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NIETZSCHE   AND  THE 

IDEALS    OF   MODERN 

GERMANY 


BY 

HERBERT  LESLIE  STEWART 

M.A.  (OxoN.),   D.PH. 

PROFESSOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY   IN    DALHOUSIE    UNIVERSITY,    HALIFAX,    NOVA   SCOTIA 
FORMERLY  JOHN    LOCKE   SCHOLAR    IN    MENTAL    PHILOSOPHY,    UNIVERSITY   OK    OXFORD 
•E   JUNIOR    FELLOW   IN    MENTAL    AND    MORAL   SCIENCE,    ROYAL   UNIVERSITY    OF     IRELAND 

AUTHOR  OF  "QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY  IN  PHILOSOPHY  AND  PSYCHOLOGY" 


"*       t 


LONDON 
EDWARD     ARNOLD 

1915 

All  rights  reserved 


B 


• 


PREFACE 

SINCE  the  war  began  Friedrich  Nietzsche  has  been 
widely  discussed,  and  the  question  has  been  asked 
how  far  his  "  Neue  Moral  "  explains  the  attitude  of 
the  Germans  in  international  affairs.  Newspapers 
and  magazines  have  been  filled  with  estimates  which 
may  well  bewilder  the  public.  One  critic  declares  that 
chapter  and  verse  may  be  quoted  from  Zarathustra  to 
justify  every  step  which  Germany  has  taken;  another 
finds  that  no  philosopher  has  spoken  out  more  boldly 
against  the  spirit  of  racial  aggressiveness — that,  in 
short,  Nietzsche  is  the  champion  of  the  German 
Geist,  not  as  embodied  in,  but  as  contrasted  with,  the 
German  Reich.  In  the  heated  language  of  the  moment 
there  is,  of  course,  much  exaggeration  and  much  mis 
understanding;  unfortunately,  the  truth  on  the  sub 
ject  is  somewhat  difficult  of  access  to  the  British 
reader.  Most  people  are  deterred  from  investigating 
at  first  hand  when  they  find  that  some  twenty 
volumes  are  to  be  consulted,  and  the  available  hand 
books  are  unsatisfactory.  Our  competent  teachers 
of  ethics  have,  for  the  most  part,  passed  Nietzsche 
by,  and  the  work  of  expounding  him  has  fallen  largely 
to  the  zealots  of  his  own  school. 

This  series  of  lectures  is  the  expansion  of  a  short 


vi  PREFACE 

course  which  I  delivered  last  winter  to  the  students 
of  Dalhousie  University.  They  make  no  pretence  to 
be  an  adequate  appreciation  of  Nietzsche's  place  in 
the  history  of  thought;  I  have  confined  myself  to 
those  aspects  of  his  work  which  may  cast  light  upon 
the  social  policy  and  ideals  of  Germany  as  these  have 
been  revealed  in  the  present  war.  Much  that  is  valuable 
in  his  teaching — for  example,  his  suggestions  towards 
a  new  theory  of  knowledge — it  has  been  necessary  to 
leave  unnoticed.  But  to  explain  his  ethical  position 
I  have  had  to  include  a  fairly  wide  analysis  of  the 
anthropological  and  psychological  basis  upon  which 
the  whole  has  been  made  to  rest.  Hence  this  is 
neither  a  book  on  the  war  nor  a  book  on  Nietzsche's 
philosophy;  it  is  an  effort  to  assist  those  who  wish  to 
correlate  the  moral  outlook  of  Germany  with  one 
personal  influence  by  which,  beyond  doubt,  it  has 
been  in  part  directed.  And  for  those  who  believe 
that  Nietzsche,  properly  understood,  has  been  a  force 
making  towards  cosmopolitan  peace,  I  have  set  forth 
in  detail  the  grounds  upon  which  I  believe  the  oppo 
site. 

We  have  lately  had  a  revelation  of  character  in 
German  leaders  by  which  not  only  we  of  the  British 
Empire,  who  may  well  be  prejudiced,  but  neutral 
nations  which  ought  to  be  impartial,  have  been  aston 
ished  and  shocked.  It  is  now  needless  to  dwell  upon 
the  extent  of  that  great  exposure;  I  shall  only  say 
of  it  that  the  indignation  of  mankind  has  been  roused 
less  by  what  any  outsider  has  said  than  by  what  the 


PREFACE  vii 

German  representatives  have  said  themselves — less 
by  the  reproaches  of  Germany's  critics  than  by  the 
candid  avowals  of  her  own  statesmen.  And  not  the 
least  damning  evidence  has  been  supplied  in  those 
pamphlets  by  which  her  university  professors  have 
sought  to  conciliate  neutral  opinion.  One  manifesto 
after  another  has  been  issued  by  these  eminent  men, 
presenting  the  case  for  Germany  with  all  the  force 
which  ingenuity  can  devise,  and  all  the  warmth 
which  patriotism  can  inspire.  These  statements  we 
have  tried  to  read  with  whatever  patience  and  what 
ever  dispassionateness  were  under  the  circumstances 
possible.  Two  things  are  specially  conspicuous  in 
them — the  disregard  of  facts  which  we  think  crucial, 
and  the  emphasizing  of  points  which  we  think  irrele 
vant.  They  are  intended,  of  course,  not  for  us,  but 
for  America ;  their  authors  begin  with  profuse  courtesy 
about  the  fairness  of  the  American  mind,  but  after 
months  of  literary  campaigning  they  are  chagrined 
to  discover  that  the  Americans  remain  overwhelmingly 

t/  •/ 

on  the  side  of  the  Allies. 

The  reason  is  not  obscure.  They  have  been  con 
ducting  a  "  moral  "  argument  in  categories  of  good 
and  evil  which  are  entirely  foreign  to  the  conscience 
of  their  public.  America  wants  an  answer  to  some 
questions  that  are  perfectly  direct  and  perfectly  un 
ambiguous.  She  wants  to  know  how  the  murder  of 
the  Archduke  can  have  been  the  cause  of  a  war 
which  was  contemplated  a  year  before  that  murder 
took  place ;  she  wants  to  know  with  what  purpose  a 


viii  PREFACE 

strategic  railway,  of  no  commercial  advantage,  was 
built  long  ago  right  up  to  the  Belgian  frontier;  she 
wants  to  know  how  this  consorts  with  the  claim  that 
the  assault  on  Belgium  was  a  forced  move  at  the  last 
moment  to  anticipate  a  similar  move  by  France;  she 
wants  above  all  to  know  why,  when  Russia  and 
Austria  were  on  the  point  of  coming  to  terms,  Ger 
many — an  outsider  to  the  main  quarrel — should  have 
declared  war.  And  America's  reason  for  persisting 
in  such  inquiries  is  that  she  believes  in  the  faith  of 
treaties,  in  the  rights  of  a  small  State,  in  the  awful 
guilt  of  drawing  the  sword  unprovoked.  The  German 
apologist  evades  her  questions,  or  answers  them  in 
terms  that  are  plainly  false,  or  offers  a  multitude  of 
answers  that  are  mutually  inconsistent.  These  are 
usual  methods  of  a  debater  that  is  in  the  wrong;  but 
an  exceptional  feature  in  the  German  defence  is 
that  it  turns  aside  from  such  vital  issues  to  propound 
a  case  clothed  in  moral  phraseology  but  resting  upon 
a  thoroughly  immoral  postulate.  The  contrast  be 
tween  Teutonic  culture  and  Russian  or  Slavonic  bar 
barism  is  pressed  incessantly  upon  the  notice  of 
Americans,  and  the  implication  is  that  this  contrast 
should  determine  America's  decision.  When  she 
wants  to  hear  a  plain  unvarnished  tale  about  justice 
and  equal  rights,  but  is  offered  instead  a  panegyric  on 
the  cultural  eminence  of  one  side  as  compared  with 
the  other:  when  she  wants  to  know  why  a  treaty  was 
outraged,  and  is  told  that  no  treaty  can  be  allowed  to 
hinder  the  imperative  strategy  of  war :  when  she  wants 


PREFACE  ix 

to  be  shown  why  the  Austro-Serbian  difficulty  was 
beyond  diplomatic  methods,  and  is  told  that  Austria, 
with  Germany's  concurrence,  had  made  up  her  mind 
to  teach  the  Serbs  a  blood-stained  lesson,  and  that 
after  all  the  battle-field  is  not  such  a  shocking  thing  as 
is  commonly  supposed — then  America  draws  her  own 
conclusion.  She  concludes  that  she  is  not  hearing  a 
defence  within  the  terms  of  the  morality  which  she 
reveres,  but  the  avowal  of  a  new  morality  manufac 
tured  to  support  a  particular  statecraft. 

One  key  to  the  enigma  of  Germany  is,  undoubtedly, 
to  be  found  in  this  sinister  aberration  of  thought  on 
ethical  questions,  especially  on  the  issues  of  inter 
national  conduct.  There  has  been  a  current  of  such 
thinking  in  that  country  for  the  last  thirty  years,  and 
by  several  noted  litterateurs  that  current  has  been 
given  expression.  To  the  English  observer  it  seemed 
too  monstrous  to  be  important,  but  we  see  to-day 
how  far  we  were  mistaken.  We  are  forced  to  revert 
to  it,  if  we  would  find  the  principles  which  make  a 
systematic  whole,  clear  in  its  shameful  consistency, 
of  the  German  programme  from  beginning  to  end. 

In  this  book  I  have  selected  one  representative  of 
such  thought  for  special  study.  That  the  prophet 
of  Zarathustm  "  made  the  war  "  few  persons  will  be 
foolish  enough  to  believe.  But  that  he  enforced 
with  singular  effectiveness  just  those  doctrines  of 
immoralism  which  Prussia  has  put  into  execution, 
the  following  pages  endeavour  to  show.  No  effort 
is  made  to  hide  those  elements  in  Nietzsche's  Evangel 


x  PREFACE 

which  tended  another  way;  on  the  contrary,  the 
reader  will  find  these  systematically  set  forth.  But 
Nietzsche's  points  of  agreement  with  militarism  are, 
in  my  view,  far  more  significant  than  his  points  of 
dissent.  I  take  him,  not  as  the  originator  of  any 
policy,  but  as  typical  of  a  mood  which  has  had  fearful 
consequences  for  mankind;  a  study  of  his  Weltan 
schauung  may  thus  cast  some  incidental  light  upon 
the  present  tragic  situation  of  Europe. 

The  references  in  the  foot-notes  throughout  this 
book  are  to  the  authorized  English  translation  of 
Nietzsche,  edited  by  Dr.  Oscar  Levy.  I  have  to 
thank  two  colleagues — Dr.  A.  MacMechan,  Professor 
of  English  Literature,  and  Dr.  H.  P.  Jones,  Professor 
of  Modern  Languages — for  much  valuable  help  in  the 
revision  of  proofs. 

H.  L.  S. 

DALHOUSIE  UNIVERSITY, 
HALIFAX, 

NOVA  SCOTIA, 

August,  1915. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  I 

THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM 

PACES 

Interest  of  Nietzsche's  teaching — His  life — His  style — De 
pendence  on  Schopenhauer — Schopenhauer's  conflict  with 
Hegel — The  world  as  will — Pessimism  and  the  denial  of 
"  will  to  live  " — Nietzsche's  criticism — Pessimism  as  a 
form  of  Nihilism,  and  both  as  products  of  decadence — 
"  Valuing  "  as  "  creating  " — Decadent  types  in  Zara- 
thustra — The  sources  of  Greek  optimism — Birth  of 
Tragedy — The  "  Apollonian  "  versus  the  "  Dionysian  " 
spirit — Nietzsche's  affirmation  of  life  as  a  whole  1 — 20 

LECTURE  II       \ 

THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  AND  "MORALITY  AS  DECADENCE" 

Pessimism  in  the  end  a  moral  issue,  hence  to  be  solved  by 
inquiry  into  origin  of  ideas  "  good  "  and  "  evil  " — 
Nietzsche's  demand  for  an  inductive  method  of  ethics — 
Antithesis  "  good  and  bad  "  prior  to  "  good  and  evil  " — 
Its  origin  traced  philologically  to  the  values  of  an  aristo 
cratic  caste — All  moral  estimates  rooted  in  will  to  power — 
Birth  of  asceticism  in  rivalry  of  noble  and  priest — "  Evil  " 
originated  in  plebeian  resentment  and  the  values  of  the 
herd — Social  character  of  early  morals — Source  of  ideas  of 
obligation,  conscience,  guilt,  punishment — Current  values 
favourable  to  low  racial  type,  and  involving  a  denial  of 
life — Criticism  of  Nietzsche's  view — His  inadequate 
equipment  as  an  historian  of  morality — His  anthropo 
logical  and  psychological  blundering — Points  of  value  in 
his  account  21 — 57 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 


LECTURE  III 
THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES     •/ 

PAGES 

Transition  from  will  to  power  as  psychological  fact,  to  will  to 
power  as  moral  rule — Decadence  a  normal  phenomenon 
of  social  old  age — Need  for  a  renewal  of  the  values  of 
youth,  especially  for  a  changed  attitude  towards  sympathy 
and  egoism  —  Nietzsche's  attack  on  sympathy  —  The 
pitiful  man  defeats  his  own  end,  and  favours  the  preserva 
tion  of  all  that  ought  to  perish — Was  Nietzsche  opposed 
to  sympathy  in  its  essence,  or  only  in  its  less  enlightened 
forms  ? — The  hypothesis  of  "  Eternal  Return  " — Re 
instatement  of  egoism — A  completely  altruistic  society 
impossible — Selfishness  as  the  duty  of  those  who  are  fit 
for  it — Intrinsic  value  of  great  men — The  "  bestowing 
virtue  " — Criticism  of  the  Golden  Rule — Assertion  of  a 
double  morality,  for  masters  and  for  slaves — Estimate  of 
Nietzsche's  revaluation — Prejudice  created  by  his  manner 
— Merits  and  defects  in  his  treatment  of  sympathy  and 
egoism — The  problem,  in  the  end,  one  of  ethical  axioms — 
Nietzsche's  inconsistency  ....  53 — 90 


v/LECTURE  IV  \/ 

SUPERMAN 

Nietzsche  and  Darwin — The  evolutionist  formula  of  struggle 
— How  Nietzsche  applies  this  to  eugenics — His  view  of 
womanhood — Nietzsche's  dissent  from  Darwinism — His 
insistence  on  purposive  rather  than  natural  selection — 
The  selective  value  of  war — The  Superman  as  goal —  .  * 
Lineaments  of  this  ideal — Its  possibility  as  the  answer 
to  Pessimism  —  Criticisms  —  Darwinism  and  ethics  — 
Nietzsche's  eugenics — His  inconsistency  with  his  own 
earlier  positions — Superman  the  negation  of  morality  in 
any  objective  sense  -  -  91 — 117 


CONTENTS  xiii 

LECTUEE   V 

ARISTOCRACY 

PAGES 

Nietzsche's  definition  of  an  aristocrat — Contrast  between 
the  "  objective  "  man  of  science  or  the  "  productive  " 
man  of  art  and  the  "  creative  "  man  of  the  higher 
order— Lineaments  of  aristocracy — A  proud  self-respect 
and  self-confidence — Distinction  between  pride  and  vanity 
—The  aristocrat  as  an  instrument  of  progress — His 
truthfulness  and  his  magnanimity — His  instinct  for  rank 
— His  isolation — The  nobility  of  caste — Historical  opposi 
tion  of  oligarch  and  democrat — The  religious  reinforce 
ment  of "  herd  values  " — Elements  of  value  in  Nietzsche's 
analysis — Some  virtues  characteristic  of  high  social  strata, 
but  these,  in  so  far  as  they  spring  from  caste  feeling, 
hardly  above  the  instinctive  level— Limitations  of 
democracy— Special  circumstances  in  which  oligarchy 
makes  for  progress — The  exaggerations  in  Nietzsche's 
picture  118 — 148 

LECTURE  VI 

NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  UPON  MODERN  GERMANY 

Difficulties  in  such  an  estimate — The  analogous  cases  of 
Treitschke  and  Bernhardi — Popular  exaggeration  of  the 
influence  of  individuals — Nietzsche  neither  intimately 
known  nor  greatly  cared  about  by  general  public,  and 
much  discounted  by  German  philosophers — The  view  that 
he  was  an  "  individualist  "  and  consequently  against 
i  race-aggression — His  attacks  upon  militarism,  upon  the 
]  regime  of  Bismarck,  and  upon  the  German  hostility  to 
culture — His  cosmopolitan  outlook — Do  these  features 
indicate  that  he  was  a  pacific  force  ? — His  "  individual 
ism  "  worthless  as  a  barrier  against  the  Prussian  spirit 
— His  antithesis  between  culture  and  civilization — His 
cosmopolitanism  based  on  the  dominance  of  a  caste — 
Nietzsche  foresaw  and  welcomed  an  international  Arma- 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

geddon — He  despised  the  "petty -State  system" — 
His  indirect  influence  much  stronger  than  his  positive 
precepts — Justification  of  will  to  power  meant  an  endorse 
ment  of  Prussian  policy  in  the  past — Defence  of  military 
imperialism  laid  the  basis  for  modern  "  exploiting  rights  of 
culture  " — His  emphasis  on  the  value  of  war  for  war's 
sake — How  these  principles  have  been  expressed  in 
Prussian  statecraft — Nietzsche  both  gave  positive  en 
couragement  to  selfishness  and  weakened  every  moral 
guarantee  for  the  maintenance  of  peace  -  149 — 188 


/L 


'LECTURE  VII 

NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

Nietzsche's  religious  training  in  youth — His  subsequent 
attitude — Theory  of  religious  origins  in  the  psychology 
of  primitive  man — Influence  of  dreams  and  ecstasies — 
A  deceitful  priesthood — The  "  holy  lie  " — Weakness  of 
Nietzsche's  account — Special  problem  of  Christianity — 
His  attack  upon  Strauss — Theory  that  the  Christian 
morality  was  fundamental,  and  that  dogma  was  but  its 
intellectual  reinforcement — Elements  of  truth  in  this — 
Nietzsche's  dislike  of  "  half -measures  " — His  objections 
to  Christianity  as  favouring  pessimism,  equality,  and 
race  decay — Can  these  charges  be  made  out  ? — Nietzsche's 
want  of  historical  sympathy — His  ignorance  of  modern 
interpretations  of  Christianity — His  revival  of  the  crudi 
ties  of  Deism — The  present  war  as  a  crucial  test  of  morale 
— Its  relation  to  Christian  principles — Is  it  a  revelation  of 
religious  breakdown,  or  a  conflict  on  a  great  scale  between 
the  Christian  and  the  Nietzschean  values  ?  -  189 — 232 


INDEX  -  233 


NIETZSCHE  AND  THE 
IDEALS  OF  MODERN  GERMANY 

LECTURE  I 

THE   RECOIL   FROM   PESSIMISM 

THE  choice  of  Nietzsche  as  subject  for  a  short  course 
of  Sunday  afternoon  lectures  can  be  justified,  I  think, 
at  present  both  on  general  and  on  special  grounds. 
I  speak  under  the  auspices  of  an  Association  which 
exists  to  infuse  Christian  ideals  of  character  into  our 
University  life.  This  is  a  fitting  aim  only  for  those 
who  believe  that  these  ideals  are  supremely  valuable ; 
if  anyone  has  found  elsewhere  a  worthier  or  a  more 
fruitful  stimulus,  ours  is  an  aim  which  he  will  not 
cherish,  and  may  even  oppose.  Now,  Friedrich 
Nietzsche  is  the  writer  who,  above  all  others,  has 
based  his  aversion  to  Christianity  upon  moral  grounds. 
His  was  no  mere  scepticism  regarding  that  view  of 
God  and  the  world  which  we  call  religious  dogma; 
he  looked  upon  this  as  already  beyond  the  need  of 
refutation,  as  a  myth  already  exploded  for  well- 
informed  minds.  But  the  axe,  he  tells  us,  has  not 
yet  been  laid  with  real  thoroughness  to  the  very  root 
of  the  tree.  Amid  all  the  negative  criticism  directed 
against  theology,  a  tender  regard  has  been  paid  to 
the  Christian  conception  of  virtue  and  obligation. 
Mankind  has  still  to  be  taught  that  Christianity  did 

1 


2          NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

not  improve  but  rather  corrupted  to  the  very  core 
the  morale  of  Europe,  that  it  has  been  the  great 
counteractive  of  culture,  that  wherever  it  exists 
to-day — and  just  to  that  degree  in  which  it  is  in 
fluential — low  types  of  character  flourish,  contemp 
tible  qualities  are  encouraged,  the  higher  impulses  of 
man  are  strangled  at  the  birth. 

This  challenge  proceeds  from  a  rare,  though  not  a 
unique,  point  of  view.  As  we  examine,  I  trust  in  a 
perfectly  impartial  spirit,  the  grounds  upon  which  it 
rests,  we  shall  be  forced  to  state  to  ourselves  in  an 
unusually  explicit  and  discriminating  way  what  we 
believe  to  be  involved  in  the  Christian  ideal  of  life; 
when  we  set  this  in  contrast  with  the  principle  which 
Nietzsche  would  substitute,  we  shall  perhaps  discover 
in  it  aspects  and  consequences  which  only  such  a 
process  of  contrasting  can  reveal. 

But  there  is  a  special  reason  for  the  attention 
which  has  of  late  been  fixed  upon  the  work  of  this 
German  thinker.  The  war  which  is  desolating 
Europe  may  be  looked  at  on  many  sides  and  inter 
preted  in  many  ways ;  on  one  point,  however,  there  is 
widespread  agreement  amongst  all  who  consider  it 
impartially.  It  has  become  clear  that  the  opponents 
hold  very  different  views  about  international  obliga 
tion.  The  divergence  is  not  simply  one  of  practice; 
it  is  a  divergence  in  the  principles  which  are  held 
with  all  honesty  of  mind  by  the  contending  parties. 
When  one  asks  for  the  reason  of  this,  one  is  met  by  a 
variety  of  answers;  amongst  them  is  the  claim  that 
certain  historians,  certain  philosophers,  certain  journa 
lists,  have  inoculated  the  German  conscience  with  a 
moral  perversion.  Those  who  deal  in  picturesque 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  3 

exaggeration  have  tried  to  saddle  the  blame  upon 
some  individual  writer.     It  is,  of  course,  extravagant 
to  suppose  that  one  or  two  literary  men  have  been  so 
potent  in  turning  the  tide  of  an  Empire's  policy;  yet 
one  cannot  help  being  impressed  by  the  fact  that  the 
theories  of  life  which  a  few  German  thinkers  of  high 
popularity  have  commended  are  very  similar  to  those 
which  German  politicians  and  German  generals  have 
been    translating    into    practice.       Amongst    these 
thinkers  I  am  persuaded  that  Nietzsche  has  been  one, 
although,  for  reasons  to  which  I  shall  draw  your  atten 
tion,  his  part  is  specially  difficult  to  define.     When 
we  have  seen   what  his  moral  and   social  message 
•amounted  to,  we  shall  try  to  estimate  how  far  it 
contained  the  germ  of  the  things  which  we  have 
watched  with  horrified  astonishment  since  last  July. 
Nietzsche's  work  is  unlike  almost  anything  else 
that  has  been  known  in  the  multiform  course  of 
ethical  speculation.     It  is  not  the  founding  of  a  new 
school,  offering  a  different  interpretation  of  moral 
facts;  by  this  time  it  would  be  difficult  to  originate 
such  a  school  except  as  a  fresh  combination  of  old 
ones.     Tennyson,  you  remember,  writes  in  his  poem, 
The  Two  Voices  : 

I  know  that  age  to  age  succeeds. 
Blowing  a  noise  of  tongues  and  deeds, 
A  dust  of  systems  and  of  creeds. 

It  seems  scarcely  possible  that  a  complete  novelty 
in  the  way  of  moral  system  should  at  this  time  of  day 
arise,  however  violently  the  dust  might  be  stirred. 
And  yet  that  way  of  looking  at  the  life  of  men  and 
communities  which  we  connect  with  the  name  of 


4          NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Nietzsche  is  not  a  revival  of  something  propounded 
before.  It  has  been  called  a  renaissance  of  paganism, 
and  that  it  is  in  essence  pagan  no  one  will  deny. 
But  neither  can  we  deny  that  it  is  in  its  own  fashion 
original.  We  shall  put  it  best  by  saying  that  it  is 
not,  like  other  systems,  an  attempt  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  the  moral  consciousness  of  man;  it  is 
rather  a  titanic  effort  to  transform  that  consciousness 
itself. 

Nietzsche  was  born  in  the  year  1844  at  a  village 
near  Leipzig,  in  which  his  father  was  the  Lutheran 
pastor.  He  showed  very  early  a  remarkable  aptitude 
for  classical  learning,  so  much  so  that  while  still  an 
undergraduate  he  was  chosen  to  fill  a  Professorship  of 
Classical  Philology  in  the  University  of  Bale.  This 
Chair  he  retained  for  only  a  few  years,  until  his  health 
broke  down,  owing  to  an  affection  of  the  eyes,  which 
was  afterwards  traced  to  a  brain  lesion.  After  a 
period  of  sick-leave,  which  produced  little  improve 
ment,  he  was  pensioned  by  the  University  in  1879. 
For  a  melancholy  decade  he  passed  from  one  health 
resort  to  another,  working  incessantly  under  the  most 
adverse  circumstances,  publishing  volume  after 
volume  in  which  he  developed  those  ideas  for  which 
he  has  become  famous.  In  1889  came  the  tragic 
sequel ;  he  was  declared  incurably  deranged,  and  the 
next  twelve  years  were  passed  in  an  asylum.  The 
end  came  mercifully  in  1900. 

An  expounder  of  his  views  has  certain  serious 
difficulties  to  overcome.  Nietzsche  was  no  system- 
builder — never  attempted  to  articulate  his  thought 
into  a  harmonious  whole,  after  the  fashion  which 
German  philosophers  above  all  other  men  affect. 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  5 

He  aimed  to  be  consistent,  yet  no  man  is  a  clearer,  if 
an  unconscious,  illustration  of  Emerson's  contempt 
for  consistency,  "that  hobgoblin  of  little  minds"; 
he  chose  just  that  epigrammatic  and  aphoristic  style 
which  makes  consistency  impossible.  Fierce  para 
doxes  abound,  conflicting  not  only  with  common 
opinion,  but  with  equally  fierce  paradoxes,  which 
our  author  has  fulminated  elsewhere.  It  would,  of 
course,  be  absurd  to  bind  down  a  writer  of  this  sort 
to  anything  like  literal  exactness:  he  is  a  stupid 
pedant  indeed  who  would  interpret  the  words  of  a 
poet  as  if  they  were  legal  formulae.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  we  are  to  interpret  Nietzsche  at  all,  we  must 
extract  some  definite  teaching  from  what  he  has 
written;  he  took  himself  very  seriously  indeed,  and 
has  been  very  seriously  taken  by  his  countrymen ;  we 
could  not  dishonour  his  memory  more  than  by  looking 
upon  him  as  a  mere  purveyor  of  bold,  amusing 
cynicisms.  But  he  has  written  in  that  manner  which 
makes  it  most  difficult  to  do  justice  to  a  man's 
opinions;  one  reader  is  charmed  by  the  form  and 
overestimates  the  content;  another  is  provoked  by 
the  inevitable  exaggerations,  and  cannot  examine 
with  patience  the  underlying  thought.  Nietzsche's 
German  is  brilliant  indeed — perhaps,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  that  of  Schopenhauer,  the  most  striking 
German  prose  in  existence;  almost  every  page  has  its 
terse,  arresting  phrase;  we  are  delighted  by  his  viru 
lent  assaults  upon  convention;  he  has  an  intense 
hatred  of  cant,  and  where  he  is  dealing  with  real  cant 
he  cuts  wide  and  deep.  If  all  the  truth  must  be 
spoken,  he  appeals  with  force  to  that  element  in  all 
of  us  which  theologians  have  called  the  "  natural 


6          NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

man."  But  an  author  has  not  always  written  truly 
because  he  has  written  cleverly;  there  are  few  seduc 
tions  more  subtle  than  the  seductions  of  style.  On 
the  other  hand,  such  critics  as  von  Hartmann,  irri 
tated  beyond  endurance  by  a  philosopher  who  will 
not  set  forth  his  ideas  in  a  system,  have  been,  I  think, 
less  than  fair  to  Nietzsche.1  At  the  least  we  must 
concede  that  he  has  given  us  a  succession  of  striking 
and  suggestive  points  of  view,  which  we  must  assume 
and  abandon  in  turn,  but  from  each  of  which,  while 
we  keep  to  it,  a  very  thought-provoking  reconstruc 
tion  of  man  and  of  society  is  disclosed. 

We  shall  approach  his  central  idea  best  if  we  think 
of  him  as  brought  up  in  the  school  of  Schopenhauer; 
discipleship  in  that  school  was  his  first  philosophic 
faith ;  reaction  against  it  gave  the  impulse  to  his  inde 
pendent  inquiry.  Hence  I  have  entitled  this  lecture 
The  Recoil  from  Pessimism.  We  must  begin  with  a 
brief  statement  of  Schopenhauer's  condemnation  of 
life,  and  of  the  grounds  on  which  that  condemnation 
rested. 

The  influence  of  Hegel  had  become  dominant  in 
German  speculation.  Men  everywhere  had  caught 
up  the  great  idealistic  creed,  that  the  world  is  intelli 
gible  through  and  through,  that  Keality  "  contains 
no  principle  which  can  permanently  resist  the  pres 
sure  of  thought."  The  universe  was  described  as 
Objective  Reason,  decipherable  in  every  part,  if 
reflection  were  sufficiently  profound  and  sufficiently 
patient.  Ultimate  discord  between  mind  and  its 
material  was  a  groundless  fear;  all  things  were  in 
their  essence  spirit.  Where  philosophy  had  failed 

1  Cf.  von  Hartmann's  Ethische  Studien,  pp.  35,  36. 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  7 

the  error  was  one  of  application;  inadequate  or  hasty 
thinking  must  be  cured  by  thinking  that  was  more 
thorough  and  more  cautious.  Thus,  Hegel  taught 
a  boundless  faith  in  intellect;  he  refused  to  recognize 
any  limits  to  understanding  such  as  those  which,  in 
Kant's  view,  understanding  itself  prescribes.  And 
side  by  side  with  this  confidence  he  inspired  a  fervent 
optimism,  an  assurance  that  the  world  of  things 
would  in  the  end  be  brought  under  the  mastery  of 
mind,  that  the  great  human  values  would  be  eternally 
vindicated  when  Reason  without  should  have  com 
pletely  responded  to  reason  within. 

Schopenhauer,  on  grounds  which  I  have  not  space 
to  set  forth,  had  challenged  this  whole  scheme  of 
interpretation.  Its  faith  in  reason  was  to  him  mere 
naivete,  its  optimistic  outlook  a  dishonesty  of  the 
intellect.  Returning  to  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  Thing- 
in-itself,  he  declared  that  thought  is  confined  within 
the  bounds  of  phenomena,  that  all  argument  from 
phenomena  to  their  ultimate  ground  transgresses  the 
limits  within  which  argument  must  move,  that  the 
Reality  behind  all  that  we  can  see  is  impenetrable  by 
reflection.  The  mind's  incompetence  was  thus  not 
accidental,  but  necessary  and  permanent.  There  was 
no  such  correspondence  as  Hegel  had  affirmed  be 
tween  the  external  order  and  the  inward  dialectic; 
one  must  rather  conceive  thought  itself  as  an  instru 
ment  of  narrow  range,  the  slave — as  Hume  put  it— 
of  our  passions  and  appetites.  As  such  it  was  practi 
cally  serviceable,  but  its  limits  were  set  by  biological 
utility;  it  could  read  no  speculative  riddles;  to  think 
of  Reality  as  "  mirrored  "  in  mind  was  mere  assump 
tion  dictated  by  religious  bias,  a  suborning  of  philoso- 


8          NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

phy  in  defence  of  theism.  What  one  could  actually 
discern  in  nature  was  a  process  antithetical  to  design, 
a  mere  working  of  force,  a  struggle  on  the  part  of 
everything,  good  and  bad,  to  maintain  itself  in  ex 
istence.  This  was  best  put  analogically  as  "  blind, 
irrational  will  ";  if  any  purpose  could  be  assigned,  it 
was  merely  that  of  the  organism  which  resists  disso 
lution,  or  of  the  matter  which  is  indestructible;  there 
was  a  ubiquitous  "  will  to  live,"  but  there  was  no 
rational  guidance  of  life,  no  specific  goal  to  which 
things  tend. 

On  such  a  basis  Schopenhauer  turned  to  face  the 
problem  of  human  values.  Existence  being  such,  is 
it  for  man  really  worth  while  ?  Does  it  justify  itself 
as  desirable  ?  He  replies  that  it  is  our  nature  to 
pursue  the  everlasting  quest  for  what  we  cannot 
attain.  Our  suffering  far  exceeds  our  pleasure; 
pleasure  itself  is  chiefly  negative;  it  is  the  name  we 
give  to  relief  from  discomfort.  Intellectual  advance 
brings  only  a  greater  refinement  of  discontent ;  we  thus 
realize  all  the  more  clearly  how  deep  is  the  gulf 
between  aim  and  performance.  It  is  the  finest  nature 
that  feels  disappointment  most;  but  whether  on  a 
low  or  on  an  elevated  plane,  experience  is  at  bottom 
identical,  a  round  of  baffled  energy,  unsatisfied 
desire,  blasted  hopes.  Yet  we  never  draw  the  moral 
by  denying  life ;  and  in  this  circumstance  one  may  see 
confirmation  of  the  view  that  reason  is  the  weakest 
force  by  which  we  are  ruled;  only  such  creatures  as 
were  goaded  on  by  an  irrational  will  to  live  could  have 
survived  the  long  process  of  disillusionment.  We 
even  argue  that  existence  is  "  on  the  whole  good  "; 
but  it  is  the  blind  cosmic  impulse  which  prescribes  to 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  9 

us  this  veiy  falsification  of  thought,  using  as  its  tool 
that  cajolery  of  the  intellect  which  is  called  philo 
sophic  optimism. 

What,  then,  is  the  remedy  ?  Not  the  so-called 
''  progress  "  of  the  Hegelian  school,  not  the  attempt 
to  make  reasoning  more  adecjuate  or  to  rid  experience 
of  its  failures.  Inadequacy  and  failure  belong  to  the 
very  essence  of  will.  Desire  grows  by  what  it  feeds 
upon;  if  we  seek  to  satisfy  it  we  merely  palliate,  in 
the  end  we  even  intensify,  the  disease.  One  must,  so 
far  as  possible,  withdraw  from  the  whole  process;  in 
sesthetic  contemplation  this  is  partially  achieved,  for 
we  become  disinterested  spectators,  not  actors,  in  the 
drama.1  But  to  achieve  complete  redemption  we. 
must  starve  desire,  we  must  negate  life,  we  must 
produce  through  ascetic  discipline  a  spirit  which  no 
longer  wills  to  live.  The  celibate  should  be  esteemed 
a  benefactor  of  his  race,  for  he  refuses  to  join  in  per 
petuating  a  species  doomed  to  pain.  And,  in  general, 
all  the  virtues  may  be  summed  up  under  sympathy— 
a  sense  of  pitifulness  toward  all  who  are,  like  ourselves, 
being  broken  upon  the  wheel,  a  feeling  of  oneness  in 
pain  with  the  whole  sentient  world.  Neminem  Icede, 
immo  omnes  quantum  poles  iuva  :  the  rational  goal  for 
humanity  becomes  something  like  the  Nirwana  of 
Buddhism,  a  paradise  reached  through  extinction. 

Schopenhauer  was  the  idol  of  Nietzsche's  early 
period,  and  we  shall  have  to  notice  many  points  in 
which,  strangely  enough,  the  apostle  of  Superman 
has  borrowed  from  the  apostle  of  Nirwana.  He 

1  Cf.  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea,  i.  231 :  "  We  are  then  set  free 
from  the  gross  pressure  of  will,  we  keep  the  Sabbath  of  the  will's 
hard  labour,  the  wheel  of  Ixion  stops." 


10        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

accepted  fully  all  that  his  master  had  said  about  life's 
intrinsic  pain;  he  repudiated  with  the  same  warmth 
Hegel's  confidence  in  intellect;  he  thrust  from  him 
with  scorn  and  even  with  hatred  all  suggestions  of  a 
guiding  Providence,  all  notions  of  a  future  state  in 
which  the  sufferers  of  the  present  should  be  "  eternally 
indemnified."  And  yet  Nietzsche  recoiled  from  pessi 
mism  with  all  the  intensity  of  a  religious  devotee. 
"  World-contemners,"  "  World-deniers,"  "  Men  faith 
less  to  earth,  of  whom  the  earth  is  weary — away  with 
them  !" — these  became  the  expressions  of  his  most 
bitter  mood.1  "  There  was  a  time,"  he  exclaims, 
'''  when  the  greatest  sin  was  blasphemy  against  God; 
the  greatest  sin  now  is  blasphemy  against  earth."5 
How,  then,  having  apparently  admitted  all  that  the 
pessimist  affirms,  and  having  scouted  all  the  mitiga 
tions  which  either  theistic  or  non-theistic  philosophy 
has  suggested,  does  he  carve  out  for  himself  any  way 
of  escape  ?  He  does  so  in  a  manner  that  is  truly 
original. 

Pessimism,  he  points  out,  rests  upon  a  certain 
assumption,  taken  for  granted  on  one  side  and 
childishly  conceded  on  the  other,  in  complete  ignor 
ance  that  any  prior  question  can  be  raised.  The 
moment  it  is  raised  one  can  see  that  the  thing  pre 
supposed  is  not  only  disputable,  but  outrageously 
false. 

It  is  assumed  that  if  the  world  can  be  proved  to 
contain  more  pain  than  pleasure,  and  especially  if 
it  can  be  proved  that  this  excess  of  suffering  is  per 
manent,  life  is  eo  ipso  condemned.  Hedonistic  values 
are  taken  as  decisive.  What  if  it  should  turn  out 

1  Cf.  Zarathustra,  i.  3,  4.  2  Ibid.,  i.  3. 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  11 

that  the  scheme  of  things  has  some  better  purpose 
than  to  minister  to  my  enjoyment  and  to  assuage  my 
inconveniences  ?  What  if  it  should  be  found  that 
even  for  me  there  is  some  higher  object  than  any  that 
can  be  expressed  in  such  terms  of  feeling  ?*  The 
worth  of  existence  had  been  denied  because  it  was 
examined  in  the  light  of  certain  categories  whose 
validity  no  one  dared  to  dispute.  Suppose  we  can 
deprive  these  categories  of  their  value  ?2 

To  this  point  Nietzsche  again  and  again  recurs. 
What  an  ignoble  conception  one  has  of  the  universe 
if  one  looks  upon  it  as  bound  to  vindicate  itself  by  the 
pleasure  it  gives  to  individuals  !  How  grotesquely 
one  exaggerates  the  importance  of  comfort !  '  People 
meet  an  invalid  or  an  old  man  or  a  corpse — and  imme 
diately  they  say  Life  is  refuted  ;  but  they  only  are 
refuted,  and  their  eye  which  seeth  only  one  side  of 
existence."3  "  I  tell  you  there  are  higher  problems 
than  the  pleasure-pain  problem."  And  even  from 
the  point  of  view  of  man  himself  it  is  the  weakest  or 
shallowest  of  our  species  who  see  a  goal  in  the  elimina 
tion  of  suffering.  "  The  discipline  of  suffering,  of  great 
suffering,  know  ye  not  that  it  is  only  this  discipline 
that  has  produced  all  the  elevations  of  humanity 
hitherto."4  Thus,  for  Nietzsche,  the  great  question 
comes  to  be  this :  Which  of  the  valuing  codes  do  you 
mean  to  adopt  as  highest  ?  Suppose  it  should  appear 
that  the  world  is  approved  by  the  test  of  virtue 
though  condemned  by  the  test  of  pleasure  ?  Sup 
pose  it  should  be  neither  virtuous  nor  pleasant  and  yet 
should  be  vindicated  by  the  criterion  of  beauty  ?  It 

1   Will  to  Power,  35.  2  Hid.,  12. 

3  Zarathustra,  i.  9;  cf.  i.  2.         '  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  225. 


12        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

is  plain  that  we  must  begin  by  settling  on  some  prin 
ciple  to  which  primacy  belongs. 

But,  he  goes  on,  the  world-despising  temper  of  our 
age  has  a  deeper  basis  than  even  Schopenhauer  was 
aware;  pessimism  is  but  one  variety  of  that  general 
attitude  for  which  life,  tried  by  every  test,  seems 
equally  condemned.  To  this  radical  condemnation 
Nietzsche  gives  the  name  Nihilism.  It  is  the  assur 
ance  that  "  life  is  absurd  in  the  light  of  the  highest 
values  yet  discovered";1  it  is  "disbelief  in  all 
values."2  :<  The  most  gruesome  of  all  guests  is  at 
our  door."3  Reason  could  no  longer  stay  itself  upon 
the  objects  of  a  transcendental  world,  upon  God, 
upon  Paradise,  upon  a  redeeming  plan;  since  it  was 
just  these  which  in  the  past  had  preserved  life's  con 
fidence  in  itself,  their  dissolution  had  been  followed  by 
a  complete  failure  of  nerve.  Purpose,  Unity,  Truth— 
these  were  once  guaranteed  by  theological  meta- 
physic;  they  had  fallen,  and  with  them  the  values 
which  they  had  supported.4  But  the  situation  might 
yet  be  saved  if  we  could  only  revalue  the  valuations 
themselves,  if  we  could  see  other  and  better  ideals  of 
worth  than  any  which  the  decayed  dogmas  had  been 
invented  to  sustain. 

Nietzsche  was  bred  a  philologist ;  and  of  one  striking 
metaphor,  drawn  from  his  early  studies,  he  makes 
frequent  use.  Such  and  such  a  picture  of  the  world, 
he  repeatedly  exclaims,  is  "  interpretation,  not  text."5 
He  means  that  so  many  marginal  glosses  have  been 
inscribed  on  the  book  of  nature  that  one  can  now 

1  W ill  to  Power,  3.  2  loc.  cit. 

3  Witt  to  Power,  1.  4  Ibid,,  12. 

5  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  22;  cf.  38,  230. 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  13 

scarcely  recover  the  original  amid  the  mass  of  com 
mentary.  Not  facts  in  their  nakedness,  but  facts 
overlaid  by  criticism,  above  all  by  moral  criticism, 
were  offered  to  him  who  aimed  at  independent  valua 
tion.  What  were  the  so-called  systems  of  thought 
but  so  many  confessions  of  their  originators,  "  a 
species  of  unconscious  biography  "  ?x  One  should 
always  ask  about  a  metaphysician :  ' '  What  moral 
doctrine  is  he  aiming  at  ?"  or  "  What  sort  of  man 
was  it  who  reflected  thus  ?"  If  we  examine  Nihilism 
with  this  principle  in  our  minds,  do  we  not,  he  asks, 
become  aware  that  the  thing  before  us  is  far  more  a 
symptom  than  a  problem  ?2  A  man  does  not  think 
nihilistically  because  he  has  passed  through  a  certain 
chain  of  reasoning;  rather  does  this  reasoning  appeal 
to  him  in  virtue  of  his  being  the  sort  of  man  he  is.  If  an 
age  is  nihilistic  it  is  because  that  age  was  first  decadent. 
Is  not  the  question  "  To  be  or  not  to  be  ? "  a  sign  of 
sickness  in  him  who  raises  it  ?  Just  as  a  morbid 
creature  will  keep  examining  his  own  arteries  and 
feeling  his  own  pulse,  so  it  is  anything  rather  than  a 
virile,  buoyant  society  which  dwells  upon  "  social 
problems,"  which  substitutes  the  scrutiny  of  life  for 
the  ardour  of  actual  living.  6  d^eferacrros  /3io<?  ov 
pianos  avOpojTra) :  so  said  the  Platonic  Socrates,  and, 
in  Nietzsche's  view,  the  man  who  said  so  certi 
fied  himself  a  decadent.3  It  was  Socrates  who 
initiated  that  period  when  energy  became  weak 
just  in  proportion  as  thought  became  minute.  The 
Greeks  had  given  us  much,  but  we  owed  least  to  the 
philosophers  among  them,  to  the  men  who  invented 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  6.  2  Will  to  Power,  38. 

3  Of.  Joyful  Science,  p.  34;  Twilight  of  the  Idols:  "  Socrates." 


14        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

systems  of  valuation,  who  taught  us  to  sit  in  judg 
ment  upon  nature,  who  interposed  artificial  barriers 
between  man  and  the  life  that  was  his  own — who,  in 
a  word,  made  us  all  ashamed  of  our  instincts.  Our 
debt  was  to  the  portrayers  of  Greek  culture,  to  men 
like  Thucydides — no  sickly  moralists,  no  nerveless 
calculators  about  right  and  wrong — men  who  have 
shown  us  how  the  greatest  of  all  races  lived  when  the 
world  was  young.  Lowered  vitality  was  not  pro 
duced  by  the  woes  of  existence  which  Schopenhauer 
had  described.  These  were  the  effects,  not  the  causes, 
of  decadence.1  Vice,  crime,  alcoholism,  hysteria— 
they  were  all  present  in  every  age ;  but  they  were  made 
to  bulk  more  largely,  to  assume  terrifying  aspects, 
because  mankind  had  grown  old,  had  lost  the  elastic 
spring  of  the  past;  we  had  received  these  things  like 
microbes  of  disease  into  a  frame  of  impaired  vigour 
and  lowered  resistance.  Mr.  Schiller  has  put 
Nietzsche's  point  with  great  succinctness  in  the  ques 
tion  :  "  What  difference  is  made  to  the  '  facts  '  by  our 
attitude  towards  them  ?"2 

This  decadence  of  modem  Europe  is  embodied  in 
figure  after  figure  of  Zaratliustm,  figures  marked  by 
world-weariness,  by  disbelief  in  values,  by  enfeeble- 
ment  of  will.  Quietist  philosophy  is  burlesqued  in 
the  professor  who  confided  to  his  class  that  the 
summum  bonum  is  really  sleep,  that  the  goodness  of 
all  good  things  and  the  evil  of  all  evil  things  are  to  be 
measured  by  their  effect  upon  calm,  unbroken  slum 
ber.3  There  is  the  vision  of  the  "  last  of  the  Popes," 

1  Will  to  Power,  42. 

2  In  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1913,  p.  153. 

3  Zarathustra:  "  The  Academic  Chairs  of  Virtue." 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  15 

the  man  "  out  of  service,"  because  the  God  he  served 
has  died;  his  old  vocation  is  gone  and  he  is  unfit  for 
any  other.1  We  have  the  minute  scientific  specialist 
who  spends  his  strength  over  the  dissection  of  a 
leech's  brain — devotion,  forsooth,  to  truth  for  its  own 
sake — a  devotion  which  any  society  with  a  purpose 
would  have  scorned,  but  which  wins  applause  from 
degenerates  in  whom  the  spring  of  real  life  has 
snapped.2  The  "  voluntary  beggar  "  turns  his  back, 
in  blase  revolt,  upon  civilization,  seeks  rather  the 
company  of  the  cud-chewing  beasts,  declaring  that 
except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as  kine,  ye  shall 
not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.3  The  climax 
is  reached  in  the  scornful  picture  of  the  "  last  man  "; 
when  the  soil  of  humanity  shall  have  become  ex 
hausted,  when  the  arrow  of  longing  shall  no  longer  be 
launched,  the  world  will  be  at  a  loss  even  to  under 
stand  what  strength  of  impulse  once  meant;  the 
coming  decadent  will  "  love  his  neighbour  and  rub 
against  him,  for  he  needs  warmth  " ;  he  will  have  the 
persistent  vitality  of  the  ground-fleas,  and  will  be 
satisfied;  "  the  last  man  liveth  longest;  we  have  dis 
covered  happiness ;  so  saith  the  last  man  and  blink - 
eth."4 

This  seems  to  give  us  the  key  to  Nietzsche's  first 
book,  The  Birth  of  Tragedy.  He  thought  of  the  Greeks 
as  feeling  from  a  very  early  time  the  problematic 
character  of  life,  especially  its  disappointments,  its 
sadness,  its  frustrated  will.  Silenus'  reply  to  King 
Midas  was  almost  an  anticipation  of  the  creed  of 

1  Zaraihustra,  iv.  66. 

2  Ibid.,  iv.  64.     Cf.  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  207. 

3  Ibid.,  iv.  68.  4  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  5. 


16        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Schopenhauer:  "  The  happiest  destiny,  for  ever  be 
yond  thy  reach,  is  never  to  have  been  born;  and  the 
next  best  by  far,  is  to  return  as  swiftly  as  may  be, 
to  the  bourne  whence  we  came."  Thus,  if  the  Greek 
spirit  was  essentially  joyous,  a  spirit  that  said  "  Yea  " 
to  existence,  it  was  not  because  the  poignancy  of 
things  had  not  been  felt;  theirs  was  a  profound,  not 
a  superficial,  optimism.  How  was  it  reached  ? 
Nietzsche  indicated  three  ways. 

There  was  first  the  creation  of  the  bright  and 
beauteous  Olympian  gods;  they  were  a  foil  against 
everything  sordid ;  even  this  world  might  be  approved 
when  thought  of  as  their  workmanship,  under  their 
governance,  embodying  their  purposes.  Man  might 
in  thought  detach  himself  from  the  welter  of  struggle, 
might  place  himself  at  the  point  of  view  of  the  divine 
artists,  and  while  he  could  feel  himself  a  sort  of  dis 
interested  spectator,  he  might  share  the  joy  of  the 
gods  themselves.  "  Only  as  an  aesthetic  phenomenon 
can  the  world  be  justified."1  This  attitude  Nietzsche 
called  the  Apollonian  spirit;  its  products  were  espe 
cially  those  of  painting,  sculpture,  epic  poetry. 
Homer,  Pheidias,  Polygnotus — such  as  these  were  the 
first  opponents  of  Greek  pessimism. 

Later  than  this  came  the  method  of  rationalistic 
discussion,  the  method  of  him  who  would  rise  to  the 
height  of  a  great  argument,  that  he  might  "  justify 
the  ways  of  God  to  men."  Science,  philosophy,  the 
arraignment  of  everything  before  the  bar  of  reason, 
the  search  for  canons  and  principles — this  was  the 
movement  best  called  Socratic,  a  movement  which 
had  never  since  been  allowed  to  pause,  and  to  which, 

1  Birth  of  Tragedy,  p.  24. 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  17 

just  because  the  world  cannot  be  logically  vindicated, 
a  great  deal  of  European  Nihilism  was  due.  But 
intermediate  between  the  spirit  of  Apollo  and  the 
spirit  of  Socrates  we  could  discern  the  spirit  of 
Dionysus,  and  its  deathless  expression  had  been 
found  in  tragic  drama.  Aristotle  was  entirely  wrong 
when  he  looked  for  the  motive  of  tragedy  in  a  KoiOapa-^ 
of  the  emotions;  this  was  but  a  moralist's  misunder 
standing:  Greek  drama  had  its  root  in  an  age  far  too 
robust  for  morality.  In  the  mythic  struggle  between 
Zeus  and  the  Titans  one  ought  to  see  a  symbol  of  the 
war  between  nature  and  restraint,  between  instinct 
and  conventional  order.  Dionysus  with  his  satyrs 
was  the  type  of  passion  that  refused  a  bridle,  of  a  will 
that  would  not  mask  its  impulses  under  the  thin 
veneer  of  law.  The  satyr-play  was  the  germ  from 
which  tragic  art  arose;  and  the  thing  which  drew 
highly  civilized  Athenians  to  witness  this  sort  of 
orgiastic  revel  was  the  chance  of  returning  again  in 
thought  to  the  elemental  forces  of  life,  of  looking  at 
it  unexpurgated,  unrefined,  undisguised,  with  its  in 
toxications  not  less  than  its  sanities,  its  ruthlessness 
equally  with  its  controls.  The  moral  that  it  brought 
home  to  him  was  one  that  could  not  be  articulated  by 
logic,  but  could  be  felt  with  an  ardour  beyond  any 
thing  that  logic  ever  knew ;  it  was  the  thought  of  the 
eternity  of  will,  of  the  world-forces  as  sweeping  on 
though  the  individual  may  be  engulfed;  it  was  the 
reckless  affirmation  of  life,  not  in  spite  of,  but  even 
because  of  its  fulness  of  passion,  of  suffering,  even  of 
cruelty.  Hence  there  was  no  "  poetic  justice  "  in  the 
great  tragedies;  an  OEdipus  or  a  Prometheus  does  not 
end  in  an  exhibition  of  the  good  man's  final  triumph 

2 


or  the  motto  that  virtue  is  its  own  reward ;  ^schylus 
and  Sophocles  were  no  artists  of  ^Esopic  fable.  And 
if  we  could  not  to-day  enter  into  the  Dionysian  spirit, 
it  was  because  we  had  been  taught  artificial  valua 
tions,  because  we  had  been  brought  up  in  a  school 
half  decadent  with  moralizing,  half  besotted  with 
philosophizing. 

We  are  not  concerned  with  the  philological  merits 
or  demerits  of  all  this ;  as  a  contribution  to  our  know 
ledge  of  Greek  culture  it  has  received  scanty  respect 
from  those  best  competent  to  judge.  A  piece  of 
literary  history  written  in  such  disregard  of  historical 
evidence,  and  relying  so  much  upon  the  author's 
a  priori  insight,  could  not  find  favour  with  scholars. 
One  cannot  wonder  at  the  severe  handling  of  Nietzsche 
by  so  eminent  a  Grecian  as  Willamowitz-Moellendorf , 
or  at  the  pained  disappointment  of  his  own  friend 
Ritschl.  But  the  spiritual  attitude  taken  up  in  the 
Birth  of  Tragedy  was  maintained  by  Nietzsche  to  the 
last.  He  reverts  to  the  subject  in  his  Twilight  of  the 
Idols,  summarizing  it  thus : 

:<  The  affirmation  of  life  carried  even  into  its  most 
formidable  problems,  the  Will  to  Live  exulting  in  the 
knowledge  of  its  inexhaustible  fecundity,  in  the 
presence  of  the  destruction  of  the  finest  types  of 
humanity,  that  is  what  I  call  the  Dionysian  spirit; 
and  it  is  there  that  I  found  the  key  to  the  soul  of  the 
tragic  poet.  The  tragic  soul  does  not  wish  to  get  rid 
of  pity  and  terror,  it  does  not  wish  to  purify  itself 
from  a  dangerous  passion  by  means  of  a  violent 
explosion  of  this  passion — which  was  what  Aristotle 
understood  by  it — no;  it  wishes,  far  above  pity  and 
terror,  to  be  itself  the  eternal  joy  of  the  future,  the  joy 
which  also  understands  the  joy  of  annihilating." 

1  Twilight  of  the  Idols  :  "  What  I  owe  to  the  Ancients." 


THE  RECOIL  FROM  PESSIMISM  19 

This  tragic  attitude  was  the  thing  which  Nietzsche 
wished  to  reinstate  as  the  Weltanschauung  of  Europe. 
But  he  has  no  hope  that  the  prevailing  morbid  outlook 
will  be  quickly  dispelled.  His  account  of  Nihilism 
begins  with  the  remark,  "  What  I  am  going  to  relate 
is  the  history  of  the  next  two  centuries."  The  omens, 
he  held,  were  clear;  Europe  must  be  nihilistic  for 
generations  to  come.  Nor  did  he  wholly  deplore  this, 
for  decadence  was  an  inevitable  stage  in  the  life  of  a 
society ;  it  must  grow  old  and  decay ;  it  must  have  its 
autumn  and  winter  if  it  is  to  reach  its  spring.  Social 
ism,  full  of  schemes  for  improving  the  world,  for 
charming  the  pain  out  of  it,  was  mere  naivete ;  it  was 
one  long  administration  of  anaesthetics  to  dull  the 
symptoms  of  disease.  Decadence  had  no  radical 
cure;  indeed,  men  must  get  worse  before  they  could 
get  better;  the  essential  point  was  to  prevent  the 
decayed  elements  from  infecting  the  elements  that 
remained  healthy.  Perhaps  a  colossal  war  would  be 
the  best  instrument  for  surgical  cure,  a  suggestion  to 
which  we  shall  have  to  return  as  we  trace  Nietzsche's 
influence  upon  current  events. 

One  is  disposed  at  first  sight  to  underrate  the  im 
portance  of  this  view.  We  may  sympathize  with  the 
judgment  that  pessimism  and  Nihilism  are  morbid 
products;  we  may  agree  that  they  are  signs  of  deca 
dence.  But  we  feel  that  something  more  must  be 
said.  One  may  discount  the  illnesses  of  a  hypo 
chondriac  ;  but  one  does  so  because  his  symptoms  can 
be  shown  to  be  subjective.  Must  we  not  similarly 
take  note  of  what  a  "  world-despiser  "  has  got  to  say  ? 
Must  we  not  satisfy  ourselves  that  the  values  which  he 
thinks  lost  are  really  preserved,  or  that  the  things  he 


20        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

values  are  not  really  the  most  important  ?  So  far  as 
we  have  yet  followed  him,  Nietzsche  appears  to  sub 
stitute  dogmatic  assertion  for  reasoned  inquiry;  his 
wholesale  acceptance  of  life  as  it  stands,  his  refusal  to 
admit  that  anything  in  it  is  other  than  as  it  should 
be,  his  attitude  of  "  saying  yea  "  to  the  whole  pano 
rama  of  crime  and  suffering  and  disorder,1  all  strike 
us  as  senseless  paradox.  But  such  a  decision  would 
be  hasty.  We  have  yet  to  see  the  grounds  on  which 
he  declines  just  that  standpoint  of  valuation  which 
the  modern  man  adopts;  we  have  to  grasp  the  argu 
ment  in  which  he  assigns  to  this  an  origin  such  as  will 
rob  it  of  its  validity ;  and  we  have  to  consider  in  what 
respect  he  found  in  man  the  promise  of  higher  things 
if  his  age  of  stupor  could  be  made  to  pass. 

1  Cf.  Will  to  Power,  881 :  "  We  recognize  .  .  .  that  with  every 
growth  of  man  his  other  side  must  grow  as  well ;  that  the  highest 
man,  if  such  a  concept  be  allowed,  would  be  that  man  who  would 
represent  the  antagonistic  character  of  existence  most  strikingly, 
and  would  be  its  glory  and  its  only  justification." 


LECTURE  IT 

THE    "  WILL   TO    POWER,"    AND    "  MORALITY   AS 
DECADENCE  " 

NIETZSCHE'S  reply  to  pessimism  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
a  direct  negative;  his  denial  was  aimed,  not  against 
the  pessimist's  facts,  but  against  the  pessimist's  valua- , 
tions.  He  refused  point-blank  to  see  any  serious 
evil  in  those  features  of  life  upon  which  Schopenhauer 
had  rested  his  gloomy  argument.  This  raises  the 
problem,  "  How  is  it  possible  for  men  to  value  thus 
differently  in  such  a  sphere  ?"  There  is,  of  course, 
an  arbitrariness  in  matters  of  taste,  but  it  is,  above 
all,  in  the  light  of  moral  values  that  the  world's  worth 
has  been  doubted;  is  there  legitimate  difference  of 
moral  standard  among  different  critics  of  life  ?  Is  it 
a  question  of  individual  temperament,  or  is  one  view 
true  and  another  false  ?  Is  there  an  objective  rule 
which  all  should  apply  ?  The  solution  must  come 
from  a  radical  inquiry  into  the  source  and  justification 
of  moral  valuing. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness,  I  shall  divide  this  lecture 
into  parts.  We  shall  first  trace,  following  so  far  as 
possible  Nietzsche's  own  language,  the  way  in  which 
he  conceived  the  ideas  "  good  "  and  "  evil  "  as  having 
historically  arisen.  Then  we  shall  see  how  he  ac 
counts  for  that  other  moral  standpoint  which  employs 
the  idea  of  obligation  rather  than  the  idea  of  value, 

21 


22        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

which  rests  upon  the  Kantian  "  ought "  rather  than 
upon  the  Aristotelian  "  good  ";  it  will  be  found  that 
this  way  of  thinking,  though  distinct  from  the  method 
of  valuation,  arose  naturally  from  that  method,  and 
we  shall  examine  what  Nietzsche  means  by  depicting 
it  as  a  source  of  racial  decadence.  In  the  third  sec 
tion  I  shall  attempt  to  estimate  how  far  our  author's 
genetic  account  of  morality  will  bear  criticism. 


I. 

Nietzsche  claims  that  ethical  inquiry  ought  to  have 
been  inductive,  but  that — to  the  shame  of  moralists 
be  it  said — induction  in  this  sphere  was  almost  un 
known.  The  first  step  should  have  been  a  "  com 
prehensive  survey  and  classification  of  an  immense 
domain  of  delicate  sentiments  of  worth  and  distinc 
tions  of  worth,  which  live,  grow,  propagate,  and 
perish  "j1  but  philosophers  had  disdained  this  whole 
some  drudgery,  they  had  preferred  the  "  high  priori 
road  "  which,  in  this  case,  could  lead  only  to  a  begging 
of  the  question.  "  They  wanted  to  give  a  basis  to 
morality — and  every  philosopher  hitherto  has  be 
lieved  that  he  has  given  it  a  basis:"  "  How  far  from 
their  awkward  pride  was  the  seemingly  insignificant 
problem — left  in  dust  and  decay — of  a  description  of 
the  forms  of  morality,  notwithstanding  that  the  finest 
hands  and  senses  could  hardly  be  fine  enough  for  it  !"2 

It  is  characteristic  of  Nietzsche  that  he  ascribes 
this  waywardness  of  method  to  wilful  dishonesty. 
Academic  teachers  were  in  the  pay  of  the  State ;  they 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  186.  2  loc.  cit. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  23 

pretended  to  settle  a  question  which  they  dared  not 
even  raise ;  they  had  taken  a  bribe  to  buttress  up  the 
existing  order,  or  they  were  so  filled  with  Christian 
fanaticism  that  they  would  falsify  science  to  preserve 
dogma.1  In  any  case,  they  discussed  their  subject 
within  the  limits  of  an  assumption ;  current  approvals 
and  disapprovals  were  taken  for  granted.  Instead 
of  guiding  the  world  as  to  the  truth  or  falsity  of  its 
ideas,  these  were  accepted  at  their  face  value;  philoso 
phers  had  confined  themselves  to  the  ignoble  task  of 
putting  in  order  an  edifice  which  others  had  built. 
English  writers  had  not  sinned  quite  so  deeply  as  the 
rest;  they  had  at  least  faced  the  genetic  problem;  but 
their  blind  confidence  in  Association  Psychology  had 
misled  them  into  seeking  the  springs  of  valuation  just 
where  these  could  not  be  found — in  a  fortuitous 
mechanism,  in  the  vis  inerticeoi  habit  and  f  orgetfulness.2 
Nietzsche's  own  basal  proposition  on  the  matter  is 
this :  (A.  moral  value  is  not  something  which  we  find 
and  which  we  must  necessarily  accept ;  it  is  something 
which  we  create,  and  which  to  the  best  of  our  power 
we  induce  or  compel  others  to  acknowledge?)  Philo- 
logically,  he  says,  the  antithesis  "  good  and  bad  "  has 
quite  a  different  origin  from  the  antithesis  "  good  and 
evil."  The  former  was  primary;  if  one  examined  the 
word  for  "  good  "  in  the  chief  European  languages, 
one  found  that  it  denoted  at  first  the  qualities  of  a 
noble  as  contrasted  with  the  qualities  of  a  plebeian.3 
It  took  its  rise  in  the  epoch  of  warrior  chiefs;  consider 
the  Latin  bonus  derived  from  an  earlier  duonus,  like 

1  Of.  Joyful  Science,  p.  345;  Rosy  Dawn,  Preface,  sect.  3. 

2  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  1. 

3  Ibid.,  i.  4.     Cf.  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  260. 


24        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

bellum  from  an  earlier  duellum  ;*  or  take  the  Greek 
words  SeiXds,  eV0Xo?;  the  German  gut  was  plainly 
synonymous  with  godlike,  pointing  back  to  the  upper 
order  among  the  Goths;  it  was  only  as  late  as  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  that  schlecht  lost  its  first  sense  of 
"  groundling "  and  became  specialized  in  a  moral 
direction.  Everywhere  the  aristocratic  caste  was 
found  applying  to  its  own  characteristics  the  epithet 
good ;  everywhere  this  originally  meant  a  distinction 
of  rank.  Nor  was  it  difficult  to  see  how  the  transition 
in  meaning  had  been  effected;  one  might  compare 
the  ambiguity  in  the  word  "  noble."  For  the  ruling 
order  was  marked  especially  by  high  courage,  truth 
fulness,  a  pride  that  scorned  disguise  or  deceit,  a 
spirit  too  contemptuous  to  be  revengeful.  In  short, 
there  was  for  Nietzsche  no  moral  affirmation  so  pro 
found  or  so  original  as  Noblesse  oblige.  But  the  obliga 
tion  which  the  aristocrat  acknowledged  was  solely  to 
his  own  nature  and  to  his  equals  in  whom  he  saw  that 
same  nature  exemplified.  To  the  common  herd  he 
had  no  duties;  they  existed  as  material  for  his  "  ex 
ploitation  ";  he  had  no  bad  conscience  for  any  treat 
ment,  however  harsh,  to  which  he  might  subject  them ; 
they  were  beasts  of  burden,  he  was  the  "  blonde  beast 
of  prey."  Hence  the  exultation,  unmixed  with  any 
tinge  of  remorse,  with  which  the  old  Teutonic  con 
querors  would  return  from  a  carnival  of  rapine  and 
lust.  Even  after  some  thought  for  the  mob  had 
begun  to  affect  a  chieftain's  mind,  it  was  marked  by 
scorn  not  less  than  by  sympathy;  "  '  Bad,' '  low,'  never 
ceased  to  ring  in  the  Greek  ear  with  a  tone  in  which 
'  unhappy  '  is  the  predominant  note;"  "  Let  philolo- 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  5. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  25 


gists  remember  the  sense  in  which  6i'£v/305, 
Tynans,  Sva-rvyjEiv,  ^v^opd,  used  to  be  employed."1 
Linguists,  I  understand,  have  not  thought 
Nietzsche's  etymologizing  on  this  matter  worthy  of 
any  great  attention  ;  but  we  must  remember  that  he 
himself  did  not  rest  his  ethical  position  upon  any  pre 
carious  theory  about  the  original  meaning  of  words. 
This  was  but  the  clue  which  suggested  to  him  the 
track  along  which  the  basis  of  moral  differences  might 
be  reached;  the  guarantee  that  he  was  right  came, 
like  so  many  other  things  to  Nietzsche,  by  a  flash  of 
intuition.  It  was  to  him  beyond  question  that  every 
man  values  or  tends  to  value  as  good  the  qualities 
which  he  himself  possesses;  as  the  most  influential 
people  were  at  first  warrior  chiefs,  and  as  these  were  at 
the  same  time  the  only  persons  who  were  at  all 
reflective,  the  aristocratic  values  were  primary  among 
mankind.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  statement, 
'  The  concept  good  did  not  originate  among  those  to 
whom  goodness  was  shown,  but  among  those  by  whom 
it  was  shown."2 

Why  does  man  thus  value  the  qualities  which  he 
has  ?  Nietzsche's  answer  may  be  compared  with 
Herbert  Spencer's  explanation  of  the  identity  between 
acts  that  are  pleasurable  and  acts  that  promote  life. 
Only  such  creatures  as  found  pleasure  in  wholesome 
sorts  of  conduct  could  survive  in  the  evolution 
struggle;  this  was  a  corollary  from  the  view  that  the 
end  of  every  organism  is  life.  For  Nietzsche  thefend 
of  every  organism  is  not  life  but  power!  in  conse 
quence,  we(must  strive  to  win  influence  for  the  special 
type  to  which  we  ourselves  belong^  Thus,  a  sort  of 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  10.  2  Ibid.,  i.  2. 


26        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

esprit  de  corps  is  at  the  root  of  all  moral  valuing.  As 
one  man's  health  may  be  another  man's  sickness,  so 
the  code  of  one  society  cannot  be  the  code  of  another.1 
Every  man  must  devise  his  own  virtue!2  In  so  far  as 
proof  can  be  given  of  this  it  must  come  from  the 
success  with  which  we  can  in  the  light  of  such  a  prin 
ciple  explain  the  moral  estimates  that  have  been  his 
torically  formed.  We  must  "  suppose  that  nothing 
else  is  '  given  '  as  real  but  our  world  of  desires  and 
passions  ";3  can  we  show  how  certain  of  these  have 
won  such  influence  over  the  rest  as  to  have  become 
hardened  into  a  system  which  pretends  to  be  objec 
tive,  lays  claim  not  only  to  the  allegiance  of  those  who 
created  and  used  it,  but  even  to  the  submission  of 
those  against  whom  it  works  ?  Assuming  that  the 
/sole  motive  is  will  to  power}  can  we  unmask  the 
various  moralities,  and  exhibit  this  will  lurking  under 
each  of  them  ?  Nietzsche  asserts  that  we  can. 

He  points  out  that  every  such  valuation  must 
"  work  backwards";4  that  is,  we  attribute  moral 
worth  to  the  qualities  which  have  in  the  past  enabled 
us  to  win  our  way  against  our  rivals.  (All  schemes  of 
ethics  are  "  efforts  to  codify  the  expedients  found 
useful  by  some  given  race  in  the  course  of  its  success 
ful  efforts  to  remain  alive. 'j  First  among  such  codes 
is  that  of  the  ruling  nobility;  its  virtues  are  those  of 
a  dominant  order.  But  over  against  the  influence 
of  chiefs  there  soon  arose  the  rival  influence  of  a 
priesthood.  A  class  with  no  healthy  fitness  for 
leadership  set  up  claims  of  the  ghostly  kind,  exploited 

1  Joyful  Wisdom,  p.  120.  2  Antichrist. 

3  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  36.  4   Will  to  Power,  110. 

r>  Mr.  H.  L.  Mencken. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  27 

its  very  physical  weakness  as  conducive  to  inspira 
tion,  coined  the  contrast  "  clean  and  unclean," 
affected  to  be  the  channel  through  which  deities 
acted  upon  mankind — in  a  word,  created  an  apparatus 
of  spiritual  dominion.  The  fears  of  the  vulgar  \vere 
easily  wrought  upon;  what  was  the  agelong  conflict 
of  Church  and  State  but  a  struggle  for  personal 
ascendancy  between  king  and  priest  ?  Out  of  this 
struggle  had  grown  two  moral  systems,  for  each  side 
was  supported  by  special  human  types,  and  each  in 
turn  cast  its  sanction  around  the  character  by  which 
it  was  best  served.  Abundant  vitality,  free  scope 
for  the  manly  impulses,  courage,  truthfulness,  honour, 
glad  submission  to  one's  natural  leaders — these  were 
the  virtues  fostered  by  the  secular  aristocrat;  it  was  on 
the  reverse  of  these  that  the  priest  had  to  ground  his 
authority;  he  secured  himself  by  disparaging  things 
physical,  he  declared  war  on  the  instincts,  he  depre 
ciated  courage  to  exalt  holiness;  the  atmosphere  in 
which  such  as  he  could  rule  must  be  an  atmosphere  of 
lies — a  mythical  world  of  the  "  soul  "  —and  in  con 
sequence  ecclesiastical  man  had  come  to  cherish  a 
code  which  was  fatal  to  honour,  fatal  to  patriotism, 
favourable  to  cunning  and  deceit — in  short,  the  apo 
theosis  of  the  reptile  in  human  character. 

But  priest  and  noble  were  alike  aristocrats — lords 
spiritual  and  lords  temporal;  the  values  of  "herd- 
morality  "  had  yet  to  be  called  to  life.  This  was 
effected  when  a  certain  suggestion  \vas  broached,  and 
ran  riot  like  wild-fire  through  an  inflammable  material ; 
it  was  proposed  that  the  good  of  the  average  man,  of 
the  greatest  number,  of  the  "  public  "  as  contrasted 
with  high  or  exceptional  natures,  should  be  enthroned 


28        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

in  the  highest  place.  War  was  declared  against  the 
supremacy  of  any  individual  or  any  small  group ;  men 
were  proclaimed  to  count  alike.  Thus,  the  values 
which  began  to  rank  first  were  those  to  which  average 
impulse  pointed,  no  high  dominance  like  that  of  the 
noble,  no  severe  asceticism  like  that  of  the  priest,  but 
dull  commonplace  comfort,  an  equally  distributed 
happiness,  that  feminine  shrinking  from  the  strenuous, 
competitive,  painful  life  which  reached  its  climax  in 
the  maudlin  eighteenth  century.  Such  an  ideal  was 
clutched  at  by  those  who  had  most  to  gain  from  it; 
Dr.  Levy  puts  Nietzsche's  point  with  precision  when 
he  writes:  "Who  swore  that  it  was  incumbent  on 
men  to  love  their  neighbour  as  themselves,  to  break 
their  bread  with  the  hungry,  to  give  them  their  cloak 
and  their  possessions  ?  They  who  had  nor  bread, 
nor  cloaks,  nor  possessions,  they  who  might  win  by 
the  bargain."1  Clearly  this,  conceived  as  a  bid  for 
power,  would  emanate  from  that  class  to  which  most 
power  ultimately  belonged,  to  the  men  strong  with 
the  strength  of  overwhelming  numbers.  It  was 
these  who  were  able  to  make  their  own  values  in 
fluential  beyond  all  values  that  had  preceded;  it  was 
their  strategy  to  say  of  the  wealth  which  the  world 
had  to  offer,  "  Let  it  be  neither  mine  nor  thine,  but 
let  us  divide  it."  Hence  charity,  mercy,  benevolence, 
justice,  equality;  hence  all  the  moral  estimates  that 
have  become  supreme  in  modern  Europe.  Hence  the 
bitter  disapproval  of  all  that  would  exalt  one  without 
exalting  another;  for  "  the  more  dangerous  a  quality 
is  to  the  herd,  the  more  completely  it  is  condemned."5 

1  Oscar  Levy,  The  Revival  of  Aristocracy,  p.  38.     Of.  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil,  260.  2  Will  to  Power,  276. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  " 

Thus  arose,  in  Nietzsche's  view,  the  specific  concept 
"(evif)'  as  distinguished  from  "  bad.';  Its  (source 
was  in  the  feeling  of  resentment  and  the  impulse  of 
revenge)  it  made  vocal  the  "  hatred  of  the  mediocre 
against  exceptional  natures."1  The  aristocrat  lived 
in  confidence  and  openness  with  himself;  he  took  his 
happiness  as  a  matter  of  course;  it  came  from  the 
abounding  vitality  that  pulsated  throughout  his 
being.  The  plebeian  could  not  fail  to  see  this,  but  he 
might  close  his  eyes  to  it ;  he  became  envious,  he  sought 
compensation  by  "lying  himself  into  happiness,"- 
by  drilling  his  mind  to  conceive  of  physical  and  intel 
lectual  distinction  as  saturated  with  "  evil,"  by  in 
venting  the  cult  of  the  common.  '  The  revolt  of 
the  slaves  in  morals  begins  in  the  very  principle  of 
resentment  becoming  creative  and  giving  birth  to 
values."3  This  upheaval,  though  distinct  from  the 
change  initiated  by  priests,  found  much  support  in 
the  creed  which  priests  for  their  own  end  had  propa- 
pated.  In  the  struggle  between  the  two  types  of 
aristocrat  one  side  had  strengthened  itself  through 
disloyalty  to  the  aristocratic  principle,  very  much  as 
one  despot  may  invoke  mob  feeling  to  help  him  against 
another.4  The  herd  was  thus  provided  with  leaders, 
and  these,  Church  aristocrats  though  they  were,  must 
encourage  a  spirit  of  equality;  ghostly  dominion 
rested  on  the  principle  that  all  men  are  alike,  that— in 
Nietzsche's  exquisite  phrase—"  the  fools,  the  bungled 
and  the  botched  "  are  of  the  same  intrinsic  import 
ance  as  the  noble  and  the  well-constituted.  Only 
thus  might  they  all  alike  be  made  amenable  to  the 

1   Will  to  Power,  283.  3  Genealogy  of  Morals,  10. 

3  loc.  cit.  i  Ibid.,  1. 


30        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

penal  courts  of  the  Church.  But  when  the  divine 
sanction  decayed,  as  in  revolutionary  France,  did  the 
moral  system  decay  with  it  ?  Not  at  all ;  the  old 
imposing  credentials  were  revealed  as  a  forgery,  the 
claim  was  exposed  in  the  light  of  its  genuine  origin. 
But  a  new  and  a  stronger  power  was  now  active. 
"  An  authority  speaks.  .  .  .  Who  speaks  ?  .  .  .  God 
speaks.  .  .  .  Now,  admitting  that  faith  in  God  is  dead, 
the  question  arises  once  more,  '  Who  speaks  ?'  My 
answer,  which  I  take  from  biology  and  not  from  meta 
physics,  is,  '  The  gregarious  instinct  speaks.  That  is 
what  desires  to  be  master;  hence  its  'Thou  shalt.'  "  x 
These  values,  those  of  the  noble,  the  ecclesiastic, 
.  and  the  herd,  are  depicted  as  the  moral  stuff  out  of 
\  which  European  ideals  have  been  fashioned;  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  ups  and  downs  of  such  ways  of 
feeling,  in  proportion  as  they  have  by  turns  become 
predominant,  we  must  interpret  the  course  of  civi 
lization.  Under  many  forms  it  was  a  single  prin 
ciple  that  had  ruled — the  principle  of  will  to  power; 
the  significant  question  about  every  stage  was, 
"  Whose  will  to  power  ?"2  You  might  look  at  it  by 
periods — the  mediaeval  epoch  as  the  supremacy  of 
priests,  the  sixteenth  century  as  the  supremacy  of 
aristocrats,  the  eighteenth  as  the  supremacy  of  the 
herd;  you  might  trace  the  sinister  league  between 
Churchman  and  demagogue  in  the  paradoxical  but 
very  genuine  reinforcement  of  Christianity  at  the 
hands  of  the  French  Revolutionists.  It  was  a  small 
matter  that  they  erased  the  name  of  God  from 
State  formulae  and  from  school  curriculum;  they  per 
petuated  the  values  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  religion; 

1  Will  to  Power,  275.  2  Ibid.,  274. 


THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  31 

through  them  the  reign  of  Christianity  was  "  pro 
tracted."1  Nietzsche,  who  was,  above  all,  a  master 
of  words,  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  of  what  he  means; 
his  commonest  term  for  the  motive  behind  all  values 
is  the  term  that  is  best  translated  "  exploitation." 
Every  class,  in  all  that  it  did,  and  very  especially  in 
the  estimates  which  it  rendered  influential,  and 
through  which  it  worked,  had  the  single  aim,  con 
scious  or  unconscious,  of  "  exploiting "  the  re 
mainder.2 

This  is  Nietzsche's  account  of  the  source  of  moral 
valuing  as  given  in  one  of  his  late  books,  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  look  at  one 
of  his  earlier  works,  Human,  All-Too-Human,  in  which 
he  explains  the  same  phenomena  as  arising  by  neces 
sity  from  the  needs  of  the  primitive  tribe ;  there  is  no 
contradiction  between  the  two  views,  but  the  stand 
point  is  somewhat  different. 

He  points  out  that  every  man,  belonging  as  he 
does  to  a  specific  class,  thinks  as  his  class  thinks, 
long  before  he  can  regard  life  in  an  individual  or 

O  o 

independent  fashion.  One's  outlook  is  at  first  that 
of  one's  clan  or  nation;  to  vary  from  or  oppose  this 
belongs  to  a  late  period  of  development.  Now,  as 
certain  ways  of  acting  are  useful,  and  certain  other 
ways  are  injurious  to  the  community,  the  individual 
member  must  be  taught  to  value  the  former  and  con 
demn  the  latter.  "  Good  "  and  "  bad  "  were  nothing 
more  than  names  by  which  the  distinction  in  tribal 
utility  was  symbolized.  But  the  origin  of  the  con 
trast  was  soon  forgotten,  though  the  contrasting 

1  Will  to  Power,  94,  95. 

2  Cf.  especially  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  259. 


32        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

words  continued  to  be  used.  Hence  a  new  meaning 
had  to  be  found  for  them;  they  were  taken  to  stand 
for  some  intrinsic  quality  in  actions  apart  from  any 
results,  useful  or  otherwise,  to  which  these  actions 
might  lead.  Thus,  men  still  said  that  good  is  good 
and  bad  is  bad,  no  matter  what  the  external  outcome 
may  be.  The  next  step  was  to  attribute  these  quali 
ties,  not  to  conduct,  but  to  the  motive  from  which 
conduct  springs;  as  Kant  put  it,  the  only  thing  un 
conditionally  good  became  the  good  will.  Then  we 
ceased  to  consider  motives  in  isolation;  we  dealt 
with  a  "  character  "  which  displays  itself  in  the  kind 
of  motives  by  which  a  man  is  habitually  influenced ; 
and  it  was  felt  necessary  in  order  to  stimulate  effort 
that  one  should  think  of  himself — however  illusively 
— as  able  to  control  his  impulses,  able  to  mould  his 
character;  he  was  represented  as  "  responsible  first 
for  his  conduct,  next  for  his  motives,  and,  finally,  for 
his  very  nature." 

Thus,  the  (idea  of  goodnesX  arose  froirkwhat  the 
tribe  thought,  or  rather  found  by  tria!5Vto  be  of  utility 
to  itselh  But  even  good  things  are  useful  in  varying 
degrees,  and  different  things  are  useful  to  different 
tribes.  Hence  the  hierarchy  of  values,  the  ascending 
scale  in  which  a  community  groups  qualities  in  their 
order  of  merit;  hence,  too,  the  fact,  otherwise  inex 
plicable,  that  one  nation  esteems  what  another 
despises.  For  example,  among  a  particular  race  and 
at  a  particular  stage  justice  was  socially  valuable; 
for  another  race  and  at  another  stage  revenge  may  be 
the  first  of  "  moral  duties."  And,  finally,  within  a 
single  people  arose  a  distinction  of  classes,  especially 
the  distinction  between  rulers  and  ruled.  The 


THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  33 

national  consciousness  in  a  large  society  was  easily 
lost;  working  men  came  to  think  as  working  men, 
employers  to  think  as  employers.  Thus,  a  man 
began  to  value  as  "  good  "  the  qualities  which  were 
useful  to  his  own  subdivision,  and  to  condemn  as  bad 
the  qualities  of  the  competing  set;  there  were  the 
virtues  of  the  herd  and  the  virtues  of  the  master. 
We  must  abandon  the  idea  of  a  moral  reason  with 
its  cold,  clear  light;  all  depends  on  which  side  of  the 
social  fence  we  are  behind. 


II. 

Returning  to  the  three  kinds  of  feeling,  aristo 
cratic,  ecclesiastical,  and  gregarious,  we  must  note 
that  while  Nietzsche  often  applies  the  epithet 
"  moral  "  to  each  of  them,  he  elsewhere  restricts  it  to 
the  third.  Thus,  in  his  denunciations  of  "  morality  " 
he  has  in  mind  the  accepted  code — that  blend  of 
democracy  and  priestcraft — which  is  current  under 
the  popular  institutions  of  Western  Europe;  we  shall 
see  later  in  what  way  and  with  what  success  he  de 
fends  a  code  of  his  own,  a  "  Neue  Moral."  It  is  of 
the  essence  of  his  thought  that  the  accepted  valua 
tions  have  no  ultimate,  unchangeable  nature;  they 
are  derivative,  explicable  in  terms  of  an  earlier  feeling 
which  had  not  yet  been  moralized,  which  might  have 
received  some  other  development,  but  which,  as  a 
matter  of  history,  has  received  this  development. 
Hence  he  accuses  all  or  nearly  all  the  thinkers  who 
preceded  himself  of  accepting  as  "  the  given"  what  was 
really  the  given  plus  a  particular  and  a  very  disputable 

3 


34        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

manipulation.  This  is  tersely  brought  out  in  his 
statement,  "  There  are  no  moral  phenomena,  only  a 
moral  interpretation  of  phenomena ;  the  origin  of  this 
interpretation  lies  beyond  the  pale  of  morality."1 
He  separates  himself  toto  ccelo  from  those  expounders 
of  ethic  who  begin  by  saying  that  their  doctrine  is 
related  to  "  moral  facts  "  in  the  same  way  in  which 
botany  is  related  to  the  life  of  the  plant.  For  the 
botanist's  facts,  he  would  argue,  are  genuine;  the 
philosopher's  have  been  so  far  fraudulent,  manu 
factured;  the  theoretical  need  of  the  age  is  to  get 
back  to  that  which  is  the  real  datum — namely,  will  to 
power. 

Among  these  manufactured  products  he  found 
certain  concepts,  enormously  influential,  hence  of  the 
utmost  service  for  the  ends  of  a  power-seeker.  What 
were  these  ?  Such  ideas  as  obligation,  responsi 
bility,  conscience,  guilt,  merit,  punishment.  Who 
were  the  artificers  of  this  spiritual  machinery  ? 
Whence,  for  example,  the  notion  of  "  ought  "  ? 

Assuming  that  man  was  at  first  frankly  animal,  that 
he  had  not  yet  begun  to  delude  himself  with  myths 
about  a  "  soul,"  it  is  pointed  out  that  his  impulses 
and  passions  must  have  been  free,  buoyant,  self- 
assertive.  Some  individuals  of  the  species  would,  of 
course,  be  stronger,  more  masterful  than  the  rest; 
in  an  age  of  war  these  would  be  the  "  blonde  beasts 
of  prey,"  they  would  subdue  the  weaker  beasts  to 
their  will.  Thus  arose  the  State;  our  author  scouts 
Rousseau's  absurd  idea  of  a  social  contract:  "He 
who  can  command,  he  who  is  a  master  by  nature,  he 
who  comes  on  the  scene  forceful  in  deed  and  gesture, 

1  Will  to  Power,  258. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  35 

what  has  he  to  do  with  contracts  ?331  Thus,  forced 
into  subjection,  the  lower  class  were  kept  so  by  having 
instilled  into  them  the  thought  that  they  owe  certain 
things  to  the  heads  of  their  community.  The  debt 
was,  of  course,  fictitious;  the  primitive  subject  had 
been  placed  where  he  was  simply  by  the  superior 
strength  of  another.  But  the  notion  must  be  spread 
abroad  as  the  basis  of  enduring  power.  As  yet  there 
was  no  thought  of  responsibility  in  the  sense  of  free 
will  to  act  in  this  way  or  in  that.  Such  distinctions 
as  "  intentional,"  "  negligent,"  "  accidental,"  were 
the  fruits  of  a  civilization  relatively  advanced;  only 
by  a  ludicrous  anachronism  had  they  been  ascribed 
to  man  in  his  early  stages.  Thus,  when  the  subject 
had  been  taught  to  look  upon  the  State  as  his  creditor, 
it  was  natural  to  accept  the  consequence  that  the 
creditor  would  insist  on  payment,  and  would  be  re 
lentless  towards  default.  Punishment  was  simply 
retaliation,  and  at  the  earliest  period — as  all  anthro 
pologists  knew — it  had  no  vital  connexion  with  the 
evil-doer's  responsibility;  his  innocent  kindred  must 
suffer  with  him;  it  was  a  case  of  anger  which  "  vents 
itself  mechanically  on  the  author  of  the  injury." 
Thus,  out  of  the  material  "  owe  "  there  grew  the 
moral  "ought";  and  as  a  natural  inference,  every 
misdeed  was  thought  of  as  having  its  equivalent 
price:  witness  the  custom  of  handing  over  a  kinsman 
to  give  his  life  to  the  tribe  for  a  life  that  had  been 
taken;  witness,  also,  the  compositio  of  the  Teutonic 
peoples  with  a  sliding  scale  of  Wergild.  The  whole 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  ii.  17.  This  essay  is  the  source  for  the 
following  abstract:  it  is  needless  to  give  references  for  all  the 
points  in  detail. 


36        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

was  rooted  in  the  "  primary  forms  of  purchase,  sale, 
barter,  and  trade." 

But  there  was  no  limit  to  the  shape  in  which  such 
compensation   might  be   tendered.     As   contractual 
relations   developed,    men   would   offer   as   security 
against  default  all  manner  of  pledges;   one  might 
stake  his  life,  his  wife,  his  freedom,  his  body,  later  on 
his  salvation,  his  soul's  welfare,  his  peace  in  the  grave. 
Especially  common  was  the  type  of  bond  required  by 
Shylock;  the  creditor  claimed  the  right  to  inflict  pain 
or  mutilation  on  the  debtor's  body.     The  idea  was 
that  an  equivalent  might  be  rendered,  not  in  some 
material  fine,  but  in  giving  a  sense  of  satisfaction  to 
him  whom  you  had  injured.     The  extent  to  which 
this  went  on  confirmed  what  psychologists  knew  on 
other  grounds — namely,   the  joy  in  cruelty  which 
belongs  to  man's  nature;  in  the  penal  retribution  of 
public  law  this  tendency  of  individuals  had  reap 
peared  on  a  greater  scale.     To  inflict  suffering  "  con 
stituted  the  great  delight  of  ancient  man  ";  one  could 
see  it  in  the  feasts  he  made  for  his  gods  and  the  tor 
tures  he  carried  out  for  their  amusement.     "  It  is 
said  that  the  apes  in  inventing  bizarre  cruelties  are 
giving   abundant  proof   of   their  future    humanity, 
to   which,    as   it  were,  they  are   playing   the   pre 
lude." 

Turning  next  to  the  notion  of  responsibility, 
Nietzsche  finds  that  this  also  has  been  a  result  of 
State  pressure  upon  the  individual.  Communal  need 
prescribed  that  each  member  of  the  tribe  should  in 
his  actions  be  calculable.  This  was  at  first  secured 
by  the  reign  of  custom :  a  cast-iron  system  of  conduct 
was  handed  down  from  age  to  age;  every  tribesman 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  v  37 

behaved  exactly  like  his  fellow  through  blind  tradition 
and  imitativeness.  But  a  more  reflective  mood  pro 
duced  independence,  hence  the  need  for  explicit 
guarantees;  Nietzsche  puts  this  in  his  characteristic 
fashion  when  he  refers  to  Nature's  task  of  "  breeding 
an  animal  which  can  make  promises."  But  how 
ensure  that  the  promises  shall  be  kept  ?  Man  must 
be  made  to  feel  "  responsibility,"  and  this  involves 
the  attaching  of  pain  to  a  neglected  engagement. 
From  the  standpoint  of  modern  science,  free-will  was 
of  course  absurd ;  but  it  was  one  of  those  valuable  lies 
which,  in  its  own  interest,  a  Government  must  dis 
seminate;  it  served  the  cause  of  discipline,  without 
it  the  transition  could  never  have  been  made  from 
animal  to  man.  And  it  was  the  lesson  of  "  the 
longest  and  oldest  psychology  in  the  world  "  that 
"  only  that  which  never  stops  hurting  remains  in  the 
memory."  Thus  was  formed  a  sinister  but  very  effec 
tive  system  of  mnemonics. 

The  individual  must  be  kept  with  a  constant  burden 
on  his  mind  that  he  is  in  debt  to  outside  authorities, 
and  his  character  must  be  so  trained  that  he  shall  have 
no  rest  till  the  creditor's  claim  has  been  discharged. 
Hence  the  social  utility  of  "  pangs  of  conscience." 
The  wretched  man's  liabilities  were  toward  many 
claimants;  there  was  the  State  to  which  he  owed 
obedience,  allegiance,  service;  there  were  his  ances 
tors  from  whom  he  had  derived  life  itself,  and  to 
whom  return  must  be  made  in  sacrifice,  in  festival, 
in  temples  of  veneration — above  all,  in  sedulous 
observance  of  the  traditions  they  had  laid  down.  By 
degrees,  in  the  crude  logic  of  that  period,  an  ancestor 
assumed  monstrous  and  even  divine  prestige;  he 


38        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

became  transformed  into  a  god.1  How  shall  his 
claims,  then,  be  sufficiently  met  ?  "  Owing  some 
thing  to  God  !  This  thought  becomes  his  instrument 
of  torture."2  It  was  seen  to  an  extreme  degree  in 
that  Christian  doctrine  of  man's  inability  ever  to 
yield  a  perfect  satisfaction  to  the  Divine  creditor,  in 
the  thought  of  permanent  bankruptcy  at  the  bar  of 
Heaven.3  Thus  arose  the  notion  of  guilt,  in  its  origin 
of  sheer  social  expediency,  to  ensure  that  a  man's 
action  might  be  predictable.  Finally,  there  was  the 
idea  of  punishment,  and  of  desert.  Nietzsche  warns 
us  against  the  common  assumption  that  punishment 
was  at  first  deliberately  devised  to  serve  the  purpose 
for  which  it  has  since  been  used.4  He  distinguishes 
a  permanent  element  and  a  fluid  element.  To  begin 
with,  it  was  spontaneous  retaliation,  the  lex  talionis, 
an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth;  it  was 
rooted  like  responsibility  in  primitive  barter.  Only 
the  stupid  genealogists  of  law  could  introduce  the 
later  utilizations  of  punishment  into  the  original  pro 
cedure  itself.  These  latter  had  been  very  various — 
to  incapacitate  the  criminal  for  further  injury,  to 
frighten  others,  to  purge  weak  or  insubordinate 
elements  out  of  the  State,  to  maintain  social  order.5 
Such  ideas  were  fluid,  variable,  dependent  on  par 
ticular  grades  of  civilization;  the  feature  that  was 
permanent  and  ubiquitous  was  the  appeasing  of  an 
impulse  of  cruelty,  the  giving  vent  to  a  desire  for 
another's  suffering.  Did  not  Tertullian  and  Thomas 
Aquinas  conceive  the  righteous  retribution  of  the 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  ii.  19. 

2  Ibid.,  ii.  22.  3  loc.  cit. 
4  Hid.,  ii.  13.  5  loc.  cit. 


THE  «  WILL  TO  POWER  "  39 

wicked  as  one  of  the  luxurious  spectacles  which  should 
go  to  make  up  the  bliss  of  Paradise  ^ 

The  world  being  thus  in  its  essence  will  to  power, 
and  each  class  having  equipped  itself  for  the  contest, 
Nietzsche  faces  the  problem,  "Which  forces  are 
winning  ?"  "  Whose  will  to  power  is  getting  its 
way  ?"  He  answers  that  the  most  ignoble  types  are 
uppermost,  the  higher  types  are  being  suppressed. 
All  other  values  have  been  thrust  back  that  the  values 
called  "  moral  "  may  be  installed.  "  No  greater  power 
did  Zarajhustra  find  on  earth  than  good  and 
bad  ;"2  /such  aims  as  strength,  beauty,  racial  fit- 
nessVall,  in  a  word,  that/belong  to  a  select  class  and 
cannot  be  universalizecty-have  been  displaced  in  public 
esteem,  and  the  means  that  were  effective  towards 
these  have  been  abjured;  ^he  "moral  idiosyncratist " 
has  been  allowed  to  shape  the  human  type,  and  he 
has  shaped  it  straight  towards  decadence} 

The  signs  were  obvious — herd  morality  was  every 
where  preached,  the  cult  of  the  mediocre,  the  denial 
of  special  right  to  exceptional  men,  the  equalizing  of 
all,  high  and  low.  Was  it  any  wonder  that  even 
lofty  spirits  like  Schopenhauer  had  become  Veriichter 
des  Lebens  (despisers  of  life)?  The  tragedy  lay  in  this, 
that  Schopenhauer  did  not  see  how  life  had  become 
despicable  just  because  of  that  standpoint  from  which 
he  and  others  like  him  had  chosen  to  regard  it. 
They  had  caught  the  democratic  contagion,  but, 
unlike  the  democrats,  they  were  noble  enough  to  be 
disgusted  with  the  meanness,  and  discerning  enough 
to  see  through  the  futility,  of  democratic  ideals. 
Hence  they  called  existence  vain,  devoid  of  purpose, 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  15.  2  Zarathustra,  i.  15. 


40        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

a  tyranny  of  will  from  which  escape  might  be  sought 
either  in  art  or  in  asceticism.  And  what  of  those 
who  still  believed  in  Christianity  ?  They,  too,  were 
racial  decadents,  for  they  placed  the  centre  of  gravity 
in  a  supposed  world  to  come,  a  world  for  which  earth 
was  conceived  as  but  a  preparation,  a  world  infinitely 
more  important,  regulated  by  different  principles, 
enjoyable  only  through  transformed  natures.  They 
were  disloyal  to  earth  and  to  all  that  marked  earth's 
healthy  sons;  they  spoke  of  the  "  duty  "  to  welcome 
all  that  was  unnatural,  subordination,  poverty,  even 
pain  itself;  for  they  would  thus  win  entrance  to  a  place 
where  they  would  be  "  eternally  indemnified  "  for 
suffering.  Paradise  was  a  spot  of  everlasting  com 
pensation  for  "  the  fools,  the  bungled,  and  the 
botched  ";  these  had  failed  in  life's  even  competition, 
but  the  dice  were  loaded  in  their  favour  in  the  greatest 
game  of  all;  earth's  misfits  were  heaven's  favourites. 
Hence,  to  the  discriminating  eye,  modern  morality  was 
revealed  as  an  ingenious  system  of  new  nomenclature ; 
the  gloomy  workshop  where  men  fashioned  their 
ideals  disguised  all  that  was  low  under  a  name  of 
conventional  glorification;  timorous  abjectness  be 
came  humility,  constrained  subjection  was  called 
obedience,  inability  to  revenge  emerged  with  the  title 
"  forgiveness."1 

At  least  equally  degrading  were  those  notions 
about  guilt,  punishment,  obligation,  which  had 
served  a  social  purpose,  but  which  should  never  be 
seriously  cherished  by  emancipated,  buoyant  spirits. 
"  Bad  conscience,"  forsooth  !  A  man  should  "  digest 
his  deeds  as  he  digests  his  food  ";2  "  inability  to  have 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  14.  2  Will  to  Power,  906. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  41 

done  with  an  experience  is  a  sign  of  decadence."1 
Look  at  the  morbid  records  of  self-examination,  at  the 
saints  who  were  for  ever  introspecting  their  own  souls, 
at  the  nerveless,  self-accusing  mood  which  persisted 
even  in  those  who  had  outgrown  intellectual  Christi 
anity.  Bad  conscience  was  the  "  most  sinister  and 
interesting  plant  of  our  earthly  vegetation."2  The 
higher  type  of  man  should  feel  that  he  owes  nothing 
save  to  his  own  expanding  nature;  he  has  no  "  debts  " 
to  the  outsider;  let  him  reflect  on  how  the  notion  of 
moral  indebtedness  had  been  shown  to  have  taken  its 
rise,  and  let  him  boldly  draw  the  inference.  Let  him 
escape  from  the  ascetic  humbug  of  the  priesthood; 
let  his  instincts  become  re  justified  before  his  eyes, 
once  he  has  seen  how  and  for  whose  ends  those  in 
stincts  were  at  first  depreciated.  Let  him  realize 
that  the  whole  system  of  rewards  and  punishments 
was  made  to  subdue  the  disorderly  mob,  that  it  has 
no  relation  to  superior  man  who  acts  from  an  over 
flowing  vitality  without  any  thought  of  external 
results.  But  of  such  rejuvenescence  there  was  so  far 
little  sign;  the  old  superstitions  widely  prevailed, 
the  "  backworldsmen  "  were  still  dominant,  and  until 
they  could  be  deposed  from  their  usurpation  man 
kind  was  on  the  downward  path. 


III. 

To  criticize  all  this  within  the  limits  of  a  lecture  is, 
of  course,  impossible;  it  would  involve  the  develop 
ment  of  an  ethical  system.  I  can  only  indicate  a  few 
of  the  more  important  points. 

1  Will  to  Power,  233.  2  Genealogy  of  Morals,  ii.  14. 


42        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

That  concrete  study  of  morality  which  our  philo 
sopher  so  loudly  demands  is  a  genuine  desideratum  ;v» .  jy  <>v; 
we  have  had  abundant  discussion  on  such  matters  as  s 
the  moral  standard  and  the  moral  faculty;  but  we 
have  had  comparatively  little  tracing,  from  an  em 
pirical  standpoint,  of  the  ups  and  downs  in  moral 
feeling  from  age  to  age.  If  Nietzsche  has  given  us 
a  correct  account,  even  in  outline,  of  the  rise  and  fall 
of  values,  he  has  contributed  something  to  know 
ledge  which  we  have  long  needed  and  which  we  should 
highly  prize.  Has  he  done  so  ? 

To  write  this  chapter  of  human  history  is  an  ex 
tremely  difficult  task.  You  require,  in  the  first 
place,  a  vast  amount  of  anthropological  learning;  for 
you  must  begin  at  the  source,  you  must  know  what 
there  is  to  be  known — and  it  is  already  immense — of 
the  different  ways  in  which  primitive  races  valued 
conduct;  you  must  connect  these  with  the  states  of 
society  in  which  they  respectively  appeared,  and  you 
must  trace  the  changes  which  they  underwent  as 
social  organization  grew.  Again,  you  must  be  an 
expert  psychologist;  you  must  understand  the  springs 
of  action;  you  must  be  able  to  distinguish  with  con 
fidence  that  behaviour  which  is  physiological  and 
reflex  from  that  which  is  conscious  and  instinctive, 
and  this,  again,  from  that  which  is  deliberate  and 
rational;  you  must  have  a  coherent  scheme  of  the 
way  in  which  instincts  and  emotions  combine:  if  you 
have  not  this  equipment  you  cannot  thread  your  way 
through  the  multitude  of  historical  facts  which  an 
thropology  brings  to  your  notice.  Lastly,  though 
the  limits  you  have  set  yourself  are  empirical,  though 
they  exclude  a  metaphysic  of  morals,  you  must  be  in 


THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  43 

-no  small  degree  a  metaphysician  in  order  to  observe 
those  limits  and  to  know  when  you  are  transgressing 
them.  I  quote  in  evidence  those  histories  of  morality 
which  have  so  far  been  produced.  Each  qualifica 
tion  that  I  have  named  has  often  been  found  alone; 
just  because  they  have  never  been  completely  united 
in  a  single  person  every  history  of  moral  ideas  has 
been  in  a  high  degree  abortive.  The  great  work  by 
Professor  Westermarck  is,  beyond  doubt,  the  finest 
effort  that  has  yet  been  made  in  this  direction;  but 
every  competent  critic  can  see  how  unequal  are  its 
merits,  how  one  aspect  puts  other  aspects  to  shame, 
how  full,  for  example,  is  the  author's  knowledge  about 
savages,  how  slender  by  comparison  his  grasp  of  Greek 
or  of  Christian  ethics,  how  much  more  adequate  is  his 
anthropology  than  his  psychology,  how  constantly 
he  ventures  some  crude  metaphysical  dogma  with  no 
thought  that  he  is  going  out  of  his  province.  If  even 
Professor  Westermarck' s  powers  have  been  thus  over 
taxed,  the  enterprise  must  be  arduous  indeed ;  we  may 
say  that  this  work  has  never  been  satisfactorily  done 
because  we  have  never  had  a  man  of  accomplishments 
sufficiently  wide  and  sufficiently  varied  to  do  it. 

How  far  was  Nietzsche's  preparation  adequate  for 
the  task  ?  He  has  not,  indeed,  definitely  undertaken 
it,  but  he  has  given  us  repeated  summaries  of  the 
result  to  which  this  inquiry  would  lead,  and  he  has 
risked  many  confident  generalizations  which  could 
rest  only  on  the  basis  of  such  assured  knowledge. 
Yet  few  will  maintain  that  in  any  of  the  three  dis 
ciplines  which  I  have  mentioned  he  had  or  could 
have  had  more  than  the  attainments  of  a  smatterer. 
Professor  Lichtenberger  plainly  wishes  to  say  the 


44        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

best  he  can  for  Nietzsche,  but  even  he  has  to  admit 
this:  "  He  specialized  only  in  philology  ...  in  all  other 
branches  of  science  he  was  merely  a  dilettante,  and  of 
this  he  made  no  secret."1  In  thus  choosing  for  him 
self  a  sphere  demanding  an  exceptional  mass  of 
erudition,  he  has  had  the  fate  which  always  awaits 
the  tyro.  He  has  had  it  in  the  more  marked  degree 
because  of  his  incredible  self-confidence.  That  amid 
all  the  topsy-turvydom  of  his  thought  Nietzsche  had 
flashes  of  rare  insight,  I  fully  admit.  But  he  valued 
himself  just  in  the  sphere  of  his  inefficiency;  the  thing 
that  he  was  not  qualified  to  do  at  all  was  the  thing 
for  which  he  thought  himself  destined  above  all  other 
men  who  had  ever  lived.  Let  us  look  at  a  few  ex 
amples  of  how  he  did  it : 

1 .  Anthropological.  —  Nietzsche's  picture  of  the 
first  stage  of  morals  is  three-fourths  mythology. 
There  is  no  evidence  for  an  original  reign  of  sheer 
brute  force,  for  a  period  or  a  class  which  valued  simply 
the  qualities  of  an  overmastering  aristocrat,  for  a 
"  magnificent  blonde  beast."  Patient  study  of  early 
culture,  both  in  its  records  and  in  those  uncivilized 
races  which  still  survive,  has  shown  that  man  in  his 
most  primitive  type  had  all  the  features  of  "  herd 
morality  "  which  our  author  attributed  to  a  late 
epoch  of  decadence.  Eude  peoples  are  better  under 
stood  now  than  they  once  were  ;  they  used  to  be 
estimated  simply  from  their  behaviour  to  foreigners, 
or  from  the  character  which  they  acquired  through 
contact  with  civilization.  Anthropologists  who  have 
observed  them  at  home,  and  in  a  stage  still  untouched 
by  outside  influence,  tell  a  very  different  story  re 
garding  them.  I  refer  you  for  genuine  material  about 
1  The  Gospel  of  Superman,  p.  196. 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  45 

incipient  morality  to  such  works  as  that  of  Messrs. 
Spencer  and  Gillen,   The  Native__Tnbes_of  Central 
Australia,    or   to    the    relevant    parts    of    Professor 
Westermarck's  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral 
Ideas.    You   will   there   find    abundant   proof   that 
primitive  man  is  very  often  generous  and  sympa 
thetic,  given  to  peaceful  pursuits,  kind  to  the  aged, 
attentive  to  the  sick,  considerate  to  his  slaves  and 
womenfolk,   even  severe  towards  thievishness,  hos 
pitable   towards   the   stranger,    and   in   some   cases 
humane  in  war.     Where  his  actions  are  the  reverse 
of  all  this,  we  can  often  explain  them  from  some 
superstition  by  which  he  is  ruled,  or  from  want  of 
intellectual  insight  into  the  consequences  of  what  he 
is  doing;  in  neither  case  need  kindly  feeling  be  sup 
posed  absent.     It  is  pure  nonsense  to  pretend  that  in 
any  age  men  esteemed  nothing  but  the  vital  forceful- 
ness    of    a    warrior   caste;    the  "plebeian  virtues" 
abound   from   the   beginning   among   the   chieftains 
themselves.     It  is,  of  course,  true  that  in  a  rude  age 

'  '  O 

war  was  specially  important,  and  physical  courage 
was  specially  valued;  but  Nietzsche's  dogma  of  an 
original  brutality  out  of  which  priest  and  demagogue 
conjured  a  decadent  restraint  is  in  the  last  degree 
imaginative.  He  simply  adopted  the  current  view 
about  "  the  savage  "  from  men  who  knew  nothing  at 
first  hand,  and  he  insisted  on  its  truth  because  it  fitted 
the  groove  of  his  a  priori  theory  about  moral  growth. 
As  we  are  now  aware,  the  real  distinction  between 
savage  and  civilized  morality  is  not  so  much  that  new 
forms  of  virtue  have  been  produced  as  that  the  area 
over,  which  the  old  forms  were  applied  has  been  vastly 
extended.  Equally  baseless  is  Nietzsche's  view  on 


s     r» 

,  p  uw-f     ^  . 

46        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

?  the  origin  of  the  State.  He  rejects  Eousseau's 
Contrat  Social,  but  not  for  that  reason  which  is  really 
fatal  to  it;  he  rejects  it  on  the  wholly  false  ground 
that  the  first  rulers  were  forceful  blonde  beasts  who 
would  not  have  stooped  to  bargain  with  anyone. 
And  he  sets  up  in  its  place  the  notion  of  the  State  as 
arising  wholly  from  superior  strength  on  the  part  of  a 
few.  He  fails  to  recognize  the  fact  of  primitive  gre- 
gariousness,  of  what  Professor  Giddings  has  happily 
called  "  the  consciousness  of  kind."  In  the  light  of 
this  we  see  that,  strictly  speaking,  no  origin  for  the 
State  need  be  sought — that  it  expanded  automatically 
out  of  family  life,  which  was  social  from  the  first.  And 
can  anything  be  more  plainly  anachronistic  than  our 
author's  explanation  of  "  the  moral  '  ought '  out  of 
the  very  material  '  owe  '  "  ?  According  to  this  doc 
trine,  men  first  thought  of  themselves  as  under  moral 
obligation  because  they  were  obsessed  by  the  idea  of 
debtor  and  creditor;  one  may  well  ask,  Had  primitive 
man  no  sense  of  duty  until  he  had  developed  con 
tractual  relations  ?  The  historical  evidence  is  de 
cisive;  Sir  Henry  Maine,  in  his  argument  against 
Rousseau,  has  clearly  pointed  out  that  rights  were 
first  based  not  upon  contract  but  upon  status;  it  is 
modern  man  that  has  worked  out  the  machinery  of 
bargain  and  trade  as  a  means  to  define  relations  that 
were  recognized  far  earlier  in  another  form.  More 
over,  the  moral  "  ought "  cannot  be  got  out  of  a 
non-moral  "  owe  "  except  by  a  play  on  words.  Thus, 
Nietzsche  spurns  the  error  of  Rousseau  on  a  ground 
that  has  no  value,  and  he  himself  reproduces  precisely 
that  blunder  into  which  Rousseau  really  fell.  Again, 
what  shall  we  say  of  his  theory  about  the  rise  of 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  47 

priesthoods  ?  There  is  not  a  shred  of  proof  that  this 
meant  a  schism  within  the  ranks  of  aristocracy;  very 
much  may  be  said — as  all  readers  of  The  Golden  Bough 
are  aware— for  the  view  that  kingship  itself  was 
developed  through  the  enthronement  of  a  priest  who 
was  looked  on  as  the  incarnation  of  his  own  god. 
We  have  all  learned  from  Sir  James  Frazer  how  mani 
fold  were  the  precautions  which  primitive  folk  adopted 
to  ensure  that  their  priest  in  whom  the  god  dwelt 
should  not  suffer  vital  decay — how  they  even  put  him 
to  death  in  the  flower  of  his  manhood  that  the  spirit 
within  might  find  a  more  robust  tabernacle.  What 
shall  we  think,  then,  of  Nietzsche's  bold  assertion 
that  priesthood  means  the  revolt  among  men  of  low 
physique  against  the  abounding  vitality  of  a  natural 
king  ?  No  doubt  he  had  here  specially  in  view  the 
Christian  priest;  he  expresses  himself  so  loosely  that 
it  is  often  hard  to  be  sure  whether  by  religion  he 
means  religion  in  general  or  Christianity  in  particular; 
but  his  groundless  thesis  is  advanced  just  in  that 
section  where  he  affects  to  explain  the  birth  of  reli 
gious  as  against  secular  morality;  this  cannot  refer 
only  to  the  rise  of  one  faith — that  one  relatively  late 
and  preceded  by  many  periods  of  asceticism.  More 
over,  it  is  hard  to  be  patient  with  page  after  page  of 
dogmatic  assertion  in  which  the  religious  conscious 
ness  of  the  world  is  attributed  to  deliberate  imposture 
on  the  part  of  power-seeking  priests.  This  field  of 
inquiry  is,  no  doubt,  obscure ;  but  we  have  got  enough 
light  on  it  to  have  cast  off  for  ever  the  speculation  of 
old  Mandeville  in  his  Fable  of  the  Bees.  Dr.  Tylor's 
discussion  in  his  Primitive  Culture  has  laid  bare  the 
historical  roots  of  early  religious  ideas  in  such  a 


48        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

fashion  that  they  are  seen  to  be  imbedded  in  early 
man's  very  nature;  can  we  suppose  that  in  every 
country  and  in  every  race  a  few  persons  were  so  far 
above  their  age  as  to  have  wholly  escaped  from  its 
most  intimate  ways  of  thinking,  and  so  cunning  as  to 
hit  with  singular  unanimity  upon  just  the  same 
system  of  deception  to  establish  lordship  over  their 
fellows  ?  I  shall  return  to  this  point  in  a  later  lec 
ture  ;  but  the  whole  fraud  theory  of  religion  is  now  so 
antiquated  in  every  school  of  anthropology  that  I  am 
reluctant  to  argue  at  length  against  a  view  which  it 
is  no  longer  intellectually  respectable  to  maintain. 

2.  Psychological. — When  we  turn  to  the  psycho 
logical  aspects  of  his  position,  Nietzsche's  defects 
seem  no  less  glaring. 

He  observed  that  when  a  particular  way  of  valuing 
conduct  becomes  influential,  the  persons  who  exhibit 
such  conduct  increase  in  social  power,  and  the  persons 
whom  such  conduct  favours  begin  to  fare  better  than 
before.  If  mercy  and  justice  rise  in  public  esteem, 
then  just  and  merciful  persons  are  more  valued,  and 
those  of  the  lower  class  who  specially  need  mercy  and 
justice  improve  their  standing.  This  is  true — it  is 
even  a  truism;  and  from  truisms  no  significant  infer 
ence  can  be  drawn.  What  is  Nietzsche's  inference  ? 
It  is  nothing  less  than  this,  that  the  moral  estimates 
have  one  and  all  been  created  by  the  "  will  to  power  " 
of  the  persons  who  gain  by  their  recognition.  This 
is  at  best  a  very  daring  hypothesis,  which  the  original 
truism  might  suggest;  it  requires  a  great  deal  of  inde 
pendent  proof.  What  we  are  offered  in  its  support 
is,  in  the  first  place,  a  mass  of  historical  instances  by 
which  the  hypothesis  claims  to  be  verified;  examples 


THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  49 

are  quoted  where  priests  gained  power  through  the 
dominance  of  asceticism,  or  the  proletariate  through 
the  acceptance  of  a  law  of  equality.  But  it  is  clear 
that  these  cases  verify  nothing,  except  the  original 
tautology  with  which  the  whole  argument  begins, 
and  which  needs  no  confirmation  whatever.  The 
thing  which  demanded  proof  was  the  statement  that 
one  special  result  of  a  moral  code— namely,  the  in 
creased  power  which  its  adoption  confers  upon  a  cer 
tain  class — was  the  efficient  cause  through  which  that 
code  was  created. 

Nietzsche  here  ventures  a  sweeping  generalization 
which,  if  sound,  would  certainly  establish  his  case. 
He  argues  tliat  (will  to  power  is  the  source^  not  only  of 
moral  valuing,  but  of  every  act  and  every  impulse  in 
man  or  in  animal.  If  this  is  so,  morality,  like  all  else, 
must  beyond  doubt  be  the  will  to  power  of  someone, 
and  it  is  reasonable  to  fix  on  the  group  which  stands 
to  win.  But  what  does  this  single  ubiquitous  prin 
ciple  mean  ?  Sometimes  power  is  explained  as  self- 
expression,  and  the  impulse  to  it  becomes  almost 
identical  with  Spencer's  impulse  to  a  maximized  life. 
Thus,  the  overwhelming  of  others  is  not  essential; 
an  explosion  of  dynamite  does  not  "  aim  "  at  destroy 
ing  property ;  it  obeys  its  own  law,  and  the  shattered 
building  is  but  an  incident  in  the  process;  it  would 
not  have  been  shattered  if  it  had  not  stood  in  the 
way.  Does  not  human  nature,  then,  recognize  any 
limit  to  "  expressing  itself  "  ?  To  keep  his  prin 
ciple  intact  Nietzsche  must  reply  either  (a)  that  it 
recognizes  none  willingly,  though  a  man's  energy  may 
be  coerced  within  limits  by  the  rival  energy  of  another; 
or  (b)  that  the  apparent  self-limitation  is  really  self- 

4 


50        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

development  in  disguise — it  is  will  to  power  in  an 
other  form.    Now  (a)  is  plainly  contradicted  by  in 
trospection,  and  we  have  seen  it  fail  even  in  that 
province  of  savage  life  which  seemed  most  likely  to 
vindicate  it.     Voluntary  regard  for  others  everywhere 
sets  a  bound  to  individual  impulse.     Shall  we,  then, 
fall  back  on  (6)  and  declare  such  regard  to  be  a 
masked    egoism  ?     Nietzsche    does    so;    where    we 
imagine  self-denial,  he  claims  that  egoistic  impulse 
is  behind;  even  the  pitiful  man  is  not  disinterested, 
for  he  seeks  exaltation  in  a  sense  of  superiority,  just 
as  malice  desires  not  the  pain  of  another,  but  one's 
own  augmented  self-consciousness  in  view  of  that 
pain.     The  fallacy  is  as  old  as  Hobbes,  and  we  thought 
it  had  been  refuted  for  ever  by  Shaftesbury  and  his 
successors ;  but  let  it  pass.     There  is  an  element  of 
truth  in  saying  that  a  mother  is  egoistic  in  caring  for 
her  child,  that  it  is  her  own  image  which  she  loves, 
and  that  a  king  or  a  general  honours  himself  in  devo 
tion  to  his  people  or  his  army.     A  German  who  longs 
for  Germany's  success  in  the  present  war  is  in  a  way 
egoistic;  he  identifies  himself  with  the  Teutonic  race, 
and  if  that  race  wins  his  self-feeling  will  be  gratified. 
Will  to  power  thus  becomes  not  will  to  one's  own 
power — the  self  being  conceived  as  an  individual— 
but  will  to  power  for  the  group  or  class  to  which  one 
belongs.    Herd  morality  appeals  to  the  cripple,  the 
pauper,  the  invalid,  not  because  each  of  these  looks 
for  personal  gain  from  a  rule  of  mercy,  but  because, 
out  of  class-feeling  and  class-resentment,  he  wills  in 
creased  consideration  for  all  cripples,  all  paupers,  all 
invalids  over  the  normal,  the  rich,  and  the  healthy. 
Observe  that  power  has  now  lost  its  sense  of  self- 


THE  "WILL  TO  POWER"  51 

expression  and  has  become  supremacy;  "  will  to 
power "  has  become  "  will  to  war,"  not  because 
obstacles  are  to  be  surmounted,  but  because  of  the 
lust  for  what  our  author  calls  "  exploitation."  ^gain 
and  again,  in  defiance  of  the  sense  he  gave  to  "  power  " 
at  the  beginning,  he  uses  the  notion  of  "  exploiting  " 
as  identical  with  the  notion  of  "power";  hence  a 
constant  source  of  ambiguity  and  confusion.  But, 
returning  to  his  idea  of  group  patriotism,  what  psy 
chological  account  shall  we  give  of  the  men  who  oppose 
their  class  ?  What  shall  we  say  of  those  who  seek 
to  advance  a  group  with  which  they  cannot  be  held 
to  identify  themselves  at  all  ?  What  of  the  "  well- 
constituted  ones  who  carry  water  to  the  mill  of  the 
world-despisers  "  ?  To  go  no  farther,  how  shall  we 
explain  Nietzsche  himself,  who  belonged  physiologi 
cally  to  just  that  inferior  class  which  he  so  persist 
ently  abuses  ?  He  valued  enormously  those  physical 
qualities  which  were  antithetical  to  his  own.  If  it 
be  said  that  he  was  spiritually  of  the  nobles  though  in 
body  of  the  weak,  what  is  this  but  to  repeat  the  very 
paradox  of  which  I  ask  an  explanation  ?  It  is  but 
to  affirm  that  a  man  can  detach  himself  from  his 
class,  can  take  an  impartial  standpoint,  can  judge 
things  good  or  bad  without  reference  to  gain  for  his 
own  order.  Just  as  will  to  the  pleasure  of  someone 
else  is  not  will  to  pleasure,  so  will  to  someone  else's 
power  is  not  will  to  power.  And  how  explain  those 
ardent  philanthropists,  full  of  volitional  energy,  but 
striving  in  support  of  a  class  very  remote  from  their 
own  ?  On  our  author's  own  showing,  herd  values  are 
uppermost  even  with  those  who  do  not  belong  to  the 
herd  at  all.  Omitting  all  whom  demagogues  have 


52        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

cajoled  or  priests  have  terrorized,  what  of  those  who 
fear  no  spiritual  penalty,  and  who — say  in  Russia — 
have  nothing  to  gain  for  themselves  and  less  for  their 
class  by  favouring  a  creed  of  equality  ?  ;It  is 
Nietzsche's  own  complaint  that  there  are  many  such 
—men  like  Schopenhauer — who  preach  the  plebeian 
virtues.  How  is  it  psychologically  possible  to  account 
for  their  existence  if  the  one  principle  of  life  is  will  to 
power  ?  Each  of  these  men  is  an  instantia  contra- 
dictoria.  And  how  will  it  be  possible  to  achieve  that 
feat  which  Nietzsche  thought  the  supreme  call  of  the 
age — namely,  the  transvaluation  of  values  ?  How  in 
duce  lower  men  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  race  eleva 
tion  ?  If  we  are  capable  of  a  moral  reason  that  is  above 
our  passions,  this  may  enable  us  to  change  our  valuing 
standard.  If  the  sole  motive  is  will  to  power  for  one 
self  or  one's  group,  you  may  watch  but  you  cannot 
modify  the  movements  of  that  dominant  impulse. 

The  truth  is  that  our  author,  though  he  spoke  much 
about  "  instincts,"  was  quite  ignorant  of  what  an 
instinct  psychologically  means,  and  of  what  man's 
instincts  concretely  are.  He  knew  that  they  were 
i  tendencies  to  act  in  certain  ways,  but  he  invariably 
names  them  after  the  antiquated  method  of  selecting 
the  end  which  an  instinct  serves,  and  importing  fore 
sight  of  that  end  into  the  impelling  motive.  Thus,  he 
speaks  over  and  over  again  about  the  "  instinct  for 
self-preservation,"  though  no  competent  psycholo 
gist  will  now  use  such  a  phrase.  We  may  act  de 
liberately  with  the  purpose  of  self-preservation,  but 
an  instinctive  act  is  carried  out  with  no  anticipation 
of  that  end  which,  as  the  outside  observer  can  see,  is 
being  effectively  served.  It  is  just  here  that  the 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  53 

comparative  study  of  animal  life  has  cast  special  light 
upon  the  conduct  of  human  beings.  Let  me  quote 
a  very  suggestive  passage  from  William  James: 

"  A  very  common  way  of  talking  .  .  .  represents  the 
animal  as  obeying  abstractions  which  not  once  in  a 
million  cases  is  it  possible  it  can  have  framed.  .  .  . 
The  cat  runs  after  the  mouse,  runs  or  shows  fight  be 
fore  the  dog,  avoids  falling  from  walls  and  trees,  shuns 
fire  and  water,  etc.,  not  because  he  has  any  notion 
either  of  life  or  of  death,  or  of  self,  or  of  preserva 
tion.  He  has  probably  attended  to  no  one  of  these 
conceptions  in  such  a  way  as  to  react  definitely  upon  it. 
He  acts  in  each  case  separately,  and  simply  because 
he  cannot  help  it ;  being  so  framed  that  when  that 
particular  running  thing  called  a  mouse  appears  in 
his  field  of  vision  he  must  pursue;  that  when  that 
particular  barking  and  obstreperous  thing  called  a  dog 
appears  there  he  must  retire  if  at  a  distance  and 
scratch  if  close  by;  that  he  must  withdraw  his  feet 
from  water  and  his  face  from  flame."1 

We  have  recently  learned  much  about  human  in 
stincts;  we  know  that  the  instinct  for  "  power,"  or,  as 
it  is  better  put,  the  instinct  for  self -display,  is  only  one 
of  them;  there  is  also  an  instinct  of  self-abasement 
which  lies  at  the  root  of  humility,  and  there  are  many 
others,  equally  primitive,  as  any  psychologist  can 
show,  which  have  to  do  neither  with  self-expression 
nor  with  self-lowering,  but  with  definite  disinterested 
objects.  By  looking  at  these  tendencies  with  a  pre 
determined  theory  in  your  mind,  you  can,  of  course, 
estimate  them  all  from  the  standpoint  of  increased 
or  diminished  power  to  the  agent,  but  to  put  this 
element  into  their  nature  is  to  falsify  them  as  psycho- 
physical  facts.  And  a  great  deal  of  recent  advance  in 

1  Principles  of  Pyschology,  vol.  ii.:  "Instinct." 


54        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

ethics  has  come  from  the  interpretation  of  these  as 
factors  of  co-ordinate  rank  in  the  moral  conscious- 
ness. 

Thus,  instead  of  being,  as  his  admirers  assert,  a 
master  spirit  in  the  unravelling  of  human  nature, 
Nietzsche  had  all  the  vices  of  the  amateur;  in  par 
ticular,  he  had  the  vice  of  hurry,  and  he  had  the  vice 
of  seeking  some  one  principle  by  which  all  conduct 
should  be  explained.  All  scholars  in  this  field  know, 
and  they  know  it  with  a  clearness  strictly  propor 
tioned  to  the  depth  of  their  learning,  that  such  unifica 
tion  is  a  dream,  that  the  threads  are  infinitely  tangled, 
that  there  is  no  "  open  sesame,"  no  master-key  at 
which  all  these  doors  swing  back.  As  was  inevitable, 
Nietzsche  tries  to  make  good  his  case  by  reinventing 
one  ancient  fallacy  after  another,  by  laying  down  as 
intuitive  truth  some  assumption  that  has  long  ago 
been  exploded.  ''  To  the  devil,"  he  somewhere  ex 
claims — "  to  the  devil  with  all  psychology !"  Such 
radical  clearance  was  indeed  essential  to  the  accept 
ance  of  his  own  "  universal  motive  ";  but  we  know 
what  happens  in  a  field  like  this  when  a  man  sets  at 
naught  all  that  the  patience  of  his  predecessors  has 
disclosed.  The  remarkable  thing  in  Nietzsche's  case 
—and  it  is  an  evidence  of  his  wayward  genius — is, 
not  that  an  account  originating  thus  should  be  full 
of  nonsense,  but  that  amid  the  nonsense  it  should 
have  suggestions  of  real  value.  I  shall  try  to  indicate 
what  these  are  at  the  close  of  this  lecture.  Of  the 
metaphysical  objections  to  his  ethic  this  is  not  the 
most  suitable  time  to  speak;  they  will  meet  us  next 
day,  and  I  shall  not  here  anticipate  what  I  must 
there  set  forth  at  some  length.  They  arise  chiefly 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  55 

through  confusion  between  what  the  word  "  good  " 
means  and  the  conditions  or  circumstances  in  which 
it  has  been  historically  applied.     Our  author  is  so 
unsystematic  that  in  discussing  one  side  of  his  teach 
ing  we  shall  often  be  forced  to  return  upon  ground 
that  we  have  already  covered;  it  is  just  this  mixing 
of   different   problems   which    I    urge    as    proof    of 
Nietzsche's    metaphysical    incompetence.     But    our 
principle  that  the  history  of  moral  ideas  is  one  thing 
and  the  evaluation  of  those  ideas  is  another  must  in 
fairness  keep  our  minds  unprejudiced  towards  that 
part  of  Nietzsche's  system  which  we  have  still  to  see. 
His  work  may  be  full  of  mistakes  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  anthropologist  and  the  psychologist;  yet  he  - 
may  have  had  genuine  insight  into  the  ethical  problem 
of  the  present.    Many  writers  have  had  this  to  whom 
the  two  sciences  I  have  named  were  almost  sealed 
books;  and,  though  we  may  distrust  a  man  whom 
we  have  found  so  dogmatic  where  he  knew  so  little, 
we  must  give  him  an  unbiassed  hearing  when  he 
breaks  fresh  ground.     That  he  had  in  some  ways  high 
capacity   for  interpreting   the   moral   consciousness, 
not  as  it  has  developed,  but  as  it  permanently  exists, 
I  shall  indicate  some  evidence  from  what  we  have 
already  seen. 

(a)  Nietzsche  has  set  in  high  relief  the  nature  of 
morality  as  an  active  criticism  of  life,  as  a  set  of 
values  which  are  not  forced  upon  passive  recipients, 
but  are  created  by  the  mind  itself.     In  this  doctrine 
of  values,  rightly  called  by  Mr.  Schiller  the  greatest 
achievement    of    nineteenth  -  century    thought,    our 
author  was  one  of  the  pioneers.     Its  importance  is 
shown  when  we  contrast  it  with  some  ways  of  think- 


- 


56        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

VJ 
ing    that   had    preceded.     In    England    Association 

Psychology  had  become  dominant,  and  it  had  de 
picted  the  moral  life  of  man  as  shaped  for  him  by 
experiences  from  outside,  as  grooves  and  ruts  worn 
into  our  nature  by  the  action  of  forces  which  we  could 
not  influence.  In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
same  phenomena  were  intellectualized,  treated  as 
unconscious  deductions  from  the  work  of  reason, 
robbed  of  the  quality  which  most  of  all  distinguishes 
them — that  of  the  free  play  of  emotion.  Against 
both  views  Nietzsche  asserts  the  spontaneity  of  the 
moral  life,  its  character  as  coming  from  within,  not 
imposed  from  without;  its  work  as  generating,  not 
reflecting,  values.  He  puts  this  well  in  his  protest 
against  an  ethic  which  grounds  itself  on  a  vis  inertiw 
or  on  a  blind  mechanism. 

(b)  Arising  out  of  this  he  has  insisted  with  great 
effect  that  the  moral  values  are  only  one  species  of 
values  in  general,  that  it  is  possible  to  evaluate  values 
themselves,  to  adjudicate,  for  example,  among  the 
ideals  of  strength,  pleasure,  power,  virtue.     If  any 
one  of  these  is  to  be  exalted  to  a  primacy,  it  must  be 
after  consideration  of  the  claims  of  the  rest,  not 
through  acceptance  of  a  rigid  authority.    He  has 
put  this,  of  course,  in  an  exaggerated  way;  he  has 
held  it  possible  for  mankind  to  differ  indefinitely  in 
their  estimates.     But  it  is  a  wholesome  corrective  to 
the  view  that  they  cannot  differ  at  all,  and  it  gives 
us  the  only  key  to  interpret  the  empirical  fact  that 
they  do  differ  very  widely  indeed. 

(c)  He  has  connected,  far  too  rigidly  indeed,  but 
still  validly,  the  appreciation  of  this  or  that  virtue 
with  the  type  of  society  in  which  it  appeared.     He 


THE  "  WILL  TO  POWER  "  57 

lias  shown  that  qualities  are  not  estimated  in  isola 
tion,  but  as  contributing  to  the  kind  of  life  which  is 
for  the  moment  most  highly  esteemed.  Thus,  a 
warrior  age  values  courage,  an  industrial  age  values 
diligence,  a  democratic  age  values  justice.  And  he 
has  impressed  upon  us  that  the  question  we  must 
answer  in  a  moral  judgment  is  not  similar  to  the  ques 
tion  of  truth  or  falsity  in  a  theoretical  judgment;  it  is 
rather  this:  Is  the  quality  in  question  advantageous 
for  the  particular  mode  of  life  which  we  think  it 
valuable  to  preserve  and  to  extend  ?  Hence  a  moral 
code  must  always  be  in  some  degree  fluid,  no  "  Table 
of  the  Law,"  but  altering  as  circumstance  alters  and 
as  ideals  become  more  enlightened. 

These  are  important  gains,  not,  indeed,  the  original 
handiwork  of  Nietzsche,  but  seized  upon  by  him  with 
special  clearness  and  expounded  with  special  vivacity 
and  force.  How  far  he  has  applied  them  in  a  fruitful 
way  to  the  difficulties  of  moral  thought  in  the  present 
we  have  next  to  consider. 


LECTURE  III 

THE   TRANSVALUATION   OF  VALUES 

So  far,  we  have  seen  the  "  ^ill  to  power/'  conceived 
by  Nietzsche  less  as  a  principle/which  ought  to  domi 
nate  conduct  than  as  a  law  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
(does   determine   the   behaviour   of    everyone)    The 
Qhoral  is  declared  essentially  the  same  as  the  immoray,1 
just  as  Mill  maintained  that  pleasure  is  the  sole  pur 
pose  by  which  mankind  is  psychologically  capable  of 
being  moved,  so,  for  Nietzsche,  the^  desire  to  make 
oneself   or  one's   class   influential   is   the  primitive 
motive  from  which  all  other  motives  have  been  de 
rived.)    And,  as  in  Utilitarianism,  a  transition  was 
made  from  psychological  fact  to  moral  rule,  so  we 
here  find  the  circumstance  that  man  always  aims  at 
power  elevated  into  a  maxim  that  power,  and  power 
alone,  is  desirable.     Prima  facie  there  is  the  same 
justification  in  both  cases.     If  a  certain  principle  is 
the  only  one  from  which  man's  nature  allows  him  to 
act,  it  becomes  impossible  to  argue  that  some  other 
principle  is  prescribed  either  by  his  conscience  or  by 
his   reason.     The   remaining   step   is   to    bring   this 
universal  purpose  into  clearer  consciousness,  to  act 
upon  it  more  systematically  and  more  effectively. 
Hence  the  announcement  of  Zarathustra:  "A  new 


1  Will  to  Power,  272. 
58 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         69 

will  teach  I  unto  men :  to  choose  that  path  which  man 
hath  followed  blindly,  and  to  approve  of  it."1 

But  Nietzsche's  role  was  that  of  a  prophet,  a  bucci 
nator  novi  temporis  ;  he  dare  not  content  himself  with 
depicting  life  as  a  theatre  of  struggle  in  which  first 
one  and  then  another  force  wins  the  mastery;  he 
must  show  which  deserves  the  mastery,  and  how  that 
which  deserves  it  may  be  helped  to  obtain  it.  Thus, 
out  of  the  ruin  of  previous  valuations,  he  had  to 
construct  a  valuation  of  his  own,  he  had  to  offer  us 
what  Mr.  Benn  has  neatly  described  as  "  the  morals  of 
an  immoralist."2  In  this  lecture  I  shall  try  to  show 
how  he  differentiates  in  worth  among  the  contending 
impulses  which  clash  in  the  life  of  humanity. 

He  begins  by  warning  us  that  so  far  he  has  merely 
cleared  the  ground.  No  inquiry  into  the  origin  of 
the  ideas  good  and  evil  could  by  itself  inform  us 
whether  these  ideas  were  valid.3  The  problem  of 
psychogenesis  was  one,  the  problem  of  values  was 
another.  It  was  necessary  to  trace  existing  moral 
judgments  back  to  their  source,  for  they  had  come  to 
us  with  an  air  of  objective  finality;  the  great  dragon 
in  Zarathustra's  path  was  named  "  Thou  shalt  ";4  the 
striving  of  free  spirits  had  been  silenced  by  the  voice 
that  said:  "All  values  have  already  been  created. "J 
One  had  to  break  down  the  spurious  prestige  of  a 
system  which  pretended  to  a  pedigree  too  authorita 
tive  for  criticism.  This  could  be  done  only  by  show 
ing  that  the  loftiest  moral  idea  was  man-made,  that 

1  Zarathustra,  i.  3. 

2  In  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  1909. 

3  Will  to  Power,  254.     Cf.  Joyful  Science,  p.  345. 

4  Zarathustra,  i.  1.  r>  loc.  cit. 


60        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

the  same  creative  activity  could  bring  forth  other  and 
contrary  ideas.1  In  what  mould  should  it  choose  to 
fashion  them  ?  This  was  the  problem  of  problems 
by  which  European  culture  was  faced.  A  time 
would  come  when  the  decision  would  be  no  longer 
open,  when  man  would  "  no  longer  give  birth  to  any 
star  ";  the  soil  would  have  become  impoverished  and 
exhausted;  nothing  lofty  would  grow  there  again.2 
It  was  the  moment  of  choice  when  the  world  must 
elect  either  to  go  on  with  the  old  ideal  or  to  "  grave 
new  values  upon  new  tables."3 

Nietzsche  declares  that  if  the  increasing  decadence 
is  to  be  checked,  the  plans  of  the  future  must  have  a 
single  aim — that  of  stimulating  vitality;  we  must 
produce  the  climate  in  which  "  the  plant  man  will 
thrive."  What  have  been  the  detrimental  forces  in 
the  past  ?  Only  in  a  very  minor  degree  the  external 
things  of  the  human  lot,  the  grievous  calamities  be 
yond  our  control  on  which  pessimism  fixes  its  eye. 
These  are,  in  a  sense,  normal — phenomena  of  old  age 
and  decay;  they  are  no  more  fatal  to  rejuvenescence 
than  the  withered  soil  of  winter  forbids  the  promise 
of  a  spring.4  Nietzsche  argues  that  the  force  which 
is  really  menacing  to  the  future  is  a  spiritual  force, 
a  thing  resident  in  the  soul  itself ;  it  is  the  world- 
renouncing  temper;  if  this  could  be  cured,  all  else 
would  come  right  automatically ;  if  this  must  persist, 

1  Cf.  his  "  second  metamorphosis  of  the  spirit/'  Zarathustm 
i.  1:  "  Create  new  values — that  even  the  lion  is  not  able  to  do; 
but  create  freedom  for  itself  for  fresh  creations,  that  the  lion 
can  do." 

2  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  v.  3  Ibid.,  9. 
*  Will  to  Power,  40. 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         61 

all  improvement  of  an  external  kind  is  mere  pallia 
tion  of  the  disease.  The  philosophers  of  the  past 
had  been  so  many  blundering  physicians  who  took 
as  their  task  the  concoction  of  some  wretched  anal 
gesic,  some  soul-drug  which  should  mask  the  symp 
toms  while  the  inward  canker  was  untouched.1 
Radical  treatment  was  called  for,  and  this  must  con 
sist,  first  and  foremost,  in  a  revaluation  of  two  modes 
of  feeling — sympathy  and  egoism.  I  shall  take  his 
account  of  these  in  turn,  and  then  offer  such  criticism 
as  seems  appropriate. 

I. 

Schopenhauer  had  held  that  a  spirit  of  universal 
pity  is  the  thing  plainly  prescribed  by  a  survey  of 
life;  for  Nietzsche  this  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
truth.  The  German  word  Mitleid  means,  literally,  a 
"  suffering  with  "  one's  neighbour,  an  entering  into 
his  state  in  such  a  way  that  his  pain  becomes  in  part 
our  pain  too.  The  man  who  pities  has  thus  forsaken 
the  individual  standpoint,  he  has  identified  himself 
with  another,  he  has  voluntarily  clouded  his  own 
world-enjoying  spirit  by  exposing  himself  to  infection 
from  the  morbid  and  the  depressed.2  Nietzsche 

1  Will  to  Power,  42. 

2  Cf.  Genealogy  of  Morals,  iii.  14:  "  Preventing  the  sick  making 
the  healthy  sick — for  that  is  what  such  a  soddenness  comes  to — 
this  ought  to  be  our  supreme   object  in  the  world.  .  .  .  May  it 
perchance  be  their  mission  to  be  nurses  or  doctors  ?      But  they 
could  not  mistake  and  disown  their  mission  more  grossly — the 
higher  must  not  degrade  itself  to  be  the  tool  of  the  lower  .  .  .  the 
right  of  the  happy  to  existence,  the  right  of  bells  with  a  full  tone 
over  the  discordant  cracked  bells  is  verily  a  thousand  times 
greater." 


62        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

argues  that  just  in  so  far  as  we  do  this,  our  efficiency 
in  helping  another  becomes  impaired.  The  surgeon 
who  is  over-sympathetic  becomes  unnerved  and  use 
less  ;  the  hand  which  can  best  save  must  be  associated 
with  an  eye  that  is  somewhat  cold  and  a  heart  that 
is  somewhat  hard.  Far  from  attempting  so  to 
realize  in  thought  the  distress  of  all  our  fellow-men 
that  we  may  share  it  with  them  and  help  them  to 
bear  it,  we  must  recognize  that  to  do  this  would  be  to 
sink  in  hopeless  despair,  to  unfit  ourselves  even  for 
such  service  as  we  might  otherwise  offer.  This  is  one 
point  that  Nietzsche  has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of 
the  "  follies  of  the  pitiful  "  ;a  when  he  says,  "  Not  your 
sympathy  but  your  bravery  has  hitherto  saved  the 
victims  ";2  when  he  bids  the  wise  man  close  his  ears, 
however  fierce  an  effort  it  may  require,  to  the  voice 
of  another's  pain.3 

But  not  only  did  he  look  upon  such  sensitiveness 
as  liable  to  lower  vitality  and  hinder  action;  it  was 
as  a  rule  quite  misplaced.  Our  philosopher  becomes 
at  this  point  very  bold;  he  roundly  declares  that  be 
fore  we  sympathize  with  anyone's  hard  lot  we  must 
ask  ourselves  whether  the  victim  belongs  to  that  type 
which  ought  to  be  preserved,  whether  he  is  cosmically 
valuable.  Our  test  should  be  in  part  physiological 
and  in  part  spiritual.  In  plain  words,  is  the  man  a 
robust  human  creature  ?  Or  is  there  a  reasonable 
likelihood  that  he  may  be  made  so  ?  Is  he,  or  is  there 
a  chance  that  he  may  become,  one  of  the  eager  world- 
affirming  kind  ?  Does  he  belong  to  the  ascending  or 
to  the  descending  line  of  life  ?  We  must  not  hesitate 

1  Zarathustra,  ii.  25.  2  Ibid.,  i.  10. 

3  Cf.  Rosy  Dawn. 


THE  TRANS  VALUATION  OF  VALUES    63 

if  the  evidence  is  clear.  In  the  one  case  we  must  assist 
him  to  rise,  in  the  other  we  must  assist  him  to  fall 
quickly  and  decorously.1  As  Mr.  Salter  puts  it  with  a 
frankness  which  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired:  "  If  we 
have  any  good  thing  in  mind,  we  reject  what  does  not 
correspond  to  it.  If  we  set  out  an  orchard  we  leave 
to  one  side  trees  that  come  maimed  or  broken  from 
the  nursery.  If  we  send  our  apples  to  market,  we 
exclude  those  under  a  certain  grade."2 

This  is  made  specially  clear  in  that  passage  of 
Beyond  Good  and  Evil,3  where  Nietzsche  explains  how 
the  sympathy  which  should  be  approved  differs  from 
the  sympathy  which  is  to  be  resisted.  For  social 
distress,  for  the  victims  of  disease,  for  the  hereditarily 
vicious  and  defective,  no  compassion  was  to  be  felt; 
still  less  for  the  masses  which  strive  after  power  under 
the  pretext  that  they  are  aiming  at  freedom.  The 
true  sympathy  was  not  concerned  with  suffering  at 
all;  it  saw  in  suffering  one  of  the  chief  agents  of  pro 
gress  ;  it  was  affected  only  by  the  vicissitudes  of  ' '  the 
type  man,"  by  the  shame  of  seeing  such  a  type 
dwarfed  and  retarded  under  a  system  of  protection 
for  degenerates.  This  is  illustrated  by  a  chapter  in 
the  fourth  book  of  Zarathustra,  which  has  won  special 
admiration  from  Nietzsche's  disciples;  I  grant  that 
it  shows  a  certain  psychological  insight,  but  I  should 
place  it  morally  among  his  more  repulsive  passages. 
The  prophet  has  met  in  his  wanderings  a  poor  de 
formed  creature,  so  misshapen  that  it  required  a 
second  look  to  identify  him  as  a  man.  "  And  all  at 

1  Cf.  Zarathustra,  \.  21;  Rosy  Daun,  p.  150. 

2  "  The  Philosopher  of  the  Will  to  Power,"  in  Hibbert  Journal, 
October,  1914. 

3  Section  225.     Cf.  ;also  Will  to  Poiver,  367. 


64        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

once  there  came  over  Zarathustra  a  great  shame 
because  he  had  gazed  on  such  a  thing;"1  "  Pity  over 
came  him,  and  he  sank  down  all  at  once."  But  he 
quickly  recovered,  his  face  became  stern,  and  the 
poor  sufferer  thanked  him  because  he  had  only 
blushed  at  the  sight;  other  men  had  insulted  him 
with  their  pity:  '  Thy  shame,  0  Zarathustra, 
honoured  me."  The  idea  is  that  to  the  individual 
as  such,  whatever  be  his  affliction,  no  compassion  is 
due;  we  should  be  moved  only  by  the  thought  that 
in  him  ideal  humanity  has  been  marred.  And  since 
it  was  by  the  men  commonly  called  "  good  "  and 
:e  just "  that  morbid  sentimentalism  was  chiefly 
shown,  Nietzsche  exclaims :  "  Break  up,  break  up,  I 
pray  you,  the  good  and  the  just  !"2  A  revalued 
code  would  bid  us  cultivate  a  "  sympathy  against 
sympathy."3 

I  must  dwell  a  little  further  on  this,  both  for  its 
fundamental  importance  in  our  philosopher's  thought 
and  because  it  has  been  the  subject  of  a  very  plausible 
misunderstanding.  It  is  argued4  that  Nietzsche's 
harshness  is  only  on  the  surface,  that  he  would  re 
place  a  blundering,  nerveless,  effeminate  pity  with  an 
intelligent,  far-sighted,  resolute  effort  to  check  un- 
happiness  at  its  source.  We  are  reminded  that 
social  disorders  are  often  met  by  worse  remedies;  a 
temporary  expedient  often  causes  in  the  end  more 
pain  than  it  cures.  When  Nietzsche  speaks  of  allow 
ing  the  unfit  to  propagate  their  kind  at  will,  when  he 
calls  for  a  judicious  severity  which  will  be  merciful 

1  Zarathustra,  iv.  67.  2  Ibid.,  iii.  56. 

3  Cf.  Ibid.,  iv.  62,  and  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  225. 

4  E.g.,  by  Mr.  W.  M.  Salter  in  Hibbert  Journal,  October,  1914. 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         65 

in  the  end,  when  he  reproaches  us  for  pampering  the 
present  at  the  expense  of  the  future — for  an  indulgence 
to  ourselves  which  means  cruelty  to  the  unborn — we 
are  all  in  a  great  measure  with  him.  But  the  plea 
for  the  happiness  of  a  generation  to  come  is,  on  his 
lips,  nothing  more  than  an  argumentum  ad  hominem ; 
it  amounts  to  this:  "  Granted  that  the  great  goal  is 
to  eliminate  misery,  I  can  show  you  that  your  method 
of  indiscriminate  compassion,  your  respect  for  the 
claims  of  the  individual  as  such,  is  the  best  way  to 
perpetuate  misery."  But,  for  himself,  to  make  man 
kind  happy  was  no  part  of  the  moral  programme.1 
Whatever  Nietzsche  may  have  been  in  private  life, 
and  we  have  evidence  that  he  was  not  personally 
unfeeling,2  no  system  of  thought  was  ever  so  deaf 
as  his  to  the  "  still,  sad  music  of  humanity."  His 
prescription  of  euthanasia  is  not  in  the  interest  of 
the  sickly;  it  is  in  the  interest  of  the  healthful,  to 
whom  invalids  are  an  encumbrance  and  may  become 
a  danger.  He  scouts  the  idea  that  suffering  can 
ever  be  removed;  he  does  not  even  desire  that  it 
should  be;  a  race  that  was  free  from  it  would  not  be 
worth  preserving;  at  times  he  wishes  that  pain  could 
be  made  more  intense  and  more  poignant  than  ever 
before.  A  :i  happy  life "  was  mere  "  naivete  of 
thought";  Herbert  Spencer  had  proclaimed  himself 
a  decadent  when  he  looked  forward  with  satisfaction 
to  a  triumph  of  altruism,  when  he  tried  to  believe 
that  one  day  the  conflicting  interests  of  men  might 

1  Of.  especially  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  225. 

2  Cf.  e.g.,  Frau  Fo rater-Nietzsche's  account  of  her  brother  as 
a  hospital  steward  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War.    As  George  Eliot 
remarked  of  Dr.  Gumming,  it  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  our  philo 
sopher's  practice  was  an  amiable  non  sequitur  from  his  torching. 

5 


66        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

be  composed.  That  "  pedantic  Englishman  "  had 
drawn  a  "  cheering  streak  "  across  the  horizon  of 
Evolution:  "  The  final  reconciliation  of  egoism  and 
altruism  of  which  he  talks,  that  almost  causes  nausea 
to  people  like  me."1 

One  might  multiply  such  references  to  almost  any 
extent;  they  are  no  occasional  asides,  they  confront 
us  repeatedly  in  almost  every  book  that  Nietzsche 
wrote,  they  are  his  essential  message  to  the  world, 
they  supply  the  gravamen  of  his  indictment  against 
Christian  morality.  If  they  did  not  bear  the  sense 
which  is  apparent  in  them,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a 
writer  could  have  more  unambiguously  conveyed 
such  a  sense  if  he  had  wished ;  certainly  our  author  had 
the  gift  of  lucid  expression.  It  is  high  time  that 
those  Nietzscheans  who  believe  in  an  esoteric  inter 
pretation  for  such  passages  would  give  us  an  inkling 
of  what  that  interpretation  is.  To  me  it  seems 
clear  that  Nietzsche  meant  what  he  said. 

A  recent  suggestion  as  to  why  he  took  such  a  view 
is  that  of  Professor  Lichtenberger,2  beyond  com 
parison  the  most  persuasive  of  those  who  have  been 
commending  Nietzschean  ideas  to  the  public.  It  is 
grounded  on  the  extraordinary  hypothesis  of  the 
"  Eternal  Eeturn."  Nietzsche's  rigid  determinism 
led  him  to  believe  that  in  the  course  of  infinite  time 
precisely  the  same  collocation  of  atoms  must  occur 
again  and  again,  so  that  the  world  must  run  through 
recurring  cycles  in  which  the  same  phenomena  would 
be  endlessly  repeated.  Every  life  would  reappear 

1  Twilight  of  the  Idols,  p.  87. 

2  In  The  Gospel  of  Superman,  p.  187  (translation  by  Mr.  J.  M. 
Kennedy). 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         67 

just  as  it  had  appeared  before;  every  experience  must 
be  gone  through  an  indefinite  number  of  times. 
Thus,  the  most  wretched  of  human  beings  was  de 
prived  even  of  the  hope  of  final  annihilation ;  he  must 
look  forward  to  his  recall,  to  a  suffering  anew  of  what 
ever  he  had  suffered  already.  It  was  a  paralyzing 
thought,  and  one  which  could  ill  consort  with  any 
type  of  Optimism — Nietzsche's  or  any  other.  Per 
haps  one  can  sympathize  with  a  man  who  draws  the 
moral  that  to  abbreviate  in  any  degree  this  human 
tragedy  would  be  commendable.  But  one  must 
remember  that  for  Nietzsche  the  world-affirming 
temper  accepts  all,  good  and  bad,  as  necessary  parts 
in  the  drama;1  we  must  "  say  yea  "  to  life,  no  matter 
how  it  is  lived  or  how  often  it  is  to  be  lived;  we  must 
acknowledge  that  all  things  are  equally  in  place. 
To  do  so  is,  of  course,  inconsistent  with  any  selective 
morality;  but  the  philosopher  of  Zarathustm  says 
many  things  in  turn,  and  Professor  Lichtenberger 
may  be  right  in  so  understanding  one  special  mood. 


II. 

Side  by  side  with  his  depreciation  of  sympathy, 
Nietzsche  calls  for  a  higher  valuing  of  egoism.  The 
current  view  might,  he  thinks,  be  crystallized  into 
this:  "  Every  man  should  be  the  preoccupation  of 
his  fellows."2  But  could  moral  thinking  have  become 
more  absurd  or  more  suicidal  ?  If  one  person  deserved 
the  interest  and  the  care  of  others,  he  must  be  of  value, 

1  Cf.  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  56 :   "  Wishes  to  have  it  again, 
as  it  was  and  is,  for  all  eternity." 

2  Will  to  Power,  275. 


68        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

and,  if  so,  why  was  he  not  worthy  of  his  own  interest 
and  care  ?  Hence  Nietzsche  speaks  of  "  the  seemingly 
insane  idea  that  a  man  should  esteem  the  act  he  per 
forms  for  another  higher  than  the  one  he  performs 
for  himself,  and  that  the  same  fellow-creature  should 
do  so  too."1  Yet  altruism  might  be  judged  in  a 
sense  right;  among  the  common  herd  there  was  no 
great  intrinsic  difference  of  worth  between  one  man 
and  another;  consequently  the  crude  arithmetical 
method  was  usually  best;  where  all  were  approxi 
mately  equal,  it  was  right  to  prefer  the  interest  of 
several  to  the  interest  of  one,  and  such  was,  as  a  rule, 
the  option  between  selfishness  and  its  opposite.  But 
this  maxim  must  break  down  where  some  indi 
vidual  is  of  vastly  higher  importance  than  the  rest; 
it  was  incumbent  upon  such  a  person  to  choose  with 
boldness  an  egoistic  course.  Thus,  he  writes :  "  Selfish 
ness  is  worth  as  much  as  the  man  is  worth  physio 
logically  who  has  it;  it  can  have  a  very  high  worth, 
it  can  have  no  worth  at  all  and  be  despicable."2 

By  physiological  value  Nietzsche  did  not,  of 
course,  intend  mere  superiority  in  animal  qualities, 
though  he  was  so  bent  on  reasserting  the  worth  of  the 
physical,  and  on  repudiating  a  psychic  entity  which 
was  not  a  function  of  the  nervous  system,  that  he  has 
often  used  misleading  terms.  Keturn  to  an  animal 
•  past  was  not  his  ideal ;  the  high  ego  was  to  be  creative 
in  every  sphere — no  mere  dominant  ruler,  but  beauti 
ful,  cultured,  with  "  an  overflow  energy  even  for  the 
most  abstract  thought."3  The  essential  point  in  his 

1  Will  to  Power,  269. 

2  Twilight  of  the  Idols,  ix.  33. 

3  Will  to  Power,  898. 


THE  TRANS  VALUATION  OF  VALUES         69 

reinstatement  of  egoism  is  that  the  eminent  personality 
is  to  be  prized  on  intrinsic  grounds,  not  for  any  social 
service  which  he  may  be  exceptionally  capable  of 
rendering.  Nietzsche  brands  it  as  a  species  of 
Philistinism  to  look  on  either  a  great  picture  or  a 
great  man  as  valuable  for  the  effect  which  is  produced 
on  the  public;  he  claims  that  only  the  plebeian  spirit 
of  Buckle  could  have  made  it  a  burning  question 
whether  masses  move  of  themselves  or  are  moved  by 
an  individual  genius — as  if,  forsooth,  higher  man  was 
to  be  either  justified  or  condemned  for  his  "  capacity 
of  setting  masses  in  motion  "  I1  Higher  man's  specific 
character  lay  just  in  his  aloofness,  in  his  incommunic- 
ableness;  Napoleon  was  not  justified  as  a  figure  in 
history  for  the  work  he  did  in  the  Revolution — rather 
the  Revolution  itself  had  its  chief  merit  in  the  fact  that 
it  evolved  a  Napoleon;  speaking  abstractly,  a  man 
might  be  great  though  he  effected  nothing,  he  might 
be  of  the  low  order  though  he  "  shattered  both 
hemispheres." 

But  while  it  was  no  part  of  a  massive  personality 
to  seek  any  end  except  its  own  self-expression,  yet, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  personalities  could  not  avoid 
leaving  a  mark  upon  their  age.  One  may  compare 
here  the  old  Stoic  principle  of  kindness  to  slaves  as 
resting,  not  on  any  right  inherent  in  the  slave,  but  on 
the  master's  need  to  unfold  his  own  lofty  character. 
This  is  the  key  to  Zarathustra's  conception  of  egoism 
as  "  bestowing  virtue."2  The  prophet  had  no  love 
to  men,  yet  he  brought  them  gifts;3  he  did  so  out  of 


1  Will  to  Power,  876. 

2  Zarathustra,  i.  22. 

3  Ibid.,  Prologue,  2. 


70        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

a  nature  that  was  rich  to  overflowing,  that  had  be 
come  spendthrift,  that  could  not  choose  but  bestow 
itself  even  on  those  that  had  no  claim.  Hence  the 
narrow  selfishness  of  the  miser  was  to  be  abhorred, 
not  because  it  was  selfishness,  but  because  it  was 
degeneration,  because  it  indicated  a  soul  not  full 
enough  to  become  no  longer  self-contained.  Will  to 
power  meant  not  will  to  accumulate,  but  will  to  dis 
charge  strength,  and,  though  the  egoistic  higher  man 
had  no  duties,  save  to  himself  and  to  men  similar  to 
himself,  those  below  would  incidentally  benefit. 
Thus,  Zarathustra  declares: 

'  When  your  heart  overfloweth  broad  and  full  like 
the  river,  a  blessing  and  a  danger  to  the  lowlanders; 
there  is  the  origin  of  your  virtue."1 

Nor  must  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  privilege 
of  the  man  eminent  enough  to  be  rightly  an  egoist 
is  anything  rather  than  the  privilege  of  luxurious 
pampering  at  another's  expense.  He  was  called  to  a 
role  far  more  exacting  than  if  he  had  remained  in  the 
herd.  The  higher  the  personality,  the  more  difficult 
it  becomes  to  do  that  personality  justice;  average 
people  with  their  average  duties  were  by  comparison 
happier  because  free  f r  >m  care,  because  irresponsible, 
"  like  a  beast  with  lower  pleasures,  like  a  beast  with 
lower  pains."  Thus,  Nietzsche  reminds  us,  "  life 
always  becomes  harder  towards  the  summit — the  cold 
increases,  responsibility  increases";2  like  Garibaldi 

1  Zarathustra,  i.  22. 

2  Antichrist,  p.  57.     Cf.  Will  to  Power,  944:  "  What  is  noble  ? 

.  .  .  That  one  leaves  happiness  to  the  greatest  number  .  .  . 
that  one  instinctively  seeks  for  heavy  responsibilities." 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES          71 

when  he  addressed  the  volunteers  entering  upon  a 
great  campaign,  the  prophet  has  to  offer  to  his  dis 
ciples  suffering,  martyrdom,  indignity;  a  self -dis 
cipline  such  as  the  common  herd  could  never  know; 
because  he  wishes  to  develop  in  them  "  the  only  thing 
which  to-day  proves  whether  a  man  has  any  value 
or  not  —  namely,  the  capacity  of  sticking  to  his 


guns  " x 


This  view  is  summarily  presented  in  our  author's 
criticism  of  the  "  Golden  Kule."2     In  its  New  Testa 
ment  place  this  was  the  result  of  herd  instinct;  as 
reproduced  by  "  that  blockhead  John  Stuart  Mill,"5 
it  was  a  niaiserie  anglaise.    For  what  did  it  assume  ? 
Surely  that  men  are  equal,  and  that  the  services  they 
canrender  to  eachother  are  to  be  estimated  on  the  basis 
of  equivalent  exchange  ?     But  men  were  not  equal, 
and,  if  they  were  not,  it  followed  that  what  one  did  to 
another  that  other  might  not— nay,  often  could  not— 
do  to  him.     Moreover,  was  not  this  whole  way  of  look 
ing  at  conduct  a  transforming  it  into  a  system  of 
mutual  services,  a  cash  payment  by  each  for  something 
that  he  had  received  or  hoped  to  receive,  the  polar 
opposite  of  "  bestowing  virtue  "  ?      '  The  hypothesis 
is  ignoble  to  the  last  degree."     Thus  there  definitely 
emerged    for   Nietzsche    the  (ioctrine    of    a    double 
morality— one    system    for    exceptional    men,    men 
worthy  to  consider  themselves  and  themselves  alone, 
men  in  whom  humanity  reached  its  highest  and  most 
refined  expression ;  the  other  a  system  for  the  multi 
tude,  for  those  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  the 
exceptional  types  as  the  mass  of  quartz  to  the  ore 

1  Will  to  Power,  910.  2  Ibid.,  925. 

3  Ibid.,  30. 


72        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

that  is  embedded  in  it,  for  those  who  were  no  ends- 
in-themselves,  but  at  best  a  means  to  an  end  beyond 
themselves!)  Mill's  principle,  "  What  is  right  for  one 
is  right  for  another,"  was  laid  down  in  defiance  of 
psychological  difference;1  it  assumed  the  precise 
opposite  of  the  truth — namely,  that  the  development 
of  one  individual  is  of  the  same  value  as  the  develop 
ment  of  another.  This  had  even  been  pushed  to  the 
monstrous  extreme  of  seeking  by  artificial  emphasis 
on  just  those  who  were  intrinsically  least  valuable 
to  "  compensate  "  for  the  distinction  which  nature 
had  made.  Beginning  with  the  false  principle  that  all 
be  treated  alike,  we  had  forsaken  our  own  law,  and 
forsaken  it  on  the  worse  side;  we  had  loaded  the  dice 
on  behalf  of  the  weak,  the  bungled,  and  the  botched. 
Hence  the  imperative  need  for  a  transvaluation  of 
values.  Let  us  lay  down  the  sharp  contrast  between 
"  master-morality "  and  "  slave-morality."  The 
watchword  of  the  former  must  be  bold,  exploiting 
egoism,  the  watchword  of  the  latter  might  be  left  at 
the  old  plebeian  standards  of  justice,  sympathy, 
humility,  obedience.  Let  the  few  who  are  fit  for 
emancipation  have  their  eyes  opened;  let  them  see 
the  rotten  basis  of  the  old  ethic,  the  grovelling  reli 
gious  superstitions  which  gave  birth  to  the  creed  of 
equality,  of  duties,  of  coming  punishments  and 
rewards.  Teach  them,  rather,  that  on  them  and  on 
their  ruthless  selfishness  the  burden  of  humanity's 
future  has  been  laid,  that  in  them,  and  in  them  alone, 
progress  to  a  higher  type  can  be  achieved.  For  the 
multitude  let  the  old  dogmas  be  kept;  they  are  the 

1  Will  to  Power,  926. 


THE  TRANSVALUAT10N  OF  VALUES         73 

surest  stay  of  order,  by  them  more  effectively  than 
by  anything  else  could  the  masses  be  made  to  keep 
a  servant's  place  and  to  do  a  servant's  work;  so  long 
as  their  minds  are  fixed  on  bliss  beyond  the  stars 
they  will  be  less  disposed  to  fight  for  an  undue  emi 
nence  here  and  now.  The  danger  of  such  thoughts 
was  for  those  with  strength  of  will,  those  who  might 
argue  from  a  coming  glory  in  the  future  to  the  right  of 
securing  an  immediate  power  on  earth.  Let  any 
and  every  agency  be  used,  let  any  and  every  lie  be 
disseminated  in  order  to  cajole,  to  frighten,  to  coerce 
such  insurgent  energies.  The  (end  was  race  advance 
in  the  persons  of  those  who  alone  could  advance,  and 
that  end  justified  every  means.)  Only  let  there  be  no 
mixing  of  the  classes,  no  transference  of  the  code 
appropriate  to  one  into  the  consciousness  and  beha 
viour  of  the  other. 


III. 

This  revaluation  of  sympathy  and  egoism  is, 
plainly,  in  sharp  conflict  with  much  that  Christen 
dom  holds  dear.  At  first  sight  one  is  disposed  to  say 
that  it  negates  both  in  essence  and  in  detail  all  that 
is  distinctive  in  the  moral  tradition  of  the  Church. 
This  charge  Nietzsche  would  have  joyfully  acknow 
ledged,  for  he  gloried  in  conceiving  himself  as  the 
Antichrist,  as  the  great  opposing  force  which  was  to 
win  back  the  world  to  paganism,  as  the  whirlwind 
which  was  to  sweep  away  the  miasma  that  had  arisen 
from  the  hills  of  Galilee.  These  are  days  when  one 
keeps  an  open  ear  to  all  who  have  anything  to  say, 
if  they  say  it  honestly  and  intelligently;  even  in 


74        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Nietzsche's  evangel  I  shall  try  to  show  that  there  are 
elements  of  truth.  I  have  tried  to  put  his  points 
moderately,  with  as  much  persuasiveness  as  I  could 
import  into  them,  eliminating  very  much  of  that 
rhetoric  which  his  admirers  believe,  but  which  I  do 
not  believe,  to  be  a  source  of  strength  in  his  position. 
Anyone  familiar  with  the  text  will  understand  what 
I  mean,  and  most,  I  think,  will  agree  that  this  prosaic 
statement,  if  less  than  fair  to  him  as  a  literary  artist, 
is  more  than  fair  to  him  as  a  judicial  moralist.  His 
own  language  is  so  intemperate,  so  studiously  offen 
sive,  and  so  invariably  blasphemous,  that  many  have 
refused  to  consider  him  at  all,  refused  to  see  in  his 
transvaluation  anything  that  merits  more  than  a 
passing  word  of  indignation  and  contempt.  It  was 
certainly  not  too  much  to  expect  that  a  new  thinker, 
setting  out  to  reverse  the  whole  morality  of  Western 
Europe,  however  confident  he  might  feel  in  his  own 
position,  would  show  some  sense  of  the  magnitude  of 
his  task,  that  he  would  not  habitually  substitute  for 
reasoned  argument  a  virulent  and  even  foul  abusive- 
ness.  Nietzsche's  way  is  to  disdain  the  need  of 
proving  what  he  says;1  his  role  is  everywhere  that  of 
a  prophet  and  a  seer;  his  most  outrageous  paradoxes 
are  proclaimed  with  an  air  of  inspiration;  if  any 
cannot  follow  and  cannot  eagerly  acquiesce,  they  are 
not  to  be  calmly  persuaded,  but  are  by  turns  to  be 
stormed  at,  ridiculed,  pitied.  It  is  not  an  ungenerous 

1  Cf.  The  Case  of  Wagner,  pp.  110,  111:  "  Honest  men  like 
honest  things,  do  not  carry  their  reasons  in  their  hands  in  such 
fashion.  That  which  requires  to  be  proved  is  little  worth."  And 
Zarathustra :  "  Why  ?  Thou  askest  why  ?  I  am  not  of  those 
who  may  be  asked  for  their  whys." 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES          75 

recalling  of  his  melancholy  personal  history,  it  is  much 
more  one's  observation  of  his  methods  through 
out  his  literary  career,  which  has  prompted  the 
suggestion  that  he  was  more  or  less  mad  from  first 
to  last. 

To  the  task,  then,  of  determining  how  far  this 
extraordinary  revaluation  has  features  that  are  true 
and  important  I  must  now  address  myself. 

That  sympathy  may  be  overdone,  that  a  too  sen 
sitive  nature  may  defeat  its  own  altruistic  purpose, 
that  one  may  brood  on  the  miseries  of  the  world  to 
such  a  degree  as  to  become  morbid  and  unnerved, 
and  that  in  consequence  a  certain  power  of  with 
drawing  in  thought  from  scenes  of  pain  is  wholesome 
and  necessary — all  this  may  be  at  once  conceded.  It 
is  a  merciful  fact  that  we  are  psychologically  unable 
to  realize  in  imagination  all  the  suffering  which  we 
know  to  be  in  progress;  and  there  are,  without  doubt, 
persons  who  feel  too  much  or  too  constantly  for  others 
whom  they  cannot  aid.  But  if  Nietzsche  had  meant 
no  more  than  this — even  though  he  put  it  in  a  par 
ticularly  striking  way — we  should  regard  what  he 
said  as  somewhat  obvious  and  trite;  we  should  be 
astonished  to  learn  from  him  that  his  ethical  message 
was  one  which  in  two  years  was  going  to  "  make 
Europe  writhe  in  convulsions."  That  he  did  mean 
a  far  more  sensational  thesis  I  have  adduced  evidence 
to  show;  he  meant  to  condemn  sympathy  for  distress 
as  such,  he  meant  to  recommend  an  attitude  of  con 
tempt  for  individual  pain,  however  excessive,  and  of 
respect  only  for  an  ideal  of  race  fitness  to  which  the 
individual's  lot  was  insignificant.  This  implied,  as 
Nietzsche  was  the  first  to  insist,  a  complete  denial  of 


76        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

what  are  called  the  "  moral  axioms."  I  shall  consider 
in  a  few  minutes  how  far  this  can  be  rationally  de 
fended  ;  but  first  I  wish  to  look  at  the  other  aspect  of 
his  transvaluation — namely,  his  increased  emphasis 
upon  egoism,  where  those  who  still  stand  by  the 
accepted  values  may  find  some  real  insight. 

(a)  Nietzsche  has  here  forced  into  high  relief  the 
obligation  to  cultivate  and  express  one's  own  per 
sonality.  There  is,  of  course,  a  sense  in  which  human 
nature  may  be  trusted  to  keep  what  are  called 
"  duties  to  oneself  "  in  a  conspicuous  position.  But 
our  author  does  not  mean  that  indulgent  mood 
toward  one's  inclinations  and  weaknesses  for  which 
this  phrase  too  commonly  stands.  He  does  not 
mean  the  selfishness  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is 
habitually  practised;  he  means  a  higher  selfishness 
which  should  be  practised.  His  maxim,  Be  hard,  is 
to  be  applied  inwardly  not  less  than  outwardly;  it 
prescribes  a  vigilant  search  into  what  a  man's  indi 
vidual  nature  has  it  in  itself  to  become;  and  he  boldly 
declares  it  a  duty  to  realize  one's  highest  latent 
power,  not  merely  that  it  may  be  used  in  altruistic 
fashion  for  mankind,  but  that  it  may  find  expression 
for  its  own  sake.  I  think  he  has  here  fastened  on  an 
element  of  neglected  truth. 

We  often  speak  of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  of 
artistic  culture,  of  the  work  of  the  poet  and  the  man 
of  letters,  as  morally  below  the  effort  of  a  self- 
denying  philanthropist;  we  often  regard  these  as  the 
luxuries  of  life,  and  the  men  who  make  them  life's 
main  business  as  no  more  than  intellectual  Sybarites. 
We  exalt  in  contrast  the  persons  who  "  do  good," 
who  live  not  purely  or  chiefly  for  themselves.  But 


77 

we  sometimes  state  this  undoubted  truth  in  so  ex 
treme  a  fashion  as  to  imply  that  a  man's  own  well- 
being  and  the  development  of  his  own  personality  is 
an  object  which  it  is  blameworthy  for  him  to  consider. 
Against  this  perversion  Nietzsche  supplies  an  im 
portant  corrective.  He  (finds  the  good  for  all  effort 
in  the  production  of  a  certain  type  of  life,  a  certain 
type  of  human  being?)  If  he  is  right  in  this,  the  good 
man  is  he  who  not  only  helps  others  to  reach  this  goal, 
but  who  endeavours  to  reach  it  himself.  To  deny 
by  implication  one's  own  value  is  not  an  inference 
from,  it  is  ultimately  inconsistent  with,  all  morality. 
To  exalt  self-denial  until  it  absorbs  the  whole  of  virtue 
is,  as  he  says,  and  as  too  many  forget,  a  suicidal  mode 
of  moral  thinking.  If  the  development  of  another's 
personality  is  a  duty  for  me,  this  must  be  because 
developed  personality  is  a  good,  and,  if  so,  my  own 
is  intrinsically  not  less  valuable  than  that  of  my 
neighbour. 

There  is  a  striking  passage  in  that  sad  but  pene 
trating  book,  De  Profundis,  where  the  writer  disputes, 
and  to  my  mind  with  reason,  the  view  that  self-denial 
was  the  essence  of  the  moral  teaching  of  Christ.  He 
says: 

'  To  live  for  others  as  a  definite  self-conscious  aim 
was  not  his  creed.  It  was  not  the  basis  of  his  creed. 
When  he  says,  '  Forgive  your  enemies,'  it  is  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  enemy,  but  for  one's  own  sake  that  he 
says  so,  and  because  love  is  more  beautiful  than  hate. 
In  his  own  entreaty  to  the  young  man,  '  Sell  all  that 
thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor,'  it  is  not  of  the  state 
of  the  poor  that  he  is  thinking,  but  of  the  soul  of  the 
young  man — the  soul  that  wealth  was  marring.  In 
his  view  of  life  he  is  one  with  the  artists  who  know 


78        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

that  by  the  inevitable  law  of  self-perfection  the  poet 
must  sing,  and  the  sculptor  think  in  bronze,  and  the 
painter  make  the  world  a  mirror  for  his  moods,  as 
surely  and  as  certainly  as  the  hawthorn  must  blossom 
in  spring,  and  the  corn  turn  to  gold  at  harvest-time, 
and  the  moon  in  her  ordered  wanderings  change  from 
shield  to  sickle  and  from  sickle  to  shield."1 

Thus,  to  respect  one's  individual  value,  to  look 
upon  one's  powers  not  as  that  which  may  be  culti 
vated  or  neglected  at  will,  to  make  oneself  efficient 
along  the  line  of  one's  special  gift — these  are  suggested 
morals  in  Nietzsche's  egoism.  The  same  idea  is  put 
(j  more  prosaically  by  Bishop  Butler  when  he  exclaims 
that  mankind  has  really  rather  too  little  than  too 
much  self-love.2 

This  idea  meets  us  in  another  form  in  Zarathustra's 
passionate  individualism,  in  his  dismissal  of  the  dis 
ciples  who  would  cling  too  long  to  his  own  tuition. 
He  will  have  no  cast-iron  systems  which  aim  at  pro 
ducing  a  uniform  human  type.  A  teacher,  he  de 
clares,  is  poorly  requited  by  those  who  remain  per 
manently  his  scholars;  they  had  not  yet  sought 
themselves  when  they  found  him,  let  them  now  lose 
him  that  they  might  find  themselves;  thus  would 
they  best  honour  his  word.3  One  may  compare  the 
words  of  the  writer  I  quoted  a  moment  ago :  '  Most 
people  are  other  people;  their  thoughts  are  someone 
else's  opinions,  their  lives  a  mimicry,  their  passions 
a  quotation."4  And  Wilde,  who  amid  many  difTer- 

1  De  Profundis,  pp.  84,  85. 
O    2  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  i. 

3  Zarathustra,  i.  22. 
/•v;  *  De  Profundis, 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES          79 

ences  has  some  affinities  with  Nietzsche,  provides  a 
comment  upon  this  point  of  view  in  his  book,  The 
Soul  of  Man  under  Socialism. 

(b)  Moreover,  we  may  acknowledge  that  the  right 
to  develop  one's  individuality  applies  with  particular 
force  to  a  man  of  specialized  distinction.  A  Goethe, 
a  Mozart,  a  Turner,  may  without  impropriety  be  said 
to  "  owe  it  to  himself,"  or  to  "  owe  it  to  the  divine 
gift  that  is  in  him,"  that  such  genius  should  be  culti 
vated  and  expressed.  This  is  in  no  way  inconsistent 
with  the  Golden  Rule,  or  with  the  morality  of  the 
Mount.  The  great  poet  or  the  great  painter  con 
tributes  in  just  as  real  a  sense  as  the  philanthropist 
to  the  treasury  of  the  world's  values.  A  Puritan  who 
sees  no  merit  in  the  beautiful  as  such  is  paying  scant 
reverence  to  Him  who  for  no  utilitarian  purpose 
fashioned  the  lilies  of  the  field.  And  it  is  but  common 
sense  to  say  that  if  works  of  art  are  worth  producing, 
the  men  able  to  produce  them  should  be  held  in 
honour,  should  be  encouraged  to  develop  their  special 
powers  along  their  special  line.  That  in  this  sense  the 
production  of  high  creative  personalities  is  an  end 
which  social  arrangements  should  keep  in  view,  and 
that  to  some  extent — for  instance,  in  freeing  them 
from  pecuniary  anxieties — we  should  provide  such 
persons  with  exceptional  privilege  and  opportunity, 
no  one  but  a  fanatical  communist  will  question. 
When  Nietzsche  denies  the  existence  of  a  uniform 
code  fixing  every  man's  duty  as  the  same  with  every 
one  else's,  supplying  a  "  moral  ready-reckoner " 
which  shall  prescribe  for  all  alike — no  matter  what 

1  The  phrase  is  Mr.  W.  H.  Fairbr other's,  in  The  Philosophy  of 
Thomas  Hill  Green. 


80        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

the  individual  endowment  of  each  may  be — he  is  a 
true  psychologist  of  conduct.  General  Booth  was, 
beyond  doubt,  of  higher  moral  value  than  John 
Euskin,  but  to  send  the  author  of  The  Stones  of 
Venice  into  the  slums  of  the  East  End  might  have 
been  just  as  foolish  as  to  appoint  the  Salvationist 
Professor  of  Fine  Art  at  Oxford. 

(c)  In  another  way  our  author  has  scored  a  distinct 
point  against  the  altruism  which  claims  to  be  a  com 
plete  formula  for  the  whole  duty  of  man.  He  cor 
rectly  brands  it  as  self -contradictory.  If  one  person 
is  to  serve  another,  this  involves  that  the  other  is 
willing  to  be  served,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  wrong  for 
me  to  accept  what  it  is  morally  imperative  for  another 
to  bestow.  Persons  who  will  receive  nothing  are, 
as  Mr.  W.  M.  Salter  remarks,  "  really  the  most  em- 
barrassing  people  in  the  world — they  frustrate  our 
own  virtue  !m  That  Nietzsche  is  here  tilting  against 
no  imaginary  antagonist  anyone  can  see  who  looks 
into  the  moral  teaching,  for  example,  of  Francis 
Hutcheson,  or  even  of  Henry  Sidgwick.2  Wherever 
benevolence  is  made  not  a  part  but  the  whole  of 
virtue,  we  may  fairly  ask  who  will  be  the  objects  of 
this  benevolence,  and  how  will  they  justify  their 
acceptance  of  it;  wherever  self-sacrifice  is  commended 
as  the  sole  worthy  impulse,  we  may  ask  who,  realizing 
that  principle,  will  allow  another  thus  to  be  negated 
for  him,  who  will  not  rather  insist  on  being  himself 

1  "  The  Philosopher  of  the  Will  to  Power,"  Hibbert  Journal, 
October,  1914. 

2  Of.  Dr.  Hastings  Rashdall's  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  vol.  i(/  55, 
where  it  is  argued  with  great  clearness  that  Sidgwick's  utilitarian 
ism  implies  different  objects  for  the  individual  and  the  race. 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         81 

the  loser.  Thus,  a  world  in  which  everybody  was 
benevolent,  everybody  self-sacrificing,  and  none  in 
fluenced  by  any  other  motives  at  all,  becomes  an  im 
possible  conception.  Altruism  in  the  end  involves 
an  egoistic  factor. 

(d)  Finally,  Nietzsche  has  rendered  no  small  service 
in  challenging  the  common  view  that  moral  values 
should  be  held  for  ever  immune  from  criticism  or 
revision.     We  saw  last  day  how  he  has  presented  us 
with  a  series  of  ethical  tableaux,  in  which  the  ups  and 
downs  of  past  valuing  are  vividly  portrayed.    These 
pictures  were  drawn  with  a  very  uncertain  hand; 
for  our  artist  had  not  the  knowledge  to  draw  them 
accurately;  at  the  same  time,  the  broad  variations 
are  often  genuine.    Now,  to  emphasize  such  variety  as 
actual  was  important;  but  it  is  still  more  important 
to  draw  the  ethical  inference  that  we  have  a  right  to 
change  our  values  as  our  insight  grows  deeper  and 
surer.     I    shall    argue   to   you   presently   that   such 
estimates  are  the  work  of  reason;  if  so,  they  should, 
no  doubt,  be  stable  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the 
gains  of  reason  elsewhere  are  stable,  but  in  no  other, 
no  more  rigid  or  more  inviolable  sense.     If  we  have 
been  able  to  improve  upon  our  geometrical  conscious 
ness,  there  is  no  ground  to  deny  that  we  are  also  able 
to    improve    upon    our    moral    consciousness.     And 
humanity's  advance  in  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  has,  as  Zarathustra  says,  been  impeded  by  the 
great  dragon  named  "  Thou  shalt,"  the  dragon  upon 
whose  scales  glittered  the  values  of  a  thousand  years, 
the  dragon  that  declared,  "  All  the  values  of  things 
glitter  upon  me."1     Was  it  not  one  of  these,  for  ex- 

1  Zarathustra,  i. 


82        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

ample,  which,  calling  itself  the  "  sacredness  of  prop 
erty,"  stood  in  the  moral  path  of  Abraham  Lincoln  ? 
Is  it  not  in  the  strength  of  one  or  more  of  them  that  a 
thoroughly  conscientious  opposition  is  always  avail 
able  against  an  innovating  reformer  ? 

That  Nietzsche  should  have   fastened  upon  the 
Christian  religion  the  stigma  of  such  narrow  legalism 
is  one  of  the  strange  ironies  in  his  teaching.     To  me 
it  seems  that  in  thus  proclaiming  the  autonomy  of 
the  valuing  will,  he  might  have  appealed  with  effect 
to  Him  who  broke  the  fetters  of  Judaic  Eabbinism. 
That  he  did  not  recognize  this  was,  of  course,  due  to 
his  radical  rejection  of  those  values  which  Christ 
made  influential  in  the  world.     But  the  clear  message 
of  the  Galilean  gospel  is  to  emancipate  from  bondage 
to  "  Tables  of  the  Law,"  to  encourage  the  autono 
mous  moral  reason  in   its  search  for  ever-widening 
truth.    And  we  shall  be  faithful  to  the  spirit  of  that 
message  if  we  test  Nietzsche's  revaluation,  not  by 
a  rigid  authoritative  code,  but  by  its  power  to  con 
vince  that  discerning  conscience  from  which  all  codes 
derive  their  right.     If  we  reject  the  lowered  value  of 
sympathy  and  the  raised  value  of  egoism,  it  is  not 
because  the  older  scale  has  been  imposed  upon  us 
from  without  and  has  made  us  intolerant  of  free 
inquiry  into  its  credentials;  it  is  because  the  more 
thoroughly  we  use  every  method  of  inquiry  suited  to 
such  material,  the  more  firmly  do  we  establish  the 
right  of  human  brotherhood  and  the  primacy  of  the 
Golden  Eule. 

Such  points  of  merit  are  insisted  on  by  Nietzsche's 
sober-minded  admirers,  by  critics  like  Professor 
Lichtenberger,  who  have  not  forgotten  their  judg- 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES          83 

ment  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  devotee.  But  most 
of  the  Nietzschean  zealots  would,  beyond  doubt,  feel 
less  indignant  with  those  who  flatly  denounce  their 
master  than  with  those  who  thus  whittle  him  away; 
they  would  tell  us  that  Nietzsche  is  not  to  have  the 
whole  heart  taken  out  of  his  teaching  and  then  be 
complimented  for  a  few  obvious  commonplaces  that 
are  left  as  residue,  that  for  him  above  all  men  "  that 
honour  rooted  in  dishonour  stood."  I  acknowledge 
that  in  a  sense  they  are  right ;  Zarathustra  had  some 
thing  far  more  profound  to  say  than  anything  I  have 
yet  indicated  as  valuable.  What  was  this  ?  And  to 
what  criticism  is  it  exposed  ? 

1.  "A  new  will  teach  I  unto  men;  to  choose  that 
path  which  man  hath  followed  blindly,  and  to  approve 
of  it."  Taken  in  connexion  with  what  our  author 
says  elsewhere,  this  must  surely  mean  that  from 
scrutiny  of  man's  actions  in  the  past  there  will  emerge 
a  principle  which  has  universally  guided  him,  and 
that  this  principle  is  eo  ipso  justified.  Hence,  as  one 
of  his  expounders  has  put  it,  for  Nietzsche  "  life  is  to 
be  accepted  in  its  entirety;  one  must  not  regret  any 
thing,  not  even  bad  passions  and  dangerous  instincts; 
whatever  else  he  does,  man  never  sins."  I  ask  you, 
could  one  more  effectively  cut  away  the  basis,  not 
from  this  or  that  ideal  of  conduct,  but  from  the  very 
notion  of  any  ideal  whatever  ?  Could  our  author 
have  more  completely  incapacitated  himself  in  advance 
from  arguing  that  anything  is  "  better  "  than  anything 
else  ?  And  yet  that  some  things  are  thus  superior  to 
others  Nietzsche  has  with  great  passion  insisted  ! 

Distinctions  in  value  between  types  of  character 
or  conduct  may  or  may  not  be  valid;  we  leave  that 


84        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

question  for  the  moment  open.  When  I  say  "  valid," 
I  mean  that  such  distinctions  may  or  may  not  have 
the  same  sort  of  quality  that  a  proposition  of  Euclid 
has — a  right  to  claim  the  concurrence  of  all  alike. 
If  the  statement,  "  Theft  is  wrong,"  has  this  quality, 
it  can  no  more  be  the  outcome  of  mere  strivings  after 
power  on  the  part  of  various  classes  than  the  state 
ment,  "  Two  triangles  on  the  same  base  and  between 
the  same  parallels  are  equal,"  can  have  resulted,  e.g., 
from  the  priest's  wish  to  depose  the  noble,  or  the 
demagogue's  wish  to  depose  the  priest.  Our  author, 
indeed,  is  very  thoroughgoing;  in  his  account  of 
'  Will  to  Power  in  Science,"  he  argues  that  the 
"  truth  "  of  a  scientific  proposition  is  nothing  more 
than  its  effectiveness  in  rendering  man  influential; 
whatever  this  extraordinary  view  may  mean,  at  all 
events  its  issue  must  be  to  destroy  the  objectivity  of 
science.  In  the  same  way  what  becomes  of  the  judg 
ment,  "  Theft  is  wrong,"  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
burglar  whose  will  to  power  finds  in  theft  the  most 
productive  instrument  ?  One  can  only  escape  from 
this  difficulty  by  declaring  that  the  burglar's  will  to 
power  is  a  thing  intrinsically  inferior  to  the  will  to 
power  of  the  law-abiding  classes ;  how  shall  we  defend 
such  a  view  unless  we  recognize  that  mere  self-seeking 
as  such  is  not  the  only  motive  by  which  man  can  be 
or  should  be  influenced — that  even  from  the  stand 
point  of  him  who  is  going  to  lose  power  by  admitting 
it  a  moral  judgment  may  be  valid  ? 

In  last  lecture  I  argued  to  you  that  Nietzsche's 
psychology  of  motive  is  utterly  wrong;  I  further 
claim  that  even  from  a  psychology  that  is  right  no 
ethic  can  automatically  follow.  An  investigation  of 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         85 

the  impulses  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have 
obeyed,  cannot  inform  us  which  of  these  impulses  we 
should  obey;  the  whole  point  of  morality — Nietzsche's 
"  morality  "  as  well  as  any  other — is  to  pick  and 
choose  among  actual  motives  and  actual  modes  of 
behaviour.  To  do  this  involves  a  criterion,  and  the 
test  by  which  material  is  judged  cannot  be  given 
simply  in  the  material  itself.  With  his  usual  incon 
sistency  Nietzsche  has  himself  given  striking  expres 
sion  to  just  that  principle  by  which  his  own  procedure 
is  condemned.  In  the  ninth  section  of  his  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil  he  pours  scorn  on  the  Stoic  motto  about 
life  according  to  Nature.  Nature,  he  points  out,  is 
indifferent;  but  imagine  indifference  as  a  power ! 
Was  not  to  live  just  an  endeavour  to  be  otherwise 
than  this  Nature  ?  Was  it  not  selection,  valuing, 
preferring  ?  "  Why  should  you  make  a  principle 
out  of  what  you  yourselves  are  and  must  be  ?"  (the 
very  thing  which  our  author  has  himself  done). 
Could  not  anyone  see  that  the  Stoic  scheme  of  life 
was  not  life  according  to  Nature,  but  life  according 
to  the  Stoa  ?  Thus,  thought  must  always  "  create 
the  world  in  its  own  image."  The  passage  is  very 
striking  and  quite  fatal  to  whole  volumes  that  its 
author  has  written;  it  reminds  one  of  Matthew 
Arnold's  exclamation: 

Know,  man  hath  all  which  Nature  hath,  but  more, 
And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good.1 

That  Nietzsche's  own  criterion  was  not  borrowed, 
as  he  alleges  it  should  be,  from  an  inspection  of  the 

1  Sonnet  to  an  Independent  preacher  who  preached  that  we 
should  be  "  in  harmony  with  Nature." 


86        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

actual  is  abundantly  clear.  He  valued  egoism  higher 
than  altruism.  Why  ?  Not  because  men  are  ego 
istic,  but  because  he  held  it  an  intuitive  truth  that 
the  ego  of  some  men  is  more  valuable  than  the  ego 
of  others.  The  values  of  beauty,  strength,  etc.,  are 
reviewed  and  adjudicated  upon;  some  are  pronounced 
noble,  some  ignoble;  amongst  all  of  them  one— 
namely,  race  fitness  in  a  few  selected  individuals — is 
declared  highest;  all  this  implies  a  power  resident  in 
reason  to  choose  among  the  products  which  have  all 
alike  come  from  the  workshop  of  Nature.  As  facts 
not  one  of  these  can  be  called  either  less  or  more  real 
than  another;  but  as  values  some  of  them  to  the  eye 
of  insight  are  declared  so  far  above  the  rest  that  the 
torrents  of  Nietzsche's  abuse  may  fitly  be  showered 
upon  him  who  makes  the  unworthy  choice.  Thus,  an 
ethical  principle,  which  is  no  derivative  from  psycho 
logical  analysis,  is  installed  as  paramount. 

2.  Our  philosopher,  then,  in  so  far  as  he  is  con 
structive,  shares  that  faith  in  an  ultimate  category 
of  value  which  in  his  destructive  mood  he  disavowed, 
but  which  is  essential  to  the  building  up  of  any  ideal 
system.  Our  task  as  critics  must  then  be  to  consider 
how  far  this  particular  conception  of  the  highest  value 
is,  concretely,  acceptable. 

To  discuss  at  large  the  standard  of  conduct  would 
take  me  much  too  far  afield;  it  is  enough  to  concen 
trate  attention  upon  one  feature  in  that  standard,  a 
feature  agreed  upon  by  practically  all  moralists  with 
the  exception  of  Nietzsche,  and  to  ask  whether  his 
dissent  from  it  can  be  justified.  Thinkers  of  every 
school  have  been  at  one  in  insisting  that  the  good, 
whether  it  be  pleasure,  or  happiness,  or  self-develop- 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES          87 

ment,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  must  be  distributed  in 
accordance  with  a  formula  of  justice.  Sometimes 
they  have  expressed  this  in  the  language  of  Kant, 
that  every  man  must  be  treated  as  an  end-in-himself, 
not  as  a  mere  means  to  the  end  of  another;  some 
times  they  have  used  the  maxim  of  Bentham: 
"  Everybody  to  count  for  one  and  nobody  for  more 
than  one;"  but,  since  the  principle  of  slavery  has  been 
abjured,  no  thinker  of  consequence  has  grounded  his 
system  upon  the  idea  of  one  class  with  intrinsic  rights 
and  another  class  with  no  intrinsic  rights  at  all. 

If  one  is  asked  how  the  authority  of  this  law  of 
justice  is  "  proved,"  the  answer  is  that  it  cannot  be 
proved,  in  the  sense  of  being  exhibited  as  an  inference 
from  some  higher  and  more  assured  premiss.     It  is 
an  axiom  of  moral  thinking  in  the  same  way  in  which 
causality  is  an  axiom  of  scientific  thinking.    You  do 
not  demonstrate   either  from  something  else;   you 
demonstrate   other   things   from   these   as   starting- 
points.    Thus,  when  Mill  declared  the  greatest  good 
to  be  a  sum  of  pleasures,  it  was  cogently  objected  that, 
though  a  greater  hedonistic  sum  might  result  from 
multiplying  the  pleasures  of  a  few  and  reducing  those 
of  the  many,  to  do  so  would  be  to  outrage  the  moral 
consciousness.     Though  the  delights  of  Caesar  Borgia 
could  be  increased  without  limit,  this  would  in  no 
way  compensate  for  the  pain  of  the  victims  by  which 
such  delights  were  made  possible.     And  though  the 
self-expression  of  a  transcendent  ego  could  be  helped 
to  a  pitch  so  far  undreamed  of,  this  would  be  no 
satisfying  offset  to  what  Nietzsche  called  "  the  re 
duction   of   the   multitude   to   incomplete   men,   to 
slaves."     So  affirms  the  moral  consciousness  as  an 


88        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

ultimate  irreducible  statement  of  value.  You  can 
deny  this  only  by  denying  the  existence  or  the 
authority  of  such  a  consciousness.  Now,  that  Nietzsche 
admits  an  objective  category  of  value  we  have  already 
seen;  but  he  denies  this  to  be  of  the  "  moral  "  order. 
Morality  was  for  him  mere  interpretation,  and  false 
interpretation,  of  the  basal  fact.  But  for  such  a  view 
>he  has  not  produced  a  shred  of  real  evidence. 

I  said  enough  in  a  previous  lecture  to  disprove  the 
monstrous  anthropology  and  the  equally  monstrous 
psychology  by  which  a  pudenda  origo  was  attributed 
to  such  notions  as  responsibility  and  guilt.  These 
notions  are  present  in  the  mature  mind  of  to-day, 
and  that  they  did  not  take  their  rise  as  Nietzsche 
says  they  did,  all  competent  persons  are  agreed. 
But  we  are  now  past  the  historical  question;  we  are 
now  asking,  not  how  these  ideas  came  into  the  con 
sciousness  of  man,  but  what  their  content  is  in  that 
consciousness  to-day.  I  contend  that  "  good  "  in  the 
moral  sense  is  a  specific  unanalyzable  category,  like 
"  cause  "  in  the  scientific  sense.  It  is  thus  indefin 
able,  as  all  ultimate  ideas  are;  attempts  to  define  it 
end  either  in  assigning  a  mere  synonym,  or  in  speci 
fying,  not  the  meaning  of  good,  but  some  of  the 
conditions  under  which  the  judgment  of  good  is 
passed.  Mr.  G.  E.  Moore  puts  this  point  with  ex 
ceptional  clearness  when  he  writes: 

"  It  may  be  true  that  all  things  which  are  good  are 
also  something  else,  just  as  it  is  true  that  all  things 
which  are  yellow  produce  a  certain  kind  of  vibration 
in  the  light.  .  .  .  We  may  define  it "  (i.e.,  yellow) 
"  by  describing  its  physical  equivalent;  we  may  state 
what  kind  of  light-vibrations  must  stimulate  the 


THE  TRANSVALUATION  OF  VALUES         89 

normal  eye  in  order  that  we  may  perceive  it.  But  a 
moment's  reflection  is  sufficient  to  show  that  these 
light-vibrations  are  not  themselves  what  we  mean  by 
yellow.  They  are  not  what  we  perceive.  Indeed, 
we  should  never  have  been  able  to  discover  their 
existence  unless  we  had  first  been  struck  by  the 
patent  difference  of  quality  between  the  different 
colours."  l 

Now,  is  it  or  is  it  not  a  fact  of  introspection  that 
in  every  developed  mind  this  notion  of  "  good " 
exists,  and  that  we  are  as  incapable  of  believing  that 
conduct  to  be  good  which  wholly  disregards  the  right 
of  any  class,  which  simply  makes  one  class  the  tool  of 
another,  as  we  are  of  calling  that  object  a  triangle 
which  is  found  to  be  made  up  of  four  sides  ?  The 
question  is  not  whether  in  practice  we  shall  ignore  the 
distinction;  as  Professor  D.  G.  Ritchie  has  said,  "  A 
truth  is  not  less  true  because  someone  acts  as  if  it 
were  false";  the  question  is,  whether  its  theoretical 
validity  does  not  come  home  with  coercive  power  to 
the  mind.  To  me  it  is  plain  that  in  the  developed 
consciousness  this  is  recognized  with  perfect  clear 
ness,  that  in  the  most  primitive  race  we  can  already 
see  it  in  germ,  and  that  its  strength,  like  that  of  other 
axioms,  has  grown  in  proportion  as  intelligence  has 
advanced.  We  can  no  more  prove  it,  but  at  the  same 
time  we  can  no  more  doubt  it,  than  we  can  either 
prove  or  doubt  that  5  plus  4  equals  9. 

Thus,  when  the  plain  man  dismisses  as  absurd  the 
view  which  would  make  egoism  supreme,  he  is  obeying 
the  same  unreflective  common  sense  by  which  he 
turns  away  from  an  argument  that  such  and  such  a 
physical  event  occurred  without  a  cause.  In  both 

1  Principia  Ethica. 


90        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

cases  it  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  elicit  the  reasoned 
principle  which  is  latent  in  the  ordinary  conscious 
ness;  the  position  of  complete  scepticism  is  one  for 
which  a  case  may  no  doubt  be  made,  though  it  is 
beyond  my  present  purpose  to  examine  it;  but  the 
first  truths  of  morality  stand  on  no  less  and  no  more 
precarious  ground  than  the  first  truths  of  reason  in 
any  other  sphere. 


LECTUKE  IV 

TH  E     SUPERMAN 

EVERY  moral  system  has  its  Utopia;  every  specific 
principle  of  valuing  points  to  a  specific  ideal.  Thus, 
when  we  have  appreciated  the  doctrines  of  a  moralist, 
we  should  be  able  to  define  in  terms  of  these  what  the 
life  of  humanity  would  become  if  they  were  generally 
accepted  and  generally  acted  upon.  Stoicism  had  its 
model  sage,  Aristotle  had  his  picture  of  the  ^pdvt/xo? 
and  the  /xeyaXoil/v^o?,  Christianity  has  its  conception 
of  the  Saint.  What  would  the  world  look  like  if 
Nietzsche's  great  moral  displacement  were  carried 
out  ?  He  has  himself  supplied  us  with  a  very  vivid 
and  a  very  startling  image.  In  this  lecture  we  shall 
study  his  "  Superman."  I  shall  first  describe  what 
Nietzsche  meant  by  the  term,  and  then  offer  some 
criticisms  upon  such  a  way  of  envisaging  the  ideal. 


I. 

One  of  his  translators  has  called  Nietzsche  "  the 
first  consistent  Darwinian";  the  compliment,  we 
may  be  sure,  would  not  have  been  welcomed,  for  in 
our  author's  view  Darwin  had  been  a  great  misleader 
of  European  thought;  he  had  misled  it  in  just  that 
fashion  which  might  have  been  expected  from  an 
Englishman,  for  "  he  was  an  intellectual  plebeian, 

91 


92        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

like  all  of  his  nation."  Before  considering  the  points 
in  which  the  German  thinker  tried  to  amend  the 
evolution  hypothesis,  we  must  notice  some  matters 
of  fundamental  agreement.  Darwin  thought  of  life 
as  pre-eminently  a  struggle,  in  which  the  weaker 
elements  tended  to  succumb,  and  the  stronger  tended 
to  survive.  In  the  animal  and  vegetable  worlds 
excellence  of  form  and  structure  had  been  reached, 
not  abruptly,  but  gradually;  the  adaptation  of  all 
growing  things  to  the  environment  in  which  they 
flourish  was  not  the  result  of  a  divine  plan,  assigning 
each  from  the  first  to  the  place  that  fits  it;  we  must 
rather  look  upon  the  forms  of  life  as  having  been 
strewn  here  and  there  in  wild  profusion,  until  by  far 
the  greater  number  had  proved  themselves  unequal 
to  the  conflict  with  circumstance,  had  perished 
through  incapacity  to  meet  the  demands  of  some 
particular  habitat,  and  had  been  superseded  by  just 
those  special  types  which  the  soil,  the  climate,  and 
the  local  surroundings  permitted.  Thus,  the  produc 
tion  of  even  one  animal  or  plant  which  should  be 
precisely  appropriate  to  the  situation  in  which  it  was 
placed,  must  have  been  achieved  through  a  long 
series  of  sif tings  and  rejections;  the  pathway  to  each 
of  Nature's  successes  was  littered  with  a  multitude  of 
Nature's  blunders.  This  is  that  apparent  waste  to 
which,  in  the  botanical  sphere,  Tennyson  alludes 
when  he  writes : 

Finding  that  of  fifty  seeds 
She  often  brings  but  one  to  bear ; 

and  again  in  the  animal  world : 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems,  so  careless  of  the  single  life. 


THE  SUPERMAN  93 

On  one  side  this  is  plainly  a  pitiless  process,  every 
where  favouring  the  robust,  everywhere  repressing 
the  feeble.  When  we  think  of  its  action  among  men 
and  societies,  it  appears  as  that  force  which  makes 
the  rich  progressively  richer  and  the  poor  progres 
sively  poorer — the  principle  of  Eob  Koy : 

For  why  ?— because  the  good  old  rule 
Sufficeth  them,  the  simple  plan, 
That  they  should  take,  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can. 


All  kinds  and  creatures  stand  and  fall 
By  strength  of  prowess  or  of  wit ; 
"Tis  God's  appointment  who  must  sway, 
And  who  is  to  submit. 

At  the  same  time  this  merciless  rule  of  force  has 
seemed  to  some  evolutionists  to  be  the  condition  of  all 
improvement  in  the  racial  type.  They  tell  us  that 
(competitive  selection  brings  to  the  front  all  that 
deserves  to  get  to  the  front,  that  it  eliminates  the 
things  which  ought  to  perish^  And  the  moral  they 
draw  is  that  |his  working  of  Nature  should  not  be 
interfered  with,  but  should  rather  be  seconded,  by 
the  machinery  of  civilization \ 

Now,  in  some  of  his  moods  Nietzsche  has,  beyond 
doubt,  adopted  this  view.  He  applies  it,  for  example, 
with  a  remorseless  hand  to  the  problem  of  Eugenics. 
Zarathustra  discovered  that  the  earth  was  "  full  of 
superfluous  people;"1  these  were  not  only  the  weaklings 
in  body,  but  the  "  spiritually  consumptive  ones,"" 
men  who  had  learned  from  Schopenhauer  or  from 

1  Zarathustra,  i.  9. 

2  loc.  cit. 


94        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

St.  Paul  to  be  world-weary,  life-despisers.  Let  them 
be  encouraged  to  suicide,  for  they  were  clogs  upon  the 
energy,  physical  and  moral,  of  the  rest.1  It  was  the 
greatest  nonsense  to  speak  of  every  individual  as 
having  an  independent,  sacrosanct  value;  each  in 
turn  must  submit  to  a  scrutiny  as  to  whether  he  was 
physiologically  worth  keeping.  Nothing  could  be 
more  immoral  than  the  haphazard  fashion  in  which 
a  man  chose  his  marriage  partner;  the  hope  of  the 
future  was  sacrificed  to  the  fancy  of  the  present; 
there  was  no  thought  of  fitness  for  parenthood.2 
The  prevailing  license  set  a  premium  upon  the  de 
cadent;  it  was  just  these  who  could  not  resist  the 
smallest  sexual  attraction.  "  Society  as  the  trustee 
of  life  is  responsible  for  every  botched  life  before  it 
comes  into  existence,  and  as  it  has  to  atone  for  such 
lives,  it  ought  consequently  to  make  it  impossible 
for  them  ever  to  see  the  light  of  day."3  Let  the  motto 
of  the  future  be,  "  Not  only  onward  shalt  thou  propa 
gate  thyself  but  upward"*  In  this  connexion 
Nietzsche  says  some  very  direct  things  about  the  place 
and  function  of  women.  The  female  sex  was  mentally 
feeble,  occupied  mainly  in  adorning  itself  with  dress, 
inefficient  even  in  that  art  of  cookery  which  it  had 
so  long  monopolized,  given  to  petty  jealousies,  deceit 
ful  beyond  description.5  It  had  all  the  vices  of 
decadence — witness  woman's  susceptibility  to  the 
influence  of  a  priest.6  The  Oriental  spirit  in  sex 

1  Zarathustra,  i.  9  and  i.  21 

2  Will  to  Power,  732. 

3  Ibid.,  734. 

4  Zarathustra,  i.  20. 

5  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  232-234. 

6  Cf.  Will  to  Power,  864. 


THE  SUPERMAN  95 

relationship  was  right;  as  the  Greeks  advanced  in 
culture,  they  transformed  the  absurd  equality  of 
Homeric  times  into  the  definite  subjection  of  the  age 
of  Pericles.1  Woman's  whole  purpose  was  that  of  a 
child -bearer;  her  preparation  in  youth  should  keep 
that  single  object  in  view.2  Modern  "  feminism  ': 
was  one  of  "  the  worst  developments  of  the  general 
uglifying  of  Europe."3  Nietzsche  has  no  words  too 
bitter  to  characterize  the  movement  for  economic 
independence  or  for  female  higher  education.  "  A 
learned  woman  must  have  some  physiological  dis 
order  "  —words  that  recall  Sir  Almroth  Wright's 
Unexpurgated  Case  against  Women's  Suffrage.  Only 
through  submissiveness  could  she  become  influential; 
just  in  so  far  as  she  pushed  her  insurrection  would  her 
real  power  decay.  "  Man  shall  be  trained  for  war, 
and  woman  for  the  recreation  of  the  warrior;  all  else 
is  folly."4  In  a  word,  the  sole  importance  of  women 
is  made  to  consist,  not  in  anything  that  they  have,  or 
may  come  to  have,  of  personal  worth,  but  in  the  effect 
they  produce  upon  the  racial  stock.  The  most  arro 
gant  assumptions  of  a  male  aristocracy  have  nowhere 
else  in  literature  become  quite  so  articulate  or  quite 
so  defiant. 

In  this  we  can  already  discern  the  ground  for 
Nietzsche's  quarrel  with  the  more  orthodox  evolu 
tionists.  He  thought  them  far  too  optimistic  about 
the  result  which  Natural  Selection  could  by  itself 
secure.  They  had  assumed  that  the  struggle  for 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  238.          a  Ibid.,  239,        3  Ibid.,  232. 

4  Zarathustra,  i.  18.  Nietzsche's  disgusting  defence  of  prostitu 
tion  proceeds  on  the  same  line.  Cf.  the  brief  summary  in  Dr. 
Levy's  Revival  of  Aristocracy,  p.  54. 


96        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

existence  would,  at  least  on  the  average,  preserve  the 
most  desirable  types;  that  minute  physical  advan 
tages  would  be  accumulated  and  transmitted  by 
heredity,  that  a  nobler  form  would  result  from  sexual 
selection  of  the  most  beautiful.1  They  had  forgotten 
that  accident  serves  the  cause  of  the  weak,  that 
craftiness  may  overcome  strength,  that  heredity  is 
the  most  capricious  of  forces,  that  the  lowest  forms  of 
life  are  the  most  prolific,  that  genius,  though  the  most 
sublime,  is  also  the  most  fragile  of  machines.  To 
Nietzsche  it  seemed  plain  that  man  as  a  species  was 
not  progressing,  and  that  it  was  just  the  superior 
specimens  which  were  the  first  to  perish.  The  high 
type  was  incomparably  more  complex,  involved  "  a 
greater  sum  of  co-ordinated  elements";  hence  it  was 
an  easier  prey  to  disintegration,  sure  to  pass  under 
the  "mastery  of  the  mediocre."2  What  was  the 
moral  ?  It  was  clearly  this,  that  \unconscious  selec 
tion  could  not  be  trusted1;  was  not  the  simplicity  of 
the  Darwinians  exposed  if  one  asked  whether,  as  a 
matter  of  experience,  the  more  beautiful  partners 
are  habitually  chosen  in  marriage  ?  /  If  decadence 
was  to  be  checked  we  must  employ  purposive  selec 
tion  .^ 

Another  side  of  Nietzsche's  case  against  evolution 
has  been  brought  out  with  clearness  by  Mr.  Ludovici. 
Our  author,  he  says,  looked  at  the  matter  thus: 

"  Given  a  degenerate,  mean,  and  base  environment, 
and  the  fittest  to  survive  therein  will  be  the  man  who 
is  best  adapted  to  degeneracy,  meanness,  and  base 
ness — therefore  the  worst  kind  of  man.  Given  a 

1  Will  to  Power,  684.  2  loc.  cit. 


THE  SUPERMAN  97 

community  of  parasites,  and  it  may  be  that  the 
flattest,  the  slimiest,  and  the  softest  will  be  the  fittest 
to  survive.  1 

The  old  optimism  could  perhaps  be  justified  if  one 
retained   a  belief  in  providential  order;   one  might 
then  suppose  that,  if  the  universe  were  left  alone,  the 
laws  of  development  which  God  had  imposed  upon  it 
would  work  by  themselves  an  excellent  result.     But 
was  not  such  a  faith  mere  naivete  from  the  standpoint 
of  mechanical  atheism  ?    ^ietzsche  had  not,  indeed, 
abandoned  the  idea  of  purpose,  but  it  had  ceased  for 
him  to  be  a  purpose  directed  from  without;  it  had 
become  purpose  which  man  must  himself  devise  and 
execute.2    Nihilism  had  resulted  when  the  old  theo 
logical  goal  was  seen  to  be  a  mirage:  it  might  give 
place  to  a  healthier  confidence  if  men  could  realize 
that  they  were  the  creators  of  their  own  goal;  let 
them  give  up  their  Spencerian  folly  about  passive 
adaptation    to    environment,3    let   them    grasp    the 
thought  of  an  inward  energy  which  should  bend  en 
vironment  to  the  aim  which  man  deliberately  chose.) 
Yet,  subject  to  this  emendation,  Nietzsche  makes 
large   ethical   use   of   the   Darwinian   formula.     He 
points  out  that  among  individuals  Nature  tends  to 
kill  off  the  sickly,  the  less  fit  both  in  body  and  in 
mind;  she  would  preserve  the  sturdy  and  robust: 
these  in  turn  were  more  likely  to  beget  a  race  that  is 
physically  desirable.     What  disease  and  failure  did 
in  the  life-struggle  of  individuals,  war  must  do  in  the 

1  Nietzsche  :  His  Life  and  Works,  p.  72.     Of.  Mr.  Ludovici's 
Who  is  to  be  Master  of  the  World  ?  p.  84. 

2  Will  to  Power,  20. 

3  Genealogy  of  Morals,  ii.  12. 


98        NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

conflict  of  nations.  For  a  people,  too,  might  become 
effete,  anaemic,  unworthy  of  its  place;  it  was  dis 
possessed  by  a  hardier,  a  more  masterful  stock,  and  to 
complain  of  the  injustice  of  such  things  was  to  be 
misled  by  conventional  morality.  One  is  reminded 
here  of  Bernhardi's  notorious  aphorism,  "  The  verdict 
of  war  is  biologically  just."  The  awful  doctrine  that 
the  battle-field  is  essential  to  vigorous  life,  and  that 
the  peaceful  regime  leads  to  decadence,  is  repeatedly 
avowed  both  in  Zarathustra  and  in  The  Will  to  Power. 
Nietzsche  can  even  find  something  to  approve  in  the 
socialistic  welter  of  European  society;  it  keeps  alive 
the  spirit  of  fight;  "  it  delays  '  peace  on  earth  '  and  the 
whole  process  of  character-softening  of  the  demo 
cratic  herding  animal."1  "  I  am  delighted,"  he  ex 
claims,  "  at  the  military  development  of  Europe, 
also  at  the  inner  anarchical  conditions;  the  period  of 
quietude  and  '  Chinadom  '  which  Galliani  prophesied 
for  the  century  is  now  over."2  This  passage  deserves 
study  by  those  who  see  in  Zarathustra  a  prophet  of 
peaceful  culture  as  against  Bismarckian  aggression. 
Again,  he  says :  "  Ye  shall  love  peace  as  a  means  to 
new  wars,  and  the  short  peace  more  than  the  long  ";3 
'  Ye  say  it  is  the  good  cause  which  halloweth  even 
war  ?  I  say  unto  you:  It  is  the  good  war  which 
halloweth  every  cause."4 

We  are  now  prepared  to  look  at  that  strange  vision 
of  the  ideal  which  corresponds  in  Nietzsche's  morality 
to  Plato's  Republic,  More's  Utopia,  and  St.  Augus 
tine's  City  of  God.  It  is  one  of  race  efficiency  ex 
hibited  in  a  few  predominant  individuals,  and  it  is  to 

1  Will  to  Power,  125.  2  Ibid.,  127. 

3  Zarathustra,  i.  10.  *  loc.  cit. 


THE  SUPERMAN  99 

be  reached  by  selective  competition  when  we  have 
ceased  to  load  the  dice  against  the  best  players. 
Human  progress,  he  argued,  had  been  in  some  degree 
thrust  upon  us,  but  misguided  man,  with  his  per 
verse  valuations,  had  long  been  hindering  and  hamper 
ing  the  forces  which  would  have  raised  him.  Philan 
thropy  had  cut  athwart  the  selective  work  of  Nature;1 
it  had  taken  as  its  especial  care  just  those  who  were 
physically,  mentally,  economically,  the  weaker  com 
batants;2  it  had  systematically  preserved  all  that 
ought  to  be  weeded  out.3  The  only  cruelty  in  Nature 
was  a  cruelty  which  man  had  forced  her  to  practise — • 
cruelty  "  against  her  lucky  and  well-constituted 
children."4 

'  Deliberately  to  thwart  the  law  of  selection  among 
species,  and  their  natural  means  of  purging  their 
stock  of  degenerate  members — this,  up  to  my  time, 
had  been  the  greatest  of  all  virtues.  .  .  .  One  should 
do  honour  to  the  fatality  which  says  to  the  feeble 
'  perish.'  "5 

If  society  could  be  persuaded  to  value  along  the 
right  lines,  it  would  despise  the  ideals  of  pleasure, 
happiness,  so-called  virtue;  these  made  reference 
simply  to  the  race  of  puny  weaklings  that  are  here 
to-day;  they  neglected  to  ask  whether  something  so 
far  undreamed  of  might  not  yet  be  made  out  of  man,0 
something  which  should  put  all  these  aspirations  to 
shame.  The  7  far-off  divine  event"  by  which  life 
should  be  justified  was  the  evolution  of  a  higher 

1   Will  to  Power,  54.         2Ibid.,55ff.        3  Zarathustra,  i.  21. 
4  Will  to  Power,  685.  5  Ibid.,  54. 

6  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  203. 


100      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

order  j)  Nietzsche  gives  this  the  appropriate  title 
Uebermensch  (^>upermam  or  Beyond-man),  to  signify 
that  it  Should  stand  in  the  same  superior  relation  to 
the  human  species  we  have  known  as  that  species 
itself  to  the  lower  animal  forms/N  Its  characteristics 
should  be  in  every  way  antithetical  to  those  which  we 
,have  enumerated  under  the  name  ^f  decadence.'' 
(Superman  is  to  be  physiologically  perfect,  strong, 
self-reliant,  self-assertive;  he  is  to  be  spiritually  a 
passionate  lover  of  life,  no  dreamer  about  other 
worlds,  fulfilling  himself  to  the  full  here  and  now. 
In  short,  he  is  to  be  the  final  expression  of  culture  on 
every  sidex. 

But  at  least  as  important  as  any  physical  or  intel 
lectual  distinction  stands  the  moral  equipment  of 
the  Uebermensch.  He  must  have  so  absorbed  the 
great  transvaluation  as  to  act  upon  it  everywhere 
with  unerring  instinct.  For  him  pity  and  egoism 
have  been  set  in  their  true  perspective ;  he  has  a  work 
to  do,  a  duty  to  himself  as  the  symbol  of  a  high  race, 
and  he  must  not  be 

too  full  o'  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
To  catch  the  nearest  way. 

Sometimes,  as  a  concession  to  weaker  natures, 
Nietzsche  returns  to  his  point  that  Superman's  (ap 
parent  harshness  is  a  benevolent  spirit  in  disguise; 
after  all,  was  it  not  mercy  which  would  stamp  out  the 
maimed  combatants  in  life's  struggle)  as  one  shoots  a 

oo      / 

wounded  horse  on  the  battle-field  ?     Was  it  not  a 
choice  between  death  swift,  painless,  curative,  and 

1  Cf.  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  3,  4.  The  term  first  appears  in 
Goethe's  Faust,  but  Nietzsche  has  given  it  a  new  meaning. 


THE  SUPERMAN  101 

death    long    drawn    out,    racking,    hopeless  ?     And 
was  not  the  benevolence  still   clearer  toward  that 
wretched  progeny  which  might  inherit  the  feebleness 
of    such    ancestors  ?      "  Higher   than   love   to   your 
neighbour  is  love  to  the  farthest  and  future  ones";1 
Nietzsche  here  very  correctly  anticipates  that  a  for 
swearing  of  all  chivalry  towards  those  least  able  to 
defend   themselves   would   be   uncongenial   even   to 
those  strong  ones  amongst  us  who  approximate  most 
closely  to  the  Uebermensch.    Hence  the  digressions, 
quite  alien,  as  I  have  shown,  to  our  author's  real  con 
tempt  of  pain;  hence  the  sophisms  to  persuade  us 
that  Superman,  like  Hamlet  when  he  soothes  his 
father's  ghost  with  the  blood  of  the  living,  is  "  cruel 
only  to  be  kind."     In  any  case,  Nietzsche  is  uncom 
promising  in  his  demand;  a  part  of  the  higher  char 
acter,  an  essential  part,  is  the  readiness  to  inflict 
suffering.     He  who  shrinks  from  clearing  away  the 
feeble  obstacles  in  his  path  must  give  place  to  those 
who  are  made  of  sterner  stuff.     Hence  that  frenzied 
passage  in  Zarathustra  which  speaks  of  the  greatest 
danger  of  all  as  arising,  not  from  the  lower  elements 
of  the  race,  but  from  vacillation  bom  of  pitifulness 
in  the  higher  man  himself,  and  which  declares  the 
last  and  greatest  sin  to  be  pity  towards  the  higher 
man. 

In  the  light  of  all  this,  Nietzsche  claims  that  pessi 
mism  is  not  only  condemned,  it  is  also  explained. 
He  always  recognized  a  keen  penetration  in  Schopen 
hauer,  "the  last  German  who  was  a  European  event "; 
he  not  only  admits,  but  is  prepared  to  insist,  that  from 
Schopenhauer's  standpoint  the  denial  of  life  was  an 

1  Zamtliustra,  i.  xvi. 


102      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

inevitable  result.  For  that  standpoint  had  involved 
the  assumption  that  man  as  we  know  him  is  final ;  if 
this  miserable  product  was  the  best  that  evolution 
could  yield,  the  whole  movement  was  indeed  con 
demned.  The  will  to  live  became,  beyond  question, 
absurd.  Nietzsche  everywhere  breathes  the  scorn 
of  that  spiritual  visitant  in  Byron's  Heaven  and 
Earth,  as  he  speaks  of  Japhet's  pitiable  clinging  to 
the  interests  and  joys,  the  simple  loves  and  petty 
virtues,  of  poor  mankind. 

Go,  wretch  ! — and  give 
A  life  like  thine  to  other  wretches — live  ! 1 

His  point  is  that  the  human  species,  despicable  in 
itself,  becomes,  when  seen  sub  specie  ceternitatis,  a 
thing  of  transfigured  worth.  "  The  glory  of  man  is 
that  he  is  no  end,  but  a  means  ";2  humanity 
is  of  value  for  its  promise,  not  for  any  fulfilment 
which  has  been  seen  as  yet.  The  development 
beginning  with  the  amoeba,  and,  to  the  superficial 
eye,  showing  only  blind  mechanism,  was  to  find 
its  justification  in  the  climax  to  which  it  might  be 
made  to  lead. 

And  in  one  way  a  certain  grandeur  might  be  be 
stowed  even  on  the  men  of  the  present.  The  glad 
acceptance  of  their  place  as  a  link  in  the  chain,  the 
eager  renunciation  of  immediate  self-indulgence  that 
they  might  advance  the  racial  purpose,  this  was  the 
highest  part  which  it  was  possible  for  them  to  play. 
'  The  Superman  is  the  meaning  of  the  earth;  let  your 
will  say:  The  Superman  shall  be  the  meaning  of  the 

1  Heaven  and  Earth,  Scene  III. 

2  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  4. 


THE  SUPERMAN  103 

earth."1  Indeed,  without  such  voluntary  co-opera 
tion  there  was  no  hope  that  Nature  could  continue 
the  ascending  line. 


II. 

This  doctrine  of  the  Uebermensch  is  probably  the 
most  familiar  side  of  Nietzsche's  teaching,  but  it  is 
far  from  being  the  clearest;  it  has  difficulties  which 
can  scarcely  be  unravelled.  Did  he  contemplate  the 
possibility  of  a  new  and  higher  species  in  the  strict 
biological  sense  ?  He  has  used  phrases  which  point 
that  way — for  example,  his  picture  of  man  as  a 
middle  term,  with  the  ape  on  one  side  and  Uebermensch 
on  the  other.2  But,  again,  he  speaks  of  the  ideal  as 
having  been  already  actualized  in  a  few  historical 
heroes,  though,  in  apparent  forgetfulness  of  having 
said  so,  he  doubts  in  another  place  whether  any  Super 
man  has  yet  appeared.  Is  Professor  Pigou  right  in 
his  theory  that  Nietzsche  had  in  mind  an  inward 
state,  and  in  his  somewhat  startling  comparison  with 
the  Kingdom  of  God  in  Christian  Theology  ?  There 
are  New  Testament  passages  which  speak  of  the 
coming  order  when  heaven  and  earth  shall  have 

o 

passed  away,  and  there  are  passages  which  indicate 
rather  that  purification  of  soul  in  the  present  which 
makes  it  possible  to  say,  "  The  Kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you."  "  Beyond-man  and  the  Kingdom  of 
God,"  writes  Mr.  Pigou,  "  both  mean,  in  their  deepest 
sense,  a  state  of  heart."3  The  analogy  is  interesting, 

1  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  3.  2  loo.  cit. 

3  "  The  Ethics  of  Nietzsche,"  in  International  Journal  of  Ethics, 
April,  1908. 


104      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

but  in  one  respect  it  seems  defective ;  Christian  teach 
ing  regards  the  good  for  man  as  consisting  in  a 
renewed  will,  in  a  certain  type  of  character  and  pur 
pose,  whether  or  not  this  disposition  succeeds  in  out 
ward  accomplishment  of  all  that  it  cherishes;  in 
Nietzschean  goodness,  on  the  other  hand,  external 
achievement  seems  essential. 

But  though  ambiguous  in  some  of  its  details,  the 
general  idea  of  Superman  is  tolerably  clear,  and  upon 
it  I  offer  the  following  remarks: 

1.  The  Darwinian  formula  lends  no  real  counte 
nance  to  the  view  that  altruism  is  morally  inferior  to 
egoism,  or  that  the  stronger  are  entitled  to  exploit  the 
weaker.  As  I  shall  point  out  afterwards,  Nietzsche 
does  not  derive  his  ideal  from  the  evidence  of  evolu 
tion,  but,  as  he  has  been  persistently  attacked  and 
also  enthusiastically  defended  under  the  rubric  of 
"  the  survival  of  the  fittest,"  it  is  worth  while  to  ex 
amine  briefly  what  this  biological  cant — so  common 
among  the  ill-informed — really  involves. 

It  is  plain  that  the  qualities  of  sympathy  and  mercy 
have  not  decreased,  but  have  grown  in  influence  as 
mankind  has  evolved.  The  kindly  virtues  are  more 
widespread,  reveal  themselves  in  a  greater  number  of 
directions,  have  at  their  service  a  more  effective 
social  machinery.  If  these  traits  of  character  are 
j  inconsistent  with  the  evolution  formula,  why  have 
they  survived  ?  If  cosmic  forces  make  the  stronger 
win  just  by  reason  of  his  pushful  egoism,  why  have 
not  men  become  more  and  more  egoistic,  less  and  less 
considerate  ?  You  cannot  in  the  same  breath  assert 
the  perfection  of  a  formula  and  also  admit  that  an 
important  group  of  facts  contradicts  your  formula. 


THE  SUPERMAN  105 

Hence  a  thoroughgoing  naturalist  must  say  that 
Nature  has  not  had  free  scope,  that  there  has  been 
artificial  interference.  For  example,  her  selective 
hand  has  been  stayed  by  the  dissemination  of  what 
is  called  "  morality,"  and  by  the  fostering  of  what  is 
called  "  conscience."  Thus  men  have  been  unnerved, 
the  bold  self-seeker  has  been  hindered  from  having 
the  "courage  of  his  instincts."  Granted;  but  why 
have  we  disseminated  morality  and  fostered  con 
science  ?  The  explanation  by  supposing  a  crafty 
priesthood  is  of  no  avail;  for,  in  the  first  place,  no 
fair-minded  man  believes  that  all  priests  are  insin 
cere;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  scheme  of  charity 
and  benevolence  which  priests  inculcate  is  powerful 
in  minds  for  which  a  spiritual  threat  has  no  terrors. 
If  we  are  in  thorough  earnest  with  our  naturalism, 
we  must  find  that  the  underlying  motive  of  mercy  is 
itself  a  product  of  evolution  at  work  upon  human 
character.  As  Polixenes  says  in  the  Winter's  Tale  .-1 

Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean;  so,  o'er  that  art, 
Which  you  say  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
That  Nature  makes. 

Herbert  Spencer,  who  needed  no  Bernhardi  to 
draw  social  inferences  for  him,  saw  with  great  clear 
ness  the  difficulty  which  is  here  presented;  he  was 
both  candid  enough  and  ingenious  enough  to  restate 
his  formula  in  such  a  way  as  would  do  no  violence  to 
the  facts.  He  pointed  out  that  the  competition  of 
life  proceeds  not  only  among  individuals,  but  among 
communities;  it  follows  that  a  quality  of  character 

1  Act  IV.,  Sc.  3. 


106      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

which  would  be  a  handicap  to  the  individual  com 
peting  alone,  but  a  strength  to  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member,  is  quite  likely  to  be  preserved  and 
augmented.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  nothing  reinforces 
a  race  in  its  struggle  with  other  races  so  much  as  the 
virtues  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  mutual  supple 
menting  of  one  another's  defects.  That  people  in 
which  there  is  a  habit  of  sympathy,  forbearance, 
reciprocal  aid,  will  have  the  superiority  which  a  uni 
fied  state  has  over  a  body  of  independent  and  warring 
individuals.  This  is  especially  so  when  the  stage  of 
primitive  militarism  is  past,  when  the  state  has 
become  industrial,  when  qualities  of  brain  and  char 
acter  become  more  important  than  a  formidable  and 
agile  physique.  Thus,  the  growth  of  kindliness 
within  a  community  may  be  explained  without  de 
parting  from  the  formula  of  Natural  Selection  and  the 
Struggle  for  Life. 

But,  it  may  be  replied,  this  disposition  has  reached 
a  pitch  which  far  exceeds  such  racial  utility.  It  has 
worked  to  preserve  those  whom  a  tribe  would  be 
better  without,  and  it  has  been  cherished  towards 
those  who  do  not  belong  to  one's  own  tribe  at  all. 
Has  it  not  in  both  these  ways  made  for  a  weakening, 
not  a  strengthening,  of  the  society  ?  If  pity  has 
arisen  thus,  ought  it  not  to  be  discountenanced  when 
it  trespasses  the  limit  of  its  usefulness  ?  There  are 
two  answers — one  psychological,  the  other  ethical— 
and  both  may  be  given  by  those  who  fully  believe  that 
morality  has  been  shaped  by  evolution.  As  psycho 
logists  we  point  out  that  an  emotional  state  cannot 
be  restrained  within  intellectual  channels;  it  cannot 
be  taught  to  begin  just  where  reason  decides  that  it 


THE  SUPERMAN  107 

is  salutary,  and  to  leave  off  just  where  reason  sees  no 
further  use  for  it.  If  it  be  a  condition  of  a  commu 
nity's  survival  that  its  members  should  be  sympa 
thetic  to  one  another's  distress,  then  distress  as  such 
will  awaken  the  feeling;  you  cannot  secure  that  men 
shall  disregard  the  suffering  of  those  who  are  tribally 
useless  or  that  they  shall  be  callous  towards  a  suffer 
ing  foreigner.  The  impulse  is  a  spontaneous  one;  it 
will  not  be  governed  by  far-seeing  calculation. 
Further,  whatever  be  the  origin  of  pity,  our  developed 
reason  affirms  that  it  is  a  disposition  of  the  utmost 
value,  whether  the  person  we  pity  belong  to  a  high 
or  to  a  low  racial  type,  whether  he  be  of  kindred  or  of 
alien  stock.  This  is  what  I  called  in  a  previous  lec 
ture  a  "  moral  axiom  ";  it  cannot  be  proved,  neither 
can  it  be  rationally  doubted.  Thus,  as  we  leave 
behind  the  stage  in  which  moral  valuation  is  an 
affair  of  impulse,  and  reach  the  stage  where  it  is  an 
activity  of  reason,  we  introduce  a  factor  which  it  is 
impossible  to  define  in  terms  of  the  biological  conflict 
among  blind  passions. 

Thus,  even  from  a  thoroughly  naturalistic  stand 
point,  the  apotheosis  of  selfishness  has  no  justification. 
It  was  as  inevitable  that  man  should  develop  benevo 
lence  and  compassion  as  that  he  should  become 
diligent,  industrious,  provident.  And  though  the 
old  creed  of  Callicles  in  the  Gorgias  were  as  true  a 
reading  of  facts  as  it  is  beyond  doubt  false,  this  would 
not  point  to  an  ethic  of  egoism;  it  would  exclude  the 
possibility  of  ethic  in  any  real  sense  at  all. 

2.  But  to  call  Nietzsche  a  "  fearless  preacher  of  the 
evolutionist  morality  "  is  to  do  him  far  less  than 
justice.  This  is  the  phrase  of  those  who  know  our 


108      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

author  only  from  some  stray  aphorisms  of  Zara- 
ihustra ;  again  and  again  in  his  other  books  he  has 
insisted  that  the  "  fittest "  —that  is,  the  creature 
most  able  to  survive — need  not  be  the  "best";  he 
may  quite  possibly  be  the  worst,  for  he  may  be  the 
most  perfectly  adapted  to  an  ignoble  environment. 
.Nor  does  Nietzsche  bid  us  watch  the  cosmic  forces 
and  then  second  them  with  might  and  main,  whatever 
be  the  direction — good  or  bad — in  which  those  forces 
appear  to  move.  It  is  true  that  he  comes  very  close 
to  such  a  maxim  when  he  speaks  of  "  will  to  power  " 
as  the  sole  motive  by  which  one  can  be  influenced; 
it  is  true  that  this  position  logically  negates  an  ethic . 
of  any  kind;  but  it  is  only  fair  to  recognize  in  his 
treatment  of  evolution  the  germ  of  a  truer  thought. 
He  bids  us  reinforce  the  cosmic  process,  not  because 
such  is  the  actual  way  of  the  world,  but  because, 
with  limitations,  the  struggle  of  Nature  makes  for  a 
furtherance  of  the  racial  type,  and  because  such 
furtherance  is,  in  his  view,  the  thing  which  reason 
pronounces  to  be  supremely  valuable.  And  just  in 
those  cases  where  such  blind  natural  action  thwarts 
the  elevating  movement,  Nietzsche  (bids  us  oppose 
Nature ;  he  bids  us  introduce  purposive  selection,  the 
purpose  to  be  dictated  in  the  light  of  his  ethicad  end. 
To  put  it  concretely,  if  our  author  values  a  Napoleon 
higher  than  a  Florence  Nightingale,  this  is  not  due 
to  his  conviction  that  the  competitive  struggle  works 
towards  the  supremacy  of  the  warrior  type  rather 
than  towards  the  supremacy  of  the  philanthropic;  it 
is  because  he  thought  it  an  intuitive  truth  that  such 
a  character  as  Napoleon's  is  superior  to  Florence 
Nightingale's.  If  we  differ  from  him,  it  is  not  be- 


THE  SUPERMAN  109 

cause  we  read  evolution  in  a  different  sense,  but  be 
cause  our  intuitive  moral  conviction  gives  a  deliver 
ance  the  reverse  of  his. 

3.  Again,  we  must  recognize  that  Superman  is  a 
concrete  vivid  image  of  some  ideals  which  are  of 
genuine  but  neglected  value.     Appreciation  is  cer 
tainly  due  to  our  author's  plea  for  eugenism,  to  his 
defence  of  the  rights  of  the  unborn.     We  have  been 
too  much  disposed  to  think  only  of  the  convenience, 
the  interests,  the  general  well-being  of  the  generation 
present  at  the  moment,  leaving  posterity  to  look 
after  itself.     Yet  as  far  back  as  Plato  the  principle 
was  laid  down  that  one  ought,  so  far  as  possible,  to 
include  in  one's  moral  effort  the  production  of  a  higher 
racial  type,  the  securing  of  a  better,  healthier,  happier 
plane  of  life  for  those  who  are  to  come  after.    Modern 
biological  and  sociological  advance  has  put  some  in 
struments  into  our  hands  which  we  may  use  in  this 
direction,  and  we  must  admit  that  we  have  not  so 
far  lived  up  to  the  level  of  the  knowledge  that  we  have 
reached.     The  public  conscience  has  been  hard  to 
arouse,  little  note  has  been  taken  of  the  heritage  of 
disease  and  misery  which  one  age  is  transmitting  to 
another  simply  because  certain  obvious  physiological 
morals  are  ignored;  even  so  mild  a  scheme  as  the 
segregation  of  imbeciles  has  not  yet  won  acceptance. 
Nietzsche  puts  the  protest  and  appeal  of  eugenism  in 
his   own   picturesque   and   lurid   way.     He   bids   us 
extend  the  law  of  love  to  include  not  only  the  neigh 
bour  whom  we  see,  but  the  unborn  millions  whom  we 
may  either  strengthen  or  handicap  for  the  struggle  of 
life;  he  denounces  the  easy-going  sensitiveness  which 
shrinks  from  social  surgery.     But  here,  as  elsewhere, 


110      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

we  must  point  out  that  the  advocate  has  gone  a  long 
way  to  spoil  the  case.  For  he  treats  the  (present 
generation,  at  least  in  its  weaker  and  less  capable 
members,  as  destitute  of  intrinsic  rights  or  intrinsic 
value  of  any  kind;  its  whole  function  becomes  that  of 
subservience  to  a  superior  order  yet  to  come^f  As 
Major  Darwin  has  well  remarked,  sympathy  for  the 
race  of  the  future  will  not  be  enlisted  by  anyone  who 
shows  himself  callous  to  the  race  of  the  present. 

4.  Finally,  we  may  grant  that  some  of  the  qualities 
in  Superman  which  morality  does  not  hesitate  to 
condemn  have  been  in  the  past  of  high  social  advan 
tage.  Circumstances  occur  in  which  the  world  profits 
through  the  self-seeking  and  the  injustice  of  an  indi 
vidual.  Lecky  has  pointed  out  in  a  well-known 
passage2  that  a  country  often  owes  more  to  a  man 
of  no  scruples,  but  of  great  forcefulness  and  great 
audacity,  than  to  the  retiring,  the  modest,  and  the 
conscientious;  that  gratitude,  while  now  a  winsome 
virtue,  was  at  one  time  of  less  social  importance  than 
that  spirit  of  revenge  which  coerced  rude  society  into 
order.  The  same  point  has  been  put  differently  by 
Professor  Simmel,3  when  he  insists  that  a  man  should 
so  select  his  profession  as  to  utilize  his  moral  de 
ficiencies  in  the  public  interest.  Whether  we  say, 
with  the  theologians,  that  Providence  brings  evil  out 
of  good,  "  making  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him," 
or  argue  with  Mandeville  that  "  private  vices  are 

1  Cf.  Will  to  Power,  866:  "  That  man  for  whom  the  turning 
of  mankind  into  a  machine  is  the  first  condition  of  existence, 
for  whom  the  rest  of  mankind  is  but  soil  on  which  he  can  devise 
his  higher  mode  of  existence." 

2  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.,  pp.  37,  40  sqq. 

3  In  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  vol.  iii.,  1892-93,  p.  490  sq. 


THE  SUPERMAN  111 

public  benefits,"1  the  fact  seems  to  be  beyond  ques 
tion. 

But  there  is  nothing  in  this  to  alter  our  view  that 
evil  is  evil  though  it  may  by  accident  be  the  source  of 
good,  or  that  vice  is  vice  though  a  special  combina 
tion  of  circumstances  may  make  it  productive  of 
certain  benefits.  The  external  outcome  of  an  act  is 
one  thing,  the  inward  character  which  it  reveals  is 
another;  and  while  an  isolated  act  or  set  of  acts  may 
do  more  good  than  harm,  the  disposition  that  under 
lies  them  may  be  such  as  to  do  on  the  whole  much 
more  harm  than  good.2  No  doubt  it  was  Napoleon's 
lust  for  power  which  saved  France  from  the  anarchy 
into  which  she  would  otherwise  have  fallen;  we  may 
agree  with  Zarathustra  that  the  country  was  indebted 
less  to  the  Emperor's  philanthropy  than  to  his  self- 
seeking  ambition.  But  that  this  quality,  when 
divorced  from  moral  restraint,  is,  in  general,  sinister 
in  its  consequence,  the  example  of  Napoleon  himself 
is  a  conspicuous  illustration. 

5.  In  calling  upon  man  to  make  himself  a  "  means," 
a  "  bridge,"  a  "  rope,"  which  shall  effect  the  tran 
sition  from  the  lower  types  of  the  past  to  the  tran 
scendent  type  of  the  future,  and  in  insisting  that  this 
(should  be  man's  only  aim)  the  only  ennobling  value 
of  an  otherwise  sordid  life,  Nietzsche  has  made  a 
singular  breach  with  his  own  doctrine  of  self-expres 
sion.  He  had  denounced  self-sacrifice  as  a  sort  of 
moral  imbecility  with  which  the  Christian  religion 
had  inoculated  the  healthy  pagan  blood.  And  we 

1  In  his  Fable  of  the  Bees. 

2  Cf.  the  excellent  discussion  of  this  point  in  Henry  Sidgwick's 
Methods  of  Ethics,  p.  428  ff. 


112      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

granted  so  much  as  this,  that  he  had  ground  for  re 
calling  us  to  a  belief  in  ourselves,  for  insisting  that 
self-expression  and  self-development  have  a  place 
among  the  virtues.  But  he  proceeds  to  demand  a 
self-immolation  more  complete  and  more  fanatical 
than  was  ever  dreamed  of  by  the  most  demented 
ascetic.  Even  Stylites  on  his  pillar  had  Paradise 
before  him.  He  could  exclaim : 

"  Courage,  St.  Simeon  !     This  dull  chrysalis 
Cracks  into  shining  wings." 

But  there  are  no  "  super-terrestrial  hopes  "  for  him 
who  has  replaced  devotion  to  God  with  devotion  to 
Superhumanity. 

'*  I  love,"  cries  Zarathustra,  "  those  who  do  not 
first  seek  a  reason  beyond  the  stars  for  going  down 
and  being  sacrifices,  but  sacrifice  themselves  to  the 
earth,  that  the  earth  of  the  Superman  may  hereafter 
arrive."1 

There  is  an  old  phrase  about  making  the  best  of 
both  worlds,  but  our  apostle  of  self-development  here 
requires  an  abnegation  so  perfect  that  the  victim 
must  forego  all  hope  of  personal  achievement  either 
here  or  hereafter.  Thus,  we  seem  to  have  a  yawning 
incoherence  at  the  very  heart  of  Nietzsche's  ethical 
thinking.  That  disposition  which  he  despises  is,  at 
the  same  time,  the  essential  means  to  the  good  which 
he  aims  to  bring  about.  The  spirit  of  self-assertive- 
ness  which  he  denounces  in  the  ordinary  man  and 
glorifies  in  the  higher  man  are  one  and  the  same  trait 
of  character.  If  it  be  right  for  another  being  to  be 
pitiless  towards  me  in  the  interest  of  his  selfhood 
1  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  4. 


THE  SUPERMAN  113 

which  struggles  to  be  developed,  how  can  it  be  wrong 
for  me  to  obstruct  him  to  the  limit  of  my  power  in 
defence  of  my  selfhood  which  refuses  to  be  sup 
pressed  ?  Other  moral  teachers  could,  no  doubt, 
logically  and  persuasively  appeal  for  sacrifice  of 
personal  aims  upon  the  altar  of  a  sacred  cause;  but 
surely  not  that  prophet  who  had  proclaimed  that  the 
only  cause  really  sacred  is  the  pushful  efficiency  of 
the  stronger  ? 

Nietzsche  can  escape  from  this  objection  only  by 
reiterating  that  distinction  in  worthiness  among 
selves  which  we  have  seen  to  be  impossible  for  one 
committed  to  the  doctrine  of  will  to  power.  Again 
and  again  he  tells  us  that  the  ideal  for  one  class  is  not 
the  ideal  for  another,  nor  will  he  admit  that  the  con 
flicting  interests  can  ever  be  reconciled.  ''  That 
which  serves  the  higher  class  of  men  for  nourishment 
or  refreshment  must  be  almost  poison  to  an  entirely 
different  and  lower  class  of  human  beings.  The 
virtues  of  the  common  man  would  perhaps  mean 
vice  and  weaknesses  in  a  philosopher."  Thus,  the 
autonomous  character  of  the  upper  rank  in  no  way 
involves  a  like  freedom  for  the  rest.  Zarathustra 
presses  the  question:  "  Art  thou  one  entitled  to  escape 
from  a  yoke  ?'51  His  own  message  is  directed  only 
to  the  "  mandarins  of  the  spirit";2  they  alone  are  of 
sufficient  value  to  make  release  from  the  law  of 
custom  either  safe  or  desirable.  Now,  if  our  author 
had  kept  to  the  view  that  the  truth  about  morality 

1  Zarathustra,  i.  17. 

2  The  phrase  is  Professor  Lichtenberger's :  Gospel  of  Superman, 
p.  39. 


114      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

must  be  permanently  concealed  from  the  mob,  and 
that,  as  the  old  political  cynic  remarked,  "  the  people's 
only  concern  with  the  laws  is  to  obey  them,"  he  might 
have  maintained  a  Macchiavellian  consistency.  He 
would  still  have  been  open  to  our  criticism  in  last 
lecture ;  he  would  still  have  been  guilty  of  an  impotent 
denial  of  the  moral  axioms.  But,  as  if  to  involve 
himself  in  every  possible  contradiction,  he  claims 
that  lower  man  shall  gladly  acquiesce  in  his  own 
obliteration.  How  can  this  be  if  the  sole  motive 
of  which  human  nature  is  susceptible  is  will  to 
power  ? 

This  crucial  absurdity  again  and  again  reappears; 
one  is  amazed  that  along  such  a  line  of  thinking 
Nietzsche  should  have  fancied  that  any  real  rejoinder 
to  pessimism  could  be  found.  When  the  prophet 
describes  the  "  last  man,"  who  has  done  nothing 
better  than  to  "  devise  happiness,"  the  vulgar  herd 
cry  out:  "Give  us  this  last  man,  0  Zarathustra; 
make  us  into  these  last  men  !  Then  will  we  make 
thee  a  present  of  the  Superman,"1 — I  confess  that  my 
own  sympathies  are  with  that  vulgar  herd,  though 
Zarathustra  "  turned  sad  and  said  to  his  heart: 
*  They  understand  me  not;  I  am  not  the  mouth  for 
these  ears.'  '  We  must,  however,  protest  that  we 
understand  him  well  enough,  but  we  detect  in  what 
he  says  a  very  simple  fallacy.  He  insists  upon  evalu- 
ing  the  world  as  if  from  the  standpoint  of  some  out 
sider  whose  property  the  world  is,  and  who  wants  to 
make  the  best  of  it,  developing  here,  truncating  there, 
as  the  end  he  has  set  before  himself  may  dictate.  He 

1  Zarathustra:  Prologue,  5. 


THE  SUPERMAN  115 

refuses  to  recognize  that  the  instrument  he  is  asking 
us  to  perfect  is  an  instrument  constituted  of  living, 
sentient  persons,  that  it  has  no  value  except  as  a  means 
to  the  highest  life  for  such  persons,  and  that  it  is  to 
such  persons  that  his  appeal  is  addressed.  Nothing 
could  more  plainly  violate  his  own  principle  that  the 
purpose  for  man  must  be  created  from  within,  not 
accepted  from  some  authority  without.1  In  short, 
his  standpoint  is  almost  that  which  the  older  Calvin- 
istic  theologians  attributed  to  the  Divine  Being. 
They  rejoiced  in  such  passages  as,  "  For  this  cause 
have  I  raised  thee  up,  that  I  might  show  in  thee  My 
power."  They  looked  upon  humanity  as  a  more  or 
less  vile  material  upon  which  the  Creator  might  so 
operate  without  regard  to  its  intrinsic  claims  as  to 
display  His  own  majesty  and  to  realize  an  arbitrary 
will.  It  was  this  that  moved  the  impious  wit  of 
Burns  when  he  wrote: 

0  Thou,  wha  in  the  heavens  dost  dwell, 
Wha,  as  it  pleases  best  Thysel', 
Sends  ane  to  heaven  and  ten  to  hell, 

A'  for  Thy  glory, 
And  no  for  ony  guid  or  ill 

They've  done  afore  Thee. 

Nietzsche's  attitude  towards  Superman  is  not  so 
very  far  away  from  that  of  Holy  Willie  or  Habakkuk 
Mucklewrath  towards  the  God  whom  they  wor 
shipped.  Mutatis  mutandis  the  same  criticism  ap 
plies  to  both.  I  had  occasion,  some  years  ago,  to 
write  about  this,  and  I  may  be  permitted  to  reproduce 
what  I  then  said: 

1   Will  to  Power,  20. 


116      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

"  Anyone  can  understand  the  distinction  between 
that  which  is  a  means  to  an  end  and  that  which  is  an 
end  in  itself.  A  piece  of  machinery  is  admirable  so 
long  as  it  does  its  work  well;  as  soon  as  it  has  out 
lasted  its  efficiency,  or  as  soon  as  something  else  is 
invented  which  will  do  the  work  better,  the  old 
machinery  is  '  scrapped.'  Whether  this  stage  has 
been  reached  must  be  decided  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  man  who  owns  the  machine,  and  for  whose 
purposes  it  is  employed.  The  dynamo  generates 
electricity  to  drive  the  city  trams;  and  we  hope  that 
as  we  have  experience  of  one  type  of  dynamo  after 
another  we  shall  discover  new  models  which  will 
make  it  worth  while  to  discard  the  old  ones.  An 
electrical  appliance  is  '  something  that  shall  be  sur 
passed  ' ;  each  appliance  in  turn  '  leads  on  to  the  crea 
tion  of  something  beyond  itself,'  and  in  such  sur 
passing  and  creating,  the  energies  of  many  scientists 
are  absorbed.  But  the  whole  process  of  improving 
upon  and  casting  aside  our  old  mechanical  servants 
is  justified  by  the  consideration  that  the  only  value 
these  instruments  have  lies  in  their  power  of  minis 
tering  to  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  those  human 
beings  whom  science  itself  exists  to  serve. 

"  Surely,  however,  we  are  offered  the  argument 
from  analogy  run  mad  when  we  are  asked  to  say  that 
humanity  ought  to  be  ready  and  willing  to  scrap 
itself  in  the  interest  of  some  sort  of  creature  higher 
than  humanity,  whose  coming  may  thus  be  accele 
rated.  Cui  bono  ?"1 

If  it  be  said  that  this  means  the  adoption  of  a 

1  Questions  of  the  Day  in  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  pp.  258, 
259. 


THE  SUPERMAN  117 

selfish  attitude,  the  repudiation  of  that  higher  im 
pulse  which  makes  a  man  ready  and  willing  to  devote 
all  that  he  has  and  is  to  a  sacred  cause,  I  reply  that 
such  phrases  are  indeed  the  language  of  a  high 
morality,  they  are  the  language  of  Christian  morality, 
but  they  are  logically  antithetical  to  the  language  of 
Nietzsche. 


LECTUKE  V 

ARISTOCRACY 

"  WHOM,"  exclaims  Nietzsche,  "  do  I  hate  most 
among  all  the  rabble  of  to-day  ?  The  Socialist,  who 
undermines  the  working  man's  instincts,  who  destroys 
his  satisfaction  with  his  insignificant  existence,  who 
makes  him  envious,  and  teaches  him  revenge." 

This  sounds  like  the  explosion  of  an  English  Duke, 
in  a  specially  candid  moment,  against  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  or  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald.  Yet  Nietzsche's 
defence  of  aristocracy  is  not  a  defence  of  English 
Toryism;  it  would  not  serve  as  an  argument  for 
"  the  rights  of  property,"  and  only  in  a  minor  degree 
for  the  prerogatives  of  the  House  of  Lords.1  There  is 
no  part  of  his  teaching  which  requires  to  be  examined 
with  more  care,  and  perhaps  none  which  displays, 
amid  the  inevitable  exaggerations  and  fanaticisms, 
such  subtle  power  of  analysis  and  penetration. 


I. 

An  aristocrat,  for  Nietzsche,  is  not  a  man  whom 
the  accident  of  birth  has  placed  in  a  position  of  social 
importance.  He  must  be  one,  as  our  author  puts 

1  Cf.  Will  to  Power,  942:  "  The  only  nobility  is  that  of  birth 
and  blood.      (I  do  not  refer  here  to  the  prefix  '  Lord  '  and 
'Almanack  de  Gotha  :  this  is  a  parenthesis  for  donkeys.)" 

118 


ARISTOCRACY  119 

it,  "  for  whom  the  exploitation  of  mankind  will  have 
meaning  'V1  he  must  be  one  whose  ego  is  sufficiently 
massive  to  be  worth  the  immolation  of  a  multitude. 
He  must  be  a  higher  man.  An  aristocracy  is  a 
group  of  higher  men,  holding  together,  united  by 
their  common  contrast  with  the  herd,  but  possessing 
in  virtue  of  their  association  with  one  another,  in 
virtue  of  their  caste  spirit,  qualities  which  would  not 
belong  in  the  same  degree  to  each  in  isolation.  Thus 
Nietzsche  passes  from  the  standpoint  of  individual 
ethics  to  the  standpoint  of  sociology  and  politics. 

In  our  author's  view,  the  equipment  which  gives 
higher  man  his  distinction  is  not  something  that  he 
has  acquired;  it  is  something  which  he  brought  with 
him  into  the  world,  something  which  he  to  whom  it 
has  been  given  can  never  lose,  and  he  from  whom  it 
has  been  withheld  can  never  successfully  counter 
feit. 

One  might  take  this  to  mean  that  Nietzsche's 
"  nobility "  is  constituted  by  exceptional  talent, 
wherever  that  talent  is  found,  and  that  in  consequence 
those  whom  society  now  ranks  low  and  those  whom 
it  now  ranks  high  may  often  have  to  change  places 
under  the  new  scale  of  valuation.  In  short,  it  looks 
like  an  "  aristocracy  of  intellect."  But,  singularly 
enough,  this  is  a  phrase  which  always  roused  Niet 
zsche's  anger.  '  Wherever,"  he  says,  "people  speak 
of  the  aristocracy  of  intellect,  reasons  are  generally  not 
lacking  for  concealing  something;  it  is  known  to  be 
a  password  among  ambitious  Jews.  Intellect  alone 
does  not  ennoble;  on  the  contrary,  something  is 

1   Will  to  Power,  866. 


120      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

always  needed  to  ennoble  intellect.  What,  then,  is 
needed  ?  Blood.  .  .  .  The  only  nobility  is  that  of 
birth  and  blood."1  This  is  not  one  of  our  author's 
inconsistencies;  his  view  of  heredity  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  his  thought. 

For  "  intellectual  "  men  he  had  a  very  consider 
able  scorn;  it  comes  out  especially  in  the  contempt 
with  which  he  uniformly  speaks  of  a  scientist.  In 
one  aphorism  he  brackets  together  modern  virtue, 
modern  intellect,  and  modern  science,  as  "  forms  of 
disease,"2  and  he  often  alludes  to  the  student  of 
Nature  as  an  inferior  craftsman,  belonging  to  the 
class  of  the  mediocre,  useful  in  his  way,  but  very  far 
from  the  first  rank.  At  times  Nietzsche  lets  him 
self  go  with  violence,  calling  Darwin  an  "  intellectual 
plebeian,"  using  such  terms  as  "  Lilliputian "  or 
:e  presumptuous  pigmy."  His  reason  for  this  is  a 
necessary  outcome  of  his  mode  of  valuing.  A 
scientist,  he  tells  us,  is  always  a  reflector,  never  a 
creator;  he  aims  to  be  "  objective,"  to  report  with 
fidelity  what  he  finds;  scientific  merit  depends  on 
the  thoroughness  with  which  a  man  overcomes  the 
personal  equation,  keeps  everything  of  himself  out 
of  his  results.  Only  thus  can  "  objectivity "  be 
reached.  If  the  goal  is  disinterested  knowledge,  then 
the  seeker  after  it  must  welcome  whatever  Nature 
presents  with  "  a  radiant  and  impartial  hospitality  ";3 
in  short,  he  must  be  a  mirror,  and  one  scientist  differs 
from  another  only  in  the  completeness  with  which 
the  mirror's  face  has  been  polished,  so  that  it  will 
give  back  unadulterated  all  that  is  held  up  before  it. 

1  Witt  to  Power,  942.  2  Ibid.,  50. 

3  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  207. 


ARISTOCRACY  121 

If  anything  is  legitimately  added,  this  is  only  by  way 
of  "  discovering  laws  "  —that  is,  arranging  the  data 
in  such  a  system  that  they  shall  be  more  readily 
available  for  reference  through  being  shortly  sum 
marized. 

Now  this,  in  Nietzsche's  view,  was  an  important 
work,  just  as  it  is  important  that  we  should  have 
good  joiners  or  good  plumbers  to  make  a  house  more 
habitable.  But  to  speak  of  such  scientific  reporting 
as  if  it  were  man's  highest  activity,  or  of  those  who 
excel  in  it  as  if  they  were  the  noblest  of  their  species, 
was  to  confound  life  with  the  tools  of  life,  to  put  the 
menial  tradesman  in  the  place  of  the  master  whom 
he  serves.  The  supreme  purpose  is  the  perfecting 
of  mankind,  the  expansion  of  its  power,  the  accom 
plishment  of  its  highest  values.  What  assurance 
have  we  that  objective  knowledge  is  the  sole,  or  is 
even  a  reliable,  instrument  towards  this  ?  Granted 
that  science  has  enabled  us  in  some  degree  to  sub 
jugate  the  forces  of  Nature;  so  far  as  it  does  so  it  is 
in  place.  But  it  has  claimed  a  higher  position  than 
that  of  means  to  an  end.  Under  the  rubric,  "  Truth 
at  any  price"  it  has  affected  to  be  an  end  in  itself, 
and  this  claim  Nietzsche  will  not  allow,  for  he  holds 
that  there  is  a  price  which  humanity  is  not  entitled 
to  pay. 

The  point  is  made  clear  by  an  interesting  com 
parison  of  the  aim  of  science  with  the  object  of 
religious  worship.  He  who  said  of  the  Divine  Being, 
"  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him,"  is,  for 
Nietzsche,  very  similar  in  attitude  to  him  who  erects 
a  standard  of  objectivity  to  which  one  must,  at  all 
costs,  be  faithful.  And  each  is,  he  thinks,  disloyal 


122      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

to  mankind;  each  is  a  "  back  worldsman,"  ready  to 
sacrifice  earth  with  all  its  values  to  some  problematic 
or  mythical  beyond.  "  There  is  no  doubt  about 
it,"  he  declares;  "  the  truthful  man — truthful  in  the 
extreme  and  dangerous  sense  which  faith  in  science 
supposes — affirms  thereby  his  faith  in  a  world  other 
than  that  of  life,  of  nature,  of  history,  and  from  that 
very  moment  predicates  this  '  otherworld.'  Well ! 
What  can  he  do  with  its  contrary,  with  this  world, 
our  world,  except  to  deny  it  ?x  Did  not  such  a  man 
resemble  in  his  outlook  the  passion  of  the  ascetic  ? 
The  latter  would  immolate  anything — his  child,  his 
natural  instincts — to  a  God  whom  such  offerings 
pleased;  the  former  was  a  nihilist  of  the  human 
values,  prepared,  if  need  be,  to  go  on  with  his  scientific 
negations  though  they  should  lead  to  a  paralysis  of 
life  and  will.  Nothing  must  be  withheld  from  the 
devouring  jaws  of  "  Truth  "  ! 

There  is  a  ring  of  unreality  about  this.  It  will  be 
at  once  objected  that  truth  and  falsity  are  not 
material  to  be  bought  and  sold  with  a  keen  eye  to 
profit  and  loss.  It  will  be  said  that  one  seeks  to 
know  things  as  they  are,  not  from  any  expected  gain 
that  such  knowledge  may  bring,  but  from  a  psycho 
logical  necessity  which  cannot  believe  and  disbelieve 
at  will.  It  would  take  us  too  far  out  of  our  course 
to  discuss  this;  but  one  must  point  out  in  defence  of 
Nietzsche's  consistency  that  for  him  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  this  disinterested  intellectual  com 
pulsion.  He  anticipated  in  many  respects  the  view 
that  is  now  called  "  pragmatism."  A  belief  for  him 

1  Joyful  Science,  p.  344. 


ARISTOCRACY 

was  no  product  of  pure  thinking,  without  admixture 
from   a   volitional   source;   indeed,    such   purity   of 
thought  was  a  chimsera.     A   philosopher's  opinions 
were  at  bottom  rooted   in   a   non-intellectual   soil. 
The  thinker,  as  Professor  Lichtenberger  puts  it,  "  is 
in  reality  a  cunning  advocate,  pleading  the  cause  of 
his   prejudices."1    Kant,  for   example,    was   first   a 
Christian,  and  then  a  builder  of  such  world  schemes 
as  would  furnish  a  basis  for  Christian  faith.     Current 
philosophy   was   "  insidious   divinity,"    and   current 
science  was  a  not  less  insidious  justifying  of  needs 
other  than  the  religious.     Thus,  in  his  paradoxical 
way,  Nietzsche  defines  truth  as  "  that  sort  of  error 
without  which  a  certain  species  of  living  being  can 
not  exist.    The  value  for  life  is  ultimately  decisive."5 
He  would  have  wholly  agreed  with  Mr.  Schiller  that 
the  foundation  truths— such  as  the  Uniformity  of 
Nature— are  at  bottom  postulates,  which  we  must 
believe  if  the  universe  is  to  be  made  fit  to  live  in. 

Thus,  for  Nietzsche  it  was  a  mistake  to  think  of 
experience  as  something  made  for  us,  something 
which  we  must  accept  as  it  comes;  it  was  rather, 
through  and  through,  made  by  us,  for  it  was  inter 
preted  by  us,  and  the  interpretation  meant  all  the 
difference.  The  supreme  place  of  the  scientist  rested 
on  the  false  assumption  that  the  "  given  "  cannot  be 
affected  by  the  attitude  of  him  who  receives  it.  If 
this  were  so,  then  our  highest  task  would  be  to  clean 
the  surface  of  our  receptive  mirror,  to  remove  the 

1  The  Gospel  of  Superman,    p.    158.     I   am   much   indebted 
throughout  this  paragraph  to  Professor  Lichtenberger's  masterly 
exposition. 

2  Will  to  Power,  493. 


124      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Baconian  Idola.  But  consider,  for  example,  how 
different  is  a  sociological  "  fact  "  when  absorbed  into 
the  consciousness  of  a  Nietzsche  and  a  Schopenhauer 
respectively  !  The  economic  "  truth  "  that  a  cer 
tain  piece  of  legislation  will  extinguish  a  particular 
class  of  traders  is  one  thing  to  the  man  of  universal 
benevolence;  it  is  quite  another  to  him  who  sees 
in  the  disappearance  of  that  class  a  step  of  racial 
advance.  Thus,  the  first  of  artists  is  not  he  who 
amasses  material ;  it  is  he  who  directs  how  the  material 
is  to  be  viewed  and  manipulated.  Scientist  might 
strive  against  and  surpass  scientist,  as  the  potsherd 
strives  with  the  potsherds  of  the  earth;  but  above 
them  all  is  the  creative  spirit  who  stamps  values  upon 
what  they  produce.  And  if  the  stamping  is  done 
with  a  single  eye  to  race  perfection,  an  untruth  may 
often  have  to  be  valued  higher  than  a  truth.  There 
are  situations  in  which  the  things  we  most  prize  can 
be  conserved  only  through  the  acceptance  of  "  false 
hood."  When  these  occur,  "  objective  reality " 
must  go  by  the  board;  if  lying  is  essential  to  life, 
then  by  all  means  let  us  have  life  even  through  lying. 
'  The  falsity  of  a  judgment  is  not  for  us  an  objection 
to  this  judgment."1  'As  a  final  confirmation  of  his 
view  that  science  moves  on  a  low  level,  Nietzsche 
points  out  that  scientists  have  begun  to  glory  in 
their  scepticism;  they  actually  make  a  distinction 
out  of  the  impotence  of  their  will ;  they  hold  suspense 
of  judgment  to  be  an  intellectual  feat,  though  any 
one  can  see  that  faith  in  something  is  a  sine  qya  non 
of  progress,  that  universal  disbelief  is  the  road  to 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  i.  4. 


ARISTOCRACY  125 

decay.1  They  are  inferior  even  to  the  Christians, 
for  these  at  least  have  set  a  goal  before  them.  For 
himself,  he  is  a  humanist  first  and  last. 

Hence  the  aristocrat  was  not,  according  to 
Nietzsche's  scale,  an  "  objective  man "  like  the 
scientist,  nor  a  "  productive  man  "  like  the  poet; 
he  was  one  whose  will  called  values  into  life,  whose 
personality  made  his  own  values  recognized  by  the 
weaker  personalities  with  which  he  came  in  contact. 
Highest  of  all  was  he  whose  values  were  those  of 
man  on  the  supreme  level  of  development,  the 
Uebermensch  of  last  lecture.  But  such  insight  was 
the  fruit  of  no  special  ingenuity  in  reasoning;  it  was 
an  inheritance  from  generations  of  men  who  had 
ruled ;  it  was  the  tradition  of  an  upper  class.  Heredity 
and  blood  made  all  the  difference;  the  higher  type 
had  "special  conditions  of  origin."2  Nietzsche's 
view  seems  to  have  been  that  just  as  there  are  occu 
pational  diseases,  ailments  engendered  by  particular 
handicrafts,  so  a  brand  of  character  is  fixed  upon 
everyone  by  the  sort  of  life  which  his  progenitors 
have  lived.  "  It  cannot  be  effaced  from  a  man's 
soul  what  his  ancestors  have  preferably  and  most 
constantly  done." 3 

What,  then,  concretely,  are  the  characteristic 
values  which  a  ruling  order  imprints  upon  those  who 
belong  to  it,  and  which  it  hands  down  to  its  descend 
ants  ? 

1.  First  among  them  is  a  proud  self-respect,  and 
a  proud  self-confidence.  Nietzsche  draws  with  great 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  208. 

2  Will  to  Power,  866. 

3  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  264. 


126      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

clearness  the  distinction  between  pride  and  vanity.1 
The  source  of  life  for  the  one  is  outside,  the  source  of 
life  for  the  other  is  within.  A  vain  man  lives  on  the 
good  opinion  of  somebody  else ;  his  self -feeling  depends 
wholly  on  what  others  think  and  say  of  him.  He 
welcomes  praise  and  writhes  under  depreciation, 
whatever  be  the  place  from  which  these  come.  He 
subjects  himself  to  them  by  turns.  Thus  we  often 
see  the  monstrous  paradox  of  the  man  who  would 
arouse  in  onlookers  an  approval  which  he  knows  to 
be  undeserved,  that  he  may  later  come  to  believe  in 
that  very  approval  which  he  has  fraudulently  manu 
factured.  In  contrast  with  such  a  character  is  that 
of  the  proud  spirit,  assured  of  its  own  worth,  "  able 
to  call  its  own  passions  good  without  the  help  of  a 
moral  formula,"2  following  instinct,  suspicious  of 
itself  only  when  it  is  being  generally  applauded. 
Pride  is  most  secure,  and  it  is,  morally  speaking, 
most  fruitful,  when  one  feels  himself  congenitally 
isolated  from  the  masses  around.  Such  a  man  is 
the  very  reverse  of  those  who  aim,  as  Spencer  puts  it, 
at  "  adaptation  to  environment";  it  is  rather  in  a 
hostile  environment  that  the  aristocrat  reveals  his 
strength;  it  is  there  that  he  shows  the  virility  of  his 
character.  In  misfortune  he  is  the  last  to  ask  for 
someone  else's  help,  much  less  for  his  pity.  To 
sympathize  with  him  is  to  insult  him,  for  it  is  to 
forget  that  such  as  he  can  exploit  misfortune  itself, 
can  absorb  it  and  rise  above  it.  He  will  court  no 
man;  he  will  not  even  condescend  to  refute  a  baseless 
calumny.  Nietzsche's  account  of  the  aristocrat  often 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  261. 

2  Will  to  Power,  916. 


ARISTOCRACY 

reminds  one  of  Byron's  picture  of  Lara  looking  on  at 
the  dancers,  more  human  than  he  will  allow  anyone 
to  think,  too  contemptuous  of  the  herd  to  trouble 
about  maintaining  among  them  his  good  name: 

Yet  there  was  softness  too  in  his  regard 
At  times,  a  heart  as  not  by  nature  hard; 
But  once  perceived,  his  spirit  seemed  to  chide 
Such  weakness  as  unworthy  of  its  pride, 
And  steel'd  itself,  as  scorning  to  redeem 
One  doubt  from  others'  half  withheld  esteem.1 

2.  Again,  the  aristocrat  possesses  an  abounding 
energy.  He  will  do  many  things  for  his  race. 
"  Every  elevation  of  the  type  '  man,'  '  writes 
Nietzsche,  "  has  hitherto  been  the  work  of  an  aris 
tocratic  society,  and  so  it  will  always  be."2  The 
reason  is  twofold,  (a)  Only  through  observing  from 
above  the  distances  that  separate  actual  men  can 
the  notion  of  yet  higher  possibilities  be  formed;  only 
through  this  "  pathos  of  distance  "  could  "  that  other 
more  mysterious  pathos  have  arisen,  the  longing  for 
an  ever-widening  distance  within  the  soul  itself,  the 
formation  of  ever  higher,  rarer,  more  comprehensive 
states."5  This  passage  alone  is  enough  to  show  that 
it  is  not  the  aristocrat  in  the  conventional  sense  that 
Nietzsche  has  before  him;  for  that  sort  of  person  it 
will  hardly  be  argued  that  the  self-consciousness  of 
rank  need  have  this  psychological  result. 

(6)  The  progressive  man  is  necessarily  an  innovator ; 
he  breaks  away  from  custom,  he  devises  his  own 
values,  and  asserts  them  fearlessly  against  convention. 

1  Lara,  i.  17. 

2  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  257. 

3  loc.  cit. 


128      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

But  no  society  can  allow  such  deviation  from  type 
until  it  has  reached  a  certain  security  of  strength; 
it  must  have  become  safe  from  the  attack  of  its 
neighbours,  and  it  can  effect  this  only  through  a 
long  period  of  uniform  discipline.  As  Diocletian 
says  in  the  Virgin  Martyr  : 

In  all  growing  empires 
Even  cruelty  is  useful ;  some  must  suffer 
And  be  set  up  examples  to  strike  terror 
In  others  though  far  off;  but  when  a  state 
Is  raised  to  her  perfection  and  her  bases 
Too  firm  to  shrink  .or  yield  we  may  use  mercy, 
And  do  't  with  safety.1 

Our  author  held  that  strength  like  this  cannot  come 
from  the  welter  of  a  democratic  community;  only 
after  an  extended  rule  of  aristocrats  has  consolidated 
the  mass  may  the  experiment  be  tried  of  allowing  an 
individual  to  strike  out  for  himself.  The  morality 
of  custom  is  unsuited  to  high  creative  types  just 
because  it  is  so  perfectly  suited  to  mediocre  uniform 
types. 

One  may  grant  all  this,  but  may  ask  impatiently 
what  heredity  and  blood  have  got  to  do  with  it.  Is 
not  Nietzsche  describing  simply  a  strong  original 
personality  ?  And  may  not  this  appear  quite  as 
well  in  one  rank  as  in  another  ?  Is  it  not  even  more 
frequent  in  men  who  have  had  to  "  make  their  own 
way  "  ?  We  must  remember,  however,  that  Nietzsche 
is  dealing  with  moral  values,  and  that  from  his  stand 
point  it  was  psychologically  impossible  for  anyone  to 
take  on  such  matters  a  disinterested  intellectual  view. 
We  must  value  our  own  type,  for  our  sole  impulse  is 

1  Massinger,  Virgin  Martyr,  I.  i. 


ARISTOCRACY  129 

will  to  power.  Hence  a  man  of  the  people  must 
adopt  the  people's  values;  mentally  he  may  be  far 
above  them,  but  emotionally  and  instinctively  he  is 
one  of  themselves.  If  we  want  an  innovation  upon 
the  code  of  the  herd,  we  must  look  for  it  to  those  who 
have  been  brought  up  in  contemptuous  isolation  from 
the  herd.  Nothing  of  the  sort  can  come  from  the 
tamed,  drilled,  domesticated  creature  who  has  been 
trained  to  look  upon  moral  maxims  as  being  "  by 
their  very  nature  universal." 

3.  Arising  from  the  aristocrat's  pride  we  get  two 
conspicuous  virtues,  truthfulness  and  magnanimity. 
Lying  and  deceit  are  the  weapons  of  the  weaker,  the 
subordinate  class;  they  are  like  those  methods  of 
treachery  by  which  feeble  warriors  seek  to  overcome 
through  guile  those  whom  they  dare  not  meet  in  the 
open  field.     And,  though  the  slave-morality  enjoins  a 
man  to  speak  the  truth,  this  veracity  is  quite  different 
from  the  veracity  of  a  master.     "  Shall  Csesar  send 
a  lie  ?"     There  you  have  the  voice  of  the  upper  order, 
the  spirit  which  is  candid  by  reason  of  its  dignity. 
But  for  the  proletariate  the  censure  of  lying  came 
from  a  sordid  ingenuity  of  self-defence;  they  were 
afraid  of  one  another.     Everyone  apprehended  that 
someone   else   might   steal   a   march   upon   himself; 
hence  they  spread  abroad  the  idea  that,  under  awful 
religious  penalties,  every  man  must  make  his  thoughts 
and  plans  transparent  to  every  other.     "  Thou  shalt 
be  recognizable;  thou  shalt  express  thy  inner  nature 
by  means  of  clear  and  constant  signs,  otherwise  thou 
art  dangerous."1    The  aristocrat  will  carry  this  frank, 
open   character  into   both  his   friendships  and  his 

1  Will  to  Power,  277. 

9 


130      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

enmities;  he  has  not,  like  the  plebeian  man,  been 
forced  to  take  "  prudence  "  as  his  highest  virtue.  He 
"  lives  dangerously,"  and  exults  in  the  risk;  no  calcu 
lator,  but  straightforward  and  passionate  in  his  im 
pulses.  Hence  even  his  anger  leaves  no  sting.  Very 
commonly  he  quite  forgets  a  meanness  that  has  been 
practised  upon  him;  he  is  too  contemptuous  to  let 
such  a  thing  obsess  his  mind.  Contrast  with  this  the 
duplicity  and  malice  of  low-class  revenge,  lurking  in 
the  dark  for  the  chance  to  strike  from  behind.  To  such 
a  soul  nothing  is  so  congenial  as  "  hidden  crannies, 
tortuous  paths,  and  back  doors;  everything  secret 
appeals  to  him  as  his  world,  his  safety,  his  balm."1 

4.  A  further  mark  of  high  rank  is  the  possession 
of  an  instinct  for  rank,  just  as  a  chief  sign  of  our 
vulgarized  Europe  is  the  complete  decay  of  reverence, 
the  feeling  that  everyone  is  as  good  as  everyone  else, 
that  each  may  sit  in  judgment  upon  all  and  deliver 
his  opinion  upon  everything.  Men  are  not  born 
equal;  they  differ  as  widely  as  the  members  of  any 
other  species.  He  who  knows  and  acknowledges  a 
superior  when  he  meets  him  attests,  not  a  spirit  of 
cringing,  but  a  nobleness  of  insight.  Herein  is  a 
touchstone  by  which  the  quality  of  souls  may  be 
judged.  In  this  the  peasantry  is  far  more  refined 
than  the  bourgeoisie.  Lowest  of  all  is  the  "  news 
paper-reading  demi-monde  of  intellect,"  the  unlovely 
product  of  universal  suffrage.  "  Nothing  is  so  re 
pulsive  as  their  lack  of  shame,  the  easy  insolence  of 
eye  and  hand  with  which  they  touch,  taste,  and 
finger  everything."2  To  correct  this  it  is  necessary 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  10. 

2  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  263. 


ARISTOCRACY  131 

to  hedge  certain  things  about  with  an  artificial  pro 
tection.  A  tyrant  authority  will  in  time  compel 
that  reverence  in  the  mob  which  a  noble  nature  would 
instinctively  yield.  Nietzsche  finds  that  an  important 
discipline  of  manners  has  in  this  way  arisen  from  the 
homage  that  Europe  has  so  long  had  to  pay  to  the 
Bible.  It  is  much  for  the  sentiment  to  have  been  at 
last  "  instilled  into  the  masses  that  they  are  not 
allowed  to  touch  everything,  that  there  are  holy 
experiences  before  which  they  must  take  off  their 
shoes  and  keep  away  the  unclean  hand."  But  that 
man  has  in  him  something  of  the  aristocrat — what 
ever  his  social  rank  may  be — who  needs  no  such 
external  coercions,  who  "feels  the  nearness  of  what 
is  worthiest  of  respect."1 

5.  Finally,  the  aristocrat  assumes  as  axiomatic 
that  men  are  of  unequal  worth,  that  he  and  his  class 
are  related  to  the  common  herd  as  the  precious  ore 
is  related  to  the  tons  of  quartz  from  which  the  ore 
is  drawn,  and  that  a  multitude  is  well  sacrificed  to 
maintain  the  quality  of  a  few.  This  is  the  real  point 
of  that  individualism  in  Nietzsche  of  which  we  have 
been  hearing  so  much.  He  had  no  expectation,  and 
less  desire,  to  elevate  mankind  as  a  whole ;  his  thought 
was  for  a  few  high  personalities.  '  The  genera] 
welfare,"  he  writes,  "  is  no  ideal,  no  goal,  nothing 
that  can  be  at  all  grasped;  it  is  only  a  nostrum."2 
"  Humanity  must  always  act  so  as  to  evolve  men  of 
genius;  it  has  no  other  task."3  Nor  did  he  advocate 
this  because  he  anticipated  that  from  men  of  genius 

1  loc.  dt. 

2  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  228. 

3  Schopenhauer  as  Educator,  section  6. 


132      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

the  race  would  ultimately  benefit.  This  softening 
suggestion  by  Professor  Lichtenberger1  has  no  genuine 
support  in  anything  that  our  author  has  written,  and 
he  has  said  much  that  is  wholly  at  variance  with  it. 
He  insists,  indeed,  that  there  must  be  a  "  sound  and 
well-constituted  mediocrity,"2  but  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  mediocre,  solely  for  the  sake  of  the  elevated 
few  who  need  such  a  basis  to  rest  upon.  The  aris 
tocrat  is  to  owe  no  obligation  save  to  his  equals;  if 
he  does  not  feel  like  this,  he  is  unfit  for  his  caste. 
No  one  could  breathe  a  deeper  scorn  than  Nietzsche's 
for  the  weakness  that  sees  in  the  good  of  all,  or  even 
in  the  good  of  the  majority,  a  motive  to  which  con 
sideration  should  be  paid.  Speaking  of  the  upper 
rank,  he  says: 

"  Its  fundamental  belief  must  be  precisely  that 
society  is  not  allowed  to  exist  for  its  own  sake,  but 
only  as  a  foundation  and  scaffolding,  by  means  of 
which  a  select  class  of  beings  may  be  able  to  elevate 
themselves  to  their  higher  duties,  and  in  general  to 
a  higher  existence."3 

And  again: 

"  At  the  risk  of  displeasing  innocent  ears,  I  sub 
mit  that  egoism  belongs  to  the  essence  of  a  noble  soul : 
I  mean  the  unalterable  belief  that  to  such  a  being  as 
'  we,'  other  beings  must  naturally  be  in  subjection, 
and  have  to  sacrifice  themselves."4 

I  should  not  multiply  references  upon  a  point  so 
clear  if  some  recent  writers  had  not  attempted, 

1  Cf.  Gospel  of  Superman,  p.  171. 

2  Will  to  Power,  864.    Cf.  ibid.,  892  ff. 

3  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  258.  4  Ibid.,  265. 


ARISTOCRACY  133 

against  the  plain  sense  of  Nietzsche's  language,  to 
maintain  that  he  was  an  erratic  but  a  loyal  supporter 
of  the  good  of  all.  I  venture  to  say  that  no  "  pneu 
matic  "  interpreter  of  Scripture  ever  had  a  harder 
task  for  his  perverse  ingenuity. 

Such  is  Nietzsche's  view  of  the  two  orders  of  man 
kind:  the  one  self-reliant,  bending  circumstance  to 
its  will,  at  home  in  prosperity,  yet  able  to  despise 
and  even  to  exploit  misfortune;  open  and  forgiving 
towards  inferiors,  because  too  haughty  to  deceive 
them  or  to  remember  their  faults;  sensitive  to  rank 
like  an  artist  to  the  shades  of  colour,  taking  its  own 
caste  worth  for  granted,  and  acknowledging  no  debts 
to  a  caste  below,  valuing  itself  like  some  precious  ore 
just  in  proportion  to  its  rarity;  the  creative  and 
reforming  spirit  which  gives  birth  to  every  new 
ideal  of  man:  the  other  cringing,  parasitic,  seeking 
comfort  above  all  else,  subterranean  in  its  hatreds, 
envious  and  revengeful  towards  all  that  outshines 
itself,  with  a  lust  to  break  down  all  natural  barriers, 
fostering  the  mediocre  and  crushing  the  exceptional, 
fit  for  nothing  but  to  pace  the  round  of  a  cast-iron 
formula.  Though  he  saw  the  difficulties  of  making 
such  a  claim  good,  Nietzsche  maintained  that  the 
first  order  corresponds,  roughly  speaking,  to  those 
of  high  social  descent,  and  that  the  latter  corresponds 
in  the  same  approximate  fashion  to  the  proletariate. 
The  separation  was  not  one  which  had  been  produced 
artificially,  and  which  artificial  means  might  over 
come.  It  was  not  desirable  to  overcome  it;  any 
attempt  to  do  so — for  example,  through  inter 
marriage — would  level  down  rather  than  up.  And 
the  tragedy  of  Europe  lay  just  in  this :  that  the  modern 


134      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

creed  of  equality  hindered  us  from  making  the  separa 
tion  still  more  acute.  Agitations,  revolutions,  wrong- 
headed  systems  of  thought,  mean  and  grovelling 
religions,  had  all  contributed,  like  a  fermentation  of 
liquor,  to  bring  the  dregs  to  the  top.  The  slave  had 
begun  to  masquerade  in  the  diadem,  and  the  master 
was  serving  at  the  tables. 

History,  as  our  author  is  never  tired  of  pointing 
out,  reveals  many  a  conflict,  many  a  clash  of  op 
posing  systems  and  opposing  ideals,  but  this  was 
the  inner  spring  behind  them  all;  there  was  no  other 
so  ubiquitous,  so  pregnant  with  consequence.  It  was 
the  struggle  between  oligarchy  and  democracy,  be 
tween  the  rule  of  the  few  that  are  competent  and 
the  rule  of  the  many  that  are  incompetent,  between 
capacity  relying  on  its  native  worth  and  stupidity 
backed  by  overwhelming  numbers.  There  had  been 
times,  in  the  great  pagan  age,  when  the  issue  was 
decided  aright,  when,  as  it  always  should  be,  the 
race  was  indeed  to  the  swift,  and  the  battle  to  the 
strong.  Those  were  times  of  progress,  when  all  that 
was  best  in  the  fibre  of  Europe  was  knit  together; 
times  which  had  left  us  a  legacy  far  beyond  our 
deserts,  a  legacy  which  we  were  too  pusillanimous 
to  take  up.  The  darkened  glass  of  Christian  ways 
of  thinking  had  obscured  for  two  thousand  years  the 
real  issue  between  a  high  and  a  low  humanity. 

He  looked  at  the  Greek  770X19  resting  on  a  basis  of 
slave  labour,  at  Plato's  contempt  for  the  swinish 
multitude,  at  Aristotle's  omission  of  all  blessings  for 
the  poor;  he  looked  at  the  exploits  of  the  men  of 
action,  at  the  civilizing  wars  of  Alexander,  at  the 
Imperialism  of  Julius  Csesar,  at  the  world-dominion 


ARISTOCRACY  135 

of  Augustus;  he  recognized  that  in  all  this  there  was 
necessarily  involved  a  natural  right  of  the  few  to 
command,  and  a  natural  necessity  of  the  masses  to 
submit.     He  turned  to  the  New  Testament,  and  he 
found  there  the  instrument  that  had  reversed  the 
engines   of   mankind;   for   he   read   that   those   are 
especially  blessed  who  are  poor  in  spirit,  those  who 
mourn,  the  meek,  the  merciful,  the  peacemakers;  he 
read  how  God  had  made  foolish  the  wisdom  of  the 
wise;  how  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble,  are 
called;  how  God  had  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the 
world,  the  base  things,  the  things  that  are  despised, 
yea,   and  things  which  are  not  to  bring  to  nought 
things  that  are.     Finally  he  found  that  even  wretched 
ness  itself  was  exalted  into  a  distinction;  for  were 
we  not  taught  that  the  very  chastisements  of  God  are 
a  mark  of  His  peculiar  love  ?    "  Enough  !    Enough  !" 
he  exclaims.     "  Bad  air  !      Bad  air  !     Methinks  this 
workshop  of  virtue  positively  reeks."1 

Thus,  Christianity  lay  at  the  root  of  the  democratic, 
revolution.  A  slave  had  been  encouraged  to  think 
that  his  own  wretched  qualities  were  intrinsically 
equal  to  those  of  his  master.  Supernatural  dogma 
had  been  invented  to  back  up  and  make  plausible 
an  assumption  dictated  by  conceit.  He  had  been 
told  of  a  God  before  whom  all  men  were  alike,  of  a 
soul  that  had  an  inherent  nobility,  whatever  might 
be  its  lot  in  the  flesh;  of  a  New  Jerusalem,  where  the 
first  should  be  last  and  the  last  first;  of  the  meek  and 
contrite  spirit  that  was  an  ornament  more  precious 
than  gold ;  of  a  Divine  Incarnation  in  One  that  was  a 

1  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  14. 


136      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Man  of  Sorrows.  For  a  man  thus  taught  to  expect 
a  future  which  should  reverse  the  valuations  of  the 
world  it  was  a  short  and  easy  step  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  might  anticipate  Providence  by  reversing  them 
now.  If  slave  qualities  were  paramount  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Judge  of  all,  was  it  not  an  act  of  simple  piety 
for  men  here  and  at  once  to  cast  down  the  mighty 
from  their  seats,  and  to  exalt  the  humble  and  meek  ? 
Such  a  temper  of  resentment  had  one  weapon  to 
its  hand:  it  could  rely  on  the  strength  of  numbers. 
And  when  someone  devised  the  system  of  govern 
ment  by  popular  vote,  the  system  in  which  we  ceased 
to  weigh  values  and  began  to  count  heads,  the  religio- 
socialistic  conspiracy  against  culture  was  complete. 


II. 

Are  there  any  elements  of  value  in  these  wild  and 
whirling  words  ?  Absurdities  lie  on  the  surface,  but 
are  there  truths  which  lie  below  the  surface,  and 
which  in  these  days  of  enthusiasm  for  equality  we 
have  allowed  to  become  obscure  ? 

1 .  I  think  we  must  recognize  that  there  are  virtues 
and  vices  which  belong  in  a  specially  intimate  way 
•-  to  high  and  low  social  strata  respectively.  It  is 
difficult  to  make  this  clear  without  appearing  to 
take  at  times  what  is  called  a  "  snobbish  "  point  of 
view,  but  I  shall  try  to  put  it  in  quite  concrete  terms, 
and  I  appeal  to  your  experience  for  corroboration. 
Consider,  for  example,  (a)  the  sense  of  honour,  and 
(6)  the  sense  of  public  responsibility. 

By  honour  I  mean  the  feeling  which  makes  one 
shrink  from  betraying  a  confidence,  incapable  of 


ARISTOCRACY  137 

taking  an  unfair  advantage,  faithful  to  his  word  as 
to  his  bond,  determined  to  play  the  game  and  to  keep 
the  game's  rules,  though  he  should  be  a  hundred 
times  a  loser.  It  is  the  finest  quality  which  is 
developed  at  a  great  English  Public  School.  Such 
names  as  that  of  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  and  Dr. 
Thring,  of  Uppingham,  have  become  almost  national 
symbols  for  the  type  of  character  I  am  referring  to. 
There  may  be  no  reason  to  prevent  the  same  sensi 
tiveness  of  honour  from  displaying  itself  in  the  work 
ing  class  or  in  the  lower  middle  class;  beyond  doubt 
it  often  is  found  there.  It  is  absurd  to  ascribe  it 
wholly  to  heredity  and  blood  rather  than  to  the 
moral  training  which  has  been  given  in  early  youth; 
but  I  think  it  beyond  question  that  the  Public  School 
boy  has  got  it  in  a  higher  degree  than  the  Board- 
school  boy,  and  that  he  has  it  because  of  the  social 
milieu  in  which  he  was  born  and  bred.  In  the  field 
of  sport  one  is  less  surprised  at  "  fouls  "  in  a  match 
between  two  clubs  of  artisans  than  if  the  same  occurred 
in  a  match  at  Lord's.  The  refusal  to  hit  below  the 
belt  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  knights 
of  chivalry  is  still  the  mark  of  "gentlemen";  the 
poisoned  fang  of  scandal  is  the  weapon  of  low-class 
malice.  Thus,  a  solicitor  or  doctor  who  is  entrusted 
with  family  secrets  is  as  a  rule  more  certain  to  keep 
one's  confidence  inviolate  if  he  is  not  a  man  who  has 
pushed  his  way  from  a  humbler  rank  of  life.1  The 
diplomatic  service,  where  it  is  necessary  to  depend 
so  much  upon  the  fidelity  of  a  State  agent,  is  wisely 
closed  to  the  parvenu,  whatever  his  intellectual 
adroitness  may  be.  One  who  has  struggled  into  a 

1  I  mean,  of  course,  other  qualities,  moral  and  intellectual, 
being  assumed  the  same. 


138      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

place  to  which  he  was  not  born,  and  often  just  in 
proportion  as  his  struggle  has  been  severe,  has  no 
doubt  great  qualities,  but  he  has  often  developed 
them  at  the  expense  of  other  qualities  which  men  more 
happily  placed  by  nature  have  not  been  tempted  to 
lose.  He  carries  with  him  the  moral  scars  of  the 
fight;  the  virtue  that  is  most  apt  to  be  injured  is  just 
this  refinement  of  honour.  It  is  from  such  a  man  that 
we  hear  the  sinister  maxim,  "  Business  is  business." 
Accustomed  to  fight  for  his  own  hand,  he  comes  to 
think  that  all  is  fair  in  the  race  for  advancement. 
If  the  world  gave  him  hard  knocks  in  his  youth,  he 
learns  to  "  look  out  for  himself  "  at  the  cost  of  any 
body  and  everybody;  if  his  mental  gifts  help  him  to 
win,  he  becomes  the  worshipper  of  his  own  un- 
scrupulousness — as  Nietzsche  would  say,  he  creates 
his  own  plebeian  values.  There  is  surely  still  mean 
ing  in  the  phrase  "  a  respectable  firm,  a  firm  with 
an  old  name."  I  think  that,  capacity  being  supposed 
equal,  we  would  all  rather  confide  our  interests  to 
the  financier  who  had  not  carved  his  own  fortunes, 
to  the  lawyer  who  had  not  begun  in  the  rough-and- 
tumble  of  the  village  police  court,  to  the  merchant 
who  had  not  once  been  an  office-cleaner.  They  may 
have — in  many  cases  they  must  have — remarkable 
powers;  but  too  often  they  have  ceased,  as  Sir  John 
Seeley  puts  it,1  "  to  feel  a  stain  like  a  wound,"  to 
guard  in  themselves  the  "  chastity  of  honour."  An 
excellent  example  of  what  I  mean  may  be  seen  upon 
the  stage  in  Mr.  Martin  Harvey's  striking  presenta 
tion  of  The  Breed  of  the  Treshams. 

Again,  if  we  think  of  what  is  called  "  public  spirit," 

1  Borrowing  the  well-known  phrase  from  Burke. 


ARISTOCRACY  139 

the  feeling  which  makes  a  man  so  identify  himself 
with  his  country  that  her  needs  and  dangers  become 
his    personal    burden,   one   cannot  fail   to   see  how 
strongly  this  is  developed  in  the  bearers  of  an  his 
toric  family  title.     The  "  Vicar  of  Bray  "  sentiment 
has  not  been  that  of  England's  nobility;  in  stress 
and  strain  they  have  been  loyal  to  what  they  esteemed 
the  public  cause.     They  have  not  fought  each  for 
his  individual  hand,  however  the  State  might  sink  or 
swim.     Hence,  I  believe,  one  secret  of  that  tenacious 
hold   which   the   British  aristocracy  has   been   able 
to  maintain  upon  the  British  nation.     There  is  much 
in  our  own  past  to  confirm  the  view  that  a  govern 
ing  order  develops  a  tradition  of  patriotic  service  in. 
a  degree  far  beyond  what  the  average  artisan,  much 
less  the  average  Socialist,  is  willing  to  allow.    You 
see  it  in   time   of  peace,   when  power  of  political 
leadership  seems  to  run  from  generation  to  genera 
tion  in  the  Cecils  and  the  Cavendishes.    If  heredity 
has  nothing  to  do  with  this,  we  may  well  be  at  a  loss 
to  explain  it.    You  see  the  same  thing  at  times  of 
war  in  the  remarkable  proportion  of  volunteers  from 
the  higher  social  rank.     If  our  nobility  makes  many 
an  arrogant  claim  to  be  considered  first  in  the  rosy 
days    of    peace,  we   must  remember  that  when  our 
battles  have  to  be  fought  they  are  often  the  first  to 
fall.     I  leave  this  problem  to  unbending  democrats  to 
solve  if  they  can;  to  me  it  seems  a  fact  that  care  for 
the  State  as  a  whole  appeals  in  a  specially  intimate 
way  to  men  from  that  class  which  has  habitually  ruled. 
One  might  enumerate  other  qualities  which  accom 
pany  these,  and  which  too  often  receive  less  than 
justice   as   we   denounce   a   blase   aristocracy.     The 


HO 

motto  "  Noblesse  oblige  "  has  still  its  force,  and  it 
covers  some  qualities  which  are  attractive  even  be 
yond  their  moral  worth.    Mr.  H.  W.  Garrod  has  put 
this  in  his  boyish,  paradoxical  way  when  he  argues 
that  the  morality  we  value  highest  in  our  secret  heart 
may  be  summed  up  as  that  which  makes    one  a 
"gentleman."1    That  King  David  in  the  affair  of 
Uriah  the  Hittite  stands  revealed  as  "  not  a  gentle 
man  "  is,  he  thinks,  the  chief  element  of  repulsive- 
ness  in  his  character.     We  dislike  him,  not  because 
he  was  an  adulterer,  but  because  he  was  an  adulterer 
whose  methods  were  those  of  a  sneak;  not  because 
he  was  a  murderer,  but  because  he  was  a  murderer 
who  took  advantage  of  his  royal  position.     One  may 
be  permitted  to  think  that  the  former  offence  is  not 
as  a  rule  carried  out  without  an  element  of  deceit, 
and  that  the  latter  in  most  cases  involves  the  use 
of  cowardly  weapons.    And  one  may  protest  that  if 
the  moral  sense  is  less  offended  by  the  actual  adultery 
than  by  the  scheming  which  made  it  possible,  less 
by  the  actual  homicide  than  by  the  lie  which  made 
that  homicide  appear  an  accident,  then  our  con 
sciences  need  some  very  vigorous  illumination.  These 
features   were,  no    doubt,  serious   aggravations;  we 
would  feel   less  indignant  with  David  if  Uriah  had 
been  able  to  meet  him  on  equal  terms — if,  for  example, 
the  affair  had  been  settled  by  a  duel  under  recog 
nized  duelling   rules.      But  I   should    still  contend 
against  Mr.  Garrod  that  the  major  element  in  the 
king's  guilt  would  remain,  and  that  if  anyone  thinks 
otherwise  he  gives  a  wholly  undue  importance  to  that 

1  Cf.  his  essay,  entitled  "  Christian,  Greek,  or  Goth,"  in  The 
Religion  of  All  Good  Men. 


ARISTOCRACY  141 

"  aristocratic  "  morality  whose  due  place  I  have  been 
trying  to  recognize. 

For,  after  all,  the  sense  of  honour  and  the  sense 
of  public  responsibility  as  I  have  described  them 
belong  to  the  instinctive  rather  than  to  the  moral 

o 

plane.  Just  as  courage  is  largely  a  physical  endow 
ment — exhibited  probably  at  its  highest  in  some 
carnivorous  animals — so  these  characteristics  are  in 
great  measure  a  sort  of  class  etiquette,  charming  in 
many  ways,  but  scarcely  to  be  called  moral  until  they 
are  reflected  upon  and  erected  into  uniform  principles. 
How  slightly  this  is  done  by  the  aristocratic  mind 
as  such  may  be  seen  in  the  ludicrously  inconsistent 
way  with  which  they  are  applied.  Honour  bids  one 
pay  his  racing  debts,  though  he  defrauds  his  grocer 
and  his  tailor;  makes  him  sacrifice  his  life  for  the 
nation  on  the  battle-field,  though  he  remains  a  willing 
idle  parasite  in  times  of  peace;  allows  him  to  talk 
patriotism  while  he  exploits  every  order  but  his  own ; 
forbids  him  to  cheat  a  friend  at  cards,  but  not  to 
betray  the  virtue  of  a  friend's  wife.  It  is  surely  super 
fluous  to  insist  that  the  caste  feeling  of  any  rank  is 
not  in  itself  a  code  of  duty,  though  we  need  not 
hesitate  to  admit  that  each  rank  as  such  makes  its 
own  instinctive  contribution  to  the  data  of  con 
science. 

2.  Moreover,  it  is  wholesome  in  days  when  de 
mocracy  is  taken  for  granted  that  someone  should 
remind  us  of  democracy's  limits  and  defects.  There 
is  nothing  sacrosanct  about  any  particular  way  of 
organizing  life;  all  must  submit  to  the  test  of  expe 
rience,  and  we  must  choose  that  scheme  which  proves 
itself  by  trial  to  be  most  effective  in  furthering  the 


142      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

best  life.  If  our  ideal  be  Superman,  beyond  doubt 
the  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  picked 
few  is  the  best  way  to  reach  it.  And,  just  so  far  as 
the  production  of  something  like  Superman  is  part 
of  the  genuine  ideal,  democratic  methods  are  open  to 
criticism. 

Nietzsche,  it  seems  to  me,  is  right  in  such  points 
as  these:  men  are  not  born  equal,  or  anything  like 
equal;  some  are  highly  favoured,  some  are  enor 
mously  handicapped  by  heredity,  by  what  biologists 
call  "  accidental  variation,"  by  difference  of  local 
circumstance.  A  child  cannot  choose  his  own  parents, 
his  own  mental  endowment,  his  own  sphere ;  and  these 
things,  so  immensely  important  for  his  future,  are  by 
no  means  evenly  distributed.  Nor  is  it  within  the 
power  of  legislation  to  redress  the  balance;  the  So 
cialist  demand  that,  though  men  are  not  born  equal, 
they  should  be  artificially  made  equal,  recalls  the 
Irishman's  view  that  all  the  ills  he  has  to  endure  are 
owing  to  the  wickedness  or  the  inefficiency  of  "  the 
Government."  For  example,  economists  have  long 
pointed  out  that  we  cannot  all  have  the  same  share 
in  the  material  goods  of  life  for  two  simple  reasons. 
The  first  is,  that  if  you  reward  alike  the  capable  and 
the  incapable,  the  industrious  and  the  lazy,  you  with 
draw  the  chief  stimulus  to  enterprise;  and  the  second 
is  that,  in  thus  attempting  to  distribute  good  equally, 
you  would  soon  reduce  the  amount  of  good  available 
for  distribution.  Moreover,  among  the  things  we 
call  good  there  are  some  which  can  be  appreciated 
and  enjoyed  only  by  those  with  a  certain  capacity,  a 
capacity  which  does  not  belong  to  all;  and  it  seems 


ARISTOCRACY  143 

unavoidable,  if  these  privileges  are  not  to  be  lost 
altogether,  that  they  should  be  provided  for  the  few 
at  the  expense  of  the  many.     The  highest  Art,  the 
greatest  Literature,  the  things  which  give  to  life  its 
most  exquisite  polish  and  refinement,  cannot,  under 
present  conditions,  or  under  any  conditions  which  it 
is  within  our  power  to   create,   be   brought  within 
effective  reach  of  the  whole  public.     For  their  pro 
duction  it  is  requisite  that  a  certain  class  should  be  - 
provided  with  leisure,  and  should  be  relieved  of  pe 
cuniary  anxieties  in  a  way  which  would  spell  economic 
ruin  if  one  tried  to  extend  it  to  all.     How,  for  example, 
can  you  in  my  audience  to-day  defend  to  yourselves 
that  system  under  which  you  are  enabled  here  to 
spend  some  of  the  best  years  of  life  in  the  study  of 
Homer  and  Virgil,  of  Goethe  and  Racine,  of  Shake 
speare  and  Wordsworth,  of  music  and  metaphysics  ? 
Someone  has  to  pay  for  this.     In  many  universities 
the  State  pays  for  a  great  part  of  it  out  of  the  taxes 
that  are  taken  from  the  farmer,  the  mechanic,  the 
shopkeeper.     Can  you  satisfy  yourselves  that  these 
persons  get  either  at  once  or  even  in  the  end  any  real 
equivalent  to  themselves  for  their  money  ?     Are  they 
not  ministering  of  their  substance  to  the  intellectual 
luxuries  of  the  few  ?     If  so,  what  becomes  of  doc 
trinaire  equality  ? 

Now,  it  does  not,  I  think,  follow  that  everyone  must 
be  debarred  from  such  opportunities  merely  because 
these  opportunities  cannot  be  made  universal,  or  even 
because  the  exertions  of  the  larger  class  must  be 
made  in  some  ways  subsidiary  to  the  privileges  of  the 
smaller.  This  has  been  a  casuistical  problem  of  high 


144      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

difficulty,  ever  since  the  historic  day  when  Pericles 
offered  his  defence  of  Athenian  leadership  against 
the  indictment  of  the  envoys  from  Melos.  In  ex 
treme  cases  the  answer  is,  of  course,  easy,  such  cases 
as  that  which  Dr.  Kashdall's  ingenuity  has  devised 
when  he  asks  whether  the  slave  system  of  Egypt  can 
be  justified  on  the  ground  that "  without  it  the  modern 
globe-trotter  would  have  had  to  eliminate  the  Pyra 
mids  from  his  programme."1  But  there  are  many 
cases  in  which  the  solution  is  far  from  clear — cases 
where  we  must  ask  ourselves  whether  a  higher  good 
distributed  over  a  smaller  area  is  to  be  preferred  to  a 
lower  good  distributed  over  a  larger  area.  And 
though  we  are  revolted  by  Nietzsche's  claim  that  the 
class  at  the  top  is  the  only  one  which  should  be  con 
sidered  at  all,  he  has  pressed  upon  us  the  timely 
question  whether  there  are  not  some  respects  and 
circumstances  in  which  it  should  be  considered 
preferentially.  That,  in  practice,  we  do  so  consider 
it  is  obvious;  and  if  our  practice  is  out  of  relation  to 
our  moral  theory,  the  sooner  we  are  forced  to  har 
monize  them  the  better. 

3.  Again,  without  admitting  Nietzsche's  claim  that 
all  progress  has  been  the  work  of  oligarchies,  we  may 
grant  that  democracy  has  often  hindered  progress, 
and  we  may  even  acknowledge  that  in  some  conditions 
of  life  the  absolute  rule  of  one  is  most  conducive  to 
the  improvement  of  all.  It  is  interesting  to  notice 
how  our  author  had  his  attention  first  drawn  to  this 
problem.  As  a  schoolboy,  Nietzsche  was  prescribed 
an  essay  on  Theognis,  the  aristocratic  poet  of  Megara. 

1  Rashdall,  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  vol.  i.,  p.  237. 


ARISTOCRACY  145 

Theognis  was  very  far  removed  from  the  creed  of 
Russell  Lowell  that 

A  poet  cannot  strive  for  despotism; 

His  harp  falls  shattered ;  for  it  still  must  be 

The  instinct  of  great  spirits  to  be  free.1 

The  fragments  that  have  come  down  to  us  teach  a 
very  different  moral;  he  prays  that  he  may  "  drink  the 
blood  of  the  democrats."2  "  Trample  on  the  people," 
he  cries;  "  smite  them  with  the  keen  goad."3 

Now,  what  was  the  situation  in  which  the  poet 
lived  ?     The  date  of  Theognis  is  probably  in  the  first 
half  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.      Megara  had  freed 
herself  from  the  dominion  of  Corinth;  through  com 
mercial  enterprise  and  through  colonization  round 
the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  she  was  rapidly  growing 
rich.     But  her  wealth  was  in  the  hands  of  a  few;  the 
contrast  of  classes  was  acute;  a  huge  proletariate 
was  ignorant,  famished,  murderous.     Incessant  broils 
between  the  organized  oligarchy  and  the  democratic 
mob  had  brought  social  order  to  an  impasse.     In 
such  an  atmosphere  and  at  such  a  time  free  institu 
tions  were  impossible;  and  many  another  Greek  State 
was  in  the  same  chaotic  situation.     What  actually 
happened  at  this  period  of  Hellenism  was  no  doubt 
the  best  that  could  have  happened.    A  succession 
of  individual  leaders  established  personal  dictator 
ship.     One  strong  man,  putting  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  multitude,  and  winning  their  hero-worship, 
concentrated  power  in  his  own  hands,  and  dealt  out 

1  Sonnets,  XVIII. 

2  Berkgh's  Lyric  Fragments  :  Theognidea,  p.  314. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  847. 

10 


146      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

the  wholesome  severity  which  curbed  rapaciousness 
on  each  side.  While  the  men  called  "  tyrants  "  did 
not  scruple  to  plunder  everyone  themselves,  the 
change  was  for  the  better;  the  demands  of  one,  how 
ever  excessive,  are  more  easily  sated  than  those  of  a 
group.  The  masses  received  a  measure  of  political 
education;  in  short,  the  necessary  middle  term  was 
interposed  between  disorder  on  the  one  hand  and 
self-government  on  the  other,  very  much  as  our  own 
absolute  rule  in  India  was  a  needful  step  in  India's 
social  evolution. 

Theognis  was  one  of  the  oligarchic  ring,  and 
Nietzsche  saw  the  situation  through  his  eyes;  he 
saw  in  it  what  Burke  saw  in  revolutionary  France — 
an  ignorant  demos  trampling  by  force  of  numbers 
upon  the  products  of  culture.  But  we  may  follow 
him  so  far  as  this,  that  government  by  the  people 
need  not  be  government  for  the  people,  that  forms 
of  polity  are  subordinate  to  the  end  of  all  polity,  and 
that  a  form  intrinsically  lower  may  be  the  sine  qua 
non  of  progress  to  higher  forms. 

These  ideas  are  crystallized  by  Nietzsche  in  many 
a  memorable  phrase;  and  if  we  look  upon  him  as  a 
coiner  of  aphorism,  as  a  sort  of  George  Bernard  Shaw, 
we  must  admire  his  skill,  we  must  place  him  notably 
higher  than  our  own  versatile  epigrammatist.  But 
I  am  well  aware  that  the  concessions  I  have  made 
will  appear  in  the  light  of  insults  to  the  Nietzschean 
devotee.  Such  an  enthusiast  as  Dr.  Levy  or  Mr. 
Ludovici  would,  no  doubt,  reply  that  I  had  evisce 
rated  the  great  master's  message,  that  I  had  degraded 
him  to  the  level  which  Nietzsche  so  much  despised — 
that  of  a  timid  and  compromising  academic  moralist — 


ARISTOCRACY  147 

that  I  had  acknowledged  only  a  linguistic  distinction. 
I  have  no  desire  to  suggest  that  these  elements  which 
I  think  true,  though  trite,  are  the  real  burden  of  our 
philosopher's  thought  about  aristocracy.  I  think 
that  their  presence  in  such  artistic  form  is  the  secret 
of  the  interest  which  the  more  cool-headed  public 
has  taken  in  Nietzsche,  but  that  he  would  himself 
have  denounced  such  attenuation  of  his  gospel,  I  do 
not  for  a  moment  doubt.  Enough,  however,  has 
been  said  already  to  dispense  me  from  arguing  again 
the  case  against  class  selfishness,  nor  do  I  feel  called 
upon  to  record  more  than  a  protest  against  those 
ridiculous  claims  for  the  paramount  influence  of 
blood  which  every  scientific  student  of  heredity  will 
laugh  to  scorn.  Nietzsche  denied  in  explicit  terms 
all  that  we  mean  by  justice;  he  defended  aristocracy, 
not  as  the  best  thing  for  all  parties  or  for  the  larger 
party,  but  as  best  for  a  small  section  which  has  a 
congenital  right  to  "  exploit  "  the  remainder.  There 
is  no  thought  for  the  claims  of  Labour,  no  feeling  for 
the  people  of  the  Abyss.  It  is  the  naked  affirmation 
of  caste,  and  one  is  not  surprised  that  he  refers  ap 
provingly  to  the  Laws  of  Manu.  Such  a  system  was 
to  be  sustained  by  systematic  inculcation  of  a  body 
of  belief  which  those  who  inculcate  it  know  to  be 
false,  but  which  they  find  effective  for  their  personal 
ends.1  Our  judgment  of  the  whole  must  be  deter 
mined  by  our  decision  on  that  issue  which  a  previous 
lecture  set  forth — the  ultimate  issue  of  belief  or  dis 
belief  in  morality;  for  him  who  has  adopted  the  one 
alternative  further  discussion  is  here  superfluous,  for 
him  who  has  adopted  the  other  it  would  be  futile. 

1  Will  to  Pmner,  132. 


148      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

That  intimate  connexion  between  democracy  and 
the  Christian  code  of  morals,  of  which  we  have  seen 
our  author  make  so  much,  I  reserve  for  a  later  day, 
on  which  I  shall  attempt  to  bring  together  the  main 
points  in  Nietzsche's  anti-Christian  crusade.  It  is 
now  time  for  us  to  consider  the  influence  which  his 
social  ideas  have  exerted  in  the  society  to  which  they 
were  promulgated. 


LECTURE  VI 

NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  UPON  MODERN  GERMANY 

IN  this  lecture  I  shall  attempt  to  connect  the  principles 
we  have  been  considering  with  that  actual  German 
spirit  which  has  made  so  much  tragic  history  in  the 
last  few  months.  This  is  by  far  my  most  difficult 
task.  To  expound  Nietzschean  ideas  is  compara 
tively  easy;  to  expose  their  incoherence  is  not  less 
easy;  but  to  judge  the  influence  of  a  particular 
thinker  upon  a  nation's  policy  is  often  baffling  even 
when  one  has  spent  a  lifetime  in  that  nation's  atmo 
sphere,  and  it  may  be  thought  quite  hopeless  when 
one  tries  to  estimate  from  outside.  We  constantly 
miss  the  true  proportions,  lay  emphasis  in  the  wrong 
places,  ignore  mighty  forces  that  are  inarticulate, 
exaggerate  those  that  are  noisy  but  feeble. 

The  Saturday  Evening  Post  for  November  21,  1914, 
contains  an  article  by  a  former  Colonial  Secretary  of 
the  German  Empire,  in  which  complaint  is  made  of 
misunderstanding  due  to  these  causes.  The  writer 
warns  us  that  three  men,  Nietzsche,  Treitschke,  and 
Bernhardi,  are  being  pilloried  by  the  foreign  press 
as  typical  spokesmen  of  German  statecraft.  He 
points  out  that  of  these  the  first  was  a  philosopher- 
poet,  justly  admired  for  his  artistic  workmanship, 
but  anything  rather  than  a  man  of  affairs.  The 
second  was  a  Professor  of  History,  who  drew  large 
audiences  twenty  years  ago  at  the  University  of 

149 


150      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Berlin,  but  who  did  not  even  found  a  school,  and 
who  owed  his  popularity  in  the  main  to  his  supreme 
gifts  as  an  orator.  The  third  is  a  retired  General, 
with  distinct  talent  both  for  strategic  theory  and  for 
semi-philosophical  reflection  on  the  sources  of  war. 
His  views,  however,  were  so  extreme  that  he  was 
removed  from  his  command,  and  his  book,  so  far 
from  expressing  the  spirit  of  Germany  as  a  whole, 
makes  constant  complaint  about  the  peace-loving 
disposition  which  the  masses  in  that  country  cherish. 
The  contention  is  that  to  accept  these  three  as  typical 
shows  either  stupid  misunderstanding  or  a  wilful 
attempt  to  cast  odium  on  an  entire  race  for  the 
peculiarities  of  a  very  few. 

No  doubt  at  the  present  juncture  it  is  important 
that  German  apologists  should  disown  this  trio  of 
writers.  Wherever  the  views  of  Nietzsche,  Treitschke, 
and  Bernhardi  become  widely  known  abroad,  they 
are  received  with  a  chorus  of  execration;  they  make 
a  load  too  heavy  for  their  country's  defenders  to 
bear  before  the  judgment  of  neutral  nations.  But 
we  have  abundant  evidence  that  they  count  at  home 
in  a  far  higher  degree  and  in  far  more  practical 
directions  than  Dr.  Dernburg  is  willing  to  allow. 
Everyone  who  knows  Germany  can  testify  what  an 
idol  Nietzsche  is  to  a  large  and  influential  class. 
Only  a  few  years  ago  I  was  taken  to  task  by  a  British 
critic,  very  familiar  with  Continental  Philosophy,  for 
using  the  phrase  "  Nietzsche  revival."  "  As  if,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  there  had  been  a  period  of  temporary 
obscuration  !  The  fame  of  Zarathustra  has  been  a 
light  burning  year  by  year  with  increasing  re 
fulgence."  "  Nietzsche  and  Wagner,"  a  German 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  151 

professor  remarked  to  me  some  time  ago,  "  are 
probably  the  two  most  talked  of  men  in  educated 
circles."  Nor  can  one  admit  that  public  apprecia 
tion  relates  to  the  form  alone;  we  have  often  had  our 
own  dealers  in  paradox,  whom  no  one  took  seriously— 
who  did  not  wish  to  be  taken  seriously — but  whom 
everyone  admired  for  the  sparkle  of  their  epigram 
matic  wit.  Very  different  is  the  place  of  Nietzsche 
among  the  Germans;  he  is  widely  accepted  as  what 
he  claimed  to  be — the  great  ethical  iconoclast  who 
has  shattered  for  ever  the  Christian  values.  Nor  can 
we  dismiss  Treitschke  as  an  isolated  or  individual 
voice.  He  was  the  historian  of  the  Prussian  Govern 
ment;  he  has  written  what  is  received  in  Germany  as 
the  most  discerning  interpretation  of  his  country's 
growth.  His  spirit  is  precisely  akin  to  the  Csesarism 
of  his  great  compatriot  Mommsen;  it  is  re-echoed, 
according  to  the  measure  of  their  literary  power,  by 
the  national  newspapers  throughout  the  country. 
His  influence  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the  judgment 
of  Lord  Acton — surely  a  competent  witness,  and  one 
whose  evidence  can  have  had  no  bias  from  the  heated 
feeling  amid  which  we  all  write  to-day.  Lord  Acton 
spoke  of  Treitschke  and  Sybel  as  two  men  "  bringing 
historical  teaching  into  contact  with  real  life,  creating 
a  public  opinion  more  powerful  than  the  laws,  and 
entirely  remodelling  the  methods  of  thought  of  the 
generation  then  springing  into  manhood." 

Of   Bernhardi    I    can    say   less,    but   the    minute 

accuracy  with  which  he  prophesied  three  years  ago 

the  precise  grouping  of  belligerents  which  has  occurred, 

and  his  clear  foreshadowing  of  Germany's  tactics, 

1  Cf.  Lord  Acton's  Historical  Essays,  378.  ,< 


152      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

have  an  uncanny  suggestiveness  of  knowledge  from 
inside.  It  is  stated  by  Professor  Jordan,  of  Leland 
Stanford  University,  that  this  philosophic  soldier 
"  had  been  on  a  tour  round  the  world,  stopping  at 
places  where  there  were  Germans,  and  giving  lectures 
under  the  official  support  of  the  Consuls  of  the 
Empire,  with  the  respective  Consuls  presiding  in  the 
chair."  Nor  am  I  impressed  by  the  fact  that  after 
his  book  appeared  Bernhardi  was  retired  from  the 
active  list  of  the  German  Army.  The  two  countries 
were  still  at  peace,  and  however  warmly  his  views 
might  be  approved  at  Court,  such  frankness  of  speech 
was  a  blazing  indiscretion,  by  the  canons  of  inter 
national  etiquette  in  general,  and  by  the  canons  of 
Potsdam  policy  in  particular.  Moreover,  it  would 
be  amusing,  if  we  were  not  in  the  presence  of  such 
sombre  facts,  to  notice  the  parallels  from  Great 
Britain  which  Dr.  Dernburg  asks  us  to  compare 
with  the  teaching  of  Bernhardi.  Lord  Roberts,  he 
says,  has  been  advising  national  service;  Lord  Charles 
Beresford  and  Captain  Faber  have  been  pressing  for 
an  increase  in  the  navy.  He  protests  that  he  can 
see  no  difference  between  this  and  the  gospel  of  war 
for  war's  sake  !  And  von  Mach  has  referred  us  to 
'  a  passage  in  Mr.  Homer  Lea's  Age  of  the  Saxon — a 
book,  I  may  point  out,  not  by  an  Englishman,  but 
by  an  American — in  which  it  is  predicted  that  the 
neutrality  of  small  States  would  be  disregarded  in  a 
European  campaign.  I  need  hardly  conjecture  to 
this  audience  what  reception  would  have  been  given 
by  the  British  public  to  a  work  like  Bernhardi's  if 
anyone  in  England  had  had  the  temerity  to  pro 
duce  it. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  153 

At  the  same  time  one  must  recognize  that  Dr. 
Dernburg's  objection  has  some  considerable  point. 
Much  nonsense  is  being  talked  about  the  responsi 
bility  of  litterateurs  for  the  European  war.  The 
public  loves  to  fix  odium  upon  an  individual;  yet  a 
moment's  thought  should  detect  the  folly  of  sup 
posing  that  Prussia  did  what  she  has  done  because  a 
Professor  in  Basle  and  another  in  Berlin,  dead  from 
fourteen  to  twenty  years,  incited  her  to  do  it.  My 
concern  at  present  is  with  Nietzsche,  and  I  shall 
endeavour  to  guard  against  the  unfairness  which 
Dr.  Dernburg  suggests.  The  influence  of  our  author, 
though  great,  has  been  limited;  and  it  is  possible  even 
to  construct  a  case  for  the  view  that  Nietzsche  was 
a  deterrent  rather  than  a  stimulus  to  German  aggres 
sion.  Let  me  take  these  points  in  turn. 

1.  The  doctrines  of  a  philosopher  are  never  either 
intimately  known  or  greatly  cared  about  by  the  mass 
of  the  public.  Academic  reflection  is  always  more  or 
less  esoteric;  abstract  theories  about  good,  about 
rights,  about  the  goal  of  the  race,  about  the  ultimate 
sources  of  moral  valuation,  will  not  greatly  affect  the 
man  in  the  street.  It  is,  no  doubt,  true  that  interest 
in  such  things  is  more  widespread  in  Germany  than 
in  most  other  countries;  it  is  also  true  that  Nietzsche's 
way  of  stating  his  case  is  unusually  concrete,  occupies 
itself  less  with  speculative  abstractions  than  with  the 
preaching  of  a  new  way  of  life,  makes  its  vivid  appeal 
to  elemental  passions  found  in  every  rank  of  society; 
at  the  same  time  ideas  of  this  order  never  reach  more 
than  a  limited  vogue,  especially  when  they  conflict 
with  morality  in  that  form  in  which  alone  the  masses 
can  understand  it— I  mean  morality  as  embodied  in 


154      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

religion.  If  the  war  spirit  could  transform  itself 
into  a  cult,  it  might  become,  as  in  Mohammedanism, 
a  sort  of  public  conscience.  But  no  complete  hold 
could  be  obtained  over  the  mind  of  the  multitude  by 
an  ethical  propaganda  avowedly  atheistic.  Thus,  I 
am  certainly  not  going  to  impute  reversal  of  the  moral 
values  to  a  whole  nation.  That  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  German  people  would  shrink  with  disgust  from 
many  of  the  positions  of  Nietzsche,  if  they  realized 
what  these  positions  involve,  I  heartily  believe. 

Again,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  a  system 
so  incoherent  as  Nietzsche's  has  made  little  impres 
sion  upon  Germany's  most  intellectual  men.  Many 
of  these,  like  Professor  Rudolph  Eucken,  of  Jena,  are 
among  the  ethical  teachers  to  whom  Europe  owes 
most.  In  the  sphere  of  religion  one  often  thinks  of 
-•  Germany  from  the  point  of  view  of  Brqwning  in  his 
Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day  as  the  home  of  a  criti 
cism  destructive  to  faith.  But  no  one  can  doubt 
that  much  of  our  most  illuminating  exposition  of  the 
Christian  way  of  life  has  come  to  us  in  recent  years 
from  the  countrymen  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche.  And 
even  moralists  of  a  type  antithetical  to  Nietzsche — 
men  like  von  Hartmann — have  spoken  of  Zara- 
thustra  in  tones  of  contemptuous  dismissal  which 
seem  to  me  unduly  severe. 

2.  But  the  claim  has  been  advanced  that,  despite 
all  his  assaults  on  accepted  morality,  Nietzsche's 
influence  has  worked  against  the  sinister  spirit  of 
racial  aggression.  This  view  I  am  unable  to  sub 
scribe  ;  I  believe  that  he  has  been  a  force  of  consider 
able  effectiveness  in  preparing  the  way  for  those 
crimes  against  civilization  which  we  have  seen;  and 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  155 

I  contend  that  this  has  been  due  to  no  vulgar  mis 
understanding  of  what  our  philosopher  meant.  That 
I  may  be  quite  fair  to  an  opinion  with  which  I  dis 
agree,  I  shall  now  set  forth  as  strongly  as  I  can  some 
reasons  which  may  be  advanced  in  its  favour. 

1.  It  is  urged  that  Nietzsche  was  an  "  individual 
ist,"  in  constant  protest  against  that  dominance  of 
the  State  which  is  the  first  principle  of  Treitschke, 
and  which  notoriously  pervades  the  Prussian  regime. 
He  has  argued  that  while  uniformity  of  type  is  a 
source  of  strength  to  the  commonwealth,  it  is  also 
a  serious  bar  to  intellectual  advance.  "  Deviating 
natures  are  of  the  utmost  importance  wherever  there 
is  to  be  progress."1  He  speaks  of  the  man  who  breaks 
away  from  the  common  routine  as  one  who  often 
"  inoculates  "  the  community  with  something  new 
and  valuable,  so  that  strength  is  reached  in  the  end 
through  partial  and  temporary  weakening.2  Thus, 
he  finds  the  spirit  of  Nationality,  no  less  than  the 
spirit  of  Socialism,  inimical  to  outstanding  genius, 
and  one  might  conjecture  that  he  had  the  Prussian 
bureaucracy  in  mind  when  he  wrote  of  those  who 
"  hate  and  envy  prominent  self-evolving  individuals, 
who  do  not  willingly  allow  themselves  to  be  drawn 
up  in  rank  and  file  for  the  purpose  of  a  collective 
effort."3 

2.  Nietzsche  makes  several  direct  attacks  upon  the 
rising  military  spirit  which  seemed  to  menace  German 
culture,  and  he  has  occasional  sneers,  more  or  less 

1  Human,  Ail-too  Human,  224. 

2  Cf.  Miscellaneous  Opinions  and  Apophthegms,  p.  90;  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil,  212. 

3  Human,  Ail-too  Human,  480.     Cf.  Rosy  Dawn,  p.  484. 


156      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

thinly  veiled,  against  the  system  of  Bismarck.  Ger 
many,  he  says,  was  displaying  after  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  clear  defects  of  character;  she  was 
organizing  herself  in  the  scientific  field  with  a  single 
eye  to  utilitarian  ends,  "  condemning  every  indi 
vidual  to  a  severe  helotism."1  :'  The  State  and  civili 
zation  are  antagonistic;  Germany  has  gained  as  to 
the  former,  but  lost  as  to  the  latter."  The  war  had 
been  no  triumph  of  culture ;  it  had  been  won  by  iron 
military  discipline,  natural  courage,  and  endurance. 
"  A  great  victory  is  a  great  danger."  High  Politics 
had  their  drawbacks.  Readiness  for  war  was  not 
mainly  a  matter  of  money;  it  involved  the  with 
drawal,  year  after  year,  of  the  "  ablest,  strongest,  and 
most  industrious  men  in  extraordinary  numbers  from 
their  proper  occupations  and  callings  to  be  turned 
into  soldiers."2  If  a  nation  would  count  as  a  Great 
Power,  it  must  "  constantly  sacrifice  a  number  of  its 
most  conspicuous  talents  upon  the  Altar  of  the 
Fatherland."  This  meant  a  public  "  hecatomb  " ;  the 
individual  could  no  longer  live  his  own  life,  and  one 
might  well  ask  whether  it  pays  in  the  end.3  Nor  is 
it  difficult  to  identify  the  object  of  Nietzsche's  aphor 
ism  about  the  statesman  who  wants  to  act  quite 
regardlessly,  and  masks  his  malignant  purpose  under 
the  pretence  that  he  is  doing  it  "  for  his  prince." 

3.  It  is  urged  that  his  ideal  was  not  the  dominance 
of  any  one  people,  but  a  cosmopolitan  culture,  as 
attested  by  his  favourite  phrase,  "  European  men." 
He  insists  that  the  day  of  separate,  hostile  nationali- 

1  Twilight  of  the  Idols. 

2  Human,  Ail-too  Human,  241. 

3  loc.  cit.     Cf.  Thoughts  out  of  Season. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  157 

ties  is  passing,  that  it  had  been  preserved  mainly  in 
the  interest  of  certain  royal  dynasties,  or  of  social 
and  commercial  classes,  but  a  blending  was  to  be 
looked  for.  '  We  should  just  fearlessly  style  our 
selves  '  good  Europeans,'  and  labour  actively  for 
the  amalgamation  of  nations;"1  and  he  argues  that 
even  the  despised  Jew  has  his  contribution  to  bring 
toward  the  common  treasury  of  culture.2  He  re 
pudiates  the  very  name  of  patriot;  the  State  had 
become  the  new  idol  ;3  there  were  a  thousand  and  one 
goals  for  peoples,  but  only  one  goal  for  humanity;4 
he  saw  in  Germany  much  to  despise,  for  she  had 
shown  little  originality,  borrowing  at  every  turn 
from  the  culture  of  her  neighbours;5  Wagner  had 
been  carried  away  by  a  narrow  race  spirit;  but  one 
must  detach  one's  heart  "  even  from  a  victorious 
Fatherland."6  He  thus  earned  the  hatred  of  Treit- 
schke,  who  thought  him  a  "bad  Prussian,"  while 
for  the  historian  at  Berlin  Nietzsche  has  only  a 
passing  sneer. 

This  and  similar  passages  must  seem  a  strong 
cumulative  case  to  anyone  who  does  not  know 
how  copiously  our  author  can  contradict  himself,  how 
easy  it  is  to  quote  equally  definite  deliverances  on  the 
other  side.  I  shall  take  the  foregoing  points  in  order. 

1.  That  in  one  sense  Nietzsche  must  have  been 
an  individualist  is  self-evident.  So  revolutionary  a 
thinker,  one  so  determined,  in  his  own  words,  "  to 

1  Human,  Ail-too  Human,  475.     Cf.  Joyful  Science,  p.  397. 

2  loc.  cit.     Cf.  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  250-251. 

3  Zarathustra,  i.  11.  4  Ibid.,  i.  15. 

5  Will  to  Power,  92.        Cf.  Peoples  and  Countries,  18. 

6  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  41 ;  cf.  58. 


158      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

overthrow  all  the  things  that  men  have  hitherto 
reverenced  and  admired,"  must  claim  very  extensive 
freedom  from  convention.  A  tutelary  State  is  the 
negation  of  such  a  teacher's  existence.  One  may 
feel  that  his  defiant  attitude  towards  control  sprang 
in  the  main  from  the  State's  actual  association  with 
systems  of  thought,  moral  and  political,  which  were 
different  from  his  own;  one  may  suspect  that  his 
individualism  would  have  been  less  eager  if  his  special 
point  of  view  had  been  backed  by  public  authority, 
that  the  will  to  power,  which  recked  so  little  of  the 
right  to  life,  would  not  have  been  balked  by  scruples 
about  the  right  to  free  speech.  In  matters  of  thought, 
however,  he  was  certainly  a  "  herald  of  revolt."  But 
such  licence  of  speculation  is  in  no  way  inconsistent 
with  acquiescence  in  a  bureaucratic  polity;  as  Mr.C 
/  Sarolea  remarks  of  the  German  theologians,  "They  are 
very  daring  when  they  examine  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
but  they  are  very  timid  when  they  examine  the  divine 
right  of  King  and  Emperor."  And  that  Nietzsche's 
individualism  was  worth  nothing  as  a  guarantee 
against  national  aggressiveness  is  made  evident  when 
we  notice  the  political  opinions  which  it  permitted 
him  to  express.  He  has  glorified  the  great  military 
conquerors;  he  has  laughed  to  scorn  the  humanitarian 
scruples  which  are  troubled  by  the  blood-stains  upon 
such  renown.1  Two  great  movements  of  genuine 
individualism — the  Protestant  Reformation  and  the 
French  Revolution — are  the  constant  butts  of  his 
ridicule.2  Frederick  II.  (Hohenstauffen)  was,  for  him, 

1  Cf.  esp.  Witt  to  Power,  104;  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  16. 

2  E.g.  Genealogy  of  Morals,   i.  16,  17;   Will  to  Power,  94; 
Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  38. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  159 

the  first  of  Europeans.1  But  in  another  mood  his 
supreme  idol  was  Napoleon;2  France  in  the  seven 
teenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  had  been  "  the  last 
political  nobleness  in  Europe";  it  had  been  sub 
merged  beneath  the  deluge  of  low-class  revenge  in 
1793,  it  had  been  rejuvenated  by  the  splendid  despot 
ism  of  one  who  was  "  the  incarnation  of  the  noble 
ideal  itself,"3  the  man  who  "  had  the  courage  of  his 
worldliness,"4  "in  whom  the  ruling  instincts  cul 
minated,"'  "  to  whom  we  owe  almost  all  the  higher 
hopes  of  the  century."0  "  Napoleon  called  man,  the 
soldier,  and  the  great  struggle  for  power  to  life 
again;"7  "  What  a  blessing  was  an  absolute  ruler  for 
these  gregarious  Europeans  !"8  I  do  not  say  that 
there  is  no  element  of  truth  in  such  a  view,  but  I  do 
say  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  an  individualism 
which  will  offer  any  check  to  military  aggressive 
ness. 

Let  us  not  be  misled  by  a  word.  The  individual 
ism  that  makes  for  peace  is  an  emphasizing  of  the 
human  values,  of  the  sacred  right  that  belongs  to 
every  man  as  such;  it  speaks  of  equal  consideration 
for  all,  and  especially  for  those  least  able  to  defend 
themselves,  for  the  toiling  multitude  that  are  such 
easy  victims  to  a  masterful  prince  intent  upon  his 
personal  ends.  Such  an  ideal  is  plainly  inspired  by 


1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  200. 

2  Will  to  Power,  104.     Cf.  Peoples  and  Countries,  18. 

3  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  16. 

4  Witt  to  Power,  129. 

5  loc.  cit. 

8  Will  to  Power,  27. 

7  Ibid.,  104. 

8  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  199. 


160      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

faith  in  morality,  though  some  of  those  who  show  it 
most  are,  like  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  believers  in  a 

morality  which  is  humanitarian  rather  than  Christian. 

/'  .  \ 

But  the  Individualism  of  Nietzsche  Was  antithetical 

to  it;  in  his  sense  of  the  word  it  was  just  theCgreatest 
individualists  who  had  been  the  most  ruthless 
warriors  in  history)  a  fact  which  he  himself  exultingly 
proclaimed.  There  is  no  ambiguity;  he  goes  straight 
to  the  point,  (jndividuals  as  such  have  no  value; 
only  high  personalities  are  worth  preserving  for  their 
own  sake}  (The  masses  "  deserve  a  glance  "  only  in 
so  far  as  they  may  be  made  subsidiary  to  the  great; 
"  for  the  rest,  let  them  go  to  the  devil  and  to  statis 
tics.")  Is  it  a  long  step  from  this  to  the  Prussian 
officer's  description  of  the  rank  and  file  as  Kanonen- 
futter  ?  Not  equality,  but  exploitation,  was  to  be 
the  creed  of  him  who  had  outgrown  the  Christian 
myths.  But  I  ought  to  apologize  for  arguing  at  such 
length  a  point  so  clear.  If  those  critics  are  right 
who  see  in  the  aspirations  of  William  II.  a  desire  to 
reproduce  the  Napoleonic  regime,  one  may  ^perhaps 
see  in  Nietzsche's  books  some  nourishment  by  which 
such  a  spirit  was  fed. 

2.  When  Nietzsche  speaks  of  militarism  as  an 
tagonistic  to  civilization,  we  must  remember  that  for 
"  civilization  "  he  had  no  great  respect.  His  ideal 
was  one  of  culture,  and  in  a  notable  paragraph  he  has 
made  it  plain  that  he  thought  these  two  objects 
were  far  from  identical — nay,  that  they  were  op 
posed.  Civilization  rested  on  morality,  but  the 
great  cultural  epochs  had  been  periods  of  "  cor 
ruption,"  periods  which  had  broken  loose  from  the 
"  taming  "  process  by  which  man  had  been  "  domesti- 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  161 

cated."1  The  passages  in  which  he  attacks  the 
regime  of  drill  may  be  paralleled  by  many  others  in 
which  the  career  of  the  soldier  is  idealized;  he 
definitely  avows  his  delight  that  Europe  is  being 
turned  into  a  camp.  But  perhaps  the  most  arresting 
thing  he  has  said  on  the  matter  is  in  SectionJL 7  of 
the  Genealogy  of  Morals.  He  had  been  dwelling  on 
his  favourite  subject  of  Napoleon's  glorious  re-estab 
lishment  of  oligarchy  against  "  resentment's  lying 
war-cry  of  the  prerogative  of  the  most."  He  wonders 
if  the  like  may  happen  again : 

'  Was  that  greatest  of  all  antitheses  of  ideals 
thereby  relegated  ad  acta  for  all  time  ?  Or  only 
postponed,  postponed  for  a  long  time  ?  May  there 
not  take  place  at  some  time  or  other  a  much  more 
awful,  much  more  carefully  prepared  flaring  up  of  the 
old  conflagration  ?  Further !  Should  not  one  wish 
that  consummation  with  all  one's  strength  ? — will  it 
one's  self  ? — demand  it  one's  self  ?" 

3.  It  is  true  that  Nietzsche(idenounced  race  hatred] 
that  he  Jooked  for  a  cosmopolitan  blending  of  nations,) 
But  it  is  also  ^true,  as  I  shall  indicate  more  fully  later 
on,  that  he  Expected  this  blending  to  be  under  the 
leadership  of  a  dominant  "  exploiting  "  class;  (He 
had  no  high_ppinion  of  the  Germans;  he  did  not 
think  that  the  title  to  the  world's  leadership  belonged 
to  any  racial  stock  as  such,1  And  it  is  a  circumstance 
worth  noting  that  this  disregard  of  every  nation's 
equal  right  to  live,  equal  right  to  preserve  its  own 
characteristics,  and  to  develop  in  its  own  way,  is  one 

1  Of.  Will  to  Power,  896,  where  the  impulses  which  Nietzsche 
brands  as  decadent  are  declared  "  fundamental  to  all  civilized 
society." 

11 


162      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

of  the  things  which  we  lay  to  the  charge  of  Prussian 
Junkerdom.  It  was  no  cosmopolitanism  in  the  old 
Stoic  sense  which  inspired  Nietzsche's  impartial 
review  of  European  cultures.  A  man  does  not  be 
come  a  lover  of  all  mankind  simply  by  ceasing  to  be 
a  patriot.  The  philosopher  of  "  will  to  power  "  was 
prepared  to  applaud  dominance  wherever  he  saw  a 
people  strong  enough  to  exercise  it^  the  one  thing  he 
could  not  bear  was  a  comity  of  peoples  resting  on  the 
principle  of  liye  and  let  live.1  Again  and  again  he 
insists  that  ^.e  day  of  small  communities  is  past, 
that  it  is  time  to  think  imperially.?  One  thing  he 
rejoiced  to  think  of  as  accomplished  by  the  war  of 
1870;  it  had  "brought  into  a  critical  condition  the 
pitiable  European  petty-State  system;"  sometimes 
he  saw  the  root  of  permanence  in  Russia,  and  he 
admired  Russia  for  just  those  qualities  which  fill 
some  of  us  to-day  with  misgiving.  There  at  least 
one  was  saved  from  "  Parliamentary  imbecility, 
together  with  the  obligation  of  everyone  to~read  his 

1  It  is  important  to  notice  Nietzsche's  description  of  European 
States  as  "  anarchic  " :  he  means  that  there  is  no  strong  central 
authority  which  stands  to  the  individual  State  in  the  relation 
of   Government   to   the   individual    person;    he   has   in    mind 
Napoleon's  idea  of  a  unified  Europe.     For  Napoleon  the  centre 
was  to  be  Paris,  with  rows  of  palaces  for  the  subject  kings  and 
even  one  for  the  Pope;  for  Nietzsche  the  headquarters  might, 
apparently,  be  anywhere,  so  long  as  the  co-ordinate  rank  of  petty 
Powers  gave  place  to  a  new  imperium  Romanum.     Dr.  Oscar 
Levy  has  precisely  grasped  his  master's  thought  when  he  writes : 
"  This  State  anarchy  was  styled  the  Balance  of  the  Powers,  and 
consisted  in  that  condition  of  feebleness  and  vacillation  and 
lordlessness  that  thenceforth  forbade  to  any  people  a  Roman 
sovereignty  "  (Revival  of  Aristocracy,  p.  2j. 

2  Of.  Genealogy  of  Morals,  i.  17;  Will  to  Power,  862;  Peoples 
and  Countries £18. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  163 

newspaper  at  breakfast."1  "  The  time  for  petty 
politics  is  past;  the  next  century  will  bring  the 
straggle  for  the  dominion  of  the  world,  the  compulsion 
to  great  politics."2  It  is  not  difficult  to  detect  here 
the  same  spirit  which  has  despised  the  nationality  of 
Belgium  and  Luxemburg;  if  anything  could  increase 
the  shame  of  such  an  estimate,  it  is  the  thought  that 
he  who  made  it  should  have  affected  to  be  a  fellow- 
countryman  of  Kosciusko. 

One  might  quote  much  more  from  Nietzsche  point 
ing  in  the  same  direction :  his  view,  for  example,  that 
there  is  no  altruism  between  State  and  State;  that 
bordering  kingdoms  are  necessarily  hostile,  because 
they,  unlike  individuals,  "  have  the  courage  of  their 
own  desires;"  that  a  community  is  in  its  essence  "  will 
to  war,  to  power,  to  conquest,  and  revenge;"  that 
militarism  is  "  the  last  means  of  adhering  to  the  great 
tradition  of  the  past,  or,  when  it  has  been  lost,  of 
reviving  it;"  that  "  when  the  instincts  of  a  society 
ultimately  make  it  give  up  war  and  renounce  con 
quest,  it  is  decadent;  it  is  ripe  for  democracy  and  the 
rale  of  shopkeepers."  But  I  think  I  have  adduced 
enough  evidence  to  dispose  of  the  theory  that  Nietz 
sche,  despite  the  disguise  of  his  language,  was  at  heart 
a  friend  of  the  peaceful,  generous,  cosmopolitan 
movement  in  public  affairs.  We  must  read  what  he 
has  said  in  that  spirit  under  the  light  of  what  he  has 
said  elsewhere  in  a  spirit  very  different.  Not  every 
part  of  a  thinker's  message  is  equally  influential;  part 
may  appeal  to  the  mood  of  the  hour  and  be  followed, 
part  may  antagonize  the  Zeitgeist  and  be  ignored.  If 
Nietzsche  had  left  a  coherent  system  he  would  not, 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  208;  cf.  Peoples  and  Countries,  17. 

2  loc.  cit. 


164      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

of  course,  be  responsible  for  those  who  rent  his  mantle, 
who  claimed  the  right  to  pick  and  choose  among  his 
directions.  But  in  this  case  it  is  our  prophet  who  has 
rent  his  own  mantle.  No  one  pretends  that  his 
teaching  forms  a  consistent  whole;  it  has  even  been 
argued  that  this  makes  it  all  the  richer,  or  that  the 
inevitableness  of  such  contradictions  is  proof  that 
the  science  of  society  is  a  hopeless  tangle.  Be  it  so; 
a  nation  which  has  got  to  act  upon  one  system,  though 
it  may  carry  on  intellectual  gymnastics  with  many 
in  turn,  may  well  choose  the  course  that  is  congenial, 
and  may  fairly  claim  the  sanction  of  an  erratic  leader 
who  has  advised  this  course  in  his  predominant  mood. 
But  I  am  still  very  far  understating  my  argument. 
We  set  out  to  inquire  whether  Nietzsche  stimulated 
German  aggressiveness  towards  other  countries,  and 
it  would  be  childish  to  decide  simply  by  the  test  of  his 
definite  political  statements.  It  is  not  mainly  by 
what  he  directly  enjoins  that  a  teacher  makes  his 
ideas  operate  upon  the  life  of  his  audience;  he  effects 
far  more  in  indirect  fashion,  through  the  moral  and 
social  outlook  which  he  introduces,  through  what 
Nietzsche  nimself  would  have  called  the  "  values  " 
which  he  makes  current.  That  the  German  values  of 
to-day  are  such  as  lead  straight  to  wars  of  aggression, 
few  persons  outside  Germany  and  Austria  need  any 
longer  to  be  convinced.  How  far  did  Nietzsche  help 
to  coin  them  ?  Or,  rather,  how  far  did  he  help  to 
stereotype  them  ?  I  shall  try  to  give  the  answer 
under  three  divisions. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  165 


I. 

His  "  Immoralism  "  lent  philosophical  sanction  to 
the  selfishness  and  the  unscrupulousness  which  had 
made  his  country  successful  in  the  past. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  political  history. 
Will  to  power  was  the  principle  which  had  informed 
Prussian  methods  ever  since  Prussia  was  a  kingdom; 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  no  thought  either  of 
treaty  obligation  or  of  the  manifest  rights  of  smaller 
States — no  thought  whatever,  except  that  of  inability 
to  insist,  had  ever  been  allowed  to  block  the  schemes 
of  Prussian  ambition.  The  historian  records  no 
public  immorality  grosser  than  that  by  which 
Frederick  the  Great  first  extended  his  realm.  He 
precipitated  a  war  without  the  shadow  of  a  claim, 
either  in  law  or  in  equity,  to  the  annexation  of  Silesia. 
He  had  himself  agreed  to  that  instrument  which  he 
outraged  before  Charles  VI.  was  cold  in  his  grave. 
That  he  might  aggrandize  his  own  State  he  involved 
Europe  in  a  conflict  curiously  suggestive  even  in  its 
minuter  details  of  that  which  we  now  see. 

"  On  the  head  of  Frederick,"  writes  Macaulay,  "  is 
all  the  blood  which  was  shed  in  a  war  which  raged 
during  many  years  and  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe— 
the  blood  of  the  column  of  Fontenoy,  the  blood  of  the 
mountaineers  who  were  slaughtered  at  Colloden. 
The  evils  which  were  produced  by  his  wickedness 
were  felt  in  lands  where  the  name  of  Prussia  was  un 
known;  and  in  order  that  he  might  rob  a  neigh 
bour  whom  he  had  promised  to  defend,  black  men 


166      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

fought  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  and  red  men 
scalped  each  other  by  the  Great  Lakes  of  North 
America."1 

This,  of  course,  is  now  ancient  history,  and  the 
record  of  other  empires  is  far  from  clean.  One  may 
doubt  if  any  other  empire  has  been  so  consistently 
selfish  as  Prussia;  but  there  at  least  there  have  been 
no  regrets  and  there  has  been  no  shame.  Frederick 
the  Great  is  still  the  hero — "  my  sainted  ancestor," 
as  the  Crown  Prince  calls  him.  When  Bismarck 
gave  Treitschke  access  to  the  public  archives,  it  was 
with  the  cynical  comment,  "  You,  at  all  events,  will 
not  be  shocked  to  find  that  our  political  linen  is  not 
as  white  as  it  might  be."  Almost  within  living 
memory  the  wresting  of  Hanover  from  her  legitimate 
rulers,  and  the  annexation  of  Schleswig-Holstein, 
justify  BebePs  remark,  "  The  Hohenzollern  never 
change."  But  the  States  of  Southern  Germany  had 
not  Prussia's  record;  Saxony  and  Baden  had  nour 
ished  a  different  human  type  from  the  rude  soldiers 
of  Brandenburg  and  Pomerania.  When  the  union 
was  formed,  the  greatest  issue  for  the  peace  of 
Europe  was  this:  Would  the  ideal  of  the  north  or 
that  of  the  south  prevail  ?  Which  partner  would 
assimilate  the  other  into  its  own  likeness  ?  We  now 
know  the  answer,  and,  despite  his  verbal  repudiations, 
the  whole  trend  of  Nietzsche's  influence  helped  to 
make  that  answer  what  it  has  historically  been.  Is 
it  surprising  that  a  people  which  had  won  its  way  by 
international  brigandage  should  acclaim  the  man  who 
told  them  that  courage  in  the  field  will  redeem  any 

1  Essay  on  Frederick  the  Great.    ^ 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  167 

injustice,   and  that  a  good  war  will  sanctify  any 
cause  ? 

Zarathustra  was  published  in  1892,  and  the  circum 
stances  of  the  moment  were  propitious  to  the  new 
creed  of  will  to  power.     On  one  side  there  was  a 
people  intoxicated  by  success;  like  Byron,  Germany 
awoke  one  morning  and  found  herself  famous.     But 
the  man  who  had  made  her  famous  had  just  been 
dismissed  from  office  by  a  young  monarch  who  was 
determined  to  be  his  own  Chancellor.    There  was 
enough  chivalry  in  the  German  mind  to  revert  in 
thought  at  such  an  hour  to   the   achievements  of 
Bismarck.     He  had  raised  his  country  from  insignifi 
cance  to  the  primacy  of  Central  Europe ;  in  a  single 
decade  he  had  organized  three  campaigns;  the  first 
had  added  the  Duchies  to  the  kingdom  of  William, 
the  second  had  disposed  for  ever  of  Austrian  rivalry 
upon  the  field  of  Sadowa,  the  third  had  attained  the 
crowning   glory   of   Sedan.     On   the   basis   of   these 
exploits  the  Federation  had  been  welded  together; 
he  who  was  once  lord  of  a  barren  heritage  had  been 
proclaimed  Emperor  of  all  Germany  with  dramatic 
pomp  in  the  Palace  of  Versailles.   Moab  was  his  wash- 
pot,   over  Edom  he  had  cast  his  shoe.     Everyone 
felt  that  all  this  was  the  product  far  less  of  the  sword 
of  Moltke  than  of  the  brain  of  Bismarck.     It  was  the 
fallen  Chancellor  who  had  twenty  years  before  created 
almost  out  of  nothing  the  dominance  of  Prussia  for 
generations  to  come. 

As  the  statecraft  by  which  he  had  done  this  became 
more  clearly  realized,  it  was  seen  to  rest  on  the  prin 
ciple  that  the  end  of  national  strength  justifies  every 
means,  however  dishonest  and  however  blood-stained, 


168      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

by  which,  such  strength  may  be  secured.  It  was  his 
own  acknowledgment  that,  but  for  him,  three  wars 
would  not  have  been  fought,  and  eighty  thousand 
men  would  not  have  been  slaughtered.  His  country 
men  came  to  know  that  it  was  his  ambition  which  had 
launched  a  million  German  and  Austrian  troops  upon 
defenceless  Denmark — that  it  was  his  calculated 
faithlessness  which  had  deprived  Austria  of  her  share 
in  the  plunder;  it  was  he  who  set  himself  to  provoke 
a  conflict  with  his  ally  of  a  few  months  before,  and 
who  emerged  from  it  bearing  with  him  the  spoils  of 
Hanover;  it  was  he  who  falsified  the  royal  telegram 
which  precipitated  the  war  with  France.  But  the 
man  and  his  exploits  sanctified  every  method ;  and  he 
had  himself  proclaimed  his  method  in  that  grim 
summary  which  lived  ever  after  in  the  German 
imagination:  "Not  by  Parliamentary  speeches  or 
majority  votes  will  these  great  problems  be  settled; 
they  will  be  solved  by  blood  and  iron." 

During  the  years  that  followed,  Bismarck  had  been 
tireless  in  impressing  upon  his  countrymen  that  the 
weapon  he  had  forged  must  not  be  allowed  to  rust — 
that  the  sword  must  keep  what  the  sword  had  won. 
Within  six  years  from  the  victory  of  Sedan,  his 
colleague  Moltke  had  declared  at  a  public  banquet 
that  France  must  be  fought  another  time,  and  the 
sooner  the  better.  At  home  two  dangers  were  loom 
ing  large — the  danger  from  the  Roman  priest,  and 
the  danger  from  the  red  flag  of  Socialism.  The  war 
had  incidentally  destroyed  the  temporal  power  of 
the  Pope,  and  the  Vatican  could  not  look  with  satis 
faction  on  a  complete  mastery  by  Lutheran  Prussia 
over  the  Catholic  population  of  Southern  Germany. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  169 

To  crush  the  ecclesiastics  who  threatened  to  nourish 
local  patriotism  in  the  States,  Bismarck  began  his 
so-called  Kulturkampf,  imprisoning,  fining,  super 
seding  priests  and  bishops  wherever  he  thought  them 
dangerous.  It  was  a  disastrous  campaign,  illus 
trating  once  more  the  old  adage  that  "  The  Church 
is  an  anvil  which  has  broken  many  a  hammer."  In  a 
few  years  he  made  his  peace  with  the  prelates  whom 
he  could  not  subdue,  that  he  might  use  their  help 
against  a  common  foe.  He  would  allow  free  speech 
to  the  clergy  if  they  would  join  him  in  refusing  free 
speech  to  the  Socialists.  For  the  pamphlets  of  Karl 
Marx  and  Lassalle,  proclaiming  the  brotherhood  of 
workers  all  over  the  world,  indicating  as  the  only 
struggle  worth  while  that  class  conflict  between  the 
masters  who  exploit  and  the  workers  who  are  ex 
ploited,  calling  for  a  halt  in  armaments  and  a 
reduction  of  military  service — these  had  begun  to 
circulate  by  the  thousand  among  the  men  on 
whom  Prussia  depended  for  recruits.  The  ma 
terialistic  basis  on  which  Marx  rested  seemed  to  the 
astute  Chancellor  to  provide  a  unique  opportunity 
for  enlisting  on  his  side  the  forces  of  that  Church 
whose  mettle  he  had  learned  to  respect. 

Now,  you  will  remember  that  when  Nietzsche  has 
exhausted  his  rhetoric  against  priests,  he  heats  it 
seven  times  against  Socialists.  The  creed  of  another 
world  and  the  creed  of  equality  are  the  twin  objects 
of  his  scorn,  just  as  they  were  the  twin  perils  of 
Bismarckian  Imperialism. 

On  contempt  for  all  spiritual  values,  and  on  the 
iron  subjection  of  every  class  under  military  leader 
ship,  Germany  must  rely  if  she  was  to  maintain  the 


170      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

tradition  of  the  great  Chancellor.  Such  a  regime 
may  well  have  been  distasteful  to  the  masses,  but  it 
was  the  thing  that  the  bureaucrats  of  Berlin  de 
manded,  and  a  generation  of  discipline  has  wrought 
it  into  the  fibre  of  the  public.  The  docility  of  the 
Social  Democrats  to-day,  their  ready  subservience  to 
the  man  in  uniform,  shows  how  thoroughly  the  work 
has  been  done.  One  need  not  conjecture  to  what 
degree  Nietzsche's  influence  was  potent  against  the 
restraints  of  religion  on  the  one  hand,  and  against  the 
protest  of  the  industrial  workers  on  the  other.  His 
message  may  well  have  been  a  symptom  quite  as 
much  as  a  cause  of  the  militarist  movement  which 
has  cursed  Europe  for  thirty  years.  But  there  is 
little  doubt  that  his  popularity  is  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  daring  with  which  he  crystallized  into  artistic 
aphorism  the  immoral  principles  of  Prussia's  ruling 
class.  His  power  has  not  been  exercised  over  the 
masses  that  he  despised,  nor  over  the  academic  philo 
sophers  at  whom  he  railed ;  but  it  has  been  potent  in  a 
circle  which  wields  a  far  more  decisive  influence  over 
public  affairs.  A  huge  proportion  of  the  German 
middle  class  passes  through  the  closely  associated 
training  of  the  University  and  the  military  corps; 
it  is  here  that  the  strongest  public  opinion  is  nurtured, 
and  it  is  here  that  Nietzsche  has  been  acclaimed  a 
prophet.  He  has  been  the  herald  of  a  new  order  to 
the  German  student  and  to  the  German  army  cadet. 
They  are  not  so  stupid  as  not  to  see  that  with  all  his 
scolding  he  is  their  spiritual  kinsman.  To  the  eager, 
hot  youth  of  the  country  he  has  translated  into  philo 
sophical  terms  the  story  of  the  Fatherland's  past;  he 
has  fired  the  imagination  with  a  creed  which  sees  only 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  171 

two  possibilities,  WeUmacht  oder  Niedergang.  What 
the  statesmen  of  Berlin  had  for  generations  been 
whispering  into  one  another's  ears  in  secret  Nietzsche 
has  proclaimed  upon  the  housetops;  he  inspired  the 
thought  that  the  unscrupulous  selfishness  which 
Prussia  had  plainly  practised,  and  the  ruthlessness 
which  had  marked  the  campaigns  of  her  troops,  were 
not  something  to  be  ashamed  of,  but  something  to  be 
gloried  in;  he  cast  the  halo  of  an  intellectual  vindica- 

O  ' 

tion  round  the  methods  of  aggression  which  the 
bureaucracy  had  followed,  but  which  they  had  for 
merly  thought  it  desirable  to  mask  before  the  public 
opinion  of  Europe.1 


II. 

»' 

Again,  INietzsche  propagated  the  view  that  societies 

as  well  as  individuals  are  either  high  or  low  in  the 
scale  of  "  culture,"  and  that  an  upper  rank  has  not 
only  a  right  but  a  duty  to  "  exploit"  a  lower/ 

Such  a  claim,  in  one  shape  or  other,  lies  at  the  back 
of  most  official  apologies  for  German  statecraft 
to-day.  Its  form  has  changed ;  what  was  once  avowed 
as  the  right  of  brute  force  is  now  defended  as  the 
right  of  superior  mental  gifts  and  superior  social 
organization.  Prussia,  with  weaker  nations  on  her 

1  His  defenders  urge  in  reply  th.it  Nietzsche  despised  the 
German  Reich,  and  hated  the  teaching  of  Treitschke  (cf.  Ecce 
Homo,  pp.  123,  124).  This  is  true,  but  beside  the  point.  I 
ana  speaking,  not  of  what  he  explicitly  s  ;id  about  Prussia,  but 
of  the  politic  il  conclusions  which  his  "  Neue  Moral  "  manifestly 
supports ;  and  pace  those  who  have  specialized  on  Treitschke, 
the  literary  culprits  in  this  war  are  not  of  one  school  alone. 


172      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

border,  used  to  conquer  them  on  the  naked  principle 
that  if  you  have  better  drilled  troops,  more  effective 
artillery  than  your  neighbour,  you  are  justified  in 
seizing  his  land.  What  we  are  now  told  is  that  if 
you  are  culturally  higher,  if  you  have  better  educa 
tion,  deeper  insight  into  science  and  philosophy,  more 
delicate  refinement  in  literature  and  art,  it  is  not 
merely  legitimate — it  is  a  debt  to  civilization  that  you 
should  extend  the  influence  of  all  this  at  the  point  of 
the  sword.  A  "  larger  place  in  the  sun  "  is  the  right 
of  those  who  can  so  much  more  brilliantly  reflect  the 
sun's  rays.  What  the  militant  Moslem  conceives  as 
his  duty  to  the  faith  of  Allah,  the  militant  German 
conceives  as  his  duty  to  the  higher  thought.  The 
Panhellenism  of  Alexander  which  studded  the  earth 
with  Alexandrias  planted  in  blood,  has  reappeared 
as  the  Pan-Teutonism  of  the  Kaiser's  intimate  circle. 
Eead  any  pamphlet  which  states  the  anti-British 
case,  hear  any  German  spokesman,  from  the  ninety- 
three  professors  down  to  the  inflammatory  patriots 
who  control  the  newspapers  of  Berlin;  whatever 
preliminary  argument  is  employed  for  the  benefit  of 
those  to  whom  the  main  argument  would  not  appeal, 
the  inference  from  past  exploits  is  sooner  or  later 
advanced.  Eunning  through  it  all  you  have  the 
thought  that  Germany's  cultural  achievements  desig 
nate  her  for  that  inheritance  of  the  earth  which  the 
harsher  Puritans  claimed  as  a  monopoly  of  the 
saints.  Like  Cyrus,  when  he  took  the  big  coat  from 
the  little  boy  and  put  it  on  the  big  boy,  they  would 
distribute  to  us  all,  not  what  belongs  to  us,  but  what 
in  their  opinion  fits  us.  Only  the  other  day  we  had  a 
half -insane  deliverance  from  Professor  Adolph  Lasson 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  173 

of  the  University  of  Berlin.  The  German  race,  he 
says,  has  proved  itself  both  in  the  field  of  intellect 
and  in  the  field  of  morals,  great  beyond  the  possi 
bility  of  challenge  from  any  other  in  the  habitable 
globe;  and  he  concludes  with  the  usual  assurance 
that  to  a  people  so  wise  and  so  good  the  justice  of  God 
must  award  victory  in  battle.  Nietzsche's  thought 
is  not  far  off — the  thought  of  mankind  as  reaching 
its  perfect  expression  in  a  select  few,  though  our 
philosopher  would  have  been  amazed  to  learn  that  the 
primacy  in  culture  had  settled  upon  the  Germans. 

For,  while  Nietzsche's  paradise  was  the  exploiting 
dominance  of  Superman,  he  never  entertained  the 
idea  that  Superman  would  arise  in  Junkerdom.  His 
books  supply  no  nutriment  for  the  national  vanity; 
against  no  race,  except  the  English,  has  he  launched 
such  invectives  as  against  the  people  among  whom 
he  lived.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  which  has  made 
those  critics  who  can  see  only  the  letter  of  his  teaching 
acquit  him  of  all  responsibility  for  Prussian  militar 
ism.  One  of  the  cultures  towards  which  Germany 
has  shown  herself  most  ruthless  is  that  of  Poland; 
yet  it  was  Nietzsche's  most  passionate  protest  about 
himself  that  he  was  no  German,  but  a  Pole.  To  prove 
this  he  ransacked  the  records  of  his  ancestry;  to  con 
firm  it  he  modelled  his  manner,  let  his  moustache 
grow  wild,  even  altered  the  spelling  of  his  name 
after  the  fashion  of  the  country  which  he  admired. 
With  the  Germans  he  would  never  identify  himself; 
he  saw  in  them  just  those  low  qualities  against  which 
his  polemics  were  directed.  He  was  daring  enough 
in  the  days  which  immediately  followed  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  to  tell  the  victors  that  they  had  much 


174      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

to  learn  from  the  culture  of  that  nation  over  which 
they  had  triumphed  in  the  field.  They  were  beer^ 
ridden  and  priest-ridden;  they  maintained  a  soil  in 
which  genius  could  scarcely  get  itself  acknowledged; 
they  were  inartistic,  vulgar,  commonplace.  How  far 
this  explains  the  neglect  with  which  Nietzsche's 
earlier  books  were  received  I  shall  not  guess ;  I  merely 
note  the  coincidence  that  so  long  as  he  emphasized  the 
German  failings  he  was  ignored;  it  was  not  until  he 
enforced  the  same  lesson  in  more  impersonal  terms 
that,  as  Mr.  Mencken  puts  it,  he  was  hailed  as  "  a  new 
Luther  speaking  with  the  tongue  of  a  new  Goethe."1 

At  the  same  time,  Germany  has  perhaps  been 
logical  in  applying  to  Nietzsche's  own  friends  in 
Poland  the  moral  which  was  sanctioned  by  Nietzsche 
himself.  In  her  judgment,  the  Polish  culture  was  in 
ferior  to  the  Teutonic ;  and  when  Bismarck  carried  out 
his  huge  scheme  of  colonization  in  the  small  neighbour 
ing  State,  he  no  doubt  argued  to  himself,  like  Crom 
well  when  he  sent  Scotch  planters  to  the  North  of 
Ireland,  that  he  was  acting  in  the  best  interest  of  the 
barbarous  natives.  A  quasi-conscience  can  generally 
be  suborned  by  statesmen  to  defend  any  policy;  not 
the  least  remarkable  evidence  of  the  extent  to  which 
one's  moral  sense  may  be  hypnotized  by  race  feeling 
is  shown  by  the  attitude  to-day  of  the  German  uni 
versity  professors.2  When  they  argue  that  their 
country  is  on  the  defensive,  that  the  menace  of  Kussia 

1  "  The  Mailed  Fist  and  its  Prophet,"  in  Atlantic  Monthly, 
November,  1914. 

2  One  recalls  the  prescient  remark  of  Frederick  the  Great: 
"  If  we  just  occupy  Silesia  quietly,  we  shall  very  soon  have  our 
bookworm  to  demonstrate  the  paper  justice  of  our  claim."     Cf. 
the  present  war  literature  by  German  professors  passim. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  175 

on  the  one  hand  and  France  on  the  other  left  her  no 
option,  that  their  Foreign  Office  strove  for  peace 
until  it  was  clear  that  peace  could  no  longer  be  kept, 
we  may  admire  their  patriotism  though  we  are  aston 
ished  at  their  judgment.  And  I  for  one  feel  no  im 
patience  when  they  charge  England  with  race  bitter 
ness  or  commercial  greed,  though  I  know  this  to  be 
groundless  and  unfair.  We  cannot  expect  a  dispas 
sionate  view  in  times  like  these.  But  where  they 
speak  of  "  treachery  to  culture,"  of  "  reinforcing 
Muscovite  barbarism  against  German  civilization," 
the  voice  is  not  that  of  amiable  bias — it  is  the  sinister 
Joglc  of  Nietzsche's  "  Neue  Moral."  And  we  reply 
that  Russia  shall  have  nothing  less  than  equal  justice 
though  she  be  culturally  backward,  and  that,  what 
ever  be  her  cultural  achievements,  Germany  shall 
have  nothing  more. 

There  is,  of  course,  one  sense  in  which  the  claim  of 
a  nation  to  hold  what  seems  fairly  to  belong  to  her 
must  at  times  be  challenged.  A  Government  may 
become  so  immoral  as  to  justify  interference.  A  case 
may  thus  be  made  out  for  our  own  conquest  of  India, 
and  it  has  seemed  to  many  of  us  that  the  unspeak 
able  regime  of  the  Turks  has  long  called  for  a  firm 
hand  from  outside.  We  may  freely  admit  that  there 
have  been  days  in  Russia's  melancholy  past  when  the 
intervention  of  her  Teutonic  neighbour  might  have 
been  a  charitable  crusade.  But  not  even  a  German 
apologist  will  assert  any  such  purpose  now,  and  there 
are  the  most  encouraging  omens  that  Russia  is 
awakening  to  a  brighter  day.  Beyond  doubt  she  will 
work  out  her  future  best  through  internal  evolution. 
Wliat  Germany  is  really  fighting  for  is  to  perpetuate 


176       NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

and  extend  the  Teutonic  aggression  which  Austria 
began  six  years  ago,  and  of  which  her  royal  house 
reaped  the  fruit  in  the  crime  of  Serajevo.  And  when 
she  has  nothing  better  to  say  in  her  defence  than  that 
her  education,  her  commercial  enterprise,  her  national 
management,  are  more  enlightened  than  that  of  the 
Serbs,  can  she  wonder  that  the  world  which  still 
believes  in  moral  values  has  turned  a  deaf  ear  ? 
Nietzsche  himself  has  spoken  of  the  days  when  the 
Germans  still  spoke  of  right  and  wrong,  and  had  not 
yet  been  transformed  into  Realpolitiker.1  It  is  in  the 
categories  of  right  and  wrong  that  they  must  speak 
to-day  if  they  wish  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  the 
Americans,  who  fortunately  have  not  undergone  this 
ethical  transformation. 

Moreover,  (those  who  think  that  one  form  of  culture 
has  a  moral  right  to  hold  another  in  subjection  must 
rest  their  view  either  upon  intrinsic  superiority  or 
upon  intrinsic  strength.  Nietzsche  seems  to  have 
combined  these  arguments,  by  assuming  that  high 
culture  accompanies  centralized  power,  or  at  least 
that  without  such  centralized  power  civilization 
cannot  attain  to  its  best.")  It  is  a  creed  palatable  to 
the  German  spirit,  yet  no  social  dogma  is  more 
plainly  false.  The  high  cultural  achievements  of 
small  nations  lend  countenance  rather  to  the  doubt 
whether  citizenship  in  a  huge  empire  has  not  a  de 
pressing  effect  upon  individual  genius.  Lord  Bryce 
has  recently  quoted  the  cases  of  Judaea,  Greece,  the 
Italian  Kepublics,  Switzerland,  Scandinavia;  each  of 
these  was  a  sphere  for  the  parochial  politics  which 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  11.  <£) 
*  2  Cf.  Peoples  and  Countries,  18. 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  177 

Nietzsche  despised ;  but  from  each  in  turn  have  arisen 
great  creative  impulses  in  religion,  in  poetry,  in  art, 
in  science,  in  social  development;  it  is  a  poor  theory 
indeed  of  cultural  progress  which  can  find  no  room 
for  the  land  of  Isaiah,  of  Plato,  of  Dante,  of  Zwingli, 
or  of  Linnaeus.     And  if  we  think  of  the  contributions 
which   colossal  empires  have  made  to  the  world's 
thought,  we  very  often  find  that  the  men  who  made 
them  belong  to  a  period  when  their  country  was  in 
the  stress  and  strain  of  a  conflict  against  odds;  too 
commonly  an  assured  dominance  has  been  followed 
by  intellectual  stagnation.     It  was  an  insignificant 
Germany  that  gave  birth  to  Goethe,  Schiller,  and 
Hegel;   it   was   a   nascent  Prussia   which   produced 
Immanuel  Kant.     And,  whatever  they  may  pretend 
to  the  contrary,  it  is  all  too  plain  that  the  pride  of 
Germany's    ruling    caste    concerns    itself    less    with 
figures  such  as  these  than  with  the  successful  devisers 
of  bloodshed.     The  Kaiser  has  called  Count  Zeppelin 
the  greatest  German  of  the  century;  but  it  has  been 
noted  that  his  many  ceremonial  speeches  at  Konigs- 
berg  have  not  contained  one  reference  to  the  man  who 
shed  on  Konigsberg.  its  deathless  renown. 

One  wonders  that  Germany  has  been  so  slow  to 
draw  the  moral  from  the  manifest  failure  of  her  ex 
periments  in  centralization;  she  has  assumed  that  to 
absorb  a  new  territory  it  is  sufficient  to  station  an 
adequate  garrison,  and  to  substitute  by  statute  her 
own  language,  education,  and  laws.  The  result  is 
seen  to-day  in  Prussian  Poland,  in  Hanover,  in 
Schleswig-Holstein,  in  Alsace-Lorraine.  The  news 
papers  tell  us  that  in  the  sanguine  circles  of  Berlin 
the  future  of  Belgium  is  being  already  discussed,  and 

12 


178      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

that  an  influential  party  is  opposed  to  complete 
annexation,  on  the  ground  that  yet  another  discon 
tented  province  would  thus  be  added  to  their  empire. 
The  problem  is  one  which,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  von 
Jagow  and  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  will  be  relieved 
from  the  responsibility  of  solving;  but  so  far  Bis 
marck's  successors  have  shown  none  of  his  shrewd 
misgivings  about  the  value  of  a  province  that  is  held 
down  by  force_.  The  contrast  here  between  German 
methods  and  British  is  very  striking.  Great  Britain 
has  abandoned  the  attempt  to  impose  a  uniform  type ; 
she  has  fostered  the  individuality  of  many  races;  she 
has  seen  that  as  there  are  different  vegetations  in 
different  latitudes,  so  what  is  best  in  a  nation  can 
disclose  itself  only  through  the  organs  of  nationality. 
Hence  the  spectacle  of  enthusiastic  loyalty  in  the 
common  cause  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
our  Empire  to-day;  hence  the  Sikhs  and  Ghurkas 
fighting  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  Black  Watch, 
the  Cheshires,  and  the  Canadian  volunteers.  Hence 
the  new-born  patriotism,  so  astounding  to  a  Prussian, 
in  the  commandoes  of  General  Botha.  Hence,  if  you 
will  forgive  a  personal  opinion  on  a  matter  of  much 
controversy — hence  the  sanguine  hopes  of  some  of  us 
that  great  things  for  the  Empire  will  be  achieved  in 
the  new  Ireland. 


III. 

Further,  Nietzsche  has  given  enthusiastic  support 
to  the  view  that  war  is  an  indispensable  agent  in 
racial  advance. 

We  have  seen  some  vacillation  in  his  defence  of  this; 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  179 

so  far  from  suppressing  or  minimizing  what  lie  has 
said  in  a  contrary  spirit,  I  have  set  it  out  in  detail. 
But  you  will  observe  that  the  drawbacks  which  he 
has  indicated  in  war  belong,  morally  speaking,  to  that 
lower  level  on  which  the  minds  of  a  large  public  could 
be  but  slightly  moved.  When  the  blood-lust  is  up, 
appeals  for  the  safeguarding  of  culture  become 
shadowy  and  anaemic;  let  anyone  contrast  Nietzsche's 
half-hearted  protest  with  the  thrilling  denunciations 
of  John  Bright.  Moreover,  in  passage  after  passage 
our  author  has  stultified  all  his  words  of  peace  else 
where;1  he  has  definitely  sided  with  those  who  see  in 
war,  not  a  last  resort,  but  a  thing  desirable  for  its 
own  ghastly  sake — desirable,  also,  just  because  it  helps 
to  destroy  those  moral  values  which  an  Englishman 
would  fain  preserve.  We  seem  to  hear  again  the 
message  of  Will  to  Power  at  the  opening  of  that 
book  in  which  General  Bernhardi  so  outraged  the 
conscience  of  Christendom.  Very  different  as  the 
two  writers  are,  the  common  sanction  of  a  gospel  of 
blood  is  an  index  of  the  spirit  of  their  country. 

Verbal  repudiation  is,  of  course,  forthcoming  from 
high  quarters.  I  shall  not  try  to  read  the  psycho 
logical  riddle  of  the  Kaiser's  mind;  we  are  told  that 
the  military  enthusiasts  round  him  have  coined  the 
nickname '*  WTilliam  the  Peaceful";  but  we  cannot 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  Will  to  Power,  167:  "  Christianity  is  an  ingenuous 
attempt  at  bringing  about  a  Buddhistic  movement  in  favour  of 
peace,  sprung  from  the  very  heart  of  the  resenting  masses." 
And  ibid.,  923:  "  The  rest  of  mankind,  all  those  whose  in 
stincts  are  not  warlike,  desire  peace,  concord,  freedom,  equal 
rights:  these  things  are  but  names  and  steps  for  one  and  the 
same  thing.  .  .  .  They  would  fain  create  circumstances  in  which 
war  is  no  longer  necessary." 


180      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

forget  his  close  friendship  with  Abdul  Hamid,  or  his 
order  to  the  troops  leaving  for  active  service  in  China 
that  prisoners  should  not  be  taken.  We  know  by 
whose  influence  duelling  has  been  perpetuated  in  the 
German  universities,  and  we  know  the  ground  that 
has  been  assigned.  The  strategic  railway  to  the 
Belgian  frontier  was  constructed  under  the  imperial 
sanction,  and  the  world  is  now  aware  of  its  purpose. 
I  leave  you  to  conjecture  how  bellicose  that  group 
must  be  in  which  William  II.  is  the  apostle  of  peace. 
But  he  loves  to  conceive  himself  as  the  Lord's 
Anointed,  and  though  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn 
that  his  theological  taste  is  for  the  Old  Testament 
rather  than  the  New,  we  can  understand  that  his 
favourite  role  cannot  be  played  without  occasional 
lapse  into  phrases  that  have  colourable  likeness  to 
Christianity.  Thus,  we  find  him  speaking  of  enemies 
that  have  hemmed  him  in  on  every  side,  and  of  the 
sword  as  having  been  forced  into  his  hand.  We  even 
hear  of  a  sacred  cause  which  the  Most  High  has  en 
trusted  to  his  keeping,  and  which  he  must  defend  at 
any  cost.  These  are  words;  personally  I  prefer  the 
blunt,  straightforward  position  of  Germany's  leading 
journalist,  Maximilian  Harden;  and  the  damning 
evidence  of  the  State  Papers  is  there  to  show  that  it 
was  our  diplomatists  who  strove  to  the  eleventh  hour, 
and  past  the  eleventh  hour,  for  peace,  and  that  it  was 
the  diplomatists  on  the  other  side  who  had  resolved 
that  peace  should  be  made  impossible. 

Must  not  such  an  attitude,  endorsed  as  it  is  in  ex 
plicit  terms  by  the  leaders  of  German  opinion,  have 
been  due  in  some  degree  to  that  minimizing  of  war's 
evils  and  to  that  absurd  fabrication  of  its  blessings 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  181 

which  Nietzsche  and  others  like  him  have  made 
current  coin  in  their  country's  thought  ?  We  know 
how  they  talk.  War  as  a  biological  necessity,  war  as 
the  habit  of  all  nations  that  are  not  spiritless  and 
exhausted,  war  as  giving  the  only  stage  on  which 
man  may  play  his  highest  role,  war  as  the  nurse  of 
heroism,  of  magnanimity,  of  self-sacrifice,  of  all 
manly  virtues — this  is  the  language  and  these  are 
the  ideas  by  which  men  have  been  taught  to  think 
lightly  of  drawing  the  sword.  Where  the  moral  ad 
vantages  and  disadvantages  are  thus,  to  put  it  at  the 
least,  so  evenly  balanced,  it  seems  a  natural  inference 
that  national  aims  relatively  slender  should  justify 
breaking  the  peace.  Hence  Bernhardi's  plausible 
list,  the  need  and  possibility  of  expansion,  the  finding 
of  an  outlet  for  emigrants,  the  securing  of  markets,  or 
even  a  state  of  unrest  at  home  which  the  tonic  of 
battle  might  allay.  Has  not  such  teaching  been  the 
best  propaedeutic  for  the  Prussian  military  regime  ? 

It  is,  of  course,  denied  by  the  pro-German  pamph 
leteers  that  their  empire  is  organized  in  the  main 
for  any  other  purpose  than  peaceful  development. 
But  to  the  outside  observer  a  hundred  indications 
point  another  way.  It  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  refer 
to  one — I  mean  the  permanent  predominance  of  the 
kingdom  of  Prussia  in  the  councils  of  the  empire. 
The  Bundesrath  deputies  from  elsewhere  are  not 
outvoted;  they  could  not  be,  for  they  are  a  large 
majority;  but  they  readily  and  even  gladly  yield.  In 
forty-two  years  Prussia  has  never  once  failed  to  get 
her  way,  and  German  publicists  speak  of  the  chance 
that  she  may  some  day  be  defeated  on  a  division  as 
sure  to  precipitate  an  imperial  crisis.  Ask  a  German 


182      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

the  reason  for  this,  and  he  will  tell  you  how  much 
Prussia  has  done  for  the  Confederation,  how  the 
other  States  had  been  in  perpetual  strife  and  per 
petual  insignificance,  how  the  warriors  of  the  north 
rescued  and  elevated  the  thriftless,  dreamy  folk  of  the 
south.  In  short,  they  acknowledge  that  they  need 
Prussian  control. 

Whatever  force  there  may  have  been  in  this  forty 
years  ago,  one  might  surely  suppose  that  Germany  is 
now  sufficiently  stable  to  escape  from  tutelage.  If 
half  the  boasts  we  hear  are  well-grounded,  the  Teuton 
should  not  be  behind  other  races  in  capacity  to  manage 
his  own  affairs.  Beyond  doubt  that  capacity  is 
present,  and  would  be  developed  if  the  affairs  to  be 
managed  were  those  of  an  industrial  State;  it  is  just 
because  the  main  concern  is  war,  actual  or  possible,  that 
the  section  which  excels  in  the  field  must  guide  those 
movements  in  time  of  peace  which  are  so  largely  a 
preparation  for  a  field  yet  to  come.  Consonant  with 
this  is  the  supremacy  of  the  War  Lord,  the  resistance 
to  any  scheme  of  what  we  call  responsible  govern 
ment;  by  the  Kaiser's  will  State  officials  come  and 
go,  whatever  may  be  the  support  which  the  country 
gives  to  their  policy  or  their  administration.  The 
underlying  idea  is  that  democratic  control  would 
be  fatal  to  the  type  of  empire  which  Germany 
aims  to  be.  You  see  the  same  sinister  principle 
in  the  "  patriotic  "  teaching  of  school-children,  in 
the  worship  of  the  army,  in  the  eternal  charges 
of  majestas  for  the  slightest  disrespect  to  a  man  in 
uniform. 

I  do  not  feel  called  upon  before  this  audience  to 
enter  into  any  reasoned  refutation  of  the  view  that 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  183 

war  as  such  is  desirable,  or  even  that  it  has  so  many 
advantages  as  to  render  its  acceptance  legitimate  for 
national  ends  that  are  relatively  slight.  I  should 
think  that  to  argue  at  length  against  this  would  be 
to  insult  a  moral  consciousness  which  centuries  of 
Christianity  have  gone  to  form.  One  might,  of 
course,  expose  the  nonsense  about  biological  advan 
tage  to  the  race;  one  might  point  out  how  the  very 
flower  of  a  nation's  manhood  is  cut  down,  how  one 
sees  perishing  in  a  day  what  years  of  industrial  effort 
will  not  restore,  how  the  development  of  courage  and 
self-sacrifice  bears  no  comparison  with  the  seething 
passions  and  unbridled  lusts  which  are  stirred  into  life. 
He  will  be  a  bold  man  who  will  revive  this  war  dialectic 
so  long  as  one  can  remember  the  fields  of  Ypres  and 
the  Marne — so  long  as  a  record  lasts,  not  so  much  of 
what  the  agonized  fugitives  from  Belgium  have  told  us, 
as  of  the  proclamations  signed  by  German  officers 
and  posted  on  the  walls  of  Liege  and  Dinant.  That 
the  Christian  religion  has  been  a  great  deterrent  against 
such  things  in  the  past  is  a  view  which  Christian  men 
will  accept  from  Nietzsche  with  peculiar  thankful 
ness.  Nor  does  our  author  stand  alone  among  wit 
nesses  from  his  own  country.  Those  were  prophetic 
words  of  Heine  in  which  he  anticipated  the  hour  when 
the  German  joy  of  battle  would  burst  the  bonds  in 
which  Christianity  had  long  restrained  it.  '  Then," 
he  said,  "  the  old  stone  gods  will  rise  from  the  silent 
ruins,  and  rub  the  dust  of  a  thousand  years  from 
their  eyes.  Thor  with  his  giant  hammer  will  at  last 
spring  up  and  shatter  the  Gothic  cathedrals."  It  is 
with  a  sense  of  shame  that  one  undertakes  at  this 
time  of  day  to  produce  reasons  against  such  a  revival. 


184      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

That  the  land  of  such  mighty  industrial  progress 
should  have  been  led  to  see  finer  rivalries  in  blood 
shed  than  in  the  arts  of  peace,  that  the  land  of  Luther 
should  have  forgotten  how  much  grander  are  the 
battles  of  the  spirit  than  the  battles  of  the  sword,  is 
a  grim  warning  that  a  nation's  soul  cannot  be  fed 
through  intellectual  channels  alone.  '  You  taught 
me  language,"  said  Caliban,  "  and  the  profit  of  it  is 
I  know  how  to  curse."  Or  we  may  sum  it  up  in  the 
pregnant  words  of  St.  Ambrose:  Non  in  dialectica 
complacuit  Deo  salvum  facere  populum  suum. 

Let  me  now  briefly  sum  up  the  grounds  on  which  I 
claim  that  Nietzsche  has  helped  to  make  his  nation 
aggressive,  unscrupulous,  and  tyrannical. 

He  wrote  at  a  time  of  crucial  decisiveness  for  the 
German  character.  Was  victory  to  be  used  as  a 
safeguard  to  peaceful  development,  or  was  it  to  be 
made  a  basis  for  further  conquests  ?  This  was  the 
moral  choice  which  had  to  be  taken,  and,  once  deter 
mined,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  go  back.  Should  the 
policy  of  Frederick  the  Great  be  stereotyped  for 
German  statecraft  ?  The  real  forces  on  the  other 
side  were  considerations  of  justice,  unwillingness  to 
inflict  cruelty  and  sacrifice  life,  respect  for  the  rights 
of  the  weaker,  solicitude  for  the  human  values  which 
war  must  destroy.  They  were  perhaps  poor  safe 
guards  at  the  best — flimsy  barriers  when  the  blood- 
lust  has  been  stirred.  But,  such  as  they  were, 
Nietzsche  taught  all  who  would  hear  him  to  hold  them 
in  contempt.  He  told  them  that  only  a  decadent, 
exhausted  race  would  tolerate  the  equal  claims  of  all 
to  live  and  let  live,  that  it  was  Christian  superstition 
which  made  one  reluctant  to  immolate  the  individual, 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  185 

that  pity  was  a  disguised  blend  of  low-class  revenge- 
fulness  and  disordered  nerves.     He  spoke  to  a  race 
flushed  with  victorious  warfare  about  the  intrinsic 
glories  of  war  as  such;  he  laughed  to  scorn  all  scruples 
about  its  darker  side.     He  held  before  the  imagina 
tion  of  a  young  virile  race  the  great  patterns  of 
ancient  Imperialism,  and  mocked  the  effeminacy  of 
the  Golden  Kule.    He  argued  with  all  the  subtlety 
of  his  perverse  genius  that  will  to  power  was,  in  some 
form,  the  sole  motive  by  which  every  race  and  every 
individual  had  in  the  past  been  swayed.     He  bade 
the  Germans  look  forward,  not  with  anxiety,  but  with 
a  fierce  joy,  to  the  day  when  mankind  would  pass 
through  a  slaughter  such  as  it  had  never  known, 
when  the  petty  politics  of  Europe's  miserable  nations 
would  fade  before  a  titanic  struggle  for  the  dominion 
of  the  earth.     And  all  this  was  depicted  as  a  new 
and  higher  morality,  as  the  message  of  the  modern 
prophet  to  whom  alone  men  worthy  of  the  name 
would  lend  their  ears. 

Was  not  this,  as  Sir  Henry  Jones  has  so  strikingly 
put  it,  to  "  take  the  vessels  of  the  temple  and  drink 
wine  in  them  "  S1  How  feeble  in  comparison  with  an 
impetus  like  this  were  those  stray  grumbles  against 
the  Bismarckian  regime  which  are  quoted  to  us  as 
evidence  that  Nietzsche  was  a  pacific  force  ?  And 
what  must  have  been  the  effect  as  Germany  went  far 
ther  and  farther  in  those  military  preparations  which 
by  his  own  declaration  filled  our  author  with  joy  ? 
Europe  became  an  armed  camp;  the  ultimate  issue 
between  nations  became,  in  Carlyle's  phrase,  "  Can 

1  In  HUbert  Journal,  October,  1914,  "  Why  we  are  Fighting." 


186      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

I  kill  thee  or  canst  thou  kill  me  ?"  Every  country 
equipped  itself  with  the  most  deadly  weapons  which 
skill  could  forge  and  the  most  powerful  explosives 
which  science  could  devise.  Each  treasury  was 
drained  to  make  the  fighting  machine  more  formid 
able;  the  special  knowledge  of  the  chemist,  the  deft 
ness  of  the  worker  in  steel  and  iron,  the  inventiveness 
of  the  aviator — all  had  to  pay  their  toll  to  militarism. 
The  Armageddon  for  which  Germany's  prophet 
watched  and  hoped  was  prepared  for  forty  patient 
years  by  Germany  herself.  When  the  moment  came, 
her  statesmen  showed  none  of  the  morbid  humani 
tarian  hesitation  which  he  forbade;  her  university 
professors  had  learned  his  lesson  about  the  exploiting 
rights  of  culture,  her  soldiers  proved  that  they  at 
least  possessed  the  token  of  greatness  which  keeps  a 
steady  nerve  before  another's  pain.1  I  ask  you,  with 
your  newspapers  in  your  hands,  whether  the  creed  of 
Beyond  Good  and  Evil  has  left  no  mark  in  the  smoking 
ruins  of  Aerschot  and  the  mangled  corpses  of  the 
women  of  Dinant  ? 

A  few  strident  voices  have  been  proclaiming  to  us 
that  when  this  war  is  done  with,  England  must  draw 
the  moral  by  immediate  acceptance  of  conscription; 
she  must  place  the  War  Office  under  the  permanent 
administration  of  a  soldier,  the  Admiralty  under  a 
seaman,  and  she  must  enormously  increase  her 

1  Cf.  Joyful  Wisdom,  p.  325:  "  Who  will  ever  reach  the  height 
of  greatness  if  he  does  not  feel  within  himself  the  power  and  the 
will  to  inflict  great  sufferings  ?  .  .  .  Not  to  be  shipwrecked  on 
the  rocks  of  one's  inner  distress  and  uncertainty  when  one  is  in 
the  act  of  inflicting  great  pain  and  hears  the  cry  of  this  pain — 
that  is  great:  that  is  an  integral  part  of  all  greatness." 


NIETZSCHE'S  INFLUENCE  187 

Service  Estimates.     In  short,  she  must  take  the  first 
step  on  the  slippery  road  that  leads  to  where  Prussia 
I  has  gone.     It  is  not  the  least  of  our  British  titles  to 
.political  insight  that  we  have  always  kept  such  pro 
posals  at  arm's  length.    Lord  Kitchener  saw  very 
clearly  and  interpreted  very  faithfully  the  public 
temper  when  he  spoke  of  himself  as  in  the  Cabinet  for 
the  duration  of  the  war,  as  an  extraordinary  officer 
summoned  for  an  extraordinary  crisis.     The  Roman 
Republic  in  moments  of  peril  used  to  arm  its  Consuls 
with  dictatorial  power,  of  which  at  the  earliest  moment 
they  were  divested:   Videant  consules  ne  quid  detri- 
menti  res  publica  capiat.      We,   too,   are  singularly 
fortunate  in  the  possession  of  a  soldier  whose  talents 
for  the  special  emergency  are  combined  with  a  loyal 
recognition  that  the  army  is  the  servant,  not  the 
master,  of  the  people.     If  a  man's  trade  is  that  of  a 
fighter,  he  can  scarcely  help  developing  an  outlook 
upon  life  which  makes  him  a  dangerous  guide  to  a 
nation  whose  ideal  is  peace.    We  remember  that 
ancient  king  of  whom  it  is  written  that,  despite  his 
virtues,  he  could  not  build  the  temple  of  the  Lord  "  be 
cause  he  had  been  a  man  of  war."     Those  who  mould 
humanity's  future  are  architects  of  a  temple  more 
sublime  than  that  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  best  engineers 
of  destruction  are  not  the  architects  we  want.    Every 
profession  has  the  defects  of  its  qualities;  what ^ the 
defects  of  the  military  type  may  result  in,  Prussia  is 
there  to  show.     The  outcome  of  this  war  for  civiliza 
tion  no  one  need  pretend  to  forecast;  that  the  gracious 
Providence  whose  ways  are  wonderful,  and  who  has 
so  often  brought  good  out  of  evil,  cannot  fail  us  now 


188      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

we  may  well  believe.  But  so  much  as  this  we  may 
be  permitted  to  anticipate:  when,  by  the  mercy  of 
God  and  the  heroism  of  our  troops,  we  have  dethroned 
Siva  in  the  Wilhelmstrasse,  we  shall  not  rebuild  his 
blood-stained  altar  and  recelebrate  his  blood-stained 
rites  in  Downing  Street  or  Whitehall. 

NOTE. — It  is  often  said  that  the  Germans  were  the  last  to 
develop  enthusiasm  for  Nietzsche,  and  that  his  chief  popularity 
so  far  has  been  in  France.  This  statement  is  liable  to  mislead. 
The  initial  feeling  in  both  countries  may  be  largely  explained  by 
a  single  cause.  However  much  one  may  sympathize  with  a 
philosopher's  principles,  one  resents  an  accompaniment  of  personal 
insult,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  France  in  the  years  imme 
diately  following  1871  should  lend  a  ready  ear  to  a  German's 
abuse  of  Germany.  But  the  public  attitude  of  the  two  peoples 
rapidly  changed.  Regarding  France,  M.  Paul  Sabatier  wrote 
long  before  the  present  war  as  follows  :  "  His  "  (i.e.,  Nietzsche's) 
"influence  has  been  as  superficial  as  it  was  ephemeral.  A  recent 
investigation  shows  that  the  younger  generation  almost  com 
pletely  ignores  him  "  (France  To-Day :  Its  Religious  Orientation, 
p.  94).  M.  Sabatier  explains  this  abrupt  eclipse  as  due  to  moral 
revulsion.  Moreover,  a  chief  complaint  by  Nietzsche  against  the 
Germans  of  his  time  was  that  they  were  too  democratic,  as 
shown  by  their  acceptance  of  universal  suffrage  ;  he  foresees  a 
growth  of  Socialism,  character-softening,  and  "  herd- values." 
But  he  speaks  of  the  chance  that  they  may  mend  their  ways 
and  "  become  something."  This  was  thirty  years  ago ;  might 
not  a  Prussian  claim  that  the  warning  was  taken  ?  It  is  worth 
noticing  that  two  or  three  months  ago  the  Berliner  Tageblatt 
reported  a  discussion  in  which  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche  took  part, 
and  in  which  she  rejoiced  that  the  war  had  given  to  her  brother 
his  rightful  place  among  his  countrymen. 


LECTURE  VII 

NIETZSCHE   AND    CHRISTIANITY 

WE  saw  at  the  beginning  of  our  course  that  Nietzsche 
was  the  son  of  a  Lutheran  pastor,  brought  up  amid 
the  influences  of  a  religious  circle.  No  man  ever 
broke  away  more  completely  from  the  environment 
of  his  youth.  He  was  at  first  destined  for  the  clerical 
profession  of  his  father  and  grandfather;  we  have 
some  fragments,  dating  from  his  boyhood,  in  which 
we  can  recognize  the  natural  outlook  of  a  coming 
village  P/arrer.  "  May  God  always  have  me  in  His 
keeping,"  he  wrote  before  he  had  left  school,  and  in 
his  first  years  at  the  university  he  drew  up  a  list  of 
the  sciences  which  he  aspired  to  know,  "  especially," 
he  says,  "  religion,  the  solid  foundation  of  all  know 
ledge."  A  theoretic  interest  in  this  subject  he  re 
tained  to  the  last,  but  his  youthful  devoutness  became 
changed  into  a  burning  hatred  to  which  the  history 
of  thought  scarcely  furnishes  a  parallel.  It  will  be 
our  task  in  this  lecture  to  examine  the  spiritual 
attitude  of  a  man  in  whom  the  creed  of  naturalism 
was  cherished  with  all  the  fervour  of  a  cult.  I  shall 
divide  what  I  have  to  say  into  parts,  taking  first 
Nietzsche's  theory  of  religion  in  general,  and  after 
wards  his  special  account  of  Christianity. 


189 


190      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 


I. 

He  begins  by  analyzing  those  causes  which  have 
led  men  everywhere  to  think  along  a  religious  line. 
Whence  have  come  the  ideas  of  God,  of  sin,  of  reward 
and  punishment,  of  the  clean  and  unclean  soul,  of  an 
efficacious  ritual,  of  a  consciousness  persisting  after 
death  ?  .These  he  looked  upon,  somewhat  unjusti 
fiably,  as  the  common  counters  of  all  religion,  a 
language  alien  to  man  as  Nature  made  him,  hence 
requiring  to  be  explained  in  terms  of  some  later 
influence.  His  answer  to  these  profound  questions 
is  very  dogmatic  and  alarmingly  simple;  the  ease 
with  which  they  yield  their  secret  to  his  scrutiny 
would  have  roused  misgiving  in  a  thinker  less  sure 
of  himself,  less  confident  in  his  own  invincible  pene 
tration.  His  inquiry  into  the  subject  is  purely 
psychological;  that  the  ideas  before  him  have  any 
validity,  any  objective  counterpart,  is  not  for  a 
moment  entertained. 

He  assumes  that  to  educated  persons  the  whole 
spiritual  fabric  is,  as  Thucydides  says  of  democracy, 
avoid  oj/xoXoy^/xeV^ ;  at  all  events,  if  any  reader  has 
not  reached  this  standpoint  he  is  informed  that  the 
ensuing  discussion  is  not  for  him.  It  is  for  those  who 
know  that  the  body  is  the  reality  and  the  "  soul  "  a 
myth,  that  the  determinants  of  action  are  physio 
logical,  that  the  "  will  "  is  but  a  name  for  that  special 
passion  which  is  for  the  moment  uppermost,  that  no 
one  is  morally  responsible  for  anything  that  he  does, 
in  any  other  sense  than  that  in  which  an  inanimate 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  191 

object  is  responsible  for  its  obedience  to  mechanical 
law,  that  there  is  no  purpose  which  a  Divine  Creator 
has  fashioned  the  world  to  fulfil,  that  the  whole  of 
life  is  to  be  explained  by  a  conflict  amongst  impulses 
rooted  in  the  nervous  system,  and  each  an  expression 
of  will  to  power.  The  problem  then  is,  How  did  such 
delusions  as  are  involved  in  the  religious  view  of  the 
world  become  so  widespread  and  so  influential  ? 

Taking  first  the  myth  of  theism,  he  finds  its  sources 
in  the  psychology  of  primitive  man.  Belief  in  God 
was  part  of  a  more  general  belief  in  the  activity  of 
spirits,  unseen,  but  infinitely  stronger  than  men,  and 
this  belief  was  suggested  through  the  experience  of 
sleep  and  dreams.1  By  night,  when  the  bodily  senses 
were  in  abeyance,  one  was  brought  into  contact  with 
a  new  world,  which,  in  turn,  vanished  when  the 
sleeper  awoke.  Unable  to  interpret  this  in  any  other 
way,  our  simple  forefathers  took  for  granted  a  per 
sisting  reality  all  around  them,  which  could  be  realized 
only  when  the  common  reality  was  shut  out,  and 
they  were  forced  to  think  of  it  in  the  only  category 
they  had — namely,  as  the  product  of  beings  with  a 
personality  like  their  own.  It  was  mysterious,  it  was 
associated  with  shadows  and  darkness,  it  came  to 
them  invested  with  all  the  terrors  of  the  unknown. 
Thus,  while  they  thought  of  spirits  anthropomorphi- 
cally,  they  also  thought  of  them  reverentially,  and  it 
was  a  short  step  to  the  notion  of  a  Ruling  Spirit, 
conceived  in  the  likeness  of  human  kingship. 

This  is,  of  course,  a  very  common  view  of  anthro 
pologists,  and  as  an  account  of  how  the  idea  of  God 
historically  arose  it  may  well  have  an  element  of 

1    Will  to  Power,  230. 


192      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

truth.  Nietzsche  held  that  although  correct  so  far 
as  it  goes,  it  omitted  a  most  important  factor. 
Primitive  man  had  been  misled  not  merely  by  the 
visions  of  sleep,  but  by  his  crude  reflection  on  his  own 
waking  states.  His  moods  varied;  and  while  he  felt 
no  need  to  explain  the  moods  which  were  habitual, 
he  demanded  a  cause  for  those  which  were  strange, 
disturbing,  especially  for  those  which  were  "  rapturous 
and  overwhelming."1  One  could  see  this  tendency 
still  in  the  idea  of  obsessions  and  inspirations ;  epilepsy 
and  lunacy  had  long  been  taken  as  evidence  of  some 
foreign  agent  by  which  the  body  was  possessed ;  great 
poets  and  artists  were  looked  upon  as  guided  by  a 
:e  Muse."  The  modern  idea  of  a  law  of  Nature  ful 
filling  itself  just  as  much  in  the  ordinary  as  in  the 
exceptional  had  not  yet  been  born.  Thus,  early  man 
saw  no  problem  in  the  things  which  happened  regu 
larly,  such  as  the  return  of  day  and  night,  or  the 
order  of  the  seasons,  but  in  the  things  that  were 
more  or  less  fitful,  like  the  thunderstorm,  the  onset 
of  disease,  the  occurrence  of  death.  He  would  be 
impressed  less  by  the  things  which  helped  him  than 
by  the  things  which  terrified  him,  less  by  the  kindly 
sunbeams  and  the  fertile  ground  than  by  the  stroke 
of  lightning  or  the  shock  of  earthquake.  In  the  same 
way  he  would  attend  to  those  conditions  of  himself 
which  were  markedly  different  from  the  common 
routine,  conditions  of  exalted  power  whether  for  good 
or  for  evil;  he  would  "  explain  "  these  by  denying 
that  he  himself  was  responsible  for  them,  by  supposing 
an  influx  from  a  spiritual  world  without.  The  fallacy, 
of  course,  lay  in  thus  belittling  his  native  resources; 

1  Will  to  Power,  230;  cf.  ibid.,  135. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  193 

nothing  was  understood  of  the  endless  variety— the 
ups  and  downs— of  nerve  action.  But  once  the  idea 
of  a  foreign  agent  had  been  accepted,  there  would 
grow  up  a  set  of  fearful  emotions;  it  would  be  thought 
of  as  an  arbitrary  power  which  must  be  appeased  lest 
men  should  perish  in  the  divine  anger.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking  expression  of  Nietzsche's  view  may  be 
found  in  a  stanza  of  Shelley's  Revolt  of  Islam  :* 

What  is  that  Power  ?     Some  moon-struck  sophist  stood 

Watching  the  shade  from  his  own  soul  upthrown 
Fill  Heaven  and  darken  Earth,  and  in  such  mood 
The  Form  he  saw  and  worshipped  was  his  own, 
His  likeness  in  the  world's  vast  mirror  shown ; 
And  'twere  an  innocent  dream,  but  that  a  faith 
Nursed  by  fear's  dew  of  poison,  grows  thereon, 
And  that  men  say  that  Power  has  chosen  Death 
On  all  who  scorn  its  laws,  to  wreak  immortal  wrath. 

The  next  important  agent  in  developing  religion  is 
the  rise  of  a  priesthood.2  We  saw  in  a  previous 
lecture  how  Nietzsche  explained  priests  as  an  element 
of  aristocratic  society,  a  caste  which  disputed  the 
paramount  claim  of  the  noble.  Once  the  myth  of  a 
soul  and  of  a  God  had  been  diffused,  it  was  easy  to 
convince  the  simple  that  certain  men  were  propitious 
media  through  which  the  supernatural  world  could 
act  upon  the  natural.  The  contrast  between  flesh 
and  spirit  became  accentuated;  the  body  was  depicted 
as  the  enemy  of  the  soul.  Hence  the  vile  super 
stition  that  men  of  low  physical  vitality,  pale,  anemic, 
world-denying  creatures,  were  favourite  channels  of 
grace;  it  was  these  whom  the  gods  would  choose  to 


1  Canto  viii.  6. 

2  Will  to  Power,  138  ff. 

13 


194      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

"  inspire."  The  ascetic  priest  thus  secured  a  weapon 
of  matchless  effectiveness  in  his  struggle  for  domina 
tion  over  the  "  herd."  This  is  one  of  the  things  that 
Nietzsche  has  in  mind  when  he  uses  that  paradoxical 
phrase:  "  Ascetic  morality  as  a  form  of  will  to  power." 
In  this  way  men  were  persuaded  to  set  the  highest 
value  upon  qualities  which  were  most  opposed  to 
healthy  physical  instinct.  '  If  the  priest  is  to  be 
the  highest  type,  then  the  degrees  which  lead  to  his 
virtues  must  be  the  degrees  of  value  among  men. 
Study,  emancipation  from  material  things,  inactivity, 
impassibility,  absence  of  passion,  solemnity."  Thus, 
by  its  very  nature  the  rise  of  a  priesthood  is  at  once 
a  symptom  and  a  cause  of  decadence.1 

The  sacerdotal  class  has  still  another  weapon,  and 
Nietzsche  finds  that  it  has  always  employed  it  in  a 
way  which  confirms  his  estimate  of  religion  as 
degeneracy.  If  a  mediator  between  God  and  man  is 
to  secure  his  authority  beyond  challenge  he  must 
represent  himself  as  holding  a  monopoly  both  of 
spiritual  action  and  of  spiritual  truth.  He  is  at  once 
the  way  of  approach  to  the  Divine  and  the  sole 
interpreter  of  the  Divine  reality.  Hence  he  must 
manufacture  a  code  of  religious  duty,  separate  from 
the  ordinary  rules  of  conduct  between  man  and  man ; 
the  fulfilment  of  this  code  must  be  made  to  depend 
on  his  own  priestly  functions.  And  he  must  enjoin 
the  acceptance  of  all  that  he  communicates  ex  cathedra 
as  an  oracle  of  God.  This  means  the  creation  of  a 
religious  "  conscience  ", — a  distinction,  not  between 
what  is  good  and  bad,  but  between  what  is  clean  and 
unclean — in  a  word,  a  ceremonial  law.  It  means, 

1  Will  to  Power,  139. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  195 

further,  the  investment  of  doubt  or  disbelief  with  a 
character  of  moral  heinousness;  the  heretic  becomes 
the  sinner  par  excellence.  Nietzsche  appeals  for 
evidence  of  this  to  the  history  of  religious  Europe, 
to  the  vast  machinery  of  the  Church's  penal 
legislation. 

Nor  will  he  allow  that  priests  have  been  in  any 
degree  honest  in  the  part  they  have  played;  he  will 
not  concede  that  they  have  been  themselves  the  dupes 
of  the  superstition  they  have  propagated.  The  thing 
has  been  deliberate,  calculated  fraud.  "  It  is  a  mis 
take,"  he  writes,  :c  to  suppose  unconscious  and 
innocent  development  in  this  quarter — a  sort  of  self- 
deception.  Fanatics  are  not  the  discoverers  of  such 
exhaustive  systems  of  oppression.  Cold-blooded  re 
flection  must  have  been  at  work  here."1  Thus,  un- 
truthf ulness  was  the  necessary  weapon  of  all  priests; 
their  moral  code  sanctioned  it,  the  very  basis  of  their 
order  involved  the  principle  "  that  a  lie  be  allowed  in 
pursuit  of  holy  ends."  Nietzsche  seems  to  have 
forgotten  at  this  point  that  he  has  already  contended 
that  the  one  end  is  self-aggrandizement;  he  seems  to 
concede  that  a  lying  priest  must  practise  a  sophistica 
tion  upon  his  own  conscience.  But  he  proceeds  to 
enumerate  the  things  which  "  the  holy  lie  has  in 
vented  "  —namely,  a  God  distributing  reward  and 
punishment  in  accordance  with  the  sacerdotal  law- 
book,  an  after-life  in  which  these  recompenses  are 
carried  out,  a  conscience  trained  to  sensitiveness  for 
religious  distinctions,  a  morality  which  denies  all 
healthy  instinct,  and  a  "  Truth  "  to  which  priests 
alone  have  the  key. 

1   Will  to  Power,  142. 


196      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

Such  being  the  foundation  of  them  all,  religions  may 
be  divided,  in  Nietzsche's  view,  under  two  types — the 
affirmative  and  the  negative.  By  the  former  is 
meant  a  cult  which  supports,  by  the  latter  a  cult 
which  destroys,  the  natural  gradation  of  men  in  rank 
and  caste.  Brahminism  with  its  aristocratic  code  of 
Manu;  Mohammedanism  with  its  strict  discipline  in 
the  Koran,  and  its  avoidance  of  all  effeminacy ;  or  even 
Hebraism  in  its  earliest  Old  Testament  form,  may  be 
cited  as  examples  of  religious  affirmation.  Buddhism 
and  Christianity  were  alike  negative;  each  involved 
the  denial  and  renunciation  of  life.  But  Buddhism 
was  the  superior,  for  it  was  the  product  of  a  ruling 
class,  though  that  class  had  become  exhausted  and 
world-weary;  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  ap 
pealed  not  to  those  who  had  outlived  their  culture, 
but  to  those  who  were  essentially  below  the  possi 
bility  of  culture  from  the  first. 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  philosophy  of 
religion  at  any  length ;  our  concern  is  with  Nietzsche's 
moral  outlook,  and  I  have  introduced  his  account  of 
religious  origins  only  because  it  is  needed  to  explain 
his  ethical  point  of  view.  Its  merits  will  be  lightly 
esteemed  by  the  anthropologist  on  the  one  side,  and 
by  the  philosopher  on  the  other.  The  fraud  theory, 
both  in  ethics  and  in  religion,  involves  too  much  that 
is  both  incredible  and  unhistorical  to  satisfy  those  who 
investigate  primitive  peoples  at  first  hand;  and  the 
dismissal  of  the  whole  religious  problem  on  the  basis 
of  "  primitive  psychology  "  ignores  the  fact  that  the 
validity  of  a  belief  can  never  be  decided  by  mere 
inquiry  into  the  circumstances  of  its  origin.  In 
short,  Nietzsche's  view  is  simply  a  re-hash  of  undi- 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  197 

gested  anthropology,  together  with  some  connecting 
links  borrowed  from  a  now  obsolete  Deism.  There 
is  nothing  original  in  it,  except  the  language  of  copious 
vituperation  in  which  the  whole  is  clothed. 


II. 

Having  thus  accounted  for  religion  in  general, 
Nietzsche  faces  the  question:  "  What  is  it  that  has 
made  the  Christian  religion  such  a  force  among  men  ?" 

This  problem  fascinated  his  thought  at  a  very  early 
stage.  A  short  time  at  the  university  had  sufficed 
to  dispel  the  trustful  faith  of  his  boyhood;  he  soon 
became  convinced  from  the  intellectual  standpoint 
that  Christianity  implied  a  system  of  illusions,  that 
there  was  no  intelligent  ground  for  belief  in  Provi 
dence,  in  an  Incarnation,  in  an  inspired  Scripture,  in 
a  world  to  come.  More  than  this,  he  became  assured 
that  these  doctrines  were  not  only  unsupported  by 
reason — they  were  contrary  to  reason;  his  position 
passed  from  one  of  doubt  to  one  of  militant  and 
aggressive  denial.  But  one  feature  in  Germany's 
religious  attitude  specially  perplexed  him.  There 
were,  of  course,  plenty  of  writers  who  shared  his 
negative  view.  There  was  Strauss,  for  example, 
from  whom  he  had  learned  much  of  the  rationalizing 
spirit.  Yet  we  find  that  one  of  Nietzsche's  first  books 
is  a  polemic  against  Strauss  of  the  most  vigorous  and 
even  violent  type.  A  coward,  a  timid  thinker  who 
stops  half  -  way,  a  weakling  afraid  to  face  public 
opinion — these  are  some  of  the  terms  in  which  he 
assails  the  man  whose  position  was  so  similar  to  his 


198      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

own.  What  prompted  this  ?  The  answer  takes  us 
far  into  the  heart  of  our  subject  for  this  afternoon. 

Nietzsche  was  an  odd  mixture  of  qualities;  but  he 
was  above  all  things  an  intense  soul,  determined  to 
follow  truth  as  he  saw  it  wherever  that  truth  might 
lead,  whatever  cherished  feelings  it  might  outrage, 
whatever  sacrifices  it  might  entail.  There  is  much 
in  his  teaching  well  fitted  to  make  others  deceitful ;  in 
personal  character  he  was  himself  compellingly,  even 
intolerantly  candid.  He  has  said  many  a  time  in  one 
place  things  which  we  can  see  him  to  have  contra 
dicted  in  other  places;  but,  so  far  as  he  knew  it,  he 
has  striven  to  be  faithful  to  one  conception  through 
out.  And  what  he  aimed  at  himself  he  imperiously 
demanded  in  others;  he  could  stand  no  dissimulation, 
no  hesitancy  in  pressing  to  its  last  outcome  a  principle 
which  had  once  been  embraced. 

Now,  one  principle  which  he  had  embraced  was  dis 
belief  in  God,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  from  such 
disbelief  consequences  of  immense  moment  must 
follow.  Over  and  over  again  he  dwells  upon  the 
epoch-making  nature  of  such  a  thought.  But  yester 
day  men  had  trusted  in  a  Divine  Spirit  whose  name 
was  Love,  caring  with  fatherly  tenderness  for  all  His 
children,  counting  the  hairs  of  our  heads,  without 
whom  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground,  making 
all  things  to  work  together  for  good.  To-day  men 
knew  that  the  world  has  no  guidance,  that  its  principle 
is  not  love  but  remorseless  warfare,  that  the  indi 
vidual  is  of  no  importance,  that  there  is  no  wisdom 
and  less  mercy  by  which  human  affairs  are  shaped. 
The  first  conception  had  developed  itself  into  myriad 
consequences  in  the  Europe  of  the  past;  from  it  had 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  199 

come  man's  sense  of  sin,  his  craving  for  redemption, 
the  whole  way  of  life  enforced  by  the  Churches.  It 
had  entered  into  the  very  fibre  of  civilization;  it  had 
been  honoured  in  countless  rules  of  social  conduct. 
The  second  conception,  if  we  were  honest  with  our 
selves,  must  dominate  the  civilization  of  the  future; 
it  must  sweep  away  a  mass  of  false  homages,  it  must 
replace  them  with  the  aims  that  are  dictated  by  the 
clearer  and  truer  outlook  upon  fact — in  short,  the 
very  engines  of  society  must  be  reversed.  And  yet 
David  Strauss,  who  could  not  fail  to  see  this,  had 
stopped  short  with  reciting  the  new  creed;  he  was 
not  man  enough  to  brave  public  obloquy  and  point 
the  way  to  the  new  practice.  "  The  greatest  modern 
event,"  said  Nietzsche,  "is  this,  that  God  is  dead; 
yet  those  who  know  it  go  on  precisely  as  if  nothing 
had  occurred." 

To  this  extraordinary  situation  Nietzsche  again  and 
again  returns.  On  one  side  the  demolition  of  Christ 
ianity  seemed  complete;  its  central  tenets  had  been 
consigned  by  fearless  criticism  to  the  place  which  was 
justly  theirs,  a  place  among  the  myths  and  dreams  of 
mankind's  infancy.  But  there  still  survived  a  moral 
system  which  stood  in  a  curiously  reciprocal  relation 
to  the  dogmas  that  had  vanished.  Men  had  ceased 
to  believe  in  God,  in  Christ,  in  a  future  state,  and  yet 
they  could  continue  to  cherish  the  Christian  notions 
of  human  brotherhood,  of  good  and  evil,  of  duty  and 
responsibility.  It  was  a  strange  paradox  of  thought, 
for  the  two  systems  of  ideas  were  interwoven  to 
gether—together  they  had  stood  through  the  shock 
of  the  centuries,  together  they  ought  plainly  to  have 
fallen.  Nevertheless,  those  critics  who  were  most 


200      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

remorseless  towards  Christian  theology  were  often 
enthusiastic  towards  the  Christian  ordering  of  life. 

Sometimes  Nietzsche  thought  it  might  be  accounted 
for  by  mankind's  lack  of  logic.  We  give  up  the 
foundation  on  which  our  moral  ideas  rest,  but  those 
ideas  themselves  have  become  so  entwined  with  our 
hopes  and  fears,  our  feelings  and  emotions,  so  sancti 
fied  by  the  romance  of  the  past,  or  so  engraven  upon 
the  plastic  characters  of  childhood,  that  they  are  able 
to  stand  though  the  supporting  pillars  are  withdrawn. 
This  at  best  could  be  only  a  partial  explanation. 
Surely  a  man  like  Strauss  ought  to  be  capable  of 
looking  truth  in  the  face,  however  intimate  were  the 
emotional  ties  that  bound  him  to  error  !  There  must 
be  some  deeper  source  for  the  tenacity  of  the  Christian 
values.  That  source  he  believed  himself  to  have 
detected.  To  put  it  in  a  word,  Christian  morality 
had  survived  Christian  dogma,  because  it  was  not  the 
dogma  which  at  first  won  acceptance  for  the  morality ; 
it  was  the  morality  which  won  acceptance  for  the 
dogma. 

Why,  he  asks,  did  men  so  readily  believe  that 
mass  of  incredible  propositions  which  constitutes  the 
creed  of  the  Church  ?  It  was  not  enough  to  show 
that  these  propositions  contradict  reason.  We  must 
explain  why,  being  thus  irrational,  they  have  not  by 
this  time  been  universally  repudiated.  The  secret,  he 
tells  us,  lies  in  this : — 

Christianity  arose  in  a  pagan  world,  where  the 
conflict  of  classes  was  becoming  acute.  Its  birthplace 
was  in  a  subject  people;  the  Jew  was  Nature's  ple 
beian,  the  Roman  was  Nature's  aristocrat.  Nowhere 
else  do  we  see  with  such  concentrated  intensity  the 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  201 

hatred  of  him  that  is  low  against  him  that  is  high. 
"  One  divines  it,"  says  Nietzsche,  "  by  a  thousand 
indications,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  call  to  mind  the 
Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  the  wildest  of  all  written 
outbursts  which  the  revengeful  conscience  has  mani 
fested."  On  the  one  side  the  governing  circle,  that 
upper  order  of  mankind  which  had  the  virtues  of 
rulership,  dominance,  nobleness;  on  the  other  side, 
the  masses  who  were  governed,  the  ravenous  pro 
letariate,  weak,  submissive,  servile.  In  paganism's 
golden  age  each  class  kept  its  own  place;  the  natural 
barrier  was  preserved.  But  the  social  ferment  in 
Judsea  had  baffled  a  succession  of  procurators,  and 
no  matter  what  religious  alias  it  assumed,  the  move 
ment  at  bottom  was  one  and  the  same — an  insurrection 
of  the  slave  against  his  master.  There  was  at  the 
same  time  throughout  the  world  a  singular  receptive- 
ness  to  all  manner  of  weird  superstition ;  the  old  faith 
had  gone,  that  patrician  faith  which  had  sustained 
Roman  gravitas  and  Roman  dominion,  and  there  had 
come  into  its  place  a  swarm  of  Oriental  cults  drawn 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth — Magna  Mater  from 
Pessinus,  Serapis  from  Egypt,  Mithra  from  Syria- 
all,  however  crude  their  dogma  and  however  absurd 
their  ritual,  were  welcomed  by  the  infinite  credulity  of 
minds  that  could  not  live  without  a  cult. 

To  a  public  filled  with  revolutionary  discontent  the 
Galilean  message  was  first  proclaimed;  to  a  public 
ready  for  any  superstition  it  quickly  spread.  It  hit 
the  mood  of  the  moment,  for  it  addressed  itself  to 
the  multitude,  and  it  told  the  multitude  the  things 
that  were  most  congenial ;  it  spoke  to  them  of  human 
equality,  of  the  tyranny  which  the  rich  maintained 


202      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

over  the  poor,  of  a  Paradise  in  which  they  should  be 
"  eternally  indemnified  "  for  the  wrongs  of  earth,  of  a 
God  who  would  be  the  proletariate's  champion,  of 
the  peasant's  "  treasure  in  heaven  "  one  day  to  be 
inherited  by  the  soul  that  could  never  die.  To  such 
feelings  the  appeal  came  home  with  overwhelming 
power;  it  was  because  it  promised  revenge  against  the 
upper  classes  to  the  poor  man,  to  the  outcast,  to  the 
slave,  that  minds  at  once  simple  and  passionate 
accepted  the  whole  supernatural  apparatus  of  Christ 
ianity.  '  The  Christian  and  the  anarchist  are  of  the 
same  origin.  .  .  .  Their  object,  their  instinct,  is 
wholly  destructive  .  .  .  they  are  both  decadents.  .  .  . 
Christianity  was  the  vampire  of  the  imperium 
Romanum — in  the  night  it  undid  the  immense  achieve 
ment  of  the  Romans  of  obtaining  the  site  for  a  grand 
civilization."  This  is  what  Nietzsche  means  when  he 
insists  that  the  kernel  of  the  religion  of  Europe  lies  in 
its  moral  system;  its  dogma  is  but  the  intellectual 
reinforcement  of  its  view  of  life.  Just  because  those 
communistic  passions  on  which  it  worked  at  the 
beginning  are  mighty  with  the  multitude  to-day, 
Christianity  is  still  the  faith  of  the  masses.  You  may 
consume  it  any  number  of  times  intellectually,  but 
if  you  leave  the  moral  root  it  will  spring  up  again 
and  again  from  its  very  embers. 

Now,  there  is  one  respect  in  which  this  monstrous 
psychology  contained  deeper  insight  than  its  author 
suspected.  Nietzsche  is  right  when  he  says  that  in 
the  moral  soil  of  our  nature  Christianity  has  its  last 
and  surest  hold.  He  is  right  when  he  claims  that 
reversal  of  the  moral  values  would  strike  at  the  very 
heart  of  faith.  He  is  right  when  he  makes  our  creed 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  203 

rest  on  our  conscience  rather  than  our  conscience  on 
our  creed.  If  you  and  I  believe  in  God  in  any  sense 
in  which  that  belief  is  important,  it  is  not  because 
we  have  bowed  before  the  cogency  of  an  argument, 
it  is  not  in  virtue  of  the  intellect's  submission  to  a 
syllogism.  No  doubt  the  objects  of  faith  can  and 
should  be  presented  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  be  ration 
ally  credible.  The  mind's  perplexities  are  often  a 
cloud  concealing  from  the  soul  the  vision  which  it 
craves.  But,  when  the  cloud  has  cleared,  it  is  the  eye 
that  sees ;  the  fairest  landscape  has  no  beauties  for  the 
blind.  Arguments  from  design  may  silence  doubt; 
evidence  from  miracle  and  prophecy  may  constrain  a 
barren  acknowledgment  of  things  which  the  reason 
cannot  subjugate  under  law;  psychic  phenomena  may 
leave  us  no  intellectual  option  but  to  admit  a  spiritual 
world.  None  of  these  acquiescences  constitute  faith; 
it  can  live  without  them,  and  it  can  languish  where 
they  are  most  abundant.  But  the  conscience  that  is 
sensitive  to  duty,  the  feelings  which  cannot  bear  the 
manifold  injustice  of  a  mechanical  universe,  the  will 
that  demands  somewhere  and  somehow  satisfaction 
for  its  highest  ideals  and  its  deepest  intuition — this 
is  indeed  the  spirit  that  is  attuned  to  the  Galilean 
gospel.  Not  through  coercion  of  the  mind,  but 
through  winning  of  the  soul,  has  Christianity  worked 
in  all  ages.  Our  final  outlook  upon  life  has  its  roots 
planted  in  "  profounder  strata  of  our  nature  than  any 
mere  tillage  of  the  intellect  can  reach."1  This  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  the  poet  and  not  the  scientist  has 
been  the  herald  of  religion.  '  Truth,"  says  Words 
worth,  "  is  ofttimes  nearer  when  we  stoop  than  when 

1  Martineau. 


204      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

we  soar."  And  you  remember  how  the  long  argu 
ment  between  faith  and  doubt  in  Tennyson's  "  Two 
Voices  "  concludes  with  a  burst  of  assurance  deeper 
than  aught  which  reasoning  could  yield : 

Such  seem'd  the  whisper  at  my  side : 

"  What  is  it  thou  knowest,  sweet  voice  ?"  I  cried. 

"  A  hidden  hope,"  the  voice  replied: 

So  heavenly-toned,  that  in  that  hour 
From  out  my  sullen  heart  a  power 
Broke,  like  the  rainbow  from  the  shower, 

To  feel,  although  no  tongue  can  prove, 
That  every  cloud,  that  spreads  above 
And  veileth  love,  itself  is  love. 

Over  and  over  again,  if  Nietzsche  had  had  the 
patience  and  discernment  to  see  it,  this  grounding  of 
belief  upon  moral  intuition  is  proclaimed  in  the 
Christian  literature:  "  With  the  hearing  of  the  ear 
have  I  heard  of  Thee,  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  Thee;" 
'  With  the  heart  man  believeth  unto  righteousness;" 
"  Thou  hast  hidden  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes." 

My  second  remark  about  Nietzsche's  religious  atti 
tude  is  to  give  him  all  credit  for  his  impatience  of  half- 
measures.  He  was  absolutely  right  in  his  insistence 
that  the  man  who  has  overthrown  belief  in  God,  if  he 
stops  there,  has  said  either  greatly  too  much  or 
greatly  too  little.  Let  him  either  go  back  or  go 
forward.  You  either  believe  or  do  not  believe  in  a 
providential  order;  make  your  choice,  but  when  you 
have  made  it,  why  not  follow  it  out  to  its  last  conse 
quence  ?  It  is  against  the  notion  that  such  a  change 
makes  no  practical  difference  that  Nietzsche  levels 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  205 

the  scorn  of  an  honest  mind.  He  was  an  enthusiast; 
whatever  creed  he  had  adopted,  that  creed  he  must 
bring  to  bear  through  and  through,  making  no  com 
promise  with  public  prejudice.  "  An  atheist  by 
religion,"  someone  has  called  him;  the  same  fervour 
which  others  devoted  to  their  faith  he  devoted  to  his. 
I  am  often  reminded  in  reading  Nietzsche  of  those 
striking  sentences  in  Wilde's  last  book : 

"  I  would  like,"  he  says,  "  to  found  an  Order  for 
those  who  cannot  believe — the  Confraternity  of  the 
Faithless,  one  might  call  it,  where  on  an  altar  on 
which  no  taper  burned,  a  priest  in  whose  heart  peace 
had  no  dwelling,  might  celebrate  with  unblessed 
bread,  and  a  chalice  empty  of  wine.  And  agnosticism 
should  have  its  ritual  no  less  than  faith.  It  has  sown 
its  martyrs,  it  should  reap  its  saints,  and  praise  God 
daily  for  having  hidden  himself  from  man."1 

Nietzsche  thus  cherished  a  burning  purpose;  he 
would  disentangle  life  from  every  shred  of  the  Christian 
superstition.  To  do  so  he  sets  in  high  relief  those 
respects  in  which,  in  his  view,  the  Christian  influence 
has  been  despicable. 

Recall  what  I  said  a  moment  ago  about  those  moral 
feelings  which  make  a  soil  receptive  to  religion.  We 
think  these  feelings  the  surest  gateways  to  truth; 
Nietzsche  thought  them  the  deadliest  channels  of 
error.  We  think  that  Christianity  appeals  to  man  at 
his  best;  for  Nietzsche  it  appealed  to  him  at  his  worst. 
It  will  be  convenient  to  sum  up  the  reasons  for  this 
under  three  heads ;  they  correspond  to  three  marks  of 
"  nobleness  "  which,  as  it  seemed  to  Nietzsche,  the 
Christian  ideal  contradicted. 

1  De  Profundis,  pp.  31,  32. 


206      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

1.  In  the  first  place,  he  thought  of  the  "  noble  " 
spirit  as  one  that  believed  in  its  own  instincts.  Life 
was  intensely  worth  while,  intensely  worth  living; 
but  it  was  so  only  to  those  who  were  fit  for  it,  to  the 
enthusiastic  "  once-born  "  men,1  who  had  eyes  to 
appreciate  the  greatness  of  their  own  theatre  of  action. 
He  who  was  in  the  world  but  not  of  it,  he  who  kept  up 
an  eternal  protest  against  the  scheme  of  things, 
rebellious  against  the  order  without,  and  contemptuous 
toward  the  ardent  impulses  in  his  own  breast,  was  a 
decadent,  a  degenerate — one,  as  Nietzsche  puts  it, 
"  of  whom  the  earth  is  weary;  away  with  him  !"2 
Such  a  man  might  get,  like  Schopenhauer,  a  morbid 
pleasure  from  his  morbid  thoughts;  he  might  be  like 
the  old  cynic  in  Wordsworth's  Excursion?  who 

wastes  the  sad  remainder  of  his  hours 
In  self-indulging  spleen,  that  doth  not  want 
Its  own  voluptuousness;  on  this  resolved, 
With  this  content,  that  he  will  live  and  die 
Forgotten, — at  safe  distance  from  a  world 
Not  moving  to  his  mind. 

But  such  persons  who  sat  in  judgment  upon  life  were 
the  mere  waste  and  wreckage  of  humanity;  healthy 
spirits  were  joyously  responsive  to  the  forces  around; 
they  welcomed  human  nature  unexpurgated.  The 
soul,  like  the  body,  must  find  its  well-being  not  in 
restraint  but  in  free  passionate  expression.  Let  the 
watchword  of  the  new  order  be  abundant  vitality, 
bounding  instinct,  the  red  blood  of  youth. 

1  I  borrow  this  striking  term  from  William  James's  Varieties 
of  Religious  Experience. 

2  Zarathustra  :  Prologue,  3. 

3  Book  ii. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  207 

2.  Again,  Nietzsche  thought  of  the  world's  great 
ness  as  being  the  very  reverse  of  uniform,  placid  con 
tentment,  in  which  everyone  should  enjoy  a  bourgeois 
ease;  for  it  was  the  greatness  of  struggle,  the  higher 
ever  mastering  the  lower,  and  being  in  turn  mastered 
by  what  is  higher  still,  a  remorseless  yet  an  entran 
cing  view  of  agelong  conflict  in  which  the  noble  fights 
its  way  against  the  mean.1  Nihilism  sprang  from 
fixing  one's  attention  on  the  fate  of  individuals,  from 
incapacity  to  rise  to  the  purpose  of  the  whole.  Hence 
the  futile  inquiry:  "  Is  the  world  a  happy  place  ?" 
The  lofty  spirit  looked  on  happiness  as  an  aim  for 
beasts ;  utilitarianism  was  but  a  reminder  that  we  are 
come  from  the  worm  and  the  ape,  and  that  much  of 
the  worm  and  the  ape  is  in  us  still.2  Not  a  happy 
life,  but  an  heroic  life  was  the  ideal.3  And  if  this 
ideal  was  to  be  realized  it  must  be  through  glad 
acceptance  of  the  thought  that  pain  and  pleasure  as 
such  are  as  nothing,  that  the  immolation  of  the 
individual  is  the  price  humanity  must  pay,  that  the 
ascent  of  man  can  be  achieved  only  through  the  sup 
pression  of  multitudes  of  men.  Let  the  new  criterion 
of  virtue  be  one's  readiness  thus  to  sacrifice  himself 
upon  the  altar  of  his  race. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  Nietzsche  thought  of  a  coming 
end  to  the  whole,  when  the  conflict  which  had  known 
no  pause  and  the  sifting  which  had  known  no  mercy 

1  Cf.  the  conception  of  higher  man  as  "  living  dangerously  ": 
"  he  should  experiment  with  himself,  and  run  risks  with  himself — 
no beautiful  soul -quackery  should  be  tolerated  "  (Will  to  Power, 

@. 

