readily surmise that his philosophy draws much of its vitality from the
system of science that underlies it. And yet while it is true enough
that Nietzsche's fundamental thesis is an offshoot of the Darwinian
theory, the violent individualism which is the driving principle of his
entire philosophy is rather opposed to the general orientation of
Darwinism, since that is social. Not to the author of the "Descent of
Man" directly is the modern ethical glorification of egoism indebted for
its measure of scientific sanction, but to one of his heterodox
disciples, namely to the bio-philosopher W. H. Rolph, who in a volume
named "Biologic Problems," with the subtitle, "An Essay in Rational
Ethics,"(18) deals definitely with the problem of evolution in its
dynamical bearings. The question is raised, Why do the extant types of
life ascend toward higher goals, and, on reaching them, progress toward
still higher goals, to the end of time? Under the reason as explained by
Darwin, should not evolution stop at a definite stage, namely, when the
object of the competitive struggle for existence has been fully
attained? Self-preservation naturally ceases to act as an incentive to
further progress, so soon as the weaker contestants are beaten off the
field and the survival of the fittest is abundantly secured. From there
on we have to look farther for an adequate causation of the ascent of
species. Unless we assume the existence of an absolutistic teleological
tendency to perfection, we are logically bound to connect upward
development with favorable external conditions. By substituting for the
Darwinian "struggle for existence" a new formula: "struggle for
surplus," Rolph advances a new fruitful hypothesis. In all creatures the
acquisitive cravings exceed the limit of actual necessity. Under
Darwin's interpretation of nature, the struggle between individuals of
the same species would give way to pacific equilibrium as soon as the
bare subsistence were no longer in question. Yet we know that the
struggle is unending. The creature appetites are not appeased by a
normal sufficiency; on the contrary, "_l'appetit vient en mangeant_";
the possessive instinct, if not quite insatiable, is at least
coextensive with its opportunities for gratification. Whether or not it
be true--as Carlyle claims--that, after all, the fundamental question
between any two human beings is, "Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill
me?"--at any rate in civilized human society the contest is not waged
merely for the naked existence, but mainly for life's increments in the
form of comforts, pleasures, luxuries, and the accumulation of power and
influence; and the excess of acquisition over immediate need goes as a
residuum into the structure of civilization. In plain words, then,
social progress is pushed on by individual greed and ambition. At this
point Rolph rests the case, without entering into the moral implicates
of the subject, which would seem to obtrude themselves upon the
attention.
(18) _Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch einer rationellen
Ethik._ Leipzig, 1882.
Now to a believer in progressive evolution with a strong ethical bent
such a theory brings home man's ulterior responsibility for the
betterment of life, and therefore acts as a call to his supreme duty of
preparing the ground for the arrival of a higher order of beings. The
argument seems simple and clinching. Living nature through a long file
of species and genera has at last worked up to the _homo sapiens_ who as
yet does not even approach the perfection of his own type. Is it a
legitimate ambition of the race to mark time on the stand which it has
reached and to entrench itself impregnably in its present mediocrity?
Nietzsche did not shrink from any of the inferential conclusions
logically to be drawn from the biologic argument. If growth is in the
purpose of nature, then once we have accepted our chief office in life,
it becomes our task to pave the way for a higher genus of man. And the
only force that makes with directness for that object is the Will to
Power. To foreshadow the resultant human type, Nietzsche resurrected
from Goethe's vocabulary the convenient word _Übermensch_--"Overman."
* * * * *
Any one regarding existence in the light of a stern and perpetual combat
is of necessity driven at last to the alternative between making the
best of life and making an end of it; he must either seek lasting
deliverance from the evil of living or endeavor to wrest from the world
by any means at his command the greatest sum of its gratifications. It
is serviceable to describe the two frames of mind respectively as the
optimistic and the pessimistic. But it would perhaps be hasty to
conclude that the first of these attitudes necessarily betokens the
greater strength of character.
Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy sprang from pessimism, yet issued in an
optimism of unheard-of exaltation; carrying, however, to the end its
plainly visible birthmarks. He started out as an enthusiastic disciple
of Arthur Schopenhauer; unquestionably the adherence was fixed by his
own deep-seated contempt for the complacency of the plebs. But he was
bound soon to part company with the grandmaster of pessimism, because he
discovered the root of the philosophy of renunciation in that same
detestable debility of the will which he deemed responsible for the
bovine lassitude of the masses; both pessimism and philistinism came
from a lack of vitality, and were symptoms of racial degeneracy. But
before Nietzsche finally rejected Schopenhauer and gave his shocking
counterblast to the undermining action of pessimism, he succumbed
temporarily to the spell of another gigantic personality. We are not
concerned with Richard Wagner's musical influence upon Nietzsche, who
was himself a musician of no mean ability; what is to the point here is
the prime principle of Wagner's art theory. The key to the Wagnerian
theory is found, also, in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Wagner starts from
the pessimistic thesis that at the bottom of the well of life lies
nothing but suffering,--hence living is utterly undesirable. In one of
his letters to Franz Liszt he names as the duplex root of his creative
genius the longing for love and the yearning for death. On another
occasion, he confesses his own emotional nihilism in the following
summary of _Tristan und Isolde_: "_Sehnsucht, Sehnsucht, unstillbares,
ewig neu sich gebärendes Verlangen--Schmachten und Dursten; einzige
Erlösung: Tod, Sterben, Untergehen,--Nichtmehrerwachen._"(19) But from
the boundless ocean of sorrow there is a refuge. It was Wagner's
fundamental dogma that through the illusions of art the individual is
enabled to rise above the hopelessness of the realities into a new
cosmos replete with supreme satisfactions. Man's mundane salvation
therefore depends upon the ministrations of art and his own artistic
sensitiveness. The glorification of genius is a natural corollary of
such a belief.
(19) "Longing, longing, unquenchable desire, reproducing itself
forever anew--thirst and drought; sole deliverance: death,
dissolution, extinction,--and no awaking."
Nietzsche in one of his earliest works examines Wagner's theory and
amplifies it by a rather casuistic interpretation of the evolution of
art. After raising the question, How did the Greeks contrive to dignify
and ennoble their national existence? he points, by way of an
illustrative answer, not perchance to the Periclean era, but to a far
more primitive epoch of Hellenic culture, when a total oblivion of the
actual world and a transport into the realm of imagination was
universally possible. He explains the trance as the effect of
intoxication,--primarily in the current literal sense of the word. Such
was the significance of the cult of Dionysos. "Through singing and
dancing," claims Nietzsche, "man manifests himself as member of a higher
community. Walking and talking he has unlearned, and is in a fair way to
dance up into the air." That this supposititious Dionysiac phase of
Hellenic culture was in turn succeeded by more rational stages, in which
the impulsive flow of life was curbed and dammed in by operations of the
intellect, is not permitted by Nietzsche to invalidate the argument. By
his arbitrary reading of ancient history he was, at first, disposed to
look to the forthcoming _Universal-Kunstwerk_(20) as the complete
expression of a new religious spirit and as the adequate lever of a
general uplift of mankind to a state of bliss. But the typical disparity
between Wagner and Nietzsche was bound to alienate them. Wagner, despite
all appearance to the contrary, is inherently democratic in his
convictions,--his earlier political vicissitudes amply confirm this
view,--and fastens his hope for the elevation of humanity through art
upon the sort of genius in whom latent popular forces might combine to a
new summit. Nietzsche on the other hand represents the extreme
aristocratic type, both in respect of thought and of sentiment. "I do
not wish to be confounded with and mistaken for these preachers of
equality," says he. "For within _me_ justice saith: men are not equal."
His ideal is a hero of coercive personality, dwelling aloft in solitude,
despotically bending the gregarious instincts of the common crowd to his
own higher purposes by the dominating force of his Will to Might.
(20) Work of all arts.
