618.
Of all the interpretations of the world attempted heretofore, the
_mechanical_ one seems to-day to stand most prominently in the front.
Apparently it has a clean conscience on its side; for no science
believes inwardly in progress and success unless it be with the help
of mechanical procedures. Every one knows these procedures: "reason"
and "purpose" are allowed to remain out of consideration as far as
possible; it is shown that, provided a sufficient amount of time be
allowed to elapse, everything can evolve out of everything else, and no
one attempts to suppress his malicious satisfaction, when the "apparent
design in the fate" of a plant or of the yolk of an egg, may be traced
to stress and thrust in short, people are heartily glad to pay respect
to this principle of profoundest stupidity, if I may be allowed to pass
a playful remark concerning these serious matters. Meanwhile, among the
most select intellects to be found in this movement, some presentiment
of evil, some anxiety is noticeable, as if the theory had a rent in it,
which sooner or later might be its last: I mean the sort of rent which
denotes the end of all balloons inflated with such theories.
Stress and thrust themselves cannot be "explained," one cannot get rid
of the _actio in distans._ The belief even in the ability to explain is
now lost, and people peevishly admit that one can only describe, not
explain that the dynamic interpretation of the world, with its denial
of "empty space" and its little agglomerations of atoms, will soon get
the better of physicists: although in this way _Dynamis_ is certainly
granted an inner quality.
619.
The triumphant concept "_energy_" with which our physicists created
God and the world, needs yet to be completed: it must be given an
inner will which I characterise as the "_Will to Power_"--that is to
say, as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and
exercise of power as a creative instinct, etc. Physicists cannot get
rid of the "_actio in distans_" in their principles; any more than they
can a repelling force (or an attracting one). There is no help for it,
all movements, all "appearances," all "laws" must be understood as
_symptoms_ of an _inner_ phenomenon, and the analogy of man must be
used for this purpose. It is possible to trace all the instincts of an
animal to the will to power; as also all the functions of organic life
to this one source.
620.
Has anybody ever been able to testify to a _force!_ No, but to
_effects,_ translated into a completely strange language. Regularity in
sequence has so spoilt us, _that we no longer wonder at the wonderful
process._
621.
A force of which we cannot form any idea, is an empty word, and ought
to have no civic rights in the city of science: and the same applies to
the purely mechanical powers of attracting and repelling by means of
which we can form an image of the world--no more!
622.
_Squeezes and kicks_ are something incalculably recent, evolved and
not primeval. They presuppose something which holds together and _can_
press and strike! But how could it hold together?
623.
There is nothing _unalterable_ in chemistry: this is only appearance,
a mere school prejudice. We it was who _introduced_ the unalterable,
taking it from metaphysics as usual, Mr. Chemist. It is a mere
superficial judgment to declare that the diamond, graphite, and carbon
are identical. Why? Simply because no loss of substance can be traced
in the scales! Well then, at least they have something in common; but
the work of the molecules in the process of changing from one form to
the other, an action we can neither see nor weigh, is just exactly what
makes one material something different--with specifically different
qualities.
624.
_Against_ the physical _atom._--In order to understand the world, we
must be able to reckon it up; in order to be able to reckon it up, we
must be aware of constant causes; but since we find no such constant
causes in reality, we _invent_ them for ourselves and call them atoms.
This is the origin of the atomic theory.
The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing
all phenomena by means of formulæ--is that really "understanding"? What
would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in
it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?--Thus
"constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were
therefore _invented_;--what has been attained thereby?
625.
The mechanical concept of "movement" is already a translation of the
original process into the _language of symbols of the eye and the
touch._
The concept _atom,_ the distinction between the "seat of a motive force
and the force itself," is a _language of symbols derived from our
logical and physical world._
It does not lie within our power to alter our means of expression:
it is possible to understand to what extend they are but symptomatic.
To demand an _adequate means of expression is nonsense_: it lies at
the heart of a language, of a medium of communication, to express
_relation_ only.... The concept "truth" is _opposed to good sense._
The whole province of truth--_falseness_ only applies to the relations
between beings, not to an "absolute." There is no such thing as a
"being in itself" (_relations_ in the first place constitute being),
any more than there can be "knowledge in itself."
626.
"_The feeling of force_ cannot proceed from movement: feeling in
general cannot proceed from movement."
"Even in support of this, an apparent experience is the only evidence:
in a substance (brain) feeling is generated through transmitted motion
(stimuli). But generated? Would this show that the feeling did _not_
yet exist there _at all_? so that its appearance would _have_ to
be regarded as the _creative act_ of the intermediary--motion? The
feelingless condition of this substance is only an hypothesis! not an
experience! Feeling, therefore is the _quality_ of the substance: there
actually are substances that feel."
"Do we learn from certain substances that they have _no_ feeling? No,
we merely cannot tell that they have any. It is impossible to seek the
origin of feeling in non-sensitive substance."--_Oh what hastiness!_
627.
