art, morality we do not touch the nature of the world in itself—no surmise (Ahnung) we can make takes us beyond the realm of ideas (Vorstellung);[1] while many have died for their convictions, it is probable that no one has ever sacrificed himself for the truth;[2] "philosophical systems" are shining mirages;[3] "metaphysics might be described as the science which treats of the fundamental errors of man, as if they were fundamental truths."[4] But, on the other hand, he always implies that things have another manner of existence than that which they have in us. Even when he asserts that this other manner of existence does not practically concern us and is as much a matter of indifference as a chemical analysis of the water would be to a sailor in a storm, he presupposes the other manner of existence;[5] even when he asserts that the questions of idealism and realism relate to a region where neither belief nor knowledge is necessary, a sort of nebulous swamp-land beyond the reach of investigation and reason, and pleads for our becoming good neighbors to the things that lie near,[6] he implies that the outlying region and swamp-land exist. Realistic implications are also evident in the strange suggestion that things as they exist in themselves may be far less significant than things as they appear, that the independent realities, which we covet so much to know, might, if we came on them, turn out so poor and empty that they would excite an Homeric laughter.[7]
Indeed, he thinks that men have not ordinarily sought truth in the past, but simply ideas that would be serviceable to them—continuing a line of thought on which we have seen him starting in the earlier period. The antithesis is implied in a general remark like the following: "As soon as you wish to act, you must close the door to doubt—says the practical man. And
- ↑ Ibid., § 10.
- ↑ Ibid., § 630.
- ↑ Mixed Opinions etc., § 31.
- ↑ This quotation I borrow from Riehl, op. cit., p. 61, being unable to locate it.
- ↑ Cf. Human, etc., § 9.
- ↑ The Wanderer etc., § 16; cf. Human, etc., § 532. He tries to preach, a gospel of contented ignorance of first and last things in this period, and exalts Epicurus more or less as a model (cf. The Wanderer etc., §§ 7, 16).
- ↑ Cf. also later utterances, Beyond Good and Evil, § 34; Genealogy of Morals, III, § 7; Will to Power, § 586B.
