We do not intend to quarrel with Nietzsche's radicalism. Nor do we underrate the significance of the self. We, too, believe that every self has the liberty to choose its own position and may claim as many rights as it pleases provided it can maintain them. If it cannot maintain them it will be crushed; otherwise it may conquer its rivals and suppress counter-claims; but therefore the wise man looks before he leaps. Reckless self-assertion is the method of brute creation. Neither the lion nor the lamb meditate on their fate; they simply follow their instincts. They are carnivorous or herbivorous by nature through the actions of their ancestors. This is what Buddhists call the law of deeds or Karma. Man's karma leads higher. Man can meditate on his own fate, and he can discriminate. His self is a personality, i. e., a self-controlled commonwealth of motor ideas. Man does not blindly follow his impulses but establishes rules of action. He can thus abbreviate the struggle and avoid unnecessary friction; he can rise from brute violence to a self-contained and well-disciplined strength. Self-control (i. e., ethical guidance) is the characteristic feature of the true "overman"; but Nietzsche knows nothing of self-control; he would allow the self blindly to assert itself after the fashion of animal instincts.
Nietzsche is the philosopher of instinct. He spurns all logical order, even truth itself. He has a contempt for every one who learns from others, for he regards such a man as a slave to other people's thought. His ambition for originality is expressed in these four lines which he inserted as a motto to the second edition of La Gaya Scienza:
"Ich wohne in meinem eignen Haus,
Hab' niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht
Und—lachte noch jeden Meister aus,
Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht."
We translate faithfully, preserving even the ungrammatical use of the double negative, as follows:
"In my own house do I reside,
Did never no one imitate,
And every master I deride,
Save if himself he'd derogate."
We wonder that Nietzsche did not think of Goethe's little rhyme, which seems to suit his case exactly:
"A fellow says: 'I own no school or college;
No master lives whom I acknowledge;
And pray don't entertain the thought
That from the dead I e'er learned aught.'
This, if I rightly understand,
Means: 'I'm a fool by own command.'"
Nietzsche observes that the thoughts of most philosophers are secretly guided by instincts. He feels that all thought is at bottom a "will for power," and the will for truth has no right to exist except it serve the will for power. He reproaches philosophers for glorifying truth.
Fichte in his Duties of the Scholar says: