FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (continued 2)

***

(d) If we abandon the ideas "subject" and "object"; then we must also abandon the idea "substance"—and therefore its various modifications too; for instance: "matter," "spirit," and other hypothetical things, "eternity and the immutability of matter," etc. We are then rid of materiality.

***

From a moral standpoint the world is false. But inasmuch as morality itself is a part of this world, morality also is false. The will to truth is a process of establishing things, it is a process of making things true and lasting, a total elimination of that false character, a transvaluation of it into being. Thus, "truth" is not something which is present and which has to be found and discovered; it is something which has to be created and which gives its name to a process, or, better still, to the Will to overpower, which in itself has no purpose: to introduce truth is a processus in infinitum, an active determining—it is not a process of becoming conscious of something, which in itself is fixed and determined. It is merely a word for "The Will to Power."

Life is based on the hypothesis of a belief in stable and regularly recurring things, the mightier it is, the more vast must be the world of knowledge and the world called being. Logicising, rationalising, and systematising are of assistance as means of existence.

Man projects his instinct of truth, his "aim," to a certain extent beyond himself, in the form of a metaphysical world of Being, a "thing-in-itself," a world already to hand. His requirements as a creator make him invent the world in which he works in advance; he anticipates it: this anticipation (this faith in truth) is his mainstay.

***

All phenomena, movement, Becoming, regarded as the establishment of relations of degree and of force, as a contest....

***

As soon as we fancy that some one is responsible for the fact that we are thus and thus, etc. (God, Nature), and that we ascribe our existence, our happiness, our misery, our destiny, to that some one, we corrupt the innocence of Becoming for ourselves. We then have some one who wishes to attain to something by means of us and with us.

***

The "welfare of the individual" is just as fanciful as the "welfare of the species": the first is not sacrificed to the last; seen from afar, the species is just as fluid as the individual. "The preservation of the species" is only a result of the growth of the species—that is to say, of the overcoming of the species on the road to a stronger kind.

***

Theses:—The apparent conformity of means to end ("the conformity of means to end which far surpasses the art of man) is merely the result of that "Will to Power" which manifests itself in all phenomena:—To become stronger involves a process of ordering, which may well be mistaken for an attempted conformity of means to end:—The ends which are apparent are not intended but, as soon as a superior power prevails over an inferior power, and the latter proceeds to work as a function of the former, an order of rank is established, an organisation which must give rise to the idea that there is an arrangement of means and ends.

Against apparent "necessity":—

This is only an expression for the fact that a certain power is not also something else.

Against the apparent conformity of means to ends":—

The latter is only an expression for the order among the spheres of power and their interplay.

(i) The Thing-in-Itself and Appearance.

553.

The foul blemish on Kant's criticism has at last become visible even to the coarsest eyes: Kant had no right to his distinction "appearance" and "thing-in-itself,"—in his own writings he had deprived himself of the right of differentiating any longer in this old and hackneyed manner, seeing that he had condemned the practice of drawing any conclusions concerning the cause of an appearance from the appearance itself, as unallowable in accordance with his conception of the idea of causality and its purely intraphenomenal validity, and this conception, on the other hand, already anticipates that differentiation, as if the "thing in itself" were not only inferred but actually given.

554.

It is obvious that neither things-in-themselves nor appearances can be related to each other in the form of cause and effect: and from this it follows that the concept "cause and effect" is not applicable in a philosophy which believes in things-in-themselves and in appearances. Kant's mistake—... As a matter of fact, from a psychological standpoint, the concept "cause and effect" is derived from an attitude of mind which believes it sees the action of will upon will everywhere, which believes only in living things, and at bottom only in souls (not in things). Within the mechanical view of the world (which is logic and its application to space and time) that concept is reduced to the mathematical formula with which—and this is a fact which cannot be sufficiently emphasised—nothing is ever understood, but rather defined—deformed.

555.

The greatest of all fables is the one relating to knowledge. People would like to know how things-in-themselves are constituted: but behold, there are no things-in-themselves! But even supposing there were an "in-itself," an unconditional thing, it could on that very account not be known! Something unconditioned cannot be known: otherwise it would not be unconditioned! Knowing, however, is always a process of "coming into relation with something"; the knowledge-seeker, on this principle, wants the thing, which he would know, to be nothing to him, and to be nothing to anybody at all: and from this there results a contradiction,—in the first place, between this will to know, and this desire that the thing to be known should be nothing to him (wherefore know at all then?); and secondly, because something which is nothing to anybody, does not even exist, and therefore cannot be known. Knowing means: "to place one's self in relation with something," to feel one's self conditioned by something and one's self conditioning it under all circumstances, then, it is a process of making stable or fixed, of defining, of making conditions conscious (not a process of sounding things, creatures, or objects in-themselves).

556.

A "thing-in-itself" is just as absurd as a "sense-in-itself," a "meaning-in-itself." There is no such thing as a "fact-in-itself," for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact.

The answer to the question, "What is that?" is a process of fixing a meaning from a different standpoint. The "essence" the "essential factor," is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is "What is that for me?" (for us, for everything that lives, etc. etc.).

A thing would be defined when all creatures had asked and answered this question, "What is that?" concerning it. Supposing that one single creature, with its own relations and standpoint in regard to all things, were lacking, that thing would still remain undefined.

In short: the essence of a thing is really only an opinion concerning that "thing." Or, better still; "it is worth" is actually what is meant by "it is" or by "that is."

One may not ask: "Who interprets, then?" for the act of interpreting itself as a form of the Will to Power, manifests itself (not as "Being," but as a process, as Becoming) as a passion.

The origin of "things" is wholly the work of the idealising, thinking, willing, and feeling subject. The concept thing as well as all its attributes.—Even "the subject" is a creation of this order, a "thing" like all others: a simplification, aiming at a definition of the power that fixes, invents, and thinks, as such, as distinct from all isolated fixing, inventing, and thinking. Thus a capacity defined or distinct from all other individual capacities; at bottom action conceived collectively in regard to all the action which has yet to come (action and the probability of similar action).

557.

The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other "things."

If one imagines other "things" to be non-existent, a thing has no qualities.

That is to say; there is nothing without other things.

That is to say; there is no "thing-in-itself."

558.

The thing-in-itself is nonsense. If I think all the "relations," all the "qualities" all the "activities" of a thing, away, the thing itself does not remain: for "thingness" was only invented fancifully by us to meet certain logical needs—that is to say, for the purposes of definition and comprehension (in order to correlate that multitude of relations, qualities, and activities).

559.

"Things which have a nature in themselves"—a dogmatic idea, which must be absolutely abandoned.

560.

That things should have a nature in themselves, quite apart from interpretation and subjectivity, is a perfectly idle hypothesis: it would presuppose that interpretation and the act of being subjective are not essential, that a thing divorced from all its relations can still be a thing.

Or, the other way round: the apparent objective character of things; might it not be merely the result of a difference of degree within the subject perceiving?—could not that which changes slowly strike us as being objective, lasting, Being, "in-itself"?—could not the objective view be only a false way of conceiving things and a contrast within the perceiving subject?

561.

If all unity were only unity as organisation. But the "thing" in which we believe was invented only as a substratum to the various attributes. If the thing "acts," it means: we regard all the other qualities which are to hand, and which are momentarily latent, as the cause accounting for the fact that one individual quality steps forward—that is to say, we take the sum of its qualities—x—as the cause of the quality x; which is obviously quite absurd and imbecile!

All unity is only so in the form of organisation and collective action: in the same way as a human community is a unity—that is to say, the reverse of atomic anarchy; thus it is a body politic, which stands for one, yet is not one.

562.

"At some time in the development of thought, a point must have been reached when man became conscious of the fact that what he called the qualities of a thing were merely the sensations of the feeling subject: and thus the qualities ceased from belonging to the thing." The "thing-in-itself" remained over. 'The distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, is based upon that older and artless observation which would fain grant energy to things: but analysis revealed that even force was only ascribed to them by our fancy, as was also—substance. "The thing affects a subject?" Thus the root of the idea of substance is in language, not in things outside ourselves! The thing-in-itself is not a problem at all!

Being will have to be conceived as a sensation which is no longer based upon anything quite devoid of sensation.

In movement no new meaning is given to feeling. That which is, cannot be the substance of movement: it is therefore a form of Being.

N.B.—The explanation of life may be sought, in the first place, through mental images of phenomena which precede it (purposes);

Secondly, through mental images of phenomena which follow behind it (the mathematico-physical explanation).

The two should not be confounded. Thus: the physical explanation, which is the symbolisation of the world by means of feeling and thought, cannot in itself make feeling and thinking originate again and show its derivation: physics must rather construct the world of feeling, consistently without feeling or purpose right up to the highest man. And teleology is only a history of purposes, and is never physical.

563.

