No More Learning

We know that the destruction of an illusion
does not necessarily produce a truth, but only
one more piece of ignorance ; it is the extension of
our “empty space," an increase in our waste. ”
604.
Of what alone knowledge consist ? -
Interpretation,” the introduction of a sense into
can


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
103
things, not "explanation" (in the majority of
cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation
which has grown incomprehensible and little more
than a mere sign). There is no such thing as an
established fact, everything fluctuates, everything
is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting
of all things are our opinions.
605.
The ascertaining of “truth” and “untruth,” the
ascertaining of facts in general, is fundamentally
different from the creative placing, forming, mould-
ing, subduing, and willing which lies at the root
of philosophy. To give a sense to things—this duty
always remains over, provided no sense already
lies in them. The same holds good of sounds,
and also of the fate of nations: they are suscept-
ible of the most varied interpretations and turns,
for different purposes.
A higher duty is to fix a goal and to mould
facts according to it: that is, the interpretation of
action, and not merely a transvaluation of con-
cepts.
боб.
Man ultimately finds nothing more in things
than he himself has laid in them—this process
of finding again is science, the actual process of
laying a meaning in things, is art, religion, love,
pride. In both, even if they are child's play, one
should show good courage and one should plough
ahead; on the one hand, to find again, on the
other, we are the other,—to lay a sense in things'


## p. 104 (#134) ############################################

104
THE WILL TO POWER
607.
Science : its two sides :-
In regard to the individual;
In regard to the complex of culture
("levels of culture ")
-antagonistic valuation in regard to this and
that side.
608.
The development of science tends ever more
to transform the known into the unknown: its
aim, however, is to do the reverse, and it starts
out with the instinct of tracing the unknown to
the known.
In short, science is laying the road to sovereign
ignorance, to a feeling that “knowledge” does not
exist at all, that it was merely a form of haughti-
ness to dream of such a thing; further, that we
have not preserved the smallest notion which
would allow us to class knowledge even as a
possibility—that "knowledge” is a contradictory
idea. We transfer a primeval myth and piece
of human vanity into the land of hard facts: we
can allow a "thing-in-itself” as a concept, just
as little as we can allow “knowledge-in-itself. ”
The misleading influence of a numbers and logic,"
the misleading influence of “laws. "
Wisdom is an attempt to overcome the per-
spective valuations (i. e. the “ will to power "): it is
a principle which is both unfriendly to Life, and also
decadent; a symptom in the case of the Indians,
etc. ; weakness of the power of appropriation,


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
105
609.
It does not suffice for you to see in what ignor-
ance man and beast now live; you must also
have and learn the desire for ignorance. It is
necessary that you should know that without this
form of ignorance life itself would be impossible,
that it is merely a vital condition under which,
alone, a living organism can preserve itself and
prosper : a great solid belt of ignorance must stand
about you.
610.
Science—the transformation of Nature into con-
cepts for the purpose of governing Nature—that
is part of the rubric " means. "
But the purpose and will of mankind must grow
in the same way, the intention in regard to the
whole.
бII.
Thought is the strongest and most persistently
exercised function in all stages of life—and also
in every act of perception or apparent experience!
Obviously it soon becomes the mightiest and most
exacting of all functions, and in time tyrannises
over other powers. Ultimately it becomes “passion
in itself. "
612.
The right to great passion must be reclaimed
for the investigator, after self-effacement and the
cult of "objectivity" have created a false order of
rank in this sphere. Error reached its zenith


## p. 106 (#136) ############################################

106
THE WILL TO POWER.
when Schopenhauer taught: in the reiease from
passion and in will alone lay the road to "truth,"
to knowledge; the intellect freed from will could
not help seeing the true and actual essence of things.
The same error in art: as if everything became
beautiful the moment it was regarded without will.
613.
The contest for supremacy among the passions, ,
and the dominion of one of the passions over the
intellect.
614.
To "humanise " the world means to feel our-
selves ever more and more masters upon earth.
615.
Knowledge, among a higher class of beings,
will also take new forms which are not yet
necessary.
616.
That the worth of the world lies in our inter-
pretations (that perhaps yet other interpretations
are possible somewhere, besides mankind's); that
the interpretations made hitherto were perspective
valuations, by means of which we were able to
survive in life, i. e. in the Will to Power and in
the growth of power; that every elevation of man
involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations;
that every higher degree of strength or power
attained, brings new views in its train, and teaches
a belief in new horizons-these doctrines lie


