GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

642 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THfe MODERNS
manifesto protesting against a policy on the part ofthe State
which seeks to substitute "neo-paganism" for Christianity,
sadly remarks: "There are many to-day who declare that
one need only seek God in nation, in race, in the commun-
ity and in blood. That places the creature above the
creator."
The " Superior " Man is he who Knows the Moral Law.
With one important exception, the foregoing summary of
Nietzsche's views may be taken as embodying the essence
of fascist ethical theory. The exception illustrates the
difficulty already mentioned as confronting the expositor
of Fascism, the difficulty, namely, which arises from the
differences between German and Italian Fascism. For the
exception is nothing more nor less than the assertion of
the existence and the validity of the moral law. This
assertion, which finds little place in the writings of German
fascists, is put into the forefront of their creed by the
advocates of Italian Fascism. The attitude of German
Fascism to truth is, as we have seen, frankly pragmatic;
its attitude to morals is either relativist, in the sense that
it mamtains that right is what conduces to the power of
the stronger, or else Nietzschean, in the sense that it equates
virtue with strength. Italian writers, however, maintain
the existence of a moral law which is both absolute and
independent of our apprehension of it. Hence, while the
Nazis are apt to write as if the "superior" in a com-
munity were rendered superior simply by virtue of their
stronger will and greater power, Italian fascists assess a
man's "superiority" by reference to his capacity to discern
and his willingness to obey the moral law. Italian Fascism,
in feet, maintains that the rulers in a community are, or
at least ought to be, those who know the Good.
The view that those who know the Good ought to
rule has not lacked its advocates at any time since Plato
declared that philosophers should be the kings of his
ideal State. It appears, for example, in the work of Carlyle
(1795-1881). I have already referred to Carlyle'i definition