Chapter III: Eternal Recurrence (4)

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]

[Footnote 4: See _Beyond Good and Evil,_ in this edition, Aph. 13.]

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.

And supposing the faith in the body were ultimately but the result of a conclusion; supposing it were a false conclusion, as idealists declare it is, would it not then involve some doubt concerning the trustworthiness of the spirit itself which thus causes us to draw wrong conclusions?

Supposing the plurality of things, and space, and time, and motion (and whatever the other first principles of a belief in the body may be) were errors--what suspicions would not then be roused against the spirit which led us to form such first principles? Let it suffice that the belief in the body is, at any rate for the present, a much stronger belief than the belief in the spirit, and he who would fain undermine it assails the authority of the spirit most thoroughly in so doing!

660.

_The Body as an Empire._

The aristocracy in the body, the majority of the rulers (the fight between the cells and the tissues).

Slavery and the division of labour: the higher type alone possible through the _subjection_ of the lower to a function.

Pleasure and pain, not contraries. The feeling of power.

"Nutrition" only a result of the insatiable lust of appropriation in the Will to Power.

"Procreation": this is the decay which supervenes when the ruling cells are too weak to organise appropriated material.

It is the _moulding_ force which will have a continual supply of new material (more "force"). The masterly construction of an organism out of an egg.

"The mechanical interpretation": recognises only quantities: but the real energy is in the quality. Mechanics can therefore only describe processes; it cannot explain them.

"Purpose." We should start out from the "sagacity" of plants.

The concept of "meliorism": _not_ only greater complexity, but greater _power_ (it need not be only greater masses).

Conclusion concerning the evolution of man: the road to perfection lies in the bringing forth of the most powerful individuals, for whose use the great masses would be converted into mere tools (that is to say, into the most intelligent and flexible tools possible).

661.

Why is all _activity,_ even that of a _sense,_ associated with pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or a burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a process of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of _increasing_ the _feeling of power_? The pleasure of thought. Ultimately it is not only the feeling of power, but also the pleasure of creating and of contemplating the _creation:_ for all activity enters our consciousness in the form of "works."

662.

Creating is an act of selecting and of finishing the thing selected. (In every act of the will, this is the essential element.)

663.

All phenomena which are the result of intentions may be reduced to _the intention of increasing power._

664.

When we do anything, we are conscious of a _feeling of strength;_ we often have this sensation before the act--that is to say, while imagining the thing to do (as, for instance, at the sight of an enemy, of an obstacle, which we feel _equal to_): it is always an accompanying sensation. Instinctively we think that this feeling of strength is the cause of the action, that it is the "motive force." Our belief in causation is the belief in force and its effect; it is a transcript of our experience: in which we identify force and the feeling of force.--Force, however, never moves things; the strength which is conscious "does not set the muscles moving." "Of such a process we have no experience, no idea." "We experience as little concerning force as a motive power, as concerning the _necessity_ of a movement." Force is said to be the constraining element! "All we know is that one thing follows another;--we know nothing of either compulsion or arbitrariness in regard to the one following the other. Causality is first invented by thinking compulsion into the sequence of processes. A certain "understanding" of the thing is the result--that is to say, we humanise the process a little, we make it more "familiar"; the familiar is the known habitual fact of _human compulsion associated with the feeling of force._

665.

I have the intention of extending my arm; taking it for granted that I know as little of the physiology of the human body and of the mechanical laws of its movements as the man in the street, what could there be more vague, more bloodless, more uncertain than this intention compared with what follows it? And supposing I were the astutest of mechanics, and especially conversant with the formulæ which are applicable in this case, I should not be able to extend my arm one whit the better. Our "knowledge" and our "action" in this case lie coldly apart: as though in two different regions.--Again: Napoleon carries out a plan of campaign--what does that mean? In this case, everything concerning the consummation of the campaign is _known,_ because everything must be done through words of command: but even here subordinates are taken for granted, who apply and adapt the general plan to the particular emergency, to the degree of strength, etc.

