No More Learning

In this discourse we get the best exposition in the
whole book of Nietzsche's doctrine of the Will to
Power. I go into this question thoroughly in the
Note on Chap. LVII.
Nietzsche was not an iconoclast from choice.
Those who hastily class him with the anarchists (or
the Progressivists of the last century) fail to under-
stand the high esteem in which he always held
both law and discipline. In verse 41 of this most
decisive discourse he truly explains his position when
he says: ". . . he who hath to be a creator in
good and evil—verily he hath first to be a destroyer,
and break values in pieces. " This teaching in regard
to self-control is evidence enough of his reverence
for law.


## p. 419 (#637) ############################################

NOTES. 419
These belong to a type which Nietzsche did not Chapter
altogether dislike, but which he would fain have XXXV.
rendered more subtle and plastic. It is the type The Sublime
that takes life and itself too seriously, that never
surmounts the camel-stage mentioned in the first
discourse, and that is obdurately sublime and earnest.
To be able to smile while speaking of lofty things
and not to be oppressed by them, is the secret of real
greatness. He whose hand trembles when it lays
hold of a beautiful thing, has the quality of reverence,
without the artist's unembarrassed friendship with
the beautiful. Hence the mistakes which have arisen
in regard to confounding Nietzsche with his extreme
opposites the anarchists and agitators. For what
they dare to touch and break with the impudence
and irreverence of the unappreciative, he seems like-
wise to touch and break,—but with other fingers—
with the fingers of the loving and unembarrassed artist
who is on good terms with the beautiful and who feels
able to create it and to enhance it with his touch.
The question of taste plays an important part in
Nietzsche's philosophy, and verses 9, 10 of this
discourse exactly state Nietzsche's ultimate views on
the subject. In the " Spirit of Heaviness," he actually
cries:—" Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my
taste, of which I have no longer either shame or
secrecy. "
This is a poetical epitome of some of the scathing Chapter
criticism of scholars which appears in the first of the XXXVI.
"Thoughts out of Season"—the polemical pamphlet The Land of
(written in 1873) against David Strauss and his school.
He reproaches his former colleagues with being sterile
and shows them that their sterility is the result of
their not believing in anything. "He who had to
create, had always his presaging dreams and astral


## p. 420 (#638) ############################################

420
APPENDIX.
Chapter
XXXVII.
Immaculate
Perception.
Chapter
XXXVIII.
Scholars.
premonitions—and believed in believing! " (See
Note on Chap. LXXVII. ) In the last two verses he
reveals the nature of his altruism. How far it differs
from that of Christianity we have already read in the
discourse "Neighbour-Love," but here he tells us
definitely the nature of his love to mankind; he
explains why he was compelled to assail the Christian
values of pity and excessive love of the neighbour,
not only because they are slave-values and therefore
tend to promote degeneration (see Note B. ), but
because he could only love his children's land, the
undiscovered land in a remote sea; because he
would fain retrieve the errors of his fathers in his
children.
An important feature of Nietzsche's interpretation
of Life is disclosed in this discourse. As Buckle
suggests in his " Influence of Women on the Progress
of Knowledge," the scientific spirit of the investigator
is both helped and supplemented by the latter's
emotions and personality, and the divorce of all
emotionalism and individual temperament from
science is a fatal step towards sterility. Zarathustra
abjures all those who would fain turn an impersonal
eye upon nature and contemplate her phenomena
with that pure objectivity to which the scientific
idealists of to-day would so much like to attain. He
accuses such idealists of hypocrisy and guile; he says
they lack innocence in their desires and therefore
slander all desiring.
This is a record of Nietzsche's final breach with his
former colleagues—the scholars of Germany. Already
after the publication of the "Birth of Tragedy,"
numbers of German philologists and professional
philosophers had denounced him as one who had
strayed too far from their flock, and his lectures at


