This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter insists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those who suffer, doubt, and distrust themselves,--the sick, in other words,--have in all ages required the transporting influence of visions in order to be able to exist at all (the notion "blessedness" arose in this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of form,--in those select cases in which Nature is perfect, in which she is indifferently great and indifferently beautiful. (The "love of the beautiful" may thus be something very different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be the expression of impotence in this respect.) The most convincing artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and who benefit all things by the gift of their power and inner harmony: in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences--their creation is gratitude for life. The depth of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his æsthetic instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which more than justifies it. 853. _Art in the "Birth of Tragedy."_ I. The conception of the work which lies right in the background of this book, is extraordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an apparent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. A world, thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth--that is to say, in order to live.... That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.