Self-transcendence, according to Nietzsche, is the common essence of all moral codes. "Man," he says, "is something that should be transcended."⁽⁵²⁾ Self-transcendence is, for him, not only the essence of morality, but most emphatically the essence of man himself--his authentic, civilized humanity. The superman, Nietzsche's model of the self-perfected man, is the most authentic, civilized man. He is precisely one who has overcome or transcended himself. Self overcoming is the basis of self-transcendence and self-perfection: that, in brief, is the essence of the Nietzschean conception of man.

Confucius once said: "To transcend oneself and return to li--that is what is meant by jen."⁽⁵³⁾ What Confucius means by li and jen here may be put succinctly: li is what constitutes the civilized order by which our authentic humanity or jen is defined. To be more specific, li is the ritual propriety essential to civilized life; it is the civilizing factor or element--the "civilized form," if you will--that distinguishes human from non-human existence. This civilizing function of li lies precisely in its disciplinary power--in the human power of self-command. Like the Nietzschean superman, the Confucian chun-tzu or superior man is also an authentic, civilized human being: he, too, is one who has overcome or transcended himself.

Thus there exists at least a notable formal similarity or parallel between Nietzschean and Confucian philosophy in their conception of authentic humanity: namely, the recognition that the being of man is at heart moral in character;⁽⁵⁴⁾ that the process of being human, the civilizing process, is fundamentally a process of "moral creativity", the creative transformation of human character by virtue of self-overcoming or self-command.

Thus conceived, moral creativity is in truth human creativity; man, for Nietzsche, is at once the "creator" and "creature" of his authentic existence. Or, to put it in a well-known existential phraseology, "man is nothing but that which he makes of himself":⁽⁵⁵⁾ man is the product of his own "selfmaking." But what makes moral creativity "moral" and defines the "moral" dimension of being human is none other than the power and reality of selfovercoming. There can be no question then that in both Nietzschean and Confucian thought man's capacity of self-command is of the essence of his humanity; self-transcendence is indeed the constitutive principle of man.

What does it mean to be overcome; what really constitutes the human reality of self-transcendence; how can man at the same time be the "one who overcomes" and the "one who is overcome"; and are these two capacities of man constituted differently, or are they constituted of the same underlying reality? In overcoming himself, man must first experience an opposition arising within himself, but what is the nature and meaning of this internal opposition: is it an opposition between two mutually exclusive forces, or is it rather the opposition of polarities which belong in deep harmony to the same organic whole? The answers to these questions will not only throw light on the phenomenon of self-transcendence, but will tell us that, in spite of a fundamental similarity between Nietzschean and Confucian philosophy on the reaction between self-command and humanity, the differences between them are also decisive.

That man is not a stone but, as Ortega observes, must fight for being what he is, and that he is quite capable of acting in opposition to himself or in spite of himself, is, of course, universally recognized. But the answer to the question pertaining to the nature of the fight, the internal struggle or opposition so characteristic of the moral dimension of selfhood, is by no means obvious. That man is different from the rest of nature--or again, as Ortega puts it, that "man's being and nature's being do not fully coincide"⁽⁵⁶⁾ --is almost everywhere taken for granted. The distinction between "natural" and an "extranatural" dimensions of man (in Ortega's terms) is undoubtedly one of the most widespread conceptions in civilized thinking. The natural self is the animal or not-yet-civilized self: that part in us which we readily recognize as part of nature. But what of the extranatural part? Wherein, exactly, lies the "human differential" that distinguishes man from beast; what is the source of man's extranatural self, of his extranatural humanity?

To the latter questions, Nietzsche, like Ortega, Sartre, and the other twentieth century existentialists who have come so profoundly under his influence, has an answer that in its essence is quite unambiguous. What distinguishes man from the beast lies in his creative activity: the creator of his "extranatural humanity," or "humanity" in the proper sense of the word, is not God, but man himself. The extranatural self is at once the creator and creature of his own creation: the human differential belongs to man as creative subject--to his creative subjectivity.

