Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: The Moral Ideal§354 The “good man” as a tyrant. Mankind has always repeated the same error: it has always transformed a mere vital measure into the measure and standard of life; instead of seeking the standard in the highest ascent of life, in the problem of growth and exhaustion, it takes the preservative measures of a very definite kind of life and uses them to exclude all other kinds of life and even to criticise Life itself and to select from among its forms. That is to say, man ultimately forgets that measures are a means to an end and gets to like them for themselves: they take the place of a goal in his mind and even become the standard of goals to him, that is to say, a given species of man regards his means of existence as the only legitimate means, as the means which ought to be imposed upon all, as “truth”, “goodness”, “perfection”: the given species, in fact, begins to tyrannise —
It is a form of faith, of instinct, when a certain species of man does not perceive that his kind has been conditioned, when he does not understand his relation to other species. At any rate, any species of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed as soon as it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights and no longer desires to be master.