that conflagration which was kindled by a thousand-year-old faith, from that Christian belief, which was also Plato's belief, the belief that God is truth, that truth is _divine_.... But what if this belief becomes more and more incredible, what if nothing proves itself to be divine, unless it be error, blindness, lies--what if God, Himself proved Himself to be our _oldest lie_?"--It is necessary to stop at this point and to consider the situation carefully. Science itself now _needs_ a justification (which is not for a minute to say that there is such a justification). Turn in this context to the most ancient and the most modern philosophers: they all fail to realise the extent of the need of a justification on the part of the Will for Truth--here is a gap in every philosophy--what is it caused by? Because up to the present the ascetic ideal dominated all philosophy, because Truth was fixed as Being, as God, as the Supreme Court of Appeal, because Truth was not allowed to be a problem. Do you understand this "allowed"? From the minute that the belief in the God of the ascetic ideal is repudiated, there exists _a new problem_: the problem of the value of truth. The Will for Truth needed a critique--let us define by these words our own task---the value of truth is tentatively _to be called in question_.... (If this seems too laconically expressed, I recommend the reader to peruse again that passage from the _Joyful Wisdom_ which bears the title, "How far we also are still pious," Aph. 344, and best of all the whole fifth book of that work, as well as the Preface to _The Dawn of Day_.) 25.