Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsversal highway of the future, which needs only to be gradually completedand above all more travelled along for it to become pleasantand comfortable'. Therefore deny it no longer: the founder of areligion has been unmasked, the new, pleasant and comfortableroad to the Straussian paradise has been constructed. All you are notyet content with, you modest man, is the carriage in which you wishto drive us; you tell us in your closing words: 'that the carriage towhich my valued readers have had to entrust themselves with memeets every requirement I would not venture to assert' (p. 367): 'wehave been much buffeted about'. Ah hal you are fishing for compliments,you coquettish religion-founder! We, however, would preferto tell you the truth. If your reader prescribes himself the 368 pagesof your religious catechism at the rate of one page every day of theyear if, that is to say, he takes it in the mallest possible doses - webelieve that at the end of it he will feel unwell: out of vexation that ithas failed to produce any effect. Gulped down in mouthfuls,however, as much as possible at once according to the prescriptionfor all timely books, the draught can do ItO harm: far from feelingvexed and unwell, the drinker will be in a merry and happy mood,just as though nothing has happened, no religion had been destroyed,no universal highway constructed, no confession made -and that is what I call an effect! Physician and medicaments andsickness all forgotten! And the joyful laughter! The continual incitementto laughter! You are to be envied, dear sir, for you have foundedthe most agreeable religion in the world: a religion whose founder iscontinually honoured by being laughed at.4The philistine as the founder of the religion of the future - that is thenew faith in its most impressive shape; the philistine become avisionary - that is the unheard-of phenomenon that distinguishesGermany today. Let us, however, preserve for the moment a degreeof caution in regard to this visionary enthusiasm: has David Strausshimself not urged such caution upon us, in the following passage (p.80), in which, to be sure, we are supposed to recognize in the firstinstance not Strauss but the founder of Christianity: 'We know therehave been noble, gifted visionaries, a visionary can arouse and exaltus, and can produce a very lasting effect historically; but let us notchoose him as our life-guide. He will lead us astray if we do not subjecthis influence to the control of reason.' We know even more,16