is the lantern which is extinguished when it has served its end. The
intellect, like the perceptible world which exists only in it, is a mere
phenomenon; but the finiteness of both does not affect that of which they
are the phenomenal appearance. The intellect is the function of the
cerebral nervous system; but the latter, like the rest of the body, is the
objectivity of the _will_. Therefore the intellect depends upon the
somatic life of the organism; but this itself depends upon the will. The
organised body may thus, in a certain sense, be regarded as the link
between the will and the intellect; although really it is only the will
itself exhibiting itself spatially in the perception of the intellect.
Death and birth are the constant renewal of the consciousness of the will,
in itself without end and without beginning, which alone is, as it were,
the substance of existence (but each such renewal brings a new possibility
of the denial of the will to live). Consciousness is the life of the
subject of knowledge, or the brain, and death is its end. And therefore,
finally, consciousness is always new, in each case beginning at the
beginning. The will alone is permanent; and, moreover, it is it alone that
permanence concerns; for it is the will to live. The knowing subject for
itself is not concerned about anything. In the ego, however, the two are
bound up together. In every animal existence the will has achieved an
intellect which is the light by which it here pursues its ends. It may be
remarked by the way that the fear of death may also partly depend upon the
fact that the individual will is so loath to separate from the intellect
which has fallen to its lot through the course of nature, its guide and
guard, without which it knows that it is helpless and blind.
Finally, this explanation also agrees with the commonplace moral
experience which teaches us that the will alone is real, while its
objects, on the other hand, as conditioned by knowledge, are only
phenomena, are only froth and vapour, like the wine which Mephistopheles
provided in Auerbach’s cellar: after every sensuous pleasure we also say,
“And yet it seemed as I were drinking wine.”