Chapter LVII. The Convalescent.

We meet with several puzzles here. Zarathustra calls himself the advocate of the circle (the Eternal Recurrence of all things), and he calls this doctrine his abysmal thought. In the last verse of the first paragraph, however, after hailing his deepest thought, he cries: “Disgust, disgust, disgust!” We know Nietzsche’s ideal man was that “world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious creature, who has not only learnt to compromise and arrange with that which was and is, but wishes to have it again, AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity insatiably calling out da capo, not only to himself, but to the whole piece and play” (see Note on Chapter XLII.). But if one ask oneself what the conditions to such an attitude are, one will realise immediately how utterly different Nietzsche was from his ideal. The man who insatiably cries da capo to himself and to the whole of his mise-en-scene, must be in a position to desire every incident in his life to be repeated, not once, but again and again eternally. Now, Nietzsche’s life had been too full of disappointments, illness, unsuccessful struggles, and snubs, to allow of his thinking of the Eternal Recurrence without loathing—hence probably the words of the last verse. In verses 15 and 16, we have Nietzsche declaring himself an evolutionist in the broadest sense—that is to say, that he believes in the Development Hypothesis as the description of the process by which species have originated. Now, to understand his position correctly we must show his relationship to the two greatest of modern evolutionists—Darwin and Spencer. As a philosopher, however, Nietzsche does not stand or fall by his objections to the Darwinian or Spencerian cosmogony. He never laid claim to a very profound knowledge of biology, and his criticism is far more valuable as the attitude of a fresh mind than as that of a specialist towards the question. Moreover, in his objections many difficulties are raised which are not settled by an appeal to either of the men above mentioned. We have given Nietzsche’s definition of life in the Note on Chapter LVI., par. 10. Still, there remains a hope that Darwin and Nietzsche may some day become reconciled by a new description of the processes by which varieties occur. The appearance of varieties among animals and of “sporting plants” in the vegetable kingdom, is still shrouded in mystery, and the question whether this is not precisely the ground on which Darwin and Nietzsche will meet, is an interesting one. The former says in his “Origin of Species”, concerning the causes of variability: “...there are two factors, namely, the nature of the organism, and the nature of the conditions. THE FORMER SEEMS TO BE MUCH THE MORE IMPORTANT (The italics are mine.), for nearly similar variations sometimes arise under, as far as we can judge, dissimilar conditions; and on the other hand, dissimilar variations arise under conditions which appear to be nearly uniform.” Nietzsche, recognising this same truth, would ascribe practically all the importance to the “highest functionaries in the organism, in which the life-will appears as an active and formative principle,” and except in certain cases (where passive organisms alone are concerned) would not give such a prominent place to the influence of environment. Adaptation, according to him, is merely a secondary activity, a mere re-activity, and he is therefore quite opposed to Spencer’s definition: “Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” Again in the motive force behind animal and plant life, Nietzsche disagrees with Darwin. He transforms the “Struggle for Existence”—the passive and involuntary condition—into the “Struggle for Power,” which is active and creative, and much more in harmony with Darwin’s own view, given above, concerning the importance of the organism itself. The change is one of such far-reaching importance that we cannot dispose of it in a breath, as a mere play upon words. “Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one.” Nietzsche says that to speak of the activity of life as a “struggle for existence,” is to state the case inadequately. He warns us not to confound Malthus with nature. There is something more than this struggle between the organic beings on this earth; want, which is supposed to bring this struggle about, is not so common as is supposed; some other force must be operative. The Will to Power is this force, “the instinct of self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof.” A certain lack of acumen in psychological questions and the condition of affairs in England at the time Darwin wrote, may both, according to Nietzsche, have induced the renowned naturalist to describe the forces of nature as he did in his “Origin of Species”. In verses 28, 29, and 30 of the second portion of this discourse we meet with a doctrine which, at first sight, seems to be merely “le manoir a l’envers,” indeed one English critic has actually said of Nietzsche, that “Thus Spake Zarathustra” is no more than a compendium of modern views and maxims turned upside down. Examining these heterodox pronouncements a little more closely, however, we may possibly perceive their truth. Regarding good and evil as purely relative values, it stands to reason that what may be bad or evil in a given man, relative to a certain environment, may actually be good if not highly virtuous in him relative to a certain other environment. If this hypothetical man represent the ascending line of life—that is to say, if he promise all that which is highest in a Graeco-Roman sense, then it is likely that he will be condemned as wicked if introduced into the society of men representing the opposite and descending line of life. By depriving a man of his wickedness—more particularly nowadays— therefore, one may unwittingly be doing violence to the greatest in him. It may be an outrage against his wholeness, just as the lopping-off of a leg would be. Fortunately, the natural so-called “wickedness” of higher men has in a certain measure been able to resist this lopping process which successive slave-moralities have practised; but signs are not wanting which show that the noblest wickedness is fast vanishing from society—the wickedness of courage and determination—and that Nietzsche had good reasons for crying: “Ah, that (man’s) baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small. What is good? To be brave is good! It is the good war which halloweth every cause!” (see also par. 5, “Higher Man”).