1 In the foregoing chapters we have followed the curve described by Nietzsche's philosophy of art. We have followed it from its Schopenhauerian beginnings in The Birth of Tragedy, through the science-affirming anti-artism of Human, All-too-human. We saw how, during the period of The Gay Science and Zarathustra, Nietzsche's scientism evaporates, leading to a renewed sense of the importance of art, of viewing life aesthetically. And we saw how, during this period, he attempts, or at least contemplates the possibility of, an “honest” confrontation with and acceptance of the reality of one's existence as an individual human being. But we saw in the last chapter how, in the end, Nietzsche returns to the inauthenticity, the illusionism of “that point from which I once went forth: The Birth of Tragedy” (77 x, 5). As in The Birth we are again offered a choice between the Apollonian and Dionysian solutions to the pain of existence. Nietzsche's identification with Dionysus – “Have I been understood? – Dionysus versus the crucified” is how his last book, Ecce Homo, ends — makes it plain that his ultimate preference remains for the Dionysian. But both, I have argued, constitute modes of illusion. The implication of this (whether Nietzsche allowed himself to see the implication is another matter) is that pessimism, the wisdom of Silenus, is regarded, ultimately, as true. Real life, the life of human individuality, is something it would be better we had never been born into. To the extent, therefore, that its main aim is to be the “antipode” to Schopenhauerianism, to “affirm life,” Nietzsche's philosophy ends in failure.