The World as Will and Idea Volume II Part 17

Chapter XX.(34) Objectification Of The Will In The Animal Organism.

By _objectification_ I understand the self-exhibition in the real corporeal world. However, this world itself, as was fully shown in the first book and its supplements, is throughout conditioned by the knowing subject, thus by the intellect, and therefore as such is absolutely inconceivable outside the knowledge of this subject; for it primarily consists simply of ideas of perception, and as such is a phenomenon of the brain. After its removal the thing in itself would remain. That this is the _will_ is the theme of the second book, and is there proved first of all in the human organism and in that of the brutes.

The knowledge of the external world may also be defined as the _consciousness of other things_, in opposition to _self-consciousness_.

Since we have found in the latter that its true object or material is the will, we shall now, with the same intention, take into consideration the consciousness of other things, thus objective knowledge. Now here my thesis is this: _that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively is the intellect, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus objectively, as the brain; and that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively, is the will, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus objectively, as the whole organism_.

To the evidence which is given in support of this proposition, both in our second book and in the first two chapters of the treatise "_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_," I add the following supplementary remarks and ill.u.s.trations.

Nearly all that is necessary to establish the first part of this thesis has already been brought forward in the preceding chapter, for in the necessity of sleep, in the alterations that arise from age, and in the differences of the anatomical conformation, it was proved that the intellect is of a secondary nature, and depends absolutely upon a single organ, the brain, whose function it is, just as grasping is the function of the hand; that it is therefore physical, like digestion, not metaphysical, like the will. As good digestion requires a healthy, strong stomach, as athletic power requires muscular sinewy arms, so extraordinary intelligence requires an unusually developed, beautifully formed brain of exquisitely fine texture and animated by a vigorous pulse. The nature of the will, on the contrary, is dependent upon no organ, and can be prognosticated from none. The greatest error in Gall's phrenology is that he a.s.signs organs of the brain for moral qualities also. Injuries to the head, with loss of brain substance, affect the intellect as a rule very disadvantageously: they result in complete or partial imbecility or forgetfulness of language, permanent or temporary, yet sometimes only of one language out of several which were known, also in the loss of other knowledge possessed, &c., &c. On the other hand, we never read that after a misfortune of this kind the _character_ has undergone a change, that the man has perhaps become morally worse or better, or has lost certain inclinations or pa.s.sions, or a.s.sumed new ones; never. For the will has not its seat in the brain, and moreover, as that which is metaphysical, it is the _prius_ of the brain, as of the whole body, and therefore cannot be altered by injuries of the brain. According to an experiment made by Spallanzani and repeated by Voltaire,(35) a snail that has had its head cut off remains alive, and after some weeks a new head grows on, together with horns; with this consciousness and ideas again appear; while till then the snail had only given evidence of blind will through unregulated movements. Thus here also we find the will as the substance which is permanent, the intellect, on the contrary, conditioned by its organ, as the changing accident. It may be defined as the regulator of the will.

It was perhaps Tiedemann who first compared the cerebral nervous system to a _parasite_ (_Tiedemann und Trevirann's Journal fur Physiologie_, Bd. i.

-- 62). The comparison is happy; for the brain, together with the spinal cord and nerves which depend upon it, is, as it were, implanted in the organism, and is nourished by it without on its part _directly_ contributing anything to the support of the economy of the organism; therefore there can be life without a brain, as in the case of brainless abortions, and also in the case of tortoises, which live for three weeks after their heads have been cut off; only the _medulla oblongata_, as the organ of respiration, must be spared. Indeed a hen whose whole brain Flourens had cut away lived for ten months and grew. Even in the case of men the destruction of the brain does not produce death directly, but only through the medium of the lungs, and then of the heart (_Bichat, Sur la Vie et la Mort_, Part ii., art. ii. -- 1). On the other hand, the brain controls the relations to the external world; this alone is its office, and hereby it discharges its debt to the organism which nourishes it, since its existence is conditioned by the external relations. Accordingly the brain alone of all the parts requires sleep, because its _activity_ is completely distinct from its _support_; the former only consumes both strength and substance, the latter is performed by the rest of the organism as the nurse of the brain: thus because its activity contributes nothing to its continued existence it becomes exhausted, and only when it pauses in sleep does its nourishment go on unhindered.

The second part of our thesis, stated above, will require a fuller exposition even after all that I have said about it in the writings referred to. I have shown above, in chapter 18, that the thing in itself, which must lie at the foundation of every phenomenon, and therefore of our own phenomenal existence also, throws off in self-consciousness _one_ of its phenomenal forms-s.p.a.ce, and only retains the other-time. On this account it presents itself here more immediately than anywhere else, and we claim it as will, according to its most undisguised manifestation. But no _permanent substance_, such as matter is, can present itself in time alone, because, as -- 4 of the first volume showed, such a substance is only possible through the intimate union of s.p.a.ce and time. Therefore, in self-consciousness the will is not apprehended as the enduring substratum of its impulses, therefore is not perceived as a permanent substance; but only its individual acts, such as purposes, wishes, and emotions, are known successively and during the time they last, directly, yet not perceptibly. The knowledge of the will in self-consciousness is accordingly not a _perception_ of it, but a perfectly direct becoming aware of its successive impulses. On the other hand, for the knowledge which is directed _outwardly_, brought about by the senses and perfected in the understanding, which, besides time, has also s.p.a.ce for its form, which two it connects in the closest manner by means of the function of the understanding, causality, whereby it really becomes _perception_-this knowledge presents to itself _perceptibly_ what in inner immediate apprehension was conceived as will, as _organic body_, whose particular movements visibly present to us the acts, and whose parts and forms visibly present to us the sustained efforts, the fundamental character, of the individually given will, nay, whose pain and comfort are perfectly immediate affections of this will itself.

