Goethean Science
GA 1
18. Goethe's World View in his Aphorisms in Prose
[ 1 ] The human being is not content with what nature willingly offers to his observing spirit. He feels that nature, in order to bring forth the manifoldness of its creations, needs driving forces that it at first conceals from the observer. Nature does not itself utter its final word. Our experience shows us what nature can create, but does not tell us how this creating occurs. Within the human spirit itself there lies the means for bringing the driving forces of nature to light. Up out of the human spirit the ideas arise that bring clarification as to how nature brings about its creations. What the phenomena of the outer world conceal becomes revealed within the inner being of man. What the human spirit thinks up in the way of natural laws is not invented and added to nature; it is nature's own essential being, and the human spirit is only the stage upon which nature allows the secrets of its workings to become visible. What we observe about the things is only one part of the things. What wells up within our spirit when it confronts the things is the other part. It is the same things that speak to us from outside and that speak within us. Only when we hold the language of the outer world together with that of our inner being, do we have full reality. What have the true philosophers in every age wanted to do? Nothing other than to make known the essential being of things that the things themselves express when the human spirit offers itself to them as their organ of speech.
[ 2 ] When man allows his inner being to speak about nature, he recognizes that nature falls short of what, by virtue of its driving forces, it could accomplish. The human spirit sees what experience contains, in its more perfect form. It finds that nature with its creations does not achieve its aims. The human spirit feels itself called upon to present these aims in their perfected form. It creates shapes in which it shows: This is what nature wanted to do but could only accomplish to a certain degree. These shapes are the works of art. In them, the human being creates in a perfected way what nature manifests in an imperfect form.
[ 3 ] The philosopher and the artist have the same goal. They seek to give shape to the perfected element that their spirit beholds when it allows nature to work upon it. But they have different media at their command for achieving this goal. For the philosopher, a thought, an idea, lights up within him when he confronts a process in nature. This he expresses. For the artist, a picture of this process arises within him that manifests this process more perfectly than can be observed in the outer world. The philosopher and the artist develop the observation further in different ways. The artist does not need to know the driving forces of nature in the form in which they reveal themselves to the philosopher. When the artist perceives a thing or an occurrence, there arises directly in his spirit a picture in which the laws of nature are expressed in a more perfect form than in the corresponding thing or occurrence in the outer world. These laws do not need to enter his spirit in the form of thoughts. Knowledge and art, however, are inwardly related. They show the potentialities of nature that do not come to full development in merely outer nature.
[ 4 ] When now within the spirit of a genuine artist, not only the perfected pictures of things express themselves, but also the driving forces of nature in the form of thoughts, then the common source of philosophy and art appears with particular clarity before our eyes. Goethe is such an artist. He reveals the same secrets to us in the form of his works of art and in the form of thoughts. What he gave shape to in his poetic works, this he expresses in his essays on natural science and art and in his Aphorisms in Prose83Sprüche in Prosa in the form of thoughts. The deep satisfaction that emanates from these essays and aphorisms stems from the fact that one sees the harmony of art and knowledge realized in one personality. There is something elevating in the feeling, which arises with every Goethean thought, that here someone is speaking who at the same time can behold in a picture the perfected element that he expresses in ideas. The power of such a thought is strengthened by this feeling. That which stems from the highest needs of one personality must inwardly belong together. Goethe's teachings of wisdom answers the question: What kind of philosophy is in accordance with genuine art? I will try to sketch in context this philosophy that is born out of the spirit of a genuine artist.
[ 5 ] The content of thought that springs from the human spirit when it confronts the outer world is truth. The human being cannot demand any other kind of knowledge than one he brings forth himself. Whoever seeks something in addition behind the things that is supposed to signify their actual being has not brought to consciousness the fact that all questions about the essential being of things spring only from a human need: the need, namely, also to penetrate with thought what one perceives. The things speak to us, and our inner being speaks when we observe the things. These two languages stem from the same primal being, and man is called upon to effect their reciprocal understanding. It is in this that what one calls knowledge consists. And it is this and nothing else that a person seeks who understands the needs of human nature. For someone who has not arrived at this understanding, the things of the outer world remain foreign. He does not hear the essential being of things speaking within his inner life. Therefore he supposes that this essential being is hidden behind the things. He believes in yet another outer world in addition, behind the perceptual world. But things are outer things only so long as one merely observes them. When one thinks about them, they cease to be outside of us. One fuses with their inner being. For man, opposition between objective outer perception and subjective inner thought-world exists only as long as he does not recognize that these worlds belong together. Man's inner world is the inner being of nature.
[ 6 ] These thoughts are not refuted by the fact that different people make different mental pictures of things for themselves. Nor by the fact that people's organizations are different so that one does not know whether one and the same colour is seen by different people in exactly the same way. For, the point is not whether people form exactly the same judgment about one and the same thing, but whether the language that the inner being of a person speaks is in fact the language that expresses the essential being of things. Individual judgments differ according to the organization of the person and according to the standpoint from which one observes things; but all judgments spring from the same element and lead into the essential being of things. This can come to expression in different nuances of thought; but it is, nevertheless, still the essential being of things.
[ 7 ] The human being is the organ by which nature reveals its secrets. Within the subjective personality the deepest content of the world appears. “When the healthy nature of man works as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as though in a great, beautiful, worthy, and precious whole, when his harmonious sense of well-being imparts to him a pure, free delight, then the universe, if it could experience itself, would, as having achieved its goal, exult with joy and marvel at the pinnacle of its own becoming and being.” (Goethe, Winckelmann) The goal of the universe and of the essential being of existence does not lie in what the outer world provides, but rather in what lives within the human spirit and goes forth from it. Goethe therefore considers it to be a mistake for the natural scientist to want to penetrate into the inner being of nature through instruments and objective experiments, for “man in himself, insofar as he uses his healthy senses, is the greatest and most accurate physical apparatus that there can be, and that is precisely what is of the greatest harm to modern physics, that one has, as it were, separated experiments from man; one wants to know nature merely through what manmade instruments show, yes, wants to limit and prove thereby what nature can do.” “But man stands at such a high level precisely through the fact that what otherwise could not manifest itself does manifest itself in him. For what is a string and all its mechanical divisions compared to the ear of the musician? Yes, one can say, what are the elemental phenomena of nature themselves compared to man who must first tame and modify them all in order to be able to assimilate them to some extent?”
