122 PROF. D. S. MARGOLIOCTH, D.LITT., ON THE INFLUENCE OF 



Professor Muirhead brings Nietzsche's ideas into the war 1 >y 

 substituting a super-nation for a super-man. Dr. Smith's 

 method is different. While making Treitschke responsible for 

 the public acts of Germany, be makes Nietzsche responsible for 

 the private degeneration of the people : " his moral philosophy 

 is anti-altruistic, indeed a morality of self, a veritable self-cult." 

 In his chapters on German life and institutions he shows, he 

 says, how this poison has permeated modern Germany. The 

 chief detail which he quotes from Nietzsche is the philosopher's 

 treatment of womankind, but it is not quite clear that Dr. Smith 

 can prove that Nietzsche's influence has been very considerable 

 or even bad. His wisdom is in this case that of the East : 

 woman is to be treated as a possession, as property that should 

 be locked up, as something destined to servitude and finding its 

 fulfilment therein. Now, that woman is more domestic in 

 Germany than in this country is certainly not due to Nietzsche : 

 this was a matter of common knowledge long before Nietzsche's 

 name was ever heard. In his half a dozen pages of raving on 

 the subject of the emancipation of woman he approaches the 

 commonplace at one point; this is where he complains that 

 though women for thousands of years have been in charge of 

 the kitchen, yet they cannot cook ; the carelessness wherewith 

 they look after the family commissariat is, he says, horrible. 

 A woman does not understand what is meant by food, and yet 

 pretends to be a cook ! This philosophical utterance is dated 

 1895. Dr. Smith, writing twenty years later, asserts that the 

 German woman is better equipped for the kitchen than the 

 drawing-room, the former being destined to be her realm, outside 

 which she seldom shines. His words certainly imply that she 

 shines in that, in which case Nietzsche may be credited with 

 having produced an improvement in the standard of German 

 domestic cookery. If this be so, it is certainly the only improve- 

 ment produced by him in any region whatever. 



His attack on womankind is probably no sillier than the 

 bulk of his aphorisms, which are practically useless owing to 

 the author taking no account of actuality, and making no 

 endeavour to grapple with the real problems of society. If any 

 of the ancient philosophers were equally immoral, they were at 

 any rate vastly wiser. But the matter to which attention is 

 here being drawn is that the mode wherein Dr. Smith con- 

 ceives Nietzsche's influence to have made itself felt is different 

 from that supposed by Professor Muirhead. Dr. Smith finds 

 the results of Nietzsche's teaching in a variety of social evils 

 characteristic of German life ; taught by him that the 



