GOSPEL OF THE SUPERHUMAN

In a new introduction, M. Lichtenberger absolves Nietzsche from all responsibility for the World War. Here as elsewhere, it seems that the author has failed to reconcile the contradictions in the philosopher's doctrines, so eager is he to have us admire his Dionysian god. Briefly, the expositor shows Nietzsche as an excellent example of his own theory that a philosophy is primary an expression of the philosopher's personality. At first a pessimist because he was sick in body and mind, Nietzsche conquered the fear of pain by sheer willpower, and became thereby the greatest of optimists, which means, according to his own definition, that he learned to say YEA to everything in life. Nietzsche, by understanding himself and by courageously looking at everything in the face, helps those who study him to understand themselves and to boldly exercise free inquiry in all matters. You may reject his philosophy as absurd and impossible, but you can not escape, once you have read him, from the powerful and fierce personality that so ruthlessly slashed at Christianity, democracy, feminism, and modern morality, that held up as ideals the Will to Power and the honest, fearless, cruel, yea-sayings superman. Ecce Homo! The critic and destroyer, the builder and the prophet.