approximation to his ideal man, in order to press it forward as the
incarnation of his thoughts. Wagner the reformer of mankind! Wagner
the dithyrambic dramatist!--The reader who knows Nietzsche will not be
misled by these expressions.

To the uninitiated reader, however, some words of explanation are due,
not only in regard to the two papers before us, but in regard to
Nietzsche himself. So much in our time is learnt from hearsay
concerning prominent figures in science, art, religion, or philosophy,
that it is hardly possible for anybody to-day, however badly informed
he may be, to begin the study of any great writer or scientist with a
perfectly open mind. It were well, therefore, to begin the study of
Nietzsche with some definite idea as to his unaltered purpose, if he
ever possessed such a thing; as to his lifelong ideal, if he ever kept
one so long; and as to the one direction in which he always travelled,
despite apparent deviations and windings. Had he such a purpose, such
an ideal, such a direction? We have no wish to open a controversy
here, neither do we think that in replying to this question in the
affirmative we shall give rise to one; for every careful student of
Nietzsche, we know, will uphold us in our view. Nietzsche had one very
definite and unaltered purpose, ideal and direction, and this was "the
elevation of the type man." He tells us in The Will to Power: "All is
truth to me that tends to elevate man!" To this principle he was
already pledged as a student at Leipzig; we owe every line that he
ever wrote to his devotion to it, and it is the key to all his
complexities, blasphemies, prolixities, and terrible earnestness. All
was good to Nietzsche that tended to elevate man; all was bad that
kept man stationary or sent him backwards. Hence he wrote David
Strauss, the Confessor and Writer (1873).