{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49316/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49316","id":"gutenberg_49316","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49316","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900","Philosophy, German -- 19th century"],"text":"THE PHILOSOPHY OF\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n\n\nBY H. L. MENCKEN\n\n\n    I shall be told, I suppose, that my philosophy is\n    comfortless--because I speak the truth; and people prefer to\n    believe that everything the Lord made is good. If you are\n    one such, go to the priests, and leave philosophers in peace!\n\n                                    _Arthur Schopenhauer._\n\n_Third Edition_\n\nBOSTON\n\nLUCE AND COMPANY\n\n1913\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION\n\n\nWhen this attempt to summarize and interpret the principal ideas of\nFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was first published, in the early part of\n1908, several of his most important books were yet to be translated\ninto English and the existing commentaries were either fragmentary\nand confusing or frankly addressed to the specialist in philosophy.\nIt was in an effort to make Nietzsche comprehensible to the general\nreader, at sea in German and unfamiliar with the technicalities of\nthe seminaries, that the work was undertaken. It soon appeared that\na considerable public had awaited that effort, for the first edition\nwas quickly exhausted and there was an immediate demand for a special\nedition in England. The larger American edition which followed has\nsince gone the way of its predecessor, and so the opportunity offers\nfor a general revision, eliminating certain errors in the first draft\nand introducing facts and opinions brought forward by the publication\nof Dr. Oscar Levy's admirable complete edition of Nietzsche in English\nand by the appearance of several new and informative biographical\nstudies, and a large number of discussions and criticisms. The whole of\nthe section upon Nietzsche's intellectual origins has been rewritten,\nas has been the section on his critics, and new matter has been added\nto the biographical chapters. In addition, the middle portion of the\nbook has been carefully revised, and a final chapter upon the study of\nNietzsche, far more extensive than the original bibliographical note,\nhas been appended. The effect of these changes, it is believed, has\nbeen to increase the usefulness of the book, not only to the reader\nwho will go no further, but also to the reader who plans to proceed to\nNietzsche's own writings and to the arguments of his principal critics\nand defenders.\n\nThat Nietzsche has been making progress of late goes without saying.\nNo reader of current literature, nor even of current periodicals, can\nhave failed to notice the increasing pressure of his ideas. When his\nname was first heard in England and America, toward the end of the\nnineties, he suffered much by the fact that few of his advocates had\nbeen at any pains to understand him. Thus misrepresented, he took on\nthe aspect of an horrific intellectual hobgoblin, half Bak\u00fanin and half\nByron, a sacrilegious and sinister fellow, the father of all the wilder\nribaldries of the day. In brief, like Ibsen before him, he had to bear\nmany a burden that was not his. But in the course of time the truth\nabout him gradually precipitated itself from this cloud of unordered\nenthusiasm, and his principal ideas began to show themselves clearly.\nThen the discovery was made that the report of them had been far more\nappalling than the substance. Some of them, indeed, had already slipped\ninto respectable society in disguise, as the original inspirations\nof lesser sages, and others, on examination, turned out to be quite\nharmless, and even comforting. The worst that could be said of most of\nthem was that they stood in somewhat violent opposition to the common\nplatitudes, that they were a bit vociferous in denying this planet to\nbe the best of all possible worlds. Heresy, of course, but falling,\nfortunately enough, upon ears fast growing attuned to heretical music.\nThe old order now had fewer to defend it than in days gone by. The\nfeeling that it must yield to something better, that contentment must\ngive way to striving and struggle, that any change was better than no\nchange at all--this feeling was abroad in the world. And if the program\nof change that Nietzsche offered was startling at first hearing, it\nwas at least no more startling than the programs offered by other\nreformers. Thus he got his day in court at last and thus he won the\nserious attention of open-minded and reflective folk.\n\nNot, of course, that Nietzsche threatens, today or in the near future,\nto make a grand conquest of Christendom, as Paul conquered, or the\nunknown Father of Republics. Far from it, indeed. Filtered through\nthe comic sieve of a Shaw or sentimentalized by a Roosevelt, some\nof his ideas show a considerable popularity, but in their original\nstate they are not likely to inflame millions. Broadly viewed, they\nstand in direct opposition to every dream that soothes the slumber of\nmankind in the mass, and therefore mankind in the mass must needs be\nsuspicious of them, at least for years to come. They are pre-eminently\nfor the man who is _not_ of the mass, for the man whose head is lifted,\nhowever little, above the common level. They justify the success of\nthat man, as Christianity justifies the failure of the man below. And\nso they give no promise of winning the race in general from its old\nidols, despite the fact that the pull of natural laws and of elemental\nappetites is on their side. But inasmuch as an idea, to make itself\nfelt in the world, need not convert the many who serve and wait but\nonly the few who rule, it must be manifest that the Nietzschean creed,\nin the long run, gives promise of exercising a very real influence\nupon human thought. Reduced to a single phrase, it may be called\na counterblast to sentimentality--and it is precisely by breaking\ndown sentimentality, with its fondness for moribund gods, that human\nprogress is made. If Nietzsche had left no other vital message to\nhis time, he would have at least forced and deserved a hearing for\nhis warning that Christianity is a theory for those who distrust and\ndespair of their strength, and not for those who hope and fight on.\n\nTo plat his principal ideas for the reader puzzled by conflicting\nreports of them, to prepare the way for an orderly and profitable\nreading of his own books--such is the purpose of the present volume.\nThe works of Nietzsche, as they have been done into English, fill\neighteen volumes as large as this one, and the best available account\nof his life would make three or four more. But it is sincerely to be\nhoped that the student, once he has learned the main paths through\nthis extensive country, will proceed to a diligent and thorough\nexploration. Of all modern philosophers Nietzsche is the least dull.\nHe was undoubtedly the greatest German prose writer of his generation,\nand even when one reads him through the English veil it is impossible\nto escape the charm and color of his phrases and the pyrotechnic\nbrilliance of his thinking.\n\nMENCKEN.\n\nBALTIMORE, November, 1913.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nNIETZSCHE THE MAN\n\n\n     I. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 3\n    II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHER 16\n   III. BLAZING A NEW PATH 27\n    IV. THE PROPHET OF THE SUPERMAN 40\n     V. THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE MAN 50\n\n\nNIETZSCHE THE PHILOSOPHER\n\n     I. DIONYSUS _vs._ APOLLO 63\n    II. THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 74\n   III. BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 88\n    IV. THE SUPERMAN 100\n     V. ETERNAL RECURRENCE 117\n    VI. CHRISTIANITY 126\n   VII. TRUTH 147\n  VIII. CIVILIZATION 162\n    IX. WOMEN AND MARRIAGE 174\n     X. GOVERNMENT 192\n    XI. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 208\n   XII. EDUCATION 216\n  XIII. SUNDRY IDEAS 226\n   XIV. NIETZSCHE _vs._ WAGNER 242\n\n\nNIETZSCHE THE PROPHET\n\n     I. NIETZSCHE'S ORIGINS 255\n    II. NIETZSCHE AND HIS CRITICS 268\n\nHOW TO STUDY NIETZSCHE 290\n\nINDEX 297\n\n\n\n\nNIETZSCHE THE MAN\n\n\n\n\nFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nBOYHOOD AND YOUTH\n\n\nFriedrich Nietzsche was a preacher's son, brought up in the fear of\nthe Lord. It is the ideal training for sham-smashers and freethinkers.\nLet a boy of alert, restless intelligence come to early manhood in an\natmosphere of strong faith, wherein doubts are blasphemies and inquiry\nis a crime, and rebellion is certain to appear with his beard. So\nlong as his mind feels itself puny beside the overwhelming pomp and\ncircumstance of parental authority, he will remain docile and even\npious. But so soon as he begins to see authority as something ever\nfinite, variable and all-too-human--when he begins to realize that his\nfather and his mother, in the last analysis, are mere human beings,\nand fallible like himself--then he will fly precipitately toward the\nintellectual wailing places, to think his own thoughts in his own way\nand to worship his own gods beneath the open sky.\n\nAs a child Nietzsche was holy; as a man he was the symbol and\nembodiment of all unholiness. At nine he was already versed in the\nlore of the reverend doctors, and the pulpit, to his happy mother--a\npreacher's daughter as well as a preacher's wife--seemed his logical\nand lofty goal; at thirty he was chief among those who held that all\npulpits should be torn down and fashioned into bludgeons, to beat out\nthe silly brains of theologians.\n\nThe awakening came to him when he made his first venture away from the\nmaternal apron-string and fireside: when, as a boy of ten, he learned\nthat there were many, many men in the world and that these men were of\nmany minds. With the clash of authority came the end of authority. If\nA. was right, B. was wrong--and B. had a disquieting habit of standing\nfor one's mother, one's grandmother or the holy prophets. Here was the\nbeginning of intelligence in the boy--the beginning of that weighing\nand choosing faculty which seems to give man at once his sense of\nmastery and his feeling of helplessness. The old notion that doubt was\na crime crept away. There remained in its place the new notion that\nthe only real crime in the world--the only unmanly, unspeakable and\nunforgivable offense against the race--was unreasoning belief. Thus the\northodoxy of the Nietzsche home turned upon and devoured itself.\n\nThe philosopher of the superman was born on October 15th, 1844, at\nR\u00f6cken, a small town in the Prussian province of Saxony. His father,\nKarl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a country pastor of the Lutheran Church\nand a man of eminence in the countryside. But he was more than a mere\nrural worthy, with an outlook limited by the fringe of trees on the\nhorizon, for in his time he had seen something of the great world and\nhad even played his humble part in it. Years before his son Friedrich\nwas born he had been tutor to the children of the Duke of Altenburg.\nThe duke was fond of him and took him, now and then, on memorable\nand eventful journeys to Berlin, where that turbulent monarch, King\nFriedrich Wilhelm IV, kept a tinsel court and made fast progress from\nimbecility to acute dementia. The king met the young tutor and found\nhim a clever and agreeable person, with excellent opinions regarding\nall those things whereon monarchs are wont to differ with mobs. When\nthe children of the duke became sufficiently saturated with learning,\nthe work of Pastor Nietzsche at Altenburg was done and he journeyed to\nBerlin to face weary days in the anterooms of ecclesiastical magnates\nand jobbers of places. The king, hearing by chance of his presence and\nremembering him pleasantly, ordered that he be given without delay a\nvicarage worthy of his talents. So he was sent to R\u00f6cken, and there,\nwhen a son was born to him, he called the boy Friedrich Wilhelm, as a\ngraceful compliment to his royal patron and admirer.\n\nThere were two other children in the house. One was a boy, Josef, who\nwas named after the Duke of Altenburg, and died in infancy in 1850.\nThe other was a girl, Therese Elisabeth Alexandra, who became in after\nyears her brother's housekeeper, guardian angel and biographer. Her\nthree names were those of the three noble children her father had\ngrounded in the humanities. Elisabeth--who married toward middle age\nand is best known as Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche--tells us practically all\nthat we know about the Nietzsche family and the private life of its\ndistinguished son.[1] The clan came out of Poland, like so many other\nfamilies of Eastern Germany, at the time of the sad, vain wars. Legend\nmaintains that it was noble in its day and Nietzsche himself liked to\nthink so. The name, says Elisabeth, was originally Nietzschy. \"Germany\nis a great nation,\" Nietzsche would say, \"only because its people\nhave so much Polish blood in their veins.... I am proud of my Polish\ndescent. I remember that in former times a Polish noble, by his simple\nveto, could overturn the resolution of a popular assembly. There were\ngiants in Poland in the time of my forefathers.\" He wrote a tract\nwith the French title \"_L'Origine de la famille de Nietzsche_\" and\npresented the manuscript to his sister, as a document to be treasured\nand held sacred. She tells us that he was fond of maintaining that the\nNietzsches had suffered greatly and fallen from vast grandeur for their\nopinions, religious and political. He had no proof of this, but it\npleased him to think so.\n\nPastor Nietzsche was thrown from his horse in 1848 and died, after\na lingering illness, on July 28th, 1849, when Friedrich was barely\nfive years old. Frau Nietzsche then moved her little family to\nNaumburg-on-the-Saale--\"a Christian, conservative, loyal city.\" The\nhousehold consisted of the mother, the two children, their paternal\ngrandmother and two maiden aunts--the sisters of the dead pastor. The\ngrandmother was something of a bluestocking and had been, in her day, a\nmember of that queer circle of intellectuals and amateurs which raged\nand roared around Goethe at Weimar. But that was in the long ago,\nbefore she dreamed of becoming the wife of one preacher and the mother\nof another. In the year '50 she was well of all such youthful fancies\nand there was no doubt of the divine revelations beneath her pious\nroof. Prayers began the day and ended the day. It was a house of holy\nwomen, with something of a convent's placidity and quiet exaltation.\nLittle Friedrich was the idol in the shrine. It was the hope of all\nthat he would grow up into a man inimitably noble and impossibly good.\n\nPampered thus, the boy shrank from the touch of the world's rough\nhand. His sister tells us that he disliked the bad little boys of the\nneighborhood, who robbed bird's nests, raided orchards and played at\nsoldiers. There appeared in him a quaint fastidiousness which went\ncounter to the dearest ideals of the healthy young male. His school\nfellows, in derision, called him \"the little pastor\" and took delight\nin waylaying him and venting upon him their grotesque and barbarous\nhumor. He liked flowers and books and music and when he went abroad\nit was for solitary walks. He could recite and sing and he knew the\nBible so well that he was able to dispute about its mysteries. \"As I\nthink of him,\" said an old school-mate years afterward, \"I am forced\nirresistibly into a thought of the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple.\"\n\"The serious introspective child, with his dignified politeness,\" says\nhis sister, \"seemed so strange to other boys that friendly advances\nfrom either side were out of the question.\"\n\nThere is a picture of the boy in all the glory of his first long-tailed\ncoat. His trousers stop above his shoe-tops, his hair is long and his\nlegs seem mere airy filaments. As one gazes upon the likeness one can\nalmost smell the soap that scoured that high, shiny brow and those\nthin, white cheeks. The race of such seraphic boys has died out in\nthe world. Gone are their slick, plastered locks and their translucent\nears! Gone are their ruffled cuffs and their spouting of the golden\ntext!\n\nNietzsche wrote verses before he was ten: pious, plaintive verses that\nscanned well and showed rhymes and metaphors made respectable by ages\nof honorable employment. His maiden effort, so far as we know, was an\nelegy entitled \"The Grave of My Father.\" Later on he became aware of\nmaterial things and sang the praises of rose and sunset. He played the\npiano, too, and knew his Beethoven well, from the snares for the left\nhand in \"_F\u00fcr Elise_\" to the raging tumults of the C minor symphony.\nOne Sunday--it was Ascension day--he went to the village church and\nheard the choir sing the Hallelujah Chorus from \"The Messiah.\" Here was\nmusic that benumbed the senses and soothed the soul and, boy as he was,\nhe felt its supreme beauty. That night he covered pages of ruled paper\nwith impossible pot-hooks. He, too, would write music!\n\nLater on the difficulties of thorough-bass, as it was taught in the\nabysmal German text-books of the time, somewhat dampened his ardor,\nbut more than once during his youth he thought seriously of becoming a\nmusician. His first really ambitious composition was a piano _pi\u00e8ce_\ncalled \"_Mondschein auf der Pussta_\"--\"Moonlight on the Pussta\"--the\npussta being the flat Bohemian prairie. The family circle was\ndelighted with this maiden _opus_, and we may conjure up a picture\nof little Friedrich playing it of a quiet evening at home, while\nmother, grandmother, sister and aunts gathered round and marvelled\nat his genius. In later life he wrote songs and sonatas, and--if an\nenemy is to be believed--an opera in the grand manner. His sister, in\nher biography, prints some samples of his music. Candor compels the\nadmission that it is even worse than it sounds.\n\nNietzsche, at this time, still seemed like piety on a monument, but\nas much as he revered his elders and as much as he relied upon their\ninfallibility, there were yet problems which assailed him and gave him\ndisquiet. When he did not walk and think alone, his sister was his\ncompanion, and to her he opened his heart, as one might to a sexless,\nimpersonal confessor. In her presence, indeed, he really thought aloud,\nand this remained his habit until the end of his life. His mind,\nawakening, wandered beyond the little world hedged about by doting and\ncomplacent women. Until he entered the gymnasium--that great weighing\nplace of German brains--he shrank from open revolt, and even from the\nthought of it, but he could not help dwelling upon the mysteries that\nrose before him. There were things upon which the scriptures, search\nthem as he might, seemed to throw no light, and of which mothers and\ngrandmothers and maiden aunts did not discourse. \"One day,\" says\nElisabeth, \"when he was yet very young, he said to me: 'You mustn't\nexpect me to believe those silly stories about storks bringing babies.\nMan is a mammal and a mammal must get his own children for himself.'\"\nEvery child, perhaps, ponders such problems, but in the vast majority\nknowledge must wait until it may enter fortuitously and from without.\nNietzsche did not belong to the majority. To him ideas were ever things\nto be sought out eagerly, to be weighed calmly, to be tried in the\nfire. For weal or for woe, the cornerstones of his faith were brought\nforth, with sweat and pain, from the quarry of his own mind.\n\nNietzsche went to various village schools--public and private--until\nhe was ten, dutifully trudging away each morning with knapsack and\nlunch-basket. He kissed his mother at the gate when he departed and\nshe was waiting for him, with another kiss, when he returned. As\nhappiness goes, his was probably a happy childhood. The fierce joy of\nboyish combat--of fighting, of robbing, of slaying--was never his, but\nto a child so athirst for knowledge, each fresh discovery--about the\nsayings of Luther, the lions of Africa, the properties of an inverted\nfraction--must have brought its thrill. But as he came to the last year\nof his first decade, unanswerable questions brought their discontent\nand disquiet--as they do to all of us. There is a feeling of oppression\nand poignant pain in facing problems that defy solution and facts that\nrefuse to fit into ordered chains. It is only when mastery follows\nthat the fine stimulation of conscious efficiency drowns out all moody\nvapors.\n\nWhen Nietzsche went to the gymnasium his whole world was overturned.\nHere boys were no longer mute and hollow vessels, to be stuffed with\npredigested learning, but human beings whose approach to separate\nentity was recognized. It was possible to ask questions and to argue\nmoot points, and teaching became less the administration of a necessary\nmedicine and more the sharing of a delightful meal. Your German\nschool-master is commonly a martinet, and his birch is never idle, but\nhe has the saving grace of loving his trade and of readily recognizing\ntrue diligence in his pupils. History does not record the name of\nthe pedagogue who taught Nietzsche at the Naumburg gymnasium, but he\nmust have been one who ill deserved his oblivion. He fed the eager,\ninquiring mind of his little student and made a new boy of him. The\nold unhealthy, uncanny embodiment of a fond household's impossible\ndreams became more likeable and more human. His exclusiveness and\nfastidiousness were native and ineradicable, perhaps, for they remained\nwith him, in some degree, his whole life long, but his thirst for\nknowledge and yearning for disputation soon led him to the discovery\nthat there were other boys worth cultivating: other boys whose\nthoughts, like his own, rose above misdemeanor and horse-play. With two\nsuch he formed a quick friendship, and they were destined to influence\nhim greatly to the end of his youth. They organized a club for mutual\nculture, gave it the sonorous name of \"_Der litterarischen Vereinigung\nGermania_\" (\"The German Literary Association\") and drew up an elaborate\nscheme of study. Once a week there was a meeting, at which each of\nthe three submitted an essay or a musical composition to the critical\nscrutiny of the others. They waded out into the deep water. One week\nthey discussed \"The Infancy of Nations,\" and after that, \"The D\u00e6monic\nElement in Music,\" \"Napoleon III\" and \"Fatalism in History.\" Despite\nits praiseworthy earnestness, this program causes a smile--and so does\nthe transformation of the retiring and well-scrubbed little Nietzsche\nwe have been observing into the long, gaunt Nietzsche of 14, with a\nyearning for the companionship of his fellows, and a voice beginning\nto grow comically harsh and deep, and a mind awhirl with unutterable\nthings.\n\nNietzsche was a brilliant and spectacular pupil and soon won a\nscholarship at Pforta, a famous and ancient preparatory academy not far\naway. Pforta, in those days, was of a dignity comparable to Eton's or\nHarrow's. It was a great school, but tradition overpowered it. Violent\ncombats between amateur sages were not encouraged: it was a place for\ngentlemen to acquire Euclid and the languages in a decent, gentlemanly\nway, and not an arena for gawky country philosophers to prance about\nin. But Nietzsche, by this time, had already become a frank rebel and\ndelighted in elaborating and controverting the doctrines of the learned\ndoctors. He drew up a series of epigrams under the head of \"_Ideen_\"\nand thought so well of them that he sent them home, to astonish and\nalarm his mother. Some of them exhibited a quite remarkable faculty\nfor pithy utterance--as, for example, \"War begets poverty and poverty\nbegets peace\"--while others were merely opaque renderings of thoughts\nhalf formed. He began to believe in his own mental cunning, with a\nsincerity which never left him, and, as a triumphant proof of it, he\ndrew up a series of syllogisms designed to make homesickness wither and\ndie. Thus he wrestled with life's problems as his boy's eyes saw them.\n\nAll this was good training for the philosopher, but to the Pforta\nprofessors it gave disquiet. Nietzsche became a bit too sure of himself\nand a bit too arrogant for discipline. It seemed to him a waste of time\nto wrestle with the studies that every oafish baron's son and future\nguardsman sought to master. He neglected mathematics and gave himself\nup to the hair-splitting of the Eleatics and the Pythagoreans, the\nSophists and the Skeptics. He pronounced his high curse and anathema\nupon geography and would have none of it. The result was that when he\nwent up for final examination he writhed and floundered miserably and\ncame within an ace of being set down for further and more diligent\nlabor with his books. Only his remarkable mastery of the German\nlanguage and his vast knowledge of Christian doctrine--a legacy from\nhis pious childhood--saved him. The old Nietzsche--the shrinking\nmother's darling of Naumburg--was now but a memory. The Nietzsche that\nwent up to Bonn was a young man with a touch of cynicism and one not\na little disposed to pit his sneer against the jurisprudence of the\nworld: a young man with a swagger, a budding moustache and a head full\nof violently novel ideas about everything under the sun.\n\nNietzsche entered Bonn in October, 1864, when he was just 20 years old.\nHe was enrolled as a student of philology and theology, but the latter\nwas a mere concession to family faith and tradition, made grudgingly,\nand after the first semester, the reverend doctors of exegetics knew\nhim no more. At the start he thought the university a delightful place\nand its people charming. The classrooms and beer gardens were full\nof young Germans like himself, who debated the doings of Bismarck,\ncomposed eulogies of Darwin, sang Rabelaisian songs in bad Latin,\nkept dogs, wore ribbons on their walking sticks, fought duels, and\ndrank unlimited steins of pale beer. In the youth of every man there\ncomes over him a sudden yearning to be a good fellow: to be \"Bill\" or\n\"Jim\" to multitudes, and to go down into legend with Sir John Falstaff\nand Tom Jones. This melancholy madness seized upon Nietzsche during\nhis first year at Bonn. He frequented the theatres and posed as a\nconnoisseur of opera _bouffe,_ malt liquor and the female form divine.\nHe went upon students' walking tours and carved his name upon the\nmutilated tables of country inns. He joined a student corps, bought him\na little cap and set up shop as a devil of a fellow. His mother was\nnot poor, but she could not afford the outlays that these ambitious\nenterprises required. Friedrich overdrew his allowance and the good\nwoman, no doubt, wept about it, as mothers will, and wondered that\nlearning came so dear.\n\nBut the inevitable reaction followed. Nietzsche was not designed\nby nature for a hero of pot-houses and duelling sheds. The old\nfastidiousness asserted itself--that queer, unhealthy fastidiousness\nwhich, in his childhood, had set him apart from other boys, and was\ndestined, all his life long, to make him shrink from too intimate\ncontact with his fellow-men. The touch of the crowd disgusted him: he\nhad an almost insane fear of demeaning himself. All of this feeling had\nbeen obscured for awhile, by the strange charm of new delights and new\ncompanions, but in the end, the gloomy spinner of fancies triumphed\nover the university buck. Nietzsche resigned from his student corps,\nburned his walking sticks, foreswore smoking and roistering, and bade\nfarewell to Johann Strauss and Offenbach forever. The days of his\nyouth--of his carefree, merry gamboling--were over. Hereafter he was\nall solemnity and all seriousness.\n\n\"From these early experiences,\" says his sister, \"there remained with\nhim a life-long aversion to smoking, beer-drinking and the whole\n_biergem\u00fcthlichkeit._ He maintained that people who drank beer and\nsmoked pipes were absolutely incapable of understanding him. Such\npeople, he thought, lacked the delicacy and clearness of perception\nnecessary to grasp profound and subtle problems.\"\n\n\n[1] \"_Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's,_\" 3 vols. Leipsic, 1895-7-9.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHER\n\n\nAt Bonn Nietzsche became a student of Ritschl, the famous\nphilologist,[1] and when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipsic, Nietzsche\nfollowed him. All traces of the good fellow had disappeared and the\nstudent that remained was not unlike those sophomores of medieval\nToulouse who \"rose from bed at 4 o'clock, and having prayed to God,\nwent at 5 o'clock to their studies, their big books under their arms,\ntheir inkhorns and candles in their hands.\" Between teacher and pupil\nthere grew up a bond of strong friendship. Nietzsche was taken, too,\nunder the wing of motherly old Frau Ritschl, who invited him to her\nafternoons of coffee and cinnamon cake and to her evening soir\u00e9es,\nwhere he met the great men of the university world and the eminent\nstrangers who came and went. To Ritschl the future philosopher owed\nmany things, indeed, including his sound knowledge of the ancients, his\nfirst (and last) university appointment and his meeting with Richard\nWagner. Nietzsche always looked back upon these days with pleasure and\nthere was ever a warm spot in his heart for the kindly old professor\nwho led him up to grace.\n\nTwo years or more were thus spent, and then, in the latter part of\n1867, Nietzsche began his term of compulsory military service in the\nfourth regiment of Prussian field artillery. He had hoped to escape\nbecause he was near-sighted and the only son of a widow, but a watchful\n_oberst-lieutenant_ found loopholes in the law and so ensnared him.\nHe seems to have been some sort of officer, for a photograph of the\nperiod shows him with epaulets and a sword. But lieutenant or sergeant,\nsoldiering was scarcely his forte, and he cut a sorry figure on a\nhorse. After a few months of unwilling service, in fact, he had a\nriding accident and came near dying as his father had died before him.\nAs it was he wrenched his breast muscles so badly that he was condemned\nby a medical survey and discharged from the army.\n\nDuring his long convalescence he busied himself with philological\nstudies and began his first serious professional work--essays on the\nTheogony of Hesiod, the sources of Diogenes La\u00ebrtius and the eternal\nstrife between Hesiod and Homer. He also made an index to an elaborate\ncollection of German historical fragments and performed odd tasks\nof like sort for various professors. In October, 1868, he returned\nto Leipsic--not as an undergraduate, but as a special student. This\nchange was advantageous, for it gave him greater freedom of action and\nprotected him from that student _bonhomie_ he had learned to despise.\nAgain old Ritschl was his teacher and friend and again Frau Ritschl\nwelcomed him to her _salon_ and gave him of her good counsel and her\nexcellent coffee.\n\nMeanwhile there had occurred something that was destined to direct and\ncolor the whole stream of his life. This was his discovery of Arthur\nSchopenhauer. In the 60's, it would appear, the great pessimist was\nstill scarcely more than a name in the German universities, which, for\nall their later heterodoxy, clung long to their ancient first causes.\nNietzsche knew nothing of him, and in the seminaries of Leipsic not a\nsoul maintained him. Of Kant and of Hegel there was talk unlimited, and\nof Lotze and Fichte there were riotous disputations that roared and\nraged about the class-room of Fechner, then the university professor\nof philosophy. But of Schopenhauer nothing was heard, and so, when\nNietzsche, rambling through an old Leipsic bookshop, happened upon a\nsecond-hand copy of \"_Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_\"[2] a new\nworld came floating into his view. This was in 1865.\n\n\"I took the book to my lodgings,\" he said years afterward, \"and\nflung myself on a sofa and read and read and read. It seemed as if\nSchopenhauer were addressing me personally. I felt his enthusiasm and\nseemed to see him before me. Every line cried aloud for renunciation,\ndenial, resignation!\"\n\nSo much for the first flush of the ecstasy of discovery. That Nietzsche\nentirely agreed with everything in the book, even in his wildest\ntransports of admiration, is rather doubtful. He was but 21--the age of\ngreat passions and great romance--and he was athirst for some writing\nthat would solve the problems left unanswered by the accepted sages,\nbut it is probable that when he shouted the Schopenhauer manifesto\nloudest he read into the text wild variations of his own. The premises\nof the pessimist gave credit and order to thoughts that had been rising\nup in his own mind; but the conclusions, if he subscribed to them at\nall, led him far afield. No doubt he was like one of those fantastic\nmessiahs of new cults who search the scriptures for testimony--and\nfind it. Late in life, when he was accused of inconsistency in first\ndeifying Schopenhauer and then damning him, he made this defense, and\ndespite the derisive sneers of his enemies, it seemed a fairly good one.\n\nSchopenhauer's argument, to put it briefly, was that the will to\nexist--the primary instinct of life--was the eternal first cause of all\nhuman actions, motives and ideas. The old philosophers of Christendom\nhad regarded intelligence as the superior of instinct. Some of them\nthought that an intelligent god ruled the universe and that nothing\nhappened without his knowledge and desire. Others believed that man was\na free agent, that whatever he did was the result of his own thought\nand choice, and that it was right, in consequence, to condemn him\nto hell for his sins and to exalt him to heaven for any goodness he\nmight chance to show. Schopenhauer turned all this completely about.\nIntelligence, he said, was not the source of will, but its effect. When\nlife first appeared upon earth, it had but one aim and object: that of\nperpetuating itself. This instinct, he said, was still at the bottom\nof every function of all living beings. Intelligence grew out of the\nfact that mankind, in the course of ages, began to notice that certain\nmanifestations of the will to live were followed by certain invariable\nresults. This capacity of perceiving was followed by a capacity for\nremembering, which in turn produced a capacity for anticipating. An\nintelligent man, said Schopenhauer, was merely one who remembered\nso many facts (the result either of personal experience or of the\ntransmitted experience of others) that he could separate them into\ngroups and observe their relationship, one to the other, and hazard a\nclose guess as to their future effects: _i.e._ could reason about them.\n\nGoing further, Schopenhauer pointed out that this will to exist, this\ninstinct to preserve and protect life, this old Adam, was to blame for\nthe unpleasant things of life as well as for the good things--that\nit produced avarice, hatred and murder just as well as industry,\nresourcefulness and courage--that it led men to seek means of killing\none another as well as means of tilling the earth and procuring food\nand raiment. He showed, yet further, that its bad effects were a great\ndeal more numerous than its good effects and so accounted for the\nfact--which many men before him had observed--that life, at best, held\nmore of sorrow than of joy.[3]\n\nThe will-to-live, argued Schopenhauer, was responsible for all this.\nPain, he believed, would always outweigh pleasure in this sad old\nworld until men ceased to want to live--until no one desired food or\ndrink or house or wife or money. To put it more briefly, he held that\ntrue happiness would be impossible until mankind had killed will\nwith will, which is to say, until the will-to-live was willed out of\nexistence. Therefore the happiest man was the one who had come nearest\nthis end--the man who had killed all the more obvious human desires,\nhopes and aspirations--the solitary ascetic--the monk in his cell--the\nsoaring, starving poet--the cloud-enshrouded philosopher.\n\nNietzsche very soon diverged from this conclusion. He believed, with\nSchopenhauer, that human life, at best, was often an infliction and a\ntorture, but in his very first book he showed that he admired, not the\nascetic who tried to escape from the wear and tear of life altogether,\nbut the proud, stiff-necked hero who held his balance in the face of\nboth seductive pleasure and staggering pain; who cultivated within\nhimself a sublime indifference, so that happiness and misery, to him,\nbecame mere words, and no catastrophe, human or superhuman, could\naffright or daunt him.[4]\n\nIt is obvious that there is a considerable difference between these\nideas, for all their similarity in origin and for all Nietzsche's\nyouthful worship of Schopenhauer. Nietzsche, in fact, was so enamoured\nby the honesty and originality of what may be called the data of\nSchopenhauer's philosophy that he took the philosophy itself rather\non trust and did not begin to inquire into it closely or to compare\nit carefully with his own ideas until after he had committed himself\nin a most embarrassing fashion. The same phenomena is no curiosity in\nreligion, science or politics.\n\nBefore a realization of these differences quite dawned upon Nietzsche\nhe was busied with other affairs. In 1869, when he was barely 25, he\nwas appointed, upon Ritschl's recommendation, to the chair of classical\nphilology at the University of Basel, in Switzerland, an ancient\nstronghold of Lutheran theology. He had no degree, but the University\nof Leipsic promptly made him a doctor of philosophy, without thesis\nor examination, and on April 13th he left the old home at Naumburg to\nassume his duties. Thus passed that pious household. The grandmother\nhad died long before--in 1856--and one of the maiden aunts had preceded\nher to the grave by a year. The other, long ill, had followed in 1867.\nBut Nietzsche's mother lived until 1897, though gradually estranged\nfrom him by his opinions, and his sister, as we know, survived him.\n\nNietzsche was officially professor of philology, but he also became\nteacher of Greek in the pedagogium attached to the University.\nHe worked like a Trojan and mixed Schopenhauer and Hesiod in his\nclass-room discourses upon the origin of Greek verbs and other such\ndull subjects. But it is not recorded that he made a very profound\nimpression, except upon a relatively small circle. His learning was\nabysmal, but he was far too impatient and unsympathetic to be a\ngood teacher. His classes, in fact, were never large, except in the\npedagogium. This, however, may have been partly due to the fact that\nin 1869, as in later years, there were comparatively few persons\nimpractical enough to spend their days and nights in the study of\nphilology.\n\nIn 1870 came the Franco-Prussian war and Nietzsche decided to go to\nthe front. Despite his hatred of all the cant of cheap patriotism and\nhis pious thankfulness that he was a Pole and not a German, he was at\nbottom a good citizen and perfectly willing to suffer and bleed for his\ncountry. But unluckily he had taken out Swiss naturalization papers in\norder to be able to accept his appointment at Basel, and so, as the\nsubject of a neutral state, he had to go to the war, not as a warrior,\nbut as a hospital steward.\n\nEven as it was, Nietzsche came near giving his life to Germany. He was\nnot strong physically--he had suffered from severe headaches as far\nback as 1862--and his hard work at Basel had further weakened him. On\nthe battlefields of France he grew ill. Diphtheria and what seems to\nhave been cholera morbus attacked him and when he finally reached home\nagain he was a neurasthenic wreck. Ever thereafter his life was one\nlong struggle against disease. He suffered from migraine, that most\nterrible disease of the nerves, and chronic catarrh of the stomach made\nhim a dyspeptic. Unable to eat or sleep, he resorted to narcotics, and\naccording to his sister, he continued their use throughout his life.\n\"He wanted to get well quickly,\" she says, \"and so took double doses.\"\nNietzsche, indeed, was a slave to drugs, and more than once in after\nlife, long before insanity finally ended his career, he gave evidence\nof it.\n\nDespite his illness he insisted upon resuming work, but during the\nfollowing winter he was obliged to take a vacation in Italy. Meanwhile\nhe had delivered lectures to his classes on the Greek drama and two\nof these he revised and published, in 1872, as his first book, \"_Die\nGeburt der Trag\u00f6die_\" (\"The Birth of Tragedy\"). Engelmann, the great\nLeipsic publisher, declined it, but Fritsch, of the same city, put it\ninto type.[5] This book greatly pleased his friends, but the old-line\nphilologists of the time thought it wild and extravagant, and it almost\ncost Nietzsche his professorship. Students were advised to keep away\nfrom him, and during the winter of 1872-3, it is said, he had no pupils\nat all.\n\nNevertheless the book, for all its iconoclasm, was an event. It sounded\nNietzsche's first, faint battle-cry and put the question mark behind\nmany tilings that seemed honorable and holy in philology. Most of\nthe philologists of that time were German savants of the comic-paper\nsort, and their lives were spent in wondering why one Greek poet made\nthe name of a certain plant masculine while another made it feminine.\nNietzsche, passing over such scholastic futilities, burrowed down\ninto the heart of Greek literature. Why, he asked himself, did the\nGreeks take pleasure in witnessing representations of bitter, hopeless\nconflicts, and how did this form of entertainment arise among them?\nLater on, his conclusions will be given at length, but in this place it\nmay be well to sketch them in outline, because of the bearing they have\nupon his later work, and even upon the trend of his life.\n\nIn ancient Greece, he pointed out at the start, Apollo was the god of\nart--of life as it was recorded and interpreted--and Bacchus Dionysus\nwas the god of life itself--of eating, drinking and making merry, of\ndancing and roistering, of everything that made men acutely conscious\nof the vitality and will within them. The difference between the things\nthey represented has been well set forth in certain homely verses\naddressed by Rudyard Kipling to Admiral Robley D. Evans, U. S. N.:\n\n    Zogbaum draws with a pencil\n      And I do things with a pen,\n    But you sit up in a conning tower,\n      Bossing eight hundred men.\n\n    To him that hath shall be given\n      And that's why these books are sent\n    To the man who has _lived_ more stories\n      Than Zogbaum or I could _invent_.\n\nHere we have the plain distinction: Zogbaum and Kipling are apollonic,\nwhile Evans is dionysian. Epic poetry, sculpture, painting and\nstory-telling are apollonic: they represent, not life itself, but some\none man's visualized idea of life. But dancing, great deeds and, in\nsome cases, music, are dionysian: they are part and parcel of life as\nsome actual human being, or collection of human beings, is living it.\n\nNietzsche maintained that Greek art was at first apollonic, but that\neventually there appeared a dionysian influence--the fruit, perhaps,\nof contact with primitive, barbarous peoples. Ever afterward there\nwas constant conflict between them and this conflict was the essence\nof Greek tragedy. As Sarcey tells us, a play, to hold our attention,\nmust depict some sort of battle, between man and man or idea and idea.\nIn the melodrama of today the battle is between hero and villain; in\nthe ancient Greek tragedy it was between Apollo and Dionysus, between\nthe life contemplative and the life strenuous, between law and outlaw,\nbetween the devil and the seraphim.\n\nNietzsche, as we shall see, afterward applied this distinction in\nmorals and life as well as in art. He called himself a dionysian and\nthe crowning volume of his system of philosophy, which he had barely\nstarted when insanity overtook him, was to have been called \"Dionysus.\"\n\n\n[1] Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl (1806-1876), the foremost philologist\nof modern times. He became a professor of classical literature and\nrhetoric in 1839 and founded the science of historical literary\ncriticism, as we know it today.\n\n[2] Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) published this book, his _magnum\nopus_, at Leipsic in 1819. It has been translated into English as \"The\nWorld as Will and Idea\" and has appeared in many editions.\n\n[3] Schopenhauer (_\"Nachtr\u00e4ge f\u00fcr Lehre vom Leiden der Welt_\") puts the\nargument thus: \"Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expect it to be and\npain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the\npleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of\ntwo animals, one of which is eating the other.\"\n\n[4] Later on, in \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" II, Nietzsche\nargued that the ascetic was either a coward, who feared the temptations\nof pleasure and the agonies of pain, or an exhausted worldling who had\nbecome satiated with life.\n\n[5] Begun in 1869, this maiden work was dedicated to Richard Wagner.\nAt Wagner's suggestion Nietzsche eliminated a great deal of matter in\nthe original draft. The full title was \"The Birth of Tragedy from the\nSpirit of Music,\" but this was changed, in 1886, when a third edition\nwas printed, to \"The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism.\"\nNietzsche then also added a long preface, entitled \"An Attempt at\nSelf-Criticism.\" The material originally excluded was published in\n1896.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nBLAZING A NEW PATH\n\n\n\nHaving given birth, in this theory of Greek tragedy, to an idea which,\nwhatever its defects otherwise, was at least original, understandable\nand workable, Nietzsche began to be conscious, as it were, of his own\nintellect--or, in his sister's phrase, \"to understand what a great man\nhe was.\" During his first years at Basel he had cut quite a figure in\nacademic society, for he was an excellent musician, he enjoyed dancing\nand he had plenty of pretty things to say to the ladies. But as his\nideas clarified and he found himself more and more in conflict with the\npundits about him, he withdrew within himself, and in the end he had\nfew friends save Richard and Cosima Wagner, who lived at Tribschen,\nnot far away. To one of his turn of mind, indeed, the atmosphere of\nthe college town was bound to grow oppressive soon or late. Acutely\naware of his own superiority, he showed no patience with the unctuous\ncomplacency of dons and dignitaries, and so he became embroiled in\nvarious conflicts, and even his admirers among his colleagues seldom\nventured upon friendly advances.\n\nThere are critics who see in all this proof that Nietzsche showed signs\nof insanity from early manhood, but as a matter of fact it was his\nabnormally accurate vision and not a vision gone awry, that made him\nstand so aloof from his fellows. In the vast majority of those about\nhim he saw the coarse metal of sham and pretense beneath the showy\ngilding of learning. He had before him, at close range, a good many\nof the great men of his time--the intellectuals whose word was law\nin the schools. He saw them on parade and he saw them in their shirt\nsleeves. What wonder that he lost all false reverence for them and\nbegan to estimate them in terms, not of their dignity and reputation,\nbut of their actual credibility and worth? It was inevitable that he\nshould compare his own ideas to theirs, and it was inevitable that he\nshould perceive the difference between his own fanatical striving for\nthe truth and the easy dependence upon precedent and formula which lay\nbeneath their booming bombast. Thus there arose in him a fiery loathing\nfor all authority, and a firm belief that his own opinion regarding any\nmatter to which he had given thought was as sound, at the least, as any\nother man's. Thenceforth the assertive \"_ich_\" began to besprinkle his\ndiscourse and his pages. \"I condemn Christianity. _I_ have given to\nmankind.... _I_ was never yet modest.... _I_ think.... _I_ say.... _I_\ndo....\" Thus he hurled his javelin at authority until the end.\n\nTo those about him, perhaps, Nietzsche seemed wild and impossible, but\nit is not recorded that any one ever looked upon him as ridiculous.\nHis high brow, bared by the way in which he brushed his hair; his\nkeen eyes, with their monstrous overhanging brows, and his immense,\nuntrimmed moustache gave him an air of alarming earnestness. Beside the\npedagogues about him--with their well-barbered, professorial beards,\ntheir bald heads and their learned spectacles--he seemed like some\nincomprehensible foreigner. The exotic air he bore delighted him and he\ncultivated it assiduously. He regarded himself as a Polish grandee set\ndown by an unkind fate among German shopkeepers, and it gave him vast\npleasure when the hotel porters and street beggars, deceived by his\ndisorderly fa\u00e7ade, called him \"The Polack.\"\n\nThus he lived and had his being. The inquisitive boy of old Naumburg,\nthe impudent youth of Pforta and the academic free lance of Bonn and\nLeipsic had become merged into a man sure of himself and contemptuous\nof all whose search for the truth was hampered or hedged about by\nany respect for statute or precedent. He saw that the philosophers\nand sages of the day, in many of their most gorgeous flights of\nlogic, started from false premises, and he observed the fact that\ncertain of the dominant moral, political and social maxims of the\ntime were mere foolishness. It struck him, too, that all of this\nfaulty ratiocination--all of this assumption of outworn doctrines and\ndependence upon exploded creeds--was not confined to the confessedly\northodox. There was fallacy no less disgusting in the other camp. The\nprofessed apostles of revolt were becoming as bad as the old crusaders\nand apologists.\n\nNietzsche harbored a fevered yearning to call all of these false\nprophets to book and to reduce their fine axioms to absurdity.\nAccordingly, he planned a series of twenty-four pamphlets and decided\nto call them \"_Unzeitgem\u00e4sse Betrachtungen_\" which may be translated as\n\"Inopportune Speculations,\" or more clearly, \"Essays in Sham-Smashing.\"\nIn looking about for a head to smash in essay number one, his eye,\nnaturally enough, alighted upon that of David Strauss, the favorite\nphilosopher and fashionable iconoclast of the day. Strauss had been a\npreacher but had renounced the cloth and set up shop as a critic of\nChristianity.[1] He had labored with good intentions, no doubt, but the\nnet result of all his smug agnosticism was that his disciples were as\nself-satisfied, bigoted and prejudiced in the garb of agnostics as they\nhad been before as Christians. Nietzsche's clear eye saw this and in\nthe first of his little pamphlets, \"_David Strauss, der Bekenner und\nder Schriftsteller_\" (\"David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer\"),\nhe bore down upon Strauss' _bourgeoise_ pseudo-skepticism most\nsavagely. This was in 1873.\n\n\"Strauss,\" he said, \"utterly evades the question, What is the meaning\nof life? He had an opportunity to show courage, to turn his back\nupon the Philistines, and to boldly deduce a new morality from that\nconstant warfare which destroys all but the fittest, but to do this\nwould have required a love of truth infinitely higher than that which\nspends itself in violent invectives against parsons, miracles and the\nhistorical humbug of the resurrection. Strauss had no such courage.\nHad he worked out the Darwinian doctrine to its last decimal he would\nhave had the Philistines against him to a man. As it is, they are with\nhim. He has wasted his time in combatting Christianity's nonessentials.\nFor the idea at the bottom of it he has proposed no substitute. In\nconsequence, his philosophy is stale.\"[2]\n\nAs a distinguished critic has pointed out, Nietzsche's attack was\nnotable, not only for its keen analysis and ruthless honesty, but also\nfor its courage. It required no little bravery, three years after\nSedan, to tell the Germans that the new culture which constituted their\npride was rotten, and that, unless it were purified in the fire of\nabsolute truth, it might one day wreck their civilization.\n\nIn the year following Nietzsche returned to the attack with a criticism\nof history, which was then the fashionable science of the German\nuniversities, on account, chiefly, of its usefulness in exploding\nthe myths of Christianity. He called his essay _\"Vom Nutzen und\nNachtheil der Historie f\u00fcr das Leben_\" (\"On the Good and Bad Effects\nof History upon Human Life\") and in it he took issue with the reigning\npedagogues and professors of the day. There was much hard thinking\nand no little good writing in this essay and it made its mark. The\nmere study of history, argued Nietzsche, unless some definite notion\nregarding the destiny of man were kept ever in mind, was misleading\nand confusing. There was great danger in assuming that everything\nwhich happened was part of some divine and mysterious plan for the\nultimate attainment of perfection. As a matter of fact, many historical\nevents were meaningless, and this was particularly true of those\nexpressions of \"governments, public opinion and majorities\" which\nhistorians were prone to accentuate. To Nietzsche the ideas and doings\nof peoples seemed infinitely less important than the ideas and doings\nof exceptional individuals. To put it more simply, he believed that\none man, Hannibal, was of vastly more importance to the world than all\nthe other Carthaginians of his time taken together. Herein we have a\nreappearance of Dionysus and a foreshadowing of the _herrenmoral_ and\nsuperman of later days.\n\nNietzsche's next essay was devoted to Schopenhauer and was printed\nin 1874. He called it \"_Schopenhauer als Erzieher_\" (\"Schopenhauer\nas a Teacher\") and in it he laid his burnt offering upon the altar\nof the great pessimist, who was destined to remain his hero, if no\nlonger his god, until the end. Nietzsche was already beginning to read\nrebellious ideas of his own into \"The World as Will and Idea,\" but in\ntwo things--the theory of will and the impulse toward truth--he and\nSchopenhauer were ever as one. He preached a holy war upon all those\ninfluences which had made the apostle of pessimism, in his life-time,\nan unheard outcast. He raged against the narrowness of university\nschools of philosophy and denounced all governmental interference\nin speculation--whether it were expressed crudely, by inquisitorial\nlaws and the _Index_, or softly and insidiously, by the bribery of\ncomfortable berths and public honors.\n\n\"Experience teaches us,\" he said, \"that nothing stands so much in the\nway of developing great philosophers as the custom of supporting bad\nones in state universities.... It is the popular theory that the posts\ngiven to the latter make them 'free' to do original work; as a matter\nof fact, the effect is quite the contrary.... No state would ever dare\nto patronize such men as Plato and Schopenhauer. And why? Because the\nstate is always afraid of them.... It seems to me that there is need\nfor a higher tribunal outside the universities to critically examine\nthe doctrines they teach. As soon as philosophers are willing to resign\ntheir salaries, they will constitute such a tribunal. Without pay and\nwithout honors, it will be able to free itself from the prejudices\nof the age. Like Schopenhauer, it will be the judge of the so-called\nculture around it.\"[3]\n\nYears later Nietzsche denied that, in this essay, he committed himself\nirretrievably to the whole philosophy of Schopenhauer and a fair\nreading bears him out. He was not defending Schopenhauer's doctrine\nof renunciation, but merely asking that he be given a hearing. He was\npleading the case of foes as well as of friends: all he asked was that\nthe forum be opened to every man who had something new to say.\n\nNietzsche regarded Schopenhauer as a king among philosophers because\nhe shook himself entirely free of the dominant thought of his time. In\nan age marked, beyond everything, by humanity's rising reliance upon\nhuman reason, he sought to show that reason was a puny offshoot of\nan irresistible natural law--the law of self-preservation. Nietzsche\nadmired the man's courage and agreed with him in his insistence that\nthis law was at the bottom of all sentient activity, but he was never\na subscriber to Schopenhauer's surrender and despair. From the very\nstart, indeed, he was a prophet of defiance, and herein his divergence\nfrom Schopenhauer was infinite. As his knowledge broadened and his\nscope widened, he expanded and developed his philosophy, and often he\nfound it necessary to modify it in detail. But that he ever turned\nupon himself in fundamentals is untrue. Nietzsche at 40 and Nietzsche\nat 25 were essentially the same. The germ of practically all his\nwritings lies in his first book--nay, it is to be found further back:\nin the wild speculations of his youth.\n\nThe fourth of the \"_Unzeitgem\u00e4sse Betrachtungen_\" (and the last, for\nthe original design of the series was not carried out) was \"Richard\nWagner in Bayreuth.\"[4] This was published in 1876 and neither it\nnor the general subject of Nietzsche's relations with Wagner need be\nconsidered here. In a subsequent chapter the whole matter will be\ndiscussed. For the present, it is sufficient to say that Nietzsche met\nWagner through the medium of Ritschl's wife; that they became fast\nfriends; that Nietzsche hailed the composer as a hero sent to make the\ndrama an epitome of the life unfettered and unbounded, of life defiant\nand joyful; that Wagner, after starting from the Schopenhauer base,\ntravelled toward St. Francis rather than toward Dionysus, and that\nNietzsche, after vain expostulations, read the author of \"Parsifal\"\nout of meeting and pronounced him anathema. It was all a case of\nmisunderstanding. Wagner was an artist, and not a philosopher. Right or\nwrong, Christianity was beautiful, and as a thing of beauty it called\naloud to him. To Nietzsche beauty seemed a mere phase of truth.\n\nIt was during this period of preliminary skirmishing that Nietzsche's\nultimate philosophy began to formulate itself. He saw clearly that\nthere was something radically wrong with the German culture of the\nday--that many things esteemed right and holy were, in reality,\nunspeakable, and that many things under the ban of church and state\nwere far from wrong in themselves. He saw, too, that there had grown\nup a false logic and that its taint was upon the whole of contemporary\nthought. Men maintained propositions plainly erroneous and excused\nthemselves by the plea that ideals were greater than actualities. The\nrace was subscribing to one thing and practicing another. Christianity\nwas official, but not a single real Christian was to be found in all\nChristendom. Thousands bowed down to men and ideas that they despised\nand denounced things that every sane man knew were necessary and\ninevitable. The result was a flavor of dishonesty and hypocrisy in all\nhuman affairs. In the abstract the laws--of the church, the state and\nsociety--were looked upon as impeccable, but every man, in so far as\nthey bore upon him personally, tried his best to evade them.\n\nOther philosophers, in Germany and elsewhere, had made the same\nobservation and there was in progress a grand assault-at-arms upon\nold ideas. Huxley and Spencer, in England, were laboring hard in the\nvineyard planted by Darwin; Ibsen, in Norway, was preparing for his\nepoch-making life-work, and in far America Andrew D. White and others\nwere battling to free education from the bonds of theology. Thus it\nwill be seen that, at the start, Nietzsche was no more a pioneer than\nany one of a dozen other men. Some of these other men, indeed, were\nfar better equipped for the fray than he, and their services, for a\nlong while, seemed a great deal more important. But it was his good\nfortune, before his working days were over, to press the conflict much\nfurther afield than the others. Beginning where they ended, he fought\nhis way into the very citadel of the enemy.\n\nHis attack upon Christianity, which is described at length later on,\nwell exemplifies this uncompromising thoroughness. Nietzsche saw\nthat the same plan would have to be pursued in examining all other\nconcepts--religious, political or social. It would be necessary to pass\nover surface symptoms and go to the heart of things: to tunnel down\ndeep into ideas; to trace out their history and seek out their origins.