The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
636.
The physicists believe in a "true world" after their own kind; a fixed _systematising of atoms_ to perform necessary movements, and holding good equally of all creatures, so that, according to them, the "world of appearance" reduces itself to the side of general and generally-needed Being, which is accessible to every one according to his kind (accessible and also adjusted,--made "subjective"). But here they are in error. The atom which they postulate is arrived at by the logic of that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself therefore a subjective fiction. This picture of the world which they project is in no way essentially different from the subjective picture: the only difference is, that it is composed simply with more extended senses, but certainly with _our_ senses.... And in the end, without knowing it, they left something out of the constellation: precisely the necessary _perspective factor,_ by means of which every centre of power--and not man alone--constructs the rest of the world _from its point of view_--that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds it according to its degree of strength.... They forgot to reckon with this perspective-fixing power, in "true being,"--or, in school-terms, subject-being. They suppose that this was "evolved" and added;--but even the chemical investigator needs it: it is indeed _specific Being,_ which determines action and reaction according to circumstances.
_Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness._ My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related to it--_and thus they conspire together for power._ And the process continues. Even in the inorganic world all that concerns an atom of energy is its immediate neighbourhood: distant forces balance each other. Here is the root of _perspectivity,_ and it explains why a living organism is "egoistic" to the core. Granting that the world disposed of a quantum of force, it is obvious that any transposition of force to any place would affect the whole system--thus, besides the causality of _sequence,_ there would also be a dependence, _contiguity,_ and _coincidence._
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.