Notochord

“ Indeed the unconscious disguising of physiological needs under the mantle of the objective, the ideal, and the purely spiritual goes shockingly far, and Nietzsche says that he has often asked himself whether, broadly speaking, philosophy has not been principally hitherto an interpretation of the body—and a misunderstanding of the body. ”

“ There is evidence that Nietzsche was for a time in sore perplexity. The very extreme of skepticism and uncertainty as to both metaphysics and morals is pictured in "The Shadow" in Thus spake Zarathustra— Nietzsche had been that shadow and had said to himself in bitter irony: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted. [49] r There is nothing in things that we have not put into them, science, too, being this sort of child's play. [50] We can conceive only a world That we ourselves have made—if it appears logical, it is because we have logicized it. ”

“ Of course, on every page of his philosophy,—whatever his enemies may maintain to the contrary,—he never once ceases to construct, since he is incessantly enumerating and emphasising those qualities and types which he fain would rear, as against those he fain would see destroyed; but it is in aphorism 57 of this book that Nietzsche makes the plainest and most complete statement of his actual taste in Sociology, and it is upon this aphorism that all his followers and disciples will ultimately have to build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something more than a merely intellectual movement. ”

“ The sort of life which made Nietzsche wish to live again we have just seen. Life was welcome, would be ad infinitum, when lit up with a thought like that described—when a vision of the Divine opened out to it. ”

“ The "chosen," however, as viewed by Christianity, are perfect members of the flock, supreme exemplars of the social virtues, while Nietzsche's "chosen" are those who stand more or less aloof from the flock, acting according to their own, not social law, as autonomous as God, indeed the human counterpart of God.
h Beyond Good and Evil, § 287. Cf. Will to Power, § 940: "Higher than 'thou oughtst' stands 'I will' (heroes) ; higher than 'I will' stands 'I am' (the Greek Gods) ." Also Human, etc., § 210: "Born aristocrats of the mind are not too eager ”

“ In short, Christ's life was used as a means for furthering the religion of Paul, who gave to it the name of Christianity.
A most important part of "The Antichrist" is that passage wherein Nietzsche defines his order of castes. Every healthy society, says he, falls naturally into three separate and distinct types. These classes condition one another and "gravitate differently in the psychological sense." Each type has its own work, its own duties, its own emotions, its own compensations and mastership. The first class, comprising the rulers, is distinguished by its intellectual superiority. ”

“ In the last paragraph of this aphorism Nietzsche shows himself quite antagonistic to Determinism, because of its intimate relation to, and its origin in, a mechanistic interpretation of the Universe. [Pg xiv] But we should always remember that, inasmuch as Nietzsche would distribute beliefs, just as others distribute bounties—that is to say, according to the needs of those whom he has in view, we must never take for granted that a belief which he deprecates for one class of man ought necessarily, according to him, to be denied another class. ”

“ The first is, of course, not to begin reading Nietzsche at too early an age. While fully admitting that others may be more gifted than himself, the Editor begs to state that he began to study Nietzsche at the age of twenty-six, and would not have been able to endure the weight of such teaching before that time. Secondly, the Editor wishes to dissuade the student from beginning the study of Nietzsche by reading first of all his most complicated works. Not having been properly prepared for them, he will find the Zarathustra abstruse, the Ecce Homo conceited, and the Antichrist violent. ”

“ An important aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy is brought to light in this discourse. His teaching, as is well known, places the Aristotelian man of spirit, above all others in the natural divisions of man. The man with overflowing strength, both of mind and body, who must discharge this strength or perish, is the Nietzschean ideal. To such a man, giving from his overflow becomes a necessity; bestowing develops into a means of existence, and this is the only giving, the only charity, that Nietzsche recognises. ”

“ I think that the journalists who are anathematising Nietzsche are wrong; I don't believe the Kaiser ever read a line of his. But I think that every German is subconsciously a believer in energy and "Master Morality"; Nietzsche was merely one who realised his nature. The German religion is undoubtedly the religion of the Old Testament; to them "good" is all that pertains to power; their God is the tyrant of the Old Testament. Nietzsche holds that the New Testament code of morals was invented by a conquered race ”

“ Nietzsche’s writings must be understood in their relation to these circumstances of his life, and as the outcome of a violent revolt against them on the part of an intensely emotional and nervous temperament. His philosophy, consequently, is neither systematic in itself nor expounded in systematic form. It is made up of a number of points of view which successively appeared acceptable to a personality whose self-appreciation verges more and more upon the insane, and exhibits neither consecutiveness nor consistency. ”

“ Friedrich Nietzsche saw clearly for them all: the spectacle of these unconscious lives made him feel desperate, as the sight of the world in the Middle Ages had made those mystics desperate, who had always before their eyes the accusing and bleeding image of the Christ. He would have liked to have torn these people from their torpor, to have warned them by a word, prevented them with a cry. ”

“ And Nietzsche paradoxically advocates the affirmation of life in the strongest terms, life of every form and on every plane. The idea that the cycle of the universe must repeat itself became a controlling idea with him. According to his view the universe consists of a finite sum of elements, and hence the number of combinations of these elements must likewise be finite. It follows therefore that when the number of combinations has been exhausted the same course of evolution must begin anew. ”

“ The unpractised eye is so utterly confounded by the immensity of this awful chasm of the Notch, yawning in all its extent and all its grandeur far down beneath, that, powerless to grasp the fulness and the vastness thus suddenly encountered, it stupidly stares into those far-retreating depths. ”

