OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 673 



this he conceives to be the Intellect. In this way 

 the contingent and the many, as opposed to the 

 necessary and the One, receives due attention in 

 Schopenhauer's system. The entry of the Intellect 

 into the activity and service of the Will as a means 

 to its higher objectivation works an apparent dis- 

 ruption, and is the cause of the differentiation and 

 diversity of things in the phenomenal world. 



To the process of objectivation of the Will Schopen- 

 hauer thus adds in the higher forms of existence the 

 principle of individuation. The original and underlying 

 One, when and where it becomes self-conscious, sees and 

 comprehends itself in the forms of space, time, and caus- 

 ality, as a world of many things and many individuals : 

 and this process of individuation or differentiation ascends 

 in the higher forms of existence through sensation, per- 

 ception, the processes of abstraction, intuition, and reason- 

 ing, to an ultimate possible position in which the apparent 

 or phenomenal diversity is gradually annulled or reuni- 

 fied, the One returning again into itself. 



This whole process, which, however, is considered 

 to be out of time, receives an ethical interpretation 

 which is not a necessary consequence of the meta- 

 physical premises of Schopenhauer's philosophy, but 

 which marks in the history of philosophical thought the 

 beginnings of that reaction which attained full force 

 when the idealistic movement had exhausted itself. 

 We have seen that the latter was essentially optimistic ; 

 it was sustained by an exalted belief and confidence in 

 the powers of the human intellect to solve, in theory 

 and practice, the ultimate problem of existence. 



VOL. iv. 2 u 



