When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm, it was then that the paradox arose: "The lowest man is of more value than that one on the throne!" And thus the path was prepared for an _image of God_ which was as remote as possible from the image of the mightiest,--God on the Cross! 875. _Higher man and gregarious man._--When great men are _wanting,_ the great of the past are converted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of religions proves that mankind no longer has any pleasure in man ("nor in woman neither," as in Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically. Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great men; they make inferior men stupid. 876. Buckle affords the best example of the extent to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is incapable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept, "higher nature." The opinion which he _combats_ so passionately--that "great men," individuals, princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the levers and _causes_ of all great movements, is instinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant that all that was essential and valuable in such a "higher man," was the fact that he was capable of setting masses in motion; in short, that his sole merit was the effect he produced.... But the "higher nature" of the great man resides precisely in being different, in being unable to communicate with others, in the loftiness of his rank--_not_ in any sort of effect he may produce even though this be the shattering of both hemispheres. 877. The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that is its justification. We ought to desire the anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon made nationalism possible: that is the latter's excuse. The value of a man (apart, of course, from morality and immorality: because with these concepts a man's _worth_ is not even skimmed) does not lie in his utility; because he would continue to exist even if there were nobody to whom he could be useful. And why could not that man be the very pinnacle of manhood who was the source of the worst possible effects for his race: so high and so superior, that in his presence everything would go to rack and ruin from envy? 878.