Our empirical world would thus be conditioned, even in its limits to knowledge, by the instinct of self-preservation, we regard that as good, valuable, and true, which favours the preservation of the species.... _(a)_ We have no categories which allow us to distinguish between a real and an apparent world. (At the most, there could exist a world of appearance, but not _our_ world of appearance.) _(b)_ Taking the _real_ world for granted, it might still be the _less valuable_ to us; for the quantum of illusion might be of the highest order, owing to its value to us as a preservative measure. (Unless _appearance_ in itself were sufficient to condemn anything?) _(c)_ That there exists a correlation between the _degrees of value_ and the _degrees of reality_ (so that the highest values also possessed the greatest degree of reality), is a metaphysical postulate which starts out with the hypothesis that we _know_ the order of rank among values; and that this order is a _moral_ one. It is only on this hypothesis that _truth_ is necessary as a definition of all that is of a superior value. _B._ It is of cardinal importance that the _real world_ should be suppressed. It is the most formidable inspirer of doubts, and depredator of values, concerning the _world which we are_: it was our most dangerous_ attempt_ heretofore on the life of Life. _War_ against all the hypotheses upon which a real world has been imagined. The notion that _moral values_ are the _highest_ values, belongs to this hypothesis. The superiority of the moral valuation would be refuted, if it could be shown to be the result of an _immoral_ valuation--a specific case of real immorality: it would thus reduce itself to an _appearance,_ and as an _appearance_ it would cease from having any right to condemn appearance. _C._ Then the "Will to Truth" would have to be examined psychologically: it is not a moral power, but a form of the Will to Power. This would have to be proved by the fact that it avails itself of every _immoral_ means there is; above all, of the metaphysicians. At the present moment we are face to face with the necessity of testing the assumption that moral values are the highest values, _Method in research_ is attained only when all _moral prejudices_ have been overcome: it represents a conquest over morality.... 584.