Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/259

 PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY. 227

removing it. It creates terror and its consequences, a standstill of the vital process in the parenchyma, especially in the parts directed towards the outer world; in the skin, and in all the motor muscles belonging to the entire individuality (outer body): shuddering, chills, trembling, pains in the limbs, &c. &c. The difference between them is, that in the latter case the noxious element, either at once or gradually, becomes clear representation, because it is compared with the individuality by means of all the senses, so that its relation to that individuality can be determined, and the means of protection against it (disregard, flight, warding off, defence, &c.) be brought to a conscious will; whereas, in the former case, we remain unconscious of that noxious element, and it is life alone (or Nature's curative power) which is striving to remove the noxious element and thereby to content the diseased will. Nor must this be taken for a simile; it is, on the contrary, a true description of the manifestation of life." P. 58: "We must however always bear in mind, that cold acts here as a powerful stimulus to check or moderate the diseased will and to rouse in its place a natural will, accompanied by general warmth."

In almost every page of this book similar expressions are to be found. In the second of the Essays I have named, Brandis no longer combines the explanation by the will so universally with each separate analysis, probably in consideration that this explanation is properly speaking, a metaphysical one. Nevertheless he maintains it entirely and completely, giving it even all the more distinct and decided expression, wherever he states it. Thus, for in stance, in §§ 68 et seq. he speaks of an "unconscious will, which cannot be separated from the conscious one," and is the primum mobile of all life, as well in plants as in animals; for, in these, it is a desire and aversion manifesting itself in all the organs which determines all their vital