To the notice of Anaxagoras, add : —
His scientific employments were essentially astronomical in their nature.
His scientific employments were essentially astronomical in their nature.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
We must insist, in the first place, that over against that type of assiduous striving which permits itself to be driven by every tide of influence, the individualistic idea of culture which belongs to that great period, now somewhat depreciatingly denoted Romanticism, has in no wise so completely died out as is supposed.
It lives on in many highly developed personalities who do not find it necessary to make a dis
s Jfl] Problem of Valuet : Stirner, Bahnten. 675
play with it in literature; for the theory of this ideal has been expressed by Fichte, Schiller, and Schleiermacher. And just for this reason it does not make common cause with the artificial para doxes which radical individualism loves to present on occasion.
The most robust example of such paradoxes came from the He gelian " left," in the fantastic book of M. Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt, 1806-1866), The Individual and his Property1 (1844). Stirner is re lated to Feuerbach as Feuerbach is to Hegel : he draws the conclu sion which would completely invert the premises. Feuerbach had looked upon "spirit" or the "idea" as the "other-being of Na ture," and as abstract and unreal as the theological ghost He had declared the only reality to be man, living man of flesh and blood ; but his ethics aimed toward humanity, active love to humanity. What is mankind? asks Stirner. A general idea, an abstraction — a last shadow of the old ghost which is still walking, even in Feuer- bach's system. The true concrete reality is the individual — the autocratic personality. Such a personality makes its world both in its acts of ideation and in its acts of will; therefore its ownership extends as far as its will extends. It recognises nothing above itself; it knows no other weal than its own, and serves no alien law or alien will. For in truth there is nothing for it except itself. Thus by reversing Fichte's doctrine of the " universal ego," Stirner attains to "egoism" in both the theoretical and the practical sense of the word. He plays the "solipsist"' and preaches unscrupulous self-seeking, — Ich hab' mein' Sach' auf nichts gesteUt. * All this sounded like an artificial cynicism, and it was a matter of doubt
whether the book was intended to be taken seriously. At all events it soon lost the interest which it momentarily excited, and fell into an oblivion from which it has only recently been rescued. But when, as now, there is a disposition to see in it a first cry of distress from the individual repressed by the mass, it ought not to be ignored that the " individual " who was here seeking to emancipate himself from the community did not give any indication of a peculiar value which would have justified him in any such emancipation. His sole originality consisted in the courage of paradox.
5. Another bizarre form of individualism was developed from Schopenhauer's " metaphysics of the will, by Julius Bahnten. Here the " unreason of the will is taken with complete seriousness, but the pantheistic aspect of the " one only will " is stripped away.
1 Dtr Einzigt uml tein Kigenthtm.
* Of. above, p. 471.
* Beitrage zur Charaktrrulogie (1887); Dtr Widertpruch im Witten %ni
Wtrnn dtr Welt (1881-1882).
'I care for nothing.
676 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pakt VTL
We know only individuals who will, and Bahnsen sees in them the independent elementary potencies of reality, beyond which no higher principle is to be assumed. The separate and self-sufficient exist ence of finite personalities, which Bahnsen also calls " Henads. "" has never been so sharply formulated as in this atheistic atomism of the will. Each of these "wills" is, moreover, divided within itself into two, and in this consists its unreason and its unhappiness. This contradiction belongs to the essence of the will ; the will is the "as serted contradiction," and this is the true dialectic, " the real dialec tic. " This contradiction, however, cannot be grasped by logical thinking; hence all the effort which the will makes to know the world is in vain. Logical thinking which excludes contradiction is incapable of understanding a world which consists of intrinsically contradictory wills. The contradiction between the world and the intellect makes impossible even the partial salvation which Schopen hauer admitted,1 and the indestructible individual will must there fore endure forever the suffering of self-laceration in ever new existences. At so high a price is the metaphysical dignity pur chased, which personality here " receives as its " intelligible charac ter. " The living out of this intelligible character," purposeless and futile as it really is, forms the principle of all values.
Since the theory of knowledge involved in this " real dialectic " maintains that logical thinking and reality with its contradictions have no common measure, the fantasies of this " miserableism " make no claim to scientific validity; they are only the expression of the gloomy mood of the individual who is caught in the conflict of his own will. They form the melancholy counterpart to the pert frivol ity of Stirner's individual. Both show what result may be expected if " philosophy " takes moods which constitute the peculiar nature of pessimism and optimism as a basis for serious conclusions.
This is still more recognisable in the case of the great influence which has been exercised in the last decade upon the view of life and its literary expression by the poet, Friedrich Nietzsche. Many factors combine to form this influence: the fascinating beauty of language which ensnares and intoxicates even where the content passes ovjer'-into enigmatic suggestions; a mysterious symbolism which, in "Thus spake Zarathustra," permits the author to revel in obscurity and indefiniteness ; the aphoristic form of expression which never requires the reader to think coherently in scientific terms, but rather leaves him to determine for himself how much stimulus and suggestion he will utilise, and thus decide the degree
»dp. 621. -;••. - - -
5 46. ] Problem of Value* : Nietzsche. 677
in which he will expect himself to enjoy the surprising hits, the brill
iant formulations, the happy comparisons, and paradoxical nations. But all these elements are unimportant in comparison with the immediate impression of the personality of the writer. We meet an individual of the highest culture, and of a thoroughly original stamp, who experiences all the tendencies of the time, and suffers from the same unsolved contradictions by which the time itself is out of joint. Hence the echo which his language has found; hence the danger of his influence, which does not heal the sickness of his age, but increases it.
