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 follows, that the conclusion from such and such a nature to such and such a mode of coming into being, has not the same certainty as the conclusion from a consequent to its reason, which is in all cases a sure one. I have devoted the twenty-seventh chapter of the second volume of my chief work to a detailed consideration of the mechanical instincts of animals, which may be used, together with the preceding one on Teleology, to complete the whole examination of this subject in the present chapter.
Now, if we enter more closely into the above-mentioned fitness of every animal's organisation for its mode of life and means of subsistence, the question that first presents itself is, whether that mode of life has been adapted to the organisation, or vice versa. At first sight, the former assumption would seem to be the more correct one; since, in Time, the organisation precedes the mode of life, and the animal is thought to have adopted the mode of existence for which its structure was best suited, making the best use of the organs it found within itself: thus, for instance, we think that the bird flies because it has wings, and that the ox butts because it has horns; not conversely. This view is shared by Lucretius, (always an ominous sign for an opinion):
Only this assumption does not explain how, collectively, the quite different parts of an animal's organism so exactly correspond to its way of life; how no organ interferes with another, each rather assisting the others and none remaining unemployed; also that no subordinate organ would be better suited to another mode of existence, while the life which the animal really leads is determined by the principal organs alone, but, on the contrary, each part of the animal not only corresponds to every other part, but also to its mode of life: its claws, for instance, are invariably adapted for seizing the prey which its teeth are suited to tear and break, and its intestinal canal to digest: its limbs are constructed to convey it where that prey is to be found, and no organ ever remains unemployed. The ant-bear, for instance, is not only armed with long claws on its fore-feet, in order to break into the nests of the white ant, but also with a prolonged cylindrical muzzle, in order to penetrate into them, with a small mouth and a long, threadlike tongue, covered with a glutinous slime, which it inserts into the white ants' nests and then withdraws covered with the insects that adhere to it: on the other hand it has no teeth, because it does not want them. Who can fail to see that the ant-bear's form stands in the same relation to the white ants, as an act of the will to its motive? The contradiction between the powerful fore-feet and long, strong, curved claws of the ant-bear and its complete lack of teeth, is at the same time so extraordinary, that if the earth ever undergoes a fresh transformation, the newly arising race of rational beings will find it an insoluble enigma, if white ants are unknown to them. The necks of birds, as of quadrupeds, are generally as long as their legs, to enable them to reach down to the ground where they pick up their food; but those of aquatic birds are often a good deal longer, because they have to fetch up their nourishment from under the water while swimming.[225] Moor-fowl have exceedingly long legs, to enable them to wade without drowning or wetting their bodies, and a correspondingly long neck and beak, this last being more or less strong, according to the things (reptiles, fishes or worms) which have to be crushed; and the intestines of these animals are invariably adapted likewise to this end. On the other hand, moor-fowl are provided neither with talons, like birds of prey, nor with web-feet, like ducks: for the lex parsimoniæ naturæ admits of no superfluous organ. Now, it is precisely this very law, added to the circumstance, that no organ required for its mode of life is ever wanting in any animal, and that all, even the most heterogeneous, harmonize together and are, as it were, calculated for a quite specially determined way of life, for the element in which the prey dwells, for the pursuit, the overcoming, the crushing and digesting of that prey,—all this, we say, proves, that the animal's structure has been determined by the mode of life by which the animal desired to find its sustenance, and not vice versa. It also proves, that the result is exactly the same as if a knowledge of that mode of life and of its outward conditions had preceded the structure, and as if therefore each animal had chosen its equipment before it assumed a body; just as a sportsman before starting chooses his whole equipment, gun, powder, shot, pouch, hunting-knife and dress, according to the game he intends chasing. The latter does not take aim at the wild boar because he happens to have a rifle: he took the rifle with him and not a fowling-piece, because he intended to hunt the wild boar; and the ox does not butt because it happens to have horns: it has horns because it intends to butt. Now, to render this proof complete, we have the additional circumstance, that in many animals, during the time they are growing, the effort of the will to which a limb is destined to minister, manifests itself before the existence of the limb itself, its employment thus anticipating its existence. Young he-goats, rams, calves, for instance, butt with their bare polls before they have any horns; the young boar tries to gore on either side, before its tusks are fully developed which would respond to the intended effect, while on the other hand, it neglects to use the smaller teeth it already has in its mouth and with which it might really bite. Thus its mode of defending itself does not adapt itself to the existing weapons, but vice versa. This had already been noticed by Galenus[226] and by Lucretius[227] before him. All these circumstances give us complete certainty, that the will does not, as a supplementary thing proceeding from the intellect, employ those instruments which it may happen to find, or use the parts because just they and no others chance to be there; but that what is primary and original, is the endeavour to live in this particular way, to contend in this manner, an endeavour which manifests itself not only in the employment, but even in the existence of the weapon: so much so indeed, that the use of the weapon frequently precedes its existence, thus denoting that it is the weapon which arises out of the existence of the endeavour, not, conversely, the desire to use it out of the existence of the weapon. Aristotle expressed this long ago, when he said, with reference to insects armed with stings:[228] διὰ τὸ θυμὸν ἔχειν ὅπλον ἔχει (quia iram habent, arma habent), and further on, generally speaking:[229] Τὰ δ' ὄργανα πρὸς τὸ ἔργον ἡ φύσις ποιεῖ, ἀλλ' οὐ τὸ ἔργον πρὸς τὰ ὄργανα (Natura enim instrumenta ad officium, non officium ad instrumenta accommodat). From which it follows, that the structure of each animal is adapted to its will.
