351.
The "_good man_" Or, hemiplegia of virtue.--In the opinion of every
strong and natural man, love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong to each other. A
man is good on condition that he knows how to be evil; a man is evil,
because otherwise he would not know how to be good. Whence comes
the morbidness and ideological unnaturalness which repudiates these
compounds--which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as the highest
of all things? Whence this hemiplegia of virtue, the invention of the
good man? The object seems to be to make man amputate those instincts
which enable him to be an enemy, to be harmful, to be angry, and to
insist upon revenge.... This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to that
dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a wholly bad creature (God,
Spirit, Man); in the first are found all the positive, in the second
all the negative forces, intentions, and states. This method of valuing
thus believes itself to be "idealistic"; it never doubts that in its
concept of the "good man," it has found the highest desideratum. When
aspiring to its zenith it fancies a state in which all evil is wiped
out, and in which only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual dependence of the opposites
good and evil as proved. On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish,
and the former should remain. The first has a right to exist, the
second ought not _to be with us at all...._ What, as a matter of fact,
is the reason of this desire? In all ages, and particularly in the
Christian age, much labour has been spent in trying to reduce men
to this one-sided activity: and even to-day, among those who have
been deformed and weakened by the Church, people are not lacking who
desire precisely the same thing with their "humanisation" generally,
or with their "Will of God," or with their "Salvation of the Soul."
The principal injunction behind all these things is, that man should
no longer do anything evil, that he should under no circumstances be
harmful or _desire_ harm. The way to arrive at this state of affairs is
to amputate all hostile tendencies, to suppress all the instincts of
resentment, and to establish "spiritual peace" as a chronic disease.
This attitude of mind, in which a certain type of man is bred,
starts out with this absurd hypothesis: good and evil are postulated
as realities which are in a state of mutual contradiction (not as
complementary values, which they are), people are advised to take the
side of the good, and it is insisted upon that a good man resists
and forswears evil until every trace of it is uprooted--_but with
this valuation Life is actually denied,_ for in all its instincts
Life has both yea and nay. But far from understanding these facts,
this valuation dreams rather of returning to the wholeness, oneness,
and strengthfulness of Life: it actually believes that a state of
blessedness will be reached when the inner anarchy and state of unrest
which result from these opposed impulses is brought to an end.--It is
possible that no more dangerous ideology, no greater mischief _in the
science of psychology,_ has ever yet existed, as this will to good: the
most repugnant type of man has been reared, the man who is _not free,_
the bigot; it was taught that only in the form of a bigot could one
tread the path which leads to God, and that only a bigot's life could
be a godly life.
And even here, Life is still in the right--Life that knows not how to
separate Yea from Nay: what is the good of declaring with all one's
might that war is an evil, that one must harm no one, that one must
not act negatively? One is still waging a war even in this, it is
impossible to do otherwise! The good man who has renounced all evil,
and who is afflicted according to his desire with the hemiplegia of
virtue, does not therefore cease from waging war, or from making
enemies, or from saying "nay" and doing "nay." The Christian, for
instance, hates "sin"!--and what on earth is there which he does
not call "sin"! It is precisely because of his belief in a moral
antagonism between good and evil, that the world for him has grown
so full of hatefulness and things that must be combated eternally.
The "good man" sees himself surrounded by evil, and, thanks to the
continual onslaughts of the latter, his eye grows more keen, and in
the end discovers traces of evil in every one of his acts. And thus he
ultimately arrives at the conclusion, which to him is quite logical,
that Nature is evil, that man is corrupted, and that being good is an
act of grace (that is to say, it is impossible to man when he stands
alone). In short: _he denies Life,_ he sees how "good," as the highest
value, _condemns_ Life.... And thus his ideology concerning good and
evil ought to strike him as refuted. But one cannot refute a disease.
Therefore he is obliged to conceive _another_ life!...
352.
Power, whether in the hands of a god or of a man, is always understood
to consist in the ability to _harm_ as well as to _help._ This is the
case with the Arabs and with the Hebrews, in fact with all strong and
well-constituted races.
