e side, and the impotent, the mean, the weak, and the
ill-constituted on the other. The war is a war of moral principles.
The morality of the powerful class, Nietzsche calls NOBLE- or
MASTER-MORALITY; that of the weak and subordinate class he calls
SLAVE-MORALITY. In the first morality it is the eagle which, looking
down upon a browsing lamb, contends that "eating lamb is good." In the
second, the slave-morality, it is the lamb which, looking up from the
sward, bleats dissentingly: "Eating lamb is evil."

(B.) The Master- and Slave-Morality Compared.

The first morality is active, creative, Dionysian. The second is
passive, defensive,--to it belongs the "struggle for existence."

Where attempts have not been made to reconcile the two moralities, they
may be described as follows:--All is GOOD in the noble morality which
proceeds from strength, power, health, well-constitutedness, happiness,
and awfulness; for, the motive force behind the people practising it is
"the struggle for power." The antithesis "good and bad" to this
first class means the same as "noble" and "despicable." "Bad" in the
master-morality must be applied to the coward, to all acts that spring
from weakness, to the man with "an eye to the main chance," who would
forsake everything in order to live.

With the second, the slave-morality, the case is different. There,
inasmuch as the community is an oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, and
weary one, all THAT will be held to be good which alleviates the
state of suffering. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm heart, patience,
industry, and humility--these are unquestionably the qualities we shall
here find flooded with the light of approval and admiration; because
they are the most USEFUL qualities--; they make life endurable, they are
of assistance in the "struggle for existence" which is the motive force
behind the people practising this morality. To this class, all that is
AWFUL is bad, in fact it is THE evil par excellence. Strength, health,
superabundance of animal spirits and power, are regarded with hate,
suspicion, and fear by the subordinate class.

Now Nietzsche believed that the first or the noble-morality conduced to
an ascent in the line of life; because it was creative and active. On
the other hand, he believed that the second or slave-morality, where
it became paramount, led to degeneration, because it was passive and
defensive, wanting merely to keep those who practised it alive. Hence
hi