It is said that barking dogs do not bite, and this being true, we must
look upon Nietzsche's philosophy as a harmless display of words and a
burning desire for power without making any attempt to practice what
he preached. His philosophy, so far as he is concerned, is a purely
Platonic love of an unattainable star whose brilliance dazzled the
imagination of a childlike peaceful weakling. Suppose, however, for
argument's sake, that Nietzsche had been a man of robust health, and
that he had been born at the time of great disturbances, offering
unlimited chances to an unscrupulous ambition, would he under these
circumstances have led the life he preached, and in case he had done
so, would he have boldly and unreservedly admitted his principles while
carrying out his plans? Did ever Cæsar or Napoleon or any usurper,
such as Richard III, who unscrupulously aspired for power, own that he
would shrink from nothing to attain his aim? Such a straightforward
policy for any schemer would be the surest way of missing his aim.
Such men, on the contrary, have played hypocrites, and have pretended
to cherish ideals generally approved by the large masses of the people
whom Nietzsche calls the herd. So it is obvious that the philosophy
of Nietzsche if it were ever practically applied, would have become a
secret doctrine known only to the initiated few, while the broad masses
would be misguided by some demonstrative show of moral principles that
might be pleasing to the multitudes and yet at the same time conceal
the real tendency of the overman to gain possession of his superior
position.
Nietzsche's influence upon professional philosophers is comparatively
weak. Whenever mentioned by them, it is in criticism, and he is
generally set aside as onesided, and perhaps justly, because he was
truly no philosopher in the strict sense of the word. He was no
reasoner, no logician, and we can not, properly speaking, look upon
his philosophy as a system or even a systematized view of the world.
Nietzsche made himself the exponent of a tendency, and as such he has
his followers among large masses of those very people whom he despised
as belonging to the herds. As Nietzsche idealized this very quality
in which he was lacking, so his followers recruit themselves from the
ranks of those people who more than all others would be opposed to the
rule of the overman. His most ardent followers are among the nihilists
of Russia, the socialists and anarchists of all civilized countries.
The secret reason of attraction, perhaps unknown to themselves, seems
to be Nietzsche's defense of the blind impulse and the privilege which
he claims for the overman to be himself in spite of law and order and
morality, and also his contempt for rules, religious, philosophical,
ethical or even logical, that would restrict the great sovereign
passion for power.
Nietzsche's philosophy has taken a firm hold of a number of souls
who rebel against the social, the political, the religious, and even
the scientific, conditions of our civilization. Nietzsche is the
philosopher of protest, and, strange to say, while he himself is
aristocratic in his instincts, he appeals most powerfully to the masses
of the people.
Nietzsche's disciples are not among the aristocrats, not among the
scholars, not among the men of genius. His followers are among
the people who believe in hatred and hail him as a prophet of the
great deluge. His greatest admirers are anarchists, sometimes also
socialists, and above all those geniuses who have failed to find
recognition. Nietzsche's thought will prove veritable dynamite if it
should happen to reach the masses of mankind, the disinherited, the
uneducated, the proletariat, the Catilinary existences. Nietzsche's
philosophy is an intoxicant to those whom he despised most; they see in
him their liberator, and rejoice in his invectives.
Invectives naturally appeal to those who are as unthinking as the
brutes of the field, but feel the sufferings of existence as much as
do the beasts of burden. They are impervious to argument, but being
full of bitterness and envy they can be led most easily by any kind
of denunciations of their betters. Nietzsche hated the masses, the
crowd of the common people, the herd. He despised the lowly and had
a contempt for the ideals of democracy. Nevertheless, his style of
thought is such as to resemble the rant of the leaders of mobs, and
it is quite probable that in the course of time he will become the
philosopher of demagogues.
A great number of Nietzsche's disciples share their master's
eccentricities and especially his impetuosity. Having a contempt for
philosophy as the work of the intellect, they move mainly in the field
of political and social self-assertion; they are anarchists who believe
that the overman is coming in labor troubles, strikes, and through a
subversion of the authority of government in any form.
The best known German expounders of Nietzsche's philosophy have been
Rudolph Steiner and Alexander Tille.[1] Professor Henri Lichtenberger
of the University of Nancy was his interpreter in France,[2] and the
former editor of The Eagle and the Serpent, known under the pseudonym
of Erwin McCall, in England. This periodical, which flourished for a
short time only, characterized its own tendency as follows:
"_The Eagle and the Serpent_ is a bi-monthly journal of egoistic
philosophy and sociology which teaches that in social science altruism
spells damnation and egoism spells salvation. In the war against their
exploiters the exploited cannot hope to succeed till they act as a
unit, an 'ego.'"
