then a curiosity to Nietzsche, and he seeks to account for it. He does so in this way—really two ways, which on the surface do not harmonize. First, he views it as an accompaniment of the dominating place which the mass have won in modern societies.[1] The instinct of the mass is to say (and there is something of the spirit of revenge in it),[2] "there are none better than we, all are equal, no one is to have rights and privileges above the rest." In other words, it is a doctrine for a purpose, a kind of tool in a class-war—the end being to bring all men into one class. Second, the doctrine is the reflection of a certain matter-of-fact resemblance or process causing resemblance—which is accomplishing itself in the modern world. We latter-day beings are a mixture, purity of blood and race is disappearing—we are actually becoming alike: the old differences of high and low cut small figure. Gaps between man and man, between class and class, variety of types, a will to be oneself, to mark oneself off, the pathos of distance,—these are marks of every strong time;[3] but we are fallen on other days—we want no gaps, we are very sociable, it is sheep like sheep, and we hardly want a shepherd, ni dieu ni maître, as our advance-guard, the socialists, sometimes say.[4] g
Some argue that while there may not be, and perhaps should not be, outer equality, there is an inner equality, that souls are equal; but Nietzsche questions it. Souls are as different as bodies; what strong ones endure and profit by may undo average natures—what nourishes and refreshes the higher kind of man may be to others poison. Dangerous books, for instance, that break in pieces and desolate lower souls may act like herald-calls to others and elicit their bravest.[5] His own books are not for all—he himself is not good for all: his problems address themselves in the nature of the case selectively to a few ears.[6] h He questions indeed whether really great and beautiful things can be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum.[7] In the same way he sees basis for the dis-
