Chapter 5

[4]SeeBeyond Good and Evil,in this edition, Aph. 13.

651.

The most-fundamental—and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its preservation: and what is more, it doesnot"preserve itself" in the process, but actually falls topieces....The instinct which rules here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire to preserve itself: hunger is already an interpretation based upon the observation of a more or less complex organism (hunger is a specialised and later form of the instinct; it is an expression of the system of divided labour, in the service of a higher instinct which rules the whole).

652.

It is just as impossible to regardhungeras theprimum mobile,as it is to take self-preservation to be so. Hunger, considered as the result of insufficient nourishment, means hunger as the result of a will to powerwhich can no longer dominateIt is not a question of replacing a loss, it is only later on, as the result of the division of labour, when the Will to Power has discovered other and quite different ways of gratifying itself, that the appropriating lust of the organism isreducedto hunger—to the need of replacing what has been lost.

653.

We can but laugh at the false "Altruism" of biologists: propagation among the amœbæ appears as a process of jetsam, as an advantage to them. It is an excretion of useless matter.

654.

The division of a protoplasm into two takes place when its power is no longer sufficient to subjugate the matter it has appropriated: procreation is the result of impotence.

In the cases in which the males seek the females and become one with them, procreation is the result of hunger.

655.

The weaker vessel is driven to the stronger from a need of nourishment; it desires to get under it,if possible to becomeonewith it. The stronger, on the contrary, defends itself from others; it refuses to perish in this way; it prefers rather to split itself into two or more parts in the process of growing. One may conclude that the greater the urgency seems to become one with something else, the more weakness in some form is present. The greater the tendency to variety, difference, inner decay, the more strength is actually to hand.

The instinct to cleave to something, and the instinct to repel something, are in the inorganic as in the organic world, the uniting bond. The whole distinction is a piece of hasty judgment.

The will to power in every combination of forces,defending itself against the stronger and coming down unmercifully upon the weaker, is more correct.

N. B.All processes may be regarded as "beings".

656.

The will to power can manifest itself only againstobstacles;it therefore goes in search of what resists it—this is the primitive tendency of the protoplasm when it extends itspseudopodiaand feels about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the result of a desire to overpower, a process of forming, of additional building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.—If this process of incorporation does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to pieces; and theseparationoccurs as the result of the will to power: in order to prevent the escape of thatwhich has been subjected, the will to power falls into two wills (under some circumstances without even abandoning completely its relation to the two).

"Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation, once the fundamental instinct of power has won power of a more abstract kind.

657.

What is "passive"?

To be hindered in the outward movement of grasping: it is thus an act of resistance and reaction.

What is "active"?

To stretch out for power.

"Nutrition"...

Is only a derived phenomenon; the primitive form of it was the will to stuff everything inside one's own skin.

"Procreation"...

Only derived; originally, in those cases In which one will was unable to organise the collective mass it had appropriated, anopposing willcame into power, which undertook to effect the separation and establish a new centre of organisation, after a struggle with the original will.

"Pleasure"...

Is a feeling of power (presupposing the existence of pain).

658.

(1) The organic functions shown to be but forms of the fundamental will, the will to power,—and buds thereof.

(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to property, totools,to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body as an example.—The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained mechanically.

(3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms. What is a desire if it be not: a provocation of the feeling of power by an obstacle (or, better still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting forces)—so that it surges through it? Thus in all pleasure pain is understood.—If the pleasure is to be very great, the pains preceding it must have been very long, and the whole bow of life must have been strained to the utmost.

(4) Intellectual functions. The will to shaping, forming, and making like, etc.

(b) Man.

659.

With the body as clue.—Granting that the "soul" was only an attractive and mysterious thought,from which philosophers rightly, but reluctantly, separated themselves—that which they have since learnt to put in its place is perhaps even more attractive and even more mysterious. The humanbody,in which the whole of the most distant and most recent past of all organic life once more becomes living and corporal, seems to flow through, this past and right over it like a huge and inaudible torrent; the body is a more wonderful thought than the old "soul." In all ages the body, as our actual property, as our most certain being, in short, as our ego, has been more earnestly believed in than the spirit (or the "soul," or the subject, as the school jargon now calls it). It has never occurred to any one to regard his stomach as a strange or a divine stomach; but that there is a tendency and a predilection in man to regard all his thoughts as "inspired," all his values as "imparted to him by a God," all his instincts as dawning activities—this is proved by the evidence of every age in man's history. Even now, especially among artists, there may very often be noticed a sort of wonder, and a deferential hesitation to decide, when the question occurs to them, by what means they achieved their happiest work, and from which world the creative thought came down to them: when they question in this way, they are possessed by a feeling of guilelessness and childish shyness. They dare not say: "That came from me; it was my hand which threw that die." Conversely, even those philosophers and theologians, who in their logic and piety found the most imperative reasons for regarding their body as adeception (and even as a deception overcome and disposed of), could not help recognising the foolish fact that the body still remained: and the most unexpected proofs of this are to be found partly in Pauline and partly in Vedantic philosophy. But what doesstrength of faithultimately mean? Nothing!—A strong faith might also be a foolish faith!—There is food for reflection.

