Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/241

 Will-to-Power. The whole task of life is to impose your power on others an andern Macht auslassen. With what aim? To evolve the Superman. But in this struggle of all against all we must, in a world divided into nations and classes, struggle for the victory of some nation and some fashion of government. For Prussia, and for an aristocracy more scientifically cruel than the world has ever known. And what is the first step towards this Elysium? War, and again war. War, with the formula of the Assassins for its formula—

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

It is idle to remind us that Nietzsche touched life at other points, and that in his flaming incoherence you will find contradictions of this vision. For it was this vision of Attila, and no other, that conquered the imagination of Prussia. She desired all Europe for an Empire, and after that the seas, and at last the world. It needed but one further step in this mysticism of the madhouse to decree divine honours to the Kaiser.

Now let Nietzsche speak for himself. Thus spake Zarathustra on the morality of war—

"You shall love peace as a means to new wars, and a short peace better than a long....

"I do not counsel you labour, I do not counsel you peace, but victory. Let your labour be a conflict, and your peace a victory....