Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism

by Paul Carus

That Nietzsche prefers the abrupt style of aphorisms to dispassionate inquisitions is a symptom that betrays the nature of his philosophy. His ideas, thus expressed, are easily understood. They are but very loosely connected, and we find them frequently contradictory. They are not presented in a logical, orderly way, but sound like reiterated challenges to battle. They are appeals to all wild impulses and a clamor for the right of self-assertion.

While Nietzsche's philosophy is in itself inconsistent and illogical, it is yet born of the logic of facts; it is the consistent result and legitimate conclusion of principles uttered centuries ago and which were slowly matured in the historical development of thought.

The old nominalistic school is the father of Nietzsche's philosophy. A consistent nominalist will be driven from one conclusion to another until he reaches the stage of Nietzsche, which is philosophical anarchism and extreme individualism.

The nominalist denies the reality of reason; he regards the existence of universals as a fiction, and looks upon the world as a heap of particulars. He loses sight of the unity of the world and forgets that form is a true feature of things. It is form and the sameness of the laws of form which makes universality of reason possible.

Nominalism rose in opposition to the medieval realism of the schoolmen who looked upon universals as real and concrete things, representing them as individual beings that existed ante res, in rebus, and post res, i. e., in the particulars, before them and after them. The realists were wrong in so far as they conceived universals as substances or distinct essences, as true realities (hence the name "realism"); only they were supposed to be of a more spiritual nature than material things but, after all, they were concrete existences. They were said to have been created by God as an artisan would make patterns or molds for the things which he proposes to produce. According to Plato, ideas serve the Creator as models of concrete objects of which they are deemed to be the prototypes. The realists were mistaken in regarding the ideal as concrete and real, but the nominalists, on the other hand, also went too far in denying the objective significance of universals and declaring that universals were mere names (nomina and flatus vocis), i. e., words invented for the sake of conveniently thinking things and serving no other purpose.

At the bottom of the controversy lies the problem as to the nature of things. The question arises, What are things in themselves? Do things, or do they not, possess an independence of their own? Kant's reply is, that things in themselves can not be known; but our reply is, that the nature of a thing consists in its form; a thing is such as it is because it has a definite form. Therefore "things in themselves" do not exist; but there are "forms in themselves."

Form is not a non-entity but the most important feature of reality, and the pure laws of form are the determinative factors of the world. The sciences of the laws of pure form, logic, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, etc., are therefore the key to a comprehension of the world, and morality is the realization of ideals, i. e., of the conceptions of pure forms, which are higher, nobler, and better than those which have been actualized.

From our standpoint, evolution is a process in which the eternal laws of being manifest themselves in a series of regular transformations, reaching a point at which sentiency appears. And then evolution takes the shape of progress, that is to say, sentient beings develop mind; sentiments become sensations, i. e., representative images; and words denote the universals. Then reason originates as a reflex of the eternal laws of pure form. Human reason is deepened in a scientific world-conception, and becoming aware of the moral aspect of universality it broadens out into comprehensive sympathy with all forms of existence that like ourselves aspire after a fuller comprehension of existence.

Thus the personality of man is the reflex of that system of eternalities which sways the universe, and humanity is found to be a revelation of the core of the cosmos, an incarnation of Godhood. This revelation, however, is not closed. The appearance of the religions of good-will and mutual sympathy merely marks the beginning of a new era, and we may expect that the future of mankind will surpass the present, as much as the present surpasses savagery. Such is the higher humanity, the true "overman," representing a higher species of mankind, whom we expect.