Compared with the artist, the scientific man, regarded as a phenomenon, is indeed a sign of a certain storing-up and levelling-down of life (but also of an increase of strength, severity, hardness, and will-power). To what extent can falsity and indifference towards truth and utility be a sign of youth, of childishness, in the artist? ... Their habitual manner, their unreasonableness, their ignorance of themselves, their indifference to "eternal values," their seriousness in play, their lack of dignity; clowns and gods in one; the saint and the rabble.... Imitation as an imperious instinct.—Do not artists of ascending life and artists of degeneration belong to all phases? ... Yes!
817.
Would any link be missing in the whole chain of science and art, if woman, if woman's work, were excluded from it? Let us acknowledge the exception—it proves the rule—that woman is capable of perfection in everything which does not constitute a work: in letters, in memoirs, in the most intricate handiwork—in short, in everything which is not a craft; and just precisely because in the things mentioned woman perfects herself, because in them she obeys the only artistic impulse in her nature,—which is to captivate.... But what has woman to do with the passionate indifference of the genuine artist who sees more importance in a breath, in a sound, in the merest trifle, than in himself?—who with all his five fingers gropes for his most secret and hidden treasures?—who attributes no value to anything unless it knows how to take shape (unless it surrenders itself, unless it visualises itself in some way). Art as it is practised by artists—do you not understand what it is? is it not an outrage on all our pudeurs? ... Only in this century has woman dared to try her hand at literature ("Vers la canaille plumière écrivassière," to speak with old Mirabeau): woman now writes, she now paints, she is losing her instincts. And to what purpose, if one may put such a question?
818.
A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the "principal" thing. With such ideas a man certainly belongs to a world upside down: for henceforward substance seems to him something merely formal,—his own life included.
819.
A sense for, and a delight in, nuances (which is characteristic of modernity), in that which is not general, runs counter to the instinct which finds its joy and its strength in grasping what is typical: like Greek taste in its best period. In this there is an overcoming of the plenitude of life; restraint dominates, the peace of the strong soul which is slow to move and which feels a certain repugnance towards excessive activity is defeated. The general rule, the law, is honoured and made prominent, conversely, the exception is laid aside, and shades are suppressed. All that which is firm, mighty, solid, life resting on a broad and powerful basis, concealing its strength this pleases: i.e. it corresponds with what we think of ourselves.
820.
In the main I am much more in favour of artists than any philosopher that has appeared hitherto: artists, at least, did not lose sight of the great course which life pursues; they loved the things "of this world,"—they loved their senses. To strive after "spirituality," in cases where this is not pure hypocrisy or self-deception, seems to me to be either a misunderstanding, a disease, or a cure, I wish myself, and all those who live without the troubles of a puritanical conscience, and who are able to live in this way, an ever greater spiritualisation and multiplication of the senses. Indeed, we would fain be grateful to the senses for their subtlety, power, and plenitude, and on that account offer them the best we have in the way of spirit. What do we care about priestly and metaphysical anathemas upon the senses? We no longer require to treat them in this way: it is a sign of well-constitutedness when a man like Goethe clings with ever greater joy and heartiness to the "things of this world"—in this way he holds firmly to the grand concept of mankind, which is that man becomes the glorifying power of existence when he learns to glorify himself.