Chapter III: Eternal Recurrence (1)

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

For the history of the text constituting this volume I would refer readers to my preface to _The Will to Power,_ Books I, and II., where they will also find a brief explanation of the actual title of the complete work.

In the two books before us Nietzsche boldly carries his principle still further into the various departments of human life, and does not shrink from showing its application even to science, to art, and to metaphysics.

Throughout Part I. of the Third Book we find him going to great pains to impress the fact upon us that science is as arbitrary as art in its mode of procedure, and that the knowledge of the scientist is but the outcome of his inexorable will to power interpreting facts in the terms of the self-preservative conditions of the particular order of human beings to which he belongs. In Aphorisms 515 and 516, which are typical of almost all the thought expressed in Part I., Nietzsche says distinctly: "The object is not 'to know,' but to schematise,--to impose as much regularity and form upon chaos as our practical needs require."

Unfamiliarity, constant change, and the inability to reckon with possibilities, are sources of great danger: hence, everything _must_ be explained, assimilated, and rendered capable of calculation, if Nature is to be mastered and controlled.

Schemes for interpreting earthly phenomena must be devised which, though they do not require to be absolute or irrefutable, must yet favour the maintenance of the kind of men that devises them. Interpretation thus becomes all important, and facts sink down to the rank of raw material which must first be given some shape (some sense--always anthropocentric) before they can become serviceable.

Even the development of reason and logic Nietzsche consistently shows to be but a spiritual development of the physiological function of digestion which compels an organism to make things "like" (to "assimilate") before it can absorb them (Aph. 510). And seeing that he denies that hunger can be a first motive (Aphs. 651-656), and proceeds to show that it is the amœba's will to power which makes it extend its pseudopodia in search of what it can appropriate, and that, once the appropriated matter is enveloped, it is a process of making _similar_ which constitutes the process of absorption, reason itself is by inference acknowledged to be merely a form of the same fundamental will.

An interesting and certainly inevitable outcome of Nietzsche's argument appears in Aph. 516, where he declares that even our inability to deny and affirm one and the same thing is not in the least necessary, _but only a sign of inability._

The whole argument of Part I. tends to draw science ever nearer and nearer to art (except, of course, in those cases in which science happens to consist merely of an ascertainment of facts), and to prove that the one like the other is no more than a means of gaining some foothold upon the slippery soil of a world that is for ever in flux.

In the rush and pell-mell of Becoming, some milestones must be fixed for the purposes of human orientation. In the torrent of evolutionary changes pillars must be made to stand, to which man can for a space hold tight and collect his senses. 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 altogether (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 evolutionary 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 (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 therefore the provocation of that state in which the body is above the normal in power, thus becomes 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 philosophical productions had been based upon a completely different belief. I refer, of course, to Spencer and Buckle, 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 this volume we find it further elucidated by Nietzsche's useful demonstration of the fact that "the easier way of thinking always triumphs over the more difficult way"; and that logic, inasmuch as it facilitated classification and orderly thought, ultimately "got to act like truths."

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 conjunction with the discussion on the subject found in this book (Aphs. 545-555).

The whole of Nietzsche's criticism, however, resolves itself into this, that the doctrine of causality 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 assurance] 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 throughout 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 interpretations of the Universe. He exalts the spirit and repudiates the idea that mere pressure from without--naked environment--is to be held responsible (and often guilty!) for all that materialistic 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, 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 influenced 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 fundamental 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. 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 constituted. 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 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 depreciate 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 innocent 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 upon life without transfiguring it, hallowing it, blessing it, and making it appear better, bigger, and more beautiful. And, in this view, Nietzsche is quite consistent; for, if we must accept his conclusion that our values are determined for us by our higher men, then it becomes of the highest importance that these valuers should be so constituted that their values may be a boon and not a bane to the rest of humanity.

Alas! only too often, and especially in the nineteenth century, have men who lacked this Dionysian spirit stood up and valued the world; and it is against these that Nietzsche protests. It is the bad air they have spread which he would fain dispel.

An 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 philosophies and moralities have hitherto been directed at a mass and at a mob, we find that their elevation must of necessity be decided by the lowest of mankind. Thus all passions are banned, because base men do not know how to enlist them in their service. Men who are masters of themselves 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 mankind'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 conclusion 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 or fact it is very much more than this. By mean? 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.

Long enough, prompted by the fear of attributing any one of his happiest thoughts to this hated fundamental will, had man ascribed all his valuations and all his most sublime inspirations to something outside himself,--whether this something 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 coming 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: "The 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 metaphysics of former beliefs, he applied the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence to this end. Seeing, however, 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 statement that the world will recur eternally in small things as in great, is still a somewhat daring conjecture--a conjecture, however, which would have been entirely warrantable if its disciplinary value had been commensurate with its daring.

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.

THIRD BOOK.

THE PRINCIPLES OF A NEW VALUATION.

I.

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 discovered last: but the most valuable knowledge consists of _methods._

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 picturesque 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....

_(b)_ 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 relinquish 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 inheritance from a former existence in a Beyond.

472.

