No More Learning

I notice something, and try to discover the
reason of it: originally this was, I look for an
intention behind it, and, above all, I look for one
who has an intention, for a subject, an agent :


## p. 55 (#85) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
55
-
mnemonic
fent being
; when we
even the
in seeing
lf: this
iect" of
stinc-
like
false
e it
ing,
every phenomenon is an action--formerly inten-
tions were seen behind all phenomena, this is our
oldest habit. Has the animal also this habit ?
As a living organism, is it not also compelled to
interpret things through itself. The question
"why? ” is always a question concerning the
causa finalis, and the general “purpose" of things.
We have no sign of the “sense of the efficient
cause"; in this respect Hume is quite right, habit
(but not only that of the individual) allows us to
expect that a certain process, frequently observed,
will follow upon another, but nothing more! That
which gives us such an extraordinarily firm faith in
causality, is not the rough habit of observing the
sequence of processes; but our inability to interpret
a phenomenon otherwise than as the result of de-
sign. It is the belief in living and thinking things,
as the only agents of causation; it is the belief
in will, in design—the belief that all phenomena
are actions, and that all actions presuppose an
agent; it is the belief in the “subject. ” Is not
this belief in the concepts subject and object an
arrant absurdity?
Question: Is the design the cause of a pheno-
menon ? Or is that also illusion ?
Is it not the phenomenon itself?
551.
A criticism of the concept "cause. ”—We have
absolutely no experience concerning cause; viewed
psychologically we derive the whole concept from
the subjective conviction, that we ourselves are
causes-that is to say, that the arm moves. . . . But


## p. 56 (#86) ##############################################

56
THE WILL TO POWER.
that is an error. We distinguish ourselves, the
agents, from the action, and everywhere we make
use of this scheme-we try to discover an agent
behind every phenomenon. What have we done?
We have misunderstood a feeling of power, tension,
resistance, a muscular feeling, which is already the
beginning of the action, and posited it as a cause;
or we have understood the will to do this or that,
as a cause, because the action follows it. There
is no such thing as “Cause," in those few cases in
which it seemed to be given, and in which we pro-
jected it out of ourselves in order to understand a
phenomenon, it has been shown to be an illusion.
Our understanding of a phenomenon consisted in
our inventing a subject who was responsible for
something happening, and for the manner in which
it happened. In our concept“cause" we have em-
braced our feeling of will, our feeling of “freedom,"
our feeling of responsibility and our design to do
an action: causa efficiens and causa finalis are
fundamentally one. -
We believed that an effect was explained when
we could point to a state in which it was inherent.
As a matter of fact, we invent all causes according
to the scheme of the effect: the latter is known to
us. . . . On the other hand, we are not in a position
to say of any particular thing how it will “act. ”
The thing, the subject the will, the design-all
inherent in the conception "cause. " We try to
discover things in order to explain why something
has changed. Even the "atom” is one of these
fanciful inventions like the "thing” and the
' primitive subject. ”
.
>
»


## p. 57 (#87) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
57
he
ke
nt
e?
n,
ne
=;
.
At last we understand that things—consequently
also atoms-effect nothing: because they are non-
existent; and that the concept causality is quite
useless. Out of a necessary sequence of states,
the latter's causal relationship does not follow
(that would be equivalent to extending their active
principle from 1 to 2, to 3, to 4, to 5). There is
no such thing as a cause or an effect. From the
standpoint of language we do not know how to
rid ourselves of them. But that does not matter.
If I imagine muscle separated from its “effects," I
have denied it. .
In short: a phenomenon is neither effected nor
capable of effecting. Causa is a faculty to effect
something, superadded fancifully to what hap-
pens.
The interpretation of causality is an illusion. . . .
.
A “thing" is the sum of its effects, synthetically
united by means of a concept, an image. As a
matter of fact, science has robbed the concept caus-
ality of all meaning, and has reserved it merely as
an allegorical formula, which has made it a matter
of indifference whether cause or effect be put on
this side or on that. It is asserted that in two
complex states (centres of force) the quantities of
energy remain constant.
The calculability of a phenomenon does not lie
in the fact that a rule is observed, or that a neces-
sity is obeyed, or that we have projected a law of
causality into every phenomenon: it lies in the
recurrence of “identical cases. ”
There is no such thing as a sense of causality,
as Kant would have us believe. We are aghast,


