"Because man has no relationship with anything—other people, the world, God—that is not mediated at some level through the will, a reinterpretation of the meaning of the will and its freedom will inevitably be what Nietzsche called a "revaluation of all values." What is at issue is not simply a new hierarchy of values, a replacement of higher values by things previously held in lower esteem, but indeed a transformation of what it means to value and be valuable tout court, ... a transformation of the meaning of goodness and its principal mode of manifestation. It has been said that Darwin's late modern interpretation of evolution stands as a "universal acid": the inner logic of his idea eats away at all other traditional ideas, not only on the biological level but also on all levels of human existence; it dissolves everything in its wake. One might say that the notion of modern liberty we are discussing is even more radical and therefore more subtle in its effects. It is not so much an acid as a sort of alchemical reagent. Instead of dissolving things, it leaves them standing, but eliminates their original essence, their native goodness, transforming realities into gold—that is, a conventional representation of value without any organic relation to its own given nature. There is nothing at all left untouched by this transformation."