What do ascetic ideals mean?—Among artists they mean nothing or too many different things; among philosophers and scholars they mean something like having a nose or an instinct for the most auspicious conditions of a higher spirituality; among women, at best, one additional seductive charm, a little morbidezza [small morbidity] on beautiful flesh, the angelic quality of a nice-looking, plump animal; among physiologically impaired and peevish people (that is, among the majority of mortals) they are an attempt to imagine themselves as “too good” for this world, a holy form of orgiastic excess, their chief tool in the fight with their enduring pain and boredom; among the clergy they are the essential priestly belief, their best instrument of power, and also the “highest of all” permits for power; finally among the saints they are a pretext for hibernation, their novissima gloriae cupido [most recent desire for glory], their repose in nothingness (“God”), their form of insanity. However, the fact that generally the ascetic ideal has meant so much to human beings is an expression of the basic fact of the human will, its horror vacui [horror of a vacuum]. It requires a goal—and it prefers to will nothingness than not to will.—Do you understand me? . . . Have you understood me? . . . “Not in the slightest, my dear sir!” — so, let’s start from the beginning.