On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.
In classifying the above-mentioned empirical corroborations of my doctrine according to the sciences from which they come, while I take the graduated order of Nature from the highest to the lowest degree as a guiding-thread to my expositions, I must first mention a very striking confirmation lately received by my chief dogma in the physiological and pathological views of Dr. J. D. Brandis, private physician to the King of Denmark, a veteran in science, whose "Essay on Vital Force" (1795) had received Reil's hearty commendation. In his two latest writings: "Experiences in the Application of Cold in Disease" (Berlin, 1833), and "Nosology and Therapeutics of Cachexiæ" (1834), we find him in the most emphatic and striking manner stating the primary source of all vital functions to be an _unconscious will_, from which he derives all processes in the machinery of the organism, in health as well as in disease, and which he represents as the _primum mobile_ of life. I must support this by literal quotations from these essays, since few save medical readers are likely to have them at hand.
In the first of them, p. viii., we find: "The essence of every living organism consists in the will to maintain its own existence as much as possible over against the macrocosm;"--p. x.: "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." P. 1: "If we are forced to the conviction that there must be a _determining principle_--a _will_, in every vital action, by which the development suited to the whole organism is occasioned, and each metamorphosis of the parts conditioned, in harmony with the whole individuality, and likewise that there is a something capable of being determined and developed," &c. &c.--P. 11: "With respect to individual life, the element which determines, the organic _will_, if it is to rest satisfied, must be able to attain what it wants from that which has to be determined.
This occurs even when the vital movements are over-excited, as in inflammation: something new is formed, the noxious element is expelled; new plastic materials are meanwhile conveyed through the arteries, more venous blood is carried off, until the process of inflammation is finished and the organic _will_ satisfied. It is however possible to excite this _will_ to such a degree, as to make satisfaction impossible. This exciting cause (or stimulus) either acts directly upon the particular organ (poison, contagion) or it affects the whole life; and this life then begins to make the most strenuous efforts to rid itself of the noxious element or to modify the disposition of the organic _will_, and provokes critical vital activity in particular parts (inflammations) or yields to the unappeased _will_."--P. 12: "The insatiable _will_ acts destructively upon the organism unless either (_a_) the whole life, in its efforts to attain unity (tendency to adapt means to end), produces other activities requiring satisfaction (_crises et lyses_) which hold that _will_ in check--called decisive (_crises completæ_) when quite successful; _crises incompletæ_, when only partially so--or (_b_) some other stimulus (medicine) produces another _will_ which represses the diseased one.
If we place this in one and the same category with the _will_ of which we have become conscious through our own representations, and bear in mind that here there can be no question of more or less distant resemblance, we gain the conviction that we have grasped the fundamental conception of the _one_ unlimited, therefore indivisible, life which, according to its different manifestations in various more or less endowed and exercised organs, is just as able to make hair grow on the human body as to combine the most sublime representations. We see that the most violent passion--unsatisfied _will_--may be checked by more or less strong excitement," &c. &c.--P. 18: "The determining element--_this organic will without representation_, this tendency to preserve the organism as a unity--is induced by outward temperature to modify its activity now in the same, now in a remoter organ.
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_ in harmony with that unity" ...--P. 23: "Cold suddenly applied to the skin suppresses its function (chill); cold drinks check the _organic will_ in the digestive organs and thereby intensify that of the skin and produce perspiration; just so with the diseased _organic will_: cold checks cutaneous eruptions," &c. &c.--P. 33: "Fever is the complete participation of the whole vital process in a diseased _will_, _i.e._ it is to the entire vital process what inflammation is to particular organs--the effort of our vitality to form something definite, in order to content the diseased _will_ and remove the noxious element.--We call this process of formation _crisis_ or _lysis_ (turning-point or release). The first perception of the pernicious element which causes the diseased _will_, affects the individuality just in the same way as a noxious element apprehended by our senses, before we have brought to clear representation the entire relation in which it stands to our individuality and the means of removing it.
