THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Levy, Oscar, and Ludovici, Anthony M. (Anthony Mario)
Partly owing to the fact that the strength to create and to will has grown to such an extent, that it no longer requires this collective interpretation and introduction of a sense ("present duties," state, etc.);
Partly owing to the fact that even the creative power necessary to invent sense, declines, and disappointment becomes the ruling condition. The inability to believe in a sense becomes "unbelief."
What is the meaning of science in regard to both possibilities?
(1) It is a sign of strength and self-control; it shows an ability to dispense with healing, consoling worlds of illusion.
(2) It is also able to undermine, to dissect, to disappoint, and to weaken.
C.
The belief in truth, the need of holding to something which is believed to be true: psychological reduction apart from the valuations that have existed hitherto. Fear and laziness.
At the same time unbelief: Reduction. In what way does it acquire a new value, if a real world does not exist at all (by this means the capacity of valuing, which hitherto has been lavished upon the world of being, becomes free once more).
586.
The real and the "apparent" world.
A.
The erroneous concepts which proceed from this concept are of three kinds:—
(a) An unknown world:—we are adventurers, we are inquisitive,—that which is known to us makes us weary (the danger of the concept lies in the fact it suggests that "this" world is known to us....);
(b) Another world, where things are different:—something in us draws comparisons, and thereby our calm submission and our silence lose their value—perhaps all will be for the best, we have not hoped in vain.... The world where things are different—who knows?—where we ourselves will be different....
(c) A real world:—that is the most singular blow and attack which we have ever received; so many things have become encrusted in the word "true," that we involuntarily give these to the "real world"; the real world must also be a truthful world, such a one as would not deceive us or make fools of us; to believe in it in this way is to be almost forced to believe (from convention, as is the case among people worthy of confidence).
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The concept, "the unknown world," suggests that this world is known to us (is tedious);
The concept, "the other world," suggests that this world might be different, it suppresses necessity and fate (it is useless to submit and to adapt one's self);
The concept, the true world, suggests that this world is untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, not genuine, and not essential, and consequently not a world calculated to be useful to us (it is unadvisable to become adapted to it; better resist it).
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Thus we escape from "this" world in three different ways:——
(a) With our curiosity—as though the interesting part was somewhere else;
(b) With our submission—as though it was not necessary to submit, as though this world was not an ultimate necessity;
(c) With our sympathy and respect—as though this world did not deserve them, as though it was mean and dishonest towards us....
In summa: we have become revolutionaries in three different ways; we have made x our criticism of the "known world."
B.
The first step to reason: to understand to what extent we have been seduced,—for it might be precisely the reverse:
(a) The unknown world could be so constituted as to give us a liking for "this" world—it may be a more stupid and meaner form of existence.
(b) The other world, very far from taking account of our desires which were never realised here, might be part of the mass of things which this world makes possible for us; to learn to know this world would be a means of satisfying us,
(c) The true world: but who actually says that the apparent world must be of less value than the true world? Do not our instincts contradict this judgment? Is not man eternally occupied in creating an imaginative world, because he will have a better world than reality? In the first place, how do we know that our world is not the true world? ... for it might be that the other world is the world of "appearance" (as a matter of fact, the Greeks, for instance, actually imagined a region of shadows, a life of appearance, beside real existence). And finally, what right have we to establish degrees of reality, as it were? That is something different from an unknown world—that is already the will to know something of the unknown. The "other," the "unknown" world—good! but to speak of the "true world" is as good as "knowing something about it,"—that is the contrary of the assumption of an x-world....
In short, the world x might be in every way a more tedious, a more inhuman, and a less dignified world than this one.
It would be quite another matter if it were assumed that there were several x-worlds—that is to say, every possible kind of world besides our own. But this has never been assumed....
C.
Problem: why has the image of the other world always been to the disadvantage of "this" one—that is to say, always stood as a criticism of it; what does this point to?—
A people that are proud of themselves, and who are on the ascending path of Life, always; picture another existence as lower and less valuable than theirs; they regard the strange unknown world as their enemy, as their opposite; they feel no curiosity, but rather repugnance in regard to what is strange to them.... Such a body of men would never admit that another people were the "true people"....
The very fact that such a distinction is possible,—that this world should be called the world of appearance, and that the other should be called the true world,—is symptomatic.
The places of origin of the idea, of "another world":
The philosopher who invents a rational world where reason and logical functions are adequate:—this is the root of the "true" world.
The religious man who invents a "divine world";—this is the root of the "denaturalised" and the "anti-natural" world.
The moral man who invents a "free world":—this is the root of the good, the perfect, the just, and the holy world.