We first become aware of this ident.i.ty of the body with the will in the individual actions of the two, for in these what is known in self-consciousness as an immediate, real act of will, at the same time and unseparated, exhibits itself outwardly as movement of the body; and every one beholds the purposes of his will, which are instantaneously brought about by motives which just as instantaneously appear at once as faithfully copied in as many actions of his body as his body itself is copied in his shadow; and from this, for the unprejudiced man, the knowledge arises in the simplest manner that his body is merely the outward manifestation of his will, _i.e._, the way in which his will exhibits itself in his perceiving intellect, or his will itself under the form of the idea. Only if we forcibly deprive ourselves of this primary and simple information can we for a short time marvel at the process of our own bodily action as a miracle, which then rests on the fact that between the act of will and the action of the body there is really no causal connection, for they are directly _identical_, and their apparent difference only arises from the circ.u.mstance that here what is one and the same is apprehended in two different modes of knowledge, the outer and the inner. Actual willing is, in fact, inseparable from doing and in the strictest sense only that is an act of will which the deed sets its seal to. Mere resolves of the will, on the contrary, till they are carried out, are only intentions, and are therefore matter of the intellect alone; as such they have their place merely in the brain, and are nothing more than completed calculations of the relative strength of the different opposing motives. They have, therefore, certainly great probability, but no infallibility. They may turn out false, not only through alteration of the circ.u.mstances, but also from the fact that the estimation of the effect of the respective motives upon the will itself was erroneous, which then shows itself, for the deed is untrue to the purpose: therefore before it is carried out no resolve is certain. The _will itself_, then, is operative only in real action; hence in muscular action, and consequently in _irritability_. Thus the _will_ proper objectifies itself in this. The cerebrum is the place of motives, where, through these, the will becomes choice, _i.e._, becomes more definitely determined by motives. These motives are ideas, which, on the occasion of external stimuli of the organs of sense, arise by means of the functions of the brain, and are also worked up into conceptions, and then into resolves. When it comes to the real act of will these motives, the workshop of which is the cerebrum, act through the medium of the cerebellum upon the spinal cord and the motor nerves which proceed from it, which then act upon the muscles, yet merely as _stimuli_ of their irritability; for galvanic, chemical, and even mechanical stimuli can effect the same contraction which the motor nerve calls forth. Thus what was _motive_ in the brain acts, when it reaches the muscle through the nerves, as mere stimulus. Sensibility in itself is quite unable to contract a muscle. This can only be done by the muscle itself, and its capacity for doing so is called _irritability_, _i.e._, _susceptibility to stimuli_. It is exclusively a property of the muscle, as sensibility is exclusively a property of the nerve. The latter indeed gives the muscle the _occasion_ for its contraction, but it is by no means it that, in some mechanical way, draws the muscle together; but this happens simply and solely on account of the _irritability_, which is a power of the muscle itself. Apprehended from without this is a _Qualitas occulta_, and only self-consciousness reveals it as the _will_. In the causal chain here briefly set forth, from the effect of the motive lying outside us to the contraction of the muscle, the will does not in some way come in as the last link of the chain; but it is the metaphysical substratum of the irritability of the muscle: thus it plays here precisely the same part which in a physical or chemical chain of causes is played by the mysterious forces of nature which lie at the foundation of the process-forces which as such are not themselves involved as links in the causal chain, but impart to all the links of it the capacity to act, as I have fully shown in -- 26 of the first volume. Therefore we would ascribe the contraction of the muscle also to a similar mysterious force of nature, if it were not that this contraction is disclosed to us by an entirely different source of knowledge-self-consciousness as _will_.

Hence, as was said above, if we start from the will our own muscular movement appears to us a miracle; for indeed there is a strict causal chain from the external motive to the muscular action; but the will itself is not included as a link in it, but, as the metaphysical substratum of the possibility of an action upon the muscle through brain and nerve, lies at the foundation of the present muscular action also; therefore the latter is not properly its _effect_ but its _manifestation_. As such it enters the world of idea, the form of which is the law of causality, a world which is entirely different from the _will_ in itself: and thus, if we start from the _will_, this manifestation has, for attentive reflection, the appearance of a miracle, but for deeper investigation it affords the most direct authentication of the great truth that what appears in the phenomenon as body and its action is in itself _will_. If now perhaps the motor nerve that leads to my hand is severed, the will can no longer move it. This, however, is not because the hand has ceased to be, like every part of my body, the objectivity, the mere visibility, of my will, or in other words, that the irritability has vanished, but because the effect of the motive, in consequence of which alone I can move my hand, cannot reach it and act on its muscles as a stimulus, for the line of connection between it and the brain is broken. Thus really my will is, in this part, only deprived of the effect of the motive. The will objectifies itself directly, in irritability, not in sensibility.

In order to prevent all misunderstandings about this important point, especially such as proceed from physiology pursued in a purely empirical manner, I shall explain the whole process somewhat more thoroughly. My doctrine a.s.serts that the whole body is the will itself, exhibiting itself in the perception of the brain; consequently, having entered into its forms of knowledge. From this it follows that the will is everywhere equally present in the whole body, as is also demonstrably the case, for the organic functions are its work no less than the animal. But how, then, can we reconcile it with this, that the _voluntary_ actions, those most undeniable expressions of the will, clearly originate in the brain, and thus only through the spinal cord reach the nerve fibres, which finally set the limbs in motion, and the paralysis or severing of which therefore prevents the possibility of voluntary movement? This would lead one to think that the will, like the intellect, has its seat only in the brain, and, like it, is a mere function of the brain.

Yet this is not the case: but the whole body is and remains the exhibition of the will in perception, thus the will itself objectively perceived by means of the functions of the brain. That process, however, in the case of the acts of will, depends upon the fact that the will, which, according to my doctrine, expresses itself in every phenomenon of nature, even in vegetable and inorganic phenomena, appears in the bodies of men and animals as a _conscious will_. A _consciousness_, however, is essentially a unity, and therefore always requires a central point of unity. The necessity of consciousness is, as I have often explained, occasioned by the fact that in consequence of the increased complication, and thereby more multifarious wants, of an organism, the acts of its will must be guided by _motives_, no longer, as in the lower grades, by mere stimuli.

For this purpose it had at this stage to appear provided with a knowing consciousness, thus with an intellect, as the medium and place of the motives. This intellect, if itself objectively perceived, exhibits itself as the brain, together with its appendages, spinal cord, and nerves. It is the brain now in which, on the occasion of external impressions, the ideas arise which become motives for the will. But in the _rational_ intellect they undergo besides this a still further working up, through reflection and deliberation. Thus such an intellect must first of all unite in _one_ point all impressions, together with the working up of them by its functions, whether to mere perception or to conceptions, a point which will be, as it were, the focus of all its rays, in order that that unity of consciousness may arise which is the the _theoretical ego_, the supporter of the whole consciousness, in which it presents itself as identical with the _willing ego_, whose mere function of knowledge it is.

