What is the Superman Myth?
This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, "I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner." This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, Chapter XVII, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3207
The quotation above from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan demonstrates that "Man" has long sought to create something greater than himself. One of these attempts has been to create a super race or as a corporate identity such as in Hobbes' LEVIATHAN. The other has been an attempt to transcend individual limitations and the frailties of the human body.
Friedrich Nietzsche said,
"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING."
(Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, http://www.literaturepage.com/authors/Friedrich-Nietzsche.html).
So, then, we can trace the origins of the Superman Myth to Hobbes and Nietzche. However, the myth developed rapidly in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It combined human dreams for making something greater with evolutionary theory and the belief in manifest destiny to create a futuristic story in which "Man" would produce a superior race composed of superior individuals, whose destiny it was to colonize the universe. The most ambitious versions of this myth removed God from the position of creator, giving that position to "Man," who will, in the end, awaken the universe by infusing "Mind" into all matter, thus creating God. For more information, click on the links below.
Manifest destiny of the human race