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There exists a defiance against oneself that includes among its most sublime expressions various forms of asceticism. For some men have such an intense need to exercise their strength and love of power that, lacking other objects or because they have always otherwise failed, it finally occurs to them to tyrannize certain parts of their own being, as if they were sections or stages of their selves. Thus some thinkers will confess to views that clearly do not serve to increase or improve their reputation; some virtually beg to be despised by others, whereas it would be easy for them to retain respect by being silent. Others retract earlier opinions and are not afraid to be called inconsistent thereafter; on the contrary, that is what they try for, behaving like high-spirited horsemen who like their horse best only when it has become wild, skittish, covered with sweat. Thus man climbs on dangerous paths into the highest mountains in order to mock his own fearfulness and his shaking knees; thus the philosopher confesses to views of asceticism, humility and saintliness, by which light his own image is most grievously made ugly. This shattering of oneself, this scorn for one's own nature, this spernere se sperni,²² which religions have made so much out of, is actually a very high degree of vanity. The whole morality of the Sermon on the Mount belongs here; man takes. a truly voluptuous pleasure in violating himself by exaggerated demands and then deifying this something in his soul that is so tyrannically taxing. In each ascetic morality, man prays to one part of himself as a god and also finds it necessary to diabolify the rest.