Nietzsche’s Disciples
It is said that barking dogs do not bite, and this being true, we must look upon Nietzsche’s philosophy as a harmless display of words and a burning desire for power without making any attempt to practice what he preached. His philosophy, so far as he is concerned, is a purely Platonic love of an unattainable star whose brilliance dazzled the imagination of a childlike peaceful weakling. Suppose, however, for argument’s sake, that Nietzsche had been a man of robust health, and that he had been born at the time of great disturbances, offering unlimited chances to an unscrupulous ambition, would he under these circumstances have led the life he preached, and in case he had done so, would he have boldly and unreservedly admitted his principles while carrying out his plans? Did ever Cæsar or Napoleon or any usurper, such as Richard III, who unscrupulously aspired for power, own that he would shrink from nothing to attain his aim? Such a straightforward policy for any schemer would be the surest way of missing his aim. Such men, on the contrary, have played hypocrites, and have pretended to cherish ideals generally approved by the large masses of the people whom Nietzsche calls the herd. So it is obvious that the philosophy of Nietzsche if it were ever practically applied, would have become a secret doctrine known only to the initiated few, while the broad masses would be misguided by some demonstrative show of moral principles that might be pleasing to the multitudes and yet at the same time conceal the real tendency of the overman to gain possession of his superior position.
Nietzsche’s influence upon professional philosophers is comparatively weak. Whenever mentioned by them, it is in criticism, and he is generally set aside as onesided, and perhaps justly, because he was truly no philosopher in the strict sense of the word. He was no reasoner, no logician, and we can not, properly speaking, look upon his philosophy as a system or even a systematized view of the world. Nietzsche made himself the exponent of a tendency, and as such he has his followers among large masses of those very people whom he despised as belonging to the herds. As Nietzsche idealized this very quality in which he was lacking, so his followers recruit themselves from the ranks of those people who more than all others would be opposed to the rule of the overman. His most ardent followers are among the nihilists of Russia, the socialists and anarchists of all civilized countries. The secret reason of attraction, perhaps unknown to themselves, seems to be Nietzsche’s defense of the blind impulse and the privilege which he claims for the overman to be himself in spite of law and order and morality, and also his contempt for rules, religious, philosophical, ethical or even logical, that would restrict the great sovereign passion for power.
Nietzsche’s philosophy has taken a firm hold of a number of souls who rebel against the social, the political, the religious, and even the scientific, conditions of our civilization. Nietzsche is the philosopher of protest, and, strange to say, while he himself is aristocratic in his instincts, he appeals most powerfully to the masses of the people.
Nietzsche’s disciples are not among the aristocrats, not among the scholars, not among the men of genius. His followers are among the people who believe in hatred and hail him as a prophet of the great deluge. His greatest admirers are anarchists, sometimes also socialists, and above all those geniuses who have failed to find recognition. Nietzsche’s thought will prove veritable dynamite if it should happen to reach the masses of mankind, the disinherited, the uneducated, the proletariat, the Catilinary existences. Nietzsche’s philosophy is an intoxicant to those whom he despised most; they see in him their liberator, and rejoice in his invectives.
Invectives naturally appeal to those who are as unthinking as the brutes of the field, but feel the sufferings of existence as much as do the beasts of burden. They are impervious to argument, but being full of bitterness and envy they can be led most easily by any kind of denunciations of their betters. Nietzsche hated the masses, the crowd of the common people, the herd. He despised the lowly and had a contempt for the ideals of democracy. Nevertheless, his style of thought is such as to resemble the rant of the leaders of mobs, and it is quite probable that in the course of time he will become the philosopher of demagogues.
A great number of Nietzsche’s disciples share their master’s eccentricities and especially his impetuosity. Having a contempt for philosophy as the work of the intellect, they move mainly in the field of political and social self-assertion; they are anarchists who believe that the overman is coming in labor troubles, strikes, and through a subversion of the authority of government in any form.
