13. Chapter

Let us not underestimate this: we ourselves, we free spirits, are already a "revaluation of all values," a flesh-and-blood declaration of war and victory against all old concepts of "true" and "untrue." The most valuable insights are found last; but the most valuable insights are the methods. All methods, all foundations of our current scientific nature have had the deepest contempt directed against them for millennia; because of them, one was excluded from association with "honest" people, - one was considered an "enemy of God," a scorner of truth, a "possessed one." As a scientific character, one was a Chandala outcast ... We have had the entire pathos of humanity against us - their concept of what truth should be, what the service of truth should be: every "thou shalt" was hitherto directed against us... Our objects, our practices, our quiet, cautious, mistrustful way - everything seemed to them perfectly unworthy and contemptible. - Finally, one might, with some fairness, ask oneself if it was not actually an aesthetic taste that has held humanity in such long blindness: it demanded a picturesque effect from truth, it demanded likewise from the one who knows that he should act strongly upon the senses. Our modesty offended its taste for the longest time... Oh, how they guessed that, these turkeys of God - -

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