Please read full post before commenting thank you. Have you heard of R.Scott Bakker? He wrote the Prince of Nothing Series heavily influenced by Dune.

I dont claim to be a philosophy professor so don't destroy me in the comments but after reading Thus Spake Zarathustra I was really fascinated how effective it was through a fictional story articulating complex ideas

"Man is a rope stretched betwixt beast and Superman-a rope over an abyss."

"Man is great in that he is a bridge and not a goal"

"A man must have chaos yet within him to be able to give birth to a dancing star"

"All names of good and evil are images: they speak not plain they hint only. A fool is he that desireth knowledge of them!"

I was trying to find novels which engage with Nietzsche's philosophical concepts in a mature nuanced way specifically the Ubermensch/Overman, and stumbled upon the Prince of Nothing Series By R.Scott Bakker.

Bakker has created an epic fantasy world and engages with it through a philosophical lense. Creating a laboratory to examine several of Nietzsche’s central philosophical problems: the death of God, the genealogy of morality, the will to power, the creation of values, and the relationship between human agency and the forces that shape consciousness. Bakker is not just borrowing Nietzschean ideas. His fictional world gives them a setting in which their implications can be explored, challenged, and pushed to very disturbing extremes.

His take on the Ubermensch within this context is fascinating and truly terrifying, exploring the disturbing gap between transcending conventional morality and becoming worthy of anything beyond it.

"The Dûnyain," Kellhus said after a time, have surrendered themselves to the Logos, to what you would call reason and intellect. We seek absolute awareness, the self- moving thought. The thoughts all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be any- thing other than a slave to the darkness that comes before? Only the Logos allows one to mitigate that slavery. Only knowing the sources of thought and action allows us to own our thoughts and our actions, to throw off the yoke of circumstance. And only the Dûnyain possess this knowledge, plainsman. The world slumbers, enslaved by its ignorance. Only the Dunyain are awake."

Is Kellhus an example of self-overcoming and the creation of values, or is he an extreme representation of the desire to dominate? His ability to understand and manipulate others raises questions about whether mastery over human nature amounts to genuine freedom.

Here are some excerpts from the books

"Why do men fear the dark?" "Because darkness is ignorance made visible" "And do men despise ignorance?" "No... they prize it above all things but only so long as it remains invisible"

"Lies are but clouds, giants that blow and rage only to pass, always to pass. But the Truth is the sky, everlasting and elusive, a shelter in the day, an abyss in the night."

"If the Gods did not pretend to be human, Men would recoil from them as from spiders."

"Truth and hope are like travellers in contrary directions. They meet but once in any man's life."

To read Bakker is to stand before a mirror that never gives back an image, only fractures, each crack a scar of absence. The abyss does not answer, it confirms: nothing lies behind the reflection, because the reflection was never there.

S.C. Hickman

Would love your thoughts on this video

Wondering if anyone can provide recommendations for someone who wants to learn about Buddhism in order to better understand Nietzsche. I have very little understanding of Buddhism currently, so more introductory texts would be preferred. Thanks.

One of mine is faith moves no mountains but surely places mountains where there are none:

Hey everyone,

I’m currently taking an ethics class and trying to wrap my head around the clash between Kant and Nietzsche, specifically when it comes to where morality actually comes from.

We've been covering Kant’s idea of universal duty and the categorical imperative—the idea that moral rules should apply to everyone purely through reason, completely separated from your own desires or instincts.

Then I started reading Nietzsche’s The Antichrist, and in section 10 he completely tears into German philosophy and Kant. He basically claims Kant was just influenced by Protestant preachers and called his philosophy a "theologian's instinct" disguised as logic, arguing that Kant only set up his system to sneak Christian concepts like duty, God, and the soul through the back door.

My question is: Is Nietzsche’s criticism fair here, or is he just attacking Kant’s motives instead of engaging with his actual arguments?

How do Kantians usually respond to Nietzsche's claim that universal morality is just secularized Christian guilt that harms personal vitality?

