Part 8

Nietzsche proclaimed with great blast of trumpets, if we may so call his rhetorical display of phrases, that we need a revaluation of all values; but the best he could do was to establish a standard of valuation of his own. Every man in this world attains his mode of judging values according to his character, which is formed partly by inherited tendencies, partly by education and is modified by his own reflections and experiences. There are but few persons in this world who are clearsighted enough to formulate the ultimately guiding motive of their conduct. Most people follow their impulses blindly, but in all of them conduct forms a certain consistent system corresponding to their own idiosyncrasy. These impulses may sometimes be contradictory, yet upon the whole they will all agree, just as leaves and blossoms, roots and branches of the same tree will naturally be formed according to the secret plan that determines the growth of the whole organism. Those who work out a specially pronounced system of moral conduct do not always agree in practical life with their own moral principle, sometimes because they wilfully misrepresent it and more frequently because their maxims of morality are such as they themselves would like to be, while their conduct is such as they actually are. Such are the conditions of life and we will call that principle which as an ultimate _raison d'être_ determines the conduct of man, his standard of valuation. We will see at once that there is a different standard for each particular character.

A scientist as a rule looks at the world through the spectacles of the scientist. His estimation of other people depends entirely on their accomplishments in his own line of science. Artist, musician, or sculptor does the same. To a professional painter scarcely any other people exist except his pupils, his master, his rivals and especially art patrons. The rest of the world is as indifferent as if it did not exist; it forms the background, an indiscriminate mass upon which all other values find their setting. All the professions and vocations, and all the workers along the various lines of life are alike in that every man has his own standard of valuation.

A Napoleon or a Cæsar might have preached the doctrine that the sciences, the arts and other accomplishments are of no value if compared with the acquisition of power, but I feel sure that it would not have been much heeded by the mass of mankind, for no one would change his standard of value. A financier might publicly declare that the only way to judge people is according to the credit they have in banking, but it would scarcely change the standard of judgment in society. Beethoven knew as well as any other of his contemporaries the value of money and the significance of power, and yet he pursued his own calling, fascinated by his love for music. The same is true not only of every genius in all the different lines of art and science, but also of religious reformers and inventors of all classes. Tom, Dick and Harry in their hankering for pleasure and frivolous amusement are not less under the influence of the conditions under which they have been born than the great men whose names are written in the book of fame. It is difficult for every one of us to create for himself a new standard of valuation, for what Goethe says of man's destiny in a poem entitled _Daimon_, is true:[1]

"As on the day which has begotten thee The sun and planets stood in constellation, Thus growest and remainest thou to be, For't is life's start lays down the regulation How thou must be. Thyself thou canst not flee. Such sibyl's is and prophet's proclamation. For truly, neither force nor time dissolveth, Organic form as, living, it evolveth."

The original reads thus:

"Wie an dem Tag der dich der Welt verliehen, Die Sonne stand zum Grusse der Planeten, Bist alsobald and fort und fort gediehen Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten. So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen, So sagten schon Sibyllen, so Propheten; Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstückelt, Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt."

Our attitude in life depends upon our character, and the basic elements of character are the product of the circumstances that gave birth to our being. Our character enters unconsciously or consciously in the formulation of our standards of value which we will find to be the most significant factors of our destinies. Now the question arises, Is the standard of value which we set up, each one of us according to his character, purely subjective or is there any objective criterion of its worth?

We must understand that to a great extent our choice of a profession and other preferences in our occupations or valuations are naturally different according to conditions; some men are fit to be musicians, or scholars, or traders, or farmers, or manufacturers, and others are not. The same profession would not be appropriate for every one. But there is a field common to all occupations which deals with man's attitude toward his fellow beings and, in fact, toward the whole universe in general. This it is with which we are mainly concerned in our discussion of a criterion of value because it is the field occupied by religion, philosophy and ethics. Tradition has sanctioned definite views on this very subject which have been codified in certain rules of conduct different in many details in different countries according to religion, national and climatic conditions, and the type of civilization; yet, after all, they agree in most remarkable and surprising coincidences in all essential points.

Nietzsche, the most radical of radicals, sets up a standard of valuation of his own, placing it in the acquisition of power, and he claims that it alone is entitled to serve as a measure for judging worth because, says he, it alone deals with that which is real in the world; yet at the same time he disdains to recognize the existence of any objective criterion of the several standards of value. If he were consistent, he ought to give the palm of highest morality to the man who succeeds best in trampling under foot his fellowmen, and he does so by calling him the overman, but he does not call him moral. To be sure this would be a novel conception of morality and would sanction what is commonly execrated as one of the most devilish forms of immorality. Nietzsche takes morality in its accepted meaning, and so in contradiction to himself denies its justification in general.

