# Nietzsche the thinker/Chapter I

INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
NIETZSCHE'S RELATION TO HIS TIME; HIS LIFE AND PERSONAL TRAITS
I
Once when about to give a "Nietzsche" course before a university audience, those in charge suggested to me—a novice in such situations—that I should begin by considering some of the notable aspects or tendencies of our present civilization which Nietzsche expresses, so as to give a raison d'être for the course. It seemed to be taken for granted that he reflected the age and was chiefly important as illustration—perhaps as warning. I confess that I was somewhat embarrassed. For what had struck me as I had been reading him was that he went more or less counter to most of the distinctive tendencies of our time. My personal experience had been of shock after shock. Long before, and when he was little more than a name to me, I had spoken of the idea of getting "beyond good and evil" as naturally landing one in a madhouse; and when I first read him and ventured to lecture on him before an Ethical Society (1907), I could only consider him as an enemy who stood "strikingly and brilliantly for what we do not believe."
As afterward I came to know him more thoroughly, I was less willing to pass sweeping judgment upon him, and yet the impression only deepened that here was a force antagonistic to the dominant forces about us. At many points he seemed more mediæval than modern. He failed to share the early nineteenth century enthusiasm for liberty, and he opposed the later socialistic tendency. He regretted the intensification of the nationalist spirit which set in among the various European countries ​after the defeat of Napoleon, deeming it reactionary—his ideas were super-national, European. He found retrogression in Germany, and belabored the Empire and the new Deutschthum. He shared, indeed, the modern scientific spirit, but he could not long content himself with a purely scientific philosophy and deplored the lapse of German philosophy into "criticism" and scientific specialism. Of Darwinism I might say that he accepted it and did not accept it, whether as natural history or as morals, regarding the struggle for existence, unhindered by ideal considerations, as favoring, through overemphasis of the social virtues, the survival of the weak rather than the strong. In the religious field, the tendency today is, amid uncertainties about Christian dogma, to emphasize Christian morality—Nietzsche questioned Christian morality itself. In business relations the time is marked by commercialism and a certain ruthless egoism (on all sides), but Nietzsche, though with an occasional qualification, had something of the feeling of an old-time aristocrat for the commercial spirit; he lamented the effect of our "American gold-hunger" upon Europe; he thought that one trouble with Germany was that there were too many traders there, paying producers the lowest and charging consumers the highest price; he wished a political order that would control egoisms, whether high or low. War, at least till the present monstrous one, has not characterized our age more than others, but there have been wars enough—and Nietzsche found most of them ignoble: trade, combined with narrow nationalistic aims, inspires them—the peoples having become like traders who lie in wait to take advantage of one another; the present war he would probably have found not unlike the rest. All this, though he held that the warlike instinct, in some form or other, belonged essentially to human nature as to all advancing life, and that in all probability war in the literal sense would have worthy occasion in the future.
The fact is that Nietzsche was a markedly individual thinker and lived to an extraordinary extent from within. While it would be venturesome to say that there is anything new in him and a subtle chemistry might perhaps trace every thought or impulse of his to some external source, the sources ​lay to a relatively slight extent in his immediate environment. Unquestionably he was influenced by Schopenhauer and by Wagner; but it was not long before he was critical toward them both. Late in life he remarked that to be a philosopher one must be capable of great admirations, but must also have a force of opposition—and he thought that he had stood the tests, as he had allowed himself to be alienated from his principal concern, neither by the great political movement of Germany, nor by the artistic movement of Wagner, nor by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, though his experiences had been hard and at times he was ill. In another retrospection he says that while like Wagner he was a child of his time, hence a decadent, he had known how to defend himself against the fatality. So slight did he feel his contact with the time to be, so imperceptible was his influence, so profound his isolation, particularly in his later years, that he spoke of himself as an "accident" among Germans, and said with a touch of humor, "My time is not yet, some are posthumously born." I cannot make out that his influence is appreciable now—at least in English-speaking countries; even in Germany, where for a time he had a certain vogue, his counsels and ideas have been far more disregarded than followed—and though in the present war some university-bred soldiers may be inspired by his praise of the warrior-spirit and the manly virtues, men from Oxford might be similarly inspired, if they but knew him. He has, indeed, given a phrase and perhaps an idea or two to Mr. Bernard Shaw, a few scattering scholars have got track of him (I know of but two or three in America), the great newspaper and magazine-writing and reading world has picked up a few of his phrases, which it does not understand, like "superman," "blond beast," "will to power," "beyond good and evil," "transvaluation of values"—but influence is another matter. He has changed nothing, whether in thought or public policy, has neither lifted men up nor lowered them, though mistaken images of him may have had occasionally the latter effect, the truth being simply that he is out of most men's ken.
