Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason · On the Will in Nature

to be Subject means, to know; and to know means, to have representations. Object and representation are one and the same thing.

…in reality, the existence of the Subject of knowing is not an abstract existence. The subject does not exist for itself and independently, as if it had dropped from the sky; it appears as the instrument of some individual phenomenon of the Will (animal, human being), whose purposes it is destined to serve, and which thereby now receives a consciousness, not the one hand, of itself, on the other hand, of everything else.

La clarté est la bonne foi des philosophes,

…by science we understand a system of notion, I.e. a totality of connected, as opposed to a mere aggregate of disconnected notions.

Even true opinions are not of much value until somebody bonds them down by proof of a cause.

All knowledge which is intellectual or partakes somewhat of intellect, deals with causes and principles.

…it is this very assumption à priori that all things must have their reason, which authorises us everywhere to search for the why, we may safely call this why the mother of all science.

Nothing is without a reason for its being.

It is necessary that all which arises, should arise by some cause; for how could it arise otherwise?

All that arises, arises necessarily from some cause; for it is impossible for anything to come into being without cause.

This especially would seem to be the first principle: that nothing arises without cause, but [everything] accordant to preceding causes.

We think we understand a thing perfectly, whenever we think we know the cause by which the thing is, that it is really the cause of that thing, and that the thing cannot possibly be otherwise.

Now it is common to all principles, that they are the first thing through which [anything] is, or arises, or is understood.

There are four causes: first, the essence of a thing itself; second, the sine qua non of a thing; third, what first put a thing in motion; fourth, to what purpose or end a thing is tending.

He who asserts that there is no cause, either has no cause for his assertion, or has one. In the former case there is not more truth in his assertion that in its contradiction; in the latter, his assertion itself proves the existence of a cause.

Where not the thought so cursedly acute, One might be tempted to declare it silly.

Existence never can long to the essence of a thing.

How can I be expected to speak with deference of men, who have brought philosophy into contempt?

…the word God, honestly used, means a cause such as this of the world, withe the addition of personality.

…changes are possible as effects proceeding from causes: we know, that is, that one state can succeed another, if the former contains the condition for the latter.

…the world is as dependent upon us, as a whole, as we are dependent upon it in detail.

…the conception of the genus must always be determined before the conception of the species.

Our knowing consciousness, which manifests itself as outer and inner Sensibility (or receptivity) and as Understanding and Reason, subdivides itself into Subject and Object and contains nothing else. To be Object for the Subject and to be our representation, are the same thing. All our representations stand towards one another in a regulated connection, which may be determined à priori, and on account of which, nothing existing separately and independently, nothin single or detached, can become an Object for us. It is this connection which is expressed by the Principle of Sufficient Reason in its generality.

Time is only perceived when filled, and its course is only perceived by the changes which take place in that which fills it. The permanence of an object is therefore only recognised by contrast with the changes going on in other object coexistent with it. But the representation of coexistence is impossible in Time alone; it depends, for its completion, upon the representation of Space; because, in mere Time, all things follow one another, and in mere Space all things are side by side; it is accordingly only by the combination of Time and Space that the representation of coexistence arises.

If we take away the thinking Subject, the whole material of world must vanish; because it is nothing but a phenomenon in the sensibility of our own subject and a certain class of its representation.

When one or several real objects pass into any state, some other state must have preceded this one, upon which the new state regularly follows, i.e. as often as that preceding one occurs. This sort of following we call resulting; the first of the states being named a cause, the second an effect.

Every effect, ash the time it takes place, is a change and, precisely by not having occurred sooner, infallibly indicates some other change by which it has been preceded. That other change takes the name of cause, when referred to the following one — of effect, when referred to a third necessarily preceding change. This is the chain of causality. It is necessarily without a beginning.

…every cause is a change, which necessarily obliges us to ask for the preceding change that brought it about, and so on in infinitum, in infinitum!

If, on the other hand, that first state only began to be causal at some given period, something or other must have changed it, for its inactivity to have ceased; but then something must have occurred, some change must have taken place; and this again obliges us to ask for its cause — i.e. a change which preceded it; and here we are once more on the causal ladder, up which we are whipped step by step, higher and higher, in infinitum, in infinitum!

Young men learn to believe at Universities.

As for the indifferent reader, he is free to let this and indeed all mu writings pass down read to his descendants. It matters not to me; for I am here, not for one generation only, but for many.

‘Substance is permanent’ means, that it can neither pass into, nor out of being: so that its quantity existing in the universe can neither be increased nor diminished.

By the endless chain of causes and effects which directs all changes but never extends beyond them, two existing things remain untouched, precisely because of the limited range of its action: on the one hand, Matter, as we have just shown; on the other hand, the primary forces of Nature. The first (matter) remains uninfluenced by the causal nexus, because it is that which undergoes all changes, or on which they take place; the second (the primary forces), because it is they alone by which changes or effects become possible; for they alone give causality to causes, i.e. the faculty of operating, which the causes therefore hold as mere vassals a fief. Cause and effect are changes connected together to necessary succession int Time; whereas the forces of Nature by means of which all causes operate, are exempt from all change; in this sense therefore they are outside Time, but precisely on that account they are always and everywhere in reserve, omnipresent and inexhaustible, every ready to manifest themselves, as soon as an opportunity presents itself in the thread of causality. A cause, like its effect, is invariably something individual, a single change; whereas a force of Nature is something universal, unchangeable, present at all times and in all places.

…Causality, as the director of each and every change, presents itself in Nature under three distinct forms: as causes in the strictest acceptation of the word, as stimuli, and as motives.

The difference between cause, stimulus, and motives, is obviously only a consequence of the various degrees of receptivity of beings; the greater their receptivity, the feebler may be the nature of the influence: a stone needs an impact, while man obeys a look.

Man possesses Reason; he therefore has a power elective decision with clear consciousness: that is, he is able to weigh against one another motives which exclude each other, as such; in other terms, he can let them try their strength on his will.

Sight needs no contact, nor even proximity; its field is unbounded and extends to the stars. It is moreover sensitive to the most delicate degrees of light, shade, colour, and transparency; so that it supplies the Understanding with a quantity of nicely defined data, out of which, by dint of practice, it becomes able to construct the shape, size, distance, and nature of bodies, and represents them at once perceptibly. On the other hand, touch certainly depends upon contact; still its data are so varied and so trustworthy, that it is the most searching of all the senses. Even perception by sight may, in the last resort, be referred to touch; nay, sight may be looked upon as an imperfect touch extending to a great distance, which uses the rays of light as long feelers; and it is just because it is limited to those qualities which have light for their medium and is therefore one-sided, that it is so liable to deception; whereas touch supplies the data for cognising size, shape, hardness, softness, roughness, temperature, &c. &c., quite immediately.

