first published book, The Birth of Tragedy. It shows itself also in fragmentary minor studies—meant apparently for use in a work on Hellenism in general—on the Greek state, the Greek woman, competitive strife in Homer, philosophy in the tragic period of the Greeks (i.e., the pre-Socratic philosophers), all of which now appear in his published Remains. In addition, he writes two brief but pregnant studies of a more general character—one in æsthetics, "On the Relation between Music and Words," another in the theory of knowledge, "On Truth and Falsehood in the Extra-moral Sense." Aside from all this, he brings his ideas to bear on questions or tendencies of the day, and sometimes makes a decided stir in the intellectual world. It was so with a pamphlet attack on David Friedrich Strauss—and, though not so markedly, with pamphlets on "The Use and Harm of History for Life," "Schopenhauer as Educator," and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth." He calls them Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, recognizing that the views he expresses are not in harmony with the spirit of the time. The new Germany after the Franco-Prussian war did not please him—it was too self-satisfied, materialistic, Philistine: the spirit was spreading to the educated classes, and even infected the veteran theologian Strauss. Philosophy was losing its old distinctive character—giving way to history, criticism, scientific specialism. The cause of Wagner, which to his mind held such rich promise for the future, was having to struggle. Education was being perverted. He gave several public lectures on the latter topic and outlined more. Notes of this course and memoranda for still another Unzeitgemässe Betrachtung, "We Philologists," make, along with the books and pamphlets already mentioned and some private notes, the literary output of his first period. c
I shall now endeavor to state the general background of thought and feeling in these writings, and I shall follow the same method in dealing with the later epochs of his life. I am aware that in restricting myself in this way, I do more or less violence to Nietzsche. He was above all a creature of flesh and blood, and from my skeleton manner of treatment the reader will get little idea of the richness and varied charm of his concrete thinking. But my purpose is a limited one, and perhaps
