ON THE WILL IN NATURE. [190]

ON THE WILL IN NATURE. [190]

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CORROBORATIONS RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR'S PHILOSOPHY SINCE ITS FIRST APPEARANCE FROM THE EMPIRICAL SCIENCES.

BY

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.

Translated from the Fourth Edition published by Julius Frauenstädt.

[193]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

To my great joy I have lived to revise even this little work, after a lapse of nineteen years, and that joy is enhanced by the special importance of this treatise for my philosophy. For, starting from the purely empirical, from the observations of unbiassed physical investigators—themselves following the clue of their own special sciences—I here immediately arrive at the very kernel of my Metaphysic; I establish its points of contact with the physical sciences and thus corroborate my fundamental dogma, in a sense, as the arithmetician proves a sum: for by this I not only confirm it more closely and specially, but even make it more clearly, easily, and rightly understood than anywhere else.

The improvements in this new edition are confined almost entirely to the Additions; for scarcely anything that is worth mentioning in the First Edition has been left out, while I have inserted many and, in some cases, important new passages.

But, even in a general sense, it may be looked upon as a good sign, that a new edition of the present treatise should have been found necessary; since it shows that there is an interest in serious philosophy and confirms the fact that the necessity for real progress in this direction is now more strongly felt than ever. This is based upon two circumstances. The first is the unparalleled zeal and activity displayed in every branch of Natural Science which, as [194] this pursuit is mostly in the hands of people who have learned nothing else, threatens to lead to a gross, stupid Materialism, the more immediately offensive side of which is less the moral bestiality of its ultimate results, than the incredible absurdity of its first principles; for by it even vital force is denied, and organic Nature is degraded to a mere chance play of chemical forces.[166] These knights of the crucible and retort should be made to understand, that the mere study of Chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher. Certain other like-minded investigators of Nature, too, must be taught, that a man may be an accomplished zoologist and have the sixty species of monkeys at his fingers' ends, yet on the whole be an ignoramus to be classed with the vulgar, if he has learnt nothing else, save perhaps his school-catechism. But in our time this frequently happens. Men set themselves up for enlighteners of mankind, who have studied Chemistry, or Physics, or Mineralogy and nothing else under the sun; to this they add their only knowledge of any other kind, that is to say, the little they may remember of the doctrines of the school-catechism, and when they find that these two elements will not harmonize, they straightway turn scoffers at religion and soon become shallow and absurd materialists.[167] They may perhaps have heard at college of the existence of a Plato and an Aristotle, of a Locke, and especially of a Kant; but as these folk never handled crucibles and retorts or even stuffed a [195] monkey, they do not esteem them worthy of further acquaintance. They prefer calmly to toss out of the window the intellectual labour of two thousand years and treat the public to a philosophy concocted out of their own rich mental resources, on the basis of the catechism on the one hand, and on that of crucibles and retorts or the catalogue of monkeys on the other. They ought to be told in plain language that they are ignoramuses, who have much to learn before they can be allowed to have any voice in the matter. Everyone, in fact, who dogmatizes at random, with the naïve realism of a child on such arguments as God, the soul, the world's origin, atoms, &c. &c. &c., as if the Critique of Pure Reason had been written in the moon and no copy had found its way to our planet—is simply one of the vulgar. Send him into the servants' hall, where his wisdom will best find a market.[168]

The other circumstance which calls for a real progress in philosophy, is the steady growth of unbelief in the face of all the hypocritical dissembling and the outward conformity to the Church. This unbelief necessarily and unavoidably goes hand in hand with the growing expansion of empirical and historical knowledge. It threatens to destroy not only the form, but even the spirit of Christianity (a spirit which has a much wider reach than Christianity itself), and to deliver up mankind to moral materialism—a thing even more dangerous than the chemical materialism already mentioned. And nothing plays more into the hands of this unbelief, than the Tartuffianism de rigueur [196] impudently flaunting itself everywhere just now, whose clumsy disciples, fee in hand, hold forth with such unction and emphasis, that their voices penetrate even into learned, critical reviews issued by Academies and Universities, and into physiological as well as philosophical books, where however, being quite in their wrong place, they only damage their own cause by rousing indignation.[169] Under such circumstances as these, it is gratifying to see the public betray an interest in philosophy.

I have nevertheless one sad piece of news to communicate to our professors of philosophy. Their Caspar Hauser (according to Dorguth) whom they had so carefully secreted, so securely walled up for nearly forty years, that no sound could betray his existence to the world—their Caspar Hauser—I say, has escaped! He has escaped and is running about in the world;—some even say he is a prince. In plain language, the misfortune they feared more than anything has come to pass after all. In spite of their having done their best to prevent it for more than a generation by acting with united force, with rare constancy, secreting and ignoring to a degree that is without example, my books are beginning and henceforth will continue to be read. Legor et legar: there is no help for it. This is really dreadful and most inopportune; nay, it is a positive fatality, not to say calamity. Is this the recompense for all their faithful, snug secrecy; for having held so firmly and unitedly together? Poor time-servers! What becomes of Horace's assurance:—

For verily they have not been deficient in faithful reticence; rather do they excel in this quality wherever they scent [197] merit. And, after all, it is no doubt the cleverest artifice; for what no one knows, is as though it did not exist. Whether the merces will remain quite so tuta, seems rather doubtful—unless we are to take merces in a bad sense; and for this the support of many a classical authority might certainly be found. These gentlemen had seen quite rightly that the only means to be used against my writings, was to secrete them from the public by maintaining profound silence concerning them, while they kept up a loud noise at the birth of every misshapen offspring of professorial philosophy; as the voice of the new-born Zeus was drowned in days of yore by the clashing of the cymbals of the Corybantes. But this expedient is now used up; the secret is out—the public has discovered me. The rage of our professors of philosophy at this is great, but powerless; for their only effective resource, so long successfully employed, being exhausted, no snarling can avail any longer against my influence, and in vain do they now take this, or that, or the other attitude. They have certainly succeeded, so far as the generation which was properly speaking contemporaneous with my philosophy, went to the grave in ignorance of it. But this was a mere postponement, and Time has kept its word, as it always does.

Now there are two reasons why these gentlemen "in the philosophical trade"—as they call themselves with incredible naïveté—hate my philosophy. The first of them is, that my writings spoil the taste of the public for tissues of empty phrases, for accumulations of unmeaning words piled one upon another, for hollow, superficial, brain-racking twaddle, for Christian dogmatics under the disguise of the most wearisome Metaphysics, for systematized Philistinism of the flattest kind made to represent Ethics and even accompanied by instructions for card-playing and dancing—in short, they unfit my readers for the whole method of philosophising à la vieille femme, [198] which has scared so many for ever from the pursuit of philosophy.

The second reason is, that our gentlemen "in the trade" are absolutely bound in conscience not to let my philosophy pass and are therefore debarred from using it for the benefit of "the trade;"—and this they even heartily regret; for my abundance might have been admirably turned to account for the benefit of their own needy poverty. But even if it contained the greatest hoards of human wisdom ever unearthed, my doctrine could never find favour with them either now or in the future; for it is absolutely wanting in all Speculative Theology and Rational Psychology, and these, just these, are the very breath of life to these gentlemen, the sine qua non of their existence. For they are anxious before all things in heaven and on earth, to hold their official appointments, and these appointments demand before all things in heaven and on earth a Speculative Theology and a Rational Psychology: extra hæc non datur salus. Theology there must and shall be, no matter whence it come; Moses and the Prophets must be made out to be in the right: this is the highest principle in philosophy; and there must be Rational Psychology to boot, as is proper. Now there is nothing of the sort to be found either in Kant's philosophy or in mine. For, as we all know, the most cogent theological argumentation shivers to atoms like a glass thrown at a wall, when it is brought into contact with Kant's Critique of all Speculative Theology, and under his hands not a shred remains entire of the whole tissue of Rational Psychology! As to myself, being the bold continuer of Kant's philosophy, I have entirely done away with all Speculative Theology and all Rational Psychology, as is only consistent and honest.[170] On the other hand, the task incumbent upon University [199] Philosophy is at bottom this: to set forth the chief fundamental truths belonging to the Catechism under the veil of some very abstract, abstruse and difficult, therefore painfully wearisome formulas and sentences; wherefore, however confused, intricate, strange and eccentric the matter may seem at first sight, these truths invariably reveal themselves as its kernel. This proceeding may be useful, though to me it is unknown. All I know is, that philosophy, i.e. the search after truth—I mean the truth κατ' ἐξοχήν, by which the most sublime and important disclosures, more precious than anything else to the human race, are understood—will never advance a step, nay, an inch, by means of such manœuvring, by which its course is on the contrary impeded; therefore I found out long ago that University philosophy is the enemy of all genuine philosophy. Now, this being the state of the case, when a really honest philosophy arises, which seriously has truth for its sole aim, must not these gentlemen "of the philosophical trade" feel as might stage-knights in paste-board armour, were a knight suddenly to appear in the midst of them clad in real armour, who made the stage-floor creak under his ponderous tread? Such philosophy as this must therefore be bad and false and consequently places these gentlemen "of the trade" under the painful obligation of playing the part of him who, in order to appear what he is not, cannot allow others to pass for what they really are. Out of all this however there unrolls itself the amusing spectacle we enjoy, when these gentlemen, now that ignoring has unfortunately come to an end, after forty years, at last begin to measure me by their own puny standard and pass judgment upon me from the heights of their wisdom, as though they were amply qualified to do so by their office; but they are most amusing of all when they assume airs of superiority towards me.

