_The twentieth century._--The Abbé Galiani says somewhere: "_La prévoyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de l'Europe. Si l'on voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prévoir, tout le monde serait tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu'on serait plus malheureux parce qu'on ne ferait pas la guerre._" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars. A condition of excessive _consciousness,_ after the worst of earthquakes: with new questions. 134. It is the time of the _great noon, of the most appalling enlightenment_: my particular kind of _Pessimism_: the great starting-point. (1) Fundamental contradiction between civilisation and the elevation of man. (2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the _herd,_ which rises against stronger men). (3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the facilitation of a _selection_ being made at the cost of a crowd) are the _conditions_ of all growth. (4). _The multiformity_ of the world as a question of _strength,_ which sees all things in the _perspective of their growth._ The moral Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of slaves (in comparison with the aristocratic values of the _ancient world). _ SECOND BOOK. CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED HITHERTO. I. CRITICISM OF RELIGION. All the beauty and sublimity with which we have invested real and imagined things, I will show to be the property and product of man, and this should be his most beautiful apology. Man as a poet, as a thinker, as a god, as love, as power. Oh, the regal liberality with which he has lavished gifts upon things in order _to impoverish_ himself and make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest disinterestedness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to conceal from himself that _he_ it was who had created what he admired. 1. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS. 135.