This last consideration is related to the theme of the [pg 467] following chapter, to which it therefore makes the transition: yet the following observation belongs to it. In magnetic somnambulism the consciousness is doubled: two trains of knowledge, each connected in itself, but quite different from each other, arise; the waking consciousness knows nothing of the somnambulent. But the will retains in both the same character, and remains throughout identical; it expresses in both the same inclinations and aversions. For the function may be doubled, but not the true nature.
Chapter XX.[34] Objectification Of The Will In The Animal Organism.
By objectification I understand the self-exhibition in the real corporeal world. However, this world itself, as was fully shown in the first book and its supplements, is throughout conditioned by the knowing subject, thus by the intellect, and therefore as such is absolutely inconceivable outside the knowledge of this subject; for it primarily consists simply of ideas of perception, and as such is a phenomenon of the brain. After its removal the thing in itself would remain. That this is the will is the theme of the second book, and is there proved first of all in the human organism and in that of the brutes.
The knowledge of the external world may also be defined as the consciousness of other things, in opposition to self-consciousness. Since we have found in the latter that its true object or material is the will, we shall now, with the same intention, take into consideration the consciousness of other things, thus objective knowledge. Now here my thesis is this: that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively is the intellect, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus objectively, as the brain; and that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively, is the will, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus objectively, as the whole organism.
To the evidence which is given in support of this proposition, both in our second book and in the first two chapters of the treatise “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” [pg 469] I add the following supplementary remarks and illustrations.
Nearly all that is necessary to establish the first part of this thesis has already been brought forward in the preceding chapter, for in the necessity of sleep, in the alterations that arise from age, and in the differences of the anatomical conformation, it was proved that the intellect is of a secondary nature, and depends absolutely upon a single organ, the brain, whose function it is, just as grasping is the function of the hand; that it is therefore physical, like digestion, not metaphysical, like the will. As good digestion requires a healthy, strong stomach, as athletic power requires muscular sinewy arms, so extraordinary intelligence requires an unusually developed, beautifully formed brain of exquisitely fine texture and animated by a vigorous pulse. The nature of the will, on the contrary, is dependent upon no organ, and can be prognosticated from none. The greatest error in Gall's phrenology is that he assigns organs of the brain for moral qualities also. Injuries to the head, with loss of brain substance, affect the intellect as a rule very disadvantageously: they result in complete or partial imbecility or forgetfulness of language, permanent or temporary, yet sometimes only of one language out of several which were known, also in the loss of other knowledge possessed, &c., &c. On the other hand, we never read that after a misfortune of this kind the character has undergone a change, that the man has perhaps become morally worse or better, or has lost certain inclinations or passions, or assumed new ones; never. For the will has not its seat in the brain, and moreover, as that which is metaphysical, it is the prius of the brain, as of the whole body, and therefore cannot be altered by injuries of the brain. According to an experiment made by Spallanzani and repeated by Voltaire,[35] a [pg 470] snail that has had its head cut off remains alive, and after some weeks a new head grows on, together with horns; with this consciousness and ideas again appear; while till then the snail had only given evidence of blind will through unregulated movements. Thus here also we find the will as the substance which is permanent, the intellect, on the contrary, conditioned by its organ, as the changing accident. It may be defined as the regulator of the will.
It was perhaps Tiedemann who first compared the cerebral nervous system to a parasite (Tiedemann und Trevirann's Journal für Physiologie, Bd. i. § 62). The comparison is happy; for the brain, together with the spinal cord and nerves which depend upon it, is, as it were, implanted in the organism, and is nourished by it without on its part directly contributing anything to the support of the economy of the organism; therefore there can be life without a brain, as in the case of brainless abortions, and also in the case of tortoises, which live for three weeks after their heads have been cut off; only the medulla oblongata, as the organ of respiration, must be spared. Indeed a hen whose whole brain Flourens had cut away lived for ten months and grew. Even in the case of men the destruction of the brain does not produce death directly, but only through the medium of the lungs, and then of the heart (Bichat, Sur la Vie et la Mort, Part ii., art. ii. § 1). On the other hand, the brain controls the relations to the external world; this alone is its office, and hereby it discharges its debt to the organism which nourishes it, since its existence is conditioned by the external relations. Accordingly the brain alone of all the parts requires sleep, because its activity is completely distinct from its support; the former only consumes both strength and substance, the latter is performed by the rest of the organism as the nurse of the brain: thus because its activity contributes nothing to its continued existence it becomes exhausted, and only when it pauses in sleep does its nourishment go on unhindered.