The Antichrist · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
48.
Science is the _first_ of sins, the germ of all sins, the _original_ sin. _This is all there is of morality._--"Thou shall _not_ know":--the rest follows from that.--God's mortal terror, however, did not hinder him from being shrewd. How is one to _protect_ one's self against science? For a long while this was the capital problem. Answer: Out of paradise with man! Happiness, leisure, foster thought--and all thoughts are bad thoughts!--Man _must_ not think.--And so the priest invents distress, death, the mortal dangers of childbirth, all sorts of misery, old age, decrepitude, above all, _sickness_--nothing but devices for making war on science! The troubles of man don't _allow_ him to think.... Nevertheless--how terrible!--, the edifice of knowledge begins to tower aloft, invading heaven, shadowing the gods--what is to be done?--The old God invents _war_; he separates the peoples; he makes men destroy one another (--the priests have always had need of war....). War--among other things, a great disturber of science!--Incredible! Knowledge, _deliverance from the priests_, prospers in spite of war.--So the old God comes to his final resolution: "Man has become scientific--_there is no help for it: he must be drowned!_"... [21] A paraphrase of Schiller's "Against stupidity even gods struggle in vain."
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.