On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.
Now those kinds which feed on _larvæ_ that crawl about freely, have short stings not more than about one-third of an inch long, whereas _pimpla manifestator_, which feeds upon _chelostoma maxillosa_, whose _larvæ_ lie hidden in old trees at great depth and are not accessible to it, has a sting two inches long; and the sting of the _ichneumon strobillæ_ which lays its eggs in _larvæ_ dwelling in fir-cones, is nearly as long. With these stings they penetrate to the _larva_ in which they bore a hole and deposit one egg, whose product subsequently devours this _larva_.[233] Just as clearly does the will to escape their enemies manifest itself in the defensive equipment of animals that are the objects of pursuit. Hedgehogs and porcupines raise up a forest of spears; armadillos, scaly ant-eaters and tortoises appear cased from head to foot in armour which is inaccessible to tooth, beak or claw; and so it is, on a smaller scale, with the whole class of _crustacea_. Others again seek protection by deceiving their pursuers rather than by resisting them physically: thus the sepia has provided itself with materials for surrounding itself with a dark cloud on the approach of danger. The sloth is deceptively like its moss-clad bough, and the frog its leaf; and many insects resemble their dwelling-places.
The negro's louse is black;[234] so, to be sure, is our flea also; but the latter, in providing itself with an extremely powerful apparatus for making irregular jumps to a considerable distance, trusted to these for protection.--We can however make the anticipation in all these arrangements more intelligible to ourselves by the same anticipation which shows itself in the mechanical instincts of animals. 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 _bombex'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. [230] De Lamarck, "Philosophie Zoologique," vol. i. c. 7, and "Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres," vol. i. Introd. pp. 180-212.
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 ἡγεμονικόν, _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. For monkeys depend upon their hands, not only for their defence by means of outer weapons such as sticks and stones, but also for their nourishment, this last necessitating a variety of artificial means and a social and artificial system of rapine in general, the passing from hand to hand of stolen fruit, the placing of sentinels, &c. &c. Add to this, that it is especially in their youth, before they have attained their full muscular development, that this intelligence is most prominent. In the _pongo_ or ourang-outang for instance, the brain plays a far more important part and the understanding is much greater during its youth than at its maturity, when the muscular powers having attained full development, they take the place of the proportionately declining intellect. This holds good of all sorts of monkeys, so that here therefore the intellect acts for a time vicariously for the yet undeveloped muscular strength.
We find this process discussed at length in the "Résumé des Observations de Fr. Cuvier sur l'instinct et l'intelligence des animaux," par Flourens (1841), from which I have quoted the whole passage referring to this question in the second volume of my chief work, at the end of the thirty-first chapter, and this is my only reason for not repeating it here. On the whole, intelligence gradually increases from the rodents[235] to the ruminants, from the ruminants to the pachyderms, and from these again to the beasts of prey and finally to the _quadrumana_, and anatomy shows a gradual development of the brain in similar order which corresponds to this result of external observation. (According to Flourens and Fr. Cuvier.)[236] Among the reptiles, serpents are the most intelligent, for they may even be trained; this is so, because they are beasts of prey and propagate more slowly than the rest--especially the venomous ones. And here also, as with the physical weapons, we find the will everywhere as the _prius_; its equipment, the intellect, as the _posterius_. Beasts of prey do not hunt, nor do foxes thieve, because they have more intelligence; on the contrary, they have more intelligence, just as they have stronger teeth and claws too, because they wished to live by hunting and thieving.
The fox even made up at once for his inferiority in muscular power and strength of teeth by the extraordinary subtility of his understanding. Our thesis is singularly illustrated by the case of the bird _dodo_ or _dronte_ (_didus ineptus_) on the island of Mauritius, whose species, it is well known, has died out, and which, as its Latin name denotes, was exceedingly stupid, and this explains its disappearance; so that here it seems indeed as if Nature had for once gone too far in her _lex parsimoniæ_ and thereby in a sense brought forth an abortion in the species, as she so often does in the individual, which was unable to subsist, precisely because it was an abortion. If, on this occasion, anyone were to raise the question as to whether Nature ought not to have provided insects with at least sufficient intelligence to prevent them from flying into the flame of a candle, our answer would be: most certainly; only she did not know that men would make candles and light them, and _natura nihil agit frustra_. Insect intelligence is therefore only insufficient where the surroundings are artificial.[237]
Everywhere indeed intelligence depends in the first instance upon the cerebral system, and this stands in a necessary relation to the rest of the organism; therefore cold-blooded animals are greatly inferior to warm-blooded ones, and invertebrate animals to _vertebrata_. But the organism is precisely nothing but the will become visible, to which, as that which is absolutely _prius_, everything constantly refers. The needs and aims of that will give in each phenomenon the rule for the means to be employed, and these means must harmonize with one another. Plants have no self-consciousness because they have no power of locomotion; for of what use would self-consciousness be to them unless it enabled them to seek what was salutary and flee what was noxious to them? And conversely, of what use could power of locomotion be to them, as they have no self-consciousness with which to guide it. The inseparable duality of Sensibility and Irritability does not yet appear therefore in the plant; they continue slumbering in the reproductive force which is their fundament, and in which alone the will here objectifies itself.
