welfare” is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a nostrum,—­that what is fair to one may not at all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is a distinction of rank between man and man, and consequently between morality and morality.  They are an unassuming and fundamentally mediocre species of men, these utilitarian Englishmen, and, as already remarked, in so far as they are tedious, one cannot think highly enough of their utility.  One ought even to encourage them, as has been partially attempted in the following rhymes:—­

    Hail, ye worthies, barrow-wheeling,
    “Longer—­better,” aye revealing,

    Stiffer aye in head and knee;
    Unenraptured, never jesting,
    Mediocre everlasting,

Sans Genie et sans esprit!

229.  In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there still remains so much fear, so much superstition of the fear, of the “cruel wild beast,” the mastering of which constitutes the very pride of these humaner ages—­that even obvious truths, as if by the agreement of centuries, have long remained unuttered, because they have the appearance of helping the finally slain wild beast back to life again.  I perhaps risk something when I allow such a truth to escape; let others capture it again and give it so much “milk of pious sentiment” [Footnote:  An expression from Schiller’s William Tell, Act IV, Scene 3.] to drink, that it will lie down quiet and forgotten, in its old corner.—­One ought to learn anew about cruelty, and open one’s eyes; one ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest gross errors—­as, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and modern philosophers with regard to tragedy—­may no longer wander about virtuously and boldly.  Almost everything that we call “higher culture” is based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of cruelty—­this is my thesis; the “wild beast” has not been slain at all, it lives, it flourishes, it has only been—­ transfigured.  That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty.  What the Roman enjoys in the arena, the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross, the Spaniard at the sight of the faggot and stake, or of the bull-fight, the present-day Japanese who presses his way to the tragedy, the workman of the Parisian suburbs who has a homesickness for bloody revolutions, the Wagnerienne who, with unhinged will, “undergoes” the performance of “Tristan and Isolde”—­what all these enjoy, and strive with mysterious ardour to drink in, is the philtre of the great Circe “cruelty.”