The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)

Cf. “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” at the end of the section on Comparative Anatomy.

40

Cf. “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” the section on Comparative Anatomy.

41

Chatin, Sur la Valisneria Spiralis, in the Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. de Sc., No. 13, 1855.

42

Cf. Chaps. xxvi. and xxvii. of the Supplement.

43

Cf. Chap. xxviii. of the Supplement.

44

F. H. Jacobi.

45

See for example, “Immanuel Kant, a Reminiscence, by Fr. Bouterweck,” pg. 49, and Buhle's “History of Philosophy,” vol. vi. pp. 802-815 and 823.

46

Cf. Chap. xxix. of Supplement.

47

I also recommend the perusal of what Spinoza says in his Ethics (Book II., Prop. 40, Schol. 2, and Book V., Props. 25-38), concerning the cognitio tertii generis, sive intuitiva, in illustration of the kind of knowledge we are considering, and very specially Prop. 29, Schol.; prop. 36, Schol., and Prop. 38, Demonst. et Schol.

48

Cf. Chap. xxx. of the Supplement.

49

This last sentence cannot be understood without some acquaintance with the next book.

50

Cf. Chap. xxxi. of the Supplement.

51

I am all the more delighted and astonished, forty years after I so timidly and hesitatingly advanced this thought, to discover that it has already been expressed by St. Augustine: Arbusta formas suas varias, quibus mundi hujus visibilis structura formosa est, sentiendas sensibus praebent; ut, pro eo quod nosse non possunt, quasi innotescere velle videantur. —De civ. Dei, xi. 27.

52

§ 38. In the æsthetical mode of contemplation we have found two inseparable constituent parts– the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things; and the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge. The condition under which both these constituent parts appear always united was found to be the abandonment of the method of knowing which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and which, on the other hand, is the only kind of knowledge that is of value for the service of the will and also for science. Moreover, we shall see that the pleasure which is produced by the contemplation of the beautiful arises from these two constituent parts, sometimes more from the one, sometimes more from the other, according to what the object of the æsthetical contemplation may be.

53

Cf. Chap. 35 of Supplement.

54

Jakob Böhm in his book, “de Signatura Rerum,” ch. i., § 13-15, says, “There is nothing in nature that does not manifest its internal form externally; for the internal continually labours to manifest itself… Everything has its language by which to reveal itself… And this is the language of nature when everything speaks out of its own property, and continually manifests and declares itself, … for each thing reveals its mother, which thus gives the essence and the will to the form.”

55

The last sentence is the German of the il n'y a que l'esprit qui sente l'esprit, of Helvetius. In the first edition there was no occasion to point this out, but since then the age has become so degraded and ignorant through the stupefying influence of the Hegelian sophistry, that some might quite likely say that an antithesis was intended here between “spirit and nature.” I am therefore obliged to guard myself in express terms against the suspicion of such vulgar sophisms.

56

This digression is worked out more fully in the 36th Chapter of the Supplement.

57

In order to understand this passage it is necessary to have read the whole of the next book.

58

Apparent rari, nantes in gurgite vasto.

59

Cf. Ch. xxxiv. of Supplement.

60

It is scarcely necessary to say that wherever I speak of poets I refer exclusively to that rare phenomenon the great true poet. I mean no one else; least of all that dull insipid tribe, the mediocre poets, rhymsters, and inventors of fables, that flourishes so luxuriantly at the present day in Germany. They ought rather to have the words shouted in their ears unceasingly from all sides —

Mediocribus esse poëtisNon homines, non Dî, non concessere columnæ.

It is worthy of serious consideration what an amount of time – both their own and other people's – and paper is lost by this swarm of mediocre poets, and how injurious is their influence. For the public always seizes on what is new, and has naturally a greater proneness to what is perverse and dull as akin to itself. Therefore these works of the mediocre poets draw it away and hold it back from the true masterpieces and the education they afford, and thus working in direct antagonism to the benign influence of genius, they ruin taste more and more, and retard the progress of the age. Such poets should therefore be scourged with criticism and satire without indulgence or sympathy till they are induced, for their own good, to apply their muse rather to reading what is good than to writing what is bad. For if the bungling of the incompetent so raised the wrath of the gentle Apollo that he could flay Marsyas, I do not see on what the mediocre poets will base their claim to tolerance.

61

Cf. Ch. xxxviii. of Supplement.

62

Cf. Ch. xxxvii. of the Supplement.

63

Leibnitii epistolæ, collectio Kortholti, ep. 154.

64

Cf. Ch. xxxix. of Supplement.

