wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their
preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and
false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration
of "pure forms" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be
doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial to that
extent, has at one time or another made an unlucky dive BENEATH it.
Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt
children, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying
to FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it), one might
guess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which
they wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and
deified,--one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as
their HIGHEST rank. It is the profound, suspicious fear of an incurable
pessimism which compels whole centuries to fasten their teeth into a
religious interpretation of existence: the fear of the instinct which
divines that truth might be attained TOO soon, before man has become
strong enough, hard enough, artist enough.... Piety, the "Life in God,"
regarded in this light, would appear as the most elaborate and
ultimate product of the FEAR of truth, as artist-adoration
and artist-intoxication in presence of the most logical of all
falsifications, as the will to the inversion of truth, to untruth at
any price. Perhaps there has hitherto been no more effective means of
beautifying man than piety, by means of it man can become so artful, so
superficial, so iridescent, and so good, that his appearance no longer
offends.