GERMAN PHILOSOPHY IN BRINGING ABOUT THE GREAT WAR. 121 



beamed upon us; our heart overflows thereby with thankfulness, 

 astonishment, anticipation, expectation; at last our horizon appears 

 free, and even though it be not bright, our ships can at last take to 

 the sea ready for any enterprise; every adventure is 'permitted to 

 the researcher ; the sea, our sea lies open before us; never, perhaps, 

 was there such freedom of the seas. 



One almost wonders that it did not occur to a classical 

 scholar, such as Nietzsche was to a certain extent, that all this 

 had been said before. Long before the Christian era men 

 dilated on the wonderful consequences which would arise from 

 the liberation of men's minds from the fear of the gods; the 

 consequences were never realised, because, on the one hand, 

 they never were liberated from that fear, and, on the other, 

 nature has provided that without the observation of a certain 

 code of morals no community can subsist; the members of a 

 society must have rights, and these rights are correlative 

 with duties. The days wdien scientific inquiry was hampered in 

 any way whatever by religious belief had passed away long- 

 before Nietzsche entered the world. It is not, therefore, clear 

 either what was the catastrophe which he claimed to announce 

 or what was the brilliant prospect which dawned on his horizon. 

 The general break-up of European morality could not very well 

 lead to that union of Europe which he desired. 



It seems true that, so far as anything consistent can be made • 

 out of Nietzsche's ravings, they tend to the glorification of 

 unbridled force and to the ridicule of the subordination of force 

 in .ii her considerations. His notion of the superman, a kind of 

 Achilles who denies that laws were meant for him, and claims 

 everything for armed might, has attracted a good deal of atten- 

 tion, and just as it has been exploited to the detriment of 

 Christianity, so it has been exploited to the detriment of Islam; 

 yet the superman appears to be as much a creature of the 

 imagination as Eousseau's noble savage. In order to obtain 

 from Nietzsche's superman the theory of an aggressive and 

 all-absorbing empire, Mr. Muirhead admits that a step has 

 to be taken. Let Nietzsche's ego be interpreted in terms of the 

 nation and clothed ivith the power of the Stcde ; let it come to be 

 taught in high places with all the fervour of prophecy that it was 

 from the German nation that the Superman was destined to 

 appear, while upon its chief enemies in the direction in which its 

 hopes were set decay had already set her mark ; finally, let it be 

 announced, with all the authority of expert knowledge, that the 

 hour was abotit to strike, and it is not difficult to see what the 

 harvest of this long sowing was likely to be. 



