No More Learning

prehensible,
37
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Now we read discord and problems into things, because we are able to think only in the form of language--we also believe in the " eternal truth " of "wisdom" (for instance, subject, attribute, etc. )
We cease from thinking if we do not wish to think under the control of language; the most we can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt con cerning the question whether the boundary here really is a boundary.
Rational thought is a process of interpreting according to a scheme which we cannot reject.
(f) CONSCIOUSNESS.
523
There is no greater error than that of making
psychical and physical phenomena the two faces, the two manifestations of the same substance. By this means nothing is explained: the concept "substance" is utterly useless as a means of explana tion. Consciousness may be regarded as secondary, almost an indifferent and superfluous thing, prob
ably destined to disappear and to be superseded by perfect automatism--
When we observe mental phenomena we may be likened to the deaf and dumb who divine the spoken word, which they do not hear, from the movements of the speaker's lips. From the
38
? Of the inner mind we draw conclufions concerning invisible and other phenomena, which we could ascertain if our powers of observation
were adequate for the purpose.
appearance
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
For this inner world we have no finer organs,
and that why complexity which
reaches our consciousness as simple entity, and we invent process ofcausation in despite the fact that we can perceive no cause either of the movement or of the change--the sequence of thoughts and feelings nothing more than their becoming visible to consciousness. That this sequence has anything to do with chain of causes
not worthy of belief: consciousness never com municates an example of cause and effect to us.
524.
The part " consciousness " plays. ---It essential that one should not mistake the part that "con sciousness" plays: our relation to the outer world; was the outer world that developed it. On the other hand, the direction--that to say, the care and cautiousness which concerned with the inter-relation of the bodily functions, does not enter into our consciousness any more than does the storing activity of the intellect: that there
superior controlling force at work these things cannot be doubted--a sort of directing com mittee, in which the various leading desires make their votes and their power felt. "Pleasure" and "pain" are indications which reach us from this sphere: as are also acts of will and ideas.
In short: That which becomes conscious has causal relations which are completely and absolutely concealed from our knowledge--the sequence of thoughts, feelings, and ideas, in consciousness, does
thousandfold
39
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40
not signify that the order in which they come is a causal order: it is so apparently, however, in the highest degree. We have hased the whole of our notion of intellect, reason, logic, etc. , upon this apparent truth (all these things do not exist: they are imaginary syntheses and entities), and we then projected the latter into and behind all things!
As a rule consciousness itself is understood to be the general sensorium and highest ruling centre; albeit, it is only a means of communication: it was developed by intercourse, and with a view to the in terests of intercourse. . . . " Intercourse " is under; stood, here, as "relation," and is intended to cover the action of the outer world upon us and our necessary response to as also our actual influence upon the outer world. It not the conducting force, but an organ of the latter.
525.
My principle, compressed into formula which savours of antiquity, of Christianity, Scholasticism, and other kinds of musk: in the concept, " God spirit," God as perfection denied. . . .
526.
Wherever people have observed certain unity in the grouping of things, spirit has always been regarded as the cause of this co-ordination: an assumption for which reasons are entirely lack ing. Why should the idea of a complex fact be
one of the conditions of that fact? Or why should
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the notion of a complex fact have to precede it as its cause?
We must be on our guard against explaining finality by the spirit : there is absolutely no reason whatever for ascribing to spirit the peculiar of organising and systematising. The
power
domain of the nervous system is much more ex tensive: the realm of consciousness is superadded. In the collective process of adaptation and systema tising, consciousness plays no part at all.
527
like philosophers, believe that consciousness increases in value in proportion as
it gains in clearness: the most lucid consciousness and the most logical and impassive thought are of the first order. Meanwhile--according to what standard is this value determined P--In regard to the discharge of will-power the most superficial and most simple thought is the most useful--it might therefore, etc. etc. (because it leaves few motives
latter is led by the deeper instinct.
528.
The chief error of psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as of a lower hind than the distinct; but that which keeps at a distance from our con
wfl'" *--
41
? over).
