The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche
forming resolu tions or even for coming to an end at all, is paralysed. Men follow but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces of present-day socialists and what wretched and nonsensical feelings does not their style reveal to us! and the childish lamblike happiness of their hopes and desires. Nevertheless, in many places in Europe, there may be violent hand-to-hand struggles and irruptions on their account: the coming century is likely to be convulsed in more than one spot, and the Paris Commune, which finds defenders and advocates even in Germany, will seem to have been but a slight indigestion compared with what is to come. Be this as it may, there will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like one man with one faith, " one must possess something in 103 order to be some one." This, however, is the oldest and most wholesome of all instincts; I should add: " one must desire more than one has in order to become more." For this is the teaching which life itself preaches to all living things: the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a word, Growth that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism " a will to the denial of life " is but poorly concealed: botched men and races they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. In fact, I even wish a few experiments might be made to show that in a socialistic society, life denies itself, and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man is still unex hausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and demonstratio ad absurdum even if it were accomplished only by a vast expenditure of lives to seem worthwhile to me. Still, Socialism, like a restless mole beneath the foundations of a society wallowing in stupidity, will be able to achieve something useful and salutary: it delays " Peace on Earth " and the whole process of character- softening of the democratic herding animal; it forces the European to have an extra supply of intellect, that is to say, craft and caution, and prevents his entirely abandoning the manly and warlike qualities, it also saves Europe awhile from the marasmus femininus which is threatening it.
126. The most favourable obstacles and remedies of modernity: (1) Compulsory military service with real wars in which all joking is laid aside. (2) National thick-headedness (which simplifies and concentrates). (3) Improved nutrition (meat). (4) Increasing cleanliness and wholesomeness in the home. (5) The predominance of physiology over theology, morality, economics, and politics. (6) Military discipline in the exaction and the practice of one s " duty " (it is no longer customary to praise).
127. I am delighted at the military development of Europe, also at the inner anarchical conditions: the period of quietude and " Chinadom " which Galiani prophesied for this century is now over. Personal and manly capacity, bodily capacity recovers its value, valuations are becoming more physical, nutrition consists ever more and more of flesh. Fine men have once more become possible. Bloodless sneaks (with mandarins at their head, as Comte imagined them) are now a matter of the past. The savage in every one of us is acknowledged even the wild animal. Precisely on that account, philosophers will have a better chance. Kant is a scarecrow!
128. I have not yet seen any reasons to feel dis couraged. He who acquires and preserves a strong will, together with a broad mind, has a more favourable chance now than ever he had. For the plasticity of man has become exceedingly great in democratic Europe: men who learn easily, who readily adapt themselves, are the rule: the gregarious animal of a high order of intelligence is prepared. He who would command finds those who must obey: I have Napoleon and Bismarck in mind, for instance. The struggle against strong and unintelligent wills, which forms the surest obstacle in one s way, is really insignificant Who would not be able to knock down these " objective " gentlemen with weak wills, such as Ranke and Renan!
129. Spiritual enlightenment is an unfailing means of making men uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in short, of developing the herding instincts in them. That is why all great artist-rulers hitherto (Confucius in China, the Roman Empire, Napoleon, Popedom at a time when they had the courage of their worldliness and frankly pursued power) in whom the ruling instincts, that had prevailed until their time, culminated, also made use of the spiritual enlighten ment; or at least allowed it to be supreme (after the style of the Popes of the Renaissance). The self-deception of the masses on this point, in every democracy for instance, is of the greatest possible value: all that makes men smaller and more amenable is pursued under the title " progress."
130. The highest equity and mildness as a condition of weakness (the New Testament and the early Christian community manifesting itself in the form of utter foolishness in the Englishmen, Darwin and Wallace). Your equity, ye higher men, drives you to universal suffrage, etc.; your " humanity " urges you to be milder towards crime and stupidity. In the end you will thus help stupidity and harmlessness to conquer. Outwardly: Ages of terrible wars, insurrections, explosions. Imwardly: ever more and more weakness among men; events take the form of excitants. The Parisian as the type of the European extreme. Consequences: (1) Savages (at first, of course, in conformity with the culture that has reigned hitherto); (2) Sovereign individuals (where powerful barbarous masses and emancipation from all that has been, are crossed). The age of greatest stupidity, brutality, and wretchedness in the masses, and in the highest individuals.
131. An incalculable number of higher individuals now perish: but he who escapes their fate is as strong as the devil. In this respect we are reminded of the conditions which prevailed in the Renaissance.
132. How are Good Europeans such as ourselves distinguished from the patriots? In the first place, we are atheists and immoralists, but we take care to support the religions and the morality which we associate with the gregarious instinct: for by means of them, an order of men is, so to speak, being prepared, which must at some time or other fall into our hands, which must actually crave for our hands. Beyond Good and Evil, certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional and strict preserva tion of herd-morality. We reserve ourselves the right to several kinds of philosophy which it is necessary to learn: under certain circumstances, the pessimistic kind as a hammer; a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable. We should probably support the development and the maturation of democratic tendencies; for it conduces to weakness of will: in " Socialism " we recognise a thorn which prevents smug ease. Attitude towards the people. Our prejudices; we pay attention to the results of cross-breeding. Detached, well-to-do, strong: irony concerning the " press " and its culture. Our care: that scientific men should not become journalists. We mistrust any form of culture that tolerates news paper reading or writing. We make our accidental positions (as Goethe and Stendhal did), our experiences, a foreground, and we lay stress upon them, so that we may deceive concerning our backgrounds. We ourselves wait and avoid putting our heart into them. They serve us as refuges,such as a wanderer might require and use but we avoid feeling at home in them. We are ahead of our fellows in that we have had a disciplina voluntatis. All strength is directed to the development of the will, an art which allows us to wear masks, an art of understanding beyond the passions (also " super- European " thought at times). This is our preparation before becoming the law-givers of the future and the lords of the earth; if not we, at least our children. Caution where marriage is concerned.
133. The twentieth century. The Abbe Galiani says somewhere: " La prfooyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de F Europe. Si I on voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prtvoir, tout le monde serait tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu on serait plus mal- heureux parce qu on ne feraitpas la guerre" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars. A condition of excessive consciousness, after the worst of earthquakes: with new questions.
134. It is the time of the great noon, of the most appalling enlightenment: my particular kind of Pessimism: the great starting-point. (i) Fundamental contradiction between civil isation and the elevation of man. (2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the herd, which rises against stronger men). (3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the facilitation of a selection being made at the cost of a crowd) are the con ditions of all growth. (4). The multiformity of the world as a question of strength, which sees all things in the perspective of their growth. The moral Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of slaves (in comparison with the aristrocratic values of the ancient