Metamorphoses of the Soul I
GA 58
22 October 1909, Berlin
III. The Mission of Truth
We were able to close our lecture on the Mission of Anger (illustrated in Prometheus Bound) with the saying of Heraclitus: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search for them; so all-embracing is the soul's being.” We came to know this depth in the working and interplay of the powers of the soul; and the truth of the saying came home to us especially when we turned our attention to the most deeply inward part of man's being. Man is most spiritual in his Ego, and that was our starting-point.
The Ego complements those other elements of man's being which he has in common with minerals, plants and animals. He has his physical body in common with minerals, plants and animals; his etheric body in common with animals and plants; his astral body in common with animals. Through his Ego he first becomes man in the true sense and is able to progress from stage to stage. It is the Ego that works upon the other members of his being; it cleanses and purifies the instincts, inclinations, desires and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies on to ever-higher stages. But if we look at the Ego, we find that this high member of man's being is imprisoned, as it were, between two extremes.
Through his Ego, man is intended to become increasingly a being who has a firm centre in himself. His thoughts, feelings and will-impulses should spring from this centre. The more he has a firm and well-endowed centre in himself, the more will he have to give to the world; the stronger and richer will be his activities and everything that goes out from him. If he is unable to find this central point in himself, he will be in danger of losing himself through a misconceived activity of his Ego. He would lose himself in the world and go ineffectually through life. Or he may lapse into the other extreme. Just as he may lose himself if he fails to strengthen and enrich his Ego, so, if he thinks of nothing but developing his Ego, he may fall into the other extreme of selfish isolation from all human community. Here, on this other side, we find egoism, with its hardening and secluding influence, which can divert the Ego from its proper path. The Ego is confined within these two extremes.
In considering the human soul, we called three of its members the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. We also came to recognise—surprisingly, perhaps, for many people—that anger acts as a kind of educator of the Sentient Soul. A one-sided view of the lecture on the mission of anger could give scope for many objections. But if we go into the underlying significance of this view of anger, we shall find in it an answer to many important riddles of life.
In what sense is anger an educator of the soul—especially the Sentient Soul—and a forerunner of love? Is it not true that anger tends to make a man lose control of himself and engage in wild, immoral and loveless behaviour? If we are thinking only of wild, unjustified outbursts of anger, we shall get a false idea of what the mission of anger is. It is not through unjustified outbreaks of anger that anger educates the soul, but through its inward action on the soul.
Let us again imagine two teachers faced with children who have done something wrong. One teacher will burst into anger and hastily impose a penalty. The other teacher, though unable to break out into anger, is also incapable of acting rightly, with perfect tranquility, out of his Ego, in the sense described yesterday. How will the behaviour of two such teachers differ? An outburst of anger by one of them involves more than the penalty imposed on the child. Anger agitates the soul and works upon it in such a way as to destroy selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on selfishness, and we find that in time it gradually transforms the powers of the soul and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, if a teacher has not yet attained inner tranquility and yet inflicts a coldly calculated penalty, he will—since anger will not work in him as a counteracting poison—become increasingly a cold egoist.
Anger works inwardly and can be regarded as a regulator for unjustified outbursts of selfishness. Anger must be there or it could not be fought against. In overcoming anger the soul continually improves itself. If a man insists on getting something done that he considers right and loses his temper over it, his anger will dampen the egoistic forces in his soul; it reduces their effective power. Just because anger is overcome and a man frees himself from it and rises above it, his selflessness will be enhanced and the selflessness of his Ego continually strengthened. The scene of this interplay between anger and the Ego is the Sentient Soul. A different interplay between the soul and other experiences takes its course in the Intellectual Soul.
Although the soul has attributes which it must overcome in order to rise above them, it must also develop inwardly certain forces which it should love and cherish, however spontaneously they may arise. They are forces to which the soul may initially yield, so that, when it finally asserts itself, it is not weakened, but strengthened, by the experience. If a man were incapable of anger when called upon to assert himself in action, he would be the weaker for it.
It is just when a man lovingly immerses himself in his own soul that his soul is strengthened and an ascent to higher stages of the Ego comes within reach. The outstanding element that the soul may love within itself, leading not to egoism but to selflessness, is truth. Truth educates the Intellectual Soul. While anger is an attribute of the soul that must be overcome if a man is to rise to higher stages, truth should be loved and valued from the start. An inward cultivation of truth is essential for the progress of the soul.
How is it that devotion to truth leads man upwards from stage to stage? The opposites of truth are falsehood and error. We shall see how man progresses in so far as he overcomes falsehood and error and pursues truth as his great ideal.
A higher truth must be the aim of man's endeavour, while he treats anger as an enemy to be increasingly abolished. He must love truth and feel himself most intimately united with it. Nevertheless, eminent poets and thinkers have rightly claimed that full possession of truth is beyond human reach. Lessing,21Cf. for example the polemic “Eine Duplik” (1778), part 1. for example, says that pure truth is not for men, but only a perpetual striving towards it. He speaks of truth as a distant goddess whom men may approach but never reach. When the nature of truth stirs the soul to strive for it, the soul can be impelled to rise from stage to stage. Since there is this everlasting search for truth, and since truth is so manifold in meaning, all we can reasonably say is that man must set out to grasp truth and to kindle in himself a genuine sense of truth. Hence we cannot speak of a single, all-embracing truth.
In this lecture we will consider the idea of truth in its right sense, and it will become clear that by cultivating a sense of truth in his inner life man will be imbued with a progressive power that leads him to selflessness.
Man strives towards truth; but when people try to form views concerning one thing or another, we find that in the most varied realms of life conflicting opinions are advanced. When we see what different people take for truth, we might think that the striving for truth leads inevitably to the most contradictory views and standpoints. However, if we look impartially at the facts, we shall find guidelines which show how it is that men who are all seeking truth, arrive at such a diversity of opinions.
Let us take an example. The American multimillionaire, Harriman,22Edward Henry Harriman, 1848–1909. North American railway magnate. who died recently, was a rarity among millionaires in concerning himself with thoughts of general human interest. His aphorisms, found after his death, include a remarkable statement. He wrote: No man in this world is indispensable. When one goes, another is there to take his place. When I lay down my work, another will come and take it up. The railways will continue running, dividends will be paid; and so, strictly speaking, it is with all men.
This millionaire, accordingly, rose to the point of declaring as a generally valid truth—no man is indispensable!
Let us compare this statement with a remark by a man who worked for many years in Berlin and gained great distinction through his lecture courses on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael and Goethe—I mean the art-historian Herman Grimm.23Herman Grimm, 1828–1901, in his essay “Ernst Curtius, Heinrich von Treitschke, Leopold von Ranke”, in: Fragmente, vol 1, Berlin & Stuttgart, 1900, p.246. When Treitschke24Heinrich von Treitschke, 1834–96. German historian. died, Herman Grimm wrote of him roughly as follows: Now Treitschke is gone, and people only now realise what he accomplished. No-one can take his place and continue his work in the same way. A feeling prevails that in the circle where he taught, everything is changed. Note that Herman Grimm did not add the words, so it is with all men.
Here we have two men, the American millionaire and Herman Grimm, who arrive at exactly opposite truths. How does this come about? If we carefully compare the two statements, we shall find a clue. Bear in mind that Harriman says pointedly: When I lay down my work, someone else will continue it. He does not get away from himself. The other thinker, Herman Grimm, leaves himself entirely out of account. He does not speak about himself, or ask what sort of opinions or truths others might gain from him. He merges himself in his subject. Anyone with a feeling for the matter will have no doubt as to which of the two spoke truth. We need only ask—who carried on Goethe's work when he laid it down? We can feel that Harriman's reflections suffer from the fact that he fails to get away from himself. Up to a point we may conclude that it is prejudicial to truth if someone in search of truth cannot get away from himself. Truth is best served when the seeker leaves himself out of the reckoning. Would it be true to say, then, that truth is already something that gives us a view (Ansicht) of things?
A view, in the sense of an opinion, is a thought which reflects the outer world. When we form a thought or reach a decision about something, does it follow that we have a true picture of it?
Suppose you take a photograph of a remarkable tree. Does the photograph give a true picture of the tree? It shows the tree from one side only, not the whole reality of the tree. No-one could form a true image of the tree from this one photograph. How could anyone who has not seen the tree be brought nearer to the truth of it? If the tree were photographed from four sides, he could collate the photographs and arrive finally at a true picture of the tree, not dependent on a particular standpoint.
Now let us apply this example to human beings. A man who leaves himself out of account when forming a view of something is doing much the same as the photographer who goes all round the tree. He eliminates himself by conscious action. When we form an opinion or take a certain view, we must realise that all such opinions depend on our personal standpoint, our habits of mind and our individuality. If we then try to eliminate these influences from our search for truth, we shall be acting as the photographer did in our example. The first condition for acquiring a genuine sense of truth is that we should get away from ourselves and see clearly how much depends on our personal point of view. If the American multimillionaire had got away from himself he would have known that there was a difference between him and other men.
An example from everyday life has shown us, that if a man fails to realise how much his personal standpoint or point of departure influences his views, he will arrive at narrow opinions, not at the truth. This is apparent also on a wider scale. Anyone who looks at the true spiritual evolution of mankind, and compares all the various “truths” that have arisen in the course of time, will find—if he looks deeply enough—that when people pronounce a “truth” they ought first of all to get away from their individual outlooks. It will then become clear that the most varied opinions concerning truth are advanced because men have not recognised to what extent their views are restricted by their personal standpoints.
A less familiar example may lead to a deeper understanding of this matter. If we want to learn more about beauty, we turn to aesthetics, which deals with the forms of beauty. Beauty is something we encounter in the outer world. How can we learn the truth about it? Here again we must free ourselves from the restrictions imposed by our personal characteristics.
Take for example the 19th century German thinker, Solger.25Karl Friedrich Solger, 1780–1819, from 1811 Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. Cf. Erwin. Vier Gespräche über das Schöne und die Kunst, 1815, and Vorlesungen uber Asthetik, ed. Heyse, 1829. He wished to investigate the nature of beauty in accordance with his idea of truth. He could not deny that we meet with beauty in the external world; but he was a man with a one-sided theosophical outlook, and this was reflected in his theory of aesthetics. His interest in a beautiful picture was confined to the shining through it of the only kind of spirituality he recognised. For him, an object was beautiful only in so far as the spiritual was manifest through it. Solger was a one-sided theosophist; he sought to explain sense-perceptible phenomena in terms of the super-sensible; but he forgot that sense-perceptible reality has a justified existence on its own account. Unable to escape from his preconceptions, he sought to attain to the spiritual by way of a misconceived theosophy.
Another writer on aesthetics, Robert Zimmermann,26Robert Zimmermann, 1824–98. Professor in Vienna. Member of the school of Herbart. Cf. his Asthetik, 1858–65. came to an exactly opposite conclusion. As against Solger's misconceived theosophical aesthetics, Zimmermann based his aesthetics on a misconceived anti-theosophical outlook. His sole concern was with symmetry and anti-symmetry, harmony and discord. He had no interest in going beyond the beautiful to that which manifests through it. So his aesthetics were as one-sided as Solger’s. Every striving for truth can be vitiated if the seeker fails to recognise that he must first endeavour to get away from himself. This can be achieved only gradually; but the primary, inexorable demand is, that if we are to advance towards truth we must leave ourselves out of account and quite forget ourselves. Truth has a unique characteristic: a man can strive for it while remaining entirely within himself and yet—while living in his Ego—he can acquire something which, fundamentally speaking, has nothing to do with the egoistic ego.
Whenever a man tries in life to get his own way in some matter, this is an expression of his egoism. Whenever he wants to force on others something he thinks right and loses his temper over it, that is an expression of his self-seeking. This self-seeking must be subdued before he can attain to truth. Truth is something we experience in our most inward being—and yet it liberates us increasingly from ourselves. Of course, it is essential that nothing save the love of truth should enter into our striving for it. If passions, instincts and desires, from which the Sentient Soul must be cleansed before the Intellectual Soul can strive for truth, come into it, they will prevent a man from getting away from himself and will keep his Ego tied to a fixed viewpoint. In the search for truth, the only passion that must not be discarded is love.
Truth is a lofty goal. This is shown by the fact that truth, in the sense intended here, is recognised today in one limited realm only. It is only in the realm of mathematics that humanity in general has reached the goal of truth, for here men have curbed their passions and desires and kept them out of the way. Why are all men agreed that three times three makes nine and not ten? Because no emotion comes into it, Men would agree on the highest truths if they had gone as far with them as they have with mathematics. The truths of mathematics are grasped in the inmost soul, and because they are grasped in this way, we possess them. We would still possess them if a hundred or a thousand people were to contradict us; we would still know that three times three makes nine because we have grasped this fact inwardly. If the hundred or thousand people who take a different view were to get away from themselves, they would come to the same truth.
What, then, is the way to mutual understanding and unity for mankind? We understand one another in the field of reckoning and counting because here we have met the conditions required. Peace, concord and harmony will prevail among men to the extent that they find truth. That is the essential thing: that we should seek for truth as something to be found only in our own deepest being; and should know that truth ever and again draws men together, because from the innermost depth of every human soul its light shines forth.
So is truth the leader of mankind towards unity and mutual understanding, and also the precursor of justice and love. Truth is a precursor we must cherish, while the other precursor, anger, that we came to know yesterday, must be overcome if we are to be led by it away from selfishness. That is the mission of truth: to become the object of increasing love and care and devotion on our part. Inasmuch as we devote ourselves inwardly to truth, our true self gains in strength and will enable us to cast off self-interest. Anger weakens us; truth strengthens us.
Truth is a stern goddess; she demands to be at the centre of a unique love in our souls. If man fails to get away from himself and his desires and prefers something else to her, she takes immediate revenge. The English poet Coleridge has rightly indicated how a man should stand towards truth. If, he says, a man loves Christianity more than truth, he will soon find that he loves his own Christian sect more than Christianity, and then he will find that he loves himself more than his sect.
Very much is implicit in these words. Above all, they signify that to strive against truth leads to humanly degrading egoism. Love of truth is the only love that sets the Ego free. And directly man gives priority to anything else, he falls inevitably into self-seeking. Herein lies the great and most serious importance of truth for the education of the human soul. Truth conforms to no man, and only by devotion to truth can truth be found. Directly man prefers himself and his own opinions to the truth, he becomes anti-social and alienates himself from the human community. Look at people who make no attempt to love truth for its own sake but parade their own opinions as the truth: they care for nothing but the content of their own souls and are the most intolerant. Those who love truth in terms of their own views and opinions will not suffer anyone to reach truth along a quite different path. They put every obstacle in the way of anyone with different abilities, who comes to opinions unlike their own. Hence the conflicts that so often arise in life. An honest striving for truth leads to human understanding, but the love of truth for the sake of one's own personality leads to intolerance and the destruction of other people's freedom.
Truth is experienced in the Intellectual Soul. It can be sought for and attained through personal effort only by beings capable of thought. Inasmuch as truth is acquired by thinking, we must realise very clearly that there are two kinds of truth. First we have the truth that comes from observing the world of Nature around us and investigating it bit by bit in order to discover its truths, laws and wisdom. When we contemplate the whole range of our experience of the world in this way, we come to the kind of truth that can be called the truth derived from “reflective” thinking—we first observe the world and then think about our findings.
We saw yesterday that the entire realm of Nature is permeated with wisdom, and that wisdom lives in all natural things. In a plant there lives the idea of the plant, and this we can arrive at by reflective thought. Similarly, we can discern the wisdom that lives in the plant. By thus looking out on the world we can infer that the world is born of wisdom, and that through the activity of our thinking we can rediscover the element that enters into the creation of the world. That is the kind of truth to be gained by reflective thought.
There are also other truths. These cannot be gained by reflective thought, but only by going beyond everything that can be learnt from the outer world. In ordinary life we can see at once that when a man constructs a tool or some other instrument, he has to formulate laws that are not part of the outer world. For example, no-one could learn from the outer world how to construct a clock, for the laws of Nature are not so arranged as to provide for the appearance of clocks as a natural product. That is a second kind of truth: we come to it by thinking out something not given to us by observation or experience of the outer world. Hence there are these two kinds of truth, and they must be kept strictly apart, one derived from reflective thought and the other from “creative” thought.
How can a truth of this second kind be verified? The inventor of a clock can easily prove that he had thought it out correctly. He has to show that the clock does what he expects. Anything we think out in advance must prove itself in practice: it must yield results that can be recognised in the external world. The truths of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy are of this kind. They cannot be found by observing external experience.
For example, no findings in the realm of outer Nature can establish the truth we have often dwelt on in connection with the immortal kernel of man's being: the truth that the human Ego appears again and again on earth in successive incarnations. Anyone who wishes to acquire this truth must raise himself above ordinary experience. He must grasp in his soul a truth that has then to be made real in outer life. A truth of this kind cannot be proved in the same way as truths of the first kind, gained by what we have called reflective thought. It can be proven only by showing how it applies to life and is reflected there. If we look at life with the knowledge that the soul repeatedly returns and ever and again goes through a series of events and experiences between birth and death, we shall find how much satisfaction, how much strength and fruitfulness, these thoughts can bring. Or again, if we ask how the soul of a child can be helped to develop and grow stronger, if we presuppose that an eternally existent soul is here working its way into a new life, then this truth will shine in on us and give proof of its fruitfulness in daily experience. Any other proofs are false. The only way in which a truth of this kind can be confirmed is by giving proof of its validity in daily life. Hence there is a vast difference between these two kinds of truth. Those of the second kind are grasped in the spirit and then verified by observing their influence on outer life.
What then is the educational effect of these two kinds of truth on the human soul? It makes a great difference whether a man devotes himself to truths that come from reflective thought or to those that come from creative thought. If we steep ourselves in the wisdom of Nature and create in ourselves a true reflection of it, we can rightly say that we have in ourselves something of the creative activity from which the life of Nature springs. But here a distinction must be made. The wisdom of Nature is directly creative and gives rise to the reality of Nature in all its fullness, but the truth we derive from thinking about Nature is only a passive image; in our thinking it has lost its power. We may indeed acquire a wide, open-minded picture of natural truth, but the creative, productive element is absent from it. Hence the immediate effect of this picture of truth on the development of the human Ego is desolating. The creative power of the Ego is crippled and devitalised; the Self loses strength and can no longer stand up to the world, if it is concerned only with reflective thoughts. Nothing else does so much to isolate the Ego, to make it withdraw into itself and look with hostility on the world. A man can become a cold egoist if he is intent only on investigating the outer world. Why does he want this knowledge? Does he mean to place it at the service of the Gods?
If a man desires only this kind of truth, he wants it for himself, and he will be on the way to becoming a cold egoist and misogynist in later life. He will become a recluse or will sever himself from mankind in some other way, for he wants to possess the content of the world as his own truth. All forms of seclusion and hostility towards humanity can be found on this path. The soul becomes increasingly dried up and loses its sense of human fellowship. It becomes ever more impoverished, although the truth should enrich it. Whether a man turns into a recluse or a one-sided eccentric makes no difference; in both cases a hardening process will overtake his soul. Hence we see that the more a man confines himself to this kind of reflective thought, the less fruitful his soul will be. Let us try to understand why this is so.
