The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

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THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA

VOLUME I

THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA

By

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER VOLUME I

CONTAINING FOUR BOOKS

Ob nicht Natur zuletzt sich doch ergrunde ?

Gottht

LONDON

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LIMITED

BROADWAY HOUSE, 68 - 74 CARTER LANE, E. C.

Translated from the German by

R. B. HALDANE, M.A.

and

J. KEMP, M.A.

First published 1883 Ninth impression 1948

CONTENTS

FIRST BOOK.

rAOB

The World as Idsa— First Aspect. The Idea Subobdi* i

NATF.P TO THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON; THE

Object of Expekiexcb and Science • • » •

SECOND BOOK.

The World as Will— First Aspect. The OBJSoTiFiCATioir

of the Will • • lEi

THIRD BOOK.

The AVorld as Idea— Second Aspect. The Idea Independent of tub Principle of Sufficient Reason: the Platonic Idea : the Object of Aet • • . 217

FOURTH BOOK.

The World as Will— Second Aspect. After the AttainMBNT OF Self-Knowledge. Assertion and Denial of THE Will to Live 547

TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE

The style of “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellang” is sometimes loose and involved, as is so often the case in German philosophical treatises. The translation of the book has consequently been a matter of no little difficulty. It was found that extensive altemtion of the long and occasionally involved sentences, however likely to prove conducive to a satisfactory English style, tended not only to obliterate the form of the original but even to imperil the meaning. Where a choice has had to be made, the alternative of a somewhat slavish adherence to Schopenhauer’s ipmsima verba has accordingly been preferred to that of inaccuracy, l^e result is a piece of work which leaves much to be desired, but which has yet consistently sought to reproduce faithfully the spirit as well as the letter of the original.

As regards the rendering of the technical terms about which there has been so much controversy, the equivalents used have only been adopted after careful consideration of their meaning in the theory of knowledge. For example, “ Vorstellung ” has been rendered by “ idea," in preference to " representation,” which is neither accurate, intelligible, nor elegant. “Idee,” is translated by the

TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.

same word, but spelled with a capital, — “ Idea.” Again, “Anschauung” has been rendered according to the context, either by “ perception ” simply, or by “ intuition or perception.”

Notwithstanding statements to the contrary in the text, the book is probably quite intelligible in itself, apart from the treatise " On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.” It has, however, been considered desirable to add an abstract of the latter work in an appendix to the third volume of this translation.

R. B. H.

J. K.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

I PROPOSE to point out here how this book must be read in order to be thoroughly understood. By means of it I only intend to impart a single thought. Yet, notwithstanding all my endeavours, I could find no shorter way of imparting it than this whole book. I hold this thought to that wliicli has very long been sought for under the name of philosophy, and the discovery of which is therefore regarded by those who are familiar with history as quite as impossible as the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, although it was already said by Pliny : Quam 'muTta fieri non iwsse, priusupiam sint facia, jvdicantur / (Hist, nat 7, I.)

According as we consider the different aspects of this one thought which I am about to impart, it exhibits itself as that which we call metaphysics, that which we call ethics, and that which we call esthetics ; and certainly it must be all this if it is whatmiave already acknowledged I take it to be.

A system of thought must always have an architectonic connection or coherence, that is, a connection in which one part always supports the other, though the latter does not support the former, in which ultimately the foundation supports all the rest without being supported by it, and the apex is supported without supporting. On the other hand, a single thought, however compreTiii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

hensive it may be, must preserve the most perfect unity. If it admits of being broken up into parts to facilitate its communication, the connection of these parts must yet be organic, i.e., it must be a connection in which every part supports the whole just as much as it is supported by it, a connection in which there is no first and no last, in which the whole thought gains distinctness through every part, and even the smallest part cannot be completely understood unless the whole has already been grasped. A book, however, must always have a first and a last line, and in this respect will always remain very unlike an organism, however like one its content may be : thus form and matter are here in contradiction.

It is self-evident that under these circumstances no other advice can be given as to how one may enter into the thought explained in this work than to read the hook ttoice, and the first time with great patience, a patience which is only to be derived from the belief, voluntarily accorded, that the beginning presupposes the end almost as much as the end presupposes the beginning, and that all the earlier parts presuppose the later almost as much as the later presuppose the earlier. I say “almost;” for this is by no means absolutely the case, and I have honestly and conscientiously done all that was possible to give priority to that which stands least in need of explanation from what follows, as indeed generally to everything that can help to make the thought as easy to comprehend and as distinct as possible. This might indeed to a certain extent be achieved if it were not that the reader, as is very natural, thinks, as he reads, not merely of what is actually said, but also of its possible consequences, and thus besides the many contradictions

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. iz

actually given of the opinions of the time, and presumably of the reader, there may be added as many more which are anticipated and imaginary. That, then, which is really only misunderstanding, must take the form of active disapproval, and it is all the more difficult jto recognise that it is misunderstanding, because although the laboriously-attained clearness of the explanation and distinctness of the expression never leaves the immediate sense of what is said doubtful, it cannot at the same time express its relations to all that remains to be said. Therefore, as we have said, the first perusal demands patience, founded on confidence that on a second perusal much, or all, will appear in an entirely different light Further, the earnest endeavour to be more completely and even more easily comprehended in the case of a very difficult subject, must justify occasional repetition. Indeed the structure of the whole, which is organic, not a mere chain, makes it necessary sometimes to touch on the same point twice. Moreover this construction, and the very close connection of all the parts, has not left open to me the division into chapters and paragraphs which I should otherwise have regarded as very important, but has obliged mo to rest satisfied with four principal divisions, as it were four aspects of one thought In each of these four books it is especially important to guard against losing sight, in the details which must necessarily be discussed, of the principal thought to which they belong, and the progress of the whole exposition. I have thus expressed the first, and like^ those which follow, unavoidable demand upon the reader, who holds the philosopher in small favour just because he himself is a philosopher.

read before the book itself, although it is not contained in the book, but appeared five years earlier under the title, "Ueber die vierfa/ihe Wurzel des Satzes vom zureir tdwnden Grunde : eine philosophische Ahhandlung ” (On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason : a philo^ sophical essay).

Without an acquaintance with this introduction and propadeutic it is absolutely impossible to understand the present work properly, and the content of that essay will always be presupposed in this work just as if it were given with it. Besides, even if it had not preceded this book by several years, it would not properly have been placed before it as an introduction, but would have been incorporated in the first book.

As it is, the first book does not contain what was said in the earlier essay, and it therefore exhibits a certain incompleteness on account of these deficiencies, which must always be supplied by reference to it However, my disinclination was so great either to quote myself or laboriously to state again in other words what I had already said once in an adequate manner, that I preferred this course, notwithstanding the fact that I might now be able to give the content of that essay a somewhat better expression, chiefly by freeing it from several conceptions which resulted from the excessive influence which the Kantian philosophy had over me at the time, such as — categories, outer and inner sense, and the like.

But even there these conceptions only occur because as yet I had never really entered deeply into them, therefore only by the way and quite out of connection with the principal matter. The correction of such passages in that essay will consequently take place of its own accord in the mind of the reader through his acquaintance with the present work. But only if we have fully recognised

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

xi

by means of that essay what the principle of sufficient reason is and signifies, what its validity extends to, and what it does not extend to, and that that principle is not before all things, and the whole world merely in consequence of it, and in conformity to it, a corollary, as it were, of it ; but rather that it is merely the form in which the object, of whatever kind it may be, which is always conditioned by the subject, is invariably known so far as the subject is a knowing individual : only then will it be possible to enter into the method of philosophy which is here attempted for the first time, and which is completely diflferent from all previous methods.

But the same disinclination to repeat myself word for word, or to say the same thing a second f ne in other and worse words, after I have deprived myself of the better, has occasioned another defect in the first book of this work. For I have omitted all that is said in the first chapter of my essay “ Oi^iglit and Colour,” which would otherwise have found its place here, word for word. Therefore the knowledge of this short, earlier work is also presupposed.

Finally, the third demand I have to make on the reader might indeed be tacitly assumed, for it is nothing but an acquaintance with the most important phenomenon tha^as appeared in philosophy for two thousand years, and tlmt lies so near us: I mean the principal writings of Kant It seems to me, in fact, as indeed has already been said by others, that the effect these writings produce in the mind to which they truly speak is very like that of the operation for cataract on a blind man : and if we wish to pursue the simile further, the aim of my own work may be described by saying that I have sought to put into the hands of those upon whom that < pcration

xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

has been successfully performed a pair of spectacles suitable to eyes that have recovered their sight — spectacles of whose use that operation is the absolutely necessary condition. Starting then, as I do to a large extent, from what has been accomplished by the great Kant, I have yet been enabled, just on account of my earnest study of his writings, to discover important errors in them.

These I have been obliged to separate from the rest and prove to be false, in order that I might be able to presuppose and apply what is true and excellent in his doctrine, pure and freed from error. But not to interrupt and complicate my own exposition by a constant polemic against Kant, I have relegated this to a special appendix.

It follows then, from what has been said, that my work presupposes a knowledge of this appendix just as much as it presupposes a knowledge of the philosophy of Kant ; and in this respect it would therefore be advisable to read the appendix first, all the more as its content is specially related to the first book of the present work.

On the other hand, it could not be avoided, from the nature of the case, that here and there the appendix also should refer to the text of the work; and the only result of this is, that the appendix, as well as the principal part of the work, most be read twice.

The philosophy of Kant, then, is the only philosophy with which a thorough acquaintance is directly presupposed in what we have to say here. But if, besides this, the reader has lingered in the school of the divine Plato, he will be so much the better prepared to hear me, and susceptible to what I say. And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which

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xiil

this still young c^tury enjoys over j^revious oiws, becaiiseT~believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival or“G7eeli literature in the fifteenth cenUiry : if, T say, tKe reader has also already received and assimilated the sacred, primitive Indian wisdom, then is he best of all prepared to hear what I have to say to hiin. My work will not speak to him, as to many others, in a strange and even Imstile tongue ; for, if it does not sound too vain, 1 might express the opinion that each one of the individual and dLsconuected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a conseq^ucnce from the tKought I am going to impart, though the converse, that my thought is to be found in "the Upanishads, is by no means the casa

But most readers have already grown angry with impatience, and burst into reproaches with difficulty kept back so long. How can I venture to present a book to the public under conditions and demands the first two of which are presumptuous and altogether immodest, and this at a time when there is such a general wealth of special ideas, that in Germany alone they are made common property through the press, in three thousand valuable, original, and absolutely indispensable works every year, besides innumerable periodicals, and even daily papers ; at a time when especially there is not the least deficiency of entirely original and profound philosophers, but in Germany alone there are more of them alive at the same time, than several centuries could formerly boast of in succession to each other? How is one ever to come to the end, asks the indignant reader, if one must set to work upon a book in such a fashion ?

xlv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

As I have absolutely nothing to advance against these reproaches, I only hope for some small (hanks from such readers for having warned them in time, so that they may not lose an hour over a book which it would be useless to read without complying with the demands that have been made, and which should therefore be left alone, particularly as apart from this we might wager a great deal that it can say nothing to them, but rather that it will always be only pancorum hominum, and must therefore quietly and modestly wait for the few whose unusual mode of thought may find it enjoyable. For apart from the difficulties and the effort which it requires from the reader, what cultured man of this age, whose knowledge has almost reached the august point at which the paradoxical and the false are all one to it, could bear to meet thoughts almost on every page that directly contradict that which he has yet himself established once for all as true and undeniable ? And then, how disagreeably disappointed will many a one be if he finds no mention here of what he believes it is precisely here he ought to look for, because his method of speculation agrees with that of a great living philosopher,' who has certainly written pathetic books, and who only has the trifling weakness that he takes all he learned and approved before his fifteenth year for inborn ideas of the hriman mind. Who could stand all this ? Therefore my advice is simply to lay down the book.

But I fear I shall not escape even thus. The reader who has got as far as the preface and been stopped by has bought the book for cash, and asks how he is to be indemnified. My last refuge is now to remind him that he knows how to make use of a book in several

^ V. H. JoooU.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

XV

ways, without exactly reading it It may fill a gap in his library as well as many another, where, neatly bound, it will certainly look welL Or he can lay it on the toilettable or the tea-table of some learned lady friend. Or, finally, what certainly is best of all, and I specially advise it, he can review it.

And now that I have allowed myself the jest to which in this two-sided life hardly any page can be too serious to grant a place, I part with the book with deep seriousness, in the sure hope that sooner or later it will reach those to whom alone it can be addressed ; and for the rest, patiently resigned that the same fate should, in full measure, befall it, that in all ages has, to some extent, befallen all knowledge, and especially the weightiest knowledge of the truth, to which only a brief triumph is allotted between the two long periods in which it is condemned as paradoxical or disparaged as trivial. The former fate is also wont to befall its author. But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

Written at Dresden in August 1818.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Not to m7 conteniporaries, not to my compatriots — to mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment, that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly stuck to its work through the course of a long life. And while the lapse of time has not been able to make me doubt the worth of my work, neither has the lack of sympathy ; for I constantly saw the false and the bad, and finally the absurd and senseless,* stand in universal admiration and honour, and I bethought myself that if it were not the case those who are capable of recognising the genuine and right are so rare that we may look for them in vain for some twenty years, then those who are capable of producing it could not be so few that their works afterwards form an exception to the perishableness of earthly things ; and thus would be lost the reviving prospect of posterity which every one who sets before himself a high aim requires to strengthen him. Whoever seriously takes up and pursues an object that does not lead to material advantages, must not count on

• The Hegelian Philosophy.

xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

the sympathy of his contemporaries. For the most part he will see, however, that in the meantime the superficial aspect of that object becomes current in the world, and enjoys its day ; and this is as it should be.

The object itself must be pursued for its own sake, otherwise it cannot be attained ; for any design or intention is always dangerous to insight Accordingly, as the whole history of literature proves, everything of real value required a long time to gain acceptance, especially if it belonged to the class of instructive, not entertaining, works; and meanwhile the false flourished.

For to combine the object with its superficial appearance is difficult, when it is not impossible. Indeed that is just the curse of this world of want and need, that everything must serve and slave for these; and therefore it is not so constituted that any noble and sublime effort, like the endeavour after light and truth, can prosper unhindered and exist for its own sake.

But even if such an endeavour has once succeeded in asserting itself, and the conception of it has thus been introduced, material interests and personal aims will immediately take possession of it, in order to make it their tool or their mask.

Accordingly, when Kant brought philosophy again into repute, it had soon to become the tool of political aims from above, and personal aims from below ; although, strictly speaking, not philosophy itself, but its ghost, that passes for it. This should not really astonish us; for the incredibly large majority of men are by nature quite incapable of any but material aims, indeed they can conceive no others.

Thus the pursuit of truth alone is far too lofty and eccentric an endeavour for us to expect all or many, or indeed even a few, faithfully to take part in. If yet we see, as for example at present in Germany, a

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x»x

remarkable activity, a general moving, writing, and talking with reference to philosophical subjects, we may confidently assume that, in spite of solemn looks and assurances, only real, not ideal aims, are the actual primum mobile, the concealed motive of such a movement; that it is personal, official, ecclesiastical, political, in short, material ends that are really kept in view, and consequently that mere party ends set the pens of so many pretended philosophers in such rapid motion. Thus some design or intention, not the desire of insight, is the guiding star of these disturbers of the peace, and truth is certainly the last thing that is thought of in the matter. It finds no partisans ; rather, it may pursue its way as silently and unheeded through such a philosophical riot as through the winter night of the darkest century bound in the rigid faith of the church, when it was communicated only to a few alchemists as esoteric learning, or entrusted it may be only to the parchment. Indeed I might say that no time can be more unfavourable to philosophy than that in which it is shamefully misused, on the one hand to further political objects, on the other as a means of livelihood. Or is it believed that somehow, with such effort and such a turmoil, the truth, at which it by no means aims, will also be brought to light ? Truth is no prostitute, that throws herself away upon those who do uot^esire her ; she is rather so coy a beauty that he who sacrifices everything to her cannot even then be sure of her favour.

If Governments make philosophy a means of furthering political ends, learned men see in philosophical professorships a tiade that nourishes tlie outer man just like any other ; therefore they crowd after them in the assurance of their good intentions, that is, the purpose of subXX

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

serving these ends. And they keep their word: not truth, not clearness, not Plato, not Aristotle, but the ends they were appointed to serve are their guiding star, and become at once the criterion of what is true, valuable, and to be respected, and of the opposites of these. Whatever, therefore, does not answer these ends, even if it were the most important and extraordinary things in their department, is either condemned, or, when this seems hazardous, suppressed by being unanimously ignored. Look only at their zeal against pantheism ; will any simpleton believe that it proceeds from conviction ? And, in general, how is it possible that philosophy, degraded to the position of a means of making one’s bread, can fail to degenerate into sophistry ? Just because this' is infallibly the case, and the rule, “ I sing the song of him whose bread I eat,” has always held good, the making of money by philosophy was regarded by the ancients as the characteristic of the sophists. But we have still to add this, that since throughout this world nothing is to be expected, can be demanded, or is to be had for gold but mediocrity, we must be contented with it here also. Consequently we see in all the German universities the cherished mediocrity striving to produce the philosophy which as yet is not there to produce, at its own expense and indeed in accordance with a predetermined standard and aim, a spectacle at which it would be almost cruel to mock.

While thus philosophy has long been obliged to serve entirely as a means to public ends on the one side and private ends on the other, ^have pursued the course of my thought, undisturbed by them, for more than thirty years, and simply because I was obliged to do so and could not help myself, from an instinctive impulse, which

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xxi

was, however, supported by the confidence that anything true one may have thought, and anything obscure one may have thrown light upon, will appeal to any thinking mind, no matter when it comprehends it, and will rejoice and comfort it. To such an one we speak as those who are like us have spoken to us, and have so become our comfort in the wilderness of this life. Meanwhile the object is pursued on its own account and for its own sake.

Now it happens curiously enough with philosophical meditations, that precisely that which one has thought out and investigated for oneself, is afterwards of benefit to others ; not that, however, which was originally intended for others.

The former is confessedly nearest in character to perfect honesty ; for a man does not seek to deceive himself, nor does he offer himself empty husks; so that all sophistication and all mere talk is omitted, and consequently every sentence that is written at once repays the trouble of reading it.

Thus my writings bear the stamp of honesty and openness so distinctly on the face of them, that by this alone they are a glaring contrast to those of three celebrated sophists of the postKantian period.

I am always to be found at the standpoint of reflection, i.e., rational deliberation and honest statement, never at that of inspiration, called intellectual intuition, or absolute thought ; though, if it received its proper name, it would be called empty bombast and charlatanism.

Working then in this spirit, and always seeing the false and bad in universal acceptance, yea, bombast ^ and charlatanism * in the highest honour, I have long renounced the approbation of my contemporaries. It is impossible that an age which for twenty years has applauded a Hegel, that intellectual CaUhan, as the

^ Fichte and Schelling. ^ * HegeL

xxii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION,

greatest of the philosophers, so loudly that it echoes through the whole of Europe, could make him who has looked on at that desirous of its approbation. It has no more crowns of honour to bestow ; its applause is prostituted, and its censure has no significance. That I mean what 1 say is attested by the fact that if I had in any way sought the approbation of my contemporaries, I would have had to strike out a score of passages which entirely contradict all their opinions, and indeed must in part be offensive to them. But I would count it a crime to sacrifice a single syllable to that approbation. My guiding star has, in all seriousness, been truth. Following it, I could first a.spire only to my own approbation, entirely averted from an age deeply degraded as regards all higher intellectual efforts, and a national literature demoralised even to the exceptions, a literature in which the art of combining lofty words with paltry significance has reached its height. I can certainly never escape from the errors and weaknesses which, in my case as in every one else’s, necessarily belong to my nature ; but I will not increase them by unworthy accommodations.

As regards this second edition, first of all I am glad to say that after five and twenty years I find nothing to retract; so that my fundamental convictions have only been confirmed, as far as concerns myself at least. The alterations in the first volume therefore, which contains the whole text of the first edition, nowhere touch what is essential. Sometimes they concern things of merely secondary importance, and more often consist of very short explanatory additions inserted here and ther& Only the criticism of the Kantian philosophy has received important corrections and large additions, for these could not be put into a supplementary book, such as

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xxiii

those which are given in the second volume, and which correspond to each of the four books that contain the exposition of my own doctrine.

In the case of the latter, I have chosen this form of enlarging and improving them, because the five and twenty years that have passed since they were composed have produced so marked a change in my method of exposition and in my style, that it would not have done to combine the content of the second volume with that of the first, as both must have suffered by the fusion.

I therefore give both works separately, and in the earlier exposition, even in many places where I would now express myself quite differently, I have changed nothing, because I desired to guard against spoiling the work of my earlier years through the carping criticism of age. What in this regard might need correction will correct itself in the mind of the reader with the help of the second volume.

Both volumes have, in the full sense of the word, a supplementary relation to each other, so far as this rests on the fact that one age of human life is, intellectually, the supplement of another. It will therefore be found, not only that each volume contains what the other lacks, but that the merits of the one consist peculiarly in that which is wanting in the other.

Thus, if the first half of my work surpasses the second in what can only be supplied by the fire of youth and the energy of first conceptions, the second will surpass the first by the ripeness and complete elaboration of the thought which can only belong to the fruit of the labour of a long life.

For when I had the strength originally to grasp the fundamental thought of my system, to follow it at once into its four branches, to return from them to the unity of their origin, and then to explain the whole distinctly, I could not yet be in a position to work out all

the branches of the system with the fulness, thoroughness, and elaborateness which is only reached by the meditatioirof mahy years — meditation which is required to test and illustrate the system by innumerable facts, to support it by the most different kinds of proof, to throw light on it from all sides, and then to place the different points of view boldly in contrast, to separate thoroughly the multifarious materials, and present them in a wellarranged whole.

Therefore, although it would, no doubt, have been more agreeable to the reader to have my whole work in one piece, instead of consisting, as it now does, of two halves, which must be combined in using them, he must reflect that this would have demanded that I should accomplish at one period of life what it is only possible to accomplish in two, for I would have had to possess the qualities at one period of life that nature has divided between two quite different ones.

Hence the necessity of presenting my work in two halves supplementary to each other may be compared to the necessity in consequence of which a chromatic object-glass, which cannot be made out of one piece, is produced by joining together a convex lens of flint glass and a concave lens pf crown glass, the combined effect of which is what was sought.

Yet, on the other hand, the reader will find some compensation for the inconvenience of using two volumes at once, in the variety and the relief which, is afforded by the handling of the same subject, by the same mind, in the same spirit, but in very different years However, it is very advisable that those who are not yet acquainted with my philosophy should first of all read the first volume without using the supplementary books, and should make use of these only on a second perusal; otherwise it would be too difficult for them to grasp the

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XXV

system in its connection. For it is only thus explained in the first volume, while the second is devoted to a move detailed investigation and a complete development of the individual doctrines. Even those who should not make up their minds to a second reading of the first volume had better not read the second volume till after the first, and then for itself, in the ordinary sequence of its chapters, which, at any rate, stand in some kind of connection, though a somewhat looser one, the gaps of which they will fully supply by the recollection of the first volume, if they have thoroughly comprehended it. Besides, they will find everywhere the reference to the corresponding passages of the first volume, the paragraphs of which I have numbered in the second edition for this purpose, though in the first edition they were only divided by lines.

I have already explained in the preface to the first edition, tha,t my philosophy is founded on that of Kant, and therefore presupposes a thorough knowledge of it. I repeat this here. For Kant's teaching produces in the mind of every one who has comprehended it a fundamental change which is so great that it may be regarded as an intellectual new-birth. It alone is able really to remove the inborn realism which proceeds from the original character of the intellect, which neither Berkeley nor Malebranche succeed in doing, for they remain too much in the universal, while Kant goes into the particular, and indeed in a way that is quite unexampled both before and after him, and which has quite a peculiar, and, we might say, immediate effect upon the mind in consequence of which it undergoes a complete undeception, and forthwith looks at all things in another light Only in this way can any one become susceptible to the

xxvi

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more positive expositions which I have to give. Oi^the other hand, he who has not mastered the Kantian philosophy, whatever else he may have studied, is, as it were, in a state of innocence ; that is to say, he remains in the grasp of that natural and childish realism in which w^ are all born, and which fits us for everything possible, with the single exception of philosophy.

Such a man then stands to the man who knows the Kantian philosophy as a minor to a man of full age.

That this truth should nowadays sound paradoxical, which would not have been the case in the first thirty years after the appearance of the Critique of Reason, is due to the fact that a generation has grown up that does not know Kant properly, because it has never heard more of him than a hasty, impatient lecture, or an account at second-hand ; and this again is due to the fact that in consequence of bad guidance, this generation has wasted its time with the philosophemes of vulgar, uncalled men, or even of bombastic sophists, which are unwarrantably commended to it.

Hence the confusion of fundamental conceptions, and in general the unspeakable crudeness and awkwardness that appears from under the covering of affectation and pretentiousness in the philosophical attempts of the generation thus brought up. But whoever thinks he can learn Kant’s philosophy from the exposition of others makes a terrible mistake.

Nay, rather I must earnestly warn against such accounts, especially the more recent ones ; and indeed in the years just past I have met with expositions of the Kantian philosophy in the writings of the Hegelians which actually reach the incredible. How should the minds that in the freshness of youth have been strained and ruined by the nonsense of Hegelism, be still capable of following Kant’s profound

investigations ? They are early accustomed to take the hollowest jingle of words for philosophical thoughts, the most miserable sophisms for acuteness, and silly conceits for dialectic, and their minds are disorganised through the admission of mad combinations of words to which the mind torments and exhausts itself in vain to attach some thought.

No Critique of Eeason can avail them, no philosophy, they need a mcdicina mentis, first as a sort of purgative, un petit cours de senscommunologie, and then one must further see whether, in their case, there can even be any talk of philosophy. The Kantian doctrine then will be sought for in vain anywhere else but in Kant’s own works ; but these are throughout instructive, even where he errs, even where he fails.

In consequence of his originality, it holds good of him in the highest degree, as indeed of all true philosophers, that one can only come to know them from their own works, not from the accounts of others. For the thoughts of any extraordinary intellect cannot stand being filtered through the vulgar mind.

Born behind the broad, high, finely-arched biow,_ from under which slune beaming eves, they lose all power and life, and appear no longer like themselves, when removed to the narrow lodging and low roofing of the confined, contracted, thick-walled skull from which dull glances steal directed to personal ends.

Indeed we may say that minds of this kind act like an uneven glass, in which everything is twisted and distorted, loses the regularity of its beauty, and becomes a caricature. Only from their authors themselves can we receive philosophical thoughts ; therefore whoever feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the still sanctuary of their works. The principal chapters of any one of these true philosophers will afford

xxviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

a thousand times more insight into their doctrines than the heavy and distorted accounts of them that everyday men produce, who are still for the most part deeply entangled in the fashionable philosophy of the time, or in the sentiments of their own minds. But it is astonishing how decidedly the public seizes by preference on these expositions at second-hand. It seems really as if elective affinities were at work here, by virtue of which the common nature is drawn to its like, and therefore will rather hear what a great man has said from one of its own kind. Perhaps this rests on the same principle as that of mutual instruction, according to which children learn best from children.

One word more for the professors of philosophy. I have always been compelled to admire not merely the sagacity, the true and fine tact with which, immediately on its appearance, they recognised my philosophy as something altogether different from and indeed dangerous to their own attempts, or, in popular language, something that would not suit their turn ; but also the sure and astute policy by virtue of which they at once discovered the proper procedure with regard to it, the complete harmony with which they applied it, and the persistency with which they have remained faithful to it. This procedure, which further commended itself by the great ease of carrying it out, consists, as is well known, in altogether ignoring and thus in secreting — according to Goethe’s malicious phrase, which just means the appropriating of what is of weight and significance. The efficiency of this quiet means is increased by the corybantic shouts with which those who are at one reciprocally greet the birth of their own spiritual children — shouts which comPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

\xix

pel the public to look and note the air of importance with which they congratulate themselves on the event. Who can mistake the object of such proceedings ? Is there then nothing to oppose to the maxim, primum vivere, deinde phUosophari? These gentlemen desire to live, and indeed to live by philosophy. To philosophy they are assigned with their wives £tnd children,, and. spite of Petrarch’s povera e nitda vai filosofia, they have staked everything upon it. Now my philosophy js by no means so constituted that any one can live by it. It lacks the first indispensable requisite of a well-paid professional philosophy, a speculative theology, which — in spite of the troublesome Kant with his Critique of Keason — should and must, it is supposed, be the chief theme of all philosophy, even if it thus takes on itself the task of talking straight on of that of which it can know absolutely nothing. Indeed my philosophy does not permit to the professors the fiction they have so cunningly devised, and which has become so indispensable to them, of a reason that knows, perceives, or apprehends immediately and absolutely. This is a doctrine which it is only necessary to impose upon the reader at starting, in order to pass in the most comfortable inauner in the world, as it were in a chariot and four, into that region beyond the possibility of all experience, which Kant has wholly and (br ever shut out from our knowledge, and in which are found immediately revealed and most beautifully arranged the fundamental dogmas of modern, Judaising, optimistic Christianity. Now what in the world has my subtle philosophy, deficient as it is in these essential requisites, with no intentional aim, and unable to afford a means of subsistence, whose pole star is truth alone

XXX

the naked, unrewarded^ unbefriendedj, often j)ersm^d truth, and which steers straight for it without looking to the right hand or the left, — what, I say, has this to do with that alma mater, the good, well-to-do university philosophy which, burdened with a hundred aims and a thousand motives, comes on its course cautiously tacking, while it keeps before its eyes at all times the fear of the Lord, the will of the ministry, the laws of the established church, the wishes of the publisher, the attendance of the students, the goodwill of colleagues, the course of current politics, the momentary tendency of the public, and Heaven knows what besides ?

Or what has my quiet, earnest search for truth in common with the noisy scholastic disputations of the chair and the benches, the inmost motives of which are always personal aims. The two kinds of philosophy are, indeed, radically different.

Tluis it is that with me there is no compromise and no fellowship, that no one reaps any benefit from my works but the man who seeks the truth alone, and therefore none of the philosophical parties of the day ; for they all follow their own aims, while I have only insight into truth to olTor, which suits none of these aims, because it is not modelled after any of them.

If my philosophy is to become susceptible of professorial exposition, the times must entirely change. What a pretty thing it would be if a philosophy by which nobody could live were to gain for itself light and air, not to speak of the general ear! This must be guarded against, and all must oppose it as one man.

But it is not just such an easy game to controvert and refute; and, moreover, these are mistaken means to employ, because they just direct the attention of the public to the matter, and its taste for the lucubraPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xxii

fcions of the professors of philosophy might be destroyed by the perusal of ray writings. For whoever has tasted of earnest will not relish jest, especially when it is tiresome. Therefore the silent system, so unanimously adopted, is the only right one, and I can only advise them to stick to it and go on with it as long as it will answer, that is, u^ntil to ignore is taken to imply ignorance ; then there will just be time to turn back.

Meanwhile it remains open to every one to pluck out a small feather here and there for his own use, for the superfluity of thoughts at home should not be very oppressive. Thus the ignoring and silent system may hold out a good while, at least the span of time I may have yet to live, whereby much is already won.

And if, in the meantime, here and there an indiscreet voice has let itself be heard, it is soon drowned by the loud talking of the professors, who, with important airs, know how to entertain the public with very different things. I advise, however, that the unanimity of procedure should be somewhat more strictly observed, and especially that the young men should be looked after, for they are sometimes so fearfully indiscreet.

For even so I cannot guarantee that the commended procedure will last for ever, and cannot answer for the final issue. It is a nice question as to the steering of the public, which, on the whole, is good and tractable.

Although we nearly at all times see the ^rgiases and the Hippiases uppermost, although the absurd, as a rule, predominates, and it seems impossible that the voice of the individual can ever penetrate through the chorus of the befooling and the befooled, there yet remains to the genuine works of every age a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence ; and.

xxxii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

as if bjr a miificle, we see them rise at last out of the turmoil like a balloon that floats up outjpf. the yiick atmosphere of this globe into purer regions, where, having once arrived, it remains at rest, and no one can draw it down again.

Written at Frankfort^on-the Maim in February 1844.

iFtr0t ISooft.

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

FIEST ASPECT.

•■‘IK IDEA SUBORDINATED TO THE PRINCIPLE OP SUFnOIBNT REASON : THE ODJSOT OF EXPERIENCE AND SCIENCE.

Son de Tenfance, ami reveille toi !

— Jean Jacques Rousseass,

§ I. '-The world is ray idea:” — this is a which holds good for everything that lives and knows, thoiifH man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has att^xned to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain tcThim that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth ; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, t.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this : for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience : a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it; and each of these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas ; whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable. No truth therefore is more certain, nioie independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, that all that exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole worldj is only pbject in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver^ in a word, idea. This is obviously true of the past and the future, as well as of the present, of what is farthest off, as of what is near; for it true of time and space themselves, in which ^one thesj^ ^^istinctiQlls,_ ^1 that in any way

THE WORLD .45 IDEA.

belongs or can belong to the world is inevitably thus conditioned through the subject, and exists only for the subject. The world is idea.

This truth is by no means new. It was implicitly involved in the sceptical reflections from which Descartes started. Berkeley, however, was the first who distinctly enunciated it, and by this he has rendered a permanent service to philosophy, even though the rest of his teaching ^lould not endure. Kant’s primary mistake was the neglect of this principle, as is shown in the appendix.

How early again this truth was recognised by the wise men of India, appearing indeed as the fundamental tenet of the Vedanta philosophy ascribed to Vyasa, is pointed out by Sir William Jones in the last of his essays : “jOn the philosophy of the Asiatics ” (Asiatic Eesearches, vcL iv. p. 1 64), where he says, “ The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school consisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception ; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms. These words adequately express the compatibility of empirical reality and transcendental ideality.

In this first book, then, we consider the world only from this side, only so far as it is idea. The inward reluctance with which any one accepts the world as merely his idea, warns him that this view of it, however true it may be, is nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some arbitrary abstraction. And yet it is a conception from which he can never free himself. The defectiveness of this view will be corrected in the next book by means of a truth which is not so immediately certain as that from which we start here ; a truth at which we can arrive only by deeper research and more severe abstraction, by the separation of what is different and the union of what is identical. This

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

truth, which must be very serious and iiiipressiye if not awful to e very ^pn^Ts that a man can also say and must “ the world is my will.”

In this book, however, we must consider separately that aspect of the world from which we start, its aspect as knowable, and therefore, in the meantime, we must, without reserve, regard all presented objects, even our own bodies (as shall presently show more fully), merely as ideas, and call them merely ideas. By so doing we always abstract from will (as we hope to make clear to every one further on), which by itself constitutes the other aspect of the world. For as the world is in one aspect entirely idea, so in another it is entirely will. A reality which is neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which the thing in itself has unfortunately dwindled in the hands of Kant), is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in philosophy.

§ 2. That whjch knows all things arid is known by none is the subject. Thus it is the supporter of the world, that condition of all phenomena, of all objects which is always pre-supposed throughout experience ; for all that exists, exists only for the subject. Every one finds himself to be subject, yet only in so lar as he knows, not in so far as he is an object of knowledge. But his body is object, and therefore from this point of view we call it idea. For the body is an object among objects, and is conditioned by the laws of oTjects, although it is an immediate object. Like all objects of perception, it lies within the universal forms of knowledge, time and space, which are the conditions of multiplicity. The subject, on the contrary, which is always the knovrer, never the known, does not come under these forms, but is presupposed by them ; it has therefore neither multiplicity nor its opposite unity! “We never know it, but it is always the knower wherever there is knowledge.

So then the world as idea, the only aspect in which

THE WORLD ^5 IDEA.

we consider it at present, has two fundamental, necessaiy, and inseparable halves. The one half is the object, the forms of which are space and time, and through these multiplicity.:- The other half is the subject, which is not in space and timie, for it is present, entire and undivided, inT every percipient being.

So that any one percipient being, with the object, constitutes the whole world as idea just as fully as the existing millions could do ; but if this one were to disappear, then the whole world as idea would cease to be. These halves are therefore inseparable even for thought, for each of the two has meaning and existence only through and for the other, each appears with the other and vanishes with it.

1 hey limit each other immediately ; where the object begins thje suliject ends.

The universality of this limitation is shown by the fact that the essential and hence universal forms of all objects^ space, time, and causality, npay, without knowledge of the object, be discovered and fully known from a consideration of the subject, ie., in Kantian language, they lie a priori in our consciousness, '^at h^ discovered this is one of Kant’s principal merits, and it is a great one.

I however go beyond this, and maintain that the principle of sufficient reason is the general expression for all these forms of the object of which we are a priori conscious; and that therefore all that we know purely a priori, is merely the content of that principle and what follows from it; in it all our certain a priori knowledge is expressed.

In my essay on the principle of sufficient reason I have shown in detail how every possible object comes under it ; that is, stands in a necessary relation to other objects, on the one side as determined, on the other side as determining : this is of such wide application, that the whole existence of all objects, so far as they are objects, ideas and nothing more, may be entirely traced to this their necessary relation to each other, rests only in it, is in fact merely relative ; but of this more presently. 1 have further

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

Bbown, that the necessary relation which the principle of sufficient reason expresses generally, appears iu other forms corresponding to the classes into which objects are divided, according to their possibility ; and again that by these forms the proper division of the classes is tested. I take it for granted that what I said iu this earlier essay is known and present to the reader, for if it had not been alreaoy said it would necessarily find its place here.

§ 3. The chief distinction among our ideas is that between ideas_ of perception anc^ .^stmet ideas. The latter form just one class of ideas, namely conQepU,3nd these are the possession of man alone of all creatures upon earth. Idie capacity for these, which distinguishes Bliiii froni all the lower animals, has always been called reason.^ We shall consider these abstract ideas by themselVes later, but, in the first place, we shall speak exclusively of the ideas of perception. Td^^conjprehend the whole yisible world, pr the sum total of experience, with the conations of its possibility. We have already observed that it is a highly important discovery of Kant’s, that these very conditions, these forms of the visible world, i.e.y the absolutely universal element in its perception, the common property of all its phenomena, space and time, even when taken by themselves and apart from their content, can, not only be thought in the abstract, but also be directly perceived ; and that this perception or intuition is not some kind of phantasm arising from constant recurrence in experience, but is so entirely independent of experience that we must rather regard the latter as dependent on it, inasmuch as the qualities of space and timej[ as they are known in a priori perception or intuh tion, are valid for all possible experience, as rules to which it must invariably conform. Accordingly, in my

^ Kant is the only writer who I my “ Grundprobleme der Ethik ” ; has confused this idea of reason, \ Grundl. dd. Moral. § 6, pp. 148-154, and in this connection I refer the Ifirst and second editions, reader to the Appendix, and also to

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

essay on tlie principle of sufficient reason, I hav^ treated space and time, because they are perceived as pure and empty of content, as a special and independent class of ideas.

This quality of the universal forms of intuition, which was discovered by Kant, that they may be perceived in themselves and apart from experience, and tliat they may be known as exhibiting those laws on which is founded the infallible science of mathematics, is certainly very important.

Not less worthy of remark, however, is this other quality of time and space, that the principle of sufficient reason, which conditions experience as the law of causation and of motive, and thought as the law of the basis of judgment, appears here in quite a special form, to which I have given the name of the ground of being.

In time, this is the succession of its moments, and in space the position of its parts, which reciprocally determine each other ad infinitum.

Any one who has fully understood from the introductory essay the complete identity of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in all its different forms, must also be convinced of the importance of the knowledge of the simplest of these forms, tis affording him insight into his own inmost nature. This simplest form of the principle we have found to be time. In it each instant is, only in so far as it has effaced the preceding one, its generator, to be itself in turn as quickly effaced. The past and the future (considered apart from the consequences of their content) are empty as a dream, and the present is only the indivisible and unenduring boundary between them. And in all the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, we ^hall find the same emptiness, and shall see that not time only but also space, and the whole content of both of them, i.e., all that proceeds from causes and motives, has a merely relative existence, is only through and for another like to itself, i.e., not more enduring. The substance of this doctrine is old ; it appears in Heraclitus wE^ Tie laments the eternal

THE WORLD ^5 IDEA.

flux of things ; in Plato when he degrades the object to that which is ever becoming, but never bein^ ; in Spinoza as the doctrine oF the ~mere~1acci3«iil¥”dr the one substance which is and endures. Kant opposes what ^s thus known as the mere phenomenon to the thing in itself.

Lastly, tjie anci^t wisdotiijof the Indian philosophers declares. ** j^s M&y&, the veU of deception, which BfindT^ the eyes of mortals, and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sahcT which the traveller takes from afar for \^ter^ or the stray piece of r9pe he mistakes for a snakft.” (These similes are repeated in innumerable passages of the Vedas and the Puranas.) But what all these mean, and that of which they all speak, is nothing more than what we have just considered — the world as idea^su^ect to the principle of sufficient reason.

§ 4. Whoever has recognised the form of the principle of sufficient reason, which appears in pure time as such, and on which all counting and arithmetical calculation rests, has completely mastered the nature of time. Time is nothing more than that form of the principle of sufficient reason, and has no further significance. Succession is tlie^orm of the principle of sufficient reason in time, and succession is tlie whole nature of time. Further, whoever lias recognisetl the 'princIpe of sufficient reason as it appears in the presentation of pure space, has exhausted the whole nature of space, which is absolutely nothing more than that possibility of the reciprocal determination of its parts by each other, which is called position. The detailed treatment of this, and the formulation in' abstract conceptions of the results which flow from it, so that they may be more conveniently used, is the subject of the science of geometry. Thus also, whoever has recognised the law of causation, the aspect of the principle of sufficient reason which appears in what fills these forms (space and time) as objects of perception,

lo THE WORLD AS IDEA.

that is to say matter, has completely mastered the nature of matter as such, for matter is nothing more than causation, as any one will see at once if he reflects. Its true being is its action, nor can we possibly conceive it as having any other meaning. Only as active does it fill space and time ; its action upon the immediate object (wliich is itself matter) determines that perception in which alone it exists.

Tlie consequence of the action of any material object upon any other, is known only in so far as the latter acts upon the immediate object in a different way from that in which it acted before ; it consists only of this.

Cause and effect thus constitute the jwhole nature o^maU^ its true being is its action. (A fuller treatment of this will be found in the essay on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 21, p. 77.) The nature of all material things is therefore very appropriately called in German WirhUclikcit^ a word which is far more expressive than Realitdt.

Again, that which is acted upon is always matter, and thus the whole being and essence of matter consists in the orderly change, which one part of it brings about in another part. The existence of matter is therefore entirely relative, according to a relation which is valid only within its limits, as in the case of time and space.

But time and space, each for itself, can be mentally presented apart from matter, whereas matter cannot be so presented apart from time and space. The form which is inseparable from it presupposes space, and the action in which its very existence consists, always imports some change, in other words a determination in time. But space and time are not only, each for itself, presupposed by matter, but a union of the two constitutes its essence, for this, as we have seen^ cohsisls in action, i.e.y in causation. All the innumerable conceivable phenomena and conditions of things, might be coexistent

Mira in quibusdam rebus ver- sermonis anti(}iii qunedam eflBcacis* borum proprietas eat, et consuetiido simis notis signat. Scncca, epist. 8l.

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

II

in boundless space, without limiting each other, or might be succes^siye in endless time without interfering with each other : thus a necessary relation of these phenomena to ench other, and a law wliich should regulate them according to such a relation, is by no means needful, would not, indeed, bo applicable : it therefoic follows that in the case of all co-existence in space and change in time, so long each of these forms preserves for itself its cor^^lition and its course without any connection with the other, there can be no causation^ and since^ causation constitutes the essential nature of matter, there can be no matter.

But the law of causation receives its meaning and necessity only from this, that the essence of change does not consist simply in the mere variation of things, but rather in the fact that at the same ;part qf space there is now one thing and then another^ and at OTie and the same point of time there is here one thing and there another: only this reciprocal limitation of space and time by each other gives meaning, and at the same time necessity, to a law, according to which change must take place.

What is determined by the law of causality is therefore not merely a succession of things in time, but this succession with reference to a definite space, and not merely existence of things in a particular place, but iiTIhS place at a different point of time. Change, ix.y variation which takes place according to the law of causj^ty, iinjDlies idways a determined part of space and a determined part of time together and in union.

Thus causality unites space with time.

But we found that the whole essence of matter consisted in action, i.c., in causation, consequently space and time must also be united in mattei^that is to say, matter must take to itself at once the distinguishing qualities both of space and time, however much these may be opposed to each other, and must unite in itself what is impossible for each of these independently, that is, the fleeting course of time, with the rigid unchangeable perdiiratioh of

space ; infinite divisibility it receives from both. It is for this reason that we find that co-existence, which could neither be in time alone, for time has no contiguity, nor in space alone, for space has no before, after, or now, is first established through matter.

But the co-existence of many things constitutes, ijajact, the .essence of reality, for through it permanence first becomes possible ; for permanence is only knowable in the change of something wliich is present along with what is permanent, while on the other hand it is only because something permanent is present along with what changes, that the latter gains the special character of change, i.e., the mutation of quality and form in the permanence of substance, that is to say, in matter.^ If the world were in space alone, it would be rigid and immovable, without succession, without change, without action ; but we know that with action, the idea of matter first appears.

Again, if the world were in time alone, all would be fleeting, without persistence, without contiguity, hence without coexistence, and consequently without permanence ; so that in this case also there would be no matter.

Only through the union of space and time do we reach matter, and matter is the possibility of co-existence, and, through that, of permanence ; through permanence again matter is the possibility of the persistence of substance in the change of its states.^ As matter consists in the union of space and time, it bears throughout the stamp of both.

It manifests its origin in space, partly through the form which is inseparable from it, but especially through its persistence (substance), the a priori certainty of which is therefore wholly deducible from that of space® (for variation belongs to time alone, but in it alone and for itself nothing is persistent). Matter shows that it springs

* It is shown in the Appendix space/’ for motion consists simply that matter and substance are one. in the union of space and time.

This shows the j^round of the ^ Not, as Kant holds, from the Kantian explanation of matter, that knowledge of time, as will be exit is that which ib movable in plained in the Appendix.

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

*3

from time by quality (accidents), without which it never exists, and which is plainly always causality, action upon other matter, and therefore change (a time concept). The law of this action, however, always depends upon space and time together, and only thus obtains meaning. The regulative function of causality is confined entirely to the determination of what must occupy this time and this i^ace. The fact that we know a priori the unalterable characteristics of matter, depends upon this derivation of its essential nature from tlie forms of our knowledge of which we are conscious a priori. These unalterable characteristics are space-occupation, i.e., impenetrability, i.e., causal action, consequently, extension, infinite divisibility, persistence, i.e., indestructihility, and lastly mobility : weight, on the other hand, notwithstanding its universality, must be attributed to a posterioi'i knowledge, although Kant, in his “ Metaphysical Introduction to Natural Philosophy,” p. 71 (p. 372 of Rosenkranz’s edition), treats it as knowable a priori.

But as tlie object in general is only for the subject, as its idea, so every special class of ideas is only for an equally special quality in the subject, which is called a faculty of perception. This subjective correlative of time and space in themselvei~as empty forms, has been liamed by Kant pure sensibility ; and we may retain this expressibh, as .Kana was the first to treat of the subject, though it is not exact, for sensibility presupposes matter. TEe subjective correlative of matter or of causation, for these two are the same, is understanding, which is nothing more than this. To know causality is its one function, its only power ; and it is a great one, embracing much, of manifold application, yet of unmistakable identity in all its manifestations. Conversely all causation, that is to say, all matter, or the whole of reality, is only for the understanding, through the understanding, and~m the understanding. The first, simplest, and ever-present example of understanding is the perception of the actual

14

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

world. This is throughout knowledge of the cause from tEe*^^ect, and therefore all perception is intellectual. The understanding could never arrive at this perception, however, if some effect did not become known immediately, and thus serve as a starting-point. But this is the affection of the animal body. So far, then, the animal body is the immediate object of the subject ; the perception of all other objects becomes possible through it.

The changes which every animal body experiences, are immediately known, that is, felt; and as these effects are at once referred to their causes, the perception of the latter as objects arises. This relation is no conclusion in abstract conceptions ; it does not arise iioin reflection, nor is it arbitrary, but immediate, necessary, and certain.

It is the method of knowing of the pure understanding, without which there could be no perception ; there would only remain a dull plant-like consciousness of the changes of the immediate object, which would succeed each other in an utterly unmeaning way, except in so far as they might have a meaning for the will either as pain or pleasure.

But as with the rising of the sun the visible world appears, so at one stroke, the understanding, by means of its one simple function, changes the dull, meaningless sensation into perception. What the eyeTlHe^af, or the hand feels, Jls not , percept^^ it merely its data.

By the understanding passing from the effect to the cause, the world first appears as perception extended in space, varying in respect of form, persistent tlirbugh all time in respect of matter ; for the understandingjinites space and time in the idea of matter, that is, causal action. As the world as idea exists only through the understanding, so also it exists only for the understanding.

In the first chapter of my essay on Light and Colour,*’ I have already explained how the understanding constructs perceptions out of the dataS^pplied by the senses ; how by comparison of the impressions which the various senses receive from the object, a child

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

IS

arrives at perceptions ; how this alone affords the solution of so many phenomena of the senses ; the si^k^ vision of two eyes, th^ dmible yision^in the case of a squint, or \vhen we try to look at . ppcQ wTiicli lie atjunequal distances behind each oth^5.; and all illusion which is produced by a sudden alteration in the organs of sense. But I have treated this important subject much more fully and thoroughly in the second edition of the essay on “ The Principle of Sufficient Eea^qn^” § 2 1. '''^TT^tliat is said there would find its proper jdace here, and would thcr(.‘fore have to be said again; but as I have almost as much disinclination to quote myself as to quote others, and as I am unable to explain the subject better than it is explained there, I refer the reader to it, instead of quoting it, and take for granted that it is known.

The process by which children, and persons born blind who have been operated upon, learn to see, the single vision of the double sensation of two eyes, the double vision and double touch which occur when the organs of sense have been displaced from their usual position, the upright appearance of objects while the picture on the retina is upside down, the attributing of colour to the outward objects, whereas it is merely an inner function, a division Jhrougji polarisation, of_ the activity of the eye, and lastly the stereoscope, — all these are sure and incontrovertible evidence that perception is not merely of the senses, but intellectual— that is, pure knowledge through the understanding of the cmiM from the effect, and that, consequently, it presupposes the law of causality, in a knowledge of which all perception — that is to say all experience, by virtue of its primary and only possibility, depends. The contrary doctrine that the law of causality results from experience, which was the scepticism of Hume, is first refuted by this. For the independence of the knowledge of causality of all experience, — that is, its a priori

i6 THE WORLD IDEA.

character — can only be deduced from the dependence of all experience upon it; and this deduction can only be accomplished by proving, in the manner here indicated, and explained in the passages referred to above, that the knowledge of causality is included in perception in general, to which all experience belongs, and therefore in respect of experience is completely a •priori, does not presuppose it, but is presupposed by it as a condition. This, however, cannot be deduced in the manner attempted by Kant, which I have criticised in the essay on “The Principle of Sufficient Keason,” § 23.

§ 5. It is needful to guard against the grave error of supposing that because perception arises through the knowledge of causality, the relation of subject and object is that of cause and effect. For this relation subsists only between the immediate object and objects known indirectly, thus always between objects alone. It is this false supposition that has given rise to the foolish coniroversy about the reality of the outer world ; a controversy in which dogmatism and scepticism oppose each other, and the former appears, now as realism, now as idealism. Kealism treats the object as cause, and the si^ject as its effect The idealism of Fichte reduces the object to the effect of the subject. Since however, and xhis cannot be too much emphasised, there is absolutely no relation according to the principle of sufficient reason between subject and object, neither of these views could be proved, and therefore scepticism attacked them both with success.# Now, just as the law of causality precedes perception and experience as their condition, and therefore cannot (as Hume thought) be derived from them, so object and subject precede all knowledge, and hence the principle of sufficient reason in general, as its first condition ; for this principle is merely the form of all objects, the whole nature and possibility of their existence as phenomena: but the object always presuDDOses the subject: and therefore between these two

TUB WORLD AS IDEA.

17

there can be no relation of reason and conseq^nent.

My essay on the principle of sufficient reason accomplishes just this: it explains the content of that principle as the essential form of every object — that is to say, as the universal nature of all objective existence, as something which pertains to the object as such ; but .theL object as such always presupposes the subject as its necessary cofr^ative ; and therefore the subject remains always outside the province in which the principle of sufficient reason is valid.

The controversy as to the reality of the outer world rests upon this false extension of the validity of the principle of sufficient reason to the subject also, and starting with this mistake it can never understand itself.

On the one side realistic dogmatism, looking upon the idea as the effect of the object, desmes to separate these two, idea and object, which are really one, and to assume a cause quite different from the idea, an object in itself, independent of the subject, a thing which is quite inconceivable j; for even as object it presupposes subject, and so remains its idea.

Opposed to this doctrine is scepticism, which makes the same false presupposition that in the idea we have only the effect, never the cause, therefore never real being; that we always know n)erely the action of the object.

But this object, it supposes, may perhaps have no resemblance whatever to its effect, may indeed have been quite erroneously received as the cause, for the law of causality is first to be gathered from experience, and the reality of experience is then made to rest upon it.

Thus both of these views are open to the correction, firstly, that object and idea are the same ; secondly, that the true being of the object of perception is its action, that the reality of the thing consists in this, and the demand for an existence of the ol^ct outside the idea of the subject, and also for an essence of the actual thing different from, its acfidmTTas absolutely no meaning, and is a coutradictipn : and that the knowledge of the nature of the effect of any

perceived object, exhausts such an object itself, so far as it is object, i.e., idea, for beyond this there is nothing more to ^ known. ^ far then, the perceived world ip space and time, which makes itself known as causation alone, is entirely real, and is throughout simply what it appears to be, and it appears wholly and without reserve 85 idea, bound together according to the law of causality. This is its empirical reality.

On the other hand, all causality is in the understanding alone, and for the understanding. Tim whole actual, that is, active world is determined as such through the understanding, and apart from it is nothing. This, however, is not the only reason for altogether denying such a reality of the outer world as is taught by the dogmatist, who explains its reality its independence of the subject.

We also denyTt, because no object apart from a subject can be conceived without contradiction. The whole world of objects is and remains idea, and therefore wholly and for ever determined by the subject ; that is to say, it has transcendental ideality. But it is not therefore illusion or mere appearance ; it presents itself as that which it is, idea, and indeed as a series of ideas of which the common bond is the principle of sufficient reason.

It is according to its inmost meaning quite comprehensible to the healthy understanding, and speaks a language quite intelligible to it To dispute about its reality can only occur to a mind perverted by over-subtilty, and such discussion always arises from a false application ot the principle of sufficient reason, which binds all ideas together of whatever kind they may be, but by no means connects them with the subject, nor yet with a something which is neither subject nor object, but only the ground of the object ; an absurdity, for only objects can be and always are the ground of objects.

If we examine more closely the source of this question as to the reality of the outer world, we lind that besides the false application of the principle of sufficient reason generally to what lies

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

»9

beyond its province, a special confusion of its forms is also involved ; for that form which it has only in reference to concepts or abstract ideas, is applied to perceived ideas, real objects ; and a ground of knowing is demanded of objects, whereas they can have nothing but a ground of being. Among the abstract ideas, the concepts united in the judgment, the principle of sufficient reason appears in such a way that each of these has its worth, its validity, and its whole existence, here called truth, simply and solely through the relation of the judgment to something outside of it, its ground of knowledge, to which there must consequently always be a return. Among real objects, ideas of perception, on the other hand, the principle of sufficient reason appears not as the principle of the ground of hrmving, but of heing, as the law of causality : every real object has paid its debt to it, inasmuch as it has come to be, i.e., has appeared as the effect of a cause. The demand for a ground of knowing has therefore here no application and no meaning, but belongs to quite another class of things. Thus the world of perception raises in the observer no question or doubt so long as he remains in contact with it : there is here neither error nor truth, for these are confined to the province of the abstract — the province of reflection. But here the world lies open for sense and understanding; presents itself with naive truth as that which it really is — ideas of perception which develop themselves according to the law of causality.

So far as we have considered the question of the reality of the outer world, it arises from a confusion which amounts even to a misunderstanding of reason itself, and therefore thus far, the question could be answered only by explaining its meaning. After examination of the whole nature of the principle of sufficient reason, of the relation of subject and object, and the special conditions of sense perception, the question itself disappeared because it had no longer any meaning. There

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is, however, one other possible origin of this question, quite different from the purely speculative one which we have considered, a specially empirical origin, though the question is always raised from a speculative point of view, and in this form it has a much more comprehensible meaning than it had in the first We have dreams; may not our whole life be a dream ? ^ in£^ e^^tl^: is there a sure criterion of the distinctionbetween dreams and reality ? between phantasms and real objeots ?

The assertion that what is dreamt is less vivid and distinct than what we actually perceive is not to the point, because no one has ever been able to make a fair comparison of the two ; for we can only compare the recollection of a dream with the present reality. Kant answers the question thus : “ The connection of ideas among themselves, according to the law of causality, constitutes the difference between real life and dreams.

But in dreams, as well as in real life, everything is connected rndlvidually at any rate, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and tlifs connection is broken only between life and dreams, or between one dream and another.

Kant’s answer therefore could only run thus : — the long dream (life) has throughout complete connection according to the principle of sufficient reason ; it has not this connection, however, with short dreams, although each of these has in itself the same connection: the bridge is therefore broken between the former and the latter, and on this account we distinguish them.

But to institute an inquiry according to this criterion, as to whether sometliing was dreamt or seen, would always be dillicult and often impossible. Bor we are by no means in a position to trace link by link the causal connection between any experienced event and the present moment, but we do not on that account explain it as dreamt. Therefore in real life we do not commonly employ that method of distinguishing between dreams and reality. The only sure criterion by which to disTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

21

tinguish them is in fact the entirely empirical one of awaking, through which at any rate the causal connection between dreamed events and those of waking life, is distinctly and sensibly broken off. This is strongly supported by the remark of Hobbes in the second chapter of Leviathan, that we easily mistake dreams for reality if we have unintentionally fallen asleep without taking off our clothes, and much more so when it also happens that some undertaking or design fills all our thoughts, and occupies our dreams as well as our waking moments. We then observe the awaking just as little as the falling asleep, dream and reality run together and become confounded. In such a case there is nothing for it but the application of Kant’s criterion ; but if, as often happens, we fail to establish by means of this criterion, either the existence of causal connection with the present, or the absence of such connection, then it must for ever remain uncertain whether an event was dreamt or really happened. Here, in fact, the intimate relationship between life and dreams is brought out very clearly, and we need not be ashamed to confess it, as it has been recognised and spoken of by many great men. The Vedas and Puranas have no better simile than a dream for the whole knowledge of the actual world, which they call the web of M3,ya, and they use none more frecjuently. Plato often says that men live only in a dream ; the pITilosopher alone strives to awake himself. Pindar saj's (il 7). 1 35) : ' (TKia^ ovap avOpcoTTo^ (umbrae somnium homo), and Sophocles : —

yoL^ Tii^a; ou3gv ovra; aXXo, ‘jatjv

ri orx/av, — Aj:ix, 125.

(Nos enim, quicunque vivimus, nihil aliud esse comperio quam simulacra et levem umbram.) Beside which most worthily stands Shakespeare : —

^ “We are such stuff As dreamb are made and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” — Tempest^ Act iv. Sc. I.

22

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

^tly. Calderon was this view

of life that he sought to embo^y .it.Jji., . of metaplwsical drama — “ Life a Dream.”

AKer these numerous quotations from the poets, perhaps I also may be allowed to express myself by a metaphor. Life and dreams are leaves of the same book. The systematic riding of this book is real life, but when the reading hours (that is, the day) are over, we often continue idly to turn over the leaves, and read a page here and there without method or connection ; often one we have read before, sometimes one that is new to us, but always in the same book. Such an isolated page is indeed out of connection with the systematic study of the book, but it does not seem so very different when we remember that the whole continuous perusal begins and ends just as abruptly, and may therefore be regarded as merely a larger single page.

Thus although individual dreams are distinguished from real life by the fact that they do not fit into that continuity which runs through the wdiole of experience, and the act of awaking brings this into consciousness, yet that very continuity of experience belongs to real life as its form, and the dream on its part can point to,, a, similar continuity in itself. If, therefore, we consider the question from a point of view external to both, there is no distinct difference in their nature, and we jare forced to concede to the poets that life is a long dream.

Let us turn back now from this quite independent empirical origin of the question of the reality of the outer world, to its speculative origin. We found that this consisted, first, in the false application of the principle of sufficient reason to the relation of subject and object ; and secondly, in the confusion of its forms, inasmuch as the principle of sufficient reason of knowing was extended to a province in which the principle of sufficient reason of being is valid. But the question could hardly have occupied philosophers so constantly if it

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

23

were entirely devoid of all real content, and if some true thought and meaning did not lie at its heart as its real source. Accordingly, we must assume that when the element of truth that lies at the bottom of the question first came into reflection and sought its expression, it became involved in these confused and meaningless forms and problems. This at least is my opinion, and I think that the true expression of that inmost meaning of the question, which it failed to find, is this : — What is this world of perception besides being vay idea ? ^that of which I am conscious only as idea, exactly like my own body, of which I am doubly conscious, in one aspect as idea, in another aspect as wUl i The fuller explanation of this question and its answer in the affirmative, will form the content of the second book, and its consequences will occupy the remaining portion of this work.

§ 6. For the present, however, in this first book we consider everything merely as idea, as object for the subject. And our own body, which is the starting-point for each of us in our perception of the world, we consider, like all other real objects, from the side of its knowableness, and in this regard it is simply an idea. Now the consciousness of every one is in general opposed to tlie explanation of objects as mere ideas, and more especially to the explanation of our bodies as such ; for toe thing in iteelf is known to each of us immediately in so far as it appears as our own body ; but in so far as it objectifies itoelf in the other objects of perception, it is known only indirectly. But this abstraction, this one-sided treatment, this forcible separation of what is essentially and necessarily united, is only adopted to meet the demands of our argument ; and therefore the disinclination to it must, in the meantime, be suppressed and silenced by the expectation that the subsequent treatment will comet the one-sidedness of the present ,one» and complete our knowle^e of the nature of the world,..

At present toerefore the body is for us immediate

THE WORLD i45 IDEA.

object ; that is to say, that idea which forms the starting-point of the subject’s knowledge ; because the body, with its immediately known changes, precedes the application of the law of causality, and thus supplies it with its first data. The whole nature of matter consists, as we have seen, in its causal action. But cause and effect exist only for the underatanding, which is nothing but their subjective correlative.

The understanding, however, could never come into operation if there were not something else from which it starts. This is simple sensation— the immediate consciousness of the changes of the body, by virtue of which it is immediate object.

Thus the possibility of knowing the world of perception depends upon two conditions ; the first, objectively expressed, is the power of material things to act upon each other, to produce changes in each other, without which common quality of all bodies no perception would be possible, even by means of the sensibility of the animal body.

And if we wish to express this condition subjectively we say ; The understanding first makes perception possible ; for the law of causality, the possibility of effect and cause, springs only from the understanding, and is valid only for it, and therefore the world of perception exists only through and for it.

The second condition is the sensibility of animal bodies, or the quality of being immediate objects of the subject which certain bodies possess. The mere modification which the organs of sense sustain from without through their specific affections, may here be called ideas, so far as these affections produce neither pain nor pleasure, that is, have no immediate significance for the will, and are yet perceived, exist therefore only for knowledge.

Thus far, then, I say that the body is immediately known, is immediate object. But the conception of object is not to be taken here in its fullest sense, for through this immediate knowledge of the body, which precedes the operation of the understanding, and is mere sensation, our own body does not exist

THE WORLD ^5 IDEA.

*5

specifically as dl^’ect, but first the material things which affect it : for all knowledge of an object proper, of an idea perceived in space, exists only through and for the understanding ; therefore not before, but only subseq^uently to its operation. Therefore the body as object proper, that is, as an idea perceived in space, is first known indirectly, like all other objeets, through the applieation of the law of causality to the action of one of its parts upon another, as, for example, when the eye sees the body or the hand touches it. Consequently the form of our body does not become known to us through mere feeling, but only through knowledge, only in idea ; that is to say, only in the brain does our own body first come to appear as extended, articulate, organic. A man born blind receives this idea only little by little from the data afforded by touch. A blind man without hands could never come to know his own form ; or at the most could infer and construct it little by little from the effects of other bodies upon him. If, then, we call the body an immediate object, we are to be understood with these reservations.

In other respects, then, according to what has been said, all animal bodies are immediate objects ; that is, starting-points for the subject which always knows and therefore is never known in its perception of the world. Thus the distinctive characteristic of animal life is knowledge, with movement following on motives, which are determined by knowledge, just as movement following on stimuli is the distinctive characteristic of plant-life. Unorganised matter, however, has no movement except such as is produced by causes properly so called, using the term in its narrowest sense. All this I have thoroughly discussed in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 20, in the “ Ethics.” _fiislL essay, iii, and in my workmen Sight and Colour, § i, to which I therefore refer.

It follows from what has been said, that all animals,

26

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

even the least developed, have understanding; for they all know objects, and this knowledge determines their movements as motive.

Understanding is the same in all animals and in all men ; it has everywhere the same simple form ; knowledge of causality, transition from effect to cause, and from cause to effect, nothing more : but the degree of its acuteness, and the extension of the sphere of its knowledge varies enormously, with innumerable gradations from the lowest form, which is only conscious of the causal connection between the immediate object and objects affecting it — that is to say, perceives a cause as an object in space by passing to it from the affection which the body feels, to the higher grades of knowledge of the causal connection among objects known indirectly, which extends to the understanding of the most complicated system of cause and effect in nature.

For even this high degree of knowledge is still the work of the understanding, not of the reason. The abstract concepts of the reason can only serve to take up the objective connections which are immediately known by the understanding, to make them permanent for thought, and to relate them to each other; but reason never gives us immediate knowledge.

Every force and law of nature, every example of such forces and laws, must first be immediately known by the understanding, must be apprehended through perception before it can pass into abstract consciousness for reason.

Hooke’s discovery of the law of gravitation, and the reference of so many important phenomena to this one law, was the work of immediate apprehension by the understanding; and such also was the proof of Newton’s calculations, and Lavoisier’s discovery of acids and their important function in nature, and also G oethe’s discovery of the origin of ^ysical colours.

All these discoveries are nothing more tKan^colfrect immediate passage from the effect to the cause, which is at once followed by the recognition of the ideality of the force of nature which expresses itself in all

causes of the same kind; and this complete insight is just an example of that single function of the understanding, by which an animal perceives as an object in space the cause which affects its body, and differs from such a perception only in degree.

Every one of these great discoveries is therefore, just like perception, an operation of the understanding, an immediate intuition, and as such the work of an instant, an ap'per<pi, a flash of insight.

They are not the result of a process of abstract reasoning, which only serves to make the immediate knowledge of the understanding permanent for thought by bringing it under abstract concepts, i.e., it makes knowledge distinct, it puts us in a position to impart it and explain it to others.

The keenness of the understanding in apprehending the causal relations of objects which are known indirectly, does not find its only application in the sphere of natural science (though all the discoveries in that sphere are due to it), but it also appears in practical life. It is then called good sense or prudence, as in its other application it is better called acuteness, penetration, sagacity.

More exactly, good sense or prudence signifies exclusively understanding at the command of the will.

But the limits of these conceptions must not be too sharply defined, for it is always that one function of the understanding by means of which aU animals perceive objects in space, which, in its keenest form, appears now in the phenomena of nature, correctly inferring the unknown causes from the given effects, and providing the material from which the reason frames general rules as laws of nature ; now inventing complicated and ingenious machines by adapting known causes to desired effects ; now in the sphere of motives, seeing through and frustrating intrigues and machinations, or fitly disposing the motives and the men who are susceptible to them, setting them in motion, as machines are moved by levers and wheels, and directing them at will to the accomplishment of its ends. Deficiency of understanding is called

28

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

stupidity. It is just dulncss in allying the law oj causality, incapacity for the immediate apprehension of £h’e concatenations of pauses .^^djeffects^ motives and actions. A stupid person has no insight into the connection of natural phenomena, either when they follow their own course, or when they are intentionally combined, i.e., are applied to machinery. Such a man readily believes in magic and miracles. A stupid man does not observe that persons, who apparently act independently of each other, are really in collusion ; he is therefore easily mystified, and outwitted ; he does not discern the hidden motives of proffered advice or expressions of opinion, &c. But it is always just one thing that he lacks — keenness, rapidity, ease in applying the law of causality, i.e., power of understanding. The greatest, and, in this reference, the most instructive example of stupidity I ever met with, w’as the case of a totally imbecile boy of about eleven years of age, in an asylum. He had reason, because he spoke and comprehended, but in respect of understanding he was inferior to many of the lower animals. Whenever I visited him he noticed an eye-glass which I wore round my neck, and in which the window of the room and the tops of the trees beyond were reflected : on every occasion he was greatly surprised and delighted with this, and was never tired of looking at it with astonishment, because he did not understand the immediate causation of reflection.

While the difference in degree of the acuteness of the understanding, is very great between man and man, it is even greater between one species of animal and another. In all species of animals, even those which are nearest to plants, there is at least as much understanding as suffices for the inference from the effect on the immediate object, to the indirectly known object as its cause, i.e., sufficient for perception, for the apprehension of an object. For it is this that constitutes them animals, as it gives them the power of movement following on motives, and

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

29

thereby the power of seeking for food, or at least of seizing it ; whereas plants have only movement following on stimuli, whose direct influence they must await, or else decay, for they cannot seek after them nor appropriate them. We marvel at the great sagacity of the most developecT^pecies of animals, such as the dog, the elephant, the monkey or the fox, \vhose. cleverness has Seen so admirably __sketched hy ■ Bufibn.

From these most sagacious animals, we can pretty accurately determine how far understanding can go without reason, i.e., abstract knowledge embodied in concepts. We could not find this out from ourselves, for in us understanding and reason always reciprocally support each other. We find that the manifestation of understanding in animals is sometimes above our expectation, and sometimes below it.

On the one hand, we are surprised at the sagacity of the elephant, who, after crossing many bridges during his journey in Europe, once refused to go upon one, because he thought it was not strong enough to bear his weight, though he saw the rest of the party, consisting of men and horses, go upon it as usual.

On the other hand, we wonder that the intelligent Orang-outangs, who warm themselves at a fire they have found, do not keep it alight by throwing wood on it ; a proof that this requires a deliberation which is not possible without abstract concepts.

It is clear that the knowledge of cause and effect, as the universal form of understanding, belongs to all animals a priori, because to them as to us it is the prior condition of all perception of the outer world.

If any one desires additional proof of this, let him observe, for example, how a young dog is afraid to jump down from a table, however much he may wish to do so, because he foresees the effect of the weight of his body, though he has not been taught this by experience. In judging of the understanding of animals, we must guard against ascribing to it the manifestations of instinct, a faculty which is quite distinct both from undemtanding and

30

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

reason, but the action of which is often very analogous to the combined action of the two. We cannot, however, discuss this here; it will find its proper place in the second book, when we consider the harmony or socalled teleology of nature: and the 27th chapter of the supplementary volume is expressly devoted to it.

Deficiency of understanding we call stupidity: deficiency in the application of reason to practice we shall recognise later as foolishness : deficiency of judgment as sillines8,_ and lastly, partial oF entire deficiency of as madness. But each of these will he considered in its own place. That which is correctly known, by, is truih^^ that is, an abstract judgment on sufficient ^unds (Essay on the I’rinciple of Sufficient lieason, §29 and following paragraphs) ; that which is correctly known by understanding is reality, that is correct inference from effect oh the immediate object to its cause. Error is opposed to truth, as deception of the reason: illusion is opposed to reality, as deception of the underda/ndiug. The full discussion of all this will be found in the first chapter of my essay on Light and Cplour. Illusion takes place when the same effect may be attributed to two causes, of which one occurs very frequently, the other very seldom ; the understanding having no data to decide which of these two causes operates in any particular case, — for their effects are exactly alike, — always assumes the presence of the commoner cause, and as the activity of the understanding is not reflective and discursive, but direct and immediate, this false cause appears before us as a perceived object, whereas it is merely illusion. I have explained in the essay referred to, how in this way double sight and double feeling take place if the organs of sense are brought into an unusual position ; and have thus given an incontrovertible proof that perception exists only through and for the understanding. As additional examples of such illusions or deceptions of the understanding, we may mention the broken appearTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

3J

of.a stick dipped in water; the reflections in s^ericaj, mirror^ which, when the surface is convex appear somewliatluehind it, and when the surface is concave appear aTo^ waj in front of it. To this clas^ also hdongs the apparently greater extension of the raoonr,at the^hpriMii than at the zenith.

This appearance is not optical, for as tEe micrometre proves, the eye receives the image of the moon at the zenith, at an even greater angle of vision than at the horizon.

The mistake is due to the understanding, which assumes that the cause of the feebler light of the moon and of all stars at the horizon is that they are further off, thus treating them as earthly objects, according to the laws of atmospheric perspective, and therefore it takes the moon to be much larger at the horizon than at the zenith, and also regards the vault of heaven as more extended or flattened out at the horizon.

The same false application of the laws of atmospheric perspective leads us to suppose that very high mountains, whose summits alone are visible in pure transparent air, are much nearer than they really are, and therefore not so high as they are; for example, Mont Blanc seen frpm^ Salenche. All such illusions are immediately present to us as perceptions, and cannot be dispelled by any arguments of the reason.

Reason can only prevent error, that is, a judgment on insufficient grounds, by opposing to it a truth ; as for example, the abstract knowledge that the cause of the weaker light of the moon and the stars at the horizon is not greater distance, but the denser atmosphere ; but in all the cases we have referred to, the illusion remains in spite of every abstract explanation.

For the understanding is in itself, even in the case of man, irrational, and is completely and sharply distinguished from the reason, which is a faculty, of knowledge that belongs to man alone. The reaso'n can only know; perception remains free from its influence and belongs to the understanding alone.

§ 7. With reference to our exposition up to this point.

3*

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

it must be observed that we did not start either from the object or the subject, but from the idea, which contains and presupposes them both ; for the antithesis of object and subject is its primary, universal and essential form. We have therefore first considered this form as such;- then (though in this respect reference has for the most part been made to the introductory essay) the subordinate forms of time, space and causality. The latter belong exclusively to the object, and yet, as they are essential to the object as such, and as the object again is essential to the subject as such, they may be discovered from the subject, i.e., they may be known a jprron, and so far they are to be regarded as the common limits of both. But all these forms may be referred to one general expression, the principle of sufficient reason, as we have explained in the introductory essay.

This procedure distinguishes our philosophical method from that of all former systems. For they all start either from the object or from the subject, and therefore seek to explain the one from the other, and this according to the principle of sufficient reason. We, on the contrary, deny the validity of this principle with reference to the relation of subject and object, and confine it to the object. It may be thought that the philosophy of identity, which has appeared and become generally known in our own day, does not come under either of the alternatives we have named, for it does not start either from the subject or from the object, but from the absolute, known through “ intellectuaUntuitipji,” vyliich is neither object nor subject, ^t the identity of the two. I will not venture to speak of this revered identity, and this absolute, for I find myself entirely devoid of all “ intellectual intuition.” But as 1 take my stand mer^y on those' mahilestoes of the “ intellectual intuiter ” which are open to all, even to profane persons like myself, I must yet observe that this philosophy is not to be excepted from the alternative errors mentioned above For it does rot escape these

THE WORLD -,45 IDEA.

33

two opposite errors in spite of its identity of subject and object, which is not thinkable, but only " intellectually intuitable," or to be experienced by a losing of oneself in it.

On the*~contrary, it combines them both in itself; for it is divided into two parts, firstly, transcendental idealism, which is just Fichte’s doctrine oFIthe eyo, and therefore teaches that the object is produced by the subject, or evolved out of it in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason ; secondly, the philosophy of nature, which teaches that the subject is produced little by little from the object, by means of a method called construction, about which I understand very little, yet enough to know that it is a process according to various forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

The deep wisdom itself which that construction contains, I renounce; ibr as I entirely lack “ intellectual intuition,” all those expositions which presuppose it must for me remain as a book sealed with seven seals. This is so truly the case that, strange tcTsay, I have always been unable to find anything at all in this doctrine of profound wisdom but atrocious and wearisome bombast.

The systems starting from the object had always the whole world of perception and its constitution as their problem ; yet the object which they take as their starting-point is not always this whole world of perception, nor its fundamental element, matter. On the contrary, a division of these systems may be made, based on the four classes of possible objects set forth in the introductory essay. Thus Thales and the Ionic school, Democritus, Epicurus, Giordano Bruno, and the French materialists, may be said to have started from the first class of objects, the real world: Spinoza (on account of his conception of substance, which is purely abstract, and exists only in his definition) and, earlier, the Eleatics, from the second class, the abstract conception: the Pythagoreans and Chinese philosophy in Y-King, from the third class, time, and coD'vequently number: and, lastly,

J4 the woeld as wea.

the schoolmen, who teach a creation out of nothing by the act of will of an extra-mundane personal being, started from the fourth class of objects, the act of will directed by knowledge.

Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists.

It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is.

It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all /he others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility — that is knowledge — which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality.

Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians.

As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result — knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter ; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it.

Thus the tremendous petitio principii reveals itself unexpectedly ; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like Baron Munchausen who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs.

and himself also by his cue. The fundamental absurdity of materialism is that it starts from the objective, and takes as the ultimate ground of explanation something objective, whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought, or after it has taken form, is empirically given — that is to say, is mib&tance, the chemical element with its primary relations.

Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them adequately by means of it ; whereas in truth all that is objective is already determined as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think the subject away.

Thus materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active — that is to say, all that is material — is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction).

But we have shown that all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and ever active in time.

From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained.

To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all

36

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject; as its idea. Yet the aim and ideal of all natural science is at bottom a consistent materialism. The recognition here of the obvious impossibility of such a system establishes another truth which will appear in the course of our exposition, the truth that all science properly so called, by which I understand systematic knowledge under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, can never reach its final goal, nor give a complete and adequate explanation : for it is not concerned with the inmost nature of the world, it cannot get beyond the idea ; indeed, it really teaches nothing more than the relation of one idea to another.

Every science must start from two principal data. One of these is always the principle of sufficient reason in some form or another, as organon ; the other is its special object as problem. Thus, for example, geometry has space as problem, and the ground of existence in space as organon. Arithmetic has time as problem, and the ground of existence in time as organon. Logic has the combination of concepts as such as problem, and the ground of knowledge as organon. History has the past acts of men treated as a whole as problem, and the law of human motives as organon. Natural science has matter as problem, and the law of causality as organon. Its end and aim is therefore, by the guidance of causality, to refer all possible states of matter to other states, and ultimately to one single state ; and again to deduce these states from each other, and ultimately from one single state. Thus two states of matter stand over against each other in natural science as extremes : that state in which matter is furthest from being the immediate object of the jubject, and that state in which it is most completely such an immediate object, i.e., the most dead and crude matter, the primary element, as the one extreme, and the human organism as the other. Natural science as chemistry seeks for the first, as physiology for the second.

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

37

But as yet neither extreme has been reached, and it is only in the intermediate ground that something has been won. The prospect is indeed somewhat hopeless.

The chemists, under the presupposition that the qualitative division of matter is not, like quantitative division, an endless process, are always trying to decrease the number of the elements, of which there are still about sixty ; and if they were to succeed in reducing them to two, they would still try to find the common root of these.

For, on the one hand, the law of homogeneity leads to the assumption of a primary chemical state of matter, which alone belongs to matter as such, and precedes all others which are not essentially matter as such, but merely contingent forms and qualities. On the other hand, we cannot understand how this one state could ever experience a chemical change, if there did not exist a second state to affect it.

Thus the same difficulty appears in chemistry which Epicurus met with in mechanics. For he had to show how the first atom departed from the original direction of its motion. Indeed this contradiction, which develops entirely of itself and can neither be escaped nor solved, might quite properly be set up as a chemical antinomy. Thus an antinomy appears in the one extreme of natural science, and a corresponding one will appear in the other.

There is just as little hope of reaching this opposite extreme of natural science, for we see ever more clearly that what is chemical can never be referred to what is mechanical, nor what is organic to what is chemical or electrical. Those who in our own day are entering anew on this old, misleading path, will soon slink back silent and ashamed, as all their predecessors have done before them. We shall consider this more fully in the second book.

Natural science encounters the difficulties which we have cursorily mentioned, in its own province. Kegarded as philosophy, it would further be materialism ; but this, as we have seen, even at its birth, has death in its heart, because it ignores

the subject and the forms of knowledge, which are presupposed, just as much in the case of the crudest matter, from which it desires to start, as in that of the organism, at which it desires to arrive. For, “ no object without a subject,” is the principle which renders all materialism for ever impossible.

Suns and planets wiAout an eye that sees them, and" an understanding tliat knows them, may indeed be spoken of in words, but for the idea, these words are absolutely meaningless.

On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to the conclusion that,in time, each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state : so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised ; that, consequently, the jori- ^nai mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened, ./^d yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect.

For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. T^e world is entirely idea, and as such demands the kno\ying subject as the supporter of its existence.

This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared, — ;4hi3 whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all Thus we see, on the one hantl, the ex_istence__pf , the , whole world necessarily dependent *upo"h tiie first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on tlie other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily "entfrel^dependent upon a long chain of causes and 3Fecta which have preceded it, and in which it itself

J&. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge, and set it up as the counterpart of that which we found in the first extreme of natural science. The fourfold antinomy of Kant will be shown, in the criticism of his philosophy appended to this volume, to be a groundless delusion.

But the necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form ; which in my language means this : The objective w’orld, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side — the side of its inmost nature — its kernel — the thingin-ilselT.

' This we shall consider in the second book, calling it after the most immediate of its objective manifestations— will. But the world as idea, with which alone we are here concerned, only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowle’dge,” there was also no before, no time.

Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time. Since, however, it is the most universal form of the knowable, in which all phenomena are united together through causality, time, with its infinity of past and future, is present in the beginning of knowledge.

The phenomenon which fills the first present must at once be known as causally bound up with and dependent upon a sequence of phenomena which stretches infinitely into the past, and this past itself is just as truly conditioned by this first present, as conversely the present is by the past. Accordingly the past out of which the first present arises, is, like it, dependent upon the knowing subject, without which it is nothing. It necessarily happens, however, that this first

40

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

present does not manifest itself as the 5rst, that is, as having no past for its parent, but as being the beginning of time. It manifests itself rather as the consequence of the past, according to the principle of existence in time. In the same way, the phenomena which fill this first present appear as the effects of earlier phenomena which filled the past, in accordance with the law of causality. Those who like mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos {')(povo<s), the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the moment here referred to at which time appears, though, indeed it has no beginning ; for with him, since he ate his father, the crude productions of heaven and earth cease, and the races of gods and men appear upon the scene.

This explanation at which we have arrived by following the most consistent of the philosophical systems which start from the object, jnaterialism, has brought out clearly the inseparable and reciprocal dependence of subject and object, and at the same time the inevitable antithesis between them. And this knowledge leads ua to seek for the inner nature of the world, the thing-initself, not in either of the two elements of the idea, but in something quite distinct from it, and which is not encumbered with such a fundamental and insoluble antithesis.

Opposed to the system we have explained, which starts from the object in order to derive the subject from it, is the system which starts from the subject and tries to derive the object from it. The first of these has been of frequent and common occurrence throughout the history of philosophy, but of the second we find only one example, and that a very recent one ; the “ philosophy of appearance ” of J. G. Fichte. In this respect, therefore, it must be considered ; little real worth or inner meaning as the doctrine itself had. It was indeed for the most part merely a delusion, but it was delivered with an air of the deepest earnestness, with sustained loftiness of

THE WORLD i4S IDEA. 4«

tone and zealous ardour, and was defended with eloquent polemic against weak opponents, so that it was able to present a brilliant exterior and seemed to be souiething. But the genuine j^mestness which keeps truth alwgyi steadTastly before it as its goal, and is unaffected by any external influences, was entirely wanting to riqlitQ, as it is to all philosophers who, like him, concern themselves with questions of the day.

In his case, indeed, it could hot have been otherwise. A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perpIexi^,~from which he seek? to free himself. This is Plato’s Oavna^eiv, which lie calls a ^aXa ^i\oao<piKov TraSo?.

But what distinguishes the false philosopher from the true is this : the perplexity of the latter arises from the contemplation of the world itself, while that of the former results from some book, some system of philosophy which is before him. Now Fichte belongs to the class of the false philosophers.

He was made a philosopher by Kant’s doctrine of the thing-in-itself, and if it had not been for this he would probably have pursued entirely different ends, with far better results, for he certainly possessed remarkable rhetorical talent. If he had only penetrated somewhat deeply into the meaning of the book that made him a philosopher, “ The Critique of Pure Reason,” he would have understood that its principal teaching about mind is this.

The principle of sufficient reason is not, as all scholastic philosophy maintains, a veritas aeiema — that is to say, it does not possess an unconditioned validity before, outside of, and above the world. It is relative and conditioned, and valid only in the sphere of phenomena, and thus it may appear as the necessary nexus of space and time, or as the law of causality, or as the law of the ground of knowledge.

The inner nature of the world; the thing-in-itself can never be found by the guidance oi this principle, for all that it leads to will be found to be dependent and relative and merely phenomenal, not the thing-in-itself. Further, it does not concern the subject.

but is only the form of objects, which are therefore not things-in-themselves. The subject must exist along with the object, and the object along with the subject, so that it is impossible that subject and object can stand to each other in a relation of reason and consequent. But Fichte did not take up the smallest fragment of all this.

All that interested him about the matter was that the system started from the subject Now Kant had chosen this procedure in order to show the fallacy of the prevalent systems, which started from the object, and through which the object had come to be regarded as a thing-initself.

Fichte, however, took this departure from the subject for the really important matter, and like all imitators, he imagined that in going further than Kant he was surpassing him. Thus he repeated the fallacy with regard to the subject, which all the previous dogmatism had perpetrated with regard to the object, and which had been the occasion of Kant’s “ Critique.

Fichte then made no material change, and the fundamental fallacy, the assumption of a relation of reason and consequent between object and subject, remained after him as it was before him. The principle of sufficient reason possessed as before an unconditioned validity, and the only difference was that the thing-in-itself was now placed in the subject instead of, as formerly, in the object.

The entire relativity of both subject and object, which proves that the thing-in-itself, or the inner nature of the world, is not to be sought in them at all, but outside of them, and outside everything else that exists merely relatively, still remained unknown. Just as if Kant had never existed, the principle of sufficient reason is to Fichte precisely what it was to all the schoolmen, a veritas aeterna.

As an eternal fate reigned over the gods of old, so these aetemce veritates, these metaphysical, mathematical and metalogical truths, and in the case of some, the validity of the moral law also, reigned over the God of the schoolmen. These veritates alone were indeTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

pendent of everything, and through their necessity both God and the world existed. According to the principle of sufficient reason, as such a veritas aetema, the ego is for Fichte the ground of the world, or of the non-ego, the object, which is just its consequent, its creation. He has therefore taken good care to avoid examining further or limiting the principle of sufficient reason.

If, however, it is thought I should specify the form of the principle of sufficient reason under the guidance of which Fichte derives the non-ego from the ego, as a spider spins its web out of itself, I find that it is the principle of sufficient reason of existence in space : for it is only as referred to this that some kind of meaning and sense can be attached to the laboured deductions of the way in which the ego produces and fabricates the non- ego from itself, which form the content of the most senseless, and consequently the most wearisome book that was ever written.

This philosophy of Fichte, otherwise not worth mentioning, is interesting to us only as the tardy expression of the converse of the old materialisin.

For materialism was the most consistent system starting from the object, as this is the most consistent system starting from the subject Materialism overlooked the fact that, with the simplest object, it assumed the subject also ; and Fichte overlooked the fact that with the subject (whatever he may call it) he assumed the object also, for no subject is thinkable without an object.

Besides this he forgot that all a priori deduction, indeed all demonstration in general, must rest upon some necessity, and that all necessity is based on the principle of sufficient reason, because to be necessary, and to follow from given grounds are convertible conceptions.^ But the principle of sufficient reason is just the universal form of the object as such. Thus it is in the object, but is not valid before

1 On this see “ The Fourfold Root of the Principle of SufiBcient Reason,” 14944

THE WORLD IDEA.

and outside of it ; it Urst produces the object and makes it appear in conformity with its regulative principle. We see then that the system which starts from the subject contains the same fallacy as the system, explained above, which starts from the object ; it begins by assuming what it proposes to deduce, the necessary correlative of its starting-point.

The method of our own system is toto genere distinct from these two opposite misconceptions, for we start neither from the object nor from the subject, but from the idea, as the first fact of consciousness. Its first essential, fundamental form is the antitliesis of subject and object. The form of the object again is the principle of sufficient reason in its various forms. Each of these reigns so absolutely in its own class of ideas that, as we have seen, when tlie special form of the ])rinciple of sufficient reason which governs any class of ideas is known, the nature of the whole class is known also : for the whole class, as idea, is no more than this form of the principle of sufficient reason itself; so that time itself is nothing but the principle of existence in it, i.e., succession; space is nothing but the principle of existence in it, i.e., position ; matter is nothing but jcausaJity ; the concept (as will appear immediately) is nothing but relation to a ground of knowledge. This thorough and consistent relativity of the world as idea, both according to its universal form (subject and object), and according to the form which is subordinate to this (the principle of sufficient reason) warns us, as we said before, to seek the inner nature of the world in an aspect of it which is quite different and quite distinct from the idea; and in the next book we shall find this in a fact which is just as immediate to every living being as the idea.

But we must first consider that class of ideas which belongs to man alone. The matter of these is the concept, and the subjective correlative is reason, just as the subjective correlative of the ideas we have already conTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

45

§ 8. As from the direct light of the sun to the borrowed light of the moon, we pass from the immediate idea of perception, which stands by itself and is its own warrant, to reflection, to the abstract, discursive concepts of the reason, which obtain their whole content from knowledge of perception, and in relation to it. As long as we continue simply to perceive, all is clear, firm, and certain.

There are neither questions nor doubts nor errors ; we desire to go no further, can go no further ; we find rest in perceiving, and satisfaction in the present. Perception suffices for itself, and therefore what springs purely from it, and remains true to it, for example, a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

But with abstract knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appear in the theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical.

In the idea of perception, illusion may at moments take the place of the real; but in the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations, extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and, by the help of its slaves and its dupes, may chain and fetter those whom it cannot deceive.

It is the enemy against which the wisest men of all times have waged unequal war, and only what they have won from_J.^ has become the possession of mankindi^ Therefore it is well to draw attention to it at once, as we already tread the ground to which its province belongs.

It has often been said that we ought to follow truth even although no utility can be seen in it, because it may have indirect utility which may appear when it is least pected ; and I would add to this, that we ought toTie just as anxious to discover and to root out all error even

’ The first four chapters of the first of the supplementary books belong to these seven paragraphs.

46

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

when no ham is anticipated from it, because its mischief may be very indirect, and may suddenly appear when we do not expect it, for all error has poison at its heart. If it is mind, if it is knowledge, that makes man the lord of creation, there can be no such thing as harmless error, still less venerable and holy error. And for the consolation of those who in any way and at any time may have devoted strength and life to the noble and hard battle against error, I cannot refrain from adding that, so long M truth is absent, error will have free play, as owls and bats in the night ; but sooner would w’e expect to see tlie owls and the bats drive back the sun in the eastern heavens, than that any truth which has once been known and distinctly and fully expressed, can ever again be so utterly vanquished and overcome that the old error shall once more reign undisturbed over its wide kingdom. This is the power of truth ; its conquest is slow and laborious, but if once the victory Be^galned it can never be wrested back again.

Besides the ideas we have as yet considered, which, according to their construction, could be referred to time, space, and matter, if we consider them with reference to the object, or to pure sensibility and understanding (i.e., knowledge of causality), if we consider them with reference to the subject, another faculty of knowledge has appeared in man alone of all earthly creatures, an entirely new consciousness, which, with very appropriate and significant exactness, is called refiection. For it is in fact derived from the knowledge of perception, and is a reflected appearance of it. But it has assumed a nature fundamentally different. The forms of perception do not affect it, and even the principle of sufficient reason which reigns over all objects has an entirely different aspect with regard to it. It is just this new, more highly endowed, consciousness, this abstract reflex of all that belongs to perception in that conception of the reason which has nothing to do with perception, that gives to man that

THE WORLD AS IDEA. 47

thoughtfulness which distinguishes bis consciousness so entirely from that of the lower animals, and through which his whole behaviour upon earth is so different from that of his irrational fellow-creatures. He far surpasses them in power and also in suffering.

Thejy live in the present alone, he lives also in the future and the past. iTiey satisfy the needs of the moment, he provides by the most ingenious preparations for the future, yea for days that he shall never see. They are entirely dependcmt on the impression of the moment, on the effect of the perceptible motive ; he is determined by abstract conceptions independent of the present.

Therefore he follows predetermined plans, he acts from maxims, without reference to his surroundings or the accidental impression of the moment.

Thus, for example, he can make with composure deliberate preparations for his own death, he can dissemble past finding out, and can carry his secret with him to the grave ; lastly, he has an actual choice between several motives; for only in the abstract can such motives, pl-esent together in consciousness, afford the knowledge with regard to themselves, that the one excludes the other, and can thus measure themselves against each other with reference to their power over the wulL The motive that overcomes, in that it decides the question at issue, is the deliberate determinant of the will, and is a sure indication of its character.

The brute, on the other hand, is determined by the present impression j only the fear of present compulsion can constrain its desires, until at last this fear has become custom, and as such continues to determine it ; this is called training. Idie brute feels and perceives ; man, in addition to this, thinks and knows : both will.

The brute expresses its feelings and dispositions by gestures and sounds ; man communicates his thought to others, or, if he wishes, he conceals it, by means of speech. Speech is the first production, and also the necessary organ of hia reason. Therefore in Greek and Italian, speech and

48

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reason are expressed by the same word ; o \o«yo?, il discorso. Vernunft is derived from veiinehmen, which is not a synonym for the verb to hear, but signifies the consciousness of the meaning of thoughts communicated in words. It is by the help of language alone th^ reason accomplishes its most important achievementej— the united action of several individuals, the planned co-operation of many thousands, civilisation, the state; also science, the storing up of experience, the uniting of common propertios in one concept, the communication of truth, the spread of error, thoughts and poems, dogmas and superstitions. The brute first knows <^ath when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives ; and this makes life at times a (questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant annihilation in the whole of life. Principally on this account man has philosophies and religions, though it is uncertain whether the qualities we admire most in his conduct, voluntary rectitude and nobility of feeling, were ever the fruit of either of them. As results which certainly belong only to them, and as productions of reason in this sphere, we may refer to the marvellous and monstrous opinions of philosophers of various schools, and the extraordinary and sometimes cruel customs of the priests of different religions.

It is the universal opinion of all times and of all nations that these manifold and far-reaching achievements spring from a common principle, from that peculiar intellectual power which belongs distinctively to man and which has been called reason, () Xo<yo9, to XoyKjTiKov, TO Xoyifiov, ratio. Besides this, no one finds any difficulty in recognising the manifestations of this faculty, and in saying what is rational and what is irrational, where reason appears as distinguished from the other faculties and qualities of man, or lastly, in pointing out what, on account of the want of reason, we must never expect even from the most sensible brute. The philosoTUB IVORLD AS IDEA.

49

phers of all ages may be said to be on the whole at one about this general knowledge of reason, and they have also given prominence to several very important manifestations of it; such as, tlie control of the emotions and passions, the capacity for drawing conclusions and formulating general principles, even such as are true prior to all experience, and so forth.

Still all their explanations of the peculiar nature of reason are wavering, not clearly defined, discursive, without unity and concentration ; now laying stress on one manifestation, now on another, and tlierefore often at variance with each other. Besides this, many start from the opposition between reason and revelation, a distinction which is unknown to philosophy, and which only increases confusion.

It is very remarkable that up till now no philosopher has referred these manifold expressions of reason to one simple function which would be recognised in them all, from which they would all be explained, and which would therefore constitute the real inner nature of reason.

It is true that the excellent Locke in the “Essay on the Human Understan^pg” (Book II., ch. xl, §§ I o and 1 1 ), very rightly refers to general concepts as the characteristic which distinguishes man from the brutes, and Leibnitz quotes this with full s^proval in the “ Nouveaux Essais sur I’Entendement Humaine ” (Book IL,ch. xi., S§ lo and 1 1.) But when Locke (in Book IV., ch. xvii., §1 2 and 3) comes to the special explanation of reason he entirely loses sight of this simple, primary characteristic, and he also falls into a wavering, undetermined, incomplete account of mangled and derivative mahilesKtrons of it.

Leibnitz also, in the corresponding part of his work, behaves in a similar manner, only with more confusion and indistinctness. In the Appendix, I have fully considered how Kant conlused^and falsified the conception of the nature of reason. But whoever win take the trouble to go through in this reference the mass of philosophical writing which has appeared since

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Kant, will find out, ^at just as the faults of princes must be expiated by whole natipns,^ the errors of great minds extend their influence over whole generations, arid even over centuries ; they grow and propagate themselves, and finally degenerate into monstrosities. All this arises from the fact that, as Berkeley says, “Few men ^ink ; yet all will have opinio^”

The understanding has only one function — ^immediate knowledge of the relation of cause and eflect. Yet the perception of the real world, and all common sense, sagacity, and inventiveness, however multifarious theii applications may be, are quite clearly seen to be no* thing more than manifestations of that one function. Sc also the reason has one fuaction ; and from it all the manifestations of reason we have mentioned, which distinguish the life of man from that of the brutes, rnaj easily be explained. The application or the non-application of this function is all that is meant by whal men have everywhere and always called rational anc irrational.^

§ 9. Concepts form a distinct class of ideas, existing only in the mind of man, and entirely different from the ideas of perception which we have considered up til now. We can therefore never attain to a sensuous and properly speaking, evident knowledge of their nature but only to a knowledge which is abstract and discursive It would, therefore, be absurd to demand that they shouh be verified in experience, if by experience is meant the real external world, which consists of ideas of perception or that they should be brought before the eyes or th( imagination like objects of perception. They can onlj be thought, not perceived, and only the effects whicl men accomplish through them are properly objects of experience. Such effects are language, preconceived anc planned action and science, and all that results from these

^ Compare with this paragraph §§ essay on the principle of sufficien 26 and 27 of the third edition of the reason.

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5*

Speech, as an object of outer experience, is obviously nothing more than a very complete telegraph, which communicates arbitrary signs with the greatest rapidity and the finest distinctions of difference. But what do these signs mean ? How are they interpreted ?

When some one speaks, do we at once translate his words into pictures of the fancy, which instantaneously flash upon us, arrange and link themselves together, and assume form and colour according to the words that are poured forth, and their grammatical inflections ? What a tumult there would be in our brains while we listened to a speech, or to the reading of a book ? But what actually happens is not this at all.

The meaning of a speech is, as a rule, injmediately grasped, accurately and distinctly taken in, without the imagination being brought into play. It is reason which speaks to reason, keeping within its own province.

It communicates and receives abstract conceptions, ideas that cannot be presented in perceptions, which are framed once for all, and are relatively few in number, but which yet encompass, contain, and represent all the innumerable objects of the actual world. This itself is sufficient to prove that the lower animals can never learn to speak or comprehend, although they have the organs of speech and ideas of perception in common with us.

But because words represent this perfectly distinct class of ideas, whose subjective correlative is reason, they are without sense and meaning for the brutes.

Thus language, like every other manifestation which we ascribe to reason, and like everything which distinguishes man from the brutes, is to be explained from this as its one simple source — conceptions, abstract ideas which cannot be presented in perception, but are general, and have no individual existence in space and time.

Only in single cases do we pass from the conception to the perception, do we construct images as representatives of concepts in perception, to which, however, they are never adequate. These cases

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are fully discussed in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, §28, and therefore I shall not repeat my explanation here. It may be compared, however, with what is said by Hume in the twelfth of his “ Philosophical Essays,” p. 244, and by Herder in the “ MetacriGlc,” pt, i. p. 274 (an otherwise” worthless book). The Platonic idea, the possibility of which depends upon the union of imagination and reason, is the principal subject of the third book of tliis work.

Although concepts are fundamentally different from ideas of perception, they stand in a necessary relation to them, without which they would be nothing. This relation therefore constitutes the whole nature and existence of concepts. Eeflection is the necessary copy or repetition of the originally presented world of perception, but it is a special kind of copy in an entirely different material. Thus concepts may quite properly be called ideas of ideas. The principle of sufficient reason has here also a special form. Now we have seen that the form under which the principle of sufficient reason appears in a class of ideas always constitutes and exhausts the whole nature of the class, so far as it consists of ideas, so that time is throughout succession, and nothing more ; space is throughout position, and nothing more ; matter is throughout causation, and nothing more, rh the same way the whole nature of concepts, or the class of abstract ideas, consists simply in the relation which the principle of sufficient reason expresses in them; and as this is the relation to the ground of knowledge, the whole nature of the abstract idea is simply and solely its relation to another idea, which is its ground of knowledge. This, indeed, may, in the first instance, be a concept, an abstract idea, and this again may have only a similar abstract ground of knowledge ; but the chain of grounds of knowledge does not extend ad infinitum; it must end at last in a concept which has its ground in knowledge of perception ; for the whole world of reflecTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

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tion rests on the world of perception as its ground of knowledge. Hence the class of abstract ideas is in this respect distinguished from other classes; in the latter the principle of sufficient reason always demands merely a relation to another idea of the same class, but in the case of abstract ideas, it at last demands a relation to an idea of another class.

Those concepts which, as has just been pointed out, are not immediately related to the world of perception, but only through the medium of one, or it may be several other concepts, have been called by preference dbstraeta, and those which have their ground immediately in the world of perception have been called concreta. But this last name is only loosely applicable to the concepts denoted by it, for they are always merely dhstracta, and not ideas of perception. These names, which have originated in a very dim consciousness of the distinctions they imply, may yet, with this explanation, be retained. As examples of the first kind of concepts, i.e., cCbslracta in the fullest sense, we may take ‘ relation,’ ‘ virtue,’ ‘ investigation,’ ‘ beginning,’ and so on. As examples of the second kind, loosely called concreta, we may take such concepts as ‘ man,’ ‘ stone,’ ‘ horse,’ &c. If it were not a somewhat too pictorial and therefore absurd simile, we might very appropriately call the latter the ground floor, and the former the upper stories of the building of reflection.^

It is not, as is commonly supposed, an essential characteristic of a concept that it should contain much under it, that is to say, that many ideas of perception, or it may be other abstract ideas, should stand to it in the relation of its ground of knowledge, i.«., be thought through it. This is merely a derived and secondary characteristic, and, as a matter of fact, does not always exist, though it must always exist potentially. This characteristic arises from the fact that a concept is an

^ 01 Oh. S And 6 of the Supplement.

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idea of an idea, its whole nature consists in its rela* tion to another idea ; but as it is not this idea itself, which is generally an idea of perception and therefore belongs to quite a different class, the latter may have temporal, spacial, and other determinations, and in general many relations which are not thought along with it in the concept.

Thus we see that several ideas which are different in unessential particulars may be thought by means of one concept, i.e., may be brought under it Yet this power of embracing several things is not an essential but merely an accidental characteristic of the concept There may be concepts through which only one real object is thought, but which are nevertheless abstract and general, by no means capable of presentation individually and as perceptions.

Such, for example, is the conception which any one may have of a particular town which he only knows from geography; although only this one town is thought under it, it might yet be applied to several towns differing in certain respects.

We see then that a concept is not general because of being abstracted from several objects ; but conversely, because generality, that is to say, non-determination of the particular, belongs to the concept as an abstract idea of the reason, different things can be thought by means of the same one.

