eyes; one ought at last to learn impatience, in order that such immodest gross errors — as, for instance, have been fostered by ancient and modern philosophers with regard to tragedy — may no longer wander about virtuously and boldly. Almost everything that we call “higher culture” is based upon the spiritualising and intensifying of CRUELTY — this is my thesis; the “wild beast” has not been slain at all, it lives, it flourishes, it has only been — transfigured.

That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty.