Universal suffrage means the rule of lower kinds of men—it is a system by which they become law for the higher.[1] It was introduced as a makeshift, a temporary measure, and Nietzsche hopes that it will not be allowed to strike deeper root.[2] It belongs to an intervening period between the decay of old ruling powers and the advent of new ones more adequate to their task. Nietzsche would not even have the people armed—the use of physical force should be strictly under higher control.[3] Nor would he have them "educated"—as this word is often understood. If the requirements and refined tastes of higher culture penetrate the working class, they will not be able to do their work without proportionally, and more than proportionally, suffering.[4] As I understand him, he does not mean that they shall have no intellectual opportunities—indeed, he wishes them to become "the most intelligent and pliant instrument possible" for social ends,[5] and how is this possible without training of some kind? But the education they receive need not be of the sort, nor conducted in the spirit common in democratic countries, where young people are liable to have ambitions excited for almost any career except one for which they are really fitted. Finding out what an individual has capacity for is difficult—it is perhaps the educational problem in many cases, and I discover nothing in Nietzsche's teaching, which is inconsistent with liberal experimentation in that direction. Perhaps our ordinary schools—aside from communicating certain elementary forms of knowledge—would be better taken as experiment-stations than anything else.
What has doubtless contributed to the misunderstanding of Nietzsche's attitude to the working class is his way of referring to them as slaves. Some imagine that he wished to turn them into slaves. It would be nearer the truth to say that he finds them so already, and is simply not unwilling, as many are, to use the plain offensive term. A slave to him is any one who is not his own end, but does the will of another. I have already commented on his broad use of the term.[6] n He speaks even of "princes, business-men, officials, farmers, soldiers" as slaves,
