678. It is a question whether the origin of our apparent " knowledge " is not also a mere offshoot of our older valuations, which are so completely assimilated that they belong to the very basis of our nature. In this way only the more recent needs engage in battle with results of the oldest needs. The world is seen, felt, and interpreted thus and thus, in order that organic life may be preserved with this particular manner of interpretation. Man is not only an individual, but the continuation of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact that man survives, proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of interpreting has not Changed. " Adaptation." Our " dissatisfaction," our " ideal," etc., may possibly be the result of this incorporated piece of interpretation, of our particular point of view: the organic world may ultimately perish owing to it just as the division of labour in organisms may be the means of bringing about the ruin of the whole, if one part happen to wither or weaken. The destruction of organic life, and even of the highest form thereof, must follow the same prin ciples as the destruction of the individual.
679. Judged from the standpoint of the theory of descent, individuation shows the continuous breaking up of one into two, and the equally continuous annihilation of individuals for the sake of a few individuals, which evolution bears onwards; the greater mass always perishes (" the body "). The fundamental phenomena: innumerable in dividuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few, in order to make the few possible. One must not allow one s self to be deceived; the case is the same with peoples and races: they produce the " body " for the generation of isolated and valuable individuals who continue the great process 680. I am opposed to the theory that the individual studies the interests of the species, or of posterity, at the cost of his own advantage: all this is only apparent. The excessive importance which he attaches to the sexual instinct is not the result of the latter s importance to the species; for procreation is the actual performance of the individual, it is his greatest interest, and therefore it is his highest expression of power (not judged from the stand point of consciousness, but from the very centre of the individual).
681. The fundamental errors of the biologists who have lived hitherto: it is not a matter of the species, but of rearing stronger individuals (the many are only a means). Life is not the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever - increasing quantity of " external " phenomena. These biologists continue the moral valuations (" the absolutely higher worth of Altruism," the antagonism towards the lust of dominion, towards war, towards all that which is not useful, and towards all order of rank and of class).
682. In natural science, the moral depreciation of the ego still goes hand in hand with the overestimation of the species. But the species is quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The ego is a hundred times more than a mere unit in a chain of creatures; it is the chain itself, in every possible respect; and the species is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial similarity of these chains. That the individual is sacrificed to the species, as peopfe often say he is, is not a fact at all: it is rather only an example of false interpretation.
683. The formula of the "progress" -superstition according to a famous physiologist of the cerebral regions: " L! animal ne fait jamais de progrh comme espece. L homme seul fait de progres comme espece" No. 155.
684. Anti-Darwin. The domestication of man: what definite value can it have, or has domestication in "V itself a definite value? There are reasons for denying the latter proposition. Darwin s school of thought certainly goes to great pains to convince us of the reverse: it would fain prove that the influence of domestication may be profound and fundamental. For the time being, we stand firmly as we did before; up to the present no results save very superficial modification or degeneration have been shown to follow upon domestication. And everything that escapes from the hand and discipline of man, returns almost immediately to its original natural condition. The type remains constant, man can- not " ddnaturer la nature? Biologists reckon upon the struggle for existence, the death of the weaker creature and the survival of the most robust, most gifted combatant; on that account they imagine a continuous increase in the -perfection of all creatures. We, on the con trary, have convinced ourselves of the fact, that in the struggle for existence, accident serves the V cause of the weak quite as much as that of the strong; that craftiness often supplements strength with advantage; that the prolificness of a species is related in a remarkable manner to that species chances of destruction...Natural Selection is also credited with the power of slowly effecting unlimited metamor phoses: it is believed that every advantage is transmitted by heredity, and strengthened in the course of generations (when heredity is known to be so capricious that...); the happy adaptations of certain creatures to very special conditions of life, are regarded as the result of surrounding influences. Nowhere, however, are examples of unconscious selection to be found (absolutely nowhere). The most different individuals associate one with the other; the extremes become lost in the mass. Each vies with the other to maintain his kind; those creatures whose appearance shields them from certain dangers, do not alter this appearance when they are in an environment quite devoid of danger...If they live in places where their coats or their hides do not conceal them, they do not adapt themselves to their surroundings in any way. The selection of the most beautiful has been so exaggerated, that it greatly exceeds the instincts for beauty in our own race! As a matter of fact, the