The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 50 of 57
License: Public Domain
The World as Will and Idea, passage 909
Spinoza (Epist. 62) says that if a stone which has been projected through the air had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own will. I add to this only that the stone would be right.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 558
We have therefore almost the same uncomfortable feeling that we experience after a juggling trick, and, in fact, most of Euclid’s demonstrations are remarkably like such feats. The truth almost always enters by the back door, for it manifests itself _per accidens_ through some contingent circumstance. Often a _reductio ad absurdum_ shuts all the doors one after another, until only one is left through which we are therefore compelled to enter.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1383
But let us suppose such a scene, stripped also of vegetation, and showing only naked rocks; then from the entire absence of that organic life which is necessary for existence, the will at once becomes uneasy, the desert assumes a terrible aspect, our mood becomes more tragic; the elevation to the sphere of pure knowing takes place with a more decided tearing of ourselves away from the interests of the will; and because we persist in continuing in the state of pure knowing, the sense of the sublime distinctly appears.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1394
It is the felt consciousness of this that the Upanishads of the Vedas repeatedly express in such a multitude of different ways; very admirably in the saying already quoted: _Hæ omnes creaturæ in totum ego sum, et præter me aliud ens non est_ (Oupnek’hat, vol. i. p. 122.) It is the transcending of our own individuality, the sense of the sublime.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1833
For we are of opinion that whoever supposes that the inner nature of the world can in any way, however plausibly disguised, be _historically_ comprehended, is infinitely far from a philosophical knowledge of the world.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1752
But to all these bass and complemental parts which make up the _harmony_ there is wanting that connected progress which belongs only to the high voice singing the melody, and it alone moves quickly and lightly in modulations and runs, while all these others have only a slower movement without a connection in each part for itself. The deep bass moves most slowly, the representative of the crudest mass.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 163
By the understanding passing from the effect to the cause, the world first appears as perception extended in space, varying in respect of form, persistent through all time in respect of matter; for the understanding unites space and time in the idea of matter, that is, causal action. As the world as idea exists only through the understanding, so also it exists only for the understanding.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2444
Consequently the inward horror of the wicked man at his own deed, which he himself tries to conceal, contains, besides that presentment of the nothingness, the mere illusiveness of the _principium individuationis_, and of the distinction established by it between him and others; also the knowledge of the vehemence of his own will, the intensity with which he has seized upon life and attached himself closely to it, even that life whose terrible side he sees before him in the misery of those who are oppressed by him, and with which he is yet so firmly united, that just on this account the greatest atrocity proceeds from him himself, as a means for the fuller assertion of his own will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2424
This is shown by the fact that he desires their powers for the service of his own will, and seeks to destroy their existence when they stand in the way of its efforts. The ultimate source of this is a high degree of egoism, the nature of which has been already explained. Two things are here apparent.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1953
If, under the same circumstances, a man could act now one way and now another, it would be necessary that his will itself should have changed in the meantime, and thus that it should lie in time, for change is only possible in time; but then either the will would be a mere phenomenon, or time would be a condition of the thing-in-itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1667
The poet, on the other hand, is like the mathematician, who constructs these relations _a priori_ in pure perception, and expresses them not as they actually are in the drawn figure, but as they are in the Idea, which the drawing is intended to render for the senses. Therefore Schiller says:—
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1950
It awaits the real decision just as passively and with the same intense curiosity as if it were that of a foreign will. Therefore from its point of view both decisions must seem to it equally possible; and this is just the illusion of the empirical freedom of the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2394
When a bad deed has been done, it affords satisfaction not only to the sufferer, who for the most part feels the desire of revenge, but also to the perfectly indifferent spectator, to see that he who caused another pain suffers himself a like measure of pain; and this quite independently of the end which we have shown the state has in view in punishment, and which is the foundation of penal law.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2781
Without doubt he used it in this conversation, which was held in 1824, in consequence of a (possibly unconscious) reminiscence of the above passage, for it occurs in the first edition, p. 401, in exactly the same words, and it is also repeated at p. 528 of that edition, as at the close of § 65 of the present work.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 239
That which is correctly known by _reason_ is _truth_, that is, an abstract judgment on sufficient grounds (Essay on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 29 and following paragraphs); that which is correctly known by _understanding_ is _reality_, that is correct inference from effect on the immediate object to its cause. _Error_ is opposed to _truth_, as deception of the _reason_: _illusion_ is opposed to _reality_, as deception of the _understanding_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 708
The first is the whole extent of what is generally called natural history. It teaches us, especially in the sciences of botany and zoology, the various permanent, organised, and therefore definitely determined forms in the constant change of individuals; and these forms constitute a great part of the content of the idea of perception.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1280
Yet what I say in this regard is subject to the limitation that it only concerns them in so far as and while they are actually engaged in that kind of knowledge which is peculiar to genius; and this is by no means at every moment of their lives, for the great though spontaneous exertion which is demanded for the comprehension of Ideas free from will must necessarily relax, and there are long intervals during which men of genius are placed in very much the same position as ordinary mortals, both as regards advantages and deficiencies.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1662