666.

For ages we have always ascribed the value of an action, of a character, of an existence, to the _intention,_ to the _purpose_ for which it was done, acted, or lived: this primeval idiosyncrasy of taste ultimately takes a dangerous turn provided the lack of intention and purpose in all phenomena comes ever more to the front in consciousness. With it a general depreciation of all values seems to be preparing: "All is without sense."--This melancholy phrase means: "All sense lies in the intention, and if the intention is absolutely lacking, then sense must be lacking too." In conformity with this valuation, people were forced to place the value of life in a a life after death, or in the progressive development of ideas, or of mankind, or of the people, or of man to superman; but in this way the _progressus in infinitum_ of purpose had been reached: it was ultimately necessary to find one's self a place in the process of the world (perhaps with the disdæmonistic outlook, it was a process which led to nonentity).

In regard to this point, "_purpose_" needs a somewhat more severe criticism: it ought to be recognised that an action _is never caused by a purpose;_ that an object and the means thereto are interpretations, by means of which certain points in a phenomena are selected and accentuated, at the cost of other, more numerous, points, that every time something is done for a purpose, something fundamentally different, and yet other things happen; that in regard to the action done with a purpose, the case is the same as with the so-called purposefulness of the heat which is radiated from the sun: the greater part of the total sum is squandered; a portion of it, which is scarcely worth reckoning, has a "purpose," has "sense"; that an "end" with its "means" is an absurdly indefinite description, which indeed may be able to command as a precept, as "will," but presupposes a system of obedient and trained instruments, which, in the place of the indefinite, puts forward a host of determined entities _(i.e._ we imagine a system of _clever_ but narrow intellects who postulate end and means, in order to be able to grant our only known "end," the rôle of the "cause of an action,"--a proceeding to which we have no right: it is tantamount to solving a problem by placing its solution in an inaccessible world which we cannot observe).

Finally, why could not an "end" be merely an _accompanying feature_ in the series of changes among the active forces which bring about the action--a pale stenographic symbol stretched in consciousness beforehand, and which serves as a guide to what happens, even as a symbol of what happens, _not_ as its cause?--But in this way we criticise _will_ itself: is it not an illusion to regard that which enters consciousness as will-power, as a cause? Are not all conscious phenomena only final phenomena--the lost links in a chain, but apparently conditioning one another in their sequence within the plane of consciousness? This might be an illusion.

667.

Science does _not_ inquire what impels us to will: on the contrary, it _denies_ that _willing_ takes place at all, and supposes that something quite different has happened--in short, that the belief in "will" and "end" is an illusion. It does not inquire into the _motives_ of an action, as if these had been present in consciousness previous to the action, but it first divides the action up into a group of phenomena, and then seeks the previous history of this mechanical movement--but _not_ in the terms of feeling, perception, and thought; from this quarter it can never accept the explanation: perception is precisely the matter of science, _which has to be explained._--The problem of science is precisely to explain the world, _without_ taking perceptions as the cause: for that would mean regarding _perceptions_ themselves as the _cause_ of perceptions. The task of science is by no means accomplished.

Thus: either there is _no_ such thing as will,--the hypothesis of science,--or the will is _free_. The latter assumption represents the prevailing feeling, of which we cannot rid ourselves, even if the hypothesis of science were _proved._

The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the principle that free will _is the cause of every effect:_ thereby alone do we arrive at the feeling of causation. And thereto belongs also the feeling that every cause is _not_ an effect, but always only a cause--if will is the cause. "Our acts of will are _not necessary_"--this lies in the very _concept of "will."_ The effect necessarily comes _after_ the cause--that is what we feel. It is merely a _hypothesis_ that even our willing is compulsory in every case.

668.

"To will" is not "to desire," to strive, to aspire to; it distinguishes itself from that through the _passion of commanding._

There is no such thing as "willing," but only the willing of _something:_ the _aim_ must not be severed from the state--as the epistemologists sever it. "Willing," as they understand it, is no more possible than "thinking": it is a pure invention.

