THE
IRRELIGIOUSNESS
OF ARTISTS.
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## p. 116 (#172) ############################################
Il6 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor ev»
enmity; they live on different planets. Evej
philosophy which shows a religious comet's ti
shining in the darkness of its last prospects makj fl
all the science it contains suspicious; all th
is presumably also religion, even though in th .
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were t( . '
agree about certain religious matters, for instana
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarked!
is not the case with regard to this point), thij
would only be an argument against those affirmed
matters, for instance the existence of a God; the
consensus gentium and hominum in general can
only take place in case of a huge folly. On the
other hand, there is no consensus omnium sapientium,
with regard to any single thing, with that exception
mentioned in Goethe's lines:
"Alle die Weisesten aller der Zeiten
Lacheln und vvinken und stimmen mit ein:
Thoricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort! " *
Spoken without verse and rhyme and applied to
our case, the consensus sapientium consists in
this: that the consensus gentium counts as a folly.
* "All greatest sages of all latest ages
Will chuckle and slily agree,
'Tis folly to wait till a fool's empty pate
Has learnt to be knowing and free:
So children of wisdom, make use of the fools
And use them whenever you can as your tools. "—J. M. K
## p. 117 (#173) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 117
I I I.
The Origin of the Religious Cult. —If
we go back to the times in which the religious life
flourished to the greatest extent, we find a funda-
mental conviction, which we now no longer share,
'and whereby the doors leading to a religious life
are closed to us once for all,—it concerns Nature
and intercourse with her. In those times people
knew nothing of natural laws; neither for earth
nor for heaven is there a "must"; a season, the
sunshine, the rain may come or may not come.
In short, every idea of natural causality is lacking.
When one rows, it is not the rowing that moves
the boat, but rowing is only a magical ceremony
by which one compels a dcemon to move the
boat. All maladies, even death itself, are the result
of magical influences. Illness and death never
happen naturally; the whole conception of
"natural sequence" is lacking,—it dawned first
amongst the older Greeks, that is, in a very late
phase of humanity, in the conception of Moira,
enthroned above the gods. When a man shoots
with a bow, there is still always present an
irrational hand and strength; if the wells suddenly
dry up, men think first of subterranean dcemons
and their tricks; it must be the arrow of a god
beneath whose invisible blow a man suddenly
sinks down. In India (says Lubbock) a carpenter
is accustomed to offer sacrifice to his hammer, his
hatchet, and the rest of his tools; in the same way
a Brahmin treats the pen with which he writes, a
soldier the weapons he requires in the field of
.
## p. 118 (#174) ############################################
Il8 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
battle, a mason his trowel, a labourer his plough.
In the imagination of religious people all nature
is a summary of the actions of conscious and
voluntary creatures, an enormous complex of
arbitrariness. No conclusion may be drawn with
regard to everything that is outside of us, that
anything will be so and so, must be so and so;
the approximately sure, reliable are we,—man is
the rule, nature is irregularity,—this theory con-
tains the fundamental conviction which obtains in
rude, religiously productive primitive civilisations.
We latter-day men feel just the contrary,—the
richer man now feels himself inwardly, the more
polyphonous is the music and the noise of his
soul the more powerfully the symmetry of nature
works upon him; we all recognise with Goethe
the great means in nature for the appeasing of
the modern soul; we listen to the pendulum swing
of this greatest of clocks with a longing for rest,
for home and tranquillity, as if we could absorb
this symmetry into ourselves and could only
thereby arrive at the enjoyment of ourselves.
Formerly it was otherwise; if we consider the
rude, early condition of nations, or contemplate
present-day savages at close quarters, we find
them most strongly influenced by law and by
tradition: the individual is almost automatically
bound to them, and moves with the uniformity of
a pendulum. To him Nature—uncomprehended,
terrible, mysterious Nature—must appear as the
sphere of liberty, of voluntariness, of the higher
power, even as a superhuman degree of existence,
as God. In those times and conditions, however,
## p. 119 (#175) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 119
very individual felt that his existence, his happi-
f:ss, and that of the family and the State, and
e success of all undertakings, depended on those
ontaneities of nature; certain natural events
ust appear at the right time, others be absent at
e right time. How can one have any influence
n these terrible unknown things, how can one
►ind the sphere of liberty? Thus he asks himself,
hus he inquires anxiously;—is there, then, no
neans of making those powers as regular through
radition and law as you are yourself? The aim
f those who believe in magic and miracles is to
'mpose a law on nature,—and, briefly, the religious
ult is a result of this aim. The problem which
hose people have set themselves is closely related
0 this: how can the weaker race dictate laws to
the stronger, rule it, and guide its actions (in
relation to the weaker)? One would first
remember the most harmless sort of compulsion,
that compulsion which one exercises when one
has gained any one's affection. By imploring and
praying, by submission, by the obligation of regular
taxes and gifts, by flattering glorifications, it is
also possible to exercise an influence upon the
powers of nature, inasmuch as one gains the
affections; love binds and becomes bound. Then
one can make compacts by which one is mutually
bound to a certain behaviour, where one gives
pledges and exchanges vows. But far more
* important is a species of more forcible compulsion,
(by magic and witchcraft. As with the sorcerer's
help man is able to injure a more powerful enemy
'and keep him in fear, as the love-charm works at
I
J
## p. 119 (#176) ############################################
Il8 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
battle, a mason his trowel, a labourer his plough.
In the imagination of religious people all nature
is a summary of the actions of conscious and
voluntary creatures, an enormous complex of
arbitrariness. No conclusion may be drawn with
regard to everything that is outside of us, that
anything will be so and so, must be so and so;
the approximately sure, reliable are we,—man is
the rule, nature is irregularity,—this theory con-
tains the fundamental conviction which obtains in
rude, religiously productive primitive civilisations.
We latter-day men feel just the contrary,—the
richer man now feels himself inwardly, the more
polyphonous is the music and the noise of his
soul the more powerfully the symmetry of nature
works upon him; we all recognise with Goethe
the great means in nature for the appeasing of
the modern soul; we listen to the pendulum swing
of this greatest of clocks with a longing for rest,
for home and tranquillity, as if we could absorb
this symmetry into ourselves and could only
thereby arrive at the enjoyment of ourselves.
Formerly it was otherwise; if we consider the
rude, early condition of nations, or contemplate
present-day savages at close quarters, we find
them most strongly influenced by law and by
tradition: the individual is almost automatically
bound to them, and moves with the uniformity of
a pendulum. To him Nature—uncomprehended,
terrible, mysterious Nature—must appear as the
sphere of liberty, of voluntariness, of the higher
power, even as a superhuman degree of existence,
as God. In those times and conditions, however,
1
## p. 119 (#177) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 119
every individual felt that his existence, his happi-
ness, and that of the family and the State, and
the success of all undertakings, depended on those
spontaneities of nature; certain natural events
must appear at the right time, others be absent at
the right time. How can one have any influence
on these terrible unknown things, how can one
bind the sphere of liberty? Thus he asks himself,
thus he inquires anxiously;—is there, then, no
means of making those powers as regular through
tradition and law as you are yourself? The aim
of those who believe in magic and miracles is to
impose a law on nature,—and, briefly, the religious
cult is a result of this aim. The problem which
those people have set themselves is closely related
to this: how can the weaker race dictate laws to
the stronger, rule it, and guide its actions (in
relation to the weaker)? One would first
remember the most harmless sort of compulsion,
that compulsion which one exercises when one
has gained any one's affection. By imploring and
praying, by submission, by the obligation of regular
taxes and gifts, by flattering glorifications, it is
also possible to exercise an influence upon the
powers of nature, inasmuch as one gains the
affections; love binds and becomes bound. Then
one can make compacts by which one is mutually
bound to a certain behaviour, where one gives
pledges and exchanges vows. But far more
important is a species of more forcible compulsion,
by magic and witchcraft. As with the sorcerer's
help man is able to injure a more powerful enemy
and keep him in fear, as the love-charm works at
## p. 120 (#178) ############################################
120 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
a distance, so the weaker man believes he can
influence the mightier spirits of nature. The
principal thing in all witchcraft is that we must
get into our possession something that belongs to
some one, hair, nails, food from their table, even
their portrait, their name. With such apparatus
we can then practise sorcery; for the fundamental
rule is, to everything spiritual there belongs some-
thing corporeal; with the help of this we are able
to bind the spirit, to injure it, and destroy it; the
corporeal furnishes the handles with which we can
grasp the spiritual. As man controls man, so he
controls some natural spirit or other; for this has
also its corporeal part by which it may be grasped.
The tree and, compared with it, the seed from
which it sprang,—this enigmatical contrast seems
to prove that the same spirit embodied itself in
both forms, now small, now large. A stone that
begins to roll suddenly is the body in which a
spirit operates; if there is an enormous rock
lying on a lonely heath it seems impossible to
conceive human strength sufficient to have brought
it there, consequently the stone must have moved
there by itself, that is, it must be possessed by a
spirit. Everything that has a body is susceptible
to witchcraft, therefore also the natural spirits.
If a god is bound to his image we can
use the most direct compulsion against him
(through refusal of sacrificial food, scourging,
binding in fetters, and so on). In order to
obtain by force the missing favour of their god
the lower classes in China wind cords round the
image of the one who has left them in the lurch,
^
## p. 121 (#179) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 121
pull it down and drag it through the streets in
the dust and the dirt: "You dog of a spirit,"
they say, " we gave you a magnificent temple to
live in, we gilded you prettily, we fed you well,
we offered you sacrifice, and yet you are so
ungrateful. " Similar forcible measures against
pictures of the Saints and Virgin when they
refused to do their duty in pestilence or drought,
have been witnessed even during the present
century in Catholic countries. Through all these
magic relations to nature, countless ceremonies
have been called into life; and at last, when the
confusion has grown too great, an endeavour has
been made to order and systematise them, in
order that the favourable course of the whole
progress of nature, i. e. of the great succession of
the seasons, may seem to be guaranteed by a
corresponding course of a system of procedure.
The essence of the religious cult is to determine
and confine nature to human advantage, to impress
it with a legality, therefore, which it did not
originally possess; while at the present time we
wish to recognise the legality of nature in order
to adapt ourselves to it. In short, then, the
religious cult is based upon the representations
of sorcery between man and man,—and the
sorcerer is older than the priest. But it is like-
wise based upon other and nobler representations;
it premises the sympathetic relation of man to
man, the presence of goodwill, gratitude, the
hearing of pleaders, of treaties between enemies,
the granting of pledges, and the claim to the
protection of property. In very low stages of
## p. 121 (#180) ############################################
120 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
a distance, so the weaker man believes he can
influence the mightier spirits of nature. The
principal thing in all witchcraft is that we must
get into our possession something that belongs to
some one, hair, nails, food from their table, even
their portrait, their name. With such apparatus
we can then practise sorcery; for the fundamental
rule is, to everything spiritual there belongs some-
thing corporeal; with the help of this we are able
to bind the spirit, to injure it, and destroy it; the
corporeal furnishes the handles with which we can
grasp the spiritual. As man controls man, so he
controls some natural spirit or other; for this has
also its corporeal part by which it may be grasped.
