Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in the early period of his activity is under the spell of Schopenhauer._(_74_)_ One of his _Old-fashioned Reflexions_ bears the title: “Schopenhauer as Educator.” Later on he goes through a development which leads him to recognise as the ideal a scientifically deepened Positivism and Utilitarianism. He is his real self first when, starting with _Joyous Science_, he tries to establish his world-view of the higher life-affirmation, and thereby becomes anti-Schopenhauer, anti-Christian, and anti-Utilitarian. The criticism he passes upon the philosophical and religious ethics which he finds accepted is passionate and spiteful. But it goes deep. He casts at them two reproaches, viz. that they have made a pact with unveracity, and that they do not allow men to become personalities. In [pg 175] this he says only what had long been due. Sceptics had already made public many such complaints. But he speaks as one who is searching for the truth, and who is concerned about the spiritual future of mankind, thus giving such complaints a new tone and a wider range. Whereas the current philosophy believed that it had in the main solved the ethical problem, and was united with biological and sociological utilitarianism in the conviction that in the department of individual ethics there were no more discoveries to be made, Nietzsche turns the whole game upside down, and shows that all ethics rest upon those of the individual. The question about the essential nature of good and evil which was generally accepted as settled, he puts forward again in elemental fashion. The truth that ethics in their essential nature are a process of self-perfecting shines out in him, as in Kant, although in a different light. Hence his place is in the first rank of the ethical thinkers of mankind. Those who were torn from their false certainty when his impassioned writings descended on the lowlands of the thought of the outgoing nineteenth century, as the south wind sweeps down from the high mountains in spring, can never forget the gratitude they owe to this upheaver of thought, with his preaching of veracity and personality.