Part 5

_To combat determinism and teleology._--From the fact that something happens regularly, and that its occurrence may be reckoned upon, it does not follow that it happens _necessarily._ If a quantity of force determines and conducts itself in a certain way in every particular case, it does not prove that it has "no free will." "Mechanical necessity" is not an established fact: it was _we_ who first read into the nature of all phenomena. We interpreted the possibility of _formularising_ phenomena as a result of the dominion of necessary law over all existence. But it does not follow, because I do a determined thing, that I am bound to do it. _Compulsion_ cannot be demonstrated in things: all that the rule proves is this, that one and the same phenomenon is not another phenomenon. Owing to the very fact that we fancied the existence of subjects "_agents_" in things, the notion arose that all phenomena are the _consequence_ of a _compulsory force_ exercised over the subject--exercised by whom? once more by an "agent." The concept "Cause and Effect" is a dangerous one, so long as people believe in something that _causes,_ and a something that is _caused._

_(a)_ Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

***

_(b)_ When it is understood that the "subject" is nothing that _acts,_ but only a thing of fancy, there is much that follows.

Only with the subject as model we invented _thingness_ and read it into the pell-mell of sensations. If we cease from believing in the _acting_ subject, the belief in _acting_ things, in reciprocal action, in cause and effect between phenomena which we call things, also falls to pieces.

In this case the world of _acting atoms_ also disappears: for this world is always assumed to exist on the pre-determined grounds that subjects are necessary.

Ultimately, of course, _the "thing-in-itself"_ also disappears: for at bottom it is the conception of a "subject-in-itself." But we have seen that the subject is an imaginary thing. The antithesis "thing-in-itself" and "appearance" is untenable; but in this way the concept "_appearance_" also disappears.

***

_(c)_ If we abandon the idea of the acting _subject,_ we also abandon the _object_ acted upon. Duration, equality to self, Being, are inherent neither in what is called subject, nor in what is called object: they are complex phenomena, and in regard to other phenomena are apparently durable--they are distinguishable, for instance, by the different tempo with which they happen (repose--movement, fixed --loose: all antitheses which do not exist in themselves and by means of which _differences of degree_ only are expressed; from a certain limited point of view, though, they seem to be antitheses. There are no such things as antitheses; it is from logic that we derive our concept of contrasts--and starting out from its standpoint we spread the error over all things).

***

_(d)_ If we abandon the ideas "subject" and "object"; then we must also abandon the idea _"substance"_--and therefore its various modifications too; for instance: "matter," "spirit," and other hypothetical things, "eternity and the immutability of matter," etc. We are then rid of _materiality._

***

From a moral standpoint _the world is false._ But inasmuch as morality itself is a part of this world, morality also is false. The will to truth is a process of _establishing things_, it is a process of _making_ things true and lasting, a total elimination of that _false_ character, a transvaluation of it into _being._ Thus, "truth" is not something which is present and which has to be found and discovered; it is something _which has to be created_ and which _gives_ its name _to a process,_ or, better still, to the Will to overpower, which in itself has no purpose: to introduce truth is a _processus in infinitum,_ an _active determining_--it is not a process of becoming conscious of something, which in itself is fixed and determined. It is merely a word for "The Will to Power."

Life is based on the hypothesis of a belief in stable and regularly recurring things, the mightier it is, the more vast must be the world of knowledge and the world called being. Logicising, rationalising, and systematising are of assistance as means of existence.

Man projects his instinct of truth, his "aim," to a certain extent beyond himself, in the form of a metaphysical world of Being, a "thing-in-itself," a world already to hand. His requirements as a creator make him _invent_ the world in which he works in advance; he anticipates it: this anticipation (this faith in truth) is his mainstay.

***

All phenomena, movement, Becoming, regarded as the establishment of relations of degree and of force, as a contest....

***

As soon as we _fancy_ that some one is responsible for the fact that we are thus and thus, etc. (God, Nature), and that we ascribe our existence, our happiness, our misery, our _destiny,_ to that some one, we corrupt the _innocence of Becoming_ for ourselves. We then have some one who wishes to attain to something by means of us and with us.

***

The "welfare of the individual" is just as fanciful as the "welfare of the species": the first is _not_ sacrificed to the last; seen from afar, the species is just as fluid as the individual. "The _preservation_ of the species" is only a result of the _growth_ of the species--that is to say, _of the overcoming of the species_ on the road to a stronger kind.

