which should stand to past morals something as chemistry does to alchemy. Knowledge being scientific, as it can apply number and measure, an attempt is in order to see if a scientific order of values cannot be built "on a number and measure scale of force," ascent in the scale signifying increase of value, descent diminution of value—all other estimations being prejudices, naïvetés, misunderstandings. He is aware that we cannot carry out the program as yet, that we must have recourse to physiology and medicine, to sociology and psychology, and that these sciences are not yet developed enough to give us with confidence the data we need.[1] All the same he throws out the general idea, and we find him following it in a rough approximate way in appraising not only differing types of men, but even differing moralities. For example:
(1) He rates great individuals differently from the ordinary social man, because they can more or less stand alone, have greater strength. Gregarious creatures are, as a rule, individually weak—that is why they combine; they crave power (as everything in the world does), but they get it in this way. In packs, herds, communities they are strong. But the leaders of the flock and individuals of the solitary type (like the lion and the eagle among animals) have resources in themselves—they have strength and to spare, can give help instead of needing it, or can prey on others and take them captive. As the stronger, they stand higher in Nietzsche's scale of value. Of course, no independence is absolute and Nietzsche is well aware of it; still beings are graded in his eyes according as they are more or less capable of it.[2]
(2) Moralities rank differently according as they spring from strength or weakness (for, aside from the morality involved in any kind of social existence, there are, according to Nietzsche, special moralities, bound up with the conditions of existence of particular peoples or social classes). He finds, for instance, a difference of tone, of emphasis, even of special valuations, in the moralities of the ruler and subject classes in the past—this we have already seen. And why is the "master-morality" higher than the "slave-morality"? Because it comes
