)
That all contradiction in concepts should be
1
## p.
That all contradiction in concepts should be
1
## p.
Nietzsche - v15 - Will to Power - b
Move-
ment as a symbol for the eye; it denotes that
something has been felt, willed, thought.
The danger of directly questioning the subject con-
cerning the subject, and all spiritual self-reflection.
consists in this, that it might be a necessary con-
dition of its activity to interpret itself erroneously.
That is why we appeal to the body and lay the
evidence of sharpened senses aside: or we try and
see whether the subjects themselves cannot enter
into communication with us.
(d) BIOLOGY OF THE INSTINCT OF KNOWLEDGE.
PERSPECTIVITY.
493
Truth is that kind of error without which a
certain species of living being cannot exist. The
value for Life is ultimately decisive.
494.
It is unlikely that our “knowledge” extends
farther than is exactly necessary for our self-pres-
ervation. Morphology shows us how the senses
and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in pro-
portion as the difficulties of acquiring sustenance
increase.
495.
If the morality of “Thou shalt not lie” be re-
futed, the sense for truth will then have to justify
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
21
!
:
itself before another tribunal-
as a means to the
preservation of man, as Will to Power.
Likewise our love of the beautiful : it is also the
creative will. Both senses stand side by side; the
sense of truth is the means wherewith the power
is appropriated to adjust things according to one's
taste. The love of adjusting and reforming—a
primeval love! We can only take cognisance of a
world which we ourselves have made.
496.
Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge.
The tracing of its relation to many other things (or
the relation of kind)—how should“ knowledge” be
of another? The way to know and to investigate
is in itself among the conditions of life; that is why
the conclusion that there could be no other kind
of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind which
serves the purpose of our preservation is an ex-
cessively hasty one: this actual condition may
be only an accidental, not in the least an essential
one.
Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not
adjusted for “knowledge. ”
497.
»
The most strongly credited a priori “ truths
are, to my mind, mere assumptions pending further
investigation; for instance, the law of causation is
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22
THE WILL TO POWER.
a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so
completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it
would mean the ruin of our kind. But is it
therefore true ? What an extraordinary conclu-
sion ! As if truth were proved by the mere fact
that man survives !
498.
To what extent is our intellect also a result of
the conditions of life - We should not have it did
wę not need to have it, and we should not have
it as we have it, if we did not need it as we need
it--that is to say, if we could live otherwise.
499.
" Thinking” in a primitive (inorganic) state is to
dersevere in forms, as in the case of the crystal. -In
our thought, the essential factor is the harmonising
of the new material with the old scheines (= Pro-
crustes' bed), the assimilation of the unfamiliar.
500.
The perception of the senses projected out-
wards: “inwards” and “outwards”-does the
"
body command here?
The same equalising and ordering power which
rules in the idioplasma, also rules in the incorpora-
tion of the outer world : our sensual perceptions
are already the result of this process of adaptation
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
23
and harmonisation in regard to all the past in us;
they do not follow directly upon the “impression. ”
501.
6
All thought, judgment, perception, regarded as
an act of comparing, * has as a first condition
the act of equalising, and earlier still the act of
“making equal. ” The process of making equal
is the same as the assimilation by the amoeba of
the nutritive matter it appropriates.
Memory” late, in so far as the equalising in-
stinct appears to have been subdued: the difference
is preserved. Memory—a process of classification
and collocation; active—who?
00
502.
In regard to the memory, we must unlearn a great .
deal: here we meet with the greatest temptation
to assume the existence of a “soul,” which, irre-
spective of time, reproduces and recognises again
and again, etc. What I have experienced, however,
continues to live “in the memory"; I have noth-
ing to do with it when memory "comes," my will
is inactive in regard to it, as in the case of the
coming and going of a thought. Something
happens,
of which I become conscious: now some-
thing similar comes—who has called it forth?
Who has awakened it?
* The German word vergleichen, meaning “to compare,'
contains the root "equal” (gleich) which cannot be rendered
in English. —TR.
## p. 24 (#54) ##############################################
24
TIIE WILL TO POWER.
503.
CC
are
The whole apparatus of knowledge is an ab-
stracting and simplifying apparatus—not directed
at knowledge, but at the appropriation of things:
“ end” and means
as remote from the
essence of this apparatus as “concepts" are. By
the "end" and the means a process is appro-
priated (-a process is invented which may be
grasped), but by “concepts” one appropriates the
“things” which constitute the process.
(0
504.
Consciousness begins outwardly as co-ordina-
tion and knowledge of impressiofis,-at first it is
at the point which is remotest from the biological
centre of the individual; but it is a process which
deepens and which tends to become more and more
an inner function, continually approaching nearer
to the centre.
505.
Our perceptions, as we understand them—that
is to say, the sum of all those perceptions the con-
sciousness whereof was useful and essential to us
and to the whole organic processes which preceded
us: therefore they do not include all perceptions
(for instance, not the electrical ones);that is to
say, we have senses only for a definite selection of
perceptions—such perceptions as concern us with a
view to our self-preservation. Consciousness extends
so far only as it is useful. There can be no doubt
that all our sense-perceptions are entirely per-
1
1
1
## p. 25 (#55) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
25
1
meated by valuations (useful or harmful-conse-
quently, pleasant or painful). Every particular
colour, besides being a colour, expresses a value to
us (although we seldom admit it, or do so only
after it has affected us exclusively for a long time,
as in the case of convicts in gaol or lunatics). In-
sects likewise react in different ways to different
colours: some like this shade, the others that.
Ants are a case in point.
506.
In the beginning images-how images originate
in the mind must be explained. Then words, ap-
plied to images. Finally concepts, possible only
when there are words—the assembling of several
pictures into a whole which is not for the eye but
for the ear (word). The small amount of emotion
which the “word” generates,—that is, then, which
the view of the similar pictures generates, for which
one word is used,—this simple emotion is the
common factor, the basis of a concept. That weak
feelings should all be regarded as alike, as the same,
is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a con-
fusion of two very intimately associated feelings in
the ascertainment of these feelings ;—but who is it
that ascertains ? Faith is the very first step in
every sensual impression : a sort of yea-saying is
the first intellectual activity! A "holding-a-thing-
to-be-true" is the beginning. It were our business,
therefore, to explain how the "holding-of-a-thing-
to-be-true" arose ! What sensation lies beneath
the comment "true"?
## p. 26 (#56) ##############################################
26
THE WILL TO POWER.
507.
The valuation, “I believe that this and that is
so," is the essence of “truth. " In all valuations,
the conditions of preservation and of growth find
expression. All our organs and senses of know-
ledge have been developed only in view of the con-
ditions of preservation and growth. The trust in
reason and its categories, the trust in dialectics, and
also the valuation of logic, prove only that ex-
perience has taught the usefulness of these things
to life: not their “truth. ”
The pre-requisites of all living things and of
their lives is : that there should be a large amount
of faith, that it should be possible to pass definite
judgments on things, and that there should be no
doubt at all concerning all essential values. Thus
it is necessary that something should be assumed
to be true, not that it is true.
“The real world and the world of appearance"
I trace this contrast to the relation of values. We
have posited our conditions of existence as the attri-
butes of being in general. Owing to the fact that,
in order to prosper, we must be stable in our belief,
we developed the idea that the real world was
neither a changing nor an evolving one, but a
world of being
C
.
(e) THE ORIGIN OF REASON AND LOGIC.
.
508.
1
Originally there was chaos among our ideas.
Those ideas which were able to stand side by side
## p. 27 (#57) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
27
remained over, the greater number perished-and
are still perishing.
509.
The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew :
the gregarious instinct in the background. The
assumption of similar facts is the first condition
for “similar souls. ” For the purpose of mutual
understanding and government.
510.
