The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter VI
[ 1 ] In the field of pedagogy Fate gave me an unusual task. I was employed as tutor in a family where there were four boys. To three I had to give only the preparatory instruction for the Volkschule.1The Volkschule course usually extends from the sixth to the tenth year; the Mittelschule covers the three following years, though the term is not always so definite. and then assistance in the work of the Mittelschule. The fourth, who was almost ten years old, was at first entrusted to me for all his education. He was the child of sorrow to his parents, especially to his mother. When I went to live in the home, he had scarcely learned the most rudimentary elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. He was considered so subnormal in his physical and mental development that the family had doubts as to his capacity for being educated. His thinking was slow and dull. Even the slightest mental exertion caused a headache, lowering of vital functions, pallor, and alarming mental symptoms. [ 2 ] After I had come to know the child, I formed the opinion that the sort of education required by such a bodily and mental organism must be one that would awaken the sleeping faculties, and I proposed to the parents that they should leave the child's training to me. The mother had enough confidence to accept this proposal, and I was thus able to set myself this unusual educational task.
[ 3 ] I had to find access to a soul which was, as it were, in a sleeping state, and which must gradually be enabled to gain the mastery over the bodily manifestations. In a certain sense one had first to draw the soul within the body. I was thoroughly convinced that the boy really had great mental capacities, though they were then buried. This made my task a profoundly satisfying one. I was soon able to bring the child into a loving dependence upon me. This condition caused the mere intercourse between us to awaken his sleeping faculties of soul. For his instruction I had to feel my way to special methods. Every fifteen minutes beyond a certain time allotted to instruction caused injury to his health. To many subjects of instruction the boy had great difficulty in relating himself.
[ 4 ] This educational task became to me the source from which I myself learned very much. Through the method of instruction which I had to apply there was laid open to my view the association between the spiritual-mental and the bodily in man. Then I went through my real course of study in physiology and psychology. I became aware that teaching and instructing must become an art having its foundation in a genuine understanding of man. I had to follow out with great care an economic principle. I frequently had to spend two hours in preparing for half an hour of instruction in order to get the material for instruction in such a form that in the least time, and with the least strain upon the mental and physical powers of the child, I might reach his highest capacity for achievement. The order of the subjects of instruction had to be carefully considered; the division of the entire day into periods had to be properly determined. I had the satisfaction of seeing the child in the course of two years accomplish the work of the Volkschule, and successfully pass the examination for entrance to the Gymnasium.2That is, the boy completed in two years what children usually do in the years from the sixth to the tenth year of age. Moreover, his physical condition had materially improved. The hydrocephalic condition was markedly diminishing. I was able to advise the parents to send the child to a public school. It seemed to me necessary that he should find his vital development in company with other children. I continued to be a tutor for several years in the family, and gave special attention to this boy, who was always guided to make his way through the school in such a way that his home activities should be carried through in the spirit in which they were begun. I then had the inducement, in the way I have already mentioned, to increase my knowledge of Latin and Greek, for I was responsible for the tutoring of this boy and another in this family for the Gymnasium lessons.
[ 5 ] I must needs feel grateful to Fate for having brought me into such a life relationship. For through this means I developed in vital fashion a knowledge of the being of man which I do not believe could have been developed by me so vitally in any other way. Moreover, I was taken into the family in an extraordinarily affectionate way; we came to live a beautiful life in common. The father of these boys was a sales-agent for Indian and American cotton. I was thus able to get a glimpse of the working of business, and of much that is connected with this. Moreover, through this I learned a great deal. I had an inside view of the conduct of a branch of an unusually interesting import business, and could observe the intercourse between business friends and the interlinking of many commercial and industrial activities.
[ 6 ] My young charge was successfully guided through the Gymnasium; I continued with him even to the Unter-Primai.3The next to the last year in the Gymnasium. By that time he had made such progress that he no longer needed me. After completing the Gymnasium he entered the school of medicine, became a physician, and in this capacity he was later a victim of the World War. The mother, who had become a true friend of mine because of what I had done for her boy, and who clung to this child of sorrow with the most devoted love, soon followed him in death. The father had already gone from this world.
[ 7 ] A good portion of my youthful life was bound up with the task which had grown so close to me. For a number of years I went during the summer with the family of the children whom I had to tutor to the Attersee in the Salzkammergut, and there became familiar with the noble Alpine nature of Upper Austria. I was gradually able to eliminate the private lessons I had continued to give to others even after beginning this tutoring, and thus I had time left for prosecuting my own studies.
[ 8 ] In the life I led before coming into this family I had little opportunity for sharing in the play of children. In this way it came about that my “play-time” came after my twentieth year. I had then to learn also how to play, for I had to direct the play, and this I did with great enjoyment. To be sure, I think I have not played any less in my life than other men. Only in my case what is usually done in this direction before the tenth year I repeated from the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth year.
[ 9 ] It was during this period that I was occupied with the philosophy of Eduard von Hartmann. As I studied his theory of knowledge, continual opposition was aroused within me. The opinion that the genuinely real lies as the unconscious beyond conscious experience, and that the latter is nothing more than an unreal pictorial reflection from the real – this was to me utterly repugnant. In opposition to this I postulated that the conscious experience can, through the strengthening of mental life, dip down within the real. I was clear in my own mind that the divine-spiritual reveals itself in man if man makes this revelation possible through his own inner life.
[ 10 ] The pessimism of Eduard von Hartmann appeared to me as an utterly false questioning of human life. I had to conceive man as striving toward the goal of drawing up from within himself that with which life fills him for his satisfaction. I said to myself: “If through the ordering of the world a ‘best life’ were simply imparted to man, how could he bring this inner spring to a flowing stream?” The external world order has come to a stage in evolution in which it has ignored the good and the bad in things and in facts. Then first the human being awakes to self-consciousness and guides the evolution farther, but in such way that this evolution takes its direction toward freedom, not from things and facts, but only from the fountain head of man's being. The mere introduction of the question of pessimism or optimism seemed to me to be running counter to the free being of man. I frequently said to myself: “How could man be the free creator of his highest happiness if a measure of happiness were imparted to him through the ordering of the external world?”
[ 11 ] On the other hand, Hartmann's work Phänomenologie des Sittlichen Bewusstsein 4Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness. attracted me. There, I found, the moral evolution of man was traced according to the clue of what is empirically observable. It does not become – as in the case of Hartmann's theory of knowledge – speculative thought linked to unknown being which lies beyond consciousness; but rather it is that which can be experienced as morality, and grasped in its manifestations. And it was clear to me that no philosophical speculation must think beyond the phenomena if it desires to reach the genuinely real. The phenomena of the world reveal of themselves this genuinely real as soon as the conscious soul prepares itself to receive the revelation. Whoever takes into consciousness only what is perceptible to the senses may seek for real being in a beyond-consciousness; whoever grasps the spiritual in his perception speaks of this as being on this side, not of a beyond in the sense characteristic of a theory of cognition. Hartmann's consideration of the moral world seemed to me congenial because in this his beyond standpoint withdraws wholly into the background, and he confines himself to that which can be observed. Through a deeper penetration into phenomena, even to the point where these disclose their spiritual being – it was in this way that I desired to know that knowledge of real being is brought to pass, not through inferential reasoning as to what is “behind” phenomena.
