Human, All Too Human

XIX

than ever before pointed toward the background from which the free spirit stands out: toward the world of bound spirits, toward the rule, toward people of common sense, toward the moral "norm." He was happy to find in Rée a scholar who had devoted himself thoroughly to the contemplation of this lower moral world. Rée knew the recent English utilitarians especially well: he follows their trail (—it leads back to Helvétius via Bentham). On Nietzsche’s side, of course, it did not stop at mere familiarization; he immediately took possession of the entire territory and plowed through it in his own way: from then on, we see him always engaged in this work: all philosophy becomes psychology for him, the most astonishing moralistic symptomatology that has ever existed. He, with his strong feeling for contrasts, for distinctions, for rank, for superiority and subordination, for war and enmity, had already cast glances at the ancient Greek polis city-state such as surely no modern person before him had done: with this gaze, he now also comes as a moral researcher to results that sound thoroughly different from those of other moralists. It is the mania for equality that speaks from these moralists: they want as an ideal the "well-being of all," the "general utility," the weakness and caution of the comfortable, which they call "virtue": they see in morality only what they themselves feel and desire; and since they are incapable of wishing for anything higher, they do not even get the great problems in sight—the morality of the leaders, of the truly responsible, of the strong-willed, of the superior spirits. "Man strives for happiness"—they say (Nietzsche defends himself against this viewpoint, among others, in aphorism 7 and earlier in Schopenhauer as Educator, p. 53 bottom; 2nd ed. p. 51 bottom). "Man strives for power, be it as a commander or as a subject"—that is the core feeling of Nietzsche. One would certainly do Rée an injustice if one wanted to say with regard to both formulas: "Here Rée, there Nietzsche!" but certainly Rée’s core feeling is also not at all on Nietzsche’s side. Before Rée’s eye, humanity blurs into the flat and formless, whereas Nietzsche always sees it as a rugged relief with valleys and mountains: he cannot help but think of all living things, including communities, as contrasting within themselves (this is expressed most magnificently in the chapter "On Self-Overcoming," Zarathustra II 161 ff.). It will therefore strike the democratically accustomed reader that Nietzsche in the