GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OF FASCISM 633
scale of values which puts a premium upon mediocrity.
In sum, the struggle for survival still continues, and
assumes the form of a conflict between the average many
and the superior few for the achievement of power. The
9
of Nietzsche's doctrine is to present a contrast
upshot
between a small number of superior individuals, new
types whom the evolutionary process is seeking to evolve,
and the vast mass of average men who represent the
type already evolved. The distinctive characteristic of the
superior type is their will to power; or, rather, it is only
in the superior that the will to power, which is common
to all living organisms, emerges into consciousness to
guide their actions and to set their ends.
"Wherever I found a living thing, there found I the
Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found
I the will to be master. Neither necessity nor desire, but
the love of power, is the demon of mankind. You may give
men everything possible health, food, shelter, enjoyment
but they are and remain unhappy and capricious, for
the demon waits and waits and must be satisfied. "
"Passion for power," Nietzsche continues, "is the earth-
quake which breaketh and upbreaketh all that is rotten
and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher of
whited sepulchres; the flashing interrogative sign besides
premature answers; passion for power; before whose glance
man creepeth and croucheth and drudgeth, and becometh
lower than the serpent and the swine, until at last great
contempt
crieth out of him."
The Will to Power. This passion for power Nietzsche
endows with moral attributes. In those who have it it is
a mark of higher morality. Not only do they dominate
the herd; they ought
to dominate it. It is almost as if
Nietzsche were saying; "Might is right and quite rightfy."
From this fundamental principle all other ethical principles
are derived Pleasure and pain, for example, are not the
rudders of human nature; they are the by-products of
the urge to power. Pain means that an obstacle to power
is being encountered; pleasure, that it is overcome. "Pain