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TWO ESSAYS BY ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
TWO ESSAYS BY ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W.C. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO. ON THE FOURFOLD ROOT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON AND ON THE WILL IN NATURE. TWO ESSAYS BY ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER. Translated by Mme. KARL HILLEBRAND. REVISED EDITION. LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1907 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON....
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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In venturing to lay the present translation [1] before the public, I am aware of the great difficulties of my task, and indeed can hardly hope to do justice to the Author. In fact, had it not been for the considerations I am about to state, I might probably never have published what had originally been undertaken in order to acquire a clearer comprehension of these essays, rather than with a view to publicity. The two treatises which form the contents of the present volume have so much importanc
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THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Frankfurt am Main , September, 1847. In the present volume I lay before the public the Third Edition of the "Fourfold Root," including the emendations and additions left by Schopenhauer in his own interleaved copy. I have already had occasion elsewhere to relate that he left copies of all his works thus interleaved, and that he was wont to jot down on these fly-leaves any corrections and additions he might intend inserting in future editions. Schopenhauer himself prepared for the press all that
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EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
This last assertion "that the Principle of Sufficient Reason already presupposes the Object , but does not, as valid before and independently of it, first introduce it, and cannot make the Object arise in conformity with its own legislation," seemed to me so far to clash with the proof given by Schopenhauer in § 21 of the "Fourfold Root," as, according to the latter, it is the function of the Subject's understanding which primarily creates the objective world out of the subjective feelings of th
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EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
The present Fourth Edition is of the same content as the Third; therefore it contains the same corrections and additions which I had already inserted in the Third Edition from Schopenhauer's own interleaved copy of this work. Julius Frauenstädt. Berlin , September, 1877 . ON THE FOURFOLD ROOT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON. The divine Plato and the marvellous Kant unite their mighty voices in recommending a rule, to serve as the method of all philosophising as well as of all other science
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
Should I succeed in showing that the principle which forms the subject of the present inquiry does not issue directly from one primitive notion of our intellect, but rather in the first instance from various ones, it will then follow, that neither can the necessity it brings with it, as a firmly established à priori principle, be one and the same in all cases, but must, on the contrary, be as manifold as the sources of the principle itself. Whoever therefore bases a conclusion upon this principl
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CHAPTER II. GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIEWS HITHERTO HELD CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON.
CHAPTER II. GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT VIEWS HITHERTO HELD CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON.
By this we see that the Ancients had not yet arrived at a clear distinction between requiring a reason as the ground of a conclusion, and asking for a cause for the occurrence of a real event. As for the Scholastic Philosophers of later times, the law of causality was in their eyes an axiom above investigation: " non inquirimus an causa sit, quia nihil est per se notius ," says Suarez. [25] At the same time they held fast to the above quoted Aristotelian classification; but, as far as I know at
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CHAPTER III. INSUFFICIENCY OF THE OLD AND OUTLINES OF A NEW DEMONSTRATION.
CHAPTER III. INSUFFICIENCY OF THE OLD AND OUTLINES OF A NEW DEMONSTRATION.
The first class of objects possible to our representative faculty, is that of intuitive, complete, empirical representations. They are intuitive as opposed to mere thoughts, i.e. abstract conceptions; they are complete , inasmuch as, according to Kant's distinction, they not only contain the formal, but also the material part of phenomena; and they are empirical , partly as proceeding, not from a mere connection of thoughts, but from an excitation of feeling in our sensitive organism, as their o
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CHAPTER IV. ON THE FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
CHAPTER IV. ON THE FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
We shall now proceed to give a detailed exposition of that function of the Understanding which is the basis of empirical reality; only we must first, by a few incidental explanations, remove the more immediate objections which the fundamental idealism of the view I have adopted might encounter. Now as, notwithstanding this union through the Understanding of the forms of the inner and outer sense in representing Matter and with it a permanent outer world, all immediate knowledge is nevertheless a
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CHAPTER V. ON THE SECOND CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT AND THE FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
CHAPTER V. ON THE SECOND CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT AND THE FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
The fundamental essence of our Reason or thinking faculty is, as we have seen, the power of abstraction, or the faculty of forming conceptions : it is therefore the presence of these in our consciousness which produces such amazing results. That it should be able to do this, rests mainly on the following grounds. It is just because they contain less than the representations from which they are drawn, that conceptions are easier to deal with than representations; they are, in fact, to these almos
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CHAPTER VI. ON THE THIRD CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
CHAPTER VI. ON THE THIRD CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
The position of each division of Space towards any other, say of any given line—and this is equally applicable to planes, bodies, and points—determines also absolutely its totally different position with reference to any other possible line; so that the latter position stands to the former in the relation of the consequent to its reason. As the position of this given line towards any other possible line likewise determines its position towards all the others, and as therefore the position of the
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CHAPTER VII. ON THE FOURTH CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THE FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
CHAPTER VII. ON THE FOURTH CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THE FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
Now, it may still be asked how the various cognitive faculties belonging to the Subject, such as Sensibility, Understanding, Reason, are known to us, if we do not know the Subject. It is not through our knowing having become an Object for us that these faculties are known to us, for then there would not be so many conflicting judgments concerning them; they are inferred rather, or more correctly, they are general expressions for the established classes of representations which, at all times, hav
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CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS.
CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS.
In the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being, so far as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in Time, but only a relation in Space, of which we might say that all things were co-existent, if here the words co-existence and succession had any meaning. In Arithmetic, on the contrary, the Reason of Being is nothing else but precisely the relation of Time itself. Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, as indeed
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
For verily they have not been deficient in faithful reticence; rather do they excel in this quality wherever they scent merit. And, after all, it is no doubt the cleverest artifice; for what no one knows, is as though it did not exist. Whether the merces will remain quite so tuta , seems rather doubtful—unless we are to take merces in a bad sense; and for this the support of many a classical authority might certainly be found. These gentlemen had seen quite rightly that the only means to be used
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EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
Berlin, March, 1867 ....
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EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
The present Fourth Edition is an identical reprint of the Third: it therefore contains the same Corrections and Additions which I had already inserted in the Third Edition from Schopenhauer's own manuscript. Julius Frauenstädt. Berlin, September, 1877 . THE WILL IN NATURE. I break silence after seventeen years, [187] in order to point out to the few who, in advance of the age, may have given their attention to my philosophy, sundry corroborations which have been contributed to it by unbiassed em
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
Now this fundamental truth, which even to-day sounds so like a paradox, is the part of my doctrine to which, in all its chief points, the empirical sciences—themselves ever eager to steer clear of all Metaphysic—have contributed just as many confirmations forcibly elicited by the irresistible cogency of truth, but which are most surprising on account of the quarter whence they proceed; and although they have certainly come to light since the publication of my chief work, it has been quite indepe
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PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.
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 D
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COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.
Besides, the Physico-theological Proof may be simply invalidated by the empirical observation, that works produced by animal instinct, such as the spider's web, the bee's honeycomb and its cells, the white ant's constructions, &c. &c., are throughout constituted as if they were the result of an intentional conception, of a wide-reaching providence and of rational deliberation; whereas they are evidently the work of a blind impulse, i.e. of a will not guided by knowledge. From this it fol
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PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS.
PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS.
F. J. Meyen has devoted a chapter, entitled "Of the movements and sensations of plants," to a full investigation of the subject now before us. In this he says [251] : "Not unfrequently potatoes, stored in deep, dark cellars, may be observed towards summer to shoot forth stems which invariably grow in the direction of the chinks through which the light comes into the cellar, and to continue thus growing until they at last reach the aperture which receives the light directly. In such cases potato-
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PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY.
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY.
The attempt has repeatedly been made, since the beginning of this century, to ascribe vitality to the inorganic world. Quite wrongly: for living and inorganic are convertible conceptions, and with death the organic ceases to be organic. But no limit in the whole of Nature is so sharply drawn as the line which separates the organic from the inorganic: that is to say, the line between the region in which Form is the essential and permanent, Matter the accidental and changing,—and the region in whi
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LINGUISTIC.
LINGUISTIC.
In 1818, when my chief work first appeared, Animal Magnetism had only begun to struggle into existence. But, as to its explanation—although, to be sure, some light had been thrown upon the passive side of it, that is, upon what goes on within the patient, by the contrast between the cerebral and the ganglionic systems, to which Reil had drawn attention, having been taken for the principle of explanation—the active side, the agent proper by means of which the magnetiser evokes all these phenomena
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ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND MAGIC.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND MAGIC.
Now, if we thus see the will—stated by me to be the thing in itself, the only real thing in all existence, the kernel of Nature—accomplish through the human individual, in Animal Magnetism and even beyond it, things which cannot be explained according to the causal nexus, i.e. in the regular course of Nature; if we find it in a sense even annulling Nature's laws and actually performing actio in distans , consequently manifesting a supernatural, that is, metaphysical, mastery over Nature—what cor
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SINOLOGY.
SINOLOGY.
My intention in giving the above quotations and explanations, is merely to prepare the way for the extremely remarkable passage, which it is the object of the present chapter to communicate, and to render that passage more intelligible to the reader by first making him realize the standpoint from which these investigations were made, and thus throwing light upon the relation between them and their subject. For Europeans, when investigating this matter in China in the way and in the spirit descri
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REFERENCE TO ETHICS.
REFERENCE TO ETHICS.
The undoubtedly striking confirmations recorded in this treatise, which have been contributed to my doctrine by the Empirical Sciences since its first appearance, but independently of it, will unquestionably have been followed by many more: for how small is the portion which the individual can find time, opportunity and patience to become acquainted with, of the branch of literature dedicated to Natural Science which is so actively cultivated in all languages! Even what I have here mentioned how
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