Our method of acquiring "knowledge" is limited to a process of establishing quantities, but we can by no means help feeling the difference of quantity as differences of quality. Quality is merely a relative truth for us; it is not a "thing-in-itself."

Our senses have a certain definite quantum as a mean, within the limits of which they perform their functions—that is to say, we become conscious of bigness and smallness in accordance with the conditions of our existence. If we sharpened or blunted our senses tenfold, we should perish—that is to say, we feel even proportions as qualities in regard to our possibilities of existence.

564.

But could not all quantities be merely tokens of qualities? Another consciousness and scale of desires must correspond to greater power in fact, another point of view; growth in itself is the expression of a desire to become more; the desire for a greater quantum springs from a certain quale, in a purely quantitative world, everything would be dead, stiff, and motionless.—The reduction of all qualities to quantities is nonsense: it is discovered that they can only stand together, an analogy—

565.

Qualities are our insurmountable barriers; we cannot possibly help feeling mere differences of quantity as something fundamentally different from quantity—that is to say, as qualities, which we can no longer reduce to terms of quantity. But everything in regard to which the word "knowledge" has any sense at all, belongs to the realm of reckoning, weighing, and measuring, to quantity whereas, conversely, all our valuations (that is to say, our sensations) belong precisely to the realm of qualities, i.e. to those truths which belong to us alone and to our point of view, and which absolutely cannot be "known." It is obvious that every one of us, different creatures, must feel different qualities, and must therefore live in a different world from the rest. Qualities are an idiosyncrasy proper to human nature; the demand that these our human interpretations and values, should be general and perhaps real values, belongs to the hereditary madnesses of human pride.

566.

The "real world," in whatever form it has been conceived hitherto—was always the world of appearance over again.

567.

The world of appearance, i.e. a world regarded in the light of values; ordered, selected according to values—that is to say, in this case, according to the standpoint of utility in regard to the preservation and the increase of power of a certain species of animals.

It is the point of view, then, which accounts for the character of "appearance." As if a world could remain over, when the point of view is cancelled! By such means relativity would also be cancelled!

Every centre of energy has its point of view of the whole of the remainder of the world—that is to say, its perfectly definite valuation, its mode of action, its mode of resistance. The "world of appearance" is thus reduced to a specific kind of action on the world proceeding from a centre.

But there is no other kind of action: and the "world" is only a word for the collective play of these actions. Reality consists precisely in this particular action and reaction of every isolated factor against the whole.

There no longer remains a shadow of a right to speak here of "appearance." ...

The specific way of reacting is the only way of reacting; we do not know how many kinds and what sort of kinds there are.

But there is no "other," no "real," no essential being,—for thus a world without action and reaction would be expressed....

The antithesis: world of appearance and real world, is thus reduced to the antitheses "world" and "nonentity."

568.

A criticism of the concept "real and apparent world."—Of these two the first is a mere fiction, formed out of a host of imaginary things.

Appearance itself belongs to reality: it is a form of its being; i.e. in a world where there is no such thing as being, a certain calculable world of identical cases must first be created through appearance; a tempo in which observation and comparison is possible, etc.

"Appearance" is an adjusted and simplified world, in which our practical instincts have worked: for us it is perfectly true: for we live in it, we can live in it: this is the proof of its truth as far as we are concerned....

The world, apart from the fact that we have to live in it—the world, which we have not adjusted to our being, our logic, and our psychological prejudices—does not exist as a world "in-itself"; it is essentially a world of relations: under certain circumstances it has a different aspect from every different point at which it is seen: it presses against every point, and every point resists it—and these collective relations are in every case incongruent.

The measure of power determines what being possesses the other measure of power: under what form, force, or constraint, it acts or resists.

Our particular case is interesting enough: we have created a conception in order to be able to live in a world, in order to perceive just enough to enable us to endure life in that world....

569.

The nature of our psychological vision is determined by the fact—

(1) That communication is necessary, and that for communication to be possible something must be stable, simplified, and capable of being stated precisely (above all, in the so-called identical case). In order that it may be communicable, it must be felt as something adjusted, as "recognisable." The material of the senses, arranged by the understanding, reduced to coarse leading features, made similar to other things, and classified with its like. Thus: the indefiniteness and the chaos of sense-impressions are, as it were, made logical.

(2) The phenomenal world is the adjusted world which we believe to be real, Its "reality" lies in the constant return of similar, familiar, and related things, in their rationalised character, and in the belief that we are here able to reckon and determine.

(3) The opposite of this phenomenal world is not "the real world," but the amorphous and unadjustable world consisting of the chaos of sensations—that is to say, another kind of phenomenal; world, a world which to us is "unknowable."

(4) The question how things-in-themselves are constituted, quite apart from our sense-receptivity and from the activity of our understanding, must be answered by the further question: how were we able to know that things existed? "Thingness" is one of our own inventions. The question is whether there are not a good many more ways of creating such a world of appearance—and whether this creating, rationalising, adjusting, and falsifying be not the best-guaranteed reality itself: in short, whether that which "fixes the meaning of things" is not the only reality: and whether the "effect of environment upon us" be not merely the result of such will-exercising subjects.... The other "creatures" act upon us; our adjusted world of appearance is an arrangement and an overpowering of its activities: a sort of defensive measure. The subject alone is demonstrable; the hypothesis might be advanced that subjects are all that exist,—that "object" is only a form of action of subject upon subject ... a modus of the subject.

(k) The Metaphysical Need.

570.

If one resembles all the philosophers that have gone before, one can have no eyes for what has existed and what will exist—one sees only what is. But as there is no such thing as Being; all that the philosophers had to deal with was a host of fancies, this was their "world."

571.

To assert the existence as a whole of things concerning which we know nothing, simply because there is an advantage in not being able to know anything of them, was a piece of artlessness on Kant's part, and the result of the recoil-stroke of certain needs—especially in the realm of morals and metaphysics.

572.

An artist cannot endure reality; he turns away or back from it: his earnest opinion is that the worth of a thing consists in that nebulous residue of it which one derives from colour, form, sound, and thought; he believes that the more subtle, attenuated, and volatile, a thing or a man becomes, the more valuable he becomes: the less real, the greater the worth. This is Platonism: but Plato was guilty of yet further audacity in the matter of turning tables—he measured the degree of reality according to the degree of value, and said: The more there is of "idea" the more there is of Being. He twisted the concept "reality" round and said: "What ye regard as real is an error, and the nearer we get to the 'idea' the nearer we are to 'truth.'"—Is this understood? It was the greatest of all rechristenings: and because Christianity adopted it, we are blind to its astounding features. At bottom, Plato, like the artist he was, placed appearance before Being! and therefore lies and fiction before truth! unreality before actuality!—He was, however, so convinced of the value of appearance, that he granted it the attributes of "Being," "causality," "goodness," and "truth," and, in short, all those things which are associated with value.

The concept value itself regarded as a cause: first standpoint.

The ideal granted all attributes, conferring honour: second standpoint.

573.

The idea of the "true world" or of "God" as absolutely spiritual, intellectual, and good, is an emergency measure to the extent to which the antagonistic instincts are all-powerful....

Moderation and existing humanity is reflected exactly in the humanisation of the gods. The Greeks of the strongest period, who entertained no fear whatever of themselves, but on the contrary were pleased with themselves, brought down their gods to all their emotions.

The spiritualisation of the idea of God is thus very far from being a sign of progress: one is heartily conscious of this when one reads Goethe—in his works the vaporisation of God into virtue and spirit is felt as being upon a lower plane.

574.

The nonsense of all metaphysics shown to reside in the derivation of the conditioned out of the unconditioned.

It belongs to the nature of thinking that it adds the unconditioned to the conditioned, that it invents it—just as it thought of and invented the "ego" to cover the multifariousness of its processes i it measures the world according to a host of self-devised measurements—according to its fundamental fictions "the unconditioned," "end and means," "things," "substances," and according to logical laws, figures, and forms.

There would be nothing which could be called knowledge, if thought did not first so re-create the world into "things" which are in its own image. It is only through thought that there is untruth.

The origin of thought, like that of feelings, cannot be traced: but that is no proof of its primordiality or absoluteness! It simply shows that we cannot get behind it, because we have nothing else save thought and feeling.

575.

To know is to point to past experience: in its nature it is a regressus in infinitum. That which halts (in the face of a so-called causa prima or the unconditioned, etc.) is laziness, weariness.

576.

Concerning the psychology of metaphysics—the influence of fear. That which has been most feared, the cause of the greatest suffering (lust of power, voluptuousness, etc.), has been treated with the greatest amount of hostility by men, and eliminated from the "real" world. Thus the passions have been step by step struck out, God posited as the opposite of evil—that is to say, reality is conceived to be the negation of the passions and the emotions (i.e. nonentity).

Irrationality, impulsive action, accidental action, is, moreover, hated by them (as the cause of incalculable suffering). Consequently they denied this element in the absolute, and interpreted it as absolute "rationality" and "conformity of means to ends."

