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Full Idea
Every animal instinctively strives for an optimum of favourable conditions under which it can expend all its strength and achieve its maximal feeling of power; every animal abhors ...every hindrance that obstructs this path to the optimum.
Gist of Idea
All animals strive for the ideal conditions to express their power, and hate any hindrances
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals [1887], III.§07)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'On the Genealogy of Morals/ Ecce Homo', ed/tr. Kaufmann,Walter [Vintage 1969], p.107
A Reaction
This became the lynchpin of Nietzsche's account of the source of values. It is a highly naturalistic view, fitting it into evolutionary theory (thought running deeper than that), so I have a lot of sympathy with the view.
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| 23239 | The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature [Fichte] |
| 20956 | Ultimately, all being is willing. The nature of primal being is the same as the nature of willing [Schelling] |
| 24076 | A morality ranks human drives and actions, for the sake of the herd, and subordinating individuals [Nietzsche] |
| 20129 | All animals strive for the ideal conditions to express their power, and hate any hindrances [Nietzsche] |
| 4506 | There is a conspiracy (a will to power) to make morality dominate other values, like knowledge and art [Nietzsche] |
| 4514 | The basic tendency of the weak has always been to pull down the strong, using morality [Nietzsche] |
| 20353 | The 'will to power' is basically applied to drives and forces, not to people [Nietzsche, by Richardson] |