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
107
scattered through all my works. The world that
concerns us at all is false--that is to say, is not a
fact; but a romance, a piece of human sculpture,
made from a meagre sum of observation; it is "in
flux”; it is something that evolves, a great revolving
lie continually moving onwards and never getting
any nearer to truth-for there is no such thing as
"truth. "
617.
Recapitulation :
To stamp Becoming with the character of
Being—this is the highest Will to Power.
The twofold falsification, by the senses on the
one hand, by the intellect on the other, with the
view of maintaining a world of being, of rest, of
equivalent cases, etc.
That everything recurs, is the very nearest
approach of a world of Becoming to a world of
Being: the height of contemplation.
It is out of the values which have been at-
tributed to Being, that the condemnation of, and
dissatisfaction with, Becoming, have sprung: once
such a world of Being had been invented.
The metamorphoses of Being (body, God, ideas,
natural laws, formulæ, etc. ).
Being” as appearance—the twisting round of
values : appearance was that which conferred the
values.
Knowledge in itself in a world of Becoming is
impossible; how can knowledge be possible at all,
then? Only as a mistaking of one's self, as will to
power, as will to deception.


## p. 108 (#138) ############################################

108
THE WILL TO POWER.
Becoming is inventing, willing, self-denying,
self-overcoming: no subject but an action, it places
things, it is creative, no "causes and effects. "
,
Art is the will to overcome Becoming, it is a
process of “eternalising”; but shortsighted, always
according to the perspective; repeating, as it were
in a small way, the tendency of the whole.
That which all life shows, is to be regarded as
a reduced formula for the collective tendency:
hence the new definition of the concept “ Life" as
“ will to power. ”
Instead of " cause and effect," the struggle of
”
evolving factors with one another, frequently with
the result that the opponent is absorbed ; no
constant number for Becoming.
The uselessness of old ideals for the interpreta-
tion of all that takes place, once their bestial
origin and utility have been recognised; they are,
moreover, all hostile to life.
The uselessness of the mechanical theory-it
gives the impression that there can be no purpose.
All the idealism of mankind, hitherto, is on the
point of turning into Nihilism-may be shown to
be a belief in absolute worthlessness, i. e. purpose-
lessness,
The annihilation of ideals, the new desert waste;
the new arts which will help us to endure it-
amphibia that we are !
First principles : bravery, patience, no "stepping-
back," not too much ardour to get to the fore.
(N. B. —Zarathustra constantly maintaining an
attitude of parody towards all former values, as
the result of his overflowing energy. )


## p. 109 (#139) ############################################

II.
THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
1. THE MECHANICAL INTERPRETATION
OF THE WORLD.
618.
OF all the interpretations of the world attempted
heretofore, the mechanical one seems to-day to
stand most prominently in the front. Apparently
it has a clean conscience on its side ; for no
science believes inwardly in progress and success
unless it be with the help of mechanical procedures,
Every one knows these procedures: "reason" and
purpose” are allowed to remain out of considera-
tion as far as possible; it is shown that, provided
a sufficient amount of time be allowed to elapse,
everything can evolve out of everything else, and
no one attempts to suppress his malicious satisfac-
tion, when the "apparent design in the fate” of a
a
plant or of theyolk of an egg, may be traced to stress
and thrust-in short, people are heartily glad to pay
respect to this principle of profoundest stupidity,
if I may be allowed to pass a playful remark con-
cerning these serious matters. Meanwhile, among
the most select intellects to be found in this move-
109


