Note 243 — ON THE WILL IN NATURE. [190] (continued 2)

The appearance of every animal therefore presents a totality, a unity, a perfection and a rigidly carried out harmony in all its parts which is so entirely based upon a single fundamental thought, that even the strangest animal shape seems to the attentive observer as if it were the only right, nay, only possible form of existence, and as if there could be no other than just this very one. The expression "natural" used to denote that a thing is a matter of course, and that it cannot be otherwise, is in its deepest foundation based upon this. Göthe himself was struck by this unity when contemplating whelks and crabs at Venice, and it caused him to exclaim: "How delightful, how glorious is a living thing! how well adapted for its condition; how true, how real!" ("Life," vol. iv. p. 223). No artist therefore, who has not made it his business to study such forms for years and to penetrate into their meaning and comprehension, can rightly imitate them. Without this study his work will seem as if it were pasted together: the parts no doubt will be there, but the bond which unites them and gives them cohesion, the spirit, the idea, which is the objectivity of the primary act of the will presenting itself as this or that particular species, will be wanting. [Add. to 3rd ed.]