It follows from what has been said that every concept, just because it is abstract and incapable of presentation in perception, and is therefore not a completely determined idea, has what is called extension or sphere, even in the case in which only one real object exists that corresponds to it. Now we always find that the sphere of one concept has something in common with the sphere of other concepts. That is to say, part of what is thought under one concept is the same as what is thought under other concepts ; and conversely, part of what is thought under these concepts is the same as what is thought under the first ; although, if they are

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really diflerent concepts, each of them, or at least one of them, contains something which the other does not contain ; this is the relation in which every subject stands to its predicate. The recognition of this relation is called judgment The representation of these spheres by means of figures in space, is an exceedingly happy idea. It first occurred to Gottfried Plouquet, who used squares for the purpose. Lambert, although later than him, used only lines, whiclP he placed under each other. Euler carried_ out the_ idea completely with cirdes. Upon Vf^t this complete analogy between the relations of concepts, and those of figures in space, ultimately rests, I am unable to say. It is, however, a very fortunate circumstance for logic that all the relations of concepts, according to their possibility, te., a priori, may be made plain in perception by the use of such figures, in the following way : —

(i.) The spheres of two concepts coincide: for example the concept of necessity and the concept of following from given grounds, in the same way the concepts of Buminantia and Bisulca (ruminating and cloven-hoofed animals), also those of vertebrate and redblooded animals (although there might be some doubt about this on account of the annelida) : they are convertible concepts. Such concepts are represented by a single circle which stands for either of them.

(2.) The sphere of one concept includes that of the other.

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(3.) A sphere includes two or more spheres which exclude each other and lili it.

(4.) Two spheres include each a part of the other

(5.) Two spheres lie in a third, but do not fill it

This last case applies to all concepts whose spheres have nothing immediately in common, for there is always a third sphere, often a much wider one, which includes both.

To these cases all combinations of concepts may be referred, and from them the entire doctrine of the judgment, its conversion, contraposition, equipollence, disjunction (this according to the third figure) may be deduced

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From these also may be derived the properties of the judgment, upon which Kant based his pretended categories of the understanding, with the exception however of the hypothetical form, which is not a combination of concepts, but of judgments. A full account is given in the Appendix of “ Modality,” and indeed of every property of judgments on which the categories are founded.

With regard to the possible combinations of concepts which we have given, it has only further to be remarked that they may also be combined with each other in many ways. For example, the fourth figure with the second. Only if one sphere, which partly or wholly contains another, is itself contained in a third sphere, do these together exemplify the syllogism in the first figure, i.e., that combination of judgments, by means of which it is known that a concept w’hich is partly or wholly contained in another concept, is also contained in a third concept, which again contains the first : and also, conversely, the negation ; the pictorial representation of which can, of course, only be two connected spheres which do not lie within a third sphere. If many spheres are brought together in this way we get a long train of syllogisms. This schematism of concepts, which has already been fairly well explained in more than one textbook, may be used as the foundation of the doctrine of the judgment, and indeed of the whole syllogistic tlieory, and in this waj the treatment of both becomes very easy and simple. Because, through it, all syllogistic rules may be seen in their origin, and may be deduced and explained. It is not necessary, however, to load the memory with these rules, as logic is never of practical use, but b^.only. a- theofetipaV interest .fgi; philosophy. For although it may be said that logi.c_ js .related to rational thinking as thorough-bass is to music, or less exactly, as ethics is to virtue, or aesthetics to art ; we must yet remember that no one ever became an artist by the study of aesthetics j that a noble character was never

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formed by the study of ethics ; that long before Rameau, men composed correctly and beautifully, and that we do not need to know thorough-bass in order to detect discords : and just as little do we need to know logic in order to avoid being misled by fallacies.

Yet it must be conceded that thorough-bass is of the greatest use in the practice of musical composition, although it may not be necessary for the understanding of it ; and indeed aesthetics and even ethics, though in a much less degree, and for the most part negatively, may be of some use in practice, so that we cannot deny them all practical worth, but of logic even this much cannot be conceded.

It is nothing more than the knowledge in the abstract of what every one knows in the concrete. Therefore we call in the aid of logical rules, just as little to enable us to construct a correct argument as to prevent us from consenting to a false one, and the most learned logician lays aside the rules of logic altogether in his actual thought. This may be explained in the following way.

Every science is a system of general and therefore abstract truths, laws, and rules with reference to a special class of objects.

The individual case coming under these laws is determined in accordance with this general knowledge, which is valid once for all ; because such application of the general principle is far easier than the exhaustive investigation of the particular case; for the general abstract knowledge which has once been obtained is always more within our reach than the empirical investigation of the particular case.

With logic, however, it is just the other way. It is the general knowledge of the mode of procedure of the reason expressed in the form of rules. It is reached by the introspection of reason, and by abstraction from all content. But this mode of procedure is necessary and essential to reason, so that it will never depart from it if left to itself. It is. therefore, easier and surer to let it proceed itself according to its nature in each particular case, than to

present to it the knowledge abstracted from this procedure in the form of a foreign and externally given law.

It is easier, because, while in the case of all other sciences, the general rule is more within our reach than the investigation of the particular case taken by itself ; with the use of reason, on the contrary, its necessary procedure in a given case is always more within our reach than the general rule abstracted from it; for that which thinks in us is reason itself.

It is surer, because a mistake may more easily occur in such abstract knowledge, or in its application, than that a process of reason should take place which would run contrary to its essence and nature.

Hence arises the remarkable fact, that while in other sciences the particular case is always proved by the rule, in logic, on the contrary, the rule must always be proved from the particular case ; and even the most practised logician, if he remark that in some particular case he concludes otherwise than the rule prescribes, will always expect to find a mistake in the rule rather than in his own conclusion.

To desire to make practical use of logic means, therefore, to desire to derive with unspeakable trouble, from general rules, that which is immediately known with the greatest certainty in the particular case. It is just as if a man were to consult mechanics as to the motion of his body, and physiology as to his digestion ; and whoever has learnt logic for practical purposes is like him who would teach a beaver to make its own dam.

Logic is, therefore, without practical utility ; but it must nevertheless be retained, because it Has philosophical interest as the special knowledge of the organisation and action of reason. It is rightly regarded as a definite, self-subsisting, self-contained, complete, and thoroughly safe discipline ; to be treated scientifically for itself alone and independently of everything else, and therefore to be studied at the universities.

But it has its real value, in relation to philosophy as a whole, in the iiKjuiry into the nature of knowledge, and indeed of

rational and abstract knowledge. Therefore the exposition of logic should not have so much the form of a practical science, should not contain merely naked arbitrary rules for the correct formation of the judgment, the syllogism, &c., but should rather be directed to the knowledge of the nature of reason and the concept, and to the detailed investigation of the principle of sufficient reason of knowing.

For logic is only a paraphrase of this principle, and, more exactly, only of that exemplification of it in which the ground that gives truth to the judgment is neither empirical nor metaphysical, but logical or metalogical.

Besides the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, it is necessary to take account of the three remaining fundamental laws of thought, or judgments of inetalogical truth, so nearly related to it; and out of these the whole science of reason grows.

The nature of thought proper, that is to say, of the judgment and the syllogism, must be exhibited in the combination of the spheres of concepts, according to the analogy of the special schema, in the way shown above; and from all this the rules of the judgment and the syllogism are to be deduced by construction.

The only practical use we can make of logic is in a debate, when we can convict our antagonist of his intentional fallacies, rather than of his actual mistakes, by giving them their technical names. By thus throwing into the background the practical aim of logic, and bringing out its connection with the whole scheme of philosophy as one of its chapters, we do not think that we shall make the study of it less prevalent than it is just now.

For at the present day every one who does not wish to remain uncultured, and to be numbered with the ignorant and incompetent multitude, must study speculative philosophy. For the nineteenth century is a philosophical age, though by this we do not mean either that it has philosophy, or that philosophy governs it, but rather that it is ripe for philosophy, and, therefore, stands in need of it. This is a sign of a high

Though logic is of so little practical use, it cannot be denied that it was invented for practical purposes.

It appears to me to have originated in the following way : — As the love of debating developed among the Eleatics, the Megarics, and the Sophists, and by degrees became almost a passion, the confusion in wliich nearly every debate ended must have made them feel the necessity of a method of procedure as a guide ; and for this a scientific dialectic had to be sought.

The first thing which would have to be observed would be that both the disputing parties should always be agreed on some one proposition, to which the disputed points might be referred. The beginning of the methodical procedure consisted in this, that the propositions admitted on both sides were formally stated to be so, and placed at the head of the inquiry. But these propositions were at first concerned only with the material of the inquiry.

It was soon observed that in the process of going back to the truth admitted on both sides, and of deducing their assertions from it, each party followed certain Ibrms and laws about which, without any express agreement, there was no dilference of opinion. And from this it became evident that these must constitute the peculiar and natural procedure of reason itself, the form of investigation.

Although this was not exposed to any doubt or difference of opinion, some pedantically systematic philosopher hit upon the idea that it would look well, and be the completion of the method of dialectic, if this formal part of all discussion, this regular procedure of reason itself, were to be expressed in abstract propositions, just like the substantial propositions admitted on both sides, and placed at the beginning of every investigation, as the fixed canon of debate to which reference and appeal must always be made. In this ^ Cf. Ch. 9 and lo of the Supplement

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way what had formerly been followed only by tacit agreement, and instinctively, would be consciously recognised and formally expressed. By degrees, more or less perfect expressions were found for the fundamental principles of logic, such as the principles of contradiction, sufficient reason, excluded middle, the dictum de omni et nullo, as well as the special rules of the syllogism, as for example, ex vieris particularibus aut negativis nihil sequitur, a rationato ad rationem non valet consequentia, and so on. all this was only brought about slowly, and

with great pains, and up till the time of Aristotle remained very incomplete, is evident from the awkward and tedious way in which logical truths are brought out fn many of the Platonic dialogues, and still more from what Sextus Empiricus tells us of the controversies of fhe Megarics, about the easiest and simplest logical rules, and the laborious way in which they were brought into a definite form (Sext. Emp. adv. Math. 1. 8, p. 1 1 2). But Aristotle collected, arranged, and corrected all that had been discovered before his time, and brought it to an incomparably greater state of perfection. If we thus observe how the course of Greek culture had prepared the way for, and led up to the work of Aristotle, we shall be little inclined to believe the assertion of the Persian author, quoted by Sir William Jones with much approval, that Kallisthenes found a complete system of logic among the Indians, and sent it to his uncle Aristotle (Asiatic Kesearches, vol. iv. p. 163). It is easy to understand that in the dreary middle ages the Aristotelian logic would be very acceptable to the controversial spirit of the schoolmen, which, in the absence of all real knowledge, spent its energy upon mere formulas and words, and that it would be eagerly adopted even in its mutilated Arabian form, and presently established as the centre of all knowledge. Though its authority has since declined, yet up to our own time logic has retained the credit of a self-contained, practical, and highly important

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science. Indeed, in our own day, the Kantian philosophy, the foundation-stone of which is taken from logic, has excited a new interest in it ; which, in this respect, at any rate, that is, as the means of the knowledge of the nature of reason, it deserves.

Correct and accurate conclusions may be arrived at if we carefully observe the relation of the spheres of concepts, and only conclude that one sphere is contained in a third sphere, when we have clearly seen that this first sphere is contained in a second, whicli in its turn is contained in the third. On the other hand, the art of sophistry lies in casting only a superficial glance at the relations of the spheres of the concepts, and then manipulating these relations to suit our purposes, generally in the following way : — When the sphere of an observed concept lies partly within that of another concept, and partly within a third altogether different sphere, we treat it as if it lay entirely within the one or the other, as may suit our purpose. For example, in speaking of passion, we may subsume it under the concept of the greatest force, the mightiest agency in the world, or under the concept of the irrational, and this again under the concept of impotency or weakness. We may then repeat the process, and start anew with each concept to which the argument leads us. A concept has almost always several others, which partially come under it, and each of these contains part of the sphere of the first, but also includes in its own sphere something more, which is not in the first. But we draw attention only to that one of these latter concepts, under which we wish to subsume the first, and let the others remain unobserved, or keep them concealed. On the possession of this skill depends the whole art of sophistry and all finer fallacies ; for logical fallacies such as mentiens, velains, coi-natvs, &c., are clearly too clumsy for actual use. I am not aware that hitherto any one has traced the nature of all sophistry and persuasion back to this last

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possible ground of its existence, and referred it to the peculiar character of concepts, i.e., to the procedure of reason itself. Therefore, as my exposition has led me to it, though it is very easily understood, I will illustrate it in the following table by means of a schema.

This table is intended to show how the spheres of concepts overlap each other at many points, and so leave room for a passage from each concept to whichever one we please of several other concepts. I hope, however, that no one will be led by this table to attach more importance to this little explanation, which I have merely given in passing, than ought to belong to it, from the nature of the subject.

I have chosen as an illustration the concept of travelling. Its sphere partially includes four others, to any of which the sophist may pass at will ; these again partly include other spheres, several of them two or more at once, and through these the sophist takes whichever way he chooses, always as if it were the only way, till at last he reaches, in good or evil, whatever end he may have in view.

In passing from one sphere to another, it is only necessary always to follow the direction from the centre (the given chief concept) to the circumference, and never to reverse this process. Such a piece of sophistry may bo either an unbroken speech, or it may assume the strict syllogistic form, according to what is the weak side of the hearer.

Most scientific arguments, and especially philosophical demonstrations, are at bottom not much more than this, for how else would it be possible, that so much, in different ages, has not only been falsely apprehended (for error itself has a different source), but demonstrated and proved, and has yet afterwards been found to be fundamentally wrong, for example, the Leibnitz - Wolfian Philosophy, i^olemaic Astronomy, Stahl’s Chemistry, Newton’s Theory of Colours, &c. &c.^

' § lo. Through all this, the question presses evermore upon us, how certainty is to be attained, how jvdyrmnU

' Cf, Ch. 1 1 of Supplement

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are to he established, what constitutes rational hn^ledge, (wissen), and science, which we rank with language and deliberate action as the third great benefit conferred by reason.

Reason is feminine in nature ; it can only give after it has received. Of itself it has nothing but tlie empty forms of its operation. There is no absolutely pure rational knowledge except the four principles to which I have attributed metalogical truth ; the principles of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason of knowledge. For even the rest of logic is not absolutely pure rational knowledge.

It presupposes the relations and the combinations of the spheres of concepts. But concepts in general only exist after experience of ideas of perception, and as their whole nature consists in their relation to these, it is clear that they presuppose them. No special content, however, is presupposed, but merely the existence of a content generally, and so logic as a whole may fairly pass for pure rational science.

In all other sciences reason has received its content from ideas of perception; in mathematics from the relations of space and time, presented in intuition or perception prior to all experience ; in pure natural science, that is, in what we know of the course of nature prior to any experience, the content of the science proceeds from the pure understanding, i.e., from the a priori knowledge of the law of causality and its connection with those pure intuitions or perceptions of space and time.

In all other sciences everything that is not derived from the sources we have just referred to belongs to experience. Speaking generally, to know rationally (wissen) means to have in the power of the mind, and capable of being reproduced at will, such judgments as have their sufficient ground of knowledge in something outside themselves, i.e., are true.

Thus only abstract cognition is rational knowledge (wissen), which is therefore the result of reason, so that we cannot accurately say of the lower animals that they rationally

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know (wissen) anything, although they have apprehension of what is presented in perception, and memory of this, and consequently imagination, which is further proved by the circumstance that they dream. We attribute consciousness to them, and therefore although the word (betvusstsein) is derived from the verb to know rationally {wissen), the conception of consciousness corresponds generally with that of idea of whatever kind it may be. Thus we attribute life to plants, but not consciousness. tional knowledge {wissen) is therefore abstract consciousness, the permanent possession in concepts of the reason, of what has become known in another way.

§ I r. In this regard the direct opposite of rational knowledge is feeling, and therefore we must insert the explanation of feeling here. The concept which the word feeling denotes has merely a negative content, which is this, that something which is present in conjBciousness, is not a concept, is not abstract rational knowledge. Except this, whatever it may be, it comes under the concept of feeling. Thus the immeasurably wide sphere of the concept of feeling includes the most different kinds of objects, and no one can ever understand how they come together until he has recognised that tbey all agree in this negative respect, that they are not abstract concepts. For the most diverse and even antfigohistic elements lie quietly side by side in this concept; for example, religious feeling, feeling of sensual pleasure, moral feeling, bodily feeling, as touch, pain, sense of colour, of sounds and their harmonies and discords, feeling of hate, of disgust, of self-satisfaction, of honour, of disgrace, of right, of wrong, sense of truth, aesthetic feeling, feeling of power, weakness, health, friendship, love, &c. &c. There is absolutely nothing in common among them except the negative quality that they are not abstract rational knowledge. But this diversity becomes more striking when the apprehension of space relations presented a priori in perception, and also the

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knowledge of the pure understanding is brought under this concept, and when we say of all knowledge and all truth, of which we are first conscious only intuitively, and have not yet formulated in abstract concepts, we feel it. I should like, for the sake of illustration, to give some examples of this taken from recent books, as they are striking proofs of my theory.

I remember reading in the introduction to a German translation of Euclid, that we ought to make beginners in geometry draw the figures before proceeding to demonstrate, for in this way they would already feel geometrical truth before the demonstration brought them complete knowledge.

In the same way Schleiermacher speaks in his Critique of Ethics of logical and mathematical feeling (p. 339), and also of the feeling of the sameness or difference of two formulas (p. 342). Again Tennemanii in his History of Philosophy’’ (vol. L, p.“”361}' says, “One felt that the fallacies were not right, but could not point out the mistakes.

Now, so long as we do not regard this concept feeling ” from the right point of view, and do not recognise that one negative characteristic which alone is essential to it, it must constantly give occasion for misunderstanding and controversy, on account of the excessive wideness of its sphere, and its entirely negative and very limited content which is determined in a purely one-sided manner.

Since then we have in German the nearly synonymous word emjijindung (sensation), it would be convenient to make use of it for bodily feeling, as a sub-species. This concept ‘‘ feeling,” which is quite out of proportion to all others, doubtless originated in the following manner. All concepts, and concepts alone, are denoted by words; they exist only for the reason, and proceed from it.

With concepts, therefore, we are already at a one-sided point of view ; but from such a point of view what is near appears distinct and is set down as positive, what is farther off becomes mixed up and is soon regarded as merely

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negative. Tims each nation calls all others foreign : to the Greek all others are barbarians ; to the Englishman all that is not England or English is continent or continental ; to the believer all others are lieretics, or heathens ; to the noble all others are roturicvs ; to the student all others are Philistines, and so forth. Now, reason itself, strange as it may seem, is guilty of the same one-sidedness, indeed one might say of the same crude ignorance arising from vanity, for it classes under the one concept, feeling'* every modification of consciousness which does not immediately belong to its own mode of apprehension, that is to say, which is not an abstract concept It has had to pay the penalty of this hitherto in misunderstanding and confusion in its own province, because its own procedure had not become clear to it through thorough self-knowledge, for a special faculty of feeling has been set up, and new theories of it are constructed.

§ 12. Rational knowledge (wissen^ is then all abstract knowledge, — that is, the knowledge which is peculiar to the reason as distinguished from the understanding. Its contradictory opposite has just been explained to be the concept “ feeling.'^ Now, as reason only reproduces, for knowledge, what has been received in another way, it does not actually extend our knowledge, but only gives it another form. It enables us to know in the abstract and generally, what first became known in sense-perception, in the concrete. But this is much more important than it appears at first sight when so expressed. For it depends entirely upon the fact ^that knowledge has become rational or abstract knowledge (wissen), that it can be safely preserved, that it is communicable and susceptible of certain and wide-reaching application to practice. Knowledge in the form of sense-perception is valid only of the particular case, extends only to what is nearest, and ends with it, for sensibility and understanding can only comprenend one object at a time. Every

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enduring, arranged, and planned activity must therefore proceed from principles, — that is, from abstract knowledge, and it must be conducted in accordance with them.

Thus, for example, the knowledge of the relation of cause and effect arrived at by the understanding, is in itself far completer, deeper and more exhaustive than anything that can be thought about it in the abstract; the understanding alone knows in perception directly and completely the nature of the effect of a lever, of a pulley, or a cog-wheel, the stability of an arch, and so forth.

But on account of the peculiarity of the knowledge of perception just referred to, that it only extends to what is immediately present, the mere understanding can never enable us to construct machines and buildings. Here reason must come in ; it must substitute abstract concepts for ideas of perception, and take them as the guide of action ; and if they are right, the anticipated result will happen.

In the same way we have perfect knowledge in pure perception of the nature and constitution of the parabola, hyperbola, and spiral ; but if we are to make trustworthy application of this knowledge to the real, it must first become abstract knowledge, and by this it certainly loses its character of intuition or perception, but on the other hand it gains the certainty and preciseness of abstract knowledge.

The differential calculus does not really extend our knowledge of the curve, it contains nothing that was not already in the mere pure perception of the curve; but it alters the kind of knowledge, it changes the intuitive into an abstract knowledge, which is so valuable for application.

But here we must refer to another peculiarity of our faculty of knowledge, which could not be observed until the distinction between the knowledge of the senses and understanding and abstract knowledge had been made quite clear. It is this, that relations of space cannot as such be directly translated into abstract knowledge, but only temporal quantities, — that is, numbers, are suitable for this.

Numbers alone can be expressed in abstract concepts which accurately correspond to them, not spacial quantities. The concept thousand ” is just as different from the concept “ten,” as both these temporal quantities are in perception. We think of a thousand as a distinct multiple of ten, into which we can resolve it at pleasure for perception in time, — that is to say, we can count it.

But between the abstract concept of a mile and that of a foot, apart from any concrete perception of either, and without the help of number, there is no accurate distinction corresponding to the quantities themselves.

In both we only think of a spacial quantity in general, and if they must be completely distinguished we are compelled either to call in tlie assistance of intuition or perception in space, which would be a departure from abstract knowledge, or we must think the difference in numbers.

If then we wish to luave abstract knowledge of spacerelations we must first translate them into time-relations, — that is, into numbers ; therefore only arithmetic, and not geometry, is the universal science of quantity, and geometry must be translated into arithmetic if it is to be communicable, accurately precise and applicable in practice.

It is true that a space-relation as such may also be thought in the abstract; for example, “the sine increases as the angle,” but if the quantity of this relation is to be given, it requires number for its expression.

This necessity, that if we wish to have abstract knowledge of space-relations rational knowledge, not mere intuition or perception), space with its tlirce dimensions must be translated into time which has only one dimension, this necessity it is, which makes mathematics so difficult.

This becomes very clear if we compare the ])erception of curves with their analytical calculation, or the table of logarithms of the trigonometrical functions with the perception of the changing relations of the parts of a triangle, which are expressed by them. What vast mazes of figures, what laborious calcuTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

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lations it would require to express in the abstract what perception here apprehends at a glance completely and with perfect accuracy, namely, how the co-sine diminishes as the sine increases, how the co-sine of one angle is the sine of another, the inverse relation of the increase and decrease of the two angles, and so forth. How time, we might say, must complain, that with its one dimension it should be compelled to express the three dimensions of space ! Yet this is necessary if we wish to possess, for application, an expression, in abstract concepts, of spacerelations. They could not be translated directly into abstract concepts, but only through the niedium of the pure temporal quantity, number, which alone is directly related to abstract knowledge. Yet it is worthy of remark, that as space adapts itself so well to perception, and by means of its three dimensions, even its complicated relations are easily apprehended, while it eludes the grasp of abstract knowledge ; time, on the contrary, passes easily into abstract knowledge, but gives very little to perception. Our perceptions of numbers in their proper element, mere time, without the help of space, scarcely extends as far as ten, and beyond that w^e have only abstract concepts of numbers, no knowledge of them which can be presented in perception. On the other hand, we connect with every numeral, and with all algebraical symbols, accurately defined abstract concepts.

We may further remark here that some minds only find full satisfaction in what is known through perception. What they seek is the reason and consequent of being in space, sensuously expressed ; a demonstration after the manner of Euclid, or an arithmetical solution of spacial problems, does not please them. Other minds, on the contrary, seek merely the abstract concepts which are needful for applying and communicating knowledge. They have patience and memory for abstract principles, formulas, demonstrations in long trains of reasoning, and calculations, in which the symbols represent the most

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complicated abstractions. The latter seek preciseness, the former sensible perception. The difference is characteristia

The greatest value of rational or abstract knowledge is that it can be communicated and permanently retained. It is principally on this account that it is so inestimably important for practice.

Any one may have a direct perceptive knowledge through the understanding alone, of the causal connection, of the changes and motions of natural bodies, and he may find entire satisfaction in it; but he cannot communicate this knowledge to others until it has been made permanent for thought in concepts.

Knowledge of the first kind is even sufficient for practice, if a man puts his knowledge into practice himself, in an action which can be accomplished while the perception is still vivid ; but it is not sufficient if the help of others is required, or even if the action is his own but must be carried out at different times, and therefore requires a pre-conceived plan.

Thus, for, example, a practised billiard-player may have a perfect knowledge of the laws of the impact of elastic bodies upon each other, merely in the understanding, merely for direct perception ; and for him it is quite sufficient; but on the other hand it is only the man who has studied the science of mechanics, who has, properly speaking, a rational knowledge of these laws, that is, a knowledge of them in the abstract.

Such knowledge of the understanding in perception is sufficient even for the construction of machines, when the inventor of the machine executes the work himself ; as we often see in the case of talented workmen, who have no scientific knowledge.

But whenever a number of men, and their united action taking place at different times, is required for the completion of a mechanical work, of a machine, or a building, then he who conducts it must have thought out the plan in the abstract, and such co-operative activity is only possible through the assistance of reason. It is, however, remarkable that in

the first kind of activity, in which we have supposed that one man alone, in an uninterrupted course of action, accomplishes something, abstract knowledge, the application of reason or reflection, may often be a hindrance to him ; for example, in the case of billiard-playing, of fighting, of tuning an instrument, or in the case of singing.

Here perceptive knowledge must directly guide action ; its passage through reflection makes it uncertain, for it divides the attention and confuses the man.

Thus savages and untaught men, who are little accustomed to think, perform certain physical exercises, fight with beasts, shoot with bows and arrows and the like, with a certainty and rapidity which the reflecting European never attains to, just because his deliberation makes him hesitate and delay.

For he tries, for example, to hit the right position or the right point of time, by finding out the mean between two false extremes ; while the savage hits it directly without thinking of the false courses open to him. In the same way it is of no use to me to know in the abstract the exact angle, in degrees and minutes, at which I must apply a razor, if I do not know it intuitively, that is, if I have not got it in my touch.

The knowledge of physiognomy also, is interfered with by the application of reason. This knowledge must be gained directly through the understanding. We say that the expression, the meaning of the features, can only be felt, that is, it cannot be put into abstract concepts. Every man has his direct intuitive method of physiognomy and pathognomy, yet one man understands more clearly than another these signatura rci'um.

But an abstract science of physiognomy to be taught and learned is not possible ; for the distinctions of difference are here so fine that concepts cannot reach them ; therefore abstract knowledge is related to them as a mosaic is to a painting by a Van der Werft or a Denner. In mosaics, however fine they may be, the limits of the stones are always there, and therefore no continuous passage from

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one colour to another is possible, and this is also the case with regard to concepts, with their rigidity and sharp delineation ; however finely we may divide them by exact definition, they are still incapable of reaching the finer modifications of the perceptible, and this is just what happens in the example we have taken, knowledge of physiognomy.^

This quality of concepts by which they resemble the stones of a mosaic, and on account of which perception always remains their asymptote, is also the reason why nothing good is produced in art by their means. If the singer or the virtuoso attempts to guide his execution by reflection he remains silent. And this is equally true of the composer, the painter, and the poet. The concept always remains unfruitful in art ; it can only direct the technical part of it, its sphere is science. We shall consider more fully in the third book, why all true art proceeds from sensuous knowledge, never from the concept. Indeed, with regard to behaviour also, and personal agreeableness in society, the concept has only a negative value in restraining the grosser manifestations of egotism and brutality; so that a polished manner is its commendable production. But all that is attractive, gracious, charming in behaviour, all affectionateness and friendliness, must not proceed from the concepts, for if it does, “ we feel intention, and are put out of tune.” All dissimulation is the work of reflection ; but it cannot be maintained constantly and without interruption : “nemo

’ I am therefore of opinion that arched brow ; but 8uch a brow often a science of physiognomy cannot, occurs where there Is no genius. A with certainty, go further than to clever-looking person may the more lay down a few quite general rules, certainly be judged to be so the For example, the intellectual quali- uglier the face is; and ji stupidties are to be read in the forehead loolcing person may tEe more ccrand the eyes ; the moral qualities, Mainly be judged to be stupid tlie the expression of will, in the mouth more beautiful the face is ; for and lower part of the face. The beauty, as the approximation to tho forehead and the eyes interpret each type of humanity, carries in and for other ; either of them seen alone itself the expression of mental dearcan on\y be half understood. Pen ins ness ; the oj)po8itc is the case with is never without a hi^^h, broad, finely- ugliness, and so forth.

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potest personam diu ferre fietum” says Seneca in his book de elementia ; and so it is generally found out and loses its effect. Keason is needed in the full 8tres3_p£,lifej where quick conclusions^ bold actio®, rapi^^and sure_ comprehension are recjuired, but it may ea,sily spoil all if it gains~thel,upper hand, and by perplexing hinders the intuitive, direct discovery, and grasp of the_right_^W simple understanding, and thus induces irresolution.

Lastly, virtue and holiness do not proceed from reflection, but from the inner depths of the will, and its relation to knowledge. The exposition of this belongs to another part of our work ; this, however, I may remark here, that the dogmas relating to ethics may be the same in the reason of whole nations, but the action of every individual different; and the converse also holds good; action, we say, is guided by feelings, — that is, simply not by concepts, but as a matter of fact by the ethical character. Dogmas occupy the idle reason ; but action in the end pursues its own course independently of them, generally not according to abstract rules, but according to unspoken maxims, the expression of which is the whole man himself. Therefore, however different the religious dogmas of nations may be, yet in the case of all of them, a good action is aocQinpa,nied by unspeakable satisfaction, and a bad action by endless remorse. No mockery can shake the former ; no priest’s absolution can deliver from the latter. Notwithstanding this, we must allow, that for the pui'SuiT'bf'aT 'Virtuous life, the application of reason is needful ; only it is not its source, but has the subordinate function of preserving resolutions which have been made, of providing maxims to withstand the weakness of the moment, and give consistency to action. It plays the same part ultimately in art also, where it ha.s just as little to do with the essential matter, but assists in carrying it out, for genius is not always at call, and yet the work must be completed in all its parts and rounded off to a whole.^

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§ 13. All these discussions of the advantages and dis* advantages of the application of reason are intended to show, that although abstract rational knowledge is the reflex of ideas of perception, and is founded on them, it is by no means in such entire congruity with them that it could everywhere take their place ; indeed it never corresponds to them quite accurately.

And thus, as we have seen, many human actions can only be performed by the help of reason and deliberation, and yet there are some which are better performed without its assistance.

This veiy incongruity of sensuous and abstract knowledge, on account of which the latter always merely approximates to the former, as mosaic approximates to painting, is the cause of a very remarkable phenomenon which, like reason itself, is peculiar to human nature, and of which the explanations that have ever anew been attempted, are insufficient : I mean laughter.

On account of the source of this phenomenon, we cannot avoid giving the explanation of it here, though it again interrupts the course of our work to do so. The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.

It often occurs in this way : two or more real objects are thought through one concept, and the identity of the concept is transferred to the objects ; it then becomes strikingly apparent from the entire difference of the objects in other respects, that the concept was only applicable to them from a one-sided point of view.

It occurs just as often, however, that the incongruity between a single real object and the concept under which, from one point of view, it has rightly been subsumed, is suddenly felt. .) Now the more correct the subsumption of such objects under a concept may be from one point of view, and the greater and more glaring their inconcruity with it. from another point of view, the greater is

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the ludicrous efifect which is produced by this contrast. All laughter then is occasioned by a paradox, and therefore by unexpected subsumption, whether this is expressed in words or in actions. This, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous.

I shall not pause here to relate anecdotes as examples to illustrate my theory ; for it is so simple and comprehensible that it does not require them, and everything ludicrous which the reader may remember is equally valuable as a proof of it. But the theory is confirmed and illustrated by distinguishing two species into which the ludicrous is divided, and which result from the theory. Either, we have previously known two or more very different real objects, ideas of sense-perception, and have intentionally identified them through the unity of a concept which comprehends them both ; this species of the ludicrous is called wit. Or, conversely, the concept is first present in knowledge, and we pass from it to reality, and to operation upon it, to action: objects which in other respects are fundamentally different, but which are all thought in that one concept, are now regarded and treated in the same way, till, to the surprise and astonishment of the person acting, the great difference of their other aspects appears : this species of the ludicrous is called folly. Therefore everything ludicrous is either a flash of wit or a foolish action, according as the procedure has been from the discrepancy of the objects to the identity of the concept, or the converse ; the former always intentional, the latter always unintentional, and from without. To seem to reverse the starting-point, and to conceal wit with the mask of foUy, is the art of the jester and the clown. Being quite aware of the diversity of the objects, the jester unites them, with secret wit, under one concept, and then starting from this concept he receives from the subsequently discovered diversity of the objects the surprise which he himself prepared. It follows from this short but

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sufficient theory of the ludicrous, that, if we set aside the last case, that of the jester, wit must always show itself in words, folly generally in actions, though also in words, when it only expresses an intention and does not actually cany it out, or when it shows itself merely in judgments and opinions.

Pedantry is a form of folly. It arises in this way : a man lacks confidence in his own understanding, and, therefore, does not wish to trust to it, to recognise what is right directly in the particular case. He, therefore, puts it entirely under the control of the reason, and seeks to be guided by reason in everything ; that is to say, he tries always to proceed from general concepts, rules, and maxims, and to confine himself strictly to them in life, in art, and even in moral conduct. Hence that clinging to the form, to the manner, to the expression and word which is characteristic of pedantry, and which with it takes the place of the real nature of the matter. The incongruity then between the concept and reality soon shows itself here, and it becomes evident that the former never condescends to the particular case, and that with its generality and rigid definiteness it can never accurately apply to the fine distinctions of difference and innumerable modifications of the actual. Therefore, the pedant, with his general maxims, almost always misses the mark in life, shows himself to be foolish, awkward, useless. In art, in which the concept is unfruitful, he produces lifeless, stiff, abortive mannerisms. Even with regard to ethics, the purpose to act rightly or nobly cannot always be carried out in accordance with abstract maxims ; for in many cases the excessively nice distinctions in the nature of the circumstances necessitate a choice of the right proceeding directly from the character; for the application of mere abstract maxims sometimes gives false results, because the maxims only half apply; and sometimes cannot be carried out, because they are foreign to the

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individual character of the actor, and this never allows itself to be entirely discovered ; therefore, inconsistencies arise. Since then Kant makes it a condition of the moral worth of an action, that it shall proceed from pure rational abstract maxims, without any inclination or momentary emotion, we cannot entirely absolve him from the reproach of encouraging moral pedantry.

This reproach is the significance of Schiller’s epigram, entitled “ Scruples of Conscience. When we speak, especially in connection with politics, of doctrinaires, theorists, savants, and so forth, we mean pedants, that is, persons who know the things well in the abstract, but not in the concrete. Abstraction consists in thinking away the less general predicates ; but it is precisely upon these that so much depends in practice.

To complete our theory it remains for us to mention a spurious kind of wit, the play upon words, the calembourg, the pun, to which may be added the equivocation, the double entendre, the chief use of which is the expression of what is obscene. Just as the witticism brings two vmy different real objects under one concept, the pun brings two different concepts, by the assistance of accident, under one word. The same contrast appears, only familiar and more superficial, because it does not spring from the nature of things, but merely from the accident of nomenclature. In the case of the witticism the identity is in the concept, the difference in the reality, but in the case of the pun the difference is in the concepts and the identity in the reality, for the terminology is here the reality. It would only be a somewhat far-fetched comparison if we were to say that the pun is related to the witticism as the parabola (sic) of the upper Inverted cone to that of tlie^lbwer. The misuhderstanding of the word or the quid pro (quo is the unintentfonal pun, and is related to it exactly m folly is to wit. Thus the deaf man often affords occasion for just as much as the fool, and inferior writers

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of comedy often use the former for the latter to raise a laugh.

I have treated laughter here only from the psychical side ; with regard to the physical side, I refer to what is said on the subject in the “ Parerga,” voL 11. ch. vi., § 98.^

§ 14. By means of these various discussions it is hoped that both the difference and the relation between the process of knowledge that belongs to the reason, rational knowledge, the concept on the one hand, and the direct knowledge in purely sensuous, mathematical intuition or perception, and apprehension by the understanding on the other hand, has been clearly brought out. This remarkable relation of our kinds of knowledge led us almost inevitably to give, in passing, explanations of feeling and of laughter, but from all this we now turn back to the further consideration of science as the third great benefit which reason confers on man, the other two being speech and deliberate action. The general discussion of science which now devolves upon us, will be concerned partly with its form, partly with the foundation of its judgments, and lastly with its content

We have seen that, with the exception of the basis of pure logic, rational knowledge in general has not its source in the reason itself; but having been otherwise obtained as knowledge of perception, it is stored up in the reason, for through reason it has entirely changed its character, and has become abstract knowledge. All rational knowledge, that is, knowledge that has been raised to consciousness in the abstract, is related to science strictly so called, as a fragment to the whole. Every one has gained a rational knowledge of many different things through experience, through consideration of the individual objects presented to him, but only he who sets himself the task of acquiring a complete knowledge in the abstract of a particular class of objects, strives after science. This class can only be marked o0 ^ Of. Oh. 8 of Supplement.

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by means of a concept; therefore, at the beginning of every science there stands a concept, and by means of it the class of objects concerning which this science promises a complete knowledge in the abstract, is separated in thought from the whole world of things.

For example, the concept of space-relations, or of the action of unorganised bodies upon each other, or of the nature of plants, or of animals, or of the successive changes of the surface of the globe, or of the clianges of the human race as a whole, or of the construction of a lansruase, and so forth.

If science sought to obtain the knowledge of its object, by investigating each individual thing that is thought through the concept, till by degrees it had learned the whole, no human memory would be e(tual to the task, and no certainty of completeness would be obtainable.

Therefore, it makes use of that property of concept-spheres explained above, that they include each other, and it concerns itself mainly with the wider spheres which lie within the concept of its object in general.

When the relations of these spheres to each other have been determined, all that is thought in them is also generally determined, and can now be more and more accurately determined by the separation of smaller and smaller concept-spheres. In this way it is possible for a science to comprehend its object completely.

This path which it follows to knowledge, the path from the general to the particular, distinguishes it from ordinary rational knowledge ; therefore, systematic form is an essential and characteristic feature of science.

The combination of the most general concept- spheres of every science, that is, the knowledge of its first principles, is the indispensable condition of mastering it ; how far we advance from these to the more special propositions is a matter of choice, and does not increase the thoroughness but only the extent of our knowledge of the science. The number of the first principles to which all the rest are subordinated, varies greatly in the different sciences.

SO that in some there is more subordination, in others more co-ordination ; and in this respect, the former make greater claims upon the judgment, the latter upon the memory. It was known to the schoolmen,^ that, as the syllogism requires two premises, no science can proceed from a single first principle which cannot be the subject of further deduction, but must have several, at least two.

The specially classifying sciences: Zoology, Botany, and also Physics and Chemistry, inasmuch as they refer all inorganic action to a few fundamental forces, have most subordination ; history, on the other hand, has really none at all ; for the general in it consists merely in the survey of the principal periods, from which, however, the particular events cannot be deduced, and are only subordinated to them according to time, but according to the concept are co-ordinate with them.

Therefore, histoiy, strictly speaking, is certainly rational knowledge, but is not science. In mathematics, according to Euclid’s treatment, the axioms alone are indemonstrable first principles, and all demonstrations are In gradation strictly subordinated to them.

But this method of treatment is not essential to mathematics, and in fact each proposition introduces quite a new space construction, which in itself is independent of those which precede it, and indeed can be completely comprehended from itself, quite independently of them, in the pure intuition or perception of space, in which the most complicated construction is just as directly evident as the axiom ; but of this more fully hereafter.

Meanwhile every mathematical proposition remains always a universal truth, which is valid for innumerable particular cases ; and a graduated process from the simple to the complicated propositions which are to be deduced from them, is also essential to mathematics; therefore, in every respect mathematics is a science.

The completeness of a science as such, that is, in respect of form, consists in there being as much subordination and as little ^ Suarez, Disput. Metaphysics, disp. iii. sect. 3, tit. .3.

co-ordination of the principles as possible.

Scientific talent in general is, therefore, the faculty of subordinating the concept-spheres according to their different determinations, so that, as Plato repeatedly counsels, a science shall not be constituted by a general concept and an indefinite multiplicity immediately under it, but that knowledge shall descend by degrees from the general to the particular, through intermediate concepts and divisions, according to closer and closer definitions.

In Kantian language this is called satisfying equally the law of homogeneity and that of specification.

It arises from this peculiar nature of scientific completeness, that the aim of science is not greater certainty — for certainty may be possessed in just as high a degree by the most disconnected particular knowledge — but its aim is rather the facilitating of rational knowledge by means of its form, and the possibility of the completeness of rational knowledge which this form affords.

It is therefore a very prevalent but perverted opinion that the scientific character of knowledge consists in its greater certainty, and just as false is the conclusion following from this, that, strictly speaking, the only sciences are mathematics and logic, because only in them, on account of their purely a priori character, is there unassailable certainty of knowledge.

This advantage cannot he denied them, hut it gives them no special claim to be regarded as sciences ; for the special characteristic of science does not lie in certainty but in the systematic form of knowledge, based on the gradual descent from the general to the particular.

The process of knowledge from the general to the particular, which is peculiar to the sciences, involves the necessity that in the sciences much should be established by deduction from preceding propositions, that is to say, by demonstration ; and this has given rise to the old mistake that only what has been demonstrated is absolutely true, and that every truth requires a demonstration; whereas, on the contrary, every demonstration

requires an undemonstrated truth, which ultimately supports it, or it may be, its own demonstration. Therefore a directly established truth is as much to be preferred to a truth established by demonstration as water from the spring is to water from the aqueduct.

Perception, partly pure a priori, as it forms the basis of mathematics, partly empirical a posterioi'i, as it forms the basis of aU the other sciences, is the source of all truth and the foundation of all science. (Logic alone is to be excepted, which is not founded upon perception but yet upon direct knowledge by the reason of its own laws.) Not the demonstrated judgments nor their demonstrations, but judgments which are created directly out of perception, and founded upon it rather than on any d(‘monstrations, are to science what the sun is to the world ; for all light proceeds from them, endTiglited by their light the others .giye light also.

To stablish the truth of such primary judgments directly from perception, to raise such strongliolds of science from the innumerable multitude of real objects, that is the work of the faculty of judyment, which consists in the power of rightly and accurately carrying over into abstract consciousness what is known in perception, and judgment is consequently the mediator between understanding and reason.

Only extraordinary and exceptional strength of judgment in the individual can actually advance science ; but every one who is possessed of a liealthy reason is able to deduce propositions from i)ropositions, to demonstrate, to draw conclusions.

To lay down and make permanent for reflection, in suitable concepts, what is known through perception, so that, on the one hand, wliat is common to many real objects is thought through OTie concept, and, on the other hand, their points of difference are each thought through one concept, so tliat the different shall be known and thought as different in spite of a partial agreement, and the identical shall be known and thought as identical in spite of a partial difference, all in accordance with the end and intention which in each case

is in view ; all this is done by the family of judgment Deficiency in judgment is silliness. The silly man fails to grasp, nidw “the^partial or ' ir^ative difference of concepts which in one aspect are identical, now the identity of concepts which are relatively or partially different.

To this “explanation of the faculty of judgment, moreover, Kant’s division of it into reflecting and subsuming judgment may be applied, according as it passes from the perceived objects to the concepts, or from the latter to the former ; in .both cases always mediating between empirical knowledge of the understanding and the reflective knowledge of the reason.

There can be no truth which could be brought out by means of syllogisms alone ; and the necessity of establishing truth by means of syllogisms is merely relative, indeed subjective. Since all demonstration is syllogistic, in the case of a new truth we must first seek, not for a demonstration, but for direct evidence, and only in the absence of such evidence is a demonstration to be temporarily made use of.

No science is susceptible of demonstration throughout any more than a building can stand in the air ; all its demonstrations must ultimately rest upon what is perceived, and consequently cannot be demonstrated, for the whole world of reflection rests upon and is rooted in the world of perception. All primal, tliat is, original, evidence is a 'perception, as the word itself indicates.

Therefore it is either empirical or founded upon the perception a priori of the conditions of possible experience. In both cases it affords only immanent, not transcendent knowledge. Every concept has its worth and its existence only in its relation, sometimes very indirect, to an idea of perception ; what is true of the concepts is also true of the judgments constructed out of them, and of all science.

Therefore it must in some way be possible to know directly without demonstrations or syllogisms every truth that is arrived at through syllogisms and communiCftterl Kv Homnnflf’.TAf'.inTia T’Viia mncf. in t.liA

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case of certain complicated mathematical propositions at which we only arrive by chains of syllogisms; for example, the calculation of the chords and tangents to all arcs by deduction from the proposition of Pythagoras. But even such a truth as this cannot essentially and solely rest upon abstract principles, and the space-relations which lie at its foundation also must be capable of being so presented a prion in pure intuition or perception that the truth of their abstract expression is directly established. But of mathematical demonstration we shall speak more fully shortly.

It is true we often hear men speak in a lofty strain of sciences which rest entirely upon correct conclusions drawn from sure premises, and which are consequently unassailable. But through pure logical reasoning, however true the premises may be, we shall never receive more than an articulate expression and exposition of what lies already complete in the premises ; thus we shall only explintly expound what was already implicitly understood. The esteemed sciences referred to are, however, specially the mathematical sciences, particularly astronomy. But the certainty of astronomy arises from the fact that it has for its basis the intuition or perception of space, which is given a priori, and is therefore infallible. All space-relations, however, follow from each other with a necessity (ground of being) which affords a priori certainty, and they can therefore be safely deduced from each other. To these mathematical properties we have only to add one force of nature, gravity, which acts precisely in relation to the masses and the square of the distance ; and, lastly, the law of inertia, which follows from the law of causality and is therefore true a priori, and with it the empirical datum of the motion impressed, once for all, upon each of these masses. This is the whole material of astronomy, which both by its simplicity and its certainty leads to definite results, which are highly interesting on account of the

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fastness and importance of the objects. For example, if I know the mass of a planet and the distance of its satellite from it, I can tell with certainty tlie period of the revolution of the latter according to Kepler’s second law. But the ground of this law is, tliat with this distance only this velocity will both chain the satellite to the planet and prevent it from falling into it.

Thus it is only upon such a geometrical basis, that is, by means of an intuition or perception a priori, and also under the application of a law of nature, that much can be arrived at by means of syllogisms, for here they are merely like bridges from one sensuous apprehension to others ; but it is not so with mere pure syllogistic reasoning in the exclusively logical method.

The source of the first fundamental truths of astronomy is, however, properly induction, that is, the comprehension of what is given in many perceptions in one true and directly founded judgment. From this, hypotheses are afterwards constructed, and their confirmation by experience, as induction approaching to completeness, affords the proof of the first judgment.

For example, the apparent motion of the planets is known empirically ; after many false hypotheses with regard to the spacial connection of this motion (planetary course) the right one was at last found, then the laws which it obeyed (the laws of Kepler), and, lastly, the cause of these laws (universal gravitation), and the empirically known agreement of all observed cases with the whole of the hypotheses, and with their consequences, that is to say, induction, established them with complete certainty.

The invention of the hypotheses was the work of the judgment, which rightly comprehended the given facts and expressed them accordingly; but induction, that is, a multitude of perceptions, confirmed their truth. But their truth could fdso be known directly, and by a single empirical perception, if we could pass freely through space and had telescopic eves. Therefore, here also syllogisms are not

As a third example taken from a different sphere wo may mention that the so-called metaphysical truths, that is, such truths as those to which Kant assigns the position of the metaphysical first principles of natural science, do not owe their evidence to demonstration. What is a 'priori certain we know directly ; as the form of all knowledge, it is known to us with the most complete necessity.

For example, that matter is permanent, that is, can neither come into being nor pass away, we know directly as negative truth ; for our pure intuition or perception of space and time gives the possibility of motion ; in the law of causality the understanding affords us the possibility of change of form and quality, but we lack powers of the imagination for conceiving the coming into being or passing away of matter.

Therefore that truth has at all times been evident to all men everywhere, nor has it ever been seriously doubted ; and this could not be the case if it had no other ground of knowledge than the abstruse and exceedingly subtle proof of Kant.

But besides this, I have found Kant’s proof to be false (as is explained in the Appendix), and have shown above that the permanence of matter is to be deduced, not from the share which time has in the possibility of experience, but from the share which belongs to space.

The true foundation of all truths which in this sense are called metaphysical, that is, abstract expressions of the necessary and universal forms of knowledge, cannot itself lie in abstract principles ; but only in the immediate consciousness of the forms of the idea communicating itself in apodictic assertions a priori, and fearing no refutation.

But if we yet desire to give a proof of them, it can only consist in showing that what is to be proved is contained in some truth about which there is no doubt, either as a part of it or as a presupposition. Thus, for example, I have shown that all empirical perception implies the

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application of the law of causality, the knowledge of which is hence a condition of all experience, and therefore cannot be first given and conditioned through experience as Hume thought. Demonstrations in general are not so much for those wlio wish to learn as for those who wish to dispute. Such persons stubbornly deny directly established insight ; now only the truth can be consistent in all directions, and therefore we must show such persons that they admit under one form and indirectly, what they deny under another form and directly; that is, the logically necessary connection between what is denied and what is admitted.

It is also a consequence of the scientific form, the subordination of eveiything particular under a general, and so on always to what is more general, that the truth of many propositions is only logically proved, — that is, through their dependence upon other propositions, through syllogisms, which at the same time appear as proofs. But we must never forget that this whole form of science is merely a means of rendering knowledge more easy, not a means to greater certainty. It is easier to discover the nature of an animal, by means of the species to which it belongs, and so on through the genus, family, order, and class, than to examine on every occasion the animal presented to us : but the truth of all propositions arrived at syllogistically is always conditioned by and ultimately dependent upon some truth which rests not upon reasoning but upon perception. If this perception were always as much within our reach as a deduction through syllogisms, then it would be in every respect preferable. For every deduction from concepts is exposed to great danger of error, on account of the fact we have considered above, that so many spheres lie partly within each other, and that their content is often vague or uncertain. This is illustrated by a multitude of demonstrations of false doctrines and sophisms of every kind. Syllogisms are indeed perfectly certain as regards form, but they are

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very uncertain on account of their matter, the concepts. For, on the one hand, the spheres of these are not sufficiently sharply defined, and, on the other hand, they intersect each other in so many ways that one sphere is in part contained in many others, and we may pass at will from it to one or another of these, and from this sphere again to others, as we have already shown.

Or, in other words, the minor term and also the middle can always he subordinated to different concepts, from which we may choose at will the major and the middle, and the nature of the conclusion depends on this choica Consequently immediate evidence is always much to he preferred to reasoned truth, and the latter is only to be accepted when the former is too remote, and not when it is as near or indeed nearer than the latter.

Accordingly we saw above that, as a matter of fact, in the case of logic, in which the immediate knowledge in each individual case lies nearer to hand than deduced scientfic knowledge, we always conduct our thought according to our immediate knowledge of the laws of thought, and leave logic unused.^

§ 15. If now with our conviction that perception is the primary source of all evidence, and that only direct or indirect connection with it is absolute truth ; and further, that the shortest way to this is always the surest, as every interposition of concepts means exposure to many deceptions ; if, I say, we now turn with this conviction to mathematics, as it was established as a science by Eucli^ and has remained as a whole to our own day, we cannot help regarding the method it adopts, as strange and indeed perverted. We ask that every logical proof shall be traced back to an origin in perception ; but mathematics, on the contrary, is at great pains deliberately to throw away the evidence of perception which is peculiar to it, and always at hand, that it may substitute for it a logical demonstration. This must seem to us ^ Of. Oh. 12 of Supplement,

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like the action of a man who cuts off his legs in order to go on crutches, or like that of the prince in the “ Triumph dcr E7npflndsam%€it"~^o ^iQ&& Ir'om"tHe beautiful reality of nature, to" delight "in a stage scene that imitates it.”" ! nmstTiere refer to what 1 have said in the sixth chapter of the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, and take for granted that it is fresh and present in the memory of the reader ; so that I may link my observations on to it without explaining again the difference between the mere ground of knowledge of a mathematical truth, which can be given logically, and the ground of being, which is the immediate connection of the parts of space and time, known only in perception.

It is only insight into the ground of being that secures satisfaction and thorough knowledge. The mere ground of knowledge must always remain superficial ; it can afford us indeed rational knowledge that a thing is as it is, but it cannot tell why it is so. Euclid chose the latter way to the obvious detriment of the science.

For just at the beginning, for example, when he ought to show once for all how in a triangle the angles and sides reciprocally determine each other, and stand to each other in the relation of reason and consequent, in accordance with the form which the principle of sufficient reason has in pure space, and which there, as in every other sphere, always affords the necessity that a thing is as it is, because something quite different from it, is as it is ; instead of in this way giving a thorough insight into the nature of the triangle, he sets up certain disconnected arbitrarily chosen propositions concerning the triangle, and gives a logical ground of knowledge of them, through a laborious logical demonstration, based upon the principle of contradiction.

Instead of an exhaustive knowledge of these space-relations we therefore receive merely certain results of them, imparted to us at pleasure, and in fact we are very much in the position of a man to whom the different effects of an ingenious

machine are shown, but from whom its inner connection and construction are withheld. We are compelled by the principle of contradiction to admit that what Euclid demonstrates is true, but we do not comprehend why it is so. We have therefore almost the same uncomfortable feeling that we experience after a juggling trick, and, in fact, most of Euclid’s demonstrations are remarkably like such feats.

The truth almost always enters by the back door, for it manifests itself per accidens through some contingent circumstance. Often a reductio ad absurdum shuts all the doors one after another, until only one is left through which we are therefore compelled to enter.

Often, as in the proposition of Pythagoras, lines are drawn, we don’t know why, and it afterwards appears that they were traps which close unexpectedly and take prisoner the assent of the astonished learner, who must now admit what remains wholly inconceivable in its inner connection, so much so, that he may study the whole of Euclid through and through without gaining a real insight into the laws of space-relations, but instead of them he only learns by heart certain results which follow from them.

This specially empirical and unscientific knowledge is like that of the doctor who knows both the disease and the cure for it, but does not know the connection between them. But all this is the necessary consequence if we capriciously reject the special kind of proof and evidence of one species of knowledge, and forcibly introduce in its stead a kind which is quite foreign to its nature.

However, in other respects the manner in which this has been accomplished by Euclid deserves all the praise which has been bestowed on him through so many centuries, and which has been carried so far that his method of treating mathematics has been set up as the pattern of all scientific exposition. Men tried indeed to model all the sciences after it, but later they gave up the attempt without quite knowing why. Yet in our eyes this method of Euclid in mathematics

can appear only aa a very brilliant piece of perversity. But when a great error in life or in science has been intentionally and methodically carried out with universal applause, it is always possible to discover its source in the philosophy which prevailed at the time.

The Eleatics first brought out the difference, and indeed often the conflict, that exists between what is perceived, (paivofiepov,^ and what is thought, vovjxevov, and used it in many ways in their philosophical epigrams, and also in sophisms.

Q hey were followed later by the Megarics, the Dialecticians, the Sophists, the New- Academy, and the Sceptics ; these drew attention to the illusion, that is to say, to the deception of the senses, or rather of the under-standing which transforms the data of the senses into perception, and which often causes us to see things to which the reason unhesitatingly denies reality ; for example, a stick broken in water, and such like.

It came to be known that sense-perception was not to be trusted unconditionally, and it was therefore hastily concluded that only rational, logical thought could establish truth ; although Plato (in the Parmenides), the Megarics, Pyrrho, and the New-Academy, showed by examples (in the manner which was afterwards adopted by Sextus Empiricus) how syllogisms and concepts were also sometimes misleading, and indeed produced paralogisms and sophisms which arise much more easily and are far harder to explain than the illusion of sense-perception.

However, this rationalism, which arose in opposition to empiricism, kept the upper hand, and Euclid constructed the science of mathematics in accordance with it. He was compelled by necessity to found the axioms upon evidence of perception ((paivofievov), but all the rest he based upon reasoning (yovfievov).

His method reigned supreme through all the succeeding centuries, and it could not but do so as long as pure intuition or perception, a priori,

was not distinguished from empirical perception. Certain passages from the works of Proclus, the commentator of Euclid, which Kepler translated into Latin in his book, “ De Harmonia Mundi,” seem to show that he fully recognised this distinction. But Proclus did not attach enough importance to the matter ; he merely mentioned it by the way, so that he remained unnoticed and accomplished nothing.

Tlmrefore, not till two thousand years later will the doctrine of Kant, which is destined to make such great changes in all the knowledge, thought, and action of European nations, produce this change in mathematics also.

For it is only after we have learned from this great man that the intuitions or perceptions of space and time are quite different from empirical perceptions, entirely independent of any impression of the senses, conditioning it, not conditioned by it, i.e., are a priori, and therefore are not exposed to the illusions of sense ; only after we have learned this, I say, can we comprehend that Euclid’s logical method of treating mathematics is a useless precaution, a crutch for sound legs, that it is like a wanderer who during the night mistakes a bright, firm road for water, and carefully avoiding it, toils over the broken ground beside it, content to keep from point to point along the edge of the supposed water.

Only now can we affirm with certainty that what presents itself to us as necessary in the perception of a figure, does not come from the figure on the paper, which is perhaps very defectively drawn, nor from the abstract concept under which we think it, but immediately from the form of all knowledge of which we are conscious a priori.

This is always the principle of sufficient reason ; here as the form of perception, i.e., space, it is the principle of the ground of being, the evidence and validity of which is, however, just as great and as immediate as that of the principle of the ground of knowing, i.e., logical certainty. Thus we need not and ought not to leave the peculiar province of mathematics

in order to put our trust only in logical proof, and seek to authenticate mathematics in a sphere which is quite foreign to it, that of concepts. If we confine ourselves to the ground peculiar to mathematics, we gain the great advantage that in it the rational knowledge that something is, is one with the knowledge why it is so, whereas the method of Euclid entirely separates these two, and lets us know only the first, not the second.

Aristotle says admirably in the Analyt, post. i. 27 : “Axpi^earepa S’ €7naT7)firj eiriarypLyt Kai Trporepa, rjTe tov oti Kai rov Biotc 17 avTf}, aWa firj 'X^copi'i tov ort, T17? tov Start ” (Svjbtilior autem et praestantior ea est sdentia, qud quod aliquid sit, et CUR sit una simulqtie intelligimus non separatim QUOD, et cub siC).

In physics we are only satisfied when the knowledge that a thing is as it is is combined with the knowledge why it is so. To know that the mercury in the Torricellian tube stands thirty inches high is not really rational knowledge if we do not know that it is sustained at this height by the counterbalancing weight of the atmosphere.

Shall we then be satisfied in mathematics with the qualitas occulta of the circle that the segments of any two intersecting chords always contain equal rectangles ? That it is so Euclid certainly demonstrates in the 35 th Prop, of the Third Book ; why it is so remains doubtful.

In the same way the proposition of Pythagoras teaches us a qualitas occulta of the right-angled triangle ; the stilted and indeed fallacious demonstration of Euclid forsakes us at the why, and a simple figure, which we already know, and which is present to us, gives at a glance far more insight into the matter, and firm inner conviction of that necessity, and of the dependence of that quality upon the right angle

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In the case of unequal catheti also, and indeed generally in the case of every possible geometrical truth, it is quite possible to obtain such a conviction based on perception, because these truths were always discovered by such an empirically known necessity, and their demonstration was only thought out afterwards in addition. Thus we only require an analysis of the process of thought in the first discovery of a geometrical truth in order to know its necessity empirically. It is the analytical method in general that I wish for the exposition of mathematics, instead of the synthetical method which Euclid made use of. Yet this would have very great, though not insuperable, difficulties in the case of complicated mathematical truths. Here and there in Germany men are beginning to alter the exposition of mathematics, and to proceed more in this analytical way. The greatest effort in this direction has been made by Herr Kosack, teacher of mathematics and physics in the Gymnasium at Nordhausen, who added a thorough attempt to teach geometry according to my principles to the programme of the school examination on the 6th of April 1852.

In order to improve the method of mathematics, it is especially necessary to overcome the prejudice that demonstrated truth has any superiority over what is known through perception, or that logical truth founded upon the principle of contradiction has any superiority over metaphysical truth, which is immediately evident, and to which belongs the pure intuition or perception of space.

That which is most certain, and yet always inexplicable, is what is involved in the principle of sufficient reason, for this principle, in its different aspects, expresses the universal form of all our ideas and knowledge. All explanation consists of reduction to it, exemplification in the particular case of the connection of ideas expressed generally through it. It is thus the principle of all explanation, and therefore it is neither susceptible of an explanation itself, nor does it stand in need of it; for

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every explanation presupposes it, and only obtains meaning through it. Now, none of its forms are superior to the rest; it is equally certain and incapable of demonstration as the principle of the ground of being, or of change, or of action, or of knowing. The relation of reason and consequent is a necessity in all its forms, and indeed it is, in general, the source of the concept of necessity, for necessity has no other meaning.

If the reason is given there is no other necessity than that of the consequent, and there is no reason that does not involve the necessity of the consequent.

Just as surely then as the consequent expressed in the conclusion follows from the ground of knowledge given in the premises, does the ground of being in space determine its consequent in space: if I know through perception the relation of these two, this certainty is just as great as any logical certainty.

But every geometrical proposition is just as good an expression of such a relation as one of the twelve axioms ; it is a metaphysical truth, and as such, just as certain as the principle of contradiction itself, which is a metalogical truth, and the common foundation of all logical demonstration.

Whoever denies the necessity, exhibited for intuition or perception, of the space-relations expressed in any proposition, may just as w'ell deny the axioms, or that the conclusion follows from the premises, or, indeed, he may as well deny the principle of contradiction itself, for all these relations are equally undemonstrable, immediately evident and known a priori.

For any one to wish to derive the necessity of space-relations, known in intuition or perception, from the principle of contradiction by means of a logical demonstration is just the same as for the feudal superior of an estate to wish to hold it as the vassal of another. Yet this is what Euclid has done.

His axioms only, he is compelled to leave resting upon immediate evidence; all the geometrical truths which follow are demonstrated logically, that is to say, from

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the agreement of the assumptions made in the pro* position with the axioms which are presupposed, or with some earlier proposition; or from the contradiction between the opposite of the proposition and the assumptions made in it, or the axioms, or earlier propositions, or even itself. But the axioms themselves have no more immediate evidence than any other geometrical problem, but only more simplicity on account of their smaller content.

When a criminal is examined, a proces-verbal is made of his statement in order that we may judge of its truth from its consistency. But this is only a makeshift, and we are not satisfied with it if it is possible to investigate the truth of each of his answers for itself; especially as he might lie consistently from the beginning. But Euclid investigated space according to this first method. He set about it, indeed, under the correct assumption that nature must everywhere be consistent, and that therefore it must also be so in space, its fundamental form. Since then the parts of space stand to each other in a relation of reason and consequent, no single property of space can be different from what it is without being in contradiction with all the others. But this is a very troublesome, unsatisfactory, and roundabout way to follow. It prefers indirect knowledge to direct, which is just as certain, and it separates the knowledge that a thing is from the knowledge why it is, to the great disadvantage of the science ; and lastly, it entirely withholds from the beginner insight into the laws of space, and indeed renders him unaccustomed to the special investigation of the ground and inner connection of things, inclining him to be satisfied with a mere historical knowledge that a thing is as it is. The exercise of acuteness which this method is unceasingly extolled as affording consists merely in this, that the pupil practises drawing conclusions, i.e., he practises applying the principle of contradiction, but specially he exerts his memory to retain all those data whose agreement is to be tested.

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Moreover, it is worth noticing that this method of proof was applied only to geometry and not to arithmetic. In arithmetic the truth is really allowed to come home to us through perception alone, which in it consists simply in counting.

As the perception of numbers is in alone, and therefore cannot be represented by a sensuous schema like the geometrical figure, the suspicion that perception is merely empirical, and possibly illusive, disappeared in arithmetic, and the introduction of the logical method of proof into geometry was entirely due to this suspicion.

As time has only one dimension, counting is the only arithmetical operation, to which all others may be reduced ; and yet counting is just intuition or perception a priori, to which there is no hesitation in appealing here, and through which alone everything else, every sum and every equation, is ultimately proved. We prove, for example, not that ; but we refer to

the pure perception in time, counting thus makes each individual problem an axiom. Instead of the demonstrations that fill geometry, the whole content of arithmetic and algebra is thus simply a method of abbreviating counting. We mentioned above that our immediate perception of numbers in time extends only to about ten. Beyond this an abstract concept of the numbers, fixed by a word, must take the place of the perception ; which does not therefore actually occur any longer, but is only indicated in a thoroughly definite manner. Yet even so, by the important assistance of the system of figures which enables us to represent all larger numbers by the same small ones, intuitive or perceptive evidence of every sum is made possible, even where we make such use of abstraction that not only the numbers, but indefinite quantities and whole operations are thought only in the abstiuct and indicated as so thought, as y^r** so that we do not perform them, but merely symbolise them.

We might establish truth in geometry also, through

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pure a priori perception, with the same right and certainty as in arithmetic. It is in fact always this necessity, known through perception in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason of being, which gives to geometry its principal evidence, and upon which in the consciousness of every one, the certainty of its propositions rests. The stilted logical demonstration is always foreign to the matter, and is generally soon forgotten, without weakening our conviction. It might indeed be dispensed with altogether without diminishing the evidence of geometry, lor this is always quite independent of such demonstration, which never proves anything we are not convinced of already, through another kind of knowledge. So far then it is like a cowardly soldier, who adds a wound to an enemy slain by another, and then boasts that he slew him himself.^

* After all this we hope there will be no doubt that the evidence of mathematics, which has become the pattern and symbol of aU evidence, rests essentially not upon demonstration, but upon immediate perception, which is thus here, as everywhere else, the ultimate ground and source of truth. Yet the perception which lies at the basis of mathematics has a great advantage over all other perception, and therefore over empirical porception. It is a priori, and therefore independent of experience, which is always given only in successive parts ; therefore everything is equally near to it, and we can start either from the reason or from the consequent, as we please. Now this makes it absolutely reliable,

^ Spinoza, who always boasts that self {substantia causa sui, <kc.), and he proceeds more f/eometricOf has in the demonstrations he allows actu^y done so more than he him- himself all the freedom of choice for self was aware. For what he knew which the nature of the wide conwith certainty and decision from the cept-spheres afford such convenient immediate, perceptive apprehension opportunity. That his doctrine is of the nature of the world, he seeks true and excellent is therefore in to demonstrate logically without his ca.se, as in that of geometry, reference to this knowledge. He quite independent of the demonstra* only arrives at the intended and pre- tions of it. Of. ch. 13 of supplemen determined result by starting from tary volume, arbitrary concepts framed by himTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

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for in it the consequent is known from the reason, and this is the only kind of knowledge that has necessity; for example, the equality of the sides is known as established by the equality of the angles.

All empirical perception, on the other hand, and the greater part of experience, proceeds conversely from the consequent to the reason, and this kind of knowledge is not infallible, for necessity only attaches to the consequent on account of the reason being given, and no necessity attaches to the knowledge of the reason from the consequent, for the same consequent may follow from different reasons.

The latter kind of knowledge is simply induction, i.e., from many consequents which point to one reason, the reason is accepted as certain ; but as the cases can never be all before us, the truth here is not unconditionally certain. But all knowledge through sense-perception, and the great bulk of experience, has only this kind of truth.

The affection of one of the senses induces the understanding to infer a cause of the effect, but, as a conclusion from the consequent to the reason is never certain, illusion, which is deception of the senses, is possible, and indeed often occurs, as was pointed out above.

Only when several of the senses, or it may be all the five, receive impressions which point to the same cause, the possibility of illusion is reduced to a minimum ; but yet it still exists, for there are cases, for example, the case of counterfeit money, in which all the senses are deceived.

All empirical knowledge, and consequently the whole of natural science, is in the same position, except on^ the pure, or as Kant calls it, metaphysical part of it. Here also the causes are known from the effects, consequently all natural philosophy rests upon hypotheses, which are often false, and must then gradually give place to more correct ones.

Only in the case of purposely arranged experiments, knowledge proceeds from the cause to the effect, that is, it follows the method that affords certainty ; but these experiments

themselves are undertaken in consequence of hypotheses. Therefore, no branch of natural science, such as physics, or astronomy, or physiology could be discovered all at once, as was the case with mathematics and logic, but required and requires the collected and compared experiences of many centuries.

In the first place, repeated confirmation in experience brings the induction, upon which the hypothesis rests, so near completeness that in practice it takes the place of certainty, and is regarded as diminishing the value of the hypothesis, its source, just as little as the incommensurability of straight and curved lines diminishes the value of the application of geometry, or that perfect exactness of the logarithm, which is not attainable, diminishes the value of arithmetic.

For as the logarithm, or the squaring of the circle, approaches infinitely near to correctness through infinite fractions, so, through manifold experience, the induction, i.e., the knowledge of the cause from the effects, approaches, not infinitely indeed, but yet so near mathematical evidence, i.e,, knowledge of the effects from the cause, that the possibility of mistake is small enough to be neglected, but yet the possibility exists ; for example, a’ conclusion from an indefinite number of cases to all cases, i.e., to the unknown ground on which all depend, is an induction.

What conclusion of this kind seems more certain than that all men have the heart on the left side ? Yet there are extremely rare and quite isolated exceptions of men who have the heart upon the right side. Sense-perception and empirical science have, therefore, the same kind of evidence.

The advantage which mathematics, pure natural science, and logic have over them, as a priori knowledge, rests merely upon this, that the formal element in knowledge upon which all that is a priori is based, is given as a whole and at once, and therefore in it we can always proceed from the cause to the effect, while in the former kind of knowledge we ere generally obliged to proceed from the effect to the

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cause. In other respects, the law of causality, or the principle of sufficient reason of change, which guides empirical knowledge, is in itself just as certain as the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason which are followed by the a ‘priori sciences referred to above. Logical demonstrations from concepts or syllogisms have the advantage of proceeding from the reason to the consequent, just as much as knowledge through perception a priori, and therefore in themselves, i.e., according to their form, they are infallible. This has greatly assisted to bring demonstration in general into such esteem. But this infallibility is merely relative; the demonstration merely subsumes under the first principles of the science, and it is these which contain the whole material truth of science, and they must not themselves be demonstrated, but must be founded on perception. In the few a priori sciences we have named above, this perception is pure, but everywhere else it is empirical, and is only raised to universality through induction. If, then, in the empirical sciences also, the particular is proved from the general, yet the general, on the other hand, has received its truth from the particular ; it is only a store of collected material, not a self-constituted foundation.

So much for the foundation of truth. Of the source and possibility of error many explanations have been tried since Plato’s metaphorical solution of the dove-cot where the wrong pigeons are caught, &a (Theaetetus, p. 167, et scj.) Kant’s vague, indefinite explanation of the source of error by means of the diagram of diagonal motion, will be found in the “ Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 294 of the first edition, and p. 550 of the fifth. As truth is the relation of a judgment to its ground of knowledge, it is always a problem how the person judging can believe that he has such a ground of knowledge and yet not have it; that is to say, how error, the deception of reason, is possible. I find this possibility quite analogous to that of illusion, or the deception of the understanding.

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which has been explained above. My opinion is (and this is what gives this explanation its proper place here) that every error is an inference from the consequent to the reason, which indeed is valid when we know that the consequent has that reason and can have no other; but otherwise is not valid.

The person who falls into error, either attributes to a consequent a reason which it cannot have, in which case he shows actual deficiency o£ understanding, i.e., deficiency in the capacity for immediate knowledge of the connection between the cause and the effect, or, as more frequently happens, he attributes to the effect a cause which is possible, but he adds to the major proposition of the syllogism, in which he infers the cause from the eflfect, that this effect always results only from this cause.

Now he could only be assured of this by a complete induction, which, however, he assumes without having made it. This ‘ always ’ is therefore too wide a concept, and instead of it he ought to have used ‘sometimes’ or ‘generally.’ The conclusion would then be problematical, and therefore not erroneous.

That the man who errs should proceed in this way is due either to haste, or to insufficient knowledge of what is possible, on account of which he does not know the necessity of the induction that ought to be made. Error then is quite analogous to illusion.

Both are inferences from the effect to the cause ; the illusion brought about always in accordance with the law of causality, and hy the understanding alone, thus directly, in perception itself ; the error in accordance with all the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and by the reason, thus in thought itself ; yet most commonly in accordance with the law of causality, as will appear from the three following examples, which may be taken as types or representatives of the three kinds of error, (i.) The illusion of the senses (deception of the understanding) induces error (deception of the reason) ; for example, if one mistakes a painting for an alto-relief, and actually

takes it for such; the error results from a conclusion from the following major premise : “ If dark grey passes regularly through all shades to white ; the cause is alwayi the light, which strikes differently upon projections and depressions, ergo — (2.) “ If there is no money in my safe, the cause is always that my servant has got a key for it : ergo — (3.) “ If a ray of sunlight, broken through a prism, i.e., bent up or down, appears as a coloured band instead of round and white as before, the cause must always be that light consists of homogeneous rays, differently coloured and refrangible to different degrees, which, when forced asunder on account of the difference of their refrangibility, give an elongated and variously -coloured spectrum : ergo — Mbamm ! ” — It must be possible to trace every error to such a conclusion, drawn from a major premise which is often only falsely generalised, hypothetical, and founded on the assumption that some particular cause is that of a certain effect.

Only certain mistakes in counting are to be excepted, and they are not really errors, but merely mistakes.

The operation prescribed by the concepts of the numbers has not been carried out in pure intuition or perception, in counting, but some other operation instead of it As regards the content of the sciences generally, it is, in fact, always the relation of the phenomena of the world to each other, according to the principle of sufficient reason, under the guidance of the why, which has validity and meaning only through this principle.

Eoi^lanaiion is the establishment of this relation. Therefore explanation can never go further than to show two ideas standing to each other in the relation peculiar to that form of the principle of sufficient reason which reigns in the class to which they belong.

If this is done we cannot further be asked the question, why: for the relation proved is that one which absolutely cannot be imagined as other than it is, it is the form of all knowledge. Therefore we do not ask why 2 + 2 = 4; o*' equality of the

angles of a triangle determines the equality of the sides ; or why its effect follows any given cause ; or why the truth of the conclusion is evident from the truth of the premises. Every explanation which does not ultimately lead to a relation of which no “ why ” can further be demanded, stops at an accepted gueditas occulta; but this is the character of every original force of nature.

Eveiy explanation in natural science must ultimately end with such a gualitaa occulta, and thus with complete obscurity. It must leave the inner nature of a stone just as much unexplained as that of a human being; it can give as little account of the weight, the cohesion, the chemical qualities, &c., of the former, as of the knowing and acting of the latter.

Thus, for example, weight is a queditas occulta, for it can be thought away, and does not proceed as a necessity from the form of knowledge ; which, on the contrary, is not the case with the law of inertia, for it follows from the law of causedity, and is therefore sufficiently explained if it is referred to that law.

There are two things which are altogether inexplicable, — that is to say, do not ultimately lead to the relation which the principle of sufficient reason expresses.

These are, first, the principle of sufficient reason itself in all its four forms, because it is the principle pf all explanation, which has meaning only in relation to it; secondly, that to which this principle does not extend, but which is the original source of all phenomena ; the thing-in-itself, the knowledge of which is not subject to the principle of sufficient reason.

We must be content for the present not to understand this thing-in-itself, for it can only be made intelligible by means of the following book, in which we shall resume this consideration of the possible achievements of the sciences.

But at the point at which natural science, and indeed every science, leaves things, because not only its explanation of them, but even the principle of this explanation, the principle of sufficient reason, does not extend beyond this point ; there philosoTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

phy takes them up and treats them after its own method, whicli is quite distinct from the method of science. In my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 51,1 have shown how in the different sciences the chief guiding clue is one or other form of that principle ; and, in fact, perhaps the most appropriate classification of the sciences might be based upon this circumstance.

Every explanation arrived at by the help of this clue is, as we have said, merely relative; it explains things in relation to each other, but something which indeed is presupposed is al^ys left unexplained, In mathematics, for example, this m space and time ; in inechahics, physics, and chemistry it is matter, qualities, original forces and laws of nature; in botany and zoology it is the difference of species, and life itself; in history it is the human race with all its properties of tliought and will : in all it is that form of the principle of sufficient reason which is respectively applicable.

It is peculiar to philosophy that it presupposes nothing as known, but treats eveiything as equally external and a problem ; not merely the relations of phenomena, but also the phenomena themselves, and even the principle of sufficient reason to which the other sciences are content to refer everything.

In philosophy nothing would be gained by such a reference, as one member of the series is just as external to it as another; and, moreover, that kind of connection is just as much a problem for philosophy as what is joined together by it, and the latter again is just as much a problem after its combination has been explained as before it.

For, as we have said, just what ^_sciences presuppose and lay down as th^Trasis"'an3 the limits of their explanation, is precisely and peeulTafly' the prbl)lem of philosophy, which may therefore be said to begin where science micis! If cannot be founcTeJ” upon deinon"stfa£ioir^~for lead from known principles to unknown, but everything is equally unknown and external to philosophy. There can be no principle in consequence of whicli the world with

all its phenomena firs^ came into existence, and therefore it is jiot possible to c(mstruct, as Spinoza a philosophy which demonstrates ex firmis Philosophy is the most general rational knowledge, the first principles of which cannot therefore be derived from ahothef principle still more general. The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts.

The principle of sufficient reason explains the connections of phenomepa^ but not the phenomena themselyes ; therefore philosophy cannot proceed upon these principles to seek a„m%sa e^ciem or a. cavm jinalis of the whole world. My philosophy, at least, does imt_ by any means seek to know v^Tice^^vher^ore the world exists, but merely what the world is.

But the why is here subordinated to the what, for it already belongs to the world, as it arises and has meaning and validity only through the form of its phenomena, the principle of sufficient reason.

We might indeed say that every one knows what the world is without help, for he is himself that subject of knowledge of which the world is the idea; and so far this would be trua But that knowledge is empirical, is in the concrete ; the task of philosophy is to reproduce this in the abstract to raise to permanent rational knowledge the successive changing perceptions, and in general, all that is contained under the wide concept of feeling and merely negatively defined as not abstract, distinct, rational knowledge.

It must therefore consist of a statement in the abstract, of the nature of the whole world, of the whole, and of all the parts. In order then that it may not lose itself in the endless multitude of particular judgments, it must make use of abstraction and think everything individual in the universal, and its differences also in the universal.

It must therefore partly separate and partly unite, in order to present to rational knowledge the whole manifold of the world generally, according to its nature, comprehended in a few abstract concepts.

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Through these concepts, in which it fixes the nature of the world, the whole individual must be known as well as the universal, the knowledge of both therefore must be bound together to the minutest point. Therefore tlm capacity for philosophy consists just in that in which Plato placed it, tlm knowledge of the one in the many, and the many in the one Philosopliy~will thm-efore be a sum-total of general judgments, whose ground of knowledge is immediately the world itself in its entirety, without excepting anything ; thus all that is to be found in human consciousness ; it will be a complete recapitidation, as it were, a reflection, of the world in abstrcwt concepts, which is only possible by the union of the essentially identical in one concept and the relegation of the different to another. This task was already prescribed to philosophy by Bacon of Verulam when he said : ea demum vera est philosophia, quae mundi ipsius voces fidelissime reddit, et veluti dictante mundo conscripta est, et nihil alivd est, quam ejusdom simulacrum et reflectio, neque addit quidquam de proprio, sed tantum iterat et resoncd (De Augm. Scient., L. 2, c. 1 3). But we take this in a wider sense than Bacon could then conceive.

The agreement which all the sides and parts of the world have with each other, just because they belong to a whole, must also be found in this abstract copy of it Therefore the judgments in this sum-total could to a certain extent be deduced from each other, and indeed always reciprocally so deduced. Yet to make the first judgment possible, they must all be present, and thus implied as prior to it in the knowledge of the world in the concrete, especially as all direct proof is more certain than indirect proof ; their harmony with each other by virtue of which they come together into the unity of one thought, and which arises from the harmony and unity of the world of perception itself, which is their common ground of knowledge, is not therefore to be made use of to establish them, as that which is prior to them,

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but is only added as a confirmation of their truth. This problem itself can only become quite clear in being solved.*

§ 1 6. After this full consideration of reason as a special faculty of knowledge belonging to man alone, and the results and phenomena peculiar to human nature brought about by it, it still remains for me to speak of reason, so far as it is the guide of human action, and in this respect may be called practical.

But what there is to say upon this point has found its place elsewhere in the appendix to this work, where I controvert the existence of the socalled practical reason of Kant, which he (certainly very conveniently) explained as the immediate source of virtue, and as the seat of an absolute (f.e., fallen from heaven) imperative.

The detailed and thorough refutation of this Kantian principle of morality I have given later in the “ Fundamental Problems of Ethics. There remains, therefore, but little for me to say here about the actual influence of reason, in the true sense of the word, upon action.

At the commencement of our treatment of reason we remarked, in general terms, how much the action and behaviour of men differs from that of brutes, and that this difference is to be regarded as entirely due to the presence of abstract concepts in consciousness.

The influence of these upon our whole existence is so penetrating and significant that, on account of them, we are related to the lower animals very much as those animals that see are related to those that have no eyes (certain larvae, worms, and zoophytes).

Animals without eyes know only by touch what is immediately present to them in space, what comes into contact with them ; those which see, on the contrary, know a wide circle of near and distant objects. In the same way the absence of reason confines the lower animals to the ideas of perception, i.e., the real objects which are immediately present to them in time ; we, on the contrary, on account * Cf. Ch. 17 of Supplement.

of knowledge in the abstract, comprehend not only the narrow actual present, but also the whole past and future, and the wide sphere of the possible ; we view life freely on all its sides, and go far beyond the present and the actual.

Thus what the eye is in space and for sensuous knowledge, reason is, to a certain extent, in time and for inner knowledge,^ But as the visibility of objects has its worth and meaning only in the fact that it informs \is of their tangibility, so the whole worth of abstract knowledge always consists in its relation to what is perceived.

Therefore men naturally attach far more worth to immediate and perceived knowledge than to abstract concepts, to that which is merely thought; they place empirical knowledge before logical. But this is not the opinion of men who live more in words than in deeds, who have seen more on paper and in books than in actual life, and who in their greatest degeneracy become pedants and lovers of the mere letter.

Thus only is it conceivable that Leibnitz and Wolf and all their successors could go so far astray as to explain knowledge of perception, after the example of Duns Scotus, as merely confused abstract knowledge ! To the honour of Spinoza, I must mention that his truer sense led him, on the contrary, to explain all general concepts as having arisen from the confusion of that which was known in perception (Eth. II., prop. 40, Schol. i).

It is also a result of perverted opinion that in mathematics the evidence proper to it was rejected, and logical evidence alone accepted; that everything in general which was not abstract knowledge was comprehended under the wide name of feeling, and consequently was little valued; and lastly that the Kantian ethics regarded the good will which immediately asserts itself upon knowledge of the circumstances, and guides to right and good action as mere feeling and emotion, and consequently as worthless and without merit, and would

The many-sided view of life as a whole which man, as distinguished from the lower animals, possesses through reason, may be compared to a geometrical, colourless, abstract, reduced plan of his actual life.

He, therefore, stands to the lower animals as the navigator who, by means of chart, compass, and quadrant, knows accurately his course and his position at any time upon the sea, stands to the uneducated sailors who see only the waves and the heavens. Thus it is worth noticing, and indeed wonderful, how, besides his life in the concrete, man always lives another life in the abstract.

Jn the former he is given as a prey to all the storms of actual life^ and to the influence of the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the brute. But his life in the abstract, as fTTIes '‘Feiore his rational consciousness, is the still reflection of the former, and of the world in which he lives ; it is just that reduced chart or plan to which we have referred.

Here in the sphere of quiet deliberation, what completely possessed him and moved him intensely before, appears to him cold, colourless, and for the moment external to him ; he is merely the spectator, the observer.

In respect of this withdrawal into reflection he may be compared to an actor who has played his part in one scene, and who takes his place among the audience till it is time for him to go upon the stage again, and quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation for his own death (in the piece), but afterwards he again goes on the stage and acts and suffers as he must.

From this double life proceeds that quietness peculiar to human beings, so very different from the thoughtlessness of the hfiites, and with which, in accordance with previous reflection, or a formed determination, or a recognised necessity, a man suffers or accomplishes in cold blood, what is of the utmost and often terrible importance to him ; suicide, execution, the

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duel, enterprises of every kind fraught with danger to life, and, in general, things against which his whole animal nature rebels. Under such circumstances we see to what an extent reason has mastered the animal nature, and we say to the strong : aiBrjpeiov vv roi rjTop ! (Jerreum certe tihi cor), II. 24, 521. Here we can say truly that reason manifests itself practically, and thus wherever action is guided by reason, where the motives are abstract concepts, wherever we are not determined by particular ideas of perception, nor by the impression of the moment which guides the brutes, there practical reason shows itself. But I have fuUy explained in the Appendix, and illustrated by examples, that this is entirely different from and unrelated to the ethical worth of actions ; that rational action and virtuous action are two entirely different things ; that reason may just as well find itself in connection with great evil as with great good, and by its assistance may give great power to the one as well as to the other ; that it is equally ready and valuable for the methodical and consistent carrying out of the noble and of the bad intention, of the wise as of the foolish maxim; which all results from the constitution of its nature, which is feminine, receptive, retentive, and not spontaneous ; all this I have shown in detail in the Appendix, and illustrated by examples. What is said there would have been placed here, but on account of my polemic against Kant’s pretended practical reason I have been obliged to relegate it to the Appendix, to which I therefore refer.

The ideal explained in the Stoical philosophy is the most complete development of practical reason in the true and genuine sense of the word ; it is the highest summit to which man can attain by the mere use of his reason, and in it his difference from the brutes shows itself most distinctly. For the ethics of Stoicism are originally and essentially, not a doctrine of yirtttfi; but-Jnjarely .A4]^ to a rational life, the end and aim of .which is happiness through neace of mind. Virtuous conduct annears in it

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as it were merely by accident, as the means, not as the eiid^ Therefore the ethical theory of Stoicism is in its whole nature and point of view fundamentally different from the ethical systems which lay stress direct^ u;^n virtue, such as the" ddctrlhes ~bT 'the Tedas, of Plato, of CBrrstianity7an3~6f~Kant.

The aim of Stoical ethics T^s happiness : reXo? to 'evBdT'~fj,oveiv (virtutes omnes Jinem hahere beaiitvdinem) it is called in the account of the Stoa by Stobaeus (Eel., L. ii. c. 7, p. 114, and also p. 138).

Yet the ethics of Stoicism teach that happiness can only be attained with certainty through inward peace and quiShe^Jo! spirit (aTa^|^a), 'ahff*l^^ . ihis only be reached through virtue ; this is the whole meaning of the saying that virtue is the highest good.

But if indeed by degrees the end is lost siglit of in the means, and virtue is inculcated in a way which discloses an interest entirely different from that of one’s own happiness, for it contradicts this too distinctly ; this is just one of those inconsistencies by means of which, in every system, the immediately known, or, as it is called, felt truth leads us back to the right way in defiance of syllogistic reasoning ; as, for example, we see clearly in the ethical teaching of Spinoza, which deduces a pure doctrine of virtue from the egoistical siium utile queer ere by means of palpable sophisms.

According to this, as I conceive the spirit of the Stoical ethics, their source lies in the question whether the great prerogative of man, reason, which, by means of planned action and its results, relieves life and its burdens so much, might not also be capable of freeing him at once, directly, i.e., through mere knowledge, completely, or nearly so, of^.the sorrows and miseries of evejy kind of which his life is full.

They held that it was not in keeping with the prerogative of reason that the nature given with it, which by means of it comprehends and contemplates an infinity of things and circumstances, should yet, through the present, and the accidents that can be contained in the few years of a life that is short.

fleeting, and uncertain, be exposed to such intense pain, to such great anxiety and suffering, as wise from the tempestuous stra^ of the desires and the antipathies ; andjt^y Jbeliaved. that the due^appjigitipn pl reason must raise men above them, and can make them invulnefaBI^^^Therelore'Antisthenes says : Aei tcraaOai, vow, rj fipo-)(ov (aut meniem parandam, aut laqueum. Pint, de stoic, repugn., c.

14), i.e., life is so full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected^ thoughts, or leave it. It was seen that want and suffering did not directly and of necessity spring Erom not having, but from desiring to have and not having ; that therefore this desire to have is the necessary condition under which alone it becomes a privation not to have and begets pain.

Ov irevta \inr7}v epya^erai, aXXa e-rrcOupLia {non paupertas dolorem ejjicit, sed cupiditas), Epict., fragm. 25.

Men learned also from experience that it is only the hope of what is claimed that_ begets and nourishes the wish ; therefore neither the many unavoidabfe evils which are common to all, nor unattainable blessings, disquiet or trouble us, but only the trifling more or less of those things which we can avoid or attain ; indeed, not only what is absolutely unavoidable or unattainable^, but also what is merely relatively so, leaves us quite undisturbed; therefore the ills that have once become joined to our individuality, or the good things tESt'must of necessity always be denied us, are treated with indifference, in accordance with the peculiarity of human nature that every wish soon dies and can no more beget pain rr it is not nourished by hopa It followed from all this that happiness always depends upon the proportion between our claims and what we receive.

It is all one whether the quantities thus related be great or small, and the proportion can be established just as well by diminishing the amount of the first as by increasing the amount of the second ; and in the same way it also follows that all suffering proceeds from the want of proTHE WORLD AS IDEA.

Ii6

portion between what we demand and erpect and what we get. Now this want of proportion obviously lies only in knowledge, and it could be entirely abolished through fuller insig^ht.^ Therefore Chrydppus says: fpv KaT (fiTreipiav tojv <pvaei avfifiaivovTav (Stob. Eel., L. ii c. 7, p. 134), that is, one ought to live with a due knowledge of the transitory nature of the things of th( world. For as often as a man loses self-command, or is, struck down by a misfortune, or grows angry, or becomes faint-hearted, he shows that he finds things different from what he expected, conseqiuently that he was caught in error, and did not know the world and life, did not know that the will of the individual is crossed at every stg} by the chance of inanimate nature and the antagonism of aims arid~fh"e wickedness oT otheF individuals : he has therefore either not made use of his reason in order to arrive"liI”"a“gehcrH knowledge of this chafacteristic'dr life, or he lacks judgment, in that he does not recognise in tlm particular what he knows in general, and is therefore surprised by it and loses his self-command.* Thus also every keen pleasure is an error a.nd an illusion, for no a,ttained wish can give lasting satisfaction; and, moveover, every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour, pain rests on the

passing away of such an illusion ; thus both arise from defective knowledge ; the wise marTthefefore holds himself equally aloof from joy and sonw, and no event disturbs his arapa^ca.

In accordance with this spirit and aim of the Stoa, Epictetus began arid ended with the doctrine as the kernel

1 Omnes perturbationes judicio avdpiairoL^ vavTtjv rtav KaKtatf^ ro rat censent fieri et opinione. Cic. TrpoX7)\//iis ras Koivas pirj tvvaadai Tusc., 4, 6. Tapaaaei tovs avOpujirovs €(pappLo^€Lu ran eiri piepovs (Hsbc ov ra TTpaypara, aWa ra irepi twv est causa mortalibus omnium mavpaypidTiav doypcLra (Perturbant lorum, non posse communes notiones homines non res ipsae, sed de rebus aptare singularibus). Epict. dissert.^ opiniones). Epictet., c. v. ii., 26.

^ Touro yap eerrt to aiTiop tois

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II7

of his philosophy, that we sho^d consider well and (Jii:; tmguish whaj^ depei^s upon us and what does not, and therefore entirely avoid counting upon the latter, whereby we shaP^certainly remain free from ^ pain, sorrow, and anxiety. But that which alone is dependent upon u^ is the will ; and^ere a transition gradually takes place _to a doctrine of virtue, for it is observed that as the outer world, which is independent of us, determines good and bad fortune, so inner contentment with ourselves, or the absence of it^ proceeds from the will. But it was then asked whether we ought to apply the words bonum and malum to the two former or to the two latter 1 This was indeed arbitrary and a matter of choice, and did not make any real difference, but yet the Stoics disputed everlastingly with the Peripatetics and Epicureans about it, and amused themselves with the inadmissible comparison of two entirely incommensurable quantities, and the antithetical, paradoxical judgments which proceeded from them, and which they flung at each other. The Paradqxa of Cicero afford us an interesting collection of these from^he^ Stoical side..

Zeno, the founder, seems originally to have followed a somewhat different path. The starting-point with him was that for the attainment of the highest good, i,e., blessedness and spiritual peace, one must live in harmony with oneself (6fMo\oyovfiev(o<i tovto S’e<rT* Kaff iva \oyov xai avfi^wvov ^'pv. — Consonanter vivere : hoe est secundum unam rationem et concordem sibi vivere. Stob. Eel. eth. L. ii, a 7, p. 132. Also: Aperrtv Siadeaiv eivat <TVfi<f)a)vov eavrp irepi 6\ov rov fiiov. Virtutem esse animi affectionem secum per totam vitam amsentientem, ibid., p. 104.) Now this was only possible for a man if he determined himself entirely rationally, according^ to concepts, not according to changing impressions and moods ; since, however, only the maxims of our conduct, not the consequence^ nor the outward circumstances, are in our power.~in order teXe always consistent jye mniFset

ii8 THE WORLD .45 IDEA.

before us as our aim only the maxuiM and not the consequences and circumstance^ and thi^ again a doctrine of virtue is introduced.

But the ethical principle of Zeno — to live in harmony with oneself — appeared even to his immediate successors to be too formal and empty. They therefore gave it material content by the addition — “ to live in harmony with nature ” (p/ju)\oyov/ieva)^ ry ^i/)7~wffich, “as

Stobffius mentions in another place, was first added by Kleanthes, and extended the matter very much on account of the wide sphere of the concept and the vagueness of the expression. For Kleanthes meant the whole of nature in general, while Chrysippus meant human nature in particular (Diog. Laert., 7, 89). It followed that what alone was adapted to the latter was virtue, just as the satisfaction of animal desires was adapted to animal natures ; and thus ethics had again to be forcibly united to a doctrine of virtue, and in some way or other established through physics. For the Stoics always aimed at unity of principle, as for them God and the world were not dissevered.

The ethical system of Stoicism, regarded as a whole, is in fact a very valuable and estimable attempt to use the great prerogative of man, reason, for an important and salutary end ; to raise him above the suffering and pain to which all hfe is exposed, by means of a maxim —

Qva ratione queas traducere leniter (zvum :

Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cvjddo^

Ne i}avor et rerum mediocriter utilium

and thus to make him partake, in the highest degree, of the dignity which belongs to him as a rational being, as distinguished from the brutes; a dignity of which, in this sense at any rate, we can speak, though not in any other. It is a consequence of my view of the ethical system of Stoicism that it must be explained at the part of my work at which I consider what

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reason is and what it can do.

But although it may to a certain extent be possible to attain that jnd through the application of reason, and~£Efough a purely rational syst^ of ethids, anff although experience shows that the Happie^ men are those purely rational characters comSionly called practical philosophers, — and rightly so, because just as the tru^, that Ts,”tlie theoretical plulospher gglifi^nire^ into the concept, they carry the concept jntp life, — yet it is far from the case that perfection can be attmne^in this way, and that the reason, rightly used, can really free us from the burden and sorrow .of , life»^d lead us to happiness.

Bather, there lies an absolute contradiction in wishing to live without suffering, and this contradiction is also implied in the commonly used expression, “ blessed life. This will become perfectly clear to whoever comprehends the whole of the following exposition.

In this purely rational system of ethics the contradiction reveals itself thus, the Stoic is obliged in his doctrine of the way to the blessed life (for that is what his ethical system always remains) to insert a recommendation of suicide (as among the magnificent ornaments and apparel of Eastern despots there is always a costly vial of poison) for the case in which the sufferings of the body, which cannot be philosophised away by any 'pfihcr]^es“br syllogistic reasonings, are paramount and incurable ; thus its one aim, blessedness, is rendered vain, and nothing rSmains as a mode of escape from sufferuig except deatt^; in such a case then death must be voluntarily accepted, just as we would take any other medicine.

Here then a marked antagonism is brought out between the ethical system of Stoicism and all those systems referred to above which make virtue in itself directly, and accompanied by the most grievous sorrows, their ami, and will not allow a man to end his life in order to escape from suffering.

Not one of them, however, was able to give the true reason for the rejection of suicide, but they laboriously collected illusory explanations from all sides : the true

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THE WORLD .45 IDEA.

reason will appear in the Fourth Book in the coTuae of the development of our system. But the antagonism referred to reveals and establishes the essential difference in fundamental principle between Stoicism, which is just a special form of endaemonism, and those doctrines we have mentioned, although both are often at one in their results, and are apparently related. And the inner contradiction referred to above, with which the ethical system of Stoicism is affected even in its fundamental thought, shows itself further in the circumstance that its ideal, the Stoic philosopher, as the system itself represents him, could never obtain life or inner poetic truth, but remains a wooden, stiff lay-figure of which nothing can be made. He cannot himself make use of his wisdom, and his perfect peace, contentment, and blessedness directly contradict the nature of man, and preclude us from forming any concrete idea of him. When compared with him, how entirely Afferent appear the overcomers of the world, and voluntary hermits that Indian philosophy presents to us, and has actually produced; or indeed, the holy man of Christianity, that excellent form full of deep life, of the greatest poetic truth, and the highest significance, which stands before us in perfect virtue, holiness, and sublimity, yet in a state of supreme suffering.^

^ Of. Ch. 1 6 of Supplement.

iifroutr Uooft.

ThE WORLD AS WILL.

FIRST ASPECT.

THE OBJECTIFICATION OP THE WTI.V

Nos buobitat, non tartura, sed nec sidera cc«»ll » m Aobis ^ai iUa laciv.

K «a3 I

II.

§ 17. In the first book we considered the idea merely as such, that is, only according to its general form. It is true that as far as the abstract idea, the concept, is concerned, we obtained a knowledge of it in respect of its content also, because it has content and meaning only in relation to die idea of perception, without which it would be worthless and empty. Accordingly, directing our attention exclusively to the idea of perception, we shall now endeavour to arrive at a knowledge of its content, its more exact definition, and the forms which it presents to us. And it will specially interest us to find an explanation of its peculiar significance, that significtiiice which is otherwise merely felt, but on account of which it is that these pictures do not pass by us entirely stiange an4 meauiugless. a.s they must otherwise do, but speak to us directly, are understood, and obtain an interest which concerns our whole nature.

We direct our attention to mathematics, natural science, and philosophy, for each of these holds out the hope that it will afford us a part of the explanation we desire. Now, taking philosophy first, we find that it is like a monster with many heads, each of which speaks a Afferent language. They are not, indeed, all at variance on the point we are here considering, the significance of the idea of perception. ) For, with the exception of the Sceptics and the Idealists, the others, for the most part, speak very much in the same way of an object which constitutes the basis of the idea, and which is indeed different in its whole being and nature from the idea, but yet is in all

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points as like it as one egg is to another. But this does not help us, for we are quite unable to distinguish such an object from the idea ; we find that they are one and the same ; for every object always and for ever presupposes a subject, and therefore remains idea, so that we recognised objectivity as belonging to the most universal form of the idea, which is the division into subject and object. Further, the principle of sufficient reason, which is referred to in support of this doctrine, is for us merely the form of the idea, the orderly combination of one idea with another, but not the combination of the whole finite or infinite series of ideas with something which is not idea at all, and which cannot therefore be presented in perception. Of the Sceptics and Idealists we spoke above, in examining the controversy about the reality of the outer world.

If we turn to mathematics to look for the fuller knowledge we desire of the idea of perception, which we have, as yet, only understood generally, merely in its form, we find that mathematics only treats of these ideas so far as they fill time and space, that is, so far as they are quantities. It will tell us with the greatest accuracy the how-many and the how-much; but as this is always merely relative, that is to say, merely a comparison of one idea with others, and a comparison only in the one respect of quantity, this also is not the information we are principally in search of.

Lastly, if we turn to the wide province of natural science, which is divided into many fields, we may, in the first place, make a general division of it into two parts. It is either the description of forms, which I call Morphology, or the explanation of changes, which I call Etiology. The first treats of the permanent forms, the second of the changing matter, according to the laws of its transition from one form to another. The first is the whole extent of what is generally called natural history. It teaches us, especially in the sciences of

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botany and zoology, the various permanent, organised, and therefore definitely determined forms in the constant change of individuals ; and these forms constitute a great part of the content of the idea of perception. In natural history they are classified, separated, united, arranged according to natural and artificial systems, and brought under concepts which make a general view and knowledge of the whole of them possible.

Further, an infinitely fine analogy both in the whole and in the parts of these forms, and running through them all (unitd de plan), is established, and thus they may be compared to innumerable variations on a theme which is not given.

The passage of matter into these forms, that is to say, the origin of individuals, is not a special part of natural science, for every individual springs from its like by generation, which is everywhere equally mysterious, and has as yet evaded definite knowledge. The little that is known on the subject finds its place in physiology, which belongs to that part of natural science I have called etiology.

Mineralogy also, especially where it becomes geology, inclines towards etiology, though it principally belongs to morphology. Etiology proper comprehends all those branches of natural science in which the chief concern is the knowledge of cause and effect.

The sciences teach how, according to an invariable rule, one condition of matter is necessarily followed by a certain other condition ; how one change necessarily conditions and brings about a certain other change ; tliis sort of teaching is called explanation. The principal sciences in this department are mechanics, physics, chemistry, and physiology.

If, however, we surrender ourselves to its teaching, we soon become convinced that etiology cannot afford us the information we chiefly desire, any more than morphology. The latter presents to us innumerable and infinitely varied forms, which are yet related by an unmistakable family likeness. These are for us ideas, and when only treated in this way, they remain always strange to us.

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and stand before us like hieroglyphics which we do not understand.

Etiology, on the other hand, teaches us that, according to the law of cause and eirect, this particular condition of matter brings about that other particular condition, and thus it has explained it and performed its part However, it really does nothing more than indicate the orderly arrangement according to which the states of matter appear in space and time, and teach in all cases what phenomenon must necessarily appear at a particular time in a particular place.

It thus determines the position of phenomena in time and space, according to a law whose special content is derived from experience, but whose universal form and necessity is yet known to us independently of experience.

But it affords us absolutely no information about the inner nature of any one of these phenomena : this is called a force of nature, and it lies outside the province of causal explanation, which calls the constant uniformity with which manifestations of such a force appear whenever their known conditions are present, a law of nature.

But this law of nature, these conditions, and this appearance in a particular place at a particular time, are all that it knows or ever can know. The force itself wliich manifests itself, the inner nature of the phenomena wliich appear in accordance with these laws, remains always a secret to it, something entirely strange and unknown in the case of the simplest as well as of the most complex phenomena.

For although as yet etiology has most completely achieved its aim in mechanics, and least completely in jihysiology, still the force on account of wliich a stone falls to the ground or one body repels another is, in its inner nature, not less strange and mysterious than that which produces the movements and the growth of an animal.

The science of mechanics presupposes matter, weight, impenetrability, the possibility of communicating motion by impact, inertia and so forth as ultimate facts, calls them forces of nature, and their necessary and

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orderly appearance under certain conditions a law of nature. Only after this does its explanation begin, and it consists in indicating truly and with mathematical exactness, how, where and when each force manifests itself, and in referring every phenomenon which presents itself to the operation of one of these forces. Physics, chemistry, and physiology proceed in the same way in their province, only they presuppose more and accomplish less. Consequently the most complete etiological explanation of the whole of nature can never be more than an enumeration of forces which cannot be explained, and a reliable statement of the rule according to which phenomena appear in time and space, succeed, and make way for each other. But the inner nature of the forces which thus appear remains unexplained l)y such an explanation, which must coniine itself to phenomena and their arrangement, because the law which it follows does not extend further. In this re-spect it may be compared to a section of a piece of marble which shows many vems beside each other, but does not allow ns to trace the course of the veins from the interior of the marble to its surface. Or, if I may use an absurd but more striking comparison, the philosophical investigator must always have the same feeling towards the complete etiology of the whole of nature, as a man who, without knowing how, has been brought into a company quite unknown to him, each member of which in turn presents another to him as his friend and cousin, and therefore as quite well known, and yet the man himself, while at each introduction he expresses himself gratified, has always the question on his lips : “ But how the deuce do I stand to the whole company ?”

