222

Nowadays wherever people preach pity - and, if one listens correctly, is there any other religion preached any more? - the psychologist should keep his ears open: through all the vanity, through all the noise characteristic of these preachers (like all preachers), he'll hear a hoarser, moaning, genuine sound of self-contempt. It's part of that process of making Europe dark and ugly which has been growing now for a hundred years (and whose first symptoms were already placed in the documentary record in a thoughtful letter from Galiani to Madame d'Epinay): unless it's the cause of this development! The man of "modern ideas," this proud ape, is uncontrollably dissatisfied with himself - that's established. He's suffering. And his vanity wants him only to suffer "with others"2. . .

2. . . . Galiani: Abbé Ferdinand Glaini (1728-1787), an Italian cleric and philosopher;
Madame d'Épinay: Louise d'Épinay (1726-1783), a French writer.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Part VII - Aphorism # 222

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