## p. 58 (#88) ##############################################

58
THE WILL TO POWER.
we feel insecure, we will have something familiar,
which can be relied upon. . . . As soon as we
are shown the existence of something old in a
new thing, we are pacified. The so-called instinct
of causality is nothing more than the fear of the
unfamiliar, and the attempt at finding something
in it which is already known. -It is not a search
for causes, but for the familiar.
552.
To combat determinism and teleology. - From
the fact that something happens regularly, and
that its occurrence may be reckoned upon, it does
not follow that it happens necessarily. If a quantity
of force determines and conducts itself in a certain
way in every particular case, it does not prove
that it has “ no free will. " “ Mechanical necessity”
is not an established fact: it was we who first
read it into the nature of all phenomena. We
interpreted the possibility of formularising pheno-
mena as a result of the dominion of necessary law
over all existence. But it does not follow, because
I do a determined thing, that I am bound to do
it. Compulsion cannot be demonstrated in things:
all that the rule proves is this, that one and the
same phenomenon is not another phenomenon.
Owing to the very fact that we fancied the ex-
istence of subjects "agents” in things, the notion
arose that all phenomena are the consequence of a
compulsory force exercised over the subject- exer-
cised by whom? once more by an “agent. ” The
concept "Cause and Effect" is a dangerous one, ,


## p. 59 (#89) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
59
iar,
we
a
so long as people believe in something that causes,
and a something that is caused.
(a) Necessity is not an established fact, but an
interpretation.
*
ict
the
ng
ch
n
d
S
7
1
(6) When it is understood that the “subject”
is nothing that acts, but only a thing of fancy,
there is much that follows.
Only with the subject as model we invented
thingness and read it into the pell-mell of sensa-
tions. If we cease from believing in the acting
subject, the belief in acting things, in reciprocal
action, in cause and effect between phenomena
which we call things, also falls to pieces.
In this case the world of acting atoms also dis-
appears : for this world is always assumed to
exist on the pre-determined grounds that subjects
are necessary
Ultimately, of course, " the thing-in-itself” also
disappears: for at bottom it is the conception of
a “subject-in-itself. ” But we have seen that the
subject is an imaginary thing. The antithesis
thing-in-itself” and “appearance” is untenable ;
but in this way the concept " appearance” also
disappears.
(c) If we abandon the idea of the acting subject,
we also abandon the object acted upon. Duration,
equality to self, Being, are inherent neither in
what is called subject, nor in what is called object :
they are complex phenomena, and in regard to
other phenomena are apparently durable--they are


## p. 60 (#90) ##############################################

60
THE WILL TO POWER.
distinguishable, for instance, by the different tempo
with which they happen (repose—movement, fixed
-loose : all'antitheses which do not exist in them-
selves and by means of which differences of degree
only are expressed; from a certain limited point
of view, though, they seem to be antitheses. There
are no such things as antitheses; it is from logic
that we derive our concept of contrasts — and
starting out from its standpoint we spread the
error over all things).
(d) If we abandon the ideas “subject ' and
"object ”; then we must also abandon the idea
"substance"—and therefore its various modifications
too; for instance: "matter," "spirit,” and other
hypothetical things, "eternity and the immuta-
bility of matter," etc. We are then rid of materi-
ality.
From a moral standpoint the world is false.
But inasmuch as morality itself is a part of this
world, morality also is false. The will to truth is
a process of establishing things; it is a process of
making things true and lasting, a total elimination
of that false character, a transvaluation of it into
being? Thus,“ truth” is not something which is
present and which has to be found and discovered;
it is something which has to be created and which
gives its name to a process, or, better still, to the
Will to overpower, which in itself has no purpose :
to introduce truth is a processus in infinitum, an
active determining—it is not a process of be-


