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.
Nietzsche - Works - v15 - Will to Power - b
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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 nothingto 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
555
A " thing-in-itself " just as absurd as " sense in-itself," " meaning-in-itself. " There no such
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thing as a "fact-in-itself," for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact.
The answer to the question, "What is that? " is a process of fixing a meaning from a different standpoint. The "essence," the "essential factor," is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is " What is that for me? " (for us, for everything that lives, etc. etc. ).
A thing would be defined when all creatures had ' asked and answered this question, " What is that P "
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
VOL. 11. E
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bottom action conceived collectively in regard to all the action which has yet to come (action and the probability of similar action).
557
The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other " things. "
If one imagines other " things " to be non existent, a thing has no qualities.
That is to say: there is nothing without other things.
That is to say: there is no " thing-in-itself. "
553
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 inventedfanci
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).
\
"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
? 559
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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 diference of degree within the subject perceiving P--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?
56 I.
If all unity "were only unity as organisation. But the " thing in which we believe was invented only as a substratum to the various attributes. If the thing "acts," it means: we regard all the other qualities which are to hand, and which are momentarily latent, as the cause accounting for the fact that one individual quality steps forward--that is to say, we take the sum of its qualities--x-- as the cause of the quality x; which is obviously quite absurd and imbecile!
All unity is only so in the form of organisation and collective action: in the same way as a human community is a unity--that is to say, the reverse of atomic anarch ; thus it is a body politic, which stands for one, yet is not one.
562.
" At some time in the development of thought, a point must have been reached when man became conscious of the fact that what he called
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
67
? ? ? ? 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
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 cannot be the substance of movement: therefore fOrm of Being.
MR--The explanation of life may be sought, in the first place, through mental images of phenomena which precede (purposes);
Secondly, through mental images of pheno mena which follow behind (the mathe matico-physical explanation).
The two should not be confounded. Thus: the physical explanation, which 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 only history of purposes, and never physical.
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Our method of acquiring "knowledge " limited to a process of establishing quantities but we can by no means help feeling the differences of quantity as differences of quality. Quality merely
relative truth for us; not " thing-in-itself. " Our senses have certain definite quantum as
mean, within the limits of which they perform their functions--that 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 to say, we feel even proportions as qualities in regard to
our possibilities of existence.
564
But could not all quantities be merely tokens of qualities? Another consciousness and scale of desires must correspond to greater power--in fact, another point of view; growth in itself the ex pression of desire to become more; the desire for
greater quantum springs from certain guale; in purely quantitative world, everything would be dead, stiff, and motionless. ---The reduction of all
qualities to quantities nonsense: discovered that they can only stand together, an analogy
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
69
? ? v565
are our insurmountable barriers; we
Qualities
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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
? one of us, different creatures, must 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! a" such means relativity would also be cancelled !
every
feel
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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
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. "
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
71
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" Appearance " is an adjusted and simplified world, in which our practical instincts have worked: for us it is perfectly true: for we live in we can live in it: this 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 world " in-itself essentially a world of relations: under certain cir cumstances has diferent aspect from every differ ent point at which seen: 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, acts or resists.
Our particular case interesting enough: we have created 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 deter mined by the fact--
(1) That communication 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 may be communicable, must be felt as
something adjusted, as "recognisable. " The material L"'4:n~ rp
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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 were, made logical.
(2) The phenomenal world 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 not " the real world," but the amorphous and un adjustable world consisting of the chaos of sensa tions--that to say, another kind of phenomenal world, world which to us " 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 "
one of our own inventions. The question whether there are not good many more ways of creating such 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 "
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
? an arrangement and an overpowering of its activities: sort of defensive measure. The ~--l"--I n/nrll; demonstrable; the hypothesis might
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"object" is only a form of action of subject upon subject . . . a modus cyf the subject.
(12) THE METAPHYSICAL NEED.
570.
If one resembles all the philosophers that have gonebefore, 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.
57 2'
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
74'
? ? ? ? THE WILL 'ro 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
we are blind to its astounding features. At bottom, Plato, like the artist he was, placed appearance before Being! and therefore lies and fiction before truth! unreality before actuality ! --He was, however, so convinced of the value of appearance, that he granted 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 cause: first standpoint.