\nThere were no willing hands to help him in this: it was, in a sense,\na work new to the world. In consequence Nietzsche perceived that he\nwould have to go slowly and that it would be needful to make every step\nplain. It was out of the question to expect encouragement: if the task\nattracted notice at all, this notice would probably take the form of\nblundering opposition. But Nietzsche began his clearing and his road\ncutting with a light heart. The men of his day might call him accursed,\nbut in time his honesty would shame all denial. This was his attitude\nalways: he felt that neglect and opprobrium were all in his day's work\nand he used to say that if ever the generality of men endorsed any idea\nthat he had advanced he would be convinced at once that he had made an\nerror.\n\nIn his preliminary path-finding Nietzsche concerned himself much with\nthe history of specific ideas. He showed how the thing which was a sin\nin one age became the virtue of the next. He attacked hope, faith and\ncharity in this way, and he made excursions into nearly every field\nof human thought--from art to primary education. All of this occupied\nthe first half of the 70's. Nietzsche was in indifferent health and\nhis labors tired him so greatly that he thought more than once of\ngiving up his post at Basel, with its dull round of lecturing and\nquizzing. But his private means at this time were not great enough\nto enable him to surrender his salary and so he had to hold on. He\nthought, too, of going to Vienna to study the natural sciences so that\nhe might attain the wide and certain knowledge possessed by Spencer,\nbut the same considerations forced him to abandon the plan. He spent\nhis winters teaching and investigating and his summers at various\nwatering-places--from Tribschen, in Switzerland, where the Wagners were\nhis hosts, to Sorrento, in Italy.\n\nAt Sorrento he happened to take lodgings in a house which also\nsheltered Dr. Paul R\u00e9e, the author of \"Psychological Observations,\"\n\"The Origin of Moral Feelings,\" and other metaphysical works. That\nR\u00e9e gave him great assistance he acknowledged himself in later years,\nbut that his ideas were, in any sense, due to this chance meeting (as\nMax Nordau would have us believe) is out of the question, for, as we\nhave seen, they were already pretty clear in his mind a long while\nbefore. But R\u00e9e widened his outlook a great deal, it is evident,\nand undoubtedly made him acquainted with the English naturalists\nwho had sprung up as spores of Darwin, and with a number of great\nFrenchmen--Montaigne, Larochefoucauld, La Bruy\u00e8re, Fontenelle,\nVauvenargues and Chamfort.\n\nNietzsche had been setting down his thoughts and conclusions in the\nform of brief memoranda and as he grew better acquainted with the\nFrench philosophers, many of whom published their works as collections\nof aphorisms, he decided to employ that form himself. Thus he began to\narrange the notes which were to be given to the world as \"_Menschliches\nallzu Menschliches_\" (\"Human, All-too Human\"). In 1876 he got leave\nfrom Basel and gave his whole time to the work. During the winter of\n1876-7, with the aid of a disciple named Bernhard Cron (better known as\nPeter Gast) he prepared the first volume for the press. Nietzsche was\nwell aware that it would make a sensation and while it was being set up\nhis courage apparently forsook him and he suggested to his publisher\nthat it be sent forth anonymously. But the latter would not hear of it\nand so the first part left the press in 1878.\n\nAs the author had expected, the book provoked a fine frenzy of horror\namong the pious. The first title chosen for it, \"_Die Pflugschar_\"\n(\"The Plowshare\"), and the one finally selected, \"Human, All-too\nHuman,\" indicate that it was an attempt to examine the underside of\nhuman ideas. In it Nietzsche challenged the whole of current morality.\nHe showed that moral ideas were not divine, but human, and that, like\nall things human, they were subject to change. He showed that good\nand evil were but relative terms, and that it was impossible to say,\nfinally and absolutely, that a certain action was right and another\nwrong. He applied the acid of critical analysis to a hundred and one\nspecific ideas, and his general conclusion, to put it briefly, was that\nno human being had a right, in any way or form, to judge or direct the\nactions of any other being. Herein we have, in a few words, that gospel\nof individualism which all our sages preach today.[5]\n\nNietzsche sent a copy of the book to Wagner and the great composer was\nso appalled that he was speechless. Even the author's devoted sister,\nwho worshipped him as an intellectual god, was unable to follow him.\nGermany, in general, pronounced the work a conglomeration of crazy\nfantasies and wild absurdities--and Nietzsche smiled with satisfaction.\nIn 1879 he published the second volume, to which he gave the sub-title\nof \"_Vermischte Meinungen und Spr\u00fcche_\" (\"Miscellaneous Opinions and\nAphorisms\") and shortly thereafter he finally resigned his chair at\nBasel. The third part of the book appeared in 1880 as \"_Der Wanderer\nund sein Schatten_\" (\"The Wanderer and His Shadow\"). The three volumes\nwere published as two in 1886 as \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_\"\nwith the explanatory sub-title, \"_Ein Buch f\u00fcr Freie Geister_\" (\"A Book\nfor Free Spirits\").\n\n\n[1] David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74) sprang into fame with his \"_Das\nLeben Jesu,_\" 1835 (Eng. tr. by George Eliot, 1846), but the book which\nserved as Nietzsche's target was \"_Der alte und der neue Glaube_\" (\"The\nOld Faith and the New\"), 1872.\n\n[2] \"_David Strauss, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller_,\" \u00a7 7.\n\n[3] \"_Schopenhauer als Erzieher,_\" \u00a7 8.\n\n[4] According to Nietzsche's original plan the series was to have\nincluded pamphlets on \"Literature and the Press,\" \"Art and Painters,\"\n\"The Higher Education,\" \"German and Counter-German,\" \"War and the\nNation,\" \"The Teacher,\" \"Religion,\" \"Society and Trade,\" \"Society and\nNatural Science,\" and \"The City,\" with an epilogue entitled \"The Way to\nFreedom.\"\n\n[5] It must be remembered, in considering all of Nietzsche's writings,\nthat when he spoke of a human being, he meant a being of the higher\nsort--_i.e._ one capable of clear reasoning. He regarded the drudge\nclass, which is obviously unable to think for itself, as unworthy of\nconsideration. Its highest mission, he believed, was to serve and\nobey the master class. But he held that there should be no artificial\nbarriers to the rise of an individual born to the drudge class who\nshowed an accidental capacity for independent reasoning. Such an\nindividual, he believed, should be admitted, _ipso facto_, to the\nmaster class. Naturally enough, he held to the converse too. _Vide_ the\nchapter on \"Civilization.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nTHE PROPHET OF THE SUPERMAN\n\n\nNietzsche spent the winter of 1879-80 at Naumburg, his old home. During\nthe ensuing year he was very ill, indeed, and for awhile he believed\nthat he had but a short while to live. Like all such invalids he\ndevoted a great deal of time to observing and discussing his condition.\nHe became, indeed, a hypochondriac of the first water and began to take\na sort of melancholy pleasure in his infirmities. He sought relief\nat all the baths and cures of Europe: he took hot baths, cold baths,\nsalt-water baths and mud baths. Every new form of pseudo-therapy found\nhim in its freshman class. To owners of sanatoria and to inventors of\nnovel styles of massage, irrigation, sweating and feeding he was a joy\nunlimited. But he grew worse instead of better.\n\nAfter 1880, his life was a wandering one. His sister, after her\nmarriage, went to Paraguay for a while, and during her absence\nNietzsche made his progress from the mountains to the sea, and then\nback to the mountains again. He gave up his professorship that he might\nspend his winters in Italy and his summers in the Engadine. In the\nface of all this suffering and travelling about, close application, of\ncourse, was out of the question. So he contented himself with working\nwhenever and however his headaches, his doctors and the railway\ntime-tables would permit--on hotel verandas, in cure-houses and in\nthe woods. He would take long, solitary walks and struggle with his\nproblems by the way. He swallowed more and more pills; he imbibed\nmineral waters by the gallon; he grew more and more moody and ungenial.\nOne of his favorite haunts, in the winter time, was a verdant little\nneck of land that jutted out into Lake Maggiore. There he could think\nand dream undisturbed. One day, when he found that some one had placed\na rustic bench on the diminutive peninsula, that passersby might rest,\nhe was greatly incensed.\n\nNietzsche would make brief notes of his thoughts during his daylight\nrambles, and in the evenings would polish and expand them. As we have\nseen, his early books were sent to the printer as mere collections of\naphorisms, without effort at continuity. Sometimes a dozen subjects are\nconsidered in two pages, and then again, there is occasionally a little\nessay of three or four pages. Nietzsche chose this form because it had\nbeen used by the French philosophers he admired, and because it well\nsuited the methods of work that a pain-racked frame imposed upon him.\n\nHe was ever in great fear that some of his precious ideas would be lost\nto posterity--that death, the ever-threatening, would rob him of his\nrightful immortality and the world of his stupendous wisdom--and so he\nmade efforts, several times, to engage an amanuensis capable of jotting\ndown, after the fashion of Johnson's Boswell, the chance phrases that\nfell from his lips. His sister was too busy to undertake the task:\nwhenever she was with him her whole time was employed in guarding him\nfrom lion-hunters, scrutinizing his daily fare and deftly inveigling\nhim into answering his letters, brushing his clothes and getting his\nhair cut. Finally, Paul R\u00e9e and another friend, Fr\u00e4ulein von Meysenbug,\nbrought to his notice a young Russian woman, Mlle. Lou Salom\u00e9, who\nprofessed vast interest in his work and offered to help him. But this\narrangement quickly ended in disaster, for Nietzsche fell in love with\nthe girl--she was only 20--and pursued her over half of Europe when she\nfled. To add to the humors of the situation R\u00e9e fell in love with her\ntoo, and the two friends thus became foes and there was even some talk\nof a duel. Mlle. Salom\u00e9, however, went to R\u00e9e, and with his aid she\nlater wrote a book about Nietzsche.[1] Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche sneers\nat that book, but the fact is not to be forgotten that she was very\njealous of Mlle. Salom\u00e9, and gave constant proof of it by unfriendly\nword and act. In the end, the latter married one Prof. Andreas and\nsettled down in G\u00f6ttingen.\n\nEarly in 1881 Nietzsche published \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_\" (\"The Dawn of\nDay\"). It was begun at Venice in 1880 and continued at Marienbad,\nLago Maggiore and Genoa. It was, in a broad way, a continuation of\n_\"Menschliches allzu Menschliches_.\" It dealt with an infinite variety\nof subjects, from matrimony to Christianity, and from education to\nGerman patriotism. To all the test of fundamental truth was applied: of\neverything Nietzsche asked, not, Is it respectable or lawful? but, Is\nit essentially true? These early works, at best, were mere note-books.\nNietzsche saw that the ground would have to be plowed, that people\nwould have to grow accustomed to the idea of questioning high and holy\nthings, before a new system of philosophy would be understandable or\npossible. In \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_\" and in _\"Morgenr\u00f6te_\"\nhe undertook this preparatory cultivation.\n\nThe book which followed, \"_Die fr\u00f6hliche Wissenschaft_\" (\"The Joyful\nScience\") continued the same task. The first edition contained four\nparts and was published in 1882. In 1887 a fifth part was added.\nNietzsche had now completed his plowing and was ready to sow his crop.\nHe had demonstrated, by practical examples, that moral ideas were\nvulnerable, and that the Ten Commandments might be debated. Going\nfurther, he had adduced excellent historical evidence against the\nabsolute truth of various current conceptions of right and wrong, and\nhad traced a number of moral ideas back to decidedly lowly sources. His\nwork so far had been entirely destructive and he had scarcely ventured\nto hint at his plans for a reconstruction of the scheme of things.\nAs he himself says, he spent the four years between 1878 and 1882 in\npreparing the way for his later work.\n\n\"I descended,\" he says, \"into the lowest depths, I searched to the\nbottom, I examined and pried into an old faith on which, for thousands\nof years, philosophers had built as upon a secure foundation. The old\nstructures came tumbling down about me. I undermined our old faith in\nmorals.\"[2]\n\nThis labor accomplished, Nietzsche was ready to set forth his own\nnotion of the end and aim of existence. He had shown that the old\nmorality was like an apple rotten at the core--that the Christian\nideal of humility made mankind weak and miserable; that many\ninstitutions regarded with superstitious reverence, as the direct\nresult of commands from the creator (such, for instance, as the family,\nthe church and the state), were mere products of man's \"all-too-human\"\ncupidity, cowardice, stupidity and yearning for ease. He had turned\nthe searchlight of truth upon patriotism, charity and self-sacrifice.\nHe had shown that many things held to be utterly and unquestionably\ngood or bad by modern civilization were once given quite different\nvalues--that the ancient Greeks considered hope a sign of weakness, and\nmercy the attribute of a fool, and that the Jews, in their royal days,\nlooked upon wrath, not as a sin, but as a virtue--and in general he had\ndemonstrated, by countless instances and arguments, that all notions of\ngood and evil were mutable and that no man could ever say, with utter\ncertainty, that one thing was right and another wrong.\n\nThe ground was now cleared for the work of reconstruction and the first\nstructure that Nietzsche reared was \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_\" (\"Thus\nSpake Zoroaster\"). This book, to which he gave the sub-title of _\"Ein\nBuch f\u00fcr Alle und Keinen_\" (\"A book for all and none\"), took the form\nof a fantastic, half-poetical half-philosophical rhapsody. Nietzsche\nhad been delving into oriental mysticism and from the law-giver of the\nancient Persians he borrowed the name of his hero--Zoroaster. But there\nwas no further resemblance between the two, and no likeness whatever\nbetween Nietzsche's philosophy and that of the Persians.\n\nThe Zoroaster of the book is a sage who lives remote from mankind,\nand with no attendants but a snake and an eagle. The book is in four\nparts and all are made up of discourses by Zoroaster. These discourses\nare delivered to various audiences during the prophet's occasional\nwanderings and at the conferences he holds with various disciples in\nthe cave that he calls home. They are decidedly oriental in form and\nrecall the manner and phraseology of the biblical rhapsodists. Toward\nthe end Nietzsche throws all restraint to the winds and indulges to his\nheart's content in the rare and exhilarating sport of blasphemy. There\nis a sort of parody of the last supper and Zoroaster's backsliding\ndisciples engage in the grotesque and indecent worship of a jackass.\nWagner and other enemies of the author appear, thinly veiled, as\nridiculous buffoons.\n\nIn his discourses Zoroaster voices the Nietzschean idea of the\nsuperman--the idea that has come to be associated with Nietzsche more\nthan any other. Later on, it will be set forth in detail. For the\npresent, suffice it to say that it is the natural child of the notions\nput forward in Nietzsche's first book, \"The Birth of Tragedy,\" and that\nit binds his entire life work together into one consistent, harmonious\nwhole. The first part of \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_\" was published in\n1883, the second part following in the same year, and the third part\nwas printed in 1884. The last part was privately circulated among the\nauthor's friends in 1885, but was not given to the public until 1892,\nwhen the entire work was printed in one volume. As showing Nietzsche's\nwandering life, it may be recorded that the book was conceived in the\nEngadine and written in Genoa, Sils Maria, Nice and Mentone.\n\n_\"Jenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se_\" (\"Beyond Good and Evil\") appeared\nin 1886. In this book Nietzsche elaborated and systematized his\ncriticism of morals, and undertook to show why he considered modern\ncivilization degrading. Here he finally formulated his definitions of\nmaster-morality and slave-morality, and showed how Christianity was\nnecessarily the idea of a race oppressed and helpless, and eager to\nescape the lash of its masters.\n\n\"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_\" (\"The Genealogy of Morals\"), which\nappeared in 1887, developed these propositions still further. In it\nthere was also a partial return to Nietzsche's earlier manner, with\nits merciless analysis of moral concepts. In 1888 Nietzsche published\na most vitriolic attack upon Wagner, under the title of \"_Der Fall\nWagner_\" (\"The Case of Wagner\"), the burden of which was the author's\ndiscovery that the composer, starting, with him, from Schopenhauer's\npremises, had ended, not with the superman, but with the Man on the\ncross. \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_\" (\"The Twilight of the Idols\") a sort of\nparody of Wagner's \"_G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung_\" (\"The Twilight of the Gods\")\nfollowed in 1889. \"_Nietzsche contra Wagner_\" (\"Nietzsche versus\nWagner\") was printed the same year. It was made up of extracts from the\nphilosopher's early works, and was designed to prove that, contrary to\nthe allegations of his enemies, he had not veered completely about in\nhis attitude toward Wagner.\n\nMeanwhile, despite the fact that his health was fast declining and he\nwas approaching the verge of insanity, Nietzsche made plans for a great\nfour volume work that was to sum up his philosophy and stand forever as\nhis _magnum opus._ The four volumes, as he planned them, were to bear\nthe following titles:\n\n1. \"_Der Antichrist: Versuch einer Kritik des Christenthums_\" (\"The\nAnti-Christ: an Attempt at a Criticism of Christianity\").\n\n2. \"_Der freie Geist: Kritik der Philosophie als einer nihilistischen\nBewegung_\" (\"The Free Spirit: a Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic\nMovement\").\n\n3. \"_Der Immoralist: Kritik der verh\u00e4ngnissvollsten Art von\nUnwissenheit, der Moral_\" (\"The Immoralist: a Criticism of That Fatal\nSpecies of Ignorance, Morality\").\n\n4. \"_Dionysus, Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkunft_\" (\"Dionysus, the\nPhilosophy of Eternal Recurrence\").\n\nThis work was to be published under the general title of \"_Der Wille\nzur Macht: Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe_\" (\"The Will to Power:\nan Attempt at a Transvaluation of all Values\"), but Nietzsche got no\nfurther than the first book, \"_Der Antichrist_\" and a mass of rough\nnotes for the others. \"_Der Antichrist_\" probably the most brilliant\npiece of writing that Germany had seen in half a century, was written\nat great speed between September 3rd and September 30th, 1888, but it\nwas not published until 1895, six years after the philosopher had laid\ndown his work forever.\n\nDuring that same year C. G. Naumann, the Leipsic publisher, began the\nissue of a definite edition of all his writings, in fifteen volumes,\nunder the editorial direction of Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, Dr. Fritz\nKoegel, Peter Gast and E. von der Hellen. In this edition his notes\nfor \"_Der Wille zur Macht_\" and his early philological essays were\nincluded. The notes are of great interest to the serious student of\nNietzsche, for they show how some of his ideas changed with the years\nand point out the probable structure of his final system, but the\ngeneral reader will find them chaotic, and often incomprehensible.\nIn October, 1888, but three months before his breakdown, he began a\ncritical autobiography with the title of \"_Ecce Homo_,\" and it was\ncompleted in three weeks. It is an extremely frank and entertaining\nbook, with such chapter headings as \"Why I am so Wise,\" \"Why I Write\nSuch Excellent Books\" and \"Why I am a Fatality.\" In it Nietzsche sets\nforth his private convictions regarding a great many things, from\ncooking to climates, and discusses each of his books in detail. \"_Ecce\nHomo_\" was not printed until 1908, when it appeared at Leipsic in a\nlimited edition of 1250 copies.\n\nIn January, 1889, at Turin, where he was living alone in very humble\nquarters, Nietzsche suddenly became hopelessly insane. His friends got\nnews of it from his own hand. \"I am Ferdinand de Lesseps,\" he wrote to\nProf. Burckhardt of Basel. To Cosima Wagner: \"Ariadne, I love you!\"\nTo Georg Brandes, the Danish critic, he sent a telegram signed \"The\nCrucified.\" Franz Overbeck, an old Basel friend, at once set out for\nTurin, and there he found Nietzsche thumping the piano with his elbows\nand singing wild songs. Overbeck brought him back to Basel and he was\nconfined in a private asylum, where his general health greatly improved\nand hopes were entertained of his recovery. But he never got well\nenough to be left alone, and so his old mother, with whom he had been\non bad terms for years, took him back to Naumburg. When, in 1893, his\nsister Elizabeth returned from Paraguay, where her husband had died,\nhe was well enough to meet her at the railroad station. Four years\nlater, when their mother died, Elizabeth removed him to Weimar, where\nshe bought a villa called \"_Silberblick_\" (Silver View) in the suburbs.\nThis villa had a garden overlooking the hills and the lazy river Ilm,\nand a wide, sheltered veranda for the invalid's couch. There he would\nsit day after day, receiving old friends but saying little. His mind\nnever became clear enough for him to resume work, or even to read. He\nhad to grope for words, slowly and painfully, and he retained only a\ncloudy memory of his own books. His chief delight was in music and he\nwas always glad when someone came who could play the piano for him.\n\nThere is something poignantly pathetic in the picture of this\nvaliant fighter--this arrogant _ja-sager_--this foe of men, gods and\ndevils--being nursed and coddled like a little child. His old fierce\npride and courage disappeared and he became docile and gentle. \"You\nand I, my sister--we are happy!\" he would say, and then his hand\nwould slip out from his coverings and clasp that of the tender and\nfaithful Lisbeth. Once she mentioned Wagner to him. \"_Den habe ich sehr\ngeliebt!_\" he said. All his old fighting spirit was gone. He remembered\nonly the glad days and the dreams of his youth.\n\nNietzsche died at Weimar on August 25, 1900, the immediate cause of\ndeath being pneumonia. His ashes are buried in the little village of\nR\u00f6cken, his birthplace.\n\n\n[1] \"_Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken_;\" Vienna, 1894.\n\n[2] Preface to \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 2; autumn, 1886.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHER AND THE MAN\n\n\n\"My brother,\" says Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, in her biography, \"was\nstockily and broadly built and was anything but thin. He had a rather\ndark, healthy, ruddy complexion. In all things he was tidy and orderly,\nin speech he was soft-spoken, and in general, he was inclined to be\nserene under all circumstances. All in all, he was the very antithesis\nof a nervous man.\n\n\"In the fall of 1888, he said of himself, in a reminiscent memorandum:\n'My blood moves slowly. A doctor who treated me a long while for what\nwas at first diagnosed as a nervous affection said: \"No, your trouble\ncannot be in your nerves. I myself am much more nervous than you.\"'...\n\n\"My brother, both before and after his long illness seized him, was\na believer in natural methods of healing. He took cold baths, rubbed\ndown every morning and was quite faithful in continuing light, bed-room\ngymnastics.\"\n\nAt one time, she says, Nietzsche became a violent vegetarian and\nafflicted his friends with the ancient vegetarian horror of making a\nsarcophagus of one's stomach. It seems surprising that a man so quick\nto perceive errors, saw none in the silly argument that, because an\nape's organs are designed for a vegetarian diet, a man's are so planned\nalso. An acquaintance with elementary anatomy and physiology would\nhave shown him the absurdity of this, but apparently he knew little\nabout the human body, despite his uncanny skill at unearthing the\nsecrets of the human mind. Nietzsche had read Emerson in his youth,\nand those Emersonian seeds which have come to full flower in the\nUnited States as the so-called New Thought movement--with Christian\nScience, osteopathy, mental telepathy, occultism, pseudo-psychology and\nthat grand lodge of credulous _comiques_, the Society for Psychical\nResearch, as its final blossoms--all of this probably made its mark on\nthe philosopher of the superman, too.\n\nFrau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, in her biography, seeks to prove the impossible\nthesis that her brother, despite his constant illness, was ever\nwell-balanced in mind. It is but fair to charge that her own evidence\nis against her. From his youth onward, Nietzsche was undoubtedly a\nneurasthenic, and after the Franco-Prussian war he was a constant\nsufferer from all sorts of terrible ills--some imaginary, no doubt,\nbut others real enough. In many ways, his own account of his symptoms\nrecalls vividly the long catalogue of aches and pains given by Herbert\nSpencer in his autobiography. Spencer had queer pains in his head and\nso did Nietzsche. Spencer roved about all his life in search of health\nand so did Nietzsche. Spencer's working hours were limited and so were\nNietzsche's. The latter tells us himself that, in a single year, 1878,\nhe was disabled 118 days by headaches and pains in the eyes.\n\nDr. Gould, the prophet of eye-strain, would have us believe that\nboth of these great philosophers suffered because they had read too\nmuch during adolescence. It is more likely, however, that each was\nthe victim of some definite organic malady, and perhaps of more\nthan one. In Nietzsche's case things were constantly made worse by\nhis fondness for self-medication, that vice of fools. Preparatory to\nhis service as a hospital steward in 1870 he had attended a brief\ncourse of first-aid lectures at the military hospital at Erlangen,\nand thereafter he regarded himself as a finished pathologist and was\nforever taking his own doses. The amount of medicine he thus swallowed\nwas truly appalling, and the only way he could break his appetite for\none drug was by acquiring an appetite for another. Chloral, however,\nwas his favorite, and toward the end he took it daily and in staggering\nquantities.\n\nMeanwhile, his mental disturbances grew more and more visible. At\ntimes he would be highly excited and exalted, denouncing his foes, and\nproclaiming his own genius. This was his state when his friends were\nfinally forced to put him under restraint. At other times he would show\nsymptoms of melancholia--a feeling of isolation and friendlessness,\na great sadness, a foreboding of death. The hostility with which his\nbooks were received gave sharpness and plausibility to this mood, and\nit pursued him through many a despairing day.\n\n\"An animal, when it is sick,\" he wrote to Baron von Seydlitz, in\n1888, \"slinks away to some dark cavern, and so, too, does the _b\u00eate\nphilosophe_. I am alone--absurdly alone--and in my unflinching and\ntoilsome struggle against all that men have hitherto held sacred and\nvenerable, I have become a sort of dark cavern myself--something hidden\nand mysterious, which is not to be explored....\" But the mood vanished\nas the words were penned, and the defiant dionysian roared his\nchallenge at his foes. \"It is not impossible,\" he said, \"that I am the\ngreatest philosopher of the century--perhaps even more than that! I may\nbe the decisive and fateful link between two thousand centuries!\"[1]\n\nMax Nordau[2] says that Nietzsche was crazy from birth, but the facts\ndo not bear him out. It is much more reasonable to hold that the\nphilosopher came into the world a sound and healthy animal, and that it\nremained for overstudy in his youth, over-work and over drugging later\non, exposure on the battle field, functional disorders and constant and\nviolent strife to undermine and eventually overthrow his intellect.\n\nBut if we admit the indisputable fact that Nietzsche died a madman\nand the equally indisputable fact that his insanity was not sudden,\nbut progressive, we by no means read him out of court as a thinker. A\nman's reasoning is to be judged, not by his physical condition, but\nby its own ingenuity and accuracy. If a raving maniac says that twice\ntwo make four, it is just as true as it would be if Pope Pius X or\nany other undoubtedly sane man were to maintain it. Judged in this\nway Nietzsche's philosophy is very far from insane. Later on we shall\nconsider it as a workable system, and point out its apparent truths and\napparent errors, but in no place (saving, perhaps, one) is his argument\nto be dismissed as the phantasm of a lunatic.\n\nNietzsche's sister says that, in the practical affairs of life, the\nphilosopher was absurdly impractical. He cared nothing for money and\nduring the better part of his life had little need to do so. His\nmother, for a country pastor's widow, was well-to-do, and when he was\ntwenty-five his professorship at Basel brought him 3,000 francs a\nyear. At Basel, in the late sixties, 3,000 francs was the income of an\nindependent, not to say opulent man. Nietzsche was a bachelor and lived\nvery simply. It was only upon books and music and travel that he was\nextravagant.\n\nAfter two years' service at Basel, the university authorities raised\nhis wage to 4,000 francs, and in 1879, when ill health forced him to\nresign, they gave him a pension of 3,000 francs a year. Besides that,\nhe inherited 30,000 marks from one of his aunts, and so, altogether, he\nhad an income of $900 or $1,000 a year--the sum which Herbert Spencer\nregarded, all his life, as an insurance of perfect tranquillity and\nhappiness.\n\nNietzsche's passion and dissipation, throughout his life, was music.\nIn all his books musical terms and figures of speech are constantly\nencountered. He played the piano very well, indeed, and was especially\nfond of performing transcriptions of the Wagner opera scores. \"My three\nsolaces,\" he wrote home from Leipsic, \"are Schopenhauer's philosophy,\nSchumann's music and solitary walks.\" In his late youth, Wagner\nengrossed him, but his sympathies were broad enough to include Bach,\nSchubert and Mendelssohn. His admiration for the last named, in fact,\nhelped to alienate him from Wagner, who regarded the Mendelssohn scheme\nof things as unspeakable.\n\nNietzsche's own compositions were decidedly heavy and scholastic.\nHe was a skillful harmonist and contrapuntalist, but his musical\nideas lacked life. Into the simplest songs he introduced harsh and\nfar-fetched modulations. The music of Richard Strauss, who professes\nto be his disciple and has found inspiration in his \"_Also sprach\nZarathustra_\" would have delighted him. Strauss has achieved the\nuncanny feat of writing in two keys at once. Such an effort would have\nenlisted Nietzsche's keen interest.\n\nAll the same, his music was not a mere creature of the study and\nof rules, and we have evidence that he was frequently inspired\nto composition by bursts of strong emotion. On his way to the\nFranco-Prussian war, he wrote a patriotic song, words and music,\non the train. He called it \"Adieu! I Must Go!\" and arranged it for\nmen's chorus, _a capella_. It would be worth while to hear a German\n_m\u00e4nnerchor_, with its high, beery tenors, and ponderous basses, sing\nthis curious composition. Certainly no more grotesque music was ever\nput on paper by mortal man.\n\nMuch has been written by various commentators about the strange charm\nof Nietzsche's prose style. He was, indeed, a master of the German\nlanguage, but this mastery was not inborn. Like Spencer he made a\ndeliberate effort, early in life, to acquire ease and force in writing.\nHis success was far greater than Spencer's. Toward the end--in \"_Der\nAntichrist_,\" for instance--he attained a degree of powerful and\nconvincing utterance almost comparable to Huxley's. But his style never\nexhibited quite that wonderful air of clearness, of utter certainty,\nof inevitableness which makes the \"Lay Sermons\" so tremendously\nimpressive. Nietzsche was ever nearer to Carlyle than to Addison. \"His\nstyle,\" says a writer in the _Athen\u00e6um,_ \"is a shower of sparks, which\nscatter, like fireworks, all over the sky.\"\n\n\"My sense for form,\" says Nietzsche himself, \"awakened on my coming in\ncontact with Sallust.\" Later on he studied the great French stylists,\nparticularly Larochefoucauld, and learned much from them. He became a\nmaster of the aphorism and the epigram, and this skill, very naturally,\nled him to descend, now and then, to mere violence and invective.\nHe called his opponents all sorts of harsh names--liar, swindler,\ncounterfeiter, ox, ass, snake and thief. Whatever he had to say, he\nhammered in with gigantic blows, and to the accompaniment of fearsome\nbellowing and grimacing. \"Nervous, vivid and picturesques, full of\nfire and a splendid vitality,\" says one critic, \"his style flashed and\ncoruscated like a glowing flame, and had a sort of dithyrambic movement\nthat at times recalls the swing of the Pindaric odes.\" Naturally, this\nvery _abandon_ made his poetry formless and grotesque. He scorned\nmetres and rhymes and raged on in sheer savagery. Reading his verses\none is forced irresistibly into the thought that they should be printed\nin varied fonts of type and in a dozen brilliant inks.\n\nNietzsche never married, but he was by no means a misogynist. His\nsister tells us, indeed, that he made a formal proposal of marriage to\na young Dutch woman, Fr\u00e4ulein Tr----, at Geneva in 1876, and the story\nof his melodramatic affair with Mlle. Lou Salom\u00e9, six years later, was\nbriefly rehearsed in the last chapter. There were also other women in\nhis life, early and late, and certain scandal-mongers do not hesitate\nto accuse him of a passion for Cosima Wagner, apparently on the ground\nthat he wrote to her, in his last mad days, \"Ariadne, I love thee!\" But\nhis intentions were seldom serious. Even when he pursued Mlle. Salom\u00e9\nfrom Rome to Leipsic and quarrelled with his sister about her, and\nthreatened poor R\u00e9e with fire-arms, there is good reason to believe\nthat he shied at bell and book. His proposal, in brief, was rather one\nof a free union than one of marriage. For the rest, he kept safely to\nimpossible flirtations. During all his wanderings he was much petted\nby the belles of pump room and hotel parlor, not only because he was a\nmysterious and romantic looking fellow, but also because his philosophy\nwas thought to be blasphemous and indecent, particularly by those\nwho knew nothing about it. But the fair admirers he singled out were\neither securely married or hopelessly antique. \"For me to marry,\" he\nsoliloquized in 1887, \"would probably be sheer asininity.\"\n\nThere are sentimental critics who hold that Nietzsche's utter lack\nof geniality was due to his lack of a wife. A good woman--alike\nbeautiful and sensible--would have rescued him, they say, from his\ngloomy fancies. He would have expanded and mellowed in the sunshine of\nher smiles, and children would have civilized him. The defect in this\ntheory lies in the fact that philosophers do not seem to flourish amid\nscenes of connubial joy. High thinking, it would appear, presupposes\nboarding house fare and hall bed-rooms. Spinoza, munching his solitary\nherring up his desolate backstairs, makes a picture that pains us,\nperhaps, but it must be admitted that it also satisfies our sense\nof eternal fitness. A married Spinoza, with two sons at college,\nanother managing the family lens business, a daughter busy with her\ntrousseau and a wife growing querulous and fat--the vision, alas, is\npreposterous, outrageous and impossible! We must think of philosophers\nas beings alone but not lonesome. A married Schopenhauer or Kant or\nNietzsche would be unthinkable.\n\nThat a venture into matrimony might have somewhat modified Nietzsche's\nview of womankind is not at all improbable, but that this change would\nhave been in the direction of greater accuracy does not follow. He\nwould have been either a ridiculously henpecked slave or a violent\ndomestic tyrant. As a bachelor he was comparatively well-to-do, but\nwith a wife and children his thousand a year would have meant genteel\nbeggary. His sister had her own income and her own affairs. When he\nneeded her, she was ever at his side, but when his working fits were\nupon him--when he felt efficient and self-sufficient--she discreetly\ndisappeared. A wife's constant presence, day in and day out, would have\nirritated him beyond measure or reduced him to a state of compliance\nand sloth. Nietzsche himself sought to show, in more than one place,\nthat a man whose whole existence was colored by one woman would\ninevitably acquire some trace of her feminine outlook, and so lose his\nown sure vision. The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy\ntempered by polygamy. He must study women, but he must be free, when\nhe pleases, to close his note book and go away and digest its contents\nwith an open mind.\n\nToward the end of his life, when increasing illness made him helpless,\nNietzsche's faithful sister took the place of wife and mother in his\nclouding world. She made a home for him and she sat by and watched\nhim. They talked for hours--Nietzsche propped up with pillows, his old\nruddiness faded into a deathly white, and his Niagara of a moustache\nshowing dark against his pallid skin. They talked of Naumburg and the\ndays of long ago and the fiery prophet of the superman became simple\nBrother Fritz. We are apt to forget that a great man is thus not only\ngreat, but also a man: that a philosopher, in a life time, spends less\nhours pondering the destiny of the race than he gives over to wondering\nif it will rain tomorrow and to meditating upon the toughness of\nsteaks, the dustiness of roads, the stuffiness of railway coaches and\nthe brigandage of gas companies.\n\nNietzsche's sister was the only human being that ever saw him\nintimately, as a wife might have seen him. Her affection for him\nwas perfect and her influence over him perfect, too. Love and\nunderstanding, faith and gentleness--these are the things which make\nwomen the angels of joyous illusion. Lisbeth, the calm and trusting,\nhad all in boundless richness. There was, indeed, something noble,\nand almost holy in the eagerness with which she sought her brother's\ncomfort and peace of mind during his days of stress and storm, and\nmagnified his virtues after he was gone.\n\n\n[1] Thomas Common: \"Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and\nProphet;\" London, 1901, p. 54.\n\n[2] \"Degeneration;\" Eng. tr.: New York, 1895; pp. 415-471.\n\n\n\n\nNIETZSCHE THE PHILOSOPHER\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\n\nDIONYSUS VERSUS APOLLO\n\n\n\nIn one of the preceding chapters Nietzsche's theory of Greek tragedy\nwas given in outline and its dependence upon the data of Schopenhauer's\nphilosophy was indicated. It is now in order to examine this theory\na bit more closely and to trace out its origin and development with\ngreater dwelling upon detail. In itself it is of interest only as a\nstep forward in the art of literary criticism, but in its influence\nupon Nietzsche's ultimate inquiries it has colored, to a measurable\nextent, the whole stream of modern thought.\n\nSchopenhauer laid down, as his cardinal principle, it will be recalled,\nthe idea that, in all the complex whirlpool of phenomena we call\nhuman life, the mere will to survive is at the bottom of everything,\nand that intelligence, despite its seeming kingship in civilization,\nis nothing more, after all, than a secondary manifestation of this\nprimary will. In certain purely artificial situations, it may seem to\nus that reason stands alone (as when, for example, we essay to solve\nan abstract problem in mathematics), but in everything growing out of\nour relations as human beings, one to the other, the old instinct of\nrace-and-self-preservation is plainly discernible. All of our acts,\nwhen they are not based obviously and directly upon our yearning to eat\nand take our ease and beget our kind, are founded upon our desire to\nappear superior, in some way or other, to our fellow men about us, and\nthis desire for superiority, reduced to its lowest terms, is merely\na desire to face the struggle for existence--to eat and beget--under\nmore favorable conditions than those the world accords the average man.\n\"Happiness is the feeling that power increases--that resistance is\nbeing overcome.\"[1]\n\nNietzsche went to Basel firmly convinced that these fundamental ideas\nof Schopenhauer were profoundly true, though he soon essayed to make an\namendment to them. This amendment consisted in changing Schopenhauer's\n\"will to live\" into \"will to power.\" That which does not live, he\nargued, cannot exercise a will to live, and when a thing is already\nin existence, how can it strive after existence? Nietzsche voiced the\nargument many times, but its vacuity is apparent upon brief inspection.\nHe started out, in fact, with an incredibly clumsy misinterpretation\nof Schopenhauer's phrase. The philosopher of pessimism, when he said\n\"will to live\" obviously meant, not will to begin living, but will to\ncontinue living. Now, this will to continue living, if we are to accept\nwords at their usual meaning, is plainly identical, in every respect,\nwith Nietzsche's will to power. Therefore, Nietzsche's amendment was\nnothing more than the coinage of a new phrase to express an old idea.\nThe unity of the two philosophers and the identity of the two phrases\nare proved a thousand times by Nietzsche's own discourses. Like\nSchopenhauer he believed that all human ideas were the direct products\nof the unconscious and unceasing effort of all living creatures to\nremain alive. Like Schopenhauer he believed that abstract ideas, in\nman, arose out of concrete ideas, and that the latter arose out of\nexperience, which, in turn, was nothing more or less than an ordered\nremembrance of the results following an endless series of endeavors to\nmeet the conditions of existence and so survive. Like Schopenhauer,\nhe believed that the criminal laws, the poetry, the cookery and the\nreligion of a race were alike expressions of this unconscious groping\nfor the line of least resistance.\n\nAs a philologist, Nietzsche's interest, very naturally, was fixed upon\nthe literature of Greece and Rome, and so it was but natural that his\nfirst tests of Schopenhauer's doctrines should be made in that field.\nSome time before this, he had asked himself (as many another man had\nasked before him) why it was that the ancient Greeks, who were an\nefficient and vigorous people, living in a green and sunny land, should\nso delight in gloomy tragedies. One would fancy that a Greek, when\nhe set out to spend a pleasant afternoon, would seek entertainment\nthat was frivolous and gay. But instead, he often preferred to see\none of the plays of Thespis, \u00c6schylus, Phrynichus or Pratinus, in\nwhich the heroes fought hopeless battles with fate and died miserably,\nin wretchedness and despair. Nietzsche concluded that the Greeks\nhad this liking for tragedy because it seemed to them to set forth,\ntruthfully and understandably, the conditions of life as they found\nit: that it appeared to them as a reasonable and accurate picture\nof human existence. The gods ordered the drama on the real stage of\nthe world; the dramatist ordered the drama on the mimic stage of the\ntheatre--and the latter attained credibility and verisimilitude in\nproportion as it approached an exact imitation or reproduction of the\nformer. Nietzsche saw that this quality of realism was the essence of\nall stage plays. \"Only insofar as the dramatist,\" he said, \"coalesces\nwith the primordial dramatist of the world, does he reach the true\nfunction of his craft.\"[2] \"Man posits himself as the standard.... A\nrace cannot do otherwise than thus acquiesce in itself.\"[3] In other\nwords, man is interested in nothing whatever that has no bearing upon\nhis own fate: he himself is his own hero. Thus the ancient Greeks were\nfond of tragedy because it reflected their life in miniature. In the\nmighty warriors who stalked the boards and defied the gods each Greek\nrecognized himself. In the conflicts on the stage he saw replicas of\nthat titanic conflict which seemed to him to be the eternal essence of\nhuman existence.\n\nBut why did the Greeks regard life as a conflict? In seeking an answer\nto this Nietzsche studied the growth of their civilization and of\ntheir race ideas. These race ideas, as among all other peoples, were\nvisualized and crystallized in the qualities, virtues and opinions\nattributed to the racial gods. Therefore, Nietzsche undertook an\ninquiry into the nature of the gods set up by the Greeks, and\nparticularly into the nature of the two gods who controlled the general\nscheme of Greek life, and, in consequence, of Greek art,--for art, as\nwe have seen, is nothing more or less than a race's view or opinion of\nitself, i.e. an expression of the things it sees and the conclusions it\ndraws when it observes and considers itself. These gods were Apollo\nand Dionysus.\n\nApollo, according to the Greeks, was the inventor of music, poetry and\noratory, and as such, became the god of all art. Under his beneficent\nsway the Greeks became a race of artists and acquired all the\nrefinement and culture that this implies. But the art that he taught\nthem was essentially contemplative and subjective. It depicted, not so\nmuch things as they were, as things as they had been. Thus it became\na mere record, and as such, exhibited repose as its chief quality.\nWhether it were expressed as sculpture, architecture, painting or epic\npoetry, this element of repose, or of action translated into repose,\nwas uppermost. A painting of a man running, no matter how vividly it\nsuggests the vitality and activity of the runner, is itself a thing\ninert and lifeless. Architecture, no matter how much its curves suggest\nmotion and its hard lines the strength which may be translated into\nenergy, is itself a thing immovable. Poetry, so long as it takes the\nform of the epic and is thus merely a chronicle of past actions, is as\nlifeless, at bottom, as a tax list.\n\nThe Greeks, during Apollo's reign as god of art, thus turned art into\na mere inert fossil or record--a record either of human life itself or\nof the emotions which the vicissitudes of life arouse in the spectator.\nThis notion of art was reflected in their whole civilization. They\nbecame singers of songs and weavers of metaphysical webs rather than\ndoers of deeds, and the man who could carve a flower was more honored\namong them than the man who could grow one. In brief, they began to\ndegenerate and go stale. Great men and great ideas grew few. They were\non the downward road.\n\nWhat they needed, of course, was the shock of contact with some\nbarbarous, primitive people--an infusion of good red blood from some\nrace that was still fighting for its daily bread and had had no time\nto grow contemplative and retrospective and fat. This infusion of red\nblood came in good time, but instead of coming from without (as it did\nyears afterward in Rome, when the Goths swooped down from the North),\nit came from within. That is to say, there was no actual invasion of\nbarbarian hordes, but merely an auto-reversion to simpler and more\nprimitive ideas, which fanned the dormant energy of the Greeks into\nflame and so allowed them to accomplish their own salvation. This\nimpulse came in the form of a sudden craze for a new god--Bacchus\nDionysus.\n\nBacchus was a rude, boisterous fellow and the very antithesis of the\nquiet, contemplative Apollo. We remember him today merely as the god of\nwine, but in his time he stood, not only for drinking and carousing,\nbut also for a whole system of art and a whole notion of civilization.\nApollo represented the life meditative; Bacchus Dionysus represented\nthe life strenuous. The one favored those forms of art by which human\nexistence is halted and embalmed in some lifeless medium--sculpture,\narchitecture, painting or epic poetry. The other was the god of life\nin process of actual being, and so stood for those forms of art which\nare not mere records or reflections of past existence, but brief\nsnatches of present existence itself--dancing, singing, music and the\ndrama.\n\nIt will be seen that this barbarous invasion of the new god and his\nminions made a profound change in the whole of Greek culture. Instead\nof devoting their time to writing epics, praising the laws, splitting\nphilosophical hairs and hewing dead marble, the Greeks began to\nquestion all things made and ordained and to indulge in riotous and\ngorgeous orgies, in which thousands of maidens danced and hundreds of\npoets chanted songs of love and war, and musicians vied with cooks\nand vintners to make a grand delirium of joy. The result was that the\nentire outlook of the Greeks, upon history, upon morality and upon\nhuman life, was changed. Once a people of lofty introspection and\nelegant repose, they became a race of violent activity and strong\nemotions. They began to devote themselves, not to writing down the\npraises of existence as they had found it, but to the task of improving\nlife and of widening the scope of present and future human activity and\nthe bounds of possible human happiness.[4]\n\nBut in time there came a reaction and Apollo once more triumphed. He\nreigned for awhile, unsteadily and uncertainly, and then, again, the\npendulum swung to the other side. Thus the Greeks swayed from one\ngod to the other. During Apollo's periods of ascendancy they were\ncontemplative and imaginative, and man, to them, seemed to reach his\nloftiest heights when he was most the historian. But when Dionysus was\ntheir best-beloved, they bubbled over with the joy of life, and man\nseemed, not an historian, but a maker of history--not an artist, but\na work of art. In the end, they verged toward a safe middle ground\nand began to weigh, with cool and calm, the ideas represented by the\ntwo gods. When they had done so, they came to the conclusion that it\nwas not well to give themselves unreservedly to either. To attain\nthe highest happiness, they decided, humanity required a dash of\nboth. There was need in the world for dionysians, to give vitality an\noutlet and life a purpose, and there was need, too, for apollonians,\nto build life's monuments and read its lessons. They found that true\ncivilization meant constant conflict between the two--between the\ndreamer and the man of action, between the artist who builds temples\nand the soldier who burns them down, between the priest and policeman\nwho insist upon the permanence of laws and customs as they are and the\ncriminal and reformer and conqueror who insist that they be changed.\n\nWhen they had learned this lesson, the Greeks began to soar to heights\nof culture and civilization that, in the past, had been utterly beyond\nthem, and so long as they maintained the balance between Apollo\nand Dionysus they continued to advance. But now and again, one god\nor the other grew stronger, and then there was a halt. When Apollo\nhad the upper hand, Greece became too contemplative and too placid.\nWhen Dionysus was the victor, Greece became wild and thoughtless\nand careless of the desires of others, and so turned a bit toward\nbarbarism. This seesawing continued for a long while, but Apollo was\nthe final victor--if victor he may be called. In the eternal struggle\nfor existence Greece became a mere looker-on. Her highest honors went\nto Socrates, a man who tried to reduce all life to syllogisms. Her\nfavorite sons were rhetoricians, dialecticians and philosophical\ncobweb-spinners. She placed ideas above deeds. And in the end, as all\nstudents of history know, the state that once ruled the world descended\nto senility and decay, and dionysians from without overran it, and it\nperished in anarchy and carnage. But with this we have nothing to do.\n\nNietzsche noticed that tragedy was most popular in Greece during\nthe best days of the country's culture, when Apollo and Dionysus\nwere properly balanced, one against the other. This ideal balancing\nbetween the two gods was the result, he concluded, not of conscious,\nbut of unconscious impulses. That is to say, the Greeks did not call\nparliaments and discuss the matter, as they might have discussed a\nquestion of taxes, but acted entirely in obedience to their racial\ninstinct. This instinct--this will to live or desire for power--led\nthem to feel, without putting it into words, or even, for awhile,\ninto definite thoughts, that they were happiest and safest and most\nvigorous, and so best able to preserve their national existence, when\nthey kept to the golden mean. They didn't reason it out; they merely\nfelt it.\n\nBut as Schopenhauer shows us, instinct, long exercised, means\nexperience, and the memory of experience, in the end, crystallizes into\nwhat we call intelligence or reason. Thus the unconscious Greek feeling\nthat the golden mean best served the race, finally took the form of\nan idea: _i.e._ that human life was an endless conflict between two\nforces, or impulses. These, as the Greeks saw them, were the dionysian\nimpulse to destroy, to burn the candle, to \"use up\" life; and the\napollonian impulse to preserve. Seeing life in this light, it was but\nnatural that the Greeks should try to exhibit it in the same light on\ntheir stage. And so their tragedies were invariably founded upon some\ndeadly and unending conflict--usually between a human hero and the\ngods. In a word, they made their stage plays set forth life as they saw\nit and found it, for, like all other human beings, at all times and\neverywhere, they were more interested in life as they found it than in\nanything else on the earth below or in the vasty void above.\n\nWhen Nietzsche had worked out this theory of Greek tragedy and of Greek\nlife, he set out, at once, to apply it to modern civilization, to see\nif it could explain certain ideas of the present as satisfactorily as\nit had explained one great idea of the past. He found that it could:\nthat men were still torn between the apollonian impulse to conform and\nmoralize and the dionysian impulse to exploit and explore. He found\nthat all mankind might be divided into two classes: the apollonians who\nstood for permanence and the dionysians who stood for change. It was\nthe aim of the former to live in strict obedience to certain invariable\nrules, which found expression as religion, law and morality. It was the\naim of the latter to live under the most favorable conditions possible;\nto adapt themselves to changing circumstances, and to avoid the snares\nof artificial, permanent rules.\n\nNietzsche believed that an ideal human society would be one in which\nthese two classes of men were evenly balanced--in which a vast,\ninert, religious, moral slave class stood beneath a small, alert,\niconoclastic, immoral, progressive master class. He held that this\nmaster class--this aristocracy of efficiency--should regard the slave\nclass as all men now regard the tribe of domestic beasts: as an order\nof servitors to be exploited and turned to account. The aristocracy\nof Europe, though it sought to do this with respect to the workers\nof Europe, seemed to him to fail miserably, because it was itself\nlacking in true efficiency. Instead of practising a magnificent\nopportunism and so adapting itself to changing conditions, it stood\nfor formalism and permanence. Its fetish was property in land and the\nworship of this fetish had got it into such a rut that it was becoming\nless and less fitted to survive, and was, indeed, fast sinking into\nhelpless parasitism. Its whole color and complexion were essentially\napollonic.[5]\n\nTherefore Nietzsche preached the gospel of Dionysus, that a new\naristocracy of efficiency might take the place of this old aristocracy\nof memories and inherited glories. He believed that it was only in\nthis way that mankind could hope to forge ahead. He believed that\nthere was need in the world for a class freed from the handicap of law\nand morality, a class acutely adaptable and immoral; a class bent on\nachieving, not the equality of all men, but the production, at the top,\nof the superman.\n\n\n[1] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 2.\n\n[2] \"_Die Geburt der Trag\u00f6die_,\" \u00a7 5.\n\n[3] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_\" ix, \u00a7 19.\n\n[4] \"This enrichment of consciousness among the Greeks ... showed\nitself first in the development of lyric poetry, in which the gradual\ntransition from the expression of universal religious and political\nfeeling to that which is personal and individual formed a typical\nprocess.\" Dr. Wilhelm Windelband, \"A History of Ancient Philosophy,\"\ntr. by H. E. Cushman; p. 18; New York, 1901.\n\n[5] _Vide_ the chapter on \"Civilization.\"\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF MORALITY\n\n\nIt may be urged with some reason, by those who have read the preceding\nchapter carefully, that the Nietzschean argument, so far, has served\nonly to bring us face to face with a serious contradiction. We have\nbeen asked to believe that all human impulses are merely expressions\nof the primary instinct to preserve life by meeting the changing\nconditions of existence, and in the same breath we have been asked to\nbelieve, too, that the apollonian idea--which, like all other ideas,\nmust necessarily be a result of this instinct--destroys adaptability\nand so tends to make life extra hazardous and difficult and progress\nimpossible. Here we have our contradiction: the will to live is\nachieving, not life, but death. How are we to explain it away? How\nare we to account for the fact that the apollonian idea at the bottom\nof Christian morality, for example, despite its origin in the will\nto live, has an obvious tendency to combat free progress? How are we\nto account for the fact that the church, which is based upon this\nChristian morality, is, always has been and ever will be a bitter and\nimplacable foe of good health, intellectual freedom, self-defense and\nevery other essential factor of efficiency?\n\nNietzsche answers this by pointing out that an idea, while undoubtedly\nan effect or expression of the primary life instinct, is by no means\nidentical with it. The latter manifests itself in widely different acts\nas conditions change: it is necessarily opportunistic and variable.\nThe former, on the contrary, has a tendency to survive unchanged, even\nafter its truth is transformed into falsity. That is to say, an idea\nwhich arises from a true and healthy instinct may survive long after\nthis instinct itself, in consequence of the changing conditions of\nexistence, has disappeared and given place to an instinct diametrically\nopposite. This survival of ideas we call morality. By its operation the\nhuman race is frequently saddled with the notions of generations long\ndead and forgotten. Thus we modern Christians still subscribe to the\napollonian morality of the ancient Jews--our moral forebears--despite\nthe fact that their ideas were evolved under conditions vastly\ndifferent from those which confront us today. Thus the expressions of\nthe life instinct, by obtaining an artificial and unnatural permanence,\nturn upon the instinct itself and defeat its beneficent purpose. Thus\nour contradiction is explained.\n\nTo make this rather complicated reasoning more clear it is necessary\nto follow Nietzsche through the devious twists and windings of his\nexhaustive inquiry into the origin of moral codes. In making this\ninquiry he tried to rid himself of all considerations of authority\nand reverence, just as a surgeon, in performing a difficult and\npainful operation, tries to rid himself of all sympathy and emotion.