Consider the realms of nature and suppose that we have before us an array of plants. They have been formed by the living wisdom which calls forth their inherent productive power. Now an artist comes along. His soul receives the picture that Nature sets before him. He does not merely think about it; he opens himself to Nature's productive power and lets it work upon him. He creates a work of art which does not embody merely an act of thinking; it is imbued with productive power. Then comes someone who tries to get behind the picture and to extract a thought from it. He ponders over it. In this way its reality is filtered and impoverished. Now try to carry this process further. Once the soul has extracted a thought from the picture, it has finished with it. Nothing more can be done except to formulate thoughts about the thought—an absurd procedure which soon dries up.
It is quite different with creative thinking. Here a man is himself productive. His thoughts take form as realities in outer life; here he is working after the example of Nature herself. That is how it is with a man who goes beyond mere observation and reflective thinking and allows something not to be gained from observation to arise in his soul. All spiritual-scientific truths require a productive disposition in the soul. In the case of these truths all mere reflective thinking is bad and leads to deception. But the truths attainable by creative thought are limited, for man is weak in the face of the creative wisdom of the world. There is no end to the things from which we can derive truths by reflective thought; but creative thought, although the field open to it is restricted, brings about a heightening of productive power; the soul is refreshed and its scope extended. Indeed, the soul becomes more and more inwardly divine, in so far as it reflects in itself an essential element of the divine creative activity in the world.
So we have these two distinct kinds of truth, one reached by creative thought, the other by reflective thought. This latter kind, derived from the investigation of existent things or current experience, will always lead to abstractions; under its influence the soul is deprived of nourishment and tends to dry up. The truth that is not gained from immediate experience is creative; its strength helps man to find a place in the world where he can co-operate in shaping the future.
The past can be approached only by reflective thought, while creative thought opens a way into the future. Man thus becomes a responsible creator of the future. He extends the power of his Ego into the future, in so far as he comes to possess not merely the truths derived from the past by reflective thinking, but also those that are gained by creative thinking and point towards the future.
Herein lies the liberating influence of creative thinking. Anyone who is active in the striving for truth will soon find how he is impoverished by mere reflective thinking. He will come to understand how the devotee of reflective thinking fills his mind with phantom ideas and bloodless abstractions. Such a man may feel like an outcast, condemned to a mere savouring of truth and may come to doubt whether his spirit can play any part in shaping the world. On the other hand, a man who experiences a truth gained by creative thinking will find that it nourishes and warms his soul and gives it new strength for every stage in life. It fills him with joy when he is able to grasp truths of this kind and discovers that in bringing them to bear on the phenomena of life he can say to himself: Now I not only understand what is going on there, but I can explain it in the light of having known something of it previously.
With the aid of spiritual-scientific truths we can now approach man himself. He cannot be understood merely by reflective thinking, but now we can comprehend him better and better, while our feeling of unity with the world and our interest in it are continually enhanced. We experience joy and satisfaction at every confirmation of spiritual-scientific truths that we encounter. This is what makes these truths so satisfying: we have first to grasp them before we can find them corroborated in actual life, and all the while they enrich us inwardly. We are drawn gradually into unity with the phenomena we experience. We get away more and more from ourselves, whereas reflective thinking leads to subtle forms of egoism. In order to find confirmation of truths gained by creative thinking we have to go out from ourselves and look for their application in all realms of life. It is these truths that liberate us from ourselves and imbue us in the highest degree with a sense of truth and a feeling for it.
Feelings of this kind have been alive in every genuine seeker after truth. They were deeply present in the soul of Goethe when he declared: “Only that which is fruitful is true”—a magnificent, luminous saying of far—reaching import. But Goethe was also well aware that men must be closely united with truth if they are to understand one another. Nothing does more to estrange men from one another than a lack of concern for truth and the search for truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it rests on a conviction that the false is true.”27The first quotation is from the poem “Vermächtnis”, 1829; the second is from the “Sprüche in Prosa” in vol V, p.402 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner, 5 vols, Dornach, 1975. Obviously there are falsities that can be logically disproved, but that is not what Goethe means. He is convinced that a false viewpoint cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and that the fruitful application of truth in practical life should be our sole guide-line in our search for truth.
It was because Goethe was so wonderfully united with truth that he was able to sketch the beautiful poetic drama, Pandora, which he began to write in 1807. Though only a fragment, Pandora is a ripe product of his creative genius—so powerful in every line, that anyone who responds to it must feel it to be an example of the purest, grandest art. We see in it how Goethe was able to make a start towards the greatest truths—but then lacked the strength to go further. The task was too arduous for him to carry through; but we have enough of it to get some idea of how deeply he had penetrated into the problems of spiritual education. He had a clear vision of everything that the soul has to overcome in order to rise higher; he understood everything we learnt yesterday about anger and the fettered Prometheus, and have learnt today about that other educator of the soul, the sense of truth.
How closely related these two things are in their effects on the soul can be seen also in the facial expressions they call forth. Let us picture a man under the influence of anger, and another man upon whom truth is acting as an inward light. The first man is frowning—why? In such cases the brow is knitted because an excessive force is working inwardly, like a poison, to hold down a surplus of egoism which would like to destroy everything that exists alongside and separate from the man himself. In the clenched fist of anger we see the wrathful self closed up in itself and refusing to go forth into the outer world. Now compare this with the facial expression of someone who is discovering truth. When he perceives the light of truth, he too may frown, but in his case the wrinkled brow is a means whereby the soul expands, as though it would like to grasp and absorb the whole world with devoted love. Observe, too, the eyes of a man who is trying to overhear the world's secrets. His eyes are shining, as though to encompass everything around him in the outer world. He is released from himself; his hand is not clenched, but held out with a gesture that seeks to absorb the being of the world.
The whole difference between anger and truth is thus expressed in human physiognomy and gesture. Anger thrusts the human being deeper into himself. If he strives for truth, his being expands into the outer world; and the more united he becomes with the outer world, the more he turns away from the truths gained by reflective thinking to those gained by creative thinking. Therefore, Goethe in his Pandora brings into opposition with each other certain characters who can be taken to represent forces at work in the human soul. They are intended to express symbolically the relationships between the characteristics and capacities of the soul.
When you open Pandora, you come upon something remarkable and highly significant at the very start. On the side of Prometheus, the stage is loaded with tools and implements constructed by man. In all these, human energies have been at work, but in a certain sense it is all rough and ready. On the side of Epimetheus, the other Titan, there is a complete contrast. Here everything is perfectly finished; we see not so much what man creates, but a bringing together of what Nature has already produced. It is all the result of reflective thinking. Here we have combination and shaping, a symmetrical ordering of Nature's work. On the side of Prometheus, unsymmetry and roughness; on the side of Epimetheus, elegant and harmonious products of Nature, culminating in a view of a wonderful landscape. What does all this signify? We need only consider the two contrasted characters: Prometheus the creative thinker, Epimetheus the reflective thinker. With Prometheus we find the products mainly of creative thinking. Here, although man's powers are limited and clumsy, he is productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as Nature shapes her own; but they are all the outcome of his own powers and tools. He is also deficient in feeling for scenes of natural beauty.
On the side of Epimetheus, the reflective thinker, we see the heritage of the past, brought into symmetrical order by himself. And because he is a reflective thinker, we see in the background a beautiful landscape which gives its own special pleasure to the human eye. Epimetheus now comes forward and discloses his individual character. He explains that he is there to experience the past, and to reflect upon past occurrences and the visible world. But in his speech he reveals the dissatisfaction that this kind of attitude can at times call forth in the soul. He feels hardly any difference between day and night. In brief, the figure of Epimetheus shows us reflective thinking in its most extreme form. Then Prometheus comes forward carrying a torch and emerging from the darkness of night. Among his followers are smiths; they set to work on the man-made objects that are lying around, while Prometheus makes a remarkable statement that will not be misunderstood if we are alive to Goethe's meaning. The smiths extol productivity and welcome the fact that in the course of production many things have to be destroyed. In a one-sided way they extol fire. A man who is an all-round reflective thinker will not praise one thing at the expense of another. He casts his eye over the whole. Prometheus, however, says at once:
In partiality let the active man
Find his pleasure
He extols precisely the fact that to be active entails the acceptance of limitations. In Nature, the right is established when the wrong destroys itself. But to the smiths Prometheus says: Carry on doing whatever can be done. He is the creative man; he emerges with his torch from the darkness of night in order to show how from the depths of his soul the truth gained by his creative thinking comes forth. Unlike Epimetheus, he is far from a dreamlike feeling that night and day are all one. Nor does he experience the world as a dream. For his soul has been at work, and in its own dark night it has grasped the thoughts which now emerge from it. They are no dreams, but truths for which the soul has bled. By this means the soul advances into the world and gains release from itself; but at the same time it incurs the danger of losing itself. This does not yet apply to Prometheus himself, but when a man introduces one-sidedness into the world, the danger appears among his descendants.
Phileros, the son of Prometheus, is already inclined to love and cherish and enjoy the products of creative work, while his father Prometheus is still immersed in the stream of life's creative power. In Phileros we are shown the power of creative thinking developed in a one-sided way. He rushes out into life, not knowing where to search for enjoyment. Prometheus cannot pass on to his son his own fruitfully creative strength, and so Phileros appears incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who out of his own rich experience would like to counsel him on his headlong career.
We are then magnificently shown what mere reflective thinking involves. This is connected with the myth that Zeus, having fettered Prometheus to the rock, imposes Pandora, the all-gifted, on mankind.
Most beautiful and gifted she approached
The amazed watcher, moving with noble grace,
Her gracious look inquiring whether I,
Like to my sterner brother, would repel her,
But all too strongly were my heart-beats stirred,
With sense bemused my charming bride I welcomed.
Towards the mysterious dowry then I turned,
The earthen vessel, tall and shapely, stood
Close-sealed ...
Prometheus had warned his brother against this gift from the gods. But Epimetheus, with his different character, accepts the gift, and when the earthen vessel is opened, all the afflictions that can befall mankind come pouring out. Only one thing is left in the vessel—Hope.
Who, then, is Pandora and what does she signify? Truly a mystery of the soul is concealed in her. The fruits of reflective thinking are dead products, an abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaestus. This wisdom is powerless in the face of the universally creative wisdom from which the world has been born. What can this abstract reflection give to mankind?
We have seen how this kind of truth can be sterile and can lay waste the soul, and we can understand how all the afflictions that fall on mankind come pouring out of Pandora's vessel. In Pandora we have to see truth without the powers of creativity, the truth of reflective thinking, a truth which builds up a mechanised thought-picture in the midst of the world's creative life. For the mere reflective thinker only one thing remains. While the creative thinker unites his Ego with the future and gets free from himself, the reflective thinker can look to the future only with hope, for he has no part in shaping it. He can only hope that things will happen. Goethe shows his deep comprehension of the myth by endowing the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora with two children: Elpore (Hope) and Epimeleia (Care), who safeguards existing things. In fact, man has in his soul two offspring of dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. This kind of truth is unfruitful and cannot influence the future; it can only reflect what is already there. It leaves a man with nothing but the hope that what is true will duly come to pass. This is represented by Goethe with splendid realism in the figure of Elpore, who, if someone asks her whether this or that is going to happen, always gives the same answer, yes, yes. If a Promethean man were to stand before the world and speak of the future, he would say: “I hope for nothing. With my own forces I will shape the future.” But a reflective thinker can only reflect on the past and hope for the future; thus Elpore, when asked whether this or that will happen, replies always, yes, yes. We hear it again and again. In this way a daughter of reflective thinking is admirably characterised and her sterility is indicated.
The other daughter of this reflective thinking, Epimeleia, is she who cares for existing things. She sets them all in symmetrical order and can add nothing from her own resources. But all things which fail to develop are increasingly liable to destruction; hence we see how anxiety about them continually mounts, and how through mere reflective thinking a destructive element finds its way into the world. This is wonderfully well indicated by Goethe when he makes Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, burnt up with jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, until she takes refuge from him with the Titan brothers. Strife and dissension come simultaneously on to the scene. Epimeleia complains that the person she loves is the very one to seek her life.
Everything that Goethe goes on to say shows how deeply he had penetrated into the effects of creative thinking and reflective thinking on the soul. The creative thinking of the smiths is set in wonderful contrast to the outlook of the shepherds; whilst the latter take what Nature offers, the former work on the products of Nature and transform them. Therefore Prometheus says of the shepherds: they are seeking peace, but they will not find a peace that satisfies their souls:
Go your ways in peace; but peace
You will not find.
For a wish merely to preserve things as they are leads only to the unproductive side of Nature.
The truths which belong to creative thinking and reflective thinking respectively are thus set before us in the figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and in all the characters connected with them. They represent those soul-forces which can spring from an excessive, one-sided predilection for one or other way of striving after truth. And after we have seen how disastrous are the consequences of these extremes, we are shown finally the one and only remedy—the co-operation of the Titan brothers. The drama leads on to an outbreak of fire in a property owned by Epimetheus. Prometheus, who is prepared to demolish a building if it no longer serves its purpose, advises his brother to make all speed to the spot and do all he can to halt the destruction. But Epimetheus no longer cares for that; he is thinking about Pandora and is lost in his recollection of her. Interesting also is a dialogue between the brothers about her:
Prometheus:
Her form sublime, from ancient dark emerging,
Came near me also. To make another like her,
Even Hephaestus would have failed in that.Epimetheus:
Art thou, too, prating of this fabled birth?
From ancient gods, a mighty race, she springs:
Uranione, Hera's peer, and sister
Of Zeus himself.Prometheus:
And yet Hephaestus, for her rich adornment,
Made for her head a net of shining gold,
Weaving with subtle hand the finest threads.
In every sentence spoken by Prometheus we see how mechanised, abstract limitations obsess his mind. Then Eos, the Dawn, appears. She is an unlit being who precedes and heralds the sun, but also contains its light within herself already. She does not simply emerge from the darkness of night; she represents a transition to something which has overcome night. Prometheus appears with his torch because he has just come out of the night. The artificial light he carries indicates how his creative work proceeds from the night's darkness. Epimetheus can indeed admire the sunlight and its gifts, but he experiences everything as in a dream. He is an example of pure reflective thinking. The way in which light can escape the attention of a soul absorbed in creative activity is shown by what Prometheus says in the light of day. His people, he says, are called upon not merely to observe the sun and the light, but to be themselves a source of illumination. Now Eos, Aurora, comes forward. She calls upon men to be active everywhere in doing right. Phileros, already having sought death, should unite with the forces which will make it possible for him to rescue himself. The smiths, who are working within the limits of their creative thinking, and the shepherds, who accept things as they are, are now joined by the fishermen. And we see how Eos gives them advice:
Morning of youth, dawning of day,
More beautiful than ever,
From the unfathomed ocean
I bring you now.
Awake, shake off your sleep,
You dwellers in the bay
By cliffs encircled,
You fishermen, arise,
And ply your craft.
With speed spread out your nets
Around the well-known waters,
A splendid catch is certain
When my voice cheers you on.
Swim, you swimmers! Dive, you divers!
Watch, you watchers on the heights!
May the shores and seas together
Swarm with swift abounding life!
Then we are shown in a wonderful way how Phileros is rescued on the surging flood and unites his own strength with the strength of the waves. The active creative power in him is thus united with the creative power in Nature. So the elements of Prometheus and Epimetheus are reconciled.
Thus Goethe offers a solution rich in promise, by showing how knowledge gained from nature by reflective thinking can be fired with productive energy by the creative thinking element. This latter acquires its rightful strength by receiving, in loyalty to truth, what the gods “up there” bestow:
Take note of this:
What is desirable, you feel down here;
What is to be given, they know up there.
You Titans make a great beginning,
But the way to the eternal good, the forever beautiful,
That is the work of the gods; they ensure it.
The union of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the human soul will bring salvation for them and for mankind. The whole drama is intended to indicate that through an all-round grasping of truth the entire human race, and not only individuals, will find satisfaction. Goethe wished to show that an understanding of the real nature of truth will unite humanity and foster love and peace among men. Then Hope, also, is transformed in the soul—Hope who says yes to everything but is powerless to bring anything about. The poem was to have ended with the transformed Elpore, Elpore thraseia, coming forward to tell us that she is no longer a prophetess but is to be incorporated into the human soul, so that human beings would not merely cherish hopes for the future but would have the strength to co-operate in bringing about whatever their own productive power could create. To believe in the transformation wrought by truth upon the soul—that is the whole perfected truth which reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus.
Naturally, these sketchy indications can bring out only a little of all that can be drawn from the poem. The deep wisdom that called forth this fragment from Goethe will disclose itself first to those who approach it with the support of a spiritual-scientific way of thinking. They can experience a satisfying, redeeming power which flows out from the poem and quickens them.
We must not fail to mention a remarkably beautiful phrase that Goethe included in his Pandora. He says that the divine wisdom which flows into the world must work in harmony with all that we are able to achieve through our own Promethean power of creative thinking. The element that comes to meet us in the world and teaches us what wisdom is, Goethe called the Word. That, which lives in the soul and must unite itself with the reflective thinking of Epimetheus, is the Deed of Prometheus. So the union of the Logos or Word with the Deed gives rise to the ideal that Goethe wished to set before us in his Pandora as the fruit of a life rich in experiences. Towards the end of the poem, Prometheus makes a remarkable statement: “A real man truly celebrates the deed.” This is the truth that remains hidden from the reflective thinking element in the soul.
If we open ourselves to this whole poem, we can come to realise the heroic yearning for development felt by men such as Goethe, and the great modesty which prevents them from supposing that by reaching a certain stage they have done enough and need not try to go further. Goethe was an apprentice of life up to his last day, and always recognised that when a man has been enriched by an experience he must overcome what he has previously held to be true.
When as a young man, Goethe was beginning to work on Faust, and had occasion to introduce some translations from the Bible, he decided that the words “In the beginning was the Word”, should be rendered as “in the beginning was the Deed”. At this same time he wrote a fragment on Prometheus.28Faust 1, 11.1224 and “Prometheus”, a dramatic fragment, 1773. There we see the young Goethe as altogether active and Promethean, confident that simply by developing his own forces, not fructified by cosmic wisdom, he could progress. In his maturity, with a long experience of life behind him, he realised that it was wrong to underestimate the Word, and that Word and Deed must be united. In fact, Goethe revised parts of his Faust while he was writing his Pandora. We can understand how Goethe came by degrees to maturity only if we realise the nature of truth in all its forms.
It will always be good for man if he wrestles his way to realising that truth can be apprehended only by degrees. Or take a genuine, honest, all-round seeker after truth who is called upon to bring forcibly before the world some truth he has discovered. It will be very good if he reminds himself that he has no grounds for pluming himself on this one account. There are no grounds at any time for remaining content with something already known. On the contrary, such knowledge as we have gained from our considerations yesterday and today should lead us to feel that, although the human being must stand firmly on the ground of the truth he has acquired and must be ready to defend it, he must from time to time withdraw into himself, as Goethe did. When he does this, the forces arising from the consciousness of the truth he has gained will endow him with a feeling for the right standards and for the standpoint he should make his own. From the enhanced consciousness of truth we should ever and again withdraw into ourselves and say, with Goethe: Much that we once discovered and took for truth is now only a dream, a dreamlike memory; and what we think today, will not survive when we put it to a deeper test. The words often spoken by Goethe to himself in relation to his own honest search for truth may well be echoed by every man in his solitary hours:
A poor wight am I
Through and through.
My thoughts miss the mark,
My dreams, they are not true.29From the poem “Sprichtwörtlich”.
If we can feel this, we shall be in the right relationship to our high ideal, Truth.