A reader of _The Eagle and the Serpent_ humorously criticised the
egoistic philosophy as follows:
"Dear Eagle and Serpent.--I am one of those unreasonable
persons who see no irreconcilable conflict between egoism
and altruism. The altruism of Tolstoy is the shortest
road to the egoism of Whitman. The unbounded love and
compassion of Jesus made him conscious of being the son
of God, and that he and the Father were one. Could egoism
go further than this? I believe that true egoism and true
altruism grow in precisely equal degree in the soul, and
that the alleged qualities which bear either name and
attempt to masquerade alone without their respective
make-weights are shams and counterfeits. The real
desideratum is balance, and that cannot be permanently
preserved on one leg. However, you skate surprisingly well
for the time being on one foot, and I have enjoyed the
first performance so well that I enclose 60 cents for a
season-ticket--ERNEST H. CROSBY. Rhinebeck, N. Y., U. S.
A."
A German periodical _Der Eigene_, i. e., "he who is his own,"
announced itself as "a journal for all and nobody," and sounded "the
slogan of the egoists," by calling on them to "preserve their ownhood."
Another anarchistic periodical that stood under the influence of
Nietzsche appeared in Budapest,[3] Hungary, in German and Hungarian
under the name Ohne Staat, ("Without Government") as "the organ of
ideal anarchists," under the editorship of Karl Krausz.
Perhaps the most worthy exponent of Nietzsche in England to-day is his
translator Thomas Common. He does not consider himself an orthodox
Nietzsche apostle but thinks that Nietzsche has given the world a very
important revelation and that his new philosophy of history and his
explanation of the role of Christianity are among the most wonderful
discoveries since Darwin. At the same time Mr. Common pronounces
Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence "very foolish" and believes
his use of the terms "good" and "evil" so perverted that he was
frequently confused about them and so misled superficial readers. Mr.
Common published at regular intervals during the years 1903 to 1909
ten numbers of a small periodical entitled variously _Notes for Good
Europeans and The Good European Point of View_, and expects to resume
its publication soon. Its motto is from Nietzsche, "In a word--and it
shall be an honorable word--we are Good Europeans ... the heirs of
thousands of years of the European spirit." Its purpose is expressed in
its first number as follows: "Our general purpose is to spread the best
and most important knowledge relating to human well-being among those
who are worthy to receive it, with a view to reducing the knowledge
to practice, after some degree of unanimity has been attained.... As
Nietzsche's works, notwithstanding some limitations, exaggerations and
minor errors, embody the foremost philosophical thought of the age, it
will be one of our special objects to introduce these works to English
readers."
These numbers contain many bibliographical and other notes of interest
to friends or critics of the Nietzsche propaganda. Mr. Common has
published selections from Nietzsche's works under the title, _Nietzsche
as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet_.[4]
In America Nietzsche's philosophy is represented by a book of Ragnar
Redbeard, entitled _Might is Right, the Survival of the Fittest._[5]
The author characterizes his work as follows:
[Illustration: BUST OF NIETZSCHE, BY KLINGER.]
"This book is a reasoned negation of the Ten
Commandments--the Golden Rule--the Sermon on the
Mount--Republican Principles--Christian Principles--and
Principles' in general.
"It proclaims upon scientific evolutionary grounds,
the unlimited absolutism of Might, and asserts that
cut-and-dried moral codes are crude and immoral
inventions, promotive of vice and vassalage."
The author is a most ardent admirer of Nietzsche, as may be learned
from his verses made after the pattern of Nietzsche's poetry. He sings:
"There is no 'law' in heaven or earth that man must needs
obey! Take what you can, and all you can; and take it
while you--may.
"Let not the Jew-born Christ ideal unnerve you in the
fight. You have no 'rights,' except the rights you win
by--might.
"There is no justice, right, nor wrong; no truth, no good,
no evil. There is no 'man's immortal soul,' no fiery,
fearsome Devil.
"There is no 'heaven of glory:' No!--no 'hell where
sinners roast' There is no 'God the Father,' No!--no Son,
no 'Holy Ghost.'
