The vidette. (Iuka, Tishomingo County, Miss.) 1912-1967, 1918-04-11

murder. as well as industry and cour
age. The high priest of misanthropy
he maintained that the evil outweigheC
the good; and taught that true happi
ness would be impossible until mar
became able to kill VIII with Will;
that is to say, until the VIII to Live
was willed out OF existence and mar
reduced 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 &C
-cepted Schopenhauers premise of the
WIN TO Live, he very quickl. diyerged
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," discoursing
of the superman, exclaims:
why SO soft, so tender, so concili-
atory? Why is such self-denial in your
hearts? Such little consciousness of
destiny in your look? This new table,
o my brethren, write above you:
BECOME HARD"
There was but one logical develop
ment for man of Nietzsche's type,
given such a starting point. He be-
came the supreme egoist of all ages;
and in his blaring egotism crystallized
into definite and coherent propositions
all those errant and rebellious eccen-
tricities which had characterized Ger
man thought. He gave to the Germanc
philosophy its full and final express
sion.
II 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
nitted, absolutely and wholehearted-
", to iconoclasm. These revolutionary
tendencies had long sheltered in the
shadows of the German universities;
and 1t 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, 1t 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, constituting, interpret
ing, each according to his own fancy,
the passionate Nominations of this
past master of insective.
But to Germany, or at least to the
leaders of German thought, Nietzsche
spake as 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, law unto himself-this was
the false god after which Germany
went avidly astr&y.
I'm our present civilized world" de-
clared Nietzsche, 1--WE know only the
DEGENERATE criminal the
criminal who distrusts himself, who
often seeks to belittle 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 forget 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
VIII to Power. He no longer holds
merely that "self-preservation is ma
lures first law: he proclaims that it
is right and lawful that he who can
shall take whatever he will--provided
only that 1t adds to and does not de-
tract from his ability to take yet more
ruthlessly 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
prophet, perforce. must justify his
prophecy. In the closing chapter of his
book, der Anti-Crrist," he scaled the
very summit Of blasphemous presump-
ton and gave free and final rein to
his furious inveclive Here he writes:
Il condemn Christianity. | bring
against it the most terrible of accusa
tons that ever an accuser put into
words. 1t is to me the greatest of all
imaginable corwptions. il has left
nothing untouched by its depravlty. II
has made a worthlessness out OF every
value. lie out of every truth, a sir
out of everything straightforward
healthy and honest. Il lives by PAL
and wee; II has created pain and VS.
in order 10 perpeluate Itself Il iaven
the idea Of original sin Il inver