with the Orphic component omitted. He admired the pre-Socratics, except Pythagoras. He has a
close affinity to Heraclitus. Aristotle's magnanimous man is very like what Nietzsche calls the
"noble man," but in the main he regards the Greek philosophers from Socrates onwards as inferior
to their predecessors. He cannot forgive Socrates for his humble origin; he calls him a "roturier,"
and accuses him of corrupting the noble Athenian youth with a democratic moral bias. Plato,
especially, is condemned on account of his taste for edification. Nietzsche, however, obviously
does not quite like condemning him, and suggests, to excuse him, that perhaps he was insincere,
and only preached virtue as a means of keeping the lower classes in order. He speaks of him on
one occasion as "a great Cagliostro." He likes Democritus and Epicurus, but his affection for the
latter seems somewhat illogical, unless it is interpreted as really an admiration for Lucretius.
As might be expected, he has a low opinion of Kant, whom he calls "a moral fanatic à la
Rousseau."
In spite of Nietzsche's criticism of the romantics, his outlook owes much to them; it is that of
aristocratic anarchism, like Byron's, and one is not surprised to find him admiring Byron. He
attempts to combine two sets of values which are not easily harmonized: on the one hand he likes
ruthlessness, war, and aristocratic pride; on the other hand, he loves philosophy and literature and
the arts, especially music. Historically, these values coexisted in the Renaissance; Pope Julius II,
fighting for Bologna and employing Michelangelo, might be taken as the sort of man whom
Nietzsche would wish to see in control of governments. It is natural to compare Nietzsche with
Machiavelli, in spite of important differences between the two men. As for the differences:
Machiavelli was a man of affairs, whose opinions had been formed by close contact with public
business, and were in harmony with his age; he was not pedantic or systematic, and his philosophy
of politics scarcely forms a coherent whole; Nietzsche, on the contrary, was a professor, an
essentially bookish man, and a philosopher in conscious opposition to what appeared to be the
dominant political and ethical trends of his time. The similarities, however, go deeper. Nietzsche's
political philosophy is analogous to that of The Prince (not The Discourses), though it is worked
out and applied over a