most beautiful creature often couples with the most debased, and the largest with the smallest. We almost always see males and females taking advantage of their first chance meeting, and manifesting no taste or selectiveness at all. Modification through climate and nourishment but as a matter of fact unimportant. There are no intermediate forms. The growing evolution of creatures is assumed. All grounds for this assumption are entirely lacking. Every type has its limitations: beyond these evolution cannot carry it. * My general point of view. First proposition: Man as a species is not progressing. Higher specimens are indeed attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is not raised. Second proposition; Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress compared with any other animal. The whole of the animal and plant world does not develop from the lower to the higher...but all simultaneously, haphazardly, confusedly, and at variance. The richest and most complex forms and the term " higher type " means no more than this perish more easily: only the lowest succeed in maintaining their apparent imperishableness. The former are seldom attained, and maintain their superior position with difficulty; the latter are compensated by great fruitfulness. In the human race, also, the superior specimens, the happy cases of evolution, are the first to perish amid the fluctuations of chances for and against them. They are exposed to every form of decadence: they are extreme, and, on that account alone, already decadents...The short duration of beauty, of genius, of the Caesar, is sui generis: such things are not heredi tary. The type is inherited, there is nothing extreme or particularly " happy " about a type...It is not a case of a particular fate, or of the " evil will " of Nature, but merely of the concept " superior type ": the higher type is an example of an incom- parably greater degree of complexity a greater sum of co-ordinated elements: but on this account disintegration becomes a thousand times more threatening. " Genius " is the sublimest machine in existence hence it is the most fragile. Third proposition: The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: the Christian). The " wild " man (or, in moral terminology, the evil man) is a reversion to Nature and, in a certain sense, he represents a recovery, a cure from the effects of "culture."...
685. Anti-Darwin. What surprises me most on making a general survey of the great destinies of man, is that I invariably see the reverse of what today Darwin and his school sees or will persist in seeing: selection in favour of the stronger, the better-constituted, and the progress of the species. Precisely the reverse of this stares one in the face: the suppression of the lucky cases, the uselessness of the more highly constituted types, the inevitable mastery of the mediocre, and even of those who are below mediocrity. Unless we are shown some reason why man is an exception among living creatures, I incline to the belief that Darwin s school is everywhere at fault. That will to power, in which I perceive the ultimate reason and character of all change, explains why it is that selection is never in favour of the exceptions and of the lucky cases: the strongest and happiest natures are weak when they are confronted with a majority ruled by organised gregarious instincts and the fear which possesses the weak. My general view of the world of values shows that in the highest values which now sway the destiny of man, the happy cases among men, the select specimens do not prevail: but rather the decadent t specimens, perhaps there is nothing more in- *J teresting in the world than this unpleasant [ spectacle...Strange as it may seem, the strong always have to be upheld against the weak; and the well- constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy against the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals from reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than the, exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the t mediocre; the will to nonentity prevails over the will to life and the general aim now is, in Christian, Buddhistic, Schopenhauerian phrase ology: " It is better not to be than to be." I protest against this formulating of reality into a moral: and I loathe Christianity with a deadly loathing, because it created sublime words and at titudes in order to deck a revolting truth with all the tawdriness of justice, virtue, and godliness...I see all philosophers and the whole of science on their knees before a reality which is the reverse of " the struggle for life," as Darwin and his school understood it that is to say, wherever I look,, I see those prevailing and surviving, who throw i doubt and suspicion upon life and the value of life. The error of the Darwinian school became a problem to me: how can one be so blind as to make this mistake? That species show an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher organisms have developed from the lower. I see that the lower, owing to their numerical strength, their craft, and ruse, now preponderate, and I fail to see an instance in which an accidental change produces an advantage, at least not for a very long period: for it would be necessary to find some reason why an accidental change should become so very strong. I do indeed find the " cruelty of Nature " which is so often referred to; but in a different place: Nature is cruel, but against her lucky and well- constituted children; she protects and shelters and loves the lowly. In short, the increase of a species power, as the result of the preponderance of its particularly well-constituted and strong specimens, is perhaps less of a certainty than that it is the result of the preponderance of its mediocre and lower specimens...in the case of the latter, we find great fruit- fulness and permanence: in the case of the former, the besetting dangers are greater, waste is more rapid, and decimation is more speedy.
686. Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man of the future; all the formative powers which are to produce the latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are enormous, the more promising for the future the modern individual happens to be, the more suffering falls to his lot. This is the pro- founclest concept of suffering. The formative powers clash. The isolation of the individual need not deceive one as a matter of fact, some uninterrupted current does actually flow through all individuals, and does thus unite them. The fact that they feel themselves isolated, is the most powerful spur in the process of setting themselves the loftiest of aims: their search for happiness is the means which keeps together and moderates the for mative powers, and keeps them from being mutually destructive.
687. Excessive intellectual strength sets itself new goals; it is not in the least satisfied by the com mand and the leadership of the inferior world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the " in dividual." We are more than the individual: we are the whole chain itself, with the tasks of all the possible futures of that chain in us.
3. THEORY OF AND OF VALUATIONS.
688. The unitary view of psychology. We are accustomed to regard the development of a vast number of forms as compatible with one single origin. My theory would be: that the will to power is the primitive motive force out of which all other motives have been derived; That it is exceedingly illuminating to sub stitute power for individual " happiness " (after which every living organism is said to strive): " It strives after power, after more power "; happiness is only a symptom of the feeling of power attained, a consciousness of difference (it does not strive after happiness: but happiness steps in when the object is attained, after which the organism has striven: happiness is an accompanying, not an actuating factor); That all motive force is the will to power; that there is no other force, either physical, dynamic, or psychic. In our science, where the concept cause and effect is reduced to a relationship of complete equilibrium, and in which it seems desirable for the same quantum of force to be found on either side, all idea of a motive power is absent: we only apprehend results, and we call these equal from the point of view of their content of force...It is a matter of mere experience that change never ceases: at bottom we have not the smallest grounds for assuming that any one particular change must follow upon any other. On the con trary, any state which has been attained would seem almost forced to maintain itself intact if it had not within itself a capacity for not desiring to maintain itself...Spinoza s proposition concern ing " self-preservation " ought as a matter of fact to put a stop to change. But the proposition is false; the contrary is true. In all living organisms it can be clearly shown that they do everything not to remain as they are, but to become greater...
689. " Will to power" and causality. From a psycho logical point of view the idea of " cause " is our feel ing of power in the act which is called willing our concept "effect" is the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which moves things...A state which accompanies an event and is already an effect of that event is deemed " suffi cient cause " of the latter; the tense relationship of our feeling of power (pleasure as the feeling of power) and of an obstacle being overcome are these things illusions? If we translate the notion " cause " back into the only sphere which is known to us, and out of which we have taken it, we cannot imagine any change in which the will to power is not inherent. We do not know how to account for any change which is not a trespassing of one power on another. Mechanics only show us the results, and then I only in images (movement is a figure of speech); gravitation itself has no mechanical cause, because it is itself the first cause of mechanical results. The will to accumulate force is confined to the phenomenon of life, to nourishment, to procreation, to inheritance, to society, states, customs, authority. Should we not be allowed to assume that this will is the motive power also of chemistry? and of the cosmic order? Not only conservation of energy, but the mini mum amount of waste; so that the only reality is this: the will of every centre of power to become stronger not self-preservation, but the desire to appropriate, to become master, to become more, to become stronger. Is the fact that science is possible a proof of the principle of causation " From like causes, like effects " " A permanent law of things " " In variable order "? Because something is calculable, is it therefore on that account necessary? If something happens thus, and thus only, it is not the manifestation of a " principle," of a " law," of " order." What happens is that certain quanta of power begin to operate, and their essence is to exercise their power over all other quanta of power. Can we assume the existence of a striving after power without a feeling of pleasure and pain, i.e. without the sensation of an increase or a de crease of power? Is mechanism only a language of signs for the concealed fact of a world of fight ing and conquering quanta of will-power? All mechanical first-principles, matter, atoms, weight, pressure, and repulsion, are not facts in themselves, but interpretations arrived at with the help of psychical fictions. Life, which is our best known form of being, is altogether " will to the accumulation of strength " all the processes of life hinge on this: everything aims, not at preservation, but at accretion and accumulation. Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be applied to existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling of power; life is essentially a striving after more power; striving itself is only a straining after more power; the most fundamental and innermost thing of all is this will. (Mechanism is merely the semeiotics of the results.)
