The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 32 of 57
License: Public Domain
The World as Will and Idea, passage 384
To desire to make practical use of logic means, therefore, to desire to derive with unspeakable trouble, from general rules, that which is immediately known with the greatest certainty in the particular case. It is just as if a man were to consult mechanics as to the motion of his body, and physiology as to his digestion; and whoever has learnt logic for practical purposes is like him who would teach a beaver to make its own dam.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 864
They must be already given with the mere antithesis of subject and object (not as concepts but as facts), and consequently they must be only the more exact determination of the form of knowledge in general, whose most universal determination is that antithesis itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1122
We have now to assume something analogous to the influence of outward circumstances upon the life that is determined in essential matters by the character, if we desire to understand how the will, in the original act of its objectification, determines the various Ideas in which it objectifies itself, that is, the different forms of natural existence of every kind, among which it distributes its objectification, and which must therefore necessarily have a relation to each other in the manifestation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1761
In all these deviations melody expresses the multifarious efforts of will, but always its satisfaction also by the final return to an harmonious interval, and still more, to the key-note. The composition of melody, the disclosure in it of all the deepest secrets of human willing and feeling, is the work of genius, whose action, which is more apparent here than anywhere else, lies far from all reflection and conscious intention, and may be called an inspiration.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 151
Again, if the world were in time alone, all would be fleeting, without persistence, without contiguity, hence without co-existence, and consequently without permanence; so that in this case also there would be no matter.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1442
We shall now go through the fine arts one by one, and this will give completeness and distinctness to the theory of the beautiful which we have advanced.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 511
Meanwhile every mathematical proposition remains always a universal truth, which is valid for innumerable particular cases; and a graduated process from the simple to the complicated propositions which are to be deduced from them, is also essential to mathematics; therefore, in every respect mathematics is a science. The completeness of a science as such, that is, in respect of form, consists in there being as much subordination and as little co-ordination of the principles as possible.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 143
But time and space, each for itself, can be mentally presented apart from matter, whereas matter cannot be so presented apart from time and space. The form which is inseparable from it presupposes space, and the action in which its very existence consists, always imports some change, in other words a determination in time.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 575
To know that the mercury in the Torricellian tube stands thirty inches high is not really rational knowledge if we do not know that it is sustained at this height by the counterbalancing weight of the atmosphere. Shall we then be satisfied in mathematics with the _qualitas occulta_ of the circle that the segments of any two intersecting chords always contain equal rectangles? That it is so Euclid certainly demonstrates in the 35th Prop. of the Third Book; _why_ it is so remains doubtful.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2698
It is this suppression or abolition which Asmus, as quoted above, marvels at and denotes the “catholic, transcendental change;” and in the Christian Church it has very aptly been called the _new birth_, and the knowledge from which it springs, the _work of grace_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 852
And if we consider them attentively, if we observe the strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the magnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be re-united, and which, just like human desire, is increased by obstacles; if we see the crystal quickly and suddenly take form with such wonderful regularity of construction, which is clearly only a perfectly definite and accurately determined impulse in different directions, seized and retained by crystallisation; if we observe the choice with which bodies repel and attract each other, combine and separate, when they are set free in a fluid state, and emancipated from the bonds of rigidness; lastly, if we feel directly how a burden which hampers our body by its gravitation towards the earth, unceasingly presses and strains upon it in pursuit of its one tendency; if we observe all this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination to recognise, even at so great a distance, our own nature.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1042
The permanent matter must constantly change its form; for under the guidance of causality, mechanical, physical, chemical, and organic phenomena, eagerly striving to appear, wrest the matter from each other, for each desires to reveal its own Idea.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 391
For at the present day every one who does not wish to remain uncultured, and to be numbered with the ignorant and incompetent multitude, must study speculative philosophy. For the nineteenth century is a philosophical age, though by this we do not mean either that it has philosophy, or that philosophy governs it, but rather that it is ripe for philosophy, and, therefore, stands in need of it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 533
But the ground of this law is, that with this distance only this velocity will both chain the satellite to the planet and prevent it from falling into it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1424
This is the case sometimes because, as an individual thing, it expresses in its purity the Idea of its species by the very distinct, clearly defined, and significant relation of its parts, and also fully reveals that Idea through the completeness of all the possible expressions of its species united in it, so that it makes the transition from the individual thing to the Idea, and therefore also the condition of pure contemplation, very easy for the beholder.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2776
64 The following remark may assist those for whom it is not too subtle to understand clearly that the individual is only the phenomenon, not the thing in itself. Every individual is, on the one hand, the subject of knowing, _i.e._, the complemental condition of the possibility of the whole objective world, and, on the other hand, a particular phenomenon of will, the same will which objectifies itself in everything.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2155
And yet, and here lies the serious side of life, every one of these fleeting forms, these empty fancies, must be paid for by the whole will to live, in all its activity, with many and deep sufferings, and finally with a bitter death, long feared and coming at last. This is why the sight of a corpse makes us suddenly so serious.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2123
This corresponds also to the observation that if a great and pressing care is lifted from our breast by its fortunate issue, another immediately takes its place, the whole material of which was already there before, yet could not come into consciousness as care because there was no capacity left for it, and therefore this material of care remained indistinct and unobserved in a cloudy form on the farthest horizon of consciousness.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2576
Thus we will not be withheld by any fear of the constant numerical superiority of vulgarity and dulness from acknowledging that the greatest, most important, and most significant phenomenon that the world can show is not the conqueror of the world, but the subduer of it; is nothing but the quiet, unobserved life of a man who has attained to the knowledge in consequence of which he surrenders and denies that will to live which fills everything and strives and strains in all, and which first gains freedom here in him alone, so that his conduct becomes the exact opposite of that of other men.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1706
This is why we find it beautiful when it tumbles, rushes, and foams, or leaps into the air, or falls in a cataract of spray; or, lastly, if artificially confined it springs up in a fountain. Thus showing itself different under different circumstances, it yet always faithfully asserts its character; it is just as natural to it to spout up as to lie in glassy stillness; it is as ready for the one as for the other as soon as the circumstances appear.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2051
The imitation of the qualities and idiosyncrasies of others is much more shameful than to dress in other people’s clothes; for it is the judgment of our own worthlessness pronounced by ourselves. Knowledge of our own mind and its capacities of every kind, and their unalterable limits, is in this respect the surest way to the attainment of the greatest possible contentment with ourselves.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 141
(A fuller treatment of this will be found in the essay on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 21, p. 77.) The nature of all material things is therefore very appropriately called in German _Wirklichkeit_,(6) a word which is far more expressive than _Realität_. Again, that which is acted upon is always matter, and thus the whole being and essence of matter consists in the orderly change, which one part of it brings about in another part.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1418
When we say that a thing is _beautiful_, we thereby assert that it is an object of our æsthetic contemplation, and this has a double meaning; on the one hand it means that the sight of the thing makes us _objective_, that is to say, that in contemplating it we are no longer conscious of ourselves as individuals, but as pure will-less subjects of knowledge; and on the other hand it means that we recognise in the object, not the particular thing, but an Idea; and this can only happen, so far as our contemplation of it is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, does not follow the relation of the object to anything outside it (which is always ultimately connected with relations to our own will), but rests in the object itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1315
We see, from what has been said, that the madman has a true knowledge of what is actually present, and also of certain particulars of the past, but that he mistakes the connection, the relations, and therefore falls into error and talks nonsense.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 980
Indeed I cannot help admiring how Malebranche, though thoroughly involved in the positive dogmas which his age inevitably forced upon him, yet, in such bonds and under such a burden, hit the truth so happily, so correctly, and even knew how to combine it with these dogmas, at all events verbally.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2257
It follows from what has been said, that every _lie_, like every act of violence, is as such _wrong_, because as such it has for its aim the extension of the authority of my will to other individuals, and so the assertion of my will through the denial of theirs, just as much as violence has. But the most complete lie is the _broken contract_, because here all the conditions mentioned are completely and distinctly present together.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2347
And even supposing that all this were finally overcome and removed, by wisdom founded on the experience of thousands of years, at the end the result would be the actual over-population of the whole planet, the terrible evil of which only a bold imagination can now realise.(76)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 603
All empirical perception, on the other hand, and the greater part of experience, proceeds conversely from the consequent to the reason, and this kind of knowledge is not infallible, for necessity only attaches to the consequent on account of the reason being given, and no necessity attaches to the knowledge of the reason from the consequent, for the same consequent may follow from different reasons.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 132
Any one who has fully understood from the introductory essay the complete identity of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in all its different forms, must also be convinced of the importance of the knowledge of the simplest of these forms, as affording him insight into his own inmost nature. This simplest form of the principle we have found to be time. In it each instant is, only in so far as it has effaced the preceding one, its generator, to be itself in turn as quickly effaced.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 260
And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1654
The poet from deliberate choice represents significant characters in significant situations; the historian takes both as they come. Indeed, he must regard and select the circumstances and the persons, not with reference to their inward and true significance, which expresses the Idea, but according to the outward, apparent, and relatively important significance with regard to the connection and the consequences.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1294
Animi, 15, 16), is reported to have said: _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit_. Plato expresses it in the figure of the dark cave, referred to above (De Rep.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 230
Whenever I visited him he noticed an eye-glass which I wore round my neck, and in which the window of the room and the tops of the trees beyond were reflected: on every occasion he was greatly surprised and delighted with this, and was never tired of looking at it with astonishment, because he did not understand the immediate causation of reflection.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 97
