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 knowledge 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 (εἰδος, _species_)
broken up in time. Accordingly the true nature of every living thing lies
primarily in its species: yet the species again has its existence only in
the individuals. Now, although the will only attains to self‐consciousness
in the individual, thus knows itself immediately only as the individual,
yet the deep‐seated consciousness that it is really the species in which
his true nature objectifies itself appears in the fact that for the
individual the concerns of the species as such, thus the relations of the
sexes, the production and nourishment of the offspring, are of
incomparably greater importance and consequence than everything else.
Hence, then, arises in the case of the brutes, heat or rut (an excellent
description of the vehemence of which will be found in Burdach’s
“Physiology,” vol. i. §§ 247, 257), and, in the case of man, the careful
and capricious selection of the other individual for the satisfaction of
the sexual impulse, which can rise to the height of passionate love, to
the fuller investigation of which I shall devote a special chapter: hence
also, finally the excessive love of parents for their offspring.
In the supplements to the second book the will was compared to the root
and the intellect to the crown of the tree; and this is the case inwardly
or psychologically. But outwardly or physiologically the genitals are the
root and the head the crown. The nourishing part is certainly not the
genitals, but the villi of the intestines: yet not the latter but the
former are the root; because through them the individual is connected with
the species in which it is rooted. For physically the individual is a
production of the species, metaphysically a more or less perfect picture
of the Idea, which, in the form of time, exhibits itself as species. In
agreement with the relation expressed here, the greatest vitality, and
also the decrepitude of the brain and the genital organs, is simultaneous
and stands in connection. The sexual impulse is to be regarded as the
inner life of the tree (the species) upon which the life of the individual
grows, like a leaf that is nourished by the tree, and assists in
nourishing the tree; this is why that impulse is so strong, and springs
from the depths of our nature. To castrate an individual means to cut him
off from the tree of the species upon which he grows, and thus severed,
leave him to wither: hence the degradation of his mental and physical
powers. That the service of the species, _i.e._, fecundation, is followed
in the case of every animal individual by momentary exhaustion and
debility of all the powers, and in the case of most insects indeed by
speedy death, on account of which Celsus said, “_Seminis emissio est
partis animæ jactura_;” that in the case of man the extinction of the
generative power shows that the individual approaches death; that
excessive use of this power at every age shortens life, while, on the
other hand, temperance in this respect increases all the powers, and
especially the muscular powers, on which account it was part of the
training of the Greek athletes; that the same restraint lengthens the life
of the insect even to the following spring; all this points to the fact
that the life of the individual is at bottom only borrowed from the
species, and that all vital force is, as it were, force of the species
restricted by being dammed up. But this is to be explained from the fact
that the metaphysical substratum of life reveals itself directly in the
species and only by means of this in the individual. Accordingly the
Lingam with the Yoni, as the symbol of the species and its immortality, is
worshipped in India, and, as the counterpoise of death, is ascribed as an
attribute to the very divinity who presides over death, Siva.
But without myth or symbol, the vehemence of the sexual impulse, the keen
intentness and profound seriousness with which every animal, including
man, pursues its concerns, shows that it is through the function which
serves it that the animal belongs to that in which really and principally
its true being lies, the _species_; while all other functions and organs
directly serve only the individual, whose existence is at bottom merely
secondary. In the vehemence of that impulse, which is the concentration of
the whole animal nature, the consciousness further expresses itself that
the individual does not endure, and therefore all must be staked on the
maintenance of the species, in which its true existence lies.
To illustrate what has been said, let us now imagine a brute in rut, and
in the act of generation. We see a seriousness and intentness never known
in it at any other time. Now what goes on in it? Does it know that it must
die, and that through its present occupation a new individual, which yet
entirely resembles itself, will arise in order to take its place? Of all
this it knows nothing, for it does not think. But it is as intently
careful for the continuance of the species in time as if it knew all that.
