From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



In order to understand the remainder of the present 

 work, it is necessary that Schopenhauer's thesis should 

 be kept in mind. 



But ' The World as Will and Representation ' 

 cannot be given in a summary. It must be studied and 

 meditated upon as it stands. The primary idea which 

 reduces the innumerable appearances of things to one 

 single, essential, and permanent principle, cannot be 

 detached from its intuitive and logical demonstration 

 and its development by a masterly inspiration; in 

 a word, from the magical framework in which this great 

 philosopher has set it. This framework is necessary 

 to the comprehension of its power and to the manifesta- 

 tion of its value and beauty. 



An analytical summary is, however, indispensable, 

 as I am well aware. I must, however, beg the instructed 

 reader to pardon its inevitable insufficiency, and to 

 excuse what seems to me like a profanation. 



Schopenhauer's system does not claim to explain 

 everything. He declares that certain questions of high 

 metaphysics, such as the beginning and end of things, 

 are incapable of complete solution. He does not ask 

 whence came this world nor how it will end. He only 

 inquires what it is. 



To him the world is at once will and representation; 

 a real will and an illusory and factitious representation. 



Why does he select the designation of ' Will ' to 

 describe the real essence of things ? Because Will 



' is something that we know directly; something 

 that we know and understand better than anything 

 else . . . the concept of Will is the only one among 

 all known concepts which does not take its rise 

 from phenomena and intuitive representations, but 

 comes from the depths of the individual conscious- 

 ness which recognises itself essentially, directly, 

 without any forms, even of subject and object, seeing 



190 



