Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

0. INTRODUCTION BY MRS FORSTER-NIETZSCHE. (continued)

The notion of rearing the Superman is only a new form of an ideal Nietzsche already had in his youth, that "THE OBJECT OF MANKIND SHOULD LIE IN ITS HIGHEST INDIVIDUALS" (or, as he writes in "Schopenhauer as Educator": "Mankind ought constantly to be striving to produce great men--this and nothing else is its duty.") But the ideals he most revered in those days are no longer held to be the highest types of men. No, around this future ideal of a coming humanity--the Superman--the poet spread the veil of becoming. Who can tell to what glorious heights man can still ascend? That is why, after having tested the worth of our noblest ideal--that of the Saviour, in the light of the new valuations, the poet cries with passionate emphasis in "Zarathustra":

"Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest and the smallest man:--

All-too-similar are they still to each other. Verily even the greatest found I--all-too-human!"--

The phrase "the rearing of the Superman," has very often been misunderstood. By the word "rearing," in this case, is meant the act of modifying by means of new and higher values--values which, as laws and guides of conduct and opinion, are now to rule over mankind. In general the doctrine of the Superman can only be understood correctly in conjunction with other ideas of the author's, such as:--the Order of Rank, the Will to Power, and the Transvaluation of all Values. He assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined. Now, however, a new table of valuations must be placed over mankind--namely, that of the strong, mighty, and magnificent man, overflowing with life and elevated to his zenith--the Superman, who is now put before us with overpowering passion as the aim of our life, hope, and will. And just as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the qualities favourable to the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed, has succeeded in producing a weak, suffering, and "modern" race, so this new and reversed system of valuing ought to rear a healthy, strong, lively, and courageous type, which would be a glory to life itself. Stated briefly, the leading principle of this new system of valuing would be: "All that proceeds from power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad."