mantics[6]
an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no
work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at
all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of
Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of
Lao-tse[8]--and in neither case would it have made any difference to
him.--With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call
Jesus a "free spirit"[9]--he cares nothing for what is established: the
word _killeth_,[10] whatever is established _killeth_. The idea of
"life" as an _experience_, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to
his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He
speaks only of inner things: "life" or "truth" or "light" is his word
for the innermost--in his sight everything else, the whole of reality,
all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as
allegory.--Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by
the temptations lying in Christian, or rather _ecclesiastical_
prejudices: such a symbolism _par excellence_ stands outside all
religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all
worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all
books, all art--his "wisdom" is precisely a _pure ignorance_[11] of all
such things. He has never heard of _culture_; he doesn't have to make
war on it--he doesn't even deny it.... The same thing may be said of the
_state_, of the whole bourgeoise social order, of labour, of war--he has
no ground for denying "the world," for he knows nothing of the
ecclesiastical concept of "the world".... _Denial_ is precisely the
thing that is impossible to him.--In the same way he lacks argumentative
capacity, and has no belief that an article of faith, a "truth," may be
established by proofs (--_his_ proofs are inner "lights," subjective
sensations of happiness and self-approval, simple "proofs of power"--).
Such a doctrine _cannot_ contradict: it doesn't know that other
doctrines exist, or _can_ exist, and is wholly incapable of imagining
anything opposed to it.... If anything of the sort is ever encountered,
it laments the "blindness" with sincere sympathy--for it alone has
"light"--but it does not offer objections....

[6] The word _Semiotik_ is in the text, but it is probable that
_Semantik_ is what Nietzsche had in mind.

[7] One of the six great systems of Hindu philosophy.

[8] The reputed founder o