Part 58

385.

Intolerance on the part of morality is a sign of man's weakness: he is frightened of his own "immorality," he must deny his strongest instincts, because he does not yet know how to use them. Thus the most fruitful quarters of the globe remain uncultivated longest: the power is lacking that might become master here....

386.

There are some very simple peoples and men who believe that continuous fine weather would be a desirable thing: they still believe to-day in rebus moralibus, that the "good man" alone and nothing else than the "good man" is to be desired, and that the ultimate end of man's evolution will be that only the good man will remain on earth (and that it is only to that end that all efforts should be directed). This is in the highest degree an uneconomical thought; as we have already suggested, it is the very acme of simplicity, and it is nothing more than the expression of the agreeableness which the "good man" creates (he gives rise to no fear, he permits of relaxation, he gives what one is able to take).

With a more educated eye one learns to desire exactly the reverse--that is to say, an ever greater dominion of evil, man's gradual emancipation from the narrow and aggravating bonds of morality, the growth of power around the greatest forces of Nature, and the ability to enlist the passions in one's service.

387.

The whole idea of the hierarchy of the passions: as if the only right and normal thing were to be led by reason--whereas the passions are abnormal, dangerous, half-animal, and moreover, in so far as their end is concerned, nothing more than desires for pleasure....

Passion is deprived of its dignity (1) as if it only manifested itself in an unseemly way and were not necessary and always the motive force, (2) inasmuch as it is supposed to aim at no high purpose--merely at pleasure....

The misinterpretation of passion and reason, as if the latter were an independent entity, and not a state of relationship between all the various passions and desires; and as though every passion did not possess its quantum of reason....

388.

How it was that, under the pressure of the dominion of an ascetic and self-effacing morality, it was precisely the passions--love, goodness, pity, even justice, generosity, and heroism, which were necessarily misunderstood?

It is the richness of a personality, the fullness of it, its power to flow over and to bestow, its instinctive feeling of ease, and its affirmative attitude towards itself, that creates great love and great sacrifices: these passions proceed from strong and godlike personalism as surely as do the desire to be master, to obtrude, and the inner certainty that one has a right to everything. The opposite views, according to the most accepted notions, are indeed common views; and if one does not stand firmly and bravely on one's legs, one has nothing to give, and it is perfectly useless to stretch out one's hand either to protect or to support others....

How was it possible to transform these instincts to such an extent that man could feel that to be of value which is directed against himself, so that he could sacrifice himself for another self! O the psychological baseness and falseness which hitherto has laid down the law in the Church and in Church-infected philosophy!

If man is thoroughly sinful, then all he can do is to hate himself. As a matter of fact, he ought not to regard even his fellows otherwise than he does himself; the love of man requires a justification, and it is found in the fact that God commanded it.--From this it follows that all the natural instincts of man (to love, etc.) appear to him to be, in themselves, prohibited; and that he re-acquires a right to them only after having denied them as an obedient worshipper of God. ... Pascal, the admirable logician of Christianity, went as far as this! let any one examine his relations to his sister. "Not to make one's self loved," seemed Christian to him.

389.

Let us consider how dearly a moral canon such as this ("an ideal") makes us pay. (Its enemies are--well? The "egoists.")

The melancholy astuteness of self-abasement in Europe (Pascal, La Rochefoucauld)--inner enfeeblement, discouragement, and self-consumption of the non-gregarious man.

The perpetual process of laying stress upon mediocre qualities as being the most valuable (modesty in rank and file, Nature converted into an instrument).

Pangs of conscience associated with all that is self-glorifying and original: thus follows the unhappiness--the gloominess of the world from the standpoint of stronger and better-constituted men!

Gregarious consciousness and timorousness transferred to philosophy and religion.

Let us leave the psychological impossibility of a purely unselfish action out of consideration!

390.

My ultimate conclusion is, that the real man represents a much higher value than the "desirable" man of any ideal that has ever existed hitherto; that all "desiderata" in regard to mankind have been absurd and dangerous dissipations by means of which a particular kind of man has sought to establish his measures of preservation and of growth as a law for all; that every "desideratum" of this kind which has been made to dominate has reduced man's worth, his strength, and his trust in the future; that the indigence and mediocre intellectuality of man becomes most apparent, even to-day, when he reveals a desire; that man's ability to fix values has hitherto been developed too inadequately to do justice to the actual, not merely to the "desirable," worth of man; that, up to the present, ideals have really been the power which has most slandered man and power, the poisonous fumes which have hung over reality, and which have seduced men to yearn for nonentity....

D. A Criticism of the Words: Improving, Perfecting, Elevating.

391.

The standard according to which the value of moral valuations is to be determined.

The fundamental fact that has been overlooked: The contradiction between "becoming more moral" and the elevation and the strengthening of the type man.

Homo natura: The "will to power."