nkind--when a
man feels the divine spark in his heart and believes that he is the
mouthpiece of supernatural imperatives--when such a mission inflames
him, it is only natural that he should stand beyond all merely
reasonable standards of judgment. He feels that he is _himself_
sanctified by this mission, that he is himself a type of a higher
order!... What has a priest to do with philosophy! He stands far above
it!--And hitherto the priest has _ruled_!--He has determined the meaning
of "true" and "not true"!...

13.

Let us not underestimate this fact: that _we
ourselves_, we free spirits, are already a "transvaluation of all
values," a _visualized_ declaration of war and victory against all the
old concepts of "true" and "not true." The most valuable intuitions are
the last to be attained; the most valuable of all are those which
determine _methods_. All the methods, all the principles of the
scientific spirit of today, were the targets for thousands of years of
the most profound contempt; if a man inclined to them he was excluded
from the society of "decent" people--he passed as "an enemy of God," as
a scoffer at the truth, as one "possessed." As a man of science, he
belonged to the Chandala[2].... We have had the whole pathetic stupidity
of mankind against us--their every notion of what the truth _ought_ to
be, of what the service of the truth _ought_ to be--their every "thou
shalt" was launched against us.... Our objectives, our methods, our
quiet, cautious, distrustful manner--all appeared to them as absolutely
discreditable and contemptible.--Looking back, one may almost ask one's
self with reason if it was not actually an _aesthetic_ sense that kept
men blind so long: what they demanded of the truth was picturesque
effectiveness, and of the learned a strong appeal to their senses. It
was our _modesty_ that stood out longest against their taste.... How
well they guessed that, these turkey-cocks of God!

[2] The lowest of the Hindu castes.

14.

We have unlearned something. We have become more modest in every way. We
no longer derive man from the "spirit," from the "godhead"; we have
dropped him back among the beasts. We regard him as the strongest of the
beasts because he is the craftiest; one of the results thereof is his
intellectuality. On the other hand, we guard ourselves against a conceit
which would assert itself even here: that man is the great second
thought in the process of organic evolution.