Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

APPENDIX 81. NOTES ON "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" BY ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. (continued)

In verses 28, 29, and 30 of the second portion of this discourse we meet with a doctrine which, at first sight, seems to be merely "le manoir a l'envers," indeed one English critic has actually said of Nietzsche, that "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is no more than a compendium of modern views and maxims turned upside down. Examining these heterodox pronouncements a little more closely, however, we may possibly perceive their truth. Regarding good and evil as purely relative values, it stands to reason that what may be bad or evil in a given man, relative to a certain environment, may actually be good if not highly virtuous in him relative to a certain other environment. If this hypothetical man represent the ascending line of life--that is to say, if he promise all that which is highest in a Graeco-Roman sense, then it is likely that he will be condemned as wicked if introduced into the society of men representing the opposite and descending line of life.

By depriving a man of his wickedness--more particularly nowadays-- therefore, one may unwittingly be doing violence to the greatest in him. It may be an outrage against his wholeness, just as the lopping-off of a leg would be. Fortunately, the natural so-called "wickedness" of higher men has in a certain measure been able to resist this lopping process which successive slave-moralities have practised; but signs are not wanting which show that the noblest wickedness is fast vanishing from society--the wickedness of courage and determination--and that Nietzsche had good reasons for crying: "Ah, that (man's) baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small. What is good? To be brave is good! It is the good war which halloweth every cause!" (see also par. 5, "Higher Man").

Chapter LX. The Seven Seals.

This is a final paean which Zarathustra sings to Eternity and the marriage-ring of rings, the ring of the Eternal Recurrence.

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PART IV.