No More Learning

Democracy is Christianity made natural: a
sort of "return to Nature," once Christianity,
owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have
been overcome by the opposite valuation. Result:
the aristocratic ideal begins to lose its natural
character (“the higher man,” “noble," "artist,”
“passion,” “knowledge”; Romanticism as the cult
of the exceptional, genius, etc. etc. ).
216.
When the "masters" may also become Christians.
- It is of the nature of a community (race, family,
herd, tribe) to regard all those conditions and
aspirations which favour its survival, as in them-
selves valuable ; for instance: obedience, mutual
assistance, respect, moderation, pity—as also, to
suppress everything that happens to stand in the
way of the above.
It is likewise of the nature of the rulers
(whether they are individuals or classes) to
patronise and applaud those virtues which make


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
179
-
their subjects amenable and submissive—(condi-
tions and passions which inay be utterly different
from their own).
The gregarious instinct and the instinct of the
rulers sometimes agree in approving of a certain
number of qualities and conditions, but for
different reasons: the first do so out of direct
egoism, the second out of indirect egoism.
The submission to Christianity on the part of
master races is essentially the result of the con-
viction that Christianity is a religion for the herd,
that it teaches obedience: in short, that Christians
are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With
a hint of this nature, the Pope, even nowadays,
recommends Christian propaganda to the ruling
Sovereign of China.
It should also be added that the seductive
power of the Christian ideal works most strongly
upon natures that love danger, adventure, and
contrasts; that love everything that entails a risk,
and wherewith a non plus ultra of powerful feeling
may be attained.
In this respect, one has only
to think of Saint Theresa, surrounded by the
heroic instincts of her brothers :-Christianity
appears in those circumstances as a dissipation of
the will, as strength of will, as a sort of Quixotic
heroism.
3. CHRISTIAN IDEALS.
217.
War against the Christian ideal, against the
doctrine of "blessedness” and “salvation" as the


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180
THE WILL TO POWER.
aims of life, against the supremacy of the fools, of
the pure in heart, of the suffering and of the
botched !
When and where has any man, of any note at all,
resembled the Christian ideal —at least in the eyes
of those who are psychologists and triers of the
heart and reins. Look at all Plutarch's heroes !
218.
Our claim to superiority: we live in an age of
Comparisons; we are able to calculate as men
have never yet calculated ; in every way we are
history become self-conscious. We enjoy things
in a different way; we suffer in a different way:
our instinctive activity is the comparison of an
enormous variety of things. We understand
everything; we experience everything, we no
longer have a hostile feeling left within us. How-
ever disastrous the results may be to ourselves, our
plunging and almost lustful inquisitiveness, attacks,
unabashed, the most dangerous of subjects. . .
“Everything is good ”-it gives us pain to say
“nay” to anything.
"
We suffer when we feel that
we are sufficiently foolish to make a definite stand
against anything. . . . At bottom, it is
scholars who to-day are fulfilling Christ's teaching
most thoroughly.
219.
we
We cannot suppress a certain irony when we
contemplate those who think they have overcome
Christianity by means of modern natural science.
Christian values are by no means overcome by


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
181
such people. “Christ on the cross” is still the
most sublime symbol—even now
220.
The two great Nihilistic movements are: (a)
Buddhism, (6) Christianity. The latter has only
just about reached a state of culture in which it
can fulfil its original object,—it has found its
level, and now it can manifest itself without
disguise.
.
.
221.
We have re-established the Christian ideal, it
now only remains to determine its value.
(1) Which values does it deny? What does
the ideal that opposes it stand for? —Pride, pathos
of distance, great responsibility, exuberant spirits,
splendid animalism, the instincts of war and of
conquest, the deification of passion, revenge, ,
cunning, anger, voluptuousness, adventure, know-
ledge ;-the noble ideal is denied : the beauty,
wisdom, power, pomp, and awfulness of the type
man: the man who postulates aims, the “ future"
man (here Christianity presents itself as the
logical result of Judaism).
(2) Can it be realised ? —Yes, of course, when the
climatic conditions are favourable—as in the case
of the Indian ideal. Both neglect the factor work.
-It separates a creature from a people, a state,
a
a civilised community, and jurisdiction; it rejects
education, wisdom, the cultivation of good man-
ners, acquisition and commerce; it cuts adrift


