The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
708.
_Concerning the value of "Becoming."_--If the movement of the world really tended to reach a final state, that state would already have been reached. The only fundamental fact, however, is that it does not tend to reach a final state: and every philosophy and scientific hypothesis (_e.g._ materialism) according to which such a final state is necessary, is refuted by this fundamental fact. I should like to have a concept of the world which does justice to this fact. Becoming ought to be explained without having recourse to such final designs. Booming must appear justified at every instant (or it must defy all valuation: which has unity as its end); the present must not under any circumstances be justified by a future, nor must the past be justified for the sake of the present. "Necessity" must not be interpreted in the form of a prevailing and ruling collective force or as a prime motor; and still less as the necessary cause of some valuable result. But to this end it is necessary to deny a collective consciousness for Becoming,--a "God," in order that life may not be veiled under the shadow of a being who feels and knows as we do and yet _wills_ nothing: "God" is useless if he wants nothing; and if he do want something, this presupposes a general sum of suffering and irrationality which lowers the general value of Becoming. Fortunately any such general power is lacking (a suffering God overlooking everything, a general sensorium and ubiquitous Spirit, would be the greatest indictment of existence).
Strictly speaking nothing of the nature of Being must be allowed to remain,--because in that case Becoming loses its value and gets to be sheer and superfluous nonsense. The next question, then, is: how did the illusion Being originate (why was it obliged to originate); Likewise: how was it that all valuations based upon the hypothesis that there was such a thing as Being came to be depreciated. But in this way we have recognised that this hypothesis concerning Being is the source of all the calumny that has been directed against the world (the "Better world," the "True world" the "World Beyond," the "Thing-in-itself"). (1) Becoming has no final state, it does not tend towards stability. (2) Becoming is not a state of appearance, the world of Being is probably only appearance. (3) Becoming is of precisely the same value at every instant; the sum of its value always remains equal: expressed otherwise, it has no value; for that according to which it might be measured, and in regard to which the word value might have some sense, is entirely lacking. The collective value of the world defies valuation; for this reason philosophical pessimism belongs to the order of farces. We should not make our little desiderata the judges of existence! Neither should we make culminating evolutionary forms (_e.g._ mind) the "absolute" which stands behind evolution!
Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which it has been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while to try and see whether a scientific order of values might not be constructed according to a scale of numbers and measures representing energy.... All other values are matters of prejudice, simplicity, and misunderstanding. They may all be reduced to that scale of numbers and measures representing energy. The ascent in this scale would represent an increase of value, the descent a diminution. But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are only apparent values compared with those which are physiological).
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.