320 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
were accepted by advanced people as the last word of philosophic science. In reply to the question : ^ What must we do ?' the advice is now plainly offered : ' Live as you please, paying no attention to the lives of others.'
If anyone doubted the terrible state of stupefaction and bestiality to which our Christian humanity has descended — without speaking of the crimes recently committed in South Africa and China, and which were defended by priests and accepted as achievements by all the great ones of the earth — the extraordinary success of the writings of Nietzsche would alone suffice to supply an unanswerable proof. Some disjointed writings — aiming most obtrusively at effect — appear, written by a man suffering from megalomania, a bold but limited and abnormal German. Neither in talent nor by their validity have these writings any claim on public attention. In the days of Kant, Leibnitz, or Hume, or even fifty years ago, such writings, far from attracting attention, could not even have appeared. But in our days all the so-called educated classes of humanity are delighted with the ravings of Mr. Nietzsche ; they dispute about him and explain him, and innumerable copies of his works are printed in all languages.
Tourgenef humorously says that there are such things as ^ reversed platitudes,' and that they are often used by people lacking in talent, but desirous of attracting attention. Everyone knows, for instance, that water is wet : but suddenly someone seriously asserts that water is dry — not ice, but water is dry ; and such an opinion, if confidently expressed, attracts attention.
In the same way, the whole world knows that virtue consists in subduing one's passions, and in self-renun- ciation. This is known not by Christians only (with whom Nietzsche imagines he is fighting), but it is an eternal and supreme law which all humanity has re- cognised — in Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and in the ancient Persian religion. And suddenly a
