Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/330

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

deducted from them the incomparably larger share of the cerebral function, which includes precisely what Locke calls primary qualities. But all I have done here has been to show why all this must necessarily be as it is, by indicating the place occupied by the intellect in the nexus of Nature, when we start realistically from the objective as given, but, in doing so, take the only thing of which we are quite directly conscious, the will that true που στω [site] of Metaphysics, for our support, as being what is primarily real, everything else being merely its phenomenon. What now follows serves to complete this.

I have mentioned already, that where knowledge takes place, the motive which appears as representation and the act of volition resulting from it, remain the more clearly separated one from the other, the more perfect the intellect; that is, the higher we ascend in the scale of beings. This calls for fuller explanation. As long as the will's activity is roused by stimuli alone, and no representation as yet takes place, that is, in plants there is no separation at all between the receiving of impressions and the being determined by them. In the lowest order of animal in telligence, such as we find it in radiaria radiolarians, acalepha jellyfish, acephala mussels, shellfish, &c., the difference is still small; a feeling of hunger, a watchfulness roused by this, an apprehending and snapping at their prey, still constitute the whole content of their consciousness; nevertheless this is the first twilight of the dawning world as representation, the background of which, that is to say, everything excepting the motive which acts each time still remains shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Here moreover the organs of the senses are correspondingly imperfect and incomplete, having exceedingly few data for perception to bring to an understanding yet in embryo. Nevertheless wherever there is sensibility, it is always accompanied by understanding, i.e. with the faculty for referring effects experienced to

PHYSIOLOGY