 We typically locate the “will,” as the seat of action, in various conscious states: for example, our beliefs and desires. According to Nietzsche, however, the “will” so conceived is nothing but the effect of type-facts about the person. This means that the real story of the genesis of an action begins with the type-facts, which explain both consciousness and a person’s actions. Here is how Nietzsche puts it, after suggesting that the “will” is related to, but conceptually prior to, the concepts of “consciousness” and “ego”: