48

The desire to find something certain and fixed in aesthetic led to the
worship of Aristotle: I think, however, that we may gradually come to
see from his works that he understood nothing about art, and that it is
merely the intellectual conversations of the Athenians, echoing in his
pages, which we admire.

149

In Socrates we have as it were lying open before us a specimen of the
consciousness out of which, later on, the instincts of the theoretic man
originated: that one would rather die than grow old and weak in mind.

150

At the twilight of antiquity there were still wholly unchristian
figures, which were more beautiful, harmonious, and pure than those of
any Christians: _e.g._, Proclus. His mysticism and syncretism were
things that precisely Christianity cannot reproach him with. In any
case, it would be my desire to live together with such people. In
comparison with them Christianity looks like some crude brutalisation,
organised for the benefit of the mob and the criminal classes.

Proclus, who solemnly invokes the rising moon.

151

With the advent of Christianity a religion attained the mastery which
corresponded to a pre-Greek condition of mankind: belief in witchcraft
in connection with all and everything, bloody sacrifices, superstitious
fear of demoniacal punishments, despair in one's self, ecstatic brooding
and hallucination, man's self become the arena of good and evil spirits
and their struggles.

152

All branches of history have experimented with antiquity . critical
consideration alone remains. By this term I do not mean conjectural and
literary-historical criticism.

153

Antiquity has been treated by all kinds of historians and their methods.
We have now had enough experience, however, to turn the history of
antiquity to account without being shipwrecked on antiquity itself.

154

We can now look back over a fairly long period of human existence . what
will the humanity be like which is able to look back at us from an
equally long distance? which finds us lying intoxicated among the debris
of old culture! which finds its only consolation in "being good" and in
holding out the "helping hand," and turns away from all other
consolations!--Does beauty, too, grow out of the ancient culture? I
think that our ugliness arises from our metaphysical remnants . our
confused morals, the worthlessness of our marriages, and so on, are the
cause. The beautiful man, the healthy,