Die Mission der Wahrheit
Goethes «Pandora» in geisteswissenschaftlicher Beleuchtung
Unseren Vortrag über die Mission des Zornes — der gefesselte Prometheus — konnten wir schließen mit dem Ausspruch Heraklits: Die Grenzen der Seele zu finden, ist schwer, und wenn man alle Straßen durchwandeln würde; denn unendlich tief ist der Seele Grund! — Wir haben diese Tiefe innerhalb der Wirkung und im Ineinanderspielen der Seelenkräfte kennengelernt. Es tritt uns die Wahrheit dieses Ausspruches gerade dann ganz besonders vor die Seele, wenn man aufbaut auf dem, was gestern unsern Ausgangspunkt bildete, wenn man ins Auge faßt des Menschen tief innerstes Wesen. Im Ich ist er sozusagen am geistigsten, und davon sind wir ausgegangen. Das Ich ist dasjenige Glied seiner Wesenheit, welches hinzukommt zu denen, die er mit den drei unteren Reichen der Mineral-, Pflanzen- und Tierwelt gemeinsam hat.
Seinen physischen Leib hat er ja gemeinsam mit den Mineralien, Pflanzen und Tieren, den Ätherleib nur mit den Pflanzen und Tieren, den Astralleib endlich nur mit den Tieren. Durch das Ich kann der Mensch erst eigentlich Mensch sein, kann er sich von Stufe zu Stufe weiterentwickeln. Dieses Ich arbeitet an seinen übrigen Gliedern, läutert und reinigt die Triebe, Neigungen, Begierden und Leidenschaften des Astralleibes und wird den ätherischen und physischen Leib auf immer höhere und höhere Stufen führen. Aber gerade wenn man dieses Ich ins Auge faßt, dann zeigt sich, daß dieses menschliche Ich, dieses hohe und würdige Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, wie eingeklemmt ist zwischen zwei Extremen. Der Mensch soll durch das Ich immer mehr und mehr ein Wesen werden, das seinen Mittelpunkt in sich selber hat. Aus dem Ich heraus müssen die Gedanken, Gefühle und Willensimpulse entspringen. Je mehr der Mensch den festen und inhaltsvollen Mittelpunkt in sich hat, desto mehr strahlt aus von seiner Wesenheit, desto mehr vermag er der Welt zu geben, desto inhaltsvoller und stärker wird sein Wirken und alles, was von ihm ausgeht. Falls der Mensch nicht in der Lage ist, diesen Mittelpunkt in sich zu finden, ist er der Gefahr ausgesetzt, sich zu verlieren in einer falsch verstandenen Betätigung seines Ich. Er würde zerfließen in der Welt und wirkungslos durch das Leben gehen. Auf der anderen Seite kann er einem andern Extrem verfallen. So wie der Mensch sich auf der einen Seite verlieren kann, wenn er nicht alles tut, um sein Ich inhaltsvoller und kräftiger zu machen, so kann er, wenn er nur bestrebt ist, das Ich zu erhöhen, diesem Ich immer mehr und mehr zuzuführen, so kann er in das andere verderbliche Extrem verfallen, das in die von aller menschlichen Gemeinsamkeit abführende Selbstsucht führt. Auf der andern Seite steht also die Selbstsucht, der in sich verhärtende und verschließende Egoismus, der das Ich vom Wege seiner Entwickelung abbringen kann. In diese zwei Dinge ist das Ich eingeschlossen. Wenn wir nun die menschliche Seele betrachten, so zeigt sich uns, daß der Mensch zunächst in sich hat, was wir bereits Empfindungs-, Verstandes- und Bewußtseinsseele nannten. Wir haben nun zunächst eine Seeleneigenschaft kennengelernt, welche - für manchen vielleicht in überraschender Weise — eine Art Erzieher der Empfindungsseele ist: den Zorn. Wer den Vortrag über die Mission des Zornes einseitig betrachtet, wird vieles dagegen einzuwenden haben. Wenn man jedoch auf die eigentlichen Untergründe der Sache mehr und mehr eingeht, werden sich wichtige Rätsel des Lebens lösen.
In welcher Beziehung ist der Zorn eine Art Erzieher der Seele - speziell der Empfindungsseele - und der Vorläufer der Liebe? Man kann fragen: Führt nicht der Zorn dazu, daß der Mensch sich verlieren kann oder zu wilden, unmoralischen und lieblosen Handlungen hingerissen wird? Wenn man nur die wilden und ungerechtfertigten Ausbrüche des Zornes ins Auge faßt, hat man eine falsche Anschauung dessen, was über die Mission des Zornes angeführt wurde. Nicht dadurch, daß er zu ungerechtfertigten Ausbrüchen führt, wird er der Erzieher der Seele, sondern durch das, was er im Innern der Seele tut. Um uns die Arbeit des Zornes an der Seele zu vergegenwärtigen, nehmen wir an, zwei Menschen stünden vor einem zu erziehenden Kinde, das etwas Unrechtes begeht. Der eine Erzieher wird aufwallen und sich zu Handlungen der Strafe hinreißen lassen; der zweite Erzieher sei eine Seele, die nicht aufwallen kann im Zorn, die aber in dem Sinne, wie wir das gestern gemeint haben, noch nicht in der Lage ist, wirklich mit voller Gelassenheit aus dem Ich heraus das Rechte zu tun. Was wird für ein Unterschied sein in den Handlungen zweier solcher Erzieher? Ein Aufwallen des Zornes wird nicht nur zur Folge haben eine Strafhandlung, die man dem Kinde zufügt, sondern der Zorn ist etwas, was in der Seele wühlt, was in der Seele des Menschen wirkt und gerade so wirkt, daß es die Selbstsucht tötet. Wie ein Gift wirkt der Zorn auf die Selbstsucht der Seele. Und wenn wir abwarten, wird sich uns zeigen, daß er allmählich die Kräfte der Seele umwandelt und der Liebe fähig macht. Derjenige dagegen, der nicht reif ist für Gelassenheit und doch aus kalter Berechnung heraus die Strafhandlung ausführt, wird, weil der Zorn nicht als Gift in ihm wirkt, immer mehr und mehr ein kalter Egoist werden. Der Zorn wirkt eben innerlich, und als solcher ist er als Seeleneigenschaft zu bezeichnen. Überall wo der Zorn auftritt, ist er als ein Regulator für die Ausbrüche der menschlichen Selbstsucht anzusehen, welche unberechtigt sind. Der Zorn muß da sein, sonst müßte er nicht bekämpft werden. In der Überwindung des Zornes wird die Seele immer besser und besser. Wenn der Mensch etwas durchsetzen will, was er für das Rechte hält und zornig wird, so ist dieser Zorn ein Verminderer der selbstsüchtig wirkenden Kräfte. Er dämpft sie und treibt sie herunter in bezug auf ihre Wirksamkeit. Im Zorne haben wir eine Seeleneigenschaft, welche gerade dadurch, daß sie überwunden wird und der Mensch sich von ihr befreit und immer mehr sich über sie erhebt, die Selbstlosigkeit im Menschen heranzieht und durch dieses Heranziehen der Selbstlosigkeit das Ich immer stärker und stärker macht. Dieses Spiel des Ich mit dem Zorn, das spielt sich ab in der menschlichen Empfindungsseele.
Ein anderes Spiel zwischen der Seele und anderen Seelenerlebnissen spielt sich ab in dem, was wir Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele nennen. So wie die menschliche Seele Eigenschaften hat, die sie überwinden muß, um immer höher zu steigen, so muß sie auch in sich Kräfte ausbilden, die sie sozusagen pflegen und lieben darf, trotzdem sie in ihr aufsteigen. Sie muß Kräfte haben, denen sie sich hingeben darf, so daß sie sich, wenn sie sich durchsetzt, nicht schwächt, sondern stärkt. [...] Er wird sich gerade dadurch in der Stärke seiner Seele erhöhen, daß er sich so recht liebend in sie hinein versenkt; er wird sich gerade dadurch zu hohen Stufen des Ich hinaufleben; und das Ausgezeichnete, das, was die Seele in sich selbst lieben darf, dasjenige, wodurch sie sich nicht zur Selbstsucht, sondern zur Selbstlosigkeit erzieht, wenn sie es liebt — das ist die Wahrheit. Die Wahrheit erzieht die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele. Wie der Zorn eine Eigenschaft der Seele ist, die überwunden werden muß, wenn der Mensch höher steigen will, so ist die Wahrheit, obwohl sie eine Eigenschaft der Seele sein soll, etwas, was der Mensch von vornherein lieben soll. Eine innere Pflege der Wahrheit ist absolut notwendig, um die Seele höher und höher steigen zu lassen.
Welche Eigenschaft der Wahrheit ist es, die den Menschen weiter und weiter führt und von Stufe zu Stufe höher bringt, wenn er sich der Wahrheit bedient? Die Wahrheit hat zu ihrem Gegenteil, als Gegenüberstehendes, die Lüge und den Irrtum. Wir wollen sehen, wie der Mensch vorwärts kommt durch die Überwindung von Irrtum und Lüge, indem er die Wahrheit zu seinem großen Ideal macht und ihm nachstrebt.
Eine höhere Wahrheit soll er anstreben, wie er andererseits den Zorn zu etwas machen muß, was sein Feind ist, den er immer mehr und mehr beseitigen muß. Wahrheit soll für ihn etwas werden, was er lieben und mit dem Innersten der Seele verbinden soll, um zu immer höheren und höheren Stufen zu gelangen. Trotzdem haben ausgezeichnete Dichter und Denker mit Recht davon gesprochen, daß der volle Besitz der Wahrheit für den Menschen gar nicht zu erreichen sein soll. Lessing zum Beispiel sagt, die reine Wahrheit sei nicht für den Menschen, sondern nur das ewige Streben nach Wahrheit. Man wird von Lessing darauf hingewiesen, daß die Wahrheit eine ferne Göttin ist, der sich der Mensch nur nähern kann, die aber im Grunde genommen nie zu erreichen ist. In dem Aufrücken der Natur der Wahrheit, in dem, daß die Seele ein höheres Streben nach Wahrheit in sich wach werden läßt, liegt, was die Seele immer weiter und weiter steigen läßt. Da es ein ewiges Streben nach der Wahrheit gibt und das Wort Wahrheit etwas so Mannigfaltiges bedeutet und ist, so wird man vernünftigerweise nur davon sprechen können, daß der Mensch die Wahrheit erfassen soll, daß er eigentlichen Wahrheitssinn entwickeln soll. Man wird daher nicht sprechen von einer einzigen umfassenden Wahrheit.
In diesem Vortrage soll nun die Idee der Wahrheit im rechten Sinne betrachtet werden; und es wird sich uns in klarer Weise zeigen, daß der Mensch durch die Entwickelung des Wahrheitssinnes in seinem Innern erfüllt wird von einer vorwärtstreibenden Kraft, die ihn zur Selbstlosigkeit führt.
Der Mensch strebt nach Wahrheit. Da wo die Menschen aus dem Bestehenden heraus versuchten, sich über die Dinge eine Anschauung zu machen, kann man auf den allerverschiedensten Gebieten des Lebens finden, daß sie da oft in der entgegengesetzten Weise sich aussprechen. Wenn man sieht, was der eine und demgegenüber der andere für Wahrheit hält, so könnte man glauben, daß das Wahrheitsstreben die Menschen zu den entgegengesetztesten Anschauungen und Meinungen bringt. Wenn man jedoch unbefangen beobachtet, wird man die Leitfäden finden können, die uns zeigen, wie es eigentlich kommt, daß die Menschen zu so verschiedenen Meinungen kommen, trotzdem sie die Wahrheit suchen.
Ein Beispiel möge uns das erläutern. Vor kurzer Zeit ist der bekannte amerikanische Multimillionär Harriman gestorben. Er ist einer von den wenigen Millionären, die sich mit allgemein menschlichen Gedanken beschäftigen. In Aphorismen, die nach seinem Tode gefunden wurden, ist ein merkwürdiger Ausspruch dieses Wahrheitssuchers enthalten. Er sagt: Kein Mensch ist in dieser Welt unersetzlich, und ein jeder kann, wenn er aus dieser Welt verschwindet, durch einen andern an seinem Platze ersetzt werden. Wenn ich meine Arbeit aus der Hand legen werde, so wird ein anderer Mensch kommen, der meine Arbeit aufnehmen wird. Die Eisenbahnen werden genau so fahren wie früher, die Dividenden werden ebenso verteilt werden, und so ist es im Grunde genommen mit jedem Menschen. — So ist dieser Mensch aufgestiegen zu einer allgemein geltenden Wahrheit: Kein Mensch ist unersetzlich!
Stellen wir neben diesen Ausspruch den eines andern Mannes, der hier in Berlin lange Zeit gewirkt hat in außerordentlicher Weise durch seine verschiedenen Vorlesungen über das Leben Michelangelos und Ratffaels und Goethes, einen Ausspruch des Kunsthistorikers Herman Grimm. Als Treitschke gestorben war, hat Herman Grimm ungefähr folgenden Ausspruch in einem seiner Aufsätze getan: Nun ist Treitschke auch dahingegangen, und man merkt gerade jetzt, was er geleistet hat. Niemand kann an seinen Platz treten und seine Arbeit in der Weise fortsetzen, wie dieser Mann sie geleistet hat. Man hat das Gefühl, daß in dem Umkreis, in dem Treitschke lehrte, alles anders vor sich geht. — Interessant ist es dabei zu beobachten, daß Herman Grimm nicht an die Worte anknüpft: und so ist es bei allen Menschen.
Hier haben wir zwei Leute, den amerikanischen Multimillionär und Herman Grimm, die aus ihren Betrachtungen zu genau den entgegengesetzten Wahrheiten kommen. Woran liegt das nun? Wenn wir die zwei Betrachtungsweisen sorgfältig vergleichen, so finden wir einen Leitfaden. Bedenken Sie, daß Harriman ausgeht davon, daß er sagt: wenn ich meine Arbeit aus den Händen lege, so wird sie ein anderer fortsetzen; daß er gar nicht loskommt von sich selber. Der andere Mensch bringt sich selber gar nicht ins Spiel; er spricht gar nicht von sich, frägt gar nicht, was man von ihm für Meinungen und Wahrheiten gewinnen könnte. Er geht auf in der Betrachtung des anderen. Wer ein Gefühl dafür hat, wird ohne Zweifel herausfinden, welcher von beiden das Richtige gesagt hat. Man braucht sich nur einmal die Frage vorzulegen: Wer hat denn Goethes Arbeit fortgesetzt, als er sie aus der Hand gelegt hat? Wer ein Gefühl dafür hat, wird wissen, daß Harriman in seiner Betrachtung daran krankt, daß er nicht von sich losgekommen ist. Daraus schon können Sie ein wenig den Schluß ziehen, daß es der Wahrheit geradezu schädlich ist, wenn man sie sucht und nicht von sich loskommen kann. Der Wahrheit dient es gerade, wenn man von sich loskommen kann.
Kann Wahrheit schon dasjenige sein, was eine Ansicht über die Dinge gibt? — Eine Ansicht ist eine Art gedankliches Spiegelbild der Außenwelt. Muß deshalb, weil wir irgend etwas denken, weil wir bei einer Betrachtung dieses oder jenes festsetzen, das ein richtiges Bild sein?
Nehme man einen photographischen Apparat zur Aufnahme eines merkwürdigen Baumes. Man stellt sich in eine Ecke und macht mit dem Apparat ein Bild des Baumes. Wenn wir dieses eine Bild an einem fremden Orte zeigen, gibt das ein wirkliches Bild des Baumes? Es gibt ein Bild von einer Seite; es gibt nicht die Wahrheit über den Baum. Kein Mensch wird sich auf Grund des Bildes den Baum vorstellen können, wenn er nur das eine Bild ins Auge faßt. Wodurch könnte man über die Wahrheit des Baumes mehr erfahren, wenn man ihn nicht gesehen hat? Wenn man ihn von vier Seiten photographieren würde, dann würde man um den Baum herumgegangen sein, und durch Vergleichen der Bilder würde man schließlich etwas bekommen, was ein wahres Bild des Baumes gibt. Man hat die dadurch gewonnene Vorstellung von dem Baume unabhängig gemacht vom eigenen Standorte. Wenden wir diesen Vergleich auf den Menschen an. Was hier durch äußere Vorgänge bewirkt wird, das tut der Mensch, der bei seiner Betrachtung der Dinge von sich selber loskommt. Sich ausschalten bei der Betrachtung der Dinge, das wird er durch seine eigene Persönlichkeit machen. Wird sich der Mensch bewußt, daß, wenn er eine Meinung faßt, wenn er dieses oder jenes in einer Weise anschaut, er vor allen Dingen wissen muß, daß alle gefaßten Meinungen abhängig sind von unserem eigenen Standpunkte, von unseren eigenen Eigenschaften und von unserer eigenen Individualität; wird man sich dessen bewußt und versucht man, alles das abzuziehen von dem, was man Wahrheit nennen will '— dann führt man das aus, was in unserem Vergleiche der Photograph ausgeführt hat. Die erste Anforderung an den wirklichen Wahrheitssinn ist, loszukommen von sich selber; ins Auge zu fassen, was von unserem Standpunkte abhängt.
Würde der amerikanische Multimillionär von sich losgekommen sein, so würde er gewußt haben, daß ein Unterschied ist zwischen ihm und anderen Menschen. Wir haben an einem Beispiele, das uns die alltäglichen Verhältnisse zeigt, gesehen, wie dann, wenn der Mensch nicht von sich loskommen kann, wenn er sich nicht bewußt wird, was er zu den Dingen hinzubringt durch seinen Standpunkt oder Ausgangspunkt, wie dann notwendigerweise eine eingeschränkte Meinung, aber keine Wahrheit entstehen kann. Das zeigt sich auch im Großen. Wer ein wenig hineinschaut in die wirkliche geistige Entwickelung der Menschen und vergleicht, was alles als Wahrheit auftritt, der wird bei einer tiefergehenden Betrachtung finden, daß die Menschen, wenn sie eine Wahrheit aussprechen, zunächst loskommen sollten von ihrer eigenen Individualität. Man wird begreifen, daß die verschiedensten Ansichten über die Wahrheit herauskommen, weil die Menschen sich nicht bewußt geworden sind, was sie selber durch ihren Standpunkt an Einschränkungen in bezug auf ihre Auffassungen gemacht haben. — Habe ich Ihnen vorhin ein naheliegendes Beispiel gegeben, so soll uns weiter auch ein fernliegendes Beispiel zu einem tieferen Verständnis führen. Wenn man Aufschluß bekommen will über die Schönheit, so beschäftigt man sich mit der Ästhetik, das heißt mit dem, was uns die Formen des Schönen lehren. Was das Schöne ist, das tritt uns in der Außenwelt entgegen. Wie erfahren wir nun, was wahr ist über das Schöne? Da müssen wir uns auch klar sein darüber, daß wir auch loskommen. müssen von dem, was wir durch unsere eigene Individualität und durch unsere Eigenart eingeschränkt haben an dem Schönen. Da ist zum Beispiel ein Ästhetiker des 19. Jahrhunderts - der deutsche Ästhetiker Solger; der wollte das Wesen des Schönen seiner Wahrheit nach erforschen. Das Schöne tritt uns in der äußeren physischen Welt entgegen. Das konnte auch Solger nicht ableugnen. Er war aber ein Mensch, der eine einseitige theosophische Anschauung hatte; und deshalb hat er auch eine einseitige theosophische Ästhetik geliefert. Daher konnte ihn auch an dem schönen Bilde nur dasjenige interessieren, was durchscheint aus dem schönen Bilde von der für ihn einzig bestehenden Geistigkeit. Nur insofern an einem schönen Produkte das Geistige erscheint, ist es für ihn schön. Solger war ein einseitiger Theosoph, der die sinnlichen Erscheinungen erklären wollte aus dem Übersinnlichen, aber dabei vergaß, daß das sinnlich Wirkliche auch eine Daseinsberechtigung hat, weil er nicht loskommen konnte von seinem Vorurteil und sogleich durch eine mißverstandene Theosophie ins Geistige hinaufsteigen wollte.
