The World as Will and Idea

Arthur Schopenhauer, who was born at Dantzig, in Germany, Feb. 22,

1788, and died September 21, 1860, came of highly intellectual

antecedents, his mother, Johanna Schopenhauer, being a noted German

authoress. As an indefatigable student he migrated, according to

the fashion of his Fatherland, from one university to another, in

order to sit at the feet of various professors, and thus he

attended courses at Gottingen, Berlin, and Jena successively,

finally graduating at Jena in 1813. The winter of that year he

spent at Weimar, revelling in the society of Goethe, and also

enjoying intercourse with Maier, the profound Orientalist, who

indoctrinated him with those views of Indian mysticism which

greatly influenced his future philosophic disquisitions. After

writing and publishing a few slight treatises Schopenhauer sent

forth his great work, "The World as Will and Idea," which has

immortalized him. It appeared in 1819. During subsequent years,

when he resided in Frankfort, he wrote his volumes on "Will in

Nature," "The Freedom of the Will," "The Basis of Morals," and

"Parerga and Paralipomena." The keynote of Schopenhauer's

philosophy is that the sole essential reality in the universe is

the will, and that all visible and tangible phenomena are merely

subjective representations, or formal manifestations of that will

which is the only thing-in-itself that actually subsists. Thus he

stands among philosophers as the uncompromising antagonist of

Hegel, Fichte, Schelling and all the champions of the theory of

consciousness and absolute reason as the essential foundation of

the faculty of thought. The defect of his system is its tendency to

a sombre pessimism, but his literary style is magnificent and his

power of reasoning is exceptional. The epitome here given has been

prepared from the original German.

_I.--The World as Idea_

"The world is my idea," is a truth valid for every living creature,

though only man can consciously contemplate it. In doing so he attains

philosophical wisdom. No truth is more absolutely certain than that all

that exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole world, is only

object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver, in a word,

idea. The world is idea.

This truth is by no means new; it lay by implication in the reflections

of Descartes; but Berkeley first distinctly enunciated it; while Kant

erred by ignoring it. So ancient is it that it was the fundamental

principle of the Indian Vedanta, as Sir William Jones points out. In one

aspect the world is idea; in the other aspect, the world is will.

That which knows all things and is known by none is the subject; and for

this subject all exists. But the world as idea consists of two essential

and inseparable halves. One half is the object, whose form consists of

time and space, and through these of multiplicity; but the other half is

the subject, lying not in space and time, for it subsists whole and

undivided in every reflecting being. Thus any single individual endowed

with the faculty of perception of the object, constitutes the whole

world of idea as completely as the millions in existence; but let this

single individual vanish, and the whole world as idea would disappear.

Each of these halves possesses meaning and existence only in and through

the other, appearing with and vanishing with it. Where the object begins

the subject ends. One of Kant's great merits is that he discovered that

the essential and universal forms of all objects--space, time,

causality--lie _a priori_ in our consciousness, for they may be

discovered and fully known from a consideration of the subject, without

any knowledge of the object.

Ideas of perception are distinct from abstract ideas. The former

comprehend the whole world of experience; the latter are concepts, and

are possessed by man alone amongst all creatures on earth; and the

capacity for these, distinguishing him from the lower animals, is called

reason.

Time and space can each be mentally presented separately from matter,

but matter cannot be thought of apart from time and space. The

combination of time and space in connection with matter constitutes

action, that is, causation. The law of causation arises from change,

that is from the fact that at the same part of space there is now one

thing and then another, and this succession must be the result of some

law of causality, seeing that there must be a determined part of space

and a determined part of space for the change. Causality thus combines

space with time.

Much vain controversy has arisen concerning the reality of the external

universe, owing to the fallacious notion that because perception arises

through the knowledge of causality, the relation of subject and object

is that of cause and effect. For this relation only subsists between

objects, that is between the immediate object and objects known

indirectly. The object always pre-supposes the subject, and so there can

be between those two no relation of reason and consequent. Therefore the

controversy between realistic dogmatism and doctrinal scepticism is

foolish. The former seeks to separate object and idea as cause and

effect, whereas these two are really one; the latter supposes that in

the idea we have only the effect, never the cause, and never know the

real being, but merely its action. The correction of both these

fallacies is the same, that object and idea are identical.

One of the most pressing of questions is, how certainty is to be

reached, how judgments are to be established, and wherein knowledge and

science consist. Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it

has received. Of Itself it possesses only the empty forms of its

operation. Knowledge is the result of reason, so that we cannot

accurately say that the lower animals know anything, but only that they

apprehend through the faculty of perception.

The greatest value of knowledge is that it can be communicated and

retained. This makes it inestimably important for practice. Rational or

abstract knowledge is that knowledge which is peculiar to the reason as

distinguished from the understanding. The use of reason is that it

substitutes abstract concepts for ideas of perception, and adopts them

as the guide of action.

The many-sided view of life which man, as distinguished from the lower

animals, possesses through reason, makes him stand to them as the

captain, equipped with chart, compass and quadrant, and with a knowledge

of navigation of the ocean, stands to the ignorant sailors under his

command.

