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

Tet the remoteness, and indeed the appearance of absolute difference between the phenomena of unorganised nature and the will which we know as the

154 the world as WILL. bk. ii.

inner reality of our own being, arises chiefly from the contrast between the completely determined conformity to law of the one species of phenomena, and the apparently unfettered freedom of the other. For in man, individuality makes itself powerfully felt. Every one has a character of his own; and therefore the same motive has not the same influence over all, and a thousand circumstances which exist in the wide sphere of the knowledge of the individual, but are unknown to others, modify its effect. Therefore action cannot be predetermined from the motive alone, for the other factor is wanting, the accurate acquaintance with the individual character, and with the knowledge which accompanies it On the other hand, the phenomena of the forces of nature illustrate the opposite extreme. They act according to universal laws, without variation, without individuality in accordance with openly manifest circumstances, subject to the most exact predetermination ; and the same force of nature appears in its million phenomena in precisely the same way. In order to explain this point and prove the identity of the one indivisible will in all its different phenomena, in the weakest as in the longest, we must first of all consider the relation of itEe will as thing-in- itself to its phenomena, that is, tlm relation of the world as will to the world as idea ; for this will open to us the best way to a Saofe thorough investigation of the whole subject we are considering in this second book.^

§ 24. We have learnt from the great Kant that time, space, and causality, with their entire constitution, and the possibility of aU their forms, are present in our consciousness quite independently of the objects which appear in them, and which constitute their content ; or, in other words, they can be arrived at just as well if we

' Cf. Ch. xxiii. of the Supplement, on physical astronomy, which is of and also the Ch. on the physiology great importance with regard to the of plants in my work “Ueber den kernel of my metaphysic.

Willen in der Natur,’’ and the Oh.

p. 155

start from the subject as if we start from the object. Therefore, with equal accuracy, we may call them either forms of intuition or perception of the subject, or qualities of the object as object (with Kant, phenomenon), i.e., idea. We may also regard these forms as the irreducible boundary between object and subject.

All objects must therefore exist in them, yet the subject, independently of the phenomenal object, possesses and surveys them completely.

But if the objects appearing in these forms are not to be empty phantoms, but are to have a meaning, they must refer to something, must be the expression of something which is not, like themselves, object, idea, a merely relative existence for a subject, but which exists without such dependence upon something which stands over against it as a condition of its being, and independent of the forms of such a thing, i.e., is not idea, but a thing-in-itself.

Consequently it may at least be asked : Are these ideas, these objects, something more than or apart from the fact that they are ideas, objects of the subject ? And what would they be in this sense ? What is that other side of them which is toto gensre different from idea ? What is the thing-in-itself? The will, we have answered, but for the present I set that answer aside.