In verse 41 of this most
decisive discourse he truly explains his position when
he says: ".
decisive discourse he truly explains his position when
he says: ".
Nietzsche - v11 - Thus Spake Zarathustra
It
represents but an attempt on my part—a very feeble
one perhaps—to give the reader what little help I
can in surmounting difficulties which a long study of
Nietzsche's life and works has enabled me, partially
I hope, to overcome.
* * * * *
Perhaps it would be as well to start out with a
broad and rapid sketch of Nietzsche as a writer on
Morals, Evolution, and Sociology, so that the reader
may be prepared to pick out for himself, so to speak,
all passages in this work bearing in any way upon
Nietzsche's views in those three important branches
of knowledge.
(. 4. ) Nietzsche In morality, Nietzsche starts out by adopting the
and Morality, position of the relativist. He says there are no
absolute values "good " and "evil"; these are mere
means adopted by all in order to acquire power to
maintain their place in the world, or to become
supreme. It is the lion's good to devour an antelope.
It is the dead-leaf butterfly's good to tell a foe a
## p. 409 (#627) ############################################
NOTES. 409
falsehood. For when the dead-leaf butterfly is in
danger, it clings to the side of a twig, and what it
says to its foe is practically this: "I am not a
butterfly, I am a dead leaf, and can be of no use to
thee. " This is a lie which is good to the butterfly,
for it preserves it. In nature every species of organic
being instinctively adopts and practises those acts
which most conduce to the prevalence or supremacy
of its kind. Once the most favourable order of
conduct is found, proved efficient and established,
it becomes the ruling morality of the species that
adopts it and bears them along to victory. All species
must not and cannot value alike, for what is the lion's
good is the antelope's evil and vice versa.
Concepts of good and evil are therefore, in their
origin, merely a means to an end, they are expedients
for acquiring power.
x Applying this principle to mankind, Nietzsche
stacked Christian moral values. He declared them
/to be, like all other morals, merely an expedient for
I protecting a certain type of man. In the case of
Christianity this type was, according to Nietzsche, a
low one.
Conflicting moral codes have been no more than
the conflicting weapons of different classes of men j
for in mankind there is a continual war between
the powerful, the noble, the strong, and the well-
constituted on the one side, and the impotent, the
mean, the weak, and the ill-constituted on the other.
The war is a war of moral principles. The morality
of the powerful class, Nietzsche calls noble- or master-
morality; that of the weak and subordinate class
he calls slave-morality. In the first morality it is the
eagle which, looking down upon a browsing lamb,
contends that "eating lamb is good. " In the second,
## p. 410 (#628) ############################################
4io
APPENDIX.
(A) The
Master- and
Slave-Moral-
ity Compared.
the slave-morality, it is the lamb which, looking up
from the sward, bleats dissentingly: "eating lamb is
evil. "
The first morality is active, creative, Dionysian.
The second is passive, defensive,—to it belongs the
"struggle for existence. "
Where attempts have not been made to reconcile the
two moralities, they may be described as follows:—
All is good in the noble morality which proceeds from
strength, power, health, well constitutedness, happi-
ness, and awfulness; for, the motive force behind the
people practising it is "the struggle for power. " The
antithesis "good and bad" to this first class means
the same as "noble" and "despicable. " "Bad" in
the master-morality must be applied to the coward,
to all acts that spring from weakness, to the man with
"an eye to the main chance," who would forsake
everything in order to live.
With the second, the slave-morality, the case is
different. There, inasmuch as the community is an
oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, and weary one,
all tliat will be held to be good which alleviates the
state of suffering. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm
heart, patience, industry, and humility—these are
unquestionably the qualities we shall here find flooded
with the light of approval and admiration; because
they are the most useful qualities—; they make life
endurable, they are of assistance in the "struggle for
existence" which is the motive force behind the
people practising this morality. To this class, all that
is awful is bad, in fact it is the evil par excellence.
Strength, health, superabundance of animal spirits and
power, are regarded with hate, suspicion, and fear by
the subordinate class.
Now Nietzsche believed that the first or the noble-
## p. 411 (#629) ############################################
NOTES. 411
morality conduced to an ascent in the line of life;
because it was creative and active. On the other
hand, he believed that the second or slave-morality,
,where it became paramount, led to degeneration,
because it was passive and defensive, wanting merely
to keep those who practised it alive. Hence his
earnest advocacy of noble-morality.
*
Nietzsche as an evolutionist I shall have occasion (C. ) Nietzsche
to define and discuss in the course of these notes and Evolution.
(see Notes on Chap. LVI. , par. 10, and on Chap.
