that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God: — all this violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and unreasonableness, has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility; granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be stifled, suffocated, and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere, “nature” shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble).

That for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove something — nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every thinker who “wishes to prove something”