If the German philosophies of the second half of the nineteenth century are considered, there are not many of them that pass beyond the limit of the school. They are honest, scholarly productions elaborated by men who have read much, of whom some, like Wundt, are eminent specialists, but who have not conquered either their subjects or their readers. One feels that they are not of their century. It is not from them, it is not from Eucken, the pleasant popularizer, it is not from Windelbund or Ostwald that the cultivated public sought the direction for its thought. To satisfy the need of general ideas which was everywhere felt, associations were formed, churches with or without God, of which a very important one was the "Monistenbund," in which Haeckel exploited his materialism transformed into a sort of biological pantheism. But it was outside of the associations and outside of the school that the flame of creative genius burned brightly. The man of the last generation was Nietzsche. That his thought has been perverted by his interpreters there is no doubt. They have taken this eagle who gazed unblinded at the sun and exhibited him to the young people in all sorts of philosophic rôles for the benefit of the industrial and military coalition. Nietzsche depicted in lines of fire the resurrection of heroism, his vision of the superman was that of an ardent soul, steeled by sufferings, meditating a tragic conception of life with serenity, and in his solitary individualism surmounting the infirmity of man and his own by the insistent will to eternal ascension. He was made the apostle of brute force, a sort of Messiah of the "struggle for life." Moreover, he was soon put one side and Gobineau was revived. He also, who if he did not have genius had wit, would have been surprised and hardly flattered perhaps by the rôle which they made him play. The dolichocephalic (long-skulled) blonde whom he celebrated was not exactly the one whom we are now judging by his works, but at least he proclaimed the superiority of the German race. His doctrine was the centre around which were gathered a complete ensemble of dogmas and of very diverse theories, whose connected thread it is not easy to discover when it is searched for logically, but appears quite distinctly when not reason, but reasons, are demanded. The reasons are found in the need of justifying in theory the economic and military imperialism, born as we have seen from conditions of fact and from very practical motives.