The concept of the Overman rests, as has been shown, upon a fairly solid
substructure of plausibility, since at the bottom of the author's
reasoning lies the notion that mankind is destined to outgrow its
current status; the thought of a humanity risen to new and wondrous
heights of power over nature is not necessarily unscientific for being
supremely imaginative. The Overman, however, cannot be produced ready
made, by any instantaneous process; he must be slowly and persistently
willed into being, through love of the new ideal which he is to embody:
"All great Love," speaketh Zarathustra, "seeketh to create what it
loveth. _Myself_ I sacrifice into my love, and _my neighbor_ as myself,
thus runneth the speech of all creators." Only the fixed conjoint
purpose of many generations of aspiring men will be able to create the
Overman. "Could you create a God?--Then be silent concerning all gods!
But ye could very well create Beyond-man. Not yourselves perhaps, my
brethren! But ye could create yourselves into fathers and fore-fathers
of Beyond-man; and let this be your best creating. But all creators are
hard."
Nietzsche's startlingly heterodox code of ethics coheres organically
with the Overman hypothesis, and so understood is certain to lose some
of its aspect of absurdity. The racial will, as we have seen, must be
taught to aim at the Overman. But the volitional faculty of the
generation, according to Nietzsche, is so debilitated as to be utterly
inadequate to its office. Hence, advisedly to stimulate and strengthen
the enfeebled will power of his fellow men is the most imperative and
immediate task of the radical reformer. Once the power of willing, as
such, shall have been,--regardless of the worthiness of its
object,--brought back to active life, it will be feasible to give the
Will to Might a direction towards objects of the highest moral grandeur.
Unfortunately for the race as a whole, the throng is ineligible for
partnership in the auspicious scheme of co-operative procreation: which
fact necessitates a segregative method of breeding. The Overman can only
be evolved by an ancestry of master-men, who must be secured to the race
by a rigid application of eugenic standards, particularly in the matter
of mating. Of marriage, Nietzsche has this definition: "Marriage, so
call I the will of two to create one who is more than they who created
him." For the bracing of the weakened will-force of the human breed it
is absolutely essential that master-men, the potential progenitors of
the superman, be left unhampered to the impulse of "living themselves
out" (_sich auszuleben_),--an opportunity of which under the regnant
code of morals they are inconsiderately deprived. Since, then, existing
dictates and conventions are a serious hindrance to the requisite
autonomy of the master-man, their abolishment might be well. Yet on the
other hand, it is convenient that the _Vielzuviele_, the
"much-too-many," i. e. the despised generality of people, should
continue to be governed and controlled by strict rules and regulations,
so that the will of the master-folk might the more expeditiously be
wrought. Would it not, then, be an efficacious compromise to keep the
canon of morality in force for the general run, but suspend it for the
special benefit of master-men, prospective or full-fledged? From the
history of the race Nietzsche draws a warrant for the distinction. His
contention is that masters and slaves have never lived up to a single
code of conduct. Have not civilizations risen and fallen according as
they were shaped by this or that class of nations? History also teaches
what disastrous consequences follow the loss of caste. In the case of
the Jewish people, the domineering type or morals gave way to the
servile as a result of the Babylonian captivity. So long as the Jews
were strong, they extolled all manifestations of strength and energy.
The collapse of their own strength turned them into apologists of the
so-called "virtues" of humility, long-suffering, forgiveness,--until,
according to the Judæo-Christian code of ethics, being good came to mean
being weak. So races may justly be classified into masters and slaves,
and history proves that to the strong goes the empire. The ambitions of
a nation are a sure criterion of its worth.
"I walk through these folk and keep mine eyes open. They have become
_smaller_ and are becoming ever smaller. _And the reason of that is
their doctrine of happiness and virtue._
For they are modest even in their virtue; for they are desirous of
ease. But with ease only modest virtue is compatible.
True, in their fashion they learn how to stride and to stride
forward. That I call their _hobbling_. Thereby they become an
offense unto every one who is in a hurry.
And many a one strideth on and in doing so looketh backward, with a
stiffened neck. I rejoice to run against the stomachs of such.
Foot and eyes shall not lie, nor reproach each other for lying. But
there is much lying among small folk.
