in
artistic circles also. Richard Wagner (1813-83; _Collected Writings_, 9
vols., 1871-73, vol. x. 1883; 2d ed., 1887-88), whose earlier aesthetic
writings (_The Art-work of the Future_, 1850; _Opera and Drama_, 1851) had
shown the influence of Feuerbach, in his later works (_Beethoven_, 1870;
_Religion and Art_, in the third volume of the _Bayreuther Blaetter_, 1880)
became an adherent of Schopenhauer, after, in the _Ring of the Nibelung_,
he had given poetical expression to a view of the world nearly allied to
Schopenhauer's, though this was previous to his acquaintance with the works
of the latter.[1] One of the most thoughtful disciples of the Frankfort
philosopher and the Bayreuth dramatist is Fried rich Nietzsche (born 1844).
His _Unseasonable Reflections_, 1873-76,[2] is a summons to return from the
errors of modern culture, which, corrupted by the seekers for gain, by the
state, by the polite writers and savants, especially by the professors
of philosophy, has made men cowardly and false instead of simple and
honorable, mere self-satisfied "philistines of culture." In his writings
since 1878[3] Nietzsche has exchanged the role of a German Rousseau for
that of a follower of Voltaire, to arrive finally at the ideal of the man
above men.[4]

[Footnote 1: Cf. on Wagner, Fr. v. Hausegger, _Wagner und Schopenhauer_,
1878. [English translation of Wagner's _Prose Works_ by Ellis, vol. i.,
1892.--TR.]]

[Footnote 2: "D. Strauss, the Confessor and the Author"; "On the Advantage
and Disadvantage of History for Life"; "Schopenhauer as an Educator"; "R.
Wagner in Bayreuth."]

[Footnote 3: _Human, All-too-human_, new ed., 1886; _The Dawn, Thoughts on
Human Prejudices_, 1881; _The Merry Science_, 1882; _So spake Zarathustra_,
1883-84; _Beyond Good and Evil_, 1886; _On the Genealogy of Morals_, 1887,
2d ed., 1887; _The Wagner Affair_, 1888, 2d ed., 1892; _Goetzendaemmerung, or
How to Philosophize with the Hammer_, 1889.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. H. Kaatz, _Die Weltanschauung Fr. Nietzsches, I. Kultur
und Moral_, 1892.]

CHAPTER XV.

PHILOSOPHY OUT OF GERMANY.

%1. Italy.%

The Cartesian philosophy, which had been widely accepted in Italy, and had
still been advocated, in the sense of Malebranche, by Sigismond Gerdil
(1718-1802), was opposed as an unhistorical view of the world by
Giambattista Vico,[1] the bold and profound creator of the philosophy of
history (1668-1744; from 1697 professor of rhetoric in the Universit