## p. 61 (#91) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
61
coming conscious of something, which in itself is
fixed and determined. It is merely a word for
« The Will to Power. "
Life is based on the hypothesis of a belief in
stable and regularly recurring things; the mightier
it is, the more vast must be the world of know-
ledge and the world called being. Logicising,
rationalising, and systematising are of assistance
as means of existence.
Man projects his instinct of truth, his "aim," to
a certain extent beyond himself, in the form of a
metaphysical world of Being, a "thing-in-itself,"
a world already to hand. His requirements as a
creator make him invent the world in which he
works in advance; he anticipates it: this anticipa-
tion (this faith in truth) is his mainstay.
*
All phenomena, movement, Becoming, regarded
as the establishment of relations of degree and of
force, as a contest.
.
As soon as we fancy that some one is responsible
for the fact that we are thus and thus, etc. (God,
Nature), and that we ascribe our existence, our
happiness, our misery, our destiny, to that some one,
we corrupt the innocence of Becoming for ourselves.
We then have some one who wishes to attain to
something by means of us and with us.
The "welfare of the individual” is just as fanci-
ful as the "welfare of the species”: the first is not
sacrificed to the last; seen from afar, the species


## p. 62 (#92) ##############################################

62
THE WILL TO POWER.
is just as fluid as the individual.
“ The preserva
tion of the species” is only a result of the growth
of the species—that is to say, of the overcoming of
the species on the road to a stronger kind.
*
Theses : The apparent conformity of means to
end ("the conformity of means to end which far
surpasses the art of man") is merely the result of
that " Will to Power” which manifests itself in all
phenomena :
-To become stronger involves a pro-
cess of ordering, which may well be mistaken for an
attempted conformity of means to end :The ends
which are apparent are not intended; but, as soon
as a superior power prevails over an inferior power,
and the latter proceeds to work as a function
of the former, an order of rank is established, an
organisation which must give rise to the idea that
there is an arrangement of means and ends.
Against apparent" necessity”:-
This is only an expression for the fact that a
certain power is not also something else.
Against the apparent" conformity of means to
ends"
The latter is only an expression for the order
among the spheres of power and their interplay.
(2) THE THING-IN-ITSELF AND APPEARANCE.
553.
The foul blemish on Kant's criticism has at last
become visible even to the coarsest eyes : Kant


## p. 63 (#93) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
63
1
serva-
rowth
ng of
had no right to his distinction "appearance" and
thing-in-itself,"—in his own writings he had
deprived himself of the right of differentiating any
longer in this old and hackneyed manner, seeing
that he had condemned the practice of drawing
any conclusions concerning the cause of an appear-
ance from the appearance itself, as unallowable-
in accordance with his conception of the idea of
causality and its purely intraphenomenal validity :
and this conception, on the otheứ hand, already
anticipates that differentiation, as if the "thing-in-
itself” were not only inferred but actually given.
zs to
far
t of
all
ro-
554.
an
eds
on
er,
n
n
t
It is obvious that neither things-in-themselves
nor appearances can be related to each other in
the form of cause and effect: and from this it
follows that the concept "cause and effect” is not
applicable in a philosophy which believes in things-
in-themselves and in appearances.
Kant's mis-
take- . . As a matter of fact, from a psycho-
logical standpoint, the concept "cause and effect”
is derived from an attitude of mind which believes
it sees the action of will upon will everywhere,
which believes only in living things, and at bottom
only in souls (not in things). Within the mechani-
cal view of the world (which is logic and its appli-
cation to space and time that concept is reduced
to the mathematical formula with which-and
this is a fact which cannot be sufficiently em-
phasised --nothing is ever understood, but rather
defined-deformed.
5


## p. 64 (#94) ##############################################

64
THE WILL TO POWER.
555.
The greatest of all fables is the one relating to
knowledge. People would like to know how
things-in-themselves are constituted: but behold,
there are
no things-in-themselves !
But even
supposing there were an “in-itself,” an uncon-
ditional thing, it could on that very account not
be known! Something unconditioned cannot be
known: otherwise it would not be unconditioned !
Knowing, however, is always a process of "coming
into relation with something"; the knowledge-
seeker, on this principle, wants the thing, which he
would know, to be nothing to him, and to be
nothing to anybody at all: and from this there
results a contradiction,-in the first place, between
this will to know, and this desire that the thing to
be known should be nothing to him (wherefore
know at all then? ); and secondly, because something
which is nothing to anybody, does not even exist,
and therefore cannot be known. Knowing means:
" to place one's self in relation with something,"
to feel one's self conditioned by something and one's
self conditioning it_under all circumstances, then,
it is a process of making stable or fixed, of defining,
of making conditions conscious (not a process of
sounding things, creatures, or objects “in-them.
selves").
-
556.
A "thing-in-itself” is just as absurd as a "sense-
in-itself," a "meaning-in-itself. " There is no such
”


