No More Learning

“ The Atonement of all Sin. "
People speak of the “profound injustice” of
the social arrangement, as if the fact that one man
is born in favourable circumstances and that
another is born in unfavourable ones—or that
one should possess gifts the other has not, were
on the face of it an injustice. Among the more
honest of these opponents of society, this is what
is said: “We, with all the bad, morbid, criminal
qualities which we acknowledge we possess, are
only the inevitable result of the oppression for
O
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210
THE WILL TO POWER.
ages of the weak by the strong"; thus they insinu-
ate their evil natures into the consciences of the
ruling classes. They threaten and storm and curse.
They become virtuous from sheer indignation-
they don't want to have become bad men and
canaille for nothing. The name for this attitude,
which is an invention of the last century, is, if I am
not mistaken, pessimism; and even that pessimism
which is the outcome of indignation. It is in this
attitude of mind that history is judged, that it
is deprived of its inevitable fatality, and that
responsibility and even guilt is discovered in it.
For the great desideratum is to find guilty people
in it. The botched and the bungled, the de-
cadents of all kinds, are revolted at themselves,
and require sacrifices in order that they may not
slake their thirst for destruction upon themselves
(which might, indeed, be the most reasonable
procedure). But for this purpose they at least
require a semblance of justification, i. e. a theory
according to which the fact of their existence, and
of their character, may be expiated by a scapegoat.
This scapegoat may be God, --in Russia such
resentful atheists are not wanting, or the order
of society, or education and upbringing, or the
Jews, or the nobles, or, finally, the well-constituted
of every kind. “It is a sin for a man to have been
born in decent circumstances, for by so doing
he disinherits the others, he pushes them aside, he
imposes upon them the curse of vice and of
work. . . How can I be made answerable
for my misery; surely some one must be respons-
ible for it, or I could not bear to live. "
.


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
211
In short, resentful pessimism discovers responsible
parties in order to create a pleasurable sensation
for itself-revenge.
“Sweeter than honey”-
thus does even old Homer speak of revenge.
*
The fact that such a theory no longer meets with
understanding—or rather, let us say, contempt-
is accounted for by that particle of Christianity
which still circulates in the blood of every one
of us; it makes us tolerant towards things simply
because we scent a Christian savour about them. . . .
The Socialists appeal to the Christian instincts;
this is their really refined piece of cleverness. .
Thanks to Christianity, we have now grown
accustomed to the superstitious concept of a
soul-of an immortal soul, of soul monads,
which, as a matter of fact, hails from somewhere
else, and which has only become inherent in
certain cases—that is to say, become incarnate
in them-by accident: but the nature of these
cases is not altered, let alone determined by it.
The circumstances of society, of relationship, and
of history are only accidents for the soul, perhaps
misadventures : in any case, the world is not their
work. By means of the idea of soul the individual
is made transcendental; thanks to it, a ridiculous
amount of importance can be attributed to him.
As a matter of fact, it was Christianity which
first induced the individual to take up this position
of judge of all things. It made megalomania
almost his duty: it has made everything temporary
and limited subordinate to eternal rights ! What


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212
THE WILL TO POWER.
is the State, what is society, what are historical
laws, what is physiology to me? Thus speaks
something from beyond Becoming, an immutable
entity throughout history: thus speaks something
immortal, something divine--it is the soul !
Another Christian, but no less insane, concept
has percolated even deeper into the tissues of
modern ideas : the concept of the equality of all
souls before God. In this concept the prototype of
all theories concerning equal rights is to be found.
Man was first taught to stammer this proposition
religiously : later, it was converted into a moral;
no wonder he has ultimately begun to take it
seriously, to take it practically ! —that is to say,
politically, socialistically, resento-pessimistically.
Wherever responsible circumstances or people
have been looked for, it was the instinct of revenge
that sought them.
This instinct of revenge
obtained such an ascendancy over man in the
course of centuries that the whole of metaphysics,
psychology, ideas of society, and, above all,
morality, are tainted with it. Man has nourished
this idea of responsibility to such an extent that
he has introduced the bacillus of vengeance into
everything. By means of it he has made God
Himself ill, and killed innocence in the universe,
by tracing every condition of things to acts of
will, to intentions, to responsible agents. The
whole teaching of will, this most fatal fraud that
has ever existed in psychology hitherto, was
invented essentially for the purpose of punishment.
It was the social utility of punishment that lent
this concept its dignity, its power, and its truth.


