people sought to show the feeling of man’s greatness by pointing to his
divine descent. This, however, has now become a forbidden path, for the
ape stands at its entrance, and likewise other fearsome animals, showing
their teeth in a knowing fashion, as if to say, No further this way! Hence
people now try the opposite direction: the road along which humanity is
proceeding shall stand as an indication of their greatness and their
relationship to God. But alas! this, too, is useless! At the far end of
this path stands the funeral urn of the last man and grave-digger (with
the inscription, _Nihil humani a me alienum puto_). To whatever height
mankind may have developed—and perhaps in the end it will not be so high
as when they began!—there is as little prospect of their attaining to a
higher order as there is for the ant and the earwig to enter into kinship
with God and eternity at the end of their career on earth. What is to come
will drag behind it that which has passed: why should any little star, or
even any little species on that star, form an exception to that eternal
drama? Away with such sentimentalities!
50.
BELIEF IN INEBRIATION.—Those men who have moments of sublime ecstasy, and
who, on ordinary occasions, on account of the contrast and the excessive
wearing away of their nervous forces, usually feel miserable and desolate,
come to consider such moments as the true manifestation of their real
selves, of their “ego,” and their misery and dejection, on the other hand,
as the _effect of the _“non-ego”. This is why they think of their
environment, the age in which they live, and the whole world in which they
have their being, with feelings of vindictiveness. This intoxication
appears to them as their true life, their actual ego; and everywhere else
they see only those who strive to oppose and prevent this intoxication,
whether of an intellectual, moral, religious, or artistic nature.
Humanity owes no small part of its evils to these fantastic enthusiasts;
for they are the insatiable sowers of the weed of discontent with one’s
self and one’s neighbour, of contempt for the world and the age, and,
above all, of world-lassitude. An entire hell of criminals could not,
perhaps, bring about such unfortunate and far-reaching consequences, such
heavy and disquieting effects that corrupt earth and sky, as are brought
about by that “noble” little community of unbridled, fantastic, half-mad
people—of geniuses, too—who cannot control themselves, or experience any
inward joy, until they have lost themselves completely: while, on the
other hand, the criminal often gives a proof of his admirable
self-control, sacrifice, and wisdom, and thus maintains these qualities in
those who fear him. Through him life’s sky may at times seem overcast and
threatening, but the atmosphere ever remains brisk and
vigorous.—Furthermore, these enthusiasts bring their entire strength to
bear on the task of imbuing mankind with belief in inebriation as in life
itself: a dreadful belief! As savages are now quickly corrupted and ruined
by “fire-water,” so likewise has mankind in general been slowly though
thoroughly corrupted by these spiritual “fire-waters” of intoxicating
feelings and by those who keep alive the craving for them. It may yet be
ruined thereby.
51.
SUCH AS WE STILL ARE.—“Let us be indulgent to the great one-eyed!” said
Stuart Mill, as if it were necessary to ask for indulgence when we are
willing to believe and almost to worship them. I say: Let us be indulgent
towards the two-eyed, both great and small; for, _such as we are now_, we
shall never rise beyond indulgence!
52.
WHERE ARE THE NEW PHYSICIANS OF THE SOUL?—It is the means of consolation
which have stamped life with that fundamental melancholy character in
which we now believe: the worst disease of mankind has arisen from the
struggle against diseases, and apparent remedies have in the long run
brought about worse conditions than those which it was intended to remove
by their use. Men, in their ignorance, used to believe that the stupefying
and intoxicating means, which appeared to act immediately, the so-called
“consolations,” were the true healing powers: they even failed to observe
that they had often to pay for their immediate relief by a general and
profound deterioration in health, that the sick ones had to suffer from
the after-effects of the intoxication, then from the absence of the
intoxication, and, later on, from a feeling of disquietude, depression,
nervous starts, and ill-health. Again, men whose illness had advanced to a
certain extent never recovered from it—those physicians of the soul,
universally believed in and worshipped as they were, took care of that.
It has been justly said of Schopenhauer that he was one who again took the
sufferings of humanity seriously: where is the man who will at length take
the antidotes against these sufferings seriously, and who will pillory the
unheard-of quackery with which men, even up to our own age, and in the
most sublime nomenclature, have been wont to treat the illnesses of their
souls?
53.
ABUSE OF THE CONSCIENTIOUS ONES.—It is the conscientious, and not the
unscrupulous, who have suffered so greatly from exhortations to penitence
and the fear of hell, especially if they happened to be men of
imagination. In other words, a gloom has been cast over the lives of those
who had the greatest need of cheerfulness and agreeable images—not only
for the sake of their own consolation and recovery from themselves, but
that humanity itself might take delight in them and absorb a ray of their
beauty. Alas, how much superfluous cruelty and torment have been brought
about by those religions which invented sin! and by those men who, by
means of such religions, desired to reach the highest enjoyment of their
power!
54.
THOUGHTS ON DISEASE.—To soothe the imagination of the patient, in order
that he may at least no longer keep on thinking about his illness, and
thus suffer more from such thoughts than from the complaint itself, which
has been the case hitherto—that, it seems to me, is something! and it is
by no means a trifle! And now do ye understand our task?
55.
THE “WAYS.”—So-called “short cuts” have always led humanity to run great
risks: on hearing the “glad tidings” that a “short cut” had been found,
they always left the straight path—_and lost their way_.
56.
THE APOSTATE OF THE FREE SPIRIT.—Is there any one, then, who seriously
dislikes pious people who hold formally to their belief? Do we not, on the
contrary, regard them with silent esteem and pleasure, deeply regretting
at the same time that these excellent people do not share our own
feelings? But whence arises that sudden, profound, and unreasonable
dislike for the man who, having at one time possessed freedom of spirit,
finally becomes a “believer”? In thinking of him we involuntarily
experience the sensation of having beheld some loathsome spectacle, which
we must quickly efface from our recollection. Should we not turn our backs
upon even the most venerated man if we entertained the least suspicion of
him in this regard? Not, indeed, from a moral point of view, but because
of sudden disgust and horror! Whence comes this sharpness of feeling?
Perhaps we shall be given to understand that, at bottom, we are not quite
certain of our own selves? Or that, early in life, we build round
ourselves hedges of the most pointed contempt, in order that, when old age
makes us weak and forgetful, we may not feel inclined to brush our own
contempt away from us?
Now, speaking frankly, this suspicion is quite erroneous, and whoever
forms it knows nothing of what agitates and determines the free spirit:
how little, to him, does the _changing_ of an opinion seem contemptible
_per se_! On the contrary, how highly he prizes the _ability_ to change an
opinion as a rare and valuable distinction, especially if he can retain it
far into old age! And his pride (not his pusillanimity) even reaches so
high as to be able to pluck the fruits of the _spernere se sperni_ and the
_spernere se ipsum_: without his being troubled by the sensation of fear
of vain and easy-going men. Furthermore, the doctrine of the innocence of
all opinions appears to him to be as certain as the doctrine of the
innocence of all actions: how could he act as judge and hangman before the
apostate of intellectual liberty! On the contrary, the sight of such a
person would disgust him as much as the sight of a nauseous illness
disgusts the physician: the physical repulsion caused by everything
spongy, soft, and suppurating momentarily overcomes reason and the desire
to help. Hence our goodwill is overcome by the conception of the monstrous
dishonesty which must have gained the upper hand in the apostate from the
free spirit: by the conception of a general gnawing which is eating its
way down even to the framework of the character.
57.
OTHER FEARS, OTHER SAFETIES.—Christianity overspread life with a new and
unlimited _insecurity_, thereby creating new safeties, enjoyments and
recreations, and new valuations of all things. Our own century denies the
existence of this insecurity, and does so with a good conscience, yet it
clings to the old habit of Christian certainties, enjoyments, recreations,
and valuations!—even in its noblest arts and philosophies. How feeble and
worn out must all this now seem, how imperfect and clumsy, how arbitrarily
fanatical, and, above all, how uncertain: now that its horrible contrast
has been taken away—the ever-present fear of the Christian for his
_eternal_ salvation!
58.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE EMOTIONS.—In Christianity we may see a great popular
protest against philosophy: the reasoning of the sages of antiquity had
withdrawn men from the influence of the emotions, but Christianity would
fain give men their emotions back again. With this aim in view, it denies
any moral value to virtue such as philosophers understood it—as a victory
of the reason over the passions—generally condemns every kind of goodness,
and calls upon the passions to manifest themselves in their full power and
glory: as _love_ of God, _fear_ of God, fanatic _belief_ in God, blind
_hope_ in God.
59.
ERROR AS A CORDIAL.—Let people say what they will, it is nevertheless
certain that it was the aim of Christianity to deliver mankind from the
yoke of moral engagements by indicating what it believed to be the
_shortest way to perfection_: exactly in the same manner as a few
philosophers thought they could dispense with tedious and laborious
dialectics, and the collection of strictly-proved facts, and point out a
royal road to truth. It was an error in both cases, but nevertheless a
great cordial for those who were worn out and despairing in the
wilderness.
60.
ALL SPIRIT FINALLY BECOMES VISIBLE.—Christianity has assimilated the
entire spirituality of an incalculable number of men who were by nature
submissive, all those enthusiasts of humiliation and reverence, both
refined and coarse. It has in this way freed itself from its own original
rustic coarseness—of which we are vividly reminded when we look at the
oldest image of St. Peter the Apostle—and has become a very intellectual
religion, with thousands of wrinkles, _arrière-pensées_, and masks on its
face. It has made European humanity more clever, and not only cunning from
a theological standpoint. By the spirit which it has thus given to
European humanity—in conjunction with the power of abnegation, and very
often in conjunction with the profound conviction and loyalty of that
abnegation—it has perhaps chiselled and shaped the most subtle
individualities which have ever existed in human society: the
individualities of the higher ranks of the Catholic clergy, especially
when these priests have sprung from a noble family, and have brought to
their work, from the very beginning, the innate grace of gesture, the
dominating glance of the eye, and beautiful hands and feet. Here the human
face acquires that spiritualisation brought about by the continual ebb and
flow of two kinds of happiness (the feeling of power and the feeling of
submission) after a carefully-planned manner of living has conquered the
beast in man. Here an activity, which consists in blessing, forgiving
sins, and representing the Almighty, ever keeps alive in the soul, _and
even in the body_, the consciousness of a supreme mission; here we find
that noble contempt concerning the perishable nature of the body, of
well-being, and of happiness, peculiar to born soldiers: their _pride_
lies in obedience, a distinctly aristocratic trait; their excuse and their
idealism arise from the enormous impossibility of their task. The
surpassing beauty and subtleties of these princes of the Church have
always proved to the people the truth of the Church; a momentary
brutalisation of the clergy (such as came about in Luther’s time) always
tended to encourage the contrary belief. And would it be maintained that
this result of beauty and human subtlety, shown in harmony of figure,
intellect, and task, would come to an end with religions? and that nothing
higher could be obtained, or even conceived?
61.
THE NEEDFUL SACRIFICE.—Those earnest, able, and just men of profound
feelings, who are still Christians at heart, owe it to themselves to make
one attempt to live for a certain space of time without Christianity! they
owe it _to their faith_ that they should thus for once take up their abode
“in the wilderness”—if for no other reason than that of being able to
pronounce on the question as to whether Christianity is needful. So far,
however, they have confined themselves to their own narrow domain and
insulted every one who happened to be outside of it: yea, they even become
highly irritated when it is suggested to them that beyond this little
domain of theirs lies the great world, and that Christianity is, after
all, only a corner of it! No; your evidence on the question will be
valueless until you have lived year after year without Christianity, and
with the inmost desire to continue to exist without it: until, indeed, you
have withdrawn far, far away from it. It is not when your nostalgia urges
you back again, but when your judgment, based on a strict comparison,
drives you back, that your homecoming has any significance!—Men of coming
generations will deal in this manner with all the valuations of the past;
they must be voluntarily _lived_ over again, together with their
contraries, in order that such men may finally acquire the right of
shifting them.
62.
ON THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.—How can any one regard his own opinion of
things as a revelation? This is the problem of the formation of religions:
there has always been some man in whom this phenomenon was possible. A
postulate is that such a man already believed in revelations. Suddenly,
however, a new idea occurs to him one day, _his_ idea; and the entire
blessedness of a great personal hypothesis, which embraces all existence
and the whole world, penetrates with such force into his conscience that
he dare not think himself the creator of such blessedness, and he
therefore attributes to his God the cause of this new idea and likewise
the cause of the cause, believing it to be the revelation of his God. How
could a man be the author of so great a happiness? ask his pessimistic
doubts. But other levers are secretly at work: an opinion may be
strengthened by one’s self if it be considered as a revelation; and in
this way all its hypothetic nature is removed; the matter is set beyond
criticism and even beyond doubt: it is sanctified. It is true that, in
this way, a man lowers himself to playing the rôle of “mouthpiece,” but
his thought will end by being victorious as a divine thought—the feeling
of finally gaining the victory conquers the feeling of degradation. There
is also another feeling in the background: if a man raises his products
above himself, and thus apparently detracts from his own worth, there
nevertheless remains a kind of joyfulness, paternal love, and paternal
pride, which compensates man—more than compensates man—for everything.
63.
HATRED OF ONE’S NEIGHBOUR.—Supposing that we felt towards our neighbour as
he does himself—Schopenhauer calls this compassion, though it would be
more correct to call it auto-passion, fellow-feeling—we should be
compelled to hate him, if, like Pascal, he thought himself hateful. And
this was probably the general feeling of Pascal regarding mankind, and
also that of ancient Christianity, which, under Nero, was “convicted” of
_odium generis humani_, as Tacitus has recorded.
64.
THE BROKEN-HEARTED ONES.—Christianity has the instinct of a hunter for
finding out all those who may by hook or by crook be driven to
despair—only a very small number of men can be brought to this despair.
Christianity lies in wait for such as those, and pursues them. Pascal made
an attempt to find out whether it was not possible, with the help of the
very subtlest knowledge, to drive everybody into despair. He failed: to
his second despair.
65.
BRAHMINISM AND CHRISTIANITY.—There are certain precepts for obtaining a
consciousness of power: on the one hand, for those who already know how to
control themselves, and who are therefore already quite used to the
feeling of power; and, on the other hand, for those who cannot control
themselves. Brahminism has given its care to the former type of man;
Christianity to the latter.
66.
THE FACULTY OF VISION.—During the whole of the Middle Ages it was believed
that the real distinguishing trait of higher men was the faculty of having
visions—that is to say, of having a grave mental trouble. And, in fact,
the rules of life of all the higher natures of the Middle Ages (the
religiosi) were drawn up with the object of making man capable of vision!
Little wonder, then, that the exaggerated esteem for these half-mad
fanatics, so-called men of genius, has continued even to our own days.
“They have seen things that others do not see”—no doubt! and this fact
should inspire us with caution where they are concerned, and not with
belief!
67.
THE PRICE OF BELIEVERS.—He who sets such a value on being believed in has
to promise heaven in recompense for this belief: and every one, even a
thief on the Cross, must have suffered from a terrible doubt and
experienced crucifixion in every form: otherwise he would not buy his
followers so dearly.
68.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN.—The whole world still believes in the literary career
of the “Holy Ghost,” or is still influenced by the effects of this belief:
when we look into our Bibles we do so for the purpose of “edifying
ourselves,” to find a few words of comfort for our misery, be it great or
small—in short, we read ourselves into it and out of it. But who—apart
from a few learned men—know that it likewise records the history of one of
the most ambitious and importunate souls that ever existed, of a mind full
of superstition and cunning: the history of the Apostle Paul?
Nevertheless, without this singular history, without the tribulations and
passions of such a mind, and of such a soul, there would have been no
Christian kingdom; we should have scarcely have even heard of a little
Jewish sect, the founder of which died on the Cross. It is true that, if
this history had been understood in time, if we had read, _really read_,
the writings of St. Paul, not as the revelations of the “Holy Ghost,” but
with honest and independent minds, oblivious of all our personal
troubles—there were no such readers for fifteen centuries—it would have
been all up with Christianity long ago: so searchingly do these writings
of the Jewish Pascal lay bare the origins of Christianity, just as the
French Pascal let us see its destiny and how it will ultimately perish.
That the ship of Christianity threw overboard no inconsiderable part of
its Jewish ballast, that it was able to sail into the waters of the
heathen and actually did do so: this is due to the history of one single
man, this apostle who was so greatly troubled in mind and so worthy of
pity, but who was also very disagreeable to himself and to others.
This man suffered from a fixed idea, or rather a fixed question, an
ever-present and ever-burning question: what was the _meaning_ of the
Jewish Law? and, more especially, _the fulfilment of this Law_? In his
youth he had done his best to satisfy it, thirsting as he did for that
highest distinction which the Jews could imagine—this people, which raised
the imagination of moral loftiness to a greater elevation than any other
people, and which alone succeeded in uniting the conception of a holy God
with the idea of sin considered as an offence against this holiness. St.
Paul became at once the fanatic defender and guard-of-honour of this God
and His Law. Ceaselessly battling against and lying in wait for all
transgressors of this Law and those who presumed to doubt it, he was
pitiless and cruel towards all evil-doers, whom he would fain have
punished in the most rigorous fashion possible.
Now, however, he was aware in his own person of the fact that such a man
as himself—violent, sensual, melancholy, and malicious in his
hatred—_could_ not fulfil the Law; and furthermore, what seemed strangest
of all to him, he saw that his boundless craving for power was continually
provoked to break it, and that he could not help yielding to this impulse.
Was it really “the flesh” which made him a trespasser time and again? Was
it not rather, as it afterwards occurred to him, the Law itself, which
continually showed itself to be impossible to fulfil, and seduced men into
transgression with an irresistible charm? But at that time he had not
thought of this means of escape. As he suggests here and there, he had
many things on his conscience—hatred, murder, sorcery, idolatry,
debauchery, drunkenness, and orgiastic revelry,—and to however great an
extent he tried to soothe his conscience, and, even more, his desire for
power, by the extreme fanaticism of his worship for and defence of the
Law, there were times when the thought struck him: “It is all in vain! The
anguish of the unfulfilled Law cannot be overcome.” Luther must have
experienced similar feelings, when, in his cloister, he endeavoured to
become the ideal man of his imagination; and, as Luther one day began to
hate the ecclesiastical ideal, and the Pope, and the saints, and the whole
clergy, with a hatred which was all the more deadly as he could not avow
it even to himself, an analogous feeling took possession of St. Paul. The
Law was the Cross on which he felt himself crucified. How he hated it!
What a grudge he owed it! How he began to look round on all sides to find
a means for its total annihilation, that he might no longer be obliged to
fulfil it himself! And at last a liberating thought, together with a
vision—which was only to be expected in the case of an epileptic like
himself—flashed into his mind: to him, the stern upholder of the Law—who,
in his innermost heart, was tired to death of it—there appeared on the
lonely path that Christ, with the divine effulgence on His countenance,
and Paul heard the words: “Why persecutest thou Me?”
