THE ANTICHRIST
By
Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation: H.L. Mencken
4.
mankind surely does not represent an
evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as
progress is now understood. This "
progress" is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The
European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the
European of the
Renaissance; the process of
evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening.
True enough, it succeeds in isolated and individual cases in various parts of the earth and under the most widely different
cultures, and in these cases a higher type certainly manifests it
self; something which, compared to
mankind in the mass, appears as a sort of
superman. Such happy strokes of high success have always been possible, and will remain possible, perhaps, for all time to come. Even whole races, tribes and nations may occasionally represent such lucky accidents.