Thus we see that, with regard to those phenomena which we know only as our ideas, etiology can never give us the desired information that shall carry us beyond this point. For, after all its explanations, they still remain quite strange to us, as mere ideas whose signili138

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cance we do not understand. The causal connection merely gives us the rule and the relative order of their appearance in space and time, but affords us no further knowledge of that which so appears. Moreover, the law of causality itself has only validity for ideas, for objects of a definite class, and it has meaning only in so far as it presupposes them. Thus, like these objects themselves, it always exists only in relation to a subject, that is, conditionally ; and so it is known just as well if we start from the subject, i.e., a priori, as if we start from the object, i.e., a posteriori. Kant indeed has taught us this.

But what now impels us to inquiry is just that we are not satisfied with knowing that we have ideas, that they are such and such, and that they are connected according to certain laws, the general expression of which is the principle of sufficient reason. We wish to know the significance of these ideas ; we ask whether this world is merely idea ; in which case it would pass by us like an empty dream or a baseless vision, not worth our notice ; or whether it is also something else, something more than idea, and if so, what. Thus much is certain, that this something we seek for must be completely and in its whole nature different from the idea ; that the forms and laws of the idea must therefore be completely foreign to it; further, that we cannot arrive at it from the idea imder the guidance of the laws which merely combine objects, ideas, among themselves, and which are the forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature of things from without. However much we investigate, we can never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and sometimes sketching the facades. And yet this is the method that has been followed by all philosophers before me.

§ 1 8. In fact, the meaning for which we seek of that

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world which is present to us only as our idea, or the transition from the world as mere idea of the knowing subject to whatever it may be besides this, would never be found if the investigator himself were notliing more than the pure knowing subject (a winged cherub without a body).

But he is himself rooted in that world ; he finds himself in it as an individual, that is to say, his knowledge, which is the necessary supporter of the whole world as idea, is yet always given through the medium of a body, whose affections are, as we have shown, the starting-point for the understanding in the perception of that world. His body is, for the pure knowing subject, an Wea like every other idea, an object among objects.

Its movements and actions are so far known to him in precisely the same way as the changes of all other perceived objects, and would be just as strange and incomprehensible to him if tlieir meaning were not explained for him in an entirely different way. Otherwise he would see his actions follow upon given motives with the constancy of a law of nature, just as the changes of other objects follow upon causes, stimuli, or motives.

But he would not understand tlie influence of the motives any more than the connection between every other effect which he sees and its cause. He would then call the inner nature of these manifestations and actions of his body which he did not understand a force, a quality, or a character, as he pleased, but he would have no further insight into it.

But all tliis is not the case ; indeed the answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an individual, and the answer is will.

This and this alone gives him the key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance, shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action, of his movementsr The body is given in two entirely different ways to*"tlie subject of knowledge, who becomes an individual only through his identity with it. It is given as an idea in intelligent perception, as an object among objects and VOL. I. 1

subject to the laws of objected And it is also given in quite a different way as that which is immediately known to every one, and is signified by the word vMl. ^ery true act of his will is also at once and without ^ception a movement of his body. ^ The act of wilTancr the movement of the body are not two different things q^^fivdy hnbwn, which the bond of caiiaa£bx,.,unite8 ; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same, but they are given in entirely different ways, — immediately, and again in perception for the understanding.

Tim action of the body is nothing but the act of the will objectihed,ji.e., passed into perception. It will appear later that this is true of every movement of the body, not merely those which follow upon motives, but also involuntaiy movements which follow upon mere stimuli, and, indeed, that the whole body is nothing but objectified will, i.e., will become idea.

AIF this will be proved and made quite clear in the course of this work. ^ one respect, therefore, I shall call the body the objectivity of toill ; as in the previous book, and in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, in accordance with the one-sided point of view intentionally adopted there (that of the idea), I called it the immediate object.

Thus in a certain sense we may also say that will is the knowledge a priori of the body, and the body is the knowledge a posteriori of the wilL Resolutions of the will which relate to the future are merely deliberations of the reason about what we shall will at a particular time, not real acts of will Only the carrying out of the resolve stamps it as will, for tiU then it is never more than an intention that may be changed, and that exists only in the reason in ahstracto.

It is only in reflection that to will and to act are different ; in reality they are one. Every true, genuine, immediate act of will is also, at once and immediately, a visible act of the body. And, corresponding to this, every impression upon the body is also, on the other hand, at once

and immediately an impression upon the will. As such it is called pain when it is opposed to the will ; gratification or j)leasure when it is in accordance with it The degrees of both are widely different.

It is quite wrong, however, to call pain and pleasure ideas, for they are by im means ideas, but immediate affections of the will in its manifestation, the body ; compulsory, instantaneous willing or not- willing of the impression which the body sustains.

There are only a few impressions of the body wliich do not touch the will, and it is through these alone that the body is an immediate object of knowledge, for, as perceived by the understanding, it is already an indirect object like all others. These impressions are, therefore, to be treated directly as mere ideas, and excepted from what has been said.

The impressions we refer to are the affections of the purely objective senses of sight, hearing, and touch, though only so far as these organs are affected in the way which is specially peculiar to their specific nature.

This affection of them is so excessively weak an excitement of the heightened and specifically modified sensibility of these parts that it does not affect the win, but only furnishes the understanding with the data out of which the perception arises, undisturbed by any excitement of the will.

But every stronger or different kind of affection of these organs of sense is painful, that is to say, against the will, and thus they also belong to its objectivity.

Weakness of the nerves shows itself in this, that the impressions which have only such a degree of strength as would usually be sufficient to make them data for the understanding reach the liigher degree at which they influence the wUl, that is to say, give pain or pleasure, though more often pain, which is, however, to some extent deadened and inarticulate, so that not only particular tones and strong light are painful to us, but there ensues a generally unhealthy and hypochondriacal disposition which is not distinctly understood. The identity of the body and the will shows itself further,

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amoDg^ other wajs, in the circujijs^ that evei^ vehement and excessive movement of the will, i.e., every emotion, agitates the body and its inner constitution directly, and disturbs the course of its vital functions. This is shown in detail in “ Will in Nature,” p. 27 of the second edition and p. 28 of the thfi dT

Lastly, the knowledge which I have of my will, though it is immediate, cannot be separated from that which I have of my body. I know will, not as a whole, not as a unity, not completely, according to its nature, but I know it only in its particular acts, and therrfore .iii.t|me, which is tlie form of the phenomenal aspect of my body, aTof every object. Therefore the body is a condition of the knowledge of my will. Thus, I cannot really imagine this will ^p,qrt from . my b.ody. In the essay on the principle of sufiicient reason, the will, or rather the subject of willing, is treated as a special cla.ss of ideas or objects. But even there we saw this object become one with the subject; that is, we saw it cease to be an object. We there called this union the miracle kut f^o'xrjv, and the whole of the present work is to a certain extent an explanation of this. So far as I know my will specially as object, I know it as body. But then I am again at the first class of ideas laid down in that essay, i.e., real objects. As we proceed we shall see always more clearly that these ideas of the first class obtain their explanation and solution from those of the fourth class given in the essay, which could no longer be properly opposed to the subject as object, and that, therefore, we must learn to understand the inner nature of the law of causality which is valid in the first class, and of all that happens in accordance with it from the law of motivation which governs the fourth class.

The identity of the will and the body, of which we have now given a cursory explanation, can only be proved in the manner we have adopted here. We have proved this identity for the first time, and shall do so more and

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more fully in the course of this work. By “proved” we mean_raised from the immediate consciousn^, fram knowledgein the concrete to abstract kncmiedge of the reason, or "carried over into abstract knowledge. On tlic oHier hand, from its very nature it can never be demonstrated, tharii, deduced as indirect khowledgelfrom some other more direct knowledge, just because it is itself the most direct knowledge; and if we do not apprehend it and stick to it as such, we shall expect in vain to receive it again in some indirect way as derivative knowledge. It is knowledge of q^uite a special Jind,.wliQaaJa3i^ therefore properly be brought under any .of. .the. four rubrics under which I have classified all truth in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, ^ 29, the logical, the empirical, the metaphysical, and the metalogical, for it is not, like all these, the relation of an abstract idea to another idea, or to the necessary form of perceptive or of abstract ideation, but it is the relation of a judgment to the connection which an idea of per- ^ption, the body, has to that which is not an idea , at all, but something toto genere different, will. I should like therefore to distinguish this from all other truth, and call it /ear’ phUosophical truth. We can

turn the expression of this truth in different ways and say ; My body and my will are one ; — or. What as an idea of perception I call my body, I call my will, so far as I am cdnscibus of it in an entirely different way which cannot be_compared to any other ; — or, My body is the objectivity of my~wlll; — ^^or. My body considered apart from the fact that it is my idea is still my will, and so forth.^

§ 1 9. In the first book we were reluctantly driven to explain the human body as merely idea of the subject which knows it, like all the other objects of this world of perception. But it has now become clear that what enables us consciously to distinguish our own body from all other objects which in other respects are precisely the ^ Cf. Ch. xviii. of the Supplement.

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same, is that our body appears in consciousness in quite another way toto ffenerc different from idea, and this we denote by the word will ; and that it is just this double knowledge which we liave of our own body that affords us information about it, about its action and movement following on motives, and also about what it experiences by means of external impressions; in a word, about what it is, not as idea, but as more than idea ; that is to say, what it is in itself. None of this information have we got directly with regard to the nature, action, and experience of other real objects.

It is just because of this special relation to one body that the knowing subject is an individual. For regarded apart from this relation, his body is for him only an idea like all other ideas. But the relation through wliich the knowing subject is an individual, is just on that account a relation which subsists only between him and one particular idea of all those which he has. Therefore he is conscious of this one idea, not merely as an idea, but in quite a different way as a will. If, however, he abstracts from that special relation, from that twofold and completely heterogeneous knowledge of what is one and the same, then that one, the body, is an idea like all other ideas. Therefore, in order to understand the matter, the individual who knows must either assume that what distinguishes that one idea from others is merely the fact that his knowledge stands in this double relation to it alone ; that insight in two ways at the same time is open to him only in the case of this one object of perception, and that this is to be explained not by the difference of this object from all others, but only by the difference between the relation of his knowledge to this one object, and its relation to all other objecta Or else he must assume that this object is essentially different from all others; that it alone of all objects is at once both will and idea, while the rest are only ideas, ie., only phantoms. Thus he must assume that his body is the only real individual in

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the world, i.e., the only phenomenon of will and the only immediate object of the subject.

That other objects, considered merely as ideas, are like his body, that is, like it, fill space (which itself can only be present as idea), and also, like it, are causally active in space, is indeed demonstrably certain from the law of causality which is a priori valid for ideas, and which admits of no effect without a cause ; but apart from the fact that we can only reason from an effect to a cause generally, and not to a similar cause, we are still in the sphere of mere ideas, in which alone the law of causality is valid, and beyond which it can never take us.

But whether the objects known to the individual only as ideas are yet, like his own body, manifestations of a will, is, as waj said in the First Book, the proper meaning of the question as to the reality of the external world. To deny this is theoretical egoism, which on that account regards all phenomena that are outside its own will as phantoms, just as in a practical reference exactly the same thing is done by practical egoism.

For in it a man regards and treats himself alone as a person, and all other persons as mere phantoms. Theoretical egoism can never be demonstrably refuted, yet in philosophy it has never been used otherwise than as a sceptical sophism, i.e., a pretence. As a serious conviction, on the other hand, it could only be found in a madhouse, and as such it stands in need of a cure rather than a refutation.

We do not therefore combat it any further in this regard, but treat it as merely the last stronghold of scepticism, which is always polemical. Thus our knowledge, which is always bound to individuality and is limited by this circumstance, brings with it the necessity that each of us can only he me, while, on the other hand, each of us can hiow all ; and it is this limitation that creates the need for philosophy.

We therefore who, for this very reason, are striving to extend the limits of our knowledge through philosophy, will treat this sceptical argument of theoretical egoism

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which meets us, as an army would treat a small frontier fortress. The fortress cannot indeed be taken, but the garrison can never sally forth from it, and therefore we pass it by without danger, and are not afraid to have it in our rear.

The double knowledge which each of us has of the nature and activity of his own body, and which is given in two completely different ways, has now been clearly brought out.

We shall accordingly make further use of it as a key to the nature of every phenomenon in nature, and shall judge of all objects wliich are not our own bodies, and are consequently not given to our consciousness in a double way but only as ideas, according to the analogy of our own bodies, and shall therefore assume that as in one aspect they are idea, just like our bodies, and in this respect are analogous to them, so in another aspect, what remains of objects when we set aside their existence as idea of the subject, must in its inner nature be the same as that in us which we call will.

For what other kind of existence or reality should we attribute to the rest of the material world ? Whence should we take the elements out of which we construct such a world ? Besides will and idea nothing is known to us or thinkable.

If we wish to attribute the greatest known reality to the material world which exists immediately only in our idea, we give it the reality which our own body has for each of us ; for that is the most real thing for every one. But if we now analyse the reality of this body and its actions, beyond the fact that it is idea, we find nothing in it except the will ; with this its reality is exhausted.

Therefore we can nowhere find another kind of reality which we can attribute to the material world. Thus if we hold that the material world is something more than merely our idea, we must say that besides being idea, that is, in itself and according to its inmost nature, it is that which we find immediately in ourselves as will. I say according to its inmost nature; but we must first come

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to know more accurately this real nature of the will, in order that we may be able to distinguish from it what does not belong to itself, but to its manifestation, which has many grades. Such, for example, is the circumstance of its being accompanied by knowledge, and the determination by motives which is conditioned by this knowledge. As we shall see farther on, this does not belong to the real nature of will, but merely to its distinct manifestation as an animal or a human being. If, therefore, I say, — the force which attracts a stone to the earth is according to its nature, in itself, and apart from all idea, will, I shall not be supposed to express in this proposition the insane opinion that the stone moves itself in accordance with a known motive, merely because this is the way in which will appears in man.^ We shall now proceed more clearly and in detail to prove, establish, and develop to its full extent what as yet has only been provisionally and generally explained.^

§ 20. As we have said, the will proclaims itself primarily in the voluntary movements of our own body, as the inmost nature of this body, as that which it is besides being object of perception, idea. For these voluntary movements are nothing else than the visible aspect of the individual acts of will, with which they are directly coincident and identical, and only distinguished through the form of knowledge into which they have passed, and in which alone they can be kno'^n„ the form of idea.

But these acts of will have always a ground or reason outside themselves in motives. Yet these motives never determine more than what I will at this time, in this

^ We can thus by no means agree Planeta Martis^ that the planets with Bacon if he (DeAugni. Scicnt., must have knowledge in order to L. iv. in fine.) thinks that all me- keep their elliptical courses so corchanical and jihysical movement of rectly, and to regulate the velocity bodies has always been preceded of their motion so that the triangle by perception in these bodies; though of the plane of their course always % glimmering of truth lies at the remains proportional to the time in bottom of this false proposition, which they pass through its base. This is also the case with Kepler’s * Cf. Ch. xix. of the Supplement opinion, expressed in his essay De

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place, and under these circumstances, not that I will in general, or what I will in general, that is, the maxims which characterise my voUtion generally.

Therefore the inner nature of my volition cannot be explained from these motives; but th^ merely determine its manifestation at a given point of time : they are merely the occasion of my will showing itself; Wt the will itself lies outside the province of theTaw of motivation, which determine nothing but its appearance at each point of tima It is only Under tHe presupposition of my empirical character that the motive is a sufficient ground of explanation of my action.

But if I abstract from my character, and then ask, why, in general, I will this and not that, no answer is possible, because it is only the manifestation of the will that is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and not the will itself, which in this respect is to be called groundless.

At this point I presuppose Kant’s doctrme of the empirical and intelligible character, and also my own treatment of the subject in “ The Fundamental Problems of Ethics,” pp. 48, 58, and 178, et seq., of first edition (p. 174, et seq., of second edition). I shall also have to speak more fully on the question in the Fourth Book.

For the present, I have only to draw attention to this, that the fact of one manifestation being established through another, as here the deed through the motive, does not at all conflict with the fact that its real nature is will, which itself has no ground ; for as the principle of sufficient reason in all its aspects is only the form of knowledge, its validity extends only to the idea, to the phenomena, to the visibility of the will, but not to the will itself, which becomes visible.

If now every action of my body is the manifestation of an act of will in which my will itself in general, and as a whole, thus my character, expresses itself under given motives, manifestation of the will must be the inevitable condition and presupposition of every action. For the fact of its manifestation cannot depend upon something

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which does not exist directly and only through it, which consequently is for it merely accidental, and through which its manifestation itself would be merely accidental. Now that condition is just the whole body itself.

Thus the body itself must be manifestation of the will, and it must be related to my will as a whole, that is, to my intelligible character, whose phenomenal appearance in time is my empirical character, as the particular action of the body is related to tlie particular act of the will.

The whole body, then, must be simply my will feecome visible, must be my will itself, so far as fhxsTs object of perceptibii, an idea of th6~ first 6la3a.~' Ifhas already been advanced in confirmation of this that every impression upon my body also affects my will at once and immediately, and in this respect is called pain or [)leasure, or, in its lower degrees, agreeable or disagreeable sensation; and also, conversely, that every violent movement of the will, every emotion or passion, convulses thc^bdy and disturbs the course of its functions, indeed we can also give an etiological account, though a very incomplete one, of the origin of my body, and a somewhat better account of its development and conservation, and this is the substance of physiology.

But physiology merely explains its theme in precisely the same way as motives explain action.

Thus the physiological explanation of the functions of the body detracts just as little from the philosophical truth that the whole existence of this body and the sum total of its functions are merely the objectification of that will wliich appears in its outward actions in accordance with a motive, as the establishment of the individual action through the motive and the necessary sequence of the action from the motive conflicts with the fact that action in general, and according to its nature, is only the manifestation of a will which itself has no ground.

If, however, physiology tries to refer oven these outward actions, the immediate voluntary movements, to causes in the organism, — for example, if it

explains the movement of the muscles as resulting from the presence of fluids (" like the contraction of a cord l£'~i8 wet/' says Reil in his “ Archiv fiir Physiolojpe/' voL vi. p. iS3)> even supposing it really could give a thorough explanation of this kind, yet this would nev^ invalidate the immediately certain truth that every voluntary motion (functiones animales) is the manifest^,- tion of an act of will.

Now, just, as little .^ caa . the physiologicaL..explanation of vegetative life (^functionea naiwrdles vitcUes), however far it may advance, ever mvalldate the truth that the whole animal life which thus develops itself is the manifestation of will.

In general, then, as we have shown above, no etiological explanation can ever give us more than the necessarily determined position in time and space of a particular manifestation, its necessary appearance there, according to a fixed law; but the inner nature of everything that appears in this way remains wholly inexplicable, and is presupposed, by every etiological explanation, and merely indicated by the names, force, or law of nature, or, if we are speaking of action, character or will.

Thus, although every particular action, under the presupposition of the definite character, necessarily follows from the given moSve, and although growth, the process of nourishmeSj/and all the changes of the animal body take place ftCSOl!(li»g-,tp necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole series of actions, and consequently every individual act, and also its condition, the whole body itself which accompishes it, and therefore . also the process through which and in which it exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the becoming visible, the dbjectijica- ^pn of thA wilJ,.

Upon this rests the perfect suitableness of the human and animal body to the human and animal will in general, resembling, though far surpassing, the correspondence between an instrument made for a purpose and the will of the maker, and on this account appearing as design, i.e., the teleological explanation of

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the body. The parts of the body must, therefore, completely correspond to the principal desires through which the will manifests itself ; tliey must be the visible expressira of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified sexual desire ; the grasping hand, the hurrying feet, correspond to the more indirect desires of the will which they express. As the human form generally corresponds to the human wiU generally, so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the individually modified will, the character of the individual, and therefore it is throughout and in all its parts characteristic and full of expression. It is very rema.rkable that l\rraenides already gave expression to this in the following verses, quoted by Aristotle (Metaph. iii. 5) : —

‘n? yao ixaarog iyjn xoaetv

Twg vooi oLvC^ojiroict to yn^ avro

OTTt^ fjLsXiOjv

Kai Tram xa/ cravrr ro yup cXscv iCTi yoYifLCt,

(Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibUium se habet, ita mens hominibus adest : idem namque est, quod sapit, membroram natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni : quod enim plus est, intelligentia est.) ^

§21. W'hoever has now gained from all these expositions a knowledge in ahstracto, and therefore clear and certain, of what every one knows directly in concreto, i.e., as feeling, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal being, which manifests itself to him as idea, both in his actions and in their permanent substratum, his body, and that his wiU is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, though it has not as such completely passed into the form of idea in which object and subject stand over against each other, but makes

^ Cf. Ch, XX. cf the Supplement, Physioh.gy and Compiirative Anaiind also in my work, “ Ueber den toiny, where the subject I have only WiUen in der Naiur,** the chapters on touched upon here is fully discussed.

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itself known to him in a direct manner, in which he does not quite clearly distinguish subject and object, yet is not known as a whole to the individual himself, but only in its particular acts, — whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction will find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the inmost being of the whole of nature ; for he now transfers it to all those ^lenomeua which are not given to him, like his own phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge, but only in the latter, thus merely onesidedly as idea alone.

He will recognise this will of which we are speaking not only in those phenoinenal existences which exactly resemble his own, in men and animals as their inmost nature, _but the course of reflection wiU lead him to recognise the force which germinates and vegetates in the plant, and indeed the toce through whidi the crystal is formed, that by which the magnet turns to the north pole, the force whose sh'ock~Iie" experiences from the contact of two dillerent kinds of metals, the force which appears in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction, decomposition and combination, and, lastly, even gravitation, ^ich acts so powerfully throughout matter, draws the stone to the earth and the earth to the sun, — all these, I say, he will recognise as different only in their phenomena existence, but in theii- inner nature as identical, as that which is directly known to him so intimately and so much better than anj-thing else, and which in its most distinct manifestation is called wiU. iTis this application of reflection alone that prevents us from remaining any longer at the phenomenon, and leads us to the thing in itself, yienomenal existence is idea and nothing more.

All idea, of wha^ver kind it may be,jill oTyexi, is phenomenal existence, but the will alone is a thin^ in itself. As such, it is throughout not idea, but to^ genera different from it ; it is that of which all idea, air object, is the phenomenal appearance, the visibility”

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the objectification. It is the inmost nature, the kernel, of every particular thing, and also~'6T~the' wEHeT I t appears in every Hin0rTdfce“6r nature ahJ~aIsb the preconsidered~“actioii oT' man ; _and the ^eat differ^ce between tl^se two is merely in the degree of the manifestation, not in the nature of wKat manifests itself.

§ 2 2. Now, if we are to think as an object this thingin-itself (we wish to retain the Kantian expression as a standing formula), which, as such, is never object, because all object is its mere manifestation, and therefore cannot be it itself, we must borrow for it the name and concept of an object, of something in some way objectively given, consequently of one of its own manifestations. But in order to serve as a clue for the understanding, this can be no other than the most complete of all its manifestations, i.e., the most distinct, the most developed, and directly enlightened by knowledge. Now this is the human will. It is, however, well to observe that here, at any rate, we only make use of a denominatio a potiori, through which, therefore, the concept of will receives a greater extension than it has hitherto had. Knowledge of the idenUcal in different plienomena, and of difference in siinilai phenomena, is, as Plato, so often remarks, a sine gua non of philosophy. ;^it hitherto it was not recognised that every kind of active and operating force in nature is essentially identical with will, and therefore the multifarioiis kinds of phenomena were not seen to be merely different species of the same genus, but were treated as heterogeneous. Consequently there could he no word to denote the concept of this genus. 1 therefore name the genus after its most important species, the direct knowledge of which lies nearer to us and guides us to the indirect knowledge of all other species. But whoever is incapable of carrying out the required extension of the concept will remain involved in a permanent misunderstanding. For by the word vMl he imderstands only that species of it which has hitherto been exclusively

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denoted by it, the will which is guided by knowledge, and whose manifestation follows only upon motives, and indeed merely abstract motives, and thus takes place under the guidance of the reason. This, we have said, is only the most prominent example of the manifestation of will.

We must now distinctly separate in thought the inmost essence of this manifestation which is known to us directly, and then transfer it to all the weaker, less distinct manifestations of the same nature, and thus we shall accomplish the desired extension of the concept of will.

Prom another point of view I should be equally misunderstood by any one who should think that it is all the same in the end whether we denote this inner nature of all phenomena by the word mil or by any other. This would be the case if the thing-in-itself were something whose existence we merely inferred, and thus knew indirectly and only in the abstract.

Then, indeed, we might call it what we pleased ; the name would stand merely as the symbol of an uidinown quantity. But the word will, which, like a magic spell, discloses to'us "theT inmost being of everything in nature, is by no means an unknown quantity, something arrived at only by inference, but is fully and immediately comprehended, and is so familiar to us that we know and understand what will Is far better than anything else whatever.

The concept of will has hitherto commonly been subordinated to that of force, but I reverse the matter entirely, and desire that every force in nature should be thought as will. It must not ^e supposed that this is mere verbal quibbling or of no consequence ; rather, it is of the greatest significance and importance.

Por at the foundation of the concept of force, as of all other concepts, there ultimately lies the knowledge in sense-perception of the objective world, that is to say, the phenomenon, the idea ; and the concept is constructed out of this. It is an abstraction from the province in which cause and effect reign, i.e., from ideas of perception, and means just the causal nature of

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causes at the point at which this causal nature is no further etiologically explicable, but is the necessary presupposition of all etiological explanation. The concept will, on the other hand, is of aU possible concepts the only one which has its source not in the phenomenal, not in the mere idea of perception, but comes from within, and proceeds from the most immediate consciousness of each oTuSjTh which each of us knows his own individuality, according to its nature, immediately, apart from all form, even that of subject and object, and which at the same time is this individuality, for here the subject and the object of knowledge are one. if, therefore, we refer the concept of force to that of tuill, we have in fact referred the less known to what is infinitely better known ; indeed, to the one thing that is really immediately and fully known to us, and have very greatly extended our knowledge. If, on the contrary, we subsume the concept of will under that of force, as has hithertq ^ways been done, we renounce the only immediate knowledge which we have of the inner nature of the world, for we allow it to disappear in a concept wMch is abstracted from the phenomenal, and with wliichjyq. can therefore ii^er go beyond the phencmenaJ.

§ 23. The will as a thin^ in iteelf is quite different from its^phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all idea, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it ; stiU less the forms which are subordinate to this and which collectively have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong, and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and space the 'principium individuationis, borrowing an expression from the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw

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attention to this, once for all. For it is only through the medium of time and space that what is one and the same, both according to its nature and to its concept, yet appears as different, as a multiplicity of co-existent and successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the principium individuationis, the subject of so many subtleties and disputes among the schoolmen, which may be found collected in Suarez (Disp. 5, Sect. 3).

According to what has been said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely subordinated tolhe principle of sufficient reasom Further, it_ is free from all multiplicity, altiiough its manifestations in time and space are innmimrable._ It is itself one, though not in the sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity ; nor yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity ; but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium ihdwidudivmH, €e7,lEe possibility of multiplicity.

Only when all this has 'beottme quite clear to us through the subsequent examination of the phenomena and different manifestations of the.\yill, shall we fully understand the meaning^ of the Kantian doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but are only foims^^ knowing.

The uncaused nature of will has been actually recognised, where it manifests itself most distinctly, as the will of man, and this has been called free, independent. But on account of the uncaused nature of the will itself, the necessity to which its manifestation is everywhere subjected has been overlooked, and actions are treated as free, which they are not. FOT~~ev5ry~Tnamdual action follows with strict necessity from the effect of the motii^ upon~the' character. All necessity is, as we have already

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said, the relation of the consequent to the reason, and nothing more. The principle of sufficient reason is the universal form of all phenomena, and man in his action must he subordinated to it like every otlier phenomenon. But because in self-consciousness the will is known directly and in itself, in this consciousness lies also the consciousness of freedom.

The fact is, however, overlooked that the individual, the person, is not wUl as a thing-in itself, but is a fhaurniaion of will, is already dGteru1iined'"a"§"StR;E^irn3 has come under the form of the phenomenal, the principle of sufficient reason.

Hence arises the strange fact that every one believes himself a •priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life, which just means that he can become another person.

But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity ; tliat in spite of aU his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct,, and tlfaF from the beginning of his life to the end of jt, lle^lisrcarry out the very character which he himself condemns, and as it were play the part he has undertaken to the end.

I cannot pursue this subject further at present, for it belongs, as ethical, to another part ol this work.

In the meantime, I only wish to point out here that the phenomenon of the will which in itself is uncaused, is yet as such subordinated to the law of necessity, that is, the principle of sufficient reason^ so that in the necessity with which the phenomena of natiTfe TolTo^ eacTi oflief, w'e may ~iihd~ ndtlung toTTrlnder us from recognising in them the manifestations of will.

Only those changes which have no other ground than a motive, i.e., an idea, have hitherto been reganled as manifestations of will. Therefore in nature a will has only been attributed to man, or at the most to animals ; for knowledge, the idea, is of course, as I have said elsewhere, the true and exclusive characteristic of

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animal life. Bnt that the will is also active where no knowledge guides it, we see at once in the instinct and Ae mechanical ^iH of animals.^ That they have ideas and knowledge is here not to the point, for the end towards which they strive as definitely as if it were a known motive, is yet entirely unknown to them.

Therefore in such cases their action takes place without motive, is not guided by the idea, and shows us first and most distinctly how the will may be active entirely without knowledge. The bird of a year old has no idea of the eggs for which it builds a nest j the young spider has no idea of the prey for which it spins a web ; nor has the ant-lion any idea of the ants for which he digs a tTehch for the first time.

The larva of the stag-beetle makes the hole in the wood, in which it is to await its metamorphosis, twice as big^ if it is going, to be a male beetle as if it is going to be a female, so that if it is a male" there may be room for the horns, of which, however, it" has ho idea.

In such actions of these creatures the will is clearly operative as in their other actions, but" it is in blind ac£IvT£y7' which is indeed accompanied by knowledge but not guided by it. If now we have once gained insight into the fact, that idea as motive is not a necessary and essential condition of the activity of the will, we shall more easily recognise the activity of will where it is less apparent.

For example, we shall see that the house of the snail is no more made by a will which is foreign to the snail itself, than the house whicli we build is produced through another will than our own ; but we shall recognise in both houses the work of a will which objectifies itself in both the phenomena — a will which works in us according to motives, but in the snail still blindly as formative impulse directed outwards.

In us also the same will is in many ways only blindly active: in all the functions of our body which are not guided by knowledge, in all its vital and vegetative pro1 This is specially treated in the 27th Ch, of the Supplement.

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cesses, digestion, circulaUoiv, secretjon, growth, reproduction. Not only the actions of the body, but the whole body itself is, as we have shown above, phenomenon of the will, objectified will, concrete will. All that goes on in it must therefore proceed througiTjlIIl aTtliougE'here this will is not guided by knowledge, but acts blindly according to causes, which in this case are called

1 call a cause, in the narrowest sense of the word, that state of matter, which, while it introduces another state with necessity, yet suffers just as great a change itself as that which it causes ; which is expressed in the rule, “ action and reaction are equal.” Furtlier, in the case of what is properly speaking a cause, the effect increases directly in proportion to the cause, and therefore also the reaction. So that, if once the mode of operation be known, the degree of the effect may be measured and calculated from the degree of the intensity of the cause ; and conversely the degree of the intensity of the cause may be calculated from the degree of the effect. Such causes, properly so called, operate in all the phenomena of mechanics, cheniistry, and so forth ; in short, in all the changes of unorganised bodies. On the other hand, I call a stimulus, sucli a cause as sustains no reaction proportional to its effect, and the intensity of which does not vary directly in proportion to the intensity of its effect, so that the effect cannot be measured by it. On the contrary, a small increase of the stimulus may cause a very great increase of the effect, or conversely, it may eliminate the previous effect altogether, and so forth, f All effects upon organised bodies as such are of this kind. All properly organic and vegetative changes of the animal body must therefore be referred to stimuli, not to mere causes. But the stimulus, like every cause and motive generally, nevei determines more than the point of time and space at

150 THE WORLD ^5 WILL. BK. il.

which the manifestation of every force is to take place, and does not determine the inner nature of the i'orce itself which is manifested. This inner nature we know, from our previous investigation, is will, to which tlierefore we ascribe botli the unconscious and the conscious changes of the body.

The stimulus holds the mean, forms the transition between the motive, wliich is causality accompanied throughout by knowledge, and the cause in the narrowest sense. In particular cases it is sometimes nearer a motive, sometimes nearer a cause, but yet it can always be distinguished from both.

Thus, for example, the rising of the sap in a plant follows upon stimuli, and cannot be explained from mere causes, according to the laws of hydraulics or capillary attraction ; yet it is certainly assisted by these, and altogether approaches very near to a purely causal change.

On the other hand, the movements of the Hedysarum gyrans and the Mimosa pudica, although still following upon mere stimuli, are yet very like movements which follow upon motives, and seem almost to wish to make the transition.

The contraction of the pupils of the eyes as the light is increased is due to stimuli, but it passes into movement which is due to motive ; for it takes place, becatise too strong lights would affect the retina painfully, and to avoid this we contract the pupils.

The occasion of an erection is a motive, because it is an idea, yet it operates with the necessity of a stimulus, i.e., it cannot be resisted, hut we must put the idea away in order to make it cease to affect .us. This is also the case with disgusting things, which excite the desire to vomit.

Thus we have treated the instinct of animals as an actual link, of quite a distinct kind, between movement following upon stimuli, and action following upon a known motive. Now we might be asked to regard breathing as another link of this kind. It has been disputed whether it belongs to the voluntary or the involuntary movements, that is to say, whether it follows upon motive or stimuTHE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

lus, and perhaps it may be explained as something which is between the two. Marshall Hall (“ On the Diseases of the Nervous System,” § 293 sq.) explains it as a mixed function, for it is partly under the influence of the cerebral (voluntary), and partly under that of the spinal (non-voluntary) nerves. However, we are finally obliged to number it with the expressions of will which result from motives.

For other motives, i.e., mere ideas, can determine the will to check it or accelerate it, and, as is the case with every other voluntary action, it seems to us that we could give up breathing altogether and voluntarily suffocate. And in fact we could do so if any other motive influenced the will sufficiently strongly to overcome the pressing desire for air. According to some accounts Diogenes actua,lly put an end to his life in this way (Diog.

Laert VI. 76). Certain negroes also are said to have done this (F. B. Osiander “ On Suicide ” [ 1 8 1 3] pp. 170-180). If this be true, it affords us a good example of the influence of abstract motives, i.e., of the victory of distinctively rational over merely animal will.

For, that breathing is at least partially conditioned by cerebral activity is shown by the fact that the primary cause of death from prussic acid is that it paralyses the brain, and so, indirectly, restricts the breathing; but if the breathing be artificially maintained till the stupefaction of the brain has passed away, death will not ensue.

We may also observe in passing that breathing affords us the most obvious example of the fact that motives act with just as much necessity as stimuli, or as causes in the narrowest sense of the word, and their operation can only be neutralised by antagonistic motives, as action is neutralised by re-action.

For, in the case of breathing, the illusion that we can stop when we like is much weaker than in the case of other movements which follow upon motives ; because in breathing the motive is very powerful, very near to us, and its satisfaction is very easy, for the muscles which accomplish it are never tired, nothing.

IS2 THE WORLD AS WILL. bk. il.

as a rule, obstructs it, and the whole process is supported by the most inveterate habit of the individual. And yet all motives act with the same necessity. The knowledge that necessity is common to movements following upon motives, and those following upon stimuli, makes it easier for us to understand that that also which takes place in our bodily organism in accordance with stimuli and in obedience to law, is yet, according to its inner nature — will, which in all its manifestations, though never in itself, is subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, to necessity.^ Accordingly, we shall not rest contented with recognising that animals, both in their actions and also in their whole existence, bodily structure and organisation, are manifestations of will ; but we shall extend to plants also this immediate knowledge of the essential nature of things which is given to us alone. Now all the movements of plants follow upon stimuli; for the absence of knowledge, and the movement following upon motives which is conditioned by knowledge, constitutes the only essential difference between animals and plants. Therefore, what appears for the idea as plant life, as mere vegetation, as blindly impelling force, we shall claim, according to its inner nature, for will, and recognise it as just that which constitutes the basis of our own phenomenal being, as it expresses itself in our actions, and also in the whole existence of our body itself.

It only remains for us to take the final step, the extension of our way of looking at things to all those forces which act in nature in accordance with universal, unchangeable laws, in conformity with which the movements of all those bodies take place, which are wholly without organs, and have therefore no susceptibility for stimuli, and have no knowledge, which is the necessary condition

^ This subject is fully worked out in the “Grundprobleme der Ethik**) t\i% my prize essay on the freedom of the relation of cause, stimulics, and mo* will, in which therefore (pp. 29-44 Also been fully explained.

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of motives. Thus we must also apply the key to the understanding of the inner nature of things, which the immediate knowledge of our own existence alone can give us, to those phenomena of the unorganised world which are most remote from us.

And if we consider them attentively, if we observe the strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the hmgnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be re-united, and which, just like human desire, is increased by obstacles ; if we see the crystal q^uickly and suddenly take form with such wonderful regularity of construction, which is clearly only a perfectly definite and accurately determined impulse in different directions, seized and retained by crystallisation; if we observe the choice with which bodies repel and attract each other, combine and separate, when they are set free in a fluid state^ and emancipated from the bonds of rigidness; lastly, if we feel directly how a burden which liampers duf body by its gravitation towards the earth, unceasingly presses and strains upon it in pursuit of its one tendency ; if we observe all this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination to recognise, even at so great a distance, our own nature.

That which in us pursues its ends by the light of knowledge ; but here, in the weakest of its manifestations, only strives blindly and dumbly in a one-sided and unchangeable manner, must" yet in both ca§es come under the name of will, as iib is everywhere one and the same — just as the first dim fight of dawn must share the name of sunlight with the rays of the full mid-day.

For the name will denotes that which is the inner nature of every thing in tlm world, and the one kernel of every phenomeupn.

Tet the remoteness, and indeed the appearance of absolute difference between the phenomena of unorganised nature and the will which we know as the

154 the world as WILL. bk. ii.

inner reality of our own being, arises chiefly from the contrast between the completely determined conformity to law of the one species of phenomena, and the apparently unfettered freedom of the other. For in man, individuality makes itself powerfully felt. Every one has a character of his own; and therefore the same motive has not the same influence over all, and a thousand circumstances which exist in the wide sphere of the knowledge of the individual, but are unknown to others, modify its effect. Therefore action cannot be predetermined from the motive alone, for the other factor is wanting, the accurate acquaintance with the individual character, and with the knowledge which accompanies it On the other hand, the phenomena of the forces of nature illustrate the opposite extreme. They act according to universal laws, without variation, without individuality in accordance with openly manifest circumstances, subject to the most exact predetermination ; and the same force of nature appears in its million phenomena in precisely the same way. In order to explain this point and prove the identity of the one indivisible will in all its different phenomena, in the weakest as in the longest, we must first of all consider the relation of itEe will as thing-in- itself to its phenomena, that is, tlm relation of the world as will to the world as idea ; for this will open to us the best way to a Saofe thorough investigation of the whole subject we are considering in this second book.^

§ 24. We have learnt from the great Kant that time, space, and causality, with their entire constitution, and the possibility of aU their forms, are present in our consciousness quite independently of the objects which appear in them, and which constitute their content ; or, in other words, they can be arrived at just as well if we

' Cf. Ch. xxiii. of the Supplement, on physical astronomy, which is of and also the Ch. on the physiology great importance with regard to the of plants in my work “Ueber den kernel of my metaphysic.

Willen in der Natur,’’ and the Oh.

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start from the subject as if we start from the object. Therefore, with equal accuracy, we may call them either forms of intuition or perception of the subject, or qualities of the object as object (with Kant, phenomenon), i.e., idea. We may also regard these forms as the irreducible boundary between object and subject.

All objects must therefore exist in them, yet the subject, independently of the phenomenal object, possesses and surveys them completely.

But if the objects appearing in these forms are not to be empty phantoms, but are to have a meaning, they must refer to something, must be the expression of something which is not, like themselves, object, idea, a merely relative existence for a subject, but which exists without such dependence upon something which stands over against it as a condition of its being, and independent of the forms of such a thing, i.e., is not idea, but a thing-in-itself.

Consequently it may at least be asked : Are these ideas, these objects, something more than or apart from the fact that they are ideas, objects of the subject ? And what would they be in this sense ? What is that other side of them which is toto gensre different from idea ? What is the thing-in-itself? The will, we have answered, but for the present I set that answer aside.

Whatever the thing-in-itself may be, Kant is right in his conclusion that time, space, and causality (which we afterwards found to be forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the general expression of the forms of the phenomenon) are not its properties, but come-to-lt only after. and so far as, it has become idea. That is. they belong only to its phenomenal existence, not to itself. For since the subject fully understands and constructs them out of itself, independently of all object, they must be dependent upon existence as idea as such, not upon that which becomes idea. They must be the form of the idea as such ; but not qualities of that which has assumed this form. They must be already given with the mere antithesis of subject

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and object (not as concepts but as facts), and consequently they must be only the more exact determination of the form of knowledge in general, whose most universal determination is that antithesis itself.

Now, that in the phenomenon, in the object, which is in its turn conditioned by time, space and causality, inasmuch as it can only become idea by means of them, namely viulliplidty, through co-existence and succession, change and permanence through the law of causality, matter which can only become idea under the presupposition of causality, and lastly, all that becomes idea only by means of these, — all this, I say, as a whole, does not in reality belong to that which appears, to that which has passed into the form of idea, but belongs merely to this form itself.

And conversely, that in the phenomenon which is not conditioned through time, space and causality, and which cannot be referred to them, nor explained in accordance with them, is precisely that in which the thing manifested, the thing-in-itself, directly reveals itself.

It follows from this that the most complete capacity for being known, that is to say, the greatest clearness, distinctness, and susceptibility of exhaustive explanation, will necessarily belong to that which pertains to knowledge as such, and thus to the form of knowledge ; but not to that which in itself is not idea, not object, but which has become knowledge only through entering these forms; in other words, has become idea, object.

Thus only that which depends entirely upon being an object of knowledge, upon existing as idea in general and as such (not upon that whicn becomes known, and has only become idea), which therefore belongs without distinction to everything that is known, and which, on that account, is found just as well if we start from the subject as if we start from the object, — this alone can afford us without reserve a sufficient, exhaustive knowledge, a knowledge which is clear to the very foundation. Bat this consists of nothing but those forms of all phenomena of which we are conscious

a priori, and which may be generally expressed as the principle of sufficient reason. Now, the forms of this principle which occur in knowledge of perception (with which alone we are here concerned) are time, space, and casuality. The whole of pure mathematics and pure natural science a priori ia based entirely upon these.

Therefore it is only in these sciences that knowledge finds no obscurity, does not rest upon what is incomprehensible (groundless, ie., win), upon what cannot be further deduced. It is on this account that Kant wanted, as we have said, to apply the name science specially and even exclusively to these branches of knowledge together with logic.

But, bh“ the other hand, these branches of knowledge show us nothing more than mere connections, relations of one idea to another, form devoid of all content.

All content which they receive, every phenomenon which fiUs these forms, contains something which is no longer completely knowable in its whole nature, something which can no longer be entirely explained through something else, something then which is groundless, through which consequently the knowledge loses its evidence and ceases to be completely lucid.

This that wi^holds itself from inv^tigation, Jiowever, ii the thing-in-iteelC is that which^ is essentially not idea, not object of knowledge, but has only become kaowakle .by entering that form. The form is originally foreign to it, and the tiiingm-hself can never become entirely one with it, can never be refeired^^tp mere. forKU--Mld*- since this form is the principle of sufficient reason, can never be completely explained.

If therefore all mathematics affords us an exhaustive knowledge of that which in the phenomena is quantity, position, number, in a word, spatial and temporal relations ; if all etiology gives us a complete account of the regular conditions under which phenomena, with all their determinations, appear in time and space, but, with it all, teaches us nothing more than why in each case this particular phenomenon must appear

just at this time here, and at this i»lace now ; it is clear that with their assistance we can never penetrate to the inner natureoTthings.

There alway^femains something which h6~ expahation can venture to attack, but which it always presupposes ; the forces of nature, the definite mode of operation of things, the quality and character of every phenomenon, that which is without ground, that which does not depend upon the form of the phenomenal, the principle of sufficient reason, but is something to which this form in itself is foreign, something which has yet entered this form, and now appears according to its law, a law, however, which only determines the appearance, not that which appears, only the how, not the what, only the form, not the content.

Mechanics, physics, and chemistry teach the rules and laws according to which the forces of impenetrability, gravitation, rigidity, fluidity, cohesion, elasticity, heat, light, affinity, magnetism, electricity, &c., operate ; that is to say, the law, the rule which these forces observe whenever they enter time and space. But do what we will, the forces themselves remain gualitates occultce.

For it is just the thing-initself, which, because it is manifested, exhibits these phenomena, which are entirely different from itself. In its manifestation, indeed, it is completely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason as the form of the idea, but it can never itself be referred to this form, and therefore cannot be fully explained etiologically, can never be completely fathomed.

It is certainly perfectly comprehensible so far as it has assumed that form, that is, so far as it is phenomenon, but its inner nature is not in the least explained by the fact that it can thus be comprehended.

Therefore the more necessity any knowledge carries with it, the more there is in it of that which cannot be otherwise thought or presented in perception— as, for example, space-relations — the clearer and more sufficing then it is, the less pure objective content it has, or the less reality, properly so called, is

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given in it And conversely, the more there is in it which must be conceived as mere chance, and the more it impresses us as given merely empirically, the more proper objectivity and true reality is there in such knowledge, and at the same time, the more that is inexplicable, that is, that cannot be deduced from anything else.

It is true that at all times aiu etiology, unmindful of its real aim, has striven to reduce all organised life to chemism or electricity ; all chemism, that is to say quality, again to mechanism (action determined by the shape of the atom), this again sometimes to the object of phoronomy, i.e., the combination of time and space, which makes motion possible, sometimes to the object of mere geometry, i,e., position in space (much in the same way as we rightly deduce the diminution of an effect from the square of the distance, and the theory of the lever in a purely geometrical manner) : geometry may finally be reduced to arithmetic, which, on account of its one dimension, is of all the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the most intelligible, comprehensible, and completely susceptible of investigation. As instances of the method generally indicated here, we may refer to the atoms of Democritus, the vortex of Descartes, the mechaSTcar phyffcs of Lesage, which towards the end oi last century tried to explain both chemical affinities and gravitation mechanically by impact and pressure, as may be seen in detail in Lucrece Neutonien EeiFs form and combination as the cause of animal life, also tends in this direction. Finally, the crude materialism which even now in the middle of the nineteenth century has been served up again under the ignorant delusion that it is original, belongs distinctly to this class. It stupidly denies vital force, and first of all tries to explain the phenomena of life from physical and chemical forces, and those again from the mechanical effects of the matter, position, form, and motion of imagined atoms, and thus

l6o

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seeks to reduce all the forces of nature to action and re* action as its thing-in-itself. According to this teaching, light is the mechanical vibration or undulation of an imaginary ether, postulated for this end. This ether, if it reaches the eye, beats rapidly upon the retina, and gives us the knowledge of colour.

Thus, for example, four hundred and eighty-three billion beats in a second give red, and seven hundred and twenty-seven billion beats in a second give violet. Upon this theory, persons who are colourblind must be those who are unable to count the beats, must they not ?

Such crass, mechanical, clumsy, and certainly knotty theories, which remind one of Democritus, are quite worthy of those who, fifty year§_afte.r the appearanc^o£^Goj!the’s dpijMuAJlf iu Newtoffs homogeneous lights and , aie. not ashamed to say so. They will find that what is overlooked in the child (Democritus) will not be forgiven to the man.

They might indeed, some day, come to an ignominious end; but then every one would slink away and pretend that he never had anything to do with them. We shall soon have to speak again of this false reduction of the forces of nature to each other ; so much for the present.

Supposing this theory were possible, all would certainly be explained and established and finally reduced to an arithmetical problem, which would then be the holiest thing in the temple of wisdom, to which the principle of sufficient reason would at last have happily conducted us. But all content of the phenomenon would have disappeared, and the mere form would remain.

The “what appears ” would be referred to the “ how it appears,” and this “ how ” would be what is a priori knowable, therefore entirely dependent on the subject, therefore only for the subject, therefore, lastly, mere phantom, idea and form of idea, through and through; no thing-in-itself could be demanded. Supposing, then, that this were possible, the whole world would be derived from the subject, and. in fact, that would be accomplished which

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Fichte wanted to seem to accomplish by his empty bombast^ But it is not possiWeT^l^iantasies^ sopbi^^ castles in the aT^T^uve^eeii^ cons tructed in thj way^. but science n^^y^" TPhe many and multifarious phenomena in nature have been successfully referred to particular original forces, and as often as this has been done, a real advance has been made. Several forces and qualities, which were at first regarded as different, have been derived from each other, and thus their number has been curtailed. (For example, magnetism from electricity.) Etiology will have reached its goal when it has recognised and exhibited as such all the original forces of nature, and established their mode of operation, i.^., the law according to which, under the guidance of causality, their phenomena appear in time and space, and determine their position with regard to each other. But certain original forces will always remainover; there will always remain as an insoluble residuum a content of phenomena which cannot be referred to their form, and thus cannot be explained from something else in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason. For in everything in nature there is something of which no ground can ever be assigned, of which no explanation is possible, and no ulterior cause is to be sought. This is the specific nature of its action, i.e., the nature of its existence, its being. Of each particular effect of the thing a cause may be certainly indicated, from which it follows that it must act just at this time and in this place ; but no cause can ever be found from which it follows that a thing acts in general, and precisely in the way it does. If it has no other is, mere^ in a sunbeam, it yet

exhibits this unfathonaable something, at least as weight and. impehetrabiU^^^ But jhis, I say, is to the mote what his will is to a man ; and, like the liu^ it is, accordin^^to its, inner natm subject to explaStidn;

nay, more — it is in itself identicaf with this will. It is true that a md^^^ may Tie given every manifestation

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of will, for every act of will at a particular time and in a particular place, upon which it must necessarily follow, under the presupposition of the character of the man. But no reason can ever be given that the man has this character; that he wills at all; that, of several motives, just this one and no other, or indeed that any motive at all, moves his will. That which in the case of man is the unfathomable character which is presupposed in every explanation of his actions from motives is, in the case of every unorganised body, its definitive quality — the mode of its action, the manifestations of which are occasioned by impressions from without, while it itself, on the contrary, is determined by nothing outside itself, and thus is also inexplicable. Its particular manifestations, through which alone it becomes visible, are subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason ; it itself is groundless. This was in substance rightly understood by the schoolmen, who called it forma svi)stantialis. (fit Suarez, Disput Metaph., disp. XV. sect. I.)

It is a greater and a commoner error that the phenomena which we best understand are those which are of most frequent occurrence, and which are most universal and simple ; for, on the contrary, these are just the phenomena that we are most accustomed to see about us, and to be ignorant of. It is just as inexplicable to us that a stone should fall to the' earth as that an animal i^uld move itself. It has been supposed, as we have remarked above, that, starting from the most universal forces of nature (gravitation, cohesion, impenetrability), it was possible to explain from them the rarer forces, which only operate under a combination of circumstances (for example, chemical quality, electricity, magnetism), and, lastly, from these to understand the organism and the life of animals, and even the nature of human knowing and willing. Men resigned themselves without a word to starting from mere qvalitates occultce, the elucidation of which was entirely given up, for they intended to build

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upon them, not to investigate them. Such an intention cannot, as we have already said, be carried out. But apart from this, such structures would always stand in the air. What is the use of explanations which ultimately refer us to something which is quite as unknown as the problem with which we started ? Do we in the end understand more of the inner nature of these universal natural forces than of the inner nature of an animal ?

Is not the one as much a sealed book to us as the other ? Unfathomable because it is without ground, because it is the content, that which the phenomenon is, and which can never be referred to the form, to the how, to the principle of sufficient reason.

But we, who have in view not etiology but philosophy, that is, not relative but unconditioned knowledge of the real nature of the world, take the opposite course, and start from that which is immediately and most completely known to us, and fully and entirely trusted by us — that which lies nearest to us, in order to understand that which is known to us only at a distance, one-sidedly and indirectly.

From the most powerful, most significant, and most distinct phenomenon we seek to arrive at an understanding of those that are less complete and weaker. With the exception of my own body, all things are known to me only on om side, that of the idea. Their inner nature remains hidden from me and a profound secret, even if I know all the causes from which their changes follow.

Only by comparison with that which goes on in me if my body performs an action when I am influenced by a motive — only by comparison, I say, with what is the inner nature of my own changes determined by external reasons, can I obtain insight into the way in which these lifeless bodies change under the influence of causes, and so understand what is their inner nature.

For the knowledge of the causes of the manifestation of this inner nature affords me merely the rule of its appearance in time and space, and nothing more. I can make this comparison because

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my body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of the idea, but also the other side which is called will. Thus, instead of believing that T would better understand my own organisation, and then my own knowing and willing, and my movements following upon motives, if I could only refer them to movements due to electrical, chemical, and mechanical causes, I must, seeing that I seek philosophy and not etiology, learn to understand from my own movements following upon motives the inner nature of the simplest and commonest movements of an unorganised body which I see following upon causes. I must recognise the inscrutable forces which manifest themselves in all natural bodies as identical in kind with that which in me is the will, and as differing from it only in degree. That is to say, the fourth cTa^ of ideas given in the Essay on the Principle of Sufficient Peason must be the key to the knowledge of the inner nature of the first class, and by means of the law of motivation I must come to understand the inner meaning of the law of causation.

Spinoza (Epist. 62) says that if a stone which has been projected through the air had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own will. I add to this only that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will. In the passage referred to, Spinoza had in view the necessity with which the stone flies, and he rightly desires to transfer this necessity to that of the particular act of will of a person. I, on the other hand, consider the inner being, which alone imparts meaning and validity to all real necessity (t.«., effect following upon a cause) as its presupposition. ' In the case of men this is called character; in the case of a stone it is called quality, but it is

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the same in both. When it is immediately known it is called will. In the stone it has man the strongest degree of visibility, of objectivity.

St. Augustine recognises, with a true instinct, this identity of the tendencies of all things with our own willing, and I cannot refrain from quoting his naive account of the matter : — “ Si pecora essemus, camal&m vitam et quod seeuudtim senmm ejusdem est amaremus, idque met sufficiens bonum nostrum, et semndum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud qucereremus.

Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus : verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, vberiusque fruduosce. Si essemus lapides, aut jluctvs, aut ventus, avt jlamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atqtie vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus.

Nam velut amoves corporvm momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur : ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amove fertur quoemr que fertur" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 28).

It ought further to be mentioned that Euler saw that the inner nature of gravitation must ultimately be referred to an “inclination and desire” (thus will) peculiar to material bodies (in the 68th letter to the Princess). Indeed, it is just this thatlnak^Tum averse to the conception of gravitation as it existed for Newton, and he is inclined to try a modification of it in accordance with the earlier Cartesian theory, and so to derive gravitation from the impact of an ether upon the bodies, as being " more rational and more suitable for persons who like clear and intelligible principles.” He wishes to banish attraction from physics as a qualitas occulta. This is only in keeping with the dead view of nature which prevailed at Euler’s time as the correlative of the immaterial souL It is only worth noticing because of its bearing upon the fundamental truth established by me, which even at that time this fine intellect saw glimmering in the distance. He hastened to turn in time, and then, in his anxiety at

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seeing all the prevalent fundamental views endangered, he sought safety in the old and already exploded absurdities.

We know that multiplicity in general is necessarily conditioned by space and time, and is only thinkable in them. In this respect they are called the principium individuationis. But we have found that space and time are forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

In this principle all our knowledge a priori is expressed, but, as we showed above, this a priori knowledge, as such, only applies to the knowableness of things, not to the things themselves, i.e., it is only our form of knowledge, it is not a property of the thing-iu- itself. The thing-initself is, as such, free from all forms of knowledge, even the most universal, that of being an object for the subject.

In other words, the thing-in-itself is something altogether different from the idea. If, now, this thingin-itself is the will, as I believe I have fully and~c6rrvmmn^jr proved iF to be, then, regarded as such and apart from its manifestation, it lies outside time and space, and therefore knows no multiplicity, and is consequently one.

Yet, as I have said, it is not one in the sense in which an individual or a concept is one, but as something to which the condition of the possibility of multiplicity, the principium individuationis, is foreign.

The multiplicity of things in space and time, which collectively constitute the objectification of will, does not affect the will itself, which remains indivisible notwithstanding it It_is not the case that, in some way or other, a smaller part of will is in the stone and a larger part in the man, for the relation of part and whole belongs exclusively to space, and has no longer any meaning when we go beyond this form of intuition or perception.

The more and the less have application only to the phenomenon of will, that is, its visibility, its objectiTi cation. Of this there is a higher grade in the plant than in the^tone ; in the animal a higher grade than in the plant : indeed, the passage of will into visibility, its

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objectification, has grades as innumerable as exist between the dimmest twilight and the briglitest sunshineT the loudest sound and the faintest eclio. We shall return later to the consideration of these grades of visibility which belong to the objectification of the will, to the reflection of its nature. But as the grades of its objectification do not directly concern the will itself, still less is it concerned by the multiplicity of the phenomena of these different grades, i.e., the multitude of individuals of each form, or the particular manifestations of each force. For this multiplicity is directly conditioned by time and space, into which the will itself never enters. The will reveals itself as completely and as much in one oak as in millions. Their number and multiplication in space and time has no meaning with regard to it, but only with regard to the multiplicity of individuals who know in space and time, and who are themselves multiplied and dispersed in these. The multiplicity of these individuals itself belongs not to the will, but only to its manifestation. We may therefore say that if, per impossihile, a single real existence^ even most insignificant, were to be entirely annihilated, the whole world would necessarily jerish with it The great mystic Angetus Silesius feels this when he says-

“I know God cannot live an instant without me,

He must give up the ghost if 1 should cease to be.”

Men have tried in various ways to bring the immeasurable greatness of the material universe nearer to the comprehension of us all, and then they have seized the opportunity to make edifying remarks. They have referred perhaps to the relative smallness of the earth, and indeed of man ; or, on the contrary, they have pointed out the greatness of the mind of this man who is so insignificantthe mind that can solve, comprehend, and even measure the greatness of the universe, and so forth. NoWj dl this is very well, but to me, when I consider the vftsti68

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ness of the world, the most important point is this, that t^e" thing-in-itself, whose manifestation is the world — whatever else it may be — cannot have its true self spread ouTandT dispersed after this fashion in boundless space, hut that this endless extension belongs only to its manifestation. The thing-in-itself, on the contrary, is present entire and undivided in every object of nature and in every living being. Therefore we lose nothing by standing still beside any single individual thing, and true wisdom is not to be gained by measuring out the boundless world, or, what would be more to the purpose, by actually traversing endless space. It is rather to be attained by the thorough investigation of any individual thing, for thus we seek to arrive at a full knowledge and understanding of its true and peculiar nature.

The subject which will therefore be fully considered in the next book, and which has, doubtless, already presented itself to the mind of every student of Plato, is, that these different grades of the objectification of will which are manifested in innumerable individuals, and exist as their unattained types or as the eternal forms of things, not entering themselves into time and space, which are the medium of individual things, but remaining fixed, subject to no change, always being, never becoming, while the particular things arise and pass away, always become and never are, — that these grades of the (djedification of vnll are, I say, simply Plato's Ideas. I make this passing reference to the matter here m order that I may be able in future to use the word Idea in this sense. In my writings, therefore, the word is always to be understood in its true and original meaning given to it by Plato, and has absolutely no reference tcTItEose abstract productions of dogmatising scholastic reason, which Kant has inaptly and illegitimately used this word to denote, though Plato had already appropriated and used it most fitly. By^Idea, then^ I underftond every definite and fixed grade of the objectification

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of will, so far as it is thing-in-itself^ and therefore has no multiplicity. These ^ades_Me_related_ to indiyii^ things as their eternal forms or proto^pes^ The shortest sind most concise statement of tEis famous Platonic doctrine is given us by Diogenes Laertes £iii. 12): “o U'Karav ev ttj <f>v<Tei ra? iBea<i earavcu, Kadairep

TrapaBei/y/iara, ra ^aXXa ravraifi eoiKevai, roxrrwv 6p.ouapina KadeaidTa ” — (" Plato ideas in natura velut exemplaria dwit svd>sistere ; cetera his esse similia, ad istarum similittuUnem consistentia”). Of Kant’s misuse of the word I take no further notice ; what it is needful to say about it win be found in the Appendix.

§ 26. The lowest grades of the objectification of will are to be found in those most universal forces of nature which partly appear in all matter without exception, as gravity and impenetrability, and partly have shared the given matter among them, so that certain of them reign in one species of matter and others in another species, constituting its specific difference, as rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, chemical properties and qualities of every kind. They are in themselves immediate manifestations of will, just as much as human action ; and as such they are groundless, like human character. Only their particular manifestations are subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, like the particular actions of men. They themselves, on the other hand, can never be called either effect or cause, but are the prior and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects through which their real nature unfolds and reveals itself. is therefore senseless to demand a cause of gravity or electricity, for they mre original forces. Tlm|]^expressions, indeed, take place m accordance with the law of cause and effect, so that every'one of their particular manifestations has a cause, ^Tcfi is itself again just a similar particular manifestation which determines that this force must express itself here, must aj^ear in sjpace and time ; but the force itself is by no means the effect of a cause^ nor the caus”e 61 an

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effect. It is therefore a mistake to say “gravity is the cause of a stone falling;” for the cause in this case is rather the nearness of the earth, because it attracts the stone. Take the earth away and the stone will not fall, although gravi^ remains. The force itself lies quite outside the chain of causes ancTeffects, which presupposes time, because it only has meaning in relation to it ; but the force lies outside time. The individual change always has for its cause another change just as individual as itself, and not the force of which it is the expression. For that which always gives its efficiency to a cause, however many times it may appear, is a force of nature. As such, it is groundless, i.e., it lies outside the chain of causes and outside the province of the principle of sufficTent reason in general, and is philosophically known as the immediate objectivity of will, which is the “in-itself ” of the whole of nature ; but in etiology, which in this reference is physics, it is set down as an original force, i.e., a qualitas occulta.

In the higher grades of the objectivity of will we see individuality occupy a prominent position, especially in the case of man, where it appears as the great difference of individual characters, i.e., as complete personality, outwardly expressed in strongly marked individual physiognomy, which influences the whole bodily form. None of the brutes have this individuality in anything like so high a degree, though the higher species of them have a trace of it ; but the character of the species completely predominates over it, and therefore they have little individual physiognomy. The farther down we go, the more completely is every trace of the individual character lost in the common character of the species, and the physiognomy of the species alone remains. We know the physiological character of the species, and from that we know exactly what is to be expected from the individual; while, on the contrary, in the human species every individual has to be studied and fathomed for

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himself, which, if we wish to forecast his action with some degree of certainty, is, on account of the possibility of concealment that first appears with reason, a matter of the greatest difficulty.

It is probably connected with this difference of the human species from all otliers, that the folds and convolutions of the brain, which are entirely wanting in birds, and very weakly marked in rodents, are even in the case of the higher animals far more symmetrical on both sides, and more constantly the same in each individual, than in the case of human beings.

It is further to be regarded as a phenomenon of this peculiar individual character which distinguishes men from all the lower animals, that in the case of the brutes the sexual instinct seeks its satisfaction without observable choice of objects, while in the case of man this choice is, in a purely instinctive majiner and independent of all reflection, carried so far that it rises into a powerful passion.

While then every man is to be regarded as a specially determined and characterised phenomenon of will, and indeed to a certain extent as a special Idea, in the case of the brutes this individual character as a ^lole is wanting,^ because only the species has a special significance.

And the farther we go from man, the fainter becomes the trace of this individual character, sc £Hat plants have no individual qualities left, except sucl as may be fully explained from the favourable or unfavourable external influences of soil, climate, and othei accidents. Finally, in the inorganic kingdom of nature all individuality flisappeats.

The crystal alone is to be regarded as to a certain extent indlvidjiaL It is a unitj of the tendency in definite directions, fixed by crytallisation, which makes the trace of this tendency permanent It is at the same time a cumulative repetition of its primitive form, bound into unity by an idea, just as the

^ Wenzel, De Structura Cerebri 9, arts. 4 and 5 ; Vic. d’Azyr, Hist, Hominid et Brutorum, 1812, ch. iii.; de I’Acad. de Sc. de Paris, I783,pp Cuvier, Lemons d’Anat., comp, le^on 470 and 483.

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tree is an aggregate of the single germinating fibre which shows itself in every rib of the leaves, in every leaf, in every branch; which repeats itself, and to some extent makes each of these appear as a separate growth, nourishing itself from the greater as a parasite, so that the tree, resembling the crystal, is a systematic aggregate of small plants, although only the whole is the complete expression of an individual Idea, i.6., of this particular grade of the objectification of will.

But the individuals of the same species of crystal can have no other difference than such as is produced by external accidents ; indeed we can make at pleasure large or small crystals of every species. The individual, however, as such, that is, with traces of an individual character, does not exist further in unorganised nature.

All its phenomena are expressions of general forces of nature, i.e., of those grades of the objectification of will which do not objectify themselves (as is the case in organised nature), by means of the difference of the individualities which collectively express the whole of the Idea, but show themselves only in the species, and as a whole, without any variation in each particular example of it.

Time, space, multiplicity, and existence conditioned by causes, do not belong to the will or to the Idea (the grade of the objectification of wiU), but only to their particular phenomena. Therefore such a force of nature as, for example, gravity or electricity, must show itself as such in precisely the same way in all its million phenomena, and only external circumstances can modify these.

This unity of its being in all its phenomena, this unchangeable constancy of the appearance of these, whenever, under the guidance of casuality, the necessary conditions are present, is called a law of nature. If such a law is onceT Iearned from experience, then the phenomenon of that force of nature, the character of which is expressed and laid down in it, may be accurately forecast and counted upon. But it is just this conformity to law of the

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phenomena of the lower grades of the objectification of will which gives them such a different aspect from the phenomena of the same will in the higher, i.e., the more distinct, grades of its objectification, in animals, and in men and their actions, where the stronger or weaker influence of the individual character and the susceptibility to motives which often remain hidden from the spectator, because they lie in knowledge, has had the result that the identity of the inner nature of the two kinds of phenomena has hitherto been entirely overlooked.

If we start from the knowledge of the particular, and not from that of the Idea, there is something astonishing, and sometimes even terrible, in the absolute uniformity of the laws of nature. It might astonish us that nature never once forgets her laws ; that if, for example, it has once been according to a law of nature that where certain materials are brought together under given conditions, a chemical combination will take place, or gas will be evolved, or they will go on fire ; if these conditions are fulfilled, whether by our interposition or entirely by chance (and in this case the accuracy is the more astonishing because unexpected), to-day just as well as a thousand years ago, the determined phenomenon will take place at once and without delay. We are most vividly impressed with the marvellousness of this fact in the case of rare phenomena, which only occur under very complex circumstances, but which we are previously informed will take place if these conditions are fulfilled. Tor example, when we are told that if certain metals, when arranged alternately in fluid with which an acid has been mixed, are brought into contact, silver leaf brought between the extremities of this combination will suddenly be consumed in a green flame ; or that under certain conditions the hard diamond turns into carbonic acid. It is the ghostly omnipresence of natural forces that astonishes us in such

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cases, and we remark here what in the case of phenomena which happen daily no longer strikes us, how the connection between cause and effect is really as mysterious as that which is imagined between a magic formula and a spirit that must appear when invoked by it.

On the other hand, if we have attained to the philosophical knowledge that a force of nature is a definite grade of the objectification of will, that is to say, a definite grade of that which we recognise as our own inmost nature, and that this will, in itself, and distinguished from its phenomena and their forms, lies outside time and space, and that, therefore, the multiplicity, which is conditioned by time and space, does not belong to it, nor directly to the grade of its objectification, i.e., the Idea, but only to the phenomena of the Idea ; and if we remember that the law of causality has significance only in relation to time and space, inasmuch as it determines the position of the multitude of phenomena of the different Ideas in which the will reveals itself, governing the order in which they must appear; if, I say, in this knowledge the inner meaning of the great doctrine of Sant has been fully grasped, the doctrine that time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but merely to the phenomenon, that they are only the forms of our knowledge, not qualities of things in themselves ; then we shall understand that this astonishment at the conformity to law and accurate operation of a force of nature, this astonishment at the complete sameness of all its million phenomena and the infallibility of their occurrence, is really like that of a child or a savage who looks for the first time through a glass with many facets at a flower, and marvels at the complete similarity of the innumerable flowers which he sees, and counts the leaves of each of them separately.

?i§JlQ's.jaeii^e, But a law of nature is the relation of the Idea to the form of its manifestation. This form is time, space^, and causality, which are necessarily and inseparably connected and relafecno each other.

Through time and space the Idea multiplies itself in innumerable phenomena, but the order according to which it enters these forms of multiplicity is definitely determined by the law of causality; this law is as it were the norm of the limit of these phenomena of different Ideas, in accordance with which time, space, and matter are assigned to them.

This norm is therefore necessarily related to the identity of the aggregate of existing matter, which is the common substratum of all those different phenomena. If all these were not directed to that common matter in the possession of which they must be divided, there would be no need for such a law to decide their claims. They might all at once and together fill a boundless space throughout an endless time.

Therefore, because all these phenomena of the eternal Ideas are directed to one and the same matter, must there be a rule for their appearance and disappearance ; for if there were not, they would not make way for each other. Thus the law of causality is essentially bound up with that of the permanence of substance ; they reciprocally derive significance from each other. Time and space, again, are related to them in the same way.

For time is merely the possibility of conflicting states of the same matter, and space is merely the possibility of the permanence of the same matter under all sorts of conflicting states. Accordingly, in the preceding book we explained matter as the union of space and time, and tlris union shows itself as change of the accidents in the permanence of the substance, of which causality or becoming is the universal possibility.

And accordingly, we said that matter is through and through causality. We explained the understanding as the subjective correlative of causality, and said matter (and thus the whole

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w<^d as idea) exists only for the understandingj the understanding is its condition, its supporter as its necessary correlative. I repeat all this in passing, merely to call to mind what was demonstrated in the First Book, for it is necessary for the complete understanding of these two books that their inner agreement should be observed, since what is inseparably united in the actual world as its two sides, will and idea, has, in order that we might understand each of them more clearly in isolation, been dissevered in these two books.

It may not perhaps be superfluous to elucidate further by an example how the law of causality has meaning only in relation to time and space, and the matter which consists in the union of the two. For it determines the limits in accordance with which the phenomena of the forces of nature divide themselves in the possession of matter, while the original forces of nature, as the immediate objectification of will, which, as a thing in itself, is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, lie outside these forms, within which alone all etiological explanation has validity and meaning, and just on that account can never lead us to the inner reality of nature. For this purpose let us think of some kind of machine constructed according to the laws of mechanics. Iron weights begin the motion by their gravity ; copper wheels resist by their rigidity, affect and raise each other and the lever by their impenetrability, and so on. Here gravity, rigidity, and impenetrability are original unexplained forces ; mechanics only gives us the condition under which, and the manner in which, they manifest themselves, appear, and govern a definite matter, time, and place. If, now, a strong magnet is made to attract the iron of the weight, and overcome its gravity, the movement of the machine stops, and the matter becomes forthwith the scene of quite a different force of nature — magnetism, of which etiology again gives no further explanation than the condition under which it appears.

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Or let us suppose that the copper discs of such a machine are laid upon zinc plates, and an acid solution introduced between them.

At once the same matter of the machine has become subject to another original force, galvanism, which now governs it according to its own laws, and reveals itself in it through its phenomena ; and etiology can again tell us nothing about this force except the conditions under which, and the laws in accordance with which, it manifests itself.

Let us now raise the temperature and add pure acid ; the whole machine burns ; that is to say, once more an entirely different force of nature, chemical energy, asserts at this time and in this place irresistible claims to this particular matter, and reveals itself in it as Idea, as a definite grade of the objectification of will. The calcined metal thus produced now unites with an acid, and a salt is obtained which forms itself into crystals.

These are the phenomena of another Idea, which in itself is again quite inexplicable, while the appearance of its phenomena is dependent upon certain conditions which etiology can give us.

The crystals dissolve, mix with other materials, and vegetation springs up from them — a new phenomenon of will : and so the same permanent matter may be followed ad infinitum, to observe how now this and now that natural force obtains a right to it and temporarily takes possession of it, in order to appear and reveal its own nature.

The condition of this right, the point of time and space at which it becomes valid, is given by causality, but the explanation founded upon this law only extends thus far. The force itself is a manifestation of will, and as such is not subject to the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, that is, it is groundless.

It lies outside all time, is omnipresent, and seems as it were to wait constantly till the circumstances occur under which it can appear and take possession of a definite matter, supplanting the forces which have reigned in it till then. All time exists only for the phenomena of such a force, ""Wl. I. ' ^ ^ ' ' m”

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and is without significance for the force itself. Through thdusahds of years chemical forces slumber in matter till the contact wi^ the reagents sets them free; then thej; appear; but time exists only for the phenomena, notjTmr She forces themselves. I^rjthousands of years galvanism slumbered in copper and zinc, and they lay quietly beside silver, which must be consumed in flame as soon as all three are brought together under the required conditions. Even in the organic kingdom we see a dry seed preserve the slumbering force through three thousand years, and when at last the favourable circumstances occur, grow up as a plant.*

If by this exposition the difference between a force of nature and all its phenomena has been made quite distinct; if we have seen clearly that the former is the will itself at this particular grade of its objectification, but that multiplicity comes to phenomena only through time and space, and that the law of causality is nothing but the determination of the position of these phenomena in time and space; then we shall recognise the complete truth and the deep meaning of Malebranche's doctrine of occasional causes (cames occasionelles). It is well worth

^ On the 1 6th of September 1840, years old. He had planted it in a at a lecture upon Egyptian Archaeo- flower «pot, in which it grew up and logy delivered by Mr. Pettigrew at flourished. This is quoted from the the Literary and Scientific Institute Medical Journal of 1830 in the Jourof London, he showed some corns of nal of the Koyal Institution of Great wheat which Sir G. Wilkinson had Britain, October 1830, p. 196. — ‘‘In found in a grave at Thebes, in which the garden of Mr. Grimstone of the they must have lain for three thou- Herbarium, Highgate, London, is a sand years. They were found in an pea in full fruit, which has spruna hermetically sealed vase. Mr. Petti- from a pea that Mr. Pettigrew and grew had sowed twelve grains, and the officials of the British Museum obtained a plant which grew five feet took out of a vase which had been high, and the seeds of which were found in an Egyptian sarcophagus, now quite ripe. — Times^ 2i8t Septem- where it must have lain 2844 years.*’ ber 1840. In the same way in 1830 — Times, i6th August 1844. Indeed, Mr. Haulton produced in the Medical the living toads found in limestone Botanical Society of London a bul- lead to the conclusion that even anibous root which was found in the mal life is capable of such a suspenband of an Egyptian mummy, in sion for thousands of years, if this which it was probably put in observ- is begun in the dormant period ance of some religions rite, and which and maintained by special oirctunmust have been at least two thousand stances.

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while comparing this doctrine of his, as he explains it in the " MechercTies de la Vdrite” both in the 3rd Chapter of the second part of the 6th Book, and in the eclaircissementa appended to this chapter, with this exposition of mine, and observing the complete agreement of the two doctrines in the case of such different systems of thought. Indeed I cannot help admiring how Malebranche, though thoroughly involved in the positive dogmas which his age inevitably forced upon him, yet, in such bonds and under such ^ burden, hit the truth so happily, so correctly, and even knew how to combine it with these dogmas, at all events verbally.

For the power of truth is incredibly great and of unspeakable endurance. We find constant traces of it in all, even the most eccentric and absurd dogmas, of different times and different lands, — often indeed in strange company, curiously mixed up with other things, but still recognisable. It is like a plant that germinates under a heap of great stones, but still struggles up to the light, working itself through with many deviations and windings, disfigured, worn out, stunted in its growth, — but yet, to the light.

In any case Malebranche is right: every natural cause is only an occasional cause. It only gives opportunity 6F occasion for the manifestation of the one indivisible wiil which is the “in-itself” of all things, and whose graduated objectification is the whole visible world. Only the appearance, the becoming visible, in this place, at this time, is brought about by the cause and is so far dependent on it, but not the whole of the phenomenon, nor its inner nature. This is the will itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason has not application, and which is therefore groundless. Nothing in the world has a sufficient cause of its existence generally, but only a cause of existence just here and just now. That a stone exhibits now gravity, now rigidity, now electricity, now chemical qualities, depends upon causes,

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upon impressions upon it from without, and is to be explained from these. But these qualities themselves, and thus the whole inner nature of the stone which consists in them, and therefore manifests itself in all the ways referred to ; thus, in general, that the stone is such as it is, that it exists generally — all this, I say, has no ground, but is the visible appearance of the groundless will. Every cause is thus an occasional cause.

We have found it to be so in nature, which is without knowledge, and it is also precisely the same when motives and not causes or stimuli determine the point at which the phenomena are to appear, that is to say, in the actions of animals and human beings.

For in both cases it is one and the same will which appears ; very different in the grades of its manifestation, multiplied in the phenomena of these grades, and, in respect of these, subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, but in itself free from all this. Motives do not determine the character of man, but only the phenomena of his character, that is, his actions ; the outward fashion of his life, not its inner meaning^ and content.

These proceed from the character which is the immediate manifestation of the will, and is therefore groundless. That one man is bad and another good, does not depend upon motives or outward influences, such as teaching and preaching, and is in this sense quite inexplicable.

But whether a bad man shows BIF badness in petty acts of injustice, cowardly tricks, and low knavery which he practises in the narrow sphere of his circumstances, or whether as a conqueror he oppresses nations, throws a world into lamentation, and sheds the blood of millions ; this is the outward form of his manifestation, that which is unessential to it, and depends upon the circumstances in which fate has placed him, upon his surroundings, upon external influences, upon motives ; but his decision upon these motives can never be explaine3~Kom tliem ; it proceeds from the will, of which this man is a manifestation. Of this we shall

THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL. i8i

speak in the Fourth Book. The manner in which the character discloses its qualities is quite analogous to the way in which those of every material body in unconsmo^ nature”" are^ disclosed. Water remains water with its intrinsic qualities, whether as a still lake it reflects its banks, or leaps in foam from the cliffs, or, artificially confined, spouts in a long jet into the air. All that depends upon external causes ; the one form is as natural to it as the other, but it will always show the same form in the same circumstances ; it is equally ready for any, but in every case true to its character, and at all times revealing this alone. So will every human character under all circumstances reveal itself, but the phenomena which proceed from it will always be in accordance with the circumstances.

§ 27. If, from the foregoing consideration of the forces of nature and their phenomena, we have come to see clearly how far an explanation from causes can go, and where it must stop if it is not to degenerate into the vain attempt to reduce the content of all phenomena to their mere form, in which case there would ultimately remain nothing but form, we shall be able to settle in general terms what is to be demanded of etiology as a whole. It must seek out the causes of all phenomena in nature, i.e., the circumstances under which they invariably appear. Then it must refer the multitude of phenomena which have various forms in various circumstances to what is active in every phenomenon, and is presupposed in the cause, — original forces of nature. It must correctly distinguish between a difference of the phenomenon which arises from a difference of the force, and one which results merely from a difference of the circumstances under which the force expresses itself ; and with equal care it must guard against taking the expressions of one and the same force under different circumstances for the manifestations of different forces, and conversely against taking for manifestations of one

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and the same force what originally belongs to different forces. Now this is the direct work of the faculty of judgment, and that is why so few men are capable of increasing our insight in physics, while all are able to enlarge experience. Indolence and ignorance make us disposed to appeal too soon to original forces. This is exemplified with an exaggeration that savours of irony in the entities and quidities of the schoolmen.

Nothing is further from my desire than to favour their resuscitation. We have just as little right to appeal to the objectification of will, instead of giving a physical explanation, as we have to appeal to the creative power of_ God. For physics demands causes, and the will is never a'Siuse. Its whole relation to the phenomenon is not in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason.

But that which in itself is the will exists in another aspect as idea; that is to say, is phenomenon. As such, it obeys the laws which constitute the form of the phenomenon. Every movement, for example, although it is always a manifestation of will, must yet have a cause from which it is to be explained in relation to a particular time and space; that is, not in general in its inner nature, but as a particular phenomenon.

In the case of the stone, this is a mechanical cause ; in that of the movement of a man, it is a motive ; but in no case can it be wanting.

On the other hand, the universal common nature of all phenomena of one particular kind, that which must be presupposed if the explanation from causes is to have any sense and meaning, is the general force of nature, which, in physics, must remain a gy/dUa» occulta, because with it the etiological explanation ends and the metaphysical begins.

But the chain of causes and effectsls never broken by an original force to which it has been necessary to appeal It does not run back to such a force as if it were its first link, but the nearest link, as well as the remotest, presupposes the original force, and could otherwise explain nothing. A series of

causes and effects may be the manifestation of the most different kinds of forces, whose successive visible appearances are conducted through it, as I have illustrated above by the example of a metal machine. But the difference of these original forces, which cannot be referred to each other, by no means breaks the unity of that chain of causes, and the connection between all its links.

The etiology and the philosophy of nature never do violence to each other, but go hand in hand, regarding the same object from different points of view. Etiology gives an account of the causes which necessarily produce the particular phenomenon to be explained. It exhibits, as the foundation of all its explanations, the universal forces which are active in all these causes and effects.

It accurately defines, enumerates, and distinguishes these forces, and then indicates all the different effects in which each force appears, regulated by the difference of the circumstances, always in accordance with its own peculiar character, which it discloses in obedience to an invariable rule, called a law of nature. When all this has been thoroughly accomplished by physics in every particular, it will be complete, and its work will be done.

There will then remain no unknown force in unorganised nature, nor any effect, which has not been proved to be the manifestation of one of these forces under definite circumstances, in accordance with a law of nature. Yet a law of nature remains merely the observed rule according to which nature invariably proceeds whenever certain definite circumstances occur.

Therefore a law of nature may be defined as a fact expressed generally — vm fait gin6ralis6 — and thus a complete enumeration of edl the laws of nature would only be a complete register of facts. The consideration of nature as a whole is thus completed in morphology, which enumerates, compares, and arranges all the enduring forms of organised nature.

Of the causes of the appearance of the individual creature it has little to say, for in all cases this is procreation (the theory of

which is a separate matter), and in rare cases the generatio eequivoca. But to this last belongs, strictly speaking, the manner in which all the lower grades of the objectification of will, that is to say, physical and chemical phenomena, appear as individual, and it is precisely the task of etiology to point out the conditions of this appearance.

Philosophy, on the other hand, concerns itself only with the universal, in nature as everywhere else. The original forces themselves are here its object, and it recognises in them the different grades of the objectivity of will, which is the inner nature, the “in-itself” of this world ; and when it regards the world apart from will, it explains it as merely the idea of the subject.

But if etiology, instead of preparing the way for philosophy, and supplying its doctrines with practical application by means of instances, supposes that its aim is rather to deny the existence of all original forces, except perhaps one, the most general, for example, impenetrability, which it imagines it thoroughly understands, and consequently seeks forcibly to refer all the others to it — it forsakes its own province and can only give us error instead of truth.

The content of nature is supplanted by its form, everything is ascribed to the circumstances which work from without, and nothing to the inner nature of the thing. Now if it were possible to succeed by this method, a problem in arithmetic would ultimately, as we have already remarked, solve the riddle of the universe.

But this is the method adopted by those, referred to above, who think that all physiological effects ought to be reduced to form and combination, this, perhaps, to electricity, and this again to chemism, and cheinism to mechanism. The misteke qjf DescarteSj for example, and of all the Atomists, was of this last description.

They referred the mbvements " of the globe' to the impact of a fluid, and the ^alities of matter to the connection and form pf_the atom8,"andl&ence tfiey Tajfcure^ to explain aU the pheno;^ mena "oT nature" as merely manifestations of impenetraTHE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL. 185

bility and cohesion. Although this has been given up, precisely the same error is committed in our own day by the electrical, chemical, and mechanical physiologists, who obstinately attempt to explain the whole of life smd all the functions of the organism from “ form and combination.

In Meckel’s “Archiv fur Physiologie ” (1820, vol. v. p. 185) we still find it stated that the aim of physiological explanation is the reduction of organio life to the universal forces with wK^ physics deals. Lamarck also, in his" PhUosophie Zoologique" explains life as merely the effect of warmth and electricity lemlorique ei laHidftefe electrique suffisent parfaitement pour composer evsemhle cette cause essentielle de la vie (p. 1 6).

According to this, warmth and electricity would be the “ thing-in-itself,” and the world of animals and plants its phenomenal appearance. The absurdity of this opinion becomes glaringly apparent at the 306th and following pages of that work. It is well known that all these opinions, that have been so often refuted, have reappeared quite recently with renewed confidence.

If we carefully examine the foundation of these views, we shall find that they ultimately involve the presupposition that the organism is merely an aggregate of phenomena of physical, chemical, and mechanical forces, which have come together here by chance, and produced the organism as a freak of nature without further significance.

The organism of an animal or of a human being would therefore be, if considered philosophically, not the exhibition of a special Idea, that is, not itself immediate objectivity of the will at a definite higher grade, but in it would appear only those Ideas which objectify the will in electricity, in chemism, and in mechanism.

Thus the organism would be as fortuitously constructed by the concurrence of these forces as the forms of men and beasts in clouds and stalactites, and would therefore in itself be no more interesting than they are. However, we shall see immediately how far the application of physical and chemical modes of explanai86

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tion to the organism may yet, within certain limits, be allowable and useful ; for I shall explain that the vital force certainly avails itself of and uses the forces of unorganised nature ; yet these forces no more constitute the vital force than anTamrneF and anvU make a blacksffiQn . Therefore even the most simple example of plant life can never be explained from these forces by any theory of capillary attraction and endosmose, much less animal life. The following observations will prepare the way for this somewhat difficult discussion.

It follows from all that has been said that it is certainly an error on the part of natural science to seek to refer the higher grades of the objectification of will to the lower ; for the failure to recognise, or the denial of, original and self-existing forces of nature is just as wrong as the groundless assumption of special forces when what occurs is merely a peculiar kind of manifestation of what is already known. Thus Kant rightly says that it would be absurd to hope for a blade of grass from a Newton, that is, from one who reduced the blade of grass to the mauifestions of physical and chemical forces, of which it was the chance product, and therefore a mere freak of nature, in which no special Idea appeared, i.e., the will did not directly reveal itself in it in a higher and specific grade, but just as in the phenomena of unorganised nature and by chance in this form. The schoolmen, who certainly would not have allowed such a doctrine, would rightly have said that it was a complete denial of the forma svistanfialis, and a degradation of it to the forma cuxidentalis. For the forma suhstantialis of Aristotle denotes exactly what I call the grade of the objectification of will in a thing. On the other hand, it is not to be overlooked that in all Ideas, that is, in all forces of unorganised, and all forms of organised nature, R is one and the same will that reveals itself, that is to say, which enters the form of the idea and passes into ol^eetivitif. Its unity must therefore be also recognisable

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through an inner relationship between all its phenomena. Now this reveals itself in the higher grades of the objectification of will, where the whole phenomenon is more distinct, thus in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, through the universally prevailing analogy of all forms, the fundamental type which recurs in all phenomena.

This has, therefore, become the guiding principle of tlie admirable zoological system which was originated by the French in this century, and it is most completely established in comparative anatomy as tunite de plan, Vv/niformiti de ViUmmA anatomique.

To discover this fundamental type has been the chief concern, or at any rate the praiseworthy endeavour, of the natural philosophers of the school of Schelling, who have in this respect considerable merit, although in many cases their hunt after analogies in nature degenerated into mere conceits.

They have, however, rightly shown that that general relationship and family likeness exists also in the Ideas of unorganised nature; for example, between electricity and magnetism, the identity of which was afterwards established ; between chemical attraction and gravitation, and so forth.

They specially called attention to the fact that polariiy, that is, the sundering of a force into two qualitatively different and opposed activities striving after reunion, which also shows itself for the most part in space as a dispersion in opposite directions, is a fundamental type of almost all the phenomena of nature, from the magnet and the crystal to man himself.

Yet this knowledge has been current in China from the earliest times, in the doctrine of opposition of Yin and Yang.

Indeed, since all things in the world are the objectification of one an(f the same will, and therefore in their inner nature iden tical, it must not only be the case that there is that unmistakable analogy between them, and that in every phenomenon the trace, intimation, and plan of the higher phenomenon that lies next to it in point of

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development shows itself, but also because all these forms belong to the world as idea, it is indeed conceivable that even in the most universal forms of the idea, in that peculiar framework of the phenomenal world space and time, it may be possible to discern and establish the fundamental type, intimation, and plan of what fills the forms. It seems to have been a dim notion of this that was the origin of the Cabala and all the mathematical philosophy of the Pythagoreans, and also of the Chinese in Y-king. In the school of Schelling also, to which we have already referred, we find, among their efforts to bring to light the similarity among the phenomena of nature, several attempts (though rather unfortunate ones) to deduce laws of nature from the laws of pure space and time. However, one can never tell to what extent a man of genius will realise both endeavours.

Now, although the difference between phenomenon and thing-in-itself is never lost sight of, and therefore the identity of the will which objectifies itself in all Ideas can never (because it has different grades of its objectification) be distorted to mean identity of the particular Ideas themselves in which it appears, so that, for example, chemical or electrical attraction can never be reduced to the attraction of gravitation, although this inner analogy is known, and the former may be regarded as, so to speak, higher powers of the latter, just as little does the similarity of the construction of all animals warrant us in mixing and identifying the species and explaining the more developed as mere variations of the less developed; and although, finally, the physiological functions are never to be reduced to chemical or physical processes, yet, in justification of this procedure, within certain limits, we may accept the following observations as highly probable.

If several of the phenomena of will in the lower grades of its objectification — that is, in unorganised nature —come into conflict because each of them, under the

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guidance of causality, seeks to possess a given portion of matter, there arises from the conflict the phenomenon of a higher Idea which prevails over all the less developed phenomena previously there, yet in such a way that it allows the essence of these to continue to exist in a subordinate manner, in that it takes up into itself from them something which is analogous to them. This process is only intelligible from the identity of the will which manifests itself in all the Ideas, and which is always striving after higher objectification. We thus see, for example, in the hardening of the bones, an unmistakable analogy to crystallisation, as the force which originally had possession of the chalk, although ossification is never to be reduced to crystallisation. TJie analogy shows itself in a weaker degree in the flesh becoming firm. The combination of humours in the animal body and secretion are also analogous to chemical combination and separation. Indeed, the laws of chemistry are still strongly operative in this case, but subordinated, very much modified, and mastered by a higher Idea ; therefore mere chemical forces outside the organism will never afford us such humours ; but

** Encheiresin naturee iiennt es die Chemie,

Spottet ihrer selbst und weiss nicht wie.*’

The more developed Idea resulting from this victory over several lower Ideas or objectifications of will, gains an entirely new character by taking up into itself from every Idea over which it has prevailed a strengthened analogy. The will objectifies itself in a new, more distinct way. It originally appears in genercUio eequivoca ; afterwards in assimilation to the given germ, organic moisture, plant, animal, man. Thus from the strife of lower phenomena the higher arise, swallowing them all up, but yet realising in the higher grade the tendency of all the lower. Here, then, already the law applies — Serpem nisi set' pentem comederit non Jit draco.

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I wish it had been possible for me to dispel by clearness of explanation the obscurity which clings to the subject of these thoughts; but I see very well that the reader’s own consideration of the matter must materially aid me if I am not to remain uncomprehended or misunderstood.

According to the view I have expressed, the traces of chemical and physical modes of operation will indeed be found in the organism, but it can never be explained from them ; because it is by no means a phenomenon even accidentally brought about through the united actions of such forces, but a higher Idea which has overcome these lower ideas by subduing assimilation; for the one will which objectifies itself in all Ideas always seeks the highest possible objectification, and has therefore in this case given up the lower grades of its manifestation after a conflict, in order to appear in a higher grade, and one so much the more powerful No victory without conflict : since the higher Idea or objectification of will can only appear through the conquest of the lower, it endures the opposition of these lower Ideas, which, although brought into subjection, still constantly strive to obtain an independent and complete expression of their being.

The magnet that has attracted a piece of iron carries on a perpetual conflict with gravitation, which, as the lower objectification of will, has a prior right to the matter of the iron ; and in this constant battle the magnet indeed grows stronger, for the opposition excites it, as it were, to greater effort.

In the same way every manifestation of the will, including that which expresses itself in the human organism, wages a constant war against the many physical and chemical forces which, as lower Ideas, have a prior right to that matter.

Thus the arm falls which for a while, overcoming gravity, we have held stretched out; thus the pleasing sensation of health, which proclaims the victory of the Idea of the self-conscious organism over the physical and chemical laws, which originally governed the humours of

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the body, is so often interrupted, and is indeed always accompanied by greater or less discomfort, which arises from the resistance of these forces, and on account of which the vegetative part of our life is constantly attended by slight pain. Thus also digestion weakens all the animal functions, because it requires the whole vital force to overcome the chemical forces of nature by assimilation. Hence also in general the burden of physical life, the necessity of sleep, and, finally, of death ; for at last these subdued forces of nature, assisted by circumstances, win back from the organism, wearied even by the constant victory, the matter it took from them, and attain to an unimpeded expression of their being. We may therefore say that every organism expresses the Idea of which it is the image, only after we have subtracted the part of its force which is expended in subduing the lower Ideas that strive with it for matter. This seems to have been running in the mind of Jacob Bohm when he says somewhere that all the bodies of men and animals, and even all plants, are really half dead. According as the subjection in the organism of these forces of nature, which express the lower grades of the objectification of will, is more or less successful, the more or the less completely does it attain to the expression of its Idea ; that is to say, the nearer it is to the ideal or the further from it — the ideal of beauty in its species.

Thus everywhere in nature we see strife, conflict, and alternation of victory, and in it we shall come to recognise more distinctly that variance with itself which is essential to the will. Every grade of the objectification of wiH lights for the matter, the space, and the time of the others. The permanent matter must constantly change its form ; for” under the guidance of causality, mechanical, physical, chemical, and organic phenomena, eagerly striving to appear, wrest the matter from each other, for each_desir^ to reveal its own Idea, ^is sti*ife.may be followed through the whole of nature ; indeed nature exists only through it ;

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ei yap /xij rfv to vftKo<i ep tow 'irpaypaaiv, €v av ‘tjv dnavra, m ^<Tiv Ep.'ireBoKXrj’i' (nam si non iuesset in rebus contentio, unum omnia essent, ut ait Empedocles. ^Aria Metaph., B. S). Yet this strife itself is only the revelation of that variance with itself which is essential to the will. This universal conflict becomes most distinctly visible in the animal kingdom.

For animals have the whole of the vegetable kingdom for their food, and even within the animal kingdom every beast is the prey and the food of another ; that is, the matter in which its Idea expresses itself must yield itself to the expression of another Idea, for each animal can only maintain its existence by the constant destruction of some other.

Thus the will to live everywhere preys upon itself, and in different forms is its own nourishment, till Anally the human mce, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as a manufactory for its use. Yet even the human race, as we shall see in the Fourth Book, reveals in itself with most terrible distinctness this conflict, this variance with itself of the will, and we And homo homini lupus.

Meanwhile we can recognise this strife, this subjugation, just as well in the lower grades of the objectiflcation of will. Many insects (especially ichneumon-flies) lay their eggs on the skin, and even in the body of the larvae of other insects, whose slow destruction is the flrst work of the newly hatched brood.

The young hydra, which grows like a bud out of the old one, and afterwards separates itself from it, flghts while it is still joined to the old one for the prey that offers itself, so that the one snatches it out of the mouth of the other (Trembl^j Polypod., ii. p. I lo, and ill. p. 165).

But tlm^bulldog-ant of Australia affords us the most extraordinary example of this kind ; for if it is cut in two, a battle begins between the head and the tail. The head seizes the tail with its teeth, and the tail defends itself bravely by stinging the head : the battle may last for half an hour, until they die or are dragged away by other ants. This contest takes place

every time the experiment is tried. (From a letter by Howitt in the W. Journal, reprinted in Galignani’s Messenger, lyth November 1855.) On the banks of the Missouri one sometimes sees a mighty oak the stem and blanches of which are so encircled, fettered, and interlaced by a gigantic wild vine, that it withers as if choked.

The same thing shows itself in the lowest grades ; for example, when water and carbon are changed into vegetable sap, or vegetables or bread into blood by organic assimilation; and so also in every case in which animal secretion takes place, along with the restriction of chemical forces to a subordinate mode of activity.

This also occurs in unorganised nature, when, for example, crystals in process of formation meet, cross, and mutually disturb each other to such an extent that they are unable to assume the pure crystalline form, so that almost every cluster of crystals is an image of such a conflict of will at this low grade of its objectification; or again, when a magnet forces its magnetism upon iron, in order to express its Idea in it ; or when galvanism overcomes chemical affinity, decomposes the closest combinations, and so entirely suspend.^ the laws of chemistry that the acid of a decomposed salt at the negative pole must pass to the positive pole without combining with the alkalies through which it goes on its way, or turning red the litmus paper that touches it.

On a large scale it shows itself in the relation between tiie central body and the planet, for although the planet is in absolute dependence, yet it always resists, just like the chemical forces in the organism ; hence arises the constant tension between centripetal and centrifugal force, which keeps the globe in motion, and is itself an example of that universal essential conflict of the manifestation of will which we are considering.

For as every body must be regarded as the manifestation of a will, and as will necessarily expresses itself as a struggle, the original condition of every world that is formed into a globe cannot be rest, but motion, a striving forward in boundless space

without rest and without end.

Neither the law of inertia nor that of causality is opposed to this : for as, according to the former, matter as such is alike indifferent to rest and motion, its original condition may just as well be the one as the other, therefore if we first find it in motion, we have just as little right to assume that this was preceded by a condition of rest, and to inquire into the cause of the origin of the motion, as, conversely, if we found it at rest, we would have to assume a previous motion and inquire into the cause of its suspension.

It is, therefore, not needful to seek for a first impulse for centrifugal force, for, according to the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, it is, in the case of the planets, the residue of the origiiial rotation of the central body, from which the planets have separated themselves as it contracted.

But to this central body itself motion is essential; it always continues its rotation, and at the same time rushes forward in endless space, or perhaps circulates round a greater central body invisible to us. This view entirely agrees with the conjecture of astronomers that there is a central sun, and also with the observed advance of our whole solar system, and perhaps of the whole stellar system to which our sun belongs.

From this we are finally led to assume a general advance of fixed stars, together with the central sun, and this certainly loses all meaning in boundless space (for motion in absolute space cannot be distinguished from rest), and becomes, as is ^ready the case from its striving and aimless flight, an expression of that nothingness, that failure of all aim, which, at the close of this book, we shall be obliged to recognise in the striving of will in all its phenomena.

Thus boundless space and endless time must be the most universal and essential forms of the collective phenomena of will, which e^t for the expression of its whole being. Lastly, we can recognise that conflict which we are considering of all phenomena of will against each other in simple matter regarded as such ; for the real characterTHE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

istic of matter is correctly expressed by Kant as repulsive and attractive force ; so that even crude matter has its existence only in the strife of conflicting^ forces. If we abstract from all chemical diff'crences in matter, or go so far back in the chain of causes and effects that as yet there is no chemical difference, there remains mere matter, — the world rounded to a globe, whose life, i.e., objectification of will, is now constituted by the conflict between attractive and repulsive forces, the former as gravitation pressing from all sides towards the centre, the latter as impenetrability always opposing the former either as rigidity or elasticity ; and this constant pressure and resistance may be regarded as the objectivity of will in its very lowest grade, and even there it expresses its character.

We should see the will express itself here in the lowest grade as blind striving, an obscure, inarticulate impulse, far from susceptible of being directly known. It is the simplest and the weakest mode of its objectification. But it appears as this blind and unconscious striving iif the whole of unorganised nature, in all those original forces of which it is the work of physics and chemistry to discover and to study the laws, and each of which manifests itself to us in millions of phenomena which are exactly similar and regular, and show no trace of individual character, but are mere multiplicity through space and time, i.e., through the priTicipium indiv-idvutionis, as a picture is multiplied through the facets of a glass.

From grade to grade objectifying itself more distinctly, yet still completely without consciousness as an obscure striving force, the will acts in the vegetable kingdom also, in which the bond of its phenomena consists no longer properly of causes, hut of stimuli; and, finally, also in the vegetative part of the animal phenomenon, in the production and maturing of the animal, and in sustaining its inner economy, in which the manifestation of

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will is still always necessarily determined by stimuli.

The ever-ascending grades of the objectification of will bring us at last to the point at which the individual that expresses the Idea could no longer receive food for its assimilation through mere movement following upon stimuli For such a stimulus must be waited for, but the food has now come to be of a more special and definite kind, and with the ever-increasing multiplicity of the individual phenomena, the crowd and confusion has become so great that they interfere with each other, and the chance of the individual that is moved merely by stimuli and must wait for its food would be too unfavourable.

From the point, therefore, at which the animal has delivered itself from the egg or the womb in which it vegetated without consciousness, its food must be sought out. and selected.

For this purpose movement following upon motives, and therefore consciousness, becomes necessary, and consequently it appears as an agent, called in at this stage of the objectification of will for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the speciea It appears represented by the brain or a large ganglion, just as every other effort or determination of the will which objectifies itself is represented by an organ, that is to say, manifests itself for the idea as an organ.* But with this means of assistance, this fi‘fy)(avrj, the world as idea comes into existence at a stroke, with all its forms, object and subject, time, space, multiplicity, and causality.

The world now shows its second side. Tdl now mere will, it becomes also idea, object of the knowing subject The will, which up to this point followed its tendency in the dark with unerring certainty, has at this grade kindled for itself a light as a means which became necessary for getting rid of the disadvantage which arose from the throng and the complicated

1 Cf. Chap. xxii. of the Supplement, 46 et seq., and pp. 63-72 of the and also my work “Ueber den Willen second, or p. 48 et seq.^ and pp. in der Natur,*’ p. 54 et seq., and 69-77 of the third edition, pp. 70-79 of the first edition, or p.

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nature of its manifestations, and which would have accrued precisely to the most perfect of them.

The hitherto infallible certainty and regularity with which it worked in unorganised and merely vegetative nature, rested upon the fact that it alone was active in its original nature, as blind impulse, will, without assistance, and also without interruption, from a second and entirely different world, the world as idea, which is indeed only the image of its own inner being, but is yet of quite another nature, and now encroaches on the connected whole of its phenomena.

Hence its infallible certainty comes to an end. Animals are already exposed to illusion, to deception. They have, however, merely ideas of perception, no conceptions, no reflection, and they are therefore bound to the present ; they cannot have regard for the future. It seems as if this knowledge without reason was not in all cases sufficient for its end, and at times required, as it were, some assistance.

For the very remarkable phenomenon presents itself, that the blind working of the will and the activity enlightened by knowledge encroach in a most astonishing manner upon each other’s spheres in two kinds of phenomena. .

In the one case we find in the very midst of those actions of animals which are guided by perceptive knowledge and its motives one kind of action which is accomplished apart from these, and thus through the necessity of the blindly acting will. I refer to those mechanical instincts which are guided by no motive or knowledge, and which yet have the appearance of performing their work from abstract rational motives.

The other case, which is opposed to this, is that in which, on the contrary, the light of knowledge penetrates into the workshop of the blindly active will, and illuminates the vegetative functions of the human organism. :i I mean clairvoyance.

