is supreme. But the ends do not exist save as we posit them: they are beyond questions of true and false.[1] Here the extraordinary assassin-motto holds: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."[2] But, fourthly, we do not need to have an end given us (by God or nature); we have creative power and can make one ourselves. I say "can," for it is at last a question of strength; perhaps some cannot. Zarathustra draws a picture of the history of man's mind; there are three stages—it is in turn a camel, a lion, and a child. The camel carries, bears what is heavy, dutifully submits, originates nothing, endures all things. The lion wants freedom, gets it, does away with all masters, still is not able to create. The child, however, can; it arises in innocence and oblivion of the past, is a new beginning, a first motion, a wheel turning of its own energy; the child plays, and is equal to the play of creation. The camel represents the old morality, useful, but limited in power; the lion the critical, destructive spirit, also useful, but limited in strength; the child positive creation. Man's mind in its historic course passes through these stages; and now it is the age of the child.[3] Fifthly, as to how the mind shall create, what it shall produce, there is in the nature of the case no outside law. It is a matter of choice, of will absolutely, not of will as opposed to reason, for reason makes no deliverances on a supreme question like this [reason is the faculty of reasoning, and proceeds from a starting-point which it presupposes, i.e., finds, but does not create]. In a moral aim, one puts forth one's supreme choice—there is no other basis than this voluntaristic and æsthetic one. Nietzsche sometimes uses this word, "æsthetic," so often repugnant to moral thinkers.[4] His meaning becomes clear in illustrations he uses. For example, we commonly
- ↑ Cf. The Antichristian, § 55 ("There are questions where decision as to truth and untruth is not possible for man; all supreme questions, all ultimate problems of value are beyond human reason").
- ↑ Zarathustra, IV, ix; Genealogy etc.. III, § 24.
- ↑ Zarathustra, I, i. Cf. the high view of man as creator as well as creature in Beyond Good and Evil, § 225.
- ↑ Cf. Mixed Opinons etc., § 329; Dawn of Day, § 114; Joyful Science, §§ 3, 13, 77, 290, 294; Zarathustra, III, iv; xii, § 2; IV, vi; Beyond Good and Evil, § 205; Werke, XII, 64, § 116; 95-6, § 193; XIII, 154, § 363. Morality being a personal choice and the ultimate moral valuation determining the character of one's philosophy, every great philosophy has been a self-confession of its author, a sort of involuntary and unconscious mémoires (Beyond Good and Evil, § 6).
