Result: States of power impute to man the feeling that he is _not_ the cause of them, that he is not _responsible_ for them: they come without being willed to do so--consequently we cannot be their originators: will that is not free (that is to say, the knowledge of a change in our condition which we have not helped to bring about) requires a _strong_ will. _Consequence of this rudimentary psychology_: Man has never dared to credit _himself_ with his strong and startling moods, he has always conceived them as "passive," as "imposed upon him from outside": Religion is the offshoot of a _doubt_ concerning the entity of the person, an _altération_ of the personality: in so far as everything great and strong in man was considered _superhuman_ and _foreign,_ man belittled himself,--he laid the two sides, the very pitiable and weak side, and the very strong and startling side apart, in two spheres, and called the one "Man" and the other "God." And he has continued to act on these lines; during the period of the _moral idiosyncrasy_ he did not interpret his lofty and sublime moral states as "proceeding from his own will" or as the "work" of the person. Even the Christian himself divides his personality into two parts, the one a mean and weak fiction which he calls man, and the other which he calls God (Deliverer and Saviour). Religion has lowered the concept "man"; its ultimate conclusion is that all goodness, greatness, and truth are superhuman, and are only obtainable by the grace of God. 137. One way of raising man out of his self-abasement, which brought about the decline of the point of view that classed all lofty and strong states of the soul, as strange, was the theory of relationship. These lofty and strong states of the soul could at least be interpreted as the influence of our _forebears_; we belonged to each other, we were irrevocably joined; we grew in our own esteem, by acting according to the example of a model known to us all. There is an attempt on the part of noble families to associate religion with their own feelings of self-respect. Poets and seers do the same thing; they feel proud that they have been worthy,--that they have been _selected_ for such association,--they esteem it an honour, not to be considered at all as individuals, but as mere mouthpieces (Homer). Man gradually takes possession of the highest and proudest states of his soul, as also of his acts and his works. Formerly it was believed that one paid oneself the greatest honour by denying one's own responsibility for the highest deeds one accomplished, and by ascribing them to--God. The will which was not free, appeared to be that which imparted a higher value to a deed: in those days a god was postulated as the author of the deed. 138.