The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston Stewar

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:32 pm

3. INDUSTRY (FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF PAPER TO WATT'S STEAM-ENGINE)

EPHEMERAL NATURE OF ALL CIVILISATION.


We now enter the domain of civilisation; here I can and shall be exceedingly brief, for the relation of the Present to the Past is absolutely different from what it is in culture and knowledge. In discussing knowledge I had to break new ground, and lay foundations to enable us to understand the nineteenth century; for our knowledge of to-day is so closely bound up with the work of the preceding six centuries -- grows out of it under such definite conditions -- that we can estimate the Present only in connection with the Past; here, moreover, the genius of eternity rules; the material of knowledge is never "done with," discoveries can never be annulled, a Columbus stands nearer in spirit to us than to his own century, and even science, as we have seen, contains elements which vie in immortality with the most perfect products of art; there consequently the Past lives on as Present. We cannot assert the same of civilisation. Naturally in this domain also link is locked with link, but former ages support the present only in a mechanical way as in the coral the dead calcified generations serve as a basis to the living polyps. Here, too, of course, the relation of Past to Present is of the highest academic interest, and its investigation may prove instructive; but in practice public life always remains an exclusively "present" phenomenon; the doctrines of the Past are vague, contradictory, inapplicable; the future is likewise very little considered. A new machine supersedes former ones, a new law annuls the old; the necessities of the moment and the hurry of the short-lived individual are the ruling power. It is so, for example, in politics. In the discussion on "The Struggle in the State" we discovered certain great undercurrents which are still flowing as they flowed a thousand years ago; here universal racial relations are actively at work, physical fundamental facts, which in the hurtling waves of life break the light in manifold ways and consequently reveal themselves in many colours, but nevertheless are recognisable by careful observers in their permanent organic unity; but if we take real politics, we find a chaos of transecting and intersecting events, in which chance, the Unanticipated, the Unforeseen, the Inconsistent are decisive, in which the recoil from a geographical discovery, the invention of a loom, the discovery of a coal-mine, the exploit of a general of genius, the intervention of a great statesman, the birth of a weak or strong monarch, destroys all that centuries have achieved, or, it may be, wins back in a single day all that has been ceded to others. Because the Byzantines make a poor defence against the Turks, the great commercial republic of Venice falls; because the Pope excludes the Portuguese from the Western seas. they discover the Eastern route, and Lisbon springs into sudden prosperity; Austria is lost to the Germans and Bohemia loses its national importance for ever, because an intellectual and moral cipher, Ferdinand II., stands from childhood under the influence of a few foreign Jesuits; Charles XII. shoots like a comet through history, and dies at the age of thirty-five, yet his unexpected intervention changes the map of Europe and the history of Protestantism; the transformation of the world, the dream of that scourge of God, Napoleon Bonaparte, was effected in a much more thorough fashion by the simple honest James Watt, who patented his steam-engine in the year 1769, the very year in which that condottiere was born.... And meanwhile real politics consist of a ceaseless adaptation, a ceaseless ingenious compromising between the Necessary and the Chance, between what yesterday was a what to-morrow will be. As the venerable historian Johannes von Muller testifies: "All history humbles politics; for the greatest things are brought about by circumstances." Politics retard, as long as they can, they further, as soon as the stream has overcome its own resistance; they haggle with a neighbour for advantages, rob him when he becomes weak, grovel before him when he grows strong. Moved by politics the mighty prince invests the nobles with fiefs that they may elect him to be King or Emperor, and then promotes the interests of the citizens that they may aid him against those very lords who have raised him to the throne; the citizens are loyal, because they thereby escape the tyranny of the nobles, who think only of self- aggrandisement, but the monarch becomes a tyrant as soon as there are no longer powerful families to keep him in check, and the people awakens to find itself more dependent than ever; that is why it rebels, beheads its King and banishes his supporters; now, however, the ambition to rule asserts itself a thousandfold and with dogged intolerance the foolish "majority" raises its will to the dignity of law. Everywhere the despotism of the moment, that is to say, of the momentary necessity, the momentary interest, the momentary possibility, and consequently a rich sequence of various circumstances, which may indeed have a genetic connection and can be unrolled by the historian in their natural order before our eyes, but so that the one Present destroys the other, as the caterpillar the egg, the chrysalis the caterpillar, and the butterfly the chrysalis; the butterfly, again, dies when it lays eggs, so that history may begin all over again.

Alas! Away! and leave them in their graves.
These strifes between the tyrant and the slaves!
They weary me; for scarcely are they o'er,
Than they commence from first to last once more.


What is here proved for politics is just as true of all industrial and economic life. One of the most industrious modern workers in this wide sphere, Dr. Cunningham, repeatedly points out how difficult it is for us -- in one passage he calls it hopeless [1] -- really to understand the economic conditions of past centuries and especially the views regarding them which floated before the minds of our fathers, and determined their actions and legal measures. Civilisation, the mere garment of man, is in fact so ephemeral a thing that it disappears and leaves no trace behind; though vases, earrings and suchlike adorn our museums, though all sorts of contracts, bills of exchange, and diplomas are preserved in dusty archives, the living element in them is dead beyond recall. Anyone who has not studied these conditions has no idea how quickly one state of affairs supersedes another. We hear talk of Middle Ages and believe that that was a great uniform epoch of a thousand years, kept in constant ferment by wars, but fairly stable, so far as ideas and social conditions are concerned; then came the Renaissance, out of which the Present gradually developed; in reality, from the moment when the Teuton entered into history, especially from the time when he became the decisive factor in Europe, there has never been a moment's peace in the economic world; every century has a physiognomy of its own, and sometimes -- as between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries -- one single century may experience greater economic upheavals than those which form a yawning gulf between the end of the eighteenth and the end of the nineteenth. I once had occasion to study thoroughly the life of that glorious fourteenth century; I approached it not from the standpoint of the pragmatic historian, but simply to get a really vivid idea of that energetic age in which the middle classes and freedom flourished so gloriously; one fact in particular struck me, that the great men of that impetuously advancing century, the century of "rashly daring progress" [2] -- a Jacob von Artevelde, a Cola Rienzi, a John Wyclif, an Etienne Marcel -- were wrecked because they were not understood by contemporaries reared on the traditional views of the thirteenth century; they had clothed their thoughts in a new fashion too quickly. I almost believe that the haste, which seems to us to be the special characteristic of our age, was always peculiar to us; we have never given ourselves time to live our lives; the distribution of property, the relations of class to class, in fact everything that makes up the public life of society is constantly swaying backwards and forwards. In comparison with economics even politics are enduring; for the great dynamic interests, and later the interests of races, form a heavy ballast, while trade, city life, the relative value of agriculture, the appearance and disappearance of the proletariat, the concentration and distribution of capital, &c., are subject almost solely to the influence of the "anonymous forces" mentioned in the General Introduction. From all these considerations it is manifest that past civilisation can scarcely in any respect be considered a still living "foundation" of the Present.

AUTONOMY OF MODERN INDUSTRY

As far as industry in particular is concerned, obviously not only the conditions of its existence depend on the caprices of Protean economics and fickle politics, but it derives even its possibility and particular nature first and foremost from the state of our knowledge. There the equation -- as the mathematician would say -- receives two variable factors, the one of which (economics) is in every way inconstant, while the other (knowledge) only grows in a fixed direction, but with varying rapidity. Clearly industry is very variable; it is often -- as to-day -- an all-consuming, but yet uncertain and inconstant entity. It may powerfully affect life and politics -- think only of steam and electricity -- yet it is not really an independent but a derivative phenomenon, springing on the one hand out of the needs of society, on the other from the capabilities of science. For this reason its various stages have only a slight or no organic connection, for a new industry seldom grows out of an old one -- it is called into life by new wants and new discoveries. In the nineteenth century a perfectly new industry was dominant: being one of the great, new forces (vol. i. p. lxxxii), it left its distinct, individual impression upon the civilisation of this century and revolutionised -- as perhaps, no previous industry -- wide spheres of life. It was devised in the last quarter of the eighteenth and realised in the nineteenth century: what formerly stood, disappears as before a magic wAnd, and possesses for us -- I repeat -- merely academic interest. The student will, of course, find the idea of the steam-engine in earlier times: here he will have to consider not only, as is usually done, Papin, who lived one hundred years before Watt,and Hero of Alexandria, who flourished, exactly two thousand years before Papin, but above all that wonderful magician Leonardo da Vinci who, in this sphere as in others, had with giant strides sped far in front of his age. dominated as it was by Church Councils and Inquisition Courts. Leonardo has left us an accurate sketch of a great steam-driven cannon. and in addition he studied especially two problems, how to use steam to propel ships and to pump water -- the very purposes for which three hundred years later steam was first successfully employed. But neither his age with its needs and political circumstances. nor science and its apparatus were sufficiently developed to allow these brilliant ideas to be turned to practical account. When the favourable moment came, Leonardo's ideas and experiments had long fallen into oblivion, and have only lately been brought to light again. The use of steam, as we know it, is something altogether new and must be discussed in connection with the nineteenth century, since we do not wish, any more than in preceding parts of this book. to allow artificial divisions of time to influence our thought and judgment. But what we have said is true not only of the revolution effected by steam, and naturally to a still higher degree by electricity, which had not even begun a hundred years ago to be applied to industry. but also of those great, all-important industries which pertain to the clothing of man, and consequently have in this sphere somewhat the same place as the cultivation of corn has in agriculture. The methods of spinning, weaving and sewing have been completely changed, and the first steps were likewise taken at the end of the eighteenth century. Hargreaves patented his spinning frame in I770, Arkwright his almost at the same time, the great idealist Samuel Crompton gave the world the perfect machine (the so-called Mule) about ten years later; Jacquard's loom was perfected in 1801; the first practical sewing machine, that of Thimonnier, was not completed -- in spite of attempts at the end of the eighteenth century -- till thirty years later. [3] Here too, of course, there had been previous attempts and ideas, and first of all we must again think of the great Leonardo, who invented a spinning machine which embodied the most brilliant ideas of later times and "is quite equal to the best machines of to-day": in addition he experimented with the construction of looms, machines for cutting cloth and the like. [4] But all this had no influence upon our age, and is consequently out of place here. Another fact should be noticed, that in by far the greater part of the world men still spin and weave as they did centuries ago; in these very matters man is extremely conservative; [5] but if he does make the change, it is made, like the invention itself -- at one bound.

PAPER

Within the scope of this first book, then, there remains little to be said about industry. But this little is not without significance. Just as our science can be called a "mathematical" one, so our civilisation from the beginning possesses a definite character, or, we might say, a definite physiognomy; and, moreover, it is an industry which at that decisive turning- point, the twelfth to the thirteenth century, laid upon our civilisation that special impress which has been growing ever more pronounced; our civilisation is of paper.

When we follow the usual practice of representing the invention of printing as the beginning of a new age, we are in error and are therefore falsifying history. In disproof of such an assertion we have, to begin with, only to recall to mind the fact that the living source of a new age lies not in this or that invention, but in the hearts of definite men; as soon as the Teuton began to found independent States and to shake off the yoke of the Roman-theocratic Imperium, a new age was born; I have proved this in detail and do not need to return to the point. He who shares Janssen's opinion that it was printing which "gave wings to the intellect," might explain to us why the Chinese have. not yet grown wings. And whoever champions with Janssen the thesis that this invention, which "gave wings to the intellect," and in addition the whole "activity of intellectual life" from the fourteenth century onwards are to be ascribed solely to the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification by works, might be good enough to explain why the Hellenes, who knew neither printing nor justification by works, were yet able to soar so high on the wings of song and creative philosophy that it was only after great difficulty and long striving, and after having shaken off the fetters of Rome, that we succeeded in reaching a height which rivalled theirs. [6] We may well give no heed to these foolish phrases. But even in the province of the concrete and sincere study of history, the one-sided emphasising of the invention of printing obscures our insight into the historical course of our civilisation. The idea of printing is very ancient; every stamp, every coin is a manifestation of it; the oldest copy of the Gothic translation of the Bible, the so-called Codex argenteus, is "printed" on parchment by means of hot metal types; the decisive -- because distinctive -- thing is the manner in which the Teutons came to invent cast movable type and so practical printing, and this again is bound up with their recognition of the value of paper. For in its origin, printing is an application of paper. As soon as paper -- i.e., a suitable, cheap material for reproduction -- was found, the industrious, ingenious Teutons began in a hundred places (the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France) to seek a practical solution of the old problem, how to print books mechanically. It will repay us to study the process carefully, especially as compendia and encylopaedias are still very badly informed concerning the earliest history of our paper. In fact the matter has only been fully cleared up by the works of Josef Karabacek and Julius Wiesner, and the results form one of the most interesting contributions to the knowledge of Teutonic individuality. [7]

It seems that those industrious utilitarians, the Chinese, first hit upon the idea of making a cheap, convenient and universally suitable medium for writing (in place of expensive parchment, still more expensive silk, comparatively rare papyrus, Assyrian bricks for writing on, &c.); but the assertion that they invented paper only partly represents the facts. The Chinese, who themselves used a papyrus perfectly similar to our own, [8] and knew its disadvantages, discovered how to make by artificial process from suitable plant fibres a writing material analogous to paper: that is their contribution to the invention of paper. Chinese prisoners of war then brought this industry (roughly speaking, in the seventh century) to Samarkand, a city which was subject to the Arabian Khalif, and mostly ruled by almost independent Turkish princes, the inhabitants of which, however, consisted at that time of Persian Iranians. The Iranians -- our Indo-European cousins -- grasped the clumsy Chinese experiments with the higher intelligence of incomparably richer and more imaginative instincts and changed them completely, in that they "almost immediately" invented the making of paper from rags -- so striking a change (especially When we think that the Chinese have not advanced any further to the present day!) that Professor Karabacek is certainly justified in exclaiming: "A victory of foreign genius over the inventive gifts of the Chinese!" That is the first stage: an Indo-European people, stimulated by the practical but very limited skill of the Chinese, invents paper" almost immediately"; Samarkand becomes for a long time the metropolis of the manufacture. Now follows the second and equally instructive stage. In the year 795 Harun-al-Raschid (a contemporary of Charlemagne) sent for workmen from Samarkand and erected a factory in Bagdad. The preparation was kept a State secret; but wherever Arabs went, paper accompanied them, particularly to Moorish Spain, that land where the Jews were for long predominant and where paper can be proved to have been in use from the beginning of the tenth century. Hardly any, on the other hand, came to Teutonic Europe, and, if it did, it was only as a mysterious material of unknown origin. This went on till the thirteenth century. For nearly 500 years, therefore, the Semites and half-Semites held the monopoly of paper, time enough, if they had possessed a spark of invention, if they had experienced the slightest longing for intellectual work, to have developed this glorious weapon of the intellect into a power. And what did they do with it during all this period -- a span of time greater than from Gutenberg to the present day? Nothing, absolutely nothing. All they could do was to make promissory notes of it, and in addition a few hundred dreary, wearisome, soul- destroying books: the invention of the Iranian serving to bowdlerise the thoughts of the Hellene in the form of spurious learning! Now followed the third stage. In the course of the Crusades the secret of the manufacture, guarded with such intellectual poverty, was revealed. What the poor Iranian, wedged in between Semites, Tartars and Chinese, had invented, was now taken over by the free Teuton. In the last years of the twelfth century exact information concerning the making of paper reached Europe; the new industry spread like wild-fire through every country; in a few years the simple instruments of the East were no longer sufficient; one improvement followed another; in the year 1290 the first regular paper-mill was erected in Ravensburg; it was scarcely one hundred years before block-printing (of whole books even) had become common, and in fifty years more printing with movable letters was in full swing. And are we really to believe that this printing first " gave wings to our intellect"? What a contempt of the facts of history! What a poor appreciation of the value of Teutonic individuality! We surely see that it was, on the contrary, the winged intellect that actually forced on the invention of printing. While the Chinese never advanced further than printing with awkward flat pieces of wood (and that only after painful groping for about one thousand years), while the Semitic peoples had found next to no use for paper -- in the whole of Teutonic Europe and especially in its centre, Germany, "the wholesale production of cheap paper manuscripts" had at once become an industry. [9] Even Janssen tells us that in Germany, long before printing with cast type had begun, the most important products of Middle High German poetry, books of folk-lore, sagas, popular medical treatises, &c., were offered for sale. [10] And Janssen conceals the fact that from the thirteenth century onwards the Bible, especially the New Testament, translated into the languages of the various nations, had been spread by paper through many parts of Europe, so that the emissaries of the Inquisition, who themselves knew only a few pruned passages from the Holy Scripture, were astonished to meet peasants who repeated the four Gospels by heart from beginning to end. [11] Paper at the same time spread the liberating influence of works like those of Scotus Erigena among the many thousands who were educated enough to read Latin (see p. 274). As soon as paper was available, in all European countries there followed the more or less distinct revolt against Rome, and immediately, as a reaction against this, the prohibition to read the Bible and the introduction of the Inquisition (p. 132). But the longing for intellectual freedom, the instinct of the race born to rule, the mighty ferment of that intellect which we recognise to-day by its subsequent achievements, would not be tyranised and dammed up. The demand for reading and knowledge grew day by day; there were as yet no books (in our sense), but there were already booksellers who travelled from fair to fair and sold enormous quantities of clean, cheap copies printed on paper; the invention of printing was rendered inevitable. Hence, too, the peculiar history of this invention. New ideas like the steam-engine, the sewing machine, &c., have generally to fight hard for recognition; but printing was everywhere expected with such impatience that it is scarcely possible at the present day to follow the course of its development. At the same time as Gutenberg is experimenting with the casting of letters in Mayence, others are doing the same in Bamberg, Harlem, Avignon and Venice. And when the great German had finally solved the riddle, his invention was at once understood and imitated, it was improved and developed, because it met a universal and pressing need. In 1450 Gutenberg's printing press was set in motion, and twenty-five years from that time there were presses in almost all the cities of Europe. Indeed in some of the cities of Germany -- Augsberg, Nurnberg, Mayence -- there were twenty or more presses at work. How hungrily does the Teuton, pining under the heavy yoke of Rome, grasp at everything that gives freedom to manhood! It is almost like the madness of despair. The number of separate works printed between 1470 and 1500 is estimated at ten thousand; all the then known Latin authors were printed before the end of the century; in the next twenty years all the available Greek poets and thinkers followed. [12] But men were not content with the past alone; the Teuton at once devoted himself to the investigation of nature, and that too in the right way, starting from mathematics; Johannes Muller of Konigsberg in Franconia, called Regiomontanus, founded between 1470 and 1475 a special press in Nurnberg to print mathematical works; [13] numerous German, French, and Italian mathematicians were thereby stimulated to work in mechanics and astronomy; in 1525 the great Albrecht Durer of Nurnberg published the first Geometry in the German language, and soon after there also appeared in Nurnberg the De Revolutionibus of Copernicus. In other branches of discovery man had not been idle, and the first newspaper, which appeared in 1505, "actually contains news from Brazil." [13]

Nothing could surely bring more clearly home to us the great importance of an industry for all branches of life than the history of paper; we see, too, how all-important it is into whose hands an invention falls. The Teuton did not invent paper; but what had remained a useless rag to Semites and Jews became, thanks to his incomparable and individual racial gifts, the banner of a new world. How just is Goethe's remark: "The first and last thing for man is activity, and we cannot do anything without the necessary talent or the impelling instinct.... Carefully considered, even the meanest talent is innate, and there is no indefinite capacity." [14] Anyone who knows the history of paper and still persists in believing in the equality of the human races is beyond all help.

The introduction of paper is unquestionably the most pregnant event in the whole of our industrial history. All else is comparatively of very little importance. The advance in textile industries, mentioned at the beginning of this section, and to a higher degree the invention of the steam-engine, the steamboat and the locomotive, were the first things that exercised as deep an influence upon life; but even they were not nearly so important as paper, because the invention of the locomotive, which has made the earth accessible to all (as paper has the realm of thought), contributes not directly, but indirectly, to the increase of our intellectual possessions. But I am convinced that the careful observer will notice everywhere the activity of these same capacities, which have revealed themselves with such brilliancy in the history of paper. I may therefore regard my object as fulfilled, when I have by this one example pointed out not only the most important achievement, but at the same time the decisive individual characteristics of our modern industry.

_______________

Notes:

1. The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages, 3rd ed. p. 97.

2. Lamprecht: Deutsches Stadteleben am Schluss des Mittelalter, 1884, p. 36.

3. I have not been able to find in any language a really practical, comprehensive history of industry; the dates have with great trouble to be sought in fifty different specialised treatises, and we may be glad to find anything at all, for the men of industry live wholly in the present and care very little about history. For the last subject, however, see Hermann Grothe: Bilder und Studien zur Geschichte vom Spinnen, Weben, Nahen (1875).

4. Grothe, loc. cit. p. 21. More details in Grothe's Leonardo da Vinci als Ingenieur, 1824, p. 80 f. Leonardo had infinite talent in the invention of mechanism, as we can see by reading the above work.

5. Grothe: Bilder und Studien, p. 27.

6. Janssen: Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, 16th ed. l. 3 and 8. If his industrious and consequently useful compilation has really won extravagant praise, it is fundamentally a party pamphlet in six volumes, unworthy either for its fidelity or its depth of becoming a household book. The German Catholic has as little reason to fear the truth as any other German; but Janssen's method is systematic distortion of truth, and deliberate sullying of the best impulses of the German spirit.

7. Karabacek: Das arabische Papier, eine historisch-antiquarische Untersuchung, Wien, 1887; and Wiesner: Die mikroskopische Untersuchung des Papiers mit besonderefr Berucksichtigung der altesten orientalischen und europaischen Papiere, Wien, 1887. The two scholars, each in his own special department, have investigated the matter simultaneously, so that their works, though appearing separately, supplement each other and together form a whole. One result is of decisive importance, that paper made of cotton nowhere occurs, and that the oldest pieces of Arab manufacture are made of rags (of linen or hemp), so that (in contrast to the former assumption) the Teuton does not deserve credit even for the modest idea of using linen instead of cotton. The details of tile following are taken to a large extent from these two books.

8. The papyrus of the Chinese is the thinly cut medullary tissue of an Aralia, as that of the ancients was the thinly cut medullary tissue of the Cyperus papyrus. The use of this is still prevalent in China for painting with water-colours, &c. For details, see Wiesner: Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches, 1873, p. 458 f. (new enlarged edition, 1902, ii. 429-463)

9. Vogt und Koch: Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur, 1897, p. 218. More details in any of the larger histories.

10. Loc. cit. i. 17.

11. Cf. p. 132. note I.

12. Green: History of the English People iii. p. 195.

13. Gerhardt: Geschichte der Mathematik in Deutschland, 1877, p. 15.

14. Lamprecht: Deutsche Geschichte v. 122.

15. Lehrjahr, Book VIII. c. iii.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:36 pm

4. POLITICAL ECONOMY (FROM THE LOMBARDIC LEAGUE OF CITIES TO ROBERT OWEN, THE FOUNDER OF CO-OPERATION)

CO-OPERATION AND MONOPOLY


A few pages back I quoted a remark of a well-known social economist, to the effect that it is "almost hopeless" to try to understand the economic conditions of past centuries. I do not require to repeat what I said there. But the very feeling of the kaleidoscopic complexity and the ephemeral nature of these conditions has forced upon me the question, whether after all there is not a uniform element of life, I mean an ever constant principle of life that might be discovered in the most various forms of our ever-changing economic conditions, I have not found such a principle in the writings of an Adam Smith, a Proudhon, a Karl Marx, a John Stuart Mill, a Carey, a Stanley Jevons, a Bohm-Bawerk, and others; for these authorities speak (and rightly from their standpoint) of capital and work, value, demand, &c., in the same way as the jurists of old spoke of natural law and divine law, as if these things were independent, superhuman entities which rule over us all, while to me the important thing seems to be, "who" possesses the capital, "who" does the work, and "who" has to estimate a value. Luther teaches us that it is not the works that make the man, but the man that makes the works; if he is right, we shall, even within the manifoldly changing economic life, contribute most to the clearing up of past and present, if we succeed in proving in this connection the existence of a fundamental Teutonic feature of character; for works change according to circumstances, but man remains the same, and the history of a race enlightens, not when divisions into so-called epochs are made -- always an external matter -- but when strict continuity is proved. As soon as my essential similarity to my ancestors is demonstrated to me, I understand their actions from my own, and mine again receive quite a new colouring, for they lose the alarming appearance of something which has never yet existed and which is subject to the resolutions of caprice, and can now be investigated with philosophic calm as well-known, ever-recurring phenomena." Now and now only do we reach a really scientific standpoint: morally the autonomy of individuality is emphasised in contrast to the general delusion regarding humanity, and necessity, that is to say, the inevitable mode of action-of definite men, is recognised historically as a supreme power of nature.

Now if we look at the Teutons from the very beginning, we shall find in them two contrary and yet supplementary features strongly marked: in the first place, the violent impulse of the individual to stand masterfully upon his own feet, and secondly, his inclination to unite loyally with others, to pave the way for undertakings that can only be accomplished by common action. In our life to-day, this twofold phenomenon is ever present, and the threads that are woven this way and that form a strangely ingenious, firmly plaited woof. Monopoly and co-operation: these are beyond doubt the two opposite poles of the economic situation to-day, and no one will deny that they have dominated the whole nineteenth century. What I now assert is that this relation, this definite polarity, [7] has dominated our economic conditions and their development from the first. By recognising this fact we shall, in spite of the succession of never recurring forms of life, be enabled to gain a profound understanding of the past, and thereby also of the present; it will certainly not be the scientific understanding of the political economist that we must leave to the specialist -- but such a one as will prove useful to the ordinary man in forming a right conception of the age in which he lives.

One simple, ever constant, concrete fact must be regarded as essential: the changing form which economic conditions take under definite men is a direct result of their character; and the character of the Teutonic races, whose most general features I have sketched in the sixth chapter, leads necessarily to definite though changing forms of economic life, and to conflicts and phases of development that are ever repeating themselves. Let it not be supposed that this is something universally human; on the contrary, history offers us nothing similar, or at least only superficial similarities. For what distinguishes and differentiates us from others is the simultaneous sway of the two impulses -- to separate and to unite. When Cato asks what Dante is seeking on his toilsome path, he receives the answer:

Liberta va cercando!


To this seeking for freedom both those manifestations of our character are equally due. To be economically free, we unite with others; to be economically free, we leave the union and stake our single head against the world. Consequently, the Indo-Europeans have quite a different economic life from the Semitic peoples, the Chinese, &c. [8] But as I pointed out on p. 542 f. (vol. i.), the Teutonic character and especially the Teutonic idea of freedom differ considerably from those of his nearest Indo-European relations. We saw how in Rome the great "co-operative" strength of the people crushed out all autonomous development of the intellectual and moral personality; when later the enormous wealth of single individuals introduced the system of monopoly, this only served to ruin the State, so that nothing remained but a featureless human chaos; for the idiosyncrasies of the Romans were such that they could only achieve great things when united -- they could develop no economic life from monopoly. In Greece we certainly find greater harmony of qualities, but here. in contrast to the Romans, there is a regrettable lack of uniting power: the pre- eminently energetic individuals look to themselves alone, and do not understand that a man isolated from his racial surroundings is no longer a man; they betray the hereditary union and thereby ruin themselves and their country. In trade, the Roman consequently lacked initiative, that torch that lights the path of the individual pioneer, while the Hellene lacked honesty, that is to say, that public, all-uniting, all-binding conscience which later found ever memorable expression in the "honest wares" of budding German industry. Here, moreover, in the "honest wares" we have already an excellent example of the reciprocal influences of Teutonic character upon economic forms.

GUILDS AND CAPITALISTS

The reader will find innumerable accounts of the activity of the guilds between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries (approximately); it is the finest example of united effort: one for all, all for one. When we see how in these corporations everything is exactly determined and supervised by the council of the guild, as also by specially appointed committees of control, the town magistracy and so forth, so that not only the nature of the execution of every single piece of work in all its details, but also the maximum of daily work is fixed and must not be exceeded, we are inclined, with most authors, to exclaim in horror: the individual had not a jot of initiative, not a trace of freedom left! And yet this judgment is so one-sided as to be a direct misconception of the historical truth. For it was precisely by the union of many individuals to form a solid, united corporation that the Teuton won back the freedom which he had lost through contact with the Roman Empire. But for the innate instinct which led the Teutons to co-operate, they would have remained just as much slaves as the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Byzantines or the subjects of the Khalif. The isolated individual is to be compared to a chemical atom with little cohesive power; it is absorbed, destroyed. By adopting, of his own free will, a law and submitting unconditionally to it, the individual assured to himself a secure and decent livelihood -- in fact a higher livelihood than that of our workmen to-day, and in addition the all-important possibility of intellectual freedom which in many cases was soon realised. [9] That is the one side of the matter. But the spirit of enterprise of our race is too strong in the individual to be checked even by the strictest rules, and so we find even here, in spite of the authority of the guilds, that energetic individuals amassed huge fortunes. For example, in the year 1367, a poor journeyman weaver, named Hans Fugger, came to Augsburg; a hundred years later his heirs were in a position to advance 150,000 Gulden to Archduke Siegmund of the Tyrol. It is true that Fugger, in addition to his business, engaged in trade, and so successfully that his son became an owner of mines; but how was it possible, when the rules of the guilds were so strict in forbidding one artisan to work more than another, for Fugger to make enough money to engage to such an extent in trade? I do not know; no one does; concerning the beginnings of the prosperity of the Fuggers nothing definite is known. [10] But we see that it was possible. And though the Fugger family is unique both in point of wealth and because of the role which it played in the history of Europe, there was no lack of rich citizens in every city, and we need only look up Ehrenberg's Zeitalter der Fugger (Jena, 1896) or Van der Kindere's Le siecle des Artevelde (Brussels, 1879) to see how men of the people, in spite of the constraint of the guilds, everywhere attained to independence and wealth. But for the guilds, and that means but for co-operation, we should never have had an industrial life at all -- that is self-evident; but co-operation did not fetter the individual, it served him as a spring-board. But whenever the individual had attained a strong independent position, he behaved in exactly the same way as the Kings of that time acted towards the princes and the people; he knew only one aim, monopoly. To be rich is not enough, to be free does not satisfy:

Die wenigen Baume, nicht mein eigen,
Verderben mir den Weltbesitz! [11]


Who will deny that this Teutonic longing for the In. finite is in many respects pernicious, that on the one hand it leads to crime, on the other to misery? Never is the history of a great private fortune a chronicle of spotless honour. In South Germany the word fuggern is still used to denote an over-crafty, all but fraudulent system of business. [12] And in fact, scarcely had the Fuggers become wealthy than they began to form trusts with other rich merchants to control the market prices of the world, exactly as we see it to-day, and such syndicates signified then, as now, systematic robbery above and below: the workman has his wages arbitrarily curtailed and the customer pays more than the article is worth. [13] It is almost comical, though revolting, to find that the Fuggers were financially interested in the Sale of indulgences. The Archbishop of Mayence had tented from the Pope for 10,000 ducats paid in advance the sale of the Jubilee indulgences for certain parts of Germany; but he already owed the Fuggers 20,000 ducats (out of the 30,000 he had had to pay the Curia for his appointment), and thus in reality the archbishop was only a man of straw, and the real farmer of the indulgences was the firm of Fugger! Thus Fetzel, who has been immortalised by Luther, could only travel and preach when accompanied by the firm's commercial agent, who drew in all the receipts and alone had a key to the "indulgence-box." [14] Now if it is not particularly edifying to see how such a fortune is amassed, it is simply appalling to learn what outrageous use was made of it. When the individual tears himself away tom the salutary union of common interests, he gives rein to unbridled despotism. The slow-witted calculation of private interests, on the part of a miserable weaver's son, determines who is to be Emperor; only by the help of the Fuggers and Welsers was Charles V. chosen, only by their assistance was he enabled to wage the baneful Smalcaldic war, and in the following war of the Habsburgs against German conscience and German freedom these unscrupulous capitalists again played a decisive part; they took the side of Rome and opposed the Reformation, not from religious conviction, but simply because they had extensive dealings with the Curia, and were afraid of losing considerable sums if the Curia eventually should suffer defeat. [15]

And yet, after all, we must admit that this unscrupulous individual ambition, that stopped at no crime, has been an important and indispensable factor in our whole civilising and economic development. I named the Kings a moment ago and I wish once more to adduce a comparison from the closely related sphere of politics. Who can read the history of Europe from the fifteenth century to the French Revolution without almost constantly feeling his blood boil with indignation? All liberties are taken away, all rights trodden under foot; Erasmus already exclaims with anger: "The people build the cities, the princes destroy them." And he did not live to see the worst by any means. And what was the object of it all! To give a handful of families the monopoly of all Europe. History does not reveal a worse band of common criminals than our princes; from the legal point of view, almost all of them were gaol-birds. And yet what calm and sensible man will not now see in this development a real blessing? By the concentration of political power round a few central points have arisen great strong nations -- a greatness and a strength in which every individual shares. Then when these few monarchs had broken every other power, they stood alone; henceforth, the great community of the people was able to demand its rights and the result is that we possess more far-reaching individual freedom than any previous age knew. The autocrat became (though unconsciously) the forger of freedom; the immeasurable ambition of the one has proved a benefit to all; political monopoly has paved the way for political co-operation. We see this development -- which is yet far from its culmination -- in all its peculiar significance, when we contrast it with the course taken by Imperial Rome. There we saw how all rights, all privileges, all liberties were gradually wrested from the people which had made the nation, and vested in one single man; [16] the Teutons took the opposite course; out of chaos they welded themselves into nations, by uniting for the time being all power in a few hands; but after this the community demanded back its own -- law and justice, freedom and a maximum of independence for the individual citizen. In many States to-day the monarch is already little more than a geometrical point, a centre from which to draw the circle. In the economic domain, of course, things are much more complicated, and, moreover, they are by no means so far advanced as in politics, yet I believe that the analogy between the two is very great. The same national character in fact is at work in both spheres. Among the Phoenicians capitalism had brought absolute slavery in its train; but not among us; on the contrary: it causes hardships, just as the growth of the kingship did, but everywhere it is the forerunner of great and successful co-operative movements. In the communistic State of the Chinese bestial uniformity predominates; with us, as we see, strong individuals always arise out of powerful combinations.

Whoever takes the trouble to study the history of our industry, our manufactures and trade, will find these two powers everywhere at work. He will find that cooperation is everywhere the basis, from the memorable league of the Lombardic cities (followed soon by the Rhenish city-league, the German Hansa, the London Hansa) to that visionary but brilliant genius, Robert Owen, who at the dawn of the nineteenth century sowed the seed of the great idea of co-operation, which is just beginning to take strong root. He will, however, see just as clearly at all times and in all spheres the influence of the initiative of the individual in freeing himself from the constraint of communism, and this he will perceive to be the really creative, progressive element. It was as merchants, not as scholars, that the Polos made their voyages of discovery; in the search for gold Columbus discovered America; the opening-up of India was (like that of Africa to-day) solely the work of capitalists; almost everywhere the working of mines has been made possible by the conferring of a monopoly upon enterprising individuals; in the great industrial inventions of the end of the eighteenth century, the individual had invariably to contend all his life against the masses. and would have succumbed but for the help of independent, mercenary capital. The concatenation is infinitely complex, because the two motive powers are always simultaneously at work and do not merely relieve each other. Thus we saw Fugger, after freeing himself from the restrictions of the guilds, voluntarily enter into new connections with others. Again and again, in every century in which great capitalists are numerous (as in the second half of the nineteenth) we see syndicates being formed, that is, therefore, a special form of cooperation; thereby, however, capitalist robs capitalist of all individual freedom; the power of the individual personality wanes, and then it breaks out elsewhere. On the other hand, real co-operation frequently reveals from the first the qualities and aims of a definite individuality: that is particularly clear in the case of the Hansa at the period of its greatness, and wherever a nation adopts political measures to safeguard its economic interests.

I had collected material to prove in detail what is here sketched, but space fails me, and I shall only call the reader's attention to a particularly instructive example. One glance, in fact, at the hitherto undiscussed subject of agriculture suffices to reveal with particular clearness the working of the above-mentioned essential principles of our economic developments.

FARMER AND LANDLORD

In the thirteenth century, when the Teutonic races began to build up their new world, the agriculturist over nearly the whole of Europe was a freer man, with a more assured existence, than he is to-day; copyhold was the rule, so that England, for example -- to-day a seat of landlordism -- was even in the fifteenth century almost entirely in the hands of hundreds of thousands of farmers, who were not only legal owners of their land, but possessed in addition far-reaching free rights to common pastures and woodlands. [17] Since then, all these farmers have been robbed, simply robbed, of their property. Any means of achieving this was good enough. If war did not afford an opportunity for driving them away, existing laws were falsified and new laws were issued by those in authority, to confiscate the estates of the small holders in favour of the great. But not only the farmers, the small landlords had also to be destroyed: that was achieved by a roundabout method: they were ruined by the competition of the greater landlords, and then their estates were bought up. [18] The hardships hereby entailed may be illustrated by a single example: in the year 1495, the English farm labourer, who worked for wages, earned exactly three times as much (in marketable value) as he did a hundred years later! Hence many a hardworking son could, in spite of all his diligence, only earn a third of what his father did. So sudden a fall, affecting precisely the productive class of the people, is simply alarming; it is hardly comprehensible that such an economic catastrophe should not have led to the disruption of the whole State. In the course of this one century, almost all agriculturists were reduced to the position of day-labourers. And in the first half of the eighteenth century the agricultural class, which was independent a few centuries before, had sunk so low that its members could not have made ends meet but for the generosity of the "lords" or the contributions from the treasury of the community, since the maximum profit of the whole year did not suffice to buy the minimum of the necessaries of life. [19] Now in all these things -- and in fact in every discussion of this kind -- we must not allow either abstract theorising or mere feeling to influence our judgment. Jevons, the famous social economist, writes: "The first step towards understanding consists in once and for all discarding the notion that in social matters there are abstract 'rights'." [19] And as for moral feeling, I may point out that nature is always cruel. The indignation which we felt against criminal Kings and thieving nobles is nothing to the indignation which any biological study arouses. Morality is in fact altogether a subjective, that is, a transcendent intuition; the words: "Father, forgive them," have no application outside the human heart; hence the absurdity of every empirical, inductive, anti-religious system of ethics. But if we disregard moral considerations, as we ought to here, and confine ourselves to the influence of this economic development upon life, all we require to do is to take up any authority on the subject, e.g., Fraas' Geschichte der Landbauwissenschaft, to recognise at once that a complete revolution was necessary in agriculture. But for that we should long ago have had so little to eat in Europe that we should have been forced to consume each other. But these small farmers, who were, so to speak, spreading a net of co-operation over the country, would never have carried through the necessary reform of agriculture; capital, knowledge, initiative, hope of great profit were necessary. None but men who do not live from hand to mouth can undertake such great reforms; dictatorial power over great districts and numerous workmen was also indispensable. [21] The landed nobility arrogated this role and made good use of it. They were spurred on by the sudden rise of the merchant classes, who seriously threatened their own special position. They applied themselves to the work with such industry and success that the produce of the cornfields at the end of the eighteenth century was estimated to be four times as great as at the end of the thirteenth! The fat ox had grown three times as heavy and the sheep bore four times as much wool! That was the result of monopoly; a result which sooner or later was bound to benefit the community. For in the long run we Teutons never tolerate Carthaginian exploitation. And while the large landlords pocketed everything, both the legitimate wages of their workmen and the profit which formerly had been a modest competence to the families of thousands and thousands of well-to-do yeomen, these powers sought new ways of obtaining a worthy independence. The inventors in the textile industries at the end of the eighteenth century are nearly all peasants, who took to weaving because otherwise they could not earn enough for their sustenance; others emigrated to the colonies and laid great stretches of land out in corn, which began to compete with the home supply; others again became sailors and merchant princes. In short, the value of the land monopoly sank gradually and is still sinking -- just like the value of money [22] -- so that we are now dearly feeling the wave of reaction and are nearing the day when the masses will assert their rights once more, and demand back from the large landlords the possessions entrusted to them -- just as they demanded back their rights from the. King. The French of the Revolution showed the way; a more sensible example .was given thirty years ago by a generous German prince, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

SYNDICATES AND SOCIALISM

In spite of radical changes in universal economic conditions, anyone reading Ehrenberg's frequently mentioned book will be astonished at the resemblance between the financial status of four centuries ago and that of to-day. There were companies promoted even in the thirteenth century (e.g., the Cologne ship-mills [23]); bills of exchange were also common and were in currency from one end of Europe to the other; there were insurance companies in Flanders even at the beginning of the fourteenth century; [24] syndicates, artificial raising and lowering of prices, bankruptcy . . . all these things flourished then as now. [25] The Jew -- that important economic factor -- of course also flourished. Van der Kindere (pp. 222-223) says laconically of the fourteenth century in Flanders: decent money-lenders took up to 6-1/2 per cent, Jews between 60 per cent and 200 per cent; even the short period of the Ghettos, of which so much has been made -- it was between 1500 and 1800 -- made little or no change in the prosperity and business practices of this shrewd people.

The insight we have got, on the one hand, into the predominance of fundamental, unchanging qualities of character, on the other into the relative constancy of our economic conditions (in spite of all painful swinging to and fro of the pendulum) will, I think, prove very useful when we proceed to form a judgment of the nineteenth century; it teaches us to look more calmly at phenomena, which to-day present themselves as something absolutely new, but which are in reality only old things in new garb, merely the natural, inevitable products of our character. Some point to-day to the formation of great syndicates, others on the contrary to Socialism, and fancy they see the end of the world approaching; both movements certainly involve danger whenever anti-Teutonic powers gain the upper hand in them. [26] But in themselves they are altogether normal phenomena, in which the pulse of our economic life is felt. Even before the exchange of natural products was replaced by circulation of money, we see similar economic currents at work; for example, the period of bondage and serfdom denotes the necessary transition from ancient slavery to universal freedom -- beyond doubt one of the greatest achievements of Teutonic civilisation; here, as elsewhere, the egoistical interest of individuals, or, it may be, of individual classes, have paved the way for the good of all, in other words, monopoly prepared the way for co- operation. [27] But as soon as the circulation of money is introduced (it begins in the tenth century, has already made great progress in the north by the thirteenth, and in the fifteenth is fully established), economic conditions run practically parallel to those of to-day, [28] except that new political combinations and new industrial achievements have naturally dressed the old Adam in a new garb, and that the energy with which contrasts clash-what in physics is called the "Amplitude of the oscillations" -- now decreases and now increases. According to Schmoller, for instance, this "amplitude" was at least as great in the thirteenth century as in the nineteenth, while in the sixteenth it had considerably decreased. [29] We have already seen capitalism at work in the case of the Fuggers; but Socialism has been an important element of life long before their time; for almost five hundred years it plays an important part in the politics of Europe, from the rising of the Lombardic cities against their counts and Kings to the numerous organisations and risings of peasants in all the countries of Europe. As Lamprecht somewhere points out, the organisation of agriculture was with us from the first "communistic and socialistic." Genuine communism must always have its root in agriculture, for it is only here, in the production of the indispensable means of sustenance, that co-operation attains wide, and possibly State-moulding importance. For that reason the centuries up to the sixteenth were more socialistic than the nineteenth, in spite of the socialistic talk and theorising to which we are treated. But even this theorising is anything but new; to give only one older example, the Roman de la Rose (of the thirteenth century, the century of awakening), for a long time the most popular book in Europe, attacked all private property; and even in the first years of the sixteenth century (1516) theoretic socialism was so well and thoughtfully expressed in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, that all that has been added since is only the theoretical extension and completion of the sphere clearly marked out by More. [30] In fact the completion was undertaken at once. Not only do we possess a long series of social theorists before the year 1800, among whom the famous philosopher Locke is pre-eminent with his clear and very socialistically coloured discussions on work and property, [31] but the sixteenth. seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced perhaps as large a number of attempts at ideal. communistic reforms of State as the nineteenth. The Dutchman, Peter Cornelius, for example, as early as the seventeenth century, suggests the abolition of all nationalities and the formation of a "central administration" which shall undertake the control of the common business of the various groups united into numerous" companies" [sic] [32], and Winstanley constructs in his Law of Freedom (1651) so complete a communistic system with the abolition of all personal property, abolition (on penalty of death) of all buying and selling, abolition of all spiritualistic religion, yearly election of all officials by the people, &c., that he really left very little for his successors to suggest. [33]

THE MACHINE

I think that these considerations -- extended of course, and pondered -- will enable many to understand our age better. Certainly in the nineteenth century a new element has been introduced with revolutionary effect, the machine, that machine of which the good and thoughtful socialist William Morris says: "We have become the slaves of the monsters to which our own invention has given birth." [34] The amount of misery caused by the machine of the nineteenth century cannot be represented by figures, it is absolutely beyond conception. I think it is probable that the nineteenth century was the most "pain-ful" of all known ages, and that chiefly because of the sudden advent of the machine. In the year 1835, shortly after the introduction of the machine into India, the Viceroy wrote: "The misery is scarcely paralleled in the history of trade. The bones of the cotton weavers whiten the plains of India." [35] That was on a larger scale a repetition of the same inexpressible misery caused everywhere by the introduction of the machine. Worse still -- for death by starvation affects only the one generation -- is the reduction of thousands and millions of human beings from relative prosperity and independence to continuous slavery, and their removal from the healthy life of the country to a miserable, lightless and airless existence in large cities. [36] And yet we may doubt whether this revolution (apart from the fact that it affected a greater number) caused greater hardships and a more intense general crisis than the transition in the case of trade from exchange in kind to the use of money, or in the case of agriculture from natural to artificial methods. The very fact of the extraordinary rapidity with which large factories have been established, and at the same time the unparalleled facilities given to emigrants have tended to some extent to mitigate the cruelties inevitably ensuing from this development.

We have seen how completely this economic change was determined by the individual character of the Teutonic peoples. As soon as baleful politics allowed men to draw breath for a moment in peace, we saw Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century and Leonardo da Vinci in the fifteenth anticipate the work of invention, the execution of which was to be hindered for centuries by external circumstances alone. And no more than the telescope and locomotive are absolutely new, the fruit, say, of an intellectual development, is there anything fundamentally new in our economic condition to-day, however much it may differ, as a phenomenon, from the conditions of former times. It is only when we have learned to recognise the essential features of our own character at work everywhere in the past, that we shall be able to judge correctly the economic condition of our present age; for the same character is the moulding influence now as before.

_______________

Notes:

1. So Goethe would have called it: see the Erlauterung zu dem aphoristisehen Aufsatz, die Natur.

2. See, for example, Mommsen on Carthage, above, vol. i. p. 117 f.

3. Leber, in his Essai sur l'appreciation de la fortune privee au moyenage, 1847, shows that the workman of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was on the average better off than to-day; by proving that "the money of the poor was then worth comparatively more than that of the wealthy. since luxuries were exorbitantly dear and impossible for all but those of very great wealth, whereas everything indispensable, such as the simple means of sustenance, housing, clothing, &c., was extremely cheap." (Quoted from Van der Kindere: Le siecle des Artevelde, Bruxelles, 1879. p. 132.)

4. Aloys Geiger: Jakob Fugger, Regensburg, 1895.

5. The few trees that are not my own spoil my possession of the world.

6. According to Schoenhof: A History of Money and Prices, New York, 1897, p. 24.

7. See Ehrenberg. loc. cit. i. p. 90. They aimed especially at the control of the copper market; but the Fuggers were so eager for absolute monopoly that the syndicate soon broke up.

8. Ludwig Keller: Die Anfange der Reformation und die Ketzerschulen, p. 15; and Ehrenberg, loc. cit. i. 99.

9. All details are proved by material from archives, quoted in Ehrenberg's book. It will give Platonic consolation to many a feeling heart to learn that the Fuggers and the other Catholic capitalists of that time were all ruined by the Habsburgs, since these princes always borrowed and never paid back. They owed the Fuggers eight million Gulden.

10. See vol. i. p. 125.
11. Gibbins: Industrial History of England, 5th ed. p. 40 f. and 108 f. We find copyhold still in Eastern Europe, where under Turkish rule everything has remained unchanged since the fifteenth century; in the domains of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin it was reintroduced in 1867.

12. A process particularly easy to trace in England, where the political development was unbroken and the interior of the country has not been ravaged by war since the fifteenth century; the famous book of Rogers, Six Centuries at Work and Wages, is an excellent guide here. But in all the countries of Central Europe practically the same thing happened; the great estates which we see to-day have all without exception been won by robbery and fraud, since they were subject to the lords of the land as juristical property (Eigentum), but were the actual, rightful possession (Besitz) of the copyholders. (Consult any legal handbook under the heading "Emphyteusis.")

13. Rogers, loc. cit. chap. xvii. This unworthy position of the farm-labourer was still unchanged in the middle of the nineteenth century, at least in England: this is fully proved by Herbert Spencer in The Man versus the State, chap. ii. Such facts, and there are hundreds of them -- I shall only mention the one fact that the labourer was never in so wretched a position as about the middle of the nineteenth century -- prove the total invalidity of that idea of a constant "progress." For the great majority of the inhabitants of Europe the development of the last four centuries has been a "progress" to greater and greater misery. At the end of the nineteenth century the labourer's position is indeed improved, but he is still about 33 per cent, worse off than in the middle of the fifteenth (according to the comparative calculations of Vicomte d'Avenel in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1898). The Socialist writer, Karl Kautzky, quoted a short time ago in the Neue Zeit a "decree" of the Saxon Dukes Ernst and Albert, 1482, which bade the workmen and mowers be content, if, in addition to their wages, they received twice daily, at midday and in the evening, four dishes, soup, two courses of meat, and one vegetable, and on holidays five dishes, soup, two kinds of fish, with vegetables to each. Kautzky remarks: "Where is there a workman, not excluding the very aristocracy of the class, who could afford such a diet twice daily? And yet the ordinary labourers of Saxony were not always satisfied with it in the fifteenth century."

14. The Store in Relation to Labour (quoted from Herbert Spencer).

15. This can be proved from history. Pietro Crescenzi of Bologna published his book on rational agriculture in the beginning of the fourteenth century: he was soon followed by Robert Grossetete, Walter Henley, and others, who discuss in detail the value of farmyard manure, but with almost no result, as the peasants were too uneducated to be able to learn anything about the matter. There is instructive information on the small produce of the soil under primitive agriculture in Andre Reville's book: Les Paysans au Moyen-Age, 1896, p. 9.

16. In the year 1694 the English Government paid 8-1/2 per cent for money, in the year 1894 scarcely 2 per cent.

17. Lamprecht: Deutsches Stadteleben, p. 30.

18. Van der Kindere, loc. cit. p. 216.

19. Martin Luther refers in various passages to the capricious "raising" of the price of corn by the farmers and calls these latter "murderers and thieves" in consequence (see his Tischgesprache); and his work on Kaufhandlung und Wucher gives a delightful description of the syndicates that flourished even then: "Who is so dull as not to see that the companies are downright monopolia? ... They have all the wares in their hands and use them as they will, they raise or lower the price according to their pleasure and oppress and ruin all smaller merchants, as the pike devours the small fishes in the water, just as if they were lords over God's creatures and above all laws of faith and love ... by this all the world must be sucked dry and all the gold be deposited in their gourd ... all others must trade with risk and loss, gain this year, lose the next, but they (the capitalists) win always and make up any loss with increase of gain, and so it is little wonder that they soon seize hold of everybody's property." These words were written in 1524; they might really be written to-day.

20. See pp. 176 and 177.

21. This becomes especially clear from the investigations of Michael: Kulturzustande des deutschen Volkes wahrend des 13. Jahrhunderts, 1897. i., Division on Landwirtschaft und Bauern.

22. The widespread belief held by the ignorant that paper-money is one of "the proud achievements of modern times" is refuted by the fact that this institution is not a Teutonic idea, but had been common in ancient Carthage and in the late Roman Empire, though not exactly in this form (since there was no paper).

23. See Strassburg's Blute, quoted by Michael, as above.

24. Even the Socialist leader Kautzky admits this (Die Geschichte des Sozialismus, 1895, i. p. 468) when he expresses the opinion that More's view was the standard one among Socialists till 1847, that is, till Marx. Now it is clear that there can be little in common between the thoughts of this highly gifted Jew, who tried to transplant many of the best ideas of his people from Asia to Europe and to suit them to modern conditions of life, and those of one of the most exquisite scholars ever produced by a Teutonic people, an absolutely aristocratic, infinitely refined nature, a mind whose inexhaustible humour inspired his bosom friend Erasmus' Praise of Folly, a man who in public posts -- finally as Speaker of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer -- had acquired great experience of life, and now frankly and ironically (and with justice) lashes the society of his age as "a conspiracy of the rich against the poor," and looks forward to a future State built upon genuinely Teutonic and Christian foundations. His use of the word Utopia, i.e., Nowhere, for his State of the future is again a humorous feature; for in reality he takes a perfectly practical view of the social problem, much more so than many doctrinaires of the present day. He demands rational cultivation of the soil, hygiene in regard to the body of dwellings, reform of the penal system, lessening of work-hours, education and recreation for all. . . . Many of these things we have introduced: in the other points, More, as blood of our blood, felt so accurately what we needed that his book, four hundred years old, is still valuable and not out of date. More opposes with all the force of ancient Teutonic conviction the monarchical absolutism then just beginning to be developed: yet he is no republican, Utopia is to have a King. In his State there is to be absolute religious freedom of conscience: but he is not, like our pseudo-mosaical Socialists of to-day, an anti-religious, ethical doctrinaire, on the contrary, whoever has not in his heart the feeling of the Godhead, is excluded from all posts in Utopia. The gulf separating More from Marx and his followers is not therefore the progress of time, but the contrast between Teuton and Jew. The English workmen of the present day, and especially such leading spirits as William Morris, are evidently much nearer to More than to Marx: the same will be seen in the case of the German Socialists, whenever with firm politeness they have requested their Jewish leaders to mind the business of their own people.

25. See especially the Second Essay on Civil Government, p. 27.

26. Cf. Gooch: The History of English Democratic Ideas, 1898, p. 209 f.

27. Pretty full details of Winstanley in the Geschichte des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen, i. 594 f. E. Bernstein:, the author of this section, is the re-discoverer of Winstanley: but Bernstein confines himself to the one book and shows moreover so very little insight into the Teutonic character that we shall find more about Winstanley in the little book of Gooch, p. 214 f. and 224 f. We find probably the most decisive rejection of all communistic ideas at that time in Oliver Cromwell who -- although a man of the people -- flatly refused to entertain the proposal to introduce universal suffrage, as it "would inevitably lead to anarchy."

28. Signs of Change, p. 33.

29. Quoted from May: Wirtschafts- und Handelspolitische Rundschau fur das Jahr 1897, p. 13. Harriet Martineau tells with delightful simplicity in her much-read book, British Rule in India, p. 297, how the poor English officials had to abandon their usual drive in the evenings because of the frightful stench of the corpses.

30. The textile workers almost all lived in the country till towards the end of the eighteenth century, and engaged also in work in the fields. They were incomparably better off thus than to-day (see Gibbins, as above. p. 154, and read also the eighth chapter of the first book of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations). To get an idea of the condition elf many industrial workers to-day, in that country of Europe where they are best paid, namely, England, the reader should consult R. H. Sherard's The White Slaves of England, 1897.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

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5. POLITICS AND CHURCH (FROM THE INTRODUCTION OP COMPULSORY CONFESSION, 1215, TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION)

THE CHURCH


I have explained on page 240 to what extent in this brief survey I regard Politics and Church as connected; more profound reasons for this connection are adduced in the introduction to the division "The Struggle." [1] Moreover, no one will, I take it, deny that in the development of Europe since the thirteenth century the actually existing relations between Church and Politics have had decisive influence in many very important matters, and practical politicians are unanimous in asserting that a complete severance of the Church from the political State -- i.e., the indifference of the State in regard to ecclesiastical affairs -- is even to-day impossible. If we examine the pertinent arguments of the most Conservative statesmen. we shall find them even stronger than those of their doctrinaire opponents. Consult, for example, Constantin Pobedonoszev's book Problems of the Present. This well-known Russian statesman and supreme procurator of the Holy Synod may be regarded as a perfect type of the reactionary; a man of liberal views will seldom agree with him in politics; moreover, he is a member of the Orthodox Church. Now he expresses the opinion that the Church cannot be separated from the State, at any rate, not for long, simply because it would soon inevitably "dominate the State," and lead to a subversion in the theocratic sense! This assertion by a man who is so well acquainted with Church affairs and is most sympathetic towards the Church seems to me worthy of attention. He at the same time expresses the fear that as soon as the State introduces the principle of indifference towards the Church, "the priest will invade the family and take the place of the father." Pobedonoszev, therefore, ascribes such enormous political importance to the Church, that as an experienced statesman he fears for the State, and as an orthodox Christian for religion. should the Church get a free rein. That may give Liberals something to think about! It may in the meantime justify my standpoint, though I proceed from quite different premisses, and have quite different objects in view from those of the adviser of the Autocrat of all the Russias.

I intend, in fact, as this section, like the rest, must necessarily be brief, to direct my attention almost exclusively to the part played by the Church in Politics during the last six hundred years, for it is in this way that I expect to show what still lives on among us as a fatal legacy of former times. What has been already mentioned does not require repetition, and it would be equally superfluous to summarise what everyone learns at school. [2] Here a new field beckons to us, and we have before us the prospect of deep insight into the innermost workshop of world-shaping Politics. In other respects, of course, Politics are a mere matter of accommodating and adapting, and the past has little interest for the present; but here we see the permanent motives, and learn why only certain accommodations were successful, while others were not.

MARTIN LUTHER

The Reformation is the centre of the political development in Europe between 1200 and 1800; its significance in politics resembles that of the introduction of compulsory Confession in religion. By the Confession (not only of great, publicly acknowledged and atoned sins, as formerly, but of daily misdeeds, secretly confided to the priest) the Roman religion had two tendencies forced upon her, both of which removed her ever further from the Gospel of Christ -- the tendency to a more and more absolute priestly hierarchy, and the tendency to an ever greater weakening of the inner religious aspect; scarcely fifty years had passed since the Vatican synod of 1215, when the doctrine was preached that the sacrament of atonement required not repentance (contritio) but only fear of hell (attritio). Religion was henceforth altogether externalised, the individual was unconditionally handed over to the priest. Obligatory Confession means the complete sacrifice of the personality. The conscience of earnest men all over Europe rose in revolt against this. But it was only the reforming activity of Luther that transformed the religious ferment, which had been seething throughout Christendom for centuries, [3] into a political power, and the reason was that he fused the numerous religious questions into one Church question. It was only in this way that a decisive step towards freedom could be taken. Luther is above all a political hero; we must recognise this in order to judge him fairly and to understand his pre-eminent position in the history of Europe. Hence those remarkable, significant words: "Well, my dear princes and lords, you are in a great hurry to get rid of me, a poor solitary man, by death; and when that has been accomplished, you will have won. But if you had ears to hear, I would tell you something strange. What if Luther's life were worth so much before God that, if he were not alive, not one of you would be sure of his life or authority, and that his death would be a misfortune to you all?" What political acumen! For subsequent history frequently proved that princes who did not absolutely submit to Rome were not sure of their lives; the others, however, according to Roman doctrine did not possess independent authority and never could possess it, as I have irrefutably proved in chap. viii., not only on the basis of numerous Papal bulls, but also as an inevitable conclusion from the imperialistic, theocratic premisses. [4] Now if we supplement the passage quoted by numerous others, where Luther emphasises the independence of the "secular government" and separates it completely from the hierarchy of a divinely appointed individual, where he desires to see "Spiritual law swept away from the first letter to the very last," the essentially political and national character of his Reformation is clear to all. In another passage he says: "Christ does not make princes or nobles, burgomasters or judges; that duty he lays upon reason; reason deals with external things, where there must be authorities." [5] That is surely the very opposite of the Roman doctrine, according to which every secular position, as prince or serf, every profession, as teacher or doctor, is to be regarded as an ecclesiastical office (see p. 165), in which above all the monarch rules in the name of God-not of reason. We may well exclaim with Shakespeare. ""Politics, O thou heretic!" This political ideal is completed by the constant emphasising of the German nation in contrast to the " Papists." It is to the "Nobility of the German nation" that the German peasant's son addresses himself, and that in order to rouse them against the alien, not on account of this or that subtle dogma, but in the interest of national independence and of the freedom of the individual. "Let not the Pope and his followers claim to have done great service to the German nation by the gift of this Roman Empire. First, because they have conferred no advantage on us thereby but have abused our simplicity; secondly, because the Pope has sought not to give us the Imperial Sovereignty, but to arrogate it to himself, in order to subjugate all our power, freedom, property, bodies and souls, and through us (had God not prevented it) the whole world." [6] Luther is the first man who is perfectly conscious of the importance of the struggle between imperialism and nationalism; others had only a vague idea of it, and either, like the educated citizens of most German cities, had confined its application to the religious sphere, had felt and acted as Germans, without, however, seeing the necessity of revolt in ecclesiastical and political matters; or, on the other hand, had indulged in fantastic daring schemes, like Sickingen and Hutten, the latter of whom made it his clear endeavour "to break the Roman tyranny and put an end to the foreign disease"; but they did not comprehend what broad foundations must be laid if war was to be declared with any prospect of success against so strong a citadel as Rome. [7] Luther, however, while calling upon princes, nobles, citizens and people to prepare for the strife, does not remain satisfied with the merely negative work of revolt from Rome; he also gives the Germans a language common to all and uniting them all, and lays hold of the two points in the purely political organisation which determined the success of nationalism, namely, the Church and the School.

Subsequent history has proved how impossible it is to keep a Church half-national, that is, independent of Rome and yet not decisively severed from the Roman community. France, Spain, and Austria refused to sign the resolution of the Council of Trent, and France especially, so long as it possessed Kings, fought vigorously for the special rights of the Gallic Church and priesthood; but gradually the most rigid Roman doctrine gained more and more ground, and to-day these three countries would be glad to receive, as a gift of grace. the no longer up-to-date but yet comparatively free standpoint of the Council of Trent. And as far as Luther's school-reforms are concerned -- which he sought to carry through with all the strength that a solitary giant has at his disposal-the best proof of his political sagacity is the fact that the Jesuits immediately followed in his footsteps, founded schools and wrote school-books with exactly the same titles and the same arrangement as those of Luther. [8] Freedom of conscience is a splendid achievement, as long as it forms the basis of genuine religion; but the modern assumption that every Church can harmonise with every system of politics is madness. In the artificial organisation of society the Church forms the inmost wheel, that is, an essential part of the political mechanism. This wheel may, of course, have more or less importance in the whole mechanism, but its structure and activity are bound to exercise influence upon the whole. And who can study the history of Europe from the year 1500 to the year 1900 and refuse to admit that the Roman Church has manifestly exercised a powerful influence upon the political history of nations? Look first at the nations which (in virtue of the numbers and pre-eminence of Catholics) belong to the Roman Church, and then at the so-called "Protestant" nations! Opinion may vary regarding them; but who will deny the influence of the Church? Many a reader may offer the objection that this is due to difference of race, and I myself have laid so much stress on the physical structure as the basis of the moral personality, that I should be the last to question the justice of this view; [9] but nothing is more dangerous than the attempt to construct history from a single principle; nature is infinitely complex; what we call race is within certain limits a plastic phenomenon, and, just as the physical can affect the intellectual, so too the intellectual may influence the physical. Let us suppose, for example, that the religious reform, which for a time surged so high among the Spanish nobility of Gothic descent, had found in a daring, fiery prince, a man capable -- though it were with fire and sword -- of freeing the nation from Rome (whether he belonged to the followers of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or any other sect is absolutely and manifestly of no moment, the only important matter is the complete severance from Rome); does anyone believe that Spain, saturated as its population may be with Iberian and Chaotic elements, would stand to-day where it does stand? Certainly no one believes that, no one at least who, like myself, has looked upon these noble, brave men, these beautiful, high-spirited women, and has seen with his own eyes how this hapless nation is enslaved and gagged by its Church -- "priest-ridden" as we say -- how the clergy nip every individual spontaneous effort in the bud, encourage crass ignorance and systematically foster childish, degrading superstition and idolatry. And it is not the faith, not the acceptance of this or that dogma, that exercises this influence, but the Church as a political organisation, as we clearly see in those freer lands where the Roman Church has to compete with other Churches, and where it adopts forms which are calculated to satisfy men who stand at the highest stage of culture. It is still more manifest from the fact that the Lutheran, as also the other Protestant systems of dogma -- purely as such -- possess no great importance. The weak point in Luther was his theology; [10] if it had been his strong point, neither he nor his Church would have been of any use for the political work which he accomplished" Rome is a political system; it had to be opposed by another political system; otherwise there would only have been a continuance of the old struggle, which had gone on for fifteen hundred years, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Heinrich von Treitschke may call Calvinism "the best Protestantism" if he pleases; [11] Calvin was, of course, the real, purely religious Church reformer and the man of inexorable logic; for nothing follows more clearly from the consistently argued doctrine of predestination than the insignificance of ecclesiastical acts and the invalidity of priestly claims; but we see that this doctrine of Calvin was much too purely theological to shake the Roman world; moreover it was too exclusively rationalistic. Luther, the German patriot and politician, went differently to work. No dogmatic subtleties filled his brain; they were of secondary moment; first came the nation: "For my Germans I was born, them I will serve!" His patriotism was absolute, his learning limited, for in the latter he never quite threw off the monkish cowl. One of the most authoritative theologians of the nineteenth century, Paul de Lagarde, says of Luther's theology: "In the Lutheran system of dogma we see the Catholic scholastic structure standing untouched before us with the exception of a few loci, which have been broken away and replaced by an addition which is united to the old by mortar only, but unlike it in style"; [12] and the famous authority on dogma, Adolf Harnack, who is no Catholic either, confirms this judgment when he calls the Lutheran Church doctrine (at least in its further development) "a miserable duplicate of the Catholic Church." [13] This is meant as a reproach on the part of these Protestant authorities; but we, looking at the matter from the purely political standpoint, cannot possibly accept it as such; for we see that this essential character of the Lutheran reform was a condition of its political success. Nothing could be done without the princes. Who would seriously assert that the princes who favoured reform were actuated by religious enthusiasm? We could certainly reckon on fewer than the fingers of one hand those of whom such an assertion could be made. It was political interests and political ambition, supported by the awakening of the spirit of national independence, that settled the matter. Yet all these men, as also the nations, had grown up in the Roman Church, and it still exercised a strong spell over their minds. By offering merely a "duplicate" of the Roman Church, Luther concentrated the prevailing excitement upon the political side of the question, without disturbing consciences more than was necessary. The hymn beginning

Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott


ends with the line:

Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben.


That was the right keynote to strike. And it is quite false to say, as Lagarde does, that "everything remained as it was." The separation from Rome, for which Luther contended with passionate impetuosity all his life, was the greatest political upheaval that could possibly have taken place. Through it Luther has become the turning-point in the history of the world. For no matter how pitiful the further course of the Reformation was in many respects to be -- when greedy, bigoted princes" of unexampled incapacity," as Treitschke says, destroyed with fire and sword the spirit of Germany which had at last awakened, and handed the country over to the care of the Basques and their children -- Luther's achievement was not lost, for the simple reason that it had a firm political foundation. It is ridiculous to count the so- called" Lutherans" and estimate Luther's influence thereby -- the influence of a hero who emancipated the whole world, and to whom the Catholic of to-day is as much indebted as every other person for the fact that he is a free man. [14]

That Luther was more of a politician than a theologian naturally does not preclude the fact that the living power which he revealed flowed from a deep inner source, namely, his religion, which we must not confuse with his Church. But the discussion of this point is out of place in this section; here it suffices to say that Luther's fervent patriotism was a part of his religion. But one thing more is noteworthy, namely, that so soon as the Reformation revealed itself as a revolt against Rome, the religious ferment, which had kept men's minds in constant fever for centuries, ceased almost suddenly. Religious wars are waged, but Catholics (like Richelieu) calmly league themselves with Protestants against other Catholics. Huguenots, it is true, wrestle with Gallicans for predominance, Papists and Anglicans zealously behead one another -- but everywhere it is political considerations that occupy the foreground. The Protestant no longer learns the whole of the four Gospels by heart; new interests now claim his thought; not even the pious Herder can be called orthodox in the Church sense, he had listened too faithfully to the voice of nations and of nature; and the Jesuit, as confessor of monarchs and converter of nations, shuts both eyes to all dogmatic heterodoxies, if he can but promote Rome's interests. We see how the mighty impulse that emanated from Luther drives men away from ecclesiastical religion; they do not, of course, all take the same, but totally divergent, directions; the tendency, however -- as we can see even in the nineteenth century -- is increasing indifference, an indifference which first affects the non-Roman Churches, as being the weakest. This, too, is a fact of Church history which is most important for our understanding of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for it belongs to the few things which do not (as Mephistopheles says of politics) always begin at the beginning again, but follow a definite course. People say and complain, and some exult, that this means a defection from religion. I do not believe it. That would only be so if the traditional Christian Church were the quintessence of religion, and I hope I have clearly and irrefutably proved that that is not the case (see chap. vii.). Before that assertion could be valid, we should also have to make the extraordinary assumption that a Shakespeare, a Leonardo da Vinci, a Goethe, had had no religion: this point I shall touch upon again. Nevertheless this development means without doubt a decrease of ecclesiastical influence on the general political constitution of society; this tendency is apparent even in the sixteenth century (in men like Erasmus and More) and has been growing ever since. It is one of the most characteristic features in the physiognomy of the new world which is arising; at the same time it is a genuinely Teutonic and in fact old Indo-European feature.

I had not the slightest intention of even sketching the political history of six centuries on twenty pages, the one thing that seemed to me absolutely necessary was to put in a perfectly clear light the fact that the Reformation was a political act and indeed the most decisive of all political acts. It gave back their freedom to the Teutonic nations. No commentary is needed: the importance of this fact for a comprehension of past, present and future is self-evident. But there is one event which I should not like to pass over in this connection, the French Revolution.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

It is one of the most astonishing errors of the human judgment to regard this catastrophe as the morning of a new day, a turning-point in history. The Revolution was inevitable simply because the Reformation had not been able to succeed in France. France was still too rich in pure Teutonic blood silently to fall into decay like Spain, too poor in itself to free itself completely from the fatal .embrace of the theocratic empire. The wars of the Huguenots have from the first this fatal feature, that the 'Protestants contend not only against Rome but also against the Kingship and oppose the latter's endeavours to create a national unity, so that we see the paradoxical spectacle of the Huguenots in league with the ultramontane Spaniards and their opponent, Cardinal Richelieu, in alliance with the protagonist of Protestantism, Gustavus Adolphus. But experience has proved that everywhere, even in Catholic countries, a strong Kingship is the most powerful bulwark against Roman politics; moreover it is (as we have seen in the previous section) the surest way to attain to great individual freedom on the basis of firmly established conditions. Thus the cause of the Huguenots stood upon tottering feet. They were in a still worse position when they finally surrendered, and -- giving up all political aspirations -- remained a purely religious sect; for then they were annihilated and scattered. The number of the exiles (leaving the murdered out of account) is estimated at more than a million. Consider what a power might in the intervening two centuries have grown out of that million of human beings! And they were the best in the land. Wherever they settled in new abodes, they brought with them industry, culture, wealth, moral strength, great intellectual achievements. France has never recovered from this loss of the choicest of its population. Thenceforth it fell a prey to the Chaos of Peoples, and soon afterwards to the Jews. To-day it is a well-known fact that the destruction and exile of the Protestants was not the work of the King, but of the Jesuits; La Chaise is the real author and executor of the anti-Huguenot movement. The French were formerly no more inclined to intolerance than other Teutons; their great legal authority, lean Bodin, one of the founders of• the modern State, had, though a Catholic himself, in the sixteenth century demanded absolute religious tolerance and the rejection of all Roman interference. Meantime, however, the nationless Jesuit -- the "corpse" in the hands of his superiors (vol. i. p. 575) -- had wormed his way to the throne; with the cruelty, certainty and stupidity of a beast he destroyed the noblest in the land. And after La Chaise was dead and the Huguenots annihilated, came another Jesuit, Le Fellier, who succeeded in getting the licentious King, who had been brought up in the crassest ignorance by his Jesuit teachers, so thoroughly under his power by the fear of hell, that his order could now proceed to the next struggle in Rome's interest, namely, to the destruction of all genuine, even Catholic religion; this was the struggle against the orthodox but independent Catholic clergy of France. The main object in this case was to destroy the national independence of the Gallican Church which the most pious Kings of the early ages had asserted, and at the same time the last traces of that profoundly spiritual mystic faith which had always struck such deep roots in• the Catholic Church, and now in Janssen and his followers threatened to grow into a far-reaching moral power. This object too was attained. Whoever desires to inform himself of the real Origines de la France contemporaine can do so, even without reading Taine's comprehensive work; he only requires to study carefully the famous Papal bull Unigenitus (1713), in which not only numerous doctrines of Augustine, but also the fundamental teaching of the Apostle Paul, are condemned as "heretical" he may then take up any handbook of history and see how this bull, designed especially against France, was enforced. It is a struggle of narrow-minded fanaticism. allied to absolutely unscrupulous political ambition, against all the learning and virtue which the French Catholic clergy still possessed. The most worthy prelates were dismissed and reduced to misery; others, as also many theologians of the Sorbonne, were simply thrown into the Bastille and so silenced; others again were weak, they yielded to political pressure and threats, or were bought with gold and benefices. [15] Yet the struggle lasted long. In a pathetic protest the most courageous of the bishops demanded a universal concilium against a bull, which, as they said, "destroyed the firmest foundations of Christian ethics, indeed the first and greatest commandment of the love of God"; the Cardinal de Noailles did the same, also the University of Paris and the Sorbonne -- in fact, all Frenchmen who were capable of thinking for themselves and were seriously inclined to religion. [16] But the same thing happened then as happened after the Vatican Council in the nineteenth century: the oppressive power of universalism prevailed; the noblest of men, one after the other, sacrificed their personality and truthfulness at this altar. Genuine Catholicism was rooted out as Protestantism had been. Thus the time was ripe for the Revolution; for otherwise there was nothing left for France but -- as already suggested -- Spanish decline. But this gifted people had still too much vigour for that, so it rose in rebellion with the proverbial rage of the long-suffering Teuton, but devoid of all moral background and without one single really great man. "A great work was never accomplished by such little men," Carlyle exclaims in reference to the French Revolution. [17] And let no one offer the objection that I overlook the economic conditions; these are well known, and I do estimate their importance highly; but history offers no example of a mighty rebellion brought about solely by economic conditions; man can bear almost any degree of misery, and the more wretched he is, the weaker he becomes; hence, the great economic upheavals, with the bitter hardships involved (see p. 355), have always, in spite of a few rebellions, taken a comparatively peaceful course, because some accustomed themselves gradually to new, unfavourable circumstances, others to new claims. History too, proves the fact: it was neither the poor oppressed peasant nor the proletariat that caused the French Revolution, but the middle classes of the citizens, some of the nobles, and an important section of the still nationally inclined clergy, and these were stirred and spurred on by the intellectual elite of the nation. The explosive in the case of the French Revolution was "grey brain- matter." It is most essential, if we wish to understand such a movement, to keep our eyes riveted upon the innermost wheel of the political machine, that wheel which connects the individual's inner being with the Community. In decisive moments everything depends on this connection It may be a matter of indifference whether we call ourselves Catholics or Protestants or what not; but it matters a great deal whether on the morning of battle the soldiers sing Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott or lascivious opera songs: that was seen in 1870. Now, when the Revolution broke out, the Frenchman had been robbed of religion, and he felt so clearly what was lacking that he sought with pathetic haste and inexperience to build it up on every side. The assemblee nationale holds its sessions sous les auspices de l'Etre supreme; the goddess of reason in flesh and blood -- a Jesuit idea, by the way -- was raised upon the altar; the declaration des droits de l'homme is a religious confession: woe to him who does not accept it! Still more clearly do we see the religious character of these endeavours in the most influential and impassioned spirit among those who paved the way for the Revolution -- in Jean Jacques Rousseau, the idol of Robespierre, a man whose mind was full of longing for religion. [18] But in all these things such ignorances of human nature and such superficiality of thought are revealed that we seem to see children or madmen at work. By what confusion of historical judgment could the whole nineteenth century remain under the delusion -- and let itself be profoundly influenced thereby -- that the French by their "Great Revolution" had kindled a torch for mankind? The Revolution is the catastrophe of a tragedy, which had lasted for two hundred years; the first act closed with the murder of Henry IV, the second, with the rescinding of the Edict of Nantes, while the third begins with the bull Unigenitus and ends with the inevitable catastrophe. The Revolution is not the dawn of a new day, but the beginning of the end. And though a great deal was accomplished, the fact cannot be overlooked that this was to a large extent the work of the Constituante, in which the Marquis de Lafayette, the Comte de Mirabeau, the Abbe Comte Sieyes, the learned astronomer Bailly -- all men of influence through their culture and social position -- played the leading part; to some extent also it was the work of Napoleon. Thanks to the Revolution this remarkable man found nothing left but the work of the Constituante and the political plans of men like Mirabeau and Lafayette, otherwise tabula rasa; this situation he exploited as only a brilliant, absolutely unprincipled genius, and (if the truth must be told) short-sighted despot, could. [20] The real Revolution -- le peuple souverain -- did nothing at all but destroy. Even the Constituante was under the sway of the new God that France was to present to the world, the God of phrase. Look at the famous droits de l'homme -- against which the great Mirabeau thundered in vain, finally exclaiming: "At least do not call them rights; say simply: in the public interest it has been determined ..." -- they are, however, still regarded by serious French politicians as the dawn of freedom. At the very beginning we find the words: "L'oubli ou le mepris des droits de l'homme sont l'unique cause des malheurs publics." It is impossible to think more superficially or to judge more falsely. It was not the rights, but the duties of men that the French had forgotten or despised, and so brought about the national catastrophe. That is manifest enough from my previous remarks and is confirmed step by step in the further course of the Revolution. This solemn proclamation is based, therefore, from the very outset, on an untruth. We know what Sieyes cried out in the assembly, "You wish to possess freedom and you do not even know how to be just!" the rest of the proclamation is essentially a transcription by Lafayette of the Declaration of Independence of the Anglo-Saxons settled in America, and this Declaration, too, is little more than a word for word copy of the English "Agreement of the People" of the year 1647. We can understand why so clever a man as Adolphe Thiers in his History of the Revolution hurries over this declaration of the rights of humanity, remarking merely that "it is a pity time was wasted on such pseudo-philosophical commonplaces." [21] But the matter cannot be regarded so lightly, for the sad predominance which this riding to death of abstract principles of "freedom of humanity" acquired over statesmanlike insight into the needs and possibilities of a definite people at a definite moment, continued to spread like an infectious disease. Let us hope the day may come when every sensible person will know the proper place for such things as the Declaration, namely, the waste-paper basket.

Rome, the Reformation, the Revolution, these are three elements which still influence politics, and so had to be discussed here. Nations, like individuals, sometimes reach a parting of the ways, where they must decide whether it is to be right or left. This was in the sixteenth century the case with all European nations (with the exception of Russia and the Slavs who had fallen under Turkish sway); the subsequent fate of these nations, even to the present and for the future, is determined in the most essential points by the choice then made. France at a later time wished completely to retrace her steps, but she had to pay dearer for the Revolution than Germany for her frightful Thirty Years War, and the Revolution could never give her back what she failed to acquire at the Reformation. The Teutons in the narrower sense of the word -- the Germans, Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Scandinavians -- in whose veins much purer blood still flows, have, as we see, grown stronger and stronger since that turning-point in history and this justifies us in concluding that Luther's policy was the right one. [22]

THE ANGLO-SAXONS

In this connection I ought specially to call attention to the scattering of the Anglo-Saxons over the world as perhaps the most important phenomenon in modern politics; but it is only in the course of the nineteenth century that this fact has begun to reveal its almost incalculable importance, so that here I may content myself with general allusions, all other considerations being left to a later occasion. One point strikes us at once, that this extraordinary expansion of a small but strong people is likewise rooted in the Reformation. Nowhere is the political character of the Reformation so manifest as in England; here there were no dogmatic strifes at all; even from the thirteenth century the whole people knew that it did not wish to belong to Rome; [23] the King -- influenced by very worldly considerations -- had only to cut the connection, and the separation was at once complete. It was only at a• later time that some dogmas, which the English had never really adopted, were expressly rescinded: some few ceremonies too, especially the cult of the Virgin, which at all times had been repulsive to the people, were done away with. For that reason, after the Reformation, everything had remained as it had been, and yet all was fundamentally new. The expansive power of the nation, which Rome had held in check, immediately began to assert itself, and hand in hand with this -- and all the more rapidly, as it was to form the basis of that further development -- came the building up of a strong, liberal constitution. The great work was attacked simultaneously from all sides; the sixteenth century, however, was chiefly devoted to carrying out the work of the Reformation (in which the formation of powerful Nonconformist sects played a leading part), the seventeenth to the stubborn struggle for freedom, the eighteenth to the acquirement of colonial possessions. Shakespeare has correctly foreshadowed the whole process in the last scene of his Henry VIII: the first thing is a sincere recognition of God (the Reformation) then greatness will no longer be determined by descent, but by walking in the paths of honour (freedom resulting from strict performance of duty); the men thus strengthened shall then emigrate, to found "new nations." The great poet lived to witness the prosperity of the first colony, Virginia, and in The Tempest he has celebrated the wonders of the West Indian Islands -- the new world which began to reveal itself to the eyes of men, with its unknown plants and undreamt-of animals. Four years after his death the glorious Puritans had undertaken with still greater energy the work of colonisation; after untold hardships they founded New England, not from lust of gold, but, as their solemn proclamation testifies, "from love to God," and because they desired It a dignified Church service tinged by no Papism." Within fifteen years, twenty thousand English colonials, mostly from the middle classes, had settled there. Then Cromwell appeared, the real founder of the British Navy and hence of the British Empire. [24] Clearly recognising what was necessary, he boldly attacked the Spanish colossus, took from it Jamaica, and was making preparations to conquer Brazil, when death robbed his country of his services. Then for a time the movement came to a standstill: the struggle against the reactionary ambitions of Catholically inclined princes once more demanded all men's energies; in England, as elsewhere, the Jesuits were at work; they supplied Charles II with mistresses and gold; Coleman, the soul of this conspiracy against the English nation, wrote at that time, "by the complete destruction of pestilent heterodoxy in England ... the Protestant religion in all Europe will receive its death-blow." [25] It was only about the year 1700, when William of Orange had banished the treacherous Stuarts and finally laid the foundations of the constitutional State -- when the law had been passed that henceforth no Catholic could occupy the English throne (either as Consort or as Queen) -- that the Anglo-Saxon work of expansion began anew, and it was supported by numerous German Lutherans and reformed churchmen, who were fleeing from persecution, as also by Moravian brethren. Soon (about 1730) there lived in the flourishing colonies of England more than a million human beings, almost all Protestants and genuine Teutons, upon whom the hard struggle for existence exercised the same influence as strict artificial selection. Thus there arose a great new nation, which violently severed its connection with the Mother Country at the close of the century, a new anti-Roman power of the first rank. [26] But this separation in no degree weakened the expansive power of the Anglo-Saxons, who were joined as before by numerous Scandinavians and Germans. Scarcely had the United States severed their connection when (1788) the first colonists landed in Australia, and South Africa was wrested from the industrious but not very energetic Dutch. These were the beginnings of a world-empire which has grown enormously in the nineteenth century. And not only in the founding of such "new nations," as they floated before Shakespeare's mind, but also in the less important task of ruling alien peoples (India), one fact has invariably proved itself, that such things could be permanently, gloriously and fully achieved only by Teutons and only by Protestants. The huge South American continent remains quite outside of our politics and our culture; nowhere have the Conquistadores created a new nation; the last Spanish colonies are to-day saving themselves from ruin by going over to other nations. France has never succeeded in founding a colony, except in Canada, which, however, first flourished after England's intervention. [27] Real power of expansion is found only among Anglo-Saxons, Germans and Scandinavians, even the related Dutch have shown in South Africa more perseverance than power of expansion; the Russian expansion is purely political, the French purely commercial, other countries (with the exception of some few parts of Italy) reveal none at all.

If men did not lose their way and go astray by overattention to the incalculable details of history, they would long ago have been clear regarding the decisive importance of two things in politics, namely, race and religion. They would also know that the political conformation of society -- especially the conformation of that innermost wheel, the Church -- reveals the most secret powers of a race and of its religion, and thus becomes the greatest promoter of civilisation and culture, or, on the other hand, that it can altogether ruin a people by impeding the development of its capacities and favouring the growth of its most perilous tendencies. That Luther recognised this fact testifies to his pre-eminent greatness and explains the importance of the part which he played in the political organisation of the world. Goethe regarded it as the first and foremost historical duty of the Germans "to break the Roman Empire and raise up a new world." [28] But for the Wittenberg nightingale this would scarcely have been achieved. Truly, when those who share Luther's political views (no matter what they think of his theology) look at the map of the world to-day, they have every reason to sing with him:

Nehmen sie den Leib,
Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib:
Lass fahren dahin,
Sie haben's kein Gewinn:
Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben! [29]


_______________

Notes:

1. See also Author's Introduction, vol. i. p. lxxx.

2. See in the preceding section, p. 352, the remarks about monarchical absolutism being a means of attaining national independence and of winning back freedom; also the remarks on p. 330 f. and the whole of chap. viii.

3. See p. 95 f.

4. I know of no more impressive document concerning the assassination of princes directed by Rome than the complaint of Francis Bacon (in 1613 or 1614) against William Talbot, an Irish lawyer, who had indeed been ready to take the oath of allegiance, but declared, in reference to an eventual obligation to murder the excommunicated King, that he submitted in this, as in all other "matters of faith," to the resolutions of the Roman Church. Lord Bacon then gives a concise description of the murder of Henry III and Henry IV of France and of the various attempts to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and James I. This brief contemporary account breathes that atmosphere of assassination, which, for three centuries, from throne to peasant's cottage, was to encompass the aspirations of the rising Teutonic world. If Bacon had lived later, he would have had plenty of opportunity to complete his account; Cromwell especially, who had made himself the representative of Protestantism in all Europe, was in daily, hourly danger. Whenever a misguided proletarian of the present day attempts to assassinate a monarch, the whole civilised world breaks out in exclamations of indignation, and all such criminal attempts are commonly put down as consequences of defection from the Church; formerly it was a different story, monks were the murderers of Kings and God had directed their hand. Pope Sixtus V, on hearing of the murder by the Dominican Clement, joyfully exclaimed in the consistorium: "Che 'l successo della morte del re di Francia si ha da conoscer dal voler espresso del signor Dio, e che percio si doveva confidar che continuarebbe al haver quel regno nella sua prolletione" (Ranke: Papste, 9th ed. ii. 113). The fact that Thomas Aquinas had considered murder of tyrants one of the "godless means" was naturally not applied here, for it was a question not of tyrants but of heretics (who are proscribed, see p. 174) or too free-thinking Catholics, like Henry IV.

5. Von weltlicher Obrigkeit.

6. Sendschreiben an den christlicher Adel deutscher Nation. An assertion which an unbiased witness, Montesquieu, later confirms: "Si les Jesuites etaient venus avant Luther et Calvin, ils auraient ete les maitres du monde" (Pensees diverse).

7. In order to comprehend how universal the religious revolt from Rome was in Germany a considerable time before Luther, the reader should consult the works of Ludwig Keller and especially the smallest of those known to me, entitled Die Anfange der Reformation und die Kelzerschulen (published among the works issued by the Comenius Society). We get an idea of the prevailing sentiment throughout all Germany in Luther's time from the unprejudiced and famous legate Alexander, who, writing on February 8, 1521, from Worms, informed the Pope that nine-tenths of the Germans were for Luther, while the remaining tenth, though not exactly in favour of Luther, yet cried out, Down with the Roman Court! Alexander often emphasises the fact that almost all the German clergy were against Rome and for the Reformation. (See the Depeschen vom Wormser Reichstage, 1521, published by Kalkoff,) Zwingli accurately described the part played by Luther amid the universal revolt when he wrote to him: "There have been not a few men before you who recognised the sum and essence of evangelical religion as well as you. But from all Israel no one ventured to join battle, because they feared that mighty Goliath who stood threateningly in all the weight of his armour and strength."

8. Nowhere can we feel the warm heart-throb of the Teuton better than when Luther begins to speak of education. He tells the Nobles that, if they seriously desire a Reformation, they should above all effect "a thorough reformation of the Universities." In his Sendschreiben an die Burgermeister und Ratsherren aller Stadte in deutschen Landen he writes in reference to schools, "If we gave one Gulden to oppose the Turks, here it were proper, even though they were at our throats, to give 100 Gulden, if but one boy might therewith be educated,"... and he, urges every citizen henceforth to give all the money, that he has hitherto thrown away on Masses, vigils, annual holidays, begging monks, pilgrimages and "all such rubbish," to the school, "to educate the poor children -- which would be such a splendid investment."

9. See vol. i. p. 320, vol. ii. p. 50, &c.

10. Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, Grundriss, 2nd ed. p. 376) writes: "Luther presented his Church with a Christology which for scholastic inconsistency far surpassed the Thomistic."

11. Historische und polilische Aufsatze, 5th ed. ii. 410.

12. Uber das Verhultnis des deutschen Staates zu Theologie, Kirche und Religion.

13. Dogmengeschichte, para. 81.

14. Concerning Luther's act of liberation which benefited the whole world -- even the strictly Catholic States -- Treitschke says (Politik i. 333): "Since the great liberating act of Luther, the old doctrine of the superiority of Church over State is for ever done away with, and that not only in Protestant countries. Of course it is hard to convince a Spaniard that he owes the independence of the Crown to Martin Luther. Luther expressed the great thought that the State is in itself a moral system, without requiring to lend its protecting arm to the Church; this is his greatest political service."

15. From the earliest times these were the favourite tactics at Rome. Alexander's letter to the Curia of April 27, 1521, gives an authentic account of the attempts to bribe Luther. In the same place we can see how the enthusiasm of Eck and others was kept warm by presents of money, benefices, &c., and how carefully they were enjoined to be "absolutely silent" on the matter (May 15, 1521).

16. Cf. Dollinger und Reusch: Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der romisch- katholischen Kirche I. Div. i. chap. v. § 7. Cardinal de Noailles always deseribes the Jesuits straight away as "the protagonists of depraved morals."

17. Critical Essays (Mirabeau).

18. The words which he puts in the mouth of Heloise are beautiful and specially applicable to the French of that time: "Peut-etre vaudrait-il mieux n'avoir point de religion du tout que d'en avoir une exterieure et manieree, qui sans toucher 1e coeur rassure la conscience (Part III. Letter xviii.).

19. The words which he puts in the mouth of Heloise are beautiful and specially applicable to the French of that time: "Peut-etre vaudrait-il mieux n'avoir point de religion du tout que d'en avoir une exterieure et manieree, qui sans toucher 1e coeur rassure la conscience (Part III. Letter xviii.).

20. When speaking of Napoleon's genius as a statesman, we must never forget (among other things) that it was he who finally reduced the Gallican Church to ruins, thus irretrievably delivering over the great majority of the French to Rome and destroying every possibility of a genuine national Church. He it was also who enthroned the Jews. This man -- devoid of all understanding for historical truth and necessity, the impersonation of wicked Caprice -- is a destroyer, not a creator, at best a codifier, not an inventor; he is a minion of the Chaos, the proper complement to Ignatius of Loyola, a new personification of the anti-Teutonic spirit.

21. Chap. iii.

22. Such a view is not to be obscured by sectarian narrowness: this is proved by the fact that the Bavarians -- who are still Catholic and lovers of freedom -- at the Electoral Assembly of the year 1640 not only sided with the Protestants in all important questions, but even, when the latter, represented by characterless princes, dropped their claims, asserted them again and contended for them in opposition to the faithless Habsburgs and cunning prelates (cf. Heinrich Brockhaus, Kurfurstentag zu Nurnberg, 1883, pp. 264 f., 243, 121 f.).

23. In the year 1231 proclamations were scattered over the whole country, fixed to walls, carried from house to house: "Rather die than be ruined by Rome!" What innate political wisdom!

24. Seeley: The Expansion of England, 1895, p. 146.

25. Cf. Green: History of the English People, vi. p. 293. Capital has been made of the fact that some perjurers and forgers misled the whole country by the discovery of a pretended, trumped-up plot of the Jesuits, but this does not disprove the fact of there having been a great international conspiracy, which was directed from Paris, a fact which has been established beyond doubt by numerous diplomatic documents and authentic Jesuit correspondence.

26. On September 3, 1783, the treaty was signed by which Old England relinquished its claims to New England. It is well known to what an extent "some few heroes and men of mark" were the heart and soul of this undertaking also; though the new nation to begin with did not choose a King, it honoured the personality of its founder by adopting as national emblem the stars and stripes, the old coat of arms which had been conferred on the Washingtons by English Kings. (This coat of arms can still be seen on the tombstones of the Washingtons in the church of Little Trinity, in London.)

27. How matters would have stood but for this intervention is seen from the fact that the Catholic priests there had already carried their point with regard to the "prohibition against the printing of books and that a "heretic" was strictly forbidden to live in the land!

28. November 1813, Conversation with Luden.

29. Though they take from us body, wealth, honour, wife and child: let it pass, it profiteth them not; the Kingdom must surely remain to us.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

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Part 1 of 5

6. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION (FROM FRANCIS OF ASSISI TO IMMANUEL KANT)

THE TWO COURSES


I HAVE already given (p. 241) a definition of philosophy (Weltanschauung), and in this book I have frequently discussed religion; [1] I have also called attention (p. 244) to the inseparability of the two ideas. I am far from maintaining the identity of philosophy and religion, for that would be a purely logical and formalistic undertaking, which is quite beyond my purpose; but I see that everywhere in our history philosophical speculation is rooted in religion, and in its full development aims at religion -- and when on the one hand I contemplate national idiosyncrasies and on the other pass a succession of pre-eminent men in review before my mind's eye, I discover a whole series of relations between philosophy and religion, which show me that they are closely and organically connected: where the one is absent the other fails, where the one is strong and vigorous, so is the other: a deeply religious man is a true philosopher (in the living, popular sense of the word), and those choice minds that rise to comprehensive, clear, philosophical views -- a Roger Bacon, a Leonardo, a Bruno, a Kant, a Goethe-are not often ecclesiastically pious, but always strikingly "religious." We see, therefore, that philosophy and religion on the one hand further one another, and on the other hand are substitutes for, or complementary to, each other. On pp. 258-9 I wrote: In the want of a true religion springing from and corresponding to our individuality I see the greatest danger for the future of the Teuton, that is in him the heel of Achilles, whoever wounds him there, will lay him low. If we look closer, we shall see that the inadequacy of our ecclesiastical religion revealed itself, to begin with, in the invalidity of the philosophy which it presupposed; our earliest philosophers are all theologians and mostly honest ones, who pass through an inner struggle for truth, and truth always means the sincerity of views as determined by the special nature of the individual. Out of this struggle our Teutonic philosophy, which is absolutely new, gradually grew up. This development did not follow one straight line; the work was taken in hand simultaneously at most divergent points, as if in the building of a house, mason, carpenter, locksmith and painter each did his own work independently, troubling himself as little as possible about the others. It is the will of the architect that unites the essentially different aims; in this case instinct of race is the architect; the homo europaeus can only follow definite paths, and he, as Master, to the best of his power forces his path upon others who do not belong to him. I do not think that the structure is complete; I am not bound to any school, but take joy in the growth and development of the Teutonic work, and do what I can reverently to assimilate it. My task in this section is, in the most general outlines, to show the growth and present condition of this Teutonic work. Here history again comes to its own; for while civilisation only fastens on to the past in order to destroy it and replace it by something new, and knowledge is, as it were, of no special time, the philosophical and religious development of seven hundred years is still alive, and it is, indeed, impossible to speak of to-day, without remembering that it is born of yesterday. Here everything is still in process of development; our philosophy and, above all, our religion, is the most incomplete feature of our whole life. Here, then, the historical method is forced upon us; it alone can enable us so to pick up and follow the various threads that the web of the tissue, as it was made over to us by the year 1800, shall be clearly seen and surveyed. [2]

Ecclesiastical Christianity, purely as religion, consists, as I endeavoured to show in the seventh chapter, of unreconciled elements, so that we found Paul and Augustine involved in most serious contradictions. In Christianity, as a matter of fact, we are dealing not with a normal religious philosophy, but with an artificial philosophy forcibly welded into unity. Now as soon as genuine philosophic thought began to be active -- which was never the case with the Romans, but was bound to come with the advent of the Teuton -- the nature of this faith full of contradictions violently asserted itself; and in fact it is a truly tragic spectacle to see noble minds like Scotus Erigena in the ninth, and Abelard in the twelfth century wriggle and turn in the hopeless struggle to bring the complex of faith which was forced upon them into harmony with themselves and with the demands of honest reason. Inasmuch as the Church dogmas were regarded as infallible, philosophy had henceforth two paths to choose between; it could openly admit the incompatibility of philosophy and theology -- that was the course of truth; or it could deny the evidence of the senses, cheat itself and others, and by means of countless tricks and devices force the irreconcilable to be reconciled -- this was the course of falsehood.

THE COURSE OF TRUTH

The course of truth branches off almost from the first in different directions. It could lead to a daring, genuinely Pauline, anti-rationalistic theology, as Duns Scotus (1274-1308) and Occam (died 1343) show. It could bring about a systematic subordination of logic to intuitive feeling and this conduced to the rich variety of mystical philosophies, which, beginning with Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) and Eckhart (1260-1328), was to lead up to minds of such different character as Thomas a Kempis, the author of the Imitatio Christi (1380-1471), Paracelsus, the founder of scientific medicine (1493- 1541), or Stahl, the founder of modern chemistry (1660-1734). [2] Or, on the other hand, this unswerving honesty could cause men to turn away from all special study of Christian theology and spur them on to acquire a comprehensive, free cosmogony; we see an indication of this in the encyclopaedist Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), it is then further developed in the Humanists, e.g., in Picus of Mirandola (1463-94), who considers the science of the Hellenes as divine a revelation as the books of the Jews and consequently studies it with the fire of religious zeal. Finally, this path could lead the most profound philosophic intellects to test and reject the foundations of the theoretical philosophy then regarded as authoritative, in order to proceed, as free responsible men, to the construction of a new philosophy in harmony with our intellect and knowledge; this movement -- the really "philosophical" one -- always starts in our case from the investigation of nature; its representatives are philosophers who study nature, or philosophic investigators; it begins with Roger Bacon (1214-1294), then slumbers for a long time, repressed by main force by the Church, but raises its head again when the natural sciences have developed strength, and runs a glorious course, from Campanella (perhaps the first man who consciously propounded a scientific theory of perception, 1568-1639) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) at the threshold of the nineteenth century. So manifold were the new paths opened up to the human spirit when it once faithfully followed its true nature. And by each of the courses mentioned a splendid harvest was garnered. Pauline theology gave birth to Church reform and political freedom; mysticism led to a deeper view of religion, and at the same time to reform and brilliant natural science; the awakened humanist desire for knowledge advanced genuine liberal culture, and the horizon of mankind was powerfully widened by the reconstruction of philosophy in the special sense on the basis of exact observation and critical, free thought; while all scientific knowledge gained in depth and religious conceptions in the Teutonic sense began to undergo a complete transformation.

THE COURSE OF FALSEHOOD

The other method, which I have designated the course of falsehood, remained absolutely barren of results; for here arbitrary caprice and capricious arbitrariness predominated. The very attempt to rationalise all religion, that is, to accommodate it to reason, and yet at the same time to bind and put thought under the yoke of faith, is a double crime against human nature. For such an attempt to succeed the delusive belief in dogmatism must first become a raving madness. A Church doctrine which had been patched together out of the most varying foreign alien elements, and which contradicted itself in the most essential points, had to be declared eternal, divine truth; a fragmentary, badly translated, often totally misunderstood, essentially individualistic, pre-Christian philosophy had to be declared infallible; for without these prodigious acceptations the attempt would never have succeeded. And so this theology and this philosophy, which had no connection with one another, were forced into wedlock and a monstrosity was imposed upon humanity as the absolute, all-embracing system to be unconditionally accepted. [4] In this path development followed a straight, short line; for, while divine truth is as manifold as the creatures in which it is reflected, the impious caprice of a human system, which lays down the law of "truth" and carries it out with fire and sword, soon reaches its limit, and any further step would be a negation of itself. Anselm, who died in the year 1109, can be regarded as the author of this method, which gags thought and feeling; scarcely a hundred and fifty years after his death Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) and Ramon Lull (1234-1315) had brought the system to the highest perfection. Progress was in this case impossible. Such an absolute theological philosophy neither contained in itself the germ of any possible development, nor could it exercise a stimulating influence upon any branch of human intellectual activity. on the contrary, it necessarily signified an end. [5] It becomes clear how irrefutable this assertion is when we look at the frequently mentioned bull AEterni Patris, of August 4, 1879, which represents Thomas Aquinas as the unsurpassed, solely authoritative philosopher of the Roman view of life even for the present day; and, to make matters more complete, some lovers of the Absolute have lately put Ramon Lull with his Ars magna even above Thomas. For Thomas, who was a thoroughly honest Teuton, possessed of brilliant intellectual gifts, and who had learned all that he really knew at the feet of the great Swabian Albert von Bollstadt, expressly admits that some few of the highest mysteries -- e.g., the Trinity and the Incarnation -- are incomprehensible to human reason. It is true he tries to explain this incomprehensibility by rational means, when he says that God intentionally made it so, that faith might be more meritorious. But he at least admits the incomprehensibility. Now Ramon does not admit this, for this Spaniard had learned in a different school, that of the Mohammedans, and had there imbibed the fundamental doctrine of Semitic religion that nothing can be incomprehensible, and so he undertakes to prove everything under the sun on grounds of reason. [6] He also makes the boastful claim that from his method (of rotary differently coloured disks with letters for the chief ideas) all sciences can be derived without the necessity of studying them. Thus absolutism is at the same moment perfected in two ways, by the earnest, ethically idealistic system of Thomas and by the faultlessly logical and consequently absurd doctrine of Ramon. I have already mentioned (p. 276) the judgment of the great Roger Bacon, who was a contemporary of both these misguided men, upon Thomas Aquinas; similar and just as much to the point was the opinion of Cardanus, the doctor, mathematician and philosopher, who had wasted much time on Ramon Lull -- a marvellous master! he teaches all sciences without knowing a single one. [7]

There is nothing to be gained by lingering over these delusions, although the fact that at the close of the nineteenth century we were solemnly called upon to turn about and choose this insincere course lends them a melancholy present interest. We prefer to turn to that long, magnificent series of splendid men who imposed no shackles on their inner nature, but in simple sincerity and dignity sought to know God and the world. I must, however, first make a remark on method.

SCHOLASTICISM

In the grouping, which I have sketched above (into theologians, mystics, humanists and scientists), the usual conception of a "scholastic period" completely disappears. And I really think that the notion may be dispensed with here, as being altogether superfluous, if not directly harmful, for the vivid comprehension of the philosophic and religious development of the Teutonic world; it is contrary to the motto from Goethe which I prefixed to this "Historical Survey," in that it unites what is heterogeneous and at the same time rends links that belong to one single chain. Taken literally, scholastic means simply schoolman; the name should therefore be limited to men who derive their knowledge solely from books; in fact that is the sort of derogatory sense which the word has acquired in common parlance. But we may define more exactly. A predominance of dialectical hairsplitting to the disadvantage of observation -- of the Theoretical to the disadvantage of the Practical -- is what we call "scholastic"; every abstractly intellectual, purely logical construction seems to us to be "scholasticism," and every man who constructs such systems out of his head, or, as the German popular saying is, " Out of his little finger," is a scholastic. But when thus viewed the word has no historical value; there have been such scholastics at all times and there is a rich crop of them at the present day. From the historical point of view we generally regard the scholastics as a group of theologians, who for several centuries endeavoured to fix the relations between thought and the Church doctrine, which was now almost completely developed and rigidified. Such a grouping may be useful to the Church historian; it took the "Fathers" a thousand years of bitter struggle to fix the dogmas; then for five hundred years there raged a violent dispute with regard to the manner in which these Church doctrines could be reconciled with the surrounding world, and especially with the nature of man, so far as this could be derived from Aristotle. Finally, however, the underground current of true humanity had undermined more and more seriously the rock of St. Peter, and the thunder of Martin Luther scattered the theologians; and so on one side and on the other a third period, that of the practical testing of principles, was introduced. As I have said above, from the point of view of the Church historian this may give a useful idea of scholasticism, but from the philosophic standpoint I find it exceedingly misleading, and for the history of our Teutonic culture it is utterly useless. What, for example, is the sense of saying, as I find in all text-books, that Scotus Erigena is the founder of scholastic philosophy? Erigena! one of the greatest mystics of all times, who interprets the Bible, verse by verse, allegorically, who fastens directly on to Greek gnosticism [8] and like Origenes teaches that hell means the tortures of our own consciences, heaven their joys (De Divisione Naturae v. 36), that every man will at last be redeemed) "whether he has led a good or a wicked life" (v. 39), that to understand eternity We must realise that "space and time are false ideas" (iii. 9), &c. What connection is there between this daring Teuton [9] and Anselm or Thomas? Even if we look more closely at Abelard, who, as a pupil of Anselm and an incomparable dialectician, stands much nearer to the doctors named, we must observe that though he is animated by the same purpose -- that of reconciling reason and theology -- his method and results are so very different that it is quite ridiculous to class such contradictions together merely because of external points of contact. [10] And what is the meaning of linking together Thomas Aquinas with Duns Scotus and Occam, the sworn opponents, the diametrical contradictions of the doctor angelicus? What is the use of trying to persuade us that it is merely a question of fine metaphysical differences between realism and nominalism? On the contrary, these metaphysical subtleties are merely the external shell, the real difference is the wide gulf that separates the one intellectual tendency from the other, the fact that different characters forge quite different weapons from the same metal. It is the duty of the historian to bring into evidence that which is not immediately clear to everyone; to distinguish what seems uniform, while in reality it is essentially antagonistic; to unite what seems contradictory but is fundamentally in agreement -- as, for example, Duns Scotus and Eckhart. Martin Luther felt vividly and profoundly the difference between these various doctors; in a passage of his Table-talk he says: "Duns Scotus has written very well ... and has endeavoured to teach with good system and correctly. Occam was an intelligent and ingenious man .... Thomas Aquinas is a gossiping old washerwoman." [11] And is it not perfectly ridiculous when a Roger Bacon, the inventor of the telescope, the founder of scientific mathematics and philology, the proclaimer of genuine natural science, is thrown into the same class as those who pretended to know everything and consequently stopped Roger Bacon's mouth and threw him into prison? Finally I should like to ask: if Erigena is a scholastic and Amalrich also, how is it that Eckhart, who is manifestly under the power of both, is not one, although he is contemporary of Thomas and Duns? I know that the sole reason is the desire to form a new group, that of the Mystics, which shall lead up to B6hme and Angelus Silesius; and with this object in view Eckhart is violently separated from Erigena, Amalrich and Bonaventura! And that nothing may be wanting to show the artificiality of the system, the great Francis of Assisi is excluded altogether; the man who has exercised perhaps more influence upon the trend of thought than anyone, the man to whose order Duns Scotus and Occam belong, to whom Roger Bacon, the regenerator of natural science, confesses his allegiance, and who, by the power of his personality, did more than any other to awaken mysticism to new life! This man, who is a real force in every field of culture -- since he has stimulated art as powerfully as philosophy -- is not even mentioned in the history of philosophy; this reveals the faultiness of the scheme which I am criticising, and at the same time the untenability of the idea that religion and philosophy are two fundamentally different things.

ROME AND ANTI-ROME

My bridge will, I think, have been substantially advanced if I have succeeded in replacing this artificial scheme by a living discernment. Such a discernment must naturally in all cases be gained from living facts, not from theoretical deductions. We see here the very same struggle, the same revolt, as in other spheres; on the one hand the Roman ideal which grew out of the Chaos of Peoples, on the other Teutonic individuality. I have shown already that Rome can be satisfied in philosophy as in religion with nothing less than the unconditionally Absolute. The sacrifizio dell' intelletto is the first law which it imposes upon every thinking man. This too is perfectly logical and justifiable. That moral pre-eminence is not incompatible with it is proved by Thomas Aquinas himself. Endowed with that peculiar, fatal gift of the Teuton to sink himself in alien views, and, thanks to his greater capacities, to transfigure them and give them new life, Thomas Aquinas, who had drunk in the southern poison from childhood, devoted Teutonic science and power of conviction to the service of the Anti-Teutonic cause. In former ages the Teuton had produced soldiers and commanders to conquer their own nations, now they supplied the enemy with theologians and philosophers; for two thousand years this has steadily been going on. But every unprejudiced observer feels that such men as Thomas are doing violence to their own nature. I do not assert that they consciously and intentionally lie, though that was and is often enough the case with men of lower calibre; but, fascinated by the lofty (and for a noble, misguided mind, actually holy) ideal of the Roman delusion, they fall a, prey to suggestion and plunge into that view of life which destroys their personality and their dignity, just as the song- bird throws itself into the serpent's jaw. That is why I call this the way of falsehood. For whoever follows it sacrifices what he received from God, his own self; and in truth that is no trifle; Meister Eckhart, a good and learned Catholic, a Provincial of the Dominican Order, teaches us that man should not seek God outside himself -- "Got uzer sich seIber nicht ensuoche"; [12] whoever therefore sacrifices his personality loses the God whom he could have found only within himself. Whoever, on the other hand, does not sacrifice his personality in his philosophy, manifestly follows the very opposite path no matter to what manner of opinions his character may impel him, and no matter whether he belong to the Catholic or to any other Church. A Duns Scotus, for example, is an absolutely fanatical priest, wholly devoted to the essential doctrines of Rome, such as justification by works -- a hundred times more intolerant and one-sided than Thomas Aquinas; yet everyone of his words breathes the atmosphere of sincerity and of autonomous personality. This doctor subtilis, the greatest dialectician of the Church, exposes with contempt and holy indignation the whole tissue of pitiful sophism upon which Thomas has built up his artificial system. It is not true, as he points out, that the dogmas of the Church stand the test of reason, much less that, as Thomas had taught, they can be proved by reason to be necessary truths; even the so-called proofs of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul are wretched sophistries (see the Quaestiones subtilissimae); it is not the syllogism that is of value in religion, but faith only; it is not the understanding which forms the centre of human nature, but the will; voluntas superior intellectu! However intolerant from the ecclesiastical point of view Duns Scotus might personally be, the path that he trod led to freedom. And why? Because this Anglo-Saxon is absolutely sincere. He accepts without question all the doctrines of the Roman Church, even those which do violence to the Teutonic nature, but he despises all deceit. What Lutheran theologian of the eighteenth century would have dared to declare the existence of God to be incapable of philosophic proof? What persecutions had not Kant to suffer for this very thing? Scotus had long ago asserted it. And Scotus, by putting the Individual in the centre of his philosophy as “the one real thing," saves the personality; and that means the rescue of everything. Now this one example shows with special clearness that all those who follow the same path, the path of sincerity, are closely connected with one another; for what the theologian Scotus teaches is lived by the mystic Francis of Assisi: the will is the supreme thing, God is a direct perception, not a logical deduction, personality is the "greatest blessing"; Occam, on the other hand, a pupil of Scotus, and as zealous a dogmatist as his master, found it not only necessary to separate faith still more completely from knowledge, and to destroy rationalistic theology by proving that the most important Church dogmas are actually absurd, whereby he became a founder of the sciences of observation -- but he also upheld the cause of the Kings in opposition to the Papal stool, that is, he fought for Teutonic nationalism against Roman universalism; at the same time he also stoutly upheld the rights of the Church against the interference of the Roman Pontifex -- and for this he was thrown into prison. Here, as we see, Politics, Science and Philosophy, in their later anti-Roman development, are directly connected with Theology.

Even such hasty indications will, I think, suffice to convince the reader that the grouping which I suggest goes to the heart of the mat ter. This division has one great advantage, namely, that it is not limited to a few centuries, but permits us to survey at one glance the history of a thousand years, From Scotus Erigena to Arthur Schopenhauer. In the second place, derived as it is from living facts, it has the further advantage for our own practical life that it teaches us unlimited tolerance towards every sincere, genuinely Teutonic view; we do not inquire about the What of a particular Philosophy, but about the How; free or not free? personal or not personal? It is solely thus that we learn to draw a clear line between our own selves and the alien, and to oppose the latter with all our weapons at once and at all times, no matter how noble and unselfish and thoroughly Teutonic he may pretend to be, The enemy worms his way into our very souls. Was that not the case with Thomas Aquinas? And do we not see a similar phenomenon in the case of Leibniz and Hegel? The great Occam was called doctor invincibilis: may we live to see many doctores invincibiles taking part in the struggle which threatens our culture on all sides!

THE FOUR GROUPS

The ground is now, I hope, sufficiently prepared to enable us to proceed methodically to consider the four groups of men who devoted their lives to the service of truth, without laying the flattering unction to their souls that they possessed or could fully grasp it; by their combined efforts the new philosophy of life has gradually assumed a more and more definite shape. These groups are the theologians, the mystics, the humanists and the natural scientists, in which the last-named category the philosophers in the narrower sense of the word are included. For the sake of convenience we shall retain the groups thus established, but we must avoid attaching to such a definition any wider significance than that of a convenient and practical handle for our purpose, for the four classes merge into each other at a hundred points.

THE THEOLOGIANS

Were it my intention to defend any artificial thesis, the group of the theologians would trouble me considerably; indeed I should be tortured with the feeling of my incompetence. But disregarding all technical details which may be beyond my comprehension, I need only open my eyes to see theologians of the character of Duns Scotus as direct pioneers of the Reformation, and not only of the Reformation -- for that remained from a religious point of view a very unsatisfactory piece of patchwork, or, as Lamprecht optimistically says, "a leaven for the religious attitude of the future" -- but also as the pioneers of a far-reaching movement of fundamental importance in the building up of a new Philosophy. We know what metaphysical acumen Kant employs in his Critique of Pure Reason to prove that "all attempts to establish a theology by the aid of speculation alone are fruitless and from their inner nature null and void"; [13] this proof was indispensable for the foundation of his philosophy; it was Kant, the all-destroyer, as Moses Mendelssohn fitly named him, who first shattered the sham edifice of Roman theology. The very earliest theologians, who followed the "way of truth" had undertaken the same task. Duns Scotus and Occam were not of course in a position, as Kant was, to under~ mine the" sham edifice" of the Church by the direct method of natural science, but for all practical purposes they had with adequate power of conviction attained exactly the same end, by the reductio ad absurdum of the hypothesis which was opposed to them. This fact was bound to lead with mathematical necessity to two immediate consequences: first, the freeing of reason with all that pertained to it from the service of theology, where it was of no use; secondly, the basing of religious faith upon another principle, since that of reason had proved useless. And in fact, as far as the freeing of reason is concerned, we already see Occam joining hands with Roger Bacon, a member of his own order, and demanding the empirical observation of nature; at the same time we see him enter the sphere of practical politics to demand wider personal and national freedom. This was a demand of freed reason, for fettered reason had tried to prove the universal Civitas Dei (in Occam's day by Dante's testimony) to be a divine institution. And in regard to the second point it is clear that, if the doctrines of religion find no guarantee in the reasoned conclusions of the brain, the theologian must endeavour with all the more energy to find this guarantee elsewhere, and the only available source was in the first place to be found in Holy Scripture. However paradoxical it may at first appear, it is nevertheless a fad that it was the violent, intolerant, narrow-minded orthodoxy of Scotus, in contrast to the occasionally almost free-thinking imperturbability of a Thomas, playing in a spirit of superiority with Augustinian contradictions, which pointed the way to emancipation from the Church. For the tendency of Thomas' thought. which the Roman Church so strongly supported, in reality emancipated it entirely from the doctrine of Christ. The Church with its Church Fathers and Councils had already pressed itself so much into the foreground that the Gospel had seriously lost credit: now it was proved that the dogmas of faith "had to be so," as reason could at any moment demonstrate that this is a logical necessity. To refer further to Holy Scripture would be just as foolish as if a captain, on going to sea, were to take a few pailfuls of water from the river that feeds the ocean and throw them over the bowsprit, for fear he should not have sufficient depth of water. But even before Thomas Aquinas had started to build his Tower of Babel, many profoundly sensitive minds had felt that this tendency which the Romish Church had introduced in practice and Anselm in theory, meant the death of all sincere religion: the greatest of these was Francis of Assisi. Certainly this extraordinary man belongs to the group of the Mystics, but he also deserves mention here among the theologians, for it was from him that the champions of true Christian theology derived their inspiration. That, indeed, seems paradoxical, for no saint was less of a theologian than Francis: but it is an historical fact, and the paradox disappears when we see that it is his emphasising of the importance of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ that forms the connection. This layman, who forces his way into the Church, pushes the priesthood aside, and proclaims the Word of Christ to all people, represents a violent reaction un the part of men longing for religion, against the cold, incomprehensible, argumentative and stilted faith in dogma. Francis, who from youth had been subject to Waldensian influence, doubtless knew the Gospel well; [14] we should almost have said it was a miracle, did we not know it was the merest accident, that he was not burned as a heretic; his religion can be expressed in the words of Luther: "The law of Christ is not doctrine but life, not word but being, not sign but fulness itself." [15] The Gospel which Francis rescued from oblivion became the rock of refuge to which the northern theologians retired, when they had convinced themselves that theological nationalism was untenable and dangerous. And they did so with the passion of combative conviction, urged on by the example of Francis. Duns teaches in direct contrast to Thomas that the highest bliss of heaven will not be Knowing but Loving. The influence which such a tendency must in time acquire is clear; we have already seen how highly Scotus and Occam were esteemed by Luther, while he called Thomas a gossip. The recognition of the fundamental importance of the Biblical Word, the emphasising of the evangelical life in contrast to dogmatic doctrine must inevitably result. Even the more external movement of revolt against the pomp and greed and the whole worldly tendency of the Curia was so self-evident a conclusion from these premisses, that we find even Occam attacking all these abuses, and Jacopone da Todi, the author of Stabat Mater, intellectually the most pre-eminent of the Italian Franciscans of the thirteenth century, calls upon men to revolt openly against Pope Boniface VIII, and for so doing has to spend the best years of his life in an underground prison. And though Duns Scotus himself emphasises the importance of works almost more than anyone else, while in reference to grace and faith he is not prepared to go even as far as Thomas, it is only a very superficial thinker who sees in this anything specifically Roman, and does not realise that this very doctrine necessarily paves the way for that of Luther: for the whole aim of these Franciscans is to make will, and not formal orthodoxy, the central point of religion; this makes religion something lived, experienced, immediately present. As Luther says, "Faith is Will essentially good"; and in another passage, "Faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, so that it could not but unceasingly do good." [16] Now this "Will," this "Doing" are the things upon which Scotus and Occam, taught by Francis, lay a I emphasis, and that, too, in contrast to a cold, academic creed. Certain much-read authors of the present day use the terms "faith" and "good works" in a most frivolous manner; without joining issue with those to whom the practice of falsehood seems a "good work," I ask every unbiased reader to consider Francis of Assisi and to say what is the essence of this personality. Everyone must answer "the power of faith." He is faith incorporate: "not doctrine but life, not word but being." Read the history of his life. It was not priestly admonition, not sacramental consecration that led him to God, but the vision of the Cross in a ruined chapel near Assisi and Christ's message in the diligently studied Gospel. [17] And yet Francis -- as also the Order which he founded -- is rightly regarded by us as the special Apostle of good works. And now look at Martin Luther -- the advocate of redemption by faith -- and say whether he has done no works, whether on the contrary he did not consecrate his life to working, whether indeed he was not the very man who revealed to us the secret of good works, when he said they must be eitel Freie Werke, "nothing but free works, done only to please God, not for the sake of piety ... for wherever they contain the false supplement and wrong-headed idea that we wish by works to become pious and blessed, they are not good but utterly culpable, for they are not free." [18] The learned may shake their heads as they will, we laymen recognise the fact that a Francis of Assisi has led up to a Duns Scotus and the latter to a Martin Luther; for it is the impulse of freedom -- the freeing of the personality that is at the root of this movement. The whole life of Francis is a revolt of the individual -- against his family, against all society around him, against a thoroughly corrupt priesthood and a Church that had fallen away from Apostolic tradition; and while the priesthood prescribes to him definite paths as alone conducing to bliss, he undauntedly goes his own way and as a free man holds commune directly with his God. Such a view raised to the sphere of theological philosophy must needs lead to almost exclusive emphasising of freedom of will, and this is exactly what took place in the case of Scotus. We are bound to admit that the latter with his one-sided emphasising of liberum arbitrium shows less philosophic depth than his opponent Thomas, but all the more profundity in religion and (if I may so say) in politics. For hereby this theology succeeds -- in direct contrast to Rome -- in making the individual the central point in religion: "Christ is the door of salvation: it is for man to enter in or not!" Now it is this accentuation of free personality that is the only important matter -- not subtleties concerning grace and merit, faith and good works. This path led to an anti-Roman, antisacerdotal conception of the Church and to an altogether new religion which was spiritual, not historical and materialistic. That very soon became clear. Luther, the political hero, did indeed close the door for a long time against this natural and inevitable religious movement. Like Duns Scotus he too enveloped his healthy, strong, freedom-breathing perception in a tissue of over-subtle theological dogmas, and never freed himself from the historical and therefore intolerant conceptions of a faith which had grown out of Judaism; but this attitude gave him the right strength for the right work: in his struggle for the Fatherland and the dignity of the Teutonic peoples he proved victorious, whereas his rigid, monkish theology broke like an earthen pitcher, being too small to hold all that he himself had poured into it. It was not till the nineteenth century that we again took those great theologians as our starting-point to enable us to pursue the path to freedom even in the sphere of theology.

Let us not underestimate the value of the theologians for the development of our culture! Whoever with more knowledge than I possess makes a further study of what has here been briefly sketched will, I think, find the work of these men even up to our own times manifoldly blessed. A learned Roman theologian, Abelard, exclaims even in the twelfth century, "Si omnes patres sic, at ego non sic!" [19] and it would be a good thing if a great many theologians of our century possessed the same courage. See what a Savonarola -- the man whose fiery spirit inspired a Leonardo, a Michael Angelo, a Raphael -- does for freedom, when from the pulpit he cries: [20] "Behold Rome, the head of the world, and from the head turn the eyes upon the limbs! from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head not one part is sound; we live among Christians, have intercourse with them; but they are not Christians who are Christians in name only; it were truly better to live among the heathen!" -- this monk, I say, when he utters such words before thousands and seals them with his death at the stake, does more for freedom than a whole academy of free-thinkers; for freedom asserts itself not by opinions but by attitude, it is "not word, but being." So too, in the nineteenth century, a pious, inwardly religious Schleiermacher has certainly done more in the interests of a living, religious philosophy than a sceptical David Strauss.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

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Part 2 of 5

THE MYSTICS

The real High School of freedom from hieratic and historical shackles is mysticism, the philosophia teutonica as it was called. [21] A mystical philosophy, when completely worked out, dissolves one dogmatic theory after another as allegory; what remains is pure symbol, for religion is then no longer a creed, a hope, a conviction, but an experience of life, an actual process, a direct state of mind. Lagarde somewhere says, It Religion is an unconditional present"; [22] this is the view of a mystic. The most perfect expression of absolutely mystical religion is found among the Aryan Indians; but scarcely a hair's-breadth separates our great Teutonic mystics from their Indian predecessors and contemporaries; only one thing really distinguishes them: Indian religion is genuinely Indo-Teutonic, mysticism finds in it a natural, universally recognised place, but there is no place for mysticism in such a conjunction as that of Semitic history with pseudo-Egyptian magic, and so it was and is at best merely tolerated, though mostly persecuted by our various sects. The Christian Churches are right from their point of view. Listen to the fifty-fourth saying of Meister Eckhart: "You know that all our perfection and all our bliss depends on this, that man should pass through and over all creation, all temporality and all being, and go into the depths which are unfathomable." That is essentially Indian and might be a quotation from the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad. No sophistry could succeed in proving a connection between this religion and Abrahamitic promises, and no honest man will deny that in a philosophy which rises above "creation" and "temporality," the Fall and the Redemption must be merely symbols of an otherwise inexpressible truth of inner experience. The following passage from the forty-ninth Sermon of Eckhart is also apposite: It So long as I am this or that or have this or that, I am not all things and have not all things; but as soon as you decide that you are not, and have not, this or that, then you are everywhere; as soon, therefore, as you are neither this nor that, you are all things." [23] This is the doctrine of Atman, and to it the theology of Duns Scotus is just as irrelevant as that of Thomas Aquinas. Before leaving the subject, upon one thing I must insist. The religion of Jesus Christ was just such a mystical religion; His deeds and words prove it. His saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," [24] cannot be interpreted by empiricism or history.

