The World As Will And Idea on Superphysics

Retrospect and More General View

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The 2 preceding chapters show that the intellect is subordinate to the will.

If it were not subordinate, then:

all conscious achievements of men would be a mere bungling
instinct would infinitely better when unaided by intellect

Nature is that which operates, acts, performs without the assistance of the intellect.

Objective View of the Intellect

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There are 2 different ways of regarding the intellect:

Subjective

This starts from within and taking the consciousness as the given. This shows us how:

Pratschna Paramita

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Thus knowledge and multiplicity, or individuation, stand and fall together, for they reciprocally condition each other. Hence it must be inferred that, beyond the phenomenon in the true being of all things, to which time and space, and consequently also multiplicity, must be foreign, there can also be no knowledge.

Man and Man

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What happens between the plant and the animal, and then between the different species of animals, occurs also between man and man.

Here also that which is secondary, the intellect, by means of the clearness of consciousness and distinctness of knowledge which depends upon it, constitutes a fundamental and immeasurably great difference in the whole manner of the existence, and thereby in the grade of it. The higher the consciousness has risen, the more distinct and connected are the thoughts, the clearer the perceptions the more intense the sensations.

The objectivity of Knowledge

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The original inner force of nature works without knowledge and in the dark.

It works its way up to self-consciousness and reveals itself to it as will.

This inner force attains to this grade only by the production of:

The Objectification Of The Will In Unconscious Nature

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Philosophy has hitherto assumed that the our will does not come from knowledge.

Instead, the will:

Retrospect and More General View

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The continuance of the organised body, on the contrary, just depends on continual movement and the constant reception of external influences. As soon as these are wanting and the movement in it stops it is dead, and thereby ceases to be organic, although the trace of the organism that has been still remains for a while.

Retrospect and More General View

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Volume 1 showed that the forces of nature lie outside the chain of causes and effects, because they constitute their accompanying condition, their metaphysical foundation, and therefore prove themselves to be eternal and omnipresent, i.e., independent of time and space. Even in the uncontested truth that what is essential to a cause as such consists in this, that it will produce the same effect at any future time as it does now, it is already involved that something lies in the cause which is independent of the course of time, i.e., is outside of all time; this is the force of nature which manifests itself in it.

Matter

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Matter has already been spoken of in the fourth chapter of the supplements to the first book, when we were considering the part of our knowledge of which we are conscious a priori. But it could only be considered there from a one-sided point of view, because we were then concerned merely with its relation to the forms of our intellect, and not to the thing in itself, and therefore we investigated it only from the subjective side, i.e., so far as it is an idea, and not from the objective side, i.e., with regard to what it may be in itself. In the first respect, our conclusion was that it is objective activity in general, yet conceived without fuller determination; therefore it takes the place of causality in the table of our a priori knowledge which is given there. For what is material is that which acts (the actual) in general, and regarded apart from the specific nature of its action. Hence also matter, merely as such, is not an object of perception, but only of thought, and thus is really an abstraction. It only comes into perception in connection with form and quality, as a body, i.e., as a fully determined kind of activity. It is only by abstracting from this fuller determination that we think of matter as such, i.e., separated from form and quality; consequently under matter we think of acting absolutely and in general, thus of activity in the abstract. The more fully determined acting we then conceive as the accident of matter; but only by means of this does matter become perceptible, i.e., present itself as a body and an object of experience.

Transcendent Considerations Concerning The Will As Thing In Itself

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Even the merely empirical consideration of nature recognises a constant transition from the simplest and most necessary manifestation of a universal force of nature up to human consciousness.

This is done:

Nature's Creations

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The internal construction of insects has infinite care and unwearied labour of Nature.

This is repeated an infinite number of times in each one of individuals of every kind.

It acts the same on even the most lonely, neglected unseen spot.

Teleology

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The universal teleology or design of organised nature relative to the continuance of every existing being, together with the adaptation of organised to unorganised nature, cannot without violence enter into the connection of any philosophical system except that one which makes a will the basis of the existence of every natural being; a will which accordingly expresses its nature and tendency not merely in the actions, but already in the form of the phenomenal organism.

Evolution

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Individual real exceptions to this universal law of design in organised nature have been discovered.

