Part 24

A. philosopher recuperates his strength in a way quite his own, and with other means: he does it, for instance, with Nihilism. The belief that there is no such thing as truth, the Nihilistic belief, is a tremendous relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is unremittingly struggling with a host of hateful truths. For truth is ugly.

599.

The "purposelessness of all phenomena": the belief in this is the result of the view that all interpretations hitherto have been false, it is a generalisation on the part of discouragement and weakness--it is not a necessary belief.

The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he denies that there can be one!

600.

The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a symptom of growth or decline.

Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a sign of strength. One should not desire to deprive the world of its disquieting and enigmatical nature.

601.

Against the desire for reconciliation and peaceableness. To this also belongs every attempt on the part of monism.

602.

This relative world, this world for the eye, the touch, and the ear, is very false, even when adjusted to a much more sensitive sensual apparatus. But its comprehensibility, its clearness, its practicability, its beauty, will begin to near their end if we refine our senses, just as beauty ceases to exist when the processes of its history are reflected upon: the arrangement of the end is in itself an illusion. Let it suffice, that the more coarsely and more superficially it is understood, the more valuable, the more definite, the more beautiful and important the world then seems. The more deeply one looks into it, the further our valuation retreats from our view,-senselessness approaches! We have created the world that has any value! Knowing this, we also perceive that the veneration of truth is already the result of illusion--and that it is much more necessary to esteem the formative, simplifying, moulding, and romancing power.

"All is false--everything is allowed!"

Only as the result of a certain bluntness of vision and the desire for simplicity does the beautiful and the "valuable" make its appearance: in itself it is purely fanciful.

603.

We know that the destruction of an illusion does not necessarily produce a truth, but only one more piece of ignorance; it is the extension of our "empty space," an increase in our "waste."

604.

Of what alone can knowledge consist?--"Interpretation," the introduction of a sense into things, not "explanation" (in the majority of cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation which has grown incomprehensible and little more than a mere sign). There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, everything, is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all things are our opinions.

605.

The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth," the ascertaining of facts in general, is fundamentally different from the creative placing, forming, moulding, subduing, and willing which lies at the root of philosophy. To give a sense to things--this duty always remains over, provided no sense already lies in them. The same holds good of sounds, and also of the fate of nations they are susceptible of the most varied interpretations and turns, for different purposes.

A higher duty is to fix a goal and to mould facts according to it: that is, the interpretation of action, and not merely a transvaluation of concepts.

606.

Man ultimately finds nothing more in things than he himself has laid in them--this process of finding again is science, the actual process of laying a meaning in things, is art, religion, love, pride. In both, even if they are child's play, one should show good courage and one should plough ahead; on the one hand, to find again, on the other,--we are the other,--to lay a sense in things.

607.

Science: its two sides:--

In regard to the individual;

In regard to the complex of culture ("levels of culture")

--antagonistic valuation in regard to this and that side.

608.