Chapter 23 Book II The World as a Preliminary Treatise on the Will §23

The will as a thing-in-itself is quite different from its appearance, completely devoid of all forms of appearance.The will enters these forms only when it appears as a phenomenon; the form is therefore only concerned with its objectivity, and has nothing to do with itself.The most general form of all representations, the form of the object to the subject, already has nothing to do with it; and what is even less relevant to the next rank, all those forms which have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason.To these sub-forms there are, as we all know, time and space, and the multiplicity which is possible only by virtue of time and space.On this last point, I shall call time and space the principle of individuation, to borrow a term from the old scholastics, and this is what I would ask the reader to remember once and for all.It turns out that only time and space are essentially, conceptually the same and yet one [thing], after all, they must be used to appear as differences, as multiplicity, as things juxtaposed and followed by each other.So time and space are "principles of individuation" and are the objects of the scholastics' brains and debates.Suarnez collected these materials ("Controversy" Section V, third subparagraph), which can be referred to.From what has been said above, the will as a thing-in-itself is outside the scope of the principle of sufficient reason, which has various forms, and is therefore simply groundless; although every appearance of it is still absolutely subject to the principle of sufficient reason.Moreover, in time and space, although its phenomena are uncountable, it is independent of all multiplicity. It is a single one in itself, but it is different from an object as one.The unity of the object is recognized only in contrast to the possible multiplicity. [The oneness of the will] is also different from the oneness of a concept, which arises only from the abstraction of the multiplicity, which [, the will, is not such a oneness, but] outside the principles of time, space, and individuation, that is One out of many possibilities.Only when all that has been said here is fully understood by the following consideration of phenomena and different manifestations of the will, can we fully appreciate the purport of Kant's teaching. [Only understand] Time, space and causality do not correspond to things in themselves, but are only forms of cognition.

When the will expresses itself most clearly as the will of man, people have truly realized the groundlessness of the will, and have called the will of man free and independent.But at the same time, on the basis of the groundlessness of the will itself, people ignore the necessity that the phenomenon of the will must be obeyed everywhere, and say that the behavior is also free. [Actually] action is not free, since every individual action arising from the action of motives on character is initiated with strict necessity.All necessity, as has been said, is the relation of effect to cause, and absolutely nothing else.The principle of sufficient reason is the universal form of all phenomena, and in its actions it must obey the law of sufficient reason just like any other phenomenon.But since the will is known immediately, in itself, in self-consciousness, there is also a consciousness of freedom in this [self]-consciousness.But this ignores the individual person, the personality person is not the will of the thing-in-itself, but already the phenomenon of will, as a phenomenon, it has already been determined and entered into the form of phenomenon, into the law of reason.Herein lies the source of the queerness [of which] everyone thinks a priori that he is completely free, also in his particular conduct; That is to say, to become another person.But by experience, a posteriori, he finds again, with astonishment, that he is not free but subject to necessity, that in spite of many premeditated plans and repeated reflections, his course has not changed; From the beginning to the end of his life, he always plays the role he does not want to play, and he must also perform [that part] of the plot that he is responsible for until the end of the play.Here I cannot continue this investigation, which belongs to another chapter of this book as an ethical question.At present, I just want to point out here that the will itself has no basis, and its appearance, as a phenomenon, still obeys the necessary law and the law of reason; I feel awkward about the inevitability by which phenomena arise.

