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Thus Spake ZarathustraIdeasLibrary
First Part · XV. The Thousand and One Goals

A thousand goals, but no one goal

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Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones—“good” and “bad” are they called.

Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and blaming. Tell me, ye brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put a fetter upon the thousand necks of this animal?

A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal.

But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking—humanity itself?—

Zarathustra repeats his finding about the creations of the loving ones and asks who will fetter the thousand necks of this animal. There have been a thousand goals for a thousand peoples but no one goal, and without a goal humanity itself may be lacking.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

All morality is expediencyH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues, citing Zarathustra's account of the tables of many peoples, that every moral code is a changing expression of a people's expediency and will to power, that a people's god merely reflects its current ideas, and that the Ten Commandments are no more immutable than acts of Parliament.

All morality is expediencyH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues, citing Zarathustra's account of the tables of many peoples, that every moral code is a changing expression of a people's expediency and will to power, that a people's god merely reflects its current ideas, and that the Ten Commandments are no more immutable than acts of Parliament.

Morality as means to power; modern goallessnessAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici says that 'The Thousand and One Goals' opens Zarathustra's doctrine of moral relativity, declaring all morality a means to power, with verses on the Greeks, Persians, Jews and Germans, and that its close diagnoses the root of modern nihilism: man has no goal.