10

The harmlessness of metaphysics in the future. As soon as the origins of religion, art, and morality have been described, so that one can explain them fully without resorting to the use of metaphysical intervention at the beginning and along the way, then one no longer has as strong an interest in the purely theoretical problem of the "thing in itself" and "appearance.."6 For however the case may be, religion, art, and morality do not enable us to touch the "essence of the world in itself." We are in the realm of idea,7 no "intuition"8 can carry us further. With complete calm we will let physiology and the ontogeny of organisms and concepts determine how our image of the world can be so very different from the disclosed essence of the world.

6. Erscheinung (see n.2 to this section).
7. Vorstellung. Often translated as "representation." Schopenhauer himself used "idea.".
8. A reference to Schopenhauer.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human
Section One: Of First and Last Things - Aphorism # 10

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