The tree and, compared with it, the seed from
which it sprang,—this enigmatical contrast seems
to prove that the same spirit embodied itself in
both forms, now small, now large. A stone that
begins to roll suddenly is the body in which a
spirit operates; if there is an enormous rock
lying on a lonely heath it seems impossible to
conceive human strength sufficient to have brought
it there, consequently the stone must have moved
there by itself, that is, it must be possessed by a
spirit. Everything that has a body is susceptible
to witchcraft, therefore also the natural spirits.
If a god is bound to his image we can
use the most direct compulsion against him
(through refusal of sacrificial food, scourging,
binding in fetters, and so on). In order to
obtain by force the missing favour of their god
the lower classes in China wind cords round the
image of the one who has left them in the lurch,
## p. 121 (#181) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 121
pull it down and drag it through the streets in
the dust and the dirt: "You dog of a spirit,"
they say, "we gave you a magnificent temple to
live in, we gilded you prettily, we fed you well,
we offered you sacrifice, and yet you are so
ungrateful. " Similar forcible measures against
pictures of the Saints and Virgin when they
refused to do their duty in pestilence or drought,
have been witnessed even during the present
century in Catholic countries. Through all these
magic relations to nature, countless ceremonies
have been called into life; and at last, when the
confusion has grown too great, an endeavour has
been made to order and systematise them, in
order that the favourable course of the whole
progress of nature, i. e. of the great succession of
the seasons, may seem to be guaranteed by a
corresponding course of a system of procedure.
The essence of the religious cult is to determine
and confine nature to human advantage, to impress
it with a legality, therefore, which it did not
originally possess; while at the present time we
wish to recognise the legality of nature in order
to adapt ourselves to it. In short, then, the
religious cult is based upon the representations
of sorcery between man and man,—and the
sorcerer is older than the priest. But it is like-
wise based upon other and nobler representations;
it premises the sympathetic relation of man to
man, the presence of goodwill, gratitude, the
hearing of pleaders, of treaties between enemies,
the granting of pledges, and the claim to the
protection of property. In very low stages of
## p. 122 (#182) ############################################
122 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
civilisation man does not stand in the relation of
a helpless slave to nature, he is not necessarily its
involuntary bondsman. In the Greek grade of
religion, particularly in relation to the Olympian
gods, there may even be imagined a common life
between two castes, a nobler and more powerful
one, and one less noble; but in their origin both
belong to each other somehow, and are of one
kind; they need not be ashamed of each other.
That is the nobility of the Greek religion.
112.
At the Sight of certain Antique
Sacrificial Implements. —The fact of how
many feelings are lost to us may be seen, for
instance, in the mingling of the droll, even of the
obscene, with the religious feeling. The sensation
of the possibility of this mixture vanishes, we only
comprehend historically that it existed in the feasts
of Demeter and Dionysus, in the Christian Easter-
plays and Mysteries. But we also know that
which is noble in alliance with burlesque and such
like, the touching mingled with the laughable,
which perhaps a later age will not be able to
understand.
"3-
Christianity as Antiquity. —When on a
Sunday morning we hear the old bells ring out,
we ask ourselves, "Is it possible! This is done
on account of a Jew crucified two thousand years
ago who said he was the Son of God. The proof
ot such an assertion is wanting. " Certainly in our
## p. 123 (#183) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 123
times the Christian religion is an antiquity that
dates from very early ages, and the fact that its
assertions are still believed, when otherwise all
claims are subjected to such strict examination,
is perhaps the oldest part of this heritage. A
God who creates a son from a mortal woman; a
sage who requires that man should no longer
work, no longer judge, but should pay attention to
the signs of the approaching end of the world;
a justice that accepts an innocent being as a
substitute in sacrifice; one who commands his
disciples to drink his blood ; prayers for miraculous
intervention; sins committed against a God and
atoned for through a God; the fear of a future
to which death is the portal; the form of the
cross in an age which no longer knows the
signification and the shame of the cross,* how
terrible all this appears to us, as if risen from the
grave of the ancient past! Is it credible that
such things are still believed?
114.
What is un-Greek in Christianity. —The
Greeks did not regard the Homeric gods as raised
above them like masters, nor themselves as being
under them like servants, as the Jews did. They
only saw, as in a mirror, the most perfect examples
of their own caste; an ideal, therefore, and not an
opposite of their own nature. There is a feeling
* It may be remembered that the cross was the gallows
of the ancient world. —J. M. K.
## p. 124 (#184) ############################################
124 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
of relationship, a mutual interest arises, a kind of
symmachy. Man thinks highly of himself when
he gives himself such gods, and places himself in
a relation like that of the lower nobility towards
the higher; while the Italian nations hold a
genuine peasant-faith, with perpetual fear of evil
and mischievous powers and tormenting spirits.
Wherever the Olympian gods retreated into the
background, Greek life was more sombre and
more anxious. Christianity, on the contrary,
oppressed man and crushed him utterly, sinking
him as if in deep mire; then into the feeling of
absolute depravity it suddenly threw the light of
divine mercy, so that the surprised man, dazzled
by forgiveness, gave a cry of joy and for a moment
believed that he bore all heaven within himself.
All psychological feelings of Christianity work
upon this unhealthy excess of sentiment, and
upon the deep corruption of head and heart it
necessitates; it desires to destroy, break, stupefy,
confuse,—only one thing it does not desire, namely
moderation, and therefore it is in the deepest sense
barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble and un-Greek.
II5.
To be Religious with Advantage. —There
are sober and industrious people on whom religion
is embroidered like a hem of higher humanity;
these do well to remain religious, it beautifies
them. All people who do not understand some
kind of trade in weapons—tongue and pen included
as weapons—become servile; for such the Christian
"
## p. 125 (#185) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 125
religion is very useful, for then servility assumes
the appearance of Christian virtues and is surpris-
ingly beautified. People to whom their daily life
appears too empty and monotonous easily grow
religious; this is comprehensible and excusable,
only they have no right to demand religious
sentiments from those whose daily life is not
empty and monotonous. *
116.
The Commonplace Christian. —If Christi-
anity were right, with its theories of an avenging
God, of general sinfulness, of redemption, and the
danger of eternal damnation, it would be a sign of
weak intellect and lack of character not to become
a priest, apostle or hermit, and to work only with
fear and trembling for one's own salvation; it
would be senseless thus to neglect eternal benefits
for temporary comfort. Taking it for granted
that there is belief, the commonplace Christian is
a miserable figure, a man that really cannot add
two and two together, and who, moreover, just
because of his mental incapacity for responsibility,
did not deserve to be so severely punished as
Christianity has decreed.
117.
Of the Wisdom of Christianity. —It is a
clever stroke on the part of Christianity to teach
* This may give us one of the reasons for the religiosity
still happily prevailing in England and the United States.
—J. M. K.
## p. 125 (#186) ############################################
## p. 125 (#187) ############################################
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123-
CHURCH DISESTABLISHMENT. -There is not
enough religion in the world even to destroy
religions.
## p. 125 (#188) ############################################
I 28 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
I 24.
THE SINLESSNESS OF MAN. —If it is under-
stood how “sin came into the world,” namely
through errors of reason by which men held each
other, even the single individual held himself, to
be much blacker and much worse than was
actually the case, the whole sensation will be
much lightened, and man and the world will
appear in a blaze of innocence which it will do
one good to contemplate. In the midst of nature
man is always the child per se. This child some-
times has a heavy and terrifying dream, but when
it opens its eyes it always finds itself back again
in Paradise.
I 25.
THE IRRELIGIOUSNESS OF ARTISTS. –Homer
is so much at home amongst his gods, and is so
familiar with them as a poet, that he must have
been deeply irreligious; that which the popular
faith gave him—a meagre, rude, partly terrible
superstition—he treated as freely as the sculptor
does his clay, with the same unconcern, therefore,
which AEschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and
by which in later times the great artists of the
Renaissance distinguished themselves, as also did
Shakespeare and Goethe.
I 26.
THE ART AND POWER OF FALSE INTER-
PRETATIONS. —All the visions, terrors, torpors,
## p. 125 (#189) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. I 29
and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of
disease, which are only, by reason of deep-rooted
religious and psychological errors, differently
explained by him, namely not as diseases. Thus,
perhaps, the Daimonion of Socrates was only an
affection of the ear, which he, in accordance with
his ruling moral mode of thought, expounded
differently from what would be the case now.
It is the same thing with the madness and
ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it is
always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort,
morality in the head and heart of the interpreters
which has made so much of it. For the greatest
achievements of the people who are called geniuses
and saints it is necessary that they should secure
interpreters by force, who misunderstand them for
the good of mankind.
I 27.
THE VENERATION OF INSANITY. -Because
it was remarked that excitement frequently made
the mind clearer and produced happy inspirations,
it was believed that the happiest inspirations and
suggestions were called forth by the greatest
excitement; and so the insane were revered as
wise and oracular. This is based on a false
conclusion.
I 28.
THE PROMISES OF SCIENCE. -The aim of
modern science is: as little pain as possible, as
long a life as possible, a kind of eternal blessed-
vol. I I
## p. 126 (#190) ############################################
126 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN. _
the utter unworthiness, sinfulness, and despicable-
ness of mankind so loudly that the disdain of
their fellow-men is no longer possible. "He may
sin as much as he likes, he is not essentially
different from me,—it is I who am unworthy and
despicable in every way," says the Christian to
himself. But even this feeling has lost its sharpest
sting, because the Christian no longer believes in
his individual despicableness; he is bad as men
are generally, and comforts himself a little with
the axiom, " We are all of one kind. "
118.
Change of Front. —As soon as a religion
triumphs *it has for its enemies all those who
would have been its first disciples.
119.
The Fate of Christianity. —Christianity
arose for the purpose of lightening the heart;
but now it must first make the heart heavy in
order afterwards to lighten it. Consequently it
will perish. l\ , \
The Proof of Pleasure. —The agreeable
opinion is accepted as true,—this is the proof of
the pleasure (or, as the Church says, the proof of
the strength), of which all religions are so proud
when they ought to be ashamed of it. If Faith
did not make blessed it would not be believed
in; of how little value must it be, then!
