Drawing the line of argument straight from Nietzsche, Bourne argued that it is a mistake for his fellow critics to dismiss the Puritan’s asceticism as “unnatural,” because the entire force of the puritanical belief structure is the way it burrows into the individual’s moral psychology and becomes “secondnature.” As Bourne put it, the externalized dictates of religion over time become naturalized into the believer’s entire ethical and psychological gestalt. As a result,“the puritan becomes just as much of a naturalistic phenomenon as the most carnal sinner.”
