Артур Шопенгауэр - The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)

Even the merely empirical consideration of nature recognises a constant transition from the simplest and most necessary manifestation of a universal force of nature up to the life and consciousness of man himself, through gentle gradations, and with only relative, and for the most part fluctuating, limits. Reflection, following this view, and penetrating somewhat more deeply into it, will soon be led to the conviction that in all these phenomena, the inner nature, that which manifests itself, that which appears, is one and the same, which comes forth ever more distinctly; and accordingly that what exhibits itself in a million forms of infinite diversity, and so carries on the most varied and the strangest play without beginning or end, this is one being which is so closely disguised behind all these masks that it does not even recognise itself, and therefore often treats itself roughly. Thus the great doctrine of the ἑν και παν early appeared both in the east and in the west, and, in spite of all contradiction, has asserted itself, or at least constantly revived. We, however, have now entered even deeper into the secret, since by what has already been said we have been led to the insight that when in any phenomenon a knowing consciousness is added to that inner being which lies at the foundation of all phenomena, a consciousness which when directed inwardly becomes self-consciousness , then that inner being presents itself to this self-consciousness as that which is so familiar and so mysterious, and is denoted by the word will . Accordingly we have called that universal fundamental nature of all phenomena the will , after that manifestation in which it unveils itself to us most fully; and by this word nothing is further from our intention than to denote an unknown x ; but, on the contrary, we denote that which at least on one side is infinitely better known and more intimate than anything else.

Let us now call to mind a truth, the fullest and most thorough proof of which will be found in my prize essay on the freedom of the will – the truth that on account of the absolutely universal validity of the law of causality, the conduct or the action of all existences in this world is always strictly necessitated by the causes which in each case call it forth. And in this respect it makes no difference whether such an action has been occasioned by causes in the strictest sense of the word, or by stimuli, or finally by motives, for these differences refer only to the grade of the susceptibility of the different kinds of existences. On this point we must entertain no illusion: the law of causality knows no exception; but everything, from the movement of a mote in a sunbeam to the most deeply considered action of man, is subject to it with equal strictness. Therefore, in the whole course of the world, neither could a mote in a sunbeam describe any other line in its flight than it has described, nor a man act any other way than he has acted; and no truth is more certain than this, that all that happens, be it small or great, happens with absolute necessity . Consequently, at every given moment of time, the whole condition of all things is firmly and accurately determined by the condition which has just preceded it, and so is it with the stream of time back to infinity and on to infinity. Thus the course of the world is like that of a clock after it has been put together and wound up; thus from this incontestable point of view it is a mere machine, the aim of which we cannot see. Even if, quite without justification, nay, at bottom, in spite of all conceivability and its conformity to law, one should assume a first beginning, nothing would thereby be essentially changed. For the arbitrarily assumed first condition of things would at its origin have irrevocably determined and fixed, both as a whole and down to the smallest detail, the state immediately following it; this state, again, would have determined the one succeeding it, and so on per secula seculorum , for the chain of causality, with its absolute strictness – this brazen bond of necessity and fate – introduces every phenomenon irrevocably and unalterably, just as it is. The difference merely amounts to this, that in the case of the one assumption we would have before us a piece of clockwork which had once been wound up, but in the case of the other a perpetual motion; the necessity of the course, on the other hand, would remain the same. In the prize essay already referred to I have irrefutably proved that the action of man can make no exception here, for I showed how it constantly proceeds with strict necessity from two factors – his character and the motives which come to him. The character is inborn and unalterable; the motives are introduced with necessity under the guidance of causality by the strictly determined course of the world.

Accordingly then, from one point of view, which we certainly cannot abandon, because it is established by the objective laws of the world, which are a priori valid, the world, with all that is in it, appears as an aimless, and therefore incomprehensible, play of an eternal necessity, an inscrutable and inexorable Αναγκη. Now, what is objectionable, nay, revolting, in this inevitable and irrefutable view of the world cannot be thoroughly done away with by any assumption except this, that as in one aspect every being in the world is a phenomenon, and necessarily determined by the laws of the phenomenon, in another aspect it is in itself will , and indeed absolutely free will , for necessity only arises through the forms which belong entirely to the phenomenon, through the principle of sufficient reason in its different modes. Such a will, then, must be self-dependent, for, as free, i. e. , as a thing in itself, and therefore not subject to the principle of sufficient reason, it cannot depend upon another in its being and nature any more than in its conduct and action. By this assumption alone will as much freedom be supposed as is needed to counterbalance the inevitable strict necessity which governs the course of the world. Accordingly one has really only the choice either of seeing that the world is a mere machine which runs on of necessity, or of recognising a free will as its inner being whose manifestation is not directly the action but primarily the existence and nature of things. This freedom is therefore transcendental, and consists with empirical necessity, in the same way as the transcendental ideality of phenomena consists with their empirical reality. That only under this assumption the action of a man, in spite of the necessity with which it proceeds from his character and the motives, is yet his own I have shown in my prize essay on the freedom of the will; with this, however, self-dependency is attributed to his nature. The same relation holds good of all things in the world. The strictest necessity , carried out honestly with rigid consistency, and the most perfect freedom , rising to omnipotence, had to appear at once and together in philosophy; but, without doing violence to truth, this could only take place by placing the whole necessity in the acting and doing ( Operari ), and the whole freedom in the being and nature ( Esse ). Thereby a riddle is solved which is as old as the world, simply because it has hitherto always been held upside down and the freedom persistently sought in the Operari , the necessity in the Esse . I, on the contrary, say: Every being without exception acts with strict necessity, but it exists and is what it is by virtue of its freedom . Thus with me freedom and necessity are to be met with neither more nor less than in any earlier system; although now one and now the other must be conspicuous according as one takes offence that will is attributed to processes of nature which hitherto were explained from necessity, or that the same strict necessity is recognised in motivation as in mechanical causality. The two have merely changed places: freedom has been transferred to the Esse , and necessity limited to the Operari .