Therein he himself was
only a too docile pupil of the scientific teachers of
his time, who all worshipped romanticism and
had forsworn the spirit of enlightenment; had he
been born in our present age he could not pos-
sibly have talked about the sensus allegoricus of
religion; he would much rather have given
## p.
only a too docile pupil of the scientific teachers of
his time, who all worshipped romanticism and
had forsworn the spirit of enlightenment; had he
been born in our present age he could not pos-
sibly have talked about the sensus allegoricus of
religion; he would much rather have given
## p.
Nietzsche - v06 - Human All-Too-Human - a
e.
the animal, through the
interests of Church teaching, has been placed too
far behind man. Much that is dreadful and in-
human in history, much that one hardly likes to
believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the
one who commands and the one who carries out
are different persons,—the former does not be-
hold the right and therefore does not experience
the strong impression on the imagination; the
latter obeys a superior and therefore feels no
responsibility. Most princes and military heads,
through lack of imagination, easily appear hard
and cruel without really being so. Egoism is
not evil, because the idea of the "neighbour "—
the word is of Christian origin and does not
represent the truth—is very weak in us; and we
feel ourselves almost as free and irresponsible
towards him as towards plants and stones. We
have yet to learn that others suffer, and this can
never be completely learnt.
102.
"Man always Acts Rightly. "—We do not "7
complain of nature as immoral because it sends
a thunderstorm and makes us wet,—why do
we call those who injure us immoral? Because J
in the latter case we take for granted a free will
functioning voluntarily; in the former we see
necessity. But this distinction is an error. Thus
we do not call even intentional injury immoral in )
all circumstances; for instance, we kill a fly un-
hesitatingly and intentionally, only because its
## p. 102 (#154) ############################################
102 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
buzzing annoys us; we punish a criminal
intentionally and hurt him in order to protect
ourselves and society. In the first case it is the
individual who, in order to preserve himself, or
even to protect himself from worry, does inten-
tional injury; in the second case it is the State.
All morals allow intentional injury in the case of
necessity, that is, when it is a matter of self-pre-
'servation! But these two points of view suffice
to explain all evil actions committed by men
against men, we are desirous of obtaining
pleasure or avoiding pain; in any case it is
always a question of self-preservation. Socrates
and Plato are right: whatever man does he always
does well, that is, he does that which seems to
him good (useful) according to the degree of his
'intellect, the particular standard of his reason-
ableness.
103.
The Harmlessness of Malice. —The aim
of malice is not the suffering of others in itself, |
but our own enjoyment; for instance, as the feeling
of revenge, or stronger nervous excitement. All
teasing, even, shows the pleasure it gives to ex- 1]
ercise our power on others and bring it to an
enjoyable feeling of preponderance. Is it im-
moral to taste pleasure at the expense of another's
pain? Is malicious joy * devilish, as Schopen-
hauer says? We give ourselves pleasure in
*This is the untranslatable word Schadenfreude, which
means joy at the misfortune of others. —J. M. K.
## p. 103 (#155) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. IO3
nature by breaking off twigs, loosening stones,
fighting with wild animals, and do this in order
to become thereby conscious of our strength. Is
the knowledge, therefore, that another suffers
through us, the same thing concerning which we
otherwise feel irresponsible, supposed to make us
immoral? But if we did not know this we would
not thereby have the enjoyment of our own
superiority, which can only manifest itself by the
suffering of others, for instance in teasing. All
pleasure per se is neither good nor evil; whence
should come the decision that in order to have
pleasure ourselves we may not cause displeasure
to others? From the point of view of usefulness
alone, that is, out of consideration for the conse-
quences, for possible displeasure, when the injured
one or the replacing State gives the expectation
of resentment and revenge: this only can have
been the original reason for denying ourselves
such actions. Pity aims just as little at the
pleasure of others as malice at the pain of others
per se. For it contains at least two (perhaps
many more) elements of a personal pleasure, and
is so far self-gratification; in the first place as the
pleasure of emotion, which is the kind of pity
that exists in tragedy, and then, when it impels
to action, as the pleasure of satisfaction in the
exercise of power. If, besides this, a suffering
person is very dear to us, we lift a sorrow from
ourselves by the exercise of sympathetic actions.
Except by a few philosophers, pity has always
been placed very low in the scale of moral
feelings, and rightly so.
■■-
## p. 104 (#156) ############################################
104 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
f
104.
Self-defence. —If self-defence is allowed to
pass as moral, then almost all manifestations of
the so-called immoral egoism must also stand;
men injure, rob, or kill in order to preserve or
defend themselves, to prevent personal injury;
they lie where cunning and dissimulation are the
right means of self-preservation. Intentional
injury, when our existence or safety (preservation
of our comfort) is concerned, is conceded to be
moral; the State itself injures, according to this
point of view, when it punishes. In unintentional
injury, of course, there can be nothing immoral,
that is ruled by chance. Is there, then, a kind
of intentional injury where our existence or the
preservation of our comfort is not concerned? Is
there an injuring out of pure malice, for instance
in cruelty? If one does not know how much an
action hurts, it is no deed of malice; thus the
child is not malicious towards the animal, not
evil; he examines and destroys it like a toy.
