The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XX
[ 1 ] The hospitable welcome I met in the family of the Keeper of the Records at the Goethe-Schiller Institute, Eduard von der Hellen, was of the most delightful character. This man stood in a peculiar relationship to the other collaborators at the archives. He had an extraordinary reputation among the philological specialists because of his remarkably successful initial work on Goethes Anteil an Lavaters Physiognomischen Fragmenten.1Goethe's Share in Lavater's Physionomic Fragments. Von der Hellen had in this work produced something which every contemporary philologist accepted forthwith as “complete.” Only the author himself did not think so. He looked upon the work as a methodical achievement whose principles “could be learned” by anyone, whereas his own endeavour was to fill himself with inner spiritual content.
[ 2 ] When there were no visitors, we sat for long spells together in the old collaborators' room of the Institute while this was still at the castle: three of us – von der Hellen, who was working at an edition of Goethe's letters; Julius Wahle, occupied with the journals; and I, with the natural-scientific writings. But the very requirements of von der Hellen's mental life gave rise to conversations in the midst of the work touching upon the most manifold aspects of public life, spiritual or other. In this connection, however, those interests which are bound up with Goethe always received their due. The notes written by Goethe in his journals, and letters of Goethe's revealing a standpoint so elevated and such comprehensive vision,-these gave rise to reflections which led into the very depths of existence and the breadth of life.
[ 3 ] Eduard von der Hellen was friendly enough to introduce me into his family, in order further to develop the relationship growing out of these meetings in the Institute, often so stimulating. A still further extension of the delightful companionship came about by reason of the fact that von der Hellen's family likewise mingled in the circles I have already described – such as those grouped about Olden, Gabrielle Reuter, and others.
[ 4 ] Especially has the profoundly congenial personality of Frau von der Hellen always remained fixed in my memory. Hers was a nature wholly artistic. One of those persons who, but for other duties intervening in her life, possessed the capacity for achieving something beautiful in art. Such was her destiny that, so far as I am aware, the artistic side of this woman came to expression only in the early part of her life. But every word about art that one could exchange with her was a satisfaction. She showed a basic quality, as it were, of reserve; always cautious in judgment, and yet profoundly sympathetic in a purely human way. I seldom went away from such a conversation without carrying with me in long continued reflection what Frau von der Hellen had suggested rather than spoken.
[ 5 ] Very lovable also were the father of Frau von der Hellen and his two daughters – the father a lieutenant-general who had fought through the war of the 'seventies as a major. While one was in this group of persons, one experienced vitally the most beautiful aspect of German spiritual life: that spiritual life which had flowed into all circles of the social life out of those religious, aesthetic, or popular-scientific impulses that for so long constituted the real nature of German spirituality.
[ 6 ] Eduard von der Hellen's interests for some time brought me into touch with the political life of the times. Discontent with things philological drove von der Hellen into the lively political affairs of Weimar. There he seemed to find a broader perspective of life. And my friendly personal interest in him led me also – although without active participation in politics – to become interested in the movements of public life.
[ 7 ] Much of that which has been found to be impracticable in our present-day life, or else, in a terrible metamorphosis, has given rise to absurd social forms,-much of this was to be seen at that time in its genesis, associated with all the hopes of a working class taught by trained and forceful leaders to believe that a new time must come for men in the forms of social life. The cautious and the altogether radical elements among the workers were enforcing their views. To observe them was all the more impressive since what there appeared was like a boiling up of the lower levels of the social life. In the upper levels there was something vital which could have expressed itself only in a worthy sort of conservatism bound up with a hope for everything that is human – a hope marked by capable and profound thinking and by vigorous activity. In the atmosphere then present there sprang up a reactionary party which considered itself as indispensable, and in addition the so-called National-Liberty Party.
[ 8 ] So to adjust himself to all this that he might gain effective leadership and bring men out of this chaos – such was the interpretation one had to place upon the feeling of Eduard von der Hellen at that time. And one had to share in the experience through which he passed in this respect. He discussed among his circle of friends every detail of a brochure he was preparing. One was forced to take as deep an interest as Eduard von der Hellen himself in the conceptions – at that time accompanied by feelings quite unlike those of the present – of the materialistic interpretation of history, the class struggle, “surplus value.” One could not refrain from attending the numerous gatherings at which he appeared as lecturer. Over against the theoretically formulated Marxian programme he proposed to set up another which should grow out of a good will toward social progress on the part of all friendly working men of every party. He was thinking of a sort of revival of the middle parties by the incorporation into their platforms of those impulses which would enable them to solve the social problem.
[ 9 ] The effort proved futile. Only I am confident that I could not have participated in the public life of that period so intensely as I did had I not shared in this struggle of von der Hellen's.
[ 10 ] Yet public life had its influence upon me from another direction also, though far less intensely. Indeed, it always seemed that a mild repugnance arose within me – which was not true in relation to von der Hellen – in the very proximity of anything political. There lived in Weimar at that time Dr. Heinrich Fränkel, a liberal politician, an adherent of Eugen Richter and also active in politics in the same spirit. We became acquainted. A brief acquaintance which was later brought to an end by reason of a misunderstanding, but to which I often look back with pleasure; for the man was, in his way, extraordinarily lovable, had a strong political will, and was led by his good purpose and far-sighted-views to the belief that it was necessary to create an enthusiasm among men on behalf of a right way of progress in public affairs. His life became a succession of disillusionments. Unluckily, I myself had to be the occasion of one of those for him. He was working just at the time that I knew him at a brochure which he hoped to circulate in very great numbers. What concerned him was the desire to oppose the establishment of a combination between big industry and the agrarians, which was already beginning to take form in Germany and which, according to his view, would certainly bring devastating results in the train of its later development. His brochure bore the title, Kaiser, werde hart!2Kaiser, Be Stern! He thought he could dissuade the entourage of the Kaiser from what he believed to be harmful. The man accomplished not the slightest result by this effort. He saw that the party to which he belonged and for which he laboured could not bring to birth those forces which were needed to lay down a foundation for the policies thought out by him.
[ 11 ] This led him to conceive the idea of exerting himself to revive the Deutsche Wochenschrift, which I had edited for a short time a few years before in Vienna. By means of this he wished to set up a political current which would have enabled him to move forward from the “liberalism” of that time into a more national-liberal activity. It occurred to him that I could do something along with him in this direction. That was impossible; even for the mere revival of the Deutsche Wochenschrift I could do nothing. The manner in which I informed him of this led to misunderstandings which in a short time put an end to our friendship.
[ 12 ] But another friendship grew out of this one. The man had a very dear wife and a dear sister-in-law, and he had introduced me into his family. This in turn brought me in touch with another family. And then something came to pass that seemed like a repetition of the remarkable relationship which destiny had brought me once in Vienna. I was intimately associated with a family there, but in such a way that the head of the family remained always unseen, and yet he came so close to me in soul and spirit that after his death I delivered the address at his funeral as if he had been my best friend. The whole spiritual being of this man stood before my mind by means of his family.
[ 13 ] And now I entered into almost the same relationship with the head of the family into which I was brought in a roundabout way by the liberal politician. The head of this family had died a short while before; the widow's life was filled with pious thoughts about her dead husband. It came about that I left the home in Weimar in which I had lived till then, and took up my residence with the family. There was the library of the dead man. A man of interesting spirit in many ways, but living just like that one in Vienna, refusing all relationships with men; living like that one in his own “mental world”; considered by the world to be a recluse, as the other had been.
I felt this man like that one-though I had never met him in the flesh-entering into my destiny “from behind the veils of existence.” In Vienna there came about a beautiful relationship between the family of the “unknown” thus known and myself; and in Weimar there came about between the second “unknown” and myself a relationship even more significant.
[ 14 ] When I must speak in this way of the two “unknown known” I am aware that what I have to say will be called by most men “mad fantasy.” For this has to do with the way in which I was able to draw near to the two men in that sphere of the world in which they were after they had passed through the portal of death.[ 15 ] Everyone has the inner right to exclude from the group of subjects which interest him all statements in regard to this sphere; but to characterize such statements as merely fantastic is something quite different. When anyone does this, then I must emphasize the fact that I have always sought in such exact branches of science as mathematics and analytical mechanics for the sources of that temper of soul which qualifies one to make assertions concerning things spiritual. When, therefore, I assert what here follows I cannot justly be accused of mere careless talk unsupported by the requisite knowledge.
[ 16 ] The power of the spiritual vision which I then bore in my soul made it possible for me to enter into a close union with these two souls after their earthly death. They were unlike other dead persons. These immediately after their earthly death go through a life which, in essence, is in close relationship with the earthly life, and which only gradually comes to resemble the life one experiences in that purely spiritual world where one's existence continues till the next earthly life.
[ 17 ] The two “unknown known” had been rather familiar with the thinking of this materialistic age. They had elaborated in concepts within themselves the natural-scientific way of thinking. The second, whom Weimar brought to me, was indeed well acquainted with Billroth and other natural scientific thinkers. On the other hand, during their earthly lives both had remained aloof from a spiritual conception of the world. The spiritual conception which they might have encountered at that time would have repelled them, since they were forced to believe that “natural-scientific thinking,” according to the habits of thought of the time, was demanded by the facts.
[ 18 ] But this union with the materialism of the time remained wholly in the world of ideas of the two persons. They did not share in the habits of life which followed from the materialism of this thinking, and which were predominant in the case of all other men. They became “recluses from the world”; lived in more primitive ways than were then customary and would have been natural to men of their means. Thus they did not carry over into the spiritual world that which a union with the materialistic “will-evaluations” would have given to their individualities, but only that which the materialistic “thought-evaluations” had planted in these individualities. Naturally this worked itself out for the souls mostly in the unconscious. And now I could see how these materialistic thought-evaluations are not something which alienates man after death from the world of the divine and spiritual, but that this alienation comes about only through materialistic will-evaluations. Both the soul which had come close to me in Vienna and also the one which I came to know spiritually in Weimar were, after death, noble shining spiritual forms whose soul-content was filled with conceptions of those spiritual beings who are at the foundation of the world. And the only result of their acquaintance with those ideas by means of which they mastered the material in thought during their previous earthly life was that after death also they were able to develop such a relationship with the world as included a capacity for judgment. This would not have been the case if the corresponding ideas had remained unknown to them.
[ 19 ] In these two souls there had crossed my predestined path beings through whom the significance of the natural-scientific way of thought was revealed to me directly from the spiritual world. I could see that this way of thought in itself need not lead away from a spiritual perception. In the case of these two personalities this had happened during their earthly life because they found no opportunity there to elevate the natural-scientific way of thinking into the sphere where spiritual experience begins. After death they accomplished this in the most complete fashion. I saw that one can achieve this elevation of thought if one brings inner mood and force to the task during the earthly life. I saw also, through my participation in that which is significant in the spiritual world, that humanity had of necessity to evolve to the scientific way of thinking. Earlier ways of thinking could unite humanity with the supersensible world; they could lead man, especially if he entered into self-knowledge (the foundation of all knowledge), to know himself as a copy, or even a member, of the spiritual world; but they could not bring him to the point where he could feel himself to be a self-sufficient, self-enclosed spiritual being. Therefore the advance had to be made to the grasp of an ideal world which is not kindled from the spirit itself, but is stimulated out of matter – which is, indeed, spiritual, but not derived from the spirit.
