Recent Tendencies in Ethics | Page 7

The translation is
taken (with corrections) from the English version by Johanna Volz
(1903). Nietzsche has so shocked and confused the English printer that
when the author writes himself an 'immoralist' the compositor has made
him call himself an 'immortalist.' And errors of the sort do not affect
the printer only. Nietzsche's sneer at 'Femininism' is deftly turned aside
by Miss Volz, by the simple device of substituting for it the word
Pessimism. And Dr Tille, the translator of his best-known work, 'Thus
spake Zarathustra' (1896, p. xix), has been bemused in an even more
wonderful manner. He enumerates "the best known representatives" of
Anarchic tendencies in political thought as "Humboldt, Dunoyer,
Stirner, Bakounine, and Auberon Spencer"! The vision of Mr Auberon
Herbert and Mr Herbert Spencer doubled up into a single individual is
'a thing imagination boggles at.' Perhaps it is the translator's idea of the
Uebermensch.]
Perhaps it is impossible to understand Nietzsche unless one admits that
his writings show traces of the disease which very soon prevented his
writing at all. But at the same time, while that is true, there is much
more in his work than the ravings of a distempered mind. There may
have been little method, but there was a great deal of genius, in his
madness. While he always overstates his case,--his colossal egoism
leads him to exaggerate any doctrine,--and while I do not think that the
actual doctrines of Nietzsche in the way he puts them will ever gain any
general acceptance, while his system of morality may not have any
chance of being the moral code of the next generation or even of being

regarded as the serious alternative to Christian morality, yet it is not too
much to say that he is symptomatic of a new tendency in ethical
thought, a tendency of which he is the greatest, if also the most
extravagant exponent, but which has its roots in certain new influences
which have come to this generation with the ideas and the triumphs,
scientific and material, of the preceding generation.
There are two quite different kinds of influence to which the formation
of an ethical doctrine may be due. In the first place, there are the moral
sentiments and opinions of the community and of the moralist himself;
and, in the second place, there are the scientific and philosophical
doctrines accepted by the writer or inspiring what is loosely called the
spirit of the time. In most ethical movements the two kinds of influence
will be found co-operating, though the latter is almost entirely absent in
some cases. The incoherence of popular opinions about morality is a
potent stimulus to reflexion, and may of itself give rise to systematic
ethical enquiry. This is more particularly the case when a change of
social conditions, or contact with alien modes of life, force into light
the inadequacy of the conventional morality. In such a case the new
ethical reflexion may have a disintegrating effect upon the traditional
code, and give to the movement the character and importance of a
revolution. The reflective activity of the Sophists in ancient Greece--a
movement of the deepest ethical significance--was in the main of this
nature. It consisted in a radical sifting and criticism of current moral
standards, and was due almost entirely to the first class of influences,
being affected only in the slightest degree by scientific or philosophical
ideas.
Influences of the same kind combine with science and philosophy in
moulding the ethical thought of the present day. Contemporary ethical
speculation is by no means exclusively due to the thinkers who attempt
to arrive at a consistent interpretation of the nature of reality; and it has
features which constantly remind us how closely moral reflexion is
connected with the order and changes of social conditions.
Every age is no doubt apt to exaggerate its own claims to mark an
epoch. But, after a century of achievements in applied science, there
seems little risk of error in asserting that the world is now becoming
conscious as it never was before of the vast power given by material
resources when under the control of a cool intelligence. And in the

competition of nations it is not surprising that there should be an
imperious demand for the most alert and well-trained minds to utilise
these resources in war and in industry. It is not surprising; nor would it
be a fit subject for regret, did not the concentration of the outlook upon
material success tend to the neglect of 'things which are more
excellent.' Writing many years ago J.S. Mill remarked that "hitherto it
is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened
the day's toil of any human being." [1]
[Footnote 1: Political Economy, Book iv. chap. vi. § 2.]
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