But do we ever know entirely how an action hurts
another? As far as our nervous system extends
we protect ourselves from pain; if it extended
farther, to our fellow-men, namely, we should do
no one an injury (except in such cases as we
injure ourselves, where we cut ourselves for the
sake of cure, tire and exert ourselves for the sake
of health). We conclude by analogy that some-
thing hurts somebody, and through memory and
the strength of imagination we may suffer from it
## p. 105 (#157) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 105
ourselves. But still what a difference there is
between toothache and the pain (pity) that the
sight of toothache calls forth! Therefore, in
injury out of so-called malice the degree of pain
produced is always unknown to us; but inasmuch
as there is pleasure in the action (the feeling of
one's own power, one's own strong excitement),
the action is committed, in order to preserve the
comfort of the individual, and is regarded, there-
fore, from a similar point of view as defence and
falsehood in necessity. No life without pleasure;
the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life.
Whether the individual so fights this fight that
men call him good, or so that they call him evil,
is determined by the measure and the constitution
of his intellect.
105.
Recompensing Justice. —Whoever has com-
pletely comprehended the doctrine of absolute
irresponsibility can no longer include the so-called
punishing and recompensing justice in the idea of
justice, should this consist of giving to each man
his due. For he who is punished does not deserve j
the punishment, he is only used as a means of
henceforth warning away from certain actions;
equally so, he who is rewarded does not merit this
reward, he could not act otherwise than he did.
Therefore the reward is meant only as an
encouragement to him and others, to provide a
motive for subsequent actions; words of praise
are flung to the runners on the course, not to the
y"
## p. 106 (#158) ############################################
106 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
one who has reached the goal. Neither punish-
ment nor reward is anything that comes to one
as ones own; they are given from motives of use-
fulness, without one having a right to claim them.
Hence we must say," The wise man gives no reward
because the deed has been well done," just as we
have said, " The wise man does not punish because
evil has been committed, but in order that evil
shall not be committed. " If punishment and
reward no longer existed, then the strongest
motives which deter men from certain actions and
impel them to certain other actions, would also
no longer exist; the needs of mankind require
their continuance; and inasmuch as punishment
and reward, blame and praise, work most sensibly
on vanity, the same need requires the continuance
of vanity.
106.
At the Waterfall. —In looking at a water-
fall we imagine that there is freedom of will and
fancy in the countless turnings, twistings, and
breakings of the waves; but everything is com-
y pulsory, every movement can be mathematically
N°- calculated. So it is also with human actions;
t«Wu\tl one would have to be able to calculate every single
(W^r^***' action beforehand if one were all-knowing; equally
w}'w so all progress of knowledge, every error, all malice.
The one who acts certainly labours under the
illusion of voluntariness; if the world's wheel were
to stand still for a moment and an all-knowing,
calculating reason were there to make use of this
## p. 107 (#159) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 107
pause, it could foretell the future of every creature
to the remotest times, and mark out every track
upon which that wheel would continue to roll. The
delusion of the acting agent about himself, the
supposition of a free will, belongs to this mechanism
which still remains to be calculated.
107.
Irresponsibility and Innocence. — The
complete irresponsibility of man for his actions
and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who
understands must swallow if he was accustomed
to see the patent of nobility of his humanity
in responsibility and duty. All his valuations,
distinctions, disinclinations, are thereby deprived
of value and become false,—his deepest feeling
for the sufferer and the hero was based on an
error; he may no longer either praise or blame,
for it is absurd to praise and blame nature and
necessity. In the same way as he loves a fine
work of art, but does not praise it, because it can
do nothing for itself; in the same way as he regards
plants, so must he regard his own actions and
those of mankind. He can admire strength,
beauty, abundance, in themselves; but must find
no merit therein,—the chemical progress and the
strife of the elements, the torments of the sick
person who thirsts after recovery, are all equally
as little merits as those struggles of the soul and
states of distress in which we are torn hither and
thither by different impulses until we finally decide
_
## p. 108 (#160) ############################################
108 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
for the strongest—as we say (but in reality it is
the strongest motive which decides for us). All
these motives, however, whatever fine names we
may give them, have all grown out of the same
root, in which we believe the evil poisons to be
C'' situated; between good and evil actions there is
no difference of species, but at most of degree.