Ein anderer Ästhetiker, Robert Zimmermann, kam dazu, gerade das Gegenbild zu begründen. Man kann sagen, daß Solger eine mißverstandene theosophische Ästhetik begründen wollte; ebenso kann man mit Recht sagen, Zimmermann begründete eine mißverstandene antitheosophische Anschauungsweise in seiner Ästhetik. Er hatte nur einen Sinn für das, was sich ergab an Symmetrie und Antisymmetrie, an Einklang und Mißklang. Er hatte keinen Sinn dafür, von dem Schönen zurückzugehen auf dasjenige, was in dem Schönen erscheint. So wurde seine Ästhetik ebenfalls einseitig, ähnlich der Ästhetik Solgers. Alles Wahrheitsstreben kann leiden dadurch, daß der Mensch nicht Rücksicht nimmt darauf, daß er zum Wahrheitsstreben von sich loskommen muß. Von sich loskommen kann der Mensch nur nach und nach. Aber das ist das Auszeichnende der Wahrheit, daß sie im strengsten Sinne fordert, daß man von sich ganz absieht und alles vergißt, wenn man durch sie weiterrücken will. Sie hat also eine Eigenschaft, welche sie unterscheidet von allem übrigen, nämlich die, daß man ganz in sich sein kann, in seinem Ich leben kann, in seinem Wahrheitsstreben, und dennoch etwas gewinnt in seinem Ich — wenn man dieses Leben im Ich durchmacht -, was im Grunde genommen mit dem egoistischen Ich nichts zu tun hat.
Wenn der Mensch in seinem Streben in der Welt etwas hat, wo er sich durchsetzen will, dann ist es sein Egoismus. Wenn er etwas tun will, was er für das Richtige hält und das gegen jemand durchsetzen will und dabei in Zorn entflammt, dann ist das ein Ausdruck der Selbstsucht. Dieser Ausdruck der Selbstsucht muß gebändigt werden, wenn er zur Wahrheit aufsteigen will. Wahrheit ist also etwas, was wir im Innersten erleben. Und dennoch, obwohl wir sie in uns selbst erleben, kommen wir dadurch immer mehr und mehr los von unserem Selbste durch sie. Dazu ist allerdings nötig, daß in das Streben nach Wahrheit sich wirklich nichts anderes hineinmischt als die Liebe zur Wahrheit selber. Wenn sich Leidenschaften, Triebe und Begierden, von denen die Empfindungsseele erst geläutert und gereinigt werden muß, bevor die Verstandesseele nach Wahrheit streben kann, hineinmischen, so kann der Mensch nicht los von sich; denn diese machen es, daß sein Ich sich auf einen bestimmten Gesichtspunkt stellt. Daher wird sich die Wahrheit nur dem ergeben, der versucht, bei ihrer Auffindung Leidenschaften, Begierden und Triebe in sich zu überwinden und sie nicht mitsprechen zu lassen. Liebe darf die einzige Leidenschaft sein, die beim Aufsuchen der Wahrheit nicht abgestreift werden muß. Die Wahrheit ist ein hohes Ziel. Das zeigt sich daran, daß sie sich dem Menschen heute in der eben geforderten Form nur ergibt auf einem eingeschränkten äußeren Gebiete.
Nur auf dem Gebiete der Mathematik, des Rechnens und Zählens hat die Menschheit im allgemeinen heute dieses Ziel erreicht, weil dieses das Gebiet ist, wo der Mensch seine Leidenschaften, Triebe und Begierden gezügelt hat und nicht mitsprechen läßt. Warum sind alle Menschen darüber einig, daß drei mal drei gleich neun und nicht gleich zehn ist? Weil sie, wenn sie darüber entscheiden, ihre Leidenschaften, Triebe und Begierden zum Stillstand gebracht haben. Bei dieser einfachen Sache, bei der Mathematik, hat es die Menschheit heute schon dahin gebracht, Leidenschaften, Triebe und Begierden schweigen zu lassen. Wenn sie es nicht dahin gebracht hätte, würde manche Hausfrau recht gerne haben, daß sie neun Groschen für eine Mark geben kann. Da würden die Leidenschaften mitreden. Das ist eben notwendig für jegliches Aufsuchen der Wahrheit, daß wir die Triebe und Begierden schweigen lassen. Die Menschen würden in bezug auf die höchsten Wahrheiten zur Einigkeit kommen, wenn sie in bezug auf diese höchsten Wahrheiten soweit wären, wie sie in bezug auf diese Wahrheit auf dem Gebiete der Mathematik schon sind. Aber diese Wahrheiten sind etwas, was wir in der innersten Seele erfassen, und dadurch, daß wir sie so erfassen, haben wir sie. Wenn hundert oder gar tausend und mehr Menschen uns widersprechen, wir haben sie doch und wissen, daß drei mal drei gleich neun ist, weil wir sie in unserem Innersten erfaßt haben. Würden die hundert und tausend Menschen, welche anderer Meinung sind, sich unabhängig machen von sich selber, so würden sie zu derselben Wahrheit kommen. Was ist also der Weg zum gegenseitigen Verständnis und zur menschlichen Einigkeit? Wir verstehen uns auf dem Gebiete des Rechnens und Zählens, weil wir das Geforderte hier erreicht haben; in demselben Maße, wie wir die Wahrheit finden, herrscht Friede, Eintracht und Harmonie unter den Menschen.
Das ist das Wesentliche, daß wir die Wahrheit als etwas zu erfassen suchen, was sich uns nur in unserem tiefsten Selbste ergibt; und daß die Wahrheit etwas ist, was die Menschen immer wieder zusammenführt, weil sie aus dem Tiefinnersten der Seele jedem Menschen entgegenleuchtet.
So ist die Wahrheit die Führerin der Menschen zur Einigkeit und zum gegenseitigen Verständnis. Damit ist sie auch die Vorbereiterin von Gerechtigkeit und Liebe, eine Vorbereiterin, die wir gerade pflegen sollen; während wir den andern Vorboten, den wir gestern kennengelernt haben, besiegen müssen, wenn er uns über die Selbstsucht hinausführen soll. Das ist die Mission der Wahrheit, daß wir sie immer mehr und mehr lieben und aufnehmen dürfen, und daß wir sie in uns selbst pflegen sollen. Indem wir uns in unserem Selbste der Wahrheit ergeben, wird es selbst immer stärker, und wir werden gerade dadurch loskommen von dem Selbste: Je mehr wir Zorn im Selbste entwickeln, desto schwächer machen wir es, und je mehr wir Wahrheit in dem Selbste entwickeln, um so stärker machen wir das Selbst. Die Wahrheit ist eine strenge Göttin, die deshalb auch fordert, daß sie in den Mittelpunkt einer alleinigen Liebe in unserem Selbst gestellt wird. In dem Moment, wo man nicht loskommt von sich selber und etwas anderes ihr gegenüberstellt, etwas anderes höher stellt als sie, rächt sie sich sofort. Der englische Dichter Coleridge hat einen Ausspruch getan, der bezeichnend sein kann dafür, wie der Mensch sich zur Wahrheit zu stellen hat. Er sagt: Wer das Christentum mehr liebt als die Wahrheit, der wird bald sehen, daß er seine christliche Sekte mehr liebt als das Christentum, und er wird sehen, daß er sich mehr liebt als seine Sekte.
In diesem Ausspruche liegt wirklich ungeheuer viel; darinnen liegt vor allem, daß ein der Wahrheit entgegen gerichtetes Streben gerade zum Egoismus, zu einer den Menschen herabdrückenden Selbstsucht führt. Wahrheit, sie kann die einzige Liebe sein, die das Ich von sich losbringt. Und in dem Augenblick, wo man ihr etwas vorzieht, wird man in gleichem Maße finden, daß man der Selbstsucht verfällt. Das ist es, was man zu erwarten hat, wenn man die Wahrheit geringer achtet als etwas anderes. Das ist der strenge Ernst, aber auch das Große und Bedeutsame an der Mission der Wahrheit für die Erziehung der menschlichen Seele. Die Wahrheit richtet sich nach niemand, und finden kann sie nur derjenige, der sich ihr ergibt. Das können wir daran ersehen, daß in dem Augenblick, wo der Mensch nicht um der Wahrheit willen liebt, sondern um seiner selbst willen, weil er sich an seine Meinungen hängt, daß der Mensch in diesem Augenblicke als ein antisoziales Wesen wirkt, das immer fort und fort herausstrebt aus der menschlichen Gemeinsamkeit. Sehen wir einmal hin auf diejenigen, die nicht danach streben, die Wahrheit um der Wahrheit willen zu lieben, die eine bestimmte Anzahl von Ansichten zu ihrer Wahrheit gemacht haben: sie lieben nichts als den Besitz ihrer Seele. Diese Menschen werden die intolerantesten sein. Diejenigen Menschen, die die Wahrheit ihrer eigenen Anschauungen und Meinungen wegen lieben, das sind jene, welche nicht dulden wollen, daß ein anderer zum Wahrheitsuchen auf ganz anderem Wege geht. Daraus ergeben sich dann die Lebenskonflikte. Sie sind diejenigen, die jedem Steine in den Weg werfen, der andere Anlagen hat als sie und daher zu anderen Meinungen kommt, als sie haben.
Führt ehrliches Wahrheitsstreben zu allgemeinem Menschenverständnis, so führt das Umgekehrte, die Liebe zur Wahrheit um der eigenen Persönlichkeit willen, zur Zerstörung der Freiheit, zur Intoleranz der andern Persönlichkeit gegenüber. Wahrheit ergibt sich in dem, was wir die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele des Menschen nennen.
Wahrheit suchen, Wahrheit durch eigene Arbeit sich erwerben kann nur ein denkendes Wesen. Indem sich der Mensch Wahrheit erwirbt durch sein Denken, muß er sich immer mehr und mehr klar werden, daß dadurch das gesamte Gebiet der Wahrheit in zwei Teile zerfällt. Für die Wahrheit gibt es zwei Formen. Diejenige, die gewonnen wird, indem wir hinschauen auf irgend etwas, was uns in der Außenwelt vorliegt, hinschauen auf die umliegende Natur, Stück für Stück sie erforschen, um ihre Wahrheiten, Gesetze und Weistümer kennenzulernen. Wenn wir also den Blick schweifen lassen über die Welt, über den Umfang des Erlebten, dann kommen wir zu jener Wahrheit, die man nennen kann «die Wahrheit des Nachdenkens». Wir haben gestern gesehen, daß die ganze Natur von Weisheit durchdrungen ist, daß in allen Dingen Weisheit lebt. In der Pflanze lebt dasjenige, was wir nachher als Idee der Pflanze gewinnen. Weisheit lebt in der Pflanze, und wir bemächtigen uns dieser Weisheit. So steht der Mensch der Welt gegenüber, und er kann voraussetzen, daß aus der Weisheit die Welt entsprungen ist, und daß er durch sein Denken dasjenige wiederfindet, was an der Produktion, an der Schöpfung der Welt beteiligt ist. Das ist die Wahrheit, die er durch Nachdenken gewinnt.
Es gibt nun noch andere Wahrheiten. Diese kann der Mensch nicht durch bloßes Nachdenken, sondern sie kann der Mensch nur gewinnen, wenn er hinausgeht über das, was im äußeren Leben gegeben werden kann. Im gewöhnlichen Leben sieht man schon, daß der Mensch, wenn er sich ein Werkzeug oder ein Instrument anfertigt, Gesetze ausdenken muß, die er nicht durch bloßes Nachdenken gewinnen kann. So könnte zum Beispiel der Mensch durch bloßes Nachdenken über die Welt keine Uhr machen; denn die Welt hat nirgends ihre Gesetze so zusammengestellt, daß eine Uhr in der äußeren Natur schon vorhanden wäre. Das ist die zweite Art von Wahrheit, die wir dadurch gewinnen können, daß wir dasjenige vorausdenken, was sich nicht im äußeren Erlebnis und nicht im äußeren Beobachten ergibt. Es gibt also zweierlei Wahrheiten, und das sind zwei streng voneinander geschiedene Gebiete der Wahrheit. Wir haben zu sondern solche Wahrheiten, die durch Nachdenken über die äußere Beobachtung für uns entstehen, und solche, die durch Vordenken entstehen.
Wodurch sind nun die letzteren wahr? Derjenige, der eine Uhr ausdenken würde, der könnte uns lange den Beweis liefern dafür, daß er richtig gedacht hat. Wir werden ihm so lange kein richtiges Vertrauen schenken, solange er nicht zeigen kann, daß die Uhr wirklich dasjenige in der Welt darstellt, was er vorgedacht hat. Dasjenige, was wir vordenken, muß sich realisieren, muß sich in die Wirklichkeit einleben können; es muß dasjenige, was wir vorgedacht haben, uns in der Wirklichkeit draußen entgegentreten können. Solcher Art sind aber auch die geisteswissenschaftlichen oder anthroposophischen Wahrheiten. Sie sind solche, die man nicht an den äußeren Erlebnissen zunächst beobachten kann.
Kein äußeres Erlebnis der Natur kann uns das, was über den ewigen Wesenskern des Menschen schon öfters betont wurde, bestätigen. Wir können unmöglich aus der äußeren Beobachtung heraus die Wahrheit gewinnen, daß das menschliche Ich immer wieder und wieder in neuen Verkörperungen erscheint. Wer zu dieser Wahrheit gelangen will, muß sich über das äußere Erlebnis erheben. Er muß in seiner Seele eine Wahrheit erfassen können, die er nicht im äußeren Erlebnis zunächst hat, aber sie muß sich auch im äußeren Leben realisieren. Man kann eine solche Wahrheit nicht so beweisen wie die erste Art Wahrheit, die wir nachgedachte Wahrheit genannt haben. Man kann sie nur beweisen dadurch, daß man ihre Anwendung im Leben zeigt. Dafür gibt es aber auch keinen anderen Beweis als eine Widerspiegelung im Leben. Wer hineinschaut in das Leben und es betrachtet mit der Erkenntnis, daß die Seele immer wiederkehrt, und betrachtet, was sich abspielt zwischen Geburt und Tod, was da die Seele immer wieder erlebt, und da betrachtet, welche Befriedigung diese Idee gewähren und welche Kraft sie im Leben geben kann, ihre Fruchtbarkeit im Leben verfolgt — und auch noch im anderen Sinne verfolgt, indem er sich zum Beispiel sagt: wie kann ich die Kraft einer Kindesseele entwickeln, wenn ich voraussetze, daß da eine Seele sich herausarbeiitet, die schon immer da war? — dem leuchtet diese Wahrheit und Idee in der äußeren Wirklichkeit entgegen, sie erweist sich ihm fruchtbar. Alle anderen Beweise sind unrichtig. Einzig und allein die Bewahrheitung solcher vorgedachter Wahrheiten im Leben ist als ein Beweis ihrer Richtigkeit zu betrachten. Vorgedachte Wahrheiten, die nicht aus der Beobachtung gewonnen werden können, können auch nicht so bewiesen werden wie nachgedachte Wahrheiten. Sie können sich nur an der Wirklichkeit bewähren und fruchtbar erweisen. Es ist ein gewaltiger Unterschied zwischen dem Beweis der ersten und zweiten Art Wahrheit. Die zweite ist eigentlich eine im Geiste erfaßte, die sich bewähren soll in der äußeren Beobachtung, im Leben.
Wie werden nun diese zwei Gebiete der Wahrheit erzieherisch auf die menschliche Seele wirken? Da ist ein großer Unterschied, ob der Mensch bloß sich hingibt den nachgedachten, oder ob er sich hingibt bloß vorgedachten Wahrheiten. Sehen wir uns einmal das an, was der Mensch als nachgedachte Wahrheit gewinnt. Wir sagen mit Recht: Wenn wir uns in die Weisheit der Natur vertiefen und uns in uns selber ein Spiegel- und Wahrheitsbild der Natur verschafft haben, dann haben wir in uns dasselbe, woraus sie entsprossen ist, woraus sie wirkt; wir haben dasjenige, was in der Natur als Schöpferisches wirkt, in unserem Wahrheitsbegriff der Natur. Aber es ist ein gewaltiger Unterschied. Während die Weisheit in der Natur schöpferisch ist, während die volle Wirklichkeit aus ihr heraus sprießt, ist unsere Wahrheit nur ein Spiegelbild, eine nachgedachte und untätige, etwas, was ohnmächtig geworden ist durch unser Naturdenken. So können wir uns ein weitherziges und weites Bild der Wahrheit der Welt schaffen: das Schöpferische, das Produktive ist aus diesem Wahrheitsbild herausgenommen. Daher wirkt auch dieses Wahrheitsbild in bezug auf die Entwickelung unseres Ich zunächst verödend und ausleerend. Die schöpferische Kraft des Ich wird lahm und erstirbt sozusagen; das Selbst wird nicht stark und kann sich gar nicht mehr der Welt gegenüberstellen, wenn es nur nachgedachte Wahrheiten sucht. Nichts wirkt so sehr auf das Vereinsamen, auf das Veröden, auf das Zurückziehen in sein Ich, auf die Verfeindung mit der Welt, als das bloße Nachdenken über die Welt. Kalter Egoist kann der Mensch werden, wenn er bloß erforschen will, was draußen in der Welt ist. Wofür will er eigentlich diese Wahrheit? Will er für die Götter diese Wahrheit verwenden?
Wenn er nur diese nachgedachte Wahrheit erforschen will, so will er für sich etwas haben, und er ist auf dem Wege, durch die Wahrheit ein kalter Egoist und Menschenfeind zu werden im weiteren Verlauf seines Lebens. Er geht hinaus und wird ein Einsiedler oder sondert sich auf andere Weise ab von der Menschheit; denn er will dasjenige, was in der Welt ist, für seine Wahrheit haben. Alles einseitige Einsiedlertum, alles Menschenfeindliche können Sie finden, wenn Sie diesen Weg verfolgen. Die Seele wird immer mehr und mehr austrocknen in bezug auf Gemeinschaftssinn; sie wird immer ärmer, trotzdem die Wahrheit sie reicher machen sollte. Der Mensch hört auf, wenn er bloß diese Art Wahrheit erforscht, im Gemeinsamkeitssinn Mensch zu sein. Er wird Sonderling oder Einseitigkeitsmensch, gleichgültig, ob er hinausgeht oder sich einschließt; verhärten wird die Seele in beiden Fällen. Daher werden Sie sehen, daß je mehr der Mensch zum bloßen Nachdenken kommt, desto unfruchtbarer wird die Seele in diesem Nachdenken. Versuchen wir uns einmal das vorzustellen, wie durch bloßes Nachdenken die Seele verödet. Betrachten wir einmal die Natur draußen: da haben wir eine Summe von Pflanzen vor uns. Aus der lebendigen Weisheit der Welt sind sie gebildet. In ihnen ist produktive Kraft, und diese Weisheit hat sie aus sich selber hervorsprießen lassen. Nun kommt derjenige, der ein Künstler ist. Er stellt sich mit der Seele dem, was ihm das Bild der Natur gibt, entgegen. Er denkt nicht bloß nach, sondern er läßt jene schöpferische, produktive Kraft in sich wirken. Er bringt hervor ein Kunstwerk; aber darinnen ist nicht bloß vorhanden ein Nachgedanke, sondern produktive Kraft. Jetzt kommt aber einer, der versucht, hinter den Gedanken des Bildes zu kommen. Er denkt über das Bild nach. Da ist die Wirklichkeit weiter filtriert, aber sie ist zu gleicher Zeit verödet. Versuchen Sie, den Prozeß weiterzuführen. Wenn die Seele in dieser Weise einen Gedanken aus der Beobachtung herausgeschält hat, dann ist der Abschluß da, und die Seele ist fertig damit. Man müßte nur noch sich Gedanken über den Gedanken machen. Damit kommt man in das Lächerliche hinein. Der begonnene Prozeß dörrt selber aus.
