No psychologist or augur will be in doubt for a moment as to what stage of the development just described the following book belongs (or is assigned to). But where are these psychologists nowadays? In France, certainly; perhaps in Russia; assuredly not in Germany. Reasons are not lacking why the present-day Germans could still even count this as an honour to them--bad enough, surely, for one who in this respect is un-German in disposition and constitution! This _German_ book, which has been able to find readers in a wide circle of countries and nations--it has been about ten years going its rounds--and must understand some sort of music and piping art, by means of which even coy foreign ears are seduced into listening,--it is precisely in Germany that this book has been most negligently read, and worst _listened to;_ what is the reason?" It demands too much, "I have been told," it appeals to men free from the pressure of coarse duties, it wants refined and fastidious senses, it needs superfluity--superfluity of time, of clearness of sky and heart, of _otium_ in the boldest sense of the term:--purely good things, which we Germans of to-day do not possess and therefore cannot give." After such a polite answer my philosophy advises me to be silent and not to question further; besides, in certain cases, as the proverb points out, one only _remains_ a philosopher by being--silent.[1] NICE, _Spring_ 1886. [Footnote 1: An allusion to the mediæval Latin distich: O si tacuisses, Philosophus mansisses.--J.M.K. ] HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN. FIRST DIVISION. FIRST AND LAST THINGS. 1.