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Supplements To The Second Book

Chapter XXI. Retrospect and More General View

If the intellect were not of a subordinate nature, as the two preceding chapters show, then everything which takes place without it, i. e., without intervention of the idea, such as reproduction, the development and maintenance of the organism, the healing of wounds, the restoration or vicarious supplementing of mutilated parts, the salutary crisis in diseases, the works of the mechanical skill of animals, and the performances of instinct would not be done so infinitely better and more perfectly than what takes place with the assistance of intellect, all conscious and intentional achievements of men, which compared with the former are mere bungling. In general nature signifies that which operates, acts, performs without the assistance of the intellect. Now, that this is really identical with what we find in ourselves as will is the general theme of this second book, and also of the essay, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur.” The possibility of this fundamental knowledge depends upon the fact that in us the will is directly lighted by the intellect, which here appears as self-consciousness; otherwise we could just as little arrive at a fuller knowledge of it within us as without us, and must for ever stop at inscrutable forces of nature. We have to abstract from the assistance of the intellect if we wish to comprehend the nature of the will in itself, and thereby, as far as is possible, penetrate to the inner being of nature.

On this account, it may be remarked in passing, my direct antipode among philosophers is Anaxagoras; for he assumed arbitrarily as that which is first and original, from which everything proceeds, a νους, an intelligence, a subject of ideas, and he is regarded as the first who promulgated such a view. According to him the world existed earlier in the mere idea than in itself; while according to me it is the unconscious will which constitutes the reality of things, and its development must have advanced very far before it finally attains, in the animal consciousness, to the idea and intelligence; so that, according to me, thought appears as the very last. However, according to the testimony of Aristotle (Metaph., i. 4), Anaxagoras himself did not know how to begin much with his νους, but merely set it up, and then left it standing like a painted saint at the entrance, without making use of it in his development of nature, except in cases of need, when he did not know how else to help himself. All physico-theology is a carrying out of the error opposed to the truth expressed at the beginning of this chapter – the error that the most perfect form of the origin of things is that which is brought about by means of an intellect. Therefore it draws a bolt against all deep exploration of nature.

From the time of Socrates down to our own time, we find that the chief subject of the ceaseless disputations of the philosophers has been that ens rationis, called soul. We see the most of them assert its immortality, that is to say, its metaphysical nature; yet others, supported by facts which incontrovertibly prove the entire dependence of the intellect upon the bodily organism, unweariedly maintain the contrary. That soul is by all and before everything taken as absolutely simple; for precisely from this its metaphysical nature, its immateriality and immortality were proved, although these by no means necessarily follow from it. For although we can only conceive the destruction of a formed body through breaking up of it into its parts, it does not follow from this that the destruction of a simple existence, of which besides we have no conception, may not be possible in some other way, perhaps by gradually vanishing. I, on the contrary, start by doing away with the presupposed simplicity of our subjectively conscious nature, or the ego, inasmuch as I show that the manifestations from which it was deduced have two very different sources, and that in any case the intellect is physically conditioned, the function of a material organ, therefore dependent upon it, and without it is just as impossible as the grasp without the hand; that accordingly it belongs to the mere phenomenon, and thus shares the fate of this, – that the will, on the contrary, is bound to no special organ, but is everywhere present, is everywhere that which moves and forms, and therefore is that which conditions the whole organism; that, in fact, it constitutes the metaphysical substratum of the whole phenomenon, consequently is not, like the intellect, a Posterius of it, but its Prius; and the phenomenon depends upon it, not it upon the phenomenon. But the body is reduced indeed to a mere idea, for it is only the manner in which the will exhibits itself in the perception of the intellect or brain. The will, again, which in all other systems, different as they are in other respects, appears as one of the last results, is with me the very first. The intellect, as mere function of the brain, is involved in the destruction of the body, but the will is by no means so. From this heterogeneity of the two, together with the subordinate nature of the intellect, it becomes conceivable that man, in the depths of his self-consciousness, feels himself to be eternal and indestructible, but yet can have no memory, either a parte ante or a parte post, beyond the duration of his life. I do not wish to anticipate here the exposition of the true indestructibility of our nature, which has its place in the fourth book, but have only sought to indicate the place where it links itself on.