​But because a man, however much talked about, has had slight real influence, having gone mostly counter to the currents of his time, it does not follow that he is not important, even vastly so, and that the future will not take large account of him. I do not wish to prophesy, but I have a suspicion that sometime—perhaps at no very distant date—writers on serious themes will be more or less classified according as they know him or not; that we shall be speaking of a pre-Nietzschean and a post-Nietzschean period in philosophical, and particularly in ethical and social, analysis and speculation—and that those who have not made their reckoning with him will be as hopelessly out of date as those who have failed similarly with Kant. Already I am conscious for my own part of a certain antiquated air in much of our contemporary discussion—it is unaware of the new and deep problems which Nietzsche raises; and the references made to him (for almost every writer seems to feel that he must refer to him) only show how superficial the acquaintance with him ordinarily is. Far am I from asserting that we shall follow him; I simply mean that we shall know him, ponder over him, perchance grapple with him—and whether he masters us or we him, the strength of the struggle and the illumination born of it will become part of our better intellectual selves.
II
Although this book is no biography of Nietzsche (save in the spiritual sense), it may be well at the outset to state the main facts of his life, and also to mention some of the striking points in his personal character.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844, in Röcken, a small Prussian village, where his father was a Protestant pastor. His mother was a pastor's daughter—and back of his father on both sides there was a current of theological blood. From his fourteenth to his twentieth year he was at Schulpforta, one of the strictest and best of German preparatory schools. At twenty he went to the University at Bonn, matriculating as a student of theology and philosophy. A year later he followed his "great" teacher, Ritschl, to Leipzig, having meanwhile concentrated upon philosophical and philological ​study, and producing during his two years there learned treatises which were published in the Rheinisches Museum ("Zur Geschichte der Theognidischen Spruchsammlung," Vol. XXII; "De Laertii Diogenis fontibus," Vols. XXIII, XXIV). While in Leipzig he read Schopenhauer, and met Wagner. His university work was broken only by a period of military service. Before taking the doctor's degree, he was called to the chair of classical philology in the University at Basel, his philological work having attracted attention and Ritschl saying that he could do what he would. He was now twenty-four (1868). The Leipzig faculty forthwith gave him the doctor's degree without examination. After two years he became Professor ordinarius. He also undertook work in the Basel Pädagogium (a kind of higher gymnasium). His acquaintance with Wagner now ripened into an intimate friendship—Wagner living not far away on Lake Lucerne. In 1870, when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, he could not serve his country as soldier, since he had become naturalized in Switzerland, but he entered the ambulance-service. Dysentery and diphtheria, however, attacked him—and the after-effects lingered long, if not throughout his life. In 1876, the year also of the Bayreuth opening, and when differences which had been developing with Wagner culminated, he was obliged on account of ill-health to relinquish his work at the Pädagogium and in the spring of 1879 he resigned his professorship in the University as well. He was at this time thirty-five, but to his sister who saw him not long after, he seemed old and broken, "ein gebrochener, müder, gealteter Mann." His outer movements were thereafter largely determined by considerations of health. He spent the summers usually in the Upper Engadine, and winters on the French or Italian Riviera. He lasted nearly ten years, when he was overtaken by a stroke of paralysis which affected the brain (late December, 1888, or early January, 1889, in Turin). His naturally vigorous bodily frame withstood actual death till August 25, 1900.