Their abhorrence of Kant, though less openly expressed, [200] is scarcely less great than their hatred of me; precisely because all speculative Theology and all Rational Psychology—the bread-winners of these gentlemen—have been undermined, not to say irrevocably ruined, by him in the eyes of all serious thinkers. What! Not hate him? him, who has made their "trade in philosophy" so difficult to them, that they hardly see how to pull through honourably! So Kant and I are accordingly both bad, and these gentlemen quite overlook us. For nearly forty years they have not deigned to cast a glance upon me, and now they look down condescendingly upon Kant from the heights of their wisdom, smiling in pity at his errors. This policy is both very wise and very profitable; since they are thus able to hold forth at their ease volume after volume upon God and the soul, as if these were personalities with whom they were intimately acquainted, and to discourse upon the relation in which the former stands to the world and the latter to the body, just as if there had never been such a thing as a Critique of Pure Reason. When once the Critique of Pure Reason is done away with, all will go on splendidly! Now it is for this end that they have been endeavouring for many years quietly and gradually to set Kant aside, to make him obsolete, nay, to turn up their noses at him, and one being encouraged by the other in this, they are becoming bolder every day.[171] They have no opposition to fear from their own colleagues, since they all have the same aims and the same mission and all together form a numerous coterie, the brilliant members of which, coram populo, bow and scrape to each other on all sides. Thus by degrees things have come to such a point, that the wretchedest compilers of manuals have the presumption to treat Kant's grand, immortal discoveries as antiquated errors, nay, calmly to set them aside with the most [201] ludicrous arrogance and most impudent dicta of their own, which they nevertheless lay down under the disguise of argumentation, because they know they may count upon a credulous public, to whom Kant's writings are not known.[172] And this is what happens to Kant on the part of writers, whose total incapacity strikes us in every page, not to say every line, we read of their unmeaning, stupefying verbiage! Were this to go on much longer, Kant would present the spectacle of the dead lion being kicked by the donkey. Even in France there is no lack of fellow-workers inspired by a similar orthodoxy, who are labouring towards the same end. A certain M. Barthélemy de St. Hilaire, for instance, in a lecture delivered in the Académie des Sciences Morales in April, 1850, has presumed to criticize Kant with an air of condescension and to use most improper language in speaking of him; luckily however in such a way, that no one could fail to see the underlying purpose.[173]

Now others among our German "traders in philosophy" again try to get rid of the obnoxious Kant in a different way: instead of attacking his philosophy point-blank, they rather seek to undermine the foundations on which it is built. These people however are so utterly forsaken by all the gods and by all power of judgment, that they attack à priori truths: that is to say, truths as old as the human understanding, nay, which constitute that understanding [202] itself, and which it is therefore impossible to contradict without declaring war against that understanding also. So great however is the courage of these gentlemen. I am sorry to say I know of three,[174] and I am afraid there are a good many more at work at this undermining process, who have the incredible presumption to maintain the à posteriori origin of Space as a consequence, a mere relation, of the objects within it; for they assert that Space and Time are of empirical origin and attached to those bodies, so that [according to them] Space first arises through our perception of the juxtaposition of bodies and Time likewise through our perception of the succession of changes (sancta simplicitas! as if the words "collateral" and "successive" would have any sense for us without the antecedent intuitions of Space and of Time to give them a meaning); consequently, that if there were no bodies, there would be no Space, therefore if they disappeared Space also must lapse, and that if all changes were to stop, Time also would stop.[175]

And such stuff as this is gravely taught fifty years after Kant's death! The aim of it is, as we know, to undermine Kantian philosophy, and certainly if these propositions were true, one stroke would suffice to overthrow it. Fortunately [203] however these assertions are of a kind which is met by derision rather than by serious refutation. For, in them, the question is one of heresy, not so much against Kantian philosophy, as against common sense; and they are not so much an attack upon any particular philosophical dogma, as upon an à priori truth which, as such, constitutes human understanding itself, and therefore must be instantaneously evident to every one who is in his senses, just as much as that 2 × 2 = 4. Fetch me a peasant from the plough; make the question intelligible to him; and he will tell you, that even if all things in Heaven and on Earth were to vanish, Space would nevertheless remain, and that if all changes in Heaven and on Earth were to cease, Time would nevertheless flow on. Compared with German pseudo-philosophers like these, how estimable does a man like the French physicist Pouillet appear, who, though he never troubles his head about Metaphysics, is careful to incorporate two long paragraphs, one on l'Espace, the other on le Temps, in the first chapter of his well-known Manual, on which public instruction in France is based, where he shows that if all Matter were annihilated, Space would still remain, and that Space is infinite; and that if all changes ceased, Time would still pursue its course without end. Now here he does not appeal, as in all other cases, to experience, because in this case experience is not possible; yet he speaks with apodeictic certainty. For, as a physicist, professing a science which is absolutely immanent—i.e. limited to the reality that is empirically given—it never comes into his head to inquire whence he knows all this. It did come into Kant's head, and it was this very problem, clothed by him in the severe form of an inquiry as to the possibility of synthetical à priori judgments, that became the starting-point and the corner-stone of his immortal discoveries, or in other words, of Transcendental Philosophy which, precisely by answering [204] this question and others related to it, shows what is the nature of that empirical reality itself.[176]

And seventy years after the Critique of Pure Reason had appeared and filled the world with its fame, these gentlemen dare to serve up such gross absurdities, which were done away with long ago, and to return to former barbarism. If Kant were to come back and see all this mischief, he would feel like Moses on returning from Mount Sinai, when he found his people worshipping the golden calf, and dashed the Tables to pieces in his anger. But if Kant were to take things as tragically as Moses, I should console him with the words of Jesus Sirach:[177] "He that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in a slumber; [205] when he hath told his tale, he will say, 'What is the matter?'" For that diamond in Kant's crown, Transcendental Æsthetic, never has existed for these gentlemen—it is tacitly set aside, as non-avenue. I wonder what they think Nature means by producing the rarest of all her works, a great mind, one among so many hundreds of millions, if the worshipful company of numskulls are to be able at their pleasure and by their mere counter-assertion to annul the weightiest doctrines emanating from that mind, let alone to treat them with disregard and do as if they did not exist.

But this degenerate, barbarous state of philosophy which, in the present day, emboldens every tyro to hold forth at random upon subjects that have puzzled the greatest minds, is precisely a consequence still remaining of the impunity with which—thanks to the connivance of our professors of philosophy—that audacious scribbler, Hegel, has been allowed to flood the market with his monstrous vagaries and so to pass for the greatest of all philosophers for the last thirty years in Germany. Every one of course now thinks himself entitled to serve up confidently anything that may happen to come into his sparrow's brain.

Therefore, as I have said, the gentlemen of the 'philosophical trade' are anxious before all things to obliterate Kant's philosophy, in order to be able to return to the muddy canal of the old dogmatism and to talk at random to their heart's content upon the favourite subjects which are specially recommended to them: just as if nothing had happened and neither a Kant nor a Critical Philosophy had ever come into the world.[178] The affected veneration for, and laudation of, Leibnitz too, which has been showing itself everywhere for some years, proceed from the same [206] source. They like to place him in a line with, nay above, Kant, having at times the assurance to call him the greatest of all German philosophers. Now, compared with Kant, Leibnitz is a poor rushlight. Kant is a master-mind, to whom mankind is indebted for the discovery of never-to-be-forgotten truths. One of his chief merits is precisely, to have delivered us from Leibnitz and his subtleties: from pre-established harmonies, monads and identitas indiscernibilium. Kant has made philosophy serious and I am keeping it so. That these gentlemen should think differently is easily explained; for has not Leibnitz a central Monad and a Theodicée also, with which to deck it out? Now this is quite to the taste of my gentlemen 'of the philosophical trade.' It does not stand in the way of earning a honest livelihood; it allows one to subsist; whereas such a thing as Kant's "Critique of all Speculative Theology," makes one's hair stand on end. Kant is consequently a wrong-headed man and one to be set aside. Vivat Leibnitz! Vivat the 'philosophical trade!' Vivat old woman's philosophy! These gentlemen really imagine that, according to the standard of their own petty aims, they can obscure what is good, disparage what is great, and accredit what is false. They may perhaps succeed in doing so for a time, but certainly not in the long run, nor with impunity. Notwithstanding all their machinations and spiteful ignoring of me for forty years, have not even I at last made my way? During those forty years however I have learnt to appreciate Chamfort's words: "En examinant la ligue des sots contre les gens d'esprit, on croirait voir une conspiration de valets pour écarter les maîtres."

