Introduction Is pessimism necessarily a sign of decline, decay, degeneration, weary and weak instincts–as it once was in India and now is, to all appearances, among us, “modern” men and Europeans? Is there a pessimism of strength? An intellectual predilection for the hard, gruesome, evil, problematic aspect of existence, prompted by well-being, by overflowing health, by the fullness of existence? This is a quote from the later-written preface to The Birth of Tragedy , the fir