It is as if nature had wished, in the mechanical tendencies of animals, to give the investigator an illustrative commentary upon her works, according to final causes and the admirable design of her organised productions which is thereby introduced. For these mechanical tendencies show most clearly that creatures can work with the greatest decision and definiteness towards an end which they do not know, nay, of which they have no idea. Such, for instance, is the bird's nest, the spider's web, the ant-lion's pitfall, the ingenious bee-hive, the marvellous termite dwelling, &c., at least for those individual animals that carry them out for the first time; for neither the form of the perfected work nor the use of it can be known to them. Precisely so, however, does organising nature work; and therefore in the preceding chapter I gave the paradoxical explanation of the final cause, that it is a motive which acts without being known. And as in working from mechanical tendency that which is active is evidently and confessedly the will, so is it also really the will which is active in the working of organising nature.
One might say, the will of animal creatures is set in motion in two different ways: either by motivation or by instinct; thus from without, or from within; by an external occasion, or by an internal tendency; the former is explicable because it lies before us without, the latter is inexplicable because it is merely internal. But, more [pg 097] closely considered, the contrast between the two is not so sharp, indeed ultimately it runs back into a difference of degree. The motive also only acts under the assumption of an inner tendency, i.e., a definite quality of will which is called its character. The motive in each case only gives to this a definite direction—individualises it for the concrete case. So also instinct, although a definite tendency of the will, does not act entirely, like a spring, from within; but it also waits for some external circumstance necessarily demanded for its action, which at least determines the time of its manifestation; such is, for the migrating bird, the season of the year; for the bird that builds its nest, the fact of pregnancy and the presence of the material for the nest; for the bee it is, for the beginning of the structure, the basket or the hollow tree, and for the following work many individually appearing circumstances; for the spider, it is a well-adapted corner; for the caterpillar, the suitable leaf; for egg-laying insects, the for the most part very specially determined and often rare place, where the hatched larvæ will at once find their nourishment, and so on. It follows from this that in works of mechanical tendency it is primarily the instinct of these animals that is active, yet subordinated also to their intellect. The instinct gives the universal, the rule; the intellect the particular, the application, in that it directs the detail of the execution, in which therefore the work of these animals clearly adapts itself to the circumstances of the existing case. According to all this, the difference between instinct and mere character is to be fixed thus: Instinct is a character which is only set in motion by a quite specially determined motive, and on this account the action that proceeds from it is always exactly of the same kind; while the character which is possessed by every species of animal and every individual man is certainly a permanent and unalterable quality of will, which can yet be set in motion by very different motives, and adapts itself to these; and on account of [pg 098] this the action proceeding from it may, according to its material quality, be very different, but yet will always bear the stamp of the same character, and will therefore express and reveal this; so that for the knowledge of this character the material quality of the action in which it appears is essentially a matter of indifference. Accordingly we might explain instinct as a character which is beyond all measure one-sided and strictly determined. It follows from this exposition that being determined by mere motivation presupposes a certain width of the sphere of knowledge, and consequently a more fully developed intellect: therefore it is peculiar to the higher animals, quite pre-eminently, however, to man; while being determined by instinct only demands as much intellect as is necessary to apprehend the one quite specially determined motive, which alone and exclusively becomes the occasion for the manifestation of the instinct. Therefore it is found in the case of an exceedingly limited sphere of knowledge, and consequently, as a rule, and in the highest degree, only in animals of the lower classes, especially insects. Since, accordingly, the actions of these animals only require an exceedingly simple and small motivation from without, the medium of this, thus the intellect or the brain, is very slightly developed in them, and their outward actions are for the most part under the same guidance as the inner, follow upon mere stimuli, physiological functions, thus the ganglion system. This is, then, in their case excessively developed; their principal nerve-stem runs under the belly in the form of two cords, which at every limb of the body form