[ 20 ] Such a world of ideas cannot be generated in man in that spiritual world where he has his vital relationships after death and before a new birth, but only in the earthly existence, because only there does he stand face to face with materialist forms.
[ 1 ] I could realize, therefore, through these two human souls what man wins for the totality of his life, including his spiritual life after death, by reason of his being woven into the natural-scientific way of thinking. But in the case of others who had taken into themselves during their earthly lives the effects of the crass natural-scientific way of thinking upon the will, could see that these estranged themselves from the spiritual world; that they had, so to speak, arrived at a totality of life in which man is less man in his full humanity with the natural-scientific way of thinking than without it.
[ 1 ] Both these souls had been recluses from the world because they did not wish to lose their humanity during the earthly life; they had accepted the natural-scientific way of thinking in its full comprehensiveness because they wished to reach that stage of the spiritual man which cannot be attained without this.
[ 1 ] It might well have been impossible for me to attain to these perceptions in the case of these two souls if I had encountered them within the earthly existence as physical personalities. In order to perceive the two individualities in the spiritual world in which they were to reveal to me their being, and through this also many other things, I needed that sensitiveness of the soul's perception in relationship to them which is easily lost when that which has been experienced in the physical world conceals what is to be experienced spiritually, or at least interferes with this.
[ 1 ] I was forced, therefore, to perceive that the manner in which both souls entered into my earthly life was something ordained by way of destiny along my path to knowledge.
[ 1 ] But nothing whatever of a spiritistic sort can be associated with this way of relating oneself to souls in the spiritual world. Nothing could ever count with me in the relationship to the spiritual world except the genuine spiritual perception which later discussed publicly in my anthroposophic writings. Moreover, the Viennese family and all its members, as well as that of Weimar, were far too sane for a communion with the dead by the help of mediums.
[ 1 ] Wherever such things have been under discussion, I have always taken an interest also in such a seeking on the part of human souls as is manifested in spiritualism. Modern spiritualism is a way toward the spirit for such souls as would seek for the spirit in external – almost experimental – ways because they cannot any longer experience the real, the true, the genuine in a spiritual manner. It is just the sort of person who interests himself in an entirely objective manner in spiritualism, without himself having the desire to investigate something by means of it, who can see through to correct conceptions of the purpose and the errors of spiritualism. My own research moves always by a different path from that of spiritualism in any of its forms. Indeed, there were opportunities in Weimar for interesting intercourse with spiritualists; for there was an intense interest for a long time among the artists in this way of seeking to relate oneself to the spiritual.
[ 1 ] But there came to me from my intercourse with the two souls – he of Weimar was named Eunicke – an access of strength for the writing of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. What I aspired to do in that book was this: First, the book is the product of my way of philosophical thinking during the eighties; in the second place, it is the product also of my general concrete perception in the spiritual world; but in the third place, it was reinforced through my participation in the spiritual experiences of those two souls. In these I had before me the ascent which man owes to this natural-scientific world-conception. But I had in them also the fear which noble souls feel of entering vitally into the will-element of this world-conception. These souls shrank back from the moral effects of such a world-conception.
[ 1 ] Now I sought in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity for that force which leads from the ethically neutral ideal world of natural science into the world of moral impulse. I sought to show how the man who knows himself as a self-enclosed being of a spiritual sort because he lives in ideas which are no longer streaming out from the spirit but are stimulated by material being, can nevertheless evolve out of his own being an intuition for the moral. In this way the moral shines in the individuality now made free as individual impulsion toward the moral, just as ideas arise from the perception of nature.
[ 1 ] The two souls had not pressed on to this moral intuition. Hence they shrank back (unconsciously) from life because this could have been maintained only in the sense of natural-scientific ideas not as yet extended further.
[ 1 ] I spoke at that time of “moral fantasy” as the source of the moral in the isolated human individuality. I was far from any intention of referring to this source as to something not wholly real. On the contrary, I wished to point out in fantasy the force which helps the spiritual world in all its aspects to break through into the individual man. Of course, if one is to attain to a real experience of the spiritual, then it is necessary that the spiritual forces of knowledge should enter into one – imagination, inspiration, intuition. But to a man conscious of himself as an individual the first ray of a spiritual revelation comes by means of fantasy; and we observe, indeed, in Goethe the way in which fantasy holds aloof from everything fantastic, and becomes a picture of the spiritually real.
[ 1 ] In the family left behind by the Weimar “unknown known,” I lived for much the greater part of the time that I remained in Weimar. I had a part of the house for myself; Frau Anna Eunicke, with whom I was soon on terms of intimate friendship, watched over all my needs in the most devoted fashion. She valued greatly the fact that I stood beside her in her heavy responsibilities for the education of the children. She had been left after Eunicke's death a widow with four daughters and a son.
[ 1 ] The children I saw only when there was some occasion for me to do so. That happened frequently, since I was looked upon just as if I belonged to the family. My meals, however, except the morning coffee and supper, I took elsewhere.3In Germany the midday meal is the principal occasion for the whole family to be together.
[ 1 ] In this place where I had formed so delightful a family connection it was not only I who felt at home. When young visitors from Berlin who had formed intimate ties with me, attending the meetings of the Goethe Society, wished for once to be quite “cozy” together, they came to me at the Eunicke home. And I have every reason to assume from the way in which they acted that they felt very much at ease there.
[ 1 ] Otto Erich Hartleben also was happy to be there whenever he was in Weimar. The Goethe Breviary that he published was there put together by us two in the space of a few days. Of my own larger works, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Nietzsche as the Adversary of His Age there took form.
[ 1 ] And I think that numbers of Weimar friends also spent many a happy hour – or several hours – with me at the Eunicke home. In this connection I think most of all about the man to whom I was bound in intimate love and friendship – Dr. August Fresenius. He had become a permanent collaborator at the Museum. Before that he had been editor of the Deutsche Literaturzeit.4German Literary News. His editorial work was universally considered as the standard of excellence. I had many things in my heart against philology, especially as the science was then pursued by the adherents of Scherer. August Fresenius armed me over and over again by the way in which he was a philologist. And he never for a moment made any secret of the fact that he wished to be a philologist, and only a true philologist. But with him philology was really the love of words, which filled the whole man with its vital force; and the word was to him that human revelation in which all the laws of the universe are mirrored. Whoever wishes to see into the mysteries of words must possess an insight into all the mysteries of existence. The philologist, therefore, must do nothing less than pursue an universal knowledge. True philological methods rightly applied can move outward from the utterly simple until they cast a powerful illumination upon extensive and important spheres of life.
[ 1 ] Fresenius showed this at that time in an example which took a strong hold upon my interest. We had discussed the matter a great deal before he published it in a brief but weighty article in the Goethe Year Book.
[ 1 ] Until the discovery by Fresenius, everyone who had busied himself with the interpretation of Goethe's Faust had misunderstood a statement made by Goethe five days before his death to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Goethe made this statement: “Es sind über sechzig Jahre, dass die Konzeption des Faust bei mir, jugendlich von vornherein klar, die weitere Reihenfolge hingegen weniger ausführlich, vorlag.”5“For more than sixty years the conception of Faust has been present to my mind – the earlier parts clear in my youth, the latter parts less fully developed.” The commentators had understood von vornherein to mean that from the beginning Goethe had had an idea, a plan, of the entire Faust drama in which he had at that time more or less elaborated the details. Even my beloved teacher and friend, Karl Julius Schröer, was of this opinion. Consider: If this were correct, then we should have in Goethe's Faust a work which Goethe had conceived in main outline as a young man. We should have to assume that it was possible for such a temper of soul as Goethe's so to work outward from a general idea that the work of elaboration could go on for sixty years and yet the idea remain fixed. That this is not so was proved irrefutably by Fresenius's discovery. He maintained that Goethe never used the expression von vornherein in the way ascribed to him by the commentators. He said, for example, that he had read a book “von vornherein, das weitere nicht mehr.”6“As to the earlier parts but not the latter.” He used the expression von vornherein only in a spatial sense. It was thus shown that all Faust commentators were wrong, and that Goethe had said nothing about a plan of the Faust existing von vornherein – from the first – but only that the first parts were clear to him as a young man, and that here and there he had developed something in the latter parts.
[ 1 ] Thus an important light was cast upon the whole psychology of Goethe by the correct application of the philological method.
[ 1 ] At that time I only marveled that something which ought to have had the most far-reaching effects upon the conception of Goethe's mind really produced very little impression, after it was published in the Goethe Year Book, among those who ought to have been chiefly interested in it.
[ 1 ] But other things than mere philology were the topics of conversations with August Fresenius. Everything that stirred the men of that time, everything interesting to us which happened in Weimar or elsewhere, became the subject of long conversations between us; for we spent much time together. At times we grew excited in conversations about many things; but they all ended in complete harmony, for we were convinced of the earnestness with which our respective views were held even though opposed. So much the more distressing must it be to me to reflect upon the fact that even my friendship with August Fresenius sustained a rupture in connection with the misunderstandings associated with my relationship to the Nietzsche Archives and to Frau Dr. Förster-Nietzsche. These friends could form no conception of that which really had happened. I could do nothing to satisfy them. For the truth is that nothing at all had happened. Everything rested upon misconceptions and illusions which had become fixed in the Nietzsche Archives. What I was able to say is contained in my article published later in the Magazin fur Literatur. I felt this misunderstanding deeply, for the friendship with August Fresenius was firmly rooted in my heart.
[ 1 ] Another friendship to which I have often looked back was that which I formed with Franz Ferdinand Heitmüller, who had just then – later than Wahle, von der Hellen, and I – become a collaborator at the Institute.
[ 1 ] Heitmüller's life was that of a fine soul with the sensibilities of an artist. He made all his discriminations through his artistic sense. Intellectualism was remote from him. Through him something artistic entered into the whole tone of our conversations in the Institute. He had already published stories marked by a delicate refinement. He was by no means a bad philologist, and he did no worse than others in what he had to work at as a philologist for the Institute. But he always maintained a sort of inner opposition to what was worked out in the Institute – especially to the way in which this work was conceived. Through him it came about that for a long time we felt very deeply the fact that Weimar had once been the place giving birth to the most inspired and famous productions but that men now contented themselves with going back to the things once produced, “fixing the readings,” and giving the best interpretations with superstitious care. Heitmüller published anonymously what he had to say about this in S. Fischer's Neue Deutsche Ründschau in the form of a story – Die Versunkene Vineta.7Venice Submerged. How men then tried to discover who had made of the once spiritually flourishing Weimar a drowned city!