The contradiction of the so-called "facts of consciousness." Observation a thousand times more difficult, error is perhaps the absolute _condition_ of observation.

473.

The intellect cannot criticise itself, simply because 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 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 something 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."

477.

I am 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 never come across a single "fact": pleasure and pain are more 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 _\r_ 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 introspection, which believes in "thinking": in the first 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 accustomed 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 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 different 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....

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 good 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 interpretation 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.[1]

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 interpretations,--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 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 of 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 discovered 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....

[Footnote 1: 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.]

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, _regularity_ 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....

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 _interpretations._ We cannot establish any fact "in itself": it may even be nonsense to desire to do such a thing. "Everything is _subjective,_" ye say: but that in itself is _interpretation._ The subject is nothing given, but something superimposed by fancy, something 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 instincts 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 everybody believed, like the people, that there was something unconditionally certain in the notion "I think," and that by analogy with our understanding of all other causal reactions this "I" was the given _cause_ of the thinking. However customary and indispensable this fiction may have become now, this fact proves nothing against the imaginary nature of its origin; it might be a life-preserving belief and _still_ be _false._

484.

"Something is thought, therefore there is something that thinks": this is what Descartes' argument 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 formulation 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 surrender the concept soul, the subject, the very conditions for the concept "substance" are lacking. _Degrees of Being_ are obtained, but Being is lost.

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 i_ 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," "substantiality."--a "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 similising 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 define itself!

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 the ego, as substance, does not vanish in the multiplicity 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 organise 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 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 accustomed 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 inferred 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 commanding 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 the unscientific observation of the agonies of the body. (Something which leaves it. The belief in the _truth of dreams_)

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 dependence 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 continually come into being and expire, and we see how eternity cannot belong to the "subject"; we realise that the struggle finds expression in obeying as well as in commanding, and that a fluctuating 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 valuation even of _want-of-knowledge,_ of seeing-things-generally-as-a-whole, of simplification, of falsification, and of perspective. What is most important, however, is, that we regard the ruler and his subjects 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 co-operative-subjective and invisible life. Movement as a symbol for the eye; it denotes that something has been felt, willed, thought.

The danger of directly questioning the subject _concerning_ the subject, and all spiritual self-reflection, consists in this, that it might be a necessary condition 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-preservation. Morphology shows us how the senses and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in proportion as the difficulties of acquiring sustenance increase.

495.

If the morality of "Thou shalt not lie" be refuted, the sense for truth will then have to justify 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 excessively 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 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 conclusion! 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 we 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 _persevere 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 schemes (= Procrustes' bed), the _assimilation_ of the unfamiliar.

500.

The perception of the senses projected outwards: "inwards" and "outwards"--does the _body_ command here?

The same equalising and ordering power which rules in the idioplasma, also rules in the incorporation of the outer world: our sensual perceptions are already the _result_ of this process of _adaptation_ and _harmonisation_ in regard to _all_ the past in us; they do not follow directly upon the "impression."

501.

All thought, judgment, perception, regarded as an act of _comparing_[2] has as a first condition the act of _equalising,_ and earlier still the act of _"making equal."_ The process of making equal is the same as the assimilation by the amœba of the nutritive matter it appropriates.

"Memory" late, in so far as the equalising instinct appears to have been _subdued_: the difference is preserved. Memory--a process of classification and collocation; active--who?

[Footnote 2: The German word _vergleichen,_ meaning "to compare," contains the root "equal" _(gleich)_ which cannot be rendered in English. TR.]

502.

In regard to the _memory,_ we must unlearn a great deal: here we meet with the greatest temptation to assume the existence of a "soul," which, irrespective of time, reproduces and recognises again and again, etc. What I have experienced, however, continues to live "in the memory"; I have nothing to do with it when memory "comes," my will is inactive in regard to it, as in the case of the coming and going of a thought. Something happens, of which I become conscious: now something similar comes--who has called it forth? Who has awakened it?

503.

The whole apparatus of knowledge is an abstracting and simplifying apparatus--not directed at knowledge, but at the _appropriation_ of things: "end" and "means" are as remote from the essence of this apparatus as "concepts" are. By the "end" and the "means" a process is appropriated (--a process is _invented_ which may be grasped), but by "_concepts_" one appropriates the "things" which constitute the process.

504.

_Consciousness_ begins outwardly as co-ordination and knowledge of impressions,--at first it is at the point which is remotest from the biological centre of the individual; but it is a process which deepens and which tends to become more and more an inner function, continually approaching nearer to the centre.

505.

Our perceptions, as we understand them--that is to say, the sum of all those perceptions the consciousness whereof was useful and essential to us and to the whole organic processes which preceded us: therefore they do not include all perceptions (for instance, not the electrical ones);--that is to say, we have _senses_ only for a definite selection of perceptions--such perceptions as concern us with a view to our self-preservation. _Consciousness extends so far only as it is useful._ There can be no doubt that all our sense-perceptions are entirely permeated by valuations (useful or harmful--consequently, pleasant or painful). Every particular colour; besides being a colour, expresses a value to us (although we seldom admit it, or do so only after it has affected us exclusively for a long time, as in the case of convicts in gaol or lunatics). Insects likewise react in different ways to different colours: some like this shade, the others that. Ants are a case in point.