a ganglion little inferior to the brain in size, and, according to Cuvier, this nerve-stem is an analogue not so much of the spinal cord as of the great sympathetic nerve. According to all this, instinct and action through mere motivation, stand in a certain antagonism, in consequence of which the former has its maximum in insects, and the latter in man, and the actuation of other animals lies between the two in manifold [pg 099] gradations according as in each the cerebral or the ganglion system is preponderatingly developed. Just because the instinctive action and the ingenious contrivances of insects are principally directed from the ganglion system, if we regard them as proceeding from the brain alone, and wish to explain them accordingly, we fall into absurdities, because we then apply a false key. The same circumstance, however, imparts to their action a remarkable likeness to that of somnambulists, which indeed is also explained as arising from the fact that, instead of the brain, the sympathetic nerve has undertaken the conduct of the outward actions also; insects are accordingly, to a certain extent, natural somnambulists. Things which we cannot get at directly we must make comprehensible to ourselves by means of an analogy. What has just been referred to will accomplish this in a high degree when assisted by the fact that in Kieser's “Tellurismus” (vol. ii. p. 250) a case is mentioned “in which the command of the mesmerist to the somnambulist to perform a definite action in a waking state was carried out by him when he awoke, without remembering the command.” Thus it was as if he must perform that action without rightly knowing why. Certainly this has the greatest resemblance to what goes on in the case of mechanical instincts in insects. The young spider feels that it must spin its web, although it neither knows nor understands the aim of it. We are also reminded here of the dæmon of Socrates, on account of which he had the feeling that he must leave undone some action expected of him, or lying near him, without knowing why—for his prophetic dream about it was forgotten. We have in our own day quite well-authenticated cases analogous to this; therefore I only briefly call these to mind. One had taken his passage on a ship, but when it was about to sail he positively would not go on board without being conscious of a reason;—the ship went down. Another goes with companions to a powder magazine; when he [pg 100] has arrived in its vicinity he absolutely will not go any further, but turns hastily back, seized with anxiety he knows not why;—the magazine blows up. A third upon the ocean feels moved one night, without any reason, not to undress, but lays himself on the bed in his clothes and boots, and even with his spectacles on;—in the night the ship goes on fire, and he is among the few who save themselves in the boat. All this depends upon the dull after-effect of forgotten fatidical dreams, and gives us the key to an analogous understanding of instinct and mechanical tendencies.
On the other hand, as has been said, the mechanical tendencies of insects reflect much light upon the working of the unconscious will in the inner functions of the organism and in its construction. For without any difficulty we can see in the ant-hill or the beehive the picture of an organism explained and brought to the light of knowledge. In this sense Burdach says (Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 22): “The formation and depositing of the eggs is the part of the queen-bee, and the care for the cultivation of them falls to the workers; thus in the former the ovary, and in the latter the uterus, is individualised.” In the insect society, as in the animal organism, the vita propria of each part is subordinated to the life of the whole, and the care for the whole precedes that for particular existence; indeed the latter is only conditionally willed, the former unconditionally; therefore the individuals are even sacrificed occasionally for the whole, as we allow a limb to be taken off in order to save the whole body. Thus, for example, if the path is closed by water against the march of the ants, those in front boldly throw themselves in until their corpses are heaped up into a dam for those that follow. When the drones have become useless they are stung to death. Two queens in the hive are surrounded, and must fight with each other till one of them loses its life. The ant-mother bites its own wings off after it has been impregnated, for they would only be a hindrance [pg 101] to it in the work that is before it of tending the new family it is about to found under the earth (Kirby and Spence, vol. i.) As the liver will do nothing more than secrete gall for the service of the digestion, nay, will only itself exist for this end—and so with every other part—the working bees also will do nothing more than collect honey, secrete wax, and make cells for the brood of the queen; the drones nothing more than impregnate; the queen nothing but deposit eggs; thus all the parts work only for the maintenance of the whole which alone is the unconditional end, just like the parts of the organism. The difference is merely that in the organism the will acts perfectly blindly in its primary