656.
The will to power can manifest itself only against _obstacles;_ it
therefore goes in search of what resists it--this is the primitive
tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its _pseudopodia_ and feels
about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the
result of a desire to overpower, a process of forming, of additional
building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has
become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power,
and has increased the latter.--If this process of incorporation
does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to pieces; and the
_separation_ occurs as the result of the will to power: in order to
prevent the escape of that which has been subjected, the will to power
falls into two wills (under some circumstances without even abandoning
completely its relation to the two).
"Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation, once the fundamental
instinct of power has won power of a more abstract kind.
657.
What is "passive"?
To be hindered in the outward movement of grasping: it is
thus an act of resistance and reaction.
What is "active"?
To stretch out for power.
"Nutrition"...
Is only a derived phenomenon; the primitive form of it was
the will to stuff everything inside one's own skin.
"Procreation"...
Only derived; originally, in those cases In which one
will was unable to organise the collective mass it had
appropriated, an _opposing will_ came into power, which
undertook to effect the separation and establish a new
centre of organisation, after a struggle with the original
will.
"Pleasure"...
Is a feeling of power (presupposing the existence of pain).
658.
(1) The organic functions shown to be but forms of the fundamental
will, the will to power,--and buds thereof.
(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to
property, to _tools,_ to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body
as an example.--The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other
form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained
mechanically.
(3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms. What is a
desire if it be not: a provocation of the feeling of power by an
obstacle (or, better still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting
forces)--so that it surges through it? Thus in all pleasure pain is
understood.--If the pleasure is to be very great, the pains preceding
it must have been very long, and the whole bow of life must have been
strained to the utmost.
(4) Intellectual functions. The will to shaping, forming, and making
like, etc.
_(b) Man._
659.
_With the body as clue._--Granting that the "_soul_" was only an
attractive and mysterious thought, from which philosophers rightly,
but reluctantly, separated themselves--that which they have since
learnt to put in its place is perhaps even more attractive and even
more mysterious. The human _body,_ in which the whole of the most
distant and most recent past of all organic life once more becomes
living and corporal, seems to flow through, this past and right over
it like a huge and inaudible torrent; the body is a more wonderful
thought than the old "soul." In all ages the body, as our actual
property, as our most certain being, in short, as our ego, has been
more earnestly believed in than the spirit (or the "soul," or the
subject, as the school jargon now calls it). It has never occurred to
any one to regard his stomach as a strange or a divine stomach; but
that there is a tendency and a predilection in man to regard all his
thoughts as "inspired," all his values as "imparted to him by a God,"
all his instincts as dawning activities--this is proved by the evidence
of every age in man's history. Even now, especially among artists,
there may very often be noticed a sort of wonder, and a deferential
hesitation to decide, when the question occurs to them, by what means
they achieved their happiest work, and from which world the creative
thought came down to them: when they question in this way, they are
possessed by a feeling of guilelessness and childish shyness. They dare
not say: "That came from me; it was my hand which threw that die."
Conversely, even those philosophers and theologians, who in their logic
and piety found the most imperative reasons for regarding their body as
a deception (and even as a deception overcome and disposed of), could
not help recognising the foolish fact that the body still remained: and
the most unexpected proofs of this are to be found partly in Pauline
and partly in Vedantic philosophy. But what does _strength of faith_
ultimately mean? Nothing!--A strong faith might also be a foolish
faith!--There is food for reflection.
And supposing the faith in the body were ultimately but the result
of a conclusion; supposing it were a false conclusion, as idealists
declare it is, would it not then involve some doubt concerning the
trustworthiness of the spirit itself which thus causes us to draw wrong
conclusions?
Supposing the plurality of things, and space, and time, and motion
(and whatever the other first principles of a belief in the body may
be) were errors--what suspicions would not then be roused against the
spirit which led us to form such first principles? Let it suffice that
the belief in the body is, at any rate for the present, a much stronger
belief than the belief in the spirit, and he who would fain undermine
it assails the authority of the spirit most thoroughly in so doing!
