Prophets of Dissent Part 4

(18) _Biologische Probleme, zugleich als Versuch einer rationellen Ethik._ Leipzig, 1882.

Now to a believer in progressive evolution with a strong ethical bent such a theory brings home man's ulterior responsibility for the betterment of life, and therefore acts as a call to his supreme duty of preparing the ground for the arrival of a higher order of beings. The argument seems simple and clinching. Living nature through a long file of species and genera has at last worked up to the _h.o.m.o sapiens_ who as yet does not even approach the perfection of his own type. Is it a legitimate ambition of the race to mark time on the stand which it has reached and to entrench itself impregnably in its present mediocrity?

Nietzsche did not shrink from any of the inferential conclusions logically to be drawn from the biologic argument. If growth is in the purpose of nature, then once we have accepted our chief office in life, it becomes our task to pave the way for a higher genus of man. And the only force that makes with directness for that object is the Will to Power. To foreshadow the resultant human type, Nietzsche resurrected from Goethe's vocabulary the convenient word _ubermensch_--"Overman."

Any one regarding existence in the light of a stern and perpetual combat is of necessity driven at last to the alternative between making the best of life and making an end of it; he must either seek lasting deliverance from the evil of living or endeavor to wrest from the world by any means at his command the greatest sum of its gratifications. It is serviceable to describe the two frames of mind respectively as the optimistic and the pessimistic. But it would perhaps be hasty to conclude that the first of these att.i.tudes necessarily betokens the greater strength of character.

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy sprang from pessimism, yet issued in an optimism of unheard-of exaltation; carrying, however, to the end its plainly visible birthmarks. He started out as an enthusiastic disciple of Arthur Schopenhauer; unquestionably the adherence was fixed by his own deep-seated contempt for the complacency of the plebs. But he was bound soon to part company with the grandmaster of pessimism, because he discovered the root of the philosophy of renunciation in that same detestable debility of the will which he deemed responsible for the bovine la.s.situde of the ma.s.ses; both pessimism and philistinism came from a lack of vitality, and were symptoms of racial degeneracy. But before Nietzsche finally rejected Schopenhauer and gave his shocking counterblast to the undermining action of pessimism, he succ.u.mbed temporarily to the spell of another gigantic personality. We are not concerned with Richard Wagner's musical influence upon Nietzsche, who was himself a musician of no mean ability; what is to the point here is the prime principle of Wagner's art theory. The key to the Wagnerian theory is found, also, in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Wagner starts from the pessimistic thesis that at the bottom of the well of life lies nothing but suffering,--hence living is utterly undesirable. In one of his letters to Franz Liszt he names as the duplex root of his creative genius the longing for love and the yearning for death. On another occasion, he confesses his own emotional nihilism in the following summary of _Tristan und Isolde_: "_Sehnsucht, Sehnsucht, unstillbares, ewig neu sich gebarendes Verlangen--Schmachten und Dursten; einzige Erlosung: Tod, Sterben, Untergehen,--Nichtmehrerwachen._"(19) But from the boundless ocean of sorrow there is a refuge. It was Wagner's fundamental dogma that through the illusions of art the individual is enabled to rise above the hopelessness of the realities into a new cosmos replete with supreme satisfactions. Man's mundane salvation therefore depends upon the ministrations of art and his own artistic sensitiveness. The glorification of genius is a natural corollary of such a belief.

(19) "Longing, longing, unquenchable desire, reproducing itself forever anew--thirst and drought; sole deliverance: death, dissolution, extinction,--and no awaking."

