The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)

The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)
Артур Шопенгауэр

Arthur Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)

Supplements To The Second Book

Chapter XXI. Retrospect and More General View

If the intellect were not of a subordinate nature, as the two preceding chapters show, then everything which takes place without it, i. e., without intervention of the idea, such as reproduction, the development and maintenance of the organism, the healing of wounds, the restoration or vicarious supplementing of mutilated parts, the salutary crisis in diseases, the works of the mechanical skill of animals, and the performances of instinct would not be done so infinitely better and more perfectly than what takes place with the assistance of intellect, all conscious and intentional achievements of men, which compared with the former are mere bungling. In general nature signifies that which operates, acts, performs without the assistance of the intellect. Now, that this is really identical with what we find in ourselves as will is the general theme of this second book, and also of the essay, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur.” The possibility of this fundamental knowledge depends upon the fact that in us the will is directly lighted by the intellect, which here appears as self-consciousness; otherwise we could just as little arrive at a fuller knowledge of it within us as without us, and must for ever stop at inscrutable forces of nature. We have to abstract from the assistance of the intellect if we wish to comprehend the nature of the will in itself, and thereby, as far as is possible, penetrate to the inner being of nature.

On this account, it may be remarked in passing, my direct antipode among philosophers is Anaxagoras; for he assumed arbitrarily as that which is first and original, from which everything proceeds, a νους, an intelligence, a subject of ideas, and he is regarded as the first who promulgated such a view. According to him the world existed earlier in the mere idea than in itself; while according to me it is the unconscious will which constitutes the reality of things, and its development must have advanced very far before it finally attains, in the animal consciousness, to the idea and intelligence; so that, according to me, thought appears as the very last. However, according to the testimony of Aristotle (Metaph., i. 4), Anaxagoras himself did not know how to begin much with his νους, but merely set it up, and then left it standing like a painted saint at the entrance, without making use of it in his development of nature, except in cases of need, when he did not know how else to help himself. All physico-theology is a carrying out of the error opposed to the truth expressed at the beginning of this chapter – the error that the most perfect form of the origin of things is that which is brought about by means of an intellect. Therefore it draws a bolt against all deep exploration of nature.

From the time of Socrates down to our own time, we find that the chief subject of the ceaseless disputations of the philosophers has been that ens rationis, called soul. We see the most of them assert its immortality, that is to say, its metaphysical nature; yet others, supported by facts which incontrovertibly prove the entire dependence of the intellect upon the bodily organism, unweariedly maintain the contrary. That soul is by all and before everything taken as absolutely simple; for precisely from this its metaphysical nature, its immateriality and immortality were proved, although these by no means necessarily follow from it. For although we can only conceive the destruction of a formed body through breaking up of it into its parts, it does not follow from this that the destruction of a simple existence, of which besides we have no conception, may not be possible in some other way, perhaps by gradually vanishing. I, on the contrary, start by doing away with the presupposed simplicity of our subjectively conscious nature, or the ego, inasmuch as I show that the manifestations from which it was deduced have two very different sources, and that in any case the intellect is physically conditioned, the function of a material organ, therefore dependent upon it, and without it is just as impossible as the grasp without the hand; that accordingly it belongs to the mere phenomenon, and thus shares the fate of this, – that the will, on the contrary, is bound to no special organ, but is everywhere present, is everywhere that which moves and forms, and therefore is that which conditions the whole organism; that, in fact, it constitutes the metaphysical substratum of the whole phenomenon, consequently is not, like the intellect, a Posterius of it, but its Prius; and the phenomenon depends upon it, not it upon the phenomenon. But the body is reduced indeed to a mere idea, for it is only the manner in which the will exhibits itself in the perception of the intellect or brain. The will, again, which in all other systems, different as they are in other respects, appears as one of the last results, is with me the very first. The intellect, as mere function of the brain, is involved in the destruction of the body, but the will is by no means so. From this heterogeneity of the two, together with the subordinate nature of the intellect, it becomes conceivable that man, in the depths of his self-consciousness, feels himself to be eternal and indestructible, but yet can have no memory, either a parte ante or a parte post, beyond the duration of his life. I do not wish to anticipate here the exposition of the true indestructibility of our nature, which has its place in the fourth book, but have only sought to indicate the place where it links itself on.

But now that, in an expression which is certainly one-sided, yet from our standpoint true, the body is called a mere idea depends upon the fact than an existence in space, as something extended, and in time, as something that changes, and more closely determined in both through the causal-nexus, is only possible in the idea, for all those determinations rest upon its forms, thus in a brain, in which accordingly such an existence appears as something objective, i. e., foreign; therefore even our own body can have this kind of existence only in a brain. For the knowledge which I have of my body as extended, space-occupying, and movable, is only indirect: it is a picture in my brain which is brought about by means of the senses and understanding. The body is given to me directly only in muscular action and in pain and pleasure, both of which primarily and directly belong to the will. But the combination of these two different kinds of knowledge of my own body afterwards affords the further insight that all other things which also have the objective existence described, which is primarily only in my brain, are not therefore entirely non-existent apart from it, but must also ultimately in themselves be that which makes itself known in self-consciousness as will.

Chapter XXII.[1 - This chapter is connected with the last half of § 27 of the first volume.] Objective View of the Intellect

There are two fundamentally different ways of regarding the intellect, which depend upon the difference of the point of view, and, much as they are opposed to each other in consequence of this, must yet be brought into agreement. One is the subjective, which, starting from within and taking the consciousness as the given, shows us by what mechanism the world exhibits itself in it, and how, out of the materials which the senses and the understanding provide, it constructs itself in it. We must look upon Locke as the originator of this method of consideration; Kant brought it to incomparably higher perfection; and our first book also, together with its supplements, are devoted to it.

The method of considering the intellect which is opposed to this is the objective, which starts from without, takes as its object not our own consciousness, but the beings given in outward experience, conscious of themselves and of the world, and now investigates the relation of their intellect to their other qualities, how it has become possible, how it has become necessary, and what it accomplishes for them. The standpoint of this method of consideration is the empirical. It takes the world and the animal existences present in it as absolutely given, in that it starts from them. It is accordingly primarily zoological, anatomical, physiological, and only becomes philosophical by connection with that first method of consideration, and from the higher point of view thereby attained. The only foundations of this which as yet have been given we owe to zootomists and physiologists, for the most part French. Here Cabanis is specially to be named, whose excellent work, “Des rapports du physique au moral,” is initiatory of this method of consideration on the path of physiology. The famous Bichat was his contemporary, but his theme was a much more comprehensive one. Even Gall may be named here, although his chief aim was missed. Ignorance and prejudice have raised against this method of consideration the accusation of materialism, because, adhering simply to experience, it does not know the immaterial substance, soul. The most recent advances in the physiology of the nervous system, through Sir Charles Bell, Magendie, Marshall Hall, and others, have also enriched and corrected the material of this method of consideration. A philosophy which, like the Kantian, entirely ignores this point of view for the intellect is one-sided, and consequently inadequate. It leaves an impassable gulf between our philosophical and our physiological knowledge, with which we can never find satisfaction.

Although what I have said in the two preceding chapters concerning the life and the activity of the brain belongs to this method of consideration, and in the same way all the discussions to be found under the heading, “Pflanzenphysiologie,” in the essay, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” and also a portion of those under the heading “Vergleichende Anatomie,” are devoted to it, the following exposition of its results in general will be by no means superfluous.

We become most vividly conscious of the glaring contrast between the two methods of considering the intellect opposed to each other above if we carry the matter to the extreme and realise that what the one, as reflective thought and vivid perception, directly assumes and makes its material is for the other nothing more than the physiological function of an internal organ, the brain; nay, that we are justified in asserting that the whole objective world, so boundless in space, so infinite in time, so unsearchable in its perfection, is really only a certain movement or affection of the pulpy matter in the skull. We then ask in astonishment: what is this brain whose function produces such a phenomenon of all phenomena? What is the matter which can be refined and potentiated to such a pulp that the stimulation of a few of its particles becomes the conditional supporter of the existence of an objective world? The fear of such questions led to the hypothesis of the simple substance of an immaterial soul, which merely dwelt in the brain. We say boldly: this pulp also, like every vegetable or animal part, is an organic structure, like all its poorer relations in the inferior accommodation of the heads of our irrational brethren, down to the lowest, which scarcely apprehends at all; yet that organic pulp is the last product of nature, which presupposes all the rest. But in itself, and outside the idea, the brain also, like everything else, is will. For existing for another is being perceived; being in itself is willing: upon this it depends that on the purely objective path we never attain to the inner nature of things; but if we attempt to find their inner nature from without and empirically, this inner always becomes an outer again in our hands, – the pith of the tree, as well as its bark; the heart of the animal, as well as its hide; the white and the yolk of an egg, as well as its shell. On the other hand, upon the subjective path the inner is accessible to us at every moment; for we find it as the will primarily in ourselves, and must, by the clue of the analogy with our own nature, be able to solve that of others, in that we attain to the insight that a being in itself independent of being known, i. e., of exhibiting itself in an intellect, is only conceivable as willing.

