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INTRODUCTION. 217
sole truly real, primary, metaphysical thing in a world
in which everything else is only phenomenon i.e. mere
representation gives all things, whatever they may
be, the power to exist and to act ;
that accordingly, not only the voluntary actions of animals,
but the organic mechanism, nay even the shape and
quality of their living body, the vegetation of plants
and finally, even in inorganic Nature, crystallization,
and in general every primary force which manifests
itself in physical and chemical phenomena, not ex
cepting Gravity, that all this, I say, in itself, i.e.
independently of phenomenon (which only means,
independently of our brain and its representations),
is absolutely identical with the will we find within
us and know as intimately as we can know any
thing ;
that further, the individual manifestations of the will are
set in motion by motives in beings gifted with an
intellect, but no less by stimuli in the organic life of
animals and of plants, and finally in all inorganic
Nature, by causes in the narrowest sense of the word
these distinctions applying exclusively to pheno
mena;
that, on the other hand, knowledge with its substratum,
the intellect, is a merely secondary phenomenon, dif
fering completely from the will, only accompanying
its higher degrees of objectification and not essential
to it ; which, as it depends upon the manifestations of
the will in the animal organism, is therefore physical,
and not, like the will, metaphysical ;
that we are never able therefore to infer absence of will
from absence of knowledge; for the will may be
pointed out even in all phenomena
of unconscious
Nature, whether in plants or in inorganic bodies ; in
short,