The ideal granted all attributes, conferring honour: second standpoint.
573
The idea of the "true world" or of " God" as
? an measure to the extent to which the
absolutely spiritual, intellectuahand good,
emergency
antagonistic instincts are all-powerful. . .
and existing humanity reflected 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.
Moderation exactly
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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 because we have
nothing else save thought and feeling.
575
To, know to point to past experience: in its nature regressus in infinitum. That which
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halts (in the face of unconditioned, etc. )
576
Concerning the psychology
influence of fear. That which has been most feared, the cause of the greatest sufi'ering (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 struch out, God posited as the opposite of evil-- that to say, reality conceived to be the negation of the passions and
the emotions (i. e. nonentity).
Irrationality, impulsive action, accidental action, moreover, hated by them (as the cause of incal
culable suffering). Consequently they denied this ele ment in the absolute, and interpreted as absolute "rationality" and "conformity of means to ends. "
Change and perishability were also feared; and by this fear an oppressed soul revealed, full of distrust and painful experiences (the case with Spinoza: man differently constituted would have
so-called causa prima or the laziness, weariness
of
metaphysics--the
? this change as a charm).
A nature overflowing and playing with energy,
would call precisely the passions, irrationality and change, good in a eudemonistic sense, together with their consequences: danger, contrast, ruin, etc.
577
Against the value of that which always remains the same (remember Spinoza's artlessness and
regarded
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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.
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real world ;---this world conditioned: conse quently there must be an unconditioned world ;-- this world contradictory: consequently there
world free from contradiction;~--this world evolving: consequently there somewhere static world :--a host of false conclusions (blind faith in reason A exists, then its opposite must also
Pain inspires these conclusions: at bottom they are wishes that such world might exist; the hatred of world which leads to suffering like wise revealed by the fact that another and better world imagined: the resentment of the meta physician against reality creative here.
The second series of questions wherefore suffer? . and from this conclusion derived con
the relation of the real world to our apparent, changing, sufi'ering, and contradictory
world: (I) Suffering as the consequence of error: how error possible? (2) Suffering as the conse quence of guilt: how guilt possible? (A host of experiences drawn from the sphere of nature or society, universalised and made absolute. ) But 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 whatpurpose
. . . The world of appearance, of Becoming, of
contradiction, of suffering, therefore willed; to
what purpose
The error of these conclusions: two contradictory ~----- man at A-L--"a _finu,
cerning
79
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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.
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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 quite matter of indifference and beside the point: as witness the development of India.
The Buddhistic negation of reality in general (appearance=pain) perfectly consistent: un demonstrability, inaccessibility, lack of categories, not only for an "absolute world," but recogni tion of the erroneous procedures by means of which the whole concept has been reached. " Absolute reality," "Being in itself," contradiction. In world of Becoming, reality merely simplification for the purpose of practical ends, or a deception resulting from the coarseness of certain organs, or
variation in the tempo of Becoming.
The logical denial of the world and Nihilism
consequence of the fact that we must oppose nonentity with Being, " and that "Becoming" denied. Something becomes. )
58I.
Being and Becoming--"Reason" developed
? ? upon sensualistic basis upon the prejudices
the senses--that to say, with the belief in the truth of the judgment of the senses.
of "Reins? " as the. aeneralieatinn nf the rnncpnf
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it opposed to death (for only that can be dead which can also live).
The "soul," the "ego," posited as primeval facts; and introduced wherever there is Becoming.
582.
Being--we have no other idea of it than that which we derive from "living. "--How then can everything " be " dead?
583' A.
I see with astonishment that science resigns itself to-day to the fate of being reduced to the world of appearance: we certainly have no organ of knowledge for the real world--be it ' what it may.
At this point we may well ask: With what organ of knowledge is this contradiction estab lished? . . .
The fact that a world which is accessible to our organs is also understood to be dependent upon these organs, and the fact that we should
understand a WM! "
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? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE
The trouble that, owing to the old antithesis " apparent " and "real," the correlative valuations "of little value" and "absolutely valuable " have been spread abroad.
The world of appearance does not strike us as "valuable" world; appearance on lower plane than the highest value. Only "real"
world can be absolutely "valuable. " .
