The Nevada County picayune., 1918-04-04

v ( maintained that tte evil outweighed he good; and taught that true happi- ' ess would be impossible until man hncaE-e able to Eill Will with Will: hat is tO say, until the Will to Live was W.lied out of eXia:ence and man s.duced himself, voluntarily, to asceti. cism
 But asceticism held no attractions for Nietzsche. His was not the type of intellect that submits tamely to prescription; and, while he readily ac- cepted Schopenhauer's premise of the Will to Live, he very quick. diverged from him as to the conclusions to be drawn therefrom. He held. on the con trary, that true happiness, or at any rate true heroism, lay in stiff-necked indifference toward all the ills that flesh is heir to-" and particularly. in the annexation of whatsoever desir- able things one could find, regardless of any others claims, or rights to them. His "Zarathustra," discoufsing of the superman. exclaims:
 Why so soft, so tender, SO cancili- atory? Why is such self-deni;s n your hearts? Such little consrj3aaness of destiny in your look? Tk- sew table. o my brethren, wri,e ~bove you: BECOME HARD"
 There was tat eze logcal develop Tcnt fCi a r4aH ef Niet2sche's type. tsNeh seea staring po.n; He be- caue the supreme egoist of all ages; md D lis biartrE cga.ism cryst &llized .E'o definite and coherent propositions all those errant and rebellious eccen- tricities which had characterized Ger man thought. He gave to the Germanic philosophy it's full and final expres- sion
 It was thus that Germany found in Frederick Nietzsche the fitting spokesman for all apostles of brutal ity. He became at once the heir and the administrator of all revolts against delicacy and decency. He was com mitted, absolutely and wholehearted- ly, to iconoclasm. These revolutionary tendencies had long sheltered in the shadows of the German universities: and it remained only for later days to bring forth one who might declare them "as one having authority" In the half-mad, ego-ridden Nietzsche, with his brain of lava and his pen of flame. Germanic philosophy found its spokesman.
 To other peoples Nietzsche was merely a phenomenon. His writings were to be read and admired for their laundering and flaming rhetoric. They were not to be accepted literally; they were too subversive of all that civiliza- ton stood for No man, it was felt, could so write of these things and real ly mean exactly what he wrote. A legion of reviewers swarmed over his books, adapting, construing interpret ing, each according to his own fancy. the passionate fulminations of this past master of invective.
 But to Germany, or at least to the leaders of German thought, Nietzsche spake as a prophet. In their ears his scathing doctrines became, not rhet- oric, but religion. And his vision of the superman, ruthless. hard taking without scruple, injuring without qualm, a law unto himself-this was the false god after which Germany went avidly astray.
 Tn our present civilized world, de clared Nietzsche, we know only the criminal the criminal who distrusts himself, who often seeks to behttle and excuse his act; and We try to forget that EVERY GREAT MAN WAS A CRIMINAL, only not in miserable style, but in great style. We rget that EVERY GREAT ACT IS A CRIME
 And so we find our iconoclast who began with accepting Schopenhauer's harmless Will to Live, evolving the Will to Power. He no longer holds merely that "self-preservation is na lures first law; he proclaims that il Is right and lawful that he who caa shall take whatever he will-provido ! only that it adds to and does not cc- tract from his ability 10 take yet more whatever his neighbor may have that pleases his sovereign fancy. Nietzsche had reached the point where he held himself above the moral law and reversed, or tried to reverse, all accepted standards of right and wrong.
 Nor did he cease with this; for the perforce, must justify his prophecy. In the closing chapter of his book, Der AntiCrrist," he scaled the very summit of blasphemous presump- ton and gave free and final rein to his furious invective. Here he writes;
 q condemn Christianity. l bring against it the most terrible of accusa- tions that ever an accuser put into words IL is to me the greatest of all jmaginable eorruptions It has left nothing untouched by its depravity It has made a worthlessness out os every value. lie out of every truth, a sin out of everything straightforward,