SECOND PART.
42. XLII. REDEMPTION. (continued)
Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all that is
capable of suffering it taketh revenge, because it cannot go backward.
This, yea, this alone is REVENGE itself: the Will's antipathy to time, and
its "It was."
Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our Will; and it became a curse unto all
humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!
THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: my friends, that hath hitherto been man's best
contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was
always penalty.
"Penalty," so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a good
conscience.
And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he cannot
will backwards--thus was Willing itself, and all life, claimed--to be
penalty!
And then did cloud after cloud roll over the spirit, until at last madness
preached: "Everything perisheth, therefore everything deserveth to
perish!"
"And this itself is justice, the law of time--that he must devour his
children:" thus did madness preach.
"Morally are things ordered according to justice and penalty. Oh, where is
there deliverance from the flux of things and from the 'existence' of
penalty?" Thus did madness preach.
"Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice? Alas, unrollable
is the stone, 'It was': eternal must also be all penalties!" Thus did
madness preach.
"No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the penalty! This,
this is what is eternal in the 'existence' of penalty, that existence also
must be eternally recurring deed and guilt!
Unless the Will should at last deliver itself, and Willing become non-Willing--:"
but ye know, my brethren, this fabulous song of madness!
Away from those fabulous songs did I lead you when I taught you: "The Will
is a creator."
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