The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter VIII
[ 1 ] During this time – about 1888 – I felt within me, on the one hand, the impulse to intense spiritual concentration; on the other hand, my life brought me into intercourse with a wide circle of acquaintances. Because of the interpretive introduction which I had to prepare for the second volume of Goethe's scientific writings, I felt an inner necessity to state my view of the spiritual world in a form of thought transparently clear. This required an inward withdrawal from all that bound me to the outer life. It was due in large measure to a certain circumstance that such a withdrawal was possible. I could at that time sit in a coffee-house, with the greatest excitement all around me, and yet be absolutely tranquil within, my thoughts concentrated upon the task of writing down in a rough draft that which later composed the introduction I have mentioned. In this way I led an inner life which had no relation whatever to the outer world, although my interests were still intimately bound up with that world.
[ 2 ] It was at this time that these interests were forced to turn to the critical phenomena then appearing in the external situation of things. Persons with whom I was in frequent relation were devoting their strength and their labour to the arrangements which were then coming to completion between the nationalities in Austria. Others were occupied with the social question. Still others were in the midst of a struggle for the rejuvenation of the artistic life of the nation. [ 3 ] When I was living inwardly in the spiritual world, I often had the feeling that the struggles toward all these objectives must play themselves out fruitlessly because they refused to enter into the spiritual forces of existence. The sense of these spiritual forces seemed to me the thing needed first of all. But I could find no clear consciousness of this in that sort of spiritual life which surrounded me.
[ 4 ] Just then Robert Hamerling's satiric epic Homunculus was published. In this a mirror was held before the times in which were reflected purposely caricatured images of its materialism, its interests centred on the outer life. A man who can live only in mechanistic, materialistic conceptions marries a woman whose nature lies, not in a real world, but in a world of fantasy. Hamerling desired to represent the two aspects in which civilization has become warped. On one side he perceived the utterly unspiritual struggle which conceives the world as a mechanism, and would shape human life mechanically; on the other side the soulless fantasy which cares not at all whether its make-believe spiritual life comes into any relation whatever to reality.
[ 5 ] The grotesque pictures drawn by Hamerling repelled many who had esteemed him for his earlier works. Even in delle Grazie's home, where Hamerling had enjoyed unmeasured admiration, there was a certain reserve after the appearance of this epic. [ 6 ] Upon me, however, the Homunculus made a deep impression. It showed, so I thought, those spiritually darkening forces which are dominant in modern civilization. I found in it a first warning to the time. But I had difficulty in establishing a relationship to Hamerling. And the appearance of the Homunculus at first increased this difficulty in my own mind.
In Hamerling I saw a person who was himself a special revelation of the times. I looked back to the period when Goethe and those who worked with him had brought idealism to a height worthy of humanity. I recognized the need to pass through the gateway of this idealism into the world of real spirit. To me this idealism seemed the noble shadow, not cast into man's soul by the sense-world, but falling into his inner being from a spiritual world, and creating the obligation to go forward from this shadow to the world which has cast it.
[ 7 ] I loved Hamerling who had painted these idealistic reflections in such mighty pictures. But it gave me deep distress to have him remain at that stage – that his look was directed backward to the reflections of a spirituality destroyed by materialism rather than forward to the spiritual world now breaking through in a new form. [ 8 ] Yet the Homunculus strongly attracted me. Though it did not show how man enters into the spiritual world, still it indicated the pass to which men come when they restrict themselves to the unspiritual. My interest in the Homunculus happened at a time when I was thinking over the problem of the nature of artistic creation and of beauty. What was then passing through my mind is recorded in the pamphlet Goethe als Vater einer neuen Aesthetik1Goethe as the Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics. which reproduces a paper that I had read at the Goethe Society in Vienna. I desired to discover the reasons why the idealism of a bold philosophy, such as had spoken so impressively in Fichte and Hegel, had nevertheless failed to penetrate to the living spirit. One of the ways by which I sought to discover these causes was my reflection over the errors of a merely idealistic philosophy in the sphere of aesthetics. Hegel and those who thought in his way found the content of art in the appearance of the “idea” in the sense-world. When the “idea” appears in the stuff of the senses, it is manifest as the beautiful. This was their opinion. But the succeeding period refused to recognize any reality in the “idea.” Since the idea of the idealistic world-conception, as this lived in the consciousness of the idealists, did not point to a world of spirit, it could therefore not maintain itself with the successors of these idealists as something possessing reality. Thus arose the “realistic” aesthetics, which saw in the work of art, not the appearance of the idea in a sense-form, but only the sense-image which, because of the needs of human nature, takes on in the work of art an unreal form.
I desired to see as the reality in a work of art the same thing which appears to the senses. But the way which the true artist takes in his creative work appeared to me as a way leading to real spirit. He begins with that which is perceptible to the senses, but he transforms this. In this transformation he is not guided by a merely subjective impulse, but he seeks to give to the sensibly apparent a form which reveals it as if the spirit itself were there present. Not the appearance of the idea in the sense-form is the beautiful, so I said to myself, but the representation of the sensible in the form of the spirit. Thus I saw in the existence of art the entrance of the world of spirit within the world of sense. The true artist yields himself more or less consciously to the spirit. And it is only necessary – so I then said to myself over and over again – to metamorphose the powers of the soul, which in the case of the artist work upon matter, to a pure spiritual perception free of the senses in order to penetrate into a knowledge of the spiritual world.
[ 9 ] At that time, true knowledge, the manifestation of the spiritual in art, and the moral will in man became in my thought the members which unite to form a single whole. I could not but recognize in the human personality a central point at which these are bound in the most immediate unity with the primal being of the world. It is from this central point that the will takes its rise. If the clear light of the spirit shines at this central point, then the will is free. Man is then acting in harmony with the spiritual nature of the world, which creates, not by reason of necessity, but in the evolution of its own nature. At this central point in man the motives of action arise, not out of obscure impulses, but from intuitions which are just as transparent in character as the most transparent thought. In this way I desired by means of a conception of the freedom of the will to find that spirit through which man exists as an individual in the world. By means of an experience of true beauty I desired to find the spirit which works in man when he so labours through the sensible as to express his own being, not merely spiritually as a free spirit, but in such a way that this spiritual being of his flows forth into the world, which is indeed of the spirit but does not directly manifest it. Through a perception of the true I desired to experience the spirit which manifests itself in its own being, whose spiritual reflection is moral conduct, and toward which creative art strives in the shaping of sensible form.
[ 10 ] A “philosophy of freedom,” a living vision of the sense world thirsting for the spirit and striving toward it through beauty, a spiritual vision of the living world of truth hovered before my mind.
[ 11 ] This was in the year 1888, just at the time when I was introduced into the home of the Protestant pastor, Alfred Formey, in Vienna. Once a week a group of artists and writers used to gather there. Alfred Formey himself had come out as a poet. Fritz Lemmermayer, speaking out of a friendly heart, described him thus: “Warm-hearted, intimate in his feeling for nature, enthusiastic, almost drunk with faith in God and blessedness, so does Alfred Formey write verse in mellow resounding harmonies. It is as if his tread did not rest upon the hard earth, but as if he mused and dreamed high in the clouds.” Such was Alfred Formey also as a man. One felt quite borne away from the earth, when one entered the rectory, and found at first only the host and hostess. The pastor was of a childlike piety; but this piety passed over in its warm disposition in the most obvious way into a lyric mood. One was, as it were, surrounded by an atmosphere of good-heartedness as soon as Formey had spoken a few words. The lady of the house had exchanged the theatre for the rectory. No one would, ever have discovered the former actress in the lovable wife of the pastor entertaining her guests with such delightful charm. Into the mood of this rectory, so other-worldly, the guests now brought “the world” from all directions of the spiritual compass. There from time to time appeared the widow of Friedrich Hebbel. Her appearance was always the signal for a festival. In high old age she developed a sort of art of declamation which took possession of one's heart with an inner fascination, and completely captivated one's artistic sensibilities. And when Christine Hebbel told a story, the whole room was permeated with the warmth of the soul. At these Formey evenings I became acquainted also with the actress Wilborn. An interesting person with a brilliant voice in declamation. Lenau's Drei Zigeuner2Three Gipsies. which one could hear from her lips with constantly renewed pleasure. It soon came about that the group which had assembled at the home of Formey would from time to time gather also at that of Frau Wilborn. But how different it was there! Fond of the world, lovers of life, thirsty for humour – such were then the same persons who at the rectory remained serious even when the “Vienna People's Poet,” Friederich Schlögel, read aloud his boisterous drolleries. He had, for instance, written a “skit” when the practice of cremation had been introduced among a small circle of the Viennese. In this he told how a husband who had loved his wife in a somewhat “coarse” manner had always shouted to her whenever anything did not please him: “Old woman, off to the crematorium.” At Formey's such things would call forth remarks which formed a sort of episode in cultural history throughout Vienna; at Wilborn's people laughed till the chairs rattled. At Wilborn's Formey looked like a man of the world; Wilborn at Formey's like an abbess. One could pursue the most penetrating reflections upon the metamorphosis of human beings even to the point of the facial expression.
[ 12 ] To Formey's came also Emilie Mataja, who, under the name of Emil Marriot, wrote her romances marked by penetrating observation of life: a fascinating personality, who in the manner of her life revealed the cruelties of human existence clearly, with genius, and often charmingly. An artist who knew how to represent life when it mingles its riddles with everyday affairs, where it hurls the tragedy of fate ruinously among men.
[ 13 ] We often had the opportunity to hear also the four women artists of the Austrian Tschamper quartette; there Fritz Lemmermayer melodramatically recited Hebbel's Heideknabe, to a fiery piano accompaniment by Alfred Stross.
[ 14 ] I loved this rectory, where one could find so much warmth. There the noblest humanity was actively manifest.
[ 15 ] At the same period I realized that I must busy myself in a more serious manner with the situation of public affairs in Austria. For during a brief period in 1888 I was entrusted with the editorship of the Deutsche Wochenschrift.3The German Weekly. This journal had been founded by the historian, Heinrich Friedjung. My brief editorial experience came during a time when the interrelationships between the races in Austria had reached a specially tense condition. It was not easy for me to write each week an article on public affairs; for at bottom I was at the farthest possible remove from all partisan conceptions of life. What interested me was the evolution of culture in the progress of humanity. And I had so to handle the point of view resulting from this fact that the complete justification of this view should not cause my article to seem the product of a person alien to the world. Besides, it happened that the “educational reform” then being introduced into Austria, especially by Minister Gautsch, seemed to me injurious to the interests of culture. In this field my comments seemed questionable to Schröer, who always felt a strong sympathy for partisan points of view. I praised the very suitable plans which the Catholic clerical Minister, Leo Thun, had brought about in the Austrian Gymnasium as early as the fifties, as opposed to the measures of Gautsch. When Schröer had read my article, he said, “Do you wish, then, to have again a clerical educational policy for Austria?”
[ 16 ] This editorial activity, though brief, was for me very important. It turned my attention to the style in which public affairs were then discussed in Austria. To me this style was intensely antipathetic. Even in discussing such situations I desired to bring in something which should be marked by its comprehensive relation to the great spiritual and human objectives. This I missed in the style of the daily paper in those days. How to bring this characteristic into play was then my daily care. And it had to be a care, for at that time I did not possess the power which a rich life experience in this field would have given me. At bottom I was quite unprepared for this editorial work. I thought I could see whither we ought to steer in the most varied departments of life; but I had not the formulae so systematized as to be enlightening to newspaper readers. So the preparation of each week's issue was a difficult struggle for me.
[ 17 ] Thus I felt as if I had been relieved of a great burden when this activity came to an end through the fact that the owner of the paper got into a controversy with the founder over the question of the price at which the property had been sold.