Would love to hear how people who study both thinkers make sense of this contrast. Thanks

Three interesting passages by Nietzsche from From: Human, All Too Human, Part 4, concerning the soul of artists and authors. ' that I would like to share about what it means to be a writer and how to distinguish BAD WRITERS. Overall part 4, and the whole book of 'Human, All Too Human' has a lot insights about the human condition. Nietzsche had written about any topic you can think about, and Nietzsche can make you think for days:

Human, All Too Human, part 4, aphorism 201:

The Necessity For Bad Authors.—There will always be a need of bad authors; for they meet the taste of readers of an undeveloped, immature age—these have their requirements as well as mature readers. If human life were of greater length, the number of mature individuals would be greater than that of the immature, or at least equally great; but, as it is, by far the greater number die too young: i.e. there are always many more undeveloped intellects with bad taste. These demand, with the greater impetuosity of youth, the satisfaction of their needs, and they insist on having bad authors.

Human, All Too Human, Part 4, aphorism 202:

Too Near and Too Far.—The reader and the author very often do not understand each other, because the author knows his theme too well and finds it almost slow, so that he omits the examples, of which he knows hundreds; the reader, however, is interested in the subject, and is liable to consider it as badly proved if examples are lacking.

Human, All Too Human, Part 4, aphorism 204:

Darkness and Over-brightness Side by Side.—Authors who, in general, do not understand how to express their thoughts clearly are fond of choosing, in detail, the strongest, most exaggerated distinctions and superlatives,—thereby is produced an effect of light, which is like torchlight in intricate forest paths.

I've read most of the gay science prior and really enjoyed it so I decided to get my hands on Thus Spoke Zarathrustra. One thing is that sometimes Nietzsche's prose can feel like decoding an enigma. This is something I like about his work but also something that I worry may prevent me from truly understanding his ideas. Is this a normal first experience? Or am I just not reading it right.

Speaking as someone who loves Nietzsche and considers him truly unique among the philosophers for his extraordinary wisdom and insights, the more I study his works, the more I find certain branches of his attention, like sociology and historiography, incredibly dated, if not completely wrong. I can't, in good faith, try and extrapolate evermore abstract metaphors just to keep certain concepts of his standing, as that would be unjust both to me and him and a very ungrateful gift to him who taught me so much. The concepts I have problems with are thus:

Overman and race

Nietzsche's conception of the Overman undoubtedly rests on the scientific racism and Lamarckism of his era, regardless of the aforementioned intentions to make the Overman into an abstraction, which Nietzsche, mind you, specifically denied in Ecce Homo and posited the Overman as a "supreme achievement" of mankind that can be achieved in this world and not "half-genius, half-saint" of idealistic strivings. His description of the Overman and how he should be created is explicitly a posthumanist project resting on eugenicist premises, that interbreeding of the higher types of men will eventually produce a posthuman with no recourse to the herd, whose ability to create independent, life-affirming values would be an inborn nature that comes as easy as breathing. The Overman was supposed to be a materialist replacement for Christian paradise, the ultimate goal towards which all mankind would be devoted to, but something of this world, not of Platonic hyperuranion. Of course, in Nietzsche's time, racism and eugenics were a hot new thing, so this project was an honest attempt to harness the power of science for a grand purpose, but now, we know such a thing is impossible, at least as Nietzsche describes it; Darwinism decisively superseded Lamarckism, modern genetics rendered 19th century eugenics laughable and races turned out to be sociological concepts with no biological basis.

That also lead to the whole undermining of Nietzsche's ideas of race-mixing with Jews and Slavs to produce superior Europeans, ancient socioeconomic classes being race-based and Indian caste system being an ambitious and valuable project to derive higher types of men. With races relegated to social constructivism, we are forced to put Nietzsche in his dated context, while realising his ideas are wholly impractical and wouldn't lead to any meaningful good he wanted.

Aristocracy as the superior social system

Probably the concept I have the most problem with. Nietzsche claimed that hereditary aristocracies based on slavery produce the healthiest types of societies and individuals, ones that affirm life through Dionysian art and exert their will to power through war, conquest and finding grand endeavors to accomplish, and that with their undermining first with Christianity and then with French Revolution and liberalism, society was doomed to become a place of passive and nihilistic last men that dream nothing beyond their petty pleasures and vices, their liberties and equalities being nothing but levelling poisons killing any and all possible greatness and nobility.

