On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS.
In former times I have availed myself of such considerations as these in order to point out the will in all things; I now employ them to indicate the sphere to which knowledge presents itself as belonging, when considered, not as is usual from the inside, but realistically, from a standpoint outside itself, as if it were something foreign: that is, when we gain the objective point of view for it, which is so extremely important in order to complete the subjective one.[258] We find that knowledge then presents itself as the _mediator of motives_, _i.e._ of the action of causality upon beings endowed with intellect--in other words, as that which receives the changes from outside upon which those in the inside must follow, as that which acts as mediator between both. Now upon this narrow line hovers _the world as representation_--that is to say, the whole corporeal world, stretched out in Space and Time, which _as such_ can never exist anywhere but in the brain any more than dreams, which, as long as they last, exist in the same way. What the intellect does for animals and for man, as the mediator of motives, susceptibility for stimuli does for plants, and susceptibility for every sort of cause for inorganic bodies: and strictly speaking, all this differs merely in degree.
For, exclusively as a consequence of this susceptibility to outward impressions having enhanced itself in animals proportionately to their requirements till it has reached the point where a nervous system and a brain become necessary, does consciousness arise as a function of that brain, and in it the objective world, whose forms (Time, Space, Causality) are the way in which that function is performed. Therefore we find the intellect originally laid out entirely with a view to subjectivity, destined merely to serve the purposes of the will, consequently as something quite secondary and subordinate; nay, in a sense, as something which appears only _per accidens_; as a condition of the action of mere motives, instead of stimuli, which has become necessary in the higher degree of animal existence. The image of the world in Space and Time, which thus arises, is only the map[259] on which the motives present themselves as ends. It also conditions the spacial and causal connection in which the objects perceived stand to one another; nevertheless it is only the mediating link between the motive and the act of volition.
Now, to take such an image as this of the world, arising in this manner, accidentally, in the intellect, _i.e._ in the cerebral function of animal beings, through the means to their ends being represented and the path of these ephemera on their planet being thus illumined--to take this image, we say, this mere cerebral phenomenon, for the true, ultimate essence of things (thing in itself), to take the concatenation of its parts for the absolute order of the Universe (relations between things in themselves), and to assume all this to exist even independently of the brain, would indeed be a leap! Here in fact, an assumption such as this must appear to us as the height of rashness and presumption; yet it is the foundation upon which all the systems of pre-Kantian _dogmatism_ have been built up; for it is tacitly pre-supposed in all their Ontology, Cosmology and Theology, as well as in the _æternæ veritates_ to which they appeal. But that leap had always been made tacitly and unconsciously, and it is precisely Kant's immortal achievement, to have brought it to our consciousness. [258] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. ii. chap. 22: "Objective View of the Intellect." [259] _Plan._
By our present realistic way of considering the matter therefore, we unexpectedly gain the _objective stand-point_ for Kant's great discoveries; and, by the road of empirico-physiological contemplation, we arrive at the point whence his transcendental-critical view starts. For Kant's view takes the subjective for its standpoint and considers consciousness as given. But from consciousness itself and its law and order, given _à priori_, that view arrives at the conclusion, that all which appears in that consciousness can be nothing more than mere phenomenon. From our realistic, exterior standpoint, on the contrary, which assumes the _objective_--all that exists in Nature--to be absolutely given, we see what the intellect is, as to its aim and origin, and to which class of phenomena it belongs, and we recognise (so far _à priori_) that it _must_ be limited to mere phenomena. We see too, that what presents itself in the intellect can at all times only be conditioned--chiefly _subjectively_--that is, can, together with the order of the nexus of its parts, only be a _mundus phenomenon_, which is likewise subjectively conditioned; but that it can never be a knowledge of things as they may be in themselves, or as they may be connected in themselves.
For, in the nexus of Nature, we have found the faculty of knowing as a conditioned faculty, whose assertions, precisely on that account, cannot claim unconditioned validity. To anyone who has studied and understood the Critique of Pure Reason--to which our standpoint is essentially foreign--it must nevertheless still appear as if Nature had intended the intellect for a puzzle-glass to mislead us and were playing at hide-and-seek with us. But by our realistic objective road, _i.e._ by starting from the objective world as given, we have now come to the very same result at which Kant had arrived by the idealistic, subjective road, _i.e._ by examining the intellect itself and the way in which it constitutes consciousness. We now see that the world as representation hovers on the narrow line between the external cause (motive) and the effect evoked (act of the will), in beings having knowledge (animals), in which beings for the first time there occurs a distinct separation between motive and voluntary act. _Ita res accendent lumina rebus._ It is only when it is reached by two quite opposite roads, that the great result attained by Kant is distinctly seen; and when light is thus thrown upon it from both sides, his whole meaning becomes clear.
Our objective standpoint is realistic and therefore conditioned, so far as, in taking for granted the existence of beings in Nature, it abstracts from the fact that their objective existence postulates an intellect, which contains them as its representation; but Kant's subjective and idealistic standpoint is likewise conditioned, inasmuch as he starts from the intelligence, which itself, however, presupposes Nature, in consequence of whose development as far as animal life that intelligence is for the first time enabled to make its appearance.--Keeping steadily to this realistic, objective standpoint of ours, we may also define Kant's theory as follows: After Locke, in order to know things in themselves, had abstracted the share of sensuous functions--called by him secondary qualities--from things as they appear, Kant with infinitely greater depth deducted from them the incomparably larger share of the cerebral function, which includes precisely what Locke calls primary qualities. But all I have done here has been to show why all this must necessarily be as it is, by indicating the place occupied by the intellect in the nexus of Nature, when we start realistically from the objective as given, but, in doing so, take the only thing of which we are quite directly conscious, the _will_--that true ποῦ στῶ of Metaphysics--for our support, as being what is primarily real, everything else being merely its phenomenon. What now follows serves to complete this.
I have mentioned already, that where knowledge takes place, the motive which appears as representation and the act of volition resulting from it, remain _the more clearly separated one from the other_, the more perfect the intellect; that is, the higher we ascend in the scale of beings. This calls for fuller explanation. As long as the will's activity is roused by stimuli alone, and no representation as yet takes place--that is, in plants--there is no separation at all between the receiving of impressions and the being determined by them. In the lowest order of animal intelligence, such as we find it in _radiaria_, _acalepha_, _acephala_, &c., the difference is still small; a feeling of hunger, a watchfulness roused by this, an apprehending and snapping at their prey, still constitute the whole content of their consciousness; nevertheless this is the first twilight of the dawning world as representation, the background of which--that is to say, everything excepting the motive which acts each time--still remains shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Here moreover the organs of the senses are correspondingly imperfect and incomplete, having exceedingly few data for perception to bring to an understanding yet in embryo.
Nevertheless 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; these are found in a small number of invertebrate animals, but they only become universal in the _vertebrata_. The brain and its function, the understanding, develop proportionately, and the object now gradually presents itself more and more distinctly and completely and even already in connection with other objects; because the service of the will requires apprehension of the mutual relations of objects. By this the world of representation acquires some extent and background. Still that apprehension never goes beyond what is required for the will's service: the apprehending and the being roused to reaction by what is apprehended, are not clearly held asunder: the object is only perceived in as much as it is a motive.
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. A first faint sign of a disinterested perception of their surroundings may at times be observed in the most intelligent animals, especially when they have been trained by taming. Dogs go so far as to stare at things; we may often see them sit down at the window and attentively watch all that passes. Monkeys look about them at times, as if trying to make up their mind about their surroundings. It is in Man that the separation between motive and action, between representation and will, first becomes quite distinct. But this does not immediately put an end to the subservience of the intellect to the will.