[ 1 ] Heitmüller lived in Weimar with his mother, a wonderfully lovable woman. She became a friend of Frau Anna Eunicke, and enjoyed coming to her home. And so I then had the happiness of frequently seeing the Heitmüllers also in the house in which I lived.
[ 1 ] One friend I have to recall who came into my circle rather early during my stay in Weimar, and with whom I was associated in intimate friendship until I left, and, indeed, even after that, when I went backwards and forwards on visits to Weimar. This was the painter Joseph Rolletscheck. He was a German Bohemian, and had been attracted to Weimar by the art school. A personality he was who impressed one as altogether lovable, and to whom one gladly laid open one's heart. Rolletscheck was sentimental and slightly cynical at the same time; he was a pessimist on one side, and inclined on the other side to value life so little that it did not seem to him worth the trouble to lay so much stress upon those things which give ground for pessimism. When he was present, the talk had to deal much with the injustices of life; and he could storm endlessly over the injustice which the world had done to poor Schiller in contrast with Goethe, the chosen of destiny before his birth.
[ 1 ] Although daily contact with such persons kept up a constant and stimulating exchange of thought and feeling, yet it was impossible for me to speak directly during this Weimar period about my experience of the spiritual world even to those with whom I was otherwise on terms of intimacy. I maintained that men must come to see that the true way into the spiritual world must lead first to the experience of pure ideas. The thing for which I argued in every sort of form was this: that, just as man can have in his conscious experience colour, tone, and heat qualities, so also he can experience pure ideas uninfluenced by any perception of the external, but appearing with the fulness of man's experience of himself. And in these ideas there is real and living spirit. All other experience of the spirit in man, so I then said, must spring up within consciousness as the result of this experience of ideas.
[ 1 ] The fact that I sought for the experience of the spirit first in the experience of ideas led to the misunderstanding of which I have already spoken – that even intimate friends did not see the living reality in ideas, and considered me a rationalist, or intellectualist.
[ 1 ] Firmest in maintaining an understanding of the living reality of the ideal world was a young man who came frequently to Weimar – Max Christlieb. It was rather early after the beginning of my stay in Weimar that I saw him, a seeker after the knowledge of the spirit. He had completed his preparation for the evangelical ministry, was just then taking his doctor's examination, and was getting ready to go to Japan to engage in some sort of missionary work, as he soon afterward did.
[ 1 ] This man saw – inspired, I dare say – that man is living in the spirit when he lives in pure ideas, and that, since all of nature must shine forth before the understanding in the world of pure ideas, therefore in everything material we have only appearance (illusions); that all physical being is revealed by means of ideas as spirit. It was profoundly satisfying to me to find a person who possessed an almost complete understanding of spiritual being. It was an understanding of the spiritual being within the idea. There, of course, the spirit so lives that feeling and creative spiritual individualities do not yet separate themselves for the conscious vision from the sea of general ideal spirit-being. Of these spirit individualities I could not yet speak to Max Christlieb This would have shocked too much his beautiful idealism. But genuine spirit-being – of this one could speak with him.
[ 1 ] He had read with thorough understanding everything that I had written up to that time. And I had the impression at the beginning of the 'nineties: “Max Christlieb has the gift of entering into the spiritual world through the spirituality of the ideal in the way that I must consider the most suitable.”
[ 1 ] The fact that he did not later wholly maintain this direction of mind, but took a somewhat different course – of this there is now no occasion to speak.
Chapter XX
[ 1 ] Ein in schönster Art gestaltetes gesellschaftliches Entgegenkommen fand ich in der Familie des Archivars am Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, Eduard von der Hellens. Diese Persönlichkeit stand neben den anderen Mitarbeitern des Archivs in einer eigentümlichen Lage. Sie hatte in den Kreisen der Fachphilologen durch die außerordentlich gelungene Erstlingsarbeit über «Goethes Anteil an Lavaters physiognomischen Fragmenten» ein außerordentlich großes Ansehen. Von der Hellen hatte mit dieser Arbeit etwas geleistet, das jeder Fachgenosse sofort als «voll» nahm. Nur der Autor selbst dachte nicht so. Er sah die Arbeit als eine methodische Leistung an, deren Prinzipien man «lernen könne», während er nach einer inneren seelischen Erfüllung mit Geist-Gehalt allseitig streben wollte.
[ 2 ] So saßen wir, wenn nicht Besucher da waren, eine Zeitlang im alten Mitarbeiterzimmer des Archives, da dieses noch im Schlosse war, zu drei: von der Hellen, der an der Ausgabe von Goethes Briefen, Julius Wahle, der an den Tagebüchern, und ich, der an den naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften arbeitete. Aber gerade aus den geistigen Bedürfnissen Eduard von der Hellens heraus ergaben sich zwischen der Arbeit Gespräche über die allermannigfaltigsten Gebiete des geistigen und sonstigen öffentlichen Lebens. Es kamen dabei aber diejenigen Interessen durchaus zu ihrem Recht, die sich an Goethe anschlossen. Aus den Eintragungen, die Goethe in seine Tagebücher gemacht hat, aus den manchmal so hohe Standpunkte und weite Gesichtskreise offenbarenden Briefstellen Goethes konnten sich Betrachtungen ergeben, die in die Tiefen des Daseins und in die Weiten des Lebens führten.
[ 3 ] Eduard von der Hellen hatte die große Liebenswürdigkeit, die Beziehungen, die sich aus diesem oft so anregenden Archiv-Verkehre ergeben hatten, dadurch weiterzubilden, daß er mich in den Kreis seiner Familie einführte. Es ergab sich ja dadurch eine schöne Erweiterung der Geselligkeit, daß Eduard von der Hellens Familie gleichzeitig in den Kreisen verkehrte, die ich als die um Olden, um Gabriele Reuter u. a. beschrieben habe.
[ 4 ] In besonders eindringlicher Erinnerung ist mir stets die so tief sympathische Frau von der Hellen gewesen. Eine durch und durch künstlerische Natur. Eine von denen, die, wenn nicht andere Lebenspflichten aufgetreten wären, es in der Kunst zu schönen Leistungen hätte bringen können. So wie das Schicksal gewirkt hat, so kam, so weit ich weiß, das Künstlertum dieser Frau nur in Anfängen zum Vorschein. Aber wohltuend wirkte jedes Wort, das man mit ihr über Kunst sprechen durfte. Sie hatte einen wie verhaltenen, stets im Urteil vorsichtigen, aber rein-menschlich tief sympathischen Grundton. Ich ging selten von einem solchen Gespräche weg, ohne daß ich, was Frau von der Hellen mehr angeschlagen als gesagt hatte, lange sinnend in meinem Gemüte herumtrug.
[ 5 ] Von großer Liebenswürdigkeit waren auch der Vater der Frau von der Hellen, ein General-Leutnant, der den siebenziger Krieg als Major mitgemacht hatte, und dessen zweite Tochter. Wenn man im Kreise dieser Menschen war, lebten die schönsten Seiten der deutschen Geistigkeit auf, jener Geistigkeit, die von den religiösen, den schöngeistigen, den populärwissenschaftlichen Impulsen, die so lange das eigentliche geistige Wesen des Deutschen waren, hinein erflossen in alle Kreise des sozialen Lebens.
[ 6 ] Eduard von der Hellens Interessen brachten für einige Zeit das politische Leben der damaligen Zeit an mich heran. Die Unbefriedigtheit mit dem Philologischen warf von der Hellen in das rege politische Leben Weimars hinein. Da schien sich für ihn eine weitere Lebensperspektive zu eröffnen. Und das freundschaftliche Interesse für diese Persönlichkeit ließ auch mich, ohne tätigen Anteil an der Politik zu nehmen, Interesse fassen für die Bewegungen des öffentlichen Lebens.
[ 7 ] Man hatte damals vieles von dem, was heute im Leben entweder sich in seiner Unmöglichkeit gezeigt, oder in furchtbaren Metamorphosen absurde soziale Gestaltungen hervorgebracht hat, in seiner Entstehung vor sich, mit all den Hoffnungen einer Arbeiterschaft, die von beredten, energischen Führern den Eindruck empfangen hatte, es müsse für die Menschheit eine neue Zeit der sozialen Gestaltung kommen. Besonnenere und ganz radikale Elemente in der Arbeiterschaft machten sich geltend. Sie zu beobachten war um so eindrucksvoller, als ja das, was sich da zeigte, wie ein Brodeln des sozialen Lebens in den Untergründen war. Obenauf lebte doch, was an würdigem Konservatismus im Zusammenhange mit einem vornehm denkenden, für alles Humane energisch und eindringlich wirkenden Hofe sich nur hatte ausbilden können. In der Atmosphäre, die da vorhanden war, sproßten eine sich als selbstverständlich nehmende reaktionäre Partei und außerdem das, was man National-Liberalismus nannte.
[ 8 ] In all dem sich so zurechtzufinden, daß sich für ihn eine durch die Wirrnisse hindurchorientierte fruchtbare Führerrolle ergeben möchte, so mußte man interpretieren, was nun Eduard von der Hellen darlebte. Und man mußte miterleben, was er in dieser Richtung erlebte. Er besprach alle Einzelheiten, die er für eine Broschüre ausarbeitete, im Kreise seiner Freunde. Man mußte sich so tief für die damals mit ganz anderem Empfinden als jetzt begleiteten Begriffe von materialistischer Geschichtsauffassung, Klassenkampf, Mehrwert interessieren wie Eduard von der Hellen selbst. Man konnte gar nicht anders als in die zahlreichen Versammlungen mitgehen, in denen er als Redner auftrat. Er dachte, dem theoretisch gebildeten marxistischen Programme ein anderes gegenüberzusetzen, das aus dem guten Willen zum sozialen Fortschritt bei allen Arbeiterfreunden aller Parteien ersprießen sollte. An eine Art Neu-Belebung der Mittelparteien mit Aufnahme solcher Impulse in deren Programme dachte er, durch die das soziale Problem bewältigt werden könne.
[ 9 ] Die Sache verlief ohne Wirkung. Nur das darf ich sagen, daß ich ohne die Teilnahme an dieser Hellen'schen Bestrebung das öffentliche Leben in jenem Zeitraume nicht so intensiv miterlebt hätte, als es durch dieselbe geschehen ist.