## p. 65 (#95) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
65
(6
"
ating to
w how
behold,
even
uncon-
at not
ot be
oned!
ming
dge-
h he
be
pere
een
to
pre
og
thing as a "fact-in-itself," for a meaning must
always be given to it before it can become a fact.
The answer to the question, "What is that? " is
a process of fixing a meaning from a different
standpoint. The "essence,” the “ essential factor,"
is something which is only seen as a whole in
a
perspective, and which presupposes a basis which
is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is
“What is that for me? " (for us, for everything that
lives, etc. etc. ).
A thing would be defined when all creatures had
asked and answered this question, "What is that ? ”
concerning it. Supposing that one single creature,
with its own relations and standpoint in regard to
all things, were lacking, that thing would still
remain undefined.
In short: the essence of a thing is really only
an opinion concerning that "thing. " Or, better
still; “it is worth" is actually what is meant by
* it is," or by “that is. "
One may not ask : " Who interprets, then ? " for
“
the act of interpreting itself, as a form of the Will
to Power, manifests itself (not as “Being,” but as
a process, as Becoming) as a passion.
The origin of "things ” is wholly the work of
the idealising, thinking, willing, and feeling subject.
The concept "thing” as well as all its attributes. -
Even “the subject” is a creation of this order, a
• thing" like all others : a simplification, aiming at
a definition of the power that fixes, invents, and
thinks, as such, as distinct from all isolated fixing,
inventing, and thinking. Thus a capacity defined
or distinct from all other individual capacities; at
E
>
«
»
- :
.
"
5
SC
VOL. II.


## p. 66 (#96) ##############################################

66
THE WILL TO POWER.
bottom action conceived collectively in regard to
all the action which has yet to come (action and
the probability of similar action).
557.
66
The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other
things. '
If one imagines other“ things to be non-
existent, a thing has no qualities.
That is to say: there is nothing without other
things.
That is to say: there is no “thing-in-itself. ”
558.
The thing-in-itself is nonsense. If I think all
the "relations," all the “ qualities," all the “activi-
ties" of a thing, away, the thing itself does not
remain: for “thingness" was only invented fanci-
fully by us to meet certain logical needs—that is.
to say, for the purposes of definition and compre-
hension (in order to correlate that multitude of
relations, qualities, and activities).
559.
Things which have a nature in themselves'
-a dogmatic idea, which must be absolutely
abandoned.
560.
That things should have a nature in themselves,
quite apart from interpretation and subjectivity, is
a perfectly idle hypothesis: it would presuppose


## p. 67 (#97) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
67
egard to
ion and
on other
be non-
ut other
self. ”
that interpretation and the act of being subjective are
not essential, that a thing divorced from all its
relations can still be a thing.
Or, the other way round: the apparent objective
character of things; might it not be merely the
result of a difference of degree within the subject
perceiving could not that which changes slowly
strike us as being " objective," lasting, Being, "in-
itself”? could not the objective view be only a false
way of conceiving things and a contrast within the
perceiving subject?
561.
If all unity were only unity as organisation.
But the "thing” in which we believe was invented
only as a substratum to the various attributes.
If the thing “acts,” it means: we regard all the
other qualities which are to hand, and which are
momentarily latent, as the cause accounting for the
fact that one individual quality steps forward-that
is to say, we take the sum of its qualities—*—
as the cause of the quality x; which is obviously
quite absurd and imbecile !
All unity is only so in the form of organisation
and collective action: in the same way as a human
community is a unity—that is to say, the reverse
of atomic anarchy; thus it is a body politic, which
stands for one, yet is not one.
<C
>
hink all
'activi-
oes not
fanci-
-that is
ompre-
cude of
selves"
olutely
562.
“At some time in the development of thought,
a point must have been reached when man
became conscious of the fact that what he called
zselves,
vity, is
ppose


