of men which, thanks to their preponderance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as the most suitable and subtle instrument for taking the fate of Europe into their hands, and working as artists upon man himself. The fundamental belief of these great desirers will be that society must not be allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as the foundation and scaffolding by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their highest duties, and in general to a higher existence: like those sun-climbing plants in Java which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms that at last, high above it, but supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness.[258]