Alexander Tille, the English translator of Nietzsche's _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, translates the word _Uebermensch_ by "beyond-man." But "beyond" means _jenseits_; and Nietzsche wrote _über_, i. e., superior to, over, or higher than, and the literal translation "overman" appears to be the best. It is certainly better than the barbaric combination of "superman" in which Latin and Saxon are mixed against one of the main rules for the construction of words. Say "superhuman" and "overman," but not "overhuman" or "superman." Emerson in a similar vein, when attempting to characterize that which is higher than the soul, invented the term "oversoul," and I can see no objection to the word "overman." The overman is the higher man, the superhuman man of the future, a higher, nobler, more powerful, a better being than the present man! What a splendid idea! Since evolution has been accepted as a truth, we may fairly trust that we all believe in the overman. All our reformers believe in the possibility of realizing a higher mankind. We Americans especially have faith in the coming of the kingdom of the overman, and our endeavor is concentrated in hastening his arrival. The question is only, What is the overman and how can we make this ideal of a higher development actual? Happy Nietzsche! You need not trouble yourself about consistency; you reject all ideals as superstitions, and then introduce an ideal of your own. "There you see," says an admirer of Nietzsche, "what a splendid principle it is not to own any allegiance to logic, or rule, or consistency. The best thought of Nietzsche's would never have been uttered if he had remained faithful to his own principles." However ingenious the idea of an overman may be, Nietzsche carries his propositions to such extremes that in spite of many flashes of truth they become in the end ridiculous and even absurd. His ideal is good, but he utterly fails to comprehend its nature and also the mode in which alone the overman can be realized. Nietzsche proclaims the coming of the "overman," but his overman is not superior by intellect, wisdom, or nobility of character, but by vigor, by strength, by an unbending desire for power and an unscrupulous determination. The blond barbarian of the north who tramples under foot the citizens of Greece and Rome, Napoleon I, and the Assyrian conqueror,--such are his heroes in whom this higher manhood formerly manifested itself.