That point of unity of consciousness, or the theoretical ego, is just Kant's synthetic unity of apperception, upon which all ideas string themselves as on a string of pearls, and on account of which the "I think," as the thread of the string of pearls, "must be capable of accompanying all our ideas."(36) This a.s.sembling-place of the motives, then, where their entrance into the single focus of consciousness takes place, is the brain. Here, in the non-rational consciousness, they are merely perceived; in the _rational_ consciousness they are elucidated by conceptions, thus are first thought in the abstract and compared; upon which the will chooses, in accordance with its individual and immutable character, and so the _purpose_ results which now, by means of the cerebellum, the spinal cord, and the nerves, sets the outward limbs in motion. For although the will is quite directly present in these, inasmuch as they are merely its manifestation, yet when it has to move according to motives, or indeed according to reflection, it requires such an apparatus for the apprehension and working up of ideas into such motives, in conformity with which its acts here appear as resolves: just as the nourishment of the blood with chyle requires a stomach and intestines, in which this is prepared, and then as such is poured into the blood through the _ductus thoracicus_, which here plays the part which the spinal cord plays in the former case. The matter may be most simply and generally comprehended thus: the will is immediately present as irritability in all the muscular fibres of the whole body, as a continual striving after activity in general. Now if this striving is to realise itself, thus to manifest itself as movement, this movement must as such have some direction; but this direction must be _determined_ by something, _i.e._, it requires a guide, and this is the nervous system. For to the mere irritability, as it lies in the muscular fibres and in itself is pure will, all directions are alike; thus it determines itself in no direction, but behaves like a body which is equally drawn in all directions; it remains at rest. Since the activity of the nerves comes in as motive (in the case of reflex movements as a stimulus), the striving force, _i.e._, the irritability, receives a definite direction, and now produces the movements. Yet those external acts of will which require no motives, and thus also no working up of mere stimuli into ideas in the brain, from which motives arise, but which follow immediately upon stimuli, for the most part inward stimuli, are the reflex movements, starting only from the spinal cord, as, for example, spasms and cramp, in which the will acts without the brain taking part. In an a.n.a.logous manner the will carries on the organic life, also by nerve stimulus, which does not proceed from the brain. Thus the will appears in every muscle as irritability, and is consequently of itself in a position to contract them, yet only _in general_; in order that some definite contraction should take place at a given moment, there is required here, as everywhere, a cause, which in this case must be a stimulus. This is everywhere given by the nerve which goes into the muscle. If this nerve is in connection with the brain, then the contraction is a conscious act of will, _i.e._, takes place in accordance with motives, which, in consequence of _external_ impressions, have arisen as ideas in the brain. If the nerve is _not_ in connection with the brain, but with the _sympathicus maximus_, then the contraction is involuntary and unconscious, an act connected with the maintenance of the organic life, and the nerve stimulus which causes it is occasioned by _inward_ impressions; for example, by the pressure upon the stomach of the food received, or of the chyme upon the intestines, or of the in-flowing blood upon the walls of the heart, in accordance with which the act is digestion, or _motus peristalticus_, or beating of the heart, &c.

But if now, in this process, we go one step further, we find that the muscles are the product of the blood, the result of its work of condensation, nay, to a certain extent they are merely solidified, or, as it were, clotted or crystallised blood; for they have taken up into themselves, almost unaltered, its fibrin (_cruor_) and its colouring matter (_Burdach's Physiologie_, Bd. v. -- 686). But the force which forms the muscle out of the blood must not be a.s.sumed to be different from that which afterwards moves it as irritability, upon nerve stimulus, which the brain supplies; in which case it then presents itself in self-consciousness as that which we call _will_. The close connection between the blood and irritability is also shown by this, that where, on account of imperfection of the lesser circulation, part of the blood returns to the heart unoxidised, the irritability is also uncommonly weak, as in the batrachia. Moreover, the movement of the blood, like that of the muscle, is independent and original; it does not, like irritation, require the influence of the nerve, and is even independent of the heart, as is shown most clearly by the return of the blood through the veins to the heart; for here it is not propelled by a _vis a tergo_, as in the case of the arterial circulation; and all other mechanical explanations, such as a power of suction of the right ventricle of the heart, are quite inadequate. (See _Burdach's Physiologie_, Bd. 4, -- 763, and _Rosch, Ueber die Bedeutung des Blutes, -- II, seq._) It is remarkable to see how the French, who recognise nothing but mechanical forces, controvert each other with insufficient grounds upon both sides; and Bichat ascribes the flowing back of the blood through the veins to the pressure of the walls of the capillary tubes, and Magendie, on the other hand, to the continue action of the impulse of the heart (_Precis de Physiologie par Magendie_, vol.

ii. p. 389). That the movement of the blood is also independent of the nervous system, at least of the cerebral nervous system, is shown by the fetus, which (according to _Muller's Physiologie_), without brain and spinal cord, has yet circulation of the blood. And Flourens also says: "_Le mouvement du cur, pris en soi, et abstraction faite de tout ce qui n'est pas essentiellement lui, comme sa duree, son energie, ne depend ni immediatement, ni coinstantanement, du systeme nerveux central, et consequemment c'est dans tout autre point de ce systeme que dans les centres nerveux eux-memes, qu'il faut chercher le principe primitif et immediat de ce mouvement_" (_Annales des sciences naturelles p. Audouin et Brougniard_, 1828, vol. 13). Cuvier also says: "_La circulation survit a la destruction de tout l'encephale et de toute la moelle epiniaire_ (_Mem.

de l'acad. d. sc._, 1823, vol. 6; _Hist. d. l'acad. p. Cuvier_," p. cx.x.x).

"_Cor primum vivens et ultimum moriens_," says Haller. The beating of the heart ceases at last in death. The blood has made the vessels themselves; for it appears in the ovum earlier than they do; they are only its path, voluntarily taken, then beaten smooth, and finally gradually condensed and closed up; as Kaspar Wolff has already taught: "_Theorie der Generation_,"

-- 30-35. The motion of the heart also, which is inseparable from that of the blood, although occasioned by the necessity of sending blood into the lungs, is yet an original motion, for it is independent of the nervous system and of sensibility, as Burdach fully shows. "In the heart," he says, "appears, with the maximum of irritability, a minimum of sensibility" (_loc. cit._, -- 769). The heart belongs to the muscular system as well as to the blood or vascular system; from which, however, it is clear that the two are closely related, indeed const.i.tute one whole.

