and thing-in-itself are not entirely one and the same, in spite of the
inner agreement between Kant and Plato, and the identity of the aim they
had before them, or the conception of the world which roused them and led
them to philosophise. The Idea is for us rather the direct, and therefore
adequate, objectivity of the thing-in-itself, which is, however, itself
the _will_—the will as not yet objectified, not yet become idea. For the
thing-in-itself must, even according to Kant, be free from all the forms
connected with knowing as such; and it is merely an error on his part (as
is shown in the Appendix) that he did not count among these forms, before
all others, that of being object for a subject, for it is the first and
most universal form of all phenomena, _i.e._, of all idea; he should
therefore have distinctly denied objective existence to his
thing-in-itself, which would have saved him from a great inconsistency
that was soon discovered. The Platonic Idea, on the other hand, is
necessarily object, something known, an idea, and in that respect is
different from the thing-in-itself, but in that respect only. It has
merely laid aside the subordinate forms of the phenomenon, all of which we
include in the principle of sufficient reason, or rather it has not yet
assumed them; but it has retained the first and most universal form, that
of the idea in general, the form of being object for a subject. It is the
forms which are subordinate to this (whose general expression is the
principle of sufficient reason) that multiply the Idea in particular
transitory individuals, whose number is a matter of complete indifference
to the Idea. The principle of sufficient reason is thus again the form
into which the Idea enters when it appears in the knowledge of the subject
as individual. The particular thing that manifests itself in accordance
with the principle of sufficient reason is thus only an indirect
objectification of the thing-in-itself (which is the will), for between it
and the thing-in-itself stands the Idea as the only direct objectivity of
the will, because it has assumed none of the special forms of knowledge as
such, except that of the idea in general, _i.e._, the form of being object
for a subject. Therefore it alone is the most _adequate objectivity_ of
the will or thing-in-itself which is possible; indeed it is the whole
thing-in-itself, only under the form of the idea; and here lies the ground
of the great agreement between Plato and Kant, although, in strict
accuracy, that of which they speak is not the same. But the particular
things are no really adequate objectivity of the will, for in them it is
obscured by those forms whose general expression is the principle of
sufficient reason, but which are conditions of the knowledge which belongs
to the individual as such. If it is allowable to draw conclusions from an
impossible presupposition, we would, in fact, no longer know particular
things, nor events, nor change, nor multiplicity, but would comprehend
only Ideas,—only the grades of the objectification of that one will, of
the thing-in-itself, in pure unclouded knowledge. Consequently our world
would be a _nunc stans_, if it were not that, as knowing subjects, we are
also individuals, _i.e._, our perceptions come to us through the medium of
a body, from the affections of which they proceed, and which is itself
only concrete willing, objectivity of the will, and thus is an object
among objects, and as such comes into the knowing consciousness in the
only way in which an object can, through the forms of the principle of
sufficient reason, and consequently already presupposes, and therefore
brings in, time, and all other forms which that principle expresses. Time
is only the broken and piecemeal view which the individual being has of
the Ideas, which are outside time, and consequently _eternal_. Therefore
Plato says time is the moving picture of eternity: αιωνος εικων κινητη ὁ
χρονος.(46)
§ 33. Since now, as individuals, we have no other knowledge than that
which is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and this form of
knowledge excludes the Ideas, it is certain that if it is possible for us
to raise ourselves from the knowledge of particular things to that of the
Ideas, this can only happen by an alteration taking place in the subject
which is analogous and corresponds to the great change of the whole nature
of the object, and by virtue of which the subject, so far as it knows an
Idea, is no more individual.