That Nietzsche's thought is at heart permeated by an aesthetic or artistic conception of life is almost unanimously recognized by his commentators, including the late Walter Kaufmann and the recently much discussed Alexander Nehamas. Indeed, the latter's brilliant commentary, subtitled "Life as Literature", is based entirely on this interpretation, as are in substance Kaufmann's earlier well-known classics.⁽⁵⁷⁾ Nehamas's subtitle reminds us of a very Nietzschean statement in one of Ortega's famous essays: "whether he be original or a plagiarist, man is the novelist of himself."⁽⁵⁸⁾ But Nietzsche's own words are more emphatic: "One thing is needful.--`to give style' to one's character--a great and rare art!"⁽⁵⁹⁾ Nietzsche's conception of human life and authentic selfhood is fundamentally modeled upon the process of artistic creation. Man is at once the artist, the basic raw material, and the finished product of his own self-transcending creativity. Just as the creative artist must transcend the resistance of his raw material in transforming it into a beautiful work of art, so the creator in man must transcend the resistance of his natural self in giving form and shape to his extra-natural humanity (the self as creature). Moral creativity then for Nietzsche is essentially aesthetic in character: it is a matter of imaginative ordering whereby the original chaos of raw material or data is organized in virtue of the artist's appropriative-creative power of projection and interpretation.

In the context of human life, the "chaos" just spoken of refers, of course, to the natural self. The chaos inherent in the human self is the chaos of unrestrained instincts, drives, desires, and passions--in short, the chaos of (what the Greeks called) Eros. For Nietzsche, man is at bottom nothing more than a field of warring instincts. Each instinct seeks its own gratification and seeks to be on top of every other instinct: this dynamic essence of Eros or the instinctual field is what Nietzsche termed the "will to power." Let us note immediately that the will to power is not itself a particular instinctual drive, but is the common feature of all instinctual drives. The life of Eros seeks power: it is indeed (in essence) the will to power.

The will to power is the will to command, the will to prevail over a situation or environment. It is, if we may express it in familiar Buddhistic terms, essentially a form of grasping. The will to power is the "will to grasp," that is, the tendency for a given organism, life-form or, in general, a strand of activity or power to persist and perpetuate itself. It is most interesting to observe that, like the Buddhists, Nietzsche denies the substantial notion of "selves" and "things", dismissing them both as conceptually constructed fictions. The fundamental difference between Buddhism and Nietzsche lies, of course, in their opposing attitudes towards the underlying reality of grasping, that is, of the life of Eros. For the Buddhists, the life of Eros is samsara or the realm of suffering, liberation from which defines the very meaning of nirvana. But for Nietzsche the life of Eros is the only life there is: grasping or the will to power is of the essence of all life.

For Nietzsche the solution to the problems of civilized mankind and the enigmas of life is not to be found in a cessation of suffering, as the Buddhists would have it, through extinguishing the fire and passions of grasping, but--anticipating Freud--through the sublimation and creative transformation of the natural self, the chaotic complex of instinctual passions. Sublimation then is the mechanism of self-overcoming and thus the thrust of moral, human creativity. The superman is one who transcends himself, who succeeds in sublimating his gross or basic instincts along with the most fruitful or creative channels.⁽⁶⁰⁾ There is no doubt in Nietzsche's mind that the sublimational process of self-overcoming is what lies at the heart of civilized humanity. The noble and the ignoble--or the good and the bad-- are, from the "civilizational" standpoint, not mutually exclusive. The noble is in fact derived from the ignoble, the good from the bad. If every human society may be looked upon as at heart nothing more than a civilizational strategy of "instinctual management," then the "repressive" strategy of most traditional societies would be for Nietzsche as for Freud, highly undesirable. Much of Nietzsche's critique of Christian morality cannot be properly understood except from the standpoint of the sublimational strategy. But the condition for the effectiveness of the sublimational strategy is the strength or power of self-command. Indeed, according to Nietzsche, the power of selfcommand--the basis of all creative strength--is the highest manifestation of the will to power. There is reason to believe that although the power of self-overcoming is in principle only a special form of the will to power, the latter concept was, in the order of discovery, derivative of the former. We believe that it was Nietzsche's own experience and insights into the nature of self-command and moral creativity that finally led to the formulation of his power doctrine, and that is perhaps the way it should be.

That Nietzsche always depends on literary or artistic models for understanding life and world, as Nehamas observes,⁽⁶¹⁾ is not really surprising in light of his profound attachment to the Greek cultural tradition. For the artistic model of thinking is, among civilized peoples in the ancient world, most prevalent with the Greeks. Plato's application of this in the cosmogony and cosmology of the Timaeus is the most notable example. Like Plato's Demiurge or supreme artisan in the Timaeus, the creator in man in Nietzsche's aesthetic conception of life and self-creativity is also responsible for the passage from chaos to cosmos--from the lack of order to the acquisition of order.

But what is the origin of order? Is it immanent in the chaos, or does it come rather from a different source? When we apply these questions to Nietzsche's philosophy, one is immediately reminded of the famous dichotomy in his early writing between the Dionysian and Apollinian principles-- that is, between impulse and reason, nature and culture--betraying an unmistakably dualistic conception of life and reality. Yet in his later works the two symbols have, according to Kaufmann, become "merged into one, with the Apollonian principle being absorbed into the all-encompassing symbolism of Dionysus."⁽⁶²⁾ What Dionysus now stands for is creativity itself. As the ultimate creative principle, Dionysius symbolizes at once the ground of life and spirit, of impulse and reason, of nature and culture. It is, in short, the will to power.

The distinction between life and spirit in Nietzsche corresponds to Ortega's distinction between the natural and the extranatural parts in man's being. "The spirit (Geist)," says Nietzsche, "is the life that itself cuts into life."⁽⁶³⁾ This statement implies clearly that not only does the natural self constitute the foundation for the extranatural self, but the latter is actually derived from the former and is even an aspect of it. Thus Nietzsche's position is not only radically different from the traditional dualistic conception of man as typically exemplified by the famous "chariot" metaphor in Plato's Phaedrus in which impulses (nature) and reason are essentially unrelated, but also quite removed from the indifference or even hostility towards the natural that has figured so prominently in contemporary existentialism. If the relation between reason and impulse can be represented as a relation between an animal tamer and his beast, then for Nietzsche the tamer is originally beastly in nature. To put it more emphatically, the tamer is in fact the beast itself, for it is the beast that is both beast and tamer. The beast tames itself: out of itself it has evolved its own tamer.

The truth is, we believe, that Nietzsche's mature philosophy is governed not so much by the artistic model which tends to give a dualistic interpretation to the self-ordering process inherent in the organization of selfhood, as by the organic model which conceives self-ordering as a function of organic, field determination. Indeed, Nietzsche does conceive the raw, uncivilized self (life), which constitutes the natural foundation for the extranatural self (spirit), as originally nothing but a field of warring drives, a chaos of instinctual passions. But the order of civilized manhood, which is not given but something to be achieved, is not derived from any transcendent source, external to its natural foundation. The passage from chaos to cosmos, a transition from a relatively unresolved state of conflicts to a relatively determinate state of order and harmony, is essentially a matter of organic evolution. It is the same dynamic field of instinctual drives, a multiplicity of contending desires, thoughts and interests forming the contents of the personal self, that play the diverse roles of artisan and material, tamer and beast, subject and object. The conditions effecting the passage from disorder to order are all inherent in the instinctual field itself, which serves as a playground for the will to power. Hence, it is really the same will to power that is at once the beast and the tamer, the overcome and the one who overcomes. The will to power transcends itself--in the interest of greater power.

Although Nietzsche's philosophy of man is ultimately based on an organic conception of selfhood, at least as a metaphoric guide the aesthetic model remains a decisive element in his thought. The importance of the aesthetic outlook in Nietzsche is attested by the strong role in his philosophy of the conscious ego with its capacity for imaginative ordering, which is the hallmark of the creative artist. On the other hand, Nietzsche seems to be just as strongly committed to the organic, field conception of order which inevitably reemphasizes the agency and efficacy of the conscious ego. This ambiguity and tension between the aesthetic and the organic approach is really never quite resolved in his thought.