[ 10 ] Noch von einer andern Richtung allerdings, aber weit weniger intensiv, kam dieses Leben an mich heran. Ja, da zeigte sich, daß ich ziemliche Widerstände entwickelte -was bei von der Hellen nicht der Fall war -, wenn Politisches sich nahte. Es lebte damals in Weimar ein freisinniger Politiker, Anhänger Eugen Richters und auch in dessen Sinne politisch tätig, Dr. Heinrich Fränkel. Ich wurde mit dem Manne bekannt. Eine kurze Bekanntschaft, die dann durch ein «Mißverständnis» abgebrochen wurde, an die ich aber oft gerne zurückdenke. Denn der Mann war in seiner Art außerordentlich liebenswert, hatte energischen Politiker-Willen und dachte, mit gutem Willen und vernünftigen Einsichten müßten sich Menschen für einen rechten Fortschritts-Weg im öffentlichen Leben begeistern lassen. Sein Leben wurde eine Kette von Enttäuschungen. Schade, daß ich selbst ihm auch eine solche bereiten mußte. Er arbeitete gerade während der Zeit unserer Bekanntschaft an einer Broschüre, bei der er an eine Massenverbreitung größten Stiles dachte. Es handelte sich für ihn darum, schon damals entgegenzuarbeiten dem Ergebnis des Bundes zwischen Groß-Industrie und Agrariertum, das in Deutschland damals keimte und was später, nach seiner Ansicht, zu verheerender Frucht sich entwickeln müßte. Seine Broschüre trug den Titel: «Kaiser, werde hart.» Er dachte daran, die Kreise um den Kaiser von dem, nach seiner Ansicht, Schädlichen überzeugen zu können. - Der Mann hatte damit nicht den geringsten Erfolg. Er sah, daß aus der Partei, der er zugehörte, und für die er arbeitete, nicht die Kräfte zu holen seien, die für eine von ihm gedachte Aktion eine Grundlage liefern können.
[ 11 ] Und so kam er dazu, sich eines Tages dafür zu begeistern, die «Deutsche Wochenschrift», die ich vor einigen Jahren kurze Zeit hindurch in Wien redigiert hatte, wieder aufleben zu lassen. Er wollte damit eine politische Strömung schaffen, die ihn vom damaligen «Freisinn» hinweg in eine mehr national-freigeistige Tätigkeit geführt hätte. Er dachte sich, ich könne in dieser Richtung mit ihm zusammen etwas machen. Das war unmöglich; allein auch für die Wiederbelebung der «Deutschen Wochenschrift» konnte ich nichts tun. Die Art, wie ich ihm dieses mitteilte, führte zu Mißverständnissen, welche die Freundschaft in kurzer Zeit zerstörten.
[ 12 ] Aber aus dieser Freundschaft ging ein anderes hervor. Der Mann hatte eine sehr liebe Frau und liebe Schwägerin. Und er führte mich auch in seine Familie ein. Diese wieder brachte mich zu einer anderen Familie. Und da spielte sich nun etwas ab, das wie das Abbild des merkwürdigen Schicksalszusammenhanges sich darstellt, der mich einst in Wien getroffen hat. Ich habe dort in einer Familie intim verkehrt, doch so, daß deren Haupt immer unsichtbar geblieben, mir aber doch geistig-seelisch so nahe gekommen war, daß ich nach seinem Tode die Begräbnisrede wie für den besten Freund gehalten habe. Die ganze Geistigkeit dieses Mannes stand durch die Familie in voller Wirklichkeit vor meiner Seele.
[ 13 ] Und jetzt trat ich in fast die ganz gleiche Beziehung zu dem Haupte der Familie, in die ich auf dem Umwege durch den freisinnigen Politiker eingeführt wurde. Dieses Familienhaupt war vor kurzer Zeit gestorben; die Witwe lebte voller Pietät im Gedenken an den Verstorbenen. Es ergab sich, daß ich aus meiner bisherigen Weimarischen Wohnung auszog, und mich bei der Familie einmietete. Da war die Bibliothek des Verstorbenen. Ein nach vielen Richtungen geistig interessierter Mensch, ganz aber wie jener in Wien lebende, abgeneigt der Berührung mit Menschen; in seiner eigenen «Geisteswelt» wie jener lebend; von der Welt so wie jener für einen «Sonderling» genommen. Ich empfand den Mann gleich dem andern, ohne ihm im physischen Leben begegnen zu können, wie «hinter den Kulissen des Daseins» durch mein Schicksal schreiten. In Wien entstand ein so schönes Band zwischen der Familie des so bekannten «Unbekannten» und mir; und in Weimar entstand zwischen dem zweiten also «Bekannten» und seiner Familie und mir ein noch bedeutungsvolleres.
[ 14 ] Wenn ich nun von den zwei «unbekannten Bekannten» reden muß, so weiß ich, daß, was ich zu sagen habe, von den meisten Menschen als wüste Phantasterei bezeichnet wird. Denn es bezieht sich darauf, wie ich den beiden Menschenseelen nahetreten durfte in dem Weltgebiet, in dem sie waren, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen waren.
[ 15 ] Es hat jedermann das innerliche Recht, Aussagen über dieses Gebiet aus dem Kreise dessen zu streichen, das ihn interessiert; sie aber als etwas behandeln, das nur als phantastisch charakterisiert werden kann, ist doch noch etwas anderes. Wenn dieses jemand tut, dann muß ich geltend machen, daß ich die Quellen zu derjenigen Seelenverfassung, aus der heraus man etwas Geistiges behaupten darf, immer bei solchen exakten Wissenszweigen wie der Mathematik oder der analytischen Mechanik gesucht habe. Leichtsinniges Hinreden, ohne Erkenntnis-Verantwortung, wird also nicht zum Vorwurf gemacht werden dürfen, wenn ich das Folgende sage.
[ 16 ] Die geistigen Anschauungskräfte, die ich damals in der Seele trug, machten mir möglich, mit den beiden Seelen eine engere Verbindung nach ihrem Erdentode zu haben. Sie waren anders geartet als andere Verstorbene. Diese machen nach dem Erdentode zunächst ein Leben durch, das, seinem Inhalte nach, eng mit dem Erdenleben zusammenhängt, das erst langsam und allmählich ähnlich demjenigen wird, das der Mensch in der rein geistigen Welt hat, in der er sein Dasein verbringt bis zu einem nächsten Erdenleben.
[ 17 ] Die beiden «unbekannten Bekannten» waren nun mit den Gedanken des materialistischen Zeitalters ziemlich gründlich bekannt geworden. Sie haben begrifflich die naturwissenschaftliche Denkungsart in sich verarbeitet. Der zweite, den mir Weimar brachte, war sogar gut bekannt mit Billroth und ähnlichen naturwissenschaftlichen Denkern. Dagegen war wohl beiden während ihres Erdenlebens eine geistgemäße Weltauffassung ferne geblieben. Sie würden wohl jede, die ihnen damals hätte entgegentreten können, abgelehnt haben, weil ihnen das «naturwissenschaftliche Denken» nun einmal als das Ergebnis der Tatsachen, nach dem Charakter der Denkgewohnheiten der Zeit, hat erscheinen müssen.
[ 18 ] Aber dieses Verbundensein mit dem Materialismus der Zeit blieb ganz in der Ideenwelt der beiden Persönlichkeiten. Sie machten die Lebensgewohnheiten nicht mit, die aus dem Materialismus ihres Denkens folgten und die bei allen andern Menschen die herrschenden waren. Sie wurden «Sonderlinge vor der Welt», lebten in primitiveren Formen, als man es damals gewohnt war und als es ihnen nach ihrem Vermögensstande zugekommen wäre. So trugen sie in die geistige Welt nicht das hinüber, was ein Verbundensein mit den materialistischen Willenswerten ihren geistigen Individualitäten hätte geben können, sondern nur dasjenige, was die materialistischen Denkwerte in diese Individualitäten verpflanzt hatten. Selbstverständlich spielte sich dies für die Seelen zum größten Teil im Unterbewußten ab. Und nun konnte ich sehen, wie diese materialistischen Denkwette nicht etwas sind, das den Menschen nach dem Tode der göttlich-geistigen Welt entfremdet; sondern daß diese Entfremdung nur durch die materialistischen Willenswerte eintritt. Sowohl die Seele, die mir in Wien nahegetreten war, sowie auch diejenige, die ich in Weimar geistig kennen lernte, waren nach dem Tode herrlich-leuchtende Geistgestalten, in denen der Seelen4nhalt erfüllt war von den Bildern der geistigen Wesenheiten, die der Welt zum Grunde liegen. Und ihr Bekanntwerden mit den Ideen, durch die sie das Materielle genauer durchdachten während ihres letzten Erdenlebens, hat nur dazu beigetragen, daß sie auch nach dem Tode ein urteilgetragenes Verhältnis zur Welt entwickeln konnten, wie es ihnen nicht geworden wäre, wenn die entsprechenden Ideen ihnen fremd geblieben wären.
[ 19 ] In diesen zwei Seelen hatten sich Wesen in meinen Schicksalsweg hereinversetzt, durch die sich mir unmittelbar aus der geistigen Welt heraus die Bedeutung der naturwissenschaftlichen Denkart enthüllte. Ich konnte sehen, daß diese Denkart an sich nicht von einer geistgemäßen Anschauung hinwegführen muß. Bei den beiden Persönlichkeiten war dieses während ihres Erdenlebens deshalb geschehen, weil sie da keine Gelegenheit fanden, das naturwissenschaftliche Denken hinaufzuheben in die Sphäre, wo geistiges Erleben beginnt. Nach ihrem Tode hatten sie das in der allervollkommensten Art vollbracht. Ich sah, man kann dieses Hinaufheben auch bewirken, wenn man im Erdenleben inneren Mut und Kraft dazu aufbringt. Ich sah auch, durch ein Mit-Erleben von Bedeutungsvollem in der geistigen Welt, daß die Menschheit sich zu der naturwissenschaftlichen Denkart hat entwickeln müssen. Frühere Denkweisen konnten die Menschenseele mit dem Geist der übersinnlichen Welt verbinden; sie konnten den Menschen, wenn er überhaupt auf Selbst-Erkenntnis (die Grundlage aller Erkenntnis) einging, dazu führen, sich als ein Abbild, oder auch ein Glied der göttlich-geistigen Welt zu wissen . sie konnten ihn aber nicht dazu bringen, sich als eine selbständige, in sich geschlossene geistige Wesenheit zu erfühlen. Es mußte deshalb der Fortschritt zum Fassen einer Ideenwelt gemacht werden, die nicht am Geiste selbst entzündet, sondern an der Materie angeregt ist, die wohl geistig, aber nicht aus dem Geiste ist
[ 20 ] Eine solche Ideenwelt kann im Menschen nicht angeregt werden in der geistigen Welt, in der er nach dem Tode, beziehungsweise vor einer neuen Geburt lebt, sondern allein im irdischen Dasein, weil er nur da der materiellen Form des Seins gegenübersteht.
