ABSTRACT
Nietzsche is a German philosopher; his critique of Western civilization ought perhaps to be ignored because his ideas, if not directly causative of German political attitudes, are at least expressive of a specifically German view of politics. The earlier mentioned study by H. L. Stewart found in Nietzsche one of the causes of the German state of mind that was responsible for the first Great War. The War of 1914–1918 has occasioned one interpretation of Nietzsche which must be counted among the great, the interpretation by George Santayana in his Egotism in German Philosophy. Assuming egotism as the criterion, Santayana can concur with Nietzsche in the diagnosis of the crisis to a certain extent. Santayana’s category of egotism is an excellent instrument for the interpretation of the crisis, German and general, as well as of Nietzsche, up to a certain point.
