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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[Pg 94] 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[Pg 95] 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[Pg 96] 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.
The common factor in the three places of origin: psychological error, physiological confusion.
With what attributes is the "other world," as it actually appears in history, characterised? With the stigmata of philosophical, religious, and moral prejudices.
The "other world" as it appears in the light of these facts, is synonymous with not-Being, with not-living, with the will not to live....
General aspect: it was the instinct of the fatigue of living, and not that of life, which created the "other world."
Result: philosophy, religion, and morality are symptoms of decadence.
(l) The Biological Value of Knowledge.
587.
It might seem as though I had evaded the question concerning "certainty". The reverse is true: but while raising the question of the criterion of certainty, I wished to discover the weights and measures with which men had weighed heretofore—and to show that the question[Pg 97] concerning certainty is already in itself a dependent question, a question of the second rank.
588.
The question of values is more fundamental than the question of certainty: the latter only becomes serious once the question of values has been answered.
Being and appearance, regarded psychologically, yield no "Being in itself," no criterion for reality, but only degrees of appearance, measured according to the strength of the sympathy which we feel for appearance.
There is no struggle for existence between ideas and observations, but only a struggle for supremacy—the vanquished idea is not annihilated, but only driven to the background or subordinated. There is no such thing as annihilation in intellectual spheres.
589.
"End and means"
"Cause and effect"
"Subject and object"
"Action and suffering"
"Thing-in-itself and
appearance"
As interpretations (not as established facts)—and in what respect were they perhaps necessary interpretations? (as "preservative measures")—all in the sense of a Will to Power.
590.
Our values are interpreted into the heart of things.
Is there, then, any sense in the absolute?
Is not sense necessarily relative-sense and perspective?
All sense is Will to Power (all relative senses may be identified with it).
591.
The desire for "established facts"—Epistemology: how much pessimism there is in it!
592.
The antagonism between the "true world," as pessimism depicts it, and a world in which it were possible to live—for this the rights of truth must be tested. It is necessary to measure all these "ideal forces" according to the standard of life, in order to understand the nature of that antagonism: the struggle of sickly, desperate life, cleaving to a beyond, against healthier, more foolish, more false, richer, and fresher life. Thus it is not "truth" struggling with Life, but one kind of Life with another kind.—But the former would fain be the higher kind!—Here we must prove that some order of rank is necessary,—that the first problem is the order of rank among kinds of Life.
593.
The belief, "It is thus and thus," must be altered into the will, "Thus and thus shall it be."
