Nature and our Ideals
Honored Poetess:
In
your philosophical poem “Nature” — so rich in thoughts
— you have given expression to the basic mood asserting itself
in modern man. This mood arises when he permits himself to be
influenced by certain ideas about nature and spirit extant in our
time and if he has a depth of feeling sufficient to make him
recognize the discord between those ideas and the ideals of his heart
and mind. Indeed those times are gone when a thoughtless, shallow
optimism, relying on the belief that we are children of god,
distracted man from perceiving the discord of nature and spirit.
Those times are gone when it was possible to be so superficial as to
lightheartedly look away from the thousands of wounds from which the
world is bleeding. Our ideals are no longer superficial enough to be
satisfied by a reality so often shallow and empty.
Yet, I cannot
believe that it is impossible to find a means of elevating oneself
above the deep pessimism that stems from such a recognition. Such an
elevation becomes possible when I look into the world of our inner
being, when I approach the essence of our world of ideals: a world
complete and perfect in itself, which cannot gain, cannot lose
anything through the ephemeral nature of outer things. Are not our
ideals, — if they are truly living entities (individualities)
— beings existing in themselves, independent of the favors and
disfavors of nature? May the lovely rose be defoliated by the
merciless thrusts of the wind, — it has fulfilled its mission,
for it has brought joy to a hundred human eyes. May it please
murderous nature tomorrow to destroy the entire starry heavens:
through millennia men have looked up to it with reverence, and this
suffices! No! Not the transient existence, but the inner essence
makes them perfect. The ideals of our spirit comprise a
self-sufficient world that must live out its own life and cannot gain
anything through the cooperation of a beneficent
nature.
What a pitiful
creature man would be if he were not able to gain satisfaction within
his own world of ideals, but instead, would first need the
cooperation of nature? What would become of divine freedom if nature,
keeping us in a harness, guiding us, were to tend us and care for us
like little children? No! She must deny everything, so that if good
fortune comes to us it would be the product of our own free self. May
nature destroy every day what we are building, so that every day we
may look forward joyfully to creating anew — we don't want to
owe anything to nature, but everything to
ourselves.
This freedom
— one might say — is but a mere dream! While we deem
ourselves free, we are heeding the iron necessity of nature. The most
exalted thoughts are nothing other than the result of nature acting
blindly within us.
Oh, we should
finally admit, that a being that knows itself (or: knowing itself)
cannot be unfree. By investigating the eternal laws of nature we are
separating out of it the substance which lies at the foundation of
its manifestations. We see the fabric of laws ruling over the objects
of nature, and that brings about necessity. In our cognition we
possess the power to detach the lawfulness out of the objects of
nature. Should we be will-less slaves of these laws nevertheless? The
objects of nature are unfree because they cannot recognize these
laws; they are governed by them without knowing of them. Who should
force them on us, since we penetrate them with our reasoning? A being
that knows cannot be unfree. Such a being first transforms what is
law into ideals, and then accepts them as self-given
laws.
We should finally
admit that the god — imagined by effete humanity to dwell in
the clouds — lives in our hearts, in our spirit. He fully
divested himself of his being and poured it out completely over
mankind. He did not want to retain anything of his own will because
he wanted mankind to be a race that rules itself in full freedom. He
emanated into the world. Man's will is his will, man's goals, his
goals. By implanting into mankind an (entire being-ness) he gave up
an existence of his own. A “god in history” does not
exist. He ceased to be for the sake of the freedom of mankind, for
the divine-ness of the world. We have taken into ourselves the
highest potency of existence, therefore no external power, only our
own creations can give us satisfactions. All lamenting about an
existence that does not satisfy us, about this hard world, must
vanish in the presence of the thought, that no power in the world
could satisfy us if we ourselves did not bestow upon it the magic
power through which it can gladden and elevate us. If a god from
outside our world were to bring us the joys of heaven and we had to
take them as he prepared them, without our participation, we would
have to refuse, because they would be the joys devoid of
freedom.
We have no right
to expect satisfaction from powers outside of us. Faith promised us
reconciliation with the evils of this world, brought about by a god
from outside this world. Such faith is in the process of fading away,
a time will come when it will not exist anymore. But that time will
come when mankind will not have to hope anymore for a redemption from
outside, because mankind will recognize that it must bring about its
own bliss, just as it afflicted deep wounds upon
itself.
Mankind is the
guide of its own destiny. Even the achievements of modern natural
science cannot convince us otherwise. These achievements were
acquired through conceptions of the outer side of things, while
cognizance of our own world of ideals is attained through penetration
of the inner depth of the matter.
Since
you, admired poetess, have been applying such vigorous pressure
to the sphere of philosophy you might not be disinclined to hear what
it has to say in response; and with this
I am very respectfully yours,
Rudolf Steiner
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