CHAPTER XXVI
MORAL CONSTRUCTION (Cont.). "PERSONS," OR GREAT MEN
I
"Persons," in the distinctive sense in which Nietzsche uses the term, are a development in human society and do not belong to its beginnings—save in rudimentary form as rulers or leaders of the flock. Most men are not persons now. The fundamental thing in human nature is sociality and social functioning—at least since man ceased to be a roving lawless animal. Individuals are first parts of a whole—they come to exist for themselves late and rarely. They even tend to be like one another, as sheep in a flock do—some sociologists put imitation at the basis of the social process. Indeed, the wonder is, considering the circumstances of men's origin, that persons ever arise. Morality itself (the mores of a group) operates to make men alike—this is perhaps its unconscious purpose, to the end that surprises may be minimized and all feel as secure as possible. Now, as in the past, the more the feeling of unity predominates, the more individuals become uniform—and differences are felt as immoral.[1] Zarathustra says, "You were once apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes."[2] Language, a supposed distinguishing mark of man, after all covers only what is communicable, common—words fail for our strictly particular, individual experiences.[3] The world about us—that which we so call—is what we all see alike: the rarer, personal, perceptions scarcely belong to it. Even "truth" is a matter of agreement: what one thinks is set down as individual simply, what two or more agree in thinking—that is "true."[4] Our very mind is largely a social product; what others teach us, wish of us, tell us to fear or to follow, makes up the original