Considering that every one carries a standard of valuation in himself we propose the question, "Is there no objective criterion of valuation, or are all valuations purely subjective?" This question means whether the constitution of the objective world in which we all live, is such as to favor a definite mode of action determined by some definite criterion of value.

We answer that subjective standards of valuation may be regarded as endorsed through experience by the course of events in the world whenever they meet with success, and thus subjective judgments become objectively justified. They are seen to be in agreement with the natural course of the world, and those who adhere to them will in the long run be rewarded by survival. Such an endorsement of standards can be determined by experience and has resulted in what is commonly called "morality." We may here take for granted that the moral valuation is a product of many millenniums and has been established, not only in one country and by one religion, nor in one kind of human society, but in perfect independence in many different countries, under the most varied conditions, and finds expression in the symbolism of the most divergent creeds. The beliefs of a Christian, of a Buddhist, of a Mussulman in Turkey, or a Taoist in the Celestial Empire, of a Parsee in Bombay, or Japanese Shintoist, are all as unlike as they can be, but all agree as to the excellency of moral behavior which has been formulated in these different religions in sayings incorporated in their literature. We find very little if anything contradictory in their standards of valuation, and if there is any objective norm for the subjective valuation of man it is this moral consensus in which all the great religious prophets and reformers of mankind agree.

A transvaluation of all values is certainly needed, and it is taking place now. In fact it has always taken place whenever and wherever mankind grows or progresses or changes the current world-conception.

The old morality has been negative and we feel the need of positive ideals. The old doctrines are formulated in rules which forbid certain actions and our commandments begin with the words "Thou shalt not...." Those folk are esteemed moral who obey these restrictions or at least do not ostensibly infringe upon them, and this practically limits morality to mediocrity. How often have great and noble people been condemned as immoral because some irregularities would not fit the Procrustean bed of customary respectability! Think only of George Eliot who had to suffer under the prejudices of Sunday-School morality! We need a higher standard in which we may set aside the paltry views of the old morality without losing our ideals. We need a positive norm, the norm which counts in the actual world and in history, where man is measured not by his sins of omission but by his positive accomplishments; not by the errors he has or has not committed, but by his deeds, by the work with which he has benefited mankind. Therefore the new morality does not waste much time with the several injunctions, "Thou shalt not ..." but impresses the growing generation with the demand: "Do something useful; show thyself efficient; be superior to others in nobility, in generosity, in energy; excel in one way or another"; and in this sense a transvaluation of the old values is being worked out at present.

We will grant that Nietzsche's demand of a transvaluation of all values may mean to criticize the narrow doctrines and views of the religion of his surroundings. But as he expresses himself and according to his philosophical principle he goes so far as to condemn not only the husk of all these religious movements, but also their spirit. In spite of his subjectivism which denies the existence of anything ideal, and goes so far as to deny the right even of truth to have an objective value, Nietzsche establishes a new objectivism, and proposes his own, and indeed very crude, subjective standard of valuation as the only objective one worthy of consideration for the transvaluation of all values.

Nietzsche's real world, or rather what he deemed to be the real world, is a dream, the dream of a sick man, to whom nothing possesses value save the boons denied him, physical health, strength, power to dare and to do.

The transvaluation of all values which Nietzsche so confidently prophesied, will not take place, at least not in the sense that Nietzsche believed. There is no reason to doubt that in the future as in the past history will follow the old conservative line of development in which different people according to their different characters will adopt their own subjective standards, and nature, by a survival of the fittest will select those for preservation who are most in agreement with this real world in which we live, a world from which Nietzsche, according to the sickly condition of his constitution, was separated by a wide gulf. He thirsted for it in vain, and we believe that he had a wrong conception of the wealth of its possibilities and viewpoints.

[1] So far as I know, these lines have never been translated before.

INDIVIDUALISM

Nietzsche is unquestionably a bold thinker, a Faust-like questioner, and a Titan among philosophers. He is a man who understands that the problem of all problems is the question, Is there an authority higher than myself? And having discarded belief in God, he finds no authority except pretensions.

