Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/312

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

miracle of its own creation. 1 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 false hood and is as native as genius, asserts the same thing down right; 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.

1 Compare Die Welt a. W. u. V, 3rd edition, vol. II, chap. 26, p. 375. [Add. to 3rd ed]