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182
THE WILL TO POWER.
everything which is of use and value to men-by
means of an idiosyncrasy of sentiment it isolates
a man. It is non-political, anti-national, neither
aggressive nor defensive, — and only possible
within a strictly-ordered State or state of society,
which allows these holy parasites to flourish at
the cost of their neighbours.
(3) It has now become the will to be happy
-and nothing else! “Blessedness” stands for
something self-evident, that no longer requires
any justification—everything else (the way to
live and let live) is only a means to an end.
But what follows is the result of a low order of
thought: the fear of pain, of defilement, of cor-
ruption, is great enough to provide ample grounds
for allowing everything to go to the dogs. . . .
This is a poor way of thinking, and is the sign of
an exhausted race; we must not allow ourselves
to be deceived. (“ Become as little children. ”
Natures of the same order: Francis of Assisi,
neurotic, epileptic, visionary, like Jesus. )
.
9
222.
The higher man distinguishes himself from the
lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to
challenge misfortune: it is a sign of degeneration
when eudemonistic values begin to prevail (physio-
logical fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power).
Christianity, with its prospect of "blessedness,” is
the typical attitude of mind of a suffering and
impoverished species of man. Abundant strength
will be active, will suffer, and will go under: to it


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
183
the bigotry of Christian salvation is bad music and
hieratic posing and vexation.
223.
Poverty, humility, and chastity are dangerous
and slanderous ideals ; but like poisons, which are
useful cures in the case of certain diseases, they
were also necessary in the time of the Roman
Empire.
All ideals are dangerous: because they lower
and brand realities; they are all poisons, but
occasionally indispensable as cures.
224.
.
God created man, happy, idle, innocent, and
immortal: our actual life is a false, decadent, and
sinful existence, a punishment. . . . Suffering,
struggle, work, and death are raised as objections
against life, they make life questionable, unnatural
-something that must cease, and for which one
not only requires but also has-remedies !
Since the time of Adam, man has been in an
abnormal state: God Himself delivered up His
Son for Adam's sin, in order to put an end to
the abnormal condition of things: the natural
character of life is a curse; to those who believe
in Him, Christ restores normal life: He makes
them happy, idle, and innocent. But the world
did not become fruitful without labour; women
do not bear children without pain ; illness has not
ceased : believers are served just as badly as un-
believers in this respect. All that has happened


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184
THE WILL TO POWER.
is, that man is delivered from death and sin
two assertions which allow of no verification, and
which are therefore emphasised by the Church
with more than usual heartiness. “ He is free
from sin,"—not owing to his own efforts, not
owing to a vigorous struggle on his part, but
redeemed by the death of the Saviour,conse-
quently, perfectly innocent and paradisaical.
Actual life is nothing more than an illusion
(that is to say, a deception, an insanity). . The
whole of struggling, fighting, and real existence-
so full of light and shade, is only bad and false :
everybody's duty is to be delivered from it.
“Man, innocent, idle, immortal, and happy
this concept, which is the object of the “most
supreme desires," must be criticised before any-
thing else. Why should guilt, work, death, and
pain (and, from the Christian point of view, also
knowledge . ) be contrary to all supreme desires ?
-The lazy Christian notions: “ blessedness,"
“innocence,” “immortality. ”
.
6
225.
The eccentric concept “holiness" does not
exist-"God” and “man” have not been divorced
from each other, “ Miracles” do not exist-such
spheres do not exist : the only one to be con-
sidered is the “intellectual” (that is to say, the
symbolically-psychological). As decadence: a
counterpart to “Epicureanism. " . . . Paradise
according to Greek notions was only “Epicurus'
Garden. ”
»
.


