pain in check, and have trained themselves to sacrifice wishes to truth, even to ugly, disagreeable, unchristian, unmoral truth.[1] He finds our strong sides unmerciful to our weak sides generally—yes, our very greatness may lie in our unmercifulness.[2] The ground-law of life is self-overcoming—we have to put away what is weak and old in us and be inexorable in doing so: it is the secret both of bodily and of spiritual renewal.[3] William James spoke of "imperative goods," whose nature it is to be "cruel to their rivals," and Nietzsche says, "Whoever has greatness is cruel to his virtues and reflections (Erwägungen) of lesser rank."[4] There is something cruel in conscience itself. When man comes under the ban of society and social law, he sooner or later turns against his old nature, contradicts it, despises it, mistreats it, and makes it suffer—the process being intensified under the influence of ethical, ascetic religions like Brahmanism and Christianity. Denying self, sacrificing self, pleasure in doing this—all is a refined, elevated cruelty;[5] and the motive is the same as that behind cruelty in its crudest forms—love of superiority and power. That we can put ourselves under our feet gives us a sense of wings: in the famous story of King Viçvamitra which the Brahmans tell, the long-continued, self-inflicted sufferings of the king give him such a feeling of power, such confidence in himself, that he is ready to build a new heavens.[6]
Cruelty being of this nature, capable of these metamorphoses, Nietzsche thinks there is a place for it in the world, as for the Böse in general. In a realm of change such as our world is, more or less of it has to be—without it change would be impossible. As pleasure is a sign of adjustment, so pain is necessary for a readjustment—if we are "humanitarian" purely, we faint before the stern requirements of the task; creative force and "humanity" are so far opposites.[7] If it is heroic to endeavor to diminish pain, it may on occasion also be heroic—and it is a harder heroism—to inflict it: in the one case we