If now, in the objective comprehension of the intellect, we go back as far as we possibly can, we shall find that the necessity or the need of knowledge in general arises from the multiplicity and the separate existence of beings, thus from individuation. For suppose there only existed a single being, such a being would have no need of knowledge: because nothing would exist which was different from it, and whose existence it would therefore have to take up into itself indirectly through knowledge, i. e., image and concept. It would itself already be all in all, and therefore there would remain nothing for it to know, i. e., nothing foreign that could be apprehended as object. In the case of a multiplicity of beings, on the other hand, every individual finds itself in a condition of isolation from all the rest, and hence arises the necessity of knowledge. The nervous system, by means of which the animal individual primarily becomes conscious of itself, is bounded by a skin; yet in the brain that has attained to intellect it passes beyond this limit by means of its form of knowledge, causality, and thus there arises for it perception as a consciousness of other things, as an image of beings in space and time, which change in accordance with causality. In this sense it would be more correct to say, “Only the different is known by the different,” than as Empedocles said, “Only the like is known by the like,” which was a very indefinite and ambiguous proposition; although points of view may certainly also be conceived from which it is true; as, for instance, we may observe in passing that of Helvetius when he says so beautifully and happily: “Il n'y a que l'esprit qui sente l'esprit: c'est une corde qui ne frémit qu'à l'unison,” which corresponds with Xenophon's “σοφον ειναι δει τον επιγνωσομενον τον σοφον” (sapientem esse opportet eum, qui sapientem agniturus sit), and is a great sorrow. But now, again, from the other side we know that multiplicity of similars only becomes possible through time and space; thus through the forms of our knowledge. Space first arises in that the knowing subject sees externally; it is the manner in which the subject comprehends something as different from itself. But we also saw knowledge in general conditioned by multiplicity and difference. Thus knowledge and multiplicity, or individuation, stand and fall together, for they reciprocally condition each other. Hence it must be inferred that, beyond the phenomenon in the true being of all things, to which time and space, and consequently also multiplicity, must be foreign, there can also be no knowledge. Buddhism defines this as Pratschna Paramita, i. e., that which is beyond all knowledge (J. J. Schmidt, “On the Maha-Jana and Pratschna Paramita”). A “knowledge of things in themselves,” in the strictest sense of the word, would accordingly be already impossible from the fact that where the thing in itself begins knowledge ceases, and all knowledge is essentially concerned only with phenomena. For it springs from a limitation, by which it is made necessary, in order to extend the limits.

For the objective consideration the brain is the efflorescence of the organism; therefore only where the latter has attained its highest perfection and complexity does the brain appear in its greatest development. But in the preceding chapter we have recognised the organism as the objectification of the will; therefore the brain also, as a part of it, must belong to this objectification. Further, from the fact that the organism is only the visibility of the will, thus in itself is the will, I have deduced that every affection of the organism at once and directly affects the will, i. e., is felt as agreeable or painful. Yet, with the heightening of sensibility, in the higher development of the nervous system, the possibility arises that in the nobler, i. e., the objective, organs of sense (sight and hearing) the exquisitely delicate affections proper to them are perceived without in themselves and directly affecting the will, that is, without being either painful or agreeable, and that therefore they appear in consciousness as indifferent, merely perceived, sensations. But in the brain this heightening of sensibility reaches such a high degree that upon received impressions of sense a reaction even takes place, which does not proceed directly from the will, but is primarily a spontaneity of the function of understanding, which makes the transition from the directly perceived sensation of the senses to its cause; and since the brain then at once produces the form of space, there thus arises the perception of an external object. We may therefore regard the point at which the understanding makes the transition from the mere sensation upon the retina, which is still a mere affection of the body and therefore of the will, to the cause of that sensation, which it projects by means of its form of space, as something external and different from its own body, as the boundary between the world as will and the world as idea, or as the birthplace of the latter. In man, however, the spontaneity of the activity of the brain, which in the last instance is certainly conferred by the will, goes further than mere perception and immediate comprehension of causal relations. It extends to the construction of abstract conceptions out of these perceptions, and to operating with these conceptions, i. e., to thinking, as that in which his reason consists. Thoughts are therefore furthest removed from the affections of the body, which, since the body is the objectification of the will, may, through increased intensity, pass at once into pain, even in the organs of sense. Accordingly idea and thought may also be regarded as the efflorescence of the will, because they spring from the highest perfection and development of the organism; but the organism, in itself and apart from the idea, is the will. Of course, in my explanation, the existence of the body presupposes the world of idea; inasmuch as it also, as body or real object, is only in this world; and, on the other hand, the idea itself just as much presupposes the body, for it arises only through the function of an organ of the body. That which lies at the foundation of the whole phenomenon, that in it which alone has being in itself and is original, is exclusively the will; for it is the will which through this very process assumes the form of the idea, i. e., enters the secondary existence of an objective world, or the sphere of the knowable. Philosophers before Kant, with few exceptions, approached the explanation of the origin of our knowledge from the wrong side. They set out from a so-called soul, an existence whose inner nature and peculiar function consisted in thinking, and indeed quite specially in abstract thinking, with mere conceptions, which belonged to it the more completely the further they lay from all perception. (I beg to refer here to the note at the end of § 6 of my prize essay on the foundation of morals.) This soul has in some inconceivable manner entered the body, and there it is only disturbed in its pure thinking, first by impressions of the senses and perceptions, still more by the desires which these excite, and finally by the emotions, nay, passions, to which these desires develop; while the characteristic and original element of this soul is mere abstract thinking, and given up to this it has only universals, inborn conceptions, and æternæ veritates for its objects, and leaves everything perceptible lying far below it. Hence, also, arises the contempt with which even now “sensibility” and the "sensuous" are referred to by professors of philosophy, nay, are even made the chief source of immorality, while it is just the senses which are the genuine and innocent source of all our knowledge, from which all thinking must first borrow its material, for in combination with the a priori functions of the intellect they produce the perception. One might really suppose that in speaking of sensibility these gentlemen always think only of the pretended sixth sense of the French. Thus, as we have said, in the process of knowledge, its ultimate product was made that which is first and original in it, and accordingly the matter was taken hold of by the wrong end. According to my exposition, the intellect springs from the organism, and thereby from the will, and hence could not be without the latter. Thus, without the will it would also find no material to occupy it; for everything that is knowable is just the objectification of the will.

But not only the perception of the external world, or the consciousness of other things, is conditioned by the brain and its functions, but also self-consciousness. The will in itself is without consciousness, and remains so in the greater part of its phenomena. The secondary world of idea must be added, in order that it may become conscious of itself, just as light only becomes visible through the bodies which reflect it, and without them loses itself in darkness without producing any effect. Because the will, with the aim of comprehending its relations to the external world, produces a brain in the animal individual, the consciousness of its own self arises in it, by means of the subject of knowledge, which comprehends things as existing and the ego as willing. The sensibility, which reaches its highest degree in the brain, but is yet dispersed through its different parts, must first of all collect all the rays of its activity, concentrate them, as it were, in a focus, which, however, does not lie without, as in the case of the concave mirror, but within, as in the convex mirror. With this point now it first describes the line of time, upon which, therefore, all that it presents to itself as idea must exhibit itself, and which is the first and most essential form of all knowledge, or the form of inner sense. This focus of the whole activity of the brain is what Kant called the synthetic unity of apperception (cf. vol. ii. p. 475). Only by means of this does the will become conscious of itself, because this focus of the activity of the brain, or that which knows, apprehends itself as identical with its own basis, from which it springs, that which wills; and thus the ego arises. Yet this focus of the brain activity remains primarily a mere subject of knowledge, and as such capable of being the cold and impartial spectator, the mere guide and counsellor of the will, and also of comprehending the external world in a purely objective manner, without reference to the will and its weal or woe. But whenever it turns within, it recognises the will as the basis of its own phenomenon, and therefore combines with it in the consciousness of an ego. That focus of the activity of the brain (or the subject of knowledge) is indeed, as an indivisible point, simple, but yet is not on this account a substance (soul), but a mere condition or state. That of which it is itself a condition or state can only be known by it indirectly, as it were through reflection. But the ceasing of this state must not be regarded as the annihilation of that of which it is a state. This knowing and conscious ego is related to the will, which is the basis of its phenomenal appearance, as the picture in the focus of a concave mirror is related to the mirror itself, and has, like that picture, only a conditioned, nay, really a merely apparent, reality. Far from being the absolutely first (as, for example, Fichte teaches), it is at bottom tertiary, for it presupposes the organism, and the organism presupposes the will. I admit that all that is said here is really only an image and a figure, and in part also hypothetical; but we stand at a point to which thought can scarcely reach, not to speak of proof. I therefore request the reader to compare with this what I have adduced at length on this subject in chapter 20.

