Take notice how a "moral man" behaves, who to-day often thinks he is
through with God and throws off Christianity as a bygone thing. If you
ask him whether he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and
sister is incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, that filial
piety is a sacred duty, etc., then a moral shudder will come over him at
the conception of one's being allowed to touch his sister as wife also,
etc. And whence this shudder? Because he _believes_ in those moral
commandments. This moral _faith_ is deeply rooted in his breast. Much as
he rages against the _pious_ Christians, he himself has nevertheless as
thoroughly remained a Christian,--to wit, a _moral_ Christian. In the
form of morality Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner under
_faith_. Monogamy is to be something sacred, and he who may live in
bigamy is punished as a _criminal_; he who commits incest suffers as a
_criminal_. Those who are always crying that religion is not to be
regarded in the State, and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the
Christian, show themselves in accord with this. Is not this of incest
and monogamy a _dogma of faith_? Touch it, and you will learn by
experience how this moral man is a _hero of faith_ too, not less than
Krummacher, not less than Philip II. These fight for the faith of the
Church, he for the faith of the State, or the moral laws of the State;
for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts otherwise than _their
faith_ will allow. The brand of "crime" is stamped upon him, and he may
languish in reformatories, in jails. Moral faith is as fanatical as
religious faith! They call that "liberty of faith" then, when brother
and sister, on account of a relation that they should have settled with
their "conscience," are thrown into prison. "But they set a pernicious
example." Yes, indeed: others might have taken the notion that the
State had no business to meddle with their relation, and thereupon
"purity of morals" would go to ruin. So then the religious heroes of
faith are zealous for the "sacred God," the moral ones for the "sacred
good."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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