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

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 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 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 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. 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. 7Let one 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 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.