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
213
The originator of that psychology, that we shall
call volitional psychology, must be sought in
those classes which had the right of punishment
in their hands; above all, therefore, among the
priests who stood on the very pinnacle of ancient
social systems: these people wanted to create for
themselves the right to wreak revenge they
wanted to supply God with the privilege of
vengeance. For this purpose; man was declared
"free": to this end every action had to be re-
garded as voluntary, and the origin of every deed
had to be considered as lying in consciousness.
But by such propositions as these ancient psych-
ology is refuted.
To-day, when Europe seems to have taken the
contrary direction; when we halcyonians would
fain withdraw, dissipate, and banish the concept of
guilt and punishment with all our might from the
world; when our most serious endeavours are
concentrated upon purifying psychology, morality,
history, nature, social institutions and privileges,
and even God Himself, from this filth; in whom
must we recognise our most mortal enemies?
Precisely in those apostles of revenge and
resentment, in those who
are par excellence
pessimists from indignation, who make it their
mission to sanctify their filth with the name of
righteous indignation. ” . . . We others, whose
one desire is to reclaim innocence on behalf of
Becoming, would fain be the missionaries of a
purer thought, namely, that no one is responsible
for man's qualities; neither God, nor society, nor
his parents, nor his ancestors, nor himself—in fact,
66
i
!


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214
THE WILL TO POWER.
that no one is to blame for him . . . The being
who might be made responsible for a man's exist-
ence, for the fact that he is constituted in a
particular way, or for his birth in certain circum-
stances and in a certain environment, is absolutely
lacking. –And it is a great blessing that such a
being is non-existent. . . . We are not the result
of an eternal design, of a will, of a desire: there
is no attempt being made with us to attain to an
“ideal of perfection,” to an “ideal of happiness,"
to an “ideal of virtue,"—and we are just as little
the result of a mistake on God's part in the
presence of which He ought to feel uneasy (a
thought which is known to be at the very root
of the Old Testament). There is not a place
nor a purpose nor a sense to which we can
attribute our existence or our kind of existence.
In the first place, no one is in a position to do
this: it is quite impossible to judge, to measure,
or to compare, or even to deny the whole universe!
And why ? -For five reasons, all accessible to the
man of average intelligence: for instance, because
there is no existence outside the universe . . . and
let us say it again, this is a great blessing, for
therein lies the whole innocence of our lives.
2. THE INDIVIDUAL.
766.
Fundamental errors : to regard the herd as an
aim instead of the individual! The herd is only
means and nothing more! But nowadays
a


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
215
people are trying to understand the herd as they
would an individual, and to confer higher rights
upon it than upon isolated personalities. Terrible
mistake! ! In addition to this, all that makes for
gregariousness, e. g. sympathy, is regarded as the
more valuable side of our natures.
767.
The individual is something quite new, and
capable of creating new things. He is something
absolute, and all his actions are quite his own.
The individual in the end has to seek the valua-
tion for his actions in himself: because he has
to give an individual meaning even to traditional
words and notions. His interpretation of a
formula is at least personal, even if he does not
create the formula itself: at least as an interpreter
he is creative.
768.
The "ego" oppresses and kills. It acts like
an organic cell. It is predatory and violent. It
would fain regenerate itself-pregnancy. It would
fain give birth to its God and see all mankind at
its feet.
769.
Every living organism gropes around as far as
its power permits, and overcomes all that is
weaker than itself: by this means it finds pleasure
in its own existence. The increasing “ humanity"
of this tendency consists in the fact that we are
beginning to feel ever more subtly how difficult


