He who saith unto himself, ‘I must believe, I must not question’ is not a man but a mere pusillanimous mental gelding. He who believes ‘because it has been handed down’ is a menial in his heart; and he who believes ‘because it has been written’ is a fool in his folly. Sagacious spirits doubt all things, and hold fast only to that which is demonstrably true.
The rules of life are not to be found in Korans, Bibles, Decalogues and Constitutions, but rather the rules of decadence and death. The ‘law of laws’ is not written in Hebrew consonants or upon tables of brass and stone, but in every man’s own heart. He who obeys any standard of right and wrong, but the one set up by his own conscience, betrays himself into the hands of his enemies, who are ever laying in wait to bind him to their millstones. And generally a man’s most dangerous enemies are his neighbours.
Masterful men laugh with contempt at spiritual thunders, and have no occasion to dread the decisions of any human tribunal. They are above and beyond all that. Laws and regulations are only for conquered vassals. The free man does not require them. He may manufacture and post up Decalogue regulations, to bind and control dependents with, but he does not himself bow down before those inventions of his own hands—except as a lure.
Statute books and golden rules, were made to fetter slaves and fools. Very useful are they, for controlling the herds of sentenced convicts, who fill the factories and cultivate the fields. All moral principles therefore are the servitors, not the masters of the strong. Power made moral codes, and Power abrogates them.
A man is under no obligation to obey anything or anybody. It is only serving-men that must obey, because they are caitiffs by birth, breeding, and condition. Morals are only required in an immoral community, that is to say a community held in a state of conquest.
Fear God, bridle the spirit, and obey the law, is advice most excellent, as from a philosopher to a yokel, but when directed in all earnestness at a man of inherent might, he smiles to himself in silent scorn. Full well he knows that in actual life the path to victory and renown, does not lie through Gethsemanies, but over fallen enemies, the ruins of rival combines, through Aceldamas. ‘Meekness of spirit’ is regarded by him as a convenient superstition, very useful for regulating the lives of his servants, his women and his children, but otherwise inoperative.
‘I rest my hopes on nothing,’ proclaimed Goethe, and masterful minds in all ages have never done otherwise. This unspoken thought gives to all truly great men their manifest superiority over the brainless, vociferating herd. The ‘common people’ have always had to be befooled with some written or wooden or golden Idol—some constitution, declaration or gospel.
Consequently the majority of them have ever been mental thralls, living and dying in an atmosphere of strong illusion. They are befooled and hypnotized even to this hour, and a large proportion of them must remain so, until time is no more. Indeed the masses of mankind are but the sediment from which all the more valuable elements have been long ago distilled. They are totally incapable of real freedom, and if it was granted to them, they would straightway vote themselves a master, or a thousand masters within twenty-four hours.
Mastership is right—Mastership is natural—Mastership is eternal. But only for those who cannot overthrow it, and trample it beneath their hoofs. Is it not a fact that in actual life, the ballot-box votes of ten million subjective personalities are as thistle down in the balance, when weighed against the far seeing thought, and material prowess of, say, ten strong silent men?
