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incident of the criticism is the discovery that the actual empire of virtue is not always secured by virtuous means—that is, that false assumption, defamation, and deception contribute to the result.^[1] A virtue comes to power, Nietzsche observes, much as a political party does, by misrepresenting, casting suspicion upon, undermining the opposition, i.e., contrasted virtues already in power; it gives them other names [one thinks of how missionary religions have sometimes turned the native Gods of a country into devils], systematically persecutes and derides them.^[2] An instance is the way in which Christian ideals managed to triumph over the ancient ideals.^[3]

 

III

What is left of morality, after the criticism? In speaking once of modern tendencies generally, Nietzsche observes that traditional morality suffers, but not necessarily single virtues, like self-control and justice—for freedom may spontaneously lead to them and hold them useful.^[4] He by no means denies that many actions called unmoral are to be avoided and striven against, and that many called moral are to be done and furthered—but for other reasons than heretofore.^[5] Utilitarians, æstheticians, friends of knowledge, and idealists may make the same demands which morality makes, so that its self-destruction need not practically change matters.^[6] He once attempts a kind of balancing of morality: he finds it harmful in certain ways, useful in others. It is harmful, for instance, in hindering the enjoyment of life, and thankfulness to life; in hindering the beautifying and ennobling of life; in hindering the knowledge of life, and also the unfolding of life, i.e., so far as it seeks to set the highest forms of life at variance with themselves. But, on the other hand, it is useful as a preservative principle of social wholes and a means of restraining individual members—-

symptomatology, and so far invaluable for the understanding of man (Twilight etc., vii, § 1).

1. Will to Power, §§ 266, 305; cf. Dawn of Day, § 97.
2. Will to Power, § 311; cf. 310.
3. Cf. a passage like Werke, XII, 171, § 354.
4. Ibid., XIII, 181-2, § 413.
5. Dawn of Day, § 103.
6. Werke, XII, 83-5. Cf. Kurt Breysig's remarks, Jahrhuch für Gesetzgebung, xx (1896), pp. 10, 11.