Lombroso's psychology is an outgrowth of nominalism which does not recognize an objective norm for truth, health, reason, or normality of any kind, and regards the average as the sole method of finding a norm. If, however, the average type is the standard of measurement, the unusually excellent specimens, being rare in number, must be classed together with all other deviations from the average, and thus a genius is regarded as abnormal as much as a criminal--a theory which has found many admirers in this age that is sicklied over with agnosticism, the modern offshoot of nominalism. The truth is that true genius (not the pseudo-genius of erratic minds, not the would-be genius of those who make a failure of life) is uncommonly normal--I had almost said "abnormally normal." A perfect crystal is rare; so the perfectly normal man is an exception; yet for all that he is a better representative of the ideal of his type than the average. Nietzsche was most assuredly very ingenious; he was unusually talented but he was not a genius in the full sense of the word. He was abnormal, titanic in his pretensions and aims, and erratic. Breaking down under the burden of his own thought, he ended his tragical career in an insane asylum. The mental derangement of Nietzsche may be an unhappy accident but it appears to have come as the natural result of his philosophy. Nietzsche, by nature modest and tractable, almost submissive, was, as a thinker, too proud to submit to anything, even to truth. Schopenhauer had taught him that the intellect, with its comprehension of truth, is a mere slave of the will, ancilla voluntatis. Our cognition of the truth has a purpose; it must accommodate itself to our own interest. But the self is sovereign; the self wants to assert itself; the self alone has a right to exist; and the self that does not dare to be itself is a servile, menial creature. Therefore Nietzsche preaches the ethics of self-assertion and pride. He is too proud to recognize the duty of inquiry, the duty of adapting his mind to the world, or of recognizing the cosmic order of the universe as superior to his self. He feels bigger than the cosmos; he is himself; and he wants to be himself. His own self is sovereign; and if the world is not satisfied to submit to his will, the world may go to ruin. If the world breaks to pieces, it will only cause him to laugh; on the other hand, if his very self is forced to the wall in this conflict, he will still, from sheer pride, not suffer himself to abandon his principle of the absolute sovereignty of selfhood. He will not be a man, human and humane, but an overman (_Uebermensch_), a superhuman despiser of humanity and humaneness. The multitudes are to him like cattle to be used, to be milked, fleeced and butchered, and Nietzsche calls them herds, animals of the flock, _Heerdentiere_.