506.

In the beginning _images_ how images originate in the mind must be explained. Then _words,_ applied to images. Finally _concepts,_ possible only when there are words--the assembling of several pictures into a whole which is not for the eye but for the ear (word). The small amount of emotion which the "word" generates,--that is, then, which the view of the similar pictures generates, for which one word is used,--this simple emotion is the common factor, the basis of a concept. That weak feelings should all be regarded as alike, _as the same,_ is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a confusion of two very intimately associated feelings in the _ascertainment_ of these feelings;--but who is it that ascertains? _Faith_ is the very first step in every sensual impression: a sort of yea-saying is the _first_ intellectual activity! A "holding-a-thing-to-be-true" is the beginning. It were our business, therefore, to explain how the "holding-of-a-thing-to-be-true" arose! What sensation lies beneath the comment "true"?

507.

The _valuation_, "I believe that this and that is so," is the essence of "truth." In all valuations, the conditions of _preservation_ and of _growth_ find expression. All our _organs and senses_ of knowledge have been developed only in view of the conditions of preservation and growth. The _trust_ in reason and its categories, the trust in dialectics, and also the _valuation_ of logic, prove only that _experience_ has taught the usefulness of these things to life: not their "truth." The prerequisites of all living things and of their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and that _there should be no doubt_ at all concerning all essential values. Thus it is necessary that something should be assumed to be true, _not_ that it _is_ true.

"The _real_ world and the world of _appearance_"-- I trace this contrast to the _relation of values._ We have posited _our_ conditions of existence as the _attributes of being_ in general. Owing to the fact that, in order to prosper, we must be stable in our belief, we developed the idea that the real world was neither a changing nor an evolving one, but a world of _being._

_(e)_ The Origin of Reason and Logic.

508.

Originally there was chaos among our ideas. Those ideas which were able to stand side by side remained over, the greater number perished--and are still perishing.

509.

The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew: the gregarious instinct in the background. The assumption of similar facts is the first condition for "similar souls." _For the purpose of mutual understanding and government._

510.

Concerning the _origin of logic._ The fundamental proneness to _equalise_ things and to _see them equal_, gets to be modified, and kept within bounds, by the consideration of what is useful or harmful--in fact, by considerations of success: it then becomes adapted in suchwise as to be gratified in a milder way, without at the same time denying life or endangering it. This whole process corresponds entirely with that external and mechanical process (which is its symbol) by which the _protoplasm_ continually assimilates, makes equal to itself, what it appropriates, and arranges it according to its own forms and requirements.

511.

Likeness and Similarity.

1. The coarser the organ the more apparent likenesses it sees;

2. The mind _will_ have likeness--that is to say, the identification of one sensual impression with others already experienced: just as the body _assimilates_ inorganic matter.

For the understanding of Logic:--

_The will which tends to see likeness everywhere is the will to power_--the belief that something is so and so (the essence of a judgment), is the result of a will which _would fain have it_ as similar as possible.

512.

Logic is bound up with the proviso: granted _that identical cases exist_. As a matter of fact, before one can think and conclude in a logical fashion, _this_ condition _must_ first be assumed. That is to say, the will to _logical truth_ cannot be consummated before a fundamental falsification of all phenomena has been assumed. From which it follows that an instinct rules here, which is capable of employing both means: first, falsification; and secondly, the carrying out of its own point of view: logic does not spring from a will to truth.

513.

The inventive force which devised the categories, worked in the service of our need of security, of quick intelligibility, in the form of signs, sounds, and abbreviations.--"Substance," "subject," "object," "Being," "Becoming," are not matters of metaphysical truth. It was the powerful who made the names of things into law, and, among the powerful, it was the greatest artists in abstraction who created the categories.

514.

A moral--that is to say, a method of living which long experience and experiment have tested and proved efficient, at last enters consciousness as a law, as dominant.... And then the whole group of related values and conditions become part of it: it becomes venerable, unassailable, holy, true; a necessary part of its evolution is that its origin should be forgotten.... That is a sign that it has become master. Exactly the same thing might have happened with the categories of reason: the latter, after much groping and many trials, might have proved true through relative usefulness.... A stage was reached when they were grasped as a whole, and when they appealed to consciousness as a whole,--when belief in them was commanded,--that is to say, when they acted as if they commanded.... From that time forward they passed as a priori, as beyond experience, as irrefutable. And, possibly, they may have been the expression of no more than a certain practicality answering the ends of a race and a species,--their usefulness alone is their "truth."

515.

The object is, not "to know," but to schematise,--to impose as much regularity and form upon chaos, as our practical needs require. In the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a need in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and calculation. (The adjustment and interpretation of all similar and equal things,--the same process, which every sensual impression undergoes, is the development of reason!) No pre-existing "idea" had anything to do with it: but utility, which teaches us that things can be reckoned with and managed, only when we view them roughly as equal.... _Finality_ in reason is an effect, not a cause: Life degenerates with every other form of reason, although constant attempts are being made to attain to those other forms of reason;--for Life would then become too obscure, too unequal.