Change and perishability were also feared; and by this fear an oppressed soul is revealed, full of distrust and painful experiences (the case with Spinoza: a man differently constituted would have regarded this change as a charm).

A nature overflowing and playing with energy, would call precisely the passions, irrationality and change, good in a eudemonistic sense, together with their consequences: danger, contrast, ruin, etc.

577.

Against the value of that which always remains the same (remember Spinoza's artlessness and Descartes' likewise), the value of the shortest and of the most perishable, the seductive flash of gold on the belly of the serpent vita——

578.

Moral values in epistemology itself:—

The faith in reason—why not mistrust?

The "real world" is the good world—why?

Appearance, change, contradiction, struggle, regarded as immoral: the desire for a world which knows nothing of these things.

The transcendental world discovered, so that a place may be kept for "moral freedom" (as in Kant).

Dialectics as the road to virtue (in Plato and Socrates: probably because sophistry was held to be the road to immorality).

Time and space are ideal: consequently there is unity in the essence of things; consequently no sin, no evil, no imperfection, a justification of God.

Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge, in order to keep the moral (particularly the hedonistic) values as the highest.

Augustine does the same, and later Pascal ("corrupted reason"), in favour of Christian values.

Descartes' contempt for everything variable; likewise Spinoza's.

579.

Concerning the psychology of metaphysics.—This world is only apparent: therefore there must be a real world;—this world is conditioned: consequently there must be an unconditioned world;—this world is contradictory: consequently there is a world free from contradiction;—this world is evolving: consequently there is somewhere a static world:—a host of false conclusions (blind faith in reason: if A exists, then its opposite B must also exist). Pain inspires these conclusions: at bottom they are withes that such a world might exist; the hatred of a world which leads to suffering is likewise revealed by the fact that another and better world is imagined: the resentment of the metaphysician against reality is creative here.

The second series of questions: wherefore suffer? ... and from this a conclusion is derived concerning the relation of the real world to our apparent, changing, suffering, and contradictory world: (1) Suffering as the consequence of error: how is error possible? (2) Suffering as the consequence of guilt: how is guilt possible? (A host of experiences drawn from the sphere of nature or society, universalised and made absolute.) But if the conditioned world be causally determined by the unconditioned, then the freedom to err, to be sinful, must also be derived from the same quarter: and once more the question arises, to what purpose? ... The world of appearance, of Becoming, of contradiction, of suffering, is therefore willed; to what purpose?

The error of these conclusions; two contradictory concepts are formed—because one of them corresponds to a reality, the other "must" also correspond to a reality. "Whence" would one otherwise derive its contradictory concept? Reason is thus a source of revelation concerning the absolute.

But the origin of the above contradictions need not necessarily be a supernatural source of reason: it is sufficient to oppose the real genesis of the concepts, this springs from practical spheres, from utilitarian spheres, hence the strong faith it commands (one is threatened with ruin if one's conclusions are not in conformity with this reason; but this fact is no "proof" of what the latter asserts).

The preoccupation of metaphysicians with pain, is quite artless. "Eternal blessedness": psychological nonsense. Brave and creative men never make pleasure and pain ultimate questions—they are incidental conditions: both of them must be desired when one will attain to something. It is a sign of fatigue and illness in these metaphysicians and religious men, that they should press questions of pleasure and pain into the foreground. Even morality in their eyes derives its great importance only from the fact that it is regarded as an essential condition for abolishing pain.

The same holds good of the preoccupation with appearance and error the cause of pain. A superstition that happiness and truth are related (confusion: happiness in "certainty," in "faith").

580.

To what extent are the various epistemological positions (materialism, sensualism, idealism) consequences of valuations? The source of the highest feelings of pleasure ("feelings of value") may also judge concerning the problem of reality!

The measure of positive knowledge is quite a matter of indifference and beside the point; as witness the development of Indici.

The Buddhistic negation of reality in general (appearance pain) is perfectly consistent: undemonstrability, inaccessibility, lack of categories, not only for an "absolute world," but a recognition of the erroneous procedures by means of which the whole concept has been reached. "Absolute reality," "Being in itself," a contradiction. In a world of Becoming, reality is merely a simplification for the purpose of practical ends, or a deception resulting from the coarseness of certain organs, or a variation in the tempo of Becoming.

The logical denial of the world and Nihilism is a consequence of the fact that we must oppose nonentity with Being, and that Becoming is denied. ("Something" becomes.)

581.

Being and Becoming.—"Reason" developed upon a sensualistic basis upon the prejudices of the senses—that is to say, with the belief in the truth of the judgment of the senses.

"Being," as the generalisation of the concept "Life" (breath), "to be animate," "to will," "to act upon," "become."

The opposite is: "to be inanimate," "not to become," "not to will." Thus: "Being" is not opposed to "not-Being," to "appearance," nor is it opposed to death (for only that can be dead which can also live).

The "soul," the "ego," posited as primeval facts; and introduced wherever there is Becoming.

582.

Being—we have no other idea of it than that which we derive from "living."—How then can everything "be" dead?

583.

A.

I see with astonishment that science resigns itself to-day to the fate of being reduced to the world of appearance: we certainly have no organ of knowledge for the real world—be it what it may.

At this point we may well ask: With what organ of knowledge is this contradiction established?...

The fact that a world which is accessible to our organs is also understood to be dependent upon these organs, and the fact that we should understand a world as subjectively conditioned, are no proofs of the actual possibility of an objective world. Who urges us to believe that subjectivity is real or essential?

The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence" is nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always relative to us.

The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real," the correlative valuations "of little value" and "absolutely valuable" have been spread abroad.

The world of appearance does not strike us as a "valuable" world; appearance is on a lower plane than the highest value. Only a "real" world can be absolutely "valuable"....

Prejudice of prejudices! It is perfectly possible in itself that the real nature of things would be so unfriendly, so opposed to the first conditions of life, that appearance is necessary in order to make life possible.... This is certainly the case in a large number of situations—for instance, marriage.

Our empirical world would thus be conditioned, even in its limits to knowledge, by the instinct of self-preservation, we regard that as good, valuable, and true, which favours the preservation of the species....

(a) We have no categories which allow us to distinguish between a real and an apparent world. (At the most, there could exist a world of appearance, but not our world of appearance.)

(b) Taking the real world for granted, it might still be the less valuable to us; for the quantum of illusion might be of the highest order, owing to its value to us as a preservative measure. (Unless appearance in itself were sufficient to condemn anything?)

(c) That there exists a correlation between the degrees of value and the degrees of reality (so that the highest values also possessed the greatest degree of reality), is a metaphysical postulate which starts out with the hypothesis that we know the order of rank among values; and that this order is a moral one. It is only on this hypothesis that truth is necessary as a definition of all that is of a superior value.

B.

It is of cardinal importance that the real world should be suppressed. It is the most formidable inspirer of doubts, and depredator of values, concerning the world which we are: it was our most dangerous attempt heretofore on the life of Life.

War against all the hypotheses upon which a real world has been imagined. The notion that moral values are the highest values, belongs to this hypothesis.

The superiority of the moral valuation would be refuted, if it could be shown to be the result of an immoral valuation—a specific case of real immorality: it would thus reduce itself to an appearance, and as an appearance it would cease from having any right to condemn appearance.

C.

Then the "Will to Truth" would have to be examined psychologically: it is not a moral power, but a form of the Will to Power. This would have to be proved by the fact that it avails itself of every immoral means there is; above all, of the metaphysicians.

At the present moment we are face to face with the necessity of testing the assumption that moral values are the highest values, Method in research is attained only when all moral prejudices have been overcome: it represents a conquest over morality....

584.

The aberrations of philosophy are the outcome of the fact that, instead of recognising in logic and the categories of reason merely a means to the adjustment of the world for utilitarian ends (that is to say, especially, a useful falsification), they were taken to be the criterion of truth—particularly of reality. The "criterion of truth" was, as a matter of fact, merely the biological utility of a systematic falsification of this sort, on principle: and, since a species of animals knows nothing more important than its own preservation, it was indeed allowable here to speak of "truth." Where the artlessness came in, however, was in taking this anthropocentric idiosyncrasy as the measure of things, as the canon for recognising the "real" and the "unreal": in short, in making a relative thing absolute. And behold, all at once, the world fell into the two halves, "real" and "apparent": and precisely that world which man's reason had arranged for him to live and to settle in, was discredited. Instead of using the forms as mere instruments for making the world manageable and calculable, the mad fancy of philosophers intervened, and saw that in these categories the concept of that world is given which does not correspond to the concept of the world in which man lives.... The means were misunderstood as measures of value, and even used as a condemnation of their original purpose....

The purpose was, to deceive one's self in a useful way: the means thereto was the invention of forms and signs, with the help of which the confusing multifariousness of life could be reduced to a useful and wieldy scheme.

