The problem of the _philosopher_ and of the _scientific_ man.--The influence of age; depressing habits (sedentary study _à la_ Kant; over-work; inadequate nourishment of the brain; reading). A more essential question still: is it not already perhaps a _symptom_ of decadence when thinking tends to establish _generalities_? _Objectivity regarded as the disintegration of the will_ (to be able to remain as detached as possible ...). This presupposes a tremendous adiaphora in regard to the strong passions: a kind of isolation, an exceptional position, opposition to the normal passions. Type: desertion of _home-country_ emigrants go ever greater distances afield; growing exoticism; the voice of the old imperative dies away;--and the continual question "whither?" ("happiness") is a sign of _emancipation_ from forms of organisation, a sign of breaking loose from everything. Problem: is the man of _science_ more of a decadent symptom than the philosopher?--as a _whole_ scientific man is not, cut loose from everything, only a part of his being is consecrated exclusively to the service of knowledge and disciplined to maintain a special attitude and point of view; in his department he is in need of _all_ the virtues of a strong race, of robust health, of great severity, manliness and intelligence. He is rather a symptom of the great multiformity of culture than of the effeteness of the latter. The decadent scholar is a _bad_ scholar. Whereas the decadent philosopher has always been reckoned hitherto as the typical philosopher. 445. Among philosophers, nothing is more rare than _intellectual uprightness_: they perhaps say the very reverse, and even believe it. But the prerequisite of all their work is, that they can only admit of certain truths; they know what they _have_ to prove; and the fact that they must be agreed as to these "truths" is almost what makes them recognise one another as philosophers. There are, for instance, the truths of morality. But belief in morality is not a proof of morality: there are cases--and the philosopher's case is one in point--when a belief of this sort is simply a piece of _immorality_. 446. _What is the retrograde factor in a philosopher?_--He teaches that the qualities which he happens to possess are the only qualities that exist, that they are indispensable to those who wish to attain to the "highest good" (for instance, dialectics with Plato). He would have all men raise themselves, _gradatim,_ to _his_ type as the highest. He despises what is generally esteemed--by him a gulf is cleft between the highest _priestly_ values and the values of the _world._ He knows what is true, who God is, what every one's goal should be, and the way thereto.... The typical philosopher is thus an absolute dogmatist;--if he _requires_ scepticism at all it is only in order to be able to speak dogmatically of his _principal purpose_. 447.