There is a certain self-respect in the serious man which
makes him hold his profoundest feelings sacred.
makes him hold his profoundest feelings sacred.
Thus Spake Zarathustra- A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
including the Prologue, no very great difficulties will
appear. Zarathustra's habit of designating a whole class of men or a
whole school of thought by a single fitting nickname may perhaps lead to
a little confusion at first; but, as a rule, when the general drift
of his arguments is grasped, it requires but a slight effort of the
imagination to discover whom he is referring to. In the ninth paragraph
of the Prologue, for instance, it is quite obvious that "Herdsmen" in
the verse "Herdsmen, I say, etc. , etc. ," stands for all those to-day
who are the advocates of gregariousness--of the ant-hill. And when our
author says: "A robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen," it
is clear that these words may be taken almost literally from one whose
ideal was the rearing of a higher aristocracy. Again, "the good and
just," throughout the book, is the expression used in referring to the
self-righteous of modern times,--those who are quite sure that they
know all that is to be known concerning good and evil, and are satisfied
that the values their little world of tradition has handed down to them,
are destined to rule mankind as long as it lasts.
In the last paragraph of the Prologue, verse 7, Zarathustra gives us a
foretaste of his teaching concerning the big and the little sagacities,
expounded subsequently. He says he would he were as wise as his serpent;
this desire will be found explained in the discourse entitled "The
Despisers of the Body", which I shall have occasion to refer to later.
. . .
THE DISCOURSES.
Chapter I. The Three Metamorphoses.
This opening discourse is a parable in which Zarathustra discloses the
mental development of all creators of new values. It is the story of
a life which reaches its consummation in attaining to a second
ingenuousness or in returning to childhood. Nietzsche, the supposed
anarchist, here plainly disclaims all relationship whatever to anarchy,
for he shows us that only by bearing the burdens of the existing law and
submitting to it patiently, as the camel submits to being laden, does
the free spirit acquire that ascendancy over tradition which enables him
to meet and master the dragon "Thou shalt,"--the dragon with the values
of a thousand years glittering on its scales. There are two lessons in
this discourse: first, that in order to create one must be as a little
child; secondly, that it is only through existing law and order that
one attains to that height from which new law and new order may be
promulgated.
Chapter II. The Academic Chairs of Virtue.
Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. It is a discourse
against all those who confound virtue with tameness and smug ease, and
who regard as virtuous only that which promotes security and tends to
deepen sleep.
Chapter IV. The Despisers of the Body.
Here Zarathustra gives names to the intellect and the instincts; he
calls the one "the little sagacity" and the latter "the big sagacity. "
Schopenhauer's teaching concerning the intellect is fully endorsed here.
"An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother,
which thou callest 'spirit,'" says Zarathustra. From beginning to end it
is a warning to those who would think too lightly of the instincts
and unduly exalt the intellect and its derivatives: Reason and
Understanding.
Chapter IX. The Preachers of Death.
This is an analysis of the psychology of all those who have the "evil
eye" and are pessimists by virtue of their constitutions.
Chapter XV. The Thousand and One Goals.
In this discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition of the doctrine of
relativity in morality, and declares all morality to be a mere means
to power. Needless to say that verses 9, 10, 11, and 12 refer to the
Greeks, the Persians, the Jews, and the Germans respectively. In the
penultimate verse he makes known his discovery concerning the root of
modern Nihilism and indifference,--i. e. , that modern man has no goal, no
aim, no ideals (see Note A).
Chapter XVIII. Old and Young Women.
Nietzsche's views on women have either to be loved at first sight
or they become perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of those who
otherwise would be inclined to accept his philosophy. Women especially,
of course, have been taught to dislike them, because it has been
rumoured that his views are unfriendly to themselves. Now, to my mind,
all this is pure misunderstanding and error.
German philosophers, thanks to Schopenhauer, have earned rather a bad
name for their views on women. It is almost impossible for one of them
to write a line on the subject, however kindly he may do so, without
being suspected of wishing to open a crusade against the fair sex.
