The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp
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The translator’s English as printed (R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
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,
p. 132
THE WORLD AS WILL.
BK. II.
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
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