Man lives two lives. Besides his life in the concrete is his life in the

abstract. In the former he struggles, suffers, and dies as do the mere

animal creatures. But in the abstract he quietly reflects on the plan of

the universe as does a captain of a ship on the chart. He becomes in

this abstract life of calm reasoning a deliberate observer of those

elements which previously moved and agitated his emotions. Withdrawing

into this serene contemplation he is like an actor who has played a part

on the stage and then withdraws and as one of the audience quietly looks

on at other actors energetically performing.

The result of this double life is that human serenity which furnishes so

vivid a contrast to the lack of reason in the brutes. Reason has won to

a wonderful extent the mastery over the animal nature. The climacteric

stage of the mere exercise of reason is displayed in Stoicism, an

ethical system which aims primarily not at virtue but at happiness,

although this theory inculcates that happiness can be attained only

through "ataraxia" (inward quietness or peace of mind), while this can

only be gained by virtue. In other words, Zeno, the founder of the Stoic

theory, sought to lift man up above the reach of pain and misery. But

this use of pure reason involves a painful paradox, seeing that for an

ultimate way of escape Stoicism is constrained to prescribe suicide.

When compared with the Stoic, how different appear the holy conquerors

of the world in Christianity, that sublime form of life which presents

to us a picture wherein we see blended perfect virtue and supreme

suffering.

_II.--The World as Will_

We are compelled to further inquiry, because we cannot be satisfied with

knowing that we have ideas, and that these are associated with certain

laws, the general expression of which is the principle of sufficient

reason. We wish to know the significance of our ideas. We ask whether

this world is nothing more than a mere idea, not worthy of our notice if

it is to pass by us like an empty dream or an airy vision, or whether it

is something more substantial.

We can surely never arrive at the nature of things from without. No

matter how assiduous our researches may be, we can never reach anything

beyond images and names. We resemble a man going round a castle seeking

vainly for an entrance and sometimes sketching the facades. And yet this

is the method followed by all philosophers before me.

The truth about man is that he is not a pure knowing subject, not a

winged cherub without a material body, contemplating the world from

without. For he is himself rooted in that world. That is to say, he

finds himself in the world as an _individual_ whose knowledge, which is

the essential basis of the whole world as idea, is yet ever communicated

through the medium of the body, whose sensations are the starting point

of the understanding of that world. His body is for him an idea like

every other idea, an object among objects. He only knows its actions as

he knows the changes in all other objects, and but for one aid to his

understanding of himself he would find this idea and object as strange

and incomprehensible as all others. That aid is _will_, which alone

furnishes the key to the riddle of himself, solves the problem of his

own existence, reveals to him the inner structure and significance of

his being, his action, and his movements.

The body is the immediate object of will; it may be called the

_objectivity of will_. Every true act of will is also instantly a

visible act of the body, and every impression on the body is also at

once an impression on the will. When it is opposed to the will it is

called pain, and when consonant with the will it is called pleasure. The

essential identity of body and will is shown by the fact that every

violent movement of the will, that is to say, every emotion, directly

agitates the body and interferes with its vital functions. So we may

legitimately say, My body is the objectivity of my will.

It is simply owing to this special relation to one body that the knowing

subject is an individual. Our knowing, being bound to individuality,

necessitates that each of us can only be one, and yet each of us can

know all. Hence arises the need for philosophy. The double knowledge

which each of us possesses of his own body is the key to the nature of

every phenomenon in the world. Nothing is either known to us or

thinkable by us except will and idea. If we examine the reality of the

body and its actions, we discover nothing beyond the fact that it is an

idea, except the will. With this double discovery reality is exhausted.

We can ascribe no other kind of reality to the material world. If we

maintain that it is something more than merely our idea, we must say

that in its inmost nature it is that which we discover in ourselves as

_will_. But the acts of will have always a ground or reason outside

themselves in motives, which, however, never determine more than how we

shall act at any given time or place under any given conditions or

circumstances. The will must have some manifestation, and the body is

that manifestation. By the movements of the body the will becomes

visible, and thus the body may be said to be the _objectification of the

will_. The perfect adaptation of the human and animal body to the human

and animal will resembles, though it far exceeds, the correspondence

between an instrument and its maker.

_III.--The World as Idea. Second Aspect_

We have looked at the world as idea, object for a subject, and next at

the world as will. All students of Plato know that the different grades

of objectification of will which are manifested in countless

individuals, and exist as their unrealized types or as the eternal forms

of things, are the Platonic Ideas. Thus these various grades are related

to individual things as their eternal forms or prototypes.

Thus the world in which we live is in its whole nature through and

through _will_, and at the same time through and through _idea_. This

idea always pre-supposes a form, object and subject. If we take away

this form and ask what then remains, the answer must be that this can be

nothing but _will_, which, properly speaking, is the _thing in itself_.