It is essential to willing that something should be _commanded_ (but that does not mean that the will is carried into effect).

The general _state of tension,_ by virtue of which a force seeks to discharge itself, is not "willing."

669.

"Pain" and "pleasure" are the most absurd _means of expressing_ judgments, which of course does not mean that the judgments which are enunciated in this way must necessarily be absurd. The elimination of all substantiation and logic, a yes or no in the reduction to a passionate desire to have or to reject, an imperative abbreviation, the utility of which is irrefutable: that is pain and pleasure. Its origin is in the central sphere of the intellect; its prerequisite is an infinitely accelerated process of perceiving, ordering, co-ordinating, calculating, concluding: pleasure and pain are always final phenomena, they are never causes.

As to deciding what provokes pain and pleasure, that is a question which depends upon the _degree of power:_ the same thing, when confronted with a small quantity of power, may seem a danger and may suggest the need of speedy defence, and when confronted with the consciousness of greater power, may be a voluptuous stimulus and may be followed by a feeling of pleasure.

All feelings of pleasure and pain presuppose a _measuring of collective utility_ and _collective harmfulness_: consequently a sphere where there is the willing of an object (of a condition) and the selection of the means thereto. Pleasure and pain are never "original facts."

The feelings of pleasure and pain are _reactions of the will_ (emotions) in which the intellectual centre fixes the value of certain supervening changes as a collective value, and also as an introduction of contrary actions.

670.

_The belief in "emotions"_--Emotions are a fabrication of the intellect, an invention of _causes_ which do not exist. All general _bodily sensations_ which we do not understand are interpreted intellectually--that is to say, a _reason_ is sought why we feel thus or thus among certain people or in certain experiences. Thus something disadvantageous dangerous, and strange is taken for granted, as if it were the cause of our being indisposed; as a matter of fact, it gets _added to_ the indisposition, so as to make our condition thinkable.--Mighty rushes of blood to the brain, accompanied by a feeling of suffocation, are _interpreted_ as anger: the people and things which provoke our anger are a means of relieving our physiological condition. Subsequently, after long habituation, certain processes and general feelings are so regularly correlated that the sight of certain processes provokes that condition of general feeling, and induces vascular engorgements, the ejection of seminal fluid, etc.: we then say that the "emotion is provoked by propinquity."

_Judgments_ already inhere in pleasure and pain: stimuli become differentiated, according as to whether they increase or reduce the feeling of power.

_The belief in willing._ To believe that a thought may be the cause of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles. The _consistency of science_ demands that once we have made the world _thinkable_ for ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the desires, the will, etc., _thinkable_--that is to say, we should _deny_ them and treat them as _errors of the intellect._

671.

Free will or no free will?--There is _no such thing_ as "_Will_": that is only a simplified conception on the part of the understanding, like "matter."

_All actions must first be prepared and made possible mechanically before they can be willed._ Or, _in most cases_ the "_object_" of an action enters the brain only after everything is prepared for its accomplishment. The object is an inner "stimulus"--nothing _more._

672.

The most proximate prelude to an action relates to that action: but _further back still_ there lies a preparatory history which covers _a far wider field:_ the individual action is only a factor in a much more extensive and _subsequent_ fact. The shorter and the longer processes are not reported.

673.

The theory of _chance:_ the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (this _creative_ power is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely passive).

I recognised the _active_ and creative _power_ within the accidental.--Accident is in itself nothing more than _the clashing of creative impulses._

674.

Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an organic being, that part which becomes _conscious_ is a mere means: and the particle of "virtue," "self abnegation," and other fanciful inventions, are denied in a most thoroughgoing manner by the whole of the remaining phenomena. We would do well to study our organism in all its immorality....

