Page:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu/488

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
472
NIETZSCHE THE THINKER

contradiction cannot be reconciled; and yet it may be that in the last analysis the difference is between near and distant perspectives, between what is suited to preparatory stages in a process of evolution and the ultimate issue.[1] Undoubtedly an organization of the world such as is sometimes contemplated today is contrary to Nietzsche's view. For the prevailing scheme is of a voluntary federation, a consensus of the nations—all of them, perhaps even all the races, to have equal rights, none to be subordinated to others—in other words, it is based on democratic principles, to be applied on a grand scale. But Nietzsche does not recognize equal rights, whether as between individuals, or between classes, or between peoples. The greater man, the greater people, should rule—in this way, and not by mutual agreement, do organizing force and right arise. As man's bodily organism is not the outcome of any consensus, but of the supremacy of certain parts and the subjection of others, so with a sound social organism; the truth is the same if the organism is co-extensive with mankind—the highest brains, the supreme type of men (in body, soul, and spirit) must organize the world. But how, we ask, are the supreme men to be found out? Well, how are the real rulers in any society found out? As Emerson has already told us, by trial, by struggle (explicit or implicit). That this or that man is the victor is not the outcome of any agreement—the result establishes itself, the victor proves himself. Something similar must go on among the nations (at least among the various stocks or breeds—for the same type may be in different nations, and it is this, and not whether the individual instance is German, English, French, or Russian, that is of moment). In other words, for a time, perhaps for a long time, there must be struggle, competition. "Competition of all egos to find the thought that shall stand over mankind as its star"—such is a perspective or philosophy of history that Nietzsche once gives,"[2] at least of history as it should be and may come to be. "Competition for the control of the power that mankind represents—this is the competition to

  1. Cf., for instance, the apparently contradictory views as to the origin of the state (ante, p. 448, and note t).
  2. Werke, XII, 360, § 679.