Concerning the origin of logic. The fundamental
proneness to equalise things and to see them equal,
gets to be modified, and kept within bounds, by the
consideration of what is useful or harmful-in fact,
by considerations of success : it then becomes
adapted in suchwise as to be gratified in a milder
way, without at the same time denying life or en-
dangering it. This whole process corresponds
entirely with that external and mechanical process
(which is its symbol) by which the protoplasm con-
tinually assimilates, makes equal to itself, what it
appropriates, and arranges it according to its own
forms and requirements.
511.
Likeness and Similarity.
1. The coarser the organ the more apparent
likenesses it sees;
2. The mind will have likeness—that is to say,
the identification of one sensual impression with
others already experienced : just as the body
assimilates inorganic matter.
i
{
## p. 28 (#58) ##############################################
28
THE WILL TO POWER.
For the understanding of Logic:-
The will which tends to see likeness everywhere is
the will to power—the belief that something is so
and so (the essence of a judgment), is the result of a
will which would fain have it as similar as possible.
512.
Logic is bound up with the proviso: granted
that identical cases exist. As a matter of fact, before
one can think and conclude in a logical fashion, this
condition must first be assumed. That is to say, the
will to logical truth cannot be consummated before
a fundamental falsification of all phenomena has
been assumed. From which it follows that an in-
stinct rules here, which is capable of employing both
means: first, falsification; and secondly, the carrying
out of its own point of view : logic does not spring
from a will to truth.
513.
The inventive force which devised the categories,
worked in the service of our need of security, of
quick intelligibility, in the form of signs, sounds, and
abbreviations. —“ Substance," "subject,” “object,"
“ Being,” “ Becoming,” are not matters of meta-
physical truth. It was the powerful who made the
names of things into law, and, among the powerful,
it was the greatest artists in abstraction who created
the categories.
514.
A moral—that is to say, a method of living which
long experience and experiment have tested and
1
1
6
1
## p. 29 (#59) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
29
.
.
proved efficient, at last enters consciousness as a law,
as dominant. . . And then the whole group of
related values and conditions become part of it:
it becomes venerable, unassailable, holy, true;
necessary part of its evolution is that its origin
should be forgotten. . . . That is a sign that it has
become master. Exactly the same thing might
have happened with the categories of reason: the
latter, after much groping and many trials, might
have proved true through relative usefulness. .
A stage was reached when they were grasped as a
whole, and when they appealed to consciousness as
a whole,—when belief in them was commanded,
that is to say, when they acted as if they com-
manded. . . . From that time forward they passed
as a priori, as beyond experience, as irrefutable.
And, possibly, they may have been the expression
of no more than a certain practicality answering
the ends of a race and a species,—their usefulness
а
alone is their “truth. ”
515.
The object is, not " to know," but to schematise,
to impose as much regularity and form upon
chaos, as our practical needs require.
In the formation of reason, logic, and the
categories, it was a need in us that was the
determining power : not the need “ to know," but
to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of
intelligibility and calculation. (The adjustment
and interpretation of all similar and equal things,-
the same process, which every sensual impression
## p. 30 (#60) ##############################################
30
THE WILL TO POWER.
as
undergoes, is the development of reason! ) No
pre-existing “idea" had anything to do with it:
but utility, which teaches us that things can be
reckoned with and managed, only when we view
them roughly as equal. . . . Finality in reason is
an effect, not a cause : Life degenerates with
every other form of reason, although constant at-
tempts are being made to attain to those other
forms of reason ;- for Life would then become
too obscure,—too unequal.
The categories are "truths ” only in the sense
that they are the conditions of our existence, just
Euclid's Space is a conditional "truth. ”
(Between ourselves, as no one will maintain that
men are absolutely necessary, reason, as well as
Euclid's Space, are seen to be but an idiosyncrasy
of one particular species of animals, one idiosyn-
crasy alone among many others. . )
The subjective constraint which prevents one
from contradicting here, is a biological constraint:
the instinct which makes us see the utility of
concluding as we do conclude, is in our blood, we
are almost this instinct . . . But what simplicity
it is to attempt to derive from this fact that we
possess an absolute truth! . . . The inability to
contradict anything is a proof of impotence but
not of “truth. ”
.
516.
We are not able to affirm and to deny one and
the same thing: that is a principle of subjective
experience—which is not in the least “necessary,”
but only a sign of inability.
## p. 31 (#61) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
31
If, according to Aristotle, the principium contra-
dictionis is the most certain of all principles ; if it
is the most ultimate of all, and the basis of every
demonstration; if the principle of every other
axiom lie within it: then one should analyse
it all the more severely, in order to discover how
many assumptions already lie at its root. It either
assumes something concerning reality and Being,
as if these had become known in some other
sphere—that is to say, as if it were impossible to
ascribe the opposite attributes to it; or the proposi-
tion means: that the opposites should not be
ascribed to it. In that case, logic would be an
imperative, not directed at the knowledge of truth,
but at the adjusting and fixing of a world which
must seem true to us.
In short, the question is a debatable one: are
the axioms of logic adequate to reality, or are they
measures and means by which alone we can create
realities, or the concept "reality”? . . . In order
to affirm the first alternative, however, one would,
as we have seen, require a previous knowledge of
Being; which is certainly not the case.
position therefore contains no criterion of truth,
but an imperative concerning that which should
pass as true.
Supposing there were no such thing as A
identical with itself, as every logical and
mathematical) proposition presupposes, and that
A is in itself an appearance, then logic would
have a mere world of appearance as its first
condition. As a matter of fact, we believe in that
proposition, under the influence of an endless
The pro-
## p. 32 (#62) ##############################################
32
THE WILL TO POWER.
<
empiricism which seems to confirm it every
minute. The “thing "—that is the real sub-
stratum of A ; our belief in things is the first
condition of our faith in logic. The A in logic
is, like the atom, a reconstruction of the
“ thing. " . . . By not understanding this, and by
making logic into a criterion of real being, we are
already on the road to the classification of all those
hypostases : substance, attribute, object, subject,
action, etc. , as realities—that is to say, the
conception of a metaphysical world or a "real
world" (this is, however, once more the world of
appearance . . . ).
The primitive acts of thought, affirmation, and
negation, the holding of a thing for true, and the
holding of a thing for not true,—in so far as they
do not only presuppose a mere habit, but the very
right to postulate truth or untruth at all,—are
already dominated by a belief, that there is such a
thing as knowledge for us, and that judgments can
really hit the truth: in short, logic never doubts
that it is able to pronounce something concerning
truth in itself (that is to say, that to the thing
which is in itself true, no opposite attributes can
be ascribed).
In this belief there reigns the sensual and coarse
prejudice that our sensations teach us truths
concerning things,--that I cannot at the same
moment of time say of one and the same thing
that it is hard and soft. (The instinctive proof,
"I cannot have two opposite sensations at once,"
is quite coarse and false.
)
That all contradiction in concepts should be
1
## p. 33 (#63) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
33
1
forbidden, is the result of a belief, that we are able
to form concepts, that a concept not only character-
ises but also holds the essence of a thing. . . . As a
matter of fact, logic (like geometry and arithmetic)
only holds good of assumed existences which we have
created. Logic is the attempt on our part to under-
stand the actual world according to a scheme of
Being devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, it is our
attempt at making the actual world more calculable
and more susceptible to formulation, for our own
purposes.
.
517.
In order to be able to think and to draw
conclusions, it is necessary to acknowledge that
which exists : logic only deals with formulæ for
things which are constant. That is why this
acknowledgment would not in the least prove
reality : "that which is” is part of our optics.
The "ego” regarded as Being (not affected by
either Becoming or evolution).
The assumed world of subject, substance,
reason," etc. , is necessary: an adjusting, simplify-
ing, falsifying, artificially-separating power resides
" Truth” is the will to be master over the
manifold sensations that reach consciousness; it is
the will to classify phenomena according to definite
categories. In this way we start out with a belief
in the
nature of things (we regard
phenomena as real).
The character of the world in the process of
Becoming is not susceptible of formulation; it is
« false” and “contradicts itself. " Knowledge and
C
in us.
а
»
“ true
VOL. II.
