Professor Kuehnemann on Nietzsche

Professor Eugen Kuehnemann delivered an important lecture yesterday afternoon in Emerson D on "Friederick Nietzsche." The lecture was chiefly devoted to a correction of popular generalizations regarding Nietzsche's writings.

Nietzsche must be understood as the expression of the present mental crisis in Germany. His greatest work is "Zarathustra." Upon its appearance he was acclaimed by the noisy multitude as a Messiah, although his mission is that of a John the Baptist. He marks the turning point at an exceedingly low epoch, toward an as yet unknown future. This work is aphoristic in style, and is the result of his spiritual creative faculty.

Nietzsche called himself an atheist, although he is in reality a God-seeker, since he longs for the holiness of an eternal ethical value in life. He has been mistaken for a philosopher. Critics who have sought to condemn him on these grounds have thereby failed to comprehend his message, since his works cannot be analyzed according to ideas, but must be understood in regard to mental attitudes:

Because the quintessential stamp, which his works possess by virtue of the curiously rhetorical style and of the magic symbolism of sound, cannot be in any way represented in the English language, as was shown by Professor Kuehnemann, who read two highly impressive passages from "Zarathustra," it is absolutely necessary to be able to approach these ideas in their original medium of language.