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, 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 consideration 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
Schopenhauer's religious-moral interpretations of men and the world
much may be gained for the understanding 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 possibly have talked about the _sensus allegoricus_
of religion; he would much rather have given 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
philosophic 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 philosophising 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 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:
Thöricht, auf Bess'rung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der Klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehört!"[2]
Spoken without verse and rhyme and applied to our case, the _consensus
sapientium_ consists in this: that the _consensus gentium_ counts as a
folly.
111.
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
fundamental 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 _dæmon_ 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 _dæmons_ 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 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
contains 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, every
individual felt that his existence, his happiness, 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 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 something
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, 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 likewise 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 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.
113.
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 of such an assertion is wanting." Certainly in
our 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,[3] 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
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.
115.
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 religion is very
useful, for then servility assumes the appearance of Christian virtues
and is surprisingly beautified. People to whom their daily life appears
too empty and monotonous easily grow religious; this is comprehensible
and excusable, only they have no right to demand religious sentiments
from those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.[4]
116.
THE COMMONPLACE CHRISTIAN.--If Christianity were right, with its
theories of an avenging God, of general sinfulness, of redemption, and
the danger of eternal damnation, it would be a sign of weak intellect
and lack of character _not_ to become a priest, apostle or hermit,
and to work only with fear and trembling for one's own salvation; it
would be senseless thus to neglect eternal benefits for temporary
comfort. Taking it for granted that there _is belief,_ the commonplace
Christian is a miserable figure, a man that really cannot add two and
two together, and who, moreover, just because of his mental incapacity
for responsibility, did not deserve to be so severely punished as
Christianity has decreed.
117.
OF THE WISDOM OF CHRISTIANITY.--It is a clever stroke on the part
of Christianity to teach the utter unworthiness, sinfulness, and
despicableness of mankind so loudly that the disdain of their
fellow-men is no longer possible. "He may sin as much as he likes, he
is not essentially different from me,--it is I who am unworthy and
despicable in every way," says the Christian to himself. But even
this feeling has lost its sharpest sting, because the Christian no
longer believes in his individual despicableness; he is bad as men are
generally, and comforts himself a little with the axiom, "We are all of
one kind."
118.
CHANGE OF FRONT.--As soon as a religion triumphs it has for its enemies
all those who would have been its first disciples.
119.
THE FATE OF CHRISTIANITY.--Christianity arose for the purpose of
lightening the heart; but now it must first make the heart heavy in
order afterwards to lighten it. Consequently it will perish.
120.
THE PROOF OF PLEASURE.--The agreeable opinion is accepted as
true,--this is the proof of the pleasure (or, as the Church says, the
proof of the strength), of which all religions are so proud when they
ought to be ashamed of it. If Faith did not make blessed it would not
be believed in; of how little value must it be, then!
121.
A DANGEROUS GAME.--Whoever now allows scope to his religious feelings
must also let them increase, he cannot do otherwise. His nature then
gradually changes; it favours whatever is connected with and near to
the religious element, the whole extent of judgment and feeling becomes
clouded, overcast with religious shadows. Sensation cannot stand still;
one must therefore take care.
122.
THE BLIND DISCIPLES.--So long as one knows well the strength and
weakness of one's doctrine, one's art, one's religion, its power
is still small. The disciple and apostle who has no eyes for the
weaknesses of the doctrine, the religion, and so forth, dazzled by the
aspect of the master and by his reverence for him, has on that account
usually more power than the master himself. Without blind disciples the
influence of a man and his work has never yet become great. To help a
doctrine to victory often means only so to mix it with stupidity that
the weight of the latter carries off also the victory for the former.
123.
CHURCH DISESTABLISHMENT.--There is not enough religion in the world
even to destroy religions.
124.
THE SINLESSNESS OF MAN.--If it is understood how "sin came into the
world," namely through errors of reason by which men held each other,
even the single individual held himself, to be much blacker and much
worse than was actually the case, the whole sensation will be much
lightened, and man and the world will appear in a blaze of innocence
which it will do one good to contemplate. In the midst of nature man
is always the child _per se._ This child sometimes has a heavy and
terrifying dream, but when it opens its eyes it always finds itself
back again in Paradise.
125.