The two factors of the inner antagonism of his own nature Nietzsche himself has called the "Dionysus" and the "Apollo. " It is the antithesis between voluntarism and intellectualism, be tween Schopenhauer's will and Hegel's idea. It appears here in an individual of the highest intellectual culture and wsthetic pro ductiveness, who is able to apprehend history and life with the greatest delicacy and to reproduce them poetically with equal fine ness of feeling. " But science and art have not saved this individual
from the dark will to live " ; deep within stirs a passionate, com pelling impulse toward wild deeds, toward the achieving and unfold ing of power. His is the case of a nervous professor who would fain be a wild tyrant, and who is tossed back and forth between the quiet enjoyment of the goods of the highest culture on the one hand, and that mysterious, burning demand for a life of passion on the other. Now he luxuriates in serene blessedness of {esthetic contem plation and artistic production; now he casts all this aside and asserts his impulses, his instincts, his passions. Sensual enjoyment, as such, has never been a value for him — this is shown in the height and purity of his nature. The enjoyment which he seeks is either that of knowing or that of power. In the struggle between
the two he has been crushed — the victim of an age which is satisfied no longer by the impersonal and superpersonal values of intellec tual, aesthetic, and moral culture, hut thirsts again for the bound less unfolding of the individual in a life of deeds. Caught in the struggle between its reason inherited from the past and its passion thirsting for the future, it and all of value that it possesses are torn and ground. The artistic expression of a nature thus rent and torn is the charm of Nietzsche's writings.
In his first period, which contains the following in germ, the conflict between the two motive forces has not yet come to open outbreak ; rather we find him applying Schopenhauer's fundamental thoughts to the origin of Greek tragedy and to Richard Wagner's
combi
musical drama, and thus presenting art as the source of salva
1
«78 PkUa»pkg of the yineteemih Century. [FVwr VTL
_^tioo from the torture of the will Bat even at that tine it ra hi* thought that oat of this tragic temper a new, a higher echare should be brought forth ; a prouder race should emerge, of bold and splendidly audacious will which would victoriously burst the bonds of the present intellectual and spiritual life, and eren at that period this bent toward originality and independence threw overboard the ballast of the historic period. Xo condition and no authority is to repress this artistic civilisation; aesthetic freedom is to be cramped neither by knowledge nor by life.
It is not difficult to understand that when these thoughts began tt> clarify themselves the philosophic poet followed for a time along the path of intellectualism. Science is the free spirit which casts off all fetters and recognises nothing above itself: but she is such only when she makes the " real " man free, placing him on his ownc feet, independent of everything that is above the senses or apart from the senses. This science which Nietzsche would now make the bearer of the essence of culture is positive science. — no meta
physics, not even the metaphysics of the will ; hence he dedicates his book "for free spirits'' to the memory of Voltaire, and while he had earlier turned Wagner from Feuerbach to Schopenhauer, now he himself goes the reverse way. He comes into agreement with the utilitarian ethics of Paul Ree; he believes in the possi bility of the purely scientific culture. He even goes so far as to see in knowledge the highest and best aim of life. Knowledge is for him the true joy, and the whole freshness of delight in the joys of the world and of life which is found in 6twpia (contemplation) — an enjoyment of the present actual world which is at once aesthetic and theoretical — is the fundamental note of this period, the most fortunate period which was granted to him.
Then the Dionysus element of passion came to expression as an uncontrollable longing for strong, masterful, unsympathetic living out of personality, which throws down all that would stand in its path. The strongest impulse of man is the will for power. It is for him to assert this. But this unconditional assertion bursts the system of values in which our civilisation, up" to this time, has enmeshed itself ; the new ideal is in this sense beyond good and bad. " ' The will for power knows no bonds which prescribe what is "permitted"; for everything good which springs from power and increases power; everything bad which springs from weak ness and weakens power. So also in our judgments, in knowledge
JtnttUt von Out und Boat, the title of one of Nietzsche's books, translated by A. Tille.
1
is is
it,
S 4«. J Problem of Valuet : Nietz$che. 679
And in conviction, the important thing is not whether they arei ** true," but whether they help us, whether they further our life and I strengthen our mind. They have worth only if they make us strong.
Hence, conviction also may and must change as life unfolds its changes (as was the case in part with Nietzsche himself). Man chooses what he needs ; the value of knowing also lies beyond true and false. Here begins, therefore, the overturning and re-valuation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe). Here the philosopher be comes a reformer of morals, the legislator the creator of a new civili
sation. In the third period of his development Nietzsche was full of the consciousness of this task.
From this standpoint he sets up the ideal of the over-man (Ueber- meiueA) in contrast with the ordinary, everyday man of the com mon herd. Will for power is will for mastery, and the most important mastery is that of man over man. Hegel once said that of all great things which the world's history shows, the greatest is
the mastery of one free will over others. It recalls this saying when Nietzsche develops his uew idea of civilisation from the antithesis between the " morals of masters " and " morals of slaves. " All the brutality of trampling down those who may be in the way, all the unfettering of the primitive beast in human nature, appear here as the right and duty of the strong. The strong man unfolds and defends the energy of living as against the scantiness and meagreness of renunciation and humility. The morality of slaves, therefore, coincides essentially with the ascetic nature of the super- naturalism which Nietzsche had formerly combated, and the positive connection of the transition period with his third period consists in
poetic dimness and indetiniteness. According to the original ten dency, the over-man is the great individuality which asserts its primitive rights over against the mass. The common herd of the
" far too many " ( Viel-zuViele) exists only to the end that out of it as rare instances of fortune may rise the over-men. These, from century to century, recognize each other as bearers of all the meaning and worth that is to be found in all this confused driving of disordered forces. The genius is the end and aim of history, and it is in this that his right of mastery as over against the Philistine has its root. But according to another tendency the over-man appears as a higher type of the human race, who is to be bred and trained — as the strong race which enjoys its strength of mastery in the powerful unfolding of life, free from the restraints and self-disturbing ten dencies of the slavish morality. In both cases Nietzsche's ideal of
the "joyous " assertion of a world-conquering thirst for living. Nevertheless the ideal for the "over-man" remains veiled in
680 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. £ Part VII
the over-man is alike aristocratic and exclusive, and it is a si penalty for the poetic indefiniteness and symbolic ambiguity of Lii
that his combating of "slavish morality" and of its foundations has made him popular with just the very ones who would be the first to strike from the over-man the head by
which he towers above, the common herd of the " too many. " Between the two lines along which the ideal of the over-man
develops, the author has not come to a clear decision. Zarathustn
mingles them together, with wavering lines of transition. It is clear ( that the one form is an echo of the romantic ideal of the genius as the other borrows from sociological evolution. But the thought of an elevation of the human type through the agency of philosophy
reminds us of the postulates of German idealism.
The remark is quite just that from this conception of the doctrine
of the over-man the step to Fichte would not have been a long one. That Nietzsche could not take it was due to the fact that he bad in his nature too much of Schlegel's " genius," which treats all expe riences from the standpoint of irony (p. 605). This made him unable to find his way back from the individual mind to the " universal ego" — to the conception of values which assert their validity over all.
7. The revolt of boundless individualism culminates in the claim that all values are relative. Only the powerful will of the over-man persists as the absolute value, and sanctions every means which it brings into service. For the " higher " man there is no longer any form or standard, either logical or ethical. The arbitrary will of the over-man has superseded the " autonomy of reason " — this is the course from Kant to Nietzsche which the nineteenth century has described.
Just this determines the problem of the future. Relativism the dismissal and death of philosophy. Philosophy can live only as the science of values which are universally valid. It will no longer force its way into the work of the particular sciences, where psychology also now belongs. Philosophy has neither the craving to know over again from her standpoint what the special sciences have already known from theirs, nor the desire to compile and patch together generalisations from the "more general results" of the separate disciplines. Philosophy has its own field and its own problem in those values of universal validity which are the organising principle for all the functions of culture and civili sation and for all the particular values of life. But will de
scribe and explain these values only that may give an account of their validity; treats them not as facts but as norms. Hence
aphorisms supernatural
it
it
it
it>
J4«. ] The Problem of Value i. 681
it will have to develop its task as a " giving of laws " — not laws of arbitrary caprice which it dictates, but rather laws of the reason, which it discovers and comprehends. By following the path toward this goal it seems to be the aim of the present movement, divided within itself as it often is, to win back the important conquests of the great period of Gerinau philosophy. Since Lotze raised the con ception of value to a place of prominence, and set it at the summit of logic and metaphysics as well as of ethics, many suggestions toward a " theory of values," as a new foundation science in philosophy, have arisen. It can do no harm if these move in part in the psychologi cal and sociological realm, provided it is not forgotten that in estab lishing facts and making genetic explanations we have only gained the material upon which philosophy itself must perform its task of criticism.
But a no less valuable foundation for this central work is formed by the history of philosophy, which, as Hegel first recognised, must be regarded in this sense as an integrant part of philosophy itself. For it presents the process in which European humanity has embodied in scientific conceptions its view of the world and judg ment of human life.
In this process particular experiences have furnished the occasions, and special problems of knowledge have been the instrumentalities, through which step by step reflection has advanced to greater clear ness and certainty respecting the ultimate values of culture and civilisation. In setting forth this process, therefore, the history of philosophy presents to our view the gradual attainment of clearness and certainty respecting those values whose universal validity forms the problem and field of philosophy itself.
APPENDIX.
P. 12. Line 15. Add : —
On the pragmatic factor, cf. C. Herrmann, Der pragmatiscke Zusammenhang in der QetchichU der Philosophic (Dresden, 1863).
P. 12. Line 10 from foot of the text. Add as foot-note, affixed to the word " positive " : —
A similar, but quite mistaken attempt has been recently made in this direc tion by Fr. Brenta. no, Die vier Phasen in der Philosophie und ihr gegenwdrtiger Stand (Vienna, 1895). Here belong also the analogies, always more or less artificial, which have been attempted between the course of development in the ancient and that in the modern philosophy. Cf. e. g. v. Reichlin-Meldegg, Der
Parallelismus der alien und neueren Philosophie (Leips. and Heidelb. 1866).
P. 16. Line 6 from foot of text, add : —
In all previous expositions of the history of philosophy, whether upon a larger or smaller scale, a chronological arrangement has been adopted, following the order and succession of the more important philosophies and schools. These various arrangements have differed only in details, and these not always impor tant. Among the most recent might be named in addition, that of J. Bergmann, whose treatment shows taste and insight (2 vols. , Berlin, 1892). A treatment marked by originality and fineness of thought, in which the usual scheme has been happily broken through by emphasis upon the great movements and inter relations of the world's history, is presented by K. Eucken, Die Lebensansehau- ungen der grossen Denker (2d ed. , Leips. 1898).
P. 23. To the foot-note, add : —
Windischmann, earlier {Die Philosophie im Fortgang der Weltgesehichte, Bonn. 1827-1834), and recently P. Deussen (Allgemeine Getchichte der Philoso
phie, I. 1, Leips. 1894) have made a beginning toward the work of relating this Oriental thought to the whole history of philosophy.
P. 24. Line 8. Affix as foot-note: —
E. Rohde has set forth with great insight and discrimination the rich sugges. tiona for philosophy in the following period, which grew out of the transforma tions of the religious ideas (Psyche, 2d ed. , 1897).
P. 27. To the lit. on the Period, add : —
A. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece, N. Y. 1898.
P. 30. Line 30. To the notice of Heraclitus, add : —
He was apparently the first who, from the standpoint of scientific insight, undertook to reform the public life and combat the dangers of anarchy. Him self an austere and rigorous personality, he preached the law of order, which ought to prevail in human life as in nature.
. ■:■ . 688- ;
684
Appendix.
P. 30. Line 19 from the foot.
To the notice of Anaxagoras, add : —
His scientific employments were essentially astronomical in their nature. Neglecting earthly interests, he is said to have declared the heavens to be his fatherland, and the observation of the stars to be his life work. Metrodorus and Archelausi are named as his disciples.
P. 42. Foot-note 1. Relating to the vow of Anaxagoras, add : — Cf. , however, M. Heinze in the Ben d. Sachs. Ges. d. Wiss. , 1890.
P. 46. Last line of text. To the word " curved," affix as foot
note : —
■' '
The tradition (Arist. , foe. cit. ) shows this collocation; whereas, from the cosmology of the Pythagoreans and likewise from that of Plato and Aristotle, we should expect the reverse order.
