CHAPTER V: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS

Beyond Good and Evil 134 of 301 diversified descent in his body—that is to
say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts and standards of value,
which struggle with one another and are seldom at peace—such a man of late
culture and broken lights, will, on an average, be a weak man. His
fundamental desire is that the war which is IN HIM should come to an end;
happiness appears to him in the character of a soothing medicine and mode of
thought (for instance, Epicurean or Christian); it is above all things the
happiness of repose, of undisturbedness, of repletion, of final unity—it is the
‘Sabbath of Sabbaths,’ to use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St.
Augustine, who was himself such a man.—Should, however, the contrariety
and conflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and
stimulus to life—and if, on the other hand, in addition to their powerful and
irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited and indoctrinated into them a
proper mastery and subtlety for carrying on the conflict with themselves (that
is to say, the faculty of self-control and self-deception), there then arise those
marvelously incomprehensible and inexplicable beings, those enigmatical
men, predestined for conquering and circumventing others, the finest
examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar (with whom I should like to
Beyond Good and Evil 135 of 301 associate the FIRST of Europeans according
to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second), and among artists,
perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear precisely in the same periods when
that weaker type, with its longing for repose, comes to the front; the two
types are complementary to each other, and spring from the same causes.
201. As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only
gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only kept
in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in what seems
dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be no ‘morality of
love to one’s neighbour.’ Granted even that there is already a little constant
exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness, gentleness, and mutual
assistance, granted that even in this condition of society all those instincts are
already active which are latterly distinguished by honourable names as
‘virtues,’ and eventually almost coincide with the conception ‘morality": in
that period they do not as yet belong to the domain of moral valuations—they
are still ULTRA-MORAL. A sympathetic action, for instance, is neither
called good nor bad, moral nor immoral, in the best period of the Romans;
and should it be praised, a sort of resentful
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Beyond Good and Evil 136 of 301 disdain is compatible with this praise, even
at the best, directly the sympathetic action is compared with one which
contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES PUBLICA. After all,
‘love to our neighbour’ is always a secondary matter, partly conventional and
arbitrarily manifested in relation to our FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After
the fabric of society seems on the whole established and secured against
external dangers, it is this fear of our neighbour which again creates new
perspectives of moral valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such
as the love of enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity,
and love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the
point of view of general utility—under other names, of course, than those
here given—but had to be fostered and cultivated (because they were
perpetually required in the common danger against the common enemies), are
now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strong—when the outlets for
them are lacking—and are gradually branded as immoral and given over to
calumny. The contrary instincts and inclinations now attain to moral honour,
the gregarious instinct gradually draws its conclusions. How much or how
little dangerousness to the community or to equality is contained in an
opinion, a
Beyond Good and Evil 137 of 301 condition, an emotion, a disposition, or an
endowment— that is now the moral perspective, here again fear is the mother
of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest instincts, when they break out
passionately and carry the individual far above and beyond the average, and
the low level of the gregarious conscience, that the self-reliance of the
community is destroyed, its belief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks,
consequently these very instincts will be most branded and defamed. The
lofty independent spirituality, the will to stand alone, and even the cogent
reason, are felt to be dangers, everything that elevates the individual above
the herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called EVIL,
the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing disposition, the
MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour. Finally,
under very peaceful circumstances, there is always less opportunity and
necessity for training the feelings to severity and rigour, and now every form
of severity, even in justice, begins to disturb the conscience, a lofty and
rigorous nobleness and self-responsibility almost offends, and awakens
distrust, ‘the lamb,’ and still more ‘the sheep,’ wins respect. There is a point
of diseased mellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which
society itself takes the part of
Beyond Good and Evil 138 of 301 him who injures it, the part of the
CRIMINAL, and does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears
to it to be somehow unfair—it is certain that the idea of ‘punishment’ and
‘the obligation to punish’ are then painful and alarming to people. ‘Is it not
sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why should we still
punish? Punishment itself is terrible!’—with these questions gregarious
morality, the morality of fear, draws its ultimate conclusion. If one could at
all do away with danger, the cause of fear, one would have done away with
this morality at the same time, it would no longer be necessary, it WOULD
NOT CONSIDER ITSELF any longer necessary!—Whoever examines the
conscience of the present-day European, will always elicit the same
imperative from its thousand moral folds and hidden recesses, the imperative
of the timidity of the herd ‘we wish that some time or other there may be
NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!’ Some time or other—the will and the way
THERETO is nowadays called ‘progress’ all over Europe. 202. Let us at once
say again what we have already said a hundred times, for people’s ears
