ue, a sanctity out of this erroneous perspective towards all things,
he unites the good conscience to the _false_ mode of seeing,--he demands
that no _other_ mode of perspective be any longer of value, after he has
made his own sacrosanct with the names of "God," "salvation," and
"eternity." I have digged out the theologist-instinct everywhere; it is
the most diffused, the most peculiarly _subterranean_ form of falsity
that exists on earth. What a theologian feels as true, _must_ needs be
false: one has therein almost a criterion of truth. It is his most
fundamental self-preservative instinct which forbids reality to be held
in honor, or even to find expression on any point. As far as
theologist-influence extends, the _judgment of value_ is turned right
about, the concepts of "true" and "false" are necessarily reversed: what
is most injurious to life is here called "true," what raises, elevates,
affirms, justifies, and makes it triumph is called "false."

* * *

Let us not underestimate this: _we ourselves_, we free spirits, are
already a "Transvaluation of all Values," an incarnate declaration of
war against and triumph over all old concepts of "true" and "untrue."
The most precious discernments into things are the latest discovered:
the most precious discernments, however, are the _methods_. _All_
methods, _all_ presuppositions of our present-day science, have for
millenniums been held in the most profound contempt: by reason of them a
person was excluded from intercourse with "honest" men--he passed for an
"enemy of God," a despiser of truth, a "possessed" person. As a
scientific man, a person was a Chandala.... We have had the entire
pathos of mankind against us--their concept of that which truth _ought_
to be, which the service of truth _ought_ to be: every "thou shalt" has
been hitherto directed _against_ us. Our objects, our practices, our
quiet, prudent, mistrustful mode--all appeared to mankind as absolutely
unworthy and contemptible.--In the end one might, with some
reasonableness, ask one's self if it was not really an esthetic taste
which kept mankind in such long blindness: they wanted a _picturesque_
effect from truth, they wanted in like manner the knowing ones to
operate strongly on their senses. Our _modesty_ was longest against the
taste of mankind.... Oh how they made that out, these turkey-cocks of
God----.

* * *

The