All this therefore proves that Time, Space, and Causality are not conveyed into us by touch or by sight, or indeed at all from outside, but that they have an internal, consequently not empirical, but intellectual origin. From this again follows, that the perception of the bodily world is an essentially intellectual process, a work of the Understanding, to which sensation merely gives the opportunity and the data for application in individual cases.

…sensation, in seeing, supplies nothing more than a varied affection of the retina, exactly like the spectacle of a painter's pal- ette with divers splashes of colour. Nor would anything more remain over in our consciousness, were we suddenly deprived of all our Understanding--let us say by paralysis of the brain--at a moment when we were contemplating a rich and extensive landscape, while the sensation was left unchanged: for this was the raw material out of which our Understanding had just before been constructing that perception.

The Understanding, whose only business it is to look for the cause of all things, at once recognises the impression as coming from a single outside point, although here the sensation is double, and attributes it to one cause, which therefore presents itself as a single object. For all that is perceived by us, is perceived as a cause -that is to say, as the cause of an effect we have experienced, consequently in the Understanding.

no matter from what cause it may have derived its data, perception is invariably an operation of the Understanding.

the knowledge of the Understanding being anterior to that of the Reason, the intellect remains inaccessible to the teaching of the Reason, and thus the illusion--that is, the deception of the Understanding -remains immovable; albeit error that is, the deception of the Reason-is obviated.- That which is correctly known by the Understanding is reality: that which is correctly known by the Reason is truth, or in other terms, a judgment having a sufficient reason; illusion (that which is wrongly perceived) we oppose to reality: error (that which is wrongly thought) to truth.

All animals, even down to the very lowest, must have Understanding- that is, knowledge of the causal law, although they have it in very different degrees of delicacy and of clearness; at any rate they must have as much of it as is required for perception by their senses; for sensation without Understanding would be not only a useless, but a cruel gift of Nature. No one, who has himself any intelligence, can doubt the existence of it in the higher animals. But at times it even becomes undeniably evident that their knowledge of causality is actually à priori, and that it does not arise from the habit of seeing one thing follow upon another. A very young puppy will not, for instance, jump off a table, because he foresees what would be the consequence.

…the causal relation manifests itself in three forms-as cause, as stimulus, and as motive. All movement in the world takes place according to these three forms of the causal relation, and through them alone does the intellect comprehend it.

the sole form and function of the Understanding is this apprehension, and not by any means the complicated machinery of Kant's twelve Categories, the nullity of which I have proved.-(All comprehension is a direct, consequently intuitive, apprehension of the causal connection; although this has to be reduced at once to abstract conceptions in order to be fixed. To calculate therefore, is not to understand, and, in itself, calculation conveys no comprehension of things. Calculation deals exclusively with abstract conceptions of magnitudes, whose mutual relations it determines. By it we never attain the slightest comprehension of a physical process, for this requires intuitive comprehension of space-relations, by means of which causes take effect. Calculations have merely practical, not theoretical, value. It may even be said that where calculation begins, comprehension ceases; for a brain occupied with numbers is, as long as it calculates, entirely estranged from the causal connection in physical processes, being engrossed in purely abstract, numerical conceptions.

In its practical application we call the Understanding shrewdness or, when used to outwit others, cunning; when its aims are very insignificant, it is called slyness and, if combined with injury to others, craftiness. In its purely theoretical application, we call it simply Understanding, the higher degrees of which are named acumen, sagacity, discernment, penetration, while its lower degrees are termed dulness, stupidity, silliness, &c. &c. These widely differing degrees of sharpness are innate, and cannot be acquired; although, as I have already shown, even in the earliest stages of the application of the Understanding, i.e. in empirical perception, practice and knowledge of the material to which it is applied, are needed. Every simpleton has Reason- give him the premisses, and he will draw the conclusion; whereas primary, consequently intuitive, knowledge is supplied by the Understanding: herein lies the difference. The pith of every great discovery, of every plan having universal historical importance, is accordingly the product of a happy moment in which, by a favourable coincidence of outer and inner circumstances, some complicated causal series, some hidden causes of phenomena which had been seen thousands of times before, or some obscure, untrodden paths, suddenly reveal themselves to the intellect. By the preceding explanations of the processes in seeing and feeling, I have incontestably shown that empirical perception is essentially the work of the Understanding, for which the material only is supplied by the senses in sensation-and a poor material it is, on the whole; so that the Understanding is, in fact, the artist, while the senses are but the under workmen who hand it the materials. But the process consists throughout in referring from given effects to their causes, which by this process are enabled to present themselves as objects in Space. The very fact that we presuppose Causality in this process, proves precisely that this law must have been supplied by the Understanding itself; for it could never have found its way into the intellect from outside. It is indeed the first condition of all empirical perception; but this again is the form in which all external experience presents itself to us; how then can this law of Causality be derived from experience, when it is itself essentially presupposed by experience?

we find all the elements of empirical perception lying within us, and nothing contained in them which can give us reliable indications as to anything differing absolutely from ourselves, anything in itself.

Substance" and Matter being moreover identical, we may call Substance, action viewed in abstracto: Accidents, particular modes of action, action in concreto.

We derive our knowledge of the bare possibility of succession from the form of Time, which belongs to pure Sensibility. The succession pf real objects, whose form is precisely Time, we know empirically, consequently as actual. But it is through the Understanding alone, by means of Causality, that we gain knowledge of the necessity of a succession of two states: that is, of a change; and even the fact that we are able to conceive the necessity of a succession at all, proves already that the causal law is not known to us empirically, but given us a priori. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the general expression for the fundamental form of the necessary connection between all our objects, i.e. representations, which lies in the innermost depths of our cognitive faculty: it is the form common to all representations, and the only source of the conception of necessity, which contains absolutely nothing else in it and no other import, than that of the following of the consequence, when its reason has been established.

Dissertatio de mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma," § 14, in the "Critiqueof Pure Reason,"111] and finally in his "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science." 1121 In all three places his exposition is brief, but also less thorough than that of Aristotle; still, in the main, both entirely agree. We can therefore hardly doubt that, directly or indirectly, Kant must have derived these ideas from Aristotle, though he does not mention him. Aristotle's proposition — moments of the present are not continuous"). -we here find expressed as follows: "between two moments there is always a time

The only essential distinction between the human race and animals, which from time immemorial has been attributed to a special cognitive faculty peculiar to mankind, called Reason, is based upon the fact that man owns a class of representations which is not shared by any animal. These are conceptions, therefore abstract, as opposed to intuitive, representations, from which they are nevertheless derived.

man, in this Western Hemisphere, where his skin has become bleached, and where the primitive, true, profound religions of his first home could not follow him, now no longer recognises animals as his brethren, and falsely believes them to differ fundamentally from him, seeking to confirm this illusion by calling them brutes, giving degrading names to the vital functions which they have in com mon with him, and proclaiming them outlaws; and thus he hardens his heart against that identity of being between them and himself, which is nevertheless constantly obtruding itself upon him.

although each quality thus isolated (abstracted) can quite well be thought by itself, it does not at all follow that it can be perceived by itself.

