The failure of reformations. – That several attempts to found new Greek religions have failed testifies to the higher culture of the Greeks even in rather early times; it indicates that even early in Greece, there must have been many diverse individuals whose diverse plights could not be disposed of with a single prescription of faith and hope. Pythagoras23 and Plato, perhaps Empedocles24 as well, and the Orphic enthusiasts25 much earlier yet, were out to found new religions; and the former two had souls and talents which were so much those of founders of religions that one cannot wonder enough at their failure; yet all they managed to found were sects. Every time the reformation of an entire people fails and only sects raise their heads, one may conclude that the people is already very heterogeneous and is starting to break away from crude herd instincts and the morality of custom (Sittlichkeit der Sitte): a notable hovering condition which one usually disparages as decay in morals and corruption, when in fact it announces the maturation of the egg and the impending breaking of the eggshell. That Luther’s reformation succeeded in the North is a sign of the fact that the North was backward in comparison to the South and still had rather uniform and monochrome needs; Europe would not have been christianized at all had not the culture of the old world of the South gradually been barbarized through an excessive admixture of Germanic barbarian blood and its cultural superiority lost. The more general and unconditional the influence of an individual or an individual’s thought can be, the more homogeneous and the lower must the mass be that is influenced, while counter-movements betray inner counter-needs that also want satisfaction and recognition. Conversely, one may always infer a high level of culture when powerful and domineering natures only manage to have a slight and sectarian influence: this is also true of the individual arts and the areas of knowledge. Where there is ruling, there are masses; where there are masses, there is a need for slavery. Where there is slavery, there are few individuals, and these have herd instincts and conscience against them.