Philosophies are world-conceptions presenting three main features: (1) A systematic comprehension of the knowledge of their age; (2) An emotional attitude toward the cosmos; and (3) A principle that will serve as a basis for rules of conduct. The first feature determines the worth of the several philosophical systems in the history of mankind, being the gist of that which will last, and giving them strength and backbone. The second one, however, appeals powerfully to the sentiments of those who

Professor Paul Deussen, Sanskritist and philosopher of Kiel, was Friedrich Nietzsche's most intimate friend. They were chums together in school in Schulpforta, and remained friends to the end of Nietzsche's life. Nietzsche had come to Schulpforta in 1858, and Deussen entered the next year in the same class. Once Nietzsche, who as the senior of the class had to keep order among his fellow scholars during working periods and prevent them from making a disturbance, approached Deussen while he sat i

According to Nietzsche, the history of philosophy from Plato to his own time is a progress of the idea that objective truth (a conception of "the true world") is not only not attainable, but does not exist at all. He expresses this idea in his Twilight of the Idols (English edition, pp. 122-123) under the caption, "How the 'True World' Finally Became a Fable," which describes the successive stages as follows: "1. The true world attainable by the wise, the pious, and the virtuous man,—he lives in

One might expect that Nietzsche, who glories in the triumph of the strong over the weak in the struggle for life, red in tooth and claw, would look up to Darwin as his master. But Nietzsche recognizes no, master, and he emphasizes this by speaking in his poetry of Darwin as "this English joker," whose "mediocre reason" is accepted for philosophy. [1] To Nietzsche that which exists is the mere incidental product of blind forces. Instead of working for a development of the better from the best of

He quintessence of Nietzsche's philosophy is the "overman." What is the overman? The word ( Uebermensch ) comes from a good mint; it is of Goethe's coinage, and he used it in the sense of an awe-inspiring being, almost in the sense of Unmensch , to characterize Faust, the titanic man of high aims and undaunted courage,—the man who would not be moved in the presence of hell and pursued his aspirations in spite of the forbidding countenance of God and the ugly grin of Satan. But the same expressio

To those who have not the time to wade through the twelve volumes of Nietzsche's works and yet wish to become acquainted with him at his best, we recommend a perusal of his book Thus Spake Zarathustra . It is original and interesting, full of striking passages, sometimes flashes with deep truths, then again is sterile and unprofitable, or even tedious, and sometimes absurd; but at any rate it presents the embodiment of Nietzsche's grandest thoughts in their most attractive and characteristic for

Nietzsche is far from regarding his philosophy as timely. He was a proud and aristocratic character, spoiled from childhood by an unfaltering admiration on the part of both his mother and sister. It was unfortunate for him that his father had died before he could influence the early years of his son through wholesome discipline. Not enjoying a vigorous constitution Nietzsche was greatly impressed with the thought that a general decadence was overshadowing mankind. The truth was that his own bodi

Friedrich Nietzsche, the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra and the inventor of the new ideal called the "overman," is commonly regarded as the most extreme egotist, to whom morality is non-existent and who glories in the coming of the day in which a man of his liking—the overman—would live au grand jour. His philosophy is an individualism carried to its utmost extreme, sanctioning egotism, denouncing altruism and establishing the right of the strong to trample the weak under foot. It is little kn

Strange that neither of these philosophers of individuality, Nietzsche or Stirner, ever took the trouble to investigate what an individual is! Stirner halts before this most momentous question of his world-conception, and so he overlooks that his ego, his own individuality, this supreme sovereign standing beyond right and wrong, the ultimate authority of everything, is a hazy, fluctuating, uncertain thing which differs from day to day and Anally disappears. The individuality of any man is the pr

The assertion of selfhood and the hankering after originality make Nietzsche the exponent of the absolute uniqueness of everything particular, and he goes to the extreme of denying all kinds of universality—even that of formal laws (the so-called uniformities of nature), reason, and especially its application in the field of practical life, morality. His ideal is "Be thyself! Be unique! Be original!" Properly speaking, we should not use the term ideal when speaking of Nietzsche's maxims of life,

It is said that barking dogs do not bite, and this being true, we must look upon Nietzsche's philosophy as a harmless display of words and a burning desire for power without making any attempt to practice what he preached. His philosophy, so far as he is concerned, is a purely Platonic love of an unattainable star whose brilliance dazzled the imagination of a childlike peaceful weakling. Suppose, however, for argument's sake, that Nietzsche had been a man of robust health, and that he had been b

It may be interesting in this connection to mention the case of an American equivalent to Nietzsche's philosophy, which so far as I know has never yet seen publicity. Some time ago the writer of this little book became acquainted with a journalist who has worked out for his own satisfaction a new system of philosophy which he calls "Christian economics," the tendency of which would be to preach a kind of secret doctrine for the initiated few who would be clever enough to avail themselves of the

Nietzsche is unquestionably a bold thinker, a Faust-like questioner, and a Titan among philosophers. He is a man who understands that the problem of all problems is the question, Is there an authority higher than myself? And having discarded belief in God, he finds no authority except pretensions. Nietzsche apparently is only familiar with the sanctions of morality and the criterion of good and evil as they are represented in the institutions and thoughts established by history, and seeing how f

We will gladly grant that personifications are mythological fictions, that metaphysical entities are products of a philosophical imagination and that the scientific formulas are abstract generalizations, but we deny that generalizations are unmeaning; they signify some actual features of reality. Abstract ideas are not purely fictitious; they denote significant qualities or occurrences, and the relations in life, the forms of things, combinations, or in general the non-material configurations, c