And supposing the faith in the body were ultimately but the result of a conclusion; supposing it were a false conclusion, as idealists declare it is, would it not then involve some doubt concerning the trustworthiness of the spirit itself which thus causes us to draw wrong conclusions?

Supposing the plurality of things, and space, and time, and motion (and whatever the other first principles of a belief in the body may be) were errors—what suspicions would not then be roused against the spirit which led us to form such first principles? Let it suffice that the belief in the body is, at any rate for the present, a much stronger belief than the belief in the spirit, and he who would fain undermine it assails the authority of the spirit most thoroughly in so doing!

660.

The Body as an Empire.

The aristocracy in the body, the majority of the rulers (the fight between the cells and the tissues).

Slavery and the division of labour: the higher type alone possible through thesubjectionof the lower to a function.

Pleasure and pain, not contraries. The feeling of power.

"Nutrition" only a result of the insatiable lust of appropriation in the Will to Power.

"Procreation": this is the decay which supervenes when the ruling cells are too weak to organise appropriated material.

It is themouldingforce which will have a continual supply of new material (more "force"). The masterly construction of an organism out of an egg.

"The mechanical interpretation": recognises only quantities: but the real energy is in the quality. Mechanics can therefore only describe processes; it cannot explain them.

"Purpose." We should start out from the "sagacity" of plants.

The concept of "meliorism":notonly greater complexity, but greaterpower(it need not be only greater masses).

Conclusion concerning the evolution of man: the road to perfection lies in the bringing forth of the most powerful individuals, for whose use the great masses would be converted into mere tools (that is to say, into the most intelligent and flexible tools possible).

661.

Why is allactivity,even that of asense,associated with pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or a burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a process of overcoming, of becoming master of, and ofincreasingthefeeling of power? The pleasureof thought. Ultimately it is not only the feeling of power, but also the pleasure of creating and of contemplating thecreation:for all activity enters our consciousness in the form of "works."

662.

Creating is an act of selecting and of finishing the thing selected. (In every act of the will, this is the essential element.)

663.

All phenomena which are the result of intentions may be reduced tothe intention of increasing power.

664.

When we do anything, we are conscious of afeeling of strength;we often have this sensation before the act—that is to say, while imagining the thing to do (as, for instance, at the sight of an enemy, of an obstacle, which we feelequal to): it is always an accompanying sensation. Instinctively we think that this feeling of strength is the cause of the action, that it is the "motive force." Our belief in causation is the belief in force and its effect; it is a transcript of our experience: in which we identify force and the feeling of force.—Force, however, never moves things; the strength which is conscious "does not set the muscles moving." "Of such a process we have no experience, no idea." "We experience as little concerningforce as a motive power, as concerning thenecessityof a movement." Force is said to be the constraining element! "All we know is that one thing follows another;—we know nothing of either compulsion or arbitrariness in regard to the one following the other. Causality is first invented by thinking compulsion into the sequence of processes. A certain "understanding" of the thing is the result—that is to say, we humanise the process a little, we make it more "familiar"; the familiar is the known habitual fact ofhuman compulsion associated with the feeling of force.

665.

I have the intention of extending my arm; taking it for granted that I know as little of the physiology of the human body and of the mechanical laws of its movements as the man in the street, what could there be more vague, more bloodless, more uncertain than this intention compared with what follows it? And supposing I were the astutest of mechanics, and especially conversant with the formulæ which are applicable in this case, I should not be able to extend my arm one whit the better. Our "knowledge" and our "action" in this case lie coldly apart: as though in two different regions.—Again: Napoleon carries out a plan of campaign—what does that mean? In this case, everything concerning the consummation of the campaign isknown,because everything must be done through words of command: but even here subordinates are taken for granted, who applyand adapt the general plan to the particular emergency, to the degree of strength, etc.

666.

For ages we have always ascribed the value of an action, of a character, of an existence, to theintention,to thepurposefor which it was done, acted, or lived: this primeval idiosyncrasy of taste ultimately takes a dangerous turn provided the lack of intention and purpose in all phenomena comes ever more to the front in consciousness. With it a general depreciation of all values seems to be preparing: "All is without sense."—This melancholy phrase means: "All sense lies in the intention, and if the intention is absolutely lacking, then sense must be lacking too." In conformity with this valuation, people were forced to place the value of life in a a life after death, or in the progressive development of ideas, or of mankind, or of the people, or of man to superman; but in this way theprogressus in infinitumof purpose had been reached: it was ultimately necessary to find one's self a place in the process of the world (perhaps with the disdæmonistic outlook, it was a process which led to nonentity).

