The boast is probably true. The devil was always a good stylist, and it is not inappropriate that when his gospel is at its worst, his prose should be at its best. We may charitably assume that those whom he led off the plain paths of life into his foul and blood-bathed jungles, were taken captive, not by his message, but by his music. What then was his creed, or rather his vision? For he was the mystagogue of Prussianism, who chanted but never explained. As in the case of Bismarck, I propose to exclude as far as possible anything written _ad hoc_, or since the war. My first witness is Alfred Fouillée, the doyen of French philosophy, Whose _Nietzsche et l’Immoralisme_ appeared in 1902 (the unfamiliarity of Fouillée’s name is a biting satire on our leaders of thought)-- “If the Vandals had read a course in Hegelian metaphysics, they would have held the same language as Nietzsche.” The popular instinct which named the Prussians the Huns was thus long anticipated by the greatest Platonist in Europe. * * * * * To Nietzsche the whole motive behind life is a sort of metaphysical symbol which he calls the Will-to-Power. The whole task of life is to impose your power on others _an andern Macht auslassen_. With what aim? To evolve the Superman. But in this struggle of all against all we must, in a world divided into nations and classes, struggle for the victory of some nation and some fashion of government. For Prussia, and for an aristocracy more scientifically cruel than the world has ever known. And what is the first step towards this Elysium? War, and again war. War, with the formula of the Assassins for its formula-- “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” * * * * * It is idle to remind us that Nietzsche touched life at other points, and that in his flaming incoherence you will find contradictions of this vision. For it was this vision of Attila, and no other, that conquered the imagination of Prussia. She desired all Europe for an Empire, and after that the seas, and at last the world. It needed but one further step in this mysticism of the madhouse to decree divine honours to the Kaiser. Now let Nietzsche speak for himself. Thus spake Zarathustra on the morality of war-- “You shall love peace as a means to new wars, and a short peace better than a long.... “I do not counsel you labour, I do not counsel you peace, but victory. Let your labour be a conflict, and your peace a victory.... “It was said of old that a good cause sanctifies war; but I say to you that a good war sanctifies any cause.” As to what he meant by a “good” war he leaves us in no doubt. He meant simply a war in which a victorious Prussia would slay and burn without measure and without pity. “My brothers, I place above you this new Table of the Law: Be hard!” * * * * *