What actually took place, then, was this: his mind was suddenly
enlightened, and he said to himself: “It is unreasonable to persecute this
Jesus Christ! Here is my means of escape, here is my complete vengeance,
here and nowhere else have I the destroyer of the Law in my hands!” The
sufferer from anguished pride felt himself restored to health all at once,
his moral despair disappeared in the air; for morality itself was blown
away, annihilated—that is to say, _fulfilled_, there on the Cross! Up to
that time that ignominious death had seemed to him to be the principal
argument against the “Messiahship” proclaimed by the followers of the new
doctrine: but what if it were necessary for doing away with the Law? The
enormous consequences of this thought, of this solution of the enigma,
danced before his eyes, and he at once became the happiest of men. The
destiny of the Jews, yea, of all mankind, seemed to him to be intertwined
with this instantaneous flash of enlightenment: he held the thought of
thoughts, the key of keys, the light of lights; history would henceforth
revolve round him! For from that time forward he would be the apostle of
the _annihilation of the Law_! To be dead to sin—that meant to be dead to
the Law also; to be in the flesh—that meant to be under the Law! To be one
with Christ—that meant to have become, like Him, the destroyer of the Law;
to be dead with Him—that meant likewise to be dead to the Law. Even if it
were still possible to sin, it would not at any rate be possible to sin
against the Law: “I am above the Law,” thinks Paul; adding, “If I were now
to acknowledge the Law again and to submit to it, I should make Christ an
accomplice in the sin”; for the Law was there for the purpose of producing
sin and setting it in the foreground, as an emetic produces sickness. God
could not have decided upon the death of Christ had it been possible to
fulfil the Law without it; henceforth, not only are all sins expiated, but
sin itself is abolished; henceforth the Law is dead; henceforth “the
flesh” in which it dwelt is dead—or at all events dying, gradually wasting
away. To live for a short time longer amid this decay!—this is the
Christian’s fate, until the time when, having become one with Christ, he
arises with Him, sharing with Christ the divine glory, and becoming, like
Christ, a “Son of God.” Then Paul’s exaltation was at its height, and with
it the importunity of his soul—the thought of union with Christ made him
lose all shame, all submission, all constraint, and his ungovernable
ambition was shown to be revelling in the expectation of divine glories.
Such was the first Christian, the inventor of Christianity! before him
there were only a few Jewish sectaries.
69.
INIMITABLE.—There is an enormous strain and distance between envy and
friendship, between self-contempt and pride: the Greek lived in the
former, the Christian in the latter.
70.
THE USE OF A COARSE INTELLECT.—The Christian Church is an encyclopædia of
primitive cults and views of the most varied origin; and is, in
consequence, well adapted to missionary work: in former times she
could—and still does—go wherever she would, and in doing so always found
something resembling herself, to which she could assimilate herself and
gradually substitute her own spirit for it. It is not to what is Christian
in her usages, but to what is universally pagan in them, that we have to
attribute the development of this universal religion. Her thoughts, which
have their origin at once in the Judaic and in the Hellenic spirit, were
able from the very beginning to raise themselves above the exclusiveness
and subtleties of races and nations, as above prejudices. Although we may
admire the power which makes even the most difficult things coalesce, we
must nevertheless not overlook the contemptible qualities of this
power—the astonishing coarseness and narrowness of the Church’s intellect
when it was in process of formation, a coarseness which permitted it to
accommodate itself to any diet, and to digest contradictions like pebbles.
71.
THE CHRISTIAN VENGEANCE AGAINST ROME.—Perhaps nothing is more fatiguing
than the sight of a continual conqueror: for more than two hundred years
the world had seen Rome overcoming one nation after another, the circle
was closed, all future seemed to be at an end, everything was done with a
view to its lasting for all time—yea, when the Empire built anything it
was erected with a view to being _aere perennius_. We, who know only the
“melancholy of ruins,” can scarcely understand that totally different
_melancholy of eternal buildings_, from which men endeavoured to save
themselves as best they could—with the light-hearted fancy of a Horace,
for example. Others sought different consolations for the weariness which
was closely akin to despair, against the deadening knowledge that from
henceforth all progress of thought and heart would be hopeless, that the
huge spider sat everywhere and mercilessly continued to drink all the
blood within its reach, no matter where it might spring forth. This mute,
century-old hatred of the wearied spectators against Rome, wherever Rome’s
domination extended, was at length vented in Christianity, which united
Rome, “the world,” and “sin” into a single conception. The Christians took
their revenge on Rome by proclaiming the immediate and sudden destruction
of the world; by once more introducing a future—for Rome had been able to
transform everything into the history of its _own_ past and present—a
future in which Rome was no longer the most important factor; and by
dreaming of the last judgment—while the crucified Jew, as the symbol of
salvation, was the greatest derision on the superb Roman prætors in the
provinces; for now they seemed to be only the symbols of ruin and a
“world” ready to perish.
72.
THE “LIFE AFTER DEATH.”—Christianity found the idea of punishment in hell
in the entire Roman Empire: for the numerous mystic cults have hatched
this idea with particular satisfaction as being the most fecund egg of
their power. Epicurus thought he could do nothing better for his followers
than to tear this belief up by the roots: his triumph found its finest
echo in the mouth of one of his disciples, the Roman Lucretius, a poet of
a gloomy, though afterwards enlightened, temperament. Alas! his triumph
had come too soon: Christianity took under its special protection this
belief in subterranean horrors, which was already beginning to die away in
the minds of men; and that was clever of it. For, without this audacious
leap into the most complete paganism, how could it have proved itself
victorious over the popularity of Mithras and Isis? In this way it managed
to bring timorous folk over to its side—the most enthusiastic adherents of
a new faith! The Jews, being a people which, like the Greeks, and even in
a greater degree than the Greeks, loved and still love life, had not
cultivated that idea to any great extent: the thought of final death as
the punishment of the sinner, death without resurrection as an extreme
menace: this was sufficient to impress these peculiar men, who did not
wish to get rid of their bodies, but hoped, with their refined Egypticism,
to preserve them for ever. (A Jewish martyr, about whom we may read in the
Second Book of the Maccabees, would not think of giving up his intestines,
which had been torn out: he wanted to have them at the resurrection: quite
a Jewish characteristic!)
Thoughts of eternal damnation were far from the minds of the early
Christians: they thought they were _delivered_ from death, and awaited a
transformation from day to day, but not death. (What a curious effect the
first death must have produced on these expectant people! How many
different feelings must have been mingled together—astonishment,
exultation, doubt, shame, and passion! Verily, a subject worthy of a great
artist!) St. Paul could say nothing better in praise of his Saviour than
that he had opened the gates of immortality to everybody—he did not
believe in the resurrection of those who had not been saved: more than
this, by reason of his doctrine of the impossibility of carrying out the
Law, and of death considered as a consequence of sin, he even suspected
that, up to that time, no one had become immortal (or at all events only a
very few, solely owing to special grace and not to any merits of their
own): it was only in his time that immortality had begun to open its
gates—and only a few of the elect would finally gain admittance, as the
pride of the elect cannot help saying.
In other places, where the impulse towards life was not so strong as among
the Jews and the Christian Jews, and where the prospect of immortality did
not appear to be more valuable than the prospect of a final death, that
pagan, yet not altogether un-Jewish addition of Hell became a very useful
tool in the hands of the missionaries: then arose the new doctrine that
even the sinners and the unsaved are immortal, the doctrine of eternal
damnation, which was more powerful than the idea of a _final death_, which
thereafter began to fade away. It was science alone which could overcome
this idea, at the same time brushing aside all other ideas about death and
an after-life. We are poorer in one particular: the “life after death” has
no further interest for us! an indescribable blessing, which is as yet too
recent to be considered as such throughout the world. And Epicurus is once
more triumphant.
73.
FOR THE “TRUTH”!—“The truth of Christianity was attested by the virtuous
lives of the Christians, their firmness in suffering, their unshakable
belief and above all by the spread and increase of the faith in spite of
all calamities.”—That’s how you talk even now. The more’s the pity. Learn,
then, that all this proves nothing either in favour of truth or against
it; that truth must be demonstrated differently from conscientiousness,
and that the latter is in no respect whatever an argument in favour of the
former.
74.
A CHRISTIAN _ARRIÈRE-PENSÉE_.—Would not this have been a general
reservation among Christians of the first century: “It is better to
persuade ourselves into the belief that we are guilty rather than that we
are innocent; for it is impossible to ascertain the disposition of so
powerful a judge—but it is to be feared that he is looking out only for
those who are conscious of guilt. Bearing in mind his great power, it is
more likely that he will pardon a guilty person than admit that any one is
innocent, in his presence.” This was the feeling of poor provincial folk
in the presence of the Roman prætor: “He is too proud for us to dare to be
innocent.” And may not this very sentiment have made its influence felt
when the Christians endeavoured to picture to themselves the aspect of the
Supreme Judge?
75.
NEITHER EUROPEAN NOR NOBLE.—There is something Oriental and feminine in
Christianity, and this is shown in the thought, “Whom the Lord loveth, He
chasteneth”; for women in the Orient consider castigations and the strict
seclusion of their persons from the world as a sign of their husband’s
love, and complain if these signs of love cease.
76.
IF YOU THINK IT EVIL, YOU MAKE IT EVIL.—The passions become evil and
malignant when regarded with evil and malignant eyes. It is in this way
that Christianity has succeeded in transforming Eros and Aphrodite—sublime
powers, capable of idealisation—into hellish genii and phantom goblins, by
means of the pangs which every sexual impulse was made to raise in the
conscience of the believers. Is it not a dreadful thing to transform
necessary and regular sensations into a source of inward misery, and thus
arbitrarily to render interior misery necessary and regular _in the case
of every man_! Furthermore, this misery remains secret with the result
that it is all the more deeply rooted, for it is not all men who have the
courage, which Shakespeare shows in his sonnets, of making public their
Christian gloom on this point.
Must a feeling, then, always be called evil against which we are forced to
struggle, which we must restrain even within certain limits, or, in given
cases, banish entirely from our minds? Is it not the habit of vulgar souls
always to call an _enemy_ evil! and must we call Eros an enemy? The sexual
feelings, like the feelings of pity and adoration, possess the particular
characteristic that, in their case, one being gratifies another by the
pleasure he enjoys—it is but rarely that we meet with such a benevolent
arrangement in nature. And yet we calumniate and corrupt it all by our bad
conscience! We connect the procreation of man with a bad conscience!
But the outcome of this diabolisation of Eros is a mere farce: the “demon”
Eros becomes an object of greater interest to mankind than all the angels
and saints put together, thanks to the mysterious Mumbo-Jumboism of the
Church in all things erotic: it is due to the Church that love stories,
even in our own time, have become the one common interest which appeals to
all classes of people—with an exaggeration which would be incomprehensible
to antiquity, and which will not fail to provoke roars of laughter in
coming generations. All our poetising and thinking, from the highest to
the lowest, is marked, and more than marked, by the exaggerated importance
bestowed upon the love story as the principal item of our existence.
Posterity may perhaps, on this account, come to the conclusion that its
entire legacy of Christian culture is tainted with narrowness and
insanity.
77.
THE TORTURES OF THE SOUL.—The whole world raises a shout of horror at the
present day if one man presumes to torture the body of another: the
indignation against such a being bursts forth almost spontaneously. Nay;
we tremble even at the very thought of torture being inflicted on a man or
an animal, and we undergo unspeakable misery when we hear of such an act
having been accomplished. But the same feeling is experienced in a very
much lesser degree and extent when it is a question of the tortures of the
soul and the dreadfulness of their infliction. Christianity has introduced
such tortures on an unprecedented scale, and still continues to preach
this kind of martyrdom—yea, it even complains innocently of backsliding
and indifference when it meets with a state of soul which is free from
such agonies. From all this it now results that humanity, in the face of
spiritual racks, tortures of the mind, and instruments of punishment,
behaves even to-day with the same awesome patience and indecision which it
exhibited in former times in the presence of the cruelties practised on
the bodies of men or animals. Hell has certainly not remained merely an
empty sound; and a new kind of pity has been devised to correspond to the
newly-created fears of hell—a horrible and ponderous compassion, hitherto
unknown; with people “irrevocably condemned to hell,” as, for example, the
Stony Guest gave Don Juan to understand, and which, during the Christian
era, should often have made the very stones weep.
