The determining point is there where great strength is present, or where a great amount of strength can be discharged. The mass, as the sum-total of the _weak,_ reacts _slowly;_ it defends itself against much for which it is too weak,--against that for which it has no use; it _never_ creates, it _never_ takes a step forward. This is opposed to the theory which denies the strong individual and would maintain that the "masses do everything." The difference is similar to that which obtains between separated generations: four or even five generations may lie between the masses and him who is the moving spirit--it is a _chronological_ difference. The _values of the weak_ are in the van, because the strong have adopted them in order to _lead_ with them. 864. _Why the weak triumph._--On the whole, the sick and the weak have more _sympathy_ and are more "humane"; the sick and the weak have more intellect, and are more changeable more variegated, more entertaining--more malicious; the sick alone invented _malice._ (A morbid precocity is often to be observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous people.) _Esprit:_ the property of older races; Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect--and money. Anti-Semites--another name for "bungled and botched.") The sick and the weak have always had _fascination_ on their side; they are more _interesting_ than the healthy: the fool and the saint--the two most interesting kinds of men.... Closely related thereto is the "genius." The "great adventurers and criminals" and all great men, the most healthy in particular, have always been _sick_ at certain periods of their lives--great disturbances of the emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are all accompanied by very profound perturbations. And, as for decadence, every man who does not die prematurely manifests it in almost every respect--he therefore knows from experience the instincts which belong to it: for _half his life_ nearly every man is decadent. And finally, woman! _One-half of mankind is weak,_ chronically sick, changeable, shifty woman requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also requires a religion of the weak which glorifies weakness, love, and modesty as divine: or, better still, she makes the strong weak--she _rules_ when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with decadent types,--the priests, for instance, against the mighty, against the "strong," against _men._ Women avail themselves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love:--the _mother_ stands as the symbol of _convincing_ altruism.