This truth forces itself upon thoughtful zoologists and zootomists with such cogency, that unless their mind is at the same time purified by a deeper philosophy, it may lead them into strange errors. Now this actually happened to a very eminent zoologist, the immortal De Lamarck, who has acquired everlasting fame by his discovery of the classification of animals in vertebrata and non-vertebrata, so admirable in depth of view. For he quite seriously maintains and tries to prove[230] at length, that the shape of each animal species, the weapons peculiar to it, and its organs of every sort destined for outward use, were by no means present at the origin of that species, but have on the contrary come into being gradually in the course of time and through continued generation, in consequence of the exertions of the animal's will, evoked by the nature of its position and surroundings, through its own repeated efforts and the habits to which these gave rise. Aquatic birds and mammalia that swim, he says, have only become web-footed through stretching their toes asunder in swimming; moor-fowl acquired their long legs and necks by wading; horned cattle only gradually acquired horns because as they had no proper teeth for combating, they fought with their heads, and this combative propensity in course of time produced horns or antlers; the snail was originally, like other mollusca, without feelers; but out of the desire to feel the objects lying before it, these gradually arose; the whole feline species acquired claws only in course of time, from their desire to tear the flesh of their prey, and the moveable coverings of those claws, from the necessity of protecting them in walking without being prevented from using them when they wished; the giraffe, in the barren, grassless African deserts, being reduced for its food to the leaves of lofty trees, stretched out its neck and forelegs until at last it acquired its singular shape, with a height in front of twenty feet, and thus De Lamarck goes on describing a multitude of animal species as arising according to the same principle, in doing which he overlooks the obvious objection which may be made, that long before the organs necessary for its preservation could have been produced by means of such endeavours as these through countless generations, the whole species must have died out from the want of them. To such a degree may we be blinded by a hypothesis which has once laid hold of us! Nevertheless in this instance the hypothesis arose out of a very correct and profound view of Nature: it is an error of genius, which in spite of all the absurdity it contains, still does honour to its originator. The true part of it belongs to De Lamarck, as an investigator of Nature; he saw rightly that the primary element which has determined the animal's organisation, is the will of that animal itself. The false part must be laid to the account of the backward state of Metaphysics in France, where the views of Locke and of his feeble follower, Condillac, in fact still hold their ground and therefore bodies are held to be things in themselves, Time and Space qualities of things in themselves; and where the great doctrine of the Ideal nature of Space and of Time and of all that is represented in them, which has been so extremely fertile in its results, has not yet penetrated. De Lamarck therefore could not conceive his construction of living beings otherwise than in Time, through succession. Errors of this sort, as well as the gross, absurd, atomic theory of the French and the edifying physico-theological considerations of the English, have been banished for ever from Germany by Kant's profound influence. So salutary was the effect produced by this great mind, even upon a nation capable of subsequently forsaking him to run after charlatanism and empty bombast. But the thought could never enter into De Lamarck's head, that the animal's will, as a thing in itself, might lie outside Time, and in this sense be prior to the animal itself. Therefore he assumes the animal to have first been without any clearly defined organs, but also without any clearly defined tendencies, and to have been equipped only with perception. Through this it learns to know the circumstances in which it has to live and from that knowledge arise its desires, i.e. its will, from which again spring its organs or definite embodiment; this last indeed with the help of generation and therefore in boundless Time. If De Lamarck had had the courage to carry out his theory fully, he ought to have assumed a primary animal[231] which, to be consistent, must have originally had neither shape nor organs, and then proceeded to transform itself according to climate and local conditions into myriads of animal shapes of all sorts, from the gnat to the elephant.—But this primary animal is in truth the will to live; as such however, it is metaphysical, not physical. Most certainly the shape and organisation of each animal species has been determined by its own will according to the circumstances in which it wished to live; not however as a thing physical in Time, but on the contrary as a thing metaphysical outside Time. The will did not proceed from the intellect, nor did the intellect exist, together with the animal, before the will made its appearance as a mere accident, a secondary, or rather tertiary, thing. It is on the contrary the will which is the prius, the thing in itself: its phenomenon (mere representation in the cognitive intellect and its forms of Space and Time) is the animal, fully equipped with all its organs which represent the will to live in those particular circumstances. Among these organs is the intellect also—knowledge itself—which, like the rest of those organs, is exactly adapted to the mode of life of each animal; whereas, according to De Lamarck, it is the will which arises out of knowledge. Behold the countless varieties of animal shapes; how entirely is each of them the mere image of its volition, the evident expression of the strivings of the will which constitute its character! Their difference in shape is only the portrait of their difference in character. Ferocious animals, destined for combat and rapine, appear armed with formidable teeth and claws and strong muscles; their sight is adapted for great distances, especially when they have to mark their prey from a dizzy height, as is the case with eagles and condors. Timid animals, whose will it is to seek their safety in flight instead of contest, present themselves with light, nimble legs and sharp hearing in lieu of all weapons; a circumstance which has even necessitated a striking prolongation of the outer ear in the most timid of them all, the hare. The interior corresponds to the exterior: carnivorous animals have short intestines; herbivorous animals long ones, suited to a protracted assimilation. Vigorous respiration and rapid circulation of the blood, represented by appropriate organs, always accompany great muscular strength and irritability as their necessary conditions, and nowhere is contradiction possible. Each particular striving of the will presents itself in a particular modification of shape. The abode of the prey therefore has determined the shape of its pursuer: if that prey takes refuge in regions difficult of access, in remote hiding places, in night or darkness, the pursuer assumes the form best suited to those circumstances, and no shape is rejected as too grotesque by the will to live, in order to attain its ends. The cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) presents itself with this abnormal form of its organ of nutrition, in order to be able to extract the seeds out of the scales of the fir-cone. Moor-fowls appear equipped with extra long legs, extra long necks and extra long beaks, in short, the strangest shapes, in order to seek out reptiles in their marshes. Then we have the ant-bear with its body four feet long, its short legs, its strong claws, and its long, narrow, toothless muzzle provided with a threadlike, glutinous tongue for the purpose of digging out the white ants from their nests. The pelican goes fishing with a huge pouch under its beak in which to pack its fish, when caught. In order to surprise their prey while asleep in the night, owls fly out provided with enormous pupils which enable them to see in the dark, and with very soft feathers to make their flight noiseless and thus permit them to fall unawares upon their sleeping prey without awakening it by their movements. Silurus, gymnotus and torpedo bring a complete electric apparatus into the world with them, in order to stun their prey before they can reach it; and also as a defence against their own pursuers. For wherever anything living breathed, there immediately came another to devour it,[232] and every animal is in a way designed and calculated throughout, down to the minutest detail, for the purpose of destroying some other animal. Ichneumons, for instance, among insects, lay their eggs in the bodies of certain caterpillars and similar larvæ, in which they bore holes with their stings, in order to ensure nourishment for their future brood. Now those kinds which feed on larvæ that crawl about freely, have short stings not more than about one-third of an inch long, whereas pimpla manifestator, which feeds upon chelostoma maxillosa, whose larvæ lie hidden in old trees at great depth and are not accessible to it, has a sting two inches long; and the sting of the ichneumon strobillæ which lays its eggs in larvæ dwelling in fir-cones, is nearly as long. With these stings they penetrate to the larva in which they bore a hole and deposit one egg, whose product subsequently devours this larva.[233] Just as clearly does the will to escape their enemies manifest itself in the defensive equipment of animals that are the objects of pursuit. Hedgehogs and porcupines raise up a forest of spears; armadillos, scaly ant-eaters and tortoises appear cased from head to foot in armour which is inaccessible to tooth, beak or claw; and so it is, on a smaller scale, with the whole class of crustacea. Others again seek protection by deceiving their pursuers rather than by resisting them physically: thus the sepia has provided itself with materials for surrounding itself with a dark cloud on the approach of danger. The sloth is deceptively like its moss-clad bough, and the frog its leaf; and many insects resemble their dwelling-places. The negro's louse is black;[234] so, to be sure, is our flea also; but the latter, in providing itself with an extremely powerful apparatus for making irregular jumps to a considerable distance, trusted to these for protection.—We can however make the anticipation in all these arrangements more intelligible to ourselves by the same anticipation which shows itself in the mechanical instincts of animals. Neither the young spider nor the ant-lion know the prey for which they lay traps, when they do it for the first time. And it is the same when they are on the defensive. According to Latreille, the insect bombex kills the parnope with its sting, although it neither eats it nor is attacked by it, simply because the parnope will lay its eggs in the bombex's nest, and by doing this will interfere with the development of its eggs; yet it does not know this. Anticipations of this kind once more confirm the ideal nature of Time, which indeed always becomes manifest as soon as the will as thing in itself is in question. Not only with respect to the points here mentioned, but to many others besides, the mechanical instincts and physiological functions of animals serve to explain each other mutually, because the will without knowledge is the agent in both.
As the will has equipped itself with every organ and every weapon, offensive as well as defensive, so has it likewise provided itself in every animal shape with an intellect, as a means of preservation for the individual and the species. It was precisely in this account that the ancients called the intellect the ἡγεμονικόν, i.e. the guide and leader. Accordingly the intellect, being exclusively destined to serve the will, always exactly corresponds to it. Beasts of prey stood in greater need of intellect, and in fact have more intelligence, than herbivorous animals. The elephant certainly forms an exception, and so does even the horse to a certain extent; but the admirable intelligence of the elephant was necessary on account of the length of its life (200 years) and of the scantiness of its progeny, which obliged it to provide for a longer and surer preservation of the individual: and this moreover in countries teeming with the most rapacious, the strongest and the nimblest beasts of prey. The horse too has a longer life and a scantier progeny than the ruminants, and as it has neither horns, tusks, trunk, nor indeed any weapon save perhaps its hoofs, it needed greater intelligence and swiftness in order to elude pursuit. Monkeys needed their extraordinary intelligence, partly because of the length of their life, which even in the moderate-sized animal extends to fifty years; partly also because of their scanty progeny, which is limited to one at a time, but especially because of their hands, which, to be properly used, required the direction of an understanding. For monkeys depend upon their hands, not only for their defence by means of outer weapons such as sticks and stones, but also for their nourishment, this last necessitating a variety of artificial means and a social and artificial system of rapine in general, the passing from hand to hand of stolen fruit, the placing of sentinels, &c. &c. Add to this, that it is especially in their youth, before they have attained their full muscular development, that this intelligence is most prominent. In the pongo or ourang-outang for instance, the brain plays a far more important part and the understanding is much greater during its youth than at its maturity, when the muscular powers having attained full development, they take the place of the proportionately declining intellect. This holds good of all sorts of monkeys, so that here therefore the intellect acts for a time vicariously for the yet undeveloped muscular strength. We find this process discussed at length in the "Résumé des Observations de Fr. Cuvier sur l'instinct et l'intelligence des animaux," par Flourens (1841), from which I have quoted the whole passage referring to this question in the second volume of my chief work, at the end of the thirty-first chapter, and this is my only reason for not repeating it here. On the whole, intelligence gradually increases from the rodents[235] to the ruminants, from the ruminants to the pachyderms, and from these again to the beasts of prey and finally to the quadrumana, and anatomy shows a gradual development of the brain in similar order which corresponds to this result of external observation. (According to Flourens and Fr. Cuvier.)[236] Among the reptiles, serpents are the most intelligent, for they may even be trained; this is so, because they are beasts of prey and propagate more slowly than the rest—especially the venomous ones. And here also, as with the physical weapons, we find the will everywhere as the prius; its equipment, the intellect, as the posterius. Beasts of prey do not hunt, nor do foxes thieve, because they have more intelligence; on the contrary, they have more intelligence, just as they have stronger teeth and claws too, because they wished to live by hunting and thieving. The fox even made up at once for his inferiority in muscular power and strength of teeth by the extraordinary subtility of his understanding. Our thesis is singularly illustrated by the case of the bird dodo or dronte (didus ineptus) on the island of Mauritius, whose species, it is well known, has died out, and which, as its Latin name denotes, was exceedingly stupid, and this explains its disappearance; so that here it seems indeed as if Nature had for once gone too far in her lex parsimoniæ and thereby in a sense brought forth an abortion in the species, as she so often does in the individual, which was unable to subsist, precisely because it was an abortion. If, on this occasion, anyone were to raise the question as to whether Nature ought not to have provided insects with at least sufficient intelligence to prevent them from flying into the flame of a candle, our answer would be: most certainly; only she did not know that men would make candles and light them, and natura nihil agit frustra. Insect intelligence is therefore only insufficient where the surroundings are artificial.[237]