Anders ist es auf dem Gebiete des Vordenkens. Hier ist der Mensch in anderer Lage, da er selber produktiv ist. Da verwirklicht er im Leben seine Gedanken; da ist er etwas, was nach dem Vorbilde der schaffenden Natur selber wirkt. In einem solchen Falle ist der Mensch, wenn er über die bloße Beobachtung hinausgeht, wenn er nicht bloß nachdenkt, sondern in der Seele etwas aufsteigen läßt, was ihm die bloße Beobachtung nicht geben kann. Alle geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten sind solche, bei denen die Seele produktiv veranlagt sein muß. Hier muß die Seele Vordenker sein. Alles bloße Nachdenken ist bei diesen Wahrheiten vom Übel und führt zur Täuschung in bezug auf die geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten. Dafür haben die vorgedachten Wahrheiten ein anderes. Der Mensch kann nur auf einem beschränkten Gebiete die Wahrheit vordenken. Er kann nur sozusagen ein Stümper sein gegenüber der schöpferischen Weisheit der Welt. Eine unendliche Menge ist vorhanden von dem, worüber wir unsere nachgedachten Wahrheiten haben, und ein sehr beschränktes Gebiet ermöglicht es uns, vorgedachte Wahrheiten zu haben. Es wird also bei der zweiten Art Wahrheit der Kreis enger, aber die produktiven Kräfte erhöhen sich; die Seele wird frisch und weiter und weiter. Sie wird selbst immer göttlicher und göttlicher in sich, wenn sie das in sich nachbildet, was das Wesentliche ist in der schöpferischen, göttlichen Tätigkeit in der Welt. So stehen sich die beiden Wahrheiten, die vor- und nachgedachten, in der Welt gegenüber. Daher wird die nachgedachte Wahrheit, die auf dem bloßen Erforschen des Gegebenen, auf dem Forschen in dem Erlebten beruht, sie wird immer ins Abstrakte führen; immer trockener wird dabei die Seele werden und wird keine Nahrung finden können. Diejenige Wahrheit aber, die nicht an dem äußeren Erlebnis gewonnen wird, sie ist schöpferisch; und aus ihrer Kraft weist sie dem Menschen eine Stelle im Weltall an, wo er Mittätiger ist an dem, was in die Zukunft hinein entsteht.
Das Vergangene kann im wahren Sinne des Wortes nur Nachgedachtes sein. Das Vorgedachte ist etwas, was ein Anfang ist für ein Hineinwachsen in die Zukunft. So wird der Mensch ein Bürger, ein Schaffender für die Zukunft. Er erstreckt die Kraft seines Ich von dem Punkte der Gegenwart in die Zukunft hinein, indem er nicht bloß das Nachgedachte, sondern auch das Vorgedachte in den Wahrheiten zu seinem Eigentume macht. Das ist das Befreiende der vorgedachten Wahrheiten. Derjenige, der sozusagen selber mittätig ist auf dem Gebiete des Wahrheitsstrebens, der wird bald erfahren, wie ihn das bloße Nachdenken verarmt; und er wird es begreiflich finden, wie der bloße Nachdenker immer öder und abstrakter wird und seinen Geist mit öden Begriffs-Gespinsten und blutleeren Abstraktionen erfüllt. Das kann dazu führen, daß der Geist zum Zweifel darüber kommt, ob er an der Weltengestaltung teilhaben kann. Wie herausgestoßen und zum bloßen Genuß der Wahrheit verurteilt kann sich der Mensch fühlen, wenn er bloß ein Nachdenker der Wahrheit ist. Das aber, was vorgedachte Wahrheit ist und uns als solche im Leben entgegentritt, das erfüllt die Seele und macht sie warm, erfüllt sie mit neuer Kraft auf jeder Stufe des Lebens. Beseligend ist es für den Menschen, wenn er solche vorgedachten Wahrheiten zu erfassen vermag, um dann den Erscheinungen des Lebens gegenüberzutreten und sich zu sagen: jetzt verstehe ich nicht bloß, was da ist, sondern was da ist, wird nun erklärlich, weil ich vorher etwas davon gewußt habe.
Nun können wir mit den geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten auch an den Menschen herantreten. Unverständlich bleiben uns die Menschen, wenn wir bloß die nachgedachten Wahrheiten kennen. Haben wir dagegen die geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten, da werden uns die Menschen immer verständlicher, und wir werden auch immer mehr Interesse finden können an der Welt und mit der Welt immer mehr verwachsen. Freude und Genugtuung werden wir empfinden darüber, daß uns die Bestätigung der vorgedachten Wahrheiten in Wirklichkeit entgegentritt. Das ist das Beseligende und Befriedigende an den geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten, daß sie zuerst erfaßt werden müssen, bevor sie sich im Leben realisieren können, und daß der Mensch dadurch immer reicher und reicher wird. Indem wir mit den nachgedachten Wahrheiten arbeiten und in uns eine abstrakte Ideenwelt pflegen, entfernen wir uns von der Welt; wenn wir mit den vorgedachten Wahrheiten an die Welt herantreten, werden wir immer reicher und reicher und befriedigter. Wir erleben dadurch allmählich ein völliges Hineinverweben in die Erscheinungen, mit denen wir eins werden. Wir kommen immer mehr los von unserem Selbste, während wir dagegen zum raffinierten Egoisten werden durch die nachgedachten Wahrheiten. Um das Bestehen und die Bewahrheitung der vorgedachten Wahrheiten zu finden, müssen wir sie erst haben, und dazu ist nötig, daß wir aus uns heraustreten und ins Leben hineintreten, um ihre Anwendung auf jedem Gebiete des Lebens zu suchen. So sind es besonders die vorgedachten Wahrheiten, die uns von uns losbringen und uns in hohem Grade mit dem erfüllen, was der Wahrheitssinn in sich haben muß.
Solche Dinge hat ein jeder gefühlt, der ein wirklicher Wahrheitssucher war. Es ruhte tief in Goethes Seele diese Meinung von der Wahrheit, als er den herrlichen, grandiosen, weithin leuchtenden Ausspruch tat: «Was fruchtbar ist, allein ist wahr!»
Aber auch das war in Goethes Seele gegenwärtig, daß der Mensch verwachsen sein muß mit der Wahrheit, wenn überhaupt ein Verständnis mit anderen Menschen möglich sein soll. Durch nichts werden die Menschen mehr entfremdet und entfernen sich voneinander, als wenn sie fremd werden dem Wahrheitsstreben und dem Wahrheitssinn. Es ist ebenfalls ein Ausspruch Goethes: «Eine falsche Lehre läßt sich nicht widerlegen, denn sie beruht ja auf der Überzeugung, daß das Falsche wahr sei!» Selbstverständlich kann jetzt gleich jemand einwenden, man könne, wenn man logische Gründe vorbringe, das Falsche widerlegen. Das meint Goethe nicht; er ist eben der Überzeugung, daß eine falsche Anschauung nicht durch logische Schlüsse widerlegt werden kann, und meint, die praktische und fruchtbare Anwendung der Wahrheit im Leben müsse dem Menschen in seinem Wahrheitsstreben alleinige Richtschnur sein. Deshalb, weil Goethe so tief in seiner Seele mit der Wahrheit verwachsen war, konnte er das schöne Wahrheitsdrama skizzieren, das er 1807 in seiner «Pandora» anfing niederzuschreiben. «Pandora» ist Fragment und als solches ein Produkt seines reichen Schaffens. Es ist reifste und süßeste Frucht. Wenn man es auf sich wirken läßt, muß man sich sagen: es ist Fragment geblieben, aber es ist in jeder Zeile so großartig und gewaltig, daß man sagen könnte, es ist reinste und größte Kunst. Man versuche einmal, sich hier einzuleben und den Dialog auf sich wirken zu lassen, und beachte einmal, wie anders die Personen sprechen, die eine Passion, einen treibenden Charakter haben, und die andern, welche einen zurückhaltenden Charakter haben.
«Pandora» zeigt uns, wie Goethe in der Lage war, zum Größten einen Anlauf zu nehmen — um aber dann zu erlahmen. Die Aufgabe war zwar zu groß, um sie zu Ende zu führen, aber es genügt uns, um zu ahnen, wie tief Goethe eingedrungen war in die Probleme der Seelen-Erziehung. Vor seiner Seele stand alles, was die Seele überwinden muß, um aufzusteigen; vor seiner Seele stand alles, was wir gestern über den Zorn, was wir über den gefesselten Prometheus kennengelernt haben, und auch das, was wir über die andere Erzieherin der menschlichen Seele, was wir über den Wahrheitssinn heute gesagt haben.
Wie nahe diese beiden Dinge in ihrer Wirkung auf die menschliche Seele verwandt sind, kann man auch aus den Gesichtsausdrücken, die sie beim Menschen verursachen, ersehen. Man versuche einmal, sich vorzustellen einen Menschen, der in Zorn gerät, und einen Menschen, auf den die Wahrheit wirkt, den die Wahrheit als ein inneres Licht durchdringt. Da sieht man, wie der zornige Mensch seine Stirne runzelt. Warum tut er das? Eine solche Stirne runzelt sich, weil im Innern eine überschüssige Kraft wie ein Gift wirkt, welche niederhalten muß einen überschüssigen Egoismus, der vernichten will dasjenige, was neben ihm ist, was neben dem eigenen Selbste besteht. In der geballten Faust des Zornigen hat man zu sehen das in sich verschlossene, nicht in die Außenwelt eingehen wollende, zornige Selbst. Man vergleiche damit den physiognomischen Ausdruck dessen, der die Wahrheit findet. Wenn jemand das Licht der Wahrheit erblickt, runzelt er auch die Stirne, aber es ist dieses Stirnrunzeln etwas, wodurch sich das Selbst erweitert. Hier wollen die Runzeln in hingebungsvoller Liebe die ganze Welt ergreifen, um sie einzusaugen. Auch leuchten können die Augen dessen, der der Welt ihre Geheimnisse ablauschen will. Leuchtend suchen sie zu umfassen und zu umspannen, was außer uns in der Welt vorhanden ist. Los kommt der Mensch von sich selber, und nicht ballen tut sich die Hand dessen, der vom Lichte der Wahrheit erfüllt ist, sondern seine Hand streckt sich; und in der gestreckten Hand ist vorhanden das Aufsaugen des Wesens der Welt. So zeigt sich physiognomisch der ganze Unterschied zwischen der Wahrheit und dem Zorn. Führt einerseits der Zorn zu einem Hineindrängen des Menschen in sein Selbst, so führt das Streben nach der Wahrheit andererseits zu einem Aufschließen und Hineinwachsen des Menschen in die Außenwelt; und um so mehr wächst der Mensch hinein in die Außenwelt, je mehr er sich aufschwingt von den nachgedachten Wahrheiten zu den vorgedachten. Daher stellt Goethe in seiner «Pandora» einander gegenüber diejenigen Gestalten, welche Repräsentanten sein können für das, was in der Seele wirkt. Sie sollen gleichsam symbolisch die einzelnen Eigenschaften und Fähigkeiten der Seele in ein Spiel treten lassen.
Wenn Sie die «Pandora» aufschlagen, sehen Sie gleich am Anfang etwas höchst Merkwürdiges. Gleich in der Angabe der ersten Szenerie kann Ihnen etwas auffallen, was im höchsten Grade bedeutsam ist. Hier sehen wir auf seiten des Prometheus angegeben eine Szene, die erfüllt ist von Werkzeugen, welche der Mensch selber fabriziert. Überall sind Menschenkräfte tätig gewesen; alles aber ist in gewissem Sinne roh und unbequem. Dem gegenüber ist gestellt die Szene des Epimetheus, des andern Titanen. Dessen Schauplatz ist so, daß alles in gewisser Beziehung vollkommen gemacht ist; denn wir sehen weniger dasjenige, was der Mensch als Schöpfer hervorbringt, sondern alles ist Zusammenstellung dessen, was die Natur schon hervorgebracht hat. Alles ist aus dem Nachdenken hervorgegangen. Hier haben wir ein Zusammenstellen und Zusammenformen, ein symmetrisches Anordnen dessen, was in der Natur da ist. Asymmetrisch und roh ist die Szene des Prometheus; wohlgebildet und symmetrisch sind die Erscheinungen und Formen der Natur bei Epimetheus. Den Abschluß dieser Szene des Epimetheus bildet ein Ausblick in eine wunderbare Landschaft. Warum ist das alles so angeordnet? Wir brauchen nur die beiden Gestalten zu nehmen: Prometheus, der Vordenkende, und Epimetheus, der Nachdenkende. Diese zwei in der Seele wirkenden Kräfte stellte Goethe in den beiden Titanenbrüdern einander gegenüber. Einerseits haben wir dasjenige, was vorzugsweise im Menschen unter dem Sterne des Vordenkens steht, im Prometheus; da ist der Mensch eingeschränkt in ungeschlachte Kräfte, aber er ist produktiv. Er kann noch nicht seine Schöpfungen so vollkommen gestalten wie die Natur die ihrigen. Er kann noch nicht in Harmonie formen, aber alles Geschaffene entspringt aus seinen eigenen Kräften und Werkzeugen. Es fehlt ihm aber auch der Sinn dafür, auf eine große Natur-Szenerie hinauszuschauen.
Wir sehen auf der andern Seite bei Epimetheus, dem Nachdenker, in dem, was er zustande gebracht hat, das, was ihm die Vorzeit überliefert hat, symmetrisch angeordnet. Weil er aber Nachdenker ist, sehen wir bei ihm auch im Hintergrunde eine schöne Landschaft ausgebreitet, die dem Menschen eigenartigen Genuß bietet.
Dann tritt uns Epimetheus entgegen, der uns seine eigenartige Natur enthüllt und uns sagt, wie er dazu da ist, um das Vergangene auf sich wirken zu lassen und über das, was bereits geschehen ist und was dem Auge entgegentritt, nachzudenken. Und er zeigt uns in seiner Rede, was das für eine unbefriedigte Gemütsstimmung zuweilen in der Seele hervorruft. Er empfindet kaum einen Unterschied zwischen Tag und Nacht. Wir können kurz sagen: Das auf die höchste Spitze getriebene Nachdenken wird uns in Epimetheus vorgeführt. Dann aber tritt uns Prometheus entgegen mit der Fackel in der Hand, noch aus der Nacht heraustretend. In seiner Gefolgschaft sehen wir Schmiede, die Hand anlegen an das, was der Mensch selber hervorbringt, und er selber sagt uns etwas sehr Merkwürdiges, das wir, wenn wir Goethe richtig verstehen, nicht mißverstehen werden. Die Schmiede rühmen die Tätigkeit, die zu etwas Produktivem führt. Sie rühmen, daß der Mensch da auch mancherlei zerstören muß. Sie rühmen in einseitiger Weise das Feuer. Der Mensch, der allseitig Nachdenker ist, wird nicht das einzelne auf Kosten des anderen loben. Er wird sich einen Überblick über das Ganze machen. Prometheus aber sagt gleich:
Des tät’gen Manns Behagen sei Parteilichkeit.
Er rühmt gerade die Tatsache, daß man, um tätig zu sein, eingeschränkt sein muß. Es wird sich in der Natur das Richtige dadurch bewähren, daß das Unrichtige sich zerstört. Aber vorwärts mit dem, was man kann, das ist es, was Prometheus den Schmieden einschärft. Er ist der Wirkende, der mit der Fackel aus der Nacht herauskommt, um zu zeigen, wie aus der Tiefe seiner Seele seine vordenkliche Wahrheit herauskommt. Für ihn ist es nicht so, daß er wie Epimetheus in traumhafter Weise keinen Unterschied finden kann zwischen Tag und Nacht und alles in der Welt als Traum empfindet. Denn seine Seele hat gearbeitet, und in ihrer eigenen dunklen Nacht hat sie zuerst die Gedanken erfaßt, die jetzt aus ihr heraustreten. Das sind aber keine Träume, sondern dasjenige, wofür die Seele ihr Blut gegeben hat. Dadurch trägt sie sich in die Welt hinein und kommt los von sich selber. Zugleich läuft sie aber auch Gefahr, sich zu verlieren. Prometheus selbst braucht sich zwar noch nicht zu verlieren, wenn aber etwas Einseitiges in der Welt zustandekommt, dann zeigt sich das in seiner Nachfolgerschaft. Der Sohn des Prometheus, Phileros, ist bereits geneigt, dasjenige, was geschaffen wurde, zu lieben und es genießen zu wollen, während der Vater Prometheus noch in der ganzen Schaffenskraft des Lebens darinnen ist. In Phileros ist die Kraft des Vordenkens in einseitiger Weise ausgebildet. Er stürmt hinaus in das Leben, nicht wissend, wo er seiner Genußsucht eine Befriedigung verschaffen kann. Nicht übergehen kann auf diesen Sohn dasjenige, was Prometheus als befruchtende Kraft des Schaffens in sich hat; und unverständlich muß er daher auch für Epimetheus erscheinen, der aus einer reichen Lebenserfahrung heraus ihm Anleitung geben will in seinem dahinstürmenden Leben.
In grandioser Weise wird uns ferner gezeigt, wie das wirkt, was bloßes Nachdenken gewähren kann. Es wird angeknüpft an den Mythos, daß Zeus, als er Prometheus an den Felsen schlagen ließ, dem Menschen anheftete Pandora, die Allbegabte.
Allschönst und allbegabtest regte sie sich hehr
Dem Staunenden entgegen, forschend holden Blicks,
Ob ich, dem strengen Bruder gleich, wegwiese sie.
Doch nur zu mächtig war mir schon das Herz erregt,
Die holde Braut empfing ich mit berauschtem Sinn.
Sodann geheimnisreicher Mitgift naht’ ich mich,
Des irdenen Gefäßes hoher Wohlgestalt.
