The Philosophy and Concepts of Nietzsche

Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is Will to Power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, let us beware of superfluous teleological principles!--one of which is the instinct of self-preservation (20).

The concept of the Will was derived by Nietzsche from Schopenhauer, though he has modified it to the Will to Power. It is clear from the above passage that Nietzsche sees this Will to Power as the cardinal instinct of the organic being. He does not say "of the human being" but "of the organic being" and so indicates that this is a natural force that persists in all living creatures capable of any degree of sentience. Nietzsche examines this concept of the Will to Power and how it operates and to what end in much of his writing.

Nietzsche as a young man viewed the purpose of the philosopher as the physician of a culture, identifying and curing its ills. Nietzsche made a very critical analysis of the German culture of his time in several of his works, beginning with his assessment of histo

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ds is to be more than it is. The Will to Power is always overcoming itself and becoming something more, and in so doing it still is a force that wants only to become something more. It thus cannibalizes what it becomes in order to become once more. The Will to Power would seem from the passage cited above to be innate--it may develop more power and become more powerful, but it appears to be innate in the living organism. Nietzsche states that a "living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength," and therefore it must possess this strength from the beginning. Nietzsche does not mean by discharge that the power would be released and dissipated. Discharge here means express, and in so doing power is not lost but gained, with the act of becoming always paramount. The organism discharges power to increase its power in a continuing cycle. Self-preservation is one of the results, but it is not the cause that it is made out to be by psychologists, not a teleological principle but a consequence. The only teleological principle at work is Will to Power. This Power is the fundamental law of the will and of all force, and it is the law that to will is to will its own growth. It responds only to its own imperative, as noted, t
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Approximate Word count = 1656
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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