Every one who has hitherto overthrown a law of established morality has always at first been considered as a _wicked man:_ but when it was afterwards found impossible to re-establish the law, and people gradually became accustomed to the change, the epithet was changed by slow degrees. History deals almost exclusively with these _wicked men,_ who later on came to be recognised as _good men._ 28 A man who is under the influence of the morality of custom comes to despise causes first of all, secondly consequences, and thirdly reality, and weaves all his higher feelings (reverence, sublimity, pride, gratitude, love) _into an imaginary world:_ the so-called higher world. And even to-day we can see the consequences of this: wherever, and in whatever fashion, man's feelings are raised, that imaginary world is in evidence. 40 The history of the moral feelings is entirely different from the history of moral conceptions. The first-mentioned are powerful before the action, and the latter especially after it, in view of the necessity for making one's self clear in regard to them. 41 Trusting in our feelings simply means obeying our grandfather and grandmother more than the gods within _ourselves:_ our reason and experience. 41 The same impulse, under the impression of the blame cast upon it by custom, develops into the painful feeling of cowardice, or else the pleasurable feeling of _humility,_ in case a morality, like that of Christianity, has taken it to its heart and called it _good._ 43 _The origin becomes of less significance in proportion as we acquire insight into it;_ whilst things nearest to ourselves, around and within us, gradually begin to manifest their wealth of colours, beauties, enigmas, and diversity of meaning, of which earlier humanity never dreamed. 52 Only when man shall have acquired a knowledge of all things will he be able to know himself. For things are but the boundaries of man. 53 To whatever height mankind may have developed--and perhaps in the end it will not be so high as when they began!--there is as little prospect of their attaining to a higher order as there is for the ant and the earwig to enter into kinship with God and eternity at the end of their career on earth. What is to come will drag behind it that which has passed: why should any little star, or even any little species on that star, form an exception to that eternal drama? Away with such sentimentalities! 54 Those earnest, able, and just men of profound feelings, who are still Christians at heart, owe it to themselves to make one attempt to live for a certain space of time without Christianity! They owe it to _their faith_ that they should thus for once take up their abode "in the wilderness"--if for no other reason than that of being able to pronounce on the question as to whether Christianity is needful. 63