[ 8 ] Man must allow the things to speak out of his spirit if he wants to know their essential being. Everything he has to say about this essential being is derived from the spiritual experiences of his inner life. The human being can judge the world only from out of himself. He must think anthropomorphically. One brings anthropomorphism into the simplest phenomenon, into the impact of two bodies, for example, when one says something about it. The judgment that “one body strikes another” is already anthropomorphic. For if one wants to go beyond the mere observation of the process, one must bring to it the experience our own body has when it sets a body in the outer world into motion. All physical explanations are hidden anthropomorphisms. One humanizes nature when one explains it; one puts into it the inner experiences of the human being. But these subjective experiences are the inner being of things. And one cannot therefore say that, because man can make only subjective mental pictures for himself about nature, he does not know the objective truth, the “in-itself” of things.84Goethe's views stand in the sharpest possible opposition to Kantian philosophy. The latter takes it start from the belief that the world of mental pictures is governed by the laws of the human spirit and that therefore everything brought from outside to meet this world can be present in this world only as a subjective reflection. Man does not perceive the “in-itself” of things, but rather the phenomenon that arises through the fact that the things affect him and that he connects these effects according to the laws of his intellect and reason. Kant and the Kantians have no inkling of the fact that the essential being of the things speaks through this reason. Therefore the Kantian philosophy could never hold any significance for Goethe. When he acquired for himself some of Kant's principles, he gave them a completely different meaning than they have in the teachings of their originator. It is clear, from a note that only became known after the opening of the Goethe archives in Weimar, that Goethe was very well aware of the antithesis between his world view and the Kantian one. For him, Kant's basic error lies in the fact that he “regards the subjective ability to know as an object itself and, sharply indeed but not entirely correctly, he distinguishes the point where subjective and objective meet.” Subjective and objective meet when man joins together into the unified being of things what the outer world expresses and what can be heard by his inner being. Then, however, the antithesis between subjective and objective entirely ceases to exist; it disappears in this unified reality. I have already indicated this on page 167 ff. of this book. Now K. Vorländer, in the first number of “Kant Studies,” directs a polemic against what I wrote there. He finds that my view about the antithesis between the Goethean and the Kantian world conception is “strongly one-sided at best and stands in contradiction to Goethe's own statements,” and is due to a “complete misunderstanding on my part of Kant's transcendental methods.” Vorländer has no inkling of the world view in which Goethe lived. It would be utterly pointless for me to enter into polemics with him, because we speak a different language. The fact that he never knows what my statements mean shows how clear his thinking is. For example, I make a comment on the following statement of Goethe: “As soon as the human being becomes aware of the objects around him, he regards them with respect to himself, and justifiably so. For, his whole destiny depends upon whether he likes or dislikes them, whether they attract or repel him, whether they help or harm him. This entirely natural way of looking at things and of judging them seems to be as easy as it is necessary ... Those people take on a far more difficult task whose active drive for knowledge strives to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relationships to each other; they seek out and investigate what is and not what pleases.” My comment on this is as follows: “This shows how Goethe's world view is the exact polar opposite of the Kantian one. For Kant, there is absolutely no view of things as they are in themselves, but only of how they appear with respect to us. Goethe considers this view to be a quite inferior way of entering into a relationship with things.” Vorländer's response to this is: “These words of Goethe are not intended to express anything more than, in an introductory way, the trivial difference between what is pleasant and what is true. The researcher should seek out ‘what is and not what pleases.’ It is advisable for someone like Steiner—who dares to say that this latter, in fact very inferior, way of entering into a relationship with things is Kant's way—to first make clear to himself the basic concepts of Kant's teachings: the difference between a subjective and an objective sensation, for example, which is described in such passages as section three of the Critique of the Power of Judgment.” Now, as is clear from my statements, I did not at all say that that way of entering into a relationship with things is Kant's way, but rather that Goethe does not find Kant's understanding of the relationship between subject and object to correspond to the relationship in which man stands toward things when he wants to know how they are in themselves. Goethe is of the view that the Kantian definition does not correspond to human knowing, but only to the relationship into which man enters with things when he regards them with respect to his pleasure or displeasure. Someone who can misunderstand a statement the way Vorländer does would do better to spare himself the trouble of giving advice to other people about their philosophical education, and first acquire for himself the ability to learn to read a sentence correctly. Anyone can look for Goethe quotes and bring them together historically; but Vorländer, in any case, cannot interpret them in the spirit of the Goethean world view. There can absolutely be no question of anything other than a subjective human truth. For, truth consists in putting our subjective experiences into the objective interrelationships of phenomena. These subjective experiences can even assume a completely individual character. They are, nevertheless, the expression of the inner being of things. One can put into the things only what one has experienced within oneself. Thus, each person, in accordance with his individual experiences, will also put something different, in a certain sense, into things. The way I interpret certain processes of nature for myself is not entirely comprehensible for someone else who has not inwardly experienced the same thing. It is not at all a matter, however, of all men having the same thoughts about things, but rather only of their living within the element of truth when they think about things. One cannot therefore observe the thoughts of another person as such and accept or reject them, but rather one should regard them as the proclaimers of his individuality. “Those who contradict and dispute should reflect now and then that not every language is comprehensible to everyone.” A philosophy can never provide a universally valid truth, but rather describes the inner experiences of the philosopher by which he interprets the outer phenomena.
[ 9 ] When a thing expresses its essential being through the organ of the human spirit, then full reality comes about only through the flowing together of the outer objective and the inner subjective. It is neither through one-sided observation nor through one-sided thinking that the human being knows reality. Reality is not present in the objective world as something finished, but rather is only first brought forth by the human spirit in connection with the things. The objective things are only a part of reality. To someone who extols sense experience exclusively, one must reply like Goethe “that experience is only half of experience.” “Everything factual is already theory”; that means, an ideal element reveals itself in the human spirit when he observes something factual. This way of apprehending the world, which knows the essential being of things in ideas and which apprehends knowledge to be a living into the essential being of things, is not mysticism. But it does have in common with mysticism the characteristic that it does not regard objective truth as something that is present in the outer world, but rather as something that can really be grasped within the inner being of man. The opposite world view transfers the ground of things to behind the phenomena, into a region lying beyond human experience. This view can then either give itself over to a blind faith in this ground that receives its content from a positive religion of revelation, or it can set up intellectual hypotheses and theories as to how this realm of reality in the beyond is constituted. The mystic, as well as the adherent of the Goethean world view, rejects both this faith in some “beyond” and all hypotheses about any such region, and holds fast to the really spiritual element that expresses itself within man himself. Goethe writes to Jacobi: “God has punished you with metaphysics and set a thorn in your flesh, but has blessed me, on the other hand, with physics. ... I hold more and more firmly to the reverence for God of the atheist (Spinoza) ... and leave to you everything you call, and would have to call, religion ... When you say that one can only believe in God ... then I say to you that I set a lot of store in seeing.” What Goethe wants to see is the essential being of things that expresses itself within his world of ideas. The mystic also wants to know the essential being of things by immersing himself in his own inner being; but he rejects precisely that innately clear and transparent world of ideas as unsuitable for attaining higher knowledge. He believes he must develop, not his capacity for ideas, but rather other powers of his inner being, in order to see the primal ground of things. Usually it is unclear feelings and emotions in which the mystic wants to grasp the essential being of things. But feelings and emotions belong only to the subjective being of man. In them nothing is expressed about the things. Only in ideas do the things themselves speak. Mysticism is a superficial world view, in spite of the fact that the mystics are very proud of their “profundity” compared to men of reason. The mystics know nothing about the nature of feelings, otherwise they would not consider them to be expressions of the essential being of the world; and they know nothing about the nature of ideas, otherwise they would not consider them shallow and rationalistic. They have no inkling of what people who really have ideas experience in them. But for many people, ideas are in fact mere words. They cannot acquire for themselves the unending fullness of their content. No wonder they feel their own word husks, which are devoid of ideas, to be empty.
[ 10 ] Whoever seeks the essential content of the objective world within his own inner being can also regard the essential being of the moral world order as lying only within human nature itself. Whoever believes in the existence of a reality in the beyond, behind human reality, must also seek the source of morality there. For, what is moral in a higher sense can come only from the essential being of things. The believer in the beyond therefore assumes moral commandments to which man must submit himself. These commandments reach him either via revelation, or they enter as such into his consciousness, as is the case with Kant's categorical imperative. As to how this imperative comes into our consciousness from out of the “in-itselfness” of things in the beyond, about this nothing is said. It is simply there, and one must submit oneself to it. The philosopher of experience, who looks for his salvation in pure sense observation, sees in what is moral, only the working of human drives and instincts. Out of the study of these, norms are supposed to result that are decisive for moral action.
[ 11 ] Goethe sees what is moral as arising out of man's world of ideas. It is not objective norms and also not the mere world of drives that directs moral action, but rather it is ideas, clear within themselves, by which man gives himself his own direction. He does not follow them out of duty as he would have to follow objective moral norms. And also not out of compulsion, as one follows one's drives and instincts. But rather he serves them out of love. He loves them the way one loves a child. He wants to realize them, and steps in on their behalf, because they are a part of his own essential being. The idea is the guideline and love is the driving power in Goethean ethics. For him duty is “where one loves what one commands oneself to do.”
[ 12 ] Action, in the sense of Goethean ethics, is a free action. For, the human being is dependent upon nothing other than his own ideas. And he is responsible to no one other than himself. In my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I have already refuted the feeble objection that a moral world order in which each person obeys only himself would have to lead to a general disorder and disharmony in human action. Whoever makes this objection overlooks the fact that human beings are essentially alike in nature and that they will therefore never produce moral ideas which, through their essential differentness would cause discord.85The following story shows how little understanding is present in professional philosophers today both for ethical views and for an ethic of inner freedom and of individualism in general. In 1892, in an essay for “Zukunft” (No. 5), I spoke out for a strictly individualistic view of ethics. Ferdinand Tönnies in Kiel responded to this essay in a brochure: “‘Ethical Culture’ and its Retinue. Nietzsche Fools in the ‘Future’ and in the ‘Present’“ (Berlin 1893). He presented nothing except the main principles of philistine morality in the form of philosophical formulas. Of me, however, he says that I could have found “no worse Hermes on the path to Hades than Friedrich Nietzsche.” It struck me as truly humorous that Tönnies, in order to condemn me, presents several of Goethe's Aphorisms in Prose. He has no inkling of the fact that if I did have a Hermes, it was not Nietzsche, but rather Goethe. I have already shown on page 149 ff. of this book the connections between the ethics of inner freedom and Goethe's ethics. I would not have mentioned this worthless brochure if it were not symptomatic of the misunderstanding of Goethe's world view that holds sway in professional philosophical circles.
