No More Learning

Science, like art, accomplishes this for us, and it
is our will to power which “creates the impression
of Being out of Becoming” (Aph. 517).
According to this standpoint, then, consciousness
is also but a weapon in the service of the will to
power, and it extends or contracts according to
our needs (Aph. 524). It might disappear al-
together (Aph. 523), or, on the other hand, it might
increase and make our life more complicated than
it already is. But we should guard against making
it the Absolute behind Becoming, simply because
it happens to be the highest and most recent evolu-
tionary form (Aph. 709). If we had done this
with each newly acquired characteristic, sight itself,
which is a relatively recent development, would
also have required to have been deified.
Pantheism, Theism, Unitarianism—in fact all
religions in which a conscious god is worshipped,
are thus aptly classed by Nietzsche as the result
of man's desire to elevate that which is but a new
and wonderful instrument of his will to power, to
the chief place in the imaginary world beyond


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X
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
>
.
(eternal soul), and to make it even the deity itself
(God Omniscient).
With, the question of Truth we find Nietzsche
quite as ready to uphold his thesis as with all other
questions. He frankly declares that "the criterion
“
of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of
power” (Aph. 534), and thus stands in diametrical
opposition to Spencer, who makes constraint or
inability the criterion of truth. (See Principles
of Psychology, new edition, chapter ix. . . . "the
unconceivableness of its negation is the ultimate
test of the truth of a proposition. ")
However paradoxical Nietzsche's view may seem,
we shall find that it is actually substantiated by
experience; for the activity of our senses certainly
convinces us more or less according to the degree
to which it is provoked. Thus, if we walked for
,
long round a completely dark room, and everything
yielded, however slightly, to our touch, we should
remain quite unconvinced that we were in a
room at all, more particularly if—to suppose a
still more impossible case the floor yielded too.
What provokes great activity in the bulbs of our
fingers, then, likewise generates the sensation of
truth.
From this Nietzsche proceeds to argue that what
provokes the strongest sentiments in ourselves is
also true to us, and, from the standpoint of thought,
" that which gives thought the greatest sensation
of strength" (Aph. 533).
The provocation of intense emotion, and there-
fore the provocation of that state in which the
body is above the normal in power, thus becomes


## p. xi (#21) ##############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
xi
a
the index to truth; and it is a very remarkable
thing that two prominent English thinkers should,
at the very end of their careers, have practically
admitted this, despite the fact that all their philo-
sophical productions had been based upon a com-
pletely different belief.
I refer, of course, to
Spencer and Buckie, who both upheld the view
that in a system of thought the emotional factor
is of the highest importance.
It follows from all this, that lies and false
doctrines may quite conceivably prove to be even
more preservative to species than truth itself, and
although this is a view we have already encountered
in the opening aphorisms of Beyond Good and
Evil, in Aph. 538 of this volume we find it
further elucidated by Nietzsche's useful demon-
stration of the fact that “the easier way of think-
ing always triumphs over the more difficult way";
and that logic, inasmuch as it facilitated classifica-
tion and orderly thought, ultimately “got to act
like truth. ”
Before leaving Part I. , with which it would be
impossible to deal in full, a word or two ought to
be said in regard to Nietzsche's views concerning
the belief in "cause and effect. " In the Genealogy
of Morals (1st Essay, Aph. 13), we have already
read a forecast of our author's more elaborate
opinions on this question, and the aphorism in
question might be read with advantage in conjunc-
tion with the discussion on the subject found in this
book (Aphs. 545-552).
The whole of Nietzsche's criticism, however, re-
solves itself into this, that the doctrine of causality
;


## p. xii (#22) #############################################

xii
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
begins with an unnecessary duplication of all that
happens. Language, and its origin among a people
uneducated in thoughts and concepts, is at the root
of this scientific superstition, and Nietzsche traces
its evolution from the primeval and savage desire
always to find a "doer” behind every deed : to find
some one who is responsible and who, being known,
thus modifies the unfamiliarity of the deed which
requires explaining. “The so-called instinct of
causality [of which Kant speaks with so much as-
surance] is nothing more than the fear of the
unfamiliar. ”
In Aph. 585 (A), we have a very coherent and
therefore valuable exposition of much that may
still seem obscure in Nietzsche's standpoint, and
we might almost regard this aphorism as the key
to the epistemology of the Will to Power. When
we find the “will to truth" defined merely as the
longing for a stable world,” we are in possession of
the very leitmotiv of Nietzsche's thought through-
out Part I. , and most of what follows is clearly but
an elaboration of this thought.
In Part II. Nietzsche reveals himself as utterly
opposed to all mechanistic and materialistic inter-
pretations of the Universe. He exalts the spirit
and repudiates the idea that mere pressure from
without-naked environment is to be held re-
sponsible (and often guilty ! ) for all that material-
istic science would lay at its door. Darwin again
comes in for a good deal of sharp criticism; and,
to those who are familiar with the nature of
Nietzsche's disagreement with this naturalist, such
aphorisms as Nos. 643, 647, 649, 651, 684, 685,
>


