The World as Will and Idea Volume III Part 17

Ground of _knowledge_ produces _conviction_ only, as distinguished from _insight_ into the ground of being. Thus it is that the attempt, which even Euclid at times makes, to produce _conviction_, as distinguished from insight into the ground of being, in geometry, is a mistake, and induces aversions to mathematics in many an admirable mind.

Chapter VII.

The remaining cla.s.s of objects for the subject is a very peculiar and important one. It comprehends only one object, the immediate object of inner sense, the subject in volition which becomes an object of knowledge, but only in inner sense, and therefore always in time and never in s.p.a.ce; and in time only under limitations. There can be no knowledge of knowledge, for that would imply that the subject had separated itself from knowledge, and yet knew knowledge, which is impossible. The subject is the condition of the existence of ideas, and can never itself become idea or object. It knows itself therefore never as _knowing_, but only as _willing_. Thus what we know in ourselves is never what knows, but what wills, the will. The ident.i.ty of the subject of volition with the subject of knowledge, through which the word "I" includes both, is the insoluble problem. The ident.i.ty of the knowing with the known is inexplicable, and yet is immediately present. The operation of a motive is not, like that of all other causes, known only from without, and therefore indirectly, but also from within. Motivation is, in fact, causality viewed from within.

Chapter VIII.

In this, the concluding chapter, Schopenhauer sums up his results.

Necessity has no meaning other than that of the irresistible sequence of the effect where the cause is given. All necessity is thus conditioned, and absolute or unconditioned necessity is a contradiction in terms. And there is a fourfold necessity corresponding to the four forms of the principle of sufficient reason:-(1.) The logical form, according to the principle of the ground of knowledge; on account of which, if the premisses are given, the conclusion follows. (2.) The physical form, according to the law of causality; on account of which, if the cause is given, the effect must follow. (3.) The mathematical form, according to the law of being; on account of which every relation expressed by a true geometrical proposition is what it is affirmed to be, and every correct calculation is irrefutable. (4.) The moral form, on account of which every human being and every brute must, when the motive appears, perform the only act which accords with the inborn and unalterable character. A consequence of this is, that every department of science has one or other of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason as its basis. In conclusion, Schopenhauer points out that just because the principle of sufficient reason belongs to the _a priori_ element in intelligence, it cannot be applied to the entirety of things, to the universe as inclusive of intelligence. Such a universe is mere phenomenon, and what is only true because it belongs to the form of intelligence can have no application to intelligence itself. Thus it is that it cannot be said that the universe and all things in it exist because of something else. In other words, the cosmological proof of the existence of G.o.d is inadmissible.

THE END.