Finally, when the will has attained to the highest grade of its objectification, that knowledge of the understanding given to brutes to which the senses supply the data, out of which there arises mere perception con198 THE WORLD AS WILL. BK. it

fined to what is immediately present, does not suffice. That complicated, many-sided, imaginative being, man, with his many needs, and exposed as he is to innumerable dangers, must, in order to exist, be lighted by a double knowledge ; a higher power, as it were, of perceptive knowledge must be given him, and also reason, as the faculty of framing abstract conceptions.

With this there has appeared reflection, surveying the future and the past, and, as a consequence, deliberation, care, the power of premeditated action independent of the present, and finally, the full and distinct consciousness of one’s own deliberate volition as such.

Now if with mere knowledge of perception there arose the possibility of illusion and deception, by which the previous infallibility of the blind striving of will was done away with, so that mechanical and other instincts, as expressions of unconscious will, had to lend their help in the midst of those that were conscious, with the entrance of reason that certainty and infallibility of the expressions of will (which at the other extreme in unorganised nature appeared as strict conformity to law) is almost entirely lost ; instinct disappears altogether ; deliberation, which is supposed to take the place of everything else, begets (as was shown in the First Book) irresolution and uncertainty ; then error becomes possible, and in many cases obstructs the adequate objectification of the will in action.

For although in the character the will has already taken its definite and unchangeable bent or direction, in accordance with which volition, when occasioned by the presence of a motive, invariably takes place, yet error can falsify its expressions, for it introduces illusive motives that take the place of the real ones which they resemble ; ^ as, for example, when superstition forces on a man imaginary motives which impel him to a course of action directly opposed

1 The Scholastics therefore said dum esse cof/nituni Cf. Suarez, Disp very truly : Cavsa Jinalis movet von Metaph. disp. xxiii., sec. 7 and 8. secundum sunm isse reale, sed sccnnTHE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

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to the way in which the will would otherwise express itself in the given circumstances. .. Agiiniemnon slays his daughter ; a miser dispenses alms, ouFof pure egM>ti8m, in the hope that he w^ some day receive an hundred-fold ; and so on.

Thus knowledge generally, rational as well as merely sensuous, proceeds originally from the will itself, belongs to the inner being of the higher grades of its objectification as a mere iirtyavrf, a means of supporting the individual and the species, just like any organ of the body. Originally destined for the service of the will for the accomplishment of its aims, it remains almost throughout entirely subjected to its service : it is so in all brutes and in almost all men. Yet we shall see in the Third Book how in certain individual men knowledge can deliver itself from this bondage, throw off its yoke, and, free from all the aims of will, exist purely for itself, simply as a clear mirjor of the world, which is the source of art. Unally, in the Fourth Book, we shall see how, if this kind of knowledge reacts on the, will,, it can bring about seif-surrender, i.e., resignation, which is the final goal, and indeed the inmost nature of all virtue and holiness, and is deliverance from the world.

§ 28. We have considered the great multiplicity and diversity of the phenomena in which the will objectifies iiteolf, and we have seen their endless and implacable strife with each other. Yet, according to the whole discussion up to this point, the will itself, as thing-in-itself, is by no means included in that multiplicity and change. The diversity of the (Platonic) Ideas, i.e., grades of objectification, _ the multitude of individuals in which each or~tEese expresses itself, the struggle of forms for matter, — all this does not concern it, but is only the manner of its objectification, and only through this has anThdifect relation to it, by virtue of which it belongs t^the expression of the nature of will for the idea. As the magic-lantern shows many different pictures, which

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are all made visible by one and the same light, so in all the multifarious phenomena which fill the world tbgetEw or throng after each other as events, only one manifests itself, of which everything is the visibility, the objectivity, and which remains unmoved in the midst of this change; it alone is thing-in-itself ; all objects are manifestations, or, to speak the language of Kant, phenes mena.

Although in man, as (Platonic) Idea, the will finds its clearest and fullest objectification, yet man alone could not express its being. In order to manifest the full significance of the will, the Idea of man would need to appear, not alone and sundered from everything else, but accompanied by the whole series of grades, down through all the forms of animals, through the vegetable kingdom to unorganised nature.

All these supplement each other in the complete objectification of will ; they are as much presupposed by the Idea of man as the blossoms of a tree presuppose leaves, branches, stem, and root; they form a pyramid, of which man is the apex.

If fond of similes, one might also say that their manifestations accompany that of man as necessarily as the full daylight is accompanied by all the gradations of twilight, through whicli, little by little, it loses itself in darkness ; or one might call them the echo of man, and say: Animal and plant are the descending fifth and third of man, the inorganic kingdom is the lower octave. .

The full truth of this last comparison will only become clear to us when, in the following book, we attempt to fathom the deep significance of music, and see how a connected, progressive melody, made up of high, quick notes, may be regarded as in some sense expressing the life and efforts of man connected by reflection, while the unconnected complemental notes and the slow bass, which make up the harmony necessary to perfect the music, represent the rest of the animal kingdom and the whole of nature that is without knowledge. But of this in its own place, where it will not sound so paraTHE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

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doxical. We find, however, that the inner necessity of the gradation of its manifestations, which is inseparable from the adequate objectification of the will, is expressed by an outer necessity in the whole of these manifestations themselves, by reason of which man has need of the beasts for his support, the beasts in their grades have need of each other as well as of plants, which in their turn require the ground, water, chemical elements and their combinations, the pleinet, the sun, rotation and motion round the sun, the curve of the ellipse, &c., &c. At bottom this results from the fact that the will must live on itself, for there exists nothing beside it, and it is a hungry will. Hence arise eager pursuit, anxiety, and suffering..

It is only the knowledge of the unity of will as thing-in-itself, in the endless diversity and multiplicity of the phenomena, that can afford us the true explanation of that wonderful, unmistakable analogy of all the productions of nature, that family likeness on account of which we may regard them as variations on the same ungiven theme. So in like measure, through the distinct and thoroughly comprehended knowledge of that harmony, that essential connection of all the parts of the world, that necessity of their gradation which we have just been considering, we shall obtain a true and sufficient insight into the inner nature and meaning of the undeniable ideology of all organised productions of nature, which, indeed, we presupposed a priori, when considering and investigating them.

This teleology is of a twofold description ; sometimes an inner teleology, that is, an agreement of aU the parts of a particular organism, so ordered that the sustenance of the individual and the species results from it, and therefore presents itself as the end of that disposition or arrangement. Sometimes, however, there is an outward ideology, a relation of unorganised to organised nature in general, or of particular parts of organised nature to each

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other, which makes the maintenance of the whole of organised nature, or of the particular animal species, possible, and therefore presents itself to our judgment as the means to this end.

Inner teleology is connected with the scheme of our work in the following way.

If, in accordance with what has been said, all variations of form in nature, and all multiplicity of individuals, belong not to the will itself,, but merely to its objectivity and the form of this objectify, it n^essarily follows that the will is indivisible an3~Is present as a whole in every ma^nifestation, althou^ the grades bn ts objectification, the (Platonic) Ideas, are very different from each other.

We may, for the sake of smipTfcity, regard these different Ideas as in themselves individual and simple acts of the will, in which it expresses its nature more or less. Individuals, however, are again manifestations of the Ideas, thus of these acts, in time, space, and multiplicity.

Now, in the lowest grades of objectivity, such an act (or an Idea) retains its unity in the manifestation ; while, in order to appear in higher grades, it requires a whole series of conditions and developments in time, which only collectively express its nature completely.

Thus, for example the Idea that reveals itself in any general force of nature has always one single expression, although it presents itself differently according to the external relations that are present: otherwise its identity could not be proved, for this is done by abstracting the diversity that arises merely from external relations.

In the same way the crystal has only one manifestation of life, crystallisation, which afterwards has its fully adequate and exhaustive expression in the rigid form, the corpse of that momentary life. The plant, however, does not express the Idea, whose phenomenon it is, at once and through a single manifestation, but in a succession of developments of its organs in time. The animal not only develops its organism in the same manner, in a succession of forms which are often very different

(metamorphosis), but this form itself, although it is already objectivity of will at this grade, does not attain to a full expression of its Idea. This expression must be completed through the actions of the animal, in which its empirical character, common to the whole species, manifests itself, and only then does it become the full revelation of the Idea, a revelation which presupposes the particular organism as its first condition.

In the case of man, the empirical character is peculiar to every individual (indeed, as we shall see in the Fourth Book, even to the extent of supplanting entirely the character of the species, through the self-surrender of the whole will).

That which is known as the empirical character, through the necessary development in time, and the division into particular actions that is conditioned by it, is, when we abstract from this temporal form of the manifestation the intellif/iUe character, according to the expression of Kant, wbo shows his undying merit especially in establishing this distinction and explaining the relation between freedom and necessity, i.e., between the will as thingin-itself and its manifestations in time.^ Thus the intelligible character coincides with the Idea, or, more accurately, with the original act of will which reveals itself in it.

So far then, not only the empirical character of every man, but also that of every species of animal and plant, and even of every original force of unorganised nature, is to be regarded as the manifestation of an intelligible character, that is, of a timeless, indivisible act of will.

I should like here to draw attention in passing to the naivete with which every plant expresses and lays open its whole character in its mere form, reveals its whole being and will. This is

^ Cf. “Criti(jue of Pure Reason, tique of Practical Reason,” fourth Solution of the Cosmological Ideas edition, pp. 169-179; Rosenkranz* of the Totality of the Deduction of edition, p. 224 and following. Cf. the Events in the Universe,” pp. my Essay on the Principle of Suffi560-586 of the fifth, and p. 532 and oient Reason, § 43. following of first edition ; and “Cri*

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why the physiognomy of plants is so interesting ; while in order to know an animal in its Idea, it is necessary to observe the course of its action. As for man, he must be fully investigated and tested, for reason makes him capable of a high degree of dissimulation. The beast is as much more naive than the inan as the plant is more naive than the beast.

In the beast we see the will to live more naked, as it were, than in the man, in whom it is clothed with so much knowledge, and is, moreover, so veiled through the capacity for dissimulation, that it is almost only by chance, and here and there, that its true nature becomes apparent. In the plant it shows itself quite naked, but also much weaker, as mere blind striving for existence without end or aim.

For the plant reveals its whole being at the first glance, and with complete innocence, which does not suffer from the fact that it carries its organs of generation exposed to view on its upper surface, though in all animals they have been assigned to the most hidden pSl This innocence of the plant results from its complete want of knowledge. Guilt does not lie in willing, but in willing with knowledge.

Every plant speaks to us first of all bfTts *Ebine^"of Qie climate, and the nature of the ground in which it has grown. Therefore, even those who have had little practice easily tell whether an exotic plant belongs to the tropical or the temperate zone, and whether it grows in water, in marshes, on mountain, or on moorland.

Besides this, however, every plant expresses the special will of its species, and says something that cannot be uttered in any other tongue. But we must now apply what has been said to the teleological consideration of the organism, so far as it concerns its inner design.

If in unorganised nature the Idea, which is everywhere to be regarded as a single act of will, reveals itself also in a single manifestation which is always the same, and thus one may say that here the empirical character directly partakes of the

unity of the intelligible, coincides, as it were, with it, so that no inner design can show itself here ; if, on the contrary, all organisms express their Ideas through a series of successive developments, conditioned by a multiplicity of co-existing parts, and thus only the sum of the manifestations of the empirical character collectively constitute the expression of the intelligible character ; this necessary co-existence of the parts and succession of the stages of development does not destroy the unity of the appearing Idea, the act of will which expresses itself ; nay, rather this unity finds its expression in the necessary relation and connection of the parts and stages of development with each other, in accordance with the law of causality.

Since it is the will which is one, indivisible, and therefore entirely in harmony with itself, that reveals itself in the whole Idea as in act, its manifestation, although broken up into a number of different parts and conditions, must yet show this unity again in the thorough agreement of all of these.

This is effected by a necessary relation and dependence of all the parts upon each other, by means of which the unity of the Idea is re-established in the manifestation. In accordance with this, we now recognise these different parts and functions of the organism as related to each other reciprocally as means and end, but the organism itself as the final end of all.

Consequently, neither the breaking up of the Idea, which in itself is simple, into the multiplicity of the parts and conditions of the organism, on the one hand, nor, on the other hand, the re-establishment of its unity through the necessary connection of the parts and functions which arises from the fact that they are the cause and effect, the means and end, of each other, is peculiar and essential to the appearing will as such, to the thing-in-itself, but only to its manifestation in space, time, and casuality (mere modes of the principle of sufficient reason, the form of the phenomenon). They belong to the world as

406 THE WORLD WILL. bk. tt

idea, not to the world as will; they belong to the way in which the will becomes object, i.e., idea at this grade of its objectivity. Every one who has grasped the meaning of this discussion — a discussion which is perhaps somewhat difficult — will now fully understand the doctrine of Kant, which follows from it, that both the design of organised and the conformity to law of unorganised nature are only introduced by our understanding, and therefore both belong only to the phenomenon, not to the thing-in-itself. The surprise, which was referred to above, at the infallible constancy of the conformity to law of unorganised nature, is essentially the same as the surprise that is excited by design in organised nature ; for in both cases what we wonder at is only the sight of the original unity of the Idea, which, for the phenomenon, has assumed the form of multiplicity and diversity.^

As regards the second kind of teleology, according to the division made above, the mter design, which shows itself, not in the inner economy of the organisms, but in the support and assistance they receive from without, both from unorganised nature and from each other; its general explanation is to be found in the exposition we have just given. For the whole world, wdth all its phenomena, is the objectivity of the one indivisible will, the Idea, which is related to all other Ideas as harmony is related to the single voice. Therefore that unity of the will must show itself also in the agreement of all its manifestations. But we can very much increase the clearness of this insight if we go somewhat more closely into the manifestations of that outer teleology and agreement of the different parts of nature with each other, an inquiry which will also throw some light on the foregoing exposition. We shall best attain this end by considering the following analogy.

The character of each individual man, so far as it is

^ Cf. ** Ueber den Willen in der Natur/’ at the end of the section on Comparative Anatomy.

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thoroughly individual, and not entirely included in that of the species, may be regarded as a special Idea, corresponding to a special act of the objectification of will. This act itself would then be his intelligible character, and his empirical character would be the manifestation of it.

The empirical character is entirely determined through the intelligible, which is without ground, i.e., as tliing-initself is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason (the form of the phenomenon). The empirical character must in the course of life afford us the express image of the intelligible, and can only become what the nature of the latter demands.

But this property extends only to the essential, not to the unessential in the course of life to which it applies. To this unessential belong the detailed events and actions which are the material in which the em2iirical character shows itself.

These are determined by outward circumstances, which present the motives upon which the character reacts according to its nature; and as they may be very different, the outward form of the manifestation of the empirical character, that is, the definite actual or historical form of the course of life, will have to accommodate itself to their influence.

Now this form may be very different, although what is essential to the manifestation, its content, remains the same. Thus, for^ample it is immaterial whether a man plays for nuts or for crowns; but whether a man cheats bf^^s fairly, that is the real matter ; the latter is determined by the intelligible character, the former by outward circumstances.

As the same theme may be expressed in a hundred different variations, so the same character maybe expressed in a hundred very different lives. But various as the outward influence may be, the empirical character which expresses itself in the course of life must yet, whatever form it takes, accurately objectify the intelligible character, for the latter adapts its objectification to the given material of actual circumstances. We have now to assume something analogous to the

influence of outward circumstances upon the life that is determined in essential matters by the character, if we desire to understand how the will, in the original act of its objectification, determines the various Ideas in which it objectifies itself, that is, the different forms of natural existence of every kind, among which it distributes its objectification, and which must therefore necessarily have a relation to each other in the manifestation.

We must assume that between all these manifestations of the one will there existed a universal and reciprocal adaptation and accommodation of themselves to each other, by which, however, as we shall soon see more clearly, all timedetermination is to be excluded, for the Idea lies outside time.

In accordance with this, every manifestation must have adapted itself to the surroundings into which it entered, and these again must have adapted themselves to it, although it occupied a much later position in time ; and we see this consensus naturce everywhere.

Evmy plant is therefore adapted to its soil and climate, every animal to its dement and the prey that will be its food, and is also in i^ejwaxprotected, to a certain extent, against its natural enemy ; Uie eye is adapted to the light and its refrangibil^, the lungs and the blood to the air, the air-bladder of fish to water, the eye of the seal to the change of the mechmn in which it must see, the water-pouch in the stomach of the camel to the drought of the African deserts, the sail of the nautilus to the wind that is to drive its little bark, and so on down to the most special and astonishing outward adaptations.^ We must abstract however here from all temporal relations, for these can only concern the manifestation of the Idea, not the Idea itself.

Accordingly this kind of explanation must also be used retrospectively, and we must not merely admit that every species accommodated itself to the given environment, but also that this environment itself, which preceded it in time, had just as much regard for the being

that would some time come into it.

For it k one and the same will that (^j^ctifies ..itself jn .the '^hole_world ; it knows no time, for this form of the principle of sufficIent~reason does not belong to it, nor to its original objectivity, the Ideas, but only to the way in which these are known by the individuals who themselves are transitory, i.e., to the manifestation of the Ideas, Thus, time has no significance for our present examination of the manner in which the objectification of the will distributes itself among the Ideas, and the Ideas whose mamfestations entered into the course of time earlier, according to the law of causality, to which as phenomena they are subject, have no advantage over those whose manifestation entered later ; nay rather, these last are the completest objectifications of the will, to which the earlier manifestations must adapt themselves just as much as they must adapt themselves to the earlier.

Thus the course of the planets, the tendency to the ellipse, the rotation of the earth, the division of land and sea, the atmosphere, light, warmth, and all such phenomena, which are in nature what bass is in harmony, adapted themselves in anticipation of the coming species of living creatures of which they were to become the supporter and sustainer.

In the same way the ground adapted itself to the nutrition of plants, plants adapted themselves to the nutrition of animals, animals to that of other animals, and conversely they all adapted themselves to the nutrition of the ground.

All the parts of nature correspond to each other, for it is one will that appears in them all, but the course of time is quite foreign to its original and only adequate dbjettificatim (this expression will be explained in the following book), the Ideas.

Even now, when the species have only to sustain themselves, no longer to come into existence, we see here and there some such forethought of nature extending to the future, and abstracting as it were from the process of time, a self-adaptation of what is to what VOL. L 0

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is yet to come. Th^ bird builds tbe nest for the_young wbicb it does not yet know; the beaver constructs a dam Xbe object of which is unknown to it ; jints, marines,~andTees lay in provision for the winter thi^ Have never experienced } the spider and the ant-lion make snares, as if with deliberate cunning, for future unknown prey ; insects deposit their eggs where tlie coming brood finds future nourishment In the spring-time the female flower of tiie dioecian valisneria unwinds the spirals of its stalk, by which till now it was held at the bottom of the water, and thus rises to the surface. Just then the male flower, which grows on a short stalk from the bottom, breaks away, and so, at the sacrifice of its life, reaches the surface, where it swims about in search of the femala The latter is fructified, and then draws itself down again to the bottom by contracting its spirals, and there the fruit grows.^ I must again refer here to the larva of the male stag-beetle, which makes the hole in the wood for its metamorphosis as big again as the female does, in order to have room for its future horns. The instinct of animals in general gives us the best illustration of what remains of teleology in nature. For as instinct is an action, like that which is guided by the conception of an end, and yet is entirely without this ; so all construction of nature resembles that which is guided by the conception of an end, and yet is entirely without it. For in the outer as in the inner teleology of nature, what we are obliged to think as means and end is, in every case, ifie manlfestaiion of the unity of the one ivUl so thoroughly freeing with itself, which has assumed multiplicity in space and time for our manner of knowing.

The recfprocal adaptation and self-accommodation of phenomena that springs from this unity cannot, however, annul the inner contradiction which appears in the uniyersd conflict of nature described aboye^ , and which

1 Ohatin, Sur la Valisneria Spiralis, in the Ck>mptes Rendus de I’Acad. de So., No. 13, 1855.

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is essential to the will. That harmony goes only so far as to render possible the duration of the world and the different kinds of existences in it, which without it would long since have perished. Therefore it only extends to the continuance of the species, and the general conditions of life, but not to that of the individual. If, then, by reason of that harmony and accommodation, tim species in organised nature and the universal f(/rces in unorganised nature continue to exist beside each other, and indeed support each other reciprocally, on the other hand, the inner cbhtradfcffoh of the will which objectifies itself in all these ideas shows itself in the ceaseless internecine war of the individuals of these species, and in the constant struggle of tliQinanifestationsoi these natural forces with each other, as we pointed out above. The scene and tlie object of this conflict is matter, which they try to wrest from each other, and also space and time, the combination 6T which through the form of causality is, in fact, matter, as was explained in the Fii’st Book.^

§ 29. I here conclude the second principal division of my exposition, in the hope that, so far as is possible in the case of an entirely new thought, which cannot be quite free from traces of the individuality in which it originated, I have succeeded in conveying to the reader the complete certainty that this world in which we live and have our being is in its whole nature through and through vnll, and a,t the same time through and through t^’eoT^hat this idea, as such, already presupposes a form, object and subject, is therefore relative; and if we_ask v^at remains if we taire away lhis_ fornij^ an^ all those fbrfds W’lhch'~are subordinate to itj and which express^ the principle of sufficient reason, the answer must be that as Bompthing loto genere ^^er&nt horn idea, tliis can be nothing but wUl, which is thus properly the ihing-inifse??!"'Every one hnds that lie himself Ts this willi'' in which the real nature of the w^rld consists, and he also

^ Cf. Chaps, xxvi. and xxvii. of the Supplement.

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finds that he is the knowing subject, whose idea the wEdleTworld is, the world which exists only in'^ehllion to his consciousness, as its necessary supporter. one is thus Tnms(nf in a doulbTe aspect the whole world, the microcosm ; finds both sides whole and complete in~lnmself.

And what he thus recognises as hjs own real being also exhausts the. heil»g._Qf the .\YMle„world — the macrocosm ; thus the worlds like man, is through and through ivill, and through and through idea, and nothing more than this. So we see the philosophy of Thales^ which concerned the macrocosm, unite at this point with that of Socrates, which dealt with the microcosni^7or the object of both is found, to he the same.

But all the knowledge that has been communicated in the two first books will gain greater completeness, and consequently greater certainty, from the two following books, in which I hope that several questions that have more or less distinctly arisen in the course of our work will also be sufficiently answered.

In the meantime one such question may be more particularly considered, for it can only properly arise so long as one has not fully penetrated the meaning of the foregoing exposition, and may so far serve as an illustration of it It is this : Every will is a will towards something, has an object, an end of its willing ; what then is the final end, or towards what is that will striving that is exhibited to us as the being-iu-itself of the world ? This question rests, like so many others, upon the confusion of the thing-in-itself with the manifestation. The principle of sufficient reason, of which the law of motivation is also a form, extends only to the latter, not to the former. It is only of phenomena, of individual things, that a ground can be given, never of the will itself, nor of the Idea in which it adequately objectifies itself. So then of every particular movement or change of any kind in nature, a cause is to be sought, that is, a condition that of necessity produced it, but never of the

THE OBJECTIFICATION OP THE WILL. 213

natural force itself which is revealed in this and innumerable similar phenomena ; and it is therefore simple misunderstanding, arising from want of consideration, to ask for a cause of gravity, electricity, and so on.

Only if one had somehow shown that gravity and electricity were not original special forces of nature, but only the manifestations of a more general force already known, would it be allowable to ask for the cause which made this force produce the phenomena of gravity or of electricity here. All this has been explained at length above.

In the same way every particular act of will of a knowing individual (which is itself only a manifestation of will as the thing-in-itself) has necessarily a motive without which that act would never have occurred ; but just as material causes contain merely the determination tWt at this time, in this place, and in this matter, a manifestation of this or that natural force must take place, so the motive determines only the act of will of a knowing being, at this time, in this place, and under these circumstances, as a particxiTaf act, "but 'by no means determines that that being wills in general or wills in this manner ; this is tK^ expression of his intelligible character, which, as will itself, the thing-in-itself, is without ground, for it lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason.

Therefore every man has permanent aims and motives % which he guides his conduct, and he can always give an account of his particular actions; but if he were asked why he wills at all, or why in general he wills to exist, he would have no answer, and the question would indeed seem to him meaningless ; and this would be just the expression of his consciousness that he himself is nothing but will, whose willing stands by itself and requires more particular determination by motives only in its individual acts at each point of time.

In fact, freedom from all aim, from all limits, belongs to the nature of the will, which is an endless striving. This was”* alreadyTouch’ed' on 'above In She reference to

2J4

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. II.

centrifugal force. It also discloses itself in its simplest form in the low^t^ade of tl^ objectification pf ■will, in gravitation, which we see constantly exerting itself, thoupi a final goal is obviously impossible for it. For if, according to its will, all existing matter were collected in one mass, yet within this mass gravity, ever striving towards the centre, would still wage war with impenetrability as rigidity or elasticity.

The tendency of matter can therefore only be confined, never completed or appeased. But this is precisely the case with all tendencies of all 'phenomena of will. Every atiained end is also the beginning of a new course, and so on ad infinitum.

The plant raises its manifestation from the seed through the stem and the leaf to the blossom and the fruit, which again is the beginning of a new seed, a he,w Individual, that runs through the old course, and so on through endless time.

Such also is the life of the animal ; procreation is its highest point, and after attaining to it, the life of the first individual quickly or slowly sinks, while a new life ensures to nature the endurance of the species and repeats the same phenomena.

Indeed, the constant renewal of the matter of every organism is also to be regarded as merely the manifestation of this continual pressure and change, and physiologists are now ceasing to hold that it is the necessary reparation of the matter wasted in motion, for the possible wearing out of the machine can by no means be equivalent to the support it is constantly receiving through nourishment.

Eternal becoming, endless flux, characterises the revelation of the inner nature of wilL !]^ally, the same thing shows itself in human endeavours and desires, which always delude us by presenting their ^tMaction as the final end of will. As soon as we attain to them they no longer appear the same, and therefore they soon grow stale, are forgotten, and though hot openly disowned, are yet always thrown aside as vanished illusions. We are fortunate enough if there

THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL. ai$

still remains something to wish for and to strive after, that the game may be kept up of constant transition from _desife to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new desire, the rapid course of which is called happiness, and the slow course sorrow, and does nQt sink into that stagnation that shows itself in fearful ennui that paralyses hie, " vainly earning without a definite object, deadening languor. According to all this, when the will is enhghteued by knowledge, it always knows what it wills now and here, never what it wills in general ; every particular act of will has its end, the whole will has nonej just as every particular phenomenon of nature is determined by a sufficient cause so far as concerns its appearance in this place at this time, but th^ force which manifests itself in it has^ no general cause, for it belongs to" the thing-in-itself, to the groundless wih. The single example of self-knowledge of the will as a whole is the idea as a whole, the whole world of perception. It is Ebe~bbJeclification, the revelation, the mirror of the will. What the will expresses in it will be the subject of oui further consideration.^

^ Cf. Chap, xxviii- of the Supplement.

Jirfjitlf Book.

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

SECOND ASPECT.

THB IDEA INDEPENDENT OP THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON : THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART.

T( rb dr iJ.h del, y^veaiv 8b ; Kal tI rh yiyvhanvov fih Koi

6,ro\\ijfi€voVf 6vT(ai 8€ oibiirore 6v, — HAATOI^

( !»I9 )

m.

§ 30. In the First Book the world was explained as mere idea, object for a subject. In the Second Book we considered it from its other side, and found that in this aspect it is will, which proved to be simply that which this world is besides being idea. In accordance with this knowledge we called the world as idea, both as a whole and in its parts, the objectification of will, which therefore means the will become object, i.e., idea. Further, we remember that this objectification of will was found to have many definite grades, in which, with gradually increasing distinctness and completeness, the nature of will appears in the idea, that is to say, presents itself as object. In these grades we already recognised the Platonic Ideas, for the grades are just the determined species, or the original unchanging forms and qualities of aU natural bodies, both organised and unorganised, and also the general forces which reveal themselves according to natural laws. These Ideas, then, as a whole express themselves in innumerable individuals and particulars, and are related to these as archetypes to their copies. The multiplicity of such individuals is only conceivable through time and space, their appearing and passing away through causality, and in aU these forms we recognise merely the different modes of the principle of sufficient reason, which is the ultimate principle of all that is finite, of all individual existence, and the universal form of the idea as it appears in the knowledge of the individual as such. The Platonic Idea, on the other

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hand, does not come under this principle, and has therefore neither multiplicity nor change While the individuals in which it expresses itself are innumerable, and unceasingly come into being and pass away, it remains unchanged as one and the same, and the principle of sufficient reason has for it no meaning.

As, however, this is the form under which all knowledge of the subject comes, so far as the subject knows as an individual, the Ideas lie quite outside the sphere of its knowledge. If, therefore, the Ideas are to become objects of knowledge, this can only happen by transcending the individuality of the knowing subject. The more exact and detailed explanation of this is what will now occupy our attention.

§ 31. First, however, the following very essential remark. I hope that in the preceding book I have succeeded in producing the conviction that what is called in the Kantian phUosophy the thina-in-iMf^'m^ appears there as so significant, and yet so obscure and paradoxicalli doctrine, and especially on account of the manner in which Kant introduced it as an inference from the caused to the cause, was considered a stumbling-stone, and, in fact, the weak side of his philosophy, — that this, I say, if’ it is reached by the entirely different way by which we have arrived at it, is nothing but the wiU when the sphere of that conception is extended and defined in the way I have shown. I hope, further, that after what has been said there will be no hesitation in recognising the definite grades of the objectification of the will, which is the iimer reality of the world, to be what Plato called the eternal Ideas or unchangeable forms ; a doctrine which is regarded as the principal, but at the ^me time the, most obscure and paradoxical dogma of his system, and has been the subject of reflecfion "and controversy of ridicule and of reverence to so ma^ and such differently endowed minds in the course of many centuries.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 221

If now the will is for us the thinj-in-itself , and the Idea is the immediate objectivity of that will at a definite ^rade, we find thatJCant’s thing-in^itself, and Plato’s Idea, which to him is th^. ovrm op, these two great obscure paradoxes of the two greatest philosophers of the West are not indeed identical, but yet very closely related, and only distinguished by a single circumstance.

The purport of these two great paradoxes, with all inner harmony and relationship, is yet so very different on account of the remarkable diversity of the individuality of their authors, that they are the best commentary on each other, for they are like two entirely different roads that conduct us to the sahie goal. This is easily made clear.

What Kant says is in substance this : — “ Time, space, and causahty are not determinations of the thing-in-itself, but belong only to its j)li^omenal existence, for they are nothing but the forms of our knowledge. Since, however, all multiplicity, and all coming into HBeiug and passing away, are only possible through time, space, and causality, it follows that they also belong only to the phenomenon, not to the tliing-in-itself.

But as our knowledge is conditioned by these forms, the whole of experience is only knowledge of the phenomenon, not of the~ thing-in-itself ] therefore its laws cannot be made valid for the thing-in-itself. This extends even to our own effo, and we know_it^ only as phenomenon, and not according to what it may be in itself. This is the meaning and content of the doctrine of Kant m the important respect we are considering.

What Plato says is thisj — “ The things of this world which our senses perceive have no true; being ; they always iecome, they rmer are: they have only a, relative being; they all eSTmerely m and through their relations to each other ; their whole being may, therefore, quite as well be called a non-being.

They are consequently not objects of a true knowledge {eirtaryiii)), for such a knowledge can only be of what exists for itself, and always in the same way ;

they, on the contrary, are only the objects of an opinion based on sensation (So^a fier aKrOtjaern'i a^oyow).

So long as we are confined to tiie^erceptipn of these^ are iike men who sit in a dark cave, bound so fast that they caSnot turn ' their heads, and who see nothing but the shadows of real things which pass between them and a fire burjiing behind them, the light of which casts the shadows on the wall opposite them j and even of themselves an^r~6r each other they see only the shadows on tEe^ wall.

Their wisdom would thus consist in predicting the order of the shadows learned from experience. The real archetypes, on the other hand, to which these shadows correspond, the eternal Ideas, the original forms of all things, can alone be said to have true being {ovrcat op), because they always are, but never become nor pass away.

To them belongs no multiplicity ; for each of them is according to its nature only one, for it is the archetype itself, of which all particular transitory things of the same kind which are named after it are copies or shadows.

They have also no coming into being nor pasdng away, ioT they are truly being, never becoming no£^ yanishir^, like their fleeting shadows. (It is necessarily presupposed, however, in these two negative definitions, that time, space, and casuality have no significance or validity for these Ideas, and that they do not exist in them.) Of these only can there be true knowledge, for the object of such knowledge can only be that which always and in every respect (thus in-itself) is ; not that which is and again is not, according as we look at it.

This is Plato’s doctrine. It is clear, and requires no further proof that the inner meaning of both doctrines is entirely the same; Oiat both explain the visible world as a manifestation, which in itself is nothing, and which <miy has meaning and a borrowed reality through that wKicbT expresses itself .in it (in the one case the thing-inself, in the other the li^a}. ' To this last, which has true being, all the forms of that phenomenal existence, even

the most universal and essential, are, according to both doctrines, entirely foreign. In order to disown these forms Kant has directly expressed them even in abstract terms, and distinctly refused time, space, and casuality as mere forms of the phenomenon to the thing-in-itself.

Plato, on the other hand, did not attain to the fullest expression, and has only distinctly refused these forms to his Ideas in that he denies of the Ideas what is only possible through these forms, multiplicity of similar things, coming into being and passing away. Though it is perhaps superfluous, I should like to illustrate this remarkable and important agreement by an example.

There stands before us, let us suppose, an animal in the full activity of life. Plato would say, “ This animal has no true existence, but merely an apparent existence, a constant becoming, a relative existence which may just as well be called non-being as being.

Only the Idea which expresses itself in that animal is truly ‘ being,’ or the animal in-itself {avTO to Orjpiov), which is dependent upon nothing, but is in and for itself {xad’ iavro, aei w? avTO)<i) ; it has not become, it will not end, but always is in the same way (aet op, xai /j-TjSeTrore ovre <yiyvoiJ,epov OVT6 a-TToWp/Mevop).

If now we recognise its Idea in this animal, it is all one and of no importance whether we have this animal now before us or its progenitor of a thousand years ago, whether it is here or in a distant land, whetlier it presents itself in this or that manner, position, or action ; whether, lastly, it is this or any other individual of the same species; all this is nothing, and only concerns the phenomenon; the Idea of the animal alone has true being, and is the object of real knowledge.

So Plato ; Kant would say something of this kind, “ This animal is a phenomenon in time, space, and casuality, which are collectively the conditions a priori of the possibility of experience, lying in our faculty of knowledge, not determinations of the thing-in-itsef. Therefore this animal as we perceive it at this definite point of time, in

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this particular place, as an individual in the connection of experience (i.e., in the chain of causes and effects), which has come into beings ^nd will, just as^necessarily ^s is not a thing^n-jdself^ but a p_h^^

which only exists in relation to our knowledge. To know it as what it may be in itself, that is to say, independent of all the determinations which lie in time, space, ^3 casuality, would demand another kind of knowledge tKan^ that which is possible for us through the senses and the understanding.”

liTbrdeFTo "bring Kant’s mode of expression nearer the Platonic, we might say : Time, space, and causality are that arrangement of our intellect by virtue of which the one being of each kind which alone really is, manifests itself to us as a multiplicity of similar beings, constantly appearing and disappearing in endless succession. The apprehension of things by means of and in accordance with this arrangement is immanerU knowledge ; that, on the other hand, which is conscious of the true state of the case, is transcendental knowledge. The latter is obtained m abstracto through the criticism of pure reason, but in exceptional cases it may also appear intuitively. This last is an addition of my own, which I am endeavouring in this Third Book to explain.

If the doctrine of Kant had ever been properly understood and grasped, and since Kant’s time that of Plato, if men had truly and earnestly reflected on the inner meaning and content of the teaching of these two great masters, instead of involving themselves in the "technicalities of the one and writing parodies of the style of the other, they could not have failed to discern long ago to what an extent these two great philosophers agree, and that the true meaning, the aim _of . bo^ systems, is the same. Not oixly would they have retrained from constantly comparing Plato to Leibnitz, on whom his spirit certainly did not rest, or indeed to a

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 225

well-known gentleman who is still alive, ^ as if they wanted to mock the manes of the great thinker of the past ; but they would have advanced much farther in general, or rather they would not have fallen so disgracefully far behind as they have in the last forty years.

They would not have let themselves be led by the nose, to-day by one vain boaster and to-morrow by another, nor would they have opened the nineteenth century, which promised so much in Germany, with the philosophical farces that were performed over the grave of Kant (as the ancients sometimes did at the funeral obsequies of their dead), and which deservedly called forth the derision of other nations, for such things least become the earnest and strait-laced German.

But so small is the chosen public of true philosophers, that even students who understand are but scantily brought them by the centuries — Evai Sri papd'i)KO<popoi fiev rroWoi, ^uKyoi Be ye rravpoi {Thyrsigeri quidem multi, Bacchi vero pauci).

'H arigta <j)i\ocro(f>uf Bia Taura TTpoarrerTrcoKev, on ov kut a^iav avTri<t arTTOvrai' ov yap poOovi eSei drrTeaOai, aXka yvri<nov‘i {Earn ob rem philosopMa in in/amiam incidit, quod non pro diynitate ipsam attingunt : neque enim a spuriis, sed a legitimis erat attrectanda). — Plato.

Men followed the words, — such words as “a priori ideas,” “ forms of perception and thought existing in consciousness independently of experience,” “ f undamental conceptions of the pure understanding,” &c., &c., — and asked whether I’lato’s Ideas, which were also original conceptions, and besides this were supposed to be reminiscences of a perception before life of the truly real things, were in some way the same as Kant’s forms of perception and thought, which lie a priori in our consciousness. On account of some slight resemblance in the expression of these two entirely different doctrines, the Kantian doctrine of the forms which limit the knowledge of the individual to the phenomenon, and the Platonic doctrine

» F. H. Jncobi.

426 THE WORLD ^5 IDEA. BK. iil

of Ideas, the knowledge of which these very forms expressly deny, these so far diametrically opposed doctrines were carefully compared, and men deliberated and disputed as to whether they were identical, found at last that they were not the same, and concluded that Plato's doctrine of Ideas and Kant’s “ Critique of Keason ” had nothing in common. But enough of this.^

§ 32. It follows from our consideration of the subject, that, for us. Idea and thing-in-itself are not entirely one and the same, in spite of the inner agreement between Kant and Plato, and the identity of the aim they had before them, or the conception of the world which roused them and led them to philosophise. The Idea is for us rather the direct, and therefore adequate, objectivity of the thing-in-itself, which is, however, itself the wUl — the will as not yet objectified, not yet become idea. If'or the thing-in-itself must, even according to Kant, be free from all the forms connected with knowing as such ; and it is merely an error on his part (as is shown in the Appendix) that he did not count among these forms, before all others, that of being object for a subject, for it is the first and most universal form of all phenomena, t.e., of all idea ; he should therefore have distinctly denied objective existence to his thing-in-itself, which would have saved him from a great inconsistency that was soon discovered. The Platonic Idea, on the otlier hand, is necessarily object, something known, an idea, and in that respect is different from the thing-in-itself, but in that respect only. It has merely laid aside the subordinate forms of the phenomenon, all of which we include in the principle of sufficient reason, or rather it has not yet assumed them ; but it has retained the first and most universal form, that of the idea in general, the form of being object for a subject. It is the forms

^ See for example, “Immanuel of Philosophy,** vol. vi. pp. S02-8 15 Kant, a Reminiscence, by Fr. Bouter- and 823. week,** p. 49, and Ruble’s “History

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 227

which are subordinate to this (whose general expression is the principle of sufficient reason) that multiply the Idea in particular transitory individuals, whose number is a matter of complete indifference to the Idea. The principle of sufficient reason is thus again the form into which the Idea enters when it appears in the knowledge of the subject as individual.

The particular thing that manifests itself in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason is thus only an indirect objectification of the thing-in-itself (which is the will), for between it and the thing-in-itself stands the Idea as the only direct objectivity of the will, because it has assumed none of the special forms of knowledge as such, except that of the idea in general, i.e., the form of being object for a subject.

Therefore it alone is the most adequate objectivity of the will or thing-in-itself which is possible; indeed it is the whole thing-in-itself, only under the form of the idea ; and here lies the ground of the great agreement between Plato and Kant, although, in strict accuracy, that of which they speak is not the same.

But the particular things are no really adequate objectivity of the will, for in them it is obscured by those forms whose general expression is the principle of sufficient reason, but which are conditions of the knowledge which belongs to the individual as such.

If it is allowable to draw conclusions from an impossible presupposition, we would, in fact, no longer know particular things, nor events, nor change, nor multiplicity, but would comprehend only Ideas, — only the grades of the objectification of that one will, of the thing-in-itself, in pure unclouded knowledge.

Consequently our world would be a nunc starts, if it were not that, as knowing subjects, we are also individuals, i.e., our perceptions come to us through the medium of a body, from the affections of which they proceed, and which is itself only concrete willing, objectivity of the will, and thus is an object among objects, and as such comes into the knowing consciousness in the only way in

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which an object can, through the forms of the principle

of sufficient reason, and consequently already presupposes,

and therefore brings in, time, and all other forms which that

principle expresses. Time is only the broken and piecemeal

view which the individual being has of the Ideas, which

are outside time, and consequently eternal. Therefore

Plato says time is the moving picture of eternity : auapo<i • 1 eiKwp KivrjTTj 0 'xpopo<i.

§ 33. Since now, as individuals, we have no other knowledge than that which is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and this form of knowledge excludes the Ideas, it is certain that if it is possible for us to raise ourselves from the knowledge of particular things to that of the Ideas, this can only happen by an alteration taking place in the subject which is analogous and corresponds to the great change of the whole nature of the object, and by virtue of which the subject, so far as it knows an Idea, is no more individual.

It will be remembered from the preceding book that knov^dge in general belongs to the objectification of will at its higher grades, and sensibility, nerves, and brain, just like the other parts of the organised being, are the expression of the will at this stage of its objectivity, and therefore the idea which appears through them is also in the same way bound to the service of will as a means attainment of its now

complicated (nroXvreXeaTepa) aims for sustaining a being of manifold requirements. Thus originally and according to its nature, knowledge is completely subject to the will, and, like the immediate object, which, by means of the application of the law of causality, is its starting-point, all knowledge which proceeds in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason remains in a closer or more distant relation to the will. For the individual finds his body as an object among objects, to all of which it is related and connected according to the principle

^ Cf. Chap. xxix. of Supplement.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 229

of sufficient reason. Thus all investigations of these relations and connections lead back to his body, and consequently to his will.

Since it is the principle of sufficient reason which places the objects in this relation to the body, and, through it, to the will, the one endeavour of the knowledge which is subject to this principle will be to find out the relations in which objects are placed to each other through this principle, and thus to trace their innumerable connections in space, time, and causality.

For only through these is the object interesting to the individual, i.e., related to the will Therefore the knowledge which is subject to the will knows nothing further of objects than their relations, knows the objects only so far as they exist at this time, in this place, under these circumstances, from these causes, and with these effects — in a word, as particular things ; and if all these relations were to be taken away, the objects would also have disappeared for it, because it knew nothing more about them.

We must not disguise the fact that what the sciences consider in things is also in reality nothing more than this ; their relations, the connections of time and space, the causes of natural changes, the resemblance of forms, the motives of actions, — thus merely relations.

Whai distinguishes science from ordinary knowledge is merely its systematic form, the facilitating of knowledge by'The cbmprehehsion'of IJI' ^ftrciilsjs in'TKe'uhive']^',' by means of the subordinationToiTconcepts, and the cbmpleteness of knowledge, which is . thjere^ attained All relation has itself only a relative existence ; for example, aiTbein^in time is also non-being; for time is only that by means of which opposite determinations can belong to the same thing ; therefore every phenomenon which is in time ^ain is not, for what separates ,its beginning from its^nd is only time, which is essentially a fleeting, inconstant, and relative thing, here called duration. But time is the most~universariorm~of all objects of the

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. in.

*3°

knowledge which is subject to the will, and the prototype of its other forms.

Knowledge now, as a rule, remains alvvnys siibordinate to the service of the will,_as indeed it originated for this "service, and grew, so Jo speak, to the will, as tlie head to the body;. '~Tn"the case of the brutes this subjection of knowledge to the will can never be abolished. In the case of men it can be abolished only in exceptional cases, which we shall presently consider more closely. This distinction between man and brute is outwardly expressed by the difference of the relation of the head to the body. In the case of the lower brutes both are deformed : in all brutes the head is directed towards the earth, where the objects of its will. .he ; even Th the higii^ specieT the head and the body are still far more one than in the case of man, w'hose head seems freely set upon his body, as if only carried by and not serving it. This human excellence is exhibited in the highest degree by tFe AipIIo of Belvedere ; the head oFTlTe i^d of the Muses, with eyes fixed on tlie far distance, stands so freely on his ^loulders that it seems wholly delivered ffbni' the body, and no more subject to its ca,res.

§ 34. the transition which we have referred to as possible, but yet to be regarded as only exceptional, from the common knowledge of particular things to the knowledge of the Idea, takes place suddenly ; for knowledge breaks free from the service of the will, by the subject ceasing to be merely individual, and thus becoming the pure will-less subject of knowledge, which no longer traces relations in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, but rests in fixed contemplation of the object presented to it, out of its connection with all others, and rises into it.

A lull explanation is necessary to make this clear, and the reader must suspend his surprise for a while, till he has grasped the whole thought expressed in this work, and then it will vanish of itself.

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 231

If, raised by the power of the mind, a man relinquishes the common way of looking at things, gives up tracing, under the guidance of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, their relations to each other, the final goal of which is always a relation to his own will ; if he thus ceases to consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of things, and looks simply and solely at the what ; if, further, he does not allow abstract thought, the concepts of the reason, to take possession of his consciousness, hut, instead of all this, gives the whole power of his mind to perception, sinks himself entirely in this, and lets his whole consciousness he filled with the quiet contemplation of the natural object actually present, whether a landscape, a tree, a mountain, a building, or whatever it may be ; inasmuch as he loses himself in this object (to use a pregnant German idiom), i.e., forgets even his individuality, his will, and only continues to exist as the pure subject, the clear mirror of the object, so that it is as if the object alone were there, without any one to perceive it, and he can no longer separate the perceiver from the perception, but both have become one, because the whole consciousness is filled and occupied with one single sensuous picture ; if thus the object has to such an extent passed out of all relation to something outside it, and the subject out of all relation to the will, then that which is so known is no longer the particular thing as such ; but it is the Idea, the eternal form, the immediate objectivity of the will at this grade ; and, therefore, he who is sunk in this perception is no longer individual, for in such perception the individual has lost himself; but he is p/rg._ will-less, painless, timeless subject of hrmoledae.

This, which in itself is so remarkable (which I well know confirms the saying that originated with Thomas Paine, Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qiCun pas), will by degrees become clearer and less surprising from what follows, It was this that was running in Spinoza’s mind when he wrote : Mem ccterna est, quatenus res sub ceternitatis specie

coneipU (Eth. V. pr. 31, Schol.)^ In snch contemplation the particular thing becomes at once the Idea of iia species, and the perceiving individual becomes vure suhject of knowl^e. The individual, as such, knows only ^particular things ; the pure subject of knowledge knows only Ideas. For the individual is the subject of knowledge in its relation to a definite particular manifestation of will, and in subjection to this.

This particular manifestation of will is, as such, subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms ; therefore, all knowledge which relates itself to it also follows the principle of sufficient reason, and no other kind of knowledge is fitted to be of use to the will but this, which always consists merely of relations to the object.

The knowing individual as such, and the particular things known by him, are always in some place, at some time, and are links in the chain of causes and effects. The pure subject of knowledge and his correlative, the Idea, have passed out of all these forms of the principle of sufficient reason : time, place, the individual that knows, and the individual that is known, have for them no meaning.

When an individual knower has raised himself in the manner described to be pure subject of knowledge, and at the same tim^has raised the observed object to the Platonic Idea, the world as idea appears complete and pure, and the full objectification of the. will takes place, for the Platonic Idea alone is its adequate olyectivity.

The Idea includes object and subject in like manner in itself, for they are its one form ; but in it they are absolutely of equal importance ; for as the object is here, as elsewhere, simply the idea of the subject, the subject, which passes entirely into the perceived object has thus become this object itself, for the whole consciousness is nothing but its per-

^ I also recommend the perusal of tiva^ m illustration of the kind of what Spinoza says in his Ethics knowledge we are considering, and (Book II., Prop. 40, Schol. 2, and very specially Prop. 29, Schol. ; prop. Book V., Props. 25-38), concerning 36, Schol., and Prop. 38, Demonst. et the cogniho ieriii generis, sive intui- SchoL

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OP ART. 233

fectly distinct picture. Now this consciousness constitutes the whole world m idea, for one imagines the whole of the Platonic Ideas, or grades of the objectivity of will, in their series passing through it. The particular things of all time and space are nothing but Ideas multiplied through the principle of sufficient reason (the form of the knowledge of the individual as such), and thus obscured as regards their pure objectivity.

When the Platonic Idea appears, in it subject and object are no longer to be distinguished, for the Platonic Idea, the adequate objectivity of will, the true world as idea, arises only when the subject and object reciprocally fill and penetrate each other completely ; and in the same way the knowing and the known individuals, as things in themselves are not to be distinguished.

For if we look entirelj away from the_ true wor/tf as idea, there rernajns nothing huWAe wwld as will. The will is the " in-itself ” of the Platonic Idea, which fully objectifies it; it is also the “in-itself” of the particular thing and of the individual that knows it, which objectify it incompletely.

As will, outside the idea and all its forms, it is one and the same in the object contemplated and in the individual, who soars aloft in this contemplation, and becomes conscious of himself as pure subject.

These two are, therefore, in themselves not difierent, for in themselves they are will, which here knows itself ; and multiplicity and difference exist only as the way in which this knowledge comes to the will, i.e., only in the phenomenon, on account of its form, the principle of sufficient reason.

Now the known thing, without me as the subject of knowledge, is just as little an object, and not mere will, blind effort, as without the object, without the idea, I am a knowing subject and not mere blind will This will is in itself, outside the idea, one and the same with mine : only in the world as ide^ whose form IS always at^least that of subject and object, we^^e separates as the known and the knowing individual,

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soon as knowledge, the world as idea, is abolished, there remains nothing "But mere will, blind effort TimTTt should receive^oBJectivity, become idea, supposes at once both subject and object; but that this should be pure, complete, and adequate objectivity of the will, supposes the object as Platonic Idea, free from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and the subject as tlie pure subject of knowledge, free from individuality and subjection to the will.

Whoever now, has, after the . manner, .referred to, become so absorbed and lost in the perception of nature that he only continues to exist as the pure knowing subject, becomes in this way directly conscious that, as siich, he is the condiLion, that is, the supporter, of the world a'SH all objective existence ; for this now shows itself as depFnctent. upon his existe.nc^^^^ Thus he draws nature into himself, so that he sees it to be merely an accident of his own being. In this sense Byron says —

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them ?

But how shall he who feels this, regaid ^urnself as absolutely transitory, in contrast to iinpeiishaole nature ? Such a man will rather be filled with the consciousness, which the tJpanisiiad of the Veda expresses : Hce omnes cr 'mturoB in iotum ego sum, ct prceter me aliud ens non est (Oupnekhat, L 122).^

§ 3 5. In order to gain a deeper insight into the nature of the world, it is absolutely necessary that we should learn to distinguish the will as thing-in-itself from its adequate objectivity, and also the different grades in which this appears more and more distinctly and fully, i.e., the Ideas themselves, from the merely phenomenal existence of these Ideas in the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the restricted method of knowledge of the individuaL We shall then agree with Plato when he

^ Of. Chap. XXX. of the Supplement.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 235

attributes actual being only to the Ideas, and allows only an illusive, dream-like existence to things in space and time, the real world for the individual. Then we shall understand how one and the same Idea reveals itself in so many phenomena, and presents its nature only bit by bit to the individual, one side after another.

Then we shall also distinguish the Idea itself from the way in which its manifestation appears in the observation of the individual, and recognise the former as essential and the latter as unessential. Let us consider this with the help of examples taken from the most insignificant things, and also from the greatest.

When the clouds move, the figures which they form are not essential, but indifferent to them ; but that as efastic vapour "they "are pressed ibgethef^ drifted along, spiread put,^ or torn asunder force of the wind ; this is their nature, the essence of the forces which objectify themselves in them, the Idea ; their actual forms are only for the individual observer.

To the brook that flows over stones, the eddies, the waves, the foam-flakes which it forms are indifferent and unessential ; but that it follows the attraction of gravity, and behaves as inelastic, perfectly mobile, formless, transparent fluid : this is its nature ; this, if known through ^erceptiorijjs its Id^; these accidental forms are only for us so long as we know as individuals.

The ice on the window-pane forms itself into crystals according to the laws of crystallisation, which reveal the essence of the force of nature that appears here, exhibit the Idea; but the trees and flowers which it traces on the pane are unessential, and are only there for us.

Wliat appears in the clouds, the brook, and the crystal is the weakest echo m that wnTwIiich appears more fully in the'ptahtrmore fully still in the bea-st, and_^nmat fijlly \r\ man., "^ut only the essential in all these grades of its objectification constitutes the Idea; on the other hand, its unfolding or development, because broken up in the forms of the principle of sufficient reason into a multiplicity of many236

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sided phenomena, is unessential to the Idea, lies merely in the kind of knowledge that belongs to the individual and has reality only for this. The same thing necessarily holds good of the unfolding of that Idea which is the completest objectivity of will. Therefore, the history, of the k^an race, the throng of events, the. change j>f times^ the multifajious forms of human life in different lands and countries, all this is only the accidental form orTHe"mamfeslati6n bf the Idea, does npt jelbng id* ^ Idea itself, in winch ^one lies the a,dequate objectivity , of the will, but on^ tojthe phenomenon which appears in the~knowiedge of the individual, and is just as foreign, unessential, a^d indifferent to the Idea itself a9--Jthe figures which they assume are to the clouds,, .the form of its eddies"ahd~ foam-flakes to the brook, or its trees and flowers to the ice.' ~

To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can distinguish between the will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation, the events of the world will have significance only so far as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves.

He will not believe with the vulgar that time may produce something actually new and significant ; that through it, or in it, something absolutely real may attain to existence, or indeed that it itself as a whole has beginning and end, plan and development, and in some way has for its final aim the highest perfecH^ faccbrdi^to their conception) of the last generation ol inan^ whose life is a brief thirty yeara.

Therefore he win just as little, with, Homerj. people a. whole Olympus mfh gods to^uide the,.eye.nts of time, as, with Ossian, he \mi take the forms of the. clouds for individual beijigs ; far^ hs we have said,.

Jbeth have just as much meaning as regafdsTHe^ Idea which appears in thenk In the manifold ibimsliTTiuman life and in the unceasing change of events, he will regard the Idea only as the abiding and essential, in which the will to live has its fullest objecTHE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 237

tivity, and which shows its different sides in the capacities, the passions, the^ errors and the excellences of the Imman race ; in self-interest, hatred, love, fear, boldness, frivolity, stnpidity, slyness, wit, genius, and sp forth, all oF whwh crowding together and combining in Idiousands of forms (mdivTduals), continually create, the.

Matory^of-the great and the little world, in which it is all the same yjligl^r they are ^t in motion by nuts or bj crowns.

Finally, he will find that in jibe wpr^^^ it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in all of which the same persons appear, with liSF intention, and with a like fate; the motives^ and mcidents are certainly different' Tn ^ch piece, but the spirit of the incidents is the same ; the actors in one piece know nothing pf the” incidents of another, although they performed in it themselves ; therefore, after all experience of former pieces.

Pantaloon has become no more agile dr generous, Tartaglia no more consci^lTdus^Bnghella'no rudre courageous, and Columblne nd'mdfe mddHt." ~

Sii^ose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain of causes and effects ; if the earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture all the greatest men, enlighteners of the world, ai^ heroes, tha^chance ^srioyed before they were ripe for their work ; then the great events thai''wduld have changed the Wstorj of the world and brought in periods of the highest culture aud enlightenment, but which the blindest chancej the most insignificant accident, hindered at the oi^et ; lastly, the splendid powers of great men, that would have ehfrcEed wEdTe' ^es jpf the world,, h JiF.which,, . either misle.d^ error or passion, or compelledjy^ necessity^they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or evpp '\yapted in play. If we saw all this, we would shudder and lament atJ^TThougETor'the lost' treasures of whole periods of the world. But the earth-spirit would smfle and say, “ Ihe source from v^ich the individuals and' their powers

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proceed is inexhaustible and uneixdiug as time and space; for, like these forms of all phenomena, they also are only pnenomena, visibility of the will. No finite measure can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished eternity is always open for the return of any event or work~tEal'~was"hippe3^1h the ^ud. In this worid of phenomena true loss is just as lil^ejpossible as true gain' Th£j^I alone is ; it is the thing in-itself, and the source _of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.” ^

§ 36. History follows the thread of events; it is pragmatic so far as it deduces them in accordance with the law of motivation, a law that determines the self-manifesting will wherever it is enlightened by knowledge. At the lowest grades of its objectivity, where it still acts without knowledge, natural science, in the form of etiology, treats of the laws of the changes of its phenomena, and, in the form of morphology, of what is permanent in them. This almost endless task is lightened by the aid of concepts, which comprehend what is general in order that we may deduce what is particular from it. Lastly, mathematics treats of the mere forms, time and space, in which the Ideas, broken up into multiplicity, appear for the knowledge of the subject as individual. All these, of which the common name is science, proceed according to the principle of sufficient reason in its different forms, and their theme is always the phenomenon, its laws, connections, and the relations which result from them. But what kind of knowledge is concerned with that which is outeide'ahS indejpendent of all relations, that which alone is really essential to the world, the true content of its j^ienomena^ that” wlu^ is subject to no ..changej_ and therefo£e is known jwith e^^ truth for all time, in^ a the /(ieos, which are the direct and adequate objec;

^ This last sentence cannot be uiiderstocKl without some acquaintanos with the next book.

THE PLATONIC IDEA ; THE OBJECT OF ART. 23^

tWity of the thing in-itself, the will ? We answer. Art. tiie work of genius. Tt* repeats or reproduces the eternal Ideas graspeT'tKi’ough pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all the phenomena of the world ; and according to what the material is in which it reproduces, it is sculpture or painting, poetry or music. Its one source is the knowledge ol Ideas ;”its~bhe“aTm' tlie communication of this knowledge.

While science, following the unresting and inconstant stream of tRe fourJoTd Torins ^ rea^n and consequent^ with eacTi~en3'"attarhe3r~sees further, and can never reach a final goal nor attain full satisiacEion^ny more than by running we can reach the place where the clouds touch the horizon; art, on the cbnCTSfy) at its goal Tor it plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream of the world’s course, and has it isolated before it.

And this particular thing," which in that stream was a small perishing part, becomes to art the representative of the whole, an equivalent of the endless multitude in space and time. It therefore pauses at this particular tliiiig^j^ the course of time stops ; the relations vanish for it ; only the essential, the Idea, is its object.

We may, therefore, accurately define it as the way of viewing things independent of the principle of sufficient reason, in opposition to the way of viewing them which proceeds in accordance with that principle, and which is the method of experience and of science. This last method of considering things may be compared to a line infinitely extended in a horizontal direction, and the former to a vertical line which cuts it at any point.

The method of viewing things which proceeds in accordance witli the~pnnciple of sufficienf reason is thh rational method^ and it alone is valid ^n3~of ”use in practical life and in science. The method whichAooks away from the content of this principle m the method of genius,, which is only validlin3~of use in art. The first is the method of Aristotle ; the second is, on the whole, that of Plato. The first is like

the mighty storm, that rushes along without beginning and without aim, bending, agitating, and carrying away everything before it; the second is like the silent sunbeam, that pierces through the storm quite unaffected by it The first is like the innumerable showering drops of the waterfall, which, constantly changing, never rest for an instant ; the second is like the rainbow, quietly resting on this raging torrent Only through the pure contemplation described above, wluch ends entirely in the olyectj can Ideas 1)6 comprehended ; and the nature of g^ius consists in pre-eminent capacity for such contemplation.

Now, as this requires that a man should entirely forget himself and the relations in which he stands, is simply the completest olgectivity, i.e., the objective ten-; dency of the mind, as opposed to the subjective, which is directed to one’s own self— in other words, to the wjH.

Thus genius is the faculty of continuing in the state of pure perception, of losing oneself in perception, and of enlisting in this service the knowledge which originally existed only for the service of the will; that is to say, genius is the power of leaving one’s own interests, wishes^ and afms entirely out of sight, thus of entirely renouncing one’s own personality for a time, so as to remain jpure knowing subject, clear vision of the world ; and this not merely at jiidmenfsTbuf'" for a sufficient lengfh~br time, and with sufficient consciousness, to enable one to reproduceT)ydefiberate ^rt what has thus been apprehended, and " to fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float ffiefore tlm rmhd.’* It is as if, when genius appears in an individual, a far larger measure of the power of knowledge falls to his lot than is necessary for the service of an individual will ; and this superfluity of knowledge, being free, now becomes subject purified from will, a clear mirror of the inner nature of the world.

This explains the activity, a.mounting even to disquietude, of inen of genius, for the present can seldom satisfy them, BecauseTt^ddes not fill their consciousness. This ^ives

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 241

them that restless aspiration, that unceasing desire for new things, and for the 'cohfempTaSoh of lofty things, and alsol^t longing that is hardly ever satisfied, for of simU^ M.4 pI.. like, stature, to whom theyjnight TOmmunicate themselves ; whilst the _common mortal, entirely filled and satisfied by the common present, ends in it, and finding everywhere his like, enjoys that peculiar

satisfaction in daily life that is denied to gehuisr'

Inaagination has rightly been recognised as an essential element of genius ; itjias sometimes even been regarded as identical with, it ; but this is a mistake. As the objects of genius are the eternal Ideas, the permanent, essential forms of the world and all its phenomena, and as the knowledge of the Idea is necessarily knowledge through perception, is not abstract, the knowledge of the genius would be limited to the Ideas of the objects actually present to his person, and dependent upon the chain of circumstances that brought these objects to him, if his imagination did not extend his horizon far beyond the limits of his actual personal existence, and thus enable him to construct the whole out of the little that conies into his own actual apperception, and so to let almost all possible scenes of life pass before him in his own consciousness. Further, the actual objects are ahnost always very imperfect copies of the Ideas expressed in them; therefore the man of genius requires imagination in order to see in things, not that which Nature has actually made, but that which she endeavoured to make, yet could not because of that conflict of her forms among themselves which we referred to in the last book. We shall return to this farther on in treating of sculpture. The imagination then extends the intellectual horizon of the man of genius beyond the objects which actually present themselves to him, both as regards quality and quantity Therefore extra,ordinary ^strength of imagination accpm p^ies, and is indeed a necessary condition, of genius But the converse does not hold, for strength of imagi242

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nation does not indicate genius ; on the contrary, men who have no touch of genius may have much Tniagihatiom “as it Ts possihle to consider a real o1[)jecr''m'iEwo opposite ways, purely objectively, the way of genius grasping its Idea, or in the common way, merely in the relations in which it stands to other objects and to one’s own will, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, it is also possible to perceive an imaginary object in both of these ways.

Regarded in the first way, it is a means to the knowledge of the Idea, the communication of which is the work of art; in the second case, the imaginary object is used to build castles in the air congenial to egotism and the individual humour, and which for the moment delude and gratify ; thus only the relations of the phantasies so linked together are known.

The man who indulges in such an amusement is a dreamer ; he will easily mingle those fancies that delight his solitude with reality, and so unfit himself for real life : perhaps he will write them down, and then we "ihaTT have the ordinary novel of every description, which entertains those who are like him and the public at large, for the readers imagine themselves in the place of the hero, and then find the story very agreeable.

The common mortal, that manufacture of Nature which she produces by the thousand every day, is, as we have said, not capable, at least not continuously so, of observation that in every sense is wholly disinterested, as sensuous contemplation, strictly so called, is. He can turn his attention to things only so far as they have some relation to his will, however indirect it may be. Since in this respect, which never demands anything but the knowledge of relations, the abstract conception of the thing is sufficient, and for the most part even better adapted for use; toe ordinary man does not linger long over the mere perception, does not fix his attention long on one olyect, but in all that is presented to him hastily seeks merely the concept under which it is to be brought.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 243

as the lazy man seeks a chair^ and then it interests him no furSier^ This is why he is so soon_ done with everyffiing, with works of art, objects of natural beauty^, and iudee3~e\^y where with the truly significant contenaplation of all the scenes^of life^ He does not linger ; only seeks to know his own way in life, together with all that might at any time become his way.

Thus he makes topographical notes in the widest sense; wer tlie consideration of life itself as such he waatt^'s no time.

The man of genius, on the other hand, whose excessive power of knowleii^e frees it at "times from the service of will, dwells on the consideration of life itself, strives to comprehend the Idea of each thing, hot iti" relations to other things; and in (Mng_this he often forgets t(^consider his own path in life, and therefore for the most part pursues it awkwardly enough, "^ile to the ordinary man his faculty of knowledge is a lamp to lighten his path, to the man of_ gerilus" Tt”is ' the s"un which reveals ' tlieTworld.

This^eat diversity in their way of looking at life soon becomes visible in the outward appearance both of the man of genius and of the ordinary mortal. The man in '^om genius lives and works is easily distinguishednjy his glance, which is both keen and steady j and Bears the stamp of perception, of contemplation. This is e^iiy seen from the hkenesses of the few men of genius whom Nature has produced here and there among countless millions.

OC the other hand, in the case of an ordinary man, the true object of his contemplation, what he is prying into, can be easily seen from his glance, if indeed it is not quite stupid and vacant, as is generally the case.

Therefore the expression of genius ia a face consists in^ffii^ that in it a decided predominance of knowledge over will is visible^ and _coasejquai3yfly__^^ also shows itself in it aTEnowledge that is entirely devoid of relation to wiU, i.e., fure Ictifiwmg. On the contrary, in ordinary countenances there is a predominant expression of wUl; and we see that knowledge only comes into activity under

Since the knowledge that pertains to genius, or the knowledge of Ideas, is that knowledge which does not follow the principle of sufficient reason, so, on the other hand, the knowledge which does follow that principle is that which gives us prudence and rationality in life, and which creates the sciences. Thus men of genius are affected with the deficiencies entailed in the neglect of tliis latter kind of knowledge.

Yet what I say in this regard is subject to the limitation that it only concerns them in so far as and while they are actually engaged in that kind of knowledge which is peculiar to genius ; and this is by no means at every moment of their lives, for the great though spontaneous exertion which is demanded for the comprehension of Ideas free from will must necessarily relax, and there are long intervals during wEiSi men of genius are placed in very much the same position as ordinary mortals, both as regards advantages and defi^hcies.

On this account the action of genius has always been regarded as an inspiration, as indeed the name indicates, as the action of a superhuman being distinct from the individual himself, and which takes jiossession of him only periodically.

The disinclination of men of genius to direct their attention to the content oTlHe principle of sufficient ri^son will first show itself, with regard to the ground of being, as dislike of mathematics; for its procedure is based upon the most universal form3"’bf the phenomenon space and time, which are themselves merely modes of the principle of sufficient reason, and is consequently precisely the opposite of that method of thought which seeks merely the content of the phenomenon, the Idea which expresses itself in it apart from all relations. The logical method of mathematics Ts 'hTsb”ahtag^ to genius, for it does not

satisfy but obstructs true insight, and presents merely a chain of conclusions in accordance with the principle of

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 245

the ground of knowing. The mental faculty upon which it makes the greatest claim is memory, for it is necessary to^cdllect aH lEe" eaiTlCT lpfd';^8itioi^'wlBi(^r^.rr^^^

Experience has also proved that men o^gr^t artistic genius have no faculty for mathematics j no man was ever very SistinguTsKed for both. Alfieri rektes that he was never able to understand the fourth proposition of Euclid. Goethe was const^tly reproached with his want of matbematical knowledge by.iljie ignprant op^- nents of his theory of colours.

Here certainly, where it wasTxoTa^quStibn^ calculation and measurement upon hypothetical data, but of direct knowledge by the understanding of causes and effects, this reproach was so utterly absurd and inappropriate, that by making it they have exposed their entire want of judgment, just as much as by the rest of their ridiculous arguments.

The fact that up to the present day, nearly half a century after the appearance of Goethe’s theory of colours, even in Germany the Newtonian fallacies still have undisturbed possession of the professorial chair, and men continue to speak quite seriously of the seven homogeneous rays of light and their different reirangibility, will some day be numbered among the great intellectual peculiarities of men generally, and especially of Germans.

From the same cause as we have referred to above, may be explained jthe equally well-known fact that, conversery, admirable mathematicians have very little susceptibility loF^fFs"br fine art.

Tliis is very naively expressed in the well-known anecdote of the French mathematician, who, after having read Racine’s " Tphigenia/’ shrugged his shoulders and asked, “ Quest ce que cela prouve ? ” Further, as quick comprehension of relations in accordance with the laws of causality and motivation is what specially constitutes prudence or sagacity, a prudent man, so far as and while ho is so, will not be a genius, and a man~oi~ genius, so far as and while he k so, wifl not 1^ a prudent man. Lastly, perceptive knowledge generally,

in the province of which the Idea always lies, is directly opposed to rational or abstract knowledge, which is guided by the principle of the ground of knowing. It is also well known that we seldom find great genius united with pre-emirient r^sonaWeness ; on the contrary, persons of genius are often subject to violent emotions and irrational p^sions.

But the ground of this is not weakhess of re^on, but partly unwonted energy of that whole phenomenon of will — the man of genius — which expresses itself through the violence of all his acts of will, and partly preponderance of the knowledge of perception through the senses and understanding over abstract knowledge, producing a decided tendency to the perceptible, the exceedingly lively impressions of which so far outshine colourless concepts, that they take their place in the guidance of action, which consequently becomes irrational.

Accordingly the impression of the present moment is very strong with such persons, and carries them away into unconsidered action, violent emotions and passions.

Moreover, since, in general, the knowledge of persons of genius has to some extent freed itself from the service of will, they will not in convers^ation think so much of the person they are addressing as o^ the tiling they are speaking about, which is vividly present to them ; and therefore they are likely to judge or~nmTate things too objectively for their own interests ; they will not pass over in silence what would more prudently be concealed, and so forth.

Finally, they are given to soliloquising, and in general may exhibit certein weaknesses which M^actually ^in to madness. It has often been remarked that there is a side at which genius and'~madness touch, and ,§.ven pj^s oyer into each other, and indeed poetical inspiration has been called a kind of rnadhess : insania, Horace calls it (^Od. iii. 4),

and Wi^and in the introduction to “ Oberon ” speaks of it as “ amiable madness.” Even Aristotle, as quoted by Seneca (De Trauq. Animi, 15, 1 6), 'is~fepbrte3rTo Tiave

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 247

said : Nullum magnum ingenium sine mxxtura dementia fuit. Plato expresses it in the fi^re of the dark cave, referred to above (De Eep. 7), when he says : “ Those who, ^tsidi^*^e"Sive, have seen the true junlij^ht and the things that have true being ^Ideas), cannot afterwards see groperly down in the cave, because their eyes are not accustomed^ to the darkness ; they cannot distinguish the shadows, and are jeered at fw thek mis^^ who have never left the cave and its shadows.” In the “ Phsedrus ” als^p. 317), he distinctly says that*^CTe ca!h he no true'poet without a certain madness ; in fact, (p. 3 2 7)7 that~ eveiy'" ohhappeairslmad who^recognises the eternal Ideas in fleeting thm^s. Cicero also quotes ; Tlegat enxm sine furore, ~15emocrltus, quemquam poetam magnum esse posse; quod idem dicit Plato (De Divin., i 37). And, lastly, Pope says —

“ Great wits to madness sure are near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

Especially instructive in this respect is Goethe's “ Torquato Tasso,” in which he shows us not only the suffering, the martyrdom of genius as such, but also how it cqn^ntly; passes into madness. Finally, the fact of the direct connectidn of genius and madness is established by the biographies oT^eat men oTgeniu^such m Eousseau, Byron, and Alfieii, and by anecdotes from the lives of others. On the other hand, I must mention thatj by a (Eligent search in lunatic asylums, I have found individual cases of patients who were unquestionably endowed with great talents, and whose genius distinctly appeared through their madness, which, however, had completely gained the upper hand. Now this cannot be ascribed to chance, for on the one hand the number of mad persons is relatively very small, and on the other hand a person of genius is a phenomenon which {s^rarhb^dnd all ordinary estimation, and only appears in nature as the greatest exception. It will be suMcient to convince us bnEis if we compare the

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number of really great men of genius that the whole of civilised Europe has produced, both in ancient and modern times, with the two hundred and fifty millions who are always living in Europe, and who change entirely every thirty years. In estimating the number of men of outstanding genius, we must of course only count those who have produced works which have retained through all time an enduring value for mankind.

I shall not refrain from mentioning, that I have known some persons of decided, though not remarkable, mental superiority, who also^ showed a slight trace of insanity.

It might seem from Ihfs that every advance of intellect beyond the ordinary mi^ure, as an abnormal development, disposes to madnera.. in the meantime, however, I will explain as briefly as possible my view of the purely intellectual ground of the relation between genius and madness, for this will certainly assist the explanation of the real nature of genius, that is to say, of that mental endowment which alone can produce genuine works of art. But this necessitates a brief explanation of madness itself.^

A clear and complete insight into the nature of madness, a correct and distinct conception of what constitutes the difference between the sane and the insane, has, as far as I know, not as yet been found. Neither reason nor understanding can be denied to madmen, for they talk and understand, and often draw very accurate conclusions ; they also, as a rule, perceive what is present quite correctly, and apprehend the connection between cause and effect. Visions, like the phantasies of delirium, are no ordinary symptom of madness : delirium falsifies perception, madness the thoughts. For the most part, madmen do not err in the knowledge of what is immediately ‘present; their raving always relates to what is absent and past, and only through these to their connection with what is present. Therefore it seems to me that

^ Cf. Chap. xxxi. of the Bupplement*

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 249

their malady specially concerns the memory; not indeed that memory fails them entirely, for many of them know a great deal by heart, and sometimes recognise persons whom they have not seen for a long time ; but rather that the thread of memory is broken, the continuity of its connection destroyed, and no uniformly connected recollection of the past is possible.

Particular scenes of the past are known correctly, just like the particular present ; but there are gaps in their recollection which they fill up with fictions, and these are either always the same, in which case they become fixed ideas, and the madness that results is called monomania or melancholy ; or they are always different, momentary fancies, and then it is called folly, fatuitas.

This is why it is so difficult to find out their former life from lunatics when they enter an asylum. The true and the false are always mixed up in their memory.

Although the immediate ^esenl; is correctly known, it becomes falsified through its fictitious connection with an imaginary past; they therefore regard themselves and others as identical with persons who exist only in their imaginary past ; they do not recognise some of their acquaintances at all, and thus while they perceive correctly what is actually present, they have only false conceptions of its relations to what is absent.

If the madness reaches a high degree, there is complete absence of memory, so that the madman is quite incapable of any reference to what is absent or past, and is only determined by the caprice of the moment in connection with the fictions which, in his mind, fill the past. In such a case, we are never for a moment safe frorn violence or murder, unless we constantly make the madman aware of the presence of superior force.

The knowledge of the madman has this in common with that of the brute, both are confined to the present What distinguishes them is that the brute has really no idea of the past as such, though the past acts upon it through the medium of custom, so that, for example, the dog

recognises its former master even after years, that is to say, it receives the wonted impression at the sight of him ; but of the time that has passed since it saw him it has no recollection. The madman, on the other hand, always carries about in his reason an abstract past, but it is a false past, which exists only for him, and that either constantly, or only for the moment.

The influence of this false past prevents the use of the true knowledge of the present which the brute is able to make. The fact that violent mental suffering or unexpected and terrible calamities should often produce madness, I explain in the following manner. AH such suffering is as an actual event confined to the present.

It is thus merely transitory, and is consequently never excessively heavy ; it ohTy Becomes unendurably great when it is lasting pain ; but as such it exists only in thought, and therefore lies in the^imo^.

If now such a sorrow, such painful knowledge or reflection, is so bitter that it becomes altogether unbearable, and the individual is prostrated under it, then, terrified Nature seizes upon madness as the last riioiirce of life ; ^e mind so fearfully tortured at once destroys ^e thread of its memory, fills up the gaps with fictions, and thus seeks refuge in madness from the mental suffering that exceeds "its strength, just'as we cut off fTmortified limb and replace it with a wooden one.

The distracted Ajax, King Lear, and Ophelia may be taken as examples ; for the creations of true genius, to which alone we can refer here, as universally known, are equal in truth to real persons ; besides, in this case, frequent actual ex^rience shows the same thing.

A faint analogy of this kind of transition from pain to madness is to be found in the way in which all of us often seek, as it were mechanically, to drive away a painful thought that suddenly occurs to us by some loud exclamation or quick movement — to turn ourselves from it, to distract our minds by force.

We see, from what has been said, that the madman has

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a true knowledge of what is actually present, and also of certain particulars of the past, but that he mistakes the connection, the relations, and therefore falls into error and talks nonsense. Now this is exactly the point at which he comes into contact with the man of genius ; for he also leaves out of sight the knowledge of the connection of things, since he neglects that knowledge of relations which conforms to the principle of sufficient reason, in order to see in things only their Ideas, and to seek to comprehend their true nature, which manifests itself to perception, and in regard to which one thinff represents its whole species, in which way, as Goethe says, one case is valid for a thousand. The particular object of his contemplation, or the present which is perceived by him with extraordinary vividness, appear in so strong a light that the other links of the chain to which they belong are at once thrown into the shade, and this gives rise to phenomena which have long been recognised as resembling those of madness. That which in particular given things exists only incompletely and weakened by modifications, is raised by the man of genius, through his way of contemplating it, to the Idea of the thing, to completeness : he therefore sees everywhere extremes, and therefore his own action tends to extremes ; he cannot hit the mean, he lacks soberness, and the result is what we have said. He knows the Ideas completely but not the individuals. Therefore it has been said that a poet may know mankind deeply and thoroughly, and may yet have a very imperfect knowledge of men. He is easily deceived^ and is a tool in the hands of the cmf^.

I 37. Genius, then, consists, according to our explanation, in the capacity for knowing, independently of the principle of sufficient reason, not individual things, which have their existence only in their relations, but the Ideas of such things, and of being oneself the correlative of the Idea, and thus no longer an individual, but the pure subject of knowledge. Yet this faculty must exist in all

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men in a smaller and different degree ; for if not, they would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of prodnHng~THe'm7 tTTiey would have no suscej^IHIity the beautifuTor the suBlime ; indeed, these words could have'no meaning for them.

We must therefore assume TEat there exists in all men this power of knowing the Idea^in things, and consequehtljrbFtianscending tKeir personality for the moment, unless indeed there are some nien who are ^paBIe^ of no aesthetic pleasure at alt THe man of gemuF^xcels ~ br3rnafy~ men onIy~hy possessing this kind of knowledge in a far higher degree and more continuously.

Thus, while under its influence he retains the presence of mind which is necessary to enable him to repeat in a voluntary and intentional work what he has learned in this manner ; and this repetition is the work of art. Through this he communicates to others the Idea he has grasped.

This Idea remains unchanged and the same, so that aesthetic pleasure is one and the same whether it is called forth by a work of art or directly by the contemplation of nature and life. The work of art is only a means of facilitating the knowledge in which this pleasure consists.

That the Idea comes to us more easily from the work of art than directly from nature and the real world, arises from the fact that the artist, who knew only the Idea, no longer the actual, has reproduced in his work the pure Idea, has abstracted it from the actual, omitting all disturbing accidents. The artist lets us see the wprM . through That he has these

eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things a^art from all their relations, is the gift of genius, is inborn ; but that he is able to lend us this gift, to let us see with his eyes, is acquired, and is the technical side of art. Therefore, after the account which 1 Have^^veiTiir the preceding pages of the inner nature of sesthetical knowledge in its most general outlines, the following more exact philogophical i^eatment of. the beautiful and the sublime will explain them both, in nature and in art, without separating

THE PLATONIC IDEA ; THE OBJECT OF ART. 253

them further.. First of all we shall consider what takes place in a man when he is affected by the beautiful and the sublime; whether he derives this emotion directly from nature, from life, or partakes of it only through the medium of art, does not make any essential, but merely an external, difference.

§ 38. In the sesthetical mode of contemplation we have found two insepatahle coTistituent parts — the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things ; and the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less svlject of htwwledge. The condition under which both these constituent parts appear always united was found to be the abandonment of the method of knowing which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and which, on the other hand, is the only kind of knowledge that is of value for the service of the wiU and also for science. Moreover we shall see that the pleasure which is produced by the contemplation of the beautiful arises from these two constituent parts, sometimes more from the one, sometimes more from the other, according to what the object of the sesthetical contemplation may be.

Aj^willing arises from want, therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish endsjit; yet~ for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten winch we denied^, Fur&er, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite ; the satisfactW" Is _ sti^ and scantily me^ured puii» But even the final satisfaction is itself only apparent; eveiy satisfied wish at onc^ mak^ room for a new one ; both are illusions ; the one is known^ to’’^e'‘^7''£K^ other not yet. No attainedr oTi^Je^of d(^e""can~ gn^astm^salis^^^ but merely a fleeting gratification ; it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may Be-proIongM tdl tlie morrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness 5 filled" "by our will, so long lis we are

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given np to the throng of desires mth their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we can never hiave "lasting happiness nor peaceT^TFls essentially all the same whe^er we pursue or flee, fear injury dr" seek enjoyment ; the care for the cdnstanE" demands of the wiU, in whatever form it maj~B^ contmualiy occumes "a^ sways the consciousness ; but without peace no true well-being is possible. The sub^ ject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the fivolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sTeve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus.

But when, some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, delivers knowledge from the slavery of the will, the attSafion is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relation to the will, and thus observes them without personal interest^ ^Kdut "subjectivity, purely objectively, gives itself entirely up to them so far as they are ideas, but not in so far as they are motives. Then all at once the' peace which we were always seeking, but which" always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord, and it is well with us. It is the painless state which Epicurus prized as the highes^t g;ood and as the state of the gods ; for we are for the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we keep the Sabbath'oT the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands still.

TSiit this is just the state which I described above as necessary for the knowledge of the Idea, as pure c(mtemplation, as sinking onesel£iii--perception. losing oneself in the "objec^fOTgetting all individuality, surrendering that Knd of knowledge \^ich follows the principle of suffiiJlSSTTcaibhy andcoffprehends. only f^ations^ the stale by meahsTpf’whii^i at once and inseparably the perceived parSculai thing is raised to the Idea of its whole species, ancflilie “knowing individual to the pure subject of willTHE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 255

Less knowledge, and aa such they are both taken out of bhe atream oftime and all other^elatiODs. It is then all one whether we see the sun set from the prMon 05.

EEe palace.

Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over willing, can produce this state under any circumstances. This is shown by those .admirable Dutch . artists who directed this purely objective perception to the most insignificant objects, and ^^blished a lasting monument of their objectivity and spiritual peace in their pictures of stUl life., which the aesthetic beholder does not look on without emotion ; for they present to him the peaceful still, frame of mind of the artist, free from will, which w^ ne^ed to contemplate such insignificant things so o^ectively, to observe them so attentively, and to repeat this perception so intelligently - and ^ the picture enables the onlbok^ fb participate in this state^ his emotion is often increased by the contrast between it and the un- ^iet frame of mind, disturbed by vehement willing, in which he finds himself. In the same spirit, landscapepainters, and particularly Kuisdael, have often painted very insignificant country scenes, which produce the sanw effect even more agreeahly,

AH this is accomplished by the inner power of an artistic nature alone ; but that purely objective disposition is facilitated and assisted from without by suitable objects, by the abundance of natural beauty which invites contemplation, and even presses itself upon us. Whenever it discloses itself suddenly to our view, it almost always succeeds in delivering us, though it may be only for a moment, from subjectivity, from the slavery of the will, and in raising us to the state of pure knowing. This is why the man who is tormented by passion, or want, or care, is so suddenly revived, cheered, and restored by a single free glance into nature : the storm of passion, the pressure of desire and fear, and all the miseries of willing are then at once, and in a marvellous manner,

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256

calmed and appeased. For at the moment at which, freed from the will, we give ourselves up to pure willless knowing, we pass into a world from which everything is absent that influenced our will and moved us so violently through it.

Tliis freeing of knowledge lifts us as wholly and entire^ away from alT that, as do sleep and dreams j happiness and unhappiness have disappeared ; we are no longer individual j the individual is fdrgoften ; we are only pure subject of knowledge ; we are only that <ww_eye of the world which looks out from jail knowing cre^ures, but which can become perfectly free from the service of will in man alone.

Thus all difl’erence of individuality so entirely disappears, that it is all the same whether the perceiving eye belongs to a mighty king or to a wretched beggar; for neither joy nor complaining can pass that boundary with us.

So near us always lies a sphere in which we escape from all our misSy ; hut wTib has^he strehgth'lo’cdhlinue Tong lu'ifT As soon as any mh^e relation to our wilT, to”our"peTsoni even of these objects of our pure contemplation, cbmes 8^am into consciousness, the magic is at an end; we fall back into the Tcnowledge which is governed by the principle of sufficient reason ; we know no longer the Idea, but the particular thing, the link of a chain to which we also belong, and we are again abandoned to all our woe.

Most men remain almost always at this standpoint because they entirely lack objectivity, i.e., genius. Therefore they have no pleasure in being alone with nature; they need con^any, or at least a book.

For their knowledge remains subject to their will ; they seek, therefore, in objects, only some relation to their will, and whenever they see anything that has no such relation, there sounds within them, like a ground bass in music, the constant inconsolable cry, “ It is of no use to me ; " thus in solitude the most beautiful surroundings have for them a desolate, dWk, strahge,"and hostile appearance.

Lastly; it is this bless^ness of will-less perception

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 257

which casts an enchanting glamour over the past and distant, and presents them to us in so fair a light by means of self-deception. For as we think of days long gone by, days in which we lived in a distant place, it is only the objects which our fancy recalls, not the subject of win, which bore about with it then its incurable sorrows just as it bears them now ; but they are forgotten, because since then they have often given place to others. Now, objective perception acts with regard to what is remembered just as it would in what is present, if we let it have influence over us, if we suiTendered ourselves to it free from wiU. Hence it arises that, especially when we are more than ordinarily disturbed by some want, the remembrance of past and distant scenes suddenly flits across our minds like a lost paradise. The fancy recalls only what was objective, not what was individually subjective, and we imagine that that objective stood before us then just as pure and undisturbed by any relation to the will as its image stands in our fancy now; while in reality the relation of the objects to our will gave us pain then just as it does now. We can deliver ourselves from all suffering just as well through present objects as through distant ones whenever we raise ourselves to a purely objective contemplation of them, and so are able to bring about the illusion that only the objects are present and not we ourselves. Then, as the pure subject of knowledge, freed from the miserable self, we become entirely one with these objects, and, for the moment, our wants are as foreign to us as they are to them. The world as idea alone remains, and ttm world as. wilLbas disa^earedT

In all these reflections it has been my object to bring out clearly the nature and the scope of the subjective element in aesthetic pleasure ; the deliverance of knowledge from the service of the will, the forgetting of self as an individual, and the raising of the consciousness to the pure will-less, timeless, subject of knowledge, indeisS TUB WOULD AS IDEA. BK. ill.

pendent of all relations. With this subjective side of aesthetic contein^afion, there must always appear as its necessary correlative the objective side, the intuitive comprehension of the Platonic Idea. But before we turn to the closer consideration of this, and to the achievements of art in relation to it, it is better that we should pause for a little at the subjective side of sesthetic pleasure, in order to complete our treatment of this by explaining the impression of the sublime which depends altogether upon it, and arises from a modification of it. After that we shall complete our investigation of eesthetic pleasure by considering its objective side.

But we must first add the following remarks to what has been said. Light is the pleasantest and most gladdening of things ; it has become the symbol of all that is good and salutary. In all religions it symbolises salvation, while darkness symbolises damnation. Ormuzd dwells in the purest light, Ahrimines in eternal night. Dante’s Paradise would look very much like Vauxhall irTTohdon, for alT the LTessed spirits appear as points of light and arrange themselves in regular figures. The very^ahsence of light makes us sad ; its return cheers us. Colours excite directly a keen Helight, which reaches ifs highest degree when they^^ are transparent. All this dei^nds entirely upon the fact that light is the correlative and condition of the most perfect kind of knowledge of perception, the only knowledge which does not in any way affect the will. For sight, unlike the affections of the other senses, cannot, in itself, directly and through its sensuous effect, make the sensation of the special organ agreeable or disagreeable ; that is, it has no immediate connection with the wilL Such a quality can only belong to the perception which arises in the understanding, and then it lies in the relation of the object to the wilL In the case of hearing this is to some extent otherwise; sounds can give pain directly, and they may also be sensuously agreeable, directly and without regard to

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 259

harmony or melody. Touch, as one with the feeling of the whole body, is still more subordinated to this direct influence upon the will ; and yet there is such a, thing,, as, a sensation of touch which is neither painful nor pleasant. BuT^^ps are always either agreeable or. disagreeable, find tastes still more so.

Thus the last two senses are mosf closely related to the will, and therefore they are. always the most ignoble, and have been called by Kant fhe subjective senses.

The pleasure which we experience from light is in fact only the pleasure which arises from the objective possibility of the purest and fullest perceptive knowledge, and as such it may be traced to the fact that pure knowledge, freed and delivered from all will, is in the highest degree pleasant, and of itself constitutes a large part of aesthetic enjoyment.

Again, we must refer to this view of light the incredible beau^ which we associate with the reflection of objects in waiter.

That lightest, quickest, finest species of the action of bodies upon each other, that to which we owe by far the completest and purest of our perceptions, the action of reflected rays of light, is here brought cl^rly before our eyes, distinct and perfect, in cause and in effect, and indeed in its entirety, hence the aesthetic delight it gives us, "which, in the most important aspect, is entirely based on the subjective ground of aesthetic pleaisure, and is delight in pure knowing and its method.

§ 39. All these reflections are intended to bring out the subjective part of aesthetic pleasure ; that is to say, that pleasure so far as it consists simply of delight in perceptive knowledge as such, in opposition to will. And as directly connected with this, there naturally follows the explanation of that disposition or frame of mind which has been called the sense of the sublime.

We have already remarked above that the transition to the state of pure perception takes place most easily when the objects bend themselves to it, that is, when by their manifold and yet definite and distinct form they easily

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become representatives of their Ideas, in which beauty, in the objective sense, consists.

This quality belongs preeminently to natural beauty, which thus afl'ords even to the most insensible at least a fleeting aesthetic satisfaction : indeed it is so remarkable how especially the vegetable world invites aesthetic observation, and, as it were, presses itself upon it, that one might say, that these advances are connected with the fact that these organisms, unlike the bodies of animals, are not themselves immediate objects of knowledge, and therefore require the assistance of a foreign intelligent individual in order to rise out of the world of blind will and enter the world of idea, and that thus they long, as it were, for this entrance, that they may attain at least indirectly what is denied them directly.

But I leave this suggestion which I have hazarded, and which borders perhaps upon extravagance, entirely undecided, for only a veiy intimate and devoted consideration of nature can raise or justify it.^ As long as that which raises us from the knowledge of mere relations subject to the will, to aisthetic contemplation, and thereby exalts us to the position of the subject of knowledge free from will, is this fittingness of nature, this significance and distinctness of its forms, on account of which the Ideas individualised in them readily present themselves to us ; so long is it merely beauty that affects us and the •sense of the beautiful that is excited.

But if these very objects whose significant forms invite us to pure contemplation, have a hostile relation to the human will in general, as it exhibits itself in its objectivity, the human body, if they are opposed to it, so that it is menaced by the irresistible predominance of their power, or sinks into insignificance before their immeasurable

^ 1 am all the more delighted and varias^ quibus mundl hujus visihilU astonished, forty yearjs after I so struct ura forniusa est^ senticndas timidly and hesitatingly advanced sensibus praelent ; ut^ pro eo quod this thought, to discover that it NOSSE non poasunt^ quasi innoteshas already been expressed by St. OERE veils videantur, — De civ, Dei^ Augustine ; Arbuata formas suaa xi^ 27.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 261

greatness; if, nevertheless, the beholder does not direct his attention to this eminently hostile relation to his will, but, although perceiving and recognising it, turns consciously away from it, forcibly detaches himself from his will and its relations, and, giving himself up entirely to knowledge, quietly contemplates those very objects that are so terrible to the will, comprehends only their Idea, which is foreign to all relation, so that he lingers gladly over its contemplation, and is thereby raised above himself, his person, his will, and all will : — in^ that case he is filled with the sense of the suhlime, he is in the state of spiritual exaltation, and therefore the object producing such a state is called sublime.

Thus what distinguishes the sense of the sublime from that of the beautiful is this : in the case of the beautiful, pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle, for the beauty of the object, i.e., that property which facilitates the knowledge of its Idea, has removed from consciousness without resistance, and therefore imperceptibly, the will and the knowledge of relations which is subject to it, so that what is left is the pure subject of knowledge without even a remembrance of will.

On the other hand, in the case of the sublime that state of pure knowledge is only attained by a conscious and forcible breaking away from the relations of the same object to the will, which are recognised as unfavourable, by a free and conscious transcending of the will and the knowledge related to it.

This exaltation must not only be consciously won, but also consciously retained, and it is therefore accompanied by a constant remembrance of will ; yet not of a single particular volition, such as fear or desire, but of human volition in general, so far as it is universally expressed in its objectivity the human body. If a single real act of will were to come into consciousness, through actual personal pressure and danger from the object, then the individual will thus actually influenced would at once

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gain the upper hand, the peace of contemplation would become impossible, the impression of the sublime w(mld be lost, because it yields to the anxiety, in which the effort of the individual to right itself has sunk every other thought. A few examples will help very much to elucidate this theory of the msthetic sublime and remove all doubt with regard to it; at the same time they will bring out the different degrees of this sense of the sublime.

It is in the main identical with that of the beautiful, with pure will-less knowing, and the knowledge, that necessarily accompanies it of Ideas out of all relation determined by the principle of sufficient reason, and it is distinguished from the sense of the beautiful only by the additional quality that it rises above the known hostile relation of the object contemplated to the will in general.

Thus there come to be various degrees of the sublime, and transitions from the beautiful to the sublime, according as this additional quality is strong, bold, urgent, near, or weak, distant, and merely indicated.

I think it is more in keeping with tlie plan of my treatise, first to give examples of these transitions, and of the weaker degrees of the impression of the sublime, although persons whose sesthetical susceptibility in general is not very great, and whose imagination is not very lively, will only understand the examples given later of the higher and more distinct grades of that impression ; and they should therefore confine themselves to these, and pass over the examples of the very weak degrees of the sublime that are to be given first.

As man is at once impetuous and blind striving of will (whose pole or focus lies in the genital organs), ami eternal, free, serene subject of pure knowing (whose pole is the brain) ; so, corresponding to this antithesis, the sun is both the source of light, the condition of the most perfect kind of knowledge, and therefore of the most delightful of things — and the source of warmth, the first condition of life, i.e., of all phenomena of will in its higher grades.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 263

Therefore, what warmth is for the will, light is for knowledge^ Light is the largest gemTin the crown ~of beauty, and has the most marked influence on the knowledge of every beautiful object Its presence is an indispen^]}!? condition of b^utyj'^^its favourable ^sposition increases the beauty of the most beautiful.

Architectural beauty more than any other object is enhanced by favourable light, though even the most insignificant things become through its influence most bea,utiful.

If, in the dead of winter, when all nature is frozen and stiff, we see the rays of the setting sun reflected by masses of stone, illuminating without warming, and thus favourable only to the purest kind of knowledge, not to the will ; the contemplation of the beautiful effect of the light upon t'Kese~"masses KEs us, as does all* beauty, into a state of pure ' knowing.

But, in this case, a certain transcending brthelhtefests of the will is needed to enable us to rise into the state of pure knowing, because there is a iamt fecoIIecHbn of the lack of warmth from these rays, that is, an absence of the principle of life ; there is a slight challenge to persist in pure knowing, and to refrain from aU willing, and therefore it is an example of a transition from the sense of the beautlTul to that of the sublime.

It is the faintest trace of the sublime in the beautiful ; and beauty itself is indeed present only in a slight degree. The following is almost as weak an example.

Let us imagine ourselves transported to a very lonely place, with unbroken horizon, under a cloudless sky, trees and plants in the perfectly motionless air, no animals, no men, no running water, the deepest silence. Such surroundings are, as it were, a call to seriousness and contemplation, apart from aU will and its cravings ; but this is just what imparts to such a scene of desolate stillness a touch of the sublime. For, because it afford.s no object, either favourable or unfavourable, for the will which is constantly in need of striving and attaining.

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there only remains the state of pure contemplation, and whoever is incapable of this, is ignominiously abandoned to the vacancy of unoccupied will, and the misery of ennui So far it is a test of our intellectual worth, of which, generally speaking, the degree of our power of enduring solitude, or our love of it, is a good criterion. The scene we have sketched affords us, then, an example of the sublime in a low degree, for in it, with the state of pure knowing in its peace and all-sufficiency, there is mingled, by way of contrast, the recollection of the dependence and poverty of the will which stands in need of constant action. This is the species of the sublime for which the sight of the boundless prairies of the Ulterior of North America is celebrated.

But let us suppose such a scene, stripped also of vegetation, and showing only naked rocks; then from the entire absence of that organic life which is necessary for existence, the will at once becomes uneasy, the desert assumes a terrible aspect, our mood becomes more tragic ; the elevation to the sphere of pure knowing takes place with a more decided tearing of ourselves away from the interests of the will ; and because we persist in continuing in the state of pure knowing, the sense of the sublime distinctly appears.

The following situation may occasion this feeling in a still higher degree : Nature convulsed by a storm ; the sky darkened by black threatening thunder-clouds ; stupendous, naked, overhanging cliffs, completely shutting out the view ; rushing, foaming torrents ; absolute desert ; the wail of the wind sweeping through the clefts of the rocks. Our dependence, our strife with hostile nature, our will broken in the conflict, now appears visibly before our eyes. Yet, so long as the personal pressure does not gain the upper hand, but we continue in aesthetic contemplation, the pure subject of knowing gazes unshaken and unconcerned through that strife of nature, through that picture of the broken will, and quietly comprehends

THE PLATONIC IDEA .• THE OBJECT OF ART. 265

the Ideas even of those objects which are threatening and terrible to the will. In this contrast lies the sense of the sublime.

But the impression becomes still stronger, if, when we have before our eyes, on a large scale, the battle of the raging elements, in such a scene we are prevented from hearing the sound of our own voice by the noise of a falling stream; or, if we are abroad in the storm of tempestuous seas, where the mountainous waves rise and fall, dash themselves furiously against steep cliffs, and toss their spray high into the air ; the storm howls, the sea boils, the lightning flashes from black clouds, and the peals of thunder drown the voice of storm and sea.

Then, in the undismayed beholder, the two-fold nature of his consciousness reaches the highest degree of distinctness.

He perceives himself, on the one hand, as an individual, as the frail phenomenon of will, which the slightest touch of these forces can utterly destroy, helpless against powerful nature, dependent, the victim ot chance, a vanishing nothing in the presence of stupendous might ; and, on the other hand, as the eternal, peaceful, knowing subject, the condition of the object, and, therefore, the supporter of this whole world ; the terrific strife of nature only his idea ; the subject itself free and apart from all desires and necessities, in the quiet comprehension of the Ideas.

This is the complete impression of the sublime. Here he obtains a glimpse of a power beyond all comparison superior to the individual, threatening it with annihilation.

The impression of the sublime may be prodvced in quite another way, by presenting a mere immensity in space and time ; its immeasurable greatness dwindles the individual to nothing. Adhering to Kant’s nomenclature and his accurate division, we may call the first kind the dynamical, and the second the mathematical sublime, although we entirely dissent from his explanation of the inner nature of the impression, and can allow no share

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in it either to moral reflections, or to hypostases from scholastic philosophy.

If we lose ourselves in the contemplation of the infimte~gf^tness” of the universe in space and time, meditate ^nTthe thousands of yearsjbhat are past or to come, dr if the heavens at night actually bring before our eyes innumerable worlds and so force upon our consciousness the immensity of the universe, we feel ourselves dwindle to nothing; as individuals, as living bodies, as transient phenomena of will, we feel ourselves pass away and vanish jnto nothing like drops in the ocean.

But at once there rises against this ghost of our own nothingness, against such lying impossibility, the immediate consciousness that all these worlds exist only as our idea, only as modifications of the eternal su^^t of pure knowing, which we find ourselves to be as soon as we forget our individuality, and which is the necessary supporter of all worlds and all times the condition of their possibility.

The vastness of the world which disquieted us before, rests now in us ; our dependence upon it is annulled by its dependence upon us. All this, however, does not come at once into reflection, but shows itself merely as the felt consciousness that in some sense or other (which philosophy alone can explain) we are one with the world, and therefore not ©i^fesied', hut exalted by its immensify!

It Ts"~the felt consciousness of this that the Upanishads of the Vedas repeatedly express in such a multitude of different ways ; very admirably in the saying already quoted : lice omnes cHaturce in totum ego sum, et •prceter me aliud ens non est (Oupnek’hat, vol. i. p. 122.) It is the transcending of our own individuality, the sense of the sublime.

" We receive this impression of the mathematical-sublime, quite directly, by means of a space which is small indeed as compared with the world, but which has become directly perceptible to us, and affects us with its whole extent in all its three dimensions, so as to make our own

THE PLATONIC IDEA . THE OBJECT OF ART. 267

body seem almost infinitely small. An empty space can never be thus perceived, and therefore never an open space, but only space that is directly perceptible in all its dimensions by means of the limits which enclose it; thus for example a very high, vast dome, like that of St. Peter’s at Borne, or St. Paul’s in Londori. The sense of the sublime here arises through the consciousness of the vanishing nothingness of our own body in the presence of a vastness which, from another point of view, itself exists only in our idea, and of which we are as knowing subject, the supporter. Thus here as everywhere it arises from the contrast between the insignificance and dependence of ourselves as individuals, as phenomena of will, and the consciousness of ourselves as pure subject of knowing. Ev^ the vault of the sten-y heaven produces this if it is contemplated without reflection ; but just in the same way as the vault of stone, and only by its apparent, not its real extent. Some objects of our perception excite in us the feeling of the sublime because, not only on account of their spatial vastness, but also of their great age, tliat is, their temporal duration, we feel ourselves dwarfed to insignificance in their presence, and yet revel in the pleasure of contemplating them : of this kind are very high mountains, the Egyptian pyramids, and colossal rums of great antiq^uity.

Our explanation of the sublime applies also to the ethical, to what is called the sublime character. Such a character arises from thisj "that the 'will is hot excited Ejr objects which are well calculated to excite it, but that knowledge retains the” upper hand in their presence. ^ man ^ si^lime character will accordingly consider men in a purely objective way, and not' with reference^ to the relations which they might have to his will ; he will, for e.xample, observe their faults, even .their, hatred and injustice to himself, without being himsglf excited to hatred; he will behold their happiness without envy ; he will recognise their good q^ualities without desiring any

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closei relations with them ; he will perceive the, beauty of women, ¥ut he will not desire His personal

happiness or unhappiness will not ^eatly affect him, he will rather be as Hamlet describes Horatio : —

“ . . . for thou h.ast been,

As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ;

A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks,” &c. (A, 3. Sc. 2.)

For in the course of his own life and its misfortunes, he wil]_consider less his individual lot than that of humanity mgener^ and wiU therefore conduct himself in its regard, rather as knowing than as suffering.