It will be remembered from the preceding book that knowledge in general
belongs to the objectification of will at its higher grades, and
sensibility, nerves, and brain, just like the other parts of the organised
being, are the expression of the will at this stage of its objectivity,
and therefore the idea which appears through them is also in the same way
bound to the service of will as a means (μηχανη) for the attainment of its
now complicated (πολυτελεστερα) aims for sustaining a being of manifold
requirements. Thus originally and according to its nature, knowledge is
completely subject to the will, and, like the immediate object, which, by
means of the application of the law of causality, is its starting-point,
all knowledge which proceeds in accordance with the principle of
sufficient reason remains in a closer or more distant relation to the
will. For the individual finds his body as an object among objects, to all
of which it is related and connected according to the principle of
sufficient reason. Thus all investigations of these relations and
connections lead back to his body, and consequently to his will. Since it
is the principle of sufficient reason which places the objects in this
relation to the body, and, through it, to the will, the one endeavour of
the knowledge which is subject to this principle will be to find out the
relations in which objects are placed to each other through this
principle, and thus to trace their innumerable connections in space, time,
and causality. For only through these is the object _interesting_ to the
individual, _i.e._, related to the will. Therefore the knowledge which is
subject to the will knows nothing further of objects than their relations,
knows the objects only so far as they exist at this time, in this place,
under these circumstances, from these causes, and with these effects—in a
word, as particular things; and if all these relations were to be taken
away, the objects would also have disappeared for it, because it knew
nothing more about them. We must not disguise the fact that what the
sciences consider in things is also in reality nothing more than this;
their relations, the connections of time and space, the causes of natural
changes, the resemblance of forms, the motives of actions,—thus merely
relations. What distinguishes science from ordinary knowledge is merely
its systematic form, the facilitating of knowledge by the comprehension of
all particulars in the universal, by means of the subordination of
concepts, and the completeness of knowledge which is thereby attained. All
relation has itself only a relative existence; for example, all being in
time is also non-being; for time is only that by means of which opposite
determinations can belong to the same thing; therefore every phenomenon
which is in time again is not, for what separates its beginning from its
end is only time, which is essentially a fleeting, inconstant, and
relative thing, here called duration. But time is the most universal form
of all objects of the knowledge which is subject to the will, and the
prototype of its other forms.
Knowledge now, as a rule, remains always subordinate to the service of the
will, as indeed it originated for this service, and grew, so to speak, to
the will, as the head to the body. In the case of the brutes this
subjection of knowledge to the will can never be abolished. In the case of
men it can be abolished only in exceptional cases, which we shall
presently consider more closely. This distinction between man and brute is
outwardly expressed by the difference of the relation of the head to the
body. In the case of the lower brutes both are deformed: in all brutes the
head is directed towards the earth, where the objects of its will lie;
even in the higher species the head and the body are still far more one
than in the case of man, whose head seems freely set upon his body, as if
only carried by and not serving it. This human excellence is exhibited in
the highest degree by the Apollo of Belvedere; the head of the god of the
Muses, with eyes fixed on the far distance, stands so freely on his
shoulders that it seems wholly delivered from the body, and no more
subject to its cares.
§ 34. The transition which we have referred to as possible, but yet to be
regarded as only exceptional, from the common knowledge of particular
things to the knowledge of the Idea, takes place suddenly; for knowledge
breaks free from the service of the will, by the subject ceasing to be
merely individual, and thus becoming the pure will-less subject of
knowledge, which no longer traces relations in accordance with the
principle of sufficient reason, but rests in fixed contemplation of the
object presented to it, out of its connection with all others, and rises
into it.
A full explanation is necessary to make this clear, and the reader must
suspend his surprise for a while, till he has grasped the whole thought
expressed in this work, and then it will vanish of itself.
If, raised by the power of the mind, a man relinquishes the common way of
looking at things, gives up tracing, under the guidance of the forms of
the principle of sufficient reason, their relations to each other, the
final goal of which is always a relation to his own will; if he thus
ceases to consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of
things, and looks simply and solely at the _what_; if, further, he does
not allow abstract thought, the concepts of the reason, to take possession
of his consciousness, but, instead of all this, gives the whole power of
his mind to perception, sinks himself entirely in this, and lets his whole
consciousness be filled with the quiet contemplation of the natural object
actually present, whether a landscape, a tree, a mountain, a building, or
whatever it may be; inasmuch as he _loses_ himself in this object (to use
a pregnant German idiom), _i.e._, forgets even his individuality, his
will, and only continues to exist as the pure subject, the clear mirror of
the object, so that it is as if the object alone were there, without any
one to perceive it, and he can no longer separate the perceiver from the
perception, but both have become one, because the whole consciousness is
filled and occupied with one single sensuous picture; if thus the object
has to such an extent passed out of all relation to something outside it,
and the subject out of all relation to the will, then that which is so
known is no longer the particular thing as such; but it is the _Idea_, the
eternal form, the immediate objectivity of the will at this grade; and,
therefore, he who is sunk in this perception is no longer individual, for
in such perception the individual has lost himself; but he is _pure_,
will-less, painless, timeless _subject of knowledge_. This, which in
itself is so remarkable (which I well know confirms the saying that
originated with Thomas Paine, _Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un
pas_), will by degrees become clearer and less surprising from what
follows. It was this that was running in Spinoza’s mind when he wrote:
_Meus æterna est, quatenus res sub æternitatis specie __ concipit_ (Eth.
