We perceive, in this train of reasoning, some inkling of what Nietzsche is trying to formulate as his solution of the difficulty. What is needed must be a natural process, a _vis medicatrix naturæ_. In the process of declining and falling, races practise a sort of thrift; they save and they economise. Then, if we may suppose that the quantity of energy of intellectual and moral power, _i.e._, of "human values" at the disposal of the race is constant, the races that so act are creating in themselves a reserve which one day will irresistibly take shape in a chosen class. They are creating in their own bosom an _élite_ which will one day emerge, they have conceived all unconsciously an aristocracy which will one day be born to be their ruler.
We always find in Nietzsche the theory of Schopenhauer, the theory of the great deceiver who leads the human race by the nose and who makes it do and, as if it liked it, that which it would never do if it knew where it was being led. It is very possible; still it remains that economy carried to an extreme, though it can lead to a reserve of force, may also lead, and perhaps much more surely, to a condition of anæmia; the annihilation of one set of competent people in order to prepare the way for races of competent people in the future, I do not know if this is a game inspired by the great deceiver, but it is a game which to me appears dangerous. We ought to be sure (and who is sure?) that the great deceiver does not abandon those who abandon themselves.
I have often said, without thinking of any metaphysical mythology, thinking indeed of the ambitious people whom we meet everywhere, and thinking only of giving them some good advice: "The best way to get there is to come down." Nothing could be more philosophical, Nietzsche would reply; it is even more true of peoples than of individuals: the best way for peoples to become one day great is to begin by growing smaller. I rather doubt it. There is no really solid reason to support the theory that feebleness cultivated with perseverance results in strength. Neither Greece nor Rome supply examples, nor did the democratic republic of Athens nor the democratic Cæsarism of Rome ever succeed in giving birth to an aristocracy of competence by a prolonged economy of values.