_The "good man" as a tyrant--_Mankind has always repeated the same error: it has always transformed a mere vital measure into the _measure_ and standard of life;--instead of seeking the standard in the highest ascent of life, in the problem of growth and exhaustion, it takes the _preservative measures_ of a very definite kind of life, and uses them to exclude all other kinds of life, and even to criticise Life itself and to select from among its forms. That is to say, man ultimately forgets that measures are a means to an end, and gets to like them for themselves: they take the place of a goal in his mind, and even become the standard of goals to him--that is to say, _a given species of man_ regards his means of existence as the only legitimate means, as the means which ought to be imposed upon all, as "truth," "goodness," "perfection": the given species, in fact, begins to _tyrannise._ ... It is a _form of faith,_ of instinct, when a certain species of man does not perceive that his kind has been conditioned, when he does not understand his relation to other species. At any rate, any species of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed as soon as it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights, and no longer desires to be master. 355. "All good people are weak: they are good because they are not strong enough to be evil," said the Latuka chieftain Comorro to Baker. * * * "Disasters are not to the faint-hearted," is a Russian proverb. 356. Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate: thus you would that men were?--that _good men_ were? But such men I can only conceive as slaves, the slaves of the future. 357. _The metamorphoses of slavery_; its disguise in the cloak of religion; its transfiguration through morality. 358. _The ideal slave_ (the "good man").--He who cannot regard himself as a "purpose," and who cannot give himself any aim whatsoever, instinctively honours the morality of _unselfishness._ Everything urges him to this morality: his prudence, his experience, and his vanity. And even faith is a form of self-denial. *** _Atavism_: delightful feeling, to be able to obey unconditionally for once. *** Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance, are just so many _obstacles_ in the way of _sovereign sentiments,_ of great _ingenuity,_ of an heroic purpose, of noble existence for one's self. *** It is not a question of _going ahead_ (to that end all that is required is to be at best a herdsman, that is to say, the prime need of the herd), it is rather a matter of _getting along alone,_ of _being able to be another._ 359.