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The Word of Nietzsche

will to become stronger, to will to grow ..." (Will to Power, Aph. 675, 1887-88).13 "Stronger" means here "more power," and that means : only power. For the essence of power lies in being master over the level of power attained at any time. Power is power only when and only so long as it remains powerenhancement and commands for itself "more power." Even a mere pause in power-enhancement, even a mere remaining at a standstill at a level of power, is already the beginning of the decline of power. To the essence of power belongs the overpowering of itself. Such overpowering belongs to and springs from power itself, in that power is command and as command empowers itself for the overpowering of its particular level of power at any given time. Thus power is indeed constantly on the way to itself, but not as a will, ready at hand somewhere for itself, which, in the sense of a striving, seeks to come to power. Moreover; power does not merely empower itself for the overpowering of its level of power at any given time, for the sake of reaching the next level ; but rather it empowers itself for this reason alone : to attain power over itself in the unconditionality belonging to its essence. Willing is, according to this defining of its essence, so little a striving that, rather, all striving is only a vestigial or an embryonic form of willing.

In the name "will to power" the word "power" connotes nothing less than the essence of the way in which the will wills itself inasmuch as it is a commanding. As a commanding the will unites itself to itself, i.e., it unites itself to what it wills. This gathering itself together is itself power's assertion of power. Will for itself does not exist any more than does power for itself. Hence, also, will and power are, in the will to power, not merely linked together; but rather the will, as the will to will,14 is itself the will to power in the sense of the empowering to power. But power has its essence in the fact that it stands to the will as the will standing within that will. The will to power is the essence


13. Here Nietzsche italicizes "to will." Heidegger italicizes "stronger."

14. Here and subsequently the second word "will" in the phrase "will to will" (Wille zum Willen) is a noun, not a verb, a distinction impossible to show in English. "Will to will" immediately parallels "will to power" (Wille zur Macht).


Martin Heidegger (GA 5) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays