Chapter III: Eternal Recurrence (5)

This is to show how very _superficial_ all conscious phenomena really are; how an action and the image of it differ; how _little_ we know about what _precedes_ an 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; how _essentially our_ conscious life is composed of _fancies_ and _illusion_; how all our words merely stand for fancies (our emotions too), and how the _union of mankind_ depends 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 really _alter_ mankind? Or is the whole body of ideas and valuations only an expression in itself of unknown changes? _Are there_ really such things as will, purposes, thoughts, values? Is the whole of conscious life perhaps no more than _mirage_? Even when values seem to _determine_ the 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 not _our_ notion of purposes, and our will, etc., be only a _symbolic language_ standing 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 the _body:_ it is the consciously recorded history of the fact that a _higher 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 the _body_: the body's consciousness and valuations, its kinds of pleasure and pain, are _signs 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._

The _artistic_ contemplation 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?

The _scientific_ contemplation 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 is anti-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 in _himself_ (nor the latter either). The man who essentially feels anything but free, who sublimates his conditions and states of submission.

The _moral_ contemplation 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, are _sought_ in the highest spheres, because they are valued most highly,--above everything or behind everything.

What is _common_ to all: the ruling instincts _wish to be regarded_ as _the highest values in general,_ even as the _creative_ and _ruling 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 they _all_ insist upon being gratified, a man of very thorough _mediocrity_ is the outcome.

678.

It is a question whether the origin of our apparent "knowledge" is not also a mere offshoot of our _older valuations,_ which are so completely assimilated that they belong to the very basis of our nature. In this way only _the more recent_ needs engage in battle _with 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 is _not_ only an individual, but the continuation of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact that _man_ survives, 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 the _result_ of 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. The _destruction_ of 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, _individuation_ shows the continuous breaking up of one into two, and the equally continuous annihilation of individuals _for the sake of a few_ individuals, 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 with _peoples_ and _races_: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and valuable _individuals,_ who continue the great process.

680.

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

The excessive importance which he attaches to the _sexual instinct_ is not the _result_ of 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 his _highest expression of power_ (not judged from the standpoint of consciousness, but from the very centre of the individual).

681.

The _fundamental errors_ of 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 is _not_ the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" phenomena.

These biologists _continue_ the 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 the _ego_ still goes hand in hand with the overestimation of the _species._ But the species is quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The ego is a hundred times _more_ than a mere unit in a chain of creatures; it is the chain _itself,_ in every possible respect, and the species is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial similarity of these chains. That the individual is _sacrificed_ to 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"-superstition_ according 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._--The _domestication 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 a _continuous 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 the _prolificness_ of a species is related in a remarkable manner to that species _chances of destruction_....

_Natural Selection_ is also credited with the power of slowly effecting unlimited metamorphoses: it is believed that every advantage is transmitted 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 of _surrounding influences._ Nowhere, however, are examples of _unconscious selection_ to 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.

The _selection of the most beautiful_ has 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 no _intermediate forms.--_

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

_My general point of view. First proposition_: Man as a species is _not_ progressing. 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, the _superior 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, is _sui generis:_ such things are not hereditary. The _type_ is 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 more threatening. "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, the _evil_ man) is a reversion to Nature--and, in a certain sense, he represents a recovery, a _cure_ from 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 or _will_ persist 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 are _below 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 the fear 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 this _unpleasant_ spectacle....

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."

I _protest_ against 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 make _this_ mistake?

That _species_ show 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; _all_ the formative powers which are to produce the latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are enormous, the more _promising for the future_ the modern individual happens to be, the more _suffering_ falls to his lot. This is the profoundest concept of _suffering._ 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 the _most powerful spur_ in 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 intellectual_ strength sets _itself_ new 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 are _more_ than 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 power is the primitive motive force out of which all other motives have been derived;

That it is exceedingly illuminating to substitute _power_ for individual "happiness" (after which every living organism is said to strive): "It strives after power, after _more_ power";--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 the _same_ quantum 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 can be 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 imagine _any change_ in which the will to power is not inherent. We do not know how to account for any change which is not a _trespassing_ of 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 to _accumulate force_ is 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 is this: _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 ridiculous to 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 all the 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]

[Footnote 5: _On the Nature of Pleasure and Pain._ "The only motive force of man is pain. Pain precedes every pleasure. Pleasure is not a positive thing."--Tr.]