condition; in the insect society, on the other hand, the thing goes on already in the light of knowledge, to which, however, a decided co-operation and individual choice is only left in the accidents of detail, where it gives assistance and adopts what has to be carried out to the circumstances. But the insects will the end as a whole without knowing it; just like organised nature working according to final causes; even the choice of the means is not as a whole left to their knowledge, but only the more detailed disposition of them. Just on this account, however, their action is by no means automatic, which becomes most distinctly visible if one opposes obstacles to their action. For example, the caterpillar spins itself in leaves without knowing the end; but if we destroy the web it skilfully repairs it. Bees adapt their hive at the first to the existing circumstances, and subsequent misfortunes, such as intentional destruction, they meet in the way most suitable to the special case (Kirby and Spence, Introduc. to Entomol.; Huber, Des abeilles). Such things excite our astonishment, because the apprehension of the circumstances and the adaptation to these is clearly a matter of knowledge; while we believe them capable once for all of the most ingenious preparation for the coming race and the distant future, well knowing that in this they are not guided by knowledge, for a forethought of [pg 102] that kind proceeding from knowledge demands an activity of the brain rising to the level of reason. On the other hand, the intellect even of the lower animals is sufficient for the modifying and arranging of the particular case according to the existing or appearing circumstances; because, guided by instinct, it has only to fill up the gaps which this leaves. Thus we see ants carry off their larvæ whenever the place is too damp, and bring them back again when it becomes dry. They do not know the aim of this, thus are not guided in it by knowledge; but the choice of the time at which the place is no longer suitable for the larvæ, and also of the place to which they now bring them, is left to their knowledge. I wish here also to mention a fact which some one related to me verbally from his own experience, though I have since found that Burdach quotes it from Gleditsch. The latter, in order to test the burying-beetle (Necrophorus vespillo), had tied a dead frog lying upon the ground to a string, the upper end of which was fastened to a stick stuck obliquely in the ground. Now after several burying-beetles had, according to their custom, undermined the frog, it could not, as they expected, sink into the ground; after much perplexed running hither and thither they undermined the stick also. To this assistance rendered to instinct, and that repairing of the works of mechanical tendency, we find in the organism the healing power of nature analogous, which not only heals wounds, replacing even bone and nerve substance, but, if through the injury of a vein or nerve branch a connection is interrupted, opens a new connection by means of enlargement of other veins or nerves, nay, perhaps even by producing new branches; which further makes some other part or function take the place of a diseased part or function; in the case of the loss of an eye sharpens the other, or in the case of the loss of one of the senses sharpens all the rest; which even sometimes closes an intestinal wound, in itself fatal, by the adhesion of the mesentery or the peritoneum; in short, seeks to meet every [pg 103] injury and every disturbance in the most ingenious manner. If, on the other hand, the injury is quite incurable, it hastens to expedite death, and indeed the more so the higher is the species of the organism, thus the greater its sensibility. Even this has its analogue in the instinct of insects. The wasps, for instance, who through the whole summer have with great care and labour fed their larvæ on the produce of their plundering, but now, in October, see the last generation of them facing starvation, sting them to death (Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p. 374). Nay, still more curious and special analogies may be found; for example, this: if the female humble-bee (Apis terrestris, bombylius) lays eggs, the working humble-bees are seized with a desire to devour them, which lasts from six to eight hours and is satisfied unless the mother keeps them off and carefully guards the eggs. But after this time the working humble-bees show absolutely no inclination to eat the eggs even when offered to them; on the contrary, they now become the zealous tenders and nourishers of the larvæ now being hatched out. This may without violence be taken as an analogue of children's complaints, especially teething, in which it is just the future nourishers of the organism making an attack upon it which so often costs it its life. The consideration of all these analogies between organised life and the instinct, together with the mechanical tendencies of the lower animals, serves ever more to confirm the conviction that the will is the basis of the one as of the other, for it shows here also the subordinate rôle of knowledge in the action of the will, sometimes more, sometimes less, confined, and sometimes wanting altogether.
