he denounces, but the doctrine by which
he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial
oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book
(about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the
Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses
Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that
war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is
waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing
a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that
the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a
lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a
lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland
or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school
goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are
treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and
goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically
are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite
sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on
politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics
he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in
revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By
rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against
anything.

It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed in
all fierce and terrible types of literature, especially in satire.
Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it presupposes an admitted
superiority in certain things over others; it presupposes a standard.
When little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of some
distinguished journalist, they are unconsciously assuming a standard of
Greek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. And the
curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of
the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about.
Nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though he
could not laugh; but there is always something bodiless and without
weight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of common
morality behind it. He is himself more preposterous than anything he
denounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will stand ver