The most universal forces of nature exhibit themselves as the lowest grade of the will’s objectification. In part they appear in all matter without exception, as gravity and impenetrability, and in part have shared out among themselves the matter generally met with. Thus some forces rule over this piece of matter, others over that, and this constitutes their specific difference, as rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, chemical properties, and qualities of every kind. In themselves they are immediate phenomena of the will, just as is the conduct of man; as such, they are groundless, just as is the character of man. Their particular phenomena alone are subject to the principle of sufficient reason, just as are the actions of men. On the other hand, they themselves can never be called either effect or cause, but are the prior and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects through which their own inner being is unfolded and revealed. It is therefore foolish to ask for a cause of gravity or of electricity; they are original forces, whose manifestations certainly take place according to cause and effect, so that each of their particular phenomena has a cause. This cause itself, again, is just such a particular phenomenon, and determines that this force was bound to manifest itself here and to appear in time and space. But the force itself is by no means effect of a cause, or cause of an effect. It is therefore wrong to say that “gravity is the cause of a stone’s falling”; the cause is rather the nearness of the earth, since it attracts the stone. Take away the earth, and the stone will not fall, although gravity remains. The force itself lies entirely outside the chain of causes and effects, which presupposes time, since it has meaning only in reference thereto; but the force lies also outside time. The individual change always has as its cause yet another change just as individual, and not the force of which it is the expression. For that which always endows a cause with efficacy, however innumerable the times of its appearance may be, is a force of nature. As such, it is groundless, i.e., it lies entirely outside the chain of causes, and generally outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason, and philosophically it is known as immediate objectivity of the will, and this is the in-itself of the whole of nature. In etiology, however, in this case physics, it is seen as an original force, i.e., a qualitas occulta.
At the higher grades of the will’s objectivity, we see individuality standing out prominently, especially in man, as the great difference of individual characters, i.e., as complete personality, outwardly expressed by strongly marked individual physiognomy, which embraces the whole bodily form. No animal has this individuality in anything like such a degree; only the higher animals have a trace of it, but the character of the species completely predominates over it, and for this reason there is but little individual physiognomy. The farther down we go, the more completely is every trace of individual character lost in the general character of the species, and only the physiognomy of the species remains. We know the psychological character of the species, and from this know exactly what is to be expected from the individual. On the other hand, in the human species every individual has to be studied and fathomed by himself, and this is of the greatest difficulty, if we wish to determine beforehand with some degree of certainty his course of action, on account of the possibility of dissimulation which makes its first appearance with the faculty of reason. It is probably connected with this difference between the human species and all others, that the furrows and convolutions of the brain, entirely wanting in birds and still very weakly marked in rodents, are even in the higher animals far more symmetrical on both sides, and more constantly the same in each individual, than they are in man.64 It is further to be regarded as a phenomenon of this peculiar individual character, distinguishing man from all the animals, that, in the case of the animals, the sexual impulse seeks its satisfaction without noticeable selection, whereas in the case of man this selection, in an instinctive manner independent of all reflection, is carried to such heights that it rises to a powerful passion. Therefore, while every person is to be regarded as a specially determined and characterized phenomenon of the will, and even to a certain extent as a special Idea, in the animals this individual character as a whole is lacking, since the species alone has a characteristic significance. This trace of the individual character fades away more and more, the farther we go from man. Finally, plants no longer have any individual characteristics save those that can be fully explained from the favourable or unfavourable external influences of soil, climate, and other contingencies. Finally, in the inorganic kingdom of nature all individuality completely disappears. Only the crystal can still to some extent be regarded as individual; it is a unity of the tendency in definite directions, arrested by coagulation, which makes the trace of this tendency permanent. At the same time, it is an aggregate from its central form, bound into unity by an Idea, just as the tree is an aggregate from the individual shooting fibre showing itself in every rib of the leaf, in every leaf, in every branch. It repeats itself, and to a certain extent makes each of these appear as a growth of its own, nourishing itself parasitically from the greater, so