A "scientific" interpretation of the world as you understand it might consequently still be one of the _stupidest,_ that is to say, the most destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpretations.... An essentially mechanical world would be an essentially _meaningless World!_ 339-340 We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a yet untried future--we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than any healthiness hitherto. 351 Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal, full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one's _right thereto:_ the ideal of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been called holy, good, inviolable, divine; to whom the loftiest conception which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often enough appear _inhuman._ ... 352-353 V "Thus Spake Zarathustra" He student of Nietzsche can well afford to leave the reading of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" _("Also Sprach Zarathustra")_ until he has prepared himself for the task by studying Nietzsche's other and less obscure books. In both its conception and execution it differs markedly from all the works which preceded and followed it. It is written in an archaic and poetical style, and in many places is purposely obscure. Nietzsche did not intend it for the general public, and the fourth part was not published until seven years after its completion. It would have been better had "Zarathustra" been withheld from the presses until Nietzsche's other works had gained a wider recognition, for it unfortunately lays itself open to all manner of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. In fact, it is impossible to read "Thus Spake Zarathustra" comprehendingly until several of the other books of this philosopher, such as "The Dawn of Day," "The Genealogy of Morals" and "Beyond Good and Evil," have been consumed and assimilated.