that, on the whole, science up to lately has been in a somewhat backward state, owing to the moral weakness of its disciples, and that henceforth it will have to he pursued with a loftier and more generous feeling. “Do not mind me,” is written over the door of the future thinker.
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The triumph over power.—If we consider all that has hitherto been worshipped as ‘‘superhuman intellect,” as “genius,” we arrive at the sad conclusion that the whole intellectuality of mankind must needs have been extremely low and wretched ; it required very little brains to feel at once considerably superior to theirs! Alas for the cheap glory of “genius.” How quickly has its throne been raised, its worship grown into a custom! We are still on our knees before power—according to the old slave-custom —and yet, when the degree of venerability will have to be fixed, only the degree of rationality in power will be decisive; we have to investigate to what extent power has indeed been overcome by something higher, of which it is now the tool and instrument. But as yet there is an absolute lack of eyes for such investigations ; nay, in most cases the estimation of genius is even considered a crime. And thus perhaps the most beautiful still takes place in the dark and, after bursting into bloom, soon fades into perpetual night. I mean the spectacle of that power which does not dispose of genius with a view to works, but to itself as a work, that is, with a view to its own mastery,
