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Nietzsche is consistent in his denial of the traditional sanctions. He understands not only that there are no gods, that the powers of nature as personifications do not exist, but that the laws of nature are mere abstract generalizations. We need no longer believe[Pg 139] in Hephaestos, the god of fire; there is no use to bow the knee to him or do homage to his divinity. Nor is there any truth in the existence of a phlogiston, a metaphysical fire-stuff, or any fire essence; there are only scattered facts of burning. Everything else is mere superstition. Generalizations exist only in our imagination, and so we should get rid of the idea that there is any truth at all. Science is a pretender which is apt to make cowards of us. That man is wise who is not hampered by scruple or doubt of any kind and simply follows the bent of his mind, subjecting to himself every thing he finds, including his fellow human beings.
This bold and reckless proposition appeals to egoism and it seems so true that abstract formulas and generalizations are empty. Weight exists; there is gravity; there are particular phenomena of masses in mutual attraction, but gravitation, the law of these actual happenings, is a mere formula, an imaginary quantity, a mere thought about which we need not worry. The law of gravitation is a human invention and has no real existence in the realm of facts.
And the same would of course be true about the interrelations among human beings in their social intercourse, too. All the several maxims of conduct, which are called moral and constitute our code of ethics, are built upon generalizations. There is no sanction for them. The gods who were formerly supposed to be responsible for the several domains of[Pg 140] facts have died long ago. The Jewish deity called Elohim, the Lord, entered upon the inheritance of the ancient gods, but he too had to die. Thereupon his place was taken by metaphysical essences, pale ghosts of a mysterious nature, but they too died and so the last shadow of anything authoritative is gone. We are en face du rien; therefore let us boldly enjoy our freedom. Let us be ourselves; let our passions take their course; let us do wrong if it suits us; let us live without consideration of anything, just as we please. There is no sanction of moral maxims to be respected; there is no authority of conduct; there is no judge; there is no evil, no wrong.
This seems pretty plausible to our modern generation raised in the traditions of nominalism, but would we really ignore the law of gravitation because the Newtonian formula is a man-made abstraction and a mere generalization? Yet, if we do not give heed to it we fall, and the same is true of any law of nature. Our sciences are mental constructions; they are mind-made, and so far as they are built out of the material of our experience they tally with facts and we call them true. Our social interrelations, too, constitute conditions observable in experience; they can be formulated in Jaws and applied to practical life; they can be expressed in maxims of conduct and have received various sanctions successively, the sanctions of religion, the sanctions of metaphysics, the sanctions of science. In the age of savagery the sanction of moral maxims was[Pg 141] offered us in a mythological dress. With the rise of monotheism our moral sanction came to us as the command of a supreme ruler of the universe; in the age of abstract philosophy as metaphysical principles, and in the age of science these should be recognized as lessons of experience.
We will gladly grant that personifications are mythological fictions, that metaphysical entities are products of a philosophical imagination and that the scientific formulas are abstract generalizations, but we deny that generalizations are unmeaning; they signify some actual features of reality. Abstract ideas are not purely fictitious; they denote significant qualities or occurrences, and the relations in life, the forms of things, combinations, or in general the non-material configurations, co-operations, combinations and functions are the most important and the most significant aspects of existence. Indeed, matter and energy are only the clumsy conditions of being; they denote actuality and reality, but all things, all events, all facts are such as they are on account of their form—on account of that feature which is non-material and non-energetic.
According to Nietzsche the whole history of mankind, especially the development of reason, knowledge[Pg 143] and science, is a great blunder, and the dawn of day begins with a radical break with the past. We see in the evolution of life a gradual ascent with a slow but constant approximation to truth. In the history of religion we see in the dawn of civilization the beginning of a comprehension of truth. Mythology is not error pure and simple, not a conglomeration of superstitions; it is plainly characterized by a groping after great truths, and myths become foolish inventions only when the poetic character of the tale is misunderstood. So dogmas become dangerous errors when the symbol is taken literally, when the letter is exalted and the spirit forgotten. It is true that science has taken away the charm of many religious beliefs, but the great lesson of the doctrine of evolution is to show us that our onward march in the humanization of man does not stop, that the periods of mythology and dogma are stages in the progress of our recognition of the truth. There is no need to fear a collapse of past results but we may boldly build higher. We must search for truth and we shall have a clearer vision of it, and the future will bring new glories, new fulfilments of old hopes and grander realization of our fondest dreams.
