Chapter 28 Book II The World as a Preliminary Treatise on the Will §28

The will objectifies itself in phenomena whose great diversity and multiplicity we have examined, and whose endless and uncompromising struggle with one another we have seen.However, according to all of our previous discussions.Will itself, as a thing in itself, is not included in this multiplicity and transformation.Differences of Ideas (Platonic), i.e. degrees of objectification; a multitude of individuals in whom each Idea expresses itself; the struggle between forms for the possession of matter [etc. ]; all this has nothing to do with the will, but is only the mode and pretense of the objectification of the will, with which it is only indirectly related by virtue of the objectification; by this relation all this belongs to the essence of the will [in order to be] representation[ And there is] performance.As if a magic lamp reflected a variety of pictures, but it was only one flame [in the lamp] that made all these pictures visible, so, in all complex phenomena-these phenomena are either juxtaposed and crowded The universe, or as accidents come and go—in all these changes only the will is manifest, never changing; and all that is its visibility, its objectivity.Only it is a thing-in-itself and all objects are appearances, in Kant's words, that is, appearances. —The will as the Idea (Plato) has its most obvious and perfect objectification in man, but this objectification alone does not express the essence of the will.If human ideas are to be revealed under their proper meaning, they cannot be expressed in isolation and in isolation, but must have descending levels, passing through all forms of animals, passing through the vegetable kingdom to the inorganic world [nature] Just follow along.All this makes the objectification of the will complete.Human philosophy must be premised on all these, just as a flower on a tree must be premised on branches, leaves, roots, and trunks.These levels form a pyramid, with the top being the top.If people like metaphors, we can also say all this, their appearance is so necessarily accompanied by human appearance, just as the perfect light [of the day] must be accompanied by successive half-darkness. The half-light disappears into the darkness.One may also call all this the aftermath of man, and it may be said that the animals and plants are the descending fifth and third, and the inorganic world the lower eighth.But the full truth of this last metaphor will become apparent when, in the next chapter, we deal with the depths of music; In this sense, it is regarded as showing that people have continuous life and struggle due to introspective thinking.On the contrary, those discontinuous auxiliary notes and slow basses are the source of the harmonics necessary for the integrity of the music, which symbolize the other animal kingdom and unconscious nature.But on this point, let's talk about it in a suitable place later, where it won't sound so incomprehensible. —But we also see that the internal necessity by which the phenomena of will are ranked, which is inseparable from the proper objectivity of will, is expressed in all phenomena of will by an external necessity.Because of this [external] necessity, man needs the animal for his own existence, the animal in turn needs another animal, and then also the plant; the plant needs soil, water, chemical elements, their compounds, etc. , the sun, the rotation and revolution [of the planets], the inclination of the ecliptic, etc.In the last analysis, this all arises from the fact that the will must satisfy its own gluttony with itself, because there is nothing but will, and it is a hungry will. [Human] pursuits, anxieties, and sufferings come from here.

Only by recognizing the unity and singleness of will as a thing in itself in the infinite diversity and diversity of phenomena can we have a sense of the miraculous and unmistakable resemblance between all the products of nature, that The closeness of kinship offers a real account.Because of this closeness of kinship we are able to regard the products of nature as variations of the same, but not concomitantly proposed, theme.In like manner, from a clear and deep perception of the harmony, the essential connection, of all the parts of the world, of the necessity of their ordering--which we have only examined--we A truly adequate understanding of the meaning of the intrinsic nature and undeniable purpose of all organic products of nature. [As for] this purposiveness, we have assumed it a priori when we examine and examine these organic natural products.

This purposiveness is of a double nature, on the one hand it is internal, that is to say, there is such an arranged co-ordination of all the parts of an individual organism that the preservation of that organism and its race is possible, and so it appears in that the purpose of the arrangement.On the other hand, this purposiveness is external. Generally speaking, it is basically a relationship of inorganic nature to organic nature, but sometimes it is also a relationship of parts of organic nature to each other; this relationship makes organic nature as a whole, At the same time it makes possible the preservation of individual species, and the relation therefore appears to our judgment as a means to this end.

