The essays which comprise the present volume are the occasional and, with the exception of the last three, the early fruits of Professor Royce's philosophic genius. The title "Fugitive Essays" was chosen not to emphasize the editor's judgment of them. However excellent in themselves, in the total body of Professor Royce's works these early achievements of his must needs occupy a subordinate place. This is said not to detract from their intrinsic and enduring worth but rather to testify to the greatness of their author. For such was his philosophic fecundity that products of a high order must, when one considers the wealth of his other contributions, be characterized as fugitive. There is also a more obvious reason for so designating them. They are fugitive in a literal sense. Most of them are now virtually inaccessible, buried as they are in the pages of local periodicals which have long since ceased to appear. Some were never published and others found their way to journals more or less ephemeral. Published here for the first time are the following: "The Practical Significance of Pessimism" (1879), "Tests of Right and Wrong" (1880), "On Purpose in Thought" (1880), and "Natural Rights and Spinoza's Essay on Liberty " (1880).