Have I been understood?— What defines me, what sets me apart from the whole rest of humanity is that I uncovered Christian morality. That is why I needed a word that had the meaning of a provocation for everybody. That they did not open their eyes earlier at this point, I regard as the greatest uncleanliness that humanity has on its conscience; as self-deception become instinctive; as a fundamental will not to see any event, any causality, any reality; as counterfeiting in psychologicis to the point of criminality. Blindness to Christianity is the crime par excellence—the crime against life.
[....] The Christian has so far been the "moral being"—a matchless curiosity—and as the "moral being" he was more absurd, mendacious, vain, frivolous, and more disadvantageous for himself than even the greatest despiser of humanity could imagine in his dreams. Christian morality—the most malignant form of the will to lie, the real Circe of humanity—that which corrupted humanity. It is not error as error that horrifies me at this sight—not the lack, for thousands of years, of "good will," discipline, decency, courage in matters of the spirit, revealed by its victory: it is the lack of nature, it is the utterly gruesome fact that antinature itself received the highest honors as morality and was fixed over humanity as law and categorical imperative.— To blunder to such an extent, not as individuals, not as a people, but as humanity!— That one taught men to despise the very first instincts of life, sexuality, as something unclean; that one looks for the evil principle in what is most profoundly necessary for growth, in severe self-love [Selbstsucht: the word is pejorative, like "selfishness."] (this very word constitutes slander); that, conversely, one regards the typical signs of decline and contradiction of the instincts, the "selfless," the loss of a center of gravity, "depersonalization" and "neighbor love" (addiction to the neighbor) as the higher value—what am I saying?—the absolute value!
What? Is humanity itself decadent? Was it always?— What is certain is that it has been taught only decadence values as supreme values. The morality that would un-self man is the morality of decline par excellence—the fact, "I am declining," transposed into the imperative, "all of you ought to decline"—and not only into the imperative.— This only morality that has been taught so far, that of un-selfing, reveals a will to the end; fundamentally, it negates life.
This would still leave open the possibility that not humanity is degenerating but only that parasitical type of man—that of the priest—which has used morality to raise itself mendaciously to the position of determining human values—finding in Christian morality the means to come to power.— Indeed, this is my insight: the teachers, the leaders of humanity, theologians all of them, were also, all of them, decadents: hence the revaluation of all values into hostility to life, hence morality—
Definition of morality: Morality—the idiosyncrasy of decadents, with the ulterior motive of revenging oneself against life—successfully. I attach value to this definition.
