XV. THE THOUSAND AND ONE GOALS.

Wouldst thou go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself?

“He who seeketh may easily get lost himself.

The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, “I have no longer a conscience in common with you,” then will it be a plaint and a pain.

Lo, that pain itself did the same conscience produce; and the last gleam of that conscience still gloweth on thine affliction.

But thou wouldst go the way of thine affliction, which is the way unto thyself? Then show me thine authority and thy strength to do so!

Art thou a new strength and a new authority?

Alas! there is so much lusting for loftiness!

Alas! there are so many great thoughts that do nothing more than the bellows: they inflate, and make emptier than ever.

Free, dost thou call thyself?

Art thou one ENTITLED to escape from a yoke?

Free from what?

Canst thou give unto thyself thy bad and thy good, and set up thy will as a law over thee?

Terrible is aloneness with the judge and avenger of one’s own law. Thus is a star projected into desert space, and into the icy breath of aloneness.

To-day sufferest thou still from the multitude, thou individual; to-day hast thou still thy courage unabated, and thy hopes. Therefore, calleth he himself “man,” that is, the valuator.

But one day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: “I am alone!”

One day wilt thou see no longer thy loftiness, and see too closely thy lowliness; thy sublimity itself will frighten thee as a phantom. Thou wilt one day cry: “All is false!”

There are feelings which seek to slay the lonesome one; if they do not succeed, then must they themselves die! But art thou capable of it—to be a murderer?

Hast thou ever known, my brother, the word “disdain”?

Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account. Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee.

“How could ye be just unto me!”—must thou say—“I choose your injustice as my allotted portion.”

Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account! Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the virtues, and fire of wrath.

And be on thy guard against the good and just!

Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire—of the fagot and stake. Who will put a fetter upon the thousand necks of this animal?

And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him. As yet humanity hath not a goal.

To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws.

Thus spake Zarathustra.