§ 40. Opposites throw light upon each other, and therefore the remark may be in place here, that the proper opposite of the sublime is something which would not at the first glance be recognised, as such : the charming or aUractive. By this, however, I understand, that which excites the will by presenting to it directly its fulfilment, its satisfaction. We saw that the feeling of the sublime arises from the fact, that something entirely unfavourable to the will, becomes the object of pure contemplation, so that such contemplation can only be maintained by persistently turning away from the will, and transcending its interests ; this constitutes the suMmity of th^character. The charming or attractive, on the contrary, draws the beholder away from the pwe contemplation which is demanded by all apprehension^ 9f..the beautiful, because it necessarily excites this will, by b^e'cts which directly appeal to it, and thus he no longer remains pure subject of Knowing, but becomes the needy and dependent subject of will. That every beautiful thing which is bright or cheering should be called charming, is the result of a too general concept, which arises from a want of accurate discrimination, and which I must entirely set aside, and indeed condemn. But in the sense of the word which has been given and explained, I

THE PLATONIC IDEA ; THE OBJECT OP ART. 269

find only two species of the charming or attractive in the province of art, and both of them are unworthy of it.

The one species, a very low one, is found in JDuteh paintings of still life^ when they err by represen^g articles of foodp which by their deceptive likeness necessarily ^m{e~~tE?^appetite for the things they represent, and thw IS j^t ^excitement of the wiU, which jpute an end to all aesthetic contemplation of the object Fainted ^uir is yet admissible, because we may regard it as the further development of the flower, and as a beautiful product of nature in form and colour, without being obliged to think of it as eatable ; but unfortunately we often find, represented with deceptive naturalness, prepared and served dishes, oysters, herrings, crabs, bread and butter, beer, wine, and so forth, which is altogether to be condemned.

In historical painting and in sculpture the charming consists in naked figures, whose position, drapery, and general treatpaient are ^Iculated to excite the passions of the beholder, and thus pure aesthetical contemplation is at once annihilated, and the aim of art is defeated. This mistake corresponds exactly to that which we have just censured injyiie Dutch paintings.

The ancients are almost always free from this Tault in their ~represehtatidns of beauty and complete nakedness of form, because the artist hiins^elF cfealeir them lh a purely objective spirit, filled with ideal beauty, not in the spirit of subjective, and base sensuality. The^ chafmmg is thus eveiywhere to be avoided in art.

’There is also a negative species of the charming or exciting which is even more reprehensible than the positive form which has been discussed ; this is the disgusting or the loathsome. It arouses t^ will of the beholder. just as what is properly speaking charming, and therefore, disturbs pure aesthetic contemplation. But it is ^ active aversion and opposition which is excited by it : it arouses the will by presenting to it objects which it abhpra. Therefore it hiis always keen recognised that it is

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altogether inadmissible in art, where even what is ugly, when it IS noF dis^sting, is allowable in its proper place, as we shall see later.

I 41. The course of the discussion has made it necessary to insert at this point the treatment of the sublime, though we have only half done with the beautiful, as we have considered its subjective side only. For it was merely a special modification of this subjective side that distinguished the beautiful from the sublime.

This difference was found to depend upon whether the state of pure will-less knowing, which is presupposed and demanded by all aesthetic contemplation, was reached without opposition, by the mere disappearance of the will from consciousness, because the object invited and drew us towards it; or whether it was only attained through the free, conscious transcending of the wiU, to which the object contemplated had an unfavourable and even hostile relation, which would destroy contemplation altogether, if we were to give ourselves up to it.

This is the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. In the object they are not essentially different, for in every case the object of sesthetical contemplation is not the individual thing, but the Idea in it which is striving to reveal itself ; that is to say, adequate objectivity of will at a particular grade.

Its necessary correlative, independent, like itself of the principle of sufficient reason, is the pure subject of knowing ; just as the correlative of the particular thing is the knowing individual, both of which lie within the province of the principle of sufficient reason.

When we say that a thing is beautiful, we thereby assert that it is an object of our aesthetic contemplation, and this has a double meaning; on the one hand it means that the sight of the thing makes us directive, that is to say, that in contemplating it we are no longer conscious of ourselves as individuals, but as pure will-less subjects of knowledge ; and on the other hand it means that we recognise in the object, not the particular thing,

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 271

but an Idea ; and this can only happen, so far as our contemplation of it is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, does not follow the relation of the object to anything outside it (which is always ultimately connected with relations to our own will), but rests in the object itself.

For the Idea and the pure subject of knowledge always appear at once in consciousness as necessary correlatives, and on their appearance all distinction of time vanishes, for they are both entirely foreign to the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and lie outside the relations which are imposed by it ; they may be compared to the rainbow and the sun, which have no part in tlie constant movement and succession of the falling drops.

Therefore, if, for example, I contemplate a tree aesthetically, i.e., with artistic eyes, and thus recognise, not it, but its Idea, it becomes at once of no consequence whether it is this tree or its predecessor which flourished a thousand years ago, and whether the observer is this individual or any other that lived anywhere and at any time; the particular thing and the knowing individual are abolished with the principle of sufficient reason, and there remains nothing but the Idea and the pure subject of knowing, which together constitute the adequate objectivity of will at this grade.

And the Idea dispenses not only with time, but also with space, for the Idea proper is not this special form which appears before me but its expression, its pure significance, its inner being, which discloses itself to me and appeals to me, and which may be quite the same though the spatial relations of its form be very different.

Since, on the one hand, every given thing may bo observed in a purely objective manner and apart from all relations ; and since, on the other hand, the will manifests itself in everything at some grade of its objectivity, so that everything is the expression of an Idea ; it follows that everything is also heaviiful. That even the most insignificant things admit of pure objective and

372 THE WORLD .45 IDEA. BK. ill.

will-lesa contemplation, and thus prove that they are beautiful, is shown by what was said above in this reference about the Dutch pictures of still-life (§ 38). But one thing is more beautiful than another, because it makes this pure objective contemplation easier, it lends itself to it, and, so to speak, even compels it, and then we call it very beautiful.

This is the case sometimes because, as an individual thing, it expresses in its purity the Idea of its species by the very distinct, clearly defined, and significant relation of its parts, and also fully reveals that Idea through the completeness of all the possible expressions of its species united in it, so that it makes the transition from the individual thing to the Idea, and therefore also the condition of pure contemplation, very easy for the beholder.

Sometimes this possession of special beauty in an object lies in the fact that the Idea itself which appeals to us in it is a high grade of the objectivity of will, and therefore very significant and expressive. Therefore it is that man is more beautiful than all other objects, and the~revelatioh ' of his nature is the highest aim of, art.

Human form and expression are the most important objects of plastic art, and human action the most important object of poetry. Yet each thing has its own peculiar beauty, not only every organism which expresses itself in the unity of an individual being, but also everything unorganised and formless, and even every manufactured article.

For all these reveal the Ideas through which the will objectifies itself at it lowest grades, they give, as it were, the deepest resounding bass-notes of” nature. Gravity, rigidity, fluidity, light, and so forth, are the Ideas which express themselves in rocks, in buildings, in waters.

Landscape-gardening or architecture can do no more than assist them to unfold their qualities distinctly, fuUy, and variously ; they can only give them the opportunity of expressing themselves purely, so that they lend themselves to sesthetic contemplation and make it easier.

Inferior buildings or ill-favoured localities, on the contrary, which nature has neglected or art has spoiled, perform this task in a very slight degree or not at all ; yet even from them these universal, fundamental Ideas of nature cannot altogether disappear.

To the careful observer they present themselves here also, and even barf buildings and the like are capable of being sestheticaUy considered ; the Ideas of the most universal properties of their materials are still recognisable in them, only the artificial form which has been given them does not assist but hinders aesthetic contemplation.

Manufactured articles also serve to express Ideas, only it is not the Idea of the manufactured article which speaks in them, but the Idea of the material to which this artificial form has been given.

This may be very conveniently expressed in two words, in the language of the schoolmen, thus, — the manufactured article expresses the Idea of its forma suistantialis, but not that of its forma acddentalis ; the latter leads to no Idea, but only to a human conception of which it is the result. It is needless to say that by manufactured article no work of plastic art is meant.

The schoolmen understand, in fact, by forma substantialis that which I call the grade of the objectification of will in a thing. We shall return immediately, when we treat of architecture, to the Idea of the material. Our view, then, cannot be reconciled with that of Plato if he is of opinion that a table or a chair express the Idea of a table or a chair (De Eep., x., pp. 284, 285, et Parmen., p. 79, ed.

Bip.), but we say that they express the Ideas which are already expressed in their mere material as such. According to Aristotle (Metap. xi., chap. 3), however, Plato himself only maintained Ideas of natural objects : 6 IlXaTWP on ei8rj eanv oiroira tpvaei {Plato dvcii, qytad, idece eorum mnt, gwe natwra sutW), and in chap. 5 he says that, according to the Platonists, there are no Ideas of house and ring. In any case, Plato’s earliest disciples, as Alcinous informs us (Intro274

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ductio in Platonicam Fhiloso2^hiam, chap. 9), denied that there were any ideas of manufactured articles. He says : 'Opi^ovrai Be Ttjv iBeav, irapaBeiyfJ.a rwv Kara <f)vcnp auaviov. Ovre yap TOi? irkeicrToi^ rtuv airo IIXar(ovo<i apetTKei, rtov re^^viKtov eivat iBeaif, oiov a(nnBo<i rj \vpa<i, ovre p,r]v ra>v irapa ^vcriv, oiov Trvperov Kai ovre rwv kutu p.epo<;, oiov SioKparov} kul UXaron/o?, aW’ ovre todv evTeXtov riva, oiov pxmov xai Kap<f>ov'i, ovre Ttvv irpot ri, ciov pei^ovot Kai UTrepe^oi'TO?' eivai yap Ta<} iBea<: voi)aei<} deov aiioviovt re Kai avroreXei^ {Dejiniunt autem ideam exemplar ceternum eonini, quae secundum naturam existunt. Nam plurimis ex iis, qui Platonem secuti sunt, minime placuit, arte factorum ideas esse, ut clypei atque lyrce ; neque rursus eorum, quce prceter naturam, ut febris et cholerm, neque particularium, ceu Socratis et Platonis ; neque etiam rerum, mlium, veluti sordium et festucce ; neque relationum, ut majoris et excedentis : esse namque ideas intellectiones dei cetemas, ac seipsis perfectas). We may take this opportunity of mentioning another point in which our doctrine of Ideas differs very much from that of Plato. He teaches (De Rep., X., p. 288) that the object which art tries to express, the ideal of painting and poetry, is not the Idea but the particular thing. Our whole exposition hitherto has maintained exactly the opposite, and Plato’s opinion is the less likely to lead us astray, inasmuch as it is the source of one of the greatest and best known errors of this great man, his depreciation and rejection of art,_and especiaUy poetry : he directly connects his false judgment in reference to this with the passage quoted.

§ 42. I return to the exposition of the aesthetic impression. The knowledge of the beautiful always supposes at once and inseparably the pure knowing subject and the known Idea as object.

Yet the source of aesthetic satisfaction will sometimes lie more in the comprehension of the known Idea, sometimes more in the blessedness and spiritual peace of the pure knowing subTHE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 275

ject freed from all willing, and therefore from all individuality, and the pain that proceeds from it. And, indeed, this predominance of one or the other constituent part of aesthetic feeling will depend upon whether the intuitively grasped Idea is a higher or a lower grade of the objectivity of will.

Thus in aesthetic contemplation (in the real, or through the medium of art) of the beauty of nature in the inorganic and vegetable worlds, or in works of architecture, the pleasure of pure wdl-less knowing will predominate, because the Ideas which are here apprehended are only low grades of the objectivity of will, and are therefore not manifestations of deep significance and rich content.

On the other hand, if animals and man are the objects of aesthetic contemplation or representation, the pleasure will consist rather in the comprehension of these Ideas, which are the most distinct revelation of will; for they exhibit the greatest multiplicity of forms, the greatest richness and deep significance of phenomena, and reveal to us most completely the nature of will, whether in its violence, its terribleness, its satisfaction or its aberration (the latter in tragic situations), or finally in its change and self-surrender, which is the peculiar theme of Christian painting ; as the Idea of the will enlightened by full knowledge is the object of historical painting in general, and of the drama.

We shall now go through the fine arts one by one, and this will give completeness and distinctness to the theory of the beautiful which we have advanced.

§ 43. Matter as such cannot be the expression of an Idea. For, as we found in the first book, it is throughout nothing but casuaUty: its being consists in its casual action. But casuality is a form of the principle of sufficient reason ; knowledge of the Idea, on the other hand, absolutely excludes the content of that principle. We also found, in the second book, that matter is the common substratum of all particular phenomena of the Ideas, and consequently is the connecting link between

276 THE WORLD AS IDEA. bk. in

the Idea and the phenomenon, or the particulai thing. Accordingly for both of these reasons it is impossible that matter can for itself express any Idea.

This is confirmed a posteriori by the fact that it is impossible to have a perceptible idea of matter as such, but only an abstract conception ; in the former, i.e., in perceptible ideas are exhibited only the forms and qualities of which matter is the supporter, and in all of which Ideas reveal themselves.

This corresponds also with the fact, that casuality (the whole essence of matter) cannot for itself be presented perceptibly, but is merely a definite casual connection. On the other hand, every phenomenon of an Idea, because as such it has entered the form of the principle of sufficient reason, or the principium imlividuationis, must exhibit itself in matter, as one of its qualities.

So far then matter is, as we have said, the connecting link between the Idea and t\ie principium individuationis, which is the form of knowledge of the individual, or the principle of sufficient reason. Plato is therefore perfectly right in his enumeration, for after the Idea and the phenomenon, which include all other things in the world, he gives matter only, as a third thing which is different from both (Tiraaus, p. 345).

The individual, as a phenomenon of the Idea, is always matter. Every quality of matter is also the phenomenon of an Idea, and as such it may always be an object of {esthetic contemplation, i.e., the Idea expressed in it may always be recognised. This holds good of even the most universal qualities of matter, without which it never appears, and which are the weakest objectivity of will. Such are gravity, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity, sensitiveness to light, and so forth.

If now we consider architecture simply as a fine art and apart from its application to useful ends, in which it serves the will and not pure knowledge, and therefore ceases to be art in our sense; we can assign to it no other aim than that of bringing to greater distinctness

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 377

some of those ideas, which are the lowest grades of the objectivity of will; such as gravity, cohesion, rigidity, hardness, those universal qualities of stone, ^ose^first, simple^, most inarticulate manifestations of will ; the baas notes of nature ; and after these ligh^ which in many rejects is their opposite.

Even at these low grades of the objectivity of will we see its nature revealing itself in discord ; for properly speaking the conflict between gravity and rigidity is the sole aesthetic material of architecture ; its problem is to make this conflict appear with perfect distinctness in a multitude of different ways.

It solves it by depriving these indestructible forces of the shortest way to their satisfaction, and conducting them to it by a circuitous route, so that the conflict is lengthened and the inexhaustible efforts of both forces become visible in many different ways.

The whole mass of the building, if left to its original tendency, would exhibit a mere heap or clump, bound as closely as possible to the earth, to which gravity, the form in which the will appears here, continually presses, while rigidity, also objectivity of will, resists. But this very tendency, this effort, is hindered by architecture from obtaining direct satisfaction, and only allowed to reach it indirectly and by roundabout ways.

The roof, for example, can only press the earth through columns, the arch must support itself, and can only satisfy its tendency towards the earth through the medium of the pillars, and so forth.

But just by these enforced digressions, just by these restrictions, the forces which reside in the crude mass of stone unfold themselves in the most distinct and multifarious ways ; and the purely sesthetic aim of architecture can go no further than this.

Therefore the beauty, at any rate, of a building lies in the obvious adaptation of every part, not to the outward arbitrary end of man (so far the work belongs to practical architecture), but directly to the stability of the whole, to which the position, dimensions, and form of every part must have so

necessary a relation that, where it is possible, if any one part were taken away, the whole would fall to pieces.

For just because each part hears just as much as it conveniently can, and each is supported just where it requires to be and just to the necessary extent, this opposition unfolds itself, this conflict between rigidity and gravity, which constitutes the life, the manifestation of will, in the stone, becomes completely visible, and these lowest grades of the objectivity of will reveal themselves distinctly.

In the same way the form of each part must not be determined arbitrarily, but by its end, and its relation to the whole. The column is the simplest form of support, determined simply by its end: the twisted column is tasteless ; the four-cornered pillar is in fact not so simple as the round column, though it happens that it is easier to make it.

The forms also of frieze, rafter, roof, and dome are entirely determined by their immediate end, and explain themselves from it. The decoration of capitals, fee., belongs to sculpture, not to architecture, which admits it merely as extraneous ornament, and could dispense with it.

According to what has been said, it is absolutely necessary, in order to understand the sesthetic satisfaction afforded by a work of architecture, to have immediate knowledge through perception of its matter as regards its weight, rigidity, and cohesion, and our pleasure in such a work would suddenly be very much diminished by the discovery that the material used was pumice-stone ; for then it would appear to us as a kind of sham building.

We would be affected in almost the same way if we were told that it was made of wood, when we had supposed it to be of stone, just because this alters and destroys the relation between rigidity and gravity, and consequently the significance and necessity of all the parts, for these natural forces reveal themselves in a far weaker degree in a wooden building.

Therefore no real work of architecture as a fine art can be made of wood, although it assumes all forms so easily ; this can only be

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OP ART. 279

explained by our theory. If we were distinctly told that a building, the sight of which gave us pleasure, was made of different kinds of material of very unequal weight and consistency, but not distinguishable to the eye, the whole building would become as utterly incapable of affording us pleasure as a poem in an unknown language. All this proves that architecture does not affect us mathematically, but also dynamically, and that what speaks to us through it, is not mere form and symmetry, but rather those fundamental forces of nature, those first Ideas, those lowest grades of the objectivity of will. The regularity of the building and its parts is partly produced by the direct adaptation of each member to the stability of the whole, partly it serves to facilitate the survey and comprehension of the whole, and finally, regular figures to some extent enhance the beauty because they reveal the constitution of space as such. But all this is of subordinate value and necessity, and by no means the chief concern; indeed, symmetry is not inwii^ly"geTnanded. as }»a^ifuL

Works of architecture have further quite a special relation to light; they gain a double beauty in the full sunshine, with the blue sky as a background, and again they have quite a different effect by moonlight. Therefore, when a beautiful work of architecture is to be erected, special attention is always paid to the effects of the light and to the climate. The reason of all this is, indeed, principally that all the parts and their relations are only made clearly visible by a bright, strong light ; but besides this I am of opinion that it is the function of architecture to reveal the nature of light just as it reveals that of things so opposite to it as gravity and rigidity, For the light is intercepted, confined, and reflected by the great opaque, sharply outlined, and variously formed masses of stone, and thus it unfolds its nature and qualities in the purest and clearest way, to the great pleasure of the beholders, for light is the

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most joy-giving of things, as the condition and the objective correlative of the most perfect kind of knowledge of perception.

Now, because the Ideas which architecture brings to clear perception, are the lowest grades of the objectivity of will, and consequently their objective significance, which architecture reveals to us, is comparatively small ; the aesthetic pleasure of looking at a beautiful building in a good light will lie, not so much in the comprehension of the Idea, as in the subjective correlative which accompanies this comprehension; it will consist preeminently in the fact that the beholder, set free from the kind of knowledge that belongs to the individual, and which serves the will and follows the principle of sufficient reason, is raised to that of the pure subject of knowing free from will. It will consist then principally in pure contemplation itself, free from all the suffering of will and of individuality. In this respect the opposite of architecture, and the other extreme of the series of the fine arts, is the drama, which brings to knowledge the most significant Ideas. Therefore in the aesthetic pleasure afforded by the drama the objective side is throughout predominant.

Architecture has this distinction from plastic art and poetry : it does not give us a copy but the thing itself. It does not repeat, as they do, the known Idea, so that the artist lends his eyes to the beholder, but in it the artist merely presents the object to the beholder, and facilitates for him the comprehension of the Idea by bringing the actual, individual object to a distinct and complete expression of its nature.

Unlike the works of the other arts, those of architecture are very seldom executed for purely aesthetic enda These are generally subordinated to other useful ends which are foreign to art itself. Thus the great merit of the architect consists in achieving and attaining the pure aesthetic ends, in spite of their subordination to other

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ends which are foreign to them. This he does by cleverly adapting them in a variety of ways to the arbitrary ends in view, and by rightly judging which form of cesthetical architectonic beauty is compatible and may be associated with a temple, which with a palace, which with a prison, and so forth. The more a harsh climate increases these demands of necessity and utility, determines them definitely, and prescribes them more inevitably, the less free play has beauty in architecture. In the mild climate of India, Egypt, Greece, and Home, wKere ^e demands of necessity were fewer and less definite, architecture could follow its aesthetic ends with the greatest freedom. But imder a northern sky this was sordy hindered. Here, when caissons, pointed roofs and towers were what was demanded, architecture could only unfold its own beauty within very narrow limits, and therefore it was obliged to make amends by resorting all the more to the borrowed ornaments of sculpture, as is seen in Gothic architecture.

We thus see that architecture is greatly restricted by the demands of necessi^ and utility ; but oh the otheii hand it has in them a very powerful support, for, on account of the magnitude and costliness of its works, and the narrow sphere of its aesthetic effect, it could not continue to exist merely as a fine art, if it had not also, as a useful and necessary profession, a firm and honourable place among the occupations of men. It is the want of this that prevents another art from taking its place beside architecture as a sister art, although in an sesthetical point of view it is quite properly to be classed along with it as its counterpart; I mean artistic arrangements of water. Eor what architecture accomplishes for the Idea of gravity when it appears in connection with that of rigidity, hydraulics accomplishes for the same Idea, when it is connected with fluidity, i.e., formlessness, the greatest mobility and transparency. Leaping waterfalls foaming and tumbling over rocks,

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cataracts dispersed into floating spray, springs gushing up as high columns of water, and clear reflecting lakes, reveal the Ideas of fluid and heavy matter, in precisely the same way as the works of architecture unfold the Ideas of rigid matter. Artistic hydraulics, however, obtains no support from practical hydraulics, for, as a rule, their ends cannot be combined ; yet, in exceptional cases, this happens ; for example, in the Cascata di Trevi at Rpme.^

I 44. What the two arts we have spoken of accomplish for these lowest grades of the objectivity of will, is performed for the higher grades of vegetable nature by artistic horticulture. The landscape beauty of a scene consists, for the most part, in the multiplicity of natural objects which are present in it, and then in the fact that they are clearly separated, appear distinctly, and yet exhibit a fitting connection and alternation. Those two conditions are assisted and promoted by landscape-gardening, but it has by no means such a mastery over its material as architecture, and therefore its effect is limited. The beauty with which it is concerned belongs almost exclusively to nature ; it has done little for it ; and, on the other hand, it can do little against unfavourable nature, and when nature works, not for it, but against it, its achievements are smalL

The vegetable world offers itself everywhere for aesthetic enjoyment without the medium of art ; but so far as it is an object of art, it belongs principally to landscapepainting; to the province of which all the rest of unconscious nature also belongs. In paintings of still life, and of mere architecture, ruins, interiors of churches, &c., the subjective side of aesthetic pleasure is predominant, i.e., our satisfaction does not lie principally in the direct comprehension of the represented Ideas, but rather in the subjective correlative of this comprehension, pure, willless knowing. For, because the painter lets us see these ^ Of. Chap. 35 of Su{^lement

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things through his eyes, we at once receive a sympathetic and reflected sense of the deep spiritual peace and absolute silence of the will, which were necessary in order to enter with knowledge so entirely into these lifeless objects, and comprehend them with such love, i.e., in this case with such a degree of objectivity.

The effect of landscape-painting proper is indeed, as a whole, of this kind ; but because the Ideas expressed are more distinct and significant, as higher grades of the objectivity of will, the objective side of aesthetic pleasure already comes more to the front and assumes as much importance as the subjective side.

Pure knowing as such is no longer the paramount consideration, for we are equally affected by the known Platonic Idea, the world as idea at an important grade of the objectification of will.

But a far higher grade is revealed by animal painting and sculpture. Of the latter we have some important antique remains ; for example, horses at Venice,.on Monte Cavallq, and on the Elgin Marbles, also at Florence in bronze and marlfle j _ the ancient boar, . hov,luig„.W.olv(M, tlie^ lions in the arsenal at Venice. also in the Vatican a whole room almost filled with ancient animals, &c. In these representations the objective side of aesthetic pleasure obtains a marked predominance over the subjective. The peace of the subject which knows these Ideas, which has silenced its own will, is indeed present, as it is in all aesthetic contemplation ; but its effect is not felt, for we are occupied with the restlessness and impetuosity of the will represented. It is that very will, which constitutes our own nature, that here appears to us in forms, in which its manifestation is not, as in us, controlled and tempered by intellect, but exhibits itself in stronger traits, and with a distinctness that borders on the grotesque and monstrous. For this very reason there is no concealment; it is free, naive, open as the day, and this is the cause of our interest in animals. The characteristics of species appeared already in the representation

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of plants, but showed itself only in the forms ; here it becomes much more distinct, and expresses itself not only in the form, but in the action, position, and mien, yet always merely as the character of the species, not of the individuaL This knowledge of the Ideas of higher grades, which in painting we receive through extraneous means, we may gain directly by the pure contemplative perception of plants, and observation of beasts, and indeed of the latter in their free, natural, and unrestrained state. The objective contemplation of their manifold and marvellous forms, and of their actions and behaviour, is an instructive lesson from the great book of nature, it is a deciphering of the true signatura rei'um} We see in them the manifold grades and modes of the manifestation »f will, which in all beings of one and the same grade, wills always in the same way, which objectifies itself as life, as existence in such endless variety, and such different forms, which are all adaptations to the different external circumstances, and may be compared to many variations on the same theme. But if we had to communicate to the observer, for reflection, and in a word, the explanation of their inner nature, it would be best to make use of that Sanscrit formula which occurs so often m theTsacred books of tKe Hindoos, and is c^ed M^avukya, i.e., the great word : “ Tat twam asi,’* which means, “^i^ living thing art thou.”

§ 45. The great problem of historical painting and sculpture is to express directly and for perception the Idea in which the will reaches the highest grade of its objectification. The objective side of the pleasure afforded by the beautiful is here always predominant,

’ Jakob Bohm in hia book, “de this is tho language of natuni wheo Signatura Rerum,’* ch. i., § 13-15, everything speaks out of its own says, “ There is nothing in nature property, and continually manifests that does not manifest its internal and declares itself, . . . for each form externally; for the internal thing reveals its mother, which thus continually labours to manifest it- gives the essence and the will to the self. . . . Everything has its language form, by which to reveal itself. . . . And

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and the subjective side has retired into the background. It is further to be observed that at the next grade below this, animal painting, the characteristic is entirely one with the beautiful; the most characteristic lion, wolf, horse, sheep, or ox, was always the most beautiful also. The reason of this is that animals have only the character of their species, no individual character. In the representation of men the character of the species is separated from that of the individual; the former is now called beauty (entirely in the objective sense), but the latter retains the name, character, or expression, and the new difficulty arises of representing both, at once and completely, in the same individual.

Human heauty is an objective expression, which means the fullest objectification of will at the highest grade at which it is knowable, the Idea of man in general, completely expressed in the sensible form. But however much the objective side of the beautiful appears here, the subjective side still always accompanies it. And just because no object transports us so quickly into pure {esthetic contemplation, as the most beautiful human countenance and form, at the sight of which we are instantly filled with unspeakable satisfaction, and raised above ourselves and all that troubles us ; this is only possible because this most distinct and purest knowledge of will raises us most easily and quickly to the state of pure knowing, in which our personality, our will with its constant pain, disappears, so long as the pure aesthetic pleasure lasts. Therefore it is that Goethe says : “ ^o evil can touch him who looks on human beauty ; he feels himself at one^^h himself and with th6..WOijld2!. That a beautiful human form is produced by nature must be explained in this way. At this its highest grade the will objectifies itself in an individual ; and therefore through circumstances and its own power it completely overcomes all the hindrances and opposition which the phenomena of the lower grades present to it. Such are the forces

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of nature, from which the will must always first extort and win back the matter that belongs to all its man! festations. Further, the phenomenon of will at its higher grades always has multiplicity in its form. Even the tree is only a systematic aggregate of innumerably repeated sprouting fibres.

This combination assumes greater complexity in higher forms, and the human body is an exceedingly complex system of different parts, each of which has a peculiar life of its own, vita propria, subordinate to the whole.

Now that all these parts are in the proper fashion subordinate to the whole, and coordinate to each other, that they all work together harmoniously for the expression of the whole, nothing superfiuous, nothing restricted; all these are the rare conditions, whose result is beauty, the completely expressed character of the species. So is it in nature. But how in art ? One would suppose that art achieved the beautiful by imitating nature.

But how is the artist to recognise the perfect work which is to be imitate^ and distinguish it from the failures, if he does not anticipate the beautiful before experience ? And besides this, has nature ever produced a human being perfectly beautiful in all his parts ?

It has accordingly been thought that the artist must seek out the beautiful parts, distributed among a number of different human beings, and out of them construct a beautiful whole ; a perverse and foolish opinion. For it will be asked, how is he to know that just these forms and not others are beautiful f We also see what kind of success attended the efforts of the old German painters to achieve the beautiful by imitating nature.

Observe their naked figures. No knowledge of the beautiful is possible purely a posteriori, and from mere experience ; it is always, at least in part, a priori, although quite different in kind, from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, of which we are conscious a priori. These concern the universal form of phenomena as such, as it constitutes the possiTHE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 287

bility of knowledge in general, the universal how of all phenomena, and from this knowledge proceed mathematics and pure natural science. But this other kind of knowledge a priori, which makes it possible to express the beautiful, concerns, not the form but the content of phenomena, not the how but the what of the phenomenon.

That we all recognise human beauty when we see it, but that in the true artist this takes place with such clearness that he shows it as he has never seen it, and surpasses nature in his representation; this is only possible because we ourselves are the will whose adequate objectification at its highest grade is here to be judged and discovered.

Thus alone have we in fact an anticipation of that which nature (which is just the will that constitutes our own being) strives to express. And in the true genius this anticipation is accompanied by so great a degree of intelligence that he recognises the Idea in the particular thing, and thus, as it were, understavds the half-uttered speech of nature, and articulates clearly what she only stammered forth.

He expresses in the hard marble that beauty of form which in a thousand attempts she failed to produce, he presents it to nature, saying, as it were, to her, “ That is what you wanted to say ! And whoever is able to judge replies, “ Yes, that is it.

Only in this way was it possible for the genius of the Greeks to find the type of human beauty and establish it as a canon for the school of sculpture ; and only by virtue of such an anticipation is it possible for all of us to recognise beauty, when it has actually been achieved by nature in the particular case.

This anticipation is the Ideal, It is the Idea so far as it is known a priori, at least half, and it becomes practical for art, because it corresponds to and completes what is given a posteriori through nature. The possibility of such an anticipation of the beautiful a priori in the artist, and of its recognition a posteriori by the critic, lies in the fact that the artist and the critic are themselves the “ in- itself ” of nature, the

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will which objectifies itself. For, as Empedocles said^ like can only be kjLQWiiJby,-likfi,: only nature can understand itself : only nature can fathom itself : but only spirit also can understand spirit.^

The opinion, which is absurd, although expressed by the Socrates of Xenophon (Stobaei Floril, vol. ii. p. 384) that the Greeks discovered the established ideal of human beauty empirically, by collecting particular beautiful parts, uncovering and noting here a knee, there an arm, has an exact parallel in the art of poetry. The view is entertained, that Shakespeare, for example, observed, and then gave forth from his own experience of life, the innumerable variety of the characters in his dramas, so true, so sustained, so profoundly worked out. The impossibility and absurdity of such an assumption need not be dwelt upon. It is obvious that the man of genius produces the works of poetic art by means of an anticipation of what is characteristic, just as he produces the works of plastic and pictorial art by means of a prophetic anticipation of the beautiful; yet both require experience as a pattern or model, for thus alone can that which is dimly known a priori be called into clear consciousness, and an intelligent representation of it becomes possible.

Human beauty was explained above as the fullest objectification of will at the highest grade at which it is knowabla It expresses itself through the form ; and this lies in space alone, and has no necessary connection with time, as, for example, motion has. Thus far then we may say : the adequate objectification of will through a merely spatial phenomenon is beauty, in the objective sense. A plant is nothing but such a merely spatial

^ The last sentence is the German fluence of the Hegelian sophistry, of the U rCy a que V esprit qui senle that some might quite likely say that V esprit f of Helvetius. In the first an antithesis was intended here beedition there was no occasion to tween “spirit and nature.** I am point this out, but since then the therefore obliged to guard myself in age has become so degraded and express terms against the suspicion ignorant through the stupefying in- of such vulgar sophisms.

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phenomenon of ■will; for no motion, and consequently no relation to time (regarded apart from its development), belongs to the expression Of its nature ; its mere form expresses its "whole being and displays it openly. But brutes and men require, further, for the full revelation of the will which is manifested in them, a series of actions, and thus the manifestation in them takes on a direct relation to time.

All this has already been explained in the preceding book ; it is related to what we are considering at present in the following way.

As the merely spatial manifestation of will can objectify it fully or defectively at each definite grade, — and it is this which constitutes beauty or uglines.s, — so the temporal objectification of will, i.e., the action, and indeed the direct action, the movement, may correspond to the will, which objectifies itself in it, purely and fully without foreign admixture, without superfluity, without defect, only expressing exactly the act of will determined in each case; — or the converse of all this may occur.

In the first case the movement is made with grace, in the second case without it. Thus as beauty is the adequate representation of will generally, through its merely spatial manifestation ; grace is the adequate representation of will through its temporal manifestation, that is to say, the perfectly accurate and fitting expression of each act of will, through the movement and position which objectify it.

Since movement and position presuppose the body, Winckelmann’s expression is very true and suitable, when he says, “ Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the action” (Works, vol. i. p. 258). It is thus evident that beauty may be attributed to a plant, but no grace, unless in a figurative sense ; but to brutes and men, both beauty and grace.

Grace consists, according to what has been said, in every movement being performed, and every position assumed, in the easiest, most appropriate and convenient way, and therefore being the pure, adequate expression of its intention, or of

296 THE WORLD ^5 IDEA. bk. iii.

the act of will, without any superfluity, which exhibits itself as aimless, meaningless bustle, or as wooden stiffness. Grace presupposes as its condition a true proportion "dT air WeTimBs, and a symmetrical', harmonious figureyTor complete ease and evident appropriajten^^^f air positions and movements are only possible by means of these. Grace is therefore never withput a certem degree of beaury~brpers6u. The two, complete and unitej, aretEe ihdst distinct manifestetion of wiU at the highest gmde of ite pbjectificatipn.

It was mentioned above that in order rightly to portray man, it is necessary to separate the character of the species from that of the individual, so that to a certain extent every man expresses an Idea peculiar to himself, as was said in the last book. Therefore the arts whose aim is the representation of the Idea of man, have as their pivbJem, not only beauty, the character of the species, but also the character of the individual, which is called, par eoccdlence, character. But this is only the case in so far as tliis character is to be regarded, not as something accidental and quite peculiar to the man as a single individual, but as a side of the Idea of humanity which is specially apparent in this individual, and the representation of which is therefore of assistance in revealing this Idea. 'J'hus the character, although as such it is individual, must yet be Ideal, that is, its significance in relation to the Idea of humanity generally (the objectifying of which it assists in its own way) must be comprehended and expressed with special prominence. Apart from this the representation is a portrait, a copy of the individual as such, with all his accidental qualities. And even the portrait ought to be, as Winckelmann says, the ideal of the individual.

That charcuiter which is to be ideally comprehended, as the prominence of a special side of the Idea of humanity, expresses itself visibly, partly through permanent physiognomy and bodily form, partly through passing

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emotion and passion, the reciprocal modification of knowing and willing by each other, which is all exhibited in the mien and movements. Since the individual always belongs to humanity, and, on the other hand, humanity always reveals itself in the individual with what is indeed peculiar ideal significance, beauty must not he destroyed by character nor character by beauty.

For if the character "oTlEHe species is annulled by that of the individual, the result is caricature ; and if the character of the individual is annulled by that of the species, the result is an absence of meaning.

Therefore the representation which aims at beauty, as sculpture principally does, will yet always modify this (the character of the species), in some respect, by the individual character, and will always express the Idea of man in a definite individual manner, giving prominence to a special side of it.

For the human individual as such has to a certain extent the dignity of a special Idea, and it is essential to the Idea of man that it should express itself in individuals of special significance. Therefore we find in the works of the ancients, that the beauty distinctly comprehended by them, is not expressed in one form, but in many forms of different character.

It is always apprehended, as it were, from a different sideband expressed in one way in Apollo, in' another way in Bacchii^ in another in^ flercules, in another in Antinous ; indeed the characteristic may limit the heautifuT, and finally extend even to Kidebusnessj in the drunken Silenus, in the Faun, &c. If the characteristic goes so far as actually to annul the character of the species, if it extends to the unnatural, it becomes caricuture.

But we can far less afford to allow grace to be interfered with by what is characteristic than even beauty, for graceful position and movement are demanded for the expression of the character also ; but yet it must be achieved in the way which is most fitting, appropriate, and easy for the person. This will be observed, not only by the sculptor and the painter, but

292 THE WORLD AS IDEA. BK. ill.

also by every good actor ; otherwise caricature will appear here also as grimace or distortion.

In sculpture, beauty and grace are the principal concern. The special character of the mind, appearing in emotion, passion, alternations of knowing and willing, which can only be represented by the expression of the countenance and the gestures, is the peculiar sphere of painting. For although eyes and colour, which lie outside the province of sculpture, contribute much to beauty, they are yet far more essential to character. Further, beauty unfolds itself more completely when it is contemplated from various points of view ; but the expression, the character, can only be completely comprehended from one point of view.

Because beauty is obviously the chief aim of sculpture, Lessing tried to explain the fact that the Laocoon does not <yry_ out, by saying that crying out is incompatible with beauty. The Laocoon formed for Lessing the theme, or at least the text of a work of his owm, and both before and after him a great deal has been written on the subject. I may therefore be allowed to express my views about it in passing, although so special a discpssion does not properly belong to the scheme of this work, which is throughout concerned with what is general

§ 4^. That Laocoon, in the celebrated group, does not cry out is obvious, and the universal and ever-renewed surprise at this must be occasioned by the fact that any of us would cry out if we were in his place. And nature demands that it shpuld be so; for in the case of the acutest physical pain, and the sudden seizure by the greatest bodily fear, all reflection, that might have incuTcafed silent endurance, is entirely expelled from cgHBeiousness,. and nature relieves itself by crying out^ thus expressing both tihe pain and the fear, suniip,ppii}g the" deliverer and terrifying the assailer. Thus Winckelthahn missed the expression of crying out; but as he wished to justify the artist he turned Laocoon into a Stoic, who considered it beneath his dignity to cry out

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secundum naturam, but added to his pain the useless constraint of suppressing all utterance of it. Winckelmann therefore sees in him " the tried spirit of a great man, who writhes in agonj;, and jet seeks to suppress the utterance of to feeling, and to lock it up in himself. He does not break forth into loud cries, as in Virgil, but only anxious sighs escape him,” &c. (Works, vol. vii. pT^^'ah'd' af' greater length in vol. vi, p. 104).

Now Lessing criticised this opinion of Winckelmann’s in his Laocoon, and improved it in the way mentioned above. In place of the psychological he gave the purely aesthetic reason that beauty, the principle of ancient art, does not admit of the expression of crying out.

Another argument which he added to this, that a merely passing state incapable of duration ought not to be represented in motionless works of art, has a hundred examples of most excellent figures against it, which are fixed in merely transitory movements, dancing, wrestling, catching, &c.

Indeed Goethe, in the essay on the Laocoon, which opens the Propylaen (p. 8), holds that the choice, of such a merely fleeting movement is a,hspiutely.iie,c§s.^ry, In bur bwii day Hirt (Horen, 1797, tenth St.) finally decided the point, deducing everything from the highest truth of expression, that Laocoon does not cry out, because he can no longer do so, as he is at the point of death from choking.

Lastly, Fernow (“ Bomische Studieh,” vol. i. p. 246) expounded and weighed all these opinions; he added, however, no new one of his own, but combined these three eclectically.

I cannot but wonder that such thoughtful and acute men should laboriously bring far-fetched and insufficient reasons, should resort to psycliological and physiological arguments, to explain a matter the reason of which lies so near at hand, and is obvious at once to the unprejudiced ; and especially I won(^r that Lessing, who jcaafte so near the “trae explanationj, should yet have entirely missed the real point. .

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Before all psychological and physiological inquiries as to whether Laocoon would cry out in his position or not (and I certainly afiSrm that he would), it must be decided as regards the group in question, that crying out ought not to be expressed in it, for the simple reason that its expression lies quite outside the province of sculpture.

A shrieking Laocoon could not be produced in marble, but only a figure with the mouth open vainly endeavouring to shriek ; a Laocoon whose voice has stuck in his throat, vox famihus haesit. The essence of shrieking, and consequently its effect upon the onlookerTlTes entirely in sound; not in the distortion of the mouth.

Tliis phehbmenbh, which * necessaffly ^accbmpmnes^slmeking, derives motive and justification only from the sound produced by means of it; then it is permissible and indeed necessary, as characteristic of the action, even though it interferes with beauty.

But in plastic art, to which the representation of shrieking is quite foreign and impossible, it would be actual folly to represent the mediuhr oT'idolent shrieking, the distorted mouth, which would disturb air the features and the remainder of the expression ; for thus at the sacrifice of many other things the means would be represented, while its end, the shrieking itself, and its effect upon our feelings, would be left out.

Nay more, there would be produced the spectacle of a coj^tinuous effort witlmut effect, which fs always ridiculous, and may really be compared to what happened when some one for a joke stopped the horn ^ a night watchman with wax while he was asleep, and awoke him with the cry of fire, and amused himself by watching his vain endea,vours to blow the horn.

When, on the other hand, the expression of shrieking lies in the province of poetic or histrionic art, it is quite admissible, because it helps to express the truth, i.e., the complete expression of the Idea. Thus it is with poetry, which claims the assistance of the imagination of the reader, in order to enable it to represent things percepTHE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 295

tibly. Therefore Virgil makes Laocoon cry out like the bellowing of an ox that l^s broken^ loose after being struck by *1116 axe ; and Homer |[il. xx. 48—^ 3} makes Mars an^MIherva shriek horribiy, without derogati^ Irom tneir divine ' digiiit^ OT beauty. The same with acting ; Laocoo^iT"dn"tire s£a^ would certainly have to shriek.

Sophocles makes TliiToctetus* cry out, and, on th^ ancient stage at any rate, he must actually have done sbr As a case in point, I remember having seen in London the great actor Kemble play in a piece called Pizarro, translated from the German. He took the part of the American, a half-savage, but of very noble character.

When he was wounded he cried out loudly and wildly, which had a great and admirable effect, for it was exceedingly characteristic and therefore assisted the truth of the representation very much. On the other hand, a painted or sculptured model of a man shrieking, would be much more absurd than the painted music which is censured in Goethe’s Propvlaen.

For shrieking does far more injury to the expression and beauty of the whole than music, which at the most only occupies the hands and arms, and is to be looked upon as an occupation characteristic of the person ; indeed thus far it may quite rightly be painted, as long as it demands no violent movement of the body, or distortion of the mouth: for example, St. Cecilia at the organ, Eaphael’s violin-player in the Sciarra Gallery at ’Rome, and others.

Since then, on account of the limits of the art, the pain of Laocoon must not be expressed by shrieking, the artist was obliged to employ every other expression of pain; this he has done in the most perfect manner, as is ably described by Winckelmann (Works, vol. vi p. 104), whose admirable account thus retains its full value and truth, as soon as we abstract from the stoical view which underlies it.^

^ This digression is worked out more fully in the '?6tli Chapter of Supplement.

296 THE WORLD AS IDEA. BK. HI.

§ 47. Because _beauty accompanied with grace is the prii^pal object of sculpture, it loves nakedness, and allows clothing only so far as it does not conceal the form. It makes use of drapery, not as a covering, but as a means of exhibiting the form, a method of exposition that gives much exercise to the imderstanding, for it can only arrive at a perception of the cause, the form of the body, through the only directly given effect, the drapery. Thus to a certain extent drapery is in sculpture what fore-shortening is in painting. Both are suggestions, yet not symbolical, but such that, if they are successful, they force the understanding directly to perceive what is suggested, just as if it were actually given.

I may be allowed, in passing, to insert here a comparison that is very pertinent to the arts we are discussing. It is this : as the beautiful bodily form is seen to the greatest advantage when clothed in the lightest way, or indeed without any clothing at all, and therefore a very handsome man, if he had also taste and the courage to follow it, would go about almost naked, clothed only after the manner of the ancients ; so every one who possesses a beautiful and rich mind will always express himself in the most natural, direct, and simple way, concerned, if it be possible, to communicate his thoughts to others, and thus relieve the loneliness that he must feel in such a world as this. And conversely, poverty of mind, confusion, and perversity of thought, will clothe itself in the most far-fetched expressions and the obscurest forms of speech, in order to wrap up in difficult and pompous phraseology small, trifling, insipid, or commonplace thoughts; like a man who has lost the majesty of beauty, and trying to make up for the deficiency by means of clothing, seeks to hide the insignificance or ugliness of his person under barbaric finery, tinsel, feathers, ruflfles, cuffs, and mantles. Many an author, if compelled to translate his pompous and

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obscure book into its little clear content, would be as utterly spoilt as this man if he had to go naked.

§ 48. Historicdl painting has for its principal object, besides beauty and grace, character.

By character we mean generally, the representation of will at the highest grade of its objectification, when the individual, as giving prominence to a particular side of the Idea of humanity, has special significance, and shows this not merely by his form, but makes it visible in his bearing and occupation, by action of every kind, and the modifications of knowing and willing that occasion and accompany it.

The Idea of man must be exhibited in these circumstances, and therefore the unfolding of its many-sidedness must be brought before our eyes by means of representative individuals, and these individuals can only be made visible in their significance through various scenes, events, and actions. This is the endless problem of the historical painter, and he solves it by placing before us scenes of life of every kind, of greater or less significance.

No individual and no action can be without significance ; in all and through all the Idea of man unfolds itself more and more. Therefore no event of human life is excluded from the sphere of painting.

It is thus a great injustice to the excellent painters of the Dutch school, to prize merely their technical skUl, and to look down upon them in other respects, because, for the most part, they represent objects of common life, whereas it is assumed that only the events of the history of the world, or the incidents of biblical story, have significance.

We ought first to bethink ourselves that the inward significance of an action is quite different from its outward significance, and that these are often separated from each other. The outward significance is the importance of an action in relation to its result for and in the actual world ; thus according to the principle of sufficient reason. The inward significance is the depth of the insight into the Idea of man which it reveals, in that it brings

to light sides of that Idea which rarely appear, by making individuals who assert themselves distinctly and decidedly, disclose their peculiar characteristics by means of appropriately arranged circumstances. Only the inward significance concerns art; the outward belongs to history. They are both completely independent of each other ; they may appear together, but may each appear alone.

An action which is of the highest significance for history may in inward significance be a very ordinary and common one ; and conversely, a scene of ordinary daily life may be of great inward significance, if human individuals, and the inmost recesses of human action and will, appear in it in a clear and distinct light. Further, the outward and the inward significance of a scene may be equal and yet very different.

Thus, for example, it is all the same, as far as inward significance is concerned, whether ministers discuss the fate of countries and nations over a map, or boors wrangle in a beerhouse over cards and dice, just as it is all the same whether we play chess with golden or wooden pieces.

But apart from this, the scenes and events that make up the life of so many millions of men, their actions, their sorrows, their joys, are on that account important enough to be the object of art, and by their rich variety they must afford material enough for unfolding the many-sided Idea of man.

Indeed the very transitoriness of the moment which art has fixed in such a picture (now called genrepainting) excites a slight and peculiar sensation ; for to fix the fleeting, ever-changing world in the enduring picture of a single event, which yet represents the whole, is an achievement of the art of painting by which it seems to bring time itself to a standstill, for it raises the individual to the Idea of its species.

Finally, the histoncal'and outwardly "si^ificant subjects of painting have often the disadvantage that just what is significant in them cannot be presented to perception, but must be arrived at by thought. In this respect the nominal

significance of the picture muot be distinguished from its real significance. The former is the outward significance, which, however, can only be reached as a conception ; the latter is that side of the Idea of man which is made visible to the onlooker in the picture.

For example, Moses found ^he Egyptian princess is the n^TnaT significance of a painting ; it represents ~k moment of the neatest importence in hjstoryY the real significance, on me other hand, that which is really given to the onlookerj is a foundling child rescued froin Its floating cradle by a great lady, ai^ incident which' may have happened more than once.

The costume alone ’ can 'here indicate the particular historical case to the learned ; but the costume is only of importance to the nominal signifiance, and is a matter of indifference to the real significance ; for the latter knows only the human being as such, not the arbitrary forms.

Subjects taken from history have no advantage over those which are taken from mere possibility, and which are therefore to be called, not individual, but merely general. For what is peculiarly significant in the former is not the individual, not the particular event as such, but the universal in it, the side of the Idea of humanity which expresses itself through it.

But, on the other hand, definite historical subjects are not on this account to be rejected, only the really artistic view of such subjects, both in the painter and in the beholder, is never directed to the individual particulars in them, which properly constitute the historical, but to the universal which expresses itself in them, to the Idea.

And only those historical subjects are to be chosen the chief point of which can actually be represented, and not merely arrived at by thought, otherwise the nominal significance is too remote from the real; what is merely thought in connection with the picture becomes of most importance, and interferes with what is perceived. If even on the stage it is not right that the chief incident of the plot should take place behind the

scenes (as in French tragedies), it is clearly a far greater fault in a picture.

Historical subjects are distinctly disadvantageous only when they confine the painter to a field which has not been chosen for artistic but for other reasons, and especially when this field is poor in picturesque and significant objects — ^if, for example, it is the history of a small, isolated, capricious, hierarchical (i.e., ruled by error), obscure people, like the Jews, despised by the great contemporary nations of the East and the West.

Since the wandering of the tribes lies between us and all ancient nations, as the change of the bed of the ocean lies between the earth’s surface as it is to-day and as it was when those organisations existed which we only know from fossil remains, it is to be regarded generally as a great misfortune that the people whose culture was to be the principal basis of our own were not the Indians or the Greeks, or even the Eomans, but these very Jews.

But it was especially a great misfortune for the Italian painters of genius in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that, in the narrow sphere to which they were arbitrarily driven for the choice of subjects, they were obliged to have recourse to miserable beings of every kind.

For the New Testament, as regards its historical part, is almost more unsuitable for painting than the Old, and the subsequent history of martyrs and doctors of the church is a very unfortunate subject.

Yet of the pictures, whose subject is the history or mythology of Judaism and Christianity, we must carefully distinguish those in which the peculiar, ie., the ethical spirit of Christianity is revealed for perception, by the representation of men who are full of this spirit.

These representations, are in fa^^ the highest and most adnurabie_achiexesaiLent3,,of the art d! painHiiT^ and only~the greatest masters of this art succeeded m thisj particularly Raphael and Correggio, and especially inTHeir eaHieFpTctur^ Pictures of this kind are^ not propSIjr'td^ be^cIaSseJ as historical : for, as a rule, they represent no event, no action ; but are merely groups of

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 301

saints, with the Saviour himself, often still a child, with Hia mother, angels, &c. In their countenances, and especially in the eyes, we see the expression, the reflection, of the completest knowledge, that which is not directed to particular things, but has fully grasped the Ideas, and thus the whole nature of the world and life. And this knowother

knowledge, convey motives to it, but on the contrary has become a quieter of all will, from which proceeded the comply "rSignatioD, which is the innermost spirit of Christianity, as of the Indian philosoj)hy ; the surrender of all volition, conversion, the suppression of will, and with it of the whole inner being of this world, that is to saj^ salvation. Thus these masters of art, worthy of ete^f nal“”pfm3e, expr^ed perceptibly in their works the highest wisdom. And this is the summit of all art. It has followed the will in its adequate objectivity, the Ideas, through all its grades, in which it is affected and its nature unfolded in so many ways, first by causes, then by stimuli, and finally by motives. And now art ends with the representation of the free self-suppression of will, by means of the great peace which it gains from the perfect knowledge of its own nature.^

§ 49. The truth which lies at the foundation of all that we have hitherto said about art, is that the object of art, the representation of which is the aim of the artist, and the knowledge of which must therefore precede his work as its germ and source, is an Idea in Plato’s sense, and never anything else; not the particular thing, the object of common appreSiension, and not the concept, the object of rational thought and of science. Although the Idea and the concept have something in common, because both represent as unity a multiplicity of real things ; yet the great difference between them has no doubt been made clear and evident enough by what we have said

^ In order to understand this passage it is necessary to have read th« whole of the next book.

1, reacting upon the will, does not, like

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about concepts in the first book, and about Ideas in this book. I by no means wish to assert, however, that Plato really distinctly comprehended this difference; indeed many of his examples of Ideas, and his discussions of them, are applicable only to concepts. Meanwhile we leave this question alone and go on our own way, glad when we come upon traces of any great and noble mind, yet not following his footsteps but our own aim.

The concept is abstract, discursive, undetermined within its own sphere, only determined by its limits, attainable and comprehensible by^ him who has only reason, commumcaHe~by words without any other assistance, entirely exhausted by its definition.

The J^ea on the contraiy' aTthough defined as the adequate representative of the concept, is always object of perception, and although representing an infinite number of particular things, is yet thoroughly determined. It is never known by the individual as such, but only by him who has raised himself above all willing and all individuality to the pure subject of knowing.

Thus it is only attainable by the man of genius, and by him who, for the most part through the assistance of the works of genius, has reached an exalted frame of mind, by increasing his power of pure knowing.

It is therefore not absolutely but only conditionally communicable, because the Idea, comprehended and repeated in the woi^ of aff7 areals' to^evef j one only according to the measure ol liis own inteUectual jvjath* So that just the most excelknt works of every art, the noblest productions of~genius, must"always remain sealed^ books to tHe^uTI majority of men, inaccessible to them, separated from them~by~ar mde guH, just as Uie society of pri^^^ isThaccessible’ to tbe common people.

It is true that eveiTtlie^ dullest of them accept on authority recognisedly great works, lest otherwise they should argue their own incompetence ; ^ut they wait in silence, always ready to Tj^ress tKeir condemhatioh, as sopd ai^^ey^re allow^ toTidpe that they may do so without being leFt

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 303

to stand alone ; and then their long-restrained hatred against air that is great and beautiful, and against the authors of it, gladly relieves itself ; for such things never appealed to them, and for that very reason were humiliating to them. For as a rule a man must have worth in himself in order to recognise it and believe in it willingly and freely in others. On this rests the necessity of modesty ~m all merit, and the disproportionately loud praise (^this yirtim, which alone of all its sisters is always included in the eulogy of every one who ventures to praise any ^SstiD^S^d ma^ in onTer' to a^^ease and quiet the wrath of the unworthy. Wluit tHenTs~mb^esty but hj^ocritical humility, 1^ means of which, in a world swelling with base envy, a man seeks to obtain parSon for excellences and merits from those who have none ? I'or'wlToeveT' ittributes to Himself no merits, Hecause He actually has none, is not modest but merely honest.

Tlie Tdea is the unity that falls into muftipligity on account of the temporal and spatial form of our intuitive apprehension; the comept, on the contrary, is the unity reconstructed out of multiplicity by the abstraction of our reason ; the latter may be defined as unitas post rem, the former as unitas ante rem. Finally, we may express the distinction between the Idea and the concept, by a comparison, thus: the concept is like a dead receptacle, in which, whatever has been put, actually lies side by side, but out of which no more can be taken (by analytical judgment) than was put in (by synthetical reflection) ; the (Platonic) Idea, on the other hand, develops, in him who has comprehended it, ideas which are new as regards the concept of the same name; it resembles a living organism, developing itself and possessed of the power of reproduction, which brings forth what was not put into it.

It follows from all that has been said, that the concept, useful as it is in life, and serviceable, necessary and productive as it is in science, is yet always barren

304 the world as IDEA. BK. HI.

and unfruitful in art. The comprehended Idea, on the contrary, is the true and only source of every work of art. In its powerful originality it is only derived from life itself, from nature, from the world, and that only by the true genius, or by him whose momentary inspiration reaches the point of genius. Genuine and immortal worits of art spring only from such direct apprehension.

Just because the Idea is and remains object of perception, the artist is not conscious in the abstract of the intention and aim of his work ; not a concept, but an Idea floats before his mind ; therefore he can give no justification of what he does. He works, as people say, from pure feeling, and unconsciously, indeed instinctively.

On the contrary, iinitators, mannerists, pecus, start, in art, from the poncept ;^^iey observe what pleases and affects us in true works of art ; understand it^”cTearly, fix it in a concept, and thus abstractly, and FEen imitate it, openly or disguisedly, with dexterity and intentionaily.

They suck their._ttOUrisliment, like parasite plants, from the works of others, and like polypi, thi^^ecome thie colour o^ their fopi We might carry comparison further, and say that they are like machines which mince fine and mingle together whatever is put into them, but can never digest it, so that the different constituent parts may always be found again if they are sought out and separated from the mixture ; the man of genius alone resembles the organised, assimilating, transforming and reproducing body.

For he is indeed educated and cultured by his predecessors and their works ; but he is really fructified only by life and the world directly, through the impression of what he perceives; therefore the highest culture never interferes with his originality. All imitators, all mannerists, apprehend in concepts the nature of representative works of art ; but concepts can never impart inner life to a work. The age, i.e., the dull multitude of every time, knows only concepts, and sticks to them, and therefore receives

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 305

mannered works of art with ready and loud applause : but after a few years these works become insipid, because the spirit of the age, i.e, the prevailing concepts, in which alone they could take root, have changed. Only true works of art, which are drawn directly from nature and life, have eternal youth and enduring ,pjower,J[ike nature and life themselves. For they belong to no age, but to humanity, and as on that account they are coldly received by^their own age, to which they disdain to link themselves clos^, anSTBecausT indirectly and negatively they expose the existing errors, they are slowly and unwillingly recogni^ ; on the other hand, they cannot grow old, but appear to us ever fresh and new down to the latest ages. Then they are no longer exposed to neglect and ignorance. ?or theyare crowned and sanctioned by the praise of £Ee ^ew menjc^able of judging, who appear singly and"3Sfely in the^gQurse ^iye in their votes, 'whose

slowly growing number constitutes the authority, which alone is th^udgnrent-seat when we appeal to

posterity. It is these successively appearing individuals, for the mass of posterity will always be and remain just as perverse and dull as the mass of contemporaries always was and always is. We read the complaints of great men in every century about the customs of their age. They always sound as if they referred to our own age, for the race is always the same. At every time and in every art, mannerisms have taken the place of the spirit, which was always the possession of a few individuals, but mannerisms are just the old cast-off garments of the last manifestation of the spirit that existed and was recognised. From all this it appears that, as a rule, the praise of posterity can only be gained at the cost of the praise of one’s contemporaries, and vice versa}

§ 50* the aim of all art is the communication of the comprehended Idea, which through the mind of the artist

^ Apparent ra/ri, nantes in yurgite vasto

* Cf. Ch. xxxiv. of Supplement.

3o6 the world as idea. bk. Ill

appears in such a form that it is purged and isolated from all that is foreign to it, and may now be grasped by the man of weaker comprehension and no productive faculty ; if further, it is forbidden in art to start from the concept, we shall not be able to consent to the intentional and avowed employment of a work of art for the expression of a concept ; this is the case in the Allegory.

An allegory is a work of art which jneans-something .different from what it represents. But the object of perception, and consequently also the Idea, expresses itself directly and completely, and does not require the medium of something else which implies or indicates it. Thus, that which in this way is indicated and represented by something entirely different, because it cannot itself be made object of perception, is always a concept.

Therefore through the allegory a conception has always to be signified, and consequently the mind of the beholder has to be drawn away from the expressed perceptible idea to one which is entirely different, abstract and not perceptible, and which lies quite outside the work of art The picture or statue is intended to accomplish here what is accomplished far more fully by a book.

Now, what we hold is the end of art, representation of a perceivable, comprehensible Idea, is not here the end. No great completeness in the work of art is demanded for what is aimed at here It is only necessary that we should see what the thing is meant to be, for, as soon as this has been discovered, the end is reached, and the mind is now led away to quite a different kind of idea to an abstract conception, which is the end that was in view.

Allegories in plastic and pictorial art are, therefore, nothing but hieroglyphics ; the artistic value which they may have as perceptible representations, belongs to them not as allegories, but otherwise, That the "Night” of Correggio, the “ Genius of Famo ’’ of Hannibal Carracci and the “ Hours ** of Poussin, are very beautiful pictures, is to be separated altogether from the fact tliat~£F^^"are

allegories. As allegories they do not accomplish more than a legend, indeed rather less. We are here again reminded of the distinction drawn above between the real and the nominal significance of a picture. The nominal is here the allegorical as such, for example, the “ Genius of Fame. The real is what is actually represented, in this case a beautiful winged youth, surrounded by beautiful boys ; this expresses an Idea.

But this real significance affects us only so long as we forget the nominal, allegorical significance ; if we think of the latter, we forsake the perception, and the mind is occupied with an abstract conception ; but the transition from the Idea to the conception is always a fall. Indeed, that nominal significance, that allegorical intention, often injures the real significance, the perceptible truth.

For example, the unnatural light in the “ Night ” of Correggio, which, though beautifully executed, has yet a merely allegorical motive, and is really impossible. If then an allegorical picture has artistic value, it is quite separate from and iudependent of what it accomplishes as allegory.

Such a work of art serves two ends at once, the expression of a conception and the expression of an Idea, Only the latter can be an end of art ; the other is a foreign end, the trifling amusement of making a picture also do service as a legend, as a hieroglyphic, invented for the pleasure of those to whom the true nature of art can never appeal.

It is the same thing as when a work of art is also a useful implement of some kind, in which case it also serves two ends ; for example, a statue which is at the same timp- a r.a.Tidp.1abrnm nr a caryatide ; ot_a bas-relief, which is also the shield of Achilles., True lovers of art will allow neither the one nor the other.

It is true that an allegorical picture may, because of this quality, produce a vivid impression upon the feelings; but when this is the case, a legend would under the same circumstances produce the same effect For example, if the desire of fame were firmly and lastingly

5o8 the world as IDEA. BK. la

rooted in the heart of a man, because he regarded it as his rightful possession, which is only withheld from him so long as he has not produced the cliarter of his ownership ; and if the Genius of Fame, with his laurel crown, were to appear to such a man, his whole mind would be excited, and his powers called into activity ; but the same effect would be produced if he were suddenly to see the word “ fame,” in large distinct letters on the wall. Or if a man has made known a truth, which is of importance either as a maxim for practical life, or as insight for science, but it has not been believed ; an allegorical picture representing time as it lifts the veil, and discloses the naked figure of Truth, will affect him powerfully ; but the same effect would be produced by the legend: “Ze temps dicouvre la verity." For what really produces the effect here is the abstract thought, not the object of perception.

If then, in accordance with what has been said, allegory in plastic and pictorial art is a mistaken effort, serving an end which is entirely foreign to art. it becomes quite unbearable when it leads so far astray that the representation of forced and violently introduced subtilties degenerates into absurdity. Such, for example, is s tortoise, to represent feminine seclusion; the downwar3 glance of FTemesis into the drapery <^hw bosom, signifying that she can see into what is hidden : the explana: tion of liellori that Hannibal Caracci represents voluptuousness dothed in a yellow robe, because he wishes tolndicate tharK^i^yCTs__soonJ[a4ai^ as straw. TFtEere is absolutely no connection betweer Iffie representation and the conception signified by it founded on subsumption under the concept, or association of Ideas ; but the signs and the things signified art combined in a purely conventional manner, by positive accidentally introduced laws ; then I call this degenerate kind of allegory Symbolism. Thus the rose is the symbol of secrecy, the laurel is the symbol of fame, the palm ia

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 309

the symbol of peace, the scallop-shell is the symbol of pilgrimage, the cross~is the symbol of the Christian religion.^ To this class also belongs all significance of mere colour, as yellow is the colour of falseness, and blue is the colour of fidelity. Such symbols may often^e of use in life, but their value is foreign to art.

They are S^mply to be regarded as hieroglyphics, or like Chinese word-writing, and really belong to the same class as armorial bearings, the bush that indicates a public-house, the key of the chamberlain, or the leather of the mountoineer. it, nnally, certain Imtorical or mythical persons, or personified conceptions, are represented by certain fixed symbols, these are properly called emblems.

Such are the beasts of the Evangelist, the owl of Minerva, the apple oT Paris, the Anchor of ^ope, For the most ^ft^ however, we understand by emblems those simple allegorical representations explained by a motto, which are meant to express a moral truth, and of which large collections have been made by J. Camerarius, Alciatus, and others. They form the transition to poetical allegory, of which we shall have more to say later.

Greek sculpture devotes itself to the perception, and therefore it is oestheticalj Indian scu^ture devotes lteeIF~tb “lEfie concep^n, and therefore it is merely syr^otXcc^

Tliis conclusion m regard to^Hegory, which is founded on our consideration of the nature of art and quite consistent with it, is directly opposed to the opinion of Wincklemaun, who, far from explaining allegory, as we do, as something quite foreign to the end of art, and often interfering with it, always speaks in favour of it, and indeed (Works, vol. i. p. 5 5) places the highest aim of art in the “representation of universal conceptions, and non-sensuous things.” We leave it to every one to adhere to whichever view he pleases. 1 Only the truth became very clear to me from these and similar views of Wincklemann connected with his peculiar metaphysic of the beautiful, that one may have the greatest suscepti3*0

THE WORLD AS IDEA.

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bility for artistic beauty, and the soundest judgment in regard to it, without being able to give an abstract and strictly philosophical justification of the nature of the beautiful ; just as one may be very noble and virtuous, and may have a tender conscience, which decides with perfect accuracy in particular cases, without on that account being in a position to investigate and explain in the abstract the ethical significance of action.

Allegory has an entirely different relation to poetry from that which it has to plastic and pictorial art, and although it is to be rejected in the latter, it is not only permissible, but very serviceable to the former. For in plastic and pictorial art it leads away from what is perceptibly given, the proper object of all art, to abstract thoughts ; but in poetry the relation is reversed ; for here what is directly given in words is the concept, and the first aim is to lead from this to the object of perception, the representation of which must be undertaken by the imagination of the hearer. If in plastic and pictorial art we are led from what is immediately given to something else, this must always be a conception, because here only the abstract cannot be given directly ; but a conception must never be the source, and its communication must never be the end of a work of art. In poetry, on the contrary, the conception is the material, the immediately given, and therefore we may very well leave it, in order to call up perceptions which are quite different, and in which the end is reached. Many a conception or abstract thought may be quite indispensable to the connection of a poem, which is yet, in itself and directly, quite incapable of being perceived ; and then it is often made perceptible by means of some example which is subsumed under it. This takes place in every trope, every metaphor, simile, parable, and allegory, all of which differ only in the length and completeness of their expression. Therefore, in th j arts which employ language as thei^edham^^ s^^ ^egi^es are blf stiiking_e^i^ HlQSf. beautifully Cer«

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART 31 1

Tantes says of sleep ia order to express the fact that it frees us from all spiritual and bodily sufferinjg, “ It is a mantle that covers all mankind. How beautifully Kleist expresses allegorically TBe~Wou^iOhatghilo80^^ phers and men of science enlighten mankind, in the line.

“Those whose midnjght lainj; lights the world,” How strongly and sensuously Homer describes the harmful Ate when he says : “ She has tender feet.^r^she walks not on the hard eartli, liut treads on the heads of men ’’ (II. xix. 91.) HcTw forcibly we are "struck by Mehenni^ Agrippa’s fable of the belly and the limbs, addressed to the people of Borne when they seceded.

How beautifully Plato’s figure of the Cave, at the b^innin^ oFthe seventh book of the "Kepu51Ic”~to which we have already referred^^ expresses a very abstract philosophical. dogma.

The fable of Persephone is also to be regarded as a deeply sighnp" cant allegory of "piilosophical tendency, for sEF^beca^ subject to tbe nether~wdrTdrby~ tasting a pomegranata TKSnbecomes peculiarly entightehihg ffoiiriToetheT^^^ menF~bf~"tbe fable, as an episode in the Triumph jrfer E^^udsamlc^t, wEi^"S" beyond^ir^pfaisa detailed allegorical works are known to me, one, opien and avowed, is the incomparable “ Criticon ” of Balthasar Gracian.

It consists of aT great rich web of connected and highly ingenious allegories, that serve here as the fair clothing of moral truths, to which he thus imparts the most perceptible form, and astonishes us by the richness of his invention. The two others are concealed allegories. “ Don Quixote” and “ Gulliver’s Travels.

The first is an allegory of the life of every man, who will not, like others, be careful, merely for his own welfare, but follows some objective, ideal end, which has taken possession of his thoughts and will ; and certainly, in this world, he has then a strange appearance.

In the case of Gulliver we have only to take everything physical as spiritual or intellectual, in order to see what the “ satirical rogue,” as Hsjnlet would call him, meant by it. Such, then, in the

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poetical allegory, the conception is always the given, which it tries to make perceptible by means of a picture ; it may sometimes be expressed or assisted by a painted picture. Such a picture will not be regarded as a work of art, but only as a significant symbol, and it makes no claim to pictorial, but only to poetical worth. Such is that beautiful allegorical vignette of Lavater’s, which must be so heartening to every defender of trutli : a hand holding a light is stung by a wasp, while gnats we burning themselves in Hie flame above ; underneath is the mottol

‘And although it singes the wings of the gnats.

Destroys their heads and all their little hrains.

Light is still light ;

And although I am stung by the angriest wasp,

I will not let it go.”

To this class also belongs the gravestone with the bumtout, smoking candle, and the inscription —

“When it is out, it becomes clear Whether the candle was tallow or wax.”

Finally, of this kind is an old German genealogical tree, in which the last representative of a very ancient family thus expresses his determination to live his life to the end in abstinence and perfect chastity, and therefore to let his race die out ; he represents himself at the root of the high-branching tree cutting it over himself with shears. In general all those symbols referred to above, commonly called emblems, which might also be defined as short painted fables with obvious morals, belong to this class. Allegories of this kind are always to be regarded as belonging to poetry, not to painting, and as justified thereby ; moreover, the pictorial execution is here always a matter of secondary importance, and no more is demanded of it than that it shall represent the thing so that we can recognise it. But in poetry, as in plastic art, the allegory passes into the symbol if there is merely

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an arbitrary connection between what it presented to perception and the abstract significance of it. For as all symbolism rests, at bottom, on an agreement, the symbol has this among other disadvantages, that in time its meaning is forgotten, and then it is dumb. Who would guess why the fish is a symbol of Christianity if he did not know ? Only a Champollion ; for it is entirely a phonetic hieroglyphic. Therefore, as a poetical allegory, the Revelation of John stands much in the same position as the reliefs with Magnm Dem sol Mithra, which are still constantly being explained.

§ 51. If now, with the exposition which has been given of art in general, we turn from plastic and pictorial art to poetry, we shall have no doubt that its aim also is the revelation of the Ideas, the grades of the objectification of will, and the communication of them to the hearer with the distinctness and vividness with which the poetical sense comprehends them. Ideas are essentially perceptible ; if, therefore, in poetry only abstract conceptions are directly communicated through words, it is yet clearly the intention to make the hearer perceive the Ideas of life in the representatives of these conceptions, and this can only take place through the assistance of his own imagination. But in order to set the imagination to work for the accomplishment of this end, the abstract conceptions, which are the immediate material of poetry as of dry prose, must be so arranged that their spheres intersect each other in such a way that none of them can remain in its abstract universality ; but, instead of it, a perceptible representative appears to the imagination ; and this is always further modified by the words of the poet according to what his intention may be. As the chemist obtains solid precipitates by combining perfectly clear and transparent fluids ; the poet understands how to precipitate, as it were, the concrete, the individual, the perceptible idea, out of the abstract and transparent universality of the concepts by the manner in which he

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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

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combines them. For the Idea can only be known by perception ; and knowledge of the Idea is the en l of art. The skill of a master, in poetry as in chemistry, enables us always to obtain the precise precipitate we intended. This end is assisted by the numerous epithets in poetry, by means of which the universality of every concept is narrowed more and more till we reach the per jeptible. Homer attaches to almost every substantive an adjective, whose concept intersects and considerably diminishes the sphere of the concept of the substantive, which is thus brought so much the nearer to perception ; for example —

“ Ep 5’ eirea' QKeauip Xafiirpoy <f>ao$ i)e\ioio,

*EX/fov uvKTa jjLeXaiyav eiri i^ibwpov apovpav^^

Occidit vero in Oceanum splendidum luiucn solis,

Trahens nocteiii nigram super almam terram.”)

And —

“ Where geatle winds from the blue heavens sigh,

There stand the myrtles still, the laurel high,” —

calls up before the imagination by means of a few concepts the whole delight of :t southern clime.

Ehythm and rhyme are quite peculiar aids to poetry. I can give no other e:^aii'ition of their incredibly powerful effect than that our faculties of perception have received from timOj to which they are' essentially bound, some quality on account of which,, we, inwardly foUpw, and, as it were, consent to each regularly recurring soimd,^ In this way rhythm and rhyme are partly a means of holding our attention, because we willingly follow the poem read, and partly they produce in us a blind consent to what is read prior to any judgment, and this gives the poem a certain emphatic power of convincing independent of all reasons.

From the general nature of the material, that is, the concepts, which poetry uses to communicate the Ideas, the extent of its province is very great. The whole of

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 315

nature, the Ideas of all grades, can be represented by means of it, for it proceeds according to the Idea it has to impart, so that its representations are sometimes descriptive, sometimes narrative, and sometimes directly dramatic. If, in the representation of the lower grades of the objectivity of will, plastic and pictorial art generally surpass it, because lifeless nature, and even brute nature, reveals almost its whole being in a single wellchosen moment ; man, on the contrary, so far as he does not express himself by the mere form and expression of his person, but through a series of actions and the accompanying thoughts and emotions, is the principal object of poetry, in which no other art can compete with it, for here the progress or movement which cannot be represented in plastic or pictorial art just suits its purpose.

The revelation of the Idea, which is the highest grade of the objectivity of will, the representation of man in the connected series of his efforts and actions, is thus the great problem of poetry. It is true that both experience and history teach us to know man ; yet oftener men than man, i.e., they give us empirical notes of the behaviour of men to each other, from which we may frame rules for our own conduct, oftener than they afford us deep glimpses of the inner nature of man. The latter function, however, is by no means entirely denied them ; but as often as it is the nature of mankind itself that discloses itself to us in history or in our own experience, we have comprehended our experience, and the historian has comprehended history, with artistic eyes, poetically, according to the Idea, not the phenomenon, in its inner nature, not in its relations. Our own experience is the indispensable condition of understanding poetry as of understanding history ; for it is, so to speak, the dictionary of the language that both speak. But history is related to poetry as portrait -painting is related to historical painting ; the one gives us the true in the individual, the other the true in the universal; the one has the

3i6 the world ^5 IDEA. m iir.

truth of the phenomenon, and can therefore verify it from the phenomenal, the other has the truth of the Idea, which can be found in no particular phenomenon, but yet speaks to us from them all. The poet from deliberate choice represents significant characters in significant situations; the historian takes both as they come.

Indeed, he must regard and select the circumstances and the persons, not with reference to their inward and true significance, which expresses the Idea, but according to the outward, apparent, and relatively important significance with regard to the connection and the consequences.

He must consider nothing in and for itself in its essential character and expression, but must look at everything in its relations, in its connection, in its influence upon what follows, and especially upon its own age. Therefore he will not overlook an action of a king, though of little significance, and in itself quite common, because it has results and influence.

And, on the other hand, actions of the highest significance of particular and very eminent individuals are not to be recorded by him if they have no consequences. For his treatment follows the principle of sufficient reason, and apprehends the phenomenon, of which this principle is the form.

But the poet comprehends the Idea, the inner nature of man apart from all relations, outside all time, the adequate objectivity of the thing-in-itself, at its highest grade. Even in that method of treatment which is necessary for the historian, the inner nature and significance of the phenomena, the kernel of all these shells, can never be entirely lost. He who seeks for it, at any rate, may find it and recognise it.

Yet that which is significant in itself, not in its relations, the real unfolding of the Idea, will be found far more accurately and distinctly in poetry than in history, and, therefore, however paradoxical it may sound, far more really genuine inner truth is to be attributed to poetry than to history. For the historian must accurately follow the particular event according to

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life, as it develops itself in time in the manifold tangled chains of causes and effects. It is, however, impossible that he can have all the data for this ; he cannot have seen all and discovered all * He is forsaken at every moment by the original ot his picture, or a false one substitutes itself for it, and this so constantly that I think I may assume that in all history the false outweighs the true. The poet, on the contrary, has comprehended the Idea of man from some definite side which is to be represented ; thus it is the nature of his own self that objectifies itself in it for him. His knowledge, as we explained above when speaking of sculpture, is half a priori; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct, brightly illuminated, and cannot forsake him ; therefore he shows us, in the mirror of his mind, the Idea pure and distinct, and his delineation of it down to the minutest particular is true as life itself.^ The great ancient historians are, therefore, in those particulars in which their data fail them, for example, in the speeches of their heroes — poets; indeed their whole manner of handling their material approaches

^ It is scarcely necessary to say that wherever I speak of poets I refer exclusively to that rare phenomenon the great true poet. I mean no one else ; least of all that dull insipid tribe, the mediocre poets, rhymsters, and inventors of fables, that flourishes so luxuriantly at the present day in Germany. They ought rather to have the words shouted in their ears uncf^asingly from all sides —

Mediocribus €»$e poecis Non homines^ non Dty non conccssere cdLv.miut,

It is worthy of serious consideration what an amount of time — both their own and other people’s — and paper is lost by this swarm of mediocre poets, and how injurious is their influence. For the public always seizes on what is new, and has naturally a greater proneness to what is perverse and dull as akin to itself. Therefore these works of the mediocre poets draw it away and hold it back from the true masterpieces and the education they afford, and thus working in direct antagonism to the benign influence of genius, they ruin taste more and more, and retard the progress of the age. Such poets should therefore be scourged with criticism and satire without indulgence or sympathy till they are induced, for their own good, to apply their muse rather to reading what is good than to writing what is bad. For if the__b^^»K^^f; qI ine^mpetent so raised the wrath of the ^ntle Ap6ndnEgaFTie..c^5S"jj^ Marsyas, I do not 9^^ whAt fcha mediocre p^ts baseJkeiiLglauP to tolerance!

3i8 the world as IDEA. bk. hi,

to the epic. But this gives their representations unity, and enables them to retain inner truth, even when outward truth was not accessible, or indeed was falsified.

And as we compared history to portrait-painting, in contradistinction to poetry, which corresponds to historical painting, we find that Winckelmann’s maxim, that the portrait ought to be the ideal of the individual, was followed by the ancient historians, for they represent the individual in such a way as to bring out that side of the Idea of man which is expressed in it Modern historians, on the contrary, with few exceptions, give us in general only “ a dust-bin and a lumbef-fbbm, and at the nm^a chronicle of the 'princij>ar poTIHcal eventsT* Therefore, whoever desires to know man in his mner”hature, identical in all its phenomena and developments[^ knovr. hw tCfiprding to the Idea, will find that tfie works of the great, immortal poet present a far truer, more distinct picture, than the historians can ever" give.

Ihr even the best of the historians are, as poets, far from the first ; and moreover their hands are tied. In this aspect the relation between the historian and the poet may be illustrated by the following comparison.

The mere, pure historian, who works only according to data, is like a man, who without any knowledge of mathematics, has investigated the relations of certain figures, which he has accidentally found, by measuring them ; and the problem thus empirically solved is afifected of course by all the errors of the drawn figura The poet, on the other hand, is like the mathematician, who constructs these relations a priori in pure perception, and expresses them not as they actually are in the drawn figure, but as they are in the Idea, which the drawing is intended to render for the senses. Therefore Schiller says : —

“ Wbat lias never anywhere coiue to pass, That alone never grows old."

THE PLATONIC IDEA ; THE OBJECT OF ART. 319

Indeed I must attribute greater value to biographies, and especially to autobiographies, in relation to the knowledge of the nature of man, than to history proper, at least as it is commonly handled. Partly because in the former the data can be collected more accurately and completely than in the latter ; partly, because in history proper, it is not so much men as nations and heroes that aci^ and the IfidmcTuali’^o do appear, seem so surroun(le3~wi^i sucli pomp and circumstance, clothed in the stiff robes oT state, or heavy, inflexible armour, that It is really hard tlirougfi^airthis to recognise _the human moments' On the other hand, the life of ^e individual when described~mth truth, in a narrow sphereJ’sEows the conduct^qf ^ men in all its forms and subtilties, the excellence, the virtue, and even holiness of a few, the perymiit^meahnes9,'ahd Tcha^^ of most, the dissolute profligacy qf_ some. Besides, in the only aspect we are

considering here, that of the inner significance of the phenomenal, it is quite the same whether the objects with which the action is concerned, are, relatively considered, trifling or important, farm-houses or kingdoms : for all these things in themselves are without significance, and obtain it only in so far as the will is moved by them. The motive has significance only through its relation to the will, while the relation which it has as a thing to other things like itseli', does not concern us hera As a circle of one inch in diameter, j,nd a circle of forty million miles in diameter, have precisely the same geometrical properties, so are the events and the history of'~a"vTn'agr~and a kingdqrn essentially the same^ and we may study and learn to kuow_jnankin(r as well in the one as in the other. It is also a nnstake to suppose that autobiographies are full of deceit and dissimulation. On the contrary, lying (though always possible) is perhaps more difficult there than elsewhere. Dissimulation is easiest in mere conversation; indeed, though it may sound paradoxical, it is really more

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difficult even in a letter. For in the case of a letter the writer is alone, and looks into himself, and not out on Ihe world, so that what is strange and distant does not easily approach him ; and he has not the test of the impression made upon another before his eyes. But the receiver of the letter peruses it quietly in a mood unknown to the writer, reads it repeatedly and at different' times, and thus easily finds out the concealed intention.

We also get to know an author as a man most easily from his books, because all these circumstances act here still more strongly and permanently. And in an autobiography it is so difficult to dissimulate, that perhaps there does not exist a single one that is not, as a whole, more true, than any history that ever was written.

The man who writes his own life surveys it as a whole, the particular becomes small, the near becomes distant, the distant becomes near again, the motives that influenced him shrink ; he seats himself at the confessional, and has done so of his own free will ; the spirit of lying does not so easily take hold of him here, for there is also in every man an inclination to truth which has first to be overcome whenever he lies, and which here has taken up a specially strong position.

The relation between biography and the history of nations may be made clear for perception by means of the following comparison : History shows us mankind as a view from a high mountain shows us nature ; we see much at a time, wide stretches, great masses, but nothing is distinct nor recognisable in all the details of its own peculiar nature.

On the other hand, the representation of the life of the individual shows us the man, as we see nature if we go about among her trees, plants, rocks, and waters. But in landscape-painting, in which the artist lets us look at nature with his eyes, the knowledge of the Ideas, and the condition of pure will-less knowing, which is demanded by these, is made much easier for us ; and, in the same way, poetry is far superior both to

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 321

history and biography, in the representation of the Idesis which may be looked for in all three. For here also genius holds up to us the magic glass, in which all that is essential and significant appears before us collected and placed in the clearest light, and what is accidental and foreign is left out.'

The representation of the Idea of man, which is the work of the poet, may be performed, so that what is represented is also the representer. This is the case in lyrical poetry, in songs, properly so called, in which the poet only perceives vividly his own state and describes it. Thus a certain subjectivity is essential to this kind of poetry from the nature of its object. Again, what is to be represented may be entirely different from him who represents it, as is the case in all other kinds of poetry, in which the poet more or less conceals himself behind his representation, and at last disappears altogether. _In the ballad the poet still expresses to some extent his own state thro^h the tone and prc^ortioii of the whole ; therefore, though much more objective than the Tyrfc,* it Iias^ yet something subiective. Fhis becomes' Tess”m nie still less in the romantic poem, alipost entirely disappears in the true epic, and even to the last vestige in the drama, which is the most objective and, in more than onje respect, the completest and most”difficuTt Form oT^oetry. The lyrical form of poetry is consequently the easiest, and although art, as a whole, belongs only to the true man of genius, who so rarely appears, even a man who is not in general very remarkable may produce a beautiful song if, by actual strong excitement from without, some inspiration raises his mental powers ; for all that is required for this is a lively perception of his own state at a moment of emotional excitement. This is proved by the existence of many single songs by individuals who have otherwise remained unknown; especially the German national songs, of which we have an exquisite collection 1 Cf. Ch. xxxviii. of Supplement

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 323,

Besides this, however, and along with it, by the sight of surrounding nature, the singer becomes conscious of himself as the subject of pure, will-less knowing, whose unbroken blissful peace now appears, in contrast to the stress of desire which is always restricted and always needy. The feeling of this contrast, this alternation, is really what the lyric as a whole expresses, and what principally constitutes the lyrical state of mind.

In it pure knowing comes to us, as it were, to deliver _u8^from desire andTTts stain ; we follow, but only for an instant; desire, the remembrance of our own personal ends, t^rs U3~ahew from peaceful contemplation; yet ever again tlie next beautiful surrounding in which the pure willless knowledge presents itself to us, allures us away from desire.

Therefore, in the lyric and the lyrical mood, desire (the personal interest of the ends), and pure perception of the surrounding presented, are wonderfully mingled with each other ; connections between them are sought for and imagined ; the subjective disposition, the affection of the will, imparts its own hue to the perceived surrounding, and conversely, the surroundings communicate the reflex of their colour to tlu^ill.

The true lyric is the expres- ^n m~the wlrole of this minjed and divided state of mind. In order to make clear by examples this abstract M^Iysis of a frame of mind tliat is very far from all abstraction, any of the immortal songs of, Goethe may be taken.

As specially adapted for this end I shall recommend only a few : “ The Shepherd’s Lanient,^'^‘^WeIcome and Farewell,” *‘To the Moon,” ‘*On the Lake,” “ Autumnj” also the songs in the “ Wunderhorn ” are excellent examples; particularly the one which begins. “ O Bremen, r^musT now leave thee. As a comical and happy parody of the lyrical character a sonj:; of Voss strikes me as remarkable.

It describes the feeling of a drunk plumber falling from a tower, who observes in passing that the clock on the tower is at half-past eleven, a

remark which is ^ite foreign to his condition^ and thus

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belongs to knowledge free from will. Whoever accepts the view that has been expressed of the lyrical frame of mind, will also allow, that it is the sensuous and poetical knowledge of the principle which I established in my essay on the Principle of Sufficient Eeason, and have also referred to in this work, that the identity of the subject of knowing with that of willing may be called the miracle kut e^o)(^v, so that the poetical effect of the lyric rests finally on the truth of that principle. In the course of life these two subjects, or, in popular language”, head and heart, are ever becoming further apart; men are al^ys separating more between their subjective feeling and their objective kn^owledge. In the child the two are^till entirely blended together ; it scarcely knows to distinguish itself from its surroundings, it is at one with them. In the young man all perception chiefly affects feeling and mood, and even mingles with it, as Byron very beautifully expresses —

“ I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me ; and to me High mountains are a feeling.”

This is why the youth clings so closely to the _pwceptible andT" outward side of things ; thjs^^is only fit for lyrical poetry, and only the full-grown man is capable of the Crania. Tlie old ma.n ~w^c^ J^iink of as at the most an epic poet, like Ossmn. and Jlojoaei^ for narration is characteristic of old age.

In the more objective kinds of poetry, especially in the romance, the epic, and the drama, the end, the revelation of the Idea of man, is principally attained by two means, by true and profound representation of significant characters, and by the invention of pregnant situations in which they disclose themselves. For as it is incumbent upon the chemist not only to exhibit the simple elements, pure and genuine, and their principal compounds, but also to expose them to the influence of such reagents as will

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 325

clearly and strikingly bring out their peculiar qualities, so is it incumbent on the poet not only to present to us significant characters truly and faithfully as nature itself ; but, in order that we may get to know them, he must place them in those situations in which their peculiar qualities will fully unfold themselves, and appear distinctly in sharp outline ; situations which are therefore called significant.

In real life, and in history, situations of this kind are rarely brought about by chance, and they stand alone, lost and concealed in the multitude of those which are insignificant. The complete significance of the situations ought to distinguish "the romance, thjie epic, and the drama from real life as completely as 0e aflTCGg^e5y "and selection of sighificaiit characters. .

In both, however, absolute truth is a necessary condition of their effect, and want of unity in the characters, contradiction either of themselves or of the nature of humanity in general, as well as impossibility, or very great improbability in the events, even in mere accessories, offend just as much in poetry as badly drawn figures, false perspective, or wrong lighting in painting.

For both in poetry and painting we demand the faithful mirror of life, of man, of the world, only made more dear by the representation, and more significant by the arrangement. For there is only one end of all the arts, the representation of the Ideas ; and their essential difference lies simply in the different grades of the objectification of will to which the Ideas that are to be represented bdong.

This also determines the material of the representation. Thus the arts which are most widely separated may yet throw light on each other. ( For example, in order to comprehend fully the Ideas of water it is not sufficient to see it in the quiet pond or in the evenly-flowing stream ; but these Ideas disclose themselves fully only when the water appears under all circumstances and exposed to all kinds of obstacles. The effects of the varied drcumstances and obstacles give it the opportunity of fully

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exhibiting all its qualities. This is wliy we find it beautiful when it tumbles, rushes, and foams, or leaps into the air, or falls in a cataract of spray ; or, lastly, if artificially confined it springs up in a fountain. Thus showing itself different under different circumstances, it yet always faithfully asserts its character ; it is just as natural to it to spout up as to lie in glassy stillness ; it is as ready for the one as for the other as soon as the circumstances appear. Now, what the engineer achieves with the fluid matter of water, the architect achieves with the" stone, a,nd_ just. tlli§„the epi^ or dramatic poet achieves with the Idea of man. Unfolding and rendering distinct the Idea expressing itself in the object of every art, the Idea of the will which objectifies itself at each grade, is the common end of all the arts. The life of man, as it shows itself for the most part in the real world, is like the water, as it is generally seen in the pond and the river ; but in the epic, the romance, the tragedy, selected characters are placed in those circumstances in which all their special qualities unfold themselves, the depths of the human heart are revealed, and become visible in extraordinary and very significant actions. Thus poetry objectifies the Idea of man, an Idea which has the peculiarity of expressing itself in highly individual characters.

Tragedy is to be regarded, and is recognised as the summit of poetical art, both on account of tHe greatness of its effect and the difficulty of its achievement. It is very significant for our whole system, and ' 'welT'worlhy of observation, that the end of this highest poetical achievement is the_ representation of the terrible side of life. The unspeakable pain, the wail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the scornfurniastery of chance, and the irretrievable fall of the just and innocent, is here presented to us ; and in this lies a significant hint of the nature of the "world and of existence^ It is the strife of will with itself, which’ here, completely ttufplded^at the

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OP ART. 327

highest grade of its objectivity, comes into fearful prominence.

Tt becomes visible in the suBerihg of meif, is now introduced, partly through chance and error, which appear as the rulers of the world, personiffecT as fate, on account of their insidiousness, which even reaches the appearance of design j partly it proceeds from man himself, through the self-mortifjiing efforts of a few, through the wickedness and perversity of most, tt is one and the same will that lives and appears in them all, but whose phenomena fight against each other and destroy each other.

In one individual it appears powerfully, in another more weakly ; in one more subject to reason, and softened by the light of knowledge, in another less so, till at last, in some single case, this knowledge, purified and heightened by suffering itself, readies the point at which the phenomenon, the veil of Maya, no longer deceives it. It sees through the form of tiie phenomenon, the "^incipum hidividuatimis.

The ^oism which rests on this perishes with it, so that now the motives that were so powerful before have lost their might, and instead of them the complete knowledge of the nature of the world, which has _a_ quieting effect on the will, produces resignation, the surrender not merely of life, but of the yery will to live.

Thus \ve see in tragedies the noblest men, after long .conflict and suffer^ ing, at last renounce the ends they have so keenly followed, and all the pleasures of life for ever, or else freely and joyfully surrender life itself. . ,Sp is it^ with the _stead fast prince __of Calderon j with Gretchen,. in ‘T^ust ; ” with Hamlet, whom his friend Horatio would willingly follow, but is bade remain a while, and in CTils harsh world draw his breath in pain, to tell the story of Hamlet, and clear his memory ; so also is it wth the Maid of Orleans, Jhe„lBride of Messmaj the^ all die purified by suffering, i.e., after the will to live which was formerly in them is dead. In the “ li^hammed oT Voltaire this is actually expressed in the con328 THE WORLD .45 IDEA. BK. III.

eluding words which the dying Palmira addresses to Mohammed : " The world is for tyrants : live ! ” On the other hand, the 3emand~foF" so-called poetical justice rests on entire misconception of the nature of tragedy, and, indeed, of the nature of the world itself. It boldTy appears in all its dulness in the criticisms which Dr. Samuel Uohnson made on particular plays of ShakspeMe, for he very naively laments its entire absence. And its absence is certainty bbyipus, for in what has Ophelia, Desdemonf^ or Cordelia offended? But only the dull, optimistic. Protestant-rationalistic, or peculiarly Jewish view of life will make the demand for poetical justice, and find satisfaction in it._ The true sense of tragedy is the"deeper insight, that, it is not his own individual sins that the hero atones for, but original sin, i.e., the. crime oFexistence itself:

“ Puea el delito mayor Del hombre es haber nacido ; "

[“ For the greatest crime of man Is that he was bom ; ”)

as Calderon exactly expresses it.

“* 1 shall allow myself only one remark, more closely concerning the treatment of tragedy. The representation of a great misfortune is alone essential to tragedy. But the many different ways in which this is introduced by the poet may be brought under three specific conceptions. It may happen by means of a character of extraordinary wickedness, touching the utmost limits of possibility, who becomes the author of the misfortune ; examples of this kind are Eichard III., lago in “ Othello,” Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice,” Franz Moor, Phaedra of Euripides, Creon in the ‘‘ Antigone,” &c^ &c. Secondly, it may happeFJ^rqugh bh^nd fat^ chance and error; a true pattern of this kind is the CMipus Kex of Sophocles, the “ Trachiniae ” also ; and in general most of the tragedies of the ancients be^ng

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OP ART. 329

to this class. Among modern tragedies, “JRoncieo , ajid, Juliet,” “ Tancretl ” by Voltaire, and " The Bride of Messina,” are exampes.

Lasfly, the misfortune luayjje Erou^t about by tbe mere position of the dramatit ^jiiKsoncB with regard to each other, through their relations ; sbThat there is no need either for a tremendous error or an unheard-of accident, nor yet for a character whose wickedness reaches the limits of human possibility ; but characters of ordinary morality, under circumstances such as often occur,”Se so sit uafed ^th regard to each other Chat their position compels them, knowingly ^d with their eyes open, to do each other the greatest injury, without any one of them being entirely in the wrong.

This last kind of tragedy seems to me far to surpass the other two,^ for it shows us the greatest misfortune, not as an exception, not as something occ^ioned by rare circumstances or monstrous characters, but as arising easily and of itself out of the actions and character's of men, indeed almost as essential to them, and thus brings it terribly near to us.

In the other two kinds we may look on the prodigious fate and the horrible wickedness as terrible powers which certainly threaten us, but only from afar, which we may very well escape without taking refuge in renunciation.

But in the last kind of tragedy we see that those powers whiclr destroy happiness and life are siich that their path to usT also is open at every moment ; we see “tire'' greatest suHerings brought about by entanglements that our fate might also partake of, and through actions that perhaps we also are capable of performing, and so could not complain ofjin|ustice ; then shuddering we feel ourselves already in the midst of helL This last kind of tragedy is also the most difficult of achievement ; for the greatest effect has to be produced in it with the least use of means and causes of movement, merely through the position and distribution of the characters; therefore even in many of the best tragedies this difficulty is

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evaded. Yet one tragedy may be referred to as a perfect model of tHis kind, a tragedy which in pther respects is far surpassed by more than one jvqrk of the same_g^rea^ master; it is “Clayigo.’L. “Hamlet” belongs to a certain extent to this class, as far as the relation of Hamlet to Laertes and Ophelia is concerned. “Wallenstein” has also this excellence. “ Faust ” belongs entirely to this class, if we regard the events connected with Gretchen and her brother as the principal action ; also the “Cid” of Corneflle,_ only that_ it lacks the tragm conclusion, while on tHe con'Erary the analogous relation of Max to Theda has_it.^

§ 52. Now that we have considered all the fine arts in the general way that is suitable to our point of view, beginning with architecture, the peculiar end of which is to elucidate the objectification of will at the lowest grades of its visibility, in which it shows itself as the dumb unconscious tendency of the mass in accordance with laws, and yet already reveals a breach of the unity of will with itself in a conflict between gravity and rigidity — and ending with the consideration of tragedy, which presents to us at the highest grades of the objectification of will this very conflict with itself in terrible magnitude and distinctness ; we And that there is still another fine art which has been excluded from our consideration, and had to be excluded, for in the systematic connection of our exposition there was no fitting place for it — I mean music. It stands alone, quite cut off from all the other arts. In it we do not recognise the copy or repetition of any Idea of existence in the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly noble art, its effect on the inmost nature of man is so powerful, and it is so entirely and deeply understood by him in his inmost consciousness as a perfectly universal language, the distinctness of which surpasses even that of tho perceptible world itself, that we certainly have more to ^ Of. Ch. XXX vii. of the Supplement,

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look for in it than an exercitum ariihmeticce occultum nescientis se numerare animi^ which Leibnitz called it. Yet he was perfectly right, as he considered only its immediate external significance, its form.

But if it were nothing more, the satisfaction which it affords would be like that which we feel when a sum in arithinelic comes out right, and could not be that intense pleasure with which we see the deepest recesses^ our nature find utterance^ Prom oulTstaiid^ point, therefore, at which the sesthetic effect is the criterion, we must attribute to music a far more serious and deep significance, connected with the inmost nature of the world and our own self, and in reference to which the arithmetical proportions, to which it may be reduced, are related, not as the thing signified, but merely as the sign.

That in some sense music must be related to the world as the representation to the thing represented, as the copy to the original, we may conclude from the analogy of the other arts, all of which possess this character, and affect us on the whole in the same way as it does, only that the effect of music is stronger, quicker, more necessary and infallible.

Further, its representative relation to the world must be very deep, absolutely true, and strikingly accurate, because it is instantly understood by every one, and has the appearance of a certain infallibility, because its form may be reduced to perfectly definite rules expressed in numbers, from which it cannot free itself without entirely ceasing to be music.

Yet the point of comparison between music and the world, the respect in which it stands to the world in the relation of a copy or repetition, is very obscure. Men have practised music in all ages without being able to account for this ; content to understand it directly, they renounce all claim to an abstract conception of this direct understanding itself.

I ^ve my mind entirely up to the Impression of music ^ Leibnitii epistolas, collectio Kortbolti, ep. 1 54.

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in all its forms, and then returned to reflection and the system of thought expressed in the present work, and thus I arrived at an explanation of the inner nature of music and of the nature of its imitative relation to the world — which from analogy had necessarily to be presupposed— an explanation which is quite sufficient for myself, and satisfactory to my investigation, and which will doubtless be equally evident to any one who has followed me thus far and has agreed with my view of the world. Yet I recognise the fact that it is essentially impossible to prove this explanation, for it assumes and establishes a relation of music, as idea, to that which from its nature can never be idea, and music will have to be regarded as the copy of an original which can never itself be directly presented as idea. I can therefore do no more than state here, at the conclusion of this third book, which has been principally devoted to the consideration of the arts, the explanation of the marvellous Art of music which satisfies myself, and I must leave the acceptance or denial of my view to the effect produced upon each of my readers both by music itself and by the whole system of thought communicated in this work. Moreover, I regard it as necessary, in order to be able to assent with full conviction to the exposition of the significance of music I am about to give, that one should often listen to music with constant reflection upon my theory concerning it, and for this again it is necessary to be very familiar with the whole of my system o| thought.

The (Platonic) Ideas are the adequate objectification of will. To excite or suggest the knowledge of these by means of the representation of particular things (for works of art themselves are always representations of particular things) is the end of all the other arts, which can only be attained by a corresponding change in the knowing subject. Thus all these arts objectify the will indirectly only by means of the Ideas; and since our world is nothing but the manifestation of the Ideas in

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 333

multiplicity, though their entrance into the prindpium individtiationis (the form of the knowledge possible for the individual as such), music also, since it passes over the Ideas, is entirely independent of the phenomenal world, ignores it altogether, could to a certain extent exist if there was no world at all, which cannot be said of the other arts.

Music is as direct an objectification and copy of the whole toill as the world itself, nay, even as the Ideas, whose multiplied manifestation constitutes the world of individual things. Music is thus by no means like the other arts, the copy of the Ideas, but the copy of the will itself, whose objectivity the Ideas are.

This is why the effect of music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts, for they speak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself.

Since, however, it is the same will wliich objectifies itself both in the Ideas and in music, though in quite different ways, there must be, not indeed a direct likeness, but yet a parallel, an analogy, between music and the Ideas whose manifestation in multiplicity and incompleteness is the visible world.

The establishing of this analogy will facilitate, as an illustration, the understanding of this exposition, which is so difficult on account of the obscurity of the subject.

I recognise in the deepest tones of harmony, in the bass, the lowest grades of the objectification of will, unorganised nature, the mass of the planet. It is well known that all the high notes which are easily sounded, and die away more quickly, are produced by the vibration in their vicinity of the deep bass-notes. When, also, the low notes sound, the high notes always sound faintly, and it is a law of harmony that only those high notes may accompany a bass -note which actually already sound along with it of themselves (its som hai'moniques) on account of its vibration. This is analogous to the fact that the whole of the bodies and organisations of nature must be regarded as having come into existence through gradual development out of the mass of the planet; thif

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is both their supporter and their source, and the same relation subsists between the high notes and the bass. There is a limit of depth, below which no sound is audible.

This corresponds to the fact that no matter can be perceived without form and quality, i.e., without the manifestation of a force which cannot be further explained, in which an Idea expresses itself, and, more generally, that no matter can be entirely without wilL Thus, as a certain pitch is inseparable from the note as such, so a certain grade of the manifestation of will is inseparable from matter.

Bass is thus, for us, in harmony what unorganised nature, the crudest mass, upon which all rests, and from which everything originates and develops, is in the world. Now, further, in the whole of the complemental parts which make up the harmony between the bass and the leading voice singing the melody, I recognise the whole gradation of the Ideas in which the will objectifies itself.

Those nearer to the bass are the lower of these grades, the still unorganised, but yet manifold phenomenal things ; the higher represent to me the world of plants and beasts. The definite intervals of the scale are parallel to the definite grades of the objectification of will, the definite species in nature.

The departure from the arithmetical correctness of the intervals, through some temperament, or produced by the key selected, is analogous to the departure of the individual from the type of the species. Indeed, even the impure discords, which give no definite interval, may be compared to the monstrous abortions produced by beasts of two species, or by man and beast.

But to all these bass and complemental parts which make up the harmony there is wanting that connected progress which belongs only to the high voice singing the melody, and it alone moves quickly and lightly in modulations and runs, while all these others have only a slower movement without a connection in each part for itself. The deep bass moves most slowly, the representative of the crudest mass. Its

rising and falling o^^curs only by large intervals, in thirds, fourths, fifths, never by one tone, unless it is a base inverted by double counterpoint. This slow movement is also physically essential to it; a quick run or shake in the low notes cannot even be imagined. The higher complemental parts, which are parallel to animal life, move more quickly, but yet without melodious connection and significant progress.

The disconnected course of all the complemental parts, and their regulation by definite laws, is analogous to the fact that in the whole irrational world, from the crystal to the most perfect animal, no being has a connected conscioirsness of its own which would make its life into a significant whole, and none experiences a succession of mental developments, none perfects itself by culture, but everything exists always in the same way according to its kind, determined by fixed law.

Lastly, in the melody, in the high, singing, principal voice leading the whole and progressing with unrestrained freedom, in the unbroken significant connection of one thought from beginning to end representing a whole, I recognise the highest grade of the objectification of will, the intellectual life and effort of man.

As he alone, because endowed with reason, constantly looks before and after on the path of his actual life and its innumerable possibilities, and so achieves a course of life which is intellectual, and therefore connected as a whole ; corresponding to this, I say, the melody has significant intentional connection from beginning to end. It records, therefore, the history of the intellectually enlightened will.