\nAdopting this plan, he found that a code of morals was nothing more\nthan a system of customs, laws and ideas which had its origin in the\ninstinctive desire of some definite race to live under conditions which\nbest subserved its own welfare. The morality of the Egyptians, he\nfound, was one thing, and the morality of the Goths was another. The\nreason for the difference lay in the fact that the environment of the\nEgyptians--the climate of their land, the nature of their food supply\nand the characteristics of the peoples surrounding them--differed\nfrom the environment of the Goths. The morality of each race was, in\nbrief, its consensus of instinct, and once having formulated it and\nfound it good, each sought to give it force and permanence. This was\naccomplished by putting it into the mouths of the gods. What was once\na mere expression of instinct thus became the mandate of a divine\nlaw-giver. What was once a mere attempt to meet imminent--and usually\ntemporary--conditions of existence, thus became a code of rules to be\nobeyed forever, no matter how much these conditions of existence might\nchange. Wherefore, Nietzsche concluded that the chief characteristic of\na moral system was its tendency to perpetuate itself unchanged, and to\ndestroy all who questioned it or denied it.[1]\n\nNietzsche saw that practically all members of a given race, including\nthe great majority of those who violated these rules, were influenced\ninto believing them--or at least into professing to believe\nthem--utterly and unchangeably correct, and that it was the main\nfunction of all religions to enforce and support them by making them\nappear as laws laid down, at the beginning of the world, by the lord\nof the universe himself, or at some later period, by his son, messiah\nor spokesman. \"Morality,\" he said, \"not only commands innumerable\nterrible means for preventing critical hands being laid upon her: her\nsecurity depends still more upon a sort of enchantment at which she is\nphenomenally skilled. That is to say, she knows how to _enrapture_.\nShe appeals to the emotions; her glance paralyzes the reason and\nthe will.... Ever since there has been talking and persuading on\nearth, she has been the supreme mistress of seduction.\"[2] Thus \"a\ndouble wall is put up against the continued testing, selection and\ncriticism of values. On one hand is revelation, and on the other,\nveneration and tradition. The authority of the law is based upon two\nassumptions--first, that God gave it, and secondly, that the wise\nmen of the past obeyed it.\"[3] Nietzsche came to the conclusion that\nthis universal tendency to submit to moral codes--this unreasonable,\nemotional faith in the invariable truth of moral regulations--was\na curse to the human race and the chief cause of its degeneration,\ninefficiency and unhappiness. And then he threw down the gauntlet by\ndenying that an ever-present deity had anything to do with framing such\ncodes and by endeavoring to prove that, far from being eternally true,\nthey commonly became false with the passing of the years. Starting out\nas expressions of the primary life-instinct's effort to adapt some\nindividual or race to certain given conditions of existence, they took\nno account of the fact that these conditions were constantly changing,\nand that the thing which was advantageous at one time and to one race\nwas frequently injurious at some other time and to another race.\n\nThis reduction of all morality to mere expressions of expedience\nengaged the philosopher during what he calls his \"tunneling\" period. To\nexhibit his precise method of \"tunneling\" let us examine, for example,\na moral idea which is found in the code of every civilized country.\nThis is the notion that there is something inherently and fundamentally\nwrong in the act of taking human life. We have good reason to believe\nthat murder was as much a crime 5,000 years ago as it is today and that\nit took rank at the head of all conceivable outrages against humankind\nat the very dawn of civilization. And why? Simply because the man\nwho took his neighbor's life made the life of everyone else in his\nneighborhood precarious and uncomfortable. It was plain that what he\nhad done once he could do again, and so the peace and security of the\nwhole district were broken.\n\nNow, it is apparent that the average human being desires peace and\nsecurity beyond all things, because it is only when he has them that\nhe may satisfy his will to live--by procuring food and shelter for\nhimself and by becoming the father of children. He is ill-fitted to\nfight for his existence; the mere business of living and begetting\nhis kind consumes all of his energies: \"the world, as a world,\" as\nHorace Greeley said, \"barely makes a living.\" Therefore, it came to\nbe recognized at the very beginning of civilization, that the man\nwho killed other men was a foe to those conditions which the average\nman had to seek in order to exist--to peace and order and quiet and\nsecurity. Out of this grew the doctrine that it was immoral to commit\nmurder, and as soon as mankind became imaginative enough to invent\npersonal gods, this doctrine was put into their mouths and so attained\nthe force and authority of divine wisdom. In some such manner, said\nNietzsche, the majority of our present moral concepts were evolved. At\nthe start they were mere echoes of a protest against actions which made\nexistence difficult and so outraged and opposed the will to live.\n\nAs a rule, said Nietzsche, such familiar protests as that against\nmurder, which laid down the maxim that the community had rights\nsuperior to those of the individual, were voiced by the weak, who found\nit difficult to protect themselves, as individuals, against the strong.\nOne strong man, perhaps, was more than a match, in the struggle for\nexistence, for ten weak men and so the latter were at a disadvantage.\nBut fortunately for them they could overcome this by combination, for\nthey were always in an overwhelming majority, numerically, and in\nconsequence they were stronger, taken together, than the phalanx of\nthe strong. Thus it gradually became possible for them to enforce the\nrules that they laid down for their own protection--which rules always\noperated against the wishes--and, as an obvious corollary, against the\nbest interests of--the strong.[4] When the time arrived for fashioning\nreligious systems, these rules were credited to the gods, and again the\nweak triumphed. Thus the desire of the weak among the world's early\nraces of men, to protect their crops and wives against the forays of\nthe strong, by general laws and divine decrees instead of by each man\nfighting for his own, has come down to us in the form of the Christian\ncommandments: \"Thou shalt not steal.... Thou shalt not covet thy\nneighbor's house.... Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his\nmanservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything\nthat is thy neighbor's.\"\n\nNietzsche shows that the device of putting man-made rules of morality\ninto the mouths of the gods--a device practiced by every nation in\nhistory--has vastly increased the respectability and force of all\nmoral ideas. This is well exhibited by the fact that, even today and\namong thinking men, offenses which happen to be included in the scope\nof the Ten Commandments, either actually or by interpretation, are\nregarded with a horror which seldom, if ever, attaches to offenses\nobviously defined and delimited by merely human agencies. Thus, theft\nis everywhere looked upon as dishonorable, but cheating at elections,\nwhich is fully as dangerous to the body politic, is commonly pardoned\nby public opinion as a normal consequence of enthusiasm, and in some\nquarters is even regarded as an evidence of courage, not to say of a\nhigh and noble sense of gratitude and honor.\n\nNietzsche does not deny that human beings have a right to construct\nmoral codes for themselves, and neither does he deny that they are\njustified, from their immediate standpoint, at least, in giving these\ncodes the authority and force of divine commands. But he points out\nthat this procedure is bound to cause trouble in the long run, for the\nreason that divine commands are fixed and invariable, and do not change\nas fast as the instincts and needs of the race. Suppose, for instance,\nthat all acts of Parliament and Congress were declared to be the\nwill of God, and that, as a natural consequence, the power to repeal\nor modify them were abandoned. It is apparent that the world would\noutgrow them as fast as it does today, but it is also apparent that the\nnotion that they were infallible would paralyze and block all efforts,\nby atheistic reformers, to overturn or amend them. As a result, the\nBritish and American people would be compelled to live in obedience to\nrules which, on their very face, would often seem illogical and absurd.\n\nYet the same thing happens to notions of morality. They are devised, at\nthe start, as measures of expediency, and then given divine sanction in\norder to lend them authority. In the course of time, perhaps, the race\noutgrows them, but none the less, they continue in force--at least so\nlong as the old gods are worshipped. Thus human laws become divine--and\ninhuman. Thus morality itself becomes immoral. Thus the old instinct\nwhereby society differentiates between good things and bad, grows\nmuddled and uncertain, and the fundamental purpose of morality--that\nof producing a workable scheme of living--is defeated. Thereafter it\nis next to impossible to distinguish between the laws that are still\nuseful and those that have outlived their usefulness, and the man who\nmakes the attempt--the philosopher who endeavors to show humanity\nhow it is condemning as bad a thing that, in itself, is now good, or\nexalting as good a thing that, for all its former goodness, is now\nbad--this man is damned as a heretic and anarchist, and according as\nfortune serves him, is burned at the stake or merely read out of the\nhuman race.[5]\n\nNietzsche found that all existing moral ideas might be divided into\ntwo broad classes, corresponding to the two broad varieties of human\nbeings--the masters and the slaves. Every man is either a master or\na slave, and the same is true of every race. Either it rules some\nother race or it is itself ruled by some other race. It is impossible\nto think of a man or of a people as being utterly isolated, and even\nwere this last possible, it is obvious that the community would be\ndivided into those who ruled and those who obeyed. The masters are\nstrong and are capable of doing as they please; the slaves are weak\nand must obtain whatever rights they crave by deceiving, cajoling or\ncollectively intimidating their masters. Now, since all moral codes,\nas we have seen, are merely collections of the rules laid down by some\ndefinite group of human beings for their comfort and protection, it is\nevident that the morality of the master class has for its main object\nthe preservation of the authority and kingship of that class, while\nthe morality of the slave class seeks to make slavery as bearable as\npossible and to exalt and dignify those things in which the slave can\nhope to become the apparent equal or superior of his master.\n\nThe civilization which existed in Europe before the dawn of\nChristianity was a culture based upon master-morality, and so we find\nthat the theologians and moralists of those days esteemed a certain\naction as right only when it plainly subserved the best interests of\nstrong, resourceful men. The ideal man of that time was not a meek and\nlowly sufferer, bearing his cross uncomplainingly, but an alert, proud\nand combative being who knew his rights and dared maintain them. In\nconsequence we find that in many ancient languages, the words \"good\"\nand \"aristocratic\" were synonymous. Whatever served to make a man a\nnobleman--cunning, wealth, physical strength, eagerness to resent and\npunish injuries--was considered virtuous, praiseworthy and moral,[6]\nand on the other hand, whatever tended to make a man sink to the level\nof the great masses--humility, lack of ambition, modest desires, lavish\nliberality and a spirit of ready forgiveness--was regarded as immoral\nand wrong.\n\n\"Among these master races,\" says Nietzsche, \"the antithesis 'good and\nbad' signified practically the same as 'noble and contemptible!' The\ndespised ones were the cowards, the timid, the insignificant, the\nself-abasing--the dog-species of men who allowed themselves to be\nmisused--the flatterers and, above all, the liars. It is a fundamental\nbelief of all true aristocrats that the common people are deceitful.\n'We true ones,' the ancient Greek nobles called themselves.\n\n\"It is obvious that the designations of moral worth were at first\napplied to individual men, and not to actions or ideas in the abstract.\nThe master type of man regards himself as a sufficient judge of worth.\nHe does not seek approval: his own feelings determine his conduct.\n'What is injurious to me,' he reasons, 'is injurious in itself.' This\ntype of man honors whatever qualities he recognizes in himself: his\nmorality is self-glorification. He has a feeling of plentitude and\npower and the happiness of high tension. He helps the unfortunate,\nperhaps, but it is not out of sympathy. The impulse, when it comes\nat all, rises out of his superabundance of power--his thirst to\nfunction. He honors his own power, and he knows how to keep it in hand.\nHe joyfully exercises strictness and severity over himself and he\nreverences all that is strict and severe. 'Wotan has put a hard heart\nin my breast,' says an old Scandinavian saga. There could be no better\nexpression of the spirit of a proud viking....\n\n\"The morality of the master class is irritating to the taste of the\npresent day because of its fundamental principle that a man has\nobligations only to his equals; that he may act to all of lower rank\nand to all that are foreign as he pleases.... The man of the master\nclass has a capacity for prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge,\nbut it is only among his equals. He has, too, great resourcefulness\nin retaliation; great capacity for friendship, and a strong need for\nenemies, that there may be an outlet for his envy, quarrelsomeness and\narrogance, and that by spending these passions in this manner, he may\nbe gentle towards his friends.\"[7]\n\nBy this ancient _herrenmoral_, or master-morality, Napoleon Bonaparte\nwould have been esteemed a god and the Man of Sorrows an enemy to\nsociety. It was the ethical scheme, indeed, of peoples who were sure\nof themselves and who had no need to make terms with rivals or to seek\nthe good will or forbearance of anyone. In its light, such things as\nmercy and charity seemed pernicious and immoral, because they meant\na transfer of power from strong men, whose proper business it was to\ngrow stronger and stronger, to weak men, whose proper business it was\nto serve the strong. In a word, this master-morality was the morality\nof peoples who knew, by experience, that it was pleasant to rule and\nbe strong. They knew that the nobleman was to be envied and the slave\nto be despised, and so they came to believe that everything which\nhelped to make a man noble was good and everything which helped to\nmake him a slave was evil. The idea of nobility and the idea of good\nwere expressed by the same word, and this verbal identity survives in\nthe English language today, despite the fact that our present system\nof morality, as we shall see, differs vastly from that of the ancient\nmaster races.\n\nIn opposition to this master-morality of the strong, healthy nations\nthere was the _sklavmoral_, or slave-morality, of the weak nations.\nThe Jews of the four or five centuries preceding the birth of Christ\nbelonged to the latter class. Compared to the races around them, they\nwere weak and helpless. It was out of the question for them to conquer\nthe Greeks or Romans and it was equally impossible for them to force\ntheir laws, their customs or their religion upon their neighbors on\nother sides. They were, indeed, in the position of an army surrounded\nby a horde of irresistible enemies. The general of such an army, with\nthe instinct of self-preservation strong within him, does not attempt\nto cut his way out. Instead he tries to make the best terms he can, and\nif the leader of the enemy insists upon making him and his vanquished\nforce prisoners, he endeavors to obtain concessions which will make\nthis imprisonment as bearable as possible. The strong man's object is\nto take as much as he can from his victim; the weak man's is to save as\nmuch as he can from his conqueror.\n\nThe fruit of this yearning of weak nations to preserve as much of their\nnational unity as possible is the thing Nietzsche calls slave-morality.\nIts first and foremost purpose is to discourage, and if possible, blot\nout, all those traits and actions which are apt to excite the ire, the\nenvy, or the cupidity of the menacing enemies round about. Revenge,\npride and ambition are condemned as evils. Humility, forgiveness,\ncontentment and resignation are esteemed virtues. The moral man\nis the man who has lost all desire to triumph and exult over his\nfellow-men--the man of mercy, of charity, of self-sacrifice.\n\n\"The impotence which does not retaliate for injuries,\" says Nietzsche,\n\"is falsified into 'goodness;' timorous abjectness becomes 'humility;'\nsubjection to those one hates is called 'obedience,' and the one who\ndesires and commands this impotence, abjectness and subjection is\ncalled God. The inoffensiveness of the weak, their cowardice (of which\nthey have ample store); their standing at the door, their unavoidable\ntime-serving and waiting--all these things get good names. The\ninability to get revenge is translated into an _unwillingness_ to get\nrevenge, and becomes forgiveness, a virtue.\n\n\"They are wretched--these mutterers and forgers--but they say that\ntheir wretchedness is of God's choosing and even call it a distinction\nthat he confers upon them. The dogs which are liked best, they say,\nare beaten most. Their wretchedness is a test, a preparation, a\nschooling--something which will be paid for, one day, in happiness.\nThey call that 'bliss.'\"[8]\n\nBy the laws of this slave-morality the immoral man is he who seeks\npower and eminence and riches--the millionaire, the robber, the\nfighter, the schemer. The act of acquiring property by conquest--which\nis looked upon as a matter of course by master-morality--becomes a\ncrime and is called theft. The act of mating in obedience to natural\nimpulses, without considering the desire of others, becomes adultery;\nthe quite natural act of destroying one's enemies becomes murder.\n\n\n[1] II Thess. II, 15: \"Hold the tradition which ye have been taught.\"\nEusebius Pamphilus: \"Those things which are written believe; those\nthings which are not written, neither think upon nor inquire after.\"\nSt. Austin: \"Whatever ye hear from the holy scriptures let it favor\nwell with you; whatever is without them refuse.\" See also St. Basil,\nTertullian and every other professional moralist since, down to John\nAlexander Dowie and Emperor William of Germany.\n\n[2] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" preface, \u00a7 3.\n\n[3] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 57.\n\n[4] The fact that the state is founded, not upon a mysterious \"social\nimpulse\" in man, but upon each individual's regard for his own\ninterest, was first pointed out by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), in his\nargument against Aristotle and Grotius.\n\n[5] The risk of such idol-smashing is well set forth at length by G.\nBernard Shaw in the preface to \"The Quintessence of Ibsenism;\" London,\n1904.\n\n[6] Henry Bradley, in a lecture at the London Institution, in Jan 1907,\nshowed that this was true of the ancient Britons, as is demonstrated by\ntheir liking for bestowing such names as Wolf and Bear upon themselves.\nIt was true, also, of the North American Indians and of all primitive\nraces conscious of their efficiency.\n\n[7] \"_Jenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se_,\" \u00a7 260.\n\n[8] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_,\" I, \u00a7 14.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nBEYOND GOOD AND EVIL\n\n\nDespite the divine authority which gives permanence to all moral codes,\nthis permanence is constantly opposed by the changing conditions\nof existence, and very often the opposition is successful. The\nslave-morality of the ancient Jews has come down to us, with its\noutlines little changed, as ideal Christianity, but such tenacious\npersistence of a moral scheme is comparatively rare. As a general\nrule, in truth, races change their gods very much oftener than we\nhave changed ours, and have less faith than we in the independence of\nintelligence. In consequence they constantly revamp and modify their\nmoral concepts. The same process of evolution affects even our own\ncode, despite the extraordinary tendency to permanence just noted. Our\nscheme of things, in its fundamentals, has persisted for 2,500 years,\nbut in matters of detail it is constantly in a state of flux. We still\ncall ourselves Christians, but we have evolved many moral ideas that\nare not to be found in the scriptures and we have sometimes denied\nothers that are plainly there. Indeed, as will be shown later on, the\nbeatitudes would have wiped us from the face of the earth centuries ago\nhad not our forefathers devised means of circumventing them without\nopenly questioning them. Our progress has been made, not as a result\nof our moral code, but as a result of our success in dodging its\ninevitable blight.\n\nAll morality, in fact, is colored and modified by opportunism, even\nwhen its basic principles are held sacred and kept more or less intact.\nThe thing that is a sin in one age becomes a virtue in the next. The\nancient Persians, who were Zoroastrians, regarded murder and suicide,\nunder any circumstances, as crimes. The modern Persians, who are\nMohammedans, think that ferocity and foolhardiness are virtues. The\nancient Japanese, to whom the state appeared more important than the\nman, threw themselves joyously upon the spears of the state's enemies.\nThe modern Japanese, who are fledgling individualists, armor their\nships with nickel steel and fight on land from behind bastions of earth\nand masonry. And in the same way the moral ideas that have grown out\nof Christianity, and even some of its important original doctrines,\nare being constantly modified and revised, despite the persistence of\nthe fundamental notion of self-sacrifice at the bottom of them. In\nDr. Andrew D. White's monumental treatise \"On the Warfare of Science\nwith Theology in Christendom\" there are ten thousand proofs of it.\nThings that were crimes in the middle ages are quite respectable at\npresent. Actions that are punishable by excommunication and ostracism\nin Catholic Spain today, are sufficient to make a man honorable in\nfreethinking England. In France, where the church once stood above\nthe king, it is now stripped of all rights not inherent in the most\ninconsequential social club. In Germany it is a penal offense to poke\nfun at the head of the state; in the United States it is looked upon\nby many as an evidence of independence and patriotism. In some of the\nAmerican states a violation of the seventh commandment, in any form,\nis a felony; in Maryland, it is, in one form, a mere misdemeanor, and\nanother form, no crime at all.\n\n\"Many lands did I see,\" says Zarathustra, \"and many peoples, and so I\ndiscovered the good and bad of many peoples.... Much that was regarded\nas good by one people was held in scorn and contempt by another. I\nfound many things called bad here and adorned with purple honors\nthere.... A catalogue of blessings is posted up for every people. Lo!\nit is the catalogue of their triumphs--the voice of their will to\npower!... Whatever enables them to rule and conquer and dazzle, to the\ndismay and envy of their neighbors, is regarded by them as the summit,\nthe head, the standard of all things.... Verily, men have made for\nthemselves all their good and bad. Verily they did not find it so: it\ndid not come to them as a voice from heaven.... It is only through\nvaluing that there comes value.\"[1]\n\nTo proceed from the concrete to the general, and to risk a repetition,\nit is evident that all morality, as Nietzsche pointed out, is nothing\nmore than an expression of expediency.[2] A thing is called wrong\nsolely because a definite group of people, at some specific stage of\ntheir career, have found it injurious to them. The fact that they have\ndiscovered grounds for condemning it in some pronunciamento of their\ngod signifies nothing, for the reason that the god of a people is never\nanything more than a reflection of their ideas for the time being. As\nProf. Otto Pfleiderer has shown,[3] Jesus Christ was a product of his\nage, mentally and spiritually as well as physically. Had there been\nno Jewish theology before him, he could not have sought or obtained\nrecognition as a messiah, and the doctrines that he expressed--had\nhe ever expressed them at all--would have fallen upon unheeding and\nuncomprehending ears.\n\nTherefore it is plain that the Ten Commandments are no more immortal\nand immutable, in the last analysis, than the acts of Parliament.\nThey have lasted longer, it is true, and they will probably continue\nin force for many years, but this permanence is only relative.\nFundamentally they are merely expressions of expedience, like the\nrules of some great game, and it is easily conceivable that there may\narise upon the earth, at some future day, a race to whom they will\nappear injurious, unreasonable and utterly immoral. \"The time may\ncome, indeed, when we will prefer the _Memorabilia_ of Socrates to the\nBible.\"[4]\n\nAdmitting this, we must admit the inevitable corollary that morality\nin the absolute sense has nothing to do with truth, and that it is,\nin fact, truth's exact antithesis. Absolute truth necessarily implies\neternal truth. The statement that a man and a woman are unlike was true\non the day the first man and woman walked the earth and it will be true\nso long as there are men and women. Such a statement approaches very\nnear our ideal of an absolute truth. But the theory that humility is\na virtue is not an absolute truth, for while it was undoubtedly true\nin ancient Judea, it was not true in ancient Greece and is debatable,\nto say the least, in modern Europe and America. The Western Catholic\nChurch, despite its extraordinarily successful efforts at permanence,\nhas given us innumerable proofs that laws, in the long run, always turn\nupon themselves. The popes were infallible when they held that the\nearth was flat and they were infallible when they decided that it was\nround--and so we reach a palpable absurdity. Therefore, we may lay it\ndown as an axiom that morality, in itself, is the enemy of truth, and\nthat, for at least half of the time, by the mathematical doctrine of\nprobabilities, it is necessarily untrue.\n\nIf this is so, why should any man bother about moral rules and\nregulations? Why should any man conform to laws formulated by a people\nwhose outlook on the universe probably differed diametrically from\nhis own? Why should any man obey a regulation which is denounced, by\nhis common-sense, as a hodge-podge of absurdities, and why should he\nmodel his whole life upon ideals invented to serve the temporary needs\nof a forgotten race of some past age? These questions Nietzsche asked\nhimself. His conclusion was a complete rejection of all fixed codes of\nmorality, and with them of all gods, messiahs, prophets, saints, popes,\nbishops, priests, and rulers.\n\nThe proper thing for a man to do, he decided, was to formulate his\nown morality as he progressed from lower to higher things. He should\nreject the old conceptions of good and evil and substitute for them the\nhuman valuations, good and bad. In a word, he should put behind him\nthe morality invented by some dead race to make its own progress easy\nand pleasant, and credited to some man-made god to give it authority,\nand put in the place of this a workable personal morality based upon\nhis own power of distinguishing between the things which benefit him\nand the things which injure him. He should (to make the idea clearer)\njudge a given action solely by its effect upon his own welfare; his own\ndesire or will to live; and that of his children after him. All notions\nof sin and virtue should be banished from his mind. He should weigh\neverything in the scales of individual expedience.\n\nSuch a frank wielding of a razor-edged sword in the struggle for\nexistence is frowned upon by our Jewish slave-morality. We are taught\nto believe that the only true happiness lies in self-effacement; that\nit is wrong to profit by the misfortune or weakness of another. But\nagainst this Nietzsche brings the undeniable answer that all life, no\nmatter how much we idealize it, is, at bottom, nothing more or less\nthan exploitation. The gain of one man is inevitably the loss of some\nother man. That the emperor may die of a surfeit the peasant must die\nof starvation. Among human beings, as well as among the bacilli in the\nhanging drop and the lions in the jungle, there is ever in progress\nthis ancient struggle for existence. It is waged decently, perhaps, but\nit is none the less savage and unmerciful, and the devil always takes\nthe hindmost.\n\n\"Life,\" says Nietzsche, \"is essentially the appropriation, the injury,\nthe vanquishing of the unadapted and weak. Its object is to obtrude\nits own forms and insure its own unobstructed functioning. Even an\norganization whose individuals forbear in their dealings with one\nanother (a healthy aristocracy, for example) must, if it would live\nand not die, act hostilely toward all other organizations. It must\nendeavor to gain ground, to obtain advantages, to acquire ascendancy.\nAnd this is not because it is _immoral_, but because it lives, and all\nlife is will to power.\"[5]\n\nNietzsche argues from this that it is absurd to put the stigma of evil\nupon the mere symptoms of the great struggle. \"In itself,\" he says,\n\"an act of injury, violation, exploitation or annihilation cannot be\nwrong, for life operates, essentially and fundamentally, by injuring,\nviolating, exploiting and annihilating, and cannot even be conceived\nof out of this character. One must admit, indeed, that, from the\nhighest biological standpoint, conditions under which the so-called\nrights of others are recognized must ever be regarded as exceptional\nconditions--that is to say, as partial restrictions of the instinctive\npower-seeking will-to-live of the individual, made to satisfy the\nmore powerful will-to-live of the mass. Thus small units of power are\nsacrificed to create large units of power. To regard the rights of\nothers as being inherent in them, and not as mere compromises for the\nbenefit of the mass-unit, would be to enunciate a principle hostile to\nlife itself.\"[6]\n\nNietzsche holds that the rights of an individual may be divided into\ntwo classes: those things he is able to do despite the opposition of\nhis fellow men, and those things he is enabled to do by the grace and\npermission of his fellow men. The second class of rights may be divided\nagain into two groups: those granted through fear and foresight, and\nthose granted as free gifts. But how do fear and foresight operate\nto make one man concede rights to another man? It is easy enough to\ndiscern two ways. In the first place, the grantor may fear the risks\nof a combat with the grantee, and so give him what he wants without\na struggle. In the second place, the grantor, while confident of\nhis ability to overcome the grantee, may forbear because he sees in\nthe struggle a certain diminution of strength on both sides, and in\nconsequence, an impaired capacity for joining forces in effective\nopposition to some hostile third power.\n\nAnd now for the rights obtained under the second head--by bestowal and\nconcession. \"In this case,\" says Nietzsche, \"one man or race has enough\npower, and more than enough, to be able to bestow some of it on another\nman or race.\"[7] The king appoints one subject viceroy of a province,\nand so gives him almost regal power, and makes another cup-bearer and\nso gives him a perpetual right to bear the royal cup. When the power\nof the grantee, through his inefficiency, decreases, the grantor\neither restores it to him or takes it away from him altogether. When\nthe power of the grantee, on the contrary, increases, the grantor, in\nalarm, commonly seeks to undermine it and encroach upon it. When the\npower of the grantee remains at a level for a considerable time, his\nrights become \"vested\" and he begins to believe that they are inherent\nin him--that they constitute a gift from the gods and are beyond the\nwill and disposal of his fellow men. As Nietzsche points out, this last\nhappens comparatively seldom. More often, the grantor himself begins\nto lose power and so comes into conflict with the grantee, and not\ninfrequently they exchange places. \"National rights,\" says Nietzsche,\n\"demonstrate this fact by their constant lapse and regenesis.\"[8]\n\nNietzsche believed that a realization of all this would greatly benefit\nthe human race, by ridding it of some of its most costly delusions. He\nheld that so long as it sought to make the struggle for existence a\nparlor game, with rules laid down by some blundering god--that so long\nas it regarded its ideas of morality, its aspirations and its hopes\nas notions implanted by the creator in the mind of Father Adam--that\nso long as it insisted upon calling things by fanciful names and upon\nfrowning down all effort to reach the ultimate verities--that just\nso long its progress would be fitful and slow. It was morality that\nburned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the\nfree inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous\nimbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed\ntheology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting\nthem upon alchemy, heretic-burning, witchcraft and sacerdotalism.\n\nNietzsche called himself an immoralist. He believed that all progress\ndepended upon the truth and that the truth could not prevail while\nmen yet enmeshed themselves in a web of gratuitous and senseless laws\nfashioned by their own hands. He was fond of picturing the ideal\nimmoralist as \"a magnificent blond beast\"--innocent of \"virtue\" and\n\"sin\" and knowing only \"good\" and \"bad.\" Instead of a god to guide\nhim, with commandments and the fear of hell, this immoralist would\nhave his own instincts and intelligence. Instead of doing a given\nthing because the church called it a virtue or the current moral code\nrequired it, he would do it because he knew that it would benefit him\nor his descendants after him. Instead of refraining from a given action\nbecause the church denounced it as a sin and the law as a crime, he\nwould avoid it only if he were convinced that the action itself, or its\nconsequences, might work him or his an injury.\n\nSuch a man, were he set down in the world today, would bear an\noutward resemblance, perhaps, to the most pious and virtuous of his\nfellow-citizens, but it is apparent that his life would have more of\ntruth in it and less of hypocrisy and cant and pretense than theirs.\nHe would obey the laws of the land frankly and solely because he was\nafraid of incurring their penalties, and for no other reason, and he\nwould not try to delude his neighbors and himself into believing that\nhe saw anything sacred in them. He would have no need of a god to teach\nhim the difference between right and wrong and no need of priests to\nremind him of this god's teachings. He would look upon the woes and\nills of life as inevitable and necessary results of life's conflict,\nand he would make no effort to read into them the wrath of a peevish\nand irrational deity at his own or his ancestors' sins. His mind would\nbe absolutely free of thoughts of sin and hell, and in consequence, he\nwould be vastly happier than the majority of persons about him. All\nin all, he would be a powerful influence for truth in his community,\nand as such, would occupy himself with the most noble and sublime\ntask possible to mere human beings: the overthrow of superstition and\nunreasoning faith, with their long train of fears, horrors, doubts,\nfrauds, injustice and suffering.[9]\n\nUnder an ideal government--which Herbert Spencer defines as a\ngovernment in which the number of laws has reached an irreducible\nminimum--such a man would prosper a great deal more than the\npriest-ridden, creed-barnacled masses about him.[10] In a state wherein\ncommunistic society, with its levelling usages and customs, had\nceased to exist, and wherein each individual of the master class was\npermitted to live his life as much as possible in accordance with his\nown notions of good and bad, such a man would stand forth from the herd\nin proportion as his instincts were more nearly healthy and infallible\nthan the instincts of the herd. Ideal anarchy, in brief, would insure\nthe success of those men who were wisest mentally and strongest\nphysically, and the race would make rapid progress.\n\nIt is evident that the communistic and socialistic forms of government\nat present in fashion in the world oppose such a consummation as often\nas they facilitate it. Civilization, as we know it, makes more paupers\nthan millionaires, and more cripples than Sandows. Its most conspicuous\nproducts, the church and the king, stand unalterably opposed to all\nprogress. Like the frog of the fable, which essayed to climb out of a\nwell, it slips back quite as often as it goes ahead.\n\nAnd for these reasons Nietzsche was an anarchist--in the true meaning\nof that much-bespattered word--just as Herbert Spencer and Arthur\nSchopenhauer were anarchists before him.\n\n\n[1] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_\" I.\n\n[2] \"The word _mos_, from signifying what is customary, has come to\nsignify what is right.\" Sir Wm. Markby: \"Elements of Law Considered\nwith Reference to General Principles of Jurisprudence:\" pp. 118, 5th\ned., London, 1896.\n\n[3] In his masterly treatise, \"Christian Origins,\" tr. by David A.\nHuebsch: New York, 1906.\n\n[4] \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_\" III.\n\n[5] \"_Jenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se_\" \u00a7 259.\n\n[6] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_\" II, \u00a7 11.\n\n[7] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te,_\" \u00a7 112.\n\n[8] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te,_\" \u00a7 112.\n\n[9] \"It is my experience,\" said Thomas H. Huxley, \"that, aside from a\nfew human affections, the only thing that gives lasting and untainted\npleasure in the world, is the pursuit of truth and the destruction of\nerror.\" See \"The Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley,\" by Leonard Huxley;\nLondon, 1900.\n\n[10] \"Read the suicide tables and see how many despairing men, hope\nless of keeping their homes together, pay with their lives the toil\nimposed upon them by squanderers of the public money.\" Helen Mathers\nin _P. T. O._, Feb. 9 1907, p. 180. This is one of Tolstoi's chief\narguments against all government.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nTHE SUPERMAN\n\n\nNo doubt the reader who has followed the argument in the preceding\nchapters will have happened, before now, upon the thought that\nNietzsche's chain of reasoning, so far, still has a gap in it. We have\nseen how he started by investigating Greek art in the light of the\nSchopenhauerean philosophy, how this led him to look into morality, how\nhe revealed the origin of morality in transitory manifestations of the\nwill to power, and how he came to the conclusion that it was best for\na man to reject all ready-made moral ideas and to so order his life\nthat his every action would be undertaken with some notion of making\nit subserve his own welfare or that of his children or children's\nchildren. But a gap remains and it may be expressed in the question:\nHow is a man to define and determine his own welfare and that of the\nrace after him?\n\nHere, indeed, our dionysian immoralist is confronted by a very serious\nproblem, and Nietzsche himself well understood its seriousness. Unless\nwe have in mind some definite ideal of happiness and some definite\ngoal of progress we had better sing the doxology and dismiss our\ncongregation. Christianity has such an ideal and such a goal. The one\nis a Christ-like life on earth and the other is a place at the right\nhand of Jehovah in the hereafter. Mohammedanism, a tinsel form of\nChristianity, paints pictures of the same sort. Buddhism holds out the\ntempting bait of a race set free from the thrall of earthly desires,\nwith an eternity of blissful nothingness.[1] The other oriental faiths\nlead in the same direction and Schopenhauer, in his philosophy, laid\ndown the doctrine that humanity would attain perfect happiness only\nwhen it had overcome its instinct of self-preservation--that is to\nsay, when it had ceased to desire to live. Even Christian Science--that\nmost grotesque child of credulous faith and incredible denial--offers\nus the double ideal of a mortal life entirely free from mortal pain and\na harp in the heavenly band for all eternity.\n\nWhat had Nietzsche to offer in place of these things? By what standard\nwas his immoralist to separate the good--or beneficial--things of the\nworld from the bad--or damaging--things? And what was the goal that the\nphilosopher had in mind for his immoralist? The answer to the first\nquestion is to be found in Nietzsche's definition of the terms \"good\"\nand \"bad.\" \"All that elevates the sense of power, the will to power,\nand power itself\"--this is how he defined \"good.\" \"All that proceeds\nfrom weakness\"--this is how he defined \"bad.\" Happiness, he held, is\n\"the feeling that power increases--that resistance is being overcome.\"\n\"I preach not contentedness,\" he said, \"but more power; not peace, but\nwar; not virtue, but efficiency. The weak and defective must go to the\nwall: that is the first principle of the dionysian charity. And we must\nhelp them to go.\"[2]\n\nTo put it more simply, Nietzsche offers the gospel of prudent and\nintelligent selfishness, of absolute and utter individualism. \"One\nmust learn,\" sang Zarathustra, \"how to love oneself, with a whole and\nhearty love, that one may find life with oneself endurable, and not go\ngadding about. This gadding about is familiar: it is called loving\none's neighbor.'\"[3] His ideal was an aristocracy which regarded the\nproletariat merely as a conglomeration of draft animals made to be\ndriven, enslaved and exploited. \"A good and healthy aristocracy,\"\nhe said, \"must acquiesce, with a good conscience, in the sacrifice\nof a legion of individuals, who, for its benefit, must be reduced\nto slaves and tools. The masses have no right to exist on their own\naccount: their sole excuse for living lies in their usefulness as a\nsort of superstructure or scaffolding, upon which a more select race\nof beings may be elevated.\"[4] Rejecting all permanent rules of good\nand evil and all notions of brotherhood, Nietzsche held that the\naristocratic individualist--and it was to the aristocrat only that he\ngave, unreservedly, the name of human being--must seek every possible\nopportunity to increase and exalt his own sense of efficiency, of\nsuccess, of mastery, of power. Whatever tended to impair him, or to\ndecrease his efficiency, was bad. Whatever tended to increase it--at\nno matter what cost to others--was good. There must be a complete\nsurrender to the law of natural selection--that invariable natural law\nwhich ordains that the fit shall survive and the unfit shall perish.\nAll growth must occur at the top. The strong must grow stronger, and\nthat they may do so, they must waste no strength in the vain task of\ntrying to lift up the weak.\n\nThe reader may interrupt here with the question we encountered at the\nstart: how is the dionysian individualist to know whether a given\naction will benefit him or injure him? The answer, of course, lies\nin the obvious fact that, in every healthy man, instinct supplies a\nvery reliable guide, and that, when instinct fails or is uncertain,\nexperiment must solve the problem. As a general thing, nothing is more\npatent than the feeling of power--the sense of efficiency, of capacity,\nof mastery. Every man is constantly and unconsciously measuring himself\nwith his neighbors, and so becoming acutely aware of those things in\nwhich he is their superior. Let two men clash in the stock market and\nit becomes instantly apparent that one is richer, or more resourceful\nor more cunning than the other. Let two men run after an omnibus and\nit becomes instantly apparent that one is swifter than the other. Let\ntwo men come together as rivals in love, war, drinking or holiness,\nand one is bound to feel that he has bested the other. Such contests\nare infinite in variety and in number, and all life, in fact, is made\nup of them. Therefore, it is plain that every man is conscious of his\npower, and aware of it when this power is successfully exerted against\nsome other man. In such exertions, argues Nietzsche, lies happiness,\nand so his prescription for happiness consists in unrestrained\nyielding to the will to power. That all men worth discussing so yield,\ndespite the moral demand for humility, is so plain that it scarcely\nneeds statement. It is the desire to attain and manifest efficiency\nand superiority which makes one man explore the wilds of Africa and\nanother pile up vast wealth and another write books of philosophy and\nanother submit to pain and mutilation in the prize ring. It is this\nyearning which makes men take chances and risk their lives and limbs\nfor glory. Everybody knows, indeed, that in the absence of such a\nprimordial and universal emulation the world would stand still and\nthe race would die. Nietzsche asks nothing more than that the fact be\nopenly recognized and admitted; that every man yield to the yearning\nunashamed, without hypocrisy and without wasteful efforts to feed and\nsatisfy the yearning of other men at the expense of his own.\n\nIt is evident, of course, that the feeling of superiority has a\ncomplement in the feeling of inferiority. Every man, in other words,\nsees himself, in respect to some talent possessed in common by himself\nand a rival, in one of three ways: he knows that he is superior, he\nknows that he is inferior, or he is in doubt. In the first case, says\nNietzsche, the thing for him to do is to make his superiority still\ngreater by yielding to its stimulation: to make the gap between himself\nand his rival wider and wider. In the second case, the thing for him to\ndo is to try to make the gap smaller: to lift himself up or to pull his\nrival down until they are equal or the old disproportion is reversed.\nIn the third case, it is his duty to plunge into a contest and risk\nhis all upon the cast of the die. \"I do not exhort you to peace,\"\nsays Zarathustra, \"but to victory!\"[5] If victory comes not, let it\nbe defeat, death and annihilation--but, in any event, let there be a\nfair fight. Without this constant strife--this constant testing--this\nconstant elimination of the unfit--there can be no progress. \"As\nthe smaller surrenders himself to the greater, so the greater must\nsurrender himself to the will to power and stake life upon the issue.\nIt is the mission of the greatest to run risk and danger--to cast dice\nwith death.\"[6] Power, in a word, is never infinite: it is always\nbecoming.\n\nPractically and in plain language, what does all this mean? Simply that\nNietzsche preaches a mighty crusade against all those ethical ideas\nwhich teach a man to sacrifice himself for the theoretical good of his\ninferiors. A culture which tends to equalize, he says, is necessarily\na culture which tends to rob the strong and so drag them down, for the\nstrong cannot give of their strength to the weak without decreasing\ntheir store. There must be an unending effort to widen the gap; there\nmust be a constant search for advantage, an infinite alertness. The\nstrong man must rid himself of all idea that it is disgraceful to yield\nto his acute and ever present yearning for still more strength. There\nmust be an abandonment of the old slave-morality and a transvaluation\nof moral values. The will to power must be emancipated from the bonds\nof that system of ethics which brands it with infamy, and so makes the\none all-powerful instinct of every sentient creature loathsome and\nabominable.\n\nIt is only the under-dog, he says, that believes in equality. It\nis only the groveling and inefficient mob that seeks to reduce all\nhumanity to one dead level, for it is only the mob that would gain\nby such leveling. \"'There are no higher men,' says the crowd in the\nmarket place. 'We are all equal; man is man; in the presence of God\nwe are all equal!' In the presence of God, indeed! But I tell you\nthat God is dead!\" So thunders Zarathustra.[7] That is to say, our\nidea of brotherhood is part of the mob-morality of the ancient Jews,\nwho evolved it out of their own helplessness and credited it to their\ngod. We have inherited their morality with their god and so we find\nit difficult--in the mass--to rid ourselves of their point of view.\nNietzsche himself rejected utterly the Judaic god and he believed that\nthe great majority of intelligent men of his time were of his mind.\nThat he was not far wrong in this assumption is evident to everyone.\nAt the present time, indeed, it is next to impossible to find a sane\nman in all the world who believes in the actual existence of the\ndeity described in the old testament. All theology is now an effort\nto explain away this god. Therefore, argues Nietzsche, it is useless\nto profess an insincere concurrence in a theistic idea at which our\ncommon sense revolts, and ridiculous to maintain the inviolability of\nan ethical scheme grounded upon this idea.\n\nIt may be urged here that, even if the god of Judea is dead, the idea\nof brotherhood still fives, and that, as a matter of fact, it is an\nidea inherent in the nature of man, and one that owes nothing to the\nrejected supernaturalism which once fortified and enforced it. That\nis to say, it may be argued that the impulse to self-sacrifice and\nmutual help is itself an instinct. The answer to this lies in the very\npatent fact that it is not. Nothing, indeed, is more apparent than the\nessential selfishness of man. In so far as they are able to defy or\nevade the moral code without shame or damage, the strong always exploit\nthe weak. The rich man puts up the price of the necessities of life\nand so makes himself richer and the poor poorer. The emperor combats\ndemocracy. The political boss opposes the will of the people for his\nown advantage. The inventor patents his inventions and so increases\nhis relative superiority to the common run of men. The ecclesiastic\nleaves a small parish for a larger one--because the pay is better\nor \"the field offers wider opportunities,\" _i.e._ gives him a better\nchance to \"save souls\" and so increases his feeling of efficiency. The\nphilanthropist gives away millions because the giving visualizes and\nmakes evident to all men his virtue and power. It is ever the same\nin this weary old world: every slave would be a master if he could.\nTherefore, why deny it? Why make it a crime to do what every man's\ninstincts prompt him to do? Why call it a sin to do what every man\ndoes, insofar as he can? The man who throws away his money or cripples\nhimself with drink, or turns away from his opportunities--we call him a\nlunatic or a fool. And yet, wherein does he differ from the ideal holy\nman of our slave-morality--the holy man who tortures himself, neglects\nhis body, starves his mind and reduces himself to parasitism, that the\nweak, the useless and unfit may have, through his ministrations, some\nmeasure of ease? Such is the argument of the dionysian philosophy. It\nis an argument for the actual facts of existence--however unrighteous\nand ugly those facts may be.\n\nThat the lifting up of the weak, in the long run, is an unprofitable\nand useless business is evident on very brief reflection. Philanthropy,\nconsidered largely, is inevitably a failure. Now and then we may\ntransform an individual pauper or drunkard into a useful, producing\ncitizen, but this happens very seldom. Nothing is more patent, indeed,\nthan the fact that charity merely converts the unfit--who, in the\ncourse of nature, would soon die out and so cease to encumber the\nearth--into parasites--who live on indefinitely, a nuisance and a\nburden to their betters. The \"reformed\" drunkard always goes back to\nhis cups: drunkardness, as every physician knows, is as essentially\nincurable as congenital insanity. And it is the same with poverty.\nWe may help a pauper to survive by giving him food and drink, but we\ncannot thereby make an efficient man of him--we cannot rid him of the\nunfitness which made him a pauper. There are, of course, exceptions\nto this, as to other rules, but the validity of the rule itself will\nnot be questioned by any observant man. It goes unquestioned, indeed,\nby those who preach the doctrine of charity the loudest. They know\nit would be absurd to argue that helping the unfit is profitable to\nthe race, and so they fall back, soon or late, upon the argument that\ncharity is ordained of God and that the impulse to it is implanted\nin every decent man. Nietzsche flatly denies this. Charity, he says,\nis a man-made idea, with which the gods have nothing to do. Its sole\neffect is to maintain the useless at the expense of the strong. In the\nmass, the helped can never hope to discharge in full their debt to the\nhelpers. The result upon the race is thus retrogression.\n\nAnd now for our second question. What was the goal Nietzsche had in\nmind for his immoralist? What was to be the final outcome of his\noverturning of all morality? Did he believe the human race would\nprogress until men became gods and controlled the sun and stars as they\nnow control the flow of great rivers? Or did he believe that the end\nof it all would be annihilation? After the publication of Nietzsche's\nearlier books, with their ruthless tearing down of the old morality,\nthese questions were asked by critics innumerable in all the countries\nof Europe. The philosopher was laughed at as a crazy iconoclast who\ndestroyed without rebuilding. He was called a visionary and a lunatic,\nand it was reported and believed that he had no answer: that his\nphilosophy was doomed to bear itself to the earth, like an arch without\na keystone. But in April, 1883, he began the publication of \"_Also\nsprach Zarathustra_\" and therein his reply was written large.\n\n\"I teach you,\" cries Zarathustra, \"the superman! Man is something that\nshall be surpassed. What, to man, is the ape? A joke or a shame. Man\nshall be the same to the superman: a joke or shame.... Man is a bridge\nconnecting ape and superman.... The superman will be the final flower\nand ultimate expression of the earth. I conjure you to be faithful to\nthe earth ... to cease looking beyond the stars for your hopes and\nrewards. You must sacrifice yourself to the earth that one day it may\nbring forth the superman.\"[8]\n\nHere we hearken unto the materialist, the empiricist, the monist _par\nexcellence._ And herein we perceive dimly the outlines of the superman.\nHe will be rid of all delusions that hamper and oppress the will to\npower. He will be perfect in body and perfect in mind. He will know\neverything worth knowing and have strength and skill and cunning to\ndefend himself against any conceivable foe. Because the prospect of\nvictory will feed his will to power he will delight in combat, and\nhis increasing capacity for combat will decrease his sensitiveness\nto pain. Conscious of his efficiency, he will be happy; having no\nillusions regarding a heaven and a hell, he will be content. He will\nsee life as something pleasant--something to be faced gladly and with\na laugh. He will say \"yes\" alike to its pleasures and to its ills. Rid\nof the notion that there is anything filthy in living--that the flesh\nis abominable[9] and life an affliction[10]--he will grow better and\nbetter fitted to meet the conditions of actual existence. He will be\nscornful, merciless and supremely fit. He will be set free from man's\nfear of gods and of laws, just as man has been set free from the ape's\nfear of lions and of open places.\n\nTo put it simply, the superman's thesis will be this: that he has been\nput into the world without his consent, that he must live in the world,\nthat he owes nothing to the other people there, and that he knows\nnothing whatever of existence beyond the grave. Therefore, it will be\nhis effort to attain the highest possible measure of satisfaction for\nthe only unmistakable and genuinely healthy instinct within him: the\nyearning to live--to attain power--to meet and overcome the influences\nwhich would weaken or destroy him. \"Keep yourselves up, my brethren,\"\ncautions Zarathustra, \"learn to keep yourselves up! The sea is stormy\nand many seek to keep afloat by your aid. The sea is stormy and all are\noverboard. Well, cheer up and save yourselves, ye old seamen!... What\nis your fatherland? The land wherein your children will dwell.... Thus\ndoes your love to these remote ones speak: 'Disregard your neighbors!\nMan is something to be surpassed!' Surpass yourself at the expense\nof your neighbor. What you cannot seize, let no man _give_ you....\nLet him who can command, obey!\"[11] The idea, by this time, should be\nplain. The superman, in the struggle for existence, asks and gives\nno quarter. He believes that it is the destiny of sentient beings to\nprogress upward, and he is willing to sacrifice himself that his race\nmay do so. But his sacrifice must benefit, not his neighbor--not the\nman who should and must look out for himself--but the generations yet\nunborn.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that the superman will make a broad\ndistinction between instinct and passion--that he will not mistake the\ncomplex thing we call love, with its costly and constant hurricanes of\nemotion, for the instinct of reproduction--that he will not mistake\nmere anger for war--that he will not mistake patriotism, with all its\nabsurdities and illusions, for the homing instinct. The superman, in\nbrief, will know how to renounce as well as how to possess, but his\nrenunciation will be the child, not of faith or of charity, but of\nexpediency. \"Will nothing beyond your capacity,\" says Zarathustra.\n\"Demand nothing of yourself that is beyond achievement!... The higher\na thing is, the less often does it succeed. Be of good cheer! What\nmatter! Learn to laugh at yourselves!... Suppose you have failed? Has\nnot the future gained by your failure?\"[12] The superman, as Nietzsche\nwas fond of putting it, must play at dice with death. He must have\never in mind no other goal but the good of the generations after him.\nHe must be willing to battle with his fellows, as with illusions, that\nthose who came after may not be afflicted by these enemies. He must be\nsupremely unmoral and unscrupulous. His must be the gospel of eternal\ndefiance.\n\nNietzsche, it will be observed, was unable to give any very definite\npicture of this proud, heaven-kissing superman. It is only in\nZarathustra's preachments to \"the higher man,\" a sort of bridge between\nman and superman, that we may discern the philosophy of the latter. On\none occasion Nietzsche penned a passage which seemed to compare the\nsuperman to \"the great blond beasts\" which ranged Europe in the days\nof the mammoth, and from this fact many commentators have drawn the\nconclusion that he had in mind a mere two-legged brute, with none of\nthe higher traits that we now speak of as distinctly human. But, as a\nmatter of fact, he harbored no such idea. In another place, wherein he\nspeaks of three metamorphoses of the race, under the allegorical names\nof the camel, the lion and the child, he makes this plain. The camel,\na hopeless beast of burden, is man. But when the camel goes into the\nsolitary desert, it throws off its burden and becomes a lion. That is\nto say, the heavy and hampering load of artificial dead-weight called\nmorality is cast aside and the instinct to live--or, as Nietzsche\ninsists upon regarding it, the will to power--is given free rein.\nThe lion is the \"higher man\"--the intermediate stage between man and\nsuperman. The latter appears neither as camel nor lion, but as a little\nchild. He knows a little child's peace. He has a little child's calm.\nLike a babe _in utero_ he is ideally adapted to his environment.\n\nZarathustra sees man \"like a camel kneeling down to be heavy laden.