Despite the fact, therefore, that all Nietzsche's views in this respect
were dictated to him by the profoundest love; despite Zarathustra's
reservation in this discourse, that "with women nothing (that can be
said) is impossible," and in the face of other overwhelming evidence
to the contrary, Nietzsche is universally reported to have mis son
pied dans le plat, where the female sex is concerned. And what is the
fundamental doctrine which has given rise to so much bitterness and
aversion? --Merely this: that the sexes are at bottom ANTAGONISTIC--that
is to say, as different as blue is from yellow, and that the best
possible means of rearing anything approaching a desirable race is to
preserve and to foster this profound hostility. What Nietzsche strives
to combat and to overthrow is the modern democratic tendency which is
slowly labouring to level all things--even the sexes. His quarrel is not
with women--what indeed could be more undignified? --it is with those who
would destroy the natural relationship between the sexes, by modifying
either the one or the other with a view to making them more alike. The
human world is just as dependent upon women's powers as upon men's. It
is women's strongest and most valuable instincts which help to determine
who are to be the fathers of the next generation. By destroying these
particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinise woman,
and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people. The general
democratic movement of modern times, in its frantic struggle to mitigate
all differences, is now invading even the world of sex. It is against
this movement that Nietzsche raises his voice; he would have woman
become ever more woman and man become ever more man. Only thus, and
he is undoubtedly right, can their combined instincts lead to the
excellence of humanity. Regarded in this light, all his views on woman
appear not only necessary but just (see Note on Chapter LVI. , par. 21. )
It is interesting to observe that the last line of the discourse, which
has so frequently been used by women as a weapon against Nietzsche's
views concerning them, was suggested to Nietzsche by a woman (see "Das
Leben F. Nietzsche's").
Chapter XXI. Voluntary Death.
In regard to this discourse, I should only like to point out that
Nietzsche had a particular aversion to the word "suicide"--self-murder.
He disliked the evil it suggested, and in rechristening the act
Voluntary Death, i. e. , the death that comes from no other hand than
one's own, he was desirous of elevating it to the position it held in
classical antiquity (see Aphorism 36 in "The Twilight of the Idols").
Chapter XXII. The Bestowing Virtue.
An important aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy is brought to light in
this discourse. His teaching, as is well known, places the Aristotelian
man of spirit, above all others in the natural divisions of man. The
man with overflowing strength, both of mind and body, who must discharge
this strength or perish, is the Nietzschean ideal. To such a man, giving
from his overflow becomes a necessity; bestowing develops into a means
of existence, and this is the only giving, the only charity, that
Nietzsche recognises. In paragraph 3 of the discourse, we read
Zarathustra's healthy exhortation to his disciples to become independent
thinkers and to find themselves before they learn any more from him (see
Notes on Chapters LVI. , par. 5, and LXXIII. , pars. 10, 11).
. . .
PART II.
Chapter XXIII. The Child with the Mirror.
Nietzsche tells us here, in a poetical form, how deeply grieved he was
by the manifold misinterpretations and misunderstandings which were
becoming rife concerning his publications. He does not recognise
himself in the mirror of public opinion, and recoils terrified from the
distorted reflection of his features. In verse 20 he gives us a
hint which it were well not to pass over too lightly; for, in the
introduction to "The Genealogy of Morals" (written in 1887) he finds it
necessary to refer to the matter again and with greater precision. The
point is this, that a creator of new values meets with his surest and
strongest obstacles in the very spirit of the language which is at his
disposal. Words, like all other manifestations of an evolving race, are
stamped with the values that have long been paramount in that race.
Now, the original thinker who finds himself compelled to use the current
speech of his country in order to impart new and hitherto untried views
to his fellows, imposes a task upon the natural means of communication
which it is totally unfitted to perform,--hence the obscurities and
prolixities which are so frequently met with in the writings of original
thinkers. In the "Dawn of Day", Nietzsche actually cautions young
writers against THE DANGER OF ALLOWING THEIR THOUGHTS TO BE MOULDED BY
THE WORDS AT THEIR DISPOSAL.
Chapter XXIV. In the Happy Isles.
While writing this, Nietzsche is supposed to have been thinking of the
island of Ischia which was ultimately destroyed by an earthquake. His
teaching here is quite clear. He was among the first thinkers of Europe
to overcome the pessimism which godlessness generally brings in its
wake. He points to creating as the surest salvation from the suffering
which is a concomitant of all higher life. "What would there be to
create," he asks, "if there were--Gods? " His ideal, the Superman, lends
him the cheerfulness necessary to the overcoming of that despair usually
attendant upon godlessness and upon the apparent aimlessness of a world
without a god.
Chapter XXIX. The Tarantulas.