[ 12 ] Since I was always striving to sense a human capacity on its positive side, Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy became useful to me, in spite of the fact that its fundamental tendency and its conception of life were repugnant; for it cast a penetrating light upon many phenomena. And even in those writings of the “philosopher of the unconscious” from which in principle I dissented I yet found much that was immensely stimulating. So it was also with the popular writings of Eduard von Hartmann, which dealt with cultural historical, pedagogical, and political problems. I found in this pessimist “sound” conceptions of life such as I could not discover in many optimists. It was just in connection with him that I experienced that which I needed,-to be able to understand even though I had to oppose.
[ 13 ] It was thus that I sat till late many a night – when I could leave my boys to themselves, and after I had admired the starry heavens from the balcony of the house – in studying the Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness and the Religiöses Bewusstsein der Menscheit in der Stufenfolge seiner Entwickelung 5Religious Consciousness in Man in the Stages of its Evolution. and while I was reading these writings I attained to an ever increasing assurance concerning my own standpoint in regard to the theory of knowledge.
[ 14 ] Upon the suggestion of Schröer, Joseph Kürschner invited me in 1884 to edit Goethe's scientific writings with an introduction and accompanying interpretive notes as a part of the edition of Deutsche National-Literatur planned by him. Schröer, who had taken responsibility for Goethe's dramas within the great collective work, was to preface the first volume assigned to me with an introductory foreword. In this he analysed the manner in which Goethe as poet and as thinker was related to the contemporary spiritual life. In the philosophy introduced by the age of natural science which followed after Goethe, he saw a falling away from the spiritual height upon which Goethe had been standing. The task which had been assigned to me in the editing of Goethe's scientific writings was characterized in a general way in this preface.
[ 15 ] For me the task included an exposition in which natural science should be on one side and Goethe's whole philosophy on the other. Now that I had to come before the public with such an exposition, it was necessary for me to bring to a certain issue all that I had thus far won for myself in the way of a world-conception.
[ 16 ] Until that time I had occupied myself as a writer with nothing more than brief articles for the press. It was not easy for me to write down what was a vital inner experience in such manner that I could consider my work worthy of publication. I always had the feeling that what had been elaborated within appeared in a very paltry form when I had to present it in a finished shape. So all literary endeavours became to me the source of continual inner unhappiness.
[ 17 ] The form of thought by which natural science has been dominated since the beginning of its great influence upon the civilization of the nineteenth century seemed to me ill-adapted to reach an understanding of that which Goethe strove to attain for natural science, and actually did in large measure attain.
[ 18 ] I beheld in Goethe a personality who, by reason of the unusual spiritual relationship in which he had placed man with reference to nature, was also in a position to place the knowledge of nature in the right form in the totality of human achievement. The form of thought of the period in which I had grown up appeared to me fit only for shaping ideas regarding lifeless nature. I considered it powerless to enter with capacity for knowledge into the realm of living nature. I said to myself: “In order to attain to ideas which can mediate a knowledge of the organic, it is necessary that one should first endue with life the concepts adapted for an understanding of inorganic nature.” For these seemed to me dead, and therefore fit only for grasping that which is dead.
[ 19 ] How the ideas became endued with life in Goethe's spirit, how they became ideal forms, this is what I sought to set forth in order to clarify Goethe's conception of nature.
[ 20 ] What Goethe thought and elaborated in detail regarding this or that field of the knowledge of nature appeared to me of less importance than the central discovery which I was forced to attribute to him. This I saw in the fact that he had discovered how one must think in regard to the organic in order to come at it understandingly.
[ 21 ] I found that mechanics completely satisfy the need for knowledge in that they generate conceptions in a rational manner in the human mind which then prove to be real when applied in the sense-perception of that which is lifeless. Goethe was to me the founder of a law of organics, which in like manner applies to that which has life. When I looked back to Galileo in the history of modern spiritual life, I was forced to remark how he, by the shaping of ideas from the inorganic, had given to the new natural science its present form. What he had introduced for the inorganic Goethe had striven to attain for the organic. Goethe became for me the Galileo of the organic.
[ 22 ] For the first volume of Goethe's natural-scientific writings I had first to elaborate his ideas on metamorphosis. It was difficult for me to express the relation between the living ideal forms through which the organic can be understood and the formless ideas suited to enable one to grasp the inorganic. But it seemed to me that my whole task depended upon making this point in true fashion intelligible. [ 23 ] In understanding the inorganic, concept is added in series to concept, in order to survey the correlation of forces which bring about an effect in nature. In reference to the organic it is necessary so to allow one concept to grow out of another that in the progressive living metamorphosis of concepts there come to light images of that which appears in nature as a being possessing form. This Goethe strove to do in that he sought to hold fast in his mind an ideal image of a leaf which was not a fixed lifeless concept but such a one as might present itself in the most varied forms. If one permits these forms in the mind to proceed one out of another, one thus constructs the whole plant. One re-creates in the mind in ideal fashion the process whereby nature in actual fashion shapes the plant.
[ 24 ] If one seeks in this way to conceive the plant world, one thus stands much nearer in spirit to the world of nature than in conceiving the inorganic by means of formless concepts. For the inorganic one conceives only a spiritual fantasm of that which is present in nature in a manner void of spirit. But in the coming into existence of a plant there lives some thing which has a remote resemblance to that which arises in the human mind as an image of the plant. One becomes aware of how nature, while bringing forth the organic, is really bringing into action something spiritually similar within her own being.
[ 25 ] I desired to show, in the introduction to Goethe's botanical writings, how in his theory of metamorphosis he took the direction of thinking about the workings of organic nature in the manner in which one thinks of spirit. [ 26 ] Still more spiritual in form appeared to me Goethe's way of thinking in the realm of the animal and in the lower natural stages of the human being.
[ 27 ] In relation to the animal-human, Goethe began by seeing through an error which he noticed among his contemporaries. These sought to ascribe a special position in nature to the organic bases of the human being by finding individual distinctions between man and the animal. They found such a distinction in the intermaxillary bones which the animals possess, in which their upper incisor teeth are bedded. In man, they said, such a special intermediary bone in the upper jaw is lacking; his upper jaw consists of a single piece.
[ 28 ] This seemed to Goethe an error. For him the human form was a metamorphosis of the animal to a higher stage. Everything which appears in the forming of the animal must be present also in the human, only in a higher form so that the human organism might become the bearer of the self-conscious spirit.
[ 29 ] In the elevation of the whole united form of man Goethe saw the distinction from the animal, not in details.
[ 30 ] Step by step does one perceive the organic creative forces become more like spirit as one rises from consideration of the plant-beings to the varied forms of the animals. In the organic form of man creative forces are active which bring to pass the highest metamorphosis of the animal shape. These forces are present in the process of becoming of the human organism; and they finally live there as the human spirit after they have formed in the natural basic parts a vessel which can receive them in their form of existence free from nature.
