634

Critique of the mechanistic theory.--- Let us here dismiss the two popular concepts "necessity" and "law": the former introduces a false constraint into the world, the latter a false freedom. "Things" do not behave regularly, according to a rule: there are no things (---they are fictions invented by us); they behave just as little under the constraint of necessity. There is no obedience here: for that something is as it is, as strong or as weak, is not the consequence of an obedience or a rule or a compulsion---

The degree of resistance and the degree of superior power---this is the question in every event: if, for our day-to-day calculations, we know how to express this in formulas and "laws," so much the better for us! But we have not introduced any "morality" into the world by the fiction that it is obedient---.

There is no law: every power draws its ultimate consequence at every moment. Calculability exists precisely because things are unable to be other than they are.

[...]

624

Against the physical atom.-- To comprehend the world, we have to be able to calculate it; to be able to calculate it, we have to have constant causes; because we find no such constant causes in actuality, we invent them for ourselves---the atoms. This is the origin of atomism.

The calculability of the world, the expressibility of all events in formulas---is this really "comprehension"? How much of a piece of music has been understood when that in it which is calculable and can be reduced to formulas has been reckoned up?--- And "constant causes," things, substances, something "unconditioned"; invented---what has one achieved?

-- Nietzsche, The Will To Power, The Will To Power In Nature

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