P. 55. To the notice of Diogenes of Apollonia, add : —
He was the most important of the eclectics of the fifth century. So little is known as to his life that it is even doubtful whether Apollonia was his home. Of his writings, even Simplicius had only the xtpl 4>iatut before him (Phyt. , S2 V. 151, 24 D).
P. 62. Add to foot-note 1 : —
because in this phase of Greek thought they run along as yet unrelated lines of thought, side, by side with the theories of natural science. Only the Pythago reans seem as yet to have begun the combination between theology and phi losophy, which later became through Plato a controlling influence.
P. 68. Prefix to par. 4, which begins with "But while," the following sentence:— ■*■
. A preparation for this transition was made by the circumstance that even in the investigation of nature, interest in fundamental principles had grown weaker after the first creative development, and science had begun to scatter her labours over special fields.
P. 71. To the personal notice of Socrates, add : '—■
He considered this enlightenment of himself and fellow-citizens a divine voca tion (Plato's Apology), giving this work precedence even over. his care of his family ( Xanthippe), lie gathered about him the. noblest youth of Athens, such as Alcibiades, who honoured in him the ideal and the teacher of virtue. He appeared thus as leader of an intellectual aristocracy, and just by this means came into opposition to the dominant democracy. £K. JoSl, Der ec. hle. «. d. Xenophontische Sokrates, Vol. I. , Berlin, 1893. Vol. ' II. in 2 pts. , 1901. Kralik,
Senates; -1888-] - ■ . -. . -■ . .
' P'. ' 96. ' "Line 23. Insert after Plato : —
And of their materialism which he so vigorously opposed.
P. 102. At close of par. 4, insert : —
This personal influence 'he' himself regarded as the most important part of his activity. For scientific investigation was only one side of his rich nature. The demand for ethical teaching' and for political and social efficiency had a still stronger life within him. He had an open vision for the evils of his time. He united an 'adherence to the aristocratic party with an activity in the direction indicated hy Socrates, and never quite gave up the hope of reforming the life of his time through his science. To this was added as a third element in his per sonality that pre-eminent artistic disposition which could clothe Ms ideals with poetic exposition in the most splendid language.
. /
.
,. . . -. -. -'
Appendix.
P. 103. To references on Plato, add : —
P. Lutowslawski, Origin and Growth of Plato3 i Logic (1807).
[ R. L. Nettleship, Philos. Lecture*, ed. by Bradley and Benson, 1807. W.
Witidelband. Plato, Stuttgart, 1900. ]
P. 104. After first par. , insert : —
In comparison with the high flight of Platb, the personality and life-work of Aristotle appear throughout of cooler and soberer type. But if he lacks the impulse toward an active influence in public life, and also the poetic charm of diction and composition, he has, instead, all the more effective a substitute in the power of thought with which he surveys and masters his Held, in the clarity sum! purity of his scientific temper, in the certainty and power with which he disposes and moulds the results gathered from the intellectual labours of many contributors. Aristotle is an incarnation of the spirit of science such as the
world has never seen again, and in this direction his incomparable influence has lain. He will always remain the leading thinker In the realm of investigation which seeks to comprehend reality with keen look, unbiassed by any interest
derived from feeling.
P. 104. Line 10. After " knowledge," insert : —
*-
The recently discovered main fragment of bis rioXirria ri» 'AArnUwr is a valu able example of the completeness of this pan, also, of his literary work. In the main only his scientific, etc.
P. 104. (Especially valuable in the recent literature upon Aristotle are r H. Meier, Die Syllooittik de$ Arirtoteles. Vol. I. , 1896, Vol. II. in 2 pts. , 1900 ; G. Rodier, Arittote, Traiti de VAme, trad, et annotte. a vols. , Paris, 1900. Cf. also W. A. Hammond, A. 't Psychology: The De Anima and Parva Xat. ,tr. with int. and Nulet, Lond. and N. Y. 1901 ; H. Siebeck, A. , Stuttgart, 1899. ]
P. 112. As note to close of first par. , attached to words " in the middle": —
Cf. , however, on this, A. Ooedeke-Meyer, Die Naturphilotophie Spikur't in ikretn Verhdltniu xu Demokrit, Strassburg, 1897.
P. 119. Line 17. After "back," insert: —
according to the general laws of association and reproduction (Phaedo, 72 ff. ).
P. 123. Insert after the first par. under 6, the following par. : —
This completely new attempt on Plato's part was supported by the theological doctrines which he was able to take from the Mysteries of Dionysus. Here the individual soul was regarded as a " daimon " or spirit which had journeyed or been banished from another world into the body, and during its earthly life maintained mysterious emo tional relations to its original home. Such theological ideas were brought by the philosopher into his scientific system, not without serious difficulties.
P. 135. Note attached to the word "not" in line 11
foot) : —
685
For Aristotle means nothing else, even where, as is frequently the case In the Analytics, be expresses the relation by saying that the question is whether the one concept Is affirmed or predicated (»«rir>»ptr») of the other.
(from
686 Appendix.
P. 142. After the first sentence in the last par. , insert : —
" The subordination of the single thing under the general concept is for him too, not an arbitrary act of the intellect in its work of comparison; it is an act of knowledge which takes us into the nature of things and reproduces the actual relations which obtain there. "
P. 148. Line 3. After " world," insert : —
Every element has thus its " natural " motion in a certain direc tion and its " natural " place in the universe. Only by collision with others (/ftp) is it turned aside or crowded out.
P. 162. Before second par. , insert : —
" In the history of the Stoa we have to distinguish an older period which was predominantly ethical, a middle period which was eclectic, and a later period which was religious. "
P. 162. To references on Stoicism, add : — A. Schmekel, Die mittlere Stoa (Berlin, 1892).
P. 162. Line 6 from foot. To references on Lucretius, add : — R. Heinze's Com. on 3d Book (Leips. 1877).
P. 163. Line 20. Add : —
Cf. E. Pappenheim (Berlin, 1874 f. , Leips. 1877 and 1881).
