OF NATURE. 



587 



that to the influence of Kant's practical philosophy, 

 and of the extreme version which Fichte subsequently 

 gave of it, the fundamental conception of Schopen- 

 hauer must be traced back, it is nevertheless his 

 undoubted merit to have first attempted to elaborate 

 a comprehensive philosophical creed in which the ulti- 

 mate Eeality, the foundation and root of all existence, 

 is conceived to be that power which in human con- 

 sciousness figures and operates as the Will or active 

 principle. 1 



As the interest in the logical system of Hegel sub- 

 sided, and the shallowness of the materialistic doctrines 

 revealed itself, the position which Schopenhauer took 

 up, and which he had defended with a great wealth of 

 illustration and with much literary talent, attracted at' 

 last popular attention and exerted that influence upon 

 scientific, 2 academic, and popular thought which it has 



32. 



Opposed to 



and Mech- 



anicism - 



1 Schopenhauer gives very lucidly 

 the rationale of his whole concep- 

 tion in a passage which is worth 

 transcribing. "The empirical con- 

 firmations which I am going to 

 mention refer one and all to the 

 kernel and main point of my doc- 

 trine, the real metaphysic of the 

 same i.e., to that paradoxical, 

 fundamental truth that what Kant 

 opposed as the 'Thing in itself to 

 its mere appearance (termed by me 

 presentation) and what he con- 

 sidered to be absolutely unknow- 

 able, that, I say, this thing in 

 itself, this substratum of all phe- 

 nomena, and as such of the whole 

 of nature, is nothing else than 

 what is immediately known and 

 familiar to us, what we find in 

 our own inner self as the Will ; 

 that in consequence this Will, in- 

 stead of being, as all philosophers 



have hitherto assumed, inseparable 

 from the Intellect, or even a mere 

 result of the same, is fundament- 

 ally different and quite independ- 

 ent of it, capable of existing and 

 manifesting itself without it : such 

 being the case in the whole of 

 nature, from the animal creation 

 downwards : further, that this Will, 

 as the only Thing in itself, the 

 only truly Real, the only original 

 and metaphysical principle in a 

 world in which everything else is 

 mere appearance, gives to every- 

 thing, whatever it may be, the 

 power through which it can exist 

 and act, &c." (Schopenhauer, 

 Werke, ed. Griesebach, 2nd edit., 

 vol. iii. p. 202.) 



2 In the second edition of his 

 tract, which appeared in the year 

 1854, Schopenhauer shows that his 

 fundamental principle as well as 



