The greatest of all fables is the one relating to knowledge. People would like to know how things-in-themselves are constituted: but behold, there are no things-in-themselves! But even supposing there _were_ an "in-itself," an unconditional thing, it could on that very account _not be known_! Something unconditioned cannot be known: otherwise it would not be unconditioned! Knowing, however, is always a process of "coming into relation with something"; the knowledge-seeker, on this principle, wants the thing, which he would know, to be nothing to him, and to be nothing to anybody at all: and from this there results a contradiction,--in the first place, between this _will_ to know, and this desire that the thing to be known _should_ be nothing to him (wherefore know at all then?); and secondly, because something which is nothing to anybody, does not even _exist,_ and therefore cannot be known. Knowing means: "to place one's self in relation with something," to feel one's self conditioned by something and one's self conditioning it under all circumstances, then, it is a process of _making stable or fixed,_ of _defining,_ of _making conditions conscious_ (not a process of _sounding_ things, creatures, or objects in-themselves). 556. A "thing-in-itself" is just as absurd as a "sense-in-itself," a "meaning-in-itself." There is no such thing as a "fact-in-itself," _for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact._ The answer to the question, "What is that?" is a process of _fixing a meaning_ from a different standpoint. The "_essence_" the "_essential factor,_" is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective, and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the question is "What is that for me?" (for us, for everything that lives, etc. etc.). A thing would be defined when all creatures had asked and answered this question, "What is that?" concerning it. Supposing that one single creature, with its own relations and standpoint in regard to all things, were lacking, that thing would still remain undefined. In short: the essence of a thing is really only an _opinion_ concerning that "thing." Or, better still; "_it is worth_" is actually what is meant by _"it is"_ or by "that is." One may not ask: "_Who_ interprets, then?" for the act of interpreting _itself_ as a form of the Will to Power, manifests itself (not as "Being," but as a _process,_ as _Becoming_) as a passion.