THE WILL IN NATURE.
It is quite a different thing with Nature's works, which are not, like our own, indirect, but on the contrary, direct manifestations of the will. Here the will acts in its primordial nature, that is, unconsciously. No mediating representation here separates the will and the work: they are one. And even the material is one with them: for matter is the mere visibility of the will. Therefore here we find Matter completely permeated by Form; or, better still, they are of quite the same origin, only existing mutually one for the other; and in so far they are one. That we separate them in works of Nature as well as in works of Art, is a mere abstraction. Pure Matter, absolutely without Form or quality, which we think as the material of a product of Nature, is merely an ens rationis [being of thought] and cannot enter into any experience; whereas the material of a work of Art is empirical Matter, consequently already has a Form. The [distinctive] character of Nature's products is the identity of form and substance; that of products of Art the diversity of these two. 1 It is because Matter is the mere visibility of Form in Nature's products, that, even empirically, we see Form appear as a mere production of Matter, bursting forth from its inside in crystallisation, in vegetable and animal generatio aequivoca [spontaneous generation] , which last cannot be doubted, at any rate in the epizoa. 2 For this reason we may even assume that nowhere, either on any planet or satellite, will Matter come to a state of endless repose, but rather that
1 It is a great truth which [Giordano] Bruno expresses (De Immenso et Innumerabili, 8, 10): "Ars tractat materiam alienam: natura materiam propriam. Ars circa materiam est; natura interior materiae" [Art treats a foreign material, nature her own. Art stands outside matter, nature is in matter]. He treats this subject much more fully, Della causa [principio et uno], Dialogue 3, p. 252 et seqq. Page 255 he declares the forma substantialis to be the form of every product of Nature, which is the same as the soul. [Add. to 3rd ed.]
2 Thus the saying of the Schoolmen is verified: "Materia appetit formam" [matter strives after form]. Compare Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, 50, 2, 4. See also Die Welt a. W. u. V., 3rd edition, vol. ii., chap. 24, p. 352. [Add. to 3rd ed.]
COMPARATIVE