## p. 68 (#98) ##############################################

68
THE WILL TO POWER.
the qualities of a thing were merely the sensations
of the feeling subject: and thus the qualities
ceased from belonging to the thing. ” The “thing-
in-itself” remained over.
The distinction between
the thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, is based
upon
that older and artless observation which
would fain grant energy to things : but analysis
revealed that even force was only ascribed to them
by our fancy, as was also substance.
“The thing
affects a subject ? " Thus the root of the idea of
substance is in language, not in things outside our-
selves! The thing-in-itself is not a problem at all!
Being will have to be conceived as a sensation
which is no longer based upon anything quite
devoid of sensation.
In movement no new meaning is given to feel-
ing. That which is, cannot be the substance of
movement: it is therefore a form of Being.
N. B. -The explanation of life may be sought,
in the first place, through mental images
of phenomena which precede it (purposes);
Secondly, through mental images of pheno-
mena which follow behind it (the mathe-
matico-physical explanation).
The two should not be confounded. Thus: the
physical explanation, which is the symbolisation
of the world by means of feeling and thought,
cannot in itself make feeling and thinking originate
again and show its derivation: physics must rather
construct the world of feeling, consistently without
feeling or purpose-right up to the highest man,
And teleology is only a history of purposes, and is
never physical.


## p. 69 (#99) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
69
s
m
ig
of
563
Our method of acquiring “knowledge” is
limited to a process of establishing quantities; but
we can by no means help feeling the differences of
quantity as differences of quality. Quality is merely
a relative truth for us; it is not a “thing-in-itself. ”
r
Our senses have a certain definite quantum as
a mean, within the limits of which they perform
their functions—that is to say, we become conscious
of bigness and smallness in accordance with the con-
ditions of our existence. If we sharpened or blunted
our senses tenfold, we should perish—that is to say,
we feel even proportions as qualities in regard to
our possibilities of existence.
ur-
all !
ion
uite
feel-
e of
ught,
nages
poses);
pheno-
nathe-
564
But could not all quantities be merely tokens
of qualities? Another consciousness and scale of
desires must correspond to greater power—in fact,
another point of view; growth in itself is the ex-
pression of a desire to become more; the desire for
a greater quantum springs from a certain quale; in
a purely quantitative world, everything would be
dead, stiff, and motionless. --The reduction of all
qualities to quantities is nonsense: it is discovered
that they can only stand together, an analogy-
us: the
lisation
hought,
riginate
st rather
565.
Qualities are our insurmountable barriers; we
cannot possibly help feeling mere differences of
quantity as something fundamentally different from
quantity—that is to say, as qualities, which we
without
est man.
s, and is


## p. 70 (#100) #############################################

70
THE WILL TO POWER.
can no longer reduce to terms of quantity. But
everything in regard to which the word "know-
ledge” has any sense at all, belongs to the realm
of reckoning, weighing, and measuring, to quantity :
whereas, conversely, all our valuations (that is to
say, our sensations) belong precisely to the realm
of qualities, i. e. to those truths which belong to
us alone and to our point of view, and which
absolutely cannot be "known. ” It is obvious that
every one of us, different creatures, must feel
different qualities, and must therefore live in a
different world from the rest. Qualities are an
idiosyncrasy proper to human nature; the demand
that these our human interpretations and values,
should be general and perhaps real values, belongs
to the hereditary madnesses of human pride.
566.
The "real world," in whatever form it has been
conceived hitherto—was always the world of ap-
pearance over again.
567.
The world of appearance, i. e. a world regarded
in the light of values; ordered, selected according
to values--that is to say, in this case, according to
the standpoint of utility in regard to the preserva-
tion and the increase of power of a certain species
of animals.
It is the point of view, then, which accounts for
the character of“ appearance. ” As if a world could
remain over, when the point of view is cancelled !
By such means relativity would also be cancelled !


## p. 71 (#101) #############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
71
Every centre of energy has its point of view of
the whole of the remainder of the world that is
to say, its perfectly definite valuation, its mode of
action, its mode of resistance. The “ world of ap-
pearance” is thus reduced to a specific kind of
action on the world proceeding from a centre.
But there is no other kind of action: and the
“world” is only a word for the collective play of
these actions. Reality consists precisely in this
particular action and reaction of every isolated
factor against the whole.
There no longer remains a shadow of a right to
speak here of “appearance. "
The specific way of reacting is the only way of
reacting; we do not know how many kinds and
what sort of kinds there are.
But there is no “other," no "real," no essential
being,—for thus a world without action and re-
action would be expressed.
The antithesis: world of appearance and real
world, is thus reduced to the antitheses "world"
and “nonentity. "
n
d
s,
gs
.
.
.
een
ap-
ded
ling
g to
rya-
ecies
568.
A criticism of the concept "real and apparent
world. ”—Of these two the first is a mere fiction,
formed out of a host of imaginary things.
" Appearance" itself belongs to reality: it is a
form of its being; i. e. in a world where there is no
such thing as being, a certain calculable world of
identical cases must first be created through appear-
ance; a tempo in which observation and comparison
is possible, etc.
s for
could
lled!
elled!