[ 13 ] If the human being did not have the ability to bring forth creations that are fashioned in exactly the same sense as the works of nature and only bring this sense to view in a more perfect way than nature can, there would be no art in Goethe's sense. What the artist creates are nature objects on a higher level of perfection. Art is the extension of nature, “for inasmuch as man is placed at the pinnacle of nature, he then regards himself again as an entire nature, which yet again has to bring forth within itself a pinnacle. To this end he enhances himself, by imbuing himself with every perfection and virtue, summons choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and finally lifts himself to the production of works of art.” After seeing Greek works of art in Italy, Goethe writes: “These great works of art have at the same time been brought forth by human beings according to true and natural laws, as the greatest works of nature” (Italian Journey, September 6, 1787). For the merely sense-perceptible reality of experience, works of art are a beautiful semblance; for someone who is able to see more deeply, they are “a manifestation of hidden laws of nature which without them would never be revealed.”
[ 14 ] It is not the substance the artist takes from nature that constitutes the work of art; but only what the artist puts into the work of art from out of his inner being. The highest work of art is one that makes you forget that a natural substance underlies it, and that awakens our interest solely through what the artist has made out of this substance. The artist forms things naturally; but he does not form things the way nature itself does. These statements to me express the main thoughts that Goethe set down in his aphorisms on art.
18. Goethes Weltanschauung in Seinen «Sprüchen in Prosa»
[ 1 ] Der Mensch ist nicht zufrieden mit dem, was die Natur freiwillig seinem beobachtenden Geiste darbietet. Er fühlt, daß sie, um die Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer Schöpfungen hervorzubringen, Triebkräfte braucht, die sie dem Beobachter zunächst verbirgt. Die Natur spricht ihr letztes Wort nicht selbst aus. Unsere Erfahrung zeigt uns, was die Natur schaffen kann, aber sie sagt uns nicht, wie dieses Schaffen geschieht. In dem menschlichen Geiste selbst liegt das Mittel, die Triebkräfte der Natur zu enthüllen. Aus dem Menschengeiste steigen die Ideen auf, die Aufklärung darüber bringen, wie die Natur ihre Schöpfungen zustande bringt. Was die Erscheinungen der Außenwelt verbergen, im Innern des Menschen wird es offenbar. Was der menschliche Geist an Naturgesetzen erdenkt: es ist nicht zur Natur hinzu erfunden; es ist die eigene Wesenheit der Natur, und der Geist ist nur der Schauplatz, auf dem die Natur die Geheimnisse ihres Wirkens sichtbar werden läßt. Was wir an den Dingen beobachten, das ist nur ein Teil der Dinge. Was in unserem Geiste emporquillt, wenn er sich den Dingen gegenüberstellt, das ist der andere Teil. Dieselben Dinge sind es, die von außen zu uns sprechen, und die in uns sprechen. Erst wenn wir die Sprache der Außenwelt mit der unseres Innern zusammenhalten, haben wir die volle Wirklichkeit. Was wollten die wahren Philosophen aller Zeiten? Nichts anderes als das Wesen der Dinge verkünden, das diese selbst aussprechen, wenn der Geist sich ihnen als Sprachorgan darbietet.
[ 2 ] Wenn der Mensch sein Inneres über die Natur sprechen läßt, so erkennt er, daß die Natur hinter dem zurückbleibt, was sie vermöge ihrer Triebkräfte leisten könnte. Der Geist sieht das, was die Erfahrung enthält, in vollkommenerer Gestalt. Er findet, daß die Natur ihre Absichten mit ihren Schöpfungen nicht erreicht. Er fühlt sich berufen, diese Absichten in vollendeter Form darzustellen. Er schafft Gestalten, in denen er zeigt: dies hat die Natur gewollt; aber sie konnte es nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade vollbringen. Diese Gestalten sind die Werke der Kunst. In ihnen schafft der Mensch das in einer vollkommenen Weise, was die Natur unvollkommen zeigt.
[ 3 ] Philosoph und Künstler haben das gleiche Ziel. Sie suchen das Vollkommene zu gestalten, das ihr Geist erschaut, wenn sie die Natur auf sich wirken lassen. Aber es stehen ihnen verschiedene Mittel zu Gebote, um dies Ziel zu erreichen. In dem Philosophen leuchtet ein Gedanke, eine Idee auf, wenn er einem Naturprozeß gegenübersteht. Diese spricht er aus. In dem Künstler entsteht ein Bild dieses Prozesses, das diesen vollkommener zeigt, als er sich in der Außenwelt beobachten läßt. Philosoph und Künstler bilden die Beobachtung auf verschiedenen Wegen weiter. Der Künstler braucht die Triebkräfte der Natur in der Form nicht zu kennen, in der sie sich dem Philosophen enthüllen. Wenn er ein Ding oder einen Vorgang wahrnimmt, so entsteht unmittelbar ein Bild in seinem Geiste, in dem die Gesetze der Natur in vollkommenerer Form ausgeprägt sind als in dem entsprechenden Dinge oder Vorgange der Außenwelt. Diese Gesetze in Form des Gedankens brauchen nicht in seinen Geist einzutreten. Erkenntnis und Kunst sind aber doch innerlich verwandt. Sie zeigen die Anlagen der Natur, die in der bloßen äußeren Natur nicht zur vollen Entwickelung kommen.
[ 4 ] Wenn nun in dem Geiste eines echten Künstlers außer vollkommenen Bildern der Dinge auch noch die Triebkräfte der Natur in Form von Gedanken sich aussprechen, so tritt der gemeinsame Quell von Philosophie und Kunst uns besonders deutlich vor Augen. Goethe ist ein solcher Künstler. Er offenbart uns die gleichen Geheimnisse in der Form seiner Kunstwerke und in der Form des Gedankens. Was er in seinen Dichtungen gestaltet, das spricht er in seinen natur- und kunstwissenschaftlichen Aufsätzen und in seinen «Sprüchen in Prosa» in der Form des Gedankens aus. Die tiefe Befriedigung, die von diesen Aufsätzen und Sprüchen ausgeht, hat darin ihren Grund, daß man den Einklang von Kunst und Erkenntnis in einer Persönlichkeit verwirklicht sieht. Das Gefühl hat etwas Erhebendes, das bei jedem Goetheschen Gedanken auftritt: Hier spricht jemand, der zugleich das Vollkommene, das er in Ideen ausdrückt, im Bilde schauen kann. Die Kraft eines solchen Gedankens wird verstärkt durch dieses Gefühl. Was aus den höchsten Bedürfnissen einer Persönlichkeit stammt, muß innerlich zusammengehören. Goethes Weisheitslehren antworten auf die Frage: Was für eine Philosophie ist der echten Kunst gemäß? Ich versuche diese aus dem Geiste eines echten Künstlers geborene Philosophie im Zusammenhange nachzuzeichnen.
