Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/143

Friedrich Nietzsche the argument. By his arbitrary reading of ancient history he was, at first, disposed to look to the forthcoming Universal-Kunstwerk as the complete expression of a new religious spirit and as the adequate lever of a general uplift of man- kind to a state of bliss. But the typical disparity between Wagner and Nietzsche was bound to alienate them. Wagner, despite all appearance to the contrary, is inherently democratic in his convictions, — his earlier political vicissitudes amply confirm this view, — and fastens his hope for the elevation of humanity through art upon the sort of genius in whom latent popular forces might combine to a new summit. Nietzsche on the other hand represents the extreme aristocratic type, both in respect of thought and of sentiment. "I do not wish to be confounded with and mistaken for these preachers of equality," says he. "For within me justice saith: men are not equal." His ideal is a hero of coercive personality, dwelling aloft in solitude, despotically bending the gregarious instincts of the common crowd to his own higher purposes by the dominating force of his Will to Might.

The concept of the Overman rests, as has been

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