219.  The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature, and finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and becoming subtle—­malice spiritualises.  They are glad in their inmost heart that there is a standard according to which those who are over-endowed with intellectual goods and privileges, are equal to them, they contend for the “equality of all before God,” and almost need the belief in God for this purpose.  It is among them that the most powerful antagonists of atheism are found.  If any one were to say to them “A lofty spirituality is beyond all comparison with the honesty and respectability of a merely moral man”—­it would make them furious, I shall take care not to say so.  I would rather flatter them with my theory that lofty spirituality itself exists only as the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it is a synthesis of all qualities attributed to the “merely moral” man, after they have been acquired singly through long training and practice, perhaps during a whole series of generations, that lofty spirituality is precisely the spiritualising of justice, and the beneficent severity which knows that it is authorized to maintain gradations of rank in the world, even among things—­and not only among men.

220.  Now that the praise of the “disinterested person” is so popular one must—­probably not without some danger—­get an idea of what people actually take an interest in, and what are the things generally which fundamentally and profoundly concern ordinary men—­including the cultured, even the learned, and perhaps philosophers also, if appearances do not deceive.  The fact thereby becomes obvious that the greater part of what interests and charms higher natures, and more refined and fastidious tastes, seems absolutely “uninteresting” to the average man—­if, notwithstanding, he perceive devotion to these interests, he calls it desinteresse, and wonders how it is possible to act “disinterestedly.”  There have been philosophers who could give this popular astonishment a seductive and mystical, other-worldly expression (perhaps because they did not know the higher nature by experience?), instead of stating the naked and candidly reasonable truth that “disinterested” action is very interesting and “interested” action, provided that. . .  “And love?”—­What!  Even an action for love’s sake shall be “unegoistic”?  But you fools—!  “And the praise of the self-sacrificer?”—­But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for it—­perhaps something from himself for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself “more.”  But this is a realm of questions and answers in which a more fastidious spirit does not like to stay:  for here truth has to stifle her yawns so much when she is obliged to answer.  And after all, truth is a woman; one must not use force with her.