Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/356

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

is even the auxiliary of the future of all the other verbs, thus expressing the notion, that there lies a will at the bottom of every action. In English moreover, the endeavours of all inanimate and unconscious things, are expressly designated by the word "want," which denotes every sort of human desire or endeavour: "the water wants to get out," "the steam wants to make itself way through [Schopenhauer's English]." In Italian too we have "vuol piovere [it will rain];" "quest' orologio non vuol andare [this clock will not go]." The conception of willing is besides so deeply rooted in this last language, that it seems to indicate everything that is requisite or necessary: "vi vuol un contrapeso [it wants a counterweight];" "vi vuol pazienza [it wants patience]."

A very striking instance of this is to be found even in Chinese, a language which differs fundamentally from all those belonging to the Sanskrit family. It is in the commentary to the Y-King [I Ching], 1 accurately rendered by Pater Regis as follows: "Yang, seu materia caelestis, vult rursus ingredi vel (ut verbis doctoris Tching–tse utar) vult rursus esse in superiore loco; scilicet illius naturae ratio ita fert seu innata lex [The Yang, or celestial substance, wants to return to heaven, or (to use the words of the teacher Ching–tse) wants to occupy again a superior place, because its nature necessarily entails this or a law inherent in it]."

The following passage from [Justus] Liebig has decidedly much more than a linguistic signification, for it expresses an intimate feeling and comprehension of the way in which a chemical process takes place. "Aldehyde arises, which with the same avidity as sulphurous acid, combines directly with oxygen to form, acetic acid." And again: 3 "Aldehyde, which absorbs oxygen from the air with great avidity." As Liebig uses this expression twice in speaking of the same phenomenon, it can hardly be by chance, but rather because it was the only adequate expression for the thing. 4

1 Y-King, edited by. J. Mohl, Vol. I, p. 341.

2 Liebig, Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agrikultur, p. 394.

3 Ibid. Die Chemie in Anwendung auf Physiologie.

4 French chemists likewise say: "Il est évident que les métaux ne sont pas tous également avides d oxygène". . . . " La difficulté de la réduction devait correspondre nécessairement à une avidité fort grande du métal pur pour l'oxygène" [It is evident that metals are not