The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
353.
_The Origin of Religions._—The real inventions of founders of religions are, on the one hand, to establish a definite mode of life and everyday custom, which operates as _disciplina voluntatis_, and at the same time does away with ennui; and on the other hand, to give to that very mode of life an _interpretation_, by virtue of which it appears illumined with the highest value; so that it henceforth becomes a good for which people struggle, and under certain circumstances lay down their lives. In truth, the second of these inventions is the more essential: the first, the mode of life, has usually been there already, side by side, however, with other modes of life, and still unconscious of the value which it embodies. The import, the originality of the founder of a religion, discloses itself usually in the fact that he _sees_ the mode of life, _selects_ it, and _divines_ for the first time the purpose for which it can be used, how it can be interpreted.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.