Passion is deprived of its dignity (1) as if it only manifested itself in an unseemly way and were not necessary and always the _motive force_, (2) inasmuch as it is supposed to aim at no high purpose--merely at pleasure.... The misinterpretation of passion and _reason,_ as if the latter were an independent entity, and not a state of relationship between all the various passions and desires; and as though every passion did not possess its quantum of reason.... 388. How it was that, under the pressure of the dominion of an ascetic and _self-effacing morality,_ it was precisely the passions--love, goodness, pity, even justice, generosity, and heroism, which were necessarily misunderstood? It is the _richness of a personality,_ the fullness of it, its power to flow over and to bestow, its instinctive feeling of ease, and its affirmative attitude towards itself, that creates great love and great sacrifices: these passions proceed from strong and godlike personalism as surely as do the desire to be master, to obtrude, and the inner certainty that one has a right to everything. The _opposite_ views, according to the most accepted notions, are indeed common views; and if one does not stand firmly and bravely on one's legs, one has nothing to give, and it is perfectly useless to stretch out one's hand either to protect or to support others.... How was it possible to _transform_ these instincts to such an extent that man could feel that to be of value which is directed against himself, so that he could sacrifice himself for another self! O the psychological baseness and falseness which hitherto has laid down the law in the Church and in Church-infected philosophy! If man is thoroughly sinful, then all he can do is to hate himself. As a matter of fact, he ought not to regard even his fellows otherwise than he does himself; the love of man requires a justification, and it is found in the fact that _God commanded it._--From this it follows that all the natural instincts of man (to love, etc.) appear to him to be, in themselves, prohibited; and that he re-acquires a right to them only after having _denied_ them as an obedient worshipper of God. ... Pascal, the admirable _logician_ of Christianity, _went as far as this_! let any one examine his relations to his sister. "Not to make one's self loved," seemed Christian to him. 389. Let us consider how dearly a moral canon such as this ("an ideal") makes us pay. (Its enemies are--well? The "egoists.") The melancholy astuteness of self-abasement in Europe (Pascal, La Rochefoucauld)--inner enfeeblement, discouragement, and self-consumption of the non-gregarious man. The perpetual process of laying stress upon mediocre qualities as being the most valuable (modesty in rank and file, Nature converted into an instrument).