knowledge we have acquired from within as a key to the knowledge of things outside us, and then we recognise the second identity, that of our will with the hitherto mysterious _x_ that remains over after all causal explanation as an insoluble residue. Consequently we then say: even in cases in which the effect is brought about by the most palpable cause, the mysterious _x_ in the process, the real innermost core of it, the true agent, the _in-itself_ of all phenomena--which, after all, is only given us as representation and according to the forms and laws of representation--is essentially one and the same with what is known to us immediately and intimately as _the will_ in the actions of our own body, which body is likewise given us as intuition and representation.--This is (say what you will) the basis of true philosophy, and if the present age does not see this, many following ages will. _Tempo è galant' uomo!_ (_se nessun altro_).--Thus, just as, on the one hand, the essence of causality, which appears most clearly only on the lowest degree of the objectification of the will, is recognised by us again at every ascending step, even at the highest; so also, on the other hand, is the essence of the will recognised by us at every descending step in that ladder, even at the lowest, although this knowledge is only immediately acquired at the very highest. The old error asserts, that where there is will, there is no causality; and that where there is causality, there is no will. But we say: everywhere where there is causality, there is will; and no will acts without causality. The _punctum controversiæ_ therefore, is, whether will and causality can and must subsist together in one and the same process at the same time. What makes the knowledge, that this is indeed the case, so difficult, is the circumstance, that we know causality and will in two fundamentally different ways: causality entirely from outside, quite indirectly, quite through the understanding; will entirely from inside, quite directly; and that accordingly the clearer the knowledge of the one in each given instance, the less clear is the knowledge of the other. Therefore we recognise the essence of the will least readily, where causality is most intelligible; and, where the will is most unmistakably evident, causality becomes so obscured, that the vulgar mind could venture to deny its existence altogether.--Now, as Kant has taught us, causality is nothing but the form of the understanding itself, knowable _à priori_: that is, the essence of _representation_, as such, which is one side of the world; the other side is _will_: which is the thing in itself. That relative increase and decrease of clearness in inverse proportion of causality and of the will, that mutual advancing and receding of both, depends consequently upon the fact, that the more a thing is given us as mere phenomenon, _i.e._ as representation, the more clearly does the _à priori_ form of