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NIETZSCHE
LONDON
GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE
NIETZSCHE
BY
CRANE BRINTON
McLean
Professor of Ancient
Harvard University
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1948
COPYRIGHT, 1941
Second Printing
NO PART OF THIS
U.S.A.
To
L.
J.
HENDERSON
EDITOR'S PREFACE
present biographical series, initiated by the volume on
JL Nietzsche by Crane Brinton, has no intention of offering to
the public once again the biographies of men which appear with
Marx.
It
men
for
whom
there
is
sidered as
"Makers
of
Modern Europe."
its
They
will expose
dealt,
man
for his
epoch?"
leagues
at
have consulted repeatedly various ones of my colHarvard, and have had the helpful advice of
W.
Clark
EDITOR'S PREFACE
viii
my other projects, I
and candid
many
errors
interest of
my
by her detached
criticism.
DONALD C. McKAY
JOHN WINTHROP HOUSE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
January
/6,
7947
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
to
make
IWJSH
not attempt
to analyze his
work from
work
is
in the
is
That
a task for
is
which
am
not
Begun before
Abusive epithets
like
especially
"barbarous,"
many
of the right overtones: you cannot fairly use nice words, nor
me
On
can come
Chapter VIII.
is
the
word
for the
meant
I
my
as
to indict the
owe much
friends,
a
group.
to
German
nation.
whom
I
hope that
many
of
should
like,
PREFACE
X
specifically
am
numerous
debts.
To
the
Macmillan Company
and Professor
specific phases of
S. B.
My
editors,
Dumas Malone, have been most helpful. Mrs. Ruth Harris has
been kind enough to read the whole manuscript, and make suggestions
from which
man
my
me
all
these
am
especially grateful.
CRANE BRINTON
DUNSTER HOUSE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
November 7, 7940
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I.
THE STUDENT
XV
3
'll.
THE PROFESSOR
2J
pi.
THE PROPHET
50
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
74
,/V.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE WANTED
JVI.
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
142
Vll.
172
200
JV.
VIII.
ylX.
Il8
PROPHET
232
BIBLIOGRAPHY
247
INDEX
263
ILLUSTRATIONS
NIETZSCHE IN His LAST YEAR OF LIFE
frontispiece
photography, we have as good a record of Nietzsche's appearance as one might expect of a member of a German middle-class
family in the late nineteenth century. He did not, however, become a
subject for artists until the decade of his great fame, the 1890'*, by
which time he was insane and bedridden. Elizabeth allowed several
artists to have access to her brother at Jena and Weimar. In 1899 one
of these, Dr. Hans Olde, made this now familiar drawing, showing the
sick Nietzsche gazing sightlessly at the setting sun. There arc several
better-known engravings from this drawing, in which only Nietzsche's
head or head and shoulders are shown.
Thanks
to
NIETZSCHE AT SIXTEEN
This is the familiar photograph which
taken of the son at his confirmation.
22
all
46
The famous couple posed at about the period when Nietzsche first
an acquaintance which very rapidly became
made their acquaintance
friendship.
ELIZABETH NIETZSCHE
112
This is Elizabeth on the edge of middle age, just before she married
Bernhard Forster. She did not assume the name by which she is known
to students of Nietzsche, Frau Forster-Nietzsche, until the 1890'$, when
her husband was dead and her brother famous.
NIETZSCHE IN UNIFORM
170
This photograph was taken in the fall of 1868, about the time of
Nietzsche's appointment to the professorship at Basle.
memory
208
Elizabeth did
all
The Fuehrer
is
there in full.
INTRODUCTION
even in
this
make
MIGHT,
right.
Ever since Socrates so readily refuted the unsubtle arguments of Thrasymachus, the best people, and cerhave in general agreed that Truth
does not prevail. Yet successful might
forces itself
on the
it
serious,
is
failed
Fuehrer.
hash of
now
who
Mcin Kampf,
that
and several
violence,
sorts
Today,
Mcin Kampf
still
must admit
Socialist
Not
that Hitler's
canon
all
now
of that
book
is
canon
is
sources.
like
have been written without the aid of two of the great names in
the cultural heritage of the West
Richard Wagner and
Friedrich Nietzsche.
controversy:
neither
serene and
Olympian
figure like
INTRODUCTION
xvi
way
that
list
of the
Hundred
Best.
But both
respectable.
if
to
philosopher and an earthshaking composer, both of them enshrined among the beautiful
and therefore
good, should help make the faith professed
That
and most
a subtle
by Dr. Goebbels
is
literate
up
names
of those
make
its
traditional melee.
Nietzsche, whose
memory
on German earth
rather
more than
among
his fellow
presumably
kill
first
since in
is
happy
Valhalla words
canonization of
Sense for
Supermen. Indeed,
no more
be published shortly.
INTRODUCTION
xvii
sured superiorities.
shall
mans
He
all
which
is
now
is.
Dutchmen
extinct.
which
mere swindles.
European," and he
and Italy.
And
the greatest
of a strong race
as
German,
else, like
he regarded
German
called
lived
He
most of
wrote of himself
as a
"good
man
are in high
honor
in
Na-
career
better
what goes on
in
of National Socialism.
lovers of
as
much
Locke and
of
wherever he
1
Voltaire,
but of Nietzsche;
Nietzsche, Eccc
Homo, "Why
and Nietzsche,
am
so clever,"
7.
NIETZSCHE
CHAPTER
THE STUDENT
OCTOBER
IN
of
15, 1844, a
little
village of
Rocken
in a
as a
his
blissful
In the
I
name
of the
moment!
Lord
exquisite festival!
unspeakable holy duty!
bless thce! From the bottom of my heart do
me, then,
consecrate
this
my
may
my
royal benefactor
on whose
1
birthday thou wast born.
friends;
to feel
and
since,
an ordinary
the
royal
Nietzsche.
such matters,
Slavic family
Nietzsche himself
1
I,
set
E. Forstcr-Nictzschc,
12.
The
customary
NIETZSCHE
name, and some talcs of his grandmother, gave his imagination a few facts to work on, out of which, perhaps with the help
romantic
tale of
named Nicki
My
so
or Nietzky.
much
race instinct in
liberum veto.
When
my
blood
it
is
number
think of the
owing
them
to
who knows?
that I have
of times in
my
travels that
have been accosted as a Pole, even by Poles themselves, and how seldom
I have been taken for a German, it seems to me as if I belonged to those
2
only who have a sprinkling of German in them.
I
bicycle days
Nietzsche grew with such care and pride,
worn
known
in the
as a
may
and presumably
appearance.
There
is
nothing in the
Nietzsche, and
no very
story.
in
Five
is
further evi-
dence to push the family back across the border into Slavic
I am so wise,"
3. Except for his first book, The Birth
Nietzsche's books are not systematically put together into long
chapters, but are collections of aphorisms, verses, or parables (as in Zarathustra). References to Nietzsche's works are therefore usually given in the follow-
*Eccc
of
HomOy "Why
Tragedy
ing form: title of the book, section name or number, and aphorism number.
This is a very convenient form of reference, and will be used in this study of
Nietzsche. Unlike reference to page numbers, it permits the reader to refer
to any edition in the original or in translation. Wherever possible, I have
quoted the English translation in the authorized edition of Nietzsche's works
edited by Dr. Oscar Levy, published in the United States by the Macmillan
Company, who have kindly granted me permission to quote from this edition.
THE STUDENT
Bohemia. The name Nietzsche
spelling of the diminutive
Nietzsche's veins
metaphor
into the
of
making
The
German
probably a variant
name
very popular
or,
common
no more than
basin.
is
of a saint's
Nicholas.
Slavs
among
form
of the
is
other
blood,
man
among Germans
usual
names
in the
middle Elbe
and
German enough. 3
many
of his biographers
They can
fell
on
and
In
suf-
which
fact that
we have no
satisfactory clinical
it
is
disposition to insanity.
parents
we have no
cases in
information
whatever.
Pastor
who
him
in the flesh, as a
mind and
His emotions, to judge from his words at the christening of his son, were of the kind that frequently required
exclamation points to do them justice; this, however, is no
character.
Ostdeutschc
NIETZSCHE
itself
romantic
taste in the
and
1840*5,
is
and
to give
by a landed
of
which
it
nobility.
now
proud,
was one
now ashamed:
Slavic elements
in brief,
some-
sisters-in-law,
to
widow, and
family, the
people. Fritz
cally
grew up
in a
common
to
domestic
Too
Germany
that of
in the
five
grew up
women,
THE STUDENT
grandmother, mother, aunts, and
women, much
ship.
They were
sister.
all
good
Aunt Augusta,
as she
sample:
For years she suffered from exceedingly painful gastric troubles, which
she bore, however, with great sweetness and patience; and in spite of
her affliction, she did not cease from conducting the affairs of the household in a truly admirable manner.
would
say,
Though
when
she
was entreated
the papers,
none of the
"Leave
me
Aunt
this
to spare herself.
women
in such social
man
of the family.
The
of tyranny.
is
His
hard to
dis-
sister herself
three years.
When
she
came
to study
him
affection.
literature:
Thou
goest to
bits
Forstcr-Nictzschc, Nietzsche,
Thus Spake
Zarathustra>
I,
of wishful
women ? Do
*
8
He
I,
29,
chap,
xviii.
from the
thinking in
all
NIETZSCHE
8
Fritz
was
little
good
Germany
uncomfortably
sister,
suggests
far:
One
remonstrated with him for coming home soaked to the skin he replied
seriously: "But, Mamma, in the rules of the school it is written: on leaving
school, boys are forbidden to jump and run about in the street, but must
in
Naumburg
reports
this rule
which Elizabeth
it.
We need
autobiography.
nilia, essays,
and
Friedrich Nietzsche."
first
The
lad
whose odd
volumes
works of
scraps of writing
e
7
Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
Friedrich Nietzsche, WerJ^e
I,
25.
und
Briefe, Historisch-lyitische
Gcsamtaus-
Band.
und Bonner
is
No
THE STUDENT
have thus against all odds survived and found their way to print
is now and then boyish enough. "I ate lots of cherries
yesterday,
and
my
He was
and already
omnivorous in
He
his reading,
is
awkward
little
of the schoolboy's
wholly
amazingly
crisp
German
He
prose.
travels, poetry,
an
effective
mime.
No
Nietzsche,
to be
means
successful imitation, or
it
means
come. There
is,
wonders what
in fact, so little of
so serious a
boy made
as a birthday gift
on
his fifteenth
birthday.
of the Nietzsche- Archiv in
Weimar
to
keep
to
memory
of her brother
as
spotlessly
l,
119.
NIETZSCHE
io
II
At
was
from
at last separated
his adoring
tual tradition,
there to
hard
its
at Pforta.
pupils through
Nietzsche
pose.
this
against
fifteen
to
as
proof
same
sort
at
age,
close
to
this
harsh
world.
Pforta was not of course entirely a cloister, a prison, or a
library. It
was
in the garden,
filled
swam
who
played, strolled
to gall
communal
young enough
to
bend
slightly.
as usual
THE STUDENT
II
put through.
As
the boy
grows up
With
begin
adolescence,
to
and
their
lose
the appropriate
for he
essays
straightforward
emotional
crisis
still
appropriately conventional.
"Vorbei, vorbei!
Herz,
willst
height, in
The Conspiracy
and
lively as
American
is
rather bet-
from
letters
which
Pforta.
He
less
writes long
old friends
letters to his
gish
lines,
The
it
finished the
first
...
to use for
chapter.
well,
what you
W v Nietzky
homme
(votrc
The
lad
is
(alias
Muck)
ttudic en lettrcs
ami sans
12
lettrcs)
clearly capable, at
of strong affection. Yet neither the spirits nor the affection ever
substantial, straightforward.
119-125.
11
Werfa
Bricfe,
I,
I,
129; 170.
193.
To Raimund
Nietzsche
is
NIETZSCHE
12
He
is
we humans
in his
own
istry.
Yet
when he was
and was,
teen,
model
at school, the
He
certainly in his
and beginning
eighteen,
began
he even slipped
to
off
go wrong.
during the
Though
more than
it is
ministry.
Nietzsche
likely that
make
his call
to
the
God
whom
easy matter to
with
communicate
to his
mother.
It
too-
human hedging;
that
as well
as that of
I,
Bricjcy
much
209.
Nictzschc, Nietzsche,
April
I,
105.
16,
1863.
An
still
in
He
played the
some ways
English translation
is
THE STUDENT
13
emotion.
He
wrote Liedcr,
bits of sonatas,
The
much
bits
piety
Weimar
has
"In the Moonlight on the Pussta." It has not won its way to the
14
Nietzsche's many gifts were not those that
concert-stage.
make
great
Nietzsche in after
life
a refuge
when words
Music was
to
him; and
failed
on the whole
excellent.
in
left
Greek good\
in French, History
gone backwards, so
15
oral work."
to speak,
in
in
to
mathe-
both in his
III
E. Forstcr-Nictzschc,
I,
80.
There
song of his printed in the same volume, p. 224. The "Hymn to Life,"
words by Lou Salome, music by Friedrich Nietzsche, can be found at the end
of the English translation of Ecce Homo and the poems.
is
also a
Forstcr-Nietzschc, Nietzsche,
I,
119-121.
NIETZSCHE
14
crisis
in his
life,
which
will
at
his|"lost year"
Bonn|and
to the
whole experience
as
of his destiny.
an
His
Bonn
as
an
in
full
its
Here
test
of withstanding
German
student-
comic-opera vulgarity.
may be hazarded. Nietzsche was
a simpler explanation
making
a final
and determined
effort to
for revolt.
ventional.
modern
And his revolt was still, characteristically, very conHe was going to sow his wild oats, in our complex
society
one of the
ritual
He would go
German
tically
something romanand
buxom young
enduring. Beer, metaphysics, song
love, the
manly touch
conquerable nostalgia
patterns for ritual,
into
and one
is
to survive
number
of
THE STUDENT
totalitarian dictatorships.
Sowing
15
much
at
as unlovely
a military
beer
organizing
campaign.
jollity as at
organizing youthful
best.
He
For
he challenged a
man
of
whom
he was
The
man ought
to
talked about
women, which
activity
some evidence
that in
done
if
go with a prostitute,
and thus unfortunately caught the syphilis which ended his
the talker
women
remain
16
a puzzle for
most of
his
life.
In spite of the
"This
in 1889.
subject
Here
it
must
later
will be
normal German
lad, the
impression
enough
syphilis may be regarded as proved (as certainly as anything of the kind can
be proved) by the publication of E. F. Podach's book, Nietzsche s Zusatnmcnbruch in 1930.
NIETZSCHE
16
persists,
from a reading
that he hadn't
much
to
Nietzsche's efforts to
he should be
of Nietzsche's
youthful writings,
17
lasted several
months. In a long
own
letter to
Elizabeth
jolly fellows:
first
flatly
and there were endless torrents of punch; guests from Heidelberg and
We numbered over forty men; the public-house was
Gottingen,
The festival was of a very splendid and
beautifully decorated.
.
is
a general spirit
mere conviviality
of the beer-table. This afternoon we are all going to march through the
High Street in parade garb, and there will be a good deal of shouting
and singing. Then we go by steamer to Rolandseck, where we have a big
dinner in the Hotel Croyen.
The bout began on the evening of
the day before yesterday; we drank until two o'clock in the morning,
assembled yesterday at n a.m. for a morning pint, and then went on a
18
spree in the market-place, and had lunch and coffee together at Kley's.
.
is
less
whole
this letter
letters
**
Briefe,
Nietzsche,
I,
I,
281.
Dec. n, 1864.
127-128.
THE STUDENT
more
Finally he gives
forcedly cheerful.
had vanished"
was "the
17
for
up altogether, and
poetry which seemed to hang over
him, and that all he could now see
ing, of
19
Bonn
very hard to
conjure up the picture of a world which Nietzsche would have
in 1864.
The
accepted.
"No." Such
And
it
is,
perhaps, the
mark
life
saying
yet,
letter
priggish:
beg to inform the Association, the Franconia, that
and
herewith return
it
my
sash,
This may be
effort for
regarded
me
it
in so
in part
to
doing send
my
in
endure
as a duty to
that
May
it
bid
it
proved a great
Nevertheless
and now
Society,
a hearty farewell.
which it now
its members.
stands,
Perhaps
sounds a
bit priggish,
20
rich Nietzsche.
lf
Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche
80
Bricfc,
Nietzsche,
I,
II,
12.
147.
I,
146.
NIETZSCHE
l8
above
letter,
Nietzsche had
left it
from Bonn
worthy of
He
found a
himself a
his attention,
and
in
of the
finally, solitary
*l
walks."
With
also
his
had what
gift useful if
work
is
much
indeed.
The
piety
of the Nietzsche- Archiv has spread out in the third and fourth
volumes of the
works whatever
is left
to
instance
lies
behind
this
entry?
Homer
Hcsiod
1
6 Biichcr
13
Nach
Tzetzes
Thcogonie
Aspis
Epithal
Catalog
Aigimius
Ccyc. gam.
Eoccn
Theseus* Kara/?
Trept
c,
II,
45.
Wcrkc, IV,
April
126.
7,
1866.
To
'iSaiwv
22
THE STUDENT
Yet
it is
clear
from
19
was
a careful
and
1869,
fur
More important
Museum
in the long
among
professional philologists.
his
numer-
maging
in a Leipzig
something
too
was
less
a great conversion.
Schopenhauer's slightly Biedermeier stoicism, though it could not for long satisfy the emotional needs of a man as God-ridden as Nietzsche, solved in this
crisis
and
for a
moment
the
first
reading of
were
and
more than
whistlers in the
III,
298.
is
what
NIETZSCHE
20
really
cruelly.
All that
is
And
go.
left for
it
a philosopher
which
is
renunciation, the
the will to evil. Schopenhauer came in the end to a kind of Nordic Nirvana most attracextinction of the will to live
young
is
philologist.
made
few new
friends,
and
soli-
especially
Baron von Gersdorff and the quiet scholarly Paul Deussen, later
a distinguished expert in Sanskrit, remained close to the young
Nietzsche,
who
Music
letters of the
still
was
kind no one
a solace
and
a ful-
fillment,
to
who
to
still
of Doctor of Philosophy.
He
thesis.
In
land
fell
vacant,
benefit
to
of
have his
the
brilliant
doctorate.
24
THE STUDENT
Nietzsche had an almost incredible
twenty-four he was Hcrr Professor
raptures.
Their
little
Fritz
had
21
university professor
perhaps even higher in the hierarchy of
virtue and respectability than a Lutheran pastor.
is
IV
Hero-worship has produced flattering descriptions of the
young Nietzsche. We have some help from photographs, and
notably from one his
The
at
mustache of
mouth
his maturity
is
taken
at his
confirmation
The
thing
He
is set
else.
appears
at
Bonn
so tenuously
thing of
swam,
with Nietzsche
Olympian
skated,
health.
is
to
make
still
more
athletic.
his short-
Later ob-
after
he had become
"Quoted
Affirmations,
in
K.
Salter,
u. Goethe
is
NIETZSCHE
22
insane and inaccessible.
More than
usually, perhaps,
their
they ought to
restlessness,
The problem
exercised
all his
his adult
life,
the faithful
deny.
They
soul of a prophet.
ill
and
that
insist,
sports.
For
German
splendid example of
fond of
and the
of Nietzsche's bodily
eyes, the
26
have avoided.
It all started,
eyesight. This,
this
according to Elizabeth,
if
an organic weakness,
at
any
rate
glasses (Fritz
would not
listen to his
mother and
Headaches led
to
his sister!),
sleeplessness.
the
his
good health undermined, he took to doctoring himand gradually developed into a mild hypochondriac. Yet
natural
self,
underneath
sequences, but in
**
its
con-
basis of
One of the most plausible of these descriptions is that made by a Frenchman, Edouard Schure, who saw Nietzsche in Bayreuth in the 1870*5, and reported in the 1890*5.
It is
THE STUDENT
hearty,
23
Such
is
account Frau
the
27
He
"genius"
was, she
is
is
But
was
is
not. Later in
when we
see
it
this
it.
it
is
behavior of Nietzsche's,
in
what we know
The young
Nietzsche,
of the
swim
appear awkward.
a perfectionist,
from the
first
do
pretty well.
Or you may
was proud,
Whatever the
say that he
had
no bodily
This explanation
Nietzsche.
by E. F.
NIETZSCHE
24
Much
of his writing
down
his horse.
to
an end
The pommel
and fractured
of
ribs.
wound only
28
thanks "to the excellence and the purity of his blood."
Neither home, school nor university life gave him the kind of
Elizabeth informs us that he recovered from this
person.
if it
His family had done little but admire him and take
His womenfolk had been too devoted to leave
care of him.
him any
but intellectual
work
to do.
He
any hand in the family finances, nor to have had any other
kind of responsibility, except that of spending an allowance.
Already, at the beginning of his professorship at Basle, he shows
signs of an inability to attend to the bothersome details of the
external world, an inability not necessarily philosophical in
origin.
what
an
intellectual.
He
it
is
nowadays fashionable
to
among
intellectuals, insulated
with things,
people, with
affairs,
with
dull, undignified,
unyielding "real-
He was
Forstcr-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
I,
173.
THE STUDENT
German
else
is
university professors
25
make an
necessary to
intellectual
shown himself
From
write.
earliest
he had a
to say
words
exercise
as others
special,
and
have
which we
training.
gifts for
dren,
facility
is
Nietzsche had
was, char-
process of thinking.
word
shall
This
could
no doubt have
He
and obscurely
chil-
related to the
facility in
playing a
may
had done
tzsche
little
man who
wants
to shine,
any evidence of
and who
They do not,
originality.
is
show
NIETZSCHE
26
to
this
command
become a professor of
classical philology,
ought not
The
to
to write well, or at
rate,
bring them
ous
any
demands
unlovely, unjust
demands
if
you
like,
one
who knew
and complete
the written
a barrier to success in
an academic
chair.
And
many
CHAPTER
II
THE PROFESSOR
Basle in
on May
THE
28,
Classical Philology"
its
its
German
city-state,
content with
new Germany
of
little
to the north, of
Faculty. In 1869, he
reputation, in
was
at the
new
of the Univer-
studies of the
fields to anthropologists
and
legal historians,
university,
marck.
NIETZSCHE
28
gown
in Nietzsche's
Into the
made
life
few intimate
friends,
life.
with
In the
whom
first
He
few
years, at least,
he
post,
social calls
But
work
his
Only
few months
feel so alien
and
colleagues that
turn
the mass of
indifferent
among
down with pleasure
the invitations
and
and lake
is
fellow-teachers."
The
cultural
background of Basle
On
one of
in Nietzsche's
day
their
is
numerous
sketched with
Andler
for
correspondence.
The above
by Frau Forster-Nietzsche
THE PROFESSOR
little
29
ran up a huge
and on
He
this occasion
paid the
bill,
bill at
had
all
he remarked
browsing of herds/'
their meals served privately. As he
one always has
sadly, "Lizzie,
One more
close to neurosis.
at
Lausanne,
to
pay
instance,
how he advised
and how carefully
whole city.
he described the best way
Nietzsche got lost, walked around aimlessly for hours, and
came back to the railway station without having seen anything
of the city itself, let alone the cathedral. "But why didn't you
to see the sights of the
"You know,
way?"
And
said Piccard.
Nietzsche replied,
4
was
certainly
down
its
this feeling of
discomfort in
crowds was
European history
is
in
middle
classes, in the
aristocratic folk
two
general course of
It
like
Nie-
parts).
Forster-Nictzschc,
4
I,
314.
C. A. Bernoulli, Ovcrbcc\
und
L/'/r,
Nietzsche,
to use French, a
II,
169.
In Lausanne, Nietzsche
easily,
NIETZSCHE
30
There
tzsche.
is
the over-sensitive
cratic.
some ways or
belong. They must not
themselves,
least
of all in
to
compro-
distinction,
important conse-
of life for
good way
study of
of his
first
man
men on
as a social
work
political
from the
suffers
hand, of other
and
this earth, at
human
animal
fact that
beings.
To
bottom Nietzsche's
and
this
he knew so
is
most
little,
at
a sufficiently transcen-
some
Kant
Nietzsche's
own
a limitation
and
a weakness.
It
was
weakness
in the
is
possible,
THE PROFESSOR
tzsche
was
not, like so
that
man
many
31
in,
the thoughts
He
kind of books
his skull.
memoirs,
histories,
things,
He
from which
travels
vicarious, experience of
if
it is
men and
and
greatly,
to be
distinguished to be neglected.
the herd, and cultivated
Nietzsche excepted
his acquaintance.
No
him from
was becoming a European center) were more important than virtu. The two must
ance companies (for which
latter Basle
have spent
moments
many
pleasant
together
mourning the
world's decay.
In long
letters
the
young
professor kept
up
his ties
with
Schopenhauerian, and on his way to a professorship of philosophy in Kiel, and with von Gersdorflf, the
Rohde,
still
solidly
Nietzsche's Belesenheit
Nietzsche, and
more
is
especially in vols.
NIETZSCHE
32
Prussian squire he had
known
so well at school,
world
him on
and
for
Romundt, a
and finally to
Of
all
that with
was an
Nietzsche he found
and able
to talk
on
almost anything, and, once the barriers were down, extraordinarily unreserved. The two had bachelor quarters together in
little
made
on with the temperamental NieElizabeth Nietzsche never liked the Overbecks, and
tzsche.
when
Overbeck.
beck's
und
own
Franz
Overbeck
is
false,
and inspired by
THE PROFESSOR
33
have had to the end the greatest admiration and love for
Nietzsche, whom he held to be a genius, an unquestioned mem-
ber
German men
of supremely great
thought he was
daily
life
greatest
justified
of letters.
But Overbeck
called "unclouded."
It
on
his
few
He
friends.
his energies
up
no hobby, no
and
his vanity,
no routine administrative
duties,
the Franco-Prussian
War
He had had
to
become
German
profitable interlude.
naturalized
armies.
At
the
first
Teutonic race from Latin vices and Latin rationalism grew too
strong.
He
enlisted in the
German ambulance
was
service,
and
Bernoulli, Overbcc^
und
Nietzsche,
I,
63.
NIETZSCHE
34
this as
his health.
German
ing at Basle than he began to have his doubts. This new Empire of Bismarck's seemed a little vulgar and materialistic. He
could think of better things. For a time, he dreamed of a kind
modern
of
cloister,
spirits
would
Friendships, indeed
hausting to Nietzsche.
of his
own
all
Romundt, about
to
moment I was seized with a veritable terror; the porters were shutting the doors, and Romundt, wishing to continue to speak to us, wanted
to let down the window, but it stuck; he redoubled his efforts, and while
last
terribly,
I
and Over-
next day with a bad headache that lasted thirty hours, and
much vomiting
of bile. 8
7
8
is
See his
letter to
Gesammelte
Rohde, Dec.
Briefe,
I,
312.
To
15, 1870.
Gesammelte
Briefc,
II,
214.
Romundt's name
THE PROFESSOR
35
II
Of
all
Richard
the
Wagner
tainly tfie
is
most
men
takes
Nietzsche's professorate;
of his conscious
The
striking.
touched Nietzsche's
its
brief
cer-
long disintegration
madness Nietzsche
The problems
life,
life.
is
Wagner.
have their
disciples
and
Both Masters
their defenders,
little
cal advantage.
mere
Wagner
social occasion
briefly at Leipzig,
Now
impress himself
he learned that Wagner, having been
to
forced into the open in his relations with Cosima, the wife of
Wagner's friend von Biilow, had left the scandal behind him,
and had retreated with Cosima and his Art to the peace of the
near-by Swiss village of Triebschen. Admiration and ambition
aiding, Nietzsche so far overcame his natural diffidence as to
call
it,
NIETZSCHE
36
was spending
much
as
human
synthesis of
culture
had
in-
by the
lake,
time and
finish.
its
The
idyll necessarily
setting
is
wrong:
seems to us to
fall
short of classic
do
comic opera. The characters lack serenity and noThey seem to come from a slightly depressing novel, or
at best for
bility.
from
self,
real
living
life.
to
him-
intense,
and Wagner,
all
of
them
lively,
awkward young
professor
and
philolo-
man from
Time
else to talk
has
ludicrous.
THE PROFESSOR
hat
a
trimmed with
dignified,
crown
heavy and
And Wagner
dog."
of pink roses
gigantic,
37
.
coal-black
Newfoundland
bow, with a piece of his fine linen and lace shirt showing below,
and a painter's beret on his head." Finally, by no mere metaphor the culmination and purpose of Triebschen, there are the
high thoughts, as Cosima recorded them:
our
The
dimmed
and
altered.
We
buttoned
more
egotist.
recent
tesgaden,
is
We
and even more unpleasant. Triebschen, like Berchnot for us an idyllic spot.
and
as a
He
wanted
to
16
Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
I,
223-224.
move and
be moved, to
NIETZSCHE
38
The
tribal admiration.
clan of philologists
little
Luck
or instinct served
him
well in sending
him
to
Wagner.
1870*5,
coming
to
as
human
musician.
and
The Ring,
a prophecy, a
a synthesis of
all
notably,
was
at
once a history of
Germany
which
cast,
his
whole
life,
He
teacher,
frame
costume, was
Fuehrer.
first
profitably with a
mutual desire
to exploit
composer
bless a
of the best in
work
Greek
in
And
which he appeared
art, as
the
modern
as the re-discoverer
THE PROFESSOR
39
but a brief,
lively,
and
among German
According
to Nietzsche, art
thing in human
Apollinian. The
an old
literary defense of
and
thesis in
intellectuals.
life
longing in
men which
drives
them
to conquest, to
The
drunkenis
Apollinian
Bad Thing
is life,
we
as
can find
Dionysian. With
linian element
Socrates
won
restrained.
life
was
and
originally
were cut
off.
The
living springs
strained,
art,
a too-conclusive victory.
of Dionysian strength
Greek
to the sources,
re-
and
dead.
is
commonplace, indeed
linian,
romantic against
traditional, charac-
classic,
against artificial,
antithesis
was
to take
it
up, transpose
its
Germany had
at the
hands of which
his
Four Years'
NIETZSCHE
40
and
Spirit
Nietzsche
is
no exception:
... in some inaccessible abyss the German spirit still rests and dreams,
undestroyed, in glorious health, profundity, and Dionysian strength, like
a knight sunk in slumber; from which abyss the Dionysian song rises to
our ears to let us know that this German knight even now is dreaming
Dionysian myth in
his primitive
the
German
awake
in all the
Someday
morning
freshness
following a deep sleep; then it will slay the dragons, destroy the maligand Wotan's spear itself will be unable
nant dwarfs, waken Brunhilde
to obstruct
theme.
if
course!
The Dionysian
What
in
to this old
good, but apparently rather exhaustthe Dionysos-ridden man wants infinitely he gets
he gets anything
ment
own
It is
ing.
its
its
is
at all
finitely.
Unaware
of the predica-
it
grows
when
is
ment
This
is
moment
last, tastes
the costly
the
mo-
Ver%larung> that nobly German experipoor Anglo-Saxons have only the inadequate
of Verfylarung
we
"transfiguration."
What
tragic
myth was
and
11
13
The
The
12
and xxv.
is
"the eternal
THE PROFESSOR
There
seems
we
man
If
is
is,
41
illusion to cover
its
and what
else
then, that
live, this
it
function of Apollo, in whose name we include all the countless manifestations of the fair realm of illusion, which at each moment render life
in general
moment.
And
therefore:
When
the Dionysian powers rise with such strength as we are experican be no doubt that, wrapped in a cloud, Apollo
at present, there
encing
has already descended to us.
Wrapped
vague.
But
in a cloud
it
13
.
first
work
of his
life.
He
took
maximum
advantages of
teaching to a
Tragedy and
minimum. The
its
effect
on
publication of
The
Birth of
The
little
The
Had
Nie-
NIETZSCHE
42
methods
ship.
if
Young
you
of exact scholar-
himself,
came
in doubt.
to
The
and confident
14
Nietzsche's careless
prose.
in his recollections:
Boyish as
much
the bull's-eye.
teaching
show. 15
fact, to
strain.
and worse,
his absences
Greek
more
texts.
But
his health
frequent, and
14
U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
My
grew worse
Recollections
Eine Erwiderung
(English
transla-
THE PROFESSOR
more apparent. At
job
in the
last,
43
summer
was very
of 1879, he
generously retired
From now
He had
numbers
much
less
once he
felt
beneath
him
of
men,
afflicted
He
this
if
not ora-
connection
or cautious
the pedantic
him
among
his classes.
Even
in the
all
all,
and knew
their place.
German
schoolboys,
16
all sorts
My
diets,
at the job as
is
To
lyrical
I,
66-71.
is
Elizabeth, Fritz
summing-up
Nietzsche,
He
experimented
for him-
beck
with various
16
life as
was
at least as
in the Life,
II,
61.
good
Over-
und
NIETZSCHE
44
self,
ate
raw
food,
fine array of
He
ache, sleeplessness.
work
estimates he
is
him some
starts
made him
relief,
ill.
when
behavior
among human
beings,
and not in
itself
an indication
of genius.
The Nietzsche
adoring
sister, still
beck's recollections,
is
a figure rather
in Over-
and
shift the
emphasis ever so
slightly,
and
God and
rate,
it
As martyrdoms
go,
it
as such quite
now
seems a
plified
it
THE PROFESSOR
45
IV
One
series of gestures
seventies,
He
projected
tures,
then as essays, a
issues
kind.
Of
series of discussions
on
it,
first as lec-
all
the great
confront
title officially
works
gemdsse Bctrachtungen,
may
man-
German
as
trans-
Thoughts
original,
Unzcit-
an educator, damning the philistine and complacent rationalism of the famous Strduss of The Life of Jesus,
worrying about the deadening effect of our modern interest in
Schopenhauer
history
as
originality, praising
Wagner
in
age
is
mind
and
so
on
tzsche's tone
in a vein familiar
is
and omniscient.
much
very
It is
century Americans,
doomed
nowadays
to extinction
to everyone.
Nie-
a tone recognizable
among whom
it is
enough
for twentieth-
rather oddly
known
as
"liberal."
NIETZSCHE
46
him and
Wagner was
to build a center
wherein his
per-
Gotterddmmerung
in a setting
set seriously to
for
work on what
the undertaking
meant
essential to
mad King
of
important place in the campaign. His essay on "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth," included in Thoughts out of Season, was
originally
campaign
literature,
criticized
by
his co-workers,
than advertising. It
and Nietzsche received another of the innumerable wounds he
collected all his life
with
profit, if
a photograph, 1870
THE PROFESSOR
More and more people kept
rich,
find
47
discovering
Wagner
had happened
him
edy, think of
to glance at
as Dionysos.
They did
The
notice
He
guest.
Bayreuth
woods
of near-by
operas.
He
with
The
it.
Klingenbrunn
to get strength to
were enough.
go through
been look-
He had
My
breast,
He
blunder was
this.
I travelled to
The preponderance
at
Grand Opera.
my
of ugliness, grotesqueness
thor-
18
oughly repelled me.
of
Wagner,
Postscript.
i.
alive.
NIETZSCHE
48
They never
really
unkind things about the Master: but he did not as yet print
them. It had always been an unstable friendship, for both men
were
egotists, intellectuals,
that
is,
that
keep
men from
behaving
like game-cocks.
Friendship, notably,
based on
by
is
On
Nietzsche's
men
a relation
much
too solid to be
between
ideals
and
interests.
felt that Wagner at Bayreuth had
some
ideal
he had at Triebschen promised to
great
betrayed
serve. What is more important, Nietzsche really felt that the
at least they
Even
that Nietzsche-Apollo
was needed
to
make
new
Hellas of
Germany.
Nietzsche's
Wagner
life
period a second or
which he was
critical
and
after
his
first
or
THE PROFESSOR
Pascal,
49
other
on a cynical realism
in the study of
fashionable, he thought,
among
foil for
a realism never
such sentimental
proved a good
men,
idealists as
he
new
faces
came
among
of
name
known by
Kosselitz, better
villas.
his
One
assumed
immersed
in his art, a
German
Italy,
an
arty, sensitive
In these
new
of aphorisms
was indeed an
insult.
And
tion of independence
Nietzsche was
from
the professorate.
One
year later,
bit
officially retired
from
a post
CHAPTER
III
THE PROPHET
in 1880
life
ahead of
greatest
and admirers
is
of his apparent
To
life
filled
life,
his real
life.
life is
all
as well as scorned,
is
not true.
letters,
been "penniless"
would go in America
he
this
add
about
as
and
could
much again from his
to
today;
mother. For a single man, $3,000 a year is far indeed from
It
poverty.
some
of the subtle
that gave
little
him such
aristocratic satisfaction.
No
doubt
it
was
nineteenth-century, middle-class
THE PROPHET
51
wanted
visits
Germany. In
to
Italy,
where he spent the long winters, he never quite found the perfect spot. One season he had earlier spent at Sorrento, along
with others
as a
member
of Mathilda
from
his sister.
He
Wagner
visits
in
from
tried Stresa
on
in
many ways
Italian.
His
last
winter before
breakdown he spent at Turin, where he seemed very conWherever he went in Italy, he tried to settle down for
his
tented.
room
in
went there
from
valesce
had signalized
the
little
with his
first
sister in
more than
the
summer
of 1879, to con-
village of Sils-Maria,
which
Later he settled in
through the high valley of the Inn. The piety of the Nietzscheans has associated Nietzsche with the Engadine as Words-
worth
is
Concord.
District, or
Silvaplana, not
beyond
Lake
far
Man and
from
Surlei,
Thoreau with
Forster-Nictzschc, Nietzsche,
II,
67.
NIETZSCHE
52
Engadine of
No
able a center;
him
no doubt
that
its
needed for
his
He hated cold, dampness, dark, and loved the sunshine and clear
air. He was lucky in the Engadine and in the Riviera but you
;
if
you
relied solely
been
my
which were
just
enough
to
allow of
my
sister,
he began
to take a mysterious
mixture
who
diseases, has
doubts
which he thinks
i.
piece,
295.
as
Human,
in
starts
4
All
Too
THE PROPHET
53
serted by his fellows, about his lack of friends, about the absence
in his life of the love so necessary to the genius.
Naturally,
to
wreak
its
consolation, pity,
Yet with
And
if I
it
has
petty sense of
good advice,
men
all his
as
I.
enough
to write books.
bit less,
there
is
somewhat
feels
better.
life.
Here, too,
He
never
He had written
under revelation.
a flood of tears
25-28.
To
his sister,
August, 1883.
NIETZSCHE
54
of years before we
7
as well."
This
is
my
experience of inspira-
we
mine
was a strange
It
little
life,
among whom
people
he moved
to the
chambermaids
most extraordinary
fellow. Unfortunately, such people rarely write their memoirs.
A few observations from a concierge or a waiter might throw
waiters, the porters, the
light
on Nietzsche
in
ways
German,
stupid
and
exploitable.
He
was absent-minded,
shy,
somewhat bewildered
crank.
II
There
is
not
detail of his
T
much
wanderings during
this decade,
nor in trying to
II,
155-156.
THE PROPHET
trace the ups
there
is
and downs
one phase of
man, and
of his health
55
and
his friendships.
But
so illuminating, that
it is
or
rather, Finnish
met
first
precocious
most probably
specifically
word
also with a
a bit strong
"she confided to
ler
Lou
prospective disciple, a
him her
life to
10
At
Truth, he recognized in her a predestined companion."
any rate, he made her a formal proposal of marriage, to be
delivered through Ree.
uncertain.
Whether Ree
delivered
it
or not
is
is
in Forstcr-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
II.
is
tragiquc," Nietzsche^
III,
280-306,
is
NIETZSCHE
56
certain.
She seems
keeping both
men
Nietzsche's
and Lou
Lou went
to the proposal.
visit
to
sister.
No
In the
summer
weeks
and then
to
at
Leipzig in a
warned by
came
reply ever
common
his sister,
when
whose
she found
altered
began
to
familiar.
The manage
home
in
Naumburg
herself to Truth.
presence of Zarathustra.
have never yet made a mistake about any human being, and in you
recognize that impulse towards a sublime selfishness which is an inI
it
with
its
Not
Some
curse or other,
Now
this feline
it
and
egotism
seems, has
rapacity of
.
Nietzsche
But
at first
who
Quoted
in Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
II,
140.
all
THE PROPHET
57
pointed to Ree. Nietzsche decided he had been duped and insulted. He drafted a letter to Ree, a very strong letter though
the one he actually sent
milder:
occupation needs clean hands, Herr Dr. Ree, not muck-raking fingers
like yours!
12
would seem
it
came from
unamusing
episode.
Lou
pen of a German
professor,
letter.
the
easily insulted.
At any
was almost
rate, the
became the
al-
too
commerce
good
felt
of love
and friendship.
It is
The
episode confirmed
him
M
Forster-Nietzschc, 'Nietzsche,
II,
176.
NIETZSCHE
58
fear
own
and
even Elizabeth
else
private
in
want
grows
in
tie is
in each case a
wing
13
its
place.
Adler and Jung and Freud are hardly necessary here: almost
any kind of life is clinical experience enough to give an understanding of such a case. Even Nietzsche himself could have
understood
in another.
it
Ill
This
is
written
the decade
when
Nietzsche's best
though "written"
is
a modest, routine
them
in
all
sorts of places
and
word
for
what
He composed
was
His habit
Back
in his
few weeks, of
u
Forster-Nietzsche, Nictzschf,
II,
181.
would exhaust
his strength.
THE PROPHET
59
and
lesser thoughts,
wearing course.
its
They were
treatises.
collections of great
Critics
temperament.
and
form and
continuity.
14
He
He
is
always a
he
is
likely to
weary readers
than
usual
is
more
And,
short on
often
perhaps
philosophers.
together.
Here we
by a publisher's no doubt
confined standards, successful books. His Birth of Tragedy and
logue of his books.
They were
not,
Wagner's own
recommended
All
Too
as
Human
publisher, to
whom
W.
Fritsch
he had been
Wagnerites.
Human,
dealt in.
circle of
Chem-
When
nagging them
"Ovcrbeck himself
friend wrote.
"
15
always unsatis-
Bernoulli, Qvcrbec\
Forster-Nietzschc, Nietzsche,
und
II,
Nietzsche,
267.
I,
228.
NIETZSCHE
60
fied
with
sales
natural slaves
society.
one
published at his
own
expense.
so
published in 1886, and all the rest of his works to the end of his
sane life. The great man was reduced to the expedient of buy-
ing his
way
among his
Human,
into print.
The
pearls.
All Too
Human,
La Rochefoucauld. They
men and
somewhat
all
anti-intellectual,
who
are wise.
They
expressions of
They
on
vary
what Nietzsche
civilization of Bismarck's
Ger-
unsure as to
just
had
fools,
but
still
French
aphorists.
his
sunny,
classic,
THE PROPHET
6l
Human,
All
Too Human,
modeled on French
patterns.
They
it,
less
less
closely
pered books.
written, Nietzsche
was meditating
skeptically about a
hoped
to
of the
stamp
it.
What was
set
no doubt
and
reflections, written in
what
Hurons
taire,
of eighteenth-century letters
or Diderot.
The
style
NIETZSCHE
62
"ye," helpless
and almost
and
less
This
is,
Nietzscheans,
this opinion.
said, "I
tinues,
it is
an undoubted master-
"Whenever
dip into
my
"The
is
my
For the
figure of Zarathustra
is
sobs."
And
for
world
it is
Whatever
its
of the flesh
16
Superman himself."
probably,
depth and beauties
the
is
so limited, because of
is
world
since the
its
bringing
it
down
to earth, of
expounding
analytically
book
and
its first
to
many
in
The
twenty days.
16
Forstcr-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
II,
234.
THE PROPHET
63
had
this
work
of
destruction:
all my writings are so much bait: perhaps I understand
much about fishing as most people? If nothing was caught, it was
not I who was at fault. There were no fish to come and bite. 1 *
Thenceforward
as
Good and
sober
and
Zarathustra
Evil and
is
destructive nonsense.
The Genealogy
of Morals are
relatively
human
beings.
some
They
are, in spots,
among
ever made.
How
Beyond
wrong
in one respect.
Like his
earlier
life,
and
its
name
to
final
book,
it
of "good."
Evil,"
i.
NIETZSCHE
64
The Twilight
of the Idols,
The
Antichrist,
up
off at
in quivering nakedness
and
madman. Even
to the
summer
of 1888,
and Nietzsche, his mind still lucid enough for reading, saw the
little book, and some of the very indignant notices it received
in the German press. Well, they were paying attention to him,
after all!
The book
it
is
endingness.
not sweat."
just
By
comes forward
is
is
me
perfect. It
lovable,
it
does
19
The Twilight
it
was
not printed until January 1889, by which time its author was
beyond reading even his own works. It was put together, as
best;
The Case
i.
This is one aspect of Nietzsche's wit
of Wagner,
Wagner's music mostly does sweat.
at
its
THE PROPHET
65
broken
of?
attacks
on
intensifications,
Elizabeth, to
to
Power, are
mere maddenings,
whom
of
both
really twins
both mere
habits,
Evil.
on her return
when
who
Nietzsche's
fame grew
Only
one
an attempt
to justify himself.
It is
Nietzsche in the
fall
of 1888
was
and her
faithful co-workers
brought together
Much
of
it
The mass
was enormous.
complete arrangement
made
in
1931
under the
title
Die
20
NIETZSCHE
66
German poems,
not at
all
and sunny clarity, and they are wholly unfew have found their way into most anthologies
translatable.
of
German
poetry,
most famous
is
Oh
Was
"Ichschlic,ichschlic
tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht:
,
Aus
Die Welt
ist tief,
Und
tiefer als
Ticf
istihrWeh
Lust
tiefer
Weh
spricht:
Doch
alle
der
Tag
gedacht.
noch
als
Herzeleid:
Vergeh!
Lust will Ewigkeit
22
Das Unzulangliche,
Hier wird's Ereignis;
Das Unbeschreibliche
Hier
ist's
getan:
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.
81
"Thus Spa^c
Homo,
Zarathustra,
149-207.
12.
lines of
THE PROPHET
But Goethe
67
also
IV
few years were spent
fellow-guests, a very few
Nietzsche's last
keepers, servants,
made
the
sum
in loneliness: hotel-
casual acquaintances
It
little
men;
if
was,
left
if
it
you
was the loneliness of a man who had quarreled with all his
friends and relatives. Peter Cast remained, and from time to
him with
his
manu-
and
arty
talkative
Nietzsche, or
left
in the affair of
little
him
to himself.
though there was no formal break between Nietzsche and Overbeck, there was a coolness, and a lessening of letter-writing.
Rohde was one of the last to go. But in the spring of 1886
Nietzsche had stayed for a while in Leipzig, and misunderstandings between the two had
sister
come
to the surface.
To
his
am
Overbeck,
This
damned
this
letter
was
beloved "Lama,"
*
Gcsammeltc
28
general indifference and total lack of belief.
Briefe,
V, Part
II,
675.
To
and
his sister,
illness,
June
had
14, 1886.
left
NIETZSCHE
68
him
too,
And now,
owned
woman.
at
anti-semitic agitator
in Paraguay,
earth.
when he attempted
to get
unskillfully.
assertions that
bridegroom.
Love
to
now
is
leading the
Lama
into
many dangers,
of temptations. Some things will go well, others badly: on the whole,
she has a heroic future before her. So have I: it seems that this is characteristic of
it
our stock.
if
form
it
part:
And
leads me, perhaps she has a better taste, and has chosen the better
namely Herr Bernhard Forster. In such matters, women are
than
We men
run
after truth,
and similar
pallid beauties.
my
sister's fate.
"""T
nW|
And
to his
Lama he
a long letter
wedding,
24
friendships
Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche,
II,
237-239.
THE PROPHET
The Will
work
systematic
69
Power
to
he was engaged
25
He
did not
get
about to turn
him
when
the
faithful Overbeck,
erland.
now
The
Antichrist,
The Twi-
works.
in
Rome an
at
assembly of princes,
revoir!
In the
Nietzsche-Caesar."
divorce!
access of madness,
last
an astonishing variety of
people: some, no doubt, have never been traced. To the King
of Italy he wrote, addressing him as "my dearly beloved son
he wrote
letters
Umberto";
and telegrams
to
he wrote requesting
enough
The
to find
Crucified One."
me;
hope
to
the difficulty
now
To Overbeck and
shown small
II,
to get rid of
his wife
793.
To
his sister,
me
"Although
my solvency,
I am one who
faith in
is
September
never-
pays his
14, 1888.
NIETZSCHE
70
debts
anti-Semites shot
now
Right
Dionysos."
It
was
I'm having
this letter,
The whole
psychiatrist,
sheaf
is
no doubt revealing
and tempting
to
all
once to
at
to the professional
writes today.
The
One
the Crucified
history.
the
and a longer
who
assumption of the
enough.
Dionysos and
own
intellectual
obvious of the
was
letters
widowed
Cosima: "Ariadne,
I love thee
Dionysos."
Nietzsche in these later years had worked his relations with
Wagner and with Cosima into an elaborate symbolic tale, hints
of
besides myself,
knows who
no one has
sort,
26
? To all
enigmas of this
doubt whether anyone has
Ariadne
"Who,
life
Twenty
it
seems
its life.
Eccc
Examined
in the insane
Zarathustra,"
asylum
8.
at
Jena on March
THE PROPHET
27, 1889,
"It is
71
my wife,
Cosima Wagner,
27
brought me here."
Overbeck arrived just in time
who
who was
safely to Basle,
where
and
in 1890 she
He was
usually quiet,
and
his rare
house in
Weimar which
Schiller
she
moved
for the
to
Germans
Weimar
are incurable
was an inept
who
happily,
is,
no
invalid
Concord.
to die in
last
who
94.
Paralysis,
which had
my
She continues
was
still
NIETZSCHE
72
struck
him
whole right
side,
and prevented,
one can only say fortunately, his writing. He would lie for
hours, looking fixedly out of the window. Music stirred him
to the end,
and
to the
end he could
to
Weimar.
On
August
who
25, 1900
he
died quietly.
that,
life,
full
tion alone
tainly,
it
make
would be rash
for a
mere
Cer-
diagnosis.
syphilis,
a syphilitic infection.
28
Some
among
intellectuals,
tend to
had a venereal
tion
is
comic
after
disease.
With
man
we
cease in our
minds
to associate
it
with
sin, it
cannot
You
His trouble
and
his genius
And
The
in P. G. Mobius,
THE PROPHET
They now
Western
the
are Nietzsche.
culture.
body of
subscribe.
men
They now
73
are part of
what we
call
And
beliefs
They
fear as
have, then,
Nietzsche's
Of
life
difficult task
29
Nietzsche's
life
is
is
available in English.
Neither
CHAPTER
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
of Nietzsche's ideas
mapping
THE
IV
is
a difficult task.
Many
its
straining heights
its
We
Dozens
contrast-
selves to
its
living there.
tography of ideas
is
still,
is
Much
surveyor's spirit-level.
With Nietzsche
other men.
human
"My
being.
...
was the
first
to discover truth."
an achievement must
rally, so remarkable
still,
Natu-
for a time,
remain a
work with
is
One
asserted.
l
Eccc
their thoughts.
of his aphorisms
He would
Homo, "Why
may seem
create a race of
I
am
a fatality,"
i.
He was
to
above contradic-
WHAT
as
NIETZSCHE HATED
75
scornful in condemnation.
He
loathes
as
is
all
"happiness
is
In an attack on the
vocabulary of philosophers which must delight our more innocent converts to semantics, he writes of the error "of supposing
the will to be something that actuates
know
Now we
a faculty.
it is
only a word."
words.
Nietzsche's contradictions can, of course, be resolved in a
"higher unity," of which his followers have found several varieties. But with Nietzsche contradiction usually attains the mad
intensity that
marks almost
all his
work.
endless vanity
made him
reject everything
is
anyone
else
had
to contradict yourself.
after their
The
Why!"
Philosophy,"
*
5.
Thus Spake
Zarathi4stra> Part
II,
all
3;
that of a
"'Reason* in
NIETZSCHE
76
German
mind
over in his
Nietzsche.
What came
Many
what was
peculiarly
which make up
4
There is, indeed,
civilization.
research.
than
network
We know
we do
perhaps
less
fundamental
difficulty in
such
Recurrence"
Engadine
has
much
in
common
we
As
including Emerson,
who
what Nietzsche
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
77
of a
later
was not
classical philologist,
and though
classical
easily
Nietzsche, like
most lovers
of classical antiquity,
found what
with which to belabor his contemporaries. He found, especially among the Greeks before they were
corrupted by Socrates-Plato, the Will to Power in all its fierce
he wanted there
a club
violence.
the
not
but energetic fighters, at once disciplined and furious. Burckhardt had helped him to this conception.
Fancy judging the Greeks in the German style, from their philosophers; fancy using the suburban respectability of the Socratic schools as
a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic! The philosophers are of course
the decadents of Hellas, the counter-movement directed against the old
tribe (against the agonal instinct, against the polls, against
the value of the race, against the authority of tradition). 5
and noble
Much more
Romans in
Nietzsche's intellectual inheritance were the Germans among
whom he was brought up. He had a good staple German
1
The Twilight
of the Idols,
"Things
owe
to the Ancients,"
and
4.
NIETZSCHE
78
which appears as a perpetual striving, discontent, sense of imperfection and incompleteness. He turned in passage after
passage to the dissection of this
"German
and
soul"
his
own.
most
at the
certain
to hide
ripe
and
yet
still
This kind of music expresses best what I think of the Germans: they
belong to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow
they
have as yet no today?
Among
these
two great masters of the young Nietzsche, by his own admission, men who helped turn him from the safe paths of philology
the
to the dangers
With
them
truly
specifically afterwards:
number
of the higher
will, I hope,
be able to get rid of their bad
taste for affectation and sentimental darkness, and to turn against Richard
large
much
self-restraint as to
Wagner
Germans
240.
are lead-
stronger future
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
his
taught him
But in
his Masters.
something endless,
which he was to spend his life trying to
describe.
They
in these
They
and common-sense,
indefinable, and indescrib-
to seek refuge in
able,
79
did not
make him
He
limit, define,
and
tried to
remained very
great.
He
tried to
shake
off
Wagner's
clarity, the
French morcdistcs.
Nietzsche learned
to write better, to
mould
all
for
the heavens.
German
had much any-
an antidote
He went
to
sure
The Genealogy
of Morals, "Peoples
and Countries,"
12.
NIETZSCHE
8o
his inability to
so final
naught of man
spirits. He wanders
There
virile
in
is
him, he
erratically:
is
he
towards
all
consequently he
A man who
a Romanticist. 8
is
capable of learning
"virile spirits"
some ways
And
even as
the stock
is
German
will have
them
masculine
fire in
again.
What
Frenchmen
by Nietzsche. Here,
Beuve
is
Germans, and
really a
certainly not
fierce individualism of
kind
and
of the tribe.
in the i88o's
among Germans
most foresighted
whom
which
8
are not
The Twilight
among
War
pessimism after
3.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
8l
9
undigested meals.
His
As
sister
read
him some
of
translation,
of Carlyle.
to think of
They were
And
ment
or ought to survive.
Depth.
The
judg-
scientific discipline.
He
much
know
thustra, he
was
that of a serious
dabbler
or, if
and
is
its
Eastern antecedents;
modern
ideas/' see
Evil,
253.
NIETZSCHE
82
Age
of Enlightenment,
and knew
as
He was
as
little
"On
essays,
and
Evil,
was most
word
and
Christian
intellectual
is
master-
apologists
wrote,
and
how
with a hammer.
II
From
all this
produced what
pretation of
It
was
not, as
we
unzcitgemass, as
it
to be.
part of a
in
is
meaning
of
life.
movement among
temporaries which
alism, a
called the
is
his contemporaries
is
that he
is
and near-con-
movement which
is
in
some
Greek thought, but which in our time has taken on a complexity and a thoroughness perhaps new. Nietzsche belongs in
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
83
and hundreds of
semantics. His
lesser
work
men, down
mad
or both. But he
scorner of history
is
is
part of a
terly
we
theirs.
prophet of the
movement, and no
least,
him on
accept
from
He
is
movement
solitary.
This
a product of history.
Nietzsche himself, at
if
own
his
bit-
to
We
more
abstract terms,
if
we
concentrate at
He
first
distinguish
among
his hatreds.
One
of the
it
is
hard
to
most constant of
first
European rationalism.
heroes
one
of
the
of
that tradition, is for
Socrates,
great
Nietzsche a villain. Before Socrates, the Greeks had been,
book,
is
what
their wills
and
instincts
made them
strive for.
NIETZSCHE
84
them
to thinly
instinct:
mal nature
instinctive
it
comes, always dissuades. In this utterly abnorin order to hinder here and
comes
strosity
critic,
a perfect
mon-
per dcjectum.
After Socrates and his pupil Plato, Nietzsche thinks, the way
was open for the ravages of Christianity. Still other perversions
to
make
when
notably,
is
down
to
mass of
own
day. England,
infection,
our
which
deadly rationalism almost everywhere he looked
one of the comforts of hating. It was clear to him in the
this
is
fashionable
David
critics of Christianity, in
Strauss,
men
like
stuffier
Tom
Christians, ethical-
Christianity a touch of
life.
It
was even
clearer to
It
Paine and
was
which gave
him
in natural
The
xiii.
Poor
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
at least as
85
much
as did
John
Jumbled together in the minds of little men, the
European herd-men who believed in science, progress, democracy, bigger and better things ahead, all these ideas were a sign
Stuart Mill.
it
word and
insist
in his
The
Joyful
Wisdom.
Now
and then
in these
books he sounds
humanity
is
that
we need no
longer go
about in continual fear of wild beasts, barbarians, gods, and our
own dreams." n His prophetic gifts were in abeyance when he
wrote
this
foresight.
abandons
his anti-intellectualism.
He comments
on Spinoza's
something
is
something conciliating,
"We
and good,
whereas it is
just
"
mode
of thinking;
who is most
12
5.
334.
and thus
it is
precisely
NIETZSCHE
86
In his
last
years,
this
is
now
Zarathustra was
abusive, as
is
fitting in a
poet:
For
that
fear
is
feeling.
Such
Western mind,
is
for
but of a per-
cunning and
arms the weak against the strong. Darwin rightly saw that
thought in this sense is an instrument making for survival; but
verse
form
fit.
On
which makes
it is
for
do not evolve
more
15
crafty."
Will to Power,
609. For an example of Nietzsche at play like
any other philosopher among Being and Becoming, see
617 of this same
work. He is on the side of Becoming.
14
15
the Age,"
14.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
87
HI
Nietzsche, then, rejected with contempt that current of Euro-
his time
by positivism,
utilitarians.
Kant
as the
attacks
ironically
by such modern
scientists as Pareto.
We
Evil.
made what he
men would
showing
that
He
had no trouble
in
in this sense.
words, where
it
and
in
"How
and what
and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that
one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiseric allemandc involved in
NIETZSCHE
88
An explanation ? Or is
But
is that an answer ?
not rather merely a repetition of the question? How docs opium induce sleep? "By means of a means (faculty)" namely, the virtus dorsuch an answer.
it
Quia
Cujus
eo virtus dormativa
est
departure, claim a right to rise above reality and to look upon it with
The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty
suspicion.
in
his
hand (
and not only in his hand!), he launches them
concepts
.
and seductive
itself.
The
their
up
forces over
17
idealists, then,
own minds
a lot of nice
really, in their
words
own
like "idea"
desires
and "the
and brought
thing-in-itself."
than the processes of common-sense rationalism. Such philosophers let "conceptions, opinions, events, books" come between
themselves and "things."
18
is
moment
only a word.
ia
i,
11.
10
See above,
p. 75.
19
But
WHAT
this
NIETZSCHE HATED
89
word
Here Nietzsche
as
modern
anti-intellectualism.
men
Kant.
as
The
classic
The "new"
problems
philosophers
so necessary to the
true or false,
The
falseness of an opinion
is
it:
it
is
is
here,
perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is,
how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving;
we
priori belong)
of the absolute
and immutable
man
to
do
so,
life,
is
certainly to im-
itself
beyond good
Nietzsche does not, however, consistently accept his conclusion that idealism,
He
though
"false,"
is
"indispensable to us."
traces
them
European
to a
demands
common
of
life.
He
even
perhaps a lover,
*
mode
for a
and
certainly
Evil, chap,
Evil, chap,
i,
i,
21
no
4.
20.
NIETZSCHE
90
his old strain.
witch
it
"
'Reason' in language
has been!
we
fear
God,
so long
grammar." The idealists have really invented harmful fictions, and the age and long prevalence of
these fictions is far from proof of their usefulness to us nowas
we
still
believe in
adays.
muse
of unprofitable illusions.
The
characteristics
with which
man
of
... To
whether
after the
in disguise),
is
it is
manner
of Christianity or of
It is significant
Kant
symptom
of degenerating
life.
22
The
Spinoza.
He
him
at
it is
some time
or empirical philosophers.
possible here, as
He
is
and
on almost
or other contradicting
sympathy with
materialistic
convinced there
senses,
is
a "real
beyond the
was
M
He wanted
idealistic
something better
something more.
German.
The Twilight
of the Idols,
"
'Reason* in Philosophy,"
6.
He
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
91
IV
Nietzsche, then,
condemned both
him essentially
bottom, both were merely more or less inboth were to
intellectualist at
condemnation of a solution
many
modern
other
and
damning
of "intellect," his
bus?
Significantly, the
from which
a very earnest
of stinking."
The
list
28
Rousseauists, Nietzsche
felt,
plcbs, the
but they themselves fell into even sorrier depths when they
appealed from reason and commonsense to common feeling.
Rousseau was
many
mothers!).
The Twilight
He
and
War
r.
NIETZSCHE
92
ity,
harmless,
and
if
mere
tradition,
man" and
new
new
conflicts
To
his
among dog-men.
all
limited to
and
and
at least as
much
society
souls
and
its
Renais-
spirits.
Nietzsche, like
many
forming
to the
habits, or a society
WHAT
pline
had
NIETZSCHE HATED
93
but so
he had no first-hand knowledge of the working of a demoHis acquaintance with common men was limited
say,
cratic society.
to waiters,
knew he
was
learned
own
his
It is
Perhaps he did.
He was
He was
fond enough of
trait in
himself.
self-analysis,
and
"My
danger
is
the loathing of
mankind."
24
At any
rate, rail
emancipation of "natural" man, the "natural goodness of man," the "life of instinct." He wanted to say "Yea":
cepts, the
and
falsest
well."
repute
Do we
Nothing
*
Eccc
25
Good
weigh humanly
"I
am
distrustful
in Nietzsche
Homo, "Why
am
is
a fatality,"
6;
The Case
of
Wagner,
preface.
NIETZSCHE
94
on
His range
28
begins.
