The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
677.
_To what Extent are all Interpretations of the World Symptoms of a Ruling Instinct._ The _artistic_ contemplation of the world: to sit before the world and to survey it. But here the analysis of æsthetical contemplation, its reduction to cruelty, its feeling of security, its judicial and detached attitude, etc., are lacking. The artist himself must be taken, together with his psychology (the criticism of the instinct of play, as a discharge of energy, the love of change, the love of bringing one's soul in touch with strange things, the absolute egoism of the artist, etc.). What instincts does he sublimate? The _scientific_ contemplation of the world: a criticism of the psychological longing for science, the desire to make everything comprehensible; the desire to make everything practical, useful, capable of being exploited--to what extent this is anti-æsthetic. Only that value counts, which may be reckoned in figures. How it happens that a mediocre type of man preponderates under the influence of science. It would be terrible if even history were to be taken possession of in this way--the realm of the superior, of the judicial. What instincts are here sublimated! The religious contemplation of the world: a criticism of the religious man. It is not necessary to take the moral man as the type, but the man who has extreme feelings of exaltation and of deep depression, and who interprets the former with thankfulness or suspicion without, however, seeking their origin in _himself_ (nor the latter either). The man who essentially feels anything but free, who sublimates his conditions and states of submission.
The _moral_ contemplation of the world. The feelings peculiar to certain social ranks are projected into the universe: stability, law, the making of things orderly, and the making of things alike, are _sought_ in the highest spheres, because they are valued most highly,--above everything or behind everything. What is _common_ to all: the ruling instincts _wish to be regarded_ as _the highest values in general,_ even as the _creative_ and _ruling powers._ It is understood that these instincts either oppose or overcome each other (join up synthetically, or alternate in power). Their profound antagonism is, however, so great, that in those cases in which they _all_ insist upon being gratified, a man of very thorough _mediocrity_ is the outcome.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.