To the preachers of morals. – I do not want to moralize, but to those who do, I give this advice: if you want eventually to deprive the best things and situations of all their worth, then keep talking about them the way you have been! Place them at the top of your morality and talk from morning till night about the bliss of happiness, the tranquillity of the soul, about justice and immanent retribution – the way you carry on, all these good things will finally attain a popularity and street-clamour of their own, but at the same time all the gold that was on them will have worn off through handling, and all the gold inside will have turned to lead. Verily, you know the art of alchemy in reverse, the devaluation of what is most valuable! Sometime you should try a different prescription to avoid reaching the opposite of what you seek, as you have so far: deny these good things; withdraw from them the mob’s acclaim and their easy currency; make them once again the hidden modesty of solitary souls; say that morality is something forbidden! That way you might win over for these things the kind of people who alone matter; I mean the heroic. But then there must be something in them that provokes fear and not, as hitherto, disgust! Isn’t it time to say of morality what Master Eckhart said: ‘I ask God to rid me of God!’8