Theses:--The apparent conformity of means to end ("the conformity of means to end which far surpasses the art of man) is merely the result of that "_Will to Power_" which manifests itself in all phenomena:--_To become stronger_ involves a process of ordering, which may well be mistaken for an attempted conformity of means to end:--The _ends_ which are apparent are not intended but, as soon as a superior power prevails over an inferior power, and the latter proceeds to work as a function of the former, an order of _rank_ is established, an organisation which must give rise to the idea that there is an arrangement of means and ends. Against apparent "_necessity_":-- This is only an expression for the fact that a certain power is not also something else. Against the apparent conformity of means to ends":-- The latter is only an _expression_ for the order among the spheres of power and their interplay. _(i)_ The Thing-in-Itself and Appearance. 553. The foul blemish on Kant's criticism has at last become visible even to the coarsest eyes: Kant had no right to his distinction "_appearance_" and "_thing-in-itself,_"--in his own writings he had deprived himself of the right of differentiating any longer in this old and hackneyed manner, seeing that he had condemned the practice of drawing any conclusions concerning the cause of an appearance from the appearance itself, as unallowable in accordance with his conception of the idea of causality and its _purely intraphenomenal_ validity, and this conception, on the other hand, already anticipates that _differentiation,_ as if the "thing in itself" were not only inferred but actually _given._ 554. It is obvious that neither things-in-themselves _nor_ appearances can be related to each other in the form of cause and effect: and from this it follows that the concept "cause and effect" is _not applicable_ in a philosophy which believes in things-in-themselves and in appearances. Kant's mistake--... As a matter of fact, from a psychological standpoint, the concept "cause and effect" is derived from an attitude of mind which believes it sees the action of will upon will everywhere, which believes only in living things, and at bottom only in souls (not in things). Within the mechanical view of the world (which is logic and its application to space and time) that concept is reduced to the mathematical formula with which--and this is a fact which cannot be sufficiently emphasised--nothing is ever understood, but rather _defined_--deformed. 555.