Everywhere indeed intelligence depends in the first instance upon the cerebral system, and this stands in a necessary relation to the rest of the organism; therefore cold-blooded animals are greatly inferior to warm-blooded ones, and invertebrate animals to vertebrata. But the organism is precisely nothing but the will become visible, to which, as that which is absolutely prius, everything constantly refers. The needs and aims of that will give in each phenomenon the rule for the means to be employed, and these means must harmonize with one another. Plants have no self-consciousness because they have no power of locomotion; for of what use would self-consciousness be to them unless it enabled them to seek what was salutary and flee what was noxious to them? And conversely, of what use could power of locomotion be to them, as they have no self-consciousness with which to guide it. The inseparable duality of Sensibility and Irritability does not yet appear therefore in the plant; they continue slumbering in the reproductive force which is their fundament, and in which alone the will here objectifies itself. The sun-flower, and every other plant, wills for light; but as yet their movement towards light is not separate from their apprehension of it, and both coincide with their growth.—Human understanding, which is so superior to that of all other beings, and is assisted by Reason (the faculty for non-perceptible representations, i.e. for conceptions; reflection, thinking faculty), is nevertheless only just proportionate, partly to Man's requirements, which greatly surpass those of animals and multiply to infinity; partly to his entire lack of all natural weapons and covering, and to his relatively weaker muscular strength, which is greatly inferior to that of monkeys of his own size;[238] lastly also, to the slowness with which his race multiplies and the length of his childhood and life, which demand secure preservation of the individual. All these great requirements had to be satisfied by means of intellectual powers, which, for this reason, predominate in him. But we find the intellect secondary and subordinate everywhere, and destined exclusively to serve the purposes of the will. As a rule too, it always remains true to its destiny and subservient to the will. How nevertheless, it frees itself in particular instances from this bondage through an abnormal preponderance of cerebral life, whereby purely objective cognition becomes possible which may be enhanced to genius, I have shown at length in the æsthetic part of my chief work.[239]
Now, after all these reflections upon the precise agreement between the will and the organisation of each animal, if we inspect a well-arranged osteological collection from this point of view, it will certainly seem to us as if we saw one and the same being (De Lamarck's primary animal, or, more properly, the will to live) changing its shape according to circumstances, and thus producing all this multiplicity of forms out of the same number and arrangement of its bones, by prolonging and curtailing, strengthening and weakening them. This number and arrangement of the bones, which Geoffroy de St. Hilaire[240] called the anatomical element, continues, as he has thoroughly shown, in all essential points unchanged: it is a constant magnitude, something which is absolutely given beforehand, irrevocably fixed by an unfathomable necessity—an immutability which I should compare with the permanence of matter in all physical and chemical changes: but to this I shall soon return. Conjointly with this immutability of the anatomical element, we have the greatest susceptibility to modification, the greatest plasticity and flexibility of these same bones with reference to size, shape and adaptation to different purposes, all which we see determined by the will with primary strength and freedom according to the aims prescribed to it by external circumstances: it makes out of these materials whatever its necessity for the time being requires. If it desires to climb about in trees, it catches at the boughs at once with four hands, while it stretches the ulva and radius to an excessive length and immediately prolongs the os coccygis to a curly tail, a yard long, in order to hang by it to the boughs and swing itself from one branch to another. If, on the other hand, it desires to crawl in the mud as a crocodile, to swim as a seal, or to burrow as a mole, these same arm-bones are shortened till they are no longer recognisable; in the last case the metacarpus and phalanges are enlarged to disproportionately large shovel-paws, to the prejudice of the other bones. But if it wishes to fly through the air as a bat, not only are the os humeri, radius and alnus prolonged in an incredible manner, but the usually small and subordinate carpus, metacarpus and phalanges digitorum expand to an immense length, as in St. Anthony's vision, outmeasuring the length of the animal's body, in order to spread out the wing-membrane. If, in order to browse upon the tops of very tall African trees, it has, as a giraffe, placed itself upon extraordinarily high fore-legs, the same seven vertebræ of the neck, which never vary as to number and which, in the mole, were contracted so as to be no longer recognisable, are now prolonged to such a degree, that here, as everywhere else, the neck acquires the same length as the fore-legs, in order to enable the head to reach down to drinking-water. But where, as is the case when it appears as the elephant, a long neck could not have borne the weight of the enormous, unwieldy head—a weight increased moreover by tusks a yard long—the neck remains short, as an exception, and a trunk is let down as an expedient, to lift up food and draw water from below and also to reach up to the tops of trees. In accordance with these transformations, we see in all of them the skull, the receptacle containing the understanding, at the same time proportionately expand, develop, curve itself, as the mode of procuring nourishment becomes more or less difficult and requires more or less intelligence; and the different degrees of the understanding manifest themselves clearly to the practised eye in the curves of the skull.
Now, in all this, that anatomical element we have mentioned above as fixed and invariable, certainly remains in so far an enigma, as it does not come within the teleological explanation, which only begins after the assumption of that element; since the intended organ might in many cases have been rendered equally suitable for its purpose even with a different number and disposition of bones. It is easy to understand, for instance, why the human skull should be formed out of eight bones: that is, to enable them to be drawn together by the fontanels during birth; but we do not see why a chicken which breaks through its egg-shell should necessarily have the same number of skull-bones. We must therefore assume this anatomical element to be based, partly on the unity and identity of the will to live in general, partly on the circumstance, that the archetypal forms of animals have proceeded one from the other,[241] wherefore the fundamental type of the whole race was preserved. It is this anatomical element which Aristotle means by his ἀναγκαία φύσις, and the mutability of its shapes according to different purposes he calls τὴν κατὰ λόγον φύσιν,[242] and explains by it how the material for upper incisors has been employed for horns in horned cattle. Quite rightly: since the only ruminants which have no horns, the camel and the musk-ox, have upper incisors, and these are wanting in all horned ruminants.