The tarantulas are the Socialists and Democrats. This discourse offers
us an analysis of their mental attitude. Nietzsche refuses to be
confounded with those resentful and revengeful ones who condemn society
FROM BELOW, and whose criticism is only suppressed envy. "There are
those who preach my doctrine of life," he says of the Nietzschean
Socialists, "and are at the same time preachers of equality and
tarantulas" (see Notes on Chapter XL. and Chapter LI. ).
Chapter XXX. The Famous Wise Ones.
This refers to all those philosophers hitherto, who have run in the
harness of established values and have not risked their reputation with
the people in pursuit of truth. The philosopher, however, as Nietzsche
understood him, is a man who creates new values, and thus leads mankind
in a new direction.
Chapter XXXIII. The Grave-Song.
Here Zarathustra sings about the ideals and friendships of his youth.
Verses 27 to 31 undoubtedly refer to Richard Wagner (see Note on Chapter
LXV. ).
Chapter XXXIV. Self-Surpassing.
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 Chapter 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 understand 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.
Chapter XXXV. The Sublime Ones.
These belong to a type which Nietzsche did not altogether dislike, but
which he would fain have rendered more subtle and plastic. It is the
type 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 likewise 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 Gravity", he actually cries:--"Neither a good
nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no longer either shame or
secrecy. "
Chapter XXXVI. The Land of Culture.
This is a poetical epitome of some of the scathing criticism of
scholars which appears in the first of the "Thoughts out of Season"--the
polemical pamphlet (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 premonitions--and believed in believing! " (See Note on Chapter
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.
Chapter XXXVII. Immaculate Perception.
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.
Chapter XXXVIII. Scholars.
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 the University of Bale 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 independence which stamp this discourse.
Chapter XXXIX. Poets.
People have sometimes said that Nietzsche had no sense of humour. I
have no intention of defending him here against such foolish critics; I
should only 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
Chapter LXIII. , pars. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).
Chapter XL. Great Events.
Here we seem to have a puzzle. Zarathustra himself, while relating
his experience with the fire-dog 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. "
Chapter XLI. The Soothsayer.
This refers, of course, to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche, as is well known,
was at one time an ardent follower of Schopenhauer. He overcame
Pessimism by discovering an object in existence; he saw the possibility
of raising society to a higher level and preached the profoundest
Optimism in consequence.
Chapter XLII. Redemption.
Zarathustra here addresses cripples. He tells 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
in ability to say this, and the resentment 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 Chapter LVII. ).
Chapter XLIII. Manly Prudence.
This discourse is very important. In "Beyond Good and Evil" we hear
often enough that the select 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 across a true individualist who feels the chasm between himself
and others so deeply, that he must perforce 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.
Chapter XLIV. The Stillest Hour.
This seems to me to give an account of the great struggle which must
have taken place in Nietzsche's soul before he finally resolved to make
known the 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 profoundest 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.
. . .
PART III.
This is perhaps the most important of all the four 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.
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 gravity. " 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 concept of sin which at present hangs 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 cheerfully 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 Chapter LVII. ).
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 shepherd, 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.
Chapter XLVII. Involuntary Bliss.
This, like "The Wanderer", is one of the many introspective passages
in the work, and is full of innuendos and hints as to the Nietzschean
outlook on life.
Chapter XLVIII. Before Sunrise.
Here we have a record of Zarathustra's avowal of optimism, as also the
important statement concerning "Chance" or "Accident" (verse 27). Those
who 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 again, and make it fall on its knees before
him! (See verse 33 in "On the Olive Mount", and verses 9-10 in "The
Bedwarfing Virtue").
Chapter XLIX. The Bedwarfing Virtue.
This requires scarcely any comment. It is a satire 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", pages 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 "Mediocrity," 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
vertiginous daring of making chance go on its knees to him. In verse
20, Zarathustra makes yet another attempt at defining his entirely
anti-anarchical attitude, and unless such passages have been completely
overlooked or deliberately ignored hitherto by those who will persist in
laying anarchy at his door, it is impossible 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 expression 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 Chapter LXX. ).
Chapter LI. On Passing-by.
Here we find Nietzsche confronted with his extreme opposite, with
him therefore for whom he is most frequently mistaken by the unwary.
"Zarathustra'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 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
revengefulness 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 noiser men,--with mountebanks and
mummers.
Chapter LII. The Apostates.