In regard to this point, "purpose" needs a somewhat more severe criticism: it ought to be recognised that an actionis never caused by a purpose;that an object and the means thereto are interpretations, by means of which certain points in a phenomena are selected and accentuated, at the cost of other, more numerous, points, that everytime something is done for a purpose, something fundamentally different, and yet other things happen; that in regard to the action done with a purpose, the case is the same as with the so-called purposefulness of the heat which is radiated from the sun: the greater part of the total sum is squandered; a portion of it, which is scarcely worth reckoning, has a "purpose," has "sense"; that an "end" with its "means" is an absurdly indefinite description, which indeed may be able to command as a precept, as "will," but presupposes a system of obedient and trained instruments, which, in the place of the indefinite, puts forward a host of determined entities(i.e.we imagine a system ofcleverbut narrow intellects who postulate end and means, in order to be able to grant our only known "end," the rôle of the "cause of an action,"—a proceeding to which we have no right: it is tantamount to solving a problem by placing its solution in an inaccessible world which we cannot observe).

Finally, why could not an "end" be merely anaccompanying featurein the series of changes among the active forces which bring about the action—a pale stenographic symbol stretched in consciousness beforehand, and which serves as a guide to what happens, even as a symbol of what happens,notas its cause?—But in this way we criticisewillitself: is it not an illusion to regard that which enters consciousness as will-power, as a cause? Are not all conscious phenomena only final phenomena—the lost links in a chain, but apparently conditioning one another in theirsequence within the plane of consciousness? This might be an illusion.

667.

Science doesnotinquire what impels us to will: on the contrary, itdeniesthatwillingtakes place at all, and supposes that something quite different has happened—in short, that the belief in "will" and "end" is an illusion. It does not inquire into themotivesof an action, as if these had been present in consciousness previous to the action, but it first divides the action up into a group of phenomena, and then seeks the previous history of this mechanical movement—butnotin the terms of feeling, perception, and thought; from this quarter it can never accept the explanation: perception is precisely the matter of science,which has to be explained.—The problem of science is precisely to explain the world,withouttaking perceptions as the cause: for that would mean regardingperceptionsthemselves as thecauseof perceptions. The task of science is by no means accomplished.

Thus: either there isnosuch thing as will,—the hypothesis of science,—or the will isfree. The latter assumption represents the prevailing feeling, of which we cannot rid ourselves, even if the hypothesis of science wereproved.

The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the principle that free willis the cause of every effect:thereby alone do we arrive at the feeling of causation. And thereto belongs also the feeling that every cause isnotan effect, but always only a cause—if will is the cause. "Our acts of will arenot necessary"—this lies in the veryconcept of "will."The effect necessarily comesafterthe cause—that is what we feel. It is merely ahypothesisthat even our willing is compulsory in every case.

668.

"To will" is not "to desire," to strive, to aspire to; it distinguishes itself from that through thepassion of commanding.

There is no such thing as "willing," but only the willing ofsomething:theaimmust not be severed from the state—as the epistemologists sever it. "Willing," as they understand it, is no more possible than "thinking": it is a pure invention.

It is essential to willing that something should becommanded(but that does not mean that the will is carried into effect).

The generalstate of tension,by virtue of which a force seeks to discharge itself, is not "willing."

669.

"Pain" and "pleasure" are the most absurdmeans of expressingjudgments, which of course does not mean that the judgments which are enunciated in this way must necessarily be absurd. The elimination of all substantiation and logic, a yes or no in the reduction to a passionate desire to have or to reject, an imperative abbreviation, the utility of which is irrefutable: that is pain and pleasure. Its origin is in the central sphereof the intellect; its prerequisite is an infinitely accelerated process of perceiving, ordering, co-ordinating, calculating, concluding: pleasure and pain are always final phenomena, they are never causes.

As to deciding what provokes pain and pleasure, that is a question which depends upon thedegree of power:the same thing, when confronted with a small quantity of power, may seem a danger and may suggest the need of speedy defence, and when confronted with the consciousness of greater power, may be a voluptuous stimulus and may be followed by a feeling of pleasure.

All feelings of pleasure and pain presuppose ameasuring of collective utilityandcollective harmfulness: consequently a sphere where there is the willing of an object (of a condition) and the selection of the means thereto. Pleasure and pain are never "original facts."

The feelings of pleasure and pain arereactions of the will(emotions) in which the intellectual centre fixes the value of certain supervening changes as a collective value, and also as an introduction of contrary actions.

670.

The belief in "emotions"—Emotions are a fabrication of the intellect, an invention ofcauseswhich do not exist. All generalbodily sensationswhich we do not understand are interpreted intellectually—that is to say, areasonis sought why we feel thus or thus among certain people or in certainexperiences. Thus something disadvantageous dangerous, and strange is taken for granted, as if it were the cause of our being indisposed; as a matter of fact, it getsadded tothe indisposition, so as to make our condition thinkable.—Mighty rushes of blood to the brain, accompanied by a feeling of suffocation, areinterpretedas anger: the people and things which provoke our anger are a means of relieving our physiological condition. Subsequently, after long habituation, certain processes and general feelings are so regularly correlated that the sight of certain processes provokes that condition of general feeling, and induces vascular engorgements, the ejection of seminal fluid, etc.: we then say that the "emotion is provoked by propinquity."

Judgmentsalready inhere in pleasure and pain: stimuli become differentiated, according as to whether they increase or reduce the feeling of power.

The belief in willing.To believe that a thought may be the cause of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles. Theconsistency of sciencedemands that once we have made the worldthinkablefor ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the desires, the will, etc.,thinkable—that is to say, we shoulddenythem and treat them aserrors of the intellect.

671.

Free will or no free will?—There isno such thingas "Will": that is only a simplifiedconception on the part of the understanding, like "matter."

All actions must first be prepared and made possible mechanically before they can be willed.Or,in most casesthe "object" of an action enters the brain only after everything is prepared for its accomplishment. The object is an inner "stimulus"—nothingmore.

672.

The most proximate prelude to an action relates to that action: butfurther back stillthere lies a preparatory history which coversa far wider field:the individual action is only a factor in a much more extensive andsubsequentfact. The shorter and the longer processes are not reported.

673.

The theory ofchance:the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (thiscreativepower is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely passive).

I recognised theactiveand creativepowerwithin the accidental.—Accident is in itself nothing more thanthe clashing of creative impulses.

674.

Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an organic being, that part which becomesconsciousis a mere means: and the particle of "virtue," "self abnegation,"and other fanciful inventions, are denied in a most thoroughgoing manner by the whole of the remaining phenomena. We would do well to study our organism in all its immorality....

The animal functions are, as a matter of fact, a million times more important than all beautiful states of the soul and heights of consciousness: the latter are an overflow, in so far as they are not needed as instruments in the service of the animal functions. The whole ofconsciouslife: the spirit together with the soul, the heart, goodness, and virtue; in whose service does it work? In the greatest possible perfection of the means (for acquiring nourishment and advancement) serving the fundamental animal functions: above all, theascent of the line of Life.

That which is called "flesh" and "body" is of such incalculably greater importance, that the rest is nothing more than a small appurtenance. To continue the chain of lifeso that it becomes ever more powerful—that is the task.

But now observe how the heart, the soul, virtue, and spirit together conspire formally to thwart this purpose: asif theywere the object of every endeavour! ... Thedegeneration of lifeis essentially determined by the extraordinaryfallibility of consciousness,which is held at bay least of all by the instincts, and thus commits the gravest and profoundesterrors.

Now could any more insane extravagance of vanity be imagined than to measure thevalueof existence according to thepleasant or unpleasant feelings of this consciousness? It is obviously onlya means: and pleasant or unpleasant feelings are also no more than means.

According to what standard is the objective value measured? According to the quantity ofincreasedandmore organised poweralone.

675.

The value of allvaluing.—My desire would be to see the agent once more identified with the action, after action has been deprived of all meaning by having been separated in thought from the agent; I should like to see the notion of doingsomething,the idea of a "purpose," of an "intention," of an object, reintroduced into the action, after action has been made insignificant by having been artificially separated from these things.

All "objects," "purposes," "meanings," are only manners of expression and metamorphoses of the one will inherent in all phenomena; of the will to power. To have an object, a purpose, or an intention, in factto willgenerally, is equivalent to the desire forgreater strength,for fuller growth, and for themeanstheretoin addition.

The most general and fundamental instinct in all action and willing is precisely on that account the one which is least known and is most concealed; for in practice we always follow its bidding, for the simple reason that wearein ourselves its bidding....

All valuations are only the results of, and the narrow points of view inservings thisone will: valuingin itselfis nothing save this,—will to power.

To criticise existence from the standpoint of any one of these values is utter nonsense and error. Even supposing that a process of annihilation follows from such a value, even so this process is in the service of this will.

Thevaluation of existence itself!But existence is this valuing itself!—and even when we say "no," we still do what weare.

We ought now to perceive theabsurdityof this pretence at judging existence; and we ought to try and discoverwhatactually takes place there. It is symptomatic.

676.

Concerning the Origin of our Valuations.

We are able to analyse our body, and by doing so we get the same idea of it as of the stellar system, and the differences between organic and inorganic lapses. Formerly the movements of the stars were explained as the effects of beings consciously pursuing a purpose: this is no longer required, and even in regard to the movements of the body and its changes, the belief has long since been abandoned that they can be explained by an appeal to a consciousness which has a determined purpose. By far the greater number of movements have nothing to do with consciousness at all:neither have they anything to do with sensation.Sensations and thoughts are extremelyrareandinsignificantthings compared with the innumerable phenomena occurring every second.

On the other hand, we believe that a certainconformity of means to ends rules over the very smallest phenomenon, which it is quite beyond our deepest science to understand; a sort of cautiousness, selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we are in the presence of anactivityto which it would be necessary to ascribe anincalculably higher and more extensive intellectthan the one we are acquainted with. We learn tothink less ofall that is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the smallest part of ourselves.

Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance, air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by us, yet influence us continually. Pleasure and pain are very rare and scanty phenomena, compared with the countless stimuli with which a cell or an organ operates upon another cell or organ.