[ 31 ] In this conception of the human organism it seemed to me that Goethe had anticipated everything true which was later affirmed, on the ground of Darwinism, concerning the kinship of the human with the animal. But it also seemed to me that all which was untrue was omitted. The materialistic understanding of that which Darwin discovered leads to the adoption of conceptions based upon the kinship between man and the animals which deny the spirit where it appears in its highest form in an earthly existence – in man. Goethe's conception leads to the perception of a spiritual creation in the animal form which has simply not yet arrived at the stage at which the spirit as such can live. That which lives in man as spirit creates in the animal form at a preliminary stage; and it metamorphoses this form in the case of man in such a way that it can then appear, not only as creative, but also in its own living presence.
[ 32 ] Viewed in this way, Goethe's consideration of nature becomes one which, while tracing the natural process of becoming from the inorganic to the organic, also leads natural science over into spiritual science. To bring out this fact was to me of more importance than anything else in working up the first volume of Goethe's natural-scientific writings. For this reason I allowed my introduction to narrow down to an explanation of the way in which Darwinism establishes a one-sided view, coloured by materialism, which must be restored to wholeness by Goethe's way of thinking.
[ 33 ] How one must think in order to penetrate into the phenomena of life – this is what I wished to show in discussing Goethe's view of the organic. I soon came to feel that this discussion required a basis upon which to rest. The nature of cognition was then conceived by my contemporaries in a way which could never arrive at Goethe's view. The theorists of cognition had in mind natural science as it then existed. What they said in regard to the nature of cognition held good only for a conception of inorganic nature. There could be no agreement between what I must say in regard to Goethe's kind of cognition and the theories of cognition ordinarily held at that time.
[ 34 ] Therefore, whatever I had established upon the basis of Goethe's theory of the organic sent me afresh to the theory of cognition. I had before my mind theories such as that of Otto Liebmann, which expressed in the most varied forms the dogma that human consciousness can never get outside itself; that it must therefore be content to live in that which reality sends into the human soul, and which presents itself within in spiritual form. If one views the thing in this way, one cannot say that one perceives a spiritual relationship in organic nature after the manner of Goethe. One must seek for the spirit within the human soul, and consider a spiritual contemplation of nature inadmissible.
[ 35 ] I discovered that there was no theory of cognition fitting Goethe's kind of cognition. This induced me to undertake to sketch such a theory. I wrote my Erkenntnistheorie der Goethe'schen Weltanschauung 6Theory of Cognition in Goethe's World Conception out of an inner need before I proceeded to prepare the other volumes of Goethe's natural scientific writings. This little book was finished in 1886.
Chapter VI
[ 1 ] Auf pädagogischem Gebiete brachte mir das Schicksal eine besondere Aufgabe. Ich wurde als Erzieher in eine Familie empfohlen, in der vier Knaben waren. Dreien hatte ich nur erst den vorbereitenden Volksschul- und dann den Nachhilfeunterricht für die Mittelschule zu geben. Der vierte, der ungefähr zehn Jahre alt war, wurde mir zunächst zur vollständigen Erziehung übergeben. Er war das Sorgenkind der Eltern, besonders der Mutter. Er hatte, als ich ins Haus kam, sich kaum die allerersten Elemente des Lesens, Schreibens und Rechnens erworben. Er galt als abnormal in seiner körperlichen und seelischen Entwickelung in einem so hohen Grade, daß man in der Familie an seiner Bildungsfähigkeit zweifelte. Sein Denken war langsam und träge. Selbst geringe geistige Anstrengung bewirkte Kopfschmerz, Herabstimmung der Lebenstätigkeit, Blaßwerden, besorgniserregendes seelisches Verhalten.
[ 2 ] Ich bildete mir, nachdem ich das Kind kennen gelernt hatte, das Urteil, daß eine diesem körperlichen und seelischen Organismus entsprechende Erziehung die schlummernden Fähigkeiten zum Erwachen bringen müsse; und ich machte den Eltern den Vorschlag, mir die Erziehung zu überlassen. Die Mutter des Knaben brachte diesem Vorschlage Vertrauen entgegen, und dadurch konnte ich mir diese besondere pädagogische Aufgabe stellen.
[ 3 ] Ich mußte den Zugang zu einer Seele finden, die sich zunächst wie in einem schlafähnlichen Zustande befand und die allmählich dazu zu bringen war, die Herrschaft über die Körperäußerungen zu gewinnen. Man hatte gewissermaßen die Seele erst in den Körper einzuschalten. Ich war von dem Glauben durchdrungen, daß der Knabe zwar verborgene, aber sogar große geistige Fähigkeiten habe. Das gestaltete mir meine Aufgabe zu einer tief befriedigenden. Ich konnte das Kind bald zu einer liebevollen Anhänglichkeit an mich bringen. Das bewirkte, daß der bloße Verkehr mit demselben die schlummernden Seelenfähigkeiten zum Erwachen brachte. Für das Unterrichten mußte ich besondere Methoden ersinnen. Jede Viertelstunde, die über ein gewisses dem Unterricht zugeteiltes Zeitmaß hinausging, bewirkte eine Beeinträchtigung des Gesundheitszustandes. Zu manchen Unterrichtsfächern konnte der Knabe nur sehr schwer ein Verhältnis finden.
[ 4 ] Diese Erziehungsaufgabe wurde für mich eine reiche Quelle des Lernens. Es eröffnete sich mir durch die Lehrpraxis, die ich anzuwenden hatte, ein Einblick in den Zusammenhang zwischen Geistig-Seelischem und Körperlichem im Menschen. Da machte ich mein eigentliches Studium in Physiologie und Psychologie durch. Ich wurde gewahr, wie Erziehung und Unterricht zu einer Kunst werden müssen, die in wirklicher Menschen-Erkenntnis ihre Grundlage hat. Ein ökonomisches Prinzip hatte ich sorgfältig durchzuführen. Ich mußte mich oft für eine halbe Unterrichtsstunde zwei Stunden lang vorbereiten, um den Unterrichtsstoff so zu gestalten, daß ich dann in der geringsten Zeit und mit möglichst wenig Anspannung der geistigen und körperlichen Kräfte ein Höchstmaß der Leistungsfähigkeit des Knaben erreichen konnte. Die Reihenfolge der Unterrichtsfächer mußte sorgfältig erwogen, die ganze Tageseinteilung sachgemäß bestimmt werden. Ich hatte die Befriedigung, daß der Knabe im Verlaufe von zwei Jahren den Volksschulunterricht nachgeholt hatte und die Reifeprüfung in das Gymnasium bestehen konnte. Auch seine Gesundheitsverhältnisse hatten sich wesentlich gebessert. Die vorhandene Hydrocephalie war in starker Rückbildung begriffen. Ich konnte den Eltern den Vorschlag machen, den Knaben in die öffentliche Schule zu schicken. Es erschien mir nötig, daß er seine Lebensentwickelung im Verein mit andern Knaben finde. Ich blieb als Erzieher in der Familie für mehrere Jahre und widrnete mich besonders diesem Knaben, der ganz darauf angewiesen war, seinen Weg durch die Schule so zu nehmen, daß seine häusliche Betätigung in dem Geiste fottgeführt wurde, in dem sie begonnen war. Ich hatte da Veranlassung, in der schon früher erwähnten Art meine griechischen und lateinischen Kenntnisse fortzubilden, denn ich hatte für den Gymnasialunterricht dieses und noch eines andern Knaben in der Familie die Nachhilfestunden zu besorgen.
[ 5 ] Ich muß dem Schicksal dafür dankbar sein, daß es mich in ein solches Lebensverhältnis gebracht hat. Denn ich erwarb mir dadurch auf lebendige Art eine Erkenntnis der Menschenwesenheit, von der ich glaube, daß sie so lebendig auf einem andern Wege von mir nicht hätte erworben werden können. Auch war ich in die Familie in einer ungewöhnlich liebevollen Art aufgenommen; es bildete sich eine schöne Lebensgemeinschaft mit derselben aus. Der Vater des Knaben war als Agent für indische und amerikanische Baumwolle tätig. Ich konnte einen Einblick gewinnen in den Gang des Geschäftes und in vieles, das damit zusammenhängt. Auch dadurch lernte ich vieles. Ich sah in die Führung eines außerordentlich interessanten Importgeschäftszweiges hinein, konnte den Verkehr unter Geschäftsfreunden, die Verkettung verschiedener kommerzieller und industrieller Betätigungen beobachten.
[ 6 ] Mein Pflegling konnte durch das Gymnasium durchgeführt werden; ich blieb an seiner Seite bis zur UnterPrima. Da war er so weit, daß er meiner nicht mehr bedurfte. Er ging nach absolviertem Gymnasium an die medizinische Fakultät, wurde Arzt und ist als solcher ein Opfer des Weltkrieges geworden. Die Mutter, die mir durch meine Tätigkeit für den Sohn zur treuen Freundin geworden war, und die mit innigster Liebe an diesem Sorgenkinde hing, ist ihm bald nachgestorben. Der Vater hat schon früher die Erde verlassen.
[ 7 ] Ein gut Teil meines Jugendlebens ist mit der Aufgabe verknüpft, die mir so erwachsen war. Ich ging durch mehrere Jahre mit der Familie der von mir zu erziehenden Kinder jeden Sommer an den Attersee im Salzkammergute und lernte da die herrliche Alpennatur Oberösterreichs kennen. Allmählich konnte ich die anfangs auch noch während dieser Erziehertätigkeit fortgesetzten Privatstunden bei andern abstreifen; und so blieb mir Zeit für das Fortführen meiner Studien.
[ 8 ] Ich hatte in meinem Leben, bevor ich in diese Familie eintrat, wenig Gelegenheit, an kindlichen Spielen teilzunehmen. Und so kam es, daß meine «Spielzeit» erst in meine zwanziger Jahre fiel. Ich mußte da auch lernen, wie man spielt. Denn ich mußte das Spielen leiten. Und ich tat es mit großer Befriedigung. Ich glaube sogar, ich habe im Leben nicht weniger gespielt als andere Menschen. Nur habe ich eben dasjenige, was man sonst vor dem zehnten Lebensjahre nach dieser Richtung vollbringt, vom drei- bis achtundzwanzigsten Jahre nachgeholt.
[ 9 ] In diese Zeit fällt meine Beschäftigung mit der Philosophie Eduard von Hartmanns. Ich studierte seine «Erkenntnistheorie», indem sich fortwährender Widerspruch in mir regte. Die Meinung, daß das wahrhaft Wirkliche als Unbewußtes jenseits der Bewußtseinserlebnisse liege, und diese nichts weiter sein sollen als ein unwirklicher, bildhafter Abglanz des Wirklichen, war mir tief zuwider. Ich stellte dem entgegen, daß die Bewußtseinserlebnisse durch die innerliche Verstärkung des Seelenlebens in das wahrhaft Wirkliche untertauchen können. Ich war mir klar darüber, daß sich im Menschen das Göttlich-Geistige offenbart, wenn der Mensch durch sein Innenleben diese Offenbarung möglich macht.
[ 10 ] Der Pessimismus Eduard von Hartmanns erschien mir als das Ergebnis einer ganz falschen Fragestellung an das menschliche Leben. Den Menschen mußte ich so auffassen, daß er dem Ziele zustrebt, aus dem Quell seines Innern zu holen, was ihm das Leben zu seiner Befriedigung erfüllt. Wäre, so sagte ich mir, ein «bestes Leben» dem Menschen von vorneherein durch die Welteinrichtung zugeteilt, wie könnte er diesen Quell in sich zum Strömen bringen? Die äußere Weltordnung gelangt zu einem Entwickelungsstadium, in dem sie Gutes und Böses an die Dinge und Tatsachen vergeben hat. Da erwacht erst das Menschenwesen zum Eigenbewußtsein und führt die Entwickelung weiter, ohne daß sie von den Dingen und Tatsachen, sondern nur von dem Quell des Seins die in Freiheit einzuschlagende Richtung erhält. Schon das Aufwerfen der Pessimismus- oder Optimismusfrage schien mir gegen die freie Wesenheit des Menschen zu verstoßen. Ich sagte mir oft: wie könnte der Mensch der freie Schöpfer seines höchsten Glückes sein, wenn ihm ein Maß von Glück durch die äußere Weltordnung zugeteilt wäre?
[ 11 ] Dagegen zog mich Hartmanns Werk «Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewußtseins» an. Da, fand ich, wird die sittliche Entwickelung der Menschheit am Leitfaden des empirisch zu Beobachtenden verfolgt. Es wird nicht, wie in der Hartmann'schen Erkenntnistheorie und Metaphysik dies geschieht, die Gedankenspekulation auf ein jenseits des Bewußten liegendes unbekanntes Sein gelenkt, sondern es wird, was als Sittlichkeit erlebt werden kann, in seiner Erscheinung erfaßt. Und ich war mir klar darüber, daß keine philosophische Spekulation über die Erscheinung hinausdenken darf, wenn sie an das wahrhaft Wirkliche herankommen will. Die Erscheinungen der Welt offenbaren selbst dieses wahrhaft Wirkliche, wenn sich erst die bewußte Seele bereit macht, es zu erfassen. Wer nur das Sinnlich-Ergreifbare in das Bewußtsein aufnimmt, der kann das wahrhaft Seiende in einem dem Bewußtsein Jenseitigen suchen; wer das Geistige in der Anschauung erfaßt, der spricht von ihm als von einem Diesseitigen, nicht von einem Jenseitigen im erkenntnistheoretischen Sinne. Mir erschien die Betrachtung der sittlichen Welt bei Hartmann sympathisch, weil er dabei seinen Jenseitsstandpunkt völlig zurücktreten läßt und sich an das Beobachtbare hält. Durch die Vertiefung in die Phänomene bis zu dem Grade, daß sie ihre geistige Wesenheit enthüllen, wollte ich Erkenntnis des Seienden zustande gebracht wissen, nicht durch Nachdenken darüber, was «hinter» den Phänomenen ist.