Interestingly, a similar tension and ambiguity is also discernible in the theory of the self in classical (pre-Chin) Confucian philosophy. Between the "idealistic" and the "realistic" wings of Confucianism, represented respectively by the positions of Mencius and Hsun-tzu, the former clearly leans towards organic outlooks whereas the latter shows unmistakably aesthetic orientations. Hsun-tzu frequently employs artisan metaphors in his writings. His theory of moral order both for the individual self and for society is attributed ultimately to the work of conscious intelligence but often is couched both explicitly and implicitly in metaphoric expressions.⁽⁶⁴⁾

Like Nietzsche, Hsun-tzu also identifies the initial state of instinctual passions as a state of chaos and anarchy. That is what he meant by saying that man's original nature is evil. It is also his reason for holding that man must subject himself to the restraint and disciplines of li if he wants to lead a civilized life. The fact that for Hsun-tzu human beings are ultimately perfectible, that every one can become a sage, shows that for him instinctual desires are not in themselves evil. Under the proper guidance of conscious intelligence and through the taming power of li, the beast in man or his animal self can indeed be harnessed and transformed into a perfected civilized being.

Indeed, a dimly conceived "sublimationism" in the Nietzschean sense is even detectable in Hsun-tzu's writings. For Hsun-tzu, too, the good is derived from the bad, the noble from the ignoble. Evil is a matter of chaos, a function of excesses and unresolved conflicts; goodness lies in the achievement of the right proportion, in the restoration of order and harmony, which, of course, is the hallmark of an estheticism. What is fundamental to the aesthetic model of selfhood is, as suggested earlier, the tendency to attribute the source of order to the creative agency of the conscious ego. The beautiful form of a marble statue is to be attributed to the artistic power of the sculptor, not to the original block of marble. Similarly in Hsun-tzu's theory of human perfection the source of authentic, civilized humanity is rooted in conscious intelligence, not in chaotic desires or passions.

The relation between the instinctual self and conscious intelligence in Hsun-tzu is indeed very much like the relation between the charioteer (reason) and the pair of horses (desires and passions) in Plato's chariot metaphor of the soul. Hsun-tzu's artisan self is almost as much intellectually inclined as Plato's divine craftsman. Neither Plato nor Hsun-tzu recognized as did Nietzsche the possibility that conscious intelligence may itself carry the life-blood of Eros, which is an expression of the will to power. Furthermore, we may note that although both Plato and Hsun-tzu employ the aesthetic model in their philosophical thinking, the human creator in their models has as much the spirit of a guardian as that of an artisan. Like Plato in his later Dialogues, Hsun-tzu's philosophy betrays a severe lack of appreciation of the importance of the creative imagination. In virtue of its impulsion towards the novel and the unknown, inevitably, imagination poses a threat to the security and stability of the order essential to the maintenance and continuation of civilized society. This condition was almost non-existent in pre-Chin China during Hsun-tzu's times. Such conservatism in philosophical outlook is a natural tendency for a thinker imbued with the guardian spirit.

The spirit of the guardian--more precisely, the "moral guardian,"-- which figures so prominently in Confucian thought through the equation of chun tzu (authentic human being) with shih or "Knight of the Way," is precisely what is lacking in Nietzsche's philosophy. Zarathustra's teaching on the superman fundamentally extols the supreme value of the creative individual whose striving towards individual self-perfection seems to bear no essential relation (at least as Nietzsche sees it) to the conditions of the civilized society of which he is a member.⁽⁶⁵⁾ This is in sharp contrast to the spirit of Confucianism which is incurably social in character. The Confucian chun-tzu aims, to be sure, also at his own individual self-perfection; but his individual perfection is inextricably connected with his expected role as shih or Knight of the Way--that is, as the moral guardian of civilized humanity. Indeed, in Confucianism the ideal of individual perfection or nei sheng (literally sageness within) and the ideal of societal perfection or wai wang (literally kingliness without) are essentially inseparable. From the Confucian standpoint, there can be no morality apart from the standpoint of the "moral guardian" in us. Even if the Nietzschean superman may be said to have a "moral" dimension in his aesthetic self-creativity, in the context of Confucian ethics he cannot be said to be a "moral" being in the proper meaning of the term until he assumes--explicitly or implicitly--his role of moral guardianship.

