Abstract

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN STATED that Nietzsche's predominantly aphoristic style of writing militated against the construction of any system analogous to those of Spinoza and Hegel. The statement is doubtless true. But it is essential to add that Nietzsche had no wish to construct such a system. Spinoza was convinced that the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things; and Hegel believed that the rational is the real and the real the rational. Nietzsche, however, had no such conviction or belief. Hence it would be rather misleading to say that he "failed" to construct a system comparable to those of Spinoza or Hegel.