The animal functions are, as a matter of fact, a million times more important than all beautiful states of the soul and heights of consciousness: the latter are an overflow, in so far as they are not needed as instruments in the service of the animal functions. The whole of _conscious_ life: the spirit together with the soul, the heart, goodness, and virtue; in whose service does it work? In the greatest possible perfection of the means (for acquiring nourishment and advancement) serving the fundamental animal functions: above all, the _ascent of the line of Life._

That which is called "flesh" and "body" is of such incalculably greater importance, that the rest is nothing more than a small appurtenance. To continue the chain of life _so that it becomes ever more powerful_--that is the task.

But now observe how the heart, the soul, virtue, and spirit together conspire formally to thwart this purpose: as _if they_ were the object of every endeavour! ... The _degeneration of life_ is essentially determined by the extraordinary _fallibility of consciousness,_ which is held at bay least of all by the instincts, and thus commits the gravest and profoundest _errors._

Now could any more insane extravagance of vanity be imagined than to measure the _value_ of existence according to the _pleasant or unpleasant feelings of this consciousness_? It is obviously only a means: and pleasant or unpleasant feelings are also no more than means.

According to what standard is the objective value measured? According to the quantity of _increased_ and _more organised power_ alone.

675.

The value of all _valuing._--My desire would be to see the agent once more identified with the action, after action has been deprived of all meaning by having been separated in thought from the agent; I should like to see the notion of doing _something,_ the idea of a "purpose," of an "intention," of an object, reintroduced into the action, after action has been made insignificant by having been artificially separated from these things.

All "objects," "purposes," "meanings," are only manners of expression and metamorphoses of the one will inherent in all phenomena; of the will to power. To have an object, a purpose, or an intention, in fact _to will_ generally, is equivalent to the desire for _greater strength,_ for fuller growth, and for the _means_ thereto _in addition._

The most general and fundamental instinct in all action and willing is precisely on that account the one which is least known and is most concealed; for in practice we always follow its bidding, for the simple reason that we _are_ in ourselves its bidding....

All valuations are only the results of, and the narrow points of view in _servings this_ one will: valuing _in itself_ is nothing save this, _--will to power._

To criticise existence from the standpoint of any one of these values is utter nonsense and error. Even supposing that a process of annihilation follows from such a value, even so this process is in the service of this will.

The _valuation of existence itself!_ But existence is this valuing itself!--and even when we say "no," we still do what we _are._

We ought now to perceive the _absurdity_ of this pretence at judging existence; and we ought to try and discover _what_ actually takes place there. It is symptomatic.

676.

_Concerning the Origin of our Valuations._

We are able to analyse our body, and by doing so we get the same idea of it as of the stellar system, and the differences between organic and inorganic lapses. Formerly the movements of the stars were explained as the effects of beings consciously pursuing a purpose: this is no longer required, and even in regard to the movements of the body and its changes, the belief has long since been abandoned that they can be explained by an appeal to a consciousness which has a determined purpose. By far the greater number of movements have nothing to do with consciousness at all: _neither have they anything to do with sensation._ Sensations and thoughts are extremely _rare_ and _insignificant_ things compared with the innumerable phenomena occurring every second.

On the other hand, we believe that a certain conformity of means to ends rules over the very smallest phenomenon, which it is quite beyond our deepest science to understand; a sort of cautiousness, selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we are in the presence of an _activity_ to which it would be necessary to ascribe an _incalculably higher and more extensive intellect_ than the one we are acquainted with. We learn to _think less of_ all that is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the smallest part of ourselves.

Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance, air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by us, yet influence us continually. Pleasure and pain are very rare and scanty phenomena, compared with the countless stimuli with which a cell or an organ operates upon another cell or organ.

It is the phase of the _modesty of consciousness._ Finally, we can grasp the conscious ego itself, merely as an instrument in the service of that higher and more extensive intellect: and then we may ask whether all conscious _willing,_ all conscious _purposes,_ all _valuations,_ are not perhaps only means by virtue of which something essentially _different is attained,_ from that which consciousness supposes. We _mean_: it is a question of our _pleasure_ and _pain_ but pleasure and pain might be the means whereby we _had something to do_ which lies outside our consciousness.