But in yet another respect instincts and the animal organisation reciprocally illustrate each other: through the anticipation of the future which appears in both. By means of instincts and mechanical tendencies animals care for the satisfaction of wants which they do not yet feel, nay, not only for their own wants, but even for those [pg 104] of the future brood. Thus they work for an end which is as yet unknown to them. This goes so far, as I have illustrated by the example of the Bombex in “The Will in Nature” (second edit. p. 45, third edit. p. 47), that they pursue and kill in advance the enemies of their future eggs. In the same way we see the future wants of an animal, its prospective ends, anticipated in its whole corporisation by the organised implements for their attainment and satisfaction; from which, then, proceeds that perfect adaptation of the structure of every animal to its manner of life, that equipment of it with the needful weapons to attack its prey and to ward off its enemies, and that calculation of its whole form with reference to the element and the surroundings in which it has to appear as a pursuer, which I have fully described in my work on the will in nature under the rubric “Comparative Anatomy.” All these anticipations, both in the instinct and in the organisation of animals, we might bring under the conception of a knowledge a priori, if knowledge lay at their foundation at all. But this is, as we have shown, not the case. Their source lies deeper than the sphere of knowledge, in the will as the thing in itself, which as such remains free even from the forms of knowledge; therefore with reference to it time has no significance, consequently the future lies as near it as the present.
Our second book closed with the question as to the goal and aim of that will which had shown itself to be the inner nature of all things in the world. The following remarks may serve to supplement the answer to this question given there in general terms, for they lay down the character of the will as a whole.
Such a characterisation is possible because we have recognised as the inner nature of the world something thoroughly real and empirically given. On the other hand, the very name “world-soul,” by which many have denoted that inner being, gives instead of this a mere ens rationis; for “soul” signifies an individual unity of consciousness which clearly does not belong to that nature, and in general, since the conception “soul” supposes knowing and willing in inseparable connection and yet independent of the animal organism, it is not to be justified, and therefore not to be used. The word should never be applied except in a metaphorical sense, for it is much more insidious than ψυχη or anima, which signify breath.
Much more unsuitable, however, is the way in which so-called pantheists express themselves, whose whole philosophy consists chiefly in this, that they call the inner nature of the world, which is unknown to them, “God;” by which indeed they imagine they have achieved much. According to this, then, the world would be a theophany. But let one only look at it: this world of constantly needy [pg 106] creatures, who continue for a time only by devouring one another, fulfil their existence in anxiety and want, and often suffer terrible miseries, till at last they fall into the arms of death; whoever distinctly looks upon this will allow that Aristotle was right in saying: “ἡ φυσις δαιομονια, αλλ᾽ ου θεια εστι” (Natura dæmonia est, non divina), De divinat., c. 2, p. 463; nay, he will be obliged to confess that a God who could think of changing Himself into such a world as this must certainly have been tormented by the devil. I know well that the pretended philosophers of this century follow Spinoza in this, and think themselves thereby justified. But Spinoza had special reasons for thus naming his one substance, in order, namely, to preserve at least the word, although not the thing. The stake of Giordano Bruno and of Vanini was still fresh in the memory; they also had been sacrificed to that God for whose honour incomparably more human sacrifices have bled than on the altars of all heathen gods of both hemispheres together. If, then, Spinoza calls the world God, it is exactly the same thing as when Rousseau in the “Contrat social,” constantly and throughout denotes the people by the word le souverain; we might also compare it with this, that once a prince who intended to abolish the nobility in his land, in order to rob no one of his own, hit upon the idea of ennobling all his subjects. Those philosophers of our day have certainly one other ground for the nomenclature we are speaking of, but it is no more substantial. In their philosophising they all start, not from the world or our consciousness of it, but from God, as something given and known; He is not their quæsitum, but their datum. If they were boys I would then explain to them that this is a petitio principii, but they know this as well as I do. But since Kant has shown that the path of the earlier dogmatism, which proceeded honestly, the path from the world to a God, does not lead there, these gentlemen now imagine they have found a fine way of escape and made it cunningly. Will [pg 107] the reader of a later age pardon me for detaining him with persons of whom he has never heard.
