, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When one
taketh his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him his
spirit--so do the people teach. And when one giveth the blind man eyes,
then doth he see too many bad things on the earth: so that he curseth
him who healed him. He, however, who maketh the lame man run, inflicteth
upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices
run away with him--so do the people teach concerning cripples. And why
should not Zarathustra also learn from the people, when the people learn
from Zarathustra?

It is, however, the smallest thing unto me since I have been amongst
men, to see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a
leg, and that others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.

I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that I
should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent about
some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that they have
too much of one thing--men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big
mouth, or a big belly, or something else big,--reversed cripples, I call
such men.

And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over
this bridge, then I could not trust mine eyes, but looked again and
again, and said at last: "That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!" I
looked still more attentively--and actually there did move under the ear
something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this
immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk--the stalk, however, was a
man! A person putting a glass to his eyes, could even recognise further
a small envious countenance, and also that a bloated soullet dangled at
the stalk. The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a
man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when
they spake of great men--and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed
cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.

When Zarathustra had spoken thus unto the hunchback, and unto those of
whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to
his disciples in profound dejection, and said:

Verily, my friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and
limbs of human beings!

This is the terrible thing to mine eye, that I find man broken up, and
scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.

And when mine eye fleeth from the present to