660.
_The Body as an Empire._
The aristocracy in the body, the majority of the rulers (the fight
between the cells and the tissues).
Slavery and the division of labour: the higher type alone possible
through the _subjection_ of the lower to a function.
Pleasure and pain, not contraries. The feeling of power.
"Nutrition" only a result of the insatiable lust of appropriation in
the Will to Power.
"Procreation": this is the decay which supervenes when the ruling cells
are too weak to organise appropriated material.
It is the _moulding_ force which will have a continual supply of new
material (more "force"). The masterly construction of an organism out
of an egg.
"The mechanical interpretation": recognises only quantities: but the
real energy is in the quality. Mechanics can therefore only describe
processes; it cannot explain them.
"Purpose." We should start out from the "sagacity" of plants.
The concept of "meliorism": _not_ only greater complexity, but greater
_power_ (it need not be only greater masses).
Conclusion concerning the evolution of man: the road to perfection lies
in the bringing forth of the most powerful individuals, for whose use
the great masses would be converted into mere tools (that is to say,
into the most intelligent and flexible tools possible).
661.
Why is all _activity,_ even that of a _sense,_ associated with
pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or
a burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a
process of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of _increasing_ the
_feeling of power_? The pleasure of thought. Ultimately it is not
only the feeling of power, but also the pleasure of creating and of
contemplating the _creation:_ for all activity enters our consciousness
in the form of "works."
662.
Creating is an act of selecting and of finishing the thing selected.
(In every act of the will, this is the essential element.)
663.
All phenomena which are the result of intentions may be reduced to _the
intention of increasing power._
664.
When we do anything, we are conscious of a _feeling of strength;_
we often have this sensation before the act--that is to say, while
imagining the thing to do (as, for instance, at the sight of an enemy,
of an obstacle, which we feel _equal to_): it is always an accompanying
sensation. Instinctively we think that this feeling of strength is
the cause of the action, that it is the "motive force." Our belief in
causation is the belief in force and its effect; it is a transcript
of our experience: in which we identify force and the feeling of
force.--Force, however, never moves things; the strength which is
conscious "does not set the muscles moving." "Of such a process we have
no experience, no idea." "We experience as little concerning force as
a motive power, as concerning the _necessity_ of a movement." Force is
said to be the constraining element! "All we know is that one thing
follows another;--we know nothing of either compulsion or arbitrariness
in regard to the one following the other. Causality is first invented
by thinking compulsion into the sequence of processes. A certain
"understanding" of the thing is the result--that is to say, we humanise
the process a little, we make it more "familiar"; the familiar is the
known habitual fact of _human compulsion associated with the feeling of
force._
665.
I have the intention of extending my arm; taking it for granted that
I know as little of the physiology of the human body and of the
mechanical laws of its movements as the man in the street, what could
there be more vague, more bloodless, more uncertain than this intention
compared with what follows it? And supposing I were the astutest
of mechanics, and especially conversant with the formulæ which are
applicable in this case, I should not be able to extend my arm one
whit the better. Our "knowledge" and our "action" in this case lie
coldly apart: as though in two different regions.--Again: Napoleon
carries out a plan of campaign--what does that mean? In this case,
everything concerning the consummation of the campaign is _known,_
because everything must be done through words of command: but even here
subordinates are taken for granted, who apply and adapt the general
plan to the particular emergency, to the degree of strength, etc.
666.
For ages we have always ascribed the value of an action, of a
character, of an existence, to the _intention,_ to the _purpose_ for
which it was done, acted, or lived: this primeval idiosyncrasy of taste
ultimately takes a dangerous turn provided the lack of intention and
purpose in all phenomena comes ever more to the front in consciousness.
