Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities§383 Religious morality — Passion, great desire; the passions of power, love, revenge and property: the moralists wish to uproot and exterminate all these things and “purify” the soul by driving them out of it.
The argument is: the passions often lead to disaster — therefore, they are evil and ought to be condemned. Man must free himself from them, otherwise he cannot be a good man —
This is of the same nature as: “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out”. In this particular case when, with that “bucolic simplicity”, the founder of Christianity recommended a certain practice to his disciples, in the event of sexual excitement, the result would not be only the loss of a particular member, but the actual castration of the whole of the man’s character — And the same applies to the moral mania, which, instead of insisting upon the control of the passions, sues for their extirpation. Its conclusion always is: only the emasculated man is a good man.
Instead of making use of and economising the great sources of passion, those torrents of the soul which are often so dangerous, overwhelming and impetuous, morality this most short-sighted and most corrupted of mental attitudes would want to make them dry up.