## p. xiii (#23) ############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
xiii
will be of special interest. There is one question
of great moment, which all Nietzsche's perfectly
sincere and profoundly serious deprecation of the
Darwinian standpoint ought to bring home to all
Englishmen who have perhaps too eagerly endorsed
the conclusions of their own British school of organic
evolution, and that is, to what extent were Malthus,
and afterwards his disciple Darwin, perhaps influ-
enced in their analysis of nature by preconceived
notions drawn from the state of high pressure which
prevailed in the thickly-populated and industrial
country in which they both lived ?
It is difficult to defend Darwin from the funda-
mental attack which Nietzsche directs at the very
root of his teaching, and which turns upon the
question of the motive of all Life's struggle. To
assume that the motive is always a "struggle for
existence" presupposes the constant presence of
two conditions-want and over-population,-an
assumption which is absolutely non-proven; and
it likewise lends a peculiarly ignoble and cowardly
colouring to the whole of organic life, which not
only remains unsubstantiated in fact, but which the
“struggle for power" completely escapes.
In Part III. , which, throughout, is pretty plain
sailing, Aphorism 786 contains perhaps the most
important statements. Here morality is shown
to be merely an instrument, but this time it is the
instrument of the gregarious will to power. In
the last paragraph of this aphorism Nietzsche
shows himself quite antagonistic to Determinism,
because of its intimate relation to, and its origin
in, a mechanistic interpretation of the Universe,


## p. xiv (#24) #############################################

xiv
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
>
But we should always remember that, inasmuch
as Nietzsche would distribute beliefs, just as others
distribute bounties—that is to say, according to the
needs of those whom he has in view, we must never
take for granted that a belief which he deprecates
for one class of man ought necessarily, according
to him, to be denied another class.
Hard as it undoubtedly is to bear this in mind,
we should remember that his appeal is almost
without interruption made to higher men, and that
doctrines and creeds which he condemns for them
he would necessarily exalt in the case of people
who were differently situated and otherwise con-
stituted. Christianity is a case in point (see Will
to Power, vol. i. Aph. 132).
We now come to Part IV. , which is possibly the
most important part of all, seeing that it treats
of those questions which may be regarded as
Nietzsche's most constant concern from the time
when he wrote his first book.
The world as we now see and know it, with all
that it contains which is beautiful, indifferent, or
ugly, from a human standpoint, is, according to
Nietzsche, the creation of our own valuing minds.
Perhaps only a few people have had a hand in
shaping this world of values. Maybe their number
could be counted on the fingers of two hands; but
still, what Nietzsche insists upon is, that it is human
in its origin. Our whole outlook, everything that
gives us joy or pain, must at one time or other
have been valued for us, and in persisting in these
valuations we, as the acclimatised herd, are indebted
to our artists, to our higher men, to all those in


## p. xv (#25) ##############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
ху
history, who at some time or other have dared to
stand up and to declare emphatically that this
was ugly and that that was beautiful, and to fight,
and if necessary to die, for their opinion.
Religion, morality, and philosophy, while they
all aim at so-called universal Truth, tend to de-
preciate the value of life in the eyes of exceptional
men. Though they establish the “ beautiful” for
the general stock, and in that way enhance the
value of life for that stock, they contradict higher
men's values, and, by so doing, destroy their in-
nocent faith in the world. For the problem here is
not, what value is true ? —but, what value is most
conducive to the highest form of human life on
earth?
Nietzsche would fain throw all the burden of
valuing upon the Dionysian artist-him who speaks
about this world out of the love and plenitude of
power that is in his own breast, him who, from the
very health that is within him, cannot look out up-
on life without transfiguring it, hallowing it, bless-
ing it, and making it appear better, bigger, and
more beautiful. And, in this view, Nietzsche is
quite consistent; for, if we must accept his con-
clusion that our values are determined for us by
our higher men, then it becomes of the highest
importance that these valuers should be so con-
stituted that their values may be a boon and not
a bane to the rest of humanity.
Alas! only too often, and especially in the
neteenth century, have men who lacked this
Dionysian spirit stood up and valued the world;
and it is against these that Nietzsche protests. It


