_The belief in willing._ To believe that a thought may be the cause of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles. The _consistency of science_ demands that once we have made the world _thinkable_ for ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the desires, the will, etc., _thinkable_--that is to say, we should _deny_ them and treat them as _errors of the intellect._ 671. Free will or no free will?--There is _no such thing_ as "_Will_": that is only a simplified conception on the part of the understanding, like "matter." _All actions must first be prepared and made possible mechanically before they can be willed._ Or, _in most cases_ the "_object_" of an action enters the brain only after everything is prepared for its accomplishment. The object is an inner "stimulus"--nothing _more._ 672. The most proximate prelude to an action relates to that action: but _further back still_ there lies a preparatory history which covers _a far wider field:_ the individual action is only a factor in a much more extensive and _subsequent_ fact. The shorter and the longer processes are not reported. 673. The theory of _chance:_ the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (this _creative_ power is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely passive). I recognised the _active_ and creative _power_ within the accidental.--Accident is in itself nothing more than _the clashing of creative impulses._ 674. Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an organic being, that part which becomes _conscious_ is a mere means: and the particle of "virtue," "self abnegation," and other fanciful inventions, are denied in a most thoroughgoing manner by the whole of the remaining phenomena. We would do well to study our organism in all its immorality.... The animal functions are, as a matter of fact, a million times more important than all beautiful states of the soul and heights of consciousness: the latter are an overflow, in so far as they are not needed as instruments in the service of the animal functions. The whole of _conscious_ life: the spirit together with the soul, the heart, goodness, and virtue; in whose service does it work? In the greatest possible perfection of the means (for acquiring nourishment and advancement) serving the fundamental animal functions: above all, the _ascent of the line of Life._ That which is called "flesh" and "body" is of such incalculably greater importance, that the rest is nothing more than a small appurtenance. To continue the chain of life _so that it becomes ever more powerful_--that is the task.