ON THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY

ON THE DESPISERS OF THE BODY

I WANT TO SPEAK to the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently, but merely say farewell to their own bodies-and thus become silent.

“Body am I, and soul”—so says the child. And why should one not speak like children?

But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something about the body.”5

The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and also a shepherd.

An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you call “spirit”—a little instrument and toy of your great reason.

“I,” you say, and are proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which you are unwilling to believe-is your body with its great reason; it says not “I,” but does it.

What the sense feels, what the spirit discerns, never has its end in itself. But sense and spirit would like to persuade you that they are the end of all things: that is how vain they are.

Instruments and toys are sense and spirit: behind them still lies the self. The self also seeks with the eyes of the senses, it also listens with the ears of the spirit.

Always the self listens and seeks; it compares, masters, conquers, and destroys. It rules, and is in control of the “I” too.

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage-his name is self; he dwells in your body, he is your body.

There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. And who knows why your body requires precisely your best wisdom ?

Your self laughs at your “I” and its bold leaps. “What are these leaps and flights of thought to me?” it says to itself. “A detour to my end. I am the leading strings of the ‘I’, and the prompter of its concepts.”

The self says to the “I”: “Feel pain!” And at that it suffers, and thinks how it may put an end to it—and for that very purpose it is made to think.

The self says to the “I”: “Feel pleasure!” At that it is pleased, and thinks how it might often be pleased again-and for that very purpose it is made to think.

I want to speak to the despisers of the body. It is their respect that produces their contempt. What is it that created respect and contempt and worth and will?

The creating self created respect and contempt, it created pleasure and pain. The creative body created spirit as a hand for its will.

Even in your folly and contempt you each serve your self, you despisers of the body. I tell you, your self itself wants to die and turns away from life.

No longer can your self do that which it desires most:-to create beyond itself. That is what it would do above all else; that is its fervent desire.

But it is now too late to do so:-so your self wants to go under, you despisers of the body.

To go under—so wishes your self; and therefore you have become despisers of the body. For you can no longer create beyond yourselves.

And therefore now you are angry with life and with the earth. An unconscious envy is in the squint-eyed glance of your contempt.

I shall not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are no bridge to the Übermensch!—

Thus spoke Zarathustra.