Read Ebook: Nietzsche: His Life and Works by Ludovici Anthony M Anthony Mario Levy Oscar Author Of Introduction Etc

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Introduction

Abbreviations Used in Referring to Nietzsche's Works

Life and Works

"Holy be thy name to all coming generations! In the name of all thy friends, I, thy pupil, cry out our warmest thanks to thee for thy great life.

"Thou wast one of the noblest and purest men that ever trod this earth.

"And although this is known to both friend and foe, I do not deem it superfluous to utter this testimony aloud at thy tomb. For we know the world; we know the fate of Spinoza! Around Nietzsche's memory, too, posterity may cast shadows! And therefore I close with the words: Peace to thy ashes!"

This view, expressed by Peter Gast, Nietzsche's staunchest friend and disciple, at his master's graveside, in August 1900, may be regarded as typical of the Nietzsche enthusiast's attitude towards his master. On the other hand we have the assurance of Nietzsche's opponents and enemies that nothing could have been more utterly disastrous to modern society, more pernicious, dangerous, and ridiculous than Nietzsche's life-work.

At the present day Nietzsche is so potent a force and his influence is increasing with such rapidity that, whatever our calling in life may be, it behoves us to know precisely what he stands for, and to which of the opinions above given we should subscribe. As a matter of fact, the inquirer into the life and works of this interesting man will find that he has well-nigh as many by-names as he has readers, and not the least of our difficulties in speaking about him will be to give him a fitting title, descriptive of his mission and the way in which he understood it.

Some deny his right to the title "philosopher"; others declare him to be a mere anarchist; and a large number regard all his later works as no more than a shallow though brilliant reversal of every accepted doctrine on earth.

In order to be able to provoke so much diversity of opinion, a man must be not only versatile but forcible. Nietzsche was both. There is scarcely a subject in the whole range of philosophical thought which he does not attack and blow up; and he hurls forth his hard, polished missiles in a manner so destructive, and at the same time with such accuracy of aim, that it is no wonder a chorus of ill-used strongholds of traditional thought now cry out against him as a disturber and annihilator of their peace. Yet, through all the dust, smoke, and noise of his implacable warfare, there are both a method and a mission to be discerned--a method and a mission in the pursuit of which Nietzsche is really as unswerving as he seems capricious.

Throughout his life and all his many recantations and revulsions of feeling, he remained faithful to one purpose and to one aim--the elevation of the type man. However bewildered we may become beneath the hail of his epigrams, treating of every momentous question that has ever agitated the human mind, we still can trace this broad principle running through all his works: his desire to elevate man and to make him more worthy of humanity's great past.

Again, in his attack on the evolutionists' so-called "struggle for existence," of which I shall speak more exhaustively later, it is the suggestion that life--mere existence in itself--is worthy of being an aim at all, that he deprecates so profoundly. And, once more, it is with the view of elevating man and his aspirations that he levels the attack.

Whatever we may think of his methods, therefore, at least his aim was sufficiently lofty and honourable, and we must bear in mind that he never shirked the duties which, rightly or wrongly, he imagined would help him to achieve it.

Knowing the high authority with which poets of this order are wont to sneak, it might be supposed that we should approach Nietzsche's innovations in the realm of science with some respect, not in spite of, but precisely owing to, his great poetic genius. Unfortunately to-day this no longer follows. Too thoroughly have we divorced science from emotion and feeling , and now, wherever we see emotion or a suggestion of passion, we are too apt to purse our lips and stand on our guard.

When we consider that Nietzsche was ultimately to prove the bitterest enemy of Christianity, and the severest critic of the ecclesiastic, his antecedents seem, to say the least, remarkable. His father, Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, born in 1813, was a clergyman of the German Protestant Church; his grandfather had also taken orders; whilst his grandmother on his father's side was descended from a long line of parsons. Nor do things change very much when we turn to his mother's family; for his maternal grandfather, Oehler, was also a clergyman, and, according to Nietzsche's sister, he appears to have been a very sound, though broad, theologian.

Yet, perhaps, it is we who are wrong in seeing anything strange in the fact that a man with such orthodox antecedents should have developed into a prophet and reformer of Nietzsche's stamp; for we should remember that only a long tradition of discipline and strict conventionality, lasting over a number of generations, is able to rear that will-power and determination which, as the lives of most great men have shown, are the first conditions of all epoch-making movements started by single individuals.

