It is our task, then, to procreate this synthetic man, who embodies everything and justifies it, and for whom the rest of mankind is but soil; to bring the philosopher, the artist, and the saint, within and without us, to the light, and to strive thereby for the completion of nature. In this cultivation lies the meaning of culture: the direction of all life to the end of producing the finest possible individuals. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; his very essence is to create a being higher than himself; that is the instinct of procreation, the instinct of action and of work. Even the higher man himself feels this need of begetting; and for lesser men all virtue and morals lie in preparing the way that the superman may come. There is no greater horror than the degenerating soul which says, “All for myself.” In this great purpose, too, is the essence of a better religion, and a surpassing of the bounds of narrow individualism; with this purpose there come moments, sparks from the clear fire of love, in whose light we understand the word “I” no longer; we feel that we are creating, and therefore in a sense becoming, something greater than ourselves.[249] How to make straight the way for the superman? First by reforming marriage. Let it be understood at once that love is a hindrance rather than a help to such marriages as are calculated to breed higher men. To regard a thing as beautiful is necessarily to regard it falsely; that is why love-marriages are from the social point of view the most unreasonable form of matrimony. Were there a benevolent God, the marriages of men would cause him more displeasure than anything else; he would observe that all buyers are careful, but that even the most cunning one buys his wife in a sack; and surely he would cause the earth to tremble in convulsions when a saint and a goose couple. When a man is in love, he should not be allowed to come to a decision about his life, and to determine once for all the character of his lifelong society on account of a whim. If we treated marriage seriously, we would publicly declare invalid the vows of lovers, and refuse them permission to marry. We would remake public opinion, so that it would encourage trial marriage; we would exact certificates of health and good ancestry; we would punish bachelorhood by longer military service, and would reward with all sorts of privileges those fathers who should lavish sons upon the world. And above all we would make people understand that the purpose of marriage is not that they should duplicate, but that they should surpass, themselves. Perhaps we would read to them from _Zarathustra_, with fitting ceremonies and solemnities: “Thou art young, and wishest for child and marriage. But I ask thee, art thou a man who dareth to wish for a child? Art thou the victorious one, the self-subduer, the commander of thy senses, the master of thy virtues?--or in thy wish doth there speak the animal, or