another may have influenced him; but probably at bottom it was for a reason below or beyond reason—because the life-instinct (will to live) imperiously asserted itself in him.
This affirmation of life in face of an irrational and unmoral world comes to be one of the most distinctive things in Nietzsche and should be noticed with some care. It is, of course, totally different from the cheerful acceptance of life which the Christian or the pious theist makes—different also from the temperamental optimism which simply looks on the bright side of things, different even from the meliorism which looks for better and better things. Nietzsche, now at least, looks for no radical improvement, whether in the world at large or in the fundamental conditions of human life. j The poignant thing is, that our life, like all other life, exists and maintains itself by violence and wrong. We rob other things of existence that we ourselves may live, as truly as animals do—the best of us are parties to this violence, the very saint could not live off the inorganic elements; if for a single day the race should really hold all life sacred, touching or despoiling nothing, it would straightway come to an end. That is, Leben und Morden ist eins—living and killing are one.[1] Yes, the higher ranges of human life exist by more or less despoiling the lower ranges. Culture "rests on a horrible foundation."[2] k It is only possible with leisure, and leisure for some means that others must work more than their share—and those who work for others' benefit rather than their own and have to, are really slaves. The culture of ancient Greece—the fairest the world has known—rested on literal slavery; essentially it is always so, is so today, though we may veil the fact from our eyes by speaking of "free contract."
And yet to accept life on these terms is not easy and involves inner suffering. Some may feel that culture and the higher ranges of life are not worth the price that has to be paid for them—that if all cannot rise, it is better that none should. Indeed, the feeling may go deeper still, it may extend to the foundations of life itself—if life is necessarily of the general predatory nature described, we may think it better to be done with it altogether. So felt Schopenhauer, and so, at moments at least, Nietzsche. But a deeper impulse—something wild and
