Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil comments on the tendency of psychologists to place the instinct for self-preservation in the role of the cardinal instinct of the organic being, but Nietzsche differs in this view and writes:
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 history and culture in The Birth of Tragedy and modified in later works as he rethought his position and changed some of his views. Nietzsche makes a comparison between historical knowledge about past cultures and culture itself. He sees true culture as a unity of the forces of life with the love of form and beauty. Nietzsche considers life as terrible and tragic, but he also views it as transmuted through art, the work of creative genius. Nietzsche discove...