246 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



TO. 



Reaction 



researches. 



71. 



Nietzsche, 



researches conducted in the dispassionate spirit of the 

 natural sciences, extending though they do the meaning 

 ^ ^ ne w ^rd nature so as to comprise the phenomena 

 of the individual as well as those of the collective mind 

 in society and history. This opposition to the Ethics 

 of naturalism in the widest sense of the word, to the 

 systematic as well as critical studies within the schools, 

 has been vehemently proclaimed by a thinker whose 

 teachings attained popular influence and renown long 

 before historians and professors of philosophy conde- 

 scended to take serious note of his writings. In fact 

 the increasing attention latterly bestowed upon them 

 is largely due, as was formerly the case with the 

 writings of Schopenhauer, to this : that their influence, 

 especially on young minds, has become clearly pernicious 

 and alarming. 



The thinker referred to, though we can hardly call 

 him a philosopher, 1 is Friedrich Nietzsche (1844- 



1 The influence of Nietzsche 

 on European thought is quite as 

 important as that of Schopen- 

 hauer, and more so than that of 

 von Hartmann, but it cannot be 

 satisfactorily dealt with in the 

 History of philosophical thought ; 

 it belongs to that larger and deeper- 

 lying region of what I have variously 

 termed subjective, individual, or 

 spontaneous thought, which is 

 not reduced to any system or 

 subjected to scientific, critical, or 

 logical methods. The treatment 

 of this region of thought should, 

 according to the programme of 

 this History, form the third and 

 concluding section in which such 

 names as Herder and Goethe in 

 Germany, Victor Hugo and some 

 of the great novelists in France, 

 Scott, Wordsworth, Carlyle, and 



Ruskin in England, would stand 

 out prominently, their works con- 

 taining or revealing the origin of 

 the characteristic traits of philo- 

 sophical, and, in some instances, 

 even of scientific, thought in recent 

 times. To this class of thinkers 

 Nietzsche likewise belonged ; not 

 least on account of the excellence 

 of his style, which gives him a 

 place in the general literature of 

 the age and in the history of lit- 

 erary taste. So far as the strictly 

 philosophical value of his writings 

 is concerned it seems to lie especi- 

 ally in this, that he has demon- 

 strated the necessity of arriving at 

 a definite creed or basal conviction 

 on ethical and religious questions 

 before a philosophical systematisa- 

 tion and application to separate 

 philosophical problems can be 



