The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV
Nietzsche · en
The doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, to which Nietzsche attached so much
importance that it may be regarded almost as the inspiration which led
to his great work, _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ ought to be understood
in the light of a purely disciplinary and chastening creed. In one of
his posthumous works we find Nietzsche saying: "The question which
thou shalt have to answer before every deed that thou doest;--is this
such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable number of
times,--is the best ballast." Thus it is obvious that, feeling the need
of something in his teaching which would replace the metaphysics of
former beliefs, he applied the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence to this
end. Seeing, however, that even among Nietzscheans themselves there
is considerable doubt concerning the actual value of the doctrine as
a ruling belief, it does not seem necessary to enter here into the
scientific justification which he claims for it. Suffice it to say
that, as knowledge stands at present, the statement that the world will
recur eternally in small things as in great, is still a somewhat daring
conjecture--a conjecture, however, which would have been entirely
warrantable if its disciplinary value had been commensurate with its
daring.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
THIRD BOOK.
THE PRINCIPLES OF A NEW VALUATION.
I.
THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
(a) The Method of Investigation.
466.
The distinguishing feature of our nineteenth century is not the triumph
of _science,_ but the triumph of the scientific _method_ over science.
467.
_The history of scientific methods_ was regarded by Auguste Comte
almost as philosophy itself.
468.
The great _Methodologists:_ Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Auguste Comte.
469.
The most valuable knowledge is always discovered last: but the most
valuable knowledge consists of _methods._
All methods, all the hypotheses on which the science of our day
depends, were treated with the profoundest contempt for centuries:
on their account a man used to be banished from the society of
_respectable_ people--he was held to be an "_enemy of God,_" a reviler
of the highest ideal, a madman.
We had the whole _pathos_ of mankind against us,--our notion of what
"truth" ought to be, of what the service of truth ought to be, our
objectivity, our method, our calm, cautious and distrustful manner were
altogether _despicable...._ At bottom, that which has kept men back
most, is an æsthetic taste: they believed in the picturesque effect of
truth; what they demanded of the scientist was, that he should make a
strong appeal to their imagination.
From the above, it would almost seem as if the very _reverse_ had been
achieved, as if a sudden _jump_ had been made: as a matter of fact, the
schooling which the moral hyperboles afforded, gradually prepared the
way for that _milder form of pathos_ which at last became incarnate in
the scientific man....