nowadays are unwilling to hear such truths—OUR truths. We know well
enough how offensive it sounds when any one plainly, and
Beyond Good and Evil 139 of 301 without metaphor, counts man among the
animals, but it will be accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it is precisely in
respect to men of ‘modern ideas’ that we have constantly applied the terms
‘herd,’ ‘herd-instincts,’ and such like expressions. What avail is it? We
cannot do otherwise, for it is precisely here that our new insight is. We have
found that in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become
unanimous, including likewise the countries where European influence
prevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates thought he did not
know, and what the famous serpent of old once promised to teach—they
‘know’ today what is good and evil. It must then sound hard and be
distasteful to the ear, when we always insist that that which here thinks it
knows, that which here glorifies itself with praise and blame, and calls itself
good, is the instinct of the herding human animal, the instinct which has
come and is ever coming more and more to the front, to preponderance and
supremacy over other instincts, according to the increasing physiological
approximation and resemblance of which it is the symptom. MORALITY IN
EUROPE AT PRESENT IS HERDING-ANIMAL MORALITY, and
therefore, as we understand the matter, only one kind of human morality,
beside which, before which, and after
Beyond Good and Evil 140 of 301 which many other moralities, and above all
HIGHER moralities, are or should be possible. Against such a ‘possibility,’
against such a ‘should be,’ however, this morality defends itself with all its
strength, it says obstinately and inexorably ‘I am morality itself and nothing
else is morality!’ Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured and
flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things have reached
such a point that we always find a more visible expression of this morality
even in political and social arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC movement is
the inheritance of the Christian movement. That its TEMPO, however, is
much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones, for those who are sick
and distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated by the increasingly furious
howling, and always less disguised teeth- gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who
are now roving through the highways of European culture. Apparently in
opposition to the peacefully industrious democrats and Revolution-
ideologues, and still more so to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-
visionaries who call themselves Socialists and want a ‘free society,’ those are
really at one with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every
form of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the
Beyond Good and Evil 141 of 301 extent even of repudiating the notions
‘master’ and ‘servant’—ni dieu ni maitre, says a socialist formula); at one in
their tenacious opposition to every special claim, every special right and
privilege (this means ultimately opposition to EVERY right, for when all are
equal, no one needs ‘rights’ any longer); at one in their distrust of punitive
justice (as though it were a violation of the weak, unfair to the NECESSARY
consequences of all former society); but equally at one in their religion of
sympathy, in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to
the very animals, up even to ‘God’—the extravagance of ‘sympathy for God’
belongs to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and impatience of
their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost
feminine incapacity for witnessing it or ALLOWING it; at one in their
involuntary beglooming and heart-softening, under the spell of which Europe
seems to be threatened with a new Buddhism; at one in their belief in the
morality of MUTUAL sympathy, as though it were morality in itself, the
climax, the ATTAINED climax of mankind, the sole hope of the future, the
consolation of the present, the great discharge from all the obligations of the
past;
Beyond Good and Evil 142 of 301 altogether at one in their belief in the
community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and therefore in ‘themselves.’
203. We, who hold a different belief—we, who regard the democratic
movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but as
equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his
mediocrising and depreciation: where have WE to fix our hopes? In NEW
PHILOSOPHERS—there is no other alternative: in minds strong and original
enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert
‘eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the present
shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will compel millenniums
to take NEW paths. To teach man the future of humanity as his WILL, as
depending on human will, and to make preparation for vast hazardous
enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby
to put an end to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone
by the name of ‘history’ (the folly of the ‘greatest number’ is only its last
form)—for that purpose a new type of philosopher and commander will some
time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed
in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and
dwarfed. The image of such
Beyond Good and Evil 143 of 301 leaders hovers before OUR eyes:—is it
lawful for me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The conditions which one would
partly have to create and partly utilize for their genesis; the presumptive
methods and tests by virtue of which a soul should grow up to such an
elevation and power as to feel a CONSTRAINT to these tasks; a
transvaluation of values, under the new pressure and hammer of which a
conscience should be steeled and a heart transformed into brass, so as to bear
the weight of such responsibility; and on the other hand the necessity for such
leaders, the dreadful danger that they might be lacking, or miscarry and
degenerate:—these are OUR real anxieties and glooms, ye know it well, ye
free spirits! these are the heavy distant thoughts and storms which sweep
across the heaven of OUR life. There are few pains so grievous as to have
seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way
and deteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal danger of
‘man’ himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has recognized the
extraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto played its game in respect to
the future of mankind—a game in which neither the hand, nor even a ‘finger
of God’ has participated!—he who divines the fate that is hidden under the
idiotic unwariness and blind