## p. xvi (#26) #############################################

xvi
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
is the bad air they have spread which he would
fain dispel.
As to what art means to the artist himself,
apart from its actual effect on the world, Nietzsche
would say that it is a manner of discharging his
will to power.
The artist tries to stamp his opinion
of what is desirable, and of what is beautiful or
ugly, upon his contemporaries and the future; it
is in this valuing that his impulse to prevail finds
its highest expression. Hence the instinctive
economy of artists in sex matters—that is to say,
in precisely that quarter whither other men go
when their impulse to prevail urges them to action.
Nietzsche did not of course deny the sensual nature
of artists (Aph. 815); all he wished to make plain
was this, that an artist who was not moderate,
in eroticis, while engaged upon his task, was open
to the strongest suspicion.
In the Fourth Book Nietzsche is really at his
very best. Here, while discussing questions such
as “ The Order of Rank," he is so thoroughly in
his exclusive sphere, that practically every line,
even if it were isolated and taken bodily from the
context, would bear the unmistakable character
of its author. The thought expressed in Aphorism
871 reveals a standpoint as new as it is necessary.
So used have we become to the practice of writing
and legislating for a mass, that we have forgotten
the rule that prevails even in our own navy,
that the speed of a fleet is measured by its slowest
vessel.
On the same principle, seeing that all our philo-
sophies and moralities have hitherto been directed


## p. xvii (#27) ############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
xvii
at a mass and at a mob, we find that their eleva-
tion must of necessity be decided by the lowest
of mankind. Thus all passions are banned, be-
cause base men do not know how to enlist them
in their service. Men who are masters of them.
selves and of others, men who understand the
management and privilege of passion, become the
most despised of creatures in such systems of
thought, because they are confounded with the
vicious and licentious; and the speed of man-
kind's elevation thus gets to be determined by
humanity's slowest vessels.
Aphorisms 881, 882, 886 fully elucidate the
above considerations, while in 912, 916, 943, and
951 we have plans of a constructive teaching
which the remainder of Part I. elaborates.
And now, following Nietzsche carefully through
Part II. (Dionysus), what is the inevitable con-
clusion of all we have read ? This analysis of
the world's collective values and their ascription
to a certain “ will to power” may now seem to
many but an exhaustive attempt at a new system
of nomenclature, and little else. As a matter of
fact it is very much more than this. By means
of it Nietzsche wishes to show mankind how much
has lain, and how much still lies, in man's power.
By laying his finger on everything and declaring
to man that it was human will that created it,
Nietzsche wished to give man the courage of this
will, and a clean conscience in exercising it. For
it was precisely this very will to power which had
been most hated and most maligned by everybody
up to Nietzsche's time.


## p. xviii (#28) ###########################################

xviii
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
Long enough, prompted by the fear of attribut-
ing any one of his happiest thoughts to this hated
fundamental will, had man ascribed all his valua-
tions and all his most sublime inspirations to
something outside himself,—whether this some-
thing were a God, a principle, or the concept
Truth. But Nietzsche's desire was to show man
how human, all too human, have been the values
that have appeared heretofore; he wished to prove,
that to the rare sculptors of values, the world,
despite its past, is still an open field of yielding
clay, and in pointing to what the will to power has
done until now, Nietzsche suggests to these com-
ing sculptors what might still be done, provided
they fear nothing, and have that innocence and
that profound faith in the fundamental will which
others hitherto have had in God, Natural Laws,
Truth, and other euphemistic fictions.
The doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, to which
Nietzsche attached so much importance that it
may be regarded almost as the inspiration which
led to his great work, Thus Spake Zarathustra,
ought to be understood in the light of a purely
disciplinary and chastening creed. In one of his
posthumous works we find Nietzsche saying:
question which thou shalt have to answer before
every deed that thou doest :-is this such a deed
as I am prepared to perform an incalculable
number of times is the best ballast. " Thus
it is obvious that, feeling the need of something
in his teaching which would replace the meta-
physics of former beliefs, he applied the doctrine
of Eternal Recurrence to this end. Seeing, how-
« The


## p. xix (#29) #############################################

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
xix
ever, that even among Nietzscheans themselves
there is considerable doubt concerning the actual
value of the doctrine as a ruling belief, it does not
seem necessary to enter here into the scientific
justification which he claims for it. Suffice it to
say that, as knowledge stands at present, the state-
ment that the world will recur eternally in small
things as in great, is still a somewhat daring con-
jecture--a conjecture, however, which would have
been entirely warrantable if its disciplinary value
had been commensurate with its daring.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.


