On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition) — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature: Two Essays (revised edition)
Schopenhauer · en
But another different consequence of the clear separation of the will
from the intellect--therefore of the motive from the action,--which
first appears in the human race, is the deceptive illusion of freedom
in our individual actions. Where, as in inorganic nature, causes,
or, as in the vegetable kingdom, stimuli, call forth the effect,
the causal connection is so simple, that there is not even the
slightest semblance of freedom. But already in animal life, where
that which till then had manifested itself as cause or as stimulus,
now appears as a _motive_--and a new world, that of representation,
consequently presents itself, and cause and effect lie in different
spheres--the causal connection between both, and with it the necessity,
are less evident than they were in plants and in inorganic Nature.
Nevertheless they are still unmistakable in animals, whose merely
intuitive representation stands midway between organic functions
induced by stimuli and the deliberate acts of Man. The animal's actions
infallibly follow as soon as the perceptible motive is present,
unless counter-acted by some equally perceptible counter-motive or by
training; yet here representation is already distinct from the act of
volition and comes separately into consciousness. But in Man--whose
representation has enhanced itself even to abstract conception and
who now derives motives and counter-motives for his actions from a
whole invisible thought-world which he carries about with him in his
brain and which makes him independent of presence and of perceptible
surroundings--this connection no longer exists at all for observation
from outside, and even for inward observation it is only knowable
through abstract and mature reflection. For these abstract motives,
when observed from outside, give an impress of deliberation to all
his movements, by which they acquire a semblance of independence
that manifestly distinguishes them from those of animals, yet which
after all only bears evidence to the fact, that Man is actuated by a
class of representations in which animals do not share. Then again,
in self-consciousness, the act of volition is known to us in the
most immediate way, but the motive in most cases very indirectly,
being often even intentionally veiled, out of consideration for
our self-knowledge. This process therefore, in coincidence with the
consciousness of that true freedom which belongs to the will, as thing
in itself outside phenomenon, produces the deceptive illusion that
even the single act of volition is unconditioned and free: that is,
without a reason; whereas, when the character is given and the motive
recognised, every act of volition really follows with the same strict
necessity as the changes of which mechanics teach us the laws, and, to
use Kant's words, were character and motive exactly known, might be
calculated with precisely the same certainty as an eclipse of the moon;
or again, to place a very heterogeneous authority by the side of Kant,