323.
The Patrons of Virtue.—Lust of property, lust of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so securely.
324.
Virtue is no longer believed in; its powers of attraction are dead; what is needed is some one who will once more bring it into the market in the form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of dissipation. It exacts too much extravagance and narrow-mindedness from its believers to allow of conscience not being against it to-day. Certainly, for people, without either consciences or scruples, this may constitute its new charm: it is now what it has never been before—a vice.
325.
Virtue is still the most expensive vice: let it remain so!
326.
Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and laws coming from outside, and not as qualities one develops one's self. The latter is the only right way; they should be the most personal means of defence and most individual needs—the determining factors of precisely our existence and growth, which we recognise and acknowledge independently of the question whether others grow with us with the help of the same or of different principles. This view of the danger of the virtue which is understood as impersonal and objective also holds good of modesty: through modesty many of the choicest intellects perish. The morality of modesty is the worst possible softening influence for those souls for which it is pre-eminently necessary that they become hard betimes.
327.
The domain of morality must be reduced and limited step by step; the names of the instincts which are really active in this sphere must be drawn into the light of day and honoured, after have lain all this time in the concealment of hypocritical names of virtue. Out of respect for one's "honesty," which makes itself heard ever more and more imperiously, one ought to unlearn the shame which makes one deny and "explain away" all natural instincts. The extent to which one can dispense with virtue is the measure of one's strength; and a height may be imagined where the notion "virtue" is understood in such a way as to be reminiscent of virtù—the virtue of the Renaissance—free from moralic acid. But for the moment—how remote this ideal seems!