 To make the case for historical change, he identifies two patterns of ethical assessment, each associated with a basic pair of evaluative terms, a good/bad pattern and a good/evil pattern. Understood according to the good/bad pattern, the idea of goodness originated in social class privilege: the good were first understood to be those of the higher social order, but then eventually the idea of goodness was “internalized”—i.e., transferred from social class itself to traits of character and other personal excellences that were typically associated with the privileged caste (for example, the virtue of courage for a society with a privileged military class, or magnanimity for one with a wealthy elite, or truthfulness and (psychological) nobility for a culturally ambitious aristocracy; see GM I, 4–5). In such a system, goodness is associated with exclusive virtues. There is no thought that everyone should be excellent—the very idea makes no sense, since to be excellent is to be distinguished from the ordinary run of people. In that sense, good/bad valuation arises out of a “pathos of distance” (GM I, 2) expressing the superiority excellent people feel over ordinary ones, and it gives rise to a “noble morality” (BGE 260). Nietzsche shows convincingly that this pattern of assessment was dominant in ancient Mediterranean culture (the Homeric world, later Greek and Roman society, and even much of ancient philosophical ethics).