Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/54

38 inertia. Hydraulics shows us the same thing where rigidity is wanting and the fluid material is now unrestrainedly surrendered to its predominating passion, gravity. In this sense hydraulics may be conceived as a characteristic sketch of water, for it presents to us the manifestations of will to which water is moved by gravity; these always correspond exactly to the external influences, for in the case of all non-individual existences there is no particular character in addition to the general one; thus they can easily be referred to fixed characteristics, which are called laws, and which are learned by experience of water. These laws accurately inform us how water will conduct itself under all different circumstances, on account of its gravity, the unconditioned mobility of its parts, and its want of elasticity. Hydrostatics teaches how it is brought to rest through gravity; hydrodynamics, how it is set in motion; and the latter has also to take account of hindrances which adhesion opposes to the will of water: the two together constitute hydraulics. In the same way Chemistry teaches us how the will conducts itself when the inner qualities of materials obtain free play by being brought into a fluid state, and there appears that wonderful attraction and repulsion, separating and combining, leaving go of one to seize upon another, from which every precipitation originates, and the whole of which is denoted by "elective affinity" (an expression which is entirely borrowed from the conscious will). But Anatomy and Physiology allow us to see how the will conducts itself in order to bring about the phenomenon of life and sustain it for a while. Finally, the poet shows us how the will conducts itself under the influence of motives and reflection, He exhibits it therefore for the most part in the most perfect of its manifestations, in rational beings, whose character is individual, and whose conduct and suffering he brings before us in the Drama, the Epic, the Romance, &c. The more correctly, the more strictly according to the laws of nature his characters are there presented, the