The temporary preponderance of social valuations is both comprehensible and useful; it is a matter of building a _foundation_ upon which a _stronger_ species will ultimately be made possible. The standard of strength: to be able to live under the transvalued valuations, and to desire them for all eternity. State and society regarded as a sub-structure: economic point of view, education conceived as breeding. 904. A consideration which "free spirits" _lack_: that the same discipline which makes a strong nature still stronger, and enables it to go in for big undertakings, _breaks up and withers the mediocre_: doubt --_la largeur de cœur_--experiment--independence. 905. The hammer. How should men who must value in the opposite way be constituted?--Men who possess _all_ the qualities of the modern soul, but are strong enough to convert them into real health? The means to their task. 906. The strong man, who is mighty in the instincts of a strong and healthy organisation, digests his deeds just as well as he digests his meals; he even gets over the effects of heavy fare: in the main, however, he is led by an inviolable and severe instinct which prevents his doing anything which goes against his grain, just as he never does anything against his taste. 907. _Can_ we _foresee_ the favourable circumstances under which creatures of the highest value might arise? It is a thousand times too complicated, and the probabilities of failure are _very great:_ on that account we cannot be inspired by the thought of striving after them! Scepticism.--To oppose this we can enhance courage, insight, hardness, independence, and the feeling of responsibility; we can also subtilise and learn to forestall the delicacy of the scales, so that favourable accidents may be enlisted on our side. 908. Before we can even think of acting, an enormous amount of work requires to be done. In the main, however, _a cautious exploitation_ of the present conditions would be our best and most advisable course of action. The actual _creation_ of conditions such as those which occur by accident, presupposes the existence of _iron_ men such as have not yet lived. Our first task must be to make the personal ideal _prevail_ and _become realised_! He who has understood the nature of man and _the origin of mankind's greatest specimens, shudders before man and takes flight from all action_: this is the result of inherited valuations!! My consolation is, that the nature of man is _evil,_ and this guarantees his _strength_! 909. _The typical forms of self-development, or the eight principal questions:_-- 1. Do we want to be more multifarious or more simple than we are? 2. Do we want to be happier than we are, or more indifferent to both happiness and unhappiness? 3. Do we want to be more satisfied with ourselves, or more exacting and more inexorable? 4. Do we want to be softer, more yielding, and more human than we are, or more inhuman?