that the tree, resembling the crystal, is a systematic aggregate of small plants, although only the whole is the complete presentation of an indivisible Idea, in other words, of this definite grade of the will’s objectification. But the individuals of the same species of crystal can have no other difference than what is produced by external contingencies; indeed we can even at will make any species crystallize into large or small crystals. But the individual as such, that is to say, with traces of an individual character, is certainly not to be found at all in inorganic nature. All its phenomena are manifestations of universal natural forces, in other words, of those grades of the will’s objectification which certainly do not objectify themselves (as in organic nature) by means of the difference of individualities partially expressing the whole of the Idea, but exhibit themselves only in the species, and manifest this in each particular phenomenon absolutely without any deviation. As time, space, plurality, being-conditioned by cause do not belong to the will or to the Idea (the grade of the will’s objectification), but only to their individual phenomena, such a force of nature as, e.g., gravity or electricity, must manifest itself as such in precisely the same way in all its millions of phenomena, and only the external circumstances can modify the phenomenon. This unity of its inner being in all its phenomena, this unchangeable constancy of its appearance, as soon as the conditions are present for this under the guidance of causality, is called a law of nature. If such a law is once known through experience, the phenomenon of that natural law whose character is expressed and laid down in it can be accurately predetermined and calculated. But it is just this conformity to law of the phenomena of the lower grades of the will’s objectification which gives them an aspect so different from the phenomena of the same will at the higher grades of its objectification. These grades are more distinct, and we see them in animals, in men and their actions, where the stronger or weaker appearance of the individual character and susceptibility to motives, which often remain hidden from the observer because they reside in knowledge, have resulted in the identical aspect of the inner nature of both kinds of phenomena being until now entirely overlooked.
The infallibility of the laws of nature contains something astonishing, indeed at times almost terrible, when we start from knowledge of the individual thing, and not from that of the Idea. It might astonish us that nature does not even once forget her laws. For instance, when once it is according to a natural law that, if certain materials are brought together under definite conditions, a chemical combination will occur, gas will be evolved, or combustion will take place; then, if the conditions come about, either through our own agency or by pure chance, today just as much as a thousand years ago, the definite phenomenon appears at once and without delay. (In the case of pure chance, the promptness and accuracy are the more astonishing, because unexpected.) We are most vividly impressed by this marvellous fact in the case of rare phenomena which occur only in very complex circumstances, but whose occurrence in such circumstances has been previously foretold to us. For example, certain metals, arranged alternately in a fluid containing an acid, are brought into contact; silver leaf brought between the extremities of this series is inevitably consumed suddenly in green flames; or, under certain conditions, the hard diamond is transformed into carbonic acid. It is the ghostly omnipresence of natural forces which then astonishes us, and we notice here something that in the case of ordinary everyday phenomena no longer strikes us, namely how the connexion between cause and effect is really just as mysterious as that which we imagine between a magical formula and the spirit that necessarily appears when invoked thereby. On the other hand, if we have penetrated into the philosophical knowledge that a force of nature is a definite grade of the objectification of the will, in other words, a definite grade of what we recognize in ourselves as our innermost being; if we have attained to the knowledge that this will, in itself and apart from its phenomenon and the forms thereof, lies outside time and space, and thus that the plurality conditioned by these does not belong to it or directly to the grade of the will’s objectification, i.e., to the Idea, but only to their phenomena; and if we remember that the law of causality has significance only in relation to time and space, since it determines the position therein of the many and varied phenomena of the different Ideas in which the will manifests itself, regulating the order in which they must appear; then, I say, the inner meaning of Kant’s great doctrine has dawned on us in this knowledge. It is the doctrine that space, time, and causality belong not to the thing-in-itself, but only to the phenomenon, that they are only the forms of our knowledge, not qualities of the thing-in-itself. If we have grasped this, we shall see that this astonishment at the conformity to law and the accuracy of operation of a natural force, the complete sameness of all its millions of phenomena, and the infallibility of its appearance, is in fact like the astonishment of a child or of a savage who, looking for the first time at some flower through a many-faceted glass, marvels at the complete similarity of the innumerable flowers that he sees, and counts the leaves of each separately.