But woe! a moral category was now brought into the game: no creature would deceive itself, no creature may deceive itself—consequently there is only a will to truth. What is "truth"?

The principle of contradiction provided the scheme: the real world to which the way is being sought cannot be in contradiction with itself, cannot change, cannot evolve, has no beginning and no end.

That is the greatest error which has ever been committed, the really fatal error of the world: it was believed that in the forms of reason a criterion of reality had been found—whereas their only purpose was to master reality, by misunderstanding it intelligently....

And behold, the world became false precisely owing to the qualities which constitute its reality, namely, change, evolution, multifariousness, contrast, contradiction, war. And thenceforward the whole fatality was there.

1. How does one get rid of the false and merely apparent world? (it was the real and only one).

2. How does one become one's self as remote as possible from the world of appearance? (the concept of the perfect being as a contrast to the real being; or, more correctly still, as the contradiction of life....).

The whole direction of values was towards the slander of life; people deliberately confounded ideal dogmatism with knowledge in general: so that the opposing parties also began to reject science with horror.

Thus the road to science was doubly barred: first, by the belief in the real world; and secondly, by the opponents of this belief. Natural science and psychology were (1) condemned in their objects, (2) deprived of their artlessness....

Everything is so absolutely bound and related to everything else in the real world, that to condemn, or to think away anything, means to condemn and think away the whole. The words "this should not be," "this ought not to be," are a farce.... If one imagines the consequences, one would ruin the very source of Life by suppressing everything which is in any sense whatever dangerous or destructive. Physiology proves this much better!

We see how morality (a) poisons the whole concept of the world, (b) cuts off the way to science, (c) dissipates and undermines all real instincts (by teaching that their root is immoral).

We thus perceive a terrible tool of decadence at work, which succeeds in remaining immune, thanks to the holy names and holy attitudes it assumes.

585.

The awful recovery of our consciousness: not of the individual, but of the human species. Let us reflect; let us think backwards; let us follow the narrow and broad highway.

A.

Man seeks "the truth": a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change, a real world—a world in which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception, variability—-the causes of suffering! He does not doubt that there is such a thing as a world as it ought to be; he would fain find a road to it. (Indian criticism: even the ego is apparent and not real.)

Whence does man derive the concept of reality? —Why does he make variability, deception, contradiction, the origin of suffering; why not rather of his happiness? ...

The contempt and hatred of all that perishes, changes, and varies: whence comes this valuation of stability? Obviously, the will to truth is merely the longing for a stable world.

The senses deceive; reason corrects the errors: therefore, it was concluded, reason is the road to a static state; the most spiritual ideas must be nearest to the "real world."—It is from the senses that the greatest number of misfortunes come they are cheats, deluders, and destroyers.

Happiness can be promised only by Being: change and happiness exclude each other. The loftiest desire is thus to be one with Being. That is the formula for the way to happiness.

In summa: The world as it ought to be exists; this world in which we live is an error—this our world should not exist.

The belief in Being shows itself only as a result: the real primum mobile is the disbelief in Becoming, the mistrust of Becoming, the scorn of all Becoming....

What kind of a man reflects in this way? An unfruitful, suffering kind, a world-weary kind. If we try and fancy what the opposite kind of man would be like, we have a picture of a creature who would not require the belief in Being; he would rather despise it as dead, tedious, and indifferent....

The belief that the world which ought to be, is, really exists, is a belief proper to the unfruitful, who do not wish to create a world as it should be. They take it for granted, they seek for means and ways of attaining to it. "The will to truth"—is the impotence of the will to create.

To recognise that something}Antagonism in

is thus or thus:}the degrees of

To act so that something will}energy in

be thus or thus:}various natures.

The fiction of a world which corresponds to our desires; psychological artifices and interpretations calculated to associate all that we honour and regard as pleasant, with this real world.

"The will to truth" at this stage is essentially the art of interpretation: to which also belongs that interpretation which still possesses strength.

The same species of men, grown one degree poorer, no longer possessed of the power to interpret and to create fictions, produces the Nihilists. A Nihilist is the man who says of the world as it is, that it ought not to exist, and of the world as it ought to be, that it does not exist. According to this, existence (action, suffering, willing, and feeling) has no sense: the pathos of the "in vain" is the Nihilist's pathos—and as pathos it is moreover an inconsistency on the part of the Nihilist.

He who is not able to introduce his will into things, the man without either will or energy, at least invests them with some meaning, i.e. he believes that a will is already in them.

The degree of a man's will-power may be measured from the extent to which he can dispense with the meaning in things, from the extent to which he is able to endure a world without meaning: because he himself arranges a small portion of it.

The philosophical objective view of things may thus be a sign of poverty both of will and of energy. For energy organises what is closest and next; the "scientists," whose only desire is to ascertain what exists, are such as cannot arrange things as they ought to be.

The artists, an intermediary species, they at least set up a symbol of what should exist,—they are productive inasmuch as they actually alter and transform; not like the scientists, who leave everything as it is.

The connection between philosophers and the pessimistic religions; the same species of man (they attribute the highest degree of reality to the things which are valued highest).

The connection between philosophers and moral men and their evaluations (the moral interpretation of the world as the sense of the world: after the collapse of the religious sense).

The overcoming of philosophers by the annihilation of the world of being: intermediary period of Nihilism; before there is sufficient strength present to transvalue values, and to make the world of becoming, and of appearance, the only world to be deified and called good.

B.

Nihilism as a normal phenomenon may be a symptom of increasing strength or of increasing weakness:—

Partly owing to the fact that the strength to create and to will has grown to such an extent, that it no longer requires this collective interpretation and introduction of a sense ("present duties," state, etc.);

Partly owing to the fact that even the creative power necessary to invent sense, declines, and disappointment becomes the ruling condition. The inability to believe in a sense becomes "unbelief."

What is the meaning of science in regard to both possibilities?

(1) It is a sign of strength and self-control; it shows an ability to dispense with healing, consoling worlds of illusion.

(2) It is also able to undermine, to dissect, to disappoint, and to weaken.

C.

The belief in truth, the need of holding to something which is believed to be true: psychological reduction apart from the valuations that have existed hitherto. Fear and laziness.

At the same time unbelief: Reduction. In what way does it acquire a new value, if a real world does not exist at all (by this means the capacity of valuing, which hitherto has been lavished upon the world of being, becomes free once more).

586.

The real and the "apparent" world.

A.

The erroneous concepts which proceed from this concept are of three kinds:—

(a) An unknown world:—we are adventurers, we are inquisitive,—that which is known to us makes us weary (the danger of the concept lies in the fact it suggests that "this" world is known to us....);

(b) Another world, where things are different:—something in us draws comparisons, and thereby our calm submission and our silence lose their value—perhaps all will be for the best, we have not hoped in vain.... The world where things are different—who knows?—where we ourselves will be different....

(c) A real world:—that is the most singular blow and attack which we have ever received; so many things have become encrusted in the word "true," that we involuntarily give these to the "real world"; the real world must also be a truthful world, such a one as would not deceive us or make fools of us; to believe in it in this way is to be almost forced to believe (from convention, as is the case among people worthy of confidence).

***

The concept, "the unknown world," suggests that this world is known to us (is tedious);

The concept, "the other world," suggests that this world might be different, it suppresses necessity and fate (it is useless to submit and to adapt one's self);

The concept, the true world, suggests that this world is untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, not genuine, and not essential, and consequently not a world calculated to be useful to us (it is unadvisable to become adapted to it; better resist it).

***

Thus we escape from "this" world in three different ways:——

(a) With our curiosity—as though the interesting part was somewhere else;

(b) With our submission—as though it was not necessary to submit, as though this world was not an ultimate necessity;

(c) With our sympathy and respect—as though this world did not deserve them, as though it was mean and dishonest towards us....

In summa: we have become revolutionaries in three different ways; we have made x our criticism of the "known world."

B.

The first step to reason: to understand to what extent we have been seduced,—for it might be precisely the reverse:

(a) The unknown world could be so constituted as to give us a liking for "this" world—it may be a more stupid and meaner form of existence.

(b) The other world, very far from taking account of our desires which were never realised here, might be part of the mass of things which this world makes possible for us; to learn to know this world would be a means of satisfying us,

(c) The true world: but who actually says that the apparent world must be of less value than the true world? Do not our instincts contradict this judgment? Is not man eternally occupied in creating an imaginative world, because he will have a better world than reality? In the first place, how do we know that our world is not the true world? ... for it might be that the other world is the world of "appearance" (as a matter of fact, the Greeks, for instance, actually imagined a region of shadows, a life of appearance, beside real existence). And finally, what right have we to establish degrees of reality, as it were? That is something different from an unknown world—that is already the will to know something of the unknown. The "other," the "unknown" world—good! but to speak of the "true world" is as good as "knowing something about it,"—that is the contrary of the assumption of an x-world....

