The Panacea of Knowledge 153forms, contending that good and evil are not conventional value judg-
ments devoid of actual truth value, but "true" aspects of the objective
world. Nietzsche now regarded the world viewed in scientific terms as a
"senseless" universe. Socrates (and Plato) could not endure cold knowl-
edge, and they proceeded to moralize and idealize the world once again.
Nietzsche noted down under the heading "The Consequence of
Socrates" this perplexing phrase: "obliterated science" (8,108). This
wording is perplexing because Nietzsche, as we have already seen, had
in The Birth of Tragedy presented Socrates as the representative of the
scientific and theoretical spirit.
In defending the will to knowledge against intentional self-
enchantment, reintroduction of myth, and religious pathos in the mid-
1870s, Nietzsche modified his critique of Socrates (and Plato). Socrates
warranted criticism not because he wanted to comprehend but because
he did not want to comprehend in a radical and "cold" manner. He
lacked the courage of comprehension; there was too much romanticism
and idealistic sentimentality involved. As Democritus demonstrated, a
terrifying universe had been revealed to the truly knowledgeable indi-
vidual even in that era. Blaise Pascal, who became one of Nietzsche's
favorite authors, described this universe as follows: "Swallowed up in
the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which
know nothing of me, I take fright" (Pascal 19).
Enduring such a fright without seeking refuge in religion (as Pascal
had) or resorting to neoreligious artificial myth or art as a "protection
and remedy" (1,101; BT% 15) became Nietzsche's ideal for a time, in the
course of which he put the cold gaze to the test. In his preface to the
second volume of Human, All Too Human, written a decade later,
Nietzsche looked back on this period of upheaval: "At that time I waged
a lengthy and patient campaign with myself against the unscientific basic
tendency of all romantic pessimism to interpret and magnify individual
personal experiences into universal assessments, even universal con-
demnations" (2,374f.; HH II Preface § 5).
The fact that knowledge can triumph even if it looks a monster in the