“ In turning away from metaphysics proper, Nietzsche developes interesting, if not absolutely novel, views of the sensible world itself. [12] They look in the direction of an extreme phenomenalism—one might almost call them, in contrast with our common-sense realistic views, illusionism.
What is the relation of a sensation, say a color sensation, to the object that calls it forth? Nietzsche occupies himself much with the question. ”

“ It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe—a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines—a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, and yet always failing to work out the final harmony. ”

“ To the aspiring student of Nietzsche, however, it ought not to be necessary to become an immediate convert in order to be interested in the treasure of thought which Nietzsche here lavishes upon us. For such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard the questions raised in this work as actual problems. Once, however, he has succeeded in doing this, and has given his imagination time to play round these questions as problems, the particular turn or twist that Nietzsche gives to their elucidation, may then perhaps strike him, not only as valuable, but as absolutely necessary. ”

“ The philosophie Nihilist is convinced that all phenomena are without sense and are in vain, and that there ought to be no such thing as Being without sense and in vain. But whence comes this "There ought not to be?"—whence this "sense" and this standard? At bottom the Nihilist supposes that the sight of such a desolate, useless Being is unsatisfying to the philosopher, and fills him with desolation and despair. ”

“ Few appear to have thought it worth while to study Nietzsche — the treatment he commonly receives is (to use an expressive German word, for which I know no good short equivalent) " plump. " If I should be myself found — by those who know — to have simplified him at times too much and not done justice to all his nuances, I should not protest and only hope that some day some one will do better.
The book was in substance written before the present European War, and without a thought of such a monstrous possibility. It has become the fashion to connect Nietzsche closely with it. ”

“ Nietzsche which the war provided, the English intellectual classes—note that I do not say the intellectual English classes, for there are none—will continue to neglect Nietzsche until he has been superseded, as I believe he will be before very long. Psycho-analysis has taken a good deal of Nietzsche in its stride, and it is quite possible that the re-reading of Indian philosophy in the light of psycho-analysis will gather most of the remainder. ”

“ I consider first Nietzsche's general outlook. The tragic background of existence still remains for him; I forbear to quote fresh and varied statements to that effect. [1] His views of the older Greek life as somber, apart from the influence of the myths, is also continued; only through art did man's lot become enjoyable. [2] Nietzsche is now, however, in an unhappy state of mind about art. He has had a disillusioning experience, and art is under a shadow—to this extent, an easement and consolation is gone. ”

“ He was at bottom a religious philosopher—this, though the outcome of his thinking is not what would ordinarily be called religious. There is much irony in him, much contempt, but it is because he has an ideal; and his final problem is how some kind of a practical approximation to the ideal may be made. He himself says that one who despises is ever one who has not forgotten how to revere. [12]
II
The question is sometimes raised whether Nietzsche was a philosopher at all. ”

“ He is absolutely convinced of his mission, and of his future fame; this belief gives him strength to bear all his misfortunes, his bodily sufferings, even his poverty. Of one thing I am certain, Nietzsche is chiefly a man of sentiment." (I borrow the passage from Mügge's Nietzsche, His Life and Work, 3d ed., p. 74.)
b It is from the standpoint of a larger and higher idea of philosophy that he now criticises English philosophy—see the references to Bacon, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, in contrast with Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, Beyond Good and Evil, § 252. ”

“ In a sense, the aim might be called cosmical, i.e., the world is apparently thought of as pressing to a higher realization of its potencies through us in this way. Nietzsche says, "We are buds on one tree—what do we know of what can come out of us in the interests of the tree! ”

“ Though his prime interest is man and morals, he knows that these subjects cannot be separated from broader and more ultimate ones, and we have his ideas on metaphysics and the general constitution of the world. Poets, "stylists," prophets do not commonly lead others to write about their theory of knowledge,c do not frequently deal, even in aphorisms, with morality as a problem, with cause and effect, with first and last things. Undoubtedly Nietzsche appears inconsistent at times, perhaps is really so. ”

“ Nietzsche felt that he belonged to a spiritual line. He was grateful to those of his own time or century who had influenced him, and to the great spirits of the past whose blood was kindred to his own—indeed he was so conscious of being well-born in this respect, that he did not feel the need of fame. [64] His ancestry he designates differently at different times. Once he speaks of four pairs of names: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. [65] At another time he mentions Zarathustra, Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Plato, Brutus, Spinoza, Mirabeau. ”

“ In our thinking the essential thing is the putting of new material into old schemata (= Procrustes bed) (Will to Power', § 499) .
hh Cf. Nietzsche's own statement: "To become artist (creating) , saint (loving) , and philosopher (knowing) in one person—my practical aim" (Werke, XII, 213, § 448) . The passage is perhaps reminiscent of his early aspiration, but this changed in form more than in substance. He says, indeed, in Ecce Homo (preface, § 2) that he is a disciple of Dionysus and would rather be a satyr than a saint, but he here means by "saint" one who turns his back on life. ”

“ Nietzsche conceives that humanity might actually be turned into an organism working to this end—no longer then a disconnected, sprawling mass of atoms (smaller or larger) as at present, but a related, interdependent, organic whole—a whole with an aim, this aim. And so arises his principle of selection, and canon for pity. What will fit into an organism of this sort is worth preserving, what will not is not worth preserving. Equal regard for all material is impossible. ”