P. 163. To references on Scepticism, add: —
V. Brochard, Let Sceptiques Orecs (Paris, 1887). [M. M. Patrick, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism (contains trans, of the " Pyrrhonic Sketches," Camb. and Lond. 1899). ]
P. 163. Line 35. After " principle," insert : —
Cicero stands nearest to the position of Probabilism as maintained by the Academy. See below, § 17, 7.
P.
s Jfl] Problem of Valuet : Stirner, Bahnten. 675
play with it in literature; for the theory of this ideal has been expressed by Fichte, Schiller, and Schleiermacher. And just for this reason it does not make common cause with the artificial para doxes which radical individualism loves to present on occasion.
The most robust example of such paradoxes came from the He gelian " left," in the fantastic book of M. Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt, 1806-1866), The Individual and his Property1 (1844). Stirner is re lated to Feuerbach as Feuerbach is to Hegel : he draws the conclu sion which would completely invert the premises. Feuerbach had looked upon "spirit" or the "idea" as the "other-being of Na ture," and as abstract and unreal as the theological ghost He had declared the only reality to be man, living man of flesh and blood ; but his ethics aimed toward humanity, active love to humanity. What is mankind? asks Stirner. A general idea, an abstraction — a last shadow of the old ghost which is still walking, even in Feuer- bach's system. The true concrete reality is the individual — the autocratic personality. Such a personality makes its world both in its acts of ideation and in its acts of will; therefore its ownership extends as far as its will extends. It recognises nothing above itself; it knows no other weal than its own, and serves no alien law or alien will. For in truth there is nothing for it except itself. Thus by reversing Fichte's doctrine of the " universal ego," Stirner attains to "egoism" in both the theoretical and the practical sense of the word. He plays the "solipsist"' and preaches unscrupulous self-seeking, — Ich hab' mein' Sach' auf nichts gesteUt. * All this sounded like an artificial cynicism, and it was a matter of doubt
whether the book was intended to be taken seriously. At all events it soon lost the interest which it momentarily excited, and fell into an oblivion from which it has only recently been rescued. But when, as now, there is a disposition to see in it a first cry of distress from the individual repressed by the mass, it ought not to be ignored that the " individual " who was here seeking to emancipate himself from the community did not give any indication of a peculiar value which would have justified him in any such emancipation. His sole originality consisted in the courage of paradox.
5. Another bizarre form of individualism was developed from Schopenhauer's " metaphysics of the will, by Julius Bahnten. Here the " unreason of the will is taken with complete seriousness, but the pantheistic aspect of the " one only will " is stripped away.
1 Dtr Einzigt uml tein Kigenthtm.
* Of. above, p. 471.
* Beitrage zur Charaktrrulogie (1887); Dtr Widertpruch im Witten %ni
Wtrnn dtr Welt (1881-1882).
'I care for nothing.
676 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. [Pakt VTL
We know only individuals who will, and Bahnsen sees in them the independent elementary potencies of reality, beyond which no higher principle is to be assumed. The separate and self-sufficient exist ence of finite personalities, which Bahnsen also calls " Henads. "" has never been so sharply formulated as in this atheistic atomism of the will. Each of these "wills" is, moreover, divided within itself into two, and in this consists its unreason and its unhappiness. This contradiction belongs to the essence of the will ; the will is the "as serted contradiction," and this is the true dialectic, " the real dialec tic. " This contradiction, however, cannot be grasped by logical thinking; hence all the effort which the will makes to know the world is in vain. Logical thinking which excludes contradiction is incapable of understanding a world which consists of intrinsically contradictory wills. The contradiction between the world and the intellect makes impossible even the partial salvation which Schopen hauer admitted,1 and the indestructible individual will must there fore endure forever the suffering of self-laceration in ever new existences. At so high a price is the metaphysical dignity pur chased, which personality here " receives as its " intelligible charac ter. " The living out of this intelligible character," purposeless and futile as it really is, forms the principle of all values.
Since the theory of knowledge involved in this " real dialectic " maintains that logical thinking and reality with its contradictions have no common measure, the fantasies of this " miserableism " make no claim to scientific validity; they are only the expression of the gloomy mood of the individual who is caught in the conflict of his own will. They form the melancholy counterpart to the pert frivol ity of Stirner's individual. Both show what result may be expected if " philosophy " takes moods which constitute the peculiar nature of pessimism and optimism as a basis for serious conclusions.
This is still more recognisable in the case of the great influence which has been exercised in the last decade upon the view of life and its literary expression by the poet, Friedrich Nietzsche. Many factors combine to form this influence: the fascinating beauty of language which ensnares and intoxicates even where the content passes ovjer'-into enigmatic suggestions; a mysterious symbolism which, in "Thus spake Zarathustra," permits the author to revel in obscurity and indefiniteness ; the aphoristic form of expression which never requires the reader to think coherently in scientific terms, but rather leaves him to determine for himself how much stimulus and suggestion he will utilise, and thus decide the degree
»dp. 621. -;••. - - -
5 46. ] Problem of Value* : Nietzsche. 677
in which he will expect himself to enjoy the surprising hits, the brill
iant formulations, the happy comparisons, and paradoxical nations. But all these elements are unimportant in comparison with the immediate impression of the personality of the writer. We meet an individual of the highest culture, and of a thoroughly original stamp, who experiences all the tendencies of the time, and suffers from the same unsolved contradictions by which the time itself is out of joint. Hence the echo which his language has found; hence the danger of his influence, which does not heal the sickness of his age, but increases it.
The two factors of the inner antagonism of his own nature Nietzsche himself has called the "Dionysus" and the "Apollo. " It is the antithesis between voluntarism and intellectualism, be tween Schopenhauer's will and Hegel's idea. It appears here in an individual of the highest intellectual culture and wsthetic pro ductiveness, who is able to apprehend history and life with the greatest delicacy and to reproduce them poetically with equal fine ness of feeling. " But science and art have not saved this individual
from the dark will to live " ; deep within stirs a passionate, com pelling impulse toward wild deeds, toward the achieving and unfold ing of power. His is the case of a nervous professor who would fain be a wild tyrant, and who is tossed back and forth between the quiet enjoyment of the goods of the highest culture on the one hand, and that mysterious, burning demand for a life of passion on the other. Now he luxuriates in serene blessedness of {esthetic contem plation and artistic production; now he casts all this aside and asserts his impulses, his instincts, his passions. Sensual enjoyment, as such, has never been a value for him — this is shown in the height and purity of his nature. The enjoyment which he seeks is either that of knowing or that of power. In the struggle between
the two he has been crushed — the victim of an age which is satisfied no longer by the impersonal and superpersonal values of intellec tual, aesthetic, and moral culture, hut thirsts again for the bound less unfolding of the individual in a life of deeds. Caught in the struggle between its reason inherited from the past and its passion thirsting for the future, it and all of value that it possesses are torn and ground. The artistic expression of a nature thus rent and torn is the charm of Nietzsche's writings.
