This book was completed in 1894, but the first idea of it took form seven years earlier. Now, going through the press, it has been revised and condensed. It would have been brought out in ’95, but that much time was wholly wasted in searching for a publisher. The average book publisher is a very conservative animal and not at all disposed to handle books that tend to disarrange pet popular delusions.
Now that the Philosophy of Power is finally sent forth on its mission, an apology to readers is required for many typographical and other errors, that have unfortunately, crept into the text. In a new edition now under consideration, these lapses are to be rectified. Meantime intelligent critics (there are a few) cannot possibly misundersand the meaning.
The author, who is a practical man-of-affairs, thinks and writes with a refreshing bluntness that is almost savage in its vigor.
Through his inability to read German, he very deeply regrets that he cannot search thoroughly into the famous works of Freedrich Nietzsche, Felix Dahn, Alexander Tille, Karl Gutzkow, Max Stirner and other missionaries of what Huxley names “The New Reformation.” During 1896 however, a vague inkling of the Great Thoughts that were strring Germany reached him, through translations published by Macmmillan and through bitterly antagonistic review articles; but his principal inspiration has been derived from the world-wide experience of an active life, together with a reflective mind and an inherited thoroughgoing hatred of Hypocrisy, Humility, Submissiveness, and all slave virtues.
