FESTIVE MOODS.—It is exactly those men who aspire most ardently towards
power who feel it indescribably agreeable to be overpowered! to sink
suddenly and deeply into a feeling as into a whirlpool! To suffer the
reins to be snatched out of their hand, and to watch a movement which
takes them they know not where! Whatever or whoever may be the person or
thing that renders us this service, it is nevertheless a great service: we
are so happy and breathless, and feel around us an exceptional silence, as
if we were in the most central bowels of the earth. To be for once
entirely powerless! the plaything of the elementary forces of nature!
There is a restfulness in this happiness, a casting away of the great
burden, a descent without fatigue, as if one had been given up to the
blind force of gravity.
This is the dream of the mountain climber, who, although he sees his goal
far above him, nevertheless falls asleep on the way from utter exhaustion,
and dreams of the happiness of the contrast—this effortless rolling down
hill. I describe happiness as I imagine it to be in our present-day
society, the badgered, ambitious society of Europe and America. Now and
then they _wish_ to fall back into impotence—this enjoyment is offered
them by wars, arts, religions, and geniuses. When a man has temporarily
abandoned himself to a momentary impression which devours and crushes
everything—and this is the modern festive mood—he afterwards becomes
freer, colder, more refreshed, and more strict, and again strives
tirelessly after the contrary of all this: power.
272.
THE PURIFICATION OF RACES.—It is probable that there are no pure races,
but only races which have become purified, and even these are extremely
rare.(8) We more often meet with crossed races, among whom, together with
the defects in the harmony of the bodily forms (for example when the eyes
do not accord with the mouth) we necessarily always find defects of
harmony in habits and appreciations. (Livingstone heard some one say, “God
created white and black men, but the devil created the half-castes.”)