766.
_Fundamental errors:_ to regard the _herd_ as an aim instead of
the individual! The herd is only a means and nothing _more_! But
nowadays people are trying to understand _the herd_ as they would an
individual, and to confer higher rights upon it than upon isolated
personalities. Terrible mistake!! In addition to this, all that makes
for gregariousness, _e.g._ sympathy, is regarded as the _more valuable_
side of our natures.
767.
The individual is something quite _new,_ and capable of _creating
new things._ He is something absolute, and all his actions are quite
his own. The individual in the end has to seek the valuation for his
actions in himself: because he has to give an individual meaning even
to traditional words and notions. His interpretation of a formula is at
least personal, even if he does not create the formula itself: at least
as an interpreter he is creative.
768.
The "ego" oppresses and kills. It acts like an organic cell. It is
predatory and violent. It would fain regenerate itself--pregnancy. It
would fain give birth to its God and see all mankind at its feet.
769.
Every living organism gropes around as far as its power permits, and
overcomes all that is weaker than itself: by this means it finds
pleasure in its own existence. The _increasing "humanity"_ of this
tendency consists in the fact that we are beginning to feel ever more
subtly how difficult it is really to _absorb_ others: while we could
show our power by injuring him, his will _estranges_ him from us, and
thus makes him less susceptible of being overcome.
770.
The degree of resistance which has to be continually overcome in order
to remain _at the top,_ is the measure of _freedom,_ whether for
individuals or for societies: freedom being understood as positive
power, as will to power. The highest form of individual freedom, of
sovereignty, would, according to this, in all probability be found not
five feet away from its opposite--that is to say, where the danger of
slavery hangs over life, like a hundred swords of Damocles. Let any one
go through the whole of history from this point of view: the ages when
the individual reaches perfect maturity, _i.e._ the free ages, when the
classical type, _sovereign man,_ is attained to--these were certainly
not humane times!
There should be no choice: either one must be uppermost or
nethermost--like a worm, despised, annihilated, trodden upon. One
must have tyrants against one in order to become a tyrant, _i.e._ in
order to be free. It is no small advantage to have a hundred swords of
Damocles suspended over one: it is only thus that one learns to dance,
it is only thus that one attains to any freedom in one's movements.
771.
Man more than any other animal was originally _altruistic_--hence
his slow growth (child) and lofty development. Hence, too, his
extraordinary and latest kind of egoism.--Beasts of prey are much more
_individualistic._
772.
A criticism of _selfishness._ The involuntary ingenuousness of La
Rochefoucauld, who believed that he was saying something bold, liberal,
and paradoxical (in his days, of course, truth in psychological matters
was something that astonished people) when he said. "_Les grandes âmes
ne sont pas celles qui ont moins de passions et plus de vertus que les
âmes communes, mais seulement celles qui ont de plus grands desseins._"
Certainly, John Stuart Mill (who calls Chamfort the _noble_ and
philosophical La Rochefoucauld of the eighteenth century) recognises
in him merely an astute and keen-sighted observer of all that which is
the result of habitual selfishness in the human breast, and he adds: "A
noble spirit is unable to see the necessity of a constant observation
of _baseness_ and _contemptibility_, unless it were to show against
what corrupting influences a lofty spirit and a noble character were
able to triumph."
773.
_The Morphology of the Feelings of Self._
_First standpoint_--To what extent are _sympathy_ or _communal
feelings,_ the lower or preparatory states, at a time when personal
self-esteem and initiative in valuation, on the part of individuals,
are not yet possible?
_Second standpoint._--To what extent is the zenith of collective
self-esteem, the pride in the distinction of the clan, the feeling
of inequality and a certain abhorrence of mediation, of equal rights
and of reconciliation, the school for individual self-esteem? It may
be this in so far as it compels the individual to represent the pride
of the community --he is obliged to speak and act with tremendous
self-respect, because he stands for the community And the same
holds good when the individual regards himself as the instrument or
speaking-tube of a godhead.
_Third standpoint._--To what extent do these forms of impersonality
invest the individual with enormous importance? In so far as higher
powers are using him as an intermediary: religious shyness towards
one's self is the condition of prophets and poets.
_Fourth standpoint._--To what extent does responsibility for a whole
educate the individual in foresight, and give him a severe and
terrible hand, a calculating and cold heart, majesty of bearing and of
action--things which he would not allow himself if he stood only for
his own rights?
In short, collective self-esteem is the great preparatory school
for personal sovereignty. The noble caste is that which creates the
heritage of this faculty.
774.