It creates terror and its consequences, a standstill of the vital process in the _parenchyma_, especially in the parts directed towards the outer world; in the skin, and in all the motor muscles belonging to the entire individuality (outer body): shuddering, chills, trembling, pains in the limbs, &c. &c. The difference between them is, that in the latter case the noxious element, either at once or gradually, becomes clear representation, because it is compared with the individuality by means of all the senses, so that its relation to that individuality can be determined, and the means of protection against it (disregard, flight, warding off, defence, &c.) be brought to a _conscious will_; whereas, in the former case, we remain unconscious of that noxious element, and it is life alone (or Nature's curative power) which is striving to remove the noxious element and thereby to content the diseased _will_. Nor must this be taken for a simile; it is, on the contrary, a true description of the manifestation of life."--P. 58: "We must however always bear in mind, that cold acts here as a powerful stimulus to check or moderate the diseased _will_ and to rouse in its place a natural _will_, accompanied by general warmth."--
In almost every page of this book similar expressions are to be found. In the second of the Essays I have named, Brandis no longer combines the explanation by the will so universally with each separate analysis, probably in consideration that this explanation is properly speaking, a metaphysical one. Nevertheless he maintains it entirely and completely, giving it even all the more distinct and decided expression, wherever he states it. Thus, for instance, in § 68 _et seq._ he speaks of an "_unconscious will_, which cannot be separated from the conscious one," and is the _primum mobile_ of all life, as well in plants as in animals; for, in these, it is a desire and aversion manifesting itself in all the organs which determines all their vital processes, secretions, &c. &c.--§. 71: "All convulsions prove that the manifestation of the will can take place without distinct power of representation."--§. 72: "Everywhere do we meet with a spontaneous, uncommunicated activity, now determined by the sublimest human free will, now by animal desire and aversion, now again by simple, more vegetative requirements; which activity, in order to maintain itself, calls forth several other kinds of activity in the unity of the individual."--P. 96: "A creative, spontaneous, uncommunicated activity shows itself in every vital manifestation." ...--"The third factor in this individual creation is the _will, the individual's life itself_." ...--"The nerves are the conductors of this individual creation: by their means form and mixture are varied according to desire and aversion."--P. 97: "Assimilation of foreign substance ... makes the blood.... It is not an absorption or an exudation of organic matter; ... on the contrary, here the sole factor of the phenomenon is in all cases _the creative will_, a life which cannot be brought back to any sort of imparted movement."--
For the fundamental doctrine propounded by him is so striking and paradoxical, that even his Göttingen reviewer is amazed and hardly knows what to think of it; yet such a doctrine as this was left without foundation either through proof or induction, nor did Dr. Brandis establish its relation to the whole of our knowledge of Nature: he simply asserted it. I imagined therefore that it was by the peculiar gift of divination, which enables eminent physicians to see and do the right thing in cases of illness, that he had been led to this view, without being able to give a strict and methodical account of the grounds of this really metaphysical truth, although he must have seen how greatly it is opposed to the generally received views. Had he, thought I, been acquainted with my philosophy, which gives far greater extension to this truth, makes it valid for the whole of Nature and founds it both by proof and induction in close connection with Kant's teaching, from which it proceeds as a final result of excogitation--how gladly must he have availed himself of such confirmation and support, rather than to stand alone by an unheard-of assertion which was never further carried out and, with him, never went beyond bare assertion. Such were the reasons that led me to believe myself entitled to take for granted Dr. Brandis' ignorance of my book.
Since then however I have become better acquainted with German scientists and Copenhagen Academicians, to which body Dr. Brandis belonged, and have gained the conviction that he knew me very well indeed. I stated my reasons for arriving at this conviction already in 1844 in the 2nd vol. of "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,"[193] so that, as the subject is by no means edifying, it is needless to repeat them here; I will merely add that I have since been assured on trustworthy authority that Dr. Brandis not only knew my work but even possessed it, as it was found among his property after his death.--The unmerited obscurity to which writers like myself are long condemned, encourages such people to appropriate their thoughts without so much as naming them. [193] Chapter 20, p. 263; p. 295 of the 3rd edition. Another medical authority has carried this even farther; for, not content with the thought alone, he has appropriated to himself the expression of it also. I allude to Professor Anton Rosas of the University of Vienna, whose entire § 507 in the 1st vol. of his Textbook of Ophthalmology[194] (1830) is copied word for word from pp. 14-16 of my treatise "On Vision and Colours" (1816) without any mention whatever of me, or even the slightest hint that he is using the words of another. This sufficiently accounts for the care he has taken not to mention my treatise among the lists of twenty-one writings on Colours and forty on the Physiology of the Eye, which he gives in §§ 542 and 567; a caution which was however all the more advisable, as he had appropriated to himself a good deal more out of that pamphlet without mentioning me. All that is referred, for instance, in § 526 to 'them' (_man_), is only applicable to me.
