The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All...

Our Pessimism: the world has not the value which we believed it to have,—our faith itself has so increased our instinct for research that we are compelled to say this to-day. In the first place, it seems of less value: at first it is felt to be of less value,—only in this sense are we pessimists,—that is to say, with the will to acknowledge this transvaluation without reserve, and no longer, as heretofore, to deceive ourselves and chant the old old story.

It is precisely in this way that we find the pathos which urges us to seek for new values. In short: the world might have far more value than we thought—we must get behind the naïveté of our ideals, for it is possible that, in our conscious effort to give it the highest interpretation, we have not bestowed even a moderately just value upon it.

(3) Only the most mediocre, who are not conscious of this conflict, prosper; the higher species fail, and as an example of degeneration tend to dispose all hearts against them—on the other hand, there is some indignation caused by the mediocre positing themselves as the end and meaning of all things. No one can any longer reply to the question: "Why?"

(4) Belittlement, susceptibility to pain, unrest, haste, and confusion are steadily increasing—the materialisation of all these tendencies, which is called "civilisation," becomes every day more simple, with the result that, in the face of the monstrous machine, the individual despairs and surrenders.

But only a man who no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, and a final goal can speak in this way—according to every healthy type of man, the worth of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these secondary things. And a preponderance of pain would be possible and, in spite of it, a mighty will, a saying of yea to life, and a holding of this preponderance for necessary.

The philosophie Nihilist is convinced that all phenomena are without sense and are in vain, and that there ought to be no such thing as Being without sense and in vain. But whence comes this "There ought not to be?"—whence this "sense" and this standard? At bottom the Nihilist supposes that the sight of such a desolate, useless Being is unsatisfying to the philosopher, and fills him with desolation and despair. This aspect of the case is opposed to our subtle sensibilities as a philosopher. It leads to the absurd conclusion that the character of existence must perforce afford pleasure to the philosopher if it is to have any right to subsist.

Now it is easy to understand that happiness and unhappiness, within the phenomena of this world, can only serve the purpose of means: the question yet remaining to be answered is, whether it will ever be possible for us to perceive the "object" and "purpose" of life—whether the problem of purposelessness or the reverse is not quite beyond our ken.

The rejected world is opposed to an artificially constructed "true and valuable" one. At last we discover out of what material the "true" world was built; all that remains, now, is the rejected world, and to the account of our reasons for rejecting it we place our greatest disillusionment.

Just lately an accidental and in every way inappropriate term has been very much misused: everywhere people are speaking of "Pessimism," and there is a fight around the question (to which some replies must be forthcoming): which is right—Pessimism or Optimism?

People have not yet seen what is so terribly-obvious—namely, that Pessimism is not a problem but a symptom,—that the term ought to be replaced by "Nihilism,"—that the question, "to be or not to be," is itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.

To be understood:—That every kind of decline and tendency to sickness has incessantly been at work in helping to create general evaluations: that in those valuations which now dominate, decadence has even begun to preponderate, that we have not only to combat the conditions which present misery and degeneration have brought into being; but that all decadence, previous to that of our own times, has been transmitted and has therefore remained an active force amongst us. A universal departure of this kind, on the part of man, from his fundamental instincts, such universal decadence of the valuing judgment, is the note of interrogation par excellence, the real riddle, which the animal "man" sets to all philosophers.

The notion "decadence":—Decay, decline, and waste, are, per se, in no way open to objection;they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to suppress it. On the contrary, reason would have it retain its rights.

It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But that is tantamount to condemning Life ... a society is not at liberty to remain young. And even in its prime it must bring forth ordure and decaying matter. The more energetically and daringly it advances, the richer will it be in failures and in deformities, and the nearer it will be to its fall. Age is not deferred by means of institutions. Nor is illness. Nor is vice.