Now, although the true being of everything that exists consists in its will, and knowledge together with consciousness are only added at the higher grades of the phenomenon as something secondary, yet we find that the difference which the presence and the different degree of consciousness places between one being and another is exceedingly great and of important results. The subjective existence of the plant we must think of as a weak analogue, a mere shadow of comfort and discomfort; and even in this exceedingly weak degree the plant knows only of itself, not of anything outside of it. On the other hand, even the lowest animal standing next to it is forced by increased and more definitely specified wants to extend the sphere of its existence beyond the limits of its own body. This takes place through knowledge. It has a dim apprehension of its immediate surroundings, out of which the motives for its action with a view to its own maintenance arise. Thus accordingly the medium of motives appears, and this is – the world existing objectively in time and space, the world as idea, however weak, obscure, and dimly dawning this first and lowest example of it may be. But it imprints itself ever more and more distinctly, ever wider and deeper, in proportion as in the ascending scale of animal organisations the brain is ever more perfectly produced. This progress in the development of the brain, thus of the intellect, and of the clearness of the idea, at each of these ever higher grades is, however, brought about by the constantly increasing and more complicated wants of this phenomenon of the will. This must always first afford the occasion for it, for without necessity nature (i. e., the will which objectifies itself in it) produces nothing, least of all the hardest of its productions – a more perfect brain: in consequence of its lex parsimoniæ: natura nihil agit frustra et nihil facit supervacaneum. It has provided every animal with the organs which are necessary for its sustenance and the weapons necessary for its conflict, as I have shown at length in my work, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” under the heading, “Vergleichende Anatomie.” According to this measure, therefore, it imparts to each the most important of those organs concerned with what is without, the brain, with its function the intellect. The more complicated, through higher development, its organisation became, the more multifarious and specially determined did its wants also become, and consequently the more difficult and the more dependent upon opportunity was the provision of what would satisfy them. Thus there was needed here a wider range of sight, a more accurate comprehension, a more correct distinction of things in the external world, in all their circumstances and relations. Accordingly we see the faculty of forming ideas, and its organs, brain, nerves, and special senses, appear ever more perfect the higher we advance in the scale of animals; and in proportion as the cerebral system develops, the external world appears ever more distinct, many-sided, and complete in consciousness. The comprehension of it now demands ever more attention, and ultimately in such a degree that sometimes its relation to the will must momentarily be lost sight of in order that it may take place more purely and correctly. Quite definitely this first appears in the case of man. With him alone does a pure separation of knowing and willing take place. This is an important point, which I merely touch on here in order to indicate its position, and be able to take it up again later. But, like all the rest, nature takes this last step also in extending and perfecting the brain, and thereby in increasing the powers of knowledge, only in consequence of the increased needs, thus in the service of the will. What this aims at and attains in man is indeed essentially the same, and not more than what is also its goal in the brutes – nourishment and propagation. But the requisites for the attainment of this goal became so much increased in number, and of so much higher quality and greater definiteness through the organisation of man, that a very much more considerable heightening of the intellect than the previous steps demanded was necessary, or at least was the easiest means of reaching the end. But since now the intellect, in accordance with its nature, is a tool of the most various utility, and is equally applicable to the most different kinds of ends, nature, true to her spirit of parsimony, could now meet through it alone all the demands of the wants which had now become so manifold. Therefore she sent forth man without clothing, without natural means of protection or weapons of attack, nay, with relatively little muscular power, combined with great frailty and little endurance of adverse influences and wants, in reliance upon that one great tool, in addition to which she had only to retain the hands from the next grade below him, the ape. But through the predominating intellect which here appears not only is the comprehension of motives, their multiplicity, and in general the horizon of the aims infinitely increased, but also the distinctness with which the will is conscious of itself is enhanced in the highest degree in consequence of the clearness of the whole consciousness which has been brought about, which is supported by the capacity for abstract knowledge, and now attains to complete reflectiveness. But thereby, and also through the vehemence of the will, which is necessarily presupposed as the supporter of such a heightened intellect, an intensifying of all the emotions appears, and indeed the possibility of the passions, which, properly speaking, are unknown to the brute. For the vehemence of the will keeps pace with the advance of intelligence, because this advance really always springs from the increased needs and pressing demands of the will: besides this, however, the two reciprocally support each other. Thus the vehemence of the character corresponds to the greater energy of the beating of the heart and the circulation of the blood, which physically heighten the activity of the brain. On the other hand, the clearness of the intelligence intensifies the emotions, which are called forth by the outward circumstances, by means of the more vivid apprehension of the latter. Hence, for example, young calves quietly allow themselves to be packed in a cart and carried off; but young lions, if they are only separated from their mother, remain permanently restless, and roar unceasingly from morning to night; children in such a position would cry and vex themselves almost to death. The vivaciousness and impetuosity of the ape is in exact proportion to its greatly developed intellect. It depends just on this reciprocal relationship that man is, in general, capable of far greater sorrows than the brute, but also of greater joy in satisfied and pleasing emotions. In the same way his higher intelligence makes him more sensible to ennui than the brute; but it also becomes, if he is individually very complete, an inexhaustible source of entertainment. Thus, as a whole, the manifestation of the will in man is related to that in the brute of the higher species, as a note that has been struck to its fifth pitched two or three octaves lower. But between the different kinds of brutes also the differences of intellect, and thereby of consciousness, are great and endlessly graduated. The mere analogy of consciousness which we must yet attribute to plants will be related to the still far deader subjective nature of an unorganised body, very much as the consciousness of the lowest species of animals is related to the quasi consciousness of plants. We may present to our imagination the innumerable gradations in the degree of consciousness under the figure of the different velocity of points which are unequally distant from the centre of a revolving sphere. But the most correct, and indeed, as our third book teaches, the natural figure of that gradation is afforded us by the scale in its whole compass from the lowest audible note to the highest. It is, however, the grade of consciousness which determines the grade of existence of a being. For every immediate existence is subjective: the objective existence is in the consciousness of another, thus only for this other, consequently quite indirect. Through the grade of consciousness beings are as different as through the will they are alike, for the will is what is common to them all.

But what we have now considered between the plant and the animal, and then between the different species of animals, occurs also between man and man. Here also that which is secondary, the intellect, by means of the clearness of consciousness and distinctness of knowledge which depends upon it, constitutes a fundamental and immeasurably great difference in the whole manner of the existence, and thereby in the grade of it. The higher the consciousness has risen, the more distinct and connected are the thoughts, the clearer the perceptions the more intense the sensations. Through it everything gains more depth: emotion, sadness, joy, and sorrow. Commonplace blockheads are not even capable of real joy: they live on in dull insensibility. While to one man his consciousness only presents his own existence, together with the motives which must be apprehended for the purpose of sustaining and enlivening it, in a bare comprehension of the external world, it is to another a camera obscura in which the macrocosm exhibits itself:

“He feels that he holds a little world
Brooding in his brain,
That it begins to work and to live,
That he fain would give it forth.”

The difference of the whole manner of existence which the extremes of the gradation of intellectual capacity establish between man and man is so great that that between a king and a day labourer seems small in comparison. And here also, as in the case of the species of animals, a connection between the vehemence of the will and the height of the intellect can be shown. Genius is conditioned by a passionate temperament, and a phlegmatic genius is inconceivable: it seems as if an exceptionally vehement, thus a violently longing, will must be present if nature is to give an abnormally heightened intellect, as corresponding to it; while the merely physical account of this points to the greater energy with which the arteries of the head move the brain and increase its turgescence. Certainly, however, the quantity, quality, and form of the brain itself is the other and incomparably more rare condition of genius. On the other hand, phlegmatic persons are as a rule of very moderate mental power; and thus the northern, cold-blooded, and phlegmatic nations are in general noticeably inferior in mind to the southern vivacious and passionate peoples; although, as Bacon[2 - De Augm. Scient., L. vi. c. 3.] has most pertinently remarked, if once a man of a northern nation is highly gifted by nature, he can then reach a grade which no southern ever attains to. It is accordingly as perverse as it is common to take the great minds of different nations as the standard for comparing their mental powers: for that is just attempting to prove the rule by the exceptions. It is rather the great majority of each nation that one has to consider: for one swallow does not make a summer. We have further to remark here that that very passionateness which is a condition of genius, bound up with its vivid apprehension of things, produces in practical life, where the will comes into play, and especially in the case of sudden occurrences, so great an excitement of the emotions that it disturbs and confuses the intellect; while the phlegmatic man in such a case still retains the full use of his mental faculties, though they are much more limited, and then accomplishes much more with them than the greatest genius can achieve. Accordingly a passionate temperament is favourable to the original quality of the intellect, but a phlegmatic temperament to its use. Therefore genius proper is only for theoretical achievements, for which it can choose and await its time, which will just be the time at which the will is entirely at rest, and no waves disturb the clear mirror of the comprehension of the world. On the other hand, genius is ill adapted and unserviceable for practical life, and is therefore for the most part unfortunate. Goethe's “Tasso” is written from this point of view. As now genius proper depends upon the absolute strength of the intellect, which must be purchased by a correspondingly excessive vehemence of disposition, so, on the other hand, the great pre-eminence in practical life that makes generals and statesmen depends upon the relative strength of the intellect, thus upon the highest degree of it that can be attained without too great excitability of the emotions, and too great vehemence of character, and that therefore can hold its own even in the storm. Great firmness of will and constancy of mind, together with a capable and fine understanding, are here sufficient; and whatever goes beyond this acts detrimentally, for too great a development of the intelligence directly impedes firmness of character and resolution of will. Hence this kind of eminence is not so abnormal, and is a hundred times less rare than the former kind; and accordingly we see great generals and great ministers appear in every age, whenever the merely external conditions are favourable to their efficiency. Great poets and philosophers, on the other hand, leave centuries waiting for them; and yet humanity may be contented even with this rare appearance of them, for their works remain, and do not exist only for the present, like the achievements of those other men. It is also quite in keeping with the law of the parsimony of nature referred to above that it bestows great eminence of mind in general upon very few, and genius only as the rarest of all exceptions, while it equips the great mass of the human race with no more mental power than is required for the maintenance of the individual and the species. For the great, and through their very satisfaction, constantly increasing needs of the human race make it necessary that the great majority of men should pass their lives in occupations of a coarsely physical and entirely mechanical description. And what would be the use to them of an active mind, a glowing imagination, a subtle understanding, and a profoundly penetrating intellect? These would only make them useless and unhappy. Therefore nature has thus gone about the most costly of all her productions in the least extravagant manner. In order not to judge unfairly one ought also to settle definitely one's expectations of the mental achievements of men generally from this point of view, and to regard, for example, even learned men, since as a rule they have become so only by the force of outward circumstances, primarily as men whom nature really intended to be tillers of the soil; indeed even professors of philosophy ought to be estimated according to this standard, and then their achievements will be found to come up to all fair expectations. It is worth noticing that in the south, where the necessities of life press less severely upon the human race, and more leisure is allowed, the mental faculties even of the multitude also become more active and finer. It is physiologically noteworthy that the preponderance of the mass of the brain over that of the spinal cord and the nerves, which, according to Sömmerring's acute discovery, affords the true and closest measure of the degree of intelligence both of species of brutes and of individual men, at the same time increases the direct power of moving, the agility of the limbs; because, through the great inequality of the relation, the dependence of all motor nerves upon the brain becomes more decided; and besides this the cerebellum, which is the primary controller of movements, shares the qualitative perfection of the cerebrum; thus through both all voluntary movements gain greater facility, rapidity, and manageableness, and by the concentration of the starting-point of all activity that arises which Lichtenberg praises in Garrick: “that he appeared to be present in all the muscles of his body.” Hence clumsiness in the movement of the body indicates clumsiness in the movement of the thoughts, and will be regarded as a sign of stupidity both in individuals and nations, as much as sleepiness of the countenance and vacancy of the glance. Another symptom of the physiological state of the case referred to is the fact that many persons are obliged at once to stand still whenever their conversation with any one who is walking with them begins to gain some connection; because their brain, as soon as it has to link together a few thoughts, has no longer as much power over as is required to keep the limbs in motion by means of the motory nerves, so closely is everything measured with them.