## p. 421 (#639) ############################################

NOTES. 421
the University of Bile were deserted in consequence;
but it was not until 1879, when he finally severed all
connection with University work, that he may be
said to have attained to the freedom and independ-
ence which stamp this discourse.
People have sometimes said that Nietzsche had no Chapter
sense of humour. I have no intention of defending XXXIX.
him here against such foolish critics; I should only Poels-
like to point out to the reader that we have him
here at his best, poking fun at himself, and at his
fellow-poets (see Note on Chap. LXIII. , pars. 16,
17, 18, 19, 20).
Here we seem to have a puzzle. Zarathustra him- Chapter XL.
self, while relating his experience with the fire-dog Great Events.
to his disciples, fails to get them interested in his
narrative, and we also may be only too ready to turn
over these pages under the impression that they are
little more than a mere phantasy or poetical flight.
Zarathustra's interview with the fire-dog is, however,
of great importance. In it we find Nietzsche face to
face with the creature he most sincerely loathes—
the spirit of revolution, and we obtain fresh hints
concerning his hatred of the anarchist and rebel.
"' Freedom' ye all roar most eagerly," he says to
the fire-dog, "but I have unlearned the belief in
'Great Events' when there is much roaring and
smoke about them. Not around the inventors of
new noise, but around the inventors of new values,
doth the world revolve; inaudibly it revolveth. "
This refers, of course, to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche, Chapter XLI.
as is well known, was at one time an ardent follower The Sooth-
of Schopenhauer. He overcame Pessimism by sa)'er-
discovering an object in existence; he saw the
possibility of raising society to a higher level and
preached the profoundest Optimism in consequence.
/"


## p. 422 (#640) ############################################

422
APPENDIX.
Chapter
XLII.
Redemption.
Chapter
XLIII.
Manly
Irudence.
Zarathustra here addresses cripples. He telli
them of other cripples—the great men in this world
who have one organ or faculty inordinately developed
at the cost of their other faculties. This is doubtless
a reference to a fact which is too often noticeable in
the case of so many of the world's giants in art,
science, or religion. In verse 19 we are told what
Nietzsche called Redemption—that is to say, the
ability to say of all that is past: "Thus would I
have it. " The inability to say this, and the resent-
ment which results therefrom, he regards as the
source of all our feelings of revenge, and all our
desires to punish—punishment meaning to him
merely a euphemism for the word revenge, invented
in order to still our consciences. He who can be
proud of his enemies, who can be grateful to them
for the obstacles they have put in his way; he who
can regard his worst calamity as but the extra strain
on the bow of his life, which is to send the arrow of
his longing even further than he could have hoped :—
this man knows no revenge, neither does he know
despair, he truly has found redemption and can turn
on the worst in his life and even in himself, and call
it his best (see Notes on Chap. LVII. ).
This discourse is very important. In "Beyond
Good and Evil" we hear often enough that the seleci
and superior man must wear a mask, and here we find
this injunction explained. "And he who would not
languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all
glasses: and he who would keep clean amongst men,
must know how to wash himself even with dirty water,"
This, I venture to suggest, requires some explanation.
At a time when individuality is supposed to be shown
most tellingly by putting boots on one's hands and
gloves on one's feet, it is somewhat refreshing to come
"


## p. 423 (#641) ############################################

NOTES. 423
across a true individualist who feels the chasm between
himself and others so deeply, that he must per-
force adapt himself to them outwardly, at least, in
all respects, so that the inner difference should be
overlooked. Nietzsche practically tells us here that it
is not he who intentionally wears eccentric clothes or
does eccentric things who is truly the individualist.
The profound man, who is by nature differentiated
from his fellows, feels this difference too keenly to call
attention to it by any outward show. He is shamefast
and bashful with those who surround him and wishes
not to be discovered by them, just as one instinctively
avoids all lavish display of comfort or wealth in the
presence of a poor friend.
This seems to me to give an account of the great Chapter
struggle which must have taken place in Nietzsche's XLIV.
soul before he finally resolved to make known the ™e Stlllest
more esoteric portions of his teaching. Our deepest
feelings crave silence. There is a certain self-respect
in the serious man which makes him hold his pro-
foundest feelings sacred. Before they are uttered they
are full of the modesty of a virgin, and often the
oldest sage will blush like a girl when this virginity is
violated by an indiscretion which forces him to reveal
his deepest thoughts.
This is perhaps the most important of all the four PART III.
parts. If it contained only "The Vision and the
Enigma" and "The Old and New Tables" I should
still be of this opinion; for in the former of these
discourses we meet with what Nietzsche regarded as
the crowning doctrine of his philosophy and in "The
Old and New Tables " we have a valuable epitome of
practically all his leading principles.


