_Value_ is the highest amount of power that a man can assimilate--a man, not mankind! Mankind is much more of a means than an end. It is a question of type: mankind is merely the experimental material; it is the overflow of the ill-constituted--a field of ruins. 714. Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a _new blessedness_ was discovered--a new _feeling._ 715. The standpoint of "value" is the same as that of the _conditions_ of _preservation_ and _enhancement,_ in regard to complex creatures of relative stability appearing in the course of evolution. There are no such things as lasting and ultimate entities, no atoms, no monads: here also "permanence" was first introduced by ourselves (from practical, utilitarian, and other motives). "The forms that rule"; the sphere of the subjugated is continually extended; or it decreases or increases according to the conditions (nourishment) being either favourable or unfavourable. "Value" is essentially the standpoint for the increase or decrease of these dominating centres (pluralities in any case; for "unity" cannot be observed anywhere in the nature of development). The means of expression afforded by language are useless for the purpose of conveying any facts concerning "development": the need of positing a rougher world of stable existences and things forms part of our _eternal desire for preservation._ We may speak of atoms and monads in a relative sense: and this is certain, _that the smallest world is the most stable world ..._. There is no such thing as will: there are only punctuations of will, which are constantly increasing and decreasing their power. III THE WILL TO POWER AS EXEMPLIFIED IN SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 1. Society and the State. 716. We take it as a principle that only individuals feel any responsibility. Corporations are invented to do what the individual has not the courage to do. For this reason all communities are vastly more upright and instructive, as regards the nature of man, than the individual who is too cowardly to have the courage of his own desires. All altruism is the prudence of the private man. societies are not mutually altruistic. The commandment, "Thou shalt love thy next-door neighbour," has never been extended to thy neighbour in general. Rather what Manu says is probably truer: "We must conceive of all the States on our own frontier, and their allies, as being hostile, and for the same reason we must consider all of their neighbours as being friendly to us." The study of society is invaluable, because man in society is far more childlike than man individually. Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power, and order. Manu's words again are simple and dignified: "Virtue could hardly rely on her own strength alone. Really it is only the fear of punishment that keeps men in their limits, and leaves every one in peaceful possession of his own." 717.