No More Learning

"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
'
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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
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78
THE WILL TO POWER.
Descartes' likewise), the value of the shortest and of the most perishable, the seductive flash of gold
on the belly of the serpent vita
578
Moral values in epistemology itself :--
The faith in reason--why not mistrust?
The " real world " is the good world--why? Appearance, change, contradiction, struggle,
regarded as immoral : the desire for a
world which knows nothing of these things. The transcendental world discovered, so that a place may be kept for " moral freedom "
(as in Kant).
Dialectics as the road to virtue (in Plato and
Socrates: probably because sophistry was held to be the road to immorality).
Time and space are ideal : consequently there is unity in " the essence of things; consequently no sin," no evil, no imper fection,---a justification of God.
Epicurus denied the possibility of knowledge, in order to keep the moral (particularly the hedonistic) values as the highest.
Augustine does the same, and later Pascal (" corrupted reason in favour of Christian
values.
Descartes' contempt for everything 'variable;
likewise Spinoza's.
? ? 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
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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.
. . . . e - -
~ -. . _'. 'n"e -a. '4,, . 1
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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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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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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
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it is
a
6'.
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
At the present moment we are face to face with the necessity of testing the assumption that moral values are the highest values. Method in research attained only when all moral prejudices have been overcome:
over morality.
584.
The aberrations of philosophy are the outcome of the fact that, instead of recognising in logic and the categories of reason merely means to the adjustment of the world for utilitarian ends
to say, "especially," useful falsification), they were taken to be the criterion of truth-- particularly of reality. The "criterion of truth " was, as matter of fact, merely the biological utility of a systematic falsification of this sort, on principle: and, since species of animals knows nothing more important than its own preservation, was indeed allowable here to speak of " truth. " Where the artlessness came in, however, was in taking this anthropocentric idiosyncrasy as the measure
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85
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does not correspond to the concept of the world in which man lives. . . . The means were mis understood as measures of value, and even used as a condemnation of their original purpose. . . .
The purpose was, to deceive one's self in a use ful way: the means thereto was the invention of forms and signs, with the help of which the confusing multifariousness of life could be reduced to a, useful and wieldy scheme.
But woe! a moral category was now brought into the game: no creature would deceive itself, no creature may deceive itself--consequently there is only a will totruth. What is "truth"?
The principle of contradiction provided the scheme: the real world to which the way is being sought cannot be in contradiction with itself, cannot change, cannot evolve, has no beginning and no end.
That is the greatest error which has ever been committed, the really fatal error of the world: it was believed that in the forms of reason a criterion
of reality had been found--whereas their only
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? ? THE WILL T0 POWER IN SCIENCE.
as possible from the world of appearance? concept of the perfect being as a contrast to the real being; or, more correctly still, as the contra diction of life. .
The whole direction of values was towards the slander of life; people deliberately confounded ideal dogmatism with knowledge in general: so that the opposing parties also began to reject science with horror.
Thus the road to science was doubly barred: first, by the belief in the real world and secondly, by the opponents of this belief. Natural science. and psychology were (I) condemned in their objects, (2) deprived of their artlessness. .
Everything so absolutely bound and related to everything else in the real world, that to condemn, or to think away anything, means to condemn and think away the whole. The words "this should not be," " this ought not to be," are a farce. .
one would ruin the very source of Life by sup
anecan' everything which in any sense what
87
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88 THE WILL r0 POWER.
585
The awful recovery of our consciousness: not of the individual, but of the human species. Let us reflect; let us think backwards; let us follow the narrow and broad highway.
A.
Man seeks "the truth ": a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change, a real world--a world in which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception, varia bility--the causes of suffering! He does not
doubt that there is such a thing as a world as it
? ? ought to be; he would fain find a road to it. criticism: even the ego is apparent and not real. )
Whence does man derive the concept of reality? --Why does he make variability, deception, con
tradiction, the origin of sufi'ering; why not rather of his happiness? . . . .
The contempt and hatred of all that perishes,
(Indian
? ? '
THE WILL To POWER IN SCIENCE.
loftiest desire thus to be one with Being. That the formula for the way to happiness.
In summa: The world as oug/zt to be exists; this world in which we live an error--this our world should not exist.
he belief in Being shows itself only as result: the real primum mabz'le the disbelief in Becom ing, the mistrust of Becoming, the scorn of all Becoming. .
What kind of man reflects in this way? An unfruitful, suflring kind, a world - weary kind. If we try and fancy what the opposite kind of man would be like, we have a. picture of creature who would not require the belief in Being; he would rather despise as dead, tedious, and in different . . .
The belief that the world which ought to be, really exists, belief proper to the unfruitful, who do not wish to create a world a: should be.
They take for granted, they seek for means and "pane A: "L4. _! . -_. . . _
89
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THE WILL TO PO\VER.
The same species of men, grown one degree poorer, no longerpossessed of the power to inter pret and to create fictions, produces the Nihilists. A Nihilist is the man who says of the world as it
that ought not to exist, and of the world as ought to be, that does not exist. According to this, existence (action, sufi'ering, willing, and
feeling) has no sense: the pathos of the " in vain " the Nihilist's pathos--and as pathos more
over an inconsistency on the part of the Nihilist. He who not able to introduce his will into things, the man without either will or energy, at least invests them with some meaning, i. e. he
believes that will already in them.
The degree of man's will-power may be
measured from the extent to which he can dis pense with the meaning in things, from the extent to which he able to endure world without meaning:, because he himself arranges a small
? ? ? ? is a
a
a
is
it
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is it is, it
it is
? . .
(they attribute the highest degree of reality to the things which are valued highest).
The connection between philosophers and moral men and their evaluations (the moral interpreta tion of the world as the sense of the world: after the collapse of the religious sense).
The overcoming of philosophers by the annihila tion of the world of being: intermediary period of Nihilism ; before there is sufficient strength present to transvalue values, and to make the world of becoming, and of appearance, the only world to be
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
91
deified and called good. B.
'
? Nihilism as a normal phenomenon may be a
of increasing strength or of increasing weakness z,--
Partly owing to the fact that the strength to
create and to will has grown to such an extent, . 4'
symptom
? ? 92
THE WILL TO POWER.
? C.
The belief in truth, the need of holding to some thing which is believed to be true: psychological reduction apart from the valuations that have existed hitherto. Fear and laziness.
At the same time unbelief: Reduction. In what way does it acquire a new value, if a real world does not exist at all (by this means the capacity of valuing, which hitherto has been lavished upon the world of being, becomes free
once more).
586.
The real and the " apparent" world.
A.
? The erroneous concepts which proceed from this
"s "' three kinds :--
' l '--wn are advpn'w
? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
93
blow and attack which we have ever received ; so many things have become encrusted in the word "true," that we involuntarily give these to the " real world ": the real world must also be a truth
ful world, such a one as would not deceive us or make fools of us: to believe in it in this way is to be almost forced to believe (from convention, as is the case among people worthy of confidence).
*
The concept, "the unknown world," suggests that this world is known to us (is tedious);
The concept, "the other world," suggests that this world might be dgferent,--it suppresses necessity and fate (it is useless to submit and to adapt one's self) ;
The concept, the true world, suggests that this
world. is untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, not "2'- . . . . ,I a-. . scanner-1 "m. "M
? ? ? ? 94
THE WILL TO POWER.
three different ways; we have made 2: our criticism of the " known world. "
B.
The first step to reason : to understand to what extent we have been :educeafl--for it might be
precisely the reverse:
The unknown world could be so constituted as to give us a liking for "this" world--it may be a more stupid and meaner form of existence.
The other world, very far from taking account of our desires which were never realised here, might be part of the mass of things which this world makes possible for us; to learn to know this world would be a means of satisfying us.
The true world: but who actually says that the apparent world must be of less value than the true world? Do not our instincts contradict this
4l
? (a)
(6)
? (a)
judgment? Is not man eternallv
o. - 'mflnr---l"----
N's"
?
? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
95
good as "knowing something about it,"--that is the contrary of the assumption of an x-world. . . . In short, the world x might be in every way a
more tedious, a more inhuman, and a less dignified world than this one.
It would be quite another matter if it were assumed that there were several x-worlds--that is to say, every possible kind of world besides our own. But this has never been assumed. . .