## p. 34 (#64) ##############################################
34
THE WILL TO POWER.
the process of evolution exclude each other.
Consequently, knowledge must be something else:
it must be preceded by a will to make things
knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must create
the illusion of Being.
518.
If our “ego " is the only form of Being, accord-
ing to which we make and understand all Being :
very good!
In that case it were very proper
to doubt whether an illusion of perspective were
not active here—the apparent unity which every-
thing assumes in our eyes on the horizon-line.
Appealing to the body for our guidance, we are
confronted by such appalling manifoldness, that
for the sake of method it is allowable to use
that phenomenon which is richer and more easily
studied as a clue to the understanding of the
poorer phenomenon.
Finally : admitting that all is Becoming, know-
ledge is only possible when based on a belief in Being.
519.
If there is “only one form of Being, the ego,"
and all other forms of Being are made in its own
image,-if, in short, the belief in the "ego,"
together with the belief in logic, stands and falls
with the metaphysical truth of the categories
of reason : if, in addition, the "ego” is shown to
be something that is evolving: then-.
## p. 35 (#65) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
35
520.
»
we
The continual transitions that occur, forbid our
speaking of the “individual," etc. ; the "number”
of beings itself fluctuates. We should know no-
thing of time or of movement, if, in a rough way,
we did not believe we saw things "standing still ”
behind or in front of things moving. We should
also know just as little about cause and effect, and
without the erroneous idea of “empty space
should never have arrived at the concept of space
at all. The principle of identity is based on the
"fact of appearance" that there are some things
alike. Strictly speaking, it would not be possible
to “ understand” and “ know an evolving world;
something which is called "knowledge” exists
only in so far as the “understanding and
knowing” intellect already finds an adjusted
and rough world to hand, fashioned out of a host
of mere appearances, but become fixed to the
extent in which this kind of appearance has helped
to preserve life; only to this extent is "knowledge
possible—that is to say, as a measuring of earlier
and more recent errors by one another.
66
521.
Concerning “ logical appearance. " - The concept
“ individual and the concept "species” are
equally false and only apparent. Species” only
expresses the fact that an abundance of similar
creatures come forth at the same time, and that
the speed of their further growth and of their
## p. 36 (#66) ##############################################
36
THE WILL TO POWER.
a
further transformation has been made almost
imperceptible for a long time: so that the
actual and trivial changes and increase of growth
are of no account at all (-a stage of evolution in
which the process of evolving is not visible, so
that, not only does a state of equilibrium seem
to have been reached, but the road is also made
clear for the error of supposing that an actual goal
has been reached and that evolution had
goal . . . ).
The form seems to be something enduring, and
therefore valuable ; but the form was invented
merely by ourselves; and however often “the
same form is attained,” it does not signify that
it is the same form, because something new always
appears; and we alone, who compare, reckon the
new with the old, in so far as it resembles the
latter, and embody the two in the unity of " form. ”
As if a type had to be reached and were actually
intended by the formative processes.
Form, species, law, idea, purpose—the same fault
is made in respect of all these concepts, namely,
that of giving a false realism to a piece of fiction :
as if all phenomena were infused with some sort of
obedient spirit—an artificial distinction is here
made between that which acts and that which
guides action (but both these things are only
fixed in order to agree with our metaphysico-logical
dogma: they are not “facts”).
We should not interpret this constraint in our-
selves, to imagine concepts, species, forms, purposes,
and laws (“a world of identical cases ") as if we were
in a position to construct a real world; but as
## p. 37 (#67) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
37
a constraint to adjust a world by means of which
our existence will be ensured : we thereby create
a world which is determinable, simplified, com-
prehensible, etc. , for us.
The very same constraint is active in the
functions of the senses which support the reason-
by means of simplification, coarsening, accentua-
tion, and interpretation; whereon all “recognition,"
all the ability of making one's self intelligible
rests. Our needs have made our senses so precise,
that the “same world of appearance” always
returns, and has thus acquired the semblance of
reality.
Our subjective constraint to have faith in logic,
is expressive only of the fact that long before
logic itself became conscious in us, we did nothing
save introduce its postulates into the nature of
things: now we find ourselves in their presence, -
we can no longer help it,—and now we would fain
believe that this constraint is a guarantee of “truth. ”
We it was who created the “ thing," the
thing," the subject, the attribute, the action, the ob-
ject, the substance, and the form, after we had carried
the process of equalising, coarsening, and simplify-
ing as far as possible. The world seems logical
to us, because we have already made it logical.
It
same
y,
n:
of
Lere
zich
only
gical
522.
our-
poses,
were
ut as
Fundamental solution. We believe in reason :
this is, however, the philosophy of colourless
concepts. Language is built upon the most naïf
prejudices.
## p. 38 (#68) ##############################################
38
THE WILL TO POWER.
Now we read discord and problems into things,
because we are able to think only in the form of
language--we also believe in the "eternal truth "
of “wisdom” (for instance, subject, attribute, etc. ).
We cease from thinking if we do not wish to
think under the control of language; the most we
can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt con-
cerning the question whether the boundary here
really is a boundary.
Rational thought is a process of interpreting
according to a scheme which we cannot reject.
U CONSCIOUSNESS.
523.
There is no greater error than that of making
psychical and physical phenomena the two faces,
the two manifestations of the same substance.
By this means nothing is explained: the concept
“substance" is utterly useless as a means of explana-
tion. Consciousness may be regarded as secondary,
almost an indifferent and superfluous thing, prob-
ably destined to disappear and to be superseded
by perfect automatism
When we observe mental phenomena we may
be likened to the deaf and dumb who divine the
spoken word, which they do not hear, from the
movements of the speaker's lips. From the
appearance of the inner mind we draw conclusions
concerning invisible and other phenomena, which
we could ascertain if our powers of observation
were adequate for the purpose.
## p. 39 (#69) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
39
For this inner world we have no finer organs,
and that is why a complexity which is thousandfold
reaches our consciousness as a simple entity, and
we invent a process of causation in it, despite the
fact that we can perceive no cause either of the
movement or of the change the sequence of
thoughts and feelings is nothing more than their
becoming visible to consciousness. That this
sequence has anything to do with a chain of causes
is not worthy of belief: consciousness never com-
municates an example of cause and effect to us.
-
pi
a.
;,
524.
The part "consciousness" plays. -It is essential
that one should not mistake the part that con-
sciousness" plays: it is our relation to the outer
world; it was the outer world that developed it.
On the other hand, the direction—that is to say,
the care and cautiousness which is concerned with
the inter-relation of the bodily functions, does
not enter into our consciousness any more than
does the storing activity of the intellect: that there
is a superior controlling force at work in these
things cannot be doubted—a sort of directing com-
mittee, in which the various leading desires make
their votes and their power felt. “ Pleasure" and
“pain" are indications which reach us from this
sphere: as are also acts of will and ideas.
In short : That which becomes conscious has
causal relations which are completely and absolutely
concealed from our knowledge-the sequence of
thoughts, feelings, and ideas, in consciousness, does
ሃ
ta
## p. 40 (#70) ##############################################
40
THE WILL TO POWER.
not signify that the order in which they come is
a causal order : it is so apparently, however, in the
highest degree. We have based the whole of our
notion of intellect, reason, logic, etc. , upon this
apparent truth (all these things do not exist : they
are imaginary syntheses and entities), and we then
projected the latter into and behind all things !
As a rule consciousness itself is understood to be
the general sensorium and highest ruling centre;
albeit, it is only a means of communication: it was
developed by intercourse, and with a view to the in-
terests of intercourse. “ Intercourse " is under-
stood, here, as "relation," and is intended to cover
the action of the outer world upon us and our
necessary response to it, as also our actual influence
upon the outer world. It is not the conducting
force, but an organ of the latter.
$
525.
My principle, compressed into a formula which
savours of antiquity, of Christianity, Scholasticism,
and other kinds of musk: in the. concept, “ God is
spirit," God as perfection is denied.
526.
