The "individual" lacks sense, he must therefore have his origin in "the thing in itself" (and the significance of his existence must be shown to be "error"); parents are only an "accidental cause."--The mistake on the part of science in considering the individual as the result of all past life instead of the epitome of all past life, is now becoming known. 380. 1. Systematic _falsification of history,_ so that it may present a proof of the moral valuation: _(a)_ The decline of a people and corruption. _(b)_ The rise of a people and virtue. _(c)_ The zenith of a people ("its culture") regarded as the result of high moral excellence. 2. Systematic falsification of _great men, great creators,_ and _great periods._ The desire is to make _faith_ that which distinguishes great men: whereas carelessness in this respect, scepticism, "immorality," the right to repudiate a belief, belongs to greatness (Cæsar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon; but also Homer, Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe). The principal fact--their "free will"--is always suppressed. 381. A great _lie_ in history; as if the _corruption of the Church were the cause_ of the Reformation! This was only the pretext and self-deception of the agitators--very strong needs were making themselves felt, the brutality of which sorely required a spiritual dressing. 382. Schopenhauer declared high intellectuality to be the _emancipation_ from the will: he did not wish to recognise the freedom from moral prejudices which is coincident with the emancipation of a great mind; he refused to see what is the typical immorality of genius; he artfully contrived to set up the only moral value he honoured--self-effacement, as the one _condition_ of highest intellectual activity: "objective" contemplation. "Truth," even in art, only manifests itself after the withdrawal of the _will_.... Through all moral idiosyncrasies I see a _fundamentally different valuation._ Such absurd distinctions as "genius" and the world of will, of morality and immorality, _I know nothing about at all._ The moral is a lower kind of animal than the immoral, he is also weaker; indeed--he is a type in regard to morality, but he is not a type of his own. He is a copy; at the best, a good copy--the standard of his worth lies _without_ him. I value a man according to the _quantum of power and fullness of his will_: not according to the enfeeblement and moribund state thereof. I consider that a philosophy which _teaches_ the denial of will is both defamatory and slanderous.... I test the _power_ of a _will_ according to the amount of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain and torture it can endure and know how to turn to its own advantage; I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day be more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.