those movements of our inner man, which are subsumed under the wide conception of feeling, are states of the will.
Now, the identity of the willing with the knowing Subject, in virtue of which the word "I" includes and designates both, is the nodus[1] of the Universe, and therefore inexplicable. For we can only comprehend relations between Objects; but two Objects never can be one, excepting as parts of a whole. Here, where the Subject is in question, the rules by which we know Objects are no longer applicable, and actual identity of the knower with what is known as willing—that is, of Subject and Object—is immediately given. Now, whoever has clearly realized the utter impossibility of explaining this identity, will surely concur with me in calling it the miracle κατ' εζοχήν.
Just as the Understanding is the subjective correlate to our First Class of representations, the Reason to the Second, and pure Sensibility to the Third, so do we find that the correlate to this Fourth Class is the inner sense, or Self-consciousness in general.
§ 43. Willing. The Law of Motives (Motivation).
It is just because the willing Subject is immediately given in self-consciousness, that we are unable further to define or to describe what willing is ; properly speaking, it is the most direct knowledge we have, nay, one whose immediateness must finally throw light upon every other knowledge, as being very mediate.
At every resolution that we take ourselves, or that we see others take, we deem ourselves justified in asking, why? That is, we assume that something must have previously occurred, from which this resolution has resulted,
- ↑ Weltlcnoten.