With it a general depreciation of all values seems to be preparing:
"All is without sense."--This melancholy phrase means: "All sense
lies in the intention, and if the intention is absolutely lacking,
then sense must be lacking too." In conformity with this valuation,
people were forced to place the value of life in a a life after death,
or in the progressive development of ideas, or of mankind, or of the
people, or of man to superman; but in this way the _progressus in
infinitum_ of purpose had been reached: it was ultimately necessary to
find one's self a place in the process of the world (perhaps with the
disdæmonistic outlook, it was a process which led to nonentity).
In regard to this point, "_purpose_" needs a somewhat more severe
criticism: it ought to be recognised that an action _is never
caused by a purpose;_ that an object and the means thereto are
interpretations, by means of which certain points in a phenomena
are selected and accentuated, at the cost of other, more numerous,
points, that every time something is done for a purpose, something
fundamentally different, and yet other things happen; that in regard
to the action done with a purpose, the case is the same as with the
so-called purposefulness of the heat which is radiated from the sun:
the greater part of the total sum is squandered; a portion of it, which
is scarcely worth reckoning, has a "purpose," has "sense"; that an
"end" with its "means" is an absurdly indefinite description, which
indeed may be able to command as a precept, as "will," but presupposes
a system of obedient and trained instruments, which, in the place of
the indefinite, puts forward a host of determined entities _(i.e._ we
imagine a system of _clever_ but narrow intellects who postulate end
and means, in order to be able to grant our only known "end," the rôle
of the "cause of an action,"--a proceeding to which we have no right:
it is tantamount to solving a problem by placing its solution in an
inaccessible world which we cannot observe).
Finally, why could not an "end" be merely an _accompanying feature_
in the series of changes among the active forces which bring about
the action--a pale stenographic symbol stretched in consciousness
beforehand, and which serves as a guide to what happens, even as
a symbol of what happens, _not_ as its cause?--But in this way we
criticise _will_ itself: is it not an illusion to regard that which
enters consciousness as will-power, as a cause? Are not all conscious
phenomena only final phenomena--the lost links in a chain, but
apparently conditioning one another in their sequence within the plane
of consciousness? This might be an illusion.
667.
Science does _not_ inquire what impels us to will: on the contrary, it
_denies_ that _willing_ takes place at all, and supposes that something
quite different has happened--in short, that the belief in "will" and
"end" is an illusion. It does not inquire into the _motives_ of an
action, as if these had been present in consciousness previous to the
action, but it first divides the action up into a group of phenomena,
and then seeks the previous history of this mechanical movement--but
_not_ in the terms of feeling, perception, and thought; from this
quarter it can never accept the explanation: perception is precisely
the matter of science, _which has to be explained._--The problem of
science is precisely to explain the world, _without_ taking perceptions
as the cause: for that would mean regarding _perceptions_ themselves
as the _cause_ of perceptions. The task of science is by no means
accomplished.
Thus: either there is _no_ such thing as will,--the hypothesis of
science,--or the will is _free_. The latter assumption represents the
prevailing feeling, of which we cannot rid ourselves, even if the
hypothesis of science were _proved._
The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the principle that
free will _is the cause of every effect:_ thereby alone do we arrive
at the feeling of causation. And thereto belongs also the feeling that
every cause is _not_ an effect, but always only a cause--if will is
the cause. "Our acts of will are _not necessary_"--this lies in the
very _concept of "will."_ The effect necessarily comes _after_ the
cause--that is what we feel. It is merely a _hypothesis_ that even our
willing is compulsory in every case.
668.
"To will" is not "to desire," to strive, to aspire to; it distinguishes
itself from that through the _passion of commanding._
There is no such thing as "willing," but only the willing of
_something:_ the _aim_ must not be severed from the state--as the
epistemologists sever it. "Willing," as they understand it, is no more
possible than "thinking": it is a pure invention.
It is essential to willing that something should be _commanded_ (but
that does not mean that the will is carried into effect).
The general _state of tension,_ by virtue of which a force seeks to
discharge itself, is not "willing."
669.
