Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
A Criticism of the Words: Improvement, Perfecting, Elevation§398 What I want to make clear, with all the means in my power, is. (a) That there is no worse confusion than that which confounds breeding and taming, and these two things have always been confused. Breeding, as I understand it, is a means of husbanding the enormous powers of humanity in such a way that whole generations may build upon the foundations laid by their progenitors not only outwardly, but inwardly, organically, developing from the already existing stem and growing stronger. (b) That there is an exceptional danger in believing that mankind as a whole is developing and growing stronger, if individuals are seen to grow more feeble and more equally mediocre. Mankind is an abstraction: the object of breeding, even in regard to the most individual cases, can only be the stronger man (the man without breeding is weak, dissipated and unstable).