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

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

p. 276

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.