This inner purposiveness is inserted into the sequence of our investigations in the following way.If, on the basis of what has been said before, all morphological diversity and individual multiplicity in nature do not belong to the will, but only to its objectivity and form of objectivity; then it must be said that the will, despite The program of its objectification, that is, the Idea (of Plato), is very different, but itself is indivisible, present in any one phenomenon, is the whole will.For the sake of comprehension, we may regard these different Ideas as individual, simple acts of will in themselves, in which the essence of will expresses itself more or less.Individuals, however, are phenomena of these ideas—that is, of those activities—in time, space, and multiplicity. — such an act (or idea) at the lowest level of objectivity also retains its own unity in the phenomenon, whereas at the higher levels this action needs time in order to manifest itself A whole series of circumstances and developments on the subject, all of which combine to complete the expression of its essence.For example, the Idea which manifests itself in any general force of nature, however varied its expression may be according to external circumstances; it always has a single expression; identity, and pointing out that this identity is accomplished precisely by stripping away those differences that arise from external circumstances.It is just like this that the crystal has only one manifestation of life, that is, its crystallization activity.This life form then has its full and comprehensive expression in the frozen form, in the remains of its fleeting life.The plant is [also] the manifestation of the Idea, but the plant expresses the Idea—the plant is the manifestation of the Idea—no longer once, nor by a single expression, but by the continued development of the plant's organs in time. appeared.The animal, on the other hand, not only develops its organism under the same form, not only in successive and often different forms (metamorphoses), but this form itself, which is already the objectivity of the will on this level, still remains is not sufficient to express its idea fully; but it is fully expressed by virtue of the behavior of the animal, for it is in these actions that the animal's empirical character, that is, the same character throughout the species, is revealed. Yes, this is the full manifestation of the idea.At this time, the appearance of the idea is based on the certain organism.As for human beings, each individual has its own specific empirical character (we will see in the fourth book up to the complete abolition of the caste, that is, the abolition of the caste by the self-sublation of all wills).That which is considered the "experiential character" because of the necessary development in time, because of the dispersion into individual acts conditioned by this development, is, in Kantian terminology, the "knowledge" when this temporal form belonging to the phenomenon is abstracted. character".Kant pointed out this distinction and elucidated the relation between freedom and necessity, indeed between the will of the thing-in-itself and the appearance of the will in time; Out of his immortal exploits.So this knowing character corresponds to the Idea, or more narrowly, to the original volition manifested in the Idea.In this context, then, not only the cognitive character of each individual, but also the cognitive character of every animal species, of every vegetable species, and even of every primordial force of inorganic nature, must be regarded as the cognitive character. Character—that is, a timeless, indivisible act of will—phenomena. —— Incidentally, I would like to point out that the frankness of plants can also be noted here.In its form alone every plant expresses its whole character frankly, openly reveals its being and its will; and it is this which makes the appearance of a plant so interesting.But animals [it is different], if they want to know it conceptually, they have to observe it in its actions and activities; while man, because reason has endowed him with a high capacity for camouflage, can only rely on research and temptation. [Come and meet him].Animals are more candid than man, to the same degree that plants are more candid than animals.The naked will to live is more visible in animals than in man, who is wrapped up in so much knowledge and, in addition, is concealed by feigned faculties, that his true nature is revealed or revealed almost only accidentally.Completely naked, but also much weaker, it is the will to life manifested in plants, it is the blind impulse to survive without purpose and goal.This is because the plant reveals its full nature, is unobstructed, is completely innocent.This innocence is not lost by the fact that all animals have their genitals in hidden places, while plants wear them for viewing.The innocence of a plant is based on its ignorance.Evil is not in will, but in will with knowledge.Every plant first reveals its native land, its climate, and the nature of the soil from which it grows.Thus, even an unlearned person can readily recognize whether a foreign plant is of the tropics or of the temperate zone, whether it grows in water, on swamps, on mountains or on heaths.In addition, each plant expresses the special will of its race and says what cannot be expressed in any other language. —But now we shall see [how] what has been said [these] is applied to a teleological examination of the organism, and this examination is also limited to teleological purposes within the organism.In inorganic nature, one can speak of the empirical character when the Idea, which is everywhere seen as a single act of the will, reveals itself in only a single and always the same expression. Having the unity of "enlightenment character" directly here is tantamount to being one with "enlightenment character", so there cannot be any inner purpose here.On the contrary, when all organisms express their ideas in successive developments, and this development is determined by the multiplicity of different parts juxtaposed with each other, that is to say, the "experiential character" of these organisms is all The sum of those manifestations is the expression of the "understanding character"; then, this does not mean that these parts must be juxtaposed with each other, and the inevitable succession of these developments cancels the unity of the manifest idea. , cancels the unity of the volitional activity expressed by oneself.In fact, it is rather this unity which acquires its expression in the necessary relation and chain of causality of those parts and developments.Since that which manifests itself in all ideas, as in an act [of the will], is the one and indivisible and therefore completely identical with itself, the phenomena of the will, although they are scattered into different The parts and conditions of the world must still show that unity in the consistent mutual coordination of these parts and conditions.This is made possible by the necessary correlation and mutual dependence of all parts, whereby the unity of the Idea is restored even in phenomena.Accordingly, we [can] now regard the different parts and functions of the organism as means and ends to each other, and the organism itself as the final end of all ends.Thus, on the one hand, the idea itself is dispersed into the parts and conditions of the organic multiplicity, and on the other hand, the unity of the idea is restored by the necessary connection of those parts and functions as interdependent cause and effect, means and ends; On the one hand, the manifested will as will is not specific and essential to [this] thing-in-itself; These two aspects are the peculiar and essential things.Both aspects belong to the world as representation and not to the world as will; to the ways and means of how the will 221 becomes an object—that is, a representation—at this level of its objectivity.Whoever gets into the meaning of this somewhat incomprehensible discussion [contains] will later fully understand Kant's teaching.The purpose of this theory is to say that both the purposefulness of the organic world and the regularity of the inorganic world were originally brought into the natural world by our understanding. things in themselves.It has been said before that what surprises people about the regularity of inorganic nature is the constancy with which this law never fails.This astonishment is essentially the same as the astonishment one feels at the purposiveness of organic nature, for in both cases we are astonished only at the inherent unity of the Idea, which [ It is only for the sake of appearance that it assumes the form of multiplicity and difference.

As for the second kind of purposiveness, external purposiveness-according to the above classification-that is not to be seen in the inner life of the organism, but only when the organism acquires it from the outside, from inorganic nature, or Seen in the support and help received by other organisms.As far as this purposiveness is concerned, it can likewise be explained generally in the above-established argument, since the whole world, with all its appearances, is at once the objectivity of an indivisible will, and this Idea is to all other Ideas If the relation of a homophonic sound is to that of a single pitch, then the unity of the will must also be seen in the mutual coordination of all the phenomena of the will.However, if we look a little deeper into the phenomena of external purposiveness and the coordination of the different parts of nature, we can make the point here considerably clearer; and the discussion can go back to to illustrate the preceding argument, and to do so we can best do so by examining the following analogy.

The character of any human being, so long as it is thoroughly individual and not wholly contained in the caste, can be regarded as a special idea, which corresponds to a special objectification of the will.Then, this action itself can be said to be the intellectual character of man, and the empirical character of man is the manifestation of this intellectual character.Knowing that character is groundless, that is, as a thing-in-itself, it does not obey the law of sufficient reason (the form of phenomena).The empirical character is completely determined by this "understanding character".The empirical character must constitute a copy of the knowing character in the course of a life, and can do nothing else than what the nature of the knowing character requires.However, this determination is valid only for the essential aspects of the life process thus manifested, not for the non-essential aspects.Belonging to this non-essential aspect is the detailed specification of experiences and behaviors which are the material in which the "experiencing character" manifests itself.Experience and behavior are determined by external circumstances, which in turn generate motives, and character responds to motives in its own right.Since the external situation can vary widely, the external shape from which the "experiencing character" emerges—that is, some actual or historical shape of the life process—must be adapted to the influence of the external situation.This form can be very different, although the essential aspect of the phenomenon, the content of the phenomenon, remains the same.For example, whether people bet on walnuts or crowns is a non-essential aspect, but in gambling, whether people play tricks to deceive or honestly gamble according to the rules, this is an essential aspect.The latter is determined by the character of enlightenment, while the former is determined by external influences.Just as a theme can be played out in a thousand variations of tones, so the same character can appear in a thousand different courses of life.Even though external influences can be so variable, the perceiving character manifested in the course of life, regardless of that influence, must still accurately [de)objectify the perceiving character, since the latter always adapts its objectification to the perceiving character. The actual situation of existing materials. —If we will consider how the will, in that original act of objectification, determines the different Ideas in which it objectifies itself—and these Ideas are the different forms of the products of nature— —and since the objectification of the will belongs to these forms, these forms must also be related to each other in the appearance; we must now assume that a kind of relationship with the external situation is essential for the process of life determined in its essence by character. Something like that happens.We must assume a general mutual accommodation and mutual accommodation among the phenomena which belong to one will; however, we shall see more clearly that all determinations of time must be excluded here, since the Idea is in time. outside.Accordingly, every phenomenon must be adapted to the environment into which it enters, but the environment is also adapted to the phenomenon, although the phenomenon occupies a much later place in time.And so we see this "harmony of nature" everywhere.Each plant, therefore, is adapted to its soil, to its region; each animal to the elements in which it lives, to the prey it uses for food, and has a certain degree of defence. against its persecutors in nature.The eyes are adapted to light and the refraction of light, the lungs and blood are adapted to the air, the swim bladder is adapted to the water, the eyes of the fur seal are adapted to the changes in the nature of things through which it sees, the stomach of a camel The water storage cells are adapted to the drought of the African desert, the "sails" of the Nautilus are adapted to the wind that propels its "boat", and so on, down to the most special and fascinating. Surprising, outward purposefulness.But here we have to put aside the temporal relationship, because the temporal relationship can only be concerned with the appearance of the idea, but not with the idea itself.The above