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But to revert to our theme: the problem of the other origin of "good," of "good" as conceived by the man of resentment, calls for its settlement. — That the lambs should bear a grudge to the big birds of prey, is nowise strange; but this is no reason for blaming the big birds of prey for picking up small lambs. And if the lambs say among themselves: "These rapacious birds are wicked, and he who is as little as possible of a bird of prey, but rather the opposite, i.e., a lamb — should not he be good?" we cannot find fault with the establishment of such an ideal, though the birds of prey may make rather mocking eyes and say: "We do not bear at all a grudge to them, these good lambs, we even, love them. Nothing is more delicious than a tender lamb." To demand of strength, that it should not manifest itself as strength, that it should not be a will to overpower, to subdue, to become master of, that it should not be a thirst for enemies, resistance, and triumphs, is as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should manifest itself as strength. A quantum of power is an equal quantum of impulse, will, action. More correctly speaking, it is even this impelling, willing, acting itself, and nothing else, — and it is caused to appear otherwise only through the seduction of language (and the cardinal errors of reason, fossilised in language), which takes and mistakes all action as conditioned by something acting, by a "subject." Even as the people will separate the lightning from its flash and take the latter for the doing, the effect of a subject called lightning, so popular morality will sever strength from the manifestations of strength, as if behind the strong man there existed an indifferent substratum which is free to manifest strength or not. But there is no such substratum; there is no "being" behind doing, acting, becoming. "The doer" is merely a fictitious addition to the doing; the "doing" is all. People in reality double the doing when they make the lightning flash. That is a doing-doing; the same happening being once posited as the cause and again as the effect of the cause. Natural philosophers do not much better when they say that power moves, power causes, and the like. All our science, despite all its coolness, its freedom from emotion, still labours under the seduction of language and has not yet got rid of the changelings which were foisted in, the "subjects" (the "atom," e.g., is one of these changelings, also the Kantian "thing in itself"). No wonder, therefore, if the suppressed, and secretly glowing emotions, hatred and revenge, avail themselves of this belief and, in fact, support no belief with so much zeal as this, that the strong are free to be weak, and that a rapacious bird can, if it will, be a lamb. For in this way they appropriate in their minds the right of imputing to the bird of prey the fact that it is rapacious . . . . If the suppressed, the down-trodden and the wronged, prompted by the craft of impotence, say to themselves: "Let us be different from the bad, let us be good! and good are all those, who wrong no one, who never violate, who never attack, who never retaliate, who entrust revenge to God, who, like us, live aloof from the world, who avoid all contact with evil, and who, altogether, demand little of life, as we do, the patient, the humble, the just" — this means, viewed coolly and unprejudicially, no more than: "We, the weak, are — it is a fact — weak; it is well for us not to do anything, for which we are not strong enough. But this stern matter of fact, this meanest kind of prudence, shared even by insects (which occasionally simulate death, in order not to do "too much" in case of great danger), has, thanks to the trickery and self-imposition of impotence, clothed itself in the apparel of renouncing, silent, abiding virtue, as if the weakness of the weak one itself, i.e., presumably his being, his action, his entire, unavoidable, inseparable reality — were a voluntary performance, a thing self-willed, self-chosen, a deed, a desert. To this kind of man, the necessity of the belief in an indifferent, free-willed "subject" is prompted by the instinct of self-preservation, self-assertion, — an instinct by which every falsehood uses to sanctify itself. The subject (or, speaking more popularly, the soul) has perhaps been, so far, the best religious tenet on earth, even for the reason that it made possible for the majority of mortals, the weak and oppressed of every description, that sublime self-defraudation of interpreting weakness itself as freedom, the fact of their being thus and thus as a desert.
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Will some one look down and into the secret of the way in which ideals are manufactured on earth? Who has the courage to do so? Up! Here the view into this dark workshop is open. Yet a moment, my good Sir Pry and Break-neck! Your eye must first get accustomed to this false and fickle light . . . . So! Enough! Now speak! What is going on below? Speak out, what you see, man of most dangerous curiosity! Now I am the listener. —
"I see nothing, I hear the more. It is a cautious, knavish, suppressed mumbling and muttering together in every nook and corner. It seems to me they lie. A sugared mildness cleaves to every sound. Weakness is to be falsified into desert, no doubt whatever — it is, as you said." —
Go on!
