What, I ask you, is the difference between good and evil? Do not misunderstand me, for when I talk about evil I do not speak of "meanness" or aggression for the sake of aggression, for these are the hallmarks of bullies and children. Evil has nothing to do with being mean; how can I make this clear? Good and evil are mirror images of each other, with both of them originating in the self; they are essentially the very same thing. When you look in a mirror, what you see if a reversed image of yourself but it is yourself nonetheless—that image in the mirror is as real as the person standing before the mirror; every detail in the mirror is both wholly opposite and wholly the same as your self’s own details. There is no difference; and no person, when presented with both a reflection of someone and that someone himself, can tell the difference—yet are they not wholly dissimilar to you?

I say to you: I have been hurt more deeply and more often by good than I have by evil. Goodness, in the full sense of the word, is sickening to a real soul; extreme goodness is a quality not to be sought after and not to be admired. The good person fritters around like the summer butterfly, landing on this flower now and that flower later, flying maddeningly happily from the one destination to the other, bowing not to ostentation and in fact, many times over, embellishing this very grotesque ostentation to an often intolerable degree. The good person does not realize that not only the butterfly, but also his flowers, are here all but an instant in time’s passing, soon to die and be forgotten. All too often, happiness is achieved only when the "good" soul shows everyone around him that he is indeed happy—he forces his own happiness down the throats of everyone, for only when others know of his happiness can he be happy. All too often, his happiness comes to be defined only by its appearance to others—only if others think him happy can he be happy. Thus, as in most things in life, the essence of this "goodness" is framed solely in the realm of slave morality. I will speak much more in the future on slave morality because it is the greatest danger known to man, but for now only try to see that a "good" person’s happiness relies not on himself but on the opinions of others. Is this to be admired?

The good person, quite naturally, wants those around him to be as happy as himself, and this is the source of great danger involved with life. Why does this person want everyone else to be as happy as he is? Can it be truly humanitarian? Or, I ask you, does he desire this very thing for purely selfish reasons? The good person knows that anyone whom he makes as happy as himself will adore his mentor and lavish praise upon him as the soul who "showed me the way." Likewise, even should he fail to spread his joy round about, the good person will be able to say to himself that he tried to make others happy and thus his own self-image as a great humanitarian will be raised. It really matters little if he succeeds in spreading his secrets of happiness because the mere attempt convinces him that he must truly be a great human being. It is all selfishness. What do we see has occurred once our wonderful humanitarian has made others happy? What we have are individuals who have become "just like" our hero. How else can they be truly happy unless they are made by him in his own image? He would have all people exactly the same as himself, for how else, he feels, can they be happy? The danger inherent in this process is almost unimaginably catastrophic; the danger is slave morality, the creation of a bunch of sheep who all follow the same leader, and it takes little more than a whistle to get this group mounted up and on the move. Sheep are stupid, and they will follow anyone who leads them. Our false prophet of happiness is, in actuality, the pied piper of disaster because his doctrine necessarily teaches the eradication of individualism. Happiness, like Communism, is the servant of slave morality and the destroyer of individualism—its end is the crushing of the soul.