that doubt is sin. Too well, also, do I know what they themselves
most believe in.

Verily, not in backworlds and redeeming blood-drops: but in the body
do they also believe most; and their own body is for them the
thing-in-itself.

But it is a sickly thing to them, and gladly would they get out of their
skin. Therefore hearken they to the preachers of death, and themselves
preach backworlds.

Hearken rather, my brethren, to the voice of the healthy body; it is a
more upright and pure voice.

More uprightly and purely speaketh the healthy body, perfect and
square-built; and it speaketh of the meaning of the earth.--

Thus spake Zarathustra.

IV. THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY.

To the despisers of the body will I speak my word. I wish them neither
to learn afresh, nor teach anew, but only to bid farewell to their own
bodies,--and thus be dumb.

"Body am I, and soul"--so saith the child. And why should one not speak
like children?

But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and
nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body."

The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a
peace, a flock and a shepherd.

An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which
thou callest "spirit"--a little instrument and plaything of thy big
sagacity.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater
thing--in which thou art unwilling to believe--is thy body with its big
sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.

What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end
in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are
the end of all things: so vain are they.

Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there
is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it
hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.

Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth,
conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler.

Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord,
an unknown sage--it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy
body.

There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then
knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?

Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings. "What are these
prancings and flights of thought unto me?" it saith to itself. "A by-way