Verily, the overman will come, although he is not quite so near at hand as one might wish. He is at hand though, but he will not come, as Nietzsche announces him, in the storm of a catastrophe. The fire and the storm may precede the realization of a higher humanity; but the higher humanity will be found neither in[Pg 144] the fire nor in the storm. The overman will be born of the present man, not by a contempt for the shortcomings of the present man, but by a recognition of the essential features of man's manhood, by developing and purifying the truly human by making man conform to the eternal norm of rationality, humaneness and rightness of conduct.
What we need first is the standard of the higher man; and on this account we must purify our notions of the norm of truth and righteousness,—of God. Let us find first the over-God, and the overman will develop naturally. The belief in an individual God-being is giving way to the recognition of a superpersonal God, the norm of scientific truth, the standard of right and wrong, the standard of worth by which we measure the value of our own being; and the kingdom of the genuine overman will be established by the spread of the scientific comprehension of the world, in matters physical, social, intellectual, moral, and religious.
INDEX
Abbott, Leonard, 116.
Alexander, 45.
All-too-human, 32.
Ambition, 66, 107; for originality, 34; for power, 60.
Anacreon, 11.
Anarchism, 30, 44, 128.
Anarchists, 110.
Ancilla Voluntatis, intellect, 7, 30.
Animals superior to man, 21.
Aphorisms, no preference for, 24.
Aristocracy, 50, 60.
Aristocratic tastes, 109.
Aristotle, 101.
Art, 3; nature of, 104.
Assassins, 39.
Atheism, 66, 135.
Authority of conduct, 29.
Average, the, 6.
Back-worlds-men, 51.
Ballerstedt, H. F. L., 82.
Basch, V., 74.
Bauer, Bruno, 84, 85, 88.
Beethoven, 2, 120.
Bergson, Henri, 3, 5.
Blood is spirit, 51.
Body, self is, 52.
Bruno, Edgar and Egbert, 84.
Buddha's Decalogue, 134; gospel of love, 28.
Buhl, Ludwig, 85, 86, 89.
Burke, Edmund, 89.
Burtz, Agnes Clara Kunigunde, 83.
Byington, Stephen T., 74.
Csar, 45, 69, 107, 120, 132.
Carus, Foundation of Mathematics, 22;
Lao-Tse's Too Teh King, 40, 47;
The Nature of the State, 99; Personality, 99.
Catilinary existences, 69, 109.
Catilene, 69, 132.
Chaos, universe a, 20.
Change of views, 69.
Chin jen, 16, 40, 46.
Christ, overman the, 16.
Christ's gospel of love, 28.
Christian economics, 117-118.
Christianity a rebellion of slaves, 44.
Classical taste, 2.
Commandments, negative, 124.
Common, Thomas, 112; Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet
and Prophet, 113.
Comte, Auguste, 67, 89.
Confucius, 40.
Consistency, N. scorns, 28, 42; of N., 30, 137; of Stirner, 99.
Contempt for, democratic ideals, 110; man, 127; past, 71;
philosophy, 67; the all-too-human, 32; truth, 131; world, 75.
Contradictions natural, 67.
Contrast between life and theory, 60, 64, 97, 108, 119.
Cosmic order, 22, 136.
Cosmos, universe not a, 20.
Criterion of right action, 69.
Crosby, Ernest H., 111.
Cynic, N. not a, 104.
Dhnhardt, Helmuth Ludwig, 14.
Dhnhardt, Marie. 84, 86-88.
Damocles, sword of, 44.
Darwin, 32, 113.
Decadence, 60, 65.
Democracy, 28.
Der arme Teufel, 132.
Der Eigene, 111.
Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, 24.
Deussen, Paul, 10; his opinion of N., 15.
Die Freien, 84, 86.
Dionysiac enthusiasm, 19.
Doctrine of the eternal return, 43.
Dolson, Grace Neal, 114.
Dream, N.'s real world a, 125.
Dreamers catching at shadows, 20.
Drunken Song, 58-59.
Duty not recognized, 9.