## p. 110 (#140) ############################################

IIO
THE WILL TO POWER.
ex-
ment, some presentiment of evil, some anxiety is
noticeable, as if the theory had a rent in it, which
sooner or later might be its last: I mean the sort
of rent which denotes the end of all balloons
inflated with such theories.
Stress and thrust themselves cannot be
plained,” one cannot get rid of the actio in distans.
The belief even in the ability to explain is now
lost, and people peevishly admit that one can only
describe, not explain that the dynamic interpreta-
tion of the world, with its denial of "empty space"
and its little agglomerations of atoms, will soon
get the better of physicists : although in this way
Dynamis is certainly granted an inner quality.
619.
The triumphant concept "energy," with which our
physicists created God and the world, needs yet to
be completed : it must be given an inner will which
I characterise as the “Will to Power"—that is to say,
as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or the
application and exercise of power as a creative
instinct, etc. Physicists cannot get rid of the
"actio in distans" in their principles; any more
than they can a repelling force (or an attracting
one). There is no help for it, all movements, all
appearances," all “laws" must be understood as
symptoms of an inner phenomenon, and the analogy
of man must be used for this purpose.
It is
possible to trace all the instincts of an animal to
the will to power; as also all the functions of
organic life to this one source.


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
III
620.
Has anybody ever been able to testify to a
force ? No, but to effects, translated into a com-
pletely strange language. Regularity in sequence
has so spoilt us, that we no longer wonder at the
wonderful process.
621.
A force of which we cannot form any idea, is an
empty word, and ought to have no civic rights in
the city of science: and the same applies to the
purely mechanical powers of attracting and repel-
ling by means of which we can form an image of
the world—no more!
622,
Squeezes and kicks are something incalculably
recent, evolved and not primeval. They pre-
suppose something which holds together and can
press and strike!
But how could it hold to-
gether?
623.
There is nothing unalterable in chemistry: this
is only appearance, a mere school prejudice. We
it was who introduced the unalterable, taking it
from metaphysics as usual, Mr. Chemist. It is a mere
superficial judgment to declare that the diamond,
graphite, and carbon are identical. Why? Simply
because no loss of substance can be traced in the
scales! Well then, at least they have something
in common; but the work of the molecules in the


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I 12
THE WILL TO POWER.
process of changing from one form to the other, an
action we can neither see nor weigh, is just exactly
what makes one material something different-with
specifically different qualities.
>
624.
Against the physical atom. -In order to under-
stand the world, we must be able to reckon it up;
in order to be able to reckon it up, we must be
aware of constant causes; but since we find no
such constant causes in reality, we invent them for
ourselves and call them atoms. This is the origin
of the atomic theory.
The possibility of calculating the world, the
possibility of expressing all phenomena by means
of formulæ — is that really "understanding”?
-
What would be understood of a piece of music, if
all that were calculable in it and capable of being
expressed in formulæ, were reckoned up ? Thus
“ constant causes," things, substances, something
“ unconditioned,” were therefore invented ;-what
has been attained thereby ?
625.
The mechanical concept of "movement is
already a translation of the original process into the
language of symbols of the eye and the touch.
The concept atom, the distinction between the
“ seat of a motive force and the force itself,” is a
language of symbols derived from our logical and
cpsyhical world.
It does not lie within our power to alter our
a


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
113
means of expression: it is possible to understand
to what extend they are but symptomatic. To
demand an adequate means of expression is non-
sense: it lies at the heart of a language, of a medium
of communication, to express relation only.
The concept“ truth” is opposed to good sense. The
whole province of “truth--falseness” only applies
to the relations between beings, not to an "abso-
lute. ” There is no such thing as a "being in
itself” (relations in the first place constitute being),
any more than there can be “knowledge in itself. ”
626.
The feeling of force cannot proceed from move-
ment: feeling in general cannot proceed from
movement. ”
“Even in support of this, an apparent experi-
ence is the only evidence: in a substance (brain)
feeling is generated through transmitted motion
(stimuli). But generated? Would this show that
the feeling did not yet exist there at all? so that
its appearance would have to be regarded as the
creative act of the intermediary-motion? The
feelingless condition of this substance is only an
hypothesis ! not an experience ! Feeling, therefore
is the quality of the substance: there actually are
substances that feel. ”
“ Do we learn from certain substances that they
have no feeling? No, we merely cannot tell that
they have any. It is impossible to seek the origin
of feeling in non-sensitive substance. ”-Oh what
hastiness!
H
-
VOL. II.


## p. 114 (#144) ############################################

114
THE WILL TO POWER.
9
627
“To attract” and “to repel," in a purely
mechanical sense, is pure fiction: a word. We
cannot imagine an attraction without a purpose. -
Either the will to possess one's self of a thing, or the
will to defend one's self from a thing or to repel it-
that we“ understand”: that would be an interpreta-
tion which we could use.
In short, the psychological necessity of believ-
ing in causality lies in the impossibility of imagining
a process without a purpose: but of course this says
nothing concerning truth or untruth (the justifica-
tion of such a belief)! The belief in causæ col-
lapses with the belief in téan (against Spinoza and
his causationism).
628.
It is an illusion to suppose that something is
known, when all we have is a mathematical formula
of what has happened: it is only characterised,
described; no more!
629.
If I bring a regularly recurring phenomenon into
a formula, I have facilitated and shortened my task
of characterising the whole phenomenon, etc. But
I have not thereby ascertained a “law," I have
only replied to the question: How is it that some-
thing recurs here? It is a supposition that the
formula corresponds to a complex of really
unknown forces and the discharge of forces: it is


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE. .
115
pure mythology to suppose that forces here obey
a law, so that, as the result of their obedience, we
have the same phenomenon every time.
630.
I take good care not to speak of chemical“ laws":
to do so savours of morality. It is much more a
question of establishing certain relations of power :
the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so
far as the latter cannot maintain its degree of
independence,-here there is no pity, no quarter,
and, still less, any observance of “law. "
631.
The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena
does not prove any “law," but a relation of power
between two or more forces. To say, “But it is
precisely this relation that remains the same! ” is
no better than saying, “One and the same force
cannot be another force. ”—It is not a matter of
sequence,—but a matter of interdependence, a pro-
cess in which the procession of moments do not
determine each other after the manner of cause
and effect. . . .
Theseparation of the "action" from the "agent";
of the phenomenon from the worker of that pheno-
menon; of the process from one that is not process,
but lasting, substance, thing, body, soul, etc. ; the
attempt to understand a life as a sort of shifting
of things and a changing of places; of a sort of
“ being” or stable entity: this ancient mythology


## p. 116 (#146) ############################################

116
THE WILL TO POWER.
<C
G
a
"
established the belief in “cause and effect," once it
had found a lasting form in the functions of speech
and grammar.
632.
The "regularity of a sequence is only a
metaphorical expression, not a fact, just as if a rule
were followed here ! And the same holds good of
"conformity to law. " We find a formula in order
to express an ever-recurring kind of succession of
phenomena: but that does not show that we have
discovered a law; much less a force which is the
cause of a recurrence of effects. The fact that
something always happens thus or thus, is inter-
preted here as if a creature always acted thus or
thus as the result of obedience to a law or to a law-
giver: whereas apart from the “law" it would be
free to act differently. But precisely that in-
ability to act otherwise might originate in the
creature itself, it might be that it did not act thus
or thus in response to a law, but simply because
it was so constituted. It would mean simply:
that something cannot also be something else; that
it cannot be first this, and then something quite
different; that it is neither free nor the reverse, but
merely thus or thus. The fault lies in thinking a
subject into things.
633.
To speak of two consecutive states, the first as
cause," and the second as "effect," is false. The
first state cannot bring about anything, the second
has nothing effected in it.
"


## p. 117 (#147) ############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
117
"
It is a question of a struggle between two
elements unequal in power : a new adjustment is
arrived at, according to the measure of power each
possesses. The second state is something funda-
mentally different from the first (it is not its effect):
the essential thing is, that the factors which engage
in the struggle leave it with different quanta of
power.
634.
A criticism of Materialism.
-Let us dismiss the
two popular concepts, “Necessity” and “Law,"
from this idea : the first introduces a false con-
straint, the second a false liberty into the world.
" Things” do not act regularly, they follow no rule:
there are no things (that is our fiction); neither do
they act in accordance with any necessity. There
is no obedience here: for, the fact that something
is as it is, strong or weak, is not the result of
obedience or of a rule or of a constraint.
The degree of resistance and the degree of
superior power—this is the question around which
all phenomena turn: if we, for our own purposes
and calculations, know how to express this in
formulæ and "laws," all the better for us! But
that does not mean that we have introduced any
“morality” into the world, just because we have
fancied it as obedient.
There are no laws: every power draws its last
consequence at every moment. Things are calcul-
able precisely owing to the fact that there is no
possibility of their being otherwise than they are.
A quantum of power is characterised by the
a


