The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
552.
_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).
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. 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._
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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