§ 1.

The world is my representation": this is a truth

valid with reference to every living and knowing being, although
man alone can bring it into reflective, abstract consciousness. If he
really does so, philosophical discernment has dawned on him. It then
becomes clear and certain to him that he does not know a sun and
an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth;
that the world around him is there only as representation, in other
words, only in reference to another thing, namely that which
represents, and this is himself. If any truth can be expressed a priori,
it is this; for it is the statement of that form of all possible and
conceivable experience, a form that is more general than all others,
than time, space, and causality, for all these presuppose it. While
each of these forms, which we have recognized as so many particular
modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a
particular class of representations, the division into object and subject,
on the other hand, is the common form of all those classes; it is
that form under which alone any representation, of whatever kind
it be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is generally possible and
conceivable. Therefore no truth is more certain, more independent
of all others, and less in need of proof than this, namely that
everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this
world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the
perceiver, in a word, representation. Naturally this holds good of
the present as well as of the past and future, of what is remotest as
well as of what is nearest; for it holds good of time and space
themselves, in which alone all these distinctions arise. Everything
that in any way belongs and can belong to the world is inevitably
associated with this being-conditioned by the subject, and it exists
only for the subject. The world is representation.
This truth is by no means new. It was to be found already in the
sceptical reflections from which Descartes started. But Berkeley was
the first to enunciate it positively, and he has thus rendered an im-
mortal service to philosophy, although the remainder of his doctrines
cannot endure. Kant's first mistake was the neglect of this principle,
as is pointed out in the Appendix. On the other hand, how early this
basic truth was recognized by the sages of India, since it appears as
[ 3]

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[4] The World As Will and Representation
the fundamental tenet of the Vedanta philosophy ascribed to Vyasa,
is proved by Sir William Jones in the last of his essays: "On the
Philosophy of the Asiatics" (Asiatic Researches, vol. IV, p. 164):
"The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school consisted not in deny-
ing the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and
extended figure ( to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting
the popular notion of it, and in contending that it has no essence in-
dependent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are
convertible terms." These words adequately express the compatibility
of empirical reality with transcendental ideality.
Thus in this first book we consider the world only from the above-
mentioned angle, only in so far as it is representation. The inner re-
luctance with which everyone accepts the world as his mere represen-
tation warns him that this consideration, quite apart from its truth,
is nevertheless one-sided, and so is occasioned by some arbitrary
abstraction. On the other hand, he can never withdraw from this
acceptance. However, the one-sidedness of this consideration will be
made good in the following book through a truth that is not so im-
mediately certain as that from which we start here. Only deeper
investigation, more difficult abstraction, the separation of what is
different, and the combination of what is identical can lead us to this
truth. This truth, which must be very serious and grave if not terrible
to everyone, is that a man also can say and must say: "The world is
my will."
But in this first book it is necessary to consider separately that
side of the world from which we start, namely the side of the know-
able, and accordingly to consider without reserve all existing objects,
nay even our own bodies ( as we shall discuss more fully later on),
merely as representation, to call them mere representation. That from
which we abstract here is invariably only the will, as we hope will
later on be clear to everyone. This will alone constitutes the other
aspect of the world, for this world is, on the one side, entirely repre-
sentation, just as, on the other, it is entirely will. But a reality that is
neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which also Kant's
thing-in-itself has unfortunately degenerated in his hands), is the
phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in phi-
losophy.

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The World As Will and Representation [5]

§ 2.

That which knows all things and is known by none

is the subject. It is accordingly the supporter of the world, the univer-
sal condition of all that appears, of all objects, and it is always pre-
supposed; for whatever exists, exists only for the subject. Everyone
finds himself as this subject, yet only in so far as he knows, not in so
far as he is object of knowledge. But his body is already object, and
therefore from this point of view we call it representation. For the
body is object among objects and is subordinated to the laws of
objects, although it is immediate object. 1 Like all objects of percep-
tion, it lies within the forms of all knowledge, in time and space
through which there is plurality. But the subject, the knower never
the known, does not lie within these forms; on the contrary, it is
always presupposed by those forms themselves, and hence neither
plurality nor its opposite, namely unity, belongs to it. We never
know it, but it is precisely that which knows wherever there is
knowledge.
Therefore the world as representation, in which aspect alone we
are here considering it, has two essential, necessary, and inseparable
halves. The one half is the object, whose forms are space and time,
and through these plurality. But the other half, the subject, does not
lie in space and time, for it is whole and undivided in every repre-
senting being. Hence a single one of these beings with the object com-
pletes the world as representation just as fully as do the millions that
exist. And if that single one were to disappear, then the world as
representation would no longer exist. Therefore these halves are in-
separable even in thought, for each of the two has meaning and
existence only through and for the other; each exists with the other
and vanishes with it. They limit each other immediately; where the
object begins, the subject ceases. The common or reciprocal nature
of this limitation is seen in the very fact that the essential, and hence
universal, forms of every object, namely space, time, and causality,
can be found and fully known, starting from the subject, even with-
out the knowledge of the object itself, that is to say, in Kant's language,
they reside a priori in our consciousness. To have discovered this is
1
On the Principle of Sufficient Reason, 2nd ed., § 22.