The dualistic separation of the two powers is fatal.... In this way
morality becomes the poisoner of life.
353.
_A criticism of the good man._--Honesty, dignity, dutifulness, justice,
humanity, loyalty, uprightness, clean conscience--is it really supposed
that, by means of these fine-sounding words, the qualities they stand
for are approved and affirmed for their own sake? Or is it this, that
qualities and states indifferent in themselves have merely been looked
at in a light which lends them some value? Does the worth of these
qualities lie in themselves, or in the use and advantages to which they
lead (or to which they seem to lead, to which they are expected to
lead)?
I naturally do not wish to imply that there is any opposition between
the _ego_ and the _alter_ in the judgment: the question is, whether
it is the _results_ of these qualities, either in regard to him who
possesses them or in regard to environment, society, "humanity," which
lend them their value; or whether they have a value in themselves....
In other words: is it _utility_ which bids men condemn, combat, and
deny the opposite qualities (duplicity, falseness, perversity, lack
of self-confidence, inhumanity)? Is the essence of such qualities
condemned, or only their consequences? In other words: were it
_desirable_ that there should exist no men at all possessed of such
qualities? _In any case, this is believed_.... But here lies the error,
the shortsightedness, the monocularity of _narrow egoism._
Expressed otherwise: would it be desirable to create circumstances in
which the whole advantage would be on the side of the just--so that
all those with opposite natures and instincts would be discouraged and
would slowly become extinct?
At bottom, this is a question of taste and of _æsthetics_: should we
desire the most honourable types of men--that is to say, the greatest
bores--alone to subsist? the rectangular, the virtuous, the upright,
the good-natured, the straightforward, and the "blockheads"?
If one can imagine the total suppression of the huge number
constituting the "others," even the just man himself ceases from having
a right to exist,--he is, in fact, no longer necessary,--and in this
way it is seen that coarse utility alone could have elevated such an
_insufferable_ virtue to a place of honour.
Desirability may lie precisely on the other side. It might be better
to create conditions in which the "just man" would be reduced to
the humble position of a "useful instrument"--an "ideal gregarious
animal," or at best a herdsman: in short, conditions in which he would
no longer stand in the highest sphere, which requires _other qualities_.
354.
_The "good man" as a tyrant--_Mankind has always repeated the same
error: it has always transformed a mere vital measure into the
_measure_ and standard of life;--instead of seeking the standard in
the highest ascent of life, in the problem of growth and exhaustion,
it takes the _preservative measures_ of a very definite kind of life,
and uses them to exclude all other kinds of life, and even to criticise
Life itself and to select from among its forms. That is to say, man
ultimately forgets that measures are a means to an end, and gets to
like them for themselves: they take the place of a goal in his mind,
and even become the standard of goals to him--that is to say, _a given
species of man_ regards his means of existence as the only legitimate
means, as the means which ought to be imposed upon all, as "truth,"
"goodness," "perfection": the given species, in fact, begins to
_tyrannise._ ... It is a _form of faith,_ of instinct, when a certain
species of man does not perceive that his kind has been conditioned,
when he does not understand his relation to other species. At any rate,
any species of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed as soon as
it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights, and no longer desires to be
master.
355.
"All good people are weak: they are good because they are not strong
enough to be evil," said the Latuka chieftain Comorro to Baker.
* * *
"Disasters are not to the faint-hearted," is a Russian proverb.
356.
Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate: thus you would that
men were?--that _good men_ were? But such men I can only conceive as
slaves, the slaves of the future.
357.
_The metamorphoses of slavery_; its disguise in the cloak of religion;
its transfiguration through morality.
358.
_The ideal slave_ (the "good man").--He who cannot regard himself
as a "purpose," and who cannot give himself any aim whatsoever,
instinctively honours the morality of _unselfishness._ Everything urges
him to this morality: his prudence, his experience, and his vanity. And
even faith is a form of self-denial.
***
_Atavism_: delightful feeling, to be able to obey unconditionally for
once.
***
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.
***
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_.