Naturally, I cannot here enter into a fuller exposition of mysticism, that would be seeking in a few lines to fathom human nature where it is "unfathomable"; my duty consists solely in so presenting the subject that even the uninitiated will at once perceive that it is the necessary tendency of mysticism to free men from ecclesiastical tenets. Fortunately -- I may well say so -- it is not the Teutonic nature to pursue thoughts to their last consequences, in other words, to let them tyrannise over us, and so we see Eckhart in spite of his Atman doctrine remaining a good Dominican -- escaping the Inquisition, it is true, by the skin of his teeth [25] -- but signing all necessary orthodox confessions, and we never find that -- in spite of all the recommendations of the sopor pacis (the sleep of peace) by Bonaventura (1221-1274) and others -- quietism has with us as with the Indians drained the veins of life. For that reason I shall limit myself to the narrow compass of this chapter, and only briefly point out what a destructive influence the army of Mystics exercised on the alien traditional religion, and how on the other hand they did so much to create and promote a new philosophy in keeping with our individuality. Usually too little is made both of the negative and of the positive activity of these men.

Very striking is, in the first place, their dislike for Jewish doctrines of religion; every Mystic is, whether he will or not, a born Anti-Semite. Pious minds like Bonaventura get over the difficulty by interpreting the whole Old Testament allegorically and giving a symbolical meaning to the borrowed mythical elements -- a tendency which we find fully developed five hundred years earlier in Scotus Erigena, and which we may trace still further back, to Marcion and Origines. [26] But this does not satisfy those souls in their thirst after true religion. The strictly orthodox Thomas a. Kempis prays with pathetic simplicity to God, "Let it not be Moses or the Prophets that speak to me, but speak thyself ... from them I hear words indeed, but the spirit is absent; what they say is beautiful, but it warms not the heart." [27] This feeling we meet with in almost all the Mystics, but nowhere so beautifully expressed as by the great Jacob Bohme (1575-1624). In regard to many passages in the Bible, after he has explained all that he can (e.g., the whole history of creation), symbolically and allegorically, and sees that he cannot proceed any further, he simply exclaims, "Here the eyes of Moses are veiled," and goes on to interpret the matter freely in his own way! [28] The contradiction is more serious when we come to conceptions of heaven and especially of hell. To be quite candid, we must admit that the conception of hell is really the blot of shame upon ecclesiastical doctrine. Born amid the scum of raceless slaves in Asia Minor, nurtured during the hopelessly chaotic, ignorant, bestial centuries of the declining and fallen Roman Empire, it was always repulsive to noble minds, though but few were able to rise so completely above it as Origenes and that incomprehensibly great mind, Scotus Erigena. [29] We can easily comprehend how few could do so, for ecclesiastical Christianity had gradually grown into a religion of heaven and hell everything else was of little moment. Take up any old chronicles you like, it is the fear of hell that has been the most effectual, generally the sole religious motive. The immense estates of the Church, her incalculable incomes from indulgences and suchlike, she owes almost solely to the fear of hell. At a later period the Jesuits, by frankly making this fear of hell the central point of all religion, [30] acted quite logically and soon earned the reward of consistent sincerity; for heaven and hell, reward and punishment form to-day more than ever the real or at least the effectual basis of our Church ethics. [31]

"Otez la crainte de l'enfer a un chretien, et vous lui oterez sa croyance," says Diderot not quite unjustly. [32] If we take all these facts into consideration, we shall comprehend what an effect must have been produced by the beautiful doctrine of Eckhart: "Were there no Hell and no Kingdom of Heaven, yet I would love God -- Thee, Thou sweet father, and Thy sublime nature"; and, "The right, perfect essence of the Spirit is to love God for His own goodness, though there were no Heaven and no Hell." [33] Some fifty years later the unknown author of the Theologia deutsch, that splendid monument of German mysticism in Catholic garb, expresses himself still more definitely, for he entitles his tenth chapter, "How perfect men have lost their fear of hell and desire of heaven," and shows that perfection consists in freedom from these conceptions: "The freedom of those men is such that they have lost fear of pain or hell, and hope of reward or heaven, and live in pure submission and obedience to everlasting goodness, in the complete freedom of fervent love." It is scarcely necessary to prove that between this freedom and the "quaking fear," which Loyola holds to be the soul of religion, [34] there is a gulf deeper and wider than that which separates planet from planet. There two radically different souls are speaking, a Teutonic and a non-Teutonic. [35] In the following chapter this "man of Frankfort," as he is called, goes on to say that there is no hell in the ordinary, popular sense of a future penitentiary, but that hell is a phenomenon of our present life. This priest is obviously at one with Origenes and Erigena and comes to the conclusion that "hell passes away and heaven continues to exist." One further remark most emphatically characterises his opinion. He calls heaven and hell "two good, sure ways for man in this age," he assigns to neither of these "ways" any preference over the other and expresses the opinion that "in hell a man may be quite at his ease and as safe as in heaven!" This view, which we find in this form or in a similar form among other Mystics, e.g., Eckhart's pupils Tauler and Seuse, is especially often and clearly expressed by Jacob Bohme: it is the expression of a philosophy which has pursued the thought further, and is on the point of passing from a negative conclusion to a positive conception. Thus to the question, "Whither does the soul go when the body dies, be it blessed or condemned? " he gives the answer, "The soul does not require to leave the body, but the external, mortal life and the body separated themselves from it. The soul has previously had heaven and hell within it ... for heaven and hell are everywhere present. It is merely a turning of the will towards the love of God or towards the wrath of God, and such may take place while the body is still alive." [36] Here nothing remains vague; for we manifestly stand with both feet on the foundation of a new religion; it is not new in so far as Bohme can point in this case to the words of Christ: "The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward signs"; "The world of angels is within the place (in loco) of this world" [37] but it is a new religion as compared with all Church doctrines. In another passage he writes: "The right, holy man, who is concealed in the visible man, is in Heaven as well as God, and Heaven is in him." [38] And Bohme fearlessly goes further and denies the absolute difference between good and evil; the inner foundation of the soul, he says, is neither good nor bad, God himself is both: "He is himself all Existence, he is Good and Evil, Heaven and Earth, Light and Darkness"; [39] it is the will that first "distinguishes" in the mass of indifferent actions, it is by the will that the action of the doer becomes good or evil. This is pure Indian doctrine; our theologians have long since and without difficulty proved that it simply contradicts the doctrine of the Christian Church. [40]

While the mystics already named and the incalculable number of others who held similar views, whether Protestants or Catholics, remained inside the Church, without ever thinking how thoroughly they were undermining that toilsomely erected structure, there were large groups of Mystics who perhaps did not go so far in viewing the essence of religion in the light of inward experience as the Theologia deutsch and Jacob B6hme, or as the saintly Antoinette Bourignon (1616-80), who wished to unite all sects by abolishing the doctrines of Scripture and emphasising only the longing for God: but these teachers directly attacked all ecclesiasticism and priesthood, dogmas, scripture and sacrament. Thus Amalrich of Chartres (died 1209), Professor of Theology in Paris, rejected the whole Old Testament and all sacraments, and accepted only the direct revelation of God in the heart of each individual. This gave rise to the league of the" Brothers of the Free Spirit," which was, it seems, a rather licentious and outrageous society. Others again, like Johannes Wessel (1419-89) by greater moderation achieved greater success; Wessel is essentially a mystic and regards religion as an inner, present experience, but in the figure of Christ he sees the divine motive power of this experience, and far from wishing to destroy the Church, which has handed down this valuable legacy, he desires to purify it by destroying the chimeras of Rome. Staupitz, the protector of Luther, holds very similar views. Men like these, who imperceptibly merge into the class of the theologians like Wyclif and Hus, are vigorous pioneers of the Reformation. Mysticism, in fact, had in so far a great deal to do with the Reformation, as Martin Luther in the depths of his heart was a mystic: he loved Eckhart and was responsible for the first printed edition of the Theologia deutsch; in particular, his central theory of present conversion by faith can only be understood through mysticism. On the other hand, he was annoyed by the "fanatics" who would soon, he thought, have spoiled his life-work. Mystics like Thomas Munzer (1490-1525), who began by abusing the "delicately treading reformers" and then openly revolted against all secular authority, have done more harm than anything else to the great political Church-reform. And even such noble men as Kaspar Schwenkfeld (1490-1561) merely frittered away their powers and awakened bitter passions by abandoning contemplative mysticism for practical Church reform. A Jacob Bohme, who quietly remains in the Church, but teaches that the sacraments (baptism and communion) are "not essentials" of Christianity, effects much more. [41] The sphere of the genuine mystic's influence is within not without. Hence in the sixteenth century we see the good Protestant tinker Bunyan and the pious Catholic priest Molinos doing more sound and lasting work than crowds of free-thinkers to free religion from narrowly ecclesiastical and coldly historical conceptions. Bunyan, who never harmed a soul, spent the greater part of his life in prison, a victim of Protestant intolerance; the gentle Molinos, hounded like a mad dog by the Jesuits, submitted in silence to the penances imposed by the Inquisition and died from their severity. The influence of both lasted, raising to a higher level the minds of religious men within the Churches; in this way they surely paved the way for secession.
Now that I have indicated how mysticism in countless respects broke up and destroyed the un-Teutonic conceptions which had been forced upon us, it remains for me to indicate how infinitely stimulating and helpful the Mystics at all times were in the building up of our new world and our new Philosophy.

Here we might be inclined to distinguish with Kant -- who, like Luther, is closely bound up with the Mystics, though he might not wish to have much to do with them, -- between "dreamers of reason" and "dreamers of feeling." [42] For as a matter of fact, two distinct leading tendencies are noticeable, the one towards the Moral and Religious, the other rather to the Metaphysical. But it would be difficult to follow out the distinction, for metaphysics and religion can never be fully separated in the mind of the Teuton. How important, for example, is the complete transference of Good and Evil to the will, which on close inspection we find already indicated in Duns Scotus and clearly expressed in Eckhart and Jacob Bohme. For this the will must be free. Now the feeling of necessity comes into all mysticism, since mysticism is closely bound up with nature, in which necessity is everywhere seen at work. [43] Hence Bohme at once calls nature "eternal," and denies its creation out of nothing: there he reasoned like a philosopher. But how to save freedom? Here, clearly, a moral and a metaphysical problem clutch at each other like two men drowning: and in fact things looked black till the great Kant, in whose hands the various threads which we are following -- theology, mysticism, humanism and natural science -- were joined, came to the rescue. It is only by the perception of the transcendental ideality of time and space that we can save freedom without fettering reason, that is, we can do so only by realising that our own being is not completely exhausted by the world of phenomena (including our own body), that rather there is a direct antagonism between the most indubitable experiences of our life and the world which we grasp with the senses and think with the brain. For example, in reference to freedom, Kant has laid down once for all the principle that "no reason can explain the possibility of freedom"; [44] for nature and freedom are contradictions; he who as an inveterate realist denies this will find that, if he follows out the question to its final consequences, " neither nature nor freedom remains." [45] In presence of nature, freedom is simply unthinkable. "We understand quite well what freedom is in a practical connection, but in theory, so far as its nature is concerned, we cannot without contradiction even think of trying to understand it"; [46] for, "the fact that my will moves my arm is not more comprehensible to me than if some one were to say that my will could also hold back the moon in its course; the difference is merely this, that I experience the former, while the latter has never occurred to my senses," [47] But the former -- the freedom of my will to move my arm -- I experience, and hence in another passage Kant comes to the irrefutable conclusion: "I say now, every being that cannot act but under the idea of freedom is for that very reason practically and really free." [48] In such a work as this I must, of course, avoid all minute metaphysical discussion, though indeed nothing short of that would make the matter really clear and convincing, but I hope that I have said enough to make everyone feel how closely religion and philosophy are here connected. Such a problem could never suggest itself to the Jews, since their observation of nature and of their own selves was never more than skin-deep, and they remained on the childish standpoint of empiricism hooded on both sides with blinkers; much less need we mention the refuse of humanity from Africa, Egypt and elsewhere, which helped to build up the Christian Church. In this sphere therefore -- where the deepest secrets of the human mind were to be unlocked -- a positive structure had to be built from the very foundations; for the Hellenes had contributed little [49] to this purpose and the Indians were as yet unknown. Augustine -- in his true nature a genuine mystic -- had pointed the way by his remarks on the nature of time (p. 78), and likewise Abelard in regard to space (vol. i. p. 502), but it was the Mystics proper who first went to the root of the matter. They never grow tired of emphasising the ideality of time and space. "The moment contains eternity," says Eckhart more than once. Or again: "Everything that is in God is a present moment, without renewal or future creation." [50] Here, as so often, the Silesian shoemaker is especially convincing, for with him such perceptions have lost almost all their abstract flavour and speak directly from the mind to the mind. If time is only a conditional form of experience, if God is in no way "subject to space" [51] then Eternity is nothing future, we already grasp it perfectly and completely, and so Bohme says in his famous lines:

Weme ist Zeit wie Ewigkeit
Und Ewigkeit wie diese Zeit,
Der ist befreit von allem Streit. [52]


The other closely related problem of the simultaneous sway of freedom and necessity was likewise always present to the Mystics; they speak often of their "own" mutable will in contrast to the "everlasting" immutable will of necessity, and so forth; and though it was Kant who first solved the riddle, yet a contemporary of Jacob Bohme, the great "dreamer of feeling," approached very near to it. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), one of the greatest "dreamers of reason" of all times, propounds the paradox that freedom and necessity are synonymous! Here we see the audacity of true mystical thought; it is not restrained by the halter of purely formal logic, it looks outwards with the eye of the genuine investigator and admits that the law of nature is necessity, but then it probes its own inner soul and asserts "my law is freedom." [53] So much for the positive contribution of the Mystics to modern metaphysics.

Still more important is the part they played in the establishment of a pure doctrine of morals. The most essential points have been already mentioned: ethical merit centred in Will, purely as such; religion not a matter of future reward and future punishment, but a present act, a grasping of Eternity at the present moment. This gives rise to an utterly different idea of sin, and consequently of virtue, from that which the Christian Church has inherited from Judaism. Thus Eckhart, for example, says: "That man cannot be called virtuous who does works as virtue commands, but only the man who does these works out of virtue; not by prayer can a heart become pure, but from a pure heart the pure prayer flows." [54] We find this thought in all Mystics in countless passages, it is the central point of their faith; it forms the kernel of Luther's religion; [55] it was most completely expressed by Kant, who says: "There is nothing in the world nor anything outside of it which can be termed absolutely and altogether good, except a good Will. A good Will is esteemed to be so not by the effect which it produces nor by its fitness for accomplishing any given end, but by its mere good volition, that is, it is good in itself ... even though it should happen that, owing to an unhappy conjunction of events or the scanty endowment of unkind nature, this good volition should be deprived of power to execute its benign intent, executing nothing and only retaining the good Will, still it would shine like a jewel in itself and by virtue of its native lustre. The usefulness or fruitlessness of acts cannot add to or detract from this lustre." [56] Unfortunately, I must limit myself to this central point of Teutonic ethics; everything else is derived from it.

But I must mention one thing more before taking leave of the Mystics -- their influence upon natural science. Passionate love of nature is strongly marked in most of the Mystics, hence the extraordinary power of intuition which we notice in them. They frequently identify nature with God, often they put nature alongside of God as something Eternal, but they hardly ever fall into the hereditary error of the Christian Church, that of teaching men to despise and hate nature. It is true that Erigena is still so much under the influence of the Church Fathers that he regards the admiration of nature as a sin comparable to breach of marriage vows, [57] but how different is the view of Francis of Assisi! Read his famous Hymn to the Sun, which he wrote down shortly before his death as the last and complete expression of his feelings, and sang day and night till he died, to such a bright and cheerful melody that ecclesiastically pious souls were shocked at hearing it from a death-bed. [58] Here he speaks of "mother" earth, of his "brothers" the sun, wind and fire, of his "sisters" the moon, stars and water, of the many-coloured flowers and fruits, and lastly of his dear "sister," the morte corporale, and the whole closes with praise, blessing and thanks to the altissimu, bon signore. [59] In this last, most heartfelt hymn of praise this holy man does not touch upon a single dogma of the Church. Few things are more instructive than a comparison between these outpourings of a man who had become altogether religious and now gathers his sinking strength to sing exultingly to all nature this rapturous unecclesiastical tat tvam asi [60] and the orthodox, soulless, cold confession of faith of the learned, experienced politician and theologian Dante in the twenty-fourth canto of his Paradiso. [61] Dante with his song closed an old, dead age, Francis began a new one. Jacob Bohme puts nature above Holy Scripture: "There is no book in which you will find more of divine wisdom than the book of nature spread before you in the form of a green and growing meadow; there you will see the wondrous power of God, you will smell and taste it, though it be but an image ... but to the searcher it is a beloved teacher, he will learn very much from it." [62] This tendency of mind revolutionised our natural science. I need only refer to Paracelsus, whose importance in almost all the natural sciences is daily becoming more and more recognised. The great and enduring part of this remarkable man's work is not the discovery of facts -- by his unfortunate connection with magic and alchemy he spread many absurd ideas -- but the spirit with which he inspired natural science. Virchow, who is certainly not prejudiced in favour of mysticism, and who shows poor courage in calling Paracelsus a "charlatan," nevertheless expressly declares that it was he who delivered the death-blow to ancient medicine and gave science the "idea of life. [63] Paracelsus is the creator of real physiology, neither more nor less; and that is so very high an honour that a soberly scientific historian of medicine speaks of "the sublimely radiant figure of this hero." [64] Paracelsus was a fanatical mystic; he said that" the inner light stands high above bestial reason"; hence his extreme one-sidedness. He would, for example, have little to do with anatomy; it seemed to him" dead," and he said that the chief thing was "the conclusion to be drawn from great nature -- that is to say, the outward man -- concerning the little nature of the individual." But in order to get at this outward man, he established two principles which have become essential in all natural science -- observation and experiment. In this way he succeeded in founding a rational system of pathology: "Fevers are storms, which cure themselves," &c.; likewise rational therapeutics: "The aim of medicine should be to support nature in her efforts to heal." And how beautiful is his admonition to young doctors: "The loftiest basis of medicine is love ... it is love which teaches art and outside of love no doctor is born." [63] One more service of this adventurous mystic should be mentioned: he was the first to introduce the German language into the University! "Truth and freedom" was, in fact, the motto of all genuine mysticism; for that reason its apostles banished the language of privileged hypocritical learning from the lecture-rooms and firmly refused to wear the red livery of the faculty: "the universities supply only the red cloak, the trencher-cap and a four-cornered fool." [66] Mysticism achieved a great deal more, especially in the sphere of medicine and chemistry. Thus the mystic van Helmont (1577-1644) discovered laudanum to deaden pain, and carbonic acid; he was the first to recognise the true nature of hysteria, catarrh, &c. Glisson (1597-1677), who by his discovery of the irritability of living tissue very greatly advanced our knowledge of the animal organism, was a pronounced mystic, who said of himself that "inner thought" guided the scalpel. [67] We could easily add to the above list, but all that we require is to point to the fact. The mystic has -- as we see in the case of Stahl with his phlogiston [68] and of the great astronomer Kepler, an equally zealous mystic and Protestant -- thrown many flashes of genius upon the path of natural science and the philosophy based thereon. The mystic was neither a reliable guide nor a reliable worker; but yet his services are not to be overlooked. Not only does he discover much, as we have just seen, not only does he fill with his wealth of ideas the frequently very empty arsenal of the so-called empiricists (Francis Bacon, for example, copies chapter after chapter from Paracelsus without any acknowledgment); but he possesses a peculiar instinct of his own, which nothing in the world can replace and which more cautious men must know how to turn to account. The philosopher Baumgarten recognised even in the eighteenth century that "vague perception often carries within it the germs of clear perception." [69] Kant has made a profound remark in this connection. As is well known, this philosopher recognises no interpretation of empirical phenomena but the mechanical, and that, as he convincingly proves, because fl only those causes of world- phenomena which are based upon the laws of motion of mere matter are capable of being comprehended"; but this does not prevent him from making the remark, which is worth taking to heart, concerning Stahl's nowadays much ridiculed idea of life-power: "Yet I am convinced that Stahl, who is fond of explaining the animal changes organically, is often nearer the truth than Hofmann, Boerhaave and others, who leave out of account the immaterial forces and cling to the mechanical causes." [70] And so it seems to me that these men who are "nearer the truth" have done great service in the building up of modem science and philosophy, and we cannot afford to neglect them either now or in the future.

From this point there runs a narrow path along the loftiest heights -- accessible only to the elect -- leading over to that artistic intuition closely related to the mystical, the importance of which Goethe revealed to us before the end of the eighteenth century. His discovery of the intermaxillary bone was made in the year 1784, the metamorphosis of plants appeared in 1790, the introduction to comparative anatomy 1795. Here that gushing enthusiasm which had awakened Luther's scorn, that "raving with reason and feeling" which so angered the mild-tempered Kant, were elevated and purified to "seeing," after a night lit up by will-o'-the-wisps, a new day had dawned, and the genius of the new Teutonic philosophy could print together with his Comparative Anatomy the splendid poem which begins:

Wagt ihr, also bereitet, die letzte Stufe zu steigen
Dieses Gipfels, so reicht mir die Hand und offnet den freien
Blick ins weitr Feld der Natur....


and closes with the words:

Freue dich, hochstes Geschopf der Natur; du fuhlest dich fahig,
Ihr den hochsten Gedanken, zu dem sie schaffend sich aufschwang.
Nachzudenken. Hier stehe nun still und wende die Blicke
Ruckwarts, prufe, vergleiche, und nimm vom Munde der Muse,
Dass du schauest, nicht schwarmst, die liebliche, volle Gewissheit. [71]


THE HUMANISTS

It is self-evident that the Humanists, in a certain sense, form a direct contrast to the Mystics; yet there is no real contradiction between them. Thus Bohme, though not a learned man, has a very high opinion of the heathen, in so far as they are "children of free will," and says that "in them the spirit of freedom has revealed great wonders, as we see from the wisdom which they have bequeathed to us;" [72] indeed, he boldly asserts that "in these intelligent heathens the inner sacred kingdom is reflected." [73] Almost all genuine Humanists, when they have the necessary courage, devote much thought to the already discussed central problem of all ethics and are all without exception of the opinion of Pomponazzi (1462-1525) that a virtue which aims at reward is no virtue; that to regard fear and hope as moral motives is childish and worthy only of the uneducated mob; that the idea of immortality should be considered from a purely philosophical standpoint and has nothing to do with the theory of morals, &c. [74]

The Humanists are just as eager as the Mystics to tear down the philosophy of religion imposed upon us by Rome and to build up a new one in its place, but their chief interests and efforts lie in a different direction. Their weapon of destruction is scepticism; that of the Mystics was faith. Even when humanism did not lead to frank scepticism, it always laid the foundation of very independent judgment. [75] Here we should at once mention Dante, who honours Virgil more than any of the Church Fathers, and who, far from teaching seclusion and asceticism, considers man's real happiness to lie in the exercise of his individual powers. [76] Petrarch, who is usually mentioned as the first real humanist, follows the example of his great predecessor: he calls Rome an "empia Babilonia" and the Church an "impudent wench:"

Fondata in casta et humil povertate,
Contra i tuoi fondatori alzi le corna,
Putta sfacciata!


Like Dante he upbraids Constantine, who by his fatal gift, mal nate ricchezze, has transformed the once chaste, unassuming bride of Christ into "a shameless adulteress." [77] But scepticism soon followed so inevitably in the train of humanistic culture that it filled the College of Cardinals and even ascended the Papal stool; it was the Reformation in league with the narrow Basque mind that first brought about a pietistic reaction. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Italian humanists establish the principle, intus ut libet, foris ut moris est, and Erasmus publishes his immortal Praise of Folly, in which churches, priesthood, dogmas, ethical doctrine, in short, the whole Roman structure, the whole "foul-smelling weeds of theology," as he calls them, are so denounced that some have been of opinion that this one work contributed more than anything else to the Reformation. [78] Similar methods and equal ability are revealed with as much force in the eighteenth century by Voltaire.

The most important contribution of the Humanists towards the construction of a new Teutonic philosophy is the relinking of our intellectual life to that of the related Indo-Europeans, in particular to that of the Hellenes, [79] and as a result of this the gradual development of the conception "man." The Mystics had destroyed the idea of time and so of history -- a perfectly justifiable reaction against the abuse of history by the Church; it was the task of the Humanists to build up true history anew, and so to put an end to the evil dream which the Chaos had conjured up. From Picus of Mirandola, who sees the divine guidance of God in the intellectual achievement of the Hellene, down to that great Humanist Johann Gottfried Herder, who asks himself "whether God might not after all have a plan in the vocation and institution of the human race," and who collects the "Voices" of all peoples, we see the historical horizon being extended, and we notice how this contact with the Hellenes led to a more and more distinct endeavour to arrange and thus give shape to experiences. And while the Humanists, in thus seeking inspiration outside, certainly over-estimated their own capacity just as much as the Mystics did in seeking it inwardly, yet many splendid results were achieved in both cases. I have shown how introspection led the Mystics to discoveries in outward nature -- an unexpected, paradoxical result; the Humanists struck out in the opposite direction, but with equal success; in their case it was the study of mankind around them that conduced to the strict delimitation of national individuality and to the decisive emphasising of the importance of the individual personality. It was philologists, not anatomists, who first propounded the theories of absolutely different human races, and though there may be a reaction at the present day, because the linguists have been inclined to lay too much stress on the single criterion of language, [80] yet the humanistic distinctions still hold and always will hold good; for they are facts of nature, facts, moreover, which can be more surely derived from the study of the intellectual achievements of peoples than from statistics of the breadth of skulls. So too out of the study of the dead languages there resulted a better knowledge of the living ones. We have seen how in India scientific philology was the outcome of a fervent longing to understand a half-forgotten idiom (vol. i. p. 432); the same thing took place among ourselves. A thorough knowledge of foreign, but related languages led to an ever more and more exact knowledge of the thorough development of our own. It must be confessed that this led, in so far as language is concerned, to a dark period of transition; the strong primal instinct of the people became awakened and, as usual, pedantic learning played havoc with this most sacred heritage, yet on the whole our languages came forth in purer beauty from the classical furnace; they were less powerful perhaps than before, but more pliant, more flexible and thus more perfect instruments for expressing the thoughts of a more advanced culture. The Roman Church, not the Humanists, as is so often ignorantly asserted, was the enemy of our language; on the contrary, it was the Humanists who. in league with the Mystics, introduced the native languages into literature and science; from Petrarch, the perfecter of the poetical language of Italy, and Boccaccio (one of the greatest of the early Humanists), the founder of Italian prose, to Boileau and Herder we see this everywhere, and in the universities it was, in addition to Mystics, like Paracelsus, pre- eminent Humanists, like Christian Thomasius, who forcibly introduced the mother-tongues, and thus rescued them, even in the circles of learning, from that contempt into which they had fallen owing to the enduring influence of Rome. We can scarcely estimate what this means for the development of our philosophy. The Latin tongue is like a lofty dam which dries up the intellectual field and shuts out the element of metaphysics; it has no sense of the mysterious, there is no walking on the boundary between the two realms of the Explorable and the Inexplorable; it is a legal and not a religious language. Indeed we can boldly assert that without the vehicle of our own Teutonic languages we should never have succeeded in giving shape and expression to our philosophy. [81]

But however great this service may be, it by no means exhausts the contribution of the Humanists to our work of culture. This emphatic -- I might almost say sculptural -- chiselling of the distinct, this assertion of the justification, or I may say of the sacred character of the Individual led for the first time to the conscious acknowledgment of the value of personality. It is true that this fact was already implicitly embodied in the tendency of thought of a Duns Scotus (p. 409); but it only became common property through the works of the Humanists. The idea of Genius -- that is, of personality in its highest potentiality -- is what is essential. The men whose knowledge embraced a wide sphere gradually noticed in how various a degree the personality reveals itself autonomously, and so as absolutely original and creative. From the beginning of the Humanistic movement we can trace the dawn of this inevitable perception, till in the Humanists of the eighteenth century it became so dominant that it found expression on all sides and in the most varying forms, from Winckelmann's brilliant intuition, which confined itself to the most clearly visible works, to Hamann's endeavours to descend by dark paths to the innermost souls of creative spirits. The finest remark was made by Diderot in that monument of Humanism, the great French Encyclopaedia: it is, he says, l'activite de l' ame -- i.e., the higher activity of the soul -- which makes up genius. What in the case of others is remembrance, is in the case of genius actual intuitive perception; in genius everything springs into life and remains living. "If genius has passed by, it is as if the essence of things were transformed, for genius diffuses its character over everything that it touches." [82] Herder makes a similar remark: "The geniuses of the human race are the friends and saviours, guardians and helpers of the race. A beautiful act, which they inspire, exercises an endless and indelible effect." [83] Diderot and Herder rightly distinguish between genius and the greatest talent. Rousseau also distinguishes genius from talent and intellect, but he does it, after his fashion, in a more subjective way, by expressing the opinion that he who does not possess genius himself will never understand wherein it consists. One of his letters contains a profound remark: "C'est le genie qui rend le savoir utile." [84] Besides this, Rousseau has devoted a whole essay to the Hero, who is the brother of the genius, and like him a triumph of personality; Schiller indicates the affinity of the two by characterising the ideas of the genius as "heroic." "Without heroes no people," cried Rousseau, and thereby gave powerful expression to the Teutonic view of life. And what stamps a man as a hero? It is pre-eminence of Soul; not animal courage -- he emphasises this in particular -- but the power of personality. [85] Kant defines genius as " the talent to discover that which cannot be taught or learned." [86] It would be easy to multiply these few quotations by the hundred, to such an extent had humanistic culture gradually brought into the foreground of human interest the question of the importance of personality in contrast to the tyranny of so-called superpersonal revelations and laws. It was distinction between individuals (a matter absolutely unknown to mysticism) which first revealed the full importance of pre-eminent personalities as the true bearers of a culture, genuine, liberal, and capable of development; that is why this distinction was one of the most beneficial achievements of the rise and for the rise of our new culture; for it put really great men on the pedestal to which they rightly belong, and where everyone can clearly see them. Nothing short of this is freedom -- unconditionally to acknowledge human greatness, in whatever way it may arise. This "greatest bliss" as Goethe called it, the Humanists won back for us; henceforth we must strive with all our power to keep it. Whoever would rob us of it, though he came down from heaven, is our mortal foe.

I do not intend to say anything more about the Humanists, for what I could say would only be a repetition of what is universally known; in their case I may take it for granted, as I could not in the case of the Mystics, that the facts, as also their importance, are on the whole correctly estimated; it was only necessary to emphasise that brilliant central point -- the emancipation of the individual -- because it is generally overlooked; it is only by the eye of genius that we can attain a bright and radiant philosophy, and it is only in our own languages that it can win its full expression.

THE NATURALIST-PHILOSOPHERS

All men of culture are equally familiar with this last group of men struggling for a new philosophy -- the Naturalist-Philosophers. In their case, too, I can limit myself to the indications demanded by the nature and aim of this chapter. I am, however, forced to a certain detail because it is essential that I should, more emphatically and clearly than is usual, bring home to the reader who is not widely read in philosophy, the importance of this essential feature of our culture; this detail will, I hope, serve as an enlightenment of our understanding.

The essential point is this, that men, in their desire to understand the world, are no longer satisfied with authoritative, superhuman claims, but turn once more to the world itself and question it; for centuries that had been forbidden. If we examine the matter closely, we shall see that this is a peculiarity common to all the groups which represent the awakening of Teutonism. For the Mystic absorbs himself into the world of his own mind, and also, therefore, into the great world -- and grasps with such might the direct presence of his individual life that testimony of Scripture and doctrine of faith fade into something subsidiary; his method might be described as the rendering of the subjectively given material of the world into some• thing objective. The task of the Humanist, on the other hand, is to collect and test all the different human evidences -- truly a weighty document of the world's history; the mere endeavour proves an objective interest in human nature as a whole, and no other method could more quickly undermine the false pretensions of so- called authority. Even in the case of theology this new tendency had asserted itself; for Dun Scotus, by desiring completely to separate reason and world from faith, freed them and gave them independent life, while Roger Bacon, a brother of the same order, demanded a study of nature fettered by no theological considerations, and thereby gave the first impulse to true naturalist philosophy. I say "naturalist philosophy," not "nature philosophy," for the latter expression is claimed by definite systems, whereas I wish merely to lay stress upon a method. [87] But this method is a matter of primary importance, inasmuch as it forms the bond of union, and has enabled our philosophy, in spite of differences of aim and of attempted solutions, to develop itself on the whole as a combined entity and to become a genuine element of culture, because it has paved the way for, and, to a certain degree, has already established, a new philosophy. The essence of this method is observation of nature, wholly disinterested observation, aiming solely at the discovery of truth. Such philosophy as this is philosophy in the shape of science; this it is which distinguishes it not only from theology and mysticism, but also -- as we should be careful to note -- from that dangerous and ever barren type, philosophy in the shape of logic. Theology is justified by the fact that it serves either a great idea or a political purpose, mysticism is a direct phenomenon of life; but to apply mere logic to the interpretation of the world (the outer and the inner); to raise logic, instead of intuition or experience, to the position of lawgiver, means nothing but fettering truth with manacles, and betokens (as I have tried to prove in the first chapter) nothing less than a new outbreak of superstition. That is why we see the new period of naturalist philosophy start with a general revolt against Aristotle. The Greek had not only analysed the formal laws of thought and so made their use more sure, for which he deserved the gratitude of all future generations, but he had also undertaken to solve all problems, even those which it might be impossible to investigate, by means of logic; this had rendered science impossible. [88] For the silent assumption of logic as law-giver is, that man is the measure of all things, whereas in reality, as a merely logical being, he is not even the measure of himself. Telesius (1508-86), a great Neapolitan mathematician and naturalist, a forerunner of Harvey as regards the discovery of the circulation of the blood, was perhaps the first to make it his special task to clear the hapless human brain of this Aristotelian cobweb. Roger Bacon had, it is true, already made a timid start, and Leonardo, with the coolness of genius had called Aristotle's doctrine of soul and of God a "lying science" (vol. i. p. 82); Luther, too, in his early days, while still within the fold of the Roman Church, is said to have been a violent opponent of Aristotle, and to have intended to purge philosophy from his influence; [89] but now there came forward men who had the courage with their own hands to sweep aside the falsehood, in order to find room for the truth. They contended not solely and not chiefly against Aristotle, but against the whole prevailing system, according to which logic, instead of being a handmaid, sat as Queen upon the throne. Campanella, with his theory of perception, and Giordano Bruno were the immediate disciples of Telesius; both helped bravely to hurl down the logical idol with the feet of clay. Francis Bacon, who, although not to be com pared with these two as a philosopher, yet exercised a much wider influence, was directly dependent upon Telesius on the one hand and Paracelsus on the other, that is, upon two sworn Anti-Aristotelians. With his criticism of all Hellenic thought he certainly shot far beyond the mark, but precisely by this he succeeded in more or less making tabula rasa for genuine science and scientific philosophy, that is, for the only correct method which he has brilliantly characterised in the introduction to his Instauratio Magna as inter empiricam et rationalem facultatem conjugium verum et legitimum. It was not long before out of the fold of the Roman Church a Gassendi (1592-1655) appeared, whose Anti- ristotelian Exercises are described by Lange as "one of the keenest and most exultant attacks upon Aristotelian philosophy"; though the young priest considered it more prudent to leave only fragments of his book unburnt, it still remains a sign of the times, and all the more so, as Gassendi became one of the principal stimulators of the sciences of observation and of the strictly mathematical and mechanical interpretation of natural phenomena. Aristotle had taken the fatal step from observation of nature to theology; now comes a theologian who destroys the Aristotelian sophisms and leads the human mind back to pure contemplation of nature.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Fri Oct 21, 2016 6:45 pm

Part 3 of 5

THE OBSERVATION OF NATURE

The principal point in the new philosophical efforts -- from Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century to Kant at the beginning of the nineteenth -- is therefore the systematic emphasising of observation as the source of knowledge. From this time forth the practice of faithful observation became the criterion of every philosopher who is to be taken seriously. The word nature must of course be taken in the most comprehensive sense. Hobbes, for example, studied chiefly human society, not physics or medicine, but in this division of nature he has proved his capacity of observation and shown that he is scientific by the fact that he confined himself almost exclusively to the subject with which he was best acquainted, namely, the State. Yet it is a fact that all our epoch-making philosophers have won their spurs in the "exact" sciences, and they possess in addition an extensive culture, that is to say, they are masters of method, and of the material dealt with. Thus Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is essentially a mathematician, and that meant in those days, when mathematics were being daily developed out of the needs of the discoverers, a natural scientist and astronomer. Nature, therefore, in her phenomena of motion was familiar to him from his youth. Before he began to philosophise, he became in addition a keen anatomist and physiologist, so that he was able not only as a physicist to write a treatise on the Nature of Light, but also as embryologist one on the Development of the Foetus. Moreover, he had with philosophic intent "read diligently the great book of the world" (as he himself tells us); he had been soldier, man of the world, courtier; he had practised the art of music so successfully that he was impelled to publish an Outlines of Music; he so applied himself to swordsmanship that he was able to issue a Theory of Fencing; and he did all this, as he expressly tells us, in order to be able to think more correctly than the scholars who spend all their lives in their study. [90] And now, disciplined by the accurate observation of outward nature, this rare man turned his glance inwards and observed nature in his own self. This attitude is henceforth -- in spite of divergences in the individual -- typical. Leibniz, it is true, was little more than a mathematician, but this made it impossible for him -- in spite of the scholasticism with which he was from youth imbued -- to depart from the mechanical interpretation of natural phenomena; it is all very well for us to-day to laugh at the "pre-established harmony," but we should not forget that this monstrous supposition proves loyal adherence to natural scientific method and perception. [91]

Locke was led to philosophic speculation by medical studies; Berkeley, though a minister, in his youth made a thorough study both of chemistry and physiology, and his brilliant Theory of Vision intuitively divines much that was later confirmed by exact science, thus testifying to the success of the correct scientific method when supported by great talents. Wolf was a remarkably capable man, not only in the sphere of mathematics, but likewise in that of physics, and he had also mastered the other natural sciences of his time. Hume certainly, so far as I know, read more diligently in "the book of the world," as Descartes calls it, than in that of nature; history and psychology -- not physics or physiology -- were the field of his exact studies; this very fact has cramped his philosophical speculation in certain directions; he who has a keen eye for such things will soon observe that the fundamental weakness of Hume's thought is, that it is fed not from without, but only from within, and this always means a predominance of logic at the cost of constructive. gropingly inventive imagination, and explains Hume's purely negative result in spite of his extraordinary intellectual powers; as a personality he is incomparably greater than Locke, yet I do not think I err in saying that the latter gave birth to many more constructive ideas. And yet we count him among the natural investigators, for within the purely human sphere he has observed more acutely or truly than any of his predecessors, and never departed from the method which he propounded in his first work: observation and experiment. [92] Finally, in the case of Kant, comprehensive knowledge in all branches and thorough study of natural science during a whole long life form features which are too often overlooked. Herder, his pupil, tells us: "The history of man, of races, of nature, physics, mathematics and experience were the sources from which he drew the inspiration which revealed itself in his lectures and conversation; nothing worth knowing was indifferent to him." Kant's literary work in the service of science stretches from his twentieth to his seventieth year, from his Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Krafte, which he began to work out in the year 1744, to his essay, Etwas uber den Einfluss des Mondes auf die Witterung, which appeared in 1794. For thirty years his most popular lectures were those which he delivered in winter on anthropology and in summer on physical geography; and his daily companion In his last years, Wasianski, tells us that to the very last Kant's animated conversation at table dealt chiefly with meteorology, physics, chemistry, natural history and politics. [93] It is true that Kant was only a thinker about natural observations, not (so far as I know) himself an observer and experimenter, as Descartes had been; but he was an excellent indirect observer, as is proved by such writings as his description of the great earthquake of November 1, 1755, his thoughts on the volcanoes of the moon, on the theory of winds and many other things; and I need hardly remind the reader that Kant's philosophic thoughts in cosmic nature have produced two immortal works, the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebaudes (1755), dedicated to Frederick the Great, and the Die Metaphysischen Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft (1786). The method which Kant learnt from successful observation of nature and which had been perfected by the same observation penetrates all his life and thought, so that he has been compared as a discoverer with Copernicus and Galilei (p. 292 note). In his Critique of Pure Reason he says that his method of analysing human reason is "a method copied from that of the naturalist," [94] and in another passage he says: "The true method of metaphysics is fundamentally the same as that which Newton introduced into natural science, and was so useful there." And what is this method? "By sure experiences to seek the rules which govern certain phenomena of nature"; in the sphere of metaphysics therefore, "by sure, inner experience." [95] What I have here made it my endeavour to trace in general and rough outlines can be worked out in the. most minute detail by every thinking person. Thus, for example, the central point of Kant's whole activity is the question of the moral nucleus of individuality: to get at that, he first of all analyses the mechanism of the surrounding cosmos; afterwards, by twenty-five more years of continuous work, he analyses the inner organism of thought; then he devotes twenty more years to the investigation of the human personality thus revealed. Nothing could show more clearly how far observation is here the informing principle than Kant's high estimate of human individuality. The Church Fathers and scholastics had never been able to find words enough to express their contempt of themselves and of all men; it had already been an important symptom when, three hundred years before Kant, Mirandola, that star in the dawn of the new day, wrote a book entitled On the Dignity of Man; helpless mankind had under the long sway of the Empire and the Pontificate forgotten that he possessed such a dignity; in the meantime, he himself, his achievements and his independence had grown, and a Kant, who lived in the society of a very few and not very notable people in distant Konigsberg, and whose only other intercourse was with the sublimest minds of humanity and above all with his own, formed for himself from direct observation of his own soul a high conception of inscrutable human personality. This conviction we meet everywhere in his writings, and thereby get a glimpse into the depths of this wonderful man's heart. Already in that Theorie des Himmels which is intended to reveal only the mechanism of the structure of the world, he exclaims: "With what reverence should the soul not regard its own being!" [96] In a later passage he speaks of the "sublimity and dignity which we conceive as belonging to that person who fulfils all duties." [97] But ever profounder becomes the thought of the thinker; "In man there is revealed a profundity of divine qualities which make him feel a tremor of holy awe at the greatness and sublimity of his own true calling." [98] And in his seventieth year, as an old man he writes: "The feeling of the sublimity of our own vocation enraptures us more than all beauty." [99] This I quote only as an indication of what the scientific method leads to. As soon as in Kant it had revealed to reason a new philosophy which had grown out of, and was therefore in keeping with, natural investigation, it at the same time gave the heart a new religion -- that of Christ and of the Mystics, the religion of experience.