2  Zarathustra :  Prologue,  3. 

3  Schopenhauer  as  Educator,  sect.  4. 


208      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

should  have  at  length  evolved  the  ideal.  Perfect  in 
physical  and  mental  strength,  through  and  through  a 
child  of  earth,  yet  able  as  no  children  of  earth  had 
yet  been  to  drain  the  cup  of  earth's  possibilities,  the 
Superman  would  stand  out  almost  like  a  new  species 
of  life;  capable,  proud,  self-reliant,  fit  for  every  demand 
that  Nature  could  make  upon  the  responsiveness  of 
body  and  of  spirit,  he  should  feel  that  in  his  person 
the  race,  reaching  its  topmost  limit,  had  transcended 
its  very  nature. 

Now,  Christianity,  in  Nietzsche's  view,  had  denied 
each  of  these  aspirations  in  turn.  It  had  denied  the 
grandeur  of  the  world,  for  it  taught  men  that  their 
natures  were  corrupt,  their  robust  passions  were 
sinful,  their  highest  efforts  were  worthless,  their  very 
righteousness  was  as  filthy  rags.  It  had  spoken  of  a 
rebirth  in  which  all  that  the  true  man  valued  must  be 
left  behind,  and  all  from  which  his  instincts  revolted 
must  be  wrought  into  his  character.  The  name 
"  world,"  so  dear  to  the  healthy  pagan,  had  been 
changed  into  a  term  of  reproach  ;x  in  hymn  and  prayer 
and  ritual  the  Church  had  kept  before  one's  mind  the 
thought  of  a  salvation  which  meant  renouncing  the 
world  with  its  affections  and  lusts,  of  a  citizenship  not 
here  but  in  heaven,  of  a  friendship  with  the  world 
which  was  enmity  toward  God.  Paganism  had  said 
'  Yea,"  Christianity  had  said  "  Nay,"  to  all  that  was 
natural.2  Under  Constantine  the  Empire  had  been 
"  converted,"  and  was  not  the  result  writ  large  in  the 
contempt  of  the  body,  the  frenzies  of  asceticism,  the 
cult  of  ugliness,  the  fear  and  hatred  of  knowledge — 

1  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  195. 

2  Will  to  Power,  147. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  209 

in  a  word,  the  darkness  of  a  thousand  years  ?x  Mr. 
A.  C.  Swinburne  breathes  the  very  spirit  of  Nietzsche 
when  he  writes : 

Thou  hast  conquered,  0  pale  Galilean  ;    the  world  has  grown 
grey  from  thy  breath. 

Again,  Christianity  had  denied  the  heroic  struggle 
of  life,  for  it  forbade  the  rivalry  in  which  alone  that 
which  is  noble  can  win  its  way.  It  cut  at  the  root 
when  it  made  a  man  a  sinner  for  aiming  at  distinction, 
when  it  proclaimed  all  men  as  such  to  be  equal.  High 
culture  meant  a  system  of  ranks,  a  full  recognition 
that  some  are  elevated,  others  low;  its  twin  enemies 
were  the  anarchist  and  the  Christian.  The  anarchist 
incited  the  mob  to  violence,  the  Christian  worked  more 
subtly  but  more  surely,  for  he  spread  abroad  the 
myth  of  a  future  state;  he  masked  those  natural 
inequalities  which  anyone  could  see  behind  the  fiction 
that  there  somewhere  sat  an  august  tribunal  before 
which  all  were  alike.  Immortality  was  the  great 
invention  of  the  priesthood,  devised  to  invest  the 
lower  classes  with  artificial  importance.  Thus,  Christ 
ianity  had  "appealed  to  all  the  cowardices  and 
vanities  of  wearied  souls";2  far  from  being  a  new 
source  of  vitality,  it  was  a  growth  that  could  proceed 
only  in  an  exhausted  stock.  Let  anyone  look  at  the 
tragedy  of  Pascal,  and  he  must  be  filled  with  anger 
against  a  creed  that  could  so  deform  a  noble  spirit.3 
Think  of  the  foeda  superstitio  about  an  ugly  body  as 
the  home  of  a  beautiful  soul,  think  of  the  fanatical 
but  legitimate  inference  that  sickness  should  at  times 


1  Will  to  Power,  154,  221,  250. 

2  Ibid.,  252.  3  Ibid.,  227. 


14 


210      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

be  voluntarily  induced !  Contrast  this  with  the 
pagan  hero  who,  Prometheus-like,  endures  and  chal 
lenges  misfortune,1  with  no  grovelling  thought  about 
a  spiritual  "  blessedness  "  which  was  higher  than 
earthly  heroism.  Did  not  the  whole  stand  exposed 
as  an  artifice  by  which  the  upper  order  might  be  forced 
to  yield  to  the  lower,  the  strong  to  forego  their  strength 
before  the  weak,  the  rich  to  impoverish  themselves 
for  the  poor  ?  To  that  end  men  had  been  taught  a 
new  vocabulary.  In  the  workshop  that  fashioned 
Christian  values,  cowardice  had  been  renamed  "  hu 
mility,"  powerlessness  to  resist  had  been  called  "  for 
giveness,"  enforced  subjection  had  become  dignified 
as  "  obedience."  Thus,  the  strenuous  competing 
world  had  been  turned  upside  down.  Could  anything 
have  been  more  subtly  devised  to  paralyze  the  effort 
of  those  who  have  it  in  them  to  excel  ? 

And,  lastly,  the  Christian  ethic  had  denied  the  goal 
of  life ;  for  that  goal,  if  it  be  worth  reaching,  meant  a 
perfecting  of  the  racial  type;  and  such  perfecting,  by 
every  law  of  Nature  that  we  know,  must  involve 
elimination.  From  the  Christian  standpoint  every  life 
was  of  eternal  value,  the  worth  of  each  was  precisely 
equivalent  to  that  of  every  other  ;  it  was  a  lying 
eschatology  that  made  the  individual  as  such  sacro 
sanct.  Nature  was  "  careful  of  the  type,  but  careless 
of  the  single  life  ";  hence  Nature  had  brought  types 
from  strength  to  strength.  Christianity,  heedless  of 
advance,  concerned  only  for  the  comfort  of  the  herd, 
had  made  an  idol  of  the  average  man,  had  substituted 
a  static  mediocrity  for  an  upward  movement.  The 
moment  a  society  aims  to  be  static  it  inevitably 

1  Will  to  Power,  222. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  211 

becomes  decadent.  And  the  back-wash  of  Christian 
ways  of  thinking  had  engulfed  even  those  who  ought 
to  have  risen  superior  to  it  all;  even  a  Schopenhauer 
and  a  Strauss  had  been  made  to  despair  of  humanity. 

Thus,  Nietzsche's  indictment  may  be  briefly 
summed  up ;  the  Christian  morality  is  bad  because  it 
preaches  pessimism,  equality,  and  race  decay. 

Now,  does  it  preach  pessimism  ?  Only  in  that 
sense  in  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  pessimism  must  be 
the  creed  of  every  thoughtful  mind.  It  declares  that 
the  world  has  much  evil  in  it,  evil  of  such  a  sort  and 
of  such  magnitude  that,  in  default  of  a  cure,  the  world 
would  not  be  worth  preserving.  Precisely  the  same 
view  has  appealed  to  many  a  keen  thinker  who  had  no 
Christian  standpoint,  but  who  has  looked  at  life  in 
the  light  of  the  great  human  values,  and  has  simply 
stated  what  he  found.  To  be  a  pessimist  a  man,  as 
Nietzsche  himself  points  out,  does  not  need  to  say 
that  the  world  contains  on  the  whole  more  pain  than 
pleasure.  You  may  have  other  scales  of  valuation; 
whatever  the  thing  is  which  you  take  to  be  the  good 
for  man — pleasure,  virtue,  knowledge,  or  a  sum  total 
of  well-being  in  which  these  are  elements— you  are  a 
pessimist  if  you  conclude  that  the  balance  in  regard 
to  that  thing  is  on  the  wrong  side.  Nietzsche,  indeed, 
has  devised  a  weigh-bridge  which  yields  a  positive 
result,  but  we  have  seen  it  to  be  a  machine  for  evaluat 
ing  the  good  in  which  the  very  meaning  of  good  is 
falsified.  And  if  one  restricts  his  view  to  the  facts 
of  the  natural  order  as  we  see  it  here  and  now,  if  one 
invokes  no  religious  postulate,  I  can  find  no  escape 
from  pessimism  for  him  who  sees  life  steadily  and 
sees  it  whole.  It  is  sheer  subterfuge  to  speak  of  such 


NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

a  view  as  the  outcome  of  an  unhealthy  or  morbid 
temperament;  it  is  rather  true  that  the  mood  of  placid 
satisfaction  springs  from  the  narrow  outlook  of  a 
man  who  cannot  see  beyond  his  own  circle.  '  What's 
wrong  with  the  world  ?"  asks  Mr.  Chesterton.  One 
thing  wrong  with  it  is  that  the  one  half  doesn't  know 
how  the  other  half  lives ;  if  they  did  they  could  answer 
his  question  with  ease. 

Nor  is  Nietzsche  in  the  least  justified  when  he 
charges  Christianity  with  inspiring  an  exaggerated 
sensitiveness  to  pain.  It  is  true  that  the  mild 
feminine  virtues,  as  they  are  sometimes  called, 
acquired  higher  value  when  pagan  morality  gave  place 
to  Christian.  Respect  for  womanhood  rose,  and  with 
it  respect  for  the  qualities  in  which  women  are  or 
should  be  superior.  There  was  a  softening  of  manners ; 
there  was  a  new  reluctance  to  hurt  the  creatures  that 
God  had  made.  But  one  hears  with  astonishment 
that  the  value  of  suffering  was  not  recognized  in  a 
religion  whose  ideal  was  a  Man  of  Sorrows,  and  whose 
symbol  was  the  Cross.  There  are  not  a  few  passages 
where  Nietzsche  depicts  the  moral  uplifting  effected 
through  pain  in  words  which  breathe  the  very  spirit 
of  the  Saints,  not  a  few  which — incongruously  enough 
— remind  us  of  the  warning  that  he  who  loveth  his 
life  shall  lose  it,  and  that  through  great  tribulation  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  to  be  reached.  One  cannot 
help  feeling  that  in  his  enmity  to  the  Christian  ideal 
he  has  attacked  it  with  arguments  that  answer  one 
another.  Sometimes  he  calls  it  grovelling  because  it 
exalts  the  weak,  the  ill-constituted,  the  sickly ;  at  other 
times  he  calls  it  morbid  because  it  cannot  find  room 
for  the  element  of  pain. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  213 

Thus,  when  Nietzsche  speaks  of  the  Christian  con 
tempt  for  life  he  is,  in  one  sense,  referring  to  that 
which  both  exists  and  is  justified.  It  is  not  solely, 
or  even  chiefly,  the  lack  of  happiness  that  one  has  in 
view.  Life  has  in  it  much  that  is  sordid,  motives  that 
are  vile,  tyrannies  that  are  intolerable,  ambitions  that 
are  hateful,  passions  that  are  degrading.  When  we 
hear  of  original  depravity,  and  of  the  flesh  wherein 
dwelleth  no  good  thing,  we  know  what  these  lurid 
words  stand  for,  and  we  know  that  what  they  stand 
for  is  real.  Nietzsche  meets  such  pessimism  with  a 
bold  denial  that  the  things  it  thinks  evil  are  evil.  The 
world  as  it  stands  is  good  enough  for  him,  if  only  its 
scale  were  magnified;  its  pain,  its  disorder,  its  crime, 
are  aspects  of  a  grand  a3sthetic  scene — let  us  enter 
joyously  into  the  spirit  of  the  whole.  Such  a  view 
is,  of  course,  inconsistent  with  all  morality,  with 
Nietzsche's  own  as  much  as  with  any  other;  if  every 
thing  is  good  nothing  is  evil,  and  the  very  names  good 
and  evil  become  unmeaning.  But  what  interests  us 
at  present  is  his  charge  that  Christianity  has  so 
emphasized  human  worthlessness  as  to  have  pro 
duced  a  disregard  of  humanity's  concerns,  that  it  has 
concentrated  thought  on  the  concerns  of  an  assumed 
other-world.  Has  it  done  so  in  any  other  sense  than 
that  of  insisting  that  the  concerns  of  life  shall  be 
viewed  with  a  new  seriousness,  that  the  passions  shall 
be  controlled  and  the  instincts  guided  ?  Have  not 
the  daily  round  and  the  common  task  thus  become 
far  more  important  than  they  could  ever  have  been 
for  one  who  thought  of  himself  as  a  mere  bundle  of 
blind  explosive  impulses  ?  Has  not  the  spirit  of 
brooding  upon  an  after-life  been  discouraged  by  that 


NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

meagreness  of  eschatological  detail  in  which  Christ 
ianity  is  so  remarkable  among  religions  ?  Is  there 
any  creed  which  emphasizes  conduct  so  persistently, 
which  so  minimizes  a  mere  performance  of  ritual,  and 
so  insists  upon  duty  between  man  and  man  ?  If  such 
an  ethic  has  sometimes  degenerated  into  a  cunning 
calculation  of  consequences,  into  work  with  an  eye  to 
reward  in  future  bliss,  this  is  not  the  form  in  which 
it  was  enjoined  by  its  Founder,  and  it  is  not  the  form 
in  which  it  has  since  been  preached  by  those  who  were 
most  faithful  to  the  Founder's  spirit.  One  might 
fairly  say  that  in  no  other  system  do  we  find  so  im 
periously  excluded  that  careless  indifference  which 
would  call  any  part  of  man's  life  common  or  unclean. 
What  we  do  find  is  that  correction  of  the  moral  stand 
point  which  was  most  sorely  needed  by  the  pagan 
conscience,  and  which  the  highest  discernment  of 
moral  reason  ever  since  has  eagerly  welcomed.  There 
had  been  abundance  of  self-expression  but  little  self- 
sacrifice,  abundance  of  public  spirit  but  little  humility, 
abundance  of  culture  but  little  benevolence  and  little 
restraint.  These  things,  wrought  by  Christian  in 
fluence  into  the  fibre  of  conscience,  have  been  found 
not  to  make  the  world  less  worthy  but  infinitely  more 
worthy,  not  to  debase  society  but  to  transfigure  it. 
It  is  just  for  this  that  the  New  Testament  morality 
seemed  so  complete  to  a  philosopher  of  self-expression 
incomparably  superior  to  Nietzsche;  the  maxim  "  Die 
to  live  "  was  for  Hegel  a  perfect  embodiment  of  the 
truth  that  the  lower  self  must  perish  if  the  higher 
self  is  to  be  realized. 

One  feels  in  Nietzsche's  references  to  this  subject 
that  what  he  generally  has  in  view  is  not  the  ideal  of 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  215 

the  New  Testament,  but  the  practice  of  this  or  that 
section  of  the  early  Church.  Sometimes  he  has  in 
mind  the  Saints  of  the  Desert,  retiring  from  the 
world's  affairs,  anticipating  every  day  the  Second 
Advent,  preparing  to  meet  it  through  an  austere  ritual 
of  prayer  and  fasting.  Sometimes  he  has  before  him 
St.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  about  whose  book  he  seems 
unaware  that  Christian  opinion  itself  is  very  various. 
'  I  can  never,"  he  says,  "  hold  in  my  hand  the 
Imitatio  Christi  without  experiencing  physiological 
resistance,"  a  view  from  which  I  imagine  many 
Protestant  theologians  would  not  dissent.  Or,  again, 
he  is  thinking  of  those  who  remained  in  the  State,  but 
refused  to  bear  their  part  in  its  common  work,  the 
preachers  who  taught  that  a  Christian  cannot  be  a 
soldier,  who  encouraged  an  exaggeration  of  humility, 
and  in  doing  so  produced  a  self-consciousness,  a 
spiritual  pride  which  was  the  very  reverse  of  the 
virtue  they  enjoined.  Or,  finally,  he  is  inflamed  by 
the  Communists,  the  men  who  quote  New  Testament 
authority  for  a  raid  on  their  neighbours'  goods. 
There  is  point  in  all  these  criticisms;  amid  the  great 
upheaval  of  conscience  which  Christianity  effected 
many  a  crude  fanaticism  took  its  rise.  But  for  the 
correction  of  such  fanaticisms  nothing  has  been  found 
so  effective  as  a  more  thorough  inquiry  into  the 
Christian  ideal  itself.  Of  such  return  to  first  prin 
ciples  Nietzsche  has  himself  given  an  illustration, 
though  in  the  judgment  of  every  scholar  a  singularly 
unsuccessful  one,  in  his  effort  to  identify  the  changes 
introduced  by  St.  Paul  into  the  original  teaching  of 
Christ.  But  he  constantly  judges  the  Christian 
ethic,  not  by  patient  examination  of  what  it  contained 


216      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

as  inculcated  by  the  Founder,  but  by  a  superficial 
glance  at  the  expression  given  to  it  by  this  or  that 
body  of  followers  in  their  practice.  It  is  enough  for 
him  that  restraint  of  the  passions  was  enjoined,  and 
that  anchorites  mortified  the  body;  it  is  enough  that 
we  are  bidden  to  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter, 
and  that  some  have  refused  to  fight  in  any  cause;  it 
is  enough  that  we  are  told  of  wisdom  from  the  mouth 
of  babes  and  sucklings,  and  that  zealots  have  deduced 
contempt  for  learning.  I  confess  myself  unable  to 
understand  what  is  in  the  mind  of  those  who  admire 
Nietzsche's  historical  insight.  What  I  observe  in  his 
work  is  the  perpetual  distortion  of  fact  to  suit  a  'priori 
assumption.  He  discusses  the  growth  of  the  Christian 
ethic  with  an  ineptitude,  a  lack  of  historical  sympathy, 
a  failure  to  read  literature  in  the  light  of  the  time  and 
place  of  its  origin,  which  if  applied  in  any  other  field 
of  research  would  render  one's  results  practically 
valueless.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  preserve  patience  with  a 
critic  who  so  constantly  imputes  the  most  dishonour 
able  motives  to  all  who  see  a  question  differently  from 
himself.  Either  theological  prejudice  or  State-bribed 
subserviency  is  the  invariable  imputation.  One  must 
remember  that  he  was  equally  dogmatic,  equally  care 
less  of  historical  method,  when  he  dealt  with  wholly 
secular  problems ;  he  never  scrupled  to  bring  a  similar 
charge  against  thinkers  as  little  disposed  as  himself  to 
serve  any  interest  but  that  of  truth.  One  may  ask, 
for  example,  whether  it  was  religious  terrors  or 
Bismarckian  largesses  which  forbade  the  philolo 
gists  of  Germany  to  follow  him  in  his  view  that 
tragic  drama  was  to  be  explained  wholly  in  terms  of 
music. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  217 

Perhaps  the  clearest  instance  of  what  I  mean  is  to 
be  found  in  another  charge  which  he  has  tabled,  the 
charge  that  Christianity  is  in  its  essence  hostile  to 
freedom  of  opinion  and  to  the  growth  of  knowledge. 
"  The  Bible,"  he  wrote,  "  opens  with  the  story  of 
God's  mortal  terror  of  science,  Thou  sJialt  not  know." 
'  nd  he  goes  on,  precisely  in  the  strain  of  the  crudest 
ughteenth-century  Deism,  to  interpret  this  as  a  device 
of  the  priesthood  for  the  maintenance  of  its  own 
ascendancy.  Intellectual  doubt  was  made  a  sin, 
credulity  became  the  first  of  virtues. 

Now,  such  criticism  is  really  not  respectable  at  this 
time  of  day;  it  is  parallel  to  the  old  explanation  of 
the  growth  of  Islam  as  secured  by  the  sword  alone— 
the  very  obviousness  of  both  makes  every  thinking 
man  distrust  them.  One  can,  of  course,  illustrate 
Nietzsche's  case  by  many  a  sad  chapter  in  the  Church's 
history;  many  a  fanatic  has  understood  the  Christian 
salvation  as  implying  a  surrender  of  reason,  as  obtained 
by  submissiveness  to  dogma.  But  there  is  little  to 
choose  between  him  who  estimates  Christianity  from 
the  ecclesiastical  corruptions  and  him  who  judges  it 
from  the  immoral  lives  of  individual  Churchmen  whom 
he  knows.  The  argument  about  priestly  cunning  is 
one  that  we  thought  had  been  buried  for  ever  with  the 
works  of  Thomas  Paine.  It  was  surely  the  place  of  a 
philosopher,  living  in  an  age  of  historical  progress,  to 
ask  how  far  this  or  that  Christian  spokesman  had 
been  faithful  to  the  spirit  of  his  religion,  how  far  the 
things  that  he  did  were  organically  connected  with 
the  Faith  that  he  professed.  When  Nietzsche  at 
tempts  to  base  himself  upon  the  text  of  Scripture  his 
exegesis  is  so  absurd  in  its  literalness  as  to  recall  the 


218      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

old  deduction  of  the  Trinity  from  the  words:  "  Let  Us 
make  man  in  our  own  image."  At  the  very  time  when 
he  was  writing  his  Antichrist  many  a  writer  in  his 
own  country  was  producing  work  which  should  have 
made  that  burlesque  impossible.  It  was  being  clearly 
shown  how  salvation  by  dogma  had  travestied  the 
Christian  gospel,  how  great  was  the  gulf  between 
what  Christ  called  "  faith  "  and  what  we  call  "  belief," 
how  an  attitude  of  will  was  elicited  far  more  than  a 
homage  of  the  understanding,  how  religion  has  its 
root  in  judgments  of  value  rather  than  in  judgments 
of  fact.  In  this  way  Christianity  was  being  exhibited, 
not  as  a  spiritual  bondage,  but  as  a  spiritual  freedom. 
I  do  not  say  that  Nietzsche  should  have  admitted 
this,  but  I  do  say  that  every  competent  critic  of  our 
time  must  take  account  of  it,  must  shape  his  own  view 
with  such  reconstructions  before  his  mind.  Of  the 
great  work  of  reinterpretation  that  was  being  done 
almost  at  his  door  by  teachers  like  Albrecht  Kitsch! 
he  shows  not  the  least  understanding. 

Again,  does  Christianity  preach  that  all  men  are 
equal  ?  Surely;  and  is  not  its  message  borne  out  by 
the  conscience  of  mankind  wherever  that  conscience 
has  become  developed  ?  It  is  a  slander  on  the  pagan 
world  to  claim  that  such  a  thought  belongs  to  JudaBa 
alone.  You  get  it  clearly  foreshadowed  in  the  dramas 
of  Euripides,  in  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  in  the  great 
Stoics,  in  the  letters  of  Pliny,  and  in  many  another 
quarter  that  Tertullian  had  in  mind  when  he  coined 
the  phrase:  Anima  naturaliter  Christiana.  Graeco- 
Roman  culture,  to  which  Nietzsche  so  often  appeals, 
can  lend  him  at  best  a  very  partial  countenance,  and 
that  rather  in  its  practice  than  in  its  doctrine,  for  the 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  C219 

best  minds  of  heathenism  were  working  toward  the 
principle  of  human  brotherhood. 

But  equal  in  what  sense  ?     For  there  are  manifest 
differences  of  which  note  must  be  taken.     We  call 
men  equal  in  that  no  accident  of  birth  or  place,  of 
special  circumstance  or  social  opportunity,  can  over 
ride  every  man's  intrinsic  right  to  be  equally  con 
sidered  with  every  other;  they  are  equal  in  that  each 
has  an  individual  value  apart  from  any  use  that  can 
be  made  of  him  to  serve  a  purpose  in  which  he  does 
not  share.     None  can  be  another's  property,  none  can 
be  simply  another's  tool;  this  is  that  genuine  indi 
vidualism  which  is  nowhere  so  explicitly  repudiated 
as  in  the  spurious  individualism  of  Nietzsche.    But 
does  equality  of  this  sort  forbid  competition  ?     Does 
it  not  rather  stimulate  competition  in  so  far  as  com 
petition  is  healthy  ?     It  forbids  the  struggle  in  which 
one  man's  gain  must  be  another  man's  loss,  and  it  was 
because  this  element  entered  into  the  only  sort  of 
struggle  which  our  author  had  in  view  that  he  would 
not  hear  of  human  equality.     But  it  is  an  antiquated 
barbaric  idea  that  we  can  only  progress  at  our  neigh 
bour's  expense.     It  is  true  of  rivalry  in  warfare,  it  is 
true  of  the  more  sordid  aspects  of  finance  where  war 
fare's  crude  injustice  is  reproduced,  it  is  true  of  the 
conflict  between  nations  for  the  material  dominion  of 
the  earth.     But  there  are  higher  fields  than  these, 
fields  where  every  man's  gain  is  gain  for  the  whole. 
By  emulation,  as  William  James  used  to  say,  three- 
fourths  of  the  world's  work  is  done,  but  it  is  emulation 
in   the    scientific   laboratory,    in    the   workshop,    in 
artistic  production,  in  inventiveness,  in  creative  talent. 
Nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  to  suggest  that  a 


220      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

society  organized  in  castes,  in  systematic  subjection 
of  rank  beneath  rank,  is  favourable  to  this  sort  of 
progress.  It  is  rather  fatal  to  it,  as  the  stagnation 
of  such  societies  has  convincingly  shown.  For  it 
means  the  depression  of  genius  under  iron  barriers,  it 
means  the  sterilizing  of  fields  that  might  have  brought 
forth  abundantly.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest  risk  that 
belief  in  the  equality  of  mankind  will  obliterate  or 
obscure  the  distinction  of  individuals.  With  all  its 
faults  our  race  has  at  least  the  quality  of  hero-worship ; 
it  pays  a  ready  reverence  to  the  men  in  whom  it  sees 
exceptional  power,  to  its  teachers  in  every  province 
where  teaching  is  of  value.  It  recognizes  the  leader 
ship  of  great  poets,  great  statesmen,  great  thinkers, 
great  artists;  it  realizes  that  the  achievements  of  a 
Goethe,  a  Pasteur,  a  Darwin,  or  a  Mozart,  are  works 
of  no  selfish  ambition,  but  achievements  for  the  world. 
It  probably  yields  rather  too  much  than  too  little 
homage  to  the  men  whose  genius  it  is  able  to  discern. 
The  truth  is  that  metaphors  from  biology  have  be 
come  very  dangerous  in  general  thinking.  Evolution 
has  told  us  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  of  the  struggle 
for  life,  of  the  elimination  of  the  weak.  When  Darwin 
used  these  phrases  he  had  before  him  a  single  definite 
application;  he  was  explaining  the  process  by  which 
animal  and  vegetable  forms  had  been  developed,  and 
he  saw  that  these  figures  were  the  most  apt.  He 
never  attempted  to  push  such  formulae  into  spheres 
to  which  they  have  no  reference.  If  the  misuse  of 
biological  terms  has  become  the  despair  of  clear 
thinkers  on  morality,  if  by  this  our  ethical  confusions 
have  become  worse  confounded,  the  fault  does  not 
lie  with  Darwin;  it  lies  with  the  smaller  men  who 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  221 

have  caught  up  much  of  his  language  but  little  of  his 
spirit.  The  primitive  conflict  by  which  man  won  his 
racial  place  contained  many  a  repulsive  factor  which, 
we  may  thankfully  observe,  is  not  in  its  nature  per 
manent;  there  was  constant  exploitation,  constant 
supplanting,  constant  cruelty,  but  it  is  sheer  dogma 
tism  to  assume  that  progress  has  just  one  law  through 
out,  or  that  the  same  law  has  the  same  implications  no 
matter  how  the  material  or  the  circumstances  may 
vary.  We  have  no  evidence  to  prove  this,  and  we 
have  a  great  deal  to  disprove  it. 

Thus,  while  there  is  in  Christianity  much  to  forbid 
the  competition  which  ignores  justice,  there  is  nothing 
to  forbid,  but  much  to  encourage  the  competition 
which  furthers  culture.  The  man  who  thinks  other 
wise  must  have  in  view  that  which  all  developed 
morality,  Christian  or  non-Christian,  has  long  since 
repudiated ;  he  must  contemplate  exclusive  advantage 
for  an  individual  or  a  group.  Genuine  progress 
implies  improvement  in  the  mild  humane  virtues; 
thus,  in  the  absence  of  that  influence  by  which  such 
virtues  are  specially  fostered,  progress  has  commonly 
been  hollow. 

Finally,  does  the  Christian  religion  promote  develop 
ment  along  a  descending  or  along  an  ascending  line  ? 
Is  it  an  ethic  of  racial  degeneration  ? 

If  what  I  have  just  said  be  true  there  can  be  only 
one  reply.  All  depends  upon  the  things  you  place 
at  the  top,  and  the  things  you  place  at  the  bottom  of 
your  scale  of  values.  Do  you  admire  individual 
strength,  overweening,  defiant,  self-assertive,  con 
temptuous  of  every  interest  but  its  own  ?  If  so, 
Christian  morality  will  appear  reaction,  decadence, 


222      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

bondage.  Do  you  admire,  rather,  the  personality 
which  "  finds  itself "  just  in  proportion  as  other 
personalities  are  enabled  to  find  themselves,  which 
refuses  any  solitary  goal,  which  is  best  satisfied  when 
all  that  it  has  and  all  that  it  can  effect  are  universally 
shared,  which,  in  a  word,  can  rest  content  with 
nothing  less  than  this : 

That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  shall  make  the  pile  complete. 

We  are  faced  here  with  one  of  those  ultimate 
differences  of  moral  valuation  which  no  argument  can 
elucidate.  He  that  cherishes  one  of  these  ideals  need 
not  dispute  with  him  that  cherishes  the  other,  for 
there  is  no  common  measure  to  which  they  can  appeal. 
Europe  as  a  whole,  on  Nietzsche's  own  showing,  has 
made  its  choice  for  the  altruistic  side. 

Whilst,  however,  we  stand,  and  are  proud  to  stand, 
for  the  great  human  sympathies,  we  repudiate  the 
thought  that  a  man  sympathetic  in  the  Christian 
sense  is  one  of  lowered  vitality,  inferior  in  those 
qualities  which  flow  from  and  minister  to  strength. 
We  have  not  so  misread  the  long  tale  of  Christian 
heroisms;  we  have  not  seen  there  only  the  humility, 
the  self-denials,  the  cultivation  of  a  meek  and  contrite 
spirit.  We  have  seen  also  the  high  courage,  the  proud 
sincerity,  scorn  of  threats,  tenacity  of  purpose,  the 
commanding  voice  of  the  prophet,  the  "  eagle  eye  "  of 
the  martyr.  We  have  come,  in  short,  to  recognize 
that  for  all  that  is  great  in  human  impulses  and 
resources  a  fuller  and  grander  sphere  is  given  by  Him 
who  said:  "  I  have  come  that  ye  might  have  life,  and 
that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY 


III. 

Nietzsche  often  derides  Christianity  as  a  "  Bud 
dhistic  movement  in  favour  of  peace  ";  he  suggests 
that  those  who  submit  to  its  influence  will  become 
too  timid  to  face,  if  occasion  should  arise,  the  arbitra 
ment  of  a  battle-field,  and  that,  if  circumstance  compel 
them  to  fight,  they  will  readily  succumb  to  a  more 
virile  non-Christian  race.  That  a  reluctance  to  draw 
the  sword  is  one  fruit  of  the  religion  of  Galilee  we  have 
no  wish  to  dispute.  Our  own  ideal  has  long  been 
peace,  our  affections  have  been  set  upon  the  things 
which  only  peace  can  foster,  and  we  are  convinced 
that  herein  we  have  done  homage  to  the  most  sacred 
of  national  values.  But  have  we  not  in  these  last 
months  given  the  world  a  signal  proof  that  such  feel 
ings,  whose  Christian  source  we  gladly  acknowledge, 
imply  no  lack  of  the  sterner  virtue  which  every  people 
is  from  time  to  time  called  upon  to  display  ?  Have 
we  not  before  our  eyes  a  striking  crucial  test  by  which 
the  doctrine  of  religious  enfeeblement  may  be  judged  ? 

If  Nietzsche  is  right  the  degenerative  leaven  should 
by  this  time  have  left  unmistakable  traces  in  the 
weakened  morale  of  Europe.  Men  nourished  so  long 
on  other-worldliness  should  have  become  apathetic  to 
the  things  of  value  in  life  here  and  now ;  the  emphasis 
laid  for  nineteen  centuries  upon  kindness  and  brotherly 
love  should  have  lowered  courage  and  have  intensified 
effeminacy;  the  thought  of  all  mankind  as  equal 
should  have  cut  the  nerve  of  the  pagan  heroism  that 
was  fed  by  war,  and  the  pagan  progress  that  was 


224      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

maintained  by  rivalry.  There  is  one  place  to-day 
where  the  morale  of  great  masses  of  men  is  being  tried 
as  by  fire,  one  place  where  surely  no  flaw  and  no 
weakness  can  escape  detection.  Do  we  find  such 
tokens  of  lowered  character  upon  the  French  and 
Belgian  battle-fields  ? 

I  am  not  assuming  any  great  Christian  piety  among 
the  troops  at  the  front;  the  passions  to  which  war 
gives  the  rein  are  such  as  may  easily  darken  such 
religious  sentiments  as  a  soldier  feels.  But  we  may 
grant,  and  gladly  grant,  to  Nietzsche  that  in  the 
character  of  the  men  from  whom  European  armies 
are  drawn — and  I  include  the  Germans  not  less  than 
our  own  Allies — the  influence  of  Christianity  has  made 
a  difference.  They  come  from  countries  where  the 
Christian  tradition  is  strong,  the  rank  and  file  from 
that  class  which  is  least  affected  by  new  thinking. 
Whatever  outlook  upon  life  these  men  have,  what 
ever  grave  thoughts  visit  their  minds  as  they  lie  upon 
the  bare  ground,  not  knowing  if  they  shall  see  another 
dawn,  must  come  to  them  from  the  things  they  have 
heard  in  their  churches  at  home  or  from  their  chaplains 
in  camp.  Many  of  them  are  tradesmen  or  artisans, 
farmers  or  clerks,  or  factory  workers;  the  dull 
monotony  of  life's  struggle  has  left  them  small  room 
for  what  is  called  "  culture,"  they  have  little  time 
and  less  capacity  for  thought.  But  they  have  grown 
up  in  a  certain  atmosphere ;  there  is  one  force  at  least 
which  has  stimulated  their  imagination  and  raised 
them  above  the  cares  of  the  immediate  present.  As 
Mr.  Lecky  has  said:  "Religion  is  the  one  romance 
of  the  poor."  It  is  brought  home  to  the  very  rudest 
among  them  with  a  refinement  that  belongs  to  nothing 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  225 

else  in  their  daily  round,  for  it  has  connected  itself 
with  the  great  events  of  their  lives — their  marriage, 
the  baptism  of  their  children,  the  burial  of  their  dead. 
There  is  hardly  one  of  them  to  whom  these  things  are 
not  impressive;  however  confused  and  however  un 
intelligent  be  the  way  in  which  he  regards  them,  they 
leave  a  mark  which  makes  him  to  differ  from  a  pagan. 
Now,  as  every  clergyman  can  testify,  it  is  just  when  a 
man  knows  himself  in  the  near  presence  of  death  that 
these  thoughts  recur,  however  ignorant  and  however 
reckless  has  been  his  past.  Conspicuous  among  them 
are  the  thoughts  which  Nietzsche  derided  as  fit  to 
ruin  one's  highest  principle;  to  many  a  soldier  the 
whole  content  of  religion  is  acknowledgment  of  a 
God  who  in  a  life  to  come  will  reward  the  good  and 
punish  the  evil,  of  a  duty  which  means,  above  all, 
justice  and  good-will  towards  his  fellow-creatures. 
Many  and  varied  are  the  forms  in  which  this  idea  is 
clothed.  The  Scottish  Highlander  as  he  recalls  some 
fragment  from  the  Psalms  of  the  Kirk,  the  Guards 
man  from  Yorkshire  or  Devon  with  dim  memories 
of  his  Prayer-Book  and  clear  memories  of  the  church 
yard  where  his  fathers  sleep,  the  Belgian  with  the 
crucifix  by  his  side  in  the  trenches,  the  Irish  Catholic 
from  Roscommon  or  Wexford  as  he  pictures  the 
Countenance  his  childhood  long  since  adored  in  the 
Stations  of  the  Cross,  the  Russian  as  he  presses  the 
icon  to  his  heart  and  thinks  he  sees  again  the  incense 
to  the  All-Father  in  the  village  chapel  amid  the  snows 
of  his  home — all  in  their  several  ways  paying  a  more 
or  less  ignorant  and  fitful  homage  at  one  holy  shrine, 
all  invoking  more  or  less  crudely  in  the  supreme  hour 
one  gracious  aid — do  these  men,  I  ask,  compare 

15 


226      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

unfavourably  in  all  that  we  mean  by  courage  and 
public  spirit  with  Nietzsche's  earth-loving  pagan  ? 
Do  they  show  the  paralysis  of  other-worldliness  ? 
Do  they  blench  at  suffering  ?  Do  their  commanders 
find  that  those  of  them  in  whom  religious  devotion  is 
most  ardent  are  the  least  to  be  trusted  when  the 
moment  comes  to  "  do  all  that  may  become  a  man  "  ? 
Is  not  their  loyalty  to  the  trust  that  their  king  has 
given  them  made  all  the  surer  if  they  feel  themselves 
in  the  presence  of  a  higher  King,  charged  with  a 
responsibility  such  as  no  earthly  State  can  impose  ? 
Was  not  the  psalm  and  prayer  around  Cromwell's 
camp-fire  a  grim  omen  for  the  enemy  on  the  morrow  ? 
Have  we  not  proved  on  many  an  awful  field  that  there 
is  no  arm  so  strong  to  smite  as  the  arm  that  is  nerved 
by  Faith,  no  civic  spirit  so  intense  as  the  spirit 
that  looks  to  a  more  abiding  city,  no  courage  so 
enduring  as  the  courage  that  sees  Him  who  is  in 
visible  ? 

There  is  another  line  of  thought  which  must  have 
suggested  itself  to  most  of  us  as  we  have  been  en 
deavouring  in  this  course  to  compare  Nietzsche's  view 
of  life  with  that  of  the  Christian  civilization  in  which 
we  have  been  educated.  One  may  ask:  '  What 
difference  does  it  make  whether  we  are  theoretically 
Nietzscheans  or  theoretically  the  reverse  ?  We  are 
confronted  in  practice  with  a  spectacle  as  savage,  as 
blood-stained  as  any  that  the  world  could  have  pro 
duced  if  no  man  in  it  had  ever  heard  of  Galilee  and 
its  morality,  if  every  soul  had  been  nourished  on  the 
creed  of  '  will  to  power.'  '  Many  a  sombre  reflection 
will  occur  to  the  thoughtful  minds  of  the  future  as 
they  remember  the  Europe  of  1914.  Many  a  daring 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  227 

general  inference  will  be  hazarded.  And  the  word 
that  will  rise  most  easily  to  the  lips  of  some  will  be 
this,  that  the  moral  failure  of  Christianity  has  been 
demonstrated,  for  the  Faith  which  began  amid  angelic 
songs  of  "  Peace  on  earth,  good-will  toward  men,"  had 
made  trial  of  its  power  for  twenty  centuries;  it  had 
been  cherished  with  apparent  devotion  by  the  Western 
nations,  and  it  conducted  them  at  the  close  to  the 
most  extensive  and  relentless  slaughter  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  I  should  like  to  use  the  short  time  that 
is  left  to  me  in  looking  at  this  fearful  situation  from 
a  point  of  view  which  is  suggested  by  the  principles 
upon  which  I  have  dwelt. 

To  those  who  believe  in  the  moral  value  of  Christ 
ianity  the  scene  before  us  is,  of  course,  full  of  humili 
ation.  We  are  disappointed,  deeply  and  bitterly  dis 
appointed.  We  trusted  that  such  a  thing  to-day 
could  not  have  taken  place,  that  the  leaven  of  the 
Faith  had  penetrated  too  far  into  the  fibre  of  Europe. 
That  is  the  obvious  reflection,  and  I  need  not  draw 
it  out;  there  is  another  and  a  more  cheering  side, 
especially  when  we  look  at  it,  as  we  should,  from 
the  standpoint  of  Great  Britain,  and  ask  ourselves 
whether  the  part  that  we  have  chosen  is  a  part 
worthy  or  unworthy  of  the  moral  professions  we 
make. 

The  longer  this  war  lasts  the  more  completely  do 
we  forget  those  political  quarrels  in  the  Near  East  by 
which  it  was  originated,  or  at  least  occasioned,  quarrels 
about  which  it  may  be  that  honest  difference  of 
opinion  is  possible.  For  what  impresses  us  more 
clearly  every  day  is  that  the  conflict  has  become  a 
conflict  between  ideals,  between  two  rival  conceptions 


228      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

of  life,  conceptions  and  ideals  avowed  without  the 
slightest  hesitation  or  ambiguity  on  one  side  and  on  the 
other.  I  invoke  here  no  debatable  evidence,  no 
doubtful  or  ill-attested  gossip  circulated  in  this 
interest  or  in  that.  I  rely  upon  no  controversial 
diplomacy  between  Foreign  Offices,  through  which  the 
lay  mind  cannot  be  expected  to  thread  any  certain  or 
confident  way.  I  appeal  simply  to  the  explicit 
declaration  of  Germany's  moral  principles  in  state 
craft,  to  the  basis  of  her  policy  as  affirmed  in  her 
press,  in  the  official  speeches,  in  the  most  influential 
literature.  The  men  who  are  opposing  us  in  the  field 
stand,  by  their  own  avowal,  for  the  rights  of  main 
force  against  peaceful  arbitration,  for  the  intrinsic 
glories  of  conquest,  for  the  crushing  of  small  nation 
alities,  for  calculated  brutality  on  the  battle-field.  To 
put  it  very  roughly  and  summarily,  they  stand 
for  Nietzschean  immoralism  against  Christian  re 
straint. 

This  is  the  issue  that  has  come  to  dwarf  every  other 
in  our  titanic  struggle;  it  is  this  which  has  roused  the 
spirit  of  war  in  those  leaders  of  opinion  throughout 
the  churches  of  England,  many  of  whom  have  spent 
a  long  life  in  the  advocacy  of  international  peace. 
Not  to  settle  any  racial  feud  in  the  Balkans,  not  to 
take  territory  or  trade  from  one  and  to  give  it  to 
another,  but  to  hold  the  fortresses  of  Christian 
humanity  and  Christian  justice,  we  have  sent  forth 
to  France,  to  Belgium,  and  to  the  high  seas,  men  who 
in  such  a  cause  count  not  their  lives  dear  to  them. 
We  stand,  indeed,  at  a  thrilling  juncture  in  the  history 
of  mankind,  the  juncture  foreshadowed  all  unwittingly 
by  the  poet  who  cried : 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  229 

Oh,  that  the  words  which  make  the  thoughts  obscure 

From  which  they  spring,  as  clouds  of  glimmering  dew 
From  a  white  lake  blot  heaven's  blue  portraiture, 

Were  stripp'd  of  their  thin  masks  and  various  hue 
And  frowns  and  smiles  and  splendours  not  their  own, 
Till  in  the  nakedness  of  false  and  true 
They  stand  before  their  Lord,  each  to  receive  his  due." 

Now,  I  wish  to  say  no  disrespectful  word  of  those 
who  honestly  believe  that  under  any  provocation 
however  severe,  and  for  any  cause  however  sacred, 
recourse  to  arms  is  contrary  to  the  mind  and  will  of 
the  Founder  of  our  Faith.  I  shall  say,  however,  that 
such  is  not  my  reading  of  New  Testament  morality. 
On  the  contrary,  I  find  in  it  no  principle  more  funda 
mental  than  this,  that  there  are  evils  to  be  feared 
more  than  we  fear  physical  suffering,  that  there  are 
causes  which  at  times  must  be  maintained  even  unto 
blood.  Let  us  not  forget  who  it  was  that  said: 
'''  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  send  peace  upon  earth ;" 
who  it  was  that  spoke  of  the  day  when  he  who  had  no 
sword  must  sell  his  garment  and  buy  one. 

Will  anyone  dare  to  say  that  the  men  who  fifty 
years  ago  laid  down  their  lives  on  the  battle-fields  of 
America,  that  they  might  free  the  body  and  raise  the 
soul  of  the  negro,  lacked  the  benediction  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace  ?  Or  that  such  a  struggle  was  not  far  more 
a  triumph  than  a  condemnation  of  the  Christian 
morality  ?  There  has,  I  grant,  seldom  been  a  cause 
of  warfare  so  pure,  so  disinterested,  so  irreproachable, 
that  it  would  not  seem  poor  if  named  side  by  side 
with  the  great  impulse  which  stirred  the  heart  of 
Abraham  Lincoln;  but  we  venture  to  believe  that 
the  enterprise  to  which  we  have  set  our  hands  will 
bear  even  the  fierce  light  of  that  comparison.  I  read 


230      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

some  time  ago  in  a  newspaper  which  boasts  of  its 
public  spirit  that  we  are  fighting  to  compel  the 
German  flag  everywhere  upon  the  seas  to  yield 
obeisance  before  the  Union  Jack.  Perish  the  thought 
that  for  such  an  object  our  country  is  pouring  forth 
the  blood  of  her  sons  !  It  is  not  the  flag  that  sanctifies 
the  cause,  it  is  the  cause  that  sanctifies  the  flag.  Not 
for  the  Union  Jack,  dear  to  us  though  it  is,  but  for 
the  things  which  the  Union  Jack  symbolizes — for 
equal  rights,  for  the  franchises  of  mankind,  for  justice 
and  freedom  and  public  law,  and  the  sanctity  of  the 
plighted  word  — things  that  are  not  ours  alone,  but  the 
precious  birthright  of  humanity  of  which  an  armed 
usurper  would  despoil  us,  things  for  which  it  is  our 
proudest  and  our  purest  boast  that  as  a  nation  we 
have  aimed  to  stand.  Aye,  for  these,  and  for  the 
whole  scheme  of  duty  proclaimed  nineteen  centuries 
ago  upon  the  hillside  in  Galilee,  the  spirit  that 
breathed  upon  a  dying  paganism  the  very  breath  of 
life,  the  spirit  which  has  created  all  that  we  value 
most  in  civilized  order,  the  spirit  to  which  we  are 
often  indifferent  and  often  disobedient,  but  which  in 
our  deepest  nature  and  at  our  best  we  adore,  the 
spirit  whose  meaning  never  came  home  to  us  with 
such  overwhelming  power  as  when  we  were  challenged 
to  do  battle  for  its  sake.  Looking  at  it  in  this  light, 
coming  generations  will,  I  am  sure,  see  in  this  war 
something  more  than  the  blood-lust  of  armed  hosts, 
something  higher  than  dark  passions  and  reckless 
greed.  They  will  see  in  it  that  which  reminds  them 
of  the  old  heroisms  and  the  old  martyrdoms;  they 
will  see  nothing  to  contradict  but  much  to  illustrate 
the  Christian  spirit  in  men  who  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 


NIETZSCHE  AND  CHRISTIANITY  231 

the  self-interest  of  the  moment,  who  remembered  the 
things  for  which  one  should  even  dare  to  die,  who 
risked  all  for  what  they  counted  worthy  of  all  risk. 
They  will  recognize,  not  with  shame  but  with  surpass 
ing  pride,  that  to  their  ancestors  the  call  came  to 
sacrifice  their  lives  for  that  which  is  more  precious 
than  life,  and  that  when  the  call  came  it  was  met. 

The  cynic  may  remind  us  that  the  past  has  seen 
many  a  war  described  as  a  "  holy  "  war,  that  the 
fights  which  involved  religion  have  been  the  worst 
of  all.  There  is  truth  in  this,  just  as  there  is  truth 
in  that  other  biting  epigram  that  more  suffering  was 
caused  through  Ferdinand  V.'s  loyalty  to  his  fanatical 
conscience  than  through  Nero's  indulgence  of  his 
lusts.  These  are  the  dark  ironies  of  history,  and  let 
him  who  will  find  a  satisfying  moral  in  the  thought 
that  mankind  is  but  the  sport  of  a  malicious  and 
satirical  fate;  let  him  who  will  sum  it  all  up  in  the 
words  of  Omar: 

But  helpless  Pieces  of  the  Game  He  plays 
Upon  this  Chequer-board  of  Nights  and  Days; 
Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks,  and  slays, 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  Closet  lays. 

This  at  all  events  is  not  the  moral  that  appeals  to 
the  eye  of  faith,  nor  is  it  the  moral  that  is  seen  by  the 
man  who  believes  that  through  fidelity  to  the  right, 
as  one  understands  it,  no  matter  what  may  be  the 
suffering  involved,  lies  the  world's  only  pathway 
leading  upward. 

When  Peter  the  Hermit  called  Europe  to  a  holy  war 
against  the  Saracen,  he  wrought  upon  the  imagination 
of  simple  but  heroic  souls  who  could  not  bear  to  think 
that  profane  feet  should  trample  and  profane  hands 


232      NIETZSCHE  AND  MODERN  GERMANY 

should  desecrate  the  sepulchre  of  Him  who  had 
redeemed  the  world.  That  spirit  did  not  lack  its 
nobleness,  though  in  the  light  of  a  wiser  age  the 
purpose  seems  unworthy  of  the  devotion.  Amid  the 
horrors  of  Europe  to-day  we  may  discern  the  same 
impulse  working  with  a  clearer  vision,  the  vision  that 
the  holy  things  we  must  defend  are  no  local  sanc 
tuaries,  but  the  life-giving  principle  which  was  there 
enshrined ;  no  objects  that  can  be  seen  or  touched,  but 
the  spirit  of  which  the  Tomb  at  Jerusalem  is  an 
abiding  symbol.  We  trust  that  when  it  is  all  over 
mankind  will  have  seen  the  last  great  challenge  of 
might  against  right,  and  will  recognize  that  to  men 
of  British  blood  it  was  given  to  go  forth  in  that  final 
issue,  counting  not  the  cost. 


INDEX 


ACTON,  LORD,  151 

Altruism,  50  ff.,  68-72,  80-81, 
104  //. 

Ambrose,  St.,  184 

Anthropology,  Nietzsche's  incom 
petence  in,  44  ff. 

Antichrist,  26 

"  Apollonian  spirit,"  16 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  38 

Aristocracy,  24;  cf.  118  ff. 

Aristotle,  Nietzsche's  view  of  his 
theory  of  tragedy,  17,  91,  218 

Arnold,  Matthew,  85 

Asceticism,  9,  26-27,  40,  112,  122, 
208-209 

Bebel,  Herr,  166 

Belgium,  177-178 

Benn,  Mr.  A.  W.,  59 

Bentham,  J.,  87 

Bernhardi,  Gen.  F.  von,  105,  127, 

149-152,  179,  181 
"  Bestowing  virtue,"  69-70 
Biology,  metaphors  from,  220-221 
"  Birth  of  Tragedy,"  16-18 
Bismarck,  Prince,  156,  166  ff. 
"Blonde  beast,"  44 
Bright,  John,  179 
Browning,  R.,  154 
Bryce,  Lord,  176 
Buckle,  69 
Burns,  R.,  115 
Butler,  Bishop,  78 

Carlyle,  T.,  185 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  212 

Christianity,  Nietzsche's  attitude 
to,  1-2,  12,  30,  40,  66,  73-74, 
135-136,  179  (n.),  181,  189  ff. 
See  also  Religion 

Conscience,  37,  40j^. 

Conscription,  156,  186-187 

Culture,  contrasted  with  civiliza 
tion,  160 
German     claims    regarding, 

171 


Darwin,  C.,  92,  V5ff.,  104//.,  120 

220 

Darwin,  Major  L.,  110 
Decadence,  13,  19,  39,  60,  97-98 
Deism,  217 
Democracy,  28  ff.,   142  ff.,   190, 

202 

Dernburg,  B.,  149-153 
"  Dionysian  spirit,"  17,  18,  20 

Effeminacy,  28,  212 
Egoism,  50,  51,  67  //. 
Equality,  131 

joint  product  of  Christianity 
and  herd-instinct,  134-136 
"  Eternal  Return,"  66-67 
Ethics,  inductive  method  in,  22  ff., 


Eucken,  Professor  R.,  154 
Eugenics,  93  ff.,  109-110 
"  European  men,"  156-157 
Euthanasia,  65 
Evolution.     See  Darwin 

Feminism,  95 

Forster-Nietzsche,  Frau,  65  (n.) 
Franco-Prussian  War,  166  ff.,  173- 

174 
Fraud-theory  in   morals,    22-23, 


in  religion,  48,  195  ff. 
Frazer,  Sir  J.  G.,  47 
Frederick  the  Great,  165,  174  («,), 

184 
French  Revolution,  30,  69,  158 

Garibaldi,  70 

Garrod,  Mr.  H.  W.,  140 

Germans,  Nietzsche's  estimate  of, 

161,  171  (n.),  113  ff. 
Giddings,  Professor,  46 
Golden  Rule,  71 
Good  and  evil,  a  different  anti 

thesis  from   "  good  and  bad," 

23//. 
Greeks,  Nietzsche's  view  of,  13-14 


233 


234 


INDEX 


Greek    tragedy.     See  "  Birth    of 

Tragedy" 

Group-morality,  31  ff.,  50-51 
Guilt,  38 

Happiness,  15,  65 
Harden,  Maximilian,  180 
Harrison,  Mr.  F.,  160 
Hartmann,  Edouard  von,  6  (n.), 

154 

Harvey,  Mr.  Martin,  138 
Hedonism,  Nietzsche's  attitude  to, 


Hegel,  his  system,  6-7,  214.     See 

also  Schopenhauer 
Heine,  Heinrich,  183 
Herd-instinct,  30 
Herd-morality,  28,  45,  50 
Heredity,  119-120,  128-129,  147 
Hobbes,  T.,  50 
Honour,  sense  of,  136j[jf. 
Hume,  David,  7 

Immortality,  209 

Individualism,  122-123,  155,  157- 

160 
Instinct,  14,  52  ff. 

James,  William,  53,  206,  219 
Jones,  Sir  H.,  185 
Jordan,  Professor,  152 
Justice,  86-88 

Kant,  7,  32,  87,  123,  177 
Kitchener,  Lord,  187 
Kosciusko,  163 
Kulturkampf,  Bismarck's,  169 

Lassalle,  169 

Lasson,  Professor  A.,  172 

Lea,  Mr.  H.,  152 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  110,224 

Levy,  Dr.  0.,  28,  146,  174  (n.) 

Lichtenberger,  Professor  H.,  43, 

66,  67,  82,  113  (n.),  123,  132 
LoweU,  J.  R.,  145 
Ludovici,  Mr.  A.  M.,  96-97,  146 
Luxemburg,  163 

Macaulay,  Lord,  165 
Mach,  E.  von,  152 
Maine,  Sir  H.,  46 
Mandeville,  47,  110 
Manu,  Code  of,  196 
Marx,  Karl,  169 


Massinger,  P.,  128 
Master-morality,  12  ff.,  113,  133 
Mencken,  Mr.  H.  L.,  26,  174 
Militarism,      155-157.      See     also 

War 

Mill,  J.  S.,  58,  71,  72,  87 
Moltke,  von,  167 
Mommsen,  Th.,  151 
Moore,  Mr.  G.  E.,  88 
"  Moral  axioms,"  87  ff. 
Morality,  Nietzsche's  account  of 

its  origin,  21  ff. 
no  first  datum,  but  an  arti 
ficial  product,  34 
different    for    masters    and 

slaves,  72  ff. 
as  "  interpretation,  not  text," 


Napoleon,  69,  111,  159,  161 
Nationality,  Nietzsche's  attitude 

to,  155,  157,  162  ff. 
Natural  selection.     See  Darwin 
"  Neue  Moral,"  33 
Nihilism,  12,  19,  122,  207 

Obligation,  idea  of,  34  ff. 
Oligarchy,  134 
Omar  Khayyam,  231 
Optimism,  9 

sources  of  Greek, 


Paine,  T.,  217 

Pan-Germanism,  172 

Pascal,  209 

Paul,  St.,  215 

Pessimism,  its    connection   with 

ethics,    21,    207   ff.     See    also 

Schopenhauer 
Philology,  Nietzsche's  use  of,  12, 

23-25 
Philosophers,  Nietzsche's  view  of 

the   "  academic   chairs  of  vir- 

tue,"  22  ff. 

Pigou,  Professor  A.  C.,  103 
Pity,  61  ff. 
Plato,  109 
Poland,  173 
"Power,"    ambiguity     in     Niet 

zsche's  use  of  word,  51 
Pragmatism,    Nietzsche's    antici 

pation  of,  122 
Pride,  126 
Priesthood,  origin  of,  26  ff.     See 

also  Religion 


INDEX 


235 


Prussia,     her     historical     policy,  i 

165  jf. 

her  predominance  in  German 
Empire,  181-182 

Psychology,    Association    School,  : 

23,  56 

Nietzsche's  weakness  as  psy 
chologist,  48  ff. 

Public  spirit,  138-139 

Punishment,  38 

Quietism,  14 

Rashdall,  Dr.  H.,  80  («.),  144 
Realpolitiker,  176 
Reformation,  the,  158 
Religion,  Nietzsche's   account  of 

its  origin,  29-30,  44  ff.,  135-136, 

189  ff. 

Responsibility,  idea  of,  36  ff. 
Revenge,  a  plebeian  vice,  29,  130, 

201 

Ritchie,  Professor  D.  G.,  89 
Ritschl,  A.,  218 
Rousseau,  34,  46 
Russia,  162,  175 

Sabatier,  M.  P.,  188  (n.) 

Salter,  Mr.  W.  M.,  63,  80 

Sarolea,  Dr.  C.,  158 

Schiller,  Dr.   F.   C.    S.,    14,    55, 

„,  123 

Schopenhauer,  his  opposition   to 

Hegel,  7,  8 
his  pessimism,  8,  9 
Nietzsche's  attitude  to,  8-12, 

39,  52,  61,  93,  101,  206 
Science,  Nietzsche's  criticism  of, 

15,  120 ff. 

Self -development,  76-80 
Self-sacrifice,   67-68,   76  ff.,   111- 

112 

Shaftesbury,  (3rd)  Lord,  50 
Shaw,  Mr.  G.  B.,  146 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  193 
Sidgwick,  H.,  80,  111  (n.) 
Simmel,  Professor,  110 
Slave-morality,  72  ff. 
Social  Democrats,  170 
Socialism,  19,  98,  169,  202 
Socrates,  13,  16 


Spencer,  Herbert,  25,  49,  65,  105 
Spencer  and  Gillen,  Messrs.,  45 
State,    Nietzsche's    view    of     its 

origin,  34  ff.,  46,  103,  156- 

157 

opposed  to  civilization,  156 
Stewart,  H.  L.,  116 
Stoicism,  69,  85,  91,  162 
Strauss,  David,  197-198 
Suffering,  65,  75-76,  99,  212 
Superman,  91  ff. 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  146 
Sybel,  von,  151 
Sympathy,  61//.,  104//.,  186  (n.) 

Tennyson,  3,  204 

Tertullian,  38,  218 

Theism.     See  Religion 

Theognis,  144-146 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  St.,  215 

Thucydides,  14,  190 

Treitschke,  von,  149,  151,  155, 
157,  166,  171  (n.) 

Truthfulness,  an  aristocratic  vir 
tue,  24 

different  in  masters  and  in 
slaves,  129 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  47 

Tyrants,  Greek,  146 

Utilitarianism,  58 

Values,  theory  of,  11-12,  21,  32  ff., 
51-52,  55,  58  ff.,  68,  81-82,  107, 
202  ff.,  211 

Wagner,  150 

War,  in  general,  19,  98,  156,  161, 
163,  179,  181,  183,207,223 
the  Franco-Prussian,  156 
the    present    European,    2-3, 

228^. 
Wergild,  35 
Westermarck,    Professor   E.,   43, 

45 

Wilde,  O.,  77-78,  205 
Willamowitz-Moellendorf,  18 
"  Will   to  life,"    contrasted  with 

"  will  to  power,"  25 
Wordsworth,  W.,  206 
Wright,  Sir  A.,  95 


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