This will expresses itself in the actual world as the series of its deeds ; but melody says more, it records the most secret history of this intellectually-enlightened will, pictures every excitement, every effort, every movement of it, all that which the reason collects under the wide and negative concept of feeling, and which it cannot apprehend further through its abstract concepts. Therefore it has always been said that music

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is the language of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of reason. Plato explains it as 17 Ta>v fieKmv KiV7)aK fiefiifitifievr), ev rot? iraOi^fj.aaiv orav yjrvxv yiv7}Teu (melodiarum motus, animi affectus imitans), De Leg. vii.; and also Aristotle says: Bia tl ol pvdfioi Kai ra fieXrj, ovaa, rjdeaiv €oiKe (cur numeri musici et modi,

qui voces sunt, morihus similes sese exhibent ?) : Probl. c. 1 9.

Now the nature of man consists in this, that his will strives, is satisfied and strives anew, and so on for ever. Indeed, his happiness and well-being consist simply in the quick transition from wish to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new wish. For the absence of satisfaction is suffering, the empty longing for a new wish, languor, ennui. And corresponding to this the nature of melody is a constant digression and deviation from the key-note in a thousand ways, not only to the harmonious intervals to the third and dominant, but to every tone, to the dissonant sevenths and to the superfluous degrees; yet there always follows a constant return to the key-note. In all these deviations melody expresses the multifarious efforts of will, but always its satisfaction also by tlie final return to an harmonious interval, and still more, to the key-note. Tlie composition of melody, the disclosure in it of all the deepest secrets of human willing and feeling, is the work of genius, whose action, which is more apparent here than anywhere else, lies far from all reflection and conscious intention, and may be called an inspiration. The conception is here, as everywhere in art, unfruitful. The composer reveals the inner nature of the world, and expresses the deepest wisdom in a language which his reason does not understand ; as a person under the influence of mesmerism tells things of which he has no conception when be awakes? _ Tberefore in the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is entirely separated and distinct from the artist. Even in the explanation of this wonderful art, the concept shows its poverty

THE PLATONIC IDEA: THE OBJECT OF ART. 337

and limitation. I shall try, however, to complete our analogy. As quick transition from wish to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new wish, is happiness and well-being, so quick melodies without great deviations are cheerful ; slow melodies, striking painful discords, and only winding back through many bars to the keynote are, as analogous to the delayed and hardly won satisfaction, sad. The delay of the new excitement of will, languor, could have no other expression than the sustained keynote, the effect of which would soon be unbearable; very monotonous and unmeaning melodies approach this effect. The short intelligible subjects of quick dance-music seem to speak only of easily attained common pleasure. Ou the other hand, the Allegro maestoso, in elaborate movements, long passages, and wide deviations, signifies a greater, nobler effort towards a more distant end, and its final attainment. The Adagio speaks of the pain of a great and noble effort which despises all trifling happiness. But how wonderful is the effect of the minor and major! How astounding that the change of half a tone, the entrance of a minor third instead of a major, at once and inevitably forces upon us an anxious painful feeling, from which again we are just as instantaneously delivered by the major. The Adagio lengthens in the minor the expression of the keenest pain, and becomes even a convulsive wail. Dance-music in the minor seems to indicate the failure

of that trifling happiness which we ought rather to despise, seems to speak of the attainment of a lower end with toil and trouble. The inexhaustibleness of possible melodies corresponds to the inexhaustibleness of Nature in difference of individuals, physiognomies, and courses

of life. The transition from one key to an entirely different one, since it altogetterDreaks &e connection with what wjrat"^e^rej|_^^^^e“^3e^Sh, for the individual en3s*” in it ; but the v^l which appeared in this individual lives afterTiim' as T)Sore him, appearing in other

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individnals, whose consciousness, however, has no connection with his.

But it must never be forgotten, in the investigation of all these analogies I have pointed out, that music has no direct, but merely an indirect relation to them, for it never expresses the phenomenon, but only the inner nature, the in-itself of all phenomena, the will itself.

It does not therefore express this or that particular and definite joy, this or that sorrow, or pain, or horror, or delight, or merriment, or peace of mind ; but joy, sorrow, pain, horror, delight, merriment, peace of mind themselves, to a certain extent in the abstract, their essential nature, without accessories, and therefore without their motives. Yet we completely understand them in this extracted quintessence.

Hence it arises that our imagination is so easily excited by music, and now seeks to give form to that invisible yet actively moved spiritworld which speaks to us directly, and clothe it with flesh and blood, i.e., to embody it in an analogous example.

This is the origin of the song with words, and finally of the opera, the text of which should therefore never forsake that subordinate position in order to make itself the chief thing and the music a mere means of expressing it, which is a great misconception and a piece of utter perversity; for music always expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves, and therefore their differences do not always affect it.

It is precisely this universality, which belongs exclusively to it, together with the greatest determinateness, that gives music the high worth which it has as the panacea for all our woes. Thus, if music is too closely united to the words, and tries to form itself according to the events, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.

Ho one has kept so free from this mistake as Bossini; therefore his music speaks its own language so distinctly and purely that it requires no words, and produces its full effect when rendered by instruments alone.

According to all this, we may regard the phenomenal world, or nature, and music as two different expressions of the same thing, which is therefore itself the only medium of their analogy, so that a knowledge of it is demanded in order to understand that analogy.

Music, therefore, if regarded as an expression of the world, is in the highest degree a universal language, which is related indeed to the universality of concepts, much as they are related to the particular things. Its universality, however, is by no means that empty universality of abstraction, but quite of a different kind, and is united with thorough and distinct definiteness.

In this respect it resembles geometrical figures and numbers, which are the universal forms of all pos.sible objects of experience and applicable to them all a priori, and yet are not abstract but perceptible and thoroughly determined.

All possible efforts, excitements, and manifestations of will, all that ^es on in the lie¥rt’ of" hiaii and 'tTial*T‘eas6ii~mcIudes m the wide, negative cbhcept of feeling^ may be expressed by the infinite number of possible meloHiesT^ut* tilways in the univemah in the mere forui,3vTtKouF1EKe^ ihafenaT, always according to the thing-in-itself, not the phenomenon, the inmost soul, as it were, of the phenomenon, without the body.

This deep relation which music has to the teue nature of all things also explains the fact that suitable music played to any~scene7aHion7*evenfr or^ r^ rounding seems to disclose to {iii1t3~nrosT~secret' meamh^' and appears as the most accurate and distinct commentary upon it, This is so truly the case, that whoever gives himself up entirely to the impression of a symphony, seems to see all the possible events of life and the world take place in himself, yet if he reflects, he can find no likeness between the music and the things that passed before his mind.

For, as we have said, music is distinguished from all the other arts by the fact that it is not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more accurately, the adequate objectivity of will, but is the direct copy of the

will itself, and therefore exhibits itself as the metaphysical to everything physical in the world, and as the thing-in-itself to every phenomenon.

We might, therefore, just as well call the world embodied music as embodied will ; and this is the reason why music makes every picture, and indeed every scene of real life and of the world, at once appear with higher significance, certainly all the more in proportion as its melody is analogous to the inner spirit of the given phenomenon.

It rests upon this that we are able to set a poem to music as a song, or a perceptible representation as a pantomime. or both as an opera. Such particular pictures of human life, set to the universal language of music, are never bound to it or correspond to it with stringent necessity ; but they stand to it only in the relation of an example chosen at will to a general concept.

In the determinateness of the real, they represent that which music expresses in the universality of mere form. For melodies are to a certain extent, like general concepts, an abstraction from the actual. This actual world, then, the world of particular things, affords the object of perception, the special and individual, the particular case, both to the universality of the concepts and to the universality of the melodies.

But these two viniversalities are in a certain respect opposed to each other ; for the concepts contain particulars only as the first forms abstracted from perception, as it were, the separated shell of things ; thus they are, strictly speaking, dbstracta ; music, on the other hand, gives the inmost kernel which precedes all forms, or the heart of things.

This relation may be very well expressed in the language of the schoolmen by saying the concepts are the universcdia post rent, but music gives the universalia ante rem, and the real world the universalia in re. To the universal significance of a melody to which a poem has been set, it is quite possible to set other equally arbitrarily selected examples of the universal expressed in this poem corresponding to the significance of the melody in the

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. 341

same degree. This is why the same composition is suitable to many verses ; and this is also what makes the vaudeirUle possible. But that in general a relation is possible between a composition and a perceptible representation rests, as we have said, upon the fact that both are simply different expressions of the same inner being of the world. When now, in the particular case, such a relation is actually given, that is to say, when the composer has been able to express in the universal language of music the emotions of will which constitute the heart of an event, then the melody of the song, the music of the opera, is expressive. But the analogy discovered by the composer between ihe two must have proceeded from the direct knowledge of the nature of the world unknown to his reason, and must not be an imitation produced with conscious intention by means of conceptions, otherwise the music does not express the inner nature of the will itself, but merely gives an inadequate imitation of its phenomenon. All specially imitative music does this ; for example, “The Seasons,” by Haydn; also many passages of his “ Creation,” in which phenomena ^f Jbhje external world ar^ clir^Iy imitated ; also all battle-^i^s. S^ucb music is"entu'e1y to be reeled.

The unutterable depth of all music by virtue of which it floats through our consciousness as the vision of a paradise firmly believed in yet ever distant from us, and by which also it is so fully understood and yet so inexplicable, rests on the fact that it restores to us all the emotions of our inmost nature, but entirely without reality and far removed from their pain. So also the seriousness which is essential to it, which excludes the absurd from its direct and peculiar province, is to be explained by the fact that its object is not the idea, with reference to which alone deception and absurdity are possible ; but its object is directly the will, and this is essentially the most serious of all things, for it is that on which all depends. How rich in content and full of

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significance the language of music is, we see from the repetitions, as well as the Da capo, the like of which would be unbearable in works composed in a language of words, but in music are very appropriate and beneficial, for, in order to comprehend it fully, we must hear it twice.

In the whole of this exposition of music I have been trying to bring out clearly that it expresses in a perfectly universal language, in a homogeneous material, mere tones, and with the greatest determinateness and truth, the inner nature, the in-itself of the world, which we think under the concept of will, because will is its most distinct manifestation. Further, according to my vie^y and contention, philosophy is nothing but a complete a^ accurate repetition or expression of the nature of the world in veiy general concepts, for only In such is it possible to get a view of that whole natere which will everywhere be adequate and apjpicable^ Thus, whoever has followed me and entered into my mode of thought, will not think it so very paradoxical if I say, that supposing it were possible to give a perfectly accurate, complete explanation of music, extending even to particulars, that is to say, a detailed repetition in concepts of what it expresses, this would also be a sufficient repetition and explanation of the world in concepts, or at least entirely parallel to such an explanation, and thus it would be the true philosophy. Consequently the saying of Leibnitz quoted above, which is quite accurate from a lower standpoint, may be parodied in the following way to suit our higher view of music : MvMca est exerdtium metaphysices occult turn nesde/ntis se philosophari animi ; for scire, to know, always means to have fixed in abstract concepts. But further, on account of the truth of the saying of Leibnitz, which is confirmed in various ways, music, regarded apart from its aesthetic or inner significance, and looked at merely externally and purely empirically, is simply the means of comprehending directly and in the concrete

THE PLATONIC IDEA ; THE OBJECT OF ART. 343

large numbers and complex relations of numbers, which otherwise we could only know indirectly by fixing them in concepts. Therefore by the union of these two very different but correct views of music we may arrive at a conception of the possibility of a philosophy of number, such as that of Pythagoras and of the Chinese in Y^King, and then interpret in this sense the saying of the Pythagoreans which Sextus Empiricus quotes (adv. Math., L. vii.) : apiOfMjp Se ra Train"’ eveoiKep (numero cuncta

assimilanfur). And if, finally, we apply this view to the interpretation of harmony and melody given above, we shall find that a mere moral pbilosopliy^ witjy^pt;^,^^ explanation of Nature, such as Socrates wanted to introduce, IS precisely analogous to a mere melody without harmony, which Eousseau exclusively desired ; and, in opposition to this mere physilS” ethics~, will c6H‘6ap55d"to''mefe “

Allow me to add to these cursory observations a few more remarks concerning the analogy of music with the phenomenal world. We found in the second book that the highest grade of the objectification of will, man, could not appear alone and isolated, but presupposed the grades below him, as these again presupposed the grades lower still In the same way music, which directly objectifies the will, just as the world does, is complete only in full harmony. In order to achieve its full effect, the high leading voice of the melody requires the accompaniment of all the other voices, even to the lowest bass, which is to be regarded as the origin of all. The melody itself enters as an integral part into the harmony, as the harmony enters into it, and only thus, in the full harmonious whole, music expresses what it aims at expressing. Thus also the one will outside of time finds its full objectification only in the complete union of all the steps which reveal its nature in the innumerable ascending grades of distinctness. The following analogy is also very remarkable. We have seen in the preceding book that notand metaphysics without KarnTo'njT^iIHoutlnelm

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wit.hstAnirlfnp f>elf-adat)tation of all the phenomena of will to each other as regards their species, which consSEat^~~their teleological aspect, there yet remains an unceasing conflict between those phenomena as individuals, which is visible q.t every gr^de, and makes the worl^ a constant battle-field of all those manifestations of one and the same will, whose inner contradiction with itself h(^ru^Adsible tl^ropgh fl;.

In music also there is something corresponding to this. A complete, pure, harmonious system of tones is not only physically but arithmetically impossible. The numbers themselves by which the tones are expressed have inextricable irrationality. There is no scale in which, when it is counted, every fifth will be related to the keynote as 2 to 3, every major third as 4 to 5, every minor third as 5 to 6, and so on.

For if they are correctly related to the keynote, they can no longer be so to each other; because, for example, the fifth must be the minor third to the third, &c. For the notes of the scale may be compared to actors who must play now one part, now another.

Therefore a perfectly accurate system of music cannot even be thought, far less worked out; and on this account all possible music deviates from perfect purity ; it can only conceal the discords essential to it by dividing them among all the notes, i.e., by temperament On this see Chladni’s “Akustik,” § 30, and his “ Kurze Uebersicht der Schall- und Klanglehre.” ^

I might still have something to say about the way in which music is perceived, namely, in and through time alone, with absolute exclusion of space, and also apart from the influence of the knowledge of causality, thus without understanding ; for the tones make the aesthetic impression as effect, and without obliging us to go back to their causes, as in the case of perception. I do not wish, however, to lengthen this discussion, as I have perhaps already gone too much into detail with regard to ^ Cf. Cb. xxxix. of Supplement.

THE PLATONIC IDEA : THE OBJECT OF ART. ' 345

some things in this Third Book, or have dwelt too much on particulars. But my aim made it necessary, and it will be the less disapproved if the importance and high worth of art, which is seldom sufficiently recognised, be kept in mind. For if, according to our view, the whole visible world is just the objectification, the mirror, of the will, conducting it to knowledge of itself, and, indeed, as we shall soon see, to the possibility of its deliverance ; and if, at the same time, the world ^ idea, if we regard it in isolation^ aQ.(L ireeing_cmiaelv^3 from~*all volition. allow it alone to take jpossession of our conscm^ness, is the most joy;^i''i“g and the only Innocent side of life ; we must regardart as hl^er* asc^tpffie more complete

developnieht of all Tor it achieves essenti^y just

what is achieved by the visible world itscif^onlY mth greater concentration, more perfectly, with intention and

{ntelll^ence^~and ’ flvw^fe'Toay ’'hej cOTed^Td^^ full

significance of the word, the flower of Ufe.^ If the whole world as idea is only the visibility ol will, the work of art is to render this visibility more distinct. It is the camera obscura whicli~show8 the objects more purely, and enaSleFus to survey them and comprehend them better, it is the play within the play, the stage upon the stage in"* Bnmfet.^’ ' w,-..-.. ,,. .

The pleasure we receive from all beauty, the consolation which art affords, the enthusiasm of the artist, which enables him to forget the cares of life, — the latter an ^vantage of the man of genius over other men, which alone repays him for the suffering that increases in proportion to the clearness of consciousness, and for the desert loneliness among men of a different race, — all this rests~on the facTTEanhe~m.TEself of iiie, the will, existenceTtseB7^," as we shall see farther on, a constant i^i^bW,~~parfi|y^ miserable, parfiy terrible; while, on the contrary, as idea alone, purely contemplated^ or co^ed by art, free from pain^ it presents to us a drama full of signiflcance^ This pui^y knowable side of the world,

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and the copy of it in any art, is the element of the artist. He is chained to the contemplation of the play, the objectification of will; he remains beside it, does not get tired of contemplating it and representing it in copies ; and meanwhile he bears himself the cost of the production of that play, i.e.^ he himself is the will which objectifies itself, and remains in constant suffering. That pure, true, and deep knowledge of the inner nature of the world becomes~now for him an end in itself; he stops there. Therefore it does not become to him a quieter of the will, ^ we shall seem the next booS, ^^oes in the case of the saint who has attained to resignation p^~do^ not deliver him for ever from life, but only at moments, and is therefore not for him a path out of Iife^Tiut only aSToccasional consolation in it, tilf his powSr^ increased by this cqntemplatinn and at last tired of tFe playTl^S hold on the real. The St Cecilia of Eaphael may be regarded as a representation of this transition. To the real, then, we now tumTa the following book.

jFourtl) Booft.

THE WORLD AS WILL

SECOND ASPECT.

HTB ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL TO LIVE, WHEN SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS HAS BEEN ATTAINED.

Tempore quo cognitio simul advenit, amor e medio supersurrexit,— Oupnek^hatt Studio AnquetU Dup&rron^ yoL ii, p. 216.

( 349 )

IV.

§ 53* The last part of our work presents itself as the most serious, for it relates to the action of men, the matter which concerns every one directly and can be foreign or indifferent to none. It is indeed so characteristic of the nature of man to relate everything else to action, that in every systematic investigation he will always treat the part that has to do with action as the result or outcome of the whole work, so far, at least, as it interests him, and will therefore give his most serious attention to this part, even if to no other. In this respect the following part of our work would, in ordinary language, be called practical philosophy, in opposition to the theoretical, which has occupied us hitherto. But, in my opinion, all philosophy is theoretical, because it is essential to it tSat it sTidiiTd retain a purely ~cmi temH^- tive attitude, and should investigate, not prescribe. To become, on the conlraiy.^practi^l. to guide conduct, to transfom character, are old claims, which with fuller insight it ougHt'lSnallv to give up! t'or here, where the worth or worthlessness of an existence, where salyation or damnation are i^g^uestion, tlm dead wnc^tions of philosopEy”*^ not decide the matter, but the inmost

‘*‘_l , I I IIIK II l» IL

nature of man himself, the Dsemon that guides him and that hasnot chosen him, but been chosen by him, as {"lato would say; intelligible clTaracter. asiKaS e^r^es himself. Virtue cannot be taught any more tEah gemus ; Inileed, for it the concept is just as unfruitful as it is in art, and in both cases can only be used as

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an instrument. It would, therefore, be just as absurd to expect that our moral systems and ethics will produce virtuous, noble, and holy men, as that our aesthetics will induce' pdet8,~painter8, and musicians.

~~ Philosophy can never do more than interpret and explain what is given. It can only bring to distinct abstract knowledge of the reason the nature of the world which in the concrete, that is, as feeling, expresses itself comprehensibly to every one. This, however, it does in every possible reference and from every point of view. Now, as this attempt has been made from other points of view in the three preceding books with the generality that is proper to philosophy, in this book the action of men will be considered in the same way ; and this side of the world might, indeed, be considered the most important of all, not only subjectively, as I remarked above, but also objectively. In considering it I shall faithfully adhere to the method I have hitherto followed, and shall support myself by presupposing all that has already been advanced. There is, indeed, just one thought which forms the content of this whole work. I have endeavoured to work it out in all other spheres, and I shall now do so with regard to human action. I shall then have done all that is in my power to communicate it as fully as possible.

The given point of view, and the method of treatment announced, are themselves sufficient to indicate that in tliis ethical book no precepts, no doctrine of duty must be looked for; still less will a general moral principle be given, an universal receipt, as it were, for the production of all the virtues.

Neither shall we talk of an “ ahsolute ought” for this contains a contradiction, as is explained in the Appendix ; nor yet of a “ law of freedom f which is in the same position. In general, we shall not speak at all of “ ought,” for this is how one speaks to children and to nations still in their childhood, but not to those who have appropriated all the culture of a fullrun ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 351

grown age. It is a palpable contradiction to call the will free, and yet to prescribe laws for it according to which it ought to will. " Ought to will ! ” — wooden iron But it follows from the point of view of our system that the win is not only free, but almighty. From it proceeds not only its action, but also its world ; and as the wUl is, so does its action and its world become. Both are the self-knowledge of the will and nothing more.

The will determines itself, and at the same time both its action and its world ; for besides it there is nothing, and these are the will itself. Only thus is the will truly autonomous, and from every other point of view it is heteronomous. Our philosophical endeavours can only extend to exhibiting and explaining the action of men in its inner nature and content, the various and even opposite maxims, whose living expression it is.

This we shall do in connection with the preceding portion of our work, and in precisely the same way as we have hitherto explained the other phenomena of the world, and have sought to bring their inmost nature to distinct abstract knowledge. Our philosophy will maintain the same immamncy in the case of action, as in all that we have hitherto considered.

Notwithstanding Kant’s great doctrine, it will not attempt to use the forms of the phenomenon, the universal expression of which is the principle of sufficient reason, as a leaping-pole to jump over the phenomenon itself, which alone gives meaning to these forms, and land in the boundless sphere of empty fictions.

But this actual world of experience, in which we are, and which is in us, remains both the material and the limits of our consideration : a world which is so rich in content that even the most searching investigation of which the human mind is capable could not exhaust it.

Since then the real world of experience will never fail to afford material and reality to our ethical investigations, any more than to those we have already conducted, nothing will be less needful than to take refuge in ne gative conceptions

void of content, and then somehow or other make even ourselves believe that we are saying something when we speak with lifted eyebrows of “absolutes,” “infinites,” “ supersensibles,” and whatever other mere negations of this sort there may be {ovBev ean, r) to Tr)<} <7T€pr)a‘e<a<} ofofia, fiera a/MvBpa^ emvoiai — nihil est, nisi negationis nomen, cum obscura notione. — Jul. or.

5), instead of which it would be shorter to say at once cloud-cuckoo-town {vecjieXoKOKKtjyta) : we shall not require to serve up covered empty dishes of this kind. Finally, we shall not in this book, any more than in those which have preceded it, narrate histories and give tliera out as philosophy.

For we are of opinion that whoever supposes that the inner nature of the world can in any way, however plausibly disguised, be historically comprehended, is infinitely far from a philosophical knowledge of the world.

Yet this is what is supposed whenever a “ becoming,” or a “ having become,” or an “ about to become ” enters into a theory of the nature of the world, whenever an earlier or a later has the least place in it ; and in this way a beginning and an end of the world, and the path it pursues between them, is, either openly or disguisedly, both sought for and found, and the individual who philosophises even recognises his own position on that path.

Such historical philosophising in most cases produces a cosmogony which admits of many varieties, or else a system of emanations, a doctrine of successive disengagements from one being; or, finally, driven in despair from fruitless efforts upon these paths to the last path of all, it takes refuge in the converse doctrine of a constant becoming, springing up, arising, coming to light out of darkness, out of the hidden ground source or groundlessness, or whatever other nonsense of this sort there may be, which is most shortly disposed of with the remark that at the present moment a whole eternity, i.e., an endless time, has already passed, so that everything that can or ought to become must have already done so. For all such historical philosophy, whatTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 353

ever airs ^ may give itselfj regards time just as if Kant had never lived, as a quality of the thing-in-itself, and tiius stops at that which Kant calls the phenomenon in opposition to the thing-in-itself ; which Plato calls the becoming and never feeing, in opposition to the being and never becoming ; an3~''w1ucKrnSairyr is called in the Indian philosophy t£e web of ‘‘ll&y a.

Ii~ir~iSbthelmowiedge which belongs to th^ principle of sufficient reason, with which no one can penetrate to the Thher nature of thing^but endlessly pursues phenomena, moving without end or aim, like a' squTrrer ih~it3 ' whe^^^ till, tired out at last, he stops ait some- point or other arbitranly chosen, and now desires Jto_ extort resgeot^il jt frona others also.

Ilie genuine philosophical consideration of the world, i.e., the consideration that affords us a knowledge of its inner nature, and so leads us beyond the phenomenon, is precisely that method which 3oea not concern itself with the whence, the whither, and the why of the world, but always and everywhere demands only the what ; the method which considers things not according^ |o^ jiny relation, not as becoming and passing away, in shnrt, not a,ccording^ to„ onn, of the four forms of the principle of sufficient re^on; but, on ffie contrary, just that which remains when all that belongs to the form of knowledge proper to that principle has been abstracted, the inner nature of the world, which always appears unchanged in all the relations, but is itself never subject to them, and has the Ideas of the world as its object or material.

From such knowledge as this proceeds philosophy, like art^ and also^ as we shaTTsee in this book, that disposition of mind which alone leads ^to~true holiness and to deliyerMicp„frpm t^ world.

§ 54. The first three books will, it is hoped, have conveyed the distinct and certain knowledge that the wodd, JS-ideft.. j^the^,omplRte minBr..jaOhe,_wilh_ip which it knows itself in ascending grades of diatinetneiM

VOL. I.

3S4

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

and completeness, the highest of which is man,’ whose naUire, however, receives ite complete expression only through the whole connected series of his actions. The self-conscious connection ortE^e~aclIbnins~ made possible by reason, which enables a man constantly to survey the whole in the abstract.

The will, which, considered purely in itself, is without knowledge, and is merely a blind incessant impulse, as we see it appear in unorganised and vegetable nature and their laws, and also in the vegetative part of our own life, receives through the addition of the world as idea, which is developed in subjection to it, the knowledge of its own willing and of what it is that it wills. And this is nothing else than the world as idea, life, precisely as it exists. Therefore we called the phenomenal world the mirror of the will, its objectivity.

And since what the will wills is always life, just because life 13 nothing but the representation of that willing ioT the idea, Tt Ts liir one and „a mere_ pleonism if^ instead of simply saying “ the will,” we say “ the will to

iiye.3^

Will is the thing - in - itself, the inner content, the essence of the world Life7 the visible woild, the phenomenon, is only the mirror of the will Therefore life accompanies the will as inseparably as the shadow accompanies the body ; and if will exists, so wUl life, the world, exist Life is,_therefore, assureJ~to the will_^ to live ; and so long as we are filled with the wHl to live we need |tove no fear fo^our existence, even in £Ee presence aTTLeath.. It is true yye see the , individual 'c^ being and pass away ; but the individual is only phenomenal, exists only for the knowledge which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, to the principio individvMtwtm. Certainly, for thjs kind of knowledge, the individual receives his life as a gift,^ rises out of nothing. Qien su^rT^tlie loss of this gift throng death, and returns again to nothing. But we desire to„

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 355

philosophically, i.e.^ according to its Ideaa^ and in this sphere we shall fiad that neither the will, the thingin- itself in all phenomena, nor the subject of knowing, that which perceives i^l phenomena, is affected at all by hMh~ of ^Taianr" Birth and

phenomenon of will, thus to life; and it is essential to this to exhibit itself in individuals which come into being and pass awaj, ^ fleeting phenomena appea^g^ m tlm fbfm~or“Gme — phenomena of that which in itself knows no time, hut must exhibit itself precisely in the way we have said, in order to objectify its peculiar nature. Birth and death belong in like manner to life, and hold the_ halmice as reBiprbcaT'~c6nditioh¥"br 'each^th^~orJTr one likes the expression, as poles of the whole 2>henomenon of lite. "The wisesF~oF all m^liblo^~s, the'lndian, ex- ^esses” this by giving td^he~ver:^~go3~~tHat~symboIi8'e3 destruction, death Brahmiii' the 'mOStnslnlnl "and the

lowest god of the Trimurti, symbolises generation, coming into being, ~^d~TisEnu~^Qiamta1nifg~6r pr^erviug), by giving, I say, to Siva as an attribute not only the "hecklace of skulls, but also the lingam, the symbol of generation, which appears here as the counterpart of death, lEhui signifying that generation and death are essentially correlativesf whicii reciproc^y^heutralise and annul each

Greeks and llomaiis to adorn their costly sarcophagi, just as we see them now, with feasts, dances, marriages, the chase, fights of wild beasts, bacchanalians, &a ; thus with representations of the full ardour of life, which they place before us not only in such revels and sports, but also in sensual groups, and even go so far as to represent the sexual intercourse of satyrs and goats. Clearly the ain was to point in the most impressive manner away fron the death of the mourned individual to the immortal lift of nature, and thus to indicate, though without abstraci knowledge, that the whole of nature is the phenomenor and also the fulfilment of the^lH’to Iim ’ The form' 6i

356 THE WORLD y45 WILL. BK. IV.

this phenomenon is time, space, and causality, and by means of these individuation, which carries with it that the individual must come into being and pass away. But this no more affects the will to live, of whose manifestation the individual is, as it were, only a particular example or specimen, than the death of an individual injures the whole of nature.

For it is not the individual, but only the species that Nature cares for, and for the preservation of which she so earnestly strives, providing for it with the utmost prodigality through the vast surplus of the seed and the great strength of the fructifying impulse.

The individual, on the contrary, neither has nor can have any value for Nature, for her kingdom is infinite time and infinite space, and in these infinite multiplicity of possible individuals.

Therefore she is always ready to let the individual fall, and hence it is not only exposed to destruction in a thousand ways by the most insignificant accident, but originally destined for it, and conducted towards it by Nature herself from the moment it has served its end of maintaining the species.

Thus Nature naively expresses the great truth that only the Ideas, not the individuals, have, properly speaking, reality, i.e., are complete objectivity of the will.

Now, since man is Nature itself, and indeed Nature at the highest grade of its self-consciousness, but Nature is only the objectified will to live, the man who has comprehended and retained this point of view may well console himself, when contemplating his own death and that of his friends, by turning his eyes to the immortal life of Nature, which he himself is.

This is the significance of Siva with the lingam, and of those ancient sarcophagi with their pictures of glowing life, which say to the mourning beholder, Natura non contristatur.

That generation and death are to be regarded as something belonging to life, and essential to this phenomenon of the will, arises also from the fact that they both exhibit themselves merely as higher powers of the expresTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 357

sion of that in which all the rest of life consists. This is through and through nothing else than the constant change of matter in the fixed permanence of form ; and this is what constitutes the transitoriness of the individual and the permanence of the species. Constant nourishment and renewal differ from generation only in degree, and constant excretion differs only in degree from death.

The first shows itself most simply and distinctly in the plant. The plant is throughout a constant recurrence of the same impulse of its simplest fibre, which groups itself into leaf and branch. It is a systematic aggregate of similar plants supporting each other, whose constant reproduction is its single impulse.

It ascends to the full satisfaction of this tendency through the grades of its metamorphosis, finally to the blossom and fruit, that compendium of its existence and effort in which it now attains, by a short way, to that which is its single aim, and at a stroke produces a thousand-fold what, up till then, it effected only in the particular case — ^the repetition of itself.

Its earlier growth and development stands in the same relation to its fruit as writing stands to printing. With the animal it is clearly quite the same. The process of nourishing is a constant reproduction ; the process of reproduction is a higher power of nourishing. The ple^ure which accoiapames the act of procreation is a higher power of , the agreeableness of the sense of life.

On the other hand, excretion, the constant e:^alation and throwing off of matter, is the same as that which, at a higher power, death^ is the conti^y of generation. And if here we are always ^^^cdhlbeht to retain the form without lamenting the discarded matter, vie ought to bj^r ourselves in the sa^ 3eatS

the same thing happens, in ji fogher degree and to the wKoIeT^as tokes place daily and h9ur]j iq_.j8^_ partial manner in excretion ; if we are indifferent to the one, we oughrn^lo'sKnnk from the o£Eerr~" therefore, from this point of view, it appears just as perverse to desire

35«

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

the continuance of an individuality which will be replaced by other individuals as to desire the pefmanence of matter which will be replaced by other matter. It appears just as foohsh^to einhalm the body as it would cMefiSnj^ ^resei^e jts_excrement As to the individual consciousness which is bound to the individual body, it^ absolutely interrupted every ,d^ bjy sleep. Deep sleep is, while it lasts, in no way different from dea&, into wElcS, m fact, it often passes continuously, as in the case of freezing to death. It differs only with regard to the future, the awaking. Death is a sleep in ^fch individuality is forgotten ; everything else wakes agmn, or rather ne^ sTep^

Above all things, we must distinctly recognise that the form of the phenomenon of will, the form of life or reality, is really only the present, not the future nor the pafit. The latter are only in the conception, exist only in the connection of knowledge, so far as it follows the principle of sufficient reason. No man has ever Jfved in the past, and none wiU live in the future ; the alone is the formljf ILir' Iife, aiid is it3_.suie possession which can never Jbe taken from Jt. The j)resent always together, with.-it3-..contenL Both remain fixed without wavering, like the rainbow on the waterfall. For life is firm a.nd certain iii the will, and the present

Certainly, if we reflect bn

oui-selves in nursdveHf and indepen^ dcrU of the objects of k nowledge and will. Now this is by no means possible, for as soon as we turn into ourbt'lves to mako the attempt, and seek for once to know our8elve.s fully by means of introspective reflection, w'Q are lost in a bottomless void; we find ourselves like the hollow glass globe, from out of which a voice speaks w'hose cause is not to be found in it, and whereas we desired to com})rehend ourselves, we find, with a shudder, notliing but a vanishing spectre.

is firm and certain in Hfe.

^ The following remark may assist those for whom it is not too subtle to understand clearly that the indi> vidual is only the phenomenon, not the thing in itself. Every individual is, on the one hand, the subject of knowing, t.c., the complemental condition of the possibility of the whole objective world, and, on the other hand, a particular phenomenon of will, the same will which objectifies itself in everything. But this double nature of our being does not rest upon a selfexisting unity, otherwise it would

Ka rvAHniblA fnr im f.n be eonsmotifl tif

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 359

the thousands of years that are past, of the millions of men who lived in them, we ask,

what has become of them ? B

need only recall our own past life and renew its scenes

vmdly in our imagination, and then ask agfu^Wh^ was all thisj^ what~Kas’T)ecome of ftT it is with it, so is it with the life of tKose" '’millions. ~br should we suppose that the past could receive a new existence because it has been sealed by death ? Our own past, the most_recmit part of if and^e^^ yesterday, is now no more than an empty~3feam of the fancy, and su^ is the past of all those milTionsr^^WEaTwasT "'W^at i8_? The will, of which life is the mirror, and knowledge free from will, which beholds it clearly in that mirror. Whoever has not yet recognised this, or will not recognise it, must add to the question asked above as to the fate of past

generations of men this question also : Why he, the questioner, is^ so fortunate as to be conscious of tins costly, Ileetingi^ and only real present, while tliose hundred§,pf genefaBqns qf’msh, even the heroes and philosophers of those ages, have sunk into the night of the past, and have thus become nothing; but he, his insignificant ego, actually exists? of inbre shortly, though somewhat

strangely : Why tins now, his now, is .lUSt now and was ^t hng ago ? Since he asks such strange questions, he regards his existence and his time as independent of each other, and the former as projected into the latter. He assumes indeed two nows — one which belongs to the object, the other which belongs to the subject, and marvels at the happy accident of their coincidence. But in truth, only the point of contact of the object, the form of which is time, with the subject, which has no mode of the principle of sufficient reason as its form, constitutes the present, as is shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason. Now all object is the will so far as it has become idea, and the subject is the necessary correlative of the object. But real objects are only in the

36o the world i4S WILL. bk. iv.

present ; the past and the future contain only conceptions and fancies, therefore the present is the essential form of the phenomenon of the will, and inseparable from it. The present alone is that which always exists and remains immovable.

That which, empirically apprehended, is the most transitory of all, presents itself to the metaphysical vision, which sees beyond the forms of empirical perception, as that which alone endures, the nunc stans of the schoolmen. The source and the supporter of its content is the will to live or the thing -in -itself, — which we are.

That which constantly becomes and passes away, in that it has either already been or is still to be, belongs to the phenomenon as such on account of its forms, which make coming into being and passing away possible. Accordingly, we must think ; — Quid fuU i — Quod est. Quid erit ? — Quod fuit ; and take it in the strict meaning of the words; thus understand not simile but idem. For life is certain to the will, and the present is certain to life.

Thus it is that every one can say, “ I am once for all lord of the present, and through all eternity it will accompany me as my shadow : therefore I do not wonder where it has come from, and how it happens that it is exactly now.

We might compare time to a constantly revolving sphere ; the half that was always sinking would be the past, that which was always rising would be the future ; but the indivisible point at the top, where the tangent touches, would be the extensionless present.

As the tangent does not revolve with the sphere, neither does the present, the point of contact of the object, the form of which is time, with the subject, which has no form, because it does not belong to the knowable, but is the condition of all that is knowable. Or, time is like an unceasing stream, and the present a rock on which the stream breaks itself, but does not car^

Vni, as thing-in-itself, is just as little subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 361

as the subject of knowledge, which, finally, in a certain regard is the will itself or its expression. And as life, its own phenomenon, is assured to the will, so is ths l^sent, the single form of real life. Therefore we

have not to investigate the past before life, nor the

future after death ; we have rather to know the freserU, the one form in which the will manifests itself.^ It

will not escape from the will, but neither will the will

escape from it. If, therefore, life as it is satisfies, whoever affirms it in every way may regard it with confidence as endless, and banish the fear 'of death as an illusion that inspires him with the foolish dread that he can ever be robbed of the present, and foreshadows a~time Tn which there is no present; an illusion with regard^to time analogous to the illusion with regard to ^^ce through which every one imagines the position on the globe he happens to occupy as above, and all other places as below. In the same way every one links the present to his own individuality, and imagines that all present is extinguished with it ; that then past and future might be without a present But as on the surface of the globe every place is above, so the form of all life is the present, and to fear death hecauto it robs us of the present, is just m foolish as to fear that we may slip down from the round globe upon which we have now the good fortune to occupy the upper surface. The present is the form essential to the objectification of the will. It cuts time, which extends infinitely in both directions, as a mathematical point, and stands immovably fixed, like an everlasting mid-day with no cool evening, as the actual sun burns without intermission, while it only seems to sink into the bosom of night. Therefore, if ^man fears death as his ajanj^jt^jOB, it is justj^ifb^ were to thi^ that the sun cries out at evening, “ Woe is

* “ Scholastici docuerunt, quod quod erat Nunc Adamo, inter seternitas non sit temporia sine fine nunc et tunc nullam esse different aut principio successio ; sed Nunc tiam.” — Hobbes, Leviathan, o. 46. i.e., idem nobia Nunc esse,

362

THE WORLD AS WILL.

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me ! for I go down into eternal ni^ht.” * And conversely. wEoever is oppressed with the burden of life, whoever desires life and affirms it^, but abhors its torments, and especially can no longer endure the hard lot that has fallen to himself, such a man has no deliverance to Hope for from death, and cannot right himself bj^suicida The OToI shades o! ^cus allure him only with the false appearSacT of a haven of rest.

The earth rolls Trom day into night, til e individual dieSj^ut the sun itself ^mesi wltKout intermission, an eternal noon. Life is assured to the will to live ; the form of life is an endless present, no matter how the individuals, the phenomena of the Idea^ arise and pass away in time, lilce fleeting dr^ms.

Thus even already suicide appears to us as a vain and therefore a fdolisli action; when we have carried our investigation further it wil^appear to us in a still less favourable light Dogmas change and our knowledge is deceptive ; but Nature never errs, her procedure is sure, and she novel conceals it .. Everything is entirely in Nature, and Nature is entire in .everythliig^ . SKeTias' her centre' in' every brute.

It has surely found its way into existence, and it will surely find its way out of it. In the meantime it lives, fearless and without care, in the presence of annihilation, supported by the consciousness that it is Nature herself, and imperishable as she is. Man alone carries about with him, in abstract conceptions, the certainty of his death ; yet this can only trouble liim very^^ rarely,

^ In Eckermann’s “Conversations passage, for it occurs in the first of Goethe” (vol. i. p. 161), Goethe edition, p. 401, in exactly the same says : “ Our spirit is a being of a words, and it is also repeated at nature quite indestructible, and its p. 528 of that edition, as at the activity continues from eternity to close of § 65 of the present woxk, eternity. It is like the sun, which The first edition was sent to him in seems to set only to our earthly December 1818, and in March 1819, eyes, but which, in reality, never when I was at Naples, he sent me sets, but shines on unceasingly.” his congratulations by letter, through Goethe has taken the simile from 1113^ si.^ter, and enclosed a piece of me ; not I from him. Without paper upon which he had noted the doubt he used it in this conversa- places of certain passages which had tion, which was held in 1824, in specially pleased him. Thus he bad consequence of a (possibly uncon- read my book, scious) reminiscence of the above

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 363

when for a single moment some occasion calls it uy to his imagination. Agaiist the mighty voice of Nature jeflec^- tion can do little.

In man^ as ir^ the brxitc which d^es not think, the certainty that springs from his inmost conscioiMiiesg. that he Jijmself ^ jjTature, the world, predominates as a lasting frame of mind ; and on account (STthis no man IS otjiirvahIy^IiturbeCi>Y the thought of certain anJ never-distant death, but lives as if he would live for ever.

Indeed this is carried so far that we may say that no one IraQ^jally a lively conviction of the^eifiSmty^ol his death, otherwise there would be no great difference Fetween Ms frame of niind and that of a cpjrdsajiued^crh miniil. ^very one recognises that certainty in the abstract and theoretically, but lavs it aside like other theoretical truths which are not applicable to practice, without really receiving it into his 1 ivung ^oirsmousneii^ WFoover carefully considers this peculiarity of human character will see that the psychological explanations of it, from habit and acquiescence in the inevitable, are by no means sufficient, and that its true explanation lies in the deeper ground we have given.

The same fact explains the circumstance that at all times and among all peoples dogmas of some kind or other_^relating to the continued existence of the individual after death_arIse^^7iE?7M? Believed in, although the evidence in support of them must always be very insufficient, and the evidence against them forcible and varied.

But, in truth, this really requires no proof, but is recognised by the healthy understanding as a fact, and confirmed by the confidence that Nature never lies any more than she errs, but openly exMbits and naively expresses her action and her nature, while only we ourselves obscure it by our folly, in order to establish what is agreeable to our limited point of view.

But this that we have brought to clearest consciousness, that although the particular phenomenon of the will has a temporal beginning and end, the will itself as thingin-itself is not affected by it, nor yet the correlative of

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

BK. IV

364

all object, the knowing but never known subject, and that life is always assured to the will to live — this is not to be numbered with the doctrines of immortality. For permanence has no more to do with the will or with the pure subject of £nowm^~£Ee eteraar~eye of fKe~vg^irId , ffian transitoriness, for both are predicates that are only valid in timj^ and the jmU ^,a^^ pure subject of Jcnowing lie outside time. Therefore the egoism of the individual (this p^ic^ar phenomenon of will enlightened by tbe subject of knowing) can extract as little nourishment and consolation for his wish to endure through endless time from the view we have expressed, as he could from the knowledge that after his deatli the rest of the eternal W(^d would continue to exist, wTilch is Just ilie expression of the same view considered objeoTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 365

at ease as if there were no such thing as death, so Iohg"ai" it Is lface to fa(^ lifer

attention to it, yet it will^not prevent the individual from being~seized with the f^r of dea^tfi,7aii3 tr^g in'" every way to escape from it, when it presents itself to him m some particular real ^se, pr^eyen _only in his imagination, ^d he is compelled to contemplate it for just as, so long as his knowledge was directed t^Tife as such, he was obliged to recognise imnioftffi^ in it, to 'wKen' dealh is brought before his eyes, he is obliged to recognise it as that vvdiich it is, the temporal end of the particular temporal phenomenon. What we fear in 3eath~l3 by no means the pain, for it lies clearly oil this S3e of death, and, moreover^ we bfteh take refuge in death from pain, just as, on the contrary, we soruetimes endure the mo3t~!eai1uT~suHe^rlhg~mereTirto' escape^

for a while, although it would be quick and easy. Thug we distinguish pain and deathjas' two^ entirelj" different evils. What we fear in death is the end of the individual^ which it openly professes itself to be, and since the individual is a particular objectification of the will to live itself, its whole nature struggles against death. Now

when feeling thus exposes ms .helpless, re^^^^ can yet step in and for the most part overcome its adverse influence, for it places us upon a higher standpoint, from which we no longer contemplate the particular but the whole. Therefore a philosophical Imowledge of the nature of the world, which extended to the point we have now feai^J in liEls worlc but went no farther, could even at this point of view overcome the terror of de^h in the measure In which" refiectldh^ad power over direct feeling in the given individual!^ K man who had thoroughly assiniilatod the truths wehave alreacTy advanced, huthad not come to know, either from his own experience or from a deeper insight, that constant suffering is essent^

to Mfe, wEgTfejg^^^a'tMactipbr

life, and could calmly and deliberately d.esire toat ^

366

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

life, as he had hitbeita. knoHm it.. shniild p.nt^nrf} for ever 6r^ repeat itself ever anew^ and whose love of life was so OTearXliaTTie willingly and gladly accepted ^ tKeTiard^ ships and miseries to which it is exposed for the sake of its pleasures, — such a man would stand with firm-knit

Bones 'o^fKwgl^roupd&<i^

have nothing to fear. Armed with the knowledge we have "given him, he would await with indifference the death that*Tiastens towards him on the wings of time. He would regard it as a false illusion, an impotent i^ectre, ^ictr^rl^tens the weak hut lias ^ power over him who knows that he is himself the will of which the whole

world is the objectification or copy, and that therefore ^ is always certain of life, and also of the present, the peculiar and only form of the phenomenon of the will. He could not be terrified by an endless past or future in which he would not be, fcr'thB'n&e~wouldniegar(r"S the emj)ty deTusio1tr“6rth§ wetT CT ' Maya.” ’ "Thus" Fe would no" mdf^lear"^atET]^h tl^^ fears tbie ulghE" lh~ the “ Bhagavad-Gita” Krishna thus raises the mind of his young pupir Arjuna, when, seized with cpmpimction at the_sight of th^ arrayed hosts (somewhat as Xerxes was), he loses heart and desires to give up the battle in order to avert the death of so uiany thousands. Krishna leads him to this point of view, and the death of those thousands can hoTonger restrain him ; he gives the sign for battle. This pomf df view is~ also expressed by Go^he’s Prometheus, especially when he says —

“ Here sit I, form mankind In my own image,

A race like to myself,

To suffer and to weep, Kejoice, enjoy,

And heed thee not.

As I.”

The plulosophjMaOtunQ. jjt,

lead any one to this point of view whose conviction waa

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. ^67

not shaken and weakened by their errors and imperfectiohs. of Bruno has properly no ethical theory at

all, aiTd tiig^y^eoiy contained in the philosophy of Spinoza does not really proceed from the inner nature of his doctrine, but is merely tacked on to it by means of weak and palpable sophisms, though in itself jt is praiseworthy and f)eautifuL Finally, there are many men who would occupy this point of view if their knowledge kept pace with their will, t.e., if, free from all illusion, they were in a position to become clearly and distinctly themselves. For this is, for knowledge, the point of view of the complete assertion of ihe wU,l to live.

That the will asserts itself means, that while in its objectivity, i.e., in the world and life, its own nature is completely and distinctly given it as idea, this knowledge does not by any means check its volition ; but this very life, so known, is willed as such by the will with knowledge, consciously and deliberately, just as up to this point it willed it as blind effort without knowledge. The opposite of this, the denial of the will to live, shows itself if, when that knowledge is attained, volition ends, because the particular known phenomena no longer act as motives for willing, but the whole knowledge of the nature of the world, the mirror of the will, wliich has grown up through the comprehension of the Ideas, becomes a quieter of the will ; and thus free, the will suppresses itself. These quite unfamiliar conceptions are difficult to understand when expressed in this general way, but it is hoped they will become clear through the exposition we shall give presently, with special reference to action, of the phenomena in which, on the one hand, the assertion in its different grades, and, on the other hand, the denial, expresses itself. For both proceed from knowledge, yet not from abstract knowledge, which is expressed in words, but from living knowledge, which is expressed in action and behaviour alone, and is independent of the dogmas which at the same time occupy the reason as abstract knowledge. Tj

368

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exhibit them both, and bring them to distinct knowledge of the reason, can alone be my aim, and not to prescribe or recommend the one or the other, which would be as foolish as it would be useless ; for the will in itself is absolutely free and entirely self-determining, and for it there is no law. But before we go on to the exposition referred to, we must first explain and more exactly define this freedom and its relation to necessity.

And also, with regard to the life, the assertion and denial of which is our problem, we must insert a few general remarks connected with the will and its objects. Through all this we shall facilitate the apprehension of the inmost nature of the knowledge we are aiming at, of the ethical significance of methods of action.

Since, as has been said, this whole work is only the unfolding of a single thought, it follows that all its parts have the most intimate connection with each other. Not merely that each part stands in a necessary relation to what immediately precedes it, and only presupposes a recollection of that by the reader, as is the case with all philosophies which consist merely of a series of inferences, but that every part of the whole work is related to every other part and presupposes it It is, therefore, necessary that the reader should remember not only what has just been said, but all the earlier parts of the work, so that he may be able to connect them with what he is reading, however much may have intervened. Plato also makes this demand upon his readers through the intricate di^essidns of his dialogues, in which he only returns to the leading thought after long episodes, which explain it In our case this demand is necessary; for the breaking up of our one single thought into its many aspects is indeed the only means of imparting it, though not essential to the thought itself, but merely an artificial form. The division of four principal points of view into four books, and the most careful bringing together of all that is related and homogeneous, assists the exposition

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and its comprehension; yet the material absolutely does not admit of an advance in a straight line, sU(^3sI^ pro£p:es3 of history, but necessitates a more complicated exposition.^ This again makes a repeated study of the hook necessary, for thus alone does the connection of all the parts with each other become distinct, and only then do they all mutually throw light upon each other and become quite clear.^

§ 5 5. That the will as such is free, follows from the fact that, according to our view, it is the thing-in-itself, the content of all phenomena. The phenomena, on the other hand, we recognise as absolutely subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason in its four forms. And since we know that necessity is throughout identical with following from given grounds, and that these are convertible conceptions, all that belongs to the phenomenon, i.e., all that is object for the knowing subject as individual, is in one aspect reason, and in another aspect consequent; and in this last capacity is determined with absolute necessity, and can, therefore, in no respect be other than it is. The whole content of Nature, the collective sum of its phenomena, is thus throughout necessary, and the necessity of every part, of every phenomenon, of every event, can always be proved, because it must be possible to find the reason from which it follows as a consequent. This admits of no exception: it follows from the unrestricted validity of the principle of sufficient reason. In another aspect, however, the same world is for us, in all its phenomena, objectivity of will. Amd the will, since it is not phenomenon, is not idea or object, but thing-initself, and is not subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason, the form of all object ; thus is not determined as a consequent through any reason, knows no necessity, i.e., is free. The concept of freedom is thus

^ Cf. Chap. xli.~xliv. of Supplement.

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properly a negative concept, for its content is raerely the denial of necessity, i.e., the relation of consequent to its reason, according to the principle of sufficient reason. Now here lies before us in its most distinct form the solution of that great contradiction, the union of freedom with necessity, which has so often been discussed in recent times, yet, so far as I know, never clearly and adequately.

Everything is as phenomenon, as object, absolutely necessary : in itself it is will, which is perfectly free to all eternity. The phenomenon, the object, is necessarily and unalterably determined in that chain of causes and effects which admits of no interruption.

But the existence in general of this object, and its specific nature, i.e., the Idea which reveals itself in it, or, in other words, its character, is a direct manifestation of will Thus, in conformity with the freedom of this will, the object might not be at all, or it might be originally and essentially something quite different from what it is, in which case, however, the whole chain of which it is a link, and which is itself a manifestation of the same will, would be quite different also.

But once there and existing, it has entered the chain of causes and, effects, is always necessarily determined in it, and can, therefore, neither become something else, i.e., change its^^ nor yet escape from the chaiUj, t vanish. Man, like every other part of Nature, is objectivity of the will ; therefore all that has been said holds good of him.

As everything in Nature has its forces and qualities, which react in a definite way when definitely affected, and constitute its character, man also has his character, from which the motives call forth his actions with necessity. In this manner of conduct his empirical character reveals itself, but in this again his intelligible character, the will in itself, whose determined phenomenon he is.

But man is the most complete phenomenon of will, and, as we explained in the Second Book, hs had to be enlightened with so high a degree of knowledge,

in order to maintain himself in existence, that in it a perfectly adequate copy or repetition of the nature of the world under the form of the idea became possible: this is the comprehension of the Ideas, the pure mirror of the world, as we learnt in the Third Book. Thus in man the will can attain to full self-consciousness, to distinct and exhaustive knowledge of its own nature, as it mirrors itself in the whole world.

We saw in the preceding book that art springs from the actual presence of this degree of knowledge ; and at the end of our whole work it will further appear that, through the same knowledge, in that the will relates it to itself, a suppression and self-denial of the will in its most perfect manifestation is possible.

So that the freedom which otherwise, as belonging to the thing-in-itself, can never show itself in the phenomenon, in such a case does also appear in it, and, by abolishing the nature which lies at the foundation of the phenomenon, while the latter itself still continues to exist in time, it brings about a contradiction of the phenomenon with itself, and in this way exhibits the phenomena of holiness and self-renunciation.

But all this can only be fully understood at the end of this book.

What has just been said merely alfords a preliminary and general indication of how man is distinguished from all the other phenomena of will by the fact that freedom, i.e., independence of the principle of sufficient reason, which only belongs to the will as thiug-in- itself, and contradicts the phenomenon, may yet possibly, in his case, appear in the phenomenon also, where, however, it necessarily exhibits itself as a contradiction of the phenomenon with itself.

In this sense, not only the will in itself, but man also may certainly be called free, and thus distinguished from all other beings. But how this is to be understood can only become clear through all that is to follow, and for the present we must turn away from it altogether. For, in the first place, we must beware of the error that the action of the individual definite man is subject to no

necessity, i.e., that the power of the motive is less certain than the power of the cause, cr the following of the conclusion from the premises.

The freedom of the will as thing-in-itself, if, as has been said, we abstract from the entirely exceptional case mentioned above, by no means extends directly to its phenomenon, not even in the case in which this reaches the highest grade of its visibility, and thus does not extend to the rational animal endowed with individual character, i.e., the person.

The person is never free although he is the phenomenon of a free will ; for he is already the determined phenomenon of the free volition of this will, and, because he enters the form of every object, the principle of sufficient reason, he develops indeed the unity of that will in a multiplicity of actions, but on account of the timeless unity of that volition in itself, this multiplicity exhibits in itself tlie regular conformity to law of a force of Nature.

Since, however, it is that free volition that becomes visible in the person and the whole of his conduct, relating itself to him as the concept to the definition, every individual action of the person is to be ascribed to the free will, and directly proclaims itself as such in consciousness.

Therefore, as was said in the Second Book, every one regards himself a friori here in this original feeling) as free in his individual actions, in the sense that in every given case every action is possible for him, and he only recognises a posteriori from experience and reflection upon experience that his actions take place with absolute necessity from the coincidence of his character with his motives.

Hence it arises that every uncultured man, following his feeling, ardently defends complete freedom in particular actions, while the great thinkers of all ages, and indeed the more profound systems of religion, have denied it.

But whoever has come to see clearly that the whole nature of man is will, and he himself only a phenomenon of this will, and that such a phenomenon has, even from the subject itself, the principle of sufficient reason as its

necessary form, which here appears as the law of motivation,— such a man will regard it as just as absurd to doubt the inevitable nature of an action when the motive is presented to a given character, as to doubt that the three angles of any triangle are together equal to two right angles.

Priestley has very sufficiently proved jth^^ necessity of the individual action in his “ Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity ; ” but Kant, whose merit in this respect is ^ecially great, firat proved the coexistence of this necessity with the freg.dpin of t% will in itself, %.e., apart from the phenomenon,^ by establishing the distinction between the intelligible and the empirical character.

I entirely adhere to this distinction, for the former is the will as thing-in-itself so far as it appears in a definite individual in a definite grade, and the latter is this phenomenon itself as it exhibits itself in time in the mode of action, and in space in the physical structure.

In order to make the relation of the two comprehensible, the best expression is that which I have already used in the introductory essay, that the intelligible character of every man is to be regarded as an act of will outside time, and therefore indivisible and unchangeable, and the manifestation of this act of will developed and broken up in time and space and all the forms of the principle of sufficient reason is the empirical character as it exhibits itself for experience in the whole conduct and life of this man.

As the whole tree is only the constantly repeated manifestation of one and the same tendency, which exhibits itself in its simplest form in the fibre, and recurs and is easily recognised in the construction of the leaf, shoot, branch, and trunk, so all a man’s deeds are merely the constantly repeated expression, somewhat varied in form, of his intelligible character, and the induction based on the sum of all these expressions gives us his empirical

^ “ Critique of Pure Reason,” first tical Reason,” fourth edition, pp. edition, pp. 532-558; fifth edition, 169-179; Rosenkranz’s edition, ppc pp. 560-586 ; and “ Critique of Prac- 224-231.

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character. For the rest, I shall not at this point repeat in my own words Kant’s masterly exposition, but presuppose it as known.

In the year 1 840 I dealt with the important chapter on the freedom of the will, thoroughly and in detail, in my crowned prize-essay upon the subject, and exposed the reason of the delusion which led men to imagine that they found an empirically given absolute freedom of the will, that is to say, a liberum arbitrium indiffcrentioe, as a fact in self-consciousness; for the question propounded for the essay was with great insight directed to this point. Therefore, as I refer the reader to that work, and also to the tenth paragraph of the prize-essay on the basis of morals, which was published along with it under the title “The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics,” I now omit the incomplete exposition of the necessity of the act of will, which was given at this place in the first edition. Instead of it I shall explain the delusion mentioned above in a brief discussion which is presupposed in the nineteenth chapter of the supplement to the present work, and therefore could not be given in the prize-essay referred to.

Apart from the fact that the will as the true thing-initself is actually original and independent, and that the feeling of its originality and absoluteness must accompany its acts in self-consciousness, though here they are already determined, there arises the illusion of an empirical freedom of the will (instead of the transcendental freedom which alone is to be attributed to it), and thus a freedom of its particular actions, from that attitude of the intellect towards the will which is explained, separated, and subordinated in the nineteenth chapter of the supplement, especially under No. 3. The intellect knows the conclusions of the will only a ‘posteriori and empirically; therefore when a choice is presented, it has no data as to how the will is to decide. For the intelligible character, by virtue of which, when motives are given, only om

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decision is possible and is therefore necessary, does not come within the knowledge of the intellect, but merely the empirical character is known to it through the succession of its particular acts. Therefore it seems to the intellect that in a given case two opposite decisions are possible for the will.

But ^is is just the same thing as if WQ were to say of a perpendicular beam that Has^lost its balance, and is h^itating whitA way to fall, “ It can fall either to the riglit hand or the left.” ^his can. ¥as merely a subjective significance, and really means "as far as the data known to us are concerned. Objectively, the direction of the fall is necessarily determined as soon as the equilibrium is lost.

Accordingly, the decision of one’s own will is undetermined only to the beholder, one’s own intellect, and thus merely relatively and subjectively for the subject of knowing. In itself and objectively, on the other hand, in every choice presented to it, its decision is at once determined and necessary. But this determination only comes into consciousness through the decision that follows upon it.

Indeed, we receive an empirical proof of this when any difficult and important choice lies before us, but only under a condition which is not yet present, but merely hoped for, so that in the meanwhile we can do nothing, but must remain passive. Now we consider how we shall decide when the circumstances occur that will give us a free activity and choice.

Generally the foresight of rational deliberation recommends one decision, while direct inclination leans rather to the other. So long as we are compelled to remain passive, the side of reason seems to wish to keep the upperhand ; but we see beforehand how strongly the other side will influence us when the opportunity for action arises.

Till then we are eagerly concerned to place the motives on both sides in the clearest light, by calm meditation on the pro et contra, so that every motive may exert its full influence upon the will when the time arrives, and it may not be misled by a

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mistake on the part of the intellect to decide otherwise than it would have done if all the motives had their due influence upon it. But this distinct unfolding of the motives on both sides is all that the intellect can do to assist the choice. It awaits the real decision just as passively and with the same intense curiosity as if it were that of a foreign will. Therefore from its point of view both decisions must seem to it equally possible ; and this is just the illusion of the empirical freedom of the will. Certainly the decision enters the sphere of the intellect altogether empirically, as the final conclusion of the matter; but yet it proceeded from the inner nature, the intelligible character, of the individual will in its conflict with given motives, and therefore with complete necessity. The intellect can do nothing more than bring out clearly and fully the nature of the motives ; it cannot determine the will itself ; for the will is quite inaccessible to it, and, as we have seen, cannot be investigated.

If, under the same circumstances, a man could act now one way and now another, it would be necessary that his will itself should have changed in the meantime, and thus that it should lie in time, for change is only possible in time; but then either the will would be a mere phenomenon, or time would be a condition of the thingin -itself. Accordingly the dispute as to the freedom of the particular action, the liherum arhitrium indifferentioe, really turns on the question whether the will lies in time or not. If, as both Kant’s doctrine and the whole of my system necessitates, the will is the thing-in-itself outside time and outside every form of the principle of sufficient reason, not only must the individual act in the same way in the same circumstances, and not only must every bad action be the sure warrant of innumerable others, which the individual must perform and cannot leave, but, as Kant said, if only the empirical character and the motives were completely given, it would be possible to calculate the future conduct of q man just as we can calculate an

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eclipse of the sun or moon. As Nature is consistent, so is the character ; every action must take place in accordance with it, just as every phenomenon takes place according to a law of Nature : the causes in the latter case and the motives in the former are merely the occasional causes, as was shown in the Second Book. The will, whose phenomenon is the whole being and life of man, cannot deny itself in the particular case, and what the man wills on the whole, that will he also wUl in the particular case.

The assertion of an empirical freedom of the will, a liherum m'hitrium indifferentice, agrees precisely with the doctrine that places tlie inner nature of man in a soul, which is originally a knowing, and indeed really an abstract thinking nature, and only in consequence of this a willing nature — a doctrine which thus regards the will as of a secondary or derivative nature, instead of knowledge which is really so. The will indeed came to be regarded as an act of thought, and to be identified with the judgment, especially by Descartes and Spinoza. According to this doctrine every man must become what he is only through his knowledge ; he must enter the world as a moral cipher come to know the things in it, and thereupon determine to be this or that, to act thus or thus, and may also through new knowledge achieve a new course of action, that is to say, become another person. Further, he must first know a thing to be good, and in consequence of this will it, instead of first vnlling it, and in consequence of this calling it good. According to my fundamental point of view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. Will is first and original ; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of will. Therefore every man is what he is through his will, and his character is original, for willing is the basis of his nature. Through the knowledge which is added to it he comes to know in the course of experience what he is, i.e., he learns his

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character. Thus he knows himself in consequence of and in accordance with the nature of his will, instead of willing in consequence of and in accordance with his knowing. According to the latter view, he would only require to consider how he would like best to be, and he would be it; that is its doctrine of the freedom of the will. Thus it consists really in this, that a man is his own work guided by the light of knowledge.

I, on the contrary, say that he is his own work before all knowledge, and knowledge is merely added to it to enlighten it. Therefore he cannot resolve to he this or that, nor can he become other than he is ; but he is once for all, and he knows in the course of experience what he is. According to one doctrine he wills what he knows, and according to the other he knows what he wills.

The Greeks called the character and its expression, i.e., morals, r)dr). But this word comes from e0o9, custom ; they chose it in order to express metaphorically the constancy of character through the constancy of custom. To yap r)6o<; ano rov e6ov<} t7)p errwvvfiiav. tjOiKt] yap KoXeirai Bia to edi^eadat (a voce i.e., consuetudo ri6o<} est appellatum ; ethica ergo dicta est airo too eOi^eaOai, sivi ab assuescendo) says Aristotle (EtL Magna, i. 6, p. 1 1 86, and Eth. Eud., p. 1220, and Eth. Nia, p. 1103, ed. Ber.) Stobaeus quotes: ol Be Kara Zrjvcova rpoTTiKCK' 1)00^ ea-rt trrjyr) ^lov a<j> at Kara fiepoi TTpa^eK peovat {Stoici autem, Zenonis castra seguentes, metor phorice ethos dejmiuni vitce fontem, e quo singvice manant actiones), ii. ch. 7. In Christian theology we find the dogma of predestination in consequence of election and non-election (Rom. ix. 1 1—24), clearly originating from the knowledge that man does not change himself, but his life and conduct, i.e., his empirical character, is only the unfolding of his intelligible character, the development of decided and unchangeable natural dispositions recognisable even in the child ; therefore, as it were, even at his birth his conduct is firmly determined, and

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 379

remains essentially the same to the end This we entirely agree with ; but certainly the consequences which followed from the union of this perfectly correct insight with the dogmas that already existed in Jewish theology, and which now gave rise to the great difficulty, the Gordian knot upon which most of the controversies of the Church turned, I do not undertake to defend, for even the Apostle Paul scarcely succeeded in doing so by means of his simile of the potter’s vessels which he invented for the purpose, for the result he finally arrived at was nothing else than this : —

“ Let mankind Fear the gods 1 They hold the power In everlasting hands :

And they can use it As seems good to them.”

Such considerations, however, are really foreign to our subject. Some explanation as to the relation between the character and the knowledge in which all its motives lie, will now be more to the point.

The motives which determine the manifestation of the character or conduct influence it through the medium of knowledge. But knowledge is changeable, and often vacillates between truth and error, yet, as a rule, is rectified more and more in the course of life, though certainly in very different degreea Therefore the conduct of a man may be observably altered without justifying us in concluding that his character has been changed. What the man really and in general wills, the striving of his inmost nature, and the end he pursues in accordance with it, this we can never change by influence upon him from without by instruction, otherwise we could transform him. Seneca says admirably, veUe non discitur ; whereby he preferred truth to his Stoic philosophers, who taught Bi8aKT7]v eivat Tr)v apeTrjv (doceri posse virtutem). From without the will can only be affected by motivea But

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these can never change the will itself ; for they have power over it only under the presupposition that it is precisely such as it is. All that they can do is thus to alter the direction of its effort, i.e., bring it about that it shall seek in another way than it has hitherto done that which it invariably seeks. Therefore instruction, improved knowledge, in other words, influence from without, may indeed teach the will that it erred in the means it employed, and can therefore bring it about that the end after which it strives once for all according to its inner nature shall be pursued on an entirely different path and in an entirely different object from what has hitherto been the case. But it can never bring about that the will shall will something actually different from what it has hitherto willed; this remains unchangeable, for the will is simply this willing itself, which would have to be abolished. The former, however, the possible modification of knowledge, and through knowledge of conduct, extends so far that the will seeks to attain its unalterable end, for example, Mohammed’s paradise, at one time in the real world, at another time in a world of imagination, adapting the means to each, and thus in the first case applying prudence, might, and fraud, and in the second case, abstinence, justice, alms, and pilgrimages to Mecca. But its effort itself has not therefore changed, still less the will itself. Thus, although its action certainly shows itself very different at different times, its willing has yet remained precisely the same. VeUe non discitur.

For motives to act, it is necessary not only that they should be present, but that they should be known ; for, according to a very good expression of the schoolmen, which we referred to once before, causa Jmalis movet non secu/ndum mum csss reale; sed secundum esse cognitum. For example, in order that the relation may appear that exists in a given man between egoism and sympathy, it is not sufficient that he should possess wealth

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and see others in want, but he must also know what he can do with his wealth, both for himself and for others: not only must the suffering of others be presented to him, but he must know both what suffering and also what pleasure is.

Perhaps, on a first occasion, he did not know edl this so well as on a second ; and if, on a similar occasion, he acts differently, this arises simply from the fact that the circumstances were really different, as regards the part of them that depends on his knowing them, although they seem to be the same.

As ignorance of actually existing circumstances robs them of their influence, so, on the other hand, entirely imaginary circumstances may act as if they were real, not only in the case of a particular deception, but also in general and continuously.

For example, if a man is firmly persuaded that every good action will be repaid him a hundredfold in a future life, such a conviction affects him in precisely the same way as a good bill of exchange at a very long date, and he can give from mere egoism, as from another point of view he would take from egoism. He has not changed himself: velle non discitur.

It is on account of this great influence of knowledge upon action, while the will remains unchangeable, that the character develops and its different features appear only little by little. Therefore it shows itself different at every period of life, and an impetuous, wild youth may be succeeded by a staid, sober, manly age.

Especially what is bad in the character will always come out more strongly with time, yet sometimes it occurs that passions which a man gave way to in his youth are afterwards voluntarily restrained, simply because the motives opposed to them have only then come into knowledge.

Hence, also, we are all innocent to begin with, and this merely means that neither we nor others know the evil of our own nature ; it only appears with the motives, and only in time do the motives appear in knowledge.

Eepentance never proceeds from a change of the will (which is impossible), but from a change of knowledge. The essential and peculiar in what I have always willed I must still continue to will; for I myself am this vnll which lies outside time and change. I can therefore never_repent of what I have willed, though I can repent of what I have done; because, led by false conceptions, I did something that was not in conformity with my will.

The disco ve^ Of this through fuller kimwledge is repmta'Mt. This extends not merely to worldly wisdom, to the choice of the means, and the judgment of the appropriateness of the end to my own will, but also to what is properly ethical.

For example, I may have acted more egotistically than is in accordance vnth my character, led astray by exaggerated ideas of the need in which I myself stood, or of the craft, falseness, and wickedness of others, or because I hurried too much, i.e., acted without deliberation, determined not by motives distinctly known in abstracto, but by merely perceived motives, by the present and the emotion which it excited, and which was so strong that I had not properly the use of my reason ; but the return of reflection is thus here also merely corrected knowledge, and from this repentance may proceed, which always proclaims itself by niaking amends for the past, as far as is possible.

Yet it must be observed that, in order to deceive themselves, men prearrange what seem to be hasty errors, but are really secretly considered actions. For we deceive and flatter no one through such fine devices as ourselves. The converse of the case we have given may also occur.

I may be misled by too good an opinion of others, or want of knowledge of the relative value of the good things of life, or some abstract dogma in which I have since lost faith, and thus I may act less egotistically than is in

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keeping with my character, and lay up for myself repentance of another kind. Thus repentance is always corrected knowledge of the relation of an act to its special intention. When the will reveals its Ideas in space alone, through mere form, the matter in which other Ideas — in this case natural forces — already reign, resists the will, and seldom allows the form that is striving after visibility to appear in perfect purity and distinctness, i.e., in perfect beauty. And there is an analogous hindrance to the will as it reveals itself in time alone, i.e., through actions, in the knowledge which seldom gives it the data quite correctly, so that the action which takes place does not accurately correspond to the will, and leads to repentance. Repentance thus always proceeds from corrected knowledge, not "from the change of the 'will, which is impossible. Anguish of conscience for past deeds is anything but repentance. It is pain at the knowledge of. .oneself . in one’s irunpst nature, i.6y_a3 wiU. It rests precisely on the certainty that we have still the 8ame”win. If the will were changed, and therefore the anguish of conscience mere repentance, it would cease to exist The past could then no longer give us pain, for it exhibited the expressions of a will which is no longer that of him who has repented. We shall explain the significance of anguish of conscience in detail farther on.

The influence which knowledge, as the medium of motives, exerts, not indeed upon the will itself, but upon its appearance in actions, is also the source of the principal distinction between the action of men and that of brutes, for their methods of knowledge are different. The brute has only knowledge of perception, the man, through reason, has also abstract ideas, conceptions. Now, although man and brute are with equal necessity determined by their motives, yet man, as distin"ui^hg4 from Jihe brute, has a complete choice, which has often been regarded as a freedom of the will in particulu actions, although it is nothing but the posa^tbiliW pf a

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thoroughly - fought - out battle between several motives, the sttongest of which then determines it with necessity. For this the motives must 'have assumed the form of abstract thoughts, because it is really only by means of these that deliberation, i.e., a weighing of opposite reasons for action, is possible.

In the case of the brute there can only be a choice between perceptible motives presented to it, so that the choice is limited to the narrow sphere of its present sensuous perception ^ Therefore the necessity of the determination of the will by the motive, which is like that of the effect by - the cause, can be exhibited perceptibly and directly only in the case of the brutes, because here the spectator has the motives just as directly before his eyes as their effect; while in the case of man the motives are almost always abstract ideas, ^ich are not communicated to the spectator, and even for the actor himself the necessity of their effect is hidden behind their conflict.

For only in dbstracto can several Ideas, ~as Judgments and chains of conclusions, lie beside each other in consciousness, and then, free from all determination of time, work against each other till the stronger overcomes the rest and determines the will. .

Tliis is the complete choice or power of deliberation which man has as distinguished from the brutes, and on account of which freedom of the will has been attributed to him, in the belief that his willing is a mere result of the operations of his intellect, without a definite tendency which serves as its basis ; while, in truth, the motives only work on the foundation and under the presupposition of his definite tendency, which in his case is individual, i,e., a character.

A fuller exposition of this power of deliberation, and the difference between human and brute choice which is introduced by it, will be found in the “ Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics” ( 1st edition, p. 35, et seq. ; 2d edition, p. 34, et seq.), to which I therefore refer. For the rest, this power of deliberation which^ man possesses is one of those things that ma^es his

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existence so much more miserable than that of the brute. For in general our greatest suffermffl~^~~noFn^iir~t!ie presenF as ideas of perception or as immediate feelings j but in tEi^ reason, as" aB3tricF~''c55ce^^on3, painful fHougHts, from which the brute, which lives only in the present. andn;h^6f6re^in"eifvia,hleliareTe3iaes3rT3"eKtrfe^^^ freeT”""

It seems to have been the dependence, which we have shown, of the human power of deliberation upon the faculty of abstract thinking, and thus also of judging and drawing conclusions also, that led both Descartes and

Spinoza to identify the decisions of the will with the lai^ity of assertihg andrSenylng Tthelaculty of judgme^b From this Descartes deduced the doctrine that the will, which, according to him, is indifferently free,Ts~tKe source ot sin, and also of alI~tHeo^Tcar ei^T 35d'5pinoza7on the other hand, concluded that the will is necessarily determined by the motives, as the judgment is by the reasons.^ The latter doctrine is in a sense true, but it appears as a true conclusion from false premises.

The distinction we have established between the ways in which the brutes and man are respectively moved by motives exerts a very wide influence upon the nature of both, and has most to do with the complete and obvious differences of their existence While an idea of perception is in every case the motive which determines the brute, the nmn strives to exclude this kind of motivation altogether, and to determine himself entirely by abstract ideas. Thus he uses^his prerogative_of reason to the greatest possible advantage. Independent of th^e prese^, he neither chooses nor avoids the jg^sing pleasure or pain, but reflects on the consequences of both. In most cases, se'tSngaiide~qmEe~^n actions, we are determined by abstract, thought motives, not present impressions. Therefore all particular privation for the moment is for us comparatively light, h^t all renunciation is ter-

' Cart. Medit. 4- — Spin. Eth., pt. ii. prop. 48 et 49, cset

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ribly hard; for the former only con^ms_ the fleeting present^ but the latter concerns the future, and includes in itself innumerable privations, of which if Ts 'the equivalent The causes of our pain, as of our pleasure, lie for the most part, not in the real present, but merely in abstract thoughts.

It is these which are often unbearable to us---4nflict torments in comparison with which all the si^rings of .the animal _wqrld,a-re very -stpall; for even our own physical pain is not felt at all when they are present Inched, in the case of keen mental suffering, we even inflict physical suffering on qurs^elves nicrely to distract our attention from the former to the laUejr.

T^is IS why, iu great mental anguish, men tear their hair, beat t^i^ breasts, lacerate their faces, or roll on thej^w^or all these are in realty only violent means of diverting the mind from an unbearable thought Just because ment^ pain,_l:^ing much greater, makes us insensible to“ physical pain, suicide is very ^sy to the person who is in despair, or who is consumed by morbid depression, eveh~ffibiigh formerly, in comfortable^ circumstances, he recoiled at the thought qf it In the^same way care and passion (thus the play of thought) wear out the body oltener and more than physical hardships, And in accordance with this Epictetus rightly says : Tdpaacrei TOU9 avdpwTrovi ov ra TtpaypiaTa, aWa ra Trepi rav •npaypMTcav 8oyp,aTa (^PerCurbant homines non res ipsce, sed de rdyus decreta) (V.) ; and Seneca : Plura sunt quce nos terrent, quam qtice premunt, et scepius opinions quam re laboramvs (Ep.

5). Eulenspicgel also admirably bantered human nature, for going uphill he laughed, and going downhill he wept Indeed, children who have hurt themselves often cry, not at the pain, but at the thought of the pain which is awakened when some one condoles with them. Such great differences in conduct and in life arise from the diversity between the methods of knowledge of the brutes and man. Further, the appearance of the distinct and decided individual character, the

principal distinction between man and the brute, which has scarcely more than the character of the species, is conditioned by the choice between several motives, which is only possible through abstract conceptions.

For only after a choice has been made are the resolutions, which vary in different individuals, an indication of the individual character which is different in each; while the action of the brute depends only upon the presence or absence of the impression, supposing this impression to be in general a motive for its species.

And, finally, in the case of man, only the resolve, and not the mere wish, is a valid indication of his character both for himself and for others ; but the resolve becomes for himself, as for others, a certain fact only through the deed.

The wsh is merely the necessary consequence of the preset impression, whether of the outward stinmlus, or the inward passing mood ; and is therefore as immediately necessary and devoid of^ consideratmn m the action of the hrutes.

Therefore, like the action of the hrutes, it merely expresses the character of the species, not that of the individual, i.e., it indicates merely what vnan in general, not what the individual who experiences the wish, is capable of doing.

The deed alone, — because as human action it always requires a certain deliberation, and because as a rule a man has command of his reason, is considerate, i.e., decides in accordance with considered and abstract motives, — is the expression of the intelligible maxims of his conduct, the result of his inmost willing, and is related as a letter to the word that stands for his empirical character, itself merely the temporal expression of his intelligible character.

In a healthy niind, therefore, only deeds oppress the conscience, not wishes and th^ghts; for it is only our deeds that holdf lip to ui" the mirror oiP our will The deed li'eIerre(l"to ahoi^ that is entirely unconsidered and is really commit

ted in blind passion, ib to a certain extent an intermediate thing between the naer^ wish and the resolve.

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Therefore, by true repentance, which, however, shows itself as action also, it can be obliterated, as a falsely drawn line, from that picture of our will which our course of life is. T may insert the remark here, as a very good comparison that the relation between_wish_and deed has a purely accidental but accurate analogy with that between the accumulation and discharge of electricity.

“the " result of the whole of this discussion of the freedom of the will and what relates to it, we find that although the will may, in itself and apart from the phenomenon, be called free and even omnipotent, yet in its particular phenomena enlightened by knowledge, as in men and brutes, it is determined by motives to which the special character regularly and necessarily responds, and always in the same way. We see that because of the possession on his part of abstract or rational knowledge, man, as distinguished from the brutes, has a choice, which only makes him the scene of the conflict of his motives, without withdrawing him from their control. This choice is therefore certainly the condition of the possibility of the complete expression of the individual character, but is by no means to be regarded as freedom of the particular volition, i.e., independence of the law of causality, the necessity of which extends to man as to every other phenomenon. Thus the difference between human volition and that of the brutes, which is introduced by reason or knowledge through concepts, extends to the point we have indicated, and no farther. But, what is quite a different thing, there may arise a phenomenon of the human will which is quite impossible in the brute creation, if man altogether lays aside the knowledge of particular things as such which is subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason, and by means of his knowledge of the Ideas sees through the principium individuationii. Then an actual appearance of the real freedom of the will as a thing-in-itself is possible, by which the phenomenon comes into a sort of contradiction with

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 389

itself, as is indicated by the word self-renunciation ; and, finally, the “in-itsel£” of its nature suppresses itself. But this, the one, real, and direct expression of the freedom of the will in itself in the phenomenon, cannot be distinctly explained here, but will form the subject of the concluding part of our work.

Now that we have shown clearly in these pages the unalterable nature of the empirical character, which is just the unfolding of the intelligible character that lies outside time, together with the necessity with which actions follow upon its contact with motives, we hasten to anticipate an argument which may very easily be drawn from this in the interest of bad dispositions. Our character is to be regarded as the temporal unfolding of an extra- temporal, and therefore indivisible and unalterable, act of will, or an intelligible character. This necessarily determines all that is essential in our conduct in life, i.e., its ethical content, which must express itself in accordance with it in its phenomenal appearance, the empirical character ; while only what is unessential in this, the outward form of our course of life, depends upon the forms in which the motives present themselves. It might, therefore, be inferred that it is a waste of trouble to endeawiw to improve dne’i~3macter, an3~tHat it is wiser to submit to the inevitable, and gratify every inclina^n at once, even if it is bad But this is precisely the same thing as the theory of an inevitable fate which is called apyog ^709, and in mme fe^'nt timesT Turkish faith, Its, true refutation, as it is supposed to have been given by Chrysippus, is explame31)y Oicero in his boofe ch, 12, 13,

Though everything may be_ regarded as irrevocably predetermined liy fate, yet it is so, pnly through ffie medium of the chain of causes; therefore in no cMe cah~ iTTe^delennmeJ shall appear without

its cause. Thus it is not sipaply the event that is

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predetermined, but the event as the consequence^ of preceding causes ; so that fate does not decide the con~ sequence alone, but also the means as the consequence of which it is destined to appear. Accordingly, if some means is not present, it Ts cm-tain that the consequent alsowiil not be present: each is always present in acc^3^ce^wIiEKjhe"detennination of J&ie, burthis is never

^own to us till alterwards.“ —

Xsevenls'ajways falce place according to fate, i.e., according'l.o the infinite concatenation of causes, jq our actions Sways taKe place according to our intelligihle^.idMa’acten But just as we do not know the former beforehand, so no a priori insight is given us into the latter, but we only come to know ourselves as we come to know other persons a posteriori through experience. If the intelligible character involved that we could only form a good resolution after a long conflict with a bad disposition, this conflict would have to come first and be waited for. Eeflection on the unalterable nature of the character, on the unity of the source from which all our actions flow, must not mislead us into claiming the decision of the character in favour of one side or the other ; it is in the resolve that follows that we shftll_8ee what ^manner of men we are, and mirror ourselves in our ^tions._ This is the ^planation of the satisfaction or the anguish of soul with which we look back on the course of our past life. Both are experienced, not because these past deeds have still an existence ; they are past, they have been, and now are no more; but their great importance for us lies in their significance, lies in the fact tliat these deeds are the expression of the character, the mirror of the will, in which we look and recognise our inmost self, the kernel of our will. Because we experience this not before, but only after, it behoves us to strive~and fight in time, in oi-der that the picture we produce by our deeds may be_ such that the con^lempTanonlSrit'^nTajrcart^^ ai powibi^ instead of hara83ing_,us. The significance of

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 391

Besides the intelligible and the empirical character, we must mention a third which is different from them both, the acquired character, which one only receives in life through contact with the world, and which is referred to when one is praised as a man of character or censured as being without character.

Certainly one might suppose that, since the empirical character, as the phenomenon of the intelligible, is unalterable, and, like every natural phenomenon, is consistent with itself, man would always have to appear like himself and consistent, and would therefore have no need to acquire a character artificially by experience and reflection.

But the case is otherwise, and although a man is always the same, yet he does not always understand himself, but often mistakes himself, till he has in some degree acquired real self-knowledge.

The empirical character, as a mere natural tendency, is in itself irrational; nay,more,its expressions are disturbed byreason, all the more so the more intellect and power of thought the man has; for these always keep before him what becomes man in general, as the character of the species, and what is possible for him both in will and in deed.

This makes it the more difficult for him to see how much his individuality enables him to will and to accomplish.

He finds in himself the germs of all the various human pursuits and powers, but the difference of degree in which they exist in his individuality is not clear to him in the absence of experience ; and if he now applies himself to the pursuits which alone correspond to his character, he yet feels, especially at particular moments and in particular moods, the inclination to directly opposite pursuits which cannot be combined with them, but must be entirely suppressed if he desires to follow the former undisturbed. For as our physical path lypon ^rth is alwi^e^

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merely a line, not an extended surface, so in life, if we desire to grasp and possess one thing, we must renounce and leave innumerable others on the right hand and on the left. If we cannot make up our minds to this, but, like child at the fair, snatch at ever^hing that attracts us In passing, we are making the perverse endeavour to change' the line oT our path into an extended surface ; we run in a zigzag, skin about like a will o* the wisp, and attain to nothing. Or, to use another comparison, ~as, according to Hobbes* philosophy of law, every one has an original right to everything but an exclusive right to nothing, vet can obtain an exclusive right to particular things by renouncing his right to all^the rest, while others, on tlmir pijt,~^"IiE^l3e wiffi regard to what he has chosen ; so is it in life, in which ^me definite pursuit,~wTrether"Tt~Be^^easure, honour, wealth, science, art, or virtue, can only be followed with seriousness and success when all claims that are foreign to it are given up, when e^ryffihg else is renpunced Accordingly, the mere will and the mere ability are not sufficient, but a man must also know what he wills, and Tctww what he can do •, only then will he show character, and only then can he accomplish something right Until he attains to that, notwithstanding the natural consistency of the empirical character, he is without character. And although, on the whole, he must remain true to himself, and fulfil

liis course, led by. his dffimoiLjyet his path will not be a

straight line, Imt waverings and u^ He wiU hesitate, deviate turn back, lay up for himself repentance and pam! And'all this is because^ ini great and small^ he sees before him all that is possible and attaina.bie for man in general,~burdoes not know what part of all this is alone suitable for" lum, can^l^ accomplished by him,,^ and is alone enioyable~Bvlum. He will, therefore, envy many men on account of a position and circumstances which are yet~ only suitable to their "Varactors anid not to bis, and in which he_ would feel unhappy, if indeed he found

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 393

them endurable at all. For as a fish is only at home in water, a bird in the air, a_ mole in Jihe earth, so eve^ man is onTy at^ome in the atmosphere suitable to him. For example, not all men can breathe the air "or court

life.

From deficiency of proper insight into all this, many a man will make all kinds of abortive attempts, will do violence to his character in particulars, and yet, on the whole, will have to yield to it again ; and what he thus painfully attains will give him no pleasure ; what he thus learns will remain dead ; even in an ethical regard, a deed that is too noble for his character, that has not sprung from pure, direct impulse, but from a concept, a dogma, will lose all merit, even in his own eyes, through subsequent egoistical repentance.

Velle non disdtur. We only become conscious of the inflexibility of another person’s character through experience, and till then we childishly believe that it is possible, by means of rational ideas, by prayers and entreaties, by example and noblemindedness, ever to persuade any one to leave his own way, to change his course of conduct, to depart from his mode of thinking, or even to extend his capacities : so is it also with ourselves. We must first learn from experience what we desire and what we can do. Till then

we know it not, we are without character, and must often be driven back to our own way by hard blows from without. But if we have finally learnt it, then we have attained to what in the world is called character, the axquired character. This is accordingly nothing but the most perfect knowledge possible of our own individuality. It is the abstract, and consequently distinct, knowledge of the unalterable qualities of our own empirical character, and of the measure and direction of our mental and physical powers, and thus of the whole strength and weakness of our own individuality. /This places us in a position to carry out deliberately and methodically the rdle which belongs to our own person, and to fill up the gaps which caprices or weaknesses

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produce in it, under the guidance of fixed conceptions. This r61e is in itself unchangeably determined once for all, but hitherto we have allowed it to follow its natural course without any rule.

We have now brought to distinct conscious maxims which are always present to us the form of conduct which is necessarily determined by our own individual nature, and now we conduct it in accordance with them as deliberately as if we had learned it ; without ever falling into error through the passing influence of the mood or the impression of the present, without being checked by the bitterness or sweetness of some particular thing we meet with on our path, without delay, without hesitation, without inconsistency.

We shall now no longer, as novices, wait, attempt, and grope about in order to see what we really desire and are able to do, but we know this once for all, And in every choice we have only to apply general principles to particular cases, and arrive at once at a decision.

We know our will in general, and do not allow ourselves to be led by the passing mood or by solicitations from without to resolve in particular cases what is contrary to it as a whole. We know in the same way the nature and the measure of our strength and our weakness, and thereby are spared much suffering.

For we experience no real pleasure except in the use and feeling of our own powers, and the greatest pain is the conscious deficiency of our powers where we need them. If, now, we have discovered where our strength and our'^'akness lie, we will endeavour to cultivate, employ7~and in every way make use of those talents whicb are naturally prominent in us.

W® always turn to those occupations in which they are valuable aii^ to the purpbser~an3“3®tirely avoid, even with selfr^unciation, those pursuits for which we have natura^ little aptitude ; we will beware of attempting that in ^IcH* we have ^o cbance of succeeding. Only he who has attained Ito this will constantly and with

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 395

full consciousness be completely himself, and will never fail himself at the critical moment, because he win^ways"T^^

himself. He will often enjoy the satisfaction of feeling his strengtH^l^n^, spldoOL .experience the gain of^^befhg reminded of his weakness. The latter is mortiiicatibn, wETcTi causes perhaps the greatest of mental sufferings ; tlmrefore it is Jar more endurable to have~our misfortune brought clearly before us than our incapacity. And, further, iF we are tliiis ‘fTHry^acqualnferm^ strength and our weal^^ss, we will not attempt to make a show

with base coin, for all such dissimulation misses the mark in the end. For since the whole man is only the phenomenon of his will, nothing can be more perverse than to try, by means of reflection, to become something else than one is, for this is a direct contradiction of the will with itself. The imitation of the _gualities and idiosyncrasies of others is much more shameful tha^ to dress in^ other £eogle’s_^ clothes ; for it is the judgment of our own worthlessness pronounced bj ourselves. Knowledge of our j)wn mind and its capacities of evCTj kind^ and their unalterable limits, is in this respect the surest way t^e at^nmen£ of the greatest possible contentment with ourselves. For it holds good of inward as of outward circumstances that there is for us no consolation so effective as the complete certainty of unalterable necessity. Ko evil that befalls us pains us so much as the thought of the circumstances by which it might have been warded off. Therefore nothing co inlets us so effectually as the consideration of what has happened from the standpoint of necessity, from which all accidents appear as tools in the hand of an overruling fate, and we therefore recognise the evil that has come to us as inevitably produced by the conflict of inner and outer circumstances ; in other words, fatalism. We really only complain and storm so long as we hope

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either to affect others or to excite ourselves to unheardof efforts. But children and grown-up people know very well to yield contentedly as soon as they clearly see that it absolutely cannot be otherwise ; — Ovfiov ew iXTiqOecrat Saficurain-e^ ax^icq (Animo in pcctoribv*

nostro domito necessitate. We are like the entrapped elephants, that rage and struggle for many days, till they see that it is useless, and then suddenly offer their heclci quietly to the yoke, tamed for_ ever. ^WeTaife TSKe iCing David, wh^ as long as his son still lived, unceasfh^y importuheff Jehovah with prayers, and" hefiaved himself as if in despair; hut as soon as his son was dead, thought no longer about it. Hence it arises that innumera]^ permanent His, such" as lameness, poverty^ low ugliness, a disagreeaBT^dwellin^i^ce, are borne with indiBerence by innumerable peradhs^land^are' no "long^^ felt, iike healed wounds, jiist beCatiS'e these 'persons know that inward or outward necessity rehdera it impossible that any change can take place in these things ; while those who are more fortunate cannot understand how such misfortunes can be borne. Kow as with outward necessityj^sF 8dso^^h'~inw&d ; nothing reconciles so thoroughly as a distinct knowledge of it. If we have once for all distinctly recognised not only our good qualities and our strength, but also our defects and weakness, established our aim accordingly, and rest ^tisfied concerhih'g what^cahnbt be” attained,' we thus escape in the surest way, as farli^ur indrvIduaTT^ permits, the bitterest of all sorrows, discontentment with ourselves, which islbEe~ThevItabre result 6r~ignoiahce~bI our own individuality, of falie conceit and the audacity that proceeds from^it. To the bitter chapter of the self-knowledge here recommended the lines of Ovid admit of excellent application —

^ Optimus tile animi vindex ladentia pectuif Vincula qui rupit^ dedoluUque semeV

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 397

So much with regard to the acquired character, which, indeed, is not of so much importance for ethics proper as for life in the world.

But its investigation was related as that of a third species to the investigation of the intelligible and the empirical character, in regard to which we were obliged to enter upon a somewhat detailed inquiry in order to bring out clearly how in all its phenomena the will is subject to necessity, while yet in itself it may be called free and even omnipotent.

§ 56. This freedom, this omnipotence, as the expression of which the whole visible world exists and progressively develops in accordance with the laws which belong to the form of knowledge, can now, at the point at which in its most perfect manifestation it has attained to the completely adequate knowledge of its own nature, express itself anew in two ways. Either it wills here, at the summit of mental endowment and self-consciousness, simply what it willed before blindly and unconsciously, and if so, knowledge always remains its motive in the whole as in the particular case. Or, conversely, this knowledge becomes for it a quieter, which appeases and suppresses all willing. This is that assertion and denial of the will to live which was stated above in general terms As, in the reference of individual conduct, a general, not a particular manifestation of will, it does not disturb and modify the development of the character, nor does it find its expression in particular actions; but, either by an ever more marked appearance of the whole method of action it has followed hitherto, or conversely by the entire suppression of it, it expresses in a living form the maxims which the will has freely adopted in accordance with the knowledge it has now attained to. By the explanations we have just given of freedom, necessity, and character, we have somewhat facilitated and prepared the way for the clearer development of all this, which is the principal subject of this last book. But we shall have dnnA sn still morA wKah wa havA tiirnad our attention to

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life itself, the willing or not willing of wliich is the great question, and have endeavoured to finr) niifc generally what the will itself, which is everywhere the inmost nature oT'Sbls'Tpe, will really attain by its assertion — in ^at way and to what extent this assertion satisfies or can satisfy the will ; in short, what is generally and mainly to be regarded as its position in this its own world, which in every relation belongs to it.

First of all, I wish the reader to recall the passage with which we closed the Second Book, — a passage occasioned by the question, which met us then, as to the end and aim of the wilL Instead of the answer to this question, it appeared clearly before us how, in all the grades of its manifestation, from the lowest to the highest, the will dispenses altogether with a final goal and aim. It always strives, for striving is its sole nature, which no atoiued gpai can put an end to. Therefore it is not susceptible of any final satisfaction, but can only be restrained by hindrances, while in itself it goes on tor ever. We see this in the simplest of all natural phenomena, gravity, which does not cease to strive and press towards a mathematical centre to reach which would be the annihilation both of itself and matter, and would not cease even if the whole universe were already rolled into one ball We see it in the other simple natural phenomena. A solid tends towards fluidity either by melting or dissolving, for only so will its chemical forces be free; rigidity is the imprisonment in which it is held by cold. The fluid tends towards the gaseous state, into which it passes at once as soon as all pressure is removed from it. No body is without relationship, i.e., without tendency or without desire and longing, as Jacob Bbhme would say. Electricity transmits its inner self-repulsion to infinity, though tihe mass of the earth absorbs the effect. ^3^ vanlffl^ is certemly, so^long as the pile "ST WOThin^^^ aimless, unceasingly repeated^ act of repulsion and attraction. 'The' existehce 6T the plant is just such a restless,

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 399

uever satisfied striving, a ceaseless tendency through everascending forms, till the end, the seed, becomes a new starting-point ; and this repeated ad infinitum — nowhere an end, nowhere a final satisiaction, nowhere a restingplace.

It will also be remembered, from the Second Book, that the multitude of _natural_ forces and organised forms ever^^cre strive with each other for the matter in which they desire~Ecrappear, Ibr each of them only possesses what it has wreihe from th^oriiers- and thus ^ coiMtant internecine war is waged, from which, for tire most ^art, arises the resistance through which that striving, which constitutes the inner nature of eve ry ti ling, is a^ joints hindered; struggles in yairij^et, from its_jaature, cannot leave off; toils on laboriously tih .this phenomenon dies, when others eagerly seize its place and its matter.

We have long since recognised this striving, which constitutes the kernel and in-itself of everything, as identical with that which in us, where it manifests itself most distinctly in the light of the fullest consciousness, is called wiW.'" Its Tiindrance through an obstacle which places itself between it and~it3 temporary aim we , call steering, and, on the other hand, its attainment 0^ the end satisfacfion7~weri being, happiness. We may also transfer this terminology to the phenomena of the unconscious world, for though weaker in degree, they are identical in nature. IHien we see them involved in constant suffering, and without any continuing happiness. For all effort springs from defect — from discontent with one’s estate — is thus suffering so long as it is not satisfied ; but no satisfaction is lasting, rather it is always merely the sSrfing-point of a new effort. The striving we see everywhere hindereT^ in many ways, everywhere in conflict, and therefore always under the form of suffering. tens, if there is no final end of striving, there is no measure and~end~5F3ugenngi * ' " ~ ~

But what we only discover in unconscious Nature by sharpened observation, and with an effort, presents itself

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distinctly to us in the intelligent world in the life of animals, whose constant suffering is easily proved. But without lingering over these intermediate grades, we shall turn to the life of man, in which all this appears with the greatest distinctness, illuminated by the clearest knowledge ; for as the phenomenon of will becomes more complete, the suffering also becomes more and more apparent.

In the plant there is as yet no sensibility, and therefore no pain. A certain very small degree of suffering is experienced by the lowest species of animal life — infusoria and radiata; even in insects the capacity to feel and suffer is still limited. It first appears in a high degree with the complete nervous system of vertebrate animals, and always in a higher degree the more intelligence develops.

Thus, in proportion M knowledge attains to distinctness, as consciousnes^ascendsj^pain al^o increase, and therefore reaches ite highest degree in ^an.

And then, _agaia, the more distinctly a man knows, the more intelligent he is, the more pain he has ; the man who _i3 ^fted with genius suffers most of all In this sense, that isTwitBi* reference to the degree of knowledge in general, not mere abstract rational knowledge, I understand and use here that saying of the Preacher : Qui auget scimtiam, auget et dolorem.

That philosophical painter or painting philosopher, Ti^hbem, lias very beautifully expressed the accurate relation between the degree of consciousness and that of suffering by exhibiting it in a visible and cl^r form in a drawing. The upper half of his drawing represents women whose children have been stolen, and who in different groups and attitudes, express in many ways deep maternal pain, anguish, and despair.

The lower half of the drawing represents sheep whose lambs have been taken away. They are arranged and grouped in precisely the same way ; so that every human head, every human attitude of the upper half, has below a brute head and attitude corresponding to it Thus we see distinctly how the pain which is possible in the dull brute consciousness

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 401

is related to the violent grief, which only becomes possible through distinctness of knowledge and clearness of consciousness.

We desire to consider in this way, in human exigence, the inner and essential destiny of will. Every one will easily recognise that same destiny expressed in various degrees in the life of the brutes, only more weakly, and may also convince himself to his~own satisfaction^ ffom the suffering animal wojld, how essential to all life is su^'enng.

§ 57. At every grade that is enlightened by knowledge, the will appears as an individual. The human individual finds himself as finite in infinite space and time, and consequently as a vanishing quantity compared with them. He is projected into them, and, on account of their unlimited nature, he has always a merely r^atrv^ never ^solute tvlien and where of his existence; for his jplace and duration are finite parts of w^t is infinite and boundless. His real existence is only in the present, whose unchecked flight into the past is a constant transition into death, a co^ai^ hT3*'past life, apart fromTits possible consequences for

the present, and the testimony regarding the will that is expressed in it, is now entirely done with, dead, and no longer anything ; and, therefore, it must be, as a matter of reason, indifferent to him whetlier the content of that past was pain or Measure. But the present Ts aF^ys passing through his hands into ^e pastT”fhe future is quite uncertain an^ alwajs short. Thus his existence, even when we consider only its formal side, is a constant hurrying of the present into the dead past, a constant dying. But if we look at it from the physical side ; it is clear that, as our walking is admittedly merely a constantly prevented falling, the life of our body is only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-postponed death : finally, in the same way, the activity of our mind is a constantly ^[eferi’ccT ennui.

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Every breath we draw wards off the death that is constantly intruding upon us. ]ir "tEi3~M^~we~fi with it every moment., and again, at longer intervals, through every meal we eat, every sleep we take, every time we •wiffm "ourselves, In tfie end, deatH must conquer, for we became subject to him through birth, ^^lie only plays for a little while with his prey before he swallows it up. We pursue our life, however, with great interest and much solicitude as Jong as possible, as we Blow out a .^oap^buyde as long and as large"^ possible, although we know perfectly well that it will brn^stw

We saw that the inner being of unconscious nature is a constant striving without end and without rest And this appears to us much more distinctly when we consider the nature of brutes and man. Willing and striving is its whole being, which may be very well TOinpafed to an unquenchable thirst TBiit tlie basis of all willing is need, deficiency, and thus pain. ConsequentIy,"tHe nature of brutes and man is subject to pain originally and through its very being. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of desire, because it is at once deprived of them by a too easy satisfaction, a terriWe void and ennui comes over it, i.e„ its being a,nd exi^ ehce itself becomes an unbearable burden to it Thus ite life swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards between pain and ennui. This has also had to express iteSF very oddly in this way ; after man had transferred all pain and torments to hell, there then remained nothing over for heaven but ennui.

But the constant striving which constitutes the inner nature of every manifestation of will obtains its primary and most general foundation at the higher grades of objectification, from the fact that here the will manifests itself as a living body, with the iron command to nourish it; and what gives strength to this command is just that this body is nothing but the objectified will to live

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 403

itself. Man, as the most complete objectification of that will, is in like measure also the most necessitous of all beings : he is through and through concrete willing and needing; he is a concretion of a thousand necessities. With these he stands upon the earth, left to himself, uncertain about everything except his own need and misery. Consequently the care for the maintenance of that existence under exacting demands, which are renewed every day, occupies, as a rule, the whole of human life. To this is directly related the second claim, that of the propagation of the species. At the same time he is threatened from all sides by the most different kinds of dangers, from which it requires constant watchfulness to escape.' With cautious steps and casting anxiqus^fflces round him he pursues his path, for a Uiousamd_ accidents and a thousand enemije.3.Jie in wait,T^ Thus he

^nt while yet a savage, thus he goes in civilised life ; there is no security foJ!.him.

“ Qualibus in tenebris vilm, quantisque periclis Degitur hocc’ cevi, qnodcunque est I ” — Luca. ii. 15.

The life of the great majority is only a constant struggle foiTthis existence itself, with the certainty of losing ft at last. But what enables them to endure this wearisWe _ba,ltle is not sq^ much ..the^iovq_j)f , life_ feai

of death, which yet stands in thq bacl^round as inevitable, and^may com§ , upoa . Jthein .at anx.®o^SnlT^ Xife itself Ts^ a sea, full of rocks and whirlpools, wfirch man avoids with thg. ^eatcst care. an3 solicitude, although he

knows that even if he succeeds in getting through wi^ ad Eis efforts and skid, he yet by domg sd^diues nearer at every step to the greatest, the total, inevitable, and irremediable ^sTupwreclc. death : nay, even steers right upon it : this is the final goal of the laborious voyage,

and worse for him than all the rocks from w escaped.

ISfow it is well worth observing that, on the one hand.

404

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

the suffering and misery of life may easily increase to such an extent that death itself, in the flight from which the whole of life consists, becomes desirable, and we hasten towards it voluntarily ; and again, on the other hand, that as soon as want and suffering permit rest to a man, ennui is at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion. The striving after existence is whaf, .eccqpigg^^ all U^ tEings and niamfains' tliem in motion. But when existence is assured^ tSeP^^^iey ^now not* what to dio witli it ; thus the second thing that sets them in motion is the efl'ort to get free irom the burden “of existence^ it cease to be felt, “ to kill time,” i.e., to escape from ennui. Ac^rdm^;^we see ‘tnat almbs^^^ who are

secure from want and care, now that_ at last they have thrown off all other burdens, become a burden to themselves, and regard as a gain every hour they succeed in getting througF, ahH lEhuT'every of tirie very

life which, till then, they have employed all their powers to maintain as long as possible. Ennui is by no means an evil to be liglitly'^teemed ; in the end it depicts on the~c6uhte-~ nance real despair. It makes beings who love each other so little as men do, seelc Hcii' ^hief'eagerlyj arid thus b^ coines" the' source of social intercourse, Moreover, even from motives of policy, public precautions are everywhere taken against it, as against other universal calamities. For this evil may drive men to the greatest excesses, just as much as its opposite extreme, famine : the people require panem et circenses. The strict penitentiary system of Philadelphia makes use of ennui alone as a means of punishment, through solitary confinement and idleness, and it is found so terrible that it has even led prisoners to commit suicide. As want is the constant scourge of the people, so ennui is'^that 7)f the fashionable world. In mid dle^^class Tile ennui is represented Hy tHe“Bunday. a^ want by the six week-days.