Every glance at the world, to explain which is the task of the philosopher, confirms and proves that will to live, far from being an arbitrary hypostasis or an empty word, is the only true expression of its inmost nature. Everything presses and strives towards existence, if possible organised existence, i.e., life, and after that to the highest possible grade of it. In animal nature it then becomes apparent that will to live is the keynote of its being, its one unchangeable and unconditioned quality. Let any one consider this universal desire for life, let him see the infinite willingness, facility, and exuberance with which the will to live presses impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment, by means of fructification and of germs, nay, when these are wanting, by means of generatio æquivoca, seizing every opportunity, eagerly grasping for itself every material capable of life: and then again let him cast a glance at its fearful alarm and wild rebellion when in any particular phenomenon it must pass out of existence; especially when this takes place with distinct consciousness. Then it is precisely the same as if in this single phenomenon the whole world would be annihilated for ever, and the whole being of this threatened living thing is at once transformed into the most desperate struggle against death and resistance to it. Look, for example, at the incredible anxiety of a man in danger of his life, the rapid and serious participation in this of every witness of it, and the boundless rejoicing at his deliverance. Look at the rigid terror with which a sentence of death is heard, the profound awe with which we regard the preparations for carrying it out, and the heartrending compassion which seizes us at the execution itself. We would then suppose there was something quite different in question than a few less years of an empty, sad existence, embittered by troubles of every kind, and always uncertain: [pg 108] we would rather be amazed that it was a matter of any consequence whether one attained a few years earlier to the place where after an ephemeral existence he has billions of years to be. In such phenomena, then, it becomes visible that I am right in declaring that the will to live is that which cannot be further explained, but lies at the foundation of all explanations, and that this, far from being an empty word, like the absolute, the infinite, the idea, and similar expressions, is the most real thing we know, nay, the kernel of reality itself.
But if now, abstracting for a while from this interpretation drawn from our inner being, we place ourselves as strangers over against nature, in order to comprehend it objectively, we find that from the grade of organised life upwards it has only one intention—that of the maintenance of the species. To this end it works, through the immense superfluity of germs, through the urgent vehemence of the sexual instinct, through its willingness to adapt itself to all circumstances and opportunities, even to the production of bastards, and through the instinctive maternal affection, the strength of which is so great that in many kinds of animals it even outweighs self-love, so that the mother sacrifices her life in order to preserve that of the young. The individual, on the contrary, has for nature only an indirect value, only so far as it is the means of maintaining the species. Apart from this its existence is to nature a matter of indifference; indeed nature even leads it to destruction as soon as it has ceased to be useful for this end. Why the individual exists would thus be clear; but why does the species itself exist? That is a question which nature when considered merely objectively cannot answer. For in vain do we seek by contemplating her for an end of this restless striving, this ceaseless pressing into existence, this anxious care for the maintenance of the species. The strength and time of the individuals are consumed in the effort to procure sustenance for themselves and their young, and are only just sufficient, sometimes even [pg 109] not sufficient, for this. Even if here and there a surplus of strength, and therefore of comfort—in the case of the one rational species also of knowledge—remains, this is much too insignificant to pass for the end of that whole process of nature. The whole thing, when regarded thus purely objectively, and indeed as extraneous to us, looks as if nature was only concerned that of all her (Platonic) Ideas, i.e., permanent forms, none should be lost. Accordingly, as if she had so thoroughly satisfied herself with the fortunate discovery and combination of these Ideas (for which the three preceding occasions on which she stocked the earth's surface with animals were only the preparation), that now her only fear is lest any one of these beautiful fancies should be lost, i.e., lest any one of these forms should disappear from time and the causal series. For the individuals are fleeting as the water in the brook; the Ideas, on the contrary, are permanent, like its eddies: but the exhaustion of the water would also do away with the eddies. We would have to stop at this unintelligible view if nature were known to us only from without, thus were given us merely objectively, and we accepted it as it is comprehended by knowledge, and also as sprung from knowledge, i.e., in the sphere of the idea, and were therefore obliged to confine ourselves to this province in solving it. But the case is otherwise, and a glance at any rate is afforded us into the interior of nature; inasmuch as this is nothing else than our own inner being, which is precisely where nature, arrived at the highest grade to which its striving could work itself up, is now by the light of knowledge found directly in self-consciousness. Here the will shows itself to us as something toto genere different from the idea, in which nature appears unfolded in all her (Platonic) Ideas; and it now gives us, at one stroke, the explanation which could never be found upon the objective path of the idea. Thus the subjective here gives the key for the exposition of the objective. In order to recognise, as something original and unconditioned, that exceedingly strong [pg 110] tendency of all animals and men to retain life and carry it on as long as possible—a tendency which was set forth above as characteristic of the subjective, or of the will—it is necessary to make clear to ourselves that this is by no means the result of any objective knowledge of the worth of life, but is independent of all knowledge; or, in other words, that those beings exhibit themselves, not as drawn from in front, but as impelled from behind.
