NIETZSCHE, 'she, ( 184-'- 19001. A German philosophic writer. one of the most daring thinkers and charming, stylists of the nineteenth century. lle was born at near Leipzig. son of a Protestant pastor of the village. who died when the precocious boy NV ;e: five years old. he was brought up by his mother at 00 the Smile; studied at the noted State school at Nona, and then devoted himself to the study of the classics in the uni versities of Bonn ;Intl Leipzig. At twenty-five. on the recommentiathal Of Misch'', lie became professor extraordinarius of classical philology at Basel. and shortly afterwards was promoted to he professor orditntrius there—a post which he was forced to resign in 1579 because of an affection of his eyes. )Icanwhile Nietzsche had made the acquaintance of NVagner and become an ardent advocate of theories of art. liming- this period, whieli was brief and immature. the only work of importance lie wrote was (lcbu der Troyhdir (ins (lent Geist(' (1( r .1111Sik (1572), in which he maintained that both Dionysine (orgiastic) and Apollonie perate) motifs contributed to the origination of Attie tragedy. The book might be termed a de fense of programme. But shortly there after came a breach between Nietzselle and 1Vamer, said to be due to compro mises with success. With the loss of faith in \Vaguer, lie lost faith in God and in Chris tianity, in traditional morality, and in current human ideals, and ended by deifying passion and reason. Ile went so far as to say that the initnith of a is not a valid objection to it if only it be useful, and that the falsest views are often the most useful. faction of instincts became his ideal; we must, he maintained. at all hazards realize the will to dominate (c/cr WiHe .!lash!). The moral ruin who lives for others is a weakling, a he generate, The lordly egoist who exploits other Men and rises on slipping stones of their dead selves to higher things is the proper Inunan ideal. the over-man (i n .•;,h I . The evolu tion of thought. which cJIm1tiatell in 111 idealization of the inhumane victor in the struggle for existence, can he traced in his .11 en Reit I /eh. ft' I cs, win ifrrrli f iir f ,ft is fur f 11;71180): .11 he, eda ibrr ni raw 1 i sch orn ri !wile ; ILco Rpra h Zorn hi, n 01 I 15?43-5 ) ; s ron mid ; '/,err (len, o logic der .horn/ I 15571: 11.r IS551: and nr11 rn ening ( 1 SS!) .‘ his other works should be tioned nor Wino liacht: ersurit einer ni it, on alter 1V(Tle 11596) this book the author traces the history of the world, showing the part played by tawny brutes and tawny heroes in the great struggle for power, and representing might as right, a right over thrown by the slavish and false concepts of the Jewish Nazarene. After Nietzsche left Ilasel
be lived for several years in Turin ; in ISS9 it became evident that his brain was affected, partly due to hereditary causes and partly to the abuse of soporifics. He retired to his mother's home near Weimar. where he was eared for by his sister until his death. As can be seen from the above sketch of the course of his philosophical development, Nietzsche accepted the struggle for existence as an ultimate fact which man might not to attempt to ameliorate. It is only the slavish spirit, which attempts to modify the in evitable natural process of the elimination of the unfit. This attempt to stem the tide of natural evolution results in the servile morality (Man room oral) characteristic of the present day. Nature's morality is the morality of the ruth lessly strong hero (//crrenntoral). This view is the inevitable outcome of an uncritical acceptance of the merely physical 'is' as the moral 'ought.' Its philosophical significance lies in its exhibit ing in undisguised form the logical consequenees, for a Darwinian, of the principle that whatever is, is right. His popularity is due partly to this hyper-Darwinianism. but more largely, since such a doctrine is against the predominant spirit of humanity of the present age, to his fascinating literary style. He is a great prose poet, and if we may judge from a volume of early verse, Clediekte and AS'ffiiche ( 1597), in tone a revolt against the lyric tradition of Heine, he might have been a great lyrist. Richard Strauss (q.v.) has founded one of his most famous tone-poems upon Also sprach Zarathustra. A complete edi tion of his works was begun at Leipzig in 1595: an English version under the editorship of Title is incomplete. Consult the biography by his sis ter. Frau FOrster-Nietzsche (Leipzig, 1595. sqq.), and appreciation in Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsch,, der Kiinstler und der Denkec (Stuttgart, 341 ed., 19011 ; also Seth, ]lag's Place in the Cosmos i2d ed., Edinburgh. 1902): Wallace, Lech l'IR and Essays in Yatural Theology and Ethics (Oxford. ISOS) ; Dolson, The Philosophy of Fricilrirh :Viet:Rehr (New York, 1901). with an excellent bibliography; Brandes, Friedrieh Niel:same (Frankfort. IS5S) Kronenberg, Nietzsche and seine Herrenmoral (11unieh, 1901); Eisler, Nicizsches Erhenntnisthcoric and iletaphysik (Leipzig, 1902).