[ 5 ] Der Gedankeninhalt, der aus dem menschlichen Geiste entspringt, wenn dieser sich der Außenwelt gegenüberstellt, ist die Wahrheit. Der Mensch kann keine andere Erkenntnis verlangen als eine solche, die er selbst hervorbringt. Wer hinter den Dingen noch etwas sucht, das deren eigentliches Wesen bedeuten soll, der hat sich nicht zum Bewußtsein gebracht, daß alle Fragen nach dem Wesen der Dinge nur aus einem menschlichen Bedürfnisse entspringen: das, was man wahrnimmt, auch mit dem Gedanken zu durchdringen. Die Dinge sprechen zu uns, und unser Inneres spricht, wenn wir die Dinge beobachten. Diese zwei Sprachen stammen aus demselben Urwesen, und der Mensch ist berufen, deren gegenseitiges Verständnis zu bewirken. Darin besteht das, was man Erkenntnis nennt. Und dies und nichts anderes sucht der, der die Bedürfnisse der menschlichen Natur versteht. Wer zu diesem Verständnisse nicht gelangt, dem bleiben die Dinge der Außenwelt fremdartig. Er hört aus seinem Innern das Wesen der Dinge nicht zu sich sprechen. Deshalb vermutet er, daß dieses Wesen hinter den Dingen verborgen sei. Er glaubt an eine Außenwelt noch hinter der Wahrnehmungswelt. Aber die Dinge sind nur so lange äußere Dinge, so lange man sie bloß beobachtet. Wenn man über sie nachdenkt, hören sie auf, außer uns zu sein. Man verschmilzt mit ihrem inneren Wesen. Für den Menschen besteht nur so lange der Gegensatz von objektiver äußerer Wahrnehmung und subjektiver innerer Gedankenwelt, als er die Zusammengehörigkeit dieser Welten nicht erkennt. Die menschliche Innenwelt ist das Innere der Natur.
[ 6 ] Diese Gedanken werden nicht widerlegt durch die Tatsache, daß verschiedene Menschen sich verschiedene Vorstellungen von den Dingen machen. Auch nicht dadurch, daß die Organisationen der Menschen verschieden sind, so daß man nicht weiß, ob eine und dieselbe Farbe von verschiedenen Menschen in der ganz gleichen Weise gesehen wird. Denn nicht darauf kommt es an, ob sich die Menschen über eine und dieselbe Sache genau das gleiche Urteil bilden, sondern darauf, ob die Sprache, die das Innere des Menschen spricht, eben die Sprache ist, die das Wesen der Dinge ausdrückt. Die einzelnen Urteile sind nach der Organisation des Menschen und nach dem Standpunkte, von dem aus er die Dinge betrachtet, verschieden; aber alle Urteile entspringen dem gleichen Elemente und führen in das Wesen der Dinge. Dieses kann in verschiedenen Gedankennuancen zum Ausdruck kommen; aber es bleibt deshalb doch das Wesen der Dinge.
[ 7 ] Der Mensch ist das Organ, durch das die Natur ihre Geheimnisse enthüllt. In der subjektiven Persönlichkeit erscheint der tiefste Gehalt der Welt. «Wenn die gesunde Natur des Menschen als ein Ganzes wirkt, wenn er sich in der Welt als In einem großen, schönen, würdigen und werten Ganzen fühlt, wenn das harmonische Behagen ihm ein reines, freies Entzücken gewährt, dann würde das Weltall, wenn es sich selbst empfinden könnte, als an sein Ziel gelangt, aufjauchzen und den Gipfel des eigenen Werdens und Wesens bewundern » (Goethe, «Winckelmann », Kürschners National-Literatur, Bd. 27, S. 42). Nicht in dem, was die Außenwelt liefert, liegt das Ziel des Weltalls und des Wesens des Daseins, sondern in dem, was im menschlichen Geiste lebt und aus ihm hervorgeht. Goethe betrachtet es daher als einen Irrtum, wenn der Naturforscher durch Instrumente und objektive Versuche in das Innere der Natur dringen will, denn «der Mensch an sich selbst, insofern er sich seiner gesunden Sinne bedient, ist der größte und genaueste physikalische Apparat, den es geben kann, und das ist eben das größte Unheil der neueren Physik, daß man die Experimente gleichsam vom Menschen abgesondert hat, und bloß in dem, was künstliche Instrumente zeigen, die Natur erkennen, ja was sie leisten kann, dadurch beschränken und beweisen will». «Dafür steht ja aber der Mensch so hoch, daß sich das sonst Undarstellbare in ihm darstellt. Was ist denn eine Saite und alle mechanische Teilung derselben gegen das Ohr des Musikers? Ja, man kann sagen, was sind die elementarischen Erscheinungen der Natur selbst gegen den Menschen, der sie alle erst bändigen und modifizieren muß, um sie sich einigermaßen assimilieren zu können?» (Vgl. Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt., S. 351)
[ 8 ] Der Mensch muß die Dinge aus seinem Geiste sprechen lassen, wenn er ihr Wesen erkennen will. Alles, was er über dieses Wesen zu sagen hat, ist den geistigen Erlebnissen seines Innern entlehnt. Nur von sich aus kann der Mensch die Welt beurteilen. Er muß anthropomorphisch denken. In die einfachste Erscheinung, z. B. in den Stoß zweier Körper bringt man einen Anthropomorphismus hinein, wenn man sich darüber ausspricht. Das Urteil: «Der eine Körper stößt den andern», ist bereits anthropomorphisch. Denn man muß, wenn man über die bloße Beobachtung des Vorganges hinauskommen will, das Erlebnis auf ihn übertragen, das unser eigener Körper hat, wenn er einen Körper der Außenwelt in Bewegung versetzt. Alle physikalischen Erklärungen sind versteckte Anthropomorphismen. Man vermenschlicht die Natur, wenn man sie erklärt, man legt die inneren Erlebnisse des Menschen in sie hinein. Aber diese subjektiven Erlebnisse sind das innere Wesen der Dinge. Und man kann daher nicht sagen, daß der Mensch die objektive Wahrheit, das «An sich» der Dinge nicht erkenne, weil er sich nur subjektive Vorstellungen über sie machen kann. 106Goethes Anschauungen stehen in dem denkbar schärfsten Gegensatz zur Kantschen Philosophie. Diese geht von der Auffassung aus, daß die Vorstellungswelt von den Gesetzen des menschlichen Geistes beherrscht werde und deshalb alles, was ihr von außen entgegengebracht wird, in ihr nur als subjektiver Abglanz vorhanden sein könne. Der Mensch nehme nicht das «An sich» der Dinge wahr, sondern die Erscheinung, die dadurch entsteht, daß die Dinge ihn affizieren und er diese Affektionen nach den Gesetzen seines Verstandes und seiner Vernunft verbindet. Daß durch diese Vernunft das Wesen der Dinge spricht, davon haben Kant und die Kantianer keine Ahnung. Deshalb konnte die Kantsche Philosophie für Goethe nie etwas bedeuten. Wenn er sich einzelne ihrer Sätze aneignete, so gab er ihnen einen völlig anderen Sinn, als sie innerhalb der Lehre ihres Urhebers haben. Es ist durch eine Notiz, die erst nach Eröffnung des Weimarischen Goethe-Archivs bekannt geworden ist, klar, daß Goethe den Gegensatz seiner Weltauffassung und der Kantschen sehr wohl durchschaute. Für ihn liegt der Grundfehler Kants darin, daß dieser «das subjektive Erkenntnisvermögen nun selbst als Objekt betrachtet und den Punkt, wo subjektiv und objektiv zusammentreffen, zwar scharf aber nicht ganz richtig sondert«. Subjektiv und objektiv treten zusammen, wenn der Mensch das, was die Außenwelt ausspricht, und das, was sein Inneres vernehmen läßt, zum einigen Wesen der Dinge verbindet. Dann hört aber der Gegensatz von subjektiv und objektiv ganz auf; er verschwindet in der geeinten Wirklichkeit. Ich habe darauf schon hingedeutet in dieser Schrift S. 218ff. Gegen meine damaligen Ausführungen polemisiert nun K. Vorländer im 1. Heft der «Kantstudien«. Er findet, daß meine Anschauung über den Gegensatz von Goethescher und Kantscher Weltauffassung «mindestens stark einseitig und mit klaren Selbstzeugnissen Goethes in Widerspruch« sei und sich «aus dem völligen Mißverständnis der transzendentalen Methode» Kants von meiner Seite erkläre. Vorländer hat keine Ahnung von der Weltanschauung, in der Goethe lebte. Mit ihm zu polemisieren würde mir gar nichts nützen, denn wir sprechen verschiedene Sprachen. Wie klar sein Denken ist, zeigt sich darin, daß er bei meinen Sätzen nie weiß, was gemeint ist. Ich mache z. B. eine Bemerkung zu dem Goetheschen Satze. Sobald der Mensch die Gegenstände um sich her gewahr wird, betrachtet er sie in bezug auf sich selbst, und mit Recht. Denn es hängt sein ganzes Schicksal davon ab, ob sie ihm gefallen oder mißfallen, ob sie ihn anziehen oder abstoßen, ob sie ihm nützen oder schaden. Diese ganz natürliche Art, die Sachen anzusehen und zu beurteilen, scheint so leicht zu sein, als sie notwendig ist . . . Ein weit schwereres Tagewerk übernehmen diejenigen, deren lebhafter Trieb nach Kenntnis die Gegenstände der Natur an