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216
THE WILL TO POWER.
it is really to absorb others: while we could show
our power by injuring him, his will estranges him
from us, and thus makes him less susceptible of
being overcome.
770.
The degree of resistance which has to be con-
tinually overcome in order to remain at the top, is
the measure of freedom, whether for individuals or
for societies : freedom being understood as positive
power, as will to power. The highest form of
individual freedom, of sovereignty, would, according
to this, in all probability be found not five feet
away from its opposite that is to say, where the
danger of slavery hangs over life, like a hundred
swords of Damocles. Let any one go through the
whole of history from this point of view: the ages
when the individual reaches perfect maturity, i. e. the
free ages, when the classical type, sovereign man, is
attained to—these were certainly not humane times!
There should be no choice : either one must
be uppermost nethermost
like a worm,
despised, annihilated, trodden upon. One must
have tyrants against one in order to become a
tyrant, i. e. in order to be free. It is no small
advantage to have a hundred swords of Damocles
suspended over one: it is only thus that one
learns to dance, it is only thus that one attains
to any freedom in one's movements.
or
771.
Man more than any other animal was originally
altruistic-hence his slow growth (child) and lofty


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
217
was
development. Hence, too, his extraordinary and
latest kind of egoism. —Beasts of prey are much
more individualistic.
772.
A criticism of selfishness. The involuntary
ingenuousness of La Rochefoucauld, who believed
that he was saying something bold, liberal, and
paradoxical (in his days, of course, truth in
psychological matters
something that
astonished people) when he said: "Les grandes
åmes ne sont pas celles qui ont moins de passions
et plus de vertus que les âmes communes, mais seule-
ment celles qui ont de plus grands desseins. "
Certainly, John Stuart Mill (who calls Chamfort
the noble and philosophical La Rochefoucauld of
the eighteenth century) recognises in him merely
an astute and keen-sighted observer of all that
which is the result of habitual selfishness in the
human breast, and he adds: “A noble spirit is
unable to see the necessity of a constant observa-
tion of baseness and contemptibility, unless it were
to show against what corrupting influences a
lofty spirit and a noble character were able to
triumph. ”
773
The Morphology of the Feelings of Self.
First standpoint. -To what extent are sympathy
or communal feelings, the lower or preparatory
states, at a time when personal self-esteem and
initiative in valuation, on the part of individuals,
are not yet possible ?


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218
THE WILL TO POWER.
Second standpoint. - To what extent is the zenith
of collective self-esteem, the pride in the distinc-
tion of the clan, the feeling of inequality and a
certain abhorrence of mediation, of equal rights and
of reconciliation, the school for individual self-
esteem? It may be this in so far as it compels the
individual to represent the pride of the community
-he is obliged to speak and act with tremendous
self-respect, because he stands for the community
And the same holds good when the individual re-
gards himself as the instrument or speaking-tube
of a godhead.
Third standpoint. To what extent do these
forms of impersonality invest the individual with
enormous importance ?
In so far as higher powers
are using him as an intermediary: religious shy-
ness towards one's self is the condition of prophets
and poets.
Fourth standpoint. —To what extent does re-
sponsibility for a whole educate the individual in
foresight, and give him a severe and terrible hand,
a calculating and cold heart, majesty of bearing
and of action-things which he would not allow
himself if he stood only for his own rights ?
In short, collective self-esteem is the great pre-
paratory school for personal sovereignty. The
noble caste is that which creates the heritage of
this faculty
774.
The disguised forms of will to power :-
(1) The desire for freedom, for independence
for equilibrium, for peace, for co-ordination. Also


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
219
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; submis-
siveness, 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 be-
come his master.
(3) The feeling of duty, conscience, the imagin-
ary 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-deprecia-
tion; 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
.


