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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
sequent incarnation is not difficult to understand, if we reflect over the principle of objectification of will, as Schopenhauer calls it. Says* the great philosopher :
“The body is given in two entirely different ways to the subject of knowledge. It is given as an idea in intelligent perception, as an object among objects and subject to the laws of the objects, And it is also given in a quite different way as that which is immediately known to every one, and is signified by the word will.
“Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body. The act of the will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same, but they are given in entirely different ways,-immediately, and again in perception for the understanding. The action of the body is nothing but the act of will objectified, i.e., passed into perception. This is true of every movement of the body, not merely those which follow upon motives, but also involuntary movements which follow upon mere stimuli, and, indeed, the whole body is nothing but objectified will, i.e., will become idea. Thus in a certain sense we may also say that will is the knowledge a priori of the body and the body is the know ledge a posteriori of the will. Resolutions of the will which relate to the future are merely deliberations of the reason about what we shall will at a particular time, not real acts of will, Only the carrying out of the resolve stamps it as will, for till then it is never more than an intention that may be changed, and that exists only in the reason in abstracto. It is only in reflection that to will and to act are different; in reality they are one. Every true, genuine, immediate act of will is also, at once and immediately, a visible act of the body. And, corresponding to this, every impression upon the body is also, on the other hand, at once and immediately, an impression upon the will. As such, it is called pain when it is opposed to the will; gratification or pleasure when it is in accordance with it. It is quite wrong, however, to call pain and.pleasure ideas, for they are by no means ideas, but immediate affections of the will in its manifestation, the body; compulsory, instantaneous willing or not-willing of the impression which the body sustains. Lastly, the knowledge
* See The World as Will and Idea,' Vol. I, pp. 129-141.
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