If with this intention we first of all review the interminable series of animals, consider the infinite variety of their forms, as they exhibit themselves always differently modified according to their element and manner of life, and also ponder the inimitable ingenuity of their structure and mechanism, which is carried out with equal perfection in every individual; and finally, if we take into consideration the incredible expenditure of strength, dexterity, prudence, and activity which every animal has ceaselessly to make through its whole life; if, approaching the matter more closely, we contemplate the untiring diligence of wretched little ants, the marvellous and ingenious industry of the bees, or observe how a single burying-beetle (Necrophorus vespillo) buries a mole of forty times its own size in two days in order to deposit its eggs in it and insure nourishment for the future brood (Gleditsch, Physik. Bot. Œkon. Abhandl., iii. 220), at the same time calling to mind how the life of most insects is nothing but ceaseless labour to prepare food and an abode for the future brood which will arise from their eggs, and which then, after they have consumed the food and passed through the chrysalis state, enter upon life merely to begin again from the beginning the same labour; then also how, like this, the life of the birds is for the most part taken up with their distant and laborious migrations, then with the building of their nests and the collecting of food for the brood, which itself has to play the same rôle the following year; and so all work constantly for the future, which afterwards makes bankrupt;—then we cannot avoid looking round for the reward [pg 111] of all this skill and trouble, for the end which these animals have before their eyes, which strive so ceaselessly—in short, we are driven to ask: What is the result? what is attained by the animal existence which demands such infinite preparation? And there is nothing to point to but the satisfaction of hunger and the sexual instinct, or in any case a little momentary comfort, as it falls to the lot of each animal individual, now and then in the intervals of its endless need and struggle. If we place the two together, the indescribable ingenuity of the preparations, the enormous abundance of the means, and the insufficiency of what is thereby aimed at and attained, the insight presses itself upon us that life is a business, the proceeds of which are very far from covering the cost of it. This becomes most evident in some animals of a specially simple manner of life. Take, for example, the mole, that unwearied worker. To dig with all its might with its enormous shovel claws is the occupation of its whole life; constant night surrounds it; its embryo eyes only make it avoid the light. It alone is truly an animal nocturnum; not cats, owls, and bats, who see by night. But what, now, does it attain by this life, full of trouble and devoid of pleasure? Food and the begetting of its kind; thus only the means of carrying on and beginning anew the same doleful course in new individuals. In such examples it becomes clear that there is no proportion between the cares and troubles of life and the results or gain of it. The consciousness of the world of perception gives a certain appearance of objective worth of existence to the life of those animals which can see, although in their case this consciousness is entirely subjective and limited to the influence of motives upon them. But the blind mole, with its perfect organisation and ceaseless activity, limited to the alternation of insect larvæ and hunger, makes the disproportion of the means to the end apparent. In this respect the consideration of the animal world left to itself in lands uninhabited by men is also specially instructive. [pg 112] A beautiful picture of this, and of the suffering which nature prepares for herself without the interference of man, is given by Humboldt in his “Ansichten der Natur” (second edition, p. 30 et seq.); nor does he neglect to cast a glance (p. 44) at the analogous suffering of the human race, always and everywhere at variance with itself. Yet in the simple and easily surveyed life of the brutes the emptiness and vanity of the struggle of the whole phenomenon is more easily grasped. The variety of the organisations, the ingenuity of the means, whereby each is adapted to its element and its prey contrasts here distinctly with the want of any lasting final aim; instead of which there presents itself only momentary comfort, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants, much and long suffering, constant strife, bellum omnium, each one both a hunter and hunted, pressure, want, need, and anxiety, shrieking and howling; and this goes on in secula seculorum, or till once again the crust of the planet breaks. Yunghahn relates that he saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large turtles, five feet long and three feet broad, and the same height, which come this way out of the sea in order to lay their eggs, and are then attacked by wild dogs (Canis rutilans), who with their united strength lay them on their backs, strip off their lower armour, that is, the small shell of the stomach, and so devour them alive. But often then a tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all