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

p. 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.

p. 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