Guide to Music, p. 127). When some one told Beethoven that a certain harmony in one of his pieces was "not allowed," he answered, "Very well, then I allow it" (ibid., p. 127).
d A somewhat similar point of view appears to be taken by Frank Granger in his Historical Sociology. Nietzsche remarks that in seeking to determine the end of man we are apt to consider him generically, leaving individuals and their peculiarities out of account—but he asks, may not each individual be regarded as an attempt to reach a higher genus than men, in virtue of his most individual qualities? (Werke, XI, 238, § 194).
e The prevailing functional view of man finds expression in F. H. Bradley's Ethical Studies, "We have found ourselves, when we have found our station and its duties, our function as an organ in the social organism" (p. 148). Bradley even says, "To wish to be better than the world is already to be on the threshold of immorality"; further, "We should consider whether the encouraging oneself in having opinions of one's own, in the sense of thinking differently from the world on moral subjects, be not, in any person other than a heaven-born prophet, sheer self-conceit" (p. 180 f.). This is sufficiently strong.
f From this high point of view, "a man as he ought to be" sounds as absurd to Nietzsche as a "tree as it ought to be" (Will to Power, § 334). Cf. Emerson: "Those who by eminence of nature are out of reach of your rewards, let such be free of the city and above the law. We confide them to themselves; let them do with us as they will. Let none presume to measure the irregularities of Michael Angelo and Socrates by village scales" ("Plato," in Representative Men). Interesting to note in this connection is the peculiar way in which Nietzsche takes up the early Greek philosophers—his effort being to bring out what in each system is a piece of personality and hence belongs to the "irrefutable and undiscussable" (preface to "Philosophy in the Tragic Period of the Greeks," Werke, IX, 5-6).
g Cf. the striking description of Sigismondo Castromediano, Duke of Marciano, in G. M. Trevelyan's Garibaldi and the Thousand, pp. 55-6; and a saying of Maxim Gorky's, "Nothing is so deadly to the soul as the desire to please people."
h In this connection, another "hard saying" may be mentioned: "A great man: one who feels that he has a right to sacrifice men as a field-marshal does—not in the service of an 'idea,' but because he will rule" (Werke, XIV, 65-6, §130). If a feeling of this kind can anywise be justified, it is only as we remember that, to Nietzsche, the great man is himself the highest idea—the supreme values being not outside him, but incorporated in him (cf. Beyond Good and Evil, § 199). A kindred "hard saying" is, "Do you say, it is the good cause that Sanctifies war? I say to you, it is good war that sanctifies every cause" (Zarathustra, I, x). The thought is plainly that putting forth supreme energy is itself the greatest good. "'What is good?' you ask. To be brave is good. Let little maidens say, 'Good is what is pretty and moving'" (ibid., I, x).
i One thinks of Marc Antony's relations with Cleopatra, in contrast with those of a really great man, Cæsar.
j To this side of Nietzsche's view Berthelot hardly does justice in his admirable critical study, Un romantisme utilitaire (Vol. 1).
k Ecce Homo, III, vii, § 2. In America, "gentleman" has become little more than a synonym for a certain refinement of manners, chiefly of the mild and altruistic sort. Emerson has the old strong conception when he says, "God knows that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but whenever used in strictness, and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point at original energy.… The famous gentlemen of Asia and Europe have been of this strong type; Saladin, Sapor, the