The higher we ascend in abstract thought, the more we deduct, the less therefore remains to be thought. The highest, i.e. the most general conceptions, are the emptiest and poorest, and at last become mere husks, such as, for instance, being, essence, thing becoming, &c. &c.--Of what avail by the way, can philosophical systems be, which are only spun out of conceptions of this sort and have for their substance mere flimsy husks of thoughts like these? They must of necessity be exceedingly empty, poor, and therefore also dreadfully tiresome.

In learning the use of language therefore, the whole mechanism of Reason-- that is, all that is essential in Logic--is brought to our consciousness. Now this can evidently not take place without considerable mental effort and fixed attention, for which the desire to learn gives children the requisite strength. So long as that desire has before it what is really available and necessary, it is vigorous, and it only appears weak when we try to force upon children that which is not suited to their comprehension.

What us properly called thinking, in its narrowest sense, is the occupation of the intellect with conceptions: that is, the presence in our consciousness of the class of representations we now have before us.

The aims of all the sciences may, indeed, in the last resort, be reduced to knowledge of the particular through the general;

For without universals it is impossible to have knowledge.

Conceptions must not be confounded with pictures of the imagination, there being intuitive and complete, therefore individual representations, although they are not called by sensuous impressions and do not therefore belong to the complex experience.

All thinking, in a wider sense: that is, all inner activity of the mind in general, necessitates either words or pictures of the imagination: without one or other of these it has nothing to hold by. They are not, however, both necessary at the same time, although they may co-operate to their mutual support. Now, thinking in a narrower sense — that is, abstract reflection by means of words — is either purely logical reasoning, in which case it keeps strictly to its own sphere; ir it touches upon the limits of perceptible representations in order to come to an understanding with them, so as to bring that which is given by experience and grasped by perception into connection with abstract conceptions resulting from clear reflection, and thus to gain complete possession of it. In thinking therefore, we seek either for the conception or rule to which a given perception belongs, or for the particular case which proves a given conception or rule. In this quality, thinking is an activity of the faculty of judgment, and indeed in the first case a reflective, in the second, a subsuming activity. The faculty of judgement is accordingly the mediator between intuitive and abstract knowledge, or between the Understanding and the Reason. In most men it has merely rudimentary, often even merely nominal existence; they are destined to follow the lead of others, and it is as well not to converse with them more than is necessary. The true kernel of all knowledge is that reflection which works with the help of intuitive representations; for it goes back to the fountain-head, to the basis of all conceptions. Therefore it generates all really original thoughts, all primary and fundamental views and all inventions, so far as chance had not the largest share in them. The Understanding prevails in this sort of thinking, whilst the Reason is the chief factor in purely abstract reflection. Certain thoughts which wander about for a long time in our heads, belong to this sort of reflection: thoughts which come and go, now clothed in one kind of intuition, now in another, until they at last become clear, fix themselves in conceptions and find words to express them. Some, indeed, never find words to express them, and these are, unfortunately, the best of all…

…every true and primary notion, every genuine philosophic theorem even, must have some sort if intuitive view for its innermost kernel or root. This, though something momentary and single, subsequently imparts life and spirit to the whole analysis, however exhaustive it may be, — just as one drop of the right reagent suffices to tinge a whole solution with the colour of the precipitate which it causes. When an analysis has a kernel of this sort, it is like a bank note issued by a firm which has ready money wherewith to back it; whereas every other analysis proceeding from mere combinations of abstract conceptions, resembles a bank note which is issued by a firm which has nothing but other paper obligations to back it with. All mere rational talk thus renders the result of given conceptions clearer, but does not, strictly speaking, bring anything new to light. It might therefore be left toi each individual to do himself, instead of filling whole volumes every day. Buț, even in a narrower sense, thinking does not consist in the bare presence of abstract conceptions in our consciousness, but rather in connection or separating two or more of these conceptions under sundry restrictions and modifications which Logic indicate in the Theory of Judgements. A relation of this sort between conceptions distinctly thought and expressed we call a judgement.

A judgement may have for its reason another judgement; in this case it has logical or formal truth.

There are only four metallically true judgements of this sort, which were discovered long ago by induction, and called the laws of all thinking; although entire uniformity of opinion as to their expression and even as tot their number has not yet been arrived at, whereas all agree perfectly as to what they are on the whole meant to indicate. They are following: — 1. A subject is equal to the sum total of its predicates, or a = a. 2. 2. No predicate can be attributed and denied to a subject at the same time, or a = -1 = 0. 3. One of two opposite, contradictory predicates must belong to every subject. 4. Truth is the reference of a judgement to something outside of it, as its sufficient reason.

The fact was, they wanted Reason's place and name for a faculty of their own creation and fabrication, or to speak more correctly and honestly, for a completely fictitious faculty, destined to help them out of the straits to which Kant had reduced them; a faculty for direct, metaphysical knowledge: that is to say, one which transcends all possible experience, is able to grasp the world of things in themselves and their relations, and is therefore, before all consciousness of God (Gottesbewusstsein): that is, it knows God the Lord immediately, construes à priori the way in which he has created the Universe, or, should this sound too trivial, the way in which he has produced it out of himself, or to a certain degree generated it by some more or less necessary vital process, or again--as the most convenient proceeding, however comical it may appear-simply "dismissed" it, according to the custom of sovereigns at the end of an audience, and left it to get upon its legs by itself and walk away wherever it liked. Nothing less than the impudence of a scribbler of nonsense like Hegel, could, it is true, be found to venture upon this last step.

Representations, however, forfeit their capacity for being intuitively perceived by this process, while they become easier to deal with, as has already been shown. It is therefore in this, and in this alone, that the efficiency of Reason consists; whereas it can never supply material content from its own resources.— It has nothing but forms: its nature is feminine; it only conceives, but does not generate. It is not by mere chance that the Reason is feminine in all Latin, as well as Teutonic, languages; whereas the Understanding is invariably masculine.

Reasonable or rational is everywhere synonymous with consistent or logical, and conversely; for Logic is only Reason's natural procedure itself, expressed in a system of rules; therefore these expressions (rational and logical) stand in the same relation to one another as theory and practice.

A Reason, on the other hand, which supplies material knowledge primarily out of its own resources and conveys positive information transcending the sphere of possible experience; a Reason which, in order to do this, must necessarily contain innate ideas, is a pure fiction, invented by our professional philosophers and a product of the terror with which Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has inspired them. I wonder now, whether these gentlemen know a certain Locke and whether they have ever read his works?

