as the naïve are accustomed to say...). What I fear, however, and what is at present obvious, if we desire to perceive it, is that we modern men are quite on the same road already; and whenever a man begins to discover in what respect he plays a rôle, and to what extent he _can_ be a stage-player, he _becomes_ a stage-player.... A new flora and fauna of men thereupon springs up, which cannot grow in more stable, more restricted eras--or is left "at the bottom," under the ban and suspicion of infamy; thereupon the most interesting and insane periods of history always make their appearance, in which "stage-players," _all_ kinds of stage-players, are the real masters. Precisely thereby another species of man is always more and more injured, and in the end made impossible: above all the great "architects"; the building power is now being paralysed; the courage that makes plans for the distant future is disheartened; there begins to be a lack of organising geniuses. Who is there who would now venture to undertake works for the completion of which millenniums would have to be _reckoned_ upon? The fundamental belief is dying out, on the basis of which one could calculate, promise and anticipate the future in one's plan, and offer it as a sacrifice thereto, that in fact man has only value and significance in so far as he is _a stone in a great building;_ for which purpose he has first of all to be _solid,_ he has to be a "stone."... Above all, not a--stage-player! In short--alas! this fact will be hushed up for some considerable time to come!--that which from henceforth will no longer be built, and _can_ no longer be built, is--a society in the old sense of the term; to build that structure everything is lacking, above all, the material. _None of us are any longer material for a society:_ that is a truth which is seasonable at present! It seems to me a matter of indifference that meanwhile the most short-sighted, perhaps the most honest, and at any rate the noisiest species of men of the present day, our friends the Socialists, believe, hope, dream, and above all scream and scribble almost the opposite; in fact one already reads their watchword of the future-: "free society," on all tables and walls. Free society? Indeed! Indeed! But you know, gentlemen, sure enough whereof one builds it? Out of wooden iron! Out of the famous wooden iron! And not even out of wooden.... 357.