Prejudice ofprejudices It perfectly possible in itself that the real nature of things would be
so unfriendly, so opposed to the first conditions of life, that appearance necessary in order to make life possible. . . This certainly the case in a large number of situations--for instance, mar
riage.
even in its limits to knowledge, by the instinct of self-preservation: we regard that as good, valu able, and true, which favours the preservation of the species.
We have no categories which allow us to distinguish between real and an apparent world. (At the most, there could exist world of appear
ance, but not our world of appearance. ) (In "r-"
,
_ Our empirical world would thus be conditioned,
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of reality), is a metaphysical postulate which starts out with the hypothesis that we know the order of rank among values; and that this order is a moral one. . . . It is only on this hypothesis that truth is necessary as a definition of all that is of a-superior value.
B.
It is of cardinal importance that the real world should be suppressed. It is the most formidable inspirer of doubts, and depreciator of values, concerning the world which we are: it was our most dangerous attempt heretofore on the life of Life.
War against all the hypotheses upon which a real world has been imagined. The notion that moral values are the highest values, belongs to this hypothesis.
The superiority of the moral valuation would be refuted, if it could be shown to be the result of an immoral valuation--a specific case of real immorality: it would thus reduce itself to an appearanceIand as an appearance it would cease from having any right to condemn appearance.
Then the " Will to Truth" would have to be examined psychologically: not mOr"'
power, but form of the Will to Pow" ",qu r. -.
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? 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 nothingto 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
555
A " thing-in-itself " just as absurd as " sense in-itself," " meaning-in-itself. " There no such
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thing as a "fact-in-itself," for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact.
The answer to the question, "What is that? " is a process of fixing a meaning from a different standpoint. The "essence," the "essential factor," is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is " What is that for me? " (for us, for everything that lives, etc. etc. ).
A thing would be defined when all creatures had ' asked and answered this question, " What is that P "
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
VOL. 11. E
65
? ? ? ? ? 66 THE WILL T0 POWER.
bottom action conceived collectively in regard to all the action which has yet to come (action and the probability of similar action).
557
The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other " things. "
If one imagines other " things " to be non existent, a thing has no qualities.
That is to say: there is nothing without other things.
That is to say: there is no " thing-in-itself. "
553
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 inventedfanci
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).
\
"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
? 559
? ? ? i to and
her )Il 2er
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 diference of degree within the subject perceiving P--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?
56 I.
If all unity "were only unity as organisation. But the " thing in which we believe was invented only as a substratum to the various attributes. If the thing "acts," it means: we regard all the other qualities which are to hand, and which are momentarily latent, as the cause accounting for the fact that one individual quality steps forward--that is to say, we take the sum of its qualities--x-- as the cause of the quality x; which is obviously quite absurd and imbecile!
All unity is only so in the form of organisation and collective action: in the same way as a human community is a unity--that is to say, the reverse of atomic anarch ; thus it is a body politic, which stands for one, yet is not one.
562.
" At some time in the development of thought, a point must have been reached when man became conscious of the fact that what he called
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
67
? ? ? ? 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
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 cannot be the substance of movement: therefore fOrm of Being.
MR--The explanation of life may be sought, in the first place, through mental images of phenomena which precede (purposes);
Secondly, through mental images of pheno mena which follow behind (the mathe matico-physical explanation).
The two should not be confounded. Thus: the physical explanation, which 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 only history of purposes, and never physical.
upon
? ? ? is
it is
a
:
is, a
is
is
it
it
"ons
ties
ng :en ;ed
ich sis :m
13' of
I!
563
Our method of acquiring "knowledge " limited to a process of establishing quantities but we can by no means help feeling the differences of quantity as differences of quality. Quality merely
relative truth for us; not " thing-in-itself. " Our senses have certain definite quantum as
mean, within the limits of which they perform their functions--that 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 to say, we feel even proportions as qualities in regard to
our possibilities of existence.
