The World as Will and Idea — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
The World as Will and Idea
Schopenhauer · German
conditioned by a multiplicity of co-existing parts, and thus only the sum
of the manifestations of the empirical character collectively constitute
the expression of the intelligible character; this necessary co-existence
of the parts and succession of the stages of development does not destroy
the unity of the appearing Idea, the act of will which expresses itself;
nay, rather this unity finds its expression in the necessary relation and
connection of the parts and stages of development with each other, in
accordance with the law of causality. Since it is the will which is one,
indivisible, and therefore entirely in harmony with itself, that reveals
itself in the whole Idea as in act, its manifestation, although broken up
into a number of different parts and conditions, must yet show this unity
again in the thorough agreement of all of these. This is effected by a
necessary relation and dependence of all the parts upon each other, by
means of which the unity of the Idea is re-established in the
manifestation. In accordance with this, we now recognise these different
parts and functions of the organism as related to each other reciprocally
as means and end, but the organism itself as the final end of all.
Consequently, neither the breaking up of the Idea, which in itself is
simple, into the multiplicity of the parts and conditions of the organism,
on the one hand, nor, on the other hand, the re-establishment of its unity
through the necessary connection of the parts and functions which arises
from the fact that they are the cause and effect, the means and end, of
each other, is peculiar and essential to the appearing will as such, to
the thing-in-itself, but only to its manifestation in space, time, and
causality (mere modes of the principle of sufficient reason, the form of
the phenomenon). They belong to the world as idea, not to the world as
will; they belong to the way in which the will becomes object, _i.e._,
idea at this grade of its objectivity. Every one who has grasped the
meaning of this discussion—a discussion which is perhaps somewhat
difficult—will now fully understand the doctrine of Kant, which follows
from it, that both the design of organised and the conformity to law of
unorganised nature are only introduced by our understanding, and therefore
both belong only to the phenomenon, not to the thing-in-itself. The
surprise, which was referred to above, at the infallible constancy of the
conformity to law of unorganised nature, is essentially the same as the
surprise that is excited by design in organised nature; for in both cases
what we wonder at is only the sight of the original unity of the Idea,
which, for the phenomenon, has assumed the form of multiplicity and
diversity.(39)