Nietzsche even finds advantages in the new régime, in which government does not so much rule the people as become their organ. "Democratic institutions are quarantine stations against the old pest of tyrannical ambitions—as such, very useful and very tedious."[1] The democratizing of Europe now going on seems to him a link in the chain of those immense prophylactic measures, characteristic of the new time, by which we are marking ourselves off against the Middle Ages. At last we are to get a sure foundation, on which the future can build. We shall make it impossible for fruitful fields of culture to be destroyed in a night by wild and senseless mountain floods, shall put up dams and walls against barbarians, against pestilences, against whatever would subject the bodies or the minds of men. It is crude, rough work at the start, but it will prepare the way for something higher and more spiritual to come—as the gardener has first to protect his field, and then proceeds to plant. Yes, Nietzsche will not judge the workers for democracy too harshly, if for the time being they consider democracy an end, instead of a means.[2] What democracy wants to do is to create and guarantee independence for as many as possible—independence of thought, of manner of life, and of occupation. To this end, however, it must make restrictions—must deny the right to vote on the one hand to the propertyless, on the other to the really rich. These are the two unpermissible classes in the community, for whose removal democracy must continually labor, the one because they are without independence, the other because they threaten it; they and the party system are the three great foes of independence. He is aware that democracy of this character belongs to the future; for present-day democracy differs from older forms of government simply in that it drives with new horses—the streets are the old ones, and the vehicles the old ones too.[3] With similar concern for independence, Nietzsche hopes that the new rulers will not try to rule everywhere, or make standards convenient to the majority binding on all. Some scattering individuals should be allowed to hold aloof from politics, if they will. They should also be forgiven if they do not take the happiness of the many as so supremely important, and become ironical now and then; their
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