"To attract" and "to repel", in a purely mechanical sense, is pure
fiction: a word. We cannot imagine an attraction without a _purpose.--_
Either the will to possess one's self of a thing, or the will to defend
one's self from a thing or to repel it--_that_ we "understand"; that
would be an interpretation which we could use.
In short, the psychological necessity of believing in causality lies in
the _impossibility of imagining a process without a purpose_: but of
course this says nothing concerning truth or untruth (the justification
of such a belief)! The belief in _causæ_ collapses with the belief in
τέλει (against Spinoza and his causationism).
628.
It is an illusion to suppose that something is _known,_ when all
we have is a mathematical formula of what has happened; it is only
_characterised, described;_ no more!
629.
If I bring a regularly recurring phenomenon into a formula, I have
facilitated and shortened my task of characterising the whole
phenomenon, etc. But I have not thereby ascertained a "law," I have
only replied to the question: How is it that something recurs here? It
is a supposition that the formula corresponds to a complex of really
unknown forces and the discharge of forces; it is pure mythology to
suppose that forces here obey a law, so that, as the result of their
obedience, we have the same phenomenon every time.
630.
I take good care not to speak of chemical "_laws_": to do so savours of
morality. It is much more a question of establishing certain relations
of power: the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the
latter cannot maintain its degree of independence,--here there is no
pity, no quarter, and, still less, any observance of "law."
631.
The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law,"
but a relation of power between two or more forces. To say, "But it
is precisely this relation that remains the same!" is no better than
saying, "One and the same force cannot be another force."--It is not a
matter of _sequence,_ but a matter of _interdependence,_ a process in
which the procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the
manner of cause and effect....
The separation of the "action" from the "agent"; of the phenomenon from
the _worker_ of that phenomenon: of the process from one that is not
process, but lasting, _substance,_ thing, body, soul, etc.; the attempt
to understand a life as a sort of shifting of things and a changing of
places; of a sort of "being" or stable entity: this ancient mythology
established the belief in "cause and effect," once it had found a
lasting form in the functions of speech and grammar.
632.
The "regularity" of a sequence is only a metaphorical expression, not
a fact, just _as if_ a rule were followed here! And the same holds
good of "conformity to law." We find a formula in order to express an
ever-recurring kind of succession of phenomena: but that does not show
that we have _discovered a law_; much less a force which is the cause
of a recurrence of effects. The fact that something always happens
thus or thus, is interpreted here as if a creature always acted thus
or thus as the result of obedience to a law or to a lawgiver: whereas
apart from the "law" it would be free to act differently. But precisely
that inability to act otherwise might originate in the creature itself,
it might be that it did not act thus or thus in response to a law,
but simply because it was so constituted. It would mean simply: that
something cannot also be something else; that it cannot be first this,
and then something quite different; that it is neither free nor the
reverse, but merely thus or thus. _The fault lies in thinking a subject
into things._
633.
To speak of two consecutive states, the first as "cause," and the
second as "effect," is false. The first state cannot bring about
anything, the second has nothing effected in it.
It is a question of a struggle between two elements unequal in power:
a new adjustment is arrived at, according to the measure of power each
possesses. The second state is something fundamentally different from
the first (it is not its effect): the essential thing Is, that the
factors which engage in the struggle leave it with different quanta of
power.
634.
_A. criticism of Materialism._--Let us dismiss the two popular
concepts, Necessity and Law, from this idea: the first introduces a
false constraint, the second a false liberty into the world. "Things"
do not act regularly, they follow no _rule:_ there are no things (that
is our fiction); neither do they act in accordance with any necessity.
There is no obedience here: for, the fact that _something is_ as it is,
strong or weak, is not the result of obedience or of a rule or of a
constraint....
The degree of resistance and the degree of superior power--this is the
question around which all phenomena turn: if we, for our own purposes
and calculations, know how to express this in formulas and "laws," all
the better for us! But that does not mean that we have introduced any
"morality" into the world, just because we have fancied it as obedient.
There are no laws: every power draws its last consequence at every
moment. Things are calculable precisely owing to the fact that there is
no possibility of their being otherwise than they are.
A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces
and the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be
thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to
violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not
self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of
existence--it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation
of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "_Will to
Power_"; with this formula one can express the character which cannot
be abstracted in thought from mechanical order, without suppressing the
latter itself in thought.
The translation of the world of effect into a _visible_ world--a world
for the eye--is the concept "movement." Here it is always understood
that _something_ has been moved,--whether it be the fiction of an
atomic globule or even of the abstraction of the latter, the dynamic
atom, something is always imagined that has an effect--that is to say,
we have not yet rid ourselves of the habit into which our senses and
speech inveigled us. Subject and object, an agent to the action, the
action and that which does it separated: we must not forget that all
this signifies no more than semeiotics and--nothing real. Mechanics as
a teaching of _movement_ is already a translation of phenomena into
man's language of the senses.
