Goethe's Conception of the World
GA 6
The Position of Goethe in the Evolution of Western Thought
VI. The Metamorphosis of Phenomena
[ 1 ] Goethe's world-conception reached its highest state of maturity when there dawned within it the perception of Nature's two great motive forces: the meaning of the concepts of polarity and intensification (Steigerung) (Compare the Essay, Erläuterung zu dem Aufsatz ‘Die Natur’). Polarity inheres in the phenomena of Nature in so far as we think of them in a material sense. It consists in this:( everything of a material nature expresses itself in two opposites, like the magnet, in a north and a south pole. These states of matter are either apparent to the eye, or they lie latent within the material and can be roused into activity by appropriate means. Intensification presents itself when we think of the phenomena in a spiritual sense. It can be observed in Nature processes which fall within the scope of the idea of development. At the different stages of development these processes manifest the idea underlying them with greater or less distinctness in their external appearance. In the fruit, the idea of the plant, the vegetable law, is only indistinctly expressed in outer appearance. The idea cognised by the mind and the perception do not resemble each other. “The vegetable law appears in its highest manifestation in the blossom and the rose becomes once again the summit of the phenomenon.” What Goethe calls “intensification” consists in the emergence of the spiritual from out of the material as a result of the creative activity of Nature. Nature being engaged “in an ever-striving ascent” means that her endeavour is to create forms which, in ascending order, bring the ideas of the objects ever more and more to manifestation in outer appearance also. Goethe holds that “Nature has no secret that is not somewhere revealed to the eye of the attentive observer.” Nature can produce phenomena wherein the ideas proper to a wide sphere of allied processes may be discerned. They are the phenomena wherein the “intensification” has reached its goal, wherein the idea becomes immediate truth. The creative spirit of Nature here appears on the surface of the objects; what can only be apprehended by thought in the coarse material phenomena—what can be perceived only by spiritual vision—becomes visible to bodily eyes in “intensified” phenomena. Here all that is sensible is also spiritual, all that is spiritual, sensible. Goethe thinks of the whole of Nature as permeated with spirit. Her forms are different because the spirit becomes in them outwardly visible to a lesser or greater degree. Goethe knows no dead, spiritless matter. Those things appear as such in which the spirit of Nature assumes an external form that does not resemble her ideal essence. Because one and the same spirit is working in Nature and in his own inner being man can rise to a participation in the products of Nature. “From the tile that falls from the roof, to the shining flash of spirit that arises in thee and which thou impartest”—everything in the universe is to Goethe the activity, the manifestation of One Creative Spirit. “All effects of which we are conscious in experience, of whatever kind they be, are in continuous interdependence; they merge into each other; they undulate from the first to the last.” “A tile is loosed from the roof and in the ordinary sense we call this chance; it falls on the shoulders of a passer-by, in a mechanical sense certainly; yet not only mechanically, for it follows the laws of gravity and so works physically. The ruptured life veins give up their functioning forthwith; instantaneously the fluids work chemically, the rudimentary qualities make their appearance. But the deranged organic life offers opposition with equal rapidity and tries to restore itself; the human being as a whole is, meanwhile, more or less unconscious and psychically disturbed. The person coming to himself again feels himself deeply wounded in an ethical sense; he bewails his disturbed activity of whatever kind it may be, but man does not willingly resign himself in patience. In a religious sense, on the other hand, it is easy to ascribe this accident to a higher destiny, to view it as a preservation from a greater evil, as a preliminary to a higher good. This is sufficient for the sufferer; the convalescent, however, rises up with the buoyancy of genius, with trust in God and himself, and feels himself saved; he takes hold even of what is accidental and turns it to his advantage in order to begin an eternally fresh orbit of life.” All effects in the world appear to Goethe modifications of the spirit, and the man who penetrates into their depths, and studies them from the level of the fortuitous to that of genius, experiences the metamorphosis of the spirit from the form wherein it expresses itself in an external manifestation unlike itself, right up to the stage where it appears in its own most appropriate form. In the sense of the Goethean world-conception all creative forces operate uniformly. They are one Whole manifesting itself in a gradation of related multiplicities. Goethe, however, had no inclination to present to himself the unity of the universe as homogeneous. Adherents of the idea of unity often fall into the error of extending the law that may be observed in one region of phenomena to cover the whole of Nature. The mechanistic view of the world, for example, has fallen into this error. It has a special eye and understanding for what can be explained mechanically. Therefore the mechanical alone appears to it to be in accordance with Nature, and. it tries to trace the phenomena of organic Nature as well back to mechanical laws. Life is only a complicated form of the co-operation of mechanical processes. Goethe found such a world-conception expressed, in a singularly repulsive form, in Holbach's “Système de la Nature” that fell into his hands in Strasburg. Matter was supposed to have existed and to have been in motion from all eternity, and to this motion to right and left in every direction, were attributed the infinite phenomena of existence. “We might have allowed even so much to pass if the author, out of his matter in motion, had built up the world before our eyes. But he seemed to know as little of Nature as we did, for, after simply propounding some general ideas, he forthwith disregards them in order to change what seems above Nature, or a higher Nature within Nature, into matter with weight and motion but without aim or shape,—and by this he fancies he has gained much.” (Poetry and Truth, Book II.). Goethe would have expressed himself in similar words if he could have heard Du-Bois Reymond's phrase (Grenzen des Naturerkennens, S.13.): “Natural knowledge is a tracing back of the variations in the corporeal world to movements of atoms generated by their central forces which are independent of time, or it is the conversion of natural processes into the mechanics of atoms.” Goethe thought that the modes of natural operations were interrelated, the one passing over into the other; but he never wanted to trace them back to one single mode. He did not aspire after one abstract principle to which all natural phenomena should be traced back, but for observation of the characteristic mode in which creative Nature, in each single one of her regions of phenomena, manifests her universal laws through specific forms. He did not want to force one particular form of thought on all natural phenomena, but by living experience in different forms of thought, his aim was to keep the spirit within him as vital and pliable as Nature herself. When the feeling of the mighty unity of all Nature's activity was strong within him he was a Pantheist. “With the many and varied tendencies of my being, I for myself can never be satisfied with one mode of thinking; as poet and artist I am a Polytheist, as Nature investigator, a Pantheist, and such as decisively as the other. If I need a God for my personality as a moral being, that also is provided for” (To Jacobi, 6th January, 1813.). As Artist, Goethe turned to those natural phenomena where the idea is present in direct perception. Here the particular seemed immediately divine, the world a multiplicity of divine entities. As Nature investigator Goethe had perforce also to follow up the forces of Nature in those phenomena where the idea in its individual existence was not visible. As Poet, he could rest content with the multiplicity of the Divine; as Nature investigator he had to seek for the uniformly active ideas of Nature. “The law that manifests in the most absolute freedom, according to its own conditions, produces the objectively beautiful, and this must indeed find worthy subjects by whom it can be understood.” As Artist, Goethe's aim is to perceive this element of objective beauty in the single creation, but as Nature investigator his aim is “to cognise the laws according to which universal Nature wills to act.” Polytheism is the mode of thought that sees and venerates a spiritual element in the particular; Pantheism is the mode that apprehends the Spirit of the Whole. The two modes of thought can exist side by side; the one or the other asserts itself according to whether the gaze is directed to Nature as one Whole, that is, life and progression from one central point; or to those entities wherein Nature unites in one form all that she usually extends over a whole kingdom. Such forms arise when, for instance, the creative powers of Nature “after producing manifold plant forms, produce one wherein all the rest are contained;” or “after manifold animal forms, a being who contains them all: Man.”
[ 2 ] Goethe has made this remark: “Whoever has learnt to understand my writings and my real nature will have to admit that he has attained a certain inner freedom” (Conversations with Chancellor F. von Müller, January 5th, 1813.). Goethe was referring here to the active force which asserts itself in all man's striving for knowledge. So long as man remains stationary at the point where he perceives all the antitheses around him, regarding their laws as principles which have been implanted in them and by which they are governed, he has the feeling that they confront him as unknown powers working upon him, forcing upon him the thoughts of their laws. He feels no freedom in face of the objects; he experiences the Law of Nature as inflexible necessity to which he has to submit. Only when man becomes aware that the forces of Nature are only forms of the same spirit that works also in himself does the intuition dawn in him that he partakes of freedom. Nature's Law is perceived as compulsion only so long as man looks upon it as an alien power. If he penetrates its true being it is experienced as a force which he himself uses in his inner being; he feels himself to be an element co-operating productively in the “being and becoming” of things. He is on intimate terms with all power of “becoming;” he has absorbed into his own action what he otherwise only experiences as external instigation. This is the liberating process brought about by the cognitional act in the sense of the Goethean world-conception. Clearly did Goethe perceive the ideas of Nature's activity as they faced him in the Italian works of Art. He also realised clearly the liberating effect which the mastery of these ideas has on man. A consequence of this is his description of the mode of cognition which he speaks of as that of comprehensive minds. “Comprehensive minds, which we can proudly speak of as creative, are productive in the highest degree; in that they take their start from ideas, they already express the unity of the Whole, and it is really thereafter the concern of Nature to submit herself to these ideas.” Goethe, however, never attained to direct perception of the act of liberation. This perception can only be attained by one who observes himself in the act of cognition. Goethe did indeed practise the highest mode of cognition, but he did not observe this mode of cognition in himself. Does he not himself admit: “I have been clever, for I have never thought about thought.”
[ 3 ] But just as the creative powers of Nature after manifold plant forms bring forth one wherein “all the others are contained,” so, after manifold ideas, do these creative powers of Nature produce one wherein is contained the whole of ideas. And man apprehends this idea when to the perception (Anschauung) of other objects and processes, he adds the perception (Anschauung) of thinking. For the very reason that Goethe's thinking was entirely filled with the objects perceived, because his thinking was a perception, his perception a thinking, he could not come to the point of making thought itself into an object of thought. But the idea of freedom is only attained through the perception of thought. Goethe did not make the distinction between thinking about thought and the perception of thought. Otherwise he would have attained the insight that although in the sense of his world-conception one may indeed refrain from thinking about thought, it is nevertheless possible to attain to perception of the world of thought. Man has no participation in the coming-into-existence of all other perceptions. The ideas of these perceptions come to life within him. The ideas, however, would not be there if the productive power to bring them to manifestation did not exist within him. The ideas may be in truth the content of what is working in the objects, but they come to evident existence as a result of the activity of man. Therefore man can only cognise the essential nature of the world of ideas when he perceives his own activity. In every other perception he does nothing more than penetrate the idea in operation; the object in which it is operating remains, as perception, outside his mind. In the perception of the idea the operative activity and what it has brought about are contained within his inner being. He has the whole process completely present within him. The perception no longer seems to have been generated by the idea; for the perception is now itself idea. This perception of what brings forth its self, is, however, the perception of freedom (free spiritual activity). When he observes thought, man penetrates the world-process. Here he has not to search for an idea of this process, for the process is the idea itself. The previously experienced unity of perception and idea is here experience of the spirituality of the world of ideas which has become perceptible. The man who perceives this self-grounded activity has the feeling of freedom. Goethe indeed experienced this feeling but did not express it in its highest form. He practised a free activity in his observation of Nature, but this activity was never objective to him. He never gazed behind the veils of human cognition and therefore never assimilated into his consciousness the idea of the world-process in its essential form, in its highest metamorphosis. As soon as man attains to the perception of this highest metamorphosis he moves with certainty within the realm of things. At the central point of his personality he has attained the true point of departure for all observation of the world. He will no longer search for unknown principles, for causes that he outside himself; he knows that the highest experience of which he is capable consists in the self-contemplation of his own being. Those who are wholly permeated by the feelings which this experience evokes will attain the truest relationship to things. Where this is not the case men will seek for the highest form of existence elsewhere and since it is not to be discovered in experience, they will conjecture that it lies in an unknown region of reality. An element of uncertainty will make its appearance in their observation; in answering the questions which Nature puts to them they will perpetually plead the unfathomable. Because of his life in the world of ideas Goethe had a feeling of the firm central point within the personality, and so he succeeded within certain limits in acquiring sure concepts in his observation of Nature. Because, however, the direct perception of the most inward experience eluded him, he groped around insecurely outside these limits. For this reason he says that man is not born “to solve the problems of the universe but to seek where the problem commences, and then to keep within the boundary of the comprehensible.” He says: “Unquestionably the greatest service rendered by Kant is that he sets up limits to which the human mind is capable of advancing, and that he leaves the insoluble problems alone.” If the perception of the highest experience had yielded him certainty in the observation of things Goethe would have attained more along his path than “a kind of qualified reliability by means of ordered experience.” Instead of penetrating right through experience in the consciousness that the true has only meaning to the extent to which it is demanded by the nature of man, he came to the conviction that “a higher influence favours the constant, the active, the rational, the ordered and the ordering, the human and the pious” and that “the moral World Order” manifests in the greatest beauty where it “comes indirectly to the assistance of the good, of the valiant sufferer.”
[ 4 ] Because Goethe did not know the most inward human experience it was impossible for him to attain to the ultimate thoughts concerning the moral World Order which essentially belong to his conception of Nature. The ideas of things are the content of the active creative elements within them. Man experiences moral ideas directly in the form of ideas. A man who is able to experience how in perception of the world of ideas, the ideal itself becomes self-contained, filled with itself, is also able to experience how the moral element is produced within the nature of man. A man who knows the ideas of Nature only in their relationship to the world of perception will want to relate moral concepts also to something external to them. He will seek a reality for these concepts similar to the reality that exists for concepts that have been acquired from experience. A man, however, who is able to perceive ideas in their own proper essence will be aware that in the case of moral ideas nothing external corresponds to them, that they are produced directly in spiritual experience as ideas. It is clear to him that neither an externally working Divine Will nor an externally working moral World Order is active in producing these ideas. For no trace of relationship to such powers can be observed in them. All that they express is also included in their pure, ideal form which is experienced spiritually. They work upon man as moral powers by virtue of their own content only. No categorical imperative stands behind them with a whip and forces man to follow them. Man feels that he himself has brought them forth and he loves them as he loves his child. Love is the motive power of action. Spiritual delight in one's own production is the source of the moral.
[ 5 ] There are men who are incapable of giving birth to any moral ideas. They assimilate those of other men through tradition. And if they have no perceptual faculty for ideas per se they do not recognise the source of the Moral that can be experienced in the mind. They seek this source in a superhuman Will that lies outside them. Or they believe that outside that spiritual world which is experienced by man there exists an objective, moral World Order whence the moral ideas are derived. The speech organ of this World Order is frequently thought to lie in the human conscience. Goethe is uncertain in his thoughts about the source of the Moral, just as he is about certain matters pertaining to the rest of his world-conception. Here too, his feeling for what is in conformity with ideas drives him to principles that accord with the demands of his nature: “Duty—where man loves the commands he gives to himself.” Only a man who perceives the basis of the Moral wholly in the content of moral ideas could have said: “Lessing, who reluctantly was aware of various limitations, puts these words into the mouth of one of his characters: Nobody is compelled to be compelled (Niemand muss müssen). A spiritually-minded, happily disposed man said: He who wants to—must. A third, a man of culture to be sure, added: He who has insight, he also wants to. And so it was believed that the whole range of knowledge, will and necessity had been defined. But on the average, man's knowledge of whatever kind it be, determines his actions and missions; therefore nothing is more terrible to see than ignorance in action.” The following utterance proves that a sense of the true nature of the moral held sway in Goethe but never became a clear perception: “In order to become perfect the will must submit itself in the moral sphere, to the conscience that does not err. ... The conscience needs no ancestry, everything exists within it, it is concerned with the inner world alone.” “Conscience needs no ancestry” can only mean that originally there exists no moral content in man; he supplies it himself. In contradistinction to these sayings we find others where the origin of conscience is relegated to a region outside man: “However strongly the earth with its thousands upon thousands of phenomena attracts man, he still raises his gaze with longing to the heavens, because he feels deeply and vividly within himself that he is a citizen of that spiritual realm the belief in which we can neither reject nor surrender.” “That which defies solution we leave with God as the All-determinant, All-liberating Being.”
[ 6 ] Goethe has no faculty for observation of the innermost nature of man, for self-contemplation. “I acknowledge in this connection that the mighty command which sounds so significant—‘Know thyself!’—has always roused the suspicion in me that it was a ruse of a secret confederacy of the priesthood whose aim it was to confuse men by unattainable demands and to lead them away from activity in the external world to a false inward contemplation. Man knows himself only to the extent to which he knows the world. He becomes aware of the world only in himself, and of himself, only in the world. Every fresh object, contemplated with deliberation, opens up a new faculty within us.” The truth is exactly the reverse: man knows the world only to the extent to which he knows himself. For what is present as perception in external objects in reflection, example, symbol, only reveals itself in his inner being in its own essential form. That which man can otherwise only speak of as unfathomable, impenetrable, divine, appears before him in its true form in self-perception. Because in self-perception he sees the ideal in direct form he acquires the power and faculty to seek for and recognise this ideal element in all outer phenomena also, in the whole of Nature. A man who has experienced the flash of self-perception does not any longer set out in quest of a “hidden” God behind the phenomena; he apprehends the Divine in its different metamorphoses within Nature. Goethe remarked in reference to Schelling: “I would see him more frequently if I were not still living in the hope of poetic moments; philosophy ruins poetry so far as I am concerned, probably because it forces me into the object, and since I can never remain purely speculative but am compelled to seek a perception for every principle I take flight at once out into Nature.” The highest perception, the perception of the world of ideas, however, was just what he could not discover. That perception cannot ruin poetry, for it alone frees the spirit from all conjectures as to the existence in Nature of an unknown, an unfathomable element. It makes the spirit able to surrender itself wholly and freely to the objects, for it imparts the conviction that all that the spirit may desire from Nature may be gleaned from her.
[ 7 ] The highest perception, however, also frees the human spirit from any one-sided sense of dependence. In possessing it the spirit of man feels itself master in the realm of the moral World Order. The spirit of man knows that in its inner being there works, as in its own will, the motive power that brings forth all things, and that the highest moral decisions lie within itself. For these highest decisions flow from the world of moral ideas, and the soul of man has been present at the production of this world. Man may be conscious of limitation in regard to a particular thing, may be dependent on a thousand others, but on the whole he himself sets his own moral goal and moral direction. The operative element of all other things is manifested in man as idea; the operative element in man is the idea which he himself brings forth. The process that takes place in Nature as a Whole is accomplished in each single human individuality: it is the creation of an actuality from out of the idea, man himself being the creator. For at the basis of his personality there lives the idea which imparts content to itself. Going beyond Goethe, we must expand his phrase that Nature “in her creation is so bounteous that after multifarious plant forms she makes one wherein all the others are contained, and after multifarious animals one being who contains them all—Man.” Nature is so mighty in her creation that she repeats in each individual human being the process by means of which she brings forth all creatures directly out of the idea, inasmuch as moral acts spring from the ideal basis of the personality. That which man feels to be the objective basis of his acts is only the result of “paraphrasing” and misunderstanding of his own being. Man realises himself in his moral acts. In concise phrases Max Stirner has described this knowledge in his work: “The Individual and his Rights.” “I am the owner of my power; I am this when I know myself as a unique individual. In the individual the owner returns to his creative void out of which he was born. Every higher being above me, be he God, be he Man, weakens the sense of my individuality and pales before the sunlight of this consciousness. If I cast my lot upon myself, the individual, it rests on its own perishable, mortal creator who consumes himself, and I am able to say: ‘I have cast my lot on Nothingness.’” But one may reply to Stirner in the words of Faust to Mephistopheles: “In thy Nothingness I hope to find the All,” for in my inner being dwells, in its individual form, the active power whereby Nature creates the All. So long as man has not perceived this active power in himself he will appear, in face of it, as Faust appeared to the Earth Spirit. It will always cry to him in the words: “Thou'rt like the Spirit whom thou comprehendest, not me!” Only the perception of the deepest inner life can conjure forth this Spirit which says of itself:
“In the tides of Life, in Action's storm,
A fluctuant wave,
A shuttle free,
Birth and the Grave,
An eternal sea,
A weaving, flowing
Life, all-glowing,
Thus at Time's humming loom
'tis my hand prepares
The garment of Life
which the Deity weaves.”
[ 8 ] In my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity1The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 46 Gloucester Place, London, W.1. Price 12/- I have tried to show how the knowledge that in his actions man is dependent upon himself is derived from the most inward of all experiences, from the perception of his own being. In 1844 Stirner advocated the view that if man truly understands himself he can only see the basis of his activity in himself. In the case of Stirner, however, this knowledge did not proceed from perception of the most inward experience but from the feeling of being free and untrammelled by all-constraining world powers. Stirner does not go further than to demand freedom; in this region he is led to lay the sharpest possible emphasis on the fact that human nature is based upon itself. I have tried to describe life in freedom on a broader basis by showing what man discovers when he beholds the foundation of his soul. Goethe did not attain to the perception of freedom because he had an aversion to self-knowledge. If this had not been the case the knowledge of man as a free personality based on itself must have constituted the summit of his world-conception. We find the germs of this knowledge everywhere in Goethe, and they are at the same time the germs of his view of Nature.
[ 9 ] In his real studies of Nature Goethe never speaks of impenetrable courses or of hidden motive forces of phenomena. He is content with observing the phenomena in their sequence and explaining them by the help of those elements which in the act of observation are revealed to the senses and the mind. On May 5th, 1786, he writes in this sense to Jacobi; he says that he had the courage “to devote his whole life to the observation of objects accessible to him” and of whose essential being he “can hope to form an adequate idea,” without worrying in the least about how far he will advance or about what is suitable for him. A man who believes that he draws near to Divinity in the single object of Nature does not any longer need to build up for himself a separate conception of a God existing exterior to and alongside of the objects. It is only when Goethe leaves the realm of Nature that his sense for the essential being of objects no longer asserts itself. His lack of human self-knowledge leads him then to make statements that cannot be reconciled either with his innate mode of thought or with the trend of his Nature studies. Those who are prone to refer to statements of this kind may assume that Goethe believed in an anthropomorphous God and in an individual continuation of that form of the soul's life that is bound up with the conditions of the physical, bodily organisation. Such a belief is contradictory to Goethe's Nature studies. The trend of these studies could never have become what it is if Goethe had allowed himself to be guided by this belief. In accordance with the whole character of his Nature studies is the conception that the true being of the human soul lives in a supersensible form of existence after the body has been laid aside. This form of existence necessitates that by reason of the changed life conditions it will also assume a mode of consciousness different from that which it possessed through the physical body. And so the Goethean teaching of metamorphoses leads also to the perception of metamorphoses of soul life. But we shall only be able to apprehend this Goethean idea of Immortality aright if we realise that Goethe's view of the world could not lead him to conceive of an unmetamorphosed continuation of that form of spiritual life that is conditioned by the physical body. Because Goethe did not attempt a perception of the life of thought in the sense indicated here he was not induced in the course of his life to develop in any special degree that idea of Immortality which would have been the continuation of his thoughts on Metamorphosis. This is, however, the idea that would really in truth have followed from his world-conception in reference to this sphere of knowledge. What Goethe gave as the expression of a personal feeling in reference to the view of life of one or another of his contemporaries, or from some other motive, without thinking of its connection with the view of the world won from its Nature studies must not be quoted as characteristic of his idea of Immortality.