This is a doctrine which it is only necessary to impose upon the reader at starting, in order to pass in the most comfortable manner in the world, as it were in a chariot and four, into that region beyond the possibility of all experience, which Kant has wholly and for ever shut out from our knowledge, and in which are found immediately revealed and most beautifully arranged the fundamental dogmas of modern, Judaising, optimistic Christianity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1563
Indeed the very transitoriness of the moment which art has fixed in such a picture (now called _genre_-painting) excites a slight and peculiar sensation; for to fix the fleeting, ever-changing world in the enduring picture of a single event, which yet represents the whole, is an achievement of the art of painting by which it seems to bring time itself to a standstill, for it raises the individual to the Idea of its species.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2014
As the result of the whole of this discussion of the freedom of the will and what relates to it, we find that although the will may, in itself and apart from the phenomenon, be called free and even omnipotent, yet in its particular phenomena enlightened by knowledge, as in men and brutes, it is determined by motives to which the special character regularly and necessarily responds, and always in the same way.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 449
How time, we might say, must complain, that with its one dimension it should be compelled to express the three dimensions of space! Yet this is necessary if we wish to possess, for application, an expression, in abstract concepts, of space-relations. They could not be translated directly into abstract concepts, but only through the medium of the pure temporal quantity, number, which alone is directly related to abstract knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 7
According as we consider the different aspects of this one thought which I am about to impart, it exhibits itself as that which we call metaphysics, that which we call ethics, and that which we call æsthetics; and certainly it must be all this if it is what I have already acknowledged I take it to be.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1780
For, as we have said, music is distinguished from all the other arts by the fact that it is not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more accurately, the adequate objectivity of will, but is the direct copy of the will itself, and therefore exhibits itself as the metaphysical to everything physical in the world, and as the thing-in-itself to every phenomenon.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1660
The poet, on the contrary, has comprehended the Idea of man from some definite side which is to be represented; thus it is the nature of his own self that objectifies itself in it for him.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1153
The plant raises its manifestation from the seed through the stem and the leaf to the blossom and the fruit, which again is the beginning of a new seed, a new individual, that runs through the old course, and so on through endless time. Such also is the life of the animal; procreation is its highest point, and after attaining to it, the life of the first individual quickly or slowly sinks, while a new life ensures to nature the endurance of the species and repeats the same phenomena.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2078
And then, again, the more distinctly a man knows, the more intelligent he is, the more pain he has; the man who is gifted with genius suffers most of all.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1518
Since movement and position presuppose the body, Winckelmann’s expression is very true and suitable, when he says, “Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the action” (Works, vol. i. p. 258). It is thus evident that beauty may be attributed to a plant, but no grace, unless in a figurative sense; but to brutes and men, both beauty and grace.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2054
But children and grown-up people know very well to yield contentedly as soon as they clearly see that it absolutely cannot be otherwise:—Θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι φίλον δαμάσσαντες ἀνάγκη (_Animo in pectoribus nostro domito necessitate_). We are like the entrapped elephants, that rage and struggle for many days, till they see that it is useless, and then suddenly offer their necks quietly to the yoke, tamed for ever.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1602
If the aim of all art is the communication of the comprehended Idea, which through the mind of the artist appears in such a form that it is purged and isolated from all that is foreign to it, and may now be grasped by the man of weaker comprehension and no productive faculty; if further, it is forbidden in art to start from the concept, we shall not be able to consent to the intentional and avowed employment of a work of art for the expression of a concept; this is the case in the _Allegory_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 305
This philosophy of Fichte, otherwise not worth mentioning, is interesting to us only as the tardy expression of the converse of the old materialism. For materialism was the most consistent system starting from the object, as this is the most consistent system starting from the subject.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 146
But the law of causation receives its meaning and necessity only from this, that the essence of change does not consist simply in the mere variation of things, but rather in the fact that at the _same part of space_ there is now _one thing_ and then _another_, and at _one_ and the same point of time there is _here_ one thing and there _another_: only this reciprocal limitation of space and time by each other gives meaning, and at the same time necessity, to a law, according to which change must take place.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 692
In this purely rational system of ethics the contradiction reveals itself thus, the Stoic is obliged in his doctrine of the way to the blessed life (for that is what his ethical system always remains) to insert a recommendation of suicide (as among the magnificent ornaments and apparel of Eastern despots there is always a costly vial of poison) for the case in which the sufferings of the body, which cannot be philosophised away by any principles or syllogistic reasonings, are paramount and incurable; thus its one aim, blessedness, is rendered vain, and nothing remains as a mode of escape from suffering except death; in such a case then death must be voluntarily accepted, just as we would take any other medicine.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 383
Hence arises the remarkable fact, that while in other sciences the particular case is always proved by the rule, in logic, on the contrary, the rule must always be proved from the particular case; and even the most practised logician, if he remark that in some particular case he concludes otherwise than the rule prescribes, will always expect to find a mistake in the rule rather than in his own conclusion.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2193
Nature, always true and consistent, here even naïve, exhibits to us openly the inner significance of the act of generation.