[ 18 ] Yet this work brought me into a rather close relationship with persons whose activities had to do with the most diverse phases of public life. I became acquainted with Victor Adler, who was then the undisputed leader of the Socialists in Austria. In this slender, unassuming man, there resided an energetic will. When he talked over a cup of coffee I always had the feeling: “The content of what he says is unimportant, commonplace, but his way of speaking marks a will which can never be bent.” I became acquainted with Pernerstorffer, who was then changing over from the German National to the Socialist camp. A strong personality possessed of comprehensive knowledge. A keen critic of misconduct in public life. He was then editing a monthly, Deutsche Worte. I found this stimulating reading. In company with these persons I met with others who either for scientific or for partisan reasons were advocates of Socialism. Through these I was led to take up Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rodbertus, and other writers on social economics. To none of these could I gain any inner relationship. It was a personal distress to me to hear men say that the material economic forces in human history carried forward man's real evolution, and that the spiritual was only an ideal superstructure over this sub-structure of the “truly real.” I knew the reality of the spiritual. The assertions of the theorizing Socialists meant to me the closing of men's eyes to true reality.
[ 19 ] In this connection, however, it became clear to me that the “social question” itself had an immeasurable importance. But it seemed to me the tragedy of the times that this question was treated by persons who were wholly possessed by the materialism of contemporary civilization. It was my conviction that just this question was one which could be rightly put only from the point of view of a spiritual world-conception.
[ 20 ] Thus as a young man of twenty-seven years I was filled with “questions” and “riddles” concerning the outer life of humanity, while the nature of the soul and its relationships to the spiritual world had taken on, in a self-contained conception, a more and more definite form within me. At first I could work only in a spiritual way from this perception And this work took on more and more the direction which some years later led me to the conception of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
Chapter VIII
[ 1 ] In dieser Zeit - um 1888 herum - ward ich auf der einen Seite zur scharfen geistigen Konzentration durch mein inneres Seelenleben gedrängt; auf der andern stellte mich das Leben in einen ausgebreiteten geselligen Verkehr hinein. In meinem Innern ergab sich durch die ausführliche Einleitung, die ich zurn zweiten Bande der von mir herauszugebenden naturwissenschaftlichen Werke Goethes zu schreiben hatte, die Nötigung, meine Anschauung von der geistigen Welt in die Form einer gedanklich durchsichtigen Darstellung zu bringen. Das erforderte eine innere Abgezogenheit von allem, womit ich durch das äußere Leben verbunden war. Ich verdanke dem Umstande viel, daß mir diese Abgezogenheit möglich war. Ich konnte damals in einem Kaffeehause sitzen, um mich herum das lebhafteste Treiben haben, und doch im Innern ganz still sein, die Gedanken darauf gewandt, im Konzept niederzuschreiben, was dann in die erwähnte Einleitung übergegangen ist. So führte ich ein inneres Leben, das in gar keinem Zusammenhange stand mit der Außenwelt, in die meine Interessen doch wieder intensiv verflochten waren.
[ 2 ] Es war das die Zeit, in der sich in dem damaligen Österreich diese Interessen den krisenhaften Erscheinungen zuwenden mußten, die in den öffentlichen Angelegenheiten sich offenbarten. Persönlichkeiten, mit denen ich viel verkehrte, widmeten ihre Arbeit und Kraft den Auseinandersetzungen, die sich zwischen den Nationalitäten Österreichs vollzogen. Andere beschäftigten sich mit der sozialen Frage. Wieder andere standen in Bestrebungen nach einer Verjüngung des künstlerischen Lebens darinnen.
[ 3 ] Wenn ich mit meiner Seele in der geistigen Welt lebte, dann hatte ich oft die Empfindung, daß alle diese Zielsetzungen in ein Unfruchtbares auslaufen mußten, weil sie es doch vermieden, an die geistigen Kräfte des Daseins heranzutreten. Die Besinnung auf diese geistigen Kräfte schien mir das zuerst Notwendige. Ein deutliches Bewußtsein davon aber konnte ich in dem geistigen Leben nicht finden, das mich umgab.
[ 4 ] Es erschien damals Robert Hamerlings satyrisches Epos «Homunculus». In diesem ward der Zeit ein Spiegel vorgehalten, aus dem ihr Materialismus, ihre dem Äußerlichen des Lebens zugewandten Interessen in beabsichtigt karikaturenhaften Bildern erschienen. Der Mann, der nur noch in mechanistisch-materialistischen Vorstellungen und Betätigungen leben kann, geht eine Verbindung ein mit dem Weibe, das sein Wesen nicht in einer wirklichen, sondern in einer phantastischen Welt hat. Die zwei Seiten, in denen sich die Zivilisation verbildet hatte, wollte Hamerling treffen. Auf der einen Seite stand ihm das geistlose Streben, das die Welt als einen Mechanismus dachte und das Leben maschinenmäßig gestalten wollte; auf der andern die seelenlose Phantastik, die gar kein Interesse daran hat, daß ihr geistiges Scheinleben in irgend eine wahrhaftige Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit kommt
[ 5 ] Das Groteske der Bilder, in denen Hamerling malte, stieß viele ab, die seine Verehrer durch seine früheren Werke geworden waren. Auch in dem Hause delle Grazies, in dem man vorher in restloser Bewunderung Hamerlings lebte, wurde man bedenklich, als dieses Epos erschien.
[ 6 ] Auf mich aber machte der «Homunculus» doch einen sehr tiefen Eindruck. Er zeigte, so schien es mir, die Kräfte, die als geistverfinsternd in der modernen Zivilisation walten. Ich fand in ihm eine ernste Mahnung an die Zeit. Aber ich hatte auch Schwierigkeiten, eine Stellung zu Hamerling zu gewinnen. Und das Erscheinen des «Homunculus» vermehrte in meiner Seele zunächst die Schwierigkeiten. Ich sah in Hamerling eine Persönlichkeit, die mir in einer besondern Art selbst eine Offenbarung der Zeit war. Ich blickte zurück auf die Zeit, in der Goethe und die mit ihm Wirkenden den Idealismus auf eine menschenwürdige Höhe gebracht hatten. Ich erkannte die Notwendigkeit, durch das Tor dieses Idealismus in die wirkliche Geistwelt einzudringen. Mir erschien dieser Idealismus als der herrliche Schatten, den nicht die Sinnenwelt hinein in die Seele des Menschen wirft, sondern als derjenige, der aus einer geistigen Welt in das Innere des Menschen fällt, und der eine Aufforderung darstellt, von dem Schatten aus die Welt zu erreichen, die den Schatten wirft.
[ 7 ] Ich liebte Hamerling, der in so gewaltigen Bildern den idealistischen Schatten gemalt hatte. Aber es war mir eine tiefe Entbehrung, daß er dabei stehen blieb. Daß sein Blick weniger nach vorwärts auf das Durchbrechen zu einer neuen Form der wirklichen Geistwelt gerichtet war, als nach rückwärts, auf den Schatten einer durch den Materialismus zerschlagenen Geistigkeit. Dennoch zog mich der «Homunculus» an. Zeigte er nicht, wie man in die geistige Welt eindringt, so stellte er doch dar, wohin man kommt, wenn man sich allein in einer geistlosen bewegen will.
[ 8 ] Die Beschäftigung mit dem «Homunculus» fiel für mich in eine Zeit, in der ich dem Wesen des künstlerischen Schaffens und der Schönheit nachsann. Was mir damals durch die Seele zog, hat seinen Niederschlag in der kleinen Schrift «Goethe als Vater einer neuen Ästhetik» gefunden, die einen Vortrag wiedergibt, den ich im Wiener Goethe-Verein gehalten habe. Ich wollte die Ursachen finden, warum der Idealismus einer mutigen Philosophie, die in Fichte und Hegel so eindringlich gesprochen hatte, doch nicht bis zum lebendigen Geiste hat vordringen können. Von den Wegen, die ich ging, um diese Ursachen zu finden, war einer das Nachsinnen über die Irrtümer der bloß idealistischen Philosophie auf ästhetischem Gebiete. Hegel und die, die ähnlich wie er dachten, fanden den Inhalt der Kunst in dem sinnlichen Erscheinen der «Idee». Wenn die «Idee» im sinnlichen Stoffe erscheint, so offenbart sie sich als das Schöne. Dies war ihre Ansicht. Aber die auf diesen Idealismus folgende Zeit wollte ein Wesenhaftes der «Idee» nicht mehr anerkennen. Weil die Idee der idealistischen Weltanschauung, so wie sie im Bewußtsein der Idealisten lebte, nicht auf eine Geistwelt hinwies, konnte sie sich bei den Nachfolgern nicht als etwas behaupten, das Wirklichkeitswert hatte. Und so entstand die «realistische» Ästhetik, die nicht auf das Scheinen der Idee im sinnlichen Bilde beim Kunstwerk hinsah, sondern nur auf das sinnliche Bild, das aus den Bedürfnissen der Menschennatur heraus im Kunstwerk eine unwirkliche Form annimmt. Ich wollte im Kunstwerk als das Wesentliche dasjenige ansehen, was den Sinnen erscheint. Aber mir zeigte sich der Weg, den der wahre Künstler in seinem Schaffen geht, als ein Weg zum wirklichen Geiste. Er geht aus von dem, was sinnlich wahrnehmbar ist; aber er gestaltet dieses um. Bei dieser Umgestaltung läßt er sich nicht von einem bloß subjektiven Drang leiten, sondern er sucht dem sinnlich Erscheinenden eine Form zu geben, die es so zeigt, als ob das Geistige selbst da stehe. Nicht die Erscheinung der Idee in der Sinnenform ist das Schöne, so sagte ich mir, sondern die Darstellung des Sinnlichen in der Form des Geistes. So erblickte ich in dem Dasein der Kunst ein Hereinstellen der Geist-Welt in die sinnliche. Der wahre Künstler bekennt sich mehr oder weniger unbewußt zum Geiste. Und es bedarf nur - so sagte ich mir damals immer wieder - der Umwandlung derjenigen Seelenkräfte, die im Künstler an dem sinnlichen Stoffe wirken, zu einem sinnenfreien, rein geistigen Anschauen, um in die Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt einzudringen.
[ 9 ] Es gliederten sich mir dazumal die wahre Erkenntnis, die Erscheinung des Geistigen in der Kunst und das sittliche Wollen im Menschen zu einem Ganzen zusammen. In der menschlichen Persönlichkeit mußte ich einen Mittelpunkt sehen, in dem diese ganz unmittelbar mit dem ursprünglichsten Wesen der Welt zusammenhängt. Aus diesem Mittelpunkt heraus quillt das Wollen. Und wirkt in dem Mittelpunkt das klare Licht des Geistes, so wird das Wollen frei. Der Mensch handelt dann in Übereinstimmung mit der Geistigkeit der Welt, die nicht aus einer Notwendigkeit, sondern nur in der Verwirklichung des eigenen Wesens schöpferisch wird. In diesem Mittelpunkte des Menschen werden nicht aus dunklen Antrieben heraus, sondern aus «moralischen Intuitionen» Tatenziele geboren, aus Intuitionen, die in sich so durchsichtig sind wie die durchsichtigsten Gedanken. So wollte ich durch das Anschauen des freien Wollens den Geist finden, durch den der Mensch als Individualität in der Welt ist. Durch die Empfindung des wahren Schönen wollte ich den Geist schauen, der durch den Menschen wirkt, wenn er im Sinnlichen sich so betätigt, daß er sein eigenes Wesen nicht bloß geistig als freie Tat darstellt, sondern so, daß dieses sein Geisteswesen hinausfließt in die Welt, die zwar aus dem Geiste ist, aber diesen nicht unmittelbar offenbart. Durch die Anschauung des Wahren wollte ich den Geist erleben, der sich in seinem eigenen Wesen offenbart, dessen geistiger Abglanz die sittliche Tat ist, und zu dem das künstlerische Schaffen durch das Gestalten einer sinnlichen Form hinstrebt.
[ 10 ] Eine «Philosophie der Freiheit», eine Lebensansicht von der geistdurstenden, in Schönheit strebenden Sinneswelt, eine geistige Anschauung der lebendigen Wahrheitswelt schwebte vor meiner Seele.
