Nietzsche in English.
August 4, 1899.
The publication of a complete English translation of the works of Nietzsche is an enterprise which deserves the cordial thankfulness of all lovers of profound thought and fine literary style. It is not too much to say that no German writer since Goethe's death, with the possible exception of Schopenhauer, has united in the same degree as Nietzsche the two characteristics of originality of matter and charm and pungency of expression. And of no modern writer whatever, except of George Meredith, can it be said that he possesses anything like Nietzsche's power of compelling his reader, whether he is an admiring reader or a protesting one, to think for himself about the fundamental problems of life and conduct. Nietzsche's philosophy, with its intense hatred of Christianity and modern humanitarianism, is scarcely likely to make any large number of converts among us, but if it can compel us to ask ourselves honestly and plainly what the unacknowledged ideals of our civilisation are, and whether they are, after all, capable of being rationally justified, he will have done an infinitely greater service to thought than any founder of sect or school.
If one measures the worth of a book by its suggestiveness rather than by the degree in which its propositions can be accepted as a whole, Nietzsche's own description of his "Thus spake Zarathustra" as the profoundest of German works will hardly appear exaggerated. In the absence of the great work on the "Transvaluation of all Values," which was so lamentably cut short by the philosopher's incurable illness, "Zarathustra" must probably be accepted as the prime document of the new moral code, of which Nietzsche was the best known and most eloquent preacher.
Nietzsche's hero has, of course, very little in common with the semi-historical fighting prophet of Iran. Under the disguise of a story with no particular scene or date, he gives you a treatise on the moral life as it might be if men would regard the extirpation of the unfit and the propagation of a race of physically and mentally superior beings as the first and last of human duties. Of course, in any such picture there must always be many subjective features, and much that is characteristic of Zarathustra, his extreme individualism, his love of loneliness and solitary places, his hatred of a complex and expensive life, is simply a reflection of the peculiar personal taste of his Creator. Had Nietzsche himself not been free from ordinary social and domestic ties, it is likely that the individualistic and anti-social strain in his teachings would have been far less prominent than it is. But when all allowance has been made for such personal idiosyncrasies, it remains the fact that Nietzsche has more boldly than any other writer of our time raised the most important of social questions; the question whether the ethical and political ideals of Christianity, of democracy, of universal benevolence, are those of a healthy or those of a radically diseased humanity. No future vindication of our current idea can be regarded as of any value unless it sets itself to grapple, more seriously than professional moral philosophy has as yet done, with the attack of Zarathustra. In the minor writings which fill the other two volumes of the translation already published, Nietzsche is less constructive and more purely iconoclastic. The "Antichrist" subjects the established religion of Europe and the moral code based upon it to a criticism which is always suggestive, often profound, sometimes merely angry and wrong-headed. The attack upon Wagner, in whom Nietzsche had once looked for a master, is closely connected with the furious onslaught upon Christian ideals. Of Wagner the musician Nietzsche has many things both hard and shrewd to say, but the Wagner against whom the main brunt of his polemic is directed is Wagner the psychologist, the pessimist, the preacher of chastity and resignation—in a word, as Nietzsche understands him, the decadent. Christianity, according to Nietzsche, has made decadence into a religion, Schopenhauer has turned it into a philosophy, Wagner into an æsthetic theory. Hence the constant polemic against all three which recurs in all Nietzsche's writings. The "Genealogy of Morals" is devoted to the exposition of a favourite theory of Nietzsche's, that there have always been two antithetical codes of moral values, that of "masters" and that of "slaves." "Masters" prize above everything else qualities which bespeak a superabundance of personal force, strength, beauty, wealth, long life; "slaves" set the highest store by qualities which make servitude more endurable, and in the end render revenge upon the "master" possible. Starting from this primary assumption, Nietzsche shows wonderful insight in his examination of the growth of concepts like "guilt," "sin," "bad conscience."
[1] This suggestion was adopted in the performances at Covent Garden in 1905.—Ed.
[2] Compare De Quincey's famous essay on Judas Iscariot.—Ed.
[3] "A taste of sculpture and painting is in my mind as becoming, as a taste of fiddling and piping is unbecoming, a man of fashion."
