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PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 321
makes the knowledge, that this is indeed the case, so diffi
cult, is the circumstance, that we know causality and will
in two fundamentally different : ways causality entirely
from outside, quite indirectly, quite through the under
standing ; will entirely from inside, quite directly ; and that
accordingly the clearer the knowledge
of the one in each
given instance, the less clear is the knowledge of the other.
Therefore we recognise the essence of the will least readily,
where causality is most intelligible ; and, where the will is
most unmistakably evident, causality becomes so obscured,
that the vulgar mind could venture to deny its existence
altogether. Now, as Kant has taught us, causality is
nothing but the form of the understanding itself, knowable
a priori : that is, the essence of representation, as such,
which is one side of the world; the other side is will:
which is the thing in itself. That relative increase and
decrease of clearness in inverse proportion of causality and
of the will, that mutual advancing and receding of both,
depends consequently upon the fact, that the more a thing
is given us as mere phenomenon, i.e. as representation, the
more clearly does the a priori form of representation, i.e.
causality, manifest itself: this is the case in inanimate
Nature ; conversely, the more immediate our knowledge of
the will, the more does the form of representation recede
into the background: this is the case with ourselves.
That is : the nearer one side of the world approaches to
us, the more do we lose sight of the other.