Owing to current misapprehension a special word should be said as to his insanity. The popular impression among us is perhaps largely traceable to a widely read book by a semiscientific writer, Dr. Max Nordau, entitled (in the English ​translation, which appeared twenty or more years ago) Degeneration; in a chapter devoted to Nietzsche it was stated that his works had been written between periods of residence in a madhouse. The legend dies hard and lingers on faintly in the latest writers who have not made any real study of the case. The fact is, that the insanity came, as just indicated, suddenly, almost without warning, for his latest writings are some of his most lucid—and that nothing was produced by him afterward, save a few incoherent notes and letters, written or scrawled in the first days of his dementia. That there are any anticipations of the catastrophe (i.e., signs of incipient dementia) in his books is at best a subjective opinion—indeed it is a view which tends to be abandoned more and more. Highly wrought Nietzsche often was, particularly in his latest writings; he said extravagant things and uttered violent judgments. So did Carlyle; so have many earnest, lonely men, struggling unequally with their time; but insanity is another matter.
The causes of his collapse were probably manifold. A few circumstances may be mentioned which may have co-operated to produce the result. Nietzsche himself mentions a decadent inheritance which he had from his father, though he thought it counterbalanced by a robust one from his mother. While serving his time in the Prussian artillery, he suffered a grave rupture of muscles of the chest in mounting a restive horse, and for a time his life was in danger. During the Franco-Prussian war, the illnesses already mentioned were aggravated by strong medicines that seem to have permanently deranged his digestion; in any case, sick-headaches of an intense and often prolonged character became frequent. He had serious eye-troubles (he was always nearsighted), and became almost blind late in life. Strain of this and every kind produced insomnia—and this in turn led to the use of drugs, and of stronger and stronger ones. All the time he was leading the intensest intellectual life. Whether such a combination of causes was sufficient to produce the result, medical experts must judge. Nietzsche himself once remarked, "We all die too young from a thousand mistakes and ignorances as to how to act."
III
By nature he was of vigorous constitution. He had been fond as a boy of swimming and skating, and at the University, until his disablement, was an active horseback rider. At Bonn he appeared a "picture of health and strength, broad-shouldered, brown, with rather thick fair hair, and of exactly the same height as Goethe." He had strong musical tastes and some musical ability. A tender conscience seems to have belonged to him from his earliest years. When a mere child, a missionary visited his father's parish and at a meeting plead movingly for his cause; the little Fritz responded with an offering of his tin soldiers—and afterwards, walking home with his sister, he murmured, "Perhaps I ought to have given my cavalry!" He was clean both in person and in thought. At school the boys called him "the little parson," instinctively repressing coarse language in his presence. He had a taste of dissipation at the University, but soon sickened of it. The delights of drinking and duelling palled on him, and openly expressed dissatisfaction with the "beer-materialism" of his fellow-students, and strained relations ensuing, appear to have had something to do with his leaving Bonn for Leipzig. Once he allowed himself to be taken to a house of questionable character, but became speechless before what he saw there. For a moment he turned to the piano—and then left. Professor Deussen, who knew him from Schulpforta days on, says of him, "mulierem nunquam attigit"; and though this may be too absolute a claim, it shows the impression he left on one of his most intimate friends. He was never married. He had, however, intimate relations with gifted women, like Frau Cosima Wagner and Malwida von Meysenbug, and his family affections were strong and tender; so unwilling was he to give his mother needless pain that he strove to keep his later writings from her. He had at bottom a sympathetic nature. If he warned against pity, it was not from any instinctive lack of it. In personal intercourse he showed marked politeness