But now we must look at this characteristic of our new philosophy, the complete devotion to nature, from another point of view: we must regard it purely theoretically, in order not only to recognise the fact but also to comprehend its importance.

EXACT NOT-KNOWING

A specially capable and thoroughly matter-of-fact modern scientist writes: "The boundary-line between the Known and the Unknown is never so clearly perceived as when we accurately observe facts, whether as directly offered by nature, or in an artificially arranged experiment." [100]

These words are spoken without any philosophical reserve, but they will contribute towards giving us a first insight which may be gradually deepened. Any man who has busied himself with practical scientific work must in the course of a long life have noticed that even naturalists have no clear idea of what they do not know, till in each case exact investigation has shown them how far their knowledge extends. That sounds very simple and commonplace, but it is by no means self-evident and so difficult to introduce into practical thought that I do not believe that anyone who has not gone through the discipline of natural science will fully appreciate De Candolle's remark. [101] For in every other sphere self-deception may go so far as to become complete delusion; the facts themselves are mostly fragmentary or questionable, they are not durable or unchangeable, repetition is therefore impossible, experiment out of the question -- passion rules and deception obeys. Moreover, the knowledge of knowledge can never replace knowledge of a fact of nature: the latter is knowledge of quite a different kind; for here man finds himself face to face not with man, but with an incommensurable being, over which he possesses no power, a being which we can designate, in contrast to the ever-combining, confusing, anthropomorphically systematising human brain, as unvarnished, naked, cold, eternal truth. What manifold advantages, positive and negative, such intercourse would have for the widening and development of the human mind is self-evident. I have already proved that the natural investigator, in particular, in the empirical sphere takes the first step towards increase of knowledge by exactly defining what he does not know; [102] but we can easily comprehend what an influence such a schooling must exercise upon philosophic thought: a serious man will no longer with Thomas Aquinas talk of the condition of bodies in hell, since he must admit that he knows almost nothing about the condition of the human body upon earth. Still more important are the positive gains -- to which I have already referred (p. 261) -- and the explanation of this is that nature alone is inventive. As Goethe says: "It is only creative nature that possesses unambiguous certain genius." [103] Nature gives us material and idea at the same time; every form testifies to that. And if we take nature not in the narrow nursery sense of astronomy and zoology, but in the wider application to which I have referred when discussing he individual philosophers, we shall find Goethe's remark everywhere confirmed: nature is the unambiguous genius, the real inventor. But here we should carefully note the following fact: Nature reveals herself not only in the rainbow or in the eye which perceives the rainbow, but also in the mind which admires it and in the reason which thinks about it. However, in order that the eye, the mind, the reason may consciously see and appropriate to themselves the genius of nature, a particular facility and special schooling are required. Here, as elsewhere, the important thing is the direction given to the intellect; [104] if this is settled, time and practice will accomplish the rest. Here we may say with Schiller "The direction is at the same time the accomplishment, and the journey is ended as soon as begun." [105] Thus Locke's life-work, the Essay on the Human Understanding, might have been written at any time during the preceding two thousand five hundred years, if only some one had felt inclined to apply himself to nature. Learning, instruments, mathematical or other discoveries are not required, but only faithful observation of Self, questioning of Self in the same way as we should observe and question any other phenomenon of nature. What hindered the much greater Aristotle from achieving this but the anthropomorphic superficiality of Hellenic observation of nature, which like a comet following a hyperbolic course approached every given fact with frenzied speed, soon afterwards to lose sight of it for ever? What hindered Augustine, who possessed profound philosophical gifts, but his systematic contempt of nature? What Thomas Aquinas but the delusion that he knew everything without observing anything? This turning towards nature -- this new goal of the intellect, an achievement of the Teutonic soul -- signifies, as I have said, a mighty, indeed almost incalculable, enrichment of the human mind: for it provides it constantly with inexhaustible material (i.e., conceptions) and new associations (i.e., ideas). Now man drinks directly from the fountain of all invention, all genius. That is an essential feature of our new world, which may well inspire us with pride and confidence in ourselves. Formerly man resembled the pump-driving donkeys of Southern Europe. He was compelled all day long to turn round in the circle of his own poor self, merely to provide some water for his thirst; now he lies at the breasts of Mother Nature.

We have already advanced further than the remark of Alphonse de Candolle seemed to lead us; the knowledge of our ignorance introduced us to the inexhaustible treasure-house of nature and showed us the lost path to the ever-bubbling source of all invention. But now we must follow the thorny path of pure philosophy and here also we shall find that the same principle of exact distinction between the Known and the Unknown will be of essential service.

When Locke observes and analyses his understanding, he gets out of himself, so to speak, in order to be able to regard himself as a piece of nature 1 but here, there clearly lies an insurmountable obstacle in the way. With what shall he observe himself? After all it is a case of nature looking at nature. Everyone at once comprehends, or at least dimly feels, how correct and far-reaching this consideration is. But a second consideration, requiring a little more reflection, must be added to the first before it really bears fruit. Let me give an example. When that other profound thinker, Descartes, in contrast to Locke, regards not himself, but surrounding nature -- from the revolving planet to the pulsating heart of the newly dissected animal -- and discovers everywhere the law of mechanism, so that he teaches the doctrine that even mental phenomena must be caused by movements, [106] very little reflection is required to convince us that the old obstacle here again meets us, and that we cannot accept his conclusion as absolutely valid; for the thinker Descartes does not stand apart as an isolated observer, but is himself part and parcel of nature: here again it is a case of nature observing nature. We may look wherever we like, we always look inwards. Of course, if, with the Jews and the Christian scholastics, we ascribe to man a supernatural origin and a being outside of nature, then this dilemma does not exist, man and nature then stand opposite each other like Faust and Helena, and can join hands "over the cushioned glory of the throne," Faust, the really living one, the human being, Helena, the apparently living, apparently comprehending, apparently speaking and loving shadowy form, Nature. [107] This is the central point; here world is separated from world, the science of the Relative from the dogmatism of the Absolute: here too (as we see, if not blinded by self-deception) begins the final separation between the religion of experience and all historical religion. Now if we adopt the Teutonic standpoint and can see the absolute necessity of Descartes' view -- by which alone natural science as a connected whole is possible -- then we must be struck by the following fact: when Locke desires to analyse his own understanding in regard to its origin and working, he is after an a portion of nature and in so far consequently a machine; he therefore, if I may say so, resembles a steam-engine that would desire to take itself to pieces in order to comprehend its own working; we can hardly suppose that such an undertaking would be quite successful; for that it may not cease to be, the locomotive must remain in activity, it could therefore only test a part of its apparatus, now in one place, now in another, or it might take to pieces some unimportant parts, but the really important things it could not touch; its knowledge would be a superficial description rather than a thorough insight, and even this description (i.e., the locomotive's view of its own being) would not exhaust and fully master the object; it would be essentially limited and determined by the structure of the locomotive. I know that the comparison is very lame, but, if it helps us, that is all that is wanted. In any case we have seen that Descartes' looking outwards is likewise mere contemplation of nature by nature, that is, looking inwards, so that the objection formerly urged applies also to his case. From this it is clear that we shall never be able to solve the problem. whether the interpretation of nature as mechanism is merely a law of the human intellect or also an extra-human law. Locke with his acuteness comprehended this and expressly admits that, "whatsoever we can reach with our thoughts is but a point, almost nothing." [108] The reader who pursues this train of thought further, as I cannot do for lack of space, will, I think, understand what I mean when I summarise the result of the discussion thus: Our knowledge of nature (natural science in the most comprehensive sense of the word and including scientific philosophy) is the ever more and more detailed exposition of something Unknowable.

But all this only deals with one side of the question. Our investigation of nature undoubtedly contributes to the "extension" of our knowledge; we are ever seeing more, and we are ever seeing more accurately, but that does not mean an "intensive" increase of knowledge, that is, we certainly know more than we did, but we are not wiser, we have not penetrated one hand's-breadth further into the heart of the riddle of the world. Yet the true benefit derived from our study of nature has been ascertained: it is an inner benefit, for it really directs us inwards, teaching us not to solve, but to grasp the world's riddle; that in itself is a great deal, for that alone makes us, if not more learned, at least more wise. Physics are the great, direct teachers of metaphysics. It is only by the study of nature that man learns to know himself. But in order to grasp this truth more fully we must now sketch in stronger outlines what has already been indicated.

I must remind the reader of what He Candolle said, that it is only by exact knowledge that the boundary between the Known and the Unknown can be perceived. In other words, it is only by exact knowledge that we clearly perceive what we do not know. I think that the above discussion has confirmed this in a surprising manner. It was the movement in the direction of exact investigation that first revealed to thinkers the inscrutability of nature, of which no one previously had had the slightest notion. Everything had seemed so simple that we only needed to lay hands upon it. I think we could easily prove that before the era of the great discoveries men were actually ashamed to observe and experiment: it seemed to them childish. How little notion they had of there being any mystery is seen from the first efforts of natural investigation, such as those of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon: scarcely had they noted a phenomenon than they at once proceeded to explain it. Two hundred years later Paracelsus does experiment and observe diligently; he even has the feverish mania for collecting new facts and he is penetrated with the sense of our boundless ignorance in regard to them; but he too is never for a moment at a loss for reasons and explanations. But the nearer we came to Nature, the further she retreated, and when our ablest philosophers wished fully to fathom Nature, the fact was established that she was inscrutable. That was the development from Descartes to Kant. Even Descartes, that profound master of mechanics, felt the need of devoting a whole essay to the question, "Do material things really exist?" Not that he seriously doubted the fact; but his consistently developed theory that all science had to deal with motion had forced upon him the conviction, which before his time had appeared only here and there in the form of sophistical trifling, that "from corporeal nature no single argument can be derived, which necessarily permits us to draw the conclusion that a body exists." And he himself was so startled at the irrefutable truth of this scientific result that he had, in order to get out of the difficulty, to have recourse to theology. As he says: "Since God is not a deceiver; I must conclude that He has not deceived me in reference to things corporeal." [109] Fifty years later Locke arrived by a different method at an absolutely analogous conclusion. "There can be no knowledge of the bodies that fall under the examination of our senses. How far soever human industry may advance useful and explicit philosophy in physical things, scientific knowledge will still be out of our reach, because we want perfect and adequate ideas of those very bodies which are nearest to us and most under our command ... we shall never be able to discover general, instructive, unquestionable truth concerning them." [110] Locke also got out of the difficulty by evading the problem and taking refuge in the arms of theology: "Reason is natural revelation whereby the eternal Father communicates to mankind a portion of truth," &c. The difference between Descartes and Locke consists only in this, that the mechanical thinker (Descartes) feels keenly the impossibility of proving by science the existence of bodies, whereas the psychologist (Locke) grasps less fully the force of the mechanical considerations, but is struck by the psychological impossibility of concluding that a thing has being from the fact that he perceives its qualities. The new philosophy grew and deepened; but this conclusion remained irrefutable. Kant too had to testify that all philosophical attempts to explain the mathematical-mechanical theory of bodies "ends with the Empty and therefore Incomprehensible." [111] Exact science has, therefore, not only in the sphere of empiricism done us the very great service of teaching us to distinguish exactly between what we know and what we do not know, but the philosophical deepening of exact science has also drawn a clear line between Knowledge and Nonknowledge: the whole world of bodies cannot be "known."

IDEALISM AND MATERIALISM

Lest the reader should fall into similar blunders I must incidentally refer to two errors -- idealism and materialism -- which spring from the first result of the philosophical investigation of nature by Descartes and Locke. Though the world of bodies cannot be "known," it is ingenious, but ridiculous trifling to deny its existence, as Berkeley does (1685-1753); that is equivalent to asserting that, because I perceive the world of sense by my senses and have no other guarantee for its existence, therefore it does not exist; because I smell the rose only by means of my nose, therefore there is a nose (at least an ideal one) but no rose. Just as untenable is the other conclusion, which was drawn by thinkers inclined to take a too superficial view, and expressed most clearly by Lamettrie (1709-51) and Condillac (1715-80): as my senses only perceive things of sense, therefore only things of sense exist; because my intellect is a mechanism, which can grasp only "mechanically" what is perceived by my senses, therefore mechanism is complete world- wisdom. Both idealism and materialism are palpable delusions -- delusions which base themselves on Descartes and Locke, and yet contradict the clearest results of their works. Moreover, these two views completely overlook an essential part of the philosophy of Descartes and Locke: for Descartes did not mechanically interpret the whole world, but only the world of phenomena; Locke analysed not the whole world but only the soul, when he expressed the opinion that there can be no science of bodies. The great men of genius have always been liable to be thus misunderstood; let us, therefore, leave these misapprehensions on one side and see how our new philosophy continued to develop on the true heights of thought.

THE FIRST DILEMMA

I have already remarked that nature includes not only the rainbow and the eye that beholds it, but also the mind that is moved by the spectacle and the thought that reflects upon it. This consideration is so obvious that a Descartes and a Locke must have perceived it, but these great men had still a heavy burden to carry in the hereditary conception of a special, bodiless soul; this load clung to them as fast as the child that grew into a giant clung to the shoulders of St. Christopher, and it often caused their reasoning to stumble; they were, besides, so much occupied with analysis that they lost the power of comprehensive synthesis. Yet we find in them, under all kinds of systematic and systemless guises, very profound thoughts, which pointed the way to metaphysics. As I said before, both had become convinced that the existence of things cannot be deduced from our conceptions; our conceptions of the qualities of things are no more like things than pain is like the sharp dagger, or the feeling of tickling like the feather which causes it. [112] Descartes pursues this thought further and comes to the conclusion that human nature consists of two completely separated parts, only one of which belongs to the realm of otherwise all-prevailing mechanism, while the other -- to which he gives the name of soul -- does not. Thoughts and passions form the soul. [113] Now it is a proof not only of Descartes' profundity, but also of his genuinely scientific way of thinking, that he always strongly supported the absolute, unconditional separation of soul and body; we must not regard this conviction, which he so frequently and passionately asserted, as religious prejudice; no, more than one hundred years later Kant clearly pointed out why we are compelled in practice "to conceive phenomena in space as quite different from the actions of thought, and in so far to accept the view that there is a double nature, the thinking and the corporeal." [114] Descartes elected to put this view in the form available to him, and thereby clearly promulgated two fundamental facts of knowledge, the absolute mechanism of corporeal nature and the absolute non-mechanism of thinking nature. But this view required a supplement. Locke, who was no mechanician or mathematician, had a better chance of hitting upon it. He, too, had thought that he was bound to presuppose the soul as a special, separate entity; but he found this constantly in his way, and as a mere psychologist -- as a scientific dilettante, if I may use the word with no signification of reproach -- he did not feel the impelling force of Descartes' strictly scientific and formal anxiety; altogether he was far from being so profound a mind as Descartes, and so with the most innocent air in the world he asked the question, Why should not body and soul be identical, and thinking nature be extended, corporeal? [115] For the reader who has not been schooled in philosophy, the following may serve as explanation: from a strictly scientific point of view thought is derived solely from personal, inner experience; every phenomenon, even such as I from analogy ascribe with the greatest certainty to the thought and feeling of others, must be able to be interpreted mechanically; to have established this is Descartes' eternal service. Now comes Locke and makes the very fine remark (which, in order to make the connection clear, I must translate from the somewhat loose psychological manner of Locke into the scientific manner of Descartes): Since we can explain all phenomena -- even such as seem to spring from activity of reason -- even without having to presuppose thought, but know from personal experience that in some cases the mechanical process is accompanied by thought, who can prove to us that every corporeal phenomenon does not contain thought, and that every mechanical process may not be accompanied by thoughts? [116] It is evident that Locke had no idea of what he was destroying by this notion, or, on the other hand, for what he had paved the way; he goes on to distinguish between two natures (how could he as a sensible man do otherwise), not, however, between a thinking and a corporeal nature, but only between a thinking and a nonthinking nature. With this Locke leaves the empirical sphere, the sphere of genuine scientific thought. For if I say of a phenomenon it is "corporeal," I express what experience teaches me, but if I say it is "non-thinking," I predicate something which I cannot possibly prove. The very man who, a moment ago, made the fine remark that thought may be a quality of matter altogether, wishes here to distinguish between thinking and non-thinking bodies! Little wonder that the two delusions, an Idealism which is absolute (and consequently purely materialistic) and a Materialism which springs from a symbolical hypothesis (and is therefore purely "ideal"), are linked on here where Locke stumbled so terribly. But Locke recovered himself in a manner which very many of his followers up to the present day have not been able to imitate, and, with the simplicity of genius, proceeded to one of his most brilliant achievements, namely, the proof that from non-thinking matter, however richly endowed it may be with motion, thought never can arise; it is just as impossible, he says, as that something should come out of nothing. [117] Here we see Locke once more join hands with Descartes (i.e., with the principles of strictly scientific thought). Now Locke's peculiar and individual line of thought, in spite of all its weaknesses, [118] exercised far-reaching influence, for it was just suited to destroy the last remnant of supernatural dogmatism, and it awakened to full consciousness the philosopher who addresses himself to nature. The latter must now either give up all hope of further progress, regard his undertaking as wrecked and surrender to the Absolutist, or he must grasp the problem in all its profundity, and that would mean that he must of necessity enter the field of metaphysics.

THE METAPHYSICAL PROBLEM

The term "metaphysics" has met with so much just disapproval that one does not care to use it; it has the effect of a scarecrow. We really do not need the word -- or at any rate we should not need it, if it were agreed that the old metaphysics have no longer a right to existence, and the new -- that of the naturalist -- are simply "philosophy." Aristotle called that part of his system, which was afterwards termed metaphysics, theology; that was the correct word, for it was the doctrine of Theos in contrast to that of Physis, God as contrast to nature. From him to Hume the science of metaphysics was theology, that is, it was a collection of unproved, apodeictic theorems, derived either from direct, divine Revelation or from indirect Revelation, in that men proceeded from the supposition that the human reason was itself supernatural and could therefore, by virtue of its own reflection, discover every truth; metaphysics were therefore never directly based upon experience, nor did they refer to it; they were either inspiration or ratiocination, either suggestion or pure reasoned conclusion. Now Hume (1711-1776), powerfully stimulated by Locke's paradoxical results, expressly demanded that metaphysics should cease to be theology and should become science. [119] He himself did not quite succeed in carrying out this programme, for his talent lay rather in destroying false science than in building up the true; but the stimulus he gave was so great that he "wakened" Immanuel Kant "from dogmatic slumber." Henceforth the word metaphysics has quite a different interpretation. It does not mean a contrast to experience, but reflection on the facts given by experience, and their association to form a definite philosophy of life. Four words of Kant contain the essence of what metaphysics now mean; metaphysics are the answer to the question, How is experience possible? This problem was the direct result of the dilemma described above, to which honest, naturalist philosophy had led. If our zeal for an exact science of bodies forces us to separate thought completely from the corporeal phenomenon, how then does thought arrive at experience of corporeal things? Or, on the other hand, if I attack the problem as a psychologist and assign thought as an attribute to the corporeal, which obeys mechanical laws, do I not at a blow destroy genuine (i.e., mechanical) science, without contributing in the least to the solution of the problem? Reflection concerning this will lead us to reflection concerning ourselves, since these various judgments are rooted within ourselves, and it will be impossible to answer the question, How is experience possible? without at the same time sketching the main outlines of a philosophical system. Perhaps the question will admit, within certain limits, of various answers, but the cardinal difference will henceforth always be: whether the problem which has resulted from purely natural-scientific considerations will be scientifically answered, or, after the manner of the old theologians, simply hacked in two in favour of some dogma of reason. [120] The former method furthers both science and religion, the latter destroys both; the former enriches culture and knowledge, no matter whether or not we accept as valid all the conclusions of a definite philosopher (e.g., Kant) -- the latter is anti-Teutonic and fetters science in all its branches, just as in its time the theology of Aristotle had done.

For the comprehension of our new world, and of the whole nineteenth century, it was absolutely necessary to show clearly how from a new spirit and a new method new results were derived, and how these in turn were bound to lead to a perfectly new philosophical problem. Some diffusiveness has been unavoidable, for the delusion of "humanity" and "progress" causes historians to represent our philosophy as gradually growing out of the Hellenic and the Scholastic, and that is nothing but a chimera. Our philosophy has rather developed in direct antagonism to the Hellenic and the Christo-Hellenic; our theologians openly revolted against Church philosophy; our mystics shook off historical tradition, as far as they could, in order to concentrate their thoughts on the experience of their own selves; our humanists denied the Absolute, denied progress, returned wistfully to the disparaged past and taught us to distinguish and appreciate the Individual in its various manifestations; finally, our thinkers who investigated nature directed all their thought to the results of a science hitherto unanticipated and unattempted; a Descartes, a Locke are from the sales of their feet to the crowns of their heads new phenomena, they are not bound up with Aristotle and Plato, but energetically break away from them, and the scholasticism of their time which still clings to them is not the essential but the accidental part of their system. I hope I have convinced the reader of this; I feel it was worth my while to devote a few pages to the point. It was only thus that I could make the reader understand that the Dilemma. in which Descartes and Locke suddenly found themselves was not an old warmed-up philosophical question, but a perfectly new one, resulting from the honest endeavour to be led by experience alone, by nature alone. The problem which now came into the foreground may well have had some affinity with other problems which engaged the attention of other philosophers at other times, but there is no genuine connection; and the special way in which it here appeared is new. Here historical clearness can be secured only by separating, not by uniting.

Now I must beg the reader's attention for a moment longer. I must attempt, as far as it is possible without plunging into the depths of metaphysics, to explain that metaphysical problem which is at the basis of our specifically Teutonic philosophy, so far at least that every reader may see what justification I had for my assertion that the investigation of nature teaches man to know himself -- that it leads him into the inner world. It is only in this way that we can clearly show the connection with religion which was thoroughly and passionately studied by all the philosophers named. Even Hume, the sceptic, is at heart profoundly religious. The violent rage with which he attacks historical religions as "the phantastic structures of half-human apes," [121] proves how serious he was in the matter; and such chapters as that of the Immateriality of the Soul [122] proves Hume to be the genuine predecessor of Kant in the field of religion, as in that of philosophy.

No man, without having recourse to the supernatural, can answer the question, "How is experience possible?" in any other way than by a critical examination of the whole capacity of his consciousness. Critique comes from [x] which originally means to separate, to distinguish. But if I distinguish rightly, I shall also bring together what is connected, i.e., I shall also correctly unite. The true critical process consists, therefore, as much in uniting as in distinguishing, it is just as much synthesis as analysis. Reflection concerning the double dilemma characterised above soon proved that Descartes had not. correctly separated, While Locke had not correctly united. For Descartes had for formal reasons separated body and soul and then came to a deadlock, as he found them inseparably united in himself; Locke, on the other hand, had sprung like a second Curtius with his whole intellect into the yawning gulf, but science is no fairy-tale, and the gulf still yawned as wide as ever. A first great error is easily discovered. These early naturalist- philosophers were not yet daring enough; they were afraid of calmly drawing all nature into the circle of their investigations; something always remained outside, something which they called God and soul and religion and metaphysics. This is especially true of religion; the philosophers leave it out of account, that is, they speak of it, but look upon it as something by itself, which has to stand outside all science, as something which is certainly essential for man, but of altogether subordinate importance for the knowledge of nature. It would be superficial to put this down to the influence of ecclesiastical ideas; on the contrary, the mistake arises rather from insufficient importance being attached to the religious element. For this "something," which they almost treated as of no account, embraces the most important part of their own human personality, namely, the most direct of their experiences, and consequently, we may be sure, a weighty portion of nature. They simply put aside the profoundest observations, as won as they do not know where they are to insert them in their empirical and logical system. Thus Locke, for example, has such a keen appreciation of the value of intuitive or visual perception that he might in this connection be actually called a forerunner of Schopenhauer; he calls intuition "the bright sunshine" of the human mind; he says that knowledge is only in so far valuable as it can be traced back directly or indirectly to intuitive perception (and that means, as Locke expressly states, a perception acquired without the intervention of judgment). And how does he in his investigations employ this "fountain of truth, in which there is more binding power of conviction than in all the conclusions of reason," as he himself says? He makes no use of it whatever. Not even the obvious fact that mathematics depend on intuition stimulates him to deeper thoughts, and finally the whole subject is, with many good wishes for its further investigation, recommended "to the angels and the spirits of just men in a future state" (sic)! We helpless mortals are taught that "general and certain truths are only founded in the relations of abstract ideas"; and this is said by a philosopher who studies nature! [123] It is the same with facts of morality. Here for a brief moment Locke even flashes forth as a forerunner of Kant and his ethical autonomy of man. He says: "Moral ideas are not less true and not. less real, because they are of our own making"; here we fancy we shall see open for us the great chapter of inner experience, but no, the author says shortly afterwards, when speaking Of Truth in General: "For our present subject this consideration is without great importance; to have named it is sufficient." [124] There, too, where metaphysical considerations would have been very much to the point, Locke comes very near a critical treatment, but does not enter upon it. Thus he says concerning the idea of space, "I will tell you what space is when you tell me what extension is," and in more than one passage he then asserts that extension is something "simply incomprehensible." [125] But he does not venture to go any deeper; on the contrary, this simply unthinkable thing -- the Extended -- is made by him at a late point to be the bearer of thought! I think this one example clearly shows what these epoch-making thinkers still lacked -- complete philosophical impartiality. After all they still stood, like the theologians, outside of nature, and thought they could observe and comprehend it from that standpoint. They did not yet understand,

Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen.


Hume took the decisive step towards it; he put aside this artificial division of self into two parts, the one of which we pretend to desire to explain fully, while the other is completely neglected and reserved for angels and the dead. Hume took the standpoint of a man consistently questioning nature -- in Self and outside of Self; he was the first to approach in real earnest the metaphysical problem, How is experience possible? He adduced the critical objections one after another and arrived at the paradoxical conclusion, which can be summarised in the following words: Experience is impossible. In a certain sense he was perfectly right, and his brilliant paradox must only be taken as irony. If we persistently maintained the standpoint of a Descartes and a Locke and yet put aside their deus ex machina, the whole structure would immediately collapse. And it did collapse all the more completely, as their one-sidedness consisted not only in leaving out of account a large and most important part of the material of our experience, but also -- and I beg the reader to note this specially -- in unhesitatingly assuming as possible a faultless, logical explanation of the other part. That was an inheritance from the schoolmen. Who told them forsooth that nature would be able to be understood, explained? Thomas Aquinas might indeed do that, for this dogma is his starting-point. But how does the mathematician Descartes come to that? The man who had expressed a desire to banish every traditional doctrine from his mind! How did John Locke, Gentleman, come to it, after declaring at the beginning of his investigation that he merely desired to fix the boundaries of the human understanding? Descartes answers: God is no betrayer, hence my understanding must penetrate to the root of things; Locke answers: Reason is divine Revelation, hence it is infallible, as far as it goes. That is not genuine investigation of nature, but only an attempt at it, hence the defectiveness of the result.

In the interests of the unphilosophical reader I have sketched from the negative side the condition of our young, developing philosophy at that time. In this way he will be better able to understand what had now to be done to save and improve it. To begin with, it had to be purified, purged of the last traces of alien ingredients; in the second place, the scientific philosopher had to have the full courage of his convictions; he had, like Columbus, to trust himself unhesitatingly to the ocean of nature, and not fancy, as the crew did, that he was lost as soon as the spire of the last church-tower disappeared below the horizon. But this required not merely courage, such as the foolhardy Hume possessed, but also the solemn consciousness of great responsibility. Who had the right to lead men away from the sacred ancestral home? Only he who possesses the power to lead them to a new one. That is why it was only by a man like Kant that the work could be executed, for he not only possessed phenomenal intellectual gifts, but a moral character which was equally great. Kant is the true rocher de bronze of our new philosophy. Whether we agree with all his philosophical conclusions is a matter of indifference; he alone possessed the power to tear us away, he alone possessed the moral justification for doing so, he, whose long life was a model of spotless honour, strict self-control and complete devotion to an aim which he regarded as sacred. When just over twenty years of age he wrote: "I believe it is sometimes advisable to have a certain noble confidence in one's own powers. On this I take my stand. I have already mapped out the course which I wish to follow. I shall make a start and nothing shall prevent me from continuing as I have begun." [126] This promise he kept. This confidence in his own powers was at the same time a realisation that we were on the right path, and he immediately began -- a second Luther, a second Copernicus -- to clear away all that is alien to us:

Was euch das Innere stort,
Durft ihr nicht leiden! [127]


Nothing can be more foolish than to attempt, as is so common, to know Kant from one or two metaphysical works; everybody quotes them, and scarcely one among ten thousand understands them, not because they are incomprehensible but because such a personality as Kant's can only be understood in connection with its whole activity. Whoever attempts to understand him thus will soon see that his philosophy is to be found in all his writings, and that his metaphysics can be understood only by those who have a familiar acquaintance with his natural science. [128] For Kant is at all times and in all places an investigator of nature. And thus we behold him, at the very beginning of his career, in his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte des Himmels, busily engaged in ruling out of our natural philosophy the God of Genesis and the tenacious Aristotelian theology. He there clearly proves that the ecclesiastical conception of God involves "the converting of all nature into miracles"; in that case nothing would remain for natural science, which had worked so laboriously for centuries, but to repent and "solemnly recant at the judgment stool of religion." "Nature will then no longer exist; all the changes in the world will be brought about by a mere Deus ex machina." Kant evidently gives us the choice: God or Nature. In the same passage he attacks "that rotten world-wisdom, which under a pious exterior seeks to conceal the ignorance due to laziness." [129] So much for the work of purging, by means of which our thought at last became free, free to be true to itself. But that was not enough; it was not sufficient merely to remove the Alien, the whole sphere of what is our own had to be taken possession of, and this implied two things in particular: a great extension of the conception "nature" and profound study of our own "Ego." To these two things Kant's positive life-work was devoted. He did not work alone, but, like every great man, he laboured to bring into the fullest light of truth the unconscious and contradictory tendencies of his contemporaries.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Fri Oct 21, 2016 6:47 pm

Part 4 of 5

NATURE AND THE EGO

The extension of the conception " Nature" necessarily led to the deepening of the idea of the "Ego"; the one implied the other.

We cannot make the extension of the conception "Nature" too comprehensive. At the very moment when Kant finished his Critique of Pure Reason, Goethe wrote: "Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her; men are all in her and she in all; even the most unnatural thing is nature, even the coarsest philistinism has something of her genius. He who does not see her everywhere sees her rightly nowhere." [130] From this consideration we may conclude how powerfully at this very point our intellectual powers, developed as they were in various directions, could contribute to the elucidation and deepening of our new philosophy. Here in fact unification was effected. The Humanists (in the wide sense, which I gave to this word above) here joined hands with the philosophers. What I have already pointed out, in a former part of this section, regarding the purely philosophical influence of this group, was a very considerable contribution. [131] To this were added great achievements in the spheres of history, philology, archaeology, description of nature. For nature, which immediately surrounds us from our very youth -- human nature, and the nature which is outside of man -- we do not, to begin with, perceive as "nature." It was the mass of new material, the great extension of our conceptions, which thus awakened reflection concerning ourselves and the relation of man to nature. A Herder might, in the last years of his life, in the impotent rage of misconception, rise up against a Kant; yet he himself had contributed very much to the extension of the conception "nature"; the whole first part of his Ideas for the History of Humanity perhaps did more than anything else to spread this anti-theological view; the whole efforts of this noble and brilliant man are directed towards placing man in the midst of nature, as an organic part of her, as one of her creatures still in the process of development; and though in his preface he makes a side- thrust at "metaphysical speculations," which, "separated from experiences and analogies of nature, are like a pleasure-trip, which seldom leads to a definite goal," he has no idea how much he himself is influenced by the new philosophy, and how much his own views would have gained in depth and accuracy (perhaps at the cost of popularity). if he had more thoroughly studied that science of metaphysics which had been opened up by faithful observation of nature. This man, worthy of all honour, may stand as the most brilliant representative of a whole tendency. We meet another tendency in men like Buffon. Of this describer of nature Condorcet writes: "Il etait frappe d'une sorte de respect religieux pour les grands phenomenes de l'univers." So it is nature herself that inspires Buffon with the reverence of religion. The encyclopaedic naturalists like him (in the nineteenth century their work was carried to great lengths by Humboldt) did a very great deal, if not to extend, yet to enrich the conception "nature," and the fact that they felt, and knew how to communicate, religious reverence for it, was, from the point of view of philosophy, of importance. This movement to extend the idea "nature" might be traced in many spheres. Even a Leibniz, who still tries to save theological dogmatism, liberates nature in the most comprehensive sense, for by his pre-established harmony everything in truth becomes super-nature, but at the same time everything without exception is nature. But the most important and decisive step was the great extension of the term by the complete incorporation of the inner Ego. Why indeed should this remain excluded? How was it justifiable? How could we continue to do as Locke and Descartes did, namely, neglect the surest facts of experience under the pretext that they were not mechanical, could not be comprehended, and so should be excluded from consideration? Scientific method and honesty made the simple conclusion inevitable, that not everything in nature is mechanical, that not every experience can be forged into a logical chain of ideas. How could anyone be satisfied with Herder's half-measure: first of all to identify man completely with nature, and finally to conjure him out of it again, not in truth the whole man, but his "spirit," thanks to the supposition of extra-natural powers and supernatural Providence? [132] Here, too, it was really a question simply of the goal which the intellect aimed at; this aim, however, determined the whole philosophy. For as long as man was not fully included in nature, they stood opposed and alien to each other, and, if man and nature are in reality alien, our whole Teutonic aim and method is an error. But it is not an error, and for that reason the decisive incorporation of the Ego in nature was immediately followed by a great deepening of metaphysics.

Here the mystics rendered good service. When Francis of Assisi addresses the sun as messor lo frate sole, he says: All nature is related to me, I sprang from her lap, and if once my eyes no longer see that brightly shining "brother" then it is my "sister" -- death -- that lulls me to sleep. Little wonder that this man preached to the birds in the wood the best that he knew-the gospel of the dear Saviour. The philosophers required half a millennium to reach the standpoint upon which that wonderful man in all his simplicity had stood. However, let us not exaggerate: mysticism has opened up many profound metaphysical questions in reference to the innermost life of the Ego; it contributed splendidly not only to the advancement of scientific thought, but also to the necessary extension of the conception "nature"; [133] but it did not accomplish the real deepening, the philosophical deepening; for that needed a scientific mind, a kind of mind seldom found in conjunction with mysticism. In general, mysticism deepens the character, not the thought, and even a Paracelsus is deluded by his "inner light" into proclaiming as wisdom a vast amount of nonsense. Upon vaguely divining mystical ecstasy a more exact method of thinking had to be grafted. And that was done within the circle influenced by Francis of Assisi. The theology of the Franciscans in its best days had in fact done much preliminary work towards amalgamating the otherwise so carefully separated ideas "Nature" and "Ego"; indeed, they had done almost more than was desirable. for thereby many a purely abstract system had become crystallised to the prejudice of inquiry into nature, so that even a Kant found himself in many ways hampered by it. Yet it deserves mention that Duns Scotus himself had energetically protested, in reference to our perception of surrounding objects, against the dogma that this process was a mere passive receiving, that is to say, a mere reception of impressions of sense, leading to the immediate conclusion that these sense- impressions, with the conceptions resulting therefrom, corresponded exactly to things -- that they were, as we might say in vulgar parlance, a photograph of actual reality. No, he said, the human mind in receiving impressions (which then, united according to reason, &c., form perception) is not merely passive, but also active, that is, it contributes its own quota, it colours and shapes what it receives from the outer world, it remodels it in its own way and transforms it into something new; in short, the human mind is, from the very outset, creative, and what it perceives as existing outside of itself is partly, and in the special form in which it is perceived, created by itself. Every layman must immediately grasp the one fact: if the human mind in the reception and elaboration of its perceptions is itself creatively active, it follows of necessity that it must find itself again everywhere in nature; this nature, as the mind sees it, is in a certain sense, and without its reality being called in question, its work. Hence Kant too comes to the conclusion: "It sounds at first singular, but is none the less certain, that the understanding does not derive its laws from nature, but prescribes them to nature ... the supreme legislation of nature lies in ourselves, that is, in our understanding." [134] The realisation of this fact made the relation between man and nature (in its most primary and simple sense) clear and comprehensible. It now became manifest why every investigation of nature, even the strictly mechanical, finally leads back in all cases to metaphysical questions, that is, questions directed to man's being; this was what had so hopelessly perplexed Descartes and Locke. Experience is not something simple, and can never be purely objective, because it is our own active organisation which first makes experience possible, in that our senses take up only definite impressions, definitely shaped, moreover, by themselves, [134] while our understanding also sifts, arranges and unites the impressions according to definite systems. And this is so evident to everyone who is at the same time an observer of nature and a thinker, that even a Goethe -- whom no one will charge with particular liking for such speculations -- is driven to confess: "There are many problems in the natural sciences on which we cannot with propriety speak, if we do not call in the aid of metaphysics." [135] On the other hand, it now becomes clear how justified the Mystics were in claiming to see everywhere in outer nature the inner essence of man: this nature is, in fact, the opened, brightly illuminated book of our understanding; I do not mean that it is an unreal phantom of that understanding. but it shows us our understanding at work and teaches us its peculiar individuality. As the mathematician and astronomer Lichtenberg says: "We must never lose sight of the fact that we are always merely observing ourselves when we observe nature and especially our views of nature." [136] Schopenhauer has given expression to the great importance of this fact: "The most complete perception of nature is the proper basis for metaphysical speculation, hence no one should presume to attempt this, without having first acquired a thorough (though only general) and clear, connected knowledge of all branches of natural science." [137]

THE SECOND DILEMMA

As the reader sees, as soon as this new phase of thought was traversed, the philosopher found himself face to face with a new dilemma analogous to the former; it was, indeed, the same dilemma, but this time it was grasped more profoundly and viewed in a more correct perspective. The study of nature necessarily leads man back to himself; he himself finds his understanding displayed in no other place than in nature perceived and thought. The whole revelation of nature is specifically human, shaped therefore by active human understanding, as we perceive it; on the other hand, this understanding is nourished solely from outside, that is, by impressions received : it is as a reaction that our understanding awakes, that is, as a reaction against something which is not man. A moment ago I called the understanding creative, but it is only so in a conditional sense; it is not able, like Jahve, to create something out of nothing, but only to transform what is given; our intellectual life consists of action and reaction: in order to be able to give, we must first have received. Hence the important fact to which I have frequently called attention, [138] quoting on the last occasion Goethe's words: "Only creative nature possesses unambiguous genius." But how am I to escape from this dilemma? What is the answer to the question, "How is experience possible?" The object points me back to the subject, the subject knows itself only in the object. There is no escape, no answer. As I said before: our knowledge of nature is the ever more and more detailed exposition of something unknowable; to this unknowable nature belongs in the first place our own understanding. But this result is by no means to be regarded as purely negative; not only have the steps leading up to it made clear the mutual relation of subject and object, but the final result means the rejection, once for all, of every materialistic dogma. Now Kant was in a position to utter the all- important truth: "A dogmatic solution of the cosmological problem is not merely uncertain but impossible." What thinking men at all times had vaguely felt -- among the Indians, the Greeks, here and there even among the Church Fathers (p. 78) and schoolmen -- what the Mystics had regarded as self-evident (p. 421) and the first scientific thinkers, Descartes and Locke, had stumbled upon without being able to interpret (p. 454), viz., that time and space are intuitive forms of our animal sense-life, was now proved by natural scientific criticism. Time and space "are forms of sentient perception, whereby we perceive objects only as they appear to us (our senses) not as they may be in themselves." [140] Further, criticism revealed that the unifying work of the understanding whereby the conception and the thought" nature" arise and exist (or to quote Bohme, "are mirrored"), that is to say, the systematic uniting of phenomena to cause and effect, are to be traced back to what Duns Scotus vaguely conceived, namely, the active elaboration of the material of experience by the human mind. Hereby the cosmogonic conceptions of the Semites which hung, and still hang, heavily on our science of religion, fell to the ground. What is the use to me of an historical religion if time is merely an intuitive form of my sense-mechanism? What is the use of a Creator as explanation of the world, as first cause, if science has shown me that "causality has no meaning at all, and no sign of its use, except in the world of sense," [141] while this idea of cause and effect, "when used only speculatively (as when we conceive a God-creator), loses every significance the objective reality of which could be made comprehensible in concreto"? [142] The realisation of this fact shatters an idol. In a former chapter I called the Israelites "abstract worshippers of idols;" [143] I think the reader will now understand why. And he will comprehend what Kant means when he says that the system of criticism is "indispensable to the highest purposes of humanity"; [144] and when he writes to Mendelssohn, "The true and lasting well-being of the human race depends upon metaphysics." Our Teutonic metaphysics free us from idolatry and in so doing reveal to us the living Divinity in our own breast.

Here, it is plain, we do not merely touch upon the chief theme in this division -- the relation between philosophy and religion -- but we are in the very heart of it; at the same time what has just been said connects itself with the conclusion of the section on "Discovery," where I already hinted that the victory of a scientific, mechanical view of nature necessarily meant the complete downfall of all materialistic religion. At the same time I said: "Consistent mechanism, as we Teutons have created it, admits only of a purely ideal, that is, transcendent religion, such as Jesus Christ taught: 'The Kingdom of God is within you.''' We must now proceed to the discussion of this last and profoundest point.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Goethe proclaims: "Within thee there is a universe as well!"

It was one of the inevitable results of scientific thinking that this inner universe was now for the first time brought into the foreground. For the philosopher, by unreservedly including the whole human personality in nature, that is, by learning to regard it as an object of nature, gradually awoke to a realisation of two facts, first, that the mechanism of nature has its origin in his own human understanding, and secondly, that mechanism is not a satisfactory principle for the explanation of nature, since man discovers in his own mind a universe which remains altogether outside of all mechanical conceptions. Descartes and Locke, who imagined there was danger for strictly scientific knowledge in this perception, thought to overcome it by regarding this unmechanical universe as something outside of and above nature. With so lame and autocratic a compromise, there was no possibility of arriving at a living philosophy. Scientific schooling, the custom of drawing a strict separating-line between what we know and what we do not know, simply demanded the explanation: from the most direct experience of my own life I perceive -- in addition to mechanical nature -- the existence of an unmechanical nature. For clearness we may call it the ideal world, in contrast to the real; not that it is less real or less actual -- on the contrary, it is the surest thing that we possess, the one directly given thing, and in so far the outer world ought really to be called the "ideal" one; but the other receives this name because it embodies itself in ideas, not in objects. Now if man perceives such an ideal world -- not as dogma but from experience, -- if introspection leads to the conviction that he himself is not merely and not even predominantly a mechanism, if rather he discovers in himself what Kant calls "the spontaneity of freedom," something utterly unmechanical and anti-mechanical, a whole, wide world, which we might in a certain sense call an "unnatural" world, so great a contrast does it present to that mechanical rule of law with which we have become acquainted by exact observation of nature; how could he help projecting this second nature, which is just as manifest and sure as the first, upon that first nature, since science has taught him that the latter is intimately connected with his own inner world? When he does that, there grows out of the experienced fact of freedom a new idea of the Divine, and a new conception of a moral order of the world, that is to say, a new religion. It was, indeed, no new thing to seek God within our own breast and not outside among the stars, to believe in God not as an objective necessity, but as a subjective command, to postulate God not as mechanical primum mobile but to experience him in the heart -- I have already quoted Eckhart's admonition, "Man shall not seek God outside himself" (p. 401), and from that to Schiller's remark, "Man bears the Divine in himself," the warning has frequently been uttered -- but here, in the regular course of the development of Teutonic philosophy, this conviction had been gained in a special way as one of the results of an all-embracing and absolutely objective investigation of nature. Man had' not made God the starting-point, but had come to him as the final thing; religion and science had grown inseparably into each other, the one had not to be shaped, and interpreted to suit the other, they were, so to speak, two phases of the same phenomenon: science, that which the world gives me, religion, that which I give to the world.

Here, however, a far-reaching remark must be made, otherwise the advantage gained in the way of introspection is liable to evaporate, and it is the business of science to hinder that. No one can, of course, answer the question, what nature may be outside of human conception, or what man may be outside of nature, hence over-enthusiastic, unschooled minds are inclined uncritically to identify both. This identification is dangerous, as may be seen from the following consideration. While the investigation of nature enables us to perceive that all knowledge of bodies, though proceeding from the apparently Concrete, the Real, yet ends with the absolutely Incomprehensible, the process in the unmechanical world is the reverse: the Incomprehensible, when we reflect upon it philosophically, lies here, not at the end of the course but immediately at the beginning. The notion and the possibility of freedom, the conceivability of being outside of time, the origin of the feeling of moral responsibility and duty, &c., cannot of themselves force their way in at the door of understanding, yet we grasp them quite well the further we follow them out into the sphere of actual and hourly experience. Freedom is the surest of all facts of experience; the Ego stands altogether outside of time, and notices the progress of time only from outer phenomena; [145] conscience, regret, feeling of duty, are stricter masters than hunger. Hence the tendency of the man who is not gifted with the metaphysical faculty to overlook the difference between the two worlds -- nature from without and nature from within, as Goethe calls them; his tendency to project freedom into the world of phenomena (as cosmic God, miracle, &c.), to suppose a beginning (which destroys the idea of time), to found morals upon definite, historically issued and therefore at all times revocable commands (which make an end of ethical law), &c. Metaphysically inclined races, such as the Aryans, never fell into this error: [146] their mythologies reveal a wonderful divination of metaphysical perception, or, as we may say with the same justice, scientific metaphysics signify the awakening into new life of far-seeing mythology; but, as history shows, this higher divination has not been able to prevail against the forcible assertions of less gifted human beings, who conclude from mere semblance and are sunk in blind historical superstition, and there is but one antidote powerful enough to save us: our scientific philosophy. This uncritical identification leads to other shallow and therefore injurious systems, as soon as, for example, in place of projecting inner experience into the world of phenomena, the latter with all its mechanism is brought into the inner world. Thus so-called "scientific" monism, materialism, &c., have arisen, doctrines which will certainly never acquire the universal importance of Judaism -- since it is too much to expect of most men that they will deny what they know most surely -- but which have nevertheless in the nineteenth century produced so much confusion of thought. [147]

In view of all this -- and in contrast to all mystical pantheism and pananthropism -- it is our duty to adhere to and emphasise the division into two worlds, as it results from strictly scientifically treated experience. But the boundary-line must be drawn at the right place: to have accurately determined this place is one of the greatest achievements of our new philosophy. We must, of course, not draw that line between man and world; all that I have said proves the impossibility of this; man may turn whither he will, at every step he perceives nature in himself and himself in nature. To draw the line between the world of phenomena and the hypothetical "thing in itself" (as one of Kant's famous successors undertook to do) would from the purely scientific standpoint also be very disputable, for in that case the boundary runs outside of all experience. In so far as the unmechanical world is derived purely from inner, individual experience, which only by analogy is transferred to other individuals, we may well, for simplicity of expression, distinguish between a world in us and a world outside us, but we must carefully note that the world "outside us" comprises every "phenomenon," hence also our own body, and not it alone but also the understanding which perceives the world of bodies and thinks. This expression "in us" and "outside us" is often met with in Kant and others. But even he is open to objection; for in the first place we are -- as I said above -- involuntarily impelled, if not to transform this inner world as the Jew does to an outer cause, yet to attribute it to all phenomena as their inner world, and then it is not quite easy to see how we shall be able to divide our thinking brain into two parts; for it is this very brain which also perceives the unmechanical world and reflects upon it. It is certain that the unmechanical world is not presented from outside to the organ of understanding by a perception of the senses, but solely by inner experience, and hence it is impossible for the understanding, in view of its total lack of inventive power, to raise perception to the level of conception, and all talk on this subject must necessarily remain symbolical, that is, talk by pictures and signs: however, have we not seen that even the world of phenomena indeed gave us conceptions, but equally only symbolical ones? The "in us" and "outside us" is therefore a metaphorical way of speaking. The boundary can only be drawn scientifically, when we do not move one iota from what experience gives us. Kant seeks to attain this by the differentiation which he makes in his Critique of Practical Reason (1, 1, 1, 2) between a nature "to which the will is subordinate" and a nature "which is subordinate to a will." This definition is exactly in keeping with the above-named condition, but has the disadvantage of being somewhat obscure. We do better to hold to what is obvious. and then we should have to say: what experience presents to us is a world capable of mechanical interpretation and a world which is incapable of mechanical interpretation; between these two runs a boundary-line which separates them so completely that every crossing of it means a crime against experience: but crimes against facts of experience are philosophical lies.

RELIGION

Following up the differentiation Kant was enabled to make the epoch-making assertion: "Religion we must seek in ourselves, not outside ourselves." [148]That means, when we change it to the terms of our definition: Religion we must seek only in the world which cannot be interpreted mechanically. It is not true that we find in the world of phenomena that can be interpreted mechanically anything that points to freedom, morality, Divinity. Whoever carries the idea of freedom over into mechanical nature destroys both nature and the true significance of freedom (p. 420); the same holds good with regard to God (p. 470); and as far as morality is concerned an unprejudiced glance suffices -- in spite of all heroic efforts of the apologists from Aristotle to Bishop Butler's famous book on the Analogy between Revealed Religion and the Laws of Nature -- to show that nature is neither moral nor sensible. The ideas of goodness, pity, duty, virtue, repentance, are just as strange to her as sensible, symmetrical, appropriate arrangement. Nature capable of mechanical interpretation is evil, stupid, feelingless; virtue, genius and goodness belong only to nature which cannot be mechanically interpreted. Meister Eckhart knew that well and therefore uttered the memorable words: "If I say, God is good, it is not true; rather I am good, God is not good. If I say also, God is wise, it is not true: I am wiser than he." [149] Genuine natural science could leave no doubt concerning the correctness of this judgment. We must seek religion in that nature which cannot be mechanically interpreted.

I shall not attempt to give an account of Kant's theory of morals and religion, that would take me too far and has, besides, been done by others; I think I have performed my special task if I have succeeded in clearly representing on the most general lines the genesis of our new philosophy; that prepares the ground for a clear-sighted, sure judgment of the philosophy of the eighteenth century. Only towards the end of the nineteenth century has Kant been made really comprehensible to us, and that, in characteristic fashion, especially by the stimulus of brilliant natural investigators; and the view of religion, which was not yet perfectly, indeed in many ways invalidly, but at any rate for the first time clearly expressed by him, was so much beyond the comprehensive powers of his or our contemporaries, and anticipated to such a degree the development of Teutonic intellectual gifts, that an appreciation of it belongs rather to the division dealing with the future than to that dealing with the past. Let me add a few words only by way of general guidance. [150]

Science is the method, discovered and carried out by the Teutons, of mechanically looking at the world of phenomena; religion is their attitude towards that part of experience which does not appear in the shape of phenomena and therefore is incapable of mechanical interpretation. What these two ideas -- science and religion -- may mean to other men does not here matter. Together they form our philosophy. In this philosophy which rejects as senseless all seeking after final causes, the basis of the attitude of man towards himself and others must be found in something else than in obedience to a world-ruling monarch and the hope of a future reward. As I have already hinted (p. 290) and now have proved, side by side with a strictly mechanical theory of nature there can only be a strictly ideal religion, a religion, that is, which confines itself absolutely to the ideal world of the Unmechanical. However limitless this world of the unmechanical may be -- a world the stroke of whose pinions frees us from the impotence of appearance and soars higher than the stars, whose powers enable us with a smile to face the most painful death, which imparts to a kiss the charm of eternity, and in a flash of thought bestows redemption -- it is nevertheless confined to a definite sphere, namely, our inner self, the boundaries of which it may never cross. Here, therefore, in our own heart, and nowhere else, must the foundations of a religion be sought. "To have religion is the duty of man to himself," says Kant. [151] From considerations which I cannot here repeat, Kant warmly cherishes, as everyone knows, the thought of a Godhead, but he lays great stress on this, that man has to regard his duties not as duties towards God, which would be but a broken reed on which to lean, but as duties towards himself. What in our case unites science and religion to a uniform philosophy of life is the principle that it is always experience that commands; now God is not an experience, but a thought, and in fact an undefinable thought which can never be made comprehensible, whereas man is to himself experience. Here therefore the source has to be sought, and so the autonomy of will (i.e., its free independence) is the highest principle of all morality. [152] An action is moral only in so far as it springs solely from the innermost will of the subject and obeys a self-given law; whereas hope of reward can produce no morality nor can it ever restrain from the worst vice and crime, for all outward religion has mediations and forgivenesses. The "born judge," that is to say man himself, knows quite well whether the feeling of his heart is good or bad, whether his conduct is pure or not, hence "that self-judgment which seeks to penetrate to the deeper recesses or to the very bottom of the heart, and the knowledge of self thus to be gained are the beginning of all human wisdom.... It is only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge that paves the way for the ascent into heaven." [153]

In regard to this autonomy of will and this ascension into heaven, I beg the reader to refer to the passage in the chapter on the Entrance of the Teutons into the History of the World (see vol. i. p. 549 f.), where I briefly alluded to Kant's gloriously daring idea. But there is still a link wanting in the chain, to enable us to grasp the religious thought completely. What is it that has given me so high an opinion of that which I discovered on my descent into the abyss of the heart? It is the perception of the high dignity of man. For the first step necessary to bring us to the truly moral standpoint is to root out all the contempt of Self and of the human race which the Christian Church -- in contrast to Christ -- (see vol. i. p. 7) has nurtured. The inborn evil in the heart of man is not destroyed by penance, for that again clings to the outer world of appearance, but by fixing our attention on the lofty qualities in our own hearts. The dignity of man grows with his consciousness of it. It is of great importance that Kant is here in exact agreement with Goethe. Well known is Goethe's theory of the three reverences -- for what is above us, for what is equal to us, and for what is below us -- from which arise three kinds of genuine religion; but true religion arises from a fourth "highest reverence," that is, reverence for Self; it is only when he has reached this stage that man, according to Goethe, attains the highest pinnacle that he is capable of attaining. [154] I have referred to this theme in the passage mentioned above, at the same time also quoting Kant; I must now supplement what was there said by one of the greatest and most glorious passages of all Kant's writings; it forms the only worthy commentary to Goethe's religion .of reverence for Self. "Now I set forth man as asking himself: What is that in me which enables me to sacrifice the inmost lures of my impulses and all wishes that proceed from my nature, to a law which promises me no advantage in return and no penalty if I transgress it: which indeed, the more sternly it commands and the less it offers in return, the more I reverence it? This question stirs our whole soul in amazed wonder at the greatness and sublimity of the inner faculty in man and the insolubility of the mystery which it conceals (for the answer: 'it is freedom,' would be tautological, because it is freedom itself that creates the mystery). We can never tire of directing our attention to it and admiring in ourselves a power which yields to no power of nature.... Here is what Archimedes wanted, but did not find: a firm point on which reason could place its lever, and that without applying it to the present or to a future world, but merely to its inner idea of freedom (which immovable moral law provides as a sure foundation) in order by its principles to set in motion the human will, even in opposition to all nature." [155] It is manifest that this religion presents a direct contrast to the mechanical view. [156] Teutonic science teaches the most painfully exact fixing of that which is present and bids us be satisfied with that, since it is not by hypothesis or tricks of magic that we can learn to master the world of phenomena but only by accurately, indeed slavishly, adapting ourselves to it; Teutonic religion, on the other hand, opens up a wide realm, which slumbers as a sublime ideal in our inmost soul, and teaches us: here you are free, here you are yourselves nature -- creative, legislative; the realm of ideals of itself has no existence, but by your efforts it can truly come into life; as "phenomenon" you are indeed bound to the universal law of faultless mechanical necessity, but experience teaches you that you possess autonomy and freedom in the inner realm; -- use them! The connection between the two worlds -- the seen and the unseen, the temporal and the eternal -- otherwise undiscoverable, lies in the hearts of you men yourselves, and by the moral conception of the inner world the significance of the outer world is determined; conscience teaches you that every day; it is the lesson taught by art, love, pity, and the whole history of mankind; here you are free, as soon as you but know and will it; you can transfigure the visible world, become regenerate yourselves, transform time to eternity, plough the Kingdom of God in the field -- Be this then your task! Religion shall no longer signify for you faith in the past and hope for something future, nor (as with the Indians) mere metaphysical perception -- but the deed of the present! It you but believe in yourselves, you have the power to realise the new "possible Kingdom"; wake up then, for the dawn is at hand!

CHRIST AND KANT

Who could fail to be at once struck with the affinity between the religious philosophy of Kant -- won by faithful, critical study of nature -- and the living heart of the teaching of Christ? Did not the latter say, the Kingdom of God is not outside you, but within you? But the resemblance is not limited to this central point. Whoever studies Kant's many writings on religion and moral law will find the resemblance in many places; for example, take their attitude to the officially recognised form of religion. We find in both the same reverential clinging to the forms regarded as sacred. united to complete independence of intellect, which, breathing upon a thing that is old, transforms it into a thing that is new. [157] For example, Kant does not reject the Bible. but he values it not on account of what we "take out" of it, but because of what we put into it with moral thought." [158] And though he has no objections to Churches" of which there are several equally good forms," yet he has the courage frankly to say: "To look upon this statutory service (the historical methods of praise and Church dogmas) as essential to the service of God and to make it the first condition of divine pleasure in man is a religious delusion, the adherence to which is a false service, i.e., a worship of God directly contrary to that true service demanded of Him." [159] Kant, therefore, demands a religion If in spirit and in truth," and faith in a God "whose kingdom is not of this world" (that is, not of the world of phenomena). He was, moreover, well aware of this agreement. In his book on religion, which appeared in his seventieth year, he gives in about four pages a concise and beautiful exposition of the teaching of Christ, exclusively according to the Gospel of St. Matthew, and concludes: Here now is a complete religion ... illustrated moreover by an example, although neither the truth of the doctrines nor the dignity and nobility of the teacher needed any further attestation." [160] These few words are very significant. For however sublime and elevating everything which Kant has achieved, in this direction, may be, it resembles more, I think, the energetic, undaunted preparation for a true religion than the religion itself; it is a weeding out of superstition to give light and air to faith, a sweeping aside of false service to make true service possible. There is an absence of any visible picture, of any parable. Such a title even as Religion within the Limits of mere Reason makes us fear that Kant is on the wrong track. As Lichtenberg warns us: "Seek to make your account with a God whom reason alone has set upon the throne! You will find it is impossible. The heart and the eye demand their share in Him." [161] And yet Kant himself had said: "To have religion is the duty of man to himself." But as soon as he points to Christ and says: "See, here you have a complete religion! Here you behold the eternal example!" -- the objection no longer holds good; for then Kant is, as it were, a second John, "who goes before the Lord and prepares the way for Him." It was to this -- to a purified Christianity -- that the new Teutonic philosophy at the end of the eighteenth century impelled all great minds. For Diderot I refer to vol. i. p. 336; Rousseau's views are well known; Voltaire, the so-called sceptic, writes:

Et pour nous elever, descendons dans nous-memes! [Google translate: And to raise us, descend into ourselves!]


I have already referred to Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre; Schiller wrote in the year 1795 to Goethe: "I find in the Christian religion virtualiter the framework of all that is Highest and Noblest, and the various manifestations of it which we see in life appear to me to be so repellent and absurd, because they are unsuccessful representations of this Highest." Let us honestly admit the fact; between Christianity, as forced upon us by the Chaos of Peoples, and the innermost soul-faith of the Teutons there has never been any real agreement, never. Goethe could sing boldly:

Den deutschen Mannen gereicht's zum Ruhm,
Dass sie gehasst das Christentum. [162]


And now comes forward an experienced pastor and assures us -- as we had long suspected -- that the German peasant has really never been converted to Christianity. [163] A Christianity such as we cannot accept has only now become possible; not because it needed a philosophy, but because false doctrines had to be swept aside, and a great all- embracing, true philosophy of life founded -- a philosophy from which each will take as much as he can, and in which the example and the words of Christ will be within the reach of the meanest as well as of the cleverest.

With this I look upon my makeshift bridge, as far as philosophy of life including religion is concerned, as finished. My exposition has been comparatively minute, because upon such points the utmost clearness could alone help the reader and keep his attention on the alert. In spite of its length the whole is only a hasty sketch in which, as has been seen, science on the one hand and religion on the other have claimed all our interest; these two together make up a living philosophy of life, and without that we possess no culture; pure philosophy, on the contrary, as a discipline and training of the reason, is merely a tool, and so there is no place for it here.

As regards the prominence given at the end to Immanuel Kant, I have been influenced by my desire to be as simple and clear as possible. I think I shall have convinced the reader that our Teutonic philosophy is not an individual caprice, but the necessary result of the powerful development of our racial qualities; never will a single individual, however great, really "complete" such a universal work, never will the anonymous power of a single personality, working with the inevitableness of nature, show such all-round perfection that everyone must recognise such an individual as a paragon and prophet. Such an idea is Semitic, not Teutonic; to us it seems self-contradictory, for it presupposes that personality in its highest potentiality -- genius -- becomes impersonal. The man who really reverences pre-eminent intellectual greatness will never be a slave to party, for he lives in the high school of independence. Such a gigantic life-work as that of Kant, "the Herculean work of self-knowledge," as he calls it himself, demanded special gifts and made specialisation necessary. But what does that signify? The man who thinks Kant's talent one-sided, [164] must really be in possession of an exceptionally many-sided intellect. Goethe once said that he felt, when reading Kant, as if he were entering a bright room; truly very great praise from such lips. This rare luminous power is a consequence of his remarkable intensity of thought. When we intellectual pigmies walk in the brilliant light created by Kant, it is easy enough to note the boundary of the shadow that is not yet illuminated; however, but for this one incomparable man we should even to-day look upon the shadow as daylight. I had another reason for specially emphasising Kant. The unfolding of our Teutonic culture, that is, the sum of our work from 1200 to 1800, has found in this man a specially pure, comprehensive and venerable expression. Equally important as natural philosopher, thinker, and teacher of morals -- whereby he unites in his own person several great branches of our development -- he is the first perfect pattern of the absolutely independent Teuton who has put aside every trace of Roman absolutism, dogmatism and anti- individualism. And just as he has emancipated us from Rome, so he can -- whenever we please -- emancipate us from Judaism; not by bitterness and persecution, but by once for all destroying every historical superstition, every cabalisticism of Spinoza, every materialistic dogmatism (dogmatic materialism is only the converse of the same thing). Kant is a true follower of Luther; the work which the latter began Kant has continued.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Fri Oct 21, 2016 6:47 pm

Part 5 of 5
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Notes:

1. See especially vol. i, pp. 213 f., 411 f., 471.

2. I shall not copy what is to be found in the textbooks on the history of philosophy, for the very reason that there is none that would suit my purpose here. But I should like once for all to refer to the well-known, excellent handbooks to which I owe much in my account. It is to be hoped that at no too distant date Paul Deussen's Allgemeine Geschichle der Philosophie mit besonderer Berucksichtigung der Religion will be so far advanced as at least partially to fill the gap which has been so keenly felt by me while writing this section. The very fact that he takes religion also into account proves Deussen's capacity to perform the task and his long study of Indian thought is a further guarantee. Meanwhile I recommend to the less experienced reader the short Skizze einer Geschichte der Lehre vom Idealen und Realen which begins the first volume of Schopenhauer's Parerga und Paralipomena: in a few pages it offers a brilliantly clear survey of Teutonic thought at its best, from Descartes to Kant and Schopenhauer. The best introduction to general philosophy that exists is in my opinion (and as far as my limited knowledge extends) Friedrich Albert Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus: this author takes a special point of view and hence the whole picture of European thought from Democritus to Hartmann becomes more vivid, and in the healthy atmosphere of a frank partiality challenging contradiction we breathe much more freely than under the hypocritical impartiality of masked Academic authorities.

3. See p. 322.

4. See p. 178.

5. See the remarks on "not-knowing" as the source of all increase of experience, p. 272, and on the sterilising effects of universalism, p. 276.

6. Cf. vol. i. p. 414. It is very important to note in addition that Thomas Aquinas also must seek support from the Semites and in many passages links on to Jewish philosophers -- Maimonides and others. See Dr. J. Guttmann: Das Verhaltnis des Thomas von Aquino zum Judentum und judischen Litteratur (Gottingen, 1891).

7. Here we are reminded of Rousseau's remark: "Quel plus sur moyen de courir d'erreurs en erreurs que la fureur de savoir tout?" (Letter to Voltaire, 10.9.1755).

8. Cf. p. 128.

9. Cf. vol. i. p. 32.

10. As I do not wish to repeat myself, I refer the reader to vol i. pp. 501 f. and 244, note on Abelard.

11. I quote from the Jena edition, 1591, fol. 329; in the new widespread selections we do not find this passage nor the others "dealing with the Scholastics as a whole" where Luther sighs when he thinks of his student days, when "fine, clever people were burdened with the hearing of useless teachings and the reading of useless books with strange, un-German, sophistical words...."

12. Pfeiffer's edition. 1857, p. 626. What is here uttered negatively is expressed in the fifty-third saying, concerning the seven grades of contemplative life, as a positive theory: "Unde soder Mensch also in sich selber gat, so vindet er got in ime seiber" ("If so man then enters into himself, he findeth God in himself").

13. See the section Critique of all Speculative Theology and also the last of the Prolegomena to every Future System of Metaphysics.

14. See p. 132 and cf. the conclusion of the note on p. 96.

15. Von dem Missbrauch der Messe, Part III.

16. Cf. The Vorrede auf die Epistel Pauli an die Romer.

17. See, for example, Paul Sabatier: Vie de S. Francois d'Assise, 1896, chap. iv.

18. Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, pp. 22, 25.

19. Quoted from Schopenhauer: Uber den Willen in der Natur (Section on Physische Astronomie).

20. Sermon at the Feast of the Epiphany, 1492.

21. Concerning the German people as a whole Lamprecht testifies that "the basis of its attitude to Christianity was mystical" (Deutsche Geschichte, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 197). This was absolutely true till the introduction by Thomas Aquinas of obligatory rationalism, supplemented later by the materialism of the Jesuits.

22. The theologian Adalbert Merx says in his book, Idee und Grundlinien einer allgemeinen Geschichte der Mystik, 1893. p. 46: "One fact in mysticism is firmly established, that it so completely possesses, reveals and represents the fact of experience in religion, religion as a phenomenon ... that a real philosophy of religion without historical knowledge of mysticism is out of the question."

23. Pfeiffer's edition, p. 162.

24. See vol. i. p. 187.

25. It was not till after his death that his doctrines were condemned as heretical and his writings so diligently destroyed by the Inquisition that most of them are lost.

26. See pp. 44 and 89.

27. De Imitatione Christi, Book III. chap. ii.

28. See, for example, Mysterium magnum, oder Erklarung uber das erste Buch Mosis, chap. xix. § I.

29. See pp. 48 and 129. The extraordinary popularity of Erigena's Division of Nature in the thirteenth century (see pp. 274 and 341) shows how universal was the longing to get rid of this frightful product of Oriental imagination. Luther, in spite of all orthodoxy, is often inclined to agree with Erigena, he, too, writes in his Vierzehn Trostmittel i. I., "Man has hell within himself."

30. See p. 111, &c.

31. The Jesuits are only more consistent than the others. I remember seeing a German girl of twelve years of age lying in convulsions after a lesson on religion. The Lutheran Duodecimo-Pope had inspired the innocent child with such terror of hell. Teachers of this kind should be cited before a criminal court.

32. Pensees philosophiques xvii.

33. Cf. the Twelfth Tractate and the glossary to it. Francis of Assisi also laid almost no stress on hell and very little on heaven (Sabatier, as above, p. 308).

34. See vol. i. p. 569.

35. I remind the reader that Walfila could not translate the ideas hell and devil into Gothic, since this fortunate language knew no such conception (p. 11). Hell was the name of the friendly goddess of death, as also of her empire, and points etymologically to bergen (to hide), verhullen (to conceal), but by no means to Ifernum (Heynu); Teufel has been formed from Diabolus.

36. Der Weg zu Christo, Book VI §§ 36, 37. This conception is Indo-European and proves at once the race of the author. When the Persian Omar Khayyam sent out his soul to get knowledge, it returned with the news, "I myself am Heaven and Hell" (Rubaiyat).

37. Mysterium magnum, 8, 18.

38. Sendbrief dated 18.1.1618, § 10.

39. Mysterium magnum 8, 24.

40. Cf., for example, the short work of Dr. Albert Peip: Jakob Bohme, 1860, p. 16 f.

41. Cf. Der Weg zu Christo, Book V. chap. viii., and Von Christo Testament des Heiligen Abendmahles, chap. iv, § 24. "A proper Christian brings his holy Church with him into the congregation. His heart is the true Church, where he should worship. Though I go to church for a thousand years and to sacrament every week and be absolved daily: if I have not Christ in me, all is false and useless vanity, a worthless, futile thing, and not forgiveness of sins" (Der Weg zu Christo, Book V. chap. vi. § 161. Concerning preaching he says: "The Holy Ghost preaches to the holy hearer from all creatures; in all that he sees he beholds a preacher of God" (§ 14).

42. Traume eines Geistersehers, &c., Part I. 3.

43. Cf. the remarks on p. 240 f. (vol. i.)

44. Uber die Fortschritte der Metaphysik III.

45. Critique of Pure Reason (Explanation of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom).

46. Religion innerhalb der Greuzen der blossen Vernunft, Part 8. Div 2, Point 3 of the General Note.

47. Traume eines Geistersehers, Teil 2, Hauptstuck 3.

48. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 3rd section.

49. See vol. i. p. 85 f.

50. Sermon 95, in Pfeiffer's edition.

51. Beschreibung der drei Prinzipien gottlichen Wesens, chap. xiv. § 85.

52. Whoever regards time as eternity and eternity as present time is freed from all conflict.

53. Cf. De immenso et innumerabilibus I. II., and Del infinito, universo e mondi, towards the end of the First Dialogue. Here by the intuition of genius the same thing is discovered as was established two hundred years later by the brilliant critical judgment of Kant, who says: "Nature and freedom can be attributed without contradiction to the same thing, but in different connections, at one time to the thing as it appears at another to the thing itself" (Prolegomena, § 53).

54. Spruch 43. Cf., too, Sermon 13, where he says that all works shall be done "without any why." "I say verily, as long as you do works not from an inward motive but for the sake of heaven or God or your eternal salvation, you are acting wrongly."

55. Cf. the whole work on Die Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. How new and directly anti-Roman this thought appeared is very clear from Hans Sachs' Disputation zwischen einem Chorherrn und Schuchmacher (1524), in which the shoemaker especially defends, as being "Luther's idea," the doctrine that "good works are not done to gain heaven or from fear of hell.

56. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Division I. Cf., too, the concluding part of the Traume eines Geistersehers, and especially the beautiful interpretation of the passage in Matthew xxv. 35-40, a proof that in the eyes of God only those actions have a value which a man performs without thinking of the possibility of reward. This interpretation is found in his Religion inner halb der Grenzen, Section 4, Part 1., close of first division.

57. De div. naturae 5, 36.

58. Sabatier, loc. cit. p. 382.

59. By this song Francis proves himself a pure Teuton in absolute contrast to Rome. Among the Aryan Indians we find farewell songs of pious men, which correspond almost word for word to that of Francis. Cf. the one translated by Herder in his Gedanken einiger Brahmanen:

Earth, thou my mother, and thou father, breath of the, air.
And thou fire, my friend, thou kinsman of mine, O stream,
And my brother, the sky, to all I with reverence proclaim
My warmest thanks, &c.

60. "That thou art also": i.e., man's recognition of himself.

61. Cf., too, p. 106, note 2.

62. Die drei Principien gottlichen Wesens, chap. viii. § 12.

63. Croonian Lecture, delivered in London on March 16, 1893.

64. Hirschel, Geschichte der Medicin, 2nd ed. p. 208. Here the reader will find a detailed appreciation of Paracelsus, from which some of the following facts are taken.

65. Cf. Kahlbaum; Theophrastus Paracelsus, Basel, 1894, p. 63. This lecture brings to light much new material which proves how false were the charges brought against the great man -- drunkenness, wild life, &c. The fable that he could not write and speak Latin fluently is also disproved.

66. It is noteworthy that the idea and term "Experience" (Erfahrung) were introduced into German thought and the German language by Paracelsus, the mystic (cf. Eucken: Terminologie, p. 125).

67. In the lecture mentioned above Virchow proves that Glisson and not Haller originated the doctrine of irritability.

68. Cf. p. 322 f.

69. Quoted from Heinrich von Stein: Entstehung der neusren Aesthetik, 1886, p. 353f.

70. Traume eines Giestersehers, Teil i. Hauptsts 2.

71. If ye dare, thus armed, to ascend the last pinnacle of this height give me your hand and open your eyes freely to survey the wide field of nature....

Rejoice, thou sublimest of nature's creatures! Thou feelest the power to follow her in the loftiest thought to which she soared in the act of Creation. Here pause in peace, turn back thine eyes, probe, compare, and take from the lips of the muse the sweet full certainty that thou seest and art no dreamer of dreams.

72. Mysterium pansophicum 8, Text, § 9.

73. Mysterium magnum, chap. xxxv. § 24.

74. Tractatus de immortalitate animae. (I quote from F. A. Lange.)

75. Cf. especially Paulsen: Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, 2nd ed. i. 73 f.

76. De monarchia iii. 15.

77. Sonetti e canzoni (in the third part). The first to prove the invalidity of the pretended gift of Constantine were the famous humanist Lorenzo Valla and the lawyer and theologian Krebs (see vol. i. p. 562). Valla also denounced the secular power of the Pope in whatever form, for the latter was vicarius Christi et non eliam Caesaris (see Dollinger: Papstfabeln, 2nd ed. p. 118).

78. All the first great Humanists of Germany are anti-scholastic -- (Lamprecht, as above, iv. p. 69). It is not right to reproach men like Erasmus, Coornhert, Thomas More, &c., for not joining the Reformation later. For such men were in consequence of their humanistic studies intellectually far too much in advance of their time to prefer a Lutheran or Calvinistic dogmatism to the Romish. They rightly felt that scepticism would always come to terms more easily with a religion of good works than with one of faith; they anticipated -- correctly as it turned out -- a new era of universal intolerance, and thought that it would be more feasible to destroy one single utterly rotten Church from within than several Churches which from the humanistic standpoint were just as impossible, but had been steeled by conflicts. Regarded from this high watch-tower the Reformation meant a new lease of life to ecclesiastical error.

79. The Indologists were the real humanists of the nineteenth century. Cf. my small work Arische Wellanschauung, 1905.

80. Cf. vol. i. p. 264.

81. It would be extremely profitable and illuminating, though out of place here, to consider how inevitably our various modern languages have influenced the philosophies which are expressed by them. The English language, for example, which is richer almost than any other in poetical suggestive power, cannot follow a subtle thought into its most secret windings; at a definite point it fails, and so proves itself suitable only for sober, practical empiricism or poetical raptures; on both sides of the line separating these two spheres it remains too far from the boundary-line itself to be able to pass easily, to float backwards and forwards, from the one to the other. The German language, though less poetical and compact, is an incomparably better instrument for philosophy; in its structure the logical principle is more predominant, and its wide scale of shades of expression allows the finest distinctions to be drawn; for that reason it is suited both for the most accurate analysis and the indications of perceptions that cannot be analysed. In spite of their brilliant talents the Scottish philosophers have never risen above the negative criticism of Hume; Immanuel Kant, of Scottish descent, received the German language as his birthright and could thus create a philosophy which no skill can translate into English (cf. vol. i. p. 298).

82. See the article Genie in the Encyclopedie: one must read the whole six pages of the article. Interesting remarks on the same subject in Diderot's essay De la poesie dramatique.

83. Kalligone, Part II. v. 1.

84. Lettre a M. de Scheyb, 15 Juillet 1756.

85. Dictionnaire de Musique and Discours sur la vertu la plus necessaire aux heros.

86. Anthropologie, § 87c.

87. By "nature philosophy" we understand in the first place the childlike and childish materialism, the use of which, "as manure to enrich the ground for philosophy" (Schopenhauer), cannot be denied, and in the second place its opposite, the transcendental idealism of Schelling, the good of which is, I suppose, to be estimated according to the old aesthetic dogma, that a work of art is to be valued the more highly the less it serves any conceivable purpose.

88. Cf. the remarks on p. 89 (vol. i.) and under "Science," p. 303 f. (vol. ii.).

89. This assertion I take from the Discours de la conformite de la fut avec la raison, § 12, of Leibniz. At a later period Luther expressed the opinion: "I venture to say that a potter has more knowledge of the things of nature than is to be found in those books (of Aristotle)." See his Sendschreiben an den Ade, Punkt 25.

90. Discours de la methode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la verite dans les sciences, Part I.

91. The system of Leibniz is a last heroic effort to enlist scientific method in the service of an historical, absolute theory of God, which in reality destroys all scientific knowledge of nature. In contrast to Thomas Aquinas, this attempt to reconcile faith and reason proceeds from reason, not from faith. However, reason here means not only logical ratiocination, but great mathematical principles of true natural science; and it is just because there is in Leibniz an insuperable element of empirical, irrefutable truth, while Thomas operates only with shadows, that the absurdity of Leibniz' system is more apparent. A man who was so absolutely ignorant of nature as Thomas could mislead himself and others by sophisms; but Leibniz was forced to show that the supposition of a double kingdom -- Nature and Supernature -- is altogether impossible, and that simply because he was familiar with the mathematical and mechanical interpretation of natural phenomena. Thereby the brilliant attempt of Leibniz became epoch-making. As a metaphysician he belongs to the great thinkers; that is proved by the one fact that he asserted the transcendental ideality of space and sought to prove it by profound mathematical and philosophical arguments (see details in Kant: Metaphysiche Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft, 2nd Section, Theorem 4, Note 2). His greatness as a thinker in pure natural science is proved by his theory that the sum of forces in nature is unchangeable, whereby the so-called law of Conservation of Energy, of which we are so proud as an achievement of the nineteenth century, was really enunciated. No less significant is the extremely individualistic character of his philosophy. In contrast to the All-pervading Unity of Spinozism (an idea which was repugnant to him), "individuation," "specification" is for him the basis of all knowledge. "In the whole world there are not two beings incapable of being distinguished," he says. Here we see the genuine Teutonic thinker. (Particularly well discussed in Ludwig Feuerbach's Darstellung der Leibnizschen Philosophie, § 3).
92. We must also note the fact that Hume would scarcely have attained his philosophical results without the achievements of the philosophical thought around him, particularly those of the French scientific "sensualists" of his time. In many ways Hume seems to me to have more affinity with such Italian Humanistic sceptics as Pomponazzi and Vanini than with the genuine group of those who observe nature and draw their philosophy therefrom.

93. Immanuel Kant in seinen letzten Lebensjahren, 1804, p. 25; new edition by Alfons Hoffmann, 1902, p. 298.

94. Note in the Preface to the second edition.

95. Untersuchung uber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der naturlichen Theologie und der Moral, second Thought.

96. Teil 2, Hauptstuck 7.

97. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Abschnitt 2, Teil 1.

98. Uber den Gemeinspruch: das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht fur die Praxis, 1.

99. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, St. 1 (Note to Introduction).

100. Alphonse de Candolle: Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siecles, 1885, p. 10.

101. In a company of university teachers some years ago I heard a discussion on psychological-physiological themes; starting from the localisation of the functions of speech in Broca's brain convolution, one learned gentleman expressed the opinion that every single word was "localised in a particular cell"; he ingeniously compared this arrangement with a cupboard possessing some few thousand drawers, which could be opened and shut at will (something like the automatic restaurants to-day). It sounded quite charming and not a bit less plausible than the command in the fairy-tale, "Table, be spread." As my positive knowledge in regard to histology of the brain was derived from lectures and demonstrations attended years before, and was consequently very limited, and as I had made a practical study only of the rough outlines of the anatomy of this organ, I begged the gentleman in question to give me more definite information, but it turned out that he had never been in a dissecting hall in his life, and had never seen a brain (except in the pretty woodcuts of text-books): hence he had no idea at all of the boundary-line between the known and the unknown.

102. See p. 278.

103. Vortrage zum Entwurf einer Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, ii.

104. See pp. 182, 277.

105. Uber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen, Bf. 9.

106. The fact that Descartes, who "explains by principles of physics all mental phenomena of animal life" (see Principia Philosophiae, Part II. 64, as also the first paragraph), ascribed for reasons of orthodoxy a "soul" to man, signifies all the less for his system of philosophy, as he postulates the complete separation of body and soul, so that there is no connection of any kind between them, and man, like every other phenomenon of sense, must be able to be explained mechanically. It is time that commentators stopped their wearisome prating about "Cogito, ergo sum"; it is not psychological analysis, that is Descartes' strong point; on the contrary, he has here, with the unblushing assurance of genius, to the never-ceasing terror of all logical nonentities, pushed aside right and left the things that might make a man pause, and so forced his way to the one great principle that all interpretation of nature must necessarily be mechanical, at least if it is to be comprehensible to the brain of man (at any rate of the homo europaeus). (For more details I refer the reader to the essay on Descartes in my Immanuel Kant.)

107. Thomas Aquinas actually ascribes such a shadowy existence to animals. He says "The unreasoning animals possess an instinct implanted in them by divine reason, and through it they have inner and outer impulses resembling reason." We see what a gulf separates these automata of Thomas from those of Descartes; for Thomas -- like his followers of to-day, the Jesuit Wasmann, and the whole Catholic theory of nature -- endeavours to make animals out to be machines, in order that it may still be possible to maintain the Semitic delusion that nature was created solely for man, whereas Descartes stands for the great conception, that every event must be interpreted as a mechanical process, the vital phenomena of animals and men no less than the life of the sun.

108. Essay on the Human Understanding, Book iv. chap. 3, § 23.

109. Meditations metaphysiques, 6. The first quotation is from the 2nd section, the second from the last.

110. Loc. cit. Book IV. chap. iii. § 26. and chap. xix. § 4. In these theological subterfuges of the first pioneers of the new Teutonic philosophy lies the germ of the later dogmatic assumption of Schelling and Hegel of the identity of thought and being. What in the case of these pioneers had only been a rest by the wayside and at the same time a way of escape from the persecution of fanatical priests, was now made the corner-stone of a new absolutism.