We do not care to have much to do with those whom we dislike. One of the consequences of this antipathy for Kant, therefore, has been an incredible ignorance of his doctrines. I can scarcely believe my eyes at times, when [207] I see certain proofs of this ignorance, and must here support my assertion by a few examples. First let me present a very singular specimen, though it is now some years old. In Professor Michelet's "Anthropology and Psychology" (p. 444), he states Kant's Categorical Imperative in the following words: "thou must, for thou canst" (du sollst, denn du kannst). This cannot be a lapsus calami, for he again states it in the same words in his "History of the Development of Modern German Philosophy" (p. 38),[179] published three years later. Letting alone the fact that he appears to have studied Kantian philosophy in Schiller's epigrams, he has thus turned the thing upside down, and expressed exactly the opposite of Kant's argument; evidently without having the slightest inkling of what Kant meant by that postulate of Freedom on the basis of his Categorical Imperative. None of Professor Michelet's colleagues, to my knowledge, have pointed out this mistake, but "hanc veniam damus, petimusque vicissim."—Another more recent instance. The above mentioned reviewer of Oersted's book (see note 1 (c), p. 202), to whose title the present treatise unfortunately had to stand godfather, comes in that work on the sentence that "bodies are spaces filled with force" (krafterfüllte Räume). This is new to him; so without the faintest suspicion that he has to do with a far-famed Kantian dogma, and taking this for a paradoxical opinion of Oersted's, he attacks it and argues against it bravely, persistently and repeatedly in both his reviews, which appeared at an interval of three years from one another, using arguments like these: "Force cannot fill Space without something substantial, Matter;" then again three years later: "Force in Space does not yet constitute any thing. [208] For Force to fill Space, there must be Substance, Matter. A mere force can never fill. Matter must be there for it to fill."—Bravo! my cobbler would use just such arguments as these.[180]—When I see specimina eruditionis of this sort, I begin to have my misgivings whether I did not do the man injustice by naming him among those who endeavour to undermine Kant; but in this, to be sure, I had in view his assertions that "Space is but the relation, the juxtaposition of things,"[181] and that "Space is a relation in which things stand, a juxtaposition of things. This juxtaposition ceases to be a conception as soon as the conception of Matter ceases."[182] For he might possibly have penned these sentences in sheer innocence, since he may have known no more of the "Transcendental Æsthetic" than of the "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science;" though to be sure, this would be rather extraordinary for a professor of philosophy. Now-a-days however we must not be surprised at anything. For all knowledge of Critical Philosophy has died out, in spite of its being the latest true philosophy that has appeared, and a doctrine withal, that has made a revolution and epoch in human knowledge and thought. Now therefore, since it has overthrown all previous systems, and since the knowledge of it has died out, philosophising no longer proceeds on the basis of any of the doctrines propounded by the great minds of the past, but becomes a mere random untutored process, having an ordinary education and the catechism for its foundation. Now that I have startled them however, our professors may perhaps take to studying Kant's works again. Still Lichtenberg says: [209] "Past a certain age, I think it as impossible to learn Kantian Philosophy as to learn rope-dancing."

I should certainly not have condescended to record the sins of these sinners had not the interests of truth required that I should do so, in order to show the state of degradation at which German Philosophy has arrived fifty years after Kant's death in consequence of the machinations of the gentlemen 'of the trade,' and also to show what would result, if these puny minds, who know nothing but their own ends, were to be suffered without hindrance to check the influence of the great geniuses who have illumined the world. I cannot look on at this in silence; it is rather a case to which Göthe's exhortation applies:

Dr. Martin Luther thought so also.

Hatred against Kant, hatred against me, hatred against truth, all however in majorem Dei gloriam, is what inspires these worthies who live on philosophy. Who can be so blind as not to see that University philosophy is the enemy of all true, serious philosophy, whose progress it feels bound to withstand? For a philosophy which deserves the name, is pure service of truth, therefore the most sublime of all human endeavours; but, as such, it is not adapted for a trade. Least of all can it have its seat in Universities, where a theological Faculty predominates and things are irrevocably decided beforehand ere philosophy comes to them. With Scholasticism, from which University philosophy descends, it was quite a different thing. Scholasticism was avowedly the ancilla theologiæ, so that here the name corresponded to the thing. Our University philosophy of to-day, on the contrary, disclaims [210] the connection, and professes independent research; yet in reality it is only the ancilla disguised, and it is intended no less than its predecessor to be the servant of Theology. Thus genuine, sincerely meant philosophy has an adversary under the guise of an ally in University philosophy. Therefore I said long ago, that nothing would be of greater benefit to philosophy than for it to cease altogether to be taught at Universities; and if at that time I still admitted the propriety of a brief, quite succinct course of History of Philosophy accompanying Logic—which undoubtedly ought to be taught at Universities—I have since withdrawn that hasty concession in consequence of the following disclosure made to us in the Göttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen of the 1st January, 1853, p. 8, by the Ordinarius loci (one who writes History of Philosophy in thick volumes): "It could not be mistaken that Kant's doctrine is ordinary Theism, and that it has contributed little or nothing towards transforming the current views on God and his relation to the world."—If this is the state of the case, Universities are in my opinion no longer the right place even for teaching History of Philosophy. There designs and intentions reign paramount. I had indeed long ago begun to suspect, that History of Philosophy was taught at our Universities in the same spirit and with the same granum salis as Philosophy itself, and it needed but very little to make my suspicions certainty. Accordingly it is my wish to see both Philosophy and its History disappear from the lecture-list, because I desire to rescue them from the tender mercies of our court-councillors.[183] But far be it from me, to wish to see our professors of philosophy removed from their thriving business at our Universities. On the contrary, what I should like would be, to see them promoted three degrees higher in dignity and raised to the highest faculty, as professors [211] of Theology. For at the bottom they have really been this for some time already, and have served quite long enough as volunteers.

Meanwhile my honest and kindly advice to the young generation is, not to waste any time with University philosophy, but to study Kant's works and my own instead. I promise them that there they will learn something substantial, that will bring light and order into their brains: so far at least as they may be capable of receiving them. It is not good to crowd round a wretched farthing rushlight when brilliant torches are close by; still less to run after will o' the wisps. Above all, my truth-seeking young friends, beware of letting our professors tell you what is contained in the Critique of Pure Reason. Read it yourselves, and you will find in it something very different from what they deem it advisable for you to know.—In our time a great deal too much study is generally devoted to the History of Philosophy; for this study, being adapted by its very nature to substitute knowledge for reflection, is just now cultivated downright with a view to making philosophy consist in its own history. It is not only of doubtful necessity, but even of questionable profit, to acquire a superficial half-knowledge of the opinions and systems of all the philosophers who have taught for 2,500 years; yet what more does the most honest history of philosophy give? A real knowledge of philosophers can only be acquired from their own works, and not from the distorted image of their doctrines as it is found in the commonplace head.[184] But it is really urgent that order should be brought into our heads by some sort of philosophy, and that we should at the same time learn [212] to look at the world with a really unbiassed eye. Now no philosophy is so near to us, both as regards time and language, as that of Kant, and it is at the same time a philosophy, compared with which all those which went before are superficial. On this account it is unhesitatingly to be preferred to all others.

But I perceive that the news of Caspar Hauser's escape has already spread among our professors of philosophy; for I see that some of them have already given vent to their feelings in bitter and venomous abuse of me in various periodicals, making up by falsehoods for their deficiency of wit.[185] Nevertheless I do not complain of all this, because I am rejoiced at the cause and amused by the effect of it, as illustrative of Göthe's verse:

Arthur Schopenhauer.

Frankfurt am Mein, August, 1854.

[213]

EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Schopenhauer has left an interleaved copy of his work "On the Will in Nature," as well as of his other writings, and has inserted in it those Corrections and Additions which he intended to use for the Third Edition. I have therefore included them in this Third Edition.

The Corrections chiefly concern the style, here and there an expression being changed, and a word inserted or omitted. The Additions, on the contrary, concern the matter of the book; they amplify it more or less considerably, and are tolerably numerous.

The Corrections are incorporated by Schopenhauer with the text; whereas the Additions are designated by him as "Notes" (Anmerkungen) to be placed at the foot of the pages with the words, "added to the third edition." They will therefore be found at the places indicated by him for them, as foot-notes; and thus the reader will be enabled easily to discern how much has been added in this edition.

As to the value of the present work, Schopenhauer has expressed himself as follows in the "World as Will and Representation:"

"It would be a great mistake to consider the foreign deliverances with which I have connected my own exposition there (in the work "On the Will in Nature") as the real substance and argument of that work which, though [214] small in size, is weighty in import. They are rather a mere occasion which I take as my starting-point in order to expound the fundamental truth of my doctrine more clearly there than has been done anywhere else, and to apply it all the way down even to the empirical knowledge of Nature. This I have done most exhaustively and stringently under the heading "Physical Astronomy," nor can I ever hope to find a more correct or accurate expression for the kernel of my doctrine than the one given there."[186]

I have nothing to add to testimony thus given by Schopenhauer himself.

