Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/326

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

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. 1 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

1 Compare The World as Will and Representation, vol. ii, chap. 22: "Objective View of the Intellect."

PHYSIOLOGY