Verschlossen stand’s - - -
Prometheus hatte seinen Bruder Epimetheus gewarnt, dieses Geschenk der Götter anzunehmen. Der Bruder aber nimmt es doch an. Geöffnet wird dieses Geschenk, weil Epimetheus anders geartet ist als sein Bruder, und alle menschlichen Qualen fallen heraus; nur eines bleibt darinnen — die Hoffnung bleibt darinnen. Was ist Pandora? Was hat man bei dieser Allbegabten zu empfinden? Wahrlich, ein Mysterium der menschlichen Seele verbirgt sich in ihr. Dasjenige, was dem nachdenkenden Menschen in der Welt geblieben ist, ist das tote Produkt, das abstrakte Spiegelbild der von Hephaistos geschmiedeten mechanischen Gedanken. Ein Ohnmächtges ist diese Weisheit gegenüber der allseitig schaffenden Weisheit, die die Welt aus sich hervorsprießen läßt.
Was kann dieses abstrakte Spiegelbild dem Menschen geben? Wir haben gesehen, wie diese Wahrheit unfruchtbar sein kann, wie sie die menschliche Seele verödet, und begreifen es, daß aus der Pandora-Büchse herausfallen alle Qualen der Menschen, alles, was auf die menschliche Seele verödend wirkt. In Pandora haben wir zu sehen die zur Schöpfung ohnmächtige Wahrheit, die nachgedachte Wahrheit. Sie repräsentiert uns das bloße mechanische Gedankenbild; einen Gedankenmechanismus bildende, nachgedachte Wahrheit im LebendigSchöpferischen der Welt. Nur eines bleibt dem bloßen Nachdenker. Während der Vordenker sein Ich verbindet mit der Zukunft und loskommt von sich und in die Zukunft hinein lebt, bleibt dem Nachdenker in bezug auf die Zukunft dieses eine: die Hoffnung, daß die Dinge geschehen werden. Da er nicht selber teilnimmt als Vordenker an dem Wirken in die Zukunft hinein, bleibt ihm bloß die Hoffnung. Goethe faßt den Mythos ganz tief, indem er in seinem Drama «Pandora» aus der Ehe des Epimetheus mit Pandora hervorgehen läßt zwei Kinder. Das eine Kind ist die Hoffnung Elpore, das andere Epimeleia, die Sorgende, diejenige, die bewahrt, was da ist. In der Tat, der Mensch hat in seiner Seele zwei Kinder, zwei Sprößlinge der toten, abstrakten, mechanisch gefaßten Wahrheit. Sie ist unfruchtbar und wirkt nicht in die Zukunft hinein, weil sie nur nachgedachte Wahrheit ist und nur nachdenken kann, was da ist, aber nicht schöpferisch tätig sein kann. Diese Menschen können nur hoffen, daß geschehen wird, was wahr ist. Diese Tatsache stellt Goethe in geradezu grandios realistischer Weise in seiner Elpore dar, indem er zeigt, wie sie dem Menschen, wenn er fragt, ob dieses oder jenes geschehen wird, immer nur die eine Antwort gibt: Ja, ja. Wenn ein prometheischer Mensch vor die Welt träte und von der Zukunft spräche, so würde er sagen: Ich hoffe nichts, aber ich will mit meinen eigenen Kräften auf die Zukunft gestaltend wirken. -— Wenn der Mensch aber bloß Nachdenker ist, richtet er seine Gedanken auf das, was geschehen ist, und andererseits hofft er in die Zukunft hinein; denn auf die Frage: wird das oder jenes geschehen? sagt die Elpore immer: Ja, ja! Das hören wir sie immerfort antworten. Damit ist die eine Tochter des nachdenklichen Seelenwesens in ausgezeichneter Weise charakterisiert. Damit ist sie skizziert in ihrer Unfruchtbarkeit. Die andere Tochter dieser Seelenkraft ist jene, welche acht zu geben hat, Sorge zu tragen hat für das, was schon da ist. Sie ordnet in Symmetrie alles Geschaffene, und kann nichts, was aus eigenen Kräften entspringt, hinzufügen zu dem, was da ist durch die lebendig schaffende Weisheit. Diese totbleibende, nachdenkliche Weisheit bringt Epimeleia hervor, indem das, was da ist, einfach geschützt werden soll vor der Zerstörung. Da aber alles, was sich nicht weiter entwikkelt, immer mehr der Zerstörung entgegengehen muß, so sehen wir, wie die Sorge immer größer und größer wird; und wie durch das bloße nachdenkliche Element nicht das Fruchtbare, sondern das Zerstörende selbst eintritt in die Welt. Das charakterisiert Goethe wunderbar, indem er Phileros in Epimeleia sich verlieben läßt. Wir sehen ihn in Eifersucht entbrannt Epimeleia verfolgen, die bei den Titanenbrüdern Schutz gegen ihn findet.
Zu gleicher Zeit sehen wir als Folge eintreten Streit und Zwietracht. Daher tritt uns Epimeleia entgegen, indem sie ankündigt, daß gerade das, was sie liebt, ihr nach dem Leben trachtet. Jedes weitere Wort bei Goethe zeigt, wie tief er in die Seelengeheimnisse des Vor- und Nachdenkens hineingeschaut hat. Wir sehen, wie Goethe in der wunderbarsten Weise kontrastiert hat das Vordenken an den Schmieden und das, was stehen bleibt in der Natur, an den Hirten. Diese nehmen dasjenige, was die Natur von sich selbst bietet, was schon da ist. Die Schmiede aber formen die Natur um. Deshalb sagt Prometheus von den Hirten: Frieden suchen sie, aber Befriedigung in der Seele werden sie nicht finden:
Entwandelt friedlich! Friede findend geht ihr nicht.
Denn in das Unfruchtbare der Natur führt nur hinein alles dasjenige, was bloß das Vorhandene erhalten will.
So stellt uns Goethe die vor- und nachdenkliche Wahrheit in den Bildern des Prometheus und Epimetheus und allen Persönlichkeiten, die an ihnen hängen, gegenüber. Sie sind die Repräsentanten jener Seelenkräfte, die aus einer allzu starken, einseitigen Neigung zur einen oder zur anderen Art des menschlichen Wahrheitsstrebens hervorgehen können. Und nachdem nur Unheil gebracht worden ist durch das, was einseitig wirkt in der menschlichen Seele, nachdem wir gesehen haben, wie Unheil bewirkt wird, wenn der Mensch bloßer Vordenker ist oder Nachdenker, sehen wir zum Schluß hervortreten dasjenige, was allein Erlösung bringen kann, nämlich das Zusammenwirken der beiden Titanenbrüder. Das Drama wird weitergeführt dadurch, daß im Besitz dieses Epimetheus ein Brand entsteht. Prometheus, der gewillt ist, Gebautes einzureißen, falls es seinem Zwecke nicht mehr genügt, gibt seinem Bruder den Rat, hinzueilen und zu versuchen durch das, was er ist, der Zerstörung Einhalt zu tun. In Epimetheus aber ist jeder Sinn für die Zerstörung erstorben. Er denkt an die Gestalt der Pandora und ist ganz in Nachdenken versunken. Interessant ist auch das Gespräch zwischen Prometheus und Epimetheus über die Pandora selbst. Epimetheus schwärmt von Pandora.
Prometheus:
Die Hochgestalt aus altem Dunkel tritt auch mir;
Hephaisten selbst gelingt sie nicht zum zweitenmal.Epimetheus:
Auch du erwähnest solchen Ursprungs Fabelwahn?
Aus göttlich altem Kraftgeschlechte stammt sie her:
Uranione, Heren gleich und Schwester Zeus’.Prometheus:
Doch schmückt’ Hephaistos wohlbedenkend reich sie aus,
Ein goldnes Hauptnetz flechtend erst mit kluger Hand,
Die feinsten Drähte wirkend, strickend mannigfach.
Wir sehen dabei auch, wie das mechanische, bloß abstrakt Nachgeschaffene sich in jedem Satze des Prometheus wiederfindet. Dann tritt uns entgegen Eos, die Morgenröte. Sie tritt vor der Sonne auf. Sie kündigt dieses Licht an, hat aber dieses Licht bereits in sich. Sie ist nicht bloß das, was aus dem tiefen Dunkel der Nacht heraus schafft, sondern der Übergang zu etwas, was die Nacht überwunden hat. Prometheus erscheint mit der Fackel, weil er aus der Nacht herauskommt. Mit seinem künstlichen Lichte soll angedeutet werden, wie er aus der Nacht heraus schafft. Epimetheus kann zwar bewundern, was das Licht der Sonne gibt, aber er empfindet alles nur wie einen Traum. Er ist die bloß nachdenkliche Seele. Wie wenn es der Aufmerksamkeit der bloß schaffenden Seele des Prometheus entginge, so ist es in dem, was Prometheus am Licht des Tages spricht. Er sagte auch, seine Menschen sind dazu berufen, nicht bloß Sonne und Licht zu sehen, sondern zu beleuchten. Jetzt tritt Eos, die Morgenröte, «Aurora» hervor. Sie fordert den Menschen auf, überall das Richtige zu tun und tätig zu sein. Phileros soll sich verbinden mit den Kräften, die es ihm möglich machen, sich zu retten, nachdem er schon den Tod gesucht hat. Neben die Schmiede, die eingeschränkte Arbeit tun im Vordenken, neben die Hirten, die das nehmen, was schon da ist, treten die Fischer ein, die das Wasserelement besorgen. Und jetzt sehen wir, wie Eos einen Rat gibt:
Jugendröte, Tagesblüte,
Bring’ ich schöner heut als jemals
Aus den unerforschten Tiefen
Des Okeanos herüber.
Hurtiger entschüttelt heute
Mir den Schlaf, die ihr des Meeres
Felsumsteilte Bucht bewohnet,
Ernste Fischer! frisch vom Lager!
Euer Werkzeug nehmt zur Hand.Schnell entwickelt eure Netze,
Die bekannte Flut umzingelnd:
Eines schönen Fangs Gewißheit
Ruf’ ich euch ermunternd zu.
Schwimmet, Schwimmer! taucht, ihr Taucher!
Spähet, Späher, auf dem Felsen!
Ufer wimmle wie die Fluten,
Wimmle schnell von Tätigkeit!
Nun wird uns in wunderbarer Weise der Sohn des Prometheus entgegengeführt, wie er sich auf Wellen und Wogen rettet und die Kraft in sich mit der Kraft der Wogen verbindet. So verbindet sich in der Rettung Phileros’ das, was schaffende Kraft in ihm ist, mit dem, was als schaffende Kraft in der Natur ersprießt. Das tätige, das schaffende Element seiner Natur tritt in wirkungsvolle Verbindung mit dem schaffenden, sprießenden Element der Natur. In dieser Weise versöhnt sich das Element des Prometheus mit dem Element des Epimetheus.
So stellt Goethe als eine aussichtsvolle Lösung hin, wie das, was nachdenkend aus der Natur gewonnen wird, seine produktive Anspannung bekommt durch das vordenkende Element. Das letztere bekommt seine richtige Kraft durch eine wahrheitsgetreue Aufnahme dessen, was «die Götter droben gewähren.»
... Merke:
Was zu wünschen ist, ihr unten fühlt es;
Was zu geben sei, die wissen’s droben.
Groß beginnet ihr Titanen; aber leiten
Zu dem ewig Guten, ewig Schönen,
Ist der Götter Werk; die laßt gewähren!
Vereinigen müssen sich Prometheus und Epimetheus in der menschlichen Seele, dann kommt dasjenige heraus, was zum Heile für beide, zum Heile für die Menschheit sein muß. Es sollte eben in dem ganzen Drama gezeigt werden, wie durch ein allseitiges Ergreifen der Wahrheit nicht der einzelne, sondern das ganze Menschengeschlecht befriedigt wird. Goethe wollte eben gerade das, was das wahre Wesen der Wahrheit ist, den Menschen hinstellen, um zu zeigen, wie die Wahrheit nicht für das einzelne Selbst ist, sondern wie sie das ganze Menschengeschlecht vereinigen und befriedigen soll, und wie Liebe und Friede durch die Wahrheit unter die Menschen kommt. Dann verwandelt sich auch die Hoffnung in unserer Seele, die zunächst nur zu allem ja sagen, aber nicht verwirklichen kann. Schließen sollte daher das Gedicht damit, daß uns die verwandelte Elpore, Elpore thraseia, entgegentritt, die sagt, sie sei nicht mehr die Wahrsagerin, sondern sei eingezogen in die menschliche Seele, damit der Mensch nicht nur Hoffnung hat für die Zukunft, sondern Kraft hat, mitzuarbeiten und zu verwirklichen, was er selber in sich durch seine produktive Kraft zu schaffen vermag! Glauben an das, was die Wahrheit aus der Seele macht: das ist erst die volle, die ganze Wahrheit, die den Prometheus und den Epimetheus versöhnt.
Natürlich konnte in diesen skizzenhaften Andeutungen nur wenig angegeben werden von dem, was überhaupt aus dem Gedicht herausgeholt werden kann. Jene tiefe Weisheit, die das Fragment aus Goethes Seele losgelöst hat, wird erst derjenige finden, der auf geisteswissenschaftliche Denkweise gestützt an das Gedicht herangeht. Ihm kann zuströmen eine sättigende, erlösende Kraft, die belebend auf ihn wirken kann.
Nicht unerwähnt möge aber das Folgende bleiben, das uns ebenfalls viel lehren kann. Goethe läßt in seiner «Pandora» einen merkwürdig schönen Ausdruck fallen; er sagt, es müssen zusammenwirken die göttliche Weisheit der Welt, die herunterströmt, und das, was wir vermöge unserer prometheischen Kraft, vermöge unseres Vordenkens selbst gewinnen können. Dasjenige, was uns selbst sagt, was Weisheit ist und uns in der Welt entgegenströmt, nennt er das Wort. Dasjenige aber, was in der Seele lebt und mit dem Worte, mit dem Nachdenken des Epimerheus sich verbinden muß, das ist die Tat des Prometheus. So sehen wir, daß aus der Verbindung des Logos oder Wortes mit der Tat dasjenige Ideal ersprießt, das Goethe in seiner «Pandora» als Resultat seiner reichen Lebenserfahrungen vor uns hinstellen wollte. Prometheus tut gegen Ende des Gedichtes den merkwürdigen Ausspruch: «Des echten Mannes wahre Feier ist die Tat!» Das ist diejenige Wahrheit, die sich verschließt dem nachdenklichen Element der Seele.
Wenn wir die ganze Dichtung auf uns wirken lassen, können wir eine Anschauung gewinnen von der großen heroischen Entwickelungssehnsucht derjenigen Menschen, wie Goethe einer war, und von jener großen Bescheidenheit, die nicht glaubt, auf einer Stufe stehen bleiben zu müssen, die nicht glaubt, wenn sie etwas erreicht hat, nicht darüber hinausgehen zu müssen. Goethe war ein Lehrling des Lebens sein ganzes Leben lang und hat sich daher immer eingestanden, daß, wenn man um eine Erfahrung reicher geworden ist, man überwinden muß, was man vorher für richtig gehalten hat. Goethe fand auch als junger Mann, wo er gelegentlich seiner ersten Faustbearbeitungen einige Übersetzungen in der Bibel ausführte, daß die Worte: «Im Anfang war das Wort!» anders lauten müßten. Er würde übersetzen: «Im Anfang war die Tat!» Das war damals der junge Goethe, der damals auch ein Fragment über den Prometheus schrieb. Da sehen wir den bloß tätigen, den bloß prometheischen Menschen, den jungen Goethe, der glaubte, daß bloße Kraftentwickelung, ohne befruchtet zu sein von der Weltweisheit, vorwärts kommen könnte. Der reife Goethe mit allen seinen Lebenserfahrungen hat eingesehen, daß es unrichtig wäre, das Wort gering zu schätzen, und daß das Wort sich verbinden muß mit der Tat. In Wahrheit hat Goethe auch seinen «Faust» umgeschrieben in der Zeit, als er seine «Pandora» geschrieben hat. So müssen wir Goethe im Reifegang seines Werdens verstehen; das können wir aber nur, wenn wir begreifen, was Wahrheit in allen ihren Formen ist.
Es wird für den Menschen immer gut sein, wenn er sich hinaufringt zu der Anschauung, wie die Wahrheit erst allmählich erfaßt werden kann. Daher ist es auch recht gut, wenn der Mensch allseitiger, ehrlicher und echter Wahrheitssucher ist, daß er sich eingesteht, nachdem er diese oder jene Wahrheit gefunden hat und nun berufen ist, in kräftiger, überwältigender Art seine gefundene Wahrheit ins Leben einzuführen: es sind keine Gründe dafür vorhanden, auf diese einmal gefundene Wahrheit zu pochen. Kein Grund ist vorhanden, jemals bei einer erkannten Sache stehen zu bleiben, sondern dasjenige, wozu uns solche Erkenntnis, wie wir sie durch die heutige und gestrige Betrachtung gefunden haben, führt, ist, daß der Mensch, trotzdem er feststehen muß auf dem Boden der errungenen Wahrheit und eintreten muß für die Wahrheit, zeitweise sich zurückziehen muß in sein Selbst, wie Goethe das getan hat. Wenn der Mensch in dieser Weise sich in sein Selbst zurückzieht, wird er durch alle die Kräfte, die ihm aus dem Bewußtsein der errungenen Wahrheit erwachsen, doch wiederum das haben, was ihm das richtige Maß gibt und ihn zurückführt auf den Standpunkt, den er eigentlich einnehmen soll. Von dem gesteigerten Bewußtsein der Wahrheit sollen wir immer wieder in uns einkehren und uns mit Goethe sagen: Vieles von dem, was wir einst als Wahrheit erforscht haben, ist so, daß es heute nur Traum und traumhafte Erinnerung ist, und das, was wir heute schon denken, ist etwas, was keineswegs bestehen kann, wenn wir es tiefer prüfen. So sagte sich Goethe immer wieder die Worte, die er ausgesprochen hat in bezug auf sein eigenes ehrliches Wahrheitssuchen, und so sollte sich jeder Mensch in seinen einsamen Stunden sagen:
Ganz und gar
Bin ich ein armer Wicht.
Meine Träume sind nicht wahr,
Und meine Gedanken geraten nicht.
Wenn wir das fühlen können, werden wir zurechtkommen gegenüber unserem hohen Ideale, gegenüber der Wahrheit.
The Mission of Truth
Goethe's “Pandora” in the light of spiritual science
We concluded our lecture on the mission of wrath — the chained Prometheus — with Heraclitus' saying: It is difficult to find the limits of the soul, even if one were to walk all the roads, for the soul is infinitely deep! We have come to know this depth within the effect and interplay of the soul forces. The truth of this saying strikes us particularly when we build on what was our starting point yesterday, when we consider the deepest inner being of the human being. In the I, he is, so to speak, most spiritual, and that is where we started from. The I is the part of his being that is added to those parts he has in common with the three lower realms of the mineral, plant, and animal worlds.