Wherever people have observed a certain unity
in the grouping of things, spirit has always been
regarded as the cause of this co-ordination : an
assumption for which reasons are entirely lack-
ing. Why should the idea of a complex fact be
one of the conditions of that fact? Or why should
## p. 41 (#71) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
41
the notion of a complex fact have to precede it as
its cause?
We must be on our guard against explaining
finality by the spirit : there is absolutely no
reason whatever for ascribing to spirit the peculiar
power of organising and systematising. The
domain of the nervous system is much more ex-
tensive: the realm of consciousness is superadded.
In the collective process of adaptation and systema-
tising, consciousness plays no part at all.
527
Physiologists, like philosophers, believe that
consciousness increases in value in proportion as
it gains in clearness: the most lucid consciousness
and the most logical and impassive thought are of
the first order. Meanwhile-according to what
standard is this value determined ? -In regard to
the discharge of will-power the most superficial and
most simple thought is the most useful-it might
therefore, etc. etc. (because it leaves few motives
over).
Precision in action is opposed to the far-sighted
and often uncertain judgments of caution: the
latter is led by the deeper instinct.
528.
The chief error of psychologists: they regard the
indistinct idea as of a lower kind than the distinct;
but that which keeps at a distance from our con-
sciousness and which is therefore obscure, may on
## p. 42 (#72) ##############################################
42
THE WILL TO POWER.
that very account be quite clear in itself. The fact
that a thing becomes obscure is a question of the
perspective of consciousness
529.
The great misapprehensions :
(1) The senseless overestimation of consciousness,
its elevation to the dignity of an entity: “a spirit,”
"a soul,” something that feels, thinks, and wills;
(2) The spirit regarded as a cause, especially
where finality, system, and co-ordination appear;
(3) Consciousness classed as the highest form
attainable, as the most superior kind of being, as
“God”;
(4) Will introduced wherever effects are observed;
(5) The “real world” regarded as the spiritual
world, accessible by means of the facts of con-
sciousness;
(6) Absolute knowledge regarded as the faculty
of consciousness, wherever knowledge exists at all.
Consequences :
Every step forward consists of a step forward
in consciousness; every step backwards is a step
into unconsciousness (unconsciousness was regarded
as a falling-back upon the passions and senses-
as a state of animalism. . . ).
Man approaches reality and “real being
through dialectics: man departs from them by
means of instincts, senses, and automatism.
To convert man into a spirit, would mean to
make a god of him: spirit, will, goodness—all
.
"
one,
## p. 43 (#73) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
43
All goodness must take its root in spirituality,
must be a fact of consciousness.
Every step made towards something better can
be only a step forward in consciousness.
(8) JUDGMENT. TRUE=FALSE.
530.
C
Kant's theological bias, his unconscious dogmat-
ism, his moraloutlook,ruled,guided,and directed him.
The πρώτον ψεύδος: how is the fact knowledge
possible? Is knowledge a fact at all ? What is
knowledge? If we do not know what knowledge
is, we cannot possibly reply to the question," Is
there such a thing as knowledge ? "-_ Very fine. !
But if I do not already "know " whether there is, or
can be, such a thing as knowledge, I cannot reason-
ably ask the question, "What is knowledge ? ” Kant
believes in the fact of knowledge: what he requires
is a piece of naïveté : the knowledge of knowledge !
Knowledge is judgment. ” But judgment is
a belief that something is this or that! And
not knowledge ! "All knowledge consists in
synthetic judgments" which have the character of
being universally true (the fact is so in all cases, and
does not change), and which have the character of
being necessary (the reverse of the proposition
cannot be imagined to exist).
The validity of a belief in knowledge is always
taken for granted; as is also the validity of the
feelings which conscience dictates. Here mioral
ontology is the ruling bias.
D
d
"
by
n to
---all
!
## p. 44 (#74) ##############################################
44
THE WILL TO POWER.
The conclusion, therefore, is : (1) there are pro-
positions which we believe to be universally true
and necessary.
(2) This character of universal truth and of
necessity cannot spring from experience.
(3) Consequently it must base itself upon no
experience at all, but upon something else; it must
be derived from another source of knowledge !
(Kant concludes (1) that there are some pro-
positions which hold good only on one condition ;
(2) this condition is that they do not spring from
experience, but from pure reason. )
Thus, the question is, whence do we derive our
reasons for believing in the truth of such proposi-
tions ? No, whence does our belief get its cause?
But the origin of a belief, of a strong conviction,
is a psychological problem: and very limited and
narrow experience frequently brings about such a
belief! It already presupposes that there are not
only “data a posteriori” but also "data a priori”—
that is to say, "previous to experience. " Neces-
sary and universal truth cannot be given by experi-
ence: it is therefore quite clear that it has come to.
us without experience at all?
There is no such thing as an isolated judgment !
An isolated judgment is never “true,” it is never
knowledge; only in connection with, and when
related to, many other judgments, is a guarantee
of its truth forthcoming.
What is the difference between true and false
belief? What is knowledge ? He “knows" it,
that is heavenly!
Necessary and universal truth cannot be given
## p. 45 (#75) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
45
by experience! It is therefore independent of ex-
perience, of all experience! The view which comes
quite a priori, and therefore independent of all ex-
perience, merely out of reason, is "pure knowledge”!
“ The principles of logic, the principle of identity
and of contradiction, are examples of pure know-
ledge, because they precede all experience. "-But
these principles are not cognitions, but regulative
articles of faith.
In order to establish the a priori character (the
pure rationality) of mathematical axioms, space
must be conceived as a form of pure reason.
Hume had declared that there were no a priori
synthetic judgments. Kant says there are the
mathematical ones! And if there are such judg-
ments, there may also be such things as metaphysics
and a knowledge of things by means of pure reason !
Mathematics is possible under conditions which
are not allowed to metaphysics. All human know-
ledge is either experience or mathematics.
A judgment is synthetic—that is to say, it co-
ordinates various ideas. It is a priori— that is to
say, this co-ordination is universally true and
necessary, and is arrived at, not by sensual experi-
ence, but by pure reason.
If there are such thingsas a priori judgments, then
reason must be able to co-ordinate: co-ordination
is a form. Reason must possess a formative faculty.
531.
Judging is our oldest faith; it is our habit of
believing this to be true or false, of asserting or
i i
## p. 46 (#76) ##############################################
46
THE WILL TO POWER.
:
denying, our certainty that something is thus and
not otherwise, our belief that we really "know-
what is believed to be true in all judgments ?
What are attributes ? —We did not regard
changes in ourselves merely as such, but as “ things
in themselves," which are strange to us, and which
we only "perceive"; and we did not class them as
phenomena, but as Being, as "attributes"; and in
addition we invented a creature to which they attach
themselves—taat is to say, we made the effect the
working cause, and the latter we made Being. But
even in this plain statement, the concept "effect”
is arbitrary: for in regard to those changes which
occur in us, and of which we are convinced we
ourselves are not the cause, we still argue that
they must be effects: and this is in accordance
with the belief that “every change must have its
author";—but this belief in itself is already
mythology; for it separates the working cause from
the cause in work. When I say the “lightning
flashes," I set the flash down, once as an action and
a second time as a subject acting; and thus a
a
thing is fancifully affixed to a phenomenon, which
is not one with it, but which is stable, which is, and
does not "come. ”—To make the phenomenon the
working cause, and to make the effect into a thing
-into Being : this is the double error, or interpreta-
tion, of which we are guilty.
"
532.
The Judgment—that is the faith: “This and
this is so. ” In every judgment, therefore, there lies
>
## p. 47 (#77) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
47
the admission that an “identical case " has been
met with: it thus takes some sort of comparison
for granted, with the help of the memory. Judg.
ment does not create the idea that an identical case
seems to be there. It believes rather that it actu-
ally perceives such a case; it works on the
hypothesis that there are such things as identical
cases.