In his first period, which contains the following in germ, the conflict between the two motive forces has not yet come to open outbreak ; rather we find him applying Schopenhauer's fundamental thoughts to the origin of Greek tragedy and to Richard Wagner's
combi
musical drama, and thus presenting art as the source of salva
1
«78 PkUa»pkg of the yineteemih Century. [FVwr VTL
_^tioo from the torture of the will Bat even at that tine it ra hi* thought that oat of this tragic temper a new, a higher echare should be brought forth ; a prouder race should emerge, of bold and splendidly audacious will which would victoriously burst the bonds of the present intellectual and spiritual life, and eren at that period this bent toward originality and independence threw overboard the ballast of the historic period. Xo condition and no authority is to repress this artistic civilisation; aesthetic freedom is to be cramped neither by knowledge nor by life.
It is not difficult to understand that when these thoughts began tt> clarify themselves the philosophic poet followed for a time along the path of intellectualism. Science is the free spirit which casts off all fetters and recognises nothing above itself: but she is such only when she makes the " real " man free, placing him on his ownc feet, independent of everything that is above the senses or apart from the senses. This science which Nietzsche would now make the bearer of the essence of culture is positive science. — no meta
physics, not even the metaphysics of the will ; hence he dedicates his book "for free spirits'' to the memory of Voltaire, and while he had earlier turned Wagner from Feuerbach to Schopenhauer, now he himself goes the reverse way. He comes into agreement with the utilitarian ethics of Paul Ree; he believes in the possi bility of the purely scientific culture. He even goes so far as to see in knowledge the highest and best aim of life. Knowledge is for him the true joy, and the whole freshness of delight in the joys of the world and of life which is found in 6twpia (contemplation) — an enjoyment of the present actual world which is at once aesthetic and theoretical — is the fundamental note of this period, the most fortunate period which was granted to him.
Then the Dionysus element of passion came to expression as an uncontrollable longing for strong, masterful, unsympathetic living out of personality, which throws down all that would stand in its path. The strongest impulse of man is the will for power. It is for him to assert this. But this unconditional assertion bursts the system of values in which our civilisation, up" to this time, has enmeshed itself ; the new ideal is in this sense beyond good and bad. " ' The will for power knows no bonds which prescribe what is "permitted"; for everything good which springs from power and increases power; everything bad which springs from weak ness and weakens power. So also in our judgments, in knowledge
JtnttUt von Out und Boat, the title of one of Nietzsche's books, translated by A. Tille.
1
is is
it,
S 4«. J Problem of Valuet : Nietz$che. 679
And in conviction, the important thing is not whether they arei ** true," but whether they help us, whether they further our life and I strengthen our mind. They have worth only if they make us strong.
Hence, conviction also may and must change as life unfolds its changes (as was the case in part with Nietzsche himself). Man chooses what he needs ; the value of knowing also lies beyond true and false. Here begins, therefore, the overturning and re-valuation of all values (Umwerthung aller Werthe). Here the philosopher be comes a reformer of morals, the legislator the creator of a new civili
sation. In the third period of his development Nietzsche was full of the consciousness of this task.
From this standpoint he sets up the ideal of the over-man (Ueber- meiueA) in contrast with the ordinary, everyday man of the com mon herd. Will for power is will for mastery, and the most important mastery is that of man over man. Hegel once said that of all great things which the world's history shows, the greatest is
the mastery of one free will over others. It recalls this saying when Nietzsche develops his uew idea of civilisation from the antithesis between the " morals of masters " and " morals of slaves. " All the brutality of trampling down those who may be in the way, all the unfettering of the primitive beast in human nature, appear here as the right and duty of the strong. The strong man unfolds and defends the energy of living as against the scantiness and meagreness of renunciation and humility. The morality of slaves, therefore, coincides essentially with the ascetic nature of the super- naturalism which Nietzsche had formerly combated, and the positive connection of the transition period with his third period consists in
poetic dimness and indetiniteness. According to the original ten dency, the over-man is the great individuality which asserts its primitive rights over against the mass. The common herd of the
" far too many " ( Viel-zuViele) exists only to the end that out of it as rare instances of fortune may rise the over-men. These, from century to century, recognize each other as bearers of all the meaning and worth that is to be found in all this confused driving of disordered forces. The genius is the end and aim of history, and it is in this that his right of mastery as over against the Philistine has its root. But according to another tendency the over-man appears as a higher type of the human race, who is to be bred and trained — as the strong race which enjoys its strength of mastery in the powerful unfolding of life, free from the restraints and self-disturbing ten dencies of the slavish morality. In both cases Nietzsche's ideal of
the "joyous " assertion of a world-conquering thirst for living. Nevertheless the ideal for the "over-man" remains veiled in
680 Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century. £ Part VII
the over-man is alike aristocratic and exclusive, and it is a si penalty for the poetic indefiniteness and symbolic ambiguity of Lii
that his combating of "slavish morality" and of its foundations has made him popular with just the very ones who would be the first to strike from the over-man the head by
which he towers above, the common herd of the " too many. " Between the two lines along which the ideal of the over-man
develops, the author has not come to a clear decision. Zarathustn
mingles them together, with wavering lines of transition. It is clear ( that the one form is an echo of the romantic ideal of the genius as the other borrows from sociological evolution. But the thought of an elevation of the human type through the agency of philosophy
reminds us of the postulates of German idealism.