Every human being discovers that he himself is this will, and that the

world exists only for him does so in relation to his consciousness. Thus

each human being is himself in a double aspect the whole world, the

microcosm. And that which he realizes as his own real being exhausts the

being of the whole world, the macrocosm. So, like man, the world is

through and through _will_, and through and through _idea_.

Plato would say that an animal has no true being, but merely an apparent

being, a constant becoming. The only true being is the Idea which

embodies itself in that animal. That is to say, the Idea of the animal

alone has true being, and is the object of real knowledge. Kant, with

his theory of "the thing-in-itself" as the only reality, would say that

the animal is only a phenomenon in time, space, and causality, which are

conditions of our perception, not the thing-in-itself. So the individual

as we see it at this particular moment will pass away, without any

possibility of our knowing the thing-in-itself, for the knowledge of

that is beyond our faculties, and would require another kind of

knowledge than that which is possible for us through our understanding.

Thus do these two greatest philosophers of the West differ. The

thing-in-itself must, according to Kant, be free from all forms

associated with knowing. On the contrary, the Platonic idea is

necessarily object, something known and thus different from the

thing-in-itself, which cannot be apprehended. Yet Kant and Plato tend to

agree, because the thing-in-itself is, after all, that which lays aside

all the subordinate forms of phenomena, and has retained the first and

most universal form, that of the idea in general, the form of being

object for a subject. Plato attributes actual being only to the Ideas,

and concedes only an illusive, dream-like existence to things in space

and time, the real world for the individual.

_IV.--The World as Will. Second Aspect_

The last and most serious part of our consideration relates to human

action and is of universal importance. Human nature tends to relate

everything else to action. The world as idea is the perfect mirror of

the will, in which it recognizes itself in graduating scales of

distinctness and completeness. The highest degree of this consciousness

is man, whose nature only completely expresses itself in the whole

connected series of his actions.

Will is the thing-in-itself, the essence of the world. Life is only the

mirror of the will. Life accompanies the will as the shadow the body. If

will exists, so will life. So long as we are actuated by the will to

live, we need have no fear of ceasing to live, even in the presence of

death. True, we see the individual born and passing away; but the

individual is merely phenomenal. Neither the will, nor the subject of

cognition, is at all affected by birth or death.

It is not the individual, but only the species, that Nature cares for.

She provides for the species with boundless prodigality through the

incalculable profusion of seed and the great strength of fructification.

She is ever ready to let the individual fall when it had served its end

of perpetuating the species. Thus does Nature artlessly express the

great truth that only the Ideas, not the individuals, have actual

reality and are complete objectivity of the will.

Man is Nature himself, but Nature is only the objectified will to live.

So the man who has comprehended this point of view may well console

himself when contemplating death for himself or his friends, by turning

his eyes to the immortal life of Nature, which he himself is. And thus

we see that birth and death both really belong to life and that they

take part in that constant mutation of matter which is consistent with

the permanence of the species, notwithstanding the transitoriness of the

individual.

_V.--The Will as Related to Time_

Above all, we must not forget that the form of the phenomenon of the

will, the form of life in reality, is really only the _present_, not the

future nor the past. No man ever lived in the past, no man will live in

the future. The present is the sole form of life in sure possession. The

present exists always, together with its content, and both are fixed

like the rainbow on the waterfall.

Now all object is the will so far as it has become idea, and the subject

is the necessary correlative of the object. But real objects are in the

present only. So nothing but conceptions and fancies are included in the

past, while the present is the essential form of the phenomenon of the

will, and inseparable from it. The present alone is perpetual and

immovable. The fountain and support of it is the will to live, or the

thing-in-itself, which we are.

Life is certain to the will, and the present is certain to life. Time is

like a perpetually revolving globe. The hemisphere which is sinking is

like the past, that which is rising is like the future, while the

indivisible point at the top is like the actionless present. Or, time is

like a running river and the present is a rock on which it breaks but

which it cannot remove with itself. Therefore we are not concerned to

investigate the past antecedent to life, nor to speculate on the future

subsequent to death. We should simply seek to know the present, that

being the sole form in which the will manifests itself. Therefore, if we

are satisfied with life as it is, we may confidently regard it as

endless and banish the fear of death as illusive. Our spirit is of a

totally indestructible nature, and its energy endures from eternity to

eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly

eyes, but which, in reality, never sets, but shines on unceasingly.

The problem of the freedom of the will is solved by the considerations

which have been thus outlined. Since the will is not phenomenon, is not

idea or object, but thing-in-itself, is not determined as a consequent

through any reason, and knows no necessity, therefore it is _free_. But

the person is never free, although he is the phenomenon of a free will,

for this indisputable reason, that he is already the determined

phenomenon of the free volition of this will, and is constrained to

embody the direction of that volition in a multiplicity of actions.

Repentance never results from a change of will, for this is impossible,

but from a change of knowledge. The essential in what I have willed I

must continue to will, for I am identical with this will which lies

outside time and change. Therefore I cannot repent of what I have

willed, though I can repent of what I have done; because, constrained by

false notions, I was led to do what did not accord with my will.

Repentance is simply the discovery of this fuller and more correct

knowledge.