[ 12 ] Da ich stets darnach strebte, eine menschliche Leistung nach ihrer positiven Seite zu empfinden, wurde mir Eduard von Hartmanns Philosophie wertvoll, trotzdem mir gerade ihre Grundrichtung und ihre Lebensanschauung zuwider war, weil sie vieles in den Erscheinungen auf eine eindringliche Art beleuchtet. Und ich fand auch in denjenigen Schriften des «Philosophen des Unbewußten», die ich im Prinzipe ablehnte, vieles, das mir außerordentlich anregend war. Und so ging es mir auch mit den populären Schriften Eduard von Hartmanns, die kulturhistorische, pädagogische, politische Probleme behandeln. Ich fand «gesunde» Lebenserfassung bei diesem Pessimisten, wie ich sie bei manchem Optimisten nicht finden konnte. Gerade ihm gegenüber empfand ich, was ich brauchte: anerkennen zu können, auch wenn ich widersprechen mußte.
[ 13 ] Ich verbrachte so manchen Spätabend am Artersee, wenn ich meine Buben sich selbst überlassen konnte und die Sternenwelt vom Balkon des Hauses aus bewundert war, mit dem Studium der «Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewußtseins» und dem «Religiösen Bewußtsein der Menschheit im Stufengange seiner Entwicklung». Und während ich diese Schriften las, bekam ich eine immer größere Sicherheit über meine eigenen erkenntnistheoretischen Gesichtspunkte.
[ 14 ] Auf Schröers Empfehlung hin lud mich 1882 Joseph Kürschner ein, innerhalb der von ihm veranstalteten «Deutschen Nationalliteratur» Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Schriften mit Einleitungen und fortlaufenden Erklärungen herauszugeben. Schröer, der selbst für dieses große Sammelwerk die Dramen Goethes übernommen hatte, sollte den ersten der von mir zu besorgenden Bände mit einem einführenden Vorworte versehen. Er setzte in diesem auseinander, wie Goethe als Dichter und Denker innerhalb des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens steht. Er sah in der Weltanschauung, die das auf Goethe folgende naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter gebracht hatte, einen Abfall von der geistigen Höhe, auf der Goethe gestanden hatte. Die Aufgabe, die mir durch die Herausgabe von Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften zugefallen war, wurde in umfassender Art in dieser Vorrede charakterisiert.
[ 15 ] Für mich schloß diese Aufgabe eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Naturwissenschaft auf der einen, mit Goethes ganzer Weltanschauung auf der andern Seite ein. Ich mußte, da ich nun mit einer solchen Auseinandersetzung vor die Öffentlichkeit zu treten hatte, alles, was ich bis dahin als Weltanschauung mir errungen hatte, zu einem gewissen Abschluß bringen.
[ 16 ] Ich hatte mich bis dahin nur in wenigen Zeitungsaufsätzen schriftstellerisch betätigt. Mir wurde nicht leicht, was in meiner Seele lebte, in einer solchen Art niederzuschreiben, daß ich diese der Veröffentlichung wert halten konnte. Ich hatte immer das Gefühl, daß das im Innern Erarbeitete in einer armseligen Gestalt erschien, wenn ich es in eine fertige Darstellung prägen sollte. So wurden mir alle schriftstellerischen Versuche zu einem fortwährenden Quell innerer Unbefriedigung.
[ 17 ] Die Denkungsart, von der die Naturwissenschaft seit dem Beginn ihres großen Einflusses auf die Zivilisation des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts beherrscht war, schien mir ungeeignet, zu einem Verständnisse dessen zu gelangen, was Goethe für die Naturerkenntnis erstrebt und bis zu einem hohen Grade auch erreicht hatte.
[ 18 ] Ich sah in Goethe eine Persönlichkeit, welche durch das besondere geistgemäße Verhältnis, in das sie den Menschen zur Welt gesetzt hatte, auch in der Lage war, die Naturerkenntnis in der rechten Art in das Gesamtgebiet des menschlichen Schaffens hineinzustellen. Die Denkungsart des Zeitalters, in das ich hineingewachsen war, schien mir nur geeignet, Ideen über die leblose Natur auszubilden. Ich hielt sie für ohnmächtig, mit den Erkenntniskräften an die belebte Natur heranzutreten. Ich sagte mir, um Ideen zu erlangen, welche die Erkenntnis des Organischen vermitteln können, ist es notwendig, die für die unorganische Natur tauglichen Verstandesbegriffe erst selbst zu beleben. Denn sie erschienen mir tot, und deshalb auch nur geeignet, das Tote zu erfassen.
[ 19 ] Wie sich in Goethes Geist die Ideen belebt haben, wie sie Ideengestaltungen geworden sind, das versuchte ich für eine Erklärung der Goethe'schen Naturanschauung darzustellen.
[ 20 ] Was Goethe im einzelnen über dieses oder jenes Gebiet der Naturerkenntnis gedacht und erarbeitet hatte, schien mir von geringerer Bedeutung neben der zentralen Entdeckung, die ich ihm zuschreiben mußte. Diese sah ich darin, daß er gefunden hat, wie man über das Organische denken müsse, um ihm erkennend beizukommen.
[ 21 ] Ich fand, daß die Mechanik das Erkenntnisbedürfnis aus dem Grunde befriedigt, weil sie auf eine rationelle Art im Menschengeiste Begriffe ausbildet, die sie dann in der Sinnes-Erfahrung des Leblosen verwirklicht findet. Goethe stand als der Begründer einer Organik vor mir, die in der gleichen Art sich zu dem Belebten verhält. Wenn ich in der Geschichte des neueren Geisteslebens auf Galilei sah, so mußte ich bemerken, wie er durch die Ausbildung von Begriffen über das Anorganische der neueren Naturwissenschaft ihre Gestalt gegeben hat. Was er für das Anorganische geleistet hat, das hat Goethe für das Organische angestrebt. Mir wurde Goethe zum Galilei der Organik.
[ 22 ] Ich hatte für den ersten Band der naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften Goethes zunächst dessen Metamorphosen-Ideen zu bearbeiten. Es wurde mir schwer, auszusprechen, wie sich die lebendige Ideengestalt, durch die das Organische erkannt werden kann, zu der umgestalteten Idee, die für das Erfassen des Anorganischen geeignet ist, verhält. Aber es schien mir für meine Aufgabe alles darauf anzukommen, diesen Punkt in rechter Art anschaulich zu machen.
[ 23 ] Im Erkennen des Anorganischen wird Begriff an Begriff gereiht, um den Zusammenhang von Kräften zu überschauen, die eine Wirkung in der Natur hervorbringen. Dem Organischen gegenüber ist es notwendig, einen Begriff aus dem andern so hervorwachsen zu lassen, daß in der fortschreitenden lebendigen Begriffsverwandlung Bilder dessen entstehen, was in der Natur als gestaltete Wesen erscheint. Das hat Goethe dadurch erstrebt, daß er von dem Pflanzenblatte ein Ideenbild im Geiste festzuhalten versuchte, das nicht ein starrer, lebloser Begriff ist, sondern ein solcher, der sich in den verschiedensten Formen darstellen kann. Läßt man im Geiste diese Formen auseinander hervorgehen, so konstruiert man die ganze Pflanze. Man schafft auf ideelle Art den Vorgang in der Seele nach, durch den die Natur in realer Art die Pflanze gestaltet.