"Pain" and "pleasure" are the most absurd _means of expressing_
judgments, which of course does not mean that the judgments which are
enunciated in this way must necessarily be absurd. The elimination
of all substantiation and logic, a yes or no in the reduction to a
passionate desire to have or to reject, an imperative abbreviation, the
utility of which is irrefutable: that is pain and pleasure. Its origin
is in the central sphere of the intellect; its prerequisite is an
infinitely accelerated process of perceiving, ordering, co-ordinating,
calculating, concluding: pleasure and pain are always final phenomena,
they are never causes.
As to deciding what provokes pain and pleasure, that is a question
which depends upon the _degree of power:_ the same thing, when
confronted with a small quantity of power, may seem a danger and may
suggest the need of speedy defence, and when confronted with the
consciousness of greater power, may be a voluptuous stimulus and may be
followed by a feeling of pleasure.
All feelings of pleasure and pain presuppose a _measuring of collective
utility_ and _collective harmfulness_: consequently a sphere where
there is the willing of an object (of a condition) and the selection of
the means thereto. Pleasure and pain are never "original facts."
The feelings of pleasure and pain are _reactions of the will_
(emotions) in which the intellectual centre fixes the value of certain
supervening changes as a collective value, and also as an introduction
of contrary actions.
670.
_The belief in "emotions"_--Emotions are a fabrication of the
intellect, an invention of _causes_ which do not exist. All general
_bodily sensations_ which we do not understand are interpreted
intellectually--that is to say, a _reason_ is sought why we feel
thus or thus among certain people or in certain experiences. Thus
something disadvantageous dangerous, and strange is taken for granted,
as if it were the cause of our being indisposed; as a matter of fact,
it gets _added to_ the indisposition, so as to make our condition
thinkable.--Mighty rushes of blood to the brain, accompanied by
a feeling of suffocation, are _interpreted_ as anger: the people
and things which provoke our anger are a means of relieving our
physiological condition. Subsequently, after long habituation, certain
processes and general feelings are so regularly correlated that the
sight of certain processes provokes that condition of general feeling,
and induces vascular engorgements, the ejection of seminal fluid, etc.:
we then say that the "emotion is provoked by propinquity."
_Judgments_ already inhere in pleasure and pain: stimuli become
differentiated, according as to whether they increase or reduce the
feeling of power.
_The belief in willing._ To believe that a thought may be the cause
of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles. The _consistency
of science_ demands that once we have made the world _thinkable_ for
ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the
desires, the will, etc., _thinkable_--that is to say, we should _deny_
them and treat them as _errors of the intellect._
671.
Free will or no free will?--There is _no such thing_ as "_Will_": that
is only a simplified conception on the part of the understanding, like
"matter."
_All actions must first be prepared and made possible mechanically
before they can be willed._ Or, _in most cases_ the "_object_" of an
action enters the brain only after everything is prepared for its
accomplishment. The object is an inner "stimulus"--nothing _more._
672.
The most proximate prelude to an action relates to that action: but
_further back still_ there lies a preparatory history which covers _a
far wider field:_ the individual action is only a factor in a much more
extensive and _subsequent_ fact. The shorter and the longer processes
are not reported.
673.
The theory of _chance:_ the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing
being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (this
_creative_ power is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely
passive).
I recognised the _active_ and creative _power_ within the
accidental.--Accident is in itself nothing more than _the clashing of
creative impulses._
674.
Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an
organic being, that part which becomes _conscious_ is a mere means:
and the particle of "virtue," "self abnegation," and other fanciful
inventions, are denied in a most thoroughgoing manner by the whole of
the remaining phenomena. We would do well to study our organism in all
its immorality....
The animal functions are, as a matter of fact, a million times more
important than all beautiful states of the soul and heights of
consciousness: the latter are an overflow, in so far as they are not
needed as instruments in the service of the animal functions. The whole
of _conscious_ life: the spirit together with the soul, the heart,
goodness, and virtue; in whose service does it work? In the greatest
possible perfection of the means (for acquiring nourishment and
advancement) serving the fundamental animal functions: above all, the
_ascent of the line of Life._
That which is called "flesh" and "body" is of such incalculably greater
importance, that the rest is nothing more than a small appurtenance.
