"To will" is to will an object. But "object," as an idea, involves a valuation. Whence do valuations originate? Is a permanent norm, "pleasant or painful," their basis? But in an incalculable number of cases we first of all _make_ a thing painful, by investing it with a valuation. The compass of moral valuations: they play a part in almost every mental impression. To us the world is _coloured_ by them. We have imagined the purpose and value of all things: owing to this we possess an enormous fund of _latent power,_ but the study of _comparative_ values teaches us that values which were actually opposed to each other have been held in high esteem, and that there have been _many_ tables of laws (they could not, therefore, have been worth anything _per se_). The analysis of individual tables of laws revealed the fact that they were framed (often very badly) as the _conditions of existence_ for limited groups of people, to ensure their maintenance. Upon examining modern men, we found that there are a large number of _very different_ values to hand, and that they no longer contain any creative power--the fundamental principle: "the condition of existence" is now quite divorced from the moral values. It is much more superfluous and not nearly so painful. It becomes an _arbitrary_ matter. Chaos. Who creates _the goal_ which stands above mankind kind and above the individual? Formerly morality was a _preservative_ measure: but nobody wants to _preserve_ any longer, there is nothing to preserve. Thus we are reduced to an _experimental morality,_ each must _postulate_ a goal for himself. 261. What is the _criterion_ of a moral action? (1) Its disinterestedness, (2) its universal acceptation, etc. But this is parlour-morality. Races must be studied and observed, and, in each case, the criterion must be discovered, as also the thing it expresses: a belief such as: "This particular attitude or behaviour belongs to the principal condition of our existence." Immoral means "that which brings about ruin." Now all societies in which these principles were discovered have met with their ruin: a few of these principles have been used and used again, because every newly established community required them; this was the case, for instance, with "Thou shalt not steal." In ages when people could not be expected to show any marked social instinct (as, for instance, in the age of the Roman Empire) the latter was, religiously speaking, directed towards the idea of "spiritual salvation," or, in philosophical parlance, towards "the greatest happiness." For even the philosophers of Greece did not feel any more for their πολις. 262. _The necessity of false values._--A judgment may be refuted when it is shown that it was conditioned: but the necessity of retaining it is not thereby cancelled. Reasons can no more eradicate false values than they can alter astigmatism in a man's eyes.