It is the phase of themodesty of consciousness.Finally, we can grasp the conscious ego itself, merely as an instrument in the service of that higher and more extensive intellect: and then we may ask whether all consciouswilling,all consciouspurposes,allvaluations,are not perhaps only means by virtue of which something essentiallydifferent is attained,from that which consciousness supposes. Wemean: it is a question of ourpleasureandpainbut pleasure and pain might be the means whereby wehad something to dowhich lies outside our consciousness.

This is to show how verysuperficialall conscious phenomena really are; how an action and the image of it differ; howlittlewe know about whatprecedesan action; how fantastic our feelings, "freewill," and "cause and effect" are; how thoughts and images, just like words, are only signs of thoughts; the impossibility of finding the grounds of any action; the superficiality of all praise and blame; howessentially ourconscious life is composed offanciesandillusion; how all our words merely stand for fancies (our emotions too), and how theunion of mankinddepends upon the transmission and continuation of these fancies: whereas, at bottom, the real union of mankind by means of procreation pursues its unknown way. Does this belief in the common fancies of men reallyaltermankind? Or is the whole body of ideas and valuations only an expression in itself of unknown changes?Are therereally such things as will, purposes, thoughts, values? Is the whole of conscious life perhaps no more thanmirage? Even when values seem todeterminethe actions of a man, they are, as a matter of fact, doing something quite different! In short, granting that a certain conformity of means to end might be demonstrated in the action of nature, without the assumption of a ruling ego: could notournotion of purposes, and our will, etc., be only asymbolic languagestanding for something quite different—that is to say, something not-willing and unconscious? only the thinnest semblance of that natural conformity of means to end in the organic world, but not in any way different therefrom?

Briefly, perhaps the whole of mental development is a matter of thebody:it is the consciously recorded history of the fact that ahigher body is forming.The organic ascends to higher regions. Our longing to know Nature is a means by virtue of which the body would reach perfection. Or, better still, hundreds of thousands of experiments are made to alter the nourishment and the mode of living of thebody: the body's consciousness and valuations, its kinds of pleasure and pain, aresigns of these changes and experiments. In the end, it is not a question concerning man; for he must be surpassed.

677.

To what Extent are all Interpretations of the World Symptoms of a Ruling Instinct.

Theartisticcontemplation of the world: to sit before the world and to survey it. But here the analysis of æsthetical contemplation, its reduction to cruelty, its feeling of security, its judicial and detached attitude, etc., are lacking. The artist himself must be taken, together with his psychology (the criticism of the instinct of play, as a discharge of energy, the love of change, the love of bringing one's soul in touch with strange things, the absolute egoism of the artist, etc.). What instincts does he sublimate?

Thescientificcontemplation of the world: a criticism of the psychological longing for science, the desire to make everything comprehensible; the desire to make everything practical, useful, capable of being exploited—to what extent this isanti-æsthetic. Only that value counts, which may be reckoned in figures. How it happens that a mediocre type of man preponderates under the influence of science. It would be terrible if even history were to be taken possession of in this way—the realm of the superior, of the judicial. What instincts are here sublimated!

The religious contemplation of the world: a criticism of the religious man. It is not necessary to take the moral man as the type, but the man who has extreme feelings of exaltation and of deep depression, and who interprets the former with thankfulness or suspicion without, however, seeking their origin inhimself(nor the latter either). The man who essentially feels anything but free, who sublimates his conditions and states of submission.

Themoralcontemplation of the world. The feelings peculiar to certain social ranks are projected into the universe: stability, law, the making of things orderly, and the making of things alike, aresoughtin the highest spheres, because they are valued most highly,—above everything or behind everything.

What iscommonto all: the ruling instinctswish to be regardedasthe highest values in general,even as thecreativeandruling powers.It is understood that these instincts either oppose or overcome each other (join up synthetically, or alternate in power). Their profound antagonism is, however, so great, that in those cases in which theyallinsist upon being gratified, a man of very thoroughmediocrityis the outcome.

678.

It is a question whether the origin of our apparent "knowledge" is not also a mere offshoot of ourolder valuations,which are so completely assimilated that they belong to the very basis of our nature. In this way onlythe more recentneeds engage in battlewith results of the oldest needs.

The world is seen, felt, and interpreted thus and thus, in order that organic life may be preserved with this particular manner of interpretation. Man isnotonly an individual, but the continuation of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact thatmansurvives, proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of interpreting has not changed. "Adaptation."

Our "dissatisfaction," our "ideal," etc., may possibly be theresultof this incorporated piece of interpretation, of our particular point of view: the organic world may ultimately perish owing to it just as the division of labour in organisms may be the means of bringing about the ruin of the whole, if one part happen to wither or weaken. Thedestructionof organic life, and even of the highest form thereof, must follow the same principles as the destruction of the individual.

679.

Judged from the standpoint of the theory of descent,individuationshows the continuous breakingup of one into two, and the equally continuous annihilation of individualsfor the sake of a fewindividuals, which evolution bears onwards; the greater mass always perishes ("the body").

The fundamental phenomena:innumerable individuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few,in order to make the few possible.—One must not allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same withpeoplesandraces: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and valuableindividuals,who continue the great process.

680.