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118
THE WILL TO POWER.
a
effect it produces and the influence it resists. The
adiaphoric state which would be thinkable in itself,
is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to vio-
lence and a will to defend one's self against violence.
It is not self-preservation : every atom exercises
its influence over the whole of existence-it is
thought out of existence if one thinks this radia-
tion of will-power away. That is why I call it a
quantum of “ Will to Power"; with this formula one
can express the character which cannot be ab-
stracted in thought from mechanical order, without
suppressing the latter itself in thought.
The translation of the world of effect into a
visible world—a world for the eye—is the concept
“ movement. " Here it is always understood that
something has been moved, whether it be the
fiction of an atomic globule or even of the abstrac-
tion of the latter, the dynamic atom, something is
always imagined that has an effect—that is to say,
we have not yet rid ourselves of the habit into
which our senses and speech inveigled us. Subject
and object, an agent to the action, the action and
that which does it separated : we must not forget
that all this signifies no more than semeiotics and
nothing real. Mechanics as a teaching of movement
is already a translation of phenomena into man's
language of the senses.
9)
635
We are in need of “unities” in order to be
able to reckon: but this is no reason for supposing
that “unities” actually exist. We borrowed the


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
119
C
C
concept“ unity” from our concept“ ego,"—our very
oldest article of faith. If we did not believe our-
selves to be unities we should never have formed
the concept "thing. " Now, that is to say, some-
what late in the day, we are overwhelmingly
convinced that our conception of the concept
“ego" is no security whatever for a real entity.
In order to maintain the mechanical interpretation
of the world theoretically, we must always make
the reserve that it is with fictions that we do so:
the concept of movement (derived from the language
of our senses) and the concept of the atom (=entity,
derived from our psychical experience) are based
upon a sense-prejudice and a psychological prejudice.
Mechanics formulates consecutive phenomena,
and it does so semeiologically, in the terms of the
senses and of the mind (that all influence is move-
ment; that where there is movement something is
at work moving): it does not touch the question of
the causal force.
The mechanical world is imagined as the eye
and the sense of touch alone could imagine a
world (as “moved "),—in such a way as to be
calculable,—as to simulate causal entities "things "
(atoms) whose effect is constant (the transfer of
the false concept of subject to the concept atom).
The mixing together of the concept of numbers,
of the concept of thing (the idea of subject), of
the concept of activity (the separation of that
which is the cause, and the effect), of the concept
of movement: all these things are phenomenal;
our eye and our psychology are still in it all.
If we eliminate these adjuncts, nothing remains
-
"


## p. 120 (#150) ############################################

I 20
THE WILL TO POWER.
over but dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension
to all other dynamic quanta : the essence of which
resides in their relation to all other quanta, in their
“ influence" upon the latter. The will to power,
not Being, not Becoming, but a pathos—is the
elementary fact, from these first results a Becoming,
an influencing.
636.
The physicists believe in a "true world” after
their own kind; a fixed systematising of atoms to
perform necessary movements, and holding good
equally of all creatures,—so that, according to
them, the "world of appearance" reduces itself to
the side of general and generally-needed Being,
which is accessible to every one according to his
kind (accessible and also adjusted,-made “sub-
jective"). But here they are in error. The atom
which they postulate is arrived at by the logic of
that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself
therefore a subjective fiction. This picture of the
world which they project is in no way essentially
different from the subjective picture: the only
difference is, that it is composed simply with more
extended senses, but certainly with our senses.
And in the end, without knowing it, they left
something out of the constellation : precisely the
necessary perspective factor, by means of which
every centre of power
and not man alone-con-
structs the rest of the world from its point of view
-that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds
it according to its degree of strength. . . . They
forgot to reckon with this perspective-fixing power,


