opinion which he hears about himself (quite apart from
the point of view of its usefulness, and equally regardless of
its truth or falsehood), just as he suffers from every bad
opinion: for he subjects himself to both, he feels himself
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subjected to both, by that oldest instinct of subjection
which breaks forth in him.—It is ‘the slave’ in the vain
man’s blood, the remains of the slave’s craftiness—and
how much of the ‘slave’ is still left in woman, for
instance!—which seeks to SEDUCE to good opinions of
itself; it is the slave, too, who immediately afterwards falls
prostrate himself before these opinions, as though he had
not called them forth.—And to repeat it again: vanity is an
atavism.
262. A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes
established and strong in the long struggle with essentially
constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On the other
hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that
species which receive super-abundant nourishment, and in
general a surplus of protection and care, immediately tend
in the most marked way to develop variations, and are
fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous
vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say an
ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or
involuntary contrivance for the purpose of REARING
human beings; there are there men beside one another,
thrown upon their own resources, who want to make
their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail,
or else run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The
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favour, the super-abundance, the protection are there
lacking under which variations are fostered; the species
needs itself as species, as something which, precisely by
virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of
structure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent
in constant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious
or rebellion-threatening vassals. The most varied
experience teaches it what are the qualities to which it
principally owes the fact that it still exists, in spite of all
Gods and men, and has hitherto been victorious: these
qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone it develops
to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires
severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the
education of youth, in the control of women, in the
marriage customs, in the relations of old and young, in the
penal laws (which have an eye only for the degenerating):
it counts intolerance itself among the virtues, under the
name of ‘justice.’ A type with few, but very marked
features, a species of severe, warlike, wisely silent,
reserved, and reticent men (and as such, with the most
delicate sensibility for the charm and nuances of society) is
thus established, unaffected by the vicissitudes of
generations; the constant struggle with uniform
UNFAVOURABLE conditions is, as already remarked,
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the cause of a type becoming stable and hard. Finally,
however, a happy state of things results, the enormous
tension is relaxed; there are perhaps no more enemies
among the neighbouring peoples, and the means of life,
even of the enjoyment of life, are present in
superabundance. With one stroke the bond and constraint
of the old discipline severs: it is no longer regarded as
necessary, as a condition of existence—if it would
continue, it can only do so as a form of LUXURY, as an
archaizing TASTE. Variations, whether they be deviations
(into the higher, finer, and rarer), or deteriorations and
monstrosities, appear suddenly on the scene in the greatest
exuberance and splendour; the individual dares to be
individual and detach himself. At this turning-point of
history there manifest themselves, side by side, and often
mixed and entangled together, a magnificent, manifold,
virgin-forest-like up-growth and up-striving, a kind of
TROPICAL TEMPO in the rivalry of growth, and an
extraordinary decay and self- destruction, owing to the
savagely opposing and seemingly exploding egoisms,
which strive with one another ‘for sun and light,’ and can
no longer assign any limit, restraint, or forbearance for
themselves by means of the hitherto existing morality. It
was this morality itself which piled up the strength so
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enormously, which bent the bow in so threatening a
manner:—it is now ‘out of date,’ it is getting ‘out of date.’
The dangerous and disquieting point has been reached
when the greater, more manifold, more comprehensive
life IS LIVED BEYOND the old morality; the ‘individual’
stands out, and is obliged to have recourse to his own law-
giving, his own arts and artifices for self-preservation, self-
elevation, and self-deliverance. Nothing but new ‘Whys,’
nothing but new ‘Hows,’ no common formulas any
longer, misunderstanding and disregard in league with
each other, decay, deterioration, and the loftiest desires
frightfully entangled, the genius of the race overflowing
from all the cornucopias of good and bad, a portentous
simultaneousness of Spring and Autumn, full of new
charms and mysteries peculiar to the fresh, still
inexhausted, still unwearied corruption. Danger is again
present, the mother of morality, great danger; this time
shifted into the individual, into the neighbour and friend,
into the street, into their own child, into their own heart,
into all the most personal and secret recesses of their
desires and volitions. What will the moral philosophers
who appear at this time have to preach? They discover,
these sharp onlookers and loafers, that the end is quickly
approaching, that everything around them decays and
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produces decay, that nothing will endure until the day
after tomorrow, except one species of man, the incurably
MEDIOCRE. The mediocre alone have a prospect of
continuing and propagating themselves—they will be the
men of the future, the sole survivors; ‘be like them!
become mediocre!’ is now the only morality which has
still a significance, which still obtains a hearing.—But it is
difficult to preach this morality of mediocrity! it can never
avow what it is and what it desires! it has to talk of
moderation and dignity and duty and brotherly love—it
will have difficulty IN CONCEALING ITS IRONY!
263. There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which
more than anything else is already the sign of a HIGH
rank; there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES of
reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits.
The refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put
to a perilous test when something passes by that is of the
highest rank, but is not yet protected by the awe of
authority from obtrusive touches and incivilities:
something that goes its way like a living touchstone,
undistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps
voluntarily veiled and disguised. He whose task and
practice it is to investigate souls, will avail himself of many
varieties of this very art to determine the ultimate value of
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a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which it
belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR
REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE ENGENDRE HAINE:
the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like
dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed
shrines, any book bearing the marks of great destiny, is
brought before it; while on the other hand, there is an
involuntary silence, a hesitation of the eye, a cessation of
all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul FEELS the
nearness of what is worthiest of respect. The way in
which, on the whole, the reverence for the BIBLE has
hitherto been maintained in Europe, is perhaps the best
example of discipline and refinement of manners which
Europe owes to Christianity: books of such profoundness
and supreme significance require for their protection an
external tyranny of authority, in order to acquire the
PERIOD of thousands of years which is necessary to
exhaust and unriddle them. Much has been achieved when
the sentiment has been at last instilled into the masses (the
shallow-pates and the boobies of every kind) that they are
not allowed to touch everything, that there are holy
experiences before which they must take off their shoes
and keep away the unclean hand—it is almost their highest
advance towards humanity. On the contrary, in the so-
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called cultured classes, the believers in ‘modern ideas,’
nothing is perhaps so repulsive as their lack of shame, the
easy insolence of eye and hand with which they touch,
taste, and finger everything; and it is possible that even yet
there is more RELATIVE nobility of taste, and more tact
for reverence among the people, among the lower classes
of the people, especially among peasants, than among the
newspaper-reading DEMIMONDE of intellect, the
cultured class.
264. It cannot be effaced from a man’s soul what his
ancestors have preferably and most constantly done:
whether they were perhaps diligent economizers attached
to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like in their
desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were
accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond
of rude pleasures and probably of still ruder duties and
responsibilities; or whether, finally, at one time or another,
they have sacrificed old privileges of birth and possession,
in order to live wholly for their faith—for their ‘God,’—as
men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which
blushes at every compromise. It is quite impossible for a
man NOT to have the qualities and predilections of his
parents and ancestors in his constitution, whatever
appearances may suggest to the contrary. This is the
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problem of race. Granted that one knows something of
the parents, it is admissible to draw a conclusion about the
child: any kind of offensive incontinence, any kind of
sordid envy, or of clumsy self-vaunting—the three things
which together have constituted the genuine plebeian type
in all times—such must pass over to the child, as surely as
bad blood; and with the help of the best education and
culture one will only succeed in DECEIVING with
regard to such heredity.—And what else does education
and culture try to do nowadays! In our very democratic,
or rather, very plebeian age, ‘education’ and ‘culture’
MUST be essentially the art of deceiving—deceiving with
regard to origin, with regard to the inherited plebeianism
in body and soul. An educator who nowadays preached
truthfulness above everything else, and called out
constantly to his pupils: ‘Be true! Be natural! Show
yourselves as you are!’—even such a virtuous and sincere
ass would learn in a short time to have recourse to the
FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with
what results? ‘Plebeianism’ USQUE RECURRET.
[FOOTNOTE: Horace’s ‘Epistles,’ I. x. 24.]
265. At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit
that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean
the unalterable belief that to a being such as ‘we,’ other
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beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to
sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the fact of his
egoism without question, and also without consciousness
of harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather
as something that may have its basis in the primary law of
things:—if he sought a designation for it he would say: ‘It
is justice itself.’ He acknowledges under certain
circumstances, which made him hesitate at first, that there
are other equally privileged ones; as soon as he has settled
this question of rank, he moves among those equals and
equally privileged ones with the same assurance, as regards
modesty and delicate respect, which he enjoys in
intercourse with himself—in accordance with an innate
heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand. It is an
ADDITIONAL instance of his egoism, this artfulness and
self-limitation in intercourse with his equals—every star is
a similar egoist; he honours HIMSELF in them, and in the
rights which he concedes to them, he has no doubt that
the exchange of honours and rights, as the ESSENCE of
all intercourse, belongs also to the natural condition of
things. The noble soul gives as he takes, prompted by the
passionate and sensitive instinct of requital, which is at the
root of his nature. The notion of ‘favour’ has, INTER
PARES, neither significance nor good repute; there may
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be a sublime way of letting gifts as it were light upon one
from above, and of drinking them thirstily like dew-drops;
but for those arts and displays the noble soul has no
aptitude. His egoism hinders him here: in general, he
looks ‘aloft’ unwillingly—he looks either FORWARD,
horizontally and deliberately, or downwards—HE
KNOWS THAT HE IS ON A HEIGHT.
266. ‘One can only truly esteem him who does not
LOOK OUT FOR himself.’—Goethe to Rath Schlosser.
267. The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even
teach their children: ‘SIAO-SIN’ ("MAKE THY HEART
SMALL’). This is the essentially fundamental tendency in
latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that an ancient
Greek, also, would first of all remark the self-dwarfing in
us Europeans of today—in this respect alone we should
immediately be ‘distasteful’ to him.
268. What, after all, is ignobleness?—Words are vocal
symbols for ideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite
mental symbols for frequently returning and concurring
sensations, for groups of sensations. It is not sufficient to
use the same words in order to understand one another:
