But the kind of falsity which is characteristic of the Bayreuthians is not exceptional to-day. We all know the hybrid concept of the Christian gentleman. This _innocence_ in contradiction, this "clean conscience" in falsehood, is rather modern _par excellence,_ with it modernity is almost defined. Biologically, modern man represents a _contradiction of values,_ he sits between two stools, he says yea and nay in one breath. No wonder that it is precisely in our age that falseness itself became flesh and blood, and even genius! No wonder _Wagner_ dwelt amongst us! It was not without reason that I called Wagner the Cagliostro of modernity.... But all of us, though we do not know it, involuntarily have values, words, formulæ, and morals in our bodies, which are quite _antagonistic_ in their origin--regarded from a physiological standpoint, we are _false...._ How would a _diagnosis of the modern soul_ begin? With a determined incision into this agglomeration of contradictory instincts, with the total suppression of its antagonistic values, with vivisection applied to its most _instructive_ case. To philosophers the "Case of Wagner" is a _windfall_--this essay, as you observe, was inspired by gratitude. [Footnote 1: Senta is the heroine in the "Flying Dutchman,"--Tr.] [Footnote 2: A character in "Tannhäuser."--_Tr._] [Footnote 3: See "The Will to Power," vol. ii, authorised English edition.--_Tr._] [Footnote 4: _Note._--It was a real disaster for æsthetics when the word drama got to be translated by "action." Wagner is not the only culprit here; the whole world does the same;--even the philologists who ought to know better. What ancient drama had in view was _grand pathetic scenes,_--it even excluded action (or placed it _before_ the piece or _behind_ the scenes). The word drama is of Doric origin, and according to the usage of the Dorian language it meant "event," "history,"--both words in a hieratic sense. The oldest drama represented local legends, "sacred history," upon which the foundation of the cult rested (--thus it was not "action," but fatality: dran in Doric has nothing to do with action).] [Footnote 5: Hegel and his school wrote notoriously obscure German. --_Tr._]