Since now the metaphysical substratum of the force which moves the muscle, thus of irritability, is the _will_, the will must also be the metaphysical substratum of the force which lies at the foundation of the movement and the formations of the blood, as that by which the muscles are produced. The course of the arteries also determines the form and size of all the limbs; consequently the whole form of the body is determined by the course of the blood. Thus in general the blood, as it nourishes all the parts of the body, has also, as the primary fluidity of the organism, produced and framed them out of itself. And the nourishment which confessedly const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al function of the blood is only the continuance of that original production of them. This truth will be found thoroughly and excellently explained in the work of Rosch referred to above: "_Ueber die Bedeutung des Blutes_," 1839. He shows that the blood is that which first has life and is the source both of the existence and of the maintenance of all the parts; that all the organs have sprung from it through secretion, and together with them, for the management of their functions, the nervous system, which appears now as _plastic_, ordering and arranging the life of the particular parts within, now as _cerebral_, controlling the relation to the external world. "The blood," he says, p.

25, "was flesh and nerve at once, and at the same moment at which the muscle freed itself from it the nerve, severed in like manner, remained opposed to the flesh." Here it is a matter of course that the blood, before those solid parts have been secreted from it, has also a somewhat different character from afterwards; it is then, as Rosch defines it, the chaotic, animated, slimy, primitive fluid, as it were an organic emulsion, in which all subsequent parts are _implicite_ contained: moreover, it has not the red colour quite at the beginning. This disposes of the objection which might be drawn from the fact that the brain and the spinal cord begin to form before the circulation of the blood is visible or the heart appears. In this reference also Schultz says (_System der Circulation_, -- 297): "We do not believe that the view of Baumgarten, according to which the nervous system is formed earlier than the blood, can consistently be carried out; for Baumgarten reckons the appearance of the blood only from the formation of the corpuscles, while in the embryo and in the series of animals blood appears much earlier in the form of a pure plasma." The blood of invertebrate animals never a.s.sumes the red colour; but we do not therefore, with Aristotle, deny that they have any. It is well worthy of note that, according to the account of Justinus Kerner (_Geschichte zweier Somnambulen_, -- 78), a somnambulist of a very high degree of clairvoyance, says: "I am as deep in myself as ever a man can be led; the force of my mortal life seems to me to have its source in the blood, whereby, through the circulation in the veins, it communicates itself, by means of the nerves, to the whole body, and to the brain, which is the n.o.blest part of the body, and above the blood itself."

From all this it follows that the will objectifies itself most immediately in the blood as that which originally makes and forms the organism, perfects it by growth, and afterwards constantly maintains it, both by the regular renewal of all the parts and by the extraordinary restoration of any part that may have been injured. The first productions of the blood are its own vessels, and then the muscles, in the irritability of which the will makes itself known to self-consciousness; but with this also the heart, which is at once vessel and muscle, and therefore is the true centre and _primum mobile_ of the whole life. But for the individual life and subsistence in the external world the will now requires two a.s.sistant systems: _one_ to govern and order its inner and outer activity, and _another_ for the constant renewal of the ma.s.s of the blood; thus a controller and a sustainer. It therefore makes for itself the nervous and the intestinal systems; thus the _functiones animales_ and the _functiones naturales_ a.s.sociate themselves in a subsidiary manner with the _functiones vitales_, which are the most original and essential. In the _nervous system_, accordingly, the will only objectifies itself in an indirect and secondary way; for this system appears as a mere auxiliary organ, as a contrivance by means of which the will attains to a knowledge of those occasions, internal and external, upon which, in conformity with its aims, it must express itself; the internal occasions are received by the _plastic_ nervous system, thus by the sympathetic nerve, this _cerebrum abdominale_, as mere stimuli, and the will thereupon reacts on the spot without the brain being conscious; the _outward_ occasions are received by the brain, as _motives_, and the will reacts through conscious actions directed outwardly. Therefore the whole nervous system const.i.tutes, as it were, the antennae of the will, which it stretches towards within and without. The nerves of the brain and spinal cord separate at their roots into sensory and motory nerves. The sensory nerves receive the knowledge from without, which now acc.u.mulates in the thronging brain, and is there worked up into ideas, which arise primarily as motives. But the motory nerves bring back, like couriers, the result of the brain function to the muscle, upon which it acts as a stimulus, and the irritability of which is the immediate manifestation of the will.

Presumably the plastic nerves also divide into sensory and motory, although on a subordinate scale. The part which the ganglia play in the organism we must think of as that of a diminutive brain, and thus the one throws light upon the other. The ganglia lie wherever the organic functions of the vegetative system require care. It is as if there the will was not able by its direct and simple action to carry out its aims, but required guidance, and consequently control; just as when in some business a man's own memory is not sufficient, and he must constantly take notes of what he does. For this end mere knots of nerves are sufficient for the interior of the organism, because everything goes on within its own compa.s.s. For the exterior, on the other hand, a very complicated contrivance of the same kind is required. This is the brain with its feelers, which it stretches into the outer world, the nerves of sense. But even in the organs which are in communication with this great nerve centre, in very simple cases the matter does not need to be brought before the highest authority, but a subordinate one is sufficient to determine what is needed; such is the spinal cord, in the reflex actions discovered by Marshall Hall, such as sneezing, yawning, vomiting, the second half of swallowing, &c. &c. The will itself is present in the whole organism, since this is merely its visible form; the nervous system exists everywhere merely for the purpose of making the _direction_ of an action possible by a control of it, as it were to serve the will as a mirror, so that it may see what it does, just as we use a mirror to shave by. Hence small sensoria arise within us for special, and consequently simple, functions, the ganglia; but the chief sensorium, the brain, is the great and skilfully contrived apparatus for the complicated and multifarious functions which have to do with the ceaselessly and irregularly changing external world. Wherever in the organism the nerve threads run together in a ganglion, there, to a certain extent, an animal exists for itself and shut off, which by means of the ganglion has a kind of weak knowledge, the sphere of which is, however, limited to the part from which these nerves directly come. But what actuates these parts to such _quasi_ knowledge is clearly the _will_; indeed we are utterly unable to conceive it otherwise.

Upon this depends the _vita propria_ of each part, and also in the case of insects, which, instead of a spinal cord, have a double string of nerves, with ganglia at regular intervals, the capacity of each part to continue alive for days after being severed from the head and the rest of the trunk; and finally also the actions which in the last instance do not receive their motives from the brain, _i.e._, instinct and natural mechanical skill. Marshall Hall, whose discovery of the reflex movements I have mentioned above, has given us in this the _theory of involuntary movements_. Some of these are normal or physiological; such are the closing of the places of ingress to and egress from the body, thus of the _sphincteres vesicae et ani_ (proceeding from the nerves of the spinal cord); the closing of the eyelids in sleep (from the fifth pair of nerves), of the larynx (from _N. vagus_) if food pa.s.ses over it or carbonic acid tries to enter; also swallowing, from the pharynx, yawning and sneezing, respiration, entirely in sleep and partly when awake; and, lastly, the erection, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, as also conception, and many more.