I Good actions are sublimated evil ones; evil actions
/ are vulgarised and stupefied good ones. The
I single longing of the individual for self-gratification
"(together with the fear of losing it) satisfies itself
i in all circumstances: man may act as he can,that
is as he must, be it in deeds of vanity, revenge,
pleasure, usefulness, malice, cunning; be it in deeds
of sacrifice, of pity, of knowledge. The degrees
of the power of judgment determine whither any
one lets himself be drawn through this longing;
to every society, to every individual, a scale of
possessions is continually present, according to
which he determines his actions and judges those
of others. But this standard changes constantly;
many actions are called evil and are only stupid,
because the degree of intelligence which decided
for them was very low. In a certain sense, even,
all actions are still stupid; for the highest degree
of human intelligence which can now be attained
will assuredly be yet surpassed, and then, in a
retrospect, all our actions and judgments will
appear as limited and hasty as the actions and
judgments of primitive wild peoples now appear
limited and hasty to us. To recognise all this
may be deeply painful, but consolation comes
after: such pains are the pangs of birth. The
## p. 109 (#161) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 109
butterfly wants to break through its chrysalis: it
rends and tears it, and is then blinded and confused
by the unaccustomed light, the kingdom of liberty.
In such people as are capable of such sadness—and
how few are ! —the first experiment made is to see
whether mankind can change itself from a moral
into a wise mankind. The sun of a new gospel
throws its rays upon the highest point in the soul
of each single individual, then the mists gather
thicker than ever, and the brightest light and
the dreariest shadow lie side by side. Everything
is necessity—so says the new knowledge, and
this knowledge itself is necessity. Everything is
innocence, and knowledge is the road to insight
into this innocence. Are pleasure, egoism, vanity
necessary for the production of the moral
phenomena and their highest result, the sense for
truth and justice in knowledge; were error and
the confusion of the imagination the only means
through which mankind could raise itself gradually
to this degree of self-enlightenment and self-
liberation—who would dare to undervalue these
means? Who would dare to be sad if he
perceived the goal to which those roads led?
Everything in the domain of morality has evolved,
is changeable, unstable, everything is dissolved, it
is true; but everything is also streaming towards
one goal. Even if the inherited habit of erroneous *"]
valuation, love and hatred, continue to reign in us,
yet under the influence of growing knowledge it
will become weaker; a new habit, that of com-
prehension, of not loving, not hating, of over-
looking, is gradually implanting itself in us upon
J
## p. 110 (#162) ############################################
I IO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
the same ground, and in thousands of years will
perhaps be powerful enough to give humanity the
strength to produce wise, innocent (consciously
innocent) men, as it now produces unwise, guilt-
conscious men, that is the necessary preliminary
step, not its opposite.
## p. 110 (#163) ############################################
THIRD DIVISION.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
108.
The Double Fight against Evil. —When
misfortune overtakes us we can either pass over
it so lightly that its cause is removed, or so that
the result which it has on our temperament is
altered, through a changing, therefore, of the evil
into a good, the utility of which is perhaps not
visible until later on. Religion and art (also
metaphysical philosophy) work upon the changing
of the temperament, partly through the changing
of our judgment on events (for instance, with the
help of the phrase "whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth"), partly through the awakening of a
pleasure in pain, in emotion generally (whence
the tragic art takes its starting-point). The more
a man is inclined to twist and arrange meanings
the less he will grasp the causes of evil and dis-
perse them; the momentary mitigation and in-
fluence of a narcotic, as for example in toothache,
suffices him even in more serious sufferings. The
more the dominion of creeds and all arts dispense
with narcotics, the more strictly men attend to
the actual removing of the evil, which is certainly
## p. 110 (#164) ############################################
I IG HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor even
enmity; they live on different planets. Every
philosophy which shows a religious comet's tail
shining in the darkness of its last prospects r.
all the science it contains suspicious; all
is presumably also religion, even though in
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were
agree about certain religious matters, for instal
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarke
is not the case with regard to this point), th
would only be an argument against those affirme
matters, for instance the existence of a God; th
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
Lächeln und winken und stimmen mit ein :
Théricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehört l” *
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. 111 (#165) ############################################
THE
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## p. 112 (#166) ############################################
112 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
bad for writers of tragedy; for the material for
tragedy is growing scarcer because the domain of
pitiless, inexorable fate is growing ever narrower,
—but worse still for the priests, for they have
hitherto lived on the narcotisation of human
woes.
109.