For example:

The final cause

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The final cause here is that nature, always so anxiously concerned for the maintenance of the species, seeks to replace by a new individual the approaching loss of one in the prime of life; the efficient cause, on the other hand, is the unusually excited state of the nervous system which occurs in the last period of consumption. From the same final cause is to be explained the analogous phenomenon that (according to Oken, Die Zeugung, p. 65) flies poisoned with arsenic still couple, and die in the act of copulation.

Instinct And Mechanical Tendency

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The mechanical tendencies of animals show most clearly that creatures can work with the greatest decision and definiteness towards an end which they do not know or have no idea of.

Characterisation Of The Will To Live

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Book 2 closed with the question as to the goal and character of that will.

Such a characterisation is possible because we have recognised as the inner nature of the world something thoroughly real and empirically given.

The Knowledge Of The Ideas

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The intellect, which has hitherto only been considered in its original and natural condition of servitude under the will, appears in the third book in its deliverance from that bondage; with regard to which, however, it must at once be observed that we have not to do here with a lasting emancipation, but only with a brief hour of rest, an exceptional and indeed only momentary release from the service of the will. As this subject has been treated with sufficient fulness in the first volume, I have here only to add a few supplementary remarks.

Genius

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This chapter is connected with Chapter 36 of Volume 1.

Genius is the predominating capacity for knowledge that generates genuine:

art, poetry
philosophy

This has the Platonic Ideas for its objects.

The Pure Subject Of Knowledge

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The comprehension of an Idea, the entrance of it into our consciousness, is only possible by means of a change in us, which might also be regarded as an act of self-denial; for it consists in this, that knowledge turns away altogether from our own will, thus now leaves out of sight entirely the valuable pledge intrusted to it, and considers things as if they could never concern the will at all.

Madness

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14 This chapter is connected with the second half of § 36 of the first volume.

The health of the mind properly consists in perfect recollection.

Of course this is not to be understood as meaning that our memory preserves everything. For the past course of our life shrinks up in time, as the path of the wanderer looking back shrinks up in space: sometimes it is difficult for us to distinguish the particular years; the days have for the most part become unrecognisable.

Isolated Remarks On Natural Beauty

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What contributes among other things to make the sight of a beautiful landscape so exceedingly delightful is the perfect truth and consistency of nature. Certainly nature does not follow here the guidance of logic in the connection of the grounds of knowledge, of antecedents and consequences, premisses and conclusions; but still it follows what is for it analogous to the law of causality in the visible connection of causes and effects. Every modification, even the slightest, which an object receives from its position, foreshortening, concealment, distance, light- ing, linear and atmospheric perspective, &c., is, through its effect upon the eye, unerringly given and accurately taken account of: the Indian proverb, “Every corn of rice casts its shadow,” finds here its confirmation. Therefore here everything shows itself so consistent, accurately regular, connected, and scrupulously right; here there are no evasions.

The Inner Nature Of Art

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18 This chapter is connected with § 49 of the first volume.

Not merely philosophy but also the fine arts work at bottom towards the solution of the problem of existence. For in every mind that once gives itself up to the purely objective contemplation of nature a desire has been excited, however concealed and unconscious it may be, to comprehend the true nature of things, of life and existence. For this alone has interest for the intellect as such, i.e., for the pure subject of knowledge which has become free from the aims of the will; as for the subject which knows as a mere individual the aims of the will alone have interest.

The Aesthetics Of Architecture

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19 This chapter is connected with § 43 of the first volume.

In accordance with the deduction given in the text of the pure æsthetics of architecture from the lowest grades of the objectification of the will or of nature, the Ideas of which it seeks to bring to distinct perception, its one constant theme is support and burden, and its fundamental law is that no burden shall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable burden; consequently that the relation of these two shall be exactly the fitting one.

Isolated Remarks On The Æsthetics Of The Plastic And Pictorial Arts.

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20 This chapter is connected with §§ 44-50 of the first volume.

In sculpture beauty and grace are the principal things; but in painting expression, passion, and character predominate; therefore just so much of the claims of beauty must be neglected.

The Æsthetics Of Poetry

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21 This chapter is connected with § 51 of the first volume.

Poetry is the art of bringing the imagination into play through words.