Friedrich Nietzsche was born at R?cken near L?tzen, in the Prussian province of Saxony, on the 15th of October 1844. From his earliest childhood onwards the boy seems to have been robust and active and does not appear to have suffered from any of the ordinary ailments of infancy. In the biography written by his sister much stress is laid upon this fact, while the sometimes exceptional health enjoyed by his parents and ancestors is duly emphasised by the anxious biographer. Elisabeth Nietzsche , the biographer in question, is perfectly justified in establishing these facts with care; for we know that our poet philosopher died insane, and many have sought to show that his insanity was hereditary and could be traced throughout his works.

Nietzsche's father died in 1849, and in the following year the family removed to Naumburg. There the boy received his early schooling, first at a preparatory school and subsequently at the Gymnasium--the Grammar School--of the town. As a lad, it is said that he was fond of military games, and of sitting alone, and it appears that he would recline for hours at his grandmother Nietzsche's feet, listening to her reminiscences of the great Napoleon. Towards the end of 1858 Mrs. Nietzsche was offered a scholarship for her son, for a term of six years, in the Landes-Schule, Pforta, so famous for the scholars it produced. At Pforta, where the discipline was very severe, the boy followed the regular school course and worked with great industry. His sister tells us that during this period he distinguished himself most in his private studies and artistic efforts, though even in the ordinary work of the school he was decidedly above the average. It was here, too, that he first became acquainted with Wagner's compositions, and a word ought now perhaps to be said in regard to his musical studies.

Nietzsche's six years at Pforta were responsible for a large number of his subsequent ideas. When we hear him laying particular stress upon the value of rigorous training free from all sentimentality; when we read his views concerning austerity and the importance of law, order and discipline, we must bear in mind that he is speaking with an actual knowledge of these things, and with profound experience of their worth. The excellence of his philological work may also be ascribed to the very sound training he received at Pforta, and the Latin essay which he wrote on an original subject for the leaving examination, laid the foundation of all his subsequent opinions on morality.

His work during these two years, arduous though it was, in no way affected his health, and, despite his short-sight, he tells us that he was then able to endure the greatest strain without the smallest trouble. Being of a robust and energetic nature, however, he was anxious to discover some means of employing his bodily strength, and it was for this reason that, regardless of the interruption in his work, he was enthusiastic at the thought of becoming a soldier.

In the autumn of 1867 he entered the fourth regiment of Field Artillery, and it is said that he performed his duties to the complete satisfaction of his superiors. But, alas, this lasted but a short time; for, as the result of an unfortunate fall from a restive horse, he was compelled to leave the colours before he had completed his term of service.

In October 1868, after a serious illness, the student returned to his work at Leipzig, and now that event took place which was perhaps the most triumphant and most decisive in his career. It was Nietzsche's ambition to get His doctor's degree as soon as possible and then to travel. Meanwhile, however, others were busy determining what he should do. Some philological essays which he had written in his student days, and which, owing to their excellence, had been published by the "Rheinisches Museum," had attracted the attention of the educational Board of B?le. One of the Board communicated with Ritschl concerning Nietzsche, and the reply the learned scholar sent was so favourable that the University of B?le immediately offered Ritschl's favourite pupil their Professorship of Classical Philology. This was an exceptional honour, and, to crown it, the University of Leipzig quickly granted Nietzsche his doctor's degree without further examination --truly a remarkable occurrence in straitlaced and formal Germany!

His first years at B?le are chiefly associated in our minds with his inaugural address: "Homer and Classical Philology," with his action in regard to the Franco-German war, and with his lectures on the "Future of our Educational Institutions." I can do no more than refer to these here, but as regards the war it is necessary to go into further detail.

In July 1870, hostilities opened between France and Prussia. Now, although Nietzsche had been forced to become a naturalised Swiss subject in order to accept his appointment at B?le, he was loth to remain inactive while his own countrymen fought for the honour of Germany. He could not, however, fight for the Germans without compromising Switzerland's neutrality. He therefore went as a hospital attendant, and in this capacity, after obtaining the necessary leave, he followed his former compatriots to the war. According to Elisabeth Nietzsche, it was this act of devotion which was the cause of all her brother's subsequent ill-health. In Ars-sur-Moselle, while tending the sick and wounded, Nietzsche contracted dysentery from those in his charge. With his constitution undermined by the exertions of the campaign, he fell very seriously ill, and had to be relieved of his duties. Long before he was strong enough to do so, however, he resumed his work at B?le; and now began that second phase of his life during which he never once recovered the health he had enjoyed before the war.