Some, again, are abnormal and pathological; such are stammering, hiccoughing, vomiting, also cramps and convulsions of every kind, especially in epilepsy, teta.n.u.s, in hydrophobia and otherwise; finally, the convulsive movements produced by galvanic or other stimuli, and which take place without feeling or consciousness in paralysed limbs, _i.e._, in limbs which are out of connection with the brain, also the convulsions of beheaded animals, and, lastly, all movements and actions of children born without brains. All cramps are a rebellion of the nerves of the limbs against the sovereignty of the brain; the normal reflex movements, on the other hand, are the legitimate autocracy of the subordinate officials.

These movements are thus all involuntary, because they do not proceed from the brain, and therefore do not take place in accordance with motives, but follow upon mere stimuli. The stimuli which occasion them extend only to the spinal cord or the _medulla oblongata_, and from there the reaction directly takes place which effects the movement. The spinal cord has the same relation to these involuntary movements as the brain has to motive and action, and what the sentient and voluntary nerve is for the latter the incident and motor nerve is for the former. That yet, in the one as in the other, that which really moves is the _will_ is brought all the more clearly to light because the involuntarily moved muscles are for the most part the same which, under other circ.u.mstances, are moved from the brain in the voluntary actions, in which their _primum mobile_ is intimately known to us through self-consciousness as the _will_. Marshall Hall's excellent book "On the Diseases of the Nervous System" is peculiarly fitted to bring out clearly the difference between volition and will, and to confirm the truth of my fundamental doctrine.

For the sake of ill.u.s.trating all that has been said, let us now call to mind that case of the origination of an organism which is most accessible to our observation. Who makes the chicken in the egg? Some power and skill coming from without, and penetrating through the sh.e.l.l? Oh no! The chicken makes itself, and the force which carries out and perfects this work, which is complicated, well calculated, and designed beyond all expression, breaks through the sh.e.l.l as soon as it is ready, and now performs the outward actions of the chicken, under the name of _will_. It cannot do both at once; previously occupied with the perfecting of the organism, it had no care for without. But after it has completed the former, the latter appears, under the guidance of the brain and its feelers, the senses, as a tool prepared beforehand for this end, the service of which only begins when it grows up in self-consciousness as intellect, which is the lantern to the steps of the will, its ??e??????, and also the supporter of the objective external world, however limited the horizon of this may be in the consciousness of a hen. But what the hen is now able to do in the external world, through the medium of this organ, is, as accomplished by means of something secondary, infinitely less important than what it did in its original form, for it made itself.

We became acquainted above with the cerebral nervous system as an _a.s.sistant organ_ of the will, in which it therefore objectifies itself in a secondary manner. As thus the cerebral system, although not directly coming within the sphere of the life-functions of the organism, but only governing its relations to the outer world, has yet the organism as its basis, and is nourished by it in return for its services; and as thus the cerebral or animal life is to be regarded as the production of the organic life, the brain and its function, knowledge, thus the intellect, belong indirectly and in a subordinate manner to the manifestation of the _will_.

The will objectifies itself also in it, as will to apprehend the external world, thus as _will to know_. Therefore great and fundamental as is the difference in us between willing and knowing, the ultimate substratum of both is yet the same, the _will_, as the real inner nature of the whole phenomenon. But knowing, the intellect, which presents itself in self-consciousness entirely as secondary, is to be regarded not only as the accident of the will, but also as its work, and thus, although in a circuitous manner, is yet to be referred to it. As the intellect presents itself physiologically as the function of an organ of the body, metaphysically it is to be regarded as a work of the will, whose objectification or visible appearance is the whole body. Thus the will _to know_, objectively perceived, is the brain; as the will _to go_, objectively perceived, is the foot; the will _to grasp_, the hand; the will _to digest_, the stomach; the will _to beget_, the genitals, &c. This whole objectification certainly ultimately exists only for the brain, as its perception: in this the will exhibits itself as organised body. But so far as the brain knows, it is _itself_ not known, but is the _knower_, the subject of all knowledge. So far, however, as in objective perception, _i.e._, in the consciousness of _other things_, thus secondarily, _it is known_, it belongs, as an organ of the body, to the objectification of the will. For the whole process is the _self-knowledge of the will_; it starts from this and returns to it, and const.i.tutes what Kant has called the _phenomenon_ in opposition to the thing in itself. Therefore that which is _known_, that which is _idea_, is the _will_; and this idea is what we call body, which, as extended in s.p.a.ce and moving in time, exists only by means of the functions of the brain, thus only in it. That, on the other hand, which _knows_, which _has that idea_, is the _brain_, which yet does not know itself, but only becomes conscious of itself subjectively as intellect, _i.e._, as the _knower_. That which when regarded from within is the faculty of knowledge is when regarded from without the brain. This brain is a part of that body, just because it itself belongs to the objectification of the _will_, the will's _will to know_ is objectified in it, its tendency towards the external world. Accordingly the brain, and therefore the intellect, is certainly conditioned immediately by the body, and this again by the brain, yet only indirectly, as spatial and corporeal, in the world of perception, not in itself, _i.e._, as will.

Thus the whole is ultimately the will, which itself becomes idea, and is that unity which we express by I. The brain itself, so far as it is _perceived_-thus in the consciousness of other things, and hence secondarily-is only idea. But in itself, and so far as it _perceives_, it is the will, because this is the real substratum of the whole phenomenon; its will to know objectifies itself as brain and its functions. We may take the voltaic pile as an ill.u.s.tration, certainly imperfect, but yet to some extent throwing light upon the nature of the human phenomenon, as we here regard it. The metals, together with the fluid, are the body; the chemical action, as the basis of the whole effect, is the will, and the electric current resulting from it, which produces shock and spark, is the intellect. But _omne simile claudicat_.