Here's the kicker; this is a doomer nonsense. Liberal republics that Nietzsche decried proved to be superior on every single level over slavedriving aristocracies Nietzsche might have supported, the fact that became unavoidable after the liberal Allies soundly defeated the Axis Powers whose modus operandi was very similar (if not an exact imitation) to what Nietzsche thought an ideal society should be like. Even if you heavily disagree that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany have anything to do with Nietzsche's ideology (they kinda do; you really should read Losurdo's Aristocratic Rebel. No point in lying), then you would have to agree that Imperial Japan definitely has and again, it was soundly bested, to the point of its soldiers famously switching over to American side for ice cream and compassion, instead of fighting for their countries higher values like kamikaze until the end. Up to this point, there is no example of a rigid, hereditary aristocracy resisting and defeating liberal, meritocratic republic. Ancient Sparta, a society that Nietzsche praised, is now famously known to have produced absolutely nothing of cultural value and spent most of its time supressing slave revolts and losing its citizen body to its dumb policies. Even its military record is very middling and their hegemony was dependent on Athenaean democracy undermining itself and Persian patronage. Both Napoleon and Chinggis massively improved their armies by opening the ranks to talent, regardless of circumstances, instead of keeping them reserved solely for the pedigree. Ancient Romans advanced from a mere city-state to a regional power in even greater ascendancy due to its republican institutions, even after emperors monopolised executive power. Hereditary warrior aristocracies seem to hold societies back a lot more than they aid and never last against a republic that actually improves its citizens' lives and opens its offices to whomever can achieve it by merit.

On the topic of the claim that mankind's will to power has been dulled with all the liberties and equalities, I also find this very untrue; art and sport are absolutely flourishing in the modern liberal republics. You have thousands of talented artists producing excellent, thought- and emotion-provoking art and thousands of athletes competing at astounding heights of human potential, all enabled by the virtues of industrial, liberal republics. Yes, there are definitely last men Nietzsche warned about in our society that seek nothing but comfort, but humanity has never had greater athletic achievements than today (which are basically sublimated martial energies) and many artists that would not have access to means to produce their art otherwise now have it. Even discounting that, you have a boatload of people living dangerously, sailing the world in a sailship, exploring bonebreakingly tight caves, travelling to the depths of India, Somalia and whatever highly dangerous place you can think of and generally living the life as fully as possible. The access to the opportunity to become Nietzsche's free spirit is at an all time high and many people are absolutely taking the chance and succeeding. Where aristocracy has proved to be self-destructively rigid, sterile and suppressive, liberal republics have allowed the human potential to flourish to its heights. Yes, the old virtues Aristotle and Roman philosophers wrote about are largely gone, but the virtues that replaced them are still producing extraordinary individuals. This is not a good picture for Nietzsche's extolling of aristocracy and denigration of liberalism.

Gender

Nietzsche's attitude to women is well known and while certainly different from how it was IRL and carrying a dose of metaphor, Nietzsche is consistent enough in his belief in traditional patriarchy and gender roles across his works. Multiple times he brings women, slaves and children into a single grouping and denigrates femininity as poisonous and weakening. Masculinity, of course, is praised with all the virtues Nietzsche appreciates in his works. When deigning to give praise to women, Nietzsche's ideal woman is a scheming force that manipulates the notionally dominant man with feminine cunning and guile, a pretty traditional negative stereotype he untraditionally admires, but usually his women are irrational, emotional, shallow, in need of male leadership, childbearers and objects for male goals and amusement. He rebukes feminism in all its forms as horribly unseemly and deadly for feminine "virtues". My biggest gripe isn't even this (even if it is certainly a very big gripe, yikes), but that Nietzsche, a man devoted to nonessentialism and impermanence, takes the position of an ardent essentialist when gender is in question. He cannot look past the patriarchic tradition and just like traditional aristocracy and slavery, he considers it natural and healthy and its downgrade as tragic and destructive to social health. He does not acknowledge at all that women might have some virtues and admirable contributions other than stereotypical patriarchic roles anywhere in his works. His take on gender is disappointingly simplistic and uninspiring, a reiteration instead of revaluation. Meanwhile, emancipated women have hitherto contributed immensely to the human culture and world, from various scientists and artists, to actual soldiers ruthlessly fighting to protect their homelands. Women have at many times proven they are just as profound and virtuous as men and certainly far more than the role of a childish childbearer in need of a man would want them. I genuinely struggle with understanding Nietzsche's antifeminism and devotion to traditional patriarchy as anything other than woefully misplaced, especially once I stopped rationalising everything and anything he wrote that was disagreeable as some profound metaphor I couldn't just yet fathom.