-Nature's mere manufactured ware--are presented to honest credulous youths of immature judgment, as master minds, exceptions and ornaments of mankind. The students forthwith throw all their energies into the barren study of the endless, insipid scribblings of such mediocrities, thus wasting the short, invaluable period allotted to them for higher education, instead of using it to attain the sound information they might have found in the works of those extremely rare, genuine, truly exceptional thinkers, nantes in gur gite vasto [swimming in the ocean], who only rise to the surface every now and then in the course of ages, because Nature produced but one of each kind, and then "destroyed the mould."

Ever since men first began to think, philosophical systems have opposed and combated each other everywhere; they are, in fact, often diametrically contrary to one another. Ever since men first began to believe (which is still longer), religions have fought against one another with fire and sword, with excommunication and cannons. But in times when faith was most ardent, it was not the lunatic asylum, but the Inquisition, with all its paraphernalia, which awaited individual heretics. Here again, therefore, experience flatly and categorically contradicts the false assertion, that Reason is a faculty for direct metaphysical knowledge, or, to speak more clearly, of inspiration from above.

A long predicted epoch has set in; the church is beginning to totter, nay it totters already to such a degree, that it is doubtful whether it will ever be able to recover its centre of gravity; for faith is lost. The light of revelation, like other lights, requires a certain amount of darkness as an indispensable condition.

Our thirst after knowledge augments with our incapacity for belief.

For it behoves all professorial philosophy, before all things, to establish beyond doubt, and to give a philosophical basis to, the doctrine, that there is a God, Creator, and Ruler of the Universe, a persona, consequently individual, Being, endowed with Understanding and Will, who has created the world out of nothing, and who rules it with sublime wisdom, power and goodness. The obligation, however, places our professors of philosophy in an awkward position with respect to serious philosophy.

The notion of God, as personal Ruler and Creator of the world, training everything for the best, is to be found in no other religion but the Jewish, and the two faiths derived from it, which might consequently in a wider sense be called Jewish sects.

Christians are even taxed by Mahomedans and Jews with the impurity of their Theism, because of the dogma of the Trinity. For, whatever may be said to the contrary, Christianity has Indian blood in its veins, therefore it constantly tends to free itself from Judaism.

Philosophy, however, is properly speaking only an idle, superfluous attempt to let Reason--that is, the human power of thinking, reflecting, deliberating once in a while, try its own powers unassisted, as a child is now and then allowed to run alone on a lawn and try its strength without leading-strings, just to see what will come of it. Tests and experiments of this kind we call speculation; and it lies in the nature of the matter that it should, for once leave all authority, human or divine, out of consideration, ignore it, and go its own way in search of the most sublime, most important truths. Now, if on this basis it should arrive at the very same results as those mentioned above, to which Kant had come, speculation has no right on that account to cast all honesty and conscience forthwith aside, and take to by ways, in order somehow or other to get back to the domain of Judaism, as its conditio sine qua non; it ought rather henceforth to seek truth quite honestly and simply by any road that may happen to lie open before it, but never to allow any other light than that of Reason to guide it: thus advancing calmly and confidently, like one at work in his vocation, without concern as to where that road may lead.

in Space there is no succession; for it is precisely by uniting Space and Time to form the collective representation of the complex of experience, that the representation of coexistence arises.

Every instant in Time is conditioned by the preceding one. The Sufficient Reason of Being, as the law of consequence, is so simple here, because Time has only one dimension, therefore it admits of no multiplicity of relations. Each instant is conditioned by its predecessor; we can only reach it through that predecessor: only so far as this was and has elapsed does the present one exist. All counting rests upon this nexus of the divisions of Time, numbers only serving to mark the single steps in the succession; upon it therefore rests all arithmetic likewise, which teaches absolutely nothing but methodical abbreviations of numeration. Each number presupposes its predecessors as the reasons of its being: we can only reach the number ten by passing through all the preceding numbers, and it is only in virtue of this insight that I know, that where ten are, there also are eight, six, four.

two cannot be exactly similar, for then they would be but one.

I not only know, but know also that I know,

Your knowing that you know only differs in words from your knowing. ‘I know that I know’ means nothing more than ‘I know’, and this again, unless it is further determined, means nothing more that ‘ego’. If your knowing and your knowing that you know are two different things, just try to separate them, and first to know without knowing that you know, then to know that you know without this knowledge being at the same time knowing.

I know

Objects exist for me,

I am Subject,

The understanding is the form of forms and sensibility the form of sensuous objects.

…the subject of knowledge can never be know; it can never become Object or representation. Nevertheless, as we have not only an outer self- knowledge (in sensuous perception), but an inner one also; and as, on the other hand, every knowledge, by its very nature, presupposes a knower and a known, what is known within us as such, is not the knower, but the willer, the Subject of Volition: the Will.

The action of motives (motivation) is causality seen from within.

Every picture which suddenly presents itself to our imagination, every judgment even that does not follow its previously present reason, must be called forth by an act of volition having a motive; although that motive may often escape our perception owing to its insignificance, and although such acts of volition are often in like manner unperceived, because they take place so easily, that wish and fulfilment are simultaneous.

The body learns by practice to obey the will, and the faculty of representing does precisely the same. A remembrance is not by any means, as the usual view supposes, always the same representation which is, as it were, fetched over and over again from its store-house; a new one, on the contrary, arises each time, only practice makes this especially easy. Thus it comes to pass that pictures of our imagination, which we fancy we have stowed away in our memory, become imperceptibly modified: a thing which we realise when we see some familiar object again after a long time, and find that it no longer completely corresponds to the image we bring with us. This could not be if we retained ready-made representations. It is just for this reason too, that acquired knowledge, if left unexercised, gradually fades from our memory, precisely because it was the result of practice coming from habit and knack; thus most scholars, for instance, forget their Greek, and most artists their Italian on their return from Italy. This is also why we find so much difficulty in recalling to mind a name or a line of poetry formerly familiar to us, when we have ceased to think of it for several years; whereas when once we succeed in remembering it, we have it again at our disposal for some time, because the practice has been renewed. Everyone therefore who knows several languages, will do well to make a point of reading occasionally in each, that he may ensure to himself their possession. This likewise explains why the surroundings and events of our childhood impress themselves so deeply on our memory; it is because, in childhood we have but few, and those chiefly intuitive, representations: so that we are induced to repeat them constantly for the sake of occupation. People who have little capability for original thought do this all their lives (and moreover not only with intuitive representations, but with conceptions and words also); sometimes therefore they have remarkably good memories, when obtuseness and sluggishness of intellect do not act as impediments. Men of genius, on the contrary, are not always endowed with the best of memories, as, for instance, Rousseau has told us of himself. Perhaps this may be accounted for by their great abundance of new thoughts and combinations, which leaves them no time for frequent repetition. Still, on the whole, genius is seldom found with a very bad memory; because here a greater energy and mobility of the whole thinking faculty makes up for the want of constant practice.