But what is that much older function called,
which must have been active much earlier, and
which in itself equalises unequal cases and makes
them alike? What is that second function called,
which with this first one as a basis, etc.
ment as a symbol for the eye; it denotes that
something has been felt, willed, thought.
The danger of directly questioning the subject con-
cerning the subject, and all spiritual self-reflection.
consists in this, that it might be a necessary con-
dition of its activity to interpret itself erroneously.
That is why we appeal to the body and lay the
evidence of sharpened senses aside: or we try and
see whether the subjects themselves cannot enter
into communication with us.
(d) BIOLOGY OF THE INSTINCT OF KNOWLEDGE.
PERSPECTIVITY.
493
Truth is that kind of error without which a
certain species of living being cannot exist. The
value for Life is ultimately decisive.
494.
It is unlikely that our “knowledge” extends
farther than is exactly necessary for our self-pres-
ervation. Morphology shows us how the senses
and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in pro-
portion as the difficulties of acquiring sustenance
increase.
495.
If the morality of “Thou shalt not lie” be re-
futed, the sense for truth will then have to justify
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
21
!
:
itself before another tribunal-
as a means to the
preservation of man, as Will to Power.
Likewise our love of the beautiful : it is also the
creative will. Both senses stand side by side; the
sense of truth is the means wherewith the power
is appropriated to adjust things according to one's
taste. The love of adjusting and reforming—a
primeval love! We can only take cognisance of a
world which we ourselves have made.
496.
Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge.
The tracing of its relation to many other things (or
the relation of kind)—how should“ knowledge” be
of another? The way to know and to investigate
is in itself among the conditions of life; that is why
the conclusion that there could be no other kind
of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind which
serves the purpose of our preservation is an ex-
cessively hasty one: this actual condition may
be only an accidental, not in the least an essential
one.
Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not
adjusted for “knowledge. ”
497.
»
The most strongly credited a priori “ truths
are, to my mind, mere assumptions pending further
investigation; for instance, the law of causation is
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22
THE WILL TO POWER.
a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so
completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it
would mean the ruin of our kind. But is it
therefore true ? What an extraordinary conclu-
sion ! As if truth were proved by the mere fact
that man survives !
498.
To what extent is our intellect also a result of
the conditions of life - We should not have it did
wę not need to have it, and we should not have
it as we have it, if we did not need it as we need
it--that is to say, if we could live otherwise.
499.
" Thinking” in a primitive (inorganic) state is to
dersevere in forms, as in the case of the crystal. -In
our thought, the essential factor is the harmonising
of the new material with the old scheines (= Pro-
crustes' bed), the assimilation of the unfamiliar.
500.
The perception of the senses projected out-
wards: “inwards” and “outwards”-does the
"
body command here?
The same equalising and ordering power which
rules in the idioplasma, also rules in the incorpora-
tion of the outer world : our sensual perceptions
are already the result of this process of adaptation
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
23
and harmonisation in regard to all the past in us;
they do not follow directly upon the “impression. ”
501.
6
All thought, judgment, perception, regarded as
an act of comparing, * has as a first condition
the act of equalising, and earlier still the act of
“making equal. ” The process of making equal
is the same as the assimilation by the amoeba of
the nutritive matter it appropriates.
Memory” late, in so far as the equalising in-
stinct appears to have been subdued: the difference
is preserved. Memory—a process of classification
and collocation; active—who?
00
502.
In regard to the memory, we must unlearn a great .
deal: here we meet with the greatest temptation
to assume the existence of a “soul,” which, irre-
spective of time, reproduces and recognises again
and again, etc. What I have experienced, however,
continues to live “in the memory"; I have noth-
ing to do with it when memory "comes," my will
is inactive in regard to it, as in the case of the
coming and going of a thought. Something
happens,
of which I become conscious: now some-
thing similar comes—who has called it forth?
Who has awakened it?
* The German word vergleichen, meaning “to compare,'
contains the root "equal” (gleich) which cannot be rendered
in English. —TR.
## p. 24 (#54) ##############################################
24
TIIE WILL TO POWER.
503.
CC
are
The whole apparatus of knowledge is an ab-
stracting and simplifying apparatus—not directed
at knowledge, but at the appropriation of things:
“ end” and means
as remote from the
essence of this apparatus as “concepts" are. By
the "end" and the means a process is appro-
priated (-a process is invented which may be
grasped), but by “concepts” one appropriates the
“things” which constitute the process.
(0
504.
Consciousness begins outwardly as co-ordina-
tion and knowledge of impressiofis,-at first it is
at the point which is remotest from the biological
centre of the individual; but it is a process which
deepens and which tends to become more and more
an inner function, continually approaching nearer
to the centre.
505.
Our perceptions, as we understand them—that
is to say, the sum of all those perceptions the con-
sciousness whereof was useful and essential to us
and to the whole organic processes which preceded
us: therefore they do not include all perceptions
(for instance, not the electrical ones);that is to
say, we have senses only for a definite selection of
perceptions—such perceptions as concern us with a
view to our self-preservation. Consciousness extends
so far only as it is useful. There can be no doubt
that all our sense-perceptions are entirely per-
1
1
1
## p. 25 (#55) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
25
1
meated by valuations (useful or harmful-conse-
quently, pleasant or painful). Every particular
colour, besides being a colour, expresses a value to
us (although we seldom admit it, or do so only
after it has affected us exclusively for a long time,
as in the case of convicts in gaol or lunatics). In-
sects likewise react in different ways to different
colours: some like this shade, the others that.
Ants are a case in point.
506.
In the beginning images-how images originate
in the mind must be explained. Then words, ap-
plied to images. Finally concepts, possible only
when there are words—the assembling of several
pictures into a whole which is not for the eye but
for the ear (word). The small amount of emotion
which the “word” generates,—that is, then, which
the view of the similar pictures generates, for which
one word is used,—this simple emotion is the
common factor, the basis of a concept. That weak
feelings should all be regarded as alike, as the same,
is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a con-
fusion of two very intimately associated feelings in
the ascertainment of these feelings ;—but who is it
that ascertains ? Faith is the very first step in
every sensual impression : a sort of yea-saying is
the first intellectual activity! A "holding-a-thing-
to-be-true" is the beginning. It were our business,
therefore, to explain how the "holding-of-a-thing-
to-be-true" arose ! What sensation lies beneath
the comment "true"?
## p. 26 (#56) ##############################################
26
THE WILL TO POWER.
507.
The valuation, “I believe that this and that is
so," is the essence of “truth. " In all valuations,
the conditions of preservation and of growth find
expression. All our organs and senses of know-
ledge have been developed only in view of the con-
ditions of preservation and growth. The trust in
reason and its categories, the trust in dialectics, and
also the valuation of logic, prove only that ex-
perience has taught the usefulness of these things
to life: not their “truth. ”
The pre-requisites of all living things and of
their lives is : that there should be a large amount
of faith, that it should be possible to pass definite
judgments on things, and that there should be no
doubt at all concerning all essential values. Thus
it is necessary that something should be assumed
to be true, not that it is true.
“The real world and the world of appearance"
I trace this contrast to the relation of values. We
have posited our conditions of existence as the attri-
butes of being in general. Owing to the fact that,
in order to prosper, we must be stable in our belief,
we developed the idea that the real world was
neither a changing nor an evolving one, but a
world of being
C
.
(e) THE ORIGIN OF REASON AND LOGIC.
.
508.
1
Originally there was chaos among our ideas.
Those ideas which were able to stand side by side
## p. 27 (#57) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
27
remained over, the greater number perished-and
are still perishing.
509.
The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew :
the gregarious instinct in the background. The
assumption of similar facts is the first condition
for “similar souls. ” For the purpose of mutual
understanding and government.
510.
Concerning the origin of logic. The fundamental
proneness to equalise things and to see them equal,
gets to be modified, and kept within bounds, by the
consideration of what is useful or harmful-in fact,
by considerations of success : it then becomes
adapted in suchwise as to be gratified in a milder
way, without at the same time denying life or en-
dangering it. This whole process corresponds
entirely with that external and mechanical process
(which is its symbol) by which the protoplasm con-
tinually assimilates, makes equal to itself, what it
appropriates, and arranges it according to its own
forms and requirements.