## p. 127 (#191) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 127
121.
A Dangerous Game. —Whoever now allows
scope to his religious feelings must also let them
increase, he cannot do otherwise. His nature
then gradually changes; it favours whatever is
connected with and near to the religious element,
the whole extent of judgment and feeling becomes
clouded, overcast with religious shadows. Sensa-
tion cannot stand still; one must therefore take
care.
122.
The Blind Disciples. —So long as one
knows well the strength and weakness of one's
doctrine, one's art, one's religion, its power is
still small. The disciple and apostle who has
no eyes for the weaknesses of the doctrine, the
religion, and so forth, dazzled by the aspect of
the master and by his reverence for him, has on
that account usually more power than the master
himself. Without blind disciples the influence of
a man and his work has never yet become great.
To help a doctrine to victory often means only
so to mix it with stupidity that the weight of the
latter carries off also the victory for the former.
123.
Church Disestablishment. —There is not
enough religion in the world even to destroy
religions.
## p. 128 (#192) ############################################
128 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
124.
The Sinlessness of Man. —If it is under-
stood how "sin came into the world," namely
through errors of reason by which men held each
other, even the single individual held himself, to
be much blacker and much worse than was
actually the case, the whole sensation will be
much lightened, and man and the world will
appear in a blaze of innocence which it will do
one good to contemplate. In the midst of nature
man is always the child per se. This child some-
times has a heavy and terrifying dream, but when
it opens its eyes it always finds itself back again
in Paradise.
125.
The Irreligiousness of Artists. —Homer
is so much at home amongst his gods, and is so
familiar with them as a poet, that he must have
been deeply irreligious; that which the popular
faith gave him—a meagre, rude, partly terrible
superstition—he treated as freely as the sculptor
does his clay, with the same unconcern, therefore,
which ^Eschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and
by which in later times the great artists of the
Renaissance distinguished themselves, as also did
Shakespeare and Goethe.
126.
The Art and Power of False Inter-
pretations. —All the visions, terrors, torpors,
>
## p. 129 (#193) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 129
and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of
disease, which are only, by reason of deep-rooted
religious and psychological errors, differently
explained by him, namely not as diseases. Thus,
perhaps, the Daimonion of Socrates was only an
affection of the ear, which he, in accordance with
his ruling moral mode of thought, expounded
differently from what would be the case now.
It is the same thing with the madness and
ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it is
always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort,
morality in the head and heart of the interpreters
which has made so much of it. For the greatest
achievements of the people who are called geniuses
and saints it is necessary that they should secure
interpreters by force, who misunderstand them for
the good of mankind.
127.
The Veneration of Insanity. —Because
it was remarked that excitement frequently made
the mind clearer and produced happy inspirations,
it was believed that the happiest inspirations and
suggestions were called forth by the greatest
excitement; and so the insane were revered as
wise and oracular. This is based on a false
conclusion.
128.
The Promises of Science. —The aim of
modern science is: as little pain as possible, as
long a life as possible,—a kind of eternal blessed-
## p. 130 (#194) ############################################
130 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
>
ness, therefore; but certainly a very modest one
as compared with the promises of religions.
129.
Forbidden Generosity. — There is not
sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit
us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.
130.
The Continuance of the Religious
Cult in the Feelings. —The Roman Catholic
Church, and before that all antique cults, domin-
ated the entire range of means by which man
was put into unaccustomed moods and rendered
incapable of the cold calculation of judgment or
the clear thinking of reason. A church quivering
with deep tones; the dull, regular, arresting
appeals of a priestly throng, unconsciously com-
municates its tension to the congregation and
makes it listen almost fearfully, as if a miracle
were in preparation; the influence of the archi-
tecture, which, as the dwelling of a Godhead,
extends into the uncertain and makes its appari-
tion to be feared in all its sombre spaces,—who
would wish to bring such things back to mankind if
the necessary suppositions are no longer believed?
But the results of all this are not lost, never-
theless; the inner world of noble, emotional,
deeply contrite dispositions, full of presentiments,
blessed with hope, is inborn in mankind mainly
through this cult; what exists of it now in the
_
## p. 131 (#195) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 131
soul was then cultivated on a large scale as it
germinated, grew up and blossomed.
I3i-
The Painful Consequences of Religion.
—However much we may think we have weaned
ourselves from religion, it has nevertheless not
been done so thoroughly as to deprive us of
pleasure in encountering religious sensations and
moods in music, for instance; and if a philosophy
shows us the justification of metaphysical hopes
and the deep peace of soul to be thence acquired,
and speaks, for instance, of the "whole, certain
gospel in the gaze of Raphael's Madonnas,"
we receive such statements and expositions
particularly warmly; here the philosopher finds
it easier to prove; that which he desires to
give corresponds to a heart that desires to receive.
Hence it may be observed how the less thoughtful
free spirits really only take offence at the dogmas,
but are well acquainted with the charm of religious
sensations; they are sorry to lose hold of the
latter for the sake of the former. Scientific
philosophy must be very careful not to smuggle
in errors on the ground of that need,—a need
which has grown up and is consequently
temporary,—even logicians speak of "presenti-
ments" of truth in ethics and in art (for instance,
of the suspicion that "the nature of things is
one"), which should be forbidden to them.
Between the carefully established truths and
such "presaged" things there remains the un-
## p. 132 (#196) ############################################
132 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
bridgable chasm that those are due to intellect
and these to requirement. Hunger does not
prove that food exists to satisfy it, but that it
desires food. To "presage" does not mean
the acknowledgment of the existence of a thing
in any one degree, but its possibility, in so far
as it is desired or feared; "presage" does not
advance one step into the land of certainty. We
believe involuntarily that the portions of a
philosophy which are tinged with religion are
better proved than others; but actually it is
the contrary, but we have the inward desire that
it may be so, that that which makes blessed,
therefore, may be also the true. This desire
misleads us to accept bad reasons for good ones.
132.
Of the Christian Need of Redemption. —
With careful reflection it must be possible to
obtain an explanation free from mythology of
that process in the soul of a Christian which
is called the need of redemption, consequently
a purely psychological explanation. Up to the
\ present, the psychological explanations of religious
conditions and processes have certainly been
C. held in some disrepute, inasmuch as a theology
which called itself free carried on its unprofitable
practice in this domain; for here from the
beginning (as the mind of its founder, Schleier-
macher, gives us reason to suppose) the preserva-
tion of the Christian religion and the continuance
of Christian theology was kept in view; a
-v
## p. 133 (#197) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 133
theology which was to find a new anchorage
in the psychological analyses of religious " facts,"
and above all a new occupation. Unconcerned
about such predecessors we hazard the following
interpretation of the phenomenon in question.
Man is conscious of certain actions which stand
far down in the customary rank of actions; he
even discovers in himself a tendency towards
similar actions, a tendency which appears to him
almost as unchangeable as his whole nature.
How willingly would he try himself in that
other species of actions which in the general
valuation are recognised as the loftiest and
highest, how gladly would he feel himself to
be full of the good consciousness which should
follow an unselfish mode of thought! But
unfortunately he stops short at this wish, and
the discontent at not being able to satisfy it
is added to all the other discontents which his
lot in life or the consequences of those above-
mentioned evil actions have aroused in him;
so that a deep ill-humour is the result, with the
search for a physician who could remove this
and all its causes. This condition would not
be felt so bitterly if man would only compare
himself frankly with other men,—then he would
have no reason for being dissatisfied with himself
to a particular extent, he would only bear his
share of the common burden of human dis-
satisfaction and imperfection. But he compares
himself with a being who is said to be capable
only of those actions which are called unegoistic,
and to live in the perpetual consciousness of an
r
## p. 134 (#198) ############################################
134 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
unselfish mode of thought, i. e. with God; it is
because he gazes into this clear mirror that his
image appears to him so dark, so unusually
warped. Then he is alarmed by the thought
of that same creature, in so far as it floats
before his imagination as a retributive justice;
in all possible small and great events he thinks
he recognises its anger and menaces, that he
even feels its scourge-strokes as judge and
executioner. Who will help him in this danger,
which, by the prospect of an immeasurable
duration of punishment, exceeds in horror all
the other terrors of the idea?
133-
Before we examine the further consequences of
this mental state, let us acknowledge that it is
not through his "guilt" and "sin" that man
has got into this condition, but through a series
of errors of reason; that it was the fault of the
mirror if his image appeared so dark and hateful
to him, and that that mirror was his work, the
very imperfect work of human imagination and
power of judgment. In the first place, a nature
that is only capable of purely unegoistic actions
is more fabulous than the phcenix; it cannot
even be clearly imagined, just because, when
closely examined, the whole idea "unegoistic
action" vanishes into air. No man ever did
a thing which was done only for others and
without any personal motive; how should he
be able to do anything which had no relation
## p. 135 (#199) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 135
to himself, and therefore without inward obligation
(which must always have its foundation in a
personal need)? How could the ego act without
ego} A God who, on the contrary, is all love,
as such a one is often represented, would not
be capable of a single unegoistic action, whereby
one is reminded of a saying of Lichtenberg's
which is certainly taken from a lower sphere:
"We cannot possibly feel for others, as the
saying is; we feel only for ourselves. This
sounds hard, but it is not so really if it be
rightly understood. We do not love father or
mother or wife or child, but the pleasant
sensations they cause us;" or, as Rochefoucauld
says: "Si on croit aimer sa maitresse pour F amour
d'elle, on est bien trompi" To know the reason
why actions of love are valued more than others,
not on account of their nature, namely, but of
their usefulness, we should compare the examina-
tions already mentioned, On the Origin of
Moral Sentiments. But should a man desire
to be entirely like that God of Love, to do and
wish everything for others and nothing for
himself, the latter is impossible for the reason
that he must do very much for himself to be
able to do something for the love of others.