Julius Frauenstädt.

Berlin, March, 1867.

EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

The present Fourth Edition is an identical reprint of the Third: it therefore contains the same Corrections and Additions which I had already inserted in the Third Edition from Schopenhauer's own manuscript.

Julius Frauenstädt.

Berlin, September, 1877.

[215]

THE WILL IN NATURE.

INTRODUCTION.

I break silence after seventeen years,[187] in order to point out to the few who, in advance of the age, may have given their attention to my philosophy, sundry corroborations which have been contributed to it by unbiassed empiricists, unacquainted with my writings, who, in pursuing their own road in search of merely empirical knowledge, discovered at its extreme end what my doctrine has propounded as the Metaphysical (das Metaphysische), from which the explanation of experience as a whole must come. This circumstance is the more encouraging, as it confers upon my system a distinction over all hitherto existing ones; for all the other systems, even the latest—that of Kant—still leave a wide gap between their results and experience, and are far from coming down directly to, and into contact with, experience. By this my Metaphysic proves itself to be the only one having an extreme point in common with the physical sciences: a point up to which these sciences come to meet it by their own paths, so as [216] really to connect themselves and to harmonize with it. Moreover this is not brought about by twisting and straining the empirical sciences in order to adapt them to Metaphysic, nor by Metaphysic having been secretly abstracted from them beforehand and then, à la Schelling, finding à priori what it had learnt à posteriori. On the contrary, both meet at the same point of their own accord, yet without collusion. My system therefore, far from soaring above all reality and all experience, descends to the firm ground of actuality, where its lessons are continued by the Physical Sciences.

Now the extraneous and empirical corroborations I am about to bring forward, all concern the kernel and chief point of my doctrine, its Metaphysic proper. They concern, that is, the paradoxical fundamental truth,

that what Kant opposed as thing in itself to mere phenomenon—called more decidedly by me representation—and what he held to be absolutely unknowable, that this thing in itself, this substratum of all phenomena, and therefore of the whole of Nature, is nothing but what we know directly and intimately and find within ourselves as the will;[188]

that accordingly, this will, far from being inseparable from, and even a mere result of, knowledge, differs radically and entirely from, and is quite independent of, knowledge, which is secondary and of later origin; and can consequently subsist and manifest itself without knowledge: a thing which actually takes place throughout the whole of Nature, from the animal kingdom downwards;

that this will, being the one and only thing in itself, the [217] sole truly real, primary, metaphysical thing in a world in which everything else is only phenomenon—i.e. mere representation—gives all things, whatever they may be, the power to exist and to act;

that accordingly, not only the voluntary actions of animals, but the organic mechanism, nay even the shape and quality of their living body, the vegetation of plants and finally, even in inorganic Nature, crystallization, and in general every primary force which manifests itself in physical and chemical phenomena, not excepting Gravity,—that all this, I say, in itself, i.e. independently of phenomenon (which only means, independently of our brain and its representations), is absolutely identical with the will we find within us and know as intimately as we can know anything;

that further, the individual manifestations of the will are set in motion by motives in beings gifted with an intellect, but no less by stimuli in the organic life of animals and of plants, and finally in all inorganic Nature, by causes in the narrowest sense of the word—these distinctions applying exclusively to phenomena;

that, on the other hand, knowledge with its substratum, the intellect, is a merely secondary phenomenon, differing completely from the will, only accompanying its higher degrees of objectification and not essential to it; which, as it depends upon the manifestations of the will in the animal organism, is therefore physical, and not, like the will, metaphysical;

that we are never able therefore to infer absence of will from absence of knowledge; for the will may be pointed out even in all phenomena of unconscious Nature, whether in plants or in inorganic bodies; in short,

[218] that the will is not conditioned by knowledge, as has hitherto been universally assumed, although knowledge is conditioned by the will.

Now this fundamental truth, which even to-day sounds so like a paradox, is the part of my doctrine to which, in all its chief points, the empirical sciences—themselves ever eager to steer clear of all Metaphysic—have contributed just as many confirmations forcibly elicited by the irresistible cogency of truth, but which are most surprising on account of the quarter whence they proceed; and although they have certainly come to light since the publication of my chief work, it has been quite independently of it and as the years went on. Now, that it should be precisely this fundamental doctrine of mine which has thus met with confirmation, is advantageous in two respects. First, because it is the main thought upon which my system is founded; secondly, because it is the only part of my philosophy that admits of confirmation through sciences which are alien to, and independent of, it. For although the last seventeen years, during which I have been constantly occupied with this subject, have, it is true, brought me many corroborations as to other parts, such as Ethics, Æsthetics, Dianoiology; still these, by their very nature, pass at once from the sphere of actuality, whence they arise, to that of philosophy itself: so they cannot claim to be extraneous evidence, nor can they, as collected by me, have the same irrefragable, unequivocal cogency as those concerning Metaphysics proper which are given by its correlate Physics (in the wide sense of the word which the Ancients gave it). For, in pursuing its own road, Physics, i.e., Natural Science as a whole, must in all its branches finally come to a point where physical explanation ceases. Now this is precisely the Metaphysical, which Natural Science only apprehends as the impassable barrier at which it stops short and henceforth abandons its [219] subject to Metaphysics. Kant therefore was quite right in saying: "It is evident, that the primary sources of Nature's agency must absolutely belong to the sphere of Metaphysics."[189] Physical science is wont to designate this unknown, inaccessible something, at which its investigations stop short and which is taken for granted in all its explanations, by such terms as physical force, vital force, formative principle, &c. &c., which in fact mean no more than x, y, z. Now if nevertheless, in single, propitious instances, specially acute and observant investigators succeed in casting as it were a furtive glance behind the curtain which bounds off the domain of Natural Science, and are able not only to feel it is a barrier but, in a sense, to obtain a view of its nature and thus to peep into the metaphysical region beyond; if moreover, having acquired this privilege, they explicitly designate the limit thus explored downright as that which is stated to be the true inner essence and final principle of all things by a system of Metaphysics unknown to them, which takes its reasons from a totally different sphere and, in every other respect, recognises all things merely as phenomena, i.e., as representation—then indeed the two bodies of investigators must feel like two mining engineers driving a gallery, who, having started from two points far apart and worked for some time in subterranean darkness, trusting exclusively to compass and spirit-level, suddenly to their great joy catch the sound of each other's hammers. For now indeed these investigators know, that the point so long vainly sought for has at last been reached at which Metaphysics and Physics meet—they, who were as hard to bring together as Heaven and Earth—that a reconciliation has been initiated and a connection found between these two sciences. But the philosophical system which has witnessed this triumph receives by it the strongest and most [220] satisfactory proof possible of its own truth and accuracy. Compared with such a confirmation as this, which may, in fact, be looked upon as equivalent to proving a sum in arithmetic, the regard or disregard of a given period of time loses all importance, especially when we consider what has been the subject of interest meanwhile and find it to be—the sort of philosophy we have been treated to since Kant. The eyes of the public are gradually opening to the mystification by which it has been duped for the last forty years under the name of philosophy, and this will be more and more the case. The day of reckoning is at hand, when it will see whether all this endless scribbling and quibbling since Kant has brought to light a single truth of any kind. I may thus be dispensed from the obligation of entering here into subjects so unworthy; the more so, as I can accomplish my purpose more briefly and agreeably by narrating the following anecdote. During the carnival, Dante having lost himself in a crowd of masks, the Duke of Medici ordered him to be sought for. Those commissioned to look for him, being doubtful whether they would be able to find him, as he was himself masked, the Duke gave them a question to put to every mask they might meet who resembled Dante. It was this: "Who knows what is good?" After receiving several foolish answers, they finally met with a mask who replied: "He that knows what is bad," by which Dante was immediately recognised.[190] What is meant by this here is, that I have seen no reason to be disheartened on account of the want of sympathy of my contemporaries, since I had at the same time before my eyes the objects of their sympathy. What those authors were, posterity will see by their works; what the contemporaries were, will be seen by the reception they gave to those works. My doctrine lays no claim whatever [221] to the name "Philosophy of the present time" which was disputed to the amusing adepts of Hegel's mystification; but it certainly does claim the title of "Philosophy of time to come:" that is, of a time when people will no longer content themselves with a mere jingle of words without meaning, with empty phrases and trivial parallelisms, but will exact real contents and serious disclosures from philosophy, while, on the other hand, they will exempt it from the unjust and preposterous obligation of paraphrasing the national religion for the time being. "For it is an extremely absurd thing," says Kant,[191] "to expect to be enlightened by Reason and yet to prescribe to her beforehand on which side she must incline."—It is indeed sad to live in an age so degenerate, that it should be necessary to appeal to the authority of a great man to attest so obvious a truth. But it is absurd to expect marvels from a philosophy that is chained up, and particularly amusing to watch the solemn gravity with which it sets to work to accomplish great things, when we all know beforehand "the short meaning of the long speech."[192] However the keen-sighted assert that under the cloak of philosophy they can mostly detect theology holding forth for the edification of students thirsting after truth, and instructing them after its own fashion;—and this again reminds us forcibly of a certain favourite scene in Faust. Others, who think that they see still further into the matter, maintain that what is thus disguised is neither theology nor philosophy, but simply a poor devil who, while solemnly protesting that he has lofty, sublime truth for his aim, is in fact only striving to get bread for himself and for his future young family. This he might no doubt obtain by other means with less labour and more dignity; meanwhile however for [222] this price he is ready to do anything he is asked to do, even to deduce à priori, nay, should it come to the worst, to perceive, the 'Devil and his dam,' by intellectual intuition—and here indeed the exceedingly comical effect is brought to a climax by the contrast between the sublimity of the ostensible, and the lowliness of the real, aim. It remains nevertheless desirable, that the pure, sacred precincts of philosophy should be cleansed of all such traders, as was the temple of Jerusalem in former times of the buyers and sellers.—Biding such better times therefore, may our philosophical public bestow its attention and interest as it has done hitherto. May it continue as before invariably naming Fichte as an obligato accompaniment to, and in the same breath with, Kant—that great mind, produced but once by Nature, which has illumined its own depth—as if forsooth they were of the same kind; and this without a single voice being heard to exclaim in protest Ἡρακλῆς καὶ πίθηκος! May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense—three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies—continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus.—May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour."—For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course. In all times some such thing occupies the contemporary public more or less noisily; then it dies off so completely, vanishes so entirely, without [223] leaving a trace behind, that the next generation no longer knows what it was. Truth can bide its time, for it has a long life before it. Whatever is genuine and seriously meant, is always slow to make its way and certainly attains its end almost miraculously; for on its first appearance it as a rule meets with a cool, if not ungracious, reception: and this for exactly the same reason that, when once it is fully recognised and has passed on to posterity, the immense majority of men take it on credit, in order to avoid compromising themselves, whereas the number of genuine appreciators remains nearly as small as it was at first. These few nevertheless suffice to make the truth respected, for they are themselves respected. And thus it is passed from hand to hand through centuries over the heads of the inept multitude: so hard is the existence of mankind's best inheritance!—On the other hand, if truth had to crave permission to be true from such as have quite different aims at heart, its cause might indeed be given up for lost; for then it might often be dismissed with the witches' watch-word: "fair is foul, and foul is fair." Luckily however this is not the case. Truth depends upon no one's favour or disfavour, nor does it ask anyone's leave: it stands upon its own feet, and has Time for its ally; its power is irresistible, its life indestructible.

