Friedrich Nietzsche in this note designated the inspirer of his last work; it was to be Goethe. No nature differed so much from his own, and this very difference determined his choice. Goethe had humiliated no mode of human activity, he had excluded no idea from his intellectual world; he had received and administered as a benevolent lord the immense heritage of human culture. Such was Friedrich Nietzsche's last ideal, his last dream. He wished, in this extremity of life (he knew his destiny), to spread, like the sinking sun, his softest lights; to penetrate everywhere, to justify and illumine everything, so that not one shadow should exist upon the surface of things, not one sorrow in the privacy of souls. He easily determined the directing ideas of his first two volumes: _European Nihilism, The Criticism of Higher Values._ For four years he had not written a line which was not a part of this analysis or criticism. He wrote rapidly, angrily. "A little fresh air," he cried; "this absurd state of Europe cannot last much longer." It was only a cry, and very quickly suppressed. Nietzsche put patience behind him, like a weakness; with a song of love that he would answer the attacks of life. He wished to return, and did, in fact, return, to calmer thoughts. He put this question: "Is it true that the condition of Europe is absurd? Perhaps a reason for the facts exists, and escapes us. Perhaps in this debility of the will, in this democratic abasement, one should rightly recognise a certain utility, a certain value of conservation. They seem irrepressible; perhaps they are necessary, perhaps in the long run salutary, though to-day, and, so far as we are concerned, they must be deplored. "_Reflexion:_ It is madness to suppose that all this victory of values can be anti-biological; one must seek to explain it by a _vital_ interest for the maintenance of the type _man,_ even though it must be attained by the preponderance of the feeble and the disinherited. Perhaps if things went differently, man would cease to exist?--Problem. "The elevation of the type is dangerous to the conservation of the species. Why? "The strong races are the prodigal races.... Here we are confronted by a problem of economy...." He repressed all disgust, refused to allow himself the use of abusive speech, tried to consider, and did consider, serenely, those tendencies which he condemned. He asked: Must we deny to the masses the right to seek their truths, their vital beliefs? The masses are the basis of all humanity, the foundation of all cultures. Without them, what would become of the masters? They require that the masses be happy. We must be patient; we must suffer our insurgent slaves (for the moment our masters) to invent the illusions which are favourable to them. Let them believe in the dignity of work! If they thus become more docile in work, their belief is salutary.