I put aside a few sceptics, the types of decency in the history of philosophy: the rest haven't the slightest conception of intellectual integrity. They behave like women, all these great enthusiasts and prodigies--they regard "beautiful feelings" as arguments, the "heaving breast" as the bellows of divine inspiration, conviction as the _criterion_ of truth. In the end, with "German" innocence, Kant tried to give a scientific flavour to this form of corruption, this dearth of intellectual conscience, by calling it "practical reason." He deliberately invented a variety of reasons for use on occasions when it was desirable not to trouble with reason--that is, when morality, when the sublime command "thou shalt," was heard. When one recalls the fact that, among all peoples, the philosopher is no more than a development from the old type of priest, this inheritance from the priest, this _fraud upon self_, ceases to be remarkable. When a man feels that he has a divine mission, say to lift up, to save or to liberate mankind--when a man feels the divine spark in his heart and believes that he is the mouthpiece of supernatural imperatives--when such a mission inflames him, it is only natural that he should stand beyond all merely reasonable standards of judgment. He feels that he is _himself_ sanctified by this mission, that he is himself a type of a higher order!... What has a priest to do with philosophy! He stands far above it!--And hitherto the priest has _ruled_!--He has determined the meaning of "true" and "not true"!... 13. Let us not underestimate this fact: that _we ourselves_, we free spirits, are already a "transvaluation of all values," a _visualized_ declaration of war and victory against all the old concepts of "true" and "not true." The most valuable intuitions are the last to be attained; the most valuable of all are those which determine _methods_. All the methods, all the principles of the scientific spirit of today, were the targets for thousands of years of the most profound contempt; if a man inclined to them he was excluded from the society of "decent" people--he passed as "an enemy of God," as a scoffer at the truth, as one "possessed." As a man of science, he belonged to the Chandala[2].... We have had the whole pathetic stupidity of mankind against us--their every notion of what the truth _ought_ to be, of what the service of the truth _ought_ to be--their every "thou shalt" was launched against us.... Our objectives, our methods, our quiet, cautious, distrustful manner--all appeared to them as absolutely discreditable and contemptible.--Looking back, one may almost ask one's self with reason if it was not actually an _aesthetic_ sense that kept men blind so long: what they demanded of the truth was picturesque effectiveness, and of the learned a strong appeal to their senses. It was our _modesty_ that stood out longest against their taste.... How well they guessed that, these turkey-cocks of God!