in them. Will is not phenomenal, not given in Representation, not in time or space, not individualized, and not subject to the law of casualty. The Will in itself lies beyond the sphere of space, time and casualty, because these are subjective forms which spring into being only when a brain has been evolved. It can have no individuality, no distinction or difference, no end towards which it works. Similar to Kant’s noumena, will is a blind, incessant impulse, a thing in itself, that which exits independently of our own perceptions. It is an inner, consciousness of our own existence, our feelings and desires; Will is reality. In my reading of the article “Schopenhauer’s Philosophy” by Robert Adamson and Schopenhauer’s The World as Representation, some questions come to mind pertaining to how the Will comes to assume its definite forms. No proposition is more insisted on by Schopenhauer than that the production of any effect requires the concurrence of a primitive force and some occasioning cause which directs the force. Adamson raises the question that if the will must be acted upon by some cause before it could take definite form, where does this cause come from? The will is the all; there is nothing outside of it to determine its action in any direction. I agree with Adamson in saying the will has in itself no power of development to any definite result, and the Ideas or stages are nothing but the scholastic substantial forms, abstracted from individuals and given an identity. ...
