The first principle of _scientific work:_ faith in the union and continuance of scientific work, so that the individual may undertake to work at any point, however small, and feel sure that his efforts _will not be in vain._ There is a great paralysing force: to work _in vain,_ to struggle _in vain._ *** The periods of _hoarding,_ when energy and power are stored, to be utilised later by subsequent periods: _Science_ as a _half-way house,_ at which the mediocre, more multifarious, and more complicated beings find their most natural gratification and means of expression: all those who do well to avoid _action._ 598. A. philosopher recuperates his strength in a way quite his own, and with other means: he does it, for instance, with Nihilism. The belief _that there is no such thing as truth,_ the Nihilistic belief, is a tremendous relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is unremittingly struggling with a host of hateful truths. For truth is ugly. 599. The "purposelessness of all phenomena": the belief in this is the result of the view that all interpretations hitherto have been false, it is a generalisation on the part of discouragement and weakness--it is not a necessary belief. The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he _denies_ that there can be one! 600. The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a symptom of growth or decline. Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a sign of strength. One should not _desire to deprive_ the world of its disquieting and enigmatical nature. 601. Against the desire for reconciliation and peaceableness. To this also belongs every attempt on the part of monism. 602. This relative world, this world for the eye, the touch, and the ear, is very false, even when adjusted to a much more sensitive sensual apparatus. But its comprehensibility, its clearness, its practicability, its beauty, will begin to _near their end_ if we _refine_ our senses, just as beauty ceases to exist when the processes of its history are reflected upon: the arrangement of the _end_ is in itself an illusion. Let it suffice, that the more coarsely and more superficially it is understood, the _more valuable,_ the more definite, the more beautiful and important the world then seems. The more deeply one looks into it, the further our valuation retreats from our view,-_senselessness approaches!_ We have created the world that has any value! Knowing this, we also perceive that the veneration of truth is already the _result of illusion_--and that it is much more necessary to esteem the formative, simplifying, moulding, and romancing power. "All is false--everything is allowed!" Only as the result of a certain bluntness of vision and the desire for simplicity does the beautiful and the "valuable" make its appearance: in itself it is purely fanciful. 603.