The revenge against the spirit and other ulterior motives of morality. – Morality – where do you suppose that it finds its most dangerous and insidious advocates?…There is a human being who has turned out badly, who does not have spirit enough to be able to enjoy it and just enough education to know this; bored, weary, a self-despiser; wealthy through inheritance, he is deprived even of the last comfort, ‘the blessings of work’, self-forgetfulness in ‘daily labour’. Such a person who is basically ashamed of his existence – perhaps he also harbours a few small vices – and on the other hand cannot keep himself from becoming more spoiled and touchy as a result of reading books he has no right to or through more spiritual company than he can digest: such a thoroughly poisoned human being – for spirit becomes poison, education becomes poison; ownership becomes poison, loneliness becomes poison in persons who have turned out badly in this way – eventually ends up in a state of habitual revenge, the will to revenge…What do you think he finds necessary, absolutely necessary, to give himself in his own eyes the appearance of superiority over more spiritual people and to obtain the pleasure of an accomplished revenge at least in his own imagination? Always morality; you can bet on that. Always big moral words. Always the boom-boom of justice, wisdom, holiness, virtue. Always the Stoicism of gesture (how well Stoicism conceals what one lacks!). Always the cloak of prudent silence, of affability, of mildness, and whatever the other idealistic cloaks may be called under which incurable self-despisers, as well as the incurably vain, go about. Do not misunderstand me: among such born enemies of the spirit emerges occasionally the rare piece of humanity that the people revere under such names as saint and sage. From among such men come those monsters of morality who make noise, who make history – St Augustine33 is among them. Fear of spirit, revenge against spirit – oh how often have these propelling vices become the roots of virtues! Indeed, become virtues! And, as a question asked in confidence: even that philosopher’s claim to wisdom which has been made here and there on earth; the maddest and most immodest of all claims – was it not always, in India as well as in Greece, primarily a hiding place? At times perhaps a hiding place chosen with pedagogical intent, which hallows so many lies; one has a tender regard for those who are still becoming, growing – for disciples who must often be defended against themselves through faith in a person (through an error)…In most cases, however, it is a hiding place in which the philosopher saves himself owing to weariness, age, growing cold, hardening – as a wisdom of that instinct which the animals have before death – they go off alone, become silent, choose solitude, crawl into caves, become wise…What? Wisdom as a hiding place in which the philosopher hides himself from – spirit?