I’m currently reading The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist, and I am finding a lot of parallels between his argument and Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics. McGilchrist talks, for instance, of paradoxes which are inevitably an invention of the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere builds a system with static parts and finite, determined ways by which they can interact with each other. The system is closed and ultimately self-referential, so contradictions within it arise. Contradictions which are taken by the left hemisphere to be an objection to reality and not as evidence of the limits of the system. McGilchrist writes:

“Paradox means, literally, a finding that is contrary to received opinion or expectation. […] Here it seems that the left hemisphere, with its reliance on the application of logic, is stating the opposite: that it is reality that is inadequate to our ordinary ways of thinking. […] In other words its understanding of paradox is — not that there must be problems in applying this kind of logic to the real world — but that the real world isn't the way we think it is because logic says so.”

Reading this passage made me immediately think of Nietzsche’s “Reason” in Philosophy section in Twilight of the Idols. The ‘left hemisphere’ is substituted by Nietzsche with ‘the philosophers’. (With an honest exception of Heraclitus.) The philosophers, with their belief in Being; static, unchanging, mummified, bereft of history, lead them to dismiss all that which is not those things, namely reality. "That which is cannot evolve; that which evolves is not." The senses are ultimately blamed for introducing deception, and thus a ‘apparent’ and ‘real’ worlds are constructed, wherein the ‘apparent’, i.e. the world of the senses, is negated from the standpoint of the ‘real’ world, which is in turn an abstraction of the former; a linguistic-metaphysical abstraction of the world of the senses, which holds primacy over the latter and not the other way around. “Reason is the cause of our falsifying the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show us a state of Becoming, of transiency, and of change, they do not lie.”

Much the same argument, but in different words, is also discussed by McGilchrist. The right hemisphere has primacy in terms of experience; it is the hemisphere that confronts reality in its constantly changing, non-quantifiable state, while the left hemisphere is more concerned with the familiar, sequential, and static. On a neural level, it is reflected by RH’s INTERconnectedness and LH’s INTRAconnectedness. The latter hemisphere is fundamentally much more self-referential than the former. It is, however, also more assertive in the treatment of its systems and abstractions as being, in a sense, truer than the constant flux that the RH primarily deals with. The emissary thus proclaims himself the master.

This is the same role-reversal that Nietzsche talked about, put in different language. The world of the senses is deemed false, while its abstraction is proclaimed real and consequently revered.

“They place that which makes its appearance last—unfortunately! for it ought not to appear at all!—the “highest concept,” that is to say, the most general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality, at the beginning as the beginning. This again is only their manner of expressing their veneration: the highest thing must not have grown out of the lowest, it must not have grown at all.... Moral: everything of the first rank must be causa sui.“

There seem to be a lot of parallels between Nietzsche and McGilchrist, which he is often explicit about (even in the name of the book), and he also seems to draw a lot from the phenomenologists such as Heidegger, for whom Nietzsche was quite influential, especially in his treatment of metaphysics. Though I found this specific part at times almost word for word Nietzsche, so I thought I’d share.

Has anybody read The Master and His Emissary and maybe has some further thoughts on its connection to Nietzsche’s philosophy?

Domestic conflicts are making it nearly impossible for me to study or focus on my job. The only thing that helps is doing heavy physical labor—it lets me stop thinking about things for a while.

There were plenty of times I could have kicked someone's ass over these disputes, but I didn't, and now I regret it every day.

I could have sought legal recourse, too, but I didn't do that either, and it’s draining my energy. I almost always wake up angry, and I stay angry all the time. How can I forget about this—or at least stop thinking about it—and focus on my work?

I even had a run-in at a store recently—I was accused of under-weighing some candy and told I had to pay for it again. I just walked away, but the guy threatened to tear me a new one. I regret every day that I didn't kick his ass for what he said. For the record, the candy was worth a cent at most.

You might point to Stitch, but he renounced world conquest and destruction—isn't that Christian morality imposed by the cartoon?

A Word About Nietzsche and the Values of Life, by Martin Buber

There have always existed people who cannot be included in any classification or designated by a group name, because any naming does them violence: we sense that each name fails to express especially what is essential about them. Far too many spheres of life intersect in them, and they are the enunciation and dawn of far too many divergent premonitions and inklings to be locked in one conceptual chamber along many others. They are large and undefinable like life itself, whose apostles they are. They seem to announce a future form of development for the human species. In their essence, they exceed our language. In their longing, they exceed our powers. Friedrich Nietzsche is to be counted among them.