Sorrow is Knowledge. —How greatly we
should like to exchange the false assertions of the
priests, that there is a god who desires good from
us, a guardian and witness of every action, every
moment, every thought, who loves us and seeks
our welfare in all misfortune,—how greatly we
\ would like to exchange these ideas for/aruths
which would be just as healing, pacifying and
beneficial as those errors! But there are no such
truths; at most philosophy can oppose to them
metaphysical appearances (at bottom also un-
truths). The tragedy consists in the fact that
we cannot believe those dogmas of religion and
metaphysics, if we have strict methods of truth
in heart and brain: on the other hand, mankind
has, through development, become so delicate,
irritable and suffering, that it has need of
/ the highest means of healing and consolation;
whence also the danger arises that man would
bleed to death from recognised truth, or, more
correctly, from discovered error. Byron has
expressed this in the immortal lines:—
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
## p. 113 (#167) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 113
For such troubles there is no better help than to
recall the stately levity of Horace, at least for the
worst hours and eclipses of the soul, and to say
with him:
. . . quid aeternis minorem
consiliis animum fatigas?
cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac
pinu jacentes. *
But assuredly frivolity or melancholy of every
degree is better than a romantic retrospection
and desertion of the flag, an approach to
Christianity in any form; for according to the
present condition of knowledge it is absolutely
impossible to approach it without hopelessly
soiling our intellectual conscience and giving our-
selves away to ourselves and others. Those
pains may be unpleasant enough, but we cannot
become leaders and educators of mankind with-
out pain; and woe to him who would wish
to attempt this and no longer have that clear
conscience!
110.
The Truth in Religion. —In the period
of rationalism justice was not done to the
importance of religion, of that there is no doubt,
but equally there is no doubt that in the reaction
that followed this rationalism justice was far
overstepped; for religions were treated lovingly,
*Why harass with eternal designs a mind too weak to
compass them? Why do we not, as we lie beneath a lofty
plane-tree or this pine [drink while we may]? HOR. , Odes
II. ii. 11-14. —J. M. K.
VOL. I. H
## p. 114 (#168) ############################################
114 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
even amorously, and, for instance, a deeper, even
the very deepest, understanding of the world was
ascribed to them; which science has only to strip
of its dogmatic garment in order to possess the
"truth" in unmythical form. Religions should,
therefore,—this was the opinion of all opposers of
rationalism,—sensu allegorico, with all considera-
tion for the understanding of the masses, give
utterance to that ancient wisdom which is wisdom
itself, inasmuch as all true science of later times
has always led up to it instead of away from it,
so that between the oldest wisdom of mankind
and all later harmonies similarity of discernment
and a progress of knowledge—in case one should
wish to speak of such a thing—rests not upon the
nature but upon the way of communicating it.
This whole conception of religion and science is
thoroughly erroneous, and none would still dare
to profess it if Schopenhauer's eloquence had not
taken it under its protection; this resonant
eloquence which, however, only reached its hearers
a generation later. As surely as from Schopen-
hauer's religious-moral interpretations of men and
the world much may be gained for the under-
standing of the Christian and other religions, so
surely also is he mistaken about the value of
religion for knowledge.
Therein he himself was
only a too docile pupil of the scientific teachers of
his time, who all worshipped romanticism and
had forsworn the spirit of enlightenment; had he
been born in our present age he could not pos-
sibly have talked about the sensus allegoricus of
religion; he would much rather have given
## p. 115 (#169) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 115
honour to truth, as he used to do, with the words,
"no religion, direct or indirect, either as dogma or as
allegory, has ever contained a truth! ' For each
has been born of fear and necessity, through the
byways of reason did it slip into existence; once,
perhaps, when imperilled by science, some philo-
sophic doctrine has lied itself into its system in
order that it may be found there later, but this
is a theological trick of the time when a religion
already doubts itself. These tricks of theology
(which certainly were practised in the early days
of Christianity, as the religion of a scholarly
period steeped in philosophy) have led to that
superstition of the sensus allegoricus, but yet more
the habits of the philosophers (especially the half-
natures, the poetical philosophers and the philo-
sophising artists), to treat all the sensations which
they discovered in themselves as the fundamental
nature of man in general, and hence to allow their
own religious feelings an important influence in
the building up of their systems. As philosophers
frequently philosophised under the custom of
religious habits, or at least under the anciently
inherited power of that " metaphysical need," they
developed doctrinal opinions which really bore a
great resemblance to the Jewish or Christian or
Indian religious views,—a resemblance, namely,
such as children usually bear to their mothers,
only that in this case the fathers were not clear
about that motherhood, as happens sometimes,—
but in their innocence romanced about a family
likeness between all religion and science. In
reality, between religions and real science there
## p. 116 (#170) ############################################
I IG HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor even
enmity; they live on different planets. Every
philosophy which shows a religious comet's tail
shining in the darkness of its last prospects makes
all the science it contains suspicious; all this
is presumably also religion, even though in the
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were to
agree about certain religious matters, for instance
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarked,
is not the case with regard to this point), this
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
Lächeln und winken und stimmen mit ein :
Théricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehört l” *
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
|
|
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## p. 116 (#171) ############################################
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*~~ º ***, *, * \ **** whº, º **.
