Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/152

Prophets of Dissent of my subjective satisfaction. It makes not a whit of difference whether an opinion or a judgment satisfies this or that scholastic definition. I call true and good that which furthers my welfare and intensifies my joy in living; and, — to vindicate my self-gratification as a form, indeed the highest, of "social service," — the desirable thing is that which matters for the improvement of the human stock and thereby speeds the advent of the Superman. "Oh," exclaims Zarathustra, "that ye would understand my word: Be sure to do whatever ye like, — but first of all be such as can will! Be sure to love your neighbor as yourself, — but first of all be such as love themselves, — as love themselves with great love, with contempt. Thus speaketh Zarathustra, the ungodly."

By way of throwing some light upon this phase of Nietzsche's moral philosophy, it may be added that ever since 1876 he was an assiduous student of Herbert Spencer, with whose theory of social evolution he was first made acquainted by his friend, Paul Ree, who in two works of his own, "Psychologic Observations," (1875), and "On the Origin of Moral Sentiments," (1877), had elaborated upon the Spencerian theory about the genealogy of morals.