Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

FOURTH AND LAST PART. 75. LXXV. SCIENCE. (continued)

We SEEK different things even here aloft, ye and I. For I seek more SECURITY; on that account have I come to Zarathustra. For he is still the most steadfast tower and will--

--To-day, when everything tottereth, when all the earth quaketh. Ye, however, when I see what eyes ye make, it almost seemeth to me that ye seek MORE INSECURITY,

--More horror, more danger, more earthquake. Ye long (it almost seemeth so to me--forgive my presumption, ye higher men)--

--Ye long for the worst and dangerousest life, which frighteneth ME most,-- for the life of wild beasts, for forests, caves, steep mountains and labyrinthine gorges.

And it is not those who lead OUT OF danger that please you best, but those who lead you away from all paths, the misleaders. But if such longing in you be ACTUAL, it seemeth to me nevertheless to be IMPOSSIBLE.

For fear--that is man's original and fundamental feeling; through fear everything is explained, original sin and original virtue. Through fear there grew also MY virtue, that is to say: Science.

For fear of wild animals--that hath been longest fostered in man, inclusive of the animal which he concealeth and feareth in himself:--Zarathustra calleth it 'the beast inside.'

Such prolonged ancient fear, at last become subtle, spiritual and intellectual--at present, me thinketh, it is called SCIENCE."--

Thus spake the conscientious one; but Zarathustra, who had just come back into his cave and had heard and divined the last discourse, threw a handful of roses to the conscientious one, and laughed on account of his "truths." "Why!" he exclaimed, "what did I hear just now? Verily, it seemeth to me, thou art a fool, or else I myself am one: and quietly and quickly will I Put thy 'truth' upside down.

For FEAR--is an exception with us. Courage, however, and adventure, and delight in the uncertain, in the unattempted--COURAGE seemeth to me the entire primitive history of man.