[ 21 ] Was also der Mensch für sein Gesamt-Leben, auch das geistige, nach dem Tode, gewinnt durch das Verwobensein mit der naturwissenschaftlichen Denkungsart, das konnte ich an den beiden Menschenseelen erleben. Ich konnte aber auch sehen, an andern, die die Willenskonsequenzen der bloßen naturwissenschaftlichen Denkart im Erdenleben ergriffen hatten, daß sie sich der Geist-Welt entfremdeten, daß sie, sozusagen, zu einem Gesamt-Leben kommen, das mit der naturwissenschaftlichen Denkart weniger den Menschen in seinem Menschentum darstellt als ohne dieselbe.
[ 22 ] Die beiden Seelen sind «Sonderlinge vor der Welt» geworden, weil sie im Erdenleben nicht ihr Menschentum verlieren wollten; sie haben im vollen Umfange die naturwissenschaftliche Denkungsart aufgenommen, weil sie die geistige Menschheits-Etappe erreichen wollten, die ohne diese nicht möglich ist.
[ 23 ] Ich hätte wohl nicht diese Anschauungen an den beiden Seelen gewinnen können, wenn sie mir innerhalb des Erdendaseins als physische Persönlichkeiten entgegengetreten wären. Ich brauchte für das Anschauen der beiden Individualitäten in der Geistwelt, in der sich mir ihr Wesen und durch sie vieles andere enthüllen sollte, jene Zartheit des Seelenblickes in bezug auf sie, die leicht verloren geht, wenn das in der physischen Welt Erlebte das rein geistig zu Erlebende verdeckt, oder wenigstens beeinträchtigt.
[ 24 ] Ich mußte daher schon damals in der Eigenart des Auftretens der beiden Seelen innerhalb meines Erdendaseins etwas sehen, das schicksalgemäß für meinen Erkenntnispfad bestimmt war.
[ 25 ] Aber irgend etwas nach dem Spiritismus hin Gerichtetes konnte bei diesem Verhältnis zu Seelen in der geistigen Welt nicht in Betracht kommen. Es konnte für mich niemals etwas anderes für die Beziehung zur geistigen Welt Geltung haben als die wirklich geistgemäße Anschauung, von der ich später in meinen anthroposophischen Schriften öffentlich gesprochen habe. Für eine mediale Vermittlung mit den Verstorbenen war übrigens sowohl die Wiener Familie in allen ihren Gliedern wie auch die Weimarische viel zu gesund. Ich habe mich stets, wo dergleichen in Frage kam, auch für ein solches Suchen der Menschenseelen interessiert, wie es im Spiritismus zutage tritt. Der Spiritismus der Gegenwart ist der Abweg solcher Seelen nach dem Geistigen, die auch den Geist auf äußerliche - fast experimentelle - Art suchen möchten, weil sie das Wirkliche, Wahre, Echte einer geistgemäßen Art gar nicht mehr empfinden können. Gerade, wer sich ganz objektiv für den Spiritismus interessiert, ohne selbst durch ihn etwas erforschen zu wollen, der kann die rechten Vorstellungen über Wollen und Irrwege des Spiritismus durchschauen. - Mein eigenes Forschen ging stets andere Wege als der Spiritismus in irgendeiner Form. - Es war gerade auch in Weimar möglich, interessanten Verkehr mit Spiritisten zu haben, denn in der Künstlerschaft lebte eine Zeitlang diese Art, sich suchend zum Geistigen zu verhalten, intensiv auf.
[ 26 ] Mir aber kam aus dem Verkehr mit den beiden Seelen eine Erkräftigung für meine «Philosophie der Freiheit». Was in dieser angestrebt ist: es ist zum ersten ein Ergebnis meiner philosophischen Denkwege in den achtziger Jahren; es ist zum zweiten auch ein Ergebnis meines konkreten allgemeinen Hineinschauens in die geistige Welt. Zum dritten fand es aber eine Erkräftigung durch das Mit-Erleben der Geist-Erlebnisse jener beiden Seelen. In ihnen hatte ich den Aufstieg vor mir, den der Mensch der naturwissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung verdankt. In ihnen hatte ich aber auch die Furcht edler Seelen vor einem Hineinleben in das Willenselement dieser Weltanschauung vor mir. Diese Seelen bebten vor den ethischen Folgen einer solchen Weltanschauung zurück. In meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» habe ich nun die Kraft gesucht, die aus der ethisch neutralen naturwissenschaftlichen Ideenwelt in die Welt der sittlichen Impulse führt. Ich habe zu zeigen versucht, wie der Mensch, der sich als in sich geschlossenes, geistgeartetes Wesen weiß, weil er in Ideen lebt, die nicht mehr aus dem Geist erströmend, sondern an dem materiellen Sein angeregt sind, auch für das Sittliche aus seinem Eigenwesen Intuition entwickeln kann. Dadurch leuchtet das Sittliche in der frei gewordenen Individualität als individuelle ethische Impulsivität so auf wie die Ideen der Naturanschauung.
[ 27 ] Die beiden Seelen waren nicht zu dieser moralischen Intuition vorgedrungen. Daher bebten sie (unbewußt) vor dem Leben zurück, das nur im Sinne der noch nicht erweiterten naturwissenschaftlichen Ideen hätte gehalten sein können.
[ 28 ] Ich sprach damals von «moralischer Phantasie» als von dem Quell des Sittlichen in der menschlichen Einzel-Individualität. Ich wollte damit ganz gewiß nicht auf diesen Quell als auf etwas nicht Voll-Wirkliches hinweisen. Im Gegenteil, ich wollte in der «Phantasie» die Kraft kennzeichnen, die auf allen Gebieten der wahren geistigen Welt zum Durchbruch im individuellen Menschen verhilft. Soll es allerdings zum wirklichen Erleben des Geistigen kommen, so müssen dann die geistgemäßen Erkenntniskräfte: Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition eintreten. Der erste Strahl einer Geistoffenbarung an den individuell sich wissenden Menschen geschieht aber durch die Phantasie, die ja in der Art, wie sie sich von allem Phantastischen entfernt und zum Bilde des geistig Wirklichen wird, gerade an Goethe beobachtet werden kann. In der Familie, die der weimarische «unbekannte Bekannte» zurückgelassen hatte, wohnte ich den weitaus größten Teil der Zeit, die ich in Weimar verlebt habe. Ich hatte einen Teil der Wohnung für mich; Frau Anna Eunike, mit der ich bald innig befreundet wurde, besorgte für mich in aufopferndster Weise, was zu besorgen war. Sie legte einen großen Wert darauf, daß ich ihr in ihren schweren Aufgaben bei der Erziehung der Kinder zur Seite stand. Sie war als Witwe mit vier Töchtern und einem Sohne nach Eunikes Tod zurückgeblieben.
[ 29 ] Die Kinder sah ich nur, wenn eine Gelegenheit dazu herbeigeführt wurde. Das geschah oft, denn ich wurde ja ganz als zur Familie gehörig betrachtet. Die Mahlzeiten, mit Ausnahme der am Morgen und der am Abend, nahm ich aber auswärts ein.
[ 30 ] Da, wo ich solch schönen Familienanschluß gefunden hatte, fühlte ich mich wahrlich nicht allein nur wohl. Wenn die jüngeren Besucher der Goethegesellschafts-versammlungen aus Berlin, die sich enger an mich angeschlossen hatten, einmal ganz gemütlich «unter sich» sein wollten, da kamen sie zu mir in das Eunike'sche Haus. Und ich habe, nach der Art, wie sie sich verhalten haben, allen Grund, anzunehmen, daß sie sich da recht wohl fühlten.
[ 31 ] Gerne fand sich auch Otto Erich Hartleben, wenn er in Weimar war, da ein. Das Goethe-Brevier, das er herausgegeben hat, ist da in wenigen Tagen von uns beiden zusammengestellt worden.
[ 32 ] Von meinen eigenen größeren Schriften sind dort die «Philosophie der Freiheit» und «Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit» entstanden. Und ich denke, auch mancher weimarische Freund verlebte ganz gerne ein - oder auch mehrere - Stündchen bei mir im Eunike'schen Hause.
[ 33 ] Da denke ich vor allem an denjenigen, mit dem ich in einer echten freundschaftlichen Liebe verbunden war, Dr. August Fresenius. Er war, von einem gewissen Zeitpunkte an, ständiger Mitarbeiter am Archiv geworden. Vorher gab er die «Deutsche Literaturzeitung» heraus. Seine Redaktion war ganz allgemein als eine mustergültige angesehen worden. Ich hatte viel gegen Philologie, wie sie damals, namentlich unter der Führung der Scherer-Anhänger war, auf dem Herzen. August Fresenius entwaffnete mich immer wieder durch die Art, wie er Philologe war. Und er machte nicht einen Augenblick daraus ein Hehl, daß er Philologe und nur rechter Philologe sein wolle. Aber bei ihm war Philologie wirklich Liebe zum Worte, die den ganzen Menschen lebenskräftig erfüllte; und das Wort war ihm die menschliche Offenbarung, in der sich alle Gesetzmäßigkeiten des Weltalls spiegelten. Wer die Geheimnisse der Worte wahrhaft durchschauen will, der braucht dazu die Einsicht in alle Geheimnisse des Daseins. Der Philologe kann daher gar nicht anders, als ein universelles Wissen pflegen. Richtige philologische Methode entsprechend angewendet, kann von ganz Einfachem ausgehend, in weite und bedeutungsvolle Gebiete des Lebens starke Beleuchtungen werfen.
[ 34 ] Fresenius zeigte dies damals an einem Beispiele, das mein Interesse intensiv in Anspruch nahm. Wir sprachen über die Sache viel, bevor er sie in einer kurzen, aber schwerwiegenden Miszelle im «Goethe-Jahrbuch» veröffentlichte. Bis zu dieser Entdeckung Fresenius' hatten alle Persönlichkeiten, die sich mit der Erklärung des Goethe ,schen «Faust» befaßt hatten, eine Äußerung Goethes, die dieser fünf Tage vor seinem Tode zu Wilhelm von Humboldt gemacht hatte, mißverstanden. Goethe hatte die Äußerung getan: Es sind über sechzig Jahre, daß die Konzeption des «Faust» bei mir, jugendlich von vornherein klar, die weitete Reihenfolge hingegen weniger ausführlich vorlag. Die Erklärer hatten das «von vornherein» so genommen, als ob Goethe vom Anfang an eine Idee oder einen Plan des ganzen Faustdramas gehabt hätte, in die er dann die Einzelheiten mehr oder weniger hineingearbeitet hätte. Auch mein lieber Lehrer und Freund, Karl Julius Schröer, war dieser Meinung.
