The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
584.
The aberrations of philosophy are the outcome of the fact that, instead of recognising in logic and the categories of reason merely a means to the adjustment of the world for utilitarian ends (that is to say, especially, a useful _falsification_), they were taken to be the criterion of truth--particularly of _reality._ The "criterion of truth" was, as a matter of fact, merely the _biological utility of a systematic falsification of this sort, on principle:_ and, since a species of animals knows nothing more important than its own preservation, it was indeed allowable here to speak of "truth." Where the artlessness came in, however, was in taking this anthropocentric idiosyncrasy as the _measure of things,_ as the canon for recognising the "real" and the "unreal": in short, in making a relative thing absolute. And behold, all at once, the world fell into the two halves, "real" and "apparent": and precisely that world which man's reason had arranged for him to live and to settle in, was discredited. Instead of using the forms as mere instruments for making the world manageable and calculable, the mad fancy of philosophers intervened, and saw that in these categories the concept of that world is given which does not correspond to the concept of the world in which man lives.... The means were misunderstood as measures of value, and even used as a condemnation of their original purpose....
The purpose was, to deceive one's self in a useful way: the means thereto was the invention of forms and signs, with the help of which the confusing multifariousness of life could be reduced to a useful and wieldy scheme. But woe! a _moral category_ was now brought into the game: no creature would deceive itself, no creature may deceive itself--consequently there is only a will to truth. What is "truth"? The principle of contradiction provided the scheme: the real world to which the way is being sought cannot be in contradiction with itself, cannot change, cannot evolve, has no beginning and no end. That is the greatest error which has ever been committed, the really fatal error of the world: it was believed that in the forms of reason a criterion of reality had been found--whereas their only purpose was to master reality, by _misunderstanding_ it intelligently.... And behold, the world became false precisely owing to the qualities _which constitute its reality,_ namely, change, evolution, multifariousness, contrast, contradiction, war. And thenceforward the whole fatality was there. 1. How does one get rid of the false and merely apparent world? (it was the real and only one). 2. How does one become one's self as remote as possible from the world of appearance? (the concept of the perfect being as a contrast to the real being; or, more correctly still, as _the contradiction of life_....).
The whole direction of values was towards the _slander of life_; people deliberately confounded ideal dogmatism with knowledge in general: so that the opposing parties also began to reject _science_ with horror. Thus the road to science was _doubly_ barred: first, by the belief in the real world; and secondly, by the opponents of this belief. Natural science and psychology were (1) condemned in their objects, (2) deprived of their artlessness.... Everything is so absolutely bound and related to everything else in the real world, that to condemn, or to _think away_ anything, means to condemn and think away the whole. The words "this should not be," "this ought not to be," are a farce.... If one imagines the consequences, one would ruin the very source of Life by suppressing everything which is in any sense whatever _dangerous or destructive._ Physiology proves this _much better_! We see how morality _(a) poisons_ the whole concept of the world, _(b)_ cuts off the way to _science, (c)_ dissipates and undermines all real instincts (by teaching that their root is _immoral_). We thus perceive a terrible tool of decadence at work, which succeeds in remaining immune, thanks to the holy names and holy attitudes it assumes. The awful recovery of our _consciousness:_ not of the individual, but of the human species. Let us reflect; let us think backwards; let us follow the narrow and broad highway.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.