In short, the world x might be in every way a more tedious, a more inhuman, and a less dignified world than this one.

It would be quite another matter if it were assumed that there were several x-worlds—that is to say, every possible kind of world besides our own. But this has never been assumed....

C.

Problem: why has the image of the other world always been to the disadvantage of "this" one—that is to say, always stood as a criticism of it; what does this point to?—

A people that are proud of themselves, and who are on the ascending path of Life, always; picture another existence as lower and less valuable than theirs; they regard the strange unknown world as their enemy, as their opposite; they feel no curiosity, but rather repugnance in regard to what is strange to them.... Such a body of men would never admit that another people were the "true people"....

The very fact that such a distinction is possible,—that this world should be called the world of appearance, and that the other should be called the true world,—is symptomatic.

The places of origin of the idea, of "another world":

The philosopher who invents a rational world where reason and logical functions are adequate:—this is the root of the "true" world.

The religious man who invents a "divine world";—this is the root of the "denaturalised" and the "anti-natural" world.

The moral man who invents a "free world":—this is the root of the good, the perfect, the just, and the holy world.

The common factor in the three places of origin: psychological error, physiological confusion.

With what attributes is the "other world," as it actually appears in history, characterised? With the stigmata of philosophical, religious, and moral prejudices.

The "other world" as it appears in the light of these facts, is synonymous with not-Being, with not-living, with the will not to live....

General aspect: it was the instinct of the fatigue of living, and not that of life, which created the "other world."

Result: philosophy, religion, and morality are symptoms of decadence.

(l) The Biological Value of Knowledge.

587.

It might seem as though I had evaded the question concerning "certainty". The reverse is true: but while raising the question of the criterion of certainty, I wished to discover the weights and measures with which men had weighed heretofore—and to show that the question concerning certainty is already in itself a dependent question, a question of the second rank.

588.

The question of values is more fundamental than the question of certainty: the latter only becomes serious once the question of values has been answered.

Being and appearance, regarded psychologically, yield no "Being in itself," no criterion for reality, but only degrees of appearance, measured according to the strength of the sympathy which we feel for appearance.

There is no struggle for existence between ideas and observations, but only a struggle for supremacy—the vanquished idea is not annihilated, but only driven to the background or subordinated. There is no such thing as annihilation in intellectual spheres.

589.

"End and means" "Cause and effect" "Subject and object" "Action and suffering" "Thing-in-itself and appearance"

As interpretations (not as established facts)—and in what respect were they perhaps necessary interpretations? (as "preservative measures")—all in the sense of a Will to Power.

590.

Our values are interpreted into the heart of things.

Is there, then, any sense in the absolute?

Is not sense necessarily relative-sense and perspective?

All sense is Will to Power (all relative senses may be identified with it).

591.

The desire for "established facts"—Epistemology: how much pessimism there is in it!

592.

The antagonism between the "true world," as pessimism depicts it, and a world in which it were possible to live—for this the rights of truth must be tested. It is necessary to measure all these "ideal forces" according to the standard of life, in order to understand the nature of that antagonism: the struggle of sickly, desperate life, cleaving to a beyond, against healthier, more foolish, more false, richer, and fresher life. Thus it is not "truth" struggling with Life, but one kind of Life with another kind.—But the former would fain be the higher kind!—Here we must prove that some order of rank is necessary,—that the first problem is the order of rank among kinds of Life.

593.

The belief, "It is thus and thus," must be altered into the will, "Thus and thus shall it be."

(m) Science.

594.

Science hitherto has been a means of disposing of the confusion of things by hypotheses which "explain everything"—that is to say, it has been the result of the intellect's repugnance to chaos. This same repugnance takes hold of me when I contemplate myself; I should like to form some kind of representation of my inner world for myself by means of a scheme, and thus overcome intellectual confusion. Morality was a simplification of this sort: it taught man as recognised, as known,—Now we have annihilated morality—we have once more grown completely obscure to ourselves! I know that I know nothing about myself. Physics shows itself to be a boon for the mind: science (as the road to knowledge) acquires a new charm after morality has been laid aside—and owing to the fact that we find consistency here alone, we must order our lives in accordance with it so that it may help us to preserve it. This results in a sort of practical meditation concerning the conditions of our existence as investigators.

595.

Our first principles: no God: no purpose: limited energy. We will take good care to avoid thinking out and prescribing the necessary lines of thought for the lower orders.

596.

No "moral education" of humanity: but the disciplinary school of scientific errors is necessary, because truth disgusts and creates a dislike of life, provided a man is not already irrevocably launched upon his way, and bears the consequences of his honest standpoint with tragic pride.

597.

The first principle of scientific work: faith in the union and continuance of scientific work, so that the individual may undertake to work at any point, however small, and feel sure that his efforts will not be in vain.

There is a great paralysing force: to work in vain, to struggle in vain.

***

The periods of hoarding, when energy and power are stored, to be utilised later by subsequent periods: Science as a half-way house, at which the mediocre, more multifarious, and more complicated beings find their most natural gratification and means of expression: all those who do well to avoid action.

598.

A. philosopher recuperates his strength in a way quite his own, and with other means: he does it, for instance, with Nihilism. The belief that there is no such thing as truth, the Nihilistic belief, is a tremendous relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is unremittingly struggling with a host of hateful truths. For truth is ugly.

599.

The "purposelessness of all phenomena": the belief in this is the result of the view that all interpretations hitherto have been false, it is a generalisation on the part of discouragement and weakness—it is not a necessary belief.

The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he denies that there can be one!

600.

The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a symptom of growth or decline.

Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a sign of strength. One should not desire to deprive the world of its disquieting and enigmatical nature.

601.

Against the desire for reconciliation and peaceableness. To this also belongs every attempt on the part of monism.

602.

This relative world, this world for the eye, the touch, and the ear, is very false, even when adjusted to a much more sensitive sensual apparatus. But its comprehensibility, its clearness, its practicability, its beauty, will begin to near their end if we refine our senses, just as beauty ceases to exist when the processes of its history are reflected upon: the arrangement of the end is in itself an illusion. Let it suffice, that the more coarsely and more superficially it is understood, the more valuable, the more definite, the more beautiful and important the world then seems. The more deeply one looks into it, the further our valuation retreats from our view,-senselessness approaches! We have created the world that has any value! Knowing this, we also perceive that the veneration of truth is already the result of illusion—and that it is much more necessary to esteem the formative, simplifying, moulding, and romancing power.

"All is false—everything is allowed!"

Only as the result of a certain bluntness of vision and the desire for simplicity does the beautiful and the "valuable" make its appearance: in itself it is purely fanciful.

603.

We know that the destruction of an illusion does not necessarily produce a truth, but only one more piece of ignorance; it is the extension of our "empty space," an increase in our "waste."

604.

Of what alone can knowledge consist?—"Interpretation," the introduction of a sense into things, not "explanation" (in the majority of cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation which has grown incomprehensible and little more than a mere sign). There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, everything, is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all things are our opinions.

605.

The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth," the ascertaining of facts in general, is fundamentally different from the creative placing, forming, moulding, subduing, and willing which lies at the root of philosophy. To give a sense to things—this duty always remains over, provided no sense already lies in them. The same holds good of sounds, and also of the fate of nations they are susceptible of the most varied interpretations and turns, for different purposes.

A higher duty is to fix a goal and to mould facts according to it: that is, the interpretation of action, and not merely a transvaluation of concepts.

606.

Man ultimately finds nothing more in things than he himself has laid in them—this process of finding again is science, the actual process of laying a meaning in things, is art, religion, love, pride. In both, even if they are child's play, one should show good courage and one should plough ahead; on the one hand, to find again, on the other,—we are the other,—to lay a sense in things.

607.

Science: its two sides:—

In regard to the individual;

In regard to the complex of culture ("levels of culture")

—antagonistic valuation in regard to this and that side.

608.

The development of science tends ever more to transform the known into the unknown: its aim, however, is to do the reverse, and it starts out with the instinct of tracing the unknown to the known.

In short, science is laying the road to sovereign ignorance, to a feeling that "knowledge" does not exist at all, that it was merely a form of haughtiness to dream of such a thing; further, that we have not preserved the smallest notion which would allow us to class knowledge even as a possibility that "knowledge" is a contradictory idea. We transfer a primeval myth and piece of human vanity into the land of hard facts: we can allow a thing-in-itself as a concept, just as little as we can allow "knowledge-in-itself." The misleading influence of "numbers and logic," the misleading influence of "laws."

Wisdom is an attempt to overcome the perspective valuations (i.e. the "will to power"): it is a principle which is both unfriendly to Life, and also decadent; a symptom in the case of the Indians, etc.; weakness of the power of appropriation.

609.

It does not suffice for you to see in what ignorance man and beast now live; you must also have and learn the desire for ignorance. It is necessary that you should know that without this form of ignorance life itself would be impossible, that it is merely a vital condition under which, alone, a living organism can preserve itself and prosper: a great solid belt of ignorance must stand about you.

