Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/563

 THE WORLD AS WILL AND IDEA. 541 The world is per se will. None of the predicates ar; to be attributed to the primal will which we ascribe to things in consequence of our subjective forms of thought — neither determination by causes or ends, nor plurality : it stands outside the law of causality, as also outside space and tirne^ which form the principium individuatioiiis. The primal will is groundless, blind stress, unconscious impulse toward existence ; it is one, the one and all, 'iv nai nav. That which manifests itself as gravity, as magnetic force, as the impulse to growth, as the vis medicatrix naturce, is only this one world-will, whose unity (not conscious character!) shows itself in the purposiveness of its embodiments. The essence of each thing, its hidden quality, at which empiri- cal explanation finds its limit, is its will : the essence of the stone is its will to fall; that of the lungs is the will to breathe ; teeth, throat, and bowels are hunger ob- jectified. Those qualities in which the universal will gives itself material manifestation form a series with grades of increasing perfection, a realm of unchangeable specific forms or eternal Ideas, which (with a real value difficult to determine) stand midway between the one primal will and the numberless individual beings. That the organic indi- vidual does not perfectly correspond to the ideal of its species, but only approximates this more or less closely, is grounded in the fact that the stadia in the objectification of the will, or the Ideas, contend, as it were, for matter ; and whatever of force is used up in the victory of the higher Ideas over the lower is lost for the development of the exam- ples of the former. The higher the level on which a being stands the clearer the expression of its individuality. The m'bst general forces of nature, which constitute the raw mass, play the fundamental bass in the world-symphony, the higher stages of inorganic nature, with the vegetable and animal worlds, the harmonious middle parts, and man the guiding treble, the significant melody. With the human brain_the world as idea is given at a stroke; in this organ the^ill has kindled a torch in order to throw light upon itself and to carry out its designs with careful deliberation ; it has brought forth the intellect as its instrument, which, with the great majority of men, remains in a position of