[ 24 ] Sucht man in dieser Art das Pflanzenwesen zu begreifen, so steht man dem Natürlichen mit dem Geiste viel näher, als bei dem Erfassen des Anorganischen mit den gestaltlosen Begriffen. Man erfaßt für das Anorganische nur ein geistiges Scheinbild dessen, was auf geistlose Art in der Natur vorhanden ist. In dem Werden der Pflanze lebt aber etwas, das schon eine entfernte Ähnlichkeit hat mit dem, was im Menschengeiste als Bild der Pflanze ersteht. Man wird gewahr, wie die Natur, indem sie das Organische hervorbringt, selbst geistähnliche Wesenheit in sich zur Wirkung bringt.
[ 25 ] Daß Goethe mit seiner Metamorphosenlehre die Richtung nahm, die organischen Naturwirkungen auf geistähnliche Art zu denken, wollte ich in der Einleitung zu Goethes botanischen Schriften zeigen.
[ 26 ] Noch geistähnlicher erscheinen für Goethes Denkungsart die Wirkungen in der tierischen Natur und in der natürlichen Unterlage des Menschenwesens.
[ 27 ] In bezug auf das Tierisch-Menschliche ging Goethe von dem Durchschauen eines Irrtums aus, den er bei seinen Zeitgenossen bemerkte. Diese wollten der organischen Grundlage des Menschenwesens dadurch eine besondere Stellung in der Natur anweisen, daß sie nach einzelnen Unterscheidungsmerkmalen zwischen Menschen und Tier suchten. Sie fanden ein solches in dem Zwischenkieferknochen, den die Tiere haben, und in dem die oberen Schneidezähne sitzen. Dem Menschen soll ein solcher besonderer Zwischenknochen im Oberkiefer fehlen. Sein Oberkiefer soll aus einem Stücke bestehen.
[ 28 ] Das erschien Goethe als ein Irrtum. Für ihn ist die menschliche Gestalt eine Umwandlung des Tierischen zu einer höheren Stufe. Alles, was in der tierischen Bildung erscheint, muß auch in der menschlichen da sein, nur in einer höheren Form, so daß der menschliche Organismus zum Träger des selbstbewußten Geistes werden kann.
[ 29 ] In der Erhöhung der Gesamtform des Menschen sieht Goethe dessen Unterschied vom Tier, nicht im Einzelnen.
[ 30 ] Stufenweise sieht man die organischen Schaffenskräfte geistähnlicher werden, indem man in der Betrachtung von dem Pflanzenwesen zu den verschiedenen Formen des Tierischen aufsteigt. In der organischen Gestalt des Menschen sind geistige Schaffenskräfte tätig, die eine höchste Metamorphose der tierischen Bildung hervorbringen. Diese Kräfte sind im Werden des menschlichen Organismus vorhanden; und sie leben sich zuletzt als Menschengeist dar, nachdem sie sich in der natürlichen Grundlage ein Gefäß gestaltet haben, das sie in ihrer naturfreien Daseinsform aufnehmen kann.
[ 31 ] In dieser Goethe'schen Anschauung von dem Menschenorganismus erschien mir alles Berechtigte, was später auf Darwin'scher Grundlage über die Verwandtschaft des Menschen mit den Tieren gesagt worden ist, schon vorausgenommen. Es erschien mir aber auch alles Unberechtigte abgewiesen. Die materialistische Auffassung von dem, was Darwin gefunden hat, führt dazu, aus der Verwandtschaft des Menschen mit den Tieren Vorstellungen zu bilden, die den Geist da verleugnen, wo er im Erdendasein in seiner höchsten Form, im Menschen erscheint. Die Goethe'sche Auffassung führt dazu, in der tierischen Gestaltung eine Geistschöpfung zu sehen, die nur noch nicht die Stufe erreicht hat, auf welcher der Geist als solcher leben kann. Was im Menschen als Geist lebt, das schafft in der tierischen Form auf einer Vorstufe; und es verwandelt diese Form am Menschen so, daß es nicht nur als Schaffendes, sondern auch als sich selbst Erlebendes erscheinen kann.
[ 32 ] So angesehen, wird die Goethe'sche Naturbetrachtung eine solche, die, indem sie das natürliche Werden vom Anorganischen zu dem Organischen stufenweise verfolgt, die Naturwissenschaft allmählich in eine Geisteswissenschaft überführt Dies darzustellen, darauf kam es mir bei Ausarbeitung des ersten Bandes der Goethe'schen naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften vor allem an. Ich ließ daher meine Einleitung in eine Erklärung darüber ausklingen, wie der Darwinismus in materialistischer Färbung eine einseitige Anschauung bildet, die an der Goethe'schen Denkungsart gesunden müsse.
[ 33 ] Wie man erkennen müsse, um in die Erscheinungen des Lebens einzudringen, das wollte ich in der Betrachtung der Goethe'schen Organik zeigen. Ich fühlte bald, daß diese Betrachtung einer sie stützenden Grundlage bedürfe. Das Wesen des Erkennens wurde damals von meinen Zeitgenossen in einer Art dargestellt, die nicht an Goethes Anschauung herankommen konnte. Die Erkenntnistheoretiker hatten die Naturwissenschaft, wie sie in jener Zeit war, vor Augen. Was sie über das Wesen der Erkenntnis sagten, galt nur für das Erfassen der anorganischen Natur. Es konnte keinen Zusammenklang geben zwischen dem, was ich über Goethes Erkenntnisart sagen mußte, und den gebräuchlichen Erkenntnistheorien der damaligen Zeit.
[ 34 ] Deshalb trieb mich das, was ich in Anlehnung an Goethes Organik dargestellt hatte, neuerdings an die Erkenntnistheorie heran. Vor mir standen Ansichten wie die Otto Liebmanns, die in den verschiedensten Formen den Satz aussprachen, das menschliche Bewußtsein könne aus sich niemals heraus; es müsse sich dabei bescheiden, in dem zu leben, was ihm die Wirklichkeit in die menschliche Seele hereinschickt und was in ihm in geistiger Form sich darstellt. Sieht man die Sache so an, dann kann man nicht davon sprechen, daß man Geistverwandtes in der organischen Natur in Goethe'scher Art findet. Man muß den Geist innerhalb des menschlichen Bewußtseins suchen und eine geistgemäße Naturbetrachtung als unzulässig ansehen.
[ 35 ] Ich fand, es gibt für die Goethe'sche Erkenntnisart keine Erkenntnistheorie. Das führte mich dazu, den Versuch zu machen, eine solche wenigstens andeutungsweise auszuführen. Ich schrieb meine «Erkenntnistheorie der Goethe'schen Weltanschauung» aus einem inneren Bedürfnisse heraus, bevor ich daran ging, die weiteren Bände der naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften Goethes zu bearbeiten. Das Büchelchen wurde 1886 fertig.
Chapter VI
[ 1 ] In the field of education, fate brought me a special task. I was recommended as an educator to a family with four boys. I only had to give three of them preparatory primary school lessons and then tutoring for secondary school. The fourth, who was about ten years old, was initially handed over to me for his complete education. He was the problem child of his parents, especially his mother. When I came into the house, he had barely acquired the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. He was considered abnormal in his physical and mental development to such an extent that the family doubted his educational ability. His thinking was slow and sluggish. Even slight mental exertion caused headaches, a reduction in vital activity, paleness and worrying mental behavior.
