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

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

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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

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THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. II.