people still believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this music of the spheres will cease to be audible to their ears! They will awake and perceive that their ears had been dreaming.
101
‘’Hazardous.’’—To adopt a belief merely because it is a custom means being dishonest, cowardly, lazy! Should then dishonesty, cowardice, and sloth be the premises of morality?
102
‘’The oldest moral judgments.’’—How do we behave with regard to a person's action in our surroundings? First and foremost, we consider what we may gain by it—we view it in this light only. This outcome we take as the intention of the action, and finish by imputing to the doer the cherishing of such purposes as lasting qualities, henceforth calling him "a dangerous man," for instance. Treble error! Treble and most ancient mistake! Possibly our inheritance from the animals and from their faculty of judgment. Is not the origin of all morality concealed in such paltry and petty conclusions as: “Everything that injures me is evil (something in itself injurious); everything that profits me is good in itself beneficent and useful); that which injures me once or several times is hostile of and in itself; that which profits me once or several
