These early artists conceived of no other way of subduing the earth than by converting it into concepts; and, as time soon showed that there actually was no other way, interpretation came to be regarded as the greatest task of all.[27] Naming, adjusting, classifying, qualifying, valuing, putting a meaning into things, and, above all, simplifying--all these functions acquired a sacred character, and he who performed them to the glory of his fellows became sacrosanct. So great were the relief and solace that these functions bestowed upon mankind, and so different did ugly reality appear, once it had been interpreted by the artist mind, that creating and naming actually began to acquire much the same sense. For to put a meaning into things was clearly to create them afresh[28]--in fact, to create them literally. And so it came to pass that, in one of the oldest religions on earth, the religion of Egypt, God was imagined as a Being who created things by naming them;[29] while, in the Judaic notion of the creation of the world, which was probably derived from the Egyptians themselves, Jehovah is also said to have brought things into existence merely by pronouncing their names.[30] The world thus became literally man's Work of Art,[31] man's Sculpture.[32] Miracle after miracle at last reduced Nature to man's chattel, and it was man's lust of mastership, his will to power, which thus became creative in his highest specimen--the artist--and which, fighting for "the higher worthiness and meaning of mankind,"[33]transfigured reality by means of human valuations, and overcame Becoming by falsifying it as Being.[34] "We are in need of lies," says Nietzsche, "in order to rise superior to reality, to 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. "Metaphysics, morality, religion, science--all these things are merely different forms of falsehood, by means of them we are led to believe in life. 'Life must inspire confidence;' the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to solve this problem man must already be a liar in his heart. But he must, above all, be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality, science--all these things are but an offshoot of his will to Art, to falsehood, to a flight from 'truth,' to a denial of 'truth.' This ability, this artistic capacity, _par excellence_, of man--thanks to which he overcomes reality with lies--is a quality which he has in common with all other forms of existence....