might even say that will to power itself sets the moral aim which Nietzsche proposes—only instead of working blindly and instinctively, it now deliberately formulates what it desires. "Life is to me instinct for growth, for permanence, for the amassing of force, for power."[1] It is true that the feeling of power and for power may be slight in some; it may be almost non-existent in expiring forms of life; all the same, it is, as Nietzsche conceives things, the essence of the living process, and only as it increases, can there be more and higher life. In a word, if life and the highest reach of life are the aim, here is the pulse of the machine, and this it is that must be quickened.
Nietzsche accordingly says:
"Formula of our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a mark to aim at (Ziel).
"What is good? All that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
"What is bad (schlecht)? All that comes from weakness.
"What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing—that an obstacle is overcome.
"Not contentment, but more power; not peace, but war; not virtue, but ability (Tüeitigkeit)—virtue in Renaissance style, virtù, virtue free from moralic acid."[2]
But while power is the end, e and but a concrete inner rendering of life itself, it is plainly power on the human level and of the human sort that Nietzsche has in mind—not power of any and every description. He does not set up as a standard the power of physical nature, or that of tyrants, or of priests or of the mass or of an empire, but power such as essentially belongs to the evolution of the human type—the final ideal being the full and perfect efflorescence of that type, the domination in the world of men and things of just that. If mere ab-
- ↑ The Antichristian, § 6.
- ↑ Ibid., §§ 1, 2. Other statements are: "I estimate man according to the amount of power and the fullness of his will" (Will to Power, § 382); "the strongest in body and soul are the best—ground-principle for Zarathustra" (Werke, XII, 410); "I teach 'No' to all that weakens, exhausts, 'Yes' to all that strengthens, treasures up force, justifies the feeling of force" (Will to Power, § 54); "to go on spinning the whole warp and woof of life, and to do it in such a way that the thread ever becomes stronger—that is the task" (ibid., § 674).
