724 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



than error. To put truth above error and illusion, to love truth for 

 its own sake instead of as a means of life, is turning things upside 

 down, is a diseased instinct. Indeed this ideal of truth for truth's 

 sake is only another form of asceticism, it is a denial or negation of 

 life for something else. 



Besides, Nietzsche goes on to tell us, there is no universial truth 

 anyhow, there are no eternal truths, no truths accepted by all. The 

 propositions that have been offered as truths are errors. Thinking is 

 really inaccurate perception, it looks for similarities and overlooks 

 differences, thereby producing a false picture of reality. There is 

 no such thing as substance, there is nothing permanent; there is no 

 universal causal nexus; there is no purpose in nature, no definite goal. 

 The universe does not care for our happiness of morality, there is no 

 divine power outside that can help us. Our vanity of course hinders 

 us from accepting the view that there is no purpose, no goal in the 

 universe. " The total character of the universe is for all eternity 

 chaos, not in the sense that necessity is wanting in it, but in the 

 sense that it is without order, organization, beauty, form, wisdom 

 and whatever else our esthetic anthropomorphism may put into it. 

 Judged by our reason the misses are the rule, the exceptions are not 

 the secret goal, and the whole play eternally repeats its air which can 

 never be called a melody; and finally the expression unlucky throw 

 or miss, is a human way of talking which implies reproach. But how 

 •can we either praise or blame the All ? " " Man is a little exaggerated 

 animal that — fortunately — has had its day; life on the earth is only 

 a moment, an episode, an exception without consequence, something 

 that has almost no significance for the total character of the earth; 

 the earth itself, like every star, is a hiatus between two nothings, an 

 event without plan, reason, will, self-consciousness, the worst kind of 

 necessity, stupid necessity. Against this view something in us pro- 

 tests ; the serpent vanity persuades us : ' all that must be false for it 

 makes us indignant. Could it not all be mere semblance? ' " 



All these propositions, then, that have been accepted as universal 

 truths are merely errors and illusions, phantoms of the imagination; 

 the belief in a God and in a supersensuous world, in an abiding world, 

 is an illusion. Knowledge is a tool for power. The utility for preser- 

 vation is the motive behind the development of the organs of knowl- 

 edge. We arrange the world so in our thoughts as to make our ex- 

 istence possible; hence we believe in something permanent and 

 regularly recurring. We reduce the confused plurality of experiences 

 offered to us, to a rational and manageable scheme by means of formulas 

 and signs which we invent; the purpose being to deceive ourselves in 

 a useful way. In this sense the will for truth is the will to become 

 master of the plurality of sensations — to string the phenomena on 

 certain categories. A species understands so much of reality as is 



