Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/323

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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,

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