THE IRRELIGIOUSNESS OF ARTISTS.--Homer is so much at home amongst
his gods, and is so familiar with them as a poet, that he must have
been deeply irreligious; that which the popular faith gave him--a
meagre, rude, partly terrible superstition--he treated as freely as
the sculptor does his clay, with the same unconcern, therefore, which
Æschylus and Aristophanes possessed, and by which in later times the
great artists of the Renaissance distinguished themselves, as also did
Shakespeare and Goethe.
126.
THE ART AND POWER OF FALSE INTERPRETATIONS.--All the visions, terrors,
torpors, and ecstasies of saints are well-known forms of disease,
which are only, by reason of deep-rooted religious and psychological
errors, differently _explained_ by him, namely not as diseases. Thus,
perhaps, the _Daimonion_ of Socrates was only an affection of the
ear, which he, in accordance with his ruling moral mode of thought,
_expounded_ differently from what would be the case now. It is the same
thing with the madness and ravings of the prophets and soothsayers; it
is always the degree of knowledge, fantasy, effort, morality in the
head and heart of the _interpreters_ which has _made_ so much of it.
For the greatest achievements of the people who are called geniuses and
saints it is necessary that they should secure interpreters by force,
who _misunderstand_ them for the good of mankind.
127.
THE VENERATION OF INSANITY.--Because it was remarked that excitement
frequently made the mind clearer and produced happy inspirations it was
believed that the happiest inspirations and suggestions were called
forth by the greatest excitement; and so the insane were revered as
wise and oracular. This is based on a false conclusion.
128.
THE PROMISES OF SCIENCE.--The aim of modern science is: as little
pain as possible, as long a life as possible,--a kind of eternal
blessedness, therefore; but certainly a very modest one as compared
with the promises of religions.
129.
FORBIDDEN GENEROSITY.--There is not sufficient love and goodness in the
world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.
130.
THE CONTINUANCE OF THE RELIGIOUS CULT IN THE FEELINGS.--The Roman
Catholic Church, and before that all antique cults, dominated the
entire range of means by which man was put into unaccustomed moods
and rendered incapable of the cold calculation of judgment or the
clear thinking of reason. A church quivering with deep tones; the
dull, regular, arresting appeals of a priestly throng, unconsciously
communicates its tension to the congregation and makes it listen almost
fearfully, as if a miracle were in preparation; the influence of the
architecture, which, as the dwelling of a Godhead, extends into the
uncertain and makes its apparition to be feared in all its sombre
spaces,--who would wish to bring such things back to mankind if the
necessary suppositions are no longer believed? But the _results_ of all
this are not lost, nevertheless; the inner world of noble, emotional,
deeply contrite dispositions, full of presentiments, blessed with hope,
is inborn in mankind mainly through this cult; what exists of it now in
the soul was then cultivated on a large scale as it germinated, grew
up and blossomed.
131.
THE PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES OF RELIGION.--However much we may think we
have weaned ourselves from religion, it has nevertheless not been done
so thoroughly as to deprive us of pleasure in encountering religious
sensations and moods in music, for instance; and if a philosophy shows
us the justification of metaphysical hopes and the deep peace of
soul to be thence acquired, and speaks, for instance, of the "whole,
certain gospel in the gaze of Raphael's Madonnas," we receive such
statements and expositions particularly warmly; here the philosopher
finds it easier to prove; that which he desires to give corresponds
to a heart that desires to receive. Hence it may be observed how the
less thoughtful free spirits really only take offence at the dogmas,
but are well acquainted with the charm of religious sensations; they
are sorry to lose hold of the latter for the sake of the former.
Scientific philosophy must be very careful not to smuggle in errors on
the ground of that need,--a need which has grown up and is consequently
temporary,--even logicians speak of "presentiments" of truth in
ethics and in art (for instance, of the suspicion that "the nature
of things is one"), which should be forbidden to them Between the
carefully established truths and such "presaged" things there remains
the unbridgable chasm that those are due to intellect and these to
requirement Hunger does not prove that food _exists_ to satisfy it, but
that it desires food. To "presage" does not mean the acknowledgment of
the existence of a thing in any one degree, but its possibility, in so
far as it is desired or feared; "presage" does not advance one step
into the land of certainty. We believe involuntarily that the portions
of a philosophy which are tinged with religion are better proved than
others; but actually it is the contrary, but we have the inward desire
that it _may_ be so, that that which makes blessed, therefore, may be
also the true. This desire misleads us to accept bad reasons for good
ones.
132.