Then it is taken for granted that the other is
sufficiently egoistic to accept that sacrifice again
and again, that living for him,—so that the people
of love and sacrifice have an interest in the
continuance of those who are loveless and
incapable of sacrifice, and, in order to exist,
the highest morality would be obliged positively
## p. 136 (#200) ############################################
136 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
to compel the existence of un-morality (whereby
it would certainly annihilate itself). Further:
the conception of a God disturbs and humbles
so long as it is believed in; but as to how it
arose there can no longer be any doubt in the
present state of the science of comparative
ethnology; and with a comprehension of this
origin all belief falls to the ground. The
V Christian who compares his nature with God's
is like Don Quixote, who under-valued his own
bravery because his head was full of the
marvellous deeds of the heroes of the chivalric
romances,—the standard of measurement in both
L, cases belongs to the domain of fable. But if the
idea of God is removed, so is also the feeling
of "sin" as a trespass against divine laws, as
a stain in a creature vowed to God. Then,
perhaps, there still remains that dejection which
is intergrown and connected with the fear of
the punishment of worldly justice or of the
scorn of men; the dejection of the pricks of
conscience, the sharpest thorn in the conscious-
ness of sin, is always removed if we recognise
that though by our own deed we have sinned
against human descent, human laws and
ordinances, still that we have not imperilled the
"eternal salvation of the Soul" and its relation
to the Godhead. And if man succeeds in
gaining philosophic conviction of the absolute
necessity of all actions and their entire irresponsi-
bility, and absorbing this into his flesh and blood,
even those remains of the pricks of conscience
vanish.
## p. 137 (#201) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 137
134-
Now if the Christian, as we have said, has fallen
into the way of self-contempt in consequence of
certain errors through a false, unscientific inter-
pretation of his actions and sensations, he must
notice with great surprise how that state of con-
tempt, the pricks of conscience and displeasure
generally, does not endure, how sometimes there
come hours when all this is wafted away from
his soul and he feels himself once more free and
courageous. In truth, the pleasure . in himself,
the comfort of his own strength, together with
the necessary weakening through time of every
deep emotion, has usually been victorious; man
loves himself once again, he feels it,—but precisely
this new love, this self-esteem, seems to him
incredible, he can only see in it the wholly un-
deserved descent of a stream of mercy from on high.
If he formerly believed that in every event he
could recognise warnings, menaces, punishments,
and every kind of manifestation of divine anger,
he now finds divine goodness in all his experiences,
—this event appears to him to be full of love, that
one a helpful hint, a third, and, indeed, his whole
happy mood, a proof that God is merciful. As
formerly, in his state of pain, he interpreted his
actions falsely, so now he misinterprets his ex-
periences; his mood of comfort he believes to be
the working of a power operating outside of him-
self, the love with which he really loves himself
seems to him to be divine love; that which he
## p. 138 (#202) ############################################
138 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
-
calls mercy, and the prologue to redemption, is
actually self-forgiveness, self-redemption.
135-
Therefore: A certain false psychology, a
certain kind of imaginative interpretation of
motives and experiences, is the necessary pre-
liminary for one to become a Christian and to
feel the need of redemption. When this error
of reason and imagination is recognised, one ceases
to be a Christian.
136.
Of Christian Asceticism and Holiness.
—As greatly as isolated thinkers have endeavoured
to depict as a miracle the rare manifestations of
morality, which are generally called asceticism and
holiness, miracles which it would be almost an out-
rage and sacrilege to explain by the light of common
sense, as strong also is the inclination towards this
outrage. A mighty impulse of nature has at all
times led to a protest against those manifestations;
science, in so far as it is an imitation of nature, at
least allows itself to rise against the supposed in-
explicableness and unapproachableness of these
objections. So far it has certainly not succeeded:
those appearances are still unexplained, to the
great joy of the above-mentioned worshippers of
the morally marvellous. For, speaking generally,
the unexplained must be absolutely inexplicable,
the inexplicable absolutely unnatural, supernatural,
wonderful,—thus runs the demand in the souls of
## p. 139 (#203) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 139
all religious and metaphysical people (also of
artists, if they should happen to be thinkers at the
same time); whilst the scientist sees in this de-
mand the " evil principle" in itself. The general,
first probability upon which one lights in the
contemplation of holiness and asceticism is this,
that their nature is a complicated one, for almost
everywhere, within the physical world as well as
in the moral, the apparently marvellous has been
successfully traced back to the complicated, the
many-conditioned. Let us venture, therefore, to
isolate separate impulses from the soul of saints
and ascetics, and finally to imagine them as inter-
grown.
137-
There is a defiance of self, to the sublimest
manifestation of which belong many forms of
asceticism. Certain individuals have such great
need of exercising their power and love of ruling
that, in default of other objects, or because they
have never succeeded otherwise, they finally ex-
cogitate the idea of tyrannising over certain parts of
their own nature, portions or degrees of themselves.
Thus many a thinker confesses to views which
evidently do not serve either to increase or im-
prove his reputation; many a one deliberately
calls down the scorn of others when by keeping
silence he could easily have remained respected;
others contradict former opinions and do not
hesitate to be called inconsistent—on the contrary,
they strive after this, and behave like reckless
## p. 140 (#204) ############################################
140 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
riders who like a horse best when it has grown
wild, unmanageable, and covered with sweat.
Thus man climbs dangerous paths up the highest
mountains in order that he may laugh to scorn
his own fear and his trembling knees; thus the
philosopher owns to views on asceticism, humility,
holiness, in the brightness of which his own
picture shows to the worst possible disadvantage.
This crushing of one's self, this scorn of one's own
nature, this spernere se sperni, of which religion
has made so much, is really a very high degree of
vanity. The whole moral of the Sermon on the
Mount belongs here; man takes a genuine delight
in doing violence to himself by these exaggerated
claims, and afterwards idolising these tyrannical
demands of his soul. In every ascetic morality
man worships one part of himself as a God, and
is obliged, therefore, to diabolise the other parts.
138.
Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is
well known. If his morality is judged to be the
capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and
self-denial (which, when continuous and grown
habitual, are called holiness), he is most moral in
the passions; the higher emotion provides him
with entirely new motives, of which he, sober and
cold as usual, perhaps does not even believe him-
self capable. How does this happen? Probably
because of the proximity of everything great
and highly exciting; if man is once wrought up
## p. 141 (#205) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 141
to a state of extraordinary suspense, he is as
capable of carrying out a terrible revenge as of
a terrible crushing of his need for revenge. Under
the influence of powerful emotion, he desires in
any case the great, the powerful, the immense; and
if he happens to notice that the sacrifice of himself
satisfies him as well as, or better than, the sacrifice
of others, he chooses that. Actually, therefore,
he only cares about discharging his emotion; in
order to ease his tension he seizes the enemy's
spears and buries them in his breast. That there
was something great in self-denial and not in
revenge had to be taught to mankind by long
habit; a Godhead that sacrificed itself was the
strongest, most effective symbol of this kind of
greatness. As the conquest of the most difficult
enemy, the sudden mastering of an affection—
thus this denial appears; and so far it passes for
the summit of morality. In reality it is a question
of the confusion of one idea with another, while
the temperament maintains an equal height, an
equal level. Temperate men who are resting from
their passions no longer understand the morality
of those moments; but the general admiration of
those who had the same experiences upholds them;
pride is their consolation when affection and the
understanding of their deed vanish. Therefore,
at bottom even those actions of self-denial are not
moral, inasmuch as they are not done strictly
with regard to others; rather the other only pro-
vides the highly-strung temperament with an
opportunity of relieving itself through that
denial.
## p. 142 (#206) ############################################
142 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
139-
In many respects the ascetic seeks to make life
easy for himself, usually by complete subordination
to a strange will or a comprehensive law and
ritual; something like the way a Brahmin leaves
nothing whatever to his own decision but refers
every moment to holy precepts. This submission
is a powerful means of attaining self-mastery:
man is occupied and is therefore not bored, and
yet has no incitement to self-will or passion ; after a
completed deed there is no feeling of responsibility
and with it no tortures of remorse. We have
renounced our own will once and for ever, and
this is easier than only renouncing it occasionally;
as it is also easier to give up a desire entirely than
to keep it within bounds. When we remember
the present relation of man to the State, we find
that, even here, unconditional obedience is more
convenient than conditional. The saint, therefore,
makes his life easier by absolute renunciation of
his personality, and we are mistaken if in that
phenomenon we admire the loftiest heroism of
morality. In any case it is more difficult to carry
one's personality through without vacillation and
unclearness than to liberate one's self from it in
the above-mentioned manner; moreover, it requires
far more spirit and consideration.
140.
After having found in many of the less easily
explicable actions manifestations of that pleasure
## p. 143 (#207) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. I43
in emotion per se, I should like to recognise also in
self-contempt, which is one of the signs of holiness,
and likewise in the deeds of self-torture (through
hunger and scourging, mutilation of limbs, feigning
of madness) a means by which those natures fight
against the general weariness of their life-will
(their nerves); they employ the most painful
irritants and cruelties in order to emerge for a
time, at all events, from that dulness and boredom
into which they so frequently sink through their
great mental indolence and that submission to a
strange will already described.
141.
The commonest means which the ascetic and
saint employs to render life still endurable and
amusing consists in occasional warfare with
alternate victory and defeat. For this he requires
an opponent, and finds it in the so-called "inward
enemy. " He principally makes use of his inclina- ^~)
tion to vanity, love of honour and rule, and of his
sensual desires, that he may be permitted to regard
his life as a perpetual battle and himself as a battle-
field upon which good and evil spirits strive with
alternating success. It is well known that sensual
imagination is moderated, indeed almost dispelled,
by regular sexual intercourse, whereas, on the
contrary, it is rendered unfettered and wild by
abstinence or irregularity. The imagination of
many Christian saints was filthy to an extra-
ordinary degree; by virtue of those theories that I
these desires were actual demons raging within
## p. 144 (#208) ############################################
144 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
them they did not feel themselves to be too
responsible; to this feeling we owe the very
instructive frankness of their self-confessions. It
was to their interest that this strife should always
be maintained in one degree or another, because,
as we have already said, their empty life was thereby
entertained. But in order that the strife might
seem sufficiently important and arouse the enduring
sympathy and admiration of non-saints, it was
necessary that sensuality should be ever more
reviled and branded, the danger of eternal
damnation was so tightly bound up with these
things that it is highly probable that for whole
centuries Christians generated children with a
bad conscience, wherewith humanity has certainly
suffered a great injury. And yet here truth is
all topsy-turvy, which is particularly unsuitable
for truth. Certainly Christianity had said that
every man is conceived and born in sin, and
in the insupportable superlative-Christianity of
/ Calderon this thought again appears, tied up and
twisted, as the most distorted paradox there is, in
the well-known lines —
"The greatest sin of man
Is that he was ever born. "
In all pessimistic religions the act of generation
was looked upon as evil in itself.
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## p. 116 (#172) ############################################
Il6 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor ev»
enmity; they live on different planets. Evej
philosophy which shows a religious comet's ti
shining in the darkness of its last prospects makj fl
all the science it contains suspicious; all th
is presumably also religion, even though in th .
