'
[Footnote 1: Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a clergyman, was born in
Saxony in 1844. In 1869 he became Professor of Classical Philology
in Basel, and held this post for ten years, though his work was
interrupted by ill-health for a long period. His first book was
published in 1871; the preface to the last was dated "on the 30th of
September 1888, the day on which the first book of the Transvaluation
of all Values was completed." He became hopelessly insane in 1889, and
died in 1900. The reader will find a luminous estimate of his work
in the essay on "The Life and Opinions of Friedrich Nietzsche" in
Pringle-Pattison's 'Man's Place in the Cosmos,' 2nd ed., 1902.]
The ideas which Nietzsche expresses go to the root of the matter. In
the first place, he drew a distinction between what he regarded as two
different types of morality. One of these he called the morality of
masters or nobles, and he called the other the morality of slaves.
Self-reliance and courage may be cited as the qualities typical of the
noble morality, for they are the qualities which tend to make the man
who possesses them a master over others, to give him a prominent and
powerful place in the world, and to help him to subjugate to his will
both nature and his fellow-men. On the other hand, there are the
qualities which form the characteristic features of Christian
morality--such as benevolence or love of one's neighbour, the
fundamental precept of the Gospels, and the humility and obedience
which have been perhaps unduly emphasised in ecclesiastical ethics.
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