But now that, in an expression which is certainly one-sided, yet from our standpoint true, the body is called a mere idea depends upon the fact than an existence in space, as something extended, and in time, as something that changes, and more closely determined in both through the causal-nexus, is only possible in the idea, for all those determinations rest upon its forms, thus in a brain, in which accordingly such an existence appears as something objective, i. e., foreign; therefore even our own body can have this kind of existence only in a brain. For the knowledge which I have of my body as extended, space-occupying, and movable, is only indirect: it is a picture in my brain which is brought about by means of the senses and understanding. The body is given to me directly only in muscular action and in pain and pleasure, both of which primarily and directly belong to the will. But the combination of these two different kinds of knowledge of my own body afterwards affords the further insight that all other things which also have the objective existence described, which is primarily only in my brain, are not therefore entirely non-existent apart from it, but must also ultimately in themselves be that which makes itself known in self-consciousness as will.

Chapter XXII.¹ Objective View of the Intellect

There are two fundamentally different ways of regarding the intellect, which depend upon the difference of the point of view, and, much as they are opposed to each other in consequence of this, must yet be brought into agreement. One is the subjective, which, starting from within and taking the consciousness as the given, shows us by what mechanism the world exhibits itself in it, and how, out of the materials which the senses and the understanding provide, it constructs itself in it. We must look upon Locke as the originator of this method of consideration; Kant brought it to incomparably higher perfection; and our first book also, together with its supplements, are devoted to it.

The method of considering the intellect which is opposed to this is the objective, which starts from without, takes as its object not our own consciousness, but the beings given in outward experience, conscious of themselves and of the world, and now investigates the relation of their intellect to their other qualities, how it has become possible, how it has become necessary, and what it accomplishes for them. The standpoint of this method of consideration is the empirical. It takes the world and the animal existences present in it as absolutely given, in that it starts from them. It is accordingly primarily zoological, anatomical, physiological, and only becomes philosophical by connection with that first method of consideration, and from the higher point of view thereby attained. The only foundations of this which as yet have been given we owe to zootomists and physiologists, for the most part French. Here Cabanis is specially to be named, whose excellent work, “Des rapports du physique au moral,” is initiatory of this method of consideration on the path of physiology. The famous Bichat was his contemporary, but his theme was a much more comprehensive one. Even Gall may be named here, although his chief aim was missed. Ignorance and prejudice have raised against this method of consideration the accusation of materialism, because, adhering simply to experience, it does not know the immaterial substance, soul. The most recent advances in the physiology of the nervous system, through Sir Charles Bell, Magendie, Marshall Hall, and others, have also enriched and corrected the material of this method of consideration. A philosophy which, like the Kantian, entirely ignores this point of view for the intellect is one-sided, and consequently inadequate. It leaves an impassable gulf between our philosophical and our physiological knowledge, with which we can never find satisfaction.

Although what I have said in the two preceding chapters concerning the life and the activity of the brain belongs to this method of consideration, and in the same way all the discussions to be found under the heading, “Pflanzenphysiologie,” in the essay, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” and also a portion of those under the heading “Vergleichende Anatomie,” are devoted to it, the following exposition of its results in general will be by no means superfluous.