Plutarch presents us with a gloomy picture of the state of mind of a
superstitious man in pagan times: but this picture pales when compared
with that of a Christian of the Middle Ages, who _supposes_ that nothing
can save him from “torments everlasting.” Dreadful omens appear to him:
perhaps he sees a stork holding a snake in his beak and hesitating to
swallow it. Or all nature suddenly becomes pale; or bright, fiery colours
appear across the surface of the earth. Or the ghosts of his dead
relations approach him, with features showing traces of dreadful
sufferings. Or the dark walls of the room in which the man is sleeping are
suddenly lighted up, and there, amidst a yellow flame, he perceives
instruments of torture and a motley horde of snakes and devils.
Christianity has surely turned this world of ours into a fearful
habitation by raising the crucifix in all parts and thereby proclaiming
the earth to be a place “where the just man is tortured to death!” And
when the ardour of some great preacher for once disclosed to the public
the secret sufferings of the individual, the agonies of the lonely souls,
when, for example, Whitefield preached “like a dying man to the dying,”
now bitterly weeping, now violently stamping his feet, speaking
passionately, in abrupt and incisive tones, without fearing to turn the
whole force of his attack upon any one individual present, excluding him
from the assembly with excessive harshness—then indeed did it seem as if
the earth were being transformed into a “field of evil.” The huge crowds
were then seen to act as if seized with a sudden attack of madness: many
were in fits of anguish; others lay unconscious and motionless; others,
again, trembled or rent the air with their piercing shrieks. Everywhere
there was a loud breathing, as of half-choked people who were gasping for
the breath of life. “Indeed,” said an eye-witness once, “almost all the
noises appeared to come from people who were dying in the bitterest
agony.”
Let us never forget that it was Christianity which first turned the
death-bed into a bed of agony, and that, by the scenes which took place
there, and the terrifying sounds which were made possible there for the
first time, it has poisoned the senses and the blood of innumerable
witnesses and their children. Imagine the ordinary man who can never
efface the recollection of words like these: “Oh, eternity! Would that I
had no soul! Would that I had never been born! My soul is damned, damned;
lost for ever! Six days ago you might have helped me. But now all is over.
I belong to the devil, and with him I will go down to hell. Break, break,
ye poor hearts of stone! Ye will not break? What more can be done for
hearts of stone? I am damned that ye may be saved! There he is! Yea; there
he is! Come, good devil! Come!”
78.
AVENGING JUSTICE.—Misfortune and guilt: these two things have been put on
one scale by Christianity; so that, when the misfortune which follows a
fault is a serious one, this fault is always judged accordingly to be a
very heinous one. But this was not the valuation of antiquity, and that is
why Greek tragedy—in which misfortune and punishment are discussed at
length, and yet in another sense—forms part of the great liberators of the
mind to an extent which even the ancients themselves could not realise.
They remained ingenuous enough not to set up an “adequate relation”
between guilt and misfortune. The guilt of their tragic heroes is, indeed,
the little pebble that makes them stumble, and on which account they
sometimes happen to break an arm or knock out an eye. Upon this the
feeling of antiquity made the comment, “Well, he should have gone his way
with more caution and less pride.” It was reserved for Christianity,
however, to say: “Here we have a great misfortune, and behind this great
misfortune there must lie a great fault, an equally _serious fault_,
though we cannot clearly see it! If, wretched man, you do not feel it, it
is because your heart is hardened—and worse than this will happen to you!”
Besides this, antiquity could point to examples of real misfortunes,
misfortunes that were pure and innocent; it was only with the advent of
Christianity that all punishment became well-merited punishment: in
addition to this it renders the imagination of the sufferer still more
suffering, so that the victim, in the midst of his distress, is seized
with the feeling that he has been morally reproved and cast away. Poor
humanity! The Greeks had a special word to stand for the feeling of
indignation which was experienced at the misfortune of another: among
Christian peoples this feeling was prohibited and was not permitted to
develop; hence the reason why they have no name for this _more virile_
brother of pity.
79.
A PROPOSAL.—If, according to the arguments of Pascal and Christianity, our
ego is always hateful, how can we permit and suppose other people, whether
God or men, to love it? It would be contrary to all good principles to let
ourselves be loved when we know very well that we deserve nothing but
hatred—not to speak of other repugnant feelings. “But this is the very
Kingdom of Grace.” Then you look upon your love for your neighbour as a
grace? Your pity as a grace? Well, then, if you can do all this, there is
no reason why you should not go a step further: love yourselves through
grace, and then you will no longer find your God necessary, and the entire
drama of the Fall and Redemption of mankind will reach its last act in
yourselves!
80.
THE COMPASSIONATE CHRISTIAN.—A Christian’s compassion in the presence of
his neighbour’s suffering has another side to it: viz. his profound
suspicion of all the joy of his neighbour, of his neighbour’s joy in
everything that he wills and is able to do.
81.
THE SAINT’S HUMANITY.—A saint had fallen into the company of believers,
and could no longer stand their continually expressed hatred for sin. At
last he said to them: “God created all things, except sin: therefore it is
no wonder that He does not like it. But man has created sin, and why,
then, should he disown this only child of his merely because it is not
regarded with a friendly eye by God, its grandfather? Is that human?
Honour to whom honour is due—but one’s heart and duty must speak, above
all, in favour of the child—and only in the second place for the honour of
the grandfather!”
82.
THE THEOLOGICAL ATTACK.—“You must arrange that with yourself; for your
life is at stake!”—Luther it is who suddenly springs upon us with these
words and imagines that we feel the knife at our throats. But we throw him
off with the words of one higher and more considerate than he: “We need
form no opinion in regard to this or that matter, and thus save our souls
from trouble. For, by their very nature, the things themselves cannot
compel us to express an opinion.”
83.
POOR HUMANITY!—A single drop of blood too much or too little in the brain
may render our life unspeakably miserable and difficult, and we may suffer
more from this single drop of blood than Prometheus from his vulture. But
the worst is when we do not know that this drop is causing our
sufferings—and we think it is “the devil!” Or “sin!”
84.
THE PHILOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY.—How little Christianity cultivates the
sense of honesty can be inferred from the character of the writings of its
learned men. They set out their conjectures as audaciously as if they were
dogmas, and are but seldom at a disadvantage in regard to the
interpretation of Scripture. Their continual cry is: “I am right, for it
is written”—and then follows an explanation so shameless and capricious
that a philologist, when he hears it, must stand stock-still between anger
and laughter, asking himself again and again: Is it possible? Is it
honest? Is it even decent?
