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

^ 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

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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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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

BK. III.

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 ?