Thus between desiring and attaining all human flqjys on"”fKfougIiout The wish is, in its nature, pain;

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 405

the attainment soon besets satiety : the end was only apparent; possession takes away the charinj['the w^, the neeS! presents iteelf under a new form ; when^t%oes not, then follows desplateness. emptiness, ennui, against wETch the conflict is .just as painful as against^ant. That wish and satisfaction should foIlo^eacK other neiflier too quickly nor too~s!o\^ reduces the suffering, which both occasion to~~tE^ smallest am6miit.~irnd coniti tubes the happiest life. For that which we might otherwise cainEe'mosl'Beautiful part of life, its purp..st pv. if it were only because it lifts us out of real existen^ jtnd. transforms us~ IHio'*'Hrsmterested spectators of it — that is, pure knowledge,' which is foreigirTo"alI"wiiring7the

pleasure of the beautiful, the true delight in art — this is granted' only to a very few, because it demands rare talents, and to tbeiaJ£3£LiaJ£.aa Ji. Passing, dre^^^ And

then, even these few, on account of their higher intellectual power, are made susceptible of far ipreater suSenng than duller mii^s can ever fed, and are also placed in lonely isolation by a nature which is obviously diffbrent from that of others ; thus here also accounts are squared. But m of men pprdy

pleasures are not accessible. They are almost quite incapable of the joyO^icE lie in pure knowledge. They are” raSrely "^ven™li|) "to' ir,"EKereforft anything js^io win their sympathy, to be interesting to them, it must (as is implied in the meaning of the word) in sotae way excite their will, even if itTs only through a distant and mereTy~pfoEIematicat felatioh to it ; the will must not

be left altogether out of the question,, for their p;Kist©n(jg lies far more in wiUing than in knowipg,— jiqtipn and reaction is thieir one element. We may find in trifles and "eVEfy^ay occurrences the naive expressions of this quality. Thus, for example, at any place worth seeing they may visit, they write their names, in order thus to react, to affect the place since it does not affect them. Again, when they see a strange rare animal, they cannot

4o6

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

easily confine themselves to merely observing it : they

-IN- II, III I.Hi, ,J||..|.» |Hji »iil|'|— .IWI****'* ' “ —*****“*'"'*" a* III! nwfi << » %

must rouse_it. tease it. play wrth merely to experiCDce action and reaction ; biit &is need for excitement of the will manifests itselT very specify in the discoyery and support oi card-playing, which is quite pecj^ liarly the expression of tlie miserable side_of humanity.

But wTiat^T^natufe and jfortone may have done, whoever a inan be. imd whatever be may possessTlETre ^in which is essential to life c^not be thrown off : — TIr)\€iSr)<; 8 ipfioo^ev, i8a>p et? ovpavov evpvv (jPdides autem

ejulavit, intuitus in ccelum latum). And again : — Zrjvo^ fiev TTUK t)a KpovLovof;, aurap ot^vv ei^ov aireipeairjp {Jovit quidem Jilius eram Saturnii ; verum cerumnam haieham infinitam). The ceaseless efforts to banish suffering accomplish no more than to make it change its form. It is essentially deficiency, want, care, ipx... the teaintenance of IfieT IF we succeed, which is very difficult, in removing pain in this form, it immediately assumes a tHouiand others, varjihg according to age and circumstances, such as lust, passionate love, jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, covetousness, sickness, &c., &c. If at last iFcaif iind*^iFrahce in'no^btFer form, it comes in The "sadl^grey^garments of tediousness and ennui, against vr^cFwFtheF strive in various ways. If finally ^ succeed in driving this away, we shall hardly do so without letting^ain‘'enleiriFbne oT'its’^rlier forms, and

the dance begin again from the beginning ; for all hiinmn life is tossednKcky^^ and forward^ between pain and eionuL depressing as this view of life is, I will draw attention, by the way, to an aspect of it from which com sblatibn map be drawn, and perh^s even a stoi^ indifference to one’s own present ills may be attained. !^or dur impatience at these anses foiTtKe most part from the fact that we regaid them as brought about byF^ain of causes \^ich might easily be different. We do not general]^ grieve over ills which are^'drrectly necessary and quite universal ; for example, the necessity of age and of

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 407

death, and many daily inconveniences. It is rather the consideration of thei accidental nature of the circumthat gives it

its sting.

But if we have recognised that pain, as such, is movitabie and e3sentral"*1K*‘Trfe7ancr ^at ndlliingji^ pends upon 'ch1m'ce'"But~rC^ f^Kion, SEe^form under •which iT^esents itself/t^rthus ourl^sent sorrow fills a place that, without it, would at once be occupied by another wEicE now is ^cludedTiy it, and that therefore fate can affect us little in what is essential ; such a reflection, if it were to become a living conviction, might produce a considerable degree of stoical equanimity, and very much lessen the anxious care for our own well-being Butj m fact, such a powerful control of reason over directly felt suffering seldom or never occurs.

Besides, through this view of the inevitableness of pain, of the supplanting of one pain by another, and the introduction of a new pain through the passing away of that which preceded it, one might be led to the paradoxical but not absurd hypothesis, that in every individual the measure of Ae_£^n es^ntial to him was determined once for all by his nature, a measure which could neither remain empty, nor be more than filled, however much the ftS5]|^_Jhe_su^ingjni^Gr[cEan^^‘'“TE^Tu3juffer^ and well-being wo^ by no means be determined from without, but onlyTihrough that measure, ^at natural deposition, which rndeed"mdgEtTxperiehce~ce1flaiir¥d3iSons and diminutions from the physical condition at different times, but yet, on the whole, would remain the same, and would jus^ be what ^ called the temperament, or, more accurately, the degree in which he might be evicoKo^ or fivavtoXoy, as Plato expresses it in the First Book of the Republic, i.e., in an easy or This hypothesis is supported not only by the well-known experience that great suffering makes all lesser ills cease to felt, and conversely that freedc^^rom great suffering makes even the most trifling inconvemences torment us

stances that brought some sorrow just to us.

4o8

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

and put BB out of humour ; but experience also teaches that if a great misfortune, at the mere thought of which we shuddered, actiiaTIjn[)efall8 us, as soon as we have overcome the first pain of it, our dispositimi remains for the most part unchanged ; and, conversely, that after the attainment of some happiness we^ have long ^esiredT^ do not leeF ourselves on the wliole an~d~"pdfrnariehtTy~^^^ much better off and agreeably situated than before.

Only the moment at which these ch'anges''decur'"affect3 us with unusual strength, as deep sorrow or exulting joy, out both soon pass away, for they are based upon illu- «on. For "they do" not spring from the immediately present pleasure or pain, but only from the opening up of a new future which is anticipated in them.

Only by borrowing from the jFuture could pain or pleasure be TiMghteheT slT abnormally, and consequently not endurihglyr Tt' would follow, from the hypothesis advanced, "thdt a large part of the feeling of suffering and of wellbeing would be subjective and determined a priori, as is the case with knowing ; and we may add the following remarks as evidence in favour of it.

Human cheerfulness or dejection are manifestly not deprmined™^^ exteinar"ljScuinstances, such as wealth and position, for we"see at least as many glad faces among the poor m among the rich. "Further, the motives which induce suicide are so very different, that we can assign no motive that is so great as to bring it about, even with great probability, in every character, and few that would be so small that the like of them had never caused it.

Now although the degree of our serenity or sadness is not at all times the same, yet, in consequence of this view, we shall not attriBute it to the change ~'6f outward circumstances, but to that of the inner condition, the physical™ state. For when' an actual, though only temporary, mcrease of our serenity, even to" the”(Steht""oF " joyfuK®^ ■'Mksr'''pKcC”it'’“usuS[Iy appears withouFI^^ external occaSoinT^Triir true that

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 409

we often see our pain arise only from some definite external relation, and are visibly oppressed and saddened by this only. Then we believe that if only this were taken away, the greatest contentment would necessarily ensue. But this is illusToh. The measure of our_pain and ora happiness is on the whole, according to our hypothesis, subjectively determined for each point of time, and the moSvenfor' ^3nes3~~is related to that, just a3_a blister which draws to a head all the bad humours otherwise distributed is related to the body. The pain which is^at that^ period of time essential to our naturej^"ahd' therefore cannot be shaken off, would, wi^out the definite exterhaT cause'of ' bra'sjp^i-fog, "be divided at a hundred ^ints, and appear in the form ofa hundrecOittle annoyances and cares about things which we now entirely~ovralook, hecause"bur capacity for pain is ali-eadjTfilTeT'By that chief evil wKfch has concentrated ~^in a point ''aII“The suffering "otherwise raspersed. This corresponds also fo the observation that, if a great and pressing care is lifted from our breast by ite fortunate issue, another inmediately takes ite place, the whole material of which was already there before, yet could not come into cons^dusness as care because there was no capacity left for it, and therefore this materlaT oP crae remalned^m^stinct and unobserved in a cloudy form on the farthest horizon of consciousness. But nowjihat there is room, this prewired material at once comes forward and occupies the throne of Ae reigning^ care of the day (irpvTavevovcra). And if it is very much lighter in its matter than the material of the care which has vanished, it knows how to blow itself out

so as apparently to equal itlh Wze, and thus, as the chief Sje“b£ the day,~cbnip1[etely fills the throne.

ExjcessiA^e j[^ suffering always occur in

the same person, for they condition each other recirao^ cally, and are also in common conditioned by great activity of the mind. Both are produced, as we have just seen, not by what is really present, but by the anticipation of

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 411

heart We rather seek constantly for an external particular cause, as it were, a pretext for the min which never leaves us, just as the free man makes himself an idol, in order to have a master. For we unweariedly strive from wish to wish ; and although every satisfaction, however much it promised, when attemed mli "to~saSs]^ usTX^ for the most part comes presently to be an error of which we are asliamed, yet we do not see that we draw water with the sieve of the Danaides, but ever hasten to new d^Ires.

“ Sed^ dum ahest quod avemus^ id exsupcrare videtur

Cwtera ; post aliudy quum contigit illudy avemus ;

Et sitis cequa tenet vitai semper hianics,*' — LUCR. iii. 1095,

Thus it either goes on for ever, or. what is more rare and presupposes a certain strength of character, till we reach a wish whicE is not satisfied and yet cannot he given up. ^ that case we have, as it were, found what we sought, Bmn^hmg tEat we can always blame, instead of our own nature, as the source of our suffering. And thus, alffiou^ we are now at variance with our fate, we are reconciled to our existence, for the knWledge is again put far ^om us that suffering is essential to this existence itself, and tone satisfaction impossible. The result of this form of development is a somewhat melancholy disposition, the constant endurance of a single great pain, and the contempt for aU lesser sorrows or joys that proceeds from it ; consequently an already nobler phenomenon thanjthat constaniT seizing iu^n evOT-ne^^ms oFfll^ion, whici w much more cqm^nr*^ ~

58, All satisfaction^^ or what is commonly called happiness, is always really and essfint^'ally only negative^ and”ne^r positive. It is not an original gratification coming to us of itself, but must always be the satisfaction of a wish. The wish, i.e., some want, is the condition which precedes every pleasure. But with the satisfaction the wish and therefore the pleasure cease. Tbus the satisfaction or the pleasing can never be more than the

41* THE WORLD .45 WILL. BK. iv.

deliverance from a pain, from want ; for such is not only every actu^, open sorrow, but evwy desire, the importuni^^^^lcK “disturbs our peace, and, indeedptEe deadening ennui alsonbHaFrnuKes life a burden to us. It is, howevmr7 sbnia^r(r~lo~atGun anything f~difficulties and troubles wi^xbut end are opposed to* eveiy purpose, and at every step hindrances accumiHafe. But when"^nairy’eve^TFim^S^VOTiro^jnrattained, nothing canlever be gained but deliverance from some sorrow or desire, so that we find ourselves just in the same position as we occupied before this sorrow or desire appeared All that is even directly given us is merely~€lie want, i.e., the pain. The satisfaction and the pleasure we can only know indirectly through the remembrance of the preceding suffering and want, which ceases with its appearance. Hence it arises that we are not properly conscious of the blessings and advantages we actually possess, nor do we prize them, but think of them merely as a matter of course, for they gratify us only negatively by restraining suffering. Only when we have lost them do we become sensible of their value ; for the want, the privation, the sorrow, is the positive, communicating itself directly to us. Thus also we are ^leas^ by the remembrance of past need, sickness, want, and such like, because this is the only means of enjoying the presentTilessings. And, further, it cannot be denied that in this respect,~and_from this standpoint of egoism, which is the form of the will to live, the sight or the description (rf the sufferings of others ai^ds us satisfaction and pleasure in precisely t^ way imcretius beautifully and frankly expresses it in the beginning of the Second Book —

“ Suave, mari magno, turhantxbus cequora ventis,

E terra magnum alterius spectare lahorem:

Non, quia vexari quemquam est jucunda volu/das ;

Sed, quibus ipse mails careas, quia cernere suave, est"

Yet we shall see farther on that this kind of pleasure,

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 413

tlirougii knowledge of our own well being obtained in this way, lies very near the source of real, positive wickedness.

That all happiness is only of a negative not a positive nature, thWlusf^jbn QnF account it cannot be lasting satisfaction and gratification, but merely delivers U3_frqm some pain or want which must be foll^ed" either by a new pain, or by languor, empty longing, and ennui ; this finds support in art, that true mirror of the world and life, and especially in poetry. Every epic and dramatic poem can only represent a struggle, an effort, and fight for happiness, never enduring and complete happiness itself. It conducts its heroes througli a thousand difficulties and dangers to the goal ; as soon as this is reached, it hastens to let the curtain fall; for now there would jeiaaiu nothing for it to do but to show tliat the glittering goal in which the bero expected to fiiid'EappTness Had only disappointed him, and that after its attainment he was

Tlecause“£r’gemime~en(Iunng happiness is not possible, it cannot be the subject of art. Certainly the aim of the ^d^lj^is the description of such ^happiness, but one also sees that the idyll as such cannot continue. Tlie poet always Ends tbat it either becomes epical in his hands, and in this case it is a very insignificant epic, made up of trifling sorrows, trifling delights, and trifling efforts — this is the commonest case — or else it becomes a merely descriptive poem, describing the beauty of nature, i.e., pure knowing free from will, which certainly, as a matter^ of feet, is the onlj^ pure happiness, which is hmtKer preceded by suffering ”or want, n oiT ^ce^ariTy f bl Ib wedn^^^p^^mtanc^~s(hr 0 w^ emptinerss, or satiety ; but ^is happines3"bannot~ffirtiie wholelife, but is only possible at moments. What we see in ^etry we find again in music Tin the melodies of which we have recognised the universal expression of the inmost histprynof ~tffe’~selt^c6hscious_will. th^ most secret life, longing, snaring, and delight; the_ebb and

414

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. Tyi.

flow of the human heart. Melody is always a deviation from the keynote through a thousand capricious wanderings, even to the most painful discord, and then a final return to the keynote which expresses the satisfaction and appeasing of the will, but with which nothing more can then be done, and the continuance of which any longer would only be a wearisome and unmeaning monotohy '^frespondirig 'tb enhuir ’

”!MI~thaF weTmtend to bring out clearly through these investigations, the impossibility of attaining lasting satisfaction and the negative nature~~bf all happmessT finds its explanalmn in what is shown at the conclusion of the Second Book.: that the will, of which human life, like every phenomenon, is the obiectification. is a stoiying without aim or end. We find the stamp of this endlessness imprmted -Uppxi jXQTie parte of its whole manir festation, from its most universal form, endless time aS^" space, up to the most perfect oF all" phehomem,’^e ^e and efTorte of man. We may theoretically assume three SdEremes of Tiuman life, and treat them as elements of actual human life. First, the powerful will, the strong passions (Eadscha-Guna). It appears in great historical characters ; it is described in the epic and the drama. But it can also show itself in the little world, for the size of the objects is measured here by the degree in which they influence the will, not according to their external relations. Secondly, pure knowing, the comprehension of the Ideas, conditioned by the freeing of knowledge from the service of will: the life of genius (Satwa-Guna). Thirdly and lastly, the greatest lethargy of the will, and also of the knowledge attaching to it, empty longing, life-benumbing languor (Tama-Guna). The life of the individual, far from becoming permanently fixed in one of these extremes, seldom touches any of them, and is for the most part only a weak and wavering approach to one or the other side, a needy desiring of trifling objects, constantly recurring, and so

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 415

escaping ennui It is really incredible how meaningless and void of signi5cSce~^en~~Ioolced"at from without, how dull and unenlightened by inteUect when^TefTSiMa within, ~is"ffie^urse of the life of the great^a|ority of men. It is a weary longing and complaining, a dreamlike staggering through the four ages of life to deaths accompanied by a series of trivial thoughts. Such m^ are like clockwork, which is wound up, and goes it mows not why; ancT^very time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew, to repeat the same old piece it has pla^d innumeraVde times before, passage after passage, m^asure~aftef meaiuH^ ihsignificant variations. E^iy '~mdI\ddimT.~"(^eiy ~ being arid “his course^ of life, is but mo^er short dream oF the endless spirit, of natP-re^ the persistent will to live ; is only another fleeting form, which it carelessly sketches on its infinite page^ space and time ; allows to remain for a time so short that it vanish^esTnte notHing in comparison with these, and then obliterates to make new room. And yet, and here lies the serious side of life, every one of these fleeting forms, these empty

fancies, must be paid for by the whole will to live, in all its activity, with many and deep sufferings, and finally with a bitter death, long "feared apd comihg^at lasK This is why the sight of a corpse makes us suddenly so

serious.

T?he life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole and in general, and only lay stress upon itsjnqVt significant features, is really alw^ a tragedy, but gone through i£F detail, it has the character of a comedy. For the deeds and vexations of the day, the restless irritation of {he moment, the desires..and fears of the week, ffie nusEaps of ^yeiy_. h^our, are^ all through ^ance, which is everTent upon .some jest, .scenes of a comedy. But £Ke never-satisfied wishes, the frustrated effo^, the hopes unmercifully crushed by fate, the unfortunate “errors of tfie “^\61e life, with increasiug JufferiiJg and death at the

416

THE WORLD AS WILL

BK. IV,

end, are always a tragedy. Thus, as if fate would add derision to the miseixloF^ur e^tence, our fife jnust contain all €Ee woes of tragedy, and yet we cannot, even assert the dignity of tragic characters, hut in the broad detail of Kfe ihiist iheylthhly be the foolish characters ^ a come^.

"But however much great and small trials may fill human life, they are not able to conceal its msufi^iency £b satisfy the spirh ; they cannot hide the emptiness and superficiali^ of_ existence, nor exclude ennui, which is always” ready to fill up every pause that care may allow. Hence ii^anses that the human mind, not content with the car^, anxieties, and occupations which the actual world lays upon it, creates for itself an imaginary world also in the form of a thousand different superstitions, then finds all manner of employment with this, and v^^s tune and strength upon it, as soon as the real world is willing to grant it the rest which it is quite incapable of ei^dying. This is accordingly most markedly the case with nations for which life is made easy by the congenial nature of the climate and the soil, most of all with the Hindus, tten with the Greeks, the Eomans^and later with the Italians, the Spaniards, &c.__ Demons, gods, and saints”man creates in his own image; and to them he musrnEKenTunceasmgly bring offerings, prayers, temple decofatidhs, vows and their fulfilment, pi^rimages, salutaHonspornaments for their images, &c. Their service mingles eye^wkere with the real, and, indeed, obscures it. Every event of life is regarded as the work of these beings; the intercourse "witlTtEem occupies Ealf the time of iifC constantly sustains hope, and hjTSKe charm of illusion often becomes more Interesting than intercourse

^th real beings. ~ IF iirffie~ex'pressibn and symptom of the actual n^ of m^kmd, partly for help and support, partly for occupation and diversion ; and if it ®S~worEs~ln^rect”op^daiHon~td~^^^ heed, bg'- accidents and dangers arise valuable time

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 417

imd strength, instead of being directed to warding them <^, ^e useieiisTy "wasted on_prayera ”ah3^ol^in^;”^rt serves the second enct all ' theTBelter liy Oils inia^aiy converse with a visionary spirit world; ai^ tEST i^&e by no means contemptible gain of all superstitions.

§ 59.

If we have so far convinced ourselves a priori, by the most general consideration, by investigation of the primary and elemental features of human life, that in its whole plan it is capable of no true blessedness, but is in its very nature suffering in various forms, and throughout a state of misery, we might now awaken this conviction much more vividly within us if, proceeding more a posteriori, we were to twn to more definite instances, call up pictures to the fancy, and illustrate by examples the unspeakable mise^ which experience and history present, wherever one may look and in whatever direction on© may seek.

But the chapter would have no end, and would carry us far from the standpoint of the universal, which is essential to philosophy ; and, moreover, such a description might e^Mily be token for a niere^de£lamation on human misery, such as has ..often begn . given, and, as such, might be .clmrgfid jdlh.j)iier3idfidines8,„b.§cau^^^^^ started from particular facts. ]^om ^ch a. reproa.ch_and suspicion our^perfectly cold and philosophical investigation of the inevitable suffering which is founded in the nature of life is^free, for it stori^ from the universal and is conducted a priori.

But confirmation cTpo^fiori is everywhere easily obtained.

Every one who has awakened from the first dream of youth, yvhq^hafTcoijrsnKfed^^^ own~exp©nince”and"tTud~bf "others, who has studied himself m life, in the historyHori'K'p^r ahd’of his 0 ^(ITinally’m £he works of the great poets, will, if his judgment is not paralysed bj some indelibly imprinted prejudice, certainly arrive at the cohcluiion that this Human world 18 the kmgdom of chance and error, which rule'wItH^ but mercy In great things and in small, and along with whiA foUy and wickedness also vmlff the scou^e. it arises

that everything better only struggles through, with diffi« culty ; what is noble and wise seldom attains to expression, becomes effective and claims attentioja, but the absurd mlH the perverse in the sphere of thought, the dulTand t^teleM in the sphere of art, the wicked and decmtf id in l^e sphere of action, really assert a supremacy, only toturbed by short interruptions. ^ the other hand, everything tfiaT is excellent is always a mere exception, one case in millions, and therefore, if it presents J-tseirin ariasfing wort, this, when it has outlived the enmity^ its coniemjpfariM, exists in isolation, is preserved l&e a meteoric stone, sprung from an order of things different from dbat wliich prevails here.

But as far as the l^e of &e individual is coRcerned, every, bio^aphy is the history of suffering, for every life is, as a rule, a continual series of great and small misfortunes, which each one cohc'ealg as mucE’~as possible, because he knows that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion, but almost always saHsFactTbn aOEe’ sighFbr the woes from which they are themselves for the moment exempt.

But perhaps at the end of Tif^ IT a man is sincere and in full possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to live^over agam,~t)ut "rather than this, he will much prefer absolute annihilation.

The essential content of the famous solil(> quy in “ Hamlet ” is briefly this : Our state is so wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly preferable If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative “ to be or not to be,” in the full sense of the word, was placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as “ a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But there is something in us which tells us that this is not the case: suicide is not the end; deatlf is’hbtT absolute ahnihilatidn ^Ih”lTIce*'manner7^^at ~wa3~"sard by the father”of history ^ has not since him been contradicted; that no marTTias ever lived whoTSsTnot wiSbed more ffian once that he had"nbt to ' Kve" bhh follbwmg day ^ Herodot. vli. 46.

According to this, the brevity of life, which is so constant lamented, may be the best q^uality it poMesses.

If, finally, we shoifld bring clearly to a man’s sight the terrible sufferings and miseries to which his life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror; and if we were to conduct the confirmed optimist through the hospitals, infirmaries, and surgical operating-rooms, through the prisons, torture-chambers, and slave-kennels, ovw batfle-fields and places of execution; if we were to open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where it hides itself from the glance of cold curiosity, and, finally, allow him to glance into the starving dungeon of Ugolino, he, too, would uiiderstand at last the nature of this “ best of possible worlds.

For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world ? And yet he made a very proper hell of it And when, on the other hand, he came to the task of describing heaven and its delights, he had an insurmountable difficulty before him, for our world affords no materials at all for this.

Therefore there remained nothing for him to do but, instead of describing the joys of paradise, to repeat to us the instruction given him there by his ancestor, by Beatrice, and by various saints. But from this it is sufficiently clear what manner of world it is.

Certainly human life, like all bad ware, is covered over with a false lustre : what suffers always conceals itself ; on the other hand, whatever pomp or splendour any one can get, he makes a show of openly, and the more inner contentment deserts him, the more he desires to exist as fortunate in the opinion of others : to such an extent 3oes folly go, and the opinion of others is a chief aim of the efforts of every one, although the utter nothingness of it is expressed in the fact that in almost all languages vanity, vanitas, originally signifies emptiness and nothingness.

But under all this false show, the miseries of life can so increase — and this happens every day — that the death which hitherto has been feared above all things is

eagerly seized upon. Indeed, if fate will show ita whole nialice, even ffis refuge is denied to the sufferer, and, in the hands oF enraged eh~emie371ie may remain exposed to terrible and sloyTtoitufes" wiffibut^rim^^ In vain the sufferer then calls on his gods for help ; he remains exposed to 155" fate without grace. But th5 irremedi» ableness 5 only the mirror of the invincible nature of h5 wiU, of which his person 5 the objectivity.

As little ta an external power jcan ^ange or suppress th5 will, so little can a foreign power deliver it from tlie"nuseriea ^ich proceed from the life which 5 the phendmenal appearance of that will. In the principal matter, as in everything else, a man is always thrown back upon himselE T5 vain ~does he make to himself gods in order to get from them by prayers and Sattery what can only be accompUshed by h5 own will-power.

The Old Testament made the worldTand man Qle work of a god, but the New Testament saw that, in order to teach that holiness and salvation from the sorrows of this world can only come from the world itself, it was necessary that this god should become man. It is and remains the will of inan upon which everything depends for him.

Fana^ tics, mjtto:a....sain,ta,Qf- every faith and name, haye voluntarily and gladly endured every torture, because in them the will to live iiaiT suppressed_itself ; and then even the slow~(Iestruction of its phenomenon was welcome to them. But I do not wish to anticipate the later exposition.

For the rest, I cannot here avoid the statement that, to me, optimism, when it is not merely the thoughtless talk of such as harbour nothing but words under their low foreheads, appears not merely as an absurd, but also as a really ^'g^g</ wajr of thinking, as a bitter mockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity.

Let no one think that Christianity is favourable to optimism ; for, on the contrary, in the Gtospels world and evil are used aa almost synonymioug,?

^ Of. Oh. xlvi. of Supplement

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 421

§ 60. We have now completed the two expositions it was necessary to insert ; the exposition of the freedom of the will in itself together with the necessity of its phenomenon, and the exposition of its lot in the world which reflects its own nature, and upon the knowledge of which it has to assert or deny itself. Therefore we can now proceed to bring out more clearly the nature of this assertion and denial itself, which was referred to and explained in a merely general way abova This we shall do by exhibiting the conduct in which alone it finds its expression, and considering it in its inner significance.

The assertion of the will is the continuous willing itself, undisturbed by any knowledge, as it fills the life of man in general. For even the body of a man is the objectivity of the will, as it appears at this grade and in this individual And thus his willing which develops itself in time is, as it were, a paraphrase of his body, an elucidation of the significance of the whole and its parts ; it is another way of exhibiting the same thing-in-itself, of which the body is already the phenomenon. Therefore, instead of saying assertion of the will, we may say assertion of the body. The fundamental theme or subject of all the multifarious acts of will is tlie satisfaction of the wants which are inseparable from the existence of the body in health, they already have their expression in it, and may be refened to the maintenance of the individual and the propagation of the species. But indirectly the most different kinds of motives obtain in this way power over the will, and bring about the most multifarious acts of wilL Each of these is only an example, an instance, of the will which here manifests itself generally. Of what nature this example may be, what form the motive may have and impart to it, is not essential ; the important point here is that something is willed in general and the degree of intensity with which it is so willed. The will can only become visible in the motives, as the eye only manifests its power of seeing in the light

432

THE WORLD AS WILL.

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The motive in general stands before the will in protean forma It constantly promises complete satisfaction, the quenching of the thirst of will. But whenever it is attained it at once appears in another form, and thus influences the will anew, always according to the degree of the intensity of this will, and its relation to knowledge which are revealed as empirical character, in these very examples and instancea

From the first appearance of consciousness, a man finds himself a willing being, and as a rule, his knowledge remains in constant relation to his will. He first seeks to know thoroughly the objects of his desire, and then the means of attaining them. Now he knows what he has to do, and, as a rule, he does not strive after otlier knowledge. He moves and acts ; his consciousness keeps him always working directly and actively towards the aims of his will ; his thought is concerned with the choice of motives. Such is life for almost all men ; they wishj they. Imow whaTtKey wish,~ahdr fhey strive after it][ with sufficient success to keep them from despair, and sufficient failure to keep them from ennui and its conscquences. From this proceeds a certain serenity, or at least indifference, which cannot be affected by wealtF of poyer§n*"^3lL.^.i?k.. the poor do not enjoy what they have, for this, as we have shown, acts in a purely ncffl^e wayPBub' tiiey hope to attain to by their efforts. They press forward with much earnestness, and indeed with an air of importance ; thus children also pursue their play. It is always an exception if such a life suffers interruption from the fact that either the aesthetic demand for contemplation or the ethical demand for renunciation proceed from a knowledge which is independent of the service of the will, and directed to the nature of the world in general Most men are pursued by want all through life, without ever being allowed to come to their senses. On the other hand, the will is often inflamed to a degree that far transcends the assertion of the

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 423

body, and then violent emotions and powerful passions show tEeraselves," in wluchjthe individual not only asse^ his 6wn”Sciitehce, but denies and^seelfOo so^presB^at of^hers wTien iriitands in hi? way. ^ .

The maintenance^dfthe body through its own powers is so small a degree of the assertion of will, that if it voluntarily remains at this degree, we might assume that, with the death of this bc^y, the will also which appeared in it woiilcnie extinguished. But even the satisfaction of~ the sexual passions goes beyond the assertion of one’s own existence, which fills so short a time, and asserts life for an indefinite time after the death of the individual. Nature, always true and consistent, here even naive, exhibits to us openly the inner significance of the act of generation. Our own consciousness, the intensity of the impulse, teaches us that in this act the most decided assertion of the will to live expresses itself, pure and without further addition (any denial of other individuals) ; and now, as the consequence of this act, a new life appears in time and the causal series, i.e., in nature ; the begotten appears before the begetter, different as regards tbe phenomenon, but in himself, i.e., according to the Idea, identical with him. Therefore it is this act through which every species oi living creature binds itself to a whole and is perpetuated. Generation is, with reference to the begetter, only the expression, the symptom, of his decided assertion of the will to live : with reference to the begotten, it is not the cause of the will which appears in him, for tlie will in itself knows neither cause nor effect, but, like all causes, it is merely the occasional cause of the phenomenal appearance of this will at this time in this

' the begetter and that only the phenomenon, to the principiu mindividuationis. With that assertion beyond our own body and extending to the production of a new body, sufierihg

place. As thing-in-itself, the wiU of ofjihe b^oIiSa*are not different,, for not the thing-in-itself, is subordinate

introduce by the completest capability of knowledge, has for this time been shown to be fruitless. Here lies the

profound reason of the shame connected with the process ^T^nemtion. This view is mYtEiSIlY~ex^esse(l in the do^STof Christian theology that we are ^ partakers in Adj^'s first transgression (which is clearly just the satisfaction of sexual passion), and tbrough it are”"guilty of suffemig and ^featli. tn this theology goes heyond the consideration of things according to the principle of sufficient reason, and recognises the Idea of man, the unity of which is re-established out of its dispersion into innumerable individuals through the bond of generation which holds them all together. Accordingly it regards every individual as on one side identical with Adam, the representative of the assertion of life, and, so far, as subject to sin (original sin), suffering, and death ; .on the other side, the knowledge of the Idea of man enables it to regard every individual as identical with the saviour, the representative of the denial of the will to live, and, so far as a partaker of his sacrifice of himself, saved through his merits, and delivered from the bands of sin and death, i.e., the world (Kom. v. 12-2 1).

Another mythical exposition of our view of sexusd pleasure as the assertion of the will to live beyond the individual life, as an attainment to life which is brought about for the first time by this means, or as it were a renewed assignment of life, is the Cmek myth of Proserpine, who might return from the lower world so lon^^M Se”pi3f”nof '^pd'tts'frm^"'^ subject

to it altogether through eating the pomegrana^ This meaning appears very" clwirl^ in' Ooeffi^s Incomparable pre3entatioh"3riE3 myllii”^'e(2ffly when^ as soon as she haFHstod ihe pomegmiate, the invisible chorus™^ t£e* Fates— — — "

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 425

“ Thou art ours !

Fasting shouldest thou return :

A.nd tlie bite of the apple makes thee ours ! ”

It is worth noticing that Clement of Alexandria (Strom, iii. c. 15) illustrates the matter with the same image and the same expression : Ol fiev evvovj(U7avT€<i eauTOi/5 ttTTO TToaij? dfiapria^:. Sia rrjv ^aaiKeiav, twv ovpavav, fiaKaptot ovrot eiaip, 61 rov ko(T/xou vr)<TT€Vom€^. (Qui S6 castrarunt ah omni peccato propter regnum ccelorum, ii mnt heati, a mundo jejunavies).

The sexual impulse also proves itself the decided and str^gest assertidn~oTTife~^jpffie~^hT'"{FarTonm^^ state of nature, as to the brutes, it is the final end, the hi^^t goal of life. Self -maintenance is his SraiFeffort, aSid lis soon as he has made provision for that, he only strives after the propagation of the species : as a merely natural being he can attempt no more. Nature also, the inner being of which is the will to live itself, impels with all her power both man and the brute towards propagation. Then it has attained its end with the individual, and is quite indifferent to its death, for, as the will to live, it cares only for the preservation of the species, the individual is nothing to it Because the will to live expresses iteelf most stronglj in the sexual impure, the inner b^g of nature^ the old poets and pliilospjjhersrrjSesiod, and Parmenides — said very significantly that Eros is the first, the creator, the principle from which all things proceed. (Cf. Arist Metaph., i 4.) Pherecydes said : Ek eparra fiera^e^Tjadai top Aia, peXKopra ^fiiovpyeip {Jovem, cum mundum fahricare vellet, in cupidinem sese transfornmsse). Proclus ad Plat. Tim., 1. iii A complete treatment of this subject we have recently received from G. F. Schcemann, “ JDe Cupidine Cosmogonico,” 1852. The M&ya of the^Hindus,^ wh^^^ work and web is the whole world of illusion, is also symbolised by love.

'“TTEe genital organs areTSj more than any other external member of the body, subject merely to the will, and

426

THE WORLD AS WILL.

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not at all to knowledge. Indeed, the will shows itself here almost as independent of knowledge, as in those parts which, acting merely in consequence of stimuli, are subservient to vegetative life and reproduction, in which the will works blindly as in unconscious Nature. For generation is only reproduction passing over to a new individuaT,~a¥ il~wefe reproJucBoTi^tlhe^s^^ as death’

is only excretion at_the second power. According to all this, the genitals are properly the focus of will, and consequently the opposite pole of the brain, the representative of knb\^edge, ie., the other side of the world, the world as idea. I’he former are the life-sustaining principle ensiiring endless life to time. In this respect they were worshipped by the Greeks in the by _ the

Sindus in the lingam, which arc thus ftie symbol of the assertion of the will. Knowledge, on the other hand, aSordTtKe possTKfity of the suppressidhTdf jelling, of salTOli6h~fhrougE^ freeiJom, of conquest and anniIuration_ of the wqrid.

We already considered fully at the beginning of this Fourth Book how the will to live in its assertion must regard its relation to death. We saw that death does not trouble it, because it exists as something included in life itself and belonging to it Its opposite, generation^ completely counterbalances it ; and, in spite oFthe death of the individual, ensures and guarantees life to the wiU to live througE~SCI timeT *Td”^press ‘ tins' ' the 'Hindus made the lingam an attribute of Siva, the god of death. We also fully explained there how he wHo with full consmousness occupies the standpoint of the decided asserfiSn of life awaits death wit&ut fear. We shall therefore say nothing more about this here. Without clear consciousness most men occupy this standpoint and continually a.ssert life. The world exists as the mirror of this assertion, with innumerable individuals in infinite time and space, in infinite suffering, between generation and death without end. Yet from no side is a complaint to be

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 427

further raised about this ; for the will conducts the great tragedy and comedy at its own expense, and is also its own spectator. The world is just what it is because the will, whose manifestation it is, is what it is, because it so wills. The jtistification of suffering is, that in this phenomenon also the will asserts itself 7~ahd^ this assertion is justified ahdr~bnance3r'5y~the~fa5b that the will bears the suffering. Here we get a glimpse of etertial justice in the whole : we shall recognise it later more definitely and distinctly^ and also in the particular. But first we must consider temporal or human justice.^

§ 61. It may be remembered from the Second Book that in the whole of nature, at all the grades of the objectification of will, there was a necessary and constant conflict between the individuals of all species ; and in this way was expressed the inner contradiction of the will to live with itself. At the highest grade of the objectification, this phenomenon, like all others, will exhibit itself with greater distinctness, and will therefore be more easily explained. With this aim we shall next attempt to trace the source of egoism as the starting-point of all conflict.

We have called time and space the principium individuationis, because only through them and in them is multiplicity of the homogeneous possible. They are the essential forms of natural knowledge, i.e., ,knowledge springing from the will Therefore the will everywhere manifests itself in the multiplicity of individuals EuF this multiplicity does not concern the will as thing-in-itself, but only its. phenoineixa, The will itsel? is present, whole and undiyidedj^ m every one of

these, and beholds around it the innumerably repeated imaffl ot Its bwn~ nature; but this nature itself, the

actually real, it finds directly only in iits inner self. Therefore every one diMufes^ very thuig for himsmfTHesires to possess, or at least to control, everything, and whatever opposes it it would like to destroy. To this is added, m

^ Of. Oh. xly. of the Supplement.

42« THB world as will. bk. iv

the case of such beings as have knowledge, that the individual is the supporter of the knowing subject, and the knowing subject is the supporter of the world, i.e., that the whole of Nature outside the knowing subject, and thus also all other individuals, exist onl7 in its idea ; it is only conscious of them as its idea, thus merely indirectly as something which is dependent on its own nature and existence ; for with its consciousness the world necessary disappeara, for it. i.e.. it§ZFdflg.^andlnQn-bein^ become synonymous and indistinguishable.

Every knowing individual is thus in truth, and fin^ itself as the whole will to Hve, or the inner being of the world itself, and also as the complemental condition of the world as idea, consequently as a microcosm which is of equal value with the macrocosm. Nature itself, which is everywhere and always truthful, gives him this knowledge, originally and independently of all reflection, with simple and direct certainty.

Now from these two necessary properties we have given the fact may be explained that every individual, though vanishing altogether and diminished to nothing in the boundless world, yet makes itself the centre of the world, has regard for its own existence and well-being before everything else; indeed, from the natural standpoint, is ready to sacrifice everything else for this — is ready to annihilate the world in order tp mainl^ its .own self, &is drop in the ocean, a Jittle longer. This ^position Is essential to overytKing in

Natoe. Yet it is just through egoism that the inner wnflict of the will mth itpelf. atteins to such terrible revelation ; for this egoism has ite continuance aiid being in that opposition of the microcosm and macrocosm, or in the fact that the objectification of will has the prindpivm individvMtionis for its form, through which the will manifests itself in the same way in innumerable individuals, and indeed entire and completely in both aspects (will and idea) in each. Thus, while each individual is given to itself directly as the

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 429

whole will and the whole subject of ideas, other individuals are only given it as ideas. Therefore its own being, and the maintenance of it, is of more importance to it than that of all others together. Every one looks upon his own death as upon the end of the world, while he accepts the death of his acquaintances as a matter of comparative indifference, if he is not in some way affected by it. In the consciousness that has reached the highest grade, that of man, egoism, as well as knowledge, pain and pleasure, must have reached its highest grade also, and the conflict of individuals which is conditioned by it must appear in its most terrible form. And indeed we s^^his everywhere before our eyes, in small things as in f^reat. _ Now we see its terrible side in the lives of great tyrants anT~miscreante, and in yforld- desolating wars; nowlts absurd side, in which it is the theme of comedy, and

very specially appears as self-conceit and vanity. Eoche tduca^t understood this better than any one else, and presented it in the abstract. We see it both in the history of the world and in our own experienca But it appears most distinctly of all when any mob of men is set fret from all law and order ; then there shows itself at onct in the distinctest form the helium omnium contra omnes, which Hobbes has so admirably described in the first chapter De Give. We see not only how every one tries to seize frpm the other wEat he wants himself, but how

often one will destroy the whole happiness or life of anbther foi^thg sake of En insig^ addition to Ms own happiness. ^Is is the highest expression of egoismj_the manifestations of which in this reiard are pSy surpassed

by those of actual wickedness^ which seeks, quite disinterestedly, tETEurt and suffering of others, without any advantagQo this we shall speEk soon. Wito

this exhibition of the source of egoism the reader should compare the presentation of it in my prize-essay on the basis of morals, §14.

A chief source of that suffering which we found above

430

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

to be essential and inevitable to all life is, when it really appears in a definite form, that i-Vis, the conflict of all individuals, the expression of the contradiction, with which the will to live is affected in its inner self, and which attains a visible form through the principmm individuationis. Wild-beast fights are the most cruel means of showing this directly and vividly. In this original discord lies an unquenchable source of suffering, in spite of the precautions that have been taken against it, and which we shall now consider more closely.

§ 62. It has already been explained that the first and simplest assertion of the will to live is only the assertion of one’s own body, i.e., the exhibition of the will through acts in time, so far as the body, in its form and design, exhibits the same will in space, and no further. This assertion shows itself as maintenance of the body, by means of the application of its own powers. To it is directly related the satisfaction of the sexual impulse ; indeed this belongs to it, because the genitals belong to the body. Therefore voluntary renunciation of the satisfaction of that impulse, based upon no motive, is already a denial of ^Eie will to live, is a voluntary self-suppression of it, upon the entrance of knowledge which acts m a quieter. Accordingly such denial of one’s own body exhibits itself as a contradiction by the will of its own phenomenon. For although here also the body objectifies in the genitals the will to perpetuate the species, yet this is not willed. Just on this account, because it is a denial or suppression S wiU to liye^such a renunciation is a hard and paigful self-conquest; but of this later. But since the will exhibits that self-assertion of one’s own body in innumerable individuals beside each other, it very easily extends in one individual, on account of the egoism peculiar to them aU, beyond this assertion to the denial of the same wiU appearing in another individual The will of the first breaks through the limits of the assertion of will of another, because the individual either destroys or injures

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 431

this other body itself, or else because it compels the powers of the other body to serve its own will, instead of the will which manifests itself in that other body.

Thus if, from the will manifesting itself as another body, it withdraws the powers of this body, and so increases the power serving its own will beyond that of its own body, it consequently asserts its own will beyond its own body by means of the negation of the will appearing in another body. This breaking through the limits of the assertion of will of another has always been distinctly recognised, and its concept denoted by the word wrong.

For both sides recognise the fact instantly, not, indeed, as we do here in distinct abstraction, but as feeling. He who suffers wrong feels the transgression into the sphere of the assertion of his own body, through the denial of it by another individual, as a direct and mental pain which is entirely separated and different from the accompanying physical suffering experienced from the act or the vexation at the loss.

To the doer of wrong, on the other hand, the knowledge presents itself that he is in himself the same will which appears in that body also, and which asserts itself with such vehemence in the one phenomenon that, transgressing the limits of its own body and its powers, it extends to the denial of this very will in another phenomenon, and so, regarded as will in itself, it strives against itself by this vehemence and rends itself.

Moreover, this knowledge presents itself to him instantly, not in dbstracto, but as an obscure feeling ; and this is called remorse, or, more accurately in this case, the feeling of wrong committed.

Wrong, the conception of which we have thua analysed in its most general and abstract form, expresses itself in the concrete most completely, peculiarly, and palpably in cannibalism. This is its most distinct and evident typo, the terrible picture of the greatest conflict of the will with itself at the highest grade of its objectification, which NexFto'3us^T^r^prSses" ItiSFmost distinctly

♦3a the world AS WILL. BK. IV.

in murder; and therefore the committal of murder is followed instantly and with fearful distinctness by remorse, the abstract and dry significance of which we have just fflven, which inflicts a wound on our peace of mind that a lifetime cannot Tieal. For our horror at the murder committed, as also our shrinking from the committal of it, corresponds to that infinite clinging to life with which everything living, as phenomenon of the will to live, is penetrated. (We shall analyse this feeling which accompanies the doing of wrong and evil, in other words, the pangs of conscience, more fully later on, and raise its concept to distinctness.) Mutilation, or mere injury of another body, indeed every blow, is to be regarded as in its nature the same as murder, and differing from it only in degree. Further, wrong shows itself in the subjugation of another individual, in forcing him into slavery, and, finally, in the seizure of another’s goods, which, so far as these goods are regarded as the fruit of his labour, is just the same thing as making him a slave, and is related to this as mere injury is to murder.

For property, which is not taken from a man without wrong, can, according to our explanation of wrong, only be that which has been produced by his own powers. Therefore by taking this we really take the powers of his body from the will objectified in it, to make them subject to the will objectified in another body. For only so does the wrong-doer, by seizing, not the body of another, but a lifeless thing quite different from it, break into the sphere of the assertion of will of another person, because the powers, the work of this other body, are, as it were, incorporated and identified with this thing. It follows from this that all true, i.e., moral, right of property is based simply and solely on work, as was pretty generally assumed before Kant, and is distinctly and beautifully expressed in the oldest of all codes of law : “ Wise men whoknoM^the^Mt. explain, that a cultured field is the property of him who cut down tie wood and cleared and

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 433

Roughed it, as an antelope belongs to the first hunter ^o mortally wounds it ” (Laws of M^u, ix. 44^ Kant’s pliilosopliy of law is an extraordinary concatenation of errors all leading to each other, and he bases the right of property upon first occupation. To me this is only explicable on the supposition that his powers were failing through old age.

For how should the mere avowal of my will to exclude others from the use of a thing at once give me a right to it ? Clearly such an avowal itself requires a foundation of right, instead of being one, as Kant assumes. And how would he act unjustly in se, i.e., morally, who does not respect that claim to the sole possession of a thing which is based upon nothing but its own avowal ? How should his conscience trouble him about it ?

For it is so clear and easy to understand that there can be alisolutely no such thing as a just seizure of anything, but only a just conversion or acquired possession of it, by spending our own original powers upon it.

When, by any foreign labour, however little, a thing has been cultivated, improved, kept from harm or preserved, even if this labour were only the plucking or picking up from the ground of fruit that has grown wild ; the person who forcibly seizes such a thing clearly deprives the other of the result of his labour expended upon it, makes the body of this other serve his will instead of its own, asserts his will beyond its own phenomenon to the denial of that of the other, i.e., does injustice or wrong.

On the other hand, the mere enjoyment of a tiling, without any cultivation or preservation of it from destruction, gives just as little right to it as the mere avowal of our desire for its sole possession. Therefore, though one family has hunted a district alone, even for a

^ Thus the basis of natural right sufficient. Only the name foi^niaof property does not require the tion is not very suitable, for the assumption of two grounds of right spending of any labour upon a thing beside each other, that based on does not need to be a forming or detention and that based on for- fashioning of it. motion ; but the latter is itself

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hundred years, but has done nothing for its improvement ; if a stranger comes and desires to hunt there, it cannot prevent him from doing so without moral injustice. Thus the so-called right of preoccupation, according to which, for the mere past enjoyment of a thing, there is demanded the further recompense of the exclusive right to its future enjoyment, is morally entirely without foundation. A new-comer might with far better right reply to him who was depending upon such a right, “Just because you have so long enjoyed, it is right that others should now enjoy also.” No moral right can be established to the sole possession of anything upon which labour cannot be expended, either in improving it or in preserving it from harm, unless it be through a voluntary surrender on the part of others, as a reward for other services. This, however, already presupposes a community regulated by agreement— the State. The morally established right of property, as we have deduced it above, gives, from its nature, to the owner of a thing, the same unlimited power over it which he has over his own body ; and hence it follows that he can part with his possessions to others either in exchange or as a gift, and they then possess them with the same moral right as he did.

As regards the doing of wrong generally, it occurs either through violence or through craft ; it matters not which as far as what is morally essential is concerned. First, in the case of murder, it is a matter of indifference whether I make use of a dagger or of poison ; and the case of eveiy bodily injury is analogous. Other cases of wrong can all be reduced to the fact that I, as the doer of wrong, compel another indi\ddual to serve my will instead of his own, to act according to my will instead of according to his own. On the path of violence I attain this end through physical causality, but on the path of craft by means of motivation, i.e., by means of causality through knowledge ; for 1 present to his will

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 435

illusive motives, on account of which he follows my will, while he believes he is following his own. Since the medium in which the motives lie is knowledge, I can only accomplish this by falsifying his knowledge, and this is the lie. The lie always aims at influencing another’s will, not merely his knowledge, for itself and as such, but only as a means, so far as it determines his will.

For my lying itself, inasmuch as it proceeds from my will, requires a motive; and only the will of another can be such a motive, not his knowledge in and for itself ; for as such it can never have an influence upon my will, therefore it can never move it, can never be a motive of its aim.

But only the willing and doing of another can be this, and his knowledge indirectly through it This holds good not only of all lies that have manifestly sprung from self-interest, but also of those which proceed from pure wickedness, which seeks enjoyment in the painful consequences of the error into wliich it has led another.

Indeed, mere empty boasting aims at influencing the will and action of others more or less, by increasing their respect or improving their opinion of the boaster. The mere refusal of a truth, ?.c., of an assertion generally, is in itself no wrong, but every impqsing of a lie is certaihTylt~wrong. ffe who refuses to show the strayed traveller the right road does huh no wrong, but he _whn directs hioTto'TTfnse rbad"^^ does.

It follows from what^has been~^I3^ that every lie, like every act of violence, is as such wrong, because as such it has for its aim the extension of the authority of my will to other individuals, and so the assertion of my will through the denial of theirs, just as much as violence has. But the most complete lie is the broken contract, because here all the conditions mentioned are completely and distinctly present together.

For when I enter into a contract, the promised performance of the other individual is directly and confessedly the motive for my reciprocal performance. The promises were de436 THE WORLD AS WILL. bk. iv

liberately and formally exchanged. The fulfilment of the declarations made is, it is assumed, in the power of eacL If the other breaks the covenant, he has deceived me, and by introducing merely illusory motives into my knowledge, he has bent my will according to his intention ; he has extended the control of his wUl to another individual, and thus has committed a distinct wrong. On this is founded the moral lawfulness and validity of the contract.

Wrong through violence is not so shameful to the doer of it as wrong through craft ; for the former arises from physical power, which under all circumstances impresses mankind; while the latter, by the use of siibterfuge, betrays weakness, and lowers man at once as a physical and moral being. This is further the c&se because lying and deception can only succeed if he who employs them expresses at the same time horror and contempt of them in order to win confidence, and his victory rests on the fact that meia Credit lum with honesty which he does not pbsseisi THe^deep horror which is always excited by cuimmg, faithlessness, and treachery rests on the fact that good faith and honesty are the bond which externally binds into a unity the will which has been broken up into the multiplicity of individuals, and thereby limits the consequences of the egoism which resxilts from that dispersion. Faithlessness and treachery break this outward bond asunder, and thus give boimdless scope to the consequences of egoism.

In the connection of our system we have found that the content of the concept of wrong is that quality of the conduct of an individual in which he extends the assertion of the will appearing in his own bo ly so far that it becomes the denial of the will appearing in the bodies of othera We have also laid down, by means of very general examples, the limits at which the province of wrong begins ; for we have at once defined its gradations, from the highest degree to the lowest, by means of a few

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 437

leading conceptions. According to this, the concept of wrong is the original and positive, and the concept of right, whiSE is opposed" to it^ is the derivative and negatfve ; for we must keep to the concepts, and not to the words: As •'tact, thgrB'~v^Id" 15e*^~"iCTir^

right if there were no such thing as wrong. The concept right contains m^ely the negation of wrong, and every action is subsumed under it which does not transgress the limit laid down above, i.e., is not a denial of the will of another for the stronger assertion of our own. That limit, therefore, divides, as regards a purely moral definition, the whole province of possible actions into such as are wrong or right. Whenever an action does not encroach, in the way explained above, on the sphere of the assertion of will of another, denying it, it is not wrong. Therefore, for example, the refusal of help to another in great need, the quiet contemplation of the death of another from starvation while we ourselves have more than enough, is certainly cruel and fiendish, but it is not wrong ; only it can be affirmed with certainty that whoever is capable of carrying unkindness and hardness to such a degree will certainly also commit every wrong whenever his wishes demand it and no compulsion prevents it.

But the conception of right as the negation of wrong finds its principal application, and no doubt its origin, in cases in which an attempted wrong by violence is warded off. This warding off cannot itself be wrong, and consequently is right, although the violence it requires, regarded in itself and in isolation, would be wrong, and is here only justilied by the motive, i.e., becomes right. If an individual goes so far in the assertion of his own will that he encroaches upon the assertion of will which is essential to my person as such, and denies it, then my warding off of that encroachment is only the denial of that denial, and thus from my side is nothing more than the assertion of the will which essentially and originally appears in my body, and is already implicitly

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expressed by the mere appearance of this body ; consequently is not wrong, but right That is to say : I have then a right to deny that denial of another with the force necessary to overcome it, and it is easy to see that this may extend to the killing of the other individual, whose encroachment as external violence pressing upon me may be warded off by a somewhat stronger counteraction, entirely without wrong, consequently with right. For all that happens from my side lies always within the sphere of the assertion of will essential to my person as such, and already expressed by it (which is the scene of the conflict), and does not encroach on that of the other, consequently is only negation of the negation, and thus aflflrmation, not itself negation. Thus if the will of another denies my will, as this appears in my body and the use of its powers for its maintenance, without denial of any foreign will which observes a Like limitation, I can without wrong compel it to desist from such denial, i.«., I have so far a right of compulsion.

In all cases in which I have a right of compulsion, a complete right to use violence against another, I may, according to the circumstances, just as well oppose the violence of the other with craft without doing any wrong, and accordingly I have an actual right to lie precisely so far as I have a right of covipulsion. Therefore a man acts

with perfect right who assures a highway robber who is searching him thaThe haThdlhiiig more upon him ; or, if a burglar has broken into his house byliight, induces him by^ lie to enter a cellar and then locks him in A man who has been captured and carried^ off by robbers, for example

by pirates, has the right to IdU them not only by violence but also by craft, in order to regain his freedom. Thus, alsora promise is certainly not binding when it has been

extorted by direct bodily violence, because he who suffers

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 439

been stolen from him, commits no wrong if he can accom- ^ish it through craft. Indeed, if ^ome one plars with me for money he has stolen from me. I have the right to use fajgg^ige,,aiaiaaUumJi!fe^

him already belongs to me. Whoever would deny this must still more deny the justifiableness of stratagem in war, which is just an acted lie, and is a proof of the saying of Queen Christina of Sweden, “ The words of men are to be esteemed as nothing ; scarcely are their deeds to be trusted.” So sharply does the limit of right border upon that of wrong. For the rest, I regard it as superfluous to show that all this completely agrees with what was said above about the unlawfulness of the lie and of violence. It may also serve to explain the peculiar theory of the lie told under pressure.^

In accordance with what has been said, wrong and right are merely moral determinations, i.e., such as are valid with regard to the consideration of human action as such, and in relation to the inner significance of this action in itself. This asserts itself directly in consciousness through the fact that the doing of wrong is accompanied by an inward pain, which is the merely felt consciousness of the wrong-doer of the excessive strength of the assertion of will in itself, which extends even to the denial of the manifestation of the will of another, and also the consciousness that although he is different from the person suffering wrong as far as the manifestation is concerned, yet in himself he is identical with him. The further explanation of this inner significance of all pain of conscience cannot be given till later. He who suffers wrong is, on the other hand, painfully conscious of the denial of his will, as it is expressed through the body and its natural requirements, for the satisfaction of which nature refers him to the powers of his body ; and at the

' The further exposition of the “ TJeber das Fundament der Moral,” philosophy of law here laid down § 17, pp. 221-2300! 1st ed., pp. 216will be found in my prize-essay 226 of 2d ed.

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same time he is conscious that v/ithout doing wrong he might ward off that denial by every means unless he lacks the power. This purely moral significance is the only one which right and wrong have for men as men, not as members of the State, and which consequently remains even when man is in a state of nature without any positive law.

It constitutes the basis and the content of all that has on this account been named naturai law, though it is better called moral law, for its validity does not extend to suffering, to the external reality, but only to the action of man and the self-knowledge of his individual vidll which grows up in him from his action, and which is called conscience.

It cannot, however, in a state of nature, assert itself in all cases, and outwardly upon other individuals, and prevent might from reigning instead of right. In a state of nature it depends ujjon every one merely to see that in every case he docs no wrong, but by no means to see that in every case he suffers no wrong, for this depends on the accident of his outward power.

Therefore the concepts right and wrong, even in a state of nature, are certainly valid and by no means conventional, but there they are valid merely as moral concepts, for the self-knowledge of one’s own will in each.

They are a fixed point in the scale of the very different degrees of strength with which the will to live asserts itself in human individuals, like the freezing-point on the thermometer ; the point at which the assertion of one’s own will becomes the denial of the will of another, i.e., specifies through wrong-doing the degree of its intensity, combined with the degree in which knowledge is involved in the principium individuationis (which is the form of all knowledge that is subject to the will).

But whoever wants to set aside the purely moral consideration of human action, or denies it, and wishes to regard conduct merely in its outward effects and their consequences, may certainly, with Hobbes, explain right and wrong as conventional definitions arbitrarily assumed, and therefore

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 441

not existing outside positive law, and we can never show him through external experience what does not belong to such experience. Hobbes himself characterises his completely empirical method of thought very remarkably by the fact that in his book “ De Principiis Geometrarum ” he denies all pure mathematics properly so called, and obstinately maintains that the point has extension and the line has breadth, and we can never show him a point without extension or a line without breadth. Thus we can just as little impart to him the a priori nature of mathematics as the a priori nature of right, because he shuts himself out from all knowledge whicii is not erapiricaL

The pure doctrine of right is thus a chapter of ethics, and is directly related only to action, not to suffering ; for only the former is the expression of will, and this alone is considered by ethics. Suffering is mere occurrence. Ethics can only have regard to sutler ing indirectly, merely to show that what takes place merely to avoid suffering wrong is itself no infliction of wrong. The working out of this chapter of ethics would contain the precise definition of the limits to which an individual may go in the assertion of the will already objectified in his body without denying the same will as it appears in another itdividual ; and also the actions which transgress these limitt. which consequently are wrong, and therefore in their turn may oe warded off without wrong. Thus our own action always remains the point of view of the investigation.

But the suffering of wrong appears as an event in outward experience, and in it is manifested, as we have said, more distinctly than anywhere else, the phenomenon of the conflict of the will to live with itself, arising from the multiplicity of individuals and from egoism, both of which are conditioned through the principium individuationis, which is the form of the world as idea for the knowledge of the individual We also saw above that a very large

44*

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part of the suffering essential to human life has its perennial source in that conflict of individuals.

The reason, however, which is common to all these individuals, and which enables them to know not merely the particular case, as the brutes do, but also the whole abstractly in its connection, has also taught them to discern the source of that suffering, and induced them to consider the means of diminishing it, or, when possible, of suppressing it by a common sacrifice, which is, however, more than counterbalanced by the common advantage that proceeds from it.

However agreeable it is to the egoism of the individual to inflict wrong in particular cases, this has yet a necessary correlative in the suffering of wrong of another individual, to whom it is a great pain.

And because the reason which surveys the whole left the one-sided point of view of the individual to which it belongs, and freed itself for the moment from its dependence upon it, it saw the pleasure of an individual in inflicting wrong always outweighed by the relatively greater pain of the other who suffered the wrong ; and it found further, that because here everything was left to chance, every one had to fear that the pleasure of conveniently inflicting wrong would far more rarely faU to his lot than the pain of enduring it.

From this reason recognised that both in order to diminish the suffering which is everywhere disseminated, and as far as possible to divide it equally, the best and only means was to s{.are all the pain of suffering wrong by renoimcing all the pleasure to be obtained by inflicting it. This means is the contract of the state or law.

It is easily conceived, and little by little carried out by the egoism, which, through the use of reason, proceeds methodically and forsakes its one- sided point of view. This origin of the state and of law I have indicated was already exhibited as such by Plato in the “ Eepublic. In fact, it is the essential and only origin, determined by the nature of the matter. Moreover, in no land can the state have ever had a

THB ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 443

different origin, because it is just this mode of originating this aim that makes it a state. But it is a matter of indifference whether, in each particular nation, the condition which preceded it was that of a horde of savages independent of each other (anarchy), or that of a horde of slaves ruled at will by the stronger (despotism). In both cases there existed as yet no state ; it first arose through that common agreement ; and according as that agreement is more or less free from anarchy or despotism, the state is more or less perfect. Republics tend to anarchy, monarchies to despotism, and the mean of constitutional monarchy, which was therefore devised, tenuFTo" govefnmeht~^ factionsT Tn orSej to found a perfect state, we must begin by providing beings whose nature allows them always to sacrifice their own to the public good. Till then, however, something may he attained through the existence of one; family whose good is quite inseparable from that of the country ; so that, at least in matters of importance, it can never advance the one without the other. On this rests the power and the advantage of the hereditary monarchy.

Now as ethics was concerned exclusively with right and wrong doing, and could accurately point out the limits of his action to whoever was resolved to do no wrong ; politics, on the contrary, the theory of legislation, is exclusively concerned with the suffering of wrong, and would never trouble itself with wrong-doing at all if it were not on account of its ever-necessary coirelative, the suffering of wrong, which it always keeps in view as the enemy it opposes. Indeed, if it were possible to conceive an infliction of wrong with which no suffering of wrong on the part of another was connected, the state woidd, consistently, by no means prohibit it And because in ethics the will, the disposition, is the object of consideration, and the only real thing, the firm will to do wrong, which is only restrained

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and rendered ineffective by external might, and the actually committed wrong, are to it quite the same, and it condemns him who so wills as unjust at its tribunal On the other hand, will and disposition, merely as such, do not concern the state at all, but only the deed (whether it is merely attempted or carried out), on accoimt of its correlative, the suffering ou the part of another.

Thus for the state the deed, the event, is the only real; the disposition, the intention, is only investigated so far as the significance of the deed becomes known through it. Therefore the state will forbid no one to carry about in his thought murder and poison against another, so long as it knows certainly that the fear of the sword and the wheel will always restrain the effects of that will.

The state has also by no means to eradicate the foolish purpose, the inclination to wrongdoing, the wicked disposition ; but merely always to place beside every possible motive for doing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone in the inevitable punishment that will ensue.

Therefore the criminal coda is as complete a register as possible of motives against every criminal action that can possibly be imagined — both in abstracto, in order to make any case that occurs an application in concreto. Politics or legislation will therefore for this end borrow from that chapter of ethics which is the doctrine of right, and which, besides the inner significance of right and wrong, determines the exact limits between them.

Yet it will only do so for the purpose of making use of its reverse side, and regarding all the limits which ethics lays down as not to be transgressed, if we are to avoid doing wrong, from the other side, as the limits which we must not allow others to transgress if we do not wish to suffer wrong, and from which we have therefore a right to drive others back.

Therefore these limits are, as much as i)ossible, from the passive side, barricaded by laws. It is evident that as an historian has very wittily been “opIeT an inverted proghet, tlie proiessor of

law is an inverted moralist, and therefore law itself, in its proper sense. i.e., the doctrine of the right, which we ou^ht to maintain, is inverted ethics in that chapter of it in which the rights are laid down which we ought not to violate. The concept of wrong and its negation, tEat" of right, which is originally ethical, becomes juridical by the transference of the starting-point from the active to the passive side, and thus by inversion.

This, as well as Kant’s theory of law, which very falsely deduces the institution of the state as a moral duty from his categorical imperative, has, even in the most recent times, repeatedly occasioned the very extraordinary error that the state is an institution for furthering morality ; that it arises from the endeavour after this, and is, consequently, directed against egoism* As if the inward disposition, to wliich alone morality or immorality belongs, the externally free wUl, would allow itself to be modified from without and changed by influences exerted upon it !

Still more perverse is the theory that the state is the condition of freedom in the moral sense, and in this way the condition of morality ; for freedom lies beyond the phenomenon, and indeed beyond human arrangements.

The state is, as we have said, so little directed against egoism in general and as such, that, on the contrary, it has sprung from egoism and exists only in its service — an egoism that well understands itself, proceeds methodically and forsakes the one-sided for the universal point of view, and so by addition is the common egoism of all.

The state is thus instituted xmder the correct presupposition that pure morality, i.e., right action from moral grounds, is not to be expected ; if this were not the case, it would itself be superfluous.

Thus the state, which aims at well-being, is by no means directed against egoism, but only against the disadvantageous consequences which arise from the multiplicity of egoistic individuals, and reciprocally affect them all and disturb their well-being. Therefore it was already said by Aristotle (De. Rep. iii) ; TeXo? fiev ovv irdKem to ev fiji*

TovTo Be eariv to ^r)p evBaifiov(o<} xai KaXu><i {Finis civitatis est hene vivere, hoc autcm est heate et pulchre vivere). Hobbes also has accurately and excellently expounded this origin and end of the state ; and that old first principle of all state policy, salus pMica prima lex esto, indicates the same thing.

If the state completely attains its end, it wiU produce the same outward result as if perfect justice of disposition prevailed everywhere. But the inner nature and origin of both phenomena will be the converse. Thus in the second case it would be that no one wished to do wrong, and in the first that no one wished to suffer wrong, and the means appropriate to this end had been fully employed.

Thus the same line may be drawn from opposite directions, and a beast of prey with a muzzle is as harmless as a graminivorous animal But beyond this point the state cannot go. It cannot exhibit a phenomenon such as would spring from universal mutual well-wishing and love.

For just as we found that from its nature it would not forbid the doing of a wrong which involved no corresponding suffering of wrong on the part of another, and proliibits all wrong-doing only because this is impossible ; so conversely, in accordance with its tendency towards the well-being of all, it woiJd very gladly take care that every benevolent action and work of human love should be experienced, if it were not that these also have an inevitable correlative in the performance of acts of benevolence and works of love, and every member of the state woiild wish to assume the passive and none the active r61e, and there would be no reason for exacting the latter from one member of the state rather than from another.

Accordingly only the negative, which is just the rij^ht, not the positive, which has been comprehended imder the name of obligations of love, or, less completely, duties, can be exacted hy force.

Legislation, as we have said, borrows the pure philosophy of right, or the doctrine of the nature and limits of right and wrong, from ethics, in ordei^to apply it from

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 447

the reverse side to its own ends, which are different from those of ethics, and to institute positive legislation and the means of supporting it, i.e., the state, in accordance with it. Positive legislation is thus the inverted application of the purely moral doctrine of right. This application may be made with reference to the peculiar relations and circumstances of a particular people.

But only if the positive legislation is, in essential matters, throughout determined in accordance with the guidance of the pure theory of right, and for each of its propositions a ground can be established in the pure theory of right, is the legislation which has arisen a positive right and the state a community hosed upon right, a state in the proper meaning of the word, a morally permissible, not immoral institution.

Otherwise the positive legislation is, on the contrary, the establishment of a positive wrong; it is itself an openly a^•owed enforced wrong. Such is every despotism, the constitution of most Mohammedan kingdoms ; and iudeed various parts of many constitutions are also of this kind ; for example, serfdom, vassalage, and many such institutions.

The pure theory of right or natural right — better, moral right — though always reversed, lies at the foundation of every just positive legislation, as pure mathematics lies at the foundation of every branch of applied mathematics. The most important points of the doctrine of right, as philosophy has to supply it for that end to legislation, are the following : I.

The explanation of the inner and real significance both of the origin of the conceptions of wrong and right, and of their application and position in ethics. 2. The deduction of the law of property. 3. The deduction of the moral validity of contracts; for this is the moral basis of the contract of the state. 4.

The explanation of the origin and the aim of the state, of the relation of this aim to ethics, and of the intentional transference of the ethical doctrine of right, by reversing it, to legislation, in consequence of this relation. 5. The deduction of the

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right of punishment The remaining content of the doctrine of right is mere application of these principles, mere accurate definition of the limits of right and wrong for all possible relations of life, which are consequently united and distributed under certain points of view and titles. In these special doctrines the books which treat of pure law are fairly at one; it is only in the principles that they differ much, for these are always connected with some philosophical system. In connection with our system, we have explained the first four of these principal points shortly and generally, yet definitely and distinctly, and it remains for us to speak in the same way of the right of punishment.

Kant makes the fundamentally false assertion that apart from the state there would be no complete right of property. It follows from our deduction, as given above that even in a state of nature there is property with complete natural, i.e., moral right, which cannot be injured without wrong, but may without wrong be defended to the uttermost. On the other hand, it is certain that apart from the state there is no right of punishment AU right to punish is based ui>on the positive law alone, which hefore the offence has determined a punishment for it, the threat of which, as a counter-motive, is intended to outweigh all possible motives for the offence. This positive law is to be regarded as sanctioned and recognised by all the members of tlie state. It is thus based upon a common contract which the members of the state are in duty bound to fulfil, and thus, on the one hand, to inflict the punishment, and, on the other hand, to endure it; thus the endurance of the punishment may with right be enforced. Consequently the immediate end of punishment is, in the particular case, the fulflment of the law as a contract. But the one end of the law is deterrence from the infringement of the rights of others. For, in order that ever}' one may be protected from suffering wrong, men have combined to

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 449

form a state, have renounced the doing of wrong, and assumed the task of maintaining the state. Thus the law and the fulfilment of it, the punishment, are essentially directed to the future, not to the 'past. This distinguishes punishment from revenge; for the motives which instigate the latter are solely concerned with what has happened, and thus with the past as such.

All req^uital of wrong hy the infliction of pain, without any aim for the future, is revenge, and can have no other end than consolation for the suffering one has home by the sight of the suffering one has inflicted upon another. This is wickedness and cruelty, and cannot be morally justified. Wrong which some one has inflicted upon me by no means entitles me to inflict wrong upon him.

The requital of evil with evil without further intention is neither morally nor otherwise through any rational ground to be justified, and the juvs talionis set up as the absolute, final principle of the right of punishment, is meaningless. Therefore Kant’s theory of punishment as mere requital for requital’s sake is a completely groundless and perverse view.

Yet it is always appearing in the writings of many jurists, under all kinds of lofty phrases, wliich amount to nothing but emj)ty words, as : Through the pimishment the crime is exi)iated or neutralised and abolished, and many such. But no man has the right to set himself up as a purely moral judge and requiter, and punish the misdeeds of another with pains which he inflicts upon him, and so to impose penance upon him for his sins.

Nay, this would rather be the most presumptuous arrogance ; and therefore the Bible says, “ Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord. But man has the right to care for the safety of society ; and this can only be done by interdicting all actions which are denoted by the word “ criminal,” in order to prevent them by means of coimter-motives, which are the threatened punishments. And this threat can only be made effective by carrying it out when a case

occurs in spite of it Accordingly that the end of punishment, or more accurately of penal law, is the deterrence from crime, is a truth so generally recognised and indeed self-evident, that in England it is expressed in the very old form of indictment which is still served by the counsel for the Crown in criminal actions, for it concludes with the words, “ If this be proved, you, the said N.

N., ought to be punished with pains of law, to deter others from the like crimes in all time coming. If a prince desires to extend mercy to a criminal who has justly been condemned, his Ministers will represent to him that, if he does, this crime will soon be repeated. An end for the future distinguishes punishment from revenge, and punishment only has this end when it is inflicted in fulfilment of a law.

It thus announces itself as inevitable in every future case, and thus the law obtains the power to deter, in which its end really consists. Now here a Kantian would inevitably reply that certainly according to this view the punished criminal would be used “ merely as a means.

This proposition, so unweariedly repeated by all the Kantians, “ Man must always be treated as an end, never as a means,” certainly sounds significant, and is therefore a very suitable proposition for those who like to have a formula which saves them all further thought ; but looked at in the light, it is an exceedingly vague, indefinite assertion, which reaches its aim quite indirectly, requires to be explained, defined, and modified in every case of its application, and, if taken generally, is insufficient, meagre, and moreover problematical.

The murderer who has been condemned to the punishment of death according to law must now, at any rate, and with complete right, be used as a mere means. For public security, the chief end of the state, is disturbed by him ; indeed it is abolished if the law is not carried out. The murderer, his life, his person, must now be the means of fulfilling the law, and thereby of re-establishing the public security. And he is made such a means with perfect right,

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 451

in fulfilment of the contract of the state, which was entered into by him because he was a citizen, and in accordance with which, in order to enjoy security for his life, freedom, and property, he has pledged his life, his freedom, and his property for the security of all, which pledge has now been forfeited.

This theory of punishment which we have established, the theory which is directly supported by sound reason, is certainly in the main no new thought ; but it is a thought which was almost supplanted by new errors, and therefore it was necessary to exhibit it as distinctly as possible. The same thing is in its essence contained in what Puffendorf says on the subject, "De Officio Hominis et Civis” (Bk. ii. chap. 12). Hobbes also agrees with it, “ Leviathan ” (chaps. 15-28). In our own day Peurbach is weU known to have maintained it. Indeed, it occurs even in the utterances of the ancient philosophers. Plato expresses it clearly in the “ Protagoras ” (p. 1 1 4, edit Bip.), also in the “ Gorgias” (p. 168), and lastly in the eleventh book of the “ Laws ” (p. 165). Seneca expresses Plato’s opinion and the theoiy of all punishment in the short sentence, “ Nemo 'prvdens punit, guia peccatum est ; sed ne peccetur ” (De Ira, L 1 6).

Thus we have come to recognise in the state the means by which egoism endowed with reason seeks to escape from its own evil consequences which turn against itself, and now each promotes the well-being of all because he sees that his own well-being is involved in it. If the state attained its end completely, then to a certain extent something approaching to an Utopia might finally, by the removal of all kinds of evil, be brought about. For by the human powers united in it, it is able to make the rest of nature more and more serviceable. But as yet the state has always remained very far from this goal. And even if it attained to it, innumerable evils essential to all life would still keep it in suffering ; and finally, if they were all removed, ennui would at once occupy

452 the world as WILL. BK. IV.

every place they left And besides, the strife of individuals is never completely abolished by the state, for it vexes in trifles when it is prohibited in greater things. Finally, EriSj happily expelled frmn wi^in, turns to what is without : as^J^e conflict of individuals, she is banished by the institution of the stete ; but she reappears from without jw the war of nations, and now demands in hulk and at once, as an accumulated debK the bloody sacrifice which by wise precautions has been denied her in the particular. And even supposing that all this were finally overcome and removed, by wisdom founded on the experience of tHdusaniS of years, at the end the result would be the actual over-popuIaHffl^of the whole planet, the terrible eyil of which only a bold imagination can now realise.^

§ 63. We have recognised temporal jiistice, which has its seat in the state, as requiting and punishing, and have seen that this only becomes justice through a reference to the future. For without this reference all punishing and requiting would be an outrage without justification, and indeed merely the addition of another evil to that which has already occurred, without meaning or significance. But it is quite otherwise with eternal justice, which was referred to before, and which rules not the state but the world, is not dependent upon human institutions, is not subject to chance and deception, is not uncertain, wavering, and erring, but infallible, fixed, and sure The conception of requital implies that of time ; therefore eternal justice caimot be requital Thus it cannot, like temporal justice, admit of respite and delay, and require time in order to triumph, equalising the evil deed by the evil consequences only by means of time. The punishment must here be so bound up with the ofifence that both are one.

^ Cf. Oh. xlviL of Supplement

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 453

Aox»rf itijicft r’ ahixruj.a.r' ti( houg nrejo;m, xrl'reir’ fv Aiog deXrou wru^uig Tiocfiit riv* aura, Ztita, d’ tiaopmra m &vf)T»ig Sixa^ni/ • Ovi’ 6 ira.g eu^ap6g,

A/Of yga^ovrof raj /Sjorwv ufiagriag,

E^agKsasifv, Olid’ (xe/»of av oxovmh nt/iTiiP ixagr<fi ^ti/ti/ap‘ aX\' jj A/x»|

Evrauda ^ou ’ffr/» syyuf, ti ^ovXief ogif*.

Eurip. ap. Stob. EcL, L c. 4.

(“Volare pennis scelera ad setherias domas Putatis, illic in Jovis tabularia Script© referri ; tuiu Jovem lectis super Sententiam proferre 1 — sed mortalium Facinora coeli, quantaquanta est, regia Nequit tenere : nec legendis Jnppiter Et puniendis par est. Est tamen ultio,

Et, si iutuemur, ilia nos habitat prope.”)

Now that such an eternal justice really lies in the nature of the world will soon become completely evident to whoever has grasped the whole of the thought which we have hitherto been developing.

The world, in all the multiplicity of its parts and forms, is the manifestation, the objectivity, of the one will to live. Existence itself, and the kind of existence, both as a collective whole and in every part, proceeds from the will alone. The will is free, the will is almighty. The will appears in everything, just as it determines itself in itself and outside time. The world is only the mirror of this willing ; and all finitude, all suffering, all miseries, which it contains, belong to the expression of that which the will wills, are as they are because the will so wUls. Accordingly with perfect right every being supports existence in general, and also the existence of its species and its peculiar individuality, entirely as it is and in circumstances as they are, in a world such as it is, swayed by chance and error, transient, ephemeral, and constantly suffering; and in all that it experiences, or indeed can experience, it always gets its

454

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

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due. For the will belongs to it ; and as the will is, so is the world. Only this world itself can bear the responsibility of its own existence and nature — no other ; for by what means could another have assumed it ? Do we desire to know what men, morally considered, are worth as a whole and in general, we have only to consider their fate as a whole and in general. This is want, wretchedness, affliction, misery, and death. Eternal justice reigns ; if they were not, as a whole, worthless, their fate, as a whole, would not be so sad. In this sense we may say, the world itself is the judgment of the world. If we could lay aU the misery of the world in one scale of the balance, and all the guilt of the world in the other, the needle would certainly point to the centre.

Certainly, however, the world does not exhibit itself to the knowledge of the individual as such, developed for the service of the will, as it finally reveals itself to the inquirer as the objectivity of the one and only will to live, which he himself is. But the sight of the

unc^tured individual is clouded, as the Hindus say, by the veil of Jdayfi,. He sees not the thing-in-itself but the pitenomenon in time and space, the pnncipium individuationis, and in the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason. And in this form of his limited knowledge he sees not the inner nature of things, which is one, but its phenomena as separated, disunited, innumerable, very different, and indeed opposed. For to him pteasure appears as one thiiig and pain as quite anotKer tEmg : one man as aT tormentor and_ a^ jnurderer, another as a martyr and a victim ; wickedness as one thing and evil as another. He sees ^ne man^Uve in joy^ abupdance, and pleasure, and even at his door another die mi^raEIy of want, and cold. Then he asks. Where is the retribution ? And he himself, in the veherne^ pressure of will \^ich is his origin and his nature, seizes lyioi^the j^easufes^and^enjoj^mentsT oF life,, firmly

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF TJIE WILL. 455

embraces them, and knows not that by this very act of bis will he seizes and hugs all those pains and sorrows at the sight of which ^ shudders.

He sees the ills and he sees the wickedness in the world, but far from knowing that both of these are but differeivt siSes of the manifestation of the one wifi to live^ he regards them as very different, and indeed quite opposed, and^~olteh seekr to" escape by wickedness. i.e.. by causing the sufferi^ of another, ^om ills, from the suffering of his own individuality, for he is invoIve3™in~tEe minexpium individibationis, deluded by the veil of M&y&.

Tust as a sailor sits in a Bo^ trustm^to^Eis frail farque in a stormy sea, unbounded in eveij direction" rising and fifing with the howling mountainous waves; ^ in the midst of a wqild of sorrows the individual man sits quietly, supported by and trusting^ to the principium individuationis, or Jhe way in which the individual knows things as phenomena.

The boundless world, everywhere full of suffering in the infinite past, in the infinite future, is strange to him, indeed is to him but a fable ; his ephemeral person, his extensiouless present, his momentary satisfaction, this alone has reality for him ; and he does aU to maintain this, so long as his eyes are not opened by a better knowledge.

Till then, there lives only in the inmost depths of his consciousness a very obscure presentiment that all that is after all not really so strange to him, but has a connection with him, from which the principium individuationis cannot protect him.^ From this presentiment arises that ineradicable awe common to all men (and indeed perhaps even to the most sensible of the brutes) which suddenly seizes them if by any chance they become puzzled about the principium individxuttionis, because the principle of sufficient reason in some one of its forms seems to admit of an e.xception.

For example, if it seems as if some change took place without a cause, or some one who is dead appears again, or if in any

456 THE WORLD AS WILL. BK. IV.

other way the past or the future becomes present or the distant becomes near. The fearful terror at anything of the kind is founded on the fact that they suddenly become puzzled about the forms of knowledge of the phenomenon, which alone separate their own individuality from the rest of the world. But even this separation lies only in the phenomenon, and not in the thing-in-itself ; and on this rests eternal justice. In fact, all temporal happiness stands, and all prudence proceeds, upon ground that is undermined. They defend the person from accidents and supply its pleasures ; but the person is merely phenomenon, and its difference from other individuals, and exemption from the sufferings which they endure, rests merely in the form of the phenomenon, the principium indimdvxUionis. According to the trua nature of things, every nnft haa all the Rnfrefing nf t,b^ world ashis own, and indeed has to regard all merely possible suffering as for him actual, so long as he is the fixed will to live, l.e., asserte life with ^ his power! h’or the l^owledge ffiaF~8ees through the principium indivi^ iuatioi^, a happy life m time^ thg g^~of c^ svdn^

by prudence, amid the sorrows of innumerable others, is only the dream of a beggar in which he is a king, but from which he must awa]te and loaiii. from experience that only a fleeting illusion had separated him froin j&e suflermg of,lm

Eternal justice withdraws itself from the vision that is involved in the knowledge which follows the principle of mflicient reason in the principium individuaiionis ; such vision misses it altogether unless it vindicates it in some way by fictions. It sees the bad, after misdeeds and inielties of every kind, live in happiness and leave the world unpunished.

It sees the oppressed drag out a life full of sufiering to the end without an avenger, a req^uiter ippearmg. But that man only will grasp and comprehend eternal justice who raises himself above the knowledge Jiat proceeds under the guidance of the principle of suffiTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 457

cient reason, bound to the particular thing, and recognises the Ideas, sees through the principium individuationis, and becomes conscious that the forms of the phenomenon do not apply to the thing-in-itself.

Moreover, he alone, by virtue of the same knowledge, can imderstand the true nature of virtue, as it will soon disclose itself to us in connection with the present inquiry, although for the practice of virtue this knowledge in the abstract is by no means demanded.

Thus it becomes clear to whoever has attained to the knowledge^eferred to, that because the wHI is ffie in-Ttself of aU phenomena, the misery which is^ awarded to others aU'cTlEal'wHct'he^ex^enences Iii^ffi the bad and the evil, always concerns only^that one hiner_ being which is everywhere the sam^^Cj although the, phenomena "in which the one and the other exhibits itself exist as ’ quite different individuals, and are widely separated by time and space. .HQ,,_sfiea . that,, the difference betwejga^him who inflicts the suffering and him who must bear it is onl^ the phenomenons and ^ does not concern the thing-in-itself, for this is^j^e. y?’!!!

Kiong in both, which here, deceived by the knowledge which Js bound to its service, does not recognise itself, and seeking an increased happiness in cme of its phenomena,'“pfo3uces”'poat''Wfifering''lfin5^f^r7^d the "pressure of excitement, buries its teeth in ite own fleshrhot khdwThg hliat it alw^s injiires only itself, revving ih~'5Gi~lorm.~tErough the medium of individuality, the conflict with itself _whmh it bears in its inner nature.

The^ inflicter of suffering and the sufferer are one. former errs in thaT he believes he is noT a partaker in thft .suffp-rinq ; the latter, . in that F^heTTeye^K^^n^^ partaker in the guilt.

If the eyes of both were opened, the inflicter of sunering woxild see that he lives in all that suffers pain in the wide world, and which, if endowed with reason, in vain asks why it was called into existence for such great suffering, its desert of which it does not understand. And the sufferer would see that all the wicked458

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. nr.

■less which is or ever was committed in the world proceeds from that will which constitutes his own nature also, appears also in him, and that through this phenomenon and its assertion he has taken upon himself all the sufferings which proceed from such a will and bears them as his due, so long as he is this will. From this knowledge speaks the profound poet Calderon in “ Life a Dream ” —

“ Pues el delito mayor Del liombre es liaber nacido.”

(“ For the greatest crime of man Is that he ever was born.”)

Why should it not be a crime, since, according to an eternal law, death follows upon it ? Calderon has merely expressed in these lines the Christian dogma of original sin.

The living knowledge of eternal justice, of the balance that inseparably binds together the malum culpce with the malum poence, demands the complete transcending of individuality and the principle of its possibility. Therefore it will always remain unattainable to the majority of men, as will also be the case with the pure and distinct knowledge of the nature of all virtue, which is akin to it, and which we are about to explain. Accordingly the wise ancestors of the Hindu people have directly expfessecnrin the Vedas, which are only allowed to the three regenerate castes, or in their esoteric teaching, so far at any rate as conception and language cqmpg’ehend it, arid their ihethod of exposition, which always remains pictorial and even rhapsodical, admits ; but in the religion of the people, or exoteric teaching, they onl^ communicate it by means of myths. The dire_ct^ exposition we find m ' "ffi© ^Ee fruit of the

high^_ human taiowledge and wisdom, the kernel of i^ch has a£ l^t reached us in the Uimiiishads as the greatest gift of this century. It is expregsed_in varioiM

ways, but especially by making all the beings in tlw worM^ving and lifeless, pass successively before the view oFfEe student, and pronouncing over every one of them th^ word which h^ become a formula, and as sucbJbas l^era called the Mahavakya : Tatoumes^ — more coiTectly.

Tat Warn asi,— which means, “ This thou art.” ^ But for the people, that great truth, so far as in their limited condition they could comprehend it, was translated into the form of knowledge which follows the principle of sufficient reason.

This form of knowledge is indeed, from its nature, quite incapable truth pure and in itself, and even to itj. jet in the form of a myth it received a substitute for it which was sufficient as a guide for conduct.

For the myth enables the method of knowledge, in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, to comprehend by figurative representation the ethical significance of conduct, which itself is ever foreign to it This is the aim of all systems of religion, for as a whole they are tlm mythical clothing of the truth wjiich .is unattainable to the uncultured human intellect.

In this sense this myth might, ih Slant’s language, be called a postulate of the practical reason ; but regarded as such, it has the great advantage that it contains absolutely no elements but such as lie before our eyes in the course of actual experience, and can therefore support all its conceptions with perceptions.

What is here referred to is the myth of the transmigration of 80uIs.~~TOeacK^fhat~airiin5enhgV in life one inflicta, appa Qtlier fornga must Fe expiateTiii a subsequent life in this world, through jprccisely the same sufferings ; and this.ex^.nd,s.so,far, that he who only kills a brute must, some time in endless time, be born as the same kind of brute and suffer the samTUeath.

It teaches that wicked conduct involves aTiiiEuK lifeTiTthis' world in' sdffbrltig'xtncF'des^eir areatures7'¥n3^~Mcofdi^lj, that one will tEien BeBorn again inTdwer ^tes, dir as

^ Oupuek’hat, vol. i. p. 6o et seq.

tands in contradiction

4<So

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

a woman, or as a brute, as Pariah or Tschandala, as a leper, or as a crocodile, and so Wth'.' All the pains which the myth threatens it supports with perceptions from actual life, through suffering creatures which do not know how they have merited their misery, and it does not require to call in the assistance of any other hell. As a reward, on the other hand, it promises re-birth in better, nobler forms, as Brahmans, wise men, or saints. The highest reward, which awaits the noblest deeds and the completest resignation, which is also given to the woman who in seven successive lives has voluntarily died on the funeral pile of her husband, and not less to the man whose pure mouth has never uttered a single lie, — this reward the myth can only express negatively in the language of this world by the promise, which is so often repeated, that they shall never be bom again. Non adsumes iierum exisientiam

apparentem; or, as the Buddhists, who recognise neither Vedas nor casteiT^ express it, "Thou shalt attain to NirvSna,'*~?;'(?.7'f6 a'state in which four filings no longer exist — birth, age, sickness, and deatk

Never has a myth entered, and never will one enter, more closely into the philosophical truth which is atteinahTe £0*36" few than this primitive doctrine of the noblest anS most aum^t Broken up as £Eis~hafir6h now is into

many parts, this myth yet reigns as the universal belief of lEe people, and has the most decided influence upon fife to-day, as four thousand years ago. Therefore Pytha- ^ras and Plato have seized with admiration on that ne plus ultra oj^ mythical representation, received it from fEHuT or E^pt, honoured it,.,made use. of it, audL we know hot how far, even believed it. We, on the contrary, nqiy sehcTfEe" Brahmans English clergymen and evangefical linen-weavers to set them right out of sympathy, and to^how them that they are created out of nothing, and ought thankfully to rejoice in the fact. But it is just the same as if we fired a buUet £^^st a cliff Tm India duf religionh will never take root The ancient

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 461

wisdom of the human race will not be displaced by what happened in Galilee, ‘On the contraryfln^an philosoj^i^ streams back to Europe, and will produce a fundameiilfl change in 0^ knowledge^urWou^tr^

564. From our exposition of eternal justice, which is not mythical but philosophical, we will now proceed to the kindred investigation of the ethical significance of conduct and of conscience, which is the merely felt knowledge of that significance. But first I wish at this point to draw attention to two peculiarities of human nature, that might help to make clear how the nature of that eternal justice, and the unity and identity of the will in all its phenomena upon which it rests, is known to every one, at least as an obscure feeling.

When a bad deed has been done, it affords satisfaction not only to the sufferer, who for the most part feels the desire of revenge, but also to the perfectly indifferent spectator, to see that he who caused another pain suffers himself a like measure of pain ; and this quite independently of the end which we have shown the state has in view in punishment, and which is the foundation of penal law. It seems to me that what expresses itself here is nothing but the consciousness of that eternal justice, which is, nevertheless, at once misunderstood and falsified by the unenlightened mind, for, involved in the princijpium individtuciionis, it produces an amphiboly of the concepts and demands from the phenomenon what only belongs to the tiling in itself. It does not see how far in themselves the offender an^ the offended, qre . one, and that it is the same being which, not recognising itself in its own manifestation, bears both the pain and llie^gunt, ’b'urit desires rather to see the pain also in the particular Tn3mduiJ~t^whom the guilt belongs. There* fore, most persons would demand that a man who had a very high degree of wickedness which might yet occui in many others, only not matched with other qualities such as are found in him. a man who also far surpassed

462

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BK. IV.

others by extraordinary intellectual powers, and who inflicted unspeakable sufferings upon millions of others — for example, as a conqueror, — most persons, I say, would demand that such a man should at some time and in some place expiate all these sufferings by a like amount of pain ; for they do not recognise how in themselves the inflicted of suSermg'and the sufferers are one, and that it is the same wiff l;Tii^j^__w}uch the T^er~exist and live which also appears in the former, and just through him attains to a distinct revi^atlon oF itF nature, and which likewise suffers bqth^ jn the qppr^sed and^TKe oppressor ; and indeed in the latter in a greater measure^ as the consciousness has attained a higTier Hefflee^dT e[eames^3'"~anff distinctness and the will has greater vehemence.

But that the deeper knowledge, which is no longer involved in the principium individuationis, from which all virtue and nobleness proceed, no longer retains the disposition which demands requital, is shown by the Christian ethics, which absolutely forbids all requital of evil with evil, and allows eternal justice to proceed in the sphere of the thing-in-itself, which is different from that of the phenomenon. (“ Vengeance is mine ; I wiU repay, saith the Lord,” — Eom. xii. 1 9.)

A much more striking, but also a much rarer, characteristic of human nature, which expresses that desire to draw eternal justice into the province of experience, i.e., of individuality, and at the same time indicates a felt consciousness that, as I have expressed it above, the will to live conducts at its own cost the great tragedy and comedy, and that the same one will lives in all manifestations, — such a characteristic, I say, is the following. We sometimes see a man so deeply moved by a great injury which he has experienced, or, it may be, only witnessed, that he deliberately and irretrievably stakes his own life in order to take vengeance on the perpetrator of that wrong. We see him seek for some mighty oppressor through long years, murder him at last, and then himself die on the

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 463

scaffold, as he had foreseen, and often, it may be, did not seek to avoid, for his life had value for him only as a means of vengeance.

We find examples of this especially among the Spaniards.^ If, now, we consider the spirit of that desire for retribution carefully, we find that it is very different from common revenge, which seeks to mitigate the suffering, endured by the sight of the suffering inflicted ; indeed, we find that what it aims at deserves to be called, not so much revenge as punishment For in it there really hes the intention of an effect upon the future through the example, and that without any selfish aim, either for the avenging person, for it costs him his life, or for a society which secures its own safety by laws.

For that punishment is carried out by individuals, not by the state, nor is it in fulfilment of a law, but, on the contrary, always concerns a deed which the state either would not or could not punish, and the punishment of which it condemns.

It seems to me that the indignation which carries such a man so far beyond the limits of all self-love springs from the deepest consciousness that he himself is the whole will to hve, which appears in all beings through all time, and that therefore the most distant future belongs to him just as the present, and cannot be indifferent to him.

Asserting this will, he yet desires that in the drama which represents its nature no such fearful wrong shall ever appear again, and wishes to frighten ever future wrong-doer by the example of a vengeance against which there is no means of defence, since the avenger is not deterred by the fear of death.

The will to live, though still asserting itself, does not here depend any longer upon the particular phenomenon, the individual, but comprehends the Idea of man, and wishes to keep its manifestation pure from such a fearful and shocking wrong. It is a rare, very significant, and even sublime

' That Spanish hishop who, in the ous incidents in that war. Examlast war, poisoned both himself and pies are also to be found in Monthe French generals at his own table, taiflne, Bk. ii. ch. 1 2. is an instance of this ; and also vari'

464 the world AS WILL. bk, iv.

trait of character through which the individual sacrifices himself by striving to make himself the arm of eternal justice, of the true nature of which he is yet ignorant

§ 65. In all the preceding investigations of human action, we have been leading up to the final investigation, and have to a considerable extent lightened the task of raising to abstract and philosophical clearness, and exhibiting as a branch of our central thought that special ethical significance of action which in life is with perfect understanding denoted by the words good and had.

First, however, I wish to trace back to their real meaning those conceptions of good and had which have been treated by the philosophical writers of the day, very extraordinarily, as simple conceptions, and thus incapable of analysis ; so that the reader may not remain involved in the senseless delusion that they contain more than is actually the case, and express in and for themselves aD that is here necessary. I am in a position to do this because in ethics I am no more disposed to take refuge behind the word good than formerly behind the words heaxdifvd and true, in order that by the adding a “ ness,” which at the present day is supposed to have a special crefivorrrf}, and therefore to be of assistance in various cases, and by assuming an air of solemnity, I might induce the belief that by uttering three such words I had done more than denote three very wide and abstract, and consequently empty conceptions, of very different origin and significance. Who is there, indeed, who has made himself acquainted with the books of our own day to whom these three words, admirable as are the things to which they originally refer, have not become an aversion after he has seen for the thousandth time how those who are least capable of thinking believe that they have only to utter these three words with open mouth and the air of an intelligent sheep, in order to have spoken the greatest wisdom ?

The explanation of the concept true has already been

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 465

given in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, chap. V. § 2g et seg. The content of the concept beautiful found for the first time its proper explanation through the whole of the Third Book of the present work. We now wish to discover the significance of the concept good, which can be done with very little trouble. This concept is essentially relative, and signifies the conformity of an object to any definite effort of the will.

Accordingly everything that corresponds to the will in any of its expressions and fulfils its end is thought tlirough the concept good, however different such things may be in other respects.

Thus we speak of good eating, good roads, good weather, good weapons, good omens, and so on ; in short, we call everything good that is just as we wish it to be ; and therefore that may be good in the eyes of one man which is just the reverse in those of another.

The conception of the good divides itself into two sub-species — that of the direct and present satisfaction of any volition, and that of its indirect satisfaction which has reference to the future, i.e., the agreeable and the useful The conception of the opposite, so long as we are speaking of unconscious existence, is expressed by the word bad, more rarely and abstractly by the word evil, which thus denotes everything that does not correspond to any effort of the will.

Like all other tilings that can come into relation to the will, men who are favourable to the ends which happen to be desired, who further and befriend them, are called good, in the same sense, and always with that relative limitation, which shows itself, for example, in the expression, “ I find this good, but you don’t” Those, however, who are naturally disposed not to hinder the endeavours of others, but rather to assist them, and who are thus consistently helpful, benevolent, friendly, and charitable, are called good men, on account of this relation of their conduct to the will of others in general. In the case of conscious beings (brutes and men) the contrary concepition is denoted in German,

466

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

and, witldn the last hundred years or so, in French also, by a different word from that which is used in speaking of unconscious existence; in German, lose; in French, m^chaivt ; while in almost all other languages this distinction does not exist ; and KaKo<:, malus, cattiw, had, are used of men, as of lifeless things, which are opposed to the ends of a definite individual wilL Thus, having started entirely from the passive element in the good, the inquiry could only proceed later to the active element, and investigate the conduct of the man who is called good, no longer with reference to others, but to himself ; specially setting itself the task of explaining both the purely objective respect which such conduct produces in others, and the peculiar contentment with himself which it clearly produces in the man himself, sinoe he purchases it with sacrifices of another kind ; and also, on the other hand, the inner pain which accompanies the bad disposition, whatever outward advantages it brings to him who entertains it It was from this source that the ethical systems, both the philosophical and those which are supported by systems of religion, took their rise. Both seek constantly in some way or other to connect happiness with virtue, the former either by means of the principle of contradiction or that of sufficient reason, and thus to make happiness either identical with or the consequence of virtue, always sophistically ; the latter, by asserting the existence of other worlds than that which alone can be known to experience.' In our system, on the con-

^ Observe, in passing, that what cal significance of action cannot be gives every positive system of reli- explained in accordance with the gion its great strength, the point of principle of sufficient reason, yet contact through wffiich it takes pos- since every mythus follows this prinsession of the soul, is entirely its ciple, believers regard the ethical ethical side. Not, however, the ethi- significance of action as quite insecal side directly as such, but as it parable, and indeed as absolutely appears firmly united and inter- identical, and regard every attack woven with the element of mythical upon the mythus as an attack upon dogma which is present in every right and virtue. This goes so far system of religion, and as intelligible that among monotheistic nations only by means of this. So much is atheism or godlessness has become this the case, that although the ethi- synonymous with the absence of all

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 467

trary, virtue will show itself, not as a striving after happiness, that is, well-being and life, but as an effort in quite an opposite direction.

It follows from what has been said above, that the good is, according to its concept, rcav Trpu><i ti ; thus every good is essentially relative, for its being consists in its relation to a desiring will Absolute good is, therefore, a contradiction in terms ; highest good, minimum bonum, really signifies the same thing — a final satisfaction of the will, after which no new desire could arise, — a last motive, the attainment of which would afford enduring satisfaction of the will.

But, according to the investigations which have already been" conducted in this~Tourtifi Book, such a consummation is not even thinkable. The will can just as’^tle cease finm^winTTig altogether on account of some particularfi^tisf^tion^a^Jaine can end or bgj^ ; for it there is no such thing as a permanent fulfilment which shall completiry and for ever satisfy its craving.

It is the vessel of the Danaides; for it there is no highest gobdrno absolute ^op^ bj^t always^a _inerelj temppracy good.

If, however, we wish to give an honorary position, as it were emeritus, to an old expression, which from custom we do not like to discard altogether, we may, metaphorically and figuratively, call the complete selfeffacement and denial of the will, the true absence of will, which alone for ever stills and silences its struggle, alone gives that contentment which can never again be disturbed, alone redeems the world, and which we shall now soon consider at the close of our whole investigation — the

morality. To the priests such con- in their history), which, according fusions of conceptions are welcome, to the latest and most authentic and only in consequence of them accounts, in Madrid alone (in the could that horrible monstrosity fana- rest of Spain there were many more ticism arise and govern, not merely such ecclesiastical dens of mursingle individuals who happen to be derers) in 300 years put 3CX),ooG specially perverse and bad, but whole human beings to a painful death at nations, and finally embody itself in the stake on theological grounds — a the Western world as the Inquisi- fact of which every zealot ought to tion (to the honour of mankind be it be reminded whenever he begins to said that this only happened once make himself heard.

468

THE WORLD WILL.

BK. ly

absolute good, the summutn bonum — and regard it as the only radical cure of the disease of which all other means are only palliations or anodynes. In this sense the Greek reXof and also Jinis bonorum correspond to the thing still better. So much for the words good and bad ; now for the thing itself.

If a man is always disposed to do torong whenever the opportunity presents itself, and there is no extemtd power to restrain him, we call him bad. According to our doctrine of wrong, this means that such a man does not merely assert the will to live as it appears in his own body, but in this assertion goes so far that he denies the will which appears in other individuals. This is shown by the fact that he desires their powers for the service of his own will, and seeks to destroy their existence when they stand in the way of its efforts. The ultimate source of this is a high degree of egoism, the nature of which has been already explained. Two things are here apparent. In the first place, that in such a man an excessively vehement will to live expresses itself, extending far beyond the assertion of his own body ; and, in the second place, that his knowledge, entirely given up to the principle of sufficient reason and involved in the principium individuationis, cannot get beyond the difference which this latter principle establishes between his own person and every one else. Therefore he seeks his own well-being alone, completely indifferent to that of aU others, whose existence is to him altogether foreign and divided from his own by a wide gulf, and who are indeed regarded by him as mere masks with no reality behind them. And these two qualities are the constituent elements of the bad character.

This great intensity of wUl is in itself and directly a constant source of suffering. In the first place, because all volition as such arises from want ; that is, suffering. (Therefore, as will be remembered, from the

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 469

Third Book, the momentary cessation of all volition, which takes place whenever we give ourselves up to aesthetic contemplation, as pure wOl-less subject of knowledge, the correlative of the Idea, is one of the principal elements in our pleasure in the beautiful.) Secondly, because, through the causal connection of things, most of our desires must remain unfulfilled, and the will is oftener crossed than satisfied, and therefore much intense volition carries with it much intense suffering.

For all suffering is simply unfulfilled and crossed volition ; and even the pain of the body when it is injured or destroyed is as such only possible through the fact that the body is nothing but the will itself become object.

Now on this account, because much intense suffering is inseparable from much intense volition, very bad men bear the stamp of inward suffering in the very expression of the countenance ; even when they have attained every external happiness, they always look unhappy so long as they are not transported by some momentary ecstasy and are not dissembling.

From this inward torment, which is absolutely and directly essential to them, there finally proceeds that delight in the suffering of others which does not spring from mere egoism, but is disinterested, and which constitutes vncTcedness proper, rising to the pitch of cruelty. For this the suffering of others is not a means for the attainment of the ends of its own will, but an end in itself.

The more definite explanation of this phenomenon is as follows : — Since man is a manifestation of will Uluminated by the clearest knowledge, he is always contrasting the actual and felt satisfaction of his will with the merely possible satisfaction of it which knowledge presents to him.