635.
We are in need of "unities" in order to be able to reckon: but this is
no reason for supposing that "unities" actually _exist._ We borrowed
the concept "unity" from our concept "ego,"--our very oldest article
of faith. If we did not believe ourselves to be unities we should never
have formed the concept "thing." Now--that is to say, somewhat late in
the day, we are overwhelmingly convinced that our conception of the
concept "ego" is no security whatever for a real entity. In order to
maintain the mechanical interpretation of the world theoretically, we
must always make the reserve that it is with fictions that we do so:
the concept of _movement_ (derived from the language of our senses)
and the concept of the _atom_ (= entity, derived from our psychical
experience) are based upon a _sense-prejudice_ and a _psychological
prejudice._
Mechanics formulates consecutive phenomena, and it does so
semeiologically, in the terms of the senses and of the mind (that all
influence is _movement_; that where there is movement something is at
work moving): it does not touch the question of the causal force.
The _mechanical_ world is imagined as the eye and the sense of touch
alone could imagine a world (as "moved"),--in such a way as to be
calculable,--as to simulate causal entities "things" (atoms) whose
effect is constant (the transfer of the false concept of subject to the
concept atom).
The mixing together of the concept of numbers, of the concept of thing
(the idea of subject), of the concept of activity (the separation of
that which is the cause, and the effect), of the concept of movement:
all these things are phenomenal; our eye and our _psychology_ are still
in it all.
If we eliminate these adjuncts, nothing remains over but dynamic
quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta: the
essence of which resides in their relation to all other quanta, in
their "influence" upon the latter. The will to power, not Being, not
Becoming, but a _pathos_--is the elementary fact, from these first
results a Becoming, an influencing....
636.
The physicists believe in a "true world" after their own kind; a
fixed _systematising of atoms_ to perform necessary movements, and
holding good equally of all creatures, so that, according to them,
the "world of appearance" reduces itself to the side of general and
generally-needed Being, which is accessible to every one according to
his kind (accessible and also adjusted,--made "subjective"). But here
they are in error. The atom which they postulate is arrived at by the
logic of that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself therefore
a subjective fiction. This picture of the world which they project
is in no way essentially different from the subjective picture: the
only difference is, that it is composed simply with more extended
senses, but certainly with _our_ senses.... And in the end, without
knowing it, they left something out of the constellation: precisely
the necessary _perspective factor,_ by means of which every centre of
power--and not man alone--constructs the rest of the world _from its
point of view_--that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds it
according to its degree of strength.... They forgot to reckon with
this perspective-fixing power, in "true being,"--or, in school-terms,
subject-being. They suppose that this was "evolved" and added;--but
even the chemical investigator needs it: it is indeed _specific Being,_
which determines action and reaction according to circumstances.
_Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness._ My idea is
that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to
extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything
that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same
endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms
with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related
to it--_and thus they conspire together for power._ And the process
continues.
637.
Even in the inorganic world all that concerns an atom of energy is its
immediate neighbourhood: distant forces balance each other. Here is
the root of _perspectivity,_ and it explains why a living organism is
"egoistic" to the core.
638.
Granting that the world disposed of a quantum of force, it is obvious
that any transposition of force to any place would affect the whole
system--thus, besides the causality of _sequence,_ there would also be
a dependence, _contiguity,_ and _coincidence._
639.
The only possible way of upholding the sense of the concept "God" would
be: to make _Him not_ the motive force, but the condition of _maximum
power,_ an _epoch;_ a point in the further development of the _Will to
Power;_ by means of which subsequent evolution just as much as former
evolution--up to Him--could be explained.
Viewed mechanically, the energy of collective Becoming remains
constant; regarded from the economical standpoint, it ascends
to its zenith and then recedes therefrom in order to remain
eternally rotatory. This "_Will to Power_" expresses itself in the
_interpretation in the manner in which the strength is used._--The
conversion of energy into life; "life in its highest power"
thenceforward appears as the goal. The same amount of energy, at
different stages of development, means different things.
That which determines growth in Life is the economy which becomes ever
more sparing and methodical, which achieves ever more and more with a
steadily decreasing amount of energy.... The ideal is the principle of
the least possible expense....
The only thing _that is proved_ is that the world is _not_ striving
towards a state of stability. Consequently its zenith must not be
conceived as a state of absolute equilibrium....
The dire necessity of the same things happening in the course of the
world, as in all other things, is not an eternal determinism reigning
over all phenomena, but merely the expression of the fact that the
impossible is not possible; that a given force cannot be different
from that given force; that a given quantity of resisting force does
not manifest itself otherwise than in conformity with its degree of
strength;--to speak of events as being necessary is tautological.