His entire § 527 is copied almost literally from my pp. 59 and 60. The theory which he introduces without further ceremony in § 535 by the word "evidently": that is, that yellow is 3/4 and violet 1/4 of the eye's activity, never was 'evident' to anyone until I made it so; even to this day it is a truth known to few and acknowledged by fewer still, and much is yet wanting--for example, that I should be dead and buried--ere it be possible to call it 'evident' without further ceremony. The matter will even have to wait till after my death to be seriously sifted, since a close investigation might easily bring to 'evidence' the real difference between Newton's theory of colours and my own, which is simply that his is false, and mine true: a discovery which could not fail to mortify my contemporaries. Wherefore, according to ancient custom, all serious examination into the question is wisely postponed for these few years. Professor Rosas knew no such policy as this and, as the matter was not alluded to anywhere, thought himself entitled, like the Danish Academician, to claim it as lawful prey (_de bonne prise_).
Evidently North and South German honesty had not yet come to a satisfactory understanding.--Moreover the whole contents of §§ 538, 539 and 540 in Professor Rosas' book are taken from my pamphlet, nay even in great part copied word for word from my § 13. Still once, where he stands in need of a voucher for a fact, he finds himself obliged to refer to my treatise: that is, in his § 531; and it is most amusing to see the way in which he even brings in the numerical fractions used by me, as a result of my theory, to express all colours. It had probably occurred to him, that appropriating them quite _sans façon_ might be a delicate matter, so he says, p. 308: "_If we wished_ to express in numbers the first-mentioned relation in which colours stand to white, assuming white to be = 1, the following scale of proportion might _by the way_ be adopted (as has already been done by Schopenhauer): yellow = 3/4 orange = 2/3 red = 1/2 green = 1/2 blue = 1/3 violet = 1/4 black = 0" [194] Rosas, "Handbuch der Augenheilkunde" (1830).
Now I should like to know how anyone could do this _by the way_, without having first thought out my whole colour-theory, to which alone these numbers refer, and apart from which they are mere abstract numbers without meaning; above all, how anyone could do it who, like Professor Rosas, professes to be a follower of Newton's colour-theory, with which these numbers are in direct contradiction? Finally, I should like to know how it came, that during the thousands of years in which men have thought and written, no one but myself and Professor Rosas should ever have thought of using just these particular fractions to denote colours? For the words I have quoted above tell us, that he would have stated those fractions precisely as he has done, even had I not chanced to do it 'already' fourteen years before and thus needlessly anticipated his statement; they also tell us, that all that is required is '_to wish_,' in order to do so.
Now it is precisely in these numerical fractions that the secret of colours lies: by them alone can we rightly solve the mystery of their nature and of their difference from one another.--I should however be heartily glad, were plagiarism the worst kind of dishonesty that defiled German literature; there are others far more mischievous, which penetrate more deeply, and to which plagiarism bears the same proportion as picking pockets in a mild way to capital crime. I allude to that mean, despicable spirit, whose loadstar is personal interest, when it ought to be truth, and in which the voice of intention makes itself heard beneath the mask of insight. Double-dealing and time-serving are the order of the day. Tartuffe comedies are performed without _rouge_; nay, Capuchin sermons are preached in halls consecrated to Science; enlightenment, that once revered word, has become a term of opprobrium; the greatest thinkers of the past century, Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, are slandered--those heroes, ornaments and benefactors of mankind, whose fame, diffused throughout both hemispheres, can only be increased, if by anything, by the fact that wherever and whenever obscurantists show themselves, it is as their bitterest enemies--and with good reason.
Literary _coteries_ and associations are formed to deal out praise and blame, and spurious merit is then trumpeted forth and extolled, while sterling merit is slandered or, as Göthe says, "_secreted, by means of an inviolable silence, in which sort of inquisitorial censure the Germans have attained great proficiency_."[195] The motives and considerations however from which all this proceeds, are of too low a nature for me to care to enumerate them in detail. But what a difference there is between periodicals such as the "Edinburgh Review," in which gentlemen of independent means are induced to write by a genuine interest in the subjects treated, and which honourably upholds its noble motto taken from Publius Syrus: _Judex damnnatur cum nocens absolvitur_, and our mean-spirited, disingenuous, German literary journals, full of considerations and intentions, that are mostly compiled for the sake of pay by hired editors, and ought properly to have for their motto: _Accedas socius laudes, lauderis, ut absens_.[196] Now, after twenty years, do I understand what Göthe said to me at Berka in 1814. As I found him reading Madame de Staël's "_De l'Allemagne_," I remarked in course of conversation that she had given too exaggerated a description of German honesty and one that might mislead foreigners.
