Nietzsche


Page 12 of 17



Upon this basis, then, the Will to Power, Nietzsche builds up a cosmogony which also assumes that species have been evolved; but again, in the processes of that evolution he is at variance with Darwin and all the natural-selectionists.

Nietzsche cannot be persuaded that "mechanical adjustment to ambient conditions," or "adaptation to environment"—both purely passive, meek, and uncreative functions—should be given the importance, as determining factors, which the English and German schools give them. With Samuel Butler, he protests against this "pitchforking of mind and spirit out of the universe," and points imperatively to an inner creative will in living organisms, which ultimately makes environment and natural conditions subservient and subject. In the Genealogy of Morals[12] he makes it quite clear that he would ascribe the greatest importance to a power in the organism itself, to "the highest functionaries in the animal, in which the life-will appears as an active and formative principle," and that even in the matter of the mysterious occurrence of varieties (sports) he would seek for inner causes. Darwin himself threw out only a hint in this direction; that is why it is safe to suppose that, if Nietzsche and Darwin are ever reconciled, it will probably be precisely on this ground. In the Origin of Species, speaking of the causes of variability, Darwin said: "... There are two factors, namely the nature of the organism, and the nature of the conditions. The former seem to be much the more important,[13] for nearly similar variations sometimes arise under, as far as we can judge, dissimilar conditions; and on the other hand, dissimilar variations arise under conditions which appear to be uniform."

Thus differing widely from the orthodox school of evolutionists, Nietzsche nevertheless believed their hypothesis to be sound; but once more he has an objection to raise. Why did they halt where they halted?

If the process is a fact, if things have become what they are, and have not always been so; then why should we rest on our oars? If it was possible for man to struggle up from barbarism, and still more remotely from the lower Primates, and reach the zenith of his physical development; why, Nietzsche asks, should he not surpass himself and attain to Superman by evolving in the same decree volitionally and mentally?

"The most careful ask to-day: 'How is man preserved?' But Zarathustra asketh as the only and first one: 'How is man surpassed?'[14]

"All beings (in your genealogical ladder) have created something beyond themselves, and are ye going to be the ebb of this great tide?

"Behold I teach you Superman!"[15]

And now, again, at the risk of being monotonous, I must point to yet another difference between Nietzsche and the prevailing school of evolutionists. Whereas the latter, in their unscrupulous optimism, believed that out of the chaotic play of blind forces something highly desirable and "good" would ultimately be evolved; whereas they tacitly, though not avowedly, believed that their "fittest" in the struggle for existence would eventually prove to be the best—in fact that we should "muddle through" to perfection somehow, and that something really noble and important would be sure to result from John Brown's contest with Harry Smith for the highest place in an insurance office, for instance; Nietzsche disbelieved from the bottom of his heart in this chance play of blind and meaningless tendencies. He said: Given a degenerate, mean, and base environment and the fittest to survive therein will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy, meanness, and baseness—therefore the worst kind of man. Given a community of parasites, and it may be that the flattest, the slimiest, and the softest, will be the fittest to survive. Such faith in blind forces Nietzsche regarded merely as the survival of the old Christian belief in the moral order of things, fogged out in scientific apparel to suit modern tastes. He saw plainly, that if man were to be elevated at all, no blind struggle in his present conditions would ever effect that end; for the present conditions themselves make those the fittest to survive in them who are persons of absolutely undesirable gifts and propensities.

He declared (and here we are in the very heart of Nietzscheism) that nothing but a total change in these conditions, a complete transvaluation of all values, would ever alter man and make him more worthy of his past. For it is values, values, and again values, that mould men, and rear men, and create men; and ignoble values make ignoble men, and noble values make noble men! Thus it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, truth without end—for men.

Nietzsche realised "all that could still be made out of man, through a favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and arrangements"; he knew "how unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and how often in the past the type man has stood in mysterious and dangerous crossways, and has launched forth upon the right or the wrong road, impelled merely by a whim, or by a hint from the giant Chance."[16] And now, he was determined that, whether man wished to listen or not, at least he should be told of the ultimate disaster that awaited him, if he continued in his present direction. For, there was yet time!

It is to higher men that Nietzsche really makes his appeal, the leaders and misleaders of the mob. He had no concern with the multitude and they did not need him. The world had seen philosophies enough which had advocated the cause of the "greatest number"—English libraries were stacked with such works. What was required was, to convert those rare men who give the direction—the heads of the various throngs—the vanguard.

"Awake and listen, ye lonely ones! From the future, winds are coming with a gentle beating of wings, and there cometh good tidings for fine ears.

"Ye lonely ones of to-day, ye who stand apart, ye shall one day be a people: from you, who have chosen yourselves, a chosen people shall arise and from it Superman."[17]


[1] G. E., Aph. 254, 255, 256.

[2] See Schopenhauer on The Vanity and Suffering of Life.

[3] Z., p. 52.

[4] Z., pp. 204, 205, 206.

[5] Z., pp. 192, 193.

[6] See Z., p. 98 et seq.

[7] Z., p. 91.

[8] G. E., p. 226.

[9] Twilight of the Idols, Part 9, Aph. 14.



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