The partition function of the van der Waals gas is represented by a functional integral which is evaluated by summing the value of the integrand over its absolute and all of its secondary maxima. This leads to a one-to-one correspondence with the Ising model with nearest-neighbor interactions only. Whereas the classical behavior of the van der Waals gas is due to the absolute maximum in function space, the nonclassical behavior is shown to derive from the combined contribution of all the secondary maxima. The relation of this work to inverse range expansions and to the droplet model of condensation is discussed.