Eagle and Serpent, 50-51, 78.
Eagle and the Serpent, The, 111.
Eliot, George, 124.
Elis, Coins of, 50.
Emerson, 41.
Emotional attitude, 1.
Engels, Friedrich, 81, 84.
Error, a liberator, 2; mythology not, 142.
Eternal return, 43.
Eternity, love for, 58.
Ethics, denial of, 30; denounced, 31, 69; identical, 124;
no sanction for, 138; of the strong, 31; result of N.'s, 133;
test of philosophy, 1. See also s. v. "Morality."
Evolution, defined, 26; lesson of, 142.
Examination at school, 13-14.
Expediency, 116.
Faucher, Julius, 85.
Faust, 23, 38, 71, 129.
Fichte, Duties of the scholar, 35.
Financier, standard of, 120.
Flatus vocis, 26.
Form, importance of, 25.
Forms in themselves, 26.
Frster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth, Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's, 61, 110.
Free Comrade, 116.
Freedom fettered by convictions, 31; limitless, 94, 104;
love of, 55; spiritual, 75.
Garden of marriage, 54.
Gargantua, 129.
Genealogy of morals, 31, 32.
Generalizations, abstract, 137; not unmeaning, 141.
Genius not abnormal, 7.
Geometry, 21, 22.
Gerecke, Adolph, 110.
German things, dislike of, 62.
Germany a philosophical storm center, 6.
God, a poet's lie, 23; authority of conduct, 29; created by man, 51;
denial of, 103, 137; idea of, 28; is dead, 48, 137; norm of truth, 143;
self in place of, 136.
Goethe, 2, 22, 40, 120, 129; imitation of, 23;
quotations from, 35, 38, 71, 72, 80, 120-121; 129.
Good, and evil, 30, 134; and evil, overman beyond, 44;
men never true, 55.
Good Europeans, notes for, 113.
Good will, 131.
Goody-goodyness, 33, 64.
Gtzendmmerung, 17, 69.
Gravitation a human invention, 138, 139.
Hammer and anvil, 33.
Health, N.'s desire for, 60, 66.
Hegel, 6, 64.
Herd animal (Heerdentier), 8, 43, 71, 110.
Hero, overman the, 16.
Hippel's, 86.
Homer, 38, 56, 80.
Hypocrisy, Plato accused of, 19.
Hypocrisy to obtain power, 108.
I, 115.
Ideal, Christianity incarnates, 80.
Ideals are superstitions, 105;
needed, positive, 124; significance in, 127.
Identical ethics, 124; world-conceptions, 80.
Idols of the past shattered, 19.
Imaginary, scientist's world, 19.
Immature minds, influence on, 20.
Immaturity, 70, 130, 135; appeal of, 71, 89; of N., 39.
Immortality, desire for, 57.
Individual defined, 91.
Individualism, 95; aristocratic, 28, 30; error of, 98;
extreme, 73, 75; ineffective, 100.
Influence of N., 108.
Insanity, 7, 64, 67, 71.
Instinct higher than reason, 3, 21; N. the philosopher of, 34, 39;
self a bundle of, 39.
Intellect ancilla voluntatis, 7, 30.
International Intelligence Institute, 115.
Intoxicants, 19, 109.
Ionian physicist, 5.
James, William, 3, 5.
"Joyful science," 30.
Kant, 6, 26.
Karma, 34.
Key to the universe, reason the, 22.
Kochius, 85.
Kppen, C. F., 84.
Klein's statue, 72.
Kraust, Kroly, 111, 112.
La Gaya Scienza, 20, 21, 22, 34, 62, 63.
Lange, History of Materialism, 73.
Lao-tze, 40, 47.
Lauterbach, 76, 86.
Leasing, 2.
Levy, Oscar, 114.
Lichtenberger, Henri, 110, 111.
Life, truth for the sake of, 37.
Lightning, overman the, 49.
Lion and lamb, 33, 136.
Lion's Paw, 115.
Lindlof, Hans, 59.
Lloyd, J. Wm., 116.
Logic untrue, 21.
Lombroso, 6.
Love, freedom of, 104; not your neighbor, 53; Stirner's view of, 94.
Ludovici, Anthony M., 114.
McCall, Erwin (pseud.), 111.