sich selbst und in ihren Verhältnissen untereinander zu beobachten strebt, sie suchen und untersuchen, was ist, und nicht was behagt.» Meine Bemerkung lautet: «Hier zeigt sich, wie Goethes Weltanschauung gerade der entgegengesetzte Pol der Kantschen ist. Für Kant gibt es überhaupt keine Ansicht über die Dinge, wie sie an sich sind, sondern nur wie sie in bezug auf uns erscheinen. Diese Ansicht läßt Goethe nur als ganz untergeordnete Art gelten, sich zu den Dingen in ein Verhältnis zu setzen.» Dazu sagt Vorländer. Diese (Worte Goethes) wollen weiter nichts als einleitend den trivialen Unterschied zwischen dem Angenehmen und dem Wahren auseinandersetzen. Der Forscher soll suchen, was ist und nicht was behagt˃. Wer, wie Steiner, die letztere allerdings sehr untergeordnete Art, sich zu den Dingen in ein Verhältnis zu setzen, als diejenige Kants zu bezeichnen wagt, dem ist zu raten, daß er sich erst die Grundbegriffe der Kantschen Lehre, z. B. den Unterschied von subjektiver und objektiver Empfindung, etwa aus § 3 der Kr. d. U. klarmache.» Nun habe ich durchaus nicht, wie aus meinem Satze klar hervorgeht, gesagt, daß jene Art, sich zu den Dingen in ein Verhältnis zu setzen, die Kants ist, sondern daß Goethe die Kantsche Auffassung vom Verhältnis zwischen Subjekt und Objekt nicht entsprechend dem Verhältnis findet, in dem der Mensch zu den Dingen steht, wenn er erkennen will, wie sie an sich sind. Goethe ist der Ansicht, daß die Kantsche Definition nicht dem menschlichen Erkennen, sondern nur dem Verhältnisse entspricht, in das sich der Mensch zu den Dingen setzt, wenn er sie in bezug auf sein Gefallen und Mißfallen betrachtet. Wer einen Satz in einer solchen Weise mißverstehen kann wie Vorländer, der mag es sich ersparen, andern Leuten Ratschläge zu geben über ihre philosophische Ausbildung, und lieber erst sich die Fähigkeit aneignen, einen Satz richtig lesen zu lernen. Goethesche Zitate aufsuchen und sie historisch zusammenstellen kann jeder; sie im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung deuten, kann jedenfalls Vorländer nicht. Von einer andern als einer subjektiven menschlichen Wahrheit kann gar nicht die Rede sein. Denn Wahrheit ist Hineinlegen subjektiver Erlebnisse in den objektiven Erscheinungszusammenhang. Diese subjektiven Erlebnisse können sogar einen ganz individuellen Charakter annehmen. Sie sind dennoch der Ausdruck des inneren Wesens der Dinge. Man kann in die Dinge nur hineinlegen, was man selbst in sich erlebt hat. Demnach wird auch jeder Mensch, gemäß seinen individuellen Erlebnissen etwas in gewissem Sinne anderes in die Dinge hineinlegen. Wie ich mir gewisse Vorgänge der Natur deute, ist für einen andern, der nicht das gleiche innerlich erlebt hat, nicht ganz zu verstehen. Es handelt sich aber gar nicht darum, daß alle Menschen das gleiche über die Dinge denken, sondern nur darum, daß sie, wenn sie über die Dinge denken, im Elemente der Wahrheit leben. Man kann deshalb die Gedanken eines andern nicht als solche betrachten und sie annehmen oder ablehnen, sondern man soll sie als die Verkünder seiner Individualität ansehen. «Diejenigen, welche widersprechen und streiten, sollten mitunter bedenken, daß nicht jede Sprache jedem verständlich sei» (Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt., S. 355). Eine Philosophie kann niemals eine allgemeingültige Wahrheit überliefern, sondern sie schildert die inneren Erlebnisse des Philosophen, durch die er die äußeren Erscheinungen deutet.
[ 9 ] Wenn ein Ding durch das Organ des menschlichen Geistes seine Wesenheit ausspricht, so kommt die volle Wirklichkeit nur durch den Zusammenfluß des äußeren Objektiven und des inneren Subjektiven zustande. Weder durch einseitiges Beobachten, noch durch einseitiges Denken erkennt der Mensch die Wirklichkeit. Diese ist nicht als etwas Fertiges in der objektiven Welt vorhanden, sondern wird erst durch den menschlichen Geist in Verbindung mit den Dingen hervorgebracht. Die objektiven Dinge sind nur ein Teil der Wirklichkeit. Wer ausschließlich die sinnliche Erfahrung anpreist, dem muß man mit Goethe erwidern, «daß die Erfahrung nur die Hälfte der Erfahrung ist» (Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt., S. 503). «Alles Faktische ist schon Theorie», d. h. es offenbart sich im menschlichen Geiste ein Ideelles, wenn er ein Faktisches betrachtet. Diese Weltauffassung, die in den Ideen die Wesenheit der Dinge erkennt und die Erkenntnis auffaßt als ein Einleben in das Wesen der Dinge, ist nicht Mystik. Sie hat aber mit der Mystik das gemein, daß sie die objektive Wahrheit nicht als etwas in der Außenwelt Vorhandenes betrachtet, sondern als etwas, das sich im Innern des Menschen wirklich ergreifen läßt. Die entgegengesetzte Weltanschauung versetzt die Gründe der Dinge hinter die Erscheinungen, in ein der menschlichen Erfahrung jenseitiges Gebiet. Sie kann nun entweder sich einem blinden Glauben an diese Gründe hingeben, der von einer positiven Offenbarungsreligion seinen Inhalt erhält, oder Verstandeshypothesen und Theorien darüber aufstellen, wie dieses jenseitige Gebiet der Wirklichkeit beschaffen ist. Der Mystiker sowohl wie der Bekenner der Goetheschen Weltanschauung lehnen sowohl den Glauben an ein Jenseitiges, wie auch die Hypothesen über ein solches ab, und halten sich an das wirkliche Geistige, das sich in dem Menschen selbst ausspricht. Goethe schreibt an [F. H.] Jacobi: «Gott hat dich mit der Metaphysik gestraft und dir einen Pfahl ins Fleisch gesetzt, mich dagegen mit der Physik gesegnet ... Ich halte mich fest und fester an die Gottesverehrung des Atheisten (Spinoza) ... und überlasse euch alles, was ihr Religion heißt und heißen müßt ... Wenn du sagst, man könne an Gott nur glauben ..., so sage ich dir, ich halte viel aufs Schauen.» [WA 7, 214] Was Goethe schauen will, ist die in seiner Ideenwelt sich ausdrückende Wesenheit der Dinge. Auch der Mystiker will durch Versenkung in das eigene Innere die Wesenheit der Dinge erkennen; aber er lehnt gerade die in sich klare und durchsichtige Ideenwelt ab als untauglich zur Erlangung einer höheren Erkenntnis. Er glaubt nicht, sein Ideenvermögen, sondern andere Kräfte seines Innern entwickeln zu müssen, um die Urgründe der Dinge zu schauen. Gewöhnlich sind es unklare Empfindungen und Gefühle, in denen der Mystiker das Wesen der Dinge zu ergreifen glaubt. Aber Gefühle und Empfindungen gehören nur zum subjektiven Wesen des Menschen. In ihnen spricht sich nichts über die Dinge aus. Allein in den Ideen sprechen die Dinge selbst. Die Mystik ist eine oberflächliche Weltanschauung, trotzdem die Mystiker den Vernunftmenschen gegenüber sich viel auf ihre «Tiefe» zugute tun. Sie wissen nichts über die Natur der Gefühle, sonst würden sie sie nicht für Aussprüche des Wesens der Welt halten; und sie wissen nichts von der Natur der Ideen, sonst würden sie diese nicht für flach und rationalistisch halten. Sie ahnen nicht, was Menschen, die wirklich Ideen haben, in diesen erleben. Aber für viele sind Ideen eben bloße Worte. Sie können die unendliche Fülle ihres Inhaltes sich nicht aneignen. Kein Wunder, daß sie ihre eigenen ideenlosen Worthülsen als leer empfinden.*
[ 10 ] Wer den wesentlichen Inhalt der objektiven Welt in dem eigenen Innern sucht, der kann auch das Wesentliche der sittlichen Weltordnung nur in die menschliche Natur selbst verlegen. Wer eine jenseitige Wirklichkeit hinter der menschlichen vorhanden glaubt, der muß in ihr auch den Quell des Sittlichen suchen. Denn das Sittliche im höheren Sinne kann nur aus dem Wesen der Dinge kommen. Der Jenseitsgläubige nimmt deshalb sittliche Gebote an, denen sich der Mensch zu unterwerfen hat. Diese Gebote gelangen zu ihm entweder auf dem Wege einer Offenbarung, oder sie treten als solche in sein Bewußtsein ein, wie es beim kategorischen Imperativ Kants der Fall ist. Wie dieser aus dem jenseitigen «An sich» der Dinge in unser Bewußtsein kommt, darüber wird nichts gesagt. Er ist einfach da, und man hat sich ihm zu unterwerfen. Der Erfahrungsphilosoph, der von der reinen Sinnesbeobachtung alles Heil erwartet, sieht in dem Sittlichen nur das Wirken der menschlichen Triebe und Instinkte. Aus dem Studium dieser sollen die Normen folgen, die für das sittliche Handeln maßgebend sind.