I am opposed to the theory that the individual studies the interests of thespecies,or of posterity, at the cost of his own advantage: all this is only apparent.

The excessive importance which he attaches to thesexual instinctis not theresultof the latter's importance to the species, for procreation is the actual performance of the individual, it is his greatest interest, and therefore it is hishighest expression of power(not judged from the standpoint of consciousness, but from the very centre of the individual).

681.

Thefundamental errorsof the biologists who have lived hitherto: it is not a matter of the species, but of rearing stronger individuals (the many are only a means).

Life isnotthe continuous adjustment of internalrelations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" phenomena.

These biologistscontinuethe moral valuations ("the absolutely higher worth of Altruism," the antagonism towards the lust of dominion, towards war, towards all that which is not useful, and towards all order of rank and of class).

682.

In natural science, the moral depreciation of theegostill goes hand in hand with the overestimation of thespecies.But the species is quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The ego is a hundred timesmorethan a mere unit in a chain of creatures; it is the chainitself,in every possible respect, and the species is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial similarity of these chains. That the individual issacrificedto the species, as people often say he is, is not a fact at all: it is rather only an example of false interpretation.

683.

The formula of the"progress"-superstitionaccording to a famous physiologist of the cerebral regions:—

"L'animal ne fait jamais de progrès comme espèce. L'homme seul fait de progrès comme espèce."

No.

684.

Anti-Darwin.—Thedomestication of man:what definite value can it have, or has domestication in itself a definite value?—There are reasons for denying the latter proposition.

Darwin's school of thought certainly goes to great pains to convince us of the reverse: it would fain prove that the influence of domestication may be profound and fundamental. For the time being, we stand firmly as we did before; up to the present no results save very superficial modification or degeneration have been shown to follow upon domestication. And everything that escapes from the hand and discipline of man, returns almost immediately to its original natural condition. The type remains constant, man cannot "dénaturer la nature."

Biologists reckon upon the struggle for existence, the death of the weaker creature and the survival of the most robust, most gifted combatant; on that account they imagine acontinuous increase in the perfection of all creatures.We, on the contrary, have convinced ourselves of the fact, that in the struggle for existence, accident serves the cause of the weak quite as much as that of the strong; that craftiness often supplements strength with advantage; that theprolificnessof a species is related in a remarkable manner to that specieschances of destruction....

Natural Selectionis also credited with the power of slowly effecting unlimited metamorphoses: it is believed that every advantage istransmitted by heredity, and strengthened in the course of generations (when heredity is known to be so capricious that ...); the happy adaptations of certain creatures to very special conditions of life, are regarded as the result ofsurrounding influences.Nowhere, however, are examples ofunconscious selectionto be found (absolutely nowhere). The most different individuals associate one with the other; the extremes become lost in the mass. Each vies with the other to maintain his kind; those creatures whose appearance shields them from certain dangers, do not alter this appearance when they are in an environment quite devoid of danger.... If they live in places where their coats or their hides do not conceal them, they do not adapt themselves to their surroundings in any way.

Theselection of the most beautifulhas been so exaggerated, that it greatly exceeds the instincts for beauty in our own race! As a matter of fact, the most beautiful creature often couples with the most debased, and the largest with the smallest. We almost always see males and females taking advantage of their first chance meeting, and manifesting no taste or selectiveness at all.—Modification through climate and nourishment—but as a matter of fact unimportant.

There are nointermediate forms.—

The growing evolution of creatures is assumed. All grounds for this assumption are entirely lacking. Every type has itslimitations: beyond these evolution cannot carry it.

My general point of view. First proposition: Man as a species isnotprogressing. Higher specimens are indeed attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is not raised.

Second proposition: Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress compared with any other animal. The whole of the animal and plant world does not develop from the lower to the higher.... but all simultaneously, haphazardly, confusedly, and at variance. The richest and most complex forms—and the term "higher type" means no more than this—perish more easily: only the lowest succeed in maintaining their apparent imperishableness. The former are seldom attained, and maintain their superior position with difficulty, the latter are compensated by great fruitfulness.—In the human race, also, thesuperior specimens,the happy cases of evolution, are the first to perish amid the fluctuations of chances for and against them. They are exposed to every form of decadence: they are extreme, and, on that account alone, already decadents.... The short duration of beauty, of genius, of the Cæsar, issui generis:such things are not hereditary. Thetypeis inherited, there is nothing extreme or particularly "happy" about a type——It is not a case of a particular fate, or of the "evil will" of Nature, but merely of the concept "superior type": the higher type is an example of an incomparably greater degree of complexity a greater sum of co-ordinated elements: but on this account disintegration becomes a thousand times morethreatening. "Genius" is the sublimest machine in existence—hence it is the most fragile.

Third propositio:: The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: the Christian). The wild man (or, in moral terminology, theevilman) is a reversion to Nature—and, in a certain sense, he represents a recovery, acurefrom the effects of "culture." ...

685.

Anti-Darwin.—What surprises me most on making a general survey of the great destinies of man, is that I invariably see the reverse of what to-day Darwin and his school sees orwillpersist in seeing: selection in favour of the stronger, the better-constituted, and the progress of the species. Precisely the reverse of this stares one in the face: the suppression of the lucky cases, the uselessness of the more highly constituted types, the inevitable mastery of the mediocre, and even of those who arebelow mediocrity.Unless we are shown some reason why man is an exception among living creatures, I incline to the belief that Darwin's school is everywhere at fault. That will to power, in which I perceive the ultimate reason and character of all change, explains why it is that selection is never in favour of the exceptions and of the lucky cases: the strongest and happiest natures are weak when they are confronted with a majority ruled by organised gregarious instincts and thefear which possesses the weak. My general view of the world of values shows that in the highest values which now sway the destiny of man, the happy cases among men, the select specimens do not prevail: but rather the decadent specimens,—perhaps there is nothing more interesting in the world than thisunpleasantspectacle....

Strange as it may seem, the strong always have to be upheld against the weak; and the well-constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy against the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals from reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than the exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the mediocre; the will to nonentity prevails over the will to life—and the general aim now is, in Christian, Buddhistic, Schopenhauerian phraseology: "It is better not to be than to be."

Iprotestagainst this formulating of reality into a moral: and I loathe Christianity with a deadly loathing, because it created sublime words and attitudes in order to deck a revolting truth with all the tawdriness of justice, virtue, and godliness....

I see all philosophers and the whole of science on their knees before a reality which is the reverse of "the struggle for life," as Darwin and his school understood it—that is to say, wherever I look, I see those prevailing and surviving, who throw doubt and suspicion upon life and the value of life.—The error of the Darwinian school became a problem to me: how can one be so blind as to makethismistake?

Thatspeciesshow an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher organisms have developed from the lower. I see that the lower, owing to their numerical strength, their craft, and ruse, now preponderate,—and I fail to see an instance in which an accidental change produces an advantage, at least not for a very long period: for it would be necessary to find some reason why an accidental change should become so very strong.

I do indeed find the "cruelty of Nature" which is so often referred to; but in a different place: Nature is cruel, but against her lucky and well-constituted children; she protects and shelters and loves the lowly.

In short, the increase of a species' power, as the result of the preponderance of its particularly well-constituted and strong specimens, is perhaps less of a certainty than that it is the result of the preponderance of its mediocre and lower specimens ... in the case of the latter, we find great fruitfulness and permanence: in the case of the former, the besetting dangers are greater, waste is more rapid, and decimation is more speedy.

686.

Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man of the future;allthe formative powers which are to produce the latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact thatthey are enormous, the morepromising for the futurethe modern individual happens to be, the moresufferingfalls to his lot. This is the profoundest concept ofsuffering.The formative powers clash.—The isolation of the individual need not deceive one—as a matter of fact, some uninterrupted current does actually flow through all individuals, and does thus unite them. The fact that they feel themselves isolated, is themost powerful spurin the process of setting themselves the loftiest of aims: their search for happiness is the means which keeps together and moderates the formative powers, and keeps them from being mutually destructive.

687.

Excessive intellectualstrength setsitselfnew goals; it is not in the least satisfied by the command and the leadership of the inferior world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the "individual."

We aremorethan the individual: we are the whole chain itself, with the tasks of all the possible futures of that chain in us.

3. Theory of the Will to Power and of Valuations.

688.

The unitary view of psychology.—We are accustomed to regard the development of a vast number of forms as compatible with one single origin.

My theory would be: that the will to poweris the primitive motive force out of which all other motives have been derived;

That it is exceedingly illuminating to substitutepowerfor individual "happiness" (after which every living organism is said to strive): "It strives after power, aftermorepower";—happiness is only a symptom of the feeling of power attained, a consciousness of difference (it does not strive after happiness: but happiness steps in when the object is attained, after which the organism has striven: happiness is an accompanying, not an actuating factor);

That all motive force is the will to power; that there is no other force, either physical, dynamic, or psychic.

In our science, where the concept cause and effect is reduced to a relationship of complete equilibrium, and in which it seems desirable for thesamequantum of force to be found on either side,all idea of a motive power is absent: we only apprehend results, and we call these equal from the point of view of their content of force....

It is a matter of mere experience that change never ceases: at bottom we have not the smallest grounds for assuming that any one particular change must follow upon any other. On the contrary, any state which has been attained would seem almost forced to maintain itself intact if it had not within itself a capacity for not desiring to maintain itself.... Spinoza's proposition concerning "self-preservation" ought as a matter of fact to put a stop to change. But the proposition is false; the contrary is true. In all living organisms it canbe clearly shown that they do everything not to remain as they are, but to become greater....

689.

"Will to power" and causality.—From a psychological point of view the idea of "cause" is our feeling of power in the act which is called willing—our concept effect is the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which moves things....

A state which accompanies an event and is already an effect of that event is deemed "sufficient cause" of the latter; the tense relationship of our feeling of power (pleasure as the feeling of power) and of an obstacle being overcome—are these things illusions?

If we translate the notion "cause" back into the only sphere which is known to us, and out of which we have taken it, we cannot imagineany changein which the will to power is not inherent. We do not know how to account for any change which is not atrespassingof one power on another.