111. Metaphysishe Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft, last paragraph.

112. Descartes: Traite du monde ou de la lumiere, chap. i.

113. See especially the 6th Meditation and in Les passions de I'dme, §§ 4, 17, &c.

114. Critique of Pure Reason (Concerning the Final Aim of the Natural Dialectics of the Human Reason).

115. Essay, Book II. chap. xxvii. § 27, but especially Book IV. chap. ii. §6.

116. We must not identify this scientific philosophical thought (as accepted by Kant and others, see above, vol. i. p. 90) with the ravings of a Schelling concerning "spirit" and "matter;" for thought is a definite fact of experience, which is known to us only in association with equally definite, perceptible, organic mechanical processes; on the other hand, "spirit" is so vague a conception that anyone can use it for all kinds of charlatanism. When Goethe (evidently under Schelling's influence) on March 24, 1828. writes to Chancellor von Muller, "Matter can never exist without spirit, nor spirit without matter," it would be well to make the same comment as Uncle Toby; "That's more than I know, sir!"

117. Book IV. chap. x; § 10.

118. C'est le privilege du vrai genie, et surtout du genie qui ouvrr une carriere, de faire impunement de grandes fautes" (Voltaire).

119. A Treatise of Human Nature. Introduction. The dilemma of Descartes and Locke is adopted by Hume in his introduction as an evident result of exact thinking, and he says that every hypothesis which undertakes to reveal the last grounds of human nature is to be at once rejected as presumptuous and chimerical. Instead of attempting, as they did, a hypothetical solution, be remains systematically sceptical regarding these "grounds."

120. As Kant is the pre-eminent representative of the purely scientific mode of answering, and ignorant or malicious scribes still mislead the public by asserting that the philosophy of Fichte and Hegel is organically related to Kant's, whereby all true comprehension and all serious deepening of our philosophy becomes impossible. I call the attention of the unphilosophic reader to the fact that Kant in a solemn declaration in the year 1799 designated Fichte's doctrine as a "perfectly untenable system," and shortly afterwards also declared that between his "critical philosophy" (critical reflection upon the results acquired by scientific investigation of corporeal and of thinking nature) and such "scholasticism" (so he terms Fichte's philosophy) there is no affinity whatever. Long before Fichte began to write, Kant had provided the philosophical refutation of this neo-scholasticism, for it breathes from every page of his Critique of Pure Reason, see especially § 27 of the Analytik der Begriffe, and cf. the splendid little book, dated 1796, Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie.

121. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

122. A Treatise of Human Nature I. 4, 5.

123. Essay, Book IV. chap. ii. §§ 1 and 7; chap. xvii. § 14; chap. xii. § 7.

124. Essay, Book IV. chap. iv. § 9 f.

125. Essay, Book II. chap. xiii. § 15; chap. xxiii. §§ 22 and 29.

126. Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Krafte, Preface, §7.

127. That which disturbs your soul

You must not suffer!

128. See on this subject Kant's remarks against Schlosser in the 2nd Division of the Traktat zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie: "He objected to critical philosophy, which he fancies he knows, although he has only looked at its final conclusions, which he was bound to misunderstand, because he had not diligently studied the steps that led up to them."

129. In the above-mentioned work. Part II. § 8. I scarcely need say that Kant neither attacks faith in God nor religion, the book in question and all his later work prove the contrary; from the historical Jahve of the Jews, however, he here once for all dissociates himself. As far as an historical creation is concerned, Kant has expressed himself clearly enough: "A creation as one event among other phenomena cannot be admitted, as its possibility would at once destroy the unity of experience" (Critique of Pure Reason, second analogy of experience).

130. Die Natur (from the series Zur Naturwissenschaft im Allgemeinen).

131. P. 433 f.

132. See Kant's three masterly Recensionen von Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit.

133. See pp. 419, 424.

134. Prolegomena zu einer jeden kunftigen Metaphysik, § 36.

135. We may stimulate the optical nerve as we will, the impression is always "light," and so in the case of the other senses.

136. Spruche in Prosa, uber Naturwissenschaft, 4.

137. Schriften, ed. 1844, vol. ix. p. 34.

138. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. ii. chap. xvii.

139. See especially vol. i. p. 267, vol. ii. pp. 273, 326.

140. Prolegomena, § 10.

141. Critique of Pure Reason. (Of the impossibility of a cosmological proof of the existence of God.) Twenty years before Kant had written: "How am I to understand that, because something is, something else should be? I am not going to be satisfied with the words Cause and Effect" (Versuch. den Begrift der negativen Grossen in die Weltweisheit einzufuhren, Division 3, General Note).

142. Loc. cit. (Critique of all speculative theology.)

143. Vol. i. p. 240.

144. Erklarung gegen Fichte (conclusion).

145. Growing older is noted only by seeing others grow old or by the coming on of feebleness, i.e., by something outward; hours can pass as a moment, a few seconds may unfold the complete image of a lifetime.

146. See vol. i. pp. 229, 437, vol. ii. p. 23.

147. It is remarkable how affinity between these two errors -- uncritically projecting inner experience into the world of phenomena and bringing the outer world into inner experience -- manifests itself in life: theists become in the twinkling of an eye atheists, a strikingly common thing in the case of Jews, since, if they are orthodox (and even when they have become Christians) they are convinced, genuine theists, whereas with us God is always in the background and even the orthodox mind is filled by the Redeemer or the Mother of God, the saints or the sacrament. I should never have dreamt that theistic conviction could be so firmly rooted in the brain had I not had occasion, in the case of a friend, a Jewish scholar, to observe the genesis and obstinacy of the apparently opposite "atheistical" conception. It is absolutely impossible ever to bring home to such a man what we Teutons understand by Godhead, religion, morality. Here lies the hard insoluble kernel of the "Jewish problem." And this is the reason why an impartial man, without a trace of contempt for the in many respects worthy and excellent Jews, can and must regard the presence of a large number of them in our midst as a danger not to be under-estimated. Not only the Jew, but also all that is derived from the Jewish mind, corrodes and disintegrates what is best in us. And so Kant rightly reproached the Christian Churches for making all men Jews, by representing the importance of Christ as lying in this, that He was the historically expected Jewish Messiah. Were Judaism not thus inoculated into us, the Jews in flesh and blood would be much less dangerous for our culture than they are.

148. Religion, 4 Stuck, 1 Teil, 2 Abschnitt.

149. Predigt, 99.

150. I refer for supplementary facts to my book: Immanuel Kant, die Personlichket uls Einfuhrung in das Werk, 1905, Bruckmann.

151. Tugendlehre, § 18.

152. Kant defines: "Autonomy of will is that quality of will by which a will (independently of any object willed) is a law to itself." See Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten II. 2.

153. Kant writes not "zur Himmelfahrt" but "zur Vergotterung," but owing to the common usage of this word in ordinary speech misunderstanding might easily arise. Schiller says, "The moral will makes man divine" (Anmut und Wurde; and Voltaire, "Si Dieu n'est pas dans nous, il n'exista jamais" (Poeme sur la Loi Naturelle). Profound is also Goethe's thought: "Since God became man, in order that we poor creatures of sense might grasp and comprehend Him, we must see to it especially that we do not again make Him God." (Brief des Pastors *** an den neuen Pastor zu ***.)

154. Wanderjahre, Bk II. chap. i.

155. From the book: Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie (1796).

156. Naturally also to Ethics as "science"; on this see p. 64 note.

157. See vol. i. p. 221.

158. Der Streit der Fakultaten, I Division, supplement.

159. Die Religion, u.s.w. Section 4, Part 2, Introduction. The title of the 3rd section of this part is amusing: "Concerning Priesthood as a Regiment in the False Service of the Good Principle."

160. Section 4, Part I, Division I. In this exposition there is an interpretation which will not be very acceptable to the "regiment of false service"; the words, "wide is the gate and broad is the path that leadeth to destruction, and they are many that walk thereon," he interprets as referring to the Churches!

161. Politische Bemerkungen.

162. It redounds to the honour of the Germans to have hated Christianity!

163. Paul Gerade: Meine Hoebachtungen und Erlebnisse als Dorfpastor, 1895. In an essay in the Nineteenth Century, January 1898, entitled The Prisoners of the Gods, by W. B. Yeats, it is clearly proved that in all Catholic Ireland the belief in the old (so-called heathen) gods is still alive; the peasants, however, mostly fear to utter the word "Gods"; they say "the others" or simply "they," or "the royal gentry," seldom does one hear the expression "the spirits."

164. I should here like to defend Kant against the reproach of repellent one-sidedness which has been spread by Schopenhauer's writings. Schopenhauer asserts in his Grundlage der Moral, § 6, that Kant will have nothing to do with pity, and quotes passages which Kant certainly meant to express something different, since they are directed solely against pernicious sentimentality. Kant may have underestimated the principle of pity upon which J. J. Rousseau, and, following him, Schopenhauer, laid such stress, but he has by no means failed to recognise it. The touchstone in this case is his attitude to animals. In the Jugendlehre, § 17, we read that violence and cruelty to animals "is quite contrary to the duty of man towards himself, for thereby sympathy with the sufferings of animals is blunted in man." This standpoint of kindness to animals as a duty to self and the principle inculcated, that of "gratitude" towards domestic companions, seems to me very lofty. Concerning vivisection, this so-called "loveless, indifferent" and certainly strictly scientific man says, "Painful physical experiments merely for the sake of speculation are abhorrent."
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

Postby admin » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:10 pm

Part 1 of 3

7. ART (FROM GIOTTO TO GOETHE)

THE IDEA "ART
"

It is no easy matter in these days to speak about art; for, despite the example of all the best German authors, \In absolutely senseless limitation of the notion "art" has become naturalised among us, and, on the other hand, the systematising philosophy of history has cruelly paralysed our faculty of looking at historical facts with open, truth-seeking eyes, and of passing a sound judgment upon them. I sincerely regret the necessity of mixing up polemical controversy with this final section, where I would fain be soaring in the highest regions. hut there is no way out of it; for in art the most senseless errors are as firmly rooted as in religion, and we cannot rightly estimate either the development of art of the year 1800 or its importance in the nineteenth century till we have cleared away all misconceptions and corrected the distorted misrepresentations of history. At any rate, if I must pull down, I shall try at once to build up again, and so shall employ the exposition of traditional errors as a means of revealing the true position.

In these days a General History of Art embraces only plastic technique, from architecture to casting in pewter; in a work of this description Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, or a portrait of Rembrandt by himself, will be found side by side with the lid of a beer-mug or the back of an arm-chair. Two arts, however, are absolutely unrepresented, not a word is said about them, they are, it would seem, not "art"; I refer to those two Which, as Kant said, occupy the" highest place" among all arts, and about which Lessing made the extremely happy remark: "Nature meant them not so much to be united as to be one and the same art." [1] These arts are Poetry and Music. The view which our art-historians hold of "art" might well provoke our indignation; it annihilates the life-work of Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, who took such pains to prove the organic unity of the whole creative work of man, and the primacy of the poet among his fellows. From the Laocoon to the AEsthetic Education and to Goethe's thoughts on the part played by art" as nature's worthiest interpreter," [2] through all the thought of the German Classics we can trace this red thread -- the great endeavour clearly and definitely to determine the essence of art, as a peculiar, human capacity; when once this is settled, the dignity of art, as one of the highest and holiest instruments for the transfiguration of all human life and thought, is also established. And now come our experts who go back to Lucian's view, [3] art is for them a technique, a trade, and since the work of the hands in poetry and music signifies nothing, these are not included in art. "Art" is exclusively plastic art, but, to make up for this, it includes every possible plastic activity, every manuum factura, every handicraft! The term is, therefore, not only inconsistently limited by them, but also senselessly widened to be a synonym for technique. That means the loss of one essential thing in art -- the idea of the creative element. [4] Let us look with a critical eye first at the preposterous extension, and then at the senseless limitation.

The shortest and at the same time the most exhaustive definition of art is that of Kant: "Beautiful art is the art of genius." [5] A history of art would, therefore, be a history of creative genius, and everything else, such as the development of technique, the influence exercised by the workers in the industrial arts, the changes of fashion, &c., would come in merely as an explanatory supplement. To make technique the chief thing is ridiculous. It is no excuse to urge that the greatest masters were at the same time the greatest inventors and exponents of the technical art; that all depends upon the reason why they were inventors in technique, and the answer is: because originality is the first quality of the creative mind, in virtue of which the original genius must invent new means of expressing what he has to say, new instruments for his own peculiar and personal creations.

Heaven forbid that I should enter the stony, thorny and sterile sphere of aesthetics! I have nothing to do with aesthetics, but only with art itself. [6] I cling firmly to what the Hellenes thoroughly realised and the German classics always emphasised: that poetry is the root of every art. Now if I take the view of art just given, and add to it that of the" historians of art," I get so wide and indefinite a term that it embraces my beer-jug and Homer's Iliad, and every journeyman with his graver is put on the same level as Leonardo da Vinci. And so Kant's "art of genius II vanishes into thin air. But the importance of creative art, as I, following Schiller, have sketched it in the introduction to the first chapter of this book, and in the course of the same chapter have exemplified it in the Hellenes (vol. i. p. 14), is too significant a fact in our history of culture to be sacrificed in this way. In the triad philosophy, religion, art -- which three make up culture -- we could least of all dispense with art. For Teutonic philosophy is transcendent, and Teutonic religion ideal; both, therefore, remain unexpressed, incommunicable, invisible to most eyes, unconvincing to most hearts, unless art with her freely creative moulding power -- i.e., the art of genius -- should intervene as mediator. For this reason the Christian Church -- as formerly the Hellenic faith in Gods -- has always sought the help of art, and for that reason Immanuel Kant expresses the opinion that it is only with the help of a "divine art" that man is able to overcome mechanical constraint by conscious inner freedom. Since we realise that mechanical constraint exists, our philosophy of life (purely as philosophy) must be negative; our art, on the contrary, arises from our inward experience of freedom, and is, therefore, wholly and essentially positive.

This great and clear idea of art we must preserve as a sacred, living possession; and if anyone speaks of "art" -- not of artistic handiwork, artistic technique, artistic cabinet-making, &c. -- he must use that sacred term solely of the art of genius.

Genuine art alone forms the sphere in which those two worlds, which we have just learned to distinguish (p. 483) -- the mechanical and the unmechanical -- meet in such a way that a new, third world arises. Art is this third world. Here freedom, which otherwise remains only an idea, an eternally invisible inner experience, reveals direct activity in the world of phenomena. The law here prevailing is not the mechanical law; rather is it in every respect analogous to that "Autonomy" which stirred Kant to such admiration in the moral sphere (p. 489). And what religious instinct only vaguely divines and figures forth in all kinds of mythological dreams (vol. i. p. 4I6} , enters by art, so to speak, "into the daylight of life"; for when art, of free inner necessity (genius), transforms the given, unfree, mechanical necessity (the world of phenomena), it reveals a connection between the two worlds which purely scientific observation would never have brought to light. The artist enters into an alliance with the investigator of nature; for while he freely shapes, he also "interprets" nature, that is, he looks deeper into the heart of things than the measuring and weighing observer. With the philosopher too he joins hands; the logical skeleton receives from him a blooming body and learns the reason of its being in the world; as proof I need only refer to Goethe and Schiller, who both attain the loftiest heights of their powers and their significance for the Teutonic race after they have been associated with Kant, but thereby show the world in quite a different manner from Schelling and his fellows what incalculable importance is to be attached to the thought of the great Konigsberg Professor. [7]

ART AND RELIGION

The relation between art and religion has still to be mentioned. This relation is so manifold and intimate that it is a hard matter to analyse it critically. In the present connection the following should be noted. As I have shown in many passages in this book, among all the Indo-Teutonic peoples religion is always "creative" in the artistic sense of the word, and therefore related to art. Our religion never was history, never exposition of chronicles, but always inner experience and the interpretation, by free, reproductive activity, of this experience as well as of surrounding nature, which means the nature of experience; our whole art, on the other hand, owes its origin to religious myths. But as we are no longer able to follow the simple impulse of creative myth-production, our myths must be the outcome of the highest and deepest reflection. The material is at hand. The true source of all religion to-day is not an indefinite feeling, not interpretation of nature, but the actual experience of definite human beings; [8] with Buddha and with Christ religion has become realistic -- a fact which is consistently overlooked by the philosophers of religion, and of which mankind as a whole has not yet become conscious. But what these men experienced and what we experience through them is not something mechanically "real," but something much more real than that, an experience of our inmost being. And it is only now, in the light of our new philosophy, that this inner meaning has become quite clear; it is only now -- when the faultless mechanism of all phenomena is irrefutably proved -- that we are able to purge religion of the last trace of materialism. But hereby art becomes more and more indispensable. For we cannot express in words what a figure like Jesus Christ signifies, what it reveals; it is something in the inmost recesses of our souls, something apart from time and space -- something which cannot be exhaustively or even adequately expressed by any logical chain of thought; with Christ it is a question solely of that "nature which is subordinate to a will" (as Kant said, p. 484), not of that which makes the will subordinate to itself, that is, it is a question of that nature in which the artist is at home, and from which he alone is able to build a bridge over into the world of phenomena. The art of genius forces the visible to serve the Invisible. [9]Now in Jesus Christ it is the corporeal revelation, to which His whole earthly life belongs, that is the Visible, and, in so far, to a certain extent, only an allegorical representation of the invisible being; but this allegory is indispensable, for it was the revealed personality -- not a dogma, not a system, certainly not the thought that here the Word invested with a distinct personality went about in flesh and blood -- that made the unparalleled impression and completely transformed the inner being of men; with death the personality -- that is, the only effectual thing -- disappeared. What remains is fragment and outline. In order that the example may retain its miraculous power, that the Christian religion may not lose its character as actual, real experience, the figure of Jesus Christ must ever be born anew; otherwise there remains only a vain tissue of dogmas, and the personality -- whose extraordinary influence was the sole source of this religion -- becomes crystallised to an abstraction. As soon as the eye ceases to see, and the ear to hear, the personality of Christ fades further and further away and in place of living and -- as I said before -- realistic religion, there remains either stupid idolatry, or an Aristotelian structure of reason made up of pure abstractions. We saw this in the case of Dante, in whose creed the one sure foundation of religion possible to us Teutons -- experience -- is altogether absent and the name of Christ consequently not once mentioned (cf. pp. 106, 425). Only one human power is capable of rescuing religion from the double danger of idolatry and philosophic Deism: [10] that power is art. For it is art alone that can give new birth to the original form, i.e., the original experience. In Leonardo da Vinci, who is perhaps the greatest creative genius that ever lived, we have a striking example of the way in which art steers safely between these two cliffs; his hatred of all dogma, his contempt of all idolatry, his power to give shape to the true subject-matter of Christianity, namely, the figure of Christ Himself, have been emphasised by me in the first chapter (vol. i. p. 82); they signify the dawn of a new day. And we might prove the same of every artistic genius from him to Beethoven.

This point I may require to explain more fully, to make the relation between art and religion perfectly clear.

I said on p. 291 that a mechanical interpretation of the world is consistent only with an ideal religion; I think I have proved this irrefutably in the previous section. Now what is the distinguishing-mark of an ideal religion? Its absolute existence in the present. We recognised this clearly in the case of the Mystics: they put time aside like a cast-off garment; they wish to dwell neither upon creation -- in which the materialistic religions find the guarantee of God's power -- nor upon future reward and punishment; rather is the present time to them "like eternity" (p. 421). The scientific philosophy which has been built up by the intellectual work of the last centuries has given clear and comprehensible expression to this feeling. Teutonic philosophy has from the first "turned on two hinges": (1) The ideality of space and time; (2) the reality of the idea of freedom. [11] That is at the same time -- if I may so express myself -- the formula of art. For in the creations of art the freedom of the will proves itself real, and time -- as compared with the inner, unmechanical world -- a mere, inconstant idea. Art is the everlasting Present. And it is that in two respects. In the first place it holds time in its spell: what Homer creates is as young to-day as it was three thousand years ago: he who stands before the tomb of Lorenzo de Medici feels himself in the presence of Michael Angelo; the art of genius does not grow old. Moreover, art is the Present in the sense that only that which is absolutely without duration is present. Time is divisible, infinitely so, a flash of lightning is only relatively shorter than a life of a hundred years, the latter only relatively longer than the former; whereas the Present in the sense of something which has no duration is shorter than the shortest thinkable time and longer than all conceivable eternity; this applies to art; the works of art have an absolutely momentary effect and at the same time awaken the feeling of everlastingness. Goethe somewhere distinguishes true art from dream and shadow by saying that art is "a living, momentary revelation of the inscrutable." Even this much- abused word "revelation" receives in the light of Teutonic philosophy a perfectly clear sense devoid of all extravagance; it means the opening of the gate which separates us (as mechanical phenomena) from the timeless world of freedom. Art keeps watch over the gate. A work of art -- let us say Michael Angelo's Night -- shows the gate wide open; we step from the surroundings of the temporal into the presence of the Timeless. As this artist himself says triumphantly, "Dall' arte e vinta la nartua!" (Nature is conquered by art); that is to say, the Visible is forced to give shape to the Invisible -- the Inevitable is forced to serve freedom; the stone now presents a living revelation of the Inscrutable.

What powerful support a religion resting on direct experience derives from such a power must be plain to all. Art is capable of always bringing to new life the former experience; it can reveal in the personality the superpersonal element, in the ephemeral phenomenon the unephemeral; a Leonardo gives us the figure and a Bach the voice of Jesus Christ, now for ever present. Moreover, art elsewhere reveals that religion which had found in the One its inimitable, convincing existence, and we are deeply moved when, in a portrait of Durer or Rembrandt by their own hand, we look into eyes which introduce us to that same world in which Jesus Christ "lived and moved and had his being," the threshold of which can be crossed neither by words nor thoughts. Something of this is in all sublime art, for it is this that makes it sublime. Not only the countenance of man, but everything that the eye of man sees, that the thought of man grasps and has moulded anew according to the law of inner, unmechanical freedom, opens that gate of "momentary revelation"; for every work of art brings us face to face with the creative artist, that is, with the rule of that at once transcendent and real world from which Christ speaks when he says that the Kingdom of God lies in this life like a treasure buried in the soil. Look at one of the numerous representations of Christ by Rembrandt, e.g., The Hundred Gulden etching, and hold beside it his Landscape with Three Trees my meaning will become clear. And the reader will agree with me when I say; Art is not indeed Religion -- for ideal Religion is an actual process in the inmost heart of every individual, the process of conversion and regeneration, of which Christ spoke -- but Art transports us into the atmosphere of religion, explains all nature to us, and by its sublime revelations stirs our inmost being so deeply and directly that many men only get to know what religion is by Art. That the converse is also true is manifest without further words, and we can understand how Goethe -- who cannot be reproached with piety in the ecclesiastical sense -- could assert that only religious men possessed creative power. [12]

So much to define what we are to understand by, and reverence in, the term "art" and to prevent a weakening of the idea by uncritical extension. The theoretical definition of art I have thought fit to supplement by reference to the importance of the art of genius in the work of culture generally, by which the significance of art is concretely presented to the mind. We see how far polemics may lead us in a short time! I therefore turn now to the second point: the senseless limitation which our art-historians affect in the use of the term "art."

POETRY WEDDED TO MUSIC

No history of art of the present day makes any mention of poetry or music; the former now belongs to literature -- the art of writing letters -- the latter stands in a category by itself, neither fish nor flesh, its technique being too abstruse and difficult to awaken interest or be understood outside the narrow circle of professional musicians, and its influence too physical and general not to be regarded somewhat contemptuously by the learned as the art of the misera plebs and the superficial dilettanti. And yet we have but to open our eyes and look around us to see that poetry not only occupies in itself, as the philosophers assert, the" highest place" among all arts, but is the direct source of almost all creative activity and the creative focus even of those works of art which do not directly depend upon it. Moreover, every historical and every critical investigation will convince us, as they did Lessing, that poetry and music are not two arts, but rather "one and the same art." It is the poet wedded to music that ever awakens us to art; it is he who opens our eyes and ears; in him, more than in any other creator, reigns that commanding freedom which subordinates nature to its will, and as the freest of all artists he is unquestionably the foremost. All plastic art might be destroyed and yet poetry -- the poet wedded to music -- would remain untouched; the empire of music would not be an inch narrower, only here and there devoid of form. It is indeed an inexact expression when we say that poetry is the "first" among the arts: rather is it the only art. Poetry is the all-embracing art which gives all other arts life, so that where the latter emancipate themselves, they needs must carryon an ars poetica on their own account -- with as much success as may be. Only think: is the plastic art of the Hellenes conceivable without their poetical art? Did not Homer guide the chisel of Phidias? Had not the Hellenic poet to create the forms before the Hellenic artist could re-create them? Are we to believe that the Greek architect would have erected inimitably perfect temples had not the poet conjured up before his mind such glorious divine forms that he felt compelled to devote to the work of invention every fibre of his being, so as not to fall too far short of that which hovered before his own imagination and that of his contemporaries as divine and worthy of the Gods? It is the same with ourselves. Our plastic art depends partly on Hellenic, partly and to a large extent upon Christian religious poetry. Before the sculptor can grasp them, the forms must exist in the imagination; the God must be believed in, before temples are built to him. Here we see religion -- as Goethe bade us to see -- the source of all productiveness. But historical religion must have attained poetical shape before we can represent and understand it in plastic form: the Gospel, the legend, the poem is the forerunner and forms the indispensable commentary to every Last Supper, every Crucifixion, every Inferno. The Teutonic artist, however, in accordance with his true, analytic nature, as soon as he had mastered the technique of his craft, went much deeper; he shared with the Indian the leaning towards nature; hence the two-fold inclination which strikes us so much in Albrecht Durer: outwards, to painfully exact observation and lovingly conscientious reproduction of every blade of grass, every beetle - inwards, into the inscrutable inner nature, by means of the human image and profound allegories. Here the most genuine religion is at work and for that reason -- as I have already proved -- the most genuine art. Here we see exactly reflected the mental tendency towards Nature of the Mystics, the tendency towards the dignity of man of the Humanists, the tendency towards the inadequacy of the world of phenomena of the naturalist-philosopher. Every one of them in fact contributes his stone to the building of the new world, and since the uniform spirit of a definite human race predominates, all the different parts fit exactly into each other. I am therefore far from denying that our plastic art has emancipated itself much more from poetry (i.e., word-poetry) than it did among the Hellenes; I believe indeed that we can trace a gradual development in this direction from the thirteenth century to the present day. Yet we must admit that this art cannot be understood unless we take into account the general development of culture, and if we do this we shall at once see that all- powerful, free poetry everywhere preceded, took the lead and smoothed the way for her manifoldly restricted sisters. A Francis of Assisi had to press nature to his burning heart and a Gottfried von Strassburg inspiredly to describe it, before men's eyes were opened and the brush could attempt to delineate it; a great poetical work had been completed in every district of Europe -- from Florence to London -- before the painter recognised the dignity of the human countenance, and personality began to take the place of pattern in his works. Before a Rembrandt could reveal his greatness, a Shakespeare had to live. In the case of allegory the relation of the plastic arts to poetry is so striking that no one can be blind to it. Here the artist himself wishes to invent poetically. In the Introduction (p. 1x) I quoted words of Michael Angelo, in which he puts the stone and unwritten page on the same footing, and says that into neither of them does anything come but what he wills. He therefore creates poetically as with the pen, so with the chisel and the brush.

The kindled marble's bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow
Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear!
-- BYRON ("Prophecy of Dante").


Michael Angelo's Creation of Light is his own invention, but we should not understand it did it not rest upon a well-known myth. And his figures, Day and Night, with Lorenzo de' Medici above them. what are they if not poetical creations? Surely they are not merely two naked figures and a draped one. What then has been added? Something which, by the power which it has of stirring the feelings, is just as closely related to music as it is to poetry by its awakening of thoughts. It is an heroic attempt to create poetically, by means of the mere world of phenomena, without the help of an existing poetical fable, and that necessarily means by way of allegory. The great work of Michael Angelo can, in fact, only be understood and judged as poetic creation, and the same holds of Rembrandt and Beethoven; all aesthetic wrangling on this point, and on the limits of expression m the various arts, is settled when we grasp the simple fact that clear ideas can only be communicated by language; from this it follows that every plastic creation must lack definiteness of idea and in so far exercise a "musical" effect, if it is to have any at all; but on the other hand, this plastic creation must, inasmuch as it is devoid of music, be interpreted by ideas and in so far is to be regarded "poetically." "Night" is, of course, but one word, but in spite of that, thanks to the magic power of language, it unrolls a whole poetical programme. And thus we see that plastic art, even where it follows, as much as possible, its own independent course, yet stretches out both hands to the poet, "who is wedded to music": if it has not borrowed the matter from him, it must receive from him the soul that will give life to its work.

I do not think I need say anything more to prove that a history of art which leaves out poetry is just as senseless as the famous representation of Hamlet without the Prince. And yet I shall immediately show that the most daring historico-philosophical assertions of well- known scholars rest on this view. When in one scene Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do not appear on the stage, it seems empty to our historians of art. But, as I was speaking of the poet whose words are wedded to music, and as the twin-sister of the poet, Polyhymnia, is included in the anathema and not regarded as presentable, I must still say a word about her art, before going on to discuss the historical delusions.

It is now a universally acknowledged fact that in all the branches of the Indo-European group in ancient times poetry was at the same time music: evidence regarding the Indians, Hellenes and Teutonic peoples is to be found in all the more recent histories. Among the books which contributed most in the nineteenth century to the formation of a sound judgment on this point, those of Fortlage, Westphal, Helmholtz and Ambros on the music of the Greeks deserve special mention: they clearly show that music was valued as highly by the Greeks as poetry and plastic art, and that at the time of the greatest splendour of Greek culture music and poetry were so closely allied and intertwined "that the history of Hellenic music cannot be separated from the history of Hellenic poetry and vice versa." [13] What we to-day admire as Hellenic poetry is only a torso; for it was the music which organically belonged to them that first "raised the Pindaric ode, the Sophoclean scene, into the full brilliancy of the Hellenic day." If modern ideas should hold good, which have established the threefold division, Literature, Music, Art, and have banished all that is sung from literature and still more from art, then all Greek Poetry must belong to the history of music -- not to literature or to art! That gives something to think about. In the meantime, music has passed through a great development (to which I shall return in another connection), whereby it has not lost in dignity or independence, but on the contrary has become more and more powerful in expression, and therefore more capable of artistic form. Here we have not merely development, as our historians of music would fain represent it, but the passing over of this art from Hellenic into Teutonic hands. The Teuton -- in all the branches of this group of peoples -- is the most musical being on earth; music is his special art, that in which he is among all mankind the incomparable master. We have seen how in ancient times the Teutons did not lay aside the harp even when on horseback, and how their most capable kings were personally the leaders of instruction in singing (vol. i. p. 327) ; the ancient Goths could invent no other term for reading (lesen) than singing (singen), "as they knew no kind of communication in elevated speech but what was sung." [14] And so the Teuton, as soon as in the thirteenth century he had awakened to independence and to some extent shaken off the deadening spell of Rome, at once devoted himself to that harmony and polyphony which is natural to him alone: the development starts in the thoroughly Teutonic Netherlands (the home of Beethoven) and for at least three centuries its one firm support and cradle, so to speak, is there and in the north generally. [15] It was only at a later time that the Italians, who were really pupils of the Germans, attained to importance in music; even Palestrina follows closely in the footsteps of the men of the north. [16] And that which was so enthusiastically begun went on without a break. In Josquin de Pres, a contemporary of Raphael, Teutonic music had already produced a genius. From Josquin to Beethoven, on the threshold of the nineteenth century, the development of this divine art, which, as Shakespeare says, alone can transform the inmost nature of man -- has progressed smoothly and uninterruptedly. Music, zealously cultivated and furthered by thousands and tens of thousands, put at the disposal of every succeeding genius ever more and more perfect instruments, a ripe technique, a finer receptive capacity. [17] And this specifically Teutonic art has been for centuries also recognised as a specifically Christian art and frequently called simply the "divine art," la divina musica, and rightly too, since it is the peculiarity of this art not to build with forms presented by the senses, but, absolutely neglecting these, to influence the feelings directly. That is why it stirs the heart of man so powerfully. The profound affinity between mechanism and ideality, to which I have often referred (see especially pp. 291 and 486 f.), here presents itself, as it were, in the embodiment of an image: the mathematical art which is above all others and in so far also the most "mechanical" one is at the same time the most "ideal," the most free of all that is corporeal. This explains the directness of the effect of music, i.e., its absolute presentness, which implies a further affinity to genuine religion; and, in fact, if we wished by means of an example to make clear what we meant by calling religion an experience, musical experiences, that is, the direct, all powerful and indelible impression which sublime music makes upon the mind, would certainly be the most appropriate and perhaps the only permissible illustration. There are chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach -- and not only chorales, but I name these to keep to what is best known -- which in the simple, literal sense of the word are the most Christ-like sounds ever heard since the divine voice died into silence upon the Cross.

I shall say nothing more in this connection; it is enough to have alluded to the great importance of music for our culture, and to have called to mind the incomparable achievements which the "art of genius" has accomplished during the last five centuries in this sphere. Everyone will be ready to admit that generalisations on the connection between art and culture are of no value, if poetry and music, which -- as Lessing taught us -- in reality form one single, comprehensive art, are shut out from consideration.

ART AND SCIENCE

We are by this time armed to do battle with those dogmas of the history of art which are so universally accepted at the present day. An indispensable undertaking, for this philosophy of history renders an understanding of the growth of Teutonic culture absolutely impossible, and at the same time laughably distorts all judgment of the art of the nineteenth century.

A concrete example must be given, and as we everywhere find the same luxuriant aftermath of Hegelian delusion, it does not much matter where we seek one. I take up an excellent book which is very widely read, the Einfuhrung in das Studium der neueren Kunstgeschichte by Professor Alwin Schultz, the famous Prague professor; I quote from p. 5 of the edition of 1878: "Have art and science ever at the same moment (sic!) produced their finest fruits? Did not Aristotle appeal, when the heroic age of Greek art was already past? And what scholar (sic!) lived at the time of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, whose works could even approximately be placed side by side with those of these masters? No! art and science have never at the same time been successfully cultivated by the nations; art rather precedes science; science does not really gain strength till the brilliant epoch of art is a thing of the past, and the more science grows and gains in importance, the more is art pressed into the background. No nation has ever simultaneously achieved great things in both spheres. We can therefore take consolation from the fact that in our century, the scientific work of which has been so brilliant and so momentous for our culture, art has succeeded in achieving something which is only less important." There are a couple more pages in the same strain. The reader must peruse the quotation several times carefully, and every time he does so he will be more and more amazed at this mass of absurd judgments, and especially at the fact that a conscientious scholar can simply ignore self-evident facts known to every educated person, in favour of a traditional, artificial, absolutely false construction of history. Little wonder that we laymen no longer understand the history of the past, and consequently our own time! But we will understand them. Let us therefore look more closely and with critical eyes at the official philosophy of history which I have just quoted.

In the first place I ask: Even supposing that wha1 Professor Schultz says were true of the Hellenes, what would that prove for us Teutons? Behind his error there lurks once more the cursed abstract conception of "humanity." For he speaks not only of Greeks; universal laws are laid down with his "ever" and "never," as if we could all-Egyptians, Chinese, Congo negroes, Teutons -- be cast into one pot; whereas in every sphere of life we see that even our nearest relations -- Greeks, Romans, Indians, Iranians -- pass through a perfectly individual and peculiar course of development. Moreover, the example he takes to prove his point rings a false note. Of course if our historians of art had set themselves to prove the thesis, which I have attempted to sketch in the first chapter of this book, viz., that creative art -- the art of Homer -- has formed the basis of all Hellenic culture, that by it we first" entered into the daylight of life," and that this is the special distinguishing-mark of the one unique, Hellenic history, their position would have been unassailable, and we should have been indebted to them; but there is no question of that. Poetry and music form no part of art in Schultz's estimation any more than they do in that of his colleagues; not a word is said about them; "the whole wide sphere of manual production" (p. 14) is looked upon as belonging to the subject -- that is, the plastic arts alone. And in that case the assertion made is not only risky but demonstrably false. For, in the first place, the limitation of the heroic age of plastic art to Phidias is little more than a convenient phrase. What do we possess from his hand to serve as good grounds for such a judgment? Is not investigation from year to year recognising ever more and more the many-sided importance of Praxiteles, [18] and has not Apelles the reputation of having been an incomparable painter? Both are contemporaries of Aristotle. And are we really justified, for the sake of a favourite system, to despise the splendid sculptures from Pergamon as "second-rate goods"? But Pergamon was not founded till fifty years after Aristotle's death. I have always been compelled in this book to mention only a few pre-eminent, well-known names; I have also laid the greatest emphasis on art as " the art of genius"; but it seems to me ridiculous when such simplification is admitted into standard books; genius is not like an order of merit hung on the breast of a single, definite individual, it slumbers, and not only does it slumber but it is at work in hundreds and thousands of men, before the individual can rise to pre-eminence. As I have said on p. 34 (vol. i.), it is only in a surrounding of personalities that personalities can as such make themselves seen and heard; art of genius implies a basis of widespread artistic genius; in works of creative imagination, as Richard Wagner has remarked, there shows itself "a common power distributed among infinitely various and manifold individualities." [19] Such widespread genius as the Greeks manifested even down to later times, a genius which long after Aristotle produced the Giant's frieze and the Laocoon group, does not need to fear comparison with science -- above all with the absolutely unheroic science of that late period! I shall, however, not insist more on this, but, to begin with, make the standpoint of the art-historians my own, and regard the age of Pericles as the zenith of art. But in that case how could I close my eyes to the fact that the "heroic age" of science corresponds exactly to that of art? For how is it possible to regard Aristotle as the chief Greek scientist? This great man has summarised, sifted, arranged, schematised the science of his time, like everything else; but his own personal science is anything but heroic, indeed it is rather the opposite, that is to say, decidedly official, not to say parsonic. On the other hand, more than a century before the birth of Phidias all Hellenic thinkers proved themselves scientifically trained mathematicians and astronomers, and science became really "heroic" when Pythagoras, born at latest eighty years before Phidias, appeared. I refer to what I merely sketched on p. 52 (vol. i.). To-day it is a recognised fact how brilliant the Pythagorean astronomy was; with what zeal and success the Greeks down to the Alexandrian age, without a break, cultivated mathematics and astronomy, and how Aristotle stands apart from this movement, which is the only one dealing with genuine natural science: how can anyone overlook these facts in favour of a dogmatic theory? From Thales, who a hundred years before Phidias fixes in advance the date of the eclipse of the sun, to Aristarchus, the forerunner of Copernicus, who was born a hundred years after Aristotle -- that is, as long as the Greek intellectual life was at all in a flourishing condition, from the beginning to the end -- we see the active influence of the peculiar Hellenic capacity for the science of space. Apart from this the Greeks have on the whole accomplished little of lasting importance in science, for they were too hasty, too bad observers: but two names are so preeminent that even to this day they are known to every child: Hippocrates, the founder of scientific medicine, and Democritus, far the greatest of all Hellenic investigators of nature, the only one of them whose influence is not yet spent; [20] and both of these are contemporaries of Phidias!