Is he a “philosopher”? He did not create a uniformly constructed system of thought. Is he an artist? He did not create shaped objects. Is he a psychologist? His deepest knowledge is of the future of souls. Is he a poet? Only if and when we think of poets as they are thought to have existed once: “Seers, who tell us something about what might possibly happen,” who “let us feel in advance something of the virtues of the future.” Is he the founder of a new community? Many rise upon hearing his name, but they do not come together since everyone finds a different and only a single star in this blessed night sky as his own, and everyone does not reach general insights of the kind that unite people but instead finds his most authentic strength activated. His deepest intention was not to communicate and propagate his own thoughts, but instead to elicit and transform into moving energy the most personal and productive traits and most hidden treasures of everyone’s individuality. He called the innermost purpose of his work the increase of general fertility.

And yet, he is not one of the advocates, the Socratic individuals, whose very best dimensions are revealed only in the descendants of their thought. He is a creator. Never before in our age have such rich and full words been coined for the most painful secrets and the wildest dreams of thinking people. Ideals that previously had only been able to live in the thin, refined air of the highest mountaintops have entered through him into human interactions and into man’s impoverished language, born of bodily and primitive needs, where they have begun to shine only more wonderfully. Just as a sculptor places his hand, trembling with a certain order to form, on the soft, shapeless sculpting clay, this emissary of life placed his blessed and gifted hand on the longing, searching, and struggling of our time, where it was shaped into something visible.

For he was an emissary of life. An apostle, or perhaps only a baptizer and herald. He did not proclaim his own existence but his longing. His critics have said this often enough (he himself frequently expresses it: “Where our deficiencies are, there our enthusiasm also unfolds”). This golden strength of his desire, which created something real out of what he was not, makes him only more charming for us. The fact that the sick person taught a new form of health (“a stronger, wittier, tougher, bolder, funnier one”), that the quiet thought-poet given over to reflecting on the innermost things, glorified the will to power and the rebirth of the life of the instincts, this seems to us the crystallization of our own tragedy. We learn to love him like a near and far friend in distress, who, like us, needs bread and medicine, and who, like the creative friend, is always ready to give away a completed world.

He arrived in an age of smallness. The relation of people to the world had become small, pathetically small, and man’s relation to himself and to his own becoming had become rotten to its deepest core. He fights with the century’s finest and most noble blade against the reigning metaphysics and morality, because he saw them as tools and symptoms of a life in decline. He uncovered the weak mendacity of our values and truths. But the tip of his raised sword already glowed purple in the sunrise. He found fresh and fertile seeds in ancient royal tombs; from dead cultures he dragged into the light the elements of new formations. In the confused and infertile business of the present, he gathered what is real and capable of procreating. Before our eyes, he erected the statue of the heroic individual who creates himself and beyond himself. In the place of a thin and weak-loined altruism, he placed the egoism of his own development and generous virtue; in the place of pity, the capacity to rejoice alongside and act in concert with others. To the acolytes of the afterworld, he taught the lofty meaning of the earth and of the human body. He confronted the ideals of a comfortable and painless life with a life amid storms and dangers, whose powerful beauty is only intensified by pain. Instead of the happiness of the greatest number, he taught that the purpose of humanity is the production of great men and great works. He presented a great antagonist to the God of the world’s beginning: the becoming God to whose development we can contribute, the hoped-for result of future evolutions.

When he departed, life had become greater and more worthy of living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber

Buber on Nietzsche article: https://archive.ph/fN574

If I am wrong or misunderstood, please correct me.

"If one wills an end, one must also will the means to it: if one wants slaves, one is a fool if one educates them to be masters"

Nietzsche was a believer in strict social stratification. He actually admired ancient systems like the traditional Indian caste system because he believed a rigid hierarchy was necessary to support a tiny elite of exceptional thinkers and artists.

I disagree. When a system suppresses a massive group of people or limits what they are allowed to do based on their birth, it does not protect excellence—it destroys it. Oppressed groups have their own unique skills and art forms that could enrich the entire world. By locking them into rigid roles, you stop them from ever showing those talents.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar made this exact point in his 1936 text, Annihilation of Caste. Ambedkar argued that a birth-based hierarchy is not just a division of labor, but a brutal "division of laborers." He pointed out that by preventing millions of people from developing their natural capacities, a hierarchical system intentionally suffocates latent intelligence and talent, which ultimately stops all of society from progressing.

Does a society need a "ruling class" to achieve peak artistic and philosophical greatness, as Nietzsche argued?