this misery repeats itself thousands and thousands of times, year out, year in. For this, then, these turtles are born. For whose guilt must they suffer this torment? Wherefore the whole scene of horror? To this the only answer is: it is thus that the will to live objectifies itself.7 Let one [pg 113] consider it well and comprehend it in all its objectifications; and then one will arrive at an understanding of its nature and of the world; but not if one frames general conceptions and builds card houses out of them. The comprehension of the great drama of the objectification of [pg 114] the will to live, and the characterisation of its nature, certainly demands somewhat more accurate consideration and greater thoroughness than the dismissal of the world by attributing to it the title of God, or, with a silliness which only the German fatherland offers and knows how to enjoy, explaining it as the “Idea in its other being,” in which for twenty years the simpletons of my time have found their unutterable delight. Certainly, according to pantheism or Spinozism, of which the systems of our century are mere travesties, all that sort of thing reels itself off actually without end, straight on through all eternity. For then the world is a God, ens perfectissimum, i.e., nothing better can be or be conceived. Thus there is no need of deliverance from it; and consequently there is none. But why the whole tragi-comedy exists cannot in the least be seen; for it has no spectators, and the actors themselves undergo infinite trouble, with little and merely negative pleasure.
Let us now add the consideration of the human race. The matter indeed becomes more complicated, and assumes a certain seriousness of aspect; but the fundamental character remains unaltered. Here also life presents itself by no means as a gift for enjoyment, but as a task, a drudgery to be performed; and in accordance with this we see, in great and small, universal need, ceaseless cares, constant pressure, endless strife, compulsory activity, with extreme exertion of all the powers of body and mind. Many millions, united into nations, strive for the common good, each individual on account of his own; but many thousands fall as a sacrifice for it. Now senseless delusions, now intriguing politics, incite them to wars with each other; then the sweat and the blood of the great multitude must flow, to carry out the ideas of individuals, or to expiate their faults. In peace industry and trade are active, inventions work miracles, seas are navigated, delicacies are collected from all ends of the world, the waves engulf thousands. All strive, some planning, [pg 115] others acting; the tumult is indescribable. But the ultimate aim of it all, what is it? To sustain ephemeral and tormented individuals through a short span of time in the most fortunate case with endurable want and comparative freedom from pain, which, however, is at once attended with ennui; then the reproduction of this race and its striving. In this evident disproportion between the trouble and the reward, the will to live appears to us from this point of view, if taken objectively, as a fool, or subjectively, as a delusion, seized by which everything living works with the utmost exertion of its strength for something that is of no value. But when we consider it more closely, we shall find here also that it is rather a blind pressure, a tendency entirely without ground or motive.
The law of motivation, as was shown in § 29 of the first volume, only extends to the particular actions, not to willing as a whole and in general. It depends upon this, that if we conceive of the human race and its action as a whole and universally, it does not present itself to us, as when we contemplate the particular actions, as a play of puppets who are pulled after the ordinary manner by threads outside them; but from this point of view, as puppets which are set in motion by internal clockwork. For if, as we have done above, one compares the ceaseless, serious, and laborious striving of men with what they gain by it, nay, even with what they ever can gain, the disproportion we have pointed out becomes apparent, for one recognises that that which is to be gained, taken as the motive-power, is entirely insufficient for the explanation of that movement and that ceaseless striving. What, then, is a short postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or deferment of pain, a momentary stilling of desire, compared with such an abundant and certain victory over them all as death? What could such advantages accomplish taken as actual moving causes of a human race, innumerable because constantly renewed, which unceasingly moves, strives, struggles, grieves, writhes, and [pg 116] performs the whole tragi-comedy of the history of the world, nay, what says more than all, perseveres in such a mock-existence as long as each one possibly can? Clearly this is all inexplicable if we seek the moving causes outside the figures and conceive the human race as striving, in consequence of rational reflection, or something analogous to this (as moving threads), after those good things held out to it, the attainment of which would be a sufficient reward for its ceaseless cares and troubles. The matter being taken thus, every one would rather have long ago