IDEALIST PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE 515 



is a " reKgion beyond and above tbe religions," true ; but the 

 ideal of the Super -Man, the worship of beauty, of strength, of 

 courage, of loyalty, of chivalry, all of which were incarnated 

 in this supreme ideal — all this constitutes a religion. Nietzsche 

 placed before us an ideal of transcendent beauty — for Nietzsche 

 is all artist, and everything which Nietzsche wrote was pro- 

 foundly artistic — and this ideal of beauty was a religion, a religion 

 requiring the sacrifice of the individual in the interests of the 

 race, and having the welfare of the race as an aim. In other 

 words, it was an ideal which transcended the individual ; and, 

 in truth, it transcended the race also ; and it is no paradox to 

 say that there has seldom been a more profoundly rehgious 

 nature than that of Nietzsche.^ 



We could midtiply examples of this kind. Socialism, it has 

 been said, is a religion ; and we have heard of the rehgion of 

 patriotism, of the religion of human suffering, and of various 

 others. And all these may be called rehgions if we mean that 

 they are reactions against the excessive individuaUsm of the 

 nineteenth century. All of them appeal to something higher 

 than individual reason ; all are, consequently, more or less 

 supra-rational, although unintentionally so. 



Thus we see that religion is still a force in society which has 

 not yet lost all its old vitaHty. And if the reUgious spirit has 

 survived all the storms and aU the attacks which have been 

 directed against it ; if those who are most eager, either to super- 

 sede it by some new Positivist ideal, or to weaken it in one way 

 or another, are compelled finally to arrive at the very point 



1 Take, for example, this one sentence of Zarathustra : " Und diess 

 Geheimniss redete das Leben selber zu mir : ' Siehe, sprach es, ich bin 

 Das, VMS sich immer selber iiberwinden muss' " (Warke, vi. 167). What 

 can show us more clearly and concisely that Nietzsche's ideal was one 

 which transcended life, which was, therefore, essentially supra-rational ? 

 As this is not the place here to go into the details of Nietzsche's philo- 

 sophy, we can only refer the reader to some admirable pages of M. Emile 

 Faguet, which resume the ideas of Nietzsche, in his book, En lAsant Nietzsche, 

 especially pp. 321 ff. Paris, 1904. 



33—2 