Nietzsche in one of his earliest works examines Wagner's theory and amplifies it by a rather casuistic interpretation of the evolution of art. After raising the question, How did the Greeks contrive to dignify and enn.o.ble their national existence? he points, by way of an ill.u.s.trative answer, not perchance to the Periclean era, but to a far more primitive epoch of h.e.l.lenic culture, when a total oblivion of the actual world and a transport into the realm of imagination was universally possible. He explains the trance as the effect of intoxication,--primarily in the current literal sense of the word. Such was the significance of the cult of Dionysos. "Through singing and dancing," claims Nietzsche, "man manifests himself as member of a higher community. Walking and talking he has unlearned, and is in a fair way to dance up into the air." That this supposit.i.tious Dionysiac phase of h.e.l.lenic culture was in turn succeeded by more rational stages, in which the impulsive flow of life was curbed and dammed in by operations of the intellect, is not permitted by Nietzsche to invalidate the argument. By his arbitrary reading of ancient history he was, at first, disposed to look to the forthcoming _Universal-Kunstwerk_(20) as the complete expression of a new religious spirit and as the adequate lever of a general uplift of mankind to a state of bliss. But the typical disparity between Wagner and Nietzsche was bound to alienate them. Wagner, despite all appearance to the contrary, is inherently democratic in his convictions,--his earlier political vicissitudes amply confirm this view,--and fastens his hope for the elevation of humanity through art upon the sort of genius in whom latent popular forces might combine to a new summit. Nietzsche on the other hand represents the extreme aristocratic type, both in respect of thought and of sentiment. "I do not wish to be confounded with and mistaken for these preachers of equality," says he. "For within _me_ justice saith: men are not equal."

His ideal is a hero of coercive personality, dwelling aloft in solitude, despotically bending the gregarious instincts of the common crowd to his own higher purposes by the dominating force of his Will to Might.

(20) Work of all arts.

The concept of the Overman rests, as has been shown, upon a fairly solid substructure of plausibility, since at the bottom of the author's reasoning lies the notion that mankind is destined to outgrow its current status; the thought of a humanity risen to new and wondrous heights of power over nature is not necessarily unscientific for being supremely imaginative. The Overman, however, cannot be produced ready made, by any instantaneous process; he must be slowly and persistently willed into being, through love of the new ideal which he is to embody: "All great Love," speaketh Zarathustra, "seeketh to create what it loveth. _Myself_ I sacrifice into my love, and _my neighbor_ as myself, thus runneth the speech of all creators." Only the fixed conjoint purpose of many generations of aspiring men will be able to create the Overman. "Could you create a G.o.d?--Then be silent concerning all G.o.ds!

But ye could very well create Beyond-man. Not yourselves perhaps, my brethren! But ye could create yourselves into fathers and fore-fathers of Beyond-man; and let this be your best creating. But all creators are hard."

Nietzsche's startlingly heterodox code of ethics coheres organically with the Overman hypothesis, and so understood is certain to lose some of its aspect of absurdity. The racial will, as we have seen, must be taught to aim at the Overman. But the volitional faculty of the generation, according to Nietzsche, is so debilitated as to be utterly inadequate to its office. Hence, advisedly to stimulate and strengthen the enfeebled will power of his fellow men is the most imperative and immediate task of the radical reformer. Once the power of willing, as such, shall have been,--regardless of the worthiness of its object,--brought back to active life, it will be feasible to give the Will to Might a direction towards objects of the highest moral grandeur.

Unfortunately for the race as a whole, the throng is ineligible for partnership in the auspicious scheme of co-operative procreation: which fact necessitates a segregative method of breeding. The Overman can only be evolved by an ancestry of master-men, who must be secured to the race by a rigid application of eugenic standards, particularly in the matter of mating. Of marriage, Nietzsche has this definition: "Marriage, so call I the will of two to create one who is more than they who created him." For the bracing of the weakened will-force of the human breed it is absolutely essential that master-men, the potential progenitors of the superman, be left unhampered to the impulse of "living themselves out" (_sich auszuleben_),--an opportunity of which under the regnant code of morals they are inconsiderately deprived. Since, then, existing dictates and conventions are a serious hindrance to the requisite autonomy of the master-man, their abolishment might be well. Yet on the other hand, it is convenient that the _Vielzuviele_, the "much-too-many," i. e. the despised generality of people, should continue to be governed and controlled by strict rules and regulations, so that the will of the master-folk might the more expeditiously be wrought. Would it not, then, be an efficacious compromise to keep the canon of morality in force for the general run, but suspend it for the special benefit of master-men, prospective or full-fledged? From the history of the race Nietzsche draws a warrant for the distinction. His contention is that masters and slaves have never lived up to a single code of conduct. Have not civilizations risen and fallen according as they were shaped by this or that cla.s.s of nations? History also teaches what disastrous consequences follow the loss of caste. In the case of the Jewish people, the domineering type or morals gave way to the servile as a result of the Babylonian captivity. So long as the Jews were strong, they extolled all manifestations of strength and energy.

The collapse of their own strength turned them into apologists of the so-called "virtues" of humility, long-suffering, forgiveness,--until, according to the Judaeo-Christian code of ethics, being good came to mean being weak. So races may justly be cla.s.sified into masters and slaves, and history proves that to the strong goes the empire. The ambitions of a nation are a sure criterion of its worth.

"I walk through these folk and keep mine eyes open. They have become _smaller_ and are becoming ever smaller. _And the reason of that is their doctrine of happiness and virtue._

For they are modest even in their virtue; for they are desirous of ease. But with ease only modest virtue is compatible.

True, in their fashion they learn how to stride and to stride forward. That I call their _hobbling_. Thereby they become an offense unto every one who is in a hurry.

And many a one strideth on and in doing so looketh backward, with a stiffened neck. I rejoice to run against the stomachs of such.

Foot and eyes shall not lie, nor reproach each other for lying. But there is much lying among small folk.

Some of them _will_, but most of them _are willed_ merely. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors.

There are unconscious actors among them, and involuntary actors. The genuine are always rare, especially genuine actors.

Here is little of man; therefore women try to make themselves manly.

For only he who is enough of a man will save the woman in woman.

And this hypocrisy I found to be worst among them, that even those who command feign the virtues of those who serve.

'I serve, thou servest, we serve.' Thus the hypocrisy of the rulers prayeth. And, alas, if the highest lord be merely the highest servant!

Alas! the curiosity of mine eye strayed even unto their hypocrisies, and well I divined all their fly-happiness and their humming round window panes in the sunshine.

So much kindness, so much weakness see I. So much justice and sympathy, so much weakness.

Round, honest, and kind are they towards each other, as grains of sand are round, honest, and kind unto grains of sand.

Modestly to embrace a small happiness--they call 'submission'! And therewith they modestly look sideways after a new small happiness.

At bottom they desire plainly one thing most of all: to be hurt by n.o.body. Thus they oblige all and do well unto them.

But this is _cowardice_; although it be called 'virtue.'

And if once they speak harshly, these small folk,--I hear therein merely their hoa.r.s.eness. For every draught of air maketh them hoa.r.s.e.

Prudent are they; their virtues have prudent fingers. But they are lacking in clenched fists; their fingers know not how to hide themselves behind fists.

For them virtue is what maketh modest and tame. Thereby they have made the wolf a dog and man himself man's best domestic animal.

'We put our chair in the midst'--thus saith their simpering unto me--'exactly as far from dying gladiators as from happy swine.'

This is mediocrity; although it be called moderation."(21)

(21) "Thus Spake Zarathustra," pp. 243-245.

The only law acknowledged by him who would be a master is the bidding of his own will. He makes short work of every other law. Whatever clogs the flight of his indomitable ambition must be ruthlessly swept aside.

Obviously, the enactment of this law that would render the individual supreme and absolute would strike the death-knell for all established forms and inst.i.tutions of the social body. But such is quite within Nietzsche's intention. They are noxious agencies, ingeniously devised for the enslavement of the will, and the most pernicious among them is the Christian religion, because of the alleged divine sanction conferred by it upon subserviency. Christianity would thwart the supreme will of nature by curbing that l.u.s.t for domination which the laws of nature as revealed by science sanction, nay prescribe. Nietzsche's ideas on this subject are loudly and over-loudly voiced in _Der Antichrist_ ("The Anti-Christ"), written in September 1888 as the first part of a planned treatise in four instalments, ent.i.tled _Der Wille zur Macht. Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte_. ("The Will to Power. An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values".)

