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

Spinoza (Epist. 62) says that if a stone which has been projected through the air had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own will. I add to this only that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will. In the passage referred to, Spinoza had in view the necessity with which the stone flies, and he rightly desires to transfer this necessity to that of the particular act of will of a person. I, on the other hand, consider the inner being, which alone imparts meaning and validity to all real necessity (t.«., effect following upon a cause) as its presupposition. ' In the case of men this is called character; in the case of a stone it is called quality, but it is

THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL.

I6S

the same in both. When it is immediately known it is called will. In the stone it has man the strongest degree of visibility, of objectivity.

St. Augustine recognises, with a true instinct, this identity of the tendencies of all things with our own willing, and I cannot refrain from quoting his naive account of the matter : — “ Si pecora essemus, camalâm vitam et quod seeuudtim senmm ejusdem est amaremus, idque met sufficiens bonum nostrum, et semndum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud qucereremus.

Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus : verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, vberiusque fruduosce. Si essemus lapides, aut jluctvs, aut ventus, avt jlamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atqtie vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus.

Nam velut amoves corporvm momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur : ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amove fertur quoemr que fertur" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 28).

It ought further to be mentioned that Euler saw that the inner nature of gravitation must ultimately be referred to an “inclination and desire” (thus will) peculiar to material bodies (in the 68th letter to the Princess). Indeed, it is just this thatlnak^Tum averse to the conception of gravitation as it existed for Newton, and he is inclined to try a modification of it in accordance with the earlier Cartesian theory, and so to derive gravitation from the impact of an ether upon the bodies, as being " more rational and more suitable for persons who like clear and intelligible principles.” He wishes to banish attraction from physics as a qualitas occulta. This is only in keeping with the dead view of nature which prevailed at Euler’s time as the correlative of the immaterial souL It is only worth noticing because of its bearing upon the fundamental truth established by me, which even at that time this fine intellect saw glimmering in the distance. He hastened to turn in time, and then, in his anxiety at i66

THE WORLD AS WILL.

BK. II.

seeing all the prevalent fundamental views endangered, he sought safety in the old and already exploded absurdities.