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were t( . '
agree about certain religious matters, for instana
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarked!
is not the case with regard to this point), thij
would only be an argument against those affirmed
matters, for instance the existence of a God; the
consensus gentium and hominum in general can
only take place in case of a huge folly. On the
other hand, there is no consensus omnium sapientium,
with regard to any single thing, with that exception
mentioned in Goethe's lines:
"Alle die Weisesten aller der Zeiten
Lacheln und vvinken und stimmen mit ein:
Thoricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort! " *
Spoken without verse and rhyme and applied to
our case, the consensus sapientium consists in
this: that the consensus gentium counts as a folly.
* "All greatest sages of all latest ages
Will chuckle and slily agree,
'Tis folly to wait till a fool's empty pate
Has learnt to be knowing and free:
So children of wisdom, make use of the fools
And use them whenever you can as your tools. "—J. M. K
## p. 117 (#173) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 117
I I I.
The Origin of the Religious Cult. —If
we go back to the times in which the religious life
flourished to the greatest extent, we find a funda-
mental conviction, which we now no longer share,
'and whereby the doors leading to a religious life
are closed to us once for all,—it concerns Nature
and intercourse with her. In those times people
knew nothing of natural laws; neither for earth
nor for heaven is there a "must"; a season, the
sunshine, the rain may come or may not come.
In short, every idea of natural causality is lacking.
When one rows, it is not the rowing that moves
the boat, but rowing is only a magical ceremony
by which one compels a dcemon to move the
boat. All maladies, even death itself, are the result
of magical influences. Illness and death never
happen naturally; the whole conception of
"natural sequence" is lacking,—it dawned first
amongst the older Greeks, that is, in a very late
phase of humanity, in the conception of Moira,
enthroned above the gods. When a man shoots
with a bow, there is still always present an
irrational hand and strength; if the wells suddenly
dry up, men think first of subterranean dcemons
and their tricks; it must be the arrow of a god
beneath whose invisible blow a man suddenly
sinks down. In India (says Lubbock) a carpenter
is accustomed to offer sacrifice to his hammer, his
hatchet, and the rest of his tools; in the same way
a Brahmin treats the pen with which he writes, a
soldier the weapons he requires in the field of
.
## p. 118 (#174) ############################################
Il8 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
battle, a mason his trowel, a labourer his plough.
In the imagination of religious people all nature
is a summary of the actions of conscious and
voluntary creatures, an enormous complex of
arbitrariness. No conclusion may be drawn with
regard to everything that is outside of us, that
anything will be so and so, must be so and so;
the approximately sure, reliable are we,—man is
the rule, nature is irregularity,—this theory con-
tains the fundamental conviction which obtains in
rude, religiously productive primitive civilisations.
We latter-day men feel just the contrary,—the
richer man now feels himself inwardly, the more
polyphonous is the music and the noise of his
soul the more powerfully the symmetry of nature
works upon him; we all recognise with Goethe
the great means in nature for the appeasing of
the modern soul; we listen to the pendulum swing
of this greatest of clocks with a longing for rest,
for home and tranquillity, as if we could absorb
this symmetry into ourselves and could only
thereby arrive at the enjoyment of ourselves.
Formerly it was otherwise; if we consider the
rude, early condition of nations, or contemplate
present-day savages at close quarters, we find
them most strongly influenced by law and by
tradition: the individual is almost automatically
bound to them, and moves with the uniformity of
a pendulum. To him Nature—uncomprehended,
terrible, mysterious Nature—must appear as the
sphere of liberty, of voluntariness, of the higher
power, even as a superhuman degree of existence,
as God. In those times and conditions, however,
## p. 119 (#175) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 119
very individual felt that his existence, his happi-
f:ss, and that of the family and the State, and
e success of all undertakings, depended on those
ontaneities of nature; certain natural events
ust appear at the right time, others be absent at
e right time. How can one have any influence
n these terrible unknown things, how can one
►ind the sphere of liberty? Thus he asks himself,
hus he inquires anxiously;—is there, then, no
neans of making those powers as regular through
radition and law as you are yourself? The aim
f those who believe in magic and miracles is to
'mpose a law on nature,—and, briefly, the religious
ult is a result of this aim. The problem which
hose people have set themselves is closely related
0 this: how can the weaker race dictate laws to
the stronger, rule it, and guide its actions (in
relation to the weaker)? One would first
remember the most harmless sort of compulsion,
that compulsion which one exercises when one
has gained any one's affection. By imploring and
praying, by submission, by the obligation of regular
taxes and gifts, by flattering glorifications, it is
also possible to exercise an influence upon the
powers of nature, inasmuch as one gains the
affections; love binds and becomes bound. Then
one can make compacts by which one is mutually
bound to a certain behaviour, where one gives
pledges and exchanges vows. But far more
* important is a species of more forcible compulsion,
(by magic and witchcraft. As with the sorcerer's
help man is able to injure a more powerful enemy
'and keep him in fear, as the love-charm works at
I
J
## p. 119 (#176) ############################################
Il8 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
battle, a mason his trowel, a labourer his plough.
In the imagination of religious people all nature
is a summary of the actions of conscious and
voluntary creatures, an enormous complex of
arbitrariness. No conclusion may be drawn with
regard to everything that is outside of us, that
anything will be so and so, must be so and so;
the approximately sure, reliable are we,—man is
the rule, nature is irregularity,—this theory con-
tains the fundamental conviction which obtains in
rude, religiously productive primitive civilisations.
We latter-day men feel just the contrary,—the
richer man now feels himself inwardly, the more
polyphonous is the music and the noise of his
soul the more powerfully the symmetry of nature
works upon him; we all recognise with Goethe
the great means in nature for the appeasing of
the modern soul; we listen to the pendulum swing
of this greatest of clocks with a longing for rest,
for home and tranquillity, as if we could absorb
this symmetry into ourselves and could only
thereby arrive at the enjoyment of ourselves.
Formerly it was otherwise; if we consider the
rude, early condition of nations, or contemplate
present-day savages at close quarters, we find
them most strongly influenced by law and by
tradition: the individual is almost automatically
bound to them, and moves with the uniformity of
a pendulum. To him Nature—uncomprehended,
terrible, mysterious Nature—must appear as the
sphere of liberty, of voluntariness, of the higher
power, even as a superhuman degree of existence,
as God. In those times and conditions, however,
1
## p. 119 (#177) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 119
every individual felt that his existence, his happi-
ness, and that of the family and the State, and
the success of all undertakings, depended on those
spontaneities of nature; certain natural events
must appear at the right time, others be absent at
the right time. How can one have any influence
on these terrible unknown things, how can one
bind the sphere of liberty? Thus he asks himself,
thus he inquires anxiously;—is there, then, no
means of making those powers as regular through
tradition and law as you are yourself? The aim
of those who believe in magic and miracles is to
impose a law on nature,—and, briefly, the religious
cult is a result of this aim. The problem which
those people have set themselves is closely related
to this: how can the weaker race dictate laws to
the stronger, rule it, and guide its actions (in
relation to the weaker)? One would first
remember the most harmless sort of compulsion,
that compulsion which one exercises when one
has gained any one's affection. By imploring and
praying, by submission, by the obligation of regular
taxes and gifts, by flattering glorifications, it is
also possible to exercise an influence upon the
powers of nature, inasmuch as one gains the
affections; love binds and becomes bound. Then
one can make compacts by which one is mutually
bound to a certain behaviour, where one gives
pledges and exchanges vows. But far more
important is a species of more forcible compulsion,
by magic and witchcraft. As with the sorcerer's
help man is able to injure a more powerful enemy
and keep him in fear, as the love-charm works at
## p. 120 (#178) ############################################
120 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
a distance, so the weaker man believes he can
influence the mightier spirits of nature. The
principal thing in all witchcraft is that we must
get into our possession something that belongs to
some one, hair, nails, food from their table, even
their portrait, their name. With such apparatus
we can then practise sorcery; for the fundamental
rule is, to everything spiritual there belongs some-
thing corporeal; with the help of this we are able
to bind the spirit, to injure it, and destroy it; the
corporeal furnishes the handles with which we can
grasp the spiritual. As man controls man, so he
controls some natural spirit or other; for this has
also its corporeal part by which it may be grasped.
The tree and, compared with it, the seed from
which it sprang,—this enigmatical contrast seems
to prove that the same spirit embodied itself in
both forms, now small, now large. A stone that
begins to roll suddenly is the body in which a
spirit operates; if there is an enormous rock
lying on a lonely heath it seems impossible to
conceive human strength sufficient to have brought
it there, consequently the stone must have moved
there by itself, that is, it must be possessed by a
spirit. Everything that has a body is susceptible
to witchcraft, therefore also the natural spirits.
If a god is bound to his image we can
use the most direct compulsion against him
(through refusal of sacrificial food, scourging,
binding in fetters, and so on). In order to
obtain by force the missing favour of their god
the lower classes in China wind cords round the
image of the one who has left them in the lurch,
^
## p. 121 (#179) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 121
pull it down and drag it through the streets in
the dust and the dirt: "You dog of a spirit,"
they say, " we gave you a magnificent temple to
live in, we gilded you prettily, we fed you well,
we offered you sacrifice, and yet you are so
ungrateful. " Similar forcible measures against
pictures of the Saints and Virgin when they
refused to do their duty in pestilence or drought,
have been witnessed even during the present
century in Catholic countries. Through all these
magic relations to nature, countless ceremonies
have been called into life; and at last, when the
confusion has grown too great, an endeavour has
been made to order and systematise them, in
order that the favourable course of the whole
progress of nature, i. e. of the great succession of
the seasons, may seem to be guaranteed by a
corresponding course of a system of procedure.
The essence of the religious cult is to determine
and confine nature to human advantage, to impress
it with a legality, therefore, which it did not
originally possess; while at the present time we
wish to recognise the legality of nature in order
to adapt ourselves to it. In short, then, the
religious cult is based upon the representations
of sorcery between man and man,—and the
sorcerer is older than the priest. But it is like-
wise based upon other and nobler representations;
it premises the sympathetic relation of man to
man, the presence of goodwill, gratitude, the
hearing of pleaders, of treaties between enemies,
the granting of pledges, and the claim to the
protection of property. In very low stages of
## p. 121 (#180) ############################################
120 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
a distance, so the weaker man believes he can
influence the mightier spirits of nature. The
principal thing in all witchcraft is that we must
get into our possession something that belongs to
some one, hair, nails, food from their table, even
their portrait, their name. With such apparatus
we can then practise sorcery; for the fundamental
rule is, to everything spiritual there belongs some-
thing corporeal; with the help of this we are able
to bind the spirit, to injure it, and destroy it; the
corporeal furnishes the handles with which we can
grasp the spiritual. As man controls man, so he
controls some natural spirit or other; for this has
also its corporeal part by which it may be grasped.
