This would be a task . to characterise Greek antiquity as irretrievably lost, and with it Christianity also and the foundations upon which, up to the present time, our society and politics have been based. 161 Christianity has conquered antiquity--yes; that is easily said. In the first place, it is itself a piece of antiquity, in the second place, it has preserved antiquity, in the third place, it has never been in combat with the pure ages of antiquity. Or rather: in order that Christianity itself might remain, it had to let itself be overcome by the spirit of antiquity--for example, the idea of empire, the community, and so forth. We are suffering from the uncommon want of clearness and uncleanliness of human things; from the ingenious mendacity which Christianity has brought among men. 162 It is almost laughable to see how nearly all the sciences and arts of modern times grow from the scattered seeds which have been wafted towards us from antiquity, and how Christianity seems to us here to be merely the evil chill of a long night, a night during which one is almost inclined to believe that all is over with reason and honesty among men. The battle waged against the natural man has given rise to the unnatural man. 163 With the dissolution of Christianity a great part of antiquity has become incomprehensible to us, for instance, the entire religious basis of life. On this account an imitation of antiquity is a false tendency . the betrayers or the betrayed are the philologists who still think of such a thing. We live in a period when many different conceptions of life are to be found: hence the present age is instructive to an unusual degree; and hence also the reason why it is so ill, since it suffers from the evils of all its tendencies at once. The man of the future . the European man. 164 The German Reformation widened the gap between us and antiquity: was it necessary for it to do so? It once again introduced the old contrast of "Paganism" and "Christianity"; and it was at the same time a protest against the decorative culture of the Renaissance--it was a victory gained over the same culture as had formerly been conquered by early Christianity. In regard to "worldly things," Christianity preserved the grosser views of the ancients. All the nobler elements in marriage, slavery, and the State are unchristian. It _required_ the distorting characteristics of worldliness to prove itself. 165 The connection between humanism and religious rationalism was emphasised as a Saxonian trait by Kochly: the type of this philologist is Gottfried Hermann.[13] 166 I understand religions as narcotics: but when they are given to such nations as the Germans, I think they are simply rank poison. 167