Part 55

Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance, are just so many obstacles in the way of sovereign sentiments, of great ingenuity, of an heroic purpose, of noble existence for one's self.

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It is not a question of going ahead (to that end all that is required is to be at best a herdsman, that is to say, the prime need of the herd), it is rather a matter of getting along alone, of being able to be another.

359.

We must realise all that has been accumulated as the result of the highest moral idealism: how almost all other values have crystallised round it. This shows that it has been desired for a very long time and with the strongest passions--and that it has not yet been attained: otherwise it would have disappointed everybody (that is to say, it would have been followed by a more moderate valuation).

The saint as the most powerful type of man: this ideal it is which has elevated the value of moral perfection so high. One would think that the whole of science had been engaged in proving that the moral man is the most powerful and most godly.--The conquest of the senses and the passions--everything inspired terror;--the unnatural seemed to the spectators to be supernatural and transcendental....

360.

Francis of Assisi: amorous and popular, a poet who combats the order of rank among souls, in favour of the lowest. The denial of spiritual hierarchy--"all alike before God."

Popular ideals: the good man, the unselfish man, the saint, the sage, the just man. O Marcus Aurelius!

361.

I have declared war against the anæmic Christian ideal (together with what is closely I related to it), not because I want to annihilate it, but only to put an end to its tyranny and clear the way for other ideals, for more robust ideals.... The continuance of the Christian ideal belongs to the most desirable of desiderata: if only for the sake of the ideals which wish to take their stand beside it and perhaps above it--they must have opponents, and strong ones too, in order to grow strong themselves. That is why we immoralists require the power of morality, our instinct of self-preservation insists upon our opponents maintaining their strength--all it requires is to become master of them.

C. Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities.

362.

Egoism and its problem! The Christian gloominess of La Rochefoucauld, who saw egoism in everything, and imagined that he had therefore reduced the worth of things and virtues! In opposition to him, I first of all tried to show that nothing else could exist save egoism,--that in those men whose ego is weak and thin, the power to love also grows weak,--that the greatest lovers are such owing to the strength of their ego,--that love is an expression of egoism, etc. As a matter of fact, the false valuation aims at the interest of those who find it useful, whom it helps--in fact, the herd; it fosters a pessimistic mistrust towards the basis of Life; it would fain undermine the most glorious and most well-constituted men (out of fear); it would assist the lowly to have the upper hand of their conquerors; it is the cause of universal dishonesty, especially in the most useful type of men.

363.

Man is an indifferent egoist: even the cleverest regards his habits as more important than his advantage.

364.

Egoism! But no one has yet asked: what is the ego like? Everybody is rather inclined to see all egos alike. This is the result of the slave theory, of universal suffrage, and of "equality."

365.

The behaviour of a higher man is the result of a very complex set of motives: any word such as "pity" betrays nothing of this complexity. The most important factor is the feeling, "who am I? who is the other relative to me?"--Thus the valuing spirit is continually active.

366.

To think that the history of all moral phenomena may be simplified, as Schopenhauer thought,--that is to say, that pity is to be found at the root of every moral impulse that has ever existed hitherto,--is to be guilty of a degree of nonsense and ingenuousness worthy only of a thinker who is devoid of all historical instincts and who has miraculously succeeded in evading the strong schooling in history which the Germans, from Herder to Hegel, have undergone.

367.

My "pity."--This is a feeling for which I can find no adequate term: I feel it when I am in the presence of any waste of precious capabilities, as, for instance, when I contemplate Luther: what power and what tasteless problems fit for back-woodsmen! (At a time when the brave and light-hearted scepticism of a Montaigne was already possible in France!) Or when I see some one standing below where he might have stood, thanks to the development of a set of perfectly senseless accidents. Or even when, with the thought of man's destiny in my mind, I contemplate with horror and contempt the whole system of modern European politics, which is creating the circumstances and weaving the fabric of the whole future of mankind. Yes, to what could not "mankind" attain, if----! This is my "pity"; despite the fact that no sufferer yet exists with whom I sympathise in this way.

368.

Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite which is injurious to the health, "it cannot possibly be our duty to increase the evil in the world." If one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self and not one's neighbour that one is succouring. Pity does not depend upon maxims, but upon emotions. The suffering we see infects us; pity is an infection.

369.

There is no such thing as egoism which keeps within its bounds and does not exceed them--consequently, the "allowable," the "morally indifferent" egoism of which some people speak, does not exist at all.