EXPLANATORY NOTES TO "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA"

1

All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each other:

People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but they also call him good who merely does his duty;

People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him good who is brave, inflexible and severe;

People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also call the heroes of self-mastery good;

People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him good who is pious and a transfigurer of things;

People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the devout man good;

People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does not despise and who does not assume condescending airs.

People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good;

People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything.

2

We possess a powerful store of moral feelings, but we have no goal for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their origin in different tables of values.

There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any goal towards which all this power can be directed.

3

All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous goals have been annihilated.

Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be based.

4

The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically correlated—this constitutes my faith.

Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of existence.

5

The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads to the atomistic individual, and further to the subdivision of the individual into a quantity of parts—absolute liquefaction.

That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new love.

6

I say: "As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live, consequently it had to die."

7

As long as people are still forced to act, that is to say as long as commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy one's own nature in action.

8

None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them.

9

We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:—an extremely difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to be overcome,—the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and consecrated anew!

10

No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different path! Not leading to the highest development of each! Yet everyone may be a bridge and an example for others.

11

To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a good will,—these things may make even insignificant and superficial men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their belief that this good will is "virtue in itself."

12

Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable?

13

Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only thing one can do is not to have them.

14

If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage.

15

"Love thy neighbour"—this would mean first and foremost: "Let thy neighbour go his own way"—and it is precisely this kind of virtue that is the most difficult!

16

The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and gourmets of life: this is ignoble.

17

It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets of life—this sense revolts against hedonism—: we want to perform something in return!—But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that one must live for nothing,—that is their vulgarity.

18

The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible taskmasters.

19

What is required: the new law must be made practicable—and out of its fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses the law of laws which is morality.

Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law!

20

The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind's self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming of morality is necessary.

21

The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is the purpose of giving laws at all?

Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers.

22

Individual instruments.

1. The Commanders, the mighty—who do not love, unless it be that they love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality, the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant

2. The obedient, the "emancipated"—love and reverence constitute their happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are made whole by the sight of the lofty).

3. The slaves, the order of "henchmen"—: they must be made comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another.

23

The giver, the creator, the teacher—these are preludes of the ruler.

24

All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing for the rule!

25

Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold.

26

How much does not the warrior, the prince, the man who is responsible for himself, sacrifice!—this should be highly honoured.

27

The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:—the kind of man and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler!

28

The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that these may be overcome.

29

The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they must impose their type on things).

30

Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals and the means of giving great individuals root and soil—until the fruit ultimately appears.

31

As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c. But they are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal.

32

The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,—it may be that they aim at a very useful working class,—they are creating the ideal slave of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be lacking!

33

Equal rights for all!—this is the most extraordinary form of injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due.

34

It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can.

35

A new form of estimating man: above all the question:

How much power has he got?

How manifold are his instincts?

How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation?

The ruler as the highest type.

36

Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over, and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so far. Now he can perform his task.—

Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God, and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence of those they rule. Their new holiness, their renunciation of happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of "swift death." They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his rank.

37

"The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he feels for his neighbour."

To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted.

38

The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought which will remain poised above men like a star.—The ego is a primum mobile.

39

The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle.

40

We must make our ideals prevail:—We must strive for power in such a way as our ideal commands.

41

The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history.

42

Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth stands close to my hand.

Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:—we created it, we waked it: the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of all pessimism that has existed hitherto!

We fight with it,—we find out that our only means of enduring it is to create a creature who is able to endure it:—unless, of course, we voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it But this we are no longer able to do!

We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being unto whom it will be not only light but blessed.

In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts (Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose.

43

Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however, but in one which would be a continuation of humanity.

44

The half-way house is always present when the will to the future arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it.

45

Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are inherent in a purpose.

46

My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the whole species man: and to sacrifice "one's neighbours" and oneself to this end.

The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated.

One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of mankind, great ant-organisations, &c.

The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the creation of supremely powerful creatures.

The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not concerning themselves in the least with the others.

47

The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him simultaneously with the former.

48

The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to appease his love,

49

Half-way round the course Superman arises.

50

Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him.

51

"We wish to create a Being," we all wish to have a hand in it, to love it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on that account.

We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All other goals are only fit for the scrap heap.

52

The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra's fundamental proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he wants, this is his honesty.

53

Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought.

54

Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean "gardens" and mere "retirement from the masses." War (but without powder) between different thoughts and the hosts who support them I

A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the foundation of families.

The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών as a principle.

The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner another one must be striven after.

We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future being.

We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of the future And for it we work and let others work.

55

The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, as is becoming in the mighty man.

56

No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this limit, moderation and manliness are necessary.

Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher culture of the whole body and not only of the brain.

57

"Man is something that must be surpassed":—it is a matter of tempo: the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.

58

1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. The transformation of temperament (e.g., by means of inorganic substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source.

2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph.

3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned.

4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity.

5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument to it by means of a child.

6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable everyone to be able to help himself, and which leave him to choose whether he would be helped.

7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their inner devil.

8. Inner war as "development"

9. "The maintenance of the species," and the thought of eternal recurrence.

59

Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of perfection, and rejoice therein,—we must make no leaps!

In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is endurable.

60

Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life. Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I

We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,—from one day to the other. Wander through a hundred souls,—let that be thy life and thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once more!

61

The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our immortality.

62

The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of that moment alone I will endure recurrence.

63

The teaching of eternal recurrence—it is at first oppressive to the more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,—then the inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! "This doctrine must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed."

64

The hesitation of the disciples. "We are already able to bear with this doctrine, but we should destroy the many by means of it!"

Zarathustra laughs: "Ye shall be the hammer: I laid this hammer in your hands."