## p. 72 (#102) #############################################

72
THE WILL TO POWER.
Appearance” is an adjusted and simplified
world, in which our practical instincts have worked:
for us it is perfectly true: for we live in it, we can
live in it: this is the proof of its truth as far as we
are concerned. . . .
The world, apart from the fact that we have to
live in it—the world, which we have not adjusted to
our being, our logic, and our psychological preju-
dices-does not exist as a world “in-itself”; it is
essentially a world of relations : under certain cir-
cumstances it has a different aspect from every differ-
ent point at which it is seen : it presses against
every point, and every point resists it—and these
collective relations are in every case incongruent.
The measure of power determines what being
possesses the other measure of power : under what
form, force, or constraint, it acts or resists.
Our particular case is interesting enough: we
have created a conception in order to be able to
live in a world, in order to perceive just enough to
enable us to endure life in that world. . . .
569.
The nature of our psychological vision is deter-
mined by the fact-
(1) That communication is necessary, and that
for communication to be possible something must be
stable, simplified, and capable of being stated pre-
cisely (above all, in the so-called identical case). In
order that it may be communicable, it must be felt as
something adjusted, as“ recognisable. ” The material
of the senses, arranged by the understanding, re-


## p. 73 (#103) #############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
73
duced to coarse leading features, made similar to
other things, and classified with its like. Thus :
the indefiniteness and the chaos of sense-impres-
sions are, as it were, made logical.
(2) The phenomenal world is the adjusted world
which we believe to be real. Its “reality” lies in
.
the constant return of similar, familiar, and related
things, in their rationalised character, and in the be-
lief that we are here able to reckon and determine.
(3) The opposite of this phenomenal world is
not “the real world,” but the amorphous and un-
adjustable world consisting of the chaos of sensa-
tions—that is to say, another kind of phenomenal
world, a world which to us is “unknowable. "
(4) The question how “things-in-themselves" are
constituted, quite apart from our sense-receptivity
and from the activity of our understanding, must
be answered by the further question : how were
we able to know that things existed? “ Thingness
is one of our own inventions. The question is
whether there are not a good many more ways of
creating such a world of appearance—and whether
this creating, rationalising, adjusting, and falsifying
be not the best-guaranteed reality itself: in short,
whether that which "fixes the meaning of things
is not the only reality: and whether the "effect
of environment upon us " be not merely the result
of such will-exercising subjects. The other
"creatures" act upon us; our adjusted world of
appearance is an arrangement and an overpowering
of its activities: a sort of defensive measure. The
subject alone is demonstrable; the hypothesis might
be advanced that subjects are all that exist,—that
"


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74
THE WILL TO POWER.
“object " is only a form of action of subject upon
subject. a modus of the subject.
(k) THE METAPHYSICAL NEED.
570.
If one resembles all the philosophers that have
gone before, one can have no eyes for what has
existed and what will exist-one sees only what
is. But as there is no such thing as Being; all
that the philosophers had to deal with was a host
of fancies, this was their "world. "
571.
To assert the existence as a whole of things con-
cerning which we know nothing, simply because
there is an advantage in not being able to know
anything of them, was a piece of artlessness on
Kant's part, and the result of the recoil-stroke of
certain needs—especially in the realm of morals
and metaphysics.
572.
An artist cannot endure reality; he turns away
or back from it: his earnest opinion is that the
worth of a thing consists in that nebulous residue
of it which one derives from colour, form, sound,
and thought; he believes that the more subtle, at-
tenuated, and volatile, a thing or a man becomes,
the more valuable he becomes: the less real, the
greater the worth. This is Platonism: but Plato
was guilty of yet further audacity in the matter of