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
185
A life of this sort lacks a purpose: it strives
after nothing ;-a form of the “Epicurean gods”.
there is no longer any reason to aim at anything,
- not even at having children :-everything has
been done.
226.
:
.
They despised the body: they did not reckon
with it: nay, more-they treated it as an enemy.
It was their delirium to think that a man could
carry a “beautiful soul ” about in a body that was
a cadaverous abortion. . . . In order to inoculate
others with this insanity they had to present the
concept "beautiful soul” in a different way, and
to transvalue the natural value, until, at last, a
pale, sickly, idiotically exalted creature, some-
thing angelic, some extreme perfection and trans-
figuration was declared to be the higher man.
227.
Ignorance in matters psychological. —The
Christian has no nervous system ;-contempt for,
and deliberate and wilful turning away from, the
demands of the body, from discoveries about the
body; it is assumed that all this is in keeping
with man's nature, and must perforce work the
ultimate good of the soul;-all functions of the
body are systematically reduced to moral values ;
illness itself is regarded as determined by morality,
it is held to be the result of sin, or it is a trial
or a state of salvation, through which man becomes
more perfect than he could become in a state


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186
THE WILL TO POWER.
of health (Pascal's idea); under certain circum-
stances, there are wilful attempts at inducing
illness.
228.
What in sooth is this struggle" against Nature”
on the part of the Christian? We shall not, of
course, let ourselves be deceived by his words and
explanations. It is Nature against something
which is also Nature. With many, it is fear;
with others, it is loathing; with yet others, it is
the sign of a certain intellectuality, the love of a
bloodless and passionless ideal; and in the case
of the most superior men, it is love of an abstract
Nature—these try to live up to their ideal. It is
easily understood that humiliation in the place of
self-esteem, anxious cautiousness towards the
passions, emancipation from the usual duties
(whereby a higher notion of rank is created), the
incitement to constant war on behalf of enormous
issues, habituation to effusiveness of feelings-all
this goes to constitute a type: in such a type
the hypersensitiveness of a perishing body pre-
ponderates; but the nervousness and the in-
spirations it engenders are interpreted differently.
The taste of this kind of creature tends either (1)
to subtilise, (2) to indulge in bombastic eloquence,
or (3) to go in for extreme feelings. The natural
inclinations do get satisfied, but they are interpreted
in a new way; for instance, as “justification before
God," " the feeling of redemption through grace,"
(every undeniable feeling of pleasure becomes
interpreted in this way! ) pride, voluptuousness,
)


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
187
etc. General problem: what will become of the
man who slanders and practically denies and
belittles what is natural ? As a matter of fact,
the Christian is an example of exaggerated self-
control : in order to tame his passions, he seems
to find it necessary to extirpate or crucify them.
229.
»
Man did not know himself physiologically
throughout the ages his history covers; he does
not even know himself now. The knowledge, for
instance, that man has a nervous system (but no
“soul") is still the privilege of the most educated
people. But man is not satisfied, in this respect,
to say he does not know. A man must be very
human to be able to say: "I do not know this,"
—that is to say, to be able to admit his ignorance.
Suppose he is in pain or in a good mood, he
never questions that he can find the reason of
either condition if only he seeks. . . . And so he
seeks for it. In truth he cannot find the reason;
for he does not even suspect where it lies. .
What happens? . . . He takes a result of his
condition for its cause ; for instance, if he should
undertake some work (really undertaken because
his good mood gave him the courage to do so)
and carry it through successfully : behold, the
work itself is the reason of his good mood.
As a matter of fact, his success was determined by
the same cause as that which brought about his
good mood—that is to say, the happy co-ordina-
tion of physiological powers and functions.


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188
THE WILL TO POWER.
He feels bad: consequently he cannot overcome
a care, a scruple, or an attitude of self-criticism.
. . . He really fancies that his disagreeable con-
dition is the result of his scruple, of his "sin," or
of his “self-criticism. "
But after profound exhaustion and prostration,
a state of recovery sets in. “ How is it possible
that I can feel so free, so happy? It is a
miracle; only a God could have effected this
change. ”—Conclusion: “He has forgiven my
sin. "
From this follow certain practices : in order to
provoke feelings of sinfulness and to prepare the
way for crushed spirits it is necessary to induce
a condition of morbidity and nervousness in
the body. The methods of doing this are well
known. Of course, nobody suspects the causal
logic of the fact: the maceration of the flesh is
interpreted religiously, it seems like an end in
itself, whereas it is no more than a means of
bringing about that morbid state of indigestion
which is known as repentance (the “fixed idea ”
of sin, the hypnotising of the hen by means of the
chalk-line "sin").
The mishandling of the body prepares the
ground for the required range of “guilty feelings”
- that is to say, for that general state of pain
which demands an explanation, . . .
On the other hand, the method of “salvation'
may also develop from the above: every dis-
sipation of the feelings, whether prayers, move-
ments, attitudes, or oaths, has been provoked, and
exhaustion follows; very often it is acute, or it
C
»


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
189
appears in the form of epilepsy. And behind this
condition of deep somnolence there come signs of
recovery-or, in religious parlance, “ Salvation. ”
»
230.
Formerly, the conditions and results of physio-
logical exhaustion were considered more important
than healthy conditions and their results, and this
was owing to the suddenness, fearfulness, and
mysteriousness of the former. Men were terrified
by themselves, and postulated the existence of a
higher world. People have ascribed the origin
of the idea of two worlds—one this side of the
grave and the other beyond it-to sleep and
dreams, to shadows, to night, and to the fear of
Nature: but the symptoms of physiological ex-
haustion should, above all, have been considered.
Ancient religions have quite special methods
of disciplining the pious into states of exhaustion,
in which they must experience such things. .
The idea was, that one entered into a new order
of things, where everything ceases to be known.
The semblance of a higher power, . . .
.
231.
Sleep is the result of every kind of exhaus-
tion; exhaustion follows upon all excessive
excitement. .
In all pessimistic religions and philosophies
there is a yearning for sleep; the very notion
"sleep" is deified and worshipped.
In this case the exhaustion is racial; sleep
)


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190
THE WILL TO POWER.
.
regarded psychologically is only a symbol of a
much deeper and longer compulsion to rest.
In praxi it is death which rules here in the
seductive image of its brother sleep. . . .
232.
The whole of the Christian training in repent-
ance and redemption may be regarded as a folie
circulaire arbitrarily produced; though, of course,
it can be produced only in people who are pre-
disposed to it—that is to say, who have morbid
tendencies in their constitutions.
233
Against remorse and its purely psychical treat-
ment. --To be unable to have done with an ex-
perience is already a sign of decadence. This
reopening of old wounds, this wallowing in self-
contempt and depression, is an additional form of
disease; no “salvation of the soul” ever results
from it, but only a new kind of spiritual illness. . .
These "conditions of salvation" of which the
Christian is conscious are merely variations of the
same diseased state—the interpretation of an
attack of epilepsy by means of a particular
formula which is provided, not by science, but by
religious mania.
When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly.
. . . By far the greatest portion of the psychical
apparatus which Christianity has used, is now
classed among the various forms of hysteria and
epilepsy.


## p. 191 (#215) ############################################

CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
191
>
The whole process of spiritual healing must be
remodelled on a physiological basis : the "sting
of conscience" as such is an obstacle in the way
of recovery-as soon as possible the attempt
must be made to counterbalance everything by
means of new actions, so that there may be an
escape from the morbidness of self-torture.
The purely psychical practices of the Church and
of the various sects should be decried as dangerous
to the health. No invalid is ever cured by prayers
or by the exorcising of evil spirits: the states
of “repose" which follow upon such methods of
treatment, by no means inspire confidence, in the
psychological sense. . . .
A man is healthy when he can laugh at the
seriousness and ardour with which he has allowed
himself to be hypnotised to any extent by
detail in his life when his remorse
seems to him like the action of a dog biting a
stone—when he is ashamed of his repentance.
The purely psychological and religious practices,
which have existed hitherto, only led to an altera-
tion in the symptoms : according to them a man
had recovered when he bowed before the cross,
and swore that in future he would be a good
man. But a criminal, who, with a certain
gloomy seriousness cleaves to his fate and refuses
to malign his deed once it is done, has more
spiritual health. . . . The criminals with whom
Dostoiewsky associated in prison, were all,
without exception, unbroken natures are they
not a hundred times more valuable than a
"broken-spirited" Christian ?
any
.