## p. 424 (#642) ############################################

424
APPENDIX.
Chapter
XLVI.
The Vision
and the
Enigma.
"The Vision and the Enigma" is perhaps an
example of Nietzsche in his most obscure vein. We
must know how persistently he inveighed against the
oppressing and depressing influence of man's sense of
guilt and consciousness of sin in order fully to grasp
the significance of this discourse. Slowly but surely,
he thought the values of Christianity and Judaic
traditions had done their work in the minds of men.
What were once but expedients devised for the
discipline of a certain portion of humanity, had now
passed into man's blood and had become instincts.
This oppressive and paralysing sense of guilt and of
sin is what Nietzsche refers to when he speaks of " the
spirit of heaviness. " This creature half-dwarf, half-
mole, whom he bears with him a certain distance on
his climb and finally defies, and whom he calls his
devil and arch-enemy, is nothing more than the heavy
millstone "guilty conscience," together with the con-
cept of sin which at present hang^ round the neck of
men. To rise above it—to soar—is the most difficult
of all things to-day. Nietzsche is able to think cheer-
fully and optimistically of the possibility of life in this
world recurring again and again, when he has once cast
the dwarf from his shoulders, and he announces his
doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence of all things great
and small to his arch-enemy and in defiance of him.
That there is much to be said for Nietzsche's
hypothesis of the Eternal Recurrence of all things
great and small, nobody who has read the literature
on the subject will doubt for an instant; but it
remains a very daring conjecture notwithstanding and
even in its ultimate effect, as a dogma, on the minds
of men, I venture to doubt whether Nietzsche ever
properly estimated its worth (see Note on Chap.
LVIL).


## p. 425 (#643) ############################################

NOTES. 425
What follows is clear enough. Zarathustra sees a
young shepherd struggling on the ground with a
snake holding fast to the back of his throat. The
sage, assuming that the snake must have crawled into
the young man's mouth while he lay sleeping, runs
to his help and pulls at the loathsome reptile with all
his might, but in vain. At last, in despair, Zarathustra
appeals to the young man's will. Knowing full well
what a ghastly operation he is recommending, he
nevertheless cries, "Bite! Bite! Its head off! Bite! "
as the only possible solution of the difficulty. The
young shepherd bites, and far away he spits the
snake's head, whereupon he rises, "No longer shep-
herd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-
surrounded being, that laughed! Never on earth
laughed a man as he laughed! "
In this parable the young shepherd is obviously the
man of to-day; the snake that chokes him represents
the stultifying and paralysing social values that threaten
to shatter humanity, and the advice "Bite! Bite! "
is but Nietzsche's exasperated cry to mankind to alter
their values before it is too late.
This, like "The Wanderer," is one of the many Chapter
introspective passages in the work, and is full of XLVII.
innuendos and hints as to the Nietzschean outlook Invo,untary
,. , Bliss,
on life.
Here we have a record of Zarathustra's avowal of Chapter
optimism, as also the important statement concerning XLVIII.
"Chance" or "Accident" (verse 27). Those who Befo^e
are familiar with Nietzsche's philosophy will not'
require to be told what an important role his doctrine
of chance plays in his teaching. The Giant Chance
has hitherto played with the puppet "man,"—this is
the fact he cannot contemplate with equanimity.
Man shall now exploit chance, he says again and


