V
Such is the construction which Nietzsche offers in its most general terms. It is an hypothesis purely—he so speaks of it.[1] To take it as a dogma is to misconceive it and miss its value (whatever value it has). It is something to mull over—and then to accept or no according as it seems to cover the ground and meet theoretic requirements. (Other requirements have to be left out of account by one who takes up the problem in Nietzsche's spirit.) I shall be content in what follows if I can make the hypothesis reasonably clear.
In the first place, "will to power" is a theoretic proposition. By many it is taken as an ethical standard (and rather a brutal one); but primarily it is with Nietzsche an analysis or interpretation of reality—a view as to its last elements.[2] Secondly, it is manifest that it is not merely power on a physical level that is in his mind; indeed, it may be questioned whether the discovery that instincts of power lie behind a large range of mental operations and also play an important part in the varying moralities of men, did not contribute as much as anything else to the formation of the view. Further, the view is relatively new in his intellectual history. It is, in a sense, metaphysical and stands in contrast with the purely critical and positivistic attitude of his middle period.[3] Then he had spoken of the idea that will is the essence of things as "primitive mythology"; w now he is ready to argue from analogy, and frankly takes man as his starting-point.[4] One might almost call it a return to the metaphysics of his first period, except that now he is less assured of the subjectivity of space and time (time at least he asserts to be objective), and the will is many, not one—the Primal Will (Urwille), that eases itself of its pain by looking at itself objectively and so creating the world, being left our of account. The view might be described as Pluralistic Voluntarism. x The question of the origin of the many wills is
