84 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
individual. Now granted that personal might made right in 
primitive times; that ‘‘ gut ” is related to the ruling ‘‘ Goths”’; 
that “ schlecht ’’ is identical with “‘ schlicht,’’ — simple, common; 
that purity is merely ceremonial and priestly in its origin, — all 
this does not invalidate the social utility of conventions thus 
derived. Nietzsche seems entirely oblivious to that social 
phenomenon emphasized by Darwin, Fiske, Drummond and in 
fact by practically all sociologists, viz., the prevalence and persist- 
ence in early times of the inter-group struggle, and the survival 
of that group which was the most powerful, not only by virtue 
of physical strength but of organization based on social qualities 
possessed by the members. According to consistent Darwinism 
no Nietzschean group could have survived to transmit its theory 
of life by congenital variation or social heredity, nor is it 
probable that it could today. It is destructive to the family as 
well as to the state and can lead only to self-annihilation. Thus 
it is not social ethics that leads to destruction but dionysian 
individualism. A study of the history of Nietzscheans for a few 
generations would be illuminating. If all were such woman- 
haters as the founder there would be no normal generation. 
Nietzsche’s chief contribution to the development of the 
doctrine of passive material adaptation is by virtue of the fal- 
lacies in his opposition. Indeed he positively repudiates the 
doctrine as contrary to the notion of functional activity. 
Laboring under this idiosyncrasy, “‘ adaptation,” that is to say, a second- 
rate activity, in fact, a mere reactivity, is pushed into the foreground, and 
indeed, life itself has even been defined as “ a continuous better adjustment 
of internal relations to external relations ” (Mr. Herbert Spencer). But this 
is to mistake the true nature and function of life, whichis will to power. Itis 
to overlook the principal priority which the spontaneous, aggressive, trans- 
gressive, new-interpretative and new-directive forces possess, from the result 
of which “adaptation” follows. It is to deny the sovereign office of the 
highest functionaries in the organism, in which functionaries the will to live 
appears as an active and formative principle. The readers will recall here 
what Huxley objected to in Spencer —his “‘ Administrative Nihilism.” 
But we have to deal here with much more than mere “‘ administration.” ! 
His failure here is in his inability to see that adaptation may 
be interpreted to include the very will to life and power for which 
1 A Genealogy of Morals, p. 95. 