Quite recently the _physiatrica_ point of view has at last prevailed in pathology. According to it diseases are themselves a curative process of nature, which it introduces to remove, by overcoming its causes, a disorder which in some way has got into the organism. Thus in the decisive battle, the crisis, it is either victorious and attains its end, or else is defeated. This view only gains its full rationality from our standpoint, which shows the _will_ in the vital force, that here appears as _vis natur medicatrix_, the will which lies at the foundation of all organic functions in a healthy condition, but now, when disorder has entered, threatening its whole work, a.s.sumes dictatorial power in order to subdue the rebellious forces by quite extraordinary measures and entirely abnormal operations (the disease), and bring everything back to the right track. On the other hand, that the _will itself_ is sick, as Brandis repeatedly expresses himself in his book, "_Ueber die Anwendung der Kalte_," which I have quoted in the first part of my essay, "_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_," is a gross misunderstanding. When I weigh this, and at the same time observe that in his earlier book, "_Ueber die Lebenskraft_," of 1795, Brandis betrayed no suspicion that this force is in itself the will, but, on the contrary, says there, page 13: "It is impossible that the vital force can be that which we only know through our consciousness, for most movements take place without our consciousness.

The a.s.sertion that this, of which the only characteristic known to us is consciousness, also affects the body without consciousness is at the least quite arbitrary and unproved;" and page 14: "Haller's objections to the opinion that all living movements are the effect of the soul are, as I believe, quite unanswerable;" when I further reflect that he wrote his book, "_Ueber die Anwendung der Kalte_," in which all at once the will appears so decidedly as the vital force, in his seventieth year, an age at which no one as yet has conceived for the first time original fundamental thoughts; when, lastly, I bear in mind that he makes use of my exact expressions, "will and idea," and not of those which are far more commonly used by others, "the faculties of desire and of knowledge," I am now convinced, contrary to my earlier supposition, that he borrowed his fundamental thought from me, and with the usual honesty which prevails at the present day in the learned world, said nothing about it. The particulars about this will be found in the second (and third) edition of my work, "_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_," p. 14.

Nothing is more fitted to confirm and ill.u.s.trate the thesis with which we are occupied in this chapter than Bichat's justly celebrated book, "_Sur la vie et la mort_." His reflections and mine reciprocally support each other, for his are the physiological commentary on mine, and mine are the philosophical commentary on his, and one will best understand us both by reading us together. This refers specially to the first half of his work, ent.i.tled "_Recherches physiologiques sur la vie_." He makes the foundation of his expositions the opposition of the _organic_ to the _animal_ life, which corresponds to mine of the will to the intellect. Whoever looks at the sense, not at the words, will not allow himself to be led astray by the fact that he ascribes the will to the animal life; for by will, as is usual, he only understands conscious volition, which certainly proceeds from the brain, where, however, as was shown above, it is not yet actual willing, but only deliberation upon and estimation of the motives, the conclusion or product of which at last appears as the act of will. All that I ascribe to the _will_ proper he ascribes to the _organic_ life, and all that I conceive as _intellect_ is with him the _animal_ life: the latter has with him its seat in the brain alone, together with its appendages: the former, again, in the whole of the remainder of the organism. The complete opposition in which he shows that the two stand to each other corresponds to that which with me exists between the will and the intellect. As anatomist and physiologist he starts from the objective, that is, from the consciousness of other things; I, as a philosopher, start from the subjective, self-consciousness; and it is a pleasure to see how, like the two voices in a duet, we advance in harmony with each other, although each expresses something different. Therefore, let every one who wishes to understand me read him; and let every one who wishes to understand him, better than he understood himself, read me. Bichat shows us, in article 4, that the _organic_ life begins earlier and ends later than the _animal_ life; consequently, since the latter also rests in sleep, has nearly twice as long a duration; then, in articles 8 and 9, that the organic life performs everything perfectly, at once, and of its own accord; the animal life, on the other hand, requires long practice and education. But he is most interesting in the sixth article, where he shows that the _animal_ life is completely limited to the intellectual operations, therefore goes on coldly and indifferently, while the emotions and pa.s.sions have their seat in the _organic_ life, although the occasions of them lie in the animal, _i.e._, the cerebral, life. Here he has ten valuable pages which I wish I could quote entire. On page 50 he says: "_Il est sans doute etonnant, que les pa.s.sions n'ayent jamais leur terme ni leur origine dans les divers organs de la vie animale; qu'au contraire les parties servant aux fonctions internes, soient constamment affectees par elles, et meme les determinent suivant l'etat ou elles se trouvent. Tel est cependant ce que la stricte observation nous prouve. Je dis d'abord que l'effet de toute espece de pa.s.sion, constamment etranger a la vie animale, est de faire naitre un changement, une alteration quelconque dans la vie organique._" Then he shows in detail how anger acts on the circulation of the blood and the beating of the heart, then how joy acts, and lastly how fear; next, how the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, the liver, glands, and pancreas are affected by these and kindred emotions, and how grief diminishes the nutrition; and then how the animal, that is, the brain life, is untouched by all this, and quietly goes on its way. He refers to the fact that to signify intellectual operations we put the hand to the head, but, on the contrary, we lay it on the heart, the stomach, the bowels, if we wish to express our love, joy, sorrow, or hatred; and he remarks that he must be a bad actor who when he spoke of his grief would touch his head, and when he spoke of his mental effort would touch his heart; and also that while the learned make the so-called soul reside in the head, the common people always indicate the well-felt difference between the affections of the intellect and the will by the right expression, and speak, for example, of a capable, clever, fine head; but, on the other hand, say a good heart, a feeling heart, and also "Anger boils in my veins," "Stirs my gall," "My bowels leap with joy," "Jealousy poisons my blood," &c. "_Les chants sont le langage des pa.s.sions, de la vie organique, comme la parole ordinaire __ est celui de l'entendement, de la vie animale: la declamation, tient le milieu, elle anime la langue froide du cerveau par la langue expressive des organes interieurs, du cur, du foie, de l'estomac_," &c. His conclusion is: "_La vie organique est le terme ou aboutissent, et le centre d'ou partent les pa.s.sions_."

