The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV
Nietzsche · en
The mixing together of the concept of numbers, of the concept of thing
(the idea of subject), of the concept of activity (the separation of
that which is the cause, and the effect), of the concept of movement:
all these things are phenomenal; our eye and our _psychology_ are still
in it all.
If we eliminate these adjuncts, nothing remains over but dynamic
quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta: the
essence of which resides in their relation to all other quanta, in
their "influence" upon the latter. The will to power, not Being, not
Becoming, but a _pathos_--is the elementary fact, from these first
results a Becoming, an influencing....
636.
The physicists believe in a "true world" after their own kind; a
fixed _systematising of atoms_ to perform necessary movements, and
holding good equally of all creatures, so that, according to them,
the "world of appearance" reduces itself to the side of general and
generally-needed Being, which is accessible to every one according to
his kind (accessible and also adjusted,--made "subjective"). But here
they are in error. The atom which they postulate is arrived at by the
logic of that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself therefore
a subjective fiction. This picture of the world which they project
is in no way essentially different from the subjective picture: the
only difference is, that it is composed simply with more extended
senses, but certainly with _our_ senses.... And in the end, without
knowing it, they left something out of the constellation: precisely
the necessary _perspective factor,_ by means of which every centre of
power--and not man alone--constructs the rest of the world _from its
point of view_--that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds it
according to its degree of strength.... They forgot to reckon with
this perspective-fixing power, in "true being,"--or, in school-terms,
subject-being. They suppose that this was "evolved" and added;--but
even the chemical investigator needs it: it is indeed _specific Being,_
which determines action and reaction according to circumstances.
_Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness._ My idea is
that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to
extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything
that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same
endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms
with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related
to it--_and thus they conspire together for power._ And the process
continues.
637.
Even in the inorganic world all that concerns an atom of energy is its
immediate neighbourhood: distant forces balance each other. Here is
the root of _perspectivity,_ and it explains why a living organism is
"egoistic" to the core.
638.