lay to a relatively slight extent in his immediate environment.[1]a Unquestionably he was influenced by Schopenhauer and by Wagner; but it was not long before he was critical toward them both. Late in life he remarked that to be a philosopher one must be capable of great admirations, but must also have a force of opposition—and he thought that he had stood the tests, as he had allowed himself to be alienated from his principal concern, neither by the great political movement of Germany, nor by the artistic movement of Wagner, nor by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, though his experiences had been hard and at times he was ill.[2]b In another retrospection he says that while like Wagner he was a child of his time, hence a decadent, he had known how to defend himself against the fatality.[3] So slight did he feel his contact with the time to be, so imperceptible was his influence, so profound his isolation, particularly in his later years, that he spoke of himself as an "accident" among Germans,c and said with a touch of humor, "My time is not yet, some are posthumously born."[4] I cannot make out that his influence is appreciable now—at least in English-speaking countries; even in Germany, where for a time he had a certain vogue, his counsels and ideas have been far more disregarded than followed—and though in the present war some university-bred soldiers may be inspired by his praise of the warrior-spirit and the manly virtues, men from Oxford might be similarly inspired, if they but knew him.d He has, indeed, given a phrase and perhaps an idea or two to Mr. Bernard Shaw, a few scattering scholars have got track of hime (I know of but two or three in America), the great newspaper and magazine-writing and reading world has picked up a few of his phrases, which it does not understand, like "superman," "blond beast," "will to power," "beyond good and evil," "transvaluation of values"—but influence is another matter. He has changed nothing, whether in thought or public policy, has neither lifted men up nor lowered them, though mistaken images of him may have had occasionally the latter effect, the truth being simply that he is out of most men's ken.