Physiologists,
. Precision in action is opposed to the far-sighted and often uncertain judgments of caution: the
sciousness and which is therefore nhrrure
? ? ? 42
THE WILL TO POWER.
that very account be quite clear in itself. The fact
that a thing becomes obscure is a question of the perspective of consciousness
529
The great misapprehensions :--
(I) The senseless overestimation of consciousness, its elevation to the dignity of an entity: " a spirit," " a soul," something that feels, thinks, and wills;
(2) The spirit regarded as a cause, especially where finality, system, and co-ordination appear;
'
(3) Consciousness classed as the highest form attainable, as the most superior kind of being, as " God ";
(4) Will introduced wherever effects are observed;
(5) The " real world " regarded as the spiritual world, accessible by means of the facts of con sciousness ;
(6) Absolute knowledge regarded as the faculty of consciousness, wherever knowledge exists at all.
Consequences :--
Every step forward consists of a step forward in consciousness; every step backwards is a step into unconsciousness (unconsciousness was regarded as a falling-back upon the passions and senses--
as a state of animalism. . .
Man approaches reality and " real being "
through dialectics: man departs from them by means of instincts, senses, and automatism.
To convert man into spirit, would mean to make god of him: spirit, will, goodness--all one.
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.
? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
43
All goodness must take its root in spirituality, must be fact of consciousness.
Every step made towards something better can be only step forward in consciousness.
TRUE--FALSE.
530
Kant's theological bias, his unconscious dogmat
ism,his moraloutlook,ruled,guided,and directed him.
The 'n'pc'b'Tov \Ireii'o'oq: how the fact knowledge
(g) JUDGMENT.
Is knowledge fact at all? What knowledge? we do not know what knowledge we cannot possibly reply to the question, " Is
there such a thing as knowledge? "--Veryfine-l But do not already " know " whether there or can be, such thing as knowledge, cannot reason ably ask the question, " What knowledge ? " Kant believes in the fact of knowledge: What he requires
" piece of naivete': the knowledge of knowledge! Knowledge judgment. " But judgment
belief that something this or that! And not knowledge! " All knowledge consists in synthetic judgments " which have the character of being universally true (the fact so in all cases, and does not change), and which have the character of being necessary (the reverse of the proposition
'
cannot be imagined to exist).
The validity of a belief in knowledge always
taken for granted; as also the validity of the feelings which conscience dictates. Here moral ontology the ruling bias.
possible?
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The conclusion, therefore, is: (I) there are pro positions which we believe to be universally true and necessary.
(2) This character of universal truth and of necessity cannot spring from experience.
(3) Consequently it must base itself upon no experience at all, but upon something else; it must be derived from another source of knowledge!
(Kant concludes (1) that there are some pro positions which hold good only on one condition ;
44
this condition is that they do not spring from experience, but. from pure reason. )
Thus, the question whence do we derive our reasons for believing in the truth of such proposi tions? No, whence does our belief get its cause? But the origin of a belief, of strong conviction,
a psychological problem: and very limited and narrow experience frequently brings about such belief! It already presupposes that there are not only " data a posteriori " but also " data a priori "-- that to say, "previous to experience. " Neces
sary and universal truth cannot be given by experi ence: therefore quite clear that has come to us without experience at all?
There no such thing as an isolated judgment!
An isolated judgment never " true," never knowledge; only in connection with, and when
related to, many other judgments, of its truth forthcoming.
(2)
? What the difference between true and false belief? What knowledge? _He "knows " that heavenly!
Necessary and universal truth cannot be given
guarantee
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45
by experience! It therefore independent of ex perience, of all experience The view which comes quite a priori, and therefore independent of all ex perience, merely outof reason, " pure knowledge "
" The principles of logic, the principle of identity and of contradiction, are examples of pure know ledge, because they precede all experience. "--But these principles are not cognitions, but regulatioe
articles of faith.
In order to establish the a priori character
(the pure rationality) of mathematical axioms, space
must be conceived as form ofpure reason.
Hume had declared that there were no apriori
synthetic judgments. Kant says there are--the mathematical ones! And there are such judg ments, there may also be such things as metaphysics and knowledge of things by means of pure reason
Mathematics possible under conditions which are not allowed to metaphysics. All human know ledge either experience or mathematics.
A judgment synthetic--that to say, co ordinates various ideas. It a priori--that to say, this co-ordination universally true and necessary, and arrived at, not by sensual experi ence, but by pure reason.
If there are such things as a priori judgments, then reason must be able to co-ordinate: co-ordination form. Reason must possess a formative faculty.
531.
judging our oldest faith; our habit of believing this to be true or false, of asserting or
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THE WILL TO POWER.
denying, our certainty that something is thus and not otherwise, our belief that we really " know "-- what is believed to be true in all judgments?
What are attributes P--We did not regard changes in ourselves merely as such, but as " things in themselves," which are strange to us, and which we only "perceive"; and we did not class them as phenomena, but as Being, as " attributes " ; and in addition we invented a creature to which they attach themselves--that is to say, we made the ej'ect the working cause, and the latter we made Being. But
even in this plain statement, the concept " effect " is arbitrary: for in regard to those changes which occur in us, and of which we are convinced we ourselves are not the cause, we still argue that they must be effects: and this is in accordance with the belief that " every change must have its author " ;---but this belief in itself is already mythology; for it separates the working cause from the cause in work. When I say the " lightning flashes," I set the flash down, once as an action and a second time as a subject acting; and thus a
thing is fancifully affixed to a phenomenon, which is not one with but which stable, which and does not "cbme. "--To make the phenomenon the working cause, and to make the efect into a thing
----into Being: this the double error, or interpreta tion, of which we are guilty.
532.
The judgment--that the faith: "This and this so. " In every judgment, therefore, there lies
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the admission that an " identical case " has been met with: it thus takes some sort of comparison for granted, with the help of the memory. judg ment does not create the idea that an identical case seems to be there. It believes rather that it actu ally perceives such a case; it works on the hypothesis that there are such things as identical cases. But what is that much older function called, which must have been active much earlier, and which in itself equalises unequal cases and makes them alike? What is that second function called, which with this first one as a basis, etc. etc. " That which provokes the same sensations as another thing is equal to that other thing ": but what is that called which makes sensations equal, which regards them as equal P--There could be no judg ments if a sort of equalising process were not active
,within all sensations: memory is only possible by means of the underscoring of all that has already been experienced and learned. Before a judgment can be formed, the process of assimilation must already'have been completed: thus, even here, an intellectual activity is to be observed which does not enter consciousness in at all the same way as the pain which accompanies a wound. Probably the psychic phenomena correspond to all the organic functions--that is to say, they consist of assimila
tion, rejection, growth, etc.
The essential thing is to start out frhm the body
and to use it as the general clue. It is by far the richer phenomenon, and allows of much more accur ate observation. The belief in the body is much more soundly established than the belief in spirit.
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
47
? ? ? 48
THE WILL TO POWER.
o
" However strongly a thing may be believed, the degree of belief is no criterion of its truth. " But what is truth?
Perhaps it-is a form of faith, which has become a condition of existence? Then strength would certainly be a criterion; for in stance, in regard to causality.
533
Logical accuracy, transparency, considered as the criterion of truth (" omne illud verum est, quad clare et distincte percwitur. "--Descartes): by this means the mechanical hypothesis of the world becomes desirable and credible.
But this is gross confusion: like simplex sigillum verz'. Whence comes the knowledge that the real nature of things stands in this relation to our intellect? Could it not be otherwise? Could it not be this, that the hypothesis which gives the intellect the greatest feeling of power and security, is preferred, valued, and marked as true ? ---The intellect sets its freest and strongest facultyl and ability as the criterion of what is most valuable, consequently of what is true. . .
" True "--from the standpoint of sentiment-'45 that which most provokes senti
ment ("I");
from the standpoint of thought--is
that which gives thought the
greatest sensation of strength; from the standpoint of touch, sight, and hearing--is that which' calls
forth the greatest resistance.
? '
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Thus the highest degrees of activity which awaken belief in regard to the object, in regard to its " reality. " The sensations of strength, struggle, and resistance convince the subject that there something which being resisted.
534
The criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power.
535
According to my way of thinking, " truth " does not necessarily mean the opposite of error, but, in the most fundamental cases, merely the relation of different errors to each other: thus one error might be older, deeper than another, perhaps altogether ineradicable, one without which organic creatures like ourselves could not exist; whereas
"other errors might not tyrannise over us to that extent as conditions of existence, but when measured according to the standard of those other " tyrants," could even be laid aside and " refuted. "
Why should an irrefutable assumption neces
sarily be "true "? This question may exasperate
the logicians who limit things according to the
limitations they find in themselves: but have
long since declared war with this logician's
Everything simple simply imaginary, but not
" true. " neither
v0L. it.
That which real and true however,
unity nor reducible to unity.