[224]

PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

In classifying the above-mentioned empirical corroborations of my doctrine according to the sciences from which they come, while I take the graduated order of Nature from the highest to the lowest degree as a guiding-thread to my expositions, I must first mention a very striking confirmation lately received by my chief dogma in the physiological and pathological views of Dr. J. D. Brandis, private physician to the King of Denmark, a veteran in science, whose "Essay on Vital Force" (1795) had received Reil's hearty commendation. In his two latest writings: "Experiences in the Application of Cold in Disease" (Berlin, 1833), and "Nosology and Therapeutics of Cachexiæ" (1834), we find him in the most emphatic and striking manner stating the primary source of all vital functions to be an unconscious will, from which he derives all processes in the machinery of the organism, in health as well as in disease, and which he represents as the primum mobile of life. I must support this by literal quotations from these essays, since few save medical readers are likely to have them at hand.

In the first of them, p. viii., we find: "The essence of every living organism consists in the will to maintain its own existence as much as possible over against the macrocosm;"—p. x.: "Only one living entity, one will can be in an organ at the same time; therefore if there is a diseased will in disagreement with the rest of the body in the organ of the skin, we may hold it in check by applying [225] cold as long as the generation of warmth, a normal will, can be induced by it." P. 1: "If we are forced to the conviction that there must be a determining principle—a will, in every vital action, by which the development suited to the whole organism is occasioned, and each metamorphosis of the parts conditioned, in harmony with the whole individuality, and likewise that there is a something capable of being determined and developed," &c. &c.—P. 11: "With respect to individual life, the element which determines, the organic will, if it is to rest satisfied, must be able to attain what it wants from that which has to be determined. This occurs even when the vital movements are over-excited, as in inflammation: something new is formed, the noxious element is expelled; new plastic materials are meanwhile conveyed through the arteries, more venous blood is carried off, until the process of inflammation is finished and the organic will satisfied. It is however possible to excite this will to such a degree, as to make satisfaction impossible. This exciting cause (or stimulus) either acts directly upon the particular organ (poison, contagion) or it affects the whole life; and this life then begins to make the most strenuous efforts to rid itself of the noxious element or to modify the disposition of the organic will, and provokes critical vital activity in particular parts (inflammations) or yields to the unappeased will."—P. 12: "The insatiable will acts destructively upon the organism unless either (a) the whole life, in its efforts to attain unity (tendency to adapt means to end), produces other activities requiring satisfaction (crises et lyses) which hold that will in check—called decisive (crises completæ) when quite successful; crises incompletæ, when only partially so—or (b) some other stimulus (medicine) produces another will which represses the diseased one. If we place this in one and the same category with the will of which we have become conscious through our own representations, and [226] bear in mind that here there can be no question of more or less distant resemblance, we gain the conviction that we have grasped the fundamental conception of the one unlimited, therefore indivisible, life which, according to its different manifestations in various more or less endowed and exercised organs, is just as able to make hair grow on the human body as to combine the most sublime representations. We see that the most violent passion—unsatisfied will—may be checked by more or less strong excitement," &c. &c.—P. 18: "The determining element—this organic will without representation, this tendency to preserve the organism as a unity—is induced by outward temperature to modify its activity now in the same, now in a remoter organ. Every manifestation of life, however, whether in health or in disease, is a manifestation of the organic will: this will determines vegetation: in a healthy condition, in harmony with the unity of the whole; in an unhealthy one ... it is induced not to will in harmony with that unity" ...—P. 23: "Cold suddenly applied to the skin suppresses its function (chill); cold drinks check the organic will in the digestive organs and thereby intensify that of the skin and produce perspiration; just so with the diseased organic will: cold checks cutaneous eruptions," &c. &c.—P. 33: "Fever is the complete participation of the whole vital process in a diseased will, i.e. it is to the entire vital process what inflammation is to particular organs—the effort of our vitality to form something definite, in order to content the diseased will and remove the noxious element.—We call this process of formation crisis or lysis (turning-point or release). The first perception of the pernicious element which causes the diseased will, affects the individuality just in the same way as a noxious element apprehended by our senses, before we have brought to clear representation the entire relation in which it stands to our individuality and the means of [227] removing it. It creates terror and its consequences, a standstill of the vital process in the parenchyma, especially in the parts directed towards the outer world; in the skin, and in all the motor muscles belonging to the entire individuality (outer body): shuddering, chills, trembling, pains in the limbs, &c. &c. The difference between them is, that in the latter case the noxious element, either at once or gradually, becomes clear representation, because it is compared with the individuality by means of all the senses, so that its relation to that individuality can be determined, and the means of protection against it (disregard, flight, warding off, defence, &c.) be brought to a conscious will; whereas, in the former case, we remain unconscious of that noxious element, and it is life alone (or Nature's curative power) which is striving to remove the noxious element and thereby to content the diseased will. Nor must this be taken for a simile; it is, on the contrary, a true description of the manifestation of life."—P. 58: "We must however always bear in mind, that cold acts here as a powerful stimulus to check or moderate the diseased will and to rouse in its place a natural will, accompanied by general warmth."—

In almost every page of this book similar expressions are to be found. In the second of the Essays I have named, Brandis no longer combines the explanation by the will so universally with each separate analysis, probably in consideration that this explanation is properly speaking, a metaphysical one. Nevertheless he maintains it entirely and completely, giving it even all the more distinct and decided expression, wherever he states it. Thus, for instance, in § 68 et seq. he speaks of an "unconscious will, which cannot be separated from the conscious one," and is the primum mobile of all life, as well in plants as in animals; for, in these, it is a desire and aversion manifesting itself in all the organs which determines all their vital [228] processes, secretions, &c. &c.—§. 71: "All convulsions prove that the manifestation of the will can take place without distinct power of representation."—§. 72: "Everywhere do we meet with a spontaneous, uncommunicated activity, now determined by the sublimest human free will, now by animal desire and aversion, now again by simple, more vegetative requirements; which activity, in order to maintain itself, calls forth several other kinds of activity in the unity of the individual."—P. 96: "A creative, spontaneous, uncommunicated activity shows itself in every vital manifestation." ...—"The third factor in this individual creation is the will, the individual's life itself." ...—"The nerves are the conductors of this individual creation: by their means form and mixture are varied according to desire and aversion."—P. 97: "Assimilation of foreign substance ... makes the blood.... It is not an absorption or an exudation of organic matter; ... on the contrary, here the sole factor of the phenomenon is in all cases the creative will, a life which cannot be brought back to any sort of imparted movement."—

