The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
667.
Science does _not_ inquire what impels us to will: on the contrary, it _denies_ that _willing_ takes place at all, and supposes that something quite different has happened--in short, that the belief in "will" and "end" is an illusion. It does not inquire into the _motives_ of an action, as if these had been present in consciousness previous to the action, but it first divides the action up into a group of phenomena, and then seeks the previous history of this mechanical movement--but _not_ in the terms of feeling, perception, and thought; from this quarter it can never accept the explanation: perception is precisely the matter of science, _which has to be explained._--The problem of science is precisely to explain the world, _without_ taking perceptions as the cause: for that would mean regarding _perceptions_ themselves as the _cause_ of perceptions. The task of science is by no means accomplished. Thus: either there is _no_ such thing as will,--the hypothesis of science,--or the will is _free_. The latter assumption represents the prevailing feeling, of which we cannot rid ourselves, even if the hypothesis of science were _proved._ The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the principle that free will _is the cause of every effect:_ thereby alone do we arrive at the feeling of causation. And thereto belongs also the feeling that every cause is _not_ an effect, but always only a cause--if will is the cause. "Our acts of will are _not necessary_"--this lies in the very _concept of "will."_ The effect necessarily comes _after_ the cause--that is what we feel. It is merely a _hypothesis_ that even our willing is compulsory in every case.
"To will" is not "to desire," to strive, to aspire to; it distinguishes itself from that through the _passion of commanding._ There is no such thing as "willing," but only the willing of _something:_ the _aim_ must not be severed from the state--as the epistemologists sever it. "Willing," as they understand it, is no more possible than "thinking": it is a pure invention. It is essential to willing that something should be _commanded_ (but that does not mean that the will is carried into effect). The general _state of tension,_ by virtue of which a force seeks to discharge itself, is not "willing."
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.