haps unjustly) about present-day Germans. They think, he says, "that force must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then they subject themselves gladly and admiringly. … That there is force in mildness and quietness they do not readily believe. They miss force in Goethe and think that Beethoven has more; and in this they err."[1] Again he says, "When one sits well on a horse he steals an enemy's courage and an onlooker's heart—why wilt thou still attack? Sit like a conquering one!"[2] Moreover, power by no means necessarily intimidates, he thinks, and when punishment is attempted with this sole end in view it is often a sign that real power is lacking—a sign of doubt of one's power. Indeed, Nietzsche's idea of a natural lord of men is often not of an oppressor at all, but of one who brings relief, benefit.[3] He is one "who can lead a cause, carry out a resolve, be loyal to an idea, hold fast a woman, punish and overthrow a rascal—a man who has his anger and his sword and to whom the weak and suffering and oppressed, and even animals gladly turn and naturally belong."[4] His thought of the future is that the European masses who are now being mixed, averaged, democratized, will sooner or later need a strong man as they need their daily bread.[5] M. Faguet overlooks this side of the matter when he represents Nietzsche as teaching that the higher class are to hold down the mass and keep them at their tasks by force.[6] The summit of power, in his conception, is just in making that cruder sort of power unnecessary. If we use violence against another, we may of course subject him, but we do not get his heart—and therefore our power over him is so far incomplete.[7] It reminds one of what Lorenzo de' Medici said after foiling the Pitti conspiracy
- ↑ Werke, XI, 363-4, § 543. Cf. another remark, "I have found force where one does not look for it, in simple, mild, and agreeable men who have not the slightest desire to rule"—his idea being that strong natures rule anyway, even if (as he says) they do not lift a finger and during their whole life bury themselves in a garden.
- ↑ Mixed Opinions etc., § 354.
- ↑ Beyond Good and Evil, § 199.
- ↑ Ibid., § 293.
- ↑ Ibid., § 242.
- ↑ En lisant Nietzsche, p. 344 ff. Faguet does, hcwever, admit that the force is not brutality, or at least brutal manners, for he says that in Nietzsche's dream of a superhuman élite, who will deliberately conquer and oppress, he always makes beautiful manners enter (p. 307).
- ↑ Will to Power, § 769.