Mackay, John Henry, 74; 80ff, 87, 92.
Man, beast of prey, 115; a muddy stream, 49; a part of society, 101;
animals' opinion of, 21; contempt for, 127; his own master, 75;
humanization of, 142; personality of, 27.
Marot, 84-85.
Marriage, a poet's objection to, 132; an abomination, 104;
N.'s view of, 53-54.
Masses, are pragmatists, 3; distinction for, 30; enslaved by overman, 69.
Mathematics. 21 f.
Measure of truth, 24.
Mencken, Henry L., 114.
Mephistopheles, 71, 129.
Messiah, overman the, 16.
Meyen, 84.
Meyer, a fellow student, 11-13.
Mill, John Stuart, 21.
Moore, George, and N. compared, 103-104; Confessions of a Young Man, 103.
"Moral ist Nothlge," 65.
Morality, denial of, 122-123; immoral, 31; limited to mediocrity, 124.
See also s. v. "Ethics."
Morgenrthe, 64.
Mozart, 2.
Mueller, Adolph, 114.
Mller, Dr. Arthur, 84.
Mgge, M. A., 114.
Mussak, 84.
Mythology not an error, 142.
Napoleon, 40, 43, 45f, 66, 77, 107, 120.
Nature, uniformities of, 22.
Negation, of will, 67, 69; spirit of, 129.
Negative, commandments, 124.
Neighbor, love not, 53.
Nietzsche, a model of virtue, 61; a modern, 6; a mystic, 19;
abnormal, not a genius, 7; ancestors of, 29; and George Moore
compared, 101-104; and Stirner compared, 76-78, 98, 128;
confirmation of, 11; consistency of, 30; contrast between life
and theory, 60, 64, 108; destroyer of morality, 50; his doctrine
of self, 8; immaturity of, 39; insanity of, not an accident, 7;
nominalistic tendencies of, 22; philosophy of, agreement with, 5;
philosophy of, result of nominalism, 25; religious character of, 19;
requiem composed by, 14; subjectivity of, 23; success of, 136-137;
tender-hearted, 64, 65.
Nihilism, 28, 43, 61.
Nomina, 26.
Nominalism, and realism, 25; of Lombroso, 6; traditions of, 139.
Normal man the exception, 7.
Nothingness, trust in, 79, 95.
Nurse, N. as a, 63.
Obedience, 61.
Objectivism, subjective, 125.
Objectivity of truth, 2.
Ocean, overman the, 49.
Ohne Staat, 112.
Open Court, The, 40.
Orage, A. R., 114.
Order, 20, 21; cosmic, 22, 136.
Originality, 102; ambition for, 34; hankering after, 71.
Overman, 8, 16, 19, 32, 40ff, 49, 69, 73, 98, 110, 122, 130, 136, 142;
love of, 53; the true, 27, 34.
Particularism, 28.
Patriotism, 62.
Personality of man, 27.
Pessimism, 64, 67, 103.
Philologist, N. a, 56, 65.
Philosophy as a science, 4; contempt for, 67; three features of, 1.
Pig, usefulness of, 105.
Plato, 17; accused of hypocrisy, 19; ideal of, 97; ideas of, 25.
Platonism, 16.
Pleasure and pain, 69.
Poet, God the lie of, 123.
Poet, N. a, 100, 137; N. not really a, 72.
Positive ideals needed, 124.
Positivism, 18, 28.
Power, acquisition of, 117, 122; desire for, 42, 60, 66, 69, 99, 107;
God is, 136; hypocrisy to obtain, 108; will for, 35-37.
Pragmatism, 4.
Pragmatists, masses are, 3.
Pride, 51, 60, 71.
Probability but no truth, 23.
Progress, evolution is, 26; in epicycles, 2; in the world, 79.
Protest, against himself, 60ff; against truth, 129;
philosopher of, 109; philosophy of, 29.
Proudhon, 76.
Quarrels at school, 12.
Real world, 18-20. 23, 125.
Realism and nominalism, 25.
Reason, a blunder, 141; key to the universe, 22; origin of, 27;
subjective, 21; tool of body, 52; universality of, 25.
Redbeard, Ragnar, Might is Right, 114.
Relativity, 24.
Religion, hatred of, 19.
Revaluation of values, 118.
Richard III, 107.
Right but might, no, 30, 93, 115.
Rules of N.'s philosophical warfare, 69.
Salome, Lou Andreas, 110.
Sandwich, anecdote, 10.
Schellwien, R., 74, 110.
Schiller, 2.
Schlegel, 2.
Schmidt, Albert Christian Heinrich, 82.
Schmidt, Johann Caspar. See
Stirner, Max.
Schmitt, Eugen Heinrich, 110, 112.
Schopenhauer, 6, 7, 27, 30, 54, 67, 103.
Schulpforta, 62; a pupil at, 19.
Schmm, George and Mrs. Emma H., 74.
Science, a blunder, 142; a means, 5; a mental construction, 139;
a pretender, 138; despised, 55; for its own sake, 36; triumph of, 143;
unavailableness of, 130; world of, 18-20.
Sciences of form, the, 26.
Scientist, standard of, 119.
Sebastopol, fall of, 29.
Self, an authority above, 127; is body, 52;
sovereignty of, 8, 31, 33, 91ff, 137; truth creature of, 54.
Self-assertion, right of, 24; the ethics of the strong, 31.
Serpent, 70; eagle and, 50-51, 78.
Slavism, 29.
Smith, William Benjamin, 59.
Snuffing brotherhood, 11.
Socialism, 96.
Society, 95; man a part of, 101.
Socrates, 105.
Soldier, N. as a, 61.
Sophists, 5.
Spectacles not the world, 5.
Spirit, blood is, 51; Stirner on, 92.
Spoiled child, 60.
Standard, of measurement, 7; of valuation, 118, 124;
of values needed, 23.
State, a despotism, 93; growth of, 95.
Steiner, Rudolph, 110.
Sticht, Johann Caspar, 83.
Stimmungsbild, 4.
Stirner, Max, and Nietzsche compared, 76-78, 98, 128; arguments of, 92ff;
consistent, 99; contrast between life and theory, 97; death of, 88, 97;
Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, 74, 80, 89, 95; description of, 81;
life of, 82ff; marriage of, 84f; pencil sketch of, 83; the name, 83;
works of, 89.
Straus, Richard, 59.
Subjective standard, 123.
Subjectivism, 3.
Subjectivity of N., 23.
Superman, 41.
Superpersonal God, 143.
Superpersonalities, 99.
Swartz, Clarence L., 115.
Switzerland, a citizen of, 63.
Things in themselves, 26.
Three, features of philosophy, 1; periods in N.'s development, 67;
rules of philosophical warfare, 69.
Thus Spake Zarathustra, 41, 48ff, 58, 70, 78.
Tieck, 2.
Tille, Alexander, 41, 110.
Tolstoy, 111.
Tradition defied, 5; opposed to, 76; sanction of, 122;
sanction of denied, 137.
Tragic, element, 66; figure, 71.
Transvaluation of values, 31, 124.
True world, 17-19, 43, 61.
Truth, as authority, 29; creature of self, 54; defined, 36;
existence of, 29-30; flashes of, 130; for the sake of life, 37;
need of, 1; non-existent, 17; objectivity of, 2; probability but no, 23;
protests against, 129.
Tucker, Benjamin R., 74.
Twilight of the Idols, 17, 70.
Tyrant, morality a, 131; N. loves a, 78; overman a, 16, 28, 44.
Ulfila's bible, 62.
Uniformities dominate existence, 22.
Universality of reason, 25.
Universe a chaos, 20.
Unmoralist, 69; development into, 67; the first, 9, 44, 64.
Unmoralism, 30.
Unmorality, 27.
Unseitgemsse Betrachtungen, 70.
Valuation, principle of, 117ff.
Vedantism interpreted by a materialist, 52.
Virtue, a model of, 61.
Wagner, 2, 67.
Walker, James, L., 74, 76; The Philosophy of Egoism, 115.
Warren, Josiah, 76.
Wenley, R. M., 6.
Whitman, 111.
Will, ennoblement of, 15; for power, 35-37; intellect slave of, 7, 30;
negation of, 67, 69.
Woman, 54; Stirner's attitude toward, 78.
World-conceptions identical, 79.
Zarathustra, 41, 48ff, 58, 70, 78.