When I wrote this (1835) I was still naïf enough seriously to believe that Brandis was unacquainted with my work, or I should not allude here to his writings; for they would then be merely a repetition, application and carrying out of my own doctrine on this point, not a corroboration of it. But I thought I might safely assume that he did not know me, because he has not mentioned me anywhere and because if he had known me, literary honesty would have made it his imperative duty not to remain silent concerning the man from whom he had borrowed his chief fundamental thought, the more so as he saw that man then enduring unmerited neglect, by his writings being generally ignored—a circumstance which might be construed [229] as favourable to fraud. Add to this, that it lay in Brandis' own interest as a writer, and would therefore have shown sagacity on his part, to have appealed to me as an authority. For the fundamental doctrine propounded by him is so striking and paradoxical, that even his Göttingen reviewer is amazed and hardly knows what to think of it; yet such a doctrine as this was left without foundation either through proof or induction, nor did Dr. Brandis establish its relation to the whole of our knowledge of Nature: he simply asserted it. I imagined therefore that it was by the peculiar gift of divination, which enables eminent physicians to see and do the right thing in cases of illness, that he had been led to this view, without being able to give a strict and methodical account of the grounds of this really metaphysical truth, although he must have seen how greatly it is opposed to the generally received views. Had he, thought I, been acquainted with my philosophy, which gives far greater extension to this truth, makes it valid for the whole of Nature and founds it both by proof and induction in close connection with Kant's teaching, from which it proceeds as a final result of excogitation—how gladly must he have availed himself of such confirmation and support, rather than to stand alone by an unheard-of assertion which was never further carried out and, with him, never went beyond bare assertion. Such were the reasons that led me to believe myself entitled to take for granted Dr. Brandis' ignorance of my book.

Since then however I have become better acquainted with German scientists and Copenhagen Academicians, to which body Dr. Brandis belonged, and have gained the conviction that he knew me very well indeed. I stated my reasons for arriving at this conviction already in 1844 in the 2nd vol. of "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,"[193] so that, as the subject is by no means edifying, it is needless [230] to repeat them here; I will merely add that I have since been assured on trustworthy authority that Dr. Brandis not only knew my work but even possessed it, as it was found among his property after his death.—The unmerited obscurity to which writers like myself are long condemned, encourages such people to appropriate their thoughts without so much as naming them.

Another medical authority has carried this even farther; for, not content with the thought alone, he has appropriated to himself the expression of it also. I allude to Professor Anton Rosas of the University of Vienna, whose entire § 507 in the 1st vol. of his Textbook of Ophthalmology[194] (1830) is copied word for word from pp. 14-16 of my treatise "On Vision and Colours" (1816) without any mention whatever of me, or even the slightest hint that he is using the words of another. This sufficiently accounts for the care he has taken not to mention my treatise among the lists of twenty-one writings on Colours and forty on the Physiology of the Eye, which he gives in §§ 542 and 567; a caution which was however all the more advisable, as he had appropriated to himself a good deal more out of that pamphlet without mentioning me. All that is referred, for instance, in § 526 to 'them' (man), is only applicable to me. His entire § 527 is copied almost literally from my pp. 59 and 60. The theory which he introduces without further ceremony in § 535 by the word "evidently": that is, that yellow is 3/4 and violet 1/4 of the eye's activity, never was 'evident' to anyone until I made it so; even to this day it is a truth known to few and acknowledged by fewer still, and much is yet wanting—for example, that I should be dead and buried—ere it be possible to call it 'evident' without further ceremony. The matter will even have to wait till after my death to be seriously sifted, since a close investigation might easily bring to 'evidence' the real difference [231] between Newton's theory of colours and my own, which is simply that his is false, and mine true: a discovery which could not fail to mortify my contemporaries. Wherefore, according to ancient custom, all serious examination into the question is wisely postponed for these few years. Professor Rosas knew no such policy as this and, as the matter was not alluded to anywhere, thought himself entitled, like the Danish Academician, to claim it as lawful prey (de bonne prise). Evidently North and South German honesty had not yet come to a satisfactory understanding.—Moreover the whole contents of §§ 538, 539 and 540 in Professor Rosas' book are taken from my pamphlet, nay even in great part copied word for word from my § 13. Still once, where he stands in need of a voucher for a fact, he finds himself obliged to refer to my treatise: that is, in his § 531; and it is most amusing to see the way in which he even brings in the numerical fractions used by me, as a result of my theory, to express all colours. It had probably occurred to him, that appropriating them quite sans façon might be a delicate matter, so he says, p. 308: "If we wished to express in numbers the first-mentioned relation in which colours stand to white, assuming white to be = 1, the following scale of proportion might by the way be adopted (as has already been done by Schopenhauer):

yellow= 3/4

orange= 2/3

red= 1/2

green= 1/2

blue= 1/3

violet= 1/4

black= 0"

Now I should like to know how anyone could do this by the way, without having first thought out my whole colour-theory, to which alone these numbers refer, and apart from which they are mere abstract numbers without meaning; above all, how anyone could do it who, like Professor Rosas, professes to be a follower of Newton's [232] colour-theory, with which these numbers are in direct contradiction? Finally, I should like to know how it came, that during the thousands of years in which men have thought and written, no one but myself and Professor Rosas should ever have thought of using just these particular fractions to denote colours? For the words I have quoted above tell us, that he would have stated those fractions precisely as he has done, even had I not chanced to do it 'already' fourteen years before and thus needlessly anticipated his statement; they also tell us, that all that is required is 'to wish,' in order to do so. Now it is precisely in these numerical fractions that the secret of colours lies: by them alone can we rightly solve the mystery of their nature and of their difference from one another.—I should however be heartily glad, were plagiarism the worst kind of dishonesty that defiled German literature; there are others far more mischievous, which penetrate more deeply, and to which plagiarism bears the same proportion as picking pockets in a mild way to capital crime. I allude to that mean, despicable spirit, whose loadstar is personal interest, when it ought to be truth, and in which the voice of intention makes itself heard beneath the mask of insight. Double-dealing and time-serving are the order of the day. Tartuffe comedies are performed without rouge; nay, Capuchin sermons are preached in halls consecrated to Science; enlightenment, that once revered word, has become a term of opprobrium; the greatest thinkers of the past century, Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, are slandered—those heroes, ornaments and benefactors of mankind, whose fame, diffused throughout both hemispheres, can only be increased, if by anything, by the fact that wherever and whenever obscurantists show themselves, it is as their bitterest enemies—and with good reason. Literary coteries and associations are formed to deal out praise and blame, and spurious merit is then trumpeted [233] forth and extolled, while sterling merit is slandered or, as Göthe says, "secreted, by means of an inviolable silence, in which sort of inquisitorial censure the Germans have attained great proficiency."[195] The motives and considerations however from which all this proceeds, are of too low a nature for me to care to enumerate them in detail. But what a difference there is between periodicals such as the "Edinburgh Review," in which gentlemen of independent means are induced to write by a genuine interest in the subjects treated, and which honourably upholds its noble motto taken from Publius Syrus: Judex damnnatur cum nocens absolvitur, and our mean-spirited, disingenuous, German literary journals, full of considerations and intentions, that are mostly compiled for the sake of pay by hired editors, and ought properly to have for their motto: Accedas socius laudes, lauderis, ut absens.[196] Now, after twenty years, do I understand what Göthe said to me at Berka in 1814. As I found him reading Madame de Staël's "De l'Allemagne," I remarked in course of conversation that she had given too exaggerated a description of German honesty and one that might mislead foreigners. He laughed and said: "Yes, to be sure, they will not secure their baggage behind and will have it cut off." He then added in a graver tone: "But one has to know German literature in order to realise the full extent of German dishonesty."—All well and good! But the most revolting kind of dishonesty in German literature is that of the time-servers, who pass themselves off for philosophers, while in reality they are obscurantists. The word 'time-serving' no more needs explanation than the thing needs a proof; for anyone who had the face to deny it would furnish strong evidence in support of [234] my present argument. Kant taught, that man ought to use his fellow-man only as an end, never as a means: he did not think it necessary to say, that philosophy ought only to be dealt with as an end, never as a means. Time-serving may after all be excused under every garb, the cowl as well as the ermine, save only the philosopher's cloak (Tribonion); for he who has once assumed this, has sworn allegiance to truth, and from that moment every other consideration, no matter of what kind, becomes base treachery. Therefore it was that Socrates did not shun the hemlock, nor Bruno the stake, while 'for a piece of bread these men will transgress.' Are they too short-sighted to see posterity close at hand, with the history of philosophy at its side, recording two lines of bitter condemnation with unflinching hand and iron pen in its immortal pages? Or has this no sting for them?—Well to be sure, if it comes to the worst, 'après moi le déluge' may be pronounced; but as to 'après moi le mépris,' that is a more difficult matter. Therefore I fancy they will answer that austere judge as follows: "Ah, dear posterity and history of philosophy! you are quite wrong to take us in earnest; we are not philosophers at all, Heaven forbid! No, we are only professors of philosophy, mere servants of the state, mere philosophers in jest. You might as well drag puppet-knights in pasteboard armour into a real tournament." Then the judge will most likely see how matters stand, erase all their names, and confer upon them the beneficium perpetui silentii.

