SUPPLEMENTS TO THE THIRD BOOK.
CHAPTER XXIX.[1]
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE IDEAS.
The intellect, which has hitherto only been considered in its original and natural condition of servitude under the will, appears in the third book in its deliverance from that bondage; with regard to which, however, it must at once be observed that we have not to do here with a lasting emancipation, but only with a brief hour of rest, an exceptional and indeed only momentary release from the service of the will. As this subject has been treated with sufficient fulness in the first volume, I have here only to add a few supplementary remarks.
As, then, was there explained, the intellect in its activity in the service of the will, thus in its natural function, knows only the mere relations of things; primarily to the will itself, to which it belongs, whereby they become motives of the will; but then also, just for the sake of the completeness of this knowledge, the relations of things to each other. This last knowledge first appears in some extent and importance in the human intellect; in the case of the brutes, on the other hand, even where the intellect is considerably developed, only within very narrow limits. Clearly even the apprehension of the relations which things have to each other only takes place,
1 This chapter is connected with §§ 30-32 of the first volume.
- ↑ 1
