Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/173

Friedrich Nietzsche effort. He urges the supreme importance of vigor of body and mind and force of will. "O my brethren, I consecrate you to be, and show unto you the way unto a new nobility. Ye shall be- come procreators and breeders and sowers of the future. — Not whence ye come be your honor in future, but whither ye go ! Your will, and your foot that longeth to get beyond yourselves, be that your new honor!"

It would be a withering mistake to advocate the translation of Nietzsche's poetic dreams into the prose of reality. Unquestionably his Utopia if it were to be carried into practice would doom to utter extinction the world it is devised to regenerate. But it is generally acknowledged that "prophets have a right to be unreasonable," and so, if we would square ourselves with Friedrich Nietzsche in a spirit of fairness, we ought not to forget that the daring champion of reckless unrestraint is likewise the inspired apostle of action, power, enthusiasm, and aspiration, in fine, a prophet of Vitality and a messenger of Hope.