The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 47 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 836
This inner nature we know, from our previous investigation, is will, to which therefore we ascribe both the unconscious and the conscious changes of the body. The stimulus holds the mean, forms the transition between the motive, which is causality accompanied throughout by knowledge, and the cause in the narrowest sense. In particular cases it is sometimes nearer a motive, sometimes nearer a cause, but yet it can always be distinguished from both.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2495
For as the latter concentrates our interest upon the particular manifestation of our own individuality, upon which knowledge always presents to us the innumerable dangers which constantly threaten this manifestation, and anxiety and care becomes the key-note of our disposition; the knowledge that everything living is just as much our own inner nature, as is our own person, extends our interest to everything living; and in this way the heart is enlarged.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1828
Our philosophical endeavours can only extend to exhibiting and explaining the action of men in its inner nature and content, the various and even opposite maxims, whose living expression it is. This we shall do in connection with the preceding portion of our work, and in precisely the same way as we have hitherto explained the other phenomena of the world, and have sought to bring their inmost nature to distinct abstract knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2236
Moreover, this knowledge presents itself to him instantly, not _in abstracto_, but as an obscure feeling; and this is called remorse, or, more accurately in this case, the feeling of _wrong committed_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2119
Further, the motives which induce suicide are so very different, that we can assign no motive that is so great as to bring it about, even with great probability, in every character, and few that would be so small that the like of them had never caused it. Now although the degree of our serenity or sadness is not at all times the same, yet, in consequence of this view, we shall not attribute it to the change of outward circumstances, but to that of the inner condition, the physical state.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1444
We also found, in the second book, that matter is the common substratum of all particular phenomena of the Ideas, and consequently is the connecting link between the Idea and the phenomenon, or the particular thing. Accordingly for both of these reasons it is impossible that matter can for itself express any Idea.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2260
Wrong through violence is not so _shameful_ to the doer of it as wrong through craft; for the former arises from physical power, which under all circumstances impresses mankind; while the latter, by the use of subterfuge, betrays weakness, and lowers man at once as a physical and moral being.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2549
Since he himself denies the will which appears in his own person, he will not resist if another does the same, _i.e._, inflicts wrongs upon him. Therefore every suffering coming to him from without, through chance or the wickedness of others, is welcome to him, every injury, ignominy, and insult; he receives them gladly as the opportunity of learning with certainty that he no longer asserts the will, but gladly sides with every enemy of the manifestation of will which is his own person.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2582
This tendency soon developed itself more and more, and was the origin of hermits, anchorites, and monasticism—an origin which in itself was pure and holy, but for that very reason unsuitable for the great majority of men; therefore what developed out of it could only be hypocrisy and wickedness, for _abusus optimi pessimus_. In more developed Christianity, we see that seed of asceticism unfold into the full flower in the writings of the Christian saints and mystics.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 923
We shall return later to the consideration of these grades of visibility which belong to the objectification of the will, to the reflection of its nature. But as the grades of its objectification do not directly concern the will itself, still less is it concerned by the multiplicity of the phenomena of these different grades, _i.e._, the multitude of individuals of each form, or the particular manifestations of each force.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 992
It must seek out the causes of all phenomena in nature, _i.e._, the circumstances under which they invariably appear. Then it must refer the multitude of phenomena which have various forms in various circumstances to what is active in every phenomenon, and is presupposed in the cause,—original forces of nature.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2284
Therefore the concepts right and wrong, even in a state of nature, are certainly valid and by no means conventional, but there they are valid merely as _moral_ concepts, for the self-knowledge of one’s own will in each.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2015
We see that because of the possession on his part of abstract or rational knowledge, man, as distinguished from the brutes, has a _choice_, which only makes him the scene of the conflict of his motives, without withdrawing him from their control.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1051
This also occurs in unorganised nature, when, for example, crystals in process of formation meet, cross, and mutually disturb each other to such an extent that they are unable to assume the pure crystalline form, so that almost every cluster of crystals is an image of such a conflict of will at this low grade of its objectification; or again, when a magnet forces its magnetism upon iron, in order to express its Idea in it; or when galvanism overcomes chemical affinity, decomposes the closest combinations, and so entirely suspends the laws of chemistry that the acid of a decomposed salt at the negative pole must pass to the positive pole without combining with the alkalies through which it goes on its way, or turning red the litmus paper that touches it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 589
But the axioms themselves have no more immediate evidence than any other geometrical problem, but only more simplicity on account of their smaller content.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1388
He perceives himself, on the one hand, as an individual, as the frail phenomenon of will, which the slightest touch of these forces can utterly destroy, helpless against powerful nature, dependent, the victim of chance, a vanishing nothing in the presence of stupendous might; and, on the other hand, as the eternal, peaceful, knowing subject, the condition of the object, and, therefore, the supporter of this whole world; the terrific strife of nature only his idea; the subject itself free and apart from all desires and necessities, in the quiet comprehension of the Ideas.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2585
Augustine, he had learnt more from it of what God, Christ, and man are than from any other book. Yet we only got the genuine and correct text of it in the year 1851, in the Stuttgart edition by Pfeiffer. The precepts and doctrines which are laid down there are the most perfect exposition, sprung from deep inward conviction of what I have presented as the denial of the will. It should therefore be studied more closely in that form before it is dogmatised about with Jewish-Protestant assurance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 450
