494.
It is unlikely that our "knowledge" extends farther than is exactly necessary for our self-preservation. Morphology shows us how the senses and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in proportion as the difficulties of acquiring sustenance increase.
495.
If the morality of "Thou shalt not lie" be refuted, the sense for truth will then have to justify itself before another tribunal—as a means to the preservation of man, as Will to Power.
Likewise our love of the beautiful: it is also the creative will. Both senses stand side by side; the sense of truth is the means wherewith the power is appropriated to adjust things according to one's taste. The love of adjusting and reforming—a primeval love! We can only take cognisance of a world which we ourselves have made.
496.
Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge. The tracing of its relation to many other things (or the relation of kind)—how should "knowledge" be of another? The way to know and to investigate is in itself among the conditions of life; that is why the conclusion that there could be no other kind of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind which serves the purpose of our preservation is an excessively hasty one: this actual condition may be only an accidental, not in the least an essential; one.
Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not adjusted for knowledge.
497.
The most strongly credited a priori "truths" are, to my mind, mere assumptions pending further investigation; for instance, the law of causation is a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it would mean the ruin of our kind. But is it therefore true? What an extraordinary conclusion! As if truth were proved by the mere fact that man survives!