It is only those who never—or always—attend church that underestimate the
dishonesty with which this subject is still dealt in Protestant pulpits;
in what a clumsy fashion the preacher takes advantage of his security from
interruption; how the Bible is pinched and squeezed; and how the people
are made acquainted with every form of _the art of false reading_.
When all is said and done, however, what can be expected from the effects
of a religion which, during the centuries when it was being firmly
established, enacted that huge philological farce concerning the Old
Testament? I refer to that attempt to tear the Old Testament from the
hands of the Jews under the pretext that it contained only Christian
doctrines and _belonged_ to the Christians as the true people of Israel,
while the Jews had merely arrogated it to themselves without authority.
This was followed by a mania of would-be interpretation and falsification,
which could not under any circumstances have been allied with a good
conscience. However strongly Jewish savants protested, it was everywhere
sedulously asserted that the Old Testament alluded everywhere to Christ,
and nothing but Christ, more especially His Cross, and thus, wherever
reference was made to wood, a rod, a ladder, a twig, a tree, a willow, or
a staff, such a reference could not but be a prophecy relating to the wood
of the Cross: even the setting-up of the Unicorn and the Brazen Serpent,
even Moses stretching forth his hands in prayer—yea, the very spits on
which the Easter lambs were roasted: all these were allusions to the
Cross, and, as it were, preludes to it! Did any one who kept on asserting
these things ever _believe_ in them? Let it not be forgotten that the
Church did not shrink from putting interpolations in the text of the
Septuagint (_e.g._ Ps. xcvi. 10), in order that she might later on make
use of these interpolated passages as Christian prophecies. They were
engaged in a struggle, and thought of their foes rather than of honesty.
85.
SUBTLETY IN PENURY.—Take care not to laugh at the mythology of the Greeks
merely because it so little resembles your own profound metaphysics! You
should admire a people who checked their quick intellect at this point,
and for a long time afterwards had tact enough to avoid the danger of
scholasticism and hair-splitting superstition.
86.
THE CHRISTIAN INTERPRETERS OF THE BODY.—Whatever originates in the
stomach, the intestines, the beating of the heart, the nerves, the bile,
the seed—all those indispositions, debilities, irritations, and the whole
contingency of that machine about which we know so little—a Christian like
Pascal considers it all as a moral and religious phenomenon, asking
himself whether God or the devil, good or evil, salvation or damnation, is
the cause. Alas for the unfortunate interpreter! How he must distort and
worry his system! How he must distort and worry himself in order to gain
his point!
87.
THE MORAL MIRACLE.—In the domain of morality, Christianity knows of
nothing but the miracle; the sudden change in all valuations, the sudden
renouncement of all habits, the sudden and irresistible predilection for
new things and persons. Christianity looks upon this phenomenon as the
work of God, and calls it the act of regeneration, thus giving it a unique
and incomparable value. Everything else which is called morality, and
which bears no relation to this miracle, becomes in consequence a matter
of indifference to the Christian, and indeed, so far as it is a feeling of
well-being and pride, an object of fear. The canon of virtue, of the
fulfilled law, is established in the New Testament, but in such a way as
to be the canon of _impossible virtue_: men who still aspire to moral
perfections must come to understand, in the face of this canon, that they
are further and further _removed_ from their aim; they must _despair_ of
virtue, and end by throwing themselves at the feet of the Merciful One.
It is only in reaching a conclusion like this that moral efforts on the
part of the Christian can still be regarded as possessing any value: the
condition that these efforts shall always remain sterile, painful, and
melancholy is therefore indispensable; and it is in this way that those
efforts could still avail to bring about that moment of ecstasy when man
experiences the “overflow of grace” and the moral miracle. This struggle
for morality is, however, not _necessary_; for it is by no means uncommon
for this miracle to happen to the sinner at the very moment when he is, so
to speak, wallowing in the mire of sin: yea, the leap from the deepest and
most abandoned sinfulness into its contrary seems easier, and, as a clear
proof of the miracle, even more desirable.
What, for the rest, may be the signification of such a sudden,
unreasonable, and irresistible revolution, such a change from the depths
of misery into the heights of happiness? (might it be a disguised
epilepsy?) This should at all events be considered by alienists, who have
frequent opportunities of observing similar “miracles”—for example, the
mania of murder or suicide. The relatively “more pleasant consequences” in
the case of the Christian make no important difference.
88.
LUTHER, THE GREAT BENEFACTOR.—Luther’s most important result is the
suspicion which he awakened against the saints and the entire Christian
_vita contemplativa_; only since his day has an un-Christian _vita
contemplativa_ again become possible in Europe, only since then has
contempt for laymen and worldly activity ceased. Luther continued to be an
honest miner’s son even after he had been shut up in a monastery, and
there, for lack of other depths and “borings,” he descended into himself,
and bored terrifying and dark passages through his own depths—finally
coming to recognise that an introspective and saintly life was impossible
to him, and that his innate “activity” in body and soul would end by being
his ruin. For a long time, too long, indeed, he endeavoured to find the
way to holiness through castigations; but at length he made up his mind,
and said to himself: “There is no real _vita contemplativa_! We have been
deceived. The saints were no better than the rest of us.” This was truly a
rustic way of gaining one’s case; but for the Germans of that period it
was the only proper way. How edified they felt when they could read in
their Lutheran catechism: “Apart from the Ten Commandments there is no
work which could find favour in the eyes of God—these much-boasted
spiritual works of the saints are purely imaginary!”
89.
DOUBT AS SIN.—Christianity has done all it possibly could to draw a circle
round itself, and has even gone so far as to declare doubt itself to be a
sin. We are to be precipitated into faith by a miracle, without the help
of reason, after which we are to float in it as the clearest and least
equivocal of elements—a mere glance at some solid ground, the thought that
we exist for some purpose other than floating, the least movement of our
amphibious nature: all this is a sin! Let it be noted that, following this
decision, the proofs and demonstration of the faith, and all meditations
upon its origin, are prohibited as sinful. Christianity wants blindness
and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above the waves under which reason has
been drowned!
90.