\"\nWhat are his burdens? One is \"to humiliate oneself.\" Another is\n\"to love those who despise us.\" In the desert comes the first\nmetamorphosis, and the \"thou shalt\" of the camel becomes the \"I will\"\nof the lion. And what is the mission of the lion? \"To create for\nitself freedom for new creating.\" After the lion comes the child. It\nis \"innocence and oblivion, a new starting, a play, a wheel rolling by\nitself, a prime motor, a holy asserting.\" The thought here is cast in\nthe heightened language of mystic poetry, but its meaning, I take it,\nis not lost.[13]\n\nNietzsche, even more than Schopenhauer, recognized the fact that great\nmental progress--in the sense that mental progress means an increased\ncapacity for grappling with the conditions of existence--necessarily\nhas to depend upon physical efficiency. In exceptional cases a great\nmind may inhabit a diseased body, but it is obvious that this is not\nthe rule. A nation in which the average man had but one hand and the\nduration of life was but 20 years could not hope to cope with even the\nweakest nation of modern Europe. So it is plain that the first step in\nthe improvement of the race must be the improvement of the body. Jesus\nChrist gave expression to this need by healing the sick, and the chief\nend and aim of all modern science is that of making life more and more\nbearable. Every labor-saving machine ever invented by man has no other\npurpose than that of saving bodily wear and tear. Every religion aims\nto rescue man from the racking fear of hell and the strain of trying\nto solve the great problems of existence for himself. Every scheme of\ngovernment that we know is, at bottom, a mere device for protecting\nhuman beings from injury and death.\n\nThus it will be seen that Nietzsche's program of progress does not\ndiffer from other programs quite so much as, at first sight, it may\nseem to do. He laid down the principle that, before anything else could\nbe accomplished, we must have first looked to the human machine. As\nwe have seen, the intellect is a mere symptom of the will to live.\nTherefore whatever removes obstacles to the free exercise of this will\nto live, necessarily promotes and increases intelligence. A race that\nwas never incapacitated by illness would be better fitted than any\nother race for any conceivable intellectual pursuit: from making money\nto conjugating Greek verbs. Nietzsche merely states this obvious fact\nin an unaccustomed form.\n\nHis superman is to give his will to live--or will to power, as you\nplease--perfect freedom. As a result, those individuals in whom this\ninstinct most accurately meets the conditions of life on earth will\nsurvive, and in their offspring, by natural laws, the instinct itself\nwill become more and more accurate. That is to say, there will appear\nin future generations individuals in whom this instinct will tend more\nand more to order the performance of acts of positive benefit and to\nforbid the performance of acts likely to result in injury. This injury,\nit is plain, may take the form of unsatisfied wants as well as of\nbroken skulls. Therefore, the man--or superman--in whom the instinct\nreaches perfection will unconsciously steer clear of all the things\nwhich harass and batter mankind today--exhausting self-denials as well\nas exhausting passions. Whatever seems likely to benefit him, he will\ndo; whatever seems likely to injure him he will avoid. When he is in\ndoubt, he will dare--and accept defeat or victory with equal calm.\nHis attitude, in brief, will be that of a being who faces life as he\nfinds it, defiantly and unafraid--who knows how to fight and how to\nforbear--who sees things as they actually are, and not as they might or\nshould be, and so wastes no energy yearning for the moon or in butting\nhis head against stone walls. \"This new table, O my brethren, I put\nover you: _Be hard!_\"[14]\n\nSuch was the goal that Nietzsche held before the human race. Other\nphilosophers before him had attempted the same thing. Schopenhauer had\nput forward his idea of a race that had found happiness in putting\naway its desire to live. Comte had seen a vision of a race whose every\nmember sought the good of all. The humanitarians of all countries\nhad drawn pictures of Utopias peopled by beings who had outgrown all\nhuman instincts--who had outgrown the _one_ fundamental, unquenchable\nand eternal instinct of every living thing: the desire to conquer, to\nlive, to remain alive. Nietzsche cast out all these fine ideals as\nessentially impossible. Man was of the earth, earthy, and his heavens\nand hells were creatures of his own vaporings. Only after he had ceased\ndreaming of them and thrown off his crushing burden of transcendental\nmorality--only thus and then could he hope to rise out of the slough of\ndespond in which he wallowed.\n\n\n[1] \"Nirvana is a cessation of striving for individual existence\"--that\nis, after death. See \"Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology,\" vol.\nII, pp. 178; New York, 1902.\n\n[2] \"Der Antichrist,\" \u00a7 2.\n\n[3] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra,_\" III.\n\n[4] \"_Jenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se,_\" \u00a7 258.\n\n[5] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[6] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" II.\n\n[7] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" IV.\n\n[8] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[9] Galatians V, 19, 20, 21.\n\n[10] Job V, 7; XIV, 1; Ecclesiastes I, 1.\n\n[11] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[12] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" IV.\n\n[13] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[14] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" III.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nETERNAL RECURRENCE\n\n\nIn the superman Nietzsche showed the world a conceivable and possible\ngoal for all human effort. But there still remained a problem and it\nwas this: When the superman at last appears on earth, what then? Will\nthere be another super-superman to follow and a super-supersuperman\nafter that? In the end, will man become the equal of the creator of the\nuniverse, whoever or whatever He may be? Or will a period of decline\ncome after, with a return down the long line, through the superman to\nman again, and then on to the anthropoid ape, to the lower mammals, to\nthe asexual cell, and, finally, to mere inert matter, gas, ether and\nempty space?\n\nNietzsche answered these questions by offering the theory that the\nuniverse moves in regular cycles and that all which is now happening\non earth, and in all the stars, to the uttermost, will be repeated,\nagain and again, throughout eternity. In other words, he dreamed of a\ncosmic year, corresponding, in some fashion, to the terrestrial year.\nMan, who has sprung from the elements, will rise into superman, and\nperhaps infinitely beyond, and then, in the end, by catastrophe or slow\ndecline, he will be resolved into the primary elements again, and the\nwhole process will begin anew.\n\nThis notion, it must be admitted, was not original with Nietzsche and\nit would have been better for his philosophy and for his repute as an\nintelligent thinker had he never sought to elucidate it. In his early\nessay on history he first mentioned it and there he credited it to its\nprobable inventors--the Pythagoreans.[1] It was their belief that,\nwhenever the heavenly bodies all returned to certain fixed relative\npositions, the whole history of the universe began anew. The idea\nseemed to fascinate Nietzsche, in whom, despite his worship of the\nactual, there was an ever-evident strain of mysticism, and he referred\nto it often in his later books. The pure horror of it--of the notion\nthat all the world's suffering would have to be repeated again and\nagain, that men would have to die over and over again for all infinity,\nthat there was no stopping place or final goal--the horror of all this\nappealed powerfully to his imagination. Frau Andreas-Salom\u00e9 tells us\nthat he \"spoke of it only in a low voice and with every sign of the\nprofoundest emotion\" and there is reason to believe that, at one time,\nhe thought there might be some confirmation of it in the atomic theory,\nand that his desire to go to Vienna to study the natural sciences\nwas prompted by a wish to investigate this notion. Finally he became\nconvinced that there was no ground for such a belief in any of the\nknown facts of science, and after that, we are told, his shuddering\nhorror left him.\n\nIt was then possible for him to deal with the doctrine of eternal\nrecurrence as a mere philosophical speculation, without the\nuncomfortable reality of a demonstrated scientific fact, and thereafter\nhe spent much time considering it. In \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_\" he\nputs it into the brain of his prophet-hero, and shows how it well-nigh\ndrove the latter mad.\n\n\"I will come back,\" muses Zarathustra, \"with this sun, with this earth,\nwith this eagle, with this serpent--_not_ for a new life or a better\nlife, but to the same life I am now leading. I will come back unto this\nsame old life, in the greatest things and in the smallest, in order to\nteach once more the eternal recurrence of all things.\"[2]\n\nIn the end, Nietzsche turned this fantastic idea into a device for\nexalting his superman. The superman is one who realizes that all of\nhis struggles will be in vain, and that, in future cycles, he will\nhave to go through them over and over again. Yet he has attained such\na superhuman immunity to all emotion--to all ideas of pleasure and\npain--that the prospect does not daunt him. Despite its horror, he\nfaces it unafraid. It is all a part of life, and in consequence it is\ngood. He has learned to agree to everything that exists--even to the\nghastly necessity for living again and again. In a word, he does not\nfear an endless series of lives, because life, to him, has lost all the\nterrors which a merely human man sees in it.\n\n\"Let us not only endure the inevitable,\" says Nietzsche, \"and still\nless hide it from ourselves: _let us love it!_\"\n\nAs Vernon Lee (Miss Violet Paget)[3] has pointed out, this idea is\nscarcely to be distinguished from the fundamental tenet of stoicism.\nMiss Paget also says that it bears a close family resemblance to that\ndenial of pain which forms the basis of Christian Science, but this is\nnot true, for a vast difference exists between a mere denial of pain\nand a willingness to admit it, face it, and triumph over it. But the\nnotion appears, in endless guises, in many philosophies and Goethe\nvoiced it, after a fashion, in his maxim, \"_Entbehren sollst du_\" (\"Man\nmust do without\"). The idea of eternal recurrence gives point, again,\nto a familiar anecdote. This concerns a joker who goes to an inn, eats\nhis fill and then says to the innkeeper: \"You and I will be here again\nin a million years: let me pay you then.\" \"Very well,\" replies the\nquick-witted innkeeper, \"but first pay me for the beefsteak you ate the\nlast time you were here--a million years ago.\"\n\nDespite Nietzsche's conclusion that the known facts of existence do\nnot bear it out, and the essential impossibility of discussing it to\nprofit, the doctrine of eternal recurrence is by no means unthinkable.\nThe celestial cycle put forward, as an hypothesis, by modern\nastronomy--the progression, that is, from gas to molten fluid, from\nfluid to solid, and from solid, by catastrophe, back to gas again--is\neasily conceivable, and it is easily conceivable, too, that the earth,\nwhich has passed through an uninhabitable state into a habitable state,\nmay one day become uninhabitable again, and so keep seesawing back and\nforth through all eternity.\n\nBut what will be the effect of eternal recurrence upon the superman?\nThe tragedy of it, as we have seen, will merely serve to make him\nheroic. He will defy the universe and say \"yes\" to life. Putting aside\nall thought of conscious existence beyond the grave, he will seek to\nlive as nearly as possible in exact accordance with those laws laid\ndown for the evolution of sentient beings on earth when the cosmos was\nfirst set spinning. But how will he know when he has attained this\nend? How will he avoid going mad with doubts about his own knowledge?\nNietzsche gave much thought, first and last, to this epistemological\nproblem, and at different times he leaned toward different schools,\nbut his writing, taken as a whole, indicates that the fruit of his\nmeditations was a thorough-going empiricism. The superman, indeed, is\nan empiricist who differs from Bacon only in the infinitely greater\nrange of his observation and experiment. He learns by bitter experience\nand he generalizes from this knowledge. An utter and unquestioning\nmaterialist, he knows nothing of mind except as a function of body.\nTo him speculation seems vain and foolish: his concern is ever with\nimminent affairs. That is to say, he believes a thing to be true when\nhis eyes, his ears, his nose and his hands tell him it is true. And in\nthis he will be at one with all those men who are admittedly above the\nmass today. Reject empiricism and you reject at one stroke, the whole\nsum of human knowledge.\n\nWhen a man stubs his toe, for example, the facts that the injured\nmember swells and that it hurts most frightfully appear to him as\nabsolute certainties. If we deny that he actually knows these things\nand maintain that the spectacle of the swelling and the sensation of\npain are mere creatures of his mind, we cast adrift from all order and\ncommon-sense in the universe and go sailing upon a stormy sea of crazy\nmetaphysics and senseless contradictions. There are many things that\nwe do not know, and in the nature of things, never can know. We do not\nknow _why_ phosphorus has a tendency to combine with oxygen, but the\nfact that it _has_ we _do_ know--and if we try to deny we _do_ know it,\nwe must deny that we are sentient beings, and in consequence, must\nregard life and the universe as mere illusions. No man with a sound\nmind makes any such denial. The things about us are real, just as our\nfeeling that we are alive is real.[4]\n\nFrom this it must be plain that the superman will have the same guides\nthat we have, viz.: his instincts and senses. But in him they will be\nmore accurate and more acute than in us, because the whole tendency\nof his scheme of things will be to fortify and develop them.[5] If\nany race of Europe devoted a century to exercising its right arms,\nits descendants, in the century following, would have right arms like\npiston-rods. In the same way, the superman, by subordinating everything\nelse to his instinct to live, will make it evolve into something very\naccurate and efficient. His whole concern, in brief, will be to live\nas long as possible and so to avoid as much as possible all of those\nthings which shorten life--by injuring the body from without or by\nusing up energy within. As a result he will cease all effort to learn\n_why_ the world exists and will devote himself to acquiring knowledge\n_how_ it exists. This knowledge _how_ will be within his capacity even\nmore than it is within our capacity today. Our senses, as we have\nseen, have given us absolute knowledge that stubbing the toe results\nin swelling and pain. The superman's developed senses will give him\nabsolute knowledge about everything that exists on earth. He will know\nexactly _how_ a tubercle bacillus attacks the lung tissue, he will know\nexactly _how_ the blood fights the bacillus, and he will know exactly\n_how_ to interfere in this battle in such a manner that the blood shall\nbe invariably victorious. In a word, he will be the possessor of exact\nand complete knowledge regarding the working of all the benign and\nmalignant forces in the world about him, but he will not bother himself\nabout insoluble problems. He will waste no time speculating as to _why_\ntubercle bacilli were sent into the world: his instinct to live will be\nsatisfied by his success in stamping them out.\n\nThe ideal superman then is merely a man in whom instinct works without\ninterference--a man who feels that it is right to live and that the\nonly knowledge worth while is that which makes life longer and more\nbearable. The superman's instinct for life is so strong that its mere\nexercise satisfies him, and so makes him happy. He doesn't bother\nabout the unknown void beyond the grave: it is sufficient for him to\nknow that he is alive and that being alive is pleasant. He is, in the\nhighest sense, a utilitarian, and he believes to the letter in Auguste\nComte's[6] dictum that the only thing living beings can ever hope to\naccomplish on earth is to adapt themselves perfectly to the natural\nforces around them--to the winds and the rain, the hills and the sea,\nthe thunderbolt and the germ of disease.\n\n\"I am a dionysian!\" cries Nietzsche. \"I am an immoralist!\" He means\nsimply that his ideal is a being capable of facing the horrors of life\nunafraid, of meeting great enemies and slaying them, of gazing down\nupon the earth in pride and scorn, of making his own way and bearing\nhis own burdens. In the profane folk-philosophy of every healthy and\nvigorous people, we find some trace of this dionysian idea. \"Let us so\nlive day by day,\" says a distinguished American statesman, \"that we can\nlook any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell!\" We get a subtle\nsort of joy out of this saying because it voices our racial advance\ntoward individualism and away from servility and oppression. We believe\nin freedom, in toleration, in moral anarchy. We have put this notion\ninto innumerable homely forms.\n\nThings have come to a hell of a pass\nWhen a man can't wallop his own jackass!\n\nSo we phrase it. The superman, did he stalk the earth, would say the\nsame thing.\n\n\n[1] Pythagoras (B.C. 570?-500?) was a Greek who brought the doctrine of\nthe transmigration of souls from Asia Minor to Greece. In Magna Graecia\nhe founded a mystical brotherhood, half political party and half school\nof philosophy. It survived him for many years and its members revered\nhim as the sage of sages. He was a bitter foe to democracy and took\npart in wars against its spread.\n\n[2] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" III.\n\n[3] _North American Review_, Dec., 1904.\n\n[4] _Vide_ the chapter on \"Truth.\"\n\n[5] It is very evident, I take it, that the principal function of\nall science is the widening of our perceptions. The chief argument\nfor idealism used to be the axiom that our power of perception was\nnecessarily limited and that it would be limited forever. This may\nbe true still, but it is now apparent that these limits are being\nindefinitely extended, and may be extended, in future, almost\ninfinitely. A thousand years ago, if any one had laid down the\nthesis that malaria was caused by minute animals, he would have been\ndismissed as a lunatic, because it was evident that no one could see\nthese animals, and it was evident, too--that is to say, the scientists\nof that time held it to be evident--that this inability to see them\nwould never be removed, because the human eye would always remain\nsubstantially as it was. But now we know that the microscope may\nincrease the eye's power of perception a thousandfold. When we consider\nthe fact that the spectroscope has enabled us to make a chemical\nanalysis of the sun, that the telephone has enabled us to hear 2,000\nmiles and that the x-rays have enabled us to see through flesh and\nbone, we must admit without reservation, that our power of perception,\nat some future day, may be infinite. And if we admit this we must admit\nthe essential possibility of the superman.\n\n[6] \"_Cours de philosophie positive_,\" tr. by Helen Martineau; London,\n1853.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY\n\n\nNietzsche's astonishingly keen and fearless criticism of Christianity\nhas probably sent forth wider ripples than any other stone he ever\nheaved into the pool of philistine contentment. He opened his attack in\n\"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" the first book of his maturity,\nand he was still at it, in full fuming and fury, in \"_Der Antichrist_,\"\nthe last thing he was destined to write. The closing chapter of \"_Der\nAntichrist_\"--his swan song--contains his famous phillipic, beginning\n\"I condemn.\" It recalls Zola's \"_j'accuse_\" letter in the Dreyfus case,\nbut it is infinitely more sweeping and infinitely more uproarious and\ndaring.\n\n\"I condemn Christianity,\" it begins. \"I bring against it the most\nterrible of accusations that ever an accuser put into words. It is\nto me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions.... It has left\nnothing untouched by its depravity. It has made a worthlessness out\nof every value, a lie out of every truth, a sin out of everything\nstraightforward, healthy and honest. Let anyone dare to speak to me of\nits humanitarian blessings! To do away with pain and woe is contrary\nto its principles. It lives by pain and woe: it has created pain and\nwoe in order to perpetuate itself. It invented the idea of original\nsin.[1] It invented 'the equality of souls before God'--that cover\nfor all the rancour of the useless and base.... It has bred the art\nof self-violation--repugnance and contempt for all good and cleanly\ninstincts.... Parasitism is its praxis. It combats all good red-blood,\nall love and all hope for life, with its an\u00e6mic ideal of holiness. It\nsets up 'the other world' as a negation of every reality. The cross is\nthe rallying post for a conspiracy against health, beauty, well-being,\ncourage, intellect, benevolence--against life itself....\n\n\"This eternal accusation I shall write upon all walls: I call\nChristianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity,...\nfor which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean,\nmean! I call it the one immortal shame and blemish upon the human\nrace!\"[2]\n\nSo much for the philosopher's vociferous hurrah at the close of his\nargument. In the argument itself it is apparent that his indictment of\nChristianity contains two chief counts. The first is the allegation\nthat it is essentially untrue and unreasonable, and the second is\nthe theory that it is degrading. The first of these counts is not\nunfamiliar to the students of religious history. It was first voiced by\nthat high priest who \"rent his clothes\" and cried \"What need have we of\nany further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy.\"[3] It was voiced\nagain by the Romans who threw converts to the lions, and after the long\nsilence of the middle ages, it was piped forth again by Voltaire, Hume,\nthe encyclopedists and Paine. After the philosophers and scientists\nwho culminated in Darwin had rescued reason for all time from the\ntranscendental nonsense of the cobweb-spinners and metaphysicians,\nHuxley came to the front with his terrific heavy artillery and those\nwho still maintained that Christianity was historically true--Gladstone\nand the rest of the forlorn hope--were mowed down. David Strauss,\nLessing, Eichhorn, Michaelis, Bauer, Meyer, Ritschl,[4] Pfleiderer and\na host of others joined in the chorus and in Nietzsche's early manhood\nthe battle was practically won. By 1880 no reasonable man actually\nbelieved that there were devils in the swine, and it was already\npossible to deny the physical resurrection and still maintain a place\nin respectable society. Today a literal faith in the gospel narrative\nis confined to ecclesiastical reactionaries, pious old ladies and men\nabout to be hanged.\n\nTherefore, Nietzsche did not spend much time examining the historical\ncredibility of Christianity. He did not try to prove, like Huxley,\nthat the witnesses to the resurrection were superstitious peasants and\nhysterical women, nor did he seek to show, like Huxley again, that\nChrist might have been taken down from the cross before he was dead.\nHe was intensely interested in all such inquiries, but he saw that,\nin the last analysis, they left a multitude of problems unsolved. The\nsolution of these unsolved problems was the task that he took unto\nhimself. Tunneling down, in his characteristic way, into the very\nfoundations of the faith, he endeavored to prove that it was based upon\ncontradictions and absurdities; that its dogmas were illogical and its\nprecepts unworkable; and that its cardinal principles presupposed\nthe acceptance of propositions which, to the normal human mind, were\nessentially unthinkable. This tunneling occupied much of Nietzsche's\nenergy in \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" and he returned to\nit again and again, in all of the other books that preceded \"_Der\nAntichrist_.\" His method of working may be best exhibited by a few\nconcrete examples.\n\nPrayer, for instance, is an exceedingly important feature of Christian\nworship and any form of worship in which it had no place would be\nnecessarily unchristian.[5] But upon what theory is prayer based?\nExamining the matter from all sides you will have to conclude that it\nis reasonable only upon two assumptions: first, that it is possible to\nchange the infallible will and opinion of the deity, and secondly, that\nthe petitioner is capable of judging what he needs. Now, Christianity\nmaintains, as one of its main dogmas, that the deity is omniscient\nand all-wise,[6] and, as another fundamental doctrine, that human\nbeings are absolutely unable to solve their problems without heavenly\naid[7] _i.e._ that the deity necessarily knows what is best for any\ngiven man better than that man can ever hope to know it himself.\nTherefore, Christianity, in ordaining prayer, orders, as a condition of\ninclusion in its communion, an act which it holds to be useless. This\ncontradiction, argues Nietzsche, cannot be explained away in terms\ncomprehensible to the human intelligence.\n\nAgain Christianity holds that man is a mere creature of the deity's\nwill, and yet insists that the individual be judged and punished for\nhis acts. In other words, it tries to carry free will on one shoulder\nand determinism on the other, and its doctors and sages have themselves\nshown that they recognize the absurdity of this by their constant, but\nfutile efforts to decide which of the two shall be abandoned. This\ncontradiction is a legacy from Judaism, and Mohammedanism suffers\nfrom it, too. Those sects which have sought to remove it by an entire\nacceptance of determinism--under the name of predestination, fatalism,\nor what not--have become bogged in hopeless morasses of unreason and\ndogmatism. It is a cardinal doctrine of Presbyterianism, for instance,\nthat \"by the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some\nmen and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life and others\nforeordained to everlasting death ... without any foresight of faith\nor good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing\nin the creature, as conditions....\"[8] In other words, no matter\nhow faithfully one man tries to follow in the footsteps of Christ,\nhe may go to hell, and no matter how impiously another sins, he may\nbe foreordained for heaven. That such a belief makes all religion,\nfaith and morality absurd is apparent. That it is, at bottom, utterly\nunthinkable to a reasoning being is also plain.\n\nNietzsche devoted a great deal of time during his first period of\nactivity to similar examinations of Christian ideas and he did a great\ndeal to supplement the historical investigations of those English and\nGerman savants whose ruthless exposure of fictions and frauds gave\nbirth to what we now call the higher criticism. But his chief service\nwas neither in the field of historical criticism nor in that of the\ncriticism of dogmas. Toward the end of his life he left the business of\nexamining biblical sources to the archeologists and historians, whose\nequipment for the task was necessarily greater than his own, and the\nbusiness of reducing Christian logic to contradiction and absurdity to\nthe logicians. Thereafter, his own work took him a step further down\nand in the end he got to the very bottom of the subject. The answer of\nthe theologians had been that, even if you denied the miracles, the\ngospels, the divinity of Christ and his very existence as an actual\nman, you would have to admit that Christianity itself was sufficient\nexcuse for its own existence; that it had made the world better and\nthat it provided a workable scheme of life by which men could live and\ndie and rise to higher things. This answer, for awhile, staggered the\nagnostics and Huxley himself evidently came near being convinced that\nit was beyond rebuttal.[9] But it only made Nietzsche spring into the\narena more confident than ever. \"Very well,\" he said, \"we will argue it\nout. You say that Christianity has made the world better? I say that it\nhas made it worse! You say that it is comforting and uplifting? I say\nthat it is cruel and degrading! You say that it is the best religion\nmankind has ever invented? I say it is the most dangerous!\"\n\nHaving thus thrown down the gage of battle, Nietzsche proceeded to\nfight like a Tartar, and it is but common fairness to say that,\nfor a good while, he bore the weight of his opponents' onslaught\nalmost unaided. The world was willing enough to abandon its belief\nin Christian supernaturalism and as far back as the early 80's the\ndignitaries of the Church of England--to employ a blunt but expressive\nmetaphor--had begun to get in out of the wet. But the pietists still\nargued that Christianity remained the fairest flower of civilization\nand that it met a real and ever-present human want and made mankind\nbetter. To deny this took courage of a decidedly unusual sort--courage\nthat was willing to face, not only ecclesiastical anathema and\ndenunciation, but also the almost automatic opposition of every\nso-called respectable man. But Nietzsche, whatever his deficiencies\notherwise, certainly was not lacking in assurance, and so, when he\ncame to write \"_Der Antichrist_\" he made his denial thunderous and\nuncompromising beyond expression. No medieval bishop ever pronounced\nmore appalling curses. No backwoods evangelist ever laid down the law\nwith more violent eloquence. The book is the shortest he ever wrote,\nbut it is by long odds the most compelling. Beginning _allegro_, it\nproceeds from _forte_, by an uninterrupted _crescendo_ to _allegro con\nmoltissimo molto fortissimo_. The sentences run into mazes of italics,\ndashes and asterisks. It is German that one cannot read aloud without\nroaring and waving one's arm.\n\nChristianity, says Nietzsche, is the most dangerous system of\nslave-morality the world has ever known. \"It has waged a deadly\nwar against the highest type of man. It has put a ban on all his\nfundamental instincts. It has distilled evil out of these instincts.\nIt makes the strong and efficient man its typical outcast man. It has\ntaken the part of the weak and the low; it has made an ideal out of\nits antagonism to the very instincts which tend to preserve life and\nwell-being.... It has taught men to regard their highest impulses as\nsinful--as temptations.\"[10] In a word, it tends to rob mankind of\nall those qualities which fit any living organism to survive in the\nstruggle for existence.\n\nAs we shall see later on, civilization obscures and even opposes this\nstruggle for existence, but it is in progress all the same, at all\ntimes and under all conditions. Every one knows, for instance, that\none-third of the human beings born into the world every year die before\nthey are five years old. The reason for this lies in the fact that they\nare, in some way or other, less fitted to meet the conditions of life\non earth than the other two-thirds. The germ of cholera infantum is\nan enemy to the human race, and so long as it continues to exist upon\nearth it will devote all of its activity to attacking human infants\nand seeking to destroy them. It happens that some babies recover from\ncholera infantum, while others die of it. This is merely another\nway of saying that the former, having been born with a capacity for\nresisting the attack of the germ, or having been given the capacity\nartificially, are better fitted to survive, and that the latter, being\nincapable of making this resistance, are unfit.\n\nAll life upon earth is nothing more than a battle with the enemies\nof life. A germ is such an enemy, cold is such an enemy, lack of\nfood is such an enemy, and others that may be mentioned are lack of\nwater, ignorance of natural laws, armed foes and deficient physical\nstrength. The man who is able to get all of the food he wants, and\nso can nourish his body until it becomes strong enough to combat the\ngerms of disease; who gets enough to drink, who has shelter from the\nelements, who has devised means for protecting himself against the\ndesires of other men--who yearn, perhaps, who take for themselves some\nof the things that he has acquired--such a man, it is obvious, is far\nbetter fitted to live than a man who has none of these things. He is\nfar better fitted to survive, in a purely physical sense, because his\nbody is nourished and protected, and he is far better fitted to attain\nhappiness, because most of his powerful wants are satisfied.\n\nNietzsche maintains that Christianity urges a man to make no such\nefforts to insure his personal survival in the struggle for existence.\nThe beatitudes require, he says, that, instead of trying to do so, the\nChristian shall devote his energies to helping others and shall give\nno thought to himself. Instead of exalting himself as much as possible\nabove the common herd and thus raising his chances of surviving, and\nthose of his children, above those of the average man, he is required\nto lift up this average man. Now, it is plain that every time he\nlifts up some one else, he must, at the same time, decrease his own\nstore, because his own store is the only stock from which he can draw.\nTherefore, the tendency of the Christian philosophy of humility is to\nmake men voluntarily throw away their own chances of surviving, which\nmeans their own sense of efficiency, which means their own \"feeling of\nincreasing power,\" which means their own happiness. As a substitute for\nthis natural happiness, Christianity offers the happiness derived from\nthe belief that the deity will help those who make the sacrifice and so\nrestore them to their old superiority. This belief, as Nietzsche shows,\nis no more borne out by known facts than the old belief in witches. It\nis, in fact, proved to be an utter absurdity by all human experience.\n\n\"I call an animal, a species, an individual, depraved,\" he says,\n\"when it loses its instincts, when it selects, when it _prefers_ what\nis injurious to it.... Life itself is an instinct for growth, for\ncontinuance, for accumulation of forces, for _power:_ where the will\nto power is wanting there is decline.\"[11] Christianity, he says,\nsquarely opposes this will to power in the Golden Rule, the cornerstone\nof the faith. The man who confines his efforts to attain superiority\nover his fellow men to those acts which he would be willing to have\nthem do toward him, obviously abandons all such efforts entirely.\nTo put it in another form, a man can't make himself superior to the\nrace in general without making every other man in the world, to that\nextent, his inferior. Now, if he follows the Golden Rule, he must\nnecessarily abandon all efforts to make himself superior, because if\nhe didn't he would be suffering all the time from the pain of seeing\nother men--whose standpoint the Rule requires him to assume--grow\ninferior. Thus his activity is restricted to one of two things:\nstanding perfectly still or deliberately making himself inferior. The\nfirst is impossible, but Nietzsche shows that the latter is not, and\nthat, in point of fact, it is but another way of describing the act\nof sympathy--one of the things ordered by the fundamental dogma of\nChristianity.\n\nSympathy, says Nietzsche, consists merely of a strong man giving up\nsome of his strength to a weak man. The strong man, it is evident, is\ndebilitated thereby, while the weak man, very often, is strengthened\nbut little. If you go to a hanging and sympathize with the condemned,\nit is plain that your mental distress, without helping that gentleman,\nweakens, to a perceptible degree, your own mind and body, just as\nall other powerful emotions weaken them, by consuming energy, and so\nyou are handicapped in the struggle for life to the extent of this\nweakness. You may get a practical proof of it an hour later by being\novercome and killed by a foot-pad whom you might have been able to\nconquer, had you been feeling perfectly well, or by losing money to\nsome financial rival for whom, under normal conditions, you would have\nbeen a match; and then again you may get no immediate or tangible\nproof of it at all. But your organism will have been weakened to some\nmeasurable extent, all the same, and at some time--perhaps on your\ndeath bed--this minute drain will make itself evident, though, of\ncourse, you may never know it.\n\n\"Sympathy,\" says Nietzsche, \"stands in direct antithesis to the tonic\npassions which elevate the energy of human beings and increase their\nfeeling of efficiency and power. It is a depressant. One loses force\nby sympathizing and any loss of force which has been caused by other\nmeans--personal suffering, for example--is increased and multiplied\nby sympathy. Suffering itself becomes contagious through sympathy and\nunder certain circumstances it may lead to a total loss of life. If\na proof of that is desired, consider the case of the Nazarene, whose\nsympathy for his fellow men brought him, in the end, to the cross.\n\n\"Again, sympathy thwarts the law of development, of evolution, of the\nsurvival of the fittest. It preserves what is ripe for extinction, it\nworks in favor of life's condemned ones, it gives to life itself a\ngloomy aspect by the number of the ill-constituted it _maintains_ in\nlife.... It is both a multiplier of misery and a conservator of misery.\nIt is the principal tool for the advancement of decadence. It leads to\nnothingness, to the negation of all those instincts which are at the\nbasis of life.... But one does not say 'nothingness;' one says instead\n'the other world' or 'the better life.'... This innocent rhetoric,\nout of the domain of religio-moral fantasy, becomes far from innocent\nwhen one realizes what tendency it conceals: the tendency _hostile to\nlife_.\"[12]\n\nThe foregoing makes it patent that Nietzsche was a thorough-going and\nuncompromising biological monist. That is to say, he believed that man,\nwhile superior to all other animals because of his greater development,\nwas, after all, merely an animal, like the rest of them; that the\nstruggle for existence went on among human beings exactly as it went\non among the lions in the jungle and the protozoa in the sea ooze, and\nthat the law of natural selection ruled all of animated nature--mind\nand matter--alike. Indeed, it is but just to credit him with being the\npioneer among modern monists of this school, for he stated and defended\nthe doctrine of morphological universality at a time when practically\nall the evolutionists doubted it, and had pretty well proved its truth\nsome years before Haeckel wrote his \"Monism\" and \"The Riddle of the\nUniverse.\"\n\nTo understand all of this, it is necessary to go back to Darwin and his\nfirst statement of the law of natural selection. Darwin proved, in \"The\nOrigin of the Species,\" that a great many more individuals of any given\nspecies of living being are born into the world each year than can\npossibly survive. Those that are best fitted to meet the condition of\nexistence live on; those that are worst fitted die. The result is that,\nby the influence of heredity, the survivors beget a new generation in\nwhich there is a larger percentage of the fit. One might think that\nthis would cause a greater number to survive, but inasmuch as the food\nand room on earth are limited, a large number must always die. But\nall the while the half or third, or whatever the percentage may be,\nwhich actually do survive become more and more fit. In consequence, a\nspecies, generation after generation, tends to become more and more\nadapted to meet life's vicissitudes, or, as the biologists say, more\nand more adapted to its environment.\n\nDarwin proved that this law was true of all the lower animals and\nshowed that it was responsible for the evolution of the lower apes\ninto anthropoid apes, and that it could account, theoretically, for a\npossible evolution of anthropoid apes into man. But in \"The Descent\nof Man\" he argued that the law of natural selection ceased when man\nbecame an intelligent being. Thereafter, he said, man's own efforts\nworked against those of nature. Instead of letting the unfit of his\nrace die, civilization began to protect and preserve them. The result\nwas that nature's tendency to make all living beings more and more\nsturdy was set aside by man's own conviction that mere sturdiness was\nnot the thing most to be desired. From this Darwin argued that if two\ntribes of human beings lived side by side, and if, in one of them, the\nunfit were permitted to perish, while in the other there were many\n\"courageous, sympathetic and faithful members, who were always ready to\nwarn each other of danger, and to aid and defend one another\"--that in\nsuch a case, the latter tribe would make the most progress, despite its\nconcerted effort to defy a law of nature.\n\nDarwin's disciples agreed with him in this and some of them went to\nthe length of asserting that civilization, in its essence, was nothing\nmore or less than a successful defiance of this sort.[13] Herbert\nSpencer was much troubled by the resultant confusion and as one critic\nputs it,[14] the whole drift of his thought \"appears to be inspired\nby the question: how to evade and veil the logical consequence of\nevolutionarism for human existence?\" John Fiske, another Darwinian,\naccepted the situation without such disquieting doubt. \"When humanity\nbegan to be evolved,\" he said, \"an entirely new chapter in the history\nof the universe was opened. Henceforth the life of the nascent soul\ncame to be first in importance and the bodily life became subordinated\nto it.\"[15] Even Huxley believed that man would have to be excepted\nfrom the operation of the law of natural selection. \"The ethical\nprogress of society,\" he said, \"depends, not on imitating the cosmic\nprocess and still less on running away from it, but in combating it.\"\nHe saw that it was audacious thus to pit man against nature, but he\nthought that man was sufficiently important to make such an attempt\nand hoped \"that the enterprise might meet with a certain measure of\nsuccess.\"[16] And the other Darwinians agreed with him.[17]\n\nAs all the best critics of philosophy have pointed out,[18] any\nphilosophical system which admits such a great contradiction fails\nutterly to furnish workable standards of order in the universe, and so\nfalls short of achieving philosophy's first aim. We must either believe\nwith the scholastics that intelligence rules, or we must believe, with\nHaeckel, that all things happen in obedience to invariable natural\nlaws. We cannot believe both. A great many men, toward the beginning\nof the 90's, began to notice this fatal defect in Darwin's idea of\nhuman progress. In 1891 one of them pointed out the conclusion toward\nwhich it inevitably led.[19] If we admitted, he said, that humanity\nhad set at naught the law of natural selection, we must admit that\ncivilization was working against nature's efforts to preserve the race,\nand that, in the end, humanity would perish. To put it more succinctly,\nman might defy the law of natural selection as much as he pleased, but\nhe could never hope to set it aside. Soon or late, he would awaken to\nthe fact that he remained a mere animal, like the rabbit and the worm,\nand that, if he permitted his body to degenerate into a thing entirely\nlacking in strength and virility, not all the intelligence conceivable\ncould save him.\n\nNietzsche saw all this clearly as early as 1877.[20] He saw that what\npassed for civilization, as represented by Christianity, was making\nsuch an effort to defy and counteract the law of natural selection,\nand he came to the conclusion that the result would be disaster.\nChristianity, he said, ordered that the strong should give part of\ntheir strength to the weak, and so tended to weaken the whole race.\nSelf-sacrifice, he said, was an open defiance of nature, and so were\nall the other Christian virtues, in varying degree. He proposed, then,\nthat before it was too late, humanity should reject Christianity, as\nthe \"greatest of all imaginable corruptions,\" and admit freely and\nfully that the law of natural selection was universal and that the only\nway to make real progress was to conform to it.\n\nIt may be asked here how Nietzsche accounted for the fact that humanity\nhad survived so long--for the fact that the majority of men were still\nphysically healthy and that the race, as a whole, was still fairly\nvigorous. He answered this in two ways. First, he denied that the\nrace was maintaining to the full its old vigor. \"The European of the\npresent,\" he said, \"is far below the European of the Renaissance.\" It\nwould be absurd, he pointed out, to allege that the average German\nof 1880 was as strong and as healthy--_i.e._ as well fitted to his\nenvironment--as the \"blond beast\" who roamed the Saxon lowlands in\nthe days of the mammoth. It would be equally absurd to maintain that\nthe highest product of modern civilization--the town-dweller--was as\nvigorous and as capable of becoming the father of healthy children as\nthe intelligent farmer, whose life was spent in approximate accordance\nwith all the more obvious laws of health.\n\nNietzsche's second answer was that humanity had escaped utter\ndegeneration and destruction because, despite its dominance as a\ntheory of action, few men actually practiced Christianity. It was\nnext to impossible, he said, to find a single man who, literally and\nabsolutely, obeyed the teachings of Christ.[21] There were plenty of\nmen who thought they were doing so, but all of them were yielding in\nonly a partial manner. Absolute Christianity meant absolute disregard\nof self. It was obvious that a man who reached this state of mind\nwould be unable to follow any gainful occupation, and so would find\nit impossible to preserve his own life or the lives of his children.\nIn brief, said Nietzsche, an actual and utter Christian would perish\ntoday just as Christ perished, and so, in his own fate, would provide a\nconclusive argument against Christianity.\n\nNietzsche pointed out further that everything which makes for the\npreservation of the human race is diametrically opposed to the\nChristian ideal. Thus Christianity becomes the foe of science. The one\nargues that man should sit still and let God reign; the other that man\nshould battle against the tortures which fate inflicts upon him, and\ntry to overcome them and grow strong. Thus all science is unchristian,\nbecause, in the last analysis, the whole purpose and effort of science\nis to arm man against loss of energy and death, and thus make him\nself-reliant and unmindful of any duty of propitiating the deity. That\nthis antagonism between Christianity and the search, for truth really\nexists has been shown in a practical way time and again. Since the\nbeginning of the Christian era the church has been the bitter and\ntireless enemy of all science, and this enmity has been due to the fact\nthat every member of the priest class has realized that the more a man\nlearned the more he came to depend upon his own efforts, and the less\nhe was given to asking help from above. In the ages of faith men prayed\nto the saints when they were ill. Today they send for a doctor. In the\nages of faith battles were begun with supplications, and it was often\npossible to witness the ridiculous spectacle of both sides praying to\nthe same God. Today every sane person knows that the victory goes to\nthe wisest generals and largest battalions.\n\nNietzsche thus showed, first, that Christianity (and all other ethical\nsystems having self-sacrifice as their basis) tended to oppose the law\nof natural selection and so made the race weaker; and secondly, that\nthe majority of men, consciously or unconsciously, were aware of this,\nand so made no effort to be absolute Christians. If Christianity were\nto become universal, he said, and every man in the world were to follow\nChrist's precepts to the letter in all the relations of daily life,\nthe race would die out in a generation. This being true--and it may\nbe observed in passing that no one has ever successfully controverted\nit--there follows the converse: that the human race had best abandon\nthe idea of self-sacrifice altogether and submit itself to the law of\nnatural selection. If this is done, says Nietzsche, the result will\nbe a race of supermen--of proud, strong dionysians--of men who will\nsay \"yes\" to the world and will be ideally capable of meeting the\nconditions under which life must exist on earth.\n\nIn his efforts to account for the origin of Christianity, Nietzsche\nwas less happy, and indeed came very near the border-line of the\nridiculous. The faith of modern Europe, he said, was the result of a\ngigantic effort on the part of the ancient Jews to revenge themselves\nupon their masters. The Jews were helpless and inefficient and thus\nevolved a slave-morality. Naturally, as slaves, they hated their\nmasters, while realizing, all the while, the unmanliness of the ideals\nthey themselves had to hold to in order to survive. So they crucified\nChrist, who voiced these same ideals, and the result was that the\noutside world, which despised the Jews, accepted Christ as a martyr and\nprophet and thus swallowed the Jewish ideals without realizing it. In a\nword, the Jews detested the slave-morality which circumstances thrust\nupon them, and got their revenge by foisting it, in a sugar-coated\npill, upon their masters.\n\nIt is obvious that this idea is sheer lunacy. That the Jews ever\nrealized the degenerating effect of their own slave-morality is\nunlikely, and that they should take counsel together and plan such\nan elaborate and complicated revenge, is impossible. The reader of\nNietzsche must expect to encounter such absurdities now and then.\nThe mad German was ordinarily a most logical and orderly thinker,\nbut sometimes the traditional German tendency to indulge in wild and\nimbecile flights of speculation cropped up in him.\n\n\n[1] _Vide_ the chapter on \"Crime and Punishment.\"\n\n[2] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 62.\n\n[3] St. Mark XIV, 63, 64.\n\n[4] Albrecht Ritschl (1822-89), who is not to be confused with\nNietzsche's teacher at Bonn and Leipsic. Ritschl founded what is\ncalled the Ritschlian movement in theology. This has for its object\nthe abandonment of supernaturalism and the defence of Christianity as\na mere scheme of living. It admits that the miracle stories are fables\nand even concedes that Christ was not divine, but maintains that his\nteachings represent the best wisdom of the human race. See Denny:\n\"Studies in Theology,\" New York, 1894.\n\n[5] Ph. IV, 6: \"Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and\nsupplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to\nGod.\"\n\n[6] Deut. XXXII, 4: \"He is the rock, his work is perfect.\" See also a\nhundred similar passages in the Old and New Testaments.\n\n[7] Isaiah XLIV, 8: \"Now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay\nand thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.\"\n\n[8] \"The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,\"\npp. 16 to 20: Philadelphia, 1841.\n\n[9] To the end of his days Huxley believed that, to the average human\nbeing, even of the highest class, some sort of faith would always be\nnecessary. \"My work in the London hospitals,\" he said, \"taught me\nthat the preacher often does as much good as the doctor.\" It would be\ninteresting to show how this notion has been abandoned in recent years.\nThe trained nurse, who was unknown in Huxley's hospital days, now takes\nthe place of the confessor, and as Dr. Osler has shown us in \"Science\nand Immortality,\" men die just as comfortably as before.\n\n[10] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 5.\n\n[11] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 6.\n\n[12] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 7.\n\n[13] Alfred Russell Wallace: \"Darwinism,\" London, 1889.\n\n[14] Alexander Tille, introduction to the Eng. tr. of \"The Works of\nFriedrich Nietzsche,\" vol. XI; New York, 1896.\n\n[15] John Fiske: \"The Destiny of Man;\" London, 1884.\n\n[16] Romanes Lecture on \"Evolution and Ethics,\" 1893.\n\n[17] As a matter of fact this dualism still lives. Thus it was lately\ndefended by a correspondent of the New York _Sun:_ \"If there can be\nsuch a thing as an essential difference there surely is one between the\nanimal evolution discovered by Darwin and the self-culture, progress\nand spiritual aspiration of man.\" Many other writers on the subject\ntake the same position.\n\n[18] See the article on \"Monism\" in the New International Encyclopedia.\n\n[19] A. J. Balfour: \"Fragment on Progress;\" London, 1891.\n\n[20] He was a monist, indeed, as early as 1873, at which time he had\napparently not yet noticed Darwin's notion that the human race could\nsuccessfully defy the law of natural selection. \"The absence of any\ncardinal distinction between man and beast,\" he said, \"is a doctrine\nwhich I consider true.\" (\"_Unzeitgem\u00e4sse Betrachtungen_,\" I, 189.)\nNevertheless, in a moment of sophistry, late in life, he undertook to\ncriticize the law of natural selection and even to deny its effects\n(_vide_ \"Roving Expeditions of an Inopportune Philosopher,\" \u00a7 14, in\n\"The Twilight of the Idols\"). It is sufficient to say, in answer, that\nthe law itself is inassailable and that all of Nietzsche's work, saving\nthis single unaccountable paragraph, helps support it. His frequent\nsneers at Darwin, in other places, need not be taken too seriously.\nEverything English, toward the close of his life, excited his ire, but\nthe fact remains that he was a thorough Darwinian and that, without\nDarwin's work, his own philosophy would have been impossible.\n\n[21] This observation is as old as Montaigne, who said: \"After all, the\nstoics were actually stoical, but where in all Christendom will you\nfind a Christian?\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nTRUTH\n\n\nAt the bottom of all philosophy, of all science and of all thinking,\nyou will find the one all-inclusive question: How is man to tell truth\nfrom error? The ignorant man solves this problem in a very simple\nmanner: he holds that whatever he believes, he _knows;_ and that\nwhatever he knows is true. This is the attitude of all amateur and\nprofessional theologians, politicians and other numbskulls of that\nsort. The pious old maid, for example, who believes in the doctrine of\nthe immaculate conception looks upon her faith as proof, and holds that\nall who disagree with her will suffer torments in hell. Opposed to this\nchildish theory of knowledge is the chronic doubt of the educated man.\nHe sees daily evidence that many things held to be true by nine-tenths\nof all men are, in reality, false, and he is thereby apt to acquire a\ndoubt of everything, including his own beliefs.\n\nAt different times in the history of man, various methods of solving\nor evading the riddle have been proposed. In the age of faith it was\nheld that, by his own efforts alone, man was unable, even partly, to\ndistinguish between truth and error, but that he could always go for\nenlightenment to an infallible encyclopedia: the word of god, as set\nforth, through the instrumentality of inspired scribes, in the holy\nscriptures. If these scriptures said that a certain proposition was\ntrue, it _was_ true, and any man who doubted it was either a lunatic\nor a criminal.[1] This doctrine prevailed in Europe for many years and\nall who ventured to oppose it were in danger of being killed, but in\nthe course of time the number of doubters grew so large that it was\ninconvenient or impossible to kill all of them, and so, in the end,\nthey had to be permitted to voice their doubts unharmed.\n\nThe first man of this new era to inflict any real damage upon the\nancient churchly idea of revealed wisdom was Nicolas of Cusa, a\ncardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, who lived in the early part of\nthe fifteenth century.[2] Despite his office and his time, Nicolas was\nan independent and intelligent man, and it became apparent to him,\nafter long reflection, that mere belief in a thing was by no means\na proof of its truth. Man, he decided was prone to err, but in the\nworst of his errors, there was always some kernel of truth, else he\nwould revolt against it as inconceivable. Therefore, he decided, the\nbest thing for man to do was to hold all of his beliefs lightly and to\nreject them whenever they began to appear as errors. The real danger,\nhe said, was not in making mistakes, but in clinging to them after they\nwere known to be mistakes.\n\nIt seems well nigh impossible that a man of Nicolas' age and training\nshould have reasoned so clearly, but the fact remains that he did, and\nthat all of modern philosophy is built upon the foundations he laid.\nSince his time a great many other theories of knowledge have been put\nforward, but all have worked, in a sort of circle, back to Nicolas.\nIt would be interesting, perhaps, to trace the course and history of\nthese variations and denials, but such an enterprise is beyond the\nscope of the present inquiry. Nicolas by no means gave the world a\ncomplete and wholly credible system of philosophy. Until the day of\nhis death scholasticism was dominant in the world that he knew, and\nit retained its old hold upon human thought, in fact, for nearly two\nhundred years thereafter. Not until Descartes, in 1619, made his famous\nresolution \"to take nothing for the truth without clear knowledge\nthat it is such,\" did humanity in general begin to realize, as Huxley\nsays, that there was sanctity in doubt. And even Descartes could not\nshake himself free of the supernaturalism and other balderdash which\nyet colored philosophy. He laid down, for all time, the emancipating\ndoctrine that \"the profession of belief in propositions, of the truth\nof which there is no sufficient evidence, is immoral\"--a doctrine\nthat might well be called the Magna Charta of human thought[3]--but\nit should not be forgotten that he also laid down other doctrines and\nthat many of them were visionary and silly. The philosophers after him\nrid their minds of the old ideas but slowly and there were frequent\nreversions to the ancient delusion that a man's mind is a function of\nhis soul--whatever that may be--and not of his body. It was common,\nindeed, for a philosopher to set out with sane, debatable, conceivable\nideas--and then to go soaring into the idealistic clouds.[4] Only in\nour own time have men come to understand that the ego, for all its\nseeming independence, is nothing more than the sum of inherited race\nexperience--that a man's soul, his conscience and his attitude of\nmind are things he has inherited from his ancestors, just as he has\ninherited his two eyes, his ten toes and his firm belief in signs,\nportents and immortality. Only in our own time have men ceased seeking\na golden key to all riddles, and sat themselves down to solve one\nriddle at a time.\n\nThose metaphysicians who fared farthest from the philosopher of Cusa\nevolved the doctrine that, in themselves, things have no existence at\nall, and that we can think of them only in terms of our impressions\nof them. The color green, for example, may be nothing but a delusion,\nfor all we can possibly know of it is that, under certain conditions,\nour optic nerves experience a sensation of greenness. Whether this\nsensation of greenness is a mere figment of our imagination or the\nreflection of an actual physical state, is something that we cannot\ntell. It is impossible, in a word, to determine whether there are\nactual things around us, which produce real impressions upon us, or\nwhether our idea of these things is the mere result of subjective\nimpressions or conditions. We know that a blow on the eyes may cause us\nto see a flash of light which does not exist and that a nervous person\nmay feel the touch of hands and hear noises which are purely imaginary.\nMay it not be possible, also, that all other sensations have their rise\nwithin us instead of without, and that in saying that objects give us\nimpressions we have been confusing cause and effect?