Great minds therefore are apt to forget in an incredibly short time the petty affairs and trifling occurrences of daily life and the commonplace people with whom they come in contact, whereas they have a wonderful recollection of those things which have importance in themselves and for them.

As far as possible we ought to try and reduce all that we wish to incorporate in our memory to a perceptible image, either directly, or as an example, a mere simile, or an analogue, or indeed in any other way; because intuitive perceptions take a far firmer hold than any abstract thoughts, let alone mere words. This is why we remember things we have ourselves experienced so much better than those of which we read.

the systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, nay, as being the prototype of all finitude. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediate representations, whereas this last class refers to rep representations derived from other representations. The truth expressed above, that Time is the simple schema which merely contains the essential part of all the forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, explains the absolutely perfect clearness and precision of Arithmetic, a point in which no other science can compete with it. For all sciences, being throughout combinations of reasons and consequences, are based upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now. the series of numbers is the simple and only series of reasons and consequences of Being in Time; on account of this perfect simplicity-nothing being omitted, no indefinite relations left-this series leaves nothing to be desired as regards accuracy, apodeictic certainty and clearness. All the other sciences yield precedence in this respect to Arithmetic; even Geometry: because so many relations arise out of the three dimensions of Space, that a comprehensive synopsis of them becomes too difficult, not only for pure, but even for empirical intuition; complicated geometrical problems are therefore only solved by calculation; that is, Geometry is quick to resolve itself into Arithmetic. It is not necessary to point out the existence of sundry elements of obscurity in the other sciences.

to be necessary can never mean anything but to result from a given reason.

There exists accordingly a fourfold necessity, in conformity with the four forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: 1°. Logical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, in virtue of which, when once we have admitted the premisses, we must absolutely admit the conclusion. 2°. Physical necessity, according to the law of causality, in virtue of which, as soon as the cause presents itself, the effect must infallibly follow. 3°. Mathematical necessity, according to the principle of sufficient reason of being, in virtue of which, every relation which is stated in a true geometrical theorem, is as that theorem affirms it to be, and every correct calculation remains irrefutable. 4°. Moral necessity, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, is compelled, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many great thinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others.

In Time, the series of reasons of being has infinite extension both a parte ante, and a parte post, since each moment is conditioned by a preceding one, and necessarily gives rise to the following. Time has therefore neither beginning nor end.

every thing existing no matter when or where, exists by reason of something else.

a philosopher must before all things be an unbeliever.

University philosophy is the enemy of all genuine philosophy

One always says the other is right, so that the public in its simplicity at last imagines them really to be right.

Time is the condition of the possibility of succession, which could neither take place, nor be understood by us and expressed in words, without Time. And Space is likewise the condition of the possibility of juxtaposition, and Transcendental Asthetic is the proof that these conditions have their seat in the constitution of our head.

Fetch me a peasant from the plough; make the question intelligible to him; and he will tell you, that even if all things in Heaven and on Earth were to vanish, Space would nevertheless remain, and that if all changes in Heaven and on Earth were to cease, Time would nevertheless flow on.

Kant has disclosed the dreadful truth, that philosophy must be quite a different thing from Jewish mythology.

In examining the league of fools against people of wit, one would believe to see a conspiracy of servants to remove the masters.

We do not care to have much to do with those whom we dislike.

University philosophy is the enemy of all true

a philosophy which deserves the name, is pure service of truth, therefore the most sublime of all human endeavours; but, as such, it is not adapted for a trade.

We ought rather to judge of things themselves, than to have great regard for men's opinion;

I take this opportunity urgently to request that the public will not believe unconditionally any accounts of what I am supposed to have said, even when they are given as quotations; but will first verify the existence of these quotations in my works. In this way many a falsehood will be detected, which can however only be stamped as a direct forgery when accompanied by quotation marks.

The will is not conditioned by knowledge, as has hitherto been universally assumed, although knowledge is conditioned by the will.

Physics, i.e., Natural Science aș a whole, must în all its branches finally come to a point where physical explanations ceases.

Truth can bide its time, for it has a long time before it.

Truth depends upon no one’s favour or disfavour, nor does it ask anyone’s leave: it stands upon its own feet, and has Time for its ally; its power is irresistible, its s life indestructible.

The essence of every living organism consists in the will to maintain its own existence as much as possible over against the macrocosm;

Only one living entity, one will can be in an organ at the same time; therefore if there is a diseased will in disagreement with the rest of the body in the organ of the skin, we may hold it in check by applying cold as long as the generation of warmth, a normal will, can be induced by it.

Every manifestation of life, however, whether in health or in disease, is a manifestation of the organic will: this will determines vegetation: in a healthy condition, in harmony with the unity of the whole; in an unhealthy one .. it is induced not to will harmony with that unity.

With me, that which is eternal and indestructible in man, therefore, that which constitutes his vital principle, is not the soul, but-if I may use a chemical term-- its radical: and this is the will. The so-called soul is already a compound: it is the union of the will and the intellect (voús). This intellect is the secondary element, the posterius of the organism and, as a mere cerebral function, is conditioned by the organism; whereas the will is what is primary, the prius of the organism, which is conditioned by it. For the will is that thing in itself, which only becomes apparent as an organic body in our representation (that mere function of the brain): it is only through the forms of knowledge (or cerebral function), that is, only in our representation - not apart from that representation, not immediately in our self-consciousness-that our body is given to each of us as a thing which has extension, limbs and organs.

First of all therefore I place the will, as thing in itself and quite primary; secondly, its mere visibility, its objectification: i.e. the body; thirdly, the intellect, as a mere function of one part of that body. This part is itself the objectified will to know (the will to know having entered into representation), since the will needs knowledge to attain its own ends. Now the entire world as representation, together with the body itself therefore, inasmuch as it is a perceptible object, nay, Matter in general as existing only in representation, all this, I say, is again conditioned by that function; for, duly considered, we cannot possibly conceive an objective world without a Subject, in whose consciousness it is present. Thus knowledge and matter (Subject and Object) exist only relatively one for the other and constitute phenomenon.