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
75
-
turning tables-he measured the degree of reality
according to the degree of value, and said: The
more there is of “idea ” the more there is of Being.
He twisted the concept "reality” round and said:
What ye regard as real is an error, and the nearer
we get to the idea 'the nearer we are to‘truth. '
Is this understood ? It was the greatest of all re-
christenings : and because Christianity adopted it,
we are blind to its astounding features. At botton,
Plato, like the artist he was, placed appearance before
Being! and therefore lies and fiction before truth!
unreality before actuality ! -He was, however, so
convinced of the value of appearance, that he
granted it the attributes of " Being," "causality,”
goodness,” and “truth," and, in short, all those
things which are associated with value.
The concept value itself regarded as a cause:
first standpoint.
The ideal granted all attributes, conferring
honour: second standpoint.
5
573.
")
ay
che
Aue
nd,
The idea of the “true world” or of “God” as
absolutely spiritual, intellectual, and good, is an
emergency measure to the extent to which the
antagonistic instincts are all-powerful.
Moderation and existing humanity is reflected
exactly in the humanisation of the gods. The
Greeks of the strongest period, who entertained no
fear whatever of themselves, but on the contrary
were pleased with themselves, brought down their
gods to all their emotions.
at-
mes,
the
Plato
ter of
i


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76
THE WILL TO POWER.
The spiritualisation of the idea of God is thus
very far from being a sign of progress : one is
heartily conscious of this when one reads Goethe
-in his works the vaporisation of God into virtue
and spirit is felt as being upon a lower plane.
574.
The nonsense of all metaphysics shown to reside
in the derivation of the conditioned out of the
unconditioned.
It belongs to the nature of thinking that it adds
the unconditioned to the conditioned, that it invents
it-just as it thought of and invented the "ego” to
cover the multifariousness of its processes : it meas-
ures the world according to a host of self-devised
measurements - according to its fundamental
-
fictions “the unconditioned," "end and means,"
,
"things," "substances,” and according to logical
laws, figures, and forms.
There would be nothing which could be called
knowledge, if thought did not first so re-create the
world into "things" which are in its own image.
It is only through thought that there is untruth.
The origin of thought, like that of feelings,
cannot be traced: but that is no proof of its
primordiality or absoluteness ! It simply shows
that we cannot get behind it, because we have
nothing else save thought and feeling.
575.
To know is to point to past experience: in its
nature it is a regressus in infinitum. That which


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
77
halts (in the face of a so-called causa prima or the
unconditioned, etc. ) is laziness, weariness-
576.
Concerning the psychology of metaphysics—the
influence of fear. That which has been most
feared, the cause of the greatest suffering (lust of
power, voluptuousness, etc. ), has been treated with
the greatest amount of hostility by men, and
eliminated from the “real” world. Thus the
passions have been step by step struck out, God
posited as the opposite of evil—that is to say, reality
is conceived to be the negation of the passions and
the emotions (i. e. nonentity).
Irrationality, impulsive action, accidental action,
is, moreover, hated by them (as the cause of incal-
culable suffering). Consequently they denied this ele-
ment in the absolute, and interpreted it as absolute
“rationality” and “conformity of means to ends. "
Change and perishability were also feared ; and
by this fear an oppressed soul is revealed, full of
distrust and painful experiences (the case with
Spinoza : a man differently constituted would have
regarded this change as a charm).
A nature overflowing and playing with energy,
would call precisely the passions, irrationality and
change, good in a eudemonistic sense, together
with their consequences : danger, contrast, ruin, etc.
.
e
e.
gs,
its
WS
ave
577.
Against the value of that which always remains
the same (remember Spinoza's artlessness and
mits
which


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78
THE WILL TO POWER.
Descartes' likewise), the value of the shortest and
of the most perishable, the seductive flash of gold
on the belly of the serpent vita-
)
578.
Moral values in epistemology itself :-
The faith in reason-why not mistrust?
The "real world” is the good world-why?
Appearance, change, contradiction, struggle,
regarded as immoral: the desire for a
world which knows nothing of these things.
The transcendental world discovered, so that
a place may be kept for “moral freedom"
(as in Kant).
Dialectics as the road to virtue (in Plato and
Socrates : probably because sophistry was
held to be the road to immorality).
Time and space are ideal : consequently
there is unity in the essence of things ;
consequently no "sin," no evil, no imper-
fection,-a justification of God.
Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge,
in order to keep the moral (particularly the
hedonistic) values as the highest.
Augustine does the same, and later Pascal
("corrupted reason"), in favour of Christian
values.
Descartes' contempt for everything variable;
likewise Spinoza's.
579.
Concerning the psychology of metaphysics. This
world is only apparent: therefore there must be a


