held good in past ages, when aristocracy was unquestioned. The Egyptian government was
conducted on Nietzschean principles for several millennia. The governments of almost all large
States were aristocratic until the American and the French Revolutions. We have therefore to ask
ourselves whether there is any good reason for preferring democracy to a form of government
which has had such a long and successful history-or rather, since we are concerned with
philosophy, not politics, whether there are objective grounds for rejecting the ethic by which
Nietzsche supports aristocracy.
The ethical, as opposed to the political, question is one as to sympathy. Sympathy, in the sense of
being made unhappy by the sufferings of others, is to some extent natural to human beings; young
children are troubled when they hear other children crying. But the development of this feeling is
very different in different people. Some find pleasure in the infliction of torture; others, like
Buddha, feel that they cannot be completely happy so long as any living thing is suffering. Most
people divide mankind emotionally into friends and enemies, feeling sympathy for the former, but
not for the latter. An ethic such as that of Christianity or Buddhism has its emotional basis in
universal sympathy; Nietzsche's, in a complete absence of sympathy. (He frequently preaches
against sympathy, and in this respect one feels that he has no difficulty in obeying his own
precepts.) The question is: If Buddha and Nietzsche were confronted, could either produce any
argument that ought to appeal to the impartial listener? I am not thinking of political arguments.
We can imagine them appearing before the Almighty, as in the first chapter of the Book of Job,
and offering advice as to the sort of world He should create. What could either say?
Buddha would open the argument by speaking of the lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor,
toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle,
dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful
haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of
salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.
Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his
turn came: "Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about snivelling
because