Yet it is worthy of remark, that as space adapts itself so well to perception, and by means of its three dimensions, even its complicated relations are easily apprehended, while it eludes the grasp of abstract knowledge; time, on the contrary, passes easily into abstract knowledge, but gives very little to perception.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 979
It is well worth while comparing this doctrine of his, as he explains it in the “_Recherches de la Vérite_,” both in the 3rd Chapter of the second part of the 6th Book, and in the _éclaircissements_ appended to this chapter, with this exposition of mine, and observing the complete agreement of the two doctrines in the case of such different systems of thought.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 147
What is determined by the law of causality is therefore not merely a succession of things in time, but this succession with reference to a definite space, and not merely existence of things in a particular place, but in this place at a different point of time. Change, _i.e._, variation which takes place according to the law of causality, implies always a determined part of space and a determined part of time together and in union. Thus causality unites space with time.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2793
81 The right of man over the life and powers of the brutes rests on the fact that, because with the growing clearness of consciousness suffering increases in like measure; the pain which the brute suffers through death or work is not so great as man would suffer by merely denying himself the flesh, or the powers of the brutes.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2359
Certainly, however, the world does not exhibit itself to the knowledge of the individual as such, developed for the service of the will, as it finally reveals itself to the inquirer as the objectivity of the one and only will to live, which he himself is. But the sight of the uncultured individual is clouded, as the Hindus say, by the veil of Mâyâ.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2737
We, however, who consistently occupy the standpoint of philosophy, must be satisfied here with negative knowledge, content to have reached the utmost limit of the positive. We have recognised the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phenomena as only the objectivity of will; and we have followed this objectivity from the unconscious working of obscure forces of Nature up to the completely conscious action of man.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2305
The state has also by no means to eradicate the foolish purpose, the inclination to wrong-doing, the wicked disposition; but merely always to place beside every possible motive for doing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone in the inevitable punishment that will ensue.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 409
Therefore, as my exposition has led me to it, though it is very easily understood, I will illustrate it in the following table by means of a schema. This table is intended to show how the spheres of concepts overlap each other at many points, and so leave room for a passage from each concept to whichever one we please of several other concepts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1679
But in landscape-painting, in which the artist lets us look at nature with his eyes, the knowledge of the Ideas, and the condition of pure will-less knowing, which is demanded by these, is made much easier for us; and, in the same way, poetry is far superior both to history and biography, in the representation of the Ideas which may be looked for in all three.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2656
According to what has been said, the denial of the will to live, which is just what is called absolute, entire resignation, or holiness, always proceeds from that quieter of the will which the knowledge of its inner conflict and essential vanity, expressing themselves in the suffering of all living things, becomes.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 775
Therefore the inner nature of my volition cannot be explained from these motives; but they merely determine its manifestation at a given point of time: they are merely the occasion of my will showing itself; but the will itself lies outside the province of the law of motivation, which determines nothing but its appearance at each point of time. It is only under the presupposition of my empirical character that the motive is a sufficient ground of explanation of my action.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2417
It was from this source that the ethical systems, both the philosophical and those which are supported by systems of religion, took their rise.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 811
If, on the contrary, we subsume the concept of will under that of force, as has hitherto always been done, we renounce the only immediate knowledge which we have of the inner nature of the world, for we allow it to disappear in a concept which is abstracted from the phenomenal, and with which we can therefore never go beyond the phenomenal.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 807
For at the foundation of the concept of force, as of all other concepts, there ultimately lies the knowledge in sense-perception of the objective world, that is to say, the phenomenon, the idea; and the concept is constructed out of this.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1304
Visions, like the phantasies of delirium, are no ordinary symptom of madness: delirium falsifies perception, madness the thoughts. For the most part, madmen do not err in the knowledge of what is immediately _present_; their raving always relates to what is _absent_ and _past_, and only through these to their connection with what is present.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1219
A full explanation is necessary to make this clear, and the reader must suspend his surprise for a while, till he has grasped the whole thought expressed in this work, and then it will vanish of itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2200
In this theology goes beyond the consideration of things according to the principle of sufficient reason, and recognises the Idea of man, the unity of which is re-established out of its dispersion into innumerable individuals through the bond of generation which holds them all together.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2227
A chief source of that suffering which we found above to be essential and inevitable to all life is, when it really appears in a definite form, that _Eris_, the conflict of all individuals, the expression of the contradiction, with which the will to live is affected in its inner self, and which attains a visible form through the _principium individuationis_. Wild-beast fights are the most cruel means of showing this directly and vividly. In this original discord lies an unquenchable source of suffering, in spite of the precautions that have been taken against it, and which we shall now consider more closely.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1617
Thus the rose is the symbol of secrecy, the laurel is the symbol of fame, the palm is the symbol of peace, the scallop-shell is the symbol of pilgrimage, the cross is the symbol of the Christian religion. To this class also belongs all significance of mere colour, as yellow is the colour of falseness, and blue is the colour of fidelity. Such symbols may often be of use in life, but their value is foreign to art.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1099
In the case of man, the empirical character is peculiar to every individual (indeed, as we shall see in the Fourth Book, even to the extent of supplanting entirely the character of the species, through the self-surrender of the whole will).
