Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/134

118 He is aware that there is some danger to society in the doctrines of general human innocence and unresponsibility—they might throw courts and the course of civil justice out of gear; there was similar danger, he observes, in the teaching of Jesus to just the opposite effect, namely that since all are sinful, they should not judge one another. But Nietzsche is no revolutionary, and while he wished to see civil institutions purged of the spirit of revenge, he had no desire to abolish them. He did not even oppose capital punishment, and wished to allow an incurable criminal, who became a horror to himself, to end his own days. His concern was chiefly for a point of view, namely, that the criminal is one deranged or sick, and should be treated as such—not then with patronizing compassion, but with a physician's penetration, a physician's good will: he has subtle reflections to offer in this connection on the psychology of crime. One of his hopeful thoughts for the future is that there will be institutions where men can betake themselves for spiritual cures, according to their varying needs—in one place, anger would be fought, in another lust, and so on. undefined He can also imagine individuals and whole groups abstaining from recourse to the courts on their own account, after the primitive Christian fashion As for himself he says, "Better allow yourself to be robbed than have scarecrows about you to prevent it—such is my taste." undefined

Nietzsche also criticises certain ideas which come nearer the content of morality. He finds an element of illusion in the view that good impulses and evil impulses differ in kind. He thinks that in all man does, he acts for his preservation, his pleasure, his advantage. undefined Some actions are, however, more intelligent than others, and this fact gives rise to diverse judgments. It is a view not unlike that of Socrates and Plato, who held that man always does the good, i.e., what seems so to him, according to the grade of his intellect, the measure of his rationality. Acts called evil are really stupid. Good acts are sublimated evil ones; evil acts