He shares his physical body with minerals, plants, and animals, his etheric body only with plants and animals, and his astral body only with animals. It is through the I that man can actually be human, that he can develop from stage to stage. This I works on its other members, purifies and cleanses the instincts, inclinations, desires, and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies to ever higher and higher levels. But when we consider this I, we see that this human I, this lofty and dignified member of the human being, is caught between two extremes. Through the I, the human being should increasingly become a being that has its center within itself. Thoughts, feelings, and impulses of will must spring from the I. The more the human being has a firm and meaningful center within themselves, the more their being radiates, the more they are able to give to the world, and the more meaningful and powerful their actions and everything that emanates from them become. If a person is unable to find this center within themselves, they are in danger of losing themselves in a misunderstood activity of their ego. They would dissolve into the world and go through life without making an impact. On the other hand, they can fall into another extreme. Just as people can lose themselves if they do not do everything to make their ego more meaningful and powerful, so too, if they strive only to elevate the ego, to feed it more and more, they can fall into the other destructive extreme, which leads to selfishness that distances them from all human community. On the other side, therefore, stands selfishness, the egoism that hardens and closes in on itself, which can lead the ego astray from its path of development. The ego is enclosed between these two things. When we now consider the human soul, we see that human beings initially have within themselves what we have already called the soul of feeling, the soul of understanding, and the soul of consciousness. We have now become acquainted with a soul quality which — perhaps surprisingly for some — is a kind of educator of the feeling soul: anger. Anyone who views the lecture on the mission of anger one-sidedly will have many objections to it. However, if one delves more and more into the actual background of the matter, important mysteries of life will be solved.
In what way is anger a kind of educator of the soul — especially the sentient soul — and the precursor of love? One may ask: Does anger not lead to people losing themselves or being carried away to wild, immoral, and unloving actions? If one considers only the wild and unjustified outbursts of anger, one has a false view of what has been said about the mission of anger. It is not by leading to unjustified outbursts that it becomes the educator of the soul, but by what it does within the soul. To visualize the work of anger on the soul, let us suppose that two people are standing before a child who is being educated and who commits some wrongdoing. One educator will become agitated and allow himself to be carried away by acts of punishment; the second educator is a soul who cannot become agitated in anger, but who, in the sense we meant yesterday, is not yet able to do what is right with complete serenity from the ego. What will be the difference in the actions of these two educators? An outburst of anger will not only result in punishment being inflicted on the child, but anger is something that stirs the soul, something that works in the soul of the human being and works precisely in such a way that it kills selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on the selfishness of the soul. And if we wait, we will see that it gradually transforms the powers of the soul and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, those who are not mature enough for serenity and yet carry out punishment out of cold calculation will, because anger does not act as a poison within them, become more and more coldly selfish. Anger acts internally, and as such it can be described as a characteristic of the soul. Wherever anger occurs, it can be seen as a regulator for the unjustified outbursts of human selfishness. Anger must exist, otherwise it would not need to be fought. In overcoming anger, the soul becomes better and better. When a person wants to assert something they believe to be right and becomes angry, this anger diminishes the forces of selfishness. It dampens them and reduces their effectiveness. In anger, we have a soul quality which, precisely because it is overcome and the person frees themselves from it and rises above it more and more, draws out selflessness in the person and, through this drawing out of selflessness, makes the ego stronger and stronger. This interplay of the ego with anger takes place in the human sentient soul.
Another interplay between the soul and other soul experiences takes place in what we call the intellectual or emotional soul. Just as the human soul has qualities that it must overcome in order to rise ever higher, so too must it develop forces within itself that it may, so to speak, nurture and love, even though they arise within it. It must have forces to which it may surrender itself, so that when it asserts itself, it does not weaken but strengthens itself. [...] It is precisely by immersing itself so lovingly in its soul that it will increase in strength; it is precisely by doing so that it will rise to higher levels of the self; and the excellent thing, that which the soul may love within itself, that through which it educates itself not to selfishness but to selflessness when it loves it — that is truth. Truth educates the intellectual or emotional soul. Just as anger is a quality of the soul that must be overcome if man wants to rise higher, so truth, although it is supposed to be a quality of the soul, is something that man should love from the outset. An inner cultivation of truth is absolutely necessary in order to allow the soul to rise higher and higher.What quality of truth is it that leads man further and further and brings him higher and higher from stage to stage when he makes use of truth? Truth has as its opposite, as its counterpart, falsehood and error. Let us see how man advances by overcoming error and falsehood, by making truth his great ideal and striving for it.
He should strive for a higher truth, just as he must make anger something that is his enemy, which he must eliminate more and more. Truth should become something he loves and connects with the innermost part of his soul in order to reach ever higher and higher levels. Nevertheless, distinguished poets and thinkers have rightly said that the full possession of truth is not attainable for human beings. Lessing, for example, says that pure truth is not for human beings, but only the eternal striving for truth. Lessing points out that truth is a distant goddess whom human beings can only approach, but who can never really be attained. In the advancement of the nature of truth, in the fact that the soul awakens a higher striving for truth within itself, lies what causes the soul to ascend further and further. Since there is an eternal striving for truth and the word “truth” means and is something so manifold, it is reasonable to say only that man should grasp the truth, that he should develop a true sense of truth. One will therefore not speak of a single comprehensive truth.
In this lecture, the idea of truth will now be considered in the right sense; and it will become clear to us that through the development of the sense of truth, human beings are filled with a driving force that leads them to selflessness.
Human beings strive for truth. Wherever people have tried to form an opinion about things based on what already exists, we can see in the most diverse areas of life that they often express themselves in opposite ways. When one sees what one person considers to be the truth and what another considers to be the truth, one might believe that the pursuit of truth leads people to the most contradictory views and opinions. However, if one observes impartially, one will be able to find the guiding principles that show us how it actually comes about that people arrive at such different opinions, even though they are seeking the truth.
Let us illustrate this with an example. The well-known American multimillionaire Harriman died recently. He was one of the few millionaires who concerned himself with universal human ideas. In aphorisms found after his death, there is a remarkable statement by this seeker of truth. He says: No man is irreplaceable in this world, and when he disappears from this world, he can be replaced by another in his place. When I lay down my work, another man will come and take up my work. The railroads will run just as they did before, the dividends will be distributed in the same way, and so it is with every man, basically. — Thus, this man has ascended to a universally valid truth: No human being is irreplaceable!
Let us juxtapose this statement with that of another man who worked here in Berlin for a long time in an extraordinary way through his various lectures on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Goethe, a statement by the art historian Herman Grimm. When Treitschke died, Herman Grimm made a statement in one of his essays that went something like this: Now Treitschke is also gone, and it is only now that we realize what he has achieved. No one can take his place and continue his work in the way that this man did. One has the feeling that everything is different in the circle in which Treitschke taught. — It is interesting to note that Herman Grimm does not follow up with the words: “and so it is with all people.”
Here we have two people, the American multimillionaire and Herman Grimm, who come to exactly opposite conclusions from their observations. Why is that? If we compare the two perspectives carefully, we find a clue. Consider that Harriman assumes that when he puts his work down, someone else will continue it; that he cannot detach himself from himself. The other person does not bring himself into play at all; he does not speak of himself, does not ask what opinions and truths might be gained from him. He is absorbed in his observation of the other. Anyone who has a feeling for this will undoubtedly find out which of the two said the right thing. One need only ask the question: Who continued Goethe's work when he laid it down? Anyone who has a feeling for this will know that Harriman's observation suffers from the fact that he has not detached himself from himself. From this alone, you can conclude that it is downright harmful to the truth if you seek it and cannot detach yourself from yourself. It is precisely when you can detach yourself from yourself that you serve the truth.
Can truth be what gives us a view of things? — A view is a kind of mental reflection of the outside world. Does that mean that because we think something, because we determine this or that in our observations, it must be a correct picture?
Take a camera to photograph a remarkable tree. You stand in a corner and take a picture of the tree with the camera. If we show this one picture in a foreign place, does it give a true picture of the tree? It gives a picture of one side; it does not give the truth about the tree. No one will be able to imagine the tree based on the picture if they only look at that one picture. How could one learn more about the truth of the tree if one has not seen it? If one were to photograph it from four sides, one would have walked around the tree, and by comparing the pictures, one would finally get something that gives a true picture of the tree. The image of the tree gained in this way is independent of one's own location. Let us apply this comparison to human beings. What is achieved here by external processes is done by the person who detaches himself from himself when observing things. They do this by switching off their own personality when observing things. When people become aware that when they form an opinion, when they look at this or that in a certain way, they must first and foremost know that all opinions formed are dependent on our own point of view, our own characteristics, and our own individuality; if we become aware of this and try to deduct all of this from what we want to call truth — then we carry out what the photographer did in our comparison. The first requirement for a true sense of truth is to detach ourselves from ourselves; to see what depends on our point of view.
If the American multimillionaire had detached himself from himself, he would have known that there is a difference between him and other people. We have seen in an example that shows us everyday circumstances how, when people cannot detach themselves from themselves, when they do not become aware of what they bring to things through their point of view or starting point, how a limited opinion, but not truth, can necessarily arise. This can also be seen on a larger scale. Anyone who looks a little into the real spiritual development of human beings and compares everything that appears as truth will find, upon deeper consideration, that when people express a truth, they should first detach themselves from their own individuality. One will understand that the most diverse views on truth emerge because people have not become aware of the limitations they themselves have imposed on their views through their standpoint. — I gave you an obvious example earlier, and now a more distant example will lead us to a deeper understanding. If we want to gain insight into beauty, we study aesthetics, that is, what the forms of beauty teach us. What beauty is, we encounter in the outside world. How do we now learn what is true about beauty? We must also be clear that we must detach ourselves from what we have limited in beauty through our own individuality and our own peculiarities. There is, for example, a 19th-century aesthetician, the German aesthetician Solger, who wanted to explore the essence of beauty in its truth. Beauty confronts us in the external physical world. Even Solger could not deny that. But he was a man who had a one-sided theosophical view, and therefore he also delivered a one-sided theosophical aesthetic. That is why he could only be interested in the beautiful image insofar as it revealed the beautiful image of the spirituality that existed for him alone. Only insofar as the spiritual appears in a beautiful product is it beautiful for him. Solger was a one-sided theosophist who wanted to explain sensory phenomena from the supersensible, but in doing so forgot that the sensory reality also has a right to exist, because he could not break free from his prejudice and immediately wanted to ascend to the spiritual through a misunderstood theosophy.
Another aesthetician, Robert Zimmermann, came to establish precisely the opposite view. It can be said that Solger wanted to establish a misunderstood theosophical aesthetic; likewise, it can rightly be said that Zimmermann established a misunderstood anti-theosophical view in his aesthetics. He had only a sense for what resulted in symmetry and antisymmetry, harmony and disharmony. He had no sense of going back from beauty to what appears in beauty. Thus his aesthetics also became one-sided, similar to Solger's aesthetics. All striving for truth can suffer from the fact that people do not take into account that they must detach themselves from themselves in order to strive for truth. People can only detach themselves from themselves gradually. But that is the distinguishing feature of truth, that in the strictest sense it demands that one completely disregard oneself and forget everything if one wants to advance through it. It therefore has a quality that distinguishes it from everything else, namely that one can be completely within oneself, live in one's ego, in one's pursuit of truth, and yet gain something in one's ego — if one goes through this life in the ego — that basically has nothing to do with the egoistic ego.
If human beings have something in their striving in the world where they want to assert themselves, then it is their egoism. If they want to do something they consider right and want to assert it against someone else, thereby becoming inflamed with anger, then that is an expression of selfishness. This expression of selfishness must be restrained if it is to rise to the truth. Truth is therefore something we experience in our innermost being. And yet, even though we experience it within ourselves, it increasingly frees us from our ego. However, this requires that nothing else interferes with the pursuit of truth other than the love of truth itself. If passions, instincts, and desires, from which the sentient soul must first be purified and cleansed before the intellectual soul can strive for truth, interfere, then the person cannot detach themselves from themselves; for these cause their ego to take a certain point of view. Therefore, truth will only reveal itself to those who try to overcome their passions, desires, and instincts in their search for it and do not allow them to have a say. Love must be the only passion that does not have to be cast aside in the search for truth. Truth is a lofty goal. This is evident from the fact that it only reveals itself to people today in the form just described in a limited external sphere.
Only in the field of mathematics, arithmetic, and counting has humanity in general achieved this goal today, because this is the field where humans have restrained their passions, instincts, and desires and do not allow them to have a say. Why do all humans agree that three times three equals nine and not ten? Because when they decide on this, they have brought their passions, instincts, and desires to a standstill. In this simple matter, in mathematics, humanity has already managed to silence passions, instincts, and desires. If it had not managed to do so, many a housewife would be quite happy to pay nine pennies for a mark. Then the passions would have a say. It is necessary for any search for truth that we silence our instincts and desires. People would come to agreement on the highest truths if they were as far along in relation to these highest truths as they already are in relation to this truth in the field of mathematics. But these truths are something we grasp in our innermost soul, and by grasping them in this way, we have them. Even if a hundred or even a thousand or more people contradict us, we still have them and know that three times three equals nine, because we have grasped them in our innermost being. If the hundred and thousand people who disagree were to become independent of themselves, they would arrive at the same truth. So what is the path to mutual understanding and human unity? We understand each other in the field of arithmetic and counting because we have achieved what is required here; to the same extent that we find truth, peace, harmony, and concord reign among people.
The essential thing is that we seek to grasp truth as something that reveals itself to us only in our deepest self; and that truth is something that brings people together again and again, because it shines out from the depths of the soul toward every human being.
Thus, truth is the guide of people to unity and mutual understanding. It is also the precursor of justice and love, a precursor that we should cultivate, while we must defeat the other harbinger, which we learned about yesterday, if it is to lead us beyond selfishness. That is the mission of truth, that we may love and accept it more and more, and that we should cultivate it within ourselves. By surrendering ourselves to truth, it becomes stronger and stronger, and we will thereby free ourselves from the self: the more we develop anger in the self, the weaker we make it, and the more we develop truth in the self, the stronger we make the self. Truth is a strict goddess who therefore demands that she be placed at the center of a sole love within our self. The moment we cannot detach ourselves from ourselves and place something else above her, something else higher than her, she takes revenge immediately. The English poet Coleridge made a statement that may be indicative of how human beings should relate to truth. He said: Those who love Christianity more than truth will soon see that they love their Christian sect more than Christianity, and they will see that they love themselves more than their sect.
There is really a great deal in this saying; above all, it says that striving against the truth leads precisely to egoism, to a selfishness that oppresses people. Truth can be the only love that detaches the ego from itself. And the moment one prefers something else to it, one will find to the same extent that one has fallen into selfishness. That is what one must expect if one values truth less than something else. That is the stern seriousness, but also the greatness and significance of the mission of truth for the education of the human soul. Truth does not conform to anyone, and only those who surrender to it can find it. We can see this in the fact that the moment a person loves not for the sake of truth, but for their own sake, because they are attached to their opinions, that person acts as an antisocial being who continually strives to escape from human community. Let us look at those who do not strive to love truth for truth's sake, who have made a certain number of views their truth: they love nothing but the possession of their soul. These people will be the most intolerant. Those people who love the truth for the sake of their own views and opinions are those who will not tolerate others seeking the truth in completely different ways. This then leads to conflicts in life. They are the ones who throw stones in the path of anyone who has different aptitudes from them and therefore comes to different opinions than they do.
If an honest search for truth leads to general human understanding, then the opposite, the love of truth for the sake of one's own personality, leads to the destruction of freedom and intolerance towards other personalities. Truth arises in what we call the intellectual or emotional soul of man.
Only a thinking being can seek truth and acquire truth through its own work. As human beings acquire truth through their thinking, they must become increasingly aware that this divides the entire realm of truth into two parts. There are two forms of truth. The one that is gained by looking at something that is present in the outside world, looking at the surrounding nature, exploring it piece by piece in order to learn about its truths, laws, and wisdom. So when we let our gaze wander over the world, over the scope of our experiences, we come to that truth which can be called “the truth of reflection.” Yesterday we saw that the whole of nature is permeated with wisdom, that wisdom lives in all things. What we later gain as the idea of the plant lives in the plant. Wisdom lives in the plant, and we take possession of this wisdom. This is how human beings stand in relation to the world, and they can assume that the world has sprung from wisdom and that through their thinking they rediscover that which is involved in the production, in the creation of the world. This is the truth they gain through reflection.
There are other truths. Humans cannot gain these through mere reflection, but only by going beyond what is given in external life. In everyday life, we can already see that when humans make a tool or an instrument, they have to devise laws that cannot be gained through mere reflection. For example, humans could not make a clock by merely thinking about the world, because nowhere in the world are the laws arranged in such a way that a clock already exists in external nature. This is the second kind of truth that we can gain by thinking ahead about what does not result from external experience and external observation. There are therefore two kinds of truth, and these are two strictly separate areas of truth. We must distinguish between truths that arise for us through reflection on external observation and those that arise through foresight.
How are the latter true? Someone who invents a clock could provide us with lengthy proof that he has thought correctly. We will not really trust him until he can show that the clock truly represents what he has thought in advance. What we think beforehand must be realized, must be able to take root in reality; what we have thought beforehand must be able to confront us in reality outside. But the truths of spiritual science or anthroposophy are also of this kind. They are truths that cannot initially be observed in external experiences.
No external experience of nature can confirm what has often been emphasized about the eternal core of human beings. It is impossible for us to gain the truth from external observation that the human ego appears again and again in new incarnations. Anyone who wants to arrive at this truth must rise above external experience. They must be able to grasp a truth in their soul that they do not initially have in external experience, but it must also be realized in external life. Such a truth cannot be proven in the same way as the first kind of truth, which we have called reflected truth. It can only be proven by showing its application in life. However, there is no other proof of this than a reflection in life. If you look into life and consider it with the knowledge that the soul always returns, and consider what happens between birth and death, what the soul experiences again and again, and consider what satisfaction this idea provides and what power it can give in life, you will see its fruitfulness in life — and you will also see it in another sense, for example, by asking yourself: How can I develop the power of a child's soul if I assume that there is a soul working its way out that has always been there? — this truth and idea shines forth in external reality, proving itself fruitful. All other proofs are incorrect. Only the verification of such preconceived truths in life can be regarded as proof of their correctness. Preconceived truths that cannot be gained from observation cannot be proven in the same way as truths that have been thought through. They can only prove themselves in reality and prove to be fruitful. There is a huge difference between the proof of the first and second types of truth. The second is actually one that is grasped in the mind and must prove itself in external observation, in life.How will these two areas of truth affect the human soul in terms of education? There is a big difference between whether a person devotes themselves to reflected truths or to preconceived truths. Let us take a look at what a person gains as a reflected truth. We say with good reason: when we immerse ourselves in the wisdom of nature and have created within ourselves a mirror image and truth image of nature, then we have within us the same thing from which it springs, from which it works; we have that which works creatively in nature in our concept of the truth of nature. But there is a huge difference. While wisdom in nature is creative, while full reality springs from it, our truth is only a mirror image, a reflected and inactive one, something that has become powerless through our thinking about nature. In this way we can create a broad and expansive image of the truth of the world: the creative, the productive is removed from this image of truth. Therefore, this picture of truth also has a desolating and emptying effect on the development of our ego. The creative power of the ego becomes lame and dies, so to speak; the self does not become strong and can no longer confront the world if it only seeks reflected truths. Nothing has such an effect on isolation, desolation, withdrawal into the ego, and enmity with the world as mere reflection on the world. People can become cold egoists if they only want to explore what is out there in the world. What do they actually want this truth for? Do they want to use this truth for the gods?