From this digression—to which I had been led away eighteen years ago, by the cant and time-serving I then witnessed, though they were not nearly as flourishing then as they are now—I return to that part of my doctrine which Dr. Brandis has confirmed, though he did not originate it, in order to add a few explanations with which I shall then connect some further corroborations it has since received from Physiology.

[235] The three assumptions which are criticised by Kant in his Transcendental Dialectic under the names of Ideas of Reason, and have in consequence since been set aside in theoretical philosophy, had always stood in the way of a deeper insight into Nature, until that great thinker brought about a complete transformation in philosophy. That supposed Idea of Reason, the soul: that metaphysical being, in it whose absolute singleness knowing and willing were knit and blended together to eternal, inseparable unity, was an impediment of this sort for the subject-matter of this chapter. As long as it lasted, no philosophical Physiology was possible: the less so, as its correlate, real, purely passive Matter, had necessarily also to be assumed together with it, as the substance of the body.[197] It was this Idea of Reason, the soul, therefore, that caused the celebrated chemist and physiologist, George Ernest Stahl, at the beginning of the last century to miss the discovery of the truth he so nearly approached and would have quite reached, had he been able to put that which is alone metaphysical, the bare will—as yet without intellect—in the place of the anima rationalis. Under the influence of this Idea of Reason however, he could not teach anything but that it is this simple, rational soul which builds itself a body, all whose inner organic functions it directs and performs, yet has no knowledge or consciousness of all this, although knowledge is the fundamental destination and, as it were, the substance, of its being. There was something absurd in this doctrine which made it utterly untenable. It was superseded by Haller's Irritability and Sensibility, which, to be sure, are taken in a purely empirical sense, but, to make up for this, are also two qualitates occultæ, at which all explanation ceases. The movement of the heart and of the intestines was now attributed to Irritability. But the anima rationalis still remained in undiminished honour [236] and dignity as a visitor at the house of the body.[198]—"Truth lies at the bottom of a well," said Democritus; and the centuries with a sigh, have repeated his words. But small wonder, if it gets a rap on the knuckles as soon as it tries to come out!

The fundamental truth of my doctrine, which places that doctrine in opposition with all others that have ever existed, is the complete separation between the will and the intellect, which all philosophers before me had looked upon as inseparable; or rather, I ought to say that they had regarded the will as conditioned by, nay, mostly even as a mere function of, the intellect, assumed by them to be the fundamental substance of our spiritual being. But this separation, this analysis into two heterogeneous elements, of the ego or soul, which had so long been deemed an indivisible unity, is, for philosophy, what the analysis of water has been for chemistry, though it may take time to be acknowledged. With me, that which is eternal and indestructible in man, therefore, that which constitutes his vital principle, is not the soul, but—if I may use a chemical term—its radical: and this is the will. The so-called soul is already a compound: it is the union of the will and the intellect (νούς). This intellect is the secondary element, the posterius of the organism and, as a mere cerebral function, is conditioned by the organism; whereas the will is what is primary, the prius of the organism, which is conditioned by it. For the will is that thing in itself, which only becomes apparent as an organic body in our representation (that mere function of the brain): it is only through the forms of knowledge (or cerebral function), that is, only in our representation—not apart from that representation, not immediately in our self-consciousness—that our body is given to each of us as a thing which has extension, limbs [237] and organs. As the actions of our body are only acts of volition portraying themselves in representation, so likewise is their substratum, the shape of that body, in the main the portrait of the will: so that, in all the organic functions of our body, the will is just as much the agent as in its external actions. True Physiology, at its highest, shows the spiritual (the intellectual) in man to be the product of the physical in him, and no one has done this so thoroughly as Cabanis; but true Metaphysic teaches us, that the physical in man is itself mere product, or rather phenomenon, of a spiritual (the will); nay, that Matter itself is conditioned by representation, in which alone it exists. Perception and reflection will more and more find their explanation through the organism; but not the will, by which conversely the organism is explained, as I shall show in the following chapter. First of all therefore I place the will, as thing in itself and quite primary; secondly, its mere visibility, its objectification: i.e. the body; thirdly, the intellect, as a mere function of one part of that body. This part is itself the objectified will to know (the will to know having entered into representation), since the will needs knowledge to attain its own ends. Now the entire world as representation, together with the body itself therefore, inasmuch as it is a perceptible object, nay, Matter in general as existing only in representation,—all this, I say, is again conditioned by that function; for, duly considered, we cannot possibly conceive an objective world without a Subject, in whose consciousness it is present. Thus knowledge and matter (Subject and Object) exist only relatively one for the other and constitute phenomenon. The whole thing therefore, owing to the radical change made by me, stands in a different light from that in which it has hitherto been regarded.

As soon as it is directed outwardly and acts upon a [238] recognised object, as soon therefore as it has passed through the medium of knowledge, we all recognise the will at once to be the active principle, and call it by its right name. Yet it is no less active in those inner processes which have preceded such outward actions as their conditions: in those, for instance, which create and maintain organic life and its substratum; and the circulation of the blood, secretion, digestion, &c. &c., are its work likewise. But just because the will was only recognised as the active principle in those cases in which it abandons the individual whence it proceeds, in order to direct itself towards the outer world—now presenting itself precisely for this end, as perception—knowledge has been taken for its essential condition, its sole element, nay, as the substance of which it consists: and hereby was perpetrated the greatest ὕστερον πρότερον that has ever been.

But before all things we must learn to distinguish will [Wille] (voluntas) from free-will [Willkühr] (arbitrium)[199] and to understand that the former can subsist without the latter; this however presupposes my whole philosophy. The will is called free-will when it is illumined by knowledge, therefore when the causes which move it are motives: that is, representations. Objectively speaking this means: when the influence from outside which causes the act, has a brain for its mediator. A motive may be defined [239] as an external stimulus, whose action first of all causes an image to arise in the brain, through the medium of which the will carries out the effect proper—an outward action of the body. Now, in the human species however, the place of such an image as this may be taken by a conception drawn from former images of this kind by dropping their differences, which conception consequently is no longer perceptible, but merely denoted and fixed by words. As the action of motives accordingly does not depend upon contact, they can try their power on the will against each other: in other words, they permit a certain choice which, in animals, is limited to the narrow sphere of that which has perceptible existence for them; whereas, in man, its range comprises the vast extent of all that is thinkable: that is, of his conceptions. Accordingly we designate as voluntary those movements which are occasioned, not by causes in the narrowest sense of the word, as in inorganic bodies, nor even by mere stimuli, as in plants, but by motives.[200] These motives however presuppose an intellect as their mediator, through which causality here acts, without prejudice to its entire necessity in all other respects. Physiologically, the difference between stimulus and motive admits also of the following definition. The stimulus provokes immediate reaction, which proceeds from the very part on which the stimulus has acted; whereas the motive is a stimulus that has to go a roundabout way through the brain, where its action first causes an image to arise, which then, but not till then, provokes the consequent reaction, which is now called an act of volition, and voluntary. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary movement does not therefore concern what is essential and primary—for [240] this is in both cases the will—but only what is secondary, the rousing of the will's manifestation: it has to do with the determination whether causes proper, stimuli or motives (i.e. causes having passed through the medium of knowledge) are the guidance under which that manifestation takes place. It is in human consciousness,—differing from that of animals by not only containing perceptible representations but also abstract conceptions independent of time-distinctions, which act simultaneously and collaterally, whereby deliberation, i.e. a conflict of motives, becomes possible—it is in human consciousness, I say, that free-will (arbitrium) in its narrowest sense first makes its appearance; and this I have called elective decision. It nevertheless merely consists in the strongest motive for a given individual character overcoming the others and thus determining the act, just as an impact is overcome by a stronger counter-impact, the result thus ensuing with precisely the same necessity as the movement of a stone that has been struck. That all great thinkers in all ages were decided and at one on this point, is just as certain, as that the multitude will never understand, never grasp, the important truth, that the work of our freedom must not be sought in our individual actions but in our very existence and nature itself. In my prize-essay on Freedom of the Will, I have shown this as clearly as possible. The liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ which is assumed to be the distinctive characteristic of movements proceeding from the will, is accordingly quite inadmissible: for it asserts that effects are possible without causes.

As soon therefore as we have got so far as to distinguish will [Wille] from free-will [Willkühr], and to consider the latter as a particular kind or particular phenomenon of the former, we shall find no difficulty in recognising the will, even in unconscious processes. Thus the assertion, [241] that all bodily movements, even those which are purely vegetative and organic, proceed from the will, by no means implies that they are voluntary. For that would mean that they were occasioned by motives; but motives are representations, and their seat is the brain: only those parts of our body which communicate with the brain by means of the nerves, can be put in movement by the brain, consequently by motives, and this movement alone is what is called voluntary. The movement of the inner economy of the organism, on the contrary, is directed, as in plant-life, by stimuli; only as, on the one hand, the complex nature of the animal organism necessitated an outer sensorium for the apprehension of the outer world and the will's reaction on that outer world, so, on the other hand, did it necessitate a cerebrum abdominale, the sympathetic nervous system, in order to direct the will's reaction upon inner stimuli likewise. We may compare the former to a Home Ministry, the latter to a Foreign Office; but the will remains the omnipresent Autocrat.

