gone to other men.[1] On other levels, too, love shows its root character—though in subtler form. What is love of truth but desire to get it, to make it our own, to be so far enriched—and what does love of new truth often mean but that, acquainted with and perhaps a little tired of what we have, we reach out our insatiable hands for more? Is the love of our neighbors quite destitute of the desire to have something of our own in them? And when with sympathetic heart we help and tend those who are suffering or ill, is there not some secret pleasure in thus extending our power over them, in feeling that for the moment they are ours? We may not confess it to ourselves—but suppose that we are told that we are unnecessary, is it not as if something were taken from us? The desire for possession may have very subtle shades.[2] Does this, then, mean that there cannot be an unselfish desire to give and bestow? Not at all, but (says Nietzsche in effect) let us analyze what is meant by such a desire. Here, for instance, is a philosopher who wants to give his ideas to the world. In the first place, let us not be too ready to credit him with unselfishness. Very possibly he simply wants to impress himself upon the world, to put his mark on it, and so far make it his world—philosophers generally, especially the great ones, want to rule.[3] And yet we can imagine that pure blessing may be the aim—and if philosophers are not frequent instances, there are plenty of instances from other walks in life, parents, for example, or wherever the essentially parental impulse manifests itself.[4] But what is the real psychology of this unselfishness? Nietzsche can only answer: the soul is full, over-full, and has to give. For love may be of two kinds: here a soul is empty and wants to be full; there a soul is already overflowing and wants to pour itself out. Both seek an object to satisfy their needs, and really the full soul is as needy and is as much prompted by the sense of need as the empty one—neither is, strictly speaking, unegoistic.[5] Some of the supreme passages in Nietzsche are
