All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)—on the whole, this is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra’s ears like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance).
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Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair.
Temptations to return prematurely to the world—thanks to the provocation of one’s sympathies.
1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:—he who has unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many peoples,—the good European.
2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for anything,—who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,—he offers himself as an instrument.
3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to be seen, he is ashamed of himself.
4. He who honours facts (“the brain of a leech”), the most subtle intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty conscience,—he wants to get rid of himself.
5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,—he chooses loneliness and the severity of knowledge.