But this belief is merely the result of the exceedingly _detrimental influence_ of the Christian ideal, as anybody can discover for himself every time he carefully examines the "ideal type." In the first place, it is believed that the approach to a given "type" is desirable; _secondly,_ that this particular type is known; _thirdly,_ that every deviation from this type is a retrograde movement, a stemming of the spirit of progress, a loss of power and might in man.... To dream of a state of affairs in which this _perfect_ man will be in the majority: our friends the Socialists and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not reached a higher level than this. In this way an _aim_ seems to have crept into the _evolution_ of man: at any rate the belief in a certain _progress towards an ideal_ is the only shape in which an _aim_ is conceived in the history of mankind to-day. In short: the coming of the "_Kingdom of God_" has been placed in the future, and has been given an earthly, a human meaning--but on the whole the faith in the _old_ ideal is still maintained.... 340. _The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian, moral ideals._--The _insipid and cowardly notion "Nature"_ invented by Nature-enthusiasts (without any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the implacable, and the cynical element in even "the most beautiful" aspects), is only a sort of attempt at _reading_ the moral and Christian notion of "humanity" into Nature;--Rousseau's concept of Nature, for instance, which took for granted that "Nature" meant freedom, goodness, innocence, equity, justice, and _Idylls,_ was nothing more at bottom than the cult of Christian morality. We should collect passages from the poets in order to see _what_ they admired, in lofty mountains, for instance. What Goethe had to do with them--why he admired Spinoza. Absolute _ignorance_ concerning the reasons of this _cult...._ The _insipid and cowardly concept "Man"_ à la Comte and Stuart Mill, is at times the subject of a cult.... This is only the Christian moral ideal again under another name.... Refer also to the freethinkers--Guyau for example. The _insipid and cowardly concept "Art"_ which is held to mean sympathy with all suffering and with everything botched and bungled (the same thing happens to _history,_ cf. Thierry): again it is the cult of the Christian moral ideal. And now, as to the whole _socialistic ideal_: it is nothing but a blockheaded misunderstanding of the Christian moral ideal. 341. _The origin of the ideal._ The examination of the soil out of which it grows.