Hence arises envy : every privation is infinitely incretised by the enjoyment of others, and relieved by the knowledge that others also suffer the same privation. Those ills which are conunon to all and inseparable from human life trouble us little, just as those which belong to the

47«

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

climate, to the whole country. The recollection of greater sufferings than our own stills our pain ; the sight of the sufferings of others soothes our own. If, now, a man is filled with an exceptionally iMense pressure of will,—" iPwitli burning eagerness he seeks to accui]^ate..eYerytfimg Id sTake^^e tKirst ol his egoism, and thus experiences^ as he fneTita^Iy ‘must,IhUra3r^j^^ac^ ipefel^

apparent, that the attained end never fidfils the promise of the desired object, the En^ appeasing of ths„J^^ pressure~ of“wIIIj Tut that when fulfilled the wish pn^ changes' iis form^ and "how torments him in a .ueOTL.fifte and” indeed that if at last all wxshe3_..iixe- exhaustedthe pressure of will itself remains without any conscious motiver and makes itserf * known to him with fearful pain as a feeling of terrible desolation and emptiness ; if from all this, which in the case of the ordinary degrees of volition is only felt in a small measure, and only produces the ordinary ^gree pf m^ancholyTlp^^^^ case o?"Tim who is a manifestatjon of wil^reaching tEe"poinFm extraordinary wickedness, there necessarily sprm^'~an'“excessrve tiiward misery,* an eternal imrest, an mcnraTIe"pain ; he seeks Indirectly tlie alleviation which directly is denied him. — seeks to mitigate his own~Ti3fering by the sight of thfi...auffftriag...Qf otheis, ^Emir~ar tEe same time he recogmses as an expression of his powerT" "The "sufiering of others now becomes for him an end in itself, and is a spectacle in which he delights ; and thus arises the phenomenon of pure cruelty, blood-thirstiness, which history exhibits so often in the Neros and Domitians, in the African Deis, in Kobespierre, and the like.

The desire of revenge is closely related to wickedness. It recompenses evil with evil, not with reference to the future, which is the character of punishment, but merely on accoimt of what has happened, what is past, as such, thus disinterestedly, not as a means, but as an end, in order to revel in the torment which the avenger himself has

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 471

inflicted on the offender. What distinguishes revenge from pure wickedness, and to some extent excuses it, is an appearance of justice. For if the same act, which is now revenge, were to be done legally, that is, according to a previously determined and known rule, and in a society which had sanctioned this rule, it would be punishment, and thus justice.

Besides the suffering which has been described, and which is inseparable from wickedness, because it springs from the same root, excessive vehemence of will, another specific pain quite different from this is connected with wickedness, which is felt in the case of every bad action, whether it be merely injustice proceeding from egoism or pure wickedness, and according to the length of its duration is called the sting of conscience or remorse. Now, whoever remembers and has present in his mind the content of the preceding portion of this Fourth Book, and especially the truth explained at the beginning of it, that life itself is always assured to the will to live, as its mere copy or mirror, and also the exposition of eternal justice, will find that the sting of conscience can have no other meaning than the following, ie., its content, abstractly expressed, is what follows, in which two parts are distinguished, which again, however, entirely coincide, and must be thought as completely united.

However closely the veil of MayS. may envelop the mind of the bad man, i.e., however firmly he may be involved in the principium individuationis, according to which he regards his person as absolutely different and separated by a wide gulf from all others, a knowledge to which he clings with all his might, as it alone suits and supports his egoism, so that knowledge is almost sdways corrupted by will, yet there arises in the inmost depths of his consciousness the secret presentiment that such an order of things is only phenomenal, and that their real constitution is quite different. He has a dim foreboding that, however much time and space may separate

♦72

THE WORLD -45 WILL.

BK. IV.

him from other individuals and the innumerable miseries which they suffer, and even suffer through him, and may represent them as quite foreign to him, yet in themselves, and apart from the idea and its forms, it is the one will to live appearing in them all, which here failing to recognise itself, turns its weapons against itself, and, by seeking increased happiness in one of its phenomena, imposes the greatest suffering upon another.

He dimly sees that he, the bad man, is himself this whole will ; that consequently he is not only the inflicter of pain but also the endurer of it, from whose suffering he is only separated and exempted by an illusive dream, the form of which is space and time, wlrich, however, vanishes away ; that he must in reality pay for the pleasure with the pain, and that all suffering which he only knows as possible really concerns him as the will to live, inasmuch as the possible and actual, the near and the distant in time and space, are only different for the knowledge of the individual, only by means of the ‘prineipium individuMionis, not in themselvea This is the truth which mythically, i.e., adapted to the principle of sufficient reason, and so translated into the form of the phenomenal, is expressed in the transmigration of souls.

Yet it has its purest expression, free from all foreign admixture, in that obscurely felt yet inconsolable misery called remorse.

But this springs also from a second immediate knowledge, which is closely bound to the first — the knowledge of the strength with which the will to live asserts itself in the wicked individual, which extends far beyond his own individual phenomenon, to the absolute denial of the same will appearing in other individuals.

Consequently the inward horror of the wicked man at his own deed, which he himself tries to conceal, contains, besides that presentment of the nothingness, the mere illusiveness of the prineipium individuationis, and of the distinction established by it between him and others i also the knowledge of the

vehemence of his own will, the intensity with which he has seized upon life and attached himself closely to it, even that life whose terrible side he sees before him in the misery of those who are oppressed by him, and with which he is yet so firmly united, that just on this account the greatest atrocity proceeds from him himself, as a means for the fuller assertion of his own will He recognises himself as the concentrated manifestation of the will to live, feels to what degree he is given up to life, and with it also to innumerable sufferings which are essential to it, for it has infinite time and infinite space to abolish the distinction between the possible and the actual, and to change all the sufferings which as yet are merely known to him into sufferings he has experienced.

The millions of years of constant rebirth certainly exist, like the whole past and future, only in conception ; occupied time, the form of the phenomenon of the win, is only the present, and fur the individual time is ever new : it seems to him always as if he had newly come into being. For life is inseparable from the will to live, and the only form of life is the present.

Death (the repetition of the comparison must be excused) is like the setting of the sun, which is only apparentlj^ §wailowed~~u]^by lire' 'lilght. "but. .juL^ealTty, itself tht source of all light^ Jmrn^ without intermission, brings new day£ to new worlds, is"^aTvvays rising^ 'and' always setting. Beginning, and end only concern the individual through time, the form of the phenomenon for the idea.

Outside time lies only the will, Kant^jtbingdjniteeTf^ and its adequate objectifica$iQiuJhfiL-JdgaL.-d-aa^ Bierefore suicide affords np escape; what evCTy one it hisTnmost~ consciousnessjKiil^tha^^ every one ^jT^at he wills. „ Thus, besides the merely fell knowledge of the Ulusiveness and nothingness of the forms of the idea which separate individuals, it is the self-knowledge of one’s own will and its degree that gives the sting to conscienca The course of life draws

474

THE WORLD WILL.

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the image of the empirical character, whose original is the intelligible character, and horrifies the wicked man by this image. He is horrified all the same whether the image is depicted in large characters, so that the world shares his horror, or in such small ones that he alone sees it, for it only concerns him directly. The past would be a matter of indifference, and could not pain the conscience if the character did not feel itself free from all time and unalterable by it, so long as it does not deny itself. Therefore things which are long past still weigh on the conscience. The prayer, “ Lead me not into temptation/’ means, “Let me not see what manner of person I am.” _ In the might with which the bad man asserts life, and which exhibits itself to him in the sufferings which he inflicts on others, he measures how far he is from the surrender and denial of that will, the only possible deliverance from the world and its miseries. He sees how far he belongs to it, and how firmly he is bound to it ; the hnonjon suffering of others has no power to move him ; he is given up to life and felt suffering. It remains hidden whether this wiU ever break and overcome the vehemence of his will.

This exposition of the significance and inner nature of the had, which as mere feeling, i.e., not as distinct, abstract knowledge, is the content of remorse, will gain distinctness and completeness by the similar consideration of the good as a quality of human will, and finally of absolute resignation and holiness, which proceeds from it when it has attained its highest grade. For opposites Sjlws^s throw light upon each other, and the day at. once reveals both itseiranff;^e1m^tlMSpmftz&Ad^¥flJd^

§ 66. A theory of morals without proof, that is, mere moralising, can effect nothing, because it does not act as a motive. A theory of morals which does act as a motive can do so only by working on self-love. But what springs from this source has no moral worth. It follows from this that no genuine virtue can be produced

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 475

through moral theory or abstract knowledge in general, but that such virtue must spring &om that intuitive knowledge which recognises in the hidividuality of others the same nature as in our owil

For virtue certainly proceeds from knowledge, but not from the abstract knowledge that can be communicated through words. If it were so, virtue could be taught, and by here expressing in abstract language its nature and the knowledge which lies at its foundation, we should make every one who comprehends this even ethically better. But this is by no means the case.

On the contrary, ethical discourses and preaching will just as little produce a virtuous man as all the systems of aesthetics from Aristotle downwards have succeeded in producing a poet. For the real inner nature of virtue the concept is unfruitful, just as it is in art, and it is only in a completely subordinate position that it can be of use as a tool in the elaboration and preserving of what has been ascertained and inferred by other means.

Velle non discitur. Abstract dogmas are, in fact, without influence upon virtue, i.e., upon the goodness of the disposition. False dogmas do not disturb it; true ones will scarcely assist it.

It would, in fact, be a bad look-out if the cardinal fact in the life of man, his ethical worth, tliat worth which counts for eternity, were dependent upon anything the attainment of which is so much a matter of chance as is the case with dogmas, religious doctrines, and philosophical theories.

For morality dogmas have this value only : The man who has become virtuous from knowledge of another kind, which is presently to be considered, possesses in them a scheme or formula according to which he accounts to his own reason, for the most part fictitiously, for his non-egoistical action, the nature of which it, i.e., he himself, does not comprehend, and with which account he has accustomed it to be content.

(the last because the ordinary man does not trust his judgment, of the weakness of which he is conscious, but only follows his own or some one else’s experience), but the disposition is not altered in this way.^ All abstract knowledge gives only motives ; but, as was shown above, motives can only alter the direction of the will, not the will itself. All communicable knowledge, however, can only affect the will as a motive.

Thus when dogmas lead it, what the man really and in general wills remains still the same. He has only received different thoughts as to the ways in which jt m^ to be attained, and imaginary motives guide him just like real ones.

Therefore, for example, it “is all one, as regards hS^"6tbical wortlGi7 ^ietEef'’Ke gives large gifts to the poor, firmly persuaded that he will receive eve^thing te^nfold in a future life, or expends the same sum on the improvement of an estate which will yield' interest, certa,inly late, but all the more, surely and largely.

And he who for the sake of orthodoxy commits tiie heretic to the flames is as much ajmurderer as the bandit ''wEor’'does it for gain : and indeed, as regards inward circumstances, so also was he who slaughtered the Turks in the Holy Land, if, like the burner ^f heretics, he really did so because he thought that he would thereby gain a ptace~in heaven.

For these are carefuLonly for themselves, for their own egoism, just like the bwdit, from~\^bm they are only distinguished by the absurdity of their means. From without, as has been said,~the can only be reached through motives, and these only alter the way in which it expresses itself, never the will itself. Velle Twn disdtur.

In the case of good deeds, however, the doer of which appeals to dogmas, we must always distinguish whether these dogmas really are the motives which lead to the good deeds, or whether, as was said above, they are

^ The Church would say that these which leads to the new birth. But are merely opera operata^ which do of this farther on, not avail unless grace gives the faith

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 477

merely the illusive account of them with which he seeks to satisfy his own reason with regard to a good deed which really flows from quite a different source, a deed which he does because he is good, though he does not understand how to explain it rightly, and yet wishes to think something with regard to it. But this distinction is very hard to make, because it lies in the heart of a man. Therefore we can scarcely ever pass a correct moral judgment on the action of others, and very seldom on our own. The deeds and conduct of an individual and of a nation may be very much modified through dogmas, example, and custom. But in themselves all deeds {opera operata) are merely empty forms, and only the disposition which leads to them gives them moral significance. This disposition, however, may be quite the same when its outward manifestation is very different. With an equal degree of wickedness, one man may die on the wheel, and another in the bosom of his family. It may be the same grade of wicke3ness~wKi35^ expresses itself in one nation in the coarse characteristics of murder and cannibalism, and in another finely and softly in miniature, in court intrigue.s, oppressions, and delicate plots of every kind ; the inner nature remains the same. It is conceivable that a perfect state, or perhaps indeed a complete anT firmly believed doctrine of rewards and puTiishmejits aTteF~3eatE^~migirt~~^event ^eiy^ crime j polItfcaUy naucK" would be galne3~~ thereby. ; , mor^y, nothing ; only the expression of the wiU in life would

bVrestricfc&l;

Thus genuine goodness of disposition, disinterested virtue, and pure nobility do not proceed from abstract knowledge. Yet they do proceed from knowledge ; but it is a direct intuitive knowledge, which can neither be reasoned away, nor arrived at by reasoning, a knowledge which, just because it is not abstract, cannot be communicated, but must arise in each for himself, which therefore finds its real and adequate expression not in

478 THE WORLD AS WILL. BK. nr.

words, but only in deeds, in conduct, in the course of the life of man. We who here seek the theory of virtue, and have therefore also to express abstractly the nature of the knowledge which lies at its foundation, will yet be unable to convey that knowledge itself in this expression. We can only give the concept of this knowledge, and thus always start from action in which alone it becomes visible, and refer to action as its only adequate expression. We can only explain and interpret action, i.e., express abstractly what really takes place in it.

Before we speak of the good proper, in opposition to the had, which has been explained, we must touch on an intermediate grade, the mere negation of the bad: this is jmtice. The nature of right and wrong has been fully explained above ; therefore we may briefly say here, that he who voluntarily recognises and observes those merely moral limits between wrong and right, even where this is not secured by the state or any other external power, thus he who, according to our explanation, never carries the assertion of his own will so far as to deny the will appearing in another individual, is just. Thus, in order to increase his own well-being, he will not inflict suffering upon others, i.e., he will commit no crime, he will respect the rights and the property of others. We see that for such a just man the principium individuationis is no longer, as in the case of the bad man, an absolute wall of partition. We see that he does not, like the bad man, merely assert his own manifestation of will and deny all others ; that other persons are not for him mere masks, whose nature is quite different from his own ; l>ut he shows in his conduct that he also recognises his own nature — the will to live as a thiug-in-itself, in the foreign manifestation which is only given to him as idea. Thus he finds himself again in that other manifestation, up to a certain point, that of doing no wrong, i.e., abstaining from injury. To this extent, therefore, he sees through the pt'incipium individuationis, the veil of M&yfi, ; so far he

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 479

sets the being external to him on a level with his own — ■ he does it no injury.

If we examine the inmost nature of this justice, there already lies in it the resolution not to go so far in the assertion of one’s own will as to deny the manifestations of will of others, by compelling them to serve one’s own. One will therefore wish to render to others as much as one receives from them. The highest degree of this justice of disposition, which is,

~ goodness ~pr^ei7^ whose negati^, extends so far that a man doubts his right to inherited property, wishes Id 8U^ort~~Eis body only by his own powers, mental and physical, feels every service of others and every luxury a r^roach, and finally embl^eF >roTuhtaH'pb^rt^ Thus we see how Pascal, when he became an ascetic, wou13~lQd longer pemit any services to be rendered him, although be had servants enoughj in spite of his constant bad health he made Ed^ed himself, brought his own food from the kitclienr^crt^ Vie de Pascal, par sa Sceur,” p. 19). Quite in keeping with this, it is reported that many HinduSj, e^en Rajas with great wealthi it ffiglgly"

on the maintenance of their position, their court and attendants, and themselves observe with the greatest scrupulousness th^e maxim that a man should eat nothing t^t he, haa.n,o^-MjQaself..bQtk.5nwed,and^,i^^ Yet a certain misunderstanding lies at the bottom of this ; for one man, just because he is rich and powerful, can render such signal services to the whole of human society that they counterbalance the wealth he has inherited, for the secure possession of which he is indebted to society. In reality that excessive justice of such Hindus is al'.eady more than justice ; it is actual renunciation, denial of the will to live, — asceticism, of which we shall speak last On the other hand, pure idleness and living through the exertions oTothers, in the case of inherited wealth, without accomplishing aoythiog>.](Sa73e-J.e2&Jdgd..aa.inor^y

however, always united with character is no longer^mereTy

480

THE WORLD -4S WILL.

BK. IV.

We have found that voluntary justice has its inmost source in a certain degree of penetration of the principium individuationis, while the unjust remain entirely involved in this principle. This penetration may exist not only in the degree which is required for justice, but also in the higher degree which leads to benevolence and welldoing, to love of mankind.

And this may take place however strong and energetic in itself the will which appears in such an individual may be. Knowledge can always counterbalance it in him, teach him to resist the tendency to wrong, and even produce lh''~lnni e^¥y degree o^^od^s^and indeed of feSgiiation.

Thus the good man is by no mea,ns to be regarded as originally a weaker manifestation of will than the bad man, but it is knowledge which in him masters the blind strivm^oi will.

There are certainly individuals who merely* seem coTiave a good disposition on account of the weakness of the will appearing in them, but what they are soon appears from the fact that they are not capable of any remarkable self-conquest in order to perform a just or good deed.

If, however, as a rare exception, we meet a man who possesses a considerable income, but uses very little of it for himself and gives all the rest to the poor, while he denies himself many pleasures and comforts, and we seek to explain the action of this man, we shall find, apart altogether from the dogmas through which he tries to make his action intelligible to his reason, that the simplest general expression and the essential character of his conduct is that he makes less distinction than is muodly made between himself and others. This distinction is so great in the eyes of many that the suffering of others is a direct pleasure to the wicked and a welcome means of happiness to the unjust. The merely just man is content not to cause it; and, in general, most men

wrong, even if

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 481

know and are acquainted with innumerable sufferings of others in their vicinity, but do not determine to mitigate them, because to do so would involve some self-denial on their part Thus, in each of all these a strong distinction seems to prevail between his own ego and that of others ; on the other hand, to the noble man we have imagined, this distinction is not so significant. The principium individxmtionis, the form of the phenomenon, no longer holds him so tightly in its grasp, but the suffering which he sees in others touches him almost as closely as his own. He therefore tries to strike a balance between them, denies himself pleasures, practises renunciation, in order to mitigate the sufferings of others. He sees that the distinction between himself and others, which to the bad man is so great a gulf, only belongs to a fleeting and illusive phenomenon. He recognises directly and without reasoning that the in-itself of his own manifestation is also that of others, the will to live, which constitutes the inner nature of everything and lives in all ; indeed, that this applies alat to the brutes and the whole of nature, and therefore he will not cause suffering even to a brute.^

He is now just as little likely to allow others to starve, while he himself has enough and to spare, as any one would be to suffer hunger one day in order to have more the next day than he could enjoy. For to him who does worksjaf love the veil of Mdya has Income trani^arent,

^ The right of man over the life at once dieterwuae^ t.bp and powers of the brutes rests on use man ma]g^ make of the powiaiai the fact that, ^cause^^^wjUu-llML oF the brutes without wrong; a growing Cmit^ however^ wHiidlia. nftenltranssuffering increases in jyU^e^ pg^Sagure ; gressed, especiaj^ in the^j£aa£L-iif lTie"’p&lti >«^ch tbe brute^su^era besSts bl Burden amTH^ogs used in tffrbuj^ ^eath 6r work is^ not so the ch we^ to which^^^t

fl^F^man would suffer ^ merely] ^ s^Sies Tor enjing^ himself the flesm “ br'^ cruelty to animals is ^rineipaHy jeTherefore vote^ In my oprnion, that man inaj. assertion of his ff<^"hot’^xten3~to yiyise^lpiJ^ parexrstehce to thereHehri5t"]denj;hig tlcular^ of the .6*1

the other ¥and, the insect does not will to five as a whole endures fess^ suffer so much thrpu^ ffs W

Buffennjg'm this Wigr ttet tf' the a man suffers from its sting. Th# opposite cbtiree were adopted. Thjs Hindus do not understand tma.

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

BK. IV.

182

the illusion of the prindpium individucUionis has left liim. ]E[e_recogpig?9„hii»8elf, bis viU,. iiL-eveiy-Jjeiiig, ind consequently also in tiie sufifergr, He is now free from' the perversity with which the will to live, not recognising itself, here in one individual enjoys a fleeting ind precarious pleasure, and there in another pays for it with suffering and starvation, and thus both inflicts and endures misery, not knowing that, like Thyestes, i^ea^rly devours its own flesh ; and then, on the one "hand, lamenffi“its undeserved suflering, and on the other hand ^ansgresses without fear of Nemesis, always merely because, involved in the principium irudividuationis, thus ^^raKy 'm the kind of knowledge which is governed by the principle of sufficient reason, it does not recognise iteelf in the foreign phenomenon, and therefore does 'hot perceive ^eternal justice.

To be cured of this iHusion and deception of M&y&, and to do works of love, are one and the sain&_ But the latter is the necessary**and meyitable symptom of that knowledge.

The opposite of the sting of conscience, the origin and significance of which is explained above, is the good conscience, the satisfaction which we experience after every disinterested deed. It arises from the fact that such a deed, as it proceeds from the direct recognition of our own inner being in the phenomenon of another, affords us also the verification of this knowledge, the knowledge that our true self exists not only in our own person, this particular manifestation, but in everything that lives. By this the heart feels itself enlarged, as by egoism it is contracted. For as the latter concentrates our interest upon the particular manifestation of our own individuality, upon which knowledge always presents to us the innumerable dangers which constantly threaten this manifestation, and anxiety and care becomes the key-note of our disposition ; the knowledge that everything living is just as much our own inner nature, as is our own person, extends our

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 483

interest to everytliing living ; and in this way the heart is enlarged. Thus through the diminished interest in our own self, the anxious care for the self is attacked at its very root and limited ; hence the peace, the unbroken serenity, which a virtuous disposition and a good conscience affords, and the more distinct appearance of this with every good deed, for it proves to ourselves the depth of that disposition.

The egoist feels himself surrounded by strange and hostile individuals, and all his hope is centred in his own good.

The good man lives in a world of friendly individuals, the well-being of any of whom he regards as his owa Therefore, although the knowledge of the lot of mankind generally does not make lus disposition a joyful one, yet the permanent knowledge of his own nature in all living beings, gives him a certain evenness, and even serenity of disposition.

For the interest which is extended to innumerable manifestations cannot cause such anxiety as that which is concentrated upon one.

The accidents which concern individuals collectively, equalise themselves, while those which happen to the particular individual constitute good or bad fortuna Thus, though others have set up moral principles which they give out as prescriptions for virtue, and laws which it was necessary to follow, I, as has already been said, cannot do this because I have no “ ought ” or law to prescribe to the eternally free-will.

Yet on the other hand, in the connection of my system, what to a certain extent corresponds and is analogous to that imdertaking is the purely theoretical truth, of which my whole exposition may be regarded as merely an elaboration, that the will is the in-itself of every phenomenon but itself, as such, is free from the forms of the phenomenal, and consequently from multiplicity ; a truth, which, with reference to action, I do not know how to express better than by the formula of the Vedas already quoted : “ Tat twam asi ! " (Ihig. thqu. art |)i .. Whoever is aWe^ to sgy this to himself, with regard to every being with whom

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he comes in.. and firm

mward conviction, is certain of all virtue and blessedness, ^d is on the dhect road to salyationT^ ~ '

But before I go further, and, as the conclusion of my exposition, show how love, the origin and nature of which we recognised as the penetration of the principium individuationis, leads to salvation, to the entire surrender of the will to live, i.e., of all volition, and also how another path, less soft but more frequented, leads men to the same goal, a paradoxical proposition must first be stated and explained ; not because it is paradoxical, but because it is true, and is necessary to the completeness of the thought I have present. It is this : “ All love {ayairt], earkas) is sympathy.”

§ 67. We have seen how justice proceeds from the penetration of the principium individuationis in a less degree, and how from its penetration in a higher degree there arises goodness of disposition proper, which shows itself as pure, i.e., disinterested love towards others. When now the latter becomes perfect, it places other individuals and their fate completely on a level with itself and its own fate. Further than this it cannot go, for there exists no reason for preferring the individuality of another to its own. Yet the number of other individuals whose whole happiness or life is in danger may outweigh the regard for one’s own particular well-being. In such a case, the character that has attained to the highest goodness and perfect nobility will entirely sacrifice its own well-being, and even its life, for the wellbeing of many others. So died Codrus, and Leonidas, aad Regulus, and Decius Mus, and Arnold von Winkelried; so dies every one who voluntarily and consciously faces certain death for his friends or his country. "TCnS they also stand on the same level who voluntarily submit to suffering and death for maintaining what conduces and rightly belongs to the welfare of all mankind ; that is, for maintaining universal and important trut^ a^

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 485

destroying great errorg. So died Socrates and Giordano Bruno, and so many _a hero of the truth suffered death at the stake at the hands of the priests.

-■ III - ■■ -III I

Now, howeA’er, I must remind the reader, with reference to the paradox stated above, that we found before that suffering is essential to life as a whole, and inseparable from it.

And that we saw that every wish proceeds from a need, from a want, from suffering, and that therefore every satisfaction is only the removal of a pain, and brings no positive happiness ; that the joys certainly lie to the wish, presenting themselves as a positive good, but in truth they have only a negative nature, and are only the end of an evil.

Therefore what goodness, love, and nobleness do for others, is always merely an alleviation of their suffering, and consequently all that can influence them to good deeds and works of love, is simply the knowledge of the suffering of others, which is directly understood from their own suffering and placed on a level with it But it follows from this that pure love (ayaiTf], caritas) is in its nature sympathy ; whether the suffering it mitigates, to which every unsatisfied wish belongs, be great or small.

Therefore we shall have no hesitation, in direct contradiction to Kant, who will only recognise all true goodness and all virtue to be such, if it has proceeded from abstract reflection, and indeed from the conception of duty and of the categorical imperative, and explains felt sympathy as weakness, and by no means virtue, we shall have no hesitation, I say, in direct contradiction to Kant, in saying: the mere concept is for genuine virtue just as unfruitful as it is for genuine art : all true and pure love is sympathy, and all love which is not sympathy is selfishness.

Eptoy is selfishness, ayaTrij is sympathy. Combinations of the two frequently occur. Ipdeed genuine friendship is always a mixture of selfishness and sympathy ; the former lies in the pleasure experienced in the presen^ of the frien^ indiv^ii^lity corresponds to our

486

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own, and ^is almoali . always-nonstituteg.^ the greatest part; sympathy shows iteelf in the sincere^participation in his joy and grief, and the disinterested sacrifices ma5e in respect of the latter. Thus Spinoza says : Benevolentia nihu dlivu est, quam eupiditas ex commiseratione wta (Eth. iii. pr. 27, cor. 3, schoL) As a confirmation of our paradoxical proposition it may be observed that the tone and words of the language and caresses of pure love, entirely coincide with the tones of sympathy ; and we may also remark in passing that in Italian sympathy and true love are denoted by the same word pietii.

This is also the place to explain one of the most striking peculiarities of human nature, weeping, which, like laughter, belongs to those qualities which distinguish man from the brutes. Weeping is by no means a direct expression of pain, for it occurs where there is very little pain. In my opinion, indeed, we never weep directly on account of the pain we experience, but always merely on account of its repetition in reflection. We pass from the felt pain, even when it is physical, to a mere idea of it, and then find our own state so deserving of sympathy that we are firmly and sincerely convinced that if another were the sufferer, we would be full of sympathy, and love to relieve him. But now we ourselves are the object of our own sympathy ; with the n.ost benevolent disposition we are ourselves most in need of help ; we feel that we suffer more than we could see another suffer; and in this very complex frame of mind, in which the directly felt suffering only comes to perception by a doubly circuitous route, imagined as the suffering of another, sympathised with as such, and then suddenly perceived again as directly our own, — in this complex frame of mind, I say. Nature relieves itself through that remarkable physical conflict Weeping is accordingly sympathy vnth our own selves, or sympathy directed back on its source It is therefore conditional upon the capacity for love and sympathy, and also upon imagination. Therefore

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 487

men who are either hard-hearted or unimaginative do not weep easily, and weeping is even always regarded as a sign of a certain degree of goodness of character, and disarms anger, because it is felt that whoever can still weep, must necessarily always be capable of love, i.e., sympathy towards others, for this enters in the manner described into the disposition that leads to weeping. The ^cription which Petrarch gives of the rising of his own tears, nMvOly am3~Trurv expressing bis feeling, entirely agrees with the explanation we have given —

“ I VO pensanJo : e nel pensar m’ assale Una pietd si forte di me stesso,

Che mi conduce apesso,

Ad alto lagriinar, ch’i non soleva.”*

What has been said is also confirmed by the fact that children who have been hurt generally do not cry till some one commiserates them; thus not on account of the pain, but on account of the idea of it. When we are moved to tears, not through our own suffering but through that of another, this happens as follows. Either we vividly put ourselves in the place of the sufferer by imagination, or see in his fate the lot of humanity as a whole, and consequently, first of all, our own lot; and thus, in a very roundabout way, it is yet always about ourselves that we weep, sympathy with ourselves which we feel. This seems to be the principal reason of the universal, and thus natural, weeping in the case of death. The mourner does not weep for his loss ; he would be ashamed of such egotistical tears, instead of which he is sometimes ashamed of not weeping. First of all he certainly weeps for the fate of the dead, but he also weeps when, after long, heavy, and incurable suffering, death was to this man a wished-for deliverance. Thus, principally, he is seized with sympathy for the lot of all

' As I wander sunk in thought, weep aloud, which otherwise I am to strong a sympathy with n)yself not wont to do. comes over me that I must often

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mankind, which is necessarily finite, so that every life, however aspiring, and often rich in deeds, must be extinguished and become nothing. But in this lot of mankind the mourner sees first of all his own, and this all the more, the more closely he is related to him who has died, thus most of all if it is his father. Although to his father his life was misery through age and sickness, and thougE his helplessness w^s a_ heavy burden to bis son, yet that~s6n weeps bitterly over the ^eath of his father for the reason which has been given."^

§ 68. After this digression about the identity of pure love and sympathy, the final return of which upon our own individuality has, as its symptom, the phenomenon of weeping, I now take up the thread of our discussion of the ethical significance of action, in order to show how, from the same source from which all goodness, love, virtue, and nobility of character spring, there finally arises that which I call the denial of the will to live.

We saw before that hatred and wickedness are conditioned by egoism, and egoism rests on the entanglement of knowledge in the prineipium individuationis. Thus we found that the penetration of that prineipium individvutionis is the source and the nature of justice, and when it is carried further, even to its fullest extent, it is the source and nature of love and nobility of character, For this penetration alone, by abolishing the distinction between our own individuality and that of others, renders possible and explains perfect goodness of disposition, extending to disinterested love and the most generous self-sacrifice for others.

If, however, this penetration of the prineipium individuadionis, this direct knowledge of the identity of will in all its manifestations, is present in a high degree of distinctness, it will at once show an influence upon the will

* Cf. Ch. xlvii. of Supplement. It has boon explained fully and in is scarcely necessary to remind the detail in my prize-essay on the reader tliat the whole ethical doc- foundation of morals, trine given in outline in g§ 61-67

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 489

which extends still further.

If that veil of M&y&, the frvmvpiwm mdividuaiiorm, is lifted from the eyes of a man to such an extent that he no longer makes the egotistical distinction between his person and that of others, but takes as much interest in the sufferings of other individuals as in his own, and therefore is not only benevolent in the highest degree, but even ready to sacrifice his own individuality whenever such a sacrifice will save a number of other persons, then it clearly follows that such a man, who recognises in all beings his own inmost and true self, must also regard the infinite suffering of all suffering beings as his own, and take on himself the pain of the whole world.

No suffering is any longer strange to him. All the miseries of others which he sees and is so seldom able to alleviate, aU the miseries he knows directly, and even those which he only knows as possible, work upon his mind like his own.

It is no longer the changing joy and sorrow of his own person that he has in view, as is the case with him who is still involved in egoism ; but, since he sees through the prindpium individuationis, all lies equally near him. He knows the whole, comprehends its nature, and finds that it consists in a constant passing away, vain striving, inward conflict, and continual suffering.

He sees wherever he looks suffering humanity, the suffering brute creation, and a world that passes away. But all this now lies as near him as his own person lies to the egoist. Why should he now, with such knowledge of the world, assert this very life through constant acts of will, and thereby bind himself ever more closely to it, press it ever more firmly to himself ?

Thus he who is still involved in the prineipium individttcUionis, in egoism, only knows particular things and their relation to his own person, and these constantly become new motives of his volition. But, on the other hand, that knowledge of the whole, of the nature of the thing-in-itself which has been described, becomes a quieter of all and every volition. The will now turns away

490 * WORLD WILL. bk. iv.

from life ; it now shudders at the pleasures in which it recognises the assertion of life. Man now attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, true indifife* rence, and perfect will-lessness. If at times, in the hard eijqperience.of our own suffering," or liTWe vivid re<^^ nition of that of others, the knowledge of the vanity and hittemess of life draws nigh to us also who are still wrapt in the veil of Mtlyfl, and we would like to destroy the sting of the desires, close the entrance against all sufifering, and purify and sanctify ourselves by complete and final renunciation j yet the illusion of the phenomenon soon entangles us again, and its motives influence the will anew ; we cannot tear ourselves free. The alluretnent of hope, th^ flattery of ttie . present, the sweetness of pleasure, the well-being which falls to our lot, amid tHo lamentations of a suffering world .g.Qyerned by chance and error, draws us back to it-jand JlYfite our bonds anew. Therefore Jesus says: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, tlmi^ for a rich man to enter mto the~kIngdom of God.”

If we compare life to a course or path through which we must unceasingly run — a path of red-hot coals, with a few cool places here and there ; then he who is entangled in delusion is consoled by the cool places, on which he now stands, or which he sees near him, and sets out to run through the course.

But he who sees through the priiicipium individuationis, and recognises the real nature of the thing-in-itself, and thus the whole, is no longer susceptible of such consolation ; he sees himself in all places at once, and withdraws. His will turns round, no longer asserts its own nature, which is reflected in the phenomenon, but denies it. The phenomenon by which this change is marked, is the transition from virtue to asceticism.

That is to say, it no longer suffices for such a man to love others as himself, and to do as much for them as for himself ; but there arises within him a horror of the nature of which his own phenomenal existTHE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 491

ence is an expression, the will to live, the kernel and inner nature of that world which is recognised as full of misery. He therefore disowns this nature which appears in him, and is already expressed through his body, and his action gives the lie to his phenomenal existence, and appears in open contradiction to it.

Essentially nothing else but a manifestation of will, he ceases to will anything, guards against attaching his will to anything, and seeks to confirm in himself the greatest indifference to everything. His body, healthy and strong, expresses through the genitals, the sexual impulse ; but he denies the will and gives the^ Tf^ to the body ; he desires no imsuaT gratification under any condition.

Voluntary and coinplete chastity is the first step in asce^isin oF Bie denial of the will to live. It thereby denies the assertion of the will which extends beyohj the individual life, and gives the assurance that with the life of this £ody3^e ^viil, whose manifestation it is, ceases.

Nature, ah^s true and naive, declares that if this maxim became universal, the human race would die out; and I think I may assume, in accordance with what was said in the Second Book about the connection of all manifestations of will, that with its highest manifestation, the weaker reflection of it would also pass away, as the twilight vanishes along with the full light.

With the entire abolition of knowledge, the rest of the^woHd^ wbuTdr of ibieirvanisli into hotlun^ITfbVwithout a sutdecThliere is no object. I should like here to refer to a passage in the Vedas, where it is said : “ As in this, world. hungry infants press rouiid tHerr mother; so derail beings await the holy oblation.” ^ (Asiatic Eesearches, vol. viiL ; Colebrooke.

On the Vedas, Abstract of the Sama-Veda; also in Colebrooke’s Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. p. 79.) Sacrifice means resignation generally, and the rest of nature must look for its salvation to man who is at once the priest and the sacrifice. Indeed it deserves to be noticed as very remarkable, that this thought has also

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THE WORLD AS WILL.

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been expressed by the admirable and unfathomably prpfound Angelas Sileshu, in the little poem entitled, “ Man finn^'air'for God;” It runs^ " ManT~airToves thee; around thee great is the throng. All things flee to thoe that they may attain to God.” But a yet greater mystic, Meister Eckhard, whose wonderful writings are at last accessible (1857) through the edition of Franz Pfeifier, says the same thing (p. 459) q^uite in the sense explained here: “T^T)ear witness to the saying of Christ. I, if I be lifted upTromTItEe^ear th, all thin^gs unto me (J ohn

xii 32). So shall the good man draw all things up to God, to the source whence they first came. The Masters certify to us that all creatures are made for the sake of man. This is proved in all created things, by the fact that the one makes the use of the other; the ox makes use of the grass, the fish of the water, the bird of the air, the wild beast of the forest. Thus, all created things become of use to the good man. A good man brings to God the one created thing in the other.” He means to say, that man makes use of the brutes in this life because, in and with himself, he saves them also. It also seems to me that that difficult passage in the Bible, Rom. viii 2 1-24, must be interpreted in this sense.

In Buddhism also, there is no lack of expressions of this truth. For example, when Buddha, still as Bodisatwa, has his horse saddled for the last time, for his flight into the wilderness from his father’s house, he says these lines to the horse: “Long hast thou existed in life and. Jn death, but now thou shall ~ cease from caCTying j,nd drawing^ Bear me but this qnco_iii,Qre, O lKantakana, away from here, and when I have attained to the Law (have become Buddh^ I will not forget thee ” (Foe Koue Ki, trad. p. Abel Rdmusat, p. 2 3 3). ~

Asceticism then shows itself further in voluntary and intentional poverty, which not only arises per accidens, because the possessions are given away to mitigate the sufferings of others, but is here an end in itself, is meant

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 493

to serve as a constant mortification of will, so that the satisfaction of ,trl]L.e....'gisJie8. tne sweet of life, shall not again arouse the will, against which self^SLOwTe'3^’~Tra3 conceived a horror.

He who has attained to tKfi point, still always feels, as a living body, as concrete manifestation of will, the natural disposition for every kind of volition ; but he intentionally suppresses it, for he compels himself to refrain from doing all that he would like to do, and to do all that he would like not to do, even if this has no fuither end than that of serving as a mortification of will.

Since he himself denies the will which appears in his own person, he will not resist if another does the same, i.e., inflicts wrongs upon him.

Therefore every suffering coming to him from without, through chance or the wickedness of others, is welcome to him, every injury, ignominy, and insult; he receives them gladly as the opportunity of learning with certainty that he no longer asserts the will, but gladly sides with every enemy of the manifestation of will which is his own person.

Therefore he bears such ignominy and suffering with inexhaustible patience and meekness, returns good for evil without ostentation, and allows the fire of anger to rise within him just as little as that of the desires. And he mortifies not only the will itself, but also its visible form, its objectivity, the body.

He nourishes it sparingly, lest its excessive vigour and prosperity should animate and excite more strongly the will, of which it is merely the expression and the mirror.

So he practises fasting, and even resorts^, to chastisement and self-inflicted tortur^ in order that, by instant privation and suffering, he may more and more break down and destroy the will,. j?h,joh„ he, recognises and abhors as the source of his own suffering existence and thj^ of the world If at last death comes, which puts an end to this manifestation of thaF will, whose existence here Tiaa~long since perished through free^nial of itself, with the exception oT^e l^ak residue~ont

494

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

BK. IV.

which appears as the life of this body: it is most welcome^ and is''gTadly received as a longed-for, deliverance. Here it is not, as in 'fhe c^ase of others^ merely the. maaifestation which ends with death ; but the inner nature itself is abolfsTiedjr which here existed only ip festation, and that In a very weak degree;^ this last slight bond is now broken. For him who thus ends^ the world has ende^AlsQ.,

And what I have here described with feeble tongue and only in general terms, is no philosophical fable^ invented hy~1h)i?en;;^'hnd only oi _t9-jiay.LJaQ,. Jfe enviable life of so many saints and beauUful souls ampjag (jhristians, ahcT stiU more among Hindus andJBjjddhiats, and also among the believers of other religions^ However 3fifereut~ were^the dogmas ImpresseT on thehr reason, the same inward, direct, intuitive knowledge, frqm,whic^ alone all virtue and holiness proceed, expressed itself in precisely the same way in the conduct of life. For here also the great distinction between intui^tive and abstraqj knowledge shows itself ; a distinction which is of such importance'and universal application in our whole investigation, and which has hitherto been too little attended There is a wide guj.f between the two,^ which can only be crossed by the aid of philosophy, as regards the knowledge of the nature of the world. Intuitively or in concrete, every man is jeallx conscious of all_phllo8QphicaI truths, butTo hring them to abstract knowledge, to refl.e(> fion, is theTwork of ""piiTosophy, which neither ought JiQI is able to do more than this.

Thus it may be. that the inner nature cf bolipcsay-aalfrenunciation, mortification of our own will, asceticism, is

^ This thought is expressed by a formed soul from its corporeal frame beautiful simile in the ancient philo- at length takes place and nature in lophical Sanscrit writing, “ Sank- respect of it ceases, then is absolute hya Karica “Yet the soul remains and final deliverance accomplished.” Ik while invested with body; as the Colebrooke, “ On the Philosophy of potter’s wheel continues whirling the Hindus; Miscellaneous Essays,” after the pot has been fashioned, by vol, i. p. 271. Also in the “Sankforce of the impulse previously given hya Karica by Horace Wilson,” § 67, to it. When separation of the in- p. 184.

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 495

here for the first time expre^ed abstractly, and free from

as denied of the will to live, aj^earing after the complete knowiedge of its own nature has hccome a c^uieter of all volition,. On &e other hand^ it has been known directly and revised in practice by saints and ascetics, who had all the same inward knowledge, though they 'used” i^ry different languagp with fegffd to it, according to ^he dogm^ which their reason had accepted, and in consequence of ■v^nchjin In^an, ^Christian,^r "a JLama sahit must each give a very different account of His conduct, which is, however, of no importance as regar(^ ^e'Tack " X^*ht he fiill of the ahsurdSt superstition^ or, on the contrary, he may be a phllbsophei^ it is ail the same,. His conduct alone certifies that he is a^ saint, for,, jn a rnoral r^rd, it ^p> ceeds from knowledge, of the world and Jta !!?bich

is not abstractly but intuitively, and directly. appreJiendgd, and is only expressed by him.ia any dogma, for the„s.atisfaction of his reason. It is therefore just as little needful that a saint should be a philosopher '^thara philosopher should be a saint fTust as it is not necessary that a_ perfect be^tiful man should be a great sculptor, or that a great sculptor should himself be a beautiful man. In genemh'iris a” sTraTige dem^^ upon a moralist that he should teach no other virtue tha.11 that which he himself possesses. To repeat the whole nature of the world ^tracEIyTuriiversally. and distinctly in concepts, and thus to store up, as it were, a reflected »f it in permanent concepts always at the command pf _th§,yeason; Ihis^anB. nothing else is philosophy. I refer the reader to the passage quoted from Bacon in the First Book.

But the description I have given above of the denial of the will to live, of the conduct of a beautiful soul, of a resigned and voluntarily expiating saint, is merely abstract and general, and therefore cold. As the knowledge from which the denial of the will proceeds is intuitive and not abstract, it finds its most perfect expression, not in ab*

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BK. IV.

stract conceptions, but in deeds and conduct.

Therefore, in order to understand fully what we philosophicaUy express M denial of tEe will to live, one must come to know examples * of ' it in experience and actualTdileT Certainly they are not ' to be met with in daily experiencej Ifam ommct practara iam diffi^ia quam rara sunt, Spinoza admirably says^ Therefore, unless by a specially hajjpy fate we are made eye-witnesses, we have to con^ tent ourselves witF descrrptibirs 'orth'elive^ of such men.

India^ literature, as we see from the Fittle that ^’e as yet know through translations, is .very , rich in descrijn tions of_th^ lives of saints, penitents, Samanas or ascetics, Sanny&^sis or mendicants, and whatever else they n^ be called.

Even the well-hnown “ Mythologie des lndou37 par Mad. de Polier,” though by no means to be commended in every respect, contains many excellent examples of this kind (especially in ch. 1 3, vol. ii.) Among Christians also there is no lack of examples which afford us the illustrations we desire.

See the biographies, for the most part badly written, of those persons who are sometimes called saintly souls, sometimes pietists, quietists, devout enthusiasts, and so forth.

Collections of such biographies have been made at various times, such as Tersteegen’s " Leben heiliger Seelen,” Reiz’s " Geschichte der Wiedergeborennen,” in our own day, a collection by Kanne, which, with much that is baJ, yet contains some good, and especially the “ Leben der Beata Sturmin. To this category very properly belongs the life of St Francis of A^isi, that true personificAtion of the Agcetic, jtM.proiStype of all mendicant friars.,.

His life, described by his hunger contemporary, St Bonaventura, also famous as a scholastic, has recently been republished. “ Vita S. Francisci a S. Bonaventura concinnata” (Soest, 1847), though shortly before a painstaking and detailed biograpliy, making use of all sources of information, appeared in France, " Histoire de S. Francois d’ Assise, par Chavin de Malian ” (184s). As an Oriental parallel of these

monastic writings we have the very valuable work of Spence Har^, “ Ea,stern Monachistn; an A^'unt'bf the Dr3er of Mendicants founded by Gotama Buclha ” (1850). ItSiows us the same thing in another dress.

We also see what a matter of indifference it is whether it proceeds from a theistical or an atheistical religion. !^t as a special and exceedinglj full example and practical illustration of the conceptions I have established, 1 can thoroughly recommepd tha - Aijtobiograplry of Madame de jauion.

To become acquainted with this great and beautiful 6oul, the very thought of whom always fills me with reverence, and to do justice to the excellence of her disposition while making allowance for the superstition of her reason, must be just as delightful to every man of the better sort as with vulgar thinkers, i.e., the majority, that book will always stand in bad repute.

For it is the case with regard to everything, that ^ach man can only prize that which to a certain extent is analogous to him and for which he, has at least a slight inclination. This holds good of ethical concerns as well as of intellectual.

We might to a certain extent regard the well-known French biography of Spinoza as a case in point, if we used as a key to it that noble introtroduction to his very insufficient essay, “De Emendatione Intellectus,” a passage which I can also recommend as the moat effectual means I know of stilling the storm ol the p^sions. .

Finally, even the great Goethe, Greek as he is, did not think it below his dlghfty to show us this most beautiful side of humanity in the magic~£arfror3f poetic art, for he represented the life df 'FrauIeln Klettenberg in an ide^iJia&d foiia. ift„hi&.“.,GQ»fessious of a Beautiful Soul,” and later, in his own biography, gave u8_,.alaa..a.ulJb^istorical account of it Besides this, lie twice told the story oT the life of St. Philippo Neri.

The history of the world will, and indeed must, keep silence about the men whoso conduct is the best and only adequate illustration of this important point of our investigation

498

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IT.

for the material of the history of the world is quite different, and indeed opposed to this. It is not the denial of the will to live, but its assertion and its manifestation in innumerable individuals in which its conflict with itself at the highest grade of its objectification appears with perfect distinctness, and brings before our eyes, now the ascendancy of the individual through prudence, now the might of the many through their mass, now the might of chance personified as fate, always the vanity and emptiness of the whole effort We, however, do not follow here the course of phenomena in time, but, as philosophers, we seek to investigate the ethical significance of action, and take this as the only criterion of what for us is significant and important Thus we will not be withheld by any fear of thejoonstant numerfcai superiority of vulgarity and dulimss from acknowledging that the greatest, most important, and most significant phenomenon that the world can show is not the conqueror of the world, but the subduer of it ; ie nothing ¥ut the quiet, unobseryBcrT]fe~^TXjmS'\^ has attaint to the knowledge in consequence of which he“ surrenders and denies that will to live which fil^ everything and strives ^nd strains.ii^^ all,. and which firat gains freedom here in him alone, so that his conduct bScome^ the exac^ opposite of that of other men. In this respect, therefore, for the philosopher, these accoun^ts of the lives ofTioIyT^elf-denying men, badly as they are generally written, ancT m5e3[~as~tKey ^e^“wT£H~ superstition and non8ense,~are7d>ecause of the significance of the material, immeasurably more instructive and important than~even~Plutarch and Livy.

It will further assist us much in obtaining a more definite and full knowledge of what we have expressed abstractly and generally, according to our method of exposition, as the denial of the will to live, if we consider the moral teaching that has been imparted with this intention, and by men who were full of this spirit ;

THE ASSERTION AND DBlrlAC OF THE WILL. 499

and this will also show how old our view is, though the pure philosophical expression of it may be quite new. The teaching of this kind which lies nearest to hand is Christianity, the ethics of which are entirely in the spirit indicated, and lead not only to the highest degrees of human love, but also to renunciation. The germ of this last side of it is certainly distinctly present in the writings of the Apostles, but it was only fully developed and expressed later. We find the Apostles enjoining tlm love of our neighbour as ourselves, beni^ volence, the requital of hatred with love and_wejj,-dqmg, patience, meekness, the endurance~of all possible injuries without resistance, ahstenuouine^i ^in~ nourishment to keep down lust, resistance to sensual desire,"if~pjqsi^j|ir altogether. We already see here the first degrees of asceticism, or denial of the will proper. This last expression denotes that which in the Gospels is^c^led denying ourselves and taking up the crossTMalt. xvi. 24, 25 ; Mark viii. 34, 3 5; Luke ixr2 37 24, xiv. 26, 27, 33). This tendency soon developed itself more and more, and wa£ tlie origin of hermits, anchorites, and monasticism— aix.-.i3ikiiLJwJ]Lich in itseff was pure and holy, but for .tha^ '^.’^suitable for the great

majority of men ; therefore what developed out of Jt could only be hypocrisy and~wicEedhes37i^r aSusics optimi pessimus. In more developed Christianity, we see that seed of asceticism unfold into the full flower in the writings of the Christian saints and mystics. These preach. besid.ea.„iiliaJj>uregJLi(^Ye^^ jesi^atipa,

voluntary and absolute poverty, genuine calmness, perfect indifference to all worldly .thin^,^ to Qur own will and being born again in God, entire forgetting of our own person, and sinking ourselves in the contemplation of God. “XTuTT exposition of this will be found in reunion’s “ Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure.” But the spirit of this development of Christianity is certainly nowhere so fully and powerfully

500

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expressed as in the writings of the German mystics, in the works of Meister Eckhard. and in that justly famous book “ Die Deutsche Theologie of which Luther says in the mtroduction to it which he wrote, that with the exception of th^ Bible and St Augustine, he had learnt more from it" of what God, CErisC~and man are than from any other bookr~ Yet we only got the genuine and wrrect text of it in the 3’’ear 1851, in the Stutigarreditioh. bj The~i^ecepts and doctrines which are laid

down there are the most perfect exposition, sprung from deep inward conviction of what I have presented as the denial of the will. _ It should” therefore be studied more closely in that form before it is dogmatised about with Jewish-Protestant assurance. Tauler’s “Nachfolgung des armen Leben Christi,” and also his “ Medulla Animse,” are written in the same admirable spirit, though not quite equal in value to that work. In my opinion the teaching of these genuine Christian mysticsl when compared with the teaching of the New jfestSnent, is jis alcohol fo~wlDe, or what. becomes visible in the New ifestament as through a veil and mist appears to us in the works of the mystics without cloak or disguise, in full clearness and distinctness. Finally, tlie'Ne^Tfestament might Ise regarded as the first initiation, the mystics as the second, — a-fiiKpa xai fieyaXa fivcrTtjpta.

We find, however, that which we have called the denial of the will to live more fully developed, . more yarigusly expressed, and more vividly represented in the ancient Sanscrit writings than could be the case in the Christian THiurch and the Western world. That this important ethical view'of l^fe^coulf here attain to a fuller development and a more distinct expression is perhaps principally to be ascribed to the fact that it was not confined by an element quite foreign to it, as Christianity IS by the Jewish theology, to which its sublime author had necessarily to adopt and accommodate it, partly consciously, partly, it may be, unconsciously. Thus Chris

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 501

tianity is made up of two very different constituent parts, and I should like to call the purely ethical part especially and indeed exclusively Christian, and distinguish it from the Jewish dogmatism with which it is combined. If, as has often been feared, and especially at the present time, that excellent and salutary religion should altogether decline, I should look for the reason of this simply in the fact that it does not consist of one single element, but of two originally different elements, which have only been combined through the accident of history. In such a case dissolution had to follow through the separation of these elements, arising from their different relationship to and reaction against the progressive spirit of the age. But even after this dissolution the purely ethical part must always remain uninjured, because it is indestructible. Our knowledge of Hindu litCTature is still very imperfect. Yet, as we find their.^_thical. t^ching variously and powerfully expressed in j^e Vedas, Puranas, poems, nTyths, legends of their saints, maxims and precepts,^ we see that it inculcates love of our neighbour with complete renunciation of ^If-Tove j love generallyj, not confined to mankind, but including all living creatures ]_J^ne; yolence, even to the giving awuynS^ hard- won

wages of daily toil; unlimited patience towards all who injure us; the requital of all wickedness, however base, with goodness and love ; voluntary and glad en(^rance all ignominy ; abstjngnce Tfbff alT animal food;, per-; feet chastity and renunciation of all sensual ple^mg

' See, for example, Oupnek'hat, ■tudio Anquetil du Perron,” vol. iL, Nos. 138, 144, 145, 146. “Mythologie des Indous,” par Mad. de Polier, vol. ii., ch. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. “ Asiatisches Magazin,” by Klaproth : in the first volume, “ Ueber die Fo-Religion,” also **Baghnat Geeta” or “Gesprache zwischen Krishna und Arjoon ; ” in the second volume, “ Moha-Mudgava.” Also, “Institutes of Hindu Law, or the

Ordinances of Menu,” from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones (Gherman by Hiittner, 1797), especially the sixth and twelfth chapters. Fi^ nally, many passages in the “Asiatic liesearches.” (In the last forty years Indian literature has grown so much in Europe, that if I were now to complete this note to the first edition, it would occupy several page*.)

50*

THE WORLD i4S WILL.

BK. IV

for him who strives after true holiness ; the surrender of all possessions, the forsaking of every dwelling-pla^ and of all relatives ; deep unbroken solitude, spent in silent contemplation, with voluntary penance and terrible slow self-torture fornEKe^aEsoTute mortification of the will, torture which extends to yoluutarj^^d^^ by starvation, or by men giving themselves up to crocodiles, or flinging themselves over the sacred precipice in the Himalayas, or being buried alive, or, finally, Sy flinging themselves under the wheels , of the huge car of an idol drawn along amid the singing, shouting, and dancing of ba3’^adere8.

And even yet these precepts, whose origin reaches back more than four thousand years, are carried out in practice, in some cases even to the utmost extreme,^ and this notwithstanding the fact that the Hindu nation has been broken up into BO many parts.

A religion which demands the greatest sacrifices, and which has yet remained so long in practice in a nation that embraces so many millions of persons, cannot be an arbitrarily invented superstition, but must have its foundation in the nature of man. But besides this, if we read the life of a Christian penitent or saint, and also that of a Hindu saint, we cannot sufficiently wonder at the harmony we find between them.

In the case of such radically different dogmas, customs, and circumstances, the inward life and effort of both is the same. And the same harmony prevails in the maxims prescribed for both of them.

For example, Tauler speaks of the absolute poverty which one ought to seek, and which consists in giving away and divesting oneself completely of everything from which one might draw comfort or worldly pleasure^ clearly because all this constantly affords new nourishment to the will, which it is intended to destroy en-

* At the procession of Jagganath were instantly killed. (Letter of an in June 1840, eleven Hindus threw East Indian proprietor in the Timu themselves under the wheels, and of 30th December 1840.)

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 503

iirely. And as an Indian .counterpart of this, we find in the precepts of Fo that the Saniassi, who ought to be without a dwelling and entirely without property, is further fina^^eryo^^d^^n^’^I^TayTnmsStt down often under ffie same tree, lest he should acquire a preference 3r inclinati<^ for~It~~aBove other treesT The Christian mystic and the teachfiiu)LJiiiIYidmita..Khilosophy a^^ in this respect also, they both regard all outward works ind religious exercises as superfluous lor Kim wKb'’‘Tia3 attained to~ 'perfection.' " Kd'ThucTr'a^ement in the^se of such different liges and natioM~is^ practical proof that what is expresse3~Tiere is not, as optimistic dulness likes to assert. an'^ccentnclty"~and~~perver8ity~df the mind, but an essential side of KumatT nature7~^icE only .app^ars so rarely because of its excellence.

I have now indicated the sources from which there may be obtained a direct knowledge, drawn from life itself, of the phenomena m which the denial oTtEe wnTto [ivT exHibits itself. In some respects this is the most important point of ou^ whole work; yet I have only ex^ined it quite generally, for it is better to refer to those who speak from direct experience, than to increase the size of this book unduly by weak repetitions of what is said by them.

I only wish to add a little to the general indication of the nature of this state. We saw above that the wicked man, by the vehemence of his volition, suffers constant, consuming, inward pain, and finally, if all objects of volition are exhausted, quenches the fiery thirst of his selfwill by the sight of the suflfering of others. He, on the contrary, who has attained to the denial of the will tc live, however poor, joyless, and full of privation his condition may appear when looked at externally, is yet filled

with inward joy and the true peace of heaven. isjiot the restless stramToF life, the juKiIant delight which has keen suffering as its preceding or succeeding conditio^ m the experience of the man who loves life j^ut^JB a

504

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peace that; nannnh ha a deep rest and inward

serenity, a state which we cannot behold without the greatest longing when it is brought before our eyes or our imagination, because we at once recognise it as that which alone is right, infinitely surpassing~everything else. upon whicETour better self cries within us the preat jgpm Then we^ feel that every gratification of

our wishes won from the world is merely iike^e~~al5i3 which the beggar receiiy.eg.frQnL. life to-day that he may hunger again on the morrow; resignation,,_on_iyjie conS~^.i^~^^n]K^e3f"estate, it frees the owner for ever_fopm_^„CaEfiw

It will be remembered from the Third Book that the aestheSc Measure in the beautiful consists in great measure in the fact that in entering the state of pure contemplation we are lifted for the mbiheht ^oye~Sl wiliihg,Xc., all wishes and cares; we become, as it were, freed from ourseives,„ We are no longer the individual whose knowledge is subordinated to the service of its constant willing, “the correlative bf~£he particular thing" lb' wln^ pbjects are rngtiyes, but the eternal subjeat of knowing purified from will, the correlative of the Platonic Idea And we know that these momenta in which, delivered from the ardent strain of will, we seem to rise out of the heayx atmosphere of_ earth, are the, happiest which we experience. Prom this we can understand how bless^ the^life of "a^an.jimst .be whose. will is silenced, not merely for a moment, as in the enjoyment oFthe beautiful, but for ever, indeed altogether extinguished, except as regards the last glimmering spark that retains the body in life, and will be extinguished with its death. Such a m^, who, after many bitter struggles with his own nature, has finally cong^uered entirely, continues to exist only as a pure^ knowing being, the undimmed mirror of the world. Nothing caSTtroubie him more, nothing can» move him, for he" Has ^ut ail the thousand cords of will which hoTcT^us

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 505

bound to the world, and, as desire, fear, envy, anger, drag^'us h@er a^nl jbitW in constant pain. He now rooRTback smiling and, at rest m the delusions of this world^ which once were able to move and agonise his spirit also, but utterly

indifferent to him, as the chess-men when the game is ended, ot as^in _the moniing,^^.t^ masquerading

dre^which worried..aMJdJ^aBleteL,u^iii a night in CarmvaL Life and its fonns^naw pags,.. before him as a fleeting illusion,^^ a light morning ^ream before halfwakih^eyes, the real world already shining through it BO that it can no longer deceive ; and like this morning dream, they ^ally^ ^nish altogether without any violent transition. From this we can understand the meaning of Madame Guion when towards the end of her autobiogmphy she often expresses herself thus : “ Everything is alike to me : I cannot will anything more : often I know not whethei^ exist or not.” In order to exprft.sa how, after the extinction of i;h§. will, the death of ^ the body (which is indeed only the manifestation of . the will, and therefore loses all significance when the will is abolished) can no longer have any bitterness, bui.i?i,.y;ejy welcome^r may be allowed to q.uote,the.'V?ord5. ftf..th3l; holy penitent, although they are not very elegantly fumed: “Midi de la gloire; jour ou il n'y a plus de nuit ; vie qui ne eraint plus la mort, dans la mort meme : parceque la mort a vaincu la mort, et que celui qui a souffert la premiire mort, ne goutera plus la seconds mort ” (Vie de Mad. de Guion, vol. ii. p. 13).

We must not, however, suppose t^^ when, by means

of the knowledge whkh acte^ 8^

denial’ of the will to live has once appeared, it never wavers or vacillates, and that we can rest upon it as on an ai^ured ~p6s8essioh7 "IS^ther.l^ must eYer"anewl)e atteined by a constant battle* since the body is the will

itself only in the form of ^^ectivity or as^am^talio^h the world as idea, so Iqi^ m tEe^ody^_UveSj t^ ^hole

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

So6

will to live exists potentially, and constantly strives to become actual, and to burn again with all its ardour. llierefore~tha^ peace and blessedness in the life of holy men which we have described is only found as the flower which ^roceeSs from Uie constont victory over the wHipind the ground .in_ . wbick iLfilQm Js ite. conjtan| battle wkh the wdl to live, for no one can have lasting £eace upon eartl^ We therefore see the histories of .the inner TIfe oT saints full of spiritual conflicts, temptations. and absence oT” grace, i.e., the kind of knowledge which maTces ^ motives ineffectual, and as an universal quieter silences" aH volition. gives the deepest peace and opens the door of freedom.

Therefore also we see those who have once attained to the denial of tlie.will to live strive with all their might to keep upon tins path, by enforced renunciation of ever^ kind, by penance and severity of life, and by selecting whatever is disagreeable to tiiePt ^~in~^or(ler "to suppress the will, which is constant^ springing up anew.^ Hen^, flnally, ’Realise they alrea^ know the value of salvation, their anxious carefulness to retain the hard-won blessing, their scruples of conscience about every innocent pleasure, or about every little excitement of their vanity, which here .abo (Uee. iast,„the..mpsi) immovable, the most active, and the, most foolish of all the inclinations of maEU .

By the term asceticism, which I have used so often, I mean in its narrower sense this iirHefkiwnal breaking of the will by the, refusal- of . what, is agreeable and the selection of what is disagreeably jt^e voluntarily chosen~Iife of penance and self- chastisement for^thy cbhtmual' mortTfication of the will.

We see this practised by him who has attained to the denial of the will in order to enable him to persist in it ; but suffering in general, as it is inflicted by fate, is a second way xXoi/9’^) of attaining to tharden^iaT

Indeed, we may assume that most men only attain to it in thisjw^ land that it Is ^e suffering_ which is person-

^ On tevrepos irXovf c£. Stob. FloriL, voL ii. p. 374.

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 507

ally experienced, not that which is merely known, which most frequently produces complete resignation, often only at the approach of death.

For only in the case of a few is the mere knowledge which, seeing through the priinr cipium individiiationis, first produces perfect goodness of disposition and universal love of humanity, and finally enables them to regard all the suffering of the world as their own ; only in the case of a few, I say, is this knowledge sufficient to bring about the denial of the will.

Even with him who approaches this point, it is almost invariably the case that the tolerable condition of his own Dody, the flattery of the moment^ tIie™3eIusion of ho^7 aP*T ^6 satisfaction of the \nll, wliichi is ever presenting itself anew, lust, is a ppnstant hindrance tolihe denial of the will, and a constant temptation to ttie renewed assertion of it.

Therefore in this res^e^ ^”tliese illusions have been personified as the deviT Thus in most cases the will must be broken by great personal suffering before TIT self-c^hquesF ap^ari!

TEen we see the rnah^wlio has passed tTifough" all^ the in» creasing degrees of affliction with the most vehement reslsfance, and is finally brought to tEF verge of d^pior. suddenly retire into liimself, know himself and the world^’clTange "his whole nature, rise above himsdf and all sufferuigV as irpurTfieT and sanctmed ^ it, m inviolable peace, blessedness, and suhlimity, willingly renounce everything he previously desired with all his might, and joyfully'' embrace death.

It is the refined silver of the denial of the will to live that suddenly comes forth from the purifigjig;^aii&:i^^ "ITTs "saTTOtion. Sometimes we see even those who were very wicked purified to this degree by great grief ; they have become new beings and are completely changed.

Therefore their former misdeeds trouble their consciences no more, yet they willingly atone for them by death, and gladly see the end of the manifestation of that will which is now foreign to them and abhorred by them. The great

5o8

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

Goethe has given us a distinct and visible representation of this denial ^'tEe^nTTWoiigEr^ournS'^CTeat m fortunes and despatiroFlir^iSi^rance, in his immortal masterpiece “Faust/’ in the story of the suMrinM of Gretchen. I know no parcel to this in poetry. It is a perfect example ^ the second jpath that leads to the denial of., .tbfi . will* . npt^ m the .J^.t,,., through the mere knowledge of the sufferings of a whole world which one has voluntarily acquired, but tlyough , eic^Y i’ la|[|rin^" experienced in one’s jown ^ person. Many tragedies certainly^ end by conducting their .strong^illed heroes to the piant of entire resignation, and then generally the wiH to live and its jmanif estetipn end toget^,. hilt. HQ ri^iaaiofei; tion that is known to me brings what ia . essential to that cTTange so distinctly before us, free fro.m- aU,..lJiat is extraneous, as the part of Far^st/^XhaY^

'"Iif 'a.ctuallife w^ see that those unfortunate persons who have to drink to the dregs the greatest cup of suffenng, since when all hope is taken from them they have to face with full consciousness a shameful, violent, and often painful death oh the scaffold, are very freciuently cEahg^ m “this 's^y. We must not indeed assume that there is so great a difference between their character and that of most men as their fate would seem to indicate, but must attribute the latter for the most part to circumstances ; yet they are guilty and to a considerable degree bad. We see, however, many of them, when they have entirely lost hope, changed in the way referred to. They now show actual goodness and purity of disposition, true abhorrence of doing any act in the least degree bad or unkind. They forgive their enemies, even if it i£ through them that they "innocently suffer; and not with wpras merelyjand a sort of hypocritical fear of the judges of the lou^r. world, but in reality and with inward earnestness and no desire for revenge. Indeed, their sufferings and d^h at last becomes dear to'them, for the denial of the will toTIve'Kas'aj^Mredj they"often decline We deliv^

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 509

ance when it is offered, and die gladly, peacefully, and happily. To them the last secret of life has revealed itself in their excessive pain ; the secret that mise^ and sorrow^iyid hate^ t^^

of suffering, however different they may appear to the InS^I^wKcrfomrslhe mnciple of are m themselves one, the manifestation of. that ope yp to live which objectifies its conflict with itself by means of the principium individuationis. They have learned to know both sides in full measure, thebadness and the rniiery; and since at last they see the identity~of the two, they reject them both at once7~lihev^deh^ihe will lto liygi,,,. In what myths and dogmas they account to their

reason for this intuitive and direct knowledge and for their own change is, as has been said, a matter of no importance,

Matthias Claudius must without doubt have witnessed a change of mind of this description when he wrote the remarkable essay in the " Wandsbecker Boten ” (pt. i p. 1 1 5) with the title “ Bekehrungsgeschichte des * * * ” (History of the Conversion of * * * ”), which concludes thus : “ Man’s way of thinking may pass from one point of the periphery to the opposite point, and again back to the former point, if circumstances mark out for him the path. And these changes in a man are really nothing great or interesting, but that remarJcable, catholic, transcendtvXal change in which the whole circle is irreparably broken up and all the laws of psychology become vain and empty when the coat is stripped from the shoulders, or at least turned outside in, and as it were scales fall

from a man’s eyes, is such that every one who has breath in his nostrils forsakes father and mother if he can hear or experience something certain about it.”

The approach of death and hopelessness are in other respects not absolutely necessary for su*i3i a puriHcatibn through suffering. Even without them the'^knowledg&of ffiTcontradiction of the will to live with itself can, through

510

THE WORLD ^5 WILL.

I3K. ir.

f’Teat misfortune and pain, force^n entrance^ and the vanity oT all strivin^_ become recognised.. Hence it has often happened that men who have led a very restless life in the full strain of the passions, kings, heroes, and adventurers, suddenly change, betake themselves to resignation and penance, become hermits or monks. To this class belong all true accounte of conyersmnsj for exan^ile. tlmF of Eaymond Lully, who had long wooed a fair lady, and was at last adinitted to her chamber, anticipating the fulfilment of all his wishes, wlien she, opening her Jjodicg, showed him her bosom frightfully eaten with cancer. From that moment, as if he had looked into heUj, he. was changed ; he forsook ^e court of the king of M^orc^ anJwent into the desertjo do penance.^ This conversion w very like that of the AbbOJanc^T^iich I have briefly related in the 48th chapter of the Supplement. If we consider how in both cases the transition from the pleasure to the horror of life was the occasion of it, this throws some light upon the remarkable fact that it is among the French, the most cheerful, gay, sensuous, and frivolous nation in Europe, that by far the strictest of all monastic orders, the Trappists, arose, was re-established by Ranc6 after its fall, and has maintained itself to the present day in all its purity and strictness, in spite of revolutions. Church reformations, and encroachments of infidelity.

But a knowledge such as that referred to above of the nature of this existence may leave us again along with the occasion of it and the will to live, and with it the previous character may reappear. Thus we see that the passionate Benvenuto Cellini was changed in this way, once when he was in prison, and again when very ill ; but when the suffering passed over, he fell back again into his old state. In general, the denial of the will to live by no means proceeds from suffering with the necessity of an effect from its cause, but the will remains free ;

^ Bruckeri Hist. Philos.* tomi iv. pars. i. p. lo

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 511

for this is indeed the one point at which its freedom appears directly in the phenomenon; hence the astonishment which Asmus expresses so stron^y at the “transcendental change.” In the case of every suffering, it is always possible to conceive a will which exceeds it in intensity and is therefore unconquered by it. Thus Hato speak^ i^h^ " Phjedon

moment £f_their_execution feast, drinkj anS Indulge in sensuous pleasure,^ asserting life even to the deatb. SEabespeare shows us in Cardinal Beaufort the fearful end of a profligate, who dies~fuir'br’despair, for no suffering or death can break his will, which is vehement to the extreme of wickedness.^

The more intense the will is,, the more glaring is the conIKct of its, manifestation, and. thn3„JiEe_gr®?’i®fj5. suffering. A world which was the . jaanifestation of a far mbfe'intense will to live than this world manifests would produce so much the greater suffering; would tEus'be'a helL

All suffering, since it is a mortification and a call to resignation, has potentially arsaiictlfying power. This' !slK^r^anatipji.oi,.jdieJaclilmlLfiY£i:^ oF deep pain inspires a certain awe. But the sufferer only feany’TTecdmes an object of reverence when, surveying the course of his life as a chain of sorrows, or mourning some great and incurable misfortune, he does not really look at the special combination of circumstances which has plunged his own life into suffering, nor stops at the single great misfortune that has befallen him ; for in so doing his knowledge still follows the principle of sufficient reason, and clings to the particular phenomenon ; he still wills life only not under the conditions which have happened to him ; but only then, I say, he is truly worthy of reverence when he raises "bis gfance from the particular to the uhTyerihri'^wheh'he re^r^ Els” suffering as merely an example of the whole.

* Henry VI., Part ii, act 3, sa 3.

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV.

5ia

and for him, since in a moral regard partakes of genius, 6ne~~case stands Ibf a thousand, so that the whole of life conceived~a^ essiETtlaH^lnffering brings him to resignation. Therefore it inspires reverence when in Goethe’s,.** Torfluato Tasso” the princess speaks of how her own life and that of her relations has always been sad and joyless, and yet regards the matter from an entirely universal point of view.

A very noble character we always imagine with a certain trace of quiet sadness, which is anything but a constant fretful ness at daily annoyances (this would be an ignoble trait, and lead us to fear a bad disposition), but is a consciousness derived from knowledge of the vanity of all possessions, of the suffering of all life, not merely of his own. But such knowledge may primarily be awakened by the personal experience of suffering, especially some one great sorrow, as a single unfulfilled’wish bTought "Fetrarch to that state of resigned sadness concerning the whole of life which appeals to .u.s. .S.O- patheticadly in his works ; ^ the Daphne he pursued had to flee from his hands in order to leave him, instead of herself, the immortal laurel. When through some such great and irrevocable denial of fate the will is to some extent broken, almost nothing else is desired, and the character shows itself mild, just, noble, and resigned. When, finally, grief has no definite object, but extends itself over the whole of life, then it is to a certain extent a going into itself, a withdrawal, a gradual disappearance of the will, whose visible manifestation, the body, it imperceptibly but surely undermines, so that a man feels a certain loosening of his bcmds^u niild foretaste of that death which promises to be the abolition at once of the body and of the will. Therefore a secre^.pleasu.ra-acco.mpaniea-.thl9 grief, and it is this^ as I belike, \yhich the most melancholy of all nations has calleJ ** the joy 9f„grief.” But here also lies the danger of sentimentality, both in life itself and in the representation of it in poetry ; when a man is always mourning and

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 513

lamenting without courageously rising^to resignation. In tills way weT^ose holTi earth and heaven, and retai^mere^ a watery sentimentality. Only_^ assumes the

form of purekiiowIe^(jgg, jtnd^Uns^iSfcing^^a^ a 0^

the willy brin^ about resignation, worthy^ Qf je ye^ejice.

In this regard, however, we feel a certain respect at the sight of every great sufferer which is akin to the feeling excited by virtue and nobility of character, and also seems like a reproach of our own happy condition. We cannot help regarding every sorrow^ both our own and those of ^lers, as at least a potfiixtial_a.dyance.lQ\yards^\drtue a^^ holiness, and, on the contrary, pleasures and worldly s^isTsetfons as a retrogression from thein. This goes so far, fTTal every man who endures a great bodily or mental suffering, indeed every one who merely performs some physical labour which demands the greatest exertion, in the sweat of his brow and with evident exhaustion, yet with patience and without murmuring, every such man, I say, if we consider him with close attention, appears to us like a sick man who tries a painful cure, and who willin^y, and even wdtli s^isfaction^ endures tlie su^ffering it causes him, because he knows that the more he suffers tlie more the cause of his (hsease is^ affected, therefore the present suffering is the measure of his cure.

" According to what has been said, the denial of the will to live, which is just what is called absolute, entire resignation, or holiness, always proceeds from that quieter of the will which the knowledge of its inner conflict and essential vanity, expressing themselves in the suffering of all living things, becomes. The difierepc^ we have represented as two paths, consists in whether that Ivnowledge is called up by suffering wliich is merely and'^pii^ly and is freely appropriated by means of

the penetration of the ^riiicipium individuaticniis, or by suffering which is directly^/^ by a niau himself. True salvation, deliverance from life and suffering, cannot wen beHrmagiiied without complej^e denial of t^^^^ , Tfil

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then, every one ^ simply this will itself, whose manifestation is an ephemeraTexistence^ a constantly vaTnand empty s^^i^'ahTthXworTJ ofsulierihXW'elja.yili^Ws^ to which all irrevocably and in like manner belo^. For we found above that life is always assured to the will to live, and ite one real form is the' present, from' which they can never escape, since birth and deani~’'fer^"Tn the phenomenal world.

The Indian mythus express^ this by saying “ they are born again.

The great ethical difference of character means this, that the bad man is infinitely far from the attainment of the knowledge from which the denial of the will proceeds, and therefore he is in truth actually exposed to all the miseries wl)ich appear in life as possible; for even the present fortunate condition of liis personality is merely a phenomenon produced by the principium individuationis, and a delusion of M&yft. the happy dream of a beggar.

The sufferings which in the vehemence and” ardour of his will he inflicts upon others are the measure of the suffering, the experience of which in his own person cannot break his will, and plainly lead it to the denial of itself.

All true and pure love, on the other hand, and even all free justice, proceed from the penetration of the. principium individuationis, which, if it appears with its full power, results in perfect sanctification and salvation, the phenomenon of which is the state of resignation described above, the unbroken peace which accompanies it, and the greatest delight in death.*

§ 69. Suicide, the actual doing away with the individual manifestation of will, differs most widely from the denial of the will to live, which is the single outstanding act of free-will in the manifestation, and is therefore, as Asmus calls it, the transcendental change. This last has been fully considered in the course of our work. Far from being denial of the will, suicide is a phenomenon of strong assertion of will ; for the essence of negation lies * Cf, Cli. xlviii. of the Supplement.

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in this, that the joys of life are shunned, not its sorrows The suicide wills life, and is only dissatisfied with the c^ditions undeFl^TcE' lr'T[a3~'pre8ented~ir3erf to him. He therefore by no means surrenders the will to live, but only life, in that he destroys the individual manifestation.

He wills life— wills the unrestricted existence and assertion of the body ; but the complication of circumstances does not allow this, and there results for him great suffering. The very will to live finds itself so much hampered in this particular manifestation that it cannot put forth its energies.

It therefore comes to such a determination as is in conformity with its own nature, which lies outside the conditions of the principle of sufficient reason, and to which, tlierefore, all particular manifestations are alike indifferent, inasmuch as it itself remains unaffected by all appearing and passing away, and is the inner life of all things; for that firm inward assurance by reason of which we all live free from the constant dread of death, the assurance that a phenomenal existence can never be wanting to the will, supports our action even in the case of suicide.

Thus the will to liye appeara j^t as much in smcide (SiyaX e^ jn the seif-greservation ,(,yishB.uX aud-ia. tli&j£muaLplfi^ijre.of procreation (Brahma). This is the inner meaning of the unity of tlie Trmurtis, w5I^/is„m^df§d^ in eveiy human being, though in time it raises now one, now another, of its “^ee headsT Suicide stands liTThe same relation to the denial of the will as the individual thing does to the Idea.

The suicide denies only the individual, not the speciea We have already seen that as life is always assured to the will to live, and as sorrow is inseparable from life, suicide, the wilful destruction of the single phenomenal existence, is a vain and foolish act ; for the thing-in-itself remains unaffected by it, even as the rainbow endures however fast the drops which support it for the moment may change. But, more than this, it is also the masterpiece of M&yH, as the most

flagrant example of the contradiction of the will to live with itself.

As we found this contradiction in the case of the lowest manifestations of will, in the permanent struggle of all the forces of nature, and of all organic individuals for matter and time and space ; and as we saw this antagonism come ever more to the front with terrible distinctness in the ascending grades of the objectification of the will, so at last in the highest grade, the Idea of man, it reaches the point at which, not only the individuals which express the same Idea extirpate each other, but even the same individual declares war against itself.

The vehemence with which it wills life, and revolts against what hinders it, namely, suffering, brings it to the point of destroying itself ; so that the individual wiU, by its own act, puts an end to that body which is merely its particular visible expression, rather than permit suffering to break the will. Just because the suicide cannot give up willing, he gives up living.

The will asserts itself here even in putting an end to its own manifestation, because it can no longer assert itself otherwise.

As, however, it was just the suffering which it so shuns that was able, as mortification of the will, to bring it to the denial of itself, and hence to freedom, so in this respect the suicide is like a sick man, who, after a painful operation which would entirely cure him has been begun, will not allow it to be completed, but prefers to retain his disease.

Suffering approaches and reveals itself as the possibility of the denial of will ; but the will rejects it, in that it destroys the body, the manifestation of itself, in order that it may remain unbroken. This is the reason why almost all c;thical teachers, whether philosophical or religious, condemn suicide, although they themselves can only give far-fetched sophistical reasons for their opinion.

But if a human being w’as ever restrained from committing suicide by purely moral motives, the inmost meaning of this self-conquest (in whatever ideas his reason may

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have clothed it) was this : “ I will not shun suffering, in order that it may help to put an end to the will to live, whose manifestation is so wretched, by so strengthening the knowledge of the real nature of the world which is already beginning to dawn upon me, that it may become the final quieter of my will, and may free me for ever.”

It is well known that from time to time cases occur in which the act of suicide extends to the children. The father first kills the children he loves, and then himself. Now, if we consider that conscience, religion, and all influencing ideas teach liim to look upon murder as the greatest of crimes, and that, in spite of this, he yet commits it, in the hour of his own death, and when he is altogether uninfluenced by any egotistical motive, such a deed can only be explained in the following manner : in this case, the will of the individual, the father, recognises itself immediately in the children, though involved in the delusion of mistaking the appearance for the true nature ; and as he is at the same time deeply impressed with the knowledge of the misery of all life, he now thinks to put an end to the inner nature itself, along with the appearance, and thus seeks to deliver from existence and its misery both himself and his children, in whom he discerns himself as living again. It would be an error precisely analogous to this to suppose that one may reach the same end as is attained through voluntary chastity by frustrating the aim of nature in fecundation ; or indeed if, in consideration of the unendurable suffering of life, parents were to use means for the destruction of their new-born children, instead of doing everything possible to ensure life to that which is struggling into it For if the will to live is there, as it is the only metaphysical reality, or the thing-in-itself, no physical force can break it, but can only destroy its manifestation at this place and time. It itself can never be transcended except through

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knowledge. Thus the only way of salvation is, that the will shall manifest itself unrestrictedly, in order that in this individual manifestation it may come to appro* hend its own nature. Only as the result of this knowledge can the will transcend itself, and thereby end the suffering which is inseparable from its manifestation.

It is quite impossible to accomplish this end by physical force, as by destroying the germ, or by killing the newborn child, or by committing suicide. Nature guides the will to the light, just because it is only in the light that it can work out its salvation. Therefore the aims of Nature are to be promoted in every way as soon as the will to live, which is its inner being, has determined itself.

There is a species of suicide which seems to be quite distinct from the common kind, though its occurrence has perhaps not yet been fully established. It is starvation, voluntarily chosen on the ground of extreme asceticism. All instances of it, however, have been accompanied and obscured by much religious fanaticism, and even superstition.

Yet it seems that the absolute denial of will may reach the point at which the will shall be wanting to take the necessary nourishment for the support of the natural life.

This kind of suicide is so far from being the result of the will to live, that such a completely resigned ascetic only ceases to live because he has already altogether ceased to will No other death than that by starvation is in this case conceivable (unless it were the result of some special superstition) ; for the intention to cut short the torment would itself be a stage in the assertion of will.

The dogmas which satisfy the reason of such a penitent delude him with the idea that a being of a higher nature has inculcated the fasting to which his own inner tendency drives him. Old examples of this may be f ound in the “ Breslauer Saiuiiilung von Natur- und Medicin-Geschichten,” September 1799, p. 363 ; in Bayle’s "Nouvelles de la K6THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 519

publique des Lettres,” February 1685, p. 189 ; in Zimmermann, “Ueber die Einsamkeit,” vol. i. p. 182 ; in the “Histoire de 1’ Academic des Sciences” for 1764, an account by Houttuyn, which is quoted in the “ Sarainlung fiir praktische Aerzte,” vol. i. p. 69.

More recent accounts may be found in Hufeland’s “Journal fiir praktisclie Heilkunde,” vol. x. p. 181, and voL xlviii. p. 9$ ; also in Nasse’s “ Zeitschrift fiir psychische Aerzte,” 1819, part iil p. 460 ; and in the “ Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,” 1809, vol. v. p. 319.

In the year 1833 all the papers announced that the English historian, Dr. Lingard, had died in January at Dover of voluntary starvation ; according to later accounts, it was not he himself, but a relation of his who died. Still in these accovints the persons were generally described as insane, and it is no longer possible to find out how far this was the case.

But I will give here a more recent case of this kind, if it were only to ensure the preservation of one of the rare instances of this striking and extraordinary phenomenon of human nature, which, to all appearance at any rate, belongs to the category to which I wish to assign it and could hardly be explained in any other way.

This case is reported in the “ Niirnberger Correspondenten ” of the 29 th July 1813, in these words: — “ We hear from Bern that in a thick wood near Thurnen a hut has been discovered in which was lying the body of a man who had been dead about a month. His clothes gave little or no clue to his social position. Two very fine shirts lay beside him.

The most important article, however, was a Bible interleaved with white paper, part of which had been written upon by the deceased. In this writing he gives the date of his departure from home (but does not mention where his home was). He then says that he was driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to pray and fast. During his journey he had fasted seven days and then he had again taken food. After this he had begun again to fast, and continued to do so for

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the same number of days as before. From this point we find each day marked with a stroke, and of these there are five, at the expiration of which the pilgrim presumably died. There was further found a letter to a clergyman about a sermon which the deceased heard him preach, but the letter was not addressed.” Between this voluntary death arising from extreme asceticism and the common suicide resulting from despair there may be various intermediate species and combinations, though this is hard to find out. But human nature has depths, obscurities, and perplexities, the analysis and elucidation of which is a matter of the very greatest difficulty.

§ 70. It might be supposed that the entire exposition (now terminated) of that which I call the denial of the will is irreconcilable with the earlier explanation of necessity, which belongs just as much to motivation as to every other form of the principle of sufficient reason, and according to which, motives, like all causes, are only occasional causes, upon which the character unfolds its nature and reveals it with the necessity of a natural law, on account of which we absolutely denied freedom as liherum, arbitrium indifferentice. But far from suppressing this here, I would call it to mind. In truth, real freedom, i.e., independence of the principle of sufficient reason, belongs to the will only as a thing-in-itself, not to its manifestation, whose essential form is everywhere the principle of sufficient reason, the element or sphere of necessity. But the one case in which that freedom can become directly visible in the manifestation is that in which it makes an end of what manifests itself, and because the mere manifestation, as a link in the chain of causes, the living body in time, which contains only phenomena, still continues to exist, the will which manifests itself through this phenomenon then stands in contradiction to it, for it denies what the phenomenon expresses. In such a case the organs of generation, for example, as the visible form of the sexual impulse, are

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there and in liealth ; but yet, in the inmost consciousness, no sensual gratification is desired ; and although the whole body is only the visible expression of the will to live, yet the motives which correspond to this will no longer act ; indeed, the dissolution of the body, the end of the individual, and in this way the greatest check to the natural will, is welcome and desired.

Now, the contradiction between our assertions of the necessity of the determination of the will by motives, in accordance with the character, on the one hand, and of the possibility of the entire suppression of the will whereby the motives become powerless, on the other hand, is only the repetition in the reflection of philosophy of this real contradiction which arises from the direct encroachment of the freedom of the will-in-itself, wliich knows no necessity, into the sphere of the necessity of its manifestation.

But the key to the solution of these contradictions lies in the fact that the state in which the character is withdrawn from the power of motives does not proceed directly from the will, but I'rom a changed form of knowledge. So long as the knowledge is merely that which is involved in the prirwipmm individiuitionis and exclusively follows the principle of sufficient reason, the strength of the motives is irresistible.

But when the principium irulividuationis is seen through, when the Ideas, and indeed the inner nature of the thingin-itself, as the same will in all, are directly recognised, and from this knowledge an universal quieter of volition arises, then the particular motives become ineffective, because the kind of knowledge which corresponds to them is obscured and thrown into the background by quite another kind.

Therefore the character can never partially change, but must, with the consistency of a law of Nature, carry out in the particular the will which it manifests as a whole. But this whole, the character itself, may be completely suppressed or abolished through the change of knowledge referred to above. It is this

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suppression or abolition which Asmus, as quoted above, marvels at and denotes the "catholic, transcendental change ; ” and in the Christian Church it has very aptly been called the Tiew lirth, and the knowledge from which it springs, the work of grace. Therefore it is not a question of a change, but of an entire suppression of the character; and hence it arises that, however different the characters which experience the suppression may have been before it, after it they show a great similarity in their conduct, though every one still speaks very differently according to his conceptions and dogmas.

In this sense, then, the old philosophical doctrine of the freedom of the will, which has constantly been contested and constantly maintained, is not without ground, and the dogma of the Church of the work of grace and the new birth is not without meaning and significance. But we now unexpectedly see both united in one, and we can also now understand in what sense the excellent Malebranche could say, “Za l^ert6 est un mystere,” and was right. For precisely what the Christian mystics call the work of grace and the new birth, is for us the single direct expression of the freedom, of the will. It only appears if the will, having attained to a knowledge of its own real nature, receives from this a quieter, by means of which the motives are deprived of their effect, which belongs to the province of another kind of knowledge, the objects of which are merely phenomena. The possibility of the freedom which thus expresses itself is the greatest prerogative of man, which is for ever wanting to the brute, because the condition of it is the deliberation of reason, which enables him to survey the whole of life independent of the impression of the present. The brute is entirely without the possibility of freedom, as, indeed, it is without the possibility of a proper or deliberate choice following upon a completed conflict of motives, which for this purpose would have to be abstract ideas. Therefore with the same necessity with which

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL. 533

the stone falls to the earth, the hungry wolf buries its fangs in the flesh of its prey, without the possibility of the knowledge that it is itself the destroyed as well as the destroyer. Necessity is the kingdom, of naiure ; freedom, is the kingdom of grace.

Now because, as we have seen, that self-suppression of the wUl proceeds from knowledge, and all knowledge is involuntary, that denial of will also, that entrance into freedom, cannot be forcibly attained to by intention or design, but proceeds from the inmost relation of knowing and volition in the man, and therefore comes suddenly, as if spontaneously from without. This is why the Church has called it the work of grace ; and that it still regards it as independent of the acceptance of grace corresponds to the fact that the effect of the quieter is finally a free act of will. And because, in consequence of such a work of grace, the whole nature of man is changed and reversed from its foundation, so that he no longer wills anything of all that he previously willed so intensely, so that it is as if a new man actually took the place of the old, the Church has called this consequence of the work of grace the new birth. For what it calls the natural man, to which it denies all capacity for good, is just the will to live, which must be denied if deliverance from an existence such as ours is to be attained. Behind our existence lies something else, which is only accessible to us if we have shaken off this world.

Having regard, not to the individuals according to the principle of sufficient reason, but to the Idea of man in its unity, Christian theology symbolises nature, the ossertion of the unit to live in Adam, whose sin, inherited by us, i.e., our unity with him in the Idea, which is represented in time by the bond of procreation, makes us all partakers of suffering and eternal death. On the other hand, it symbolises grace, the denial of the wiU, scdvaiion, in the incarnate God, who, as free from all sin, that is,

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from all willing of life, cannot, like us, have proceeded from the most pronounced assertion of the will, nor can he, like us, have a body which is through and through simply concrete will, manifestation of the will ; but born of a pure virgin, he has only a phantom body. This last is the doctrine of the Docetae, i.e., certain Church Fathers, who in this respect are very consistent.

It is especially taught by Apelles, against whom and his followers Tertullian wrote. But even Augustine comments thus on the passage, Kom. viiL 3, “ God sent Ids Son in the likeness of sinful flesh : ” “ Non enim caro peecati erat, quce non de carnali ddectatione nata erat : scd tamen inerat ei similitudo camis peccati, quia mortalis caro erat" {Liber St,, qucest. qu. 66). He also teaches in his work entitled “ Opns Imperfectum" i.

47, that inherited sin is both sin and punishment at once. It is already present in newborn children, but only shows itself if they grow up. Yet the origin of this sin is to be referred to the will of the sinner. This sinner was Adam, but we all existed in him ; Adam became miserable, and in him we have all become miserable.

Certainly the doctrine of original sin (assertion of the will) and of salvation (denial of the will) is the great truth which constitutes the essence of Christianity, w’hile most of what remains is only the clothing of it, the husk or accessories.

Therefore Jesus Christ ought always to be conceived in the universal, as the symbol or personification of the denial of the will to live, but never as an individual, whether according to his mythical history given in the Gospels, or according to the probably true history which lies at the foundation of this. For neither the one nor the other will easily satisfy us entirely.

It is merely the vehicle of that conception for the people, who always demand something actual. That in recent times Christianity has forgotten its true significance, and degenerated into dull optimism, does not concern us here.

It is further an original and evangelical doctrine of

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Christianity — which Augustine, with the consent of the leaders of the Church, defended against the platitudes of the Pelagians, and which it was the principal aim of Luther’s endeavour to purify from error and re-establish, as he expressly declares in his book, “ De Servo Arhitrio'' — the doctrine that the will is not freCy but originally subject to the inclination to evil. Therefore according to this doctrine the deeds of the will are always sinful and imperfect, and can never fully satisfy justice ; and, finally, these works can never save us, but faith alone, a faith which itself does not spring from resolution and free will, hut from the work of grace, without our co-operation, comes to us as from without.

Not only the dogmas referred to before, hut also this last genuine evangelical dogma belongs to those which at the present day an ignorant and dull opinion rejects as absurd or hides. For, in spite of Augustine and Luther, it adheres to the vulgar Pelagianism, which the rationalism of the day really is, and treats as antiquated those deeply significant dogmas which are peculiar and essential to Christianity in the strictest sense ; while, on the other hand, it holds fast and regards as the principal matter only the dogma that originates in Judaism, and has been retained from it, and is merely historically connected with Christianity.^ We, however,

^ How truly this is the case the day, on the contrary, many docmay be seen from the fact that all trines of the Au<^iu>tinian doj^iatics, the contradictions and inconceiv- founded on the New Testament, abilities contained in the Christian appear quite untenable, and indeed dogmatics, consistently systematised revolting ; for example, predestinaby Augustine, which have led to the tion. Accordingly Chiistianity Pelagian insipidity which is opposed proper is rejected, and a return is to them, vanish as soon as we ab- made to crude Judaism. But the stract from the fundamental Jewish miscalculation or the original weakdogma, and recognise that man is ness of Christian dogmatics lies — not the work of another, but of his where it is never sought — precisely own will. Then all is at once clear in that which is withdrawn from all and correct : then there is no need investigation as established and cerof freedom in the operarty for it lies tain. Take this away and the in the ; and there also lies the whole of dogmatics is rational ; for sin as original sin. The work this dogma destroys theology as of grace is, however, our own. To it does all the other sciences. If the rationalistic point of view of any one studies the Augustiuian

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recognise in the doctrine referred to above the truth completely agreeing •with the result of our own investigations. We see that true virtue and holiness of disposition have their origin not in deliberate choice (works), but in knowledge (faith) ; just as we have in like manner developed it from our leading thought.

If it were works, which spring from motives and deliberate intention, that led to salvation, then, however one may turn it, virtue would always be a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism.

But the faith to which the Christian Church promises salvation is this : that as through the fall of the first man we are all partakers of sin and subject to death and perdition, through the divine substitute, through grace and the taking upon himself of our fearful guilt, we are all saved, without any merit of our own (of the person) ; since that which can proceed from the intentional (determined by motives) action of the person, works, can never justify us, from its very nature, just because it is intentional, action induced by motives, opus operaturn. Thus in this faith there is implied, first of all.

theology in the books ** De CivUate Dei'' (especially in the Fourteenth Book), he experiences something analogous to the feeling of one who tries to make a b^y stand whose centre of gravity falls outside it ; however he may turn it and place it, it always tumbles over again. So here, in spite of all the efforts and sophisms of Augustine, the guilt and misery of the world always falls back on Grod, who made everything and everything that is in everything, and also knew how all things would go. That Augustine himself was conscious of the difficulty, and puzzled by it, I have alrea(^ shown in my prize-essay on the Freedom of the Will (ch. iv. pp. 66-68 of the first and second editions). In the same way, the contradiction between the goodness of God and the misery of the world, and also between the

freedom of the will and the foreknowledge of God, is the inexhaustible theme of a controversy which lasted nearly a hundred years between the Cartesians, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Bayle, Clarke, Amauld, and many others. The only dogma which was regarded as fixed by all parties was the existence and attributes of God, and they all unceasingly move in a circle, because they seek to bring these things into harmony, i.e., to solve a sum that will not come right, but always shows a remaindei at some new place whenever we have concealed it elsewhere. But it does not occur to any one to seek for the source of the difficulty in the fundamental assumption, although it palpably obtrudes itself. Bayle alone shows that he saw this.

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that our condition is originally and essentially an incurable one, from which we need salvation; then, that we ourselves essentially belong to evil, and are so firmly bound to it that our works according to law and precept, i.e., according to motives, can never satisfy justice nor save us ; but salvation is only obtained through faith, i.e., through a changed mode of knowing, and this faith can only come through grace, thus as from without.

This means that the salvation is one which is quite foreign to our person, and points to a denial and surrender of this person necessary to salvation. Works, the result of the law as such, can never justify, because they are always action following upon motives.

Luther demands (in his book “Be Zibertate Christiana”) that after the entrance of faith the good works shall proceed from it entirely of themselves, as symptoms, as fruits of it ; yet by no means as constituting in themselves a claim to merit, justification, or reward, but taking place quite voluntarily and gratuitously.

So we also hold that from the ever -clearer penetration of the priwipium individuaiionis proceeds, first, merely free justice, then love, extending to the complete abolition of egoism, and finally resignation or denial of the will.

I have here introduced these dogmas of Christian theology, which in themselves are foreign to philosophy, merely for the purpose of showing that the ethical doctrine which proceeds from our whole investigation, and is in complete agreement and connection with all its parts, although new and unprecedented in its expression, is by no means so in its real nature, but fully agrees with the Christian dogmas properly so called, and indeed, as regards its essence, was contained and present in them. It also agrees quite as accurately with the doctrines and ethical teachings of the sacred books of India, which in their turn are presented in quite different forms. At the same time the calling to mind of the dogmas of the Christian Church serves to explain and illustrate

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the apparent contradiction between the necessity of all expressions of character when motives are presented (the kingdom of Nature) on tlie one hand, and the freedom of the will in itself, to deny itself, and abolish the character with all the necessity of the motives based upon it (the kingdom of grace) on the other hand.

§ 71. I now end the general account of ethics, and with it the whole development of that one thought which it has been my object to impart ; and I by no means desire to conceal here an objection which concerns this last part of my exposition, but rather to point out that it lies in the nature of the question, and that it is quite impossible to remove it. It is this, that after our investigation has brought us to the point at which we have before our eyes perfect holiness, the denial and surrender of all volition, and thus the deliverance from a world whose whole existence we have found to be suffering, this appears to us as a passing away into empty nothingness.

On this I must first remark, that the conception of nothing is essentially relative, and always refers to a definite something which it negatives. This quality has been attributed (by Kant) merely to the nihil privativum, which is indicated by — as opposed to -f, which — , from an opposite point of view, might become -f, and in opposition to this nihil privativum the nihil negativum has been set up, which would in every reference be nothing, and as an example of this the logical contradiction which does away with itself has been given. But more closely considered, no absolute nothing, no proper nihil negativum is even thinkable ; but everything of this kind, when considered from a higher standpoint or subsumed under a wider concept, is always merely a nihil privativum. Every nothing is thought ^__guch only iu_ relation to _gom^thing, and presupposes this relatiou,jind thus also this^ someUiiii^. logical contradiction

is only a relative nothing. It is hb thought of the reason, Tint it is not on that account an ahsoTule hotlTrnjjy'

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for it is a combination of words ; it is an example of the unthinkable, which is necessarjTin logic in order to prove the laws of thought. Therefore if for this end such an example is sought, we will stick to the nonsense as the positive which we are in search of, and pass over the sense as the negative.

Thus every nihU negativum, if subordinated to a higher concept, will appear as a mere nihU privatiwm or relative nothing, which can, moreover, always exchange signs with what it negatives, so that that would then be thought as negation, and it itself as assertion.

This also agrees with the result of the diflScult dialectical investigation of the meaning of nothing WEleL Plato gives .in. iEa^“-§^hi^* (pp. 277— 287) : T171/ tow irepov (putriv airoSei^avres ovcrav Te, Kai KaTaKeKep/xaTicrfxepyjp eiri -iraPTa to opra irpoi aXXjjXa, to irpoi to ot' exoTTow fiopiop awTJj? aPTiTide/iepOP, eroXfitia-afiep eiireip, W5 avTo TouTo ea-TiP oprm to fiti op (Cum enim ostenderemus, aZterius ipsius naturam essepergue omnia entia divisam atque dispersam in vicern ; twnc partem ejus opposUam ei, quod cujusque ens est, esse ipsum revera non ens asseruimus).

That which is generally received m positive, which we call the real, and the negation of which the concept nothing in its most general significance expresses, is just the world as idea, which I have shown to be the objectivity and mirror of the wUL Moreover, we ourselves are just this will and this world, and to them belongs the idea in general, as one aspect of them. The form of the idea is space and time, therefore for this point of view's!! that is real must be Tn some place hiid^at some tame. Denial, abolition, conversion of the will, is also the abolition and the vanishing of the world*^it^m^or, If we no longer perceive it in ..this., mirrs^ we ask in vain where it has gone, and then, because it has no longer any where and when, complain that it has vanished into nothing.

A reversed point of view, if it were possible for us, VOL. I. 2 L

530

THE WORt^D AS WILL.

BK. IV.

would reverse the signs and show the real for us as nothing, and that nothing as the real But as long as we ourselves are the will to live, this last — nothing as the real — can only be known and signified by us negatively, because the old saying of Empedocles, that like can only be known by like, deprives us here of all knowledge, as, conversely, upon it finally rests the possibility of all our actual knowledge, i.fc, the world as idea ; for the world is the self-knowledge of the wUt. ^

If, howler, it should be absolutely insisted upon that in some way or other a positive knowledge should be lit@hM of that which philosophy can^pnj^^ express, negatively as the, denial of the will, there would be nothing for it but to refer to that state which all those who have atiaihed to complete denial of the will have experience3, alid which has been variously denoted by the names ecstasy^ rapture, Ulumination, union with God, and so forth ; a~st^, however, which cannot properly be called knowledge, because it hw not jthe fornr~of and

object, and is, moreover, only attainable in oneX..9wn experience and cannot be further communicated

'W’e7 however, who consistently occupy, the stan^oint of philosophy, must be satisfied here with negative knowledgeTcbhtent td~haye reached the utmost limit of ^e posiETve. We have recognised the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phenomena as only the objecfivrty of will ; and we have followed this objectivity from the uncon^ious working of obscure forces of Nature up to the^ completely conscious action of man. Therefore we shall by no means evade the consequence, that with the free denial, the surrender of the will, all those phenomena are also abolished; that constant strain and effort without end and without rest at all the grades of objectivity, in which and through which the world consists ; the multifarious forms succeeding each other in gradation ; the whole manifestation of the will ; and, finally, also the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, and

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OP THE WILL. 531

also its last fundamental form, subject and object ; a^a. aBofisEed. No wjU : no idea, no world.

]^fore us’TE^ls But

that which resists this passing into nothing, our nature, is indeeif^just^e will to liye, which we oursely^ are as it Is our world.

That we abhor annihilation so greatly, is simply another expression of the fact that we so strenuousiy will life, and are nothing but this wUl, and know nothihg ^sides it But if we turn our glance from our own needy and embarrassed condition to those 'v^o have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found its^f again in and then freely denied itself, and who then merely wait to see the last trace of it vanish with the body which it animates ; then, instead of the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transition from wish to fruition, and from joy to sorrow^ instead of the never-satis%d and never-dying hope which constitutes the life of the m^ who wills, we shall see that. _peace _w^ is above all reasdnT^that perfect jcalm. of the spirit, that deep, rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere refl.eetion of which in the counteimime, as Eaphael and Correggio ^ave "represented it is an entire and certaon ^spel ; onlyTEhbwledge remains, the will has vanished.

We look wit^ deep and painful longing upon,, this state, beside which the misery and wretchedness of our own. brought ouF ckarly hy the contrast.

Yet this is the only consideration which can afford, us lasting consolation, when, on the one hand, we have recognised incurable suffering and endless misery as essential to the manifestation of W1II7 the world; and, on the other hand, see the world pass away with tnelibolition of wili, ^d retam before us o^ly empty nothingness.

Thus, in this way, by contem^ plation of the life and conduct of s^ts, whom it is cerSinly rarely granted us to meet with in our own experTence, 1hul“wdI6 life* "Brought before our eyes by their written history, ah<^' with the Stamp hf inner' "truth, By

53?

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IV,

art, we must banish the dark impression of that nothingness wTiich^we discern behind all virtue and hoImS^as theirTfinal goal, S which we fear as children fear the da^j we must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, ^uch as reabsorptiog in Srahma orThVHirvana of the Buddhists. Rather do we fr^^y^c¥n6wledge t^^ after the entire

abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing ; but, conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky -ways — is nothing.^

^ This is also just the Prajna- are no more. (Cf. J. J. Schmidt, Faramita* of the Buddhji§t3» thf ‘‘TTe'ber das Mahajana und Prat- “h^ond all knowledge,” the . schna-Paramita.”)

|K>In^ at which subject and object

IND OF VOL. h