511.
Likeness and Similarity.
1. The coarser the organ the more apparent
likenesses it sees;
2. The mind will have likeness—that is to say,
the identification of one sensual impression with
others already experienced : just as the body
assimilates inorganic matter.
i
{
## p. 28 (#58) ##############################################
28
THE WILL TO POWER.
For the understanding of Logic:-
The will which tends to see likeness everywhere is
the will to power—the belief that something is so
and so (the essence of a judgment), is the result of a
will which would fain have it as similar as possible.
512.
Logic is bound up with the proviso: granted
that identical cases exist. As a matter of fact, before
one can think and conclude in a logical fashion, this
condition must first be assumed. That is to say, the
will to logical truth cannot be consummated before
a fundamental falsification of all phenomena has
been assumed. From which it follows that an in-
stinct rules here, which is capable of employing both
means: first, falsification; and secondly, the carrying
out of its own point of view : logic does not spring
from a will to truth.
513.
The inventive force which devised the categories,
worked in the service of our need of security, of
quick intelligibility, in the form of signs, sounds, and
abbreviations. —“ Substance," "subject,” “object,"
“ Being,” “ Becoming,” are not matters of meta-
physical truth. It was the powerful who made the
names of things into law, and, among the powerful,
it was the greatest artists in abstraction who created
the categories.
514.
A moral—that is to say, a method of living which
long experience and experiment have tested and
1
1
6
1
## p. 29 (#59) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
29
.
.
proved efficient, at last enters consciousness as a law,
as dominant. . . And then the whole group of
related values and conditions become part of it:
it becomes venerable, unassailable, holy, true;
necessary part of its evolution is that its origin
should be forgotten. . . . That is a sign that it has
become master. Exactly the same thing might
have happened with the categories of reason: the
latter, after much groping and many trials, might
have proved true through relative usefulness. .
A stage was reached when they were grasped as a
whole, and when they appealed to consciousness as
a whole,—when belief in them was commanded,
that is to say, when they acted as if they com-
manded. . . . From that time forward they passed
as a priori, as beyond experience, as irrefutable.
And, possibly, they may have been the expression
of no more than a certain practicality answering
the ends of a race and a species,—their usefulness
а
alone is their “truth. ”
515.
The object is, not " to know," but to schematise,
to impose as much regularity and form upon
chaos, as our practical needs require.
In the formation of reason, logic, and the
categories, it was a need in us that was the
determining power : not the need “ to know," but
to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of
intelligibility and calculation. (The adjustment
and interpretation of all similar and equal things,-
the same process, which every sensual impression
## p. 30 (#60) ##############################################
30
THE WILL TO POWER.
as
undergoes, is the development of reason! ) No
pre-existing “idea" had anything to do with it:
but utility, which teaches us that things can be
reckoned with and managed, only when we view
them roughly as equal. . . . Finality in reason is
an effect, not a cause : Life degenerates with
every other form of reason, although constant at-
tempts are being made to attain to those other
forms of reason ;- for Life would then become
too obscure,—too unequal.
The categories are "truths ” only in the sense
that they are the conditions of our existence, just
Euclid's Space is a conditional "truth. ”
(Between ourselves, as no one will maintain that
men are absolutely necessary, reason, as well as
Euclid's Space, are seen to be but an idiosyncrasy
of one particular species of animals, one idiosyn-
crasy alone among many others. . )
The subjective constraint which prevents one
from contradicting here, is a biological constraint:
the instinct which makes us see the utility of
concluding as we do conclude, is in our blood, we
are almost this instinct . . . But what simplicity
it is to attempt to derive from this fact that we
possess an absolute truth! . . . The inability to
contradict anything is a proof of impotence but
not of “truth. ”
.
516.
We are not able to affirm and to deny one and
the same thing: that is a principle of subjective
experience—which is not in the least “necessary,”
but only a sign of inability.
## p. 31 (#61) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
31
If, according to Aristotle, the principium contra-
dictionis is the most certain of all principles ; if it
is the most ultimate of all, and the basis of every
demonstration; if the principle of every other
axiom lie within it: then one should analyse
it all the more severely, in order to discover how
many assumptions already lie at its root. It either
assumes something concerning reality and Being,
as if these had become known in some other
sphere—that is to say, as if it were impossible to
ascribe the opposite attributes to it; or the proposi-
tion means: that the opposites should not be
ascribed to it. In that case, logic would be an
imperative, not directed at the knowledge of truth,
but at the adjusting and fixing of a world which
must seem true to us.
In short, the question is a debatable one: are
the axioms of logic adequate to reality, or are they
measures and means by which alone we can create
realities, or the concept "reality”? . . . In order
to affirm the first alternative, however, one would,
as we have seen, require a previous knowledge of
Being; which is certainly not the case.
position therefore contains no criterion of truth,
but an imperative concerning that which should
pass as true.
Supposing there were no such thing as A
identical with itself, as every logical and
mathematical) proposition presupposes, and that
A is in itself an appearance, then logic would
have a mere world of appearance as its first
condition. As a matter of fact, we believe in that
proposition, under the influence of an endless
The pro-
## p. 32 (#62) ##############################################
32
THE WILL TO POWER.
<
empiricism which seems to confirm it every
minute. The “thing "—that is the real sub-
stratum of A ; our belief in things is the first
condition of our faith in logic. The A in logic
is, like the atom, a reconstruction of the
“ thing. " . . . By not understanding this, and by
making logic into a criterion of real being, we are
already on the road to the classification of all those
hypostases : substance, attribute, object, subject,
action, etc. , as realities—that is to say, the
conception of a metaphysical world or a "real
world" (this is, however, once more the world of
appearance . . . ).
The primitive acts of thought, affirmation, and
negation, the holding of a thing for true, and the
holding of a thing for not true,—in so far as they
do not only presuppose a mere habit, but the very
right to postulate truth or untruth at all,—are
already dominated by a belief, that there is such a
thing as knowledge for us, and that judgments can
really hit the truth: in short, logic never doubts
that it is able to pronounce something concerning
truth in itself (that is to say, that to the thing
which is in itself true, no opposite attributes can
be ascribed).
In this belief there reigns the sensual and coarse
prejudice that our sensations teach us truths
concerning things,--that I cannot at the same
moment of time say of one and the same thing
that it is hard and soft. (The instinctive proof,
"I cannot have two opposite sensations at once,"
is quite coarse and false.
)
That all contradiction in concepts should be
1
## p. 33 (#63) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
33
1
forbidden, is the result of a belief, that we are able
to form concepts, that a concept not only character-
ises but also holds the essence of a thing. . . . As a
matter of fact, logic (like geometry and arithmetic)
only holds good of assumed existences which we have
created. Logic is the attempt on our part to under-
stand the actual world according to a scheme of
Being devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, it is our
attempt at making the actual world more calculable
and more susceptible to formulation, for our own
purposes.
.
517.
In order to be able to think and to draw
conclusions, it is necessary to acknowledge that
which exists : logic only deals with formulæ for
things which are constant. That is why this
acknowledgment would not in the least prove
reality : "that which is” is part of our optics.
The "ego” regarded as Being (not affected by
either Becoming or evolution).
The assumed world of subject, substance,
reason," etc. , is necessary: an adjusting, simplify-
ing, falsifying, artificially-separating power resides
" Truth” is the will to be master over the
manifold sensations that reach consciousness; it is
the will to classify phenomena according to definite
categories. In this way we start out with a belief
in the
nature of things (we regard
phenomena as real).
The character of the world in the process of
Becoming is not susceptible of formulation; it is
« false” and “contradicts itself. " Knowledge and
C
in us.
а
»
“ true
VOL. II.
## p. 34 (#64) ##############################################
34
THE WILL TO POWER.
the process of evolution exclude each other.