It results from this whole objective consideration of the intellect and its origin, that it is designed for the comprehension of those ends upon the attainment of which depends the individual life and its propagation, but by no means for deciphering the inner nature of things and of the world, which exists independently of the knower. What to the plant is the susceptibility to light, in consequence of which it guides its growth in the direction of it, that is, in kind, the knowledge of the brute, nay, even of man, although in degree it is increased in proportion as the needs of each of these beings demand. With them all apprehension remains a mere consciousness of their relations to other things, and is by no means intended to present again in the consciousness of the knower the peculiar, absolutely real nature of these things. Rather, as springing from the will, the intellect is also only designed for its service, thus for the apprehension of motives; it is adapted for this, and is therefore of a thoroughly practical tendency. This also holds good if we conceive the significance of life as ethical; for in this regard too we find man knowing only for the benefit of his conduct. Such a faculty of knowledge, existing exclusively for practical ends, will from its nature always comprehend only the relations of things to each other, but not the inner nature of them, as it is in itself. But to regard the complex of these relations as the absolute nature of the world as it is in itself, and the manner in which it necessarily exhibits itself in accordance with the laws predisposed in the brain as the eternal laws of the existence of all things, and then to construct ontology, cosmology, and theology in accordance with this view – this was really the old fundamental error, of which Kant's teaching has made an end. Here, then, our objective, and therefore for the most part physiological consideration of the intellect meets his transcendental consideration of it; nay, appears in a certain sense even as an a priori insight into it; for, from a point of view which we have taken up outside of it, our objective view enables us to know in its origin, and therefore as necessary, what that transcendental consideration, starting from facts of consciousness, presents only as a matter of fact. For it follows from our objective consideration of the intellect, that the world as idea, as it exists stretched out in space and time, and moves on regularly according to the strict law of causality, is primarily only a physiological phenomenon, a function of the brain, which brings it about, certainly upon the occasion of certain external stimuli, but yet in conformity with its own laws. Accordingly it is beforehand a matter of course, that what goes on in this function itself, and therefore through it and for it, must by no means be regarded as the nature of things in themselves, which exist independently of it and are entirely different from it, but primarily exhibits only the mode or manner of this function itself, which can always receive only a very subordinate modification through that which exists completely independently of it, and sets it in motion as a stimulus. As, then, Locke claimed for the organs of sense all that comes into our apprehension by means of the sensation, in order to deny that it belongs to things in themselves, so Kant, with the same intention, and pursuing the same path further, has proved all that makes perception proper possible, thus space, time, and causality, to be functions of the brain; although he has refrained from using this physiological expression, to which, however, our present method of investigation, coming from the opposite side, the side of the real, necessarily leads us. Kant arrived upon his analytical path at the result that what we know are mere phenomena. What this mysterious expression really means becomes clear from our objective and genetic investigation of the intellect. The phenomena are the motives for the aims of individual will as they exhibit themselves in the intellect which the will has produced for this purpose (which itself appears as a phenomenon objectively, as the brain), and which, when comprehended, as far as one can follow their concatenation, afford us in their connection the world which extends itself objectively in time and space, and which I call the world as idea. Moreover, from our point of view, the objectionable element vanishes which in the Kantian doctrine arises from the fact that, because the intellect knows merely phenomena instead of things as they are in themselves, nay, in consequence of this is led astray into paralogisms and unfounded hypostases by means of “sophistications, not of men but of the reason itself, from which even the wisest does not free himself, and if, perhaps indeed after much trouble, he avoids error, can yet never get quit of the illusion which unceasingly torments and mocks him” – because of all this, I say, the appearance arises that our intellect is intentionally designed to lead us into errors. For the objective view of the intellect given here, which contains a genesis of it, makes it conceivable that, being exclusively intended for practical ends, it is merely the medium of motives, and therefore fulfils its end by an accurate presentation of these, and that if we undertake to discover the nature of things in themselves, from the manifold phenomena which here exhibit themselves objectively to us, and their laws, we do this at our own peril and on our own responsibility. We have recognised that the original inner force of nature, without knowledge and working in the dark, which, if it has worked its way up to self-consciousness, reveals itself to this as will, attains to this grade only by the production of an animal brain and of knowledge, as its function, whereupon the phenomenon of the world of perception arises in this brain. But to explain this mere brain phenomenon, with the conformity to law which is invariably connected with its functions, as the objective inner nature of the world and the things in it, which is independent of the brain, existing before and after it, is clearly a spring which nothing warrants us in making. From this mundus phœnomenon, however, from this perception which arises under such a variety of conditions, all our conceptions are drawn. They have all their content from it, or even only in relation to it. Therefore, as Kant says, they are only for immanent, not for transcendental, use; that is to say, these conceptions of ours, this first material of thought, and consequently still more the judgments which result from their combination, are unfitted for the task of thinking the nature of things in themselves, and the true connection of the world and existence; indeed, to undertake this is analogous to expressing the stereometrical content of a body in square inches. For our intellect, originally only intended to present to an individual will its paltry aims, comprehends accordingly mere relations of things, and does not penetrate to their inner being, to their real nature. It is therefore a merely superficial force, clings to the surface of things, and apprehends mere species transitivas, not the true being of things. From this it arises that we cannot understand and comprehend any single thing, even the simplest and smallest, through and through, but something remains entirely inexplicable to us in each of them. Just because the intellect is a product of nature, and is therefore only intended for its ends, the Christian mystics have very aptly called it “the light of nature,” and driven it back within its limits; for nature is the object to which alone it is the subject. The thought from which the Critique of Pure Reason has sprung really lies already at the foundation of this expression. That we cannot comprehend the world on the direct path, i. e., through the uncritical, direct application of the intellect and its data, but when we reflect upon it become ever more deeply involved in insoluble mysteries, points to the fact that the intellect, thus knowledge itself, is secondary, a mere product, brought about by the development of the inner being of the world, which consequently till then preceded it, and it at last appeared as a breaking through to the light out of the obscure depths of the unconscious striving the nature of which exhibits itself as will to the self-consciousness which now at once arises. That which preceded knowledge as its condition, whereby it first became possible, thus its own basis, cannot be directly comprehended by it; as the eye cannot see itself. It is rather the relations of one existence to another, exhibiting themselves upon the surface of things, which alone are its affair, and are so only by means of the apparatus of the intellect, its forms, space, time, and causality. Just because the world has made itself without the assistance of knowledge, its whole being does not enter into knowledge, but knowledge presupposes the existence of the world; on which account the origin of the world does not lie within its sphere. It is accordingly limited to the relations between the things which lie before it, and is thus sufficient for the individual will, for the service of which alone it appeared. For the intellect is, as has been shown, conditioned by nature, lies in it, belongs to it, and cannot therefore place itself over against it as something quite foreign to it, in order thus to take up into itself its whole nature, absolutely, objectively, and thoroughly. It can, if fortune favours it, understand all that is in nature, but not nature itself, at least not directly.

However discouraging to metaphysics this essential limitation of the intellect may be, which arises from its nature and origin, it has yet another side which is very consoling. It deprives the direct utterances of nature of their unconditional validity, in the assertion of which naturalism proper consists. If, therefore, nature presents to us every living thing as appearing out of nothing, and, after an ephemeral existence, returning again for ever to nothing, and if it seems to take pleasure in the unceasing production of new beings, in order that it may be able unceasingly to destroy, and, on the other hand, is unable to bring anything permanent to light; if accordingly we are forced to recognise matter as that which alone is permanent, which never came into being and never passes away, but brings forth all things from its womb, whence its name appears to be derived from mater rerum, and along with it, as the father of things, form, which, just as fleeting as matter is permanent, changes really every moment, and can only maintain itself so long as it clings as a parasite to matter (now to one part of it, now to another), but when once it entirely loses hold, disappears, as is shown by the palæotheria and the ichthyosaurians, we must indeed recognise this as the direct and genuine utterance of nature, but on account of the origin of the intellect explained above, and the nature of it which results from this origin, we cannot ascribe to this utterance an unconditional truth, but rather only an entirely conditional truth, which Kant has appropriately indicated as such by calling it the phenomenon in opposition to the thing in itself.

