One of Nietzsche’s doctrines is the exaltation of the aristocratic over the democratic virtues. He was the son of a Prussian state pastor, and he glorified war, and was taken as the spiritual director of the invasion of Belgium. It would be easy for me to deal with him on that basis, and draw and quarter him amid general acclamation. The only trouble is that Nietzsche is one of the pioneers of the moral life, a conqueror of new universes for our race. There are two sides to his message, the positive and the negative. On the positive side it is the record of an exalted poet, proclaiming brotherhood, service, and consecration. On its negative side it represents the fears and repugnances of an invalid, shrinking from life which was too much for him, and seeking refuge in his own visions, where he could be master without interference from a hostile world. Where Nietzsche loved something, you will generally find it something great and noble; where he hated something, you will often find it a thing he failed to understand. There were two subjects upon which he was entirely ignorant; the first woman, and the second economics. This double ignorance distorted all his thought, and has brought it about that his influence counts on the side of the forces he hated. Nietzsche agreed with the proposition of the present book, that all the arts are propaganda. He showed how those who were able to face life and to conquer made themselves a philosophy and art of self-assertion and development; those who were afraid of life made a philosophy and art of self-sacrifice and renunciation. Nietzsche explained Christianity as a slave religion, evolved by the victims of Roman imperialism; he proclaimed himself Antichrist, and advocated a “master morality.” Nietzsche’s supreme contribution is the interpretation of evolution; he became the prophet and seer of this doctrine, developing a concept of the Overman, a higher being into which the human race is destined to evolve. Bernard Shaw has popularized the term Superman; but I venture to stick to Overman, which I used in “The Journal of Arthur Stirling,” several years before “Man and Superman” was published. Nietzsche might have chosen the term “Supermensch” if he had wished; but he wrote “Uebermensch.” This concept Nietzsche set forth in “Zarathustra” with fervor and splendor of imagery, a chant the like of which the German language had never known before. Ten years ago, editing “The Cry for Justice,” made up of the world’s revolutionary literature from thirty languages and five thousand years of history, I gave the last place to a quotation from “Zarathustra”; the reason being that it represents to me the ultimate of modern thought, the greatest words in recent poetry. I quote a portion of this passage: Man is a cord, tied between Beast and Overman--a, cord above an abyss. A perilous arriving, a perilous traveling, a perilous looking backward, a perilous trembling and standing still.