The remark is quite just that from this conception of the doctrine
of the over-man the step to Fichte would not have been a long one. That Nietzsche could not take it was due to the fact that he bad in his nature too much of Schlegel's " genius," which treats all expe riences from the standpoint of irony (p. 605). This made him unable to find his way back from the individual mind to the " universal ego" — to the conception of values which assert their validity over all.
7. The revolt of boundless individualism culminates in the claim that all values are relative. Only the powerful will of the over-man persists as the absolute value, and sanctions every means which it brings into service. For the " higher " man there is no longer any form or standard, either logical or ethical. The arbitrary will of the over-man has superseded the " autonomy of reason " — this is the course from Kant to Nietzsche which the nineteenth century has described.
Just this determines the problem of the future. Relativism the dismissal and death of philosophy. Philosophy can live only as the science of values which are universally valid. It will no longer force its way into the work of the particular sciences, where psychology also now belongs. Philosophy has neither the craving to know over again from her standpoint what the special sciences have already known from theirs, nor the desire to compile and patch together generalisations from the "more general results" of the separate disciplines. Philosophy has its own field and its own problem in those values of universal validity which are the organising principle for all the functions of culture and civili sation and for all the particular values of life. But will de
scribe and explain these values only that may give an account of their validity; treats them not as facts but as norms. Hence
aphorisms supernatural
it
it
it
it>
J4«. ] The Problem of Value i. 681
it will have to develop its task as a " giving of laws " — not laws of arbitrary caprice which it dictates, but rather laws of the reason, which it discovers and comprehends. By following the path toward this goal it seems to be the aim of the present movement, divided within itself as it often is, to win back the important conquests of the great period of Gerinau philosophy. Since Lotze raised the con ception of value to a place of prominence, and set it at the summit of logic and metaphysics as well as of ethics, many suggestions toward a " theory of values," as a new foundation science in philosophy, have arisen. It can do no harm if these move in part in the psychologi cal and sociological realm, provided it is not forgotten that in estab lishing facts and making genetic explanations we have only gained the material upon which philosophy itself must perform its task of criticism.
But a no less valuable foundation for this central work is formed by the history of philosophy, which, as Hegel first recognised, must be regarded in this sense as an integrant part of philosophy itself. For it presents the process in which European humanity has embodied in scientific conceptions its view of the world and judg ment of human life.
In this process particular experiences have furnished the occasions, and special problems of knowledge have been the instrumentalities, through which step by step reflection has advanced to greater clear ness and certainty respecting the ultimate values of culture and civilisation. In setting forth this process, therefore, the history of philosophy presents to our view the gradual attainment of clearness and certainty respecting those values whose universal validity forms the problem and field of philosophy itself.
APPENDIX.
P. 12. Line 15. Add : —
On the pragmatic factor, cf. C. Herrmann, Der pragmatiscke Zusammenhang in der QetchichU der Philosophic (Dresden, 1863).
P. 12. Line 10 from foot of the text. Add as foot-note, affixed to the word " positive " : —
A similar, but quite mistaken attempt has been recently made in this direc tion by Fr. Brenta. no, Die vier Phasen in der Philosophie und ihr gegenwdrtiger Stand (Vienna, 1895). Here belong also the analogies, always more or less artificial, which have been attempted between the course of development in the ancient and that in the modern philosophy. Cf. e. g. v. Reichlin-Meldegg, Der
Parallelismus der alien und neueren Philosophie (Leips. and Heidelb. 1866).
P. 16. Line 6 from foot of text, add : —
In all previous expositions of the history of philosophy, whether upon a larger or smaller scale, a chronological arrangement has been adopted, following the order and succession of the more important philosophies and schools. These various arrangements have differed only in details, and these not always impor tant. Among the most recent might be named in addition, that of J. Bergmann, whose treatment shows taste and insight (2 vols. , Berlin, 1892). A treatment marked by originality and fineness of thought, in which the usual scheme has been happily broken through by emphasis upon the great movements and inter relations of the world's history, is presented by K. Eucken, Die Lebensansehau- ungen der grossen Denker (2d ed. , Leips. 1898).
P. 23. To the foot-note, add : —
Windischmann, earlier {Die Philosophie im Fortgang der Weltgesehichte, Bonn. 1827-1834), and recently P. Deussen (Allgemeine Getchichte der Philoso
phie, I. 1, Leips. 1894) have made a beginning toward the work of relating this Oriental thought to the whole history of philosophy.
P. 24. Line 8. Affix as foot-note: —
E. Rohde has set forth with great insight and discrimination the rich sugges. tiona for philosophy in the following period, which grew out of the transforma tions of the religious ideas (Psyche, 2d ed. , 1897).
P. 27. To the lit. on the Period, add : —
A. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece, N. Y. 1898.
P. 30. Line 30. To the notice of Heraclitus, add : —
He was apparently the first who, from the standpoint of scientific insight, undertook to reform the public life and combat the dangers of anarchy. Him self an austere and rigorous personality, he preached the law of order, which ought to prevail in human life as in nature.
. ■:■ . 688- ;
684
Appendix.
P. 30. Line 19 from the foot.
To the notice of Anaxagoras, add : —
His scientific employments were essentially astronomical in their nature. Neglecting earthly interests, he is said to have declared the heavens to be his fatherland, and the observation of the stars to be his life work. Metrodorus and Archelausi are named as his disciples.
P. 42. Foot-note 1. Relating to the vow of Anaxagoras, add : — Cf. , however, M. Heinze in the Ben d. Sachs. Ges. d. Wiss. , 1890.
P. 46. Last line of text. To the word " curved," affix as foot
note : —
■' '
The tradition (Arist. , foe. cit. ) shows this collocation; whereas, from the cosmology of the Pythagoreans and likewise from that of Plato and Aristotle, we should expect the reverse order.
P. 55. To the notice of Diogenes of Apollonia, add : —
He was the most important of the eclectics of the fifth century. So little is known as to his life that it is even doubtful whether Apollonia was his home. Of his writings, even Simplicius had only the xtpl 4>iatut before him (Phyt. , S2 V. 151, 24 D).