## p. 121 (#151) ############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
I21
»
in “true being,"—or, in school-terms, subject-
being. They suppose that this was "evolved ”
and added ;- but even the chemical investigator
needs it: it is indeed specific Being, which de-
termines action and reaction according to circum-
stances.
Perspectivity is only a complex form of specific-
ness. My idea is that every specific body strives
to become master of all space, and to extend its
power (its will to power), and to thrust back
everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is
continually meeting the same endeavours on the
part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to
terms with those (by "combining” with those)
which are sufficiently related to it-and thus they
conspire together for power. And the process
continues.
637.
Even in the inorganic world all that concerns
an atom of energy is its immediate neighbourhood :
distant forces balance each other. Here is the
root of perspectivity, and it explains why a living
organism is "egoistic" to the core.
$
638.
Granting that the world disposed of a quantum
of force, it is obvious that any transposition of
force to any place would affect the whole system-
thus, besides the causality of sequence, there would
also be a dependence, contiguity, and coincidence.


## p. 122 (#152) ############################################

122
THE WILL TO POWER.
"
639.
The only possible way of upholding the sense
of the concept “God” would be: to make Him
not the motive force, but the condition of maximum
power, an epoch; a point in the further develop-
ment of the Will to Power; by means of which
subsequent evolution just as much as former
evolution—up to Him-could be explained.
Viewed mechanically, the energy of collective
Becoming remains constant; regarded from the
economical standpoint, it ascends to its zenith and
then recedes therefrom in order to remain eternally
rotatory. This “ Will to Power” expresses itself
in the interpretation, in the manner in which the
strength is used. The conversion of energy into life;
“life in its highest power” thenceforward appears
as the goal. The same amount of energy,at different
stages of development, means different things.
That which determines growth in Life is the
economy which becomes ever more sparing and
methodical, which achieves ever more and more
with a steadily decreasing amount of energy. . . .
The ideal is the principle of the least possible
expense.
The only thing that is proved is that the world
is not striving towards a state of stability. Con-
sequently its zenith nust not be conceived as a
state of absolute equilibrium.
The dire necessity of the same things happening
in the course of the world, as in all other things,
is not an eternal determinism reigning over all
phenomena, but merely the expression of the fact


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
123
that the impossible is not possible; that a given
force cannot be different from that given force;
that given quantity of resisting force does not
manifest itself otherwise than in conformity with
its degree of strength;—to speak of events as
being necessary is tautological.
2. THE WILL TO POWER AS LIFE.
1
(a) The Organic Process.
640.
Man imagines that he was present at the
generation of the organic world: what was there
to be observed, with the eyes and the touch, in
regard to these processes ? How much of it can
be put into round numbers? What rules are
noticeable in the movements ? Thus, man would
fain arrange all phenomena as if they were for the
eye and for the touch, as if they were forms of
motion : he will discover formula wherewith to
simplify the unwieldy mass of these experiences.
The reduction of all phenomena to the level of
men with senses and with mathematics.
It is a
matter of making an inventory of human experiences:
granting that man, or rather the human eye and
the ability to form concepts, have been the eternal
witnesses of all things.
641.
A plurality of forces bound by a common
nutritive process we call “ Life. ” To this nutritive


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124
THE WILL TO POWER.
process all so-called feeling, thinking, and imagining
belong as means—that is to say, (1) in the form
of opposing other forces; (2) in the form of an
adjustment of other forces according to mould and
rhythm; (3) in the form of a valuation relative to
assimilation and excretion.
642.
The bond between the inorganic and the
organic world must lie in the repelling power
exercised by every atom of energy. “Life”
might be defined as a lasting form of force-estab-
lishing processes, in which the various contending
forces, on their part, grow unequally. To what
extent does counter-strife exist even in obedience ?
Individual power is by no means surrendered
through it. In the same way, there exists in the
act of commanding, an acknowledgment of the
fact that the absolute power of the adversary
has not been overcome, absorbed, or dissipated.
“ Obedience," and "command," are forms of the
game of war.
643.
The Will to Power interprets (an organ in
the process of formation has to be interpreted):
it defines, it determines gradations, differences of
Mere differences of power could not be
aware of each other as such: something must be
there which will grow, and which interprets all
other things that would do the same, according to
the value of the latter. In sooth, all interpreta-
power.


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
125
tion is but a means in itself to become master of
something (Continual interpretation is the first
principle of the organic process. )
644.
66
Greater complexity, sharp differentiation, the
contiguity of the developed organs and functions,
with the disappearance of intermediate members-
if that is perfection, then there is a Will to Power
apparent in the organic process by means of whose
dominating, shaping, and commanding forces it is
continually increasing the sphere of its power, and
persistently simplifying things within that sphere:
it grows imperatively,
Spirit” is only a means and an instrument in
the service of higher life, in the service of the
elevation of life.
645.
"Heredity," as something quite incomprehens-
ible, cannot be used as an explanation, but only
as a designation for the identification of a problem.
And the same holds good of "adaptability. ” As
a matter of fact, the account of morphology, even
supposing it were perfect, explains nothing; it
merely describes an enormous fact.
How a given
organ gets to be used for any particular purpose
is not explained. There is just as little explained
in regard to these things by the assumption of
causæ finales as by the assumption of causæ effici-
entes. The concept causa” is only a means of
expression, no more; a means of designating a
thing.


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126
THE WILL TO POWER
646.
There are analogies; for instance, our memory
may suggest another kind of memory which makes
itself felt in heredity, development, and forms.
Our inventive and experimentative powers suggest
another kind of inventiveness in the application of
instruments to new ends, etc.
That which we call our "consciousness," is quite
guiltless of any of the essential processes of our
preservation and growth; and no human brain
could be so subtle as to construct anything more
than a machine to which every organic process
is infinitely superior.
647
Against Darwinism. —The use of an organ does
not explain its origin, on the contrary! During
the greater part of the time occupied in the forma-
tion of a certain quality, this quality does not help
to preserve the individual; it is of no use to him,
and particularly not in his struggle with external
circumstances and foes.
What is ultimately " useful”? It is necessary
to ask, " Useful for what? "
For instance, that which promotes the lasting
powers of the individual might be unfavourable to
his strength or his beauty; that which preserves
him might at the same time fix him and keep him
stable throughout development. On the other
hand, a deficiency, a state of degeneration, may be
of the greatest possible use, inasmuch as it acts
as a stimulus to other organs.
In the same way,


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
127
a state of need may be a condition of existence, in-
asmuch as it reduces an individual to that modicum
of means which, though it keeps him together, does
not allow him to squander his strength. The in-
dividual himself is the struggle of parts (for
nourishment, space, etc. ): his development involves
the triumph, the predominance, of isolated parts;
the wasting away, or the "development into
organs," of other parts.
The influence of “environment” is nonsensically
overrated in Darwin : the essential factor in the
process of life is precisely the tremendous inner
power to shape and to create forms, which
merely uses, exploits “environment. "
The new forms built up by this inner power
are not produced with a view to any end; but, in
the struggle between the parts, a new form does
not exist long without becoming related to some
kind of semi-utility, and, according to its use,
develops itself ever more and more perfectly.
648.
"Utility” in respect of the acceleration of the
speed of evolution, is a different kind of "utility"
from that which is understood to mean the greatest
possible stability and staying power of the evolved
creature.
649.
“ Useful” in the sense of Darwinian biology
means: that which favours a thing in its struggle
with others. But in my opinion the feeling of


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128
THE WILL TO POWER.
being surcharged, the feeling accompanying an
increase in strength, quite apart from the utility of
the struggle, is the actual progress: from these
feelings the will to war is first derived.
650.
Physiologists should bethink themselves before
putting down the instinct of self-preservation as
the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living
thing seeks above all to discharge its strength:
“self-preservation” is only one of the results
thereof. Let us beware of superfluous teleological
principles ! -one of which is the whole concept of
"self-preservation. " *
651.
The most fundamental and most primeval activ-
ity of a protoplasm cannot be ascribed to a will
to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount of
material which is absurdly out of proportion with
the needs of its preservation : and what is more,
it does not "preserve itself” in the process, but
actually falls to pieces. The instinct which
rules here, must account for this total absence
in the organism of a desire to preserve itself :
"hunger" is already an interpretation based upon
the observation of a more or less complex organ-
isin (hunger is a specialised and later form of
the instinct; it is an expression of the system of
divided labour, in the service of a higher instinct
which rules the whole).
.
.
* See Beyond Good and Evil, in this edition, Aph. 13.