564
But could not all quantities be merely tokens of qualities? Another consciousness and scale of desires must correspond to greater power--in fact, another point of view; growth in itself the ex pression of desire to become more; the desire for
greater quantum springs from certain guale; in purely quantitative world, everything would be dead, stiff, and motionless. ---The reduction of all
qualities to quantities nonsense: discovered that they can only stand together, an analogy
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
69
? ? v565
are our insurmountable barriers; we
Qualities
cannot possibly help feeling mere ""
quantity as something firnd=m=-'-" -'--\L:L__
of
diferences '
? ? _ L _ ____-_. -,V___P_\_
. ~a_. _. \_
_,---"~
4
is
is
it
it is
aa
aa
a
is a
a
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is
is
;
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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
? one of us, different creatures, must 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! a" such means relativity would also be cancelled !
every
feel
? ? ? But Ilm
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
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. "
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
71
? ? --
' ' L aL-Abnaaiaa. a. . . -'| --m--- A'
? ? 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 we can live in it: this 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 world " in-itself essentially a world of relations: under certain cir cumstances has diferent aspect from every differ ent point at which seen: 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, acts or resists.
Our particular case interesting enough: we have created 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 deter mined by the fact--
(1) That communication 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 may be communicable, must be felt as
something adjusted, as "recognisable. " The material L"'4:n~ rp
? ? ? ? '
it
it
is it
it
is
.
it,
a
is
is
it
is
a
a it
.
";
it is
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 were, made logical.
(2) The phenomenal world 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 not " the real world," but the amorphous and un adjustable world consisting of the chaos of sensa tions--that to say, another kind of phenomenal world, world which to us " 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 "
one of our own inventions. The question whether there are not good many more ways of creating such 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 "
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
? an arrangement and an overpowering of its activities: sort of defensive measure. The ~--l"--I n/nrll; demonstrable; the hypothesis might
appearance
? ? .
is is
isis a is a
it
a
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. ~. . ,-. 1~ v
a
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? THE WILL TO POWER.
"object" is only a form of action of subject upon subject . . . a modus cyf the subject.
(12) THE METAPHYSICAL NEED.
570.
If one resembles all the philosophers that have gonebefore, 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.
57 2'
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
74'
? ? ? ? THE WILL 'ro 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
we are blind to its astounding features. At bottom, Plato, like the artist he was, placed appearance before Being! and therefore lies and fiction before truth! unreality before actuality ! --He was, however, so convinced of the value of appearance, that he granted 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 cause: first standpoint.
The ideal granted all attributes, conferring honour: second standpoint.
573
The idea of the "true world" or of " God" as
? an measure to the extent to which the
absolutely spiritual, intellectuahand good,
emergency
antagonistic instincts are all-powerful. . .
and existing humanity reflected 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.
Moderation exactly
? ? . is
a
is
it
it,
? 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 because we have
nothing else save thought and feeling.
575
To, know to point to past experience: in its nature regressus in infinitum. That which
'
? ? ? it is a
is
it,
? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
77
halts (in the face of unconditioned, etc. )
576
Concerning the psychology
influence of fear. That which has been most feared, the cause of the greatest sufi'ering (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 struch out, God posited as the opposite of evil-- that to say, reality conceived to be the negation of the passions and
the emotions (i. e. nonentity).
Irrationality, impulsive action, accidental action, moreover, hated by them (as the cause of incal
culable suffering). Consequently they denied this ele ment in the absolute, and interpreted as absolute "rationality" and "conformity of means to ends. "
Change and perishability were also feared; and by this fear an oppressed soul revealed, full of distrust and painful experiences (the case with Spinoza: man differently constituted would have
so-called causa prima or the laziness, weariness
of
metaphysics--the
? this change as a charm).
A nature overflowing and playing with energy,
would call precisely the passions, irrationality and change, good in a eudemonistic sense, together with their consequences: danger, contrast, ruin, etc.
577
Against the value of that which always remains the same (remember Spinoza's artlessness and
regarded
? ? ___-_ . . . -. -
-
a
is
it
is
is,
is
is a
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.
? ? Compmhm
,l, 579
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? ? "),
"-
~ _
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
real world ;---this world conditioned: conse quently there must be an unconditioned world ;-- this world contradictory: consequently there
world free from contradiction;~--this world evolving: consequently there somewhere static world :--a host of false conclusions (blind faith in reason A exists, then its opposite must also
Pain inspires these conclusions: at bottom they are wishes that such world might exist; the hatred of world which leads to suffering like wise revealed by the fact that another and better world imagined: the resentment of the meta physician against reality creative here.
