31 Pride in the spirit. The pride of mankind, which resists the theory of descent from the animals and establishes the great gulf between man and nature this pride has its basis in a prejudice as to what spirit is: and this prejudice is relatively young. During the great prehistoric age of mankind, spirit was presumed to exist everywhere and was not held in honour as a privilege of man. Because, on the contrary, the spiritual (together with all drives, wickedness, inclinations) had been rendered common property, and thus common, one was not ashamed to have descended from animals or trees (the noble races thought themselves honoured by such fables), and saw in the spirit that which unites us with nature, not that which sunders us from it. Thus one schooled oneself in modesty and likewise in consequence of a prejudice. |