He
He
could, indeed, be
more than
morals
(I
anyone
else)."
far-fetched
herself she
had no
thought
27
me
that, like
comments
who
hold that
tians,
and
"practical"
rather than a
means
men
he objected
of the intellect
to,
the
and of
making an end
intellectual effort.
Only
rarely does
28
is
complex, refined,
is
He
*
**
subtle,
*Sce
The
Antichrist,
v.
21,
quoted in
WHAT
29
life."
NIETZSCHE HATED
for science
reveal, perhaps, a
95
take
Season he writes:
Science
and therefore
scientific,
This
is
it
lives in a
a complete misunderstanding of
scientist docs,
and
method
scientific
it
as
and
art
deep antagonism
30
religion.
what the
practising
it
is
not a
serious
outburst
is
still
prevails today
among
lesser
scientists,
tradition provides
A second
text
it
betrays.
Know
thyself.
Through
not
acting,
unconsciously.
*
80
11
Wtr\e
(Historisch-ty-itische
Ausgabe), IV,
126.
x.
NIETZSCHE
96
Knowing
Laws and
enjoying.
indulgence.
is
lyrics are
Men must
act;
scientist
and
romanticist, sin
to action they
self-
must
sci-
its
results.
ment
skill
an
effective adjust-
hammer,
is
it
essentially that of
contemporary
anti-intellectu-
alism.
V
Before Nietzsche, then,
own
Master's
immersed
Western thinkers
in three ways.
their
had gone
astray
human
science.
Socrates,
Idealistic
rationalists,
had achieved
taking
their
fantastic
cue
also
call
from
and suppression by
dream-world of idealism, a
a similar falsification
more
we now
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
97
to appeal to
there
if
combined
For Nietzsche,
all
form
which
in
sophical speculation
were
these errors
philo-
capacities of
men
what he
called Christianity.
He
more
shut
up
as a
speed in the
last
and
his
is
The
Anti-
tortured
found there
all
break.
lifeless.
If
It
H. L. Mencken and
for Nazis,
though
it is
who
is
without
The
NIETZSCHE
98
And
time
is
came
into being
from
its last
from the
first
day of Christianity!
From today?
day?
this fatality
not rather
Values! 32
why
Transvaluation of
all
if
morality is
but an instrument by which a few
men
The
distinction
own
between
interpretation
All
men
lies
shall,
human
consciousness,
which
intellect
peoples
it
shall call
may be corrupted
this wanting The
among
we
though
is
we
call
83
this Will,
258.
early,
became
WHAT
Nietzsche
clear.
place within
whole
all
is
NIETZSCHE HATED
99
those groups of
men we
whether
call races, or
He
powers.
Within
any group, a few men possess such powers, and become masters;
but au fond the northern peoples of Europe do possess them in
greater strength than the southern peoples.
and Nietzsche
gins
is
Whatever
German
their ori-
at all as sim-
racial "purity"
make
out
There
ority.
races, these
no pure
if
if
ones.
And
have
these
set
up
"good" and "bad." "The
pathos of nobility and distance, the chronic and despotic esprit
dc corps and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race
those potent abstractions
we
you
prefer,
call
meaner
an 'under-race,'
35
this is the origin of the antithesis of good and bad."
There are, then, a minority of "masters" and a majority of
coming
"herd."
"Good"
thetical.
84
race,
They
is
know
a view.
He
things against the Germans, who had so stupidly neglected him. But in one
of his bitterest attacks on the Germans, he wrote that they display "a number
more manly than any that other European countries can show."
The Twilight of the Idols, "Things the Germans lack," i. To anyone who
knows the supreme value Nietzsche set on what he called "manly," the above
passage is final. The Nazis have had no trouble in adopting him as their
of virtues
prophet.
The Genealogy
2.
NIETZSCHE
100
"Good"
men and
we cannot even
we
herd-
compassion, obedience,
with "bad."
self-restraint.
And
similarly, of course,
as
should be
it
clear,
as
and cheated
all
behaving. This
is
his
Garden
of
like Valhalla,
it
was
in Nietzsche's
Man, and the slaves had come to rule the masters. Good
had somehow become evil, evil good. Inexplicably ? Not quite,
unfortunately. History, aided by Nietzsche, was equal to the
Fall of
explanation.
Christianity
is
for
him
more
the
apostle Paul, inspired by Jewish malevolence and Greek philosophy, undid the work of Nature, and set slaves over masters.
What
what gentle
aristocrat,
"super-spiritualization."
"He
came
understands goodness
as
being good
a "hygienist,"
as
promoting
WHAT
health. Prayer
is
But Christianity,
men who
disease.
NIETZSCHE HATED
as finally established,
loved their
"Christian
is
own
weaknesses,
is
101
also asceticism"
36
who
strove to further
How
moralists
vastly
the
Higher
the masters.
Law
noted by
quiet, content
if it
them
quiet,
might be
Even more
some
perversely,
Now
priests
Christian, Jacobin,
is
man
with a
very strong Will to Power, but without the great gifts of bodily
strength, without the capacity for masculine joy in
its
disci-
The
and
priest's
Will to
drives
him
to seek a
way
pity, of softness,
Power
Antichrist,
20.
Antichrist,
21.
NIETZSCHE
102
Especially
religions
this
he
when he
and of
somewhat outmoded
is
But
"priest-hypocrite-villain" theory.
good a child
of the late
He
meek
he ought
And
men, the
since joy
is
one
the full
is
and paradoxical
When he
comes
involved.
Men
like
to
is
it
seems
re-
sure that
intelli-
gence to be hypocrites.
Among
diseases
Christianity
partly because
and capable
that
religions of gentleness
all
it
is
among
social
of the
human
it
is
race,
the
peoples of Northern
so perfectly tailored to
is,
meet the
low men,
that
is,
instincts that
make
to try to perpetuate
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
103
"How can
one pos-
And
man
is it
is
form
>38
Christianity
itself.
Jesus
life,
is
Socrates's
daemon. "Let us not underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false to the
point of innocence in
jalsity, is far
above the
apes,
theory of Descent
Nietzsche recognizes
many
makes the
he
woven
whom
it
a specious intellectual
Church organization;
particular emphasis
on two broad
The
Christianity.
doctrine of immortality as
most
it
appears in Christianity
is
them
The
The
Antichrist,
56.
Antichrist,
39.
By
They do not
the ingenious
NIETZSCHE
104
device of the
of
Kingdom
The
on
this earth.
life
degenerate
unnatural, the
more
And
this is
more
is
men
to accept the
The more
supreme.
more hopeless
Hell
in preventing
of getting
priest
diseased, the
Heaven
way
which the
is
they might
still
more
lot of a
punishment in
combine
is
minority
Gcistcr)
it
a minority of one?
of free spirits
coddles the
deed, he
is
weak
as that
it
not so
much
The
that
it
willing at times to
by which, in
is
(freie
evil.
welcome
Christianity as a
means
might keep in useful contentment a majority of slaves, herdmen. At other times, however, he will have nothing less than
who
rose
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
105
to Nietzsche,
40
and
justice;
jealousy
God
of dignity
and philosophy,
a figure
on
whom
the disappointed
tuals like
Paul took.
This
God
mere
and did
which Jewish
final step,
tribal
still
intellec-
could, by a gigantic
rule over a
dark, womanish
despair, but a
the center.
This was the most
fatal
on earth: insignificant
little
"Spirit," "Love,"
"Wisdom,"
"Life," as
if
of
mankind. 41
M The
41
The
44.
24 and 25.
NIETZSCHE
106
But another
God
is
may we
coining
and Nietzsche
his prophet.
is
is
certainly not
The
on
the strong.
But
if
him,
weak
Have not
the
is
weak over
Will to Power.
We
are back in
An
analysis
of
Nietzsche's
is
a "higher"
had
his
attitude
daemon ?
towards Christianity
and
socialism.
Nietzsche hated
all
forms of Western
WHAT
the great popular
movements
No
of
modern
107
attempt
down
NIETZSCHE HATED
self-
socialist is
trying to be comfortable
to
remake
this earth
own
in his
art,
for
form
of envy called
patriotism.
An
splitting up. ... The educated classes are swept along in the contemptible struggle for wealth. Never was the world more worldly, never
poorer in goodness and love. Everything bows before the coming bar42
barism, art and science included.
We
The one
ism.
ponement
of
its
still
been
made
God was
The
seducer
a doctrine that
it is
men
is
lost.
before Society
is
nihilism.
The
woman, who thenceforward
The
might have
NIETZSCHE
108
sick.
Then comes the cursing of all
and
Schopenhauer): the most decided convoluptuousness (Baudelaire
viction that the lust for power is the greatest vice; absolute certainty
that morality and disinterestedness are identical things: that the "happiness of all" is a goal worth striving after (i.e. Christ's Kingdom of
Heaven). We are on the best road to it: the Kingdom of Heaven of
Then
and the
the vicious
VI
On
such blanket-terms
as
rationalism,
Christianity,
own
his
more than
to take
philosophical.
him
There
Nietzsche hates
and
all
is
in
that
seems to him hostile to Life, to struggling, to the free expression of a restless energy in men he called the Will to Power.
He
haps
this
sonality into
Our
places.
its
final
list
ized expression.
hiding-
We shall
on
their broadest
do well
to
mixed with
He
well-known
"The
Will to Power,
94.
by
his master
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
109
especially in
known
as
common
if
you doubt
it.
Women,
ran the
on higher things. They put up, because they have to, with
the wicked lusts of men. They are ignorant now of many imare
men
conspire to keep
them
at least
This, indeed,
The
is
the
more
men
like Mill.
the view of
keep them
and
to continue
through
all his
the
part of
first
Women."
It is
writing about
Thus Spa\e
roughly possible
to
Women
make good
Zarathustra,
vein,
he attacks Victorian
schemers,
liars,
and
haters.
They
are admirable
no
NIETZSCHE
And
Men
have "character,"
women
"intelligence."
The
intellect of
women
manifests
itself as
mind, and utilization of all advantages. They transmit it as a fundamental quality to their children, and the father adds thereto the darker
concerned with putting women in their proper place. Here, as so often when he
has a concrete program, he sounds very like a Nazi. He might
In his second vein, Nietzsche
is
directly
any kind,
rights for
Women
state, business,
women
is
or family.
one of the
The movement
sorriest signs of
much
for equal
our decadence.
of anything.
good
They are
But in the economy of the world they
for
is
that
and
their sympathizers,
women
eunuchs
like Mill,
want;
manner
of a
or a Maintenon
Pompadour
"
division of
The whole
together with The
411.
of this
Joyful
Woman
234.
And
Nietzsche had
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
III
men may
In the
new
46
become Supermen.
from a
Nietzsche loved and hated women
that
at last
The determined
have known at
well.
safe distance.
woman whom he
Cosima he loved
could
in secret, as the
much. Fraulein von Meysenbug was not even a good mothersubstitute. In real life, there was always something fumbling
and unsatisfactory
is
why he
owned
women. Perhaps
one,
which
is
perhaps
And
why he was
this
he never really
so confident they
should be owned.
Nietzsche also hated professors, and here at
ample opportunity
to
know
least
he had
so that there
is
no room
Professors are
Wisdom
is
not wholly
fair to
mere
book
women
as
much
woman's
attribute
is
willingness."
(68).
NIETZSCHE
112
ism in
its
conspire
they
and scholarship;
against
who
Nietzsche
of science
spirits
like
47
new and
the adventurous
as
and imaginative
among
free-lance
writer, himself
It is
make-
of thing
world.
brilliant
And
this
as
in
which
so
much
if
Wagner
is
almost a
test case
Wagner's music was then the unattainable perfection of Dionysian striving. His emotions never recovered from the crash
of
Educator," chap.
vi.
classicus
to the last
is
he never denied
its
unholy
as
ELIZABETH NIETZSCHE
From
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
But he came
greatness.
to hate the
113
Theseus
who
still
held
admiration of the
tribe,
Well ahead of
his time,
and a
taste
little
48
He came
to prefer music
and
men." In
this
as
only a
disillu-
it
all,
all
Or
all
around
us.
Bumbuml
Sursuml
there
is
no
better advice.
The
Virtue
still
carries
its
49
Of
a "Bacchanal" of Nietzsche's
own composing
submitted to him
denken miissen"
than of a Bacchanal
The Case
of
"it
itself."
Wagner,
makes
me
als
an
dieses
350.
NIETZSCHE
114
',
decadence
call-
especially in
Germans
which
is
why we
have considered
this
subject
among
his
hatreds.
It is
part of
my
.
.
par excellence.
to think of a man
.
always a
with which a
man
in
is
He had wooed
turned
is
his fellow-countrymen,
They
had not even stoned him; they had simply paid him no
atten-
tion at
And
all.
he had
weaknesses, had
80
ll
still
seemed
Ecce
The Germans,
to Zarathustra the
6.
of
in spite of their
Wagner,"
4.
most hopeful
WHAT
stuff
out of which to
few
NIETZSCHE HATED
Strauss, they
something
German
is
soul,
it is
Some deep
instinct,
and English
Germans had,
115
utilitarian.
But according
loving dalliance with the
idealism.
is
The
Kantian
and
Germans
really for
Germans
really are
them the
basic
ourselves alone
we should
of this
German
race
is
found a
to be
fine
52
At
the core
blond strength, a
an
a sign of the
it is.
wollen etwas
German Will
mehr"
Over against
to
for "depth"
Power. "Wir Deutschen wollcn
man von
wir
6S
this strength,
its
German
highest develop-
Nietzsche's derivation of
"Teutonic"
is
NIETZSCHE
Ii6
The
ment.
do not have
how
if at all,
and
full
institu-
came
about, but
in the
empty
he knows
in
mans
are
an enigma
than women.
As a people made up
of the
are
54
the despair of the French.
list
hyena
"that 'noble*
little
community
of geniuses, too
people
who
completely."
54
mary
But
it
will be
more
lost
Evil,
244. This whole passage
mature position on the Germans.
is
an admirable sum-
"The
The Dawn
of Day,
Book
is
themselves
War
The Genealogy
i;
50.
There
is
WHAT
NIETZSCHE HATED
117
tand, not
isually
Nietzsche wanted.
ifficult task
ction, in his
We
attempt the
work.
CHAPTER V
WHAT
*
^HE
JL
its
WANTED
NIETZSCHE
or the confusion
variety
of Nietzsche's thought
is
at least as
positive
Nietzsche was concerned, as a politiquc and mowith the problems of men in society. There are many
ralistc,
variables.
He
is
now
critic, essayist
on
now
aesthetic problems,
preacher,
first
now
work, he
now
prophet
is
primarily
Will to Powery he
is
Throughout
his
is
common
true obedience.
He
is
many,
herd-men? Certainly he is always vividly aware of a contrast between the able few and the incompetent many, and the
elite,
the
distinction
thinking.
But,
morality"
is
obedience,
morality"
is
what we know
if
it
is
his
We
is
as anarchy.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
wanted men
its
WANTED
simplest form,
119
to behave.
how
at least to
difficult
is
it
to
He
does not admit sharing Carlyle's noble scorn for any concrete
proposal of reform as a mere "Morrison's pill." He does not in
so
many words
all will
say that
be well, that
if
the soul of
we need
man
sees the
a spiritual revolution in
new
light,
which the
Any
And
it
is
on
at
odds
when man
is
in the
Thus spake
No
doubt
noontide!
Zarathustra. 1
it
is,
in
The mere
flesh.
to details
I,
chap. xxii.
NIETZSCHE
120
The
heaven.
is
of course pure
he can
men who
moments Nietzsche
much
about
to
behave in
Even when he
it.
did write
this transitional
is
dealing with
Occasionally he will
frame for
is
not at
all clear
whether he
is
thinking of masters or
slaves,
or of both.
place of
is
an institution for
the misfit.
Society, as the trustee of
life, is
responsible to
life
comes into existence ... it should in many cases actually prevent the act of procreation and may, without any regard for rank, descent,
or intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion and
restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to castration.
that
life
The Mosaic
puerility
decadents,
8
"Thou
The Will
to
Power,
734.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
121
certain circumstances"
and
The Will
Power
to
Rassen hygiene.
On
tory.
is
this passage
education Nietzsche
is
its
in
precisely
its
rigorous
acceptance of tradition,
its
freedom
now needed
was
German
What he
future of
is
from
admired
and
Germany
is
And
"What
The
drilling."
we must
cease
Romans
1
1
6
See below,
p. 215.
The Will
to
Power,
983.
14.
NIETZSCHE
122
who hunger
for
our houses, our workshops, in the sky and in nature, split up into
thousands of problems, painful, humiliating and irritating problems
and thus having our curiosity made acquainted with the fact that we
first
we
of
all
If
if
science,
we had
martyrdom which
the
we were
As
for
what
is
is
unspeakable.
You cannot
"educate" the
where the
where
its
customs,
its
speech."
its
new
schools.
Volf( cherishes
This educaits
builds
The only
its
is
all
And
of
bungling little
8
natural Order of Rank.
socialists,
religious
The Dawn
of Day,
intellectuals
195.
Even
who want
to destroy the
Werfy
when
(Grossoctav-
WHAT
One would
economics,
Supermen
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
will be supported
123
much
making
attention to
a living.
by the herd-men,
The
as aristocratic
duce
men
needed in economic goods. Certainly the Superwill not even guide the masses in economic life. The true
all
that
is
can have nothing to do with trade. "Not to underTo sell one's virtue only at the highest
stand trade is noble
aristocrat
price, or
to
Nevertheless, Nietzsche
now and
The
modern
then.
men
without
taste,
"persistent aggregates."
In order that property
may
henceforth inspire
all
paths of
wealth.
we should
take
all
anticipation
285.
NIETZSCHE
124
Here
"Out
self.
say.
Socialist
little.
year
The
socialists for
is
no
relation
received-,
the
We
And
justice ?
It is at
capitalistic spirit.
Socialism
upper
ll
classes
To
cure the
workman
Haertle, Nietzsche
u The
any
their capitalism.
(1937), 31.
Will to Power,
763.
"Human, All Too Human, "The Wanderer and his Shadow,"
286.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
125
The
all
its
all superfluities
it is
terrible
and menacing
if
Then, you
rich bourgeois
your own
and to aid
and luxuries.
lavish display,
who
inclination that
call
your-
you find so
unavoidable, as
constituted,
taxing of
if
would make
Socialists of you.
it would be more
generous, more benevolent, more compensatory,
more helpful. But the spurious, histrionic element in your pleasures,
which lie more in the feeling of contrast (because others have them not,
and feel envious) than in feelings of realised and heightened power
your houses, dresses, carriages, shops, the demands of your palates and
your tables, your noisy operatic and musical enthusiasm; lastly your
women, formed and fashioned but of base metal, gilded but without the
ring of gold, chosen by you for show and considering themselves meant
for show
these are the things that spread the poison of that national
which
seizes the masses ever more and more as a Socialistic
disease,
its
but
has
heart-itch,
origin and breeding-place in you. Who shall now
envy;
arrest this
14
epidemic?
II
No
more
economic
as to politics
life,
philosopher.
He
He
is
certainly
no conventional
political
monarchy,
14
Human,
aristocracy,
All
304.
NIETZSCHE
126
time,
are called, he
is
disgusted. France
and
imitate,
Even
own game,
excel at their
so intelligent
and
realistic
Western powers.
an "old" German as Bismarck
the
has
felt
result
is
dcr dcutschcn
Verdummung)
still
promise something
posite of all
16
crisis."
was an
As
aside,
for America,
all
The
Nietzsche thought
It is
deserved
17
politics of all
we
were
to
about
that
was
at
most a symptom
worry
16
1<J
17
the Age,"
17.
39.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
127
The
new
nationalism, a
era of wars
on a grand
democratic
rise of
scale,
wars between
own
time.
as so often,
Perhaps here,
He
does, however,
try
hard
to
rationalize his feeling that the wars of his time are inglorious
wars.
They
unnaturally fought
the herd-men,
among
who ought
to
be
European
nationalism
common
most
is
The
classic
passage
artificially cultivated
is
in
Thus
by
men
mostly "inI,
chap. x.
NIETZSCHE
128
tellectuals"
Germans
and
soil,
The
nationalism
is
not
Wag-
generally.
This nation has deliberately abused itself for almost a thousand years:
else have the two great European narcotics, alcohol and Chris-
nowhere
tianity,
was added
German
How much
music.
ness,
dampintelli-
19
gence!
in the
he
see over
whatever
I
It
will play
and above
all
What
am
foreground.
is the United
slowly and hesitatingly
Europe.
was the only real work, the one impulse in the souls of all broad-
see
it
itself
preparing
new
synthesis,
"the European."
of this century
this
am
"The
to the
new
states of
unity there
Europe
will in a short
Part
I,
discussion of "artificial
475.
time
more moderate
Human,
preparation of
and the
nationalism," see
Human,
2.
For a
All
Too
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
129
for the possession of local and international trade. ... In order, however, that Europe may enter into the battle for the mastery of the world
This
modern
is
times.
20
something
to
overcome.
It is,
The
barbarism,
all
the crude
and tyrannical
instincts of
European
mere ani-
mal man.