The best known German expounders of Nietzsche’s philosophy have been Rudolph Steiner and Alexander Tille.1 Professor Henri Lichtenberger of the University of Nancy was his interpreter in France,2 and the former editor of The Eagle and the Serpent, known under the pseudonym of Erwin McCall, in England. This periodical, which flourished for a short time only, characterized its own tendency as follows:
“The Eagle and the Serpent is a bi-monthly journal of egoistic philosophy and sociology which teaches that in social science altruism spells damnation and egoism spells salvation. In the war against their exploiters the exploited cannot hope to succeed till they act as a unit, an ‘ego.’”
A reader of The Eagle and the Serpent humorously criticised the egoistic philosophy as follows:
“Dear Eagle and Serpent.—I am one of those unreasonable persons who see no irreconcilable conflict between egoism and altruism. The altruism of Tolstoy is the shortest road to the egoism of Whitman. The unbounded love and compassion of Jesus made him conscious of being the son of God, and that he and the Father were one. Could egoism go further than this? I believe that true egoism and true altruism grow in precisely equal degree in the soul, and that the alleged qualities which bear either name and attempt to masquerade alone without their respective make-weights are shams and counterfeits. The real desideratum is balance, and that cannot be permanently preserved on one leg. However, you skate surprisingly well for the time being on one foot, and I have enjoyed the first performance so well that I enclose 60 cents for a season-ticket—ERNEST H. CROSBY. Rhinebeck, N. Y., U. S. A.”
A German periodical Der Eigene, i. e., “he who is his own,” announced itself as “a journal for all and nobody,” and sounded “the slogan of the egoists,” by calling on them to “preserve their ownhood.”
Another anarchistic periodical that stood under the influence of Nietzsche appeared in Budapest,3 Hungary, in German and Hungarian under the name Ohne Staat, (“Without Government”) as “the organ of ideal anarchists,” under the editorship of Karl Krausz.
Perhaps the most worthy exponent of Nietzsche in England to-day is his translator Thomas Common. He does not consider himself an orthodox Nietzsche apostle but thinks that Nietzsche has given the world a very important revelation and that his new philosophy of history and his explanation of the role of Christianity are among the most wonderful discoveries since Darwin. At the same time Mr. Common pronounces Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence “very foolish” and believes his use of the terms “good” and “evil” so perverted that he was frequently confused about them and so misled superficial readers. Mr. Common published at regular intervals during the years 1903 to 1909 ten numbers of a small periodical entitled variously Notes for Good Europeans and The Good European Point of View, and expects to resume its publication soon. Its motto is from Nietzsche, “In a word—and it shall be an honorable word—we are Good Europeans... the heirs of thousands of years of the European spirit.” Its purpose is expressed in its first number as follows: “Our general purpose is to spread the best and most important knowledge relating to human well-being among those who are worthy to receive it, with a view to reducing the knowledge to practice, after some degree of unanimity has been attained.... As Nietzsche’s works, notwithstanding some limitations, exaggerations and minor errors, embody the foremost philosophical thought of the age, it will be one of our special objects to introduce these works to English readers.”
These numbers contain many bibliographical and other notes of interest to friends or critics of the Nietzsche propaganda. Mr. Common has published selections from Nietzsche’s works under the title, Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet.4
In America Nietzsche’s philosophy is represented by a book of Ragnar Redbeard, entitled Might is Right, the Survival of the Fittest.5 The author characterizes his work as follows:
“This book is a reasoned negation of the Ten Commandments—the Golden Rule—the Sermon on the Mount—Republican Principles—Christian Principles—and Principles’ in general.
“It proclaims upon scientific evolutionary grounds, the unlimited absolutism of Might, and asserts that cut-and-dried moral codes are crude and immoral inventions, promotive of vice and vassalage.”
The author is a most ardent admirer of Nietzsche, as may be learned from his verses made after the pattern of Nietzsche’s poetry. He sings:
“There is no ‘law’ in heaven or earth that man must needs obey! Take what you can, and all you can; and take it while you—may.
“Let not the Jew-born Christ ideal unnerve you in the fight. You have no ‘rights,’ except the rights you win by—might.
“There is no justice, right, nor wrong; no truth, no good, no evil. There is no ‘man’s immortal soul,’ no fiery, fearsome Devil.