[Transcriber's Note]
Obvious typographical errors were repaired, as listed below. Other apparent inconsistencies or errors have been retained. Missing, extraneous, or incorrect punctuation has been corrected and hyphenation has been made consistent.
Illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph break.
Page [i], "directon" changed to "direction". (Mr. Johnstone died in 1870, and the direction of Arthur's education fell entirely upon his mother.)
Page [xii], "symbolize" changed to "symbolise" for consistency. (He would have nothing to do with the attempt to symbolise and revive a civilisation that had utterly passed away,...)
Page [xii], "civilization" changed to "civilisation" for consistency. (He would have nothing to do with the attempt to symbolise and revive a civilisation that had utterly passed away,...)
Page [xli], "Nietzschean" changed to "Nietzschian" for consistency. (The review of Tille's translation, well bears partial reprinting in this volume for its keen intelligence and also as a quite early sketch of the Nietzschian system in the English press.)
Page [xxvi], "nor h" changed to "north". (It lies in a well-wooded district of Podolia, some hundred miles further north than the region to which I first went.)
Page [41], missing "on" added. (... a man of genius who, without private means, had thrown up his employment and taken himself and his wife on a long journey to a foreign country in order to win recognition in "la ville Lumière" must, in the course of three fruitless years, have felt something worse than misgiving.)
The absence of the sub-heading, I., in [CHAPTER V] has been kept true to the original.
Page [42], "aud" changed to "and". (... it is that bitterness of spirit which finds expression in the smashing and burning ...)
Page [58], "naively" changed to "naïvely" for consistency. (Besides doing justice to the drama as an allegorical picture of life in the light of certain nineteenth-century ideas, the performance was a specially good revelation of its amusing and naïvely entertaining qualities.)
Page [61], duplicate "which" deleted. (In regard to "Walküre" and "Siegfried," which have long been in the repertory of London, Paris, and other capitals, the superiority of Bayreuth is very much less certain—that is to say, of Bayreuth as represented by this year's performances.)
Page [80], "begining" changed to "beginning" for consistency. (The best of the music is at the beginning, where there is an extremely fine chorus, "The Challenge of Thor," containing various musical elements all truly expressive and fraught with the same primitive and racy vigour.)
Page [84], "same" changed to "some". (The striking success of this composition reminds us of the following passage occurring at the end of an article by Sir Hubert Parry written some years ago.)
Page [122], "Frankfort" changed to "Frankfurt" for consistency. (The chief feature in the interpretation on Tuesday was the superb rendering, by Professor Hugo Becker, of Frankfurt, of the violoncello solo which throughout the work is identified with the person of the titular hero.)
Page [129], "Symphony" changed to "Symphonie" for consistency. ("Faust Symphonie," Düsseldorf.)
Page [129], "like" changed to "likes". (Whether one likes his style or not,...)
Page [151], "dramatized" changed to "dramatised" for consistency. (He is a great master of form, but he dramatises the chamber-music forms very much as Beethoven dramatised the symphony,...)
Page [153], "Carneval" changed to "Carnaval" for consistency. (In his rendering of Schumann's "Carnaval" not a point was missed,)
Page [179], "Wienaiwski's" changed to "Wieniawski's" for consistency. (Wieniawski's Fantasia on Themes from Gounod's "Faust," Paganini's caprice "I Palpiti," Bazzini's "Ronde des Lutins," the last-named played among the encore pieces.)
Page [180], duplicate "and" deleted. (For the present we are mainly concerned with Mr. Kreisler, who is not so desperately youthful, but is a mature and military-looking man, though he is commonly reckoned among the players of the new school, or the rising generation.)
Page [192], "Leonara" changed to "Leonora" for consistency. (Glancing now at musical activity in other countries, we find attention necessarily concentrated in the first instance upon the heroic figure of Beethoven, who in this year (1813) had already given to the world his Eroica, C minor, Pastoral, and Seventh Symphonies, besides his Violin Concerto, Razoumoffsky Quartets, Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas, his one opera "Fidelio," together with the third "Leonora" overture, and many other works of towering genius.)
Page [224], "idiosyncracies" changed to "idiosyncrasies". (But when all allowance has been made for such personal idiosyncrasies, it remains the fact that Nietzsche has more boldly than any other writer of our time raised the most important of social questions ...)