refined thirst for possession, says to himself: "One may not deceive
where one desires to possess"--he is irritated and impatient at the idea
that a mask of him should rule in the hearts of the people: "I must,
therefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know myself!"
Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward
craftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as
though, for instance, he should "merit" help, seek just THEIR help, and
would show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them
for all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a
property, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a
desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or
forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like
themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother
doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is
thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN
ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it
right to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly
born (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the
teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new
individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. The
consequence is...
195. The Jews--a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole
ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as
they themselves say and believe--the Jews performed the miracle of the
inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new
and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused
into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent,"
"sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of
reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included
the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the
significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM that
the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences.
196. It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies near the
sun--such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory;
and the psychologist of morals reads the whole star-writing merely as an
allegorical and symbolic language in which much may be unexpressed.