You have heard that morality is a means used by the strong to control the weak. And it is true: just consider the conversion of Constantine. But to stop here is to let half the truth be passed off on you as the whole; and half a truth is half a lie. Much more true is it that morality is a means used by the weak to control the strong, the chain which weakness softly lays upon the feet of strength. The whole of the morality of Europe is based upon the values which are useful to the herd.[144] Every one’s desire is that there should be no other teaching and valuation of things than those by means of which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them to the level of the weak; their chief weapon in this process was the moral principle.[145] Good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts no one, attacks no one, does not take vengeance but hands over vengeance to God; who goes out of the way of evil, and demands little from life; like ourselves, patient, meek, just. Good is to do nothing for which we are not strong enough.[146] Zarathustra laughed many times over the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had lame paws![147] Obedience, subordination, submission, devotion, love, the pride of duty; fatalism, resignation, objectivity, stoicism, asceticism, self-denial; in short, anemia: these are the virtues which the herd would have all men cultivate,--particularly the strong men.[148] And the deification of Jesus,--that is to say of meekness,--what was it but another attempt to lull the strong to sleep? 2 _Democracy_ See, now, how nearly that attempt has succeeded. For is not democracy, if not victorious, at least on the road to victory to-day? And what is the democratic movement but the inheritor of Christianity?[149] Not the Christianity of the great popes; they knew better, and were building a splendid aristocracy when Luther spoiled it all by letting loose the levelling instincts of the herd.[150] The instinct of the herd is in favor of the leveller (Christ).[151] I very much fear that the first Christian is in his deepest instincts a rebel against everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for “equal rights.”[152] It is by Christianity, more than by anything else, that the poison of this doctrine of “equal rights” has been spread abroad. And do not let us underestimate the fatal influence! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, of rights of dominion. The aristocratic attitude of mind has been most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls.[153]