Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
Concluding remarks concerning the criticism of morality§400 The three assertions:
All that is ignoble is the higher (the protest of the “vulgar man”).
All that is contrary to Nature is higher (the protest of the physiologically malformed).
All that is of average worth is higher (the protest of the herd, of the “mediocre”).
Thus in the history of morality a will to power finds expression, by means of which, either the slaves, the oppressed, the bungled and the malformed, those that suffer from themselves, or the mediocre, attempt to make those valuations prevail which favour their existence.
From a biological standpoint, therefore, the phenomenon Morality is highly suspicious. Up to the present, morality has developed at the cost of: the ruling classes and their specific instincts, the well constituted and beautiful natures, the independent and privileged classes in all respects.
Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement opposing Nature’s endeavours to arrive at a higher type. Its effects are: mistrust of life in general (in so far as its tendencies are felt to be immoral), hostility towards the senses (inasmuch as the highest values are felt to be opposed to the higher instincts), Degeneration and self-destruction of “higher natures”, because it is precisely in them that the conflict becomes conscious.