Friedrich Nietzsche seems to have been the first German philosopher to acquire and use a typewriter. Antediluvian though his Danish model must have been in comparison with modern perfection, he was enthusiastic. As he was plagued with a steadily deteriorating eyesight the machine was just what he needed, and on occasion it also stood him in good stead when he wanted to wind up a letter. "Good-bye for now," he wrote to Paul Ree in 1881, "the typewriter refuses to work. I have just come to the spot where the ribbon is patched together." Remembering his panegyric on the electric streetcars of Turin one is tempted to state that Nietzsche was, for a long time to come, the last German philosopher to have a good word to say on technical innovations.