\n\nSuch is the argument of those metaphysicians who doubt, not only the\naccuracy of human knowledge, but also the very capacity of human beings\nto acquire knowledge. It is apparent, on brief reflection, that this\nattitude, while theoretically admissible, is entirely impracticable,\nand that, as a matter of fact, it gives us no more substantial\nbasis for intelligent speculation than the old device of referring\nall questions to revelation. To say that nothing exists save in the\nimagination of living beings is to say that this imagination itself\ndoes not exist. This, of course, is an absurdity, because every man\nis absolutely certain that he himself is a real thing and that his\nmind is a real thing, too, and capable of thought. In place of such\ncob-web spinning, modern philosophers--driven to it, it may be said,\nin parenthesis, by the scientists--have gone back to the doctrine\nthat, inasmuch as we can know nothing of anything save through the\nimpressions it makes upon us, these impressions must be accepted\nprovisionally as accurate, so long as they are evidently normal and\nharmonize one with the other.\n\nThat is to say, our perceptions, corrected by our experience and our\ncommon sense, must serve as guides for us, and we must seize every\nopportunity to widen their range and increase their accuracy. For\nmillions of years they have been steadily augmenting our store of\nknowledge. We know, for instance, that when fire touches us it causes\nan impression which we call pain and that this impression is invariably\nthe same, and always leads to the same results, in all normal human\nbeings. Therefore, we accept it as an axiom that fire causes pain.\nThere are many other ideas that may be and have been established in the\nsame manner: by the fact that they are universal among sane men. But\nthere is also a multitude of things which produce different impressions\nupon different men, and here we encounter the problem of determining\nwhich of these impressions is right and which is wrong. One man,\nobserving the rising and setting of the sun, concludes that it is a\nball of fire revolving about the earth. Another man, in the face of\nthe same phenomena, concludes that the earth revolves around the sun.\nHow, then, are we to determine which of these men has drawn the proper\nconclusion?\n\nAs a matter of fact, it is impossible in such a case, to come to any\ndecision which can be accepted as utterly and absolutely true. But\nall the same the scientific empiric method enables us to push the\npercentage of error nearer and nearer to the irreducible minimum. We\ncan observe the phenomenon under examination from a multitude of sides\nand compare the impression it produces with the impressions produced\nby kindred phenomena regarding which we know more. Again, we can put\nthis examination into the hands of men specially trained and fitted\nfor such work--men whose conclusions we know, by previous experience,\nto be above the average of accuracy. And so, after a long time, we can\nformulate some idea of the thing under inspection which violates few\nor none of the other ideas held by us. When we have accomplished this,\nwe have come as near to the absolute truth as it is possible for human\nbeings to come.\n\nI need not point out that this method does not contemplate a mere\nacceptance of the majority vote. Its actual effect, indeed, is quite\nthe contrary, for it is only a small minority of human beings who may\nbe said, with any truth, to be capable of thought. It is probable, for\nexample, that nine-tenths of the people in Christendom today believe\nthat Friday is an unlucky day, while only the remaining tenth hold that\none day is exactly like another. But despite this, it is apparent\nthat the idea of the latter will survive and that, by slow degrees, it\nwill be forced upon the former. We know that it is true, not because\nit is accepted by all men or by the majority of men--for, as a matter\nof fact, we have seen that it isn't--but because we realize that the\nfew who hold to it are best capable of distinguishing between actual\nimpressions and mere delusions.\n\nAgain, the scientific method tends to increase our knowledge by the\nvery fact that it discourages unreasoning faith. The scientist realizes\nthat most of his so-called facts are probably errors and so he is\nwilling to harbor doubts of their truth and to seek for something\nbetter. Like Socrates he boldly says \"I know that I am ignorant.\" He\nrealizes, in fact, that error, when it is constantly under fire, is\nbound to be resolved in the long run into something approximating the\ntruth. As Nicolas pointed out 500 years ago, nothing is utterly and\nabsolutely true and nothing is utterly and absolutely false. There\nis always a germ of truth in the worst error, and there is always a\nresiduum of error in the soundest truth. Therefore, an error is fatal\nonly when it is hidden from the white light of investigation. Herein\nlies the difference between the modern scientist and the moralist. The\nformer holds nothing sacred, not even his own axioms; the latter lays\nthings down as law and then makes it a crime to doubt them.\n\nIt is in this way--by submitting every idea to a searching, pitiless,\nunending examination--that the world is increasing its store of what\nmay be called, for the sake of clearness, absolute knowledge. Error\nalways precedes truth, and it is extremely probable that the vast\nmajority of ideas held by men of today--even the sanest and wisest\nmen--are delusions, but with the passing of the years our stock of\ntruth grows larger and larger. \"A conviction,\" says Nietzsche, \"always\nhas its history--its previous forms, its tentative forms, its states of\nerror. It becomes a conviction, indeed, only after having been _not_\na conviction, and then _hardly_ a conviction. No doubt falsehood is\none of these embryonic forms of conviction. Sometimes only a change\nof persons is needed to transform one into the other. That which, in\nthe son, is a conviction, was, in the father, still a falsehood.\"[5]\nThe tendency of intelligent men, in a word, is to approach nearer\nand nearer the truth, by the processes of rejection, revision and\ninvention. Many old ideas are rejected by each new generation, but\nthere always remain a few that survive. We no longer believe with\nthe cave-men that the thunder is the voice of an angry god and the\nlightning the flash of his sword, but we still believe, as they did,\nthat wood floats upon water, that seeds sprout and give forth plants,\nthat a roof keeps off the rain and that a child, if it lives long\nenough, will inevitably grow into a man or a woman. Such ideas may be\ncalled truths. If we deny them we must deny at once that the world\nexists and that we exist ourselves.\n\nNietzsche's discussion of these problems is so abstruse and so much\ncomplicated by changes in view that it would be impossible to make an\nunderstandable summary of it in the space available here. In his first\nimportant book, \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_\" he devoted himself,\nin the main, to pointing out errors made in the past, without laying\ndown any very definite scheme of thought for the future. In the early\nstages of human progress, he said, men made the mistake of regarding\neverything that was momentarily pleasant or beneficial as absolutely\nand eternally true. Herein they manifested the very familiar human\nweakness for rash and hasty generalization, and the equally familiar\ntendency to render the ideas of a given time and place perpetual and\npermanent by erecting them into codes of morality and putting them\ninto the mouths of gods. This, he pointed out, was harmful, for a\nthing might be beneficial to the men of today and fatal to the men of\ntomorrow. Therefore, he argued that while a certain idea's effect was a\ngood criterion, humanly speaking, of its present or current truth, it\nwas dangerous to assume that this effect would be always the same, and\nthat, in consequence, the idea itself would remain true forever.\n\nNot until the days of Socrates, said Nietzsche, did men begin to notice\nthis difference between imminent truth and eternal truth. The notion\nthat such a distinction existed made its way very slowly, even after\ngreat teachers began to teach it, but in the end it was accepted by\nenough men to give it genuine weight. Since that day philosophy and\nscience, which were once merely different names for the same thing,\nhave signified two separate things. It is the object of philosophy\nto analyze happiness, and by means of the knowledge thus gained, to\ndevise means for safeguarding and increasing it. In consequence, it is\nnecessary for philosophy to generalize--to assume that the thing which\nmakes men happy today will make them happy tomorrow. Science, on the\ncontrary, concerns itself, not with things of the uncertain future, but\nwith things of the certain present. Its object is to examine the world\nas it exists today, to uncover as many of its secrets as possible, and\nto study their effect upon human happiness. In other words, philosophy\nfirst constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world\nto it, while science studies the world with no other object in view\nthan the increase of knowledge, and with full confidence that, in the\nlong run, this increase of knowledge will increase efficiency and in\nconsequence happiness.\n\nIt is evident, then, that science, for all its contempt for fixed\nschemes of happiness, will eventually accomplish with certainty what\nphilosophy--which most commonly swims into the ken of the average man\nas morality--is now trying to do in a manner that is not only crude\nand unreasonable, but also necessarily unsuccessful. In a word, just\nso soon as man's store of knowledge grows so large that he becomes\ncomplete master of the natural forces which work toward his undoing,\nhe will be perfectly happy. Now, Nietzsche believed, as we have seen\nin past chapters, that man's instinctive will to power had this same\ncomplete mastery over his environment as its ultimate object, and so\nhe concluded that the will to power might be relied upon to lead man\nto the truth. That is to say, he believed that there was, in every\nman of the higher type (the only type he thought worth discussing) an\ninstinctive tendency to seek the true as opposed to the false, that\nthis instinct, as the race progressed, grew more and more accurate,\nand that its growing accuracy explained the fact that, despite the\nopposition of codes of morality and of the iron hand of authority, man\nconstantly increased his store of knowledge. A thought, he said, arose\nin a man without his initiative or volition, and was nothing more or\nless than an expression of his innate will to obtain power over his\nenvironment by accurately observing and interpreting it. It was just\nas reasonable, he said, to say _It_ thinks as to say _I_ think,[6]\nbecause every intelligent person knew that a man couldn't control his\nthoughts. Therefore, the fact that these thoughts, in the long run\nand considering the human race as a whole, tended to uncover more\nand more truths proved that the will to power, despite the danger of\ngeneralizing from its manifestations, grew more and more accurate and\nso worked in the direction of absolute truth. Nietzsche believed that\nmankind was ever the slave of errors, but he held that the number of\nerrors tended to decrease. When, at last, truth reigned supreme and\nthere were no more errors, the superman would walk the earth.\n\nNow it is impossible for any man to note the workings of the will to\npower save as it is manifested in his own instincts and thoughts, and\ntherefore Nietzsche, in his later books, urges that every man should be\nwilling, at all times, to pit his own feelings against the laws laid\ndown by the majority. A man should steer clear of rash generalization\nfrom his own experience, but he should be doubly careful to steer\nclear of the generalizations of others. The greatest of all dangers\nlies in subscribing to a thesis without being certain of its truth.\n\"This not-wishing-to-see what one sees ... is a primary requisite\nfor membership in a party, in any sense whatsoever. Therefore, the\nparty man becomes a liar by necessity.\" The proper attitude for a\nhuman being, indeed, is chronic dissent and skepticism. \"Zarathustra\nis a skeptic.... Convictions are prisons.... The freedom from every\nkind of permanent conviction, the ability to search freely, belong to\nstrength.... The need of a belief, of something that is unconditioned\nis a sign of weakness. The man of belief is necessarily a dependent\nman.... His instinct gives the highest honor to self-abnegation.\nHe does not belong to himself, but to the author of the idea he\nbelieves.\"[7] It is only by skepticism, argues Nietzsche, that we can\nhope to make any progress. If all men accepted without question, the\n_dicta_ of some one supreme sage, it is plain that there could be no\nfurther increase of knowledge. It is only by constant turmoil and\nconflict and exchange of views that the minute granules of truth can\nbe separated from the vast muck heap of superstition and error. Fixed\ntruths, in the long run, are probably more dangerous to intelligence\nthan falsehoods.[8]\n\nThis argument, I take it, scarcely needs greater elucidation. Every\nintelligent man knows that if there had been no brave agnostics to defy\nthe wrath of the church in the middle ages, the whole of Christendom\nwould still wallow in the unspeakably foul morass of ignorance which\nhad its center, during that black time, in an infallible sovereign of\nsovereigns. Authority, at all times and everywhere, means sloth and\ndegeneration. It is only doubt that creates. It is only the minority\nthat counts.\n\nThe fact that the great majority of human beings are utterly incapable\nof original thought, and so must, perforce, borrow their ideas or\nsubmit tamely to some authority, explains Nietzsche's violent loathing\nand contempt for the masses. The average, self-satisfied, conservative,\northodox, law-abiding citizen appeared to him to be a being but little\nraised above the cattle in the barn-yard. So violent was this feeling\nthat every idea accepted by the majority excited, for that very reason,\nhis suspicion and opposition. \"What everybody believes,\" he once said,\n\"is never true.\" This may seem like a mere voicing of brobdingnagian\negotism, but as a matter of fact, the same view is held by every man\nwho has spent any time investigating the history of ideas. \"Truth,\"\nsaid Dr. Osler a while ago, \"scarcely ever carries the struggle for\nacceptance at its first appearance.\" The masses are always a century\nor two behind. They have made a virtue of their obtuseness and call\nit by various fine names: conservatism, piety, respectability, faith.\nThe nineteenth century witnessed greater human progress than all the\ncenturies before it saw or even imagined, but the majority of white men\nof today still believe in ghosts, still fear the devil, still hold that\nthe number 13 is unlucky and still picture the deity as a patriarch in\na white beard, surrounded by a choir of resplendent amateur musicians.\n\"We think a thing,\" says Prof. Henry Sedgwick, \"because all other\npeople think so; or because, after all, we _do_ think so; or because we\nare told so, and think we must think so; or because we once thought so,\nand think we still think so; or because, having thought so, we think we\n_will_ think so.\"\n\nNaturally enough, Nietzsche was an earnest opponent of the theological\ndoctrine of free will. He held, as we have seen, that every human\nact was merely the effect of the will to power reacting against\nenvironment, and in consequence he had to reject absolutely the notion\nof volition and responsibility. A man, he argued, was not an object\n_in vacuo_ and his acts, thoughts, impulses and motives could not be\nimagined without imagining some cause for them. If this cause came from\nwithout, it was clearly beyond his control, and if it came from within\nit was no less so, for his whole attitude of mind, his instinctive\nhabits of thoughts, his very soul, so-called, were merely attributes\nthat had been handed down to him, like the shape of his nose and the\ncolor of his eyes, from his ancestors. Nietzsche held that the idea\nof responsibility was the product and not the cause of the idea of\npunishment, and that the latter was nothing more than a manifestation\nof primitive man's will to power--to triumph over his fellows by\nmaking them suffer the handicap and humiliation of pain. \"Men were\ncalled free,\" he said, \"in order that they might be condemned and\npunished.... When we immoralists try to cleanse psychology, history,\nnature and sociology of these notions, we find that our chief enemies\nare the theologians, who, with their preposterous idea of 'a moral\norder of the world,' go on tainting the innocence of man's struggle\nupward with talk of punishment and guilt. Christianity is, indeed, a\nhangman's metaphysic.\"[9] As a necessary corollary of this, Nietzsche\ndenied the existence of any plan in the cosmos. Like Haeckel, he\nbelieved that but two things existed--energy and matter; and that all\nthe phenomena which made us conscious of the universe were nothing more\nthan symptoms of the constant action of the one upon the other. Nothing\never happened without a cause, he said, and no cause was anything\nother than the effect of some previous cause. \"The destiny of man,\" he\nsaid, \"cannot be disentangled from the destiny of everything else in\nexistence, past, present and future.... We are a part of the whole, we\nexist in the whole.... There is nothing which could judge, measure or\ncondemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure and condemn the\nwhole.... But there is nothing outside of the whole.... The concept of\nGod has hitherto made our existence a crime.... We deny God, we deny\nresponsibility by denying God: it is only thereby that we save man.\"[10]\n\nHerein, unluckily, Nietzsche fell into the trap which has snapped upon\nHaeckel and every other supporter of atheistic determinism. He denied\nthat the human will was free and argued that every human action was\ninevitable, and yet he spent his whole life trying to convince his\nfellow men that they should do otherwise than as they did in fact. In\na word, he held that they had no control whatever over their actions,\nand yet, like Moses, Mohammed and St. Francis, he thundered at them\nuproariously and urged them to turn from their errors and repent.\n\n\n[1] J. W. Draper, \"A History of the Conflict Between Religion and\nScience;\" New York, 1874.\n\n[2] Richard Falckenberg: \"A History of Modern Philosophy,\" tr. by A. C.\nArmstrong, Jr.; New York, 1897; Chap. I.\n\n[3] T. H. Huxley: \"Hume,\" preface; London, 1879.\n\n[4] Comte and Kant, for example.\n\n[5] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 55.\n\n[6] \"_Jenseits von Gut und B\u00f6se_,\" VII.\n\n[7] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 54.\n\n[8] \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" \u00a7 483.\n\n[9] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" VI.\n\n[10] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" VI.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nCIVILIZATION\n\n\nOn the surface, at least, the civilization of today seems to be moving\nslowly toward two goals. One is the eternal renunciation of war and\nthe other is universal brotherhood: one is \"peace on earth\" and the\nother is \"good will to men.\" Five hundred years ago a statesman's fame\nrested frankly and solely upon the victories of his armies; today\nwe profess to measure him by his skill at keeping these armies in\nbarracks. And in the internal economy of all civilized states we find\ntoday some pretence at unrestricted and equal suffrage. In times past\nit was the chief concern of all logicians and wiseacres to maintain\nthe proposition that God reigned. At present, the dominant platitude\nof Christendom--the cornerstone of practically every political party\nand the stock-in-trade of every politician--is the proposition that the\npeople rule.\n\nNietzsche opposed squarely both the demand for peace and the demand for\nequality, and his opposition was grounded upon two arguments. In the\nfirst place, he said, both demands were rhetorical and insincere and\nall intelligent men knew that neither would ever be fully satisfied.\nIn the second place, he said, it would be ruinous to the race if they\nwere. That is to say, he believed that war was not only necessary, but\nalso beneficial, and that the natural system of castes was not only\nbeneficent, but also inevitable. In the demand for universal peace he\nsaw only the yearning of the weak and useless for protection against\nthe righteous exploitation of the useful and strong. In the demand\nfor equality he saw only the same thing. Both demands, he argued,\ncontroverted and combated that upward tendency which finds expression\nin the law of natural selection.\n\n\"The order of castes,\" said Nietzsche, \"is the dominating law of\nnature, against which no merely human agency may prevail. In every\nhealthy society there are three broad classes, each of which has its\nown morality, its own work, its own notion of perfection and its own\nsense of mastery. The first class comprises those who are obviously\nsuperior to the mass intellectually; the second includes those whose\neminence is chiefly muscular, and the third is made up of the mediocre.\nThe third class, very naturally, is the most numerous, but the first is\nthe most powerful.\n\n\"To this highest caste belongs the privilege of representing beauty,\nhappiness and goodness on earth.... Its members accept the world as\nthey find it and make the best of it.... They find their happiness in\nthose things which, to lesser men, would spell ruin--in the labyrinth,\nin severity toward themselves and others, in effort. Their delight is\nself-governing: with them asceticism becomes naturalness, necessity,\ninstinct. A difficult task is regarded by them as a privilege; to play\nwith burdens which would crush others to death is their recreation.\nThey are the most venerable species of men. They are the most cheerful,\nthe most amiable. They rule because they are what they are. They are\nnot at liberty to be second in rank.\n\n\"The second caste includes the guardians and keepers of order and\nsecurity--the warriors, the nobles, the king--above all, as the\nhighest types of warrior, the judges and defenders of the law. They\nexecute the mandates of the first caste, relieving the latter of all\nthat is coarse and menial in the work of ruling.\n\n\"At the bottom are the workers--the men of handicraft, trade,\nagriculture and the greater part of art and science. It is the law of\nnature that they should be public utilities--that they should be wheels\nand functions. The only kind of happiness of which they are capable\nmakes intelligent machines of them. For the mediocre, it is happiness\nto be mediocre. In them the mastery of one thing--_i.e._ specialism--is\nan instinct.\n\n\"It is unworthy of a profound intellect to see in mediocrity itself\nan objection. It is, indeed, a necessity of human existence, for only\nin the presence of a horde of average men is the exceptional man a\npossibility....\n\n\"Whom do I hate most among the men of today? The socialist who\nundermines the workingman's healthy instincts, who takes from him his\nfeeling of contentedness with his existence, who makes him envious, who\nteaches him revenge.... There is no wrong in unequal rights: it lies in\nthe vain pretension to equal rights.\"[1]\n\nIt is obvious from this that Nietzsche was an ardent believer in\naristocracy, but it is also obvious that he was not a believer in the\nthing which passes for aristocracy in the world today. The nobility of\nEurope belongs, not to his first class, but to his second class. It is\nessentially military and legal, for in themselves its members are puny\nand inefficient, and it is only the force of law that maintains them in\ntheir inheritance.\n\nThe fundamental doctrine of civilized law, as we know it today, is the\nproposition that what a man has once acquired shall belong to him and\nhis heirs forever, without need on his part or theirs to defend it\npersonally against predatory rivals. This transfer of the function of\ndefense from the individual to the state naturally exalts the state's\nprofessional defenders--that is, her soldiers and judges--and so it is\nnot unnatural to find the members of this class, and their parasites,\nin control of most of the world's governments and in possession of a\nlarge share of the world's wealth, power and honors.[2] To Nietzsche\nthis seemed grotesquely illogical and unfair. He saw that this ruling\nclass expended its entire energy in combating experiment and change\nand that the aristocracy it begot and protected--an aristocracy often\nidentical, very naturally, with itself--tended to become more and more\nunfit and helpless and more and more a bar to the ready recognition\nand unrestrained functioning of the only true aristocracy--that of\nefficiency.\n\nNietzsche pointed out that one of the essential absurdities of a\nconstitutional aristocracy was to be found in the fact that it hedged\nitself about with purely artificial barriers. Next only to its desire\nto maintain itself without actual personal effort was its jealous\nendeavor to prevent accessions to its ranks. Nothing, indeed, disgusts\nthe traditional belted earl quite so much as the ennobling of some\nupstart brewer or iron-master. This exclusiveness, from Nietzsche's\npoint of view, seemed ridiculous and pernicious, for a true aristocracy\nmust be ever willing and eager to welcome to its ranks--and to enroll\nin fact, automatically--all who display those qualities which make\na man extraordinarily fit and efficient. There should always be, he\nsaid, a free and constant interchange of individuals between the three\nnatural castes of men. It should be always possible for an abnormally\nefficient man of the slave class to enter the master class, and, by\nthe same token, accidental degeneration or incapacity in the master\nclass should be followed by swift and merciless reduction to the ranks\nof slaves. Thus, those aristocracies which presented the incongruous\nspectacle of imbeciles being intrusted with the affairs of government\nseemed to him utterly abhorrent, and those schemes of caste which made\na mean birth an offset to high intelligence seemed no less so.\n\nSo long as man's mastery of the forces of nature is incomplete, said\nNietzsche, it will be necessary for the vast majority of human beings\nto spend their lives in either supplementing those natural forces\nwhich are partly under control or in opposing those which are still\nunleashed. The business of tilling the soil, for example, is still\nlargely a matter of muscular exertion, despite the vast improvement\nin farm implements, and it will probably remain so for centuries to\ncome. Since such labor is necessarily mere drudgery, and in consequence\nunpleasant, it is plain that it should be given over to men whose\nrealization of its unpleasantness is least acute. Going further, it is\nplain that this work will be done with less and less revolt and less\nand less driving, as we evolve a class whose ambition to engage in\nmore inviting pursuits grows smaller and smaller. In a word, the ideal\nploughman is one who has no thought of anything higher and better than\nploughing. Therefore, argued Nietzsche, the proper performance of the\nmanual labor of the world makes it necessary that we have a laboring\nclass, which means a class content to obey without fear or question.\n\nThis doctrine brought down upon Nietzsche's head the pious wrath\nof all the world's humanitarians, but empiric experiment has more\nthan once proved its truth. The history of the hopelessly futile and\nfatuous effort to improve the negroes of the Southern United States by\neducation affords one such proof. It is apparent, on brief reflection,\nthat the negro, no matter how much he is educated, must remain, as a\nrace, in a condition of subservience; that he must remain the inferior\nof the stronger and more intelligent white man so long as he retains\nracial differentiation. Therefore, the effort to educate him has\nawakened in his mind ambitions and aspirations which, in the very\nnature of things, must go unrealized, and so, while gaining nothing\nwhatever materially, he has lost all his old contentment, peace of mind\nand happiness. Indeed, it is a commonplace of observation in the United\nStates that the educated and refined negro is invariably a hopeless,\nmelancholy, embittered and despairing man.\n\nNietzsche, to resume, regarded it as absolutely essential that there\nbe a class of laborers or slaves--his \"third caste\"--and was of the\nopinion that such a class would exist upon earth so long as the human\nrace survived. Its condition, compared to that of the ruling class,\nwould vary but slightly, he thought, with the progress of the years. As\nman's mastery of nature increased, the laborer would find his task less\nand less painful, but he would always remain a fixed distance behind\nthose who ruled him. Therefore, Nietzsche, in his philosophy, gave no\nthought to the desires and aspirations of the laboring class, because,\nas we have just seen, he held that a man could not properly belong to\nthis class unless his desires and aspirations were so faint or so well\nunder the control of the ruling class that they might be neglected.\nAll of the Nietzschean doctrines and ideas apply only to the ruling\nclass. It was at the top, he argued, that mankind grew. It was only in\nthe ideas of those capable of original thought that progress had its\nsource. William the Conqueror was of far more importance, though he was\nbut a single man, than all the other Normans of his generation taken\ntogether.\n\nNietzsche was well aware that his \"first caste\" was necessarily small\nin numbers and that there was a strong tendency for its members to drop\nout of it and seek ease and peace in the castes lower down. \"Life,\"\nhe said, \"is always hardest toward the summit--the cold increases,\nthe responsibility increases.\"[3] But to the truly efficient man\nthese hardships are but spurs to effort. His joy is in combating and\nin overcoming--in pitting his will to power against the laws and\ndesires of the rest of humanity. \"I do not advise you to labor,\" says\nZarathustra, \"but to fight. I do not advise you to compromise and\nmake peace, but to conquer. Let your labor be fighting and your peace\nvictory.... You say that a good cause will hallow even war? I tell you\nthat a good war hallows every cause. War and courage have done more\ngreat things than charity. Not your pity, but your bravery lifts up\nthose about you. Let the little girlies tell you that 'good' means\n'sweet' and 'touching.' I tell you that 'good' means 'brave.'... The\nslave rebels against hardships and calls his rebellion superiority. Let\nyour superiority be an acceptance of hardships. Let your commanding be\nan obeying.... Let your highest thought be: 'Man is something to be\nsurpassed.'... I do not advise you to love your neighbor--the nearest\nhuman being. I advise you rather to flee from the nearest and love the\nfurthest human being. Higher than love to your neighbor is love to the\nhigher man that is to come in the future.... Propagate yourself upward.\nThus live your life. What are many years worth? I do not spare you....\nDie at the right time!\"[4]\n\nThe average man, said Nietzsche, is almost entirely lacking in this\ngorgeous, fatalistic courage and sublime egotism. He is ever reluctant\nto pit his private convictions and yearnings against those of the mass\nof men. He is either afraid to risk the consequences of originality or\nfearful that, since the majority of his fellows disagree with him, he\nmust be wrong. Therefore, no matter how strongly an unconventional idea\nmay possess a man, he commonly seeks to combat it and throttle it, and\nthe ability to do this with the least possible expenditure of effort we\ncall self-control. The average man, said Nietzsche, has the power of\nself-control well developed, and in consequence he seldom contributes\nanything positive to the thought of his age and almost never attempts\nto oppose it.\n\nWe have seen in the preceding chapter that if every man, without\nexception, were of this sort, all human progress would cease, because\nthe ideas of one generation would be handed down unchanged to the\nnext and there would be no effort whatever to improve the conditions\nof existence by the only possible method--constant experiment with\nnew ideas. Therefore, it follows that the world must depend for its\nadvancement upon those revolutionists who, instead of overcoming their\nimpulse to go counter to convention, give it free rein. Of such is\nNietzsche's \"first caste\" composed. It is plain that among the two\nlower castes, courage of this sort is regarded, not as an evidence of\nstrength, but as a proof of weakness. The man who outrages conventions\nis a man who lacks self-control, and the majority, by a process we\nhave examined in our consideration of slave-morality, has exalted\nself-control, which, at bottom, is the antithesis of courage, into a\nplace of honor higher than that belonging, by right, to courage itself.\n\nBut Nietzsche pointed out that the act of denying or combating accepted\nideas is a thing which always tends to inspire other acts of the same\nsort. It is true enough that a revolutionary idea, so soon as it\nreplaces an old convention and obtains the sanction of the majority,\nceases to be revolutionary and becomes itself conventional, but all the\nsame the mere fact that it has succeeded gives courage to those who\nharbor other revolutionary ideas and inspires them to give these ideas\nvoice. Thus, it happens that courage breeds itself, and that, in times\nof great conflict, of no matter what sort, the world produces more than\nan average output of originality, or, as we more commonly denominate\nit, genius. In this manner Nietzsche accounted for a fact that had been\nnoticed by many men before him: that such tremendous struggles as the\nFrench Revolution and the American Civil War are invariably followed by\neras of diligent inquiry, of bold overturning of existing institutions\nand of marked progress. People become accustomed to unrestrained combat\nand so the desirability of self-control becomes less insistent.\n\nNietzsche had a vast contempt for what he called \"the green-grazing\nhappiness of the herd.\" Its strong morality and its insistence upon\nthe doctrine that whatever is, is right--that \"God's in his heaven;\nall's well with the world\"--revolted him. He held that the so-called\nrights of the masses had no justifiable existence, since everything\nthey asserted as a right was an assertion, more or less disguised, of\nthe doctrine that the unfit should survive. \"There are,\" he said, \"only\nthree ways in which the masses appear to me to deserve a glance: first,\nas blurred copies of their betters, printed on bad paper and from worn\nout plates; secondly, as a necessary opposition to stimulate the master\nclass, and thirdly, as instruments in the hands of the master class.\nFurther than this I hand them over to statistics--and the devil.\"[5]\nKant's proposal that the morality of every contemplated action be\ntested by the question, \"Suppose everyone did as I propose to do?\"\nseemed utterly ridiculous to Nietzsche because he saw that \"everyone\"\nalways opposed the very things which meant progress; and Kant's\ncorollary that the sense of duty contemplated in this dictum was \"the\nobligation to act in reverence for law,\" proved to Nietzsche merely\nthat both duty and law were absurdities. \"Contumely,\" he said, \"always\nfalls upon those who break through some custom or convention. Such men,\nin fact, are called criminals. Everyone who overthrows an existing law\nis, at the start, regarded as a wicked man. Long afterward, when it\nis found that this law was bad and so cannot be re-established, the\nepithet is changed. All history treats almost exclusively of wicked men\nwho, in the course of time, have come to be looked upon as good men.\nAll progress is the result of successful crimes.\"[6]\n\nDr. Turck,[7] Miss Paget, M. Nordau and other critics see in all this\ngood evidence that Nietzsche was a criminal at heart. At the bottom of\nall philosophies, says Miss Paget,[8] there is always one supreme idea.\nSometimes it is a conception of nature, sometimes it is a religious\nfaith and sometimes it is a theory of truth. In Nietzsche's case it is\n\"my taste.\" He is always irritated: \"_I_ dislike,\" \"_I_ hate,\" \"_I_\nwant to get rid of\" appear on every page of his writings. He delights\nin ruthlessness, his fellow men disgust him, his physical senses are\nacute, he has a sick ego. For that reason he likes singularity, the\nlonely Alps, classic literature and Bizet's \"clear yellow\" music.\nTurck argues that Nietzsche was a criminal because he got pleasure out\nof things which outraged the majority of his fellow men, and Nordau, in\nsupporting this idea, shows that it is possible for a man to experience\nand approve criminal impulses and still never act them: that there are\ncriminals of the chair as well as of the dark lantern and sandbag. The\nanswer to all of this, of course, is the fact that the same method of\nreasoning would convict every original thinker the world has ever known\nof black felony: that it would make Martin Luther a criminal as well\nas Jack Sheppard, John the Baptist as well as the Borgias, and Galileo\nas well as Judas Iscariot; that it would justify the execution of all\nthe sublime company of heroes who have been done to death for their\nopinions, from Jesus Christ down the long line.\n\n\n[1] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 57.\n\n[2] In \"The Governance of England,\" (London: 1904) Sidney Low points\nout (chap. X) that, despite the rise of democracy, the government of\nGreat Britain is still entirely in the hands of the landed gentry\nand nobility. The members of this class plainly owe their power to\nthe military prowess of their ancestors, and their identity with the\npresent military and judicial class is obvious. The typical M.P., in\nfact, also writes \"J.P.\" after his name and \"Capt.\" or \"Col.\" before\nit. The examples of Russia, Germany, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain and\nthe Latin-American republics scarcely need be mentioned. In China the\nmilitary, judicial and legislative-executive functions are always\ncombined, and in the United States, while the military branch of the\nsecond caste is apparently impotent, it is plain that the balance of\nlegislative power in every state and in the national legislature is\nheld by lawyers, just as the final determination of all laws rests with\njudges.\n\n[3] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" \u00a7 55.\n\n[4] The quotations are from various chapters in the first part of\n\"_Also sprach Zarathustra_.\"\n\n[5] \"_Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie f\u00fcr das Leben_.\"\n\n[6] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 20.\n\n[7] \"_Friedrich Nietzsche und seine philosophische Irrwege_,\" Leipsic,\n1891.\n\n[8] _North American Review_, Dec., 1904.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nWOMEN AND MARRIAGE\n\n\nNietzsche's faithful sister, with almost comical and essentially\nfeminine disgust, bewails the fact that, as a very young man, the\nphilosopher became acquainted with the baleful truths set forth in\nSchopenhauer's immortal essay \"On Women.\" That this daring work greatly\ninfluenced him is true, and that he subscribed to its chief arguments\nall the rest of his days is also true, but it is far from true to say\nthat his view of the fair sex was borrowed bodily from Schopenhauer or\nthat he would have written otherwise than as he did if Schopenhauer\nhad never lived. Nietzsche's conclusions regarding women were the\ninevitable result, indeed, of his own philosophical system. It is\nimpossible to conceive a man who held his opinions of morality and\nsociety laying down any other doctrines of femininity and matrimony\nthan those he scattered through his books.\n\nNietzsche believed that there was a radical difference between the\nmind of man and the mind of woman and that the two sexes reacted in\ndiametrically different ways to those stimuli which make up what might\nbe called the clinical picture of human society. It is the function of\nman, he said, to wield a sword in humanity's battle with everything\nthat makes life on earth painful or precarious. It is the function of\nwoman, not to fight herself, but to provide fresh warriors for the\nfray. Thus the exercise of the will to exist is divided between the\ntwo: the man seeking the welfare of the race as he actually sees it and\nthe woman seeking the welfare of generations yet unborn. Of course, it\nis obvious that this division is by no means clearly marked, because\nthe man, in struggling for power over his environment, necessarily\nimproves the conditions under which his children live, and the woman,\nworking for her children, often benefits herself. But all the same the\ndistinction is a good one and empiric observation bears it out. As\neveryone who has given a moment's thought to the subject well knows,\na man's first concern in the world is to provide food and shelter for\nhimself and his family, while a woman's foremost duty is to bear and\nrear children. \"Thus,\" said Nietzsche, \"would I have man and woman: the\none fit for warfare, the other fit for giving birth; and both fit for\ndancing with head and legs\"[1]--that is to say: both capable of doing\ntheir share of the race's work, mental and physical, with conscious and\nsuperabundant efficiency.\n\nNietzsche points out that, in the racial economy, the place of woman\nmay be compared to that of a slave-nation, while the position of man\nresembles that of a master-nation. We have seen how a weak nation,\nunable, on account of its weakness, to satisfy its will to survive and\nthirst for power by forcing its authority upon other nations, turns\nto the task of keeping these other nations, as much as possible, from\nenforcing their authority upon it. Realizing that it cannot rule, but\nmust serve, it endeavors to make the conditions of its servitude as\nbearable as possible. This effort is commonly made in two ways: first\nby ostensibly renouncing its desire to rule, and secondly, by attempts\nto inoculate its powerful neighbors with its ideas in subterranean\nand round-about ways, so as to avoid arousing their suspicion and\nopposition. It becomes, in brief, humble and cunning, and with its\nhumility as a cloak, it seeks to pit its cunning against the sheer\nmight of those it fears.\n\nThe position of women in the world is much the same. The business\nof bearing and rearing children is destructive to their physical\nstrength, and in consequence makes it impossible for them to prevail\nby force when their ideas and those of men happen to differ. To take\naway the sting of this incapacity, they make a virtue of it, and it\nbecomes modesty, humility, self-sacrifice and fidelity; to win in\nspite of it they cultivate cunning, which commonly takes the form of\nhypocrisy, cajolery, dissimulation and more or less masked appeals to\nthe masculine sexual instinct. All of this is so often observed in\nevery-day life that it has become commonplace. A woman is physically\nunable to force a man to do as she desires, but her very inability to\ndo so becomes a sentimental weapon against him, and her blandishments\ndo the rest. The spectacle of a strong man ruled by a weak woman is no\nrare one certainly, and Samson was neither the first nor last giant to\nfall before a Delilah. There is scarcely a household in all the world,\nin truth, in which the familiar drama is not being acted and reacted\nday after day.\n\nNow, it is plain from the foregoing that, though women's business in\nthe world is of such a character that it inevitably leads to physical\ndegeneration, her constant need to overcome the effects of this\ndegeneration by cunning produces constant mental activity, which, by\nthe law of exercise, should produce, in turn, great mental efficiency.\nThis conclusion, in part, is perfectly correct, for women, as a sex,\nare shrewd, resourceful and acute; but the very fact that they are\nalways concerned with imminent problems and that, in consequence, they\nare unaccustomed to dealing with the larger riddles of life, makes\ntheir mental attitude essentially petty. This explains the circumstance\nthat despite their mental suppleness, they are not genuinely strong\nintellectually. Indeed, the very contrary is true. Women's constant\nthought is, not to lay down broad principles of right and wrong; not to\nplace the whole world in harmony with some great scheme of justice; not\nto consider the future of nations; not to make two blades of grass grow\nwhere one grew before; but to deceive, influence, sway and please men.\nNormally, their weakness makes masculine protection necessary to their\nexistence and to the exercise of their overpowering maternal instinct,\nand so their whole effort is to obtain this protection in the easiest\nway possible. The net result is that feminine morality is a morality\nof opportunism and imminent expediency, and that the normal woman has\nno respect for, and scarcely any conception of abstract truth. Thus is\nproved the fact noted by Schopenhauer and many other observers: that a\nwoman seldom manifests any true sense of justice or of honor.\n\nIt is unnecessary to set forth this idea in greater detail, because\neveryone is familiar with it and proofs of its accuracy are supplied\nin infinite abundance by common observation. Nietzsche accepted it\nas demonstrated. When he set out to pursue the subject further, he\nrejected entirely the Schopenhauerean corollary that man should ever\nregard woman as his enemy, and should seek, by all means within his\npower, to escape her insidious influence. Such a notion naturally\noutraged the philosopher of the superman. He was never an advocate\nof running away: to all the facts of existence he said \"yes.\" His\nideal was not resignation or flight, but an intelligent defiance and\nopposition. Therefore, he argued that man should accept woman as a\nnatural opponent arrayed against him for the benevolent purpose of\nstimulating him to constant efficiency. Opposition, he pointed out,\nwas a necessary forerunner of function, and in consequence the fact\nthat woman spent her entire effort in a ceaseless endeavor to undermine\nand change the will of man, merely served to make this will alert and\nstrong, and so increased man's capacity for meeting and overcoming the\nenemies of his existence.\n\nA man conscious of his strength, observes Nietzsche, need have no\nfear of women. It is only the man who finds himself utterly helpless\nin the face of feminine cajolery that must cry, \"Get thee behind me,\nSatan!\" and flee. \"It is only the most sensual men,\" he says, \"who\nhave to shun women and torture their bodies.\" The normal, healthy man,\ndespite the strong appeal which women make to him by their subtle\nputting forward of the sexual idea--visually as dress, coquetry and\nwhat not--still keeps a level head. He is strong enough to weather the\nsexual storm. But the man who cannot do this, who experiences no normal\nreaction in the direction of guardedness and caution and reason, must\neither abandon himself utterly as a helpless slave to woman's instinct\nof race-preservation, and so become a bestial voluptuary, or avoid\ntemptation altogether and so become a celibate.[2]\n\nThere is nothing essentially evil in woman's effort to combat and\ncontrol man's will by constantly suggesting the sexual idea to him,\nbecause it is necessary, for the permanence of the race, that this\nidea be presented frequently and powerfully. Therefore, the conflict\nbetween masculine and feminine ideals is to be regarded, not as a\nlamentable battle, in which one side is right and the other wrong, but\na convenient means of providing that stimulation-by-opposition without\nwhich all function, and in consequence all progress, would cease. \"The\nman who regards women as an enemy to be avoided,\" says Nietzsche,\n\"betrays an unbridled lust which loathes not only itself, but also its\nmeans.\"[3]\n\nThere are, of course, occasions when the feminine influence, by\nits very subtlety, works harm to the higher sort of men. It is\ndangerous for a man to love too violently and it is dangerous, too,\nfor him to be loved too much.' \"The natural inclination of women\nto a quiet, uniform and peaceful existence \"--that is to say, to a\nslave-morality--\"operates adversely to the heroic impulse of the\nmasculine free spirit. Without being aware of it, women act like a\nperson who would remove stones from the path of a mineralogist, lest\nhis feet should come in contact with them--forgetting entirely that he\nis faring forth for the very purpose of coming in contact with them....\nThe wives of men with lofty aspirations cannot resign themselves to\nseeing their husbands suffering, impoverished and slighted, even\nthough it is apparent that this suffering proves, not only that its\nvictim has chosen his attitude aright, but also that his aims--some\nday, at least--will be realized. Women always intrigue in secret\nagainst the higher souls of their husbands. They seek to cheat the\nfuture for the sake of a painless and agreeable present.\"[4] In other\nwords, the feminine vision is ever limited in range. Your typical woman\ncannot see far ahead; she cannot reason out the ultimate effect of a\ncomplicated series of causes; her eye is always upon the present or\nthe very near future. Thus Nietzsche reaches, by a circuitous route,\na conclusion supported by the almost unanimous verdict of the entire\nmasculine sex, at all times and everywhere.\n\nNietzsche quite agrees with Schopenhauer (and with nearly everyone\nelse who has given the matter thought) that the thing we call love is\ngrounded upon physical desire, and that all of those arts of dress\nand manner in which women excel are mere devices for arousing this\ndesire in man, but he points out, very justly, that a great many other\nconsiderations also enter into the matter. Love necessarily presupposes\na yearning to mate, and mating is its logical consequence, but the\nhuman imagination has made it more than that. The man in love sees\nin his charmer, not only an attractive instrument for satisfying his\ncomparatively rare and necessarily brief impulses to dalliance, but\nalso a worthy companion, guide, counsellor and friend. The essence of\nlove is confidence--confidence in the loved one's judgment, honesty\nand fidelity and in the persistence of her charm. So large do\nthese considerations loom among the higher classes of men that they\nfrequently obscure the fundamental sexual impulse entirely. It is a\ncommonplace, indeed, that in the ecstasies of amorous idealization, the\nnotion of the function itself becomes obnoxious. It may be impossible\nto imagine a man loving a woman without having had, at some time,\nconscious desire for her, but all the same it is undoubtedly true that\nthe wish for marriage is very often a wish for close and constant\nassociation with the one respected, admired and trusted rather than a\nyearning for the satisfaction of desire.\n\nAll of this admiration, respect and trust, as we have seen, may be\ninterpreted as confidence, which, in turn, is faith. Now, faith is\nessentially unreasonable, and in the great majority of cases, is\nthe very antithesis of reason. Therefore, a man in love commonly\nendows the object of his affection with merits which, to the eye of\na disinterested person, she obviously lacks. \"Love ... has a secret\ncraving to discover in the loved one as many beautiful qualities as\npossible and to raise her as high as possible.\" \"Whoever idolizes a\nperson tries to justify himself by idealizing; and thus becomes an\nartist (or self-deceiver) in order to have a clear conscience.\" Again\nthere is a tendency to illogical generalization. \"Everything which\npleases me once, or several times, is pleasing of and in itself.\" The\nresult of this, of course, is quick and painful disillusion. The loved\none is necessarily merely human and when the ideal gives way to the\nreal, reaction necessarily follows. \"Many a married man awakens one\nmorning to the consciousness that his wife is far from attractive.\"[5]\nAnd it is only fair to note that the same awakening is probably the\nbitter portion of most married women, too.\n\nIn addition, it is plain that the purely physical desire which lies\nat the bottom of all human love, no matter how much sentimental\nconsiderations may obscure it, is merely a passion and so, in the very\nnature of things, is intermittent and evanescent. There are moments\nwhen it is overpowering, but there are hours, days, weeks and months\nwhen it is dormant. Therefore, we must conclude with Nietzsche, that\nthe thing we call love, whether considered from its physical or\npsychical aspect, is fragile and short-lived.\n\nNow, inasmuch as marriage, in the majority of cases, is a permanent\ninstitution (as it is, according to the theory of our moral code, in\n_all_ cases), it follows that, in order to make the relation bearable,\nsomething must arise to take the place of love. This something, as we\nknow, is ordinarily tolerance, respect, _camaraderie_, or a common\ninterest in the well-being of the matrimonial firm or in the offspring\nof the marriage. In other words, the discovery that many of the ideal\nqualities seen in the life-companion through the rosy glasses of love\ndo not exist is succeeded by a common-sense and unsentimental decision\nto make the best of those real ones which actually do exist.\n\nFrom this it is apparent that a marriage is most apt to be successful\nwhen the qualities imagined in the beloved are all, or nearly all,\nreal: that is to say, when the possibility of disillusion is at an\nirreducible minimum. This occurs sometimes by accident, but Nietzsche\npoints out that such accidents are comparatively rare. A man in love,\nindeed, is the worst possible judge of his _inamorata's_ possession\nof those traits which will make her a satisfactory wife, for, as we\nhave noted, he observes her through an ideal haze and sees in her\ninnumerable merits which, to the eye of an unprejudiced and accurate\nobserver, she does not possess. Nietzsche, at different times, pointed\nout two remedies for this. His first plan proposed that marriages for\nlove be discouraged, and that we endeavor to insure the permanence of\nthe relation by putting the selection of mates into the hands of third\npersons likely to be dispassionate and far-seeing: a plan followed\nwith great success, it may be recalled, by most ancient peoples and in\nvogue, in a more or less disguised form, in many European countries\ntoday. \"It is impossible,\" he said, \"to found a permanent institution\nupon an idiosyncrasy. Marriage, if it is to stand as the bulwark of\ncivilization, cannot be founded upon the temporary and unreasonable\nthing called love. To fulfil its mission, it must be founded upon the\nimpulse to reproduction, or race permanence; the impulse to possess\nproperty (women and children are property); and the impulse to rule,\nwhich constantly organizes for itself the smallest unit of sovereignty,\nthe family, and which needs children and heirs to maintain, by physical\nforce, whatever measure of power, riches and influence it attains.\"\n\nNietzsche's second proposal was nothing more or less than the\ninstitution of trial marriage, which, when it was proposed years\nlater by an American sociologist,[6] caused all the uproar which\ninvariably rises in the United States whenever an attempt is made\nto seek absolute truth. \"Give us a term,\" said Zarathustra, \"and a\nsmall marriage, that we may see whether we are fit for the great\nmarriage.\"[7] The idea here, of course, is simply this: that, when a\nman and a woman find it utterly impossible to live in harmony, it is\nbetter for them to separate at once than to live on together, making\na mock of the institution they profess to respect, and begetting\nchildren who, in Nietzsche's phrase, cannot be regarded other than as\nmere \"scapegoats of matrimony.\" Nietzsche saw that this notion was so\nutterly opposed to all current ideals and hypocrisies that it would\nbe useless to argue it, and so he veered toward his first proposal.\nThe latter, despite its violation of one of the most sacred illusions\nof the Anglo-Saxon race, is by no means a mere fantasy of the chair.\nMarriages in which love is subordinated to mutual fitness and material\nconsiderations are the rule in many countries today, and have been so\nfor thousands of years, and if it be urged that, in France, their fruit\nhas been adultery, unfruitfulness and degeneration, it may be answered\nthat, in Turkey, Japan and India, they have become the cornerstones of\nquite respectable civilizations.\n\nNietzsche believed that the ultimate mission and function of human\nmarriage was the breeding of a race of supermen and he saw very clearly\nthat fortuitous pairing would never bring this about. \"Thou shalt not\nonly propagate thyself,\" said Zarathustra, \"but propagate thyself\nupward. Marriage should be the will of two to create that which is\ngreater than either. But that which the many call marriage--alas! what\ncall I that? Alas I that soul-poverty of two! Alas! that soul-filth\nof two! Alas! that miserable dalliance of two! Marriage they call\nit--and they say that marriages are made in heaven. I like them not:\nthese animals caught in heavenly nets.... Laugh not at such marriages!\nWhat child has not reason to weep over its parents?\" It is the old\nargument against haphazard breeding. We select the sires and dams of\nour race-horses with most elaborate care, but the strains that mingle\nin our children's veins get there by chance. \"Worthy and ripe for\nbegetting the superman this man appeared to me, but when I saw his\nwife earth seemed a madhouse. Yea, I wish the earth would tremble in\nconvulsions when such a saint and such a goose mate! This one fought\nfor truth like a hero--and then took to heart a little dressed-up\nlie. He calls it his marriage. That one was reserved in intercourse\nand chose his associates fastidiously--and then spoiled his company\nforever. He calls it his marriage. A third sought for a servant with\nan angel's virtues. Now he is the servant of a woman. Even the most\ncunning buys his wife in a sack.\"[8]\n\nAs has been noted, Nietzsche was by no means a declaimer against women.\nA bachelor himself and constitutionally suspicious of all who walked\nin skirts, he nevertheless avoided the error of damning the whole sex\nas a dangerous and malignant excrescence upon the face of humanity. He\nsaw that woman's mind was the natural complement of man's mind; that\nwomanly guile was as useful, in its place, as masculine truth; that\nman, to retain those faculties which made him master of the earth,\nneeded a persistent and resourceful opponent to stimulate them and so\npreserve and develop them. So long as the institution of the family\nremained a premise in every sociological syllogism, so long as mere\nfruitfulness remained as much a merit among intelligent human beings\nas it was among peasants and cattle--so long, he saw, it would be\nnecessary for the stronger sex to submit to the parasitic opportunism\nof the weaker.\n\nBut he was far from exalting mere women into goddesses, after the\nsentimental fashion of those virtuosi of illusion who pass for\nlaw-givers in the United States, and particularly in the southern\npart thereof. Chivalry, with its ridiculous denial of obvious facts,\nseemed to him unspeakable and the good old sub-Potomac doctrines that\na woman who loses her virtue is, _ipso facto_, a victim and not a\ncriminal or _particeps criminis_, and that a \"lady,\" by virtue of being\na \"lady,\" is necessarily a reluctant and helpless quarry in the hunt\nof love--these ancient and venerable fallacies would have made him\nlaugh. He admitted the great and noble part that woman had to play in\nthe world-drama, but he saw clearly that her methods were essentially\ndeceptive, insincere and pernicious, and so he held that she should be\nconfined to her proper role and that any effort she made to take a hand\nin other matters should be regarded with suspicion, and when necessary,\nviolently opposed. Thus Nietzsche detested the idea of women's suffrage\nalmost as much as he detested the idea of chivalry. The participation\nof women in large affairs, he argued, could lead to but one result:\nthe contamination of the masculine ideals of justice, honor and truth\nby the feminine ideals of dissimulation, equivocation and intrigue.\nIn women, he believed, there was an entire absence of that instinctive\nliking for a square deal and a fair fight which one finds in all\nmen--even the worst.