Therefore every universal, original force of nature is, in its inner essence, nothing but the objectification of the will at a low grade, and we call every such grade an eternal Idea in Plato’s sense. But the law of nature is the relation of the Idea to the form of its phenomenon. This form is time, space, and causality, having a necessary and inseparable connexion and relation to one another. Through time and space the Idea multiplies itself into innumerable phenomena, but the order in which these enter into those forms of multiplicity is definitely determined by the law of causality. This law is, so to speak, the norm of the extreme points of those phenomena of different Ideas, according to which space, time, and matter are assigned to them. This norm is, therefore, necessarily related to the identity of the whole of existing matter which is the common substratum of all these different phenomena. If all these were not referred to that common matter, in the possession of which they have to be divided, there would be no need for such a law to determine their claims. They might all at once and together fill endless space throughout an endless time. Therefore only because all those phenomena of the eternal Ideas are referred to one and the same matter must there be a rule for their appearance and disappearance, otherwise one would not make way for another. Thus the law of causality is essentially bound up with that of the persistence of substance; each reciprocally obtains significance from the other. Again, space and time are related to them in just the same way. For time is the mere possibility of opposed states in the same matter; space is the mere possibility of the persistence of the same matter in all kinds of opposed states. Therefore in the previous book we declared matter to be the union of time and space, and this union shows itself as fluctuation of the accidents with persistence of the substance, the universal possibility of which is precisely causality or becoming. Therefore we said also that matter is through and through causality. We declared the understanding to be the subjective correlative of causality, and said that matter (and hence the whole world as representation) exists only for the understanding; the understanding is its condition, its supporter, as its necessary correlative. All this is here mentioned only in passing, to remind the reader of what was said in the first book. For a complete understanding of these two books, we are required to observe their inner agreement; for that which is inseparably united in the actual world as its two sides, namely will and representation, has been torn apart in these two books, so that we may recognize each of them more clearly in isolation.
Perhaps it may not be superfluous to make even clearer, by an example, how the law of causality has meaning only in relation to time and space, and to matter which consists in the union of the two. This law determines the limits according to which the phenomena of the forces of nature are distributed in the possession of matter. The original natural forces themselves, however, as immediate objectification of the will, that will as thing-in-itself not being subject to the principle of sufficient reason, lie outside those forms. Only within these forms has any etiological explanation validity and meaning, and for this reason it can never lead us to the inner reality of nature. For this purpose let us imagine some kind of machine constructed according to the laws of mechanics. Iron weights begin its movement by their gravity; copper wheels resist through their rigidity, thrust and raise one another and the levers by virtue of their impenetrability, and so on. Here gravity, rigidity, and impenetrability are original, unexplained forces; mechanics tells us merely the conditions under which, and the manner in which, they manifest themselves, appear, and govern a definite matter, time and place. Now a powerful magnet can affect the iron of the weights, and overcome gravity; the movement of the machine stops, and the matter is at once the scene of a quite different force of nature, namely magnetism, of which etiological explanation again tells us nothing more than the conditions of its appearance. Or let the copper discs of that machine be laid on zinc plates, and an acid solution be introduced between them. The same matter of the machine is at once subject to another original force, galvanism, which now governs it according to its own laws, and reveals itself in that matter through its phenomena. Again, etiology can tell us nothing more about these than the circumstances under which, and the laws by which, they manifest themselves. Now let us increase the temperature and add pure oxygen; the whole machine burns, in other words, once again an entirely different natural force, the chemical, has an irresistible claim to that matter at this time and in this place, and reveals itself in this matter as Idea, as a definite grade of the will’s objectification. The resulting metallic oxide now combines with an acid, and a salt is produced; crystals are formed. These are the phenomenon of another Idea that in turn is itself quite unfathomable, whereas the appearance of its phenomenon depends on those conditions that etiology is able to state. The crystals disintegrate, mix with other materials, and a vegetation springs from them, a new phenomenon of will. And thus the same persistent matter could be followed ad infinitum, and we would see how first this and then that natural force obtained a right to it and inevitably seized it, in order to appear and reveal its own inner nature. The law of causality states the condition of this right, the point of time and space where it becomes valid, but the explanation based on this law goes only thus far. The force itself is phenomenon of the will, and, as such, is not subject to the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, that is to say, it is groundless. It lies outside all time, is omnipresent, and, so to speak, seems constantly to wait for the appearance of those circumstances under which it can manifest itself and take possession of a definite piece of matter, supplanting the forces that have hitherto governed it. All time exists only for the phenomenon of the force, and is without significance for the force itself. For thousands of years chemical forces slumber in matter, till contact with the reagents sets them free; then they appear, but time exists only for this phenomenon or appearance, not for the forces themselves. For thousands of years galvanism slumbers in copper and zinc, and they lie quietly beside silver, which must go up in flames as soon as all three come into contact under the required conditions. Even in the organic kingdom, we see a dry seed preserve the slumbering force for three thousand years, and with the ultimate appearance of favourable circumstances grow up as a plant.65
If from this discussion we now clearly understand the difference between the force of nature and all its phenomena; if we have clearly seen that the former is the will itself at this definite stage of its objectification, but that plurality comes to phenomena only through time and space, and that the law of causality is nothing but the determination in time and space of the position of the individual phenomena, then we shall also recognize the perfect truth and deep meaning of Malebranche’s doctrine of occasional causes. It is well worth while to compare this doctrine of his, as he explains it in the Recherches de la Vérité, especially in the third chapter of the second part of the sixth book, and in the éclaircissements66 appended to that chapter, with my present description, and to observe the perfect agreement of the two doctrines, in spite of so great a difference in the trains of thought. Indeed, I must admire how Malebranche, though completely involved in the positive dogmas inevitably forced on him by the men of his time, nevertheless, in such bonds and under such a burden, hit on the truth so happily, so correctly, and knew how to reconcile it with those very dogmas, at any rate in their language.
