THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
The only Jewish publication in the State of Michigan
Devoted to the interests of the Jewish people
Vol. I. No. 12
DETROIT, MICH., MAY 19, 1916
$1.50 per Year
Single Copies 5 Cents
By DR. ABRAM LIPSKY
* *
Reprinted from the American Hebrew
ii:
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Slave Morality
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"Nietzsche has become a staple
article in the periodicals and news-
papers," wrote I'rofessor Paulsen
the application blanks
in 1899; the
of our public libraries the name of
Nietzsche occurs more frequently
than any other's ; yes, I have been
told by teachers in the gymnasium
that traces of Nietzsche's spirit and
writings may occasionally be found
in the German compositions of their
pupils, by no means of the least tal-
ented of them."
Were Professor Paulsen alive to-
day he would find the influence he
deplored stronger than ever. 11ooks
–about Nietzsche have multiplied in
all languages. They may be counted
by the hundreds. Only a few years
ago, lie was translated into English,
and already a marked change is
noticeable in this country in the tone
of the references to Nietzsche. I lis
ideas arc not now easily dismissed
as the vagaries of a madman. They
have entered into the arena of
thought and must be reckoned with.
Few people have as yet a clear
understanding of just what Nietz-
sche meant. An illustration of what
he did not mean was furnished re-
cently by a humorist on one of the
New York papers, who remarked
that, having been dabbling a little in
Nietzsche, he thought he would go
out and take the pennies from the
blind newsboy on the corner. Nietz-
sche did not advise crude brutality.
He was not a practical man in that
sense. He was a visionary, and his
vision was of a more perfect man
who would not allow himself to be
softened by feelings of pity, who
would be strong and hard and drive
on toward his goal regardless of the
feelings of weaker creatures.
The strong man might even use
his strength for the good of the
weak, but the good of the weak
must be subordinate to the good of
the strong. Above all, no debilitat-
ing, dissolving, degrading "love"!
No self-sacrifice of the strong for
the weak ! No coddling of the un-
fit ! Let them perish rather! Nay,
help them to die!
A practical man getting hold of a
philosophy like this might soon find
himself in difficulties. Nietzsche's
thought was not concerned with the
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man at his side. Ile would not ad- me the noise of thy songs ; for I rail-splitter explain the wisdom and
vise his sister or his friend to do will not hear the melody of thy eloquence of the Gettysburg ad-
anything unconventional. He did viols. But let justice run down as dress. In Amos a window was open
not himself attempt anything. His waters, and righteousness as a upon a heaven of truth to which his
contemporaries were inaccessible.
conduct was perfectly regular. He mighty stream."
Does
he
perhaps
mean
justice
to
He saw, and the others (lid not.
condemned irregularity in others.
corpora-
Amos
knew of the Egyptian t•adi-
Ile was, in short, concerned with the rich man, to the big -
moral ideals, and lie lived in a world tions? Plainly not ! "Forasmuch, tion. I le refers to the "forty years
therefore, as your treading is upon wandering." But it would be as
of theory.
In the I lebrew tradition, Nietz- the poor, and ye take from him bur- reasonable to suppose his moral
sche found the antithesis to his dens of wheat, ye have built houses ideas based upon the Egyptian ex-
moral ideal. Ile therefore attacks of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell perience as to assume that the ethics
with the utmost ferocity Jewish and in them ve have planted pleasant of Cicero were rooted in the politi-
Christian ethics. "Slave morality" vineyards, but ye shall not drink cal history of,Alba Longa, or those
is his name for the ethics of the wine of them," of I 'Lao in the pre-llomeric age.
prophets and of the sermon on the Already at that early age, it Did Amos, or his less articulate
mount, invented by a nation whose seems, the detestation of sheer 1 Icbrew predecessors, discover the
role in history has been subjection power which the Jews, according morals of Pity . ? If we go bark to
to other nations. Hebraic morality to Nietzsche, have since made fash- the Egyptians themselves, that Inas-
is fit only for the w eak, the sick, the ionable in the world, was being terful race of pyramid builders in
preached by Amos. He advises the whose land the Hebrews tasted the
inferior,
It is notoriously impossible to re- men of might : "Ye who turn judg- bitterness of bondage, do we find
fute a prophet, but Nietzsche, the ment to w ormwood and leave off "Hurenmoral," master morality,
historian and anthropologist, can„he righteousness in the earth seek Him reigning supreme? Far from it
confronted with facts. The concep- that maketh the seven stars and The ancient oppressors of Israel
tion of the ancient Jews as a slave Orion—the Lord that strengtheneth had already discovered slave !nor-
nation is based, of course, upon the spoiled against the strong, so ality, were recommending it to one
their two extremely dramatic ex- that the spoiled shall come against another, and were attributing the
periences with Egypt and Babylon. the fortress." God is on the side appreciation of it to their gods cen-
There is no question but that these of the poor, the weak, the down- turies before Amos.
There is, for example, a "Hymn
two events exerted a profound in- trodden, and they shall prevail in
to Anion Re," in which the god is
fluence upon the life and literature the end.
Amos was not uttering the stereo- extolled as:
of the Jews. The most splendid
portions of Isaiah were written dur- typed phrases of a profesional "Hearing the complaint of him who
ing or after the exile in Babylon. , preacher. He was no prophet by is oppressed,
Kindly of heart when called
Jeremiah spoke while the conqueror profession, but "a shepherd and
was at the city gates and after the dresser of sycamore trees." He left upon.
He delivereth the timid from him
blow had fallen. Exile, captivity, his work to tell the king and the
restoration — these notes sound rich aristocracy of Israel that be- who is of a forward heart.
He judgeth the cause of the weak
throughout almost all the prophetic cause of their self-aggrandizement,
their
luxurious
living,
their
oppres-
and
the oppressed."
literature. There was a time, how-
The resemblance to the prophetic
ever, when Egyptian bondage was sion of the poor, the state, the body
politic
was
to
be
annihilated.
This
ideal
and especially to the tone of
a
half
mythical
legend
like
the
only
legends of the patriarchs, and when occurred 200 years before the time some of the Psalms is obvious.
Much earlier, going back to about
subjection to the Assyrian seemed a of Confucius or Buddha, and 300
years
before
Plato
or
Euripides—
1500
B. C., is the celebrated "Book
very remote possibility. It was at
of the Dead," a collection of form-
this time that Amos, the earliest of about 750 13. C.
One asks inevitably how this ulae that the soul was to recite upon
the prophets whose recorded word
we have, tittered his denunciations herdsman attained such remarkable facing the Eternal Judge. Here we
against the luxurious and the pow- moral ideas that they sound radical have a catalogue of the sins the god
erful of Israel. And in Amos we 2,600 years later? What also were abhorred :
"I allowed no one to hunger.
discover "slave morality"—sympa- his literary antecedents ? Where did
I caused no one to weep.
thy for the poor and the oppressed he acquire that astonishing rhetoric,
I did not murder.
that
irresistible
thrust
of
phrase,
un-
—full blown.
I did not command to murder.
"Hate the evil and love the good surpassed in the literature of the
I caused no man misery.
and establish judgment in the gate," world? There were legal codes,
I did not take milk from the
thunders Amos. • Evidently by legends, chronicles, written prophe-
"good" he means not "increase of cies, no doubt, but all that is known mouth of a child.
My voice was not over loud.
power." — Nietzsche's definition— explains Amos as little as do the
My mouth did not run away,
but justice. "Take thou away from known facts about the American