V. pr. 31, Schol.)(47) In such contemplation the particular thing becomes
at once the _Idea_ of its species, and the perceiving individual becomes
_pure subject of knowledge_. The individual, as such, knows only
particular things; the pure subject of knowledge knows only Ideas. For the
individual is the subject of knowledge in its relation to a definite
particular manifestation of will, and in subjection to this. This
particular manifestation of will is, as such, subordinated to the
principle of sufficient reason in all its forms; therefore, all knowledge
which relates itself to it also follows the principle of sufficient
reason, and no other kind of knowledge is fitted to be of use to the will
but this, which always consists merely of relations to the object. The
knowing individual as such, and the particular things known by him, are
always in some place, at some time, and are links in the chain of causes
and effects. The pure subject of knowledge and his correlative, the Idea,
have passed out of all these forms of the principle of sufficient reason:
time, place, the individual that knows, and the individual that is known,
have for them no meaning. When an individual knower has raised himself in
the manner described to be pure subject of knowledge, and at the same time
has raised the observed object to the Platonic Idea, the _world as idea_
appears complete and pure, and the full objectification of the will takes
place, for the Platonic Idea alone is its _adequate objectivity_. The Idea
includes object and subject in like manner in itself, for they are its one
form; but in it they are absolutely of equal importance; for as the object
is here, as elsewhere, simply the idea of the subject, the subject, which
passes entirely into the perceived object has thus become this object
itself, for the whole consciousness is nothing but its perfectly distinct
picture. Now this consciousness constitutes the whole _world as idea_, for
one imagines the whole of the Platonic Ideas, or grades of the objectivity
of will, in their series passing through it. The particular things of all
time and space are nothing but Ideas multiplied through the principle of
sufficient reason (the form of the knowledge of the individual as such),
and thus obscured as regards their pure objectivity. When the Platonic
Idea appears, in it subject and object are no longer to be distinguished,
for the Platonic Idea, the adequate objectivity of will, the true world as
idea, arises only when the subject and object reciprocally fill and
penetrate each other completely; and in the same way the knowing and the
known individuals, as things in themselves, are not to be distinguished.
For if we look entirely away from the true _world as idea_, there remains
nothing but the _world as will_. The will is the “in-itself” of the
Platonic Idea, which fully objectifies it; it is also the “in-itself” of
the particular thing and of the individual that knows it, which objectify
it incompletely. As will, outside the idea and all its forms, it is one
and the same in the object contemplated and in the individual, who soars
aloft in this contemplation, and becomes conscious of himself as pure
subject. These two are, therefore, in themselves not different, for in
themselves they are will, which here knows itself; and multiplicity and
difference exist only as the way in which this knowledge comes to the
will, _i.e._, only in the phenomenon, on account of its form, the
principle of sufficient reason.
Now the known thing, without me as the subject of knowledge, is just as
little an object, and not mere will, blind effort, as without the object,
without the idea, I am a knowing subject and not mere blind will. This
will is in itself, _i.e._, outside the idea, one and the same with mine:
only in the world as idea, whose form is always at least that of subject
and object, we are separated as the known and the knowing individual. As
soon as knowledge, the world as idea, is abolished, there remains nothing
but mere will, blind effort. That it should receive objectivity, become
idea, supposes at once both subject and object; but that this should be
pure, complete, and adequate objectivity of the will, supposes the object
as Platonic Idea, free from the forms of the principle of sufficient
reason, and the subject as the pure subject of knowledge, free from
individuality and subjection to the will.
Whoever now, has, after the manner referred to, become so absorbed and
lost in the perception of nature that he only continues to exist as the
pure knowing subject, becomes in this way directly conscious that, as
such, he is the condition, that is, the supporter, of the world and all
objective existence; for this now shows itself as dependent upon his
existence. Thus he draws nature into himself, so that he sees it to be
merely an accident of his own being. In this sense Byron says—
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?”
But how shall he who feels this, regard himself as absolutely transitory,
in contrast to imperishable nature? Such a man will rather be filled with
the consciousness, which the Upanishad of the Veda expresses: _Hæ omnes
creaturæ in totum ego sum, et præter me aliud ens non est_ (Oupnek’hat, i.
122).(48)
§ 35. In order to gain a deeper insight into the nature of the world, it
is absolutely necessary that we should learn to distinguish the will as
thing-in-itself from its adequate objectivity, and also the different
grades in which this appears more and more distinctly and fully, _i.e._,
the Ideas themselves, from the merely phenomenal existence of these Ideas
in the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the restricted method
of knowledge of the individual. We shall then agree with Plato when he
attributes actual being only to the Ideas, and allows only an illusive,
dream-like existence to things in space and time, the real world for the
individual. Then we shall understand how one and the same Idea reveals
itself in so many phenomena, and presents its nature only bit by bit to
the individual, one side after another. Then we shall also distinguish the
Idea itself from the way in which its manifestation appears in the
observation of the individual, and recognise the former as essential and
the latter as unessential. Let us consider this with the help of examples
taken from the most insignificant things, and also from the greatest. When
the clouds move, the figures which they form are not essential, but
indifferent to them; but that as elastic vapour they are pressed together,
drifted along, spread out, or torn asunder by the force of the wind: this
is their nature, the essence of the forces which objectify themselves in
them, the Idea; their actual forms are only for the individual observer.
