The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
521.
_Concerning logical appearance._--The concept "individual" and the concept "species" are equally false and only apparent. "_Species_" only expresses the fact that an abundance of similar creatures come forth at the same time, and that the speed of their further growth and of their further transformation has been made almost imperceptible for a long time: so that the actual and trivial changes and increase of growth are of no account at all (--a stage of evolution in which the process of evolving is not visible, so that, not only does a state of equilibrium _seem_ to have been reached, but the road is also made clear for the error of supposing _that an actual goal has been reached_--and that evolution had a goal...). The form seems to be something enduring, and therefore valuable; but the form was invented merely by ourselves; and however often "the same form is attained," it does not signify that it _is the same form,--because something new always appears_; and we alone, who compare, reckon the new with the old, in so far as it resembles the latter, and embody the two in the unity of "form." As if a _type_ had to be reached and were actually intended by the formative processes. _Form, species, law, idea, purpose_--the same fault is made in respect of all these concepts, namely, that of giving a false realism to a piece of fiction: as if all phenomena were infused with some sort of obedient spirit--an artificial distinction is here made between that _which_ acts and that _which_ guides action (but both these things are only fixed in order to agree with our metaphysico-logical dogma: they are not "facts").
We should not interpret this _constraint_ in ourselves, to imagine concepts, species, forms, purposes, and laws ("_a world of identical cases_") as if we were in a position to construct a _real world_; but as a constraint to adjust a world by means of which _our existence_ will be ensured: we thereby create a world which is determinable, simplified, comprehensible, etc., for us. The very same constraint is active in _the functions of the senses_ which support the reason--by means of simplification, coarsening, accentuation, and interpretation; whereon all "recognition," all the ability of making one's self intelligible rests. Our _needs_ have made our senses so precise, that the "same world of appearance" always returns, and has thus acquired the semblance of _reality._ Our subjective constraint to have faith in logic, is expressive only of the fact that long before logic itself became conscious in us, we did nothing _save introduce its postulates into the nature of things:_ now we find ourselves in their presence,--we can no longer help it,--and now we would fain believe that this constraint is a guarantee of "truth." We it was who created the "thing," the "same thing," the subject, the attribute, the action, the object, the substance, and the form, after we had carried the process of equalising, coarsening, and simplifying as far as possible. The world _seems_ logical to us, because we have already made it logical.
_Fundamental solution._--We believe in reason: this is, however, the philosophy of colourless _concepts._ Language is built upon the most _naïf_ prejudices. Now we read discord and problems into things, because we are able to _think only_ in the form of language--we also believe in the "eternal truth" of "wisdom" (for instance, subject, attribute, etc.). _We cease from thinking if we do not wish to think under the control of language_; the most we can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt concerning the question whether the boundary here really is a boundary. _Rational thought is a process of interpreting according to a scheme which we cannot reject._ (_f_) Consciousness.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.