## p. 192 (#216) ############################################

192
THE WILL TO POWER.
(For the treatment of pangs of conscience I
recommend Mitchell's Treatment. *)
234.
A pang of conscience in a man is a sign that
his character is not yet equal to his deed. There
is such a thing as a pang of conscience after good
deeds : in this case it is their unfamiliarity, their
incompatibility with an old environment.
235.
Against remorse. I do not like this form of
cowardice in regard to one's own actions, one
must not leave one's self in the lurch under the
pressure of sudden shame or distress, Extreme
pride is much more fitting here. What is the
good of it all in the end!
No deed gets
undone because it is regretted, no more than
because it is forgiven" or "expiated. ” A man must
be a theologian in order to believe in a power that
erases faults: we immoralists prefer to disbelieve
in “ faults. " ” We believe that all deeds, of what
kind soever, are identically of the same value at
root; just as deeds which turn against us may
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. -In The New Sydenham Society's
Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences, the following
description of Mitchell's treatment is to be found : “A
method of treating cases of neurasthenia and hysteria .
by removal from home, rest in bed, massage twice a day,
electrical excitation of the muscles, and excessive feeding,
at first with milk. ”


## p. 193 (#217) ############################################

CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
193
be useful from an economical point of view, and
even generally desirable. In certain individual
cases, we admit that we might well have been
spared a given action; the circumstances alone
predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if
favoured by circumstances, would not already
have committed every possible crime? . . . That
is why one should never say: “ Thou shouldst
never have done such and such a thing," but only :
“How strange it is that I have not done such and
such a thing hundreds of times already! "-As a
matter of fact, only a very small number of acts
are typical acts and real epitomes of a personality,
and seeing what a small number of people really
are personalities, a single act very rarely character-
ises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circum-
stances; they are superficial or merely reflex
movements performed in response to a stimulus,
long before the depths of our beings are affected
or consulted in the matter. A fit of temper, a
gesture, a blow with a knife: how little of the
individual resides in these acts ! -A deed very
often brings a sort of stupor or feeling of con-
straint in its wake: so that the agent feels almost
spellbound at its recollection, or as though he
belonged to it, and were not an independent
creature. This mental disorder, which is a form
of hypnotism, must be resisted at all costs: surely
a single deed, whatever it be, when it is compared
with all one has done, is nothing, and may be
deducted from the sum without making the
account wrong.
The unfair interest which society
manifests in controlling the whole of our lives
VOL. I.
N


## p. 194 (#218) ############################################

194
THE WILL TO POWER.
in one direction, as though the very purpose of its
existence were to cultivate a certain individual
act, should not infect the man of action : but
unfortunately this happens almost continually.
The reason of this is, that every deed, if followed
by unexpected consequences, leads to a certain
mental disturbance, no matter whether the con-
sequences be good or bad. Behold a lover who
has been given a promise, or a poet while he is
receiving applause from an audience: as far as
intellectual torpor is concerned, these men are in
no way different from the anarchist who is
suddenly confronted by a detective bearing a
search warrant,
There are some acts which are unworthy of us:
acts which, if they were regarded as typical, would
set us down as belonging to a lower class of man.
The one fault that has to be avoided here, is to
regard them as typical. There is another kind of
act of which we are unworthy: exceptional acts,
born of a particular abundance of happiness and
health; they are the highest waves of our spring
tides, driven to an unusual height by a storm
-an accident: such acts and “deeds
are also
not typical. An artist should never be judged
according to the measure of his works.
236.
A. In proportion as Christianity seems necessary
to-day, man is still wild and fatal.
B. In another sense, it is not necessary, but
extremely dangerous, though it is captivating and
.