Whether we
call
it
"civilization," or
now
Europe
demands on
essentially
would
and body;
that is to say, the slow emergence of an
super-national and nomadic species of man, who possesses,
soul
Joyful
18.
See also
The
NIETZSCHE
130
man
ening of
and
able
sense.
21
22
no
better
dialectic; out
rule of the
is
and
more open, Hegelian, Karl Marx. He, too, has blue-prints for
the future, blue-prints a bit vague for mere practising architects
21
88
The
Evil,
Will to Power,
898.
242.
WHAT
and
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
131
abstract
"the
transvaluation
of
all
values,"
"the
Superman"
and
is
human
life
is
the
first
in the Uni-
But
call the
Good
Thing.
What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to
all that proceeds from
Power, and power itself in man. What is bad?
weakness. What is happiness?
the feeling that power is increasing
that resistance has been overcome.
NIETZSCHE
132
Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war;
not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu, free from
all moralic acid). The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle
And
of our humanity.
The Will
23
they ought even to be helped to perish.
to
operational
test
W. Bridgman
Power,"
as
to
He
term.
24
what he
At any
back on such
rate,
fine,
calls
vague terms
as
amount
of
The Will
28
him
to avoid repetition
repetition.
to
Power manifests
itself,
according to Nietzsche
The Antichrist, 2.
The key passage, in Beyond Good and Evil, 19, is much too long for
quotation. The reader is advised to go to the passage himself, and to judge
how far Nietzsche avoids the usual philosophical traps
and trappings.
24
WHAT
(and it is only
in the lives of
with what
man,
to
we
WANTED
NIETZSCHE
133
artist, priest,
it is
to be
found in them
impose themselves,
all
all.
trying to prevail,
includ-
human
beings
ing surrounding
indeed in most men, this effort
to suit themselves.
is
States-
In some,
and even
society,
on
this earth.
human and
They
miracles.
with an extraordinary Will to Power, intelligent and wellhave brought about major
trained
and favored by luck
is
possible to distinguish
makers of
history.
from
The dualism
is
antithetical
of course a
all sorts
and
rough one,
as
of shadings in actual
fact
At one pole
is
the Will to
NIETZSCHE
134
The Warrior
is
essentially noble.
Will
for Nietzsche
was
as
He
He
is
his lusty
from the
spiritual
masturbation
to call "Dio-
so different
physical ecstasy
enjoyment
and
The
Priest
is
essentially ignoble.
He
He
He is
mind
if
not in body.
straightforward voluptuousness.
He
is
physically weak,
incapable of clean,
him
and
his intelligence
is
The Will
to
Power,
943.
an ignoble
ability to
WHAT
WANTED
NIETZSCHE
135
He
bears in
to a philosopher
resemblance
had
This more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a
accident, as an exception, never as willed. He has rather been
happy
precisely the
itself;
rear
The
clever
and degenerate
the Christian. 26
man,
Warriors'
at the
own
level,
have
and have
This the
ligion,
and
religion.
The
individuals
wak
are, in the
would always
most
go down
literal sense,
and organized
and
weak and
re-
as
the
We have already
tion of the nature
*The
seen
how
and triumph
of Christianity.
K
Antichrist,
3.
27
The upshot
NIETZSCHE
136
of
it all is
seem
the ignoble
human beings.
did, we might say
we
Will to Power in
If
as Nietzsche
loved paradox as
shocking
hardly adequate.
we might
Well,
that this
worked
is
to
Clearly this
is
a
is
be done?
with words.
a rather priestly
is
Power has
What
much
it
It is
true
seems to have
Will to Power will perish from the earth. Why not fight fire
a vulgar activity, and certainly expressed in a
with fire ?
vulgar
way unworthy
times of
crisis.
And
it is
and
per-
good. But
we
become our
we
will
become
we
our
are really
in the right,
of
to
have prevail
(Umwertung
among men
aller
a transvaluation
of all values
Werte}.
Such
words that
men
common
is
logically
He
and defiantly
He
wants
words
that
Sometimes, however, he
common
WHAT
He
of praise.
NIETZSCHE
men
wants
137
lofty, noble.
selves regard as
not
WANTED
to be very careful
He
can praise
means
in eroticis
he
28
clever."
The
"What
one
is
Dionysian
noble ?"
is
is
which
angelic-back-parlor-smugness, a la Spencer.
and of Anglo-
That one
instinctively seeks
for heavy responsibilities. That one knows how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That one contradicts the greatest
number, not
in
words
at all,
them.
We
series of
we
We
honoring
us.
* The Will
...
to
We
Power,
always
is
feel
as
We
is
are ironical
possible with-
if
to
of
947.
NIETZSCHE
138
viction, that
We
want
to
have our
we wish to
own books, our own
possess nothing in
common.
29
landscapes.
Thus
is
"noble" transvalued
from, shall
we
say, that
aristocratic
European
which
member
which characterizes
and
who would
like
intellectual
very
much
member
of a middle-class family,
There are
seems
all
there are
how
values,"
no end
can
human
Somehow
of transvaluation of values.
it
be brought about?
affairs is in itself a
the
kind
to
men." They
They
life
their
Dionysian prophet
longed for, of
men
can command.
Do
not be
made
* The
how
to
Will to Power,
944, 943.
WHAT
come through
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
139
superstitions evoke.
tion.
And
They
little
will
human
tricks for
the prophetic
our-
Word,
making
Word
the poetic
words enough:
^ I teach
is
to be surpassed.
What have
man
the
apes,
worm
to
and even
Even
phantom. But do
Lo,
The Superman
Superman
shall be the
The Superman
is
is
meaning
of the earth!
The
30
flight.
There
to feel will,
if
Supermen themselves,
" Thus
I,
Prologue,
3.
NIETZSCHE
140
and
superhuman world by
their
fearless
Recurrence,
heaven."
ice
and
pure
31
is
an unrefined
mixture of oriental speculation on metempsychosis, old European striving for a metaphysical absolute, and misunderstood
theoretical physics of the late nineteenth century, the latter of
which held
it
held for
much
the
Therefore
Sirius,
this last
is
it
and the
no order
which
all
change
in
any
Notions of growth, of
we
call "scientific" as
"moral." Abandon, as
we
we
42,
II,
the
1330.
WHAT
NIETZSCHE
WANTED
141
memory
It
of another Nietzsche.
would seem
tempt
its
might
We
the contrary
We must live
must
world.
On
so that
it
we may
We
must struggle
We
this life
and
this
to attain the
be endured.
deny
must put
off softness
We must give up the little hopes, and cherish the great hope of
never,
hopelessness. We must be what has never been before
in
the
little
rondo
Eternal
Recurrence.
We
our
at least, during
must become Supermen
once more.
CHAPTER
VI
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
critic of
THE
he could imitate
that
and
Nietzsche's
infrequently wish
form
ristic
passages
marks?"
It is
critic to desert
the
seemed never
down
as
was Nietzsche.
He had
to descend, not
to earth,
even to
re-fuel.
He
did at least
one
is
tempted
to
that his
He
work
own
spirit of
fellow
men
is
Nietzsche wrote well after the brief era of Victorian peace and
contentment with the world had reached its peak; and besides,
that feeling of contentment with the
the intellectuals.
The bulk
of surviving nineteenth-century
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
143
any language is a literature of protest, and of proof the things Nietzsche hated
middle-class
most
against
morality, industrial civilization, materialism, ostentation and
literature in
test
and
He swore at
common man. He
perate vocabulary.
trusting the
much
he wore
sleeve
less
may
Nietzsche's
of course call
work
fits
it
a transcendence.
in
in
its
historians,
Adam
more
"trans,"
to
Nietzsche
himself.
all
values; but
and
it
seems to be a
fact that
on
some
magic of the
this earth a
indeed
may
man
is
facts
prefix
man
has
contempo-
Nietzsche was,
if
you
is
like,
his contemporaries
We
were
not.
briefly Nietzsche's
philosophy of
rise
from
NIETZSCHE
144
mere animal
self into
to decadent
1
Superman.
losophy of history
characteristic passage,
analysis clear
quoting
elliptical,
The
under
in
its
simplicity. It
most
is
worth
at length:
THE HISTORY
1.
in
OF AN ERROR
he
of virtue,
lives in
he
it,
man and
the
man
is it.
convincing.
simple,
the
am
truth.")
The
2.
true world
which
is
man and
to the
man
moment,
is
promised
who
repents").
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more
// becomes a woman, it becomes Christian.)
evasive,
The
3.
true world
is
unattainable,
it
cannot be proved,
it is
it
a comfort,
cannot
an obliga-
command.
(At bottom
this is
still
become sublime,
pale, northern,
Konigsber-
gian.)
The
4.
And
true world
as unattained
forts,
is it
is
unattainable?
At
all
also
events
unknown. Consequently
nor saves, nor constrains: what could something
it
it
it is
unattained.
no longer com-
unknown
con-
strain us to?
(The grey
of
dawn. Reason
The cock-crow
The "true world"
time.
stretches itself
of positivism.)
an idea that
and yawns
that
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
shame and
145
free-spirits kick
all
up
shindy.)
6.
We
There
a period
is,
apparently, a
when men
first
stage omitted
lived without
from
this
summary,
What
is
most noticeable
in this account
of an idea,
working out
to
from
a position so
annoyingly
like a cari-
cature of Hegel's.
He
falls at
a struggle
is
among men
exercising to
weak and
The Twilight
Fable.'*
Nietzsche,
of the Will
historians,
The
to
"In
or should be
"How
of the Idols,
who
loved to
mock
the
Power
wrote that in
my own
way,
Will to Power,
63.
am
True World*
himself
spite
beaten by the
became a
and easy exercise
attacks on history and
ultimately
a pleasant
of his
NIETZSCHE
146
What we
call
in
is
Christianity, the
to
Something has
way
and the
him, the natural course of evolution is thwarted and the unnatural becomes law. ... In practice this general love of mankind is nothing more
than deliberately favoring all the suffering, the botched and the degenerate;
it is
There
is
difficulty
an
men.8
of explaining
how
the unnatural
became
natural.
deep down
he
however
much
with
the
traditional
underneath,
may play
methods and vocabulary of philosophers, and he is willing to
But Nietzsche
is
let
life,
so
Sufficient for
much
him
that the
herd.
1
The Will
to
Power,
246.
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
consciously shown,
is
no
call to battle to
147
environment
is
automatically
turning out better men, that natural selection is still going on.
(It is doubtful whether Nietzsche ever really read Darwin.)
What Darwin,
Power
no mere process
is
is
to be
analyzed by
method," but something that only poets and
prophets can get at and stir up. Such a poet-prophet could,
for instance, find the Will to Power even in the amoebae
so-called "scientific
not, of course,
by
intuition.
"Among
the
silly
amoebae
Will to Power.
He
morphism.
Nietzsche thought he saw through Darwin as well as through
the amoebae.
to adapt themselves to
as trying to survive,
as trying
men
Such
The Will
to
air of
humble people
'
Power,
653.
The
Joyful
Wisdom, V,
349.
NIETZSCHE
148
But there
relation to facts.
On
typical of the
is
no way
is
origin in Nietzsche's
its
mind
clear
is
phy of
resist
is
which
history
good child
is
of his age.
work
is
It is
really
trine,
which
is
has a philoso-
or biological,
He
and
true
contra-
as they do.
comes
on the
species).
The
fit
any accidental biological variation by which they are passively adapted to an environment, but because they possess
of
mon
if
we might
call
"soul"
we
shall
call the
The
Will to Power,
Power
679-683.
in sexual relations,
and beget
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
strong children
who
in turn
149
their
makes
process
Jews,
who
it,
indeed, hardly
more than
a legend.
seem
to
The
have
understood matters very well; did they not invent the story of
Nietzsche's anti-intellectualism
makes him
as
much
a child
and spoiled
At
all
times,
no doubt, men
are
unreflecting
men
are
may
tions of
observed
human
feelings about
phenomena
NIETZSCHE
150
on the matter,
as recorded in the
be observed. Plato,
it
is
phenomenon
that can
all
for the
reality of permanence.
about
this
formulation
number
changed
less
possible, the
of generalizations
is
The
physical
That
is
simple and
were of the
buildings and
streets,
verify
We
it
about the question (which is insoluble) as to whether "physical" change caused "mental" change, or vice versa.
can,
however, safely take another step, and state that in general
We
generalization,
and
many
We may
sorts
state
less
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
scries of relations
need
at least a
unphilosophically
The
among
volume
151
to be given a
semblance of what
we may
call reality.
part of
its
is
an attitude extraordinarily
in the
in the
men on
phenomena we group
it
it
it
into
at
an almost-popular religious
But traditionally the Euro-
"scientific,"
seemed
to
make change
is
how
the
minds
all
his life
They
of certain
men
was analyzing
and
its
It
that
is
But
after all
as a process in
what Nietzsche
all
in that manifestation of
The
ideal-
ist,
He
wants
He
does
NIETZSCHE
152
we
false
recognize that
construct
who
it
it
is
critics
are
only relatively
good
false.
live in it;
ness,"
means
people
who
it is
hold
it,
who
live
in
That
who made
a part of reality.
it,
we must
relativists,
as a
is,
it
mental
and of those
we
"bad-
behave.
We
way
don't, for
that
change
we want
is
They do not, of
preventing change; indeed they commonly
to bring about.
course, succeed in
let
themselves and
it, is
For
readily
satisfied
of
all
human
prolonged and serious attempt is made to so conaccumulates under pressure and finally blows off
and when
fine
it, it
a kind of experience
When we
lary
we do
we have one
who
like.
we
not
human
life,
of intolerance towards
haughty
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
153
them
of
sterility,
"we
fearless ones,"
though
"we
is
wherever he finds
free spirits,"
"Why I am
a fatality."
and he
it
finds
it
The
But through-
and
in the positivists.
a phi-
what some
of his
that one
must not
words
in his
mouth,
and
as
words
critic
with
to
put
into
feelings
temporaries.
ment, an interpretation, of
is
is
an arrange-
facts (receptor-experiences)
which
must be
tentative,
static,
objective truth.
The
thing-in-
NIETZSCHE
154
itself
it
really
Newtonian
physicist, are
all
case, of
last
This
is
"subjective."
merely one of the simple tools of thought, apparently necessary in the past and perhaps still not useless in the present, but
is
an imperfect
tainly
tool
we must
no more than
All knowledge,
organisms to
perhaps
live
all
live;
more
try very
and
fully
is
living
if
we
can, indeed,
go
give
further,
up
We may
of values
We
cer-
a tool
"The question
for certainty.
is
more fundamental
and
men
get
what they wanted. Nietzsche put this neatly in one of the bare
notes that were collected after his death and published in The
Will to Power.
and appearance"
to
The Will
to
Power. 9
*
Power,
588.
inter-
The Will
to
Power,
589.
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
We may
words
in
155
it
seem
had
to act in
a value, since
some
men who
respects differently
say they have attained it. We may justithat value, the kind of life it tends to promote.
absolutes than
a con-
purposes of scientific investigation. But he himself had no scientific training, and shared the contempt for science common
among
He
as private citizens
and
most
it is
much more
is
scientists ac-
spun
out, but
by the standard of
life
they
set,
we
and fresher
one kind of
life.
life
Thus
it is
more
foolish,
false, richer
order of rank
that the
necessary,
life,
but
cleaving
life,
more
first
problem
that
is
some
the order
10
of ran\
among
\inds of life"
Here, however, Nietzsche himself becomes an absolutist,
10
The Will
to
Power,
592.
NIETZSCHE
156
becomes Zarathustra.
for the Will to
predecessors
the
scientific
thing-in-itself,
laws,
objective
by pretending
German
As
if
a philoso-
pher
philosopher
Having pursued with interminable skill certainty as pure reason (rcinc Vernunji) and proving that it could not be caught,
he turned up with
its
Power may be
go
as
good
no
roots
Will to
is
made.
If
you must
Power may be
the
Ill
Nietzsche, then,
is
sum up
more than words. The
final answer, to
words experiences
historian and skeptic
in
true to
is
them
that are
the
much
two can
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
157
all
his
recognizing the variety and changefulness of human experience. In fact, the doctrines of the Will to Power and its curious
companion and
served
him
derivative,
the Eternal
Recurrence, merely
and
loves, as
to his followers
they helped him to live in a prophetic and
in
his
as well as himself
more polemic
consoling world;
moods, they helped him feel sure of the pettiness and undesirability of what he could make out of other people's worlds; and
at all times they acted as a limitation on his ability to widen and
deepen his experience
but perhaps no
experience.
At
that
more than
least a
small
is
made him
essential to make
is,
they
amount
intolerant
sense out of
of metaphysics
is,
like the
presence of certain minerals in the human diet, perhaps necessary to human life. And Nietzsche's dose of metaphysics was
The common
opinion,
which
refuses to
him with men like Kant and Hegel as all philosopher, but
him partly in the field of literature, is well justified.
rank
puts
He
Aristotle
to
and Hegel do
few
at
we have
random, possess
of
him
obstacles in the
it;
Bentham,
way
of a
NIETZSCHE
158
German
no language,
living or dead,
is
cannot use a special language. Unless he limits himself to symbolic logic, he has to adapt to his purposes an instrument made
for the coarser
takes the
form
work
of ordinary
special
difficulty of
looks quite healthy and normal, and only with the lapse of
time does it become clear that the hybrid is sterile.
Now
of the reader.
to be
Too Human he
them
With
his later
works, like
The Twilight
of the
Idols,
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
159
protests a
little
too
inoffensive clarity.
wanted
He
much.
he
to
the
clear
womanish
We
have already
quoted him so much, and in such varied moods, that the reader
will hardly need more examples of his writing. As far as the
limitations of translation will allow, he can
come
to his
own
specific
illustration
and exaggerated!
than
first
it is false,
made-up, blown out,
cannot endure this bright wallpaper style, any more
can bear the vulgar striving after generous feelings. The worst
that springs
feature about
it is
must have been inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She
wound herself up like a clock
and wrote. As cold as Hugo and Balzac,
And how
self-complacently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-yielding cow.
For she had something German in her (German in the bad sense), just
as Rousseau, her master, had;
when French
possible
taste
was declining!
her!
The
He
11
might, in
make him
this respect,
The Twilight
way
in
which he
War
we
shall
6.
NIETZSCHE
160
consider
him
and
title
he himself
a psychologist.
German
literature.
The
poems
German and
weary riddle of
existence,
poems thoroughly
terranean, whistle a
little
little
too shrilly.
move
much
it
to persuade,
by the incantation of
dictionary.
Zarathustra
is
logic
as to
and the
his
medium
is
a didactic,
To many
There
too deliberately.
into
the highest
is,
human
at
any
rate,
aspirations,
brilliant
flight
into
it
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
maunderings of a
man
161
sible.
Nietzsche's gifts as a
critic,
do
less
They
are evident
work, scattered everywhere among the unsystematic reflections that are assembled to make the great
throughout
all
his
and world-shaking
in general; that
is,
he liked
clarity,
To
use once
critic
No
and
more
a "classic"
gant a romanticist
down
he packs into
development and polishing
a few words a book of the late Irving Babbitt's.
for future
sivo"
(2) Picturesque music, the so-called dramatic kind, is above all easier
(as is also the brutal scandal-mongering and the juxtaposition of facts
and
Pathologica)'.
all
is
NIETZSCHE
162
that
is
Or
in a single sentence,
from
exit
art
and
revealed in the
lie
critical
many
little
add
minded
spirits
spice to a
word "emergency."
two
only an emergency
substance of this remark
art is
The
defective 'reality.'"
can be found in
own
"Romantic
species
13
and romantically
classically
that
always
commonplace,
Or finally, an
cherish
exist
Nietzsche
is
from
its
He has,
it is
from the
weaknesses."
14
true, a
grand, philosophical
He
can sometimes pursue the distinction into wordy disquisiremote from concrete works of art, as in the last
tions rather
The Birth
and
The Will
Power, where
he returns to worry this, his first philosophic love. But as such
distinctions go, his is by no means the most sterile effort that
men have made to put into words a contrast as real as any in
part of
of Tragedy,
in
to
If there is a possible
18
14
The Will
The Will
Human,
to
to
All
Power,
Power,
"philosophy
Here he can
forget
an emotional
826.
829.
his
Shadow,"
217.
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
163
even earthy
evoke for most of us earthly
experience in a
and
Will
to
the
that
Power, down-going
over-going to
way
the Superman,
Nietzsche says
even if we are offended by having the thought suggested to us
in this way, of Wagner's music; when Zarathustra says "All
'It
was'
is
we
until the
would have
are already
it!',"
drugged
gifts
what they
as well as
how men
say,
and
work
is
same
gifts
which
make
in turn
appear in Nie-
He
perhaps more interested in getto behave as he feels they should behave than in
men
these
actually
to
Here again he
ting
15
we
into a
if
possible
is
as they do.
The
latter job
and Supermen
go ahead planning for men
without paying any attention to the kind of men surrounding
him. He had not much skill at mixing with these men, and
"realist" to
first
NIETZSCHE
164
what
is
to his using
men
few
and
his inability to
men,
mingle
freely
especially edu-
and pleasantly
detachment
the people
who came
to Bayreuth.
16
He
describes these
it is
Wag-
caricature,
and
He
Nietzsche's great
work
tellectual" as a type;
as a moralist
and here
his
him ample
temperament give
generalization which he
study
aiming
we have
at the
own
is
clinical
The
materials.
own
great
he was always
is
his con-
reformer, politician, writer, professor, socialist, democrat, humanitarian in our own, uses the instrument of thought to build
up out
what he
calls
the "true
to persuade, or force,
everybody to
live as in his picture; that he is usually quite unconscious of
going through this process; that in the process he commonly
neglects facts that simply are, and that therefore when he and
society)
p. 114.
all;
and
all sorts
of
finally, that
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
although in some senses
human
where
For
makes
it
it
what we
men do try
call civilization.
this process
modern world
in the
life,
165
overwhelming
all
the same.
It is
begetting, of loving
the
habitual, traditional
unsatisfactorily
;
work
still
something
something for
is
vague terms
of the
marrying and
of
is
of
like instinctive,
human
affairs,
and
a very
men
organ-
it
But
which the
pictures
on men's
made
actual
conduct.
on
it
political
conscious efforts to
This
"builders."
servatism.
is
Make no
make
the position of
what must be
changes, especially
no
deliberate, logically
called con-
who
manual
skill,
NIETZSCHE
166
a hard course.
know
There
is
its
course, even
we cannot
know
especially
physician
for
let it
all
is
which makes
which
for rightness
a better
Spencer, or
them
There
alone.
yet
as
it
of
we know when
we only
we think
if we only
that
if
Saint Paul.
17
Having shown
the inadequacies of
he makes one of
his
all
own.
other picIt is
not a
German
It is
a picture of a
world surely
of the paradox
made
flesh, in
It is
weak
grand world
is
lies
moral, the
down with
17
Nietzsche takes something like this position time and time again throughout his work, especially in praise of "tradition" and in condemnation of
"theory." It appears very early: "All states are badly managed when other
men than politicians busy themselves with politics, and they deserve to be
political
amateurs."
An
Wer\c (Grossoctavausgabe)
36.
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
167
They
not by any means
Supermen.
to be
human
the study of
more
recommended
nature.
else in
men
Had
live by.
complete course in
basic illusions
as a
our
to light perhaps
literature,
some
of the
who
know
have helped us
ourselves.
IV
Nietzsche's
work
is
a great armory, by
no means
filled en-
accurate
modern
effective
pieces.
On
makes
more
a very
To
the aphoristic
form
in
which
cast.
we
NIETZSCHE
168
ily,
he
built
up
and
Among
the stresses
there
is
work. This
and
strains
made
conflicts that
is
and Zarathustra.
a conflict discernible,
and which we
of us hardly feel,
routine of living.
It is
not,
common
The
first
most
We
are
in putting Nietzsche
and
his
work within
and
of all
all his
He
that
is,
scheme
in such a
way
his order
is
"true"
by himself
whether
Its
a conflict
which we
to a conceptual
and
It is
experience.
call facts.
facts,
men.
all
mere conveniences
re-
artist
It is
and the
is
a relational
test for
must be continuous;
if it ties
a falling
is
Its
instrumental character
is
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
a
more complicated
matter, but
is
169
instrumental character.
The extreme
type of reformer
its
may
If
barometer ought to
almost anything, in
about it
fact,
He
to
make everybody
use them;
it
is
We
it is
raining.
we have attempted
to
make
be-
tween the observer and the reformer would run into a volume.
The important
thinking
is
thing here
to note that
which are
repetitive, verifiable,
to or not;
and
that
some
something
"better,"
and
something which he
others,
feels
can be
made
We
NIETZSCHE
170
It is
or his mind
on either
we
can
recognize that a biologist attempting to find
cretely,
order in human heredity is likely to think "objectively" and
that a preacher of eugenics attempting to get human beings to
finger
is
they certainly
exist,
stark contrast
is
as
much
from
as types
between
a matter of
observing as
tions; Aristotle
was a
is
was a
was
Plato. Nietzsche
The
we have
contrast
was
real
enough
set
so that
it
to his
much
immersed
can
live
much
happily in
disturbed by
this
what
is.
who
can
live
happily
NIETZSCHE-IN-HIMSELF
171
out theories without regard for facts; and he was too bitten
measure of
all
facts.
And
so
humbling
he made
his
limitations im-
unhappy down-
beyond an
some of us, dis-
is
the unpre-
The
when
they
Nietzsche called for the Supermen. Mussolini and
Hitler answered the call. It does not much matter that in all
come
true.
probability Nietzsche
as perverters
in all probability
much
as they did.
They
it
is
who
out of
CHAPTER
VII
BIOGRAPHERS
Andler, who took
Nietzsche,
six
including
volumes to
tell
even
his
Charles
story,
stop
and
dox
Nietzsche's
this is
hardly a metaphor, and certainly not a paralife only began with his insanity and death.
The
his
name during
his lifetime
is
1939:
One
present, he
in the past.
are
still
ents
fifty
One
and nearly
and
work
or
its
fruitfulness.
What
173
man who
the test?
alive.
of a
This passage would no doubt have pleased Nietzsche immensely, so much indeed that he would probably have forborne to point out that much of it is nonsense. For Nietzsche,
as we have seen, burned to be read, to have disciples, to make
a stir in the world. Before he
had read him, only the inept Peter Cast still looked like a
disciple, and he had clearly made no stir at all in the world.
Two
of thought or style,
man
known
his gifts
in Ger-
the
better
straight-
book
savior of
little
fame
Once,
around the
young men
he had went back
as
to
in
remarked of the
you
failure of
see Nietzsche
otherwise, no."
is
read
still
as obscure as
if
there
had
done, had to be
(i939),
1
Mohammed had
I-
NIETZSCHE
174
brought out
author's
own
at the
It is
tinguished literary
fruitful.
But Nietzsche
practice
is
had the
rarely,
make
in the world.
on "Nietzsche:
An
to
Essay on
to
There
is
lutely unheard.
*
At any
rate,
The conspicuous
Brandes
Friedrich Nietzsche.
critics
left
him
alone, but
now and
175
whole columns
is
not
unknown
and the
larger
to this
"modern
'free spirit'
to our literature."
His
whose name
little circle
of friends,
his friends,
was
America
in
begun
translated into
little trickles
amazing speed
it
By
the
grew with
night.
The
periodicals took
deschrijtsteller}?
let
It
man
began
to look as
after all.
though
She published in
the
Sunday Supplement of the Vossische Zeitung during January 1891 some articles on Nietzsche which were shortly after*
52;
5
NIETZSCHE
176
a book.
It
was by no means
bad book,
heresies
Nietzsche's
Wagner
in
remarks about
heresies
but they
Wagner
made good copy.
what
probably the
is
first
Preussische Jahrbucher,
him long
articles
essay
by well-known
Hartmann was
this,
he
treats
German volumes
wart (May
2,
1891),
XXXIX,
7,
of
1889),
Max
XXXVI,
Philosoph der Aristokratie," Nord und Sud (March, 1891), LVI, 225; T.
Achelis, "Friedrich Nietzsche," Westermanns Monatshejte (April, 1894),
99; E. von
bticher (May, 1891),
Hartmann, "Nietzsches neue Moral," Preussische ]ahrXLVII, 505. This is by no means an exhaustive list. See
H. Albert, "Friedrich Nietzsche," Mercure de France (Jan. 1893), VII, 47,
notes 2 and 3 for a good bibliography of the "discoverers" of Nietzsche in
LXXVI,
Germany.
177
Nordau's Degeneration appeared, and spread rapidly in translation through all the important languages. Nordau's huge
public learned that Nietzsche, though undoubtedly a literary
genius,
were written
during acute spasms of dementia, that he was a characteristically modern degenerate. Nordau seems to have known nothing
of Nietzsche
beyond some of
his
we have
literature
contemporary periodical
just
described.
philosophical writer
But suppose
who
is
this writer
thing.
readers should call themselves
received as an emancipation
feel that in the thinker they
The kind
that his
thoughts should be
so
of people
Nietzsche himself.
And
once more under Elizabeth's loving care, was dragging out his
life quite unconscious of this sudden glory. It is a situation
7
F. Tonnies,
J*
NIETZSCHE
178
tribute
How
his irony
The
gods,
we may
believe,
that
From Germany
his success.
de Stael been
It
much more
closely
in
touch with
Madame
German
Germany
and
make
the ponderous
German language
flash into
in the early
who
could
aphorisms
CLXXXIV,
299.
all
179
modern
articles
pulpits
finding
him an admirable
arrived.
No
name
matter what
critical
Editorial
were
writers
He had
1893:
minor
details,
others, has
The
Every day the army of his disciples and imitators increases.
anthologies are adorned with his sayings, the poets make use of his
.
10
magnificent aphorisms as epigraphs for their verses.
II
We
no doubt because
writer, partly
himself.
Ideas are
no longer
apparently
perhaps those of
for us the
We
Some
hold
Marx when
wonder-workers they
of our
that
all
more innocent
generalizations
properly interpreted
anti-intel-
except
are increas-
ingly useless disguises for our simpler lusts. Yet in those impor9
One
of the
dcr Gedan\cn
first
of these
vom Uebermcnsch
bci Nietzsche.
Inaugural Dissertation at
the University of Bonn (1901). There have been dozens and dozens of them
since and on some very remarkable phases of Nietzsche's life and influence.
My own
10
favorite
is
F. Sprengel, Nietzsche
47-48.
(Jan.
(1933).
1893), VII,
NIETZSCHE
l8o
tant
moments
of carelessness
which
uninspired,
intellectual
is
likely to let
anti-
mere
sense of
stir
The
to
come
that
stir
to see first
to grips
and very
with the
what kind
in
of
men
him
in
What
were not
as
wicked
as they
philistine
class
was
strikes
The middle
and well
more
substantial
nourishment
first,
anti-philistine, the
ter of those
He
called
who
mas-
live.
appears, of course, in
him
joy, the
much
viewer, he
one of his
first
To an
pleasure.
modernized version of
philosopher-tyrant.
known
To Mr. Shaw,
come
excellence."
really a
181
To Franz Mehring,
already well-
of
as a
istically
Not
were words
like
many
literary gifts.
An
people
who
early critic
"anarchism," "individ-
named
opponent
Tiirck
a degenerate
is
and alchemy.
madman, an
Nietzsche according to
apologist for
made
the
"human
LXXI,
374;
E.
von
all sorts
human
striving, in short, a
(1896),
had
11
CLXXXIV,
12
gifts,
of
the
man who
British
war
Review
(1891),
LXVII, 520; F. Mehring, "Nietzsche/* Neue Zeit, 30. Jan. 1897; W. Dilthey,
Gesammelte Wer^e (1898), IV, 528; G. Bianquis, Nietzsche en France (1929),
62.
18
H.
63-69.
Tiirck,
Neue Ausgabe
(1894),
NIETZSCHE
182
propaganda during the War of 1914-1918 was not more singleminded and vehement in condemnation of Nietzsche. All over
when Nietzsche
the world,
first is
known, he appears
as de-
all sorts
first,
of disciples.
he
One
among
This, however,
is
almost a habit
disciples.
Ill
disciples
charm has
is
explicable partly
attracted.
It
is
also
he
place, Nietzsche
first
Wagner. Some
left
seems
of his
to
insist that,
that all
13
splendid unity.
all
and about
thinkers,
truth.
But
to
Tragedy seemed a
The Dawn
different
man from
of
of
of
"This
'Nietzsche
is
of Day,
now
und
die deutsche
among
Zu^unft (1935).
the Nazis.
See R. Oehlcr,
man
at all.
more
It is
183
easily
than most
rest of his
work
that Nietzsche
was not
he had no
to
adapt himself
down by any
tied
He
to.
brief to follow,
had,
it
dulged
at the
But
of underlying unity.
all sorts
it
had no
is
a fact
formal structure in
no
special audience
The works
kind of running
note-book, a written Table-Talk, in which anyone can find
ments.
are a
mass of
reflections, a
contradictions.
with matters about which men's feelings and habits have always
been more trustworthy expressions than their words
though
they cannot,
if
they are
men
them
to
he failed to say
better.
We
are
still
Jesus of Nazareth.
men
differ
And
so
we ought
some
senses al-
NIETZSCHE
184
most
totally.
little
too indignantly:
An
old game of the human imagination has begun. The past is called
into the present, and there begins that ceremony of consultation, of
seeking for authority, the end of which is already pretty clear, since the
consultant and the consulted are substantially one. For this reason
almost
all
our contemporary history, and one may say of it what Lichtenberg said
of other books, "Such works are mirrors; when a monkey gapes into
one,
no
All sorts of
themselves.
men
Any
their variety.
14
It
may
sorts
The
is
about
all
cant phrase, as a
man
of
good
will.
nowadays
For them, Nietzsche's work
marked by Socrates,
and
children
of God. Nietzsche,
other
Jesus, Buddha, Luther,
they hold, wanted men to be good; and by good he meant what
is
good, good
14
A.
in a
Kesser,
535.
in the nineteenth-century
Western world, he
185
lost his
tem-
per with them, and broke into prophetic violence. But at heart
he wanted them to be peaceful, happy, just, pure, honest, kindly,
humane. The gentle Nietzscheans have had to do a lot of explaining.
would have
sham
Christianity of his
man
filled
When, according
to
its
slave-
its
it
who
behaving
like aristocrats.
rebel, the
IV
Elizabeth's biography of her brother, together with
magazine
articles
many
NIETZSCHE
186
no doubt helped
Nietzscheans have
built.
Yet
it
was
pher by
German academic
as a philosopher
is
hard
to
make
out.
it is
German
He
but
He
an unpublished set of aphorisms labelled The Will to Power, which he often referred to
as his systematic
left
much
The
duller.
best of Nietzsche's
work
is
in fact
more
it
is
like
the
The
best of
German
15
16
as
"In one
insists that
the point
of the best
Nietzsche
is
have made
to
subdue him to
and briefest
critical studies of Nietzsche, Vaihinger
properly designated a philosopher. But he also makes
above, that Montaigne and his company are properly
scin
Lebcn und
W.
187
up with. They
or put
classify in
tivism, evolution,
Some
them
more
poetic, terms.
tion.
tionist
in
essentially
Power" becomes
the
form
of
Darwinian
tradition;
The
his
"Will to
life as his
century
Eternal Recurrence, and most of
in
restated
among
fell
its
intellectual
life
so thoroughly that
Nietzsche.
France
tzscheans,
of
is
the country
and perhaps
gentlest Nie-
probably impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of the great interest Frenchmen have shown in the
17
writings of Nietzsche.
Perhaps they were overcome with
all sorts.
admiration
17
It is
at
finding a
like a
Frenchman.
(1929).
NIETZSCHE
l88
of
Many
Frenchman
in French.
tzsche's life
Still
;
the
more because
it
is
utterly incredible
life
of the spirit,
subject
for sentimentality.
throughout with
is
Nietzsche
pity.
is
and
crudities of the
mockery by
his
Halevy a witness
for
spirit,
German
industrialists, against
Wagner and
human
Luther.
The
late
more extraordinary
He made him
flesh,
and unrecognizable
a Socialist.
out of Nietzsche.
Whether Nietzsche
at
himself, in the
189
The
had gradually
Andler's great
built
emerges from
circle.
man who
But the
finally
Nietzsche in the cartel des gauches and the republique des professeurs? Surely the Master never meant his
famous phrase, "the transvaluation of all values" to be taken
socialiste
quite so fantastically?
Not
all
as
first
own
tzscheanism
him
at
writes Gide; it is
Yet Gide soon comes
man,
as a destroyer.
French
his earliest
is
a Jansenist.
"Nie-
life
and
18
first to call
NIETZSCHE
190
now
be called
One
trines
still
latently
murmuring
in
19
it."
most thorough jobs of softening Nietzsche's docwas done by an American, the late W. M. Salter, whose
of the
all
the
and
good of generations
hero
to
come.
20
Salter
to be a sage,
and
may
it is
comes from
Salter's conscientious
book.
now
W. M.
III,
rather broken
Thinker, especially
p. 375.
191
As
at
a band, however,
they tended to support, and spread abroad among literate Englishmen, the conception of Nietzsche as at bottom a profound
a
evolutionist,
moralist
who
really
They were
who
centered
translated
pundit.
He
volume on Nietzsche,
ironically
War
their
leading
of 1914-1918 a short
sub-titled
"The Mind
that
had
in
no
Germans
to
make
war. That
evil
Kennedy
the Master's
Some
of
the
heard
among
all
of all a Poet.
81
J.
22
otherwise a strange
who found
the Master
"Ellis's essay
Ellis,
gentle Nietzscheans
9.
in Affirmations (1898)
and
re-
to the Master.
NIETZSCHE
192
are not
have
commonly
legislators.
programs
specific
are exceptions.
Few
Andler and
any program.
his followers in
who saw
Nietzsche as a kind of potential German Lycurgus, a law-giver who might inspire a code
for a stratified society, a society of Supermen, but not of storm
for instance,
troopers
The
is
Dr. Mess,
23
tradition of Nietzsche as a
man
of
good
will,
once
and
from
ernments.
It
a great
and respected
studies,
some
making Nietzsche
figure in the
which
are actually
more
interested in under-
standing Nietzsche than in defending him. At long last, Nietzsche's contributions to our knowledge of how human beings
24
Nietzsche der Gesetzgeber (1930). The book is almost, but not quite,
good Nazi doctrine. It is a wonderful example of the Teutonic gift for
in the air.
spinning endless and exact details
24
For instance, M. Scheler, Ober Ressentimcnt und moralischcs Werturteil
(1912); K. Joel, Nietzsche
und
193
But they
are far
from
extinct.
The
name
Nietzscheans, and
The
Nazis]
of the
of
them
"roaming blond
is
productivity,
long.
One
vocal again.
herald of
aberration
life
made them
writes:
beast," this
which he remained
his
whole
English spirit just as he did the deep leaning to psychology of the Russians, he the enthusiastic worshipper of Stendhal, the admirer of Sterne,
Heine, Voltaire, is above every suspicion of having glorified Power in the
sense of nationalistic racial arrogance. What final tragic fate it is, that
this martyr of thought, whose life has been an eternal battle against the
traditional
truthfulness,
untruthful of today. 25
And
spirits
are always
to
who
He
sort, a
follower of
defending the
maintain that
begins by remark-
hounded by
Socrates the hemlock, for Christ the cross, for others silence,
P.
M.
lished as
The
rest
is
unfortu-
26
(Spring, 1938),
20
all
XLV, 21.
DC Nietzsche
P. Nicolas,
</
Hitler (1936),
to Hitler (1937).
9.
NIETZSCHE
194
V
The tough Nietzscheans were
and
artistic circles,
and
And
was
their toughness
at first recruited
from
literary
entirely a matter
like themselves.
Here was
line of
new
Byron incredibly
of Business
had reached
changed Shaw
in
it is
any important
sense.
Moreover, as an ardent
apparatus
"Why
debatable. Certainly
Homo
is
perhaps
to Nietzsche
195
the last
are confronted,
if
word
of the
title.
least
with a
tile set
of the
way
Some,
if
of Nietzsche.
Shaw
may
be classified as
made
a specialty of
days
and
and
vote was to
him
more
His
the
social
women
is
pacifism, feminism,
and
Cecils or the
Howards, of
enough,
to the Nazis,
not the
and wrote
He went
and
over, consistently
was work-
NIETZSCHE
196
lustiness
much ease as
of the new cen-
first
decade
saw
his
Mr. Mencken's
The
first
letters to
which he was
is
called
subdued, though
now and
Nietzsche's advice to
and he had
some
for pious improvers of all sorts, for dull Christian folk, for the
as yet
unnamed
the best
and
liveliest
ally, cheerfully,
The book
is still
one of
and with a
scraping to Philosophy
and Depth
so
common
in
liter-
bowing and
German
writ-
ing on Nietzsche.
life
ruary 1937),
XLIV, 44-52;
192-202.
197
conscientious
that
it
summary
and humorless
Nietzschean.
life is to
German books
an amusement.
a consolation or
light books,
and they
is
It is
all
als grosse
last forty
Germans
or fifty years a
something
better than
*"an
much
irra-
and
better.
NIETZSCHE
198
it
claim not
It is a
tional as supra-rational.
has rarely
more
or
29
From
Nietzscheanism to a tough
from dead
logic to
if
Germany
is
clear.
who
in
came
to
power
in 1933.
Mr. Shaw
lively
is
Nietzscheans of
is
just
of a tough Nietzschean.
As
for
Mr. Mencken,
he
is
oisie"
than academic irresponsibility. Not so in contemporary Germany. There important people profess to be guided in action by
"See
S.
Aberdam, "Nietzsche
April, 1937),
CCLXXV,
mystagogs of Nazism
232.
et le 3 me Reich,"
Aberdam
is difficult
adds,
"The
to exaggerate."
influence of Klages
199
as
we have
CHAPTER
NIETZSCHE
earliest disciples
JL have seen,
all
VIII
AND THE
and
NAZIS
intellectuals
who drew
we
a pure intellectual
joy from their Master's work. There was a joy in knowing you
were a master-man among the slave-men of the herd. But the
didn't
go about
spitting in the
them. As
a matter of fact,
as far
you kept
stampede
as
still
regarded by both
sorts of
and happily
useless tradition
of philosophy.