[ 2 ] After getting to know the child, I formed the judgment that an education appropriate to this physical and mental organism must awaken the dormant abilities; and I suggested to the parents that they leave the education to me. The boy's mother had confidence in this suggestion, and so I was able to take on this special pedagogical task.
[ 3 ] I had to find access to a soul that was initially in a sleep-like state and that could gradually be brought to gain control over the body's expressions. To a certain extent, the soul first had to be switched into the body. I was imbued with the belief that the boy had hidden, but even great spiritual abilities. This made my task a deeply satisfying one. I was soon able to bring the child to a loving attachment to me. This had the effect that the mere contact with him awakened the dormant abilities of his soul. I had to devise special methods for teaching. Every quarter of an hour that went beyond a certain amount of time allotted to teaching had a detrimental effect on my health. It was very difficult for the boy to relate to some subjects.
[ 4 ] This educational task became a rich source of learning for me. The teaching practice that I had to apply gave me an insight into the connection between the spiritual and the physical in people. That's when I did my actual studies in physiology and psychology. I became aware of how education and teaching must become an art based on real knowledge of the human being. I had to carefully implement an economic principle. I often had to prepare for half a lesson for two hours in order to organize the subject matter in such a way that I could reach the boy's maximum potential in the shortest possible time and with the least possible strain on his mental and physical strength. The order of the subjects had to be carefully considered and the entire daily schedule had to be properly determined. I was satisfied that the boy had caught up on his elementary school lessons in the course of two years and was able to pass the grammar school entrance examination. His health had also improved considerably. The hydrocephaly that had been present was in strong remission. I was able to suggest to the parents that the boy should be sent to public school. It seemed necessary to me that he should find his life development in association with other boys. I remained as educator in the family for several years and devoted myself particularly to this boy, who was completely dependent on making his way through school in such a way that his domestic activities were continued in the spirit in which they had begun. I had reason to further my knowledge of Greek and Latin in the way I mentioned earlier, because I had to provide extra tuition for the grammar school lessons of this and another boy in the family.
[ 5 ] I must be grateful to fate for having brought me into such a life situation. For it gave me a vivid knowledge of the human condition, which I believe I could not have acquired so vividly in any other way. I was also accepted into the family in an unusually loving way; a beautiful community of life developed with them. The boy's father worked as an agent for Indian and American cotton. I was able to gain an insight into the business and much of what was involved. This also taught me a lot. I saw into the management of an extremely interesting import business, was able to observe the dealings between business associates, the interlinking of various commercial and industrial activities.
[ 6 ] My fosterling was able to pass through grammar school; I stayed by his side until he was a junior high school student. By then he was so far advanced that he no longer needed me. After finishing grammar school, he went to medical school, became a doctor and as such became a victim of the world war. His mother, who had become a loyal friend to me through my work for her son and who clung to this troubled child with the deepest love, soon died after him. The father had already left the earth earlier.
[ 7 ] A good part of my youthful life is linked to the task that was so important to me. For several years, I went to Lake Attersee in the Salzkammergut with the family of the children I was raising every summer and got to know the beautiful alpine nature of Upper Austria. Gradually, I was able to get rid of the private lessons with others that I had initially continued during this educational activity, leaving me time to continue my studies.
[ 8 ] In my life before I joined this family, I had little opportunity to take part in children's games. And so it was that my "playtime" only came in my twenties. I also had to learn how to play. Because I had to lead the games. And I did it with great satisfaction. In fact, I don't think I played any less in life than other people. It's just that from the age of three to twenty-eight, I made up for what one usually accomplishes in this direction before the age of ten.
[ 9 ] During this time, I was occupied with Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy. I studied his "epistemology", which constantly stirred up contradiction in me. The opinion that the truly real as the unconscious lies beyond the experiences of consciousness, and that these should be nothing more than an unreal, pictorial reflection of the real, was deeply repugnant to me. I countered this with the fact that the experiences of consciousness can submerge into the truly real through the inner strengthening of the soul life. I was clear about the fact that the divine-spiritual reveals itself in man when man makes this revelation possible through his inner life.
[ 10 ] Eduard von Hartmann's pessimism seemed to me to be the result of a completely wrong approach to human life. I had to understand man in such a way that he strives towards the goal of fetching from the source of his inner being that which fulfills life for his satisfaction. If, I said to myself, a "best life" were allotted to man from the outset by the world order, how could he make this source flow within himself? The outer world order reaches a stage of development in which it has assigned good and evil to things and facts. Only then does the human being awaken to self-consciousness and continue its development without receiving the direction to be taken in freedom from things and facts, but only from the source of being. The very raising of the question of pessimism or optimism seemed to me to violate the free nature of man. I often said to myself: how could man be the free creator of his highest happiness if a measure of happiness was assigned to him by the external world order?
[ 11 ] Hartmann's work "Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness", on the other hand, attracted me. There, I found, the moral development of humanity is traced along the lines of what can be observed empirically. It is not, as happens in Hartmann's epistemology and metaphysics, that thought speculation is directed towards an unknown being beyond the conscious, but rather that which can be experienced as morality is grasped in its appearance. And I was clear about the fact that no philosophical speculation can think beyond the appearance if it wants to get to the truly real. The phenomena of the world themselves reveal this truly real when the conscious soul is ready to grasp it. He who takes into consciousness only the sensually tangible can seek the truly existing in something beyond consciousness; he who grasps the spiritual in contemplation speaks of it as something of this world, not of something beyond it in the epistemological sense. I found Hartmann's contemplation of the moral world appealing because he completely relinquishes his otherworldly viewpoint and sticks to the observable. By delving into the phenomena to the extent that they reveal their spiritual essence, I wanted knowledge of the existing to be brought about, not by thinking about what is "behind" the phenomena.
[ 12 ] Since I always strove to perceive a human achievement according to its positive side, Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy became valuable to me, even though I disliked its basic direction and its view of life, because it illuminates many things in phenomena in a penetrating way. And even in the writings of the "philosopher of the unconscious", which I rejected in principle, I found much that was extraordinarily stimulating. And I felt the same way about Eduard von Hartmann's popular writings, which deal with cultural-historical, pedagogical and political problems. I found a "healthy" grasp of life in this pessimist that I could not find in many an optimist. It was precisely towards him that I felt what I needed: to be able to acknowledge, even if I had to disagree.
[ 13 ] I spent many a late evening at the Artersee, when I could leave my boys to their own devices and admire the stars from the balcony of the house, studying the "Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness" and the "Religious Consciousness of Mankind in the Stages of its Development". And as I read these writings, I became more and more certain about my own epistemological viewpoints.
[ 14 ] On Schröer's recommendation, Joseph Kürschner invited me in 1882 to publish Goethe's scientific writings with introductions and continuous explanations as part of the "German National Literature" that he was organizing. Schröer, who had himself taken on Goethe's dramas for this large anthology, was to provide the first of the volumes I was to edit with an introductory preface. In it, he discussed Goethe's position as a poet and thinker within modern intellectual life. He saw in the world view brought about by the scientific age that followed Goethe a fall from the intellectual heights on which Goethe had stood. The task that had fallen to me through the publication of Goethe's scientific writings was characterized in a comprehensive manner in this preface.
