Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/191

Rh has been said above that this is a direct contradiction, for by the existence of matter we always mean simply its being perceived. But here they encounter the difficulty of bringing to this matter, which alone is their absolute First, the intelligence which is finally to experience it. I have shown this weak side of materialism in § 7 of the first volume. For me, on the contrary, matter and intelligence are inseparable correlates, which exist only for each other, and therefore merely relatively. Matter is the idea of the intelligence; the intelligence is that in whose idea alone matter exists. The two together constitute the world as idea, which is just Kant's phenomenon, and consequently something secondary. What is primary is that which manifests itself, the thing in itself, which we shall afterwards discover is the will. This is in itself neither the perceiver nor the perceived, but is entirely different from the mode of its manifestation.

As a forcible conclusion of this important and difficult discussion I shall now personify these two abstractions, and present them in a dialogue after the fashion of Prabodha Tschandro Daya. It may also be compared with a similar dialogue between matter and form in the "Duodecim Principia Philosophiæ" of Raymund Lully, c. 1 and 2.

The Subject.

I am, and besides me there is nothing. For the world is my idea.

Matter.

Presumptuous delusion! I, I am, and besides me there is nothing, for the world is my fleeting form. Thou art a mere result of a part of this form and altogether accidental.

The Subject.

What insane arrogance! Neither thou nor thy form would exist without me; ye are conditioned by me. Whosoever thinks me away, and believes he can still think