Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
PART IV.
281 words | Chapter 44
In my opinion this part is Nietzsche’s open avowal that all his
philosophy, together with all his hopes, enthusiastic outbursts,
blasphemies, prolixities, and obscurities, were merely so many gifts
laid at the feet of higher men. He had no desire to save the world. What
he wished to determine was: Who is to be master of the world? This is
a very different thing. He came to save higher men;—to give them that
freedom by which, alone, they can develop and reach their zenith (see
Note on Chapter LIV., end). It has been argued, and with considerable
force, that no such philosophy is required by higher men, that, as a
matter of fact, higher men, by virtue of their constitutions always, do
stand Beyond Good and Evil, and never allow anything to stand in the
way of their complete growth. Nietzsche, however, was evidently not so
confident about this. He would probably have argued that we only see the
successful cases. Being a great man himself, he was well aware of the
dangers threatening greatness in our age. In “Beyond Good and Evil” he
writes: “There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined,
or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and
deteriorated...” He knew “from his painfullest recollections on what
wretched obstacles promising developments of the highest rank have
hitherto usually gone to pieces, broken down, sunk, and become
contemptible.” Now in Part IV. we shall find that his strongest
temptation to descend to the feeling of “pity” for his contemporaries,
is the “cry for help” which he hears from the lips of the higher men
exposed to the dreadful danger of their modern environment.
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