of an intention; people were agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention.  The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action:  under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the present day.—­Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness and acuteness in man—­is it not possible that we may be standing on the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as Ultra-moral:  nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in that which is not intentional, and that all its intentionalness, all that is seen, sensible, or “sensed” in it, belongs to its surface or skin—­ which, like every skin, betrays something, but conceals still more?  In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom, which first requires an explanation—­a sign, moreover, which has too many interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself alone:  that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood hitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a prematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank as astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be surmounted.  The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the self-mounting of morality—­ let that be the name for the long-secret labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones of the soul.

33.  It cannot be helped:  the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for one’s neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly called to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesthetics of “disinterested contemplation,” under which the emasculation of art nowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience.  There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments “for others” and “Not for myself,” for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here, and for one asking promptly:  “Are they not perhaps—­deceptions?”—­That they please—­ him who has them, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also the mere spectator—­that is still no argument in their favour, but just calls for caution.  Let us therefore be cautious!