The master-man's will, then, is his only law. That is the essence of _Herrenmoral_. And so the question arises, Whence shall the conscience of the ruler-man derive its distinctions between the Right and the Wrong? The arch-iconoclast brusquely stifles this nave query beforehand by a.s.suring us that such distinctions in their accepted sense do not exist for personages of that grander stamp. Heedless of the time-hallowed concepts that all men share in common, he enjoins mastermen to take their position uncompromisingly outside the confining area of conventions, in the moral independence that dwells "beyond good and evil." Good and Evil are mere denotations, devoid of any real significance. Right and Wrong are not ideals immutable through the ages, nor even the same at any time in all states of society. They are vague and general notions, varying more or less with the practical exigencies under which they were conceived. What was right for my great-grandfather is not _ipso facto_ right for myself. Hence, the older and better established a law, the more inapposite is it apt to be to the living demands. Why should the ruler-man bow down to outworn statutes or stultify his self-dependent moral sense before the artificial and stupidly uniform moral relics of the dead past? Good is whatever conduces to the increase of my power,--evil is whatever tends to diminish it! Only the weakling and the hypocrite will disagree.

Unmistakably this is a straightout application of the "pragmatic"

criterion of truth. Nietzsche's unconfessed and cautious imitators, who call themselves pragmatists, are not bold enough to follow their own logic from the cognitive sphere to the moral. They stop short of the natural conclusion to which their own premises lead. Morality is necessarily predicated upon specific notions of truth. So if Truth is an alterable and shifting concept, must not morality likewise be variable?

The pragmatist might just as well come out at once into the broad light and frankly say: "Laws do not interest me in the abstract, or for the sake of their general beneficence; they interest me only in so far as they affect me. Therefore I will make, interpret, and abolish them to suit myself."

To Nietzsche the "quest of truth" is a palpable evasion. Truth is merely a means for the enhancement of my subjective satisfaction. It makes not a whit of difference whether an opinion or a judgment satisfies this or that scholastic definition. I call true and good that which furthers my welfare and intensifies my joy in living; and,--to vindicate my self-gratification as a form, indeed the highest, of "social service,"--the desirable thing is that which matters for the improvement of the human stock and thereby speeds the advent of the Superman. "Oh,"

exclaims Zarathustra, "that ye would understand my word: Be sure to do whatever ye like,--but first of all be such as _can will_! Be sure to love your neighbor as yourself,--but first of all be such as _love themselves_,--as love themselves with great love, with contempt. Thus speaketh Zarathustra, the unG.o.dly."

By way of throwing some light upon this phase of Nietzsche's moral philosophy, it may be added that ever since 1876 he was an a.s.siduous student of Herbert Spencer, with whose theory of social evolution he was first made acquainted by his friend, Paul Ree, who in two works of his own, "Psychologic Observations," (1875), and "On the Origin of Moral Sentiments," (1877), had elaborated upon the Spencerian theory about the genealogy of morals.

The best known among all of Nietzsche's works, _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ ("Thus Spake Zarathustra"), is the Magna Charta of the new moral emanc.i.p.ation. It was composed during a sojourn in southern climes between 1883 and 1885, during the convalescence from a nervous collapse, when after a long and critical depression his spirit was recovering its accustomed resilience. Nietzsche wrote his _magnum opus_ in solitude, in the mountains and by the sea. His mind always was at its best in settings of vast proportions, and in this particular work there breathes an exaltation that has scarcely its equal in the world's literature.

Style and diction in their supreme elation suit the lofty fervor of the sentiment. From the feelings, as a fact, this great rhapsody flows, and to the feelings it makes its appeal; its extreme fascination must be lost upon those who only know how to "listen to reason." The wondrous plastic beauty of the language, along with the high emotional pitch of its message, render "Zarathustra" a priceless poetic monument; indeed its practical effect in chastening and rejuvenating German literary diction can hardly be overestimated. Its value as a philosophic doc.u.ment is much slighter. It is not even organized on severely logical lines. On the contrary, the four component parts are but brilliant variations upon a single generic theme, each in a different clef, but harmoniously united by the incremental ecstasy of the movement. The composition is free from monotony, for down to each separate aphorism every part of it has its special lyric nuance. The whole purports to convey in the form of discourse the prophetic message of Zarathustra, the hermit sage, an idealized self-portrayal of the author.

