One might expect that Nietzsche, who glories in the triumph of the
strong over the weak in the struggle for life, red in tooth and claw,
would look up to Darwin as his master. But Nietzsche recognizes no,
master, and he emphasizes this by speaking in his poetry of Darwin
as "this English joker," whose "mediocre reason" is accepted for
philosophy.[1] To Nietzsche that which exists is the mere incidental
product of blind forces. Instead of working for a development of the
better from the best of the present, which is the method of nature,
he shows his contempt for the human and all-too-human; he prophesies
a deluge and hopes that from its floods the overman will emerge whose
seal of superiority will be the strength of the conqueror that enables
him to survive in the struggle for existence.
Nietzsche has looked deeply into the apparent chaos of life that
according to Darwin is a ruthless struggle for survival. He avoids
the mistake of those sentimentalists who believe that goody-goodyness
can rule the world, who underrate the worth of courage and over-rate
humility, and who would venture to establish peace on earth by
grounding arms. He sees the differences that exist between all things,
the antagonism that obtains everywhere, and preferring to play the part
of the hammer, he showers expressions of contempt upon the anvil.
And Nietzsche's self-assertion is immediate and direct. He does not
pause to consider what his self is, neither how it originated nor what
will become of it. He takes it as it is and opposes it to the authority
of other powers, the state, the church, and the traditions of the past.
An investigation of the nature of the self might have dispelled the
illusion of his self-glorification, but he never thinks of analysing
its constitution. Bluntly and without any reflection or deliberation he
claims the right of the sovereignty of self. He seems to forget that
there are different selves, and that what we need most is a standard by
which we can gauge their respective worth, and not an assertion of the
rights of the self in general.
We do not intend to quarrel with Nietzsche's radicalism. Nor do we
underrate the significance of the self. We, too, believe that every
self has the liberty to choose its own position and may claim as many
rights as it pleases provided it can maintain them. If it cannot
maintain them it will be crushed; otherwise it may conquer its rivals
and suppress counter-claims; but therefore the wise man looks before he
leaps. Reckless self-assertion is the method of brute creation. Neither
the lion nor the lamb meditate on their fate; they simply follow their
instincts. They are carnivorous or herbivorous by nature through the
actions of their ancestors. This is what Buddhists call the law of
deeds or _Karma_. Man's karma leads higher. Man can meditate on his
own fate, and he can discriminate. His self is a personality, i. e.,
a self-controlled commonwealth of motor ideas. Man does not blindly
follow his impulses but establishes rules of action. He can thus
abbreviate the struggle and avoid unnecessary friction; he can rise
from brute violence to a self-contained and well-disciplined strength.
Self-control (i. e., ethical guidance) is the characteristic feature
of the true "overman"; but Nietzsche knows nothing of self-control;
he would allow the self blindly to assert itself after the fashion of
animal instincts.
Nietzsche is the philosopher of instinct. He spurns all logical order,
even truth itself. He has a contempt for every one who learns from
others, for he regards such a man as a slave to other people's thought.
His ambition for originality is expressed in these four lines which he
inserted as a motto to the second edition of _La Gaya Scienza_:
"Ich wohne in meinem eignen Haus,
Hab' niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht
Und--lachte noch jeden Meister aus,
Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht."
We translate faithfully, preserving even the ungrammatical use of the
double negative, as follows:
"In my own house do I reside,
Did never no one imitate,
And every master I deride,
Save if himself he'd derogate."
We wonder that Nietzsche did not think of Goethe's little rhyme, which
seems to suit his case exactly:
"A fellow says: 'I own no school or college;
No master lives whom I acknowledge;
And pray don't entertain the thought
That from the dead I e'er learned aught.'
This, if I rightly understand,
Means: 'I'm a fool by own command.'"
Nietzsche observes that the thoughts of most philosophers are secretly
guided by instincts. He feels that all thought is at bottom a "will for
power," and the will for truth has no right to exist except it serve
the will for power. He reproaches philosophers for glorifying truth.
Fichte in his _Duties of the Scholar_ says:
"My life and my fate are nothing; but the results of my
life are of great importance. I am a priest of Truth; I am
in the service of Truth; I feel under obligation to do, to
risk, and to suffer anything for truth."
Nietzsche declares that this is shallow. Will for truth, he says,
should be called "will to make being thinkable." Here, it seems to us,
Nietzsche simply replaces the word "truth" by one of its functions.
Truth is a systematic representation of reality, a comprehensive
description of facts; the result being that "existence is made
thinkable."
Nietzsche is in a certain sense right when he says that truth in itself
is nothing; for every representation of reality must serve a purpose,
otherwise it is superfluous and useless. And the purpose of truth is
the furtherance of life. Nietzsche instinctively hits the right thing
in saying that at the bottom of philosophy there is the will for power.