[ 10 ] When it is a question of a true estimation of some particular utterance of Goethe within the collective picture of his world-conception, we must also take into consideration the fact that the attitude of his soul in the different periods of his life gives special colouring to such utterances. He was fully conscious of this variation in the forms in which his ideas were expressed. When Forster gave it as his view that the solution of the Faust problem is given in the words:
“A good man through obscurest aspirations
Has still an instinct of the one, true way,”
Goethe's reply was: “That would be an explanation. Faust ends as an old man, and in old age we become Mystics.” And in the Prose Aphorisms we read: “There is a specific philosophy answering to every period of life. The child is a Realist, for it finds itself as convinced about the existence of the pears and apples as it is about its own. The youth, assailed by inner passions, must reckon with himself, must feel his way, and he is transformed into an idealist. On the other hand, the grown man has every cause to become a sceptic; he does well to doubt as to whether the means which he has chosen for his ends are the right ones. Before acting and in action he has every cause to keep his intellect mobile in order that he may not later have to regret a wrong choice. The old man, however, will always embrace Mysticism; he realises that so much seems to be dependent on chance; the unreasonable succeeds, the reasonable strikes amiss, fortune and misfortune alike balance unexpectedly; thus it is, thus it was, and old age rests in Him Who is, Who was and Who will be.”
[ 11 ] In this book I have been concerned with Goethe's world-conception out of which his insight into the life of Nature has developed, and was the driving force in him, from the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in man up to the completion of his Doctrine of Colours. And I think I have shown that this world-conception corresponds more fully to his personality as a whole than any compilation of utterances where it is necessary above all to take into consideration the colouring given to the thoughts by the mood of youth or mature age. It is my belief that in his Nature studies Goethe was guided by a true feeling, although not by a clear self-knowledge in conformity with ideas, and that he maintained a free and independent mode of procedure, derived from the true relationship of human nature to the external world. Goethe himself realises that there is something unfinished in his mode of thought. “I was conscious of great and noble aims, yet I could never understand the conditions under which I worked; I noted what was lacking in me, and equally what was exaggerated; therefore I did not abstain from developing myself from without and from within. And yet it remained as before. I pursued each aim with earnestness, intensity and fidelity. I often succeeded in a complete mastery of refractory conditions, but I was often frustrated by them because I could not learn how to yield and to evade. And so my life passed amid action and enjoyment, suffering and opposition, amid love, contentment, enmity and displeasure of others. Let those who share the same destiny behold themselves mirrored here!”
Die Metamorphose der Welterscheinungen
[ 1 ] Den höchsten Grad der Reife erlangte Goethes Weltanschauung, als ihm die Anschauung der zwei großen Triebräder der Natur: die Bedeutung der Begriffe von Polarität und von Steigerung aufging. (Vgl. den Aufsatz: Erläuterung zu dem Aufsatz «Die Natur». Kürschner Band 34, S. 63 f.) Die Polarität ist den Erscheinungen der Natur eigen, insofern wir sie materiell denken. Sie besteht darin, daß sich alles Materielle in zwei entgegengesetzten Zuständen äußert, wie der Magnet in einem Nordpol und einem Südpol. Diese Zustände der Materie liegen entweder offen vor Augen, oder sie schlummern in dem Materiellen und können durch geeignete Mittel in demselben erweckt werden. Die Steigerung kommt den Erscheinungen zu, insofern wir sie geistig denken. Sie kann beobachtet werden bei den Naturvorgängen, die unter die Idee der Entwicklung fallen. Auf den verschiedenen Stufen der Entwicklung zeigen diese Vorgänge die ihnen zu Grunde liegende Idee mehr oder weniger deutlich in ihrer äußeren Erscheinung. In der Frucht ist die Idee der Pflanze, das vegetabilische Gesetz, nur undeutlich in der Erscheinung ausgeprägt. Die Idee, die der Geist erkennt, und die Wahrnehmung sind einander unähnlich. «In den Blüten tritt das vegetabilische Gesetz in seine höchste Erscheinung, und die Rose wäre nur wieder der Gipfel der Erscheinung.» In der Herausarbeitung des Geistigen aus dem Materiellen durch die schaffende Natur besteht das, was Goethe Steigerung nennt. Die Natur ist «in immerstrebendem Aufsteigen» begriffen, heißt, sie sucht Gebilde zu schaffen, die, in aufsteigender Ordnung, die Ideen der Dinge auch in der äußeren Erscheinung immer mehr zur Darstellung bringen. Goethe ist der Ansicht, daß «die Natur kein Geheimnis habe, was sie nicht irgendwo dem aufmerksamen Beobachter nackt vor die Augen stellt». Die Natur kann Erscheinungen hervorbringen, von denen sich die Ideen für ein großes Gebiet verwandter Vorgänge unmittelbar ablesen lassen. Es sind die Erscheinungen, in denen die Steigerung ihr Ziel erreicht hat, in denen die Idee unmittelbare Wahrheit wird. Der schöpferische Geist der Natur tritt hier an die Oberfläche der Dinge; was an den grob-materiellen Erscheinungen nur dem Denken erfaßbar ist, was nur mit geistigen Augen geschaut werden kann: das wird in den gesteigerten dem leiblichen Auge sichtbar. Alles Sinnliche ist hier auch geistig und alles Geistige sinnlich. Durchgeistigt denkt sich Goethe die ganze Natur. Ihre Formen sind dadurch verschieden, daß der Geist in ihnen mehr oder weniger auch äußerlich sichtbar wird. Eine tote geistlose Materie kennt Goethe nicht. Als solche erscheinen diejenigen Dinge, in denen sich der Geist der Natur eine seinem ideellen Wesen unähnliche äußere Form gibt. Weil ein Geist in der Natur und im menschlichen Innern wirkt, deshalb kann der Mensch sich zur Teilnahme an den Produktionen der Natur erheben. «... vom Ziegelstein, der dem Dache entstürzt, bis zum leuchtenden Geistesblitz, der dir aufgeht und den du mitteilst», gilt für Goethe alles im Weltall als Wirkung, als Manifestation eines schöpferischen Geistes. «Alle Wirkungen, von welcher Art sie seien, die wir in der Erfahrung bemerken, hängen auf die stetigste Weise zusammen, gehen ineinander über; sie undulieren von der ersten bis zur letzten.» «Ein Ziegelstein löst sich vom Dache los: wir nennen dies im gemeinen Sinne zufällig; er trifft die Schultern eines Vorübergehenden doch wohl mechanisch, allein nicht ganz mechanisch, er folgt den Gesetzen der Schwere, und so wirkt er physisch. Die zerrissenen Lebensgefäße geben sogleich ihre Funktion auf; im Augenblicke wirken die Säfte chemisch, die elementaren Eigenschaften treten hervor. Allein das gestörte organische Leben widersetzt sich ebenso schnell und sucht sich herzustellen; indessen ist das menschliche Ganze mehr oder weniger bewußtlos und psychisch zerrüttet. Die sich wiedererkennende Person fühlt sich ethisch im tiefsten verletzt; sie beklagt ihre gestörte Tätigkeit, von welcher Art sie auch sei, aber ungern ergäbe der Mensch sich in Geduld. Religiös hingegen wird ihm leicht, diesen Fall einer höheren Schickung zuzuschreiben, ihn als Bewahrung vor größerem Übel, als Einleitung zu höherem Guten anzusehen. Dies reicht hin für den Leidenden; aber der Genesende erhebt sich genial, vertraut Gott und sich selbst und fühlt sich gerettet, ergreift auch wohl das Zufällige, wendet's zu seinem Vorteil, um einen ewig frischen Lebenskreis zu beginnen.» Als Modifikationen des Geistes erscheinen Goethe alle Weltwirkungen, und der Mensch, der sich in sie vertieft und sie beobachtet von der Stufe des Zufälligen bis zu der des Genialen, durchlebt die Metamorphose des Geistes von der Gestalt, in der sich dieser in einer ihm unähnlichen äußeren Erscheinung darstellt, bis zu der, wo er in seiner ihm ureigensten Form erscheint. Einheitlich wirkend sind im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung alle schöpferischen Kräfte. Ein Ganzes, das sich in einer Stufenfolge von verwandten Mannigfaltigkeiten offenbart, sind sie. Goethe war aber nie geneigt, die Einheit der Welt sich als einförmig vorzustellen. Oft verfallen die Anhänger des Einheitsgedankens in den Fehler, die Gesetzmäßigkeit, die sich auf einem Erscheinungsgebiete beobachten läßt, auf die ganze Natur auszudehnen. In diesem Falle ist z.B. die mechanistische Weltanschauung. Sie hat ein besonderes Auge und Verständnis für das, was sich mechanisch erklären laßt. Deshalb erscheint ihr das Mechanische als das einzig Naturgemäße. Sie sucht auch die Erscheinungen der organischen Natur auf mechanische Gesetzmäßigkeit zurückzuführen. Bin Lebendiges ist ihr nur eine komplizierte Form des Zusammenwirkens mechanischer Vorgänge. In besonders abstoßender Form fand Goethe eine solche Weltanschauung in Holbachs «Systeme de la nature» ausgesprochen, das ihm in Straßburg in die Hände fiel. Eine Materie sollte sein von Ewigkeit, und von Ewigkeit her bewegt, und sollte nun mit dieser Bewegung rechts und links und nach allen Seiten, ohne weiteres, die unendlichen Phänomene des Daseins hervorbringen. «Dies alles wären wir sogar zufrieden gewesen, wenn der Verfasser wirklich aus seiner bewegten Materie die Welt vor unsern Augen aufgebaut hätte. Aber er mochte von der Natur so wenig wissen als wir: denn indem er einige allgemeine Begriffe hingepfahlt, verläßt er sie sogleich, um dasjenige, was höher als die Natur, oder als höhere Natur in der Natur erscheint, zur materiellen, schweren, zwar bewegten, aber doch richtungs- und gestaltlosen Natur zu verwandeln, und glaubt dadurch recht viel gewonnen zu haben. »(Dichtung und Wahrheit, II. Buch.) In ähnlicher Weise hätte sich Goethe geäußert, wenn er den Satz Du Bois-Reymonds («Grenzen des Naturerkennens», S.13) hätte hören können: «Naturerkennen ... ist Zurückführung der Veränderungen in der Körperwelt auf Bewegungen von Atomen, die durch deren von der Zeit unabhängige Zentralkräfte bewirkt werden, oder Auflösung der Naturvorgänge in Mechanik der Atome.» Goethe dachte sich die Arten von Naturwirkungen miteinander verwandt und ineinander übergehend; aber er wollte sie nie auf eine einzige Art zurückführen. Er trachtete nicht nach einem abstrakten Prinzip, auf das alle Naturerscheinungen zurückgeführt werden sollen, sondern nach Beobachtung der charakteristischen Art, wie sich die schöpferische Natur in jedem einzelnen ihrer Erscheinungsgebiete durch besondere Formen ihrer allgemeinen Gesetzmäßigkeit offenbart. Nicht eine Gedankenform wollte er sämtlichen Naturerscheinungen aufzwängen, sondern durch Einleben in verschiedene Gedankenformen wollte er sich den Geist so lebendig und biegsam erhalten, wie die Natur selbst ist. Wenn die Empfindung von der großen Einheit alles Naturwirkens in ihm mächtig war, dann war er Pantheist. «Ich für mich kann, bei den mannigfaltigen Richtungen meines Wesens, nicht an einer Denkweise genug haben; als Dichter und Künstler bin ich Polytheist, Pantheist als Naturforscher, und eines so entschieden als das andere. Bedarf ich eines Gottes für meine Persönlichkeit, als sittlicher Mensch, so ist dafür auch schon gesorgt.» (An Jacobi, 6. Jan. 1813.) Als Künstler wandte sich Goethe an jene Naturerscheinungen, in denen die Idee in unmittelbarer Anschauung gegenwärtig ist. Das Einzelne erschien hier unmittelbar göttlich; die Welt als eine Vielheit göttlicher Individualitäten. Als Naturforscher mußte Goethe auch in den Erscheinungen, deren Idee nicht in ihrem individuellen Dasein sichtbar wird, die Kräfte der Natur verfolgen. Als Dichter konnte er sich bei der Vielheit des Göttlichen beruhigen; als Naturforscher mußte er die einheitlich wirkenden Naturideen suchen. «Das Gesetz, das in die Erscheinung tritt, in der größten Freiheit, nach seinen eigensten Bedingungen, bringt das Objektiv-Schöne hervor, welches freilich würdige Subjekte finden muß, von denen es aufgefaßt wird.» Dieses Objektiv-Schöne im einzelnen Geschöpf will Goethe als Künstler anschauen; aber als Naturforscher will er «die Gesetze kennen, nach welchen die allgemeine Natur handeln will». Polytheismus ist die Denkweise, die in dem Einzelnen ein Geistiges sieht und verehrt; Pantheismus die andere, die den Geist des Ganzen erfaßt. Beide Denkweisen können nebeneinander bestehen; die eine oder die andere macht sich geltend, je nachdem der Blick auf das Naturganze gerichtet ist, das Leben und Folge ist aus einem Mittelpunkte, oder auf diejenigen Individuen, in denen die Natur in einer Form vereinigt, was sie in der Regel über ein ganzes Reich ausbreitet. Solche Formen entstehen, wenn z.B. die schöpferischen Naturkräfte nach «tausendfältigen Pflanzen», noch eine machen, worin «alle übrigen enthalten», oder «nach tausendfältigen Tieren ein Wesen, das sie alle enthält: den Menschen».