He laughed and said: "Yes, to be sure, they will not secure their baggage behind and will have it cut off." He then added in a graver tone: "But one has to know German literature in order to realise the full extent of German dishonesty."--All well and good! But the most revolting kind of dishonesty in German literature is that of the time-servers, who pass themselves off for philosophers, while in reality they are obscurantists. The word 'time-serving' no more needs explanation than the thing needs a proof; for anyone who had the face to deny it would furnish strong evidence in support of my present argument. Kant taught, that man ought to use his fellow-man only as an end, never as a means: he did not think it necessary to say, that philosophy ought only to be dealt with as an end, never as a means. Time-serving may after all be excused under every garb, the cowl as well as the ermine, save only the philosopher's cloak (_Tribonion_); for he who has once assumed this, has sworn allegiance to truth, and from that moment every other consideration, no matter of what kind, becomes base treachery. Therefore it was that Socrates did not shun the hemlock, nor Bruno the stake, while 'for a piece of bread these men will transgress.'
Are they too short-sighted to see posterity close at hand, with the history of philosophy at its side, recording two lines of bitter condemnation with unflinching hand and iron pen in its immortal pages? Or has this no sting for them?--Well to be sure, if it comes to the worst, '_après moi le déluge_' may be pronounced; but as to '_après moi le mépris_,' that is a more difficult matter. Therefore I fancy they will answer that austere judge as follows: "Ah, dear posterity and history of philosophy! you are quite wrong to take us in earnest; we are not philosophers at all, Heaven forbid! No, we are only professors of philosophy, mere servants of the state, mere philosophers in jest. You might as well drag puppet-knights in pasteboard armour into a real tournament." Then the judge will most likely see how matters stand, erase all their names, and confer upon them the _beneficium perpetui silentii_. [195] Göthe, "Tag und Jahreshefte," 1812. [196] This I wrote in 1836. The "Edinburgh Review" has since however greatly deteriorated, and is no longer its old self. I have even seen clerical time-serving in its pages, written down to the level of the mob. From this digression--to which I had been led away eighteen years ago, by the cant and time-serving I then witnessed, though they were not nearly as flourishing then as they are now--I return to that part of my doctrine which Dr. Brandis has confirmed, though he did not originate it, in order to add a few explanations with which I shall then connect some further corroborations it has since received from Physiology.
The three assumptions which are criticised by Kant in his Transcendental Dialectic under the names of Ideas of Reason, and have in consequence since been set aside in theoretical philosophy, had always stood in the way of a deeper insight into Nature, until that great thinker brought about a complete transformation in philosophy. That supposed Idea of Reason, the soul: that metaphysical being, in it whose absolute singleness knowing and willing were knit and blended together to eternal, inseparable unity, was an impediment of this sort for the subject-matter of this chapter. As long as it lasted, no philosophical Physiology was possible: the less so, as its correlate, real, purely passive Matter, had necessarily also to be assumed together with it, as the substance of the body.[197] It was this Idea of Reason, the soul, therefore, that caused the celebrated chemist and physiologist, George Ernest Stahl, at the beginning of the last century to miss the discovery of the truth he so nearly approached and would have quite reached, had he been able to put that which is alone metaphysical, the bare _will_--as yet without intellect--in the place of the _anima rationalis_.
Under the influence of this Idea of Reason however, he could not teach anything but that it is this simple, rational soul which builds itself a body, all whose inner organic functions it directs and performs, yet has no knowledge or consciousness of all this, although knowledge is the fundamental destination and, as it were, the substance, of its being. There was something absurd in this doctrine which made it utterly untenable. It was superseded by Haller's Irritability and Sensibility, which, to be sure, are taken in a purely empirical sense, but, to make up for this, are also two _qualitates occultæ_, at which all explanation ceases. The movement of the heart and of the intestines was now attributed to Irritability. But the _anima rationalis_ still remained in undiminished honour and dignity as a visitor at the house of the body.[198]--"Truth lies at the bottom of a well," said Democritus; and the centuries with a sigh, have repeated his words. But small wonder, if it gets a rap on the knuckles as soon as it tries to come out! [197] As a being existing by itself, a thing in itself. [Add. to 3rd ed.] [198] In which it is lodged in the garret. [Add. to 3rd ed.]
The fundamental truth of my doctrine, which places that doctrine in opposition with all others that have ever existed, is the complete separation between the will and the intellect, which all philosophers before me had looked upon as inseparable; or rather, I ought to say that they had regarded the will as conditioned by, nay, mostly even as a mere function of, the intellect, assumed by them to be the fundamental substance of our spiritual being. But this separation, this analysis into two heterogeneous elements, of the _ego_ or _soul_, which had so long been deemed an indivisible unity, is, for philosophy, what the analysis of water has been for chemistry, though it may take time to be acknowledged. 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 (νούς). 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.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.