146 Nietzschedevelopment was implicit in Socrates' confidence that knowledge is a
"panacea." By the time of Aristode, one generation later, this connec-
tion between knowledge and the command of nature had become more
apparent. The formula Nietzsche used to link Socratic-Platonic ontol-
ogy with our modern grasp of nature was "earthly consonance" (1,115;
BT% 17), meaning that the subject and the object of knowledge are of
the same type with respect to their common basis in mind or matter.
There is no unbridgeable gap or abyss.
Modern progress in understanding nature is powerfully driven by a
presumption of "earthly consonance" until the point is reached that the
old god of metaphysics becomes the true "deus ex machina" who no
longer requires tragedy, but instead functions as the "god of machines
and crucibles," promising a highly practical "corrective of the world by
knowledge" (1,115; BT§ 17). The ideal of a life guided by science then
predominates, and henceforth mankind revolves in a circle of tasks that
appear capable of fulfillment. The optimism of knowledge attains
complete fruition. Belief in the basic discernibility of the wodd and its
intelligible character presupposes a fundamentally consonant relation-
ship. Dissonances and obscurities appear surmountable, either now if
the proper method is used or in a more distant future with the advance-
ment of knowledge. If the Socratic principle is coupled with the idea of
historical development, nothing ought to stand in the way of the tri-
umph of theoretical curiosity. According to Nietzsche, however, if real-
ity is regarded as increasingly penetrable and controllable, if the first
material successes of this culture of knowledge occur in the areas of
technology, production, medicine, and the social sphere, and if the hith-
erto alarming phenomena of natural forces become natural and thus
calculable and theoretically controllable causalities, a feeling of opti-
mism extends right down to those in the lower social strata, who will
now begin to share in the dream of the "earthly happiness of all"
(1,117; BT § 18). If it becomes increasingly more feasible to control
nature by means of the sciences, why should it not be possible to elimi-
nate the injustice that is inherent in society as well? If we make strides