_Reflection._--It is all nonsense to suppose that this general _conquest of values_ is anti-biological. In order to explain it, we ought to try and show that it is the result of a certain interest of life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this method which leads to the prevalence of the weak and the physiologically botched--if things were otherwise, might man not cease to exist? Problem ... The _enhancement_ of the type may prove fatal to the _maintenance of the species._ Why?--The experience of history shows that strong races _decimate_ each other _mutually,_ by means of war, lust for power, and venturousness; the strong emotions; wastefulness (strength is no longer capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from excessive tension); their existence is a costly affair in short, they persistently give rise to friction _between themselves;_ periods of _profound slackness_ and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be _paid for...._ The strong are, after all, weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the average weak ones. They are _squandering_ races. "_Permanence,_" in itself, can have no value: that which ought to be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for the species, but a life _richer_ in creations. It would remain to be proved that, even as things are, a richer sum of creations is attained than in the case of the shorter existence; _i.e._ that man, as a storehouse of power, attains to a much higher degree of dominion over things under the conditions which have existed hitherto.... We are here face to face with a problem of _economics._ [Footnote 1: The German word is "Naturalist," and really means "realist" in a bad sense.--Tr.] 865. The state of mind which calls itself "idealism," and which will neither allow mediocrity to be mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make everything uniform! We should have a clear idea of how _dearly we have to pay for the establishment of a virtue;_ and that virtue is nothing generally desirable, but a _noble piece of madness,_ a beautiful exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated.... 866.