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220
THE WILL TO POWER.
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 :
(a) Among the oppressed and slaves of all kinds,
in the form of will to "freedom": the mere fact of
breaking loose from something seems to be an end
in itself (in a religio-moral sense : "One is only
answerable to one's own conscience"; "evangelical
freedom," etc. etc. ).
(6) In the case of a stronger species, ascending
to power, in the form of the will to overpower. If
this fails, then it shrinks to the “ will to justice”.
that is to say, to the will to the same measure of
rights as the ruling caste possesses.
© In the case of the strongest, richest, most
independent, and most courageous, in the form of
“ love of humanity,” of “love of the people," of the
“gospel,” of “truth,” of “God,” of “pity,” of “self-
sacrifice,” etc. etc. ; in the form of overpowering, of
deeds of capture, of imposing service on some one,
of an instinctive reckoning of one's self as part of a
great mass of power to which one attempts to give
»


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
221
a direction: the hero, the prophet, the Cæsar, the
Saviour, the bell-wether. (The love of the sexes
also belongs to this category; it will overpower
something, possess it utterly, and it looks like self-
abnegation. At bottom it is only the love of one's
instrument, of one's “horse”--the conviction that
things belong to one because one is in a position
to use them. )
Freedom,” “ Justice," “ Love"! ! !
777
Love. —Behold this love and pity of women-
what could be more egoistic ? . . . And when they
do sacrifice themselves and their honour or reputa-
tion, to whom do they sacrifice themselves ? To the
man? Is it not rather to an unbridled desire ?
These desires are quite as selfish, even though they
may be beneficial to others and provoke gratitude.
To what extent can such a hyperfcetation of
one valuation sanctify everything else! !
778.
“ Senses," “ Passions. "—When the fear of the
senses and of the passions and of the desires be-
comes so great as to warn us against them, it is
already a symptom of weakness: extreme measures
always characterise abnormal conditions. That
which is lacking here, or more precisely that which
is decaying, is the power to resist an impulse : when
one feels instinctively that one must yield,—that is
to say, that one must react,—then it is an excellent
thing to avoid opportunities (temptations).


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222
THE WILL TO POWER.
The stimulation of the senses is only a tempta-
tion in so far as those creatures are concerned
whose systems are easily swayed and influenced :
on the other hand, in the case of remarkable con-
stitutional obtuseness and hardness, strong stimuli
are necessary in order to set the functions in
motion.
Dissipation can only be objected to in
the case of one who has no right to it; and almost
all passions have fallen into disrepute thanks to
those who were not strong enough to convert them
to their own advantage.
One should understand that passions are open
to the same objections as illnesses : yet we should
not be justified in doing without illnesses, and still
less without passions. We require the abnormal;
we give life a tremendous shock by means of these
great illnesses.
In detailthe following should be distinguished:-
(1) The dominating passion, which may even
bring the supremest form of health with it: in this
case the co-ordination of the internal system and
its functions to perform one task is best attained,
but this is almost a definition of health.
(2) The antagonism of the passions—the double,
treble, and multiple soul in one breast: * this is
very unhealthy; it is a sign of inner ruin and
of disintegration, betraying and promoting an
internal dualism and anarchy-unless, of course,
one passion becomes master. Return to health.
* This refers to Goethe's Faust. In Part I. , Act I. , Scene II. ,
we find Faust exclaiming in despair :“Two souls, alas ! within
my bosom throne! " See Theodore Martin's Faust, trans-
lated into English verse. -TR.


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
223
(3) The juxtaposition of passions without their
being either opposed or united with one another.
Very often transitory, and then, as soon as order is
established, this condition may be a healthy one.
A most interesting class of men belong to this
order, the chameleons; they are not necessarily at
loggerheads with themselves, they are both happy
and secure, but they cannot develop—their moods
lie side by side, even though they may seem to lie
far apart. They change, but they become nothing.
779.
i
!
The quantitative estimate of aims and its in-
fluence upon the valuing standpoint: the great
and the small criminal. The greatness or small-
ness of the aims will determine whether the doer
feels respect for himself with it all, or whether
he feels pusillanimous and miserable.
The degree of intellectuality manifested in the
means employed may likewise influence our valua-
tion. How differently the philosophical innovator,
experimenter, and man of violence stands out
against robbers, barbarians, adventurers ! —There
is a semblance of disinterestedness in the former.
Finally, noble manners, bearing, courage, self-
confidence,-how they alter the value of that
which is attained by means of them!
*
Concerning the optics of valuation :
The influence of the greatness or smallness of
the aims.


