People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge contradiction. _Proposition One._ The reasons upon which the apparent nature of “this” world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other kind of reality defies demonstration. _Proposition Two._ The characteristics with which man has endowed the “true Being” of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of _nonentity._ The “true world” has been erected upon a contradiction of the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is merely a _moralo-optical_ delusion. _Proposition Three._ There is no sense in spinning yarns about another world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: in this case we should be avenging ourselves on this life with the phantasmagoria of “another,” of a “better” life. _Proposition Four._ To divide the world into a “true” and an “apparent” world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,—a symptom of _degenerating_ life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement. For “appearance” signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,—he says _Yea_ to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian. [1] Nietzsche here refers to the concept “free will” of the Christians; this does not mean that there is no such thing as will—that is to say a powerful determining force from within.—TR. HOW THE “TRUE WORLD” ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR 1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of virtue,—he lives in it, _he is it._ (The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition “I, Plato, am the truth.”) 2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue (“to the sinner who repents”). (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more evasive,—It _becomes a woman,_ it becomes Christian.) 3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an obligation, a command. (At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, Königsbergian.)[1] 4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. And as unattained it is also _unknown._ Consequently it no longer comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown constrain us to?