We become most vividly conscious of the glaring contrast between the two methods of considering the intellect opposed to each other above if we carry the matter to the extreme and realise that what the one, as reflective thought and vivid perception, directly assumes and makes its material is for the other nothing more than the physiological function of an internal organ, the brain; nay, that we are justified in asserting that the whole objective world, so boundless in space, so infinite in time, so unsearchable in its perfection, is really only a certain movement or affection of the pulpy matter in the skull. We then ask in astonishment: what is this brain whose function produces such a phenomenon of all phenomena? What is the matter which can be refined and potentiated to such a pulp that the stimulation of a few of its particles becomes the conditional supporter of the existence of an objective world? The fear of such questions led to the hypothesis of the simple substance of an immaterial soul, which merely dwelt in the brain. We say boldly: this pulp also, like every vegetable or animal part, is an organic structure, like all its poorer relations in the inferior accommodation of the heads of our irrational brethren, down to the lowest, which scarcely apprehends at all; yet that organic pulp is the last product of nature, which presupposes all the rest. But in itself, and outside the idea, the brain also, like everything else, is will. For existing for another is being perceived; being in itself is willing: upon this it depends that on the purely objective path we never attain to the inner nature of things; but if we attempt to find their inner nature from without and empirically, this inner always becomes an outer again in our hands, – the pith of the tree, as well as its bark; the heart of the animal, as well as its hide; the white and the yolk of an egg, as well as its shell. On the other hand, upon the subjective path the inner is accessible to us at every moment; for we find it as the will primarily in ourselves, and must, by the clue of the analogy with our own nature, be able to solve that of others, in that we attain to the insight that a being in itself independent of being known, i. e., of exhibiting itself in an intellect, is only conceivable as willing.

If now, in the objective comprehension of the intellect, we go back as far as we possibly can, we shall find that the necessity or the need of knowledge in general arises from the multiplicity and the separate existence of beings, thus from individuation. For suppose there only existed a single being, such a being would have no need of knowledge: because nothing would exist which was different from it, and whose existence it would therefore have to take up into itself indirectly through knowledge, i. e., image and concept. It would itself already be all in all, and therefore there would remain nothing for it to know, i. e., nothing foreign that could be apprehended as object. In the case of a multiplicity of beings, on the other hand, every individual finds itself in a condition of isolation from all the rest, and hence arises the necessity of knowledge. The nervous system, by means of which the animal individual primarily becomes conscious of itself, is bounded by a skin; yet in the brain that has attained to intellect it passes beyond this limit by means of its form of knowledge, causality, and thus there arises for it perception as a consciousness of other things, as an image of beings in space and time, which change in accordance with causality. In this sense it would be more correct to say, “Only the different is known by the different,” than as Empedocles said, “Only the like is known by the like,” which was a very indefinite and ambiguous proposition; although points of view may certainly also be conceived from which it is true; as, for instance, we may observe in passing that of Helvetius when he says so beautifully and happily: “Il n'y a que l'esprit qui sente l'esprit: c'est une corde qui ne frémit qu'à l'unison,” which corresponds with Xenophon's “σοφον ειναι δει τον επιγνωσομενον τον σοφον” (sapientem esse opportet eum, qui sapientem agniturus sit), and is a great sorrow. But now, again, from the other side we know that multiplicity of similars only becomes possible through time and space; thus through the forms of our knowledge. Space first arises in that the knowing subject sees externally; it is the manner in which the subject comprehends something as different from itself. But we also saw knowledge in general conditioned by multiplicity and difference. 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. Buddhism defines this as Pratschna Paramita, i. e., that which is beyond all knowledge (J. J. Schmidt, “On the Maha-Jana and Pratschna Paramita”). A “knowledge of things in themselves,” in the strictest sense of the word, would accordingly be already impossible from the fact that where the thing in itself begins knowledge ceases, and all knowledge is essentially concerned only with phenomena. For it springs from a limitation, by which it is made necessary, in order to extend the limits.