\n\nHence, Nietzsche believed that, in his dealings with women, man should\nbe wary and cautious. \"Let men fear women when she loveth: for she\nsacrificeth all for love and nothing else hath value to her.... Man\nis for woman a means: the end is always the child.... Two things are\nwanted by the true man: danger and play. Therefore he seeketh woman as\nthe most dangerous toy within his reach.... Thou goest to women? _Don't\nforget thy whip!_\"[9] This last sentence has helped to make Nietzsche\na stench in the nostrils of the orthodox, but the context makes his\nargument far more than a mere effort at sensational epigram. He is\npointing out the utter unscrupulousness which lies at the foundation of\nthe maternal instinct: an unscrupulousness familiar to every observer\nof humanity.[10] Indeed, it is so potent a factor in the affairs of the\nworld that we have, by our ancient device of labelling the inevitable\nthe good, exalted it to the dignity and estate of a virtue. But all\nthe same, we are instinctively conscious of its inherent opposition\nto truth and justice, and so our law books provide that a woman who\ncommits a crime in her husband's presence is presumed to have been led\nto it by her desire to work what she regards as his good, which means\nher desire to retain his protection and good will. \"Man's happiness\nis: 'I will.' Woman's happiness is: 'He will.'\"[11]\n\nMaternity, thought Nietzsche, was a thing even more sublime\nthan paternity, because it produced a more keen sense of race\nresponsibility. \"Is there a state more blessed,\" he asked, \"than that\nof a woman with child?... Even worldly justice does not allow the\njudge and hangman to lay hold on her.\"[12] He saw, too, that woman's\ninsincere masochism[13] spurred man to heroic efforts and gave vigor\nand direction to his work by the very fact that it bore the outward\naspect of helplessness. He saw that the resultant stimulation of the\nwill to power was responsible for many of the world's great deeds,\nand that, if woman served no other purpose, she would still take an\nhonorable place as the most splendid reward--greater than honors or\ntreasures--that humanity could bestow upon its victors. The winning\nof a beautiful and much-sought woman, indeed, will remain as great an\nincentive to endeavor as the conquest of a principality so long as\nhumanity remains substantially as it is today.\n\nIt is unfortunate that Nietzsche left us no record of his notions\nregarding the probable future of matrimony as an institution. We have\nreason to believe that he agreed with Schopenhauer's analysis of the\n\"lady,\" _i.e._ the woman elevated to splendid, but complete parasitism.\nSchopenhauer showed that this pitiful creature was the product of\nthe monogamous ideal, just as the prostitute was the product of the\nmonogamous actuality. In the United States and England, unfortunately,\nit is impossible to discuss such matters with frankness, or to apply to\nthem the standards of absolute truth, on account of the absurd axiom\nthat monogamy is ordained of God,--with which maxim there appears\nthe equally absurd corollary: that the civilization of a people is\nto be measured by the degree of dependence of its women. Luckily for\nposterity this last revolting doctrine is fast dying, though its\ndecadence is scarcely noticed and wholly misunderstood. We see about us\nthat women are becoming more and more independent and self-sufficient\nand that, as individuals, they have less and less need to seek and\nretain the good will and protection of individual men, but we overlook\nthe fact that this tendency is fast undermining the ancient theory\nthat the family is a necessary and impeccable institution and that\nwithout it progress would be impossible. As a matter of fact, the idea\nof the family, as it exists today, is based entirely upon the idea of\nfeminine helplessness. So soon as women are capable of making a living\nfor themselves and their children, without the aid of the fathers of\nthe latter, the old cornerstone of the family--the masculine defender\nand bread-winner--will find his occupation gone, and it will become\nridiculous to force him, by law or custom, to discharge duties for\nwhich there is no longer need. Wipe out your masculine defender, and\nyour feminine parasite-_haus-frau_--and where is your family?\n\nThis tendency is exhibited empirically by the rising revolt against\nthose fetters which the family idea has imposed upon humanity: by\nthe growing feeling that divorce should be a matter of individual\nexpedience; by the successful war of cosmopolitanism upon insularity\nand clannishness and upon all other costly outgrowths of the old idea\nthat because men are of the same blood they must necessarily love\none another; and by the increasing reluctance among civilized human\nbeings to become parents without some reason more logical than the\nnotion that parenthood, in itself, is praiseworthy. It seems plain,\nin a word, that so soon as any considerable portion of the women of\nthe world become capable of doing men's work and of thus earning a\nliving for themselves and their children without the aid of men, there\nwill be in full progress a dangerous, if unconscious, war upon the\ninstitution of marriage. It may be urged in reply that this will never\nhappen, because of the fact that women are physically unequal to men,\nand that in consequence of their duty of child-bearing, they will ever\nremain so, but it may be answered to this that use will probably vastly\nincrease their physical fitness; that science will rob child-bearing\nof most of its terrors within a comparatively few years; and that the\nwoman who seeks to go it alone will have only herself and her child to\nmaintain, whereas, the man of today has not only himself and his child,\nbut also the woman. Again, it is plain that the economic handicap\nof child-bearing is greatly overestimated. At most, the business of\nmaternity makes a woman utterly helpless for no longer than three\nmonths, and in the case of a woman who has three children, this means\nnine months in a life time. It is entirely probable that alcohol\nalone, not to speak of other enemies of efficiency, robs the average\nman of quite that much productive activity during his three score years\nand ten.\n\n\n[1] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" III.\n\n[2] Nietzsche saw, of course (\"The Genealogy of Morals,\" III), that\ntemporary celibacy was frequently necessary to men with peculiarly\ndifficult and vitiating tasks ahead of them. The philosopher who sought\nto solve world riddles, he said, had need to steer clear of women, for\nreasons which appealed, with equal force, to the athlete who sought to\nperform great feats of physical strength. It is obvious, however, that\nthis desire to escape distraction and drain differs vastly from ethical\ncelibacy.\n\n[3] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 346.\n\n[4] \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" \u00a7 431, 434.\n\n[5] All of these quotations are from \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_.\"\n\n[6] Elsie Clews Parsons: \"The Family,\" New York, 1906. Mrs. Parsons is\na doctor of philosophy, a Hartley house fellow and was for six years a\nlecturer on sociology at Barnard College.\n\n[7] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" III.\n\n[8] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[9] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[10] Until quite recently it was considered indecent and indefensible\nto mention this fact, despite its obviousness. But it is now discussed\nfreely enough and in Henry Arthur Jones' play, \"The Hypocrites,\" it is\npresented admirably in the character of the mother whose instinctive\neffort to protect her son makes her a scoundrel and the son a cad.\n\n[11] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[12] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 552.\n\n[13] Prof. Dr. R. von Krafft Ebing: \"Masochism is ... a peculiar\nperversion ... consisting in this, that the individual seized with\nit is dominated by the idea that he is wholly and unconditionally\nsubjected to the will of a person of the opposite sex, who treats him\nimperiously and humiliates and maltreats him.\"\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nGOVERNMENT\n\n\nLike Spencer before him, Nietzsche believed, as we have seen,\nthat the best possible system of government was that which least\ninterfered with the desires and enterprises of the efficient and\nintelligent individual. That is to say, he held that it would be well\nto establish, among the members of his first caste of human beings,\na sort of glorified anarchy. Each member of this caste should be at\nliberty to work out his own destiny for himself. There should be no\nlaws regulating and circumscribing his relations to other members of\nhis caste, except the easily-recognizable and often-changing laws of\ncommon interest, and above all, there should be no laws forcing him\nto submit to, or even to consider, the wishes and behests of the two\nlower castes. The higher man, in a word, should admit no responsibility\nwhatever to the lower castes. The lowest of all he should look upon\nsolely as a race of slaves bred to work his welfare in the most\nefficient and uncomplaining manner possible, and the military caste\nshould seem to him a race designed only to carry out his orders and so\nprevent the slave caste marching against him.\n\nIt is plain from this that Nietzsche stood squarely opposed to both of\nthe two schemes of government which, on the surface, at least, seem\nto prevail in the western world today. For the monarchial ideal and\nfor the democratic ideal he had the same words of contempt. Under an\nabsolute monarchy, he believed, the military or law-enforcing caste was\nunduly exalted, and so its natural tendency to permanence was increased\nand its natural opposition to all experiment and progress was made well\nnigh irresistible. Under a communistic democracy, on the other hand,\nthe mistake was made of putting power into the hands of the great,\ninert herd, which was necessarily and inevitably ignorant, credulous,\nsuperstitious, corrupt and wrong. The natural tendency of this herd,\nsaid Nietzsche, was to combat change and progress as bitterly and as\nceaselessly as the military-judicial caste, and when, by some accident,\nit rose out of its rut and attempted experiments, it nearly always\nmade mistakes, both in its premises and its conclusions and so got\nhopelessly bogged in error and imbecility. Its feeling for truth seemed\nto him to be almost _nil_; its mind could never see beneath misleading\nexteriors. \"In the market place,\" said Zarathustra, \"one convinces by\ngestures, but real reasons make the populace distrustful.\"[1]\n\nThat this natural incompetence of the masses is an actual fact was\nobserved by a hundred philosophers before Nietzsche, and fresh proofs\nof it are spread copiously before the world every day. Wherever\nuniversal suffrage, or some close approach to it, is the primary\naxiom of government, the thing known in the United States as \"freak\nlegislation\" is a constant evil. On the statute books of the great\nmajority of American states there are laws so plainly opposed to all\ncommon-sense that they bear an air of almost pathetic humor. One\nstate legislature,[2] in an effort to prevent the corrupt employment\nof insurance funds, passes laws so stringent that, in the face of\nthem, it is utterly impossible for an insurance company to transact\na profitable business. Another considers an act contravening rights\nguaranteed specifically by the state and national constitutions;[3]\nyet another[4] passes a law prohibiting divorce under any circumstances\nwhatever. And the spectacle is by no means confined to the American\nstates. In the Australian Commonwealth, mob-rule has burdened the\nstatutes with regulations which make difficult, if not impossible,\nthe natural development of the country's resources and trade. If, in\nEngland and Germany, the effect of universal suffrage has been less\napparent, it is because in these countries the two upper castes have\nsolved the problem of keeping the proletariat, despite its theoretical\nsovereignty, in proper leash and bounds.\n\nThe possibility of exercising this control seemed to Nietzsche to\nbe the saving grace of all modern forms of government, just as\ntheir essential impossibility appeared as the saving grace alike of\nChristianity and of communistic civilization. In England, as we have\nseen,[5] the military-judicial caste, despite the Reform Act of 1867,\nhas retained its old dominance, and in Germany, despite the occasional\nsuccess of the socialists, it is always possible for the military\naristocracy, by appealing to the vanity of the _bourgeoisie_, to win in\na stand-up fight. In America, the proletariat, when it is not engaged\nin functioning in its own extraordinary manner, is commonly the tool,\neither of the first of Nietzsche's castes or of the second. That is to\nsay, the average legislature has its price, and this price is often\npaid by those who believe that old laws, no matter how imperfect they\nmay be, are better than harum-scarum new ones. Naturally enough, the\nmost intelligent and efficient of Americans--members of the first\ncaste--do not often go to a state capital with corruption funds and\nopenly buy legislation, but nevertheless their influence is frequently\nfelt. President Roosevelt, for one, has more than once forced his\nviews upon a reluctant proletariat and even enlisted it under his\nbanner--as in his advocacy of centralization, a truly dionysian idea,\nfor example--and in the southern states the educated white class--which\nthere represents, though in a melancholy fashion, the Nietzschean first\ncaste--has found it easy to take from the black masses their very right\nto vote, despite the fact that they are everywhere in a great majority\nnumerically, and so, by the theory of democracy, represent whatever\npower lies in the state. Thus it is apparent that Nietzsche's argument\nagainst democracy, like his argument against brotherhood, is based upon\nthe thesis that both are rejected instinctively by all those men whose\nactivity works for the progress of the human race.[6]\n\nIt is obvious, of course, that the sort of anarchy preached by\nNietzsche differs vastly from the beery, collarless anarchy preached\nby Herr Most and his unwashed followers. The latter contemplates a\nsuspension of all laws in order that the unfit may escape the natural\nand rightful exploitation of the fit, whereas the former reduces\nthe unfit to _de facto_ slavery and makes them subject to the laws\nof a master class, which, in so far as the relations of its own\nmembers, one to the other, are concerned, recognizes no law but that\nof natural selection. To the average American or Englishman the very\nname of anarchy causes a shudder, because it invariably conjures up\na picture of a land terrorized by low-browed assassins with matted\nbeards, carrying bombs in one hand and mugs of beer in the other. But\nas a matter of fact, there is no reason whatever to believe that, if\nall laws were abolished tomorrow, such swine would survive the day.\nThey are incompetents under our present paternalism and they would be\nincompetents under dionysian anarchy. The only difference between the\ntwo states is that the former, by its laws, protects men of this sort,\nwhereas the latter would work their speedy annihilation. In a word,\nthe dionysian state would see the triumph, not of drunken loafers, but\nof the very men whose efforts are making for progress today: those\nstrong, free, self-reliant, resourceful men whose capacities are so\nmuch greater than the mob's that they are often able to force their\nideas upon it despite its theoretical right to rule them and its actual\nendeavor so to do. Nietzschean anarchy would create an aristocracy of\nefficiency. The strong man--which means the intelligent, ingenious and\nfar-seeing man--would acknowledge no authority but his own will and no\nmorality but his own advantage. As we have seen in previous chapters,\nthis would re-establish the law of natural selection firmly upon its\ndisputed throne, and so the strong would grow ever stronger and more\nefficient, and the weak would grow ever more obedient and tractile.\n\nIt may be well at this place to glance briefly at an objection that\nhas been urged against Nietzsche's argument by many critics, and\nparticularly by those in the socialistic camp. Led to it, no doubt,\nby their too literal acceptance of Marx's materialistic conception of\nhistory, they have assumed that Nietzsche's higher man must necessarily\nbelong to the class denominated, by our after-dinner speakers and\nleader writers, \"captains of industry,\" and to this class alone.\nThat is to say, they have regarded the higher man as identical with\nthe pushing, grasping buccaneer of finance, because this buccaneer\nhas seemed to them to be the only man of today who is truly \"strong,\nfree, self-reliant and resourceful\" and the only one who actually\n\"acknowledges no authority but his own will.\" As a matter of fact,\nall of these assumptions are in error. For one thing, the \"captain of\nindustry\" is not uncommonly the reverse of a dionysian, and without\nthe artificial aid of our permanent laws, he might often perish in\nthe struggle for existence. For another thing, it is an obvious fact\nthat the men who go most violently counter to the view of the herd,\nand who battle most strenuously to prevail against it--our true\ncriminals and transvaluers and breakers of the law--are not such men\nas Rockefeller, but men such as Pasteur; not such men as Morgan and\nHooley, but sham-smashers and truth-tellers and mob-fighters after the\ntype of Huxley, Lincoln, Bismarck, Darwin, Virchow, Haeckel, Hobbes,\nMacchiavelli, Harvey and Jenner, the father of vaccination.\n\nJenner, to choose one from the long list, was a real dionysian, because\nhe boldly pitted his own opinion against the practically unanimous\nopinion of all the rest of the human race. Among those members of\nthe ruling class in England who came after him--those men, that is,\nwho made vaccination compulsory--the dionysian spirit was still more\napparent. The masses themselves did not want to be vaccinated, because\nthey were too ignorant to understand the theory of inoculation and\ntoo stupid to be much impressed by its unvisualized and--for years,\nat least--impalpable benefits. Yet their rulers forced them, against\ntheir will, to bare their arms. And why was this done? Was it because\nthe ruling class was possessed by a boundless love for humanity and\nso yearned to lavish upon it a wealth of Christian devotion? Not\nat all. The real motive of the law makers was to be found in two\nconsiderations. In the first place, a proletariat which suffered\nfrom epidemics of small-pox was a crippled mob whose capacity for\nserving its betters, in the fields and factories of England, was sadly\ndecreased. In the second place experience proved that when smallpox\nraged in the slums, it had an unhappy habit of stretching out its arms\nin the direction of mansion and castle, too. Therefore, the proletariat\nwas vaccinated and small-pox was stamped out--not because the ruling\nclass loved the workers, but because it wanted to make them work for\nit as continuously as possible and to remove or reduce their constant\nmenace to its life and welfare. In so far as it took the initiative in\nthese proceedings, the military ruling-class of England raised itself\nto the eminence of Nietzsche's first caste. That Jenner himself, when\nhe put forward his idea and led the military caste to carry it into\nexecution, was an ideal member of the first caste, is plain. The goal\nbefore him was fame everlasting--and he gained it.\n\nI have made this rather long digression because the opponents of\nNietzsche have voiced their error a thousand times and have well-nigh\nconvinced a great many persons of its truth. It is apparent enough,\nof course, that a great many men whose energy is devoted to the\naccumulation of money are truly dionysian in their methods and aims,\nbut it is apparent, too, that a great many others are not. Nietzsche\nhimself was well aware of the dangers which beset a race enthralled\nby commercialism, and he sounded his warning against them. Trade,\nbeing grounded upon security, tends to work for permanence in laws and\ncustoms, even after the actual utility of these laws and customs is\nopenly questioned. This is shown by the persistence of free trade in\nEngland and of protectionism in the United States, despite the fact\nthat the conditions of existence, in both countries, have materially\nchanged since the two systems were adopted, and there is now good\nground, in each, for demanding reform. So it is plain that Nietzsche\ndid not cast his higher man in the mold of a mere millionaire. It\nis conceivable that a careful analysis might prove Mr. Morgan to be\na dionysian, but it is certain that his character as such would not\nbe grounded upon his well-known and oft-repeated plea that existing\ninstitutions be permitted to remain as they are.\n\nYet again, a great many critics of Nietzsche mistake his criticism of\nexisting governmental institutions for an argument in favor of their\nimmediate and violent abolition. When he inveighs against monarchy or\ndemocracy, for instance, it is concluded that he wants to assassinate\nall the existing rulers of the world, overturn all existing governments\nand put chaos, carnage, rapine and anarchy in their place. Such a\nconclusion, of course, is a grievous error. Nietzsche by no means\nbelieved that reforms could be instituted in a moment or that the\ncharacters and habits of thought of human beings could be altered\nby a lightning stroke. His whole philosophy, in truth, was based\nupon the idea of slow evolution, through infinitely laborious and\ninfinitely protracted stages. All he attempted to do was to indicate\nthe errors that were being made in his own time and to point out the\nprobable character of the truths that would be accepted in the future.\nHe believed that it was only by constant skepticism, criticism and\nopposition that progress could be made, and that the greatest of all\ndangers was inanition. Therefore, when he condemned all existing\nschemes of government, it meant no more than that he regarded them as\nbased upon fundamental errors, and that he hoped and believed that, in\nthe course of time, these errors would be observed, admitted and swept\naway, to make room for other errors measurably less dangerous, and in\nthe end for truths. Such was his mission, as he conceived it: to attack\nerror wherever he saw it and to proclaim truth whenever he found it.\nIt is only by such iconoclasm and proselyting that humanity can be\nhelped. It is only after a mistake is perceived and admitted that it\ncan be rectified.\n\nNietzsche's argument for the \"free spirit\" by no means denies the\nefficacy of co-operation in the struggle upward, but neither does\nit support that blind fetishism which sees in co-operation the sole\ninstrument of human progress. In one of his characteristic thumb-nail\nnotes upon evolution he says: \"The most important result of progress in\nthe past is the fact that we no longer live in constant fear of wild\nbeasts, barbarians, gods and our own dreams.\"[7] It may be argued, in\nreference to this, that organized government is to be thanked for our\ndeliverance, but a moment's thought will show the error of the notion.\nHumanity's war upon wild beasts was fought and won by individualists,\nwho had in mind no end but their personal safety and that of their\nchildren, and the subsequent war upon barbarians would have been\nimpossible, or at least unsuccessful, had it not been for the weapons\ninvented and employed during the older fight against beasts. Again, it\nis apparent that our emancipation from the race's old superstitions\nregarding gods and omens has been achieved, not by communal effort,\nbut by individual effort. Knowledge and not government brought us the\ntruth that made us free. Government, in its very essence, is opposed\nto all increase of knowledge. Its tendency is always toward permanence\nand against change. It is unthinkable without some accepted scheme of\nlaw or morality, and such schemes, as we have seen, stand in direct\nantithesis to every effort to find the absolute truth. Therefore, it\nis plain that the progress of humanity, far from being the result of\ngovernment, has been made entirely without its aid and in the face of\nits constant and bitter opposition. The code of Hammurabi, the laws\nof the Medes and Persians, the Code Napoleon and the English common\nlaw have retarded the search for the ultimate verities almost as much,\nindeed, as the Ten Commandments.\n\nNietzsche denies absolutely that there is inherent in mankind a\nyearning to gather into communities. There is, he says, but one primal\ninstinct in human beings (as there is in all other animals), and that\nis the desire to remain alive. All those systems of thought which\nassume the existence of a \"natural morality\" are wrong. Even the\ntendency to tell the truth, which seems to be inborn in every civilized\nwhite man, is not \"natural,\" for there have been--and are today--races\nin which it is, to all intents and purposes, entirely absent.[8] And so\nit is with the so-called social instinct. Man, say the communists, is\na gregarious animal and can be happy only in company with his fellows,\nand in proof of it they cite the fact that loneliness is everywhere\nregarded as painful and that, even among the lower animals, there is an\nimpulse toward association. The facts set forth in the last sentence\nare indisputable, but they by no means prove the existence of an\nelemental social feeling sufficiently strong to make its satisfaction\nan end in itself. In other words, while it is plain that men flock\ntogether, just as birds flock together, it is going too far to say\nthat the mere joy of flocking--the mere desire to be with others--is\nat the bottom of the tendency. On the contrary, it is quite possible\nto show that men gather in communities for the same reason that deer\ngather in herds: because each individual realizes (unconsciously,\nperhaps) that such a combination materially aids him in the business of\nself-protection. One deer is no match for a lion, but fifty deer make\nhim impotent.[9]\n\nNietzsche shows that, even after communities are formed, the strong\ndesire of every individual to look out for himself, regardless of\nthe desires of others, persists, and that, in every herd there are\nstrong members and weak members. The former, whenever the occasion\narises, sacrifice the latter: by forcing the heavy, killing drudgery\nof the community upon them or by putting them, in time of war, into\nthe forefront of the fray. The result is that the weakest are being\nconstantly weeded out and the strongest are always becoming stronger\nand stronger. \"Hence,\" says Nietzsche, \"the first 'state' made its\nappearance in the form of a terrible tyranny, a violent and unpitying\nmachine, which kept grinding away until the primary raw material, the\nman-ape, was kneaded and fashioned into alert, efficient man.\"\n\nNow, when a given state becomes appreciably more efficient than the\nstates about it, it invariably sets about enslaving them. Thus larger\nand larger states are formed, but always there is a ruling master-class\nand a serving slave-class. \"This,\" says Nietzsche, \"is the origin of\nthe state on earth, despite the fantastic theory which would found it\nupon some general agreement among its members. He who can command,\nhe who is a master by nature, he who, in deed and gesture, behaves\nviolently--what need has he for agreements? Such beings come as fate\ncomes, without reason or pretext.... Their work is the instinctive\ncreation of forms: they are the most unconscious of all artists;\nwherever they appear, something new is at once created--a governmental\norganism which lives; in which the individual parts and functions are\ndifferentiated and brought into correlation, and in which nothing at\nall is tolerable unless some utility with respect to the whole is\nimplanted in it. They are innocent of guilt, of responsibility, of\ncharity--these born rulers. They are ruled by that terrible art-egotism\nwhich knows itself to be justified by its work, as the mother knows\nherself to be justified by her child.\"\n\nNietzsche points out that, even after nations have attained some\ndegree of permanence and have introduced ethical concepts into their\nrelations with one another, they still give evidence of that same\nprimary will to power which is responsible, at bottom, for every act\nof the individual man. \"The masses, in any nation,\" he says, \"are ready\nto sacrifice their lives, their goods and chattels, their consciences\nand their virtue, to obtain that highest of pleasures: the feeling that\nthey rule, either in reality or in imagination, over others. On these\noccasions they make virtues of their instinctive yearnings, and so they\nenable an ambitious or wisely provident prince to rush into a war with\nthe good conscience of his people as his excuse. The great conquerors\nhave always had the language of virtue on their lips: they have always\nhad crowds of people around them who felt exalted and would not listen\nto any but the most exalted sentiments.... When man feels the sense\nof power, he feels and calls himself good, and at the same time those\nwho have to endure the weight of his power call him evil. Such is the\ncurious mutability of moral judgments!... Hesiod, in his fable of the\nworld's ages, twice pictured the age of the Homeric heroes and made\ntwo out of one. To those whose ancestors were under the iron heel of\nthe Homeric despots, it appeared evil; while to the grandchildren of\nthese despots it appeared good. Hence the poet had no alternative but\nto do as he did: his audience was composed of the descendants of both\nclasses.\"[10]\n\nNietzsche saw naught but decadence and illusion in humanitarianism\nand nationalism. To profess a love for the masses seemed to him to\nbe ridiculous and to profess a love for one race or tribe of men, in\npreference to all others, seemed to him no less so. Thus he denied the\nvalidity of two ideals which lie at the base of all civilized systems\nof government, and constitute, in fact, the very conception of the\nstate. He called himself, not a German, but \"a good European.\"\n\n\"We good Europeans,\" he said, \"are not French enough to 'love mankind.'\nA man must be afflicted by an excess of Gallic eroticism to approach\nmankind with ardour. Mankind! Was there ever a more hideous old woman\namong all the old women? No, we do not love mankind!... On the other\nhand, we are not German enough to advocate nationalism and race-hatred,\nor to take delight in that national blood-poisoning which sets up\nquarantines between the nations of Europe. We are too unprejudiced\nfor that--too perverse, too fastidious, too well-informed, too much\ntravelled. We prefer to live on mountains--apart, unseasonable.... We\nare too diverse and mixed in race to be patriots. We are, in a word,\ngood Europeans--the rich heirs of millenniums of European thought....\n\n\"We rejoice in everything, which like ourselves, loves danger, war and\nadventure--which does not make compromises, nor let itself be captured,\nconciliated or faced.... We ponder over the need of a new order of\nthings--even of a new slavery, for the strengthening and elevation of\nthe human race always involves the existence of slaves....\"[11]\n\n\"The horizon is unobstructed.... Our ships can start on their voyage\nonce more in the face of danger.... The sea--our sea!--lies before\nus!\"[12]\n\n\n[1] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" IV.\n\n[2] That of Wisconsin at the 1907 session.\n\n[3] This has been done, time and again, by the legislature of every\nstate in the Union, and the overturning of such legislation occupies\npart of the time of all the state courts of final judicature year after\nyear.\n\n[4] That of South Carolina.\n\n[5] _Vide_ the chapter on \"Civilization.\"\n\n[6] Said the Chicago _Tribune_, \"the best all-round newspaper in the\nUnited States,\" in a leading article, June 10, 1907: \"Jeremy Bentham\nspeaks of 'an incoherent and undigested mass of law, shot down, as\nfrom a rubbish cart, upon the heads of the people.' This is a fairly\naccurate summary of the work of the average American legislature,\nfrom New York to Texas.... Bad, crude and unnecessary laws make up\na large part of the output of every session.... Roughly speaking,\nthe governor who vetoes the most bills is the best governor. When a\ngovernor vetoes none the legitimate presumption is, not that the work\nof the legislature was flawless, but that he was timid, not daring to\noppose ignorant popular sentiment ... or that he had not sense enough\nto recognize a bad measure when he saw it.\"\n\n[7] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 5.\n\n[8] \"The word 'honesty' is not to be found in the code of either the\nSocratic or the Christian virtues. It represents a new virtue, not\nquite ripened, frequently misunderstood and hardly conscious of itself.\nIt is yet something in embryo, which we are at liberty either to foster\nor to check.\"--\"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 456.\n\n[9] An excellent discussion of this subject, by Prof. Warner Fite, of\nIndiana University, appeared in _The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology\nand Scientific Methods_ of July 18, 1907. Prof. Fite's article is\ncalled \"The Exaggeration of the Social,\" and is a keen and sound\ncriticism of \"the now popular tendency to regard the individual as\nthe product of society.\" As he points out, \"any consciousness of\nbelonging to one group rather than another must involve some sense of\nindividuality.\" In other words, gregariousness is nothing more than an\ninstinctive yearning to profit personally by the possibility of putting\nothers, to some measurable extent, in the attitude of slaves.\n\n[10] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 189.\n\n[11] \"_Die fr\u00f6hliche Wissenschaft_,\" \u00a7 377.\n\n[12] \"_Die fr\u00f6hliche Wissenschaft_,\" \u00a7 343.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nCRIME AND PUNISHMENT\n\n\nNietzsche says that the thing which best differentiates man from the\nother animals is his capacity for making and keeping a promise. That\nis to say, man has a trained and efficient memory and it enables him\nto project an impression of today into the future. Of the millions of\nimpressions which impinge upon his consciousness every day, he is able\nto save a chosen number from the oblivion of forgetfulness. An animal\nlacks this capacity almost entirely. The things that it remembers are\nfar from numerous and it is devoid of any means of reinforcing its\nmemory. But man has such a means and it is commonly called conscience.\nAt bottom it is based upon the principle that pain is always more\nenduring than pleasure. Therefore, \"in order to make an idea stay\nit must be burned into the memory; only that which never ceases to\nhurt remains fixed.\"[1] Hence all the world's store of tortures and\nsacrifices. At one time they were nothing more than devices to make man\nremember his pledges to his gods. Today they survive in the form of\nlegal punishments, which are nothing more, at bottom, than devices to\nmake a man remember his pledges to his fellow men.\n\nFrom all this Nietzsche argues that our modern law is the outgrowth\nof the primitive idea of barter--of the idea that everything has an\nequivalent and can be paid for--that when a man forgets or fails\nto discharge an obligation in one way he may wipe out his sin by\ndischarging it in some other way. \"The earliest relationship that ever\nexisted,\" he says, \"was the relationship between buyer and seller,\ncreditor and debtor. On this ground man first stood face to face\nwith man. No stage of civilization, however inferior, is without the\ninstitution of bartering. To fix prices, to adjust values, to invent\nequivalents, to exchange things--all this has to such an extent\npreoccupied the first and earliest thought of man, that it may be said\nto constitute thinking itself. Out of it sagacity arose, and out of\nit, again, arose man's first pride--his first feeling of superiority\nover the animal world. Perhaps, our very word man (_manus_) expresses\nsomething of this.[2] Man calls himself the being who weighs and\nmeasures.\"[3]\n\nNow besides the contract between man and man, there is also a contract\nbetween man and the community. The community agrees to give the\nindividual protection and the individual promises to pay for it in\nlabor and obedience. Whenever he fails to do so, he violates his\npromise, and the community regards the contract as broken. Then \"the\nanger of the outraged creditor--or community--withdraws its protection\nfrom the debtor--or law-breaker--and he is laid open to all the dangers\nand disadvantages of life in a state of barbarism. Punishment, at this\nstage of civilization, is simply the image of a man's normal conduct\ntoward a hated, disarmed and cast-down enemy, who has forfeited not\nonly all claims to protection, but also all claims to mercy. This\naccounts for the fact that war (including the sacrificial cult of war)\nhas furnished all the forms in which punishment appears in history.\"[4]\n\nIt will be observed that this theory grounds all ideas of justice and\npunishment upon ideas of expedience. The primeval creditor forced his\ndebtor to pay because he knew that if the latter didn't pay he (the\ncreditor) would suffer. In itself, the debtor's effort to get something\nfor nothing was not wrong, because, as we have seen in previous\nchapters, this is the ceaseless and unconscious endeavor of every\nliving being, and is, in fact, the most familiar of all manifestations\nof the primary will to live, or more understandably, of the will to\nacquire power over environment. But when the machinery of justice\nwas placed in the hands of the state, there came a transvaluation of\nvalues. Things that were manifestly costly to the state were called\nwrong, and the old individualistic standards of good and bad--_i.e._\nbeneficial and harmful--became the standards of good and evil--_i.e._\nright and wrong.\n\nIn this way, says Nietzsche, the original purpose of punishment\nhas become obscured and forgotten. Starting out as a mere means of\nadjusting debts, it has become a machine for enforcing moral concepts.\nMoral ideas came into the world comparatively late, and it was not\nuntil man had begun to be a speculative being that he invented gods,\ncommandments and beatitudes. But the institution of punishment was in\nexistence from a much earlier day. Therefore, it is apparent that the\nmoral idea,--the notion that there is such a thing as good and such\na thing as evil,--far from being the inspiration of punishment, was\nengrafted upon it at a comparatively late period. Nietzsche says that\nman, in considering things as they are today, is very apt to make this\nmistake about their origins. He is apt to conclude, because the human\neye is used for seeing, that it was created for that purpose, whereas\nit is obvious that it may have been created for some other purpose\nand that the function of seeing may have arisen later on. In the same\nway, man believes that punishment was invented for the purpose of\nenforcing moral ideas, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was originally\nan instrument of expediency only, and did not become a moral machine\nuntil a code of moral laws was evolved.[5]\n\nTo show that the institution of punishment itself is older than the\nideas which now seem to lie at the base of it, Nietzsche cites the fact\nthat these ideas themselves are constantly varying. That is to say, the\naim and purpose of punishment are conceived differently by different\nraces and individuals. One authority calls it a means of rendering\nthe criminal helpless and harmless and so preventing further mischief\nin future. Another says that it is a means of inspiring others with\nfear of the law and its agents. Another says that it is a device for\ndestroying the unfit. Another holds it to be a fee exacted by society\nfrom the evil-doer for protecting him against the excesses of private\nrevenge. Still another looks upon it as society's declaration of war\nagainst its enemies. Yet another says that it is a scheme for making\nthe criminal realize his guilt and repent. Nietzsche shows that all\nof these ideas, while true, perhaps, in some part, are fallacies at\nbottom. It is ridiculous, for instance, to believe that punishment\nmakes the law-breaker acquire a feeling of guilt and sinfulness. He\nsees that he was indiscreet in committing his crime, but he sees,\ntoo, that society's method of punishing his indiscretion consists in\ncommitting a crime of the same sort against _him_. In other words, he\ncannot hold his own crime a sin without also holding his punishment a\nsin--which leads to an obvious absurdity. As a matter of fact, says\nNietzsche, punishment really does nothing more than \"augment fear,\nintensify prudence and subjugate the passions.\" And in so doing it\n_tames_ man, but does not make him better. If he refrains from crime in\nfuture, it is because he has become more prudent and not because he has\nbecome more moral. If he regrets his crimes of the past, it is because\nhis punishment, and not his so-called conscience, hurts him.\n\nBut what, then, is conscience? That there is such a thing every\nreasonable man knows. But what is its nature and what is its origin? If\nit is not the regret which follows punishment, what is it? Nietzsche\nanswers that it is nothing more than the old will to power, turned\ninward. In the days of the cave men, a man gave his will to power free\nexercise. Any act which increased his power over his environment, no\nmatter how much it damaged other men, seemed to him good. He knew\nnothing of morality. Things appeared to him, not as good or evil,\nbut as good or bad--beneficial or harmful. But when civilization was\nborn, there arose a necessity for controlling and regulating this will\npower. The individual had to submit to the desire of the majority and\nto conform to nascent codes of morality. The result was that his will\nto power, which once spent itself in battles with other individuals,\nhad to be turned upon himself. Instead of torturing others, he began\nto torture his own body and mind. His ancient delight in cruelty and\npersecution (a characteristic of all healthy animals) remained, but he\ncould not longer satisfy it upon his fellow men and so he turned it\nupon himself, and straightway became a prey to the feeling of guilt, of\nsinfulness, of wrong-doing--with all its attendant horrors.\n\nNow, one of the first forms that this self-torture took was primitive\nman's accusation against himself that he was not properly grateful for\nthe favors of his god. He saw that many natural phenomena benefited\nhim, and he thought that these phenomena occurred in direct obedience\nto the deity's command. Therefore, he regarded himself as the debtor of\nthe deity, and constantly accused himself of neglecting to discharge\nthis debt, because he felt that, by so accusing, he would be most apt\nto discharge it in full, and thus escape the righteous consequences\nof insufficient payment. This led him to make sacrifices--to place\nfood and drink upon his god's altar, and in the end, to sacrifice much\nmore valuable things, such, for instance, as his first born child.\nThe more vivid the idea of the deity became and the more terrible he\nappeared, the more man tried to satisfy and appease him. In the early\ndays, it was sufficient to sacrifice a square meal or a baby. But when\nChristianity--with its elaborate and certain theology--arose, it became\nnecessary for a man to sacrifice himself.\n\nThus arose the Christian idea of sin. Man began to feel that he was\nin debt to his creator hopelessly and irretrievably, and that, like a\ntrue bankrupt, he should offer all he had in partial payment. So he\nrenounced everything that made life on earth bearable and desirable and\nbuilt up an ideal of poverty and suffering. Sometimes he hid himself in\na cave and lived like an outcast dog--and then he was called a saint.\nSometimes he tortured himself with whips and poured vinegar into his\nwounds--and then he was a flagellant of the middle ages. Sometimes,\nhe killed his sexual instinct and his inborn desire for property and\npower--and then he became a penniless celibate in a cloister.\n\nNietzsche shows that this idea of sin, which lies at the bottom of all\nreligions, was and is an absurdity; that nothing, in itself, is sinful,\nand that no man is, or can be a sinner. If we could rid ourselves of\nthe notion that there is a God in Heaven, to whom we owe a debt, we\nwould rid ourselves of the idea of sin. Therefore, argues Nietzsche,\nit is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man,\nalways makes him feel better. It makes him lose his fear of hell and\nhis consciousness of sin. It rids him of that most horrible instrument\nof useless, senseless and costly torture--his conscience. \"Atheism,\"\nsays Nietzsche, \"will make a man innocent.\"\n\n\n[1] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_,\" II, \u00a7 3.\n\n[2] In the ancient Sanskrit the word from which \"man\" comes meant \"to\nthink, to weigh, to value, to reckon, to estimate.\"\n\n[3] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_,\" II, \u00a7 8.\n\n[4] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_,\" II, \u00a7 9.\n\n[5] A familiar example of this superimposition of morality is afforded\nby the history of costume. It is commonly assumed that garments were\noriginally designed to hide nakedness as much as to afford warmth and\nadorn the person, whereas, as a matter of fact, the idea of modesty\nprobably did not appear until man had been clothed for ages.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nEDUCATION\n\n\nEducation, as everyone knows, has two main objects: to impart\nknowledge and to implant culture. It is the object of a teacher,\nfirst of all, to bring before his pupil as many concrete facts about\nthe universe--the fruit of long ages of inquiry and experience--as\nthe latter may be capable of absorbing in the time available. After\nthat, it is the teacher's aim to make his pupil's habits of mind sane,\nhealthy and manly, and his whole outlook upon life that of a being\nconscious of his efficiency and eager and able to solve new problems\nas they arise. The educated man, in a word, is one who knows a great\ndeal more than the average man and is constantly increasing his area of\nknowledge, in a sensible, orderly logical fashion; one who is wary of\nsophistry and leans automatically and almost instinctively toward clear\nthinking.\n\nSuch is the purpose of education, in its ideal aspect. As we observe\nthe science of teaching in actual practice, we find that it often fails\nutterly to attain this end. The concrete facts that a student learns at\nthe average school are few and unconnected, and instead of being led\ninto habits of independent thinking he is trained to accept authority.\nWhen he takes his degree it is usually no more than a sign that he has\njoined the herd. His opinion of Napoleon is merely a reflection of the\nopinion expressed in the books he has studied; his philosophy of life\nis simply the philosophy of his teacher--tinctured a bit, perhaps, by\nthat of his particular youthful idols. He knows how to spell a great\nmany long words and he is familiar with the table of logarithms, but\nin the readiness and accuracy of his mental processes he has made\ncomparatively little progress. If he was illogical and credulous and\na respecter of authority as a freshman he remains much the same as a\ngraduate. In consequence, his usefulness to humanity has been increased\nbut little, if at all, for, as we have seen in previous chapters, the\nonly man whose life is appreciably more valuable than that of a good\ncow is the man who thinks for himself, clearly and logically, and lends\nsome sort of hand, during his life-time, in the eternal search for the\nultimate verities.\n\nThe cause for all this lies, no doubt, in the fact that school\nteachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and\nstupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers. Imitativeness\nbeing the dominant impulse in youth, their pupils acquire some measure\nof their stupidity, and the result is that the influence of the whole\nteaching tribe is against everything included in genuine education and\nculture.\n\nThat this is true is evident on the surface and a moment's analysis\nfurnishes a multitude of additional proofs. For one thing, a teacher,\nbefore he may begin work, must sacrifice whatever independence may\nsurvive within him upon the altar of authority. He becomes a cog in\nthe school wheel and must teach only the things countenanced and\napproved by the powers above him, whether those powers be visible in\nthe minister of education, as in Germany; in the traditions of the\nschool, as in England, or in the private convictions of the millionaire\nwho provides the cash, as in the United States. As Nietzsche points\nout, the schoolman's thirst for the truth is always conditioned by\nhis yearning for food and drink and a comfortable bed. His archetype\nis the university philosopher, who accepts the state's pay[1] and so\nsurrenders that liberty to inquire freely which alone makes philosophy\nworth while.\n\n\"No state,\" says Nietzsche, \"would ever dare to patronize such men as\nPlato and Schopenhauer. And why? Simply because the state is always\nafraid of them. They tell the truth.... Consequently, the man who\nsubmits to be a philosopher in the pay of the state must also submit\nto being looked upon by the state as one who has waived his claim to\npursue the truth into all its fastnesses. So long as he holds his\nplace, he must acknowledge something still higher than the truth--and\nthat is the state....\n\n\"The sole criticism of a philosophy which is possible and the only one\nwhich proves anything--namely, an attempt to live according to it--is\nnever put forward in the universities. There the only thing one hears\nof is a wordy criticism of words. And so the youthful mind, without\nmuch experience in life, is confronted by fifty verbal systems and\nfifty criticisms of them, thrown together and hopelessly jumbled. What\ndemoralization! What a mockery of education! It is openly acknowledged,\nin fact, that the object of education is not the acquirement of\nlearning, but the successful meeting of examinations. No wonder then,\nthat the examined student says to himself 'Thank God, I am not a\nphilosopher, but a Christian and a citizen!...'\n\n\"Therefore, I regard it as necessary to progress that we withdraw from\nphilosophy all governmental and academic recognition and support....\nLet philosophers spring up naturally, deny them every prospect of\nappointment, tickle them no longer with salaries--yea, persecute them!\nThen you will see marvels! They will then flee afar and seek a roof\nanywhere. Here a parsonage will open its doors; there a schoolhouse.\nOne will appear upon the staff of a newspaper, another will write\nmanuals for young ladies' schools. The most rational of them will put\nhis hand to the plough and the vainest will seek favor at court. Thus\nwe shall get rid of bad philosophers.\"[2]\n\nThe argument here is plain enough. The professional teacher must\nkeep to his rut. The moment he combats the existing order of things\nhe loses his place. Therefore he is wary, and his chief effort is\nto transmit the words of authority to his pupils unchanged. Whether\nhe be a philosopher, properly so-called, or something else matters\nnot. In a medical school wherein Chauveau's theory of immunity was\nstill maintained it would be hazardous for a professor of pathology\nto teach the theory of Ehrlich. In a Methodist college in Indiana it\nwould be foolhardy to dally with the doctrine of apostolic succession.\nEverywhere the teacher must fashion his teachings according to the\ncreed and regulations of his school and he must even submit to\nauthority in such matters as text books and pedagogic methods. Again,\nhis very work itself makes him an unconscious partisan of authority, as\nagainst free inquiry. During the majority of his waking hours he is in\nclose association with his pupils, who are admittedly his inferiors,\nand so he rapidly acquires the familiar, self-satisfied professorial\nattitude of mind. Other forces tend to push him in the same direction\nand the net result is that all his mental processes are based upon\nideas of authority. He believes and teaches a thing, not because he is\nconvinced by free reasoning that it is true, but because it is laid\ndown as an axiom in some book or was laid down at some past time, by\nhimself.\n\nIn all this, of course, I am speaking of the teacher properly\nso-called--of the teacher, that is, whose sole aim and function is\nteaching. The university professor whose main purpose in life is\noriginal research and whose pupils are confined to graduate students\nengaged in much the same work, is scarcely a professional teacher, in\nthe customary meaning of the word. The man I have been discussing is he\nwho spends all or the greater part of his time in actual instruction.\nWhether his work be done in a primary school, a secondary school or in\nthe undergraduate department of a college or university does not matter\nIn all that relates to it, he is essentially and almost invariably a\nmere perpetuator of doctrines. In some cases, naturally enough, these\ndoctrines are truths, but in a great many other cases they are errors.\nAn examination of the physiology, history and \"English\" books used in\nthe public schools of America will convince anyone that the latter\nproposition is amply true.\n\nNietzsche's familiarity with these facts is demonstrated by numerous\npassages in his writings. \"Never,\" he says, \"is either real proficiency\nor genuine ability the result of toilsome years at school.\" The study\nof the classics, he says, can never lead to more than a superficial\nacquaintance with them, because the very modes of thought of the\nancients, in many cases, are unintelligible to men of today. But the\nstudent who has acquired what is looked upon in our colleges as a\nmastery of the humanities is acutely conscious of his knowledge, and\nso the things that he cannot understand are ascribed by him to the\ndulness, ignorance or imbecility of the ancient authors. As a result\nhe harbors a sort of sub-conscious contempt for the learning they\nrepresent and concludes that learning cannot make real men happy, but\nis only fit for the futile enthusiasm of \"honest, poor and foolish old\nbook-worms.\"\n\nNietzsche's own notion of an ideal curriculum is substantially that of\nSpencer. He holds that before anything is put forward as a thing worth\nteaching it should be tested by two questions: Is it a fact? and, Is\nthe presentation of it likely to make the pupil measurably more capable\nof discovering other facts? In consequences, he holds the old so-called\n\"liberal\" education in abomination, and argues in favor of a system\nof instruction based upon the inculcation of facts of imminent value\nand designed to instill into the pupil orderly and logical habits of\nmind and a clear and accurate view of the universe. The educated man,\nas he understands the term, is one who is above the mass, both in his\nthirst for knowledge and in his capacity for differentiating between\ntruth and its reverse. It is obvious that a man who has studied biology\nand physics, with their insistent dwelling upon demonstrable facts,\nhas proceeded further in this direction than the man who has studied\nGreek mythology and metaphysics, with their constant trend toward\nunsupported and gratuitous assumption and their essential foundation\nupon undebatable authority.\n\nNietzsche points out, in his early essay upon the study of history,\nthat humanity is much too prone to consider itself historically.\nThat is to say, there is too much tendency to consider man as he\nhas seemed rather than man as he has been--to dwell upon creeds\nand manifestoes rather than upon individual and racial motives,\ncharacters and instincts.[3] The result is that history piles up\nmisleading and useless records and draws erroneous conclusions from\nthem. As a science in itself, it bears but three useful aspects--the\nmonumental, the antiquarian and the critical. Its true monuments are\nnot the constitutions and creeds of the past--for these, as we have\nseen, are always artificial and unnatural--but the great men of the\npast--those fearless free spirits who achieved immortality by their\ncourage and success in pitting their own instincts against the morality\nof the majority. Such men, he says, are the only human beings whose\nexistence is of interest to posterity. \"They live together as timeless\ncontemporaries:\" they are the landmarks along the weary road the human\nrace has traversed. In its antiquarian aspect, history affords us proof\nthat the world is progressing, and so gives the men of the present a\ndefinite purpose and justifiable enthusiasm. In its critical aspect,\nhistory enables us to avoid the delusions of the past, and indicates to\nus the broad lines of evolution. Unless we have in mind some definite\nprogram of advancement, he says, all learning is useless. History,\nwhich merely accumulates records, without \"an ideal of humanistic\nculture\" always in mind, is mere pedantry and scholasticism.\n\nAll education, says Nietzsche, may be regarded as a continuation of\nthe process of breeding.[4] The two have the same object: that of\nproducing beings capable of surviving in the struggle for existence. A\ngreat many critics of Nietzsche have insisted that since the struggle\nfor existence means a purely physical contest, he is in error, for\neducation does not visibly increase a man's chest expansion or his\ncapacity for lifting heavy weights. But it is obvious none the less\nthat a man who sees things as they are, and properly estimates the\nworld about him, is far better fitted to achieve some measure of\nmastery over his environment than the man who is a slave to delusions.\nOf two men, one of whom believes that the moon is made of green cheese\nand that it is possible to cure smallpox by merely denying that it\nexists, and the other of whom harbors no such superstitions, it is\nplain that the latter is more apt to live long and acquire power.\n\nA further purpose of education is that of affording individuals a\nmeans of lifting themselves out of the slave class and into the master\nclass. That this purpose is accomplished--except accidently--by the\nbrand of education ladled out in the colleges of today is far from\ntrue. To transform a slave into a master we must make him intelligent,\nself-reliant, resourceful, independent and courageous. It is evident\nenough, I take it, that a college directed by an ecclesiastic and\nmanned by a faculty of asses--a very fair, and even charitable,\npicture of the average small college in the United States--is not\napt to accomplish this transformation very often. Indeed, it is a\ncommonplace observation that a truly intelligent youth is aided but\nlittle by the average college education, and that a truly stupid one is\nmade, not less, but more stupid. The fact that many graduates of such\ninstitutions exhibit dionysian qualities in later life merely proves\nthat they are strong enough to weather the blight they have suffered.\nEvery sane man knows that, after a youth leaves college, he must devote\nmost of his energies during three or four years, to ridding himself\nof the fallacies, delusions and imbecilities inflicted upon him by\nmessieurs, his professors.\n\nThe intelligent man, in the course of his life, nearly always acquires\na vast store of learning, because his mind is constantly active\nand receptive, but intelligence and mere learning are by no means\nsynonymous, despite the popular notion that they are. Disregarding the\nelement of sheer good luck--which is necessarily a small factor--it is\nevident that the man who, in the struggle for wealth and power, seizes\na million dollars for himself, is appreciably more intelligent than the\nman who starves. That this achievement, which is admittedly difficult,\nrequires more intelligence again, than the achievement of mastering the\nLatin language, which presents so few difficulties that it is possible\nto any healthy human being with sufficient leisure and patience, is\nalso evident. In a word, the illiterate contractor, who says, \"I seen\"\nand \"I done\" and yet manages to build great bridges and to acquire\na great fortune, is immeasurably more vigorous intellectually, and\nimmeasurably more efficient and respectable, as a man, than the college\nprofessor who laughs at him and presumes to look down upon him. A\nman's mental powers are to be judged, not by his ability to accomplish\nthings that are possible to every man foolish enough to attempt them,\nbut by his capacity for doing things beyond the power of other men.