II
The idea of a moral order in the world rests ultimately, according to Nietzsche, on an attempt to infect the very nature of things with conceptions of guilt and punishment such as those we have been considering.[1] He states the personal form of the assumption thus: "That there is a will of God as to what man is to do, to refrain from doing; that the worth of a people, or an individual, is determined by the extent to which the will of God is obeyed; that in the fortunes of a people or individual, the will of God demonstrates itself as governing, i.e., as punishing and rewarding according to the degree of obedience."[2] We may substitute for the "will of God" here an "Eternal Tendency making for righteousness" in the world, or the "Moral Law" (as often conceived), and say virtually the same thing,
"Nur mit em bischen andern Worten."
Nietzsche thinks that the idea arose somewhat as follows[3]:—The starting-point is individuals conceived of as in debt or guilty toward the community. The community is seen, however, to be not of the moment only, but an extension of the past, so that there is debt to ancestors as well as to the existing generation. The debt thus grows larger, and sacrifices are an endeavor to repay. In time the remotest ancestors become heroes, Gods—particularly does this happen with the ancestors of a powerful and conquering race. Finally, perhaps as the result of a conflict of races and the ascendancy of some one, the idea arises of a supreme, perhaps an only, God. The exact nature of the God-making process is a secondary matter; the important point is that at last debt or guilt to a God arises. Disobedience to the community's mores becomes trespass against the God, sin; if the mores are reduced to what I have ventured to call essential morality, this is none the less, rather the more the case. And now what is the requital for guilt in the new situation, what the satisfaction to the Invisible Creditor? Essentially the