The tree and, compared with it, the seed from
which it sprang,—this enigmatical contrast seems
to prove that the same spirit embodied itself in
both forms, now small, now large. A stone that
begins to roll suddenly is the body in which a
spirit operates; if there is an enormous rock
lying on a lonely heath it seems impossible to
conceive human strength sufficient to have brought
it there, consequently the stone must have moved
there by itself, that is, it must be possessed by a
spirit. Everything that has a body is susceptible
to witchcraft, therefore also the natural spirits.
If a god is bound to his image we can
use the most direct compulsion against him
(through refusal of sacrificial food, scourging,
binding in fetters, and so on). In order to
obtain by force the missing favour of their god
the lower classes in China wind cords round the
image of the one who has left them in the lurch,
## p. 121 (#181) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 121
pull it down and drag it through the streets in
the dust and the dirt: "You dog of a spirit,"
they say, "we gave you a magnificent temple to
live in, we gilded you prettily, we fed you well,
we offered you sacrifice, and yet you are so
ungrateful. " Similar forcible measures against
pictures of the Saints and Virgin when they
refused to do their duty in pestilence or drought,
have been witnessed even during the present
century in Catholic countries. Through all these
magic relations to nature, countless ceremonies
have been called into life; and at last, when the
confusion has grown too great, an endeavour has
been made to order and systematise them, in
order that the favourable course of the whole
progress of nature, i. e. of the great succession of
the seasons, may seem to be guaranteed by a
corresponding course of a system of procedure.
The essence of the religious cult is to determine
and confine nature to human advantage, to impress
it with a legality, therefore, which it did not
originally possess; while at the present time we
wish to recognise the legality of nature in order
to adapt ourselves to it. In short, then, the
religious cult is based upon the representations
of sorcery between man and man,—and the
sorcerer is older than the priest. But it is like-
wise based upon other and nobler representations;
it premises the sympathetic relation of man to
man, the presence of goodwill, gratitude, the
hearing of pleaders, of treaties between enemies,
the granting of pledges, and the claim to the
protection of property. In very low stages of
## p. 122 (#182) ############################################
122 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
civilisation man does not stand in the relation of
a helpless slave to nature, he is not necessarily its
involuntary bondsman. In the Greek grade of
religion, particularly in relation to the Olympian
gods, there may even be imagined a common life
between two castes, a nobler and more powerful
one, and one less noble; but in their origin both
belong to each other somehow, and are of one
kind; they need not be ashamed of each other.
That is the nobility of the Greek religion.
112.
At the Sight of certain Antique
Sacrificial Implements. —The fact of how
many feelings are lost to us may be seen, for
instance, in the mingling of the droll, even of the
obscene, with the religious feeling. The sensation
of the possibility of this mixture vanishes, we only
comprehend historically that it existed in the feasts
of Demeter and Dionysus, in the Christian Easter-
plays and Mysteries. But we also know that
which is noble in alliance with burlesque and such
like, the touching mingled with the laughable,
which perhaps a later age will not be able to
understand.
"3-
Christianity as Antiquity. —When on a
Sunday morning we hear the old bells ring out,
we ask ourselves, "Is it possible! This is done
on account of a Jew crucified two thousand years
ago who said he was the Son of God. The proof
ot such an assertion is wanting. " Certainly in our
## p. 123 (#183) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 123
times the Christian religion is an antiquity that
dates from very early ages, and the fact that its
assertions are still believed, when otherwise all
claims are subjected to such strict examination,
is perhaps the oldest part of this heritage. A
God who creates a son from a mortal woman; a
sage who requires that man should no longer
work, no longer judge, but should pay attention to
the signs of the approaching end of the world;
a justice that accepts an innocent being as a
substitute in sacrifice; one who commands his
disciples to drink his blood ; prayers for miraculous
intervention; sins committed against a God and
atoned for through a God; the fear of a future
to which death is the portal; the form of the
cross in an age which no longer knows the
signification and the shame of the cross,* how
terrible all this appears to us, as if risen from the
grave of the ancient past! Is it credible that
such things are still believed?
114.
What is un-Greek in Christianity. —The
Greeks did not regard the Homeric gods as raised
above them like masters, nor themselves as being
under them like servants, as the Jews did. They
only saw, as in a mirror, the most perfect examples
of their own caste; an ideal, therefore, and not an
opposite of their own nature. There is a feeling
* It may be remembered that the cross was the gallows
of the ancient world. —J. M. K.
## p. 124 (#184) ############################################
124 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
of relationship, a mutual interest arises, a kind of
symmachy. Man thinks highly of himself when
he gives himself such gods, and places himself in
a relation like that of the lower nobility towards
the higher; while the Italian nations hold a
genuine peasant-faith, with perpetual fear of evil
and mischievous powers and tormenting spirits.
Wherever the Olympian gods retreated into the
background, Greek life was more sombre and
more anxious. Christianity, on the contrary,
oppressed man and crushed him utterly, sinking
him as if in deep mire; then into the feeling of
absolute depravity it suddenly threw the light of
divine mercy, so that the surprised man, dazzled
by forgiveness, gave a cry of joy and for a moment
believed that he bore all heaven within himself.
All psychological feelings of Christianity work
upon this unhealthy excess of sentiment, and
upon the deep corruption of head and heart it
necessitates; it desires to destroy, break, stupefy,
confuse,—only one thing it does not desire, namely
moderation, and therefore it is in the deepest sense
barbaric, Asiatic, ignoble and un-Greek.
II5.
To be Religious with Advantage. —There
are sober and industrious people on whom religion
is embroidered like a hem of higher humanity;
these do well to remain religious, it beautifies
them. All people who do not understand some
kind of trade in weapons—tongue and pen included
as weapons—become servile; for such the Christian
"
## p. 125 (#185) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 125
religion is very useful, for then servility assumes
the appearance of Christian virtues and is surpris-
ingly beautified. People to whom their daily life
appears too empty and monotonous easily grow
religious; this is comprehensible and excusable,
only they have no right to demand religious
sentiments from those whose daily life is not
empty and monotonous. *
116.
The Commonplace Christian. —If Christi-
anity were right, with its theories of an avenging
God, of general sinfulness, of redemption, and the
danger of eternal damnation, it would be a sign of
weak intellect and lack of character not to become
a priest, apostle or hermit, and to work only with
fear and trembling for one's own salvation; it
would be senseless thus to neglect eternal benefits
for temporary comfort. Taking it for granted
that there is belief, the commonplace Christian is
a miserable figure, a man that really cannot add
two and two together, and who, moreover, just
because of his mental incapacity for responsibility,
did not deserve to be so severely punished as
Christianity has decreed.
117.
Of the Wisdom of Christianity. —It is a
clever stroke on the part of Christianity to teach
* This may give us one of the reasons for the religiosity
still happily prevailing in England and the United States.
—J. M. K.
## p. 125 (#186) ############################################
## p. 125 (#187) ############################################
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ther Farmial- = z = wº >
cºre-f virt air rear tº -- Teiºus =emºri
the vºie -eir = ------ a-- eitriº recºmes
cºzºie: re-as v- +:---is stative Sens-
tºr -aminºr =mr =il me mus: -mirretire tiss
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THE E-rºt Trºs-----S: ºrns is
knows well the 5-en-I an: versies ºf
do:::= arres art ºnes ==isiºn is ºver
:
still star. The is::se ºf Eºse whº his
no eyes fºr the weat-esses ºf ::= 5-cºre the
religiz. z-ºf s- 5-r-t ===== tº the sect ºf
the master zºº ºr ºs reverence fºr ºl- >ss ºn
that accº-: ==== y = -re pºwer ºar the raster
himself. W----- tº-i =s=ries:se risense ºf
a man and his wºrk Eas never ye: becºme steat.
To help a doctrine to victºry cºen means tºy
so to mix it with stepidity that the weight of the
latter carries off also the victory for the former,
123-
CHURCH DISESTABLISHMENT. -There is not
enough religion in the world even to destroy
religions.
## p. 125 (#188) ############################################
I 28 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
I 24.
THE SINLESSNESS OF MAN. —If it is under-
stood how “sin came into the world,” namely
through errors of reason by which men held each
other, even the single individual held himself, to
be much blacker and much worse than was
actually the case, the whole sensation will be
much lightened, and man and the world will
appear in a blaze of innocence which it will do
one good to contemplate. In the midst of nature
man is always the child per se. This child some-
times has a heavy and terrifying dream, but when
it opens its eyes it always finds itself back again
in Paradise.
I 25.
THE IRRELIGIOUSNESS OF ARTISTS. –Homer
is so much at home amongst his gods, and is so
familiar with them as a poet, that he must have
been deeply irreligious; that which the popular
faith gave him—a meagre, rude, partly terrible
superstition—he treated as freely as the sculptor
does his clay, with the same unconcern, therefore,
which AEschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and
by which in later times the great artists of the
Renaissance distinguished themselves, as also did
Shakespeare and Goethe.
I 26.
THE ART AND POWER OF FALSE INTER-
PRETATIONS. —All the visions, terrors, torpors,
## p. 125 (#189) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. I 29
and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of
disease, which are only, by reason of deep-rooted
religious and psychological errors, differently
explained by him, namely not as diseases. Thus,
perhaps, the Daimonion of Socrates was only an
affection of the ear, which he, in accordance with
his ruling moral mode of thought, expounded
differently from what would be the case now.
It is the same thing with the madness and
ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it is
always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort,
morality in the head and heart of the interpreters
which has made so much of it. For the greatest
achievements of the people who are called geniuses
and saints it is necessary that they should secure
interpreters by force, who misunderstand them for
the good of mankind.
I 27.
THE VENERATION OF INSANITY. -Because
it was remarked that excitement frequently made
the mind clearer and produced happy inspirations,
it was believed that the happiest inspirations and
suggestions were called forth by the greatest
excitement; and so the insane were revered as
wise and oracular. This is based on a false
conclusion.
I 28.
THE PROMISES OF SCIENCE. -The aim of
modern science is: as little pain as possible, as
long a life as possible, a kind of eternal blessed-
vol. I I
## p. 126 (#190) ############################################
126 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN. _
the utter unworthiness, sinfulness, and despicable-
ness of mankind so loudly that the disdain of
their fellow-men is no longer possible. "He may
sin as much as he likes, he is not essentially
different from me,—it is I who am unworthy and
despicable in every way," says the Christian to
himself. But even this feeling has lost its sharpest
sting, because the Christian no longer believes in
his individual despicableness; he is bad as men
are generally, and comforts himself a little with
the axiom, " We are all of one kind. "
118.
