Thereby do they win for themselves the right of attributing to the birds of prey the _responsibility_ for being birds of prey: when the oppressed, down-trodden, and overpowered say to themselves with the vindictive guile of weakness, "Let us be otherwise than the evil, namely, good! and good is every one who does not oppress, who hurts no one, who does not attack, who does not pay back, who hands over revenge to God, who holds himself, as we do, in hiding; who goes out of the way of evil, and demands, in short, little from life; like ourselves the patient, the meek, the just,"--yet all this, in its cold and unprejudiced interpretation, means nothing more than "once for all, the weak are weak; it is good to do _nothing for which we are not strong enough_"; but this dismal state of affairs, this prudence of the lowest order, which even insects possess (which in a great danger are fain to sham death so as to avoid doing "too much"), has, thanks to the counterfeiting and self-deception of weakness, come to masquerade in the pomp of an ascetic, mute, and expectant virtue, just as though the _very_ weakness of the weak--that is, forsooth, its _being_, its working, its whole unique inevitable inseparable reality--were a voluntary result, something wished, chosen, a deed, an act of _merit_. This kind of man finds the belief in a neutral, free-choosing "subject" _necessary_ from an instinct of self-preservation, of self-assertion, in which every lie is fain to sanctify itself. The subject (or, to use popular language, the _soul_) has perhaps proved itself the best dogma in the world simply because it rendered possible to the horde of mortal, weak, and oppressed individuals of every kind, that most sublime specimen of self-deception, the interpretation of weakness as freedom, of being this, or being that, as _merit_. 14. Will any one look a little into--right into--the mystery of how _ideals are manufactured_ in this world? Who has the courage to do it? Come! Here we have a vista opened into these grimy workshops. Wait just a moment, dear Mr. Inquisitive and Foolhardy; your eye must first grow accustomed to this false changing light--Yes! Enough! Now speak! What is happening below down yonder? Speak out that what you see, man of the most dangerous curiosity--for now _I_ am the listener. "I see nothing, I hear the more. It is a cautious, spiteful, gentle whispering and muttering together in all the corners and crannies. It seems to me that they are lying; a sugary softness adheres to every sound. Weakness is turned to _merit_, there is no doubt about it--it is just as you say." Further!