But this gives their representations unity, and enables them to retain inner truth, even when outward truth was not accessible, or indeed was falsified.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1243
To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can distinguish between the will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation, the events of the world will have significance only so far as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2022
It might, therefore, be inferred that it is a waste of trouble to endeavour to improve one’s character, and that it is wiser to submit to the inevitable, and gratify every inclination at once, even if it is bad. But this is precisely the same thing as the theory of an inevitable fate which is called αργος λογος, and in more recent times Turkish faith. Its true refutation, as it is supposed to have been given by Chrysippus, is explained by Cicero in his book _De Fato_, ch. 12, 13.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1316
Now this is exactly the point at which he comes into contact with the man of genius; for he also leaves out of sight the knowledge of the connection of things, since he neglects that knowledge of relations which conforms to the principle of sufficient reason, in order to see in things only their Ideas, and to seek to comprehend their true nature, which manifests itself to perception, and in regard to which _one thing_ represents its whole species, in which way, as Goethe says, one case is valid for a thousand.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1448
This holds good of even the most universal qualities of matter, without which it never appears, and which are the weakest objectivity of will. Such are gravity, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity, sensitiveness to light, and so forth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 838
On the other hand, the movements of the _Hedysarum gyrans_ and the _Mimosa pudica_, although still following upon mere stimuli, are yet very like movements which follow upon motives, and seem almost to wish to make the transition. The contraction of the pupils of the eyes as the light is increased is due to stimuli, but it passes into movement which is due to motive; for it takes place, because too strong lights would affect the retina painfully, and to avoid this we contract the pupils.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 833
So that, if once the mode of operation be known, the degree of the effect may be measured and calculated from the degree of the intensity of the cause; and conversely the degree of the intensity of the cause may be calculated from the degree of the effect. Such causes, properly so called, operate in all the phenomena of mechanics, chemistry, and so forth; in short, in all the changes of unorganised bodies.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 940
None of the brutes have this individuality in anything like so high a degree, though the higher species of them have a trace of it; but the character of the species completely predominates over it, and therefore they have little individual physiognomy. The farther down we go, the more completely is every trace of the individual character lost in the common character of the species, and the physiognomy of the species alone remains.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2695
But the key to the solution of these contradictions lies in the fact that the state in which the character is withdrawn from the power of motives does not proceed directly from the will, but from a changed form of knowledge. So long as the knowledge is merely that which is involved in the _principium individuationis_ and exclusively follows the principle of sufficient reason, the strength of the motives is irresistible.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2185
Each of these is only an example, an instance, of the will which here manifests itself generally. Of what nature this example may be, what form the motive may have and impart to it, is not essential; the important point here is that something is willed in general and the degree of intensity with which it is so willed. The will can only become visible in the motives, as the eye only manifests its power of seeing in the light. The motive in general stands before the will in protean forms.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1655
He must consider nothing in and for itself in its essential character and expression, but must look at everything in its relations, in its connection, in its influence upon what follows, and especially upon its own age. Therefore he will not overlook an action of a king, though of little significance, and in itself quite common, because it has results and influence.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 354
This, indeed, may, in the first instance, be a concept, an abstract idea, and this again may have only a similar abstract ground of knowledge; but the chain of grounds of knowledge does not extend _ad infinitum_; it must end at last in a concept which has its ground in knowledge of perception; for the whole world of reflection rests on the world of perception as its ground of knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2688
From this point we find each day marked with a stroke, and of these there are five, at the expiration of which the pilgrim presumably died. There was further found a letter to a clergyman about a sermon which the deceased heard him preach, but the letter was not addressed.” Between this voluntary death arising from extreme asceticism and the common suicide resulting from despair there may be various intermediate species and combinations, though this is hard to find out.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2275
Thus, also, a promise is certainly not binding when it has been extorted by direct bodily violence, because he who suffers such compulsion may with full right free himself by killing, and, _a fortiori_, by deceiving his oppressor. Whoever cannot recover through force the property which has been stolen from him, commits no wrong if he can accomplish it through craft.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1397
The sense of the sublime here arises through the consciousness of the vanishing nothingness of our own body in the presence of a vastness which, from another point of view, itself exists only in our idea, and of which we are as knowing subject, the supporter. Thus here as everywhere it arises from the contrast between the insignificance and dependence of ourselves as individuals, as phenomena of will, and the consciousness of ourselves as pure subject of knowing.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 63
Following it, I could first aspire only to my own approbation, entirely averted from an age deeply degraded as regards all higher intellectual efforts, and a national literature demoralised even to the exceptions, a literature in which the art of combining lofty words with paltry significance has reached its height.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1412
