A. PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS
I
The Point of Departure
(See Exposition on Brief, Chapter 1)
W
HEN WE
trace any one of the intellectual currents of the
present time back to its source, we invariably arrive at one of the
great spirits of our “classical age.” Goethe or Schiller,
Herder or Lessing gave an impulse; and from this impulse has issued
this or that intellectual movement which continues even to-day. Our
whole German culture is based so squarely upon the great writers of
that epoch that many who consider themselves entirely original
achieve nothing more than the expression of what was long ago
intimated by Goethe or Schiller. We have entered into such a living
union with the world created by them that any one who would turn
aside from the track already pointed out by them can scarcely count
upon being understood by us. Our way of looking upon life and the
world is determined by them to such an extent that no one can arouse
our sympathetic interest who does not seek for points of contact with
our world as thus determined.
Only as regards one branch of our
intellectual life must we admit that it has not yet found such a
point of contact. It is that branch of knowledge which proceeds
beyond the mere assemblage of observed data, beyond the
cognizance of single experiences, and seeks to provide a
satisfying total view of the world and of life. It is that which is
generally called philosophy. For this, our classical period actually
seems to be non-existent. It seeks its salvation in an artificial
seclusion and aristocratic isolation from all the rest of our
intellectual life. This statement cannot be disproved by
reference to the fact that a number of older and younger philosophers
and scientists have undertaken to interpret Goethe and
Schiller. For these have not attained to their scientific standpoints
by developing the germs existing in the scientific works of
these heroes of the mind. They have arrived at their scientific
standpoints apart from the world-conception represented by
Goethe and Schiller, and have afterwards compared them with this. And
this they have done, not for the purpose of gaining from the
scientific opinions of the great thinkers something to serve as
a means of guidance for themselves, but rather to test these opinions
and see whether they could be maintained in the face of their own
course of reasoning. This point we shall later treat more thoroughly.
First, however, we should like to point out the effects which this
attitude toward the highest stage of evolution in contemporary
culture produces in that field of knowledge with which we are
concerned.
(See Notes to the New Edition, 1924, page 2)
A large part of the educated reading
public of the present time will at once lay aside unread any
literary-scientific work which lays claim to being philosophical.
Seldom, if ever, has philosophy enjoyed so little favor as at
present. Except for the writings of Schopenhauer and
Eduard von Hartmann,
who have dealt with problems of life and the world of
the most widespread interest and have, therefore, gained a wide
circulation, it is not too much to say that philosophical works are
at present read only by professional philosophers. Nobody
except these persons concerns himself with such writings. The
educated man who is not a specialist has the vague feeling:
“These writings contain nothing suited to a person of my
intellectual needs. What is there discussed does not concern
me; it is in no way related to what I require for my mental
satisfaction.” This lack of interest in philosophy cannot
be due to anything other than the circumstance to which I have
referred; for there exists, face to face with this
indifference, an ever increasing need for a satisfying
conception of the world and of life. The dogmas of religion, which
were for a long time an adequate substitute, are more and more losing
their convincing power. The need is steadily growing to attain
through thought to that which man once owed to faith in revelation
— the satisfaction of his spirit. The interest of cultured
persons could not, therefore, be lacking if this particular branch of
knowledge marched in step with the whole evolution of culture, if its
representatives would take up a position with reference to the
great questions that move humanity.
(See Notes to the New Edition, 1924, page 3)
In this matter we
must always keep before our minds the truth that the proper procedure
is never that of creating a spiritual need artificially, but quite
the contrary: that of discovering the need which exists and
satisfying this need. The task of science is not that of propounding
questions but that of giving careful attention to these when
they are put forth by human nature and by the contemporary stage of
evolution, and of answering them. Our modern philosophers set tasks
for themselves that are not at all the outflow of that stage of
culture whereon we now stand — questions for which no one is
seeking answers. Those questions which must be propounded by our
culture, because of the position to which our great thinkers
have elevated it, are passed over by science. Thus we possess a
philosophical knowledge which no one is seeking and suffer from a
philosophical need which no one satisfies.
Our central branch
of knowledge, that which ought to solve for us the real world-riddle,
must not be an exception in comparison with all other branches
of the intellectual life. It must seek for its sources where these
have been found by the others. It must not only take cognizance of
the great classic thinkers, but also seek in them the germs for its
own evolution. The same wind must blow through this as through the
rest of our culture. This is a necessity inhering in the very nature
of things. To this necessity must we ascribe the fact that
modern researchers have undertaken to interpret our classic
writers as we have explained above. These interpretations reveal
nothing more than a vague feeling that it will not suffice simply to
pass over the convictions of those thinkers and proceed with the
order of the day. But they prove only that no one has arrived at the
point of a further developing of their opinions. This is evidenced by
the manner in which the approach is made to Lessing, Herder, Goethe,
and Schiller. In spite of all the excellence of many productions of
this class, it must be said of almost everything that has been
written in regard to the scientific works of Schiller and Goethe that
it is not developed organically from Schiller's or Goethe's own views
but takes a retrospective relationship to them. Nothing can more
strongly substantiate this than the fact that representatives of the
most diverse tendencies in science have seen in Goethe the genius who
experienced beforehand premonitions of their points of view.
Representatives of world-conceptions which possess absolutely
nothing in common refer with seemingly equal justification to Goethe,
when they feel the need to see their respective points of view
recognized at a high point in human history. One can scarcely imagine
a sharper contrast than that between the teachings of Hegel and
Schopenhauer. The latter calls Hegel a charlatan and his philosophy a
meaningless rubbish of words, mere nonsense, barbaric
word-combinations. The two men actually have nothing whatever in
common except their unlimited admiration for Goethe, and their belief
that he acknowledged himself as adhering to their respective
views of the world.
