Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/303

for in every exchange not completed at once, the debtor binds himself and is in turn bound; and yet wherever there is a relation of enforced subordination, whether of individuals to other individuals, of individuals to a group, or of impulses to other impulses in the same individual, something similar arises. From the controlling side, it means, "so must you do," from the controlled, "so must I do." At bottom it is a relation of wills, one commanding, the other obeying—for there is no sense in a command, where there is not something to obey.^[1] This holds of an individual's inner life as truly as of society: one impulse gets on top, commands, the others have to obey.^[2] That regulation of impulses which is implied in morality rests in the last resort on one impulse that has the upper hand.^[3] In relation to this dominant impulse, we have to let the question Why? go.^[4] Of an ought over and above human relations and human wills, Nietzsche knows nothing.^{[5] d} "Ought" is our creation, though it is a necessary one, growing out of the fact that we are at bottom wills—and will must either command or obey. The great man must command, cannot be saved from doing so; and his imperative "thou oughtst" is not derived from the nature of things, but seeing the higher he must put it through, compel obedience to it.^[6] There is nothing wrong or unnatural in this—rather may it be as natural for the weaker, the unsteadier, to obey as for the stronger and higher to command; it may be positively easier for the weaker to do this after the first recalcitrancy,^[7] may be even a relief [compare, I may say on my own account, the sentiment of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty"]. ^e That is, two types of individuals may fit organically together in a society—and two kinds of impulses may fit organically together in a single soul.^[8] There is thus a strictly natural order of rank in the world (Rangordnung). The order of precedence, the

1. Werke, XIII, 216, § 511. Even Kant said, "Denn dieses Sollen ist eigentlich ein Wollen" (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, ed. von Kirchman, p. 78).
2. Ibid., XI, 221, § 155; cf. 199, § 109.
3. Ibid., XI, 200, § 111.
4. Ibid., XI, 201, § 114.
5. Ibid., XIV, 320, § 155.
6. Ibid., XIV, 103, § 227.
7. For all impulses want to rule for the moment at least.
8. Cf. Werke, XIII, 105, § 246; 170, § 393.