CHAPTER XXVII
MORAL CONSTRUCTION (Concluded). THE SUPERMAN[1]
"Superman" is a strong, picturesque expression such as Nietzsche delighted on occasion to use. It occurs chiefly in the prose-poem, Thus spake Zarathustra (1883). It does not appear in Beyond Good and Evil, which soon followed and is a more matter-of-fact statement of essentially the same thoughts as those contained in the earlier work, and only once in The Genealogy of Morals, which succeeded Beyond Good and Evil and is a somewhat connected treatment of certain controverted special points in that book.
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Yet, like all Nietzsche's extreme phrases, it covers a substantial thought. The word, oddly as it sounds (I think it was Mr. Bernard Shaw who first popularized it among us), is formed most naturally. We often speak of "superhuman" excellencies and qualities, though usually having in mind something bordering on the Divine; and any one having these superiorities is, of course, literally speaking, a "superman"—the only novelty in Nietzsche's view being that the superhuman traits are regarded as attainable by man. The substantive itself is not absolutely new. Mommsen spoke of the Æschylean heroes as "supermen." Homberger (1882) called Bismarck a "superman." Goethe used the word a couple of times:[2] Herder did once in an unfavorable, Jean Paul in a favorable, sense.[3] The first use of it by Nietzsche (so far as I remember) is in Joyful Science (1882), where "Übermenschen" are spoken of along
- ↑ This chapter appeared in substance in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, August 5, 1915 (Vol. XII, No. 16).
- ↑ In the "Zweignung" of 1784 and the "Urfaust," 1775.
- ↑ For a full nocoiint of the history of the term, see R. M. Meyer's article, "Der Übermensch. Eine vorgeschichtliche Skizze," Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung, May, 1900.