** = a -a -- >~~~~ ** la- l, * * *- º -is-w ***** flºº
--------> * * * * * * : * ~ ***** * * * * * *a*
*-> **, ******* *** * *** ****** **** ** 1 ** *
** *** ***** **** *** **** \\? \º a sºar ~hº
w -- * * * * **** * * > . * 'wº sº anº
* - ------ ***** ---, -i > **- * º wº. -- ~. . . . ºn's
*** *, * * * *----> * > * >s->> *-*** *-*. *
• *, *, *. ~ *- : ----> * *** * * * *
*. * * * * ** *. . * * * > -ºvº. Nºw * -** * * **** **** **
* * * * * * *** * •. * - -- º ** * * *~~~ * ** -> *:
* - - - - - -- ~~ • * ~ * * - ~ *. > → ---------- -->
** * * *** - - *~ -> * > * ~ * . . . -> <--~ *-**
- * ~ * -- ---> -º- - - --> *- :-- - - - --> -
* **. *- - • *- --~~ * * * * *~ ** - ~~ - :*. *-*- **
## 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.
interests of Church teaching, has been placed too
far behind man. Much that is dreadful and in-
human in history, much that one hardly likes to
believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the
one who commands and the one who carries out
are different persons,—the former does not be-
hold the right and therefore does not experience
the strong impression on the imagination; the
latter obeys a superior and therefore feels no
responsibility. Most princes and military heads,
through lack of imagination, easily appear hard
and cruel without really being so. Egoism is
not evil, because the idea of the "neighbour "—
the word is of Christian origin and does not
represent the truth—is very weak in us; and we
feel ourselves almost as free and irresponsible
towards him as towards plants and stones. We
have yet to learn that others suffer, and this can
never be completely learnt.
102.
"Man always Acts Rightly. "—We do not "7
complain of nature as immoral because it sends
a thunderstorm and makes us wet,—why do
we call those who injure us immoral? Because J
in the latter case we take for granted a free will
functioning voluntarily; in the former we see
necessity. But this distinction is an error. Thus
we do not call even intentional injury immoral in )
all circumstances; for instance, we kill a fly un-
hesitatingly and intentionally, only because its
## p. 102 (#154) ############################################
102 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
buzzing annoys us; we punish a criminal
intentionally and hurt him in order to protect
ourselves and society. In the first case it is the
individual who, in order to preserve himself, or
even to protect himself from worry, does inten-
tional injury; in the second case it is the State.
All morals allow intentional injury in the case of
necessity, that is, when it is a matter of self-pre-
'servation! But these two points of view suffice
to explain all evil actions committed by men
against men, we are desirous of obtaining
pleasure or avoiding pain; in any case it is
always a question of self-preservation. Socrates
and Plato are right: whatever man does he always
does well, that is, he does that which seems to
him good (useful) according to the degree of his
'intellect, the particular standard of his reason-
ableness.
103.
The Harmlessness of Malice. —The aim
of malice is not the suffering of others in itself, |
but our own enjoyment; for instance, as the feeling
of revenge, or stronger nervous excitement. All
teasing, even, shows the pleasure it gives to ex- 1]
ercise our power on others and bring it to an
enjoyable feeling of preponderance. Is it im-
moral to taste pleasure at the expense of another's
pain? Is malicious joy * devilish, as Schopen-
hauer says? We give ourselves pleasure in
*This is the untranslatable word Schadenfreude, which
means joy at the misfortune of others. —J. M. K.
## p. 103 (#155) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. IO3
nature by breaking off twigs, loosening stones,
fighting with wild animals, and do this in order
to become thereby conscious of our strength. Is
the knowledge, therefore, that another suffers
through us, the same thing concerning which we
otherwise feel irresponsible, supposed to make us
immoral? But if we did not know this we would
not thereby have the enjoyment of our own
superiority, which can only manifest itself by the
suffering of others, for instance in teasing. All
pleasure per se is neither good nor evil; whence
should come the decision that in order to have
pleasure ourselves we may not cause displeasure
to others? From the point of view of usefulness
alone, that is, out of consideration for the conse-
quences, for possible displeasure, when the injured
one or the replacing State gives the expectation
of resentment and revenge: this only can have
been the original reason for denying ourselves
such actions. Pity aims just as little at the
pleasure of others as malice at the pain of others
per se. For it contains at least two (perhaps
many more) elements of a personal pleasure, and
is so far self-gratification; in the first place as the
pleasure of emotion, which is the kind of pity
that exists in tragedy, and then, when it impels
to action, as the pleasure of satisfaction in the
exercise of power. If, besides this, a suffering
person is very dear to us, we lift a sorrow from
ourselves by the exercise of sympathetic actions.
Except by a few philosophers, pity has always
been placed very low in the scale of moral
feelings, and rightly so.
■■-
## p. 104 (#156) ############################################
104 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
f
104.