699.

Pain is something different from pleasure--I mean it is not the latter's opposite.

If the essence of pleasure has been aptly characterised as the feeling of increased power (that is to say, as a feeling of difference which presupposes comparison), that does not define the nature of pain. The false contrasts which the people, and consequently the language, believes in, are always dangerous fetters which impede the march of truth. There are even cases where a kind of pleasure is conditioned by a certain rhythmic sequence of small, painful stimuli: in this way a very rapid growth of the feeling of power and of the feeling of pleasure is attained. This is the case, for instance, in tickling, also in the sexual tickling which accompanies the coitus: here we see pain acting as the ingredient of happiness. It seems to be a small hindrance which is overcome, followed immediately by another small hindrance which once again is overcome--this play of resistance and resistance overcome is the greatest excitant of that complete feeling of overflowing and surplus power which constitutes the essence of happiness.

The converse, which would be an increase in the feeling of pain through small intercalated pleasurable stimuli, does not exist: pleasure and pain are not opposites.

Pain is undoubtedly an intellectual process in which a judgment is inherent--the judgment harmful, in which long experience is epitomised. There is no such thing as pain in itself. It is not the wound that hurts, it is the experience of the harmful results a wound may have for the whole organism, which here speaks in this deeply moving way, and is called pain. (In the case of deleterious influences which were unknown to ancient man, as, for instance, those residing in the new combination of poisonous chemicals, the hint from pain is lacking, and we are lost.)

That which is quite peculiar in pain is the prolonged disturbance, the quivering subsequent to a terrible shock in the ganglia of the nervous system. As a matter of fact, nobody suffers from the cause of pain (from any sort of injury, for instance), but from the protracted disturbance of his equilibrium which follows upon the shock. Pain is a disease of the cerebral centres--pleasure is no disease at all.

The fact that pain may be the cause of reflex actions has appearances and even philosophical prejudice in its favour. But in very sudden accidents, if we observe closely, we find that the reflex action occurs appreciably earlier than the feeling of pain. I should be in a bad way when I stumbled if I had to wait until the fact had struck the bell of my consciousness, and until a hint of what I had to do had been telegraphed back to me. On the contrary, what I notice as clearly as possible is, that first, in order to avoid a fall, reflex action on the part of my foot takes place, and then, after a certain measurable space of time, there follows quite suddenly a kind of painful wave in my forehead. Nobody, then, reacts to pain. Pain is subsequently projected into the wounded quarter--but the essence of this local pain is nevertheless not the expression of a kind of local wound, it is merely a local sign, the strength and nature of which is in keeping with the severity of the wound, and of which the nerve centres have taken note. The fact that as the result of this shock the muscular power of the organism is materially reduced, does not prove in any way that the essence of pain is to be sought in the lowering of the feeling of power.

Once more let me repeat: nobody reacts to pain: pain is no "cause" of action. Pain itself is a reaction; the reflex movement is another and earlier process--both originate at different points....

700.

The message of pain: in itself pain does not announce that which has been momentarily damaged, but the significance of this damage for the individual as a whole.

Are we to suppose that there are any pains which "the species" feel, and which the individual does not?

701.

"The sum of unhappiness outweighs the sum of happiness: consequently it were better that the world did not exist"--"The world is something which from a rational standpoint it were better did not exist, because it occasions more pain than pleasure to the feeling subject"--this futile gossip now calls itself pessimism!

Pleasure and pain are accompanying factors, not causes; they are second-rate valuations derived from a dominating value,--they are one with the feeling "useful," "harmful," and therefore they are absolutely fugitive and relative. For in regard to all utility and harmfulness there are a hundred different ways of asking "what for?"

I despise this pessimism of sensitiveness: it is in itself a sign of profoundly impoverished life.

