Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/538

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NOTES

who corrupt and disintegrate the species and consequently do not facilitate, but rather render more difficult the producing of the superman, should pass away—for them there is only one virtue: to disappear."

q Cf. William James's references to the world of concrete personal experience as "tangled, muddy, painful, and perplexed," to the "vast driftings of the cosmic weather" (Pragmatism, pp. 21, 105)—apparently James could only find relief in experiences of a more or less mystical character (ibid., p. 109, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 380, 388, 422, but see p. 425).

r Cf. Richter's statement of the "moral task" of the weaker; "disregarding their own development (Aushildung), to make possible the production, preservation, furtherance of strong personalities" (op. cit., p. 245).

s That business men, when they go out of business, are often at a loss how to occupy themselves and are most unhappy, is well known.

t A consideration of this sort may explain the extremely contrasted points of view of Genealogy etc., II, § 17, and Werke, XIII, 195, § 430, in commenting on the origin of the state (in the one case force, in the other, reverence being emphasized).

u The passage which Höffding (op. cit., p. 174) quotes as evidence that Nietzsche changed his mind—it is to the effect that the rulers are to win the deep unconditional confidence of the ruled (Werke, pocket ed., VII, 486, § 36)—is not inconsistent with "Herrenmoral," and there are as many strong expressions of the latter doctrine in his later writings as earlier.

v A "Kampf der Kasten," at least at the beginning and latent always, is not, as Höffding thinks (op. cit., p. 175), inconsistent with a "gemeinschaftliches Ziel"—this has been explained in the text. The same may be said of the "hostility" to which Dorner refers. As for the "abyss" or "ditch," of which Faguet speaks, Nietzsche would have it, but at the same time "no antitheses" (see Will to Power, § 891). He expressly mentions as one of his problems, "How is the new nobility to organize itself as the power-possessing class? how is it to mark itself off from others without making them enemies and opponents"! (Werke, XII, 122, §240—the italics here are mine).

w Faguet regards what he conceives to be Nietzsche's idea, that the higher class has held the mass down by force, as historically false, urging that the mass have wished to be governed aristocratically, being essentially aristocratic in their sentiments and in a sense more aristocratic than the higher class itself—since among the latter self-interest may work, while among the mass the feeling is a passion against interest (op. cit., p. 344 f.). Faguet does not do justice to the complexities of Nietzsche's meaning, but he perhaps states an essential truth.

x Cf. the description of the highest man as determining the values and guiding the will of millenniums, rulers being his instruments (Will to Power, §§ 998-9); also the picture of the wise man,

"Strange to the people and yet useful to the people,"

(Werke, pocket ed., VI, 52) .

y We have already found Nietzsche warning against confusing the higher egoism with impulses which, apparently egoistic, have really for their aim a social result (for example, the impulse for the accumulation of property, or the sexual impulse, or that of the conqueror or statesman—see Werke, XII, 117, §230).

z It must be admitted that there is still another difficulty, which is hinted at by Dolson, op. cit., p. 80. The higher individuals, loosed from social bands, may be hostile to one another (cf. Werke, XI, 240, § 198; XIV, 76-7—the mutual hostilities of strong races, as described in Will to Power, § 864, are, I take it, another matter) . For if it comes to physical