Hitherto only certain changes have been regarded as phenomena of the will, those which have no ground but a motive, that is, a representation; It is admitted that animals also have a will, because cognition, representation, as I have already mentioned elsewhere, is of course to be counted as a real and proper characteristic of the animal kingdom.But the will also operates where no knowledge directs it; and this we see most readily in the instincts and natural cunning of animals.It cannot be said here that they also have appearances and cognitions, because they have been rushing forward to this purpose in this way. If this purpose is a motive that they have recognized, it is completely ignorant to them.Their actions here therefore occur without motive, are not directed by appearances, and are the first to show us most clearly how the will can act without any knowledge.A bird of one year has no appearance of eggs, [yet] for which it builds a nest; a young spider has no appearance of prey, [yet] for which it spins a web; at its first When digging pits to wait for ants, anteaters do not have the appearance of ants.The chrysalis of the stag beetle makes a hole in the tree, thinking that there is room for its residence during the metamorphosis period, that is, no matter whether it becomes a male or a female in the future, it always makes a hole twice as big as its own [grown body] ; thus, if it becomes a male, there is room for his two horns, which he has no appearance of horns.In the actions of these animals in this way, and in their other actions, there is certainly an action of the will, evidently, but in a blind action; and this action is accompanied by knowledge, but not directed by it. .If we have once gained the insight that representations and motives are not necessary and essential conditions of the will, it will be easier for us to recognize the action of the will also in less pronounced cases.The "dwelling" that the snail [carries], for example, cannot be attributed to a will independent of the snail, but guided by knowledge; It is not our own will that has been erected; rather, we would recognize both dwellings as products of a will that objectifies itself in both phenomena.This will in us [humans] works as a motive, but in the snail, it is still blind and works as a constructive impulse directed towards the outside world.Even in us [men], this same will operates blindly in many respects, in all the functions of our bodies, without the direction of knowledge, [in all organic, growing processes], [ Such as] digestion, blood circulation, secretion, growth, regeneration [etc.].Not only the activities of the body, but also the whole body, as has been proved before, are phenomena of will, objectified will, concrete will.Everything that goes on in the body, therefore, necessarily goes on through the will, though here the will is not guided by knowledge, is not determined by motives; but acts blindly, [only] by causes ], and in this case the cause is called the stimulus.

When I call a certain state of matter a cause, I mean a cause in the narrowest sense, that is, when this state necessarily causes another state, it itself undergoes a change as great as the one caused by it. and this is what the law "action equal to reaction" expresses.Still further, as regards the so-called true cause, the effect grows in exact proportion to the cause, and so does the reaction; so that, once the mode of this action is known, the strength of the effect can be measured and calculated from the strength of the cause. , and vice versa.This so-called cause operates in all phenomena of mechanics, chemistry, etc., in short, in all changes of inorganic bodies.On the contrary, I again call a cause by a stimulus, which itself does not undergo a reaction commensurate with its action, and whose intensity is not proportional to the intensity of the effect, so that the intensity of the effect cannot be measured from the intensity of the cause. , on the contrary, a very small increase in the stimulus can produce a very large increase in the consequence, which can in turn cancel the earlier effect completely, and so on.To this class belong to being: all the actions of the organism; therefore all really organic changes in the animal body and changes in biological growth take place under stimuli and not under mere causes, but stimuli are fundamentally related to Like any cause—and so is motive—it never determines anything other than the moment, that point, when the expression of any force enters time and space, and does not determine the inner nature of the force that expresses itself.This inner essence, according to our previous extension, is what we recognize as will, and we ascribe to it both conscious and unconscious changes in the body.Stimulus then becomes intermediary [on the one hand] motivation—that is causality through cognitive action—[on the one hand] cause in the narrowest sense, the bridge between the two.In individual cases, the stimulus is sometimes closer to the motive, and sometimes closer to the cause, but it can always be distinguished from the two when [near] this [near that].For example, the ascent of various sap in plants is explained by stimulus, not by cause, not by the law of water, nor by the law of capillary tubes; And it is very close to the change of pure cause at all.In contrast, the movements of the sunflower and the mimosa, although still stimuli-driven, are very close to being motivated, and almost seem to be bridges [to motivation].The constriction of the pupils when the light is strengthened is carried out under stimulation, but if the retina has pain because of too strong light, and we constrict the pupils in order to avoid the pain, it is a transition to motivational action. - The cause of the erection of the genitals is a motive, because it is an appearance; but it still works by stimulating all that necessity, that is to say, it is irresistible, Rather, it must be removed in order to make it ineffective.The same is true of those filthy things that make people sick.Just before, we have regarded animal instinct as a genuine intermediate link between action under stimuli and behavior "occurring" on recognized motives.One can also be induced to see breathing as a further intermediate link of this kind.It turns out that people have debated whether breathing is a voluntary or unconscious action [the question], that is, whether it is produced under motivation or under stimulation; therefore, breathing may be explained as an intermediary between the two. thing.Marshall Hall (T. 293 et ​​seq.) explains respiration as a mixed function, because it is governed by the [intentional] cerebral nerves and the [involuntary] spinal nerves. dominate.In these terms we must, after all, count among motives the expression of the will, because other motives, that is, mere representation, can also cause the will to stop or hasten breathing, and breathing, like any other voluntary act, There may also be the possibility of voluntary suffocation by causing it to come to a complete stop.In fact, one can do the same, provided some other motive determines the will so strongly that it overwhelms the urgent need to take in air.According to some [according to], Diogenes really ended his own life in this way (Greek Philosopher's Biographies) V1, 76).Negroes have been said to have done the same (Archander, On Suicide), 1813, pp. 170-180).In this fact we perhaps have a clear example of the influence of abstract motives, namely the overwhelming predominance of really rational desires over purely animal ones.It is true that respiration is at least partly controlled by the activity of the brain, namely, that cyanic acid kills a person by first paralyzing the brain, and then impairing respiration indirectly, but if artificial respiration does not kill [the person], then When the anesthesia of the brain passes, death does not occur.At the same time, breathing here also gives us the most obvious example, that is, motives and stimuli work with the same inevitability as causes in the narrow sense, and can only be disabled by opposite motives, just like pressure. As with counterpressure, because breathing is much less likely to be paused than other activities that arise under motivation; [again] because in the case of breathing, motivation is It is very close, and the realization of the motivation, which is easy because the muscles of execution are indefatigable and easy, [so] is generally unhindered, and the whole is supported by the oldest habits of the individual.Yet all motives operate originally with the same necessity.The recognition that necessity is common to both action under motive and action under stimuli makes it easy for us to understand that that which in an organism is perfectly regulated by stimuli is still will in its inner essence.Although the will itself is by no means subject to the law of sufficient reason, all phenomena of the will are subject to the law of sufficient reason, that is to say, to necessity.We shall not stop there, therefore, and recognize the body and organization of animals—both in their behavior and in their entire actual existence—as phenomena of will, and shall turn the only direct knowledge we have of the nature of things themselves into for plants.All the activities of plants are caused by stimuli, and only the lack of knowledge, the lack of activities determined by knowledge under motivation, constitutes the essential difference between animals and plants.Therefore, whatever appears in appearance as a plant, as a mere growth, as a blind impulse, we shall recognize it in its very nature as will, and regard it as the very element that constitutes our own phenomena. ground; for this ground expresses itself in our actions, in the whole actual existence of our bodies themselves.