It is
paid
true that
him
first
or
said.
some
is it
a dubious
These
critics
understood
him
to
mean.
one ?
were
of
in the
may, indeed,
When he wrote
They
Nietzsche
critics of
in praise of
immoral-
When he wrote
thought he was actually exulting about the bloodshed and rapine achieved by flesh-and-blood German soldiers.
beast," they
When
war
is
real fighting in
like
him
to
mean by
killed
men
201
like themselves,
deny
if
not
this the
critics
were applying
to the
work
of their Master
1
is little
to indicate that
not
that
the
drinkers
of
metaphysical,
tradition.
Nietzsche-Archiv.
Any
and
faithful
influence Nietzsche
workers of the
may
have had in
The
1
was
0.
accusation was
Henne am Rhyn,
made
in
in 1914.
Anti-Zarathustra
a gentle
war
especially grieved by
preached "Freedom and the Dignity of
(1899),
who had
Woman."
Nictzschean
IX.
in
many
diflfer-
Hcnne am Rhyn
NIETZSCHE
202
ent organs,
were most
lish
few months of the war, NieTreitschke, and von Bernhardi were linked together in
Germans
tzsche,
In the
to attack.
first
propaganda as mainly responsible for working the Germans, leaders and led alike, up to an immoral lust for conquest
never yet seen on this earth. Dr. Oscar Levy, who had edited
British
bookseller
"The
sign
fight
him
world
that
better."
announced
all
beleaguered
The
little
or illusions
lot,
and
a
This
as innocently as
it
good
list
of those
who
attacked
de-
idea of
Power and
the idea of
War
203
overcoming mere human enemies, but both alike belonged to the sphere
of the evolving soul. .
.
study of Nietzsche is not a study of the
Nietzsche of the moment but of the essential and significant Nietzsche. 3
My
It is
remarkable that
He
Nietzsche."
war-guilty
him
Ellis refrained
probably thought
Germany,
unnecessary.
"eternal
Even
in
lieve
The
in
chapter 'Of
War and
is
to be taken
This
whenever the
acts of a
to illustrate
When
Nietzsche praised
war, the argument runs, he meant a nice spiritual War, not a
bloody one. Another line of apology has been the old assertion
that Nietzsche
was
work has
solely
an aesthetic
assertion that
that
he was
march
into Belgium.
Ellis,
4
A.
Messer,
15 Oct. 1914.
Zeitung,
NIETZSCHE
204
successful in 1890
was
still
Germany. Some
successful in
of
Germany
much
against
Germany and
the
what was
in 1914, so
He
wrote
He
wrote very
little in favor of the milder virtues. The gentle Nietzscheans
delight, however, to point out that personally he was in no sense
frightful, that he lived simply, indeed ascetically, that he looks,
insist that
street,
who
way was
at heart a
militarist.
yet
become fashionable
beast."
to the fight.
82.
ous reasons
less interesting
and
less
War
is,
205
however, for
vari-
German
revolution.
The
relatively small
mans
tionary in
many
all classes
of Ger-
and
The
its
currency
was
in 1914
to paint the
many
before.
itself
6
The problem
National Socialism.
Four Years'
War
in
today, a
Germany
must now try
is
as
The
vogue
current
German
actions.
in the
in
allied
countries
that Nietzsche
is
to
War
NIETZSCHE
206
II
movements, has in
One
bodies.
it
all successful
revolutionary
elements which are also found in religious
of these
is
The
tional Socialism
is
growing and
active faith.
Mein Kampf
gospel needs
sible
it
is still
some
reinforcing.
does not in
itself
seem
It
it
if
pos-
a philosophical respectability
to
is
being
made by important
many
an
effort
It should be clear from what has already
been said in this study about the vogue of Nietzsche since the
is
being made.
is
especially in
to scholars,
it
is
the emergence
ideas
fit
into the
Germans, and
to
207
make Nietzsche
show
just
how
his
der Philosoph
Political
und
Bibliothe^ which
is
University Library;
a sort of
German
and
Reclams Universal-
equivalent of our
Home
XX
work Dr.
;
im
Dritten Reich (Friedrich Nietzsche in the Third Reich), published late in 1933,
spiritual
title
of Nietzsche
und
means
again
solely in
it
is
periodicals,
German
and by no
philosophical and other learned journals. Here
good Nazi writer says this specifically: "And now it has come about
that the hitherto purely learned interest in the philosopher Nietzsche has
been broadened into love and reverence towards the man." F. Erdmann, in
the Ostdcutschc Monatshcjte (1936), XVIII, 515. Erdmann is reviewing the
He adds that
first volumes of the historisch-kritischc Ausgabe of Nietzsche.
now
work
has
become too
sacred for
NIETZSCHE
208
Nietzsche
of the
is
the Nietzsche-Archiv in
and
The
only to great
men
they are
work and
all,
in fact,
mere
and
also,
though
this
of
in format
Germany
what
As
this
this
Gesamtausgabe
that used to
Marx and
come out
made
Vienna
it
in his
XX
Die Furche,
56th Jahrgang,
II,
772.
209
und
unintentional symbolism.
It
may have
quite
profile,
is
fully
shown,
mustache curving
The Nietzsche-Archiv
as custodian
of the Master's
itself,
his fiftieth
To
whom
The
now come
Nietzscheans
into ecstasy.
into his
"And when we
call
who
are
good Nazis
burst
Nietzsche!"
at the
10
liberal
personally to Nietzsche's
misinterpreted.
9
10
work
One of them
writes
from
exile in Massachusetts
NIETZSCHE
210
Nothing
Hitler swings
It is,
the
is
hammer
of Thor. 11
personally
justly, the
is
much
They
we
are, as
hammer and
Of
in
that
of putting Thor's
Germanic war-gear
in Nie-
tzsche's hands.
and
his
a part of
make
German works on
this clear.
is
and
his life
handbook on
little
evidently a
little irritated
by the continued existence of remnants of old-fashioned, aesperhaps even gentle, Nietzscheans. He is writing for no
"Nietzsche-circle," but for Nazi youth. He is making "an atthetic,
tempt
Many
11
12
(New York:
2.
We
1940), p.
need
viii.
Auflage (1939),
7.
On
211
the surface
it is
and unimpressive collection of works which make up the Nazi holy writings
an element otherwise almost lacking in them. For Nietzsche,
and philosophers of history of the Hitlerite movement. Rosenberg, the most favored intellectual of the movement, seems
hardly more respectable, more strieux in comparison with the
it
distinctions
too
is
book of a crank, a man outside the pale. With Niehowever, the Nazis have been able to acquire, if not
the
tzsche,
is
difficult.
It
for
are
revolutionists,
society Nietzsche
had
earlier
NIETZSCHE
212
scornfully around the
word "bourgeois"
as
on
Christianity,
and
all
its
on humanitarian movements,
Democracy has
has perished.
cattle.
state.
to hear.
historic
the socialist
whatever they
are
may be called in the different countries of Europe
worthy of each other; envy and laziness are the motive powers in each
The equality of souls before God, this lie, this screen for
of them.
the rancunes of all the baseminded, this anarchist bomb of a concept,
.
There
is
also
much
modern
this
is
new
old society
was parliamentarian,
pacific, at least in
and other
civil rights,
tol-
new
hope,
at least in principle
of such
society
will
outmoded
be
eight-
men. Nietzsche's
praise of
war and
new
Sparta of Super-
the soldier
is
already a
commonplace:
The
.
future of
German
this is
War
Human,
All
Too Human,
Part
I,
62.
39, 38;
To
213
to help the
who
scholar
Ye
14
.
Now
and then
it
now
is
develop-
The Fuehrerprinztp
notably,
leaders.
that they are fairly numerous, and that all Germans may
"climb aloft" over the inferior peoples without the Gospel.
14
The Will
to
Power,
954.
and Countries,"
14,
17;
Will to Power,
NIETZSCHE
214
work
trines in the
famous,
singled
it
of Nietzsche.
One
passage
is
especially
since
War
out:
It is
the
The profound, icy mistrust which the German provokes as soon as he arrives at power, even at the present time, is always
still an aftermath of that
inextinguishable horror with which for whole
have marched.
centuries
beast.
16
Haertle quotes this passage with explicit approval in his handbook, and stops short, as do most tough Nietzscheans who quote
it,
".
at the
.
17
There
is
classes,
true
n. Note
215
on a knowledge of
forms.
Nie-
its
simpler
Occasionally he comes very close indeed to the Nazi
among German
even
philosophers:
as well.
mend
18
adequate provision for the children.
friends
if
one
may
use the
work
word
is
human
and some Jewish writers have for years been among the most ardent and
uncritical of Nietzscheans. Yet most of the stock of profesbetween Nietzsche and another
being
sional anti-semitism
intellectuals
for stability
"
Democracy, Marxism.
Will to Power,
"For
modern
civilization
19
733.
examples, see
The
Joyful
Wisdom,
301;
NIETZSCHE
216
is
own
and even-
not perhaps directed against the nature of sentiment itself, but only
against its dangerous excess, and especially against the distasteful and
is
infamous expression of
German
long have
excess of sentiment:
on
That Germany has amply
stomach, the
German
this
point
we
sufficient Jews,
difficulty)
Italian, the
this
ourselves.
of a
one must act. "Let no more Jews come in! And shut the doors, especially
towards the East (also towards Austria)!" 20
Nietzsche, then,
fits
what
He damned
democracy,
pacifism, individualism, Christianity, humanitarianism, both
as abstract ideals
of
and
as,
modern European
rity,
in
society.
He
life
complete break
ideas. The spirit in which he
his fellow-citizens a
health,
Part IV,
actual descriptions
184, 864;
Evil,
251;
and
to
make
Evil,
251. Clearly a discerning Nazi would need
suppressions here, but the substance is good Nazi doctrine.
this break,
bible of the
new
217
here.
It
the "transvaluation of
"Will to
strains as
all
values/' the
Nazi
uses.
The famous
phrase
"Will to Power" suggests ruthlessncss, aggression, a policy of
left it as
an aspiring Nazi
men.
making
elite,
who
possible the
development of a new
21
is, however, dangerous as well as useful for the purposes of Nazi leaders. It does,
as we have seen, sketch out a Fuehrcrprinzip; but it also sug-
gests
an inner
conflict
real
trouble.
Hitler himself does not conceal that he shares the contempt for
21
and
This notion
is
is
book
und
as Haertle's
NIETZSCHE
218
which
the masses
Such scorn
an
clear in the
is
Nietzschean doctrine.
in
ganda"
is
prinzip in the chapter on Personlichfeit und voltyschcr Staatsgcdanke. The organization of the State "must in itself be the
embodiment
and
what
whom
is
best for
them "only
22
special gifts."
And
as
yet, surely
mere members
eighty million
Aryan supremacy
The fact is that, however
good
is
tualized
Nazi
and
if
only a chosen
few
which has
name.
What
are to share
it ?
a party
may
be to
word
"socialist" in
its
Official
theme
the
The
M Hi
88
"transvaluation of
tier,
Mein Kampf
Haertle
is
fully
all
values"
is
(1932), 497.
aware of
this difficulty.
democracy in
itself."
West
Haertle,
219
lutionary in character.
word
the
done
"revolution"
is
much
too mild.
as
an attack on what
what could be
to
may
As
which
seems
much
fresher
It
seemed
and more
is
one
and
day
than the usual
in his
effective
complaints of weary nineteenth-century Voltaireans or positivists, or even of Marxians, since it was directed not merely
the moral temper
dogmas but
values of Christianity.
much
and
basic
in his philosophy
in
as reason.
much help in
Nietzsche in their task of restoring Thor and Woden to German
worship. Amongst so much else, Nietzsche did throw off variPositively, they
spirit of
24
obscure Nietzsche's
own
"Ger-
manismus" may have been the Nazis can see it clearly now.
And what is more important, they find Nietzsche's spirit usefully contagious.
The
movements, and
*
which
especially
is
found
among
section
i,
"Germanische Grundhaltung."
the revolutionary
und
Politi1(er,
elite,
especially
finds
Part
II,
NIETZSCHE
220
among
and
a vocabulary in the
words
of Nietzsche.
book. Yet the long white robes, prophetic beard, and phosphorescent glance of Zarathustra, though, to
like the
Germany made by
post-war
diffi-
He
the open with a specific suggestion for reform. But most of the
ideas Nietzsche
more
in his
analytical
the Superman.
God
dead!" Here he
is
Man
is
something
must be a
that
be to Superman, a laughing-stock,
Verily a polluted stream is man. One
Superman: he
impure. Lo,
can your great contempt be submerged."
I
teach you
to be surpassed.
is
becoming
that sea; in
Now
him
and then a
"No
text:
prophet, and
The
much more
Nazi
use.
ii,
iii;
Part
I,
chap. xv.
221
men
in a
at the level of
move
mere laws
move them.
IV
much
quotable in the
great deal of
especially in
So
for
it,
The Will
more
that
title
it
The Innocence
in
some
2*
announce publicly
in
Here
are a
of
Germany
attribution to Nietzsche,
to boot.
Power and
under the
to
lot
to
at the
forty years:
mixed
of
all
peoples.
Bismarck
Let anyone look upon the face of the Germans. Everything that
had manly, exuberant blood in it went abroad. Over the smug populace
a Slav.
and the lack of intellect in the face, the language, and the bearing
The Jews are beyond all doubt the strongest,
among Germans.
27
toughest, and purest race now living in Europe.
.
Similarly with
much more
Evil,
A. Baeumler,
ed.,
other topics.
many
13;
NIETZSCHE
222
camp, were he
alive in
is
observe
more
the "real"
man
is
The
sense of reality.
(b)
giving-up of the English principle of the people's right of
require the representation of the great interests.
representation.
(a)
We
(c)
a
We
skeptics,
i88o's.
The
ellipsis
we
is
indicated by the
not Nietzsche's.
of the following
leader
would dare
utter those
words
as
It
words "and
:
No
Nazi
cannot bear to have repeated. In this predicament the gentlemen who have set themselves up as interpreters of Nietzsche
to the people of the
17.
courses,
simplest solution
passages in Nietzsche's
would
223
works which,
we have
like those
just
undermine
faith in
Nazi
saints.
The Nazis
knowledge.
ceed.
too
We
much
however, too early for such steps to suctoo near Nietzsche's own time, and know
It is still,
are
still
make
Some Nazi
work
at the fairly
innocent
omitting
use of Nietzsche's
is
is
frankly adula-
reading it,
Whether or not it
feels,
judge.
It is full
is
which
One
hardly
is
based.
it
faithful can
And
as sign
against health, beauty,
against Life itself."
bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul
.
sense,
NIETZSCHE
224
If,
any
use.
Even
tion of the
is still
is
sense,
for
Germany, the old professorial tradigentle Nietzscheans goes on, and the war he preached
these kindly souls the sublime war of the spirit. It
in Hitler's
munition, or
If
fight, for
it
oil supplies.
suppression outright
is
impossible,
"Europe's Crisis."
30
It
two
parts,
chosen
five
all
of a
ill
are there,
prepared to distinguish
29
is
with
this
evil,
and
There are
still
serious
225
evil.
who
wish to use Nietzsche properly. Probably the commonest solution is to blame Nietzsche's errors on his environment. Haertle,
for instance, admits that Nietzsche did
Some
make
He
mistakes.
is
an
is
of a
swamp,
democracy, and
When
truths; but he
swamp
environment. Nietzsche
saw them
as
of nineteenth-century liberalism
and
is
the prophet to
whom
is
31
this explanation.
make any
had
to pretend to see
Haertle, Nietzsche
leitung."
to
push
in order to
in the Jews
had
und dcr
and many
to get
I,
any
"Ein-
NIETZSCHE
226
attention,
and
Baeumler even
much
work
is
necessarily cut to
fit
of Nietzsche's pub-
Herr Baeumler
32
work Baeumler discerns a perfect unity, and points out the way
in which Nietzsche may ultimately be shown to be infallible
not absolutely essential, in a
Founding Father. Baeumler, whose labors in the cause have
something always
won him
desirable,
if
In
fact, his
any
German
is
heavier and
termination in dialectic,
and
He
is
the leading
and vigor of
style.
He
is
a lack of
humor which
in
many
that Nietzsche's
Nazi, and
work
where
is
perfectly consistent
seems to
and
per-
it
in liberal
conflict
and democratic
error.
the
preface
to
AND THE
NIETZSCHE
NAZIS
227
and Mr. G.
B.
Shaw found
to
men
down
to
this
any
men.
Now
in the
Nazi
state,
show
that Nietzsche
When Nietzsche
brownshirt.
glosses,
was
he
a state
people by
with the
state as
identi-
Baeumler
Roman and
Christian elements.
It
was based on
whenever he
thinking of these
Similarly,
Germans, he
is
basic
German
tt
all
no
"We arc feeling the consequences of the doctrine, preached lately from
the housetops, that the state is the highest end of man and that there is
higher duty than to serve it: I regard this not as a relapse into paganism,
from any of Nietzsche's works, save perhaps The Will to Power and others
of his very latest period, is not used as a text by the Nazi preachers.
NIETZSCHE
228
(germanisch) qualities of
so on.
Were
state.
and
such a
strength,
There
is
at
now
is
ing, in fact,
Tom
German
Mistake.
writers?
(latein-
ische Freigeisterei}
Renaissance, he
is
He
is
praising the
"extremely probably" of
a
little
German
blood.
nobility,
"The German
work
The
War."
state of the
of Bismarck;
of the Great
and were
and the
it
spirit
35
Italians themselves
fascist.
84
end"
(p. 12).
One
them
of
229
senso
telletto,
la
sorge dal golfo mistico dell'essere, e profonda 1'essere nella notte pura
del sentimento, nel puro volere, sintesi infinita d'infiniti opposti, rottura
36
d'ogni forma, gorgo d'infiniti nembi di possibilita di vita.
The form,
seems to show
German
and succeeding
if it
were
pretty well.
way
Nietzsche
to use
emphasize grand words and passages which contain a preponderance of the kind of words some modern anti-intellectuals
is
to
like to call
meaningless in
as
many
as,
which they
German
Saxons
and
as
arise.
use.
Against the
liberal
relations, breaks
up
all
(Of the
all
organic
W G.
Cogni, "Nietzsche
X, 452.
and Anglo-
Haertle writes:
intellect,
e la
Germania," Bibliografia
jascista
(May, 1935)}
grand
and rebuilds
all,
gulf of being,
pure
will,
life.)
NIETZSCHE
230
struggle,
Freedom
as Victory? 1
This passage needs no comment. It is sound, uninspired preaching, for which Nietzsche makes as ready inspiration as any
other thinker who has great prestige in Nazi Germany.
Though Baeumler
among Nazi
and explain:
Nietzsche's anti-anti-semitism is a particularly hard obstacle
for Haertle, but one which he has to surmount, for he has decided that Nietzsche was a Jew-hater. "Priest means for him a
The Jews
38
Why
then,
in environment.
He
therefore thought
it
possible to
make
the
German Jews
eager to cleanse
87
could be altered.
Germany
He would
be a good Nazi,
39
Haertle, Nietzsche und der Nazionalsozialismus, 14. That "organic"atomistic- Western" contrast is one of the staples of German
German" and
intellectual
48
life.
Haertle, Nietzsche
stilisicrter,
typisierter Jude."
How
50.
He
writes,
"ein
words
will
then,
tzscheans in a
is
and
more than
231
and
tough Nie-
He
has become
Nazi creed
a transvaluation of
all
and duty
articles of
values, the
of the strong
rebirth,
of
coming
of the
society.
More
Superman; and
and have been,
among
to the principle of
The
tone of Nietzsche's
much
ideas,
is
Nazi
circles.
life
the
Nazi
of the world.
elite is
for
him-
can be described
leaders,
making
made
much more
was never
really house-broken.
CHAPTER
IX
PROPHECY ON A PROPHET
work has been given
NIETZSCHE'S
That,
different interpreta-
at
tions.
any rate,
and
Haertle find something very differBaeumler
experience.
ent in Nietzsche from what Andler found, and Andler found
something very different from what Brandes found. But Nietzsche was a definite person, and it ought to be possible to agree
him
in his
books
the relativist
No
is
there really
if
is
was
a Nietzsche-
Or
so
it
critic.
doubt the
relativist
who
likes to be
uncompromising
of
them
extreme and
to
make
seems to
many
work
"true."
is
We
with Nietzsche.
rough
might
shall not
so meaningless a position.
several
classifications of
It is
possible,
however,
Nietzscheans. This
it
and supplementing.
is
We
needs refining
which
in
and "tough"
by those
works according
who
it is
years,
which they
are put
today.
by no means an exhaustive
no useful classification ever is. But after fifty
read
classification
to the uses to
him
233
It is
men go
them
Some go
exclusive.
and
to
which
Nietzsche for an
sedative, exalting
and
Others go to him for his contributions to a "realstudy of the behavior of men in society, for his tenta-
consoling.
istic"
him
for support in
and the
morals."
like a
Still
new
others go to
religious faith,
fascists.
