Reprint 1886. Paperback 123pp. Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und B se), subtitled "Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future" was first published in 1886. It takes up and expands on the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but approached from a more critical, polemical direction.In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacks past philosophers for their alleged lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of Christian premises in their consideration of morality. The work moves into the realm "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favor of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the contextual nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.Of the four "late-period" writings of Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil most closely resembles the aphoristic style of his middle period. In it he exposes the deficiencies of those usually called "philosophers" and identifies the qualities of the "new philosophers" imagination, self-assertion, danger, originality, and the "creation of values." He then contests some of the key presuppositions of the old philosophic tradition like "self-consciousness," "knowledge," "truth," and "free will," explaining them as inventions of the moral consciousness. In their place he offers the will to power as an explanation of all behavior; this ties into his "perspective of life," which he regards as "beyond good and evil," denying a universal morality for all human beings. Religion and the master and slave moralities feature prominently as Nietzsche re-evaluates deeply-held humanistic beliefs, portraying even domination, appropriation and injury to the weak as not universally objectionable.