702.

Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody knows the famous prejudices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are mere results, mere accompanying phenomena--that which every man, which every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are encountered; it is owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that which stands in its way.... Pain as the hindrance of its will to power is therefore a normal feature, a natural ingredient of every organic phenomenon; man does not avoid it, on the contrary, he is constantly in need of it: every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event presupposes an obstacle overcome.

Let us take the simplest case, that of primitive nourishment; the protoplasm extends its pseudopodia in order to seek for that which resists it,--it does not do so out of hunger, but owing to its will to power. Then it makes the attempt to overcome, to appropriate, and to incorporate that with which it comes into contact--what people call "nourishment" is merely a derivative, a utilitarian application, of the primordial will to become stronger.

Pain is so far from acting as a diminution of our feeling of power, that it actually forms in the majority of cases a spur to this feeling,--the obstacle is the stimulus of the will to power.

703.

Pain has been confounded with one of its subdivisions, which is exhaustion: the latter does indeed represent a profound reduction and lowering of the will to power, a material loss of strength--that is to say, there is _(a)_ pain as the stimulus to an increase or power, and _(b)_ pain following upon an expenditure of power; in the first case it is a spur, in the second it is the outcome of excessive spurring.... The inability to resist is proper to the latter form of pain: the provocation of that which resists is proper to the former.... The only happiness which is to be felt in the state of exhaustion is that of going to sleep; in the other case, happiness means triumph.... The great confusion of psychologists consisted in the fact that they did not keep these two kinds of happiness--that of falling asleep, and that of triumph--sufficiently apart. Exhausted people will have repose, slackened limbs, peace and quiet--and these things constitute the bliss of Nihilistic religions and philosophies, the wealthy in vital strength, the active, want triumph, defeated opponents, and the extension of their feeling of power over ever wider regions. Every healthy function of the organism has this need,--and the whole organism constitutes an intricate complexity of systems struggling for the increase of the feeling of power....

704.

How is it that the fundamental article of faith in all psychologies is a piece of most outrageous contortion and fabrication? "Man strives after happiness," for instance--how much of this is true? In order to understand what life is, and what kind of striving and tenseness life contains, the formula should hold good not only of trees and plants, but of animals also. "What does the plant strive after?"--But here we have already invented a false entity which does not exist,--concealing and denying the fact of an infinitely variegated growth, with individual and semi-individual starting-points, if we give it the clumsy title "plant" as if it were a unit. It is very obvious that the ultimate and smallest "individuals" cannot be understood in the sense of metaphysical individuals or atoms; their sphere of power is continually shifting its ground: but with all these changes, can it be said that any of them strives after happiness?--All this expanding, this incorporation and growth, is a search for resistance; movement is essentially related to states of pain: the driving power here must represent some other desire if it leads to such continual willing and seeking of pain.--To what end do the trees of a virgin forest contend with each other? "For happiness"?--For power! ...

Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have learned to become useful)--in comparison with primeval man, the man of to-day represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase in happiness! How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after happiness?..

705.

But while I say this I see above me, and below the stars, the glittering rat's-tail of errors which hitherto has represented the greatest inspiration of man: "All happiness is the result of virtue all virtue is the result of free will"!

Let us transvalue the values: all capacity is the outcome of a happy organisation, all freedom is the outcome of capacity (freedom understood here as facility in self-direction. Every artist will understand me).

706.

"The value of life."--Every life stands by itself; all existence must be justified, and not only life,--the justifying principle must be one through which life itself speaks.

Life is only a means to something: it is the expression of the forms of growth in power.

707.

The "conscious world" cannot be a starting-point for valuing: an "objective" valuation is necessary.

In comparison with the enormous and complicated antagonistic processes which the collective life of every organism represents, its conscious world of feelings, intentions, and valuations, is only a small slice. We have absolutely no right to postulate this particle of consciousness as the object, the wherefore, of the collective phenomena of life: the attainment of consciousness is obviously only an additional means to the unfolding of life and to the extension of its power. That is why it is a piece of childish simplicity to set up happiness, or intellectuality, or morality, or any other individual sphere of consciousness, as the highest value: and maybe to justify "the world" with it.