[ 11 ] Goethe läßt das Sittliche aus der Ideenwelt des Menschen entstehen. Nicht objektive Normen und auch nicht die bloße Triebwelt lenken das sittliche Handeln, sondern die in sich klaren Ideen, durch die sich der Mensch selbst die Richtung gibt. Ihnen folgt er nicht aus Pflicht, wie er objektivsittlichen Normen folgen müßte. Und auch nicht aus Zwang, wie man seinen Trieben und Instinkten folgt. Sondern er dient ihnen aus Liebe. Er liebt sie, wie man ein Kind liebt. Er will ihre Verwirklichung und setzt sich für sie ein, weil sie ein Teil seines eigenen Wesens sind. Die Idee ist die Richtschnur und die Liebe ist die treibende Kraft in der Goetheschen Ethik. Ihm ist Pflicht, «wo man liebt, was man sich selbst befiehlt» (Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt. S. 460).
[ 12 ] Ein Handeln im Sinne der Goetheschen Ethik ist ein freies Handeln. Denn der Mensch ist von nichts abhängig als von seinen eigenen Ideen. Und er ist niemandem verantwortlich als sich selbst. Ich habe bereits in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» 107Berlin 1894 [Gesamtausgabe Dornach 1973] den billigen Einwand entkräftet, daß die Folge einer sittlichen Weltordnung, in der jeder nur sich selbst gehorcht, die allgemeine Unordnung und Disharmonie des menschlichen Handelns sein müsse. Wer diesen Einwand macht, der übersieht, daß die Menschen gleichartige Wesen sind und daß sie deshalb niemals sittliche Ideen produzieren werden, die durch ihre wesentliche Verschiedenheit einen unharmonischen Zusammenklang bewirken werden. 108Wie wenig Verständnis für die ethischen Anschauungen sowohl, wie für eine Ethik der Freiheit und des Individualismus im allgemeinen, bei den Fachphilosophen der Gegenwart vorhanden ist, zeigt folgender Umstand. Ich habe im Jahre 1892 in einem Aufsatz der «Zukunft» (Nr. 5) mich für eine streng individualistische Auffassung der Moral ausgesprochen [jetzt in «Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte 1887-1901»; Gesamtausgabe Dornach 1966, S. 169ff.]. Auf diesen Aufsatz hat Ferdinand Tönnies in Kiel in einer Broschüre: «˂Ethische Kultur und ihr Geleite. Nietzsche-Narren in der ˂Zukunft und in der ˂Gegenwart˃. .» (Berlin 1893) geantwortet. Er hat nichts vorgebracht als die Hauptsätze der in philosophische Formeln gebrachten Philistermoral. Von mir aber sagt er, daß ich «auf dem Wege zum Hades keinen schlimmeren Hermes« hätte finden können als Friedrich Nietzsche. Wahrhaft komisch wirkt es auf mich, daß Tönnies, um mich zu verurteilen, einige von Goethes «Sprüchen in Prosa« vorbringt. Er ahnt nicht, daß, wenn es für mich einen Hermes gegeben hat, es nicht Nietzsche, sondern Goethe gewesen war. Ich habe die Beziehungen der Ethik der Freiheit zur Ethik Goethes bereits S. 195 ff. dieser Schrift dargelegt. Ich hätte die wertlose Broschüre nicht erwähnt, wenn sie nicht symptomatisch wäre für das in fachphilosophischen Kreisen herrschende Mißverständnis der Weltanschauung Goethes.
[ 13 ] Wenn der Mensch nicht die Fähigkeit hätte, Schöpfungen hervorzubringen, die ganz in dem Sinne gestaltet sind, wie die Werke der Natur, und nur diesen Sinn in vollkommenerer Weise zur Anschauung bringen, als die Natur es vermag, so gäbe es keine Kunst im Sinne Goethes. Was der Künstler schafft, sind Naturobjekte auf einer höheren Stufe der Vollkommenheit. Kunst ist Fortsetzung der Natur, «denn indem der Mensch auf den Gipfel der Natur gestellt ist, so sieht er sich wieder als eine ganze Natur an, die in sich abermals einen Gipfel hervorzubringen hat. Dazu steigert er sich, indem er sich mit allen Vollkommenheiten und Tugenden durchdringt, Wahl, Ordnung, Harmonie und Bedeutung aufruft und sich endlich bis zur Produktion des Kunstwerkes erhebt» (Goethe, «Winckelmann»; Nat.-Lit. Bd. 27, S. 47). Nach dem Anblicke der griechischen Kunstwerke in Italien schreibt Goethe: «Diese hohen Kunstwerke sind zugleich als die höchsten Naturwerke von Menschen nach wahren und natürlichen Gesetzen hervorgebracht worden.» 109Italienische Reise, 6. Sept. 1787. Der bloßen sinnenfälligen Erfahrungswirklichkeit gegenüber sind die Kunstwerke ein schöner Schein; für den, der tiefer zu schauen vermag, sind sie «eine Manifestation geheimer Naturgesetze, die ohne sie niemals offenbar würden» ([freie Wiedergabe] vgl. Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt., S. 494).
[ 14 ] Nicht der Stoff, den der Künstler aus der Natur aufnimmt, macht das Kunstwerk; sondern allein das, was der Künstler aus seinem Innern in das Werk hineinlegt. Das höchste Kunstwerk ist dasjenige, welches vergessen macht, daß ihm ein natürlicher Stoff zugrunde liegt, und das lediglich durch dasjenige unser Interesse erweckt, was der Künstler aus diesem Stoffe gemacht hat. Der Künstler gestaltet natürlich; aber er gestaltet nicht wie die Natur selbst. In diesen Sätzen scheinen mir die Hauptgedanken ausgesprochen zu sein, die Goethe in seinen Aphorismen über Kunst niedergelegt hat.
18 Goethe's world view in his "Proverbs in Prose"
[ 1 ] Man is not satisfied with what nature voluntarily offers to his observing spirit. He feels that in order to bring forth the diversity of her creations, she needs driving forces that she initially conceals from the observer. Nature does not utter her last word herself. Our experience shows us what nature can create, but it does not tell us how this creation happens. In the human spirit itself lies the means of revealing the driving forces of nature. From the human spirit arise the ideas that shed light on how nature brings about its creations. What the phenomena of the outer world conceal is revealed within man. What the human spirit conceives of the laws of nature: it is not invented in addition to nature; it is nature's own essence, and the spirit is only the arena on which nature makes the secrets of its working visible. What we observe in things is only a part of things. What wells up in our spirit when it confronts things is the other part. It is the same things that speak to us from the outside and that speak within us. Only when we hold the language of the outside world together with that of our inner being do we have the full reality. What did the true philosophers of all times want? To proclaim nothing other than the essence of things, which they themselves express when the mind presents itself to them as an organ of speech.
[ 2 ] When man allows his inner being to speak about nature, he recognizes that nature falls short of what it could achieve by virtue of its driving forces. The spirit sees what experience contains in a more perfect form. It finds that nature does not achieve its intentions with its creations. It feels called to represent these intentions in a perfect form. He creates figures in which he shows: this is what nature wanted, but it could only accomplish it to a certain extent. These figures are the works of art. In them, man creates in a perfect way what nature shows imperfectly.
[ 3 ] Philosopher and artist have the same goal. They seek to create the perfect that their minds see when they allow nature to work on them. But they have different means at their disposal to achieve this goal. A thought, an idea lights up in the philosopher when he is confronted with a natural process. He expresses it. An image of this process arises in the artist, which shows it more perfectly than it can be observed in the outside world. The philosopher and the artist develop the observation in different ways. The artist does not need to know the driving forces of nature in the form in which they reveal themselves to the philosopher. When he perceives a thing or a process, an image immediately arises in his mind in which the laws of nature are expressed in a more perfect form than in the corresponding thing or process in the outside world. These laws in the form of thought need not enter his mind. Cognition and art are, however, inwardly related. They show the faculties of nature that do not come to full development in mere external nature.
[ 4 ] If, in addition to perfect images of things, the driving forces of nature also express themselves in the form of thoughts in the mind of a true artist, then the common source of philosophy and art becomes particularly clear to us. Goethe is such an artist. He reveals the same secrets to us in the form of his works of art and in the form of thought. What he creates in his poetry, he expresses in the form of thought in his essays on the natural sciences and the arts and in his "Proverbs in Prose". The deep satisfaction that emanates from these essays and sayings is due to the fact that one sees the harmony of art and knowledge realized in a personality. There is something uplifting about the feeling that arises with every Goethean thought: here is someone speaking who can at the same time see in the image the perfection that he expresses in ideas. The power of such a thought is strengthened by this feeling. What stems from the highest needs of a personality must belong together inwardly. Goethe's wisdom teachings answer the question: What kind of philosophy is in accordance with true art? I will attempt to trace this philosophy, born of the spirit of a true artist, in context.
[ 5 ] The content of thought that arises from the human spirit when it confronts the outside world is truth. Man can demand no other knowledge than that which he himself produces. He who still seeks something behind things that is supposed to signify their actual essence has not brought himself to realize that all questions about the essence of things arise only from a human need: to penetrate with thought that which one perceives. Things speak to us, and our inner being speaks when we observe things. These two languages come from the same primordial being, and man is called to bring about their mutual understanding. This is what is called knowledge. And this and nothing else is sought by those who understand the needs of human nature. Those who do not attain this understanding remain strangers to the things of the outside world. He does not hear the essence of things speaking to him from within. He therefore assumes that this essence is hidden behind things. He believes in an outer world still behind the world of perception. But things are only external things as long as one merely observes them. When we think about them, they cease to be external to us. We merge with their inner essence. For humans, the contrast between objective external perception and the subjective inner world of thought only exists as long as they do not recognize that these worlds belong together. The human inner world is the inner world of nature.
[ 6 ] These thoughts are not refuted by the fact that different people have different ideas about things. Nor by the fact that people's organizations are different, so that one does not know whether one and the same color is seen in quite the same way by different people. For what matters is not whether men form exactly the same judgment about one and the same thing, but whether the language which the inner man speaks is precisely the language which expresses the essence of things. The individual judgments differ according to the organization of man and the standpoint from which he views things; but all judgments spring from the same element and lead to the essence of things. This may be expressed in different shades of thought, but it remains the essence of things.
[ 7 ] The human being is the organ through which nature reveals its secrets. The deepest content of the world appears in the subjective personality. "When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as part of a great, beautiful, worthy and valuable whole, when harmonious pleasure grants him a pure, free delight, then the universe, if it could feel itself as having reached its goal, would rejoice and admire the summit of its own becoming and being " (Goethe, "Winckelmann ", Kürschners National-Literatur, vol. 27, p. 42). The goal of the universe and the essence of existence does not lie in what the outside world provides, but in what lives in the human spirit and emerges from it. Goethe therefore considers it a mistake for the natural scientist to want to penetrate the interior of nature through instruments and objective experiments, for "man in himself, in so far as he makes use of his healthy senses, is the greatest and most exact physical apparatus that can exist, and that is precisely the greatest misfortune of modern physics, that one has, as it were, separated experiments from man, and merely wants to recognize nature in what artificial instruments show, indeed to limit and prove what it can achieve". "But man stands so high that the otherwise unrepresentable is represented in him. What is a string and all its mechanical divisions compared to the musician's ear? Indeed, one could say, what are the elementary phenomena of nature itself compared to man, who must first tame and modify them all in order to be able to assimilate them to some extent?" (Cf. Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd dept., p. 351)
[ 8 ] Man must let things speak from his spirit if he wants to recognize their essence. Everything he has to say about this essence is borrowed from the spiritual experiences of his inner being. Man can only judge the world from within himself. He must think anthropomorphically. An anthropomorphism is introduced into the simplest phenomenon, e.g. the collision of two bodies, when one speaks about it. The judgment: "One body pushes the other" is already anthropomorphic. For if we want to get beyond the mere observation of the process, we must transfer to it the experience that our own body has when it sets a body in the outside world in motion. All physical explanations are hidden anthropomorphisms. Nature is humanized when it is explained; the inner experiences of man are placed within it. But these subjective experiences are the inner essence of things. And therefore one cannot say that man does not recognize the objective truth, the "in itself" of things, because he can only form subjective ideas about them. 106Goethe's views stand in the sharpest possible contrast to Kant's philosophy. This is based on the view that the world of imagination is governed by the laws of the human mind and therefore everything that is brought to it from outside can only be present in it as a subjective reflection. Man does not perceive the "in itself" of things, but the appearance that arises from the fact that things affect him and he combines these affects according to the laws of his understanding and reason. Kant and the Kantians have no idea that the essence of things speaks through this reason. That is why Kant's philosophy could never mean anything to Goethe. When he appropriated individual propositions from it, he gave them a completely different meaning than they have within the teachings of their originator. It is clear from a note that only became known after the Weimar Goethe Archive was opened that Goethe was well aware of the contrast between his world view and that of Kant. For him, Kant's fundamental error lies in the fact that he "now regards the subjective capacity for knowledge itself as an object and separates the point where subjective and objective meet, sharply but not quite correctly". Subjective and objective come together when man combines what the outside world expresses and what his inner self lets him hear into the unified being of things. But then the contrast between subjective and objective ceases completely; it disappears in the unified reality. I have already alluded to this in this paper p. 218ff. K. Vorländer now polemicizes against my remarks at that time in the first issue of "Kantstudien". He finds that my view of the contrast between Goethe's and Kant's conception of the world is "at least strongly one-sided and contradicts Goethe's own clear testimony" and is explained "by my complete misunderstanding of Kant's transcendental method". Vorländer has no idea of the world view in which Goethe lived. It would do me no good at all to polemicize with him, because we speak different languages. How clear his thinking is is shown by the fact that he never knows what is meant by my sentences. For example, I make a comment on Goethe's sentence. As soon as man becomes aware of the objects around him, he considers them in relation to himself, and rightly so. For his whole fate depends on whether he likes or dislikes them, whether they attract or repel him, whether they are useful or harmful to him. This quite natural way of looking at and judging things seems to be as easy as it is necessary . . . Those whose lively instinct for knowledge strives to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relations to one another, they seek and examine what is, and not what is pleasing, undertake a far more difficult day's work." My comment is: "This shows how Goethe's world view is precisely the opposite pole of Kant's. For Kant, there is no view at all of things as they are in themselves, but only as they appear in relation to us. Goethe accepts this view only as a very subordinate way of relating to things." To this Vorländer says. These (words of Goethe) want nothing more than to introduce the trivial difference between the pleasant and the true. The researcher should seek what is and not what is pleasant. Whoever, like Steiner, dares to describe the latter, admittedly very subordinate way of relating to things as that of Kant, is to be advised to first make clear to himself the basic concepts of Kant's doctrine, e.g. the difference between subjective and objective feeling, for example from § 3 of the Kr. d. U.". Now, as is clear from my sentence, I have not at all said that this way of relating to things is Kant's, but that Goethe does not find Kant's view of the relationship between subject and object to correspond to the relationship in which man stands to things when he wants to recognize how they are in themselves. Goethe is of the opinion that Kant's definition does not correspond to human cognition, but only to the relationship in which man places himself to things when he considers them in relation to his pleasure and displeasure. He who can misunderstand a sentence in such a way as Vorländer may spare himself the trouble of giving other people advice about their philosophical education, and rather first acquire the ability to learn to read a sentence correctly. Anyone can look up Goethe's quotations and put them together historically; interpreting them in terms of Goethe's world view, at least Vorländer cannot. There can be no question of anything other than a subjective human truth. For truth is the insertion of subjective experiences into the objective context of appearance. These subjective experiences can even take on a completely individual character. Nevertheless, they are the expression of the inner essence of things. One can only put into things what one has experienced in oneself. Accordingly, each person will, according to his individual experiences, put something different into things in a certain sense. How I interpret certain processes of nature is not entirely comprehensible to someone else who has not had the same inner experience. But it is not at all a question of all men thinking the same about things, but only of their living in the element of truth when they think about things. Therefore, one cannot regard the thoughts of another as such and accept or reject them, but one should regard them as the proclaimers of his individuality. "Those who disagree and argue should sometimes consider that not every language is comprehensible to everyone" (Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd dept., p. 355). A philosophy can never deliver a universally valid truth, but it describes the inner experiences of the philosopher, through which he interprets the external phenomena.
