the other parts are intended for the _transmission_ of the motive to the muscles in which the will manifests itself directly; in the same proportion does the _motive_ separate ever more distinctly in _consciousness_ from the _act of will_ which it calls forth, thus the _idea_ from the _will_; and thereby the _objectivity_ of consciousness constantly increases, for the ideas exhibit themselves ever more distinctly and purely in it. These two _separations_ are, however, really only one and the same, which we have here considered from two sides, the objective and the subjective, or first in the consciousness of other things and then in self‐consciousness. Upon the degree of this separation ultimately depends the difference and the gradation of intellectual capacity, both between different kinds of animals and between individual human beings; thus it gives the standard for the intellectual completeness of these beings. For the clearness of the consciousness of the external world, the objectivity of the perception, depends upon it. In the passage referred to above I have shown that the brute only perceives things so far as they are _motives_ for its will, and that even the most intelligent of the brutes scarcely overstep these limits, because their intellect is too closely joined to the will from which it has sprung. On the other hand, even the stupidest man comprehends things in some degree _objectively_; for he recognises not merely what they are with reference to him, but also something of what they are with reference to themselves and to other things. Yet in the case of very few does this reach such a degree that they are in a position to examine and judge of anything purely _objectively_; but “that must I do, that must I say, that must I believe,” is the goal to which on every occasion their thought hastens in a direct line, and at which their understanding at once finds welcome rest. For thinking is as unendurable to the weak head as the lifting of a burden to the weak arm; therefore both hasten to set it down. The objectivity of knowledge, and primarily of perceptive knowledge, has innumerable grades, which depend upon the energy of the intellect and its separation from the will, and the highest of which is _genius_, in which the comprehension of the external world becomes so pure and objective that to it even more reveals itself directly in the individual thing than the individual thing itself, namely, the nature of its whole _species_, _i.e._, its Platonic Idea; which is brought about by the fact that in this case the will entirely vanishes from consciousness. Here is the point at which the present investigation, starting from physiological grounds, connects itself with the subject of our third book, the metaphysics of the beautiful, where æsthetic comprehension proper, which, in a high degree, is peculiar to genius alone, is fully considered as the condition of pure, _i.e._, perfectly will‐less, and on that account completely objective