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
79
real world ;-this world is conditioned: conse-
quently there must be an unconditioned world ;-
this world is contradictory : consequently there is
a world free from contradiction ;-this world is
evolving: consequently there is somewhere a static
world :-a host of false conclusions (blind faith in
reason : if A exists, then its opposite B must also
exist). Pain inspires these conclusions: at bottom
they are wishes that such a world might exist; the
hatred of a world which leads to suffering is like-
wise revealed by the fact that another and better
world is imagined: the resentment of the meta-
physician against reality is creative here.
The second series of questions : wherefore suffer?
and from this a conclusion is derived con-
cerning the relation of the real world to our
apparent, changing, suffering, and contradictory
world : (1) Suffering as the consequence of error:
:
how is error possible ? (2) Suffering as the conse-
quence of guilt: how is guilt possible? (A host
of experiences drawn from the sphere of nature or
society, universalised and made absolute. ) But if
the conditioned world be causally determined by
the unconditioned, then the freedom to err, to be
sinful, must also be derived from the same quarter :
and once more the question arises, to what purpose ?
. . The world of appearance, of Becoming, of
contradiction, of suffering, is therefore willed; to
what purpose ?
The error of these conclusions: two contradictory
concepts are formed-because one of them corre-
sponds to a reality, the other "must" also corre-
spond to a reality. “Whence" would one otherwise
.
:
1
in
.
.
le;
This
be a


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80
THE WILL TO POWER.
C
derive its contradictory concept? Reason is thus
a source of revelation concerning the absolute.
But the origin of the above contradictions need
not necessarily be a supernatural source of reason:
it is sufficient to oppose the real genesis of the
concepts:—this springs from practical spheres, from
utilitarian spheres, hence the strong faith it com-
mands (one is threatened with ruin if one's con-
clusions are not in conformity with this reason; but
this fact is no "proof” of what the latter asserts).
The preoccupation of metaphysicians with pain,
is quite artless. “ Eternal blessedness”: psycho-
logical nonsense. Brave and creative men never
make pleasure and pain ultimate questions—they
are incidental conditions: both of them must be
desired when one will attain to something. It
is a sign of fatigue and illness in these meta-
physicians and religious men, that they should
press questions of pleasure and pain into the
foreground. Even morality in their eyes derives
its great importance only from the fact that it is
regarded as an essential condition for abolishing
pain.
The same holds good of the preoccupation with
appearance and error: the cause of pain. A
superstition that happiness and truth are related
(confusion : happiness in “certainty,” in “faith").
580.
To what extent are the various epistemological
positions (materialism, sensualism, idealism) conse-
quences of valuations ? The source of the highest


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE
81
feelings of pleasure (“ feelings of value”) may also
judge concerning the problem of reality!
The measure of positive knowledge is quite a
matter of indifference and beside the point : as
witness the development of India.
The Buddhistic negation of reality in general
(appearance = pain) is perfectly consistent: un-
demonstrability, inaccessibility, lack of categories,
not only for an “absolute world,” but a recogni-
tion of the erroneous procedures by means of which
the whole concept has been reached. “ Absolute
reality,” “ Being in itself,” a contradiction. In a
world of Becoming, reality is merely a simplification
for the purpose of practical ends, or a deception
resulting from the coarseness of certain organs, or
à variation in the tempo of Becoming.
The logical denial of the world and Nihilism is
a consequence of the fact that we must oppose
nonentity with Being, and that “ Becoming” is
denied. (“Something” becomes. )
i
S
th'
ط ق
ted
581.
Being and Becoming. -" Reason a developed
-"
upon a sensualistic basis upon the prejudices of
the senses-that is to say, with the belief in the
truth of the judgment of the senses.
“ Being," as the generalisation of the concept
“ Life" (breath), “to be animate," “ to will,” “ to act
i upon," " become.