Change of Front. —As soon as a religion
triumphs *it has for its enemies all those who
would have been its first disciples.
119.
The Fate of Christianity. —Christianity
arose for the purpose of lightening the heart;
but now it must first make the heart heavy in
order afterwards to lighten it. Consequently it
will perish. l\ , \
The Proof of Pleasure. —The agreeable
opinion is accepted as true,—this is the proof of
the pleasure (or, as the Church says, the proof of
the strength), of which all religions are so proud
when they ought to be ashamed of it. If Faith
did not make blessed it would not be believed
in; of how little value must it be, then!
## p. 127 (#191) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 127
121.
A Dangerous Game. —Whoever now allows
scope to his religious feelings must also let them
increase, he cannot do otherwise. His nature
then gradually changes; it favours whatever is
connected with and near to the religious element,
the whole extent of judgment and feeling becomes
clouded, overcast with religious shadows. Sensa-
tion cannot stand still; one must therefore take
care.
122.
The Blind Disciples. —So long as one
knows well the strength and weakness of one's
doctrine, one's art, one's religion, its power is
still small. The disciple and apostle who has
no eyes for the weaknesses of the doctrine, the
religion, and so forth, dazzled by the aspect of
the master and by his reverence for him, has on
that account usually more power than the master
himself. Without blind disciples the influence of
a man and his work has never yet become great.
To help a doctrine to victory often means only
so to mix it with stupidity that the weight of the
latter carries off also the victory for the former.
123.
Church Disestablishment. —There is not
enough religion in the world even to destroy
religions.
## p. 128 (#192) ############################################
128 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
124.
The Sinlessness of Man. —If it is under-
stood how "sin came into the world," namely
through errors of reason by which men held each
other, even the single individual held himself, to
be much blacker and much worse than was
actually the case, the whole sensation will be
much lightened, and man and the world will
appear in a blaze of innocence which it will do
one good to contemplate. In the midst of nature
man is always the child per se. This child some-
times has a heavy and terrifying dream, but when
it opens its eyes it always finds itself back again
in Paradise.
125.
The Irreligiousness of Artists. —Homer
is so much at home amongst his gods, and is so
familiar with them as a poet, that he must have
been deeply irreligious; that which the popular
faith gave him—a meagre, rude, partly terrible
superstition—he treated as freely as the sculptor
does his clay, with the same unconcern, therefore,
which ^Eschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and
by which in later times the great artists of the
Renaissance distinguished themselves, as also did
Shakespeare and Goethe.
126.
The Art and Power of False Inter-
pretations. —All the visions, terrors, torpors,
>
## p. 129 (#193) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 129
and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of
disease, which are only, by reason of deep-rooted
religious and psychological errors, differently
explained by him, namely not as diseases. Thus,
perhaps, the Daimonion of Socrates was only an
affection of the ear, which he, in accordance with
his ruling moral mode of thought, expounded
differently from what would be the case now.
It is the same thing with the madness and
ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it is
always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort,
morality in the head and heart of the interpreters
which has made so much of it. For the greatest
achievements of the people who are called geniuses
and saints it is necessary that they should secure
interpreters by force, who misunderstand them for
the good of mankind.
127.
The Veneration of Insanity. —Because
it was remarked that excitement frequently made
the mind clearer and produced happy inspirations,
it was believed that the happiest inspirations and
suggestions were called forth by the greatest
excitement; and so the insane were revered as
wise and oracular. This is based on a false
conclusion.
128.
The Promises of Science. —The aim of
modern science is: as little pain as possible, as
long a life as possible,—a kind of eternal blessed-
## p. 130 (#194) ############################################
130 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
>
ness, therefore; but certainly a very modest one
as compared with the promises of religions.
129.
Forbidden Generosity. — There is not
sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit
us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.
130.
The Continuance of the Religious
Cult in the Feelings. —The Roman Catholic
Church, and before that all antique cults, domin-
ated the entire range of means by which man
was put into unaccustomed moods and rendered
incapable of the cold calculation of judgment or
the clear thinking of reason. A church quivering
with deep tones; the dull, regular, arresting
appeals of a priestly throng, unconsciously com-
municates its tension to the congregation and
makes it listen almost fearfully, as if a miracle
were in preparation; the influence of the archi-
tecture, which, as the dwelling of a Godhead,
extends into the uncertain and makes its appari-
tion to be feared in all its sombre spaces,—who
would wish to bring such things back to mankind if
the necessary suppositions are no longer believed?
But the results of all this are not lost, never-
theless; the inner world of noble, emotional,
deeply contrite dispositions, full of presentiments,
blessed with hope, is inborn in mankind mainly
through this cult; what exists of it now in the
_
## p. 131 (#195) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 131
soul was then cultivated on a large scale as it
germinated, grew up and blossomed.
I3i-
The Painful Consequences of Religion.
—However much we may think we have weaned
ourselves from religion, it has nevertheless not
been done so thoroughly as to deprive us of
pleasure in encountering religious sensations and
moods in music, for instance; and if a philosophy
shows us the justification of metaphysical hopes
and the deep peace of soul to be thence acquired,
and speaks, for instance, of the "whole, certain
gospel in the gaze of Raphael's Madonnas,"
we receive such statements and expositions
particularly warmly; here the philosopher finds
it easier to prove; that which he desires to
give corresponds to a heart that desires to receive.
Hence it may be observed how the less thoughtful
free spirits really only take offence at the dogmas,
but are well acquainted with the charm of religious
sensations; they are sorry to lose hold of the
latter for the sake of the former. Scientific
philosophy must be very careful not to smuggle
in errors on the ground of that need,—a need
which has grown up and is consequently
temporary,—even logicians speak of "presenti-
ments" of truth in ethics and in art (for instance,
of the suspicion that "the nature of things is
one"), which should be forbidden to them.
Between the carefully established truths and
such "presaged" things there remains the un-
## p. 132 (#196) ############################################
132 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
bridgable chasm that those are due to intellect
and these to requirement. Hunger does not
prove that food exists to satisfy it, but that it
desires food. To "presage" does not mean
the acknowledgment of the existence of a thing
in any one degree, but its possibility, in so far
as it is desired or feared; "presage" does not
advance one step into the land of certainty. We
believe involuntarily that the portions of a
philosophy which are tinged with religion are
better proved than others; but actually it is
the contrary, but we have the inward desire that
it may be so, that that which makes blessed,
therefore, may be also the true. This desire
misleads us to accept bad reasons for good ones.
132.
Of the Christian Need of Redemption. —
With careful reflection it must be possible to
obtain an explanation free from mythology of
that process in the soul of a Christian which
is called the need of redemption, consequently
a purely psychological explanation. Up to the
\ present, the psychological explanations of religious
conditions and processes have certainly been
C. held in some disrepute, inasmuch as a theology
which called itself free carried on its unprofitable
practice in this domain; for here from the
beginning (as the mind of its founder, Schleier-
macher, gives us reason to suppose) the preserva-
tion of the Christian religion and the continuance
of Christian theology was kept in view; a
-v
## p. 133 (#197) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 133
theology which was to find a new anchorage
in the psychological analyses of religious " facts,"
and above all a new occupation. Unconcerned
about such predecessors we hazard the following
interpretation of the phenomenon in question.
Man is conscious of certain actions which stand
far down in the customary rank of actions; he
even discovers in himself a tendency towards
similar actions, a tendency which appears to him
almost as unchangeable as his whole nature.
How willingly would he try himself in that
other species of actions which in the general
valuation are recognised as the loftiest and
highest, how gladly would he feel himself to
be full of the good consciousness which should
follow an unselfish mode of thought! But
unfortunately he stops short at this wish, and
the discontent at not being able to satisfy it
is added to all the other discontents which his
lot in life or the consequences of those above-
mentioned evil actions have aroused in him;
so that a deep ill-humour is the result, with the
search for a physician who could remove this
and all its causes. This condition would not
be felt so bitterly if man would only compare
himself frankly with other men,—then he would
have no reason for being dissatisfied with himself
to a particular extent, he would only bear his
share of the common burden of human dis-
satisfaction and imperfection. But he compares
himself with a being who is said to be capable
only of those actions which are called unegoistic,
and to live in the perpetual consciousness of an
r
## p. 134 (#198) ############################################
134 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
unselfish mode of thought, i. e. with God; it is
because he gazes into this clear mirror that his
image appears to him so dark, so unusually
warped. Then he is alarmed by the thought
of that same creature, in so far as it floats
before his imagination as a retributive justice;
in all possible small and great events he thinks
he recognises its anger and menaces, that he
even feels its scourge-strokes as judge and
executioner. Who will help him in this danger,
which, by the prospect of an immeasurable
duration of punishment, exceeds in horror all
the other terrors of the idea?
133-
Before we examine the further consequences of
this mental state, let us acknowledge that it is
not through his "guilt" and "sin" that man
has got into this condition, but through a series
of errors of reason; that it was the fault of the
mirror if his image appeared so dark and hateful
to him, and that that mirror was his work, the
very imperfect work of human imagination and
power of judgment. In the first place, a nature
that is only capable of purely unegoistic actions
is more fabulous than the phcenix; it cannot
even be clearly imagined, just because, when
closely examined, the whole idea "unegoistic
action" vanishes into air. No man ever did
a thing which was done only for others and
without any personal motive; how should he
be able to do anything which had no relation
## p. 135 (#199) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 135
to himself, and therefore without inward obligation
(which must always have its foundation in a
personal need)? How could the ego act without
ego} A God who, on the contrary, is all love,
as such a one is often represented, would not
be capable of a single unegoistic action, whereby
one is reminded of a saying of Lichtenberg's
which is certainly taken from a lower sphere:
"We cannot possibly feel for others, as the
saying is; we feel only for ourselves. This
sounds hard, but it is not so really if it be
rightly understood. We do not love father or
mother or wife or child, but the pleasant
sensations they cause us;" or, as Rochefoucauld
says: "Si on croit aimer sa maitresse pour F amour
d'elle, on est bien trompi" To know the reason
why actions of love are valued more than others,
not on account of their nature, namely, but of
their usefulness, we should compare the examina-
tions already mentioned, On the Origin of
Moral Sentiments. But should a man desire
to be entirely like that God of Love, to do and
wish everything for others and nothing for
himself, the latter is impossible for the reason
that he must do very much for himself to be
able to do something for the love of others.