P. 62. Add to foot-note 1 : —
because in this phase of Greek thought they run along as yet unrelated lines of thought, side, by side with the theories of natural science. Only the Pythago reans seem as yet to have begun the combination between theology and phi losophy, which later became through Plato a controlling influence.
P. 68. Prefix to par. 4, which begins with "But while," the following sentence:— ■*■
. A preparation for this transition was made by the circumstance that even in the investigation of nature, interest in fundamental principles had grown weaker after the first creative development, and science had begun to scatter her labours over special fields.
P. 71. To the personal notice of Socrates, add : '—■
He considered this enlightenment of himself and fellow-citizens a divine voca tion (Plato's Apology), giving this work precedence even over. his care of his family ( Xanthippe), lie gathered about him the. noblest youth of Athens, such as Alcibiades, who honoured in him the ideal and the teacher of virtue. He appeared thus as leader of an intellectual aristocracy, and just by this means came into opposition to the dominant democracy. £K. JoSl, Der ec. hle. «. d. Xenophontische Sokrates, Vol. I. , Berlin, 1893. Vol. ' II. in 2 pts. , 1901. Kralik,
Senates; -1888-] - ■ . -. . -■ . .
' P'. ' 96. ' "Line 23. Insert after Plato : —
And of their materialism which he so vigorously opposed.
P. 102. At close of par. 4, insert : —
This personal influence 'he' himself regarded as the most important part of his activity. For scientific investigation was only one side of his rich nature. The demand for ethical teaching' and for political and social efficiency had a still stronger life within him. He had an open vision for the evils of his time. He united an 'adherence to the aristocratic party with an activity in the direction indicated hy Socrates, and never quite gave up the hope of reforming the life of his time through his science. To this was added as a third element in his per sonality that pre-eminent artistic disposition which could clothe Ms ideals with poetic exposition in the most splendid language.
. /
.
,. . . -. -. -'
Appendix.
P. 103. To references on Plato, add : —
P. Lutowslawski, Origin and Growth of Plato3 i Logic (1807).
[ R. L. Nettleship, Philos. Lecture*, ed. by Bradley and Benson, 1807. W.
Witidelband. Plato, Stuttgart, 1900. ]
P. 104. After first par. , insert : —
In comparison with the high flight of Platb, the personality and life-work of Aristotle appear throughout of cooler and soberer type. But if he lacks the impulse toward an active influence in public life, and also the poetic charm of diction and composition, he has, instead, all the more effective a substitute in the power of thought with which he surveys and masters his Held, in the clarity sum! purity of his scientific temper, in the certainty and power with which he disposes and moulds the results gathered from the intellectual labours of many contributors. Aristotle is an incarnation of the spirit of science such as the
world has never seen again, and in this direction his incomparable influence has lain. He will always remain the leading thinker In the realm of investigation which seeks to comprehend reality with keen look, unbiassed by any interest
derived from feeling.
P. 104. Line 10. After " knowledge," insert : —
*-
The recently discovered main fragment of bis rioXirria ri» 'AArnUwr is a valu able example of the completeness of this pan, also, of his literary work. In the main only his scientific, etc.
P. 104. (Especially valuable in the recent literature upon Aristotle are r H. Meier, Die Syllooittik de$ Arirtoteles. Vol. I. , 1896, Vol. II. in 2 pts. , 1900 ; G. Rodier, Arittote, Traiti de VAme, trad, et annotte. a vols. , Paris, 1900. Cf. also W. A. Hammond, A. 't Psychology: The De Anima and Parva Xat. ,tr. with int. and Nulet, Lond. and N. Y. 1901 ; H. Siebeck, A. , Stuttgart, 1899. ]
P. 112. As note to close of first par. , attached to words " in the middle": —
Cf. , however, on this, A. Ooedeke-Meyer, Die Naturphilotophie Spikur't in ikretn Verhdltniu xu Demokrit, Strassburg, 1897.
P. 119. Line 17. After "back," insert: —
according to the general laws of association and reproduction (Phaedo, 72 ff. ).
P. 123. Insert after the first par. under 6, the following par. : —
This completely new attempt on Plato's part was supported by the theological doctrines which he was able to take from the Mysteries of Dionysus. Here the individual soul was regarded as a " daimon " or spirit which had journeyed or been banished from another world into the body, and during its earthly life maintained mysterious emo tional relations to its original home. Such theological ideas were brought by the philosopher into his scientific system, not without serious difficulties.
P. 135. Note attached to the word "not" in line 11
foot) : —
685
For Aristotle means nothing else, even where, as is frequently the case In the Analytics, be expresses the relation by saying that the question is whether the one concept Is affirmed or predicated (»«rir>»ptr») of the other.
(from
686 Appendix.
P. 142. After the first sentence in the last par. , insert : —
" The subordination of the single thing under the general concept is for him too, not an arbitrary act of the intellect in its work of comparison; it is an act of knowledge which takes us into the nature of things and reproduces the actual relations which obtain there. "
P. 148. Line 3. After " world," insert : —
Every element has thus its " natural " motion in a certain direc tion and its " natural " place in the universe. Only by collision with others (/ftp) is it turned aside or crowded out.
P. 162. Before second par. , insert : —
" In the history of the Stoa we have to distinguish an older period which was predominantly ethical, a middle period which was eclectic, and a later period which was religious. "
P. 162. To references on Stoicism, add : — A. Schmekel, Die mittlere Stoa (Berlin, 1892).
P. 162. Line 6 from foot. To references on Lucretius, add : — R. Heinze's Com. on 3d Book (Leips. 1877).
P. 163. Line 20. Add : —
Cf. E. Pappenheim (Berlin, 1874 f. , Leips. 1877 and 1881).
P. 163. To references on Scepticism, add: —
V. Brochard, Let Sceptiques Orecs (Paris, 1887). [M. M. Patrick, Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism (contains trans, of the " Pyrrhonic Sketches," Camb. and Lond. 1899). ]
P. 163. Line 35. After " principle," insert : —
Cicero stands nearest to the position of Probabilism as maintained by the Academy. See below, § 17, 7.
P.
