1900] Nietsche's Doctrine of Force 347 



come to pass. It never even really began. That, however, is no reason 

 for adoring as you say you do Force even tempered by Fraud. There' is 

 nothing in the smallest degree admirable in either. If it is true that 

 your worship of Force is to be the creed of the future, and very likely 

 it will be so, it is only another proof of the innate vulgarity of man. 

 Nietsche is an ass. The law of the strongest, as we see it in Modern 

 Civilization, is not the law of Nature, only the law of human nature, 

 which is a very different thing. The oak tree does not monopolize the 

 forest, nor are the flowers which grow there trash. If Nietsche had 

 been as many years as I have in the East he would not talk of the 

 Christian ideal as being a creed of a slave for slaves. He would know 

 it was far more truly the creed of the dervish, of the poor, happy vag- 

 rant who scorns property and scorns what we Europeans absurdly call 

 the " dignity of labour," and who is as free as the birds of the air. It 

 needs Oriental experience to understand this. The place for European 

 civilization is the Paris boulevard ; south of the Mediterranean a white 

 skin is only a form of leprosy, and from an aesthetic point of view you 

 might as well plant the New Forest with cabbages as have anything to 

 do with applying the doctrine of Force to the world at large.' 



" Mivart has been formally excommunicated by Cardinal Vaughan. 

 It seems to me that if Catholics are really called upon to believe that 

 the first man was the Adam of the Garden of Eden, and that all the 

 books of the Old and New Testaments not merely ' contain Revelation 

 with no admixture of error,' but were also ' written by the inspiration of 

 the Holy Ghost and have God for their Author,' we may abandon the 

 idea of any possible reconciliation between religion and science. Of 

 course one knew the thing was hopeless, but still there were many 

 Catholics, even priests, who pretended it was not. 



" I have had several more talks with Mohammed Abdu. He tells 

 me that several of the high English officials here make money in illicit 

 ways. He is, however, as little in favour of internationalizing Egypt 

 as I am, for that would merely be to exchange one wolf for a pack of 

 wolves. He is bitter against Cromer, whom otherwise he likes, for 

 having established nothing that can survive of indigenous Government 

 when the English Occupation ends — nothing, that is, that can be 

 counted on to work on Liberal and honest lines. There has been a 

 general proscription of the patriotic and enlightened element in the 

 country, and the men pushed forward have been those who had least 

 self-respect and could most surely be counted on for their pliancy. 



" $th Feb. — Parliament has met, and the Queen's Speech has been 

 telegraphed. Pharaoh has hardened her heart, and declares that she 

 will carry the war on to a successful end. Buller has, however, clearly 

 been badly beaten again at Spion Kop and Ladysmith must fall. The 

 famine in India is a new ' judgment of God' upon the Empire, and, 



