the possible will-decisions of this will and of all the other possible individual wills; and it contains, and can contain, nothing more than that which remains to be willed after all those possible decisions of the will have been abstracted. Hence, there is in fact nothing independent, original, and individual in it; on the contrary, it is merely secondary, the consequence of the general connection of the sum of appearance in its separate parts. Indeed, it has always been recognized as such by all who, though on this level of culture, were capable of profound thought, and their recognition of it has been expressed in the same words as those of which we have just made use. But all this is the result of the fact that in them not essence, but merely appearance, enters into appearance.
104. On the other hand, where essence itself enters into the appearance of a decision of the will directly and, so to speak, in its own person and not by any representative, then all that has been mentioned above is likewise present, following as it does from appearance as a completed whole, for appearance appears here also. But an appearance of this kind does not consist merely of this sum of its component parts, nor is it exhausted by that sum; on the contrary, there is in it something more, another component part which is not to be explained by that connection, but remains over after what is explicable has been abstracted. That first component part is present here too, I said; that ‘something more’ becomes visible, and, by means of this visibility, but not at all by means of its inner essence, it comes under the general law and the conditions of visibleness. But it is still more than this ‘something,’ which proceeds from some law or other and which, therefore, is a secondary thing and the result of necessity; and, in respect of this ‘more,’ it is of itself what it is, a truly primary, original, and free thing. Since it
