Chapter 34 Part III The World as Representation Revisited §34

It has already been said that the transition from the knowledge of individual things to the knowledge of ideas is possible, but it can only be regarded as an exception. The transition occurs suddenly when knowledge breaks free from its service to the will. of.This is precisely because the subject is no longer merely individual, but a pure subject of cognition without will.This kind of subject no longer deduces those relations according to the ground, but inhabits and immerses in the intimate observation of the object in front of it, detached from the relationship between the object and any other object.

In order to make this clear, a detailed discussion is necessary [to be done]; where the 244 people feel strange and surprised, people have to relax for a while, and when the whole idea to be conveyed in this book is summed up, these strange things The place naturally disappears. If men are elevated by the power of the mind, and give up their customary view of things, and no longer follow the lines of various forms to trace the mutual relations of things--the ultimate end of which is always the relation to one's own will-- —That is to say, what people investigate in things is no longer "where", "when", "why", "what to use", but just "what", and it is not to let abstract thinking and rational concepts Consciousness is entrenched, and what replaces all this is the dedication of all one's psychic faculties to intuition, immersion in it, and filling of one's consciousness with the serene contemplation of the natural object just before your eyes, be it a landscape, a Trees, are rocks, are buildings or whatever.At this time, man, according to a meaningful German idiom, loses himself in the object, that is to say, he forgets his individuality and his will; he is no more than a pure subject, Existing as a mirror of the object; as if there were only the existence of the object without the person who perceives it, so one can no longer separate the intuition [his person] from the intuition [itself], but both have Oneness; this is at the same time that the whole consciousness is completely filled and occupied by a single visual vision.If, therefore, the object is in this way freed from all relation to anything other than itself, and the subject [also] freed from all relation to the will, then what is known is no longer such and such a particular thing, It is the Idea, the eternal form, the immediate objectivity of the will on this level.And precisely because of this, being in this intuition is at the same time no longer an individual man, because the individual man has lost himself in this intuition.He is already the knowing subject, the pure, willless, painless, timeless subject.[This], presently striking in its own right (and of which I know very well that it confirms the quote from Thomas Paine: "There is but one step from the sublime to the ludicrous") will be due to The following gradually becomes clearer and less unfamiliar.This is what appeared to Spinoza when he wrote the sentence "As long as things are understood under the eternal type, the spirit is eternal" ("Ethics" Book V, Proposition 31, Conclusion) s things.In this kind of observation, the individual thing has become the idea of ​​its kind, and the individual in the intuition has become the pure subject of cognition.As an individual man knows only individual things, and the pure subject of knowing knows only ideas.The individual is originally the subject of knowledge only in relation to an individual phenomenon of the will, and also serves the phenomenon of the will.This individual phenomenon of the will is therefore subject to the law of sufficient reason, and obeys the law in all its forms.All knowledge concerning this knowing subject is therefore also subject to the principle of sufficient reason, and from the standpoint of the will there is no other useful knowledge, and this knowledge always consists only of relations to objects.The individual thus knowing and the individual things known to him are always somewhere, at a certain time, always links in the chain of cause and effect.But the pure subject of knowledge and its counterpart, the Idea, are freed from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason; time, space, the knowing individual, the known individual have no meaning for the pure subject and the Idea.It is only in the above-mentioned manner that a knowing individual has been elevated to a pure subject of "knowing," and the object under consideration is thus elevated to an Idea, can the world as representation [be] The perfect and pure appearance is the complete realization of the objectification of the will, because only the Idea is the proper objectivity of the will.This proper objectivity includes within itself the object and the subject alike, since these are its only forms.Within this objectivity, however, both the object and the subject are perfectly balanced; and just as the object here is only a representation of the subject, so the subject, when it is completely absorbed in the intuited object, becomes the object itself. , because then the whole consciousness is nothing but the most vivid reflection of the object.It is this consciousness, through which one thinks through it in turn of all levels of objectivity of ideas or wills, that really constitutes the world as appearances.The individual of any time and space is nothing but the Idea blurred in its pure objectivity by being multiplied by the principle of sufficient reason (as the form of cognition of the individual).When the Idea appears, the subject and the object in the Idea are indistinguishable, for the Idea, the proper objectivity of the will, the world as representation, occurs only when the two are completely filled and penetrated into each other; In the same way, as things-in-itself, there is no distinction between what can be known and the individual who is known at this time.For if we leave the real world as representation, there remains nothing but the world as will.The will is the Idea itself, and the Idea objectifies the will, and this objectification is perfect.The will is also another thing and the in-itself of the individual who knows this other thing. These things and people also objectify the will, but this objectification is not perfect.As will, outside representation and all forms of representation, it is only the same will in the object under consideration and in the individual who, as he rises in this consideration, becomes aware of himself as pure main body.Therefore, both the object under examination and the individual are indistinguishable in themselves, since they are both wills in themselves.Will here is self-knowledge; and only as the means by which it acquires this knowledge, that is, only in appearances, by means of their forms, by means of the principle of sufficient reason, does multiplicity and difference exist. .Just as I have no object and appearance, I cannot be regarded as a knowing subject but a blind will. Without me as a knowing subject, what is known is also not an object but a will, just a blind impulse.This will in itself, that is, outside the representation, is the same will as mine; only in the world as representation [because] the form of representation always has at least subject and object [this term], We (--this will and my will--) are divided in two into known and knowing individuals.If cognition, the world as representation, is taken away, there is nothing left at all but the will, the blind impulse.As for the fact that if the will acquires objectivity and becomes a representation, then the subject is affirmed in one fell swoop, and the object is less. , getting rid of those forms of the principle of sufficient reason: also affirming that the subject is the pure subject of "knowing", getting rid of individuality and the possibility of serving the will.

Whoever, in this way, immerses himself in the contemplation of nature, forgets himself to such an extent that he exists only as a purely knowing subject, will thus experience directly To [him] as such a subject is the condition, and thus the support, of the world and of all objective reality, which has shown itself to be dependent on his reality.He therefore takes nature into himself, and thus feels to him no more than an accidental attribute of his essence.In this sense Byron says: "Do the mountains, the waves, and the heavens not part of me not me part of the mind, As am I part of them? "

But whoever feels this, how can he regard himself as absolutely impermanent in contrast to the ever-dwelling nature?Instead it should be the consciousness that hangs over him, that is, the consciousness of the words of Upani Shatan in the Vedas, which says: "All things that are born in total are me, and in me Nothing else exists." (Urbhnika I.122)