The sun-flower, and every other plant, wills for light; but as yet their movement towards light is not separate from their apprehension of it, and both coincide with their growth.--Human understanding, which is so superior to that of all other beings, and is assisted by Reason (the faculty for non-perceptible representations, _i.e._ for conceptions; reflection, thinking faculty), is nevertheless only just proportionate, partly to Man's requirements, which greatly surpass those of animals and multiply to infinity; partly to his entire lack of all natural weapons and covering, and to his relatively weaker muscular strength, which is greatly inferior to that of monkeys of his own size;[238] lastly also, to the slowness with which his race multiplies and the length of his childhood and life, which demand secure preservation of the individual. All these great requirements had to be satisfied by means of intellectual powers, which, for this reason, predominate in him. But we find the intellect secondary and subordinate everywhere, and destined exclusively to serve the purposes of the will. As a rule too, it always remains true to its destiny and subservient to the will. How nevertheless, it frees itself in particular instances from this bondage through an abnormal preponderance of cerebral life, whereby purely objective cognition becomes possible which may be enhanced to genius, I have shown at length in the æsthetic part of my chief work.[239]
Conjointly with this immutability of the anatomical element, we have the greatest susceptibility to modification, the greatest plasticity and flexibility of these same bones with reference to size, shape and adaptation to different purposes, all which we see determined by the will with primary strength and freedom according to the aims prescribed to it by external circumstances: it makes out of these materials whatever its necessity for the time being requires. If it desires to climb about in trees, it catches at the boughs at once with four hands, while it stretches the _ulva_ and _radius_ to an excessive length and immediately prolongs the _os coccygis_ to a curly tail, a yard long, in order to hang by it to the boughs and swing itself from one branch to another. If, on the other hand, it desires to crawl in the mud as a crocodile, to swim as a seal, or to burrow as a mole, these same arm-bones are shortened till they are no longer recognisable; in the last case the _metacarpus_ and _phalanges_ are enlarged to disproportionately large shovel-paws, to the prejudice of the other bones.
But if it wishes to fly through the air as a bat, not only are the _os humeri_, _radius_ and _alnus_ prolonged in an incredible manner, but the usually small and subordinate _carpus_, _metacarpus_ and _phalanges digitorum_ expand to an immense length, as in St. Anthony's vision, outmeasuring the length of the animal's body, in order to spread out the wing-membrane. If, in order to browse upon the tops of very tall African trees, it has, as a giraffe, placed itself upon extraordinarily high fore-legs, the same seven _vertebræ_ of the neck, which never vary as to number and which, in the mole, were contracted so as to be no longer recognisable, are now prolonged to such a degree, that here, as everywhere else, the neck acquires the same length as the fore-legs, in order to enable the head to reach down to drinking-water. But where, as is the case when it appears as the elephant, a long neck could not have borne the weight of the enormous, unwieldy head--a weight increased moreover by tusks a yard long--the neck remains short, as an exception, and a trunk is let down as an expedient, to lift up food and draw water from below and also to reach up to the tops of trees. In accordance with these transformations, we see in all of them the skull, the receptacle containing the understanding, at the same time proportionately expand, develop, curve itself, as the mode of procuring nourishment becomes more or less difficult and requires more or less intelligence; and the different degrees of the understanding manifest themselves clearly to the practised eye in the curves of the skull.
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 realizes 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.[244] 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 vegetable and animal _generatio æquivoca_, which last cannot be doubted, at any rate in the _epizoa_.[245]--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 it 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.
The understanding, in thus apprehending these things, now perceives the original unity re-establishing 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.[246] 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.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.