Nothing is better fitted than this excellent and thorough book to confirm and bring out clearly that the body is only the embodied (_i.e._, perceived by means of the brain functions, time, s.p.a.ce, and causality) will itself, from which it follows that the will is the primary and original, the intellect, as mere brain function, the subordinate and derived. But that which is most worthy of admiration, and to me most pleasing, in Bichat's thought is, that this great anatomist, on the path of his purely physiological investigations, actually got so far as to explain the unalterable nature of the _moral character_ from the fact that only the _animal_ life, thus the functions of the brain, are subject to the influence of education, practice, culture, and habit, but the moral character belongs to the _organic_ life, _i.e._, to all the other parts, which cannot be modified from without. I cannot refrain from giving the pa.s.sage; it occurs in article 9, -- 2: "_Telle est donc la grande difference des deux vies de l'animal_" (cerebral or animal and organic life) "_par rapport a l'inegalite de perfection des divers systemes de fonctions, dont chacune resulte; savoir, que dans l'une la predominance ou l'inferiorite d'un systeme relativement aux autres, tient presque toujours a l'activite ou a l'inertie plus grandes de ce systeme, a l'habitude d'agir ou de ne pas agir; que dans l'autre, au contraire, cette predominance ou cette inferiorite sont immediatement liees a la texture des organes, et jamais a leur education. Voila pourquoi le temperament physique et le_ CHARACTeRE MORAL _ne sont point susceptible de changer par l'education, qui modifie si prodigieus.e.m.e.nt les actes de la vie animale; car, comme nous l'avons vu, tous deux_ APPARTIENNENT a LA VIE ORGANIQUE.

_La charactere est, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, la physionomie des pa.s.sions; le temperament est celle des fonctions __ internes: or les unes et les autres etant toujours les memes, ayant une direction que l'habitude et l'exercice ne derangent jamais, il est manifeste que le temperament et le charactere doivent etre aussi soustraits a l'empire de l'education.

Elle peut moderer l'influence du second, perfectionner a.s.sez le jugement et la reflection, pour rendre leur empire superieur au sien, fortifier la vie animal afin qu'elle resiste aux impulsions de l'organique. Mais vouloir par elle denaturer le charactere, adoucir ou exalter les pa.s.sions dont il est l'expression habituelle, agrandir ou resserrer leur sphere, c'est une entreprise a.n.a.logue a celle d'un medecin qui essaierait d'elever ou d'abaisser de quelque degres, et pour toute la vie, la force de contraction ordinaire au cur dans l'etat de sante, de precipiter ou de ralentir habituellement le mouvement naturel aux arteres, et qui est necessaire a leur action, etc. Nous observerions a ce medecin, que la circulation, la respiration, etc., ne sont point sous le domaine de la volonte_ (volition), _quelles ne peuvent etre modifiees par l'homme, sans pa.s.ser a l'etat maladif, etc. Faisons la meme observation a ceux qui croient qu'on change le charactere, et par-la, meme les_ Pa.s.sIONS, _puisque celles-ci sont un_ PRODUIT DE L'ACTION DE TOUS LES ORGANES INTERNES, _ou qu'elles y ont au moins specialement leur siege._" The reader who is familiar with my philosophy may imagine how great was my joy when I discovered, as it were, the proof of my own convictions in those which were arrived at upon an entirely different field, by this extraordinary man, so early taken from the world.

A special authentication of the truth that the organism is merely the visibility of the will is also afforded us by the fact that if dogs, cats, domestic c.o.c.ks, and indeed other animals, bite when violently angry, the wounds become mortal; nay, if they come from a dog, may cause hydrophobia in the man who is bitten, without the dog being mad or afterwards becoming so. For the extremest anger is only the most decided and vehement will to annihilate its object; this now appears in the a.s.sumption by the saliva of an injurious, and to a certain extent magically acting, power, and springs from the fact that the will and the organism are in truth one. This also appears from the fact that intense vexation may rapidly impart to the mother's milk such a pernicious quality that the sucking child dies forthwith in convulsions (_Most, Ueber sympathetische Mittel_, p. 16).

Note On What Has Been Said About Bichat.

Bichat has, as we have shown above, cast a deep glance into human nature, and in consequence has given an exceedingly admirable exposition, which is one of the most profound works in the whole of French literature. Now, sixty years later, M. Flourens suddenly appears with a polemic against it in his work, "_De la vie et de l'intelligence_," and makes so bold as to declare without ceremony that all that Bichat has brought to light on this important subject, which was quite his own, is false. And what does he oppose to him in the field? Counter reasons? No, counter a.s.sertions(37) and authorities, indeed, which are as inadmissible as they are remarkable-Descartes and Gall! M. Flourens is by conviction a Cartesian, and to him Descartes, in the year 1858, is still "_le philosophe par excellence_." Now Descartes was certainly a great man, yet only as a forerunner. In the whole of his dogmas, on the other hand, there is not a word of truth; and to appeal to these as authorities at this time of day is simply absurd. For in the nineteenth century a Cartesian in philosophy is just what a follower of Ptolemy would be in astronomy, or a follower of Stahl in chemistry. But for M. Flourens the dogmas of Descartes are articles of faith. Descartes has taught, _les volontes sont des pensees_: therefore this is the case, although every one feels within himself that willing and thinking are as different as white and black. Hence I have been able above, in chapter 19, to prove and explain this fully and thoroughly, and always under the guidance of experience. But above all, according to Descartes, the oracle of M. Flourens, there are two fundamentally different substances, body and soul. Consequently M.

Flourens, as an orthodox Cartesian, says: "_Le premier point est de separer, meme par les mots, ce qui est du corps de ce qui est de l'ame_"

(i. 72). He informs us further that this "_ame reside uniquement et exclusivement dans le cerveau_" (ii. 137); from whence, according to a pa.s.sage of Descartes, it sends the _spiritus animales_ as couriers to the muscles, yet can only itself be affected by the brain; therefore the pa.s.sions have their seat (_siege_) in the heart, which is altered by them, yet their place (_place_) in the brain. Thus, really thus, speaks the oracle of M. Flourens, who is so much edified by it, that he even utters it twice after him (i. 33 and ii. 135), for the unfailing conquest of the ignorant Bichat, who knows neither soul nor body, but merely an animal and an organic life, and whom he then here condescendingly informs that we must thoroughly distinguish the parts where the pa.s.sions have their _seat_ (_siegent_) from those which they _affect_. According to this, then, the pa.s.sions _act_ in one place while they _are_ in another. Corporeal things are wont to act only where they are, but with an immaterial soul the case may be different. But what in general may he and his oracle really have thought in this distinction of _place_ and _siege_, of _sieger_ and _affecter_? The fundamental error of M. Flourens and Descartes springs really from the fact that they confound the motives or occasions of the pa.s.sions, which, as ideas, certainly lie in the intellect, _i.e._, in the brain, with the pa.s.sions themselves, which, as movements of the will, lie in the whole body, which (as we know) is the perceived will itself. M.

Flourens' second authority is, as we have said, Gall. I certainly have said, at the beginning of this twentieth chapter (and already in the earlier edition): "The greatest error in Gall's phrenology is, that he makes the brain the organ of moral qualities also." But what I censure and reject is precisely what M. Flourens praises and admires, for he bears in his heart the doctrine of Descartes: "_Les volontes sont des pensees._"

Accordingly he says, p. 144: "_Le premier service que Gall a rendu a la physiologie (?) a ete de rammener le moral a l'intellectuel, et de faire voir que les facultes morales et les facultes intellectuelles sont du meme ordre, et de les placer toutes, autant les unes que les autres, uniquement et exclusivement dans le cerveau._" To a certain extent my whole philosophy, but especially the nineteenth chapter of this volume, consists of the refutation of this fundamental error. M. Flourens, on the contrary, is never tired of extolling this as a great truth and Gall as its discoverer; for example, p. 147: "_Si j'en etais a cla.s.ser les services que nous a rendu Gall, je dirais que le premier a ete de rammener les qualites morales au cerveau_;"-p. 153: "_Le cerveau seul est l'organe de l'ame, et de l'ame dans toute la plenitude de ses fonctions_" (we see the simple soul of Descartes still always lurks in the background, as the kernel of the matter); "_il est le siege de toutes les facultes intellectuelles.... Gall a rammene_ LE MORAL A L'INTELLECTUEL, _il a rammene les qualites morales au meme siege, au meme organe, que les facultes intellectuelles_." Oh how must Bichat and I be ashamed of ourselves in the presence of such wisdom! But, to speak seriously, what can be more disheartening, or rather more shocking, than to see the true and profound rejected and the false and perverse extolled; to live to find that important truths, deeply hidden, and extracted late and with difficulty, are to be torn down, and the old, stale, and late conquered errors set up in their place; nay, to be compelled to fear that through such procedure the advances of human knowledge, so hardly achieved, will be broken off! But let us quiet our fears; for _magma est vis veritatis et praevalebit_. M. Flourens is unquestionably a man of much merit, but he has chiefly acquired it upon the experimental path. Just those truths, however, which are of the greatest importance cannot be brought out by experiments, but only by reflection and penetration. Now Bichat by his reflection and penetration has here brought a truth to light which is of the number of those which are unattainable by the experimental efforts of M. Flourens, even if, as a true and consistent Cartesian, he tortures a hundred more animals to death. But he ought betimes to have observed and thought something of this: "Take care, friend, for it burns." The presumption and self-sufficiency, however, such as is only imparted by superficiality combined with a false obscurity, with which M. Flourens undertakes to refute a thinker like Bichat by counter a.s.sertions, old wives' beliefs, and futile authorities, indeed to reprove and instruct him, and even almost to mock at him, has its origin in the nature of the Academy and its _fauteuils_. Throned upon these, and saluting each other mutually as _ill.u.s.tre confrere_, gentlemen cannot avoid making themselves equal with the best who have ever lived, regarding themselves as oracles, and therefore fit to decree what shall be false and what true. This impels and ent.i.tles me to say out plainly for once, that the really superior and privileged minds, who now and then are born for the enlightenment of the rest, and to whom certainly Bichat belongs, are so "by the grace of G.o.d,"

and accordingly stand to the Academy (in which they have generally occupied only the forty-first _fauteuil_) and to its _ill.u.s.tres confreres_, as born princes to the numerous representatives of the people, chosen from the crowd. Therefore a secret awe should warn these gentlemen of the Academy (who always exist by the score) before they attack such a man,-unless they have most cogent reasons to present, and not mere contradictions and appeals to _placita_ of Descartes, which at the present day is quite absurd.

FOOTNOTES

1 Bruno and Spinoza are here entirely to be excepted. They stand each for himself and alone, and belong neither to their age nor their quarter of the globe, which rewarded the one with death and the other with persecution and insult. Their miserable existence and death in this Western world is like that of a tropical plant in Europe. The banks of the sacred Ganges were their true spiritual home; there they would have led a peaceful and honoured life among men of like mind. In the following lines, with which Bruno begins his book _Della Causa Principio et Uno_, for which he was brought to the stake, he expresses clearly and beautifully how lonely he felt himself in his age, and he also shows a presentiment of his fate which led him to delay the publication of his views, till that inclination to communicate what one knows to be true, which is so strong in n.o.ble minds, prevailed:

"_Ad partum properare tuum, mens aegra, quid obstat;_ _ Seclo haec indigno sint tribuenda licet?_ _ Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cac.u.men_ _ Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem._"

Whoever has read this his princ.i.p.al work, and also his other Italian writings, which were formerly so rare, but are now accessible to all through a German edition, will find, as I have done, that he alone of all philosophers in some degree approaches to Plato, in respect of the strong blending of poetical power and tendency along with the philosophical, and this he also shows especially in a dramatic form.

Imagine the tender, spiritual, thoughtful being, as he shows himself to us in this work of his, in the hands of coa.r.s.e, furious priests as his judges and executioners, and thank Time which brought a brighter and a gentler age, so that the after-world whose curse was to fall on those fiendish fanatics is the world we now live in.

2 Bayard Taylor's translation of "Faust," vol. i. p. 14.-TRS.

3 "Faust," scene vi., Bayard Taylor's translation, vol. i. p.

134.-TRS.

4 Observe here that I always quote the "Kritik der reinen Vernunft"

according to the paging of the first edition, for in Rosenkranz's edition of Kant's collected works this paging is always given in addition. Besides this, I add the paging of the fifth edition, preceded by a V.; all the other editions, from the second onwards, are the same as the fifth, and so also is their paging.

5 Cf. Christian Wolf's "_Vernunftige Gedanken von Gott, Welt und Seele_," -- 577-579. It is strange that he only explains as contingent what is necessary according to the principle of sufficient reason of becoming, _i.e._, what takes place from causes, and on the contrary recognises as necessary that which is so according to the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason; for example, what follows from the _essentia_ (definition), thus a.n.a.lytical judgments, and further also mathematical truths. The reason he a.s.signs for this is, that only the law of causality gives infinite series, while the other kinds of grounds give only finite series. Yet this is by no means the case with the forms of the principle of sufficient reason in pure s.p.a.ce and time, but only holds good of the logical ground of knowledge; but he held mathematical necessity to be such also. Compare the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, -- 50.

6 With my refutation of the Kantian proof may be compared the earlier attacks upon it by Feder, _Ueber Zeit, Raum und Kausalitat_, -- 28; and by G. E. Schulze, _Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie_, Bd.

ii. S. 422-442.