A merciless spirit

"...a merciless spirit knows all the hideouts where the ideal [Platonism] is at home--where it has its secret dungeons and, as it were, its ultimate safety. With a torch whose light never wavers, an incisive light is thrown into the underworld of the ideal...This is war, but without powder and smoke...One error after another is coolly placed on ice; the ideal is not refuted--it freezes to death.  Here "the genius" freezes to death; at the next corner, "the saint"; under a huge icicle, "the hero"; in the end, "faith," so called "conviction"; "pity" also cools down considerably--and almost everywhere "the thing in itself" freezes to death." Nietzsche, ECO HOMO. (740 Basic Writings, Kaufman)