The fourth, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, contains Nietzsche's last word of praise as a friend of the great German musician. In it we already see signs of his revulsion of feeling; but on the whole it is a panegyric written with love and conviction.

In 1879, owing to ill-health, Nietzsche was compelled to resign his professorship at the University of B?le, and the spring of that year saw him an independent man with an annual pension of 3000 francs, generously granted to him by the Board of Management on the acceptance of his resignation. With this pension and a small private income derived from a capital of about ?1400, he was not destitute, though by no means affluent, and when we remember that he was obliged to defray the expenses of publication in the case of almost every one of his books, we may form some idea of his actual resources.

It was about this time that Nietzsche began to take chloral in the hope of overcoming his insomnia; it was now, too, that his sister --the only relative for whom, despite some misunderstandings, he had a real affection--became engaged to a man with whom he was utterly out of sympathy; and all the while negotiations, into which Nietzsche had entered with the Leipzig University for the purpose of securing another professorial chair, were becoming ever more hopeless.

What remains to be related of Nietzsche's life is sad enough, and is almost common knowledge. When his sister Elizabeth married Dr. F?rster and went to Paraguay with her spouse, Nietzsche was practically without a friend, and, had it not been for Peter Gast's devotion and help, he would probably have succumbed to his constitutional and mental troubles much sooner than he actually did. Before his last breakdown in Turin, in January 1889, the only real encouragement he is ever known to have received in regard to his philosophical works came to him from Copenhagen and Paris. In the latter city it was Taine who committed himself by praising Nietzsche, and in the former it was Dr. George Brandes, a clever and learned professor, who delivered a series of lectures on the new message of the German philosopher. The news of Brandes' success in Copenhagen in 1888 greatly brightened Nietzsche's last year of authorship, and he corresponded with the Danish professor until the end. It has been rightly observed that these lectures were the dawn of Nietzscheism in Europe.

As the result of over-work, excessive indulgence in drugs, and a host of disappointments and anxieties, Nietzsche's great mind at last collapsed on the 2nd or 3rd of January 1889, never again to recover.

The last words he wrote, which were subsequently found on a slip of paper in his study, throw more light upon the tragedy of his breakdown than all the learned medical treatises that have been written about his case. "I am taking narcotic after narcotic," he said, "in order to drown my anguish; but still I cannot sleep. To-day I will certainly take such a quantity as will drive me out of my mind."

From that time to the day of his death he lingered a helpless and unconscious invalid, first in the care of his aged mother, and ultimately, when Elizabeth returned a widow from Paraguay, as his sister's beloved charge.

For an opinion of Nietzsche during his last phase I cannot do better than quote Professor Henri Lichtenberger of Nancy, who saw the invalid in 1898; and with this sympathetic Frenchman's valuable observations, I shall draw this chapter to a close:--

"In the gradual wane of this enthusiastic lover of life, of this apologist of energy, of this prophet of Superman there is something inexpressibly sad--inexpressibly beautiful and peaceful. His brow is still magnificent--his eyes, the light of which seems to be directed inwards, have an expression which is indefinably and profoundly moving. What is going on within his soul? Nobody can say. It is just possible that he may have preserved a dim recollection of his life as a thinker and a poet."

Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's by Frau F?rster-Nietzsche.

Nietzsche the Amoralist

From a casual study of Nietzsche's life it might be gathered that he had little time for private meditation or for any lonely brooding over problems foreign to his school and university studies. Indeed, from the very moment when it was decided that he should become a scholar, to the day when the University of Leipzig granted him his doctor's degree without examination, his existence seems to have been so wholly occupied by strenuous application to the duties which his aspirations imposed upon him that, even if he had had the will to do so, it would seem that he could not have had the leisure to become engaged in any serious thought outside his regular work. Nevertheless, if we inquire into the matter more deeply, we find to our astonishment, that during the whole of that arduous period--from his thirteenth to this twenty-fourth year--his imagination did not once cease from playing around problems of the highest import, quite unrelated to his school and university subjects.

If we reflect a moment, we find that "good" and "evil" are certainly words that exercise a tremendous power in the world. To attach the word "good" to any thing or deed is to give it the hall-mark of desirability: on the other hand, to attach the word "evil" to it is tantamount to proscribing it from existence. Even in the old English proverb, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," we have a suggestion of the enormous force which has been compressed into the two monosyllables "good" and "bad," and before we seriously take up the problem, it were well to ponder a while over the really profound significance of these two words.