## p. 426 (#644) ############################################

426 APPENDIX.
ing Virtue.
again, and make it fall on its knees before him!
(see verse a in "On the Olive Mount," and verses
9-10 in "The Bed warring Virtue").
Chapter This requires scarcely any comment. It is a satire
XLIX. on modern man and his belittling virtues. In verses
23 and 24 of the second part of the discourse we are
reminded of Nietzsche's powerful indictment of the
great of to-day, in the Antichrist (Aphorism 43):—
"At present nobody has any longer the courage for
separate rights, for rights of domination, for a feeling
of reverence for himself and his equals,—-for pathos of
distance. . . . Our politics are morbid from this want
of courage! —The aristocracy of character has been
undermined most craftily by the lie of the equality
of souls; and if the belief in the 'privilege of the
many,' makes revolutions and will continue to make
them, it is Christianity, let us not doubt it, it is
Christian valuations, which translate every revolution
merely into blood and crime! " (see also "Beyond
Good and Evil," pp. 120, 121). Nietzsche thought
it was a bad sign of the times that even rulers have
lost the courage of their positions, and that a man of
Frederick the Great's power and distinguished gifts
should have been able to say: "Ich bin der erste
Diener des Staates" (I am the first servant of the
State). To this utterance of the great sovereign, verse
24 undoubtedly refers. "Cowardice" and "Medio-
crity," are the names with which he labels modern
notions of virtue and moderation.
In Part III. , we get the sentiments of the discourse
"In the Happy Isles," but perhaps in stronger terms.
Once again we find Nietzsche thoroughly at ease, if
not cheerful, as an atheist, and speaking with ver-
tiginous daring of making chance go on its knees to
him. In verse 20, Zarathustra makes yet another


## p. 427 (#645) ############################################

NOTES. 427
attempt at defining his entirely anti-anarchical attitude,
and unless such passages have been completely over-
looked or deliberately ignored hitherto by those who
will persist in laying anarchy at his door, it is im-
possible to understand how he ever became associated
with that foul political party.
The last verse introduces the expression, "the great
noontide! " In the poem to be found at the end of
"Beyond Good and Evil," we meet with the expres-
sion again, and we shall find it occurring time and
again in Nietzsche's works. It will be found fully
elucidated in the fifth part of " The Twilight of the
Idols "; but for those who cannot refer to this book,
it were well to point out that Nietzsche called the
present period—our period—the noon of man's history.
Dawn is behind us. The childhood of mankind is
over. Now we know; there is now no longer any
excuse for mistakes which will tend to botch and
disfigure the type man. "With respect to what is
past," he says, "I have, like all discerning ones, great
toleration, that is to say, generous self-control. . . .
But my feeling changes suddenly, and breaks out as
soon as I enter the modern period, our period. Our
age knows. . . . " (see Note on Chap. LXX. ).
Here we find Nietzsche confronted with his Chapter LI.
extreme opposite, with him therefore for whom he Pn Pass'
is most frequently mistaken by the unwary. "Zara-lng" y'
thustra's ape" he is called in the discourse. He is
one of those at whose hands Nietzsche had to suffer
most during his life-time, and at whose hands his
philosophy has suffered most since his death. In
this respect it may seem a little trivial to speak of
extremes meeting; but it is wonderfully apt. Many
have adopted Nietzsche's mannerisms and word-
coinages, who had nothing in common with him


## p. 428 (#646) ############################################

428 APPENDIX.
beyond the ideas and "business" they plagiarised;
but the superficial observer ayid a large portion of the
public, not knowing of these things,—not knowing
perhaps that there are iconoclasts who destroy out
of love and are therefore creators, and that there are
others who destroy out of resentment and revenge-
fulness and who are therefore revolutionists and
anarchists,—are prone to confound the two, to the
detriment of the nobler type.
If we now read what the fool says to Zarathustra,
and note the tricks of speech he has borrowed from
him: if we carefully follow the attitude he assumes,
we shall understand why Zarathustra finally interrupts
him. "Stop this at once," Zarathustra cries, "long
have thy speech and thy species disgusted me. . . .
Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning
bird take wing; but not out of the swamp! " It
were well if this discourse were taken to heart by
all those who are too ready to associate Nietzsche
with lesser and noisier men,—with mountebanks and
mummers.
Chapter LII. It is clear that this applies to all those breathless
The and hasty "tasters of everything," who plunge too
Apostates. rashly into the sea of independent thought and
"heresy," and who, having miscalculated their
strength, find it impossible to keep their head above
water. "A little older, a little colder," says Nietzsche.
They soon clamber back to the conventions of the
age they intended reforming. The French then say,
"te diable se fait hennite" but these men, as a rule,
have never been devils, neither do they become
angels; for, in order to be really good or evil, some
strength and deep breathing is required. Those who
are more interested in supporting orthodoxy than in
being over nice concerning the kind of support they


