lie.—_The order of castes,_ the highest, the dominating law, is only the sanction of a _natural order,_ of a natural legislation of the first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no “modern idea” has any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which reciprocally condition one another and which gravitate differently in the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,—the latter as the greatest number, the former as the _élite._ The superior caste—I call them the _fewest,_—has, as the perfect caste, the privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:_ goodness is a privilege. On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that makes everything _seem ugly,_—or even indignation at the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so is pessimism. “_The world is perfect_”—that is what the instinct of the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; “imperfection, every kind of _inferiority_ to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala belongs to this perfection.” The most intellectual men, as the _strongest_ find their happiness where others meet with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an instinct They regard a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush their fellows is to them a _recreation...._ Knowledge, a form of asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They rule, not because they will, but because they _are;_ they are not at liberty to take a second place.—The second in rank are the guardians of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them of all that is _coarse_ in the work of ruling,—their retinue, their right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing “artificial,” that which is _otherwise_ is artificial,—by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.... The