lism at all, as Mr. Wells and his friends fancy. It is the
first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in
the strongest school. Nor can I imagine anything that would do humanity
more good than the advent of a race of Supermen, for them to fight like
dragons. If the Superman is better than we, of course we need not fight
him; but in that case, why not call him the Saint? But if he is merely
stronger (whether physically, mentally, or morally stronger, I do not
care a farthing), then he ought to have to reckon with us at least for
all the strength we have. It we are weaker than he, that is no reason
why we should be weaker than ourselves. If we are not tall enough to
touch the giant's knees, that is no reason why we should become shorter
by falling on our own. But that is at bottom the meaning of all modern
hero-worship and celebration of the Strong Man, the Caesar the
Superman. That he may be something more than man, we must be something
less.

Doubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this. But the
old hero was a being who, like Achilles, was more human than humanity
itself. Nietzsche's Superman is cold and friendless. Achilles is so
foolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters armies in the agony of
his bereavement. Mr. Shaw's sad Caesar says in his desolate pride, "He
who has never hoped can never despair." The Man-God of old answers from
his awful hill, "Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" A great man is
not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so
strong that he feels more. And when Nietszche says, "A new commandment
I give to you, 'be hard,'" he is really saying, "A new commandment I
give to you, 'be dead.'" Sensibility is the definition of life.

I recur for a last word to Jack the Giant-Killer. I have dwelt on this
matter of Mr. Wells and the giants, not because it is specially
prominent in his mind; I know that the Superman does not bulk so large
in his cosmos as in that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. I have dwelt on it for
the opposite reason; because this heresy of immoral hero-worship has
taken, I think, a slighter hold of him, and may perhaps still be
prevented from perverting one of the best thinkers of the day. In the
course of "The New Utopia" Mr. Wells makes more than one admiring
allusion to Mr. W. E. Henley. That clever and unhappy man lived in
admiration of a vague violence, and was always going back to rude old
tales and rude old ballad