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
195
seductive, because it corresponds with the morbid
character of whole classes and types of modern
humanity,. . . they simply follow their inclinations
when they aspire to Christianity—they are de-
cadents of all kinds.
A and B must be kept very sharply apart.
In the case of A, Christianity is a cure, or at least
a taming process (under certain circumstances
it serves the purpose of making people ill: and
this is sometimes useful as a means of subduing
savage and brutal natures). In the case of B, it
is a symptom of illness itself, it renders the state
of decadence more acute; in this case it stands
opposed to a corroborating system of treatment, it
is the invalid's instinct standing against that which
would be most salutary to him.
>
237.
On one side there are the serious, the dignified,
and reflective people: and on the other the bar. .
barous, the unclean, and the irresponsible beasts :
it is merely a question of taming animals and
in this case the tamer must be hard, terrible, and
awe-inspiring, at least to his beasts.
All essential requirements must be imposed upon
the unruly creatures with almost brutal distinct-
ness—that is to say, magnified a thousand times.
Even the fulfilment of the requirement must
be presented in the coarsest way possible, so
that it may command respect, as in the case of
the spiritualisation of the Brahmins.
*


## p. 196 (#220) ############################################

196
THE WILL TO POWER.
The struggle with the rabble and the herd. If
any degree of tameness and order has been
reached, the chasm separating these purified and
regenerated people from the terrible remainder
must have been bridged. . .
This chasm is a means of increasing self-respect
in higher castes, and of confirming their belief in
that which they represent—hence the Chandala.
Contempt and its excess are perfectly correct
psychologically — that is to say, magnified a
-
hundred times, so that it may at least be felt.
238.
The struggle against brutal instincts is quite
different from the struggle against morbid instincts;
it may even be a means of overcoming brutality
by making the brutes ill. The psychical treatment
practised by Christianity is often nothing more
than the process of converting a brute into a sick
and therefore tame animal.
The struggle against raw and savage natures
must be a struggle with weapons which are able
to affect such natures: superstitions and such means
are therefore indispensable and essential.
.
239.
Our age, in a certain sense, is mature (that is to
say, decadent), just as Buddha's was. . . . That
is why a sort of Christianity is possible without
all the absurd dogmas (the most repulsive offshoots
of ancient hybridism).


## p. 197 (#221) ############################################

CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
197
240.
As a
Supposing it were impossible to disprove Chris-
tianity, Pascal thinks, in view of the terrible
possibility that it may be true, that it is in the
highest degree prudent to be a Christian.
proof of how much Christianity has lost of its
terrible nature, to-day we find that other attempt
to justify it, which consists in asserting, that even
if it were a mistake, it nevertheless provides the
greatest advantages and pleasures for its adherents
throughout their lives :—it therefore seems that
this belief should be upheld owing to the peace
and quiet it ensures- not owing to the terror of
a threatening possibility, but rather out of fear of a
life that has lost one of its charms. This hedonistic
turn of thought, which uses happiness as a proof,
is a symptom of decline: it takes the place of the
proof resulting from power or from that which
to the Christian mind is most terrible—namely,
fear. With this new interpretation, Christianity
is, as a matter of fact, nearing its stage of
exhaustion. People are satisfied with a Christianity
which is an opiate, because they no longer have the
strength to seek, to struggle, to dare, to stand
alone, nor to take up Pascal's position and to
share that gloomily brooding self-contempt, that
belief in human unworthiness, and that anxiety
which believes that it “may be damned. ”
“
Christianity the chief object of which is to soothe
diseased nerves, does not require the terrible
solution consisting of a “God on the cross"; that
a
But a


