the weak which divines that, if everybody looks after everybody else, every individual will be preserved for a longer period of time?... He who does not consider this attitude of mind as _immoral,_ as a crime against life, himself belongs to the sickly crowd, and also shares their instincts.... Genuine love of mankind exacts sacrifice for the good of the species--it is hard, full of self-control, because it needs human sacrifices. And this pseudo-humanity which is called Christianity, would fain establish the rule that nobody should be sacrificed. 247. Nothing could be more useful and deserves more promotion than systematic _Nihilism in action._--As I understand the phenomena of Christianity and pessimism, this is what they say: "We are ripe for nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be." This hint from "reason" in this case, is simply the voice of _selective Nature._ On the other hand, what deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like _Christianity,_--or rather like the _Church,_--which, instead of recommending death and self-destruction, actually protects all the botched and bungled, and encourages them to propagate their kind. Problem: with what kind of means could one lead up to a severe form of really contagious Nihilism--a Nihilism which would teach and practise voluntary death with scientific conscientiousness (and not the feeble continuation of a vegetative sort of life with false hopes of a life after death)? Christianity cannot be sufficiently condemned for having depreciated the _value_ of a great _cleansing_ Nihilistic movement (like the one which was probably in the process of formation), by its teaching of the immortality of the private individual, as also by the hopes of resurrection which it held out: that is to say, by dissuading people from performing the _deed of Nihilism_ which is suicide.... In the latter's place it puts lingering suicide, and gradually a puny, meagre, but durable life; gradually a perfectly ordinary, bourgeois, mediocre life, etc. 248.