eral, becomes the notion of free-will and responsibility, which plays so large a part in the spiritual economy of early communities. Free-will is an illusory notion to Nietzsche, and indeed to most thinkers of the first rank in recent times (William James being a rare and brilliant exception), yet society for its successful working had to proceed as if it were true. On the basis of it praise and blame, reward and punishment were distributed and men's characters shaped (to the extent they were shaped at all), men's own efforts for the better going on the assumption of its truth also. When Nietzsche speaks of morality as necessary falsehood (Nothlüge), and says that without the errors connected with it man would have remained on the animal level, he has this error particularly in mind.[1]
The field of illusion is thus wide, and the question may be raised, What matters it? If men have ideas to live by, and perhaps grow better by, is that not enough? Well, perhaps it is enough for most of us—we have no impulses urging us to go further, and if we had them, should perhaps only perplex ourselves needlessly in yielding to them, since we have scarcely the leisure or the ability to push our inquiries to a finish. p But there are others who have imperious needs in this direction—they must ask questions, and irrespective of any assurance that they can live by the truth they find: in short, they have the philosophical impulse. Now, whether for his weal or woe, Nietzsche belonged to the latter class—and the only wonder is how he could have the impulse, consistently with his theory of the origin and purpose of the intellect which has just been referred to. There is the same difficulty for us in studying Schopenhauer, whose view here Nietzsche repeats (on which I have commented elsewhere).[2] In almost every direction we find him seeking the true, irrespective of any advantage to be gained, save the satisfaction of the knowing impulse itself. Particularly does he wrestle—twist and turn—in trying to make out the truth as to the external world. We find him, for instance, considering
- ↑ The view is more distinctly stated in the writings of the second period (cf. Human, All-too-Human, § 40; The Wanderer and his Shadow, § 12), but it was of earlier formation (cf. Werke, IX, 188, § 129).
- ↑ Article on "Schopenhauer's Contact with Pragmatism," in the Philosophical Review, March, 1910 (see pp. 140-4).