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224
THE WILL TO POWER.
The influence of the intellectuality of the means.
The influence of the behaviour in action.
The influence of success or failure.
The influence of opposing forces and their value.
The influence of that which is permitted and
that which is forbidden.
780.
The tricks by means of which actions, measures,
and passions are legitimised, which from an in-
dividual standpoint are no longer good form or
even in good taste :
Art, which allows us to enter such strange worlds,
makes them tasteful to us.
Historians prove its justification and reason;
travels, exoticism, psychology, penal codes, the
lunatic asylum, the criminal, sociology.
Impersonality (so that as media of a collective
whole we allow ourselves these passions and actions
-the Bar, juries, the bourgeois, the soldier, the
minister, the prince, society, “critics') makes us
feel that we are sacrificing something.
781.
Preoccupations concerning one's self and one's
eternal salvation are not expressive either of a
rich or of a self-confident nature, for the latter
lets all questions of eternal bliss go to the devil,
-it is not interested in such matters of happiness;
it is all power, deeds, desires; it imposes itself
upon things; it even violates things. The Chris-


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
225
/
tian is a romantic hypochondriac who does not
stand firmly on his legs.
Whenever hedonistic views come to the front,
one can always presuppose the existence of pain
and a certain ill-constitutedness.
782.
“The growing autonomy of the individual”.
Parisian philosophers like M. Fouillée talk of such
things: they would do well to study the race
moutonnière for a moment; for they belong to it.
For Heaven's sake open your eyes, ye sociologists
who deal with the future !
The individual grew
strong under quite opposite conditions : ye describe
the extremest weakening and impoverishment of
man; ye actually want this weakness and impover-
ishment, and ye apply the whole lying machinery
of the old ideal in order to achieve your end.
Ye
are so constituted that ye actually regard your
gregarious wants as an ideal ! Here we are in
the presence of an absolute lack of psychological
honesty.
783.
The two traits which characterise the modern
European are apparently antagonistic-individual-
ism and the demand for equal rights: this I am at
last beginning to understand. The individual is
an extremely vulnerable piece of vanity: this
vanity, when it is conscious of its high degree of
susceptibility to pain, demands that every one
should be made equal; that the individual should
only stand inter pares. But in this way a social
P
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THE WILL TO POWER.
race is depicted in which, as a matter of fact, gifts
and powers are on the whole equally distributed.
The pride which would have loneliness and but
few appreciators is quite beyond comprehension :
really "great" successes are only attained through
the masses-indeed, we scarcely understand yet
that a mob success is in reality only a small suc-
cess; because pulchrum est paucorum hominum.
No morality will countenance order of rank
among men, and the jurists know nothing of a
communal conscience. The principle of indi-
vidualism rejects really great men, and demands
the most delicate vision for, and the speediest dis-
covery of, a talent among people who are almost
equal; and inasmuch as every one has some
modicum of talent in such late and civilised cul.
tures (and can, therefore, expect to receive his share
of honour), there is a more general buttering-up
of modest merits to-day than there has ever been.
· This gives the age the appearance of unlimited
justice. Its want of justice is to be found not in
its unbounded hatred of tyrants and demagogues,
even in the arts; but in its detestation of noble
natures who scorn the praise of the many. The
demand for equal rights (that is to say, the privi-
lege of sitting in judgment on everything and
everybody) is anti-aristocratic.
This age knows just as little concerning the
absorption of the individual, of his mergence into
a great type of men who do not want to be
personalities. It was this that formerly constituted
the distinction and the zeal of many lofty natures
(the greatest poets among them); or of the desire


