The confusion went so far that precisely the great _virtuosos_ of life (whose self-control presents the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the unbridled) were branded with the most opprobrious names. Even to this day people feel themselves compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia: it is simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk or a priest had the right to say a word as to what a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan is sent to hell: this is very _naïf._ Has anybody ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking in heaven? ... This is only a hint to the girls, as to where they may best find salvation. If one think at all logically, and also have a profound insight into that which makes a great man, there, can be no doubt at all that the Church has dispatched all "great men" to Hades--its fight is _against_ all "greatness in man." 872. The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels _capable of performing._ The great majority of men have no right to life, and are only a misfortune to their higher fellows. 873. _The misunderstanding of egoism:_ on the part of _ignoble natures_ who know nothing of the lust of conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings of power which make a man wish to overcome things, to force them over to himself, and to lay them on his heart, the power which impels an artist to his material. It often happens also that the active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In ordinary "egoism" it is precisely the ... "non-ego," the _profoundly mediocre creature,_ the member of the herd, who wishes to maintain himself--and when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle, and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For the judgment of the latter is this: "We are the _noble_! It is much more important to maintain _us_ than _that_ cattle!" 874. _The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes_ has been the cause of all the great disorders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars and Roman society, Christianity would never have prevailed. When it occurs to inferior men to doubt whether higher men exist, then the danger is great I It is then that men finally discover that there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed, and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is equal before God: which is the _non plus ultra_ of all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared on earth! For in the end higher men begin to measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves--and discover that they are "proud," etc., and that all their _higher_ qualities should be condemned.