No other explanation or assumption enables us nearly as well to understand either the complete suitableness to purpose and to the external conditions of existence I have here shown in the skeleton, or the admirable harmony and fitness of internal mechanism in the structure of each animal, as the truth I have elsewhere firmly established: that the body of an animal is precisely nothing but the will itself of that animal brought to cerebral perception as representation—through the forms of Space, Time and Causality—in other words, the mere visibility, objectivity of Will. For, if this is once pre-supposed, everything in and belonging to that body must conspire towards the final end: the life of this animal. Nothing superfluous, nothing deficient, nothing inappropriate, nothing insufficient or incomplete of its kind, can therefore be found in it; on the contrary, all that is required must be there, and just in the proportion needed, never more. For here artist, work and materials are one and the same. Each organism is therefore a consummate master-piece of exceeding perfection. Here the will did not first cherish the intention, first recognise the end and then adapt the means to it and conquer the material; its willing was rather immediately the aim and immediately the attainment of that aim; no foreign appliances needing to be overcome were wanted—willing, doing and attaining were here one and the same. Thus the organism presents itself as a miracle which admits of no comparison with any work of human artifice wrought by the lamplight of knowledge.[243]
Our admiration for the consummate perfection and fitness for their ends in all the works of Nature, is at the bottom based upon our viewing them in the same light as we do our own works. In these, in the first place, the will to do the work and the work are two different things; then again two other things lie between these two: firstly, the medium of representation, which, taken by itself, is foreign to the will, through which the will must pass before it realizes itself here; and secondly the material foreign to the will here at work, on which a form foreign to it has to be forced, which it resists, because the material already belongs to another will, that is to say, to its own nature, its forma substantialis, the (Platonic) idea, expressed by it: therefore this material has first to be overcome, and however deeply the artificial form may have penetrated, will always continue inwardly resisting. It is quite a different thing with Nature's works, which are not, like our own, indirect, but on the contrary, direct manifestations of the will. Here the will acts in its primordial nature, that is, unconsciously. No mediating representation here separates the will and the work: they are one. And even the material is one with them: for matter is the mere visibility of the will. Therefore here we find Matter completely permeated by Form; or, better still, they are of quite the same origin, only existing mutually one for the other; and in so far they are one. That we separate them in works of Nature as well as in works of Art, is a mere abstraction. Pure Matter, absolutely without Form or quality, which we think as the material of a product of Nature, is merely an ens rationis and cannot enter into any experience: whereas the material of a work of Art is empirical Matter, consequently already has a Form. The [distinctive] character of Nature's products is the identity of form and substance; that of products of Art the diversity of these two.[244] It is because Matter is the mere visibility of Form in Nature's products, that, even empirically, we see Form appear as a mere production of Matter, bursting forth from its inside in crystallisation, in vegetable and animal generatio æquivoca, which last cannot be doubted, at any rate in the epizoa.[245]—For this reason we may even assume that nowhere, either on any planet or satellite, will Matter come to a state of endless repose, but rather that its inherent forces (i.e. the will, whose mere visibility it is) will always put an end again to the repose which has commenced, always awaking again from their sleep, to resume their activity as mechanical, physical, chemical, organic forces; since at all times they only wait for the opportunity to do so.
But if we want to understand Nature's proceeding, we must not try to do it by comparing her works with our own. The real essence of every animal form, is an act of the will outside representation, consequently outside its forms of Space and Time also; which act, just on that account, knows neither sequence nor juxtaposition, but has, on the contrary, the most indivisible unity. But when our cerebral perception comprehends that form, and still more when its inside is dissected by the anatomical knife, then that which originally and in itself was foreign to knowledge and its laws, is brought under the light of knowledge; but then also, it has to present itself in conformity with the laws and forms of knowledge. The original unity and indivisibility of that act of the will, of that truly metaphysical being, then appears divided into parts lying side by side and functions following one upon another, which all nevertheless present themselves as connected together in closest relationship one to another for mutual help and support, as means and ends one to the other. The understanding, in thus apprehending these things, now perceives the original unity re-establishing itself out of a multiplicity which its own form of knowledge had first brought about, and involuntarily taking for granted that its own way of perceiving this is the way in which this animal form comes into being, it is now struck with admiration for the profound wisdom with which those parts are arranged, those functions combined. This is the meaning of Kant's great doctrine, that Teleology is brought into Nature by our own understanding, which accordingly wonders at a miracle of its own creation.[246] If I may use a trivial simile to elucidate so sublime a matter, this astonishment very much resembles that of our understanding when it discovers that all multiples of 9, when their single figures are added together, give as their product either the number 9 or one whose single figures again make 9; yet it is that very understanding itself which has prepared for itself this surprise in the decimal system. According to the Physico-theological argument, the actual existence of the world has been preceded by its existence in an intellect: if the world is designed for an end, it must have existed as representation before it came into being. Now I say, on the contrary, in Kant's sense: if the world is to be representation, it must present itself as designed for an end; and this only takes place in an intellect.
It undoubtedly follows from my doctrine, that every being is its own work. Nature, which is incapable of falsehood and is as naïve as genius, asserts the same thing downright; since each being merely kindles the spark of life at another exactly similar being, and then makes itself before our eyes, taking the materials for this from outside, form and movement from its own self: this process we call growth and development. Thus, even empirically, each being stands before us as its own work. But Nature's language is not understood because it is too simple.
PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS.
