It is we alone who have invented causes, succession, for-one-another, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, ground, purpose; and when we invent this sign-world as "in itself" into things, we proceed once more mythologically.
Wir sind es, die allein die Ursachen, das Nacheinander, das Für-einander, die Relativität, den Zwang, die Zahl, das Gesetz, die Freiheit, den Grund, den Zweck erdichtet haben; und wenn wir diese Zeichen-Welt als "an sich" in die Dinge hineindichten, hineinmischen, so treiben wir es noch einmal, wie wir es immer getrieben haben, nämlich mythologisch.
It is we alone who have invented causes, succession, for-one-another, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, ground, purpose; and when we invent this sign-world as "in itself" into things, mix it into them, we proceed once more as we have always proceeded, namely mythologically.
The third sentence of the passage. The statement drops »hineinmischen« and »wie wir es immer getrieben haben«, which repeat; the list of ten is kept whole, since »die Freiheit« and »den Grund« are in it and the aphorism turns on the first. The sentence reads as Nietzsche's ground for the one before it (c-nietzsche-in-the-in-itself-nothing-of-causal-connections): the in-itself has none of these because we made them; the text joins the two sentences by no connective, and the map formalizes no argument. Where Kant's B xxvii restricts the principle of causality to objects of experience and Schopenhauer's Anhang makes the law of causality a function of the intellect, this sentence makes causes something we »erdichtet haben« and read »als "an sich"« into things; the comparison x-thing-in-itself sets the three side by side and names what each says of causality's standing.
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