The second series of questions wherefore suffer? . and from this conclusion derived con
the relation of the real world to our apparent, changing, sufi'ering, and contradictory
world: (I) Suffering as the consequence of error: how error possible? (2) Suffering as the conse quence of guilt: how guilt possible? (A host of experiences drawn from the sphere of nature or society, universalised and made absolute. ) But 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 whatpurpose
. . . The world of appearance, of Becoming, of
contradiction, of suffering, therefore willed; to
what purpose
The error of these conclusions: two contradictory ~----- man at A-L--"a _finu,
cerning
79
? exist).
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if
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a
is is
. 9 : if
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8o ' THE WILL T0 POWER.
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.
. . . . e - -
~ -. . _'. 'n"e -a. '4,, . 1
? ? 1
").
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 quite matter of indifference and beside the point: as witness the development of India.
The Buddhistic negation of reality in general (appearance=pain) perfectly consistent: un demonstrability, inaccessibility, lack of categories, not only for an "absolute world," but recogni tion of the erroneous procedures by means of which the whole concept has been reached. " Absolute reality," "Being in itself," contradiction. In world of Becoming, reality merely simplification for the purpose of practical ends, or a deception resulting from the coarseness of certain organs, or
variation in the tempo of Becoming.
The logical denial of the world and Nihilism
consequence of the fact that we must oppose nonentity with Being, " and that "Becoming" denied. Something becomes. )
58I.
Being and Becoming--"Reason" developed
? ? upon sensualistic basis upon the prejudices
the senses--that to say, with the belief in the truth of the judgment of the senses.
of "Reins? " as the. aeneralieatinn nf the rnncpnf
? ? is
a
_,_. _-. ,. "- WW aa
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-~
("
is a
a
a
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82 THE WILL TO POWER.
it opposed to death (for only that can be dead which can also live).
The "soul," the "ego," posited as primeval facts; and introduced wherever there is Becoming.
582.
Being--we have no other idea of it than that which we derive from "living. "--How then can everything " be " dead?
583' A.
I see with astonishment that science resigns itself to-day to the fate of being reduced to the world of appearance: we certainly have no organ of knowledge for the real world--be it ' what it may.
At this point we may well ask: With what organ of knowledge is this contradiction estab lished? . . .
The fact that a world which is accessible to our organs is also understood to be dependent upon these organs, and the fact that we should
understand a WM! "
? ? ''"' '
? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE
The trouble that, owing to the old antithesis " apparent " and "real," the correlative valuations "of little value" and "absolutely valuable " have been spread abroad.
The world of appearance does not strike us as "valuable" world; appearance on lower plane than the highest value. Only "real"
world can be absolutely "valuable. " .
Prejudice ofprejudices It perfectly possible in itself that the real nature of things would be
so unfriendly, so opposed to the first conditions of life, that appearance necessary in order to make life possible. . . This certainly the case in a large number of situations--for instance, mar
riage.
even in its limits to knowledge, by the instinct of self-preservation: we regard that as good, valu able, and true, which favours the preservation of the species.
We have no categories which allow us to distinguish between real and an apparent world. (At the most, there could exist world of appear
ance, but not our world of appearance. ) (In "r-"
,
_ Our empirical world would thus be conditioned,
(a)
83
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"'W
. -_a___,__.
a
is
is
a
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.
.
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.
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.
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? 84
THE WILL TO POWER.
of reality), is a metaphysical postulate which starts out with the hypothesis that we know the order of rank among values; and that this order is a moral one. . . . It is only on this hypothesis that truth is necessary as a definition of all that is of a-superior value.
B.
It is of cardinal importance that the real world should be suppressed. It is the most formidable inspirer of doubts, and depreciator of values, concerning the world which we are: it was our most dangerous attempt heretofore on the life of Life.
War against all the hypotheses upon which a real world has been imagined. The notion that moral values are the highest values, belongs to this hypothesis.
The superiority of the moral valuation would be refuted, if it could be shown to be the result of an immoral valuation--a specific case of real immorality: it would thus reduce itself to an appearanceIand as an appearance it would cease from having any right to condemn appearance.
Then the " Will to Truth" would have to be examined psychologically: not mOr"'
power, but form of the Will to Pow" ",qu r. -.
degree
?