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
227
to be a polis, as in Greece; or of Jesuitism, or of
the Prussian Staff Corps, and bureaucracy; or of
apprenticeship and a continuation of the tradition
of great masters: to all of which things, nor. -social
conditions and the absence of petty vanity are
necessary.
784.
Individualism is a modest and still unconscious
form of will to power; with it a single human unit
seems to think it sufficient to free himself from the
preponderating power of society (or of the State or
Church). He does not set himself up in opposi-
tion as a personality, but merely as a unit; he
represents the rights of all other individuals as
against the whole. That is to say, he instinc-
tively places himself on a level with every other
unit: what he combats he does not combat as a
person, but as a representative of units against a
mass.
Socialism is merely an agitatory measure of
individualism : it recognises the fact that in order
to attain to something, men must organise them-
selves into a general movement- into a “power. "
But what the Socialist requires is not society as
the object of the individual, but society as a means
of making many individuals possible: this is the
instinct of Socialists, though they frequently de-
ceive themselves on this point (apart from this,
however, in order to make their kind prevail, they
are compelled to deceive others to an enormous
extent). Altruistic moral preaching thus enters
into the service of individual egoism,-one of


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THE WILL TO POWER.
the most common frauds of the nineteenth
century.
Anarchy is also merely an agitatory measure of
Socialism; with it the Socialist inspires fear, with
fear he begins to fascinate and to terrorise: but
what he does above all is to draw all courageous
and reckless people to his side, even in the most
intellectual spheres.
In spite of all this, individualism is the most
modest stage of the will to power.
When one has reached a certain degree of inde-
pendence, one always longs for more : separation
in proportion to the degree of force; the individual
is no longer content to regard himself as equal
to everybody, he actually seeks for his peer-he
makes himself stand out from others. Individual-
ism is followed by a development in groups and
organs; correlative tendencies join up together and
become powerfully active: now there arise between
these centres of power, friction, war, a reconnoitring
of the forces on either side, reciprocity, under-
standings, and the regulation of mutual services.
Finally, there appears an order of rank.
Recapitulation-
1. The individuals emancipate themselves.
2. They make war, and ultimately agree con-
cerning equal rights (justice is made an end in itself).
3. Once this is reached, the actual differences in
degrees of power begin to make themselves felt,
and to greater extent than before the reason
being that on the whole peace is established, and
innumerable small centres of power begin to create
3


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
229
differences which formerly were scarcely notice-
able). 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 preponder-
ance 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 in-
stinct 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 funda-
mental and free from all hypocrisy, is the instinct
of creating a second value for one's self in the ser-
vice of other egoists. As a rule, however, it is
only apparent—a circuitous path to the preserva-
tion of one's own feelings of vitality and worth.
786.
The History of Moralisation and Demoralisation.
Proposition one. There are no such things as


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230
THE WILL TO POWER.
moral actions: they are purely imaginary. Not
only is it impossible to demonstrate their exist-
ence (a fact which Kant and Christianity, for
instance, both acknowledged)—but they are not
even possible. Owing to psychological misunder-
standing, a man invented an opposite to the instinc-
tive 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. Ac-
cording 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 assump-
tion 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 judg-
ments 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 anti-
thesis “moral” and “immoral” arose is : “selfless,"
“unselfish,” “self-denying"-all unreal and fan-
tastic.
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


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
231
from Becoming, and declared to belong to the
sphere of Being. The false materialisation of the
ego: this owing to the belief in individual im-
mortality) was made an article of faith under the
pressure of religio-moral discipline. According to
this artificial liberation of the ego and its trans-
ference 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.
Thus: (1) the false emancipation of the “in-
dividual” as an atom;
(2) The gregarious self-conceit which abhors the
desire to remain an atom, and regards it as hostile.
(3) As a result: the overcoming of the individual
by changing his aim.
(4) At this point there appeared to be actions
that were self-effacing: around these actions a
whole sphere of antitheses was fancied.
(5) It was asked, in what sort of actions does
man most strongly assert himself? Around these
(sexuality, covetousness, lust for power, cruelty,
etc. etc. ) hate, contempt; and anathemas were
heaped : it was believed that there could be such


