Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/142

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126
NIETZSCHE THE THINKER

name.[1] And what Nietzsche's own ideal is, where gratification lay for him, is suggested in what he says, after remarking on the sordid political parties of his day, "Live as higher men, and do evermore the deeds of the higher culture."[2]

While he does not recognize, any more than earlier, the practicability of making every one an end in himself, while he thinks that we may easily overdo pity, and speaks of the need of discrimination and judgment,[3] his feelings of broad human sympathy and love are as strong as ever. The cold look which superior people have for their servants displeases him.[4] He finds it something fearful for a man to have less than three hundred Thaler a year, or to have to beg like a child and to humble himself.[5] He has even sentiment for the criminal, as we have seen—and speaks of our crime against him in that we treat him as a scamp (Schuft). At times a wondering sense of the worth of man as such comes over him: not only is nature too beautiful for us poor mortals, but man is, not merely one who is moral, but every man.[6] Really Nietzsche wishes (now as earlier) to consider all, and, though in varying ways, to give a meaning to every life.[7] This does not imply, however, that we must always be directly doing for others. One who makes a whole person out of himself, who developes all his peculiar individual being, may in the long run go further in contributing to the general advantage, than one who gives himself up to acts of benevolence and pity.[8] If egoism be taken in this higher sense, it may be questioned whether the egoistic is not useful in a much higher degree, even to other men, than the unegoistic.[9] n The individual is thus still regarded in the light of a public utility, and so far Nietzsche does not in his own view transcend the utilitarian standpoint which he accredits to morality in general.

At the same time we feel that a different standpoint is

  1. Dawn of Day, § 360.
  2. Human, etc., § 480.
  3. The Wanderer etc., § 41.
  4. Human, etc., § 64.
  5. Ibid., § 479.
  6. Mixed Opinions etc., § 342; cf . The Wanderer etc., § 49.
  7. Dawn of Day, § 202.
  8. Human, etc., § 95; cf. Dawn of Day, § 174.
  9. Werke, XI, 39, § 77.