Then it is taken for granted that the other is
sufficiently egoistic to accept that sacrifice again
and again, that living for him,—so that the people
of love and sacrifice have an interest in the
continuance of those who are loveless and
incapable of sacrifice, and, in order to exist,
the highest morality would be obliged positively
## p. 136 (#200) ############################################
136 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
to compel the existence of un-morality (whereby
it would certainly annihilate itself). Further:
the conception of a God disturbs and humbles
so long as it is believed in; but as to how it
arose there can no longer be any doubt in the
present state of the science of comparative
ethnology; and with a comprehension of this
origin all belief falls to the ground. The
V Christian who compares his nature with God's
is like Don Quixote, who under-valued his own
bravery because his head was full of the
marvellous deeds of the heroes of the chivalric
romances,—the standard of measurement in both
L, cases belongs to the domain of fable. But if the
idea of God is removed, so is also the feeling
of "sin" as a trespass against divine laws, as
a stain in a creature vowed to God. Then,
perhaps, there still remains that dejection which
is intergrown and connected with the fear of
the punishment of worldly justice or of the
scorn of men; the dejection of the pricks of
conscience, the sharpest thorn in the conscious-
ness of sin, is always removed if we recognise
that though by our own deed we have sinned
against human descent, human laws and
ordinances, still that we have not imperilled the
"eternal salvation of the Soul" and its relation
to the Godhead. And if man succeeds in
gaining philosophic conviction of the absolute
necessity of all actions and their entire irresponsi-
bility, and absorbing this into his flesh and blood,
even those remains of the pricks of conscience
vanish.
## p. 137 (#201) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 137
134-
Now if the Christian, as we have said, has fallen
into the way of self-contempt in consequence of
certain errors through a false, unscientific inter-
pretation of his actions and sensations, he must
notice with great surprise how that state of con-
tempt, the pricks of conscience and displeasure
generally, does not endure, how sometimes there
come hours when all this is wafted away from
his soul and he feels himself once more free and
courageous. In truth, the pleasure . in himself,
the comfort of his own strength, together with
the necessary weakening through time of every
deep emotion, has usually been victorious; man
loves himself once again, he feels it,—but precisely
this new love, this self-esteem, seems to him
incredible, he can only see in it the wholly un-
deserved descent of a stream of mercy from on high.
If he formerly believed that in every event he
could recognise warnings, menaces, punishments,
and every kind of manifestation of divine anger,
he now finds divine goodness in all his experiences,
—this event appears to him to be full of love, that
one a helpful hint, a third, and, indeed, his whole
happy mood, a proof that God is merciful. As
formerly, in his state of pain, he interpreted his
actions falsely, so now he misinterprets his ex-
periences; his mood of comfort he believes to be
the working of a power operating outside of him-
self, the love with which he really loves himself
seems to him to be divine love; that which he
## p. 138 (#202) ############################################
138 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
-
calls mercy, and the prologue to redemption, is
actually self-forgiveness, self-redemption.
135-
Therefore: A certain false psychology, a
certain kind of imaginative interpretation of
motives and experiences, is the necessary pre-
liminary for one to become a Christian and to
feel the need of redemption. When this error
of reason and imagination is recognised, one ceases
to be a Christian.
136.
Of Christian Asceticism and Holiness.
—As greatly as isolated thinkers have endeavoured
to depict as a miracle the rare manifestations of
morality, which are generally called asceticism and
holiness, miracles which it would be almost an out-
rage and sacrilege to explain by the light of common
sense, as strong also is the inclination towards this
outrage. A mighty impulse of nature has at all
times led to a protest against those manifestations;
science, in so far as it is an imitation of nature, at
least allows itself to rise against the supposed in-
explicableness and unapproachableness of these
objections. So far it has certainly not succeeded:
those appearances are still unexplained, to the
great joy of the above-mentioned worshippers of
the morally marvellous. For, speaking generally,
the unexplained must be absolutely inexplicable,
the inexplicable absolutely unnatural, supernatural,
wonderful,—thus runs the demand in the souls of
## p. 139 (#203) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 139
all religious and metaphysical people (also of
artists, if they should happen to be thinkers at the
same time); whilst the scientist sees in this de-
mand the " evil principle" in itself. The general,
first probability upon which one lights in the
contemplation of holiness and asceticism is this,
that their nature is a complicated one, for almost
everywhere, within the physical world as well as
in the moral, the apparently marvellous has been
successfully traced back to the complicated, the
many-conditioned. Let us venture, therefore, to
isolate separate impulses from the soul of saints
and ascetics, and finally to imagine them as inter-
grown.
137-
There is a defiance of self, to the sublimest
manifestation of which belong many forms of
asceticism. Certain individuals have such great
need of exercising their power and love of ruling
that, in default of other objects, or because they
have never succeeded otherwise, they finally ex-
cogitate the idea of tyrannising over certain parts of
their own nature, portions or degrees of themselves.
Thus many a thinker confesses to views which
evidently do not serve either to increase or im-
prove his reputation; many a one deliberately
calls down the scorn of others when by keeping
silence he could easily have remained respected;
others contradict former opinions and do not
hesitate to be called inconsistent—on the contrary,
they strive after this, and behave like reckless
## p. 140 (#204) ############################################
140 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
riders who like a horse best when it has grown
wild, unmanageable, and covered with sweat.
Thus man climbs dangerous paths up the highest
mountains in order that he may laugh to scorn
his own fear and his trembling knees; thus the
philosopher owns to views on asceticism, humility,
holiness, in the brightness of which his own
picture shows to the worst possible disadvantage.
This crushing of one's self, this scorn of one's own
nature, this spernere se sperni, of which religion
has made so much, is really a very high degree of
vanity. The whole moral of the Sermon on the
Mount belongs here; man takes a genuine delight
in doing violence to himself by these exaggerated
claims, and afterwards idolising these tyrannical
demands of his soul. In every ascetic morality
man worships one part of himself as a God, and
is obliged, therefore, to diabolise the other parts.
138.
Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is
well known. If his morality is judged to be the
capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and
self-denial (which, when continuous and grown
habitual, are called holiness), he is most moral in
the passions; the higher emotion provides him
with entirely new motives, of which he, sober and
cold as usual, perhaps does not even believe him-
self capable. How does this happen? Probably
because of the proximity of everything great
and highly exciting; if man is once wrought up
## p. 141 (#205) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 141
to a state of extraordinary suspense, he is as
capable of carrying out a terrible revenge as of
a terrible crushing of his need for revenge. Under
the influence of powerful emotion, he desires in
any case the great, the powerful, the immense; and
if he happens to notice that the sacrifice of himself
satisfies him as well as, or better than, the sacrifice
of others, he chooses that. Actually, therefore,
he only cares about discharging his emotion; in
order to ease his tension he seizes the enemy's
spears and buries them in his breast. That there
was something great in self-denial and not in
revenge had to be taught to mankind by long
habit; a Godhead that sacrificed itself was the
strongest, most effective symbol of this kind of
greatness. As the conquest of the most difficult
enemy, the sudden mastering of an affection—
thus this denial appears; and so far it passes for
the summit of morality. In reality it is a question
of the confusion of one idea with another, while
the temperament maintains an equal height, an
equal level. Temperate men who are resting from
their passions no longer understand the morality
of those moments; but the general admiration of
those who had the same experiences upholds them;
pride is their consolation when affection and the
understanding of their deed vanish. Therefore,
at bottom even those actions of self-denial are not
moral, inasmuch as they are not done strictly
with regard to others; rather the other only pro-
vides the highly-strung temperament with an
opportunity of relieving itself through that
denial.
## p. 142 (#206) ############################################
142 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
139-
In many respects the ascetic seeks to make life
easy for himself, usually by complete subordination
to a strange will or a comprehensive law and
ritual; something like the way a Brahmin leaves
nothing whatever to his own decision but refers
every moment to holy precepts. This submission
is a powerful means of attaining self-mastery:
man is occupied and is therefore not bored, and
yet has no incitement to self-will or passion ; after a
completed deed there is no feeling of responsibility
and with it no tortures of remorse. We have
renounced our own will once and for ever, and
this is easier than only renouncing it occasionally;
as it is also easier to give up a desire entirely than
to keep it within bounds. When we remember
the present relation of man to the State, we find
that, even here, unconditional obedience is more
convenient than conditional. The saint, therefore,
makes his life easier by absolute renunciation of
his personality, and we are mistaken if in that
phenomenon we admire the loftiest heroism of
morality. In any case it is more difficult to carry
one's personality through without vacillation and
unclearness than to liberate one's self from it in
the above-mentioned manner; moreover, it requires
far more spirit and consideration.
140.
After having found in many of the less easily
explicable actions manifestations of that pleasure
## p. 143 (#207) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. I43
in emotion per se, I should like to recognise also in
self-contempt, which is one of the signs of holiness,
and likewise in the deeds of self-torture (through
hunger and scourging, mutilation of limbs, feigning
of madness) a means by which those natures fight
against the general weariness of their life-will
(their nerves); they employ the most painful
irritants and cruelties in order to emerge for a
time, at all events, from that dulness and boredom
into which they so frequently sink through their
great mental indolence and that submission to a
strange will already described.
141.
The commonest means which the ascetic and
saint employs to render life still endurable and
amusing consists in occasional warfare with
alternate victory and defeat. For this he requires
an opponent, and finds it in the so-called "inward
enemy. " He principally makes use of his inclina- ^~)
tion to vanity, love of honour and rule, and of his
sensual desires, that he may be permitted to regard
his life as a perpetual battle and himself as a battle-
field upon which good and evil spirits strive with
alternating success. It is well known that sensual
imagination is moderated, indeed almost dispelled,
by regular sexual intercourse, whereas, on the
contrary, it is rendered unfettered and wild by
abstinence or irregularity. The imagination of
many Christian saints was filthy to an extra-
ordinary degree; by virtue of those theories that I
these desires were actual demons raging within
## p. 144 (#208) ############################################
144 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
them they did not feel themselves to be too
responsible; to this feeling we owe the very
instructive frankness of their self-confessions. It
was to their interest that this strife should always
be maintained in one degree or another, because,
as we have already said, their empty life was thereby
entertained. But in order that the strife might
seem sufficiently important and arouse the enduring
sympathy and admiration of non-saints, it was
necessary that sensuality should be ever more
reviled and branded, the danger of eternal
damnation was so tightly bound up with these
things that it is highly probable that for whole
centuries Christians generated children with a
bad conscience, wherewith humanity has certainly
suffered a great injury. And yet here truth is
all topsy-turvy, which is particularly unsuitable
for truth. Certainly Christianity had said that
every man is conceived and born in sin, and
in the insupportable superlative-Christianity of
/ Calderon this thought again appears, tied up and
twisted, as the most distorted paradox there is, in
the well-known lines —
"The greatest sin of man
Is that he was ever born. "
In all pessimistic religions the act of generation
was looked upon as evil in itself.