Some of them _will_, but most of them _are willed_ merely. Some of
them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.
There are unconscious actors among them, and involuntary actors. The
genuine are always rare, especially genuine actors.
Here is little of man; therefore women try to make themselves manly.
For only he who is enough of a man will save the woman in woman.
And this hypocrisy I found to be worst among them, that even those
who command feign the virtues of those who serve.
'I serve, thou servest, we serve.' Thus the hypocrisy of the rulers
prayeth. And, alas, if the highest lord be merely the highest
servant!
Alas! the curiosity of mine eye strayed even unto their hypocrisies,
and well I divined all their fly-happiness and their humming round
window panes in the sunshine.
So much kindness, so much weakness see I. So much justice and
sympathy, so much weakness.
Round, honest, and kind are they towards each other, as grains of
sand are round, honest, and kind unto grains of sand.
Modestly to embrace a small happiness--they call 'submission'! And
therewith they modestly look sideways after a new small happiness.
At bottom they desire plainly one thing most of all: to be hurt by
nobody. Thus they oblige all and do well unto them.
But this is _cowardice_; although it be called 'virtue.'
And if once they speak harshly, these small folk,--I hear therein
merely their hoarseness. For every draught of air maketh them
hoarse.
Prudent are they; their virtues have prudent fingers. But they are
lacking in clenched fists; their fingers know not how to hide
themselves behind fists.
For them virtue is what maketh modest and tame. Thereby they have
made the wolf a dog and man himself man's best domestic animal.
'We put our chair in the midst'--thus saith their simpering unto
me--'exactly as far from dying gladiators as from happy swine.'
This is mediocrity; although it be called moderation."(21)
(21) "Thus Spake Zarathustra," pp. 243-245.
The only law acknowledged by him who would be a master is the bidding of
his own will. He makes short work of every other law. Whatever clogs the
flight of his indomitable ambition must be ruthlessly swept aside.
Obviously, the enactment of this law that would render the individual
supreme and absolute would strike the death-knell for all established
forms and institutions of the social body. But such is quite within
Nietzsche's intention. They are noxious agencies, ingeniously devised
for the enslavement of the will, and the most pernicious among them is
the Christian religion, because of the alleged divine sanction conferred
by it upon subserviency. Christianity would thwart the supreme will of
nature by curbing that lust for domination which the laws of nature as
revealed by science sanction, nay prescribe. Nietzsche's ideas on this
subject are loudly and over-loudly voiced in _Der Antichrist_ ("The
Anti-Christ"), written in September 1888 as the first part of a planned
treatise in four instalments, entitled _Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch
einer Umwertung aller Werte_. ("The Will to Power. An Attempted
Transvaluation of All Values".)
* * * * *
The master-man's will, then, is his only law. That is the essence of
_Herrenmoral_. And so the question arises, Whence shall the conscience
of the ruler-man derive its distinctions between the Right and the
Wrong? The arch-iconoclast brusquely stifles this naïve query beforehand
by assuring us that such distinctions in their accepted sense do not
exist for personages of that grander stamp. Heedless of the
time-hallowed concepts that all men share in common, he enjoins
mastermen to take their position uncompromisingly outside the confining
area of conventions, in the moral independence that dwells "beyond good
and evil." Good and Evil are mere denotations, devoid of any real
significance. Right and Wrong are not ideals immutable through the ages,
nor even the same at any time in all states of society. They are vague
and general notions, varying more or less with the practical exigencies
under which they were conceived. What was right for my great-grandfather
is not _ipso facto_ right for myself. Hence, the older and better
established a law, the more inapposite is it apt to be to the living
demands. Why should the ruler-man bow down to outworn statutes or
stultify his self-dependent moral sense before the artificial and
stupidly uniform moral relics of the dead past? Good is whatever
conduces to the increase of my power,--evil is whatever tends to
diminish it! Only the weakling and the hypocrite will disagree.