LVIL). For the present let it suffice for us to know
that he accepted the "Development Hypothesis" as
an explanation of the origin of species: but he did
not halt where most naturalists have halted. He by
no means regarded man as the highest possible being
which evolution could arrive at; for though his
physical development may have reached its limit,
this is not the case with his mental or spiritual
attributes. If the process be a fact; if things have
become what they are, then, he contends, we may
describe no limit to man's aspirations. If he struggled
up from barbarism, and still more remotely from the
lower Primates, his ideal should be to surpass man
himself and reach Superman (see especially the
Prologue).
*
Nietzsche as a sociologist aims at an aristocratic (D. ) Nietzsche
arrangement of society. He would have us rear an and Sociology.
ideal race. Honest and truthful in intellectual
matters, he could not even think that men are equal.
"With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed
up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto
me: 'Men are not equal. '" He sees precisely in
this inequality a purpose to be served, a condition
## p. 412 (#630) ############################################
412 APPENDIX.
to be exploited. "Every elevation of the type
'man,'" he writes in "Beyond Good and Evil," "has
hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society—and
so will it always be—a society believing in a long
scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth
among human beings. "
Those who are sufficiently interested to desire to
read his own detailed account of the society he would
fain establish, will find an excellent passage in
Aphorism 57 of "The Antichrist. "
PART I. In Part I. including the Prologue, no very great
The Pro- difficulties will appear. Zarathustra's habit of
looue. 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, &c. &c," 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.
## p. 413 (#631) ############################################
NOTES. 413
In the last paragraph of the Prologue, verse 7,
Zarathustra gives us a foretaste of his teaching con-
cerning 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.
*****
This opening discourse is a parable in which The Dis-
Zarathustra discloses the mental development of all courses.
creators of new values. It is the story of a life Chapter I.
which reaches its consummation in attaining to aThe Three
second ingenuousness or in returning to childhood. ,e amor"
0 ° phoses.
Nietzsche,1 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.
Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. Chapter II.
It is a discourse against all those who confound virtue The Academic
with tameness and smug ease, and who regard as chairs of
virtuous only that which promotes security and tends
to deepen sleep.
Here Zarathustra gives names to the intellect and Chapter IV.
the instincts; he calls the one " the little sagacity" and The Despisers
the latter " the big sagacity. " Schopenhauer's teaching ° ' e ° y-
concerning the intellect is fully endorsed here. "An
,-
## p. 414 (#632) ############################################
414
APPENDIX.
I
and One
Goals.
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. This is an analysis of the psychology of all those
The Preachers who have the "evil eye" and are pessimists by virtue
of Death. of thelr constitutions.
Chapter XV. In this discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition
The Thousand 0f 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 dis-
covery concerning the root of modern Nihilism and
indifference,—i. e. , that modern man has no goal, no
aim, no ideals (see Note A).
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
Chapter
XVIII.
Old and
Young
Women.
## p. 415 (#633) ############################################
NOTES. 415
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 It 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 Chap. LVI. , par. 21).
## p. 416 (#634) ############################################
416
APPENDIX.
Chapter XXI.
Voluntary
Death.
Chapter
XXII.
The Bestow-
ing Virtue.
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 " ).
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").
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 para-
graph 3 of the discourse, we read Zarathustra's
healthy exhortation to his disciples to become inde-
pendent thinkers and to find themselves before they
learn any more from him (see Notes on Chaps. 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 misinterpreta-
tions and misunderstandings which were becoming
rife concerning his publications. He does not recog-
nise himself in the mirror of public opinion, and
## p. 417 (#635) ############################################
NOTES. 417
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 mani-
festations of an evolving race, are stamped with the
values that have long been paramount in that race.
Now, the original thinker who finds himself com-
pelled 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 per-
form,—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.
While writing this, Nietzsche is supposed to have Chapter
been thinking of the island of Ischia which was ulti- XXIV.
mately destroyed by an earthquake. His teaching here In the HaPPv
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.
2 D
## p. 418 (#636) ############################################
418
APPENDIX.
Chapter
XXIX.
The
Tarantulas.
Chapter
XXX.
The Famous
Wise Ones.
Chapter
XXXIII.
The Grave-
Song.
Chapter
XXXIV.
Self-
Surpassing.
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 beloiv, and whose criticism is only sup-
pressed 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 Chap. XL. and
Chap. LI. ).
This refers to all those philosophers hitherto, who
have fun 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.
Here Zarathustra sings about the ideals and friend-
ships of his youth. Verses 27 to 31 undoubtedly
refer to Richard Wagner (see Note on Chap.
