Page 9 of 26
Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a hermit philosopher who, weary of his wisdom, leaves his cave and comes to mingle with men, to teach them the overman. He meets a saint who loves God, and Zarathustra leaving him says: "Is it possible? This old saint in his forest has not yet heard that God is dead!"
Zarathustra preaches to a crowd in the market:
"I teach you the overman. Man is a something that shall be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass him?
"All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and are ye going to be the ebb of this great tide and rather revert to the animal than surpass man?
"What with man is the ape? A joke or a sore shame. Man shall be the same for the overman, a joke or a sore shame.
"Behold, I teach you the overman!
"The overman is the significance of the earth. Your will shall say; the overman shall be the significance of the earth.
"I conjure you, my brethren, remain faithful to the earth and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestrial hopes! Poisoners they are whether they know it or not.
"Verily, a muddy stream is man. One must be the ocean to be able to receive a muddy stream without becoming unclean.
"Behold, I teach you the overman: he is that ocean, in him your great contempt can sink.
"What is the greatest thing ye can experience? That is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which not only your happiness, but your reason and virtue as well, turn loathsome.
"I love him who is of a free spirit and of a free heart: thus his head is merely the intestine of his heart, but his heart driveth him to destruction.
"I love all those who are like heavy drops falling one by one from the dark cloud lowering over men: they announce the coming of the lightning and perish in the announcing.
"Behold, I am an announcer of the lightning and a heavy drop from the clouds; that lightning's name it the overman."
Zarathustra comes as an enemy of the good and the just. He says:
"Lo, the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh to pieces their tables of values,—the law-breaker, the criminal:—but he is the creator.
"The destroyer of morality I am called by the good and just: my tale is immoral."
COINS OF ANCIENT ELIS.
Each is worth two drachm. One
shows on the
obverse a Zeus head with a laurel wreath,
the other a
winged Victory.
Nietzsche's favorite animals are the proud eagle and the cunning serpent, the former because it typifies aristocracy, the latter as the wisest among all creatures of the earth. It is a strange and exceptional combination, for these two animals are commonly represented as[Pg 51] enemies. The eagle and serpent was the emblem of ancient Elis and is at present the coat-of-arms of Mexico, but in both cases the eagle is interpreted to be the conqueror of the serpent, not its friend, carrying it as his prey in his claws.
Zarathustra's philosophy is a combination of the eagle's pride and the serpent's wisdom, which Nietzsche describes thus:
"Lo! an eagle swept through the air in wide circles, a serpent hanging from it not like a prey, but like a friend: coiling round its neck.
"They are mine animals,' said Zarathustra and rejoiced heartily.
"The proudest animal under the sun, and the wisest animal under the sun have set out to reconnoitre.
"They wish to learn whether Zarathustra still liveth. Verily, do I still live.
"More dangerous than among animals I found it among men. Dangerous ways are taken by Zarathustra. Let mine animals lead me!"
Here is a sentence worth quoting:
"Of all that is written I love only that which the writer wrote with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt learn that blood is spirit."
In another chapter on the back-worlds-men Nietzsche writes:
"Once Zarathustra threw his spell beyond man, like all back-worlds-men. Then the world seemed to me the work of a suffering and tortured God.
"Alas! brethren, that God whom I created was man's work and man's madness, like all Gods!
"Man he was, and but a poor piece of man and the I.[Pg 52] From mine own ashes and flame it came unto me, that ghost yea verily! It did not come unto me from beyond!
"What happened, brethren? I overcame myself, the sufferer, and carrying mine own ashes unto the mountains invented for myself a brighter flame. And lo! the ghost departed from me!
"Now to me, the convalescent, it would be suffering and pain to believe in such ghosts: suffering it would be for me and humiliation. Thus spake I unto the back-worlds-men."
Nietzsche's self is not ideal but material; it is not thought, not even the will, but the body. The following passage sounds like Vedantism as interpreted by a materialist:
"He who is awake and knoweth saith: Body I am throughout, and nothing besides; and soul is merely a word for a something in body.
"Body is one great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a herdsman.
"Also thy little reason, my brother, which thou callest 'spirit'—it is a tool of thy body, a little tool and toy of thy great reason.
"T, thou sayest and art proud of that word. But the greater thing is—which thou wilt not believe—thy body and its great reason. It doth not say T, but it is the acting 'I.'
"The self ever listeneth and seeketh: it compareth, subdueth, conquereth, destroyeth. It ruleth and is the ruler of the 'I' as well.
"Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, standeth a mighty lord, an unknown wise man—whose name is self. In thy body he dwelleth, thy body he is.
"There is more reason in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who can know why thy body needeth thy beat wisdom?
"Thy self laugheth at thine 'I' and its prancings: What are these boundings and flights of thought? it saith unto[Pg 53] itself. A round-about way to my purpose. I am the leading-string of the I and the suggester of its concepts.
"The creative self created for itself valuing and despising, it created for itself lust and woe. The creative body created for itself the spirit to be the hand of its will."
One of the best passages in Zarathustra's sermons is Nietzsche's command to love the overman, the man of the distant future:
"I tell you, your love of your neighbor is your bad love of yourselves.
"Ye flee from yourselves unto your neighbor and would fain make a virtue thereof; but I see through your unselfishness.'
"The thou is older than the I; the thou hath been proclaimed holy, but the I not yet; man thus thrusteth himself upon his neighbor.
"Do I counsel you to love your neighbor? I rather counsel you to flee from your neighbor and to love the most remote.
"Love unto the most remote future man is higher than love unto your neighbor. And I consider love unto things and ghosts to be higher than love unto men.