For the power of truth is incredibly great and of unutterable endurance. We find frequent traces of it again in all, even the most bizarre and absurd, dogmas of different times and countries, often indeed in strange company, curiously mixed up but yet recognizable. It is then like a plant that germinates under a heap of large stones, but yet climbs up towards the light, working itself through with many deviations and windings, disfigured, bleached, stunted in growth—but yet towards the light.
In any case, Malebranche is right; every natural cause is only an occasional cause. It gives only the opportunity, the occasion, for the phenomenon of that one and indivisible will which is the in-itself of all things, and whose graduated objectification is this whole visible world. Only the appearing, the becoming visible, in such a place and at such a time, is brought about by the cause, and is to that extent dependent on it, but not the whole of the phenomenon, not its inner nature. This is the will itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason has no application, and which is therefore groundless. Nothing in the world has a cause of its existence absolutely and generally, but only a cause from which it exists precisely here and now. That a stone exhibits now gravity, now rigidity, now electricity, now chemical properties, depends on causes, on external impressions, and from these is to be explained. But those properties themselves, and hence the whole of its inner being which consists of them, and consequently manifests itself in all the ways mentioned, and thus in general that the stone is such as it is, that it exists generally—all this has no ground, but is the becoming visible of the groundless will. Thus every cause is an occasional cause. We have found it in nature-without-knowledge, but it is also precisely the same where motives, and not causes or stimuli, determine the point of entry of the phenomena, and hence in the actions of animals and of human beings. For in both cases it is one and the same will that appears, extremely different in the grades of its manifestation, multiplied in their phenomena, and, in regard to them, subject to the principle of sufficient reason, but in itself free from all this. Motives do not determine man’s character, but only the phenomenon or appearance of that character, that is, the deeds and actions, the external form of the course of his life, not its inner significance and content. These proceed from the character which is the immediate phenomenon of the will, and is therefore groundless. That one man is wicked and another good does not depend on motives and external influences such as teaching and preaching; and in this sense the thing is absolutely inexplicable. But whether a wicked man shows his wickedness in petty injustices, cowardly tricks, and low villainy, practised by him in the narrow sphere of his surroundings, or as a conqueror oppresses nations, throws a world into misery and distress, and sheds the blood of millions, this is the outward form of his phenomenon or appearance, that which is inessential to it, and it depends on the circumstances in which fate has placed him, on the surroundings, on external influences, on motives. But his decision on these motives can never be explained from them; it proceeds from the will, whose phenomenon this man is. We shall speak of this in the fourth book. The way in which the character discloses its qualities can be fully compared with the way in which every body in nature-without-knowledge reveals its qualities. Water remains water with the qualities inherent in it. But whether as a calm lake it reflects its banks, or dashes in foam over rocks, or by artificial means spouts into the air in a tall jet, all this depends on external causes; the one is as natural to it as is the other. But it will always show one or the other according to the circumstances; it is equally ready for all, yet in every case it is true to its character, and always reveals that alone. So also will every human character reveal itself under all circumstances, but the phenomena proceeding from it will be in accordance with the circumstances.