Lou Salomé and I he Quest for Intimacy 265In On the Genealogy of Morals\ written one and a half years before his
breakdown, Nietzsche introduced that notorious "blond beast" who,
"with the innocent consciousness of a beast of prey... might come
away from a revolting succession of murder, arson, rape, torture with a
sense of exhilaration and emotional equilibrium, as if it were nothing
but a student prank" (5,275; GM First Essay § 11). In this context, it is
not altogether clear whether these exemplars of the "noble race"
(5,275), which Nietzsche located primarily in the Italian Renaissance,
truly embodied the desirable type of the prospective Ubermensch. He
picked examples of this sort to indicate the vital forces dormant in man.
However, he was not merely advocating that we shed our inhibitions.
For Nietzsche, the principle of active creation was always decisive. Great
force must be given a form by a strong will. Zarathustra advises his lis-
teners to exercise caution: "You want to soar up to the free heights, your
soul thirsts for stars. But your wicked instincts also thirst for freedom"
(4,53; ZFirst Part, "On the Tree on the Mountainside"). Even after he
had moved away from the image of the idealistic Ubermensch and
Schopenhauer's genius of the denial of life, Nietzsche was still not pre-
pared to exorcise the intellect from the arena of strength.
In Nietzsche's view, the Schopenhauerian "genius" who denies the
world because he considers it a moral scandal, and is nonetheless such
a powerful nature that he transcends it within himself, suffers from an
excess of Christian morality. Nietzsche did subscribe to the
Schopenhauerian ideal of self-transcendence, but he wanted no part
of Schopenhauer's renunciation of the world. For Nietzsche, self-
transcendence was now an aspect of the will to power, namely power
over oneself. The Ubermensch himself furnishes the law of action, which
is therefore an individual law beyond traditional morality. Traditional
morality serves to keep the ordinary person in check, but can only stand
in the way of an Ubermensch.
Hence the Ubermensch also becomes a great player who abides only by
the rules he has set for himself. He will not, however, keep on playing to
the point of exhaustion or boredom. One feature of the sovereignty of