Whenever a triumph is achieved, the second element steps to the fore; for then Christianity has won over the sound and happy to its side (as warriors in its cause), likewise the powerful (interested to this extent in the conquest of the crowd)--and now it is the _gregarious instinct,_ that _mediocre nature_ which is valuable in every respect, that now gets its highest sanction through Christianity. This mediocre nature ultimately becomes so conscious of itself (gains such courage in regard to its own opinions), that it arrogates to itself even _political power_.... Democracy is Christianity _made natural_: a sort of "return to Nature," once Christianity, owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have been overcome by the opposite valuation. Result: the aristocratic ideal begins to _lose its natural character_ ("the higher man," "noble," "artist," "passion," "knowledge"; Romanticism as the cult of the exceptional, genius, etc. etc.). 216. _When the "masters" may also become Christians._--It is of the nature of a _community_ (race, family, herd, tribe) to regard all those conditions and aspirations which favour its survival, as in themselves _valuable_; for instance: obedience, mutual assistance, respect, moderation, pity--as also, to _suppress_ everything that happens to stand in the way of the above. It is likewise of the nature of the _rulers_ (whether they are individuals or classes) to patronise and applaud those virtues which make their subjects _amenable_ and _submissive_--conditions and passions which may be utterly different from their own. The _gregarious instinct_ and the _instinct of the rulers_ sometimes _agree_ in approving of a certain number of qualities and conditions,--but for different reasons: the first do so out of direct egoism, the second out of indirect egoism. _The submission to Christianity on the part of master races_ is essentially the result of the conviction that Christianity is a _religion for the herd,_ that it teaches obedience: in short, that Christians are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With a hint of this nature, the Pope, even nowadays, recommends Christian propaganda to the ruling Sovereign of China. It should also be added that the seductive power of the Christian ideal works most strongly upon natures that love danger, adventure, and contrasts; that love everything _that entails a risk,_ and wherewith a _non plus ultra_ of powerful feeling may be attained. In this respect, one has only to think of Saint Theresa, surrounded by the heroic instincts of her brothers:--Christianity appears in those circumstances as a dissipation of the will, as strength of will, as a will that is Quixotic. 3. CHRISTIAN IDEALS. 217. War against the _Christian ideal,_ against the doctrine of "blessedness" and "salvation" as the aims of life, against the supremacy of the fools, of the pure in heart, of the suffering and of the botched!