610.

Science—the transformation of Nature into concepts for the purpose of governing Nature—that is part of the rubric means.

But the purpose and will of mankind must grow in the same way, the intention in regard to the whole.

611.

Thought is the strongest and most persistently exercised function in all stages of life—and also in every act of perception or apparent experience! Obviously it soon becomes the mightiest and most exacting of all functions, and in time tyrannises over other powers. Ultimately it becomes "passion in itself."

612.

The right to great passion must be reclaimed for the investigator, after self-effacement and the cult of "objectivity" have created a false order of rank in this sphere. Error reached its zenith when Schopenhauer taught: in the release from passion and in will alone lay the road to "truth," to knowledge; the intellect freed from will could not help seeing the true and actual essence of things. The same error in art: as if everything became beautiful the moment it was regarded without will.

613.

The contest for supremacy among the passions, and the dominion of one of the passions over the intellect.

614.

To "humanise" the world means to feel ourselves ever more and more masters upon earth.

615.

Knowledge, among a higher class of beings, will also take new forms which are not yet necessary.

616.

That the worth of the world lies in our interpretations (that perhaps yet other interpretations are possible somewhere, besides mankind's); that the interpretations made hitherto were perspective valuations, by means of which we were able to survive in life, i.e. in the Will to Power and in the growth of power; that every elevation of man involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every higher degree of strength or power attained, brings new views in its train, and teaches a belief in new horizons—these doctrines lie scattered through all my works. The world that concerns us at all is false—that is to say, is not a fact; but a romance, a piece of human sculpture, made from a meagre sum of observation; it is "in flux"; it is something that evolves, a great revolving lie continually moving onwards and never getting any nearer to truth—for there is no such thing as "truth."

617.

Recapitulation:—

To stamp Becoming with the character of Being—this is the highest Will to Power.

The twofold falsification, by the senses on the one hand, by the intellect on the other, with the view of maintaining a world of being, of rest, of equivalent cases, etc.

That everything recurs, is the very nearest approach of a world of Becoming to a world of Being, the height of contemplation.

It is out of the values which have been attributed to Being, that the condemnation of, and dissatisfaction with, Becoming, have sprung: once such a world of Being had been invented.

The metamorphoses of Being (body, God, ideas, natural laws, formulæ, etc.).

"Being" as appearance the twisting round of values: appearance was that which conferred the values.

Knowledge in itself in a world of Becoming is impossible; how can knowledge be possible at all, then? Only as a mistaking of one's self, as will to power, as will to deception.

Becoming is inventing, willing, self-denying, self-overcoming; no subject but an action, it places things, it is creative, no "causes and effects."

Art is the will to overcome Becoming, it is a process of eternalising, but short-sighted, always according to the perspective, repeating, as it were in a small way, the tendency of the whole.

That which all life shows, is to be regarded as a reduced formula for the collective tendency: hence the new definition of the concept "Life" as "will to power."

Instead of "cause and effect," the struggle of evolving factors with one another, frequently with the result that the opponent is absorbed; no constant number for Becoming.

The uselessness of old ideals for the interpretation of all that takes place, once their bestial origin and utility have been recognised, they are, moreover, all hostile to life.

The uselessness of the mechanical theory—it gives the impression that there can be no purpose.

All the idealism of mankind, hitherto, is on the point of turning into Nihilism—may be shown to be a belief in absolute worthlessness, i.e. purposelessness.

The annihilation of ideals, the new desert waste the new arts which will help us to endure it—amphibia that we are!

First principles, bravery, patience, no "stepping-back," not too much ardour to get to the fore. (N.B.—Zarathustra constantly maintaining an attitude of parody towards all former values, as the result of his overflowing energy.)

II.

THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.

1. The Mechanical Interpretation of the World.

618.

Of all the interpretations of the world attempted heretofore, the mechanical one seems to-day to stand most prominently in the front. Apparently it has a clean conscience on its side; for no science believes inwardly in progress and success unless it be with the help of mechanical procedures. Every one knows these procedures: "reason" and "purpose" are allowed to remain out of consideration as far as possible; it is shown that, provided a sufficient amount of time be allowed to elapse, everything can evolve out of everything else, and no one attempts to suppress his malicious satisfaction, when the "apparent design in the fate" of a plant or of the yolk of an egg, may be traced to stress and thrust in short, people are heartily glad to pay respect to this principle of profoundest stupidity, if I may be allowed to pass a playful remark concerning these serious matters. Meanwhile, among the most select intellects to be found in this movement, some presentiment of evil, some anxiety is noticeable, as if the theory had a rent in it, which sooner or later might be its last: I mean the sort of rent which denotes the end of all balloons inflated with such theories.

Stress and thrust themselves cannot be "explained," one cannot get rid of the actio in distans. The belief even in the ability to explain is now lost, and people peevishly admit that one can only describe, not explain that the dynamic interpretation of the world, with its denial of "empty space" and its little agglomerations of atoms, will soon get the better of physicists: although in this way Dynamis is certainly granted an inner quality.

619.

The triumphant concept "energy" with which our physicists created God and the world, needs yet to be completed: it must be given an inner will which I characterise as the "Will to Power"—that is to say, as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and exercise of power as a creative instinct, etc. Physicists cannot get rid of the "actio in distans" in their principles; any more than they can a repelling force (or an attracting one). There is no help for it, all movements, all "appearances," all "laws" must be understood as symptoms of an inner phenomenon, and the analogy of man must be used for this purpose. It is possible to trace all the instincts of an animal to the will to power; as also all the functions of organic life to this one source.

620.

Has anybody ever been able to testify to a force! No, but to effects, translated into a completely strange language. Regularity in sequence has so spoilt us, that we no longer wonder at the wonderful process.

621.

A force of which we cannot form any idea, is an empty word, and ought to have no civic rights in the city of science: and the same applies to the purely mechanical powers of attracting and repelling by means of which we can form an image of the world—no more!

622.

Squeezes and kicks are something incalculably recent, evolved and not primeval. They presuppose something which holds together and can press and strike! But how could it hold together?

623.

There is nothing unalterable in chemistry: this is only appearance, a mere school prejudice. We it was who introduced the unalterable, taking it from metaphysics as usual, Mr. Chemist. It is a mere superficial judgment to declare that the diamond, graphite, and carbon are identical. Why? Simply because no loss of substance can be traced in the scales! Well then, at least they have something in common; but the work of the molecules in the process of changing from one form to the other, an action we can neither see nor weigh, is just exactly what makes one material something different—with specifically different qualities.

624.

Against the physical atom.—In order to understand the world, we must be able to reckon it up; in order to be able to reckon it up, we must be aware of constant causes; but since we find no such constant causes in reality, we invent them for ourselves and call them atoms. This is the origin of the atomic theory.

The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing all phenomena by means of formulæ—is that really "understanding"? What would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?—Thus "constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were therefore invented;—what has been attained thereby?

625.

The mechanical concept of "movement" is already a translation of the original process into the language of symbols of the eye and the touch.

The concept atom, the distinction between the "seat of a motive force and the force itself," is a language of symbols derived from our logical and physical world.

It does not lie within our power to alter our means of expression: it is possible to understand to what extend they are but symptomatic. To demand an adequate means of expression is nonsense: it lies at the heart of a language, of a medium of communication, to express relation only.... The concept "truth" is opposed to good sense. The whole province of truth—falseness only applies to the relations between beings, not to an "absolute." There is no such thing as a "being in itself" (relations in the first place constitute being), any more than there can be "knowledge in itself."

626.

"The feeling of force cannot proceed from movement: feeling in general cannot proceed from movement."

"Even in support of this, an apparent experience is the only evidence: in a substance (brain) feeling is generated through transmitted motion (stimuli). But generated? Would this show that the feeling did not yet exist there at all? so that its appearance would have to be regarded as the creative act of the intermediary—motion? The feelingless condition of this substance is only an hypothesis! not an experience! Feeling, therefore is the quality of the substance: there actually are substances that feel."

"Do we learn from certain substances that they have no feeling? No, we merely cannot tell that they have any. It is impossible to seek the origin of feeling in non-sensitive substance."—Oh what hastiness!

627.

"To attract" and "to repel", in a purely mechanical sense, is pure fiction: a word. We cannot imagine an attraction without a purpose.— Either the will to possess one's self of a thing, or the will to defend one's self from a thing or to repel it—that we "understand"; that would be an interpretation which we could use.

In short, the psychological necessity of believing in causality lies in the impossibility of imagining a process without a purpose: but of course this says nothing concerning truth or untruth (the justification of such a belief)! The belief in causæ collapses with the belief in τέλει (against Spinoza and his causationism).

628.

It is an illusion to suppose that something is known, when all we have is a mathematical formula of what has happened; it is only characterised, described; no more!

