OF DISTANCE...Our politics are MORBID from this want of
courage!--The aristocracy of character has been undermined most craftily
by the lie of the equality of souls; and if the belief in the 'privilege
of the many,' makes revolutions and WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE them, it is
Christianity, let us not doubt it, it is CHRISTIAN valuations, which
translate every revolution merely into blood and crime!" (see also
"Beyond Good and Evil", pages 120, 121). Nietzsche thought it was a
bad sign of the times that even rulers have lost the courage of
their positions, and that a man of Frederick the Great's power and
distinguished gifts should have been able to say: "Ich bin der erste
Diener des Staates" (I am the first servant of the State.) To this
utterance of the great sovereign, verse 24 undoubtedly refers.
"Cowardice" and "Mediocrity," are the names with which he labels modern
notions of virtue and moderation.

In Part III., we get the sentiments of the discourse "In the Happy
Isles", but perhaps in stronger terms. Once again we find Nietzsche
thoroughly at ease, if not cheerful, as an atheist, and speaking with
vertiginous daring of making chance go on its knees to him. In verse
20, Zarathustra makes yet another attempt at defining his entirely
anti-anarchical attitude, and unless such passages have been completely
overlooked or deliberately ignored hitherto by those who will persist in
laying anarchy at his door, it is impossible to understand how he ever
became associated with that foul political party.

The last verse introduces the expression, "THE GREAT NOONTIDE!" In the
poem to be found at the end of "Beyond Good and Evil", we meet with
the expression again, and we shall find it occurring time and again in
Nietzsche's works. It will be found fully elucidated in the fifth part
of "The Twilight of the Idols"; but for those who cannot refer to
this book, it were well to point out that Nietzsche called the present
period--our period--the noon of man's history. Dawn is behind us. The
childhood of mankind is over. Now we KNOW; there is now no longer any
excuse for mistakes which will tend to botch and disfigure the type man.
"With respect to what is past," he says, "I have, like all discerning
ones, great toleration, that is to say, GENEROUS self-control...But my
feeling changes suddenly, and breaks out as soon as I enter the modern
period, OUR period. Our age KNOWS..." (See Note on Chapter LXX.).

Chapter LI. On Passing-by.