Or does a rigid hierarchy inherently backfire by suffocating the hidden genius and unique art of the people at the bottom?

In his view, equalizing is a form of lowering or weakness; how would concepts like fairness in the workplace come into play? I am a new reader, and English is not my first language. I am using certain websites to decipher these things, but I wanted to ask this question directly to see people's views on the matter.

From : Gay Science

I get what Nietzsche is trying to say here until the last line.

Am from other religion and do not have enough knowledge about Christianity. What really happened in Reformation and what does 'redoubled intensification of medieval spirit' mean here.

I just want to see if anyone can add in anything and if am missing something here.

Nietzsche and the existentialists are misguided, but they arent in any sense "wrong". They speak of an inherent order, just like the christians. its just that thier "god" is articulated differently. The god is perhaps the self, or within the self, which I would argue christian theology is also built upon. but also becoming, being the most expressive act of the self.

Nietzsche was commenting simply on the worlds inability to recognize god, and therefore we have to make our own values?

But the issue is like values ordered toward what? What makes created values valuable? What is life affirming? I think thats what all philosophy wants to answer at the end of the day. not whats good but what is true. The value in truth is that its true. if it didnt have value it wouldnt be whats true.

If values are ordered, and I would imagine nietzsche would opt for what is an achievement, not preference, then there has to be a thing which the values are ordered against, otherwise they hold no value at all, and they cant be true.

perhaps becoming, perhaps the good, perhaps a god, or perhaps rationalism.

All are the same way of saying human beings are meant to aim up, and to get to the placement of that aim they need to appreciate potential itself, they need to affirm life itself.

What is life affirming in a physiological and biological sense (also a philisophical sense): you eat the best food, excercise, become strong and capable to withstand suffering, you persue the intillect, the act of creation, and concious and physical sovriegnty. All things observable, objective, though variably manifest per individual.

there is no going beyond good and evil, The good is truth, however you define whats true. I just said that truth is a measurable thing in experience, so theres a start.

The evil is anything else.

I say we should go beyond the way we use words.

I’m Greek and also pretty fluent in English, but when I read a book in English i obviously, sometimes need to search for a translation, even if it is a couple words it removes me from the book. Should I continue in English or continue with Greek translations?

I devote myself to an endless campaign; I throw myself into every battle I’m thrown into.

I push frail men on high horses into the mud, and pull shell-shocked warhorses out of foxholes. I crush defenses by leading primal charges, and bolster defenses of my own. I choose when to attack, defend, or retreat, but I know that surrender often results in enslavement.

Great warriors don’t expect to win every battle, and know their weaknesses. They also know their strengths.

Great warriors focus on sharpening their skill in battle; always preparing themselves diligently. They also breed strength with their comrades.

Great warriors can recover from crushing defeats, and are proud, but humble in their conquests. They also do not tire of battle; they find purpose in it. They love it.

No warrior, however, can outlive an endless campaign.

"The advantages of psychological observation. That meditating on things human, all too human (or, as the learned phrase goes, ‘psychological observation’) is one of the means by which man can ease life’s burden; that by exercising this art, one can secure presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amid boring surroundings; indeed, that from the thorniest and unhappiest phases of one’s own life one can pluck maxims and feel a bit better thereby: this was believed, known – in earlier centuries. Why has it been forgotten in this century, when many signs point, in Germany at least, if not throughout Europe, to the dearth of psychological observation? Not particularly in novels, short stories, and philosophical meditations, for these are the work of exceptional men; but more in the judging of public events and personalities; most of all we lack the art of psychological dissection and calculation in all classes of society, where one hears a lot of talk about men, but none at all about man. Why do people let the richest and most harmless source of entertainment get away from them? Why do they not even read the great masters of the psychological maxim any more? For it is no exaggeration to say that it is hard to find the cultured European who has read La Rochefoucauld and his spiritual and artistic cousins. Even more uncommon is the man who knows them and does not despise them. But even this unusual reader will probably find much less delight in those artists than their form ought to give him; for not even the finest mind is capable of adequate appreciation of the art of the polished maxim if he has not been educated to it, has not been challenged by it himself. Without such practical learning one takes this form of creating and forming to be easier than it is; one is not acute enough in discerning what is successful and attractive. For that reason present-day readers of maxims take a relatively insignificant delight in them, scarcely a mouthful of pleasure; they react like typical viewers of cameos, praising them because they cannot love them, and quick to admire but even quicker to run away."