Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

THIRD PART. 56. LVI. OLD AND NEW TABLES. (continued)

The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.

It is the truth, however, that the good MUST be Pharisees--they have no choice!

The good MUST crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That IS the truth!

The second one, however, who discovered their country--the country, heart and soil of the good and just,--it was he who asked: "Whom do they hate most?"

The CREATOR, hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old values, the breaker,--him they call the law-breaker.

For the good--they CANNOT create; they are always the beginning of the end:--

--They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice UNTO THEMSELVES the future--they crucify the whole human future!

The good--they have always been the beginning of the end.--

27.

O my brethren, have ye also understood this word? And what I once said of the "last man"?--

With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?

BREAK UP, BREAK UP, I PRAY YOU, THE GOOD AND JUST!--O my brethren, have ye understood also this word?

28.

Ye flee from me? Ye are frightened? Ye tremble at this word?

O my brethren, when I enjoined you to break up the good, and the tables of the good, then only did I embark man on his high seas.

And now only cometh unto him the great terror, the great outlook, the great sickness, the great nausea, the great sea-sickness.