At present we no longer have any mercy upon the concept "free-will": we know only too well what it is--the most egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of making mankind "responsible" in a theological manner--that is to say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. 41 The doctrine of the will was invented principally for the purpose of punishment,--that is to say, with the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments--or the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as "free" in order that they might be held guilty.... 42 The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that the nature of existence may not be traced to a _causa prima,_ that the world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit--_this alone is the great deliverance,_--thus alone is the innocence of Becoming restored. ... The concept "God" has been the greatest objection to existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus alone do we save the world. 43 Moral judgment has this in common with the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or more strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, is still lacking.... 44 In the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of the "blond beast" were hunted down in all directions,--the noble Germans, for instance, were "improved." But what did this "improved" German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had become a "sinner," he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a host of appalling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent even toward himself: full of hate for the instincts of life, full of suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a "Christian." In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church understood this: it ruined man, it made him weak,--but it laid claim to having "improved" him. 45-46 All means which have been used heretofore with the object of making man moral, were through and through immoral. 49