690. The thing which is the cause of the existence of development cannot in the course of investiga tion be found above development; it should neither be regarded as " evolving " nor as evolved...the " will to power " cannot have been evolved.
691. What is the relation of the whole of the organic process towards the rest of nature? Here the fundamental will reveals itself.
692. Is the " will to power " a kind of will, or is it identical with the concept will? Is it equivalent to desiring or commanding; is it the will which Schopenhauer says is the essence of things? My proposition is that the will of psychologists hitherto has been an unjustifiable generalization, and that there is no such thing as this sort of will, that instead of the development of one will into several forms being taken as a fact, the character of will has been cancelled owing to the fact that its content, its " whither," was subtracted from it: in Schopenhauer this is so in the highest degree; what he calls " will " is merely an empty word. There is even less plausibility in the will to live: for life is simply one of the manifestations of the will to power; it is quite arbitrary and ridiculous to suggest that everything is striving to enter into this particular form of the will to power.
693. If the innermost essence of existence is the will to power; if happiness is every increase of power, and unhappiness the feeling of not being able to resist, of not being able to become master: may we not then postulate happiness and pain as cardinal facts? Is will possible without these two oscillations of yea and nay? But who feels happiness?...Who will have power?...Nonsensical question! If the essence of all things is itself will to power, and consequently the ability to feel pleasure and pain! Albeit: contrasts and obstacles are necessary, therefore also, relatively, units which trespass on one another.
694. According to the obstacles which a force seeks with a view of overcoming them, the measure of the failure and the fatality thus provoked must increase: and in so far as every force can only manifest itself against some thing that opposes it, an element of unhappiness is necessarily inherent in every action. But this pain acts as a greater incitement to life, and increases the will to power.
695. If pleasure and pain are related to the feeling ol power, life would have to represent such an increase in power that the difference, the " plus," would have to enter consciousness...A dead level of power, if maintained, would have to measure its happiness in relation to depreciations of that level, i.e. in relation to states of unhappiness and not of happiness...The will to an increase lies in the essence of happiness: that power is enhanced, and that this difference becomes conscious. In a state of decadence after a certain time the opposite difference becomes conscious, that is decrease: the memory of former strong moments depresses the present feelings of happiness in this state comparison reduces happiness.
696. It is not the satisfaction of the will which is the cause of happiness (to this superficial theory I am more particularly opposed this absurd psychological forgery in regard to the most simple things), but it is that the will is always striving to overcome that which stands in its way. The feel ing of happiness lies precisely in the discontented- ness of the will, in the fact that without opponents and obstacles it is never satisfied. " The happy man ": a gregarious ideal.
697. The normal discontent of our instincts for instance, of the instinct of hunger, of sex, of movement contains nothing which is in itself depressing; it rather provokes the feeling of life, and, whatever the pessimists may say to us, like all the rhythms of small and irritating stimuli, it strengthens. Instead of this discontent making us sick of life, it is rather the great stimulus to life. (Pleasure might even perhaps be characterised as the rhythm of small and painful stimuli.)
698. Kant says: " These lines of Count Verri s (SuW indole del piacere e del dolore; 1781) I confirm with absolute certainty: II solo principle motore dell uomo e il dolore. II dolore precede ogni piacere. II piacere non e un essere positive. [On the Nature of Pleasure and Pain. " The only motive force of man is pain. Pain precedes every pleasure. Pleasure is not a positive thing."]
