The death of the soul, like that of the body, may be readily distinguished from a state of insensibility; in vain do we apply a red-hot iron to a corpse; there is no response.
He who is alive, however, is not only capable of reacting to a stimulus very much less intense than a red-hot iron; he who lives and feels may perfect himself—and this is life.
It is enough that souls should "feel." How, then, could they live quietly amidst evil? If under the windows of our house people were piling up refuse until we felt that the air was being vitiated, could we bear this without protesting, and insisting on the removal of that which was causing us to suffer? If, moreover, we had a child, we should clamor still more loudly, and should even set to work to clear away the nuisance with our own hands, in our solicitude for his health. But if the bodies of mother and child lay dead, they would no longer be conscious of the pestilential air.
It is characteristic of "life" to purge the environment and the soul of substances injurious to health. Christ was called "the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world," not the Master who preaches, but He who purifies. And this is the morality that springs from sensibility: the action of purifying the world, of removing the obstacles that beset life, of liberating the spirit from the darkness of death.
The merits of which every man feels he owes an account to his conscience are not such things as having enjoyed music or made a discovery; he must be able to say what he has done to save and maintain life.
These purifying merits, like progress, have no limits.
"Leave all ties and follow Me," said Christ to those who asked Him what they should do.
For man can reinforce his own strength by other powers which will urge him on upwards towards the infinite; before him who sleeps is the invisible ladder of Jacob, trodden by angels who call him heavenwards, that is, towards the supernatural life. Yes, to be more than man. This is a dream to him who lacks faith; but it is the realizable goal, the aim of life, to him who has faith.
To Friedrich Nietzsche, the superman was an idea without practical consequence, strange and erroneous even when tested by the very theories of evolution which inspired him. His conception offered no help in overcoming the ills of humanity; rather was it as a chain binding man to earth, there to seek means to create of himself the man superior to himself; and thus leading him astray into egotism, cruelty and folly.