The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche

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СКАЧАТЬ of punish ment; Life itself, owing to the fact that the priesfs life is upheld as the non plus ultra of perfection, is transformed into a denial and pol lution of life; the concept " God " represents an aversion to Life, and even a criticism and a con temning of it. Truth is transformed in the mind, into priestly prevarication; the striving after truth, into the study of the Scriptures into the way to become a theologian..

      142. A criticism of the Law-Book of Manu. The whole book is founded upon the holy lie. Was it the well-being of humanity that inspired the whole of this system? Was this kind of man, who believes in the interested nature of every action, interested or not interested in the success of this system? The desire to improve mankind whence comes the inspiration to this feeling? Whence is the concept improvement taken? We find a class of men, the sacerdotal class, who consider themselves the standard pattern, the highest example and most perfect expression of the type man. The notion of " improving " mankind, to this class of men, means to make man kind like themselves. They believe in their own superiority, they will be superior in practice: the cause of the holy lie is The Will to Power. . . . Establishment of the dominion: to this end, ideas which place a non plus ultra of power with the priesthood are made to prevail. Power ac quired by lying was the result of the recognition of the fact that it was not already possessed physically, in a military form. . . . Lying as a supplement to power this is a new concept of " truth." It is a mistake to presuppose unconscious and innocent development in this quarter a sort of self-deception. Fanatics are not the discoverers of such exhaustive systems of oppression. . . . Cold-blooded reflection must have been at work here; the same sort of reflection which Plato showed when he worked out his " State " " One must desire the means when one desires the end." Concerning this political maxim, all legislators have always been quite clear. We possess the classical model, and it is speci fically Arian: we can therefore hold the most gifted and most reflective type of man responsible for the most systematic lie that has ever been told. . . . Everywhere almost the lie was copied, and thus Arian influence corrupted the world. . . .

      143. Much is said today about the Semitic spirit of the New Testament-, but the thing referred to is merely priestcraft, and in the purest example of an Arian law-book, in Manu, this kind of " Semitic spirit " that is to say, Sacerdotalism, is worse than anywhere else. The development of the Jewish hierarchy is not original: they learnt the scheme in Babylon it is Arian. When, later on, the same thing became dominant in Europe, under the preponderance of Germanic blood, this was in conformity to the spirit of the ruling race: a striking case of atavism. The Germanic middle ages aimed at a revival of the A rian order of castes. Mohammedanism in its turn learned from Christianity the use of a " Beyond " as an instru ment of punishment. The scheme of a permanent community, with priests at its head this oldest product of Asia s great culture in the domain of organization naturally provoked reflection and imitation in every way. Plato is an example of this, but above all, the Egyptians.

      144. Moralities and religions are the principal means by which one can modify men into whatever one 126 likes; provided one is possessed of an overflow of creative power, and can cause one s will to pre vail over long periods of time.

      145. If one wish to see an affirmative Arian religion which is the product of a ruling class, one should read the law-book of Manu. (The deification of the feeling of power in the Brahmin: it is in teresting to note that it originated in the warrior- caste, and was later transferred to the priests.) If one wish to see an affirmative religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the ruling class, one should read the Koran or the earlier portions of the Old Testament. (Mohammedan ism as a religion for men, has profound contempt for the sentimentality and prevarication of Christi anity, . . . which, according to Mohammedans, is a woman s religion.) If one wish to see a negative religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the op pressed class, one should read the New Testament (which, according to Indian and Arian points of view, is a religion for the Chandala). If one wish to see a negative Arian religion, which is the product of the ruling classes, one should study Buddhism. It is quite in the nature of things that we have no Arian religion which is the product of the oppressed classes; for that would have been a contradiction: a race of masters is either para mount or else it goes to the dogs.

      146. Religion, per se, has nothing to do with morality; yet both offshoots of the Jewish religion are essentially moral religions which prescribe the rules of living, and procure obedience to their principles by means of rewards and punishment.

      147. Paganism Christianity. Paganism is that which says yea to all that is natural, it is innocence in being natural, " naturalness." Christianity is that which says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in being natural; hostility to Nature. " Innocent ": Petronius is innocent, for in stance. Beside this happy man a Christian is absolutely devoid of innocence. But since even the Christian status is ultimately only a natural condition, the term " Christian " soon begins to mean the counterfeiting of the psychological inter pretation.

      148. The Christian priest is from the root a mortal enemy of sensuality: one cannot imagine a greater contrast to his attitude than the guileless, slightly awed, and solemn attitude, which the religious rites of the most honorable women in Athens maintained in the presence of the symbol of sex. In all non-ascetic religions the procreative act is the secret per se: a sort of symbol of perfection and of the designs of the future: re-birth, im mortality.

      149. Our belief in ourselves is the greatest fetter, the most telling spur, and the strongest pinion. Christianity ought to have elevated the innocence of man to the position of an article of belief men would then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.

      150. The egregious lie of history: as if it were the corruption of Paganism that opened the road to Christianity. As a matter of fact, it was the enfeeblement and moralisation of the man of antiquity. The new interpretation of natural functions, which made them appear like vices, had already gone before!

      151. Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief in morality. The idea of the Christian moral God becomes untenable, hence " Atheism," as though there could be no other god. Culture is likewise wrecked by the belief in morality. For when the necessary and only possible conditions of its growth are revealed, nobody will any longer countenance it (Buddh ism).

      152. The physiology of Nihilistic religions. All in all, the Nihilistic religions are systematized histories of sickness described in religious and moral ter- m in o logy. In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation of the great annual cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a cycle of paralytic phenomena.

      153. This Nihilistic religion gathers together all the decadent elements and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz.: (a) The weak and the botched (the refuse of the ancient world, and that of which it rid itself with most violence). (b} Those who are morally obsessed and anti- pagan. (c) Those who are weary of politics and in different (the bias Romans), the denationalised, who know not what they are. (d) Those who are tired of themselves who are happy to be party to a subterranean conspiracy.

      154. Buddha versus Christ. Among the Nihilistic religions, Christianity and Buddhism may always be sharply distinguished. Buddhism is the ex pression of a fine evening, perfectly sweet and mild it is a sort of gratitude towards all that . I lies hidden, including that which it entirely lacks, viz., bitterness, disillusionment, and resent ment. Finally it possesses lofty intellectual love; it has got over all the subtlety of philosophical contradictions, and is even resting after it, though it is precisely from that source that it derives its intellectual glory and its glow as of a sunset (it originated in the higher classes). Christianity is a degenerative movement, con sisting of all kinds of decaying and excremental elements: it is not the expression of the downfall of a race, it is, from the root, an agglomeration of all the morbid elements which are mutually attractive and which gravitate to one another. ... It is therefore not a national religion, not determined by race: it appeals to the disinherited everywhere; it consists of a foundation of resent ment against all that is successful and dominant: it is in need of a symbol which represents the damnation of everything successful and dominant. It is opposed СКАЧАТЬ