In spite of our school-philosopher's vain declamations of "science
for its own sake," genuine philosophy will never be anything else
than a method for the acquisition of power. But this method is truth.
Nietzsche errs when he declares that "the head is merely the intestine
of the heart." The head endeavors to find out the truth, and the truth
is not purely subjective. It is true that truth is of no use to a man
unless he makes it his own; he must possess it; it must be part of
himself, but he cannot create it. Truth cannot be made; it must be
discovered. Since the scholar's specialized business is the elucidation
of the method of discovering the truth--not its purpose, not its
application in practical life--Fichte's ideal of the aim of scholarship
remains justified.
Omit the ideal of truth in a philosophy, and it becomes an _ignis
fatuus_, a will-o'-the-wisp, that will lead people astray. Truth makes
existence thinkable, but thinkableness alone is not as yet a test of
truth. The ultimate test of truth is its practical application. There
is something wrong with a theory that does not work, and thus the self
has a master, which is reality, the world in which it lives, with its
laws and actualities. The subjective self must measure its worth by the
objective standard of truth--to be obtained through exact inquiry and
scientific investigation.
The will for power, in order to succeed, must be clarified by a
methodical comprehension of facts and conditions. The contradictory
impulses in one's own self must be systematized so that they will not
collide and mutually annihilate themselves; and the comprehension of
this orderly disposition is called reason.
Nietzsche is on the right track when he ridicules such ideals as
"virtue for virtue's sake," and even "truth for truth's sake." Virtue
and truth are for the sake of life. They have not their purpose in
themselves, but their nature consists in serving the expansion and
further growth of the human soul. This is a truth which we have always
insisted upon and which becomes apparent when those people who speak of
virtue for its own sake try to define virtue, or determine the ultimate
standard of right and wrong, of goodness and badness. We say, that
whatever enhances soulgrowth, thus producing higher life and begetting
a superior humanity, is good; while whatever cripples or retards those
aspirations is bad. Further, truth is not holy in itself. It becomes
holy in the measure that it serves man's holiest aspirations. We
sometimes meet among scientists, and especially among philologists,
men who with the ideal of "truth for truth's sake," pursue some very
trivial investigations, such, for example, as the use of the accusative
after certain prepositions in Greek, or how often Homer is guilty of a
hiatus. They resemble Faust's famulus Wagner, whom Faust characterizes
as a fool
".... whose choice is
To stick in shallow trash for ever more,
Who digs with eager hand for buried ore,
And when he finds an angle-worm rejoices."
Thus there are many trivial truths of no importance, the investigation
of which serves no useful purpose. For instance, whether the correct
pronunciation of the Greek letter _êta_; was _ee_ or _ay_ need not
concern us much, and the philologist who devotes all his life and his
best strength to its settlement is rather to be pitied than admired.
Various truths are very different in value, for life and truth become
holy according to their importance. All this granted, we need not, with
Nietzsche, discard truth, reason, virtue, and all moral aspirations.
Nietzsche apparently is under the illusion that reason, systematic
thought, moral discipline and self-control, are external powers, and
in his love of liberty he objects to their authority. Did he ever
consider that thought is not an external agent, but a clarification of
man's instincts, and that discipline is, or at least in its purpose
and final aim ought to be, self-regulation, so that our contradictory
thoughts would not wage an internecine war? Thus, Nietzsche, the
instinct-philosopher, appears as an ingenious boy whose very
immaturity is regarded by himself as the highest blossom of his
existence. Like an intoxicated youth, he revels in his irresponsibility
and laughs at the man who has learned to take life seriously. Because
the love of truth originates from instincts, Nietzsche treats it as a
mere instinct, and nothing else. He forgets that in the evolution of
man's soul all instincts develop into something higher than instinct,
and the love of truth develops into systematic science.
Nietzsche never investigated what his own self consisted of. He never
analyzed his individuality. Other-wise he would have learned that he
received the most valuable part of his being from others, and that the
bundle of instincts which he called his sovereign self was nothing but
the heirloom of the ages that preceded him. In spite of his repudiation
of any debt to others, he was but the continuation of others. But he
boldly carried his individualism, if not to its logical conclusions,
yet to its moral applications. When speaking of the Order of Assassins
of the times of the Crusades, he said with enthusiasm: "The highest
secret of their leaders was, 'Nothing is true, everything is allowed!'"
And Nietzsche adds: "That indeed, was liberty of spirit; that dismissed
even the belief in truth." The philosopher of instinct even regards
the adherence to truth as slavery and the proclamation of truth as
dogmatism.
[1] See Nietzsche's poems in the appendix to _A Genealogy of Morals_,
Eng. ed., Macmillan, p. 248.