For the objective consideration the brain is the efflorescence of the organism; therefore only where the latter has attained its highest perfection and complexity does the brain appear in its greatest development. But in the preceding chapter we have recognised the organism as the objectification of the will; therefore the brain also, as a part of it, must belong to this objectification. Further, from the fact that the organism is only the visibility of the will, thus in itself is the will, I have deduced that every affection of the organism at once and directly affects the will, i. e., is felt as agreeable or painful. Yet, with the heightening of sensibility, in the higher development of the nervous system, the possibility arises that in the nobler, i. e., the objective, organs of sense (sight and hearing) the exquisitely delicate affections proper to them are perceived without in themselves and directly affecting the will, that is, without being either painful or agreeable, and that therefore they appear in consciousness as indifferent, merely perceived, sensations. But in the brain this heightening of sensibility reaches such a high degree that upon received impressions of sense a reaction even takes place, which does not proceed directly from the will, but is primarily a spontaneity of the function of understanding, which makes the transition from the directly perceived sensation of the senses to its cause; and since the brain then at once produces the form of space, there thus arises the perception of an external object. We may therefore regard the point at which the understanding makes the transition from the mere sensation upon the retina, which is still a mere affection of the body and therefore of the will, to the cause of that sensation, which it projects by means of its form of space, as something external and different from its own body, as the boundary between the world as will and the world as idea, or as the birthplace of the latter. In man, however, the spontaneity of the activity of the brain, which in the last instance is certainly conferred by the will, goes further than mere perception and immediate comprehension of causal relations. It extends to the construction of abstract conceptions out of these perceptions, and to operating with these conceptions, i. e., to thinking, as that in which his reason consists. Thoughts are therefore furthest removed from the affections of the body, which, since the body is the objectification of the will, may, through increased intensity, pass at once into pain, even in the organs of sense. Accordingly idea and thought may also be regarded as the efflorescence of the will, because they spring from the highest perfection and development of the organism; but the organism, in itself and apart from the idea, is the will. Of course, in my explanation, the existence of the body presupposes the world of idea; inasmuch as it also, as body or real object, is only in this world; and, on the other hand, the idea itself just as much presupposes the body, for it arises only through the function of an organ of the body. That which lies at the foundation of the whole phenomenon, that in it which alone has being in itself and is original, is exclusively the will; for it is the will which through this very process assumes the form of the idea, i. e., enters the secondary existence of an objective world, or the sphere of the knowable. Philosophers before Kant, with few exceptions, approached the explanation of the origin of our knowledge from the wrong side. They set out from a so-called soul, an existence whose inner nature and peculiar function consisted in thinking, and indeed quite specially in abstract thinking, with mere conceptions, which belonged to it the more completely the further they lay from all perception. (I beg to refer here to the note at the end of § 6 of my prize essay on the foundation of morals.) This soul has in some inconceivable manner entered the body, and there it is only disturbed in its pure thinking, first by impressions of the senses and perceptions, still more by the desires which these excite, and finally by the emotions, nay, passions, to which these desires develop; while the characteristic and original element of this soul is mere abstract thinking, and given up to this it has only universals, inborn conceptions, and æternæ veritates for its objects, and leaves everything perceptible lying far below it. Hence, also, arises the contempt with which even now “sensibility” and the "sensuous" are referred to by professors of philosophy, nay, are even made the chief source of immorality, while it is just the senses which are the genuine and innocent source of all our knowledge, from which all thinking must first borrow its material, for in combination with the a priori functions of the intellect they produce the perception. One might really suppose that in speaking of sensibility these gentlemen always think only of the pretended sixth sense of the French. Thus, as we have said, in the process of knowledge, its ultimate product was made that which is first and original in it, and accordingly the matter was taken hold of by the wrong end. According to my exposition, the intellect springs from the organism, and thereby from the will, and hence could not be without the latter. Thus, without the will it would also find no material to occupy it; for everything that is knowable is just the objectification of the will.

