This is all clear enough; but it is quite conceivable that a misunderstanding of it might lead to the most perverted notions of what Nietzsche actually stood for, and when I hear people inveighing against the so-called egoism of his teaching, and declaring it poisonous on that account, I often wonder whether they have really made any attempt at all to comprehend the above passage, and whether there is not perhaps something wrong with language itself, that a thought which to some seems expressed so clearly and unmistakably, should still prove confusing and incomprehensible to others. Speaking once more to higher men, then, Nietzsche tells them, with some reason on his side, that altruism may be their greatest danger, that altruism may be even their greatest temptation, that there are times when they must avoid it as they would avoid a plague. In periods of gestation, when plans and dreams of plans for the elevation of themselves and their fellows are taking shape in their minds, altruism may lure them sideways, it may make them diverge from their path, and it may make mankind one great thought the poorer. In this sense, and in this sense alone, does our author deprecate the altruistic virtues; but, again, I venture to remind readers that it is the simplest thing on earth to awaken suspicion against him by declaring, as some have declared, that his deprecation of altruism applies to all. No greater nonsense could be talked about Nietzsche than to say that he preached universal egoism. Universal egoism as opposed to select egoism is behind all the noisiest movements to-day--it is behind Socialism, Democracy, Anarchy, and Nihilism--but it is not behind Nietzscheism, and nobody who reads him with care could ever think so. With these observations in mind, we can read the following passages from _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ without either surprise or indignation; indeed we may even learn a new valuation from them which will alter our whole outlook on life, though no such sudden revulsion of feeling need necessarily follow a study of Nietzsche's doctrine. Only when we have given his thoughts time to become linked up and co-ordinated in our minds are we likely to find that our view of the world has become in the least decree transformed. * * * * * * "Do I advise you to love your neighbour? leather do I advise you to flee from your neighbour and to love the most remote. "Higher than love to your neighbour is love unto the most remote future man. "It is the more remote (your children and your children's children) who pay for your love unto your neighbour.[13] "Your children's land ye shall love (be this love your new nobility!), the land undiscovered in the remotest sea! For it I bid your sails seek and seek! "In your children ye shall make amends for being the children of your fathers: all the past shall ye thus redeem! This new table do I place over you!"[14] [1] Z., chap. lxi. [2] Z., p. 299.