as an ingenious combination of separate parts, as means and ends of each other, accomplished with wonderful completeness.
The unity of that will, here referred to, which lies beyond the phenomenon, and in which we have recognised the inner nature of the phenomenal world, is a metaphysical unity, and consequently transcends the knowledge of it, i. e., does not depend upon the functions of our intellect, and therefore can not really be comprehended by it. Hence it arises that it opens to the consideration an abyss so profound that it admits of no thoroughly clear and systematically connected insight, but grants us only isolated glances, which enable us to recognise this unity in this and that relation of things, now in the subjective, now in the objective sphere, whereby, however, new problems are again raised, all of which I will not engage to solve, but rather appeal here to the words est quadam prodire tenus, more concerned to set up nothing false or arbitrarily invented than to give a thorough account of all; – at the risk of giving here only a fragmentary exposition.
If we call up to our minds and distinctly go through in thought the exceedingly acute theory of the origin of the planetary system, first put forth by Kant and later by Laplace, a theory of which it is scarcely possible to doubt the correctness, we see the lowest, crudest, and blindest forces of nature bound to the most rigid conformity to law, by means of their conflict for one and the same given matter, and the accidental results brought about by this produce the framework of the world, thus of the designedly prepared future dwelling-place of innumerable living beings, as a system of order and harmony, at which we are the more astonished the more distinctly and accurately we come to understand it. For example, if we see that every planet, with its present velocity, can only maintain itself exactly where it actually has its place, because if it were brought nearer to the sun it would necessarily fall into it, or if placed further from it would necessarily fly away from it; how, conversely, if we take the place as given, it can only remain there with its present velocity and no other, because if it went faster it would necessarily fly away from the sun, and if it went slower it would necessarily fall into it; that thus only one definite place is suitable to each definite velocity of a planet; and if we now see this solved by the fact that the same physical, necessary, and blindly acting cause which appointed it its place, at the same time and just by doing so, imparted to it exactly the only velocity suitable for this place, in consequence of the law of nature that a revolving body increases its velocity in proportion as its revolution becomes smaller; and, moreover, if finally we understand how endless permanence is assured to the whole system, by the fact that all the mutual disturbances of the course of the planets which unavoidably enter, must adjust themselves in time; how then it is just the irrationality of the periods of revolution of Jupiter and Saturn to each other that prevents their respective perturbations from repeating themselves at one place, whereby they would become dangerous, and brings it about that, appearing seldom and always at a different place, they must sublate themselves again, like dissonances in music which are again resolved into harmony. By means of such considerations we recognise a design and perfection, such as could only have been brought about by the freest absolute will directed by the most penetrating understanding and the most acute calculation. And yet, under the guidance of that cosmogony of Laplace, so well thought out and so accurately calculated, we cannot prevent ourselves from seeing that perfectly blind forces of nature, acting according to unalterable natural laws, through their conflict and aimless play among themselves, could produce nothing else but this very framework of the world, which is equal to the work of an extraordinarily enhanced power of combination. Instead now, after the manner of Anaxagoras, of dragging in the aid of an intelligence known to us only from animal nature, and adapted only to its aims, an intelligence which, coming from without, cunningly made use of the existing forces of nature and their laws in order to carry out its ends, which are foreign to these, – we recognise in these lowest forces of nature themselves that same, one will, which indeed first manifests itself in them, and already in this manifestation striving after its goal, through its original laws themselves works towards its final end, to which therefore all that happens according to blind laws of nature must minister and correspond. And this indeed cannot be otherwise, because everything material is nothing but just the phenomenal appearance, the visibility, the objectivity of the will to live which is one. Thus even the lowest forces of nature themselves are animated by that same will, which afterwards, in the individual beings provided with intelligence, marvels at its own work, as the somnambulist wonders in the morning at what he has done in his sleep; or, more accurately, which is astonished at its own form which it beholds in the mirror. This unity which is here proved of the accidental with the intentional, of the necessary with the free, on account of which the blindest chances, which, however, rest upon universal laws of nature, are as it were the keys upon which the world-spirit plays its melodies so full of significance, – this unity, I say, is, as has already been remarked, an abyss in the investigation into which even philosophy can throw no full light, but only a glimmer.
But I now turn to a subjective consideration belonging to this place, to which, however, I am able to give still less distinctness than to the objective consideration which has just been set forth; for I shall only be able to express it by images and similes. Why is our consciousness brighter and more distinct the further it extends towards without, so that its greatest clearness lies in sense perception, which already half belongs to things outside us, – and, on the other hand, grows dimmer as we go in, and leads, if followed to its inmost recesses, to a darkness in which all knowledge ceases? Because, I say, consciousness presupposes individuality; but this belongs to the mere phenomenon, for it is conditioned by the forms of the phenomenon, space and time, as multiplicity of the similar. Our inner nature, on the other hand, has its root in that which is no longer phenomenon, but thing in itself, to which, therefore, the forms of the phenomenon do not extend; and thus the chief conditions of individuality are wanting, and with these the distinctness of consciousness falls off. In this root of existence the difference of beings ceases, like that of the radii of a sphere in the centre; and as in the sphere the surface is produced by the radii ending and breaking off, so consciousness is only possible where the true inner being runs out into the phenomenon, through whose forms the separate individuality becomes possible upon which consciousness depends, which is just on that account confined to phenomena. Therefore all that is distinct and thoroughly comprehensible in our consciousness always lies without upon this surface of the sphere. Whenever, on the contrary, we withdraw entirely from this, consciousness forsakes us, – in sleep, in death, to a certain extent also in magnetic or magic influences; for these all lead through the centre. But just because distinct consciousness, being confined to the surface of the sphere, is not directed towards the centre, it recognises other individuals certainly as of the same kind, but not as identical, which yet in themselves they are. Immortality of the individual might be compared to a point of the surface flying off at a tangent. But immortality, by virtue of the eternal nature of the inner being of the whole phenomenon, may be compared to the return of that point, on the radius, to the centre, of which the whole surface is just the extension. The will as the thing in itself is whole and undivided in every being, as the centre is an integral part of every radius; while the peripherical end of this radius is in the most rapid revolution, with the surface, which represents time and its content, the other end, at the centre, which represents eternity, remains in the profoundest peace, because the centre is the point of which the rising half is not different from the sinking. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gita it is said: “Haud distributum animantibus, et quasi distributum tamen insidens, animantiumque sustentaculum id cognoscendum, edax et rursus genitale” (Lect. 13, 16 vers. Schlegel). Certainly we fall here into mystical and figurative language, but it is the only language in which anything can be said on this entirely transcendent theme. So this simile also may pass. The human race may be imagined as an animal compositum, a form of life of which many polypi, especially those which swim, such as Veretillum, Funiculina, and others, afford examples. As in these the head isolates each individual animal, and the lower part, with the common stomach, combines them all in the unity of one life process, so the brain with its consciousness isolates the human individual, while the unconscious part, the vegetative life with its ganglion system, into which in sleep the brain-consciousness disappears, like a lotus which nightly sinks in the flood, is a common life of all, by means of which in exceptional cases they can even communicate, as, for example, occurs when dreams communicate themselves