If, in spite of this essential limitation of the intellect, it is possible, by a circuitous route, to arrive at a certain understanding of the world and the nature of things, by means of reflection widely pursued, and the skilful combination of objective knowledge directed towards without, with the data of self-consciousness, this will yet be only a very limited, entirely indirect, and relative understanding, a parabolical translation into the forms of knowledge, thus a quadam prodire tenus, which must always leave many problems still unsolved. On the other hand, the fundamental error of the old dogmatism in all its forms, which was destroyed by Kant, was this, that it started absolutely from knowledge, i.e., the world as idea, in order to deduce and construct from its laws being in general, whereby it accepted that world of idea, together with its laws, as absolutely existing and absolutely real; while its whole existence is throughout relative, and a mere result or phenomenon of the true being which lies at its foundation, – or, in other words, that it constructed an ontology when it had only materials for a dianoiology. Kant discovered the subjectively conditioned and therefore entirely immanent nature of knowledge, i. e., its unsuitableness for transcendental use, from the constitution of knowledge itself; and therefore he very appropriately called his doctrine the Critique of Reason. He accomplished this partly by showing the important and thoroughly a priori part of all knowledge, which, as throughout subjective, spoils all objectivity, and partly by professedly proving that if they were followed out to the end the principles of knowledge, taken as purely objective, led to contradictions. He had, however, hastily assumed that, apart from objective knowledge, i. e., apart from the world as idea, there is nothing given us except conscience, out of which he constructed the little that still remained of metaphysics, his moral theology, to which, however, he attributed absolutely only a practical validity, and no theoretical validity at all. He had overlooked that although certainly objective knowledge, or the world as idea, affords nothing but phenomena, together with their phenomenal connection and regressus, yet our own nature necessarily also belongs to the world of things in themselves, for it must have its root in it. But here, even if the root itself cannot be brought to light, it must be possible to gather some data for the explanation of the connection of the world of phenomena with the inner nature of things. Thus here lies the path upon which I have gone beyond Kant and the limits which he drew, yet always restricting myself to the ground of reflection, and consequently of honesty, and therefore without the vain pretension of intellectual intuition or absolute thought which characterises the period of pseudo-philosophy between Kant and me. In his proof of the insufficiency of rational knowledge to fathom the nature of the world Kant started from knowledge as a fact, which our consciousness affords us, thus in this sense he proceeded a posteriori. But in this chapter, and also in my work, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” I have sought to show what knowledge is in its nature and origin, something secondary, designed for individual ends; whence it follows that it must be insufficient to fathom the nature of the world. Thus so far I have reached the same goal a priori. But one never knows anything wholly and completely until one has gone right round it for that purpose, and has got back to it from the opposite side from which one started. Therefore also, in the case of the important fundamental knowledge here considered, one must not merely go from the intellect to the knowledge of the world, as Kant has done, but also from the world, taken as given, to the intellect, as I have undertaken here. Then this physiological consideration, in the wider sense, becomes the supplement of that ideological, as the French say, or, more accurately, transcendental consideration.

In the above, in order not to break the thread of the exposition, I have postponed the explanation of one point which I touched upon. It was this, that in proportion as, in the ascending series of animals, the intellect appears ever more developed and complete, knowledge always separates itself more distinctly from will, and thereby becomes purer. What is essential upon this point will be found in my work, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” under the heading, “Pflanzenphysiologie” (p. 68-72 of the second, and 74-77 of the third edition), to which I refer, in order to avoid repetition, and merely add here a few remarks. Since the plant possesses neither irritability nor sensibility, but the will objectifies itself in it only as plastic or reproductive power, it has neither muscle nor nerve. In the lowest grades of the animal kingdom, in zoophites, especially in polyps, we cannot as yet distinctly recognise the separation of these two constituent parts, but still we assume their existence, though in a state of fusion; because we perceive movements which follow, not, as in the case of plants, upon mere stimuli, but upon motives, i. e., in consequence of a certain apprehension. Now in proportion as, in the ascending series of animals, the nervous and muscular systems separate ever more distinctly from each other, till in the vertebrate animals, and most completely in man, the former divides into an organic and a cerebral nervous system, and of these the latter again develops into the excessively complicated apparatus of the cerebrum and cerebellum, spinal marrow, cerebral and spinal nerves, sensory and motor nerve fascicles, of which only the cerebrum, together with the sensory nerves depending upon it, and the posterior spinal nerve fascicles are intended for the apprehension of the motive from the external world, while all the other parts are intended for the transmission of the motive to the muscles in which the will manifests itself directly; in the same proportion does the motive separate ever more distinctly in consciousness from the act of will which it calls forth, thus the idea from the will; and thereby the objectivity of consciousness constantly increases, for the ideas exhibit themselves ever more distinctly and purely in it. These two separations are, however, really only one and the same, which we have here considered from two sides, the objective and the subjective, or first in the consciousness of other things and then in self-consciousness. Upon the degree of this separation ultimately depends the difference and the gradation of intellectual capacity, both between different kinds of animals and between individual human beings; thus it gives the standard for the intellectual completeness of these beings. For the clearness of the consciousness of the external world, the objectivity of the perception, depends upon it. In the passage referred to above I have shown that the brute only perceives things so far as they are motives for its will, and that even the most intelligent of the brutes scarcely overstep these limits, because their intellect is too closely joined to the will from which it has sprung. On the other hand, even the stupidest man comprehends things in some degree objectively; for he recognises not merely what they are with reference to him, but also something of what they are with reference to themselves and to other things. Yet in the case of very few does this reach such a degree that they are in a position to examine and judge of anything purely objectively; but “that must I do, that must I say, that must I believe,” is the goal to which on every occasion their thought hastens in a direct line, and at which their understanding at once finds welcome rest. For thinking is as unendurable to the weak head as the lifting of a burden to the weak arm; therefore both hasten to set it down. The objectivity of knowledge, and primarily of perceptive knowledge, has innumerable grades, which depend upon the energy of the intellect and its separation from the will, and the highest of which is genius, in which the comprehension of the external world becomes so pure and objective that to it even more reveals itself directly in the individual thing than the individual thing itself, namely, the nature of its whole species, i. e., its Platonic Idea; which is brought about by the fact that in this case the will entirely vanishes from consciousness. Here is the point at which the present investigation, starting from physiological grounds, connects itself with the subject of our third book, the metaphysics of the beautiful, where æsthetic comprehension proper, which, in a high degree, is peculiar to genius alone, is fully considered as the condition of pure, i. e., perfectly will-less, and on that account completely objective knowledge. According to what has been said, the rise of intelligence, from the obscurest animal consciousness up to that of man, is a progressive loosening of the intellect from the will, which appears complete, although only as an exception, in the genius. Therefore genius may be defined as the highest grade of the objectivity of knowledge. The condition of this, which so seldom occurs, is a decidedly larger measure of intelligence than is required for the service of the will, which constitutes its basis; it is accordingly this free surplus which first really properly comes to know the world, i. e., comprehends it perfectly objectively, and now paints pictures, composes poems, and thinks in accordance with this comprehension.

Chapter XXIII.[3 - This chapter is connected with § 23 of the first volume.]On The Objectification Of The Will In Unconscious Nature

That the will which we find within us does not proceed, as philosophy has hitherto assumed, first from knowledge, and indeed is a mere modification of it, thus something secondary, derived, and, like knowledge itself, conditioned by the brain; but that it is the prius of knowledge, the kernel of our nature, and that original force itself which forms and sustains the animal body, in that it carries out both its unconscious and its conscious functions; – this is the first step in the fundamental knowledge of my metaphysics. Paradoxical as it even now seems to many that the will in itself is without knowledge, yet the scholastics in some way already recognised and confessed it; for Jul. Cæs. Vaninus (that well-known sacrifice to fanaticism and priestly fury), who was thoroughly versed in their philosophy, says in his “Amphitheatro,” p. 181: “Voluntas potentia cœca est, ex scholasticorum opinione.” That, further, it is that same will which in the plant forms the bud in order to develop the leaf and the flower out of it; nay, that the regular form of the crystal is only the trace which its momentary effort has left behind, and that in general, as the true and only αυτοματον, in the proper sense of the word, it lies at the foundation of all the forces of unorganised nature, plays, acts, in all their multifarious phenomena, imparts power to their laws, and even in the crudest mass manifests itself as gravity; – this insight is the second step in that fundamental knowledge, and is brought about by further reflection. But it would be the grossest misunderstanding to suppose that this is a mere question of a word to denote an unknown quantity. It is rather the most real of all real knowledge which is here expressed in language. For it is the tracing back of that which is quite inaccessible to our immediate knowledge, and therefore in its essence foreign and unknown to us, which we denote by the words force of nature, to that which is known to us most accurately and intimately, but which is yet only accessible to us in our own being and directly, and must therefore be carried over from this to other phenomena. It is the insight that what is inward and original in all the changes and movements of bodies, however various they may be, is in its nature identical; that yet we have only one opportunity of getting to know it more closely and directly, and that is in the movements of our own body. In consequence of this knowledge we must call it will. It is the insight that that which acts and strives in nature, and exhibits itself in ever more perfect phenomena, when it has worked itself up so far that the light of knowledge falls directly upon it, i. e., when it has attained to the state of self-consciousness – exists as that will, which is what is most intimately known to us, and therefore cannot be further explained by anything else, but rather affords the explanation of all other things. It is accordingly the thing in itself so far as this can ever be reached by knowledge. Consequently it is that which must express itself in some way in everything in the world, for it is the inner nature of the world and the kernel of all phenomena.

