"_Morality for its own sake_"--this is an important step in the denaturalisation of morals: in itself it appears as a final value. In this phase religion has generally become saturated with it: as, for instance, in the case of Judaism. It likewise goes through a phase in which it _separates itself from_ religion, and in which no God is "moral" enough for it: it then prefers the impersonal ideal.... This is how the case stands at present. "_Art for Art's sake_": this is a similarly dangerous principle: by this means a false contrast is lent to things--it culminates in the slander of reality ("idealising" _into the hateful_). When an ideal is severed from reality, the latter is debased, impoverished, and calumniated. _"Beauty for Beauty's sake," "Truth for Truth's sake," "Goodness for Goodness' sake"_--these are three forms of the evil eye for reality. _Art, knowledge, and morality_ are _means_: instead of recognising a life-promoting tendency in them, they have been associated with the _opposite of Life_--with "_God_"--they have also been regarded as revelations of a higher world, which here and there transpires through them.... "_Beautiful_" and "_ugly_," "_true_" and "_false_," "_good_" and "_evil_"--these things are _distinctions_ and _antagonisms_ which betray the preservative and promotive measures of Life, not necessarily of man alone, but of all stable and enduring organisms which take up a definite stand against their opponents. The _war_ which thus ensues is the essential factor: it is a means of _separating_ things, _leading to stronger_ isolation.... 299. _Moral naturalism_: The tracing back of apparently independent and supernatural values to their real "nature"--that is to say, to _natural immorality,_ to natural "utility," etc. Perhaps I may designate the tendency of these observations by the term _moral naturalism_: my object is to re-translate the moral values which have apparently become independent and _unnatural_ into their real nature--that is to say, into their natural "_immorality_." _N.B._--Refer to Jewish "holiness" and its natural basis. The case is the same in regard to _the moral law which has been made sovereign,_ emancipated from its real _feature_ (until it is almost the _opposite_ of Nature). The stages in the _denaturalisation of morality_ (or so-called "_Idealisation_"):-- First it is a road to individual happiness, then it is the result of knowledge, then it is a Categorical Imperative, then it is a way to Salvation, then it is a denial of the will to live. (The gradual progress of the _hostility_ of morality to _Life_.) 300. The suppressed and effaced _Heresy_ in morality.--Concepts: paganism, master-morality, _virtù_. 301. _My problem_: What harm has mankind suffered hitherto from morals, as also from its own morality? Intellectual harm, etc. 302.