But the assertion that art and science have never lit the same time been cultivated with success has still less justification when we apply it to Teutonic culture. "What scholar lived in the time of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, whose works could be even approximately compared with those of these great masters?" Truly, one can't help pitying such a poor art-historian! At the very first name -- Leonardo -- we exclaim: "Why, my good sir, Leonardo himself!" Scientific authorities say regarding him: "Leonardo da Vinci must be regarded as the greatest forerunner of the Galilean epoch of the development of inductive science." [21]

I have often had occasion in this book to refer to Leonardo, and so I may here merely remind the reader that he was mathematician, mechanician, engineer, astronomer, geologist, anatomist, physiologist. Though the short span of a human life made it impossible for him to win in every sphere the immortal fame which he won in that of art, his numerous correct divinations of things which were discovered later are all the more valuable, as they are not airy intuitions but the result of observation and a strictly scientific method of thinking. He was the first to establish clearly the great central principle of all natural science, mathematics and experiment. "All knowledge is vain," he says, "which is not based upon facts of experience and which cannot be traced step by step to the scientifically arranged experiment." [22] I certainly do not know whether Professor Schultz would call Leonardo a "scholar"; but history proves that there is something greater than scholarship even in the sciences, namely, genius; and Leonardo is, beyond doubt, one of the greatest scientific geniuses of all time. But let us look further to see if there is not another scientific contemporary of Michael Angelo and Raphael worthy of being "approximately" placed alongside of them. Nothing is more difficult than to awaken men to the appreciation of past scientific greatness, and if I were to quote, as examples of natural investigators whose lives fall within that of Michael Angelo, Vesalius, the immortal founder of human anatomy, Servet, the forerunner of the discovery of the circulation of the blood, Konrad Gessner, that remarkable many-sided marvel of all later "naturalists," and others as well, I should have to add a commentary to each name, and even after all a whole life of successful work would still not be equivalent, in the vague conception of the layman, to one great work of art which he knows by having actually seen it. But fortunately in this case we have not to seek far to find a name, the splendour of which has impressed even the most unscientific brain. For with all our admiration of these immortal artists we must yet admit that a Nicolaus Copernicus has exercised a greater, more thorough and more lasting influence upon all human culture than Michael Angelo and Raphael. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg exclaims, after pointing out the scientific and moral greatness of Copernicus: "If this was not a great man, who in this world can lay claim to the title?" [23] And Copernicus is so exactly the contemporary of Raphael and Michael Angelo that his life embraces that of Raphael. Raphael was born in 1483 and died in 1520: Copernicus' dates are 1473-1543. Copernicus was famous in Rome at a time when Raphael's name was unknown there, and when the genius of Urbina was summoned by Julius II., in 1508, the astronomer already carried in his brain his theory of the cosmic system, although like a genuine investigator of nature he worked at it for thirty years longer before publishing it. Copernicus is twenty-one years younger than Leonardo, two years younger than Albrecht Durer, two years older than Michael Angelo, four years older than Titian; all these men were at the zenith of their powers between 1500 and 1520. But not they alone, the epoch-making natural investigator Paracelsus [24] is only ten years younger than Raphael and closed his eventful and scientifically important life more than twenty years before Michael Angelo. We must, however, not overlook the fact that men like Copernicus and Paracelsus do not fall from heaven; if the art of genius is a collective phenomenon, science is so in a still higher degree. The very first biographer of Copernicus, namely, Gassendi, proved that he would not have been possible but for his predecessor Regiomontanus, and that the latter owed just as much to his teacher, Purbach; and on the other hand, the astronomer Bailly, a recognised authority, asserts that, if his instruments had been a little more perfect, Regiomontanus would have anticipated most of the discoveries of Galilei. [25]

It is impossible to compare art and science with one another in the way in which our art- istorians compare them; for art -- the art of genius -- "is always at its goal," as Schopenhauer has finely remarked; there is no progress beyond Homer, beyond Michael Angelo or Bach; science, on the other hand, is essentially "cumulative" and every investigator stands on the shoulders of his predecessor. The modest Purbach paves the way for that marvel Regiomontanus and the latter makes Copernicus possible, upon his work Kepler and Galilei (who was born in the year in which Michael Angelo died) build, and upon theirs Newton. According to what criterion are we to determine the "best fruit" here? A single consideration will show how invalid artificial determination from a priori constructions is. The great discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magalhaes, &c., are the fruits of exact scientific work. Toscanelli (born 1397), the adviser of Columbus and probable instigator of the voyage to the west, was an excellent, learned astronomer and cosmographer, who undertook to prove the spherical shape of the earth, and whose map of the Atlantic Ocean, which Columbus used on his first voyage, is a marvel of knowledge and intuition. The Florentine Amerigo Vespucci was taught by him, and thus enabled to map the first exact topographical details of the American coast. Yet that would not have sufficed. But for the wonderfully exact astronomical almanacs of Regiomontanus which, on the basis of his observations of the stars and of new methods, he had calculated and printed for the period 1475-1506, no transatlantic voyage would have been possible; from Columbus onwards every geographical discoverer had them on board. [26] I should have thought that the discovery of the earth, which coincides exactly with the greatest splendour of plastic art in Italy, was in itself a "fruit," just as worthy of our appreciation as a Madonna of Raphael; science, in preparing the way for and making art possible, can hardly be said to have limped on behind, but rather to have preceded art.

If we continued step by step to criticise our art-historian, we should still have much to say concerning him; but now we have shown the total invalidity of the basis of his further assertions, we may throw open door and window and let the sunshine of glorious reality and the fresh air of impetuous development clear the stuffy atmosphere of a philosophy of history, in which the past remains obscure and the present insignificant. I may therefore briefly summarise the further facts that go to refute his theory.

About a hundred and fifty years after Raphael's death -- Kepler and Galilei had been long dead, Harvey recently; Swammerdam was engaged in discovering undreamt-of secrets of anatomy, Newton had already worked out his theory of gravitation, and John Locke in his fortieth year was just undertaking the scientific analysis of the human mind -- a poem was written, of which Goethe has said: "If poetry were altogether lost to the world, it could be restored by means of this work"; that must be, I should think, art of genius in the most superlative sense! The artist was Calderon, the work his Steadfast Prince. [27] Such extravagant praise from so capable and level-headed a critic as Goethe makes us feel that the creative power of Art in the seventeenth century had not declined. We shall doubt it the less when we consider that Newton, the contemporary of Calderon, might have seen Rembrandt at work, and perhaps -- I do not know -- did see him; if he had travelled in Germany, he might equally have seen the great musician of the Thomas-kirche produce one of his Passions, and doubtless he saw or knew Handel, who had settled in England long before Newton's death. This brings us past the middle of the eighteenth century. In the year of Handel's death, Gluck was at the zenith of his power, Mozart was born and Goethe had written a great deal, not for the world, but for his brother Jakob, who died young, and he had just become, in consequence of the presence of the French in Frankfort, acquainted with the theatre before and behind the scenes; before the close of the same year Schiller saw the light of the world. These few hasty indications -- and I have not mentioned the rich artistic life of England, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, and from the latter to Hogarth and Byron, nor the fine creations of France, from the invention of Gothic architecture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to the great Racine -- prove quite clearly that in no century, since our new world began to arise, have there been lacking a deep-felt need of art, widespread artistic genius and its revelation in glorious masterpieces. Calderon does not stand alone, as we have just seen: what Goethe said of his Steadfast Prince he might just as well have said of Shakespeare's Macbeth; and in the meantime the purest of all the arts -- that art which was to give the Teutonic poets the instrument they required for the full expression of their thought -- music -- gradually attained a perfection undreamt of before, and produced one genius after the other. This reveals the invalidity of the assertion that art and science exclude each other: an assertion which rests partly upon an altogether capricious and wrong definition of the term "art," partly upon ignorance of historical facts and traditional perversity of judgment.

If there is a century which deserves to be called the "scientific" century, it is the sixteenth; we find this view of Goethe's confirmed by the authority of Justus Liebig (p. 320); but the sixteenth is the century of Raphael, Michael Angelo and Titian, its beginning saw Leonardo and its end Rubens, the century of natural science above all others was therefore also a century incomparably rich in plastic art. But all these divisions should be rejected as artificial and senseless. [28] There are no such things as centuries except in our imagination, and there is no relation between art and science except one of indirect mutual advancement. There is only one great unfettered power, busily active in all spheres simultaneously, the power of a definite race. This power is, of course, hindered or furthered now here, now there, frequently by purely external chance events, often by great ideas and the influence of pre-eminent personalities. Thus Italian painting developed importance and independence under the direct influence of Francis of Assisi, and of the great churches of which his order encouraged the building with frescoes for the instruction of the ignorant; then in Germany in consequence of almost three hundred years of war, devastation and inner strife, the interest in and capacity for plastic art gradually waned, because that, more than any other art, requires wealth and peace, in order that it may live; or to give another example, the circumnavigation of the world supplied a great impetus to astronomical studies (p. 284), while the rise of the Jesuits put a complete stop to the growth of science in Italy (p. 193). All this the historian -- and the art-historian as well -- can and should show us, by means of concrete facts, instead of dimming our judgment by impotent generalisations.
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Re: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston St

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Part 2 of 3

ART AS A WHOLE

And yet we require generalisations; without them there is no knowledge, and hence, until the arrival of the eagerly expected Bichat of the history of culture, we sway backwards and forwards between false general views, which reveal every individual fact in a wrong perspective, and correct individual judgments, which we are unable so to unite that knowledge, i.e., an understanding embracing all phenomena, may be thereby derived. But I hope the whole preceding exposition, from the first chapter of this book onwards, will have provided us with sufficient material to complete our makeshift bridge here. The fundamental facts of knowledge now lie so clearly before us and have been regarded from so many sides that I do not require to offer excuses for an almost aphoristic brevity.

In order to understand the history and the importance of art in succession of time and amid other phenomena of life, the first and absolute condition is that we consider it as a whole, and do not fix our attention solely on this or that fragment -- as, for example, "the sphere of manual production" -- and philosophise over that. [29]

Wherever and in whatever way there is free, creative reshaping of the inner and outer material presented by nature, there we have art. As art implies freedom and creative power, it demands personality; a work which does not bear the stamp of a peculiar distinct individuality is not a work of art. Now personalities are distinct not only in physiognomy, but also in degree; here (as elsewhere in nature) the difference in degree merges at a certain point into specific difference, so that we are justified in asserting with Kant that the genius is specifically different from the ordinary man. [30] This is nowhere so apparent as in art, which in the works of authentic geniuses becomes a kind of second nature, and is consequently, like it, imperishable, incalculable, inexplicable and inimitable. Yet in every personality which is free, that is, capable of originality, there is affinity to genius; this is seen in the fine appreciation of the art of genius, in the enthusiasm which it arouses, in the stimulus which it gives to creative activity, in its influence upon the work of men who are not in the true sense of the word artists. Not only does the art of the inspired man live in an atmosphere of artistic creation in which genius has preceded him, is his contemporary, and will live after him, but genius stretches out its roots to the most remote spheres, drawing in nourishment from all sides and conveying vitality wherever it goes. I point to Leonardo and to Goethe. Here we can see with our eyes how the artistic gift, overflowing all boundaries, expands its fructifying power over every field that the intellect of man can till. If we look more closely, we shall be no less astonished at the way in which these men draw fresh inspiration from the most varied and widely differing sources; the fostering soil of Goethe's inspiration extends from comparative osteology to the philologically exact criticism of the Hebrew Thora; that of Leonardo from the inner anatomy of the human body to the actual execution of those magnificent canals of which Goethe dreamt in his old days. Are we just to such men, if we measure and codify their artistic capacity according to what they have achieved within the four corners of "fixed patterns"? Are we to allow intellectual pigmies to clamber down from their Darwinian monkey-tree and reproach these men for going" beyond their own particular "speciality in art"? Certainly not. "Only as creator can man be really worthy of our reverence," said Schiller. [31] Leonardo's and Goethe's views on nature and their philosophic thoughts are by their creative character most certainly "worthy of reverence"; they are Art.

What is here visibly manifest, because in these exceptional men we can directly observe in the same individual the capacity for giving and receiving, goes on everywhere by manifold mediation, though for that very reason it remains unnoticed. Everything can be a source of artistic inspiration, and on the other hand, often where, in the hurry of life, we least expect it, successes are achieved which must be attributed in the last instance to artistic inspiration. Nothing is more receptive than human creative power. It takes impressions from everywhere, and for it a new impression means a new addition not only to its material, but also to its creative capacity, because, as I said on p. 78 (vol. i.) and pp. 273 and 326 (vol. ii.), nature alone, and not the human mind, is inventive and gifted with genius. There is therefore a close connection between knowledge and art, and the great artist (we see it from Homer to Goethe) is always specially eager to learn. But art gives back with interest what it receives; by a thousand often hidden channels it influences philosophy, science, religion, industry, life, but especially the possibility of knowledge. As Goethe says: "Men as a whole are better adapted to art than to science. The former belongs in the largest measure to themselves, the latter in the largest measure to the world; -- so we must necessarily conceive science as art, if we expect from it any kind of completeness." [32] Thus, for instance, Kant's Theory of the Heavens is just as artistic a work as Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants, and that not only on the positive side, as a creative benefit to mankind, but also negatively, in so far as all such summaries are, in spite of the instruments of mathematics, human creations, that is to say, myths.

I therefore postulate as our first principle that art must be considered as a whole, and in saying this I maintain that I have laid down an important rule. Artistic handicraft belongs altogether to Industry, i.e., to the department of civilisation; it can flourish (as among the Chinese) without a trace of creative power being present; Art, on the other hand, as element of culture (in the various branches of the Indo-European family) is like the life- blood throbbing through the whole higher intellectual life. In order to form a correct historical estimate of our art, we must first of all comprehend the unity of the impulse -- which proceeds from the innermost emotions of the personality -- then we must trace the manifold exchange of giving and taking in all its minutest ramifications. I said on p. 233 it is only the man who surveys the whole that can establish distinctions within that whole; and a true history of art cannot be built up by piecing together the various so-called "forms of art"; we must rather first of all obtain a view of art as a uniform whole and trace it to where it merges with other phenomena of life into a still greater whole; only then are we in a position to judge correctly the importance of its individual manifestations.

This then is the first general principle.

THE PRIMACY OF POETRY

The second fundamental principle draws the indispensable narrower circle; all genuinely artistic creation is subject to the absolute primacy of poetry. For the most part I can rest content with referring to what has been said on p. 506 f. The reader will find further confirmation everywhere. Thus Springer shows that the first movements of plastic creative power among the Teutons (about the tenth century) did not occur where men copied former patterns of plastic art, but where their imagination had been awakened to free creation by poetical works -- chiefly by the Psalms and legends; immediately "there reveals itself a remarkable poetic power of perception, it penetrates the object and envelops even abstract conceptions with a tangible body." [33] The plastic artist, then, becomes productive when he can give form to figures which the poet has conjured up before his imagination. Of course the plastic artist receives many a creative inspiration which has not first been conveyed to him by the pen of the poet; a brilliant example is presented by the almost incalculable influence of Francis of Assisi; but we must not overlook the fact that it is not only what is written that is poetry. Poetical creative power slumbers in many breasts and in many forms; "the real inventor was in all times the people alone; the individual cannot invent, he only makes himself master of what has been already invented." [34] Scarcely had this wonderful personality of Francis vanished, when the people transformed and transfigured it to an ideal figure; and it is this ideal poetical figure that stimulated Cimabue, Giotto and those who followed after them. But the lesson to be drawn from this example is not yet exhausted. An art-historian, who has made the influence of Francis upon plastic art the subject of the most minute studies, and who must be inclined rather to over-estimate, than under-estimate that 'influence, namely, Professor Henry Thode, calls attention to the fact that only to a certain degree did this influence have a creative effect such a religious movement rouses the slumbering depths of the personality, but in itself offers the eye little material and still less form; in order that the plastic art of Italy should grow to full strength, a new impulse had to be given, and that was the work of the poets. [35] It was Dante who taught the Italians to create; and not he only, but also the poetry of antiquity which had been unearthed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Naturally we must not take a narrow view of this fact; while the illuminator of the tenth century may get his inspiration for free creation by following a psalm verse by verse, at a later time such an illustrator is little valued, freer invention is demanded; in every sphere the artist rises to ever increasing independence; but his independence is determined by the development and the power of all-embracing Poetry.

This is an appropriate place for introducing Lessing's important theory, that poetry and music are one single art, that the two together form true poetry. That is the starting-point for an understanding of Teutonic art, including plastic art; whoever carelessly overlooks this fact will never reach the purity of truth. To what has been already said (p. 510 f.) I require only to add a few words by way of an indispensable supplement.

TEUTONIC MUSIC

Wherever we find highly developed, creative poetry among Teutonic peoples, there too we find a developed tone-art, which is intimately bound up with it. I shall mention only three characteristic features of the Aryan Indians. Bharata, the legendary inventor of their most popular art, namely, the Drama, is looked upon also as the author of the Foundations of Musical Instruction, for in India music was an integral part of dramatic works; lyric poets were wont to give the melody along with the verses, and when they did not do so they at least indicated in what key each poem was to be rendered. These two features bear eloquent witness; -- a third clearly illustrates the development of technique. The old method, which was universal in all Europe, of designating the musical scale do, re, mi, &c., is derived from India, transmitted through Erania. Thus we see how intimately associated music and poetry were, and what a part the knowledge of music played in life. [36] I need not add anything concerning the music of the Hellenes. Herder says: " Among the Greeks poetry and music were but one work, one splendour of the human mind." [37] In another passage he says: "The Greek theatre was Song; everything was arranged with a view to that; and whoever does not understand this has heard nothing of the Greek theatre." [38] On the other hand, where there was no poetry, as among the ancient Romans, there too music was absent. At a late hour they obtained a substitute for both, and Ambros mentions, as especially characteristic, the circumstance that the chief instrument of the Romans was the pipe, whereas among the Indians, harps, lutes, and other stringed instruments formed the chief stock; this fact tells the whole tale. Ambros points out that the Romans never demanded more of music than that "it should be pleasant and should delight the ear" (practically the same standpoint as that of most of our men of letters and aesthetic critics); on the other hand, they were never able to comprehend the lofty intellectual significance which all Greeks, artists and philosophers alike, attributed to this very art. And so they were the first to have the melancholy courage to write Odes (i.e., songs) which were not meant to be sung. In the later Imperial age, in music as in other things, there was aroused an interest in virtuosity and aimless dilettantism; this was the work of the Chaos of Peoples which was beginning to assert itself. [39] These facts need no commentary. But one thing that does require comment is the fact already alluded to, that the prominence of musical talent is an intellectual characteristic of the Teutons -- which of necessity implies a new and special development of Poetry, and with it of Art in general. The contrast presented by other Indo-European races will be instructive on this subject. Certainly the Indians too seem to have been highly gifted musically, but with them everything merged and lost itself in something Prodigious, Over-complex, and, therefore, Shapeless. Thus they distinguished nine hundred and sixty different keys and so made a complete technical development impossible. [40] The Hellenes erred by going to the other extreme; they possessed a scientifically complete but narrowly limiting musical theory, and their music developed in such a direct and inseparable alliance with their poetry -- music being, as it were, the living body of the words-that it never attained to any independence, and for that reason never to a higher life of expression. The linguistic expression always formed the basis of Hellenic music; on that, and not on purely musical considerations, the Greeks built up even the melody; and instead of constructing, as we do, the harmonic structure from the bottom upwards (this is not of course caprice, but is based on the facts of acoustics, namely, the presence of harmonising overtones), the Greeks constructed from the top downwards. With them the melody of speech was supreme, and it was independent, unfettered by considerations of the musical structure; it was, so to speak, "speech sung"; and the instrumental accompaniment, which was devoid of all independence, was linked on as something subordinate. Even those who are not musicians will understand that on such a basis the ear could not be trained and music could not grow into an independent art; music remained under these circumstances an indispensable artistic element rather than a creative art. [41] What therefore in the case of the Indians was frustrated by excessive refinement of the ear, was from the first impossible to the Hellenes in consequence of the subordination of the musical sense in favour of the linguistic expression. Schiller has laid down the decisive law: "Music must become form"; the possibility of this was first realised among the Teutons.

By what means the Teuton succeeded in making music an art -- his art -- and in developing it to ever growing independence and capacity of expression, may be studied by the reader in histories of music. But, as we are here considering art as a whole, I must call his attention to one great drawback in such histories. Since music is essentially the revelation of something inexpressible, we can "say" little or nothing about it; histories of music shrink, therefore, in the main, into a discussion of things technical. In histories of the plastic arts this is not so much the case; plans, photographs, facsimiles give us a direct view of the objects; moreover, the handbooks of the plastic arts contain only so much of the technical as every intelligent person can at once understand, whereas musical technique requires special study. The comparison with histories of poetry is just as unfavourable to music. For in these we are hardly told that there is such a thing as technique, its discussion is limited to the narrowest circles of the learned; knowledge of the history of poetry is acquired directly from the poetical works themselves. Thus the various branches of art are presented to us in totally different historical perspectives, and this makes it very difficult to acquire a view of art as a whole. It is our business, therefore, mentally to rearrange our historical knowledge of art; and in this respect it is useful to know that there is no art in which -- in the living work -- technique is so absolutely a matter of indifference as in music. The theory of music is altogether abstract, the technique of musical instruments quite mechanical; both run, as it were, parallel to art, but stand in no other relation to it than the theory of perspective or the handling of the brush to the picture. So far as instrumental technique is concerned, it consists solely of the training of certain muscles of the hands, arms, or, it may be, of the face, or of the appropriate drilling of the vocal chords; all else that is necessary -- intuitive understanding of what has been felt by another, and expression -- cannot be taught, and it is just this that is music. It is the same with theory; the greatest musical genius -- the Hungarian gipsy -- does not know what a note, an interval, or a key is, and the most profound musical theorists among the Greeks possessed as little musical talent as the physicist Helmholtz; they were not artists, but mathematicians. [42] For music is the only art which is non-allegorical, it is, therefore, the purest, the most perfectly "artistic," that in which the human being comes nearest to an absolute creator; for the same reason its influence is direct; it transforms the listener into a "fellow-creator"; when taking in musical impressions, everyone is a genius; hence the Technical disappears completely in this case, indeed we may almost say that at the moment of execution it does not exist. The consequence is that in music, where we hear most about it, technique possesses the least significance. [43]

Still more important for the historical estimate of art as a whole is the following point, which is again based upon Lessing and Herder and their theory of the one Art, namely, that music has never been able to develop itself apart from poetry. Even in the case of the Hellenes, it is a striking fact that, in spite of their great gifts and their brilliance as theorists, they were never able to emancipate and develop music where it was cultivated apart from poetry (e.g., in the dance). On the other hand, we shall see that all Indian music, so rich and varied instrumentally, develops round song as a kind of frame, and as a manifold deepening of the expression. The gipsy of our day never plays anything but what is based upon some definite song; if you say to him that you do not like the melody, that it does not suit the mood of the moment, he will invent a new one, or transform the already known one (as the modern musician his "motives") into something psychically different; but, if you ask him freely to extemporise, he does not know what that means; and he is right, for a music not based upon a definite poetical mood is a mere juggling with vibrations. Now if we carefully follow the development of Teutonic music, we shall discover a fact which is certainly unknown and will be surprising to most of our contemporaries, namely, that from the first it has developed in the most direct dependence upon, and intimately bound up with, poetry. Not only was all old Teutonic poetry at the same time music, not only were all. Troubadours and Minnesingers just as much musicians as poets, but when, from the beginning of the eleventh century onwards, with Guido of Arezzo our music began its triumphant progress towards technical perfection and undreamt-of richness of expressive power it remained throughout the whole development Song. The training of the ear, the gradual discovery of harmonic possibilities, the wonderful artistic structure of counterpoint, by which music, so to speak, builds itself a home in which it can rule as mistress; all this we have not thought out independently, like the Grecian theorists, nor invented in an instrumental ecstasy, as those enthusiastic visionaries who dream of an "absolute" music imagine; -- we have attained it by song. Guido himself expressed the opinion that the path of the philosophers was not for him, he was interested solely in the improvement of church-singing and the training of the singers. For centuries there was no music but what was song or the accompaniment of song. And though this singing sometimes seems to treat the words rather arbitrarily and violently; though the expression often disappears in favour of polyphonic effects in counterpoint -- only one really great master needs to come and then we learn the purpose of it all: namely, technical mastery of material in the interest of expressive power. Thus our music develops from master to master; the technique of composition more and more perfect, the singers and instrumentalists more and more accomplished, the musical genius consequently more and more free. Even of Josquin de Pres his contemporaries said: "Others had to submit their will to the notes, but Josquin is a master of notes, they must do as he wills." [44] And what was his aim? Whoever has not the privilege of hearing works of this glorious master should read Ambros (iii. 211 f.) to learn how he not only maintained the whole mood of every poetical work, a Miserere, a Te Deum, a Motette, a joyful (sometimes very frivolous) many part song, &c., but also gave the full significance to the purport of the words, and kept bringing them forward again and again, wherever necessary, not for mere fun's sake, but in order to convey to the feelings the poetical meaning of the words in all their aspects. Everyone knows Herder's fine remark: "Germany was reformed by songs"; [45] we may say, music itself was reformed by songs. If this were the proper place, I should make it my business to prove that even at a later time, when pure instrumental technique had arisen, genuine Teutonic music never moved further away from poetry "than the rose can be carried in bloom," for as soon as music desires complete independence, it loses the vital spark; it can indeed continue to move in forms already attained, but it contains no creative, moulding principles. That is why Herder -- that truly great aesthetic critic -- sounds a note of warning: "May the Muse save us from a mere poetry of ear!" For such poetry, in his opinion, leads to shapelessness and makes the soul "useless and dull." [46] Still more clearly has the great tone-poet of the nineteenth century explained the connection: "Music, even at the highest climax, when raised to its highest point, is only feeling; it comes in as the companion of the moral act, but not as act itself; it can represent feelings and moods side by side, but it cannot, as the need arises, develop one mood from another; it lacks the moral will." [47] And hence, even during that century which stretches from Haydn's birth to Beethoven's death and produced the greatest splendour of instrumental music, there has never been a musical genius who did not devote a great, if not the greatest, part of his artistic activity to the calling to life of poetical works. That is true of all composers before Bach, it is true in the highest degree of Bach himself, likewise of Handel, of Haydn in a scarcely less degree, of Gluck in every respect, of Mozart both in his artistic achievements and in his words, also of Beethoven, though in his case seemingly less so, because with him pure instrumental music has reached such a pitch of precision that, with the courage of desperation, it dared to create a poetry of its own; but Beethoven came ever nearer and nearer to poetry, either by descriptive music or by the preference given to vocal compositions. I do not dispute the justification of pure instrumental music -- Lessing expressly guards against any such mistake -- I am an enthusiastic admirer of it, and I regard chamber music (when played in a room, not in a concert hall) as one of the greatest blessings that enrich our intellectual life; but I insist that all such music draws its breath from the achievements of the song, and that every single extension and increase of musical expression always proceeds from that music, which is subject to the "moral will" of the creative poet. We have become aware of this once more in the nineteenth century. A fact that should not be overlooked, as it often is, when we are estimating art as a whole, is that, even in the works of so-called absolute music, the poet always stands, frequently indeed unperceived, beside the musician. Had this music not grown up under the wing of the poet, we should be unable to understand it, and even now it cannot dispense with the poet, it only turns to the listener and begs him to take the place of the poet, which he can only do so long as music does not leave the sphere of what is known to him by analogy. Goethe describes it as a general characteristic of Teutonic poetry in contrast to Hellenic:

Hier fordert man Euch auf zu eigenem Dichten,
Von Euch verlangt man eine Welt zur Welt. [48]


In no sphere is that more true than in that of our instrumental music. A really, literally "absolute" music would be a monster without an equal; for it would be an expression which expresses nothing.

It is impossible ever to gain a clear conception of our whole artistic development if we do not first arm ourselves with a critical knowledge of Teutonic music, in order to turn back to the consideration of poetry in its widest compass. It is only in this way that Lessing's remark, "Poetry and music are one and the same art," becomes really intelligible, and that light is thrown on our whole history of art. In the first place, it is manifest that we must regard our great musicians as poets if we are to be just to them and thereby help our own understanding; in the sphere of Teutonic poetry they occupy a place of honour; no poet in the world is greater than Johann Sebastian Bach. No art but music could have given artistic shape to the Christian religion, for it alone could catch up and reflect the glance into the soul (see p. 512) ; how poor in this respect is a Dante in comparison with a Bach! And this specifically Christian character passes from the works, in which the Gospel finds expression, to other, purely instrumental ones (an example of the previously mentioned analogous procedure); the Wohltemperierte Klavier, for example, is in this respect one of the most sublime works of humanity, and I could name a Prelude from it, in which the words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" -- or rather, not the words but the divine frame of mind which gave birth to them -- have found so clear, so touching an expression that every other art must despair of ever attaining this pure effect. But what we here call Christian is at the same time specifically Teutonic, so we are in a certain sense justified in asserting that our truest and greatest poets are our great musicians. This is especially true of Germany, where, as Beethoven has strikingly said, "Music is a national need." [49] At the same time, we notice in our poetry, even apart from music, a leaning or rather an irresistible impulse towards development in the musical direction, an impulse whose deeper meaning becomes clear to us. The introduction of rhyme, for example, which was unknown to the ancients, is no accident; it springs from the musical need. Still more significant is the magnificent musical sense which we find in our poets. Read those two wonderful pages in Carlyle where he shows that Dante's Divina Commedia is music everywhere; music in the architectonic structure of the three parts, music not only in the rhythm of the words, but as he says, "in the rhythm of the thoughts," music in the fervour and passion of the feelings; "go deep enough, there is music everywhere!" [50] Our poets are all musicians; the greater they are, the more manifest does this become. Hence Shakespeare is a musical artist of inexhaustible wealth, and Calderon in his way no less so. Just as the learned musical philologist, Westphal, has pointed out in Bach and Beethoven the most complicated rhythm of the Hellenic stanza, so in the Spanish drama we find a preference for musically interlaced lines, we might almost say for tricks of counterpoint. From Petrarch to Byron, moreover, we notice an inclination on the part of the lyric poet to develop more and more the purely musical element, and this is due to the felt lack of music. Regarding Goethe's lyric poems, more than one musician of fine feeling has said that they could not be composed, they were already in all respects music. In reality, for a long time we have been in a peculiar position. Poetry and music are by nature destined to be one and the same art, and now in the most musical race in the world they have been separated! The musician, it is true, has developed more and more strength in the strictest dependence upon poetry, but the song of the word-poet has gradually grown silent, until his words have come to be mere printed letters, to be read silently; and so the word-poet has had to save himself either by didactic subjects or by those circumstantial, impossible descriptions of things, to which music alone can do justice, or has devoted all his energy to the task of creating music without music. This misrelation has been particularly noticeable in dramatic art, the living centre of all poetry. "Les poetes dramatiques sont les poetes par excellence," says Montesquieu; [51] but they were deprived of the mightiest dramatic instrument of expression just at the moment when it had attained a power undreamt of before. Herder has given voice to this in words of touching eloquence: "If a Greek, accustomed to the musical atmosphere of Greek tragedy, were to go to see ours, he would find it a melancholy spectacle. How dumb with all the wealth of words, he would say, how depressing, how toneless! Have I entered an adorned tomb? You shout and sigh and bluster! You move the arms, make faces, wrangle, declaim! Does your voice and feeling never burst forth in song? Do you never feel the want of this all-powerful expression? Does your rhythm, your iambus, never invite you to utter the accents of the true divine speech?" [52] This state of affairs was, and still is, really tragical. Not that an "absolute poetry," which only "supposes" the musician, as Lessing says, is not as justifiable as an absolute music -- indeed it is much more so; that is, however, not the point; the important thing is to note that our natural musical craving, our need of an expression which only music can give, has forcibly influenced even those poetical works and those poets who stood apart from music. This has of course been felt most profoundly in Germany, where music has reached an incomparable development. From the passages quoted, it is clear how disapprovingly Lessing regarded the void in Teutonic poetry and how keenly it was felt by Herder. But many a reader will attach still more value to the sentiments of their great creative contemporaries. Schiller tells us of himself: "With me a certain musical mood precedes, and after this comes the poetical idea"; [53] several of his works are directly inspired by definite musical impressions, the Jungfrau von Orleans by the production of a work of Gluck. The feeling that "the drama leans to music" constantly occupies his mind. In a letter to Goethe on December 29, 1797, he sifts the matter thoroughly: "In order to exclude from a work of art all that is alien to its class, we must necessarily be able to include everything which belongs to the class. And it is just this that is at present impossible (to the tragic poets).... The capacity of feeling which the audience possesses must be fully occupied and affected at all points; the measure of this capacity is the standard for the poets"; and at the close of his letter he rests his hope upon music and expects it to fill up the gap so painfully felt in the modern drama. Music on the stage he knew only in the shape of opera, and he expected and hoped "that from it, as from the choruses of the ancient Bacchic festival, tragedy would develop in a nobler form." As for Goethe, the musical element in his work -- I mean what is related to, and saturated with music -- reveals itself forcibly at every step, and without calling attention to the frequent use of music in his drama, pointed with the stage direction "ahnend seltene Gefuhle" (expressing intense feeling) and the like, we could easily prove that even the conception of his plays indicates motives, principles, and aims which belong to the innermost sphere of music. Faust is altogether music; not only because, as Beethoven says, music flows from the words, for this is only true of individual fragments, but because every situation, from the study to the chorus mysticus, has, in the fullest sense of the word, been "musically" conceived. The older he grew the more highly did Goethe value music. He was of the same opinion as Herder and Lessing regarding the relations of word-poetry to tone-poetry, and he expressed this in his own inimitable way: "Poetry and music alternately compel and free each other." Regarding the ethical value of music he says: "The dignity of art appears perhaps most pre-eminently in music, because it contains nothing which has to be subtracted; it is all form and quality, elevating and ennobling everything that it expresses." For this reason he would have made music the centre of all education: " For from it there emanate smoothly paved paths in all directions." [54]

THE TENDENCY OF MUSIC

Goethe having taught us that from music, which means poetry wedded to music, smooth paths run in all directions, we have reached an eminence from which we can gain a wide view of the growth of our whole art. For we have already recognised that poetry is the alma mater of all creative art, no matter in what form it reveals itself; and now we see that our Teutonic poetry has passed through a peculiar, individual development, which stands by itself without any analogy in history. The extraordinary development of music, i.e., of the art of poetical expression, cannot but have exercised influence upon our plastic arts. For just as it was the Homeric word that taught the Hellenes to raise defined claims to artistic work, and to bring their rude statuary to the perfection of art, so music has taught our Teutonic races to make higher demands in regard to the power of expression in every art. In the sense which I hope is now quite clear, full of meaning, and free from all claptrap, we may call this tendency of taste and of productive activity the tendency of music. It is organically connected with that bent of our nature which makes us Idealists in philosophy, and in religion followers of Jesus Christ, and which, in the form of artistic creation, finds its purest expression in music. Our ways differ, therefore, from the ways of the Hellenes, a fact to which I shall return when I have exhausted this other important point; not that the Hellenes were unmusical -- we know the contrary -- but their music was extremely simple, meagre and subordinate to the text, while ours is polyphonous, powerful, and all too inclined, in the storm of passion, to sweep away every constant verbal form. I think it would be an apt comparison to say of an engraving of Durer or of a Medician tomb by Michael Angelo, that they were polyphonous works in contrast to the strict "homophony" of the Greeks, which, be it noted, applies even to representations, where, as in friezes, numerous figures are represented in rapid motion. In order to give right expression to feelings, music must be polyphonous; for while thought is essentially simple, feeling on the contrary is so complex that at the same moment it can harbour essentially different, indeed directly contradictory emotions such as hope and despair. It is foolish to try to draw theoretical boundaries, but we may gain insight into the various nature of relative tendencies if we realise the following fact: where, as in the case of the Greeks, the word alone gives shape to poetry, there in the plastic arts transparent, homophonous clearness, with colder, more abstract, allegorical expression, will predominate; whereas, on the other hand, when the musical incentive to direct, inner expression exercises great influence upon creative work, there we shall find polyphonous designs and interlacing lines, bound up with a symbolical power of expression which defies analysis by means of logic. It is only when we keep this in mind that the trite phrase of an affinity between Gothic architecture and music receives a living, conceivable meaning; but at the same time we cannot help seeing that the architecture of Michael Angelo, who has so thorough an affinity to music, and of the Florentines as a whole, is just as "musical" as the Gothic. The comparison, however, in spite of Goethe, fails to hit the mark; we must look somewhat deeper, to see the musical element at work in all our arts. One of the finest judges of plastic arts in recent years, Walter Pater, who was in addition a man of classical culture and tendencies, comes to the following conclusion regarding Teutonic art: "All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.... Music, then, and not poetry, as is so often supposed, is the true type or measure of perfected art. Therefore, although each art has its incommunicable element, its untranslatable order of impressions, its unique mode of reaching the imaginative reason,' yet the arts may be represented as continually struggling after the law or principle of music to a condition which music alone completely realises...." [55]

NATURALISM

If, however, we have gained anything towards a more profound understanding of art and its history, we still should occupy a one-sided and therefore misleading position if we were to let the matter rest there; we must leave the one pinnacle which we have reached in order to Cross over to another. When we say that our art aspires towards that expression which is the very vital essence of music, we characterise thereby the inner element of art; but art has also an outer side; indeed, even music becomes, as Carlyle has aptly remarked, "quite demented and seized with delirium whenever it departs completely from the reality of perceptible, actual things." [56] The same principle applies to art and to the individual man; in thought we may separate an Inner principle and an Outer, in practice it is impossible; for we know no inner principle but what is presented by means of an Outer. Indeed, we can confidently assert that a work at art, in the first instance, consists solely of an Exterior. I call to mind the words of Schiller discussed on p. 16 (vol. i.). The beautiful is indeed "life" in so far as it awakens in us feelings, i.e., actions, but to begin with it is merely "form," which we "look at." If then, when contemplating Michael Angelo's Night and Twilight, I experience so profound and intense an emotion that 1 can only compare it with the impression of intoxicating music, that is, as Schiller says, my "action"; not every soul would have thrilled in the same way; many a man might have admired the symmetry and composition, without feeling an emotion like the presentiment of eternity; he would, in fact, have merely "looked at" the work. But if the artist really succeeds in moving the spectator by the sense of sight -- in awakening life by form, how high we must estimate the importance of form! In a certain sense we may simply say, Art is form. And when Goethe calls art "an interpreter of the Inexpressible," we may add the commentary; only that which is Spoken can interpret the Unspeakable, only the Seen that which is not seen. It is precisely the Spoken and the Visible -- not the Inexpressible and the Invisible -- that constitute art. It is not the expression that is art, but that which interprets the expression. From this it is clear that no question in regard to art is more important than that which deals with the "Exterior," that is to say, with the principle of artistic shaping.

This question is much simpler than the previous one; for the "musical tendency" discussed in the former section, deals with something Inexpressible, it aims at the condition of the artist, as Schiller would say, at the innermost essence of his personality, and shows what qualities we must possess in order not merely to contemplate, but also to feel his work, and in such matters it is difficult to express oneself clearly; in the present case, on the contrary, we have to deal with visible form. I think we may be very concise and simply lay down the law that genuine Teutonic art is naturalistic; where it is not so, it has been forced by exterior influences from its own straight path prescribed to it by the tendencies of our race. We have already seen (p. 302) that our science is "naturalistic" and therefore essentially different from the Hellenic, anthropomorphic, abstract science. Here we may safely proceed by analogy, for we are drawing a conclusion from ourselves about ourselves, and we have discovered in ourselves the same tendency of mind in very widely differing spheres. I refer especially to the second half of the section on "Philosophy." The unanimous endeavours of our greatest thinkers were directed to the freeing of visible nature from all those limitations and interpretations which the superstition, fear, hope, blind logic or systematising mania of man had piled so high around it that it was no longer visible. On the other side were love of nature, faithful observation, patient questioning; we realised too that it is nature alone that nurtures and develops our thoughts and dreams, our knowledge and imagination. How could so positive a tendency, which we find in no other human race either of the past or the present, remain without influence upon art? No, however much many appearances may tend to mislead us, our art has been from its birth naturalistic, and wherever we see it in the past or at the present resolutely turning to nature, there we may be sure that it is on the right path.

I know that this assertion will be much disputed; our very nurses instil into us a horror of naturalism in art, and inspire us with reverence for a so-called classicism; but I do not propose to defend my position, not only for lack of space, but also because the facts speak too convincingly to require any commentary of mine. Refraining, then, from polemical controversy, I shall, in conclusion, merely elucidate some of these facts from the special standpoint of this book, and show their importance in connection with the work as a whole.

That a gloriously healthy, strong naturalism asserted itself opportunely in Italian sculpture is brought home to us laymen by the fact that -- though in Italy especially, and in this very branch of art, the Antique was bound to paralyse the unfolding of Teutonic individuality- till at the beginning of the fifteenth century Donatello gave such powerful and convincing expression to naturalism that no later, artificially nurtured fashion could destroy its influence. Whoever has seen the Prophets and Kings on the Campanile in Florence, whoever has contemplated that splendid bust of Niccolo da Uzzano, will understand what our art will achieve, and that it has of necessity to follow ways that are different from those of the Hellene. [57] Painting turns immediately to nature (as I remarked on p. 508), when the Tenton has shaken off the Oriental-Roman spirit of priestcraft. Nothing is so touching as to observe the gifted men of the north brought up in the midst of a false civilisation, surrounded and stimulated by the scanty remains of a great but alien art -- following the natural bent of their heart in the track of nature; nothing is too great for them, nothing too small; from the human countenance to the shell of the snail, they faithfully sketch everything, and, in spite of all technical minuteness, they are able "to interpret the Inexpressible." [58] Soon came that great man, whose eye penetrated so deeply into nature, and who should always have remained the model of all plastic artists, Leonardo. "No painter," says a recent historian, "ever emancipated himself so completely from antique tradition ... in only one passage of his numerous writings does he mention the Graeci e Romani, and then only in reference to certain drapings." [59] In his famous Book of Painting Leonardo constantly warns painters to paint everything from nature, and never to rely on their memory (76); even when not standing at the easel, but walking or travelling, it is the duty of the artist ever and unceasingly to study nature; he should pay careful attention to spots on walls, to the ashes of a dead fire, even to mud and dirt (66); his eye would thus become "a mirror," a "second nature" (58a). Albrecht Durer, Leonardo's equal and contemporary, told Melanchthon that in his youth he had admired paintings chiefly as creations of the imagination, and valued his own according to the variety which they contained; "but when an older man he had begun to observe nature and copy her virgin countenance, and had recognised that simplicity was the highest ornament of art." [60] It is well known how minutely Durer studied nature; whoever does not know this should look at his water-colour study of a young hare (No. 3073 of the collection in the Albertina) and that masterpiece of miniature work, the Wing of a Roller (No. 4840). [61] His Large Lawn and his Small Lawn in the same collection show how lovingly he studied the plant-world. Need I also mention Rembrandt to prove that all the greatest artists have pointed in the same direction? Need I show how even in the composition of freely invented pictures representing motion he is so naturalistic, i.e., true to nature, that even to the present day few have had the power and the courage to follow his example? Let me quote an expert; of the Good Samaritan Seidlitz says: "Here we find no strained pathos or forced heroism intended to move the spectator; the figures are completely wrapt up in their own actions, they are perfectly natural. In attitude, mien and gesture everyone of them is fully taken up with what is inwardly moving him." [62] This, as is evident, signifies a high stage of naturalism; psychological truth in place of outwardly formal construction according to pretended laws; no Italian ever reached such a height. For in truth there are "eternal laws" even outside of aesthetic handbooks; the first of them runs, "To thine own self be true!" (vol. i. p. 549). Herein lies the great significance of Rembrandt for us Teutons; for ages to come he will be our landmark, our guide to tell us whether our plastic art is moving along the right and true path or is straying into alien territory. On the other hand, every classical reaction, like the one which set in so violently at the end of the eighteenth century, is a deviation from the right path, the cause of desperate confusion.
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