“For what of all things can come to pass, must they not again pass along this endless road that stretches before us? “And this slow spider crawling in the moonlight; aye, and this moonlight, and I and thou in the portal whispering together, whispering of eternal things, must we not all of us have been before? “And must we not return again and again along that long road--must we not eternally return? “So spake he, and always lower and lower; for he was afraid of his thoughts--and afterthoughts!” Surely Nietzsche is mocking us with his Wiederkunft,--with his doctrine of the eternal returning of things! What! he teaches that the struggle has a goal, and that goal is just--tomorrow? Then, when bewildered by the vision of the infinite stretch of tomorrows we turn to him for explanation, he tells us that the stream is not even infinite but like ancient Ocean “flows in upon itself.” “Tied to the wheel of things,” India said we were, “therefore, let us give up.” “Tied to the wheel of things,” Nietzsche agrees we are, “therefore, let us keep on.” “Courage is the best of them that kill. Courage kills even pity. Now, pity is the deep abyss: deep as one sees into life, just so deep does one see into pain. “But courage is the best of them that kill; courage that lays hold on things; courage puts even Death to death, for it says to life: ‘War das das Leben? Wohlan! Noch einmal!’” * * * * * Noch einmal! To make one ready to cry _da capo_ to life, that is the test of a philosophy! Nietzsche’s doctrine of the Wiederkunft has no scientific importance, but this fact is itself unimportant. It makes little difference whether the River Ocean flows in upon itself, or flows endlessly on, or falls at last into Hades. The important thing is that worth and happiness lie in playing the game of life as experience reveals it to us, no matter what that game may be. “Thy will be my will, O Nature,” cried the Stoic Emperor. Is this will the will to conquer, is it the will to produce the higher type, is it the will to flow, is it the will wheel-like to turn in saecula saeculorum--the word of life is “That also will I”; the word of sickness and death is, “That will I not.” There is enough of the dramatic for such as have a taste that way in the circumstance that just this lonely, pain-wracked, finally brain-sick man should have begun his philosophy with the phrase: “God is dead of pity for men,” and should have concluded it with that other: “War das das Leben? Wohlan! Noch einmal!” VIII PRAGMATISM