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[ 61 The World As Will and Representation
one of Kant's chief merits, and it is a very great one. Now in addition
to this, I maintain that the principle of sufficient reason is the com-
mon expression of all these forms of the object of which we are
a priori conscious, and that therefore all that we know purely a priori
is nothing but the content of that principle and what follows there-
from; hence in it is really expressed the whole of our a priori certain
knowledge. In my essay On the Principle of Sufficient Reason I have
shown in detail how every possible object is subordinate to it, that is
to say, stands in a necessary relation to other objects, on the one
hand as determined, on the other as determining. This extends so far
that the entire existence of all objects, in so far as they are objects,
representations, and nothing else, is traced back completely to this
necessary relation of theirs to one another, consists only in that rela-
tion, and hence is entirely relative; but more of this later. I have
further shown that this necessary relation, expressed in general by the
principle of sufficient reason, appears in other forms corresponding
to the classes into which objects are divided according to their possi-
bility; and again that the correct division of those classes is verified
by these forms. Here I constantly assume that what was said in that
essay is known and present to the reader, for had it not already been
said there, it would have its necessary place here.

§ 3.

The main difference among all our representations

is that between the intuitive and the abstract. The latter constitutes
only one class of representations, namely concepts; and on earth
these are the property of man alone. The capacity for these which
distinguishes him from all animals has at all times been called reason
( Vernunf t) .2 We shall consider further these abstract representations
by themselves, but first of all we shall speak exclusively of the intuitive
representation. This embraces the entire visible world, or the whole
of experience, together with the conditions of its possibility. As we
have said, it is one of Kant's very important discoveries that these very
conditions, these forms of the visible world, in other words, the most
• Only Kant has confused this conception of reason, and in this connexion I
refer to the Appendix as well as to my Grundprobleme der Ethik, "Grundlage
der Moral," § 6, pp. 148-154 of the first edition (pp. 146-151 of the second).

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The World As Will and Representation [7]
universal element in its perception, the common property of all its
phenomena, time and space, even by themselves and separated from
their content, can be not only thought in the abstract, but also directly
perceived. This perception or intuition is not some kind of phantasm,
borrowed from experience through repetition, but is so entirely inde-
pendent of experience that, on the contrary, experience must be
thought of as dependent on it, since the properties of space and time,
as they are known in a priori perception or intuition, are valid for all
possible experience as laws. Everywhere experience must turn out in
accordance with these laws. Accordingly, in my essay On the Princi-
ple of Sufficient Reason, I have regarded time and space, in so far as
they are perceived pure and empty of content, as a special class of
representations existing by itself. Now this quality of those universal
forms of intuition, discovered by Kant, is certainly very important, the
quality, that is, that they are perceivable in themselves and inde-
pendently of experience, and are knowable by their entire conformity
to law, on which rests mathematics with its infallibility. Not less re-
markable, however, is the quality of time and space that the principle
of sufficient reason, which determines experience as the law of causal-
ity and of motivation, and thought as the law of the basis of judge-
ments, appears in them in quite a special form, to which I have given
the name ground of being. In time this is the succession of its mo-
ments, and in space the position of its parts, which reciprocally deter-
mine one another to infinity.
Anyone who has clearly seen from the introductory essay the com-
plete identity of the content of the principle of sufficient reason, in
spite of all the variety of its forms, will also be convinced of the im-
portance of the knowledge of the simplest of its forms as such for an
insight into his own inmost nature. We have recognized this simplest
form to be time. In time each moment is, only in so far as it has
effaced its father the preceding moment, to be again effaced just as
quickly itself. Past and future ( apart from the consequences of their
content) are as empty and unreal as any dream; but present is only
the boundary between the two, having neither extension nor duration.
In just the same way, we shall also recognize the same emptiness in
all the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, and shall see
that, like time, space also, and like this, everything that exists simul-
taneously in space and time, and hence everything that proceeds from
causes or motives, has only a relative existence, is only through and
for another like itself, i.e., only just as enduring. In essence this view
is old; in it Heraclitus lamented the eternal flux of things; Plato spoke
with contempt of its object as that which for ever becomes, but never
is; Spinoza called it mere accidents of the sole substance that alone

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[8] The World As Will and Representation
is and endures; Kant opposed to the thing-in-itself that which is known
as mere phenomenon; finally, the ancient wisdom of the Indians
declares that "it is Maya, the veil of deception, which covers the eyes of
mortals, and causes them to see a world of which one cannot say
either that it is or that it is not; for it is like a dream, like the sun-
shine on the sand which the traveller from a distance takes to be
water, or like the piece of rope on the ground which he regards as a
snake." (These similes are repeatedly found in innumerable passages
of the Vedas and Puranas.) But what all these meant, and that of
which they speak, is nothing else but what we are now considering,
namely the world as representation subordinated to the principle of
sufficient reason.

§ 4.

He who has recognized the form of the principle

of sufficient reason, which appears in pure time as such, and on which
all counting and calculating are based, has thereby also recognized
the whole essence of time. It is nothing more than that very form of
the principle of sufficient reason, and it has no other quality or at-
tribute. Succession is the form of the principle of sufficient reason in
time, and succession is the whole essence and nature of time. Further,
he who has recognized the principle of sufficient reason as it rules in
mere, purely perceived space, has thereby exhausted the whole nature
of space. For this is absolutely nothing else but the possibility of the
reciprocal determinations of its parts by one another, which is called
position. The detailed consideration of this, and the formulation of
the results flowing from it into abstract conceptions for convenient
application, form the subject-matter of the whole of geometry. Now
in just the same way, he who has recognized that form of the prin-
ciple of sufficient reason which governs the content of those forms ( of
time and space), their perceptibility, i.e., matter, and hence the law
of causality, has thereby recognized the entire essence and nature of
matter as such; for matter is absolutely nothing but causality, as any-
one sees immediately the moment he reflects on it. Thus its being is
its acting; it is not possible to conceive for it any other being. Only as
something acting does it fill space and time; its action on the immedi-
ate object ( which is itself matter) conditions the perception in which

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