This is my fundamental objection to all philosophical and moral cosmologies and theologies, to all wherefores and highest values that have appeared in philosophies and philosophic religions hitherto. A kind of means is misunderstood as the object itself: conversely life and its growth of power were debased to a means.

If we wished to postulate an adequate object of life it would not necessarily be related in any way with the category of conscious life; it would require rather to explain conscious life as a mere means to itself....

The "denial of life" regarded as the object of life, the object of evolution! Existence--a piece of tremendous stupidity! Any such mad interpretation is only the outcome of life's being measured by the factors of consciousness (pleasure and pain, good and evil). Here the means are made to stand against the end--the "unholy," absurd, and, above all, disagreeable means: how can the end be any use when it requires such means? But where the fault lies is here--instead of looking for the end which would explain the necessity of such means, we posited an end from the start which actually excludes such means, _i.e._ we made a desideratum in regard to certain means (especially pleasurable, rational, and virtuous) into a rule, and then only did we decide what end would be desirable....

Where the fundamental fault lies is in the fact that, instead of regarding consciousness as an instrument and an isolated phenomenon of life in general, we made it a standard, the highest value in life: it is the faulty standpoint of _a parte ad totum,_--and that is why all philosophers are instinctively seeking at the present day for a collective consciousness, a thing that lives and wills consciously with all that happens, a "Spirit," a "God." But they must be told that it is precisely thus that life is converted into a monster; that a "God" and a general sensorium would necessarily be something on whose account the whole of existence would have to be condemned.... Our greatest relief came when we eliminated the general consciousness which postulates ends and means--in this way we ceased from being necessarily pessimists.... Our greatest indictment of life was the existence of God.

708.

_Concerning the value of "Becoming."_--If the movement of the world really tended to reach a final state, that state would already have been reached. The only fundamental fact, however, is that it does not tend to reach a final state: and every philosophy and scientific hypothesis (_e.g._ materialism) according to which such a final state is necessary, is refuted by this fundamental fact.

I should like to have a concept of the world which does justice to this fact. Becoming ought to be explained without having recourse to such final designs. Booming must appear justified at every instant (or it must defy all valuation: which has unity as its end); the present must not under any circumstances be justified by a future, nor must the past be justified for the sake of the present. "Necessity" must not be interpreted in the form of a prevailing and ruling collective force or as a prime motor; and still less as the necessary cause of some valuable result. But to this end it is necessary to deny a collective consciousness for Becoming,--a "God," in order that life may not be veiled under the shadow of a being who feels and knows as we do and yet _wills_ nothing: "God" is useless if he wants nothing; and if he do want something, this presupposes a general sum of suffering and irrationality which lowers the general value of Becoming. Fortunately any such general power is lacking (a suffering God overlooking everything, a general sensorium and ubiquitous Spirit, would be the greatest indictment of existence).

Strictly speaking nothing of the nature of Being must be allowed to remain,--because in that case Becoming loses its value and gets to be sheer and superfluous nonsense.

The next question, then, is: how did the illusion Being originate (why was it obliged to originate);

Likewise: how was it that all valuations based upon the hypothesis that there was such a thing as Being came to be depreciated.

But in this way we have recognised that this hypothesis concerning Being is the source of all the calumny that has been directed against the world (the "Better world," the "True world" the "World Beyond," the "Thing-in-itself").

(1) Becoming has no final state, it does not tend towards stability.

(2) Becoming is not a state of appearance, the world of Being is probably only appearance.

(3) Becoming is of precisely the same value at every instant; the sum of its value always remains equal: expressed otherwise, it has no value; for that according to which it might be measured, and in regard to which the word value might have some sense, is entirely lacking. The collective value of the world defies valuation; for this reason philosophical pessimism belongs to the order of farces.

709.

We should not make our little desiderata the judges of existence! Neither should we make culminating evolutionary forms (_e.g._ mind) the "absolute" which stands behind evolution!