65

The following remark may assist those for whom it is not too subtle to understand clearly that the individual is only the phenomenon, not the thing in itself. Every individual is, on the one hand, the subject of knowing, i. e., the complemental condition of the possibility of the whole objective world, and, on the other hand, a particular phenomenon of will, the same will which objectifies itself in everything. But this double nature of our being does not rest upon a self-existing unity, otherwise it would be possible for us to be conscious of ourselves in ourselves, and independent of the objects of knowledge and will. Now this is by no means possible, for as soon as we turn into ourselves to make the attempt, and seek for once to know ourselves fully by means of introspective reflection, we are lost in a bottomless void; we find ourselves like the hollow glass globe, from out of which a voice speaks whose cause is not to be found in it, and whereas we desired to comprehend ourselves, we find, with a shudder, nothing but a vanishing spectre.

66

“Scholastici docuerunt, quod æternitas non sit temporis sine fine aut principio successio; sed Nunc stans, i. e., idem nobis Nunc esse, quod erat Nunc Adamo, i. e., inter nunc et tunc nullam esse differentiam.” – Hobbes, Leviathan, c. 46.

67

In Eckermann's “Conversations of Goethe” (vol. i. p. 161), Goethe says: “Our spirit is a being of a nature quite indestructible, and its activity continues from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly eyes, but which, in reality, never sets, but shines on unceasingly.” Goethe has taken the simile from me; not I from him. Without doubt he used it in this conversation, which was held in 1824, in consequence of a (possibly unconscious) reminiscence of the above passage, for it occurs in the first edition, p. 401, in exactly the same words, and it is also repeated at p. 528 of that edition, as at the close of § 65 of the present work. The first edition was sent to him in December 1818, and in March 1819, when I was at Naples, he sent me his congratulations by letter, through my sister, and enclosed a piece of paper upon which he had noted the places of certain passages which had specially pleased him. Thus he had read my book.

68

This is expressed in the Veda by saying, that when a man dies his sight becomes one with the sun, his smell with the earth, his taste with water, his hearing with the air, his speech with fire, &c., &c. (Oupnek'hat, vol. i. p. 249 et seq.) And also by the fact that, in a special ceremony, the dying man gives over his senses and all his faculties singly to his son, in whom they are now supposed to live on (Oupnek'hat, vol. ii. p. 82 et seq.)

69

Cf. Chap. xli. – xliv. of Supplement.

70

“Critique of Pure Reason,” first edition, pp. 532-558; fifth edition, pp. 560-586; and “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, pp. 169-179; Rosenkranz's edition, pp. 224-231.

71

Cart. Medit. 4. – Spin. Eth., pt. ii. prop. 48 et 49, cæt.

72

Herodot. vii. 46.

73

Cf. Ch. xlvi. of Supplement.

74

Cf. Ch. xlv. of the Supplement.

75

Thus the basis of natural right of property does not require the assumption of two grounds of right beside each other, that based on detention and that based on formation; but the latter is itself sufficient. Only the name formation is not very suitable, for the spending of any labour upon a thing does not need to be a forming or fashioning of it.

76

The further exposition of the philosophy of law here laid down will be found in my prize-essay, “Ueber das Fundament der Moral,” § 17, pp. 221-230 of 1st ed., pp. 216-226 of 2d ed.

77

Cf. Ch. xlvii. of Supplement.

78

Oupnek'hat, vol. i. p. 60 et seq.

79

That Spanish bishop who, in the last war, poisoned both himself and the French generals at his own table, is an instance of this; and also various incidents in that war. Examples are also to be found in Montaigne, Bk. ii. ch. 12.

80

Observe, in passing, that what gives every positive system of religion its great strength, the point of contact through which it takes possession of the soul, is entirely its ethical side. Not, however, the ethical side directly as such, but as it appears firmly united and interwoven with the element of mythical dogma which is present in every system of religion, and as intelligible only by means of this. So much is this the case, that although the ethical significance of action cannot be explained in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, yet since every mythus follows this principle, believers regard the ethical significance of action as quite inseparable, and indeed as absolutely identical, and regard every attack upon the mythus as an attack upon right and virtue. This goes so far that among monotheistic nations atheism or godlessness has become synonymous with the absence of all morality. To the priests such confusions of conceptions are welcome, and only in consequence of them could that horrible monstrosity fanaticism arise and govern, not merely single individuals who happen to be specially perverse and bad, but whole nations, and finally embody itself in the Western world as the Inquisition (to the honour of mankind be it said that this only happened once in their history), which, according to the latest and most authentic accounts, in Madrid alone (in the rest of Spain there were many more such ecclesiastical dens of murderers) in 300 years put 300,000 human beings to a painful death at the stake on theological grounds – a fact of which every zealot ought to be reminded whenever he begins to make himself heard.

81

The Church would say that these are merely opera operata, which do not avail unless grace gives the faith which leads to the new birth. But of this farther on.

