The World as Will and Idea — Schopenhauer — John Shaqi
The World as Will and Idea
Schopenhauer · German
Human beauty was explained above as the fullest objectification of will at
the highest grade at which it is knowable. It expresses itself through the
form; and this lies in space alone, and has no necessary connection with
time, as, for example, motion has. Thus far then we may say: the adequate
objectification of will through a merely spatial phenomenon is beauty, in
the objective sense. A plant is nothing but such a merely spatial
phenomenon of will; for no motion, and consequently no relation to time
(regarded apart from its development), belongs to the expression of its
nature; its mere form expresses its whole being and displays it openly.
But brutes and men require, further, for the full revelation of the will
which is manifested in them, a series of actions, and thus the
manifestation in them takes on a direct relation to time. All this has
already been explained in the preceding book; it is related to what we are
considering at present in the following way. As the merely spatial
manifestation of will can objectify it fully or defectively at each
definite grade,—and it is this which constitutes beauty or ugliness,—so
the temporal objectification of will, _i.e._, the action, and indeed the
direct action, the movement, may correspond to the will, which objectifies
itself in it, purely and fully without foreign admixture, without
superfluity, without defect, only expressing exactly the act of will
determined in each case;—or the converse of all this may occur. In the
first case the movement is made with _grace_, in the second case without
it. Thus as beauty is the adequate representation of will generally,
through its merely spatial manifestation; _grace_ is the adequate
representation of will through its temporal manifestation, that is to say,
the perfectly accurate and fitting expression of each act of will, through
the movement and position which objectify it. Since movement and position
presuppose the body, Winckelmann’s expression is very true and suitable,
when he says, “Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the
action” (Works, vol. i. p. 258). It is thus evident that beauty may be
attributed to a plant, but no grace, unless in a figurative sense; but to
brutes and men, both beauty and grace. Grace consists, according to what
has been said, in every movement being performed, and every position
assumed, in the easiest, most appropriate and convenient way, and
therefore being the pure, adequate expression of its intention, or of the
act of will, without any superfluity, which exhibits itself as aimless,
meaningless bustle, or as wooden stiffness. Grace presupposes as its
condition a true proportion of all the limbs, and a symmetrical,
harmonious figure; for complete ease and evident appropriateness of all
positions and movements are only possible by means of these. Grace is
therefore never without a certain degree of beauty of person. The two,
complete and united, are the most distinct manifestation of will at the