PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. 709 



as grasping and dishonest as the rest. Because the will is a selfish 

 will, it is bad, and life is an evil, a curse. In order to be good the 

 will must negate itself, it must give up its selfish strivings. When we 

 feel the sufferings of others, when we pity them, when we see our- 

 selves in them, when -we feel that we and they are one, then we are 

 able to negate our selfish desires, we are delivered from the will to live, 

 we are saved, we are at rest. The struggle ceases, we have denied 

 ourselves, we have renounced the world, we are free, our selfish will is 

 dead. Pity or love or sympathy, therefore, is the cause of this nega- 

 tion of will, and hence pity is the fundamental principle of all morality. 

 Sympathy or pity is good because it leads to the negation of the will. 

 The ideal is renunciation, ascetic self-denial; sympathy is the true 

 moral motive, the sole source and standard of morality. 



Nietzsche accepts the fundamental thought of Schopenhauer that 

 the will is the principle of existence, but he draws wholly different con- 

 sequences from this view. Yes, the real fact of our life is the fact of 

 our will. The reality directly known to us is the world of our desires, 

 the world of our instincts, the world of our will. Every living being 

 desires life and desires it extravagantly; its instincts all aim at power 

 and self-assertion. Life is essentially a striving for a surplus of 

 power; all striving is nothing but a striving for power; the will for 

 power is the root of all life and action. And this will for power, for 

 more power, this intense, overflowing, bubbling, healthy, exuberant 

 instinct is good: Alles Gute ist InstinM. Everything that makes for 

 life in this sense is good, everything that makes for power, that helps 

 to realize this goal, is good. " What is good ? Everything that 

 heightens the feeling of power in man, the will for power, power itself. 

 What is bad? Everything that springs from weakness. What is 

 happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that a resistence is 

 overcome; not contentment, but more power, not peace as such, but 

 war, not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance style, moraline- 

 free virtue) ." " I say yes to everything that makes life more beauti- 

 ful, more intense, more worthy of being lived. If illusion and error 

 develop life, I say yes to them. If hardness, cruelty, strategy, dis- 

 regard of others, love of struggle, can increase the vitality of man, I 

 say yes to evil and sin. If I believe that suffering helps to educate 

 the human race, I say yes to suffering. If science and morality 

 diminish vitality, I say no to them." 



Life is good, the desire for power is good, yes power is the greatest 

 good. If that is so, then the stronger, the intenser, the fuller this will 

 or desire or instinct for power, the better it is. The ideal will, there- 

 fore, always be powerful men, a higher, stronger type of men, the over- 

 men. " Mankind should constantly endeavor to produce great indi- 

 viduals — this and nothing else is our mission." The great men, the 

 great personalities, the men of force and power, the few, are the ideal 



