“ZARATHUSTRA!” cried all of them there assembled, as if with one voice, and burst out at the same time into a great laughter; there arose, however, from them as it were a heavy cloud. Even the magician laughed, and said wisely: “Well! It is gone, mine evil spirit!
And did I not myself warn you against it when I said that it was a deceiver, a lying and deceiving spirit?
Especially when it showeth itself naked. But what can _I_ do with regard to its tricks! Have _I_ created it and the world?
Well! Let us be good again, and of good cheer! And although Zarathustra looketh with evil eye—just see him! he disliketh me—:
—Ere night cometh will he again learn to love and laud me; he cannot live long without committing such follies.
HE—loveth his enemies: this art knoweth he better than any one I have seen. But he taketh revenge for it—on his friends!”
Thus spake the old magician, and the higher men applauded him; so that Zarathustra went round, and mischievously and lovingly shook hands with his friends,—like one who hath to make amends and apologise to every one for something. When however he had thereby come to the door of his cave, lo, then had he again a longing for the good air outside, and for his animals,—and wished to steal out.
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that by making the conscientious specialist the only one to resist the magician's melancholy music, Nietzsche pays high tribute to the honesty of the scientist, and uses the debate on fear to restate that courage is the entire primitive history of man.