How was it possible to transform these instincts to such an extent that man could feel that to be of value which is directed against himself, so that he could sacrifice himself for another self! O the psychological baseness and falseness which hitherto has laid down the law in the Church and in Church-infected philosophy!
If man is thoroughly sinful, then all he can do is to hate himself. As a matter of fact, he ought not to regard even his fellows otherwise than he does himself; the love of man requires a justification, and it is found in the fact that God commanded it.—From this it follows that all the natural instincts of man (to love, etc.) appear to him to be, in themselves, prohibited; and that he re-acquires a right to them only after having denied them as an obedient worshipper of God. ... Pascal, the admirable logician of Christianity, went as far as this! let any one examine his relations to his sister. "Not to make one's self loved," seemed Christian to him.
389.
Let us consider how dearly a moral canon such as this ("an ideal") makes us pay. (Its enemies are—well? The "egoists.")
The melancholy astuteness of self-abasement in Europe (Pascal, La Rochefoucauld)—inner enfeeblement, discouragement, and self-consumption of the non-gregarious man.
The perpetual process of laying stress upon mediocre qualities as being the most valuable (modesty in rank and file, Nature converted into an instrument).
Pangs of conscience associated with all that is self-glorifying and original: thus follows the unhappiness—the gloominess of the world from the standpoint of stronger and better-constituted men!
Gregarious consciousness and timorousness transferred to philosophy and religion.
Let us leave the psychological impossibility of a purely unselfish action out of consideration!
390.