The ancients are almost always free from this fault in their representations of beauty and complete nakedness of form, because the artist himself created them in a purely objective spirit, filled with ideal beauty, not in the spirit of subjective, and base sensuality. The charming is thus everywhere to be avoided in art.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 243
This appearance is not optical, for as the micrometre proves, the eye receives the image of the moon at the zenith, at an even greater angle of vision than at the horizon.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1485
But a far higher grade is revealed by animal painting and sculpture. Of the latter we have some important antique remains; for example, horses at Venice, on Monte Cavallo, and on the Elgin Marbles, also at Florence in bronze and marble; the ancient boar, howling wolves, the lions in the arsenal at Venice, also in the Vatican a whole room almost filled with ancient animals, &c. In these representations the objective side of æsthetic pleasure obtains a marked predominance over the subjective.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1555
The Idea of man must be exhibited in these circumstances, and therefore the unfolding of its many-sidedness must be brought before our eyes by means of representative individuals, and these individuals can only be made visible in their significance through various scenes, events, and actions. This is the endless problem of the historical painter, and he solves it by placing before us scenes of life of every kind, of greater or less significance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1277
This is easily seen from the likenesses of the few men of genius whom Nature has produced here and there among countless millions. On the other hand, in the case of an ordinary man, the true object of his contemplation, what he is prying into, can be easily seen from his glance, if indeed it is not quite stupid and vacant, as is generally the case.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 325
Therefore he follows predetermined plans, he acts from maxims, without reference to his surroundings or the accidental impression of the moment.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 54
And they keep their word: not truth, not clearness, not Plato, not Aristotle, but the ends they were appointed to serve are their guiding star, and become at once the criterion of what is true, valuable, and to be respected, and of the opposites of these. Whatever, therefore, does not answer these ends, even if it were the most important and extraordinary things in their department, is either condemned, or, when this seems hazardous, suppressed by being unanimously ignored.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1468
Architecture has this distinction from plastic art and poetry: it does not give us a copy but the thing itself. It does not repeat, as they do, the known Idea, so that the artist lends his eyes to the beholder, but in it the artist merely presents the object to the beholder, and facilitates for him the comprehension of the Idea by bringing the actual, individual object to a distinct and complete expression of its nature.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1536
Another argument which he added to this, that a merely passing state incapable of duration ought not to be represented in motionless works of art, has a hundred examples of most excellent figures against it, which are fixed in merely transitory movements, dancing, wrestling, catching, &c. Indeed Goethe, in the essay on the Laocoon, which opens the Propylaen (p. 8), holds that the choice of such a merely fleeting movement is absolutely necessary.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1222
31, Schol.)(47) In such contemplation the particular thing becomes at once the _Idea_ of its species, and the perceiving individual becomes _pure subject of knowledge_. The individual, as such, knows only particular things; the pure subject of knowledge knows only Ideas. For the individual is the subject of knowledge in its relation to a definite particular manifestation of will, and in subjection to this.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2504
So died Codrus, and Leonidas, and Regulus, and Decius Mus, and Arnold von Winkelried; so dies every one who voluntarily and consciously faces certain death for his friends or his country. And they also stand on the same level who voluntarily submit to suffering and death for maintaining what conduces and rightly belongs to the welfare of all mankind; that is, for maintaining universal and important truths and destroying great errors.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 809
The concept will, on the other hand, is of all possible concepts the only one which has its source _not_ in the phenomenal, _not_ in the mere idea of perception, but comes from within, and proceeds from the most immediate consciousness of each of us, in which each of us knows his own individuality, according to its nature, immediately, apart from all form, even that of subject and object, and which at the same time is this individuality, for here the subject and the object of knowledge are one.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1578
And this knowledge in them, reacting upon the will, does not, like other knowledge, convey _motives_ to it, but on the contrary has become a _quieter_ of all will, from which proceeded the complete resignation, which is the innermost spirit of Christianity, as of the Indian philosophy; the surrender of all volition, conversion, the suppression of will, and with it of the whole inner being of this world, that is to say, salvation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 914
Nam velut amores corporum momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur: ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amore fertur quocunque fertur_” (De Civ. Dei, xi. 28).
The World as Will and Idea, passage 867
It follows from this that the most complete capacity for being known, that is to say, the greatest clearness, distinctness, and susceptibility of exhaustive explanation, will necessarily belong to that which pertains to knowledge _as such_, and thus to the _form_ of knowledge; but not to that which in itself is not idea, not object, but which has become knowledge only through entering these forms; in other words, has become idea, object.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1675
We also get to know an author as a man most easily from his books, because all these circumstances act here still more strongly and permanently. And in an autobiography it is so difficult to dissimulate, that perhaps there does not exist a single one that is not, as a whole, more true, than any history that ever was written.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1114
As regards the second kind of teleology, according to the division made above, the _outer_ design, which shows itself, not in the inner economy of the organisms, but in the support and assistance they receive from without, both from unorganised nature and from each other; its general explanation is to be found in the exposition we have just given.