“There is no ‘heaven of glory:’ No!—no ‘hell where sinners roast’ There is no ‘God the Father,’ No!—no Son, no ‘Holy Ghost.’
“This world is no Nirvâna where joy forever flows. It is a grewsome butcher shop where dead ‘lambs’ hang in—rows.
“Man is the most ferocious of all the beasts of prey. He rangeth round the mountains, to love, and feast, and—slay.
“He sails the stormy oceans, he gallops o’er the plains, and sucks the very marrow-bones of captives held in—chains.
“Death endeth all for every man,—for every ‘son of thunder’; then be a lion (not a ‘lamb’) and—don’t be trampled under.”
A valuable recent addition to the discussion of egoism is The Philosophy of Egoism by James L. Walker, (Denver, 1905).
We know of no American periodical which stands for Nietzsche’s views, except, perhaps, The Lion’s Paw (Chicago) which claims to follow no one. In the last years of the nineteenth century Clarence L. Swartz published at Wellesley, Mass., an egoistic periodical called the I. This magazine is no longer in existence, but Mr. Swartz is very active in the International Intelligence Institute whose aims are universal language, universal nationality and universal peace. He still maintains the same philosophical view which he held as editor of the I, but his philosophical egoism has led him in far different paths from those of Nietzsche—into the paths of peace and not of struggle. He expresses his present conception as follows:
“In the last analysis there is no right but might. Such is the common ordinary rule of every-day life, from which there is no escape, even were escape desirable. Any attempt to overthrow or circumvent or even dispute the exercise of this prerogative of the mighty is but to assert or oppose a greater might. Expediency always dictates how might should be exercised. Politically, I hold that the non-coercion of the non-invasive individual is the part of wisdom. The individual is supreme, and should be preserved as against society, for in no other way can evolution perform its perfect work.”
The Free Comrade edited by J. Wm. Lloyd and Leonard Abbott, an avowedly socialistic and individualistic paper, originally under the sole editorship of Lloyd, stood for Nietzsche and his egoism, but can no longer be said to do so.
Notes
1 A. Tille, Von Darwin bis Nietzsche. R. Steiner, Wahrheit und Wissenschaft; Die Philosophie der Freiheit; and F. Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit.
We have already mentioned the biography of Nietzsche published by the philosopher’s sister, Frau E. Förster-Nietzsche. A characterization, disavowed by Nietzsche’s admirers, was written by Frau Lou Andreas Salome, under the title F. Nietzsche in seinen Werken. Other works kindred in spirit are Schellwien’s Der Geist der neueren Philosophie, 1895, and Der Darwinismus, 1896; also Adolf Gerecke, Die Aussichtslosigkeit des Moralismus; Schmitt, An der Grenzscheide zweier Weltalter; Károly Krausz, Nietzsche und seine Weltanschauung.
2 Henri Lichtenberger, La Philosophie de Nietzsche. Paris, Alcan, 1898
3 We may mention incidentally that a contributor to Ohne Staat reproduced one of the Homilies of St Chrysostom, in which he harangues after the fashion of the early Christian preachers against wealth and power. The state’s attorney, not versed in Christian patristic literature, seized the issue and placed the man who quoted the old Byzantine saint behind the prison bars. In the issue of Nov., 1898, Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt mentions the case and says: “Thus we have an exact and historical proof that the liberty of speech and thought was incomparably greater in miserable, servile Byzantium than it is now in the much more miserable and more servile despotism of modern Europe.” Does not Dr. Schmitt overlook the fact that in the days of Byzantine Christianity the saints were protected by the mob, which was much feared by the imperial government and was kept at bay only by a nominal recognition of its claims and beliefs?
4 Other recent English Nietzschean literature is as follows: Grace Neal Dolson, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1901; Oscar Levy, The Revival of Aristocracy, 1906; A. R. Orage, Fried. Nietzsche, the Dionysion Spirit of the Age, 1906; A. R. Orage, Nietzsche in Outline and Alphorism; Henry L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche; M. A. Mügge, Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work; Anthony M. Ludovici, Who Is to Be Master of the World?
5 Published by Adolph Mueller, Chicago.
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