To the brook that flows over stones, the eddies, the waves, the
foam-flakes which it forms are indifferent and unessential; but that it
follows the attraction of gravity, and behaves as inelastic, perfectly
mobile, formless, transparent fluid: this is its nature; this, _if known
through perception_, is its Idea; these accidental forms are only for us
so long as we know as individuals. The ice on the window-pane forms itself
into crystals according to the laws of crystallisation, which reveal the
essence of the force of nature that appears here, exhibit the Idea; but
the trees and flowers which it traces on the pane are unessential, and are
only there for us. What appears in the clouds, the brook, and the crystal
is the weakest echo of that will which appears more fully in the plant,
more fully still in the beast, and most fully in man. But only the
essential in all these grades of its objectification constitutes the Idea;
on the other hand, its unfolding or development, because broken up in the
forms of the principle of sufficient reason into a multiplicity of
many-sided phenomena, is unessential to the Idea, lies merely in the kind
of knowledge that belongs to the individual and has reality only for this.
The same thing necessarily holds good of the unfolding of that Idea which
is the completest objectivity of will. Therefore, the history of the human
race, the throng of events, the change of times, the multifarious forms of
human life in different lands and countries, all this is only the
accidental form of the manifestation of the Idea, does not belong to the
Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the will, but
only to the phenomenon which appears in the knowledge of the individual,
and is just as foreign, unessential, and indifferent to the Idea itself as
the figures which they assume are to the clouds, the form of its eddies
and foam-flakes to the brook, or its trees and flowers to the ice.
To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can distinguish between the
will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation, the events
of the world will have significance only so far as they are the letters
out of which we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves.
He will not believe with the vulgar that time may produce something
actually new and significant; that through it, or in it, something
absolutely real may attain to existence, or indeed that it itself as a
whole has beginning and end, plan and development, and in some way has for
its final aim the highest perfection (according to their conception) of
the last generation of man, whose life is a brief thirty years. Therefore
he will just as little, with Homer, people a whole Olympus with gods to
guide the events of time, as, with Ossian, he will take the forms of the
clouds for individual beings; for, as we have said, both have just as much
meaning as regards the Idea which appears in them. In the manifold forms
of human life and in the unceasing change of events, he will regard the
Idea only as the abiding and essential, in which the will to live has its
fullest objectivity, and which shows its different sides in the
capacities, the passions, the errors and the excellences of the human
race; in self-interest, hatred, love, fear, boldness, frivolity,
stupidity, slyness, wit, genius, and so forth, all of which crowding
together and combining in thousands of forms (individuals), continually
create the history of the great and the little world, in which it is all
the same whether they are set in motion by nuts or by crowns. Finally, he
will find that in the world it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in
all of which the same persons appear, with like intention, and with a like
fate; the motives and incidents are certainly different in each piece, but
the spirit of the incidents is the same; the actors in one piece know
nothing of the incidents of another, although they performed in it
themselves; therefore, after all experience of former pieces, Pantaloon
has become no more agile or generous, Tartaglia no more conscientious,
Brighella no more courageous, and Columbine no more modest.
Suppose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the kingdom of the
possible, and over the whole chain of causes and effects; if the
earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture all the greatest men,
enlighteners of the world, and heroes, that chance destroyed before they
were ripe for their work; then the great events that would have changed
the history of the world and brought in periods of the highest culture and
enlightenment, but which the blindest chance, the most insignificant
accident, hindered at the outset; lastly, the splendid powers of great
men, that would have enriched whole ages of the world, but which, either
misled by error or passion, or compelled by necessity, they squandered
uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or even wasted in play. If we
saw all this, we would shudder and lament at the thought of the lost
treasures of whole periods of the world. But the earth-spirit would smile
and say, “The source from which the individuals and their powers proceed
is inexhaustible and unending as time and space; for, like these forms of
all phenomena, they also are only phenomena, visibility of the will. No
finite measure can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished
eternity is always open for the return of any event or work that was
nipped in the bud. In this world of phenomena true loss is just as little
possible as true gain. The will alone is; it is the thing in-itself, and
the source of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or
denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.”(49)