D
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49
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536
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THE WILL TO POWER.
537
What is truth ? ---Inertia ; that hypothesis which brings satisfaction, the smallest expense of intel lectual strength, etc.
538.
First proposition. The easier way of thinking always triumphs over the more difficult way ;-- dogmatically: simplex sigillum 11eri. ---Dico: to sup pose that clearness is any proof of truth, is absolute
I
childishness. .
Second proposition. The teaching of Being, of
things, and of all those constant entities, is a hun dred times more easy than the teaching of Becoming and of evolution. . . .
? Third proposition.
method of facilitating
sion,--not truth. . . . Later on it got to act like truth. . . .
Logic was intended to be a thought: a means of expres
539
Parmenides said: "One can form no concept of the non-existent" ;---we are at the other extreme, and say, "That of which a concept can be formed, is certainly fictional. "
540
There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes--therefore there must be many kinds of " truths," and consequently there can be no truth.
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
51
541
Inscriptions over the porch of a modern lunatic asylum.
"That which necessarily true in thought must necessarily true in morality. "-- HERBERT
be SPENCER.
? . _ . _
A
" The ultimate test of the truth of proposition the inconceivableness of its negation. "---H ERBERT
SPENCER.
542
If the character of existence were false,--and this would be possible,--what would truth then be, all our truth? . An unprincipled falsification of the false? A higher degree of falseness? . .
543
In world which was essentially false, truthful ness would be an anti-natural tendency: its only purpose would be to provide a means of attaining to higher degree of falsity. For world of truth and Being to be simulated, the truthful one would first have to be created being understood that he must believe himself to be " truthful
Simple, transparent, not in contradiction with himself, lasting, remaining always the same to him self, free from faults, sudden changes, dissimulation, and form: such man conceives world of Being as " God" in His own image.
In order that truthfulness may be possible, the
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whole sphere in which man moves must be very tidy, small, and respectable : the advantage in every respect must be with the truthful one--Lies, tricks, dissimulations, must cause astonishment.
s44
"Dissimulation" increases in accordance with the rising order'of rank among organic beings. In the inorganic world it seems to be entirely absent. --There power opposes power quite roughly
---ruse begins in the organic world; plants are already masters of it. The greatest men, such as Caesar and Napoleon (see Stendhal's remark con cerning him),' as also the higher races (the Italians), the Greeks (Odysseus) ; the most supreme cunning, belongs to the very essence of the elevation of man. . . . The problem of the actor. My Dionysian ideal. . . . The optics of all the organic functions, of all the strongest vital instincts : the power which will have error in all life; error as the very first
? of thought itself. Before "thought" is possible, "fancy" must first have done its work; the picturing of identical cases, of the seemingness of identity, is. more primeval than the cognition of identity.
* The reference to Stendhal here, seems to point to a passage in his Life of Napoleon (Preface, p. xv) of which Nietzsche had made a note in another place, and which reads: "Une croyance presque instinctive chez moi c'est
que tout homme puissant ment quand il parle et a plus fort
principle
raison quand il e? crit. "
-
? ? ? appearances
cannot be "causes"!
546
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
53
AGAINST CAUSALITY.
545
I believe in absolute space as the basis of force, and I believe the latter to be limited and formed. Time, eternal. But space and time as things in themselves do not exist. "Changes" are only appearances (or mere processes of our senses to us) ; if we set recurrence, however regular, between
them, nothing is proved- beyond the fact that it has always happened so. The feeling that post hoc is propter hoc, is easily explained as the result ofa misunderstanding; it is comprehensible. But
(h)
? The interpretation of a phenomenon, either as an action or as the endurance of an action (that is to say, every action involves the suffering of it), amounts to this: every change, every differentia tion, presupposes the existence of an agent and somebody acted upon, who is " altered. "
s47
Psychological history of the concept "subject. " The body, the thing, the " whole," which is visual ised by the eye, awakens the thought of distin
between an action and an agent; the idea that the agent is the cause of the action, after having been repeatedly refined, at length left the " subject " over.
guishing
? ? ? 54
THE WILL TO POWER.
548 ,
Our absurd habit of regarding a mere mnemonic sign or abbreviated formula as an independentbeing, and ultimately as a cause; as, for instance, when we say of lightning that " it flashes. " Or even the little word "I. " A sort of double-sight in seeing
which makes sight a cause of seeing in itself: this was the feat in the invention of the " subject " of the " ego. "
549
" Subject," " object," " attribute "--these distinc tions have been made, and are now used like schemes to cover all apparent facts. The false fundamental observation is this, that I believe it is I who does something, who suffers something, who " has " something, who "has" a quality.
