Finally I will not omit to observe, that even so early an authority as Plato[256] had attributed desires, ἐπιθυμίας, _i.e._ _will_, to plants. In my chief work,[257] however, I have entered into the doctrines of the Ancients on this point, and the chapter there which treats of this subject may on the whole serve to complete the present one.
[257] "Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. ii. chap. 23.
The reluctance and reserve with which we see the authors here quoted make up their minds to acknowledge the will, which nevertheless undoubtedly manifests itself in plants, comes from their being still hampered by the old opinion, that consciousness is a requisite and condition of the will: now it is evident that plants have no consciousness. The thought never entered into the heads of these naturalists, that the will might be the _prius_ and therefore independent of the intellect, with which, as the _posterius_, consciousness first makes its appearance. As for knowledge or representation, plants have something merely analogous to it, a mere substitute for it; whereas they really have the will itself quite directly: for, as the thing in itself, it is the substratum of their phenomenal being as well as of every other. Taking a realistic view, starting accordingly from the objective, the matter might even be stated as follows: That which lives and moves in plant-nature and in the animal organism, when it has gradually enhanced itself in the scale of beings sufficiently for the light of knowledge to fall directly upon it, presents itself in this newly arising consciousness as _will_, and is here more immediately, consequently better, known than anywhere else. This knowledge therefore must supply the key for the comprehension of all that is lower in the scale. For in this knowledge the thing in itself is no longer veiled by any other form than that of the most immediate apprehension. It is this immediate apprehension of one's own volition which has been called the inner sense. In itself the will is without apprehension, and remains so in the inorganic and vegetable kingdoms. Just as the world would remain in darkness, in spite of the sun, if there were no bodies to reflect its light; or as the mere vibration of a string can never become a sound without air or even without some sort of sounding-board: so likewise does the will first become conscious of itself when knowledge is added to it. Knowledge is, as it were, the sounding-board of the will, and consciousness the tone it produces. This becoming conscious of itself on the part of the will, was attributed to a supposed inner sense, because it is the first and most direct knowledge we have. The various emotions of our own will can alone be the object of this inner sense; for the process of representation itself cannot over again be perceived, but, at the very utmost, only be once more brought to consciousness in rational reflection, that second power of representing: that is, _in abstracto_. Therefore also, simple representation (intuition) is to thinking proper--that is, to knowing by means of abstract conceptions--what willing in itself is to becoming aware of that willing, _i.e._ to consciousness. For this reason, a perfectly clear and distinct consciousness, not only of our own existence but also of the existence of others, only arises with the advent of Reason (the faculty for conceptions), which raises Man as far above the brute, as the merely intuitive faculty of representation raises the brute above the plant. Now beings which, like plants, have no faculty for representation, are called unconscious, and we conceive this condition as only slightly differing from non-existence; since the only existence such beings have, is in the consciousness of others, as the representation of those others. They are nevertheless not wanting in what is primary in existence, the will, but only in what is secondary; still, what is primary--and this is after all the existence of the thing in itself--appears to us, without that secondary element, to pass over into nullity. We are unable directly and clearly to distinguish unconscious existence from non-existence, although we have our own experience of it in deep sleep.