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216 THE WILL IN NATURE.
really to connect themselves and to harmonize with it.
Moreover this is not brought about by twisting and strainin
g the empirical sciences in order to adapt them to Meta-
physic, nor by Metaphysic having been secretly abstracted
from them beforehand and then, a la Schelling, finding
a priori what it had learnt a posteriori. On the contrary,
both meet at the same point of their own accord, yet with
out collusion. My system therefore, far from soaring above
all reality and all experience, descends to the firm ground
of actuality, where its lessons are continued by the Phy
sical Sciences.
Now the extraneous and empirical corroborations I am
about to bring forward, all concern the kernel and chief
point of my doctrine, its Metaphysic proper. They con
cern, that is, the paradoxical fundamental truth,
that what Kant opposed as thing in itself to mere pheno
menon called more decidedly by me representation
and what he held to be absolutely unknowable, that
this thing in itself, this substratum of all phenomena,
and therefore of the whole of Nature, is nothing but
what we know directly and intimately and find within
1
ourselves as the will ;
that accordingly, this will, far from being inseparable from,
and even a mere result of, knowledge, differs radically
and entirely from, and is quite independent of, know
ledge, which is secondary and of later origin ; and can
consequently subsist and manifest itself without know
ledge : a thing which actually takes place throughout the
whole of Nature, from the animal kingdom downwards ;
that this will, being the one and only thing in itself, the
1 As will be seen by the following detailed exposition, Schopenhauer
attaches a far wider meaning to the word than is usually given, and
regards the will, not merely as conscious volition enlightened by Season
and determined by motives, but as the fundamental essence of all that
occurs, even where there is no choice. [Tr.]