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9. "The maintenance of the species," and the thought of eternal recurrence.
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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.
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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!
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The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our immortality.
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The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of that moment alone I will endure recurrence.
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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."
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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."
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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.
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"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!"
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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[Pg 276] 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).
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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.
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Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering.
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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.
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Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be true, they must be able and willing to[Pg 277] be communicative, they must have profound insight into each other.
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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).
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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,
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"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!"
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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.
