SECOND BOOK: THE WORLD AS WILL003
§25 Spinoza (Epist. 62) says that if a stone which has been projected through the air had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own will. I add to this only that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will. In the passage referred to, Spinoza had in view the necessity with which the stone flies, and he rightly desires to transfer this necessity to that of the particular act of will of a person. I, on the other hand, consider the inner being, which alone imparts meaning and validity to all real necessity (i.e., effect following upon a cause) as its presupposition. In the case of men this is called character; in the case of a stone it is called quality, but it is[pg 165] the same in both. When it is immediately known it is called will. In the stone it has the weakest, and in man the strongest degree of visibility, of objectivity. St. Augustine recognises, with a true instinct, this identity of the tendencies of all things with our own willing, and I cannot refrain from quoting his na?ve account of the matter:—"Si pecora essemus, carnalem vitam et quod secundum sensum ejusdem est amaremus, idque esset sufficiens bonum nostrum, et secundum hoc si esset nobis bene, nihil aliud qu?reremus. Item, si arbores essemus, nihil quidem sentientes motu amare possemus: verumtamen id quasi appetere videremur, quo feracius essemus, uberiusque fructuos?. Si essemus lapides, aut fluctus, aut ventus, aut flamma, vel quid ejusmodi, sine ullo quidem sensu atque vita, non tamen nobis deesset quasi quidam nostrorum locorum atque ordinis appetitus. Nam velut amores corporum momenta sunt ponderum, sive deorsum gravitate, sive sursum levitate nitantur: ita enim corpus pondere, sicut animus amore fertur quocunque fertur" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 28).
