Fig. 6.
Those readers for whom this chapter may have a special interest will find the subject of it more fully treated in my chief work, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," vol. i. § 15; vol. ii. chap. 13.
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE FOURTH CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THE FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT.
§ 40. General Explanation.
The last Class of Objects for our representative faculty which remains to be examined is a peculiar but highly important one. It comprises but one object for each individual: that is, the immediate object of the inner sense, the Subject in volition, which is Object for the Knowing Subject; wherefore it manifests itself in Time alone, never in Space, and as we shall see, even in Time under an important restriction.
§ 41. Subject of Knowledge and Object.
All knowledge presupposes Subject and Object. Even self-consciousness (Selbstbewusstsein) therefore is not absolutely simple, but, like our consciousness of all other things (i.e., the faculty of perception), it is subdivided into that which is known and that which knows. Now, that which is known manifests itself absolutely and exclusively as Will.
The Subject accordingly knows itself exclusively as willing, but not as knowing. For the ego which represents, never can itself become representation or Object, since it conditions all representations as their necessary correlate; rather may the following beautiful passage from the Sacred Upanishad be applied to it: Id videndum non est: omnia videt; et id audiendum non est: omnia audit; sciendum non est: omnia scit: et intelligendum, non est: omnia intelligit. Præter id, videns, et sciens, et audiens, et intelligens ens aliud non est.[151]
There can therefore be no knowledge of knowing, because this would imply separation of the Subject from knowing, while it nevertheless knew that knowing—which is impossible.