550
In every judgment lies the whole faith in sub ject, attribute, or cause and effect (in the form of an assumption that every effect is the result of
activity, and that all activity presupposes an agent) ; and even this last belief is only an isolated case of the first, so that faith remains as the most funda mental belief: there are such things as subjects,
everything that happens is related attributively to a subject of some sort.
I notice something, and try to discover the reason of it: originally this was, I look for an intention behind and, above all, look for one
who has an intention, for subject, an agent:
? ? ? a
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it,
? Question:
Is the design the cause of pheno menon Or that also illusion? Is not the phenomenon itself?
551
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
every phenomenon an action,--formerly inten tions were seen behind all phenomena, this our oldest habit. Has the. animal also this habit? I As living organism, not also compelled to interpret things through itself. The question
" why " always question concerning the causafinalis, and the general " purpose " of things. We have no sign of the "sense of the 6ffiCl? Ilt cause in this respect Hume quite right, habit (but not only that of the individual) allows us to expect that certain process, frequently observed, will follow upon another, but nothing more! That which gives us such an extraordinarily firm faith in
causality, not the rough habit of observing the sequence of processes; but our inahility to interpret a phenomenon otherwise than as the result of de sign. It the belief in living and thinking things,
as the only agents of causation; the belief in will, in design--the belief that all phenomena are actions, and that all actions presuppose an agent; the belief in the "subject. " Is not this belief in the concepts subject and object an
arrant absurdity?
? criticism of the concept "cause. '-'--We have absolutely no experience concerning cause; viewed psychologically we derive the whole concept from the subjective conviction, that we ourselves are
causes--that to say, that the arm moves. . . But
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THE WILL TO POWER.
that is an error. We distinguish ourselves, the agents, from the action, and everywhere we make use of this scheme--we try to discover an agent behind every phenomenon. What have we done ? We have misunderstood a feeling of power, tension, resistance, a muscular feeling, which is already the beginning of the action, and posited it as a cause; or we have understood the will to do this or that,
as a cause, because the action follows it. There is no such thing as "Cause," in those few cases in which it seemed to be given, and in which we pro
jected it out of ourselves in order to understand a phenomenon, it has been shown to be an illusion. Our understanding of a phenomenon consisted in
our inventing a subject who was responsible for something happening, and for the manner in which it happened. In our concept " cause " we have em braced our feeling of will, our feeling of " freedom,"
our feeling of responsibility and our design to do an action: causa efliciens and causa finalis are fundamentally one. - '
We believed that an effect was explained when we could point to a state in which it was inherent. As a matter of fact, we invent all causes according to the scheme of the effect: the latter is known to us. . . . On the other hand, we are not in a position to say of any particular thing how it will "act. " The thing, the subject the will, the design--all
inherent in the conception "cause. " We try to discover things in order to explain why something has changed. Even the "atom" is one of these
fanciful inventions like the "thing" and the
? " primitive subject. " . . .
'
? ? ? THE WILL 'ro POWER IN SCIENCE.
57
At last we understand that things--consequently also atoms--effect nothing: because they are non existent; and that the concept causality quite useless. Out of necessary sequence of states, the latter's causal relationship does not follow (that would be equivalent to extending their active
principle from to 2, to to 4, to 5). There
no such thing as a cause or an effect. From the standpoint of language we do not know how to
rid ourselves of them. But that does not matter. If imagine muscle separated from its "effects,"
have denied it.
In short: a phenomenon neither effected nor
capable of mf'ecting. Causa a faculty to effect
something, superadded fancifully to what hap
pens.
The interpretation of causality is an illusion.
A "thing" the sum of its effects, synthetically united by means of concept, an image. As matter of fact, science has robbed the concept caus ality of all meaning, and has reserved merely as an allegorical formula, which has made matter of indifference whether cause or effect be put on this side or on that. It asserted that in two complex states (centres of force) the quantities of energy remain constant.
The calmlability of a phenomenon does not lie in the fact that rule observed, or that neces sity obeyed, or that we have projected law of causality into every phenomenon: lies in the recurrence of " identical cases.