christianity is called the religion of pity.pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness: it is a depressant. a man loses power when he pities. through pity that drain upon strength which suffering works is multiplied a thousandfold. suffering is made contagious by pity; under certain circumstances it may lead to a total sacrifice of life and living energya loss out of all proportion to the magnitude of the cause (the case of the death of the nazarene). this is the first view of it; there is, however, a still more important one. if one measures the effects of pity by the gravity of the reactions it sets up, its character as a menace to life appears in a much clearer light. pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. it preserves whatever is ripe for destruction; it fights on the side of those disinherited and condemned by life; by maintaining life in so many of the botched of all kinds, it gives life itself a gloomy and dubious aspect. mankind has ventured to call pity a virtue (in every superior moral system it appears as a weakness); going still further, it has been called the virtue, the source and foundation of all other virtuesbut let us always bear in mind that this was from the standpoint of a philosophy that was nihilistic, and upon whose shield the denial of life was inscribed. schopenhauer was right in this: that by means of pity life is denied, and made worthy of denialpity is the technique of nihilism
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