CHAPTER V
ULTIMATE ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD
In trying to reach the last elements of the world, Nietzsche manifests two tendencies in the writings of the first period. One is in the direction of metaphysics proper, the other in the direction of positivism or phenomenalism. Probably the metaphysical tendency came first, and he appears to have only gradually worked himself out of it.[1] I shall begin by considering it.
I
Nietzsche was never a materialist. He followed Kant and Schopenhauer in holding that what we call the material world is sensational in nature and subjective. a He criticises Strauss for his superficial treatment of Kant, and for his use of the language of crude realism.[2] b On the other hand, as against the total obscurity in which Kant had left the nature of ultimate reality, Nietzsche thought that he found light in Schopenhauer. Kant had said, summing up the results of his criticism, that the things we perceive are not what we take them to be, that if we make abstraction of ourselves as knowing subjects, or even only of our senses, all the qualities and relations of objects in space and time, yes, space and time themselves, disappear, that as phenomena they can only exist in us—hence what things are independently of us remains wholly unknown. Such an outcome, when it is really taken to heart and not left as an incident in an abstract logical process, is extremely depressing. If one cannot accept Kant's counterbalancing ethical reasonings, one is left in total gloom—unless, indeed, one becomes a
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