[ 35 ] Man bedenke: wäre dieses richtig, dann hätte man in Goethes «Faust» ein Werk vor sich, das Goethe als junger Mann in dem Hauptverlauf konzipiert hätte. Man müßte zugeben, daß es der Goethe'schen Seelenverfassung möglich gewesen wäre, so aus einer allgemeinen Idee heraus zu arbeiten, daß die ausführenden Arbeiten unter dem Feststehen der Idee sechzig Jahre dauern können. Daß dies nicht so ist, zeigte Fresenius' Entdeckung in ganz unwiderleglicher Art. Er legte dar, daß Goethe niemals das Wort «von vornherein» so brauchte, wie es ihm die Erklärer zuschrieben. Er sagte z. B., er habe ein Buch «von vornherein» gelesen, das weitere nicht mehr. Er gebrauchte das Wort «von vornherein» nur im räumlichen Sinne. Damit war bewiesen, daß alle Erklärer des «Faust» Unrecht hatten, und daß Goethe nichts über einen «von vornherein» bestandenen Plan des «Faust» gesagt habe, sondern nur, daß ihm als jungem Menschen die ersten Partien klar waren, und daß er hie und da etwas von dem Folgenden ausgeführt habe.
[ 36 ] Damit war durch rechte Anwendung der philologischen Methode ein bedeutsames Licht auf die ganze Goethe-Psychologie geworfen.
[ 37 ] Ich wundette mich damals nur, daß etwas, das die weitgehendsten Folgen für die Auffassung des Goethe'schen Geistes hätte haben sollen, eigentlich, nachdem es durch die Veröffentlichung im «Goethe-Jahrbuch» bekannt geworden war, wenig Eindruck gerade bei denen gemacht hat, die es am meisten hätte interessieren sollen.
[ 38 ] Aber es wurden mit August Fresenius nicht etwa bloß philologische Dinge besprochen. Alles, was damals die Zeit bewegte, was uns Interessierendes in Weimar oder außerhalb vorging, war Inhalt unserer langen Gespräche. Denn wir waren viel zusammen. Wir führten über manches zuweilen aufgeregte Diskussionen; alles aber endete immer in völliger Harmonie. Denn wir waren ja gegenseitig von dem Ernste überzeugt, von dem unsere Anschauungen getragen waren. Um so bitterer ist es mir, auf die Tatsache zurückblicken zu müssen, daß auch meine Freundschaft zu August Fresenius einen Riß erhalten hat im Zusammenhang mit den Mißverständnissen, die sich an mein Verhältnis zum Nietzsche-Archiv und zu Frau Dr. Förster-Nietzsche angeschlossen haben. Die Freunde konnten kein Bild gewinnen von dem, was eigentlich vorgegangen war. Ich konnte ihnen kein sie befriedigendes geben. Denn es war eigentlich nichts vorgegangen. Und alles beruhte auf mißverständlichen Illusionen, die sich im Nietzsche-Archiv festgesetzt hatten. Was ich sagen konnte, enthalten meine später erschienenen Artikel im «Magazin für Literatur». Ich bedauerte das Mißverständnis tief, denn die Freundschaft zu August Fresenius war stark in meinem Herzen begründet.
[ 39 ] In eine andere Freundschaft, an die ich seither oft gedacht habe, trat ich zu Franz Ferdinand Heitmüller, der ebenfalls, später als Wahle, v. d. Hellen und ich, in den Kreis der Archiv-Mitarbeiter eingetreten war.
[ 40 ] Heitmüller lebte sich als eine feine, künstlerisch empfindende Seele dar. Er entschied eigentlich alles durch die künstlerische Empfindung. Intellektualität lag ihm ganz ferne. Durch ihn kam etwas Künstlerisches in den ganzen Ton, in dem man im Archiv sprach. Feinsinnige Novellen lagen damals von ihm vor. Er war durchaus kein schlechter Philologe; und er arbeitete, was er als solcher für das Archiv zu arbeiten hatte, gewiß nicht schlechter als ein anderer. Aber er stand stets in einer Art innerer Opposition zu dem, was da im Archiv gearbeitet wurde. Namentlich zu der Art, wie man diese Arbeit auffaßte. Durch ihn kam es, daß eine Zeitlang recht lebhaft vor unseren Seelen stand, wie Weimar dereinst die Stätte geistig regster und vornehmster Produktion war; und wie man sich jetzt damit befriedigte, dem einst Produzierten wortglauberisch, «Lesearten feststellend» und höchstens interpretierend nachzugehen. Heitmüller schrieb anonym, was er darüber zu sagen hatte, in der S. Fischer'schen «Neuen Deutschen Rundschau» in Novellenform: «Die versunkene Vineta.» Oh, wie gab man sich damals Mühe, zu erraten, wer so das einst geistig blühende Weimar zur «versunkenen Stadt» gemacht hatte.
[ 41 ] Heitmüller lebte mit seiner Mutter, einer außerordentlich lieben Dame, in Weimar. Diese befreundete sich mit Frau Anna Eunike und verkehrte gerne in deren Haus. Und so hatte ich denn die Freude, auch die beiden Heitmüllers oft in dem Hause zu sehen, in dem ich wohnte.
[ 42 ] Eines Freundes muß ich gedenken, der ziemlich früh während meines Weimarer Aufenthaltes in meine Kreise trat, und der intim freundschaftlich mit mir verkehrte, bis ich wegging, ja auch noch dann, als ich später hie und da zu Besuch nach Weimar kam. Es war der Maler Joseph Rolletschek. Er war Deutschböhme, und nach Weimar, angezogen von der Kunstschule, gekommen. Eine Persönlichkeit, die durch und durch liebenswürdig wirkte, und mit der man im Gespräche gerne das Herz aufschloß. Rolletscheck war sentimental und leicht zynisch zu gleicher Zeit; er war pessimistisch auf der einen Seite und geneigt, das Leben so gering zu schätzen auf der andern Seite, daß es ihm gar nicht der Mühe wert erschien, die Dinge so zu werten, daß zum Pessimismus Anlaß sei. Viel mußte, wenn er dabei war, über die Ungerechtigkeiten des Lebens gesprochen werden; und endlos konnte er sich ereifern über das Unrecht, das die Welt an dem armen Schiller gegenüber dem schon vom Schicksal bevorzugten Goethe begangen habe.
[ 43 ] Trotzdem täglicher Verkehr mit solchen Persönlichkeiten den Austausch des Denkens und Empfindens fortdauernd rege erhielt, war es mir in dieser weimarischen Zeit doch nicht eigen, auch zu denen ich sonst intim mich verhielt, in der unmittelbaren Art von meinem Erleben der geistigen Welt zu sprechen. Ich hielt dafür, daß eingesehen werden müsse, wie der rechte Weg in die geistige Welt zunächst zum Erleben der reinen Ideen führt. Das war es, was ich in allen Formen geltend machte, daß der Mensch, wie er Farben, Töne, Wärmequalitäten usw. in seinem bewußten Erleben haben könne, er ebenso reine, von aller äußeren Wahrnehmung unbeeinflußte, mit einem völligen Eigenleben auftretende Ideen erleben kann. Und in diesen Ideen ist der wirkliche, lebendige Geist. Alles übrige geistige Erleben im Menschen, so sagte ich damals, müsse sich aufsprießend im Bewußtsein aus diesem Ideenerleben ergeben.
[ 44 ] Daß ich so das geistige Erleben zunächst im Ideen-Erleben suchte, führte ja zu dem Mißverständnis, von dem ich schon gesprochen habe, daß selbst intime Freunde die lebendige Wirklichkeit in den Ideen nicht sahen und mich für einen Rationalisten, oder Intellektualisten nahmen.
[ 45 ] Am energischesten im Verständnis der lebendigen Wirklichkeit der Ideenwelt verhielt sich damals eine jüngere Persönlichkeit, die öfters nach Weimar kam, Max Christlieb. Es war ziemlich im Anfange meines Weimarer Aufenthaltes, daß ich diesen nach Geist-Erkenntnis suchenden Mann öfters sah. Er hatte damals die Vorbereitung zum evangelischen Pfarrer hinter sich, machte eben sein Doktorexamen und bereitete sich darauf vor , nach Japan zu einer Art Missionsdienst zu gehen, was er auch dann bald tat.
[ 46 ] Dieser Mann sah - ich darf sagen begeistert - ein, wie man im Geiste lebt, wenn man in reinen Ideen lebt, und wie, da in der reinen Ideenwelt die ganze Natur vor der Erkenntnis aufleuchten muß, man in aller Materie nur Schein (Illusion) vor sich habe, wie durch die Ideen alles physische Sein als Geist sich enthülle. Es war mir tief befriedigend, bei einer Persönlichkeit ein schier restloses Verständnis für die Geistwesenheit zu finden. Es war Verständnis für das Geist-Sein im Ideellen. Da lebt der Geist allerdings so, daß aus dem Meere des allgemeinen ideellen Geist-Seins noch nicht empfindende, schaffende Geist-Individualitäten sich für den wahrnehmenden Blick loslösen. Von diesen Geist-Individualitäten konnte ich ja zu Max Christlieb noch nicht sprechen. Das hätte seinem schönen Idealismus zu viel zugemutet. Aber echtes Geist-Sein, das konnte man mit ihm besprechen. Er hatte sich in alles gründlich hineingelesen, was ich bis dahin geschrieben hatte. Und ich hatte im Beginn der neunziger Jahre den Eindruck: Max Christlieb hat die Gabe, so in die Geist-Welt durch die lebendige Geistigkeit des Ideellen einzudringen, wie ich es für den angemessensten Weg halten mußte. Daß er dann später diese Orientierung nicht voll eingehalten hat, sondern eine etwas andere Richtung genommen hat, das hier zu besprechen, ist keine Veranlassung.
Chapter XX
[ 1 ] I found a social accommodation of the most beautiful kind in the family of the archivist at the Goethe and Schiller Archive, Eduard von der Hellens. This personality was in a peculiar position alongside the other employees of the archive. He had an extraordinarily high reputation in specialist philological circles thanks to his extraordinarily successful first work on "Goethe's part in Lavater's physiognomic fragments". With this work, von der Hellen had achieved something that every specialist immediately took as "full". Only the author himself did not think so. He saw the work as a methodical achievement whose principles could be "learned", while he wanted to strive for an inner spiritual fulfillment with spiritual content on all sides.
[ 2 ] So, when there were no visitors, the three of us sat for a while in the old staff room of the archive, as it was still in the palace: von der Hellen, who was working on the edition of Goethe's letters, Julius Wahle, who was working on the diaries, and I, who was working on the scientific writings. But it was precisely Eduard von der Hellen's intellectual needs that gave rise to conversations between work about the most diverse areas of intellectual and other public life. However, those interests that were related to Goethe were given their due. From the entries that Goethe made in his diaries, from the passages in Goethe's letters that sometimes revealed such high points of view and broad perspectives, observations could arise that led into the depths of existence and the vastness of life.
[ 3 ] Eduard von der Hellen had the great kindness to further develop the relationships that had resulted from this often so stimulating archive correspondence by introducing me to his family circle. The fact that Eduard von der Hellen's family also frequented the circles that I have described as those around Olden, Gabriele Reuter and others was a wonderful addition to our social life.
