the bulk of the society, the others being the exceptions. The first class, who as the most spiritual are the strongest, are the supreme ruling class; but they rule by weight of their ideas and because they body forth a relative perfection of the human type, not in less ways or by lesser means—not then because they will to, but because of what they are: they are not at liberty to take a second place. They give the supreme direction to social action, make the supreme law of the social constitution. The second class are their instruments for governing. They are the warders of justice, the guardians of order and security, the higher ranks of soldiers, above all the king as the highest formula of soldier, judge, and maintainer of the law. They take from the first class all that is gross and rude (grob) in the work of ruling—are their attendants, their right hand, their best pupils. The third class engage in manual labor, in business, in agriculture, in science (as distinguished from philosophy), in the ordinary forms of art—that is, any kind of work, which is special, professional, and more or less mechanical. They naturally incline in these directions, as the others do in theirs; not society, but their own kind of happiness makes them intelligent machines—they delight in mastership along their special line, though they may have slight comprehension of the ultimate significance of the work they do.[1] The third class make the broad base on which the whole social structure rests, this being conceived pyramidically.
Three things are to be noted about this social classification: b (1) While the first two classes represent the higher ranges of human life, the attaining of which is the supreme end to Nietzsche, they are marked off from each other—the theory of the first class being specially developed and being that part of his general view which Nietzsche had most at heart. (2) The lowest class—the great average mass—has in his eyes an important, yes indispensable place in the social structure: this in contrast with the attitude of depreciation and contempt often exclusively attributed to him. (3) There is an organic relation of all the classes—each being necessary to the other and to
- ↑ Earlier Nietzsche had distinguished the manual laborer from the scientific specialist as a "fourth estate" ("David Strauss etc.," sect. 8), but he now puts them together in the same class.
