I.

I. Whatever may lie at the bottom of this doubtful book must be a question of the first rank and attractiveness, moreover a deeply personal question,--in proof thereof observe the time in which it originated, _in spite_ of which it originated, the exciting period of the Franco-German war of 1870-71. While the thunder of the battle of Wörth rolled over Europe, the ruminator and riddle-lover, who had to be the parent of this book, sat somewhere in a nook of the Alps, lost in riddles and ruminations, consequently very much concerned and unconcerned at the same time, and wrote down his meditations on the _Greeks,_--the kernel of the curious and almost inaccessible book, to which this belated prologue (or epilogue) is to be devoted. A few weeks later: and he found himself under the walls of Metz, still wrestling with the notes of interrogation he had set down concerning the alleged "cheerfulness" of the Greeks and of Greek art; till at last, in that month of deep suspense, when peace was debated at Versailles, he too attained to peace with himself, and, slowly recovering from a disease brought home from the field, made up his mind definitely regarding the "Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of _Music."_--From music? Music and Tragedy? Greeks and tragic music? Greeks and the Art-work of pessimism? A race of men, well-fashioned, beautiful, envied, life-inspiring, like no other race hitherto, the Greeks--indeed? The Greeks were _in need_ of tragedy? Yea--of art? Wherefore--Greek art?... We can thus guess where the great note of interrogation concerning the value of existence had been set. Is pessimism _necessarily_ the sign of decline, of decay, of failure, of exhausted and weakened instincts?--as was the case with the Indians, as is, to all appearance, the case with us "modern" men and Europeans? Is there a pessimism of _strength_? An intellectual predilection for what is hard, awful, evil, problematical in existence, owing to well-being, to exuberant health, to _fullness_ of existence? Is there perhaps suffering in overfullness itself? A seductive fortitude with the keenest of glances, which _yearns_ for the terrible, as for the enemy, the worthy enemy, with whom it may try its strength? from whom it is willing to learn what "fear" is? What means _tragic_ myth to the Greeks of the best, strongest, bravest era? And the prodigious phenomenon of the Dionysian? And that which was born thereof, tragedy?--And again: that of which tragedy died, the Socratism of morality, the dialectics, contentedness and cheerfulness of the theoretical man--indeed? might not this very Socratism be a sign of decline, of weariness, of disease, of anarchically disintegrating instincts? And the "Hellenic cheerfulness" of the later Hellenism merely a glowing sunset? The Epicurean will _counter_ to pessimism merely a precaution of the sufferer? And science itself, our science--ay, viewed as a symptom of life, what really signifies all science? Whither, worse still, _whence_--all science? Well? Is scientism perhaps only fear and evasion of pessimism? A subtle defence against--_truth!_ Morally speaking, something like falsehood and cowardice? And, unmorally speaking, an artifice? O Socrates, Socrates, was this perhaps _thy_ secret? Oh mysterious ironist, was this perhaps thine--irony?...