## p. xx (#30) ##############################################



## p. 1 (#31) ###############################################

THIRD BOOK.
THE PRINCIPLES OF A NEW
VALUATION.
VOL. II.
A


## p. 2 (#32) ###############################################



## p. 3 (#33) ###############################################

1.
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
(a) THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.
466.
THE distinguishing feature of our nineteenth
century is not the triumph of science, but the
triumph of the scientific method over science.
467.
The history of scientific methods was regarded
by Auguste Comte almost as philosophy itself.
468.
The great Methodologists : Aristotle, Bacon,
| Descartes, Auguste Comte.
469.
The most valuable knowledge is always dis-
covered last : but the most valuable knowledge
consists of methods.


## p. 4 (#34) ###############################################

4
THE WILL TO POWER.
C
)
All methods, all the hypotheses on which the
science of our day depends, were treated with the
profoundest contempt for centuries : on their
account a man used to be banished from the
society of respectable people-he was held to be
an “enemy of God," a reviler of the highest ideal,
a madman.
We had the whole pathos of mankind against
us,—our notion of what “truth” ought to be,
of what the service of truth ought to be, our
objectivity, our method, our calm, cautious and
distrustful manner were altogether despicable.
At bottom, that which has kept men back most,
is an æsthetic taste: they believed in the pictu-
resque effect of truth; what they demanded of the
scientist was, that he should make a strong appeal
to their imagination.
From the above, it would almost seem as if the
very reverse had been achieved, as if a sudden
jump had been made: as a matter of fact, the
schooling which the moral hyperboles afforded,
gradually prepared the way for that milder form
of pathos which at last became incarnate in the
scientific man.
Conscientiousness in small things, the self-control
of the religious man, was a preparatory school for
the scientific character, as was also, in a very
pre-eminent sense, the attitude of mind which
makes a man take problems seriously, irrespective
of what personal advantage he may derive from
them.
.


## p. 5 (#35) ###############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
5
(6) THE STARTING-POINT OF EPISTEMOLOGY.
470.
Profound disinclination to halt once and for all
at any collective view of the world. The charm
of the opposite point of view : the refusal to re-
linquish the stimulus residing in the enigmatical.
471.
The hypothesis that, at bottom, things proceed
in such a moral fashion that human reason must
be right, is a mere piece of good-natured and
simple-minded trustfulness, the result of the belief
in Divine truthfulness — God regarded as the
-
Creator of all things. These concepts are our in-
heritance from a former existence in a Beyond.
472.
The contradiction of the so-called “ facts of
consciousness. " Observation a
Observation a thousand times
more difficult, error is perhaps the absolute con-
dition of observation.
473
The intellect cannot criticise itself, simply be-
cause it can be compared with no other kind of
intellect, and also because its ability to know
would only reveal itself in the presence of “ actual
reality"; that is to say, because, in order to
criticise the intellect, we should have to be higher


## p. 6 (#36) ###############################################

6
THE WILL TO POWER.
creatures with "absolute knowledge. " This would
“
presuppose the existence of something, a “thing-
in-itself,” apart from all the perspective kinds of
observation and senso-spiritual perception. But
the psychological origin of the belief in things,
forbids our speaking of "things in themselves. ”
474.
The idea that a sort of adequate relation exists
between subject and object, that the object is some-
thing which when seen from inside would be a
subject, is a well-meant invention which, I believe,
has seen its best days. The measure of that
which we are conscious of, is perforce entirely
dependent upon the coarse utility of the function
of consciousness : how could this little garret-
prospect of consciousness, warrant our asserting
anything in regard to “subject” and “ object,"
which would bear any relation to reality !
475.
Criticism of modern philosophy: erroneous
starting-point, as if there were such things as
“facts of consciousness”-and no phenomenalism
in introspection.
476.
“ Consciousness -to what extent is the idea
which is thought of, the idea of will, or the idea
of a feeling (which is known by us alone), quite
superficial ? Our inner world is also“ appearance",
3)