LXV. ).
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.
represents but an attempt on my part—a very feeble
one perhaps—to give the reader what little help I
can in surmounting difficulties which a long study of
Nietzsche's life and works has enabled me, partially
I hope, to overcome.
* * * * *
Perhaps it would be as well to start out with a
broad and rapid sketch of Nietzsche as a writer on
Morals, Evolution, and Sociology, so that the reader
may be prepared to pick out for himself, so to speak,
all passages in this work bearing in any way upon
Nietzsche's views in those three important branches
of knowledge.
(. 4. ) Nietzsche In morality, Nietzsche starts out by adopting the
and Morality, position of the relativist. He says there are no
absolute values "good " and "evil"; these are mere
means adopted by all in order to acquire power to
maintain their place in the world, or to become
supreme. It is the lion's good to devour an antelope.
It is the dead-leaf butterfly's good to tell a foe a
## p. 409 (#627) ############################################
NOTES. 409
falsehood. For when the dead-leaf butterfly is in
danger, it clings to the side of a twig, and what it
says to its foe is practically this: "I am not a
butterfly, I am a dead leaf, and can be of no use to
thee. " This is a lie which is good to the butterfly,
for it preserves it. In nature every species of organic
being instinctively adopts and practises those acts
which most conduce to the prevalence or supremacy
of its kind. Once the most favourable order of
conduct is found, proved efficient and established,
it becomes the ruling morality of the species that
adopts it and bears them along to victory. All species
must not and cannot value alike, for what is the lion's
good is the antelope's evil and vice versa.
Concepts of good and evil are therefore, in their
origin, merely a means to an end, they are expedients
for acquiring power.
x Applying this principle to mankind, Nietzsche
stacked Christian moral values. He declared them
/to be, like all other morals, merely an expedient for
I protecting a certain type of man. In the case of
Christianity this type was, according to Nietzsche, a
low one.
Conflicting moral codes have been no more than
the conflicting weapons of different classes of men j
for in mankind there is a continual war between
the powerful, the noble, the strong, and the well-
constituted on the one side, and the impotent, the
mean, the weak, and the ill-constituted on the other.
The war is a war of moral principles. The morality
of the powerful class, Nietzsche calls noble- or master-
morality; that of the weak and subordinate class
he calls slave-morality. In the first morality it is the
eagle which, looking down upon a browsing lamb,
contends that "eating lamb is good. " In the second,
## p. 410 (#628) ############################################
4io
APPENDIX.
(A) The
Master- and
Slave-Moral-
ity Compared.
the slave-morality, it is the lamb which, looking up
from the sward, bleats dissentingly: "eating lamb is
evil. "
The first morality is active, creative, Dionysian.
The second is passive, defensive,—to it belongs the
"struggle for existence. "
Where attempts have not been made to reconcile the
two moralities, they may be described as follows:—
All is good in the noble morality which proceeds from
strength, power, health, well constitutedness, happi-
ness, and awfulness; for, the motive force behind the
people practising it is "the struggle for power. " The
antithesis "good and bad" to this first class means
the same as "noble" and "despicable. " "Bad" in
the master-morality must be applied to the coward,
to all acts that spring from weakness, to the man with
"an eye to the main chance," who would forsake
everything in order to live.
With the second, the slave-morality, the case is
different. There, inasmuch as the community is an
oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, and weary one,
all tliat will be held to be good which alleviates the
state of suffering. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm
heart, patience, industry, and humility—these are
unquestionably the qualities we shall here find flooded
with the light of approval and admiration; because
they are the most useful qualities—; they make life
endurable, they are of assistance in the "struggle for
existence" which is the motive force behind the
people practising this morality. To this class, all that
is awful is bad, in fact it is the evil par excellence.
Strength, health, superabundance of animal spirits and
power, are regarded with hate, suspicion, and fear by
the subordinate class.
Now Nietzsche believed that the first or the noble-
## p. 411 (#629) ############################################
NOTES. 411
morality conduced to an ascent in the line of life;
because it was creative and active. On the other
hand, he believed that the second or slave-morality,
,where it became paramount, led to degeneration,
because it was passive and defensive, wanting merely
to keep those who practised it alive. Hence his
earnest advocacy of noble-morality.
*
Nietzsche as an evolutionist I shall have occasion (C. ) Nietzsche
to define and discuss in the course of these notes and Evolution.
(see Notes on Chap. LVI. , par. 10, and on Chap.
LVIL). For the present let it suffice for us to know
that he accepted the "Development Hypothesis" as
an explanation of the origin of species: but he did
not halt where most naturalists have halted. He by
no means regarded man as the highest possible being
which evolution could arrive at; for though his
physical development may have reached its limit,
this is not the case with his mental or spiritual
attributes. If the process be a fact; if things have
become what they are, then, he contends, we may
describe no limit to man's aspirations. If he struggled
up from barbarism, and still more remotely from the
lower Primates, his ideal should be to surpass man
himself and reach Superman (see especially the
Prologue).
*
Nietzsche as a sociologist aims at an aristocratic (D. ) Nietzsche
arrangement of society. He would have us rear an and Sociology.
ideal race. Honest and truthful in intellectual
matters, he could not even think that men are equal.
"With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed
up and confounded. For thus speaketh justice unto
me: 'Men are not equal. '" He sees precisely in
this inequality a purpose to be served, a condition
## p. 412 (#630) ############################################
412 APPENDIX.
to be exploited. "Every elevation of the type
'man,'" he writes in "Beyond Good and Evil," "has
hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society—and
so will it always be—a society believing in a long
scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth
among human beings. "
Those who are sufficiently interested to desire to
read his own detailed account of the society he would
fain establish, will find an excellent passage in
Aphorism 57 of "The Antichrist. "
PART I. In Part I. including the Prologue, no very great
The Pro- difficulties will appear. Zarathustra's habit of
looue. 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, &c. &c," 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.
## p. 413 (#631) ############################################
NOTES. 413
In the last paragraph of the Prologue, verse 7,
Zarathustra gives us a foretaste of his teaching con-
cerning 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.
*****
This opening discourse is a parable in which The Dis-
Zarathustra discloses the mental development of all courses.
creators of new values. It is the story of a life Chapter I.
which reaches its consummation in attaining to aThe Three
second ingenuousness or in returning to childhood. ,e amor"
0 ° phoses.
Nietzsche,1 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.
Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. Chapter II.
It is a discourse against all those who confound virtue The Academic
with tameness and smug ease, and who regard as chairs of
virtuous only that which promotes security and tends
to deepen sleep.
Here Zarathustra gives names to the intellect and Chapter IV.
the instincts; he calls the one " the little sagacity" and The Despisers
the latter " the big sagacity. " Schopenhauer's teaching ° ' e ° y-
concerning the intellect is fully endorsed here. "An
,-
## p. 414 (#632) ############################################
414
APPENDIX.
I
and One
Goals.
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. This is an analysis of the psychology of all those
The Preachers who have the "evil eye" and are pessimists by virtue
of Death. of thelr constitutions.
Chapter XV. In this discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition
The Thousand 0f 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 dis-
covery concerning the root of modern Nihilism and
indifference,—i. e. , that modern man has no goal, no
aim, no ideals (see Note A).
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
Chapter
XVIII.
Old and
Young
Women.
## p. 415 (#633) ############################################
NOTES. 415
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 It 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 Chap. LVI. , par. 21).
## p. 416 (#634) ############################################
416
APPENDIX.
Chapter XXI.
Voluntary
Death.
Chapter
XXII.
The Bestow-
ing Virtue.
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 " ).
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").
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 para-
graph 3 of the discourse, we read Zarathustra's
healthy exhortation to his disciples to become inde-
pendent thinkers and to find themselves before they
learn any more from him (see Notes on Chaps. 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 misinterpreta-
tions and misunderstandings which were becoming
rife concerning his publications. He does not recog-
nise himself in the mirror of public opinion, and
## p. 417 (#635) ############################################
NOTES. 417
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 mani-
festations of an evolving race, are stamped with the
values that have long been paramount in that race.
Now, the original thinker who finds himself com-
pelled 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 per-
form,—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.
While writing this, Nietzsche is supposed to have Chapter
been thinking of the island of Ischia which was ulti- XXIV.
mately destroyed by an earthquake. His teaching here In the HaPPv
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.
2 D
## p. 418 (#636) ############################################
418
APPENDIX.
Chapter
XXIX.
The
Tarantulas.
Chapter
XXX.
The Famous
Wise Ones.
Chapter
XXXIII.
The Grave-
Song.
Chapter
XXXIV.
Self-
Surpassing.
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 beloiv, and whose criticism is only sup-
pressed 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 Chap. XL. and
Chap. LI. ).
This refers to all those philosophers hitherto, who
have fun 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.
Here Zarathustra sings about the ideals and friend-
ships of his youth. Verses 27 to 31 undoubtedly
refer to Richard Wagner (see Note on Chap.
LXV. ).
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.
