§ 43. Willing. The Law of Motives (Motivation).
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Schopenhauer, Arthur and Hillebrand, Karl, Mme.
It is just because the willing Subject is immediately given in self-consciousness, that we are unable further to define or to describe what willing is; properly speaking, it is the most direct knowledge we have, nay, one whose immediateness must finally throw light upon every other knowledge, as being very mediate.
At every resolution that we take ourselves, or that we see others take, we deem ourselves justified in asking, why? That is, we assume that something must have previously occurred, from which this resolution has resulted, and we call this something its reason, or, more correctly, the motive of the action which now follows. Without such a reason or motive, the action is just as inconceivable for us, as the movement of a lifeless body without being pushed or pulled. Motives therefore belong to causes, and have also been already numbered and characterized among them in § 20, as the third form of Causality. But all Causality is only the form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in the First Class of Objects: that is, in the corporeal world given us in external perception. There it forms the link which connects changes one with another, the cause being that which, coming from outside, conditions each occurrence. The inner nature of such occurrences on the contrary continues to be a mystery for us: for we always remain on the outside. We certainly see this cause necessarily produce that effect; but we do not learn how it is actually enabled to do so, or what is going on inside. Thus we see mechanical, physical, chemical effects, as well as those brought about by stimuli, in each instance follow from their respective causes without on that account ever completely understanding the process, the essential part of which remains a mystery for us; so we attribute it to qualities of bodies, to forces of Nature, or to vital energy, which, however, are all qualitates occultæ.
Nor should we be at all better off as to comprehension of the movements and actions of animals and of human beings, which would also appear to us as induced in some unaccountable way by their causes (motives), were it not that here we are granted an insight into the inward part of the process; we know, that is, by our own inward experience, that this is an act of the will called forth by the motive, which consists in a mere representation. Thus the effect produced by the motive, unlike that produced by all other causes, is not only known by us from outside, in a merely indirect way, but at the same time from inside, quite directly, and therefore according to its whole mode of action. Here we stand as it were behind the scenes, and learn the secret of the process by which cause produces effect in its most inward nature; for here our knowledge comes to us through a totally different channel and in a totally different way. From this results the important proposition: The action of motives (motivation) is causality seen from within. Here accordingly causality presents itself in quite a different way, in quite a different medium, and for quite another kind of knowledge; therefore it must now be exhibited as a special and peculiar form of our principle, which consequently here presents itself as the Principle of the Sufficient Reason of Acting, principium rationis sufficientis agendi, or, more briefly, as the Law of Motives (Law of Motivation).
As a clue to my philosophy in general, I here add, that this Fourth Class of Objects for the Subject, that is, the one object contained in it, the will which we apprehend within us, stands in the same relation towards the First Class as the law of motives towards the law of causality, as I have established it in § 20. This truth is the corner-stone of my whole Metaphysic.
As to the way in which, and the necessity with which, motives act, and as to the dependence of their action upon empirical, individual character, and even upon individual capacity for knowledge, &c. &c., I refer my readers to my Prize-essay on the Freedom of the Will, in which I have treated all this more fully.