For it is conscious that it desires to live and exist, and it expresses
the highest degree of this volition in the act of generation; this is all
that then takes place in its consciousness. This is also quite sufficient
for the permanence of the kind; just because the will is the radical and
knowledge the adventitious. On this account the will does not require to
be guided by knowledge throughout; but whenever in its primitive
originality it has resolved, this volition will objectify itself of its
own accord in the world of the idea. If now in this way it is that
definite animal form which we have thought of that wills life and
existence, it does not will life and existence in general, but in this
particular form. Therefore it is the sight of its form in the female of
its species that stimulates the will of the brute to the act of
generation. This volition of the brute, when regarded from without and
under the form of time, presents itself as such an animal form maintained
through an infinite time by the constantly repeated replacement of one
individual by another, thus by the alternation of death and reproduction,
which so regarded appear only as the pulse‐beats of that form (ιδεα,
εἰδος, _species_) which endures through all time. They may be compared to
the forces of attraction and repulsion in which matter consists. That
which is shown here in the brute holds good also of man; for although in
him the act of generation is accompanied by complete knowledge of its
final cause, yet it is not guided by this knowledge, but proceeds directly
from the will to live as its concentration. It is accordingly to be
reckoned among instinctive actions. For in reproduction the brute is just
as little guided by knowledge of the end as in mechanical instincts; in
these also the will manifests itself, in the main, without the mediation
of knowledge, which here, as there, is only concerned with details.
Reproduction is, to a certain extent, the most marvellous of all
instincts, and its work the most astonishing.
These considerations explain why the sexual desire has a very different
character from every other; it is not only the strongest, but even
specifically of a more powerful kind than any other. It is everywhere
tacitly assumed as necessary and inevitable, and is not, like other
desires, a matter of taste and disposition. For it is the desire which
even constitutes the nature of man. In conflict with it no motive is so
strong that it would be certain of victory. It is so pre‐eminently the
chief concern that no other pleasures make up for the deprivation of its
satisfaction; and, moreover, for its sake both brute and man undertake
every danger and every conflict. A very naïve expression of this
disposition is the well‐known inscription on the door of the _fornix_ at
Pompeii, decorated with the phallus: “_Heic habitat felicitas_:” this was
for those going in naïve, for those coming out ironical, and in itself
humorous. On the other hand, the excessive power of the sexual passion is
seriously and worthily expressed in the inscription which (according to
Theon of Smyrna, _De Musica_, c. 47), Osiris had placed upon the column he
erected to the eternal gods: “To Eros, the spirit, the heaven, the sun,
the moon, the earth, the night, the day, and the father of all that is and
that shall be;” also in the beautiful apostrophe with which Lucretius
begins his work:
“_Æneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,_
_Alma Venus cet._”
To all this corresponds the important _rôle_ which the relation of the
sexes plays in the world of men, where it is really the invisible central
point of all action and conduct, and 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. But, in fact,
we see it every moment seat itself, as the true and hereditary lord of the
world, out of the fulness of its own strength, upon the ancestral throne,
and looking down from thence with scornful glances, laugh at the
preparations which have been made to bind it, imprison it, or at least to
limit it and wherever it is possible to keep it concealed, or even so to
master it that it shall only appear as a subordinate, secondary concern of
life. But all this agrees with the fact that the sexual passion is the
kernel of the will to live, and consequently the concentration of all
desire; therefore in the text I have called the genital organs the focus
of the will. Indeed, one may say man is concrete sexual desire; for his
origin is an act of copulation and his wish of wishes is an act of
copulation, and this tendency alone perpetuates and holds together his
whole phenomenal existence. The will to live manifests itself indeed
primarily as an effort to sustain the individual; yet this is only a step
to the effort to sustain the species, and the latter endeavour must be
more powerful in proportion as the life of the species surpasses that of
the individual in duration, extension, and value. Therefore sexual passion
is the most perfect manifestation of the will to live, its most distinctly
expressed type; and the origin of the individual in it, and its primacy
over all other desires of the natural man, are both in complete agreement
with this.
One other remark of a physiological nature is in place here, a remark
which throws light upon my fundamental doctrine expounded in the second
book. As the sexual impulse is the most vehement of desires, the wish of
wishes, the concentration of all our volition, and accordingly the
satisfaction of it which exactly corresponds to the individual wish of any
one, that is, the desire fixed upon a definite individual, is the summit
and crown of his happiness, the ultimate goal of his natural endeavours,
with the attainment of which everything seems to him to have been
attained, and with the frustrating of which everything seems to him to
have been lost:—so we find, as its physiological correlative, in the
objectified will, thus in the human organism, the sperm or semen as the
secretion of secretions, the quintessence of all animal fluids, the last
result of all organic functions, and have in it a new proof of the fact
that the body is only the objectivity of the will, _i.e._, is the will
itself under the form of the idea.