Nietzsche apparently is only familiar with the sanctions of morality and the criterion of good and evil as they are represented in the institutions and thoughts established by history, and seeing how frequently they serve as tools in the hands of the crafty for the oppression of the unsophisticated masses of the people, he discards them as utterly worthless. Hence his truly magnificent wrath, his disgust, his contempt for underling man, for the masses, this muddy stream of present mankind.

If Nietzsche had dug deeper, he would have found that there is after all a deep significance in moral ideals, for there is an authority above the self by which the worth of the self must be measured. Truth is not a mere creature of the self, but is the comprehension of the immutable eternal laws of being which constitute the norm of existence. Our self, "that creating, willing, valuing 'I,' which (according to Nietzsche) is the measure and value of all things," is itself measured by that eternal norm of being, the existence of which Nietzsche does not recognize.

What is true of Nietzsche applies in all fundamental questions also to his predecessor, Max Stirner. It applies to individualism in any form if carried to its consistent and most extreme consequences.

Nietzsche is blind to the truth that there is a norm above the self, and that this norm is the source of duty and the object of religion; he therefore denies the very existence of duty, of conviction, of moral principles, of sympathy with the suffering, of authority in any shape, and yet he dares to condemn man in the shape of the present generation of mankind. What right has he, then, to judge the sovereign self of to-day and to announce the coming of another self in the overman? From the principles of his philosophical anarchism he has no right to denounce mankind of to-day, as an underling; for if there is no objective standard of worth, there is no sense in distinguishing between the underman of to-day and the overman of a nobler future.

On this point, however, Nietzsche deviates from his predecessor Stirner. The latter is more consistent as an individualist, but the former appeals strongly to the egoism of the individual.

Nietzsche is a Titan and he is truly Titanic in his rebellion against the smallness of everything that means to be an incarnation of what is great and noble and holy. But he does not protest against the smallness of the representatives of truth and right, he protests against truth and right themselves, and thus he is not merely Titanic, but a genuine Titan,--attempting to take the heavens by storm, a monster, not superhuman but inhuman in proportions, in sentiment and in spirit. Being ingenious, he is, in his way, a genius, but he is not evenly balanced; he is eccentric and, not recognizing the authority of reason and science, makes eccentricity his maxim. Thus his grandeur becomes grotesque.

The spirit of negation, the mischief-monger Mephistopheles, says of Faust with reference to his despair of reason and science:

"Reason and Knowledge only thou despise, The highest strength in man that lies!... And I shall have thee fast and sure." --_Tr. by Bayard Taylor._

Being giant-like, the Titan Nietzsche has a sense only for things of large dimensions. He fails to understand the significance of the subtler relations of existence. He is clumsy like Gargantua; he is coarse in his reasoning; he is narrow in his comprehension; his horizon is limited. He sees only the massive effects of the great dynamical changes brought about by brute force; he is blind to the quiet and slow but more powerful workings of spiritual forces. The molecular forces that are invisible to the eye transform the world more thoroughly than hurricanes and thunderstorms; yet the strongest powers are the moral laws, the curses of wrong-doing and oppression, and the blessings of truthfulness, of justice, of good-will. Nietzsche sees them not; he ignores them. He measures the worth of the overman solely by his brute force.

If Nietzsche were right, the overman of the future who is going to take possession of the earth will not be nobler and better, wiser and juster than the present man, but more gory, more tiger-like, more relentless, more brutal.

Nietzsche has a truly noble longing for the advent of the overman, but he throws down the ladder on which man has been climbing up, and thus losing his foothold, he falls down to the place whence mankind started several millenniums ago.

We enjoy the rockets of Nietzsche's genius, we understand his Faust-like disappointment as to the unavailableness of science such as he knew it; we sympathize with the honesty with which he offered his thoughts to the world; we recognize the flashes of truth which occur in his sentences, uttered in the tone of a prophet; but we cannot help condemning his philosophy as unsound in its basis, his errors being the result of an immaturity of comprehension.

Nietzsche has touched upon the problem of problems, but he has not solved it. He weighs the souls of his fellowmen and finds them wanting; but his own soul is not less deficient. His philosophy is well worth studying, but it is not a good guide through life. It is great only as being the gravest error, boldly, conscientiously, and seriously carried to its utmost extremes and preached as the latest word of wisdom.

It has been customary that man should justify himself before the tribunal of morality, but Nietzsche summons morality itself before his tribunal. Morality justifies herself by calling on truth, but the testimony of truth is ruled out, for truth--objective truth--is denounced as a superstition of the dark ages. Nietzsche knows truth only as a contemptible method of puny spirits to make existence conceivable--a hopeless task! Nietzsche therefore finds morality guilty as a usurper and a tyrant, and he exhorts all _esprits forts_ to shake off the yoke.