[ 4 ] I always had particularly vivid memories of the deeply sympathetic Frau von der Hellen. A thoroughly artistic nature. One of those who, had it not been for other obligations in life, could have achieved great things in art. As fate had it, as far as I know, this woman's artistic talent was only in its infancy. But every word we were allowed to speak to her about art had a beneficial effect. She had a restrained tone, always cautious in her judgment, but deeply sympathetic in a purely human way. I rarely went away from such a conversation without carrying around in my mind for a long time what Mrs. von der Hellen had suggested rather than said.
[ 5 ] Mrs. von der Hellen's father, a lieutenant-general who had served as a major in the Seventies War, and his second daughter were also very amiable. When one was in the company of these people, the most beautiful aspects of German spirituality came to life, that spirituality which flowed from the religious, aesthetic and popular-scientific impulses, which for so long were the true spiritual essence of the German, into all circles of social life.
[ 6 ] Eduard von der Hellen's interests brought the political life of the time to my attention for some time. His dissatisfaction with philology threw von der Hellen into the lively political life of Weimar. This seemed to open up another perspective in life for him. And the friendly interest in this personality made me, too, take an interest in the movements of public life without taking an active part in politics.
[ 7 ] A lot of the things that today have either shown themselves to be impossible or have produced absurd social forms in terrible metamorphoses were in the making, with all the hopes of a working class that had received the impression from eloquent, energetic leaders that a new time of social organization must come for humanity. More prudent and quite radical elements in the working class made themselves felt. It was all the more impressive to observe them because what was emerging was like a bubbling of social life in the underground. At the top there lived what dignified conservatism could only have developed in connection with a court that thought nobly and was energetic and insistent in favor of everything humane. In the atmosphere that existed there sprouted a reactionary party that took itself for granted and also what was called national liberalism.
[ 8 ] Finding his way through all this in such a way that a fruitful leadership role would emerge for him through the confusion was how one had to interpret what Eduard von der Hellen was now experiencing. And one had to witness what he experienced in this direction. He discussed all the details he was working on for a brochure with his friends. One had to be as deeply interested as Eduard von der Hellen himself in the concepts of the materialist view of history, class struggle and surplus value, which at that time were accompanied by completely different feelings than now. One could not help but attend the numerous meetings at which he appeared as a speaker. He thought of contrasting the theoretically educated Marxist program with another, which was to sprout from the good will for social progress among all workers' friends of all parties. He thought of a kind of revitalization of the middle parties with the inclusion of such impulses in their programmes, through which the social problem could be overcome.
[ 9 ] The matter proceeded without effect. The only thing I can say is that without my participation in Hellen's endeavor, I would not have experienced public life in that period as intensively as I did through it.
[ 10 ] This life came to me from a different direction, but far less intensely. Yes, it turned out that I developed quite a bit of resistance - which was not the case with von der Hellen - when political matters approached. There was a liberal politician living in Weimar at the time, a follower of Eugen Richter and also politically active in his spirit, Dr. Heinrich Fränkel. I became acquainted with the man. It was a brief acquaintance that was then broken off by a "misunderstanding", but one that I often think back on fondly. For the man was extraordinarily likeable in his manner, had an energetic political will and thought that with good will and sensible insights, people could be inspired to take the right path of progress in public life. His life was a string of disappointments. It was a pity that I had to cause him one myself. During the time of our acquaintance, he was working on a pamphlet for which he was thinking of mass distribution on a grand scale. For him it was a matter of working against the result of the alliance between big industry and agrarianism that was germinating in Germany at that time and which, in his opinion, would later develop into devastating fruit. His brochure bore the title: "Emperor, get tough." He thought he could convince the circles around the Emperor of what he considered to be harmful. - The man did not have the slightest success. He saw that the party to which he belonged and for which he worked did not have the strength to provide a basis for the action he had in mind.
[ 11 ] And so one day he became enthusiastic about reviving the "Deutsche Wochenschrift", which I had edited for a short time in Vienna a few years ago. He wanted to create a political current that would have led him away from the "Freisinn" of the time and into a more nationalist, free-spirited activity. He thought I could do something with him in this direction. That was impossible; I couldn't do anything to revive the "Deutsche Wochenschrift" either. The way I communicated this to him led to misunderstandings that quickly destroyed the friendship.
[ 12 ] But another thing came out of this friendship. The man had a very dear wife and dear sister-in-law. And he also introduced me to his family. She in turn brought me to another family. And that's where something happened that was like a mirror image of the strange coincidence of fate that had once befallen me in Vienna. I had been intimate with a family there, but in such a way that the head of the family had always remained invisible, yet had become so close to me spiritually and emotionally that after his death I gave the funeral oration as if for my best friend. The whole spirituality of this man stood before my soul in full reality through the family.
[ 13 ] And now I entered into almost exactly the same relationship with the head of the family, into which I had been introduced in a roundabout way by the free-minded politician. This head of the family had recently died; the widow lived reverently in memory of the deceased. It so happened that I moved out of my previous Weimar apartment and rented a room with the family. There was the library of the deceased. A man interested in many spiritual directions, but like the man who lived in Vienna, averse to contact with people; living in his own "spiritual world" like the deceased; taken by the world as an "eccentric" like the deceased. I felt that the man was like the other, without being able to meet him in physical life, as if he were walking through my fate "behind the scenes of existence". In Vienna, such a beautiful bond developed between the family of the well-known "unknown" and me; and in Weimar, an even more meaningful one developed between the second "known" and his family and me.
[ 14 ] If I must now speak of the two "unknown acquaintances", I know that what I have to say will be described by most people as wild fantasy. For it refers to how I was allowed to approach the two human souls in the world realm in which they were after they had passed through the gate of death.
[ 15 ] Everyone has the inner right to remove statements about this area from the circle of what interests him; but to treat them as something that can only be characterized as fantastic is something else. If someone does this, then I must assert that I have always sought the sources of that state of mind from which one may assert something spiritual in such exact branches of knowledge as mathematics or analytical mechanics. So I cannot be reproached for speaking carelessly, without responsibility for knowledge, when I say the following.
[ 16 ] The spiritual powers of perception that I carried in my soul at that time made it possible for me to have a closer connection with the two souls after their death on earth. They were of a different nature than other deceased people. After their death on earth, they first go through a life which, according to its content, is closely connected with life on earth, which only slowly and gradually becomes similar to that which a person has in the purely spiritual world, in which he spends his existence until the next life on earth.
[ 17 ] The two "unknown acquaintances" had now become quite thoroughly acquainted with the thoughts of the materialistic age. They had conceptually assimilated the scientific way of thinking. The second, whom Weimar brought to me, was even well acquainted with Billroth and similar scientific thinkers. On the other hand, both had probably remained far removed from a spiritual view of the world during their life on earth. They would probably have rejected anyone who could have confronted them at that time, because "scientific thinking" must have appeared to them as the result of the facts, according to the character of the thinking habits of the time.
[ 18 ] But this attachment to the materialism of the time remained entirely in the world of ideas of the two personalities. They did not go along with the habits of life that followed from the materialism of their thinking and which were the prevailing habits of all other people. They became "eccentrics before the world", living in more primitive forms than was customary at the time and than would have been appropriate for them according to their level of wealth. Thus they did not carry over into the spiritual world that which a connection with the materialistic will values could have given to their spiritual individualities, but only that which the materialistic thought values had transplanted into these individualities. Of course, for the souls this took place for the most part in the subconscious. And now I could see how these materialistic thought-values are not something that alienates man from the divine-spiritual world after death; but that this alienation only occurs through the materialistic will-values. Both the soul that had come close to me in Vienna and the one that I got to know spiritually in Weimar were, after death, gloriously luminous spiritual figures in whom the soul's content was filled with the images of the spiritual entities that underlie the world. And their acquaintance with the ideas, through which they thought through the material more precisely during their last life on earth, only contributed to the fact that they were also able to develop a judgment-based relationship to the world after death, as it would not have become for them if the corresponding ideas had remained alien to them.
[ 19 ] In these two souls, beings had inserted themselves into my path of destiny, through which the meaning of the scientific way of thinking was revealed to me directly from the spiritual world. I could see that this way of thinking need not in itself lead away from a spiritual view. In the case of the two personalities this had happened during their life on earth because they found no opportunity to raise their scientific thinking into the sphere where spiritual experience begins. After their death they accomplished this in the most perfect way. I saw that one can also bring about this upliftment if one musters the inner courage and strength to do so in earthly life. I also saw, through a co-experience of meaningful things in the spiritual world, that mankind had to develop into the scientific way of thinking. Earlier ways of thinking could connect the human soul with the spirit of the supersensible world; they could lead man, if he entered upon self-knowledge (the basis of all knowledge) at all, to know himself as an image, or even a member of the divine-spiritual world . but they could not lead him to feel himself as an independent, self-contained spiritual entity. Progress therefore had to be made towards grasping a world of ideas that is not inspired by the spirit itself, but by matter, which is spiritual but not of the spirit
[ 20 ] Such a world of ideas cannot be stimulated in man in the spiritual world, in which he lives after death or before a new birth, but only in earthly existence, because only there does he face the material form of being.
[ 21 ] So what man gains for his entire life, including the spiritual life, after death, through being interwoven with the scientific way of thinking, I was able to experience in the two human souls. But I could also see in others, who had grasped the consequences of the will of the mere scientific way of thinking in earthly life, that they alienated themselves from the spirit world, that they, so to speak, come to an overall life that with the scientific way of thinking represents less the human being in his humanity than without it.
[ 22 ] The two souls have become "eccentrics before the world" because they did not want to lose their humanity in earthly life; they have fully embraced the scientific way of thinking because they wanted to reach the spiritual stage of humanity, which is not possible without it.
[ 23 ] I would probably not have been able to gain these views of the two souls if they had confronted me as physical personalities during my earthly existence. In order to see the two individualities in the spirit world, in which their essence and many other things were to be revealed to me through them, I needed that tenderness of the soul's vision in relation to them, which is easily lost when what is experienced in the physical world obscures, or at least impairs, what is to be experienced purely spiritually.
[ 24 ] I therefore already had to see something in the peculiarity of the appearance of the two souls within my earthly existence that was destined for my path of cognition.
[ 25 ] But anything directed towards spiritualism could not come into consideration in this relationship with souls in the spiritual world. For me, nothing else could ever be valid for the relationship to the spiritual world than the truly spiritual view of which I later spoke publicly in my anthroposophical writings. Incidentally, both the Viennese family in all its members and the Weimar family were far too healthy for mediumistic communication with the deceased. I have always been interested in such a search for human souls, as it appears in Spiritism, wherever this came into question. The spiritualism of the present day is the deviation of such souls from the spiritual, who also want to seek the spirit in an external - almost experimental - way, because they can no longer feel the real, the true, the genuine in a spiritual way. It is precisely those who take a completely objective interest in spiritualism, without wanting to explore anything through it themselves, who can see through the right ideas about the intentions and misguided paths of spiritualism. - My own research always took a different path than Spiritism in any form. - It was also possible to have interesting contact with spiritualists in Weimar, because for a time this kind of searching attitude towards the spiritual was very much alive among artists.
