The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
886.
_The Order of Rank in Human Values._ _(a)_ A man should not be valued according to isolated acts. _Epidermal actions._ Nothing is more rare than a _personal_ act. Class, rank, race, environment, accident--all these things are much more likely to be expressed in an action or deed than the "personality" of the doer. _(b)_ We should on no account jump to the conclusion that there are many people who are personalities. Some men are but conglomerations of personalities, whilst the majority are not even _one._ In all cases in which those average qualities preponderate, which ensure the maintenance of the species, to be a personality would involve unnecessary expense, it would be a luxury in fact, it would be foolish to demand of anybody that he should be a personality. In such circumstances everybody is a channel or a transmitting vessel. _(c)_ A "personality" is a relatively _isolated_ phenomenon; in view of the superior importance of the continuation of the race at an average level, a personality might even be regarded as something _hostile to nature._ For a personality to be possible, timely isolation and the necessity for an existence of offence and defence, are prerequisites; something in the nature of a walled enclosure, a capacity for shutting out the world; but above all, a much _lower degree of sensitiveness_ than the average man has, who is too easily infected with the views of others.
The first _question_ concerning the _order of rank:_ how far is a man disposed to be _solitary_ or _gregarious?_ (in the latter case, his value consists in those qualities which secure the survival of his tribe or his type; in the former case, his qualities are those which distinguish him from others, which isolate and defend him, and make his _solitude possible_). _Consequence:_ the solitary type should not be valued from the standpoint of the gregarious type, or _vice versâ._ Viewed from above, both types are necessary; as is likewise their antagonism,--and nothing is _more_ thoroughly reprehensible than the "desire" which would develop a _third_ thing out of the two ("virtue" as hermaphroditism). This is as little worthy of desire as the equalisation and reconciliation of the sexes. The _distinguishing qualities must be developed ever more and more,_ the gulf must _be made ever wider...._ The concept of _degeneration_ in both cases: the approximation of the qualities of the herd to those of solitary creatures: and _vice versâ_--in short, when they begin to _resemble_ each other. This concept of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral judgments.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.