[ 15 ] For me, this task included a confrontation with natural science on the one hand, and with Goethe's entire world view on the other. Since I now had to face the public with such an argument, I had to bring everything I had acquired up to that point as a world view to a certain conclusion.
[ 16 ] Until then, I had only written a few newspaper articles. It was not easy for me to write down what lived in my soul in such a way that I could consider it worthy of publication. I always had the feeling that what I had worked out inwardly would appear in a poor form if I were to shape it into a finished representation. Thus all attempts at writing became a perpetual source of inner dissatisfaction for me.
[ 17 ] The way of thinking that had dominated natural science since the beginning of its great influence on the civilization of the nineteenth century seemed to me unsuitable for arriving at an understanding of what Goethe had striven for and, to a high degree, achieved in the knowledge of nature.
[ 18 ] I saw in Goethe a personality who, through the special spiritual relationship in which he had placed man with the world, was also in a position to place knowledge of nature in the right way in the overall field of human creativity. The way of thinking of the age into which I had grown seemed to me only suitable for forming ideas about inanimate nature. I considered it powerless to approach animate nature with the powers of cognition. I told myself that in order to attain ideas that could convey knowledge of organic nature, it was necessary to first revive the concepts of understanding that were suitable for inorganic nature. For they seemed dead to me, and therefore only suitable for grasping the dead.
[ 19 ] How the ideas came to life in Goethe's mind, how they became ideas, that is what I tried to show for an explanation of Goethe's view of nature.
[ 20 ] What Goethe had thought and worked out in detail about this or that area of knowledge of nature seemed to me to be of less importance than the central discovery that I had to attribute to him. I saw this in the fact that he had discovered how one had to think about the organic in order to approach it with knowledge.
[ 21 ] I found that mechanics satisfies the need for knowledge for the reason that it forms concepts in the human mind in a rational way, which it then realizes in the sensory experience of the inanimate. Goethe stood before me as the founder of an organics that relates to the animate in the same way. When I looked at Galileo in the history of modern intellectual life, I had to notice how he gave shape to modern natural science by developing concepts of the inorganic. What he achieved for the inorganic, Goethe strove to do for the organic. For me, Goethe became the Galileo of organics.
[ 22 ] For the first volume of Goethe's scientific writings, I initially had to work on his ideas for Metamorphoses. It was difficult for me to express how the living idea-form, through which the organic can be recognized, relates to the transformed idea, which is suitable for grasping the inorganic. But for my task, it seemed to me that everything depended on making this point clear in the right way.
[ 23 ] In recognizing the inorganic, concept is strung together in order to understand the connection of forces that produce an effect in nature. With regard to the organic, it is necessary to allow one concept to grow out of the other in such a way that in the progressive living transformation of concepts, images of what appears in nature as formed beings arise. Goethe strove to achieve this by trying to capture in his mind an image of the plant leaf that is not a rigid, lifeless concept, but one that can present itself in the most diverse forms. If one allows these forms to emerge from one another in the mind, one constructs the whole plant. One recreates in an ideal way the process in the soul through which nature forms the plant in a real way.
[ 24 ] If one seeks to comprehend the plant being in this way, one is much closer to the natural with the spirit than when grasping the inorganic with formless concepts. One grasps for the inorganic only a spiritual illusion of what is present in nature in a spiritless way. But in the development of the plant lives something that already bears a distant resemblance to that which arises in the human spirit as an image of the plant. One becomes aware of how nature, in producing the organic, itself brings spirit-like essence into effect in itself.
[ 25 ] I wanted to show in the introduction to Goethe's botanical writings that Goethe, with his theory of metamorphosis, took the direction of thinking of the organic effects of nature in a spirit-like way.
[ 26 ] For Goethe's way of thinking, the effects in animal nature and in the natural basis of the human being appear even more spirit-like.
[ 27 ] With regard to the animal-human, Goethe proceeded from seeing through an error that he had noticed in his contemporaries. They wanted to assign the organic basis of the human being a special position in nature by looking for individual distinguishing features between humans and animals. They found one in the intermaxillary bone, which animals have and in which the upper incisors are located. Humans are said to lack such a special intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw. Their upper jaw is said to consist of one piece.
[ 28 ] This appeared to Goethe to be a mistake. For him, the human form is a transformation of the animal to a higher level. Everything that appears in animal formation must also be present in human formation, only in a higher form, so that the human organism can become the bearer of the self-conscious spirit.
[ 29 ] In the elevation of the overall form of man Goethe sees its difference from the animal, not in the individual.
[ 30 ] In stages, one sees the organic creative powers becoming more spirit-like by ascending from the plant being to the various forms of the animal. Spiritual creative forces are active in the organic form of the human being, which bring about the highest metamorphosis of animal formation. These forces are present in the development of the human organism; and they ultimately manifest themselves as human spirit after they have formed a vessel in the natural basis that can receive them in their natural form of existence.
[ 31 ] In this Goethean view of the human organism, everything justified that was later said on Darwin's basis about the relationship of humans to animals seemed to me to have already been anticipated. But it also seemed to me that everything unjustified had been rejected. The materialistic view of what Darwin found leads to the formation of ideas from the kinship of man with the animals that deny the spirit where it appears in its highest form in earthly existence, in man. Goethe's view leads us to see in the animal form a creation of spirit that has not yet reached the stage at which spirit as such can live. What lives in man as spirit creates in the animal form at a preliminary stage; and it transforms this form in man in such a way that it can appear not only as something creating but also as something experiencing itself.
[ 32 ] So viewed, Goethe's view of nature becomes one that, by following the natural development from the inorganic to the organic step by step, gradually transforms natural science into a spiritual science This is what I was primarily concerned with in preparing the first volume of Goethe's natural scientific writings. I therefore concluded my introduction with an explanation of how Darwinism with its materialistic coloring forms a one-sided view that must be healthy in Goethe's way of thinking.
[ 33 ] How one must recognize in order to penetrate the phenomena of life is what I wanted to show in the contemplation of Goethe's organicism. I soon felt that this observation needed a foundation to support it. The nature of cognition was presented by my contemporaries at that time in a way that could not approach Goethe's view. The epistemologists had natural science, as it was at that time, in mind. What they said about the nature of knowledge only applied to the comprehension of inorganic nature. There could be no harmony between what I had to say about Goethe's way of knowing and the common theories of knowledge of the time.
[ 34 ] Therefore, what I had presented on the basis of Goethe's organicism drove me towards epistemology. I was confronted with views such as Otto Liebmann's, which expressed the proposition in the most diverse forms that human consciousness can never get out of itself; it must be content to live in what reality sends into the human soul and what presents itself in it in spiritual form. If one looks at the matter in this way, then one cannot speak of finding spirit-related things in organic nature in Goethe's way. One must look for the spirit within human consciousness and regard a spiritual view of nature as inadmissible.
[ 35 ] I found that there is no epistemology for Goethe's way of knowing. This led me to attempt to develop one, at least in outline. I wrote my "Epistemology of Goethe's World View" out of an inner need before I started working on the other volumes of Goethe's scientific writings. The booklet was finished in 1886.