"This world is no Nirvâna where joy forever flows. It is a
grewsome butcher shop where dead 'lambs' hang in--rows.
"Man is the most ferocious of all the beasts of prey. He
rangeth round the mountains, to love, and feast, and--slay.
"He sails the stormy oceans, he gallops o'er the plains,
and sucks the very marrow-bones of captives held
in--chains.
"Death endeth all for every man,--for every 'son of
thunder'; then be a lion (not a 'lamb') and--don't be
trampled under."
A valuable recent addition to the discussion of egoism is _The
Philosophy of Egoism_ by James L. Walker, (Denver, 1905).
We know of no American periodical which stands for Nietzsche's views,
except, perhaps, _The Lion's Paw_ (Chicago) which claims to follow no
one. In the last years of the nineteenth century Clarence L. Swartz
published at Wellesley, Mass., an egoistic periodical called the _I_.
This magazine is no longer in existence, but Mr. Swartz is very active
in the International Intelligence Institute whose aims are universal
language, universal nationality and universal peace. He still maintains
the same philosophical view which he held as editor of the _I_, but his
philosophical egoism has led him in far different paths from those of
Nietzsche--into the paths of peace and not of struggle. He expresses
his present conception as follows:
"In the last analysis there is no right but might. Such is the common
ordinary rule of every-day life, from which there is no escape, even
were escape desirable. Any attempt to overthrow or circumvent or
even dispute the exercise of this prerogative of the mighty is but to
assert or oppose a greater might. Expediency always dictates how might
should be exercised. Politically, I hold that the non-coercion of
the non-invasive individual is the part of wisdom. The individual is
supreme, and should be preserved as against society, for in no other
way can evolution perform its perfect work."
_The Free Comrade_ edited by J. Wm. Lloyd and Leonard Abbott, an
avowedly socialistic and individualistic paper, originally under the
sole editorship of Lloyd, stood for Nietzsche and his egoism, but can
no longer be said to do so.
[1] A. Tille, _Von Darwin bis Nietzsche_. R. Steiner, _Wahrheit und
Wissenschaft_; _Die Philosophie der Freiheit; and F. Nietzsche, ein
Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit_.
We have already mentioned the biography of Nietzsche published by the
philosopher's sister, Frau E. Förster-Nietzsche. A characterization,
disavowed by Nietzsche's admirers, was written by Frau Lou Andreas
Salome, under the title _F. Nietzsche in seinen Werken_. Other
works kindred in spirit are Schellwien's _Der Geist der neueren
Philosophie_, 1895, and Der Darwinismus, 1896; also Adolf Gerecke,
_Die Aussichtslosigkeit des Moralismus_; Schmitt, _An der Grenzscheide
zweier Weltalter_; Károly Krausz, _Nietzsche und seine Weltanschauung._
[2] Henri Lichtenberger, _La Philosophie de Nietzsche_. Paris, Alcan,
1898
[3] We may mention incidentally that a contributor to _Ohne Staat_
reproduced one of the Homilies of St Chrysostom, in which he harangues
after the fashion of the early Christian preachers against wealth
and power. The state's attorney, not versed in Christian patristic
literature, seized the issue and placed the man who quoted the old
Byzantine saint behind the prison bars. In the issue of Nov., 1898, Dr.
Eugen Heinrich Schmitt mentions the case and says: "Thus we have an
exact and historical proof that the liberty of speech and thought was
incomparably greater in miserable, servile Byzantium than it is now in
the much more miserable and more servile despotism of modern Europe."
Does not Dr. Schmitt overlook the fact that in the days of Byzantine
Christianity the saints were protected by the mob, which was much
feared by the imperial government and was kept at bay only by a nominal
recognition of its claims and beliefs?
[4] Other recent English Nietzschean literature is as follows: Grace
Neal Dolson, _The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche_, 1901; Oscar Levy,
_The Revival of Aristocracy_, 1906; A. R. Orage, _Fried. Nietzsche,
the Dionysion Spirit of the Age_, 1906; A. R. Orage, _Nietzsche in
Outline and Alphorism_; Henry L. Mencken, _The Philosophy of Friedrich
Nietzsche_; M. A. Mügge, _Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work_;
Anthony M. Ludovici, _Who Is to Be Master of the World_?
[5] Published by Adolph Mueller, Chicago.