The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 40 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 56
But we have still to add this, that since throughout this world nothing is to be expected, can be demanded, or is to be had for gold but mediocrity, we must be contented with it here also. Consequently we see in all the German universities the cherished mediocrity striving to produce the philosophy which as yet is not there to produce, at its own expense and indeed in accordance with a predetermined standard and aim, a spectacle at which it would be almost cruel to mock.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1441
On the other hand, if animals and man are the objects of æsthetic contemplation or representation, the pleasure will consist rather in the comprehension of these Ideas, which are the most distinct revelation of will; for they exhibit the greatest multiplicity of forms, the greatest richness and deep significance of phenomena, and reveal to us most completely the nature of will, whether in its violence, its terribleness, its satisfaction or its aberration (the latter in tragic situations), or finally in its change and self-surrender, which is the peculiar theme of christian painting; as the Idea of the will enlightened by full knowledge is the object of historical painting in general, and of the drama.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 906
For the knowledge of the causes of the manifestation of this inner nature affords me merely the rule of its appearance in time and space, and nothing more. I can make this comparison because my body is the only object of which I know not merely the _one_ side, that of the idea, but also the other side which is called will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2063
As, in the reference of individual conduct, a general, not a particular manifestation of will, it does not disturb and modify the development of the character, nor does it find its expression in particular actions; but, either by an ever more marked appearance of the whole method of action it has followed hitherto, or conversely by the entire suppression of it, it expresses in a living form the maxims which the will has freely adopted in accordance with the knowledge it has now attained to.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 694
Not one of them, however, was able to give the true reason for the rejection of suicide, but they laboriously collected illusory explanations from all sides: the true reason will appear in the Fourth Book in the course of the development of our system.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1920
But once there and existing, it has entered the chain of causes and effects, is always necessarily determined in it, and can, therefore, neither become something else, _i.e._, change itself, nor yet escape from the chain, _i.e._, vanish. Man, like every other part of Nature, is objectivity of the will; therefore all that has been said holds good of him.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1069
Hence its infallible certainty comes to an end. Animals are already exposed to illusion, to deception. They have, however, merely ideas of perception, no conceptions, no reflection, and they are therefore bound to the present; they cannot have regard for the future. It seems as if this knowledge without reason was not in all cases sufficient for its end, and at times required, as it were, some assistance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1669
Partly because in the former the data can be collected more accurately and completely than in the latter; partly, because in history proper, it is not so much men as nations and heroes that act, and the individuals who do appear, seem so far off, surrounded with such pomp and circumstance, clothed in the stiff robes of state, or heavy, inflexible armour, that it is really hard through all this to recognise the human movements.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2674
It is well known that from time to time cases occur in which the act of suicide extends to the children. The father first kills the children he loves, and then himself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 39
But I fear I shall not escape even thus. The reader who has got as far as the preface and been stopped by it, has bought the book for cash, and asks how he is to be indemnified. My last refuge is now to remind him that he knows how to make use of a book in several ways, without exactly reading it. It may fill a gap in his library as well as many another, where, neatly bound, it will certainly look well. Or he can lay it on the toilet-table or the tea-table of some learned lady friend. Or, finally, what certainly is best of all, and I specially advise it, he can review it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 72
Therefore, although it would, no doubt, have been more agreeable to the reader to have my whole work in one piece, instead of consisting, as it now does, of two halves, which must be combined in using them, he must reflect that this would have demanded that I should accomplish at one period of life what it is only possible to accomplish in two, for I would have had to possess the qualities at one period of life that nature has divided between two quite different ones.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2044
This rôle is in itself unchangeably determined once for all, but hitherto we have allowed it to follow its natural course without any rule.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 212
And if we wish to express this condition _subjectively_ we say: The understanding first makes perception possible; for the law of causality, the possibility of effect and cause, springs only from the understanding, and is valid only for it, and therefore the world of perception exists only through and for it. The second condition is the sensibility of animal bodies, or the quality of being immediate objects of the subject which certain bodies possess.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 774
But these acts of will have always a ground or reason outside themselves in motives. Yet these motives never determine more than what I will at _this_ time, in _this_ place, and under _these_ circumstances, not _that_ I will in general, or _what_ I will in general, that is, the maxims which characterise my volition generally.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1100
That which is known as the empirical character, through the necessary development in time, and the division into particular actions that is conditioned by it, is, when we abstract from this temporal form of the manifestation the _intelligible character_, according to the expression of Kant, who shows his undying merit especially in establishing this distinction and explaining the relation between freedom and necessity, _i.e._, between the will as thing-in-itself and its manifestations in time.(38) Thus the intelligible character coincides with the Idea, or, more accurately, with the original act of will which reveals itself in it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 844
For, that breathing is at least partially conditioned by cerebral activity is shown by the fact that the primary cause of death from prussic acid is that it paralyses the brain, and so, indirectly, restricts the breathing; but if the breathing be artificially maintained till the stupefaction of the brain has passed away, death will not ensue.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2086