But not only the perception of the external world, or the consciousness of other things, is conditioned by the brain and its functions, but also self-consciousness. The will in itself is without consciousness, and remains so in the greater part of its phenomena. The secondary world of idea must be added, in order that it may become conscious of itself, just as light only becomes visible through the bodies which reflect it, and without them loses itself in darkness without producing any effect. Because the will, with the aim of comprehending its relations to the external world, produces a brain in the animal individual, the consciousness of its own self arises in it, by means of the subject of knowledge, which comprehends things as existing and the ego as willing. The sensibility, which reaches its highest degree in the brain, but is yet dispersed through its different parts, must first of all collect all the rays of its activity, concentrate them, as it were, in a focus, which, however, does not lie without, as in the case of the concave mirror, but within, as in the convex mirror. With this point now it first describes the line of time, upon which, therefore, all that it presents to itself as idea must exhibit itself, and which is the first and most essential form of all knowledge, or the form of inner sense. This focus of the whole activity of the brain is what Kant called the synthetic unity of apperception (cf. vol. ii. p. 475). Only by means of this does the will become conscious of itself, because this focus of the activity of the brain, or that which knows, apprehends itself as identical with its own basis, from which it springs, that which wills; and thus the ego arises. Yet this focus of the brain activity remains primarily a mere subject of knowledge, and as such capable of being the cold and impartial spectator, the mere guide and counsellor of the will, and also of comprehending the external world in a purely objective manner, without reference to the will and its weal or woe. But whenever it turns within, it recognises the will as the basis of its own phenomenon, and therefore combines with it in the consciousness of an ego. That focus of the activity of the brain (or the subject of knowledge) is indeed, as an indivisible point, simple, but yet is not on this account a substance (soul), but a mere condition or state. That of which it is itself a condition or state can only be known by it indirectly, as it were through reflection. But the ceasing of this state must not be regarded as the annihilation of that of which it is a state. This knowing and conscious ego is related to the will, which is the basis of its phenomenal appearance, as the picture in the focus of a concave mirror is related to the mirror itself, and has, like that picture, only a conditioned, nay, really a merely apparent, reality. Far from being the absolutely first (as, for example, Fichte teaches), it is at bottom tertiary, for it presupposes the organism, and the organism presupposes the will. I admit that all that is said here is really only an image and a figure, and in part also hypothetical; but we stand at a point to which thought can scarcely reach, not to speak of proof. I therefore request the reader to compare with this what I have adduced at length on this subject in chapter 20.

