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

explains the movement of the muscles as resulting from the presence of fluids (" like the contraction of a cord l£'~i8 wet/' says Reil in his “ Archiv fiir Physiolojpe/' voL vi. p. iS3)> even supposing it really could give a thorough explanation of this kind, yet this would nev^ invalidate the immediately certain truth that every voluntary motion (functiones animales) is the manifest^,- tion of an act of will.

Now, just, as little .^ caa . the physiologicaL..explanation of vegetative life (^functionea naiwrdles vitcUes), however far it may advance, ever mvalldate the truth that the whole animal life which thus develops itself is the manifestation of will.

In general, then, as we have shown above, no etiological explanation can ever give us more than the necessarily determined position in time and space of a particular manifestation, its necessary appearance there, according to a fixed law; but the inner nature of everything that appears in this way remains wholly inexplicable, and is presupposed, by every etiological explanation, and merely indicated by the names, force, or law of nature, or, if we are speaking of action, character or will.

Thus, although every particular action, under the presupposition of the definite character, necessarily follows from the given moSve, and although growth, the process of nourishmeSj/and all the changes of the animal body take place ftCSOl!(li»g-,tp necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole series of actions, and consequently every individual act, and also its condition, the whole body itself which accompishes it, and therefore . also the process through which and in which it exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the becoming visible, the dbjectijica- ^pn of thA wilJ,.

Upon this rests the perfect suitableness of the human and animal body to the human and animal will in general, resembling, though far surpassing, the correspondence between an instrument made for a purpose and the will of the maker, and on this account appearing as design, i.e., the teleological explanation of

THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

p. 141

the body. The parts of the body must, therefore, completely correspond to the principal desires through which the will manifests itself ; tliey must be the visible expressira of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified sexual desire ; the grasping hand, the hurrying feet, correspond to the more indirect desires of the will which they express. As the human form generally corresponds to the human wiU generally, so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the individually modified will, the character of the individual, and therefore it is throughout and in all its parts characteristic and full of expression. It is very rema.rkable that l\rraenides already gave expression to this in the following verses, quoted by Aristotle (Metaph. iii. 5) : —

‘n? yao ixaarog iyjn xoaetv

Twg vooi oLvC^ojiroict to yn^ avro

OTTt^ fjLsXiOjv

Kai Tram xa/ cravrr ro yup cXscv iCTi yoYifLCt,

(Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibUium se habet, ita mens hominibus adest : idem namque est, quod sapit, membroram natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni : quod enim plus est, intelligentia est.) ^

§21. W'hoever has now gained from all these expositions a knowledge in ahstracto, and therefore clear and certain, of what every one knows directly in concreto, i.e., as feeling, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal being, which manifests itself to him as idea, both in his actions and in their permanent substratum, his body, and that his wiU is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, though it has not as such completely passed into the form of idea in which object and subject stand over against each other, but makes

^ Cf. Ch, XX. cf the Supplement, Physioh.gy and Compiirative Anaiind also in my work, “ Ueber den toiny, where the subject I have only WiUen in der Naiur,** the chapters on touched upon here is fully discussed.

p. 142

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. IL