Lecture 3
The Tragedy of F. Nietzsche
Summary of a Lecture
Stuttgart,
31 August 1921
In his book
The Philosophy of Freedom,
Rudolf Steiner wished to present ‘the results of spiritual
observation according to the methods of natural science.’
This was the antithesis to the object of Edward von Hartmann's book,
The Philosophy of the Unconscious,
which presents ‘metaphysical results according to the methods of
inductive natural science’. This title implies a conclusion drawn
from what you perceive to what is not perceptible, and this can never
lend to true spiritual knowledge. Just as facts in natural science are
observable, so must psychic-spiritual facts be accessible to spiritual
observation also. Through thought we can unite ourselves not only to the
outer world, but also to our I-consciousness, and in I-consciousness lies
human freedom. Agnostic natural science has veiled this experience and
then has disowned it. But the way of observing it must be conducted
differently from the way in which we observe outer nature. Instead of
relying on sensory experience, as in observing nature, we must look out
upon what stands before our I-consciousness, and at the same time develop
our thinking just as it has been developed by the things of the outer
world. Thinking itself must bring about the state of freedom, in that it
is not void of contents while ceasing to rely upon sensory perception,
but that it fills itself with the contents of the human soul. The methods
of spiritual science are nothing else than the experience of the content
which is there when the human soul loosens itself from the rivets of
outer objects, and can still have the strength to experience something.
The Philosophy of Freedom
confines itself to investigating the human being himself as a free being
in the physical world. But even here we already embark upon supersensible
research, and little by little the way opens up for further penetration.
Most particularly we learn thus to know the imponderable nature of the
human soul; in investigating the problem of freedom we enter upon the
search into what is supersensible.
We must, above all else,
come to an understanding of what the impulse for freedom springs from,
otherwise we do not stand on firm ground in our knowledge, but experience
an undermining of it which makes us unfitted for life. For action, a
philosophy of freedom is required; but, to gain this, supersensible
investigation is imperative.
Whoever, during the last
third of the 19th century, wished to disentangle the problem of freedom
had to reckon with Nietzsche. To Nietzsche perception of the outer world
was an experience of inner pain, for it was to him tainted by the
conceptions of natural science. He felt that the world could give mankind
no satisfaction and therefore he sought everywhere for elements in human
culture which would lift him above this pain. These elements he found in
two instances: on the one hand, in the art of Richard Wagner and on the
other, in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Both seemed to him to be in
accord with his own sympathy with the spirit of the Greeks. Later on he
became a fighter against the lies of his time, a fanatic champion for
the reality of the outer sense-perceptible world which caused him such
anguish. Thus did he become entirely influenced by the scientific outlook
upon the world. He was deeply affected by such sentences as:
‘Science ends when supernaturalism begins’ (Du Bois Raymond).
What weighed on Nietzsche's soul penetrated his whole manhood. Feeling and
emotion seemed to burn up his thoughts. He wanted to add inner experience
to outer perceiving. This is expressed in his
Zarathustra.
If men remain men, then must they be overcome by pain. Therefore must
they rise to be supermen. But for his supermen he had no content. When
the terrible idea arose in him of the ‘eternal repetition of the
same’, then came to Nietzsche the appalling tragedy of his life. He
is wrecked upon the rock on which agnosticism builds its faith as absolute
correct knowledge. To begin with he could still live in isolation,
but our age demands that men live as social beings. Nietzsche lacked
the proper weapons for his battle against agnosticism. He was never
able to win a really deep relationship to modern natural science in
his outlook upon the world; to him it seemed coarse and repulsive, and,
therefore, he arrived at a transformation of Darwinism into the teaching
of the superman. In him there lived the impulse towards an altruistic
striving, but in an unhealthy organism, an organism capable of allowing
him to soar to the heights, but at the same time an unhealthy one.
One must come to an
understanding with Nietzsche if one wishes to understand freedom, and
this is what Rudolf Steiner has done in his book
Nietzsche, a Fighter against his Epoch.
In order to build up an
outlook suitable to our epoch, we have to reckon with another symptom.
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