It is clear that this applies to all those breathless and hasty "tasters
of everything," who plunge too 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 "le diable 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 give it, often refer to these people as evidence in favour
of the true faith.
Chapter LIII. The Return Home.
This is an example of a class of writing which may be passed over too
lightly by those whom poetasters have made distrustful of poetry. From
first to last it is extremely valuable as an autobiographical note. The
inevitable superficiality of the rabble is contrasted with the peaceful
and profound depths of the anchorite. Here we first get a direct hint
concerning 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 continually being pitted
by Nietzsche, in himself, against that transient and meaner sympathy for
the neighbour which he more perhaps than any of his contemporaries 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
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 Chapter 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. The Three Evil Things.
Nietzsche is here completely in his element. Three things hitherto
best-cursed and most calumniated on earth, are brought forward to be
weighed. Voluptuousness, thirst of power, and selfishness,--the three
forces in humanity which Christianity has done most to garble and
besmirch,--Nietzsche endeavours to reinstate in their former places of
honour. Voluptuousness, 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, resenting
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 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 I of paragraph 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 traditional 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. )
Chapter LV. The Spirit of Gravity.
(See Note on Chapter XLVI. ) In Part II. of this discourse we meet with
a doctrine not touched upon hitherto, save indirectly;--I refer to the
doctrine of self-love. We should try to understand this perfectly before
proceeding; for it is precisely views of this 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
philosophy. 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, page 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 entertainments to be able to find ourselves so soon at
another's bidding. "And verily, it is no commandment 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. Old and New Tables. Par. 2.
Nietzsche himself declares this to be the most decisive portion of
the whole of "Thus Spake Zarathustra". It is a sort of epitome of his
leading 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 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.
Pars. 3 and 4.
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. 4 is important. Freedom which, as I have pointed out before,
Nietzsche considered a dangerous 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 Zarathustra? 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. '"
Par. 5.
Here we have a description of the kind of altruism Nietzsche exacted
from higher men. It is really a comment upon "The Bestowing Virtue" (see
Note on Chapter XXII. ).
Par. 6.
This refers, of course, to the reception pioneers of Nietzsche's stamp
meet with at the hands of their contemporaries.
Par. 8.
Nietzsche teaches that nothing is stable,--not even 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. 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 STILL? 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. "Oh, my brethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX?
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.
appear. Zarathustra's habit of designating a whole class of men or a
whole school of thought by a single fitting nickname may perhaps lead to
a little confusion at first; but, as a rule, when the general drift
of his arguments is grasped, it requires but a slight effort of the
imagination to discover whom he is referring to. In the ninth paragraph
of the Prologue, for instance, it is quite obvious that "Herdsmen" in
the verse "Herdsmen, I say, etc. , etc. ," stands for all those to-day
who are the advocates of gregariousness--of the ant-hill. And when our
author says: "A robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen," it
is clear that these words may be taken almost literally from one whose
ideal was the rearing of a higher aristocracy. Again, "the good and
just," throughout the book, is the expression used in referring to the
self-righteous of modern times,--those who are quite sure that they
know all that is to be known concerning good and evil, and are satisfied
that the values their little world of tradition has handed down to them,
are destined to rule mankind as long as it lasts.
In the last paragraph of the Prologue, verse 7, Zarathustra gives us a
foretaste of his teaching concerning the big and the little sagacities,
expounded subsequently. He says he would he were as wise as his serpent;
this desire will be found explained in the discourse entitled "The
Despisers of the Body", which I shall have occasion to refer to later.
. . .
THE DISCOURSES.
Chapter I. The Three Metamorphoses.
This opening discourse is a parable in which Zarathustra discloses the
mental development of all creators of new values. It is the story of
a life which reaches its consummation in attaining to a second
ingenuousness or in returning to childhood. Nietzsche, the supposed
anarchist, here plainly disclaims all relationship whatever to anarchy,
for he shows us that only by bearing the burdens of the existing law and
submitting to it patiently, as the camel submits to being laden, does
the free spirit acquire that ascendancy over tradition which enables him
to meet and master the dragon "Thou shalt,"--the dragon with the values
of a thousand years glittering on its scales. There are two lessons in
this discourse: first, that in order to create one must be as a little
child; secondly, that it is only through existing law and order that
one attains to that height from which new law and new order may be
promulgated.
Chapter II. The Academic Chairs of Virtue.
Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. It is a discourse
against all those who confound virtue with tameness and smug ease, and
who regard as virtuous only that which promotes security and tends to
deepen sleep.
Chapter IV. The Despisers of the Body.
Here Zarathustra gives names to the intellect and the instincts; he
calls the one "the little sagacity" and the latter "the big sagacity. "
Schopenhauer's teaching concerning the intellect is fully endorsed here.
"An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother,
which thou callest 'spirit,'" says Zarathustra. From beginning to end it
is a warning to those who would think too lightly of the instincts
and unduly exalt the intellect and its derivatives: Reason and
Understanding.
Chapter IX. The Preachers of Death.
This is an analysis of the psychology of all those who have the "evil
eye" and are pessimists by virtue of their constitutions.
Chapter XV. The Thousand and One Goals.
In this discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition of the doctrine of
relativity in morality, and declares all morality to be a mere means
to power. Needless to say that verses 9, 10, 11, and 12 refer to the
Greeks, the Persians, the Jews, and the Germans respectively. In the
penultimate verse he makes known his discovery concerning the root of
modern Nihilism and indifference,--i. e. , that modern man has no goal, no
aim, no ideals (see Note A).
Chapter XVIII. Old and Young Women.
Nietzsche's views on women have either to be loved at first sight
or they become perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of those who
otherwise would be inclined to accept his philosophy. Women especially,
of course, have been taught to dislike them, because it has been
rumoured that his views are unfriendly to themselves. Now, to my mind,
all this is pure misunderstanding and error.
German philosophers, thanks to Schopenhauer, have earned rather a bad
name for their views on women. It is almost impossible for one of them
to write a line on the subject, however kindly he may do so, without
being suspected of wishing to open a crusade against the fair sex.
Despite the fact, therefore, that all Nietzsche's views in this respect
were dictated to him by the profoundest love; despite Zarathustra's
reservation in this discourse, that "with women nothing (that can be
said) is impossible," and in the face of other overwhelming evidence
to the contrary, Nietzsche is universally reported to have mis son
pied dans le plat, where the female sex is concerned. And what is the
fundamental doctrine which has given rise to so much bitterness and
aversion? --Merely this: that the sexes are at bottom ANTAGONISTIC--that
is to say, as different as blue is from yellow, and that the best
possible means of rearing anything approaching a desirable race is to
preserve and to foster this profound hostility. What Nietzsche strives
to combat and to overthrow is the modern democratic tendency which is
slowly labouring to level all things--even the sexes. His quarrel is not
with women--what indeed could be more undignified? --it is with those who
would destroy the natural relationship between the sexes, by modifying
either the one or the other with a view to making them more alike. The
human world is just as dependent upon women's powers as upon men's. It
is women's strongest and most valuable instincts which help to determine
who are to be the fathers of the next generation. By destroying these
particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinise woman,
and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people. The general
democratic movement of modern times, in its frantic struggle to mitigate
all differences, is now invading even the world of sex. It is against
this movement that Nietzsche raises his voice; he would have woman
become ever more woman and man become ever more man. Only thus, and
he is undoubtedly right, can their combined instincts lead to the
excellence of humanity. Regarded in this light, all his views on woman
appear not only necessary but just (see Note on Chapter LVI. , par. 21. )
It is interesting to observe that the last line of the discourse, which
has so frequently been used by women as a weapon against Nietzsche's
views concerning them, was suggested to Nietzsche by a woman (see "Das
Leben F. Nietzsche's").
Chapter XXI. Voluntary Death.
In regard to this discourse, I should only like to point out that
Nietzsche had a particular aversion to the word "suicide"--self-murder.
He disliked the evil it suggested, and in rechristening the act
Voluntary Death, i. e. , the death that comes from no other hand than
one's own, he was desirous of elevating it to the position it held in
classical antiquity (see Aphorism 36 in "The Twilight of the Idols").
Chapter XXII. The Bestowing Virtue.
An important aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy is brought to light in
this discourse. His teaching, as is well known, places the Aristotelian
man of spirit, above all others in the natural divisions of man. The
man with overflowing strength, both of mind and body, who must discharge
this strength or perish, is the Nietzschean ideal. To such a man, giving
from his overflow becomes a necessity; bestowing develops into a means
of existence, and this is the only giving, the only charity, that
Nietzsche recognises. In paragraph 3 of the discourse, we read
Zarathustra's healthy exhortation to his disciples to become independent
thinkers and to find themselves before they learn any more from him (see
Notes on Chapters LVI. , par. 5, and LXXIII. , pars. 10, 11).
