stand before us with increased clearness and distinctness, so that we are conscious almost only of them and scarcely at all of ourselves; thus our whole consciousness is almost nothing more than the medium through which the perceived object appears in the world as an idea. Thus it is necessary for pure, will‐less knowledge that the consciousness of ourselves should vanish, since the consciousness of other things is raised to such a pitch. For we only apprehend the world in a purely objective manner when we no longer know that we belong to it; and all things appear the more beautiful the more we are conscious merely of them and the less we are conscious of ourselves. Since now all suffering proceeds from the will, which constitutes the real self, with the withdrawal of this side of consciousness all possibility of suffering is also abolished; therefore the condition of the pure objectivity of perception is one which throughout gives pleasure; and hence I have shown that in it lies one of the two constituent elements of æsthetic satisfaction. As soon, on the other hand, as the consciousness of our own self, thus subjectivity, _i.e._, the will, again obtains the upper hand, a proportional degree of discomfort or unrest also enters; of discomfort, because our corporealness (the organism which in itself is the will) is again felt; of unrest, because the will, on the path of thought, again fills the consciousness through wishes, emotions, passions, and cares. For the will, as the principle of subjectivity, is everywhere the opposite, nay, the antagonist of knowledge. The greatest concentration of subjectivity consists in the _act of will_ proper, in which therefore we have the most distinct consciousness of our own self. All other excitements of the will are only preparations for this; the act of will itself is for subjectivity what for the electric apparatus is the passing of the spark. Every bodily sensation is in itself an excitement of the will, and indeed oftener of the _noluntas_ than of the _voluntas_. The excitement of the will on the path of thought is that which occurs by means of motives; thus here the subjectivity is awakened and set in play by the objectivity itself. This takes place whenever any object is apprehended no longer in a purely objective manner, thus without participation in it, but, directly or indirectly, excites desire or aversion, even if it is only by means of a recollection, for then it acts as a motive in the widest sense of the word.