On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient...

[170] For revelation goes for nothing in philosophy; therefore a philosopher must before all things be an unbeliever. [Add. to 3rd ed.].

[171] One always says the other is right, so that the public in its simplicity at last imagines them really to be right. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[172] Here it is especially Ernst Reinhold's "System of Metaphysics" (3rd edition, 1854) that I have in my eye. In my "Parerga" I have explained how it comes, that brain-perverting books like this go through several editions. See "Parerga," vol. i. p. 171 (2nd edition, vol. i. p. 194).

[173] Nevertheless, by Zeus, all such gentlemen, in France as well as Germany, should be taught that Philosophy has a different mission from that of playing into the hands of the clergy. We must let them clearly see before all things that we have no faith in their faith—from this follows what we think of them. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[174] (a) Rosenkranz, "Meine Reform der Hegelschen Philosophie," 1852, especially p. 41, in a pompous, dictatorial tone: "I have explicitly said, that Space and Time would not exist if Matter did not exist. Æther spread out within itself first constitutes real Space, and the movement of this æther and consequent real genesis of everything individual and separate, constitutes real Time." (b) L. Noack, "Die Theologie als Religionsphilosophie," 1853, pp. 8, 9. (c) V. Reuchlin-Meldegg, Two reviews of Oersted's "Geist in der Natur" in the Heidelberg Annals, Nov.-Dec., 1850, and May-June, 1854.

[175] Time is the condition of the possibility of succession, which could neither take place, nor be understood by us and expressed in words, without Time. And Space is likewise the condition of the possibility of juxtaposition, and Transcendental Æsthetic is the proof that these conditions have their seat in the constitution of our head. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[176] In the Scholium to the eighth of the definitions he has placed at the top of his "Principia," Newton quite rightly distinguishes absolute, that is, empty, from relative, or filled Time, and likewise absolute from relative Space. He says, p. 11: Tempus, spatium, locum, motum, ut omnibus notissima, non definio. Notandum tamen quod VULGUS (that is, professors like those I have been mentioning) quantitates hasce non aliter quam ex relatione ad sensibilia concipiat. Et inde oriuntur præjudicia quædam, quibus tollendis convenit easdem in absolutas et relativas, veras et apparentes, mathematicas et vulgares distingui. And again (p. 12):

I. Tempus absolutum, verum et mathematicum, in se et natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, æquabiliter fluit, alioque nomine dicitur Duratio: relativum, apparens et vulgare est sensibilis et externa quævis Durationis per motum mensura (seu accurata seu inæquabilis) quâ vulgus vice veri temporis utitur; ut Hora, Dies, Mensis, Annus.

II. Spatiam absolutum, natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, semper manet similare et immobile: relativum est spatii hujus mensura seu dimensio quælibet mobilis, quæ a sensibus nostris per situm suum ad corpora definitur, et a vulgo pro spatio immobili usurpatur: uti dimensio spatii subterranei, ærei vel coelestis definita per situm suum ad terram.

But even Newton never dreamt of asking how we know these two infinite entities, Space and Time; since, as he here impresses on us, they do not fall within the range of the senses; and how we know them moreover so intimately, that we are able to indicate their whole nature and rule down to the minutest detail. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[177] Ecclesiasticus xxii. 8.

[178] For Kant has disclosed the dreadful truth, that philosophy must be quite a different thing from Jewish mythology. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[179] Another instance of Michelet's ignorance is to be found in Schopenhauer's posthumous writings, see "Aus Arthur Schopenhauer's handschriftlichem Nachlass," Leipzig, A. Brockhaus, 1864, p. 327. [Editor's note.]

[180] The same reviewer (Von Reuchlin-Meldegg) when be expounds the doctrines of the philosophers concerning God in the August number of the Heidelberg Annals (1855), p. 579, says: "In Kant, God is a thing in itself which cannot be known." In his review of Frauenstädt's "Letters" in the Heidelberg Annals of May and June (1855) he says that there is no knowledge à priori. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[181] C. 1. p. 899.

[182] p. 908.