. . .
PART II.
Chapter XXIII. The Child with the Mirror.
Nietzsche tells us here, in a poetical form, how deeply grieved he was
by the manifold misinterpretations and misunderstandings which were
becoming rife concerning his publications. He does not recognise
himself in the mirror of public opinion, and recoils terrified from the
distorted reflection of his features. In verse 20 he gives us a
hint which it were well not to pass over too lightly; for, in the
introduction to "The Genealogy of Morals" (written in 1887) he finds it
necessary to refer to the matter again and with greater precision. The
point is this, that a creator of new values meets with his surest and
strongest obstacles in the very spirit of the language which is at his
disposal. Words, like all other manifestations of an evolving race, are
stamped with the values that have long been paramount in that race.
Now, the original thinker who finds himself compelled to use the current
speech of his country in order to impart new and hitherto untried views
to his fellows, imposes a task upon the natural means of communication
which it is totally unfitted to perform,--hence the obscurities and
prolixities which are so frequently met with in the writings of original
thinkers. In the "Dawn of Day", Nietzsche actually cautions young
writers against THE DANGER OF ALLOWING THEIR THOUGHTS TO BE MOULDED BY
THE WORDS AT THEIR DISPOSAL.
Chapter XXIV. In the Happy Isles.
While writing this, Nietzsche is supposed to have been thinking of the
island of Ischia which was ultimately destroyed by an earthquake. His
teaching here is quite clear. He was among the first thinkers of Europe
to overcome the pessimism which godlessness generally brings in its
wake. He points to creating as the surest salvation from the suffering
which is a concomitant of all higher life. "What would there be to
create," he asks, "if there were--Gods? " His ideal, the Superman, lends
him the cheerfulness necessary to the overcoming of that despair usually
attendant upon godlessness and upon the apparent aimlessness of a world
without a god.
Chapter XXIX. The Tarantulas.
The tarantulas are the Socialists and Democrats. This discourse offers
us an analysis of their mental attitude. Nietzsche refuses to be
confounded with those resentful and revengeful ones who condemn society
FROM BELOW, and whose criticism is only suppressed envy. "There are
those who preach my doctrine of life," he says of the Nietzschean
Socialists, "and are at the same time preachers of equality and
tarantulas" (see Notes on Chapter XL. and Chapter LI. ).
Chapter XXX. The Famous Wise Ones.
This refers to all those philosophers hitherto, who have run in the
harness of established values and have not risked their reputation with
the people in pursuit of truth. The philosopher, however, as Nietzsche
understood him, is a man who creates new values, and thus leads mankind
in a new direction.
Chapter XXXIII. The Grave-Song.
Here Zarathustra sings about the ideals and friendships of his youth.
Verses 27 to 31 undoubtedly refer to Richard Wagner (see Note on Chapter
LXV. ).
Chapter XXXIV. Self-Surpassing.
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 Chapter 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 understand 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.
Chapter XXXV. The Sublime Ones.
These belong to a type which Nietzsche did not altogether dislike, but
which he would fain have rendered more subtle and plastic. It is the
type 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 likewise 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 Gravity", he actually cries:--"Neither a good
nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no longer either shame or
secrecy. "
Chapter XXXVI. The Land of Culture.
This is a poetical epitome of some of the scathing criticism of
scholars which appears in the first of the "Thoughts out of Season"--the
polemical pamphlet (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 premonitions--and believed in believing! " (See Note on Chapter
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.
Chapter XXXVII. Immaculate Perception.
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.
Chapter XXXVIII. Scholars.
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 the University of Bale 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 independence which stamp this discourse.
Chapter XXXIX. Poets.
People have sometimes said that Nietzsche had no sense of humour. I
have no intention of defending him here against such foolish critics; I
should only 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
Chapter LXIII. , pars. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).
Chapter XL. Great Events.
Here we seem to have a puzzle. Zarathustra himself, while relating
his experience with the fire-dog 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. "
Chapter XLI. The Soothsayer.
This refers, of course, to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche, as is well known,
was at one time an ardent follower of Schopenhauer. He overcame
Pessimism by discovering an object in existence; he saw the possibility
of raising society to a higher level and preached the profoundest
Optimism in consequence.
