The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II
Nietzsche · en
_The twentieth century._--The Abbé Galiani says somewhere: "_La
prévoyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de l'Europe. Si l'on
voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prévoir, tout le monde serait
tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu'on serait plus malheureux parce qu'on
ne ferait pas la guerre._" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of
my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something
beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars.
A condition of excessive _consciousness,_ after the worst of
earthquakes: with new questions.
134.
It is the time of the _great noon, of the most appalling
enlightenment_: my particular kind of _Pessimism_: the great
starting-point.
(1) Fundamental contradiction between civilisation and the elevation of
man.
(2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of
calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the _herd,_
which rises against stronger men).
(3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the
facilitation of a _selection_ being made at the cost of a crowd) are
the _conditions_ of all growth.
(4). _The multiformity_ of the world as a question of _strength,_
which sees all things in the _perspective of their growth._ The moral
Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of
slaves (in comparison with the aristocratic values of the _ancient
world). _
SECOND BOOK.
CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED HITHERTO.
I.
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
All the beauty and sublimity with which we have invested real and
imagined things, I will show to be the property and product of man, and
this should be his most beautiful apology. Man as a poet, as a thinker,
as a god, as love, as power. Oh, the regal liberality with which he
has lavished gifts upon things in order _to impoverish_ himself and
make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest
disinterestedness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to
conceal from himself that _he_ it was who had created what he admired.
1. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.
135.