699. Pain is something different from pleasure I mean it is not the latter s opposite. If the essence of pleasure has been aptly characterized as the feeling of increased power (that is to say, as a feeling of difference which presupposes comparison), that does not define the nature of pain. The false contrasts which the people, and consequently the language, believes in, are always dangerous fetters which impede the march of truth. There are even cases where a kind of pleasure is conditioned by a certain rhythmic sequence of small, painful stimuli: in this way a very rapid growth of the feeling of power and of the feeling of pleasure is attained. This is the case, for instance, in tickling, also in the sexual tickling which accompanies the coitus: here we see pain acting as the ingredient of happiness. It seems to be a small hindrance which is overcome, followed immediately by another small hindrance which once again is overcome this play of resistance and resistance overcome is the greatest excitant of that complete feeling of overflowing and surplus power which constitutes the essence of happiness. The converse, which would be an increase in the feeling of pain through small intercalated pleasurable stimuli, does not exist: pleasure and pain are not opposites. Pain is undoubtedly an intellectual process in which a judgment is inherent the judgment "harmful," in which long experience is epitomized. There is no such thing as pain in itself. It is not the wound that hurts, it is the experience of the harmful results a wound may have for the whole organism, which here speaks in this deeply moving way, and is called pain. (In the case of deleterious influences which were unknown to ancient man, as, for instance, those residing in the new combination of poisonous chemicals, the hint from pain is lacking, and we are lost.) That which is quite peculiar in pain is the pro longed disturbance, the quivering subsequent to a terrible shock in the ganglia of the nervous system. As a matter of fact, nobody suffers from the cause of pain (from any sort of injury, for instance), but from the protracted disturbance of his equilibrium which follows upon the shock. Pain is a disease of the cerebral centers pleasure is no disease at all. The fact that pain may be the cause of reflex actions has appearances and even philosophical prejudice in its favor. But in very sudden accidents, if we observe closely, we find that the reflex action occurs appreciably earlier than the feeling of pain. I should be in a bad way when I stumbled if I had to wait until the fact had struck the bell of my consciousness, and until a hint of what I had to do had been telegraphed back to me. On the contrary, what I notice as clearly as possible is, that first, in order to avoid a fall, reflex action on the part of my foot takes place, and then, after a certain measurable space of time, there follows quite suddenly a kind of painful wave in my forehead. Nobody, then, reacts to pain. Pain is subsequently projected into the wounded quarter but the essence of this local pain is nevertheless not the expression of a kind of local wound: it is merely a local sign, the strength and nature of which is in keeping with the severity of the wound, and of which the nerve centers have taken note. The fact that as the result of this shock the muscular power of the organism is materially reduced, does not prove in any way that the essence of pain is to be sought in the lowering of the feeling of power. Once more let me repeat: nobody reacts to pain: pain is no " cause " of action. Pain itself is a reaction; the reflex movement is another and earlier process both originate at different points...
700. The message of pain: in itself pain does not announce that which has been momentarily damaged, but the significance of this damage for the individual as a whole. Are we to suppose that there are any pains which "the species" feel, and which the individual does not?
701. " The sum of unhappiness outweighs the sum of happiness: consequently it were better that the world did not exist " " The world is something which from a rational standpoint it were better did not exist, because it occasions more pain than pleasure to the feeling subject " this futile gossip now calls itself pessimism! Pleasure and pain are accompanying factors, not causes; they are second-rate valuations derived from a dominating value, they are one with the feeling " useful 5 " harmful," and therefore they are absolutely fugitive and relative. For in regard to all utility and harmfulness there are a hundred different ways of asking " what for? " I despise this pessimism of sensitiveness: it is in itself a sign of profoundly impoverished life.
702. Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody knows the famous pre judices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are mere results, mere accompanying phenomena that which every man, which every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are en countered; it is owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that which stands in its way...Pain as the hindrance of its will to power is therefore a normal feature, a natural in gredient of every organic phenomenon; man does not avoid it, on the contrary, he is constantly in need of it: every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event presupposes an obstacle overcome. Let us take the simplest case, that of primitive nourishment; the protoplasm extends its pseudo- podia in order to seek for that which resists it, it does not do so out of hunger, but owing to its will to power. Then it makes the attempt to over come, to appropriate, and to incorporate that with which it comes into contact what people call " nourishment " is merely a derivative, a utilitarian application, of the primordial will to become stronger. Pain is so far from acting as a diminution of our feeling of power, that it actually forms in the majority of cases a spur to this feeling, the obstacle is the stimulus of the will to power.
