The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
678.
It is a question whether the origin of our apparent "knowledge" is not also a mere offshoot of our _older valuations,_ which are so completely assimilated that they belong to the very basis of our nature. In this way only _the more recent_ needs engage in battle _with results of the oldest needs._ The world is seen, felt, and interpreted thus and thus, in order that organic life may be preserved with this particular manner of interpretation. Man is _not_ only an individual, but the continuation of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact that _man_ survives, proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of interpreting has not changed. "Adaptation." Our "dissatisfaction," our "ideal," etc., may possibly be the _result_ of this incorporated piece of interpretation, of our particular point of view: the organic world may ultimately perish owing to it just as the division of labour in organisms may be the means of bringing about the ruin of the whole, if one part happen to wither or weaken. The _destruction_ of organic life, and even of the highest form thereof, must follow the same principles as the destruction of the individual. Judged from the standpoint of the theory of descent, _individuation_ shows the continuous breaking up of one into two, and the equally continuous annihilation of individuals _for the sake of a few_ individuals, which evolution bears onwards; the greater mass always perishes ("the body").
The fundamental phenomena: _innumerable individuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few,_ in order to make the few possible.--One must not allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with _peoples_ and _races_: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and valuable _individuals,_ who continue the great process. I am opposed to the theory that the individual studies the interests of the _species,_ or of posterity, at the cost of his own advantage: all this is only apparent. The excessive importance which he attaches to the _sexual instinct_ is not the _result_ of the latter's importance to the species, for procreation is the actual performance of the individual, it is his greatest interest, and therefore it is his _highest expression of power_ (not judged from the standpoint of consciousness, but from the very centre of the individual). The _fundamental errors_ of the biologists who have lived hitherto: it is not a matter of the species, but of rearing stronger individuals (the many are only a means). Life is _not_ the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" phenomena. These biologists _continue_ the moral valuations ("the absolutely higher worth of Altruism," the antagonism towards the lust of dominion, towards war, towards all that which is not useful, and towards all order of rank and of class).
In natural science, the moral depreciation of the _ego_ still goes hand in hand with the overestimation of the _species._ But the species is quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The ego is a hundred times _more_ than a mere unit in a chain of creatures; it is the chain _itself,_ in every possible respect, and the species is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial similarity of these chains. That the individual is _sacrificed_ to the species, as people often say he is, is not a fact at all: it is rather only an example of false interpretation. The formula of the _"progress"-superstition_ according to a famous physiologist of the cerebral regions:-- _"L'animal ne fait jamais de progrès comme espèce. L'homme seul fait de progrès comme espèce._" No.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.