—"And impotence which requiteth not is to be falsified into 'goodness;' timorous meanness into ' humility;' submission to those, whom one hates, into 'obedience' (namely to one, who they say commands this obedience; they call him God). The inoffensiveness of the 'weak one,' cowardice itself in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his unavoidable necessity of waiting cornes here by good names, such as 'patience;' they even call it the cardinal virtue. Not-to-be-able-to-take-revenge is called not-to-will-revenge, perhaps even forgiveness ('for they know not what they do; we alone know what they do'). They also talk of 'love for their enemies' — and sweat in doing so."
On!
"They are wretched, no doubt, all these mumblers and underground forgers, though warmly seated together. But they tell me that their wretchedness is a selection and distinction from God, that the dogs which are liked most are whipped, that their misery may, perhaps, also be a preparation, a trial, a schooling, perhaps even more — something which at some time to come will be requited and paid back with immense interest in gold, no! in happiness. This they call 'blessedness.' "
On!
"Now they will have me understand, that not only they are better than the mighty, the lords of the earth, whose spittle they must lick (not from fear, no, not at all from fear! but because God commands to have respect for all authority) — that not only they are better, but are also, or certainly will be, 'better off' one day. But enough! enough! I cannot stand it any longer. Bad air! Bad air! This work-shop in which ideals are manufactured — methinks, it stinks from lying all over."
No! Yet a moment! You have not yet said anything of the masterpiece of these necromancers, who from every black prepare white, milk and innocence. Did you notice what the very acme of their raffinement is, — their keenest, finest, subtlest, falsest artist manipulation? Mark well! These cellar-animals filled with hatred and revenge — what is it they are making just out of hatred and revenge? Have you ever heard such words? Would you believe, if trusting merely their words, that you are all among beings of resentment? . . . .
"I perceive, once again I open my ears (ah! ah! ah! and shut my nose). Now only I hear, what they were saying so often: 'We, the good, we are the just.' What they ask for, they do not call retribution, but 'the triumph of justice;' what they hate, is not their enemy, no! they hate 'wrong-doing' and 'ungodliness.' What they believe in, and hope for, is not the hope of revenge, the drunkenness of sweet revenge (— sweeter than honey, already Homer called it), but 'the victory of God, just God, over the godless.' What remains for them to love on earth, is not their brethren in hatred, but their 'brethren in love,' as they say, — all the good and the just on earth."
And how do they call that which serves them as consolation in all the sufferings of life — their phantasmagoria of an anticipated future blessedness?
"What? Hear I right? They call it 'the final judgment,' the coming of their kingdom, of the 'kingdom of God!' Meanwhile they live' in faith, in love, in hope.' —— Enough! Enough!"
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In faith in what? in love for what? in hope of what? These weak ones (for at some time also they intend to be the strong, no doubt whatever; at some time also their "kingdom" is to come) "the kingdom of God" they call it simply, as I remarked; for they are in everything so lowly! If for no other purpose, to live to see that, it is necessary to live long, beyond death, — indeed, life everlasting is necessary in order that, in the kingdom of God, they may be eternally indemnified for the life on earth "in faith, in love, in hope." Indemnified what for? Indemnified what with? Dante, it seems to me, made a gross mistake when, with frightful ingenuity, he placed the inscription above the gate to his hell "Me too eternal love created." Above the door of the Christian paradise and its "eternal blessedness" the inscription "Me too eternal hate created" would certainly be more appropriate — granting a truth to be appropriate above the entrance to a falsehood! For what is the blessedness of that paradise? We might perhaps guess it; but it is better to have an authority to testify to it, which, in such matters, is not to be underestimated, Thomas of Aquino, the great saint and teacher. "Beati in regno coelesti," he says, meek as a lamb, "videbunt poenas damnatorum, ut beatitudo illis magis complaceat." Or, shall we hear it in a stronger tone, perhaps from the mouth of a triumphant church-father, who dissuaded his Christians from the cruel pleasures of the public spectacles — and why? "Faith," he says de spectac. c. 29 ss, "presents unto us much more — and much stronger things; thanks to salvation much greater joys are at our disposal; in place of the athletes we have our martyrs; will we blood, well, we have the blood, of Christ . . . . But lo! what shall await us on the day of his second advent, of his triumph!" And then he goes on, the delighted visionary: "At enim supersunt alia spectacula, ille ultimus et perpetuus judicii dies, ille nationibus insperatus, ille derisus, cum tanta soeculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates uno igne haurientur. Quoe tunc spectaculi latitudo! Quid admirer! Quid rideam! Ubi gaudeam! Ubi exultem, spectans tot et tantos reges, qui in coelum recepti nuntiabantur, cum ipso Jove et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebris congemescentes! Item proesides (provincial governors) persecutores dominici nominis soevioribus quam ipsi flammis soevierunt insultantibus contra Christianos liquescentes! Quos proeterea sapientes illos philosophos coram discipulis suis una conflagrantibus erubescentes, quibus nihil ad deum pertinere suadebant, quibus animas aut nullas aut non in pristina corpora redituras affirmabant! Etiam poëtas non ad Rhadamanti nec ad Minoïs, sed ad inopinati Christi tribunal palpitantes! Tunc magis tragoedi audiendi, magis scilicet vocales (better with voice, still worse shouters) in sua propria calamitate; tunc histriones cognoscendi, solutiores multo per ignem; tunc spectandus auriga in flammea rota totus rubens, tunc xystici contemplandi non in gymnasiis, sed in igne jaculati, nisi quod ne tunc quidem illos velim vivos, ut qui malim ad eos potius conspectum insatiabilem, conferre qui in dominum desoevierunt. 'Hic est ille, dicam, fabri aut quoestuarioe filius (as is shown by all that follows, and more especially by this denotation of the mother of Jesus, known from the Talmud, — Tertullian from now on is speaking of the Jews), sabbati destructor, Samarites et doemonium habens. Hic est, quern a Juda redemistis, hic est ille arundine et colaphis diverberatus, sputamentis de-decoratus, felle et aceto potatus. Hic est, quem clam discentes subripuerunt, ut resurrexisse dicatur vel hortulanus detraxit, ne lactucoe suae frequentia commeantium Iaederentur.' Ut talia spectes, ut talibus exultes, quis tibi proetor aut consul aut quoestor aut sacerdos de sua liberalitate proestabit? Et tamen hoec jam habemus quodammodo per fidem spiritu imaginante reproesentata. Ceterum qualia ilia sunt, quoe nec oculus vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascenderunt? (I Cor. 2, 9.) Credo circo et utraque cavea (first and fourth rank or, according to others, comic and tragic stage) et omni stadio gratiora." — Per fidem: thus it is written.
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Let us come to a close! The two antithetical values "good and bad," "good and evil" have fought a terrible battle, a battle lasting thousands of years. And though undoubtedly the second of these values has long since succeeded in getting the upper hand, yet places are not wanting even now, where the struggle is continued with doubtful issue. We might even say, that the struggle was, in the meantime, shifted into ever higher regions and even thereby became ever deeper, ever more spiritual; so that to-day perhaps no more distinctive characteristic of a "higher nature," of a more spiritual nature exists, than to be dual in this sense and still a battle-ground for these antitheses. The symbol of this struggle, written in letters which remained readable, above the entire history of man until now, is called "Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome." So far no greater event has occurred than this struggle, this question, this deadly inimical antithesis. Rome felt in the Jew something like the embodiment of anti-naturalness, its anti-podal monster, as it were; in Rome the Jew was looked upon as "convicted of hatred against all mankind;" and rightly so, in so far as we have a right to connect the welfare and future of mankind with the unconditional dominance of aristocratic values, Roman values. The feelings, on the other hand, of the Jews against Rome? A thousand signs enable us to guess what they were; but it will suffice once again to call to mind the Johannean Apocalypse, that vilest of all written outbursts of which revenge is guilty. (By the way: let us not undervalue the keen, logical consistency of the Christian instinct, which it showed, when it superscribed just this book of hatred with the name of the disciple of love, that same disciple to whom it assigned that gospel of love-enthusiasm. This fact evinces a bit of truth, however much literary counterfeiting may have been necessary for that purpose.) The Romans, we know, were the strong and the noble, so that stronger and nobler men had never existed on earth before, nay, had not even been dreamt of. Every relic of them, every inscription delights, granted that one feels what is writing therein. The Jews, on the contrary, were that priestly people of resentment par excellence, which was possessed of an unparalleled, popular ingenuity of morals. Let one but compare to them the similarly gifted peoples, the Chinese, perhaps, or the Germans, to form an idea as to what is of the first rank and what is of the fifth rank. Which of the two has gained the victory for the time being, Rome or Judea? But there is no doubt whatever? Let us but consider to whom to-day people bow in Rome as to the essence of all the highest values — and not only in Rome, but almost over half the globe, wherever man either has become tame, or is about to become so. To three Jews, as is known, and one Jewess (to Jesus of Nazareth, Peter the fisherman, Paul the tentmaker, and the mother of the aforesaid Jesus, called Maria). This is very remarkable: Rome, beyond