Ordinary human beings after all only comprehend quite clearly that which, in some way or other, refers directly or indirectly to their own selves (has an interest for them); with respect to everything else, their understanding continues to be unconquerably inert; the rest therefore remains in the back-ground and does not come into consciousness under the radiant light of complete distinctness. Philosophical astonishment and artistic emotion occasioned by the contemplation of phenomena, remain eternally foreign to them, whatever they may do; for at the bottom, everything appears to them to be a matter of course. 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 æsthetic intelligence. Why does an ordinary artist produce so bad a painting of yonder landscape, notwithstanding all the pains he has taken? Because he sees it so. And why does he see so little beauty in it? Because his intellect has not freed itself sufficiently from his will. The degrees of this separation give rise to great intellectual distinctions between men; for the more knowledge has freed itself from the will, the purer, consequently the more objective and correct, it is; just as that fruit is best, which has no after-taste of the soil on which it has grown.
This relation, as important as it is interesting, deserves surely to be made still clearer by a retrospective view of the whole scale of beings, and by recalling the gradual transition from absolute subjectivity to the highest degrees of objectivity in the intellect. Inorganic Nature namely, is absolutely subjective, no trace whatever of consciousness of an outer world being found in it. Stones, boulders, ice-blocks, even when they fall upon one another, or knock or rub against one another, have no consciousness of each other and of an outer world. Still even these are susceptible to external influence, which causes their position and movement to change and may therefore be considered as a first step towards consciousness. Now, although plants also have no consciousness of the outer world, and although the mere analogue of a consciousness which exists in them must, on the contrary, be conceived as a dull self-enjoyment; yet we see that they all seek light, and that many of them turn their flowers or leaves daily towards the sun, while creepers find their way to supports with which they are not in contact; and finally we see individual kinds of plants show even a sort of irritability.
Unquestionably therefore, there is a connection and relation between their movements and surroundings, even those with which they are not in immediate contact; and this connection we must accordingly recognise as a faint analogue to perception. With animal life first appears decided perception--that is, consciousness of other things, as opposed to that clear consciousness of ourselves to which that consciousness of other things first gives rise. This constitutes precisely the true character of animal-nature, as opposed to plant-nature. In the lowest animals, consciousness of the outer world is very limited and dim: each increasing degree of understanding extends it and makes it clearer, and this gradual increase of the understanding again adapts itself to the gradually increasing requirements of the animal, and thus the process continues through the whole long ascending scale of the animal series up to Man, in whom consciousness of the outer world reaches its acme, and in whom the world accordingly presents itself more distinctly and completely than in any other being. Still, even here, there are innumerable degrees in the clearness of consciousness, from the dullest blockhead to genius. Even in normal heads there still remains a considerable tinge of subjectivity in their objective perception of external objects, knowledge still bearing throughout the character of existing merely for the ends of the will.
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. Now, as perception is the basis of all knowledge, all thinking and all insight must be influenced by this fundamental difference in the quality of it, from which arises that complete difference between the ordinary and the superior mind in their whole way of viewing things, which may be noticed on all occasions. From this also proceeds the dull gravity, nearly resembling that of animals, which characterizes common-place heads whose knowledge is acquired solely for the benefit of the will, as opposed to the constant play of exuberant intellect which brightens the consciousness of the superior mind. The consideration of the two extremes in the great scale which we have here exhibited, seems to have given rise to the German hyperbolical expression "_Block_" (_Klotz_), as applied to human beings, and to the English "blockhead."
But another different consequence of the clear separation of the will from the intellect--therefore of the motive from the action,--which first appears in the human race, is the deceptive illusion of freedom in our individual actions. Where, as in inorganic nature, causes, or, as in the vegetable kingdom, stimuli, call forth the effect, the causal connection is so simple, that there is not even the slightest semblance of freedom. But already in animal life, where that which till then had manifested itself as cause or as stimulus, now appears as a _motive_--and a new world, that of representation, consequently presents itself, and cause and effect lie in different spheres--the causal connection between both, and with it the necessity, are less evident than they were in plants and in inorganic Nature. Nevertheless they are still unmistakable in animals, whose merely intuitive representation stands midway between organic functions induced by stimuli and the deliberate acts of Man. The animal's actions infallibly follow as soon as the perceptible motive is present, unless counter-acted by some equally perceptible counter-motive or by training; yet here representation is already distinct from the act of volition and comes separately into consciousness.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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