## p. 7 (#37) ###############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE,
7
477.
never
come
across
I ain convinced of the phenomenalism of the
inner world also: everything that reaches our
consciousness is utterly and completely adjusted,
simplified, schematised, interpreted, — the actual
process of inner" perception,” the relation of causes
between thoughts, feelings, desires, between subject
and object, is absolutely concealed from us, and
may be purely imaginary. This “ inner world of
appearance" is treated with precisely the same
forms and procedures as the "outer” world. We
a single "fact”: pleasure
and pain are inore recently evolved intellectual
phenomena.
Causality evades us; to assume the existence
of an immediate causal relation between thoughts,
as Logic does, is the result of the coarsest and
most clumsy observation. There are all sorts of
passions that may intervene between two thoughts:
but the interaction is too rapid—that is why we
fail to recognise them, that is why we actually
deny their existence.
Thinking,” as the epistemologists understand
it, never takes place at all: it is an absolutely
gratuitous fabrication, arrived at by selecting one
element from the process and by eliminating all
the rest-an artificial adjustment for the purpose
of the understanding. .
The "mind,” something that thinks: at times,
even,“the mind absolute and pure "—this concept
is an evolved and second result of false intro-
spection, which believes in “thinking”: in the first
>
-


## p. 8 (#38) ###############################################

8
THE WILL TO FOWER.
>
place an act is imagined here which does not
really occur at all, i. e. “thinking”; and, secondly,
a subject-substratum is imagined in which every
process of this thinking has its origin, and nothing
else—that is to say, both the action and the agent
are fanciful.
478.
Phenomenalism must not be sought in the wrong
quarter: nothing is more phenomenal, or, to be more
precise, nothing is so much deception, as this inner
world, which we observe with the “inner sense. ”
Our belief that the will is a cause was so great,
that, according to our personal experiences in
general, we projected a cause into all phenomena
(i. e. a certain motive is posited as the cause of
all phenomena).
We believe that the thoughts which follow one
upon the other in our minds are linked by some
sort of causal relation: the logician, more especially,
who actually speaks of a host of facts which have
never once been seen in reality, has grown ac-
customed to the prejudice that thoughts are the
cause of thoughts.
We believe-and even our philosophers believe
it still—that pleasure and pain are the causes of
reactions, that the very purpose of pleasure and
pain is to occasion reactions. For hundreds of
years, pleasure and pain have been represented as
the motives for every action. Upon reflection,
however, we are bound to concede that everything
would have proceeded in exactly the same way,
according to precisely the same sequence of cause


## p. 9 (#39) ###############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
9
»
and effect, if the states "pleasure” and “pain
had been entirely absent; and that we are simply
deceived when we believe that they actually cause
anything :-they are the attendant phenomena, and
they have quite a diferent purpose from that of
provoking reactions; they are in themselves effects
involved in the process of reaction which takes
place.
In short: Everything that becomes conscious
is a final phenomenon, a conclusion—and is the
cause of nothing; all succession of phenomena in
consciousness is absolutely atomistic. —And we
tried to understand the universe from the opposite
point of view—as if nothing were effective or
real, save thinking, feeling, willing! . .
479.
The phenomenalism of the "inner world. " A
chronological inversion takes place, so that the
cause reaches consciousness as the effect. -We
know that pain is projected into a certain part
of the body although it is not really situated
there; we have learnt that all sensations which
were ingenuously supposed to be conditioned by
the outer world are, as a matter of fact, conditioned
by the inner world: that the real action of the
outer world never takes place in a way of which
we can become conscious. . . . That fragment of
the outer world of which we become conscious, is
born after the effect produced by the outer world
has been recorded, and is subsequently interpreted
as the “cause" of that effect. .


## p. 10 (#40) ##############################################

10
THE WILL TO POWER.
In the phenomenalism of the “inner world,” the
chronological order of cause and effect is inverted.
The fundamental fact of "inner experience” is,
that the cause is imagined after the effect has been
recorded. . . . The same holds goud of the sequence
of thoughts: we seek for the reason of a thought,
before it has reached our consciousness; and then
the reason reaches consciousness first, whereupon
follows its effect. . . . All our dreams are the in-
terpretation of our collective feelings with the view
of discovering the possible causes of the latter; and
the process is such that a condition only becomes
conscious, when the supposed causal link has
reached consciousness. *
The whole of “inner experience” is founded on
this: that a cause is sought and imagined which
accounts for a certain irritation in our nerve-centres,
and that it is only the cause which is found in this
way which reaches consciousness; this cause may
have absolutely nothing to do with the real cause
-it is a sort of groping assisted by former “inner
experiences," that is to say, by memory. The
memory, however, retains the habit of old inter-
pretations,—that is to say, of erroneous causality,
-so that “inner experience” comprises in itself
all the results of former erroneous fabrications of
causes. Our "outside world,” as we conceive it
every instant, is indissolubly bound up with the
* When in our dream we hear a bell ringing, or a tapping
at our door, we scarcely ever wake before having already
accounted for the sound, in the terms of the dream-world
we were in. -TR.


