§ 56.

This freedom, this omnipotence, as the manifestation and copy of which the whole visible world, the phenomenon of this omnipotence, exists and progressively develops according to laws necessitated by the form of knowledge, can now express itself anew, and that indeed where, in its most perfect phenomenon, the completely adequate knowledge of its own inner nature has dawned on it. Thus either it wills here, at the summit of mental endowment and self-consciousness, the same thing that it willed blindly and without knowledge of itself; and then knowledge always remains motive for it, in the whole as well as in the particular. Or, conversely, this knowledge becomes for it a quieter, silencing and suppressing all willing. This is the affirmation and denial of the will-to-live already stated previously in general terms. As a general, not a particular, manifestation of will in regard to the conduct of the individual, it does not disturb and modify the development of the character, nor does it find its expression in particular actions; but either by an ever more marked appearance of the whole previous mode of action, or conversely, by its suppression, it vividly expresses the maxims that the will has freely adopted in accordance with the knowledge now obtained. The clearer development of all this, the main subject of this last book, is now facilitated and prepared for us to some extent by the considerations on freedom, necessity, and character which have been set forth. This will be even more so after we have postponed it once again, and have first turned our attention to life itself, the willing or not willing of which is the great question; indeed we shall attempt to know in general what will really come to the will itself, which everywhere is the innermost nature of this life, through its affirmation, in what way and to what extent this affirmation satisfies the will or indeed can satisfy it. In short, we shall try to find out what is generally and essentially to be regarded as its state or condition in this world which is its own, and which belongs to it in every respect.

In the first place, I wish the reader here to recall those remarks with which we concluded the second book, and which were occasioned by the question there raised as to the will’s aim and object. Instead of the answer to this question, we clearly saw how, at all grades of its phenomenon from the lowest to the highest, the will dispenses entirely with an ultimate aim and object. It always strives, because striving is its sole nature, to which no attained goal can put an end. Such striving is therefore incapable of final satisfaction; it can be checked only by hindrance, but in itself it goes on for ever. We saw this in the simplest of all natural phenomena, namely gravity, which does not cease to strive and press towards an extensionless central point, whose attainment would be the annihilation of itself and of matter; it would not cease, even if the whole universe were already rolled into a ball. We see it in other simple natural phenomena. The solid tends to fluidity, either by melting or dissolving, and only then do its chemical forces become free: rigidity is the imprisonment in which they are held by cold. The fluid tends to the gaseous form, into which it passes at once as soon as it is freed from all pressure. No body is without relationship, i.e., without striving, or without longing and desire, as Jacob Boehme would say. Electricity transmits its inner self-discord to infinity, although the mass of the earth absorbs the effect. Galvanism, so long as the pile lasts, is also an aimlessly and ceaselessly repeated act of self-discord and reconciliation. The existence of the plant is just such a restless, never satisfied striving, a ceaseless activity through higher and higher forms, till the final point, the seed, becomes anew a starting-point; and this is repeated ad infinitum; nowhere is there a goal, nowhere a final satisfaction, nowhere a point of rest. At the same time, we recall from the second book that everywhere the many different forces of nature and organic forms contest with one another for the matter in which they desire to appear, since each possesses only what it has wrested from another. Thus a constant struggle is carried on between life and death, the main result whereof is the resistance by which that striving which constitutes the innermost nature of everything is everywhere impeded. It presses and urges in vain; yet, by reason of its inner nature, it cannot cease; it toils on laboriously until this phenomenon perishes, and then others eagerly seize its place and its matter.

We have long since recognized this striving, that constitutes the kernel and in-itself of everything, as the same thing that in us, where it manifests itself most distinctly in the light of the fullest consciousness, is called will. We call its hindrance through an obstacle placed between it and its temporary goal, suffering; its attainment of the goal, on the other hand, we call satisfaction, well-being, happiness. We can also transfer these names to those phenomena of the world-without-knowledge which, though weaker in degree, are identical in essence. We then see these involved in constant suffering and without any lasting happiness. For all striving springs from want or deficiency, from dissatisfaction with one’s own state or condition, and is therefore suffering so long as it is not satisfied. No satisfaction, however, is lasting; on the contrary, it is always merely the starting-point of a fresh striving. We see striving everywhere impeded in many ways, everywhere struggling and fighting, and hence always as suffering. Thus that there is no ultimate aim of striving means that there is no measure or end of suffering.

But what we thus discover in nature-without-knowledge only by sharpened observation, and with an effort, presents itself to us distinctly in nature-with-knowledge, in the life of the animal kingdom, the constant suffering whereof is easily demonstrable. But without dwelling on these intermediate stages, we will turn to the life of man, where everything appears most distinctly and is illuminated by the clearest knowledge. For as the phenomenon of the will becomes more complete, the suffering becomes more and more evident. In the plant there is as yet no sensibility, and hence no pain. A certain very small degree of both dwells in the lowest animals, in infusoria and radiata; even in insects the capacity to feel and suffer is still limited. It first appears in a high degree with the complete nervous system of the vertebrate animals, and in an ever higher degree, the more intelligence is developed. Therefore, in proportion as knowledge attains to distinctness, consciousness is enhanced, pain also increases, and consequently reaches its highest degree in man; and all the more, the more distinctly he knows, and the more intelligent he is. The person in whom genius is to be found suffers most of all. In this sense, namely in reference to the degree of knowledge generally, not to mere abstract knowledge, I understand and here use that saying in Ecclesiastes: Qui auget scientiam, auget et dolorem.156 This precise relation between the degree of consciousness and that of suffering has been beautifully expressed in perceptive and visible delineation in a drawing by Tischbein, that philosophical painter or painting philosopher. The upper half of his drawing represents women from whom their children are being snatched away, and who by different groupings and attitudes express in many ways deep maternal pain, anguish, and despair. The lower half of the drawing shows, in exactly the same order and grouping, sheep whose lambs are being taken from them. In the lower half of the drawing an animal analogy corresponds to each human head, to each human attitude, in the upper half. We thus see clearly how the pain possible in the dull animal consciousness is related to the violent grief that becomes possible only through distinctness of knowledge, through clearness of consciousness.

For this reason, we wish to consider in human existence the inner and essential destiny of the will. Everyone will readily find the same thing once more in the life of the animal, only more feebly expressed in various degrees. He can also sufficiently convince himself in the suffering animal world how essentially all life is suffering.