Nietzsche, as we have already observed, was never in any doubt as to their importance: his life passion was the desire to solve the meaning, the origin, and the intrinsic value of the two terms; and he did not rest until he had achieved his end.

No such facile shelving of the question, however, could satisfy Nietzsche. From the very outset he freed himself from all national and even racial prejudices, and could see no particular reason why the kind of morality now prevailing in Europe, or countries like Europe, must necessarily and ultimately overcome and supplant all others. He therefore attacked the question with a perfectly open mind, and asked himself whether he quite understood the part the terms "good" and "evil" have played in human history.

Is morality--its justification in our midst and its mode of action--comprehended at all?--He replies to this question so daringly and so uprightly, that at first his clearness may only bewilder us.

These terms "good" and "evil," he tells us, are merely a means to the acquisition of power. And, indeed, in the very resistance we offer when he attempts to criticise our notions of morality, we tacitly acknowledge that in this morality our strength does actually reside. "No greater power on earth was found by Zarathustra than good and evil" "No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour valueth."

In the last sentence we have seized Nietzsche's clue to the whole question. If you would maintain yourself, you cannot and must not value as your neighbour values. Good and evil, then, are not permanent absolute values; they are transient, relative values, serving an end which can be explained in terms of biology and anthropology.

But now let us halt a moment, for the sake of clearness, and let us inquire precisely how Nietzsche himself was led to this conclusion.

In the summer of 1864, when he was in his twentieth year, he was given some home work to do which he was expected to have ready by the end of the holidays. It was to consist of a Latin thesis upon some optional subject, and he chose "Theognis, the Aristocratic Poet of Megara."

While preparing the work he was struck with the author's use of the words "good" and "bad" as synonymous with aristocratic and plebeian, and it was this valuable hint which first set him on the right track. Theognis and his friends, being desirous of making their power prevail, were naturally compelled to regard any force which assailed that power as bad--"bad," in the sense of "dangerous to their order of power"; and thus it came to pass that Theognis, as an aristocrat in the heat of a struggle between an oligarchy and a democracy, spoke of the democratic values as "bad" and of those of his own party as "good."

The writing of this essay had other consequences which I shall only be able to refer to in the next chapter; but at present let it suffice to say that, in recognising the arbitrary use made by Theognis of the epithets good and bad in designating the oligarchy and the democracy respectively, Nietzsche was first induced to look upon morality merely as a weapon in the struggle for power, and he thus freed himself from all the usual bias which belongs to the absolutist's standpoint. Hence his claim to the surname "amoralist," and his use of the phrase "Beyond Good and Evil," as the title of one of his greatest works.

Let us, however, remember that although Nietzsche did undoubtedly take up a position beyond good and evil, in order to free himself temporarily from the gyves of all tradition, still this attitude was no more than a momentary one, and he ultimately became as rigid a moralist as the most exacting could desire. It was a new morality, however, or perhaps a forgotten one, which he ultimately preached, and with the view of preparing the ground for it he was in a measure obliged to destroy old idols. "He who hath to be a creator in good and evil," says Zarathustra, "verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and to break values to pieces."

Assuming the position of the relativist, then, Nietzsche observed that, all morality, all use of the words "good" and "evil," is only an artifice for acquiring power. Turning to the animal kingdom, he went in search of support for his views, and very soon discovered that, in biology at least, no fact was at variance with his general hypothesis.

In nature every species of organic being behaves as if its kind alone ought ultimately to prevail on earth, and, whether it try to effect this end by open aggression or cowardly dissimulation, the motive in both cases is the same. The lion's good is the antelope's evil. If the antelope believed the lion's good to be its good, it would go and present itself without further ado before the lion's jaws. If the lion believed the antelope's good to be its good it would adopt vegetarianism forthwith and eschew its carnivorous habits for the rest of its days. Again, no parasite could share the notions of good and evil entertained by its victim, neither could the victims share the notions of good and evil entertained by the parasite. Everywhere, then, those modes of conduct are adopted and perpetuated by a species, which most conduce to the prevalence and extension of their particular kind, and that species which fails to discover the class of conduct best calculated to preserve and strengthen it gets overcome in the war of conduct which constitutes the incessant struggle for power.

All moralities, therefore, were but so many Trades Union banners flying above the heads of different classes of men, woven and upheld by them for their own needs and aspirations.

So far, so good. But then, if that were so, the character of a morality must be determined by the class of men among whom it came into being.

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