PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. 715 



faster!" "What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity with 

 all failures and weaklings." " War and courage have done more great 

 things than love of neighbor. Not your pity, but your courage, has 

 saved the unfortunate thus far. What is good ? To be brave is good. 

 Let the little girls say: good is what is both pretty and touching." 

 " There is a stage of morbid softness and effeminacy in the history of 

 society at which it even takes the part of him who injures it, the crim- 

 inal. To punish — that somehow seems unjust to it — it is certain that 

 the notion of ' punishment/ of a ' duty ' to punish, causes it pain, terri- 

 fies it. — Is it not enough to render him harmless? Why punish any- 

 how? Punishment is so terrible." 



Pity therefore is bad because it hinders the realization of the ideal : 

 the development of the will for power, the creation of strong men, of 

 great individuals, of powerful personalities. It is not an admirable 

 quality, but characteristic of base, petty souls, of weaklings and deca- 

 dents. It increases misery and suffering, and diminishes life-energy, 

 and by so much weakens the desire for life and power. It hinders the 

 weak from being eliminated as they ought to be, and so interferes with 

 the proper working of the law of life: the destruction of everything 

 that is not worth saving. Yes, it even preserves the sick, the weak, 

 the failures, the decadents, the degenerates, and makes the world uglier, 

 an eye-sore to the strong and efficient. Pity is a temptation and a 

 danger. " We should put the rein to our hearts ; for when we let them 

 go, how they run away with our heads. Alas ! where in the world do 

 greater follies happen than among those who pity? And what in the 

 world has caused more suffering than the follies of the pitying? — 

 Myself I sacrifice to my love and my neighbor as myself — that is the 

 word of all creators. All creators, however, are hard." 



Egoism is worth just as much as the person is physiologically worth 

 who has it. Every individual represents the whole line of development. 

 If he is an advance on this line, then his value is extraordinary, and 

 the care for his preservation and for favorable conditions of his growth 

 may be extreme. But if he represents a retrogression, decay, chronic 

 disease, he has little value, and it is only fair that he take away as little 

 elbow-room and power and sunshine from the sound and healthy ones 

 as possible. In this case society has for its task the repression of 

 egoism. From this point of view a doctrine and religion of love, of 

 repression of egoism, of forbearance, of resignation, can have the high- 

 est value because it teaches the weak and sick to keep out of the way of 

 the strong, to let themselves be ruled by the strong. But it must not 

 be forgotten that altruism is a symptom of weakness; the weak and 

 feeble preach love of neighbor and benevolence because they need help 

 themselves. The worship of altruism is a form of egoism; it is the 

 egoism of the failures. 



We see, Nietzsche portrays the world as a terrible thing. Life is 



