[188] As will be seen by the following detailed exposition, Schopenhauer attaches a far wider meaning to the word than is usually given, and regards the _will_, not merely as _conscious volition_ enlightened by Reason and determined by motives, but as the fundamental essence of all that occurs, even where there is no choice. [Tr.] _that_ accordingly, this _will_, far from being inseparable from, and even a mere result of, _knowledge_, differs radically and entirely from, and is quite independent of, knowledge, which is secondary and of later origin; and can consequently subsist and manifest itself without knowledge: a thing which actually takes place throughout the whole of Nature, from the animal kingdom downwards; _that_ this _will_, being the one and only thing in itself, the sole truly real, primary, metaphysical thing in a world in which everything else is only phenomenon--_i.e._ mere representation--gives all things, whatever they may be, the power to exist and to act; _that_ accordingly, not only the voluntary actions of animals, but the organic mechanism, nay even the shape and quality of their living body, the vegetation of plants and finally, even in inorganic Nature, crystallization, and in general every primary force which manifests itself in physical and chemical phenomena, not excepting Gravity,--that all this, I say, in itself, _i.e._ independently of phenomenon (which only means, independently of our brain and its representations), is absolutely identical with the _will_ we find within us and know as intimately as we can know anything; _that_ further, the individual manifestations of the will are set in motion by _motives_ in beings gifted with an intellect, but no less by _stimuli_ in the organic life of animals and of plants, and finally in all inorganic Nature, by _causes_ in the narrowest sense of the word--these distinctions applying exclusively to phenomena; _that_, on the other hand, knowledge with its substratum, the intellect, is a merely secondary phenomenon, differing completely from the will, only accompanying its higher degrees of objectification and not essential to it; which, as it depends upon the manifestations of the will in the animal organism, is therefore physical, and not, like the will, metaphysical; _that_ we are never able therefore to infer absence of will from absence of knowledge; for the will may be pointed out even in all phenomena of unconscious Nature, whether in plants or in inorganic bodies; in short, _that_ the will is not conditioned by knowledge, as has hitherto been universally assumed, although knowledge _is_ conditioned by the will.