The will is called free-will when it is illuminated by knowledge, therefore when the causes which move it are motives: that is, representations. Objectively speaking this means: when then influence from outside which causes the act, has a brain for its mediator. A motive may be defined as an external stimulus, whose action first of all causes an image to arise in the brain, through the medium of which the will carries out the effect proper — an outward action of the body. Now, in the human species however, the place of such an image as this may be taken by a conception drawn from former images of this kind by dropping their differences, which conception consequently is no longer perceptible, but merely denoted and fixed by words. As the action of motives accordingly does not depend upon contact, they can try their power on the will against each other: in other words, they permit a certain choice which, in animals, is limited to the narrow sphere of that which has perceptible existence for them; whereas, in man, its range comprises the vast extent of all that is thinkable: that is, of this conceptions. Accordingly we designate as voluntary those movements which are occasioned, not by causes in the narrowest sense of word, as in inorganic bodies, nor even by mere stimuli, as in plants, but by motives. These motives however presuppose an intellect as their mediator, through which causality here acts, without prejudice to its entire necessity in all other respects. Physiologically, the difference between stimulus and motive admits also of the following definition. The stimulus provokes immediate reaction, which proceeds from the very part on which the stimulus has acted; whereas the motive is a stimulus that has to go a roundabout way through the brain, where its action first causes an image to arise, which then, but not till then, provokes the consequent reaction, which is now called an act of volition, and voluntary.

…the work of our freedom must not be sought in our individual actions but in our very existence and nature itself.

principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda

…if we stood in the same inward relation towards every natural phenomenon as towards our own organism, the explanation of every natural phenomenon, as well as of all the properties of every body, would likewise ultimately be reduced to a will manifesting itself in them. For the difference does not reside in the thing itself, but in our relation to the thing.

…animals have all the feelings which belong to man> joy, grief, fear, anger, love, hate, desire, envy, &c. &c. The great difference between man and the brute creation consist exclusively in the degrees of perfection of the intellect.

…what is self-love after all, if not the will to preserve our existence, the will to live?

Truth deserves respect: not what is opposed to it.

The physics-theological thought, that Nature must have been regulated and fashioned by an intellect, however well it may suit the untutored mind, is nevertheless fundamentally wrong. For the intellect is only known to us in animal nature, consequently as an absolutely secondary and subordinate principle in the world, a product of the latest origin; it can never therefore have been the condition of the existence of that world. Now the will on the contrary, being that which fills every thing and manifest itself immediately in each — thus showing each thing to be its phenomenon — appears everywhere as that which is primary. It is just for this reason, that the explanation of all teleological facts is to be found in the will of the being itself in which they are observed.

It is not an intellect which has brought forth Nature; it is, on the contrary, Nature which has brought forth the intellect.

Nature makes the tools for the work, not the work for the tools.

the thought could never enter into De Lamarck's head, that the animal's will, as a thing in itself, might lie outside Time, and in this sense be prior to the animal itself. Therefore he assumes the animal to have first been without any clearly defined organs, but also without any clearly defined tendencies, and to have been equipped only with perception. Through this it learns to know the circumstances in which it has to live and from that knowledge arise its desires, i.e. its will, from which again spring its organs or definite embodiment; this last indeed with the help of generation and therefore in boundless Time. If De Lamarck had had the courage to carry out his theory fully, he ought to have assumed a primary animal(231] which, to be consistent, must have originally had neither shape nor organs, and then proceeded to transform itself according to climate and local conditions into myriads of animal shapes of all sorts, from the gnat to the elephant. -But this primary animal is in truth the will to live; as such however, it is metaphysical, not physical. Most certainly the shape and organisation of each animal species has been determined by its own will according to the circumstances in which it wished to live; not however as a thing physical in Time, but on the contrary as a thing metaphysical outside Time. The will did not proceed from the intellect, nor did the intellect exist, together with the animal, before the will made its appearance as a mere accident, a secondary, or rather tertiary, thing. It is on the contrary the will which is the prius, the thing in itself: its phenomenon (mere representation in the cognitive intellect and its forms of Space and Time) is the animal, fully equipped with all its organs which represent the will to live in those particular circumstances. Among these organs is the intellect also knowledge itself- which, like the rest of those organs, is exactly adapted to the mode of life of each animal; whereas, according to De Lamarck, it is the will which arises out of knowledge. Behold the countless varieties of animal shapes; how entirely is each of them the mere image of its volition, the evident expression of the strivings of the will which constitute its character! Their difference in shape is only the portrait of their difference in character.

Each particular striving of the will presents itself in a particular modification of shape. The abode of the prey therefore has determined the shape of its pursuer: if that prey takes refuge in regions difficult of access, in remote hiding places, in night or darkness, the pursuer assumes the form best suited to those circumstances, and no shape is rejected as too grotesque by the will to live, in order to attain its ends.

wherever anything living breathed, there immediately came another to devour it, and every animal is in a way designed and calculated throughout, down to the minutest detail, for the purpose of destroying some other animal.

Just as clearly does the will to escape their enemies manifest itself in the defensive equipment of animals that are the obiects of pursuit.

Neither the young spider nor the ant-lion know the prey for which they lay traps, when they do it for the first time. And it is the same when they are on the defensive. According to Latreille, the insect bombex kills the parnope with its sting, although it neither eats it nor is attacked by it, simply because the parnope will lay its eggs in the bomber's nest, and by doing this will interfere with the development of its eggs; yet it does not know this. Anticipations of this kind once more confirm the ideal nature of Time, which indeed always becomes manifest as soon as the will as thing in itself is in question. Not only with respect to the points here mentioned, but to many others besides, the mechanical instincts and physiological functions of animals serve to explain each other mutually, because the will without knowledge is the agent in both. As the will has equipped itself with every organ and every weapon, offensive as well as defensive, so has it likewise provided itself in every animal shape with an intellect, as a means of preservation for the individual and the species. It was precisely in this account that the ancients called the intellect the ryEuovióv, i.e. the guide and leader. Accordingly the intellect, being exclusively destined to serve the will, always exactly corresponds to it. Beasts of prey stood in greater need of intellect, and in fact have more intelligence, than herbivorous animals. The elephant certainly forms an exception, and so does even the horse to a certain extent; but the admirable intelligence of the elephant was necessary on account of the length of its life (200 years) and of the scantiness of its progeny, which obliged it to provide for a longer and surer preservation of the individual: and this moreover in countries teeming with the most rapacious, the strongest and the nimblest beasts of prey. The horse too has a longer life and a scantier progeny than the ruminants, and as it has neither horns, tusks, trunk, nor indeed any weapon save perhaps its hoofs, it needed greater intelligence and swiftness in order to elude pursuit. Monkeys needed their extraordinary intelligence, partly because of the length of their life, which even in the moderate-sized animal extends to fifty years; partly also because of their scanty progeny, which is limited to one at a time, but especially because of their hands, which, to be properly used, required the direction of an understanding.

