But it was outside of the associations and outside of the school that
the flame of creative genius burned brightly. The man of the last
generation was Nietzsche. That his thought has been perverted by his
interpreters there is no doubt. They have taken this eagle who gazed
unblinded at the sun and exhibited him to the young people in all sorts
of philosophic roles for the benefit of the industrial and military
coalition. Nietzsche depicted in lines of fire the resurrection of
heroism, his vision of the superman was that of an ardent soul, steeled
by sufferings, meditating a tragic conception of life with serenity,
and in his solitary individualism surmounting the infirmity of man and
his own by the insistent will to eternal ascension.
He was made the apostle of brute force, a sort of Messiah of the
"struggle for life." Moreover, he was soon put one side and Gobineau was
revived. He also, who if he did not have genius had wit, would have been
surprised and hardly flattered perhaps by the role which they made him
play. The dolichocephalic (long-skulled) blonde whom he celebrated was
not exactly the one whom we are now judging by his works, but at least
he proclaimed the superiority of the German race.
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