Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which it has been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while to try and see whether a scientific order of values might not be constructed according to a scale of numbers and measures representing energy.... All other values are matters of prejudice, simplicity, and misunderstanding. They may all be reduced to that scale of numbers and measures representing energy. The ascent in this scale would represent an increase of value, the descent a diminution. But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are only apparent values compared with those which are physiological). 711. Why the standpoint of "value" lapses:-- Because in the _"whole process of the universe" the work of mankind does not come under consideration_; because a general process (viewed in the light of a system) does not exist. Because there is no such thing as a whole; because no _depreciation of human_ existence or human aims can be made in regard to something that does not exist. Because "necessity," "causality," "design," are merely useful "_semblances._" Because the aim is _not_ "the increase of the sphere of consciousness," _but the increase of power_; in which increase the utility of consciousness is also contained; and the same holds good of pleasure and pain. Because a mere _means_ must not be elevated to the highest criterion of value (such as states of consciousness like pleasure and pain, if consciousness is in itself only a means). Because the world is not an organism at all, but a thing of chaos; because the development of "intellectuality" is only a means tending relatively to extend the duration of an organisation. Because all "desirability" has no sense in regard to the general character of existence. 712. "God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying and undeifying. _But withal there is no zenith of values,_ but only a zenith of _power._ Absolute _exclusion of mechanical and materialistic interpretations._ they are both only expressions of inferior states, of emotions deprived of all spirit (of the "will to power"). _The retrograde movement front the zenith_ of development (the intellectualisation of power on some slave-infected soil) may be shown to be the _result_ of the highest degree of energy _turning against_ itself, once it no longer has anything to organise, and utilising its power in order to _disorganise._ _(a)_ The ever-increasing _suppression_ of societies, and the latter's subjection by a smaller number of stronger individuals. (b) The ever-increasing suppression of the privileged and the strong, hence the rise of democracy, and ultimately of _anarchy,_ in the elements. 713.