it is to be hoped that some day our _body_ will also be involved! Here lies (and has always lain) my hope for the German nation. 420. I do not wish to convert anybody to philosophy: it is both necessary and perhaps desirable that the philosopher should be a _rare_ plant. Nothing is more repugnant to me than the scholarly praise of philosophy which is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. Philosophy has not much in common with virtue. I trust I may be allowed to say that even the scientific man is a fundamentally different person from the philosopher. What I most desire is, that the genuine notion "philosopher" should not completely perish in Germany. There are so many incomplete creatures in Germany already who would fain conceal their ineptitude beneath such noble names. 421. I must _set up the highest ideal of a philosopher._ Learning is not everything! The scholar is the sheep in the kingdom of learning; he studies because he is told to do so, and because others have done so before him. 422. The superstition concerning _philosophers_: They are confounded with men _of science._ As if the value of things were inherent in them and required only to be held on to tightly! To what extent are their researches carried on under the influence of values which already prevail (their hatred of appearance of the body, etc.)? Schopenhauer concerning morality (scorn of Utilitarianism). Ultimately the confusion goes so far that Darwinism is regarded as philosophy, and thus at the present day power has gone over to the men of _science._ Even Frenchmen like Taine prosecute research, or mean to prosecute research, _without_ being already in possession of a standard of valuation. Prostration before "facts" of a kind of cult. As a matter of fact, they _destroy_ the existing valuations. The _explanation_ of this misunderstanding. The man who is able to command is a rare phenomenon; he misinterprets himself. What one _wants_ to do, above all, is to disclaim all authority and to attribute it to _circumstances._ In Germany the critic's estimations belong to the history of awakening _manhood._ Lessing, etc. (Napoleon concerning Goethe). As a matter of fact, the movement is again made retrograde owing to German romanticism: and the _fame_ of German philosophy relies upon it as if it dissipated the danger of scepticism and could _demonstrate faith._ Both tendencies culminate in Hegel: at bottom, what he did was to generalise the fact of German criticism and the fact of German romanticism,--a kind of dialectical fatalism, but to the honour of intellectuality, with the actual submission of the philosopher to reality. _The critic prepares the way_: that is all! With Schopenhauer the philosopher's mission dawns; it is felt that the object is to determine _values_; still under the dominion of eudemonism. The ideal of Pessimism. 423.