How it brings this to pass I have shown in the first volume, § 51.

History

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23 This chapter is connected with § 51 of the first volume.

In the passage of the first volume referred to below I have fully shown that more is achieved for our knowledge of mankind by poetry than by history, and why this is so; inasmuch as more real instruction was to be expected from the former than from the latter.

The Metaphysics Of Music

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25 This chapter is connected with § 52 of the first volume.

The outcome, or result, of my exposition of the peculiar signifi- cance of this wonderful art, which is given in the passage of the first volume referred to below, and which will here be present to the mind of the reader, was, that there is indeed no resemblance between its productions and the world as idea, i.e., the world of nature, but yet there must be a distinct parallelism, which was then also proved. I have yet to add some fuller particulars with regard to this parallelism, which are worthy of attention.

The 2 Fundamental Problems of Ethics

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Two Scandinavian Academies have asked prize questions on:

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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This chapter is connected with § 54 of the first volume.

Death is the true inspiring genius, or the muse of philosophy.

Socrates has defined the latter as ….

Without death, men would scarcely philosophise.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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A whole eternity has run its course while as yet we were not, but that by no means disturbs us.

On the other hand, we find it hard, nay, unendurable, that after the momentary intermezzo of an ephemeral existence, a second eternity should follow in which we shall no longer be.

The Principle of Our Life

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The sight of a dead body shows me that sensibility, irritability, circulation of the blood, reproduction, &c., have here ceased.

The Principle of Our Life

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The highest game of chance is that for death and life.

Every decision about this we watch with the utmost excitement, interest, and fear; for in our eyes all in all is at stake. On the other hand, nature, which never lies, but is always straightforward and open, speaks quite differently upon this theme, speaks like Krishna in the Bhagavadgita.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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Throughout and everywhere the true symbol of nature is the circle, because it is the schema or type of recurrence. This is, in fact, the most universal form in nature, which it carries out in everything, from the course of the stars down to the death and the genesis of organised beings, and by which alone, in the ceaseless stream of time, and its content, a permanent existence, i.e., a nature, becomes possible.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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When man is begotten, he arises out of nothing. He becomes nothing through death.

There is no greater contrast than that between the ceaseless flight of time, which carries its whole content with it, and the rigid immobility of what is actually present, which at all times is one and the same.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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If now we cast another glance at the scale of existences, with the whole of their accompanying gradations of consciousness, from the polyp up to man, we see this wonderful pyramid, kept in ceaseless oscillation certainly by the constant death of the individuals, yet by means of the bond of generation, enduring in the species through the infinite course of time. While, then, as was explained above, the objective, the species, presents itself as indestructible, the subjective, which consists merely in the self-consciousness of these beings, seems to be of the shortest duration, and to be unceasingly destroyed, in order, just as often, to come forth again from nothing in an incomprehensible manner.

The Principle of Our Life

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Kant has the immortal doctrine of the ideality of time and the sole reality of the thing in itself.

For it results from this that the really essential part of things, of man, of the world, lies permanently and enduringly in the Nunc stans, firm and immovable; and that the change of the phenomena and events is a mere consequence of our apprehen- sion of them by means of our form of perception, which is time.

The Afterlife

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Kant’s great doctrine of the ideality of time answers questions about life after death.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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The freshness and vividness of memories of the most distant time, of earliest childhood, bears witness to the fact that something in us does not pass away with time, does not grow old, but endures unchanged. But what this imperishable element is one could not make clear to oneself.

Death and Its Relation To The Indestructibility Of Our True Nature

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The intellect is the function of the cerebral nervous system; but the latter, like the rest of the body, is the objectivity of the will. Therefore the intellect depends upon the somatic life of the organism; but this itself depends upon the will.

Metempsychosis [Reincarnation]

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Besides, it must not be neglected that even empirical grounds support a palingenesis of this kind. As a matter of fact there does exist a connection between the birth of the newly appearing beings and the death of those that are worn out. It shows itself in the great fruitfulness of the human race which appears as a consequence of devastating diseases. When in the fourteenth century the black death had for the most part depopulated the old world, a quite abnormal fruitfulness appeared among the human race, and twin-births were very frequent. The circum- stance was also very remarkable that none of the children born at this time obtained their full number of teeth; thus nature, exerting itself to the utmost, was niggardly in details.

The Life Of The Species

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In the preceding chapter it was called to mind that the (Platonic) Ideas of the different grades of beings, which are the adequate objectification of the will to live, exhibit themselves in the knowl- edge of the individual, which is bound to the form of time, as the species, i.e., as the successive individuals of one kind connected by the bond of generation, and that therefore the species is the Idea (μ0¥ø¬, species) broken up in time.

The Relation Between Male and Female

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The relation of the sexes is really the invisible central point of all action and conduct.

It peeps out everywhere in spite of all veils thrown over it. It is the cause of war and the end of peace, the basis of what is serious, and the aim of the jest, the inexhaustible source of wit, the key to all allusions, and the meaning of all mysterious hints, of all unspoken offers and all stolen glances, the daily meditation of the young, and often also of the old, the hourly thought of the unchaste, and even against their will the constantly recurring imagination of the chaste, the ever ready material of a joke, just because the profoundest seriousness lies at its foundation. It is, however, the piquant element and the joke of life that the chief concern of all men is secretly pursued and ostensibly ignored as much as possible.

Heredity

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One’s own experience has the advantage of complete certainty and the greatest speciality, and this outweighs the disadvantage that arises from it, that its sphere is limited and its examples not generally known.

The Intellect Comes from The Mother

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The second part of the principle is that the inheritance of the intellect is from the mother.

This is proven by the old and popular expression “mother-wit”.

The Metaphysics Of The Love Of The Sexes

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This chapter is the last of four whose various reciprocal relations, by virtue of which, to a certain extent, they constitute a subordinate whole, the attentive reader will recognise without it being needful for me to interrupt my exposition by recalling them or referring to them.

The Assertion Of The Will To Live

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This chapter is connected with § 60 of the first volume.

If the will to live exhibited itself merely as an impulse to self-preservation, this would only be an assertion of the individual phenomenon for the span of time of its natural duration.

The Vanity And Suffering Of Life

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Awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, the will finds itself an individual, in an endless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering, erring; and as if through a troubled dream it hurries back to its old unconsciousness. Yet till then its desires are limitless, its claims inexhaustible, and every satisfied desire gives rise to a new one. No possible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still its longings, set a goal to its infinite cravings, and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart. Then let one consider what as a rule are the satisfactions of any kind that a man obtains. For the most part nothing more than the bare maintenance of this existence itself, extorted day by day with unceasing trouble and constant care in the conflict with want, and with death in prospect. Everything in life shows that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognised as an illusion. The grounds of this lie deep in the nature of things.

Men Dealing with Men

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The conduct of men towards each other is characterised as a rule by injustice, extreme unfairness, hardness, nay, cruelty: an opposite course of conduct appears only as an exception.

Upon this depends the necessity of the State and legislation, and upon none of your false pretences. But in all cases which do not lie within the reach of the law, that regardlessness of his like, peculiar to man, shows itself at once; a regardlessness which springs from his boundless egoism, and sometimes also from wickedness.

The Greeks and Romans

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This world is so arranged as to be able to maintain itself with great difficulty; but if it were a little worse, it could no longer maintain itself.

Consequently a worse world, since it could not continue to exist, is absolutely impossible: thus this world itself is the worst of all possible worlds. For not only if the planets were to run their heads together, but even if any one of the actually appearing perturbations of their course, instead of being gradu- ally balanced by others, continued to increase, the world would soon reach its end. Astronomers know upon what accidental circumstances—principally the irrational relation to each other of the periods of revolution—this depends, and have carefully calculated that it will always go on well; consequently the world also can continue and go on. We will hope that, although Newton was of an opposite opinion, they have not miscalculated, and consequently that the mechanical perpetual motion realised in such a planetary system will not also, like the rest, ultimately come to a standstill.

Ethics

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This chapter is connected with §§ 55, 62, 67 of the first volume.

Here is the great gap which occurs in these supplements, on account of the circumstance that I have already dealt with moral philosophy in the narrower sense in the two prize essays published under the title, “Die Grundprobleme der Ethik,” an acquaintance with which is assumed, as I have said, in order to avoid useless repetition.