[ 9 ] When a thing expresses its essence through the organ of the human mind, the full reality only comes about through the confluence of the external objective and the internal subjective. Neither through one-sided observation nor through one-sided thinking does man recognize reality. This is not present as something finished in the objective world, but is only produced by the human spirit in connection with things. Objective things are only a part of reality. Those who praise only sensory experience must reply, with Goethe, "that experience is only half of experience" (Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd section, p. 503). "Everything factual is already theory", i.e. an ideal is revealed in the human mind when it contemplates a fact. This view of the world, which recognizes the essence of things in ideas and understands knowledge as a living into the essence of things, is not mysticism. But it has in common with mysticism that it does not regard objective truth as something existing in the external world, but as something that can really be grasped within the human being. The opposite view of the world places the causes of things behind appearances, in a realm beyond human experience. It can now either indulge in a blind belief in these reasons, which receives its content from a positive religion of revelation, or it can put forward intellectual hypotheses and theories about how this otherworldly realm of reality is constituted. The mystic as well as the confessor of Goethe's world view reject both the belief in an otherworldly realm and the hypotheses about such a realm, and adhere to the real spiritual realm that expresses itself in man himself. Goethe writes to [F. H.] Jacobi: "God has punished you with metaphysics and put a stake in your flesh, blessed me on the other hand with physics ... I hold firmly and more firmly to the atheist's (Spinoza's) worship of God ... and leave to you all that you call and must call religion ... If you say that one can only believe in God ..., I tell you that I believe a great deal in looking." [WA 7, 214] What Goethe wants to see is the essence of things expressed in his world of ideas. The mystic also wants to recognize the essence of things by immersing himself in his own inner being; but he rejects precisely the world of ideas, which is clear and transparent in itself, as unsuitable for the attainment of a higher knowledge. He does not believe that he must develop his faculty of ideas, but other powers of his inner being, in order to see the primal causes of things. It is usually vague sensations and feelings in which the mystic believes he grasps the essence of things. But feelings and sensations only belong to the subjective nature of man. Nothing about things is expressed in them. Only in the ideas do the things themselves speak. Mysticism is a superficial view of the world, even though the mystics give themselves much credit for their "depth" compared to rational people. They know nothing about the nature of feelings, otherwise they would not regard them as expressions of the essence of the world; and they know nothing about the nature of ideas, otherwise they would not regard them as shallow and rationalistic. They have no idea what people who really have ideas experience in them. But for many, ideas are just words. They cannot assimilate the infinite abundance of their content. No wonder they perceive their own unimaginative words as empty.
[ 10 ] Those who seek the essential content of the objective world in their own inner being can also relocate the essence of the moral world order only in human nature itself. Anyone who believes that there is an otherworldly reality behind human nature must also seek the source of morality in it. For the moral in the higher sense can only come from the essence of things. The believer in the beyond therefore accepts moral commandments to which man must submit. These commandments either come to him by way of revelation or they enter his consciousness as such, as is the case with Kant's categorical imperative. Nothing is said about how this comes from the otherworldly "in itself" of things into our consciousness. It is simply there, and we have to submit to it. The philosopher of experience, who expects all salvation from the pure observation of the senses, sees in the moral only the working of human instincts and drives. From the study of these should follow the norms that are decisive for moral action.
[ 11 ] Goethe allows the moral to emerge from the world of human ideas. It is not objective norms or the mere world of instinct that guides moral action, but the clear ideas through which man gives himself direction. He does not follow them out of duty, as he would have to follow objective moral norms. Nor out of compulsion, as one follows one's drives and instincts. Instead, he serves them out of love. He loves them as one loves a child. He wants their realization and stands up for them because they are part of his own being. The idea is the guiding principle and love is the driving force in Goethe's ethics. For him, duty is "where one loves what one commands oneself" (Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd abb. p. 460).
[ 12 ] Action in the sense of Goethean ethics is a free action. For man is dependent on nothing but his own ideas. And he is responsible to no one but himself. In my "Philosophy of Freedom" 107Berlin 1894 [Complete Edition Dornach 1973] I have already refuted the cheap objection that the consequence of a moral world order in which everyone obeys only himself must be the general disorder and disharmony of human action. He who makes this objection overlooks the fact that men are homogeneous beings, and that they will therefore never produce moral ideas which, by their essential difference, will produce a discordant harmony. 108The following circumstance shows how little understanding there is for ethical views, as well as for an ethics of freedom and individualism in general, among the specialist philosophers of the present day. In 1892, in an essay in "Zukunft" (No. 5), I spoke out in favor of a strictly individualistic view of morality [now in "Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte 1887-1901"; Complete Edition Dornach 1966, pp. 169ff]. Ferdinand Tönnies referred to this essay in Kiel in a brochure: "˂Ethische Kultur und ihr Geleite. Nietzsche fools in the ˂future and in the ˂present˃. ." (Berlin 1893). He put forward nothing but the main propositions of philistine morality put into philosophical formulas. But he says of me that "on the road to Hades I could not have found a worse Hermes" than Friedrich Nietzsche. It seems truly comical to me that Tönnies, in order to condemn me, brings up some of Goethe's "sayings in prose". He has no idea that if there was a Hermes for me, it was not Nietzsche, but Goethe. I have already explained the relationship between the ethics of freedom and Goethe's ethics on p. 195 ff. of this pamphlet. I would not have mentioned the worthless brochure if it were not symptomatic of the misunderstanding of Goethe's world view that prevails in specialist philosophical circles.
[ 13 ] If man did not have the ability to produce creations that are designed entirely in the same sense as the works of nature, and only bring this sense to view in a more perfect way than nature is capable of, then there would be no art in Goethe's sense. What the artist creates are natural objects on a higher level of perfection. Art is a continuation of nature, "for in that man is placed on the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature, which in itself must again produce a summit. To this end he increases by imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, by calling up choice, order, harmony and meaning and finally raising himself to the production of the work of art" (Goethe, "Winckelmann"; Nat.-Lit. vol. 27, p. 47). After seeing the Greek works of art in Italy, Goethe wrote: "These high works of art are at the same time the highest works of nature produced by man according to true and natural laws." 109Italian Journey, Sept. 6, 1787. Compared to the mere sensory reality of experience, works of art are a beautiful appearance; for those who are able to look deeper, they are "a manifestation of secret natural laws that would never be revealed without them" ([free reproduction] cf. Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd Abt., p. 494).
[ 14 ] It is not the material that the artist takes from nature that makes the work of art, but only what the artist puts into the work from within himself. The highest work of art is that which makes us forget that it is based on a natural material, and which arouses our interest only through what the artist has made of this material. The artist creates naturally; but he does not create like nature itself. These sentences seem to me to express the main ideas that Goethe set down in his Aphorisms on Art.