aving grown out of a thoroughly morbid soil. (--The gospels present us
with the same physiological types, as do the novels of Dostoiewsky), the
master-morality ("Roman," "pagan," "classical," "Renaissance"), on the
other hand, being the symbolic speech of well-constitutedness, of
_ascending_ life, and of the Will to Power as a vital principle.
Master-morality _affirms_ just as instinctively as Christian morality
_denies_ ("God," "Beyond," "self-denial,"--all of them negations). The
first reflects its plenitude upon things,--it transfigures, it embellishes,
it _rationalises_ the world,--the latter impoverishes, bleaches, mars the
value of things; it _suppresses_ the world. "World" is a Christian term of
abuse. These antithetical forms in the optics of values, are _both_
necessary: they are different points of view which cannot be circumvented
either with arguments or counter-arguments. One cannot refute
Christianity: it is impossible to refute a diseased eyesight. That people
should have combated pessimism as if it had been a philosophy, was the
very acme of learned stupidity. The concepts "true" and "untrue" do not
seem to me to have any sense in optics.--That, alone, which has to be
guarded against is the falsity, the instinctive duplicity which _would
fain_ regard this antithesis as no antithesis at all: just as Wagner
did,--and his mastery in this kind of falseness was of no mean order. To
cast side-long glances at master-morality, at _noble_ morality (--Icelandic
saga is perhaps the greatest documentary evidence of these values), and at
the same time to have the opposite teaching, the "gospel of the lowly,"
the doctrine of the _need_ of salvation, on one's lips!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Incidentally, I
admire the modesty of Christians who go to Bayreuth. As for myself, I
could _not_ endure to hear the sound of certain words on Wagner's lips.
There are some concepts which are too good for Bayreuth {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} What?
Christianity adjusted for female Wagnerites, perhaps _by_ female
Wagnerites--for, in his latter days Wagner was thoroughly _feminini
generis_--? Again I say, the Christians of to-day are too modest for me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
If Wagner were a Christian, then Liszt was perhaps a Father of the
Church!--The need of _salvation_, the quintessence of all Christian needs,
has nothing in common with such clowns; it is the most straightforward
expression of decadence, it is the most convincing and most pai