Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/343

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moves. Matter is external existence; it has powers of motion, but it only brings them into play under certain spacial conditions and external oppositions: the soul alone is an ever active and internal thing, and only those bodies which have souls find within themselves inducement to move, and move of their own free will, independently of outer mechanical circumstances."

Now here however I must say, as [Peter] Abelard once did: si omnes patres sic, at ego non sic [Although the church fathers say so, I do not say so]: for, in opposition to this principle, however great may be its antiquity and universality, my doctrine maintains, that there are not two origins of movement differing fundamentally from one another; that movement does not proceed either from inside, when it is ascribed to the will, or from outside, when it is brought about by causes; but that both things are inseparable and take place simultaneously with every movement made by a body. For movement which is admitted to arise from the will, always presupposes a cause also: this cause, in beings that have knowledge, is a motive; but without it, even in these beings, movement is impossible. On the other hand, the movement of a body which is admitted to have been brought about by an outward cause, is nevertheless in itself a manifestation of the will of that body which has only been evoked by that cause. Accordingly there is only one, uniform, universal and exceptionless principle of all movement, whose inner condition is will and whose outer occasion is cause, which latter may also take the form of a stimulus or of a motive, according to the nature of the thing moved.

All that is known to us of things in a merely empirical or a posteriori way, is in itself will; whereas, so far as they can be determined a priori, things belong exclusively to representation, to mere phenomenon. Natural phenomena therefore become proportionately less easy to comprehend, the more distinctly the will manifests itself

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