Now, in all this, that anatomical element we have mentioned above as fixed and invariable, certainly remains in so far an enigma, as it does not come within the teleological explanation, which only begins after the assumption of that element; since the intended organ might in many cases have been rendered equally suitable for its purpose even with a different number and disposition of bones. It is easy to understand, for instance, why the human skull should be formed out of eight bones: that is, to enable them to be drawn together by the fontanels during birth; but we do not see why a chicken which breaks through its egg-shell should necessarily have the same number of skull-bones. We must therefore assume this anatomical element to be based, partly on the unity and identity of the will to live in general, partly on the circumstance, that the archetypal forms of animals have proceeded one from the other, wherefore the fundamental type of the whole race was preserved.

…the body of an animal is precisely nothing but the will itself of that animal brought to cerebral perception as representation- through the forms of Space, Time and Causality-in other words, the mere visibility, objectivity of Will. For, if this is once pre-supposed, everything in and belonging to that body must conspire towards the final end: the life of this animal. Nothing superfluous, nothing deficient, nothing inappropriate, nothing insufficient or incomplete of its kind, can therefore be found in it: on the contrary, all that is required must be there, and just in the proportion needed, never more. For here artist, work and materials are one and the same. Each organism is therefore a consummate masterpiece of exceeding perfection. Here the will did not first cherish the intention, first recognise the end and then adapt the means to it and conquer the material; its willing was rather immediately the aim and immediately the attainment of that aim; no foreign appliances needing to be overcome were wanted-willing, doing and attaining were here one and the same. Thus the organism presents itself as a miracle which admits of no comparison with any work of human artifice wrought by the lamplight of knowledge. Our admiration for the consummate perfection and fitness for their ends in all the works of Nature, is at the bottom based upon our viewing them in the same light as we do our own works. In these, in the first place, the will to do the work and the work are two different things; then again two other things lie between these two: firstly, the medium of representation, which, taken by itself, is foreign to the will, through which the will must pass before it realises itself here; and secondly the material foreign to the will here at work, on which a form foreign to it has to be forced, which it resists, because the material already belongs to another will, that is to say, to its own nature, its forma substantialis, the (Platonic) idea, expressed by it: therefore this material has first to be overcome, and however deeply the artificial form may have penetrated, will always continue inwardly resisting. It is quite a different thing with Nature's works, which are not, like our own, indirect, but on the contrary, direct manifestations of the will. Here the will acts in its primordial nature, that is, unconsciously. No mediating representation here separates the will and the work: they are one. And even the material is one with them: for matter is the mere visibility of the will. Therefore here we find Matter completely permeated by Form; or, better still, they are of quite the same origin, only existing mutually one for the other; and in so far they are one. That we separate them in works of Nature as well as in works of Art, is a mere abstraction. Pure Matter, absolutely without Form or quality, which we think as the material of a product of Nature, is merely an ens rationis and cannot enter into any experience: whereas the material of a work of Art is empirical Matter, consequently already has a Form. The [distinctive] character of Nature's products is the identity of form and substance; that of products of Art the diversity of these two. It is because Matter is the mere visibility of Form in Nature's products, that, even empirically, we see Form appear as a mere production of Matter, bursting forth from its inside in crystallisation, in vegtable and animal generatio aquivoca, which last cannot be doubted, at any rate in the epizoa. -For this reason we may even assume that nowhere, either on any planet or satellite, will Matter come to a state of endless repose, but rather that its inherent forces (i.e. the will, whose mere visibility is) will always put an end again to the repose which has commenced, always awaking again from their sleep, to resume their activity as mechanical, physical, chemical, organic forces; since at all times they only wait for the opportunity to do so. But if we want to understand Nature's proceeding, we must not try to do it by comparing her works with our own. The real essence of every animal form, is an act of the will outside representation, consequently outside its forms of Space and Time also; which act, just on that account, knows neither sequence nor juxtaposition, but has, on the contrary, the most indivisible unity. But when our cerebral perception comprehends that form, and still more when its inside is dissected by the anatomical knife, then that which originally and in itself was foreign to knowledge and its laws, is brought under the light of knowledge; but then also, it has to present itself in conformity with the laws and forms of knowledge. The original unity and indivisibility of that act of the will, of that truly metaphysical being, then appears divided into parts lying side by side and functions following one upon another, which all nevertheless present themselves as connected together in closest relationship one to another for mutual help and support, as means and ends one to the other. The understanding, in thus apprehending these things, now perceives the original unity reestablishing itself out of a multiplicity which its own form of knowledge had first brought about, and involuntarily taking for granted that its own way of perceiving this is the way in which this animal form comes into being, it is now struck with admiration for the profound wisdom with which those parts are arranged, those functions combined. This is the meaning of Kant's great doctrine, that Teleology is brought into Nature by our own understanding, which accordingly wonders at a miracle of its own creation. If I may use a trivial simile to elucidate so sublime a matter, this astonishment very much resembles that of our understanding when it discovers that all multiples of 9, when their single figures are added together, give as their product either the number 9 or one whose single figures again make 9; yet it is that very understanding itself which has prepared for itself this surprise in the decimal system. According to the Physico-theological argument, the actual existence of the world has been preceded by its existence in an intellect: if the world is designed for an end, it must have existed as representation before it came into being. Now I say, on the contrary, in Kant's sense: if the world is to be representation, it must present itself as designed for an end; and this only takes place in an intellect. It undoubtedly follows from my doctrine, that every being is its own work. Nature, which is incapable of falsehood and is as naive as genius, asserts the same thing downright; since each being merely kindles the spark of life at another exactly similar being, and then makes itself before our eyes, taking the materials for this from outside, form and movement from its own self: this process we call growth and development. Thus, even empirically, each being stands before us as its own work. But Nature's language is not understood because it is too simple.

…the vital energy of plants, like that of animals, is subject to fatigue and exhaustion.

For centuries botanists have been searching for the reason why in a seed which is germinating the root invariably grows downwards, while the stalk as invariably grows upwards, no matter what be the position in which the seed is placed.

We are unable directly and clearly to distinguish unconscious existence from non-existence, although we have our own experience of it in deep sleep.

wherever there is sensibility, it is always accompanied by understanding, i.e. with the faculty for referring effects experienced to external causes; without this, sensibility would be superfluous and a mere source of aimless suffering. The higher we ascend in the scale of animals, the greater number and perfection of the senses we find, till at last we have all five:

Even the more sagacious animals only see in objects what concerns themselves what has reference to their will or at the utmost, what may have reference to it in future: of this last we have an instance in cats, who take pains to acquire an accurate knowledge of localities, and in foxes, who endeavour to find hiding-places for their future prey. But they are insensible towards everything else; no animal has perhaps ever yet seen the starry sky: my dog started in terror when for the first time he accidentally caught sight of the sun.

