Nietzsche: The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche
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is a result of decadence (the weakness of the will and the need of strong stimulants).
(3) Remedies, whether psychological or moral, do not alter the march of decadence, they do not arrest anything; physiologically they do not count.
A peep into the enormous futility of these pretentious "reactions"; they are forms of anæsthetising oneself against certain fatal symptoms resulting from the prevailing condition of things; they do not eradicate the morbid element; they are often heroic attempts to cancel the decadent man, to allow only a minimum of his deleterious influence to survive.
(4) Nihilism is not a cause, but only the rationale of decadence.
(5) The "good" and the "bad" are no more than two types of decadence: they come together in all its fundamental phenomena.
(6) The social problem is a result of decadence.
(7) Illnesses, more particularly those attacking the nerves and the head, are signs that the defensive strength of strong nature is lacking; a proof of this is that irritability which causes pleasure and pain to be regarded as problems of the first order.
44.
The most common types of decadence: (1) In the belief that they are remedies, cures are chosen which only precipitate exhaustion;—this is the case with Christianity (to point to the most egregious example of mistaken instinct);—this is also the case with "progress."
(2) The power of resisting stimuli is on the wane—chance rules supreme: events are inflated and drawn out until they appear monstrous ... a suppression of the "personality," a disintegration of the will; in this regard we may mention a whole class of morality, the altruistic, that which is incessantly preaching pity, and whose most essential feature is the weakness of the personality, so that it rings in unison, and, like an over-sensitive string, does not cease from vibrating ... extreme irritability....
(3) Cause and effect are confounded: decadence is not understood as physiological, and its results are taken to be the causes of the general indisposition:—this applies to all religious morality.
(4) A state of affairs is desired in which suffering shall cease; life is actually considered the cause of all ills—unconscious and insensitive states (sleep and syncope) are held in incomparably higher esteem than the conscious states; hence a method of life.
45.
Concerning the hygiene of the "weak." All that is done in weakness ends in failure. Moral: do nothing. The worst of it is, that precisely the strength required in order to stop action, and to cease from reacting, is most seriously diseased under the influence of weakness: that one never reacts more promptly or more blindly than when one should not react at all.
The strength of a character is shown by the ability to delay and postpone reaction: a certain ἀδιαφορία is just as proper to it, as involuntariness in recoiling, suddenness and lack of restraint in "action," are proper to weakness. The will is weak: and the recipe for preventing foolish acts would be: to have a strong will and to do nothing—contradiction. A sort of self-destruction, the instinct of self-preservation is compromised.... The weak man injures himself.... That is the decadent type.
As a matter of fact, we meet with a vast amount of thought concerning the means wherewith impassibility may be induced. To this extent, the instincts are on the right scent; for to do nothing is more useful than to do something....
All the practices of private orders, of solitary philosophers, and of fakirs, are suggested by a correct consideration of the fact, that a certain kind of man is most useful to himself when he hinders his own action as much as possible.
Relieving measures: absolute obedience, mechanical activity, total isolation from men and things that might exact immediate decisions and actions.
46.
Weakness of Will: this is a fable that can lead astray. For there is no will, consequently neither a strong nor a weak one. The multiplicity and disintegration of the instincts, the want of system in their relationship, constitute what is known as a "weak will"; their co-ordination, under the government of one individual among them, results in a "strong will"—in the first case vacillation and a lack of equilibrium is noticeable: in the second, precision and definite direction.
47.
That which is inherited is not illness, but a predisposition to illness: a lack of the powers of resistance against injurious external influences, etc. etc, broken powers of resistance; expressed morally: resignation and humility in the presence of the enemy.
I have often wondered whether it would not be possible to class all the highest values of the philosophies, moralities, and religions which have been devised hitherto, with the values of the feeble, the insane and the neurasthenic in a milder form, they present the same evils.
The value of all morbid conditions consists in the fact that they magnify certain normal phenomena which are difficult to discern in normal conditions....
Health and illness are not essentially different, as the ancient doctors believed and as a few practitioners still believe to-day. They cannot be imagined as two distinct principles or entities which fight for the living organism and make it their battlefield. That is nonsense and mere idle gossip, which no longer holds water. As a matter of fact, there is only a difference of degree between these two living conditions: exaggeration, want of proportion, want of harmony among the normal phenomena, constitute the morbid state (Claude Bernard).
Just as "evil" may be regarded as exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion, so can "good" be regarded as a sort of protective diet against the danger of exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion.
Hereditary weakness as a dominant feeling: the cause of the prevailing values.
N.B.—Weakness is in demand—why?... mostly because people cannot be anything else than weak.
Weakening considered a duty: The weakening of the desires, of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, of the will to power, of the will to pride, to property and to more property; weakening in the form of humility; weakening in the form of a belief; weakening in the form of repugnance and shame in the presence of all that is natural—in the form of a denial of life, in the form of illness and chronic feebleness; weakening in the form of a refusal to take revenge, to offer resistance, to become an enemy, and to show anger.
Blunders in the treatment: there is no attempt at combating weakness by means of any fortifying system; but by a sort of justification consisting of moralising; i.e., by means of interpretation.
Two totally different conditions are confused: for instance, the repose of strength, which is essentially abstinence from reaction (the prototype of the gods whom nothing moves), and the peace of exhaustion, rigidity to the point of anæsthesia. All these philosophic and ascetic modes of procedure aspire to the second state, but actually pretend to attain to the first ... for they ascribe to the condition they have reached the attributes that would be in keeping only with a divine state.
48.
The most dangerous misunderstanding.—There is one concept which apparently allows of no confusion or ambiguity, and that is the concept exhaustion. Exhaustion may be acquired or inherited—in any case it alters the aspect and value of things.
Unlike him who involuntarily gives of the superabundance which he both feels and represents, to the things about him, and who sees them fuller, mightier, and more pregnant with promises,—who, in fact, can bestow,—the exhausted one belittles and disfigures everything he sees—he impoverishes its worth: he is detrimental....
No mistake seems possible in this matter: and yet history discloses the terrible fact, that the exhausted have always been confounded with those with the most abundant resources, and the latter with the most detrimental.
The pauper in vitality, the feeble one, impoverishes even life: the wealthy man, in