710.

Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which it has been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while to try and see whether a scientific order of values might not be constructed according to a scale of numbers and measures representing energy.... All other values are matters of prejudice, simplicity, and misunderstanding. They may all be reduced to that scale of numbers and measures representing energy. The ascent in this scale would represent an increase of value, the descent a diminution.

But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are only apparent values compared with those which are physiological).

711.

Why the standpoint of "value" lapses:--

Because in the _"whole process of the universe" the work of mankind does not come under consideration_; because a general process (viewed in the light of a system) does not exist.

Because there is no such thing as a whole; because no _depreciation of human_ existence or human aims can be made in regard to something that does not exist.

Because "necessity," "causality," "design," are merely useful "_semblances._"

Because the aim is _not_ "the increase of the sphere of consciousness," _but the increase of power_; in which increase the utility of consciousness is also contained; and the same holds good of pleasure and pain.

Because a mere _means_ must not be elevated to the highest criterion of value (such as states of consciousness like pleasure and pain, if consciousness is in itself only a means).

Because the world is not an organism at all, but a thing of chaos; because the development of "intellectuality" is only a means tending relatively to extend the duration of an organisation.

Because all "desirability" has no sense in regard to the general character of existence.

712.

"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying and undeifying. _But withal there is no zenith of values,_ but only a zenith of _power._

Absolute _exclusion of mechanical and materialistic interpretations._ they are both only expressions of inferior states, of emotions deprived of all spirit (of the "will to power").

_The retrograde movement front the zenith_ of development (the intellectualisation of power on some slave-infected soil) may be shown to be the _result_ of the highest degree of energy _turning against_ itself, once it no longer has anything to organise, and utilising its power in order to _disorganise._

_(a)_ The ever-increasing _suppression_ of societies, and the latter's subjection by a smaller number of stronger individuals.

(b) The ever-increasing suppression of the privileged and the strong, hence the rise of democracy, and ultimately of _anarchy,_ in the elements.

713.

_Value_ is the highest amount of power that a man can assimilate--a man, not mankind! Mankind is much more of a means than an end. It is a question of type: mankind is merely the experimental material; it is the overflow of the ill-constituted--a field of ruins.

714.

Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a _new blessedness_ was discovered--a new _feeling._

715.

The standpoint of "value" is the same as that of the _conditions_ of _preservation_ and _enhancement,_ in regard to complex creatures of relative stability appearing in the course of evolution.

There are no such things as lasting and ultimate entities, no atoms, no monads: here also "permanence" was first introduced by ourselves (from practical, utilitarian, and other motives).

"The forms that rule"; the sphere of the subjugated is continually extended; or it decreases or increases according to the conditions (nourishment) being either favourable or unfavourable.

"Value" is essentially the standpoint for the increase or decrease of these dominating centres (pluralities in any case; for "unity" cannot be observed anywhere in the nature of development).

The means of expression afforded by language are useless for the purpose of conveying any facts concerning "development": the need of positing a rougher world of stable existences and things forms part of our _eternal desire for preservation._ We may speak of atoms and monads in a relative sense: and this is certain, _that the smallest world is the most stable world ..._. There is no such thing as will: there are only punctuations of will, which are constantly increasing and decreasing their power.

III

THE WILL TO POWER AS EXEMPLIFIED IN SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

1. Society and the State.

716.

We take it as a principle that only individuals feel any responsibility. Corporations are invented to do what the individual has not the courage to do. For this reason all communities are vastly more upright and instructive, as regards the nature of man, than the individual who is too cowardly to have the courage of his own desires.

All altruism is the prudence of the private man. societies are not mutually altruistic. The commandment, "Thou shalt love thy next-door neighbour," has never been extended to thy neighbour in general. Rather what Manu says is probably truer: "We must conceive of all the States on our own frontier, and their allies, as being hostile, and for the same reason we must consider all of their neighbours as being friendly to us."

The study of society is invaluable, because man in society is far more childlike than man individually. Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power, and order. Manu's words again are simple and dignified: "Virtue could hardly rely on her own strength alone. Really it is only the fear of punishment that keeps men in their limits, and leaves every one in peaceful possession of his own."

717.

The State, or _unmorality_ organised, is from within--the police, the penal code, status, commerce, and the family; and from without, the will to war, to power, to conquest and revenge.

A multitude will do things an individual will not, because of the division of responsibility, of command and execution; because the virtues of obedience, duty, patriotism, and local sentiment are all introduced; because feelings of pride, severity, strength, hate, and revenge in short, all typical traits are upheld, and these are characteristics utterly alien to the herd-man.

718.

You haven't, any of you, the courage either to kill or to flog a man. But the huge machinery of the State quells the individual and makes him decline to be answerable for his own deed (obedience, loyalty, etc.).

Everything that a man does in the service of the State is against his own nature. Similarly, everything he learns in view of future service of the State. This result is obtained through division of labour (so that responsibility is subdivided too):--

The legislator--and he who fulfils the law.

The teacher of discipline--and those who have grown hard and severe under discipline.

719.

A division of labour among the emotions exists inside society, making individuals and classes produce an imperfect, but more useful, kind of soul. Observe how every type in society has become atrophied with regard to certain emotions with the view of fostering and accentuating other emotions.

Morality may be thus justified:--

_Economically,_--as aiming at the greatest possible use of all individual power, with the view of preventing the waste of exceptional natures.

_Æsthetically,_--as the formation of fixed types, and the pleasure in one's own.

_Politically,_--as the art of bearing with the severe divergencies of the degrees of power in society.

_Psychologically,_ as an imaginary preference for the bungled and the mediocre, in order to preserve the weak.

720.

Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd.

721.

Impotence to power, how it disguises itself and plays the hypocrite, as obedience, subordination, the pride of duty and morality, submission, devotion, love (the idolisation and apotheosis of the commander is a kind of compensation, and indirect self-enhancement). It veils itself further under fatalism and resignation, objectivity, self-tyranny, stoicism, asceticism, self-abnegation, hallowing. Other disguises are: criticism, pessimism, indignation, susceptibility, beautiful soul, virtue, self--deification, philosophic detachment, freedom from contact with the world (the realisation of impotence disguises itself as disdain).

There is a universal need to exercise some kind of power, or to create for one's self the appearance of some power, if only temporarily, in the form of intoxication.

There are men who desire power simply for the sake of the happiness it will bring; these belong chiefly to political parties. Other men have the same yearning, even when power means visible disadvantages, the sacrifice of their happiness, and well-being; they are the ambitious. Other men, again, are only like dogs in a manger, and will have power only to prevent its falling into the hands of others on whom they would then be dependent.

722.

If there be justice and equality before the law, what would thereby be abolished?--Suspense, enmity, hatred. But it is a mistake to think that you thereby increase happiness; for the Corsicans rejoice in more happiness than the Continentals.

723.

Reciprocity and the expectation of a reward is one of the most seductive forms of the devaluation of mankind. It involves that equality which depreciates any gulf as immoral.

724.

Utility is entirely dependent upon the object to be attained,--the wherefore? And this wherefore, this purpose, is again dependent upon the degree of power. Utilitarianism is not, therefore, a fundamental doctrine; it is only a story of sequels, and cannot be made obligatory for all.

725.

Of old, the State was regarded theoretically as a utilitarian institution; it has now become so in a practical sense. The time of kings has gone by, because people are no longer worthy of them. They do not wish to see the symbol of their ideal in a king, but only a means to their own ends. That's the whole truth.

726.

I am trying to grasp the absolute sense of the communal standard of judgment and valuation, naturally without any intention of deducing morals.

The degree of psychological falsity and denseness required in order to sanctify the emotions essential to preservation and expansion of power, and to create a good conscience for them.

The degree of stupidity required in order that general rules and values may remain possible (including education, formation of culture, and training).

The degree of inquisitiveness, suspicion, and intolerance required in order to deal with exceptions, to suppress them as criminals, and thus to give them bad consciences, and to make them sick with their own singularity.

727.