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232
THE WILL TO POWER.
things as selfless impulses. Everything selfish
was condemned, everything unselfish was in
demand.
(6) And the result was: what had been done ?
A ban had been placed on the strongest, the most
natural, yea, the only genuine impulses; hencefor-
ward, in order that an action might be praiseworthy,
there must be no trace in it of any of those genuine
impulses—monstrous fraud in psychology. Every
kind of self-satisfaction” had to be remodelled
and made possible by means of misunderstanding
and adjusting one's self sub specie boni. Conversely:
that species which found its advantage in depriving
mankind of its self-satisfaction, the representatives
of the gregarious instincts, e. g. the priests and the
philosophers, were sufficiently crafty and psycho-
logically astute to show how selfishness ruled every-
where. The Christian conclusion from this was :
“ Everything is sin, even our virtues. Man is
utterly undesirable. Selfless actions are impos-
sible. " Original sin. In short, once man had
opposed his instincts to a purely imaginary world
of the good, he concluded by despising himself as
incapable of performing "good" actions.
N. B. -In this way Christianity represents a step
forward in the sharpening of psychological insight:
La Rochefoucauld and Pascal. It perceived the
essential equality of human actions, and the equality
of their values as a whole (all immoral).
*
Now the first serious object was to rear men in
whom self-seeking impulses were extinguished:


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
233
priests, saints. And if people doubted that perfec-
tion was possible, they did not doubt what per-
fection was.
The psychology of the saint and of the priest
and of the "good"man, must naturally have seemed
purely phantasmagorical. The real motive of all
action had been declared bad: therefore, in order
to make action still possible, deeds had to be
prescribed which, though not possible, had to be
declared possible and sanctified. They now
honoured and idealised things with as much falsity
as they had previously slandered them.
Inveighing against the instincts of life came to
be regarded as holy and estimable. The priestly
ideal was: absolute chastity, absolute obedience,
absolute poverty! The lay ideal: alms, pity, self-
sacrifice, renunciation of the beautiful, of reason,
and of sensuality, and a dark frown for all the
strong qualities that existed.
An advance is made: the slandered instincts
attempt to re-establish their rights (0. 8. Luther's
Reformation, the coarsest form of moral falsehood
under the cover of " Evangelical freedom"), they
are rechristened with holy names.
The calumniated instincts try to demonstrate that
they are necessary in order that the virtuous
instincts may be possible. Il faut vivre, afin de
vivre pour autrui: egoism as a means to an end. *
*
Spencer's conclusion in the Data of Ethics. -TR.


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234
THE WILL TO POWER.
But people go still further : they try to grant
both the egoistic and altruistic impulses the right
to exist-equal rights for both—from the utili-
tarian standpoint.
People go further : they see greater utility in
placing the egoistic rights before the altruistic-
greater utility in the sense of more happiness for the
majority, or of the elevation of mankind, etc. etc.
Thus the rights of egoism begin to preponderate,
but under the cloak of an extremely altruistic
standpoint—the collective utility of humanity.
An attempt is made to reconcile the altruistic
mode of action with the natural order of things.
Altruism is sought in the very roots of life.
Altruism and egoism are both based upon the
essence of life and nature.
The disappearance of the opposition between
them is dreamt of as a future possibility. Con-
tinued adaptation, it is hoped, will merge the two
into one.
At last it is seen that altruistic actions are
merely a species of the egoistic—and that the
degree to which one loves and spends one's self is a
proof of the extent of one's individual power and
personality. In short, that the more evil man can
be made, the better he is, and that one cannot be
the one without the other. . . . At this point the
curtain rises which concealed the monstrous fraud
of the psychology that has prevailed hitherto.
Results. There are only immoral intentions and
actions; the so-called moral actions must be shown


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SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
235
to be immoral. All emotions are traced to a single
will, the will to power, and are called essentially
equal.
The concept of life: in the apparent
antithesis good and evil, degrees of power in the
instincts alone are expressed. A temporary order
of rank is established according to which certain
instincts are either controlled or enlisted in our
service. Morality is justified: economically, etc.
Against proposition two. -Determinism: the
attempt to rescue the moral world by transferring
it to the unknown.
Determinism is only a manner of allowing our-
selves to conjure our valuations away, once they
have lost their place in a world interpreted
mechanistically.