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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
To commemorate Nietzsche on the occasion of his hundredth anniversary is both easy and difficult. It is easy because one cannot but remember him as the prophet of our century. He is more alive in 1944 than he was in 1888 when he suddenly burned out like a volcano after the last eruption, called Ecce Homo. He knew every recess of the modern soul, its widest periphery and its hidden center. His problems are our problems and his predicament is our own. For this very reason it is also difficult to commemorate him. He is still becoming what he is, and one cannot but hesitate to sum up his final significance in the history of Western man and the Christian Occident.
1 See G. d'Annunzio's poem “Per Ia Morte di un Distruttore.”
2 See Gide's, A. letter to Angèle in Jahrbuch der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft, 1925.Google Scholar
3 Bertram, E., Nietzsche, (Berlin, 1918)Google Scholar; and Hildebrandt, K., Wagner and Nietzsche, (Breslau, 1924).Google Scholar
4 Carl Mayer's article “On the intellectual origin of National Socialism,” Social Research (May, 1942); and the recent discussion of Spitzer, L. and Lovejoy, A. on “Geistesgeschichte vs. History of Ideas as Applied to Hitlerism,” Journal of the History of Ideas (04, 1944).Google Scholar
5 Crane, Brinton, Nietzche (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 200ff.Google Scholar
6 Werke (Oktav-Ausgabe) XIV, 420.
7 Thoughts Out of Season, III, paragraph 4; and Werke, X, 289.
8 The Will to Power, paragraph 900ff, 1053ff, 127f; Beyond Good and Evil, paragraph 208; Werke, XIII, 358; XI, 373ff.
9 The Joy ful Wisdom, paragraph 362 and 283.
10 A typical illustration of “Nihilism” in its irresolute form of weakness is the following passage from The Education of Henry Adams: “He very gravely doubted, from his aching consciousness of religious void, whether any large fraction of society cared for a future life, or even for the present one, thirty years hence. … For the old world of public men and measures since 1870 Adams wept no tears, he never saw anything to admire in it, or anything he wanted to save. Not an act, or an expression, or an image showed depth of faith and hope.”
11 The Joyful Wisdom, paragraph 343 and 125.
12 See Zarathustra's first speech on “The Three Metamorphoses,” i. e., from the Christian “Thou shalt” of The Camel, to the modern “I will” of the Lion, to the classic “I am” of the Child which has regained the innocence of cosmic being.
13 Morgan, G. A., What Nietzsche Means (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 119ff.Google Scholar
14 The Will to Power, paragraph 1067.
15 Die geistigen Grundlagen des Lebens (Jena, 1914), 167ff.
16 Benz, E., “ Nietzsches Ideen zur Geschiehte des Christentums,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengesehichte (1937, Heft 2 and 3)Google Scholar; Sehor, J., Deutschland auf dem Wege nach Damaskus (Luzeru, 1934)Google Scholar; Urs von, Balthasar, Die Apokalypse der Dentschen Seele (München, 1937), II.Google Scholar
17 The Will to Power, paragraph 1052.
18 The Joyful Wisdom, paragraph 357.
19 The Joyful Wisdom, paragrab 341.
20 See my book on Nietzsche's Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkunft (Berlin, 1935).Google Scholar
21 The Twilight of the Idols, 118f.
22 See also The Will to Power, paragraph 419.
23 Schelling, , The Ages of the World (New York, 1942), 119 and 153.Google Scholar
