Chapter 20 Book II The World as a Preliminary Treatise on the Will §20

As has been said above, the will, as the essence itself of [man's] own body, as this body is not only an object of intuition, but also a representation, first of all reveals itself in the voluntary movements of this body, As long as these movements are nothing but the "visibility" of individual acts of will.This "visibility" and the act of will are initiated immediately and completely at the same time, and are identical with the act of will; it is only because this "visibility" is transferred into the form of "knowledge", that is, as a representation, that it has a relationship with the act of will. the difference.

But these acts of the will always have a ground outside themselves, in the motive.But motives never determine more than what I desire here, here, and in this situation; neither do I desire at all, nor what I desire at all, that is to say, those things which characterize my whole desire. Code of Conduct.Therefore, my desire cannot be explained in its entirety in terms of motivation, but motivation only determines the expression of this desire at a certain point in time, and is only an occasion for my will to express itself.The will itself, on the contrary, is outside the scope of the law of motivation, and only its manifestation at any point in time is necessarily regulated by the law of motivation.Motives are a sufficient ground for our behavior only after assuming my empirical character.If I leave my character aside and ask why I want this and not that, no answer is possible, because only the phenomena of the will are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and not the will itself; in this sense the will is If it is baseless.On this point, partly based on Kant's theory on the empirical character and the intellectual character and my own "Essential Problems of Ethics" (first edition pp. 48-58, see also pp. 178, etc., second edition pp. 46- 53, see also page 174, etc.) as a premise, and some of them will be discussed in detail in the fourth part of [this book].For the present I need only call attention to the fact that the fact that one phenomenon is grounded in another, in this case the fact that action is grounded in motives, does not contradict the fact that the nature of phenomena in themselves is will.Will itself has no basis, because the law of sufficient reason is only a form of cognition in any form, that is, the effect of the law of sufficient reason only extends to representations, phenomena [or] the "visibility" of will, not to will itself, will itself [was invisible, it was only afterward] that it became visible.

Since every activity of my body is a phenomenon of volition, and my will itself, that is, my character, is basically and completely expressed in this volition under certain motives, then every The necessary condition and presupposition of action must also be the manifestation of the will; for the manifestation of the will cannot depend on anything that is not directly and solely [activated] by the will, that is, on something that is only accidental to the will.If it depends on the contingent, the manifestation of the will itself can only be contingent: the above-mentioned condition is then the whole body itself.The body must therefore itself be the phenomenon of the will, and it must be to my whole will, that is to say, to my knowing character, which is expressed in time, my knowing character. It is the same relation as the individual activity of the body to the individual activity of the will.Therefore, as long as the body is an object of intuition, a representation of the first kind, the whole body must be my will which has become visible, must be my visible will itself, and nothing else. —The proof of this is the already stated [fact], namely, that whenever my body is subjected to an external action, this action also immediately and directly excites my will, and in this sense it is called suffering. Either pleasant or pleasant, or to a lesser extent, pleasant or unpleasant sensations; and vice versa, every violent agitation of the will, that is, emotion and passion, shakes the body and hinders the operation of its functions. —Although etiology can give a somewhat imperfect account of the origin of my body, and a better account of its development and preservation, and this account is just physiology; Describe the behavior in such a way as to describe its subject matter.Just as, therefore, that motives and their necessary consequences as the grounds of particular actions do not contradict the fact that actions are fundamentally and essentially mere phenomena of a will which has no basis in itself [this statement]; Nor is the physiological explanation of the bodily functions detrimental to the philosophical truth that the whole actual existence of the body, and its whole series of functions, are but the objectification of the will which is formed in the external activities of its body. Appears on the scale of motivation.Although physiology even attempts to attribute these external activities, direct and voluntary movements, to some causes in the organism, for example, the accumulation of various fluids in one place to explain the movement of muscles (Rael in "Physiological Information Series", pp. vol. VI, p. 153, says: "As if a wet rope were to be shortened"), but even if one were to make such an account to the fullest, it would by no means cancel out this immediate and definite truth, [without prejudice to] saying that every 61 A voluntary movement (an animal function) is a phenomenon of volition.In the same way, the physiological explanation of growing life (the natural function, the function of life), however developed it may be, cannot cancel the truth that the whole animal life, thus developing, is itself a phenomenon of the will.As mentioned above, any explanation of etiology will never point out anything except pointing out the position of individual phenomena in time and space, and pointing out the fixed rules that phenomena must appear here; on the other hand, in In this way, the inner essence of any phenomenon is always impossible to explore, and the explanation of etiology can only assume this essence [existence], and only use names such as "force" and "law of nature" to label it, but not If we speak of actions, we designate it by such names as character and will.So though every individual act, assuming a fixed character, is necessarily initiated in accordance with the present motive; ); yet this whole series of acts, and thus each individual act, and also the conditions of the acts, the whole body itself which performs these acts, and thus the process in which the body exists and by which it exists [etc. ], which are nothing but phenomena of the will, its becoming visible, its objectification.This is the reason why the bodies of humans and animals are completely compatible with the will of humans and animals, just like the intentionally made tools are compatible with the will of the maker, but it is far more than this adaptive [relationship]. .Therefore, this adaptation appears as teleological, that is to say, the possibility of explaining the body in terms of teleology.The parts of the body must therefore correspond perfectly to the main desires from which the will is directed, must be their visible expression: the delivery of teeth, esophagus, intestines is objectified hunger; the genitals are objectified sexuality ;As for the agreement of the grabbing hand and the fast running legs, it is already a relatively indirect requirement of the will, and the hands and feet are the expression of these requirements.Just as the general form of man corresponds to the general will of man, so the body of the individual corresponds to the individually formed will, the character of each individual.Therefore, the human body, whether it is taken as a whole or in terms of all its parts, has individual characteristics and is full of expressiveness.It is notable that this idea is expressed in a verse of Parmenides quoted by Aristotle (111.5), which reads:

"Just as everyone has a body structure that flexes and stretches freely, Correspondingly, in men dwells the soul; Because the spirit and the natural limbs of man is the same for all, for above this What is decisive is wisdom. "