703. Pain has been confounded with one of its subdivisions, which is exhaustion: the latter does indeed represent a profound reduction and lowering of the will to power, a material loss of strength that is to say, there is (a) pain as the stimulus to an increase or power, and () pain following upon an expenditure of power; in the first case it is a spur, in the second it is the outcome of ex cessive spurring...The inability to resist is proper to the latter form of pain: the provocation of that which resists is proper to the former...The only happiness which is to be felt in the state of exhaustion is that of going to sleep; in the other case, happiness means triumph...The great confusion of psychologists consisted in the fact that they did not keep these two kinds of happiness that of falling asleep, and that of triumph sufficiently apart. Exhausted people will have repose, slackened limbs, peace and quiet and these things constitute the bliss of Nihilistic religions and philosophies; the wealthy in vital strength, the active, want triumph, defeated opponents, and the extension of their feeling of power over ever wider regions. Every healthy function of the organism has this need, and the whole organism constitutes an intricate complexity of systems struggling for the increase of the feeling of power...
704. How is it that the fundamental article of faith in all psychologies is a piece of most outrageous con tortion and fabrication? " Man strives after happi ness," for instance how much of this is true? In order to understand what life is, and what kind of striving and tenseness life contains, the formula should hold good not only of trees and plants, but of animals also. " What does the plant strive after? " But here we have already invented a false entity which does not exist, concealing and denying the fact of an infinitely variegated growth, with individual and semi-individual starting-points, if we give it the clumsy title " plant " as if it were a unit. It is very obvious that the ultimate and smallest " individuals " cannot be understood in the sense of metaphysical individuals or atoms; their sphere of power is continually shifting its ground: but with all these changes, can it be said that any of them strives after happiness? All this expand ing, this incorporation and growth, is a search for resistance; movement is essentially related to states of pain: the driving power here must represent some other desire if it leads to such continual willing and seeking of pain. To what end do the trees of a virgin forest contend with each other? " For happiness "? For power!...Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have learned to become useful) in comparison with primeval man, the man of today represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase in happi ness! How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after happiness?..
705. But while I say this I see above me, and below the stars, the glittering rat s-tail of errors which hitherto has represented the greatest inspiration of man: " All happiness is the result of virtue all virtue is the result of free will "! Let us revalue the values: all capacity is the outcome of a happy organization, all freedom is the outcome of capacity (freedom understood here as facility in self-direction. Every artist will under stand me).
706. " The value of life." Every life stands by itself; all existence must be justified, and not only life, the justifying principle must be one through which life itself speaks. Life is only a means to something: it is the expression of the forms of growth in power.
707. The " conscious world " cannot be a starting- point for valuing: an " objective " valuation is necessary. In comparison with the enormous and compli cated antagonistic processes which the collective life of every organism represents, its conscious world of feelings, intentions, and valuations, is only a small slice. We have absolutely no right to postulate this particle of consciousness as the object, the wherefore, of the collective phenomena of life: the attainment of consciousness is obviously only an additional means to the unfolding of life and to the extension of its power. That is why it is a piece of childish simplicity to set up happiness, or intellectuality, or morality, or any other individual sphere of consciousness, as the highest value: and maybe to justify " the world " with it. This is my fundamental objection to all philosophical and moral cosmologies and theologies, to all wherefores and highest values that have appeared in philosophies and philosophic religions hitherto. A kind of means is misunderstood as the object itself: conversely life and its growth of power were debased to a means. If we wished to postulate an adequate object of life it would not necessarily be related in any way with the category of conscious life; it would require rather to explain conscious life as a mere means to itself...The " denial of life " regarded as the object of life, the object of evolution! Existence a piece of tremendous stupidity! Any such mad interpreta