Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/147

Rh beyond which only indefinite wishes are possible. Something of this sort was, I think, suggested by Huxley—and it shows that it was not a caste system, in the sense of one with impassable barriers, that Nietzsche had in mind. More or less of this exchange—at least in the downward direction—takes place in caste societies as matter of fact. According to Professor Sumner, a Plantagenet was a butcher in a suburb of London a few years ago, and representatives of the great mediæval families may now be found as small farmers, farm laborers, or tramps in England (Hardy using a fact of this kind in Tess of the D'Urbervilles). If things like this could happen in both directions and with reasonable promptness and in accordance with a recognized social law, Nietzsche's somewhat shadowy idea would be realized—of course, changes in the laws of inheritance would be necessary.

As to property (Besitz), Nietzsche thinks that only those with mind should have it; otherwise it is an element of danger in a community. He who does not know how to use the free time which its possession gives strives for more—it is his way of diverting himself, of fighting boredom; and so from moderate possessions, which would suffice an intellectual man, comes wealth proper—a shining consequence of the lack of independence and intellectual poverty in one who amasses it, and at the same time something that excites the envy of the poor and uneducated, and prepares the way for a social revolution. Only up to a certain point does property serve its purpose of making one more independent and free; beyond that, property becomes the master and the owner a slave. Nietzsche sometimes draws almost a contemptuous picture of mere riches, his attitude being only softened by the reflection that rich men are half-ashamed of themselves [a type with which we do not appear to be acquainted in America]. He makes sport of the dinners of the rich, gives instances of how the love of money makes one unscrupulous, notes the unhappy effect of American