\nEducation, as we commonly observe it today, works toward the former,\nrather than toward the latter end.\n\n\n[1] Nietzsche is considering, of course, the condition of affairs\nin Germany, where all teaching is controlled by the state. But his\narguments apply to other countries as well and to teachers of other\nthings besides philosophy.\n\n[2] \"_Schopenhauer als Erzieher_,\" \u00a7 8.\n\n[3] An excellent discussion of this error will be found in Dr. Alex.\nTille's introduction to William Haussmann's translation of \"_Zur\nGenealogie der Moral_,\" pp. xi _et seq._; London, 1907.\n\n[4] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 397.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nSUNDRY IDEAS\n\n\n_Death_.--It is Schopenhauer's argument in his essay \"On Suicide,\"\nthat the possibility of easy and painless self-destruction is the\nonly thing that constantly and considerably ameliorates the horror\nof human life. Suicide is a means of escape from the world and its\ntortures--and therefore it is good. It is an ever-present refuge for\nthe weak, the weary and the hopeless. It is, in Pliny's phrase, \"the\ngreatest of all blessings which Nature gives to man,\" and one which\neven God himself lacks, for \"he could not compass his own death, if\nhe willed to die.\" In all of this exaltation of surrender, of course,\nthere is nothing whatever in common with the dionysian philosophy of\ndefiance. Nietzsche's teaching is all in the other direction. He urges,\nnot surrender, but battle; not flight, but war to the end. His curse\nfalls upon those \"preachers of death\" who counsel \"an abandonment\nof life\"--whether this abandonment be partial, as in asceticism, or\nactual, as in suicide. And yet Zarathustra sings the song of \"free\ndeath\" and says that the higher man must learn \"to die at the right\ntime.\" Herein an inconsistency appears, but it is on the surface only.\nSchopenhauer regards suicide as a means of escape, Nietzsche sees in\nit a means of good riddance. It is time to die, says Zarathustra,\nwhen the purpose of life ceases to be attainable--when the fighter\nbreaks his sword arm or falls into his enemy's hands. And it is time\nto die, too, when the purpose of life is attained--when the fighter\ntriumphs and sees before him no more worlds to conquer. \"He who hath\na goal and an heir wisheth death to come at the right time for goal\nand heir.\" One who has \"waxed too old for victories,\" one who is\n\"yellow and wrinkled,\" one with a \"toothless mouth\"--for such an one\na certain and speedy death. The earth has no room for cumberers and\npensioners. For them the highest of duties is the payment of nature's\ndebt, that there may be more room for those still able to wield a\nsword and bear a burden in the heat of the day. The best death is that\nwhich comes in battle \"at the moment of victory;\" the second best is\ndeath in battle in the hour of defeat. \"Would that a storm came,\"\nsings Zarathustra, \"to shake from the tree of life all those apples\nthat are putrid and gnawed by worms. It is cowardice that maketh them\nstick to their branches\"--cowardice which makes them afraid to die.\nBut there is another cowardice which makes men afraid to live, and\nthis is the cowardice of the Schopenhauerean pessimist. Nietzsche has\nno patience with it. To him a too early death seems as abominable as a\ndeath postponed too long. \"Too early died that Jew whom the preachers\nof slow death revere. Would that he had remained in the desert and far\naway from the good and just! Perhaps he would have learned how to live\nand how to love the earth--and even how to laugh. He died too early. He\nhimself would have revoked his doctrine, had he reached mine age!\"[1]\nTherefore Nietzsche pleads for an intelligent regulation of death. One\nmust not die too soon and one must not die too late. \"Natural death,\"\nhe says, \"is destitute of rationality. It is really _ir_rational death,\nfor the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel\nshall exist. The pining, sottish prison-warder decides the hour at\nwhich his noble prisoner is to die.... The enlightened regulation and\ncontrol of death belongs to the morality of the future. At present\nreligion makes it seem immoral, for religion presupposes that when the\ntime for death comes, God gives the command.\"[2]\n\n_The Attitude at Death._--Nietzsche rejects entirely that pious\nbelief in signs and portents which sees a significance in death-bed\nconfessions and \"dying words.\" The average man, he says, dies pretty\nmuch as he has lived, and in this Dr. Osler[3] and other unusually\ncompetent and accurate observers agree with him. When the dying man\nexhibits unusual emotions or expresses ideas out of tune with his known\ncreed, the explanation is to be found in the fact that, toward the time\nof death the mind commonly gives way and the customary processes of\nthought are disordered. \"The way in which a man thinks of death, in the\nfull bloom of his life and strength, is certainly a good index of his\ngeneral character and habits of mind, but at the hour of death itself\nhis attitude is of little importance or significance. The exhaustion\nof the last hours--especially when an old man is dying--the irregular\nor insufficient nourishment of the brain, the occasional spasms of\nsevere physical pain, the horror and novelty of the whole situation,\nthe atavistic return of early impressions and superstitions, and the\nfeeling that death is a thing unutterably vast and important and that\nbridges of an awful kind are about to be crossed--all of these things\nmake it irrational to accept a man's attitude at death as an indication\nof his character during life. Moreover, it is not true that a dying\nman is more honest than a man in full vigor. On the contrary, almost\nevery dying man is led, by the solemnity of those at his bedside,\nand by their restrained or flowing torrents of tears, to conscious or\nunconscious conceit and make-believe. He becomes, in brief, an actor\nin a comedy.... No doubt the seriousness with which every dying man is\ntreated has given many a poor devil his only moment of real triumph\nand enjoyment. He is, _ipso facto_, the star of the play, and so he is\nindemnified for a life of privation and subservience.\"[4]\n\n_The Origin of Philosophy._--Nietzsche believed that introspection\nand self-analysis, as they were ordinarily manifested, were signs of\ndisease, and that the higher man and superman would waste little time\nupon them. The first thinkers, he said, were necessarily sufferers,\nfor it was only suffering that made a man think and only disability\nthat gave him leisure to do so. \"Under primitive conditions,\" he\nsaid, \"the individual, fully conscious of his power, is ever intent\nupon transforming it into action. Sometimes this action takes the\nform of hunting, robbery, ambuscade, maltreatment or murder, and\nat other times it appears as those feebler imitations of these\nthings which alone are countenanced by the community. But when the\nindividual's power declines--when he feels fatigued, ill, melancholy\nor satiated, and in consequence, temporarily lacks the yearning to\nfunction--he is a comparatively better and less dangerous man.\" That\nis to say, he contents himself with thinking instead of doing, and so\nputs into thought and words \"his impressions and feelings regarding\nhis companions, his wife or his gods.\" Naturally enough, since his\nefficiency is lowered and his mood is gloomy his judgments are evil\nones. He finds fault and ponders revenges. He gloats over enemies or\nenvies his friends. \"In such a state of mind he turns prophet and so\nadds to his store of superstitions or devises new acts of devotion\nor prophesies the downfall of his enemies. Whatever he thinks, his\nthoughts reflect his state of mind: his fear and weariness are more\nthan normal; his tendency to action and enjoyment are less than normal.\nHerein we see the genesis of the poetic, thoughtful, priestly mood.\nEvil thoughts must rule supreme therein.... In later stages of culture,\nthere arose a caste of poets, thinkers, priests and medicine men who\nall acted the same as, in earlier years, individuals used to act in\ntheir comparatively rare hours of illness and depression. These persons\nled sad, inactive lives and judged maliciously.... The masses, perhaps,\nyearned to turn them out of the community, because they were parasites,\nbut in this enterprise there was great risk, because these men were on\nterms of familiarity with the gods and so possessed vast and mysterious\npower. Thus the most ancient philosophers were viewed. The masses\nhearkened unto them in proportion to the amount of dread they inspired.\nIn such a way contemplation made its appearance in the world, with an\nevil heart and a troubled head. It was both weak and terrible, and both\nsecretly abhorred and openly worshipped.... _Pudenda origo!_\"[5]\n\n_Priestcraft._--So long as man feels capable of taking care of himself\nhe has no need of priests to intercede for him with the deity.\nEfficiency is proverbially identified with impiety: it is only when the\ndevil is sick that the devil a monk would be. Therefore \"the priest\nmust be regarded as the saviour, shepherd and advocate of the sick....\nIt is his providence to rule over the sufferers....\" In order that\nhe may understand them and appeal to them he must be sick himself,\nand to attain this end there is the device of asceticism. The purpose\nof asceticism, as we have seen, is to make a man voluntarily destroy\nhis own efficiency. But the priest must have a certain strength,\nnevertheless, for he must inspire both confidence and dread in his\ncharges, and must be able to defend them--against whom? \"Undoubtedly\nagainst the sound and strong.... He must be the natural adversary and\ndespiser of all barbarous, impetuous, unbridled, fierce, violent,\nbeast-of-prey healthiness and power.\"[6] Thus he must fashion himself\ninto a new sort of fighter--\"a new zoological terror, in which the\npolar bear, the nimble and cool tiger and the fox are blended into a\nunity as attractive as it is awe-inspiring.\" He appears in the midst\nof the strong as \"the herald and mouthpiece of mysterious powers, with\nthe determination to sow upon the soil, whenever and wherever possible,\nthe seeds of suffering, dissension and contradiction.... Undoubtedly\nhe brings balms and balsams with him, but he must first inflict the\nwound, before he may act as physician.... It is only the unpleasantness\nof disease that is combated by him--not the cause, not the disease\nitself!\" He dispenses, not specifics, but narcotics. He brings surcease\nfrom sorrow, not by showing men how to attain the happiness of\nefficiency, but by teaching them that their sufferings have been laid\nupon them by a god who will one day repay them with bliss illimitable.\n\n_God._--\"A god who is omniscient and omnipotent and yet neglects\nto make his wishes and intentions certainly known to his\ncreatures--certainly this is not a god of goodness. One who for\nthousands of years has allowed the countless scruples and doubts\nof men to afflict them and yet holds out terrible consequences for\ninvoluntary errors--certainly this is not a god of justice. Is he not\na cruel god if he knows the truth and yet looks down upon millions\nmiserably searching for it? Perhaps he is good, but is unable to\ncommunicate with his creatures more intelligibly. Perhaps he is wanting\nin intelligence--or in eloquence. So much the worse! For, in that\ncase, he may be mistaken in what he calls the truth. He may, indeed,\nbe a brother to the 'poor, duped devils' below him. If so, must he not\nsuffer agonies on seeing his creatures, in their struggle for knowledge\nof him, submit to tortures for all eternity? Must it not strike him\nwith grief to realize that he cannot advise them or help them, except\nby uncertain and ambiguous signs?... All religions bear traces of the\nfact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human\nrace--before it had learned the obligation to speak the truth. Not one\nof them makes it the duty of its god to be truthful and understandable\nin his communications with man.\"[7]\n\n_Self-Control._--Self-control, says Nietzsche, consists merely in\ncombating a given desire with a stronger one. Thus the yearning to\ncommit a murder may be combated and overcome by the yearning to escape\nthe gallows and to retain the name and dignity of a law-abiding\ncitizen. The second yearning is as much unconscious and instinctive\nas the first, and in the battle between them the intellect plays but\na small part. In general there are but six ways in which a given\ncraving may be overcome. First, we may avoid opportunities for its\ngratification and so, by a long disuse, weaken and destroy it.\nSecondly, we may regulate its gratification, and by thus encompassing\nits flux and reflux within fixed limits, gain intervals during which\nit is faint. Thirdly, we may intentionally give ourselves over to it\nand so wear it out by excess--provided we do not act like the rider\nwho lets a runaway horse gallop itself to death and, in so doing,\nbreaks his own neck,--which unluckily is the rule in this method.\nFourthly, by an intellectual trick, we may associate gratification with\nan unpleasant idea, as we have associated sexual gratification, for\nexample, with the idea of indecency. Fifthly, we may find a substitute\nin some other craving that is measurably less dangerous, Sixthly,\nwe may find safety in a general war upon all cravings, good and bad\nalike, after the manner of the ascetic, who, in seeking to destroy his\nsensuality, at the same time destroys his physical strength, his reason\nand, not infrequently, his life.\n\n_The Beautiful._--Man's notion of beauty is the fruit of his delight\nin his own continued existence. Whatever makes this existence easy,\nor is associated, in any manner, with life or vigor, seems to him to\nbe beautiful. \"Man mirrors himself in things. He counts everything\nbeautiful which reflects his likeness. The word 'beautiful' represents\nthe conceit of his species.... Nothing is truly ugly except the\ndegenerating man. But other things are called ugly, too, when they\nhappen to weaken or trouble man. They remind him of impotence,\ndeterioration and danger: in their presence he actually suffers a\nloss of power. Therefore he calls them ugly. Whenever man is at all\ndepressed he has an intuition of the proximity of something 'ugly.'\nHis sense of power, his will to power, his feeling of pride and\nefficiency--all sink with the ugly and rise with the beautiful.\nThe ugly is instinctively understood to be a sign and symptom of\ndegeneration. That which reminds one, in the remotest degree, of\ndegeneracy seems ugly. Every indication of exhaustion, heaviness,\nage, or lassitude, every constraint--such as cramp or paralysis--and\nabove all, every odor, color or counterfeit of decomposition--though\nit may be no more than a far-fetched symbol--calls forth the idea of\nugliness. Aversion is thereby excited--man's aversion to the decline\nof his type.\"[8] The phrase \"art for art's sake\" voices a protest\nagainst subordinating art to morality--that is, against making it a\ndevice for preaching sermons--but as a matter of fact, all art must\npraise and glorify and so must lay down values. It is the function of\nthe artist, indeed, to select, to choose, to bring into prominence. The\nvery fact that he is able to do this makes us call him an artist. And\nwhen do we approve his choice? Only when it agrees with our fundamental\ninstinct--only when it exhibits \"the desirableness of life.\" \"Therefore\nart is the great stimulus to life. We cannot conceive it as being\npurposeless or aimless. 'Art for art's sake' is a phrase without\nmeaning.\"[9]\n\n_Liberty._--The worth of a thing often lies, not in what one attains by\nit, but in the difficulty one experiences in getting it. The struggle\nfor political liberty, for example, has done more than any other one\nthing to develop strength, courage and resourcefulness in the human\nrace, and yet liberty itself, as we know it today, is nothing more or\nless than organized morality, and as such, is necessarily degrading and\ndegenerating. \"It undermines the will to power, it levels the racial\nmountains and valleys, it makes man small, cowardly and voluptuous.\nUnder political liberty the herd-animal always triumphs.\" But the very\nfight to attain this burdensome equality develops the self-reliance\nand unconformity which stand opposed to it, and these qualities often\npersist. Warfare, in brief, makes men fit for real, as opposed to\npolitical freedom. \"And what is freedom? The will to be responsible for\none's self. The will to keep that distance which separates man from\nman. The will to become indifferent to hardship, severity, privation\nand even to life. The will to sacrifice men to one's cause and to\nsacrifice one's self, too.... The man who is truly free tramples under\nfoot the contemptible species of well-being dreamt of by shop-keepers,\nChristians, cows, women, Englishmen and other democrats. The free man\nis a warrior.... How is freedom to be measured? By the resistance\nit has to overcome--by the effort required to maintain it. We must\nseek the highest type of freemen where the highest resistance must be\nconstantly overcome: five paces from tyranny, close to the threshold of\nthraldom.... Those peoples who were worth something, who became worth\nsomething, never acquired their greatness under political liberty.\nGreat danger made something of them--danger of that sort which first\nteaches us to know our resources, our virtues, our shields and swords,\nour genius--which compels us to be strong.\"[10]\n\n_Science_--The object of all science is to keep us from drawing wrong\ninferences--from jumping to conclusions. Thus it stands utterly opposed\nto all faith and is essentially iconoclastic and skeptical. \"The\nwonderful in science is the reverse of the wonderful in juggling. The\njuggler tries to make us see a very simple relation between things\nwhich, in point of fact, have no relation at all. The scientist, on\nthe contrary, compels us to abandon our belief in simple casualities\nand to see the enormous complexity of phenomena. The simplest things,\nindeed, are extremely complex--a fact which will never cease to make us\nwonder.\" The effect of science is to show the absurdity of attempting\nto reach perfect happiness and the impossibility of experiencing utter\nwoe. \"The gulf between the highest pitch of happiness and the lowest\ndepth of misery has been created by imaginary things.\"[11] That is to\nsay, the heights of religious exaltation and the depths of religious\nfear and trembling are alike creatures of our own myth-making. There\nis no such thing as perfect and infinite bliss in heaven and there\nis no such thing as eternal damnation in hell. Hereafter our highest\nhappiness must be less than that of the martyrs who saw the heavenly\ngates opening for them, and our worst woe must be less than that of\nthose medieval sinners who died shrieking and trembling and with the\nscent of brimstone in their noses. \"This space is being reduced further\nand further by science, just as through science we have learned to make\nthe earth occupy less and less space in the universe, until it now\nseems infinitely small and our whole solar system appears as a mere\npoint.\"[12]\n\n_The Jews._--For the Jewish slave-morality which prevails in the\nwestern world today, under the label of Christianity, Nietzsche had,\nas we know, the most violent aversion and contempt, but he saw very\nclearly that this same morality admirably served and fitted the Jews\nthemselves; that it had preserved them through long ages and against\npowerful enemies, and that its very persistence proved alike its own\ningenuity and the vitality of its inventors as a race. \"The Jews,\" said\nNietzsche, \"will either become the masters of Europe or lose Europe,\nas they once lost Egypt, And it seems to be improbable that they\nwill lose again. In Europe, for eighteen centuries; they have passed\nthrough a school more terrible than that known to any other nation,\nand the experiences of this time of stress and storm have benefited\nthe individual even more than the community. In consequence, the\nresourcefulness and alertness of the modern Jew are extraordinary....\nIn times of extremity, the people of Israel less often sought refuge\nin drink or suicide than any other race of Europe. Today, every Jew\nfinds in the history of his forebears a voluminous record of coolness\nand perseverance in terrible predicaments--of artful cunning and clever\nfencing with chance and misfortune. The Jews have hid their bravery\nunder the cloak of submissiveness; their heroism in facing contempt\nsurpasses that of the saints. People tried to make them contemptible\nfor twenty centuries by refusing them all honors and dignities and\nby pushing them down into the mean trades. The process did not make\nthem cleaner, alas! but neither did it make them contemptible. They\nhave never ceased to believe themselves qualified for the highest\nof activities. They have never failed to show the virtues of all\nsuffering peoples. Their manner of honoring their parents and their\nchildren and the reasonableness of their marriage customs make them\nconspicuous among Europeans. Besides, they have learned how to derive\na sense of power from the very trades forced upon them. We cannot help\nobserving, in excuse for their usury, that without this pleasant means\nof inflicting torture upon their oppressors, they might have lost their\nself-respect ages ago, for self-respect depends upon being able to\nmake reprisals. Moreover, their vengeance has never carried them too\nfar, for they have that liberality which comes from frequent changes\nof place, climate, customs and neighbors. They have more experience\nof men than any other race and even in their passions there appears\na caution born of this experience. They are so sure of themselves\nthat, even in their bitterest straits, they never earn their bread by\nmanual labor as common workmen, porters or peasants.... Their manners,\nit may be admitted, teach us that they have never been inspired by\nchivalrous, noble feelings, nor their bodies girt with beautiful arms:\na certain vulgarity always alternates with their submissiveness. But\nnow they are intermarrying with the gentlest blood of Europe, and\nin another hundred years they will have enough good manners to save\nthem from making themselves ridiculous, as masters, in the sight of\nthose they have subdued.\" It was Nietzsche's belief that the Jews\nwould take the lead before long, in the intellectual progress of the\nworld. He thought that their training, as a race, fitted them for this\nleadership. \"Where,\" he asked, \"shall the accumulated wealth of great\nimpressions which forms the history of every Jewish family--that great\nwealth of passions, virtues, resolutions, resignations, struggles and\nvictories of all sorts--where shall it find an outlet, if not in great\nintellectual functioning?\" The Jews, he thought, would be safe guides\nfor mankind, once they were set free from their slave-morality and all\nneed of it. \"Then again,\" he said, \"the old God of the Jews may rejoice\nin Himself, in His creation and in His chosen people--and all of us\nwill rejoice with Him.\"[13]\n\n_The Gentleman._--A million sages and diagnosticians, in all ages of\nthe world, have sought to define the gentleman, and their definitions\nhave been as varied as their own minds. Nietzsche's definition is based\nupon the obvious fact that the gentleman is ever a man of more than\naverage influence and power, and the further fact that this superiority\nis admitted by all. The vulgarian may boast of his bluff honesty, but\nat heart he looks up to the gentleman, who goes through life serene and\nimperturbable. There is in the flatter, in truth, an unmistakable air\nof fitness and efficiency, and it is this which makes it possible for\nhim to be gentle and to regard those below him with tolerance. \"The\ndemeanor of high-born persons,\" says Nietzsche, \"shows plainly that\nin their minds the consciousness of power is ever-present. Above all\nthings, they strive to avoid a show of weakness, whether it takes the\nform of inefficiency or of a too-easy yielding to passion or emotion.\nThey never sink exhausted into a chair. On the train, when the vulgar\ntry to make themselves comfortable, these higher folk avoid reclining.\nThey do not seem to get tired after hours of standing at court. They\ndo not furnish their houses in a comfortable, but in a spacious and\ndignified manner, as if they were the abodes of a greater and taller\nrace of beings. To a provoking speech, they reply with politeness and\nself-possession--and not as if horrified, crushed, abashed, enraged or\nout of breath, after the manner of plebeians. The aristocrat knows how\nto preserve the appearance of ever-present physical strength, and he\nknows, too, how to convey the impression that his soul and intellect\nare a match to all dangers and surprises, by keeping up an unchanging\nserenity and civility, even under the most trying circumstances.\"[14]\n\n_Dreams._--Dreams are symptoms of the eternal law of compensation. In\nour waking hours we develop a countless horde of yearnings, cravings\nand desires, and by the very nature of things, the majority of them\nmust go ungratified. The feeling that something is wanting, thus left\nwithin us, is met and satisfied by our imaginary functionings during\nsleep. That is to say, dreams represent the reaction of our yearnings\nupon the phenomena actually encountered during sleep--the motions of\nour blood and intestines, the pressure of the bedclothes, the sounds of\nchurch-bells, domestic animals, etc., and the state of the atmosphere.\nThese phenomena are fairly constant, but our dreams vary widely on\nsuccessive nights. Therefore, the variable factor is represented by the\nyearnings we harbor as we go to bed. Thus, the man who loves music and\nmust go without it all day, hears celestial harmonies in his sleep.\nThus the slave dreams of soaring like an eagle. Thus the prisoner\ndreams that he is free and the sailor that he is safely at home.\nInasmuch as the number of our conscious and unconscious desires, each\nday, is infinite, there is an infinite variety in dreams. But always\nthe relation set forth may be predicated.\n\n\n[1] \"_Also sprach Zarathustra_,\" I.\n\n[2] \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" III, \u00a7 185.\n\n[3] \"_Science and Immortality_,\" New York, 1904.\n\n[4] \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_,\" II, \u00a7 88.\n\n[5] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 42.\n\n[6] \"_Zur Genealogie der Moral_,\" III, 11 to 17.\n\n[7] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 91.\n\n[8] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" IX, \u00a7 19.\n\n[9] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" IX, \u00a7 24.\n\n[10] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" IX, \u00a7 38.\n\n[11] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 6.\n\n[12] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 7.\n\n[13] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 205.\n\n[14] \"_Morgenr\u00f6te_,\" \u00a7 201.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nNIETZSCHE VS. WAGNER\n\n\nNietzsche believed in heroes and, in his youth, was a hero worshipper.\nFirst Arthur Schopenhauer's bespectacled visage stared from his shrine\nand after that the place of sacredness and honor was held by Richard\nWagner. When the Wagner of the philosopher's dreams turned into a\nWagner of very prosaic flesh and blood, there came a time of doubt and\nstress and suffering for poor Nietzsche. But he had courage as well as\nloyalty, and in the end he dashed his idol to pieces and crunched the\nbits underfoot. Faith, doubt, anguish, disillusion--it is not a rare\nsequence in this pitiless and weary old world.\n\nThose sapient critics who hold that Nietzsche discredited his own\nphilosophy by constantly writing against himself, find their chief\nammunition in his attitude toward the composer of \"_Tristan und\nIsolde_\" In the decade from 1869 to 1878 the philosopher was the king\nof German Wagnerians. In the decade from 1879 to 1889, he was the most\nbitter, the most violent, the most resourceful and the most effective\nof Wagner's enemies. On their face these things seem to indicate a\ncomplete change of front and a careful examination bears out the\nthought. But the same careful examination reveals another fact: that\nthe change of front was made, not by Nietzsche, but by Wagner.\n\nAs we have seen, the philosopher was an ardent musician from\nboyhood and so it was not unnatural that he should be among the\nfirst to recognize Wagner's genius. The sheer musicianship of the\nman overwhelmed him and he tells us that from the moment the piano\ntranscription of \"_Tristan und Isolde_\" was printed he was a Wagnerian.\nThe music was bold and daring: it struck out into regions that the\n_s\u00fcsslich_ sentimentality of Donizetti and Bellini and the pallid\nclassicism of Beethoven and Bach had never even approached. In Wagner\nNietzsche saw a man of colossal originality and sublime courage, who\nthought for himself and had skill at making his ideas comprehensible\nto others. The opera of the past had been a mere _potpourri_ of songs,\nstrung together upon a filament of banal recitative. The opera of\nWagner was a symmetrical and homogeneous whole, in which the music was\nunthinkable without the poetry and the poetry impossible without the\nmusic.\n\nNietzsche, at the time, was saturated with Schopenhauer's brand of\nindividualism, and intensely eager to apply it to realities. In Wagner\nhe saw a living, breathing individualist--a man who scorned the laws\nand customs of his craft and dared to work out his own salvation in\nhis own way. And when fate made it possible for him to meet Wagner,\nhe found the composer preaching as well as practising individualism.\nIn a word, Wagner was well nigh as enthusiastic a Schopenhauerean as\nNietzsche himself. His individualism almost touched the boundary of\nanarchy. He had invented a new art of music and he was engaged in the\nexciting task of smashing the old one to make room for it.\n\nNietzsche met Wagner in Leipsic and was invited to visit the composer\nat his home near Tribschen, a suburb of Lucerne. He accepted, and\non May 15, 1869, got his first glimpse of that queer household in\nwhich the erratic Richard, the ingenious Cosima and little Siegfried\nlived and had their being. When he moved to Basel, he was not far\nfrom Tribschen and so he fell into the habit of going there often\nand staying long. He came, indeed, to occupy the position of an\nadopted son, and spent the Christmas of 1869 and that of 1870 under\nthe Wagner rooftree. This last fact alone is sufficient to show the\nintimate footing upon which he stood. Christmas, among the Germans,\nis essentially a family festival and mere friends are seldom asked to\nshare its joys.\n\nNietzsche and Wagner had long and riotous disputations at Tribschen,\nbut in all things fundamental they agreed. Together they accepted\nSchopenhauer's data and together they began to diverge from his\nconclusions. Nietzsche saw in Wagner that old dionysian spirit\nwhich had saved Greek art. The music of the day was colorless and\ncoldblooded. A too rigid formalism stood in the way of all expression\nof actual life. Wagner proposed to batter this formalism to pieces and\nNietzsche was his prophet and _claque_.\n\nIt was this enthusiasm, indeed, which determined the plan of \"_Die\nGeburt der Trag\u00f6die_\". Nietzsche had conceived it as a mere treatise\nupon the philosophy of the Greek drama. His ardor as an apostle,\nhis yearning to convert the stolid Germans, his wild desire to do\nsomething practical and effective for Wagner, made him turn it into a\ngospel of the new art. To him Wagner was Dionysus, and the whole of\nhis argument against Apollo was nothing more than an argument against\nclassicism and for the Wagnerian romanticism. It was a bomb-shell and\nits explosion made Germany stare, but another--perhaps many more--were\nneeded to shake the foundations of philistinism. Nietzsche loaded the\nnext one carefully and hurled it at him who stood at the very head of\nthat self-satisfied conservatism which lay upon all Germany. This\nman was David Strauss. Strauss was the prophet of the good-enough. He\ntaught that German art was sound, that German culture was perfect.\nNietzsche saw in him the foe of Dionysus and made an example of him.\nIn every word of that scintillating philippic there was a plea for the\nindependence and individualism and outlawry that the philosopher saw in\nWagner.[1]\n\nUnluckily the disciple here ran ahead of the master and before long\nNietzsche began to realize that he and Wagner were drifting apart.\nSo long as they met upon the safe ground of Schopenhauer's data, the\ntwo agreed, but after Nietzsche began to work out his inevitable\nconclusions, Wagner abandoned him. To put it plainly, Wagner was the\nartist before he was the philosopher, and when philosophy began to\ngrow ugly he turned from it without regret or qualm of conscience.\nTheoretically, he saw things as Nietzsche saw them, but as an artist he\ncould not afford to be too literal. It was true enough, perhaps, that\nself-sacrifice was a medieval superstition, but all the same it made\neffective heroes on the stage.\n\nNietzsche was utterly unable, throughout his life, to acknowledge\nanything but hypocrisy or ignorance in those who descended to such\ncompromises. When he wrote \"_Richard Wagner in Bayreuth_\" he was\nalready the prey of doubts, but it is probable that he still saw the\n\"ifs\" and \"buts\" in Wagner's individualism but dimly. He could not\nrealize, in brief, that a composer who fought beneath the banner of\ntruth, against custom and convention, could ever turn aside from\nthe battle. Wagner agreed with Nietzsche, perhaps, that European\ncivilization and its child, the European art of the day, were founded\nupon lies, but he was artist enough to see that, without these lies,\nit would be impossible to make art understandable to the public. So in\nhis librettos he employed all of the old fallacies--that love has the\nsupernatural power of making a bad man good, that one man may save the\nsoul of another, that humility is a virtue.[2]\n\nIt is obvious from this, that the apostate was not Nietzsche, but\nWagner. Nietzsche started out in life as a seeker after truth, and\nhe sought the truth his whole life long, without regarding for an\ninstant the risks and dangers and consequences of the quest. Wagner,\nso long as it remained a mere matter of philosophical disputation,\nwas equally radical and courageous, but he saw very clearly that it\nwas necessary to compromise with tradition in his operas. He was an\natheist and a mocker of the gods, but the mystery and beauty of the\nRoman Catholic ritual appealed to his artistic sense, and so, instead\nof penning an opera in which the hero spouted aphorisms by Huxley,\nhe wrote \"_Parsifal_\" And in the same way, in his other music dramas,\nhe made artistic use of all the ancient fallacies and devices in\nthe lumber room of chivalry. He was, indeed, a philosopher in his\nhours of leisure only. When he was at work over his music paper, he\nsaw that St. Ignatius was a far more effective and appealing figure\nthan Herbert Spencer and that the conventional notion that marriage\nwas a union of two immortal souls was far more picturesque than the\nSchopenhauer-Nietzschean idea that it was a mere symptom of the primary\nwill to live.\n\nIn 1876 Nietzsche began to realize that he had left Wagner far behind\nand that thereafter he could expect no support from the composer. They\nhad not met since 1874, but Nietzsche went to Bayreuth for the first\nopera season. A single conversation convinced him that his doubts were\nwell-founded--that Wagner was a mere dionysian of the chair and had\nno intention of pushing the ideas they had discussed to their bitter\nand revolutionary conclusion. Most other men would have seen in this\nnothing more than an evidence of a common-sense decision to sacrifice\nthe whole truth for half the truth, but Nietzsche was a rabid hater of\ncompromise. To make terms with the philistines seemed to him to be even\nworse than joining their ranks. He saw in Wagner only a traitor who\nknew the truth and yet denied it.\n\nNietzsche was so much disgusted that he left Bayreuth and set out upon\na walking tour, but before the end of the season he returned and heard\nsome of the operas. But he was no longer a Wagnerian and the music of\nthe \"Ring\" did not delight him. It was impossible, indeed, for him\nto separate the music from the philosophy set forth in the librettos.\nHe believed, with Wagner, that the two were indissolubly welded, and\nso, after awhile, he came to condemn the whole fabric--harmonies and\nmelodies as well as heroes and dramatic situations.\n\nWhen Wagner passed out of his life Nietzsche sought to cure his\nloneliness by hard work and \"_Menschliches allzu Menschliches_\" was the\nresult. He sent a copy of the first volume to Wagner and on the way it\ncrossed a copy of \"_Parsifal_.\" In this circumstance is well exhibited\nthe width of the breach between the two men. To Wagner \"_Menschliches\nallzu Menschliches_\" seemed impossibly and insanely radical; to\nNietzsche \"_Parsifal_\", with all its exaltation of ritualism, was\nunspeakable. Neither deigned to write to the other, but we have it from\nreliable testimony that Wagner was disgusted and Nietzsche's sister\ntells us how much the music-drama of the grail enraged him.\n\nA German, when indignation seizes him, rises straightway to make a loud\nand vociferous protest. And so, although Nietzsche retained, to the end\nof his life, a pleasant memory of the happy days he spent at Tribschen\nand almost his last words voiced his loyal love for Wagner the man,\nhe conceived it to be his sacred duty to combat what he regarded as\nthe treason of Wagner the philosopher. This notion was doubtlessly\nstrengthened by his belief that he himself had done much to launch\nWagner's bark. He had praised, and now it was his duty to blame. He had\nbeen enthusiastic at the first task, and he determined to be pitiless\nat the second.\n\nBut he hesitated for ten years, because, as has been said, he could not\nkill his affection for Wagner, the man. It takes courage to wound one's\nnearest and dearest, and Nietzsche, for all his lack of sentiment, was\nstill no more than human. In the end, however, he brought himself to\nthe heroic surgery that confronted him, and the result was \"_Der Fall\nWagner_\". In this book all friendship and pleasant memories were put\naside. Wagner was his friend of old? Very well: that was a reason for\nhim to be all the more exact and all the more unpitying.\n\n\"What does a philosopher firstly and lastly require of himself?\" he\nasks. \"To overcome his age in himself; to become timeless! With what,\nthen, has he to fight his hardest fight? With those characteristics and\nideas which most plainly stamp him as the child of his age.\" Herein we\nperceive Nietzsche's fundamental error. Deceived by Wagner's enthusiasm\nfor Schopenhauer and his early, amateurish dabbling in philosophy, he\nregarded; the composer as a philosopher. But Wagner, of course, was\nfirst of all an artist, and it is the function of an artist, not to\nreform humanity, but to depict it as he sees it, or as his age sees\nit--fallacies, delusions and all. George Bernard Shaw, in his famous\ncriticism of Shakespeare, shows us how the Bard of Avon made just such\na compromise with the prevailing opinion of his time. Shakespeare,\nhe says, was too intelligent a man to regard Rosalind as a plausible\nwoman, but the theatre-goers of his day so regarded her and he drew\nher to their taste.[3] An artist who failed to make such a concession\nto convention would be an artist without an audience. Wagner was no\nChristian, but he knew that the quest of the holy grail was an idea\nwhich made a powerful appeal to nine-tenths of civilized humanity,\nand so he turned it into a drama. This was not conscious lack of\nsincerity, but merely a manifestation of the sub-conscious artistic\nfeeling for effectiveness.[4]\n\nTherefore, it is plain that Nietzsche's whole case against Wagner is\nbased upon a fallacy and that, in consequence, it is not to be taken\ntoo seriously. It is true enough that his book contains some remarkably\nacute and searching observations upon art, and that, granting his\npremises, his general conclusions would be correct, but we are by no\nmeans granting his premises. Wagner may have been a traitor to his\nphilosophy, but if he had remained loyal to it, his art would have been\nimpossible. And in view of the sublime beauty of that art we may well\npardon him for not keeping the faith.\n\n\"_Der Fall Wagner_\" caused a horde of stupid critics to maintain\nthat Nietzsche, and not Wagner, was the apostate, and that the mad\nphilosopher had begun to argue against himself. As an answer to this\nridiculous charge, Nietzsche published a little book called \"_Nietzsche\ncontra Wagner_.\" It was made up entirely of passages from his earlier\nbooks and these proved conclusively that, ever since his initial\ndivergence from Schopenhauer's conclusions, he had hoed a straight\nrow. He was a dionysian in \"_Die Geburt der Trag\u00f6die_\" and he was a\ndionysian still in \"_Also Sprach Zarathustra._\"\n\n\n[1] That Wagner gave Nietzsche good reason to credit him with these\nqualities is amply proved. \"I have never read anything better than your\nbook,\" wrote the composer in 1872. \"It is masterly.\" And Frau Cosima\nand Liszt, who were certainly familiar with Wagner's ideas, supported\nNietzsche's assumption, too. \"Oh, how fine is your book,\" wrote the\nformer, \"how fine and how deep--how deep and how keen!\" Liszt sent from\nPrague (Feb. 29, 1872) a pompous, patronizing letter. \"I have read your\nbook twice,\" he said. In all of this correspondence there is no hint\nthat Nietzsche had misunderstood Wagner's position or had laid down any\npropositions from which the composer dissented.\n\n[2] There is an interesting discussion of this in James Huneker's book,\n\"Mezzotints in Modern Music,\" page 285 _et. seq._, New York, 1899.\n\n[3] See \"George Bernard Shaw: His Plays;\" page 102 _et seq._, Boston,\n1905.\n\n[4] \"Wagner's creative instinct gave the lie to his theoretical\nsystem:\" R. A. Streatfield, \"Modern Music and Musicians,\" p. 272; New\nYork, 1906.\n\n\n\n\nNIETZSCHE THE PROPHET\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nNIETZSCHE'S ORIGINS\n\n\nThe construction of philosophical family trees for Nietzsche has ever\nbeen one of the favorite pastimes of his critics and interpreters.\nThus Dr. Oscar Levy, editor of the English translation of his works,\nmakes him the heir of Goethe and Stendhal, and the culminating figure\nof the \"Second Renaissance\" launched by the latter, who was \"the\nfirst man to cry halt to the Kantian philosophy which had flooded\nall Europe.\"[1] Dr. M. A. M\u00fcgge agrees with this genealogy so far\nas it goes, but points out that Nietzsche was also the intellectual\ndescendant of certain pre-Socratic Greeks, particularly Heracleitus,\nand of Spinoza and Stirner.[2] Alfred Fouill\u00e9e, the Frenchman, is\nanother who gives him Greek blood, but in seeking his later forebears\nFouill\u00e9e passes over the four named by Levy and M\u00fcgge and puts Hobbes,\nSchopenhauer, Darwin, Rousseau and Diderot in place of them.[3] Again,\nThomas Common says that \"perhaps Nietzsche is most indebted to Chamfort\nand Schopenhauer,\" but also allows a considerable influence to Hobbes,\nand endeavors to show how Nietzsche carried on, consciously and\nunconsciously, certain ideas originating with Darwin and developed by\nHuxley, Spencer and the other evolutionists.[4] Dr. Alexander Tille has\nwritten a whole volume upon this latter relationship.[5] Finally, Paul\nElmer More, the American, taking the cue from Fouill\u00e9e, finds the germs\nof many of Nietzsche's doctrines in Hobbes, and then proceeds to a\nsomewhat elaborate discussion of the mutations of ethical theory during\nthe past two centuries, showing how Hume superimposed the idea of\nsympathy as a motive upon Hobbes' idea of self-interest, and how this\nsympathy theory prevailed over that of self-interest, and degenerated\ninto sentimentalism, and so opened the way for Socialism and other such\ndelusions, and how Nietzsche instituted a sort of Hobbesian revival.[6]\nMany more speculations of that sort, some of them very ingenious and\nsome merely ingenuous, might be rehearsed. By one critic or another\nNietzsche has been accused of more or less frank borrowings from\nXenophanes, Democritus, Pythagoras, Callicles, Parmenides, Arcelaus,\nEmpedocles, Pyrrho, Hegesippus, the Eleatic Zeno, Machiavelli, Comte,\nMontaigne, Mandeville, La Bruy\u00e8re, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Kant, La\nRochefoucauld, Helv\u00e9tius, Adam Smith, Malthus, Butler, Blake, Proudhon,\nPaul R\u00e9e, Flaubert, Taine, Gobineau, Renan, and even from Karl\nMarx!--a long catalogue of meaningless names, an exhaustive roster\nof pathfinders and protestants. A Frenchman, Jules de Gaultier, has\ndevoted a whole book to the fascinating subject.[7]\n\nBut if we turn from this laborious and often irrelevant search for\ncommon ideas and parallel passages to the actual facts of Nietzsche's\nintellectual development, we shall find, perhaps, that his ancestry\nran in two streams, the one coming down from the Greeks whom he\nstudied as school-boy and undergraduate, and the other having its\nsource in Schopenhauer, the great discovery of his early manhood and\nthe most powerful single influence of his life. No need to argue the\nessentially Greek color of Nietzsche's apprentice thinking. It was,\nindeed, his interest in Greek literature and life that made him a\nphilologist by profession, and the same interest that converted him\nfrom a philologist into a philosopher. The foundation of his system\nwas laid when he arrived at his conception of the conflict between\nthe Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, and all that followed belonged\nnaturally to the working out of that idea. But what he got from the\nGreeks of his early adoration was more than a single idea and more\nthan the body of miscellaneous ideas listed by the commentators: it\nwas the Greek outlook, the Greek spirit, the Greek attitude toward God\nand man. In brief, he ceased to be a German pastor's son, brought up\nin the fear of the Lord, and became a citizen of those gorgeous and\nenchanted isles, much as Shelley had before him. The sentimentality of\nChristianity dropped from him like an old garment; he stood forth, as\nit were, bare and unashamed, a pagan in the springtime of the world, a\n_ja-sager_. More than the reading of books, of course, was needed to\nwork that transformation--the blood that leaped had to be blood capable\nof leaping--but it was out of books that the stimulus came, and the\nfeeling of surety, and the beginnings of a workable philosophy of life.\nIt is not a German that speaks in \"The Antichrist,\" nor even the Polish\nnoble that Nietzsche liked to think himself, but a Greek of the brave\ndays before Socrates, a spokesman of Hellenic innocence and youth.\n\nNo doubt it was the unmistakably Greek note in Schopenhauer--the\ndelivery of instinct, so long condemned to the ethical dungeons--that\nengendered Nietzsche's first wild enthusiasm for the Frankfort sage.\nThe atmosphere of Leipsic in 1865 was heavy with moral vapors, and the\ndaring dissent of Schopenhauer must have seemed to blow through it like\na sharp wind from the sea. And Nietzsche, being young and passionate,\nwas carried away by the ecstasy of discovery, and so accepted the whole\nSchopenhauerean philosophy without examining it too critically--the\nbitter with the sweet, its pessimism no less than its rebellion. He,\ntoo, had to go through the green-sickness of youth, particularly of\nGerman youth. The Greek was yet but half way from Naumburg to Attica,\nand he now stopped a moment to look backward. \"Every line,\" he tells us\nsomewhere, \"cried out renunciation, denial, resignation.... Evidences\nof this sudden change are still to be found in the restless melancholy\nof the leaves of my diary at that period, with all their useless\nself-reproach and their desperate gazing upward for recovery and for\nthe transformation of the whole spirit of mankind. By drawing all my\nqualities and my aspirations before the forum of gloomy self-contempt\nI became bitter, unjust and unbridled in my hatred of myself. I even\npractised bodily penance. For instance, I forced myself for a fortnight\nat a stretch to go to bed at two o'clock in the morning and to rise\npunctually at six.\" But not for long. The fortnight of self-accusing\nand hair-shirts was soon over. The green-sickness vanished.[8] The\nGreek emerged anew, more Hellenic than ever. And so, almost from the\nstart, Nietzsche rejected quite as much of Schopenhauer as he accepted.\nThe Schopenhauerean premise entered into his system--the will to live\nwas destined to become the father, in a few years, of the will to\npower--but the Schopenhauerean conclusion held him no longer than it\ntook him to inspect it calmly. Thus he gained doubly--first, by the\nacquisition of a definite theory of human conduct, one giving clarity\nto his own vague feelings, and secondly, by the reaction against an\nabject theory of human destiny, the very antithesis of that which rose\nwithin him.\n\nAnd yet, for all his dissent, for all his instinctive revolt against\nthe resignationism which overwhelmed him for an hour, Nietzsche\nnevertheless carried away with him, and kept throughout his life, some\ntouch of Schopenhauer's distrust of the search for happiness. Nine\nyears after his great discovery we find him quoting and approving his\nteacher's words: \"A happy life is impossible; the highest thing that\nman can aspire to is a _heroic_ life.\" And still later we find him\nthundering against \"the green-grazing happiness of the herd.\" What is\nmore, he gave his assent later on, though always more by fascination\nthan by conviction, to the doctrine of eternal recurrence, the most\nhopeless idea, perhaps, ever formulated by man. But in all this a\ncertain distinction is to be noted: Schopenhauer, despairing of the\nhappy life, renounced even the heroic life, but Nietzsche never did\nanything of the sort. On the contrary, his whole philosophy is a\nprotest against that very despair. The heroic life may not bring\nhappiness, and it may even fail to bring good, but at all events it\nwill shine gloriously in the light of its own heroism. In brief,\nhigh endeavor is an end in itself--nay, the noblest of all ends. The\nhigher man does not work for a wage, not even for the wage of bliss:\nhis reward is in the struggle, the danger, the aspiration. As for the\nhappiness born of peace and love, of prosperity and tranquillity, that\nis for \"shopkeepers, women, Englishmen and cows.\" The man who seeks\nit thereby confesses his incapacity for the loftier joys and hazards\nof the free spirit, and the man who wails because he cannot find it\nthereby confesses his unfitness to live in the world. \"My formula for\ngreatness,\" said Nietzsche toward the end of his life, \"is _amor fati_\n... not only to bear up under necessity, but to _love_ it.\" Thus,\nborrowing Schopenhauer's pessimism, he turned it, in the end, into a\ndefiant and irreconcilable optimism--not the slave optimism of hope,\nwith its vain courting of gods, but the master optimism of courage.\n\nSo much for the larger of the direct influences upon Nietzsche's\nthinking. Scarcely less was the influence of that great revolution in\nman's view of man, that genuine \"transvaluation of all values,\" set in\nmotion by the publication of Charles Darwin's \"The Origin of Species,\"\nin 1859. In the chapter on Christianity I have sketched briefly the\npart that Nietzsche played in the matter, and have shown how it rested\nsquarely upon the parts played by those who went before him. He himself\nwas fond of attacking Darwin, whom he disliked as he disliked all\nEnglishmen, and of denying that he had gotten anything of value out\nof Darwin's work, but it is not well to take such denunciations and\ndenials too seriously. Like Ibsen, Nietzsche was often an unreliable\nwitness as to his own intellectual obligations. So long as he dealt\nwith ideas his thinking was frank and clear, but when he turned to the\nhuman beings behind them, and particularly when he discussed those who\nhad presumed to approach the problems he undertook to solve himself,\nhis incredible intolerance, jealousy, spitefulness and egomania, and\nhis savage lust for bitter, useless and unmerciful strife, combined\nto make his statements dubious, and sometimes even absurd. Thus with\nhis sneers at Darwin and the other evolutionists, especially Spencer.\nIf he did not actually follow them, then he at least walked side by\nside with them, and every time they cleared another bit of the path he\nprofited by it too. One thing, at all events, they gave to the world\nthat entered into Nietzsche's final philosophy, and without which it\nwould have stopped short of its ultimate development, and that was the\nconception of man as a mammal. Their great service to human knowledge\nwas precisely this. They found man a loiterer at the gates of heaven, a\ncourtier in the ante-chambers of gods. They brought him back to earth\nand bade him help himself.\n\nMeanwhile, the reader who cares to go into the matter further will\nfind Nietzsche elbowing other sages in a multitude of places. He\nhimself has testified to his debt to Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), that\ngreat apologist for Napoleon Bonaparte and exponent of the Napoleonic\nphilosophy. \"Stendhal,\" he says, \"was one of the happiest accidents of\nmy life.... He is quite priceless, with his penetrating psychologist's\neye and his grip upon facts, recalling that of the greatest of all\nmasters of facts (_ex ungue Napoleon_--); and last, but not least,\nas an _honest_ atheist--one of a species rare and hard to find in\nFrance.... Maybe I myself am jealous of Stendhal? He took from me the\nbest of atheistic jokes, that I might best have made: 'the only excuse\nfor God is that He doesn't exist.'\"[9] Of his debt to Max Stirner the\nevidence is less clear, but it has been frequently alleged, and, as\nDr. M\u00fcgge says, \"quite a literature has grown up around the question.\"\nStirner's chief work, \"_Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_,\"[10] was first\npublished in 1844, the year of Nietzsche's birth, and in its strong\nplea for the emancipation of the individual there are many ideas and\neven phrases that were later voiced by Nietzsche. Dr. M\u00fcgge quotes a\nfew of them: \"What is good and what is evil? I myself am my own rule,\nand I am neither good nor evil. Neither word means anything to me....\nBetween the two vicissitudes of victory and defeat swings the fate\nof the struggle--master or slave!... Egoism, not love, must decide.\"\nOthers will greet the reader of Stirner's book: \"As long as you believe\nin the truth, you do not believe in yourself; you are a servant, a\nreligious man. You alone are the truth.... Whether what I think and do\nis Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane,\nwhether unhuman, illiberal, unhumane, what do I ask about that? If\nonly it accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in it, then\noverlay it with predicates if you will: it is all one to me....\" But,\nas Dr. J. L. Walker well says, in his introduction to Mr. Byington's\nEnglish translation, there is a considerable gulf between Stirner and\nNietzsche, even here. The former's plea is for absolute liberty for\nall men, great and small. The latter is for liberty only in the higher\ncastes: the chandala he would keep in chains. Therefore, if Nietzsche\nactually got anything from Stirner, it certainly did not enter\nunchanged into the ultimate structure of his system.\n\nThe other attempts to convict him of appropriating ideas come to little\nmore. Dr. M\u00fcgge, for example, quotes these pre-Nietzschean passages\nfrom Heracleitus: \"War is universal and right, and by strife all things\narise and are made use of ... Good and evil are the same.... To me,\none is worth ten thousand, if he be the best.\" And Mr. More quotes\nthis from Hobbes: \"In the first place, I put forth, for a general\ninclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power\nafter power, that ceaseth only with death\"--to which the reader may\nadd, \"Whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that\nis it which he for his part calleth good ... for these words of good,\nevil and contemptible are ever used with relation to the person that\nuseth them; there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any\ncommon rule of good and evil, to be taken for the nature of objects\nthemselves.\"[11] But all these passages prove no more than that men of\npast ages saw the mutability of criteria, and their origin in human\naspiration and striving. Not only Heracleitus, but many other Greeks,\nvoiced that ethical scepticism. It was for many years, indeed, one of\nthe dominant influences in Greek philosophy, and so, if Nietzsche\nis accused of borrowing it, that is no more than saying what I have\nalready said: that he ate Greek grapes in his youth and became, to all\nintellectual intents and purposes, a Greek himself. A man must needs\nhave a point of view, a manner of approach to life, and that point of\nview is no less authentic when he reaches it through his reading and by\nthe exercise of a certain degree of free choice than when he accepts\nit unthinkingly from the folk about him. The service of Heracleitus\nand the other Greeks to Nietzsche was not that they gave him his\nphilosophy, but that they made him a philosopher. It was the questions\nthey asked rather than the answers they made that interested and\nstimulated him, and if, at times, he answered much as they had done,\nthat was only proof of his genuine kinship with them.\n\nOn the artistic, as opposed to the analytical side, Nietzsche's most\ninfluential teacher, perhaps, was Goethe, the noblest intellectual\nfigure of modern Germany, the common _stammvater_ of all the warring\nschools of today--in Nietzsche's own phrase, \"not only a good and\ngreat man, but a culture itself.\" His writings are full of praises\nof his hero, whom he began to read as a boy of eight or ten years.\nHis grandmother, Frau Erdmuthe Nietzsche, was a sister to Dr. Krause,\nprofessor of divinity at Weimar in Goethe's day, and she lived in the\ntown while the poet held his court there, and undoubtedly came into\ncontact with him. Her mother, Frau Pastor Krause, was probably the\nMuthgen of Goethe's diary. But despite all this, she thought that\n\"Faust\" and \"Elective Affinities\" were \"not fit for little boys\" and so\nit remained for Judge Pindar, the father of one of young Nietzsche's\nNaumburg playmates, to conduct the initiation.[12] Thirty years\nafterward, Nietzsche gratefully acknowledged his debt to Herr Pindar,\nand his vastly greater debt to Goethe--\"a thorough-going realist in\nthe midst of an unreal age.... He did not sever himself from life, but\nentered into it. Undaunted, he took as much as possible to himself....\nWhat he sought was _totality_.\"[13]\n\nNietzsche was also an extravagant admirer of Heinrich Heine, and\ntried to imitate that poet's \"sweet and passionate music.\" \"People\nwill say some day,\" he declared, \"that Heine and I were the greatest\nartists, by far, that ever wrote in German, and that we left the best\nany mere German[14] could do an incalculable distance behind us.\"[15]\nAnother poet he greatly revered was Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin, a South\nGerman rhapsodist of the Goethe-Schiller period, who wrote odes in\nfree rhythms and philosophical novels in gorgeous prose, and died the\nyear before Nietzsche was born, after forty years of insanity. Karl\nJoel,[16] Dr. M\u00fcgge and other critics have sought to connect Nietzsche,\nthrough H\u00f6lderlin, with the romantic movement in Germany, but the\ntruth is that both Nietzsche and H\u00f6lderlin, if they were romantics\nat all, were of the Greek school rather than the German. Certainly,\nnothing could be further from genuine German romanticism, with its\nsentimentality, its begging of questions and its booming patriotism,\nthan the gospel of the superman. What Nietzsche undoubtedly got from\nthe romantics was a feeling of ease in the German language, a disregard\nfor the artificial bonds of the schools, a sense of hospitality to\nthe gipsy phrase. In brief, they taught him how to write. But they\ncertainly did not teach him what to write.