Excessive intellectual strength sets itself new goals; it is not in the least satisfied by the command and the leadership of the inferior world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the "individual."
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 the Will to Power 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 substitute 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....