that spiritual nature of Nature is Desire in its elemental form. They claim, in the words of Schopenhauer, that “Desire is the kernel of all life, in the individual creature and in the entire universe.” To these philosophers, Desire is not a mere mental quality, but is rather the essential element of Life, and, therefore, of all living things.
The Buddhists go so far as to assert that Desire (called by them “Tanha,” or “The Will to Live”) is the real Creative Power of and in Nature—and which is the “cause” of the continuous process of Creative Evolution. The following quotation from Subhadra Bhikshu, a Buddhist writer, gives a general idea of the Buddhistic conception of the power and offices of Desire as the Creative Principle of Nature. This writer says:
“The Will-to-Live (Tanha) inherent in all of us, and the essential factor in our being, is the true creative power; it is the cause of our existence, and is, in fact, the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of all things. The term ‘the WilltoLive,’ in the Buddhist sense of the word, does not merely imply what the Western world understands by ‘conscious will,’ but rather that instinctive lifelove which, partly consciously, partly unconsciously to themselves, is inherent in all living beings, animals and plants, as well as man. In this term, ‘the WilltoLive,’ or craving for existence, are summed up all those functions, powers, desires, inclinations and disinclinations, which tend to the preservation of life, and the acquisition of comfort and enjoyment.
“The Western student of Buddhism must be repeatedly reminded not to confound ‘the WilltoLive’—that is, the desire for life, the cleaving to existence—with the ‘conscious will’ or the socalled ‘free will.’ Conscious will is but a fraction of the whole ‘WilltoLive’—namely, such portion as passes through the organ of the brain, which is the vehicle of consciousness. But the greater portion of ‘the WilltoLive’ never reaches consciousness in plants and animals, and but imperfectly in men. It shows itself as a mere blind instinct, an inveterate cleaving to existence, an effort to grasp at everything that makes life pleasant, and to avoid whatever hurts or endangers it.”
Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and, to some extent, Bergson, tend to regard the “Spirit of Nature,” or the “Universal Life Principle,” as having Desire as its essential element or factor. Schopenhauer postulated the existence of a World Spirit, or Universal Life Principle, the essence of which is Desire—the spirit of longing, craving, lusting for, wishing, seeking for, tending toward outward expression and action. He held that this principle of Desire manifests itself in various degrees and phases in physical, chemical, magnetic, and vital force in Nature; its most striking phase, however, being “the WilltoLive” which manifests in all living forms, seeking expression and objective manifestation—its characteristic phases being the striving to maintain and to perpetuate life, the struggle for existence and the instinct to perpetuate the species.
We have presented to you the above characteristic forms of this school of philosophical thought, that of the Buddhists and that of the Western Voluntarists, not as necessarily representing the philosophical thought of the present writers, nor for the purpose of awakening an interest in such schools of philosophy on the part of our readers, but merely for the purpose of directing your attention to the recognition by careful thinkers of the fact that Desire is fundamental, elemental and omnipresent in Nature’s processes, activities, and forms. We direct your attention to the facts, the reference to the philosophies built upon them being merely incidental and secondary.
We can never hope to know what Desire is “in itself”; like all great forces, it is to be known only through its manifestations and expressions. We know it most intimately by reason of its presence in ourselves, but even so we thus know it merely in the particular phase of development it has reached in ourselves; for the rest we must look at its manifestation in other forms of life. The philosophers assert, and with apparent support of facts, that the principle of Desire is to be found actively manifesting in inanimate things—in atoms, molecules, and masses of inorganic matter, and in the physical forces and energies of matter. But we shall not go that far back in our examination; instead, we shall begin with the elementary living forms.
Even in the most lowly life forms—even in the forms of plantlife—we find Desire manifesting along three general lines, viz., (1) the line of the preservation of the physical form or body; (2) the line of the satisfaction of hunger, or the desire for nourishment; and (3) the line of the preservation of the species, or satisfaction of the desire for reproduction. These three lines of Desire, and the activities resulting from their expression, are the three phases of the great elemental Desire for Life, or “the WilltoLive.” They represent the elemental Desire of Life to live, maintain life, and to secure the transmission of life to offspring.
These three phases of Desire are present in the moneron, and are present in man. Even in the single cells of which the bodies of plants and animals are constituted, these three phases of Desire are manifested actively—each living thing, cell to man, strives to protect its physical form intact, to secure food and nourishment, and to propagate itself. This Desire is elemental and basic—it proceeds along the lines of appetency, or instinct, and of conscious feeling. It is manifested with as great vigor in the lowly lifeforms, as in the higher. Nature (in its Spirit of Desire) works ever to preserve and maintain the life of the individual form through which it manifests; to cause it to secure the proper nourishment to sustain life; and to cause it to propagate its kind, and to reproduce itself through offspring. Here then we have a basic foundation of Desire, upon which the entire structure is built.
THE DESIRE TO LIVE. The desire to live, to preserve and protect the physical body from danger and injury; the “willtolive”; the “fight for life”; all these are forms and phases of that basic, instinctive Desire to Live which is found in all living creatures, vegetable or animal, from single cell to man. The living creature does not need to reason itself into this belief—it is instinctive. Even the most pessimistic individual, while asserting that his reason shows him the valuelessness of life, will flee from anything threatening his life—he cannot help this, for it is instinctive.
From this Desire to Live spring many other likes and dislikes, with their appropriate desires. The things believed to be conducive to life and health, are held to be “good”; those believed to be harmful are held to be “bad.” Man instinctively seeks the life and healthgiving things, and avoids the opposite. Pain is the danger signal of Nature, warning against things threatening life or health. Primitive and elemental pleasureproducing things are usually found to have been originally conducive to physical well-being.
The qualities or feelings of combativeness and destructiveness, the elements of courage and bravery, as well as the traits of caution, cunning, prudence observed in the lower animals, in primitive man, and in civilized man, arose chiefly in response to the instinctive feeling and desire for life and selfpreservation. The living creature found it necessary to protect itself from its enemies, and developed the qualities of selfdefense; those individuals or species lacking in these qualities perished in the struggle for existence. These tendencies became “set” in the early history of the human race—in fact, they were probably well established in the inherited nature of primitive man, having reached him through evolution. That these qualities, and their desires, have persisted in civilized man in their original force, though usually hidden beneath the surface, is evidenced by man’s reversion to his primitive emotional states and desires during times of war, and by his taste for witnessing and engaging in physical sports in which the elements of strife, combat, struggle, and competition are involved.
Here is a good place in which to call your attention to an interesting and important fact of psychology. The principle may be stated as follows: “A habit originally formed in the race by reason of necessity, and becoming set by repetition during many generations, gradually acquires the quality of pleasureproducing; and as a pleasureproducing activity such habit persists, firmly fixed, in the race long after the original necessity has disappeared.” This explains the fact that hunting, fishing, trapping, tests of physical skill and strength,
