: there is an abundant, superabundant enjoyment even in one’s own suffering, in causing one’s own suffering⁠—and wherever man has allowed himself to be persuaded to self-denial in the religious sense, or to self-mutilation, as among the Phoenicians and ascetics, or in general, to desensualisation, decarnalisation, and contrition, to Puritanical repentance-spasms, to vivisection of conscience and to Pascal-like sacrifizia dell’ intelleto , he is secretly allured and impelled forwards by his cruelty, by the dangerous thrill of cruelty towards himself .⁠—Finally, let us consider that even the seeker of knowledge operates as an artist and glorifier of cruelty, in that he compels his spirit to perceive against