 Watsuji graduated from Tokyo University in 1912, but not without a frantic effort to write a second thesis in a very short span of time, because the topic of his first thesis was deemed unacceptable. Furukawa Tetsushi notes that “at the time the atmosphere in the Faculty of Philosophy was inimical to the study of a poet-philosopher like Nietzsche. Consequently, Watsuji’s ‘Nietzschean Studies’ was rejected as a suitable graduation thesis” (Furukawa 1961, 219). In its place he was obliged to substitute a second thesis on Schopenhauer, which he entitled “Schopenhauer’s Pessimism and Theory of Salvation.” This thesis “was presented only just in time” for him to graduate (Furukawa 1961, 219). Both theses were eventually published. 