Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/540

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rule in the flock (society), needs to be emphasized, in view of the common misapprehension of his meaning. I have already noted his strong statement that flock-morality is to be held "unconditionally sacred" [in the flock]. Will to Power, § 132. He protests that higher natures are not to treat their valuations as universally valid (Joyful Science, §3). The question may, of course, be raised whether contrasted valuations are consistent with a common goal, and we may say in reply, (1) that it is not impossible that different classes should move toward the same goal, even if they are not aware of doing so, and (2) that as matter of fact Nietzsche seems to conceive that the mass may have some idea of the final goal and willingly lend themselves to movement in that direction.

ee See Will to Power, § 898, where it is accordingly said that the leveling is not to be hindered, but rather hastened. For a long time the mechanizing process must seem the only aim (Werke, 1st ed., XV, 415—I cannot locate this passage in the 2d ed., from which I quote in general). This, I need not say, is very different from making the process a final aim, as Walter Rathenau seems to do (Zur Kritik der Zeit). There is another version of Nietzsche's general view in Will to Power, § 866, which may be summarized as follows: The outcome of modern tendencies will be a whole of enormous power, the single factors of which, however, represent minimum forces, minimum values; in opposition to this dwarfing and specializing of men, there is needed a reverse movement—a producing of a synthetic, justifying type of man, for whom the general mechanization is a condition of existence, as a sort of ground framework (Untergestell) on which he can devise a higher form of being for himself. He needs the antagonism of the mass, the feeling of distance from them—he stands on them, lives off them. Morally speaking, the mechanization represents a maximum of human exploitation; but it presupposes those on whose account the exploitation has meaning. Otherwise the mechanization would be actually a collective lowering of the human type—a retrogressive phenomenon in grand style. All this in opposition to the economic optimism which would find the sacrifices of all compensated by the good (Nutzen) of all; instead, these sacrifices would add themselves up into a collective loss, and we could no longer see for what the immense process had served. Cf. Faguet's enlargement on the possibilities of the actual coming of a superior race (op. cit., p. 275).

ff An organic connection might even be said to exist between the higher and lower, considered as exceptions and the rule. "What I contend against: that an exceptional type should make war on the rule, instead of realizing that the continuance of the rule is the presupposition for the value of the exception" (Will to Power, §894); he gives as illustration women with extraordinary desire for knowledge, who, instead of feeling the distinction that this brings, wish to change the position of women in general.

CHAPTER XXX

a Nietzsche is similarly classed with "anarchists, ego-worshipers, rebels to law and order" in the Quarterly Review (October, 1896, p. 318). Also Ludwig Stein speaks of his "anarchistic-aristocratic theory" (Friedrich Nietzsche's Weltschaming und ihre Gefahren, p. 167)—cf. Kurt Breysig's view, Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, XX (1896), pp. 4-14, but also the admissions on p. 16.

b Griechische Kulturgeschichte, Til, 378-9, " The decisive and notable thing in it [philosophy among the Greeks] is the rise of a class of free, independent men in the despotic polis. The philosophers do not become employees and officials of the polis; they willingly withdraw from it …