With reproduction is connected the maintenance of the offspring, and with
the sexual impulse, parental love; and thus through these the life of the
species is carried on. Accordingly the love of the brute for its young
has, like the sexual impulse, a strength which far surpasses that of the
efforts which merely concerns itself as an individual. This shows itself
in the fact that even the mildest animals are ready to undertake for the
sake of their young even the most unequal battle for life and death, and
with almost all species of animals the mother encounters any danger for
the protection of her young, nay, in many cases even faces certain death.
In the case of man this instinctive parental love is guided and directed
by reason, _i.e._, by reflection. Sometimes, however, it is also in this
way restricted, and with bad characters this may extend to the complete
repudiation of it. Therefore we can observe its effects most purely in the
lower animals. In itself, however, it is not less strong in man; here
also, in particular cases, we see it entirely overcome self‐love, and even
extend to the sacrifice of life. Thus, for example, the French newspapers
have just announced that at Cahors, in the department of Lot, a father has
taken his own life in order that his son, who had been drawn for military
service, should be the eldest son of a widow, and therefore exempt
(_Galignani’s Messenger_ of 22d June 1843). Yet in the case of the lower
animals, since they are capable of no reflection, the instinctive maternal
affection (the male is generally ignorant of his paternity) shows itself
directly and unsophisticated, and therefore with perfect distinctness and
in its whole strength. At bottom it is the expression of the consciousness
in the brute that its true being lies more immediately in the species than
in the individual, and therefore, when necessary, it sacrifices its life
that the species may be maintained in the young. Thus here, as also in the
sexual impulse, the will to live becomes to a certain extent transcendent,
for its consciousness extends beyond the individual, in which it is
inherent, to the species. In order to avoid expressing this second
manifestation of the life of the species in a merely abstract manner, and
to present it to the reader in its magnitude and reality, I will give a
few examples of the extraordinary strength of instinctive maternal
affection.
The sea‐otter, when pursued, seizes its young one and dives with it; when
it comes up again to take breath, it covers the young one with its body,
and receives the harpoon of the hunter while the young one is escaping. A
young whale is killed merely to attract the mother, who hurries to it and
seldom forsakes it so long as it still lives, even although she is struck
with several harpoons (Scoresby’s “Journal of a Whaling Voyage;” from the
English of Kreis, p. 196). At Three Kings Island, near New Zealand, there
are colossal seals called sea‐elephants (_phoca proboscidea_). They swim
round the island in regular herds and feed upon fishes, but yet have
certain terrible enemies below water unknown to us, by whom they are often
severely wounded; hence their swimming together requires special tactics.
The females bring forth their young upon the shore; while they are
suckling them, which lasts from seven to eight weeks, all the males form a
circle round them in order to prevent them, driven by hunger, from
entering the sea, and if this is attempted they prevent it by biting. Thus
they all fast together for between seven and eight weeks, and all become
very thin, simply in order that the young may not enter the sea before
they are able to swim well and observe the necessary tactics which are
then taught them with blows and bites (Freycinet, _Voy. aux terres
Australes_, 1826). We also see here how parental affection, like every
strong exertion of the will (_cf._ chap. xix. 6), heightens the
intelligence. Wild ducks, white‐throats, and many other birds, when the
sportsman comes near their nest, fly in front of him with loud cries and
flap about as if their wings were injured, in order to attract his
attention from their young to themselves. The lark tries to entice the dog
away from its nest by exposing itself. In the same way hinds and does
induce the hunter to pursue them in order that their young may not be
attacked. Swallows have flown into burning houses to rescue their young or
perish with them. At Delft, in a great fire, a stork allowed itself to be
burnt in its nest rather than forsake its tender young, which could not
yet fly (Hadr. Junius, _Descriptio Hollandiæ_). Mountain‐cocks and
woodcocks allow themselves to be taken upon the nest when brooding.
_Muscicapa tyrannus_ protects its nest with remarkable courage, and
defends itself against eagles. An ant has been cut in two, and the fore
half been seen to bring the pupæ to a place of safety. A bitch whose
litter had been cut out of her belly crept up to them dying, caressed
them, and began to whine violently only when they were taken from her
(Burdach, _Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft_, vol. ii. and iii.).