The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge contradiction. _Proposition One._ The reasons upon which the apparent nature of “this” world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other kind of reality defies demonstration. _Proposition Two._ The characteristics with which man has endowed the “true Being” of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of _nonentity._ The “true world” has been erected upon a contradiction of the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is merely a _moralo-optical_ delusion. _Proposition Three._ There is no sense in spinning yarns about another world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: in this case we should be avenging ourselves on this life with the phantasmagoria of “another,” of a “better” life. _Proposition Four._ To divide the world into a “true” and an “apparent” world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,—a symptom of _degenerating_ life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement. For “appearance” signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,—he says _Yea_ to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian. [1] Nietzsche here refers to the concept “free will” of the Christians; this does not mean that there is no such thing as will—that is to say a powerful determining force from within.—TR.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.