The will to power in every combination of forces, _defending itself against the stronger and coming down unmercifully upon the weaker, is more correct._ N. B. _All processes may be regarded as "beings"._ 656. The will to power can manifest itself only against _obstacles;_ it therefore goes in search of what resists it--this is the primitive tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its _pseudopodia_ and feels about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the result of a desire to overpower, a process of forming, of additional building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.--If this process of incorporation does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to pieces; and the _separation_ occurs as the result of the will to power: in order to prevent the escape of that which has been subjected, the will to power falls into two wills (under some circumstances without even abandoning completely its relation to the two). "Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation, once the fundamental instinct of power has won power of a more abstract kind. 657. What is "passive"? To be hindered in the outward movement of grasping: it is thus an act of resistance and reaction. What is "active"? To stretch out for power. "Nutrition"... Is only a derived phenomenon; the primitive form of it was the will to stuff everything inside one's own skin. "Procreation"... Only derived; originally, in those cases In which one will was unable to organise the collective mass it had appropriated, an _opposing will_ came into power, which undertook to effect the separation and establish a new centre of organisation, after a struggle with the original will. "Pleasure"... Is a feeling of power (presupposing the existence of pain). 658. (1) The organic functions shown to be but forms of the fundamental will, the will to power,--and buds thereof. (2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to property, to _tools,_ to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body as an example.--The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained mechanically. (3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms. What is a desire if it be not: a provocation of the feeling of power by an obstacle (or, better still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting forces)--so that it surges through it? Thus in all pleasure pain is understood.--If the pleasure is to be very great, the pains preceding it must have been very long, and the whole bow of life must have been strained to the utmost. (4) Intellectual functions. The will to shaping, forming, and making like, etc. _(b) Man._ 659.