Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/240

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224
NIETZSCHE THE THINKER

progressive as truly as in stationary society "the moral and the social are one"; that though the virtues of the individual in a progressive society are more reflective than in customary society, "they are just as socially conditioned in their origin and as socially directed in their manifestations"; that there is no attitude "which does not need to be socially valued or judged"; that the reconstructed individual, who is necessary in a time of individuals, is one "who is individual in choice, in feeling, in responsibility, and at the same time social in what he regards as good, in his sympathies and in his purposes," that "otherwise individualism means progress toward the immoral."[1] According to such a view, the action of an individual who pursued a good not primarily social, but personal, who looked upon society not as an end, but rather as a means to his own ends, and who marked out his own path in pursuing those ends, would hardly come under the head of morality at all. Professor Sumner, in his significantly entitled book, Folkways, holds even more strictly to the primitive and historic conception, and doubts whether morality in any other sense can be made out. He observes, "The modern peoples have made morals and morality a separate domain, by the side of religion, philosophy, and politics. In that sense morals is an impossible and unreal category. It has no existence and can have none. The word 'moral' means what belongs or appertains to the mores. Therefore the category of morals can never be defined without reference to Op. cit., p. 37. something outside of itself."[2] It is important for us to keep in mind this older meaning of the term, for when Nietzsche makes animadversions on morality, as he so frequently does, it is this kind of morality—what he calls Heerden-Moral—that he has primarily in mind. In another, shall I say? more ideal, certainly more general sense, he so little attacks morality, that he offers a morality of his own. Because of these varying senses in which he uses the word, he easily confuses us, if we do not take a little trouble to see what he means. Sometimes he attacks morality without qualification, but this is only because already in common speech—and often in that of scholars as well—morality and social morality are absolutely identified.

  1. Op. cit., pp. 300, 434-5, 427, 75-6.
  2. footnote