This chasm is a means of increasing self-respect in higher castes, and of confirming their belief in _that_ which they represent--hence the _Chandala._ Contempt and its excess are perfectly correct psychologically--that is to say, magnified a hundred times, so that it may at least be felt. 238. The struggle against _brutal_ instincts is quite different from the struggle against _morbid_ instincts; it may even be a means of overcoming brutality by making the brutes _ill._ The psychical treatment practised by Christianity is often nothing more than the process of converting a brute into a sick and _therefore_ tame animal. The struggle against raw and savage natures must be a struggle with weapons which are able to affect such natures: _superstitions_ and such means are therefore indispensable and essential. 239. Our age, in a certain sense, is _mature_ (that is to say, decadent), just as Buddha's was.... That is why a sort of Christianity is possible without all the absurd dogmas (the most repulsive offshoots of ancient hybridism). 240. Supposing it were impossible to disprove Christianity, Pascal thinks, in view of the _terrible_ possibility that it may be true, that it is in the highest degree prudent to be a Christian. As a proof of how much Christianity has lost of its terrible nature, to-day we find that other attempt to justify it, which consists in asserting, that even if it were a mistake, it nevertheless provides the greatest advantages and pleasures for its adherents throughout their lives:--it therefore seems that this belief should be upheld owing to the peace and quiet it ensures--not owing to the terror of a threatening possibility, but rather out of fear of a life that has lost its charm. This hedonistic turn of thought, which uses happiness as a proof, is a symptom of decline: it takes the place of the proof resulting from power or from that which to the Christian mind is most terrible--namely, _fear._ With this new interpretation, Christianity is, as a matter of fact, nearing its stage of exhaustion. People are satisfied with a Christianity which is an _opiate,_ because they no longer have the strength to seek, to struggle, to dare, to stand alone, nor to take up Pascal's position and to share that gloomily brooding self-contempt, that belief in human unworthiness, and that anxiety which believes that it "may be damned." But a Christianity the chief object of which is to soothe diseased nerves, does _not require_ the terrible solution consisting of a "God on the cross"; that is why Buddhism is secretly gaining ground all over Europe. 241. The humour of European culture: people regard one thing as true, but do _the other._ For instance, what is the use of all the art of reading and criticising, if the ecclesiastical interpretation of the Bible, whether according to Catholics or Protestants, is still upheld! 242.