Our author's main psychological features are now clearly apparent. What kind of a nature is it that carries this savage hatred of philistinism even as far as to David Strauss? An artist's nature, obviously. What kind of a writer is it who warns us with such firm conviction against the dangers of historical culture? A philologist obviously, who has experienced them in himself, has felt himself threatened with becoming a mere aftermath and tempted to worship historical success. What kind of a nature is it that so passionately defines culture as the worship of genius? Certainly no Eckermann-nature, but an enthusiast, willing at the outset to obey where he cannot command, but quick to recognise his own masterful bias, and to see that humanity is far from having outgrown the ancient antithetical relation of commanding and obeying. The appearance of Napoleon is to him, as to many others, a proof of this; in the joy that thrilled thousands, when at last they saw one who knew how to command. But in the sphere of ethics he is not disposed to preach obedience. On the contrary, constituted as he is, he sees the apathy and meanness of our modern morality in the fact that it still upholds obedience as the highest moral commandment, instead of the power of dictating to one's self one's own morality. His military schooling and participation in the war of 1870-71 probably led to his discovery of a hard and manly quality in himself, and imbued him with an extreme abhorrence of all softness and effeminacy. He turned aside with disgust from the morality of pity in Schopenhauer's philosophy and from the romantic-catholic element in Wagner's music, to both of which he had previously paid homage. He saw that he had transformed both masters according to his own needs, and he understood quite well the instinct of self preservation that was here at work. The aspiring mind creates the helpers it requires. Thus he afterwards dedicated his book, Human, all-too-Human, which was published on Voltaire's centenary, to the "free spirits" among his contemporaries; his dreams created the associates that he had not yet found in the flesh. The severe and painful illness, which began in his thirty-second year and long made him a recluse, detached him from all romanticism and freed his heart from all bonds of piety. It carried him far away from pessimism, in virtue of his proud thought that "a sufferer has no right to pessimism." This illness made a philosopher of him in a strict sense. His thoughts stole inquisitively along forbidden paths: This thing passes for a value. Can we not turn it upside-down? This is regarded as good. Is it not rather evil?--Is not God refuted? But can we say as much of the devil?--Are we not deceived? and deceived deceivers, all of us?...