said, “Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle,” and have gone out. But, on the contrary, every one guards and defends his life, like a precious pledge intrusted to him under heavy responsibility, under infinite cares and abundant misery, even under which life is tolerable. The wherefore and the why, the reward for this, certainly he does not see; but he has accepted the worth of that pledge without seeing it, upon trust and faith, and does not know what it consists in. Hence I have said that these puppets are not pulled from without, but each bears in itself the clockwork from which its movements result. This is the will to live, manifesting itself as an untiring machine, an irrational tendency, which has not its sufficient reason in the external world. It holds the individuals firmly upon the scene, and is the primum mobile of their movements; while the external objects, the motives, only determine their direction in the particular case; otherwise the cause would not be at all suitable to the effect. For, as every manifestation of a force of nature has a cause, but the force of nature itself none, so every particular act of will has a motive, but the will in general has none: indeed at bottom these two are one and the same. The will, as that which is metaphysical, is everywhere the boundary-stone of every investigation, beyond which it cannot go. From the original and unconditioned nature of the will, which has been proved, it is explicable that man loves beyond everything [pg 117] else an existence full of misery, trouble, pain, and anxiety, and, again, full of ennui, which, if he considered and weighed it purely objectively, he would certainly abhor, and fears above all things the end of it, which is yet for him the one thing certain.8 Accordingly we often see a miserable figure, deformed and shrunk with age, want, and disease, implore our help from the bottom of his heart for the prolongation of an existence, the end of which would necessarily appear altogether desirable if it were an objective judgment that determined here. Thus instead of this it is the blind will, appearing as the tendency to life, the love of life, and the sense of life; it is the same which makes the plants grow. This sense of life may be compared to a rope which is stretched above the puppet-show of the world of men, and on which the puppets hang by invisible threads, while apparently they are supported only by the ground beneath them (the objective value of life). But if the rope becomes weak the puppet sinks; if it breaks the puppet must fall, for the ground beneath it only seemed to support it: i.e., the weakening of that love of life shows itself as hypochondria, spleen, melancholy: its entire exhaustion as the inclination to suicide, which now takes place on the slightest occasion, nay, for a merely imaginary reason, for now, as it were, the man seeks a quarrel with himself, in order to shoot himself dead, as many do with others for a like purpose;—indeed, upon necessity, suicide is resorted to without any special occasion. (Evidence of this will be found in Esquirol, Des maladies mentales, 1838.) And as with the persistence in life, so is it also with its action and movement. This is not something freely chosen; but while every one would really gladly rest, want and ennui are the whips that keep the top spinning. Therefore the whole and every individual bears the stamp of a forced condition; and every one, in that, inwardly weary, he longs for rest, but [pg 118] yet must press forward, is like his planet, which does not fall into the sun only because a force driving it forward prevents it. Therefore everything is in continual strain and forced movement, and the course of the world goes on, to use an expression of Aristotle's (De cœlo, ii. 13), “ου φυσει, αλλα βιᾳ” (Motu, non naturali sed violento). Men are only apparently drawn from in front; really they are pushed from behind; it is not life that tempts them on, but necessity that drives them forward. The law of motivation is, like all causality, merely the form of the phenomenon. We may remark in passing that this is the source of the comical, the burlesque, the grotesque, the ridiculous side of life; for, urged forward against his will, every one bears himself as best he can, and the straits that thus arise often look comical enough, serious as is the misery which underlies them.
In all these considerations, then, it becomes clear to us that the will to live is not a consequence of the knowledge of life, is in no way a conclusio ex præmissis, and in general is nothing secondary. Rather, it is that which is first and unconditioned, the premiss of all premisses, and just on that account that from which philosophy must start, for the will to live does not appear in consequence of the world, but the world in consequence of the will to live.
I scarcely need to draw attention to the fact that the considerations with which we now conclude the second book already point forcibly to the serious theme of the fourth book, indeed would pass over into it directly if it were not that my architectonic symmetry makes it necessary that the third book, with its fair contents, should come between, as a second consideration of the world as idea, the conclusion of which, however, again points in the same direction.