Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
I: Criticism of Morality§255 All virtues should be looked upon as physiological conditions: the principal organic functions, more particularly, should be considered necessary and good. All virtues are really refined passions and elevated physiological conditions.
Pity and philanthropy may be regarded as the developments of sexual relations, justice as the development of the passion for revenge, virtue as the love of resistance, the will to power, honour as an acknowledgment of an equal, or of an equally powerful, force.