Unlike his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, which was written in essay style, Human, All Too Human is a collection of aphorisms, a style which Nietzsche would use in many of his subsequent works.
The aphorisms of Human, All Too Human range from a few words to a few pages, but most are short paragraphs. The 638 aphorisms of the first installment are divided by subject into nine sections, with a short poem as an epilogue. The eponymous phrase itself appears in Aphorism 35 (originally conceived as the first aphorism) "when Nietzsche observes that maxims about human nature can help in overcoming life's hard moments". Implicit also, is a drive to overcome what is human, all too human through understanding it, through philosophy.[7]: xix The second and third installments are an additional 408 and 350 aphorisms respectively.
Nietzsche's work, while inspired by the work of aphorists like La Rochefoucauld who came before him, "is unique";
[H]e covers a range of issues far greater than the social and psychological area of interest to La Rochefoucauld. To the cynicism typical of the genre, Nietzsche brings a new dimension by his combination of nihilistic energy with historical consciousness. Finally, he expands the genre to include not merely insights, but argument as well."[7]: xix
The aphorism "allows for a loosely organised, shifting whole containing specific ideas but no iron-clad explanation for everything, – [it] constitutes the style that best represents his philosophy".[7]: xiv
This book represents the beginning of Nietzsche's 'middle period', with a break from German Romanticism and from Wagner and with a definite positivist slant. Reluctant to construct a systematic philosophy, this book comprises more a collection of debunkings of unwarranted assumptions than an interpretation; it "contains the seeds of concepts crucial to Nietzsche's later philosophy, such as the need to transcend conventional Christian morality".[7]: back page He uses his perspectivism and the idea of the will to power as explanatory devices, though the latter remains less developed than in his later thought.