## p. 429 (#647) ############################################

NOTES. 429
give it, often refer to these people as evidence in
favour of the true faith.
This is an example of a class of writing which may Chapter LIII.
be passed over too lightly by those whom poetasters The Return
have made distrustful of poetry. From first to last Home*
it is extremely valuable as an autobiographical note.
The inevitable superficiality of the rabble is con-
trasted with the peaceful and profound depths of the ,
anchorite. Here we first get a direct hint concern-
ing Nietzsche's fundamental passion—the main force
behind all his new values and scathing criticism of
existing values. In verse 30 we are told that pity
was his greatest danger. The broad altruism of the
law-giver, thinking over vast eras of time, was con-
tinually being pitted by Nietzsche, in himself,
against that transient and meaner sympathy for the
neighbour which he more perhaps than any of his con-
temporaries had suffered from, but which he was certain
involved enormous dangers not only for himself but
also to the next and subsequent generations (see Note
B. , where "pity " is mentioned among the degenerate
virtues). Later in the book we shall see how his
profound compassion leads him into temptation, and
how frantically he struggles against it. In verses 31
and 32, he tells us to what extent he had to modify
himself in order to be endured by his fellows whom
he loved (see also verse 12 in "Manly Prudence").
Nietzsche's great love for his fellows, which he
confesses in the Prologue, and which is at the root
of all his teaching, seems rather to elude the discerning
powers of the average philanthropist and modern
man. He cannot see the wood for the trees. A
philanthropy that sacrifices the minority of the
present-day for the majority constituting posterity,
completely evades his mental grasp, and Nietzsche's


## p. 429 (#648) ############################################

428 APPENDIX.
beyond the ideas and "business" they plagiarised;
but the superficial observer and a large portion of the
public, not knowing of these things,—not knowing
perhaps that there are iconoclasts who destroy out
of love and are therefore creators, and that there are
others who destroy out of resentment and revenge-
fulness and who are therefore revolutionists and
anarchists,—are prone to confound the two, to the
detriment of the nobler type.
If we now read what the fool says to Zarathustra,
and note the tricks of speech he has borrowed from
him: if we carefully follow the attitude he assumes,
we shall understand why Zarathustra finally interrupts
him. "Stop this at once," Zarathustra cries, "long
have thy speech and thy species disgusted me. . . .
Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning
bird take wing; but not out of the swamp 1" It
were well if this discourse were taken to heart by
all those who are too ready to associate Nietzsche
with lesser and noisier men,—with mountebanks and
mummers.
Chapter I. II. It is clear that this applies to all those breathless
The and hasty "tasters of everything," who plunge too
Apostates. rashly into the sea of independent thought and
"heresy," and who, having miscalculated their
strength, find it impossible to keep their head above
water. "A little older, a little colder," says Nietzsche.
They soon clamber back to the conventions of the
age they intended reforming. The French then say,
"/<; diabk se fait hermite" but these men, as a rule,
have never been devils, neither do they become
angels; for, in order to be really good or evil, some
strength and deep breathing is required. Those who
are more interested in supporting orthodoxy than in
being over nice concerning the kind of support they
r
\


## p. 429 (#649) ############################################

NOTES. 429
give it, often refer to these people as evidence in
favour of the true faith.
This is an example of a class of writing which may Chapter LIU.
be passed over too lightly by those whom poetasters The Return
have made distrustful of poetry. From first to last HomCi
it is extremely valuable as an autobiographical note.
The inevitable superficiality of the rabble is con-
trasted with the peaceful and profound depths of the ,
anchorite. Here we first get a direct hint concern-
ing Nietzsche's fundamental passion—the main force
behind all his new values and scathing criticism of
existing values. In verse 30 we are told that pity
was his greatest danger. The broad altruism of the
law-giver, thinking over vast eras of time, was con-
tinually being pitted by Nietzsche, in himself,
against that transient and meaner sympathy for the
neighbour which he more perhaps than any of his con-
temporaries had suffered from, but which he was certain
involved enormous dangers not only for himself but
also to the next and subsequent generations (see Note
B. , where "pity " is mentioned among the degenerate
virtues). Later in the book we shall see how his
profound compassion leads him into temptation, and
how frantically he struggles against it. In verses 31
and 32, he tells us to what extent he had to modify
himself in order to be endured by his fellows whom
he loved (see also verse 12 in "Manly Prudence").
Nietzsche's great love for his fellows, which he
confesses in the Prologue, and which is at the root
of all his teaching, seems rather to elude the discerning
powers of the average philanthropist and modern
man. He cannot see the wood for the trees. A
philanthropy that sacrifices the minority of the
present-day for the majority constituting posterity,
completely evades his mental grasp, and Nietzsche's


