Part 50

The State exercises the same influence, as does also any sort of ruling power at the head of officials and soldiers; science acts in the same way, in order that it may work in security and economise its forces. And the priesthood does the same.

Communal morality is thus promoted here, because it is advantageous; and, in order to make it triumph, war and violence are waged against immorality--with what "right"? Without any right whatsoever; but in accordance with the instinct of self-preservation. The same classes avail themselves of immorality when it serves their purpose to do so.

316.

Observe the hypocritical colour which all civil institutions are painted, just as if they were the offshoots of morality--for instance: marriage, work, calling, patriotism, the family, order, and rights. But as they were all established in favour of the most mediocre type of man, to protect him from exceptions and the need of exceptions, one must not be surprised to find them sown with lies.

317.

Virtue must be defended against its preachers: they are its worst enemies. For they teach virtue as an ideal for all; they divest virtue of the charm which consists in its rareness, its inimitableness, its exceptional and non-average character--that is to say, of its aristocratic charm. A stand must also be made against those embittered idealists who eagerly tap all pots and are satisfied to hear them ring hollow: what ingenuousness--to demand great and rare things, and then to declare, with anger and contempt of one's fellows, that they do not exist!--It is obvious, for instance, that a marriage is worth only as much as those are worth whom it joins--that is to say, that on the whole it is something wretched and indecent: no priest or registrar can make anything else of it.

Virtue has all the instincts of the average man against it: it is not profitable, it is not prudent, and it isolates. It is related to passion, and not very accessible to reason; it spoils the character, the head, and the senses--always, of course, subject to the medium standard of men; it provokes hostility towards order, and towards the lies which are concealed beneath all order, all institutions, and all reality--when seen in the light of its pernicious influence upon others, it is the worst of vices.

I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not insist upon being recognised; (2) it does not presuppose the existence of virtue everywhere, but precisely something else; (3) it does not suffer from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim itself; (4) it makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to pose as judge because it is always a personal virtue; (6) it does precisely what is generally forbidden: virtue as I understand it is the actual vetitum within all gregarious legislation; (7) in short, I recognise virtue in that it is in the Renaissance style--virtù--free from all moralic acid....

318.

In the first place Messrs. Virtue-mongers, you have no superiority over us; we should like to make you take modesty a little more to heart: it is wretched personal interests and prudence which suggest your virtue to you. And if you had more strength and courage in your bodies you would not lower yourselves thus to the level of virtuous nonentities. You make what you can of yourselves: partly what you are obliged to make,--that is to say, what your circumstances force you to make,--partly what suits your pleasure and seems useful to you. But if you do only what is in keeping with your inclinations, or what necessity exacts from you, or what is useful to you, you ought neither to praise yourselves nor let others praise you!... One is a thoroughly puny kind of man when one is only virtuous: nothing should mislead you in this regard! Men who have to be considered at all, were never such donkeys of virtue: their inmost instinct, that which determined their quantum of power, did not find its reckoning thus: whereas with your minimum amount of power nothing can seem more full of wisdom to you than virtue. But the multitude are on your side: and because you tyrannise over us, we shall fight you....

319.

A virtuous man is of a lower species because, in the first place, he has no "personality," but acquires his value by conforming with a certain human scheme which has been once and for ever fixed. He has no independent value: he may be compared; he has his equals, he must not be an individual.

Reckoning up the qualities of the good man, why is it they appear pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our levity, have a good time. This, our feeling of well-being, is what we project into the good man in the form of a quality, in the form of a valuable possession.

320.

Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a venerable form of stupidity: who could blame you for it? And this form of virtue has not been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest peasant-simplicity, which is possible, however, in all classes of society, and which one cannot meet with anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks to-day that everything is in good hands--that is to say, in "God's hands": and when it supports this proposition with that same modest assurance as that with which it would assert that two and two are four, we others naturally refrain from contradiction.

Why disturb this pure foolery? Why darken it with our cares concerning man, people, goals, the future? Even if we wished to do so, we shouldn't succeed. In all things these people see the reflection of their own venerable stupidity and goodness (in them the old God--deus myops-- still lives); we others see something else in everything: our problematic nature, our contradictions, our deeper, more painful, and more suspicious wisdom.

321.

He who finds a particular virtue an easy matter, ultimately laughs at it. Seriousness cannot be maintained once virtue is attained. As soon as a man has reached virtue, he jumps out of it--whither? Into devilry.

Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tendencies and impulses have become! What an amount of inquisitiveness torments them! They are all fishhooks of knowledge!

322.

The idea is to associate vice with something so terrible that at last one is obliged to run away from it in order to be rid of its associations. This is the well-known case of Tannhäuser. Tannhäuser, brought to his wits' end by Wagnerian music, cannot endure life any longer even in the company of Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue begins to have a charm for him; a Thuringian virgin goes up in price, and what is even worse still, he shows a liking for Wolfram von Eschenbach's melody....

323.

The Patrons of Virtue.--Lust of property, lust of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so securely.

324.

Virtue is no longer believed in; its powers of attraction are dead; what is needed is some one who will once more bring it into the market in the form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of dissipation. It exacts too much extravagance and narrow-mindedness from its believers to allow of conscience not being against it to-day. Certainly, for people, without either consciences or scruples, this may constitute its new charm: it is now what it has never been before--a vice.

325.

Virtue is still the most expensive vice: let it remain so!

326.