But if we look at it from the physical side; it is clear that, as our walking is admittedly merely a constantly prevented falling, the life of our body is only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-postponed death: finally, in the same way, the activity of our mind is a constantly deferred ennui. Every breath we draw wards off the death that is constantly intruding upon us.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 521
To lay down and make permanent for reflection, in suitable concepts, what is known through perception, so that, on the one hand, what is common to many real objects is thought through _one_ concept, and, on the other hand, their points of difference are each thought through one concept, so that the different shall be known and thought as different in spite of a partial agreement, and the identical shall be known and thought as identical in spite of a partial difference, all in accordance with the end and intention which in each case is in view; all this is done by the _faculty of judgment_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1223
This particular manifestation of will is, as such, subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms; therefore, all knowledge which relates itself to it also follows the principle of sufficient reason, and no other kind of knowledge is fitted to be of use to the will but this, which always consists merely of relations to the object.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2171
If suicide really offered us this, so that the alternative “to be or not to be,” in the full sense of the word, was placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be chosen as “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” But there is something in us which tells us that this is not the case: suicide is not the end; death is not absolute annihilation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1693
The true lyric is the expression of the whole of this mingled and divided state of mind. In order to make clear by examples this abstract analysis of a frame of mind that is very far from all abstraction, any of the immortal songs of Goethe may be taken.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1376
Therefore, what warmth is for the will, light is for knowledge. Light is the largest gem in the crown of beauty, and has the most marked influence on the knowledge of every beautiful object. Its presence is an indispensable condition of beauty; its favourable disposition increases the beauty of the most beautiful. Architectural beauty more than any other object is enhanced by favourable light, though even the most insignificant things become through its influence most beautiful.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 854
Yet the remoteness, and indeed the appearance of absolute difference between the phenomena of unorganised nature and the will which we know as the inner reality of our own being, arises chiefly from the contrast between the completely determined conformity to law of the one species of phenomena, and the apparently unfettered freedom of the other. For in man, individuality makes itself powerfully felt.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 888
Supposing this theory were possible, all would certainly be explained and established and finally reduced to an arithmetical problem, which would then be the holiest thing in the temple of wisdom, to which the principle of sufficient reason would at last have happily conducted us. But all content of the phenomenon would have disappeared, and the mere form would remain.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 242
As additional examples of such illusions or deceptions of the understanding, we may mention the broken appearance of a stick dipped in water; the reflections in spherical mirrors, which, when the surface is convex appear somewhat behind it, and when the surface is concave appear a long way in front of it. To this class also belongs the apparently greater extension of the moon at the horizon than at the zenith.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2343
In our own day Feurbach is well known to have maintained it. Indeed, it occurs even in the utterances of the ancient philosophers. Plato expresses it clearly in the “Protagoras” (p. 114, edit. Bip.), also in the “Gorgias” (p. 168), and lastly in the eleventh book of the “Laws” (p. 165). Seneca expresses Plato’s opinion and the theory of all punishment in the short sentence, “_Nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est; sed ne peccetur_” (De Ira, i. 16).
The World as Will and Idea, passage 176
On the one side realistic dogmatism, looking upon the idea as the effect of the object, desires to separate these two, idea and object, which are really one, and to assume a cause quite different from the idea, an object in itself, independent of the subject, a thing which is quite inconceivable; for even as object it presupposes subject, and so remains its idea.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 817
It is itself one, though not in the sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the _principium individuationis_, _i.e._, the possibility of multiplicity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1341
This is why the man who is tormented by passion, or want, or care, is so suddenly revived, cheered, and restored by a single free glance into nature: the storm of passion, the pressure of desire and fear, and all the miseries of willing are then at once, and in a marvellous manner, calmed and appeased.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2147
What we see in poetry we find again in music; in the melodies of which we have recognised the universal expression of the inmost history of the self-conscious will, the most secret life, longing, suffering, and delight; the ebb and flow of the human heart.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1296
327), that every one appears mad who recognises the eternal Ideas in fleeting things. Cicero also quotes: _Negat enim sine furore, Democritus, quemquam poetam magnum esse posse; quod idem dicit Plato_ (De Divin., i. 37). And, lastly, Pope says—
The World as Will and Idea, passage 65
As regards this second edition, first of all I am glad to say that after five and twenty years I find nothing to retract; so that my fundamental convictions have only been confirmed, as far as concerns myself at least. The alterations in the first volume therefore, which contains the whole text of the first edition, nowhere touch what is essential. Sometimes they concern things of merely secondary importance, and more often consist of very short explanatory additions inserted here and there.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2226
This is the highest expression of egoism, the manifestations of which in this regard are only surpassed by those of actual wickedness, which seeks, quite disinterestedly, the hurt and suffering of others, without any advantage to itself. Of this we shall speak soon. With this exhibition of the source of egoism the reader should compare the presentation of it in my prize-essay on the basis of morals, § 14.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1291
