Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/12

vi great politics, on which he set his heart), "this névrose nationale with which Europe is sick," "this sickness and unreason which is the strongest force against culture that exists, nationalism," for perpetuating which he holds Germans largely [perhaps too much] responsible, and "which with the founding of the German Empire passed into a critical state" (Ecce Homo, XII, x, § 2; Twilight of the Idols, ix, § 39). These last words may perhaps be said to suggest some such catastrophe as has now taken place, and I know of no other passage that foreshadows it more particularly. I have dealt with the subject in a special article elsewhere ("Nietzsche and the War," International Journal of Ethics, April, 1917). That our own country has now been drawn—forced—into the maelstrom does not alter its essential character.

As to the final disposition of Nietzsche, I offer no counsels now, and really, as intimated, counsels—criticism, such as it is—abound. Even one's newspaper will usually put him in his place! Or, if one wishes a book, Mr. Paul Elmer More's Nietzsche, "compact as David's pebble," will serve, the Harvard Graduates' Magazine tells us, "to slay the Nietzschean giant," and if we desire heavier blows,—I will not say they are more skilful—we may take up Dr. Paul Carus's Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism. What, however, does not seem to abound is knowledge of the object slain, or to be slain, i.e., some elementary and measurably clear idea of who, or rather what, Nietzsche was, particularly in his underlying points of view. And even the present fresh attempt in this direction—for others have preceded me, notably Dr. Dolson, Mr. Ludovici, Miss Hamblen, Dr. Chatterton-Hill, Dr. A. Wolf, author of the best extant monograph on Nietzsche, and Professor H. L. Stewart, whose eye, however, is rather too much on present controversial issues for scientific purposes—would be a work of supererogation, had Nietzsche ever given us an epitome of his thinking himself, or were Professor Raoul Richter's masterly Friedrich Nietzsche, sein Leben and sein Werk translated into English, or were Professor Henri Lichtenberger's admirable La Philosophie de Nietzsche, which has been translated, a little more extended and thoroughgoing—at least, my book could then only beg consideration from Americans as a piece of "home industry."