The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
874.
_The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes_ has been the cause of all the great disorders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars and Roman society, Christianity would never have prevailed. When it occurs to inferior men to doubt whether higher men exist, then the danger is great I It is then that men finally discover that there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed, and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is equal before God: which is the _non plus ultra_ of all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared on earth! For in the end higher men begin to measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves--and discover that they are "proud," etc., and that all their _higher_ qualities should be condemned. When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm, it was then that the paradox arose: "The lowest man is of more value than that one on the throne!" And thus the path was prepared for an _image of God_ which was as remote as possible from the image of the mightiest,--God on the Cross! _Higher man and gregarious man._--When great men are _wanting,_ the great of the past are converted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of religions proves that mankind no longer has any pleasure in man ("nor in woman neither," as in Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically. Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great men; they make inferior men stupid.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.