## p. 430 (#650) ############################################

430
APPENDIX.
philosophy, because it declares Christian values to
be a danger to the future of our kind, is therefore
shelved as brutal, cold, and hard (see Note on
Chap. XXXVI. ). Nietzsche tried to be all things to
all men; he was sufficiently fond of his fellows for
that: in the Return Home he describes how he
ultimately returns to loneliness in order to recover
from the effects of his experiment.
Chapter LIV. Nietzsche is here completely in his element. Three
The Three things hitherto best-cursed and most calumniated on
Evil Things. eartn, are brought forward to be weighed. Voluptuous-
ness, thirst of power, and selfishness,—the three forces
in humanity which Christianity has done most to
garble and besmirch,—Nietzsche endeavours to rein-
state in their former places of honour. Voluptuous-
ness, or sensual pleasure, is a dangerous thing to discuss
nowadays. If we mention it with favour we may be
regarded, however unjustly, as the advocate of savages,
satyrs, and pure sensuality. If we condemn it, we
either go over to the Puritans or we join those who are
wont to come to table with no edge to their appetites
and who therefore grumble at all good fare. There
can be no doubt that the value of healthy innocent
voluptuousness, like the value of health itself, must
have been greatly discounted by all those who, resent-
ing their inability to partake of this world's goods,
cried like St Paul: "I would that all men were even
as I myself. " Now Nietzsche's philosophy might be
called an attempt at giving back to healthy and
normal men innocence and a clean conscience in
their desires—not to applaud the vulgar sensualists
who respond to every stimulus and whose passions
are out of hand; not to tell the mean, selfish individual,
whose selfishness is a pollution (see Aphorism 33,
"Twilight of the Idols"), that he is right, nor to assure


## p. 431 (#651) ############################################

NOTES. 431
the weak, the sick, and the crippled, that the thirst of
power, which they gratify by exploiting the happier
and healthier individuals, is justified;—but to save
the clean healthy man from the values of those around
him, who look at everything through the mud that is
in their own bodies,—to give him, and him alone, a
clean conscience in his manhood and the desires
of his manhood. "Do I counsel you to slay your
instincts? I counsel to innocence in your instincts. "
In verse 7 of the second paragraph (as in verse 1 of
par. 19 in "The Old and New Tables") Nietzsche
gives us a reason for his occasional obscurity (see also
verses 3 to 7 of " Poets "). As I have already pointed
out, his philosophy is quite esoteric. It can serve
no purpose with the ordinary, mediocre type of man.
I, personally, can no longer have any doubt that
Nietzsche's only object, in that part of his philosophy
where he bids his friends stand " Beyond Good and
Evil" with him, was to save higher men, whose growth
and scope might be limited by the too strict observance
of modern values from foundering on the rocks of a
"Compromise" between their own genius and tradi-
tional conventions. The only possible way in which
the great man can achieve greatness is by means of
exceptional freedom—the freedom which assists him
in experiencing himself. Verses 20 to 30 afford an
excellent supplement to Nietzsche's description of the
attitude of the noble type towards the slaves in
Aphorism 260 of the work " Beyond Good and Evil"
(see also Note B. in Foreword).
(See Note on Chap. XLVI. ) In Part II. of this Chapter LV.
discourse we meet with a doctrine not touched upon The Spirit of
hitherto, save indirectly;—I refer to the doctrine of Gravity.
self-love. We should try to understand this perfectly
before proceeding; for it is precisely views of this