all doubt, did succumb. True enough that the Renaissance witnessed a dazzlingly-haunted reawakening of the classic ideal, of the noble manner of valuation in all things: Rome itself moved, like some asphyctic coming back to life, beneath the pressure of the new, Judaised Rome built upon it, which presented the aspect of an ecumenical synagogue and was called "Church." But forthwith Judea triumphed again, thanks to that thoroughly moblike (German and English) movement of resentment, called the Reformation, — added thereto, what had to follow, the restoration of the Church, the restoration also of the sepulchral silence of classic Rome. Once again, in an even still more decisive and deeper sense, Judea triumphed over the classic ideal through the French revolution: the last political noblesse in Europe, that of the seventeenth and eighteenth French centuries, broke down under the popular resentment-instincts. Never a louder jubilation, a more tumultuous enthusiasm was heard on earth! True it is that in the very midst of this event the most extraordinary, the most unexpected thing happened: the antique ideal appeared bodily and with unheard-of splendour before eyes and conscience of humanity, — and once again, more strongly, more plainly, more forcibly than ever, against the old, false battle-cry of resentment about the right of the most, against the will to the grading, degradation, and levelling, to the downward and dusk-ward of man, — resounded the terrible and rapturous counter-cry of the privilege of the fewest! Like some last hint pointing to the other road appeared Napoléon, that most isolated and latest-born of men that ever was; and in him appeared the incarnate problem of the noble ideal as such. Let it be well considered what kind of problem this is: Napoléon, this synthesis of monster and beyondman . . . .
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Was this the end of it? Was therewith that greatest of all ideal antitheses laid ad acta for all times? Or merely adjourned, adjourned for a long time? Might there not be, at some time or other, a necessity for a still more terrible, a still longer prepared-for blazing up of the old conflagration? Nay, is not even this to be wished for as much as possible? Even to be willed? Even to be furthered? Whoso, like my readers, begins, at this place, to reflect, to reflect further, will not very likely come soon to an end, — reason enough for me, to come to an end myself, provided that it has long since become sufficiently clear what I will, what I will just with that dangerous watchword, written on the body of my last book: "Beyond Good and Evil" . . . . This does, at any rate, not mean "Beyond Good and Bad."
Note. I take the opportunity presented by this essay, publicly and formally to express a wish so far only mentioned by myself in occasional conversation with scholars: that some Faculty of Arts should, by advertising a number of academical prize-dissertations, deserve well of the furtherance of studies in the history of morality. Possibly this book will serve to give a rigorous impetus in even this direction. With a view to a possibility of this kind let the following question be proposed. It deserves attention on the part of students of the Humanities and historians as well as of professional students of philosophy.
"What hints are furnished by philology, more especially by etymological research, with reference to the history of the development of moral concepts?"
On the other hand, it is, of course, quite as essential, to gain the sympathy of Physiologists and students of medicine for these problems (of the value of the valuations of the past): in which undertaking it may be left to professional philosophers to be, in this particular case, as in others, the spokesmen and mediators, after having succeeded on the whole in changing the relations between philosophy, physiology and the science of medicine — which were originally so prudish, so jealous — into the friendliest and fruitfullest exchange. And, in fact, all tables of goods, every "thou shalt" known to historical or ethnological research, call first of all for physiological consideration and interpretation, at any rate sooner than for psychological. All, likewise, await criticism from the side of medical science. The question: what is this or that table of goods and "morality" worth? must be viewed from the most widely different perspectives; especially, "the worth for what? cannot be analysed with sufficient delicacy. A factor, which, for instance, possesses evident value with reference to the greatest durability of a race (or an increase of its powers of adaptation to a certain climate, or the preservation of the greatest number) would by no means possess the same value, if the problem were the formation of a stronger type. The welfare of the greatest number and the welfare of the smallest number are antithetical points-of-view of valuation. To regard the former as being by itself of higher value, — this we shall leave to the simplicity of English biologists . . . . All sciences now must do the preparatory work for the future task of the philosopher: understanding this task to be, that the philosopher has to solve the problem of value, that he has to determine the rank-sequence of values.
