In effect, to translate man back again into nature; to master the many vain and visionary interpretations and subordinate meanings which have hitherto been scratched and daubed over the eternal original text, HOMO NATURA; to bring it about that man shall henceforth stand before man as he now, hardened by the discipline of science, stands before the OTHER forms of nature, with fearless Oedipus-eyes, and stopped Ulysses-ears, deaf to the enticements of old metaphysical bird-catchers, who have piped to him far too long: "Thou art more! thou art higher! thou hast a different origin!"-- this may be a strange and foolish task, but that it is a TASK, who can deny! Why did we choose it, this foolish task?
Or, to put the question differently: "Why knowledge at all ?" Every one will ask us about this.

And thus pressed, we, who have asked ourselves the question a hundred times, have not found and cannot find any better answer....
231.

Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not merely "conserve"-- as the physiologist knows.

But at the bottom of our souls, quite "down below," there is certainly something unteachable, a granite of spiritual fate, of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined, chosen questions.

In each cardinal problem there speaks an unchangeable "I am this"; a thinker cannot learn anew about man and woman, for instance, but can only learn fully--he can only follow to the end what is "fixed" about them in himself.