We grant that the self should not be the slave of morality; it should not feel the "ought" as a command; it should identify itself with it and make its requirements the object of its own free will. Good-will on earth will render the law redundant; but when you wipe out the ideal of good-will itself together with its foundation, which is truth and the recognition of truth, the struggle for existence will reappear in its primitive fierceness, and mankind will return to the age of savagery. Let the _esprits forts of Nietzsche's_ type try to realize their master's ideal, and their attempts will soon lead to their own perdition.

We read in _Der arme Teufel_,[1] a weekly whose radical editor would not have been prevented by conventional reasons from joining the new fad of Nietzscheanism, the following satirical comment on some modern poet of original selfhood:

"'I am against matrimony because I am a poet Wife, children, family life,--well, well! they may be good enough for the man possessed of the herding instinct But I object to trivialities in my own life. I want something stimulating, sensation, poetry 1 A wife would be prosaic to me, simply on account of being my wife; and children who would call me papa would be disgusting. Poetry I need! Poetry!' Thus he spoke to a friend, and when the latter was gone continued his letter reproaching a waitress for again asking for money and at the same time reflecting upon the purity of her relations to the bartender who, she pretended, was her cousin only...."

If marriage relations were abolished to-day, would not in the course of time some new form of marriage be established? Those who are too proud to utilize the experiences of past generations, will have to repeat them for themselves and must wade through their follies, sins, errors, and suffer all the consequences and undergo their penalties.

Nietzsche tries to produce a Cæsar by teaching his followers to imitate the vices of a Catiline; he would raise gods by begetting Titans; he endeavors to give a nobler and better standard to mankind, not by lifting the people higher and rendering them more efficient, but by depriving them of all wisdom and making them more pretentious.

If the ethics of Nietzsche were accepted to-day as authoritative, and if people at large acted accordingly, the world would be benefited in one respect, viz., hypocrisy would cease, and the selfishness of mankind would manifest itself in all its nude bestiality. Passions would have full sway; lust, robbery, jealousy, murder, and revenge would increase, and Death in all forms of wild outbursts would reap a richer harvest than he ever did in the days of prehistoric savage life. The result would be a pruning on a grand scale, and after a few bloody decades those only would survive who either by nature or by hypocritical self-control deemed it best to keep the lower passions and the too prurient instincts of their selfhood in proper check, and then the old-fashioned rules of morality, which Nietzsche declared antiquated, would be given a new trial in the new order of things. They might receive a different sanction, but they would find recognition.

Nietzsche forgets that the present social order originated from that general free-for-all fight which he commends, and that if we begin at the start we should naturally run through the same or a similar course of development to the same or very similar conditions. Will it not be better to go on improving than to revert to the primitive state of savagery?

There are superstitious notions about the nature of the sanction of ethics, but for that reason the moral ideals of mankind remain as firmly established as ever.

The self is not the standard of measurement for good and evil, right and wrong, as Nietzsche claims in agreement with the sophists of old; the self is only the condition to which and under which it applies. There is no good and evil in the purely physical world, there is no suffering, no pain, no anguish--all this originates with the rise of organized animal life which is endowed with sentiency; and further there is no goodness and badness, no morality until the animal rises to the height of comprehending the nature of evil. The tiger is in himself neither good nor bad, but he makes himself a cause of suffering to others; and thus he is by them regarded as bad. Goodness and badness are relative, but they are not for that reason unreal.

It is true that there is no "ought" in the world as an "ought"; nor are there metaphysical ghosts of divine commandments revealing themselves. But man learns the lesson how to avoid evil and reducing it to brief rules which are easily remembered, he calls them "commandments."

Buddha was aware that there is no metaphysical ghost of an "ought," and being the first positivist before positivism was ever thought of, his decalogue is officially called "avoiding the ten evils," not "the ten commandments," the latter being a popular term of later origin.

Granting that there is no metaphysical "ought" in the world and that it finds application only in the domain of animate life through the presence of the self or rather of many selves, we fail to see that the self is the creator of the norm of good and evil. Granting also that there are degrees of comprehending the nature of evil and that different applications naturally result under different conditions, we cannot for that reason argue that ethics are purely subjective and that there is no objective norm that underlies the moral evolution of mankind and comes out in the progress of civilization more and more in its purity.