This leaves us but the last step in extending our mode of investigation to all those forces in nature which operate according to universal and unchanging laws.All bodies, utterly without organs, without response to stimuli, without knowledge of motives, must obey these immutable laws in their motion.We must therefore take the key to the understanding of the nature of things themselves—which can only be obtained by the direct knowledge of our own nature—to understand the phenomena of the inorganic world, which of all phenomena is the most remote from us.If we observe these phenomena with a research eye, when we see water flowing into the abyss with a powerful and irresistible momentum; the magnetic needle always stubbornly points to the north pole; A violent demand for recombination, and like a man's desire, the intensity increases with the increase of the hindrance; when we see the crystals form so quickly and suddenly, and how regular they are in structure , [whereas] this structure is evidently only perfectly fixed, precisely determined efforts to point in different directions are caught and frozen by rigidity; the selective action by which they gravitate towards each other when they are free; and finally when we feel fully and directly that what is loaded upon us prevents us [to straighten] the body with its effort towards the earth, following its only inclination towards The body exerts pressure;—[When we see all this,] then without much effort by our imagination, even at this distance, we can recognize our own essence, which is in our [ people].It pursues its purpose in the light of knowledge, and here [in nature] it is that which runs blindly, dimly, one-sidedly, unchangingly, in its weakest appearances.Just as it is everywhere one and the same; as the morning light and the noonday sun share the name Daylight, so in us and in nature the same thing has in common the name Will; and this name It marks that which is not only the existence itself of every thing in the world, but also the only core of every phenomenon.

Between the inorganic natural phenomenon and the will, which is perceived as something immanent in our own nature, a distance arises, and so appears to be completely different on the surface, first of all because of the two phenomena. The contrast between the one has a completely fixed regularity, and the other has an arbitrary [activity] that seems to be irregular.It turns out that in human beings, the power of personality is extremely significant: each person has his own unique personality; so the same motive cannot exert equal power on all people; The thousands of secondary situations in the book have their place, and the role of motivation must be changed.Motives alone cannot therefore predict behavior, because [we] lack another factor, namely, our inaccurate knowledge of the individual character and the knowledge that goes with it.On the other hand, the phenomena of those forces of nature show here the other extreme, they operate according to general laws, without exceptions, without individuality; Expressing itself in a thousand phenomena in the same way.In order to explain this clearly, in order to point out the identity of an indivisible will in all its different appearances, in the faintest and most striking.We must first examine the relation of will as a thing in itself to phenomena, that is, the relation of the world as will to the world as representation; All the subjects dealt with in this second part.