1
As it is my intention within a very short time to confront my
fellow-men with the very greatest demand that has ever yet been made
upon them, it seems to me _above_ all necessary to declare here who
and what I am. As a matter of fact, this ought to be pretty well
known already, for I have not "held my tongue" about myself. But
the disparity which obtains between the greatness of my task and the
smallness of my contemporaries, is revealed by the fact that people
have neither heard me nor yet seen me. I live on my own self-made
credit, and it is probably only a prejudice to suppose that I am alive
at all. I do but require to speak to any one of the scholars who come
to the Ober-Engadine in the summer in order to convince myself that I
am _not_ alive.... Under these circumstances, it is a duty--and one
against which my customary reserve, and to a still greater degree the
pride of my instincts, rebel--to say: _Listen! for I am such and such a
person. For Heaven's sake do not confound me with any one else!_
2
I am, for instance, in no wise a bogey man, or moral monster. On the
contrary, I am the very opposite in nature to the kind of man that
has been honoured hitherto as virtuous. Between ourselves, it seems
to me that this is precisely a matter on which I may feel proud. I
am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be
even a satyr than a saint. But just read this book! Maybe I have here
succeeded in expressing this contrast in a cheerful and at the same
time sympathetic manner--maybe this is the only purpose of the present
work.
The very last thing I should promise to accomplish would be to
"improve" mankind. I do not set up any new idols; may old idols only
learn what it costs to have legs of clay. To overthrow idols (idols
is the name I give to all ideals) is much more like my business. In
proportion as an ideal world has been falsely assumed, reality has been
robbed of its value, its meaning, and its truthfulness.... The "true
world" and the "apparent world"--in plain English, the fictitious world
and reality.... Hitherto the _lie_ of the ideal has been the curse of
reality; by means of it the very source of mankind's instincts has
become mendacious and false; so much so that those values have come to
be worshipped which are the exact _opposite_ of the ones which would
ensure man's prosperity, his future, and his great right to a future.
3
He who knows how to breathe in the air of my writings is conscious
that it is the air of the heights, that it is bracing. A man must be
built for it, otherwise the chances are that it will chill him. The
ice is near, the loneliness is terrible--but how serenely everything
lies in the sunshine! how freely one can breathe! how much, one feels,
lies beneath one! Philosophy, as I have understood it hitherto, is
a voluntary retirement into regions of ice and mountain-peaks--the
seeking--out of everything strange and questionable in existence,
everything upon which, hitherto, morality has set its ban. Through
long experience, derived from such wanderings in forbidden country, I
acquired an opinion very different from that which may seem generally
desirable, of the causes which hitherto have led to men's moralising
and idealising. The secret history of philosophers, the psychology of
their great names, was revealed to me. How much truth can a certain
mind endure; how much truth can it dare?--these questions became for
me ever more and more the actual test of values. Error (the belief in
the ideal) is not blindness; error is cowardice.... Every conquest,
every step forward in knowledge, is the outcome of courage, of hardness
towards one's self, of cleanliness towards one's self. I do not refute
ideals; all I do is to draw on my gloves in their presence.... _Nitimur
in vetitum;_ with this device my philosophy will one day be victorious;
for that which has hitherto been most stringently forbidden is, without
exception, Truth.
4
In my lifework, my _Zarathustra_ holds a place apart. With it, I gave
my fellow-men the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon them.
This book, the voice of which speaks out across the ages, is not only
the loftiest book on earth, literally the book of mountain air,--the
whole phenomenon, mankind, lies at an incalculable distance beneath
it,--but it is also the deepest book, born of the inmost abundance of
truth; an inexhaustible well, into which no pitcher can be lowered
without coming up again laden with gold and with goodness. Here it is
not a "prophet" who speaks, one of those gruesome hybrids of sickness
and Will to Power, whom men call founders of religions. If a man would
not do a sad wrong to his wisdom, he must, above all give proper
heed to the tones--the halcyonic tones--that fall from the lips of
Zarathustra:--
"The most silent words are harbingers of the storm; thoughts that come
on dove's feet lead the world.
"The figs fall from the trees; they are good and sweet, and, when they
fall, their red skins are rent.
"A north wind am I unto ripe figs.
"Thus, like figs, do these precepts drop down to you, my friends; now
drink their juice and their sweet pulp.
"It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and afternoon."
No fanatic speaks to you here; this is not a "sermon"; no faith is
demanded in these pages. From out an infinite treasure of light and
well of joy, drop by drop, my words fall out--a slow and gentle gait
is the cadence of these discourses. Such things can reach only the
most elect; it is a rare privilege to be a listener here; not every
one who likes can have ears to hear Zarathustra. Is not Zarathustra,
because of these things, a _seducer?_ ... But what, indeed, does he
himself say, when for the first time he goes back to his solitude? Just
the reverse of that which any "Sage," "Saint," "Saviour of the world,"
and other decadent would say.... Not only his words, but he himself is
other than they.
"Alone do I now go, my disciples! Get ye also hence, and alone! Thus
would I have it.
"Verily, I beseech you: take your leave of me and arm yourselves
against Zarathustra! And better still, be ashamed of him! Maybe he hath
deceived you.
"The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but
also to hate his friends.
"The man who remaineth a pupil requiteth his teacher but ill. And why
would ye not pluck at my wreath?
"Ye honour me; but what if your reverence should one day break down?
Take heed, lest a statue crush you.
"Ye say ye believe in Zarathustra? But of; what account is Zarathustra?
Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers?
"Ye had not yet sought yourselves when ye found me. Thus do all
believers; therefore is all believing worth so little.
"Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when ye have all
denied me will I come back unto you."