points of view which cannot be circumvented either with arguments or counter-arguments. One cannot refute Christianity: it is impossible to refute a diseased eyesight. That people should have combated pessimism as if it had been a philosophy, was the very acme of learned stupidity. The concepts "true" and "untrue" do not seem to me to have any sense in optics.--That, alone, which has to be guarded against is the falsity, the instinctive duplicity which _would fain_ regard this antithesis as no antithesis at all: just as Wagner did,--and his mastery in this kind of falseness was of no mean order. To cast side-long glances at master-morality, at _noble_ morality (--Icelandic saga is perhaps the greatest documentary evidence of these values), and at the same time to have the opposite teaching, the "gospel of the lowly," the doctrine of the _need_ of salvation, on one's lips!... Incidentally, I admire the modesty of Christians who go to Bayreuth. As for myself, I could _not_ endure to hear the sound of certain words on Wagner's lips. There are some concepts which are too good for Bayreuth.... What? Christianity adjusted for female Wagnerites, perhaps _by_ female Wagnerites--for, in his latter days Wagner was thoroughly _feminini generis--?_ Again I say, the Christians of to-day are too modest for me,... If Wagner were a Christian, then Liszt was perhaps a Father of the Church!--The need of _salvation,_ the quintessence of all Christian needs, has nothing in common with such clowns: it is the most straightforward expression of decadence, it is the most convincing and most painful affirmation of decadence, in sublime symbols and practices. The Christian wishes _to be rid_ of himself. _Le mot est toujours haïssable._ Noble morality, master-morality, on the other hand, is rooted in a triumphant saying of yea to _one's self,_--it is the self-affirmation and self-glorification of life; it also requires sublime symbols and practices; but only "because its heart is too full." The whole of beautiful art and of great art belongs here: their common essence is gratitude. But we must allow it a certain instinctive repugnance _to décadents,_ and a scorn and horror of the latter's symbolism: such things almost prove it. The noble Romans considered Christianity as a _fœda superstitio_: let me call to your minds the feelings which the last German of noble taste--Goethe--had in regard to the cross. It is idle to look for more valuable, more _necessary_ contrasts....[8]