The corroborations I am now about to bring forward of the phenomenon of the will in plants, proceed chiefly from French sources, from a nation whose tendencies are decidedly empirical and which is reluctant to go a step beyond what is immediately given. The informant moreover is Cuvier, whose rigid adherence to the purely empirical gave rise to the famous dispute between him and Geoffroy de St. Hilaire. So we must not be astonished if the language we meet with here is less decided than in the preceding German corroborations and if we find each concession made with cautious reserve.
In his "Histoire des Progrès des Sciences Naturelles depuis 1789 jusqu'á ce jour,"[247] Cuvier says: "Plants have certain apparently spontaneous movements, which they show under certain circumstances and which at times so closely resemble those of animals, that a sort of feeling and will might almost be attributed to plants on this account, especially by those who think they can perceive something of the same kind in the movements of the inward parts of animals. Thus the tops of trees always have a vertical tendency, excepting when they incline towards the light. Their roots seek out good earth and moisture and, in order to attain these, deviate from the straight course. Yet these different tendencies cannot be explained by the influence of external causes, unless we also assume the existence of an inner natural disposition, susceptible of being roused, which differs from the mere mechanical force in inorganic bodies.... Decandolle made some remarkable experiments that proved to him the existence of a sort of habit in plants which may be overcome by artificial light, but only after a certain time. Plants that had been shut up in a cellar which was continually lit by lamps, did not on this account leave off closing in the evening and opening again in the morning for several days. And there are other habits besides which plants are able to adopt and to abandon. Flowers that habitually close in wet weather, finish by remaining open if the wet weather lasts too long. When M. Desfontaines took a sensitive plant with him in his carriage, the jolting movement at first caused it to contract, but at last it expanded again as when in complete repose. Therefore even in these cases, light, moisture, &c., &c., only act in virtue of an inner disposition, which may be neutralized or modified by the continuation of that very activity itself; and the vital energy of plants, like that of animals, is subject to fatigue and exhaustion. The hedysarum gyrans is singularly characterized by the movements of its leaves which continue day and night without needing any sort of stimulus. Surely, if any phenomenon can cause illusion and remind us of the voluntary movements of animals, it is this. Broussonet, Silvestre, Cels and Halle have fully described it, and have shown that the plant's action depends entirely upon its own healthy condition."
Again, in the third volume of the same work, p. 166 (1828), Cuvier says: "M. Dutrochet adds some physiological considerations to which his own experiments had led him, and which in his opinion prove that the movements of plants are spontaneous, i.e. that they depend upon an inner principle which immediately receives the influence of outer agencies. As he is however reluctant to admit that plants have feeling, he makes use of the word 'nervimotilité.'"—Here I must observe, that when we come to examine it closely, what we think to ourselves in the conception of spontaneity, is in the end always the same thing as manifestation of will, with which spontaneity would therefore be simply synonymous. The only difference between them consists in the conception of spontaneity being derived from outer perception, while that of manifestation of will is drawn from our own consciousness.—I find a remarkable instance of the impetuous violence of this spontaneity, even in plants, in the following communication contained in the "Cheltenham Examiner:"[248] "Last Thursday four enormous mushrooms performed a heroic feat of a new kind, in one of our most crowded streets, by lifting up a huge block of stone in their strenuous effort to make their way into the visible world."
In the "Mém. de l'Acad. d. Sciences de l'année" (1821), Cuvier says[249]:—"For centuries botanists have been searching for the reason why in a seed which is germinating the root invariably grows downwards, while the stalk as invariably grows upwards, no matter what be the position in which the seed is placed. M. Dutrochet put some seeds into holes bored in the bottom of a vessel filled with damp mould, which he hung up to a beam in his room. Now, in this case, the stem might have been expected to grow downwards. Not at all: the roots found their way to the air below, and the stems were prolonged so as to traverse the damp mould until they reached its upper surface. According to M. Dutrochet, the direction in which plants grow, is determined by an inner principle and not at all by the attraction of the bodies towards which they direct themselves. A mistletoe seed that was fastened to the point of a perfectly moveable needle fixed on a peg, with a small plank placed near it, was induced to germinate. It soon began to send out shoots towards the plank, which it reached in five days without having communicated the slightest movement to the needle. The stems of onions and leeks with their bulbs, deposited in dark places, grow upwards, although more slowly than in light ones; they grow upwards even if placed in water: a fact which suffices to prove that neither light nor moisture determines the direction of their growth."—Still C. H. Schultz asserts[250] that he made seeds germinate in a dark box with holes bored in the bottom, and succeeded in inducing the plants to grow upside down, by means of a mirror fastened to the box, which reflected the sunlight.
In the "Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles" (article Animal) we find: "If, on the one hand, animals show avidity in their search after nourishment as well as power of discrimination in the selection of it, roots of plants may, on the other hand, be observed to direct themselves towards the side where the soil contains most nourishment, nay, even to seek out the smallest crevices in rocks which may contain any food. If we twist a bough so as to make the upper surface of its leaves the under one, these leaves even will twist their stems in order to regain the position best suited for the exercise of their functions (i.e. so as to have the smooth side uppermost). Is it quite certain that this takes place unconsciously?"
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-stalks have been known to reach a length of twenty feet; whereas under ordinary circumstances, even such as are most favourable to the growth of the potato, the stalk is seldom longer than from three to four feet. It is interesting to watch closely the course taken by a potato-stalk thus growing in darkness, in its endeavours to reach the light. It tries to do so by the shortest road, but not being firm enough to grow straight across through the air without support, it lets itself drop on to the floor, and thus creeps along the ground till it reaches the nearest wall, up which it then climbs." Even this botanist too is led by his facts to the following assertion (p. 576): "On observing the freedom of movement of oscillatoria and other inferior plants, we may perhaps have no alternative but to attribute a species of will to these beings."
Creepers bear distinct evidence as to manifestation of will in plants; for, when they find no support near enough for their tendrils to cling to, they invariably direct their growth towards the shadiest place, or even towards a piece of dark-coloured paper, wherever it may be placed; whereas they avoid glass, on account of its glitter. In the "Philosophical Transactions" of 1812, Th. Andrew Knight relates some very pleasing experiments on this subject (especially with ampelopsis quinquefolia,)[252] although he strives hard to explain the matter mechanically, and will not admit that it is a manifestation of will. I appeal to his experiments, not to the conclusions he draws from them. A good test might be, to plant several free creepers in a circle round a tree-trunk and to observe whether they all crept towards the trunk centripetally. On the 6th Nov. 1843, Dutrochet read a treatise on this subject in the "Acad. de Sciences" called "Sur les Mouvements Révolutifs spontanés chez les Végétaux," which, notwithstanding its great length, is well worth reading, and is published among the "Comptes rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences" for Nov. 1843. The result is, that in pisum sativum (green pea), in bryonia alba (wild bryony) and in cucumis sativus (cucumber) the stems of those leaves which bear the tendrils, describe a very slow circular movement in the air, the time in which they complete an ellipsis varying from one to three hours according to temperature. By this movement they seek at random for solid bodies round which, when found, they twine their tendrils; these then support the plant, it being unable to stand by itself without help. That is, they do the same thing as the eyeless caterpillar, which when seeking a leaf describes circles in the air with the upper part of its body. Dutrochet contributes a good deal of information too concerning other movements in plants in this treatise: for instance, that stylidium graminifolium in New Holland, has a column in the middle of its corolla which bears the anthers and stigma and alternately folds up and unfolds again. What Treviranus adduces is to the same effect:[253] "In parnassia palustris and in ruta graveolens, the stamina incline one after the other, in saxifraga tridactylites in pairs, towards the stigma, and erect themselves again in the same order."—Shortly before however, we read in Treviranus with reference to this subject: "Of all apparently voluntary movements of plants, the direction of their boughs and of the upper surface of their leaves towards the light and towards moist heat, and the twining movements of creepers round their supports, are the most universal. In this last phenomenon especially there is something which resembles animal movements. While growing, creepers, it is true, if left to themselves, describe circles with their tips and by this means reach an object near at hand. But it is no merely mechanical cause that induces them to adapt their growth to the form of the object they have thus reached. The cuscuta does not twine round every kind of support: for instance, limbs of animals, dead vegetable matter, metals and inorganic substances are not used for this purpose, but only living plants, and not even all kinds—not mosses, for instance—only those from which it can extract nourishment by its papillæ; and these attract it from a considerable distance."[254] The following special observation, communicated to the "Farmer's Magazine," and reproduced by the "Times" (13th July 1848) under the title "Vegetable Instinct," is however still more to the point: "If a basin of water be placed within six inches of a young pumpkin-stalk, or of a stem of the large garden pea, no matter on what side, the stalk will approach the basin during the night and it will be found next morning with one of its leaves floating on the water. This experiment may be renewed every night till the plant begins to fructify.—Even if its position be changed every day, a stick fixed upright within six inches of a young convolvulus is sure to be found by the plant. If, after having wound itself for a certain distance round the stick, it is unwound and wound round again in the opposite direction, it will return to its original position or lose its life in the endeavour to do so. Nevertheless, if two such plants grow close to one another without having any stick near enough for them to cling to it, one of them will change the direction of its winding and they will twine round each other. Duhamel placed some Italian beans in a cylinder filled with moist earth; after a little while they began to germinate and naturally sent their plumula upwards in the direction of the light and their radicula downwards into the mould. After a few days the cylinder was turned round to the extent of a quarter of its circumference and the same process was repeated until it had been turned completely round. The beans were then removed from the earth, when it was found that both plumula and radicula had twisted at each turn that had been given, in order to adapt themselves to it, the one endeavouring to rise perpendicularly, the other to descend, so that they had formed a complete spiral. Yet, notwithstanding this natural tendency to descend, when the soil below is too dry, roots will grow upwards in order to reach any moist substance which may be lying higher than themselves."
In Froriep's "Memoranda" for 1833 (No. 832) there is a short article upon the locomotivity of plants: in poor soil, where good mould lies near at hand, many plants will send out a shoot into the good mould; after a time the original plant then withers, but the offshoot prospers and itself becomes the plant. By means of this process, a plant has been known to climb down from a wall.
In the same periodical (1835, No. 981) is to be found a communication from Professor Daubeny, of Oxford (taken from the "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal," April-July, 1835), in which he shows with certainty, by means of new and very careful experiments, that roots of plants have, at any rate to a certain degree, the power to make choice from those substances in the soil which present themselves to their surface.[255]
Finally I will not omit to observe, that even so early an authority as Plato[256] had attributed desires, ἐπιθυμίας, i.e. will, to plants. In my chief work,[257] however, I have entered into the doctrines of the Ancients on this point, and the chapter there which treats of this subject may on the whole serve to complete the present one.