## p. 431 (#652) ############################################

430 APPENDIX.
philosophy, because it declares Christian values to
be a danger to the future of our kind, is therefore
shelved as brutal, cold, and hard (see Note on
Chap. XXXVI. ). Nietzsche tried to be all things to
all men; he was sufficiently fond of his fellows for
that: in the Return Home he describes how he
ultimately returns to loneliness in order to recover
from the effects of his experiment.
Chapter LIV. Nietzsche is here completely in his element. Three
The Three things hitherto best-cursed and most calumniated on
Evil Things. earth, are brought forward to be weighed. Voluptuous-
ness, thirst of power, and selfishness,—the three forces
in humanity which Christianity has done most to
garble and besmirch,—Nietzsche endeavours to rein-
state in their former places of honour. Voluptuous-
ness, or sensual pleasure, is a dangerous thing to discuss
nowadays. If we mention it with favour we may be
regarded, however unjustly, as the advocate of savages,
satyrs, and pure sensuality. If we condemn it, we
either go over to the Puritans or we join those who are
wont to come to table with no edge to their appetites
and who therefore grumble at all good fare. There
can be no doubt that the value of healthy innocent
voluptuousness, like the value of health itself, must
have been greatly discounted by all those who, resent-
ing their inability to partake of this world's goods,
cried like St Paul: "I would that all men were even
as I myself. " Now Nietzsche's philosophy might be
called an attempt at giving back to healthy and
normal men innocence and a clean conscience in
their desires—not to applaud the vulgar sensualists
who respond to every stimulus and whose passions
are out of hand; not to tell the mean, selfish individual,
whose selfishness is a pollution (see Aphorism 33,
"Twilight of the Idols"), that he is right, nor to assure


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NOTES. 431
the weak, the sick, and the crippled, that the thirst of
power, which they gratify by exploiting the happier
and healthier individuals, is justified;—but to save
the clean healthy man from the values of those around
him, who look at everything through the mud that is
in their own bodies,—to give him, and him alone, a
clean conscience in his manhood and the desires
of his manhood. "Do I counsel you to slay your
instincts? I counsel to innocence in your instincts. "
In verse 7 of the second paragraph (as in verse 1 of
par. 19 in "The Old and New Tables") Nietzsche
gives us a reason for his occasional obscurity (see also
verses 3 to 7 of " Poets "). As I have already pointed
out, his philosophy is quite esoteric. It can serve
no purpose with the ordinary, mediocre type of man.
I, personally, can no longer have any doubt that
Nietzsche's only object, in that part of his philosophy
where he bids his friends stand " Beyond Good and
Evil" with him, was to save higher men, whose growth
and scope might be limited by the too strict observance
of modern values from foundering on the rocks of a
"Compromise " between their own genius and tradi-
tional conventions. The only possible way in which
the great man can achieve greatness is by means of
exceptional freedom—the freedom which assists him
in experiencing himself. Verses 20 to 30 afford an
excellent supplement to Nietzsche's description of the
attitude of the noble type towards the slaves in
Aphorism 260 of the work "Beyond Good and Evil"
(see also Note B. in Foreword).
(See Note on Chap. XLVI. ) In Part II. of this chapter LV.
discourse we meet with a doctrine not touched upon The Spirit of
hitherto, save indirectly;—I refer to the doctrine of Gravity,
self-love. We should try to understand this perfectly
before proceeding; for it is precisely views of this


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432 APPENDIX.
sort which, after having been cut out of the original
context, are repeated far and wide as internal evidence
proving the general unsoundness of Nietzsche's philo-
sophy. Already in the last of the "Thoughts out of
Season" Nietzsche speaks as follows about modern
men: ". . . these modern creatures wish rather to
be hunted down, wounded and torn to shreds, than
to live alone with themselves in solitary calm. Alone
with oneself! —this thought terrifies the modern soul;
it is his one anxiety, his one ghastly fear" (English
Edition, p. 141). In his feverish scurry to find
entertainment and diversion, whether in a novel, a
newspaper, or a play, the modern man condemns his
own age utterly; for he shows that in his heart of
hearts he despises himself. One cannot change a
condition of this sort in a day; to become endurable
to oneself an inner transformation is necessary. Too
long have we lost ourselves in our friends and enter-
tainments to be able to find ourselves so soon at
another's bidding. "And verily, it is no command-
ment for to-day and to-morrow to learn to love oneself.
Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last, and
patientest. "
In the last verse Nietzsche challenges us to show
that our way is the right way. In his teaching he does
not coerce us, nor does he overpersuade; he simply
says: "I am a law only for mine own, I am not a law
for all. This—is now my way,—where is yours? "
Chapter LVI. Nietzsche himself declares this to be the most
Par. a. decisive portion of the whole of "Thus Spake
The Old and Zarathustra. " It is a sort of epitome of his leading
New Tables, doctrines. In verse 12 of the second paragraph, we
learn how he himself would fain have abandoned the
poetical method of expression had he not known
only too well that the only chance a new doctrine