Consequently, knowledge must be something else:
it must be preceded by a will to make things
knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must create
the illusion of Being.
518.
If our “ego " is the only form of Being, accord-
ing to which we make and understand all Being :
very good!
In that case it were very proper
to doubt whether an illusion of perspective were
not active here—the apparent unity which every-
thing assumes in our eyes on the horizon-line.
Appealing to the body for our guidance, we are
confronted by such appalling manifoldness, that
for the sake of method it is allowable to use
that phenomenon which is richer and more easily
studied as a clue to the understanding of the
poorer phenomenon.
Finally : admitting that all is Becoming, know-
ledge is only possible when based on a belief in Being.
519.
If there is “only one form of Being, the ego,"
and all other forms of Being are made in its own
image,-if, in short, the belief in the "ego,"
together with the belief in logic, stands and falls
with the metaphysical truth of the categories
of reason : if, in addition, the "ego” is shown to
be something that is evolving: then-.
## p. 35 (#65) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
35
520.
»
we
The continual transitions that occur, forbid our
speaking of the “individual," etc. ; the "number”
of beings itself fluctuates. We should know no-
thing of time or of movement, if, in a rough way,
we did not believe we saw things "standing still ”
behind or in front of things moving. We should
also know just as little about cause and effect, and
without the erroneous idea of “empty space
should never have arrived at the concept of space
at all. The principle of identity is based on the
"fact of appearance" that there are some things
alike. Strictly speaking, it would not be possible
to “ understand” and “ know an evolving world;
something which is called "knowledge” exists
only in so far as the “understanding and
knowing” intellect already finds an adjusted
and rough world to hand, fashioned out of a host
of mere appearances, but become fixed to the
extent in which this kind of appearance has helped
to preserve life; only to this extent is "knowledge
possible—that is to say, as a measuring of earlier
and more recent errors by one another.
66
521.
Concerning “ logical appearance. " - The concept
“ individual and the concept "species” are
equally false and only apparent. Species” only
expresses the fact that an abundance of similar
creatures come forth at the same time, and that
the speed of their further growth and of their
## p. 36 (#66) ##############################################
36
THE WILL TO POWER.
a
further transformation has been made almost
imperceptible for a long time: so that the
actual and trivial changes and increase of growth
are of no account at all (-a stage of evolution in
which the process of evolving is not visible, so
that, not only does a state of equilibrium seem
to have been reached, but the road is also made
clear for the error of supposing that an actual goal
has been reached and that evolution had
goal . . . ).
The form seems to be something enduring, and
therefore valuable ; but the form was invented
merely by ourselves; and however often “the
same form is attained,” it does not signify that
it is the same form, because something new always
appears; and we alone, who compare, reckon the
new with the old, in so far as it resembles the
latter, and embody the two in the unity of " form. ”
As if a type had to be reached and were actually
intended by the formative processes.
Form, species, law, idea, purpose—the same fault
is made in respect of all these concepts, namely,
that of giving a false realism to a piece of fiction :
as if all phenomena were infused with some sort of
obedient spirit—an artificial distinction is here
made between that which acts and that which
guides action (but both these things are only
fixed in order to agree with our metaphysico-logical
dogma: they are not “facts”).
We should not interpret this constraint in our-
selves, to imagine concepts, species, forms, purposes,
and laws (“a world of identical cases ") as if we were
in a position to construct a real world; but as
## p. 37 (#67) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
37
a constraint to adjust a world by means of which
our existence will be ensured : we thereby create
a world which is determinable, simplified, com-
prehensible, etc. , for us.
The very same constraint is active in the
functions of the senses which support the reason-
by means of simplification, coarsening, accentua-
tion, and interpretation; whereon all “recognition,"
all the ability of making one's self intelligible
rests. Our needs have made our senses so precise,
that the “same world of appearance” always
returns, and has thus acquired the semblance of
reality.
Our subjective constraint to have faith in logic,
is expressive only of the fact that long before
logic itself became conscious in us, we did nothing
save introduce its postulates into the nature of
things: now we find ourselves in their presence, -
we can no longer help it,—and now we would fain
believe that this constraint is a guarantee of “truth. ”
We it was who created the “ thing," the
thing," the subject, the attribute, the action, the ob-
ject, the substance, and the form, after we had carried
the process of equalising, coarsening, and simplify-
ing as far as possible. The world seems logical
to us, because we have already made it logical.
It
same
y,
n:
of
Lere
zich
only
gical
522.
our-
poses,
were
ut as
Fundamental solution. We believe in reason :
this is, however, the philosophy of colourless
concepts. Language is built upon the most naïf
prejudices.
## p. 38 (#68) ##############################################
38
THE WILL TO POWER.
Now we read discord and problems into things,
because we are able to think only in the form of
language--we also believe in the "eternal truth "
of “wisdom” (for instance, subject, attribute, etc. ).
We cease from thinking if we do not wish to
think under the control of language; the most we
can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt con-
cerning the question whether the boundary here
really is a boundary.
Rational thought is a process of interpreting
according to a scheme which we cannot reject.
U CONSCIOUSNESS.
523.
There is no greater error than that of making
psychical and physical phenomena the two faces,
the two manifestations of the same substance.
By this means nothing is explained: the concept
“substance" is utterly useless as a means of explana-
tion. Consciousness may be regarded as secondary,
almost an indifferent and superfluous thing, prob-
ably destined to disappear and to be superseded
by perfect automatism
When we observe mental phenomena we may
be likened to the deaf and dumb who divine the
spoken word, which they do not hear, from the
movements of the speaker's lips. From the
appearance of the inner mind we draw conclusions
concerning invisible and other phenomena, which
we could ascertain if our powers of observation
were adequate for the purpose.
## p. 39 (#69) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
39
For this inner world we have no finer organs,
and that is why a complexity which is thousandfold
reaches our consciousness as a simple entity, and
we invent a process of causation in it, despite the
fact that we can perceive no cause either of the
movement or of the change the sequence of
thoughts and feelings is nothing more than their
becoming visible to consciousness. That this
sequence has anything to do with a chain of causes
is not worthy of belief: consciousness never com-
municates an example of cause and effect to us.
-
pi
a.
;,
524.
The part "consciousness" plays. -It is essential
that one should not mistake the part that con-
sciousness" plays: it is our relation to the outer
world; it was the outer world that developed it.
On the other hand, the direction—that is to say,
the care and cautiousness which is concerned with
the inter-relation of the bodily functions, does
not enter into our consciousness any more than
does the storing activity of the intellect: that there
is a superior controlling force at work in these
things cannot be doubted—a sort of directing com-
mittee, in which the various leading desires make
their votes and their power felt. “ Pleasure" and
“pain" are indications which reach us from this
sphere: as are also acts of will and ideas.
In short : That which becomes conscious has
causal relations which are completely and absolutely
concealed from our knowledge-the sequence of
thoughts, feelings, and ideas, in consciousness, does
ሃ
ta
## p. 40 (#70) ##############################################
40
THE WILL TO POWER.
not signify that the order in which they come is
a causal order : it is so apparently, however, in the
highest degree. We have based the whole of our
notion of intellect, reason, logic, etc. , upon this
apparent truth (all these things do not exist : they
are imaginary syntheses and entities), and we then
projected the latter into and behind all things !
As a rule consciousness itself is understood to be
the general sensorium and highest ruling centre;
albeit, it is only a means of communication: it was
developed by intercourse, and with a view to the in-
terests of intercourse. “ Intercourse " is under-
stood, here, as "relation," and is intended to cover
the action of the outer world upon us and our
necessary response to it, as also our actual influence
upon the outer world. It is not the conducting
force, but an organ of the latter.
$
525.
My principle, compressed into a formula which
savours of antiquity, of Christianity, Scholasticism,
and other kinds of musk: in the. concept, “ God is
spirit," God as perfection is denied.
526.
