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Christianity is the religion of human suffering; Nietzsche is a worshipper of life, and proclaims the joyful science, die fröhliche Wissenschaft, the gaya scienza. It is impossible within the limits of a short article to discuss Nietzsche’s view of Christianity. We are concerned here not with discussion, but with exposition.
And by an even more curious paradox, whilst every European critic devotes himself to-day to the interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy, they systematically ignore—as Nietzsche himself ignored—the masterpiece of the Frenchman. Let us, then, first keep in mind that Nietzsche is not a metaphysician or a logician, but he is pre-eminently a moralist.
It is not your sympathy, but your bravery, which has hitherto saved the shipwrecked of existence. “‘What is good?’ you ask. ‘To be braced is good.’” Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” First Part, 10th Speech. Quite apart from any elements of truth contained in Nietzsche’s ethics, the first reason for his popularity is, no doubt, the perfection of his form and style.
Even in his earliest work, “Thoughts out of Season,” whilst he destroys the two popular idols of the day, the theologian and the historian, he sets up two new heroes, Schopenhauer and Wagner. We have said that Nietzsche’s philosophy is strikingly simple. Its whole kernel can be expressed in two words. He is a systematic pagan, and he is an uncompromising aristocrat.
But only a systematic comparison could show that we have to do here with something more than a mental stimulus and a quickening of ideas, that Montaigne’s “Essays” have provided the foundations of Nietzsche’s philosophy, and that the Frenchman may rightly be called, and in a very definite sense, the “spiritual father” of the German.
At an early opportunity we hope to deal at some length in the columns of Everyman with Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity. For the present, let it be sufficient to say that no theologian would be prepared to accept his interpretation of the Christian religion.
We believe in despotism and aristocracy because we believe in the natural inequality of man, because we believe in force and pride and self-assertion, in the power of the strong to oppress the weak. Nietzsche is against the oppressed and for the oppressor; for the Superman against humanity. For in Nietzsche’s view an aristocracy is the ultimate purpose of life.
By a curious coincidence, a few years before the advent of Nietzsche, a great French thinker had anticipated every one of Nietzsche’s doctrines, and had expressed them in one of the most striking books of the French language.
The Supermen and the Super-races of to-day only too cordially accept a philosophy which seems to justify extortion, aggression, and oppression in the name of a supreme moral principle. The third and most important reason, and the real secret of Nietzsche’s influence, is the fine quality of his moral personality.
It is not your sympathy, but your bravery, which has hitherto saved the shipwrecked of existence. “‘What is good?’ you ask. To be brave is good.” Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” First Part, 10th Speech.
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