In the main I am much more in favour of artists than any philosopher that has appeared hitherto: artists, at least, did not lose sight of the great course which life pursues; they loved the things "of this world,"--they loved their senses. To strive after "spirituality," in cases where this is not pure hypocrisy or self-deception, seems to me to be either a misunderstanding, a disease, or a cure, I wish myself, and all those who live without the troubles of a puritanical conscience, and who are able to live in this way, an ever greater spiritualisation and multiplication of the senses. Indeed, we would fain be grateful to the senses for their subtlety, power, and plenitude, and on that account offer them the best we have in the way of spirit. What do we care about priestly and metaphysical anathemas upon the senses? We no longer require to treat them in this way: it is a sign of well-constitutedness when a man like Goethe clings with ever greater joy and heartiness to the "things of this world"--in this way he holds firmly to the grand concept of mankind, which is that man becomes the glorifying power of existence when he learns to glorify himself. 821. _Pessimism in art?_--The artist gradually learns to like for their own sake, those means which bring about the condition of æsthetic elation; extreme delicacy and glory of colour, definite delineation, quality of tone; distinctness where in normal conditions distinctness is absent. All distinct things, all nuances, in so far as they recall extreme degrees of power which give rise to intoxication, kindle this feeling of intoxication by association;--the effect of works of art is the excitation of the state which creates art, of æsthetic intoxication. The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting existence, its production of perfection and plenitude; art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.... What does a pessimistic art signify? Is it not a _contradictio_?--Yes.--Schopenhauer is in error when he makes certain works of art serve the purpose of pessimism. Tragedy does not teach "resignation." ... To represent terrible and questionable things is, in itself, the sign of an instinct of power and magnificence in the artist; he doesn't fear them.... There is no such thing as a pessimistic, art.... Art affirms. Job affirms. But Zola? and the Goncourts?--the things they show us are ugly, their reason, however, for showing them to us is their love of ugliness ... I don't care what you say! You simply deceive yourselves if you think otherwise.--What a relief Dostoievsky is! 822. If I have sufficiently initiated my readers into the doctrine that even "goodness," in the whole comedy of existence, represents a form of exhaustion, they will now credit Christianity with consistency for having conceived the good to be the ugly. In this respect Christianity was right.