_Evil._--Test the life of the best and most productive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly heavenward can dispense with bad weather and tempests: whether disfavour and opposition from without, whether every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the _favouring_ circumstances without which a great growth even in virtue is hardly possible? The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual--and he does not call it poison. 20. _Dignity of Folly._--Several millenniums further on in the path of the last century!--and in everything that man does the highest prudence will be exhibited: but just thereby prudence will have lost all its dignity. It will then, sure enough, be necessary to be prudent, but it will also be so usual and common, that a more fastidious taste will feel this necessity as _vulgarity._ And just as a tyranny of truth and science would be in a position to raise the value of falsehood, a tyranny of prudence could force into prominence a new species of nobleness. To be noble--that might then mean, perhaps, to be capable of follies. 21. _To the Teachers of Unselfishness._--The virtues of a man are called _good,_ not in respect to the results they have for himself, but in respect to the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for society:--we have all along had very little unselfishness, very little "non-egoism" in our praise of the virtues! For otherwise it could not but have been seen that the virtues (such as diligence, obedience, chastity, piety, justice) are mostly _injurious_ to their possessors, as impulses which rule in them too vehemently and ardently, and do not want to be kept in co-ordination with the other impulses by the reason. If you have a virtue, an actual, perfect virtue (and not merely a kind of impulse towards virtue!)--you are its _victim!_ But your neighbour praises your virtue precisely on that account! One praises the diligent man though he injures his sight, or the originality and freshness of his spirit, by his diligence; the youth is honoured and regretted who has "worn himself out by work," because one passes the judgment that "for society as a whole the loss of the best individual is only a small sacrifice! A pity that this sacrifice should be necessary! A much greater pity it is true, if the individual should think differently and regard his preservation and development as more important than his work in the service of society!" And so one regrets this youth, not on his own account, but because a devoted _instrument,_ regardless of self--a so-called "good man," has been lost to society by his death. Perhaps one further considers the question, whether it would not have been more advantageous for the interests of society if he had laboured with less disregard of himself, and had preserved himself longer-indeed one readily admits