Self-defence. —If self-defence is allowed to
pass as moral, then almost all manifestations of
the so-called immoral egoism must also stand;
men injure, rob, or kill in order to preserve or
defend themselves, to prevent personal injury;
they lie where cunning and dissimulation are the
right means of self-preservation. Intentional
injury, when our existence or safety (preservation
of our comfort) is concerned, is conceded to be
moral; the State itself injures, according to this
point of view, when it punishes. In unintentional
injury, of course, there can be nothing immoral,
that is ruled by chance. Is there, then, a kind
of intentional injury where our existence or the
preservation of our comfort is not concerned? Is
there an injuring out of pure malice, for instance
in cruelty? If one does not know how much an
action hurts, it is no deed of malice; thus the
child is not malicious towards the animal, not
evil; he examines and destroys it like a toy.
But do we ever know entirely how an action hurts
another? As far as our nervous system extends
we protect ourselves from pain; if it extended
farther, to our fellow-men, namely, we should do
no one an injury (except in such cases as we
injure ourselves, where we cut ourselves for the
sake of cure, tire and exert ourselves for the sake
of health). We conclude by analogy that some-
thing hurts somebody, and through memory and
the strength of imagination we may suffer from it
## p. 105 (#157) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 105
ourselves. But still what a difference there is
between toothache and the pain (pity) that the
sight of toothache calls forth! Therefore, in
injury out of so-called malice the degree of pain
produced is always unknown to us; but inasmuch
as there is pleasure in the action (the feeling of
one's own power, one's own strong excitement),
the action is committed, in order to preserve the
comfort of the individual, and is regarded, there-
fore, from a similar point of view as defence and
falsehood in necessity. No life without pleasure;
the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life.
Whether the individual so fights this fight that
men call him good, or so that they call him evil,
is determined by the measure and the constitution
of his intellect.
105.
Recompensing Justice. —Whoever has com-
pletely comprehended the doctrine of absolute
irresponsibility can no longer include the so-called
punishing and recompensing justice in the idea of
justice, should this consist of giving to each man
his due. For he who is punished does not deserve j
the punishment, he is only used as a means of
henceforth warning away from certain actions;
equally so, he who is rewarded does not merit this
reward, he could not act otherwise than he did.
Therefore the reward is meant only as an
encouragement to him and others, to provide a
motive for subsequent actions; words of praise
are flung to the runners on the course, not to the
y"
## p. 106 (#158) ############################################
106 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
one who has reached the goal. Neither punish-
ment nor reward is anything that comes to one
as ones own; they are given from motives of use-
fulness, without one having a right to claim them.
Hence we must say," The wise man gives no reward
because the deed has been well done," just as we
have said, " The wise man does not punish because
evil has been committed, but in order that evil
shall not be committed. " If punishment and
reward no longer existed, then the strongest
motives which deter men from certain actions and
impel them to certain other actions, would also
no longer exist; the needs of mankind require
their continuance; and inasmuch as punishment
and reward, blame and praise, work most sensibly
on vanity, the same need requires the continuance
of vanity.
106.
At the Waterfall. —In looking at a water-
fall we imagine that there is freedom of will and
fancy in the countless turnings, twistings, and
breakings of the waves; but everything is com-
y pulsory, every movement can be mathematically
N°- calculated. So it is also with human actions;
t«Wu\tl one would have to be able to calculate every single
(W^r^***' action beforehand if one were all-knowing; equally
w}'w so all progress of knowledge, every error, all malice.
The one who acts certainly labours under the
illusion of voluntariness; if the world's wheel were
to stand still for a moment and an all-knowing,
calculating reason were there to make use of this
## p. 107 (#159) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 107
pause, it could foretell the future of every creature
to the remotest times, and mark out every track
upon which that wheel would continue to roll. The
delusion of the acting agent about himself, the
supposition of a free will, belongs to this mechanism
which still remains to be calculated.
107.
Irresponsibility and Innocence. — The
complete irresponsibility of man for his actions
and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who
understands must swallow if he was accustomed
to see the patent of nobility of his humanity
in responsibility and duty. All his valuations,
distinctions, disinclinations, are thereby deprived
of value and become false,—his deepest feeling
for the sufferer and the hero was based on an
error; he may no longer either praise or blame,
for it is absurd to praise and blame nature and
necessity. In the same way as he loves a fine
work of art, but does not praise it, because it can
do nothing for itself; in the same way as he regards
plants, so must he regard his own actions and
those of mankind. He can admire strength,
beauty, abundance, in themselves; but must find
no merit therein,—the chemical progress and the
strife of the elements, the torments of the sick
person who thirsts after recovery, are all equally
as little merits as those struggles of the soul and
states of distress in which we are torn hither and
thither by different impulses until we finally decide
_
## p. 108 (#160) ############################################
108 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
for the strongest—as we say (but in reality it is
the strongest motive which decides for us). All
these motives, however, whatever fine names we
may give them, have all grown out of the same
root, in which we believe the evil poisons to be
C'' situated; between good and evil actions there is
no difference of species, but at most of degree.
