Frau Foerster-Nietzsche tells us that the notion that "The Will to Power" was the fundamental principle of all life, first occurred to her brother in the year 1870, at the seat of war, while he was serving as a volunteer in a German army ambulance. On one occasion, at the close of a very heavy day with the wounded, he happened to enter a small town which lay on one of the chief military roads. He was wandering through it in a leisurely fashion when, suddenly, as he turned the corner of a street that was protected on either side by lofty stone walls, he heard a roaring noise, as of thunder, which seemed to come from the immediate neighbourhood. He hurried forward a step or two, and what should he see, but a magnificent cavalry regiment--gloriously expressive of the courage and exuberant strength of a people--ride past him like a luminous stormcloud. The thundering din waxed louder and louder, and lo and behold! his own beloved regiment of field artillery dashed forward at full speed, out of the mist of motes, and sped westward amid an uproar of clattering chains and galloping steeds. A minute or two elapsed, and then a column of infantry appeared, advancing at the double--the men's eyes were aflame, their feet struck the hard road like mighty hammer-strokes, and their accoutrements glistened through the haze. While this procession passed before him, on its way to war and perhaps to death,--so wonderful in its vital strength and formidable courage, and so perfectly symbolic of a race that _will_ conquer and prevail, or perish in the attempt,--Nietzsche was struck with the thought that the highest will to live could not find its expression in a miserable "struggle for existence," but in a will to war, a Will to Power, a will to overpower! This is said to be the history of his first conception of that principle which is at the root of all his philosophy, and twelve years later, in _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ we find him expounding it thus:-- "Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master. "Only where there is life, is there also will: not, however, Will to Life, but--so teach I thee--Will to Power! "Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one; but out of the very reckoning speaketh--the Will to Power!" And three years later still, in _Beyond Good and Evil,_ we read the following passage:-- "Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to _discharge_ its strength--life itself is _Will to Power_; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof."