Macmillan

they
198 BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
originated!Men with a stillnatural nature, barbarians in
every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, stillin possession
of unbroken strengthof will and desire for power,
threw themselves upon weaker,more moral,more peaceful
races (perhapstradingor cattle-rearing communities),or
upon old mellow civilisationsin which the final vital force
was
flickering out in brilliantfireworks of wat and depravity.
At the commencement, the noble caste was alwaysthe barbarian
caste:
their superiority did not consist firstof all
in their physical,but in their psychical power
"
were
more completemen (which at every pointalso impliesthe
same as "more completebeasts").
258
"
Corruption as
the indication that anarchy threatens to
break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of
"
the emotions,called "life," is convulsed
differentaccordingto
itself. When, for instance,
the organisation in which
is somethingradically
aristocracy like that of
France at the beginningof the Revolution,flung away its
privileges with sublime disgustand sacrificed itselfto an
excess of its moral sentiments,it was
"
corruption: it was
it manifests
reallyonlythe closingact of the corruptionwhich had existed
for centuries, by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated
step by step itslordlyprerogatives and lowered itself
to a functionof royalty(in the end even to its decoration
and parade-dress)Ṭhe essentialthing,however,in a good
and healthyaristocracy
that it should not regarditself
as a function either of the kingshipor the commonwealth,^
but as the significance and
thereof"
highestjustification
that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the
sacrificeof a
legionof individuals, who, foritssake,must
be