Chapter 31 The second self-transcendence

Great wise men, do you call it the "will to truth" that drives you and burns you? I call your will the will to understand all! You want to make everything that exists intelligible: because you doubt very well that it was already intelligible. But everything that exists is subject to you!so shall your will be. It should respect and obey the spirit, as the mirror and image of the spirit. It is your whole will, O great sages, your will to power; even when you speak of good and evil and judge of worth. You want to create a world before which you can kneel: this is your last hope and your last intoxication.

Yes, the ignorant, the people,—like a river pushing a boat: in this boat the judgment of value sits majestically masked. You have floated your will and your values ​​in the river of evolution; in what the populace considers good and evil, I see an old will to power. O wise men, you put such guests in little boats, and adorn them with sumptuous ornaments and proud names,--you and your will to rule! Now the river pushes your boat: the river must carry it.What does it matter if the broken waves fight against the bottom of the boat with foam and rage! O wise men, the end of your dangers and your good and evil is not the river, but your will, the will to power, - the inexhaustible creative will to life.

However, in order to make you understand my teachings on good and evil, I first tell you my teachings on life and biological nature. I have followed them and chased them on roads big and small because of investigating the nature of creatures. In the hundred-faced mirror, I catch the eyes of life, so that when it does not speak, the eyes can speak to me.And its eyes did speak. Wherever I find living things, I hear about obedience, and all living things must obey. And this is the second thing: He who does not understand his own obedience is commanded by others. This is the nature of living things.

And the third thing I heard was: Orders are hard to follow.Not only because the commander bears the burden of all obedience, And this burden may crush him:— And I see that all commands are trial and risk; when a creature commands, he risks his life. Yes, even when he commands himself, he has to pay the price for this command.He must be judge of his own law, avenger and sacrifice. What is the reason for this?I asked myself.What is it that makes a creature obey or command, and command to obey? O great wise man, listen to my words!Strictly examine: have I entered into the core of life and reached its depths!

Wherever I find living beings, I find the will to power; and in the will to be submissive I find the will to be master. The will of the weak persuades the weak into the service of the strong; at the same time it wants to be the master of the weaker.It was the only joy he didn't want to be deprived of. Just as the weak submits to the strong, for the pleasure of ruling the weaker: so the weak submits to his will to power, and risks his life for power. The gamble of adventure and life is a strong sacrifice. Where there is sacrifice, service, and the eye of love, there is also the will to be the master.The weak sneak into the stronghold and the heart of the strong by secret means—and steal power.Life itself has spoken this secret to me. "Behold," said it, "I must always outdo myself."

Yes, you call this the will to create, or the urge to achieve, to go higher and more complex; but it is but one thing, one secret. I would rather die than give up this one thing; verily, where there is fall and leaves fall, there is life sacrificed to power! I must be the opposite of the strife, the end and the end of evolution: alas, whoever guesses my will must also guess the crooked path it follows! Whatever I create, and however much I love it, - I am soon its rival and my love's rival: my will wills me so. Even you, seeker of knowledge, are but the paths and tracks of my will: verily, my will to power follows your will to truth!

Whoever speaks of the "will to live" has not found the truth: the will-- No! For what does not exist cannot have will.However, how can what already exists still pursue existence! Only where life is, there is will: but this will is not the will to live,—I tell you solemnly—but the will to power! Many things are regarded by living beings as higher than life; this discrimination is the function of the will to power! This is the lesson that life gave me one day: O, great wise man, I have used this lesson to solve the riddle in your hearts. Verily, I tell you: Immortal and everlasting good and evil,--there is no such thing!By their very nature good and evil must always rise above themselves.

You evaluators, exercise your power with the formulas of value and good and evil: therein lies your secret love and the light of your soul, trembling and overflowing. But out of your valuation grows a stronger power, a new self-transcendence: it pecks the egg and the shell. Indeed, whoever has to create good and evil must first destroy, first smash value. So the greatest evil is also a part of the greatest good: but this is the creative good. —— Let us talk, O wise men, though it is a bad thing to talk. But silence is worse; all unspoken truth becomes poison. Let the truth break all that can be broken! —There are so many houses to build! ——

Thus spake Zarathustra.