H.G. WELLS AND NIETZSCHE.

. . . . . In Europe most of the so-called anarchists, from the days of Proudhon and Marx to the time of Kropotkin, have been really reconstructionists. Their anarchism is only a necessary intermediate step before they can begin to reconstruct. In India, on the other hand, . . . . .are found worshipping Kali and Sivaji. Their anarchism is a religion, and it is a religion of destruction.
"The Times" puts the matter this way:—
"Anarchism in its modern shape is a distinctive and characteristic disease of Western societies; but it seems not impossible that the poisonous growth, once transplanted into Eastern surroundings, may prove to be even more venomous than in its earlier home."
And that charge is true. There is an anarchism in the West, however, that has no reconstructive element in it at all. It is a pure gospel of revolt. The pure anarchists were expelled from the "International" in 1872; and that expulsion marked the decisive division between the out-and-out destroyers and the reconstructers. This pure gospel of revolt is associated in most minds with the teachings of Bakunin and his disciple Netshajeff, and with the deeds of such men as Ravachol, who was guillotined for murder in 1892.
But there are other and more interesting names than these. Nietzsche, who died in 1900 in a mad-house, may be said to be the chief apostle of the gospel of pure anarchy in our own day; and such a popular and able writer as H. G. Wells may be regarded as a promising graduate in this school. Although Mr. Wells speaks with an ambiguous voice, and seems inclined to pose as a constructive socialist, yet his latest work, "Tono-Bungay," reads like a message of pure attack, pure revolt, pure destruction against all our civilised life. There is no denying the power of the book in its sadness, but the most interesting thing in it is the mind of the hero— who is really the author in disguise—and the opinion of the hero about all our modern life. That opinion is one of pure pessimism. The author seems to he one who has been so mutilated and crushed by the force of life in his own personal history that he thinks all our civilisation now is only fit to be destroyed. Our religion and our morality are all false, our commerce is all waste, our whole twentieth century state of life is merely fuel for burning.

But our concern is not with the disciple—if we be right in regarding Mr. Wells as a disciple—but with the master, Nietzsche. Nietzsche died at the age of 56, and for the last five years of his life he had been insane. Yet from the year 1878 onwards this man poured out for nearly twenty years a series of volumes which have had a great effect on Western discontent. They have been now for nearly a generation the gospel of anarchy for all the educated malcontents of our modern life. Nietzsche's chief work was "Thus spake Zarathustra," a work on which all his other writings are said to be mere commentary. His great problem was—"Who is to be master of the world?" His style is like a turgid imitation of a Hebrew prophet. He is not a continuous thinker, but a master of sentences, and his epigrammatic oracles are cryptic and bombastic in form. One would be tempted to compare him with Leopardi, but Leopardi is the lyric poet of pessimism, while Nietzsche is the turgid prophet of revolt. His gospel may be summed up in two positions. First, Christianity is dead, and has been dead ever since tho days of Kant. Kant gave the coup-de-grace to Christian theology. Second, the time has now come to attack and destroy the Christian morality. For the Christian ethics have survived the Christian religion. Hence Nietzsche's task is to do for the Christian morality what he holds that Kant did for the Christian dogma—give it the death-blow. Men have been in the habit of thinking that the Christian ethics, as expounded, say, in the Sermon on the Mount, are a good thing, and that the faults of our civilisation and our history arise from the fact that we have not followed that morality with faithfulness. But Nietzsche contends that all the Christian ethics, and especially the Sermon on the Mount, is utterly false and bad and corrupting. Europe has fed on this immoral teaching for two thousand years. Hence all the teachings of our Western civilisation at the present day are weak, sick, decadent, corrupt; and all this evil is tho direct result of Christianity. Abolish Christianity root and branch, and then the world will right itself. It is here that the great similarity between Mr. Wells and Nietzsche arrests the attention of the reader. For Mr. Wells is not only a thorough-going despiser and ridiculer of the Christian religion; he is also our most thorough-going rebel against the Christian ethics and the standards of the Christian morality.

Let us assume, then, that Nietzsche completes the work of Kant, and that the slavish and immoral ethics of our religion follow into oblivion its puerile superstitions, and wholly contemptible doctrines. What results? "Who is to be master of the world?" Pure anarchy results; and out of the pure anarchy arises the "superman." The race will fall back into—or, rather, in Nietzsche's language, it will rise up into—a state of pure animalism. For animalism and anarchy are really just the same. Force and cunning, lust and robbery, will be the dominant factors in life. Pity and helpfulness will give place to unscrupulous cruelty, and weakness will be beaten down under the feet of strength. Thus will arise the race of the future, the race of the "superman," which will be as superior to the present race as the present race is superior to the pithecanthropus. And of what nature or character will be that superman? "Gifted with a sublime intellect and free; he will be able to "rule, not because he will but because he must; he will be possessed of the genius of the heart. . . . This possible demi-god, leading men because he is a leader, and followed by men loyally . . this knight of intellect and will . . this world-approving, exuberant, and vivacious man . . this is a faint forecast" says Ludovici—"of Nietzsche's superman." It is wonderful. Ladies and gentlemen, says the conjurer, you see that I put into the box an ape, a tiger, a serpent, and a swine. I then turn it round three times. I open the door. There walks out an angel. Could anything be more wonderful? And yet I assure you there is no deception. There was absolutely nothing there in the box but the ape and the tiger, the serpent and the swine, all fighting it out among themselves. The angel is the result. If we only consent to throw overboard the ethics of the past two thousand years, and adopt pure anarchy as our custom of living, then some of us will become angels, and the rest will become docile, virtuous, and loyal followers. But the trouble is that while all of us are singing the hymn, "I'd like to be an angel,  and with the angels stand," only some of us can be angels and overlords; the rest must be humble, obedient, silent, and unquestioning subjects. And if we object, we are quickly suppressed. It reminds one of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The angel is Legree, the rest of us are Uncle Toms. We are inclined to think that the human race has heard of the Nietzschian heaven and the Nietzschian superman before; and the conclusion of the whole matter is that it is a very poor gospel for the underdog in the "fight." Yet this is the kind of teaching that is appealing to the educated malcontents of our day as the gospel of hope for the future of mankind.

 The Argus 24 April 1909, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10710612