Accordingly the impression of the present moment is very strong with such persons, and carries them away into unconsidered action, violent emotions and passions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 777
48, 58, and 178, _et seq._, of first edition (p. 174, _et seq._, of second edition). I shall also have to speak more fully on the question in the Fourth Book.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2130
For the most part, however, we close our minds against the knowledge, which may be compared to a bitter medicine, that suffering is essential to life, and therefore does not flow in upon us from without, but that every one carries about with him its perennial source in his own heart. We rather seek constantly for an external particular cause, as it were, a pretext for the pain which never leaves us, just as the free man makes himself an idol, in order to have a master. For we unweariedly strive from wish to wish; and although every satisfaction, however much it promised, when attained fails to satisfy us, but for the most part comes presently to be an error of which we are ashamed, yet we do not see that we draw water with the sieve of the Danaides, but ever hasten to new desires.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1995
For only _in abstracto_ can several ideas, as judgments and chains of conclusions, lie beside each other in consciousness, and then, free from all determination of time, work against each other till the stronger overcomes the rest and determines the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1415
This difference was found to depend upon whether the state of pure will-less knowing, which is presupposed and demanded by all æsthetic contemplation, was reached without opposition, by the mere disappearance of the will from consciousness, because the object invited and drew us towards it; or whether it was only attained through the free, conscious transcending of the will, to which the object contemplated had an unfavourable and even hostile relation, which would destroy contemplation altogether, if we were to give ourselves up to it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2288
Thus we can just as little impart to him the _a priori_ nature of mathematics as the _a priori_ nature of right, because he shuts himself out from all knowledge which is not empirical.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1019
On the other hand, it is not to be overlooked that in all Ideas, that is, in all forces of unorganised, and all forms of organised nature, it is _one and the same_ will that reveals itself, that is to say, which enters the form of the idea and passes into _objectivity_. Its unity must therefore be also recognisable through an inner relationship between all its phenomena.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 220
For even this high degree of knowledge is still the work of the understanding, not of the reason. The abstract concepts of the reason can only serve to take up the objective connections which are immediately known by the understanding, to make them permanent for thought, and to relate them to each other; but reason never gives us immediate knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1373
Thus there come to be various degrees of the sublime, and transitions from the beautiful to the sublime, according as this additional quality is strong, bold, urgent, near, or weak, distant, and merely indicated.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 502
If science sought to obtain the knowledge of its object, by investigating each individual thing that is thought through the concept, till by degrees it had learned the whole, no human memory would be equal to the task, and no certainty of completeness would be obtainable. Therefore, it makes use of that property of concept-spheres explained above, that they include each other, and it concerns itself mainly with the wider spheres which lie within the concept of its object in general.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 312
But we must first consider that class of ideas which belongs to man alone. The matter of these is the concept, and the subjective correlative is reason, just as the subjective correlative of the ideas we have already considered was understanding and sensibility, which are also to be attributed to all the lower animals.(11)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1125
Every plant is therefore adapted to its soil and climate, every animal to its element and the prey that will be its food, and is also in some way protected, to a certain extent, against its natural enemy: the eye is adapted to the light and its refrangibility, the lungs and the blood to the air, the air-bladder of fish to water, the eye of the seal to the change of the medium in which it must see, the water-pouch in the stomach of the camel to the drought of the African deserts, the sail of the nautilus to the wind that is to drive its little bark, and so on down to the most special and astonishing outward adaptations.(40) We must abstract however here from all temporal relations, for these can only concern the manifestation of the Idea, not the Idea itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1731
Yet it is such a great and exceedingly noble art, its effect on the inmost nature of man is so powerful, and it is so entirely and deeply understood by him in his inmost consciousness as a perfectly universal language, the distinctness of which surpasses even that of the perceptible world itself, that we certainly have more to look for in it than an _exercitum arithmeticæ occultum nescientis se numerare animi_,(62) which Leibnitz called it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1661
His knowledge, as we explained above when speaking of sculpture, is half _a priori_; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct, brightly illuminated, and cannot forsake him; therefore he shows us, in the mirror of his mind, the Idea pure and distinct, and his delineation of it down to the minutest particular is true as life itself.(59) The great ancient historians are, therefore, in those particulars in which their data fail them, for example, in the speeches of their heroes—poets; indeed their whole manner of handling their material approaches to the epic.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1017
Thus Kant rightly says that it would be absurd to hope for a blade of grass from a Newton, that is, from one who reduced the blade of grass to the manifestations of physical and chemical forces, of which it was the chance product, and therefore a mere freak of nature, in which no special Idea appeared, _i.e._, the will did not directly reveal itself in it in a higher and specific grade, but just as in the phenomena of unorganised nature and by chance in this form.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2055
We are like King David, who, as long as his son still lived, unceasingly importuned Jehovah with prayers, and behaved himself as if in despair; but as soon as his son was dead, thought no longer about it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1400
Our explanation of the sublime applies also to the ethical, to what is called the sublime character. Such a character arises from this, that the will is not excited by objects which are well calculated to excite it, but that knowledge retains the upper hand in their presence.