## p. 433 (#655) ############################################

NOTES. 433
has of surviving, nowadays, depends upon its being
given to the world in some kind of art-form. Just
as prophets, centuries ago, often had to have recourse
to the mask of madness in order to mitigate the
hatred of those who did not and could not see as
they did; so, to-day, the struggle for existence among
opinions and values is so great, that an art-form is
practically the only garb in which a new philosophy
can dare to introduce itself to us.
Many of the paragraphs will be found to be merely
reminiscent of former discourses. For instance,
par. 3 recalls "Redemption. " The last verse of Par. 3.
par. 4 is important. Freedom which, as I have Par. 4.
pointed out before, Nietzsche considered a danger-
ous acquisition in inexperienced or unworthy hands,
here receives its death-blow as a general desideratum.
In the first Part we read under "The Way of the
Creating One," that freedom as an end in itself does
not concern Zarathustra at all. He says there:
"Free from what? What doth that matter to Zara-
thustra? Clearly, however, shall thine eye answer
me: free for what? " And in "The Bedwarfing
Virtue": "Ah that ye understood my word: 'Do
ever what ye will—but first be such as can will. '"
Here we have a description of the kind of altruism Par. 5.
Nietzsche exacted from higher men. It is really
a comment upon "The Bestowing Virtue" (see
Note on Chap. XXII. ).
This refers, of course, to the reception pioneers Par. 6.
of Nietzsche's stamp meet with at the hands of their
contemporaries.
Nietzsche teaches that nothing is stable,—not even Par. 8.
values,—not even the concepts good and evil. He
likens life unto a stream. But foot-bridges and
railings span the stream, and they seem to stand firm.
2 E


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434 APPENDIX.
Many will be reminded of good and evil when they
look upon these structures; for thus these same
values stand over the stream of life, and life flows on
beneath them and leaves them standing. When,
however, winter comes and the stream gets frozen,
many inquire: "Should not everything—stand stilll
Fundamentally everything standeth still. " But soon
the spring cometh and with it the thaw-wind. It
breaks the ice, and the ice breaks down the foot-
bridges and railings, whereupon everything is swept
away. This state of affairs, according to Nietzsche,
has now been reached. "O, my brethren, is not
everything at present in flux 1 Have not all railings
and foot-bridges fallen into the water? Who would
still hold on to 'good' and 'evil'? "
Par. 9. This is complementary to the first three verses
of par. 2.
Par. 10. So far, this is perhaps the most important paragraph.
It is a protest against reading a moral order of things
in life. "Life is something essentially immoral! "
Nietzsche tells us in the introduction to the "Birth
of Tragedy. " Even to call life " activity," or to define
it further as "the continuous adjustment of internal
relations to external relations," as Spencer has it,
Nietzsche characterises as a "democratic idiosyncracy. "
He says to define it in this way, "is to mistake the
true nature and function of life, which is Will to
Power. . . . Life is essentially appropriation, injury,
conquest of the strange and weak, suppression,
severity, obtrusion of its own forms, incorporation
and at least, putting it mildest, exploitation. " Adapta-
tion is merely a secondary activity, a mere re-activity
(see Note on Chap. LVII. ).
Pars. 11, 12. These deal with Nietzsche's principle of the
desirability of rearing a select race. The biological


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NOTES. 435
and historical grounds for his insistence upon this
principle are, of course, manifold. Gobineau in his
great work, "L'Inegalite des Races Humaines," lays
strong emphasis upon the evils which arise from
promiscuous and inter-social marriages. He alone
would suffice to carry Nietzsche's point against all
those who are opposed to the other conditions, to
the conditions which would have saved Rome, which
have maintained the strength of the Jewish race,
and which are strictly maintained by every breeder
of animals throughout the world. Darwin in his
remarks relative to the degeneration of cultivated
types of animals through the action of promiscuous
breeding, brings Gobineau support from the realm of
biology.
The last two verses of par.