The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
10.
_A Species of Atavism._—I like best to think of the rare men of an age as suddenly emerging aftershoots of past cultures, and of their persistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its civilisation:—there is thus still something in them to _think of_! They now seem strange, rare, and extraordinary: and he who feels these forces in himself has to foster them in face of a different, opposing world; he has to defend them, honour them, and rear them to maturity: and he either becomes a great man thereby, or a deranged and eccentric person, unless he should altogether break down betimes. Formerly these rare qualities were usual, and were consequently regarded as common: they did not distinguish people. Perhaps they were demanded and presupposed; it was impossible to become great with them, for indeed there was also no danger of becoming insane and solitary with them.—It is principally in the _old-established_ families and castes of a people that such after-effects of old impulses present themselves, while there is no probability of such atavism where races, habits, and valuations change too rapidly. For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples implies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of evolution is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and slow spirit:—and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of _that_ sort.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.