Now, although the true being of everything that exists consists in its will, and knowledge together with consciousness are only added at the higher grades of the phenomenon as something secondary, yet we find that the difference which the presence and the different degree of consciousness places between one being and another is exceedingly great and of important results. The subjective existence of the plant we must think of as a weak analogue, a mere shadow of comfort and discomfort; and even in this exceedingly weak degree the plant knows only of itself, not of anything outside of it. On the other hand, even the lowest animal standing next to it is forced by increased and more definitely specified wants to extend the sphere of its existence beyond the limits of its own body. This takes place through knowledge. It has a dim apprehension of its immediate surroundings, out of which the motives for its action with a view to its own maintenance arise. Thus accordingly the medium of motives appears, and this is – the world existing objectively in time and space, the world as idea, however weak, obscure, and dimly dawning this first and lowest example of it may be. But it imprints itself ever more and more distinctly, ever wider and deeper, in proportion as in the ascending scale of animal organisations the brain is ever more perfectly produced. This progress in the development of the brain, thus of the intellect, and of the clearness of the idea, at each of these ever higher grades is, however, brought about by the constantly increasing and more complicated wants of this phenomenon of the will. This must always first afford the occasion for it, for without necessity nature (i. e., the will which objectifies itself in it) produces nothing, least of all the hardest of its productions – a more perfect brain: in consequence of its lex parsimoniæ: natura nihil agit frustra et nihil facit supervacaneum. It has provided every animal with the organs which are necessary for its sustenance and the weapons necessary for its conflict, as I have shown at length in my work, “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” under the heading, “Vergleichende Anatomie.” According to this measure, therefore, it imparts to each the most important of those organs concerned with what is without, the brain, with its function the intellect. The more complicated, through higher development, its organisation became, the more multifarious and specially determined did its wants also become, and consequently the more difficult and the more dependent upon opportunity was the provision of what would satisfy them. Thus there was needed here a wider range of sight, a more accurate comprehension, a more correct distinction of things in the external world, in all their circumstances and relations. Accordingly we see the faculty of forming ideas, and its organs, brain, nerves, and special senses, appear ever more perfect the higher we advance in the scale of animals; and in proportion as the cerebral system develops, the external world appears ever more distinct, many-sided, and complete in consciousness. The comprehension of it now demands ever more attention, and ultimately in such a degree that sometimes its relation to the will must momentarily be lost sight of in order that it may take place more purely and correctly. Quite definitely this first appears in the case of man. With him alone does a pure separation of knowing and willing take place. This is an important point, which I merely touch on here in order to indicate its position, and be able to take it up again later. But, like all the rest, nature takes this last step also in extending and perfecting the brain, and thereby in increasing the powers of knowledge, only in consequence of the increased needs, thus in the service of the will. What this aims at and attains in man is indeed essentially the same, and not more than what is also its goal in the brutes – nourishment and propagation. But the requisites for the attainment of this goal became so much increased in number, and of so much higher quality and greater definiteness through the organisation of man, that a very much more considerable heightening of the intellect than the previous steps demanded was necessary, or at least was the easiest means of reaching the end. But since now the intellect, in accordance with its nature, is a tool of the most various utility, and is equally applicable to the most different kinds of ends, nature, true to her spirit of parsimony, could now meet through it alone all the demands of the wants which had now become so manifold. Therefore she sent forth man without clothing, without natural means of protection or weapons of attack, nay, with relatively little muscular power, combined with great frailty and little endurance of adverse influences and wants, in reliance upon that one great tool, in addition to which she had only to retain the hands from the next grade below him, the ape. But through the predominating intellect which here appears not only is the comprehension of motives, their multiplicity, and in general the horizon of the aims infinitely increased, but also the distinctness with which the will is conscious of itself is enhanced in the highest degree in consequence of the clearness of the whole consciousness which has been brought about, which is supported by the capacity for abstract knowledge, and now attains to complete reflectiveness. But thereby, and also through the vehemence of the will, which is necessarily presupposed as the supporter of such a heightened intellect, an intensifying of all the emotions appears, and indeed the possibility of the passions, which, properly speaking, are unknown to the brute. For the vehemence of the will keeps pace with the advance of intelligence, because this advance really always springs from the increased needs and pressing demands of the will: besides this, however, the two reciprocally support each other. Thus the vehemence of the character corresponds to the greater energy of the beating of the heart and the circulation of the blood, which physically heighten the activity of the brain. On the other hand, the clearness of the intelligence intensifies the emotions, which are called forth by the outward circumstances, by means of the more vivid apprehension of the latter. Hence, for example, young calves quietly allow themselves to be packed in a cart and carried off; but young lions, if they are only separated from their mother, remain permanently restless, and roar unceasingly from morning to night; children in such a position would cry and vex themselves almost to death. The vivaciousness and impetuosity of the ape is in exact proportion to its greatly developed intellect. It depends just on this reciprocal relationship that man is, in general, capable of far greater sorrows than the brute, but also of greater joy in satisfied and pleasing emotions. In the same way his higher intelligence makes him more sensible to ennui than the brute; but it also becomes, if he is individually very complete, an inexhaustible source of entertainment. Thus, as a whole, the manifestation of the will in man is related to that in the brute of the higher species, as a note that has been struck to its fifth pitched two or three octaves lower. But between the different kinds of brutes also the differences of intellect, and thereby of consciousness, are great and endlessly graduated. The mere analogy of consciousness which we must yet attribute to plants will be related to the still far deader subjective nature of an unorganised body, very much as the consciousness of the lowest species of animals is related to the quasi consciousness of plants. We may present to our imagination the innumerable gradations in the degree of consciousness under the figure of the different velocity of points which are unequally distant from the centre of a revolving sphere. But the most correct, and indeed, as our third book teaches, the natural figure of that gradation is afforded us by the scale in its whole compass from the lowest audible note to the highest. It is, however, the grade of consciousness which determines the grade of existence of a being. For every immediate existence is subjective: the objective existence is in the consciousness of another, thus only for this other, consequently quite indirect. Through the grade of consciousness beings are as different as through the will they are alike, for the will is what is common to them all.