The reluctance and reserve with which we see the authors here quoted make up their minds to acknowledge the will, which nevertheless undoubtedly manifests itself in plants, comes from their being still hampered by the old opinion, that consciousness is a requisite and condition of the will: now it is evident that plants have no consciousness. The thought never entered into the heads of these naturalists, that the will might be the prius and therefore independent of the intellect, with which, as the posterius, consciousness first makes its appearance. As for knowledge or representation, plants have something merely analogous to it, a mere substitute for it; whereas they really have the will itself quite directly: for, as the thing in itself, it is the substratum of their phenomenal being as well as of every other. Taking a realistic view, starting accordingly from the objective, the matter might even be stated as follows: That which lives and moves in plant-nature and in the animal organism, when it has gradually enhanced itself in the scale of beings sufficiently for the light of knowledge to fall directly upon it, presents itself in this newly arising consciousness as will, and is here more immediately, consequently better, known than anywhere else. This knowledge therefore must supply the key for the comprehension of all that is lower in the scale. For in this knowledge the thing in itself is no longer veiled by any other form than that of the most immediate apprehension. It is this immediate apprehension of one's own volition which has been called the inner sense. In itself the will is without apprehension, and remains so in the inorganic and vegetable kingdoms. Just as the world would remain in darkness, in spite of the sun, if there were no bodies to reflect its light; or as the mere vibration of a string can never become a sound without air or even without some sort of sounding-board: so likewise does the will first become conscious of itself when knowledge is added to it. Knowledge is, as it were, the sounding-board of the will, and consciousness the tone it produces. This becoming conscious of itself on the part of the will, was attributed to a supposed inner sense, because it is the first and most direct knowledge we have. The various emotions of our own will can alone be the object of this inner sense; for the process of representation itself cannot over again be perceived, but, at the very utmost, only be once more brought to consciousness in rational reflection, that second power of representing: that is, in abstracto. Therefore also, simple representation (intuition) is to thinking proper—that is, to knowing by means of abstract conceptions—what willing in itself is to becoming aware of that willing, i.e. to consciousness. For this reason, a perfectly clear and distinct consciousness, not only of our own existence but also of the existence of others, only arises with the advent of Reason (the faculty for conceptions), which raises Man as far above the brute, as the merely intuitive faculty of representation raises the brute above the plant. Now beings which, like plants, have no faculty for representation, are called unconscious, and we conceive this condition as only slightly differing from non-existence; since the only existence such beings have, is in the consciousness of others, as the representation of those others. They are nevertheless not wanting in what is primary in existence, the will, but only in what is secondary; still, what is primary—and this is after all the existence of the thing in itself—appears to us, without that secondary element, to pass over into nullity. We are unable directly and clearly to distinguish unconscious existence from non-existence, although we have our own experience of it in deep sleep.
Bearing in mind, according to the contents of the last chapter, that the faculty of knowing, like every other organ, has only arisen for the purpose of self-preservation, and that it therefore stands in a precise relation, admitting of countless gradations, to the requirements of each animal species; we shall understand that plants, having so very much fewer requirements than animals, no longer need any knowledge at all. On this account precisely, as I have often said, knowledge is the true characteristic which denotes the limits of animality, because of the movement induced by motives which it conditions. Where animal life ceases, there knowledge proper, with whose essence our own experience has made us familiar, disappears; and henceforth analogy is our only way of making that which mediates between the influence of the outer world and the movements of beings intelligible to us. The will, on the other hand, which we have recognised as being the basis and kernel of every existing thing, remains one and the same at all times and in all places. Now, in the lower degree occupied by plant-life and by the vegetative life of animal organisms, it is the stimulus which takes the place of knowledge as a means of determining the individual manifestations of this omnipresent will and as a mediator between the outer world and the changes of such a being; finally, in inorganic Nature, it is physical agency in general; and when, as here, observation takes place from a higher to a lower degree, both stimulus and physical agency present themselves as substitutes for knowledge, therefore as mere analogues to it. Plants cannot properly be said to perceive light and the sun; yet we see them sensitive in various ways to the presence or absence of both. We see them incline and turn towards the light; and though this movement no doubt generally coincides with their growth, just as the moon's rotation on its axis coincides with its movement round the earth, it nevertheless exists, as well as that of the moon, and the direction of that growth is determined and systematically modified by light, just as an action is determined by a motive, and as the direction of the growth of creeping and clinging plants is determined by the shape and position of the supports they may chance to find. Thus because plants on the whole, still have wants, though not such wants as demand the luxury of a sensorium and an intellect, something analogous has to take the place of these, in order to enable the will to lay hold of, if not to seek out, the satisfactions which offer themselves to it. Now, this analogous substitute is susceptibility for stimuli, and I would express the difference between knowledge and this susceptibility as follows: in knowledge, the motive which presents itself as representation and the act of volition which follows from it, remain distinctly separate one from the other, this separation moreover being the more distinct, the greater the perfection of the intellect;—whereas, in mere susceptibility for stimuli, the feeling of the stimulus can no longer be distinguished from the volition it occasions, and they coalesce. In inorganic nature finally, even susceptibility for stimuli, the analogy of which to knowledge is unmistakable, ceases, but the diversity of reaction of each body upon divers kinds of action remains; now, when the matter is considered, as we are doing, in the descending scale, this reaction still presents itself, even here, as a substitute for knowledge. If a body reacts differently, it must have been acted upon differently and that action must have roused a different sensation in it, which with all its dullness has nevertheless a distant analogy to knowledge. Thus when water that is shut up finds an outlet of which it eagerly avails itself, rushing vehemently in that direction, it certainly does not recognise that outlet any more than the acid perceives the alkali approaching it which will induce it to abandon its combination with a metal, or than the strip of paper perceives the amber which attracts it after being rubbed; yet we cannot help admitting that what brings about such sudden changes in all these bodies, bears a certain resemblance to that which takes place within us, when an unexpected motive presents itself. 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.
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. But in Man—whose representation has enhanced itself even to abstract conception and who now derives motives and counter-motives for his actions from a whole invisible thought-world which he carries about with him in his brain and which makes him independent of presence and of perceptible surroundings—this connection no longer exists at all for observation from outside, and even for inward observation it is only knowable through abstract and mature reflection. For these abstract motives, when observed from outside, give an impress of deliberation to all his movements, by which they acquire a semblance of independence that manifestly distinguishes them from those of animals, yet which after all only bears evidence to the fact, that Man is actuated by a class of representations in which animals do not share. Then again, in self-consciousness, the act of volition is known to us in the most immediate way, but the motive in most cases very indirectly, being often even intentionally veiled, out of consideration for our self-knowledge. This process therefore, in coincidence with the consciousness of that true freedom which belongs to the will, as thing in itself outside phenomenon, produces the deceptive illusion that even the single act of volition is unconditioned and free: that is, without a reason; whereas, when the character is given and the motive recognised, every act of volition really follows with the same strict necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us the laws, and, to use Kant's words, were character and motive exactly known, might be calculated with precisely the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon; or again, to place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant, as Dante says, who is older than Buridan:—