Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/445

Rh the whole: this as against the "social dualism" sometimes charged to him. I shall take up these points in order.

When Nietzsche argues, as against the more or less anarchic democracy and individualism of today, for the necessity of rule, he has not so much in mind rulers in the ordinary sense (kings, judges, legislators) as the supreme will and thought on which rule is based—that is, the first class mentioned, who are apart from and above the political mechanism itself. This is perhaps the most novel feature in Nietzsche's social scheme. Did not even Plato wish the philosopher to rule, to be on the throne? But Nietzsche's highest type of man views ruling as beneath him—it is the function of a lower class; he is above kings, though his thought is law for kings and he uses them as his instruments. In this, in a sense, most secular and irreligious of modern thinkers, there arises thus the idea of a spiritual power over against the temporal, and superior to it. undefined The state is an instrument for ends beyond itself, and has restricted supremacy and domain. It may be best to give Nietzsche's own words here. "Beyond the ruling class loosed from all bonds, live the highest men: and in the rulers they have their instruments." undefined "These lords of the earth are now to replace God, and to win for themselves the deep and unconditional trust of the ruled." They renounce aims of happiness and comfort; they give expectations of this sort to the lowest, but not to themselves. They have an eye to the whole range of social need, redeeming the miserable by the doctrine of "speedy death," and favoring religions and systems of ideas according as they are suited to this grade, or to that (je nach der Rangordnung). They are a kind of moral providence for men, and rule by their moral authority only—though none the less effectively.

And yet this relation to society does not exhaust their activity. Here Nietzsche developes, or rather starts upon, a still more venturesome line of thought. Its presupposition is a distinction between leaders of the flock and individuals, or