Nor is the case different as regards
more recent scientific tendencies. Haeckel, who has elaborated
Darwinism with the gift of genius and with a logic as inflexible as
iron, and whom we must consider by far the most significant follower
of the English investigator, sees in Goethe's point of view the
anticipation of his own. Another contemporary scientific
investigator, A. F. W. Jessen, writes in
regard to the theory of Darwin: “The stir which has been
created among many specialists in research and many laymen by this
theory — often before brought forward and as often disproved by
thorough investigation, but now supported by many apparently sound
arguments — shows how little, unfortunately, the results
of scientific research are known and understood by
people.”
[Cf. Jessen: Botanik, der Gegenwart und Vorzeit, p. 459.]
n regard to Goethe, the same investigator says that he rose
“to comprehensive researches in both inanimate and animate
Nature,”
[Ibid., p. 343.]
in that he found through a “thoughtful, deeply penetrating
observation of Nature the fundamental law of all
plant-formation.”
[Ibid., p. 332.]
Each of these two investigators is
able to cite a wearisome number of illustrations to show the harmony
existing between his own scientific tendency and the
“thoughtful observations of Goethe.” But, if each of
these standpoints could justly refer to Goethe's thought, this must
cast a dubious light upon the unity of that thinking. The basis of
this phenomenon, however, lies in the very fact that neither of these
points of view really grows out of Goethe's world-conception, but
each has its roots quite outside that conception. The phenomenon
arises from the fact that men seek out external agreement as to
details, torn out of the totality of Goethe's thought and thus
deprived of their meaning, but are not willing to attribute to this
totality the inner fitness to serve as the basis for a scientific
trend of thought. Goethe's opinions have never been made points of
departure for scientific researches but always only material for
instituting comparisons. Those who have busied themselves with
these opinions have seldom been students surrendering themselves with
unprejudiced minds to his ideas, but usually critics sitting in
judgment upon him.
It is even said
that Goethe had far too little scientific sense; that he was all the
worse philosopher for being so excellent a poet; that for this reason
it would be impossible to find in him the basis for a scientific
point of view. This is an utter misconception of Goethe's nature.
Goethe was, to be sure, no philosopher in the ordinary sense of the
term, but it must not be forgotten that the wonderful harmony of his
personality led Schiller to declare: “The poet is the only true
human being.” What Schiller here intended by the
expression “true human being,” — this Goethe was.
No element belonging to the very highest form of the universally
human was lacking in his personality. But all these elements united
in him to form a totality which is, as such, effectual. Thus it comes
about that his opinions regarding Nature rest upon a profound
philosophical sense even though this philosophical sense does not
enter his consciousness in the form of definite scientific
statements. Whoever immerses himself in that totality will be able
— provided he brings with him philosophic capacities — to
release this philosophic sense and set it forth as Goethe's form of
knowledge. But he must take his point of departure from Goethe
and not approach him with a ready-made opinion. Goethe's
intellectual powers are always effective in the manner
requisite to the most rigid philosophy, even though he has not left
such a philosophy as a complete system.
Goethe's view of
the world is the most many-sided imaginable. It proceeds from a
central point which rests in the unified nature of the poet, and it
always brings to the fore that side which corresponds to the
nature of the object. The unity of the activity of intellectual
forces lies in the nature of Goethe; the temporary form of that
activity is determined by the object concerned. Goethe borrowed his
manner of observation from the external world instead of obtruding
his own upon the world. Now, the thinking of many men is effectual
only in one definite way; it serves only for a certain type of
objects; it is not unified, as was Goethe's, but only uniform. Let us
endeavor to express this more thoroughly: — There are men whose
intellects are especially adapted to think out merely mechanical
interdependencies and effects; they conceive the entire
universe as a mechanism. Others have the impulse to take into
consciousness everywhere the secret mystical element of the external
world; they become adherents of mysticism. All sorts of errors arise
from the fact that such a way of thinking, entirely appropriate to
one type of objects, is declared to be universal. This explains
the conflict between various world-conceptions. If a thinker holding
such a one-sided conception confronts Goethe's view, which is
unlimited — because it always takes its manner of observation,
not from the mind of the observer, but from the nature of the thing
observed — then it may easily be understood that this one-sided
thinker lays hold upon that element in Goethe's thought which
harmonizes with his own. Goethe's view of the world includes within
itself, in just the sense indicated, many tendencies of thought,
whereas it cannot in turn be penetrated by any one-sided
conception.
The philosophical
sense, which is an essential element in the organism of the genius of
Goethe, is also significant from the point of view of his poetry.
Though it was alien to Goethe's mind to set forth in clear conceptual
form what was mediated to him by this sense, as was done by Schiller,
yet the philosophical sense was an active factor in his artistic
creative work as in that of Schiller. Goethe's and Schiller's poetic
productions are unthinkable apart from their world-conception,
which was the background. In this matter we are concerned more
with the actually formulated basic principles in Schiller, but in
Goethe rather with the manner in which he looked at things. But the
fact that the greatest poets of our nation at the climax of their
creative work could not do without that philosophical element proves
more than all else that this is a necessary constituent in the
history of human evolution. Resting upon Goethe and Schiller will
enable us to tear our central science away from its academic
isolation and incorporate it into the rest of our cultural
evolution. The scientific convictions of our great thinkers of the
classic age are bound by a thousand ties to their other endeavors;
they are such as were demanded by the cultural epoch which created
them.
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