Whether our poor human race ever will surpass itself, as he demands, and rise to something psychologically different, "may admit a wide solution." It is not an unscientific idea. It is not an irreligious idea. It has all the dreams of the Prophets behind it. But--who can tell? It is quite as possible that the spirit of destruction in us will wantonly ruin this great Chance as that we shall seize upon it. Man has many other impulses besides the impulse of creation. Perhaps he will never be seduced into even _desiring_ such a goal, far less "willing" it over long spaces of time.
The curious "optimism" of Nietzsche, by means of which he sought to force himself into a mood of such Dionysian ecstasy as to be able not only to endure Fate, but to "love" it, is yet another example of the subterranean "conscience" of Christianity working in him. In the presence of such a mood, and, indeed, in the presence of nearly all his great dramatic Passions, it is Nietzsche, and not his humorous critic, who is "with Our Lord" in Gethsemane. One does not drink of the cup of Fate "lovingly"--without bloody sweat!
The interesting thing to observe about Nietzsche's ideas is that the wider they depart from what was essentially Christian in him, the less convincing they grow. One cannot help feeling he recognised this himself--and, infuriated by it, strode further and further into the Jungle.
For instance, one cannot suppose that the cult of "the Blonde Beast," and the cult of Caesar Borgia, were anything but mad reprisals, directed towards himself, in savage revenge; blind blows struck at random against the lofty and penetrating spirituality in which he had indulged when writing Zarathustra.
But there is a point here of some curious psychological interest, to which we are attracted by a certain treacherous red glow upon his words when he speaks of this sultry, crouching, spotted, tail-lashing mood. Why is it precisely this Borgian type, this Renaissance type, among the world's various Lust-Darlings that he chooses to select?
Why does he not oppose, to the Christian Ideal, _its true opposite_--the naive, artless, faun-like, pagan "child of Nature," who has never known "remorse"?
The answer is clear. He chooses the Borgian type--the type which is _not_ free from "superstition," which is always wrestling with "superstition"--the type that sprinkles holy water upon its dagger--because such a type is the inevitable _product_ of the presence among us of the Christian Ideal. The Christian Ideal has made a certain complication of "wickedness" possible, which were impossible without it.