As my essay, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” specially refers to the subject of this chapter, and also adduces the evidence of unprejudiced empiricists in favour of this important point of my doctrine, I have only to add now to what is said there a few supplementary remarks, which are therefore strung together in a somewhat fragmentary manner.

First, then, with reference to plant life, I draw attention to the remarkable first two chapters of Aristotle's work upon plants. What is most interesting in them, as is so often the case with Aristotle, are the opinions of earlier profound philosophers quoted by him. We see there that Anaxagoras and Empedocles quite rightly taught that plants have the motion of their growth by virtue of their indwelling desires (επιθυμια); nay, that they also attributed to them pleasure and pain, therefore sensation. But Plato only ascribed to them desires, and that on account of their strong appetite for nutrition (cf. Plato in the “Timœus,” p. 403, Bip.) Aristotle, on the other hand, true to his customary method, glides on the surface of things, confines himself to single characteristics and conceptions fixed by current expressions, and asserts that without sensation there can be no desires, and that plants have not sensation. He is, however, in considerable embarrassment, as his confused language shows, till here also, “where fails the comprehension, a word steps promptly in as deputy,” namely, το θρεπτικον, the faculty of nourishing. Plants have this, and thus a part of the so-called soul, according to his favourite division into anima vegetativa, sensitiva, and intellectiva. This, however, is just a scholastic Quidditas, and signifies plantœ nutriuntur quia habent facultatem nutritivam. It is therefore a bad substitute for the more profound research of his predecessors, whom he is criticising. We also see, in the second chapter, that Empedocles even recognised the sexuality of plants; which Aristotle then also finds fault with, and conceals his want of special knowledge behind general propositions, such as this, that plants could not have both sexes combined, for if so they would be more complete than animals. By quite an analogous procedure he displaces the correct astronomical system of the world of the Pythagoreans, and by his absurd fundamental principles, which he specially explains in the books de Cœlo, introduces the system of Ptolemy, whereby mankind was again deprived of an already discovered truth of the greatest importance for almost two thousand years.

I cannot refrain from giving here the saying of an excellent biologist of our own time who fully agrees with my teaching. It is G. R. Treviranus, who, in his work, “Ueber die Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen Lebens,” 1832, Bd. 2, Abth. 1, § 49, has said what follows: “A form of life is, however, conceivable in which the effect of the external upon the internal produces merely feelings of desire or dislike. Such is the life of plants. In the higher forms of animal life the external is felt as something objective.” Treviranus speaks here from pure unprejudiced comprehension of nature, and is as little conscious of the metaphysical importance of his words as of the contradictio in adjecto which lies in the conception of something “felt as objective,” a conception which indeed he works out at great length. He does not know that all feeling is essentially subjective, and all that is objective is, on the other hand, perception, and therefore a product of the understanding. Yet this does not detract at all from the truth and importance of what he says.

In fact, in the life of plants the truth that will can exist without knowledge is apparent – one might say palpably recognisable. For here we see a decided effort, determined by wants, modified in various ways, and adapting itself to the difference of the circumstances, yet clearly without knowledge. And just because the plant is without knowledge it bears its organs of generation ostentatiously in view, in perfect innocence; it knows nothing about it. As soon, on the other hand, as in the series of existences knowledge appears the organs of generation are transferred to a hidden part. Man, however, with whom this is again less the case, conceals them intentionally: he is ashamed of them.

Primarily, then, the vital force is identical with the will, but so also are all other forces of nature; though this is less apparent. If, therefore, we find the recognition of a desire, i. e., of a will, as the basis of plant life, expressed at all times, with more or less distinctness of conception, on the other hand, the reference of the forces of unorganised nature to the same foundation is rarer in proportion as their remoteness from our own nature is greater. In fact, the boundary between the organised and the unorganised is the most sharply drawn in the whole of nature, and perhaps the only one that admits of no transgressions; so that natura non facit saltus seems to suffer an exception here. Although certain crystallisations display an external form resembling the vegetable, yet even between the smallest lichen, the lowest fungus, and everything unorganised there remains a fundamental and essential difference. In the unorganised body that which is essential and permanent, thus that upon which its identity and integrity rests, is the material, the matter; what is unessential and changing is, on the other hand, the form. With the organised body the case is exactly reversed; for its life, i. e., its existence as an organised being, simply consists in the constant change of the material, while the form remains permanent. Its being and its identity thus lies in the form alone. Therefore the continuance of the unorganised body depends upon repose and exclusion from external influences: thus alone does it retain its existence; and if this condition is perfect, such a body lasts for ever. The continuance of the organised body, on the contrary, just depends upon continual movement and the constant reception of external influences. As soon as these are wanting and the movement in it stops it is dead, and thereby ceases to be organic, although the trace of the organism that has been still remains for a while. Therefore the talk, which is so much affected in our own day, of the life of what is unorganised, indeed of the globe itself, and that it, and also the planetary system, is an organism, is entirely inadmissible. The predicate life belongs only to what is organised. Every organism, however, is throughout organised, is so in all its parts; and nowhere are these, even in their smallest particles, composed by aggregation of what is unorganised. Thus if the earth were an organism, all mountains and rocks, and the whole interior of their mass, would necessarily be organised, and accordingly really nothing unorganised would exist; and therefore the whole conception of it would be wanting.

On the other hand, that the manifestation of a will is as little bound up with life and organisation as with knowledge, and that therefore the unorganised has also a will, the manifestations of which are all its fundamental qualities, which cannot be further explained, – this is an essential point in my doctrine; although the trace of such a thought is far seldomer found in writers who have preceded me than that of the will in plants, where, however, it is still unconscious.

In the forming of the crystal we see, as it were, a tendency towards an attempt at life, to which, however, it does not attain, because the fluidity of which, like a living thing, it is composed at the moment of that movement is not enclosed in a skin, as is always the case with the latter, and consequently it has neither vessels in which that movement could go on, nor does anything separate it from the external world. Therefore, rigidity at once seizes that momentary movement, of which only the trace remains as the crystal.

The thought that the will, which constitutes the basis of our own nature, is also the same will which shows itself even in the lowest unorganised phenomena, on account of which the conformity to law of both phenomena shows a perfect analogy, lies at the foundation of Goethe's “Wahlverwandtschaften,” as the title indeed indicates, although he himself was unconscious of this.

Mechanics and astronomy specially show us how this will conducts itself so far as it appears at the lowest grade of its manifestation merely as gravity, rigidity, and inertia. Hydraulics shows us the same thing where rigidity is wanting and the fluid material is now unrestrainedly surrendered to its predominating passion, gravity. In this sense hydraulics may be conceived as a characteristic sketch of water, for it presents to us the manifestations of will to which water is moved by gravity; these always correspond exactly to the external influences, for in the case of all non-individual existences there is no particular character in addition to the general one; thus they can easily be referred to fixed characteristics, which are called laws, and which are learned by experience of water. These laws accurately inform us how water will conduct itself under all different circumstances, on account of its gravity, the unconditioned mobility of its parts, and its want of elasticity. Hydrostatics teaches how it is brought to rest through gravity; hydrodynamics, how it is set in motion; and the latter has also to take account of hindrances which adhesion opposes to the will of water: the two together constitute hydraulics. In the same way Chemistry teaches us how the will conducts itself when the inner qualities of materials obtain free play by being brought into a fluid state, and there appears that wonderful attraction and repulsion, separating and combining, leaving go of one to seize upon another, from which every precipitation originates, and the whole of which is denoted by “elective affinity” (an expression which is entirely borrowed from the conscious will). But Anatomy and Physiology allow us to see how the will conducts itself in order to bring about the phenomenon of life and sustain it for a while. Finally, the poet shows us how the will conducts itself under the influence of motives and reflection. He exhibits it therefore for the most part in the most perfect of its manifestations, in rational beings, whose character is individual, and whose conduct and suffering he brings before us in the Drama, the Epic, the Romance, &c. The more correctly, the more strictly according to the laws of nature his characters are there presented, the greater is his fame; hence Shakespeare stands at the top. The point of view which is here taken up corresponds at bottom to the spirit in which Goethe followed and loved the natural sciences, although he was not conscious of the matter in the abstract. Nay more, this not only appears from his writings, but is also known to me from his personal utterances.

If we consider the will, where no one denies it, in conscious beings, we find everywhere, as its fundamental effort, the self-preservation of every being: omnis natura vult esse conservatrix sui. But all manifestations of this fundamental effort may constantly be traced back to a seeking or pursuit and a shunning or fleeing from, according to the occasion. Now this also may be shown even at the lowest grades of nature, that is, of the objectification of the will, where the bodies still act only as bodies in general, thus are the subject-matter of mechanics, and are considered only with reference to the manifestations of impenetrability, cohesion, rigidity, elasticity, and gravity. Here also the seeking shows itself as gravitation, and the shunning as the receiving of motion; and the movableness of bodies by pressure or impact, which constitutes the basis of mechanics, is at bottom a manifestation of the effort after self-preservation, which dwells in them also. For, since as bodies they are impenetrable, this is the sole means of preserving their cohesion, thus their continuance at any time. The body which is impelled or exposed to pressure would be crushed to pieces by the impelling or pressing body if it did not withdraw itself from its power by flight, in order to preserve its cohesion; and when flight is impossible for it this actually happens. Indeed, one may regard elastic bodies as the more courageous, which seek to repel the enemy, or at least to prevent him from pursuing further. Thus in the one secret which (besides gravity) is left by mechanics otherwise so clear, in the communicability of motion, we see a manifestation of the fundamental effort of the will in all its phenomena, the effort after self-preservation, which shows itself even at the lowest grades as that which is essential.

In unorganised nature the will objectifies itself primarily in the universal forces, and only by means of these in the phenomena of the particular things which are called forth by causes. In § 26 of the first volume I have fully explained the relation between cause, force of nature, and will as thing in itself. One sees from that explanation that metaphysics never interrupts the course of physics, but only takes up the thread where physics leaves it, at the original forces in which all causal explanation has its limits. Only here does the metaphysical explanation from the will as the thing in itself begin. In the case of every physical phenomenon, of every change of material things, its cause is primarily to be looked for; and this cause is just such a particular change which has appeared immediately before it. Then, however, the original force of nature is to be sought by virtue of which this cause was capable of acting. And first of all the will is to be recognised as the inner nature of this force in opposition to its manifestation. Yet the will shows itself just as directly in the fall of a stone as in the action of the man; the difference is only that its particular manifestation is in the one case called forth by a motive, in the other by a mechanically acting cause, for example, the taking away of what supported the stone; yet in both cases with equal necessity; and that in the one case it depends upon an individual character, in the other upon an universal force of nature. This identity of what is fundamentally essential is even made palpable to the senses. If, for instance, we carefully observe a body which has lost its equilibrium, and on account of its special form rolls back and forward for a long time till it finds its centre of gravity again, a certain appearance of life forces itself upon us, and we directly feel that something analogous to the foundation of life is also active here. This is certainly the universal force of nature, which, however, in itself identical with the will, becomes here, as it were, the soul of a very brief quasi life. Thus what is identical in the two extremes of the manifestation of the will makes itself faintly known here even to direct perception, in that this raises a feeling in us that here also something entirely original, such as we only know in the acts of our own will, directly succeeded in manifesting itself.

We may attain to an intuitive knowledge of the existence and activity of the will in unorganised nature in quite a different and a sublime manner if we study the problem of the three heavenly bodies, and thus learn more accurately and specially the course of the moon round the earth. By the different combinations which the constant change of the position of these three heavenly bodies towards each other introduces, the course of the moon is now accelerated; now retarded, now it approaches the earth, and again recedes from it; and this again takes place differently in the perihelion of the earth from in its aphelion, all of which together introduces such irregularity into the moon's course that it really obtains a capricious appearance; for, indeed, Kepler's third law is no longer constantly valid, but in equal times it describes unequal areas. The consideration of this course is a small and separate chapter of celestial mechanics, which is distinguished in a sublime manner from terrestrial mechanics by the absence of all impact and pressure, thus of the vis a tergo which appears to us so intelligible, and indeed of the actually completed case, for besides vis inertiœ it knows no other moving and directing force, except only gravitation, that longing for union which proceeds from the very inner nature of bodies. If now we construct for ourselves in imagination the working of this given case in detail, we recognise distinctly and directly in the moving force here that which is given to us in self-consciousness as will. For the alterations in the course of the earth and the moon, according as one of them is by its position more or less exposed to the influence of the sun, are evidently analogous to the influence of newly appearing motives upon our wills, and to the modifications of our action which result.

The following is an illustrative example of another kind. Liebig (Chemie in Anwendung auf Agrikultur, p. 501), says: “If we bring moist copper into air which contains carbonic acid, the affinity of the metal for the oxygen of the air will be increased by the contact with this acid to such a degree that the two will combine with each other; its surface will be coated with green carbonic oxide of copper. But now two bodies which have the capacity of combining, the moment they meet assume opposite electrical conditions. Therefore if we touch the copper with iron, by producing a special electrical state, the capacity of the copper to enter into combination with the oxygen is destroyed; even under the above conditions it remains bright.” The fact is well known and of technical use. I quote it in order to say that here the will of the copper, laid claim to and occupied by the electrical opposition to iron, leaves unused the opportunity which presents itself for its chemical affinity for oxygen and carbonic acid. Accordingly it conducts itself exactly as the will in a man who omits an action which he would otherwise feel himself moved to in order to perform another to which a stronger motive urges him.

I have shown in the first volume that the forces of nature lie outside the chain of causes and effects, because they constitute their accompanying condition, their metaphysical foundation, and therefore prove themselves to be eternal and omnipresent, i. e., independent of time and space. Even in the uncontested truth that what is essential to a cause as such consists in this, that it will produce the same effect at any future time as it does now, it is already involved that something lies in the cause which is independent of the course of time, i. e., is outside of all time; this is the force of nature which manifests itself in it. One can even convince oneself to a certain extent empirically and as a matter of fact of the ideality of this form of our perception by fixing one's eyes upon the powerlessness of time as opposed to natural forces. If, for example, a rotatory motion is imparted to a planet by some external cause, if no new cause enters to stop it, this motion will endure for ever. This could not be so if time were something in itself and had an objective, real existence; for then it would necessarily also produce some effect. Thus we see here, on the one hand, the forces of nature, which manifest themselves in that rotation, and, if it is once begun, carry it on for ever without becoming weary or dying out, prove themselves to be eternal or timeless, and consequently absolutely real and existing in themselves; and, on the other hand, time as something which consists only in the manner in which we apprehend that phenomenon, since it exerts no power and no influence upon the phenomenon itself; for what does not act is not.

We have a natural inclination whenever it is possible to explain every natural phenomenon mechanically; doubtless because mechanics calls in the assistance of the fewest original, and hence inexplicable, forces, and, on the other hand, contains much that can be known a priori, and therefore depends upon the forms of our own intellect, which as such carries with it the highest degree of comprehensibility and clearness. However, in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” Kant has referred mechanical activity itself to a dynamical activity. On the other hand, the application of mechanical explanatory hypotheses, beyond what is demonstrably mechanical, to which, for example, Acoustics also belongs, is entirely unjustified, and I will never believe that even the simplest chemical combination or the difference of the three states of aggregation will ever admit of mechanical explanation, much less the properties of light, of heat, and electricity. These will always admit only of a dynamical explanation, i. e., one which explains the phenomenon from original forces which are entirely different from those of impact, pressure, weight, &c., and are therefore of a higher kind, i. e., are more distinct objectifications of that will which obtains visible form in all things. I am of opinion that light is neither an emanation nor a vibration; both views are akin to that which explains transparency from pores and the evident falseness of which is proved by the fact that light is subject to no mechanical laws. In order to obtain direct conviction of this one only requires to watch the effects of a storm of wind, which bends, upsets, and scatters everything, but during which a ray of light shooting down from a break in the clouds is entirely undisturbed and steadier than a rock, so that with great directness it imparts to us the knowledge that it belongs to another order of things than the mechanical: it stands there unmoved like a ghost. Those constructions of light from molecules and atoms which have originated with the French are indeed a revolting absurdity. An article by Ampère, who is otherwise so acute, upon light and heat, which is to be found in the April number of the “Annales de chimie et physique,” of 1835, may be considered as a flagrant expression of this, and indeed of the whole of atomism in general. There the solid, the fluid, and the elastic consist of the same atoms, and all differences arise solely from their aggregation; nay, it is said that space indeed is infinitely divisible, but not matter; because, if the division has been carried as far as the atoms, the further division must fall in the spaces between the atoms! Light and heat, then, are here vibrations of the atoms; and sound, on the other hand, is a vibration of the molecules composed of the atoms. In truth, however, these atoms are a fixed idea of the French savants, and therefore they just speak of them as if they had seen them. Otherwise one would necessarily marvel that such a matter-of-fact nation as the French can hold so firmly to a completely transcendent hypothesis, which is quite beyond the possibility of experience, and confidently build upon it up to the sky. This is just a consequence of the backward state of the metaphysics they shun so much, which is poorly represented by M. Cousin, who, with all good will, is shallow and very scantily endowed with judgment. At bottom they are still Lockeians, owing to the earlier influence of Condillac. Therefore for them the thing in itself is really matter, from the fundamental properties of which, such as impenetrability, form, hardness, and the other primary qualities, everything in the world must be ultimately explicable. They will not let themselves be talked out of this, and their tacit assumption is that matter can only be moved by mechanical forces. In Germany Kant's teaching has prevented the continuance of the absurdities of the atomistic and purely mechanical physics for any length of time; although at the present moment these views prevail here also, which is a consequence of the shallowness, crudeness, and folly introduced by Hegel. However, it cannot be denied that not only the evidently porous nature of natural bodies, but also two special doctrines of modern physics, apparently render assistance to the atomic nuisance. These are, Hauz's Crystallography, which traces every crystal back to its kernel form, which is an ultimate form, though only relatively indivisible; and Berzelius's doctrine of chemical atoms, which are yet mere expressions for combining proportions, thus only arithmetical quantities, and at bottom nothing more than counters. On the other hand, Kant's thesis in the second antinomy in defence of atoms, which is certainly only set up for dialectical purposes, is a mere sophism, as I have proved in my criticism of his philosophy, and our understanding itself by no means leads us necessarily to the assumption of atoms. For just as little as I am obliged to think that the slow but constant and uniform motion of a body before my eyes is composed of innumerable motions which are absolutely quick, but broken and interrupted by just as many absolutely short moments of rest, but, on the contrary, know very well that the stone that has been thrown flies more slowly than the projected bullet, yet never pauses for an instant on the way, so little am I obliged to think of the mass of a body as consisting of atoms and the spaces between them, i. e., of absolute density and absolute vacuity; but I comprehend those two phenomena without difficulty as constant continua, one of which uniformly fills time and the other space. But just as the one motion may yet be quicker than another, i. e., in an equal time can pass through more space, so also one body may have a greater specific gravity than another, i. e., in equal space may contain more matter: in both cases the difference depends upon the intensity of the acting force; for Kant (following Priestley) has quite correctly reduced matter to forces. But even if the analogy here set up should not be admitted as valid, and it should be insisted upon that the difference of specific gravity can only have its ground in porosity, even this assumption would always lead, not to atoms, but only to a perfectly dense matter, unequally distributed among different bodies; a matter which would certainly be no longer compressible, when no pores ran through it, but yet, like the space which it fills, would always remain infinitely divisible. For the fact that it would have no pores by no means involves that no possible force could do away with the continuity of its spatial parts. For to say that everywhere this is only possible by extending the already existing intervals is a purely arbitrary assertion.