EGOISM _VERSUS_ EGOISM.—How many are there who still come to the
conclusion: “Life would be intolerable were there no God!” Or, as is said
in idealistic circles: “Life would be intolerable if its ethical
signification were lacking.” Hence there must be a God—or an ethical
signification of existence! In reality the case stands thus: He who is
accustomed to conceptions of this sort does not desire a life without
them, hence these conceptions are necessary for him and his
preservation—but what a presumption it is to assert that everything
necessary for my preservation must exist _in reality_! As if my
preservation were really necessary! What if others held the contrary
opinion? if they did not care to live under the conditions of these two
articles of faith, and did not regard life as worth living if they were
realised!—And that is the present position of affairs.
91.
THE HONESTY OF GOD.—An omniscient and omnipotent God who does not even
take care that His intentions shall be understood by His creatures—could
He be a God of goodness? A God, who, for thousands of years, has permitted
innumerable doubts and scruples to continue unchecked as if they were of
no importance in the salvation of mankind, and who, nevertheless,
announces the most dreadful consequences for any one who mistakes his
truth? Would he not be a cruel god if, being himself in possession of the
truth, he could calmly contemplate mankind, in a state of miserable
torment, worrying its mind as to what was truth?
Perhaps, however, he really is a God of goodness, and was unable to
express Himself more clearly? Perhaps he lacked intelligence enough for
this? Or eloquence? All the worse! For in such a case he may have been
deceived himself in regard to what he calls his “truth,” and may not be
far from being another “poor, deceived devil!” Must he not therefore
experience all the torments of hell at seeing His creatures suffering so
much here below—and even more, suffering through all eternity—when he
himself can neither advise nor help them, except as a deaf and dumb
person, who makes all kinds of equivocal signs when his child or his dog
is threatened with the most fearful danger? A distressed believer who
argues thus might be pardoned if his pity for the suffering God were
greater than his pity for his “neighbours”; for they are his neighbours no
longer if that most solitary and primeval being is also the greatest
sufferer and stands most in need of consolation.
Every religion shows some traits of the fact that it owes its origin to a
state of human intellectuality which was as yet too young and immature:
they all make light of the necessity for speaking the truth: as yet they
know nothing of the _duty of God_, the duty of being clear and truthful in
His communications with men. No one was more eloquent than Pascal in
speaking of the “hidden God” and the reasons why He had to keep Himself
hidden, all of which indicates clearly enough that Pascal himself could
never make his mind easy on this point: but he speaks with such confidence
that one is led to imagine that he must have been let into the secret at
some time or other. He seemed to have some idea that the _deus
absconditus_ bore a few slight traces of immorality; and he felt too much
ashamed and afraid of acknowledging this to himself: consequently, like a
man who is afraid, he spoke as loudly as he could.
92.
AT THE DEATH-BED OF CHRISTIANITY.—All truly active men now do without
inward Christianity, and the most moderate and thoughtful men of the
intellectual middle classes possess only a kind of modified Christianity;
that is, a peculiarly simplified Christianity. A God who, in his love,
ordains everything so that it may be best for us, a God who gives us our
virtue and our happiness and then takes them away from us, so that
everything at length goes on smoothly and there is no reason left why we
should take life ill or grumble about it: in short, resignation and
modesty raised to the rank of divinities—that is the best and most
lifelike remnant of Christianity now left to us. It must be remembered,
however, that in this way Christianity has developed into a soft
_moralism_: instead of “God, freedom, and immortality,” we have now a kind
of benevolence and honest sentiments, and the belief that, in the entire
universe, benevolence and honest sentiments will finally prevail: this is
the euthanasia of Christianity.
93.
WHAT IS TRUTH?—Who will not be pleased with the conclusions which the
faithful take such delight in coming to?—“Science cannot be true; for it
denies God. Hence it does not come from God; and consequently it cannot be
true—for God is truth.” It is not the deduction but the premise which is
fallacious. What if God were not exactly truth, and if this were proved?
And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions,
the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?
94.
REMEDY FOR THE DISPLEASED.—Even Paul already believed that some sacrifice
was necessary to take away the deep displeasure which God experienced
concerning sin: and ever since then Christians have never ceased to vent
the ill-humour which they felt with themselves upon some victim or
another—whether it was “the world,” or “history,” or “reason,” or joy, or
the tranquillity of other men—something good, no matter what, had to die
for _their_ sins (even if only _in effigie_)!
95.
THE HISTORICAL REFUTATION AS THE DECISIVE ONE.—Formerly it was sought to
prove that there was no God—now it is shown how the belief that a God
existed could have _originated_, and by what means this belief gained
authority and importance: in this way the counterproof that there is no
God becomes unnecessary and superfluous.—In former times, when the
“evidences of the existence of God” which had been brought forward were
refuted, a doubt still remained, viz. whether better proofs could not be
found than those which had just been refuted: at that time the atheists
did not understand the art of making a _tabula rasa_.
96.
“IN HOC SIGNO VINCES.”—To whatever degree of progress Europe may have
attained in other respects, where religious affairs are concerned it has
not yet reached the liberal naïveté of the ancient Brahmins, which proves
that, in India, four thousand years ago, people meditated more profoundly
and transmitted to their descendants more pleasure in meditating than is
the case in our own days. For those Brahmins believed in the first place
that the priests were more powerful than the gods, and in the second place
that it was observances which constituted the power of the priests: as a
result of which their poets were never tired of glorifying those
observances (prayers, ceremonies, sacrifices, chants, improvised melodies)
as the real dispensers of all benefits. Although a certain amount of
superstition and poetry was mingled with all this, the principles were
_true_! A step further, and the gods were cast aside—which Europe likewise
will have to do before very long! One more step further, and priests and
intermediaries could also be dispensed with—and then Buddha, the teacher
of the religion of self-redemption, appeared. How far Europe is still
removed from this degree of culture! When at length all the customs and
observances, upon which rests the power of gods, priests, and saviours,
shall have been destroyed, when as a consequence morality, in the old
sense, will be dead, then there will come ... yea, what will come then?
But let us refrain from speculating; let us rather make certain that
Europe will retrieve that which, in India, amidst this people of thinkers,
was carried out thousands of years ago as a commandment of thought!
Scattered among the different nations of Europe there are now from ten to
twenty millions of men who no longer “believe in God”—is it too much to
ask that they should give each other some indication or password? As soon
as they recognise each other in this way, they will also make themselves
known to each other; and they will immediately become a power in Europe,
and, happily, a power _among_ the nations! among the classes! between rich
and poor! between those who command, and those who obey! between the most
restless and the most tranquil, tranquillising people!