629.

If I bring a regularly recurring phenomenon into a formula, I have facilitated and shortened my task of characterising the whole phenomenon, etc. But I have not thereby ascertained a "law," I have only replied to the question: How is it that something recurs here? It is a supposition that the formula corresponds to a complex of really unknown forces and the discharge of forces; it is pure mythology to suppose that forces here obey a law, so that, as the result of their obedience, we have the same phenomenon every time.

630.

I take good care not to speak of chemical "laws": to do so savours of morality. It is much more a question of establishing certain relations of power: the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot maintain its degree of independence,—here there is no pity, no quarter, and, still less, any observance of "law."

631.

The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law," but a relation of power between two or more forces. To say, "But it is precisely this relation that remains the same!" is no better than saying, "One and the same force cannot be another force."—It is not a matter of sequence, but a matter of interdependence, a process in which the procession of moments do not determine each other after the manner of cause and effect....

The separation of the "action" from the "agent"; of the phenomenon from the worker of that phenomenon: of the process from one that is not process, but lasting, substance, thing, body, soul, etc.; the attempt to understand a life as a sort of shifting of things and a changing of places; of a sort of "being" or stable entity: this ancient mythology established the belief in "cause and effect," once it had found a lasting form in the functions of speech and grammar.

632.

The "regularity" of a sequence is only a metaphorical expression, not a fact, just as if a rule were followed here! And the same holds good of "conformity to law." We find a formula in order to express an ever-recurring kind of succession of phenomena: but that does not show that we have discovered a law; much less a force which is the cause of a recurrence of effects. The fact that something always happens thus or thus, is interpreted here as if a creature always acted thus or thus as the result of obedience to a law or to a lawgiver: whereas apart from the "law" it would be free to act differently. But precisely that inability to act otherwise might originate in the creature itself, it might be that it did not act thus or thus in response to a law, but simply because it was so constituted. It would mean simply: that something cannot also be something else; that it cannot be first this, and then something quite different; that it is neither free nor the reverse, but merely thus or thus. The fault lies in thinking a subject into things.

633.

To speak of two consecutive states, the first as "cause," and the second as "effect," is false. The first state cannot bring about anything, the second has nothing effected in it.

It is a question of a struggle between two elements unequal in power: a new adjustment is arrived at, according to the measure of power each possesses. The second state is something fundamentally different from the first (it is not its effect): the essential thing Is, that the factors which engage in the struggle leave it with different quanta of power.

634.

A. criticism of Materialism.—Let us dismiss the two popular concepts, Necessity and Law, from this idea: the first introduces a false constraint, the second a false liberty into the world. "Things" do not act regularly, they follow no rule: there are no things (that is our fiction); neither do they act in accordance with any necessity. There is no obedience here: for, the fact that something is as it is, strong or weak, is not the result of obedience or of a rule or of a constraint....

The degree of resistance and the degree of superior power—this is the question around which all phenomena turn: if we, for our own purposes and calculations, know how to express this in formulas and "laws," all the better for us! But that does not mean that we have introduced any "morality" into the world, just because we have fancied it as obedient.

There are no laws: every power draws its last consequence at every moment. Things are calculable precisely owing to the fact that there is no possibility of their being otherwise than they are.

A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces and the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of existence—it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "Will to Power"; with this formula one can express the character which cannot be abstracted in thought from mechanical order, without suppressing the latter itself in thought.

The translation of the world of effect into a visible world—a world for the eye—is the concept "movement." Here it is always understood that something has been moved,—whether it be the fiction of an atomic globule or even of the abstraction of the latter, the dynamic atom, something is always imagined that has an effect—that is to say, we have not yet rid ourselves of the habit into which our senses and speech inveigled us. Subject and object, an agent to the action, the action and that which does it separated: we must not forget that all this signifies no more than semeiotics and—nothing real. Mechanics as a teaching of movement is already a translation of phenomena into man's language of the senses.

635.

We are in need of "unities" in order to be able to reckon: but this is no reason for supposing that "unities" actually exist. We borrowed the concept "unity" from our concept "ego,"—our very oldest article of faith. If we did not believe ourselves to be unities we should never have formed the concept "thing." Now—that is to say, somewhat late in the day, we are overwhelmingly convinced that our conception of the concept "ego" is no security whatever for a real entity. In order to maintain the mechanical interpretation of the world theoretically, we must always make the reserve that it is with fictions that we do so: the concept of movement (derived from the language of our senses) and the concept of the atom (= entity, derived from our psychical experience) are based upon a sense-prejudice and a psychological prejudice.

Mechanics formulates consecutive phenomena, and it does so semeiologically, in the terms of the senses and of the mind (that all influence is movement; that where there is movement something is at work moving): it does not touch the question of the causal force.

The mechanical world is imagined as the eye and the sense of touch alone could imagine a world (as "moved"),—in such a way as to be calculable,—as to simulate causal entities "things" (atoms) whose effect is constant (the transfer of the false concept of subject to the concept atom).

The mixing together of the concept of numbers, of the concept of thing (the idea of subject), of the concept of activity (the separation of that which is the cause, and the effect), of the concept of movement: all these things are phenomenal; our eye and our psychology are still in it all.

If we eliminate these adjuncts, nothing remains over but dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta: the essence of which resides in their relation to all other quanta, in their "influence" upon the latter. The will to power, not Being, not Becoming, but a pathos—is the elementary fact, from these first results a Becoming, an influencing....

636.

The physicists believe in a "true world" after their own kind; a fixed systematising of atoms to perform necessary movements, and holding good equally of all creatures, so that, according to them, the "world of appearance" reduces itself to the side of general and generally-needed Being, which is accessible to every one according to his kind (accessible and also adjusted,—made "subjective"). But here they are in error. The atom which they postulate is arrived at by the logic of that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself therefore a subjective fiction. This picture of the world which they project is in no way essentially different from the subjective picture: the only difference is, that it is composed simply with more extended senses, but certainly with our senses.... And in the end, without knowing it, they left something out of the constellation: precisely the necessary perspective factor, by means of which every centre of power—and not man alone—constructs the rest of the world from its point of view—that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds it according to its degree of strength.... They forgot to reckon with this perspective-fixing power, in "true being,"—or, in school-terms, subject-being. They suppose that this was "evolved" and added;—but even the chemical investigator needs it: it is indeed specific Being, which determines action and reaction according to circumstances.

Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness. My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related to it—and thus they conspire together for power. And the process continues.

637.

Even in the inorganic world all that concerns an atom of energy is its immediate neighbourhood: distant forces balance each other. Here is the root of perspectivity, and it explains why a living organism is "egoistic" to the core.

638.

Granting that the world disposed of a quantum of force, it is obvious that any transposition of force to any place would affect the whole system—thus, besides the causality of sequence, there would also be a dependence, contiguity, and coincidence.

639.

The only possible way of upholding the sense of the concept "God" would be: to make Him not the motive force, but the condition of maximum power, an epoch; a point in the further development of the Will to Power; by means of which subsequent evolution just as much as former evolution—up to Him—could be explained.

Viewed mechanically, the energy of collective Becoming remains constant; regarded from the economical standpoint, it ascends to its zenith and then recedes therefrom in order to remain eternally rotatory. This "Will to Power" expresses itself in the interpretation in the manner in which the strength is used.—The conversion of energy into life; "life in its highest power" thenceforward appears as the goal. The same amount of energy, at different stages of development, means different things.

That which determines growth in Life is the economy which becomes ever more sparing and methodical, which achieves ever more and more with a steadily decreasing amount of energy.... The ideal is the principle of the least possible expense....

The only thing that is proved is that the world is not striving towards a state of stability. Consequently its zenith must not be conceived as a state of absolute equilibrium....

The dire necessity of the same things happening in the course of the world, as in all other things, is not an eternal determinism reigning over all phenomena, but merely the expression of the fact that the impossible is not possible; that a given force cannot be different from that given force; that a given quantity of resisting force does not manifest itself otherwise than in conformity with its degree of strength;—to speak of events as being necessary is tautological.

2. The Will to Power as Life.

(a) The Organic Process.

640.

Man imagines that he was present at the generation of the organic world: what was there to be observed, with the eyes and the touch, in regard to these processes? How much of it can be put into round numbers? What rules are noticeable in the movements? Thus, man would fain arrange all phenomena as if they were for the eye and for the touch, as if they were forms of motion: he will discover formules wherewith to simplify the unwieldy mass of these experiences.

The reduction of all phenomena to the level of men with senses and with mathematics. It is a matter of making an inventory of human experiences: granting that man, or rather the human eye and the ability to form concepts, have been the eternal witnesses of all things.

641.

A plurality of forces bound by a common nutritive process we call "Life." To this nutritive process all so-called feeling, thinking, and imagining belong as means—that is to say, (1) in the form of opposing other forces; (2) in the form of an adjustment of other forces according to mould and rhythm; (3) the form of a valuation relative to assimilation and excretion.

