when a nation is on the downward path, when it feels its belief in its own future, its hope of freedom slipping from it, when it b

when a nation is on the downward path, when it feels its belief in its own future, its hope of freedom slipping from it, when it begins to see submission as a first necessity and the virtues of submission as measures of self preservation, then it must overhaul its god. He then becomes a hypocrite, timorous and demure; he counsels "peace of soul," hate no more, leniency, "love" of friend and foe. He moralizes endlessly; he creeps into every private virtue; he becomes the god of every man; he becomes a private citizen, a cosmopolitan. Formerly he represented a people, the strength of a people, everything aggressive and thirsty for power in the soul of a people; now he is simply the good god . The truth is that there is no other alternative for gods: either they are the will to power in which case they are national gods or incapacity for power in which case they have to be good.

"Friedrich Nietzsche, The AntiChrist"