## p. 11 (#41) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
11
6
old error of cause: we interpret by means of the
schematism of "the thing," etc.
"Inner experience” only enters consciousness
when it has found a language which the individual
can understand—that is to say, a translation oi a
certain condition into conditions with which he is
familiar;
“ understand” means
simply this:
to be able to express something new in the terms
of something old or familiar. For instance, “I
feel unwell
-a judgment of this sort presupposes
a very great and recent neutrality on the part of the
observer: the simple man always says, “ This and
that make me feel unwell,"—he begins to be clear
concerning his indisposition only after he has dis-
covered a reason for it. . . This is what I call
a lack of philological knowledge; to be able to read
a text, as such, without reading an interpretation
into it, is the latest form of “inner experience,”-
it is perhaps a barely possible form.
-
480
There are no such things as mind," reason,
thought, consciousness, soul, will, or truth: they
all belong to fiction, and can serve no purpose. It
is not a question of “subject and object,” but of a
particular species of animal which can prosper only
by means of a certain exactness, or, better still, re-
gularity in recording its perceptions (in order that
experience may be capitalised). . .
Knowledge works as an instrument of power.
It is therefore obvious that it increases with each
advance of power.


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12
THE WILL TO POWER.
The purpose of " knowledge": in this case, as
in the case of “good” or “beautiful,” the concept
must be regarded strictly and narrowly from an
anthropocentric and biological standpoint. In
order that a particular species may maintain and
increase its power, its conception of reality must
contain enough which is calculable and constant to
allow of its formulating a scheme of conduct. The
utility of preservation—and not some abstract or
theoretical need to eschew deception-stands as
the motive force behind the development of the
organs of knowledge; . . . they evolve in such a
way that their observations may suffice for our
preservation. In other words, the measure of the
desire for knowledge depends upon the extent to
which the Will to Power grows in a certain species :
a species gets a grasp of a given amount of reality,
in order to master it, in order to enlist that amount
in its service.
(c)
© THE BELIEF IN THE "EGO. " SUBJECT.
481.
In opposition to Positivism, which halts at
phenomena and says, “These are only facts and
nothing more," I would say: No, facts are precisely
what is lacking, all that exists consists of interpreta-
tions. We cannot establish any fact" in itself”: it
may even be nonsense to desire to do such a things
Everything is subjective,” ye say: but that in it
self is interpretation The “subject” is nothing
given, but something superimposed by fancy, some-
66


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
13
thing introduced behind. —Is it necessary to set an
interpreter behind the interpretation already to
hand ? Even that would be fantasy, hypothesis.
To the extent to which knowledge has any
sense at all, the world is knowable: but it may be
interpreted differently, it has not one sense behind
it, but hundreds of senses. —“ Perspectivity. ”
It is our needs that interpret the world; our in-
stincts and their impulses for and against. Every
instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each has its
point of view, which it would fain impose upon all
the other instincts as their norm.
482.
Where our ignorance really begins, at that point
from which we can see no further, we set a word ;
for instance, the word “I," the word “do," the word
“ suffer"—these concepts may be the horizon lines
of our knowledge, but they are not "truths. ”
483.
Owing to the phenomenon “ thought,” the ego
is taken for granted; but up to the present every-
body believed, like the people, that there was
something unconditionally certain in the notion
“I think," and that by analogy with our under-
standing of all other causal reactions this “I” was
the given cause of the thinking. However custom-
ary and indispensable this fiction may have become
now, this fact proves nothing against the imagin-


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14
THE WILL TO POWER.
a
ary nature of its origin; it might be a life-preserving
belief and still be false.
484.
"
Something is thought, therefore there is some-
thing that thinks”: this is what Descartes' argu-
ment amounts to. But this is tantamount to
considering our belief in the notion “substance" as
an a priori truth :--that there must be something
" that thinks” when we think, is merely a formula-
tion of a grammatical custom which sets an agent
to every action. In short, a metaphysico-logical
postulate is already put forward here—and it is not
merely an ascertainment of fact. . . . On Descartes'
lines nothing absolutely certain is attained, but
only the fact of a very powerful faith.
If the proposition be reduced to “Something is
thought, therefore there are thoughts," the result
is mere tautology; and precisely the one factor
which is in question, the “reality of thought," is
not touched upon,- so that, in this form, the
“apparitional character” of thought cannot be
denied. What Descartes wanted to prove was,
that thought not only had apparent reality, but
absolute reality.
485.
The concept substance is an 'outcome of the
concept subject: and not conversely! If we sur-
render the concept soul, “the subject,” the very
conditions for the concept "substance. ” are lack-
ing. Degrees of Being are obtained, but Being is
lost.
1


