Whoever transposes the representational modes of "dynamics" and "statics" to being as a whole only introduces measureless confusion into thought. Because Nietzsche was everywhere sure of the fundamental aims of his intellectual life-however much his utterances and formulations inevitably remained impacted in contemporary entanglements—our thinking requires a kind of rigor that far surpasses the precision of the mathematical and natural sciences, not only in degree but in essence, whenever it tries to follow Nietzsche's thought. What Nietzsche calls "force" becomes clear to him in later years as "will to power."
3. Is force limited or boundless? It is limited. Why? Nietzsche ascertains the reason in the very essence of force; it is the essence of force to be finite. Presupposing that force is "infinitely waxing" (XII, number 93), on what should it "feed"? Because force is always expended, without thereby dwindling to nothing, it must be nourished by some sort of surplus. What might the source of such a surplus be? "We insist that the world as force dare not be thought of as being unbounded-we forbid ourselves the notion of an infinite force as incompatible with the very concept 'force'" (XII, number 94). Does Nietzsche then simply decree his conception of the essential finitude of force as such? He also calls this proposition a "belief' (ibid.; cf. WM, 1065). On what is "belief' in the essential finitude of force founded? Nietzsche says that infinitude is "incompatible with the very concept 'force'." This means that "force" is in essence something determinate, something firmly defined in itself; hence it is necessarily and inherently limited. "Anything ill-defined about force, anything undulating, is altogether unthinkable for us" (XII, number 104). This implies that the asserted essential finitude of force is not some sort of blind "belief' in the sense of a groundless supposition. It is rather a taking-for-true on the basis of the truth of knowledge concerning the correct concept of force, that is