(c) Genius, great men are great, because they do not strive to further their own interests: the value of man increases in proportion as he effaces himself.
(d) Art as the work of the "pure free-willed subject"; misunderstanding of "objectivity."
(e) Happiness as the object of life: virtue as a means to an end.
The pessimistic condemnation of life by Schopenhauer is a moral one. Transference of the gregarious standards into the realm of metaphysics.
The "individual" lacks sense, he must therefore have his origin in "the thing in itself" (and the significance of his existence must be shown to be "error"); parents are only an "accidental cause."—The mistake on the part of science in considering the individual as the result of all past life instead of the epitome of all past life, is now becoming known.
380.
1. Systematic falsification of history, so that it may present a proof of the moral valuation:
(a) The decline of a people and corruption. (b) The rise of a people and virtue. (c) The zenith of a people ("its culture") regarded as the result of high moral excellence.
2. Systematic falsification of great men, great creators, and great periods. The desire is to make faith that which distinguishes great men: whereas carelessness in this respect, scepticism, "immorality," the right to repudiate a belief, belongs to greatness (Cæsar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon; but also Homer, Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe). The principal fact—their "free will"—is always suppressed.