[ 2 ] Goethe macht einmal die Bemerkung: «Wer sie (meine Schriften) und mein Wesen überhaupt verstehen gelernt, wird doch bekennen müssen, daß er eine gewisse innere Freiheit gewonnen.» (Unterhaltungen mit dem Kanzler von Müller, . Jan.1831.) Damit hat er auf die wirkende Kraft hingedeutet, die sich in allem menschlichen Erkenntnisstreben geltend macht. Solange der Mensch dabei stehen bleibt, die Gegensätze um sich her wahrzunehmen und ihre Gesetze als ihnen eingepflanzte Prinzipien zu betrachten, von denen sie beherrscht werden, hat er das Gefühl, daß sie ihm als unbekannte Mächte gegenüberstehen, die auf ihn wirken und ihm die Gedanken ihrer Gesetze aufdrängen. Er fühlt sich den Dingen gegenüber unfrei; er empfindet die Gesetzmäßigkeit der Natur als starre Notwendigkeit, der er sich zu fügen hat. Erst wenn der Mensch gewahr wird, daß die Naturkräfte nichts anderes sind als Formen desselben Geistes, der auch in ihm selbst wirkt, geht ihm die Einsicht auf, daß er der Freiheit teilhaftig ist. Die Naturgesetzlichkeit wird nur so lange als Zwang empfunden, so lange man sie als fremde Gewalt ansieht. Lebt man sich in ihre Wesenheit ein, so empfindet man sie als Kraft, die man auch selbst in seinem Innern betätigt; man empfindet sich als produktiv mitwirkendes Element beim Werden und Wesen der Dinge. Man ist Du und Du mit aller Werdekraft. Man hat in sein eigenes Tun das aufgenommen, was man sonst nur als äußeren Antrieb empfindet. Dies ist der Befreiungs-Prozeß, den im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung der Erkenntnisakt bewirkt. Klar hat Goethe die Ideen des Naturwirkens angeschaut, als sie ihm aus den italienischen Kunstwerken entgegenblickten. Eine klare Empfindung hatte er auch von der befreienden Wirkung, die das Innehaben dieser Ideen auf den Menschen ausübt. Eine Folge dieser Empfindung ist seine Schilderung derjenigen Erkenntnisart, die er als die der umfassenden Geister bezeichnet. «Die Umfassenden, die man in einem stolzern Sinne die Erschaffenden nennen könnte, verhalten sich im höchsten Sinne produktiv; indem sie nämlich von Ideen ausgehen, sprechen sie die Einheit des Ganzen schon aus, und es ist gewissermaßen nachher die Sache der Natur, sich in diese Idee zu fügen.» Zu der unmittelbaren Anschauung des Befreiungsaktes hat es aber Goethe nie gebracht. Diese Anschauung kann nur derjenige haben, der sich selbst in seinem Erkennen belauscht. Goethe hat zwar die höchste Erkenntnisart ausgeübt; aber er hat diese Erkenntnisart nicht an sich beobachtet. Gesteht er doch selbst:
«Wie hast du's denn so weit gebracht?
Sie sagen, du habest es gut vollbracht!»
Mein Kind! Ich hab' es klug gemacht;
Ich habe nie über das Denken gedacht.
[ 3 ] Aber so wie die schöpferischen Naturkräfte «nach tausendfältigen Pflanzen» noch eine machen, worin « alle übrigen enthalten» sind, so bringen sie auch nach tausendfältigen Ideen noch eine hervor, worin die ganze Ideenwelt enthalten ist. Und diese Idee erfaßt der Mensch, wenn er zu der Anschauung der andern Dinge und Vorgänge auch diejenige des Denkens fügt. Eben weil Goethes Denken stets mit den Gegenständen der Anschauung erfüllt war, weil sein Denken ein Anschauen, sein Anschauen ein Denken war: deshalb konnte er nicht dazu kommen, das Denken selbst zum Gegenstande des Denkens zu machen. Die Idee der Freiheit gewinnt man aber nur durch die Anschauung des Denkens. Den Unterschied zwischen Denken über das Denken und Anschauung des Denkens hat Goethe nicht gemacht. Sonst wäre er zur Einsicht gelangt, daß man gerade im Sinne seiner Weltanschauung es wohl ablehnen könne, über das Denken zu denken, daß man aber doch zu einer Anschauung der Gedankenwelt kommen könne. An dem Zustandekommen aller übrigen Anschauungen ist der Mensch unbeteiligt. In ihm leben die Ideen dieser Anschauungen auf. Diese Ideen würden aber nicht da sein, wenn in ihm nicht die produktive Kraft vorhanden wäre, sie zur Erscheinung zu bringen. Wenn auch die Ideen der Inhalt dessen sind, was in den Dingen wirkt; zum erscheinenden Dasein kommen sie durch die menschliche Tätigkeit. Die eigene Natur der Ideenwelt kann also der Mensch nur erkennen, wenn er seine Tätigkeit anschaut. Bei jeder anderen Anschauung durchdringt er nur die wirkende Idee; das Ding, in dem gewirkt wird, bleibt als Wahrnehmung außerhalb seines Geistes. In der Anschauung der Idee ist Wirkendes und Bewirktes ganz in seinem Innern enthalten. Er hat den ganzen Prozeß restlos in seinem Innern gegenwärtig. Die Anschauung erscheint nicht mehr von der Idee hervorgebracht; denn die Anschauung ist jetzt selbst Idee. Diese Anschauung des sich selbst Hervorbringenden ist aber die Anschauung der Freiheit. Bei der Beobachtung des Denkens durchschaut der Mensch das Weltgeschehen. Er hat hier nicht nach einer Idee dieses Geschehens zu forschen, denn dieses Geschehen ist die Idee selbst. Die sonst erlebte Einheit von Anschauung und Idee ist hier Erleben der anschaulich gewordenen Geistigkeit der Ideenwelt. Der Mensch, der diese in sich selbst ruhende Tätigkeit anschaut, fühlt die Freiheit. Goethe hat diese Empfindung zwar erlebt, aber nicht in der höchsten Form ausgesprochen. Er übte in seiner Naturbetrachtung eine freie Tätigkeit; aber sie wurde ihm nie gegenständlich. Er hat nie hinter die Kulissen des menschlichen Erkennens geschaut und deshalb die Idee des Weltgeschehens in dessen ureigenster Gestalt, in seiner höchsten Metamorphose nie in sein Bewußtsein aufgenommen. Sobald der Mensch zur Anschauung dieser Metamorphose gelangt, bewegt er sich sicher im Reich der Dinge. Er hat in dem Mittelpunkte seiner Persönlichkeit den wahren Ausgangspunkt für alle Weltbetrachtung gewonnen. Er wird nicht mehr nach unbekannten Gründen, nach außer ihm liegenden Ursachen der Dinge forschen; er weiß, daß das höchste Erlebnis, dessen er fähig ist, in der Selbstbetrachtung der eigenen Wesenheit besteht. Wer ganz durchdrungen ist von den Gefühlen, die dieses Erlebnis hervorruft, der wird die wahrsten Verhältnisse zu den Dingen gewinnen. Bei wem das nicht der Fall ist, der wird die höchste Form des Daseins anderswo suchen, und, da er sie in der Erfahrung nicht finden kann, in einem unbekannten Gebiet der Wirklichkeit vermuten. Seine Betrachtung der Dinge wird etwas Unsicheres bekommen; er wird sich bei der Beantwortung der Fragen, die ihm die Natur stellt, fortwährend auf ein Unerforschliches berufen. Weil Goethe durch sein Leben in der Ideenwelt ein Gefühl hatte von dem festen Mittelpunkt, innerhalb der Persönlichkeit, ist es ihm gelungen, innerhalb bestimmter Grenzen im Naturbetrachten zu sicheren Begriffen zu kommen. Weil ihm aber die unmittelbare Anschauung des innersten Erlebnisses abging, tastet er außer halb dieser Grenzen unsicher umher. Er redet aus diesem Grunde davon, daß der Mensch nicht geboren sei, die « Probleme der Welt zu lösen, wohl aber zu suchen, wo das Problem angeht, und sich sodann in der Grenze des Begreiflichen zu halten». Er sagt: «Kant hat unstreitig am meisten genützt, indem er die Grenzen zog, wie weit der menschliche Geist zu dringen fähig sei, und daß er die unauflöslichen Probleme liegen ließ.» Hätte ihm die Anschauung des höchsten Erlebnisses Sicherheit in der Betrachtung der Dinge gegeben, so hätte er auf seinem Wege mehr gekonnt als «durch geregelte Erfahrung zu einer Art von bedingter Zuverlässigkeit gelangen». Statt geradewegs durch die Erfahrung durchzuschreiten in dem Bewußtsein, daß das Wahre nur eine Bedeutung hat, insoweit es von der menschlichen Natur gefordert wird, gelangt er doch zu der Überzeugung, daß « ein höherer Einfluß die Standhaften, die Tätigen, die Verständigen, die Geregelten und Regelnden, die Menschlichen, die Frommen» begünstige, und daß sich «die moralische Weltordnung» am schönsten da zeige, wo sie «dem Guten, dem wacker Leidenden mittelbar zu Hilfe kommt».