65

I do not speak to you as I speak to the people. The highest thing for them would be to despise and to annihilate themselves: the next highest thing would be for them to despise and annihilate each other.

66

"My will to do good compels me to remain silent. But my will to the Superman bids me speak and sacrifice even my friends."

"I would fain form and transform you, how could I endure things otherwise!"

67

The history of higher man. The rearing of the better man is incalculably more painful. The ideal of the necessary sacrifice which it involves, as in the case of Zarathustra, should be demonstrated: A man should leave his home, his family and his native land. Live under the scorn of the prevailing morality. The anguish of experiments and errors. The solution of all the joys offered by the older ideals (they are now felt to be partly hostile and partly strange).

68

What is it which gives a meaning, a value, an importance to things? It is the creative heart which yearns and which created out of this yearning. It created joy and woe. It wanted to sate itself also with woe. Every kind of pain that man or beast has suffered, we must take upon ourselves and bless, and have a goal whereby such suffering would acquire some meaning.

69

Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering.

70

Concerning heroic greatness as the only state of pioneers. (A yearning for utter ruin as a means of enduring one's existence.)

We must not desire one state only; we must rather desire to be periodical creatures—like existence.

Absolute indifference to other people's opinions (because we know their weights and measures), but their opinions of themselves should be the subject of pity.

71

Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be true, they must be able and willing to be communicative, they must have profound insight into each other.

72

All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)—on the whole, this is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra's ears like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance).

73

Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair.

Temptations to return prematurely to the world—thanks to the provocation of one's sympathies.

1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:—he who has unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many peoples,—the good European.

2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for anything,—who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,—he offers himself as an instrument.

3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to be seen, he is ashamed of himself.

4. He who honours facts ("the brain of a leech"), the most subtle intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty conscience,—he wants to get rid of himself.

5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,—he chooses loneliness and the severity of knowledge.

6. The discoverer of new intoxicants,—the musician, the sorcerer, who finally drops on his knees before a loving heart and says: "Not to me do I wish to lead you but yonder to him."

Those who are sober to excess and who have a yearning for intoxication which they do not gratify. The Supersobersides.

7. Genius (as an attack of insanity), becoming frozen through lack of love: "I am neither a genius nor a god." Great tenderness: "people must show him more love!"

8. The rich man who has given everything away and who asks everybody: "Have you anything you do not want? give me some of it!" as a beggar.

9. The Kings who renounce dominion: "we seek him who is more worthy to rule"—against "equality": the great man is lacking, consequently reverence is lacking too.

10. The actor of happiness.

11. The pessimistic soothsayer who detects fatigue everywhere.

12. The fool of the big city.

13. The youth from the mount

14. The woman (seeks the man).

15. The envious emaciated toiler and arriviste.

16. The good,                     } and their mad fancy:

17. The pious,                    }"For God" that

18. The self-centred and    } means "For me."
and saints,

74

"I gave you the most weighty thought: maybe mankind will perish through it, perhaps also mankind will be elevated through it inasmuch as by its means the elements which are hostile to life will be overcome and eliminated." "Ye must not chide Life, but yourselves!"—The destiny of higher man is to be a creator. The organisation of higher men, the education of the future ruler. "YE must rejoice in your superior power when ye rule and when ye form anew." "Not only man but Superman will recur eternally!"

75

The typical suffering of the reformer and also his consolations. The seven solitudes.

He lives as though he were beyond all ages: his loftiness allows him to have intercourse with the anchorites and the misunderstood of every age.

Only his beauty is his defence. He lays his hands on the next thousand years.

His love increases as he sees the impossibility of avoiding the affliction of pain with it.

76

Zarathustra's mood is not one of mad impatience for Superman! It is peaceful, it can wait: but all action has derived some purpose from being the road and means thither,—and must be done well and perfectly.

The repose of the great stream! Consecration of the smallest thing. All unrest, and violent longing, all loathing should be presented in the third part and be overcome! The gentleness, and mildness, &c., in the first and second parts are both signs of a power which is not yet self-reliant!

With the recovery of Zarathustra, Cæsar stands there inexorable and kind:—the gulf separating creation, goodness, and wisdom is annihilated.

Clearness, peace, no exaggerated craving, happiness in the moment which is properly occupied and immortalised!

77

Zarathustra, Part III.: "I myself am happy."—When he had taken leave of mankind he returned unto himself. Like a cloud it vanishes from him. The manner in which Superman must live: like an Epicurean God.

Divine suffering is the substance of the third part of Zarathustra. The human state of the legislator is only brought forward as an example.

His intense love for his friends seems to him a disease,—once more he becomes peaceful.

When the invitations come he gently evades them.

78

In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why it is that the time of the great noon has come: It is really a description of the age given by means of visits, but interpreted by Zarathustra.

In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why "a chosen people" has first to be created:—they are the lucky cases of nature as opposed to the unlucky (exemplified by the visitors): only to them —the lucky cases—is Zarathustra able to express himself concerning ultimate problems, them alone is he able to inspire with activity on behalf of this theory. They are strong, healthy, hard and above all noble enough for him to give them the hammer with which to remould the whole world.

79

The unity in power of the creator, the lover and the knight of knowledge.

80

Love alone shall judge—(the creative love which forgets itself in its work).

81

Zarathustra can only dispense happiness once the order of rank is established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught first.

The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. Here and there there arises from them a perfectly Epicurean God, a Superman, a transfigurer of existence.

The Superhuman's notion of the world. Dionysus. Returning from these most strange of all pursuits Zarathustra comes back with love to the narrowest and smallest things,—he blesses all his experiences and dies with a blessing on his lips.

82

From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.