Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/333

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whole scale of beings, and by recalling the gradual transition from absolute subjectivity to the highest degrees of objectivity in the intellect. Inorganic Nature namely, is absolutely subjective, no trace whatever of consciousness of an outer world being found in it. Stones, boulders, ice-blocks, even when they fall upon one another, or knock or rub against one another, have no consciousness of each other and of an outer world. Still even these are susceptible to external influence, which causes their position and movement to change and may therefore be considered as a first step towards consciousness. Now, although plants also have no consciousness of the outer world, and although the mere analogue of a consciousness which exists in them must, on the contrary, be conceived as a dull self -enjoyment; yet we see that they all seek light, and that many of them turn their flowers or leaves daily towards the sun, while creepers find their way to supports with which they are not in contact; and finally we see individual kinds of plants show even a sort of irritability. Unquestionably therefore, there is a connection and relation between their movements and surroundings, even those with which they are not in immediate contact; and this connection we must accordingly recognise as a faint analogue to perception. With animal life first appears decided perception, that is, consciousness of other things, as opposed to that clear consciousness of ourselves to which that consciousness of other things first gives rise. This constitutes precisely the true character of animal-nature, as opposed to plant-nature. In the lowest animals, consciousness of the outer world is very limited and dim: each increasing degree of understanding extends it and makes it clearer, and this gradual increase of the understanding again adapts itself to the gradually increasing requirements of the animal, and thus the process continues through the whole long ascend ing scale of the animal series up to Man, in whom consciousness

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