of humanity; the mass of men excited little reverence, rather pity or disdain, at best moderate respect for the moderate work they do. But now and then there emerge from the ordinary run of our species extraordinary individuals, and the thought of them, the possibilities they suggested, set his mind on fire. If there be no God, he, as it were, said to himself, may there not still be something beyond man! From our human stock, may not something transcendent arise? It is in the light of such a view that I interpret a remark to the effect that his tendency as a whole was not to morality, and that from an essentially extra-moral way of looking at things he was led to the consideration of morality—from a distance.[1] The distant elevation on which he stood was that essentially of the religious nature. For from this standpoint something great belongs to the fabric of things, something awe-inspiring, something unreckonable, something sovereign and clean above us, and the world and life become inevitably flattened, when the thought of it is lost.[2] It was Nietzsche's experience, and is the secret of the undertone of melancholy that we feel in him. One who knew him intimately (at least for a time) thinks that his history turned on this loss of faith, on "emotion over the death of God," and that the possibility of finding a substitute for the lost God became an animating thought with him.[3] Later, when a readjustment had taken place, Nietzsche uses [makes Zarathustra use] this significant language: "Once, when men looked on the far-stretching sea, they said God; but I teach you to say, Superman."[4] That is, the conceptions are in a way correlative. The future lords of the earth, he says, will "replace God," begetting in those whom they rule a "deep, unconditional confidence."[5] Nietzsche's moral aim starts with a transcendent conception like this. The task of the race is to create these lords or Gods—if
- ↑ Werke, XIV, 74, § 144.
- ↑ Cf. passages like Human, etc., § 223; Joyful Science, § 125.
- ↑ Lou Andreas-Salomé, op. cit., pp. 38-9. In a similar spirit Nietzsche speaks of the doctrine of eternal recurrence as taking the place of metaphysics and religion (Will to Power, § 462).
- ↑ Zarathustra, II, ii.
- ↑ Werke (pocket ed.), VII, 486, § 36; cf. Zarathustra, IV, xiii, § 2 ("God died: now we will that the superman live"); also I, xxii, § 3. He quotes a passage from Plato's Theages: "each of us would like if possible to be lord of all men, most of all to be God," and adds "this sentiment must arise again" (Will to Power, § 958).
