Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

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

Here we have a description of that courageous and wayward spirit that literally haunts the footsteps of every great thinker and every great leader; sometimes with the result that it loses all aims, all hopes, and all trust in a definite goal. It is the case of the bravest and most broad-minded men of to-day. These literally shadow the most daring movements in the science and art of their generation; they completely lose their bearings and actually find themselves, in the end, without a way, a goal, or a home. "On every surface have I already sat!...I become thin, I am almost equal to a shadow!" At last, in despair, such men do indeed cry out: "Nothing is true; all is permitted," and then they become mere wreckage. "Too much hath become clear unto me: now nothing mattereth to me any more. Nothing liveth any longer that I love,--how should I still love myself! Have I still a goal? Where is MY home?" Zarathustra realises the danger threatening such a man. "Thy danger is not small, thou free spirit and wanderer," he says. "Thou hast had a bad day. See that a still worse evening doth not overtake thee!" The danger Zarathustra refers to is precisely this, that even a prison may seem a blessing to such a man. At least the bars keep him in a place of rest; a place of confinement, at its worst, is real. "Beware lest in the end a narrow faith capture thee," says Zarathustra, "for now everything that is narrow and fixed seduceth and tempteth thee."

Chapter LXX. Noontide.

At the noon of life Nietzsche said he entered the world; with him man came of age. We are now held responsible for our actions; our old guardians, the gods and demi-gods of our youth, the superstitions and fears of our childhood, withdraw; the field lies open before us; we lived through our morning with but one master--chance--; let us see to it that we MAKE our afternoon our own (see Note XLIX., Part III.).

Chapter LXXI. The Greeting.