The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
526.
Wherever people have observed a certain unity in the grouping of things, _spirit_ has always been regarded as the cause of this co-ordination: an assumption for which reasons are entirely lacking. Why should the idea of a complex fact be one of the conditions of that fact? Or why should the _notion_ of a complex fact have to precede it as its cause? We must be on our guard against explaining _finality_ by the spirit: there is absolutely no reason whatever for ascribing to spirit the peculiar power of organising and systematising. The domain of the nervous system is much more extensive: the realm of consciousness is superadded. In the collective process of adaptation and systematising, consciousness plays no part at all. Physiologists, like philosophers, believe that consciousness increases in _value_ in proportion as it _gains_ in clearness: the most lucid consciousness and the most logical and impassive thought are of the _first_ order. Meanwhile--according to what standard is this value determined?--In regard to the _discharge of will-power_ the most superficial and _most simple_ thought is the most useful--it might therefore, etc. etc. (because it leaves few motives over). _Precision in action_ is opposed to the _far-sighted_ and often uncertain judgments of _caution:_ the latter is led by the _deeper_ instinct. _The chief error of psychologists:_ they regard the indistinct idea as of a lower _kind_ than the distinct; but that which keeps at a distance from our consciousness and which is therefore _obscure, may_ on that very account be quite clear in itself. _The fact that a thing becomes obscure_ is a question _of the perspective of consciousness._
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