This was the most fatal form of insanity that has ever yet existed on earth:--when these little lying abortions of bigotry begin laying claim to the words "God," "last judgment," "truth," "love," "wisdom," "Holy Spirit," and thereby distinguishing themselves from the rest of the world; when such men begin to transvalue values to suit themselves, as though they were the sense, the salt, the standard, and the measure of all things; then all that one should do is this: build lunatic asylums for their incarceration. To _persecute_ them was an egregious act of antique folly: this was taking them too seriously; it was making them serious. The whole fatality was made possible by the fact that a similar form of megalomania was already _in existence,_ the _Jewish_ form (once the gulf separating the Jews from the Christian-Jews was bridged, the Christian-Jews _were compelled_ to employ those self-preservative measures afresh which were discovered by the Jewish instinct, for their own self-preservation, after having accentuated them); and again through the fact that Greek moral philosophy had done everything that could be done to prepare the way for moral-fanaticism, even among Greeks and Romans, and to render it palatable.... Plato, the great importer of corruption, who was the first who refused to see Nature in morality, and who had already deprived the Greek gods of all their worth by his notion "_good_" was already tainted with _Jewish bigotry_ (in Egypt?). 203. These small virtues of gregarious animals do not by any means lead to "eternal life": to put them on the stage in such a way, and to use them for one's own purpose is perhaps very smart; but to him who keeps his eyes open, even here, it remains, in spite of all, the most ludicrous performance. A man by no means deserves privileges, either on earth or in heaven, because he happens to have attained to perfection in the art of behaving like a good-natured little sheep; at best, he only remains a dear, absurd little ram with horns--provided, of course, he does not burst with vanity or excite indignation by assuming the airs of a supreme judge. What a terrible glow of false colouring here floods the meanest virtues--as though they were the reflection of divine qualities! The _natural_ purpose and utility of every virtue is systematically _hushed up_; it can only be valuable in the light of a _divine_ command or model, or in the light of the good which belongs to a beyond or a spiritual world. (This is magnificent!--As if it were a question of the _salvation of the soul_: but it was a means of making things bearable here with as many beautiful sentiments as possible.) 204.