Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from the mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but "Nature's conformity to law," of which you physicists talk so proudly, as though—why, it exists only owing to your interpretation and bad "philology." It is no matter of fact, no "text," but rather just a naively humanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which you make abundant concessions to the democratic instincts of the modern soul! "Everywhere equality before the law—Nature is not different in that respect, nor better than we": a fine instance of secret motive, in which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged and autocratic—likewise a second and more refined atheism—is once more disguised. "Ni dieu, ni maitre"—that, also, is what you want; and therefore "Cheers for natural law!"
Before turning towards philosophy, Nietzsche studied as a classical philologist. His work involved interpreting ancient Greco-Roman language and literature.
Nietzsche attacks physicists for their pride towards “Nature's conformity to law." They take this conformity to be interpreted as a fact which justifies equality. And equality acts as their true ulterior motive: promotion of modern democratic values: “nature is no different and no better off than we are in this regard," they might say.
What is equality? To Nietzsche, it is a hostility towards everything privileged.
“Ni dieu, ni maitre” translates to “Neither God nor master." The physicists are introducing a new kind of atheism (science and nature) that is built on top of equality. No master; everyone is the same.
—is it not so? But, as has been said, that is interpretation, not text; and somebody might come along, who, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read out of the same "Nature," and with regard to the same phenomena, just the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims of power—an interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and unconditionalness of all "Will to Power" before your eyes, that almost every word, and the word "tyranny" itself, would eventually seem unsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphor—as being too human; and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting the same about this world as you do, namely, that it has a "necessary" and "calculable" course, NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are absolutely LACKING, and every power effects its ultimate consequences every moment. Granted that this also is only interpretation—and you will be eager enough to make this objection?—well, so much the better.
The way physicists perceive Nature is not, in any way, a fact; it is an interpretation. Someone could interpret the Nature as the opposite: “a tyrannically ruthless and relentless imposition of power claims." And despite the difference in interpretation, this someone could believe, just as much as the physicists, that his conclusions are both necessary and calculable.
This interpreter would interpret power and its inequality as the driving forces behind Nature. And it is not because laws govern Nature, but because laws are absolutely lacking.
But this too, our commentary on the interpretation of Nature, is also an interpretation. And one may object to that, as well. "well, so much the better."
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