st
mistake: to man these other animals were not entertaining--he sought
dominion over them; he did not want to be an "animal" himself.--So God
created woman. In the act he brought boredom to an end--and also many
other things! Woman was the _second_ mistake of God.--"Woman, at bottom,
is a serpent, Heva"--every priest knows that; "from woman comes every
evil in the world"--every priest knows that, too. _Ergo_, she is also to
blame for _science_.... It was through woman that man learned to taste
of the tree of knowledge.--What happened? The old God was seized by
mortal terror. Man himself had been his _greatest_ blunder; he had
created a rival to himself; science makes men _godlike_--it is all up
with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!--_Moral_: science is
the forbidden _per se_; it alone is forbidden. Science is the _first_ of
sins, the germ of all sins, the _original_ sin. _This is all there is of
morality._--"Thou shall _not_ know":--the rest follows from that.--God's
mortal terror, however, did not hinder him from being shrewd. How is one
to _protect_ one's self against science? For a long while this was the
capital problem. Answer: Out of paradise with man! Happiness, leisure,
foster thought--and all thoughts are bad thoughts!--Man _must_ not
think.--And so the priest invents distress, death, the mortal dangers of
childbirth, all sorts of misery, old age, decrepitude, above all,
_sickness_--nothing but devices for making war on science! The troubles
of man don't _allow_ him to think.... Nevertheless--how terrible!--, the
edifice of knowledge begins to tower aloft, invading heaven, shadowing
the gods--what is to be done?--The old God invents _war_; he separates
the peoples; he makes men destroy one another (--the priests have always
had need of war....). War--among other things, a great disturber of
science!--Incredible! Knowledge, _deliverance from the priests_,
prospers in spite of war.--So the old God comes to his final resolution:
"Man has become scientific--_there is no help for it: he must be
drowned!_"...

[21] A paraphrase of Schiller's "Against stupidity even gods struggle in
vain."

49.

--I have been understood. At the opening of the Bible there is the
_whole_ psychology of the priest.--The priest knows of only one great
danger: that is science--the sound comprehension of cause and effect.
But science flourishes, on the whole, only under favourable
conditions--a man must have time, he must