[ 26 ] But my contact with the two souls strengthened my "philosophy of freedom". What I am striving for in this philosophy is, firstly, a result of my philosophical paths of thought in the eighties; secondly, it is also a result of my concrete general insight into the spiritual world. Thirdly, however, it was reinforced by the co-experience of the spiritual experiences of those two souls. In them I had before me the ascent that man owes to the scientific world view. But in them I also had before me the fear of noble souls of living into the will element of this world view. These souls trembled before the ethical consequences of such a world view. In my "Philosophy of Freedom" I have now sought the force that leads from the ethically neutral scientific world of ideas into the world of moral impulses. I have tried to show how man, who knows himself to be a self-contained, spiritual being because he lives in ideas that no longer flow from the spirit but are inspired by material being, can also develop intuition for the moral from his own being. As a result, the moral shines forth in the freed individuality as individual ethical impulsiveness in the same way as the ideas of the view of nature.
[ 27 ] The two souls had not penetrated to this moral intuition. Therefore, they (unconsciously) trembled before life, which could only have been held in the sense of the not yet expanded scientific ideas.
[ 28 ] I spoke at that time of "moral imagination" as the source of morality in human individuality. I certainly did not mean to refer to this source as something that is not fully real. On the contrary, I wanted to characterize in "imagination" the power that helps the true spiritual world to break through in the individual human being in all areas. However, if a real experience of the spiritual is to occur, then the spirit-like powers of cognition: imagination, inspiration, intuition must come into play. The first ray of a spiritual revelation to the individually cognizant human being, however, occurs through the imagination, which can be observed in Goethe in the way in which it distances itself from everything fantastic and becomes an image of the spiritually real. I lived with the family that the Weimar "unknown acquaintance" had left behind for most of the time I spent in Weimar. I had part of the apartment to myself; Mrs. Anna Eunike, with whom I soon became close friends, took care of everything for me in the most self-sacrificing way. She attached great importance to my helping her with the difficult tasks of bringing up the children. She had been left a widow with four daughters and a son after Eunike's death.
[ 29 ] I only saw the children when the opportunity arose. That happened often, because I was considered part of the family. With the exception of the morning and evening meals, I ate out.
[ 30 ] Where I had found such a nice family connection, I certainly didn't feel comfortable on my own. When the younger visitors to the Goethe Society meetings from Berlin, who had become closer to me, wanted to be "among themselves" in a very cozy atmosphere, they came to me in Eunike's house. And judging by the way they behaved, I have every reason to believe that they felt quite comfortable there.
[ 31 ] Otto Erich Hartleben also liked to spend time there when he was in Weimar. The Goethe-Brevier, which he published, was compiled by both of us in just a few days.
[ 32 ] Of my own major writings, the "Philosophy of Freedom" and "Nietzsche, a Fighter against his Time" were written there. And I think many a Weimar friend also enjoyed spending an hour - or even several - with me in Eunike's house.
[ 33 ] I am thinking above all of Dr. August Fresenius, with whom I had a genuine friendship and love. He had, from a certain point in time, become a permanent employee at the archive. He had previously edited the "Deutsche Literaturzeitung". His editorial work was generally regarded as exemplary. I had a lot on my mind against philology as it was then, especially under the leadership of the Scherer supporters. August Fresenius disarmed me again and again with the way he was a philologist. And he never for a moment made a secret of the fact that he wanted to be a philologist and only a true philologist. But for him philology was really the love of the word, which filled the whole man with vitality; and the word was for him the human revelation in which all the laws of the universe were reflected. Anyone who wants to truly understand the secrets of words needs insight into all the secrets of existence. The philologist can therefore do no other than cultivate universal knowledge. Properly applied philological methods can shed powerful light on vast and meaningful areas of life, starting from the very simple.
[ 34 ] Fresenius demonstrated this at the time with an example that intensely captured my interest. We talked a lot about the matter before he published it in a short but serious miscellany in the "Goethe-Jahrbuch". Until this discovery by Fresenius, all those who had concerned themselves with the explanation of Goethe's "Faust" had misunderstood a statement Goethe had made to Wilhelm von Humboldt five days before his death. Goethe had made the statement: "It is over sixty years since the conception of Faust was clear to me in my youth, but the extended sequence was less detailed. Those who explained it had taken "from the outset" as if Goethe had had an idea or a plan for the whole Faust drama from the beginning, into which he had then more or less worked the details. My dear teacher and friend, Karl Julius Schröer, was also of this opinion.
[ 35 ] Think about it: if this were correct, then in Goethe's "Faust" we would have before us a work that Goethe would have conceived as a young man in the main course. One would have to admit that it would have been possible for Goethe's state of mind to work out of a general idea in such a way that the work in progress could have taken sixty years once the idea was established. Fresenius' discovery showed quite irrefutably that this was not the case. He showed that Goethe never used the word "from the outset" in the way that those who explain it ascribe it to him. He said, for example, that he had read one book "from the outset", but not the next. He used the word "from the outset" only in the spatial sense. This proved that all those who explained "Faust" were wrong and that Goethe had said nothing about a plan for "Faust" that existed "from the outset", but only that the first parts were clear to him as a young man and that here and there he had carried out something of what followed.
[ 36 ] Thus, through the correct application of the philological method, a significant light was thrown on the whole of Goethe's psychology.
[ 37 ] I was only surprised at the time that something which should have had the most far-reaching consequences for the conception of Goethe's mind, after it had become known through publication in the "Goethe-Jahrbuch", actually made little impression on those who should have been most interested in it.
[ 38 ] But it was not just philological matters that were discussed with August Fresenius. Everything that was going on at the time, everything that interested us in Weimar or beyond, was the subject of our long conversations. Because we were together a lot. We sometimes had heated discussions about some things, but everything always ended in complete harmony. After all, we were mutually convinced of the seriousness of our views. It is all the more bitter for me to have to look back on the fact that my friendship with August Fresenius also suffered a rupture in connection with the misunderstandings that followed my relationship with the Nietzsche Archive and with Dr. Förster-Nietzsche. The friends could not get a picture of what was actually going on. I could not give them a satisfactory one. Because nothing had actually happened. And everything was based on misunderstood illusions that had taken root in the Nietzsche archive. What I was able to say is contained in the articles I later published in the "Magazin für Literatur". I deeply regretted the misunderstanding, because my friendship with August Fresenius was deeply rooted in my heart.
[ 39 ] I became friends with Franz Ferdinand Heitmüller, who had also, later than Wahle, v. d. Hellen and I, joined the circle of archive staff.
[ 40 ] Heitmüller presented himself as a fine, artistically sensitive soul. He actually decided everything through his artistic sensibility. Intellectuality was far removed from him. Through him, something artistic came into the whole tone in which people spoke in the archive. He wrote subtle novellas at that time. He was by no means a bad philologist; and he certainly did the work he had to do for the archive no worse than anyone else. But he was always in a kind of inner opposition to what was being worked on in the archive. Especially to the way this work was perceived. Through him, it came about that for a time it stood quite vividly before our souls how Weimar was once the place of the most intellectually lively and distinguished production; and how one was now satisfied with pursuing what was once produced in a word-believing manner, "ascertaining readings" and at most interpreting them. Heitmüller wrote anonymously what he had to say about it in novella form in S. Fischer's "Neue Deutsche Rundschau": "Die versunkene Vineta." Oh, how hard it was to guess who had turned the once intellectually flourishing Weimar into a "sunken city".
[ 41 ] Heitmüller lived with his mother, an exceptionally dear lady, in Weimar. She was friends with Mrs. Anna Eunike and liked to spend time in her house. And so I had the pleasure of often seeing the two Heitmüllers in the house where I lived.
[ 42 ] I must remember a friend who came into my circle quite early during my stay in Weimar and who remained on friendly terms with me until I left, even when I later came to visit Weimar from time to time. It was the painter Joseph Rolletschek. He was a German Bohemian and had come to Weimar, attracted by the art school. A personality who was thoroughly amiable and with whom one gladly opened one's heart in conversation. Rolletscheck was sentimental and slightly cynical at the same time; he was pessimistic on the one hand and inclined to hold life in such low esteem on the other that it did not seem worth his while to evaluate things in such a way as to give cause for pessimism. When he was present, there had to be much talk about the injustices of life; and he could rage endlessly about the injustice that the world had committed against poor Schiller compared to Goethe, who had already been favored by fate.
[ 43 ] Despite the fact that daily intercourse with such personalities kept the exchange of thought and feeling constantly lively, it was not characteristic of me in this Weimar period to speak in a direct way of my experience of the spiritual world, even to those with whom I was otherwise intimate. I believed that it had to be understood how the right path into the spiritual world first leads to the experience of pure ideas. This was what I asserted in all forms, that just as man can have colors, sounds, qualities of warmth, etc. in his conscious experience, he can also experience pure ideas, uninfluenced by all external perception and with a complete life of their own. And in these ideas is the real, living spirit. All other spiritual experience in man, I said at the time, must arise in consciousness from this experience of ideas.
[ 44 ] The fact that I initially sought spiritual experience in the experience of ideas led to the misunderstanding of which I have already spoken, namely that even intimate friends did not see the living reality in ideas and took me for a rationalist or intellectualist.
[ 45 ] A younger personality, Max Christlieb, who often came to Weimar, was the most energetic in his understanding of the living reality of the world of ideas. It was quite at the beginning of my stay in Weimar that I often saw this man who was searching for spiritual knowledge. At the time, he was preparing to become a Protestant pastor, had just completed his doctorate and was preparing to go to Japan on a kind of missionary service, which he soon did.
[ 46 ] This man saw - I may say enthusiastically - how one lives in the spirit when one lives in pure ideas, and how, since in the pure world of ideas the whole of nature must light up before knowledge, one has only appearance (illusion) before oneself in all matter, how through ideas all physical being reveals itself as spirit. It was deeply satisfying for me to find in a personality an almost complete understanding of the spirit being. It was an understanding of spirit-being in the ideal. There, however, the spirit lives in such a way that spirit-individualities which are not yet sentient and creative detach themselves from the sea of general ideal spirit-being for the perceiving gaze. I could not yet speak of these spirit-individualities to Max Christlieb. That would have been too much for his beautiful idealism. But one could talk to him about genuine spiritual being. He had thoroughly read everything I had written up to that point. And at the beginning of the nineties I had the impression that Max Christlieb had the gift of penetrating the world of the spirit through the living spirituality of the ideal, which I considered to be the most appropriate way. The fact that he later did not fully adhere to this orientation, but took a somewhat different direction, is no reason to discuss it here.