This is a parable for higher and worse situations; whereby the question still remains what guarantees to us our superiority, our faith in ourselves in such cases. The result? But for this we must do the thing that carries all the dangers with it—and not only dangers for us, but for the ship."[1] Hence Nietzsche takes responsibility solely—or if he wishes companions, it is only men of like temper and mind with himself; his writings are chiefly to find out persons of this type—not to persuade others. He is a law for his own, not for all.[2] His ground is
"Glattes Eis,
Ein Paradeis
Für den, der gut zu tanzen weiss."[3]
And the positions he finally reaches are often themselves frankly tentative, experimental. f
In this ethical field as elsewhere Nietzsche gives us little in order. There is a somewhat connected treatment of certain themes in Genealogy of Morals; but aside from this we have only a mass of aphorisms and notes, written at different times, in different moods, and from different angles of vision. At times I have been almost in despair over the multifariousness of my subject-matter, and I can only offer as orderly and consistent a statement as the refractory character of it will allow. It is like trying to make a cosmos out of the chaos of the world itself; perhaps the world is chaos rather than cosmos; and yet, on the other hand, it may be that the trouble is with us and that finer perception and a larger outlook would discover unities in difference that now escape us.
