The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
639.
The only possible way of upholding the sense of the concept "God" would be: to make _Him not_ the motive force, but the condition of _maximum power,_ an _epoch;_ a point in the further development of the _Will to Power;_ by means of which subsequent evolution just as much as former evolution--up to Him--could be explained. Viewed mechanically, the energy of collective Becoming remains constant; regarded from the economical standpoint, it ascends to its zenith and then recedes therefrom in order to remain eternally rotatory. This "_Will to Power_" expresses itself in the _interpretation in the manner in which the strength is used._--The conversion of energy into life; "life in its highest power" thenceforward appears as the goal. The same amount of energy, at different stages of development, means different things. That which determines growth in Life is the economy which becomes ever more sparing and methodical, which achieves ever more and more with a steadily decreasing amount of energy.... The ideal is the principle of the least possible expense.... The only thing _that is proved_ is that the world is _not_ striving towards a state of stability. Consequently its zenith must not be conceived as a state of absolute equilibrium.... The dire necessity of the same things happening in the course of the world, as in all other things, is not an eternal determinism reigning over all phenomena, but merely the expression of the fact that the impossible is not possible; that a given force cannot be different from that given force; that a given quantity of resisting force does not manifest itself otherwise than in conformity with its degree of strength;--to speak of events as being necessary is tautological. 2. The Will to Power as Life. _(a) The Organic Process._
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.