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198
THE WILL TO POWER.
is why Buddhism is secretly gaining ground all
over Europe.
241.
The humour of European culture: people
regard one thing as true, but do the other. For
instance, what is the use of all the art of reading
and criticising, if the ecclesiastical interpretation
of the Bible, whether according to Catholics or
Protestants, is still upheld!
242,
No one is sufficiently aware of the barbarity of
the notions among which we Europeans still live,
To think that men have been able to believe that
the “Salvation of the soul” depended upon a
book! . . . And I am told that this is still
believed.
What is the good of all scientific education, all
criticism and all hermeneutics, if such nonsense as
the Church's interpretation of the Bible has not
yet turned the colours of our bodies permanently
into the red of shame?
243.
Subject for reflection: To what extent does the
fatal belief in “Divine Providence -the most
paralysing belief for both the hand and the under-
standing that has ever existed—continue to pre-
vail; to what extent have the Christian hypothesis
and interpretation of Life continued their lives


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
199
6
under the cover of terms like “Nature," " Progress,"
“perfectionment,” “ Darwinism," or beneath the
superstition that there is a certain relation between
happiness and virtue, unhappiness and sin ? That
absurd belief in the course of things, in “Life”
and in the "instinct of Life"; that foolish resig-
nation which arises from the notion that if only
every one did his duty all would go well-all this
sort of thing can only have a meaning if one
assumes that there is a direction of things sub
specie boni. Even fatalism, our present form of
philosophical sensibility, is the result of a long
belief in Divine Providence, an unconscious result:
as though it were nothing to do with us how
everything goes! (As though we might let things
take their own course; the individual being only
a modus of the absolute reality. )
244.
It is the height of psychological falsity on the
part of man to imagine a being according to his
own petty standard, who is a beginning, a “thing-
a
in-itself," and who appears to him good, wise,
mighty, and precious; for thus he suppresses in
thought all the causality by means of which every
kind of goodness, wisdom, and power comes into
existence and has value. In short, elements of
the most recent and most conditional origin were
regarded not as evolved, but as spontaneously
generated and "things-in-themselves," and perhaps
as the cause of all things. . Experience
teaches us that, in every case in which a man has


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200
THE WILL TO POWER.
elevated himself to any great extent above the
average of his fellows, every high degree of power
always involves a corresponding degree of freedom
from Good and Evil as also from true and
"false," and cannot take into account what good-
ness dictates: the same holds good of a high
degree of wisdom-in this case goodness is just
as much suppressed as truthfulness, justice, virtue,
and other popular whims in valuations. In fact,
is it not obvious that every high degree of goodness
itself presupposes a certain intellectual myopia
and obtuseness ? as also an inability to dis-
tinguish at a great distance between true and false,
useful and harmful not to mention the fact that
a high degree of power in the hands of the highest
goodness might lead to the most baleful conse-
quences (“the suppression of evil"). In sooth it
is enough to perceive with what aspirations the
“God of Love” inspires His believers: they ruin
mankind for the benefit of "good men. "
“
In
practice, this same God has shown Himself to be
a God of the most acute myopia, devilry, and im-
potence, in the face of the actual arrangement of
the universe, and from this the value of His con-
ception may be estimated.
Knowledge and wisdom can have no value in
themselves, any more than goodness can: the goal
they are striving after must be known first, for
then only can their value or worthlessness be
judged—a goal might be imagined which would
make excessive wisdom a great disadvantage (if,
for instance, complete deception were a prerequisite
to the enhancement of life; likewise, if goodness


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
201
were able to paralyse and depress the main springs
of the great passions). . .
Taking our human life as it is, it cannot be
denied that all “truth,” “goodness," "holiness,"
and “Godliness" in the Christian sense, have
hitherto shown themselves to be great dangers—
even now mankind is in danger of perishing owing
to an ideal which is hostile to life.
"
245.
Let any one think of the loss which all human
institutions suffer, when a divine and transcend-
ental, higher sphere is postulated which must first
sanction these institutions! By recognising their
worth in this sanction alone (as in the case of
marriage, for instance) their natural dignity is
reduced, and under certain circumstances denied.
. . Nature is spitefully misjudged in the same
ratio as the anti-natural notion of a God is held
in honour. “ Nature" then comes to mean no more
than "contemptible," " bad. ”
The fatal nature of a belief in God as the reality
of the highest moral qualities: through it, all real
values were denied and systematically regarded
as valueless. Thus Anti-Nature ascended the
throne. With relentless logic the last step was
reached, and this was the absolute demand to deny
Nature
9)
»
246.
By pressing the doctrine of disinterestedness
and love into the foreground, Christianity by no


