Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/313

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310
PROBLEM OF VALUES

ideas on the super-man: The aim of the present struggle is to evolve a new human type, related to the man of the present as man is related to the ape. This is the common aim of the whole human race. The period of dualism and of animosity should be relegated to the past. Zarathusthra, the seer and guide, hates his own hatred. And Nietzsche paradoxically advocates the affirmation of life in the strongest terms, life of every form and on every plane. The idea that the cycle of the universe must repeat itself became a controlling idea with him. According to his view the universe consists of a finite sum of elements, and hence the number of combinations of these elements must likewise be finite. It follows therefore that when the number of combinations has been exhausted the same course of evolution must begin anew. This idea of repetition or recurrence at first horrified Nietzsche, and he had a severe struggle before he could reconcile himself to it. Zarathustra reveals to man the blessed gospel of the coming of the super-man — but on the condition that man wishes to choose and emulate life despite its repetition. Just as all mankind yield their assent to this proposition, Zarathusthra dies for joy.

In this way according to Nietzsche the sublime expansion of the vital impulse vanquishes all disharmonies and all doubt. He is therefore admitted to a place in the history of philosophy, not because of his scientific treatment of its problems, but because of his experience of the profound antitheses of life, and because of his effort to elaborate these experiences in ideas and symbols.

3. Rudolf Eucken (born 1846[1]) professor at Jena, the original seat of metaphysical idealism, following a series of preliminary treatises (Die Einheit des Geisteslebens, 1888;

  1. Died 1926