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1040
According as the subjection in the organism of these forces of nature, which express the lower grades of the objectification of will, is more or less successful, the more or the less completely does it attain to the expression of its Idea; that is to say, the nearer it is to the _ideal_ or the further from it—the _ideal_ of beauty in its species.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1756
As he alone, because endowed with reason, constantly looks before and after on the path of his actual life and its innumerable possibilities, and so achieves a course of life which is intellectual, and therefore connected as a whole; corresponding to this, I say, the _melody_ has significant intentional connection from beginning to end. It records, therefore, the history of the intellectually enlightened will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1532
§ 46. That Laocoon, in the celebrated group, does not cry out is obvious, and the universal and ever-renewed surprise at this must be occasioned by the fact that any of us would cry out if we were in his place.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2434
If, now, a man is filled with an exceptionally intense pressure of will,—if with burning eagerness he seeks to accumulate everything to slake the thirst of his egoism, and thus experiences, as he inevitably must, that all satisfaction is merely apparent, that the attained end never fulfils the promise of the desired object, the final appeasing of the fierce pressure of will, but that when fulfilled the wish only changes its form, and now torments him in a new one; and indeed that if at last all wishes are exhausted, the pressure of will itself remains without any conscious motive, and makes itself known to him with fearful pain as a feeling of terrible desolation and emptiness; if from all this, which in the case of the ordinary degrees of volition is only felt in a small measure, and only produces the ordinary degree of melancholy, in the case of him who is a manifestation of will reaching the point of extraordinary wickedness, there necessarily springs an excessive inward misery, an eternal unrest, an incurable pain; he seeks indirectly the alleviation which directly is denied him,—seeks to mitigate his own suffering by the sight of the suffering of others, which at the same time he recognises as an expression of his power.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2569
But as a special and exceedingly full example and practical illustration of the conceptions I have established, I can thoroughly recommend the “Autobiography of Madame de Guion.” To become acquainted with this great and beautiful soul, the very thought of whom always fills me with reverence, and to do justice to the excellence of her disposition while making allowance for the superstition of her reason, must be just as delightful to every man of the better sort as with vulgar thinkers, _i.e._, the majority, that book will always stand in bad repute.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1129
Thus the course of the planets, the tendency to the ellipse, the rotation of the earth, the division of land and sea, the atmosphere, light, warmth, and all such phenomena, which are in nature what bass is in harmony, adapted themselves in anticipation of the coming species of living creatures of which they were to become the supporter and sustainer.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1429
To the careful observer they present themselves here also, and even bad buildings and the like are capable of being æsthetically considered; the Ideas of the most universal properties of their materials are still recognisable in them, only the artificial form which has been given them does not assist but hinders æsthetic contemplation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1250
No finite measure can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished eternity is always open for the return of any event or work that was nipped in the bud. In this world of phenomena true loss is just as little possible as true gain. The will alone is; it is the thing in-itself, and the source of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.”(49)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 5
Notwithstanding statements to the contrary in the text, the book is probably quite intelligible in itself, apart from the treatise “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.” It has, however, been considered desirable to add an abstract of the latter work in an appendix to the third volume of this translation.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 494
It would only be a somewhat far-fetched comparison if we were to say that the pun is related to the witticism as the parabola (_sic_) of the upper inverted cone to that of the lower. The misunderstanding of the word or the _quid pro quo_ is the unintentional pun, and is related to it exactly as folly is to wit. Thus the deaf man often affords occasion for laughter, just as much as the fool, and inferior writers of comedy often use the former for the latter to raise a laugh.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 720
Only after this does its explanation begin, and it consists in indicating truly and with mathematical exactness, how, where and when each force manifests itself, and in referring every phenomenon which presents itself to the operation of one of these forces. Physics, chemistry, and physiology proceed in the same way in their province, only they presuppose more and accomplish less.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 82
Hence the confusion of fundamental conceptions, and in general the unspeakable crudeness and awkwardness that appears from under the covering of affectation and pretentiousness in the philosophical attempts of the generation thus brought up. But whoever thinks he can learn Kant’s philosophy from the exposition of others makes a terrible mistake.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1794
Further, according to my view and contention, philosophy is nothing but a complete and accurate repetition or expression of the nature of the world in very general concepts, for only in such is it possible to get a view of that whole nature which will everywhere be adequate and applicable.