The Great Man Is Not The Child

The Historian Is Looked Upon As Objective When He Measures The Past By The Popular Opinions Of His Own Time, As Subjective When He Does Not Take These Opinions For Models. That Man Is Thought Best Fitted To Depict A Period Of The Past, Who Is Not In The Least Affected By That Period. But Only He Who Has A Share In Building Up The Future Can Grasp What The Past Has Been, And Only When Transformed Into A Work Of Art Can History Arouse Or Even Sustain Instincts.

Nietzsche Inveighs Against Every Sort Of Historical Optimism; But He Energetically Repudiates The Ordinary Pessimism, Which Is The Result Of Degenerate Or Enfeebled Instincts Of Decadence. He Preaches With Youthful Enthusiasm The Triumph Of A Tragic Culture, Introduced By An Intrepid Rising Generation, In Which The Spirit Of Ancient Greece Might Be Born Again. He Rejects The Pessimism Of Schopenhauer, For He Already Abhors All Renunciation; But He Seeks A Pessimism Of Healthiness, One Derived From Strength, From Exuberant Power, And He Believes He Has Found It In The Greeks.

Dostoevsky Preaches The Morality Of The Pariah, The Morality Of The Slave.

Under The Dominion Of The Priests Our Earth Became The Ascetic Planet; A Squalid Den Careering Through Space, Peopled By Discontented And Arrogant Creatures, Who Were Disgusted With Life, Abhorred Their Globe As A Vale Of Tears, And Who In Their Envy And Hatred Of Beauty And Joy Did Themselves As Much Harm As Possible.

Nietzsche Says That As Soon As He Had Read A Single Page Of Schopenhauer, He Knew He Would Read Every Page Of Him And Pay Heed To Every Word, Even To The Errors He Might Find. Every Intellectual Aspirant Will Be Able To Name Men Whom He Has Read In This Way.