The individual is something quite _new,_ and capable of _creating new things._ He is something absolute, and all his actions are quite his own. The individual in the end has to seek the valuation for his actions in himself: because he has to give an individual meaning even to traditional words and notions. His interpretation of a formula is at least personal, even if he does not create the formula itself: at least as an interpreter he is creative. 768. The "ego" oppresses and kills. It acts like an organic cell. It is predatory and violent. It would fain regenerate itself--pregnancy. It would fain give birth to its God and see all mankind at its feet. 769. Every living organism gropes around as far as its power permits, and overcomes all that is weaker than itself: by this means it finds pleasure in its own existence. The _increasing "humanity"_ of this tendency consists in the fact that we are beginning to feel ever more subtly how difficult it is really to _absorb_ others: while we could show our power by injuring him, his will _estranges_ him from us, and thus makes him less susceptible of being overcome. 770. The degree of resistance which has to be continually overcome in order to remain _at the top,_ is the measure of _freedom,_ whether for individuals or for societies: freedom being understood as positive power, as will to power. The highest form of individual freedom, of sovereignty, would, according to this, in all probability be found not five feet away from its opposite--that is to say, where the danger of slavery hangs over life, like a hundred swords of Damocles. Let any one go through the whole of history from this point of view: the ages when the individual reaches perfect maturity, _i.e._ the free ages, when the classical type, _sovereign man,_ is attained to--these were certainly not humane times! There should be no choice: either one must be uppermost or nethermost--like a worm, despised, annihilated, trodden upon. One must have tyrants against one in order to become a tyrant, _i.e._ in order to be free. It is no small advantage to have a hundred swords of Damocles suspended over one: it is only thus that one learns to dance, it is only thus that one attains to any freedom in one's movements. 771. Man more than any other animal was originally _altruistic_--hence his slow growth (child) and lofty development. Hence, too, his extraordinary and latest kind of egoism.--Beasts of prey are much more _individualistic._ 772.