Mechanics only show us the results, and then only in images (movement is a figure of speech); gravitation itself has no mechanical cause, because it is itself the first cause of mechanical results.

The will toaccumulate forceis confined to the phenomenon of life, to nourishment, to procreation, to inheritance, to society, states, customs, authority. Should we not be allowed to assume that this will is the motive power also of chemistry?—and of the cosmic order?

Not only conservation of energy, but the minimum amount of waste; so that the only reality isthis:the will of every centre of power to become stronger—not self-preservation, but the desire to appropriate, to become master, to become more, to become stronger.

Is the fact that science is possible a proof of the principle of causation—"From like causes, like effects"—"A permanent law of things"—"Invariable order"? Because something is calculable, is it therefore on that account necessary?

If something happens thus, and thus only, it is not the manifestation of a "principle," of a "law," of "order." What happens is that certain quanta of power begin to operate, and their essence is to exercise their power over all other quanta of power. Can we assume the existence of a striving after power without a feeling of pleasure and pain,i.e.without the sensation of an increase or a decrease of power? Is mechanism only a language of signs for the concealed fact of a world of fighting and conquering quanta of will-power? All mechanical first-principles, matter, atoms, weight, pressure, and repulsion, are not facts in themselves, but interpretations arrived at with the help of psychical fictions.

Life, which is our best known form of being, is altogether "will to the accumulation of strength"—all the processes of life hinge on this: everything aims, not at preservation, but at accretion and accumulation. Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be applied to existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling of power; life is essentially a striving after more power; striving itself is only a straining after more power;the most fundamental and innermost thing of all is this will. (Mechanism is merely the semeiotics of the results.)

690.

The thing which is the cause of the existence of development cannot in the course of investigation be found above development; it should neither be regarded as "evolving" nor as evolved ... the "will to power" cannot have been evolved.

691.

What is the relation of the whole of the organic process towards the rest of nature?—Here the fundamental will reveals itself.

692.

Is the "will to power" a kind of will, or is it identical with the concept will? Is it equivalent to desiring or commanding; is it the will which Schopenhauer says is the essence of things?

My proposition is that the will of psychologists hitherto has been an unjustifiable generalisation, and that there is no such thing as this sort of will, that instead of the development of one will into several forms being taken as a fact, the character of will has been cancelled owing to the fact that its content, its "whither," was subtracted from it: in Schopenhauer this is so in the highest degree; what he calls "will" is merely an empty word. There is even less plausibility in the will to live: for life is simply one of the manifestations of the will to power; it is quite arbitrary and ridiculousto suggest that everything is striving to enter into this particular form of the will to power.

693.

If the innermost essence of existence is the will to power; if happiness is every increase of power, and unhappiness the feeling of not being able to resist, of not being able to become master: may we not then postulate happiness and pain as cardinal facts? Is will possible without these two oscillations of yea and nay? But who feels happiness? ... Who will have power? ... Nonsensical question! If the essence of all things is itself will to power, and consequently the ability to feel pleasure and pain! Albeit: contrasts and obstacles are necessary, therefore also, relatively, units which trespass on one another.

694.

According to the obstacles which a force seeks with a view of overcoming them, the measure of the failure and the fatality thus provoked must increase, and in so far as every force can only manifest itself against some thing that opposes it, an element of unhappiness is necessarily inherent in every action. But this pain acts as a greater incitement to life, and increases the will to power.

695.

If pleasure and pain are related to the feeling of power, life would have to represent such an increase in power that the difference, the "plus,"would have to enter consciousness. A dead level of power, if maintained, would have to measure its happiness in relation to depreciations of that level,i.e.in relation to states of unhappiness and not of happiness.... The will to an increase lies in the essence of happiness: that power is enhanced, and that this difference becomes conscious.

In a state of decadence after a certain time the opposite difference becomes conscious, that is decrease: the memory of former strong moments depresses the present feelings of happiness in this state comparison reduces happiness.

696.

It is not the satisfaction of the will which is the cause of happiness (to this superficial theory I am more particularly opposed—this absurd psychological forgery in regard to the most simple things), but it is that the will is always striving to overcome that which stands in its way. The feeling of happiness lies precisely in the discontentedness of the will, in the fact that without opponents and obstacles it is never satisfied. "The happy man": a gregarious ideal.

697.

The normal discontent of our instincts—for instance, of the instinct of hunger, of sex, of movement—contains nothing which is in itself depressing; it rather provokes the feeling of life, and, whatever the pessimists may say to us, like allthe rhythms of small and irritating stimuli, it strengthens. Instead of this discontent making us sick of life, it is rather the great stimulus to life.

(Pleasure might even perhaps be characterised as the rhythm of small and painful stimuli.)

698.

Kant says: "These lines of Count Verri's (Sull' indole del piacere e del dolore;1781) I confirm with absolute certainty: 'Il solo principio motore dell' uomo è il dolore. Il dolore precede ogni piacere. Il piacere non è un essere positivo.'"[5]

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