The assumption of atoms rests upon the two phenomena which have been touched upon, the difference of the specific gravity of bodies and that of their compressibility, for both are conveniently explained by the assumption of atoms. But then both must also always be present in like measure, which is by no means the case. For, for example, water has a far lower specific gravity than all metals properly so called. It must thus have fewer atoms and greater interstices between them, and consequently be very compressible: but it is almost entirely incompressible.

The defence of atoms might be conducted in this way. One may start from porosity and say something of this sort: All bodies have pores, and therefore so also have all parts of a body: now if this were carried out to infinity, there would ultimately be nothing left of a body but pores. The refutation would be that what remained over would certainly have to be assumed as without pores, and so far as absolutely dense, yet not on that account as consisting of absolutely indivisible particles, atoms; accordingly it would certainly be absolutely incompressible, but not absolutely indivisible. It would therefore be necessary that it should be asserted that the division of a body is only possible by penetrating into its pores; which, however, is entirely unproved. If, however, this is assumed, then we certainly have atoms, i. e., absolutely indivisible bodies, thus bodies of such strong cohesion of their spatial parts that no possible power can separate them: but then one may just as well assume such bodies to be large as small, and an atom might be as big as an ox, if it only would resist all possible attacks upon it.

Imagine two bodies of very different kinds, entirely freed from all pores by compression, as by means of hammering, or by pulverisation; – would their specific gravity then be the same? This would be the criterion of dynamics.

Chapter XXIV. On Matter

Matter has already been spoken of in the fourth chapter of the supplements to the first book, when we were considering the part of our knowledge of which we are conscious a priori. But it could only be considered there from a one-sided point of view, because we were then concerned merely with its relation to the forms of our intellect, and not to the thing in itself, and therefore we investigated it only from the subjective side, i. e., so far as it is an idea, and not from the objective side, i. e., with regard to what it may be in itself. In the first respect, our conclusion was that it is objective activity in general, yet conceived without fuller determination; therefore it takes the place of causality in the table of our a priori knowledge which is given there. For what is material is that which acts (the actual) in general, and regarded apart from the specific nature of its action. Hence also matter, merely as such, is not an object of perception, but only of thought, and thus is really an abstraction. It only comes into perception in connection with form and quality, as a body, i. e., as a fully determined kind of activity. It is only by abstracting from this fuller determination that we think of matter as such, i. e., separated from form and quality; consequently under matter we think of acting absolutely and in general, thus of activity in the abstract. The more fully determined acting we then conceive as the accident of matter; but only by means of this does matter become perceptible, i. e., present itself as a body and an object of experience. Pure matter, on the other hand, which, as I have shown in the Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, alone constitutes the true and admissible content of the conception of substance, is causality itself, thought objectively, consequently as in space, and therefore filling it. Accordingly the whole being of matter consists in acting. Only thus does it occupy space and last in time. It is through and through pure causality. Therefore wherever there is action there is matter, and the material is the active in general. But causality itself is the form of our understanding; for it is known to us a priori, as well as time and space. Thus matter also, so far and up to this point, belongs to the formal part of our knowledge, and is consequently that form of the understanding, causality itself, bound up with space and time, hence objectified, i. e., conceived as that which fills space. (The fuller explanation of this doctrine will be found in the second edition of the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, p. 77; third edition, p. 82.) So far, however, matter is properly not the object but the condition of experience; like the pure understanding itself, whose function it so far is. Therefore of pure matter there is also only a conception, no perception. It enters into all external experience as a necessary constituent part of it; yet it cannot be given in any experience, but is only thought, and thought indeed as that which is absolutely inert, inactive, formless, and without qualities, and which is yet the supporter of all forms, qualities, and effects. Accordingly, of all fleeting phenomena, thus of all manifestations of natural forces and all living beings, matter is the permanent substratum which is necessarily produced by the forms of our intellect in which the world as idea exhibits itself. As such, and as having sprung from the forms of the intellect, it is entirely indifferent to those phenomena themselves, i. e., it is just as ready to be the supporter of this force of nature as of that, whenever, under the guidance of causality, the necessary conditions appear; while it itself, just because its existence is really only formal, i. e., is founded in the intellect must be thought as that which under all that change is absolutely permanent, thus with regard to time is without beginning and without end. This is why we cannot give up the thought that anything may be made out of anything, for example, gold out of lead; for this would only require that we should find out and bring about the intermediate states which matter, in itself indifferent, would have to pass through upon that path. For a priori we can never see why the same matter which is now the supporter of the quality lead could not some time become the supporter of the quality gold. Matter, as that which is only thoughta priori, is distinguished from the a prioriintuitions or perceptions proper by the fact that we can also think it entirely away; space and time, on the contrary, never. But this only shows that we can present to ourselves space and time in imagination without matter. For the matter which has once been placed in them, and accordingly thought as existing, we can never again absolutely think away, i. e., imagine it as vanished and annihilated, but are always forced to think of it merely as transferred to another space. So far, then, matter is as inseparably connected with our faculty of knowledge as space and time themselves. Yet even the difference that it must first be voluntarily thought as existing indicates that it does not belong so entirely and in every regard to the formal part of our knowledge as space and time, but also contains an element which is only given a posteriori. It is, in fact, the point of connection of the empirical part of our knowledge with the pure and a priori part, consequently the peculiar foundation-stone of the world of experience.

Only where all a priori assertions cease, therefore in the entirely empirical part of our knowledge of bodies, in their form, quality, and definite manner of acting, does that will reveal itself which we have already recognised and established as the true inner nature of things. But these forms and qualities always appear only as the properties and manifestations of that very matter the existence and nature of which depends upon the subjective forms of our intellect, i. e., they only become visible in it, and therefore by means of it. For that which always exhibits itself to us is only matter acting in some specially determined manner. Out of the inner properties of such matter, properties which cannot be further explained, proceeds every definite kind of effect of given bodies; and yet the matter itself is never perceived, but only these effects, and the definite properties which lie at their foundation, after separating which, matter, as that which then remains over, is necessarily added in thought by us; for, according to the exposition given above, it is objectified causality itself. Accordingly matter is that whereby the will, which constitutes the inner nature of things, becomes capable of being apprehended, perceptible, visible. In this sense, then, matter is simply the visibility of the will, or the bond between the world as will and the world as idea. It belongs to the latter inasmuch as it is the product of the functions of the intellect, to the former inasmuch as that which manifests itself in all material existences, i. e., phenomena is the will. Therefore every object is, as thing in itself, will, and as phenomenon, matter. If we could strip any given matter of all the properties that come to it a priori, i. e., of all the forms of our perception and apprehension, we would have left the thing in itself, that which, by means of those forms, appears as the purely empirical in matter, but which would then itself no longer appear as something extended and active; i. e., we would no longer have matter before us, but the will. This very thing in itself, or the will, in that it becomes a phenomenon, i. e., enters the forms of our intellect, appears as matter, i. e., as the invisible but necessarily assumed supporter of the properties which are only visible through it. In this sense, then, matter is the visibility of the will. Consequently Plotinus and Giordano Bruno were right, not only in their sense but also in ours, when they made the paradoxical assertion already referred to in chapter 4: Matter itself is not extended, consequently it is incorporeal. For space, which is our form of perception, imparts extension to matter, and corporeal existence consists in acting, which depends upon causality, and consequently upon the form of our understanding. On the other hand, every definite property, thus everything empirical in matter, even gravity, depends upon that which only becomes visible by means of matter, the thing in itself, the will. Gravity is yet the lowest of all grades of the objectification of the will; therefore it appears in all matter without exception, thus is inseparable from matter in general. Yet, just because it is a manifestation of the will, it belongs to knowledge a posteriori, not to knowledge a priori. Therefore we can always picture to ourselves matter without weight, but not without extension, repulsive force, and stability, for then it would be without impenetrability, and consequently would not occupy space, i. e., it would be without the power of acting; but the nature of matter as such just consists in acting, i. e., in causality in general; and causality depends upon the a priori form of our understanding, and therefore cannot be thought away.