[ 11 ] Es war auch im Jahre 1888, als ich in das Haus des Wiener evangelischen Pfarrers Alfred Formey eingeführt wurde. Einmal in der Woche versammelte sich dott ein Kreis von Künstlern und Schriftstellern. Alfred Formey war selbst als Dichter aufgetreten. Fritz Lemmermayer charakterisierte ihn aus Freundesherzen heraus so: «Warmherzig, innig in der Naturempfindung, schwärmerisch, trunken fast im Glauben an Gott und Seligkeit, so dichtet Alfred Formey in weichen, brausenden Akkorden. Es ist, als ob sein Schritt nicht die harte Erde berührte, sondern als ob er hoch in den Wolken hindämmerte und träumte.» Und so war Alfred Formey auch als Mensch. Man fühlte sich recht erdentrückt, wenn man in dieses Pfarrhaus kam und zunächst nur der Hausherr und die Hausfrau da waren. Der Pfarrer war von kindlicher Frömmigkeit; aber die Frömmigkeit ging in seinem warmen Gemüte auf die selbstverständlichste Art in lyrische Stimmung über. Man war sogleich von einer Atmosphäre von Herzlichkeit umgeben, wenn Formey nur einige Worte gesprochen hatte. Die Hausfrau hatte den Bühnenberuf mit dem Pfarrhaus vertauscht. Kein Mensch konnte in der liebenswürdigen, die Gäste mit hinreißender Anmut bewirtenden Pfarrerin die frühere Schauspielerin entdecken. Den Pfarrer pflegte sie fast mütterlich; und mütterliche Pflege war fast jedes Wort, das man sie zu ihm sprechen hörte. In den beiden kontrastierte in einer entzückenden Art Anmut der Seele mit einer äußerst stattlichen Erscheinung. In die weltfremde Stimmung dieses Pfarrhauses brachten nun die Gäste «Welt» aus allen geistigen Windrichtungen hinein. Da erschien von Zeit zu Zeit die Witwe Friedrich Hebbels. Ihr Erscheinen bedeutete jedesmal ein Fest. Sie entfaltete im hohen Alter eine Kunst der Deklamation, die das Herz in seliges Entzücken versetzte und den Kunstsinn völlig gefangen nahm. Und wenn Christine Hebbel erzählte, dann war der ganze Raum von Seelenwärme durchdrungen. An diesen Formey-Abenden lernte ich auch die Schauspielerin Wilborn kennen. Eine interessante Persönlichkeit, mit glänzender Stimme als Deklamatorin. Lenaus «Drei Zigeuner» konnte man von ihr immer wieder mit erneuter Freude hören. Es kam bald dazu, daß der Kreis, der sich bei Formey zusammengefunden hatte, sich auch ab und zu bei Frau Wilborn versammelte. Aber wie anders war es da. Weltfreudig, lebenslustig, humorbedürftig wurden da dieselben Menschen, die im Pfarrhause selbst noch ernst blieben, wenn der «Wiener Volksdichter» Friedrich Schlögl seine lustigen Sehnurren vorlas. Der hatte, zum Beispiel, als in Wien die Leichenverbrennung in einem engen Kreise eingeführt wurde, ein «Feuilleton» geschrieben. Da erzählte er, wie ein Mann, der seine Frau in einer etwas «derben» Art liebte, ihr bei jeder Gelegenheit, die ihm nicht paßte, zurief: «Alte, los di verbrenna!» Bei Formey machte man über eine solche Sache Bemerkungen, die eine Art kulturgeschichtlichen Kapitels über Wien waren; bei Wilborn lachte man, daß die Stühle klapperten. Formey sah bei der Wilborn wie ein Weltmann aus; die Wilborn bei Formey wie eine Äbtissin. Man konnte die eingehendsten Studien über die Verwandlung der Menschen bis in den Gesichtsausdruck hinein machen.
[ 12 ] Bei Formey verkehrte auch Emilie Mataja, die unter dem Namen Emil Marriot ihre von eindringlicher Lebensbeobachtung getragenen Romane schrieb. Eine faszinierende Persönlichkeit, die in ihrer Lebensart die Härten des Menschendaseins anschaulich, genial, oft aufreizend offenbarte. Eine Künstlerin, die das Leben darzustellen versteht, wo es seine Rätsel in den Alltag hineinwirft, wo es seine Schicksalstragik zermalmend über Menschen hinwirft.
[ 13 ] Da waren auch öfters die vier Damen des österreichischen Damenquartetts Tschempas zu hören; da rezitierte Fritz Lemmermayer melodramatisch zu Alfred Stroß' feurigem Klavierspiel wiederholt Hebbels «Heideknaben».
[ 14 ] Ich liebte dieses Pfarrhaus, in dem man soviel Wärme finden konnte. Es war da edelstes Menschentum wirksam.
[ 15 ] In derselben Zeit fand es sich, daß ich mich in eingehender Art mit den öffentlichen Angelegenheiten Österreichs beschäftigen mußte. Denn mir wurde 1888 für kurze Zeit die Redaktion der «Deutschen Wochenschrift» übertragen. Diese Zeitschrift war von dem Historiker Heinrich Friedjung begründet worden. Meine kurze Redaktion fiel in die Zeit, in der die Auseinandersetzung der Völker Österreichs einen besonders heftigen Charakter angenommen hatte. Es wurde mir nicht leicht, jede Woche einen Artikel über die öffentlichen Vorgänge zu schreiben. Denn im Grunde stand ich aller parteimäßigen Lebensauffassung so fern als nur möglich. Mich interessierte der Entwickelungsgang der Kultur im Menschheitsfortschritt. Und ich mußte den sich daraus ergebenden Gesichtspunkt so einnehmen, daß unter seiner vollen Wahrung meine Artikel doch nicht als die eines «weltfremden Idealisten» erschienen. Dazu kam, daß ich in der damals in Österreich besonders durch den Minister Gautsch eingeleiteten «Unterrichtsreform» eine Schädigung der Kulturinteressen sah. Auf diesem Gebiete wurden meine Bemerkungen einmal sogar Schröer, der immerhin für parteiliche Betrachtung viel Sympathie hatte, bedenklich. Ich lobte die sachgemäßen Einrichtungen, die der katholisch-klerikale Minister Leo Thun schon in den fünfziger Jahren für die österreichischen Gymnasien getroffen hatte, gegenüber den unpädagogischen Maßnahmen von Gautsch. Als Schröer meinen Artikel gelesen hatte, sagte er: Wollen Sie denn wieder eine klerikale Unterrichtspolitik in Österreich?
[ 16 ] Für mich war diese kurze Redaktionstätigkeit doch von großer Bedeutung. Sie lenkte meine Aufmerksamkeit auf den Stil, mit dem man damals in Österreich die öffentlichen Angelegenheiten behandelte. Mir war dieser Stil tief unsympathisch. Ich wollte auch in die Besprechungen über diese Angelegenheiten etwas hineinbringen, das einen die großen geistigen und menschheitlichen Ziele in sich schließenden Zug hatte. Diesen vermißte ich in der damaligen Tagesschriftstellerei. Wie dieser Zug zur Wirksamkeit zu bringen sei, das war damals meine tägliche Sorge. Und Sorge mußte es sein, denn ich hatte nicht die Kraft, die eine reiche Lebenserfahrung auf diesem Gebiete hätte geben können. Ich war im Grunde ganz unvorbereitet in diese Redaktionstätigkeit hineingekommen. Ich glaubte zu sehen, wohin auf den verschiedensten Gebieten zu steuern war; aber ich hatte die Formulierungen nicht in den Gliedern, die den Lesern der Zeitungen einleuchtend sein konnten. So war denn das Zustandekommen jeder Wochennusnmer für mich ein schweres Ringen.
[ 17 ] Und so fühlte ich mich denn wie von einer großen Last befreit, als diese Tätigkeit dadurch ein Ende fand, daß der damalige Besitzer der Wochenschrift mit dem Begründer derselben in einen Streit über den Kaufschilling verwickelt wurde.
[ 18 ] Doch brachte mich diese Tätigkeit in eine ziemlich enge Beziehung zu Persönlichkeiten, deren Tätigkeit auf die mannigfaltigsten Zweige des öffentlichen Lebens gerichtet war. Ich lernte Viktor Adler kennen, der damals der unbestrittene Führer der Sozialisten in Österreich war. In dem schmächtigen, anspruchslosen Mann steckte ein energischer Wille. Wenn er am Kaffeetisch sprach, hatte ich stets das Gefühl: der Inhalt dessen, was er sagte, sei unbedeutend, alltäglich, aber so spricht ein Wille, der durch nichts zu beugen ist. Ich lernte Pernerstorfer kennen, der sich in der Umwandlung vom deutschnationalen zum sozialistischen Parteigänger befand. Eine starke Persönlichkeit von umfassendem Wissen. Ein scharfer Kritiker der Schäden des öffentlichen Lebens. Er gab damals eine Monatsschrift «Deutsche Worte» heraus. Die war mir eine anregende Lektüre. In der Gesellschaft dieser Persönlichkeiten traf ich andere, die wissenschaftlich oder parteigemäß den Sozialismus zur Geltung bringen wollten. Durch sie wurde ich veranlaßt, mich mit Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rodbertus und anderen sozial-ökonomischen Schriftstellern zu befassen. Ich konnte zu alledem ein inneres Verhältnis nicht gewinnen. Es war mir persönlich schmerzlich, davon sprechen zu hören, daß die materiell-ökonomischen Kräfte in der Geschichte der Menschheit die eigentliche Entwickelung tragen und das Geistige nur ein ideeller Überbau dieses «wahrhaft realen» Unterbaues sein sollte. Ich kannte die Wirklichkeit des Geistigen. Es waren die Behauptungen der theoretisierenden Sozialisten für mich das Augen-Verschließen vor der wahren Wirklichkeit.
[ 19 ] Und dabei ward mir doch klar, daß die «soziale Frage» selbst eine unbegrenzte Bedeutung habe. Es erschien mir aber als die Tragik der Zeit, daß sie behandelt wurde von Persönlichkeiten, die ganz von dem Materialismus der zeitgenössischen Zivilisation ergriffen waren. Ich hielt dafür, daß gerade diese Frage nur von einer geistgemäßen Weltauffassung richtig gestellt werden könne.
[ 20 ] So war ich denn als Siebenundzwanzigjähriger voller «Fragen» und «Rätsel» in bezug auf das äußere Leben der Menschheit, während sich mir das Wesen der Seele und deren Beziehung zur geistigen Welt in einer in sich geschlossenen Anschauung in immer bestimmteren Formen vor das Innere gestellt hatte. Ich konnte zunächst nur aus dieser Anschauung heraus geistig arbeiten. Und diese Arbeit nahm immer mehr die Richtung, die dann einige Jahre später mich zur Abfassung meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» geführt hat.
Chapter VIII
[ 1 ] During this time - around 1888 - I was, on the one hand, forced by my inner spiritual life into sharp mental concentration; on the other hand, life placed me in an extensive social intercourse. The detailed introduction that I had to write to the second volume of Goethe's scientific works, which I was to edit, forced me to put my view of the spiritual world into the form of an intellectually transparent presentation. This required an inner detachment from everything with which I was connected through external life. I owe much to the fact that this detachment was possible for me. At that time I could sit in a coffee house, surrounded by the liveliest hustle and bustle, and yet be completely quiet inside, my thoughts focused on writing down in concept what then became the introduction I mentioned. In this way, I led an inner life that had no connection at all with the outside world, in which my interests were intensely intertwined.
[ 2 ] It was the time in Austria at the time when these interests had to turn to the crisis-like phenomena that were manifesting themselves in public affairs. Personalities with whom I was in frequent contact devoted their work and energy to the conflicts that were taking place between Austria's nationalities. Others were concerned with the social question. Still others were involved in efforts to rejuvenate artistic life.
[ 3 ] When I lived with my soul in the spiritual world, I often had the feeling that all these objectives must end in fruitlessness because they avoided approaching the spiritual forces of existence. Reflection on these spiritual forces seemed to me to be the first thing necessary. But I could not find a clear awareness of this in the spiritual life that surrounded me
[ 4 ] Robert Hamerling's satyric epic "Homunculus" was published at the time. In it, a mirror was held up to the times, from which its materialism, its interests turned towards the external aspects of life, appeared in deliberately caricature-like images. The man, who can only live in mechanistic-materialistic ideas and activities, enters into a union with the woman, who has her being not in a real but in a fantastic world. Hamerling wanted to meet the two sides in which civilization had developed. On the one hand, there was the mindless striving that thought of the world as a mechanism and wanted to shape life like a machine; on the other, there was the soulless fantasy that has no interest whatsoever in bringing its spiritual illusory life into any kind of true relationship with reality
[ 5 ] The grotesque nature of the pictures in which Hamerling painted repelled many who had become his admirers through his earlier works. Even in the House of delle Grazies, where Hamerling had previously been admired to the full, people became apprehensive when this epic appeared.
[ 6 ] But the "Homunculus" made a very deep impression on me. It showed, it seemed to me, the forces that are at work in modern civilization to darken the mind. I found in it a serious warning to the times. But I also had difficulty finding a position on Hamerling. And the appearance of "Homunculus" initially increased the difficulties in my soul. I saw in Hamerling a personality who, in a special way, was himself a revelation of the times. I looked back to the time when Goethe and those who worked with him had brought idealism to a humane height. I recognized the necessity of penetrating through the gate of this idealism into the real spiritual world. This idealism appeared to me as the glorious shadow that is not cast by the world of the senses into the soul of man, but as that which falls from a spiritual world into the inner being of man, and which represents an invitation to reach from the shadow to the world that casts the shadow.
[ 7 ] I loved Hamerling, who had painted the idealistic shadow in such powerful images. But it was a deep deprivation to me that he stopped there. That his gaze was directed less forward, towards breaking through to a new form of the real spiritual world, than backwards, towards the shadow of a spirituality shattered by materialism. Nevertheless, the "Homunculus" attracted me. If it did not show how to penetrate the spiritual world, it did show where one ends up if one wants to move alone in a spiritless one.
[ 8 ] The study of "Homunculus" came at a time when I was contemplating the nature of artistic creation and beauty. What was going through my mind at the time found expression in the short essay "Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic", which reproduces a lecture I gave at the Goethe Society in Vienna. I wanted to find the reasons why the idealism of a courageous philosophy, which had spoken so forcefully in Fichte and Hegel, had not been able to penetrate to the living spirit. One of the paths I took to find these causes was to reflect on the errors of merely idealistic philosophy in the aesthetic field. Hegel and those who thought like him found the content of art in the sensual appearance of the "idea". When the "idea" appears in the sensual substance, it reveals itself as the beautiful. This was their view. But the period that followed this idealism no longer wanted to recognize the essence of the "idea". Because the idea of the idealistic world view, as it lived in the consciousness of the idealists, did not point to a spiritual world, it could not assert itself among its successors as something that had real value. And so the "realistic" aesthetic arose, which did not look at the appearance of the idea in the sensual image in the work of art, but only at the sensual image, which takes on an unreal form in the work of art out of the needs of human nature. I wanted to regard that which appears to the senses as the essential in the work of art. But the path that the true artist takes in his work revealed itself to me as a path to the real spirit. He starts from what is perceptible to the senses; but he transforms it. In this transformation he is not guided by a merely subjective urge, but seeks to give the sensually apparent a form that shows it as if the spiritual itself were there. It is not the appearance of the idea in the form of the senses that is beautiful, I told myself, but the representation of the sensual in the form of the spirit. Thus I saw in the existence of art an introduction of the spiritual world into the sensual. The true artist more or less unconsciously acknowledges the spirit. And it only requires - as I told myself again and again at the time - the transformation of those soul forces that work in the artist on the sensual material into a sense-free, purely spiritual view in order to penetrate into the knowledge of the spiritual world.
[ 9 ] True knowledge, the manifestation of the spiritual in art and the moral will in man were then united into one whole. In the human personality I had to see a center in which it is directly connected with the most original essence of the world. Out of this center springs the will. And if the clear light of the spirit works in the center, the will becomes free. Man then acts in accordance with the spirituality of the world, which does not become creative out of necessity, but only in the realization of his own being. In this center of the human being, goals for action are not born out of dark impulses, but out of "moral intuitions", out of intuitions that are in themselves as transparent as the most transparent thoughts. Thus, by looking at the free will, I wanted to find the spirit through which man is in the world as an individuality. Through the perception of the truly beautiful, I wanted to see the spirit that works through man when he is so active in the sensual that he does not merely represent his own being spiritually as a free act, but in such a way that this spiritual being flows out into the world, which is indeed of the spirit, but does not reveal it directly. Through the contemplation of the true, I wanted to experience the spirit that reveals itself in its own essence, whose spiritual reflection is the moral act, and to which artistic creation strives through the creation of a sensual form.
[ 10 ] A "philosophy of freedom", a view of life from the spiritually thirsty world of the senses striving for beauty, a spiritual view of the living world of truth floated before my soul.
[ 11 ] It was also in 1888 when I was introduced to the house of the Viennese Protestant pastor Alfred Formey. Once a week, a circle of artists and writers gathered there. Alfred Formey himself was a poet. Fritz Lemmermayer characterized him from the heart of a friend as follows: "Warm-hearted, intimate in his perception of nature, rapturous, almost drunk with faith in God and bliss, Alfred Formey writes in soft, roaring chords. It is as if his step did not touch the hard earth, but as if he were dozing and dreaming high up in the clouds." And that's how Alfred Formey was as a person. You felt quite earthbound when you came into this vicarage and at first there was only the master of the house and the housewife. The priest had a childlike piety, but in his warm disposition this piety naturally turned into a lyrical mood. One was immediately surrounded by an atmosphere of cordiality as soon as Formey had spoken a few words. The housewife had exchanged her stage profession for the parsonage. No one could recognize the former actress in the amiable priestess who entertained her guests with ravishing grace. She cared for the vicar almost like a mother, and almost every word she spoke to him was motherly care. In both of them, grace of soul contrasted in a delightful way with an extremely stately appearance. The guests brought the "world" from all spiritual directions into the unworldly atmosphere of this vicarage. Friedrich Hebbel's widow appeared from time to time. Her appearance was always a celebration. In her old age, she developed an art of declamation that filled the heart with blissful delight and completely captivated the sense of art. And when Christine Hebbel spoke, the whole room was imbued with warmth of soul. I also got to know the actress Wilborn at these Formey evenings. An interesting personality, with a brilliant voice as a declamator. Lenau's "Three Gypsies" could be heard from her again and again with renewed pleasure. It soon came about that the circle that had come together at Formey's also gathered at Mrs. Wilborn's from time to time. But how different it was there. The same people who remained serious in the parsonage when the "Viennese folk poet" Friedrich Schlögl read out his amusing poems became worldly, fun-loving and in need of humor. He had, for example, written a "Feuilleton" when the cremation of corpses was introduced in a narrow circle in Vienna. There he told how a man who loved his wife in a somewhat "coarse" way shouted to her at every opportunity that didn't suit him: "Alte, los di verbrenna!" At Formey's they made remarks about such a thing, which were a sort of cultural-historical chapter on Vienna; at Wilborn's they laughed so hard that the chairs rattled. Formey looked like a man of the world with Wilborn; Wilborn looked like an abbess with Formey. You could make the most detailed studies of the transformation of people, right down to their facial expressions.
[ 12 ] Formey was also frequented by Emilie Mataja, who wrote her novels under the name Emil Marriot, which were characterized by a penetrating observation of life. A fascinating personality whose way of life vividly, ingeniously and often provocatively revealed the hardships of human existence. An artist who knows how to depict life where it throws its riddles into everyday life, where it throws its tragic fate over people in a crushing way.
[ 13 ] The four ladies of the Austrian ladies' quartet Tschempas could often be heard; Fritz Lemmermayer melodramatically recited Hebbel's "Heideknaben" repeatedly to Alfred Stroß' fiery piano playing.
[ 14 ] I loved this vicarage, where you could find so much warmth. The noblest humanity was at work there.
[ 15 ] At the same time, I found myself having to concern myself in depth with Austrian public affairs. In 1888, I was briefly given the editorship of the "Deutsche Wochenschrift". This journal had been founded by the historian Heinrich Friedjung. My brief editorship came at a time when the conflict between the peoples of Austria had taken on a particularly fierce character. It was not easy for me to write an article about the public events every week. Basically, I was as far removed as possible from all partisan views of life. I was interested in the development of culture in the progress of mankind. And I had to adopt the resulting point of view in such a way that, while fully respecting it, my articles did not appear to be those of an "unworldly idealist". In addition, I saw the "teaching reform" introduced in Austria at the time, particularly by Minister Gautsch, as damaging to cultural interests. In this area, my remarks once even caused concern to Schröer, who after all had a great deal of sympathy for partisan observation. I praised the appropriate arrangements that the Catholic-clerical minister Leo Thun had already made for Austrian grammar schools in the 1950s, as opposed to Gautsch's uneducational measures. When Schröer read my article, he said: Do you want a clerical teaching policy in Austria again?
[ 16 ] This brief editorial activity was of great importance to me. It drew my attention to the style with which public affairs were dealt with in Austria at the time. I deeply disliked this style. I also wanted to bring something into the discussions about these matters that had a trait that encompassed the great spiritual and human goals. I missed this in the daily writing of the time. How to bring this trait to fruition was my daily concern at the time. And it had to be a worry, because I didn't have the strength that a rich life experience in this field could have given me. I had basically come into this editorial work completely unprepared. I thought I saw where I was heading in the most diverse areas, but I didn't have the formulations in my limbs that would be plausible to the readers of the newspapers. So the creation of each weekly newsletter was a difficult struggle for me.
[ 17 ] And so I felt as if I had been relieved of a great burden when this activity came to an end because the then owner of the weekly was involved in a dispute with its founder over the purchase price.
[ 18 ] However, this activity brought me into a rather close relationship with personalities whose activities were directed towards the most diverse branches of public life. I got to know Viktor Adler, who was the undisputed leader of the socialists in Austria at the time. The slight, unassuming man had an energetic will. When he spoke at the coffee table, I always had the feeling that the content of what he said was insignificant, commonplace, but it was the expression of a will that could not be bent by anything. I got to know Pernerstorfer, who was in the process of transforming himself from a German nationalist to a socialist party supporter. A strong personality with extensive knowledge. A sharp critic of the harms of public life. At the time, he published a monthly magazine called "Deutsche Worte". It was a stimulating read for me. In the company of these personalities, I met others who wanted to promote socialism scientifically or according to the party. Through them I was prompted to study Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rodbertus and other socio-economic writers. I could not gain an inner relationship to all of this. It was personally painful for me to hear people say that the material-economic forces in the history of mankind were responsible for the actual development and that the spiritual was only an ideal superstructure of this "truly real" substructure. I knew the reality of the spiritual. For me, the assertions of the theorizing socialists were the closing of my eyes to the true reality.
[ 19 ] And yet I realized that the "social question" itself had an unlimited meaning. But it seemed to me the tragedy of the times that it was dealt with by personalities who were completely caught up in the materialism of contemporary civilization. I believed that this question could only be posed correctly by a spiritual view of the world
[ 20 ] So at the age of twenty-seven I was full of "questions" and "riddles" about the external life of humanity, while the nature of the soul and its relationship to the spiritual world had presented itself to me in a self-contained view in ever more specific forms. At first I could only work spiritually from this view. And this work increasingly took the direction that led me to write my "Philosophy of Freedom" a few years later.