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Rh be called l'impressionisme morale," as one more expression of the physiological oversensitiveness, peculiar to everything that is decadent; in contrast, "strong times, superior cultures, see in pity, in 'love of neighbors,' in deficiency of personality and self-feeling, something despicable" (Twilight etc., ix, § 37) . All this, however, does not mean that Nietzsche failed to recognize the due place of sympathy and altruism in normal social life.

undefined Hans Bélart remarks that when Nietzsche criticises morality and comes to the conclusion that it is the danger of dangers, we must remember that it was above all the morality of his great teacher Schopenhauer which he had in mind—a morality that emphasized the impulses of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and so gilded them and deified them and made metaphysical use of them (verjenseitigt), that they became absolute values, from the standpoint of which he turned against life and even himself. Further, as Nietzsche viewed matters, this doctrine of denial and asceticism was closely interwoven with Christianity, and it was on this account that he turned against Christianity (Nietzsches Metaphysik, pp. 1-3). The antithesis of morality—this type of morality—to life might be stated as follows: in the last analysis life lives off other life, but morality leads us to identify ourselves with other life; so far then as we do this, the will to assert ourselves on our own account tends to vanish—with a complete identification the basis of individual existence would disappear.

undefined So Carl Lory, Nietzsche als Geschichtsphilosoph, p. 22. Nietzsche had said in "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" (sect. 5) that one could not be happy with suffering everywhere about one. This and the first three citations in the text belong to the first period of his life, but as they are only in keeping with later utterances, it seems allowable to use them here.

undefined This to von Gersdorff, May 26, 1876 (Briefe, I, 379). He wrote to Malwida von Meysenbug, March 24, 1875, "I have wished that I could daily do some good thing to others. This autumn I proposed to myself to begin each morning by asking, Is there no one to whom thou couldst do some good today? … I vex too many men by my writings, not to feel obliged to attempt to make it up to them somehow" (quoted in Meyer's Nietzsche, p. 666).

undefined In "The Use and Harm of History," sect. 2, those who pass through life "pitiful and helpful" are spoken of with honor, as well as other types. Soft, benevolent, pitiful feelings are classed among the good things once counted bad (schlimme) things in Genealogy etc., III, § 9. In Dawn of Day, § 136, pity is even recognized as a self-preservative power for certain individuals (e.g., those Hindus who find the aim of all intellectual activity in coming to know human misery) since it takes them away from themselves, banishes fear and numbness (Erstarrung), and incites to words and actions.

undefined Nietzsche recognizes that this is its normal character. "With alms one maintains the situation that makes the motive to alms. One gives then not from pity, for this would not wish to continue the situation" (Werke, XI, 227, §172—italics mine). Dewey and Tufts are hardly right in suggesting that Nietzsche overlooks "the reaction of sympathy to abolish the source of suffering" (op. cit., p. 370 n).

undefined Weinel makes the following admission: "Let us ask ourselves if we wish to be pitied by others, if we find an attitude of this sort toward us pleasing? … Even if Nietzsche's course in following up the most secret feelings of one who pities is dictated by suspicion, and his thought or scent takes him too far, it is still true that the noblest type of soul cannot show pity without feeling some kind of superiority and placing himself over against the other as the giving party" (op. cit., pp. 172-3).