I Good actions are sublimated evil ones; evil actions
/ are vulgarised and stupefied good ones. The
I single longing of the individual for self-gratification
"(together with the fear of losing it) satisfies itself
i in all circumstances: man may act as he can,that
is as he must, be it in deeds of vanity, revenge,
pleasure, usefulness, malice, cunning; be it in deeds
of sacrifice, of pity, of knowledge. The degrees
of the power of judgment determine whither any
one lets himself be drawn through this longing;
to every society, to every individual, a scale of
possessions is continually present, according to
which he determines his actions and judges those
of others. But this standard changes constantly;
many actions are called evil and are only stupid,
because the degree of intelligence which decided
for them was very low. In a certain sense, even,
all actions are still stupid; for the highest degree
of human intelligence which can now be attained
will assuredly be yet surpassed, and then, in a
retrospect, all our actions and judgments will
appear as limited and hasty as the actions and
judgments of primitive wild peoples now appear
limited and hasty to us. To recognise all this
may be deeply painful, but consolation comes
after: such pains are the pangs of birth. The
## p. 109 (#161) ############################################
THE HISTORY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. 109
butterfly wants to break through its chrysalis: it
rends and tears it, and is then blinded and confused
by the unaccustomed light, the kingdom of liberty.
In such people as are capable of such sadness—and
how few are ! —the first experiment made is to see
whether mankind can change itself from a moral
into a wise mankind. The sun of a new gospel
throws its rays upon the highest point in the soul
of each single individual, then the mists gather
thicker than ever, and the brightest light and
the dreariest shadow lie side by side. Everything
is necessity—so says the new knowledge, and
this knowledge itself is necessity. Everything is
innocence, and knowledge is the road to insight
into this innocence. Are pleasure, egoism, vanity
necessary for the production of the moral
phenomena and their highest result, the sense for
truth and justice in knowledge; were error and
the confusion of the imagination the only means
through which mankind could raise itself gradually
to this degree of self-enlightenment and self-
liberation—who would dare to undervalue these
means? Who would dare to be sad if he
perceived the goal to which those roads led?
Everything in the domain of morality has evolved,
is changeable, unstable, everything is dissolved, it
is true; but everything is also streaming towards
one goal. Even if the inherited habit of erroneous *"]
valuation, love and hatred, continue to reign in us,
yet under the influence of growing knowledge it
will become weaker; a new habit, that of com-
prehension, of not loving, not hating, of over-
looking, is gradually implanting itself in us upon
J
## p. 110 (#162) ############################################
I IO HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
the same ground, and in thousands of years will
perhaps be powerful enough to give humanity the
strength to produce wise, innocent (consciously
innocent) men, as it now produces unwise, guilt-
conscious men, that is the necessary preliminary
step, not its opposite.
## p. 110 (#163) ############################################
THIRD DIVISION.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
108.
The Double Fight against Evil. —When
misfortune overtakes us we can either pass over
it so lightly that its cause is removed, or so that
the result which it has on our temperament is
altered, through a changing, therefore, of the evil
into a good, the utility of which is perhaps not
visible until later on. Religion and art (also
metaphysical philosophy) work upon the changing
of the temperament, partly through the changing
of our judgment on events (for instance, with the
help of the phrase "whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth"), partly through the awakening of a
pleasure in pain, in emotion generally (whence
the tragic art takes its starting-point). The more
a man is inclined to twist and arrange meanings
the less he will grasp the causes of evil and dis-
perse them; the momentary mitigation and in-
fluence of a narcotic, as for example in toothache,
suffices him even in more serious sufferings. The
more the dominion of creeds and all arts dispense
with narcotics, the more strictly men attend to
the actual removing of the evil, which is certainly
## p. 110 (#164) ############################################
I IG HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor even
enmity; they live on different planets. Every
philosophy which shows a religious comet's tail
shining in the darkness of its last prospects r.
all the science it contains suspicious; all
is presumably also religion, even though in
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were
agree about certain religious matters, for instal
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarke
is not the case with regard to this point), th
would only be an argument against those affirme
matters, for instance the existence of a God; th
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
Lächeln und winken und stimmen mit ein :
Théricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehört l” *
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. 111 (#165) ############################################
THE
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## p. 112 (#166) ############################################
112 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
bad for writers of tragedy; for the material for
tragedy is growing scarcer because the domain of
pitiless, inexorable fate is growing ever narrower,
—but worse still for the priests, for they have
hitherto lived on the narcotisation of human
woes.
109.
Sorrow is Knowledge. —How greatly we
should like to exchange the false assertions of the
priests, that there is a god who desires good from
us, a guardian and witness of every action, every
moment, every thought, who loves us and seeks
our welfare in all misfortune,—how greatly we
\ would like to exchange these ideas for/aruths
which would be just as healing, pacifying and
beneficial as those errors! But there are no such
truths; at most philosophy can oppose to them
metaphysical appearances (at bottom also un-
truths). The tragedy consists in the fact that
we cannot believe those dogmas of religion and
metaphysics, if we have strict methods of truth
in heart and brain: on the other hand, mankind
has, through development, become so delicate,
irritable and suffering, that it has need of
/ the highest means of healing and consolation;
whence also the danger arises that man would
bleed to death from recognised truth, or, more
correctly, from discovered error. Byron has
expressed this in the immortal lines:—
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
## p. 113 (#167) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 113
For such troubles there is no better help than to
recall the stately levity of Horace, at least for the
worst hours and eclipses of the soul, and to say
with him:
. . . quid aeternis minorem
consiliis animum fatigas?
cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac
pinu jacentes. *
But assuredly frivolity or melancholy of every
degree is better than a romantic retrospection
and desertion of the flag, an approach to
Christianity in any form; for according to the
present condition of knowledge it is absolutely
impossible to approach it without hopelessly
soiling our intellectual conscience and giving our-
selves away to ourselves and others. Those
pains may be unpleasant enough, but we cannot
become leaders and educators of mankind with-
out pain; and woe to him who would wish
to attempt this and no longer have that clear
conscience!
110.
The Truth in Religion. —In the period
of rationalism justice was not done to the
importance of religion, of that there is no doubt,
but equally there is no doubt that in the reaction
that followed this rationalism justice was far
overstepped; for religions were treated lovingly,
*Why harass with eternal designs a mind too weak to
compass them? Why do we not, as we lie beneath a lofty
plane-tree or this pine [drink while we may]? HOR. , Odes
II. ii. 11-14. —J. M. K.
VOL. I. H
## p. 114 (#168) ############################################
114 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
even amorously, and, for instance, a deeper, even
the very deepest, understanding of the world was
ascribed to them; which science has only to strip
of its dogmatic garment in order to possess the
"truth" in unmythical form. Religions should,
therefore,—this was the opinion of all opposers of
rationalism,—sensu allegorico, with all considera-
tion for the understanding of the masses, give
utterance to that ancient wisdom which is wisdom
itself, inasmuch as all true science of later times
has always led up to it instead of away from it,
so that between the oldest wisdom of mankind
and all later harmonies similarity of discernment
and a progress of knowledge—in case one should
wish to speak of such a thing—rests not upon the
nature but upon the way of communicating it.
This whole conception of religion and science is
thoroughly erroneous, and none would still dare
to profess it if Schopenhauer's eloquence had not
taken it under its protection; this resonant
eloquence which, however, only reached its hearers
a generation later. As surely as from Schopen-
hauer's religious-moral interpretations of men and
the world much may be gained for the under-
standing of the Christian and other religions, so
surely also is he mistaken about the value of
religion for knowledge.
Therein he himself was
only a too docile pupil of the scientific teachers of
his time, who all worshipped romanticism and
had forsworn the spirit of enlightenment; had he
been born in our present age he could not pos-
sibly have talked about the sensus allegoricus of
religion; he would much rather have given
## p. 115 (#169) ############################################
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 115
honour to truth, as he used to do, with the words,
"no religion, direct or indirect, either as dogma or as
allegory, has ever contained a truth! ' For each
has been born of fear and necessity, through the
byways of reason did it slip into existence; once,
perhaps, when imperilled by science, some philo-
sophic doctrine has lied itself into its system in
order that it may be found there later, but this
is a theological trick of the time when a religion
already doubts itself. These tricks of theology
(which certainly were practised in the early days
of Christianity, as the religion of a scholarly
period steeped in philosophy) have led to that
superstition of the sensus allegoricus, but yet more
the habits of the philosophers (especially the half-
natures, the poetical philosophers and the philo-
sophising artists), to treat all the sensations which
they discovered in themselves as the fundamental
nature of man in general, and hence to allow their
own religious feelings an important influence in
the building up of their systems. As philosophers
frequently philosophised under the custom of
religious habits, or at least under the anciently
inherited power of that " metaphysical need," they
developed doctrinal opinions which really bore a
great resemblance to the Jewish or Christian or
Indian religious views,—a resemblance, namely,
such as children usually bear to their mothers,
only that in this case the fathers were not clear
about that motherhood, as happens sometimes,—
but in their innocence romanced about a family
likeness between all religion and science. In
reality, between religions and real science there
## p. 116 (#170) ############################################
I IG HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
exists neither relationship nor friendship, nor even
enmity; they live on different planets. Every
philosophy which shows a religious comet's tail
shining in the darkness of its last prospects makes
all the science it contains suspicious; all this
is presumably also religion, even though in the
guise of science. Moreover, if all nations were to
agree about certain religious matters, for instance
the existence of a God (which, it may be remarked,
is not the case with regard to this point), this
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
Lächeln und winken und stimmen mit ein :
Théricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehört l” *
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
|
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## p. 116 (#171) ############################################
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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.
