"But surely" - and Nietzsche shook his clenched fists - "you must realize that there is no reality to any of your preoccupations! Your vision of Bertha, the halo of attraction and love that surround her - these don't really exist. These poor phantasms are not part of nominal reality. All seeing is relative, and so is all knowing. We invent what we experience. And what we have invented, we can destroy."
Breuer opened his mouth to protest that this was exactly the kind of exhortation that was pointless, but Nietzsche plunged on.
"Let me make it clearer, Josef. I have a friend - had one - Paul Ree, a philosopher. We both belive that God is dead. He concludes that a life without God is meaningless, and so great is his distress that he flirts with suicide: for convenience, he wears at all time a vial of poison around his neck. For me, however, godlessness is an occasion for rejoicing. I exalt in my freedom. I say to myself, `What would there be to create if gods existed?´ You see what I mean? The same situation, the same sense data - but two realities!"