The Bicameral System of Culture 195and artistic state of being as a medium of hidden grand truths, even if
religious and artistic ecstatics view themselves in those terms.
Up to the time of his essay on Wagner, Nietzsche himself had
regarded art as a loftier form of knowledge. In his thoughts on art in
Human, All Too Human, it becomes quite evident what he meant when
his preface descdbed his experiment with enlightenment as a "desecrat-
ing clutching and glancing backward" (2,16; HHl Preface § 3). Until the
mid-1870s, he had called art "the truly metaphysical activity" (1,17; BT
"Attempt at Self-criticism" § 5), and now he was entering its temple with
a strained will to sobriety and dissent He scrutinized his enthusiasm and
harbored the suspicion that it might mask imprecise thinking, vague
feelings, weakness, and mystifications of all sorts. Why this enforced
sobriety? In his preface to Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche provided
an answer. He hoped to avoid the danger "that the spirit might somehow
lose itself on its own paths and fall in love and stay put, intoxicated, in
some corner" (2,18; HHl Preface § 4).
How can art manifest itself to an initiate who is wary of his own
enthusiasm and who, like a former alcoholic, defends his unstable sobri-
ety against potential temptations?
The "problem of science," Nietzsche wrote in The Birth of Tragedy,
"cannot be recognized in the context of science" (1,13; BT "Attempt at
Self-Criticism" § 2). He wished to see "science from the perspective of
the artist, but art from the perspective of life" (1,14; BT "Attempt at
Self-Criticism" § 2). Now focusing on art, he found that his hypothesis
about science applied equally to art The problem of art cannot be rec-
ognized in the context of art In the case of art, as in that of science, it
is crucial to select another vantage point. Only by getting out from
under the influence of art will it be possible to avoid becoming a victim
of its self-mystifications.
Artists shape, create, and produce a new reality. Scientists observe
reality. The artist provides forms, and the scientist supplies truth. From
the perspective of the artist, Nietzsche discovered in science a fictional-
ity that tended to remain suppressed and unacknowledged. Science