and bad as they belong to it or no—at least as they further or retard it.
The standard is of such a nature that it is independent of personal feeling—or even opinion. Can one think, Nietzsche asks, of a madder extravagance or vanity than to judge the worth of existence by agreeable or disagreeable feelings?[1] One is not well because he feels so, any more than one is "guilty," "sinful" because he feels so—witches not only were believed to be guilty, but they thought themselves so.[2] By this is meant that as health is a matter of objective physiological measurement, so is life, advancing life, and the highest life.[3] The value of a "thou oughtst" is independent of opinion about it, as certainly as the value of a medical prescription is independent of whether one thinks scientifically, or like an old woman, about medicine.[4] The greatest sincerity of conviction avails nothing; on the other hand, decisive and valuable actions may be done without assurance of conscience.[5] It is plain from utterances like these that Nietzsche thinks that in his standard of value he has something absolutely objective. It is even independent of our chance affirmation of it. To call an action good, he derisively exclaims, because our conscience says yes to it! It is as if a work of art became beautiful because it pleased the artist! As if the value of music were determined by our enjoyment of it, or the enjoyment of the composer![6] All this subjective way of judging things that have really a law and logic of their own is abhorrent to Nietzsche.[7] Life is something objective to him; being at bottom an organization of power, the worth of any particular specimen depends upon how much power it incorporates, and upon how high the level is to which the power attains.[8] The whole range of feeling, even of consciousness, is more or less accidental in relation to it. Feeling makes nothing good, and consciousness is a means of life,
- ↑ Ibid., § 674.
- ↑ Genealogy etc., III, § 16; cf. Werke, XII, 148, § 293.
- ↑ Cf. the suggestions of Will to Power, § 291.
- ↑ Werke, XIV, 402, § 278; XIII, 129, §§ 293-4.
- ↑ Ibid., XIII, 134, § 310; 135, § 311.
- ↑ Werke, XIII, 135, § 311; Will to Power, § 291.
- ↑ Cf., as to music and the lack of an aesthetics of music at the present time. Will to Power, §§ 838, 842.
- ↑ Ibid., § 674.
