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mistake about it, it is the faith, I repeat, in a metaphysical value, an intrinsic value of truth, of a character which is only warranted and guaranteed in this ideal (it stands and falls with that ideal). Judged strictly, there does not exist a science without its “hypotheses,” the thought of such a science is inconceivable, illogical: a philosophy, a faith, must always exist first to enable science to gain thereby a direction, a meaning, a limit and method, a right to existence. (He who holds a contrary opinion on the subject⁠—he, for example, who takes it upon himself to establish philosophy “upon a strictly scientific basis”⁠—has first got to “turn upside-down” not only philosophy but also truth itself⁠—the gravest insult which could possibly be offered to two such respectable females!) Yes, there is no doubt about it⁠—and here I quote my Joyful Wisdom , cp. Book V , Aph. 344: “The man who is truthful in that daring and extreme fashion, which is the presupposition of the faith in science, asserts thereby a different world from that of life, nature, and history; and in so far as he asserts the existence of that different world, come, must he not similarly repudiate its counterpart, this world, our world? The belief on which our faith in science is based has remained to this day a metaphysical belief⁠—even we knowers of today, we godless foes of metaphysics, we too take our fire from that conflagration which was kindled by a thousand-year-old faith, from that Christian belief, which was also Plato’s belief, the belief that God is truth, that truth is divine .⁠ ⁠… But what if this belief becomes more and more incredible, what if nothing proves itself to be divine, unless it be error, blindness, lies⁠—what if God, Himself proved Himself to be our oldest lie ?”⁠—It is necessary to stop at this point and to consider the situation carefully. Science itself now needs a justification (which is not for a minute to say that there is such a justification). Turn in this context to the most ancient and the most modern philosophers: they all fail to realise the extent of the need of a justification on the part of the Will for Truth⁠—here is a gap in every philosophy⁠—what is it caused by? Because up to the present the ascetic ideal dominated all philosophy, because Truth was fixed as Being, as God,