\n\nEven so, it is probable that he was as much influenced by certain\nFrenchmen as he ever was by Germans--particularly by Montaigne, La\nBruy\u00e8re, La Rochefoucauld, Fontenelle, Vauvenargues and Chamfort, his\nconstant companions on his wanderings. He borrowed from them, not only\nthe somewhat obvious device of putting his argument into the form of\napothegms and epigrams, but also their conception of the dialectic as\none of the fine arts--in other words, their striving after style. \"It\nis to a small number of French authors,\" he once said, \"that I return\nagain and again. I believe only in French culture, and regard all that\nis called culture elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, as mere\nmisunderstanding.... The few persons of higher culture that I have met\nin Germany have had French training--above all, Frau Cosima Wagner,\nby long odds the best authority on questions of taste I ever heard\nof.\"[17] This preference carried him so far, indeed, that he usually\nwrote more like a Frenchman than like a German, toying with words,\nexperimenting with their combinations, matching them as carefully as\npearls for a necklace. \"Nietzsche,\" says one critic,[18] \"whether for\ngood or evil, introduced Romance (not romantic!) qualities of terseness\nand clearness into German prose; it was his endeavor to free it from\nthose elements which he described as _deutsch und schwer_.\" (German and\nheavy.)\n\nFor the rest, he denounced Klopstock, Herder, Wieland, Lessing and\nSchiller, the remaining gods in Germany's literary valhalla, even more\nbitterly than he denounced Kant and Hegel, the giants of orthodox\nGerman philosophy.\n\n\n[1] \"The Revival of Aristocracy,\" London, 1906, pp. 14-59.\n\n[2] \"Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work,\" New York, 1909, pp.\n315-320.\n\n[3] \"_Nietzsche et l'Immoralisme_,\" Paris, 1902, p. 294.\n\n[4] \"Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet,\" London, 1901,\npp. xi-xxiii.\n\n[5] \"_Von Darwin bis Nietzsche_,\" Leipsic, 1895.\n\n[6] \"Nietzsche,\" Boston, 1912, pp. 18-45.\n\n[7] \"_De Kant \u00e0 Nietzsche,_\" Paris, 1900.\n\n[8] Nietzsche himself, in after years, viewed this attack humorously,\nand was wont to say that it was caused, not by Schopenhauer alone, but\nalso (and chiefly) by the bad cooking of Leipsic. See \"_Ecce Homo_,\"\nII, i.\n\n[9] \"_Ecce Homo_,\" II, 3.\n\n[10] Eng. tr. by Steven T. Byington, \"The Ego and His Own,\" New York,\n1907.\n\n[11] The Leviathan, I, vi; London, 1651.\n\n[12] Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche: \"The Life of Nietzsche\" (Eng. tr.), Vol.\nI, p. 31.\n\n[13] \"_G\u00f6tzend\u00e4mmerung_,\" IX, 49.\n\n[14] Heine was a Jew--and Nietzsche, as we know, liked to think himself\na Pole.\n\n[15] \"_Ecce Homo_,\" II, 4.\n\n[16] \"_Nietzsche und die Romantik_,\" Jena, 1905.\n\n[17] \"_Ecce Homo_,\" II, 3.\n\n[18] J. G. Robertson: \"A History of German Literature,\" Edinburgh,\n1902, pp. 611-615.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nNIETZSCHE AND HIS CRITICS\n\n\nLet us set aside at the start that great host of critics whose chief\nobjection to Nietzsche is that he is blasphemous, that his philosophy\nand his manner outrage the piety and prudery of the world. Of such\nsort are the pale parsons who arise in suburban pulpits to dispose of\nhim in the half hour between the first and second lessons, as their\npredecessors of the 70's and 80's disposed of Darwin, Huxley and\nSpencer. Let them read their indictments and bring in their verdicts\nand pronounce their bitter sentences! The student of Nietzsche must\nperceive at once the irrelevance of that sort of criticism. It was the\ndeliberate effort of the philosopher, from the very start of what he\ncalls his tunnelling period, to provoke and deserve the accusation of\nsacrilege. In framing his accusations against Christian morality he\ntried to make them, not only persuasive and just, but also as offensive\nas possible. No man ever had more belief in the propagandist value of a\n_succ\u00e8s de scandale._ He tried his best to shock the guardians of the\nsacred vessels, to force upon them the burdens of an active defense,\nto bring them out into the open, to attract attention to the combat by\naccentuating its mere fuming and fury. If he succeeded in the effort,\nif he really outraged Christendom, then it is certainly absurd to bring\nforward that deliberate achievement as an exhibit against itself.\n\nThe more pertinent and plausible criticisms of Nietzsche, launched\nagainst him in Europe and America by many industrious foes, may be\nreduced for convenience to five fundamental propositions, to wit:\n\n(_a_) He was a decadent and a lunatic, and in consequence his\nphilosophy is not worthy of attention.\n\n(_b_) His writings are chaotic and contradictory and it is impossible\nto find in them any connected philosophical system.\n\n(_c_) His argument that self-sacrifice costs more than it yields, and\nthat it thus reduces the average fitness of a race practising it, is\ncontradicted by human experience.\n\n(_d_) The scheme of things proposed by him is opposed by ideas inherent\nin all civilized men.\n\n(_e_) Even admitting that his criticism of Christian morality is\nwell-founded, he offers nothing in place of it that would work as well.\n\nIt is scarcely worth while to linger over the first and second of\nthese propositions. The first has been defended most speciously by Max\nNordau, in \"Degeneration,\" a book which made as much noise, when it was\nfirst published in 1893, as any of Nietzsche's own. Nordau's argument\nis based upon a theory of degeneration borrowed quite frankly from\nCesare Lombroso, an Italian quasi-scientist whose modest contributions\nto psychiatry were offset by many volumes of rubbish about spooks,\ntable-tapping, mental telepathy, spirit photography and the alleged\nstigmata of criminals and men of genius. Degeneracy and decadence\nwere terms that filled the public imagination in the 80's and 90's,\nand even Nietzsche himself seemed to think, at times, that they had\ndefinite meanings and that his own type of mind was degenerate. As\nNordau defines degeneracy it is \"a morbid deviation from the original\ntype\"--_i.e._ from the physical and mental norm of the species--and\nhe lays stress upon the fact that by \"morbid\" he means \"infirm\" or\n\"incapable of fulfilling normal functions.\" But straightway he begins\nto regard _any_ deviation as morbid and degenerate, despite the obvious\nfact that it may be quite the reverse. He says, for example, that a man\nwith web toes is a degenerate, and then proceeds to argue elaborately\nfrom that premise, entirely overlooking the fact that web toes, under\neasily imaginable circumstances, might be an advantage instead of a\nhandicap, and that, under the ordinary conditions of life, we are\nunable to determine with any accuracy whether they are the one thing\nor the other. So with the symptoms of degeneracy that he discovers in\nNietzsche. He shows that Nietzsche differed vastly from the average,\nevery-day German of his time, and even from the average German of\nsuperior culture--that he thought differently, wrote differently,\nadmired different heroes and believed in different gods--but he by no\nmeans proves thereby that Nietzsche's processes of thought were morbid\nor infirm, or that the conclusions he reached were invalid _a priori._\nSince Nordau startled the world with his book, the Lombrosan theory of\ndegeneracy has lost ground among psychologists and pathologists, but it\nis still launched against Nietzsche by an occasional critic, and so it\ndeserves to be noticed.\n\nNordau's discussion of Nietzsche's insanity is rather more intelligent\nthan his discussion of the philosopher's alleged degeneracy, if only\nbecause his facts are less open to dispute, but here, too, he forgets\nthat the proof of an idea is not to be sought in the soundness of the\nman fathering it, but in the soundness of the idea itself. One asks of\na pudding, not if the cook who offers it is a good woman, but if the\npudding itself is good. Nordau, in attempting to dispose of Nietzsche's\nphilosophy on the ground that the author died a madman, succeeds only\nin piling up a mass of uncontroverted but irrelevant accusations. He\nshows that Nietzsche was an utter believer in his own wisdom, that he\nhad a fondness for repeating certain favorite arguments _ad nauseam_,\nthat he was violently impatient of criticism, that he chronically\nunderestimated the man opposed to him, that he sometimes indulged in\nblasphemy for the sheer joy of shocking folks, and that he was often\nhypnotized by the exuberance of his own verbosity, but it must be plain\nthat this indictment has its effective answer in the fact that it might\nbe found with equal justice against almost any revolutionary enthusiast\none selected at random--for example, Savonarola, Tolstoi, Luther,\nIbsen, Garrison, Phillips, Wilkes, Bak\u00fanin, Marx, or Nordau himself.\nThat Nietzsche died insane is undoubted, and that his insanity was not\nsudden in its onset is also plain, and one may even admit frankly that\nit is visible, here and there, in his writings, particularly those of\nhis last year or two; but that his principal doctrines, the ideas upon\nwhich his fame are based, are the fantasies of a maniac is certainly\nwholly false. Had he sought to prove that cows had wings, it might be\nfair today to dismiss him as Nordau attempts to dismiss him. But when\nhe essayed to prove that Christianity impeded progress, he laid down a\nproposition that, whatever its novelty and daring, was obviously not\nirrational, and neither was there anything irrational in the reasoning\nwhereby he supported it. One need go no further for proof of this than\nthe fact that multitudes of sane men, while he lived and since his\ndeath, have debated that proposition in all seriousness and found a\nplentiful food for sober thought in Nietzsche's statement and defense\nof it. Ibsen also passed out of life in mental darkness, and so did\nSchumann, but no reasonable critic would seek thereby to deny all\nintelligibility to \"Peer Gynt\" or to the piano quintet in E flat.\n\nAgain, it is Nordau who chiefly voices the second of the objections\nnoted at the beginning of this chapter, though here many another\nself-confessed serpent of wisdom follows him. Nietzsche, he says,\ntore down without building up, and died without having formulated any\nworkable substitute for the Christian morality he denounced. Even to\nthe reader who has got no further into Nietzsche than the preceding\nchapters of this book, the absurdity of such a charge must be manifest\nwithout argument. No man, indeed, ever left a more comprehensive\nsystem of ethics, not even Comte or Herbert Spencer, and if it be true\nthat he scattered it through a dozen books and that he occasionally\nmodified it in some of its details, it is equally true that his\nfundamental principles were always stated with perfect clearness and\nthat they remained substantially unchanged from first to last. But\neven supposing that he had died before he had arranged his ideas in a\nconnected and coherent form, and that it had remained for his disciples\nto deduce and group his final conclusions, and to rid the whole of\ninconsistency--even then it would have been possible to study those\nconclusions seriously and to accept them for what they were worth.\nNordau lays it down as an axiom that a man cannot be a reformer unless\nhe proposes some ready-made and perfectly symmetrical scheme of things\nto take the place of the notions he seeks to overturn, that if he does\nnot do this he is a mere hurler of bricks and shouter of blasphemies.\nBut all of us know that this is not true. Nearly every considerable\nreform the world knows has been accomplished, not by one man, but by\nmany men working in series. It seldom happens, indeed, that the man who\nfirst points out the necessity for change lives long enough to see that\nchange accomplished, or even to define its precise manner and terms.\nNietzsche himself was not the first critic of Christian morality,\nnor did he so far dispose of the question that he left no room for\nsuccessors. But he made a larger contribution to it than any man had\never made before him, and the ideas he contributed were so acute and so\nconvincing that they must needs be taken into account by every critic\nwho comes after him.\n\nSo much for the first two arguments against the prophet of the\nsuperman. Both raise immaterial objections and the second makes an\nallegation that is grotesquely untrue. The other three are founded upon\nsounder logic, and, when maintained skillfully, afford more reasonable\nground for objecting to the Nietzschean system, either as a whole or in\npart. It would be interesting, perhaps, to attempt a complete review\nof the literature embodying them, but that would take a great deal\nmore space than is here available, and so we must be content with a\nglance at a few typical efforts at refutation. One of the most familiar\nof these appears in the argument that the messianic obligation of\nself-sacrifice, whatever its cost, has yet yielded the race a large\nprofit--that we are the better for our Christian charity and that\nwe owe it entirely to Christianity. This argument has been best put\nforward, perhaps, by Bennett Hume, an Englishman. If it were not for\nChristian charity, says Mr. Hume, there would be no hospitals and\nasylums for the sick and insane, and in consequence, no concerted and\neffective effort to make man more healthy and efficient. Therefore, he\nmaintains, it must be admitted that the influence of Christianity, as a\nmoral system, has been for the good of the race. But this argument, in\ninspection, quickly goes to pieces, and for two reasons. In the first\nplace, it must be obvious that the advantages of preserving the unfit,\nfew of whom ever become wholly fit again, are more than dubious; and\nin the second place, it must be plain that modern humanitarianism, in\nso far as it is scientific and unsentimental and hence profitable, is\nso little a purely Christian idea that the Christian church, even down\nto our own time, has actually opposed it. No man, indeed, can read Dr.\nAndrew D. White's great history of the warfare between science and\nthe church without carrying away the conviction that such great boons\nas the conquest of smallpox and malaria, the development of surgery,\nthe improved treatment of the insane, and the general lowering of the\ndeath rate have been brought about, not by the maudlin alms-giving of\nChristian priests, but by the intelligent meliorism of rebels against\na blind faith, ruthless in their ways and means but stupendously\nsuccessful in their achievement.\n\nAnother critic, this time a Frenchman, Alfred Fouill\u00e9e by name,[1]\nchooses as his point of attack the Nietzschean doctrine that a struggle\nis welcome and beneficial to the strong, that intelligent self-seeking,\naccompanied by a certain willingness to take risks, is the road of\nprogress. A struggle, argues M. Fouill\u00e9e, always means an expenditure\nof strength, and strength, when so expended, is further weakened by\nthe opposing strength it arouses and stimulates. Darwin is summoned\nfrom his tomb to substantiate this argument, but its exponent seems to\nforget (while actually stating it!) the familiar physiological axiom,\nso often turned to by Darwin, that strength is one of the effects of\nuse, and the Darwinian corollary that disuse, whether produced by\norganized protection or in some other way, leads inevitably to weakness\nand atrophy. In other words, the ideal strong man of M. Fouill\u00e9e's\ndream is one who seeks, with great enthusiasm, the readiest possible\nway of ridding himself of his strength.\n\nNordau, Violet Paget and various other critics attack Nietzsche from\nmuch the same side. That is to say, they endeavor to controvert his\ncriticism of humility and self-sacrifice and to show that the law of\nnatural selection, with its insistence that only the fittest shall\nsurvive, is insufficient to insure human progress. Miss Paget, for\nexample,[2] argues that if there were no belief in every man's duty to\nyield something to his weaker brother the race would soon become a herd\nof mere wild beasts. She sees humility as a sort of brake or governor,\nplaced upon humanity to keep it from running amuck. A human being is\nso constituted, she says, that he necessarily looms in his own view\nas large as all the rest of the world put together. This distortion\nof values is met with in the consciousness of every individual, and\nif there were nothing to oppose it, it would lead to a hopeless\nconflict between exaggerated egos. Humility, says Miss Paget, tempers\nthe conflict, without wholly ending it. A man's inherent tendency to\nmagnify his own importance and to invite death by trying to force that\nview upon others is held in check by the idea that it is his duty to\nconsider the welfare of those others. The objection to all this is that\nthe picture of humility Miss Paget draws is not at all a picture of\nself-sacrifice, of something founded upon an unselfish idea of duty,\nbut a picture of highly intelligent egoism. Whatever his pharisaical\naccount of his motives, it must be obvious that her Christian gentleman\nis merely a man who throws bones to the dogs about him. Between such\nwise prudence and the immolation of the Beatitudes a wide gulf is\nfixed. As a matter of fact, that prudence is certainly not opposed by\nNietzsche. The higher man of his visions is far from a mere brawler. He\nis not afraid of an open fight, and he is never held back by fear of\nhurting his antagonist, but he also understands that there are times\nfor truce and guile. In brief, his self-seeking is conducted, not alone\nby his fists, but also by his head. He knows when to pounce upon his\nfoes and rivals, but he also knows when to keep them from pouncing upon\nhim. Thus Miss Paget's somewhat elaborate refutation, though it leads\nto an undoubtedly sound conclusion, by no means disposes of Nietzsche.\n\nThe other branches of the argument that self-sacrifice is beneficial\nopen an endless field of debate, in which the same set of facts is\noften susceptible of diametrically opposite interpretations. We have\nalready glanced at the alleged effects of Christian charity upon\nprogress, and observed the enormous difference between sentimental\nefforts to preserve the unfit and intelligent efforts to make them fit,\nand we have seen how practical Christianity, whatever its theoretical\neffects, has had the actual effect of furthering the former and\nhindering the latter. It is often argued that there is unfairness\nin thus burdening the creed with the crimes of the church, but how\nthe two are to be separated is never explained. What sounder test of\na creed's essential value can we imagine than that of its visible\ninfluence upon the men who subscribe to it? And what sounder test of\nits terms than the statement of its ordained teachers and interpreters,\nsupported by the unanimous approval of all who profess it? We are here\ndealing, let it be remembered, not with esoteric doctrines, but with\npractical doctrines--that is to say, with working policies. If the\nChristian ideal of charity is to be defended as a working policy, then\nit is certainly fair to examine it at work. And when that is done the\nreflective observer is almost certain to conclude that it is opposed\nto true progress, that it acts as a sentimental shield to the unfit\nwithout helping them in the slightest to shake off their unfitness.\nWhat is more, it stands contrary to that wise forethought which\nsacrifices one man today that ten may be saved tomorrow. Nothing could\nbe more patent, indeed, than the high cost to humanity of the Christian\nteaching that it is immoral to seek the truth outside the Word of God,\nor to take thought of an earthly tomorrow, or to draw distinctions in\nvalue between beings who all possess souls of infinite, and therefore\nof exactly equal preciousness.\n\nBut setting aside the doctrine that self-sacrifice is a religious\nduty, there remains the doctrine that it is a measure of expediency,\nthat when the strong help the weak they also help themselves. Let it\nbe said at once that this second doctrine, provided only it be applied\nintelligently and without any admixture of sentimentality, is not in\nopposition to anything in Nietzsche's philosophy. On the contrary,\nhe is at pains to point out the value of exploiting the inefficient\nmasses, and obviously that exploitation is impossible without some\nconcession to their habits and desires, some offer, however fraudulent,\nof a _quid pro quo_--and unprofitable unless they can be made to yield\nmore than they absorb. For one thing, there is the business of keeping\nthe lower castes in health. They themselves are too ignorant and lazy\nto manage it, and therefore it must be managed by their betters. When\nwe appropriate money from the public funds to pay for vaccinating a\nhorde of negroes, we do not do it because we have any sympathy for them\nor because we crave their blessings, but simply because we don't want\nthem to be falling ill of smallpox in our kitchens and stables, to the\nperil of our own health and the neglect of our necessary drudgery.[3]\nIn so far as the negroes have any voice in the matter at all, they\nprotest against vaccination, for they can't understand its theory and\nso they see only its tyranny, but we vaccinate them nevertheless,\nand thus increase their mass efficiency in spite of them. It costs\nsomething to do the work, but we see a profit in it. Here we have a\ngood example of self-sacrifice based frankly upon expediency, and\nNietzsche has nothing to say against it.\n\nBut what he does insist upon is that we must beware of mixing\nsentimentality with the business, that we must keep the idea of\nexpediency clear of any idea of altruism. The trouble with the world,\nas he describes it, is that such a corruption almost always takes\nplace. That is to say, we too often practise charity, not because it is\nworth while, but merely because it is pleasant. The Christian ideal,\nhe says, \"knows how to enrapture.\" Starting out from the safe premise,\napproved by human experience, that it is sometimes a virtue--_i.e._, a\nmeasure of intelligent prudence--to help the weak, we proceed to the\nillogical conclusion that it is _always_ a virtue. Hence our wholesale\ncoddling of the unfit, our enormous expenditure upon vain schemes of\namelioration, our vain efforts to combat the laws of nature. We nurse\nthe defective children of the lower classes into some appearance of\nhealth, and then turn them out to beget their kind. We parole the\npickpocket, launch him upon society with a tract in his hand--and\nlose our pocket-books next day. We send missionaries to the heathen,\nbuild hospitals for them, civilize and educate them--and later on have\nto fight them. We save a pauper consumptive today, on the ostensible\ntheory that he is more valuable saved than dead--and so open the way\nfor saving his innumerable grandchildren in the future. In brief, our\nself-sacrifice of expediency seldom remains undefiled. Nine times out\nof ten a sentimental color quickly overcomes it, and soon or late\nthere is apt to be more sentimentality in it than expediency.\n\nWhat is worse, this sentimentalism results in attaching a sort of\nromantic glamour to its objects. Just as the Sunday-school teaching\nvirgin, beginning by trying to save the Chinese laundryman's soul,\ncommonly ends by falling in love with him, so the virtuoso of any\nother sort of charity commonly ends by endowing its beneficiary with\na variety of imaginary virtues. Sympathy, by some subtle alchemy, is\nconverted into a sneaking admiration. \"Blessed are the poor in spirit\"\nbecomes \"Blessed are the poor.\" This exaltation of inefficiency, it\nmust be manifest, is a dangerous error. There is, in fact, nothing\nat all honorable about unfitness, considered in the mass. On the\ncontrary, it is invariably a symptom of actual dishonor--of neglect,\nlaziness, ignorance and depravity--if not primarily in the individual\nhimself, then at least in his forebears, whose weakness he carries on.\nIt is highly important that this fact should be kept in mind by the\nhuman race, that the essential inferiority of the inefficient should\nbe insisted upon, that the penalties of deliberate slackness should\nbe swift and merciless. But as it is, those penalties are too often\nreduced to nothing by charity, while the offense they should punish\nis elevated to a fictitious martyrdom. Thus we have charity converted\ninto an instrument of debauchery. Thus we have it playing the part of\nan active agent of decay, and so increasing the hazards of life on\nearth. \"We may compare civilized man,\" says Sir Ray Lankester,[4] \"to\na successful rebel against nature, who by every step forward renders\nhimself liable to greater and greater penalties.\" No need to offer\ncases in point. Every one of us knows what the Poor Laws of England\nhave accomplished in a hundred years--how they have multiplied misery\nenormously and created a caste of professional paupers--how they have\nseduced that caste downward into depths of degradation untouched by\nany other civilized race in history--and how, by hanging the crushing\nburden of that caste about the necks of the English people, they have\nhelped to weaken and sicken the whole stock and to imperil the future\nof the nation.\n\nSo much for the utility of self-sacrifice--undeniable, perhaps, so long\nas a wise and ruthless foresight rules, but immediately questionable\nwhen sentimentality enters into the matter. There remains the answer\nin rebuttal that sentimentality, after all, is native to the soul of\nman, that we couldn't get rid of it if we tried. Herein, if we look\nclosely, we will observe tracks of an idea that has colored the whole\nstream of human thought since the dawn of Western philosophy, and is\naccepted today, as irrefutably true, by all who pound pulpits and wave\ntheir arms and call upon their fellow men to repent. It has clogged\nall ethical inquiry for two thousand years, it has been a premise in\na million moral syllogisms, it has survived the assaults of all the\niconoclasts that ever lived. It is taught in all our schools today and\nlies at the bottom of all our laws, prophecies and revelations. It is\nthe foundation and cornerstone, not only of Christianity, but also of\nevery other compound of theology and morality known in the world. And\nwhat is this king of all axioms and emperor of all fallacies? Simply\nthe idea that there are rules of \"natural morality\" engraven indelibly\nupon the hearts of man--that all men, at all times and everywhere, have\never agreed, do now agree and will agree forevermore, unanimously and\nwithout reservation, that certain things are right and certain other\nthings are wrong, that certain things are nice and certain other things\nare not nice, that certain things are pleasing to God and certain other\nthings are offensive to God.\n\nIn every treatise upon Christian ethics and \"natural theology,\" so\ncalled, you will find these rules of \"natural morality\" in the first\nchapter. Thomas Aquinas called them \"the eternal law.\" Even the Greeks\nand Romans, for all their skepticism in morals, had a sneaking belief\nin them. Aristotle tried to formulate them and the Latin lawyers\nconstantly assumed their existence. Most of them are held in firm faith\ntoday by all save a small minority of the folk of Christendom. The\nmost familiar of them, perhaps, is the rule against murder--the sixth\ncommandment. Another is the rule against the violation of property\nin goods, wives and cattle--the eighth and tenth commandments. A\nthird is the rule upon which the solidity of the family is based, and\nwith it the solidity of the tribe--the fifth commandment. The theory\nbehind these rules is, not only that they are wise, but that they are\ninnate and sempiternal, that every truly enlightened man recognizes\ntheir validity intuitively, and is conscious of sin when he breaks\nthem. To them Christianity added an eleventh commandment, a sort of\ninfinite extension of the fifth, \"that ye love one another\"[5]--and\nin two thousand years it has been converted from a novelty into a\nuniversality. That is to say, its point of definite origin has been\nlost sight of, and it has been moved over into the group of \"natural\nvirtues,\" of \"eternal laws.\" When Christ first voiced it, in his\ndiscourse at the Last Supper, it was so far from general acceptance\nthat he named a belief in it as one of the distinguishing marks of his\ndisciples, but now our moralists tell us that it is in the blood of\nall of us, and that we couldn't repudiate it if we would. Brotherhood,\nindeed, is the very soul of Christianity, and the only effort of the\npious today is to raise it from a universal theory to a universal fact.\n\nBut the truth is, of course, that it is not universal at all, and that\nnothing in the so-called soul of man prompts him to subscribe to it.\nWe cling to it today, not because it is inherent in us, but simply\nbecause it is the moral fashion of our age. When the disciples first\nheard it put into terms, it probably struck them as a revolutionary\nnovelty, and on some dim tomorrow our descendants may regard it as an\narchaic absurdity. In brief, rules of morality are wholly temporal and\ntemporary, for the good and sufficient reason that there is no \"natural\nmorality\" in man--and the sentimental rule that the strong shall give\nof their strength to the weak is no exception. There have been times in\nthe history of the race when few, if any intelligent men subscribed to\nit, and there are thousands of intelligent men who refuse to subscribe\nto it today, and no doubt there will come a time when those who are\nagainst it will once more greatly outnumber those who are in favor of\nit. So with all other \"eternal laws.\" Their eternality exists only in\nthe imagination of those who seek to glorify them. Nietzsche himself\nspent his best years demonstrating this, and we have seen how he set\nabout the task--how he showed that the \"good\" of one race and age was\nthe \"bad\" of some other race and age--how the \"natural morality\" of the\nPericlean Greeks, for example, differed diametrically from the \"natural\nmorality\" of the captive Jews. All history bears him out. Mankind is\never revising and abandoning its \"inherent\" ideas. We say today that\nthe human mind instinctively revolts against cruel punishments, and yet\na moment's reflection recalls the fact that the world is, and always\nhas been peopled by millions to whom cruelty, not only to enemies\nbut to the weak in general, seems and has seemed wholly natural and\nagreeable. We say that man has an \"innate\" impulse to be fair and\njust, and yet it is a commonplace observation that multitudes of men,\nin the midst of our most civilized societies, have little more sense\nof justice than so many jackals. Therefore, we may safely set aside\nthe argument that a \"natural\" instinct for sentimental self-sacrifice\nstands as an impassable barrier to Nietzsche's dionysian philosophy.\nThere is no such barrier. There is no such instinct. It is an idea\nmerely--an idea powerful and persistent, but still mutable and mortal.\nCertainly, it is absurd to plead it in proof against the one man who\ndid most to establish its mutability.\n\nWe come now to the final argument against Nietzsche--the argument, to\nwit, that, even admitting his criticism of Christian morality to be\nwell-founded, he offers nothing in place of it that would serve the\nworld as well. The principal spokesman of this objection, perhaps,\nis Paul Elmer More, who sets it forth at some length in his hostile\nbut very ingenious little study of Nietzsche.[6] Mr. More goes back\nto Locke to show the growth of the two ideas which stand opposed as\nSocialism and individualism, Christianity and Nietzscheism today. So\nlong, he says, as man believed in revelation, there was no genuine\neffort to get at the springs of human action, for every impulse that\nwas ratified by the Scriptures was believed to be natural and moral,\nand every impulse that went counter to the Scriptures was believed\nto be sinful, even by those who yielded to it habitually. But when\nthat idea was cleared away, there arose a need for something to take\nits place, and Locke came forward with his theory that the notion of\ngood was founded upon sensations of pleasure and that of bad upon\nsensations of pain. There followed Hume, with his elaborate effort\nto prove that sympathy was a source of pleasure, by reason of its\ngrateful tickling of the sense of virtue, and so the new conception of\ngood finally stood erect, with one foot on frank self-interest and the\nother on sympathy. Mr. More shows how, during the century following,\nthe importance of the second of these factors began to be accentuated,\nunder the influence of Rousseau and his followers, and how, in the end,\nthe first was forgotten almost entirely and there arose a non-Christian\nsentimentality which was worse, if anything, than the sentimentality\nof the Beatitudes. In England, France and Germany it colored almost the\nwhole of philosophy, literature and politics. Stray men, true enough,\nraised their voices against it, but its sweep was irresistible. Its\nfruits were diverse and memorable--the romantic movement in Germany,\nhumanitarianism in England, the Kantian note in ethics, and, most\nimportant of all, Socialism.\n\nThat this exaltation of sympathy was imprudent, and that its effects,\nin our own time, are far from satisfactory, Mr. More is disposed\nto grant freely. It is perfectly true, as Nietzsche argues, that\nhumanitarianism has been guilty of gross excesses, that there is a\n\"danger that threatens true progress in any system of education and\ngovernment which makes the advantage of the average rather than the\ndistinguished man its chief object.\" But Mr. More holds that the\ndanger thus inherent in sympathy is matched by a danger inherent in\nselfishness, that we are no worse off on one horn of Hume's dual ethic\nthan we should be on the other. Sympathy unbalanced by self-seeking\nleads us into maudlin futilities and crimes against efficiency;\nself-seeking unchecked by sympathy would lead us into sheer savagery.\nIf there is any choice between the two, that choice is probably in\nfavor of sympathy, for the reason that it is happily impossible of\nrealization. The most lachrymose of the romantics, in the midst of\ntheir sentimentalizing, were yet careful of their own welfare. Many of\nthem, indeed, displayed a quite extraordinary egoism, and there was\nsome justice in Byron's sneer that Sterne, for one, preferred weeping\nover a dead ass to relieving the want (at cost to himself) of a living\nmother.\n\nBut in urging all this against Nietzsche, Mr. More and the other\ndestructive critics of the superman make a serious error, and that\nis the error of assuming that Nietzsche hoped to abolish Christian\nmorality completely, that he proposed a unanimous desertion of the\nidea of sympathy for the idea of intelligent self-seeking. As a matter\nof fact, he had no such hope and made no such proposal. Nothing was\nmore firmly fixed in his mind, indeed, than the notion that the vast\nmajority of men would cling indefinitely, and perhaps for all time,\nto some system of morality more or less resembling the Christian\nmorality of today. Not only did he have no expectation of winning that\nmajority from its idols, but he bitterly resented any suggestion that\nsuch a result might follow from his work. The whole of his preaching\nwas addressed, not to men in the mass, but to the small minority of\nexceptional men--not to those who live by obeying, but to those who\nlive by commanding--not to the race as a race, but only to its masters.\nIt would seem to be impossible that any reader of Nietzsche should\noverlook this important fact, and yet it is constantly overlooked by\nmost of his critics. They proceed to prove, elaborately and, it must\nbe said, quite convincingly, that if his transvaluation of values were\nmade by all men, the world would be no better off than it is today,\nand perhaps a good deal worse, but all they accomplish thereby is to\ndemolish a hobgoblin of straw. Nietzsche himself sensed the essential\nvalue of Hume's dualism. What he sought to do was not to destroy it,\nbut to restore it, and, restoring it, to raise it to a state of active\nconflict--to dignify self-interest as sympathy has been dignified,\nand so to put the two in perpetual opposition. He believed that the\nformer was by long odds the safer impulse for the higher castes of\nmen to follow, if only because of its obviously closer kinship to the\nnatural laws which make for progress upward, but by the same token\nhe saw that these higher castes could gain nothing by disturbing the\nnarcotic contentment of the castes lower down. Therefore, he was, to\nthat extent, an actual apologist for the thing he elsewhere so bitterly\nattacked. Sympathy, self-sacrifice, charity--these ideas lulled and\nsatisfied the chandala, and so he was content to have the chandala\nhold to them. \"Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The\nSocialist who undermines the workingman's instincts, who destroys his\nsatisfaction with his insignificant existence, who makes him envious\nand teaches him revenge.\"[7] In brief, Nietzsche dreamed no dream of\nall mankind converted into a race of supermen: the only vision he saw\nwas one of supermen at the top.\n\nTo make an end, his philosophy was wholly aristocratic, in aim as well\nas in terms. He believed that superior men, by which he meant alert\nand restless men, were held in chains by the illusions and inertia of\nthe mass--that their impulse to move forward and upward, at whatever\ncost to those below, was restrained by false notions of duty and\nresponsibility. It was his effort to break down those false notions,\nto show that the progress of the race was more important than the\ncomfort of the herd, to combat and destroy the lingering spectre of\nsin--in his own phrase, to make man innocent. But when he said man he\nalways meant the higher man, the man of tomorrow, and not mere men. For\nthe latter he had only contempt: he sneered at their heroes, at their\nideals, at their definitions of good and evil. \"There are only three\nways,\" he said, \"in which the masses appear to me to deserve a glance:\nfirst, as blurred copies of their betters, printed on bad paper and\nfrom worn-out plates; secondly, as a necessary opposition; and thirdly,\nas tools. Further than that I hand them over to statistics--and the\ndevil.[8] ... I am writing for a race of men which does not yet exist.\nI am writing for the lords of the earth.\"[9]\n\n\n[1] Author of \"_Nietzsche et l'Immoralisme_\" and other books. The\nargument discussed appears in an article in the _International Monthly_\nfor March, 1901, pp. 134-165.\n\n[2] In the _North American Review_ for Dec., 1904.\n\n[3] A more extended treatment of this point will be found in \"Men _vs._\nthe Man,\" by Robert Rives La Monte and the present author: New York,\n1910.\n\n[4] In \"The Kingdom of Man,\" London, 1907.\n\n[5] John XIII, 34.\n\n[6] \"Nietzsche,\" Boston, 1912. Reprinted in \"The Drift of Romanticism,\"\npp. 147-190, Boston, 1913.\n\n[7] \"_Der Antichrist_,\" 57.\n\n[8] \"_Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie f\u00fcr das Leben_,\" IX.\n\n[9] \"_Der Wille zur Macht_\", 958.\n\n\n\n\nHOW TO STUDY NIETZSCHE\n\n\nThrough the diligence and enthusiasm of Dr. Oscar Levy, author of \"The\nRevival of Aristocracy,\" a German by birth but for some time a resident\nof London, the whole canon of Nietzsche's writings is now to be had in\nEnglish translation. So long ago as 1896 a complete edition in eleven\nvolumes was projected, and Dr. Alexander Tille, lecturer on German in\nthe University of Glasgow, and author of \"_Von Darwin bis Nietzsche_,\"\nwas engaged to edit it. But though it started fairly with a volume\nincluding \"The Case of Wagner\" and \"The Antichrist,\" and four more\nvolumes followed after a year or so, it got no further than that. Ten\nyears later came Dr. Levy. He met with little encouragement when he\nbegan, but by dint of unfailing perseverance he finally gathered about\nhim a corps of competent translators, made arrangements with publishers\nin Great Britain and the United States, and got the work under way. His\neighteenth and last volume was published early in 1913.\n\nThese translations, in the main, are excellent, and explanatory\nprefaces and notes are added wherever needed. The contents of the\nvarious volumes are as follows:\n\nI. \"The Birth of Tragedy,\" translated by Wm. A. Haussmann, Ph. D., with\na biographical introduction by Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, a portrait of\nNietzsche, and a facsimile of his manuscript.\n\nII. \"Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays,\" translated by Maximilian\nA. M\u00fcgge, Ph. D., author of \"Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work.\"\nContents: \"The Greek Woman,\" \"On Music and Words,\" \"Homer's Contest,\"\n\"The Relation of Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture,\"\n\"Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks,\" and \"On Truth and\nFalsity in Their Ultramoral Sense.\"\n\nIII. \"On the Future of Our Educational Institutions\" and \"Homer and\nClassical Philology,\" translated by J. M. Kennedy, author of \"The\nQuintessence of Nietzsche,\" with an introduction by the translator.\n\nIV. \"Thoughts Out of Season,\" I (\"David Strauss, the Confessor and the\nWriter\" and \"Richard Wagner in Bayreuth\"), translated by Anthony M.\nLudovici, author of \"Nietzsche: His Life and Works,\" \"Nietzsche and\nArt,\" and \"Who is to be Master of the World?\" with an introduction by\nDr. Levy and a preface by the translator.\n\nV. \"Thoughts Out of Season,\" II (\"The Use and Abuse of History\" and\n\"Schopenhauer as Educator\"), translated by Adrian Collins, M. A., with\nan introduction by the translator.\n\nVI. \"Human All-Too Human,\" I, translated by Helen Zimmern, with an\nintroduction by J. M. Kennedy.\n\nVII. \"Human All-Too Human,\" II, translated by Paul V. Cohn, B. A., with\nan introduction by the translator.\n\nVIII. \"The Case of Wagner\" (including \"Nietzsche _contra_ Wagner\"\nand selected aphorisms), translated by A. M. Ludovici, and \"We\nPhilologists,\" translated by J. M. Kennedy, with prefaces by the\ntranslators.\n\nIX. \"The Dawn of Day,\" translated by J. M. Kennedy, with an\nintroduction by the translator.\n\nX. \"The Joyful Wisdom,\" translated by Thomas Common, author of\n\"Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet\" (including \"Songs\nof Prince Free-as-a-Bird,\" translated by Paul V. Cohn and Maude D.\nPetre).\n\nXI. \"Thus Spake Zarathustra,\" translated by Thomas Common, with an\nintroduction by Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche and explanatory notes by A. M.\nLudovici.\n\nXII. \"Beyond Good and Evil,\" translated by Helen Zimmern, with an\nintroduction by Thomas Common.\n\nXIII. \"The Genealogy of Morals,\" translated by Horace B. Samuel, M.\nA., and \"People and Countries,\" translated by J. M. Kennedy, with an\neditor's note by Dr. Levy.\n\nXIV. \"The Will to Power,\" I, translated by A. M. Ludovici, with a\npreface by the translator.\n\nXV. \"The Will to Power,\" II, translated by A. M. Ludovici, with a\npreface by the translator.\n\nXVI. \"The Twilight of the Idols\" (including \"The Antichrist,\" \"Eternal\nRecurrence\" and explanatory notes to \"Thus Spake Zarathustra\"),\ntranslated by A. M. Ludovici, with a preface by the translator.\n\nXVII. \"Ecce Homo,\" translated by A. M. Ludovici; various songs,\nepigrams and dithyrambs, translated by Paul V. Cohn, Herman Scheffauer,\nFrancis Bickley and Dr. G. T. Wrench; and the music of Nietzsche's\n\"Hymn to Life\" (words by Lou Salom\u00e9), with an introduction by Mr.\nLudovici, a note to the poetry by Dr. Levy, and a reproduction of Karl\nDonndorf's bust of Nietzsche.\n\nXVIII. Index.\n\nThe student who would read Nietzsche had better begin with one of\nthe aphoristic books, preferably \"The Dawn of Day.\" From that let\nhim proceed to \"Beyond Good and Evil,\" \"The Genealogy of Morals\" and\n\"The Antichrist.\" He will then be ready to understand \"Thus Spake\nZarathustra.\" Later on he may read \"Ecce Homo\" and dip into \"The Joyful\nWisdom,\" \"Human All-Too Human\" and \"The Will to Power,\" as his fancy\nsuggests. The Wagner pamphlets are of more importance to Wagnerians\nthan to students of Nietzsche's ideas, and the early philological and\ncritical essays have lost much of their interest by the passage of\ntime. Nietzsche's poetry had better be avoided by all who cannot read\nit in the original German. The English translations are mostly very\nfree and seldom satisfactory.\n\nOf the larger Nietzschean commentaries in English the best is\n\"Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work,\" by M. A. M\u00fcgge. Appended to\nit is a bibliography of 850 titles--striking evidence of the attention\nthat Nietzsche's ideas have gained in the world. Other books that will\nbe found useful are \"The Quintessence of Nietzsche,\" by J. M. Kennedy;\n\"Nietzsche: His Life and Works,\" by Anthony M. Ludovici; \"The Gospel\nof Superman,\" by Henri Lichtenberger, translated from the French by J.\nM. Kennedy; \"The Philosophy of Nietzsche,\" by Georges Chatterton-Hill,\nand \"The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche,\" by Grace Neal Dolson, Ph.\nD., this last a pioneer work of permanent value. Lesser studies are\nto be found in \"Friedrich Nietzsche,\" by A. R. Orage; \"Nietzsche as\nCritic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet,\" by Thomas Common; \"Friedrich\nNietzsche and His New Gospel,\" by Emily S. Hamblen, and \"Nietzsche,\"\nby Paul Elmer More. Interesting discussions of various Nietzschean\nideas are in \"The Revival of Aristocracy,\" by Dr. Oscar Levy; \"Who\nis to be Master of the World?\" by A. M. Ludovici; \"On the Tracks of\nLife,\" by Leo G. Sera, translated from the Italian by J. M. Kennedy;\n\"Nietzsche and Art,\" by A. M. Ludovici, and \"The Mastery of Life,\" by\nG. T. Wrench. Selections from Nietzsche's writings are put together\nunder subject headings in \"Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism,\" by A.\nR. Orage; \"Nietzsche: His Maxims,\" by J. M. Kennedy, and \"The Gist\nof Nietzsche,\" by H. L. Mencken. An elaborate and invaluable summary\nof all Nietzsche's writings, book by book, is to be found in \"What\nNietzsche Taught,\" by Willard H. Wright. This volume, the fruit of\nvery diligent labor, is admirably concise and well-ordered.\n\nThe standard biography of Nietzsche is \"_Das Leben Friedrich\nNietzsches_\" by Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, a large work in three volumes.\nIn 1911 Frau F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche prepared a shorter version and this\nhas since been done into English by A. M. Ludovici, and published in\ntwo volumes, under the title of \"The Life of Nietzsche.\" Unluckily,\nso devoted a sister was not the best person to deal with certain\nepisodes in the life of her brother and hero. The gaps she left and\nthe ameliorations she attempted are filled and corrected in \"The Life\nof Friedrich Nietzsche,\" by Daniel Hal\u00e9vy, translated from the French\nby J. M. Hone, with an extraordinarily brilliant introduction by T. M.\nKettle, M. P.\n\nSmall but suggestive studies of Nietzsche and his ideas are to be\nfound in \"Egoists,\" \"Mezzotints in Modern Music,\" and \"The Pathos\nof Distance,\" by James Huneker; \"Degeneration,\" by Max Nordau;\n\"Affirmations,\" by Havelock Ellis; \"Aristocracy and Evolution,\" by W.\nH. Mallock; \"Heretics\" and \"Orthodoxy,\" by G. K. Chesterton; \"Lectures\nand Essays on Natural Theology,\" by William Wallace; \"Heralds of\nRevolt,\" by William Barry, D. D.; \"Essays in Sociology,\" by J. M.\nRobertson; \"The Larger Aspects of Socialism,\" by William English\nWalling; \"Three Modern Seers,\" by Mrs. Havelock Ellis; \"Slaves to\nDuty,\" by J. Badcock; \"In Peril of Change,\" by C. F. G. Masterman;\n\"Man's Place in the Cosmos,\" by A. Seth Pringle Pattison; and \"Gospels\nof Anarchy,\" by Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). George Bernard Shaw's\nvariations upon Nietzschean themes are in \"The Revolutionist's\nHandbook,\" appended to \"Man and Superman.\" Of magazine articles dealing\nwith the prophet of the superman there has been no end of late. Most\nof them are worthless, but any bearing the name of Grace Neal Dolson,\nThomas Common, Thomas Stockham Baker or Maude D. Petre may be read\nwith profit. One of the best discussions of Nietzsche I have ever\nencountered was contributed to the _Catholic World_ during December,\n1905, and January, February, March, May and June, 1906, by Miss Petre.\nIt is to be regretted that these excellent papers, which sought to\nrescue Nietzsche from the misunderstandings of Christian critics, have\nnot been re-printed in book-form.\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAdieu, I Must Go!, patriotic song\n_Amor fati_\nAnarchism\nAndreas-Salom\u00e9, _see_ Salom\u00e9.\nAntichrist, The--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  Style of\n  English translation of\nApollo--\n  First conception of\n  God of music and poetry\n  Influence of\n  Conflict with Dionysus\nAquinas, Thomas\nArcelaus\nAristocracy\nArt for art's sake\nAsceticism, 21 _footnote_\nAtheism\n\nBacchus Dionysus--\n  First conception of\n  Imported into Greece\n  God of strenuous life\n  Conflict with Apollo\n  Nietzsche a Dionysian\nBad, definition of\nBadcock, J.\nBaker, Thomas Stockham\nBalfour, A. J.\nBarry, Wm.\nBasel, University of--\n  Nietzsche appointed prof.\n  Lectures on Greek drama\n  In academic society\n  Leave of absence\n  Resigns professorship\n  In asylum at\n  Income at\nBeauty, the idea of\nBeer, Nietzsche's dislike of\nBeyle, Marie Henri, _see_ Stendhal.\nBeyond Good and Evil--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  Argument of\n  English translation of\nBeyond-man, _see_ Higher man.\nBible, Nietzsche's knowledge of\nBible, quotations from\nBickley, Francis\nBirth of Tragedy, The--\n  Its genesis and publication\n  Doctrine of\n  Quotation from\n  Revised\n  English translation of\nBizet's music\nBlake, William\nBlond beast\nBonn, Nietzsche's career at\nBradley, Henry\nBrandes, Georg\nBuddhism\nBurkhardt, Prof.\nButler, Samuel\nCallicles\nCastes\n_Catholic World_\nCelibacy\nChamfort\nChandala, _see_ Masses.\nCharity\nChatterton-Hill, Georges\nChesterton, G. K.\nChivalry\nChloral, Nietzsche's use of\nChristian Science\nChristianity--\n  Nietzsche's indictment of\n  Scientific revolt against\n  Its dogmas examined\n  Free will vs. determinism\n  Its slave-morality\n  Charity\n  Opposition to natural selection\n  Nietzsche's attack on self-sacrifice\n  Origin of Christianity\nCohn, Paul V.\nCollege, American\nCollins, Adrian\nCommercialism\nCommon, Thomas\nComte, Auguste\nConscience, the nature of\nCostume\nCron, Bernard, _see_ Gast.\nCrucifixion, the\nCulture, German\n\nDancing\nDarwin, Charles\nDavid Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer--\n  Publication of\n  Quotation from\n  English translation of\n  _See also_ Strauss, David.\nDawn of Day, The--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\nDeath--\n  The right to die\n  Regulation of\n  Attitude at\nDeath of Nietzsche\nDecalogue\nDegeneracy, Nietzsche's alleged\nDegeneration, Nordau's book\nDemocracy\nDescartes\nDesire\nDeterminism\nDiderot\nDiogenes La\u00ebrtius, early essay on\nDionysus, _see_ Bacchus.\nDionysus, the Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence, plan of proposed book\nDoctor of philosophy\nDolson, Grace Neal\nDonndorf, Karl\nDrama, Greek\nDraper, J. W.\nDreams\nDualism\n\nEcce Homo--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\nEducation, perils of State aid\nEgoism, Stirner's\nElective Affinities\nEllis, Havelock\nEllis, Mrs. Havelock\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo\nEmpedocles\nEncyclopedists, French\nEngadine, summers in\nEnglish translation of Nietzsche\nEnglishmen\nEternal recurrence--\n  Origin of the idea\n  Its fascinations for Nietzsche\n  Effect on superman\nEuropean, the good\nEusebius, Pamphilius\nEvil, definition of; _see also_ Bad.\nFalckenberg, Richard\nFaust\nFiske, John\nFite, Warner\nFlaubert, Gustav\nFontenelle\nF\u00f6rster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth, Nietzsche's sister--\n  Her biography of her brother\n  Editor of his works\n  Marriage and widowhood\n  Relations with Nietzsche\nFouill\u00e9e, Alfred\nFranco-Prussian war, service in\nFree spirit\nFree Spirit, The, plan of proposed book\nFree will\nFreedom\nFriedrich Wilhelm IV.\n\nGast, Peter\nGaultier, Jules de\nGenealogy of Morals, The--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\nGenoa\nGentleman, the\nGobineau\nGod, the idea of\nGoethe\nGolden Rule\nGood, definition of\nGould, Dr. George M.\nGrave of My Father, The, early poem\nGreatness, definition of\nGreek art, Nietzsche's theory of\nGreek drama, early essays on\nGreek Philosophy and Other Essays\nGreek Woman, The, essay\nGreeks, influence on Nietzsche\nGreeley, Horace\n\nHaeckel, Ernst\nHal\u00e9vy, Daniel\nHamblen, Emily S.\nHappiness, definitions of\nHappiness, unattainable\nHaussmann, William A.\nHeadaches, Nietzsche's\nHegel\nHegesippus\nHeine, Heinrich\nHellen, E. von der\nHelv\u00e9tius\nHeracleitus\nHerder\n_Herrenmoral, see_ Master-morality.\nHesiod\nHigher man\nHistory, function of\nHistory, On the Good and Bad Effects of upon Human Life--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\nHobbes, Thomas\nH\u00f6lderlin, Friedrich\nHomer and Classical Philology, essay\nHone, J. M.\nHuman, All-too Human--\n  Publication of first volume\n  Effect of upon friends and public\n  Quotations from\n  Second and third volumes\n  English translation of\nHume, Bennett\nHume, David\nHumility\nHuneker, James\nHuxley, Thomas H.\nHymn to Life\nHypochondria, Nietzsche's\n\nIbsen, Henrik\n_Ideen_\nImmoralist, The, plan of proposed book\nIncome, Nietzsche's\nInopportune Speculations--\n  First volume\n  Plan of\n  Quotation from\n  English translation of\nInsanity, Nietzsche's\n\nJenner\nJews\nJoel, Karl\nJones, Henry Arthur\nJoyful Science, The--\n  Publication of\n  Quotation from\n  English translation of\n\nKant, Immanuel\nKennedy, J. M.\nKettle, T. M.\nKipling, Rudyard\nKlopstock\nKoegel, Fritz\nKrafft-Ebing, R. von\nKrause, Dr., Nietzsche's great-uncle\nKrause, Frau, Nietzsche's great-grandmother\n\nLa Bruy\u00e8re\nLady, the\nLa Monte, Robert Rives\nLankester, E. Ray\nLa Rochefoucauld\nLaw, origin of\nLegislation, freak\nLeipsic, student days at\nLessing\nLevy, Oscar\nLiberty, the worth of\nLichtenberger, Henri\nLiszt, Franz\n_Litterarischen Vereinigung mania, Der_\nLocke, John\nLombroso, Cesare\n_L'Origine de la famille de Nietzsche_\nLove, nature of\nLow, Sidney\nLudovici, Anthony M.\n\nMachiavelli\nMaggiore, Lake\nMallock, W. H.\nMalthus\nMammal, man as a\nMan, meaning of the word\nMandeville\nMarienbad\nMarkby, William\nMarriage, _see_ Women.\nMarx, Karl\nMasochism\nMasses, the\nMasterman, C. F. G.\nMaster-morality\nMaternity\nMencken, H. L.\nMentone\nMessiah, The, Handel oratorio\nMeysenbug, Fr\u00e4ulein von\nMilitary service\nMiscellaneous Opinions and Aphorisms\nMohammedanism\nMonarchy\nMonism\nMontaigne\nMoonlight on the Pussta, composition\nMoral order of the world\nMorality--\n  Definitions of\n  Expression of expedience\n  How it becomes fixed\n  Master and slave morality\n  Nietzsche's criticism of\nMore, Paul Elmer\nM\u00fcgge, M. A.\nMusic, Nietzsche's compositions\nMusic, Nietzsche's love of\n\nNatural morality\nNatural selection, _see_ Struggle for existence.\nNaumann, C. G.\nNaumburg, Nietzsche at\nNew Thought\nNice\nNicholas of Cusa\nNietzsche, Ermentrude, Nietzsche's grandmother\nNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, his characteristics--\n  As a boy\n  Pride in his Polish descent\n  Love of music\n  A brilliant pupil\n  His dislike of _biergem\u00fcthlichkeit_\n  Drug-taking\n  As a professor\n  Method of writing\n  His intolerance\n  Personal appearance\n  Illnesses\n  Insanity\n  Literary style\n  Women\n  Relations to his sister\nNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, his life--\n  Birth\n  Boyhood at Naumburg\n  First writings\n  At Pforta\n  Matriculates at Bonn\n  Student of Ritschl\n  Removes to Leipsic\n  Military service\n  First philological work\n  Discovery of Schopenhauer\n  Takes his degree\n  Professor at Basel\n  First breakdown\n  Publishes \"The Birth of Tragedy\"\n  Other early essays\n  Meeting with Wagner\n  Meeting with R\u00e9e\n  Human, All-too Human\n  Affair with Lou Salom\u00e9\n  Failing health\n  Income\n  Breakdown at Turin\n  Death\nNietzsche, Josef, Nietzsche's brother\nNietzsche, Karl Ludwig, Nietzsche's father\nNietzsche, Therese Elisabeth Alexandra, Nietzsche's sister,\n  _see_ F\u00f6rster-Nietzsche.\nNietzsche versus Wagner--\n  Publication of\n  English translation of\nNietzschy\nNirvana\nNobility\nNordau, Max\n\nOrage, A. R.\nOsler, William\nOverbeck, Franz\n\nPaganism, Nietzsche's\nPaget, Violet (Vernon Lee)\nPaine, Thomas\nParmenides\nParsons, Elsie Clews\nPasteur, Louis\nPattison, A. Seth Pringle\nPeace, universal\nPetre, Maude D.\nPfleiderer, Otto\nPforta\nPhilologists, We, essay\nPhilosophy\nPindar, Judge, of Naumburg\nPleasure and pain\nPlowshare, The\nPoetry, Nietzsche's\nPolish origin of Nietzsche family\nPoor Laws, effect of English\nPrayer\nPredestination\nPriestcraft\nProfessor at Basel\nProgress, Nietzsche's program of\nProperty rights\nProudhon\nPussta\nPyrrho\nPythagoras\n\n\nR\u00e9e, Paul--\n  Nietzsche's meeting with\n  Rivals in love\n  Influence on Nietzsche\nRenaissance, Second\nRichard Wagner in Bayreuth--\n  Publication of\n  English translation of\n  _See also_ Wagner.\nRitschl, Albrecht\nRitschl, Frau\nRitschl, Friedrich Wilhelm\nRobertson, J. M.\nR\u00f6cken\nRomantic movement in Germany\nRoosevelt, Theodore\nRousseau\n\nSt. Austin\nSallust\nSalom\u00e9, Lou--\n  Meeting with Nietzsche\n  Book on Nietzsche\n  Marriage\n  Nietzsche's affair with\n  Hymn to Life\nSamuel, Horace B.\nScience, its aims\nScheffauer, Hermann\nSchiller\nSchooldays at Naumburg\nSchopenhauer, Arthur--\n  Nietzsche's discovery of\n  The will-to-live\n  Nietzsche's divergence\n  Essay on\n  Influence on Nietzsche\nSchopenhauer as a Teacher--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\nSchumann, Robert\nSelf-control\nSera, Leo G.\nSeydlitz, Baron von\nShaw, G. Bernard\n_Silberblick_\nSils Maria\nSin, the Christian idea of\nSkepticism\n_Sklavmoral, see_ Slave-morality.\nSlave-morality\nSmith, Adam\nSocial contract\nSocialism\nSocrates\nSorrento\nSpencer, Herbert\nSpinoza\nState, origin of\nStendhal\nStirner, Max\nStrauss, David Friedrich\n  _see also_ David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer.\nStrauss, Richard, 55.\nStruggle for existence\nStyle, Nietzsche's German\nSuicide\nSuperman--\n  Described\n  His purposes\n  His characteristics\nSympathy\n\nTaine\nTeacher, Nietzsche as a\nTeachers, their characteristics\nThoughts Out of Season, _see_ Inopportune Speculations.\nTille, Alexander\nTobacco, Nietzsche's dislike of\nTr----, Fr\u00e4ulein, Nietzsche's proposal to\nTragedy, its origin\nTribschen\nTruth--\n  Definitions of\n  Its origin in error\n  The scientific method\nTurck, Dr.\nTurin, breakdown at\nTwilight of the Idols, The--\n  Publication of\n  Quotations from\n  English translation of\n\nVauvenarges\nVenice\nVoltaire\n\nWagner, The Case of--\n  Publication of\n  Quotation from\n  English translation of\nWagner, Cosima\nWagner, Richard--\n  Meeting with Nietzsche\n  Nietzsche visits at Tribschen\n  Richard Wagner in Bayreuth\n  Burlesqued in Thus Spake Zarathustra\n  The Case of Wagner\n  Nietzsche vs. Wagner\n  Nietzsche as a Wagnerian\n  Wagner and Schopenhauer\n  Parsifal\n  Bayreuth opening\n  Break with Nietzsche\n  Nietzsche's last words on\nWalker, J. L.\nWallace, Alfred Russell\nWallace, William\nWalling, William English\nWanderer and His Shadow, The\nWar, benefits of\nWar, Heracleitus on\nWeimar\nWhite, Andrew D.\nWieland\nWife\nWill-to-live\nWill-to-power\nWill-to-Power, The--\n  Plan of proposed work\n  Notes published\n  Quotation from\n  English translation of\nWindelband, Wilhelm\nWomen--\n  Nietzsche's personal attitude\n  Their chief duty\n  Their slave-morality\n  Sources of their weakness\n  Their guile\n  Man's attitude toward them\n  Marriage\n  \"Don't forget thy whip!\"\n  Schopenhauer on\n  The lady\nWrench, G. T.\nWright, Willard H.\n\nZarathustra, Thus Spake--\n  Publication of\n  Plan of\n  Quotations from\n  Richard Strauss' tone-poem\n  English translation of\nZeno\nZimmern, Helen\nZoroaster, _see_ Zarathustra.","title":"The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":80665}