The method of truth was not based upon motives of truthfulness, but upon motives of power, upon the desire to be superior.
How is truth proved? By means of the feeling of increased power,—by means of utility,—by means of indispensability,—in short, by means of its advantages (that is to say, hypotheses concerning what truth should be like in order that it may be embraced by us). But this involves prejudice: it is a sign that truth does not enter the question at all....
What is the meaning of the "will to truth," for instance in the Goncourts? and in the naturalists?—A criticism of "objectivity."
Why should we know: why should we not prefer to be deceived?... But what was needed was always belief—and not truth.... Belief is created by means which are quite opposed to the method of investigation: it even depends upon the exclusion of the latter.
456.
A certain degree of faith suffices to-day to give us an objection to what is believed—it does more, it makes us question the spiritual healthiness of the believer.
457.
Martyrs.—To combat anything that is based upon reverence, opponents must be possessed of both daring and recklessness, and be hindered by no scruples.... Now, if one considers that for thousands of years man has sanctified as truths only those things which were in reality errors, and that he has branded any criticism of them with the hall-mark of badness, one will have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that a goodly amount of immoral deeds were necessary in order to give the initiative to an attack—I mean to reason.... That these immoralists have always posed as the "martyrs of truth" should be forgiven them: the truth of the matter is that they did not stand up and deny owing to an instinct for truth; but because of a love of dissolution, criminal scepticism, and the love of adventure. In other cases it is personal rancour which drives them into the province of problems—they only combat certain points of view in order to be able to carry their point against certain people. But, above all, it is revenge which has become scientifically useful—the revenge of the oppressed, those who, thanks to the truth that happens to be ruling, have been pressed aside and even smothered....
Truth, that is to say the scientific method, was grasped and favoured by such as recognised that it was a useful weapon of war—an instrument of destruction....