The Potential of the Human Will in History

[Enigma3]

"The question is in the end whether we really recognize the will as efficient, whether we believe in the causality of the will: if we do--and at bottom our faith in this is nothing less than our faith in causality itself--then we have to make the experiment of positing causality of the will hypothetically as the only one. "Will," of course, can affect only "will"--and not "matter" (not "nerves," for example). In short, one has to risk the hypothesis whether will does not affect will wherever "effects" are recognized--and whether all mechanical occurrences are not, insofar as a force is active in them, will force, effects of will.

Suppose, finally, we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one basic form of the will--namely, of the will to power, as my proposition has it... then one would have gained the right to determine all efficient force univocally as--will to power. The world viewed from inside... it would be "will to power" and nothing else."

from Beyond Good and Evil, s.36, Walter Kaufmann transl.

"All things are full of Gods." - - Thales

"There is only one thing, distinctions within which are simply appearance." - -F.H. Bradley

"And shall an atom of this atom world mutter the theme of heaven?" - - Young (1742)

"An organism is the community of the Universe in the service of the individual." - - C. G. Stone

I would argue the entire Cosmos is organic and finite. It is a philosophical error to impose any categorical distinction between the realm of the non-biological sphere and that of the biological, living sphere.

The pre-Socratics were right in interpreting the Universe-as-organism, and Schopenhauer also knew this. As we know, Schopenhauer believed that there was, beating at the heart of nature, a blind will. Matter is the father of life and instinct is higher than consciousness. Deep into nature we borrow Archimedes 'lever' and thus move the world.

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[Dontaskme]

"The question is in the end whether we really recognize the will as efficient, whether we believe in the causality of the will: if we do--and at bottom our faith in this is nothing less than our faith in causality itself--then we have to make the experiment of positing causality of the will hypothetically as the only one. "Will," of course, can affect only "will"--and not "matter" (not "nerves," for example). In short, one has to risk the hypothesis whether will does not affect will wherever "effects" are recognized--and whether all mechanical occurrences are not, insofar as a force is active in them, will force, effects of will.

Suppose, finally, we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one basic form of the will--namely, of the will to power, as my proposition has it... then one would have gained the right to determine all efficient force univocally as--will to power. The world viewed from inside... it would be "will to power" and nothing else."

from Beyond Good and Evil, s.36, Walter Kaufmann transl.

"All things are full of Gods." - - Thales

"There is only one thing, distinctions within which are simply appearance." - -F.H. Bradley

"And shall an atom of this atom world mutter the theme of heaven?" - - Young (1742)

"An organism is the community of the Universe in the service of the individual." - - C. G. Stone

I would argue the entire Cosmos is organic and finite. It is a philosophical error to impose any categorical distinction between the realm of the non-biological sphere and that of the biological, living sphere.

The pre-Socratics were right in interpreting the Universe-as-organism, and Schopenhauer also knew this. As we know, Schopenhauer believed that there was, beating at the heart of nature, a blind will. Matter is the father of life and instinct is higher than consciousness. Deep into nature we borrow Archimedes 'lever' and thus move the world.

-

The will is free...what wills is timeless, what will wills is bound in time. Time is an illusion within timelessness, sustained by the illusion itself.

That which is, is without cause
That which seems to be, is caused
That which is causeless, is the cause of all things...
That seem to be. This is the only true power.