***

Theses:--The apparent conformity of means to end ("the conformity of means to end which far surpasses the art of man) is merely the result of that "_Will to Power_" which manifests itself in all phenomena:--_To become stronger_ involves a process of ordering, which may well be mistaken for an attempted conformity of means to end:--The _ends_ which are apparent are not intended but, as soon as a superior power prevails over an inferior power, and the latter proceeds to work as a function of the former, an order of _rank_ is established, an organisation which must give rise to the idea that there is an arrangement of means and ends.

Against apparent "_necessity_":--

This is only an expression for the fact that a certain power is not also something else.

Against the apparent conformity of means to ends":--

The latter is only an _expression_ for the order among the spheres of power and their interplay.

_(i)_ The Thing-in-Itself and Appearance.

553.

The foul blemish on Kant's criticism has at last become visible even to the coarsest eyes: Kant had no right to his distinction "_appearance_" and "_thing-in-itself,_"--in his own writings he had deprived himself of the right of differentiating any longer in this old and hackneyed manner, seeing that he had condemned the practice of drawing any conclusions concerning the cause of an appearance from the appearance itself, as unallowable in accordance with his conception of the idea of causality and its _purely intraphenomenal_ validity, and this conception, on the other hand, already anticipates that _differentiation,_ as if the "thing in itself" were not only inferred but actually _given._

554.

It is obvious that neither things-in-themselves _nor_ appearances can be related to each other in the form of cause and effect: and from this it follows that the concept "cause and effect" is _not applicable_ in a philosophy which believes in things-in-themselves and in appearances. Kant's mistake--... As a matter of fact, from a psychological standpoint, the concept "cause and effect" is derived from an attitude of mind which believes it sees the action of will upon will everywhere, which believes only in living things, and at bottom only in souls (not in things). Within the mechanical view of the world (which is logic and its application to space and time) that concept is reduced to the mathematical formula with which--and this is a fact which cannot be sufficiently emphasised--nothing is ever understood, but rather _defined_--deformed.

555.

The greatest of all fables is the one relating to knowledge. People would like to know how things-in-themselves are constituted: but behold, there are no things-in-themselves! But even supposing there _were_ an "in-itself," an unconditional thing, it could on that very account _not be known_! Something unconditioned cannot be known: otherwise it would not be unconditioned! Knowing, however, is always a process of "coming into relation with something"; the knowledge-seeker, on this principle, wants the thing, which he would know, to be nothing to him, and to be nothing to anybody at all: and from this there results a contradiction,--in the first place, between this _will_ to know, and this desire that the thing to be known _should_ be nothing to him (wherefore know at all then?); and secondly, because something which is nothing to anybody, does not even _exist,_ and therefore cannot be known. Knowing means: "to place one's self in relation with something," to feel one's self conditioned by something and one's self conditioning it under all circumstances, then, it is a process of _making stable or fixed,_ of _defining,_ of _making conditions conscious_ (not a process of _sounding_ things, creatures, or objects in-themselves).

556.

A "thing-in-itself" is just as absurd as a "sense-in-itself," a "meaning-in-itself." There is no such thing as a "fact-in-itself," _for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact._

The answer to the question, "What is that?" is a process of _fixing a meaning_ from a different standpoint. The "_essence_" the "_essential factor,_" is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is "What is that for me?" (for us, for everything that lives, etc. etc.).

A thing would be defined when all creatures had asked and answered this question, "What is that?" concerning it. Supposing that one single creature, with its own relations and standpoint in regard to all things, were lacking, that thing would still remain undefined.

In short: the essence of a thing is really only an _opinion_ concerning that "thing." Or, better still; "_it is worth_" is actually what is meant by _"it is"_ or by "that is."

One may not ask: "_Who_ interprets, then?" for the act of interpreting _itself_ as a form of the Will to Power, manifests itself (not as "Being," but as a _process,_ as _Becoming_) as a passion.

The origin of "things" is wholly the work of the idealising, thinking, willing, and feeling subject. The concept thing as well as all its attributes.--Even "the subject" is a creation of this order, a "thing" like all others: a simplification, aiming at a definition of the _power_ that fixes, invents, and thinks, as such, as distinct from all isolated fixing, inventing, and thinking. Thus a capacity defined or distinct from all other individual capacities; at bottom action conceived collectively in regard to all the action which has yet to come (action and the probability of similar action).

557.

The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other "things."

If one imagines other "things" to be non-existent, a thing has no qualities.

That is to say; _there is nothing without other things._

That is to say; there is no "thing-in-itself."

558.