Unmistakably this is a straightout application of the "pragmatic"
criterion of truth. Nietzsche's unconfessed and cautious imitators, who
call themselves pragmatists, are not bold enough to follow their own
logic from the cognitive sphere to the moral. They stop short of the
natural conclusion to which their own premises lead. Morality is
necessarily predicated upon specific notions of truth. So if Truth is an
alterable and shifting concept, must not morality likewise be variable?
The pragmatist might just as well come out at once into the broad light
and frankly say: "Laws do not interest me in the abstract, or for the
sake of their general beneficence; they interest me only in so far as
they affect me. Therefore I will make, interpret, and abolish them to
suit myself."
To Nietzsche the "quest of truth" is a palpable evasion. Truth is merely
a means for the enhancement of my subjective satisfaction. It makes not
a whit of difference whether an opinion or a judgment satisfies this or
that scholastic definition. I call true and good that which furthers my
welfare and intensifies my joy in living; and,--to vindicate my
self-gratification as a form, indeed the highest, of "social
service,"--the desirable thing is that which matters for the improvement
of the human stock and thereby speeds the advent of the Superman. "Oh,"
exclaims Zarathustra, "that ye would understand my word: Be sure to do
whatever ye like,--but first of all be such as _can will_! Be sure to
love your neighbor as yourself,--but first of all be such as _love
themselves_,--as love themselves with great love, with contempt. Thus
speaketh Zarathustra, the ungodly."
By way of throwing some light upon this phase of Nietzsche's moral
philosophy, it may be added that ever since 1876 he was an assiduous
student of Herbert Spencer, with whose theory of social evolution he was
first made acquainted by his friend, Paul Rée, who in two works of his
own, "Psychologic Observations," (1875), and "On the Origin of Moral
Sentiments," (1877), had elaborated upon the Spencerian theory about the
genealogy of morals.
The best known among all of Nietzsche's works, _Also Sprach Zarathustra_
("Thus Spake Zarathustra"), is the Magna Charta of the new moral
emancipation. It was composed during a sojourn in southern climes
between 1883 and 1885, during the convalescence from a nervous collapse,
when after a long and critical depression his spirit was recovering its
accustomed resilience. Nietzsche wrote his _magnum opus_ in solitude, in
the mountains and by the sea. His mind always was at its best in
settings of vast proportions, and in this particular work there breathes
an exaltation that has scarcely its equal in the world's literature.
Style and diction in their supreme elation suit the lofty fervor of the
sentiment. From the feelings, as a fact, this great rhapsody flows, and
to the feelings it makes its appeal; its extreme fascination must be
lost upon those who only know how to "listen to reason." The wondrous
plastic beauty of the language, along with the high emotional pitch of
its message, render "Zarathustra" a priceless poetic monument; indeed
its practical effect in chastening and rejuvenating German literary
diction can hardly be overestimated. Its value as a philosophic document
is much slighter. It is not even organized on severely logical lines. On
the contrary, the four component parts are but brilliant variations upon
a single generic theme, each in a different clef, but harmoniously
united by the incremental ecstasy of the movement. The composition is
free from monotony, for down to each separate aphorism every part of it
has its special lyric nuance. The whole purports to convey in the form
of discourse the prophetic message of Zarathustra, the hermit sage, an
idealized self-portrayal of the author.
In the first book the tone is calm and temperate. Zarathustra exhorts
and instructs his disciples, rails at his adversaries, and discloses his
superiority over them. In the soliloquies and dialogues of the second
book he reveals himself more fully and freely as the Superman. The third
book contains the meditations and rhapsodies of Zarathustra now dwelling
wholly apart from men, his mind solely occupied with thought about the
Eternal Return of the Present. In the fourth book he is found in the
company of a few chosen spirits whom he seeks to imbue with his
perfected doctrine. In this final section of the work the deep lyric
current is already on the ebb; it is largely supplanted by irony,
satire, sarcasm, even buffoonery, all of which are resorted to for the
pitiless excoriation of our type of humanity, deemed decrepit by the
Sage. The author's intention to present in a concluding fifth division
the dying Zarathustra pronouncing his benedictions upon life in the act
of quitting it was not to bear fruit.