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202
THE WILL TO POWER.
means elevated the interests of the species above
those of the individual, Its real historical effect,
its fatal effect, remains precisely the increase of
egotism, of individual egotism, to excess to the
extreme which consists in the belief in individual
immortality). The individual was made SO
important and so absolute, by means of Christian
values, that he could no longer be sacrificed, despite
the fact that the species can only be maintained
by human sacrifices. All "souls” became equal
before God: but this is the most pernicious of all
valuations! If one regards individuals as equals,
the demands of the species are ignored, and a
process is initiated which ultimately leads to its
ruin. Christianity is the reverse of the principle of
selection. If the degenerate and sick man (“the
Christian") is to be of the same value as the
healthy man (“the pagan"), or if he is even to be
valued higher than the latter, as Pascal's view of
health and sickness would have us value him, the
natural course of evolution is thwarted and the
unnatural becomes law. . . . In practice this
general love of mankind is nothing more than
deliberately favouring all the suffering, the botched,
and the degenerate : it is this love that has reduced
and weakened the power, responsibility, and lofty
duty of sacrificing men. According to the scheme
of Christian values, all that remained was the
alternative of self-sacrifice, but this vestige of
human sacrifice, which Christianity conceded and
even recommended, has no meaning when regarded
in the light of rearing a whole species. The pro-
sperity of the species is by no means affected by
.


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CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
203
the sacrifice of one individual (whether in the
monastic and ascetic manner, or by means of crosses,
stakes, and scaffolds, as the "martyrs” of error).
What the species requires is the suppression of
the physiologically botched, the weak and the
degenerate: but it was precisely to these people
that Christianity appealed as a preservative force,
it simply strengthened that natural and very strong
instinct of all the weak which bids them protect,
maintain, and mutually support each other. What
is Christian “virtue” and “love of men,” if not
precisely this mutual assistance with a view to
survival, this solidarity of the weak, this thwarting
of selection ? What is Christian altruism, if it is
not the mob-egotism of the weak which divines
that, if everybody looks after everybody else,
every individual will be preserved for a longer
period of time? . . . He who does not consider
this attitude of mind as immoral, as a crime against
life, himself belongs to the sickly crowd, and also
shares their instincts. . . Genuine love of man-
kind exacts sacrifice for the good of the species
- it is hard, full of self-control, because it needs
human sacrifices. And this pseudo-humanity
which is called Christianity, would fain establish
the rule that nobody should be sacrificed.
.
247.
Nothing could be more useful and deserves
more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action.
--As I understand the phenomena of Christianity
and pessimism, this is what they say: "We are


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204
THE WILL TO POWER.
ripe for nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be. "
This hint from “reason” in this case, is simply
the voice of selective Nature.
On the other hand, what deserves the most
rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and
cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like
Christianity, or rather like the Church,—which,
instead of recommending death and self-destruction,
actually protects all the botched and bungled, and
encourages them to propagate their kind.
Problem: with what kind of means could one
lead up to a severe form of really contagious
Nihilism—a Nihilism which would teach and prac-
tise voluntary death with scientific conscientious-
ness (and not the feeble continuation of a vegetative
sort of life with false hopes of a life after death) ?
Christianity cannot be sufficiently condemned
for having depreciated the value of a great cleansing
Nihilistic movement (like the one which was pro-
bably in the process of formation), by its teaching
of the immortality of the private individual, as
also by the hopes of resurrection which it held out:
that is to say, by dissuading people from perform-
ing the deed of Nihilism which is suicide. . . . In
the latter's place it puts lingering suicide, and
gradually a puny, meagre, but durable life ; gradu-
ally a perfectly ordinary, bourgeois, mediocre life,
etc.