Twilight of the Idols

1. The true world - attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man, he lives in it, he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, ?'I Plato, am the truth.')
2. The true world - unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man (?'for the sinner who repents').
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible - it becomes female, it becomes Christian.)
3. The true world - unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it - a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian.)
4. The true world - unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligation: how could something unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cock-crow of positivism.)
5. The ?'true' world - an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating - and idea which has become useless and superfluous - consequently a refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)
6. The true world - we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)