[183]Hofräthe. A title of honour often given for literary and scientific merit in Germany, and common among University professors. [Tr.'s note.]

[184] "Potius de rebus ipsis judicare debemus, quam pro magno habere, de hominibus quid quisque senserit scire," says St. Augustine ("De civ. Dei," l. 19, c. 3). Under the present mode of proceeding, however, the philosophical lecture-room becomes a sort of rag-fair for old worn out, cast-off opinions, which are brought there every six months to be aired and beaten. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[185] I take this opportunity urgently to request that the public will not believe unconditionally any accounts of what I am supposed to have said, even when they are given as quotations; but will first verify the existence of these quotations in my works. In this way many a falsehood will be detected, which can however only be stamped as a direct forgery when accompanied by quotation marks (" "). [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[186] "Die Welt a. W. u. V.," vol. ii., c. 18, p. 213.

[187] So had I written in 1835, when the present treatise was first composed, having published nothing since 1818, before the close of which year "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" had appeared. For a Latin version, which I had added to the third volume of "Scriptores ophthalmologici minores," edente J. Radio, in 1830, for the benefit of my foreign readers, of my treatise "On Vision and Colours" (published in 1816), can hardly be said to break the silence of that pause.

[188] As will be seen by the following detailed exposition, Schopenhauer attaches a far wider meaning to the word than is usually given, and regards the will, not merely as conscious volition enlightened by Reason and determined by motives, but as the fundamental essence of all that occurs, even where there is no choice. [Tr.]

[189] Kant, "Von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte," § 51.

[190] Baltazar Gracian, "El Criticon," iii. 90, to whom I leave the responsibility for the anachronism.

[191] Kant, "Krit. d. r. V." 5th edition, p. 755. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 640.)

[192] Schiller, "der langen Rede kurzer Sinn." [Tr.]

[193] Chapter 20, p. 263; p. 295 of the 3rd edition.

[194] Rosas, "Handbuch der Augenheilkunde" (1830).

[195] Göthe, "Tag und Jahreshefte," 1812.

[196] This I wrote in 1836. The "Edinburgh Review" has since however greatly deteriorated, and is no longer its old self. I have even seen clerical time-serving in its pages, written down to the level of the mob.

[197] As a being existing by itself, a thing in itself. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[198] In which it is lodged in the garret. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[199] By this Schopenhauer means the distinction between the will in its widest sense, regarded as the fundamental essence of all that happens,—even where there is no choice, even where it is unconscious,—and conscious will, implying deliberation and choice, commonly called free-will. We must however carefully guard against confounding this relative free-will, with absolute free-will (liberum arbitrium indifferentiæ), which Schopenhauer declares to be inadmissible. The sense in which I have used the expression 'free-will' throughout this treatise, is that of relative freedom, i.e. power to choose between different motives, free of all outward restraint (Willkühr). (Tr.)

[200] I have shown the difference between cause in its narrowest sense, stimulus, and motive, at length in my "Grund-probleme der Ethik" p. 29 et seq.

[201] It is especially in secretive processes that we cannot avoid recognising a certain selection of the materials fitted for each purpose, consequently a free will in the secretive organs, which must even be assisted by a certain dull sensation, and in virtue of which each secreting organ only extracts from the same blood that particular secretion which suits it and no others: for instance, the liver only absorbs bile from the blood flowing through it, sending the rest of the blood on, and likewise the salivary glands and the pancreas only secrete saliva, the kidneys only urine, &c. &c. We may therefore compare the organs of secretion to different kinds of cattle grazing on one and the same pasture-land, each of which only browses upon the one sort of herb which suits its own particular appetite. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[202] Treviranus, "Die Erscheinungen und Gesetze des Organischen Lebens," vol. i. pp. 178-185.

[203] E. H. Weber, "Additamenta ad E. H. Weberi tractatum de motu iridis." Lipsia, 1823.

[204] Joh. Müller, "Handbuch der Physiologie," p. 764.

[205] Meckel, "A. f. d. P." vol. 5, pp. 195-198.

[206] Burdach, "Physiologie," vol. i. § 259, p. 388.