The contrast between the Nietzschean superman and the Confucian knight may be further elaborated. The Nietzschean superman as the supreme specimen of the self-transcending creative individual is forever haunted by the playful lure of mystery arising from man's confrontation with the chaotic and the unknown, which is the basic impulse of human participation in the life of Eros. In contrast, the Confucian Knight is forever burdened with the solemn sense of responsibility issuing from a vital sympathetic feeling of kinship towards all life, but, of course, most strongly towards one's immediate relatives and kin. This defines our humanity in the life of jen. The life of Eros is prompted by possessive-aggressive tendencies towards grasping, by the desire to take hold of one's self in the persistence and independence of individuated selfhood. In contrast, the life of jen is ruled by the cohesive-empathetic tendencies towards bonding, by the longing to unite with others in the mutual belonging and harmony which characterizes the oneness of the greater whole. The fundamental contrast then is between the life of eros and the life of jen, between mystery and responsibility, between grasping and bonding, between creative individuality and moral guardianship. In short, the contrast between what we may term, respectively, the "Way of Wonder" and the "Way of Care,"--or "thaumaticism" (from Greek thaumazein, wonder) and "curaticism" (from Latin cura, care)--as respectively, two radically distinct modes of life and thought. Since eros and jen are both constitutive of the intrinsic nature of man, it would be difficult for any thinker to philosophize along an exclusively curatic or thaumatic line. No doubt, this accounts for the ambiguity in the thoughts of Plato, Hsun-tzu, and Nietzsche.

Perhaps the purest expression of the Way of Care or the curatic outlook is to be found in the "idealistic" Confucianism of Mencius. Although artisan metaphors are not absent in Mencius, they are not pertinent to his conception of self and authentic humanity. Mencius certainly does recognize that man must somehow act in opposition to himself in order to achieve authentic selfhood. Nevertheless, the harsh reality, or to borrow Nietzsche's own favorite term the "cruelty", of self-transcending, which both Nietzsche and Hsun-tzu would spare no effort to convey to their readers, is clearly not paramount in Mencius's mind. For him the process of human creativity is much less like that of a sculptor working laboriously on his block of marble, and much more like the ripening of a seed or kernel under the nurturing care of a cultivator. If in the aesthetic or artisan model, the credit of authentic achievement is attributed primarily to the "active" side of the self--to man as the artisan of his life--the same cannot be said of the organic or cultivator model. In the aesthetic model, the conscious ego in its capacity as self-creative artist is the source of order constitutive of the unity of the self. In the organic model the source of authentic humanity is not located in the conscious ego assuming the role of "self cultivator", but in the "passive" side of selfhood or what Mencius and the Chung Yung (Doctrine of the Mean) refer to simply as hsing or "nature". This nature is the original human endowment which contains the seed of one's true humanity. What the seed shall become is basically beyond the cultivator's control, but is determined primarily by the inner law of its self-becoming.

Mencius indeed likened the realization of humanity (jen) to the ripening of grains. One is readily reminded of how the man of Sung warns against the disastrous consequences of intervening too eagerly in the natural process of maturation.⁽⁶⁶⁾ For Mencius the way to become (authentically) human is simply to recover the "lost mind" in which are contained the germs of man's original goodness. Whereas Nietzsche sees in the will to power the unifying principle underlying the life of eros, Mencius locates the beginnings or origins of humanity in what he termed the "unbearing mind," the principle of human integrity for the life of jen. The unbearing mind is one that cannot bear the suffering of others. Its frustration is the frustration of our primal feeling of care--our instinct for bonding and mutual belonging. This is diametrically opposed to the will to power which, as the primal instinct of grasping, underlies the experience of wonder.

Unlike the artisan of the self, the cultivator in the process of self-becoming is not, properly speaking, a "creator." The creative principle belongs not to the imaginative ordering of the conscious ego, but to what in man is given by heaven, that is, to the power of jen which is the immanently deposited seed of humanity. While in the aesthetic model the inertly given raw self is to be imposed upon by the willful acts of the artisan-self, the heavenly given seed is for the cultivator-self the object of his care and nurture. Indeed, his nurturing care towards the seed is already an actualization of his potential humanity, the beginning of the ripening of jen. This conception of human creativity as consisting basically in a procreative process of ripening is what sets Mencius apart from both Nietzsche and Hsun-tzu.

Fairfield University

Fairfield, Conn., U.S.A.