642.

The bond between the inorganic and the organic world must lie in the repelling power exercised by every atom of energy. "Life" might be defined as a lasting form of force-establishing processes, in which the various contending forces, on their part, grow unequally. To what extent does counter-strife exist even in obedience? Individual power is by no means surrendered through it. In the same way, there exists in the act of commanding, an acknowledgment of the fact that the absolute power of the adversary has not been overcome, absorbed, or dissipated. "Obedience," and "command," are forms of the game of war.

643.

The Will to Power interprets (an organ in the process of formation has to be interpreted): it defines, it determines gradations, differences of power. Mere differences of power could not be aware of each other as such: something must be there which will grow, and which interprets all other things that would do the same, according to the value of the latter. In sooth, all interpretation is but a means in itself to become master of something. (Continual interpretation is the first principle of the organic process.)

644.

Greater complexity, sharp differentiation, the contiguity of the developed organs and functions, with the disappearance of intermediate members—if that is perfection, then there is a Will to Power apparent in the organic process by means of whose dominating, shaping, and commanding forces it is continually increasing the sphere of its power, and persistently simplifying things within that sphere, it grows imperatively.

"Spirit" is only a means and an instrument in the service of higher life, in the service of the elevation of life.

645.

"Heredity," as something quite incomprehensible, cannot be used as an explanation, but only as a designation for the identification of a problem. And the same holds good of "adaptability." As a matter of fact, the account of morphology, even supposing it were perfect, explains nothing, it merely describes an enormous fact. How a given organ gets to be used for any particular purpose is not explained. There is just as little explained in regard to these things by the assumption of causæ finales as by the assumption of causæ efficientes. The concept "causa" is only a means of expression, no more; a means of designating a thing.

646.

They are analogies; for instance, our memory may suggest another kind of memory which makes itself felt in heredity, development, and forms. Our inventive and experimentative powers suggest another kind of inventiveness in the application of instruments to new ends, etc.

That which we call our "consciousness" is quite guiltless of any of the essential processes of our preservation and growth; and no human brain could be so subtle as to construct anything more than a machine—to which every organic process is infinitely superior.

647.

Against Darwinism.—The use of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! During the greater part of the time occupied in the formation of a certain quality, this quality does not help to preserve the individual; it is of no use to him, and particularly not in his struggle with external circumstances and foes.

What is ultimately "useful"? It is necessary to ask, "Useful for what"?

For instance, that which promotes the lasting powers of the individual might be unfavourable to his strength or his beauty; that which preserves him might at the same time fix him and keep him stable throughout development. On the other hand, a deficiency, a state of degeneration, may be of the greatest possible use, inasmuch as it acts as a stimulus to other organs. In the same way, a state of need may be a condition of existence, inasmuch as it reduces an individual to that modicum of means which, though it keeps him together, does not allow him to squander his strength.—The individual himself is the struggle of parts (for nourishment, space, etc.): his development involves the triumph, the predominance, of isolated parts; the wasting away, or the "development into organs," of other parts.

The influence of "environment" is nonsensically overrated in Darwin, the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely uses, exploits "environment."

The new forms built up by this inner power are not produced with a view to any end; but, in the struggle between the parts, a new form does not exist long without becoming related to some kind of semi-utility, and, according to its use, develops itself ever more and more perfectly.

648.

"Utility" in respect of the acceleration of the speed of evolution, is a different kind of "utility" from that which is understood to mean the greatest possible stability and staying power of the evolved creature.

649.

"Useful" in the sense of Darwinian biology means: that which favours a thing in its struggle with others. But in my opinion the feeling of being surcharged, the feeling accompanying an increase in strength, quite apart from the utility of the struggle, is the actual progress: from these feelings the will to war is first derived.

650.

Physiologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength: "self-preservation" is only one of the results thereof.—Let us beware of superfluous teleological principles!—one of which is the whole concept of "self-preservation."[4]

651.

The most-fundamental—and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its preservation: and what is more, it does not "preserve itself" in the process, but actually falls to pieces.... The instinct which rules here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire to preserve itself: hunger is already an interpretation based upon the observation of a more or less complex organism (hunger is a specialised and later form of the instinct; it is an expression of the system of divided labour, in the service of a higher instinct which rules the whole).

652.

It is just as impossible to regard hunger as the primum mobile, as it is to take self-preservation to be so. Hunger, considered as the result of insufficient nourishment, means hunger as the result of a will to power which can no longer dominate It is not a question of replacing a loss, it is only later on, as the result of the division of labour, when the Will to Power has discovered other and quite different ways of gratifying itself, that the appropriating lust of the organism is reduced to hunger—to the need of replacing what has been lost.

653.

We can but laugh at the false "Altruism" of biologists: propagation among the amœbæ appears as a process of jetsam, as an advantage to them. It is an excretion of useless matter.

654.

The division of a protoplasm into two takes place when its power is no longer sufficient to subjugate the matter it has appropriated: procreation is the result of impotence.

In the cases in which the males seek the females and become one with them, procreation is the result of hunger.

655.

The weaker vessel is driven to the stronger from a need of nourishment; it desires to get under it, if possible to become one with it. The stronger, on the contrary, defends itself from others; it refuses to perish in this way; it prefers rather to split itself into two or more parts in the process of growing. One may conclude that the greater the urgency seems to become one with something else, the more weakness in some form is present. The greater the tendency to variety, difference, inner decay, the more strength is actually to hand.

The instinct to cleave to something, and the instinct to repel something, are in the inorganic as in the organic world, the uniting bond. The whole distinction is a piece of hasty judgment.

The will to power in every combination of forces, defending itself against the stronger and coming down unmercifully upon the weaker, is more correct.

N. B. All processes may be regarded as "beings".

656.

The will to power can manifest itself only against obstacles; it therefore goes in search of what resists it—this is the primitive tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its pseudopodia and feels about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the result of a desire to overpower, a process of forming, of additional building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.—If this process of incorporation does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to pieces; and the separation occurs as the result of the will to power: in order to prevent the escape of that which has been subjected, the will to power falls into two wills (under some circumstances without even abandoning completely its relation to the two).

"Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation, once the fundamental instinct of power has won power of a more abstract kind.

657.

What is "passive"?

To be hindered in the outward movement of grasping: it is thus an act of resistance and reaction.

What is "active"?

To stretch out for power.

"Nutrition"...

Is only a derived phenomenon; the primitive form of it was the will to stuff everything inside one's own skin.

"Procreation"...

Only derived; originally, in those cases In which one will was unable to organise the collective mass it had appropriated, an opposing will came into power, which undertook to effect the separation and establish a new centre of organisation, after a struggle with the original will.

"Pleasure"...

Is a feeling of power (presupposing the existence of pain).

658.

(1) The organic functions shown to be but forms of the fundamental will, the will to power,—and buds thereof.

(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to property, to tools, to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body as an example.—The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained mechanically.

(3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms. What is a desire if it be not: a provocation of the feeling of power by an obstacle (or, better still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting forces)—so that it surges through it? Thus in all pleasure pain is understood.—If the pleasure is to be very great, the pains preceding it must have been very long, and the whole bow of life must have been strained to the utmost.

(4) Intellectual functions. The will to shaping, forming, and making like, etc.

(b) Man.

659.

With the body as clue.—Granting that the "soul" was only an attractive and mysterious thought, from which philosophers rightly, but reluctantly, separated themselves—that which they have since learnt to put in its place is perhaps even more attractive and even more mysterious. The human body, in which the whole of the most distant and most recent past of all organic life once more becomes living and corporal, seems to flow through, this past and right over it like a huge and inaudible torrent; the body is a more wonderful thought than the old "soul." In all ages the body, as our actual property, as our most certain being, in short, as our ego, has been more earnestly believed in than the spirit (or the "soul," or the subject, as the school jargon now calls it). It has never occurred to any one to regard his stomach as a strange or a divine stomach; but that there is a tendency and a predilection in man to regard all his thoughts as "inspired," all his values as "imparted to him by a God," all his instincts as dawning activities—this is proved by the evidence of every age in man's history. Even now, especially among artists, there may very often be noticed a sort of wonder, and a deferential hesitation to decide, when the question occurs to them, by what means they achieved their happiest work, and from which world the creative thought came down to them: when they question in this way, they are possessed by a feeling of guilelessness and childish shyness. They dare not say: "That came from me; it was my hand which threw that die." Conversely, even those philosophers and theologians, who in their logic and piety found the most imperative reasons for regarding their body as a deception (and even as a deception overcome and disposed of), could not help recognising the foolish fact that the body still remained: and the most unexpected proofs of this are to be found partly in Pauline and partly in Vedantic philosophy. But what does strength of faith ultimately mean? Nothing!—A strong faith might also be a foolish faith!—There is food for reflection.