and, some say, an almost feminine mildness. All his life he was practically a poor man, his yearly income never exceeding a thousand dollars. He called it his happiness that he owned no house, saying, "Who possesses is ​possessed;" liked to wait on himself; despised the dinners of the rich; loved solitude, aside from a few friends—and the common people. Some of the latter class, in the later days of his illness and comparative emaciation in Genoa, spoke endearingly of him as "il santo" or "il piccolo santo." He had remarkable strength of will. Once, when the story of Mutius Scaevola was being discussed among his schoolmates, he lighted a number of matches on his hand and held out his arm without wincing, to prove that one could be superior to pain. After reading Schopenhauer, he practised bodily penance for a short time. Later on he asserted himself against the illnesses that befell him in extraordinary fashion, and when he became mentally and spiritually disillusioned, he was able to wrest strength from his very deprivations. In general, there was an unusual firmness in his moral texture. He despised meanness, untruthfulness, cowardice; he liked straight speaking and straight thinking. He did not have one philosophy for the closet and another for life, as Schopenhauer more or less had, but his thoughts were motives, rules of conduct. In his thinking itself we seem to catch the pulse-beats of his virile will. Professor Riehl calls him "perhaps the most masculine character among our philosophers." He was not without a certain nobleness, too. He once said, "a sufferer has no right to pessimism," i.e., to build a general view on a personal experience. Nor was he dogmatic, overbearing—in spirit at least; I shall speak of this point later. He owned that he contradicted himself more or less. "This thinker [he evidently alludes to himself] needs no one to confute him; he suffices to that end himself." Nor did he wish to be kept from following his own path by friendly defense or adulation. "The man of knowledge," he said, "must be able not only to love his enemies, but to hate his friends." In short, there was a kind of unworldliness about him, not in the ordinary, but in a lofty sense. I discover few traces of vanity in him (at least before the last year or two of his life), though not a little pride; he cared little for reputation, save among a few; and he was not ungenerous, ​saying toward the close of his life that he had difficulty in citing one case of literary ill-will, though he had been overwhelmed by ignorance. I do not mean that his language is not severe at times, unwarrantably so; but he tells us almost pathetically in one place that we must not underscore these passages and that the severity and presumption come partly from his isolation. A lonely thinker, who finds no sympathy or echo for his ideas, involuntarily, he says, raises his pitch, and falls easily into irritated speech.
Perhaps I should add that the aphoristic form of much of his later writing has partly a physical explanation. He was able to write only at intervals, and would put down his thoughts at auspicious moments, oftenest when he was out walking or climbing; one year he had, he tells us, two hundred sick days. Such ill fortune was extreme—afterward he fared better—but he was more or less incapacitated every year. He undoubtedly made a virtue of necessity and brought his aphoristic style of writing to a high degree of perfection—sometimes he almost seems to make it his ideal; it is noticeable, however, that in Genealogy of Morals, in The Antichristian, and in Ecce Homo he writes almost as connectedly as in his first treatises, and he appears to have projected Will to Power as a systematic work. The aphorisms are often extremely pregnant, Professor Richter remarking that Nietzsche can in this way give more to the reader in minutes than systematic writers in hours.
* ↑ Thus spake Zarathustra, III, xii, § 21.
* ↑ Letters here and elsewhere refer to notes to be found at end of book.
* ↑ Werke, XIV, 347-8, § 202.
* ↑ Preface to "The Case of Wagner."
* ↑ Nietzsche contra Wagner, § 7, Ecce Homo, III, § 1.
* ↑ Ecce Homo, I, §§ 1, 2.
* ↑ Werke, XII, 117, § 229.
* ↑ Alois Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche, der Künstler und der Denker (4th ed.), p. 161.
* ↑ Mixed Opinions and Sayings, § 193.
* ↑ Thus spake Zarathustra, I, xxii, § 3.
* ↑ Ecco Homo, IV, § 1.
* ↑ Raoul Richter, Friedrich Nietzsche, sein Leben und sein Werk (2d ed.), p. 185.