[ 4 ] Weil Goethe das innerste menschliche Erlebnis nicht kannte, war es ihm unmöglich, zu den letzten Gedanken über die sittliche Weltordnung zu gelangen, die zu seiner Naturanschauung notwendig gehören. Die Ideen der Dinge sind der Inhalt des in den Dingen Wirksamen und Schaffenden. Die sittlichen Ideen erlebt der Mensch unmittelbar in der Ideenform. Wer zu erleben imstande ist, wie in der Anschauung der Ideenwelt das Ideelle sich selbst zum Inhalt wird, sich mit sich selbst erfüllt, der ist auch in der Lage, die Produktion des Sittlichen innerhalb der menschlichen Natur zu erleben. Wer die Naturideen nur in ihrem Verhältnis zu der Anschauungswelt kennt, der wird auch die sittlichen Begriffe auf etwas ihnen Äußeres beziehen wollen. Er wird eine ähnliche Wirklichkeit für diese Begriffe suchen, wie sie für die aus der Erfahrung gewonnenen Begriffe vorhanden ist. Wer aber Ideen in ihrer eigensten Wesenheit anzuschauen vermag, der wird bei den sittlichen gewahr, daß nichts Äußeres ihnen entspricht, daß sie unmittelbar im Geist-Erleben als Ideen produziert werden. Ihm ist klar, daß weder ein nur äußerlich wirkender göttlicher Wille, noch eine solche sittliche Weltordnung wirksam sind, um diese Ideen zu erzeugen. Denn es ist in ihnen nichts von einem Bezug auf solche Gewalten zu bemerken. Alles was sie aussprechen, ist in ihrer geistig erlebten reinen Ideenform auch eingeschlossen. Nur durch ihren eigenen Inhalt wirken sie auf den Menschen als sittliche Mächte. Kein kategorischer Imperativ steht mit der Peitsche hinter ihnen und drängt den Menschen, ihnen zu folgen. Der Mensch empfindet, daß er sie selbst hervorgebracht hat und liebt sie, wie man sein Kind liebt. Die Liebe ist das Motiv des Handelns. Die geistige Lust am eigenen Erzeugnis ist der Quell des Sittlichen.
[ 5 ] Es gibt Menschen, die keine sittlichen Ideen zu produzieren vermögen. Sie nehmen diejenigen anderer Menschen durch Überlieferung in sich auf. Und wenn sie kein Anschauungsvermögen für Ideen als solche haben, erkennen sie den im Geiste erlebbaren Ursprung des Sittlichen nicht. Sie suchen ihn in einem übermenschlichen, ihnen äußerlichen Willen. Oder sie glauben, daß eine außerhalb der menschlich erlebten Geistwelt bestehende objektive sittliche Weltordnung bestehe, aus der die moralischen Ideen stammen. In dem Gewissen des Menschen wird oft das Sprachorgan dieser Weltordnung gesucht. Wie über gewisse Dinge seiner übrigen Weltanschauung ist Goethe auch in seinen Gedanken über den Ursprung des Sittlichen unsicher. Auch hier treibt sein Gefühl für das Ideengemäße Sätze hervor, die den Forderungen seiner Natur gemäß sind. «Pflicht: wo man liebt, was man sich selbst befiehlt.» Nur wer die Gründe des Sittlichen rein in dem Inhalt der sittlichen Ideen sieht, sollte sagen: «Lessing, der mancherlei Beschränkung unwillig fühlte, läßt eine seiner Personen sagen: niemand muß müssen. Ein geistreicher, frohgesinnter Mann sagte: Wer will, der muß. Ein dritter, freilich ein Gebildeter, fügte hinzu: Wer einsieht, der will auch. Und so glaubte man den ganzen Kreis des Erkennens, Wollens und Müssens abgeschlossen zu haben. Aber im Durchschnitt bestimmt die Erkenntnis des Menschen, von welcher Art sie auch sei, sein Tun und Lassen; deswegen auch nichts schrecklicher ist, als die Unwissenheit handeln zu sehen.» Daß in Goethe ein Gefühl für die echte Natur des Sittlichen herrscht, welches sich nur nicht zur klaren Anschauung erhebt, zeigt folgender Ausspruch: «Der Wille muß, um vollkommen zu werden, sich im Sittlichen dem Gewissen, das nicht irrt ... fügen ... Das Gewissen bedarf keines Ahnherrn, mit ihm ist alles gegeben; es hat nur mit der innern eigenen Welt zu tun.» Das Gewissen bedarf keines Ahnherrn, kann nur heißen: der Mensch findet in sich keinen sittlichen Inhalt ursprünglich vor; er gibt sich ihn selbst. Diesen Aussprüchen stehen andere gegenüber, die den Ursprung des Sittlichen in ein Gebiet außerhalb des Menschen verlegen: «Der Mensch, wie sehr ihn auch die Erde anzieht mit ihren tausend und abertausend Erscheinungen, hebt doch den Blick sehnend zum Himmel auf... weil er es tief und klar in sich fühlt, daß er ein Bürger jenes geistigen Reiches sei, woran wir den Glauben nicht abzulehnen, noch aufzugeben vermögen.» «Was gar nicht aufzulösen ist, überlassen wir Gott als dem allbedingenden und allbefreienden Wesen.»
[ 6 ] Für die Betrachtung der innersten Menschennatur, für die Selbstbeschauung fehlt Goethe das Organ. «Hierbei bekenne ich, daß mir von jeher die große und so bedeutend klingende Aufgabe: erkenne dich selbst, immer verdächtig vorkam, als eine List geheim verbündeter Priester, die den Menschen durch unerreichbare Forderungen verwirren und von der Tätigkeit gegen die Außenwelt zu einer inneren falschen Beschaulichkeit verleiten wollten. Der Mensch kennt nur sich selbst, insofern er die Welt kennt, die er nur in sich und sich nur in ihr gewahr wird. Jeder neue Gegenstand, wohl beschaut, schließt ein neues Organ in uns auf» Davon ist gerade das Umgekehrte wahr: der Mensch kennt die Welt nur, insofern er sich kennt. Denn in seinem Innern offenbart sich in ureigenster Gestalt, was in den Außendingen nur im Abglanz, im Beispiel, Symbol als Anschauung vorhanden ist. Wovon der Mensch sonst nur als von einem Unergründlichen, Unerforschlichen, Göttlichen sprechen kann: das tritt ihm in der Selbstanschauung in wahrer Gestalt vor Augen. Weil er in der Selbstanschauung das Ideelle in unmittelbarer Gestalt sieht, gewinnt er die Kraft und Fähigkeit, dieses Ideelle auch in aller äußeren Erscheinung, in der ganzen Natur aufzusuchen und anzuerkennen. Wer den Augenblick der Selbstanschauung erlebt hat, denkt nicht mehr daran, hinter den Erscheinungen einen «verborgenen» Gott zu suchen: er ergreift das Göttliche in seinen verschiedenen Metamorphosen in der Natur. Goethe bemerkte in Beziehung auf Schelling: «Ich würde ihn öfters sehen, wenn ich nicht noch auf poetische Momente hoffte, und die Philosophie zerstört bei mir die Poesie, und das wohl deshalb, weil sie mich ins Objekt treibt, indem ich mich nie rein spekulativ erhalten kann, sondern gleich zu jedem Satze eine Anschauung suchen muß und deshalb gleich in die Natur hinaus fliehe.» Die höchste Anschauung, die Anschauung der Ideenwelt selbst, hat er eben nicht finden können. Sie kann die Poesie nicht zerstören, denn sie befreit den Geist nur von allen Vermutungen, daß in der Natur ein Unbekanntes, Unergründliches sein könne. Dafür aber macht sie ihn fähig, sich unbefangen ganz den Dingen hinzugeben; denn sie gibt ihm die Überzeugung, daß aus der Natur alles zu entnehmen ist, was der Geist von ihr nur wünschen kann.
[ 7 ] Die höchste Anschauung befreit aber den Menschengeist auch von allem einseitigen Abhängigkeitsgefühl. Er fühlt sich durch ihren Besitz souverän im Reiche der sittlichen Weltordnung. Er weiß, daß die Triebkraft, die alles hervorbringt, in seinem Innern als in seinem eigenen Willen wirkt, und daß die höchsten Entscheidungen über Sittliches in ihm selbst liegen. Denn diese höchsten Entscheidungen fließen aus der Welt der sittlichen Ideen, bei deren Produktion die Seele des Menschen anwesend ist. Mag der Mensch im einzelnen sich beschränkt fühlen, mag er auch von tausend Dingen abhängig sein; im ganzen gibt er sich sein sittliches Ziel und seine sittliche Richtung. Das Wirksame aller übrigen Dinge kommt im Menschen als Idee zur Erscheinung; das Wirksame im Menschen ist die Idee, die er selbst hervorbringt. In jeder einzelnen menschlichen Individualität vollzieht sich der Prozeß, der im Ganzen der Natur sich abspielt: die Schöpfung eines Tatsächlichen aus der Idee heraus. Und der Mensch selbst ist der Schöpfer. Denn auf dem Grunde seiner Persönlichkeit lebt die Idee, die sich selbst einen Inhalt gibt. Über Goethe hinausgehend, muß man seinen Satz erweitern, die Natur sei «in dem Reichtum der Schöpfung so groß, nach tausendfältigen Pflanzen eine zu machen, worin alle übrigen enthalten sind, und nach tausendfältigen Tieren ein Wesen, das sie alle enthält, den Menschen». Die Natur ist in ihrer Schöpfung so groß, daß sie den Prozeß, durch den sie frei aus der Idee heraus alle Geschöpfe hervorbringt, in jedem Menschenindividuum wiederholt, indem die sittlichen Handlungen aus dem ideellen Grunde der Persönlichkeit entspringen. Was der Mensch auch als objektiven Grund seines Handelns empfindet, es ist alles nur Umschreibung und zugleich Verkennung seiner eigenen Wesenheit. Sich selbst realisiert der Mensch in seinem sittlichen Handeln. In lapidaren Sätzen hat Max Stirner diese Erkenntnis in seiner Schrift «Der Einzige und sein Eigentum» ausgesprochen. «Eigner bin ich meiner Gewalt, und ich bin es dann, wenn ich mich als Einzigen weiß. Im Einzigen kehrt selbst der Eigner in sein schöpferisches Nichts zurück, aus welchem er geboren wird. Jedes höhere Wesen über mir, sei es Gott, sei es der Mensch, schwächt das Gefühl meiner Einzigkeit und erbleicht erst vor der Sonne dieses Bewußtseins. Stell' ich auf mich, den Einzigen, meine Sache, dann steht sie auf dem vergänglichen, dem sterblichen Schöpfer seiner, der sich selbst verzehrt, und ich darf sagen: ich hab' mein Sach' auf Nichts gestellt.» Aber zugleich darf der Mensch zu diesem Stirnerschen Geist, wie Faust zu Mephistopheles sagen: «In deinem Nichts hoff' ich das All zu finden», denn in meinem Innern wohnt in individueller Bildung die Wirkungskraft, durch welche die Natur das All schafft. So lange der Mensch in sich diese Wirkungskraft nicht geschaut hat, wird er sich ihr gegenüber erscheinen wie Faust dem Erdgeist gegenüber. Sie wird ihm stets die Worte zurufen: «Du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreifst, nicht mir!» Erst die Anschauung des tiefsten Innenlebens zaubert diesen Geist hervor, der von sich sagt:
In Lebensfluten, im Tatensturm
Wall' ich auf und ab,
Webe hin und her!
Geburt und Grab,
Ein ewiges Meer,
Ein wechselnd Weben,
Ein glühend Leben,
So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.
[ 8 ] Ich habe in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» darzustellen versucht, wie die Erkenntnis, daß der Mensch in seinem Tun auf sich selbst gestellt ist, hervorgeht aus dem innersten Erlebnis, aus der Anschauung der eigenen Wesenheit. Stirner hat 1844 die Ansicht verteidigt, daß der Mensch, wenn er sich wahrhaft versteht, nur in sich selbst den Grund für seine Wirksamkeit sehen könne. Bei ihm geht aber diese Erkenntnis nicht aus der Anschauung des innersten Erlebnisses, sondern aus dem Gefühle der Freiheit und Ungebundenheit gegenüber allen Zwang heischenden Weltmächten hervor. Stirner bleibt bei der Forderung der Freiheit stehen; er wird auf diesem Gebiete zu der denkbar schroffsten Betonung der auf sich selbst gestellten Menschennatur geführt. Ich versuche auf breiterer Basis das Leben in der Freiheit zu schildern, indem ich zeige, was der Mensch erblickt, wenn er auf den Grund seiner Seele sieht. Goethe ist bis zu der Anschauung der Freiheit nicht gekommen, weil er eine Abneigung gegen die Selbsterkenntnis hatte. Wäre das nicht der Fall gewesen, so hätte die Erkenntnis des Menschen als einer freien, auf sich selbst gegründeten Persönlichkeit die Spitze seiner Weltanschauung bilden müssen. Die Keime zu dieser Erkenntnis treten uns bei ihm überall entgegen; sie sind zugleich die Keime seiner Naturansicht.
[ 9 ] Innerhalb seiner eigentlichen Naturstudien spricht Goethe nirgends von unerforschlichen Gründen, von verborgenen Triebkräften der Erscheinungen. Er begnügt sich damit, die Erscheinungen in ihrer Folge zu beobachten und sie mit Hilfe derjenigen Elemente zu erklären, die sich den Sinnen und dem Geiste bei der Beobachtung offenbaren. Am 5. Mai 1786 schreibt er in diesem Sinne an Jacobi, daß er den Mut habe, sein «ganzes Leben der Betrachtung der Dinge zu widmen, die er reichen» und von deren Wesenheit er sich « eine adäquate Idee zu bilden hoffen kann», ohne sich im mindesten zu bekümmern, wie weit er kommen werde und was ihm zugeschnitten ist. Wer sich dem Göttlichen in dem einzelnen Naturdinge zu nähern glaubt, der braucht sich nicht mehr eine besondere Vorstellung von einem Gotte zu bilden, der außer und neben den Dingen existiert. Nur wenn Goethe das Gebiet der Natur verläßt, dann hält auch sein Gefühl für die Wesenheit der Dinge nicht mehr stand. Dann führt ihn der Mangel an menschlicher Selbsterkenntnis zu Behauptungen, die weder mit seiner ihm angeborenen Denkweise, noch mit der Richtung seiner Naturstudien zu vereinigen sind. Wer Neigung hat, sich auf solche Behauptungen zu berufen, der mag annehmen, daß Goethe an einen menschenähnlichen Gott und eine individuelle Fortdauer derjenigen Lebensform der Seele geglaubt hat, die an die Bedingungen der physischen Leibesorganisation gebunden ist. Mit Goethes Naturstudien steht ein solcher Glaube im Widerspruch. Sie hätten nie die Richtung nehmen können, die sie genommen haben, wenn sich Goethe bei ihnen von diesem Glauben hätte bestimmen lassen. Im Sinne seiner Naturstudien liegt es durchaus, das Wesen der menschlichen Seele so zu denken, daß diese nach der Ablegung des Leibes in einer übersinnlichen Daseinsform lebt. Diese Daseinsform bedingt, daß ihr durch die andern Lebensbedingungen auch eine andere Bewußtseinsart eigen wird als die ist, die sie durch den physischen Leib hat. So führt die Goethesche Metamorphosenlehre auch zu der Anschauung von Metamorphosen des Seelenlebens. Aber man wird diese Goethesche Unsterblichkeitsidee nur recht ins Auge fassen können, wenn man weiß, daß Goethe zu einer unmetamorphosierten Fortsetzung desjenigen Geisteslebens, das durch den physischen Leib bedingt ist, durch seine Weltanschauung nicht hat geführt werden können. Weil Goethe in dem hier angedeuteten Sinn eine Anschauung des Gedankenlebens nicht versuchte, wurde er auch im Fortgang seiner Lebensführung nicht dazu veranlaßt, diejenige Unsterblichkeitsidee besonders auszugestalten, welche die Fortsetzung seiner Metamorphosengedanken wäre. Diese Idee aber wäre in Wahrheit dasjenige, was in Bezug auf dieses Erkenntnisgebiet aus seiner Weltanschauung folgte. Was er im Hinblick auf die Lebensansicht dieses oder jenes Zeitgenossen, oder aus anderer Veranlassung als Ausdruck einer persönlichen Empfindung gab, ohne dabei an den Zusammenhang mit seiner an den Naturstudien gewonnenen Weltanschauung zu denken, darf nicht als charakteristisch für Goethes Unsterblichkeitsidee angeführt werden.
[ 10 ] Für die Wertung eines Goetheschen Ausspruches im Gesamtbilde seiner Weltanschauung kommt auch in Betracht, daß die Stimmung seiner Seele in seinen verschiedenen Lebensaltern solchen Aussprüchen besondere Nuancen gibt. Dieses Wandels in der Ausdrucksform seiner Ideen war er sich voll bewußt. Als Förster die Ansicht aussprach, die Lösung des Faust-Problems werde sich aus dem Worte ergeben: «Ein guter Mensch in seinem dunklen Drange ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewußt» entgegnete Goethe: «Das wäre ja Aufklärung: Faust endet als Greis, und im Greisenalter werden wir Mystiker»(aus Försters Nachlaß, S.216). Und in den Prosasprüchen lesen wir: «Jedem Alter des Menschen antwortet eine gewisse Philosophie. Das Kind erscheint als Realist; denn es findet sich so überzeugt von dem Dasein der Birnen und Äpfel als von dem seinigen. Der Jüngling, von inneren Leidenschaften bestürmt, muß auf sich selbst merken, sich vorfühlen, er wird zum Idealisten umgewandelt. Dagegen ein Skeptiker zu werden, hat der Mann alle Ursache; er tut wohl zu zweifeln, ob das Mittel, das er zum Zwecke gewählt hat, auch das rechte sei. Vor dem Handeln, im Handeln hat er alle Ursache, den Verstand beweglich zu erhalten, damit er nicht nachher sich über eine falsche Wahl zu betrüben habe. Der Greis jedoch wird sich immer zum Mystizismus bekennen; er sieht, daß so vieles vom Zufall abzuhängen scheint; das Unvernünftige gelingt, das Vernünftige schlägt fehl, Glück und Unglück stellen sich unerwartet ins gleiche; so ist es, so war es, und das hohe Alter beruhigt sich in dem, der da ist, der da war und der da sein wird» (Kürschner, Band 36,2 S. 454).
[ 11 ] Ich habe in dieser Schrift die Weltanschauung Goethes im Auge, aus der seine Einsichten in das Leben der Natur hervorgewachsen sind und welche die treibende Kraft in ihm war von der Entdeckung des Zwischenknochens beim Menschen bis zur Vollendung der Farbenlehre. Und ich glaube gezeigt zu haben, daß diese Weltanschauung vollkommener der Gesamtpersönlichkeit Goethes entspricht, als die Zusammenstellung von Aussprüchen, bei denen man vor allem Rücksicht nehmen müßte, wie solche Gedanken gefärbt sind, durch die Stimmung seiner Jugend- oder seiner Altersepoche. Ich glaube, Goethe hat in seinen Naturstudien, wenn auch nicht geleitet von einer klaren, ideengemäßen Selbsterkenntnis, so doch von einem richtigen Gefühle, eine freie, aus dem wahren Verhältnis der menschlichen Natur zur Außenwelt fließende Verfahrungsweise beobachtet. Goethe ist sich selbst darüber klar, daß in seiner Denkweise etwas Unvollendetes liegt: «Ich war mir edler, großer Zwecke bewußt, konnte aber niemals die Bedingungen begreifen, unter denen ich wirkte; was mir mangelte, merkte ich wohl, was an mir zu viel sei, gleichfalls; deshalb unterließ ich nicht mich zu bilden, nach außen und von innen. Und doch blieb es beim alten. Ich verfolgte jeden Zweck mit Ernst, Gewalt und Treue; dabei gelang mir oft, widerspenstige Bedingungen vollkommen zu überwinden, oft aber auch scheiterte ich daran, weil ich nachgeben und umgehen nicht lernen konnte. Und so ging mein Leben hin unter Tun und Genießen, Leiden und Widerstreben, unter Liebe, Zufriedenheit, Haß und Mißfallen anderer. Hieran spiegele sich, dem das gleiche Schicksal geworden.»