Complete liberation and separation of the intellect from the will and its bondage is the prerogative of genius, as I have fully shown in the æsthetic part of my chief work. Genius is objectivity. The pure objectivity and distinctness with which things present themselves in intuitive perception--that fundamental and most substantial source of knowledge--actually stands every moment in inverse proportion to the interest which the will has in those things; and knowing without willing is the condition, not to say the essence, of all gifts of aesthetic intelligence.

The more eminent the head, the less prominent is this character, and the more purely objective does the representation of the outer world become; till in genius finally it attains completely objectivity, by which the Platonic ideas detach themselves from the individual things, because the mind which comprehends them enhances itself to the pure subject of knowledge.

when the character is given and the motive recognised, every act of volition really follows with the same strict necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us the laws, and, to use Kant's words, were character and motive exactly known, might be calculated with precisely the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon; or again, to place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant, as Dante says, who is older than Buridan: ‘Between two kinds of food, both equally Remote and tempting, first a man might die Of hunger, ere he one could freely chuse.’

conviction exists before proof: the proof being invariably excogitated afterwards!

will is not, as has hitherto been assumed, an accident of cognition and therefore of life: but life itself is manifestation of will. Knowledge, on the contrary, is really an accident of life, and life of Matter. But Matter itself is only the perceptibility of the phenomena of the will. Therefore we are compelled to recognise volition in every effort or tendency which proceeds from the nature of a material body, and properly speaking constitutes that nature, or manifests itself as phenomenon by means of that nature; and there can consequently be no Matter without manifestation of will. The lowest and on that account most universal manifestation of will is gravity, wherefore it has been called a primary and essential property of Matter.

movement does not proceed either from inside, when it is ascribed to the will, or from outside, when it is brought about by causes; but that both things are inseparable and take place simultaneously with every movement made by a body. For movement which is admitted to arise from the will, always presupposes a cause also: this cause, in beings that have knowledge, is a motive; but without it, even in these beings, movement is impossible.

Animals, however, as they are restricted to perceptible representations, still need the presence of the object acting as a motive, which action is then immediate and infallible (if we leave training, i.e. habit enforced by fear, out of the question). For animals are unable to carry about with them conceptions that might render them independent of present impressions, enable them to reflect, and qualify them for deliberate action. Man can do this. Therefore when at last we come to rational beings, the motive is even no longer a present, perceptible, actually existing, real thing, but a mere conception having its present existence only in the brain of the person who acts, but which is extracted from many multifarious perceptions, from the experience of former years, or has been handed down in words. Here the separation between cause and effect is so wide, the effect has grown so much stronger as compared with the cause, that the vulgar mind no longer perceives the existence of a cause at all, and the acts of the will appear to it to be unconditioned causeless: that is to say, free.

everywhere where there is causality, there is will; and no will acts without causality.

Therefore we recognise the essence of the will least readily, where causality is most intelligible; and, where the will is most unmistakably evident causality becomes so obscured, that the vulgar mind could venture to deny its existence altogether.- Now, as Kant has taught us, causality is nothing but the form of the understanding itself, knowable à priori: that is, the essence of representation, as such, which is one side of the world; the other side is will: which is the thing in itself. That relative increase and decrease of clearness in inverse proportion of causality and of the will, that mutual advancing and receding of both, depends consequently upon the fact, that the more a thing is given us as mere phenomenon, i.e. as representation, the more clearly does the à priori form of representation, i.e. causality, manifest itself: this is the case in inanimate Nature; conversely, the more immediate our knowledge of the will, the more does the form of representation recede into the background: this is the case with ourselves. That is: the nearer one side of the world approaches to us, the more do we lose sight of the other.

Mira in quibusdam rebus verborum proprietas est, et consuetudo sermonis antiqui quadam efficacissimis notis signat.

The property of words is wonderful in certain respects, and the custom of ancient speech marks one of the most powerful signs.

unumquodque autem tale dicere oportet, quale naturâ suâ esse vult, et quod est; sed non id quod violentià et prater naturam est

The heart is the sun of the microcosm. And all the imagining of man passes from the small sun of the microcosm into the sun of the great Universe, into the heart of the macrocosm. Thus the imagination of the microcosm is a seed which becomes material.

Imagination comes from lounging and desire: envy, hatred, proceed from longing, for they do not arise unless you long for them. As soon as you wish, the act of the imagination follows.

We ought to know, that we may convey the spirit of any man into an image, solely by faith and by our strong imagination. — No incantation is needed, and the ceremonies, drawing of circles, fumigations, seals, etc, etc. are mere humbugs to mislead. — Homunculi and images are made, etc. etc. .. by which all the operations, powers and will of man are carried out… The human heart is indeed so great a thing, that no one can express it: as God is eternal and imperishable, so also is the heart of man. If we men thoroughly recognised our heart, nothing would be impossible for us on earth… Perfect imagination, coming from the stars (Astris) arises from the heart.

Faith must confirm the imagination, for faith decides the will…

Others make it possible for a man to be possessed by the future, if he believes only: for he cannot do what he believes not to be able to do.

the causal law only connects phenomena, while the inner nature of things remains independent of it; and also, that if any direct influence on Nature be possible from within, it can only take place through the will itself. But even if Magic were to be ranked as practical Metaphysic, according to Bacon's classification, it is certain that no other theoretical Metaphysic would stand in the right relation to it but mine, by which the world is resolved into Will and Representation.

whether we compare countries or ages, we find on the whole that civilization keeps pace with population.

When the Jesuits disputed with the rest of the missionaries as to the meaning of the word Tien, whether it was Heaven or God. the Chinese looked upon these foreigners as restless folk and drove them away to Macao. It was at any rate through this word that Europeans could first hope to find the track of that Analogy of Chinese Metaphysic with their own faith, which had been so persistently sought for;

it must not be said that the mind of nature is unintelligent, but it does not resemble the cogitations of man…

there are three well-known modes of repelling the attack of new thoughts: firstly, by ignoring them, secondly by denying them, and lastly by asserting that they are not new, but were known long before.

It is easy to preach, but difficult to found, morality. It is just because that point is determined by our conscience, that it becomes the touchstone of all systems;

The only Metaphysic which really and immediately supports Ethics, is that one which is itself primarily ethical and constituted out of the material of Ethics.

On the whole, I can confidently assert, that there has never yet been a philosophical system so entirely cut out of one piece, so completely without any joins or patches, as mine.

I will according to what I am; therefore I must be according to what I will.

The world likes to hear that it is commendable and excellent, and philosophers like to please the world. With me it is different: I have seen what pleases the world, and therefore shall not swerve a step from the path of truth in order to please it.

I console myself therefore with the thought that, when referred to the Upanishads of the Sacred Vedas, my Ethics are quite orthodox and that even with primitive, genuine Christianity they stand in no contradiction. As to all other accusations of heresy, I am well armoured and my breast is fortified with triple steel.

the trade

You, that way: we, this way