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
15
"
6
:
(6
"
Criticism of "reality": what does a "plus or
minus of reality” lead to, the gradation of Being
in which we believe ?
The degree of our feeling of life and power
(the logic and relationship of past life) presents
us with the measure of “ Being,” “reality,” “non-
appearance. "
Subject : this is the term we apply to our belief
in an entity underlying all the different moments
of the most intense sensations of reality : we regard
this belief as the effect of a cause,—and we believe
in our belief to such an extent that, on its account
alone, we imagine "truth,” “reality," "substantial-
ity:"_" Subject” is the fiction which would fain
.
make us believe that several similar states were the
effect of one substratum: but we it was who first
created the " similarity" of these states; the similis-
ing and adjusting of them is the fact—not their
similarity (on the contrary, this ought rather to
be denied).
» «
486.
One would have to know what Being is, in
order to be able to decide whether this or that
is real (for instance, “ the facts of consciousness'));
it would also be necessary to know what certainty
and knowledge are, and so forth. —But, as we do
not know these things, a criticism of the faculty of
knowledge is nonsensical : how is it possible for an
instrument to criticise itself, when it is itself that
exercises the critical faculty. It cannot even de-
fine itself!


## p. 16 (#46) ##############################################

16
THE WILL TO POWER.
487.
>
Should not all philosophy ultimately disclose the
first principles on which the reasoning processes
depend ? —that is to say, our belief in the "ego
as a substance, as the only reality according to
which, alone, we are able to ascribe reality to
things? The oldest realism at length comes to
light, simultaneously with man's recognition of the
fact that his whole religious history is no more
than a history of soul-superstitions. Here there is
a barrier : our very thinking, itself, involves that
belief (with its distinctions_substance, accident,
action, agent, etc. ); to abandon it would mean
to cease from being able to think.
But that a belief, however useful it may be for
the preservation of a species, has nothing to do
with the truth. may be seen from the fact that we
must believe in time, space, and motion, without
feeling ourselves compelled to regard them as
absolute realities.
488.
The psychological origin of our belief in reason. -
The ideas “reality,” “ Being,” are derived from our
subject-feeling
'Subject," interpreted through ourselves so that
the ego may stand as substance, as the cause of
action, as the agent.
The metaphysico-logical postulates, the belief in
substance, accident, attribute, etc, etc. , draws its
convincing character from our habit of regarding
all our actions as the result of our will: so that


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
17
a
.
the ego, as substance, does not vanish in the mul-
tiplicity of changes. But there is no such thing as
will
We have no categories which allow us to
separate a "world as thing-in-itself," from "a
world of appearance. " All our categories of reason
have a sensual origin: they are deductions from
the empirical world. “The soul," "the ego"—the
"
history of these concepts shows that here, also, the
oldest distinction (“spiritus," “ life”) obtains.
If there is nothing material, then there can be
nothing immaterial. The concept no longer means
anything.
No subject-"atoms. ' The sphere of a subject
increasing or diminishing unremittingly, the centre
of the system continually displacing itself; in the
event of the system no longer being able to organ-
ise the appropriated mass, it divides into two. On
the other hand, it is able, without destroying it,
to transform a weaker subject into one of its own
functionaries, and, to a certain extent, to compose
a new entity with it. Not a "substance," but
rather something which in itself strives after
greater strength; and which wishes to "preserve
itself only indirectly (it wishes to surpass itself).
"
489.
Everything that reaches consciousness as an
entity” is already enormously complicated: we
never have anything more than the semblance of
an entity.
The phenomenon of the body is the richer, more
VOL. II.
B


## p. 18 (#48) ##############################################

18
THE WILL TO POWER.
:
distinct, and more tangible phenomenon : it should
be methodically drawn to the front, and no mention
should be made of its ultimate significance.
490.
The assumption of a single subject is perhaps not
necessary; it may be equally permissible to assume
a plurality of subjects, whose interaction and
struggle lie at the bottom of our thought and our
consciousness in general. A sort of aristocracy of
"cells" in which the ruling power is vested ? Of
course an aristocracy of equals, who are accus-
tomed to ruling co-operatively, and understand how
to command ?
My hypotheses : The subject as a plurality.
Pain intellectual and dependent upon the
judgment "harmful,” projected.
The effect always "unconscious”: the in-
ferred and imagined cause is projected,
it follows the event.
Pleasure is a form of pain.
The only kind of power that exists is of the
same nature as the power of will: a com-
manding of other subjects which thereupon
alter themselves.
The unremitting transientness and volatility
of the subject. “Mortal soul. ”
Number as perspective form.
)
491.
The belief in the body is more fundamental
than the belief in the soul : the latter arose from


