The fruit of this yearning of weak nations to preserve as much of their national unity as possible is the thing Nietzsche calls slave-morality. Its first and foremost purpose is to discourage, and if possible, blot out, all those traits and actions which are apt to excite the ire, the envy, or the cupidity of the menacing enemies round about. Revenge, pride and ambition are condemned as evils. Humility, forgiveness, contentment and resignation are esteemed virtues. The moral man is the man who has lost all desire to triumph and exult over his fellow-men--the man of mercy, of charity, of self-sacrifice. "The impotence which does not retaliate for injuries," says Nietzsche, "is falsified into 'goodness;' timorous abjectness becomes 'humility;' subjection to those one hates is called 'obedience,' and the one who desires and commands this impotence, abjectness and subjection is called God. The inoffensiveness of the weak, their cowardice (of which they have ample store); their standing at the door, their unavoidable time-serving and waiting--all these things get good names. The inability to get revenge is translated into an _unwillingness_ to get revenge, and becomes forgiveness, a virtue. "They are wretched--these mutterers and forgers--but they say that their wretchedness is of God's choosing and even call it a distinction that he confers upon them. The dogs which are liked best, they say, are beaten most. Their wretchedness is a test, a preparation, a schooling--something which will be paid for, one day, in happiness. They call that 'bliss.'"[8] By the laws of this slave-morality the immoral man is he who seeks power and eminence and riches--the millionaire, the robber, the fighter, the schemer. The act of acquiring property by conquest--which is looked upon as a matter of course by master-morality--becomes a crime and is called theft. The act of mating in obedience to natural impulses, without considering the desire of others, becomes adultery; the quite natural act of destroying one's enemies becomes murder. [1] II Thess. II, 15: "Hold the tradition which ye have been taught." Eusebius Pamphilus: "Those things which are written believe; those things which are not written, neither think upon nor inquire after." St. Austin: "Whatever ye hear from the holy scriptures let it favor well with you; whatever is without them refuse." See also St. Basil, Tertullian and every other professional moralist since, down to John Alexander Dowie and Emperor William of Germany. [2] "_Morgenröte_," preface, § 3. [3] "_Der Antichrist_," § 57. [4] The fact that the state is founded, not upon a mysterious "social impulse" in man, but upon each individual's regard for his own interest, was first pointed out by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), in his argument against Aristotle and Grotius. [5] The risk of such idol-smashing is well set forth at length by G. Bernard Shaw in the preface to "The Quintessence of Ibsenism;" London, 1904.