The metamorphosis of world phenomena
[ 1 ] Goethe's view of the world reached its highest degree of maturity when he realized the two great driving forces of nature: the significance of the concepts of polarity and increase. (Cf. the essay: Explanation of the essay "Die Natur". Kürschner vol. 34, p. 63 f.) Polarity is inherent in the phenomena of nature insofar as we think of them materially. It consists in the fact that everything material expresses itself in two opposite states, like the magnet in a north pole and a south pole. These states of matter are either open before our eyes, or they lie dormant in the material and can be awakened in it by suitable means. The intensification occurs in the phenomena insofar as we think of them mentally. It can be observed in the natural processes that fall under the idea of development. At the various stages of development, these processes show the idea on which they are based more or less clearly in their outer appearance. In the fruit, the idea of the plant, the vegetable law, is only indistinctly expressed in its appearance. The idea that the mind recognizes and the perception are dissimilar. "In the blossoms, the vegetable law comes to its highest manifestation, and the rose would only be the peak of the manifestation again." The working out of the spiritual from the material by creative nature is what Goethe calls intensification. Nature is "always striving to ascend", in other words, it seeks to create forms which, in ascending order, increasingly represent the ideas of things in their outer appearance. Goethe is of the opinion that "nature has no secret that it does not somewhere present to the attentive observer naked before his eyes". Nature can produce phenomena from which the ideas for a large area of related processes can be read directly. These are the phenomena in which the increase has reached its goal, in which the idea becomes immediate truth. Here the creative spirit of nature comes to the surface of things; what in the gross material phenomena can only be grasped by the mind, what can only be seen with spiritual eyes, becomes visible to the bodily eye in the heightened phenomena. Everything sensual here is also spiritual and everything spiritual is sensual. Goethe conceives of the whole of nature as spiritualized. Its forms are different in that the spirit in them is more or less externally visible. Goethe does not know a dead, spiritless matter. Those things appear as such in which the spirit of nature gives itself an external form dissimilar to its ideal essence. Because a spirit is at work in nature and within man, man can rise to participate in the productions of nature. "... from the brick that falls from the roof to the luminous flash of spirit that rises up and which you communicate", Goethe regards everything in the universe as an effect, as a manifestation of a creative spirit. "All effects, of whatever kind they may be, which we notice in experience, are connected in the most constant way, merge into one another; they undulate from the first to the last." "A tile detaches itself from the roof: we call this in the common sense accidental; it strikes the shoulders of a passer-by mechanically, but not quite mechanically, it follows the laws of gravity, and so it acts physically. The torn vessels of life immediately give up their function; in an instant the juices act chemically, the elementary properties emerge. But the disturbed organic life resists just as quickly and seeks to restore itself; meanwhile the human whole is more or less unconscious and psychically shattered. The person who recognizes himself feels ethically deeply wounded; he laments his disturbed activity, of whatever kind it may be, but reluctantly man surrenders to patience. Religiously, on the other hand, it becomes easy for him to ascribe this case to a higher destiny, to regard it as a protection from greater evil, as an introduction to greater good. This is enough for the sufferer; but the convalescent rises genially, trusts God and himself and feels saved, seizes even the accidental, turns it to his advantage in order to begin an eternally fresh circle of life." Goethe sees all worldly effects as modifications of the spirit, and the person who immerses himself in them and observes them from the level of the accidental to that of genius, experiences the metamorphosis of the spirit from the form in which it presents itself in a dissimilar external appearance to that in which it appears in its very own form. In Goethe's view of the world, all creative forces are unified. They are a whole that reveals itself in a gradual sequence of related manifoldnesses. Goethe, however, was never inclined to imagine the unity of the world as uniform. The supporters of the idea of unity often fall into the error of extending the lawfulness that can be observed in one area of appearance to the whole of nature. In this case, for example, is the mechanistic world view. It has a special eye and understanding for that which can be explained mechanically. Therefore the mechanical appears to it as the only natural. It also seeks to trace the phenomena of organic nature back to mechanical laws. To her, the living is only a complicated form of the interaction of mechanical processes. Goethe found such a world view expressed in a particularly repulsive form in Holbach's "Systeme de la nature", which fell into his hands in Strasbourg. Matter should be from eternity, and moved from eternity, and should now, with this movement to the right and left and in all directions, produce the infinite phenomena of existence without further ado. "We would even have been satisfied with all this if the author had really built up the world before our eyes from his moving matter. But he might have known as little of nature as we do: for, by piling up a few general concepts, he immediately abandons them in order to transform that which appears higher than nature, or as higher nature in nature, into material, heavy, moving, but nevertheless directionless and formless nature, and thereby believes he has gained quite a lot. "(Dichtung und Wahrheit, II. Buch.) Goethe would have expressed himself in a similar way if he had been able to hear Du Bois-Reymond's sentence ("Grenzen des Naturerkennens", p.13): "Recognizing nature ... is the tracing back of changes in the physical world to movements of atoms, which are brought about by their central forces independent of time, or the resolution of natural processes into mechanics of atoms." Goethe thought of the types of natural effects as related to each other and merging into each other; but he never wanted to trace them back to a single type. He did not seek an abstract principle to which all natural phenomena could be traced, but rather an observation of the characteristic way in which creative nature reveals itself in each of its individual areas of manifestation through particular forms of its general lawfulness. He did not want to impose one thought-form on all natural phenomena, but by living in different thought-forms he wanted to keep the spirit as alive and flexible as nature itself is. If the feeling of the great unity of all natural phenomena was powerful in him, then he was a pantheist. "For myself, with the manifold directions of my being, I cannot have enough of one way of thinking; as a poet and artist I am a polytheist, a pantheist as a naturalist, and one as decidedly as the other. If I need a god for my personality, as a moral man, then that is already taken care of." (To Jacobi, Jan. 6, 1813.) As an artist, Goethe turned to those natural phenomena in which the idea is present in direct perception. Here the individual appeared directly divine; the world as a multiplicity of divine individualities. As a naturalist, Goethe also had to trace the forces of nature in those phenomena whose idea is not visible in their individual existence. As a poet he could rest in the multiplicity of the divine; as a naturalist he had to seek the unified ideas of nature. "The law that enters into appearance, in the greatest freedom, according to its own conditions, brings forth the objective beauty, which of course must find worthy subjects by whom it is perceived." As an artist, Goethe wants to observe this objective beauty in the individual creature; but as a naturalist he wants to "know the laws according to which general nature wants to act". Polytheism is the way of thinking that sees and worships the spiritual in the individual; pantheism is the other, which grasps the spirit of the whole. Both ways of thinking can exist side by side; one or the other asserts itself depending on whether the view is directed towards the whole of nature, which is life and consequence from a central point, or towards those individuals in whom nature unites in one form what it usually spreads over an entire realm. Such forms arise, for example, when the creative forces of nature, after "a thousand and one plants", make another in which "all the others are contained", or "after a thousand and one animals, a being that contains them all: the human being".
[ 2 ] Goethe once remarked: "Anyone who has learned to understand them (my writings) and my nature in general will have to confess that he has gained a certain inner freedom." (Unterhaltungen mit dem Kanzler von Müller, . Jan.1831.) With this he alluded to the active force that asserts itself in all human striving for knowledge. As long as man continues to perceive the opposites around him and to regard their laws as implanted principles by which they are governed, he has the feeling that they confront him as unknown powers which act upon him and impose the thoughts of their laws upon him. He feels unfree in the face of things; he perceives the laws of nature as a rigid necessity to which he must submit. Only when man realizes that the forces of nature are nothing other than forms of the same spirit that is at work in himself does he realize that he is a partaker of freedom. Natural law is only perceived as a compulsion as long as it is regarded as an external force. If one lives into its essence, then one feels it as a force that one also operates within oneself; one feels oneself as a productively co-operating element in the becoming and being of things. You are you and you with all the power of becoming. You have absorbed into your own actions what you otherwise only experience as an external drive. This is the process of liberation that the act of cognition brings about in the sense of Goethe's world view. Goethe looked clearly at the ideas of the workings of nature as they gazed out at him from the Italian works of art. He also had a clear perception of the liberating effect that the possession of these ideas has on man. One consequence of this feeling is his description of the kind of knowledge he describes as that of comprehensive spirits. "The encompassing spirits, which in a proud sense could be called the creators, behave productively in the highest sense; for by proceeding from ideas, they already express the unity of the whole, and it is, as it were, afterwards the business of nature to fit itself into this idea." Goethe, however, never achieved the direct contemplation of the act of liberation. Only those who listen to themselves in their cognition can have this view. Goethe may have practiced the highest form of cognition, but he did not observe this form of cognition in himself. As he himself admits:
"How did you get so far?
They say you have done well!"
My child! I have done it wisely;
I have never thought about thinking.
[ 3 ] But just as the creative forces of nature produce "after a thousand and one plants", in which "all the others are contained", so also after a thousand and one ideas they produce one in which the whole world of ideas is contained. And man grasps this idea when he adds the idea of thought to the contemplation of other things and processes. Precisely because Goethe's thinking was always filled with the objects of contemplation, because his thinking was contemplation, his contemplation was thinking: that is why he could not come to make thinking itself the object of thinking. But the idea of freedom can only be gained through the contemplation of thinking. Goethe did not make the distinction between thinking about thinking and viewing thinking. Otherwise he would have arrived at the insight that, precisely in the sense of his world view, one could well refuse to think about thinking, but that one could nevertheless arrive at a view of the world of thought. Man is uninvolved in the formation of all other views. The ideas of these views come to life in him. But these ideas would not be there if the productive power were not present in him to bring them to manifestation. Even if the ideas are the content of what works in things, they come into manifest existence through human activity. Man can therefore only recognize the nature of the world of ideas when he looks at his activity. In any other contemplation, he only penetrates the active idea; the thing in which the activity takes place remains outside his mind as a perception. In the contemplation of the idea, the active and the effected are completely contained within him. He has the whole process completely present within himself. The perception no longer appears to be produced by the idea; for the perception is now itself an idea. But this perception of what produces itself is the perception of freedom. In the observation of thought, man sees through world events. Here he does not have to search for an idea of this happening, for this happening is the idea itself. The otherwise experienced unity of perception and idea is here the experience of the visualized spirituality of the world of ideas. The person who looks at this activity resting in itself feels freedom. Goethe experienced this feeling, but did not express it in its highest form. He exercised a free activity in his contemplation of nature; but it never became objective to him. He never looked behind the scenes of human cognition and therefore never absorbed into his consciousness the idea of world events in their most intrinsic form, in their highest metamorphosis. As soon as man arrives at the contemplation of this metamorphosis, he moves securely in the realm of things. In the center of his personality he has gained the true starting point for all observation of the world. He will no longer search for unknown reasons, for causes of things lying outside himself; he knows that the highest experience of which he is capable consists in the self-observation of his own being. Whoever is completely imbued with the feelings that this experience evokes will gain the truest relationship to things. If this is not the case with him, he will seek the highest form of existence elsewhere and, since he cannot find it in experience, will assume it to be in an unknown realm of reality. His contemplation of things will acquire something uncertain; in answering the questions that nature poses to him, he will continually refer to something inscrutable. Because Goethe, through his life in the world of ideas, had a feeling of the fixed center, within the personality, he succeeded in arriving at certain concepts within certain limits in his contemplation of nature. But because he lacked the direct perception of the innermost experience, he groped around uncertainly outside these boundaries. For this reason he says that man was not born to "solve the problems of the world, but to seek where the problem lies, and then to keep within the limits of the intelligible". He says: "Kant has indisputably been of most use by drawing the boundaries of how far the human mind is capable of penetrating and by leaving the insoluble problems behind." If the contemplation of the highest experience had given him certainty in the consideration of things, he would have been able to do more on his way than "arrive at a kind of conditional reliability through regulated experience". Instead of going straight through experience in the awareness that the true only has a meaning insofar as it is demanded by human nature, he nevertheless arrives at the conviction that "a higher influence favors the steadfast, the active, the understanding, the regulated and regulating, the humane, the pious", and that "the moral world order" shows itself most beautifully where it "indirectly comes to the aid of the good, the brave sufferer".