82

The right of man over the life and powers of the brutes rests on the fact that, because with the growing clearness of consciousness suffering increases in like measure; the pain which the brute suffers through death or work is not so great as man would suffer by merely denying himself the flesh, or the powers of the brutes. Therefore man may carry the assertion of his existence to the extent of denying the existence of the brute, and the will to live as a whole endures less suffering in this way than if the opposite course were adopted. This at once determines the extent of the use man may make of the powers of the brutes without wrong; a limit, however, which is often transgressed, especially in the case of beasts of burden and dogs used in the chase; to which the activity of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals is principally devoted. In my opinion, that right does not extend to vivisection, particularly of the higher animals. On the other hand, the insect does not suffer so much through its death as a man suffers from its sting. The Hindus do not understand this.

83

As I wander sunk in thought, so strong a sympathy with myself comes over me that I must often weep aloud, which otherwise I am not wont to do.

84

Cf. Ch. xlvii. of Supplement. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the whole ethical doctrine given in outline in §§ 61-67 has been explained fully and in detail in my prize-essay on the foundation of morals.

85

This thought is expressed by a beautiful simile in the ancient philosophical Sanscrit writing, “Sankhya Karica:” “Yet the soul remains a while invested with body; as the potter's wheel continues whirling after the pot has been fashioned, by force of the impulse previously given to it. When separation of the informed soul from its corporeal frame at length takes place and nature in respect of it ceases, then is absolute and final deliverance accomplished.” Colebrooke, “On the Philosophy of the Hindus: Miscellaneous Essays,” vol i. p. 271. Also in the “Sankhya Karica by Horace Wilson,” § 67, p. 184.

86

See, for example, “Oupnek'hat, studio Anquetil du Perron,” vol. ii., Nos. 138, 144, 145, 146. “Mythologie des Indous,” par Mad. de Polier, vol. ii., ch. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. “Asiatisches Magazin,” by Klaproth: in the first volume, “Ueber die Fo-Religion,” also “Baghnat Geeta” or “Gespräche zwischen Krishna und Arjoon;” in the second volume, “Moha-Mudgava.” Also, “Institutes of Hindu Law, or the Ordinances of Manu,” from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones (German by Hüttner, 1797), especially the sixth and twelfth chapters. Finally, many passages in the “Asiatic Researches.” (In the last forty years Indian literature has grown so much in Europe, that if I were now to complete this note to the first edition, it would occupy several pages.)

87

At the procession of Jagganath in June 1840, eleven Hindus threw themselves under the wheels, and were instantly killed. (Letter of an East Indian proprietor in the Times of 30th December 1840.)

88

On δευτερος πλους cf. Stob. Floril., vol. ii. p. 374.

89

Bruckeri Hist. Philos., tomi iv. pars. i. p. 10.

90

Henry VI., Part ii. act 3, sc. 3.

91

Cf. Ch. xlviii. of the Supplement.

92

How truly this is the case may be seen from the fact that all the contradictions and inconceivabilities contained in the Christian dogmatics, consistently systematised by Augustine, which have led to the Pelagian insipidity which is opposed to them, vanish as soon as we abstract from the fundamental Jewish dogma, and recognize that man is not the work of another, but of his own will. Then all is at once clear and correct: then there is no need of freedom in the operari, for it lies in the esse; and there also lies the sin as original sin. The work of grace is, however, our own. To the rationalistic point of view of the day, on the contrary, many doctrines of the Augustinian dogmatics, founded on the New Testament, appear quite untenable, and indeed revolting; for example, predestination. Accordingly Christianity proper is rejected, and a return is made to crude Judaism. But the miscalculation or the original weakness of Christian dogmatics lies – where it is never sought – precisely in that which is withdrawn from all investigation as established and certain. Take this away and the whole of dogmatics is rational; for this dogma destroys theology as it does all other sciences. If any one studies the Augustinian theology in the books “De Civitate Dei” (especially in the Fourteenth Book), he experiences something analogous to the feeling of one who tries to make a body stand whose centre of gravity falls outside it; however he may turn it and place it, it always tumbles over again. So here, in spite of all the efforts and sophisms of Augustine, the guilt and misery of the world always falls back on God, who made everything and everything that is in everything, and also knew how all things would go. That Augustine himself was conscious of the difficulty, and puzzled by it, I have already shown in my prize-essay on the Freedom of the Will (ch. iv. pp. 66-68 of the first and second editions). In the same way, the contradiction between the goodness of God and the misery of the world, and also between the freedom of the will and the foreknowledge of God, is the inexhaustible theme of a controversy which lasted nearly a hundred years between the Cartesians, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Bayle, Clarke, Arnauld, and many others. The only dogma which was regarded as fixed by all parties was the existence and attributes of God, and they all unceasingly move in a circle, because they seek to bring these things into harmony, i. e., to solve a sum that will not come right, but always shows a remainder at some new place whenever we have concealed it elsewhere. But it does not occur to any one to seek for the source of the difficulty in the fundamental assumption, although it palpably obtrudes itself. Bayle alone shows that he saw this.

93

This is also just the Prajna – Paramita of the Buddhists, the “beyond all knowledge,” i. e., the point at which subject and object are no more. (Cf. J. J. Schmidt, “Ueber das Mahajana und Pratschna-Paramita.”)