statement, therefore, can also be used in reverse, that is, not merely admitting that each species is adapted to existing conditions.And the acknowledgment of this pre-existing situation in time itself also takes care of the coming creature.This is because it is only one and the same will that objectifies itself in the whole world; it knows no time, since this modality of the principle of sufficient reason belongs neither to it nor to its original objectivity—the Idea—but It belongs only to how the idea is recognized by the impermanent individual, that is to say, it belongs only to the appearance of the idea.So, for our present consideration of how the objectification of the will assigns itself to the ideas, the chronological order is completely meaningless, and some ideas are not causal because of their appearance-as phenomena are subject to the law of causality —and the first entry into the order of time has no precedence over other ideas, whose phenomena enter later in the order of time; The phenomena of time order must accommodate these latter entries as the latter must accommodate the former.So the motions of the planets, the inclination of the ecliptic [to the equator], the rotation of the earth, the distribution of land and water [on the crust], the atmosphere, light, warmth, and all similar phenomena, are in nature like a continuo in harmonics, They are all prepared with foresight to adapt to the coming creatures of various races, and are ready to become the pillars and maintainers of these races.In the same way the soil accommodates the plant to be its nourishment, and the plant prepares itself to be the nourishment of the animals, which in turn arrange themselves for the nourishment of other animals, just as all these in turn arrange themselves for the former.All the parts of nature adapt to each other, because in all of them there is always a will, and the order of time has no effect on the original and only proper objectivity of the will (this term will be explained in the next article)—the Idea. Totally irrelevant.Now, at a time when races have only to be preserved and not to recur, we again and again see nature pointing to the future, as if, in fact, a forethought drawn from the order of time, to see the pre-existing preparations. Meet that which is to come.So the bird builds a nest for its young, which it does not yet know; the beaver builds a nest, which it does not know what it is for; food; spiders and ant-lions seem to set traps for future prey unknown to them with deliberate ingenuity; and insects always lay their eggs where future larvae will find food in the future.The female flower of Spirulina spirulina is originally held below the surface of the water by its spiral flower stem, [but] during the flower event, it straightens the spiral stem and rises to the surface of the water, and at the same time, the underwater growth The male flower on a short stalk also falls off the stalk automatically and floats on the surface of the water at the expense of its life in order to find the female flower while wandering; And bear fruit there.Here again I am compelled to think of the male larvae of the staghorn beetle, which, for future metamorphosis, make twice as large a hole in the tree as the female larva, in order to make room for the future two horns.Animal instinct, then, at all, furnishes us with the best explanation of other purposiveness in nature.For just as instinct is very much like an action according to the concept of purpose, without any conception of purpose, so all the constructions of nature are equivalent to construction according to the concept of purpose, but are not at all without the concept of purpose.It turns out that in the external finality of nature, as well as in the internal finality, what we have to conceive as means and end is everywhere but a singleness of will so thoroughly self-consistent: The phenomenon in which our ways of knowing are dispersed in space and time by themselves.

At the same time, the mutual adaptation and accommodation among the phenomena produced by this singularity cannot eliminate the internal contradictions that appear in the general struggle of nature as explained above.This is something of the nature of the will.The scope of the above-mentioned coordination is only to make it possible for the world and the creatures in the world to continue to exist, so without that coordination, the world would have ended long ago.Coordination therefore extends only to the continuation of the species and the conditions of life in general, but not to the continuation of the individual.Therefore, when the species and the universal forces of nature coexist in the organic and inorganic worlds respectively by that coordination and adaptation, and even support each other, and at the same time, on the contrary, the will embodied by all ideas, its inner Contradiction also appears, respectively, in the endless war of destruction between the individuals of [each] species, and in the continual struggle with each other among the phenomena of the forces of nature, as stated above.The arena and object of this struggle is matter; what each wants to take from the other is matter, space, and time; and the unity of space and time due to the form of causality is really matter, as explained in the first chapter. Understand.