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. 256. Under "Morality" I understand a system of valuations which is in relation with the conditions of a creature's life. 257. Formerly it was said of every form of morality, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and from it I learn the _Soil_ out of which it grew." 258. I have tried to understand all moral judgments as symptoms and a language of signs in which the processes of physiological prosperity or the reverse, as also the consciousness of the conditions of preservation and growth, are betrayed--a mode of interpretation equal in worth to astrology, prejudices, created by instincts (peculiar to races, communities, and different stages of existence, as, for instance, youth or decay, etc.). Applying this principle to the morality of Christian Europe more particularly, we find that our moral values are signs of decline, of a disbelief in _Life,_ and of a preparation for pessimism. My leading doctrine is this: _there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality._ What is the meaning of the fact that we have imagined a _contradiction_ in existence? This is of paramount importance: behind all other valuations those moral valuations stand commandingly. Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then measure? And then of what value would knowledge be, etc. etc.??? 259. A point of view: in all valuations there is a definite purpose: the _preservation_ of an individual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a belief, or a culture.--Thanks to the fact that people _forget_ that all valuing has a purpose, one and the same man may swarm with a host of contradictory valuations, and _therefore with a host of contradictory impulses._ This is the _expression of disease in man_ as opposed to the health of animals, in which all the instincts answer certain definite purposes. This creature full of contradictions, however, has in his being a grand method of acquiring knowledge: he feels the pros and cons, he elevates himself _to Justice_--that is to say, to the ascertaining of principles _beyond the valuations good and evil._ The wisest man would thus be the _richest in contradictions,_ he would also be gifted with mental antennæ wherewith he could understand all kinds of men; and with it all he would have his great moments, when all the chords in his being would ring in _splendid unison_--the rarest of _accidents_ even in us! A sort of planetary movement. 260.