"", 1873 ("David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller") attacks David Strauss's "The Old and the New Faith: A Confession" (1871), which Nietzsche holds up as an example of the German thought of the time. He paints Strauss's "New Faith"—scientifically-determined universal mechanism based on the progression of history—as a vulgar reading of history in the service of a degenerate culture, polemically attacking not only the book but also Strauss as a Philistine of pseudo-culture.