A _virtuous man_ is of a lower species because, in the first place, he has no "personality," but acquires his value by conforming with a certain human scheme which has been once and for ever fixed. He has no independent value: he may be compared; he has his equals, he _must_ not be an individual. Reckoning up the qualities of the _good_ man, why is it they appear pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our levity, have a _good time._ This, our _feeling of well-being,_ is _what we project into_ the good man in the form of a _quality,_ in the form of a _valuable possession._ 320. Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a venerable form of stupidity: who could blame you for it? And this form of virtue has not been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest peasant-simplicity, which is possible, however, in all classes of society, and which one cannot meet with anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks to-day that everything is in good hands--that is to say, in "God's hands": and when it supports this proposition with that same modest assurance as that with which it would assert that two and two are four, we others naturally refrain from contradiction. Why disturb _this_ pure foolery? Why darken it with our cares concerning man, people, goals, the future? Even if we wished to do so, we shouldn't succeed. _In_ all things these people see the reflection of their own venerable stupidity and goodness (in them the old God--_deus myops--_ still lives); we others see something else in everything: our problematic nature, our contradictions, our deeper, more painful, and more suspicious wisdom. 321. He who finds a particular virtue an easy matter, ultimately laughs at it. Seriousness cannot be maintained once virtue is attained. As soon as a man has reached virtue, he jumps out of it--whither? Into devilry. Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tendencies and impulses have become! What an amount of inquisitiveness torments them! They are all fishhooks of knowledge! 322. The idea is to associate vice with something so terrible that at last one is obliged to run away from it in order to be rid of its associations. This is the well-known case of Tannhäuser. Tannhäuser, brought to his wits' end by Wagnerian music, cannot endure life any longer even in the company of Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue begins to have a charm for him; a Thuringian virgin goes up in price, and what is even worse still, he shows a liking for Wolfram von Eschenbach's melody.... 323. _The Patrons of Virtue._--Lust of property, lust of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so securely. 324.