To continue the chain of life _so that it becomes ever more
powerful_--that is the task.
But now observe how the heart, the soul, virtue, and spirit together
conspire formally to thwart this purpose: as _if they_ were the object
of every endeavour! ... The _degeneration of life_ is essentially
determined by the extraordinary _fallibility of consciousness,_ which
is held at bay least of all by the instincts, and thus commits the
gravest and profoundest _errors._
Now could any more insane extravagance of vanity be imagined than
to measure the _value_ of existence according to the _pleasant or
unpleasant feelings of this consciousness_? It is obviously only a
means: and pleasant or unpleasant feelings are also no more than means.
According to what standard is the objective value measured? According
to the quantity of _increased_ and _more organised power_ alone.
675.
The value of all _valuing._--My desire would be to see the agent once
more identified with the action, after action has been deprived of all
meaning by having been separated in thought from the agent; I should
like to see the notion of doing _something,_ the idea of a "purpose,"
of an "intention," of an object, reintroduced into the action, after
action has been made insignificant by having been artificially
separated from these things.
All "objects," "purposes," "meanings," are only manners of expression
and metamorphoses of the one will inherent in all phenomena; of the
will to power. To have an object, a purpose, or an intention, in
fact _to will_ generally, is equivalent to the desire for _greater
strength,_ for fuller growth, and for the _means_ thereto _in addition._
The most general and fundamental instinct in all action and willing
is precisely on that account the one which is least known and is most
concealed; for in practice we always follow its bidding, for the simple
reason that we _are_ in ourselves its bidding....
All valuations are only the results of, and the narrow points of view
in _servings this_ one will: valuing _in itself_ is nothing save this,
_--will to power._
To criticise existence from the standpoint of any one of these
values is utter nonsense and error. Even supposing that a process of
annihilation follows from such a value, even so this process is in the
service of this will.
The _valuation of existence itself!_ But existence is this valuing
itself!--and even when we say "no," we still do what we _are._
We ought now to perceive the _absurdity_ of this pretence at judging
existence; and we ought to try and discover _what_ actually takes place
there. It is symptomatic.
676.
_Concerning the Origin of our Valuations._
We are able to analyse our body, and by doing so we get the same
idea of it as of the stellar system, and the differences between
organic and inorganic lapses. Formerly the movements of the stars were
explained as the effects of beings consciously pursuing a purpose:
this is no longer required, and even in regard to the movements of
the body and its changes, the belief has long since been abandoned
that they can be explained by an appeal to a consciousness which has
a determined purpose. By far the greater number of movements have
nothing to do with consciousness at all: _neither have they anything
to do with sensation._ Sensations and thoughts are extremely _rare_
and _insignificant_ things compared with the innumerable phenomena
occurring every second.
On the other hand, we believe that a certain conformity of means
to ends rules over the very smallest phenomenon, which it is quite
beyond our deepest science to understand; a sort of cautiousness,
selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we
are in the presence of an _activity_ to which it would be necessary
to ascribe an _incalculably higher and more extensive intellect_ than
the one we are acquainted with. We learn to _think less of_ all that
is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for
ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the
smallest part of ourselves.
Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance,
air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a
number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by
us, yet influence us continually. Pleasure and pain are very rare and
scanty phenomena, compared with the countless stimuli with which a cell
or an organ operates upon another cell or organ.
It is the phase of the _modesty of consciousness._ Finally, we can
grasp the conscious ego itself, merely as an instrument in the
service of that higher and more extensive intellect: and then we may
ask whether all conscious _willing,_ all conscious _purposes,_ all
_valuations,_ are not perhaps only means by virtue of which something
essentially _different is attained,_ from that which consciousness
supposes. We _mean_: it is a question of our _pleasure_ and _pain_ but
pleasure and pain might be the means whereby we _had something to do_
which lies outside our consciousness.
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.