In point of fact, the end for which one lies makes a great difference: whether one preserves thereby or destroys. There is a perfect likeness between Christian and anarchist: their object, their instinct, points only toward destruction. One need only turn to history for a proof of this: there it appears with appalling distinctness. We have just studied a code of religious legislation whose object it was to convert the conditions which cause life to _flourish_ into an "eternal" social organization,--Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an organization, _because life flourished under it_. There the benefits that reason had produced during long ages of experiment and insecurity were applied to the most remote uses, and an effort was made to bring in a harvest that should be as large, as rich and as complete as possible; here, on the contrary, the harvest is _blighted_ overnight.... That which stood there _aere perennis_, the _imperium Romanum_, the most magnificent form of organization under difficult conditions that has ever been achieved, and compared to which everything before it and after it appears as patchwork, bungling, _dilletantism_--those holy anarchists made it a matter of "piety" to destroy "the world," _which is to say_, the _imperium Romanum_, so that in the end not a stone stood upon another--and even Germans and other such louts were able to become its masters.... The Christian and the anarchist: both are _decadents_; both are incapable of any act that is not disintegrating, poisonous, degenerating, _blood-sucking_; both have an instinct of _mortal hatred_ of everything that stands up, and is great, and has durability, and promises life a future.... Christianity was the vampire of the _imperium Romanum_,--overnight it destroyed the vast achievement of the Romans: the conquest of the soil for a great culture _that could await its time_. Can it be that this fact is not yet understood? The _imperium Romanum_ that we know, and that the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know better and better,--this most admirable of all works of art in the grand manner was merely the beginning, and the structure to follow was not to _prove_ its worth for thousands of years. To this day, nothing on a like scale _sub specie aeterni_ has been brought into being, or even dreamed of!--This organization was strong enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personality has nothing to do with such things--the _first_ principle of all genuinely great architecture. But it was not strong enough to stand up against the _corruptest_ of all forms of corruption--against Christians.... These stealthy worms, which under the cover of night, mist and duplicity, crept upon every individual, sucking him dry of all earnest interest in _real_ things, of all instinct for _reality_--this cowardly, effeminate and sugar-coated gang gradually alienated all "souls," step by step,