Ever since the young and the would-be young rebels of the
him, Nietzsche has been a refuge and a hope
for young men and women undergoing the manifold troubles
nineties discovered
of adolescence.
just
coming
To
the bright
to appreciate
with
and
how
who
is
the world
is
sensitive youngster
little
wisdom
how
him, Nietzsche
delight that in
life
from
is an
incomparable ally. The lad learns with
communion with Nietzsche he becomes a free
spirit, a
learns
from Nietzsche
now
that the
and
pointless studies
Supermen
when he
NIETZSCHE
234
which he
at last
is
poetry
many an
begins to
chanting ecstasy,
message a
final
evangel.
its
Everything in
live.
Thus Spake
it is
its
right
its
He
it is
that
he
is
one.
The world
in all
its
dullness
and imperfection
are those
some
There
who,
at sixteen, find
There
is
are,
if
it
is
true,
invent
be out
exist, it
to
doing or dying, there seems to be among the young a Welta syndrome, not a simple disease
for which Nieschmerz
tzsche is almost a specific, a better one than Byron, or Heine,
or Poe, or Schopenhauer. These latter are useful, of course, and,
Nietzsche.
And
there
is
235
another
specific, often
taken along
with Nietzsche, and valuable as a counter-agent to his excessively tonic effects. Nietzsche would not have liked it so, but
at least in the
English-speaking world,
Omar Khayyam.
of Morals, as well as in
made no
how men
behave, and
between
of his
more
their actual
Much
many
inconsider-
belief, their
work belongs
which
in our
to
Western
If
we
however,
are
Talcott Parsons, in
bring out
as
we
this
common
wrong, and
The
if
men
as different
NIETZSCHE
236
Nietzsche, and
many
field,
the study of
man
should continue to be rather a part of literature and philosophy than of science, should continue to vary as do taste and
fashion rather than to
likely to
work
first,
or
gist of
The Genealogy
of Morals.
As long
as
Due de
men
are attracted
La Rochefoucauld,
St.
Simon,
as
much more
To
nesses of others.
subtle than
how
who
It
is
weak-
more
is
necessary."
men
his
Shadow,"
257.
237
Whether
the treatment
are
him
mere
that Nietzsche's
and probably
give
Enough
that
is
on the
lips,
rioters or conspirators.
Enough
to
and
Italians
farm,
office,
Enough that
and help perhaps more than any
writings help
to give to Germans especially a feeling of
ings
less
Nietzsche's
other writmission, of
alliance
moment
nary Germans
adolescent
Will
far
like the
new
overshadow them.
as a poet, critic,
of religion.
He
If
it
ordi-
prophet of a
many
religion.
If
it
does,
it
will prove
remembered not
Mohammed.
We
NIETZSCHE
238
many
variables
tial success,
and sedative
of success.
The
to
it
complex and
do not
social sciences
far-reaching, rule-of-thumb
scientific
on the
its
par-
on
yet afford
and
in mat-
wisdom
is
Furthermore, an
knowledge.
extremely likely to make his prediction the child of his hopes and fears; he can hardly help
American writing
in 1940
is
We
may, however,
well as
risk a
fail,
few
to
all their
to establish a
beliefs
procedure.
The
totalitarians
and unprecedented
past.
may
be an unjustified
have achieved something new
This
may
make
military
of
that
Nietzsche's doctrines
pelling power. But
a probability.
may
in themselves have
none of these
The armies
possibilities
at all like
Church
safe to
are
all
is,
human
We
run by
that
beings.
And
must assume,
will continue to
behave
it is still
fairly
like
human
if
beings.
the totali-
239
German hegemony
if
under
spiritual values of
American and
If established Chris-
to be heroically compassionate,
it
is
likely that
men
quite equals,
We
may
it is
unlikely that
making them
quite un-
appeal from Nietzsche the prophet to Nieand urge with the latter that a natural
shows that
men
history of morals
men
all
sorts of
Heaven
or Hell to this
earth. But with almost the regularity and certainty of a physicochemical reaction, the impetus exhausts itself, and something
like the original equilibrium returns.
8
Revolution (1938).
NIETZSCHE
240
In the kind of
crisis
the world
is
seems
may seem
sit
to
itself
under the control of thinking and feeling men, certainly in part even under the influence of prophets
like Nietzsche-Zarathustra. No sensible person would main-
and
scientific
agile
is
knowledge
into a gazelle,
more
it
it is
all
of animal husbandry, to
therefore impossible,
if
our practical
make
we want
to,
a sheep
to breed
careful training,
change them.
But they may change them, indeed they already have probably
changed some of them, slightly in directions that must seem to
most persons brought up in the United States very undesirable
into
Supermen; they
directions.
It may be that in order to oppose most effectively what the
Nazis are trying to do, we must believe they are devils about to
transform all humanity into devils. It may be that we cannot
we
We
may have
to
on
be
to
social process
and with
means towards
Western world
is
the rational
we
and
understand the
realistically,
drunken
241
and
rational ends.
by rational
neither Nazi means nor
And
means
will
their leaders
rational.
and the
We
cannot
profess to be
are
we understand pathetically
little
we
There
is
is
probably a difficulty insoluble in words.
have argued that if we try to think rationally, "scientifically," about what the Nazis are doing, we come to the conclu-
We
it
is
means,"
possible to
is
it
at all possible to
"rational ends"?
study of
make
means?
Is
make
Is it
not therefore
silly to
maintain that a
Certainly
of ends, of
we
say,
we want
it
so.
Even the
NIETZSCHE
242
device, a favorite
one with
rationalists
and
empiricists, of call-
we can make
We
may unworriedly
way of life is more rational than the Nazi way
And we may unworriedly try to make our way of life
even though we think that, since it is rational, it is
assert that
of
life.
prevail,
bound
our
to prevail.
We
side. They are rather pale and colorless, as gods go, but
have
the
they
got on well for quite a while with other gods
on our
They promise
but they
may
of Nietzsche
and
less,
the Supergod
the Nazis.
For
this
god
is
really effective
little
god
is
too new, a
little
made
Indeed,
it
was
of Christianity.
and the
rest
of
can be
men
made
the
together. Great
may
243
striv-
is
something abstractly, noisily
and
intellectual
about Nietzsche's work that
coldly
yes,
makes it almost unadaptable to the religious needs of ordinary
men.
absolute a
little
squirrel
running
commonplace, but
they come,
more
like a
Even
nothing earthy in
his
intellectual.
is
madness
The Supermen,
work
is
this scorner of
if
they come,
rest of history.
Until
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
There are already hundreds of books on Nietzsche, and probably
articles. Most writing about Nietzsche is in German
thousands of
modern languages
but
all
the
of Nietzsche,
I
and
is
minimum
NIETZSCHE'S
A.
WORKS
THE WRITINGS
Die Gcburt der Tragodie (The Birth
V nzeitge masse
of Tragedy), 1872.
Gotzendammerung (Twilight of
Der Antichrist (The Antichrist),
1887.
NIETZSCHE
248
Ecce
Homo,
The
1908.
titles above, published posthumously, are works designed as such by Nietzsche himself.
three last
book of
to
Power), 1909-1910.
is
that
as his great
work.
is
(Munich:
I, Jugendschriften, 1854-1861;
Jugendschrijten, 1861-1864; Vol. Ill, Schriften dcr Studentenund Militdrzeit, 1864-1866; Vol. IV, Schrijten der Studenten- und
most complete and
Militarzeit. Letztc Leipziger Zeit, 1866-1868.
Vol.
II,
scholarly edition.
But
at
present
it
work.
Nietzsche's Wer\e, 19 vols. (Leipzig: 1895-1913).
This is the so-called Grossoctavausgabe, edited by Nietzsche's
sister.
now
out of print.
Nietzsche,
A. Baeumler, 2
This
some
Reclam, 1931).
is
8 vols.
is
(London: 1909-1913).
It
especially
really
is
"complete" save
ex-
cellent.
*The Philosophy
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nietzsche's
Genealogy of
B.
249
writings
who wants
The
and
a direct acquaintance
CORRESPONDENCE
Nietzsche, Historisch-\ritische Gesamtausgabe: Briefe (Munich: C.
Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1938-).
H.
Of this only the following have appeared: Vol. I, Briefe der Schuler
und Banner Studentenzeit, 1850-1865-, Vol. II, Briefe der Leipziger
und ersten Easier Zeit, 1865-1869. This is in some ways more valuable
than the Wcrfy in the same edition, for a great deal of careful anno-
makes
tation
letters.
(Berlin
ings,
up
in
two
parts
to 1909.
This edition
is
the
work
of Nietzsche's
But
sister.
it
omits
It
certainly contains
many
proper names
many
scattered letters
above.
The
letters avail-
able in English.
La
vie
ct traduits
This
is
par Georges
Walz
more generous
is
available
in English.
NIETZSCHE
250
n
MAINLY BIOGRAPHICAL
*Andlcr, Charles, Nietzsche, sa vie et sa penstc, 6
1920-1931).
Vol. II, La jeunesse de Nietzsche and Vol. IV, La maturite de Nietzsche
jusqua sa mort are mainly biographical. This is the most scholarly
study of Nietzsche's life. It neglects no important evidence, and tries
to hold the balance between the Nietzschc-Archiv and BernoulliOverbeck. But it is frankly adulatory, the work of a very gentle
Nietzschean. Andlcr actually thinks Nietzsche was at heart a socialist!
Werfan, new
*Bernoulli, C. A.,
whole kept himself out of his book, content to put together material
Overbcck had accumulated. Overbeck was a sensible man, who liked
and admired Nietzsche, but who was aware of, and reported, traits
not brought out by Elizabeth. The publication of this book began
a most undignified feud, carried on in the best traditions of the
German learned world, between Elizabeth and Bernoulli. Elizabeth
got a court judgment suppressing from Vol. II of OverbecJ^ und
Nietzsche certain letters of Peter Cast's which the court decided
were her property, as Nietzsche's heir. These passages arc inked
over in most copies of this volume, but with patience the words can
be
made
that
that
mental and
physical balance.
Cohn,
P.,
pietistic
to-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*F6rster-Nietzsche, E.,
vici,
The Life
(London and
2 vols.
251
of 'Nietzsche, translated by A.
New
York: 1912-1915).
M. LudoI, The
Vol.
Young
This
straight hagiographical
Elizabeth had
writing.
all
of her brother's
Halvy,
by
J.
nowhere
translated
D.,
This
is
good
translation
of
else available.
life
of
Nietzsche, published in France in 1909. It is based largely on Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche's work, but put together with infinitely more
and
literary skill
as
is
pictured
anarchic society.
tact.
It is
heroic martyr
One
M.
Miigge,
tion
of the pleasantest
and
full
und
soberest of
French sentimentality.
seine
Wer\e (Munich:
German lives.
1913).
third edi-
(London: 1911).
matic.
is
It
Miigge's Life
Podach, E.
F.,
Nietzsches
mann, 1930).
French
L'Effondrement de Nietzsche
English translation,
New
The
ills.
ject
up
The Mad-
to 1930.
am Franz
Qverbcc\,
These
1897,
to
NIETZSCHE
252
III
MAINLY CRITICAL
A. NIETZSCHE'S IDEAS
*Andler, C., Nietzsche, sa vie
et sa pensie.
Le pessimisms
Vol.
Ill,
ideas.
enough, that he
is
mere
literary historian.
There
is
no doubt some
is
somewhat un-
is
politics.
it
make
work
of laspers,
it
of Nietzsche, but
gives glimpses of
it is
basically contrary to
tices.
Incidentally,
it
was published
in Zurich.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
En
253
lisant
Figgis*
men
of culture everywhere.
Figgis resists
Fischer,
nisses (Erfurt:
K. Steuger, 1931).
S.
Mittler
and
on Nietzsche,
of
W.
de Gruyter, 1936).
Jaspers, K., Nietzsche (Berlin and Leipzig:
One of the last, and most subtle and thorough studies of Nietzsche
German academic
the
in
Nietzscheanism.
on Nietzsche we
Joel, K.,
Romanti^
2te
1923).
Klages, L., Die Psychologischen Errungenschajten Nietzsches (Leipzig:
J.
A. Barth, 1926).
part in
Knight, A. H.
ticularly
J.,
of his
Aspects of the Wor\ of Nietzsche, and ParConnection with Gree\ Literature and Thought
Some
Press,
1933).
NIETZSCHE
254
(Paris: Garnicr
musique
Freres, 1919).
*Lichtenbergcr, H.,
French by
J.
the
For English-speaking students, this is the handiest form of Lichtenberger's La philosophic de Nietzsche, first published in French in
has the advantage of containing a later preface (1925) by the
Lichtenberger was one of the early French Nietzscheans, but
he remained a sensible and restrained one. He is less maudlin about
It
1898.
author.
the
Master's
Nietzsche
is
gentle
un
soul
homme
than Halevy or
Andler; but he
is
sure
de bonne volonte.
Mr. Mencken's
own
comfortable,
More, P.
E.,
Obenauer, K.
J.,
E. Diederichs, 1924).
Richter,
R.,
Friedrich
und
sein
Wer\,
y.t
(Stutt-
gart: 1897).
One of the best of the early critical expositions of Nietzsche's philosophy.
Rittelmeyer, Friedrich
Vier Vortrdge
(Ulm: 1904).
This
is
BIBLIOGRAPHY
255
Salter,
K., Nietzsche the Thinker: A Study (New York: 1917).
Thorough, conscientious exposition and defense of Nietzsche as a
gentleman and seer, written partly against the Anglo-American clamor
W.
War
of 1914.
und
ihre Gefahren
(Berlin: 1893).
An
W.
Wright,
The
H.,
writings,
B.
creator of Philo
1915).
analysis of Nietzsche's
book by book.
OTHER THINKERS
The whole
field of Nietzsche's Belesenheit, of his reading, his indebts to predecessors and contemporaries, is best covered
by Andler. The whole of Vol. I, Les precurseurs de Nietzsche, is a
meticulous, sometimes far-fetched, study of possible "influences" on
tellectual
Nietzsche.
The
intellectual debts.
course,
how
weakened by the
ideas breed.
One
Of
course
all
(Berlin: 1907).
the biographers of
is
*The Nietzsche-Wagner
Nietzsche,
translated
Correspondence, edited by
by Caroline V. Kerr (New
E.
Forster-
York:
Boni
Wagner and
her brother
NIETZSCHE
256
Griesser, L., Nietzsche
19*3)-
and "ideological"
rela-
tions.
Hildebrandt, K.,
German
Socialist use of
both of these
culture-heroes.
two "masters."
Lowith, K., Kierkegaard und Nietzsche (Frankfurt
termann, 1933).
Podach, E.
F.,
Gestalten
um
am
Main: V. Klos-
I93 2 )-
their
Simmel, G.,
1921).
IV
NIETZSCHE'S REPUTATION
AND INFLUENCE
A. GENERAL
It is too bad that the late Charles Andler, who knew more about
Nietzsche than any scholar ever has known, did not add a volume
on Le rayonnement des idees de Nietzsche. This most important
study of what
men
my
have had
is
to piece together
materials.
Benda,
(New
York:
W. Morrow,
1928).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nietzsche
is
of our time
257
for
who have
literary
men
"betrayed" us.
(Wurzburg: K.
Triltsch, 1933).
Vaihinger
Baeumler.
useful,
if
limited,
summary.
als
M.
P.,
translation,
De Nietzsche a
From
V or bate
als
der Gegenwart
(Diisseldorf:
Nietzsche
A warm
Nicolas
insists
More
Spenle,
J.
of Spengler.
E.,
CCLXXVI
la
France
ct 1'Alle-
(1937), 275.
Alas!
Stewart,
B.
Nazi movement.
NIETZSCHE
258
Abcrdam,
"Nietzsche et
S.,
le
me
3
CCLXXV
(1937), 225.
The old French Nietzschean tradition, always dear to the Mercure dc
France. Nietzsche was really doux, tendre> and the Nazis are
abusing his memory. Contains some useful material.
many
side-lights
on the
fascist
view of Nietzsche.
J.
F.
Lehmann,
1927).
Haertle,
Kirchner,
E.,
"Nietzsches Lehren
le
me
Reich,"
Le Temps
(Paris,
October 22,
1934)-
naturally
word
for
no
BIBLIOGRAPHY
259
Lonsbach, R. M., Nietzsche und die Juden (Stockholm: BermannFischer Verlag, 1939).
Lonsbach is a gentle Nietzschean, who maintains that Nietzsche meant
the nice things he said about the Jews, but that the bad things he said
about them must be worked into a higher synthesis. The book was
not published in Germany.
Review (London),
LXIV
and
logical"
"pre-Socratic" values,
H.
Mie'ville,
L., Nietzsche et la volonte de puissance, ou faventure
Nietzscheenne et le temps present (Lausanne: Payot, 1935).
rac
Mis, L., "Nietzsche et Stefan George, pr^curseurs dc 3
Reich,"
Revue d'histoire de la philosophic (Paris), nouvelle scrie, fascicule
Armanen- Verlag,
und
die deutsche
N. Kampmann,
Scheuffler,
G.,
Zu\unjt (Leipzig:
1935).
XX
Jahrhundert (Heidelberg:
1928).
Friedrich
(Erfurt:
E.
Scheufflcr, 1933).
little
INDEX
INDEX
Abcrdam, S., i98n
Adams, H., 140
Andler, C.,
14, 172,
Dehn,
188
2o8n
F.,
Deussen,
P., 20,
Dionysian, 39
Apollinian, 39
Ellis,
Ariadne, 70
Emerson, 81
Engadine, 51
Aristotle, 170
Auernheimer,
173
R.,
2ion
Erdmann,
207n
F.,
91, 161
I.,
Bachofen,
J.
J.,
Euripides, 39
27
Forster, B., 68
225
Basle, 27
Bayrcuth, 45, 46
Bergson, 95
73n
E., i97n
Bismarck, 126
Gobineau, 206
Bertram,
J.,
nn
Granier, R.,
Gutmann,
P.,
I93n
27, 31
Hartmann,
Carlyle, 80
Chamberlain, H.
S.,
206
E. von, 176
2o8n
Chase,
Haug,
Comte, 145
S., 132
Christianity attacked by Nietzsche, 97
O.,
Crocc, 95
Jaspers, K.,
Dante, 116
Joel, K.,
Darwin,
Johannes,
73n
i92n
M.
O., 20811
INDEX
264
Kant,
2o8n
Kennedy,
M., 191
J.
W.
Nietzsche, F.
153
Kasslcr, K.,
(cont.)
appearance, 21, 54
aristocratic aspirations,
Klingenbrunn, 47
Koran, 243
attack
classical
73>
29
on Christianity, 97
attack on democracy, 107
i?3
critic,
background, 77
161
Krug, G., 9n
education, 8, 14, 24
Eternal Recurrence, 76, 139
Lamarck,
27, 230
Levy, O., 191, 202
final insanity,
French
friendships, 31
Germany and
Mann,
Mark
F.,
ideas
ideas
181
ideas
127, 221
S.,
middle-class background, 6
Meysenbug, M. von,
J.
Germans, 114
196, 227
Mill,
the
H., 172
Twain, 81
Mehring,
69
finances, 50
in
81
musical
tastes,
13,
113
nationalist, 99
observer, 168
Napoleon, 133
Naumburg, 6
Nicolas, M. P., i93n
professors,
Nietzsche,
Elizabeth
Nietzsche),
in,
program,
(Frau
Forster-
177,
209
Nietzsche, F.
W.:
ambulance worker, 33
ancestry, 3
anti-anti-semitism, 230
publishers, 59
reformer, 168
to
own
modern
times, 142
anti-intellectu-
112
background,
78,
94
anti-rationalist, 84
relation
religious
151
anti-romanticist, 91,
31, 92
222
prophet, 237
relation to his
admirer of Renaissance,
anti-idealist, 87,
in
119,
161
INDEX
Nietzsche, F.
W.
265
(cont.):
socialism, 125
subject of doctoral theses,
Supermen,
transvaluation of
all
72n
values,
Ritschl, F., 18
136
Robespierre, 124
Rohde,
visits to Italy,
Romundt,
51
women,
Rousseau, 91
109
womenfolk, 7
173
H., 32, 34
Riitimeyer, L., 27
Spirit
of Music, The, 38
Salter,
De
Ecce
Homo,
Joyful
Schiller, 39
Too Human, 49
Wisdom, The, 60
All
Schopenhauer,
Shaw, G.
61,
220
131
B., 194,
198, 227
Sils-Maria, 51, 69
Socrates, 39, 83
209
Schulpforta, 10
M., 196
64, 65
Human,
W.
Spinoza, 90
Stirner, M., 227
Overbeck,
71
Tonnies,
Paine, T., 84, 228
F., 177
Treitschke, H. von, 191, 202, 206
Triebschen, 35
Turin, 51, 68
INDEX
266
Whitehead, 95
Wilamowitz, U. von, 42
Wright, W. H., 196
70, 78,
Zola, 92
Zoroaster, 61