Ethics

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I have shown in § 55 of the first volume how, notwithstanding the unalterable nature of the character, i.e., of the special fundamental will of a man, a real moral repentance is yet possible. I wish, however, to add the following explanation, which I must preface by a few definitions. Inclination is every strong susceptibility of the will for motives of a certain kind.

Sympathies

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In the same way, those who in our own day have seen occasion to combat communism with reasons (for example, the Archbishop of Paris, in his pastoral of June 1851) have always brought forward the argument that property is the result of work, as it were only embodied work. This is further evidence that the right of property can only be established by the application of work to things, for only in this respect does it find free recognition and make itself morally valid.

The Doctrine Of The Denial Of The Will To Live

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44 This chapter is connected with § 68 of the first volume. Chapter 14 of the second volume of the Parerga should also be compared with it.

Man has his existence and being either with his will, i.e., his consent, or without this; in the latter case an existence so embittered by manifold and insupportable sufferings would be a flagrant injustice. The ancients, especially the Stoics, also the Peripatetics and Academics, strove in vain to prove that virtue sufficed to make life happy. Experience cried out loudly against it. What really lay at the foundation of the efforts of these philosophers, although they were not distinctly conscious of it, was the assumed justice of the thing; whoever was without guilt ought to be free from suffering, thus happy.

Justice and Rewards

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The clinging to life and its pleasures must now soon yield, and give place to a universal renunciation; consequently the denial of the will will take place. Since now, in accordance with this, poverty, privation, and special sufferings of many kinds are introduced simply by the perfect exercise of the moral virtues, asceticism in the narrowest sense, thus the surrender of all possessions, the intentional seeking out of what is disagreeable and repulsive, self-mortification, fasts, the hair shirt, and the scourge—all this is rejected by many, and perhaps rightly, as superfluous.

Mysticism

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Book 2 put:

the origin of knowledge in the will
the sole function of knowledge is to be serviceable to the ends of the will

True salvation lies in the denial of the will.

Asceticism

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In the same way, as practical proofs and examples of the profound seriousness of asceticism, the life of Pascal, edited by Reuchlin, together with his history of the Port-Royal, and also the Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth, par le comte de Montalembert, and La vie de Rancé, par Chateaubriand, are very well worth reading, but yet by no means exhaust all that is important in this class.

The Christian View

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It is, however, by no means the views of these writers themselves to which I refer, for these are opposed to mine, but solely to their carefully collected accounts and quotations, which deserve full acceptance as quite trustworthy, just because both these writers are opponents of celibacy, the former a rationalistic Catholic, and the other a Protestant candidate in theology, who speaks exactly like one. In the first-named work we find, vol. i. p. 166, in that reference, the following result expressed:

Judaism

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Judaism, with its ¿±Ωƒ± ∫±ª± ªπ±Ω, is not related to Christianity as regards its spirit and ethical tendency, but Brah- manism and Buddhism are. But the spirit and ethical tendency are what is essential in a religion, not the myths in which these are clothed.

Christian Sects

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The church-dance, also, which follows the sermon is accompanied by the singing of the rest. It is a lively dance, performed in measured time, and concludes with a galop, which is carried on till the dancers are exhausted. Between each dance one of their teachers cries aloud, “Think, that ye rejoice before the Lord for having slain your flesh; for this is here the only use we make of our refractory limbs.” To celibacy most of the other conditions link themselves on of themselves. There are no families, and therefore there is no private property, but community of goods.

Abbe Rance

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We can arrive at a comprehension of what goes on in the heart of a man, in the case of an elevation of this kind and the accompanying purifying process, by considering what every emotional man experiences on beholding a tragedy, which is of kindred nature to this.

The Way Of Salvation

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Suffering itself has a sanctifying power.

Epiphilosophy

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My philosophy does not explain the existence of the world in its ultimate grounds.

It rather sticks to the facts of external and internal experience as they are accessible to every one, and shows the true and deepest connection of them without really going beyond them to any extra-mundane things and their relations to the world.

Retrospect and More General View

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Because of the Kantian criticism of speculative theology, the German philosophers threw themselves back on Spinoza.

The post-Kantian philosophy are simply Spinozism dressed up.

How is my philosophy related to Spinozism in particular?