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
129
652.
be so.
It is just as impossible to regard hunger as the
primum mobile, as it is to take self-preservation to
Hunger, considered as the result of in-
sufficient nourishment, means hunger as the result
of a will to power which can no longer dominate.
It is not a question of replacing a loss,—it is only
later on, as the result of the division of labour,
when the Will to Power has discovered other and
quite different ways of gratifying itself, that the
appropriating lust of the organism is reduced to
hunger to the need of replacing what has been
lost.
653
We can but laugh at the false “Altruism" of
biologists : propagation among the amabæ ap-
pears as a process of jetsam, as an advantage to
them. It is an excretion of useless matter.
654
The division of a protoplasm into two takes
place when its power is no longer sufficient to
subjugate the matter it has appropriated: pro-
creation is the result of impotence.
In the cases in which the males seek the females
and become one with them, procreation is the re-
sult of hunger.
655.
The weaker vessel is driven to the stronger from
a need of nourishment; it desires to get under it,
I
VOL. II.


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130
THE WILL TO POWER.
if possible to become one with it.
The stronger,
on the contrary, defends itself from others; it refuses
to perish in this way; it prefers rather to split itself
into two or more parts in the process of growing.
One may conclude that the greater the urgency
seems to become one with something else, the
more weakness in some form is present. The
greater the tendency to variety, difference, inner
decay, the more strength is actually to hand.
The instinct to cleave to something, and the
instinct to repel something, are in the inorganic as
in the organic world, the uniting bond. The whole
distinction is a piece of hasty judgment.
The will to power in every combination of forces,
defending itself against the stronger and coming
down unmercifully upon the weaker, is more correct.
N. B. -All processes may be regarded as “ beings. "
)
656.
The will to power can manifest itself only
against obstacles; it therefore goes in search of
what resists it—this is the primitive tendency of
the protoplasm when it extends its pseudopodia
and feels about it. The act of appropriation and
assimilation is, above all, the result of a desire
to overpower, a process of forming, of additional
building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected
creature has become completely a part of the
superior creature's sphere of power, and has in-
creased the latter. -If this process of incorporation
does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to
pieces; and the separation occurs as the result of the
will to power : in order to prevent the escape of that
-


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THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
131
which has been subjected, the will to power falls into
two wills (under some circumstances without even
abandoning completely its relation to the two).
“Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation,
once the fundamental instinct of power has won
power of a more abstract kind.
.
657.
What is "passive"? To be hindered in the
outward movement of
grasping: it is thus an
act of resistance and
reaction.
What is “active"? . To stretch out for power.
Nutrition"
Is only a derived pheno-
menon; the primitive
form of it was the will
to stuff everything in-
side one's own skin.
Procreation" :: Only derived; originally,
in those cases in which
one will was unable to
organise the collective
mass it had appropri-
ated, an opposing will
came into power, which
undertook to effect the
separation and estab-
lish a new centre of
organisation, after a
struggle with the ori-
ginal will.
9


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132
THE WILL TO POWER.
“ Pleasure”
Is a feeling of power
(presupposing the ex-
istence of pain).
658.
(1) The organic functions shown to be but forms
of the fundamental will, the will to power, and
buds thereof.
(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to
nutrition, to property, to tools, to servants (obedi-
ence), and to rulers: the body as an example. —
The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no
other form of causality than that of will to will.
It is not to be explained mechanically.
(3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organ-
isms. What is a desire if it be not: a provoca-
tion of the feeling of power by an obstacle (or, better
still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting forces)
-so that it surges through it? Thus in all plea-
sure pain is understood. -If the pleasure is to be
very great, the pains preceding it must have been
very long, and the whole bow of life must have
been strained to the utmost.