Three metamorphoses of the spirit I name to you: how the spirit becomes a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion finally a child.

There are many heavy things for the spirit, for the strong and robust spirit which is full of respect: its strength demands the heavy and the heaviest. What is heavy? asks the robust spirit, and it kneels like the camel and wants to be well-loaded. What is the heaviest thing, O hero? asks the robust spirit, that I may take it upon myself and rejoice in my strength.

Is it not this: to humble oneself to hurt one's pride? To let one's folly shine so as to mock one's wisdom? Or else: to part from our cause when it triumphs? To climb high mountains to tempt the tempter? Or else: to feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge and suffer the hunger of the soul for the sake of truth? Or else: to be sick and send away the comforters, and make friends with the deaf who never hear what you want? Or else: to descend into dirty water when it is the water of truth, and not push away the cold frogs and hot toads? Or else: to love those who despise us and reach out a hand to the ghost when it wants to frighten us?

All these heaviest things the robust spirit takes upon itself: like the camel that hastens into the desert, laden with its burden, so it hastens into its desert.

But in the loneliest desert the second metamorphosis takes place: the spirit becomes a lion, it wants to conquer freedom and be master in its own desert. It seeks its last master: it wants to become its enemy and its last god. It wants to struggle for victory with the great dragon. What is the great dragon which the spirit no longer wishes to call master or god? "Thou shalt" is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says "I will". "Thou shalt" lies in its path, covered with scales of gold, shining like gold, and on every scale "Thou shalt" glitters.

Millennial values shine upon those scales, and the mightiest of dragons says to them: "All the value of things shines upon me." - "All values are already created, and every created value, that is me. In truth, there shall be no more 'I will'!" Thus speaks the dragon.

My brothers, why must there be the lion in the spirit? Why is the robust animal, that renounces and respects, not enough? To create new values - even the lion is not yet capable of that: but to create for oneself freedom for a new creation - that is what the power of the lion can do. To create for oneself freedom and a sacred "No" even to duty: for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To conquer the right to create new values - that is the most terrible conquest for a patient and respectful spirit. In truth, it is a theft and the work of a beast of prey. It once loved "thou shalt" as its most sacred good: now it must find illusion and arbitrariness even in the most sacred, so as to wrest freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this prey.

But tell me, my brothers, what can the child do that the lion itself could not do? Why must the掠-taking lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling out of itself, a first movement, a sacred affirmation. Yes, for the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred affirmation is needed: the spirit now wills its own will, he who has lost the world wants to win his own world.

Three metamorphoses of the spirit I have named to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion finally a child.