Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/353

take for granted that we should do this and that, since otherwise our life would be in danger. But suppose a man is ready, for the sake of honor or knowledge or some supreme passion, to risk his life or to throw it away, how shall we argue with him, what common premise have we to start from, since we take life as supreme and he something else? Or, again, we often say that this or that is good, because posterity and the preservation of the race depend on it. But this presupposes that we will posterity and the preservation of the race. Suppose that some one does not, the instinct and demand that is so strong in most of us being weak or lacking (Nietzsche thinks that it is not necessary)—what then? What will reasoning help in such circumstances?^[1] Or, supposing that we are all agreed that existence is desirable, what kind of existence shall it be? Some may prefer the greatest possible amount of existence, at least of comfortable, happy existence. Others may prefer the highest type of existence, even if small in amount, or if the comfort and happiness of the mass would have to be sacrificed somewhat to attain it. How is a decision to be reached? There would appear to be a difference of ultimate ideals, last choices. That the welfare of the mass is in itself the more valuable end is a naïveté which Nietzsche leaves to the English biologists.^[2] In truth, there is no value in itself, all values are posited, set, and relative to those who posit them. Instead of a rationale (i.e., rational deduction) of supreme ideals, it is possible only to give a psychology of them—that is, to indicate how as matter of fact they arise: and this is the sixth point. Ideals, says Nietzsche, [though he is speaking here of his own personal ideals, I think he would say that the truth is general] are the anticipatory hopes, i.e., hoped-for satisfactions of our impulses; as surely as we have impulses, so inevitably do they work on our fancy to produce a scheme of what we [or things] should be, to satisfy them—this is what idealizing means. Even the rascal has his ideal, though it may not be edifying to us.^[3] Nietzsche does not blink the fact that ideals, and ideals of honest people, may vary, that there is no one of which we can say with logical

1. Werke, XII, 220, § 155.
2. Note at the end of Genealogy etc., I.
3. Werke, XI, 390, § 613.