What, too, was this giant's breath that seemed to come from nowhere, and which, while it cooled his face, also bent the toughest trees like straws? The sun and moon were amazing—the one marvellously eloquent, communicative, generous, hot and passionate: the other silent, reserved, aloof, cold, incomprehensible.[8]
But there were other things to do, besides interpreting the stars, the sun, the moon, the sea, and the sky above. There was the perplexing multiplicity of changes and of tides in Life, to be mastered and simplified. There was the fateful flow of all things into death and into second birth, the appalling fact of Becoming and never-resting, of change and instability, of bloom and of decay, of rise and of decline. What was to be done?
It was impossible to live in chaos. And yet, in its relation to man Nature was chaotic. There was no order anywhere. And, where there is no order, there are surprises,[9] ambushes, lurking indignities. The unexpected could jump out at any minute. And a masterful mind abhors surprises and loathes disorder. His Will to Power is humiliated by them. To man,—whether he be of yesterday, of to-day or of to-morrow— unfamiliarity, constant change, and uncertainty, are sources of great anxiety, great sorrow, great humiliation and sometimes great danger. Hence everything must be familiarized, named and fixed. Values must be definitely ascertained and determined. And thus valuing becomes a biological need. Nietzsche even goes so far as to ascribe the doctrine of causality to the inherent desire in man to trace the unfamiliar to the familiar. "The so-called instinct of causality," he says, "is nothing more than the fear of the unfamiliar, and the attempt at finding something in it which is already known."[10]
In the torrent and pell-mell of Becoming, some milestones must be fixed for the purpose of human orientation. In the avalanche of evolutionary changes, pillars must be made to stand, to which man can hold tight for a space and collect his senses. The slippery soil of a world that is for ever in flux, must be transformed into a soil on which man can gain some foothold.[11]
Primeval man stood baffled and oppressed by the complexity of his task. Facts were insuperable as facts; they could, however, be overcome spiritually—that is to say, by concepts. And that they must be overcome, man never doubted for an instant—he was too proud for that. For his aim was not existence, but a certain kind of existence—an existence in which he could hold his head up, look down upon the world, and stare defiance even at the firmament.
And thus all humanity began to cry out for a meaning, for an interpretation, for a scheme, which would make all these distant and uncontrollable facts their property, their spiritual possessions. This was not a cry for science, or for a scientific explanation, as we understand it; nor was it a cry for truth in the Christian sense.[12] For the bare truth, the bare fact, the bald reality of the thing was obvious to everybody. All who had eyes to see could see it. All who had ears to hear could hear it. And all who had nerves to feel could feel it. If ever there was a time when there was a truth for all, this was the time; and it was ugly, bare and unsatisfying. What was wanted was a scheme of life, a picture of life, in which all these naked facts and truths could be given some place and some human significance—in fact, some order and arrangement, whereby they would become the chattels of the human spirit, and no longer subjects of independent existence and awful strangeness.[13] Only thus could the dignity and pride of humanity begin to breathe with freedom. Only thus could life be made possible, where existence alone was not the single aim and desire.
"The purpose of 'knowledge,' "says Nietzsche, "in this case, as in the case of 'good,' or 'beautiful,' must be regarded strictly and narrowly from an anthropocentric and biological standpoint. In order that a particular species may maintain and increase its power, its conception of reality must contain enough which is calculable and constant to allow of its formulating a scheme of conduct. The utility of preservation—and not some abstract or theoretical need to eschew deception—stands as the motive force behind the development of the organs of knowledge.... In other words, the measure of the desire for knowledge depends upon the extent to which the Will to Power grows in a certain species: a species gets a grasp of a given amount of reality in order to master it, in order to enlist that amount into its service."[14]
And thus "the object was, not to know, but to schematize, to impose as much regularity and form upon chaos as our practical needs required."[15]
"The whole apparatus of knowledge," says Nietzsche, "is an abstracting and simplifying apparatus—not directed at knowledge, but at the appropriation of things."[16]
No physical thirst, no physical hunger, has ever been stronger than this thirst and hunger, which yearned to make all that is unfamiliar, familiar; or in other words, all that is outside the spirit, inside the spirit.[17]