Beauty and the personal equation are the two "leitmotive" of Nietzsche's history of the pre-Socratian philosophers. Especially does he lay stress upon the personal equation, since that is the only permanent item of interest, considering that every "System" crumbles into nothing with the appearance of a new thinker. In this way Nietzsche treats of _Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras._ There are also some sketches of a draft for an intended but never accomplished continuation, in which Empedocles, Democritus and Plato were to be dealt with. Probably the most popular of the Essays in this book will prove to be the one on TRUTH AND FALSITY. It is an epistemological rhapsody on the relativity of truth, on "Appearance and Reality," on "perceptual flux" versus--"conceptual conceit." Man's intellect is only a means in the struggle for existence, a means taking the place of the animal's horns and teeth. It adapts itself especially to deception and dissimulation. There are no absolute truths. Truth is relative and always imperfect. Yet fictitious values fixed by convention and utility are set down as truth. The liar does not use these standard coins of the realm. He is hated; not out of love for truth, no, but because he is dangerous. Our words never hit the essence, the "X" of a thing, but indicate only external characteristics. Language is the columbarium of the ideas, the cemetery of perceptions. Truths are metaphors, illusions, anthropomorph isms about which one has forgotten that they are such. There are different truths to different beings. Like a spider man sits in the web of his truths and ideas. He wants to be deceived. By means of error he mostly lives; truth is often fatal. When the liar, the story-teller, the poet, the rhapsodist lie to him without hurting him he--loves them!-- The text underlying this translation is that of Vol. I. of the "Taschenausgabe." One or two obscure passages I hope my conjectures may have elucidated. The dates following the titles indicate the year when these essays were written. In no other work have I felt so deeply the great need of the science of Signifies with its ultimate international standardisation of terms, as attempted by Eisler and Baldwin. I hope, however, I have succeeded in conveying accurately the meaning of the author in spite of a certain _looseness_ in his philosophical terminology. The English language is somewhat at a disadvantage through its lack of a Noun-Infinitive. I can best illustrate this by a passage from _Parmenides_: χρὴ τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῑν τ' ἐὸν ἔμμεναι· ἔστι γὰρ εῖναι, μηδὲν δ' οὐκ ἔστιν· τά σ' ἐγὼ ψράζεσθαι ἄνωγα.