Description In earlier centuries, philosophy was dangerous for philosophers; with Friedrich Nietzsche it became dangerous for everyone. Nietzsche ended up going mad, but his ideas presaged a collective madness that was to have horrific consequences in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. His philosophy is more one of aphorisms and penetrating psychological insights rather than a system, but it is as brilliant, persuasive, and incisive as any before or since. His major concept is the will to power, which he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Christianity he saw as a subtle perversion of this concept--thus Nietzsche's famous pronouncement, "God is dead."
