3. Doubt in morality is the decisive factor. The downfall of the _moral_ interpretation of the universe, which loses its _raison d'être_ once it has tried to take flight to a Beyond, meets its end in Nihilism. "Nothing has any purpose" (the inconsistency of one explanation of the world, to which men have devoted untold energy,--gives rise to the suspicion that all explanations may perhaps be false). The Buddhistic feature: a yearning for nonentity (Indian Buddhism has no fundamentally moral development at the back of it; that is why Nihilism in its case means only morality not overcome; existence is regarded as a punishment and conceived as an error; error is thus held to be punishment--a moral valuation). Philosophical attempts to overcome the "moral God" (Hegel, _Pantheism_). The vanquishing of popular ideals: the wizard, the saint, the bard. Antagonism of "true" and "beautiful" and "good." 4. Against "purposelessness" on the one hand, against moral valuations on the other: how far has all science and philosophy been cultivated heretofore under the influence of moral judgments? And have we not got the additional factor--the enmity of science, into the bargain? Or the prejudice against science? Criticism of Spinoza. Christian valuations everywhere present as remnants in socialistic and positivistic systems. _A criticism of Christian_ morality is altogether lacking. 5. The Nihilistic consequences of present natural science (along with its attempts to escape into a Beyond). Out of its practice there finally _arises_ a certain self-annihilation, an antagonistic attitude towards itself--a sort of anti-scientificality. Since Copernicus man has been rolling away from the centre towards _x_. 6. The Nihilistic consequences of the political and politico-economical way of thinking, where all principles at length become tainted with the atmosphere of the platform: the breath of mediocrity, insignificance, dishonesty, etc. Nationalism. Anarchy, etc. Punishment. Everywhere the _deliverer_ is missing, either as a class or as a single man--the justifier. 7. Nihilistic consequences of history and of the "practical historian," _i.e.,_ the romanticist. The attitude of art is quite unoriginal in modern life. Its gloominess. Goethe's so-called Olympian State. 8. Art and the preparation of Nihilism. Romanticism (the conclusion of Wagner's _Ring of the Nibelung_). NIHILISM. 1. NIHILISM AS AN OUTCOME OF THE VALUATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF EXISTENCE WHICH HAVE PREVAILED HERETOFORE. 2. What does Nihilism mean?--_That the highest values are losing their value._ There is no bourne. There is no answer to the question: "to what purpose?" 3. Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the _view_ that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either divine or morality incarnate.