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
19
the unscientific observation of the agonies of the
body. (Something which leaves it. The belief
in the truth of dreams. )
(G
6
492.
The body and physiology the starting-point:
why? -We obtain a correct image of the nature
of our subject-entity, that is to say, as a number
of regents at the head of a community (not as
souls” or as “ life-forces "), as also of the depend-
ence of these regents upon their subjects, and upon
the conditions of a hierarchy, and of the division
of labour, as the means ensuring the existence of
the part and the whole. We also obtain a correct
image of the way in which the living entities con-
tinually come into being and expire, and we see
how eternity cannot belong to the “ subject”; we
realise that the struggle finds expression in obey-
ing as well as in commanding, and that a fluctuat-
ing definition of the limits of power is a factor of
life. The comparative ignorance in which the ruler
is kept, of the individual performances and even
disturbances taking place in the community, also
belong to the conditions under which government
may be carried on. In short, we obtain a valua-
tion even of want-of-knowledge, of seeing-things-
generally-as-a-whole, of simplification, of falsifica-
tion, and of perspective. What is most important,
however, is, that we regard the ruler and his sub-
jects as of the same kind, all feeling, willing,
thinking—and that wherever we see or suspect
movement in a body, we conclude that there is


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20
THE WILL TO POWER.
co-operative-subjective and invisible life. Move-
ment as a symbol for the eye; it denotes that
something has been felt, willed, thought.
The danger of directly questioning the subject con-
cerning the subject, and all spiritual self-reflection.
consists in this, that it might be a necessary con-
dition of its activity to interpret itself erroneously.
That is why we appeal to the body and lay the
evidence of sharpened senses aside: or we try and
see whether the subjects themselves cannot enter
into communication with us.
(d) BIOLOGY OF THE INSTINCT OF KNOWLEDGE.
PERSPECTIVITY.
493
Truth is that kind of error without which a
certain species of living being cannot exist. The
value for Life is ultimately decisive.
494.
It is unlikely that our “knowledge” extends
farther than is exactly necessary for our self-pres-
ervation. Morphology shows us how the senses
and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in pro-
portion as the difficulties of acquiring sustenance
increase.
495.
If the morality of “Thou shalt not lie” be re-
futed, the sense for truth will then have to justify


## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################

THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
21
!
:
itself before another tribunal-
as a means to the
preservation of man, as Will to Power.
Likewise our love of the beautiful : it is also the
creative will. Both senses stand side by side; the
sense of truth is the means wherewith the power
is appropriated to adjust things according to one's
taste. The love of adjusting and reforming—a
primeval love! We can only take cognisance of a
world which we ourselves have made.
496.
Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge.
The tracing of its relation to many other things (or
the relation of kind)—how should“ knowledge” be
of another? The way to know and to investigate
is in itself among the conditions of life; that is why
the conclusion that there could be no other kind
of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind which
serves the purpose of our preservation is an ex-
cessively hasty one: this actual condition may
be only an accidental, not in the least an essential
one.
Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not
adjusted for “knowledge. ”
497.
»
The most strongly credited a priori “ truths
are, to my mind, mere assumptions pending further
investigation; for instance, the law of causation is


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22
THE WILL TO POWER.
a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so
completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it
would mean the ruin of our kind. But is it
therefore true ? What an extraordinary conclu-
sion ! As if truth were proved by the mere fact
that man survives !
498.
To what extent is our intellect also a result of
the conditions of life - We should not have it did
wę not need to have it, and we should not have
it as we have it, if we did not need it as we need
it--that is to say, if we could live otherwise.
499.
" Thinking” in a primitive (inorganic) state is to
dersevere in forms, as in the case of the crystal. -In
our thought, the essential factor is the harmonising
of the new material with the old scheines (= Pro-
crustes' bed), the assimilation of the unfamiliar.
500.
The perception of the senses projected out-
wards: “inwards” and “outwards”-does the
"
body command here?
The same equalising and ordering power which
rules in the idioplasma, also rules in the incorpora-
tion of the outer world : our sensual perceptions
are already the result of this process of adaptation


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THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
23
and harmonisation in regard to all the past in us;
they do not follow directly upon the “impression. ”
501.