The thing-in-itself is nonsense. If I think all the "relations," all the "qualities" all the "activities" of a thing, away, the thing itself does _not_ remain: for "thingness" was only _invented fancifully_ by us to meet certain logical needs--that is to say, for the purposes of definition and comprehension (in order to correlate that multitude of relations, qualities, and activities).

559.

"Things which have a nature _in themselves_"--a dogmatic idea, which must be absolutely abandoned.

560.

That things should have a _nature in themselves,_ quite apart from interpretation and subjectivity, _is a perfectly idle hypothesis_: it would presuppose that _interpretation_ and the _act of being subjective_ are not essential, that a thing divorced from all its relations can still be a thing.

Or, the other way round: the apparent _objective_ character of things; might it not be merely the result of a _difference of degree_ within the subject perceiving?--could not that which changes slowly strike us as being objective, lasting, Being, "in-itself"?--could not the objective view be only a false way of conceiving things and a contrast _within_ the perceiving subject?

561.

If all unity were only unity as organisation. But the "thing" in which we believe was _invented_ only as a substratum to the various attributes. If the thing "acts," it means: we regard _all the other_ qualities which are to hand, and which are momentarily latent, as the cause accounting for the fact that one individual quality steps forward--that is to say, _we take the sum of its qualities--x--_as the cause of the quality _x_; which is obviously _quite_ absurd and imbecile!

All unity is _only so_ in the form of _organisation_ and _collective action:_ in the same way as a human community is a unity--that is to say, _the reverse of_ atomic _anarchy_; thus it is a body politic, which _stands for_ one, yet _is_ not one.

562.

"At some time in the development of thought, a point must have been reached when man became conscious of the fact that what he called the _qualities of a thing_ were merely the sensations of the feeling subject: and thus the qualities ceased from belonging to the thing." The "thing-in-itself" remained over. 'The distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, is based upon that older and artless observation which would fain grant energy to things: but analysis revealed that even force was only ascribed to them by our fancy, as was also--substance. "The thing affects a subject?" Thus the root of the idea of substance is in language, not in things outside ourselves! The thing-in-itself is not a problem at all!

Being will have to be conceived as a sensation which is no longer based upon anything quite devoid of sensation.

In movement no new _meaning_ is given to feeling. That which is, cannot be the substance of movement: it is therefore a form of Being.

_N.B._--The explanation of life may be sought, in the first place, through mental images of phenomena which _precede_ it (purposes);

Secondly, through mental images of phenomena which follow behind it (the mathematico-physical explanation).

The two should not be confounded. Thus: the physical explanation, which is the symbolisation of the world by means of feeling and thought, cannot in itself make feeling and thinking originate again and show its derivation: physics must rather construct the world of feeling, consistently _without feeling or purpose _ right up to the highest man. And teleology is only a _history of purposes,_ and is never physical.

563.

Our method of acquiring "knowledge" is limited to a process of establishing _quantities,_ but we can by no means help feeling the difference of quantity as differences of _quality._ Quality is merely a _relative_ truth for _us_; it is not a "thing-in-itself."

Our senses have a certain definite quantum as a mean, within the limits of which they perform their functions--that is to say, we become conscious of bigness and smallness in accordance with the conditions of our existence. If we sharpened or blunted our senses tenfold, we should perish--that is to say, we feel even _proportions_ as _qualities_ in regard to our possibilities of existence.

564.

But could not all _quantities_ be merely tokens of _qualities_? Another consciousness and scale of desires must correspond to greater power in fact, another point of view; growth in itself is the expression of a desire _to become more;_ the desire for a greater _quantum_ springs from a certain _quale,_ in a purely quantitative world, everything would be dead, stiff, and motionless.--The reduction of all qualities to quantities is nonsense: it is discovered that they can only stand together, an analogy--

565.

Qualities are our insurmountable barriers; we cannot possibly help feeling mere _differences of quantity_ as something fundamentally different from quantity--that is to say, as _qualities,_ which we can no longer reduce to terms of quantity. But everything in regard to which the word "knowledge" has any sense at all, belongs to the realm of reckoning, weighing, and measuring, to quantity whereas, conversely, all our valuations (that is to say, our sensations) belong precisely to the realm of qualities, _i.e._ to those truths which belong to us alone and to our point of view, and which absolutely cannot be "known." It is obvious that every one of us, different creatures, must feel different qualities, and must therefore live in a different world from the rest. Qualities are an idiosyncrasy proper to human nature; the demand that these our human interpretations and values, should be general and perhaps real values, belongs to the hereditary madnesses of human pride.

566.

The "real world," in whatever form it has been conceived hitherto--was always the world of appearance _over again._

567.

The world of appearance, _i.e._ a world regarded in the light of values; ordered, selected according to values--that is to say, in this case, according to the standpoint of utility in regard to the preservation and the increase of power of a certain species of animals.

It is _the point of view,_ then, which accounts for the character of "appearance." As if a world could remain over, when the point of view is cancelled! By such means _relativity_ would also be cancelled!

Every centre of energy has its _point of view_ of the whole of the _remainder_ of the world--that is to say, its perfectly definite _valuation,_ its mode of action, its mode of resistance. The "world of appearance" is thus reduced to a specific kind of action on the world proceeding from a centre.

But there is no other kind of action: and the "world" is only a word for the collective play of these actions. _Reality_ consists precisely in this particular action and reaction of every isolated factor against the whole.

There no longer remains a shadow of a _right_ to speak here of "appearance." ...

The _specific way of reacting_ is the only way of reacting; we do not know how many kinds and what sort of kinds there are.

But there is no "_other,_" no "real," no essential being,--for thus a world _without_ action and reaction would be expressed....

The antithesis: world of appearance and real world, is thus reduced to the antitheses "world" and "nonentity."

568.

A criticism of the concept "_real and apparent_ world."--Of these two the first is a mere fiction, formed out of a host of imaginary things.

Appearance itself belongs to reality: it is a form of its being; _i.e._ in a world where there is no such thing as being, a certain calculable world of _identical_ cases must first be created through _appearance;_ a _tempo_ in which observation and comparison is possible, etc.

"Appearance" is an adjusted and simplified world, in which our _practical_ instincts have worked: for us it is perfectly true: for we _live_ in it, we can live in it: _this is the proof_ of its truth as far as we are concerned....

The world, apart from the fact that we have to live in it--the world, which we have _not_ adjusted to our being, our logic, and our psychological prejudices--does _not_ exist as a world "in-itself"; it is essentially a world of relations: under certain circumstances it has a _different aspect_ from every different point at which it is seen: it presses against every point, and every point resists it--and these collective relations are in every case _incongruent._

The _measure of power_ determines what _being_ possesses the other measure of power: under what form, force, or constraint, it acts or resists.

Our particular case is interesting enough: we have created a conception in order to be able to live in a world, in order to perceive just enough to enable us to _endure_ life in that world....

569.

The nature of our psychological vision is determined by the fact--

(1) That _communication_ is necessary, and that for communication to be possible something must be stable, simplified, and capable of being stated precisely (above all, in the so-called _identical_ case). In order that it may be communicable, it must be felt as something _adjusted,_ as "_recognisable_." The material of the senses, arranged by the understanding, reduced to coarse leading features, made similar to other things, and classified with its like. Thus: the indefiniteness and the chaos of sense-impressions are, as it were, _made logical._

(2) The _phenomenal_ world is the adjusted world which _we believe to be real,_ Its "reality" lies in the constant return of similar, familiar, and related things, in their _rationalised character,_ and in the belief that we are here able to reckon and determine.

(3) The opposite of this phenomenal world is not "the real world," but the amorphous and unadjustable world consisting of the chaos of sensations--that is to say, _another kind_ of phenomenal; world, a world which to us is "unknowable."

(4) The question how things-in-themselves are constituted, quite apart from our sense-receptivity and from the activity of our understanding, must be answered by the further question: how were we able to know _that things existed?_ "Thingness" is one of our own inventions. The question is whether there are not a good many more ways of creating such a world of appearance--and whether this creating, rationalising, adjusting, and falsifying be not the best-guaranteed _reality_ itself: in short, whether that which "fixes the meaning of things" is not the only reality: and whether the "effect of environment upon us" be not merely the result of such will-exercising subjects.... The other "creatures" act upon us; our _adjusted_ world of appearance is an arrangement and an _overpowering_ of its activities: a sort of _defensive_ measure. _The subject alone is demonstrable_; the _hypothesis_ might be advanced _that subjects are all that exist,_--that "object" is only a form of action of subject upon subject ... a _modus of the subject._

_(k)_ The Metaphysical Need.

570.

If one resembles all the philosophers that have gone before, one can have no eyes for what has existed and what will exist--one sees only what _is._ But as there is no such thing as Being; all that the philosophers had to deal with was a host of _fancies,_ this was their "world."

571.

To assert the _existence_ as a whole of things concerning which we know nothing, simply because there is an advantage in not being able to know anything of them, was a piece of artlessness on Kant's part, and the result of the recoil-stroke of certain needs--especially in the realm of morals and metaphysics.

572.