Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/422

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406
NIETZSCHE THE THINKER

whence you come, but whither you go, is the critical question for the nobility to be.[1] The challenge is, How strong are you, how near completeness in body, mind, and soul, how far can you stand alone, assume responsibility, be your own master, and thereby be fit to master others.[2] In other words, it is a question of character (in the great sense).[3] The men to take the lead in redeeming the world from folly and chance, and in organizing collective experiments and hazardous enterprises to that end, will be "philosophers" of this type. Every sound quality that belongs to the ascending line of life will be theirs. So-called "aristocrats of intellect" are not enough;[4] there must be blood and sound physical organization; they must be capable of projecting a new physiological line—all aristocracies start from superior whole men. d Nor will they despise the economic basis of life. Though wealth will be nowise a distinctive mark of them (others will have more than they) they will have wealth—enough to make them independent and able to do what they like, instead of what other people like, enough to lift them above pitiful economies, enough to marry well on and pay for the best instruction to their children. Nietzsche's ideas will hardly be thought extravagant in this connection. He says that 300 Thaler a year may have almost the same effect as 30,000;[5] and, in commenting on the Greek aristocracies with their hereditary property and saying that they "lived better" than we, he significantly adds that he means "better in every sense, above all much more simply in food and drink."[6] At the same time the aristocracy to be will control wealth, even if not possessing it in any high degree—they will see that it does not hinder, but rather serves the great public ends they have at heart. Nietzsche even throws out what may seem a wild suggestion, namely, that the wise must secure the monopoly of the money-market: however elevated they may be above the wealthy

  1. Zarathustra, III, xii, § 12.
  2. Werke, XII, 363-4, §§ 397, 399.
  3. Beyond Good and Evil, § 203.
  4. Will to Power, § 942.
  5. Human, etc., § 479.
  6. The Wanderer etc., § 184; cf. Werke, X, 388, § 209. As to the danger of wealth, and of possessions possessing us, see Mixed Opinions etc., §§ 310, 317. Burckhardt remarks that social rank was not determined by wealth among the Greeks of the 5th century B.C. (Griechische Kulturgeschichte, Vol. IV., pp. 208-10).