Chapter XLII. Redemption.
Zarathustra here addresses cripples. He tells 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
in ability to say this, and the resentment 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 Chapter LVII. ).
Chapter XLIII. Manly Prudence.
This discourse is very important. In "Beyond Good and Evil" we hear
often enough that the select 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 across a true individualist who feels the chasm between himself
and others so deeply, that he must perforce 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.
Chapter XLIV. The Stillest Hour.
This seems to me to give an account of the great struggle which must
have taken place in Nietzsche's soul before he finally resolved to make
known the 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 profoundest 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.
. . .
PART III.
This is perhaps the most important of all the four 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.
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 gravity. " 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 concept of sin which at present hangs 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 cheerfully 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 Chapter LVII. ).
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 shepherd, 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.
Chapter XLVII. Involuntary Bliss.
This, like "The Wanderer", is one of the many introspective passages
in the work, and is full of innuendos and hints as to the Nietzschean
outlook on life.
Chapter XLVIII. Before Sunrise.
Here we have a record of Zarathustra's avowal of optimism, as also the
important statement concerning "Chance" or "Accident" (verse 27). Those
who 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 again, and make it fall on its knees before
him! (See verse 33 in "On the Olive Mount", and verses 9-10 in "The
Bedwarfing Virtue").
Chapter XLIX. The Bedwarfing Virtue.
This requires scarcely any comment. It is a satire 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", pages 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 "Mediocrity," 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
vertiginous daring of making chance go on its knees to him. In verse
20, Zarathustra makes yet another attempt at defining his entirely
anti-anarchical attitude, and unless such passages have been completely
overlooked or deliberately ignored hitherto by those who will persist in
laying anarchy at his door, it is impossible 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 expression 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 Chapter LXX. ).
Chapter LI. On Passing-by.
Here we find Nietzsche confronted with his extreme opposite, with
him therefore for whom he is most frequently mistaken by the unwary.
"Zarathustra'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 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
revengefulness 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 noiser men,--with mountebanks and
mummers.
Chapter LII. The Apostates.
It is clear that this applies to all those breathless and hasty "tasters
of everything," who plunge too 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 "le diable 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 give it, often refer to these people as evidence in favour
of the true faith.
Chapter LIII. The Return Home.
This is an example of a class of writing which may be passed over too
lightly by those whom poetasters have made distrustful of poetry. From
first to last it is extremely valuable as an autobiographical note. The
inevitable superficiality of the rabble is contrasted with the peaceful
and profound depths of the anchorite. Here we first get a direct hint
concerning 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 continually being pitted
by Nietzsche, in himself, against that transient and meaner sympathy for
the neighbour which he more perhaps than any of his contemporaries 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
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 Chapter 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. The Three Evil Things.
Nietzsche is here completely in his element. Three things hitherto
best-cursed and most calumniated on earth, are brought forward to be
weighed. Voluptuousness, thirst of power, and selfishness,--the three
forces in humanity which Christianity has done most to garble and
besmirch,--Nietzsche endeavours to reinstate in their former places of
honour. Voluptuousness, 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, resenting
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 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 I of paragraph 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 traditional 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. )
Chapter LV. The Spirit of Gravity.
(See Note on Chapter XLVI. ) In Part II. of this discourse we meet with
a doctrine not touched upon hitherto, save indirectly;--I refer to the
doctrine of self-love. We should try to understand this perfectly before
proceeding; for it is precisely views of this 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
philosophy. 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, page 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 entertainments to be able to find ourselves so soon at
another's bidding. "And verily, it is no commandment 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. Old and New Tables. Par. 2.
Nietzsche himself declares this to be the most decisive portion of
the whole of "Thus Spake Zarathustra". It is a sort of epitome of his
leading 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 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.
Pars. 3 and 4.
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. 4 is important. Freedom which, as I have pointed out before,
Nietzsche considered a dangerous 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 Zarathustra? 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. '"
Par. 5.
Here we have a description of the kind of altruism Nietzsche exacted
from higher men. It is really a comment upon "The Bestowing Virtue" (see
Note on Chapter XXII. ).
Par. 6.
This refers, of course, to the reception pioneers of Nietzsche's stamp
meet with at the hands of their contemporaries.
Par. 8.
Nietzsche teaches that nothing is stable,--not even 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. 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 STILL? 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. "Oh, my brethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX?
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.