The progress made in Physiology since Haller has placed beyond doubt, that not only those actions which are consciously performed (functiones animales), but even vital processes that take place quite unconsciously (functiones vitales et naturales), are directed throughout by the nervous system. Likewise that their only difference, as far as our consciousness of them is concerned, consists in the former being directed by nerves proceeding from the brain, the latter by nerves that do not directly communicate with that chief centre of the nervous system—mainly directed towards the outside—but with subordinate, minor centres, with the nerve-knots, the ganglia and their net-work, which preside as it were like vice-gerents over the various departments of the nervous system, directing those internal processes that follow upon internal stimuli, just as the brain directs the external [242] actions that follow upon external motives, and thus receiving impressions from inside upon which they react correspondingly, just as the brain receives representations on the strength of which it forms resolutions; only each of these minor centres is confined to a narrower sphere of action. Upon this rests the vita propria of each system, in referring to which Van Helmont said that each organ has, as it were, its own ego. It accounts also for life continuing in parts which have been cut off the bodies of insects, reptiles, and other inferior animals, whose brain has no marked preponderance over the ganglia of single parts; and it likewise explains how many reptiles are able to live for weeks, nay even months, after their brain has been removed. Now, if our surest experience teaches us that the will, which is known to us in most immediate consciousness and in a totally different way from the outer world, is the real agent in actions attended by consciousness and directed by the chief centre of the nervous system; how can we help admitting that those other actions which, proceeding from that nervous system but obeying the direction of its subordinate centres, keep the vital processes constantly going, must also be manifestations of the will? Especially as we know perfectly well the cause because of which they are not, like the others, attended by consciousness: we know, that is to say, that all consciousness resides in the brain and therefore is limited to such parts as have nerves which communicate directly with the brain; and we know also that, even in these, consciousness ceases when those nerves are severed. By this the difference between all that is conscious and unconscious and together with it the difference between all that is voluntary and involuntary in the movements of the body is perfectly explained, and no reason remains for assuming two entirely different primary sources of movement: especially as principia præter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda. All this is [243] so obvious, that, on impartial reflection from this standpoint, it seems almost absurd to persist in making the body serve two masters by deriving its actions from two radically different origins and then ascribing on the one hand the movements of our arms and legs, of our eyes, lips, throat, tongue and lungs, of the facial and abdominal muscles, to the will; while on the other hand the action of the heart, the movements of the veins, the peristaltic movements of the intestines, the absorption by the intestinal villi and glands and all those movements which accompany secretion, are supposed to proceed from a totally different, ever mysterious principle of which we have no knowledge, and which is designated by names such as vitality, archeus, spiritus animales, vital energy, instinct, all of which mean no more than x.[201]

It is curious and instructive to see the trouble that excellent writer, Treviranus[202] takes, to find out in the lower animals, such as infusoria and zoophyta, which movements are voluntary, and which are what he calls automatic or physical, i.e. merely vital. He founds his inquiry upon the assumption that he has to do with two primarily different sources of movement; whereas in truth they all proceed from the will, and the whole difference consists in [244] their being occasioned by stimuli or by motives, i.e. in their having a brain for their medium or not; and the stimulus may again be merely interior or exterior. In several animals of a higher order—crustaceans and even fishes—he finds that the voluntary and vital movements, for instance locomotion and respiration, entirely coincide: a clear proof that their origin and essence are identical. He says p. 188: "In the family of the actinia, star-fishes, sea-urchins, and holothuriæ (echinodermata pedata Cuv.), it is evident that the movement of the fluids depends upon the will of the animals and that it is a means of locomotion." Then again p. 288: "The gullet of mammals has at its upper end the pharynx, which expands and contracts by means of muscles resembling voluntary muscles in their formation, yet which do not obey the will." Here we see how the limits of the movements proceeding from the will and of those assumed to be foreign to it, merge into one another. Ibid., p. 293: "Thus movements having all the appearance of being voluntary, take place in the stomachs of ruminants. They do not however always stand in connection with the ruminating process only. Even the simpler human stomach and that of many animals only allows free passage to what is digestible through its lower orifice, and rejects what is indigestible by vomiting."

There is moreover special evidence that the movements induced by stimuli (involuntary movements) proceed from the will just as well as those occasioned by motives (voluntary movements): for instance, when the same movement follows now upon a stimulus, now again upon a motive, as is the case when the pupil of the eye is contracted. This movement, when caused by increased light, follows upon a stimulus; whereas, when occasioned by the wish to examine a very small object minutely in close proximity, it follows upon a motive; because [245] contracting the pupil enables us to see things distinctly even when quite near to us, and this distinctness may be increased by our looking through a hole pierced in a card with a pin; conversely, the pupil is dilated when we look at distant objects. Surely the same movement of the same organ is not likely to proceed alternately from two fundamentally different sources.—E. H. Weber[203] relates that he discovered in himself the power of dilating and contracting at will the pupil of one of his eyes, while looking at the same object, so as to make that object appear now distinct, now indistinct, while the other eye remained closed.—Joh. Müller[204] also tries to prove that the will acts upon the pupil.

The truth that the innermost mainspring of unconsciously performed vital and vegetative functions is the will, we find moreover confirmed by the consideration, that even the movement of a limb recognised as voluntary, is only the ultimate result of a multitude of preceding changes which have taken place inside that limb and which no more enter into our consciousness than those organic functions. Yet these changes are evidently that which was first set in motion by the will, the movement of the limb being merely their remote consequence; nevertheless this remains so foreign to our consciousness that physiologists try to reach it by means of such hypotheses as these: that the sinews and muscular fibre are contracted by a change in the cellular tissue wrought by a precipitation of the blood-vapour in that tissue to serum; but that this change is brought about by the nerve's action, and this—by the will. Thus, even here, it is not the change which proceeded originally from the will which comes into consciousness, but only its remote result; and even this, properly speaking, only through [246] the special perception of the brain in which it presents itself together with the whole organism. Now by following the path of experimental research and hypotheses physiologists would never have arrived at the truth, that the last link in this ascending causal series is the will; it is known to them, on the contrary, in quite a different way. The solution of the enigma comes to them in a whisper from outside the investigation, owing to the fortunate circumstance that the investigator is in this case at the same time himself the object of the investigation and by this learns the secret of the inward process, his explanation of which would otherwise, like that of every other phenomenon, be brought to a standstill by an inscrutable force. And conversely, if we stood in the same inward relation towards every natural phenomenon as towards our own organism, the explanation of every natural phenomenon, as well as of all the properties of every body, would likewise ultimately be reduced to a will manifesting itself in them. For the difference does not reside in the thing itself, but in our relation to the thing. Wherever explanation of the physical comes to an end, it is met by the metaphysical; and wherever this last is accessible to immediate knowledge, the result will be, as here, the will. That even those parts of the body whose movements do not proceed from the brain, do not follow upon motives, and are not voluntary, are nevertheless ruled and animated by the will, is also shown by their participation in all unusually violent movements of the will, i.e. emotions and passions. We see, for instance, the quickened pulse in joy or alarm, the blush in embarrassment, the cheek's pallor in terror or in suppressed anger, the tears of sorrow, the difficult breathing and increased activity of the intestines in terror, watering of the mouth at the sight of dainties, nausea occasioned by that of loathsome objects, strongly accelerated circulation of the blood and even altered quality of bile through wrath, and of [247] saliva through violent rage: this last even to the degree, that an excessively irritated dog may communicate hydrophobia by its bite without being itself affected with rabies, or even then contracting the disease—and the same is also asserted of cats and of cocks. The organism is further deeply undermined by lasting grief, and may be mortally affected by fright as well as by sudden joy. On the other hand, all those inner processes and changes which only have to do with the intellect and do not concern the will, however great may be their importance, remain without influence upon the machinery of the organism, with the one exception, that mental activity, prolonged to excess, fatigues and gradually exhausts the brain and finally undermines the organism. This again confirms the fact that the intellect is of a secondary character, and merely the organic function of a single part, a product of life; not the innermost kernel of our being, not the thing in itself, not metaphysical, incorporeal, eternal, like the will: the will never tires, never grows old, never learns, never improves by practice, is in infancy what it is in old age, eternally one and the same, and its character in each individual is unchangeable. Being essential moreover, it is likewise immutable, and therefore exists in animals as it does in us; for it does not, like the intellect, depend upon the perfection of the organization, but is in every essential respect in all animals the same thing which we know so intimately. Accordingly animals have all the feelings which belong to man: joy, grief, fear, anger, love, hate, desire, envy, &c. &c. The great difference between man and the brute creation consists exclusively in the degrees of perfection of the intellect. This however is leading us too far from our subject, so I refer my readers to my chief work, vol. ii. chap. 19, sub. 2.