0 Beyond Good and Evilmay not repudiate nowadays—it follows ‘from its definition,’
as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately whether
we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we
believe in the causality of the will; if we do so—and funda-
mentally our belief IN THIS is just our belief in causality
itself—we MUST make the attempt to posit hypothetical-
ly the causality of the will as the only causality. ‘Will’ can
naturally only operate on ‘will’—and not on ‘matter’ (not
on ‘nerves,’ for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be
hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever
‘effects’ are recognized—and whether all mechanical action,
inasmuch as a power operates therein, is not just the power
of will, the effect of will. Granted, finally, that we succeeded
in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development
and ramification of one fundamental form of will—namely,
the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it; granted that all or-
ganic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power,
and that the solution of the problem of generation and nu-
trition—it is one problem— could also be found therein:
one would thus have acquired the right to define ALL ac-
tive force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER. The world
seen from within, the world defined and designated accord-
ing to its ‘intelligible character’—it would simply be ‘Will to
Power,’ and nothing else.
- ‘What? Does not that mean in popular language: God
is disproved, but not the devil?’—On the contrary! On the
contrary, my friends! And who the devil also compels you
to speak popularly!