Wherever people have observed a certain unity
in the grouping of things, spirit has always been
regarded as the cause of this co-ordination : an
assumption for which reasons are entirely lack-
ing. Why should the idea of a complex fact be
one of the conditions of that fact? Or why should
## p. 41 (#71) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
41
the notion of a complex fact have to precede it as
its cause?
We must be on our guard against explaining
finality by the spirit : there is absolutely no
reason whatever for ascribing to spirit the peculiar
power of organising and systematising. The
domain of the nervous system is much more ex-
tensive: the realm of consciousness is superadded.
In the collective process of adaptation and systema-
tising, consciousness plays no part at all.
527
Physiologists, like philosophers, believe that
consciousness increases in value in proportion as
it gains in clearness: the most lucid consciousness
and the most logical and impassive thought are of
the first order. Meanwhile-according to what
standard is this value determined ? -In regard to
the discharge of will-power the most superficial and
most simple thought is the most useful-it might
therefore, etc. etc. (because it leaves few motives
over).
Precision in action is opposed to the far-sighted
and often uncertain judgments of caution: the
latter is led by the deeper instinct.
528.
The chief error of psychologists: they regard the
indistinct idea as of a lower kind than the distinct;
but that which keeps at a distance from our con-
sciousness and which is therefore obscure, may on
## p. 42 (#72) ##############################################
42
THE WILL TO POWER.
that very account be quite clear in itself. The fact
that a thing becomes obscure is a question of the
perspective of consciousness
529.
The great misapprehensions :
(1) The senseless overestimation of consciousness,
its elevation to the dignity of an entity: “a spirit,”
"a soul,” something that feels, thinks, and wills;
(2) The spirit regarded as a cause, especially
where finality, system, and co-ordination appear;
(3) Consciousness classed as the highest form
attainable, as the most superior kind of being, as
“God”;
(4) Will introduced wherever effects are observed;
(5) The “real world” regarded as the spiritual
world, accessible by means of the facts of con-
sciousness;
(6) Absolute knowledge regarded as the faculty
of consciousness, wherever knowledge exists at all.
Consequences :
Every step forward consists of a step forward
in consciousness; every step backwards is a step
into unconsciousness (unconsciousness was regarded
as a falling-back upon the passions and senses-
as a state of animalism. . . ).
Man approaches reality and “real being
through dialectics: man departs from them by
means of instincts, senses, and automatism.
To convert man into a spirit, would mean to
make a god of him: spirit, will, goodness—all
.
"
one,
## p. 43 (#73) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
43
All goodness must take its root in spirituality,
must be a fact of consciousness.
Every step made towards something better can
be only a step forward in consciousness.
(8) JUDGMENT. TRUE=FALSE.
530.
C
Kant's theological bias, his unconscious dogmat-
ism, his moraloutlook,ruled,guided,and directed him.
The πρώτον ψεύδος: how is the fact knowledge
possible? Is knowledge a fact at all ? What is
knowledge? If we do not know what knowledge
is, we cannot possibly reply to the question," Is
there such a thing as knowledge ? "-_ Very fine. !
But if I do not already "know " whether there is, or
can be, such a thing as knowledge, I cannot reason-
ably ask the question, "What is knowledge ? ” Kant
believes in the fact of knowledge: what he requires
is a piece of naïveté : the knowledge of knowledge !
Knowledge is judgment. ” But judgment is
a belief that something is this or that! And
not knowledge ! "All knowledge consists in
synthetic judgments" which have the character of
being universally true (the fact is so in all cases, and
does not change), and which have the character of
being necessary (the reverse of the proposition
cannot be imagined to exist).
The validity of a belief in knowledge is always
taken for granted; as is also the validity of the
feelings which conscience dictates. Here mioral
ontology is the ruling bias.
D
d
"
by
n to
---all
!
## p. 44 (#74) ##############################################
44
THE WILL TO POWER.
The conclusion, therefore, is : (1) there are pro-
positions which we believe to be universally true
and necessary.
(2) This character of universal truth and of
necessity cannot spring from experience.
(3) Consequently it must base itself upon no
experience at all, but upon something else; it must
be derived from another source of knowledge !
(Kant concludes (1) that there are some pro-
positions which hold good only on one condition ;
(2) this condition is that they do not spring from
experience, but from pure reason. )
Thus, the question is, whence do we derive our
reasons for believing in the truth of such proposi-
tions ? No, whence does our belief get its cause?
But the origin of a belief, of a strong conviction,
is a psychological problem: and very limited and
narrow experience frequently brings about such a
belief! It already presupposes that there are not
only “data a posteriori” but also "data a priori”—
that is to say, "previous to experience. " Neces-
sary and universal truth cannot be given by experi-
ence: it is therefore quite clear that it has come to.
us without experience at all?
There is no such thing as an isolated judgment !
An isolated judgment is never “true,” it is never
knowledge; only in connection with, and when
related to, many other judgments, is a guarantee
of its truth forthcoming.
What is the difference between true and false
belief? What is knowledge ? He “knows" it,
that is heavenly!
Necessary and universal truth cannot be given
## p. 45 (#75) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
45
by experience! It is therefore independent of ex-
perience, of all experience! The view which comes
quite a priori, and therefore independent of all ex-
perience, merely out of reason, is "pure knowledge”!
“ The principles of logic, the principle of identity
and of contradiction, are examples of pure know-
ledge, because they precede all experience. "-But
these principles are not cognitions, but regulative
articles of faith.
In order to establish the a priori character (the
pure rationality) of mathematical axioms, space
must be conceived as a form of pure reason.
Hume had declared that there were no a priori
synthetic judgments. Kant says there are the
mathematical ones! And if there are such judg-
ments, there may also be such things as metaphysics
and a knowledge of things by means of pure reason !
Mathematics is possible under conditions which
are not allowed to metaphysics. All human know-
ledge is either experience or mathematics.
A judgment is synthetic—that is to say, it co-
ordinates various ideas. It is a priori— that is to
say, this co-ordination is universally true and
necessary, and is arrived at, not by sensual experi-
ence, but by pure reason.
If there are such thingsas a priori judgments, then
reason must be able to co-ordinate: co-ordination
is a form. Reason must possess a formative faculty.
531.
Judging is our oldest faith; it is our habit of
believing this to be true or false, of asserting or
i i
## p. 46 (#76) ##############################################
46
THE WILL TO POWER.
:
denying, our certainty that something is thus and
not otherwise, our belief that we really "know-
what is believed to be true in all judgments ?
What are attributes ? —We did not regard
changes in ourselves merely as such, but as “ things
in themselves," which are strange to us, and which
we only "perceive"; and we did not class them as
phenomena, but as Being, as "attributes"; and in
addition we invented a creature to which they attach
themselves—taat is to say, we made the effect the
working cause, and the latter we made Being. But
even in this plain statement, the concept "effect”
is arbitrary: for in regard to those changes which
occur in us, and of which we are convinced we
ourselves are not the cause, we still argue that
they must be effects: and this is in accordance
with the belief that “every change must have its
author";—but this belief in itself is already
mythology; for it separates the working cause from
the cause in work. When I say the “lightning
flashes," I set the flash down, once as an action and
a second time as a subject acting; and thus a
a
thing is fancifully affixed to a phenomenon, which
is not one with it, but which is stable, which is, and
does not "come. ”—To make the phenomenon the
working cause, and to make the effect into a thing
-into Being : this is the double error, or interpreta-
tion, of which we are guilty.
"
532.
The Judgment—that is the faith: “This and
this is so. ” In every judgment, therefore, there lies
>
## p. 47 (#77) ##############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
47
the admission that an “identical case " has been
met with: it thus takes some sort of comparison
for granted, with the help of the memory. Judg.
ment does not create the idea that an identical case
seems to be there. It believes rather that it actu-
ally perceives such a case; it works on the
hypothesis that there are such things as identical
cases.
But what is that much older function called,
which must have been active much earlier, and
which in itself equalises unequal cases and makes
them alike? What is that second function called,
which with this first one as a basis, etc.
