mean the common people, or of a flock of sheep and its bell-wether, or of a herd of cattle and its "Vor-ochsen."[1] In times past there have been the few rulers and the many ruled—this is the simple broad fact on which Nietzsche's view of a master-morality and a slave-morality is based. For us today "slave" is a derogatory expression, and always, it is true, a slave has ranked lower than a free man; but Nietzsche knows also how to appreciate the slave—and even says that many a man has thrown away his last worth when he threw away his servitude[2] How necessary and vital in his estimation the slave class has been in the past, how necessary and vital their counterparts are today and always will be, we shall see later.[3] I pass now to a more detailed characterization of the two moral types.[4]
First, the ruler morality. It is evident that the ruler class of men are a marked type. They have unusual vigor, enterprise, courage, vitality generally; they are, relatively speaking, higher, more complete men. Their ascendency can hardly be accounted for otherwise—they take the first place, because they are the first. They delight in war, adventure, the hunt, the dance, contents of skill—it is from the overflow of the energy within them.[5] Theirs is not ordinary labor in the fields or the household—others have this for their portion; and whether they subjugate roving disorganized masses or rule their own group, winning a more or less willing allegiance there, the basis of their superiority is the same. When then such men value, they are likely to do so more or less differently from those beneath them. Comfort and personal security are not a first consideration—nor are they looking to others to be kind and good to them. They use "good" in a peculiar sense: it is not a "good to," they feel themselves good; they approve not so much beneficence or benevolence, as their own overflowing power and exuberant manner of life. The mass, however, look at things from another standpoint. They are the weaker, the less self-sufficient, and have need of kindness at others' hands. They do the heavy
- ↑ Cf. Werke, XIV, 67, § 133; Will to Power, §§ 274, 400.
- ↑ Zarathustra, I, xvii.
- ↑ Pp. 435 ff.
- ↑ The principal passages are Beyond Good and Evil, § 260, and the first treatise of Genealogy of Morals. We have already (p. 124) noticed the anticipatory view of Human, All-too-Human, § 45.
- ↑ See the descriptions in Genealogy etc., 1, § 7.