In the first book the tone is calm and temperate. Zarathustra exhorts and instructs his disciples, rails at his adversaries, and discloses his superiority over them. In the soliloquies and dialogues of the second book he reveals himself more fully and freely as the Superman. The third book contains the meditations and rhapsodies of Zarathustra now dwelling wholly apart from men, his mind solely occupied with thought about the Eternal Return of the Present. In the fourth book he is found in the company of a few chosen spirits whom he seeks to imbue with his perfected doctrine. In this final section of the work the deep lyric current is already on the ebb; it is largely supplanted by irony, satire, sarcasm, even buffoonery, all of which are resorted to for the pitiless excoriation of our type of humanity, deemed decrepit by the Sage. The author's intention to present in a concluding fifth division the dying Zarathustra p.r.o.nouncing his benedictions upon life in the act of quitting it was not to bear fruit.

"Zarathustra"--Nietzsche's terrific a.s.sault upon the fortifications of our social structure--is too easily mistaken by facile cavilers for the ravings of an unsound and desperate mind. To a narrow and superficial reading, it exhibits itself as a wholesale repudiation of all moral responsibility and a maniacal attempt to subvert human civilization for the exclusive benefit of the "glorious blonde brute, rampant with greed for victory and spoil." Yet those who care to look more deeply will detect beneath this chimerical contempt of conventional regulations no want of a highminded philanthropic purpose, provided they have the vision necessary to comprehend a love of man oriented by such extremely distant perspectives. At all events they will discover that in this rebellious propaganda an advancing line of life is firmly traced out.

The indolent and thoughtless may indeed be horrified by the appalling dangers of the gospel according to Zarathustra. But in reality there is no great cause for alarm. Society may amply rely upon its agencies, even in these stupendous times of universal war, for protection from any disastrous organic dislocations incited by the teachings of Zarathustra, at least so far as the immediate future is concerned--in which alone society appears to be interested. Moreover, our apprehensions are appeased by the sober reflection that by its plain unfeasibleness the whole supersocial scheme of Nietzsche is reduced to colossal absurdity.

Its limitless audacity defeats any formulation of its "war aims." For what compels an ambitious imagination to arrest itself at the goal of the superman? Why should it not run on beyond that first terminal? In one of Mr. G. K. Chesterton's labored extravaganzas a grotesque sort of super-overman _in spe_ succeeds in going beyond unreason when he contrives this lucid self-definition: "I have gone where G.o.d has never dared to go. I am above the silly supermen as they are above mere men.

Where I walk in the Heavens, no man has walked before me, and I am alone in a garden." It is enough to make one gasp and then perhaps luckily recall Goethe's consoling thought that under the care of Providence the trees will not grow into the heavens. ("_Es ist dafur gesorgt, da.s.s die Baume nicht in den Himmel wachsen._") As matter of fact, the ideas promulgated in _Also Sprach Zarathustra_ need inspire no fear of their winning the human race from its venerable idols, despite the fact that the pull of natural laws and of elemental appet.i.tes seems to be on their side. The only effect to be expected of such a philosophy is that it will act as an antidote for moral inertia which inevitably goes with the flock-instinct and the lazy reliance on the accustomed order of things.

Nietzsche's ethics are not easy to valuate, since none of their standards are derived from the orthodox canon. His being a truly personalized form of morality, his principles are strictly cognate to his temperament. To his professed ideals there attaches a definite theory of society. And since his philosophy is consistent in its sincerity, its message is withheld from the man-in-the-street, deemed unworthy of notice, and delivered only to the _elite_ that shall beget the superman. To Nietzsche the good of the greatest number is no valid consideration. The great stupid ma.s.s exists only for the sake of an oligarchy by whom it is duly exploited under nature's decree that the strong shall prey upon the weak. Let, then, this favored set further the design of nature by systematically encouraging the elevation of their own type.