[ 4 ] Because Goethe did not know the innermost human experience, it was impossible for him to arrive at the final thoughts about the moral world order, which necessarily belong to his view of nature. The ideas of things are the content of what is active and creative in things. Man experiences the moral ideas directly in the form of ideas. Whoever is capable of experiencing how, in the contemplation of the world of ideas, the ideal becomes its own content, fills itself with itself, is also in a position to experience the production of the moral within human nature. He who knows the ideas of nature only in their relation to the visual world will also want to relate the moral concepts to something external to them. He will seek a reality for these concepts similar to that which exists for the concepts derived from experience. But he who is able to look at ideas in their most intrinsic essence will realize in the case of moral concepts that nothing external corresponds to them, that they are produced directly in the spirit-experience as ideas. It is clear to him that neither an external divine will nor a moral world order is effective in producing these ideas. For there is nothing to be noticed in them of a reference to such powers. Everything they express is also included in their spiritually experienced pure idea form. Only through their own content do they have an effect on people as moral powers. No categorical imperative stands behind them with a whip and urges man to follow them. Man feels that he has brought them forth himself and loves them as one loves one's child. Love is the motive for action. The spiritual pleasure in one's own product is the source of morality.
[ 5 ] There are people who are incapable of producing moral ideas. They absorb those of other people through tradition. And if they have no ability to perceive ideas as such, they do not recognize the origin of the moral that can be experienced in the spirit. They look for it in a superhuman will that is external to them. Or they believe that an objective moral world order exists outside the humanly experienced spiritual world, from which the moral ideas originate. The organ of speech of this world order is often sought in man's conscience. As with certain things in his other world views, Goethe is also uncertain in his thoughts on the origin of morality. Here, too, his feeling for what is in accordance with ideas drives forth sentences that are in accordance with the demands of his nature. "Duty: where one loves what one commands oneself." Only those who see the grounds of morality purely in the content of moral ideas should say: "Lessing, who felt many a restriction unwillingly, has one of his characters say: No one must have to. A witty, happy-minded man said: He who will, must. A third, admittedly an educated man, added: He who understands, wills too. And so one believed to have completed the whole circle of knowledge, will and must. But on the average, man's knowledge, of whatever kind it may be, determines his actions; therefore nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance at work." The following statement shows that Goethe has a feeling for the true nature of morality, which does not rise to a clear view: "The will, in order to become perfect, must in morality submit to conscience, which does not err ... ... Conscience needs no ancestor, everything is given with it; it has to do only with its own inner world." Conscience does not need an ancestor, it can only mean that man does not originally find any moral content in himself; he gives it to himself. These statements are contrasted with others that place the origin of morality in a realm outside of man: "Man, however much he is attracted by the earth with its thousand and thousand phenomena, still raises his eyes longingly to heaven... because he feels deeply and clearly within himself that he is a citizen of that spiritual realm in which we cannot reject nor give up faith." "What cannot be dissolved at all, we leave to God as the all-conditioning and all-liberating being."
[ 6 ] For the contemplation of the innermost human nature, for introspection, Goethe lacks the organ. "Here I confess that the great and so important-sounding task: know thyself, has always seemed suspicious to me, as a trick of secretly allied priests who wanted to confuse man with unattainable demands and seduce him from activity against the outside world to an inner false contemplation. Man only knows himself insofar as he knows the world, which he is only aware of in himself and only in it. Every new object, well contemplated, opens up a new organ within us." The reverse is true: man only knows the world insofar as he knows himself. For in his inner being is revealed in its most intrinsic form what is present in external things only as a reflection, as an example, as a symbol. What man can otherwise only speak of as unfathomable, inscrutable, divine: this appears to him in true form in self-perception. Because he sees the ideal in direct form in self-perception, he gains the strength and ability to seek out and recognize this ideal in all external appearances, in all of nature. He who has experienced the moment of self-perception no longer thinks of seeking a "hidden" God behind the phenomena: he grasps the divine in its various metamorphoses in nature. Goethe remarked in relation to Schelling: "I would see him more often if I did not still hope for poetic moments, and philosophy destroys poetry for me, and that probably because it drives me into the object, in that I can never remain purely speculative, but must immediately seek an illustration for every sentence and therefore immediately flee out into nature." He was unable to find the highest view, the view of the world of ideas itself. It cannot destroy poetry, for it only frees the mind from all assumptions that there could be something unknown and unfathomable in nature. On the other hand, it enables it to devote itself completely to things without bias, for it gives it the conviction that everything that the mind can desire can be taken from nature.
[ 7 ] However, the highest contemplation also frees the human spirit from all one-sided feelings of dependence. Through its possession he feels sovereign in the realm of the moral world order. He knows that the driving force that produces everything works within him as in his own will, and that the highest decisions about morality lie within himself. For these highest decisions flow from the world of moral ideas, in the production of which the soul of man is present. Man may feel himself limited in individual things, he may be dependent on a thousand things; on the whole he gives himself his moral goal and his moral direction. What is effective in all other things appears in man as an idea; what is effective in man is the idea that he himself produces. In every single human individuality the process takes place that takes place in the whole of nature: the creation of an actuality out of the idea. And man himself is the creator. For at the base of his personality lives the idea, which gives itself content. Going beyond Goethe, we must expand on his statement that nature is "so great in the richness of creation as to make one after a thousand plants in which all the others are contained, and after a thousand animals one being that contains them all, the human being". Nature is so great in its creation that it repeats in every human individual the process by which it freely produces all creatures out of the idea, in that moral actions spring from the ideal ground of personality. Whatever man perceives as the objective ground of his actions, it is all merely a paraphrase and at the same time a misrecognition of his own essence. Man realizes himself in his moral actions. Max Stirner expressed this insight in succinct sentences in his essay "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" (The Only One and His Property). "I am the owner of my power, and I am so when I know myself to be the Only One. In the Only One, even the owner returns to his creative nothingness, from which he is born. Every higher being above me, be it God or man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness and only pales before the sun of this consciousness. If I place my cause on myself, the only one, then it stands on the perishable, the mortal creator of it, who consumes himself, and I may say: I have placed my cause on nothing." But at the same time man may say to this Stirnerian spirit, like Faust to Mephistopheles: "In your nothingness I hope to find the All", for within me dwells, in individual formation, the active force through which nature creates the All. As long as man has not seen this active force within himself, he will appear to it like Faust to the spirit of the earth. It will always call out to him the words: "You are like the spirit you comprehend, not like me!" Only the contemplation of the deepest inner life conjures up this spirit that says of itself:
In floods of life, in the storm of deeds
I wall up and down,
weaving back and forth!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life,
Thus I create on the rushing loom of time
And work the living garment of the Godhead.
[ 8 ] In my "Philosophy of Freedom" I have tried to show how the realization that man is dependent on himself in his actions arises from the innermost experience, from the contemplation of his own being. In 1844, Stirner defended the view that man, if he truly understands himself, can only see in himself the reason for his effectiveness. For him, however, this insight does not emerge from the contemplation of the innermost experience, but from the feeling of freedom and independence from all coercive world powers. Stirner stops at the demand of freedom; in this area he is led to the most abrupt emphasis imaginable on the self-reliant nature of man. I am trying to describe life in freedom on a broader basis by showing what man sees when he looks to the bottom of his soul. Goethe did not arrive at the view of freedom because he had an aversion to self-knowledge. Had this not been the case, the realization of man as a free personality based on himself would have had to form the pinnacle of his world view. We encounter the seeds of this knowledge everywhere in his work; they are also the seeds of his view of nature.
[ 9 ] Nowhere in his actual studies of nature does Goethe speak of inscrutable causes, of hidden driving forces of phenomena. He is content to observe the phenomena in their sequence and to explain them with the help of those elements that reveal themselves to the senses and the mind during observation. On May 5, 1786, he wrote to Jacobi that he had the courage to "devote his whole life to the contemplation of those things which he can reach" and of whose essence he could "hope to form an adequate idea", without worrying in the least how far he would get and what was tailor-made for him. He who believes himself to be approaching the divine in the individual natural thing no longer needs to form a special idea of a God who exists outside and beside things. It is only when Goethe leaves the realm of nature that his feeling for the essence of things no longer holds. Then his lack of human self-knowledge leads him to assertions that can be reconciled neither with his innate way of thinking nor with the direction of his studies of nature. Those who are inclined to refer to such assertions may assume that Goethe believed in a human-like God and an individual continuation of that form of life of the soul which is bound to the conditions of the physical organization of the body. Such a belief is at odds with Goethe's studies of nature. They could never have taken the direction they did if Goethe had allowed himself to be determined by this belief. In the spirit of his nature studies, it is perfectly reasonable to think of the nature of the human soul in such a way that it lives in a supersensible form of existence after shedding the body. This form of existence means that the other conditions of life also give it a different kind of consciousness than that which it has through the physical body. Thus Goethe's theory of metamorphosis also leads to the view of metamorphoses of the life of the soul. But one will only be able to grasp this Goethean idea of immortality properly if one knows that Goethe could not have been led by his world view to an unmetamorphosed continuation of that spiritual life which is conditioned by the physical body. Because Goethe did not attempt a view of the life of thought in the sense indicated here, he was also not prompted in the course of his life to give special form to the idea of immortality, which would be the continuation of his metamorphosis thoughts. This idea, however, would in truth be that which followed from his world-view with regard to this field of knowledge. What he gave with regard to this or that contemporary's view of life, or for other reasons as an expression of a personal feeling, without thinking of the connection with his world view gained from his studies of nature, must not be cited as characteristic of Goethe's idea of immortality.
[ 10 ] For the evaluation of a Goethean statement in the overall picture of his world view, it is also important to consider that the mood of his soul in his various ages gives such statements particular nuances. He was fully aware of this change in the form of expression of his ideas. When Förster expressed the view that the solution to the Faust problem would result from the words: "A good man in his dark urge is well aware of the right path", Goethe replied: "That would be enlightenment: Faust ends up as an old man, and in old age we become mystics" (from Förster's Nachlaß, p.216). And in the prose sayings we read: "Every age of man is answered by a certain philosophy. The child appears as a realist; for he finds himself as convinced of the existence of pears and apples as of his own. The youth, assailed by inner passions, must take notice of himself, feel his way forward, he is transformed into an idealist. On the other hand, the man has every reason to become a skeptic; he does well to doubt whether the means he has chosen for the end is the right one. Before acting, in acting, he has every reason to keep his mind agile so that he does not have to grieve afterwards over a wrong choice. The old man, however, will always profess mysticism; he sees that so much seems to depend on chance; the unreasonable succeeds, the reasonable fails, fortune and misfortune unexpectedly turn out to be the same; so it is, so it was, and old age calms itself in the one who is, who was, and who will be" (Kürschner, vol. 36,2 p. 454).
[ 11 ] In this essay I have in mind Goethe's world view, from which his insights into the life of nature grew and which was the driving force in him from the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in man to the completion of the theory of colors. And I believe I have shown that this view of the world corresponds more perfectly to Goethe's personality as a whole than the compilation of sayings in which one would have to consider above all how such thoughts are colored by the mood of his youth or his old age. I believe that Goethe observed in his studies of nature, if not guided by a clear, idealistic self-knowledge, at least by a correct feeling, a free way of proceeding that flows from the true relationship of human nature to the outside world. Goethe himself is aware that there is something incomplete in his way of thinking: "I was aware of noble, great purposes, but I could never grasp the conditions under which I worked; what I lacked, I realized, what was too much in me, likewise; therefore I did not refrain from educating myself, outwardly and inwardly. And yet things remained the same. I pursued every goal with seriousness, force and loyalty; I often succeeded in completely overcoming stubborn conditions, but I also often failed because I was unable to give in and learn to avoid them. And so my life went on with doing and enjoying, suffering and resisting, with love, satisfaction, hatred and displeasure of others. This is a reflection of the same fate."