If they only want to explore this thought-out truth, they want something for themselves, and they are on the way to becoming a cold egoist and misanthrope in the further course of their life through the truth. They go out and become a hermit or separate themselves from humanity in some other way; for they want what is in the world to be their truth. You will find all kinds of one-sided hermitage and misanthropy if you follow this path. The soul will dry up more and more in terms of community spirit; it will become poorer and poorer, even though the truth should make it richer. When a person explores only this kind of truth, they cease to be human in the sense of community. They become an eccentric or a one-sided person, regardless of whether they go out or shut themselves in; in both cases, the soul will harden. Therefore, you will see that the more a person comes to mere reflection, the more barren the soul becomes in this reflection. Let us try to imagine how the soul becomes barren through mere reflection. Let us consider nature outside: there we have a sum of plants before us. They are formed from the living wisdom of the world. There is productive power in them, and this wisdom has caused them to spring forth from itself. Now comes the artist. He confronts with his soul what the image of nature gives him. He does not merely think, but allows that creative, productive power to work within him. He produces a work of art; but in it there is not merely an afterthought, but productive power. Now, however, comes someone who tries to get behind the thoughts of the image. He thinks about the image. Reality is further filtered, but at the same time it is desolated. Try to continue the process. When the soul has extracted a thought from observation in this way, then the conclusion is there, and the soul is done with it. All that remains is to think about the thought. This leads to the ridiculous. The process that has begun dries up on its own.
It is different in the realm of forward thinking. Here, the human being is in a different position, because he is productive himself. Here, he realizes his thoughts in life; here, he is something that works according to the model of creative nature itself. In such a case, human beings go beyond mere observation; they do not merely think, but allow something to arise in their souls that mere observation cannot give them. All spiritual-scientific truths are such that the soul must be productively disposed. Here, the soul must be the forethinker. Mere reflection is harmful when it comes to these truths and leads to deception with regard to spiritual-scientific truths. Preconceived truths have something else in their favor. Human beings can only think ahead about truth in a limited area. They can only be amateurs, so to speak, compared to the creative wisdom of the world. There is an infinite amount of what we have our thought-out truths about, and a very limited area allows us to have preconceived truths. So, with the second kind of truth, the circle becomes narrower, but the productive forces increase; the soul becomes fresher and wider and wider. It becomes more and more divine within itself when it reproduces within itself what is essential in the creative, divine activity in the world. Thus, the two truths, the preconceived and the post-conceived, stand opposite each other in the world. Therefore, the thought-out truth, which is based on the mere exploration of the given, on research into the experienced, will always lead to the abstract; the soul will become increasingly dry and will not be able to find nourishment. But the truth that is not gained from external experience is creative; and from its power it shows man a place in the universe where he is a co-creator in what is coming into being in the future.
The past can only be, in the true sense of the word, something that has been thought through. What has been thought beforehand is something that is a beginning for growing into the future. In this way, man becomes a citizen, a creator for the future. He extends the power of his ego from the point of the present into the future by making not only what has been reflected upon, but also what has been thought beforehand, his own in the truths. This is the liberating aspect of truths that have been thought beforehand. Those who are themselves active, so to speak, in the pursuit of truth will soon experience how mere reflection impoverishes them; and they will understand how the mere reflector becomes increasingly barren and abstract, filling his mind with barren conceptual constructs and bloodless abstractions. This can lead to the mind doubting whether it can participate in the shaping of the world. How rejected and condemned to the mere enjoyment of truth a person can feel when they are merely a thinker of truth. But what is preconceived truth and comes to us as such in life fills the soul and warms it, filling it with new strength at every stage of life. It is blissful for people when they are able to grasp such pre-thought truths, so that they can then face the phenomena of life and say to themselves: now I not only understand what is there, but what is there now becomes explainable because I knew something about it beforehand.
Now we can also approach people with the truths of spiritual science. People remain incomprehensible to us if we only know the truths that have been thought out. If, on the other hand, we have the truths of spiritual science, people become more and more understandable to us, and we will also be able to find more and more interest in the world and grow more and more attached to it. We will feel joy and satisfaction when the confirmation of the pre-thought truths meets us in reality. That is what is blissful and satisfying about spiritual-scientific truths: that they must first be grasped before they can be realized in life, and that through this, human beings become richer and richer. By working with the truths we have thought out and cultivating an abstract world of ideas within ourselves, we distance ourselves from the world; when we approach the world with the truths we have thought out, we become richer and richer and more satisfied. Through this, we gradually experience a complete interweaving with the phenomena with which we become one. We become increasingly detached from our own selves, while on the other hand we become sophisticated egoists through the truths we have thought out. In order to find the existence and truth of the preconceived truths, we must first have them, and for this it is necessary that we step out of ourselves and enter into life in order to seek their application in every area of life. Thus, it is especially the preconceived truths that detach us from ourselves and fill us to a high degree with what the sense of truth must have in itself.
Everyone who was a true seeker of truth has felt such things. This opinion of truth rested deep in Goethe's soul when he made the magnificent, grandiose, far-reaching statement: “What is fruitful alone is true!”
But it was also present in Goethe's soul that man must be grown together with truth if any understanding with other people is to be possible at all. Nothing alienates people more and distances them from one another than when they become estranged from the pursuit of truth and the sense of truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it is based on the conviction that what is false is true!” Of course, someone might immediately object that falsehood can be refuted by presenting logical arguments. That is not what Goethe means; he is simply convinced that a false view cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and believes that the practical and fruitful application of truth in life must be the sole guiding principle for human beings in their pursuit of truth. Because Goethe was so deeply rooted in truth in his soul, he was able to sketch the beautiful drama of truth that he began to write down in his “Pandora” in 1807. Pandora is a fragment and, as such, a product of his rich creative output. It is the ripest and sweetest fruit. When you let it sink in, you have to say to yourself: it has remained a fragment, but it is so magnificent and powerful in every line that you could say it is the purest and greatest art. Try to immerse yourself in it and let the dialogue sink in, and notice how differently the characters who have a passion, a driving character, speak from those who have a reserved character.
“Pandora” shows us how Goethe was able to make a start on the greatest of tasks—only to falter. The task was too great to be completed, but it is enough for us to sense how deeply Goethe had penetrated the problems of soul education. Before his soul stood everything that the soul must overcome in order to ascend; before his soul stood everything we learned yesterday about anger, everything we learned about the chained Prometheus, and also everything we said today about the other educator of the human soul, about the sense of truth.
How closely related these two things are in their effect on the human soul can also be seen from the facial expressions they cause in people. Try to imagine a person who is angry and a person who is affected by the truth, who is penetrated by the truth as an inner light. You can see how the angry person frowns. Why does he do this? Such a forehead frowns because an excess of energy acts like a poison inside, which must suppress an excess of egoism that wants to destroy what is next to it, what exists next to the self. In the clenched fist of the angry person, one can see the angry self, closed in on itself, unwilling to engage with the outside world. Compare this with the physiognomic expression of someone who finds the truth. When someone sees the light of truth, they also frown, but this frown is something through which the self expands. Here, the frowns want to embrace the whole world in devoted love in order to absorb it. The eyes of those who want to eavesdrop on the world's secrets can also shine. They shine as they seek to embrace and encompass what exists outside of us in the world. The person comes away from themselves, and the hand of those filled with the light of truth does not clench, but stretches out; and in the outstretched hand is the absorption of the essence of the world. This is how the whole difference between truth and anger is revealed physiognomically. While anger leads people to withdraw into themselves, the pursuit of truth leads them to open up and grow into the outside world; and the more people grow into the outside world, the more they rise from the truths they have thought about to the truths they have not yet thought about. This is why Goethe, in his “Pandora,” juxtaposes characters who can be representatives of what is at work in the soul. They are meant to symbolically bring the individual qualities and abilities of the soul into play.
When you open “Pandora,” you will see something very strange right at the beginning. Right in the description of the first scene, you may notice something that is extremely significant. Here we see a scene on Prometheus' side that is filled with tools that humans themselves have made. Human forces have been at work everywhere, but everything is, in a sense, crude and uncomfortable. This is contrasted with the scene of Epimetheus, the other Titan. His setting is such that everything is perfect in a certain sense, for we see less of what man produces as a creator and more of a compilation of what nature has already produced. Everything has emerged from reflection. Here we have a compilation and shaping, a symmetrical arrangement of what exists in nature. The scene of Prometheus is asymmetrical and raw; the phenomena and forms of nature in Epimetheus are well-formed and symmetrical. This scene of Epimetheus concludes with a view of a wonderful landscape. Why is everything arranged in this way? We need only take the two figures: Prometheus, the forward thinker, and Epimetheus, the reflective thinker. Goethe contrasted these two forces at work in the soul in the two Titan brothers. On the one hand, we have what is predominant in humans under the star of forward thinking in Prometheus; here, humans are limited by crude forces, but they are productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as nature shapes hers. He cannot yet form in harmony, but everything he creates springs from his own powers and tools. However, he also lacks the sense to look out onto a grand natural scenery.
On the other hand, in Epimetheus, the thinker, we see what he has achieved, what has been handed down to him from the past, arranged symmetrically. But because he is a thinker, we also see a beautiful landscape spread out in the background, offering man a peculiar pleasure.
Then Epimetheus comes towards us, revealing his unique nature and telling us how he is there to let the past sink in and to reflect on what has already happened and what meets the eye. And in his speech, he shows us what kind of unsatisfied mood this sometimes evokes in the soul. He feels little difference between day and night. In short, we can say that Epimetheus shows us reflection taken to its highest extreme. But then Prometheus approaches us with a torch in his hand, still emerging from the night. In his entourage we see blacksmiths who lend a hand to what man himself produces, and he himself tells us something very strange, which, if we understand Goethe correctly, we will not misunderstand. The blacksmiths praise the activity that leads to something productive. They praise the fact that man must also destroy many things. They praise fire in a one-sided way. The person who is a thoughtful thinker in all respects will not praise the individual at the expense of the other. He will take an overview of the whole. But Prometheus immediately says:
The pleasure of the active man is partiality.
He praises the very fact that in order to be active, one must be restricted. In nature, what is right will prove itself by destroying what is wrong. But forward with what one can do, that is what Prometheus impresses upon the blacksmiths. He is the doer who comes out of the night with a torch to show how his preconceived truth emerges from the depths of his soul. For him, it is not like Epimetheus, who in a dreamlike way cannot tell the difference between day and night and perceives everything in the world as a dream. For his soul has worked, and in its own dark night it first grasped the thoughts that now emerge from it. But these are not dreams, but that for which the soul has given its blood. In this way, it carries itself into the world and breaks free from itself. At the same time, however, it also runs the risk of losing itself. Prometheus himself does not yet need to lose himself, but if something one-sided comes about in the world, then this will show itself in his followers. The son of Prometheus, Phileros, is already inclined to love what has been created and to want to enjoy it, while his father Prometheus is still immersed in the creative power of life. In Phileros, the power of foresight is developed in a one-sided way. He rushes out into life, not knowing where he can satisfy his lust for pleasure. What Prometheus has within him as a fertilizing power of creation cannot pass on to this son; and therefore he must also appear incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who, out of a rich life experience, wants to give him guidance in his rushing life.
In a grandiose way, we are also shown how mere reflection can have an effect. It ties in with the myth that when Zeus had Prometheus chained to the rock, he gave mankind Pandora, the all-gifted woman.
Most beautiful and most gifted, she moved majestically
towards the astonished, searching with a lovely gaze,
whether I, like her stern brother, would send her away.
But my heart was already too powerfully stirred,
I received the lovely bride with intoxicated senses.
Then I approached the mysterious dowry,
The earthen vessel of lofty form.
It stood closed - - -
Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept this gift from the gods. But his brother accepts it anyway. This gift is opened because Epimetheus is different from his brother, and all human torments fall out; only one thing remains inside — hope remains inside. What is Pandora? What should one feel about this all-talented woman? Truly, a mystery of the human soul is hidden within her. What remains for the thoughtful person in the world is the dead product, the abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaistos. This wisdom is powerless in comparison to the all-creating wisdom that causes the world to spring forth from itself.
What can this abstract reflection give to human beings? We have seen how this truth can be barren, how it desolates the human soul, and we understand that all the torments of human beings, everything that has a desolating effect on the human soul, fall out of Pandora's box. In Pandora we see the truth that is powerless to create, the thought-out truth. She represents for us the mere mechanical thought image; a thought mechanism forming, reflected truth in the living creativity of the world. Only one thing remains for the mere reflector. While the pioneer connects his ego with the future and detaches himself from himself and lives into the future, the reflector is left with only one thing in relation to the future: the hope that things will happen. Since he himself does not participate as a forward thinker in the work of the future, all he has left is hope. Goethe captures the myth very deeply by having two children emerge from the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora in his drama “Pandora.” One child is Hope, Elpore, the other is Epimeleia, the Caretaker, the one who preserves what is there. Indeed, man has two children in his soul, two offspring of dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. It is barren and has no effect on the future because it is only thought-out truth and can only think about what is there, but cannot be creatively active. These people can only hope that what is true will happen. Goethe depicts this fact in a truly magnificent and realistic way in his Elpore, showing how, when humans ask whether this or that will happen, it always gives them only one answer: Yes, yes. If a Promethean human being were to stand before the world and speak of the future, he would say: I hope for nothing, but I want to use my own powers to shape the future. But if a person is merely a thinker, they focus their thoughts on what has happened, and on the other hand, they hope for the future; for when asked, “Will this or that happen?”, Elpore always says, “Yes, yes!” We hear her answer this all the time. This characterizes one daughter of the thoughtful soul in an excellent way. This outlines her in her barrenness. The other daughter of this soul force is the one who has to pay attention, who has to take care of what is already there. She arranges everything that has been created in symmetry and cannot add anything that springs from her own powers to what is there through living, creative wisdom. This dead, thoughtful wisdom produces Epimeleia, in that what is there must simply be protected from destruction. But since everything that does not develop further must increasingly face destruction, we see how concern becomes greater and greater; and how, through the mere thoughtful element, not the fruitful, but the destructive itself enters the world. Goethe characterizes this wonderfully by having Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, inflamed with jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, who finds protection from him with the Titan brothers.
At the same time, we see strife and discord arise as a consequence. Therefore, Epimeleia confronts us by announcing that the very thing she loves is seeking to take her life. Every further word in Goethe shows how deeply he has looked into the secrets of the soul of foresight and reflection. We see how Goethe has contrasted in the most wonderful way the foresight of the blacksmiths and that which remains in nature, the shepherds. The latter take what nature offers of itself, what is already there. The blacksmiths, however, reshape nature. That is why Prometheus says of the shepherds: They seek peace, but they will not find satisfaction in their souls:
Transform peacefully! You will not find peace.
For only that which merely wants to preserve what already exists leads into the barrenness of nature.
Thus Goethe confronts us with the thoughtful and reflective truth in the images of Prometheus and Epimetheus and all the personalities associated with them. They are the representatives of those soul forces that can arise from an overly strong, one-sided inclination toward one or the other type of human striving for truth. And after only disaster has been brought about by what has a one-sided effect on the human soul, after we have seen how disaster is caused when man is merely a forward thinker or a backward thinker, we finally see emerge that which alone can bring salvation, namely the cooperation of the two Titan brothers. The drama continues with a fire breaking out in Epimetheus's possession. Prometheus, who is willing to tear down what has been built if it no longer serves his purpose, advises his brother to hurry and try to stop the destruction through what he is. But in Epimetheus, any sense of destruction has died. He thinks of the figure of Pandora and is completely lost in thought. The conversation between Prometheus and Epimetheus about Pandora herself is also interesting. Epimetheus raves about Pandora.
Prometheus:
The lofty figure from ancient darkness appears to me too;
Hephaestus himself cannot succeed a second time.Epimetheus:
You too mention such a mythical origin?
She comes from a divinely ancient race of power:
Uranione, equal to Heren and sister to Zeus.Prometheus:
But Hephaistos adorned her richly, with careful thought,
First weaving a golden headnet with a clever hand,
Working the finest wires, knitting them in many ways.
We also see how the mechanical, merely abstract recreation is reflected in every sentence of Prometheus. Then Eos, the dawn, appears before us. She appears before the sun. She announces this light, but already has this light within her. She is not merely that which creates out of the deep darkness of night, but the transition to something that has overcome the night. Prometheus appears with the torch because he comes out of the night. His artificial light is meant to indicate how he creates out of the night. Epimetheus can admire what the light of the sun gives, but he perceives everything as if it were a dream. He is merely the contemplative soul. As if it escaped the attention of Prometheus's merely creative soul, it is in what Prometheus says in the light of day. He also said that his people are called not only to see the sun and light, but to illuminate. Now Eos, the dawn, “Aurora,” steps forward. She calls on people to do the right thing and be active everywhere. Phileros is to connect with the forces that enable him to save himself after he has already sought death. Alongside the blacksmiths, who do limited work in foresight, alongside the shepherds, who take what is already there, come the fishermen, who provide the water element. And now we see Eos giving advice:
Youthful redness, day's bloom,
I bring today more beautiful than ever
From the unexplored depths
Of Okeanos.
More quickly today
Shake off your sleep, you who inhabit
The rocky bay of the sea,
Serious fishermen! Fresh from your camp!
Take up your tools.Quickly develop your nets,
Surrounding the familiar tide:
The certainty of a fine catch
I call out to you encouragingly.
Swim, swimmers! Dive, divers!
Look out, lookouts, on the rocks!
Let the shore teem like the waves,
Teem quickly with activity!
Now, in a wonderful way, the son of Prometheus is brought before us, saving himself on the waves and combining his own strength with the power of the waves. Thus, in Phileros' rescue, his creative power is combined with the creative power that springs from nature. The active, creative element of his nature enters into an effective connection with the creative, sprouting element of nature. In this way, the element of Prometheus is reconciled with the element of Epimetheus.
Goethe thus presents as a promising solution how that which is thoughtfully gained from nature receives its productive tension through the forward-thinking element. The latter receives its true power through a truthful acceptance of what “the gods above grant.”
... Note:
What is to be desired, you below feel it;
What is to be given, they above know it.
Greatly you begin, Titans; but guiding
Towards the eternally good, eternally beautiful,
Is the work of the gods; let them grant it!
Prometheus and Epimetheus must unite in the human soul, then what must be for the good of both, for the good of humanity, will come forth. The whole drama was intended to show how, through a comprehensive grasp of truth, it is not the individual but the whole human race that is satisfied. Goethe wanted to present to people the true essence of truth, to show how truth is not for the individual self, but how it should unite and satisfy the whole human race, and how love and peace come among people through truth. Then the hope in our soul, which at first can only say yes to everything but cannot realize it, is also transformed. The poem should therefore conclude with the transformed Elpore, Elpore thraseia, who says that she is no longer the prophetess, but has entered into the human soul, so that man not only has hope for the future, but also has the strength to work together and realize what he himself is capable of creating within himself through his productive power! Belief in what truth makes of the soul: that is the full, complete truth that reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus.
Of course, these sketchy hints can only give a small indication of what can be gleaned from the poem. Only those who approach the poem with a spiritual scientific mindset will find the profound wisdom that detached the fragment from Goethe's soul. They may be filled with a satisfying, redeeming power that can have an invigorating effect on them.
However, the following should not go unmentioned, as it can also teach us a great deal. In his “Pandora,” Goethe uses a strangely beautiful expression; he says that the divine wisdom of the world, which flows down, must work together with what we can gain ourselves through our Promethean power, through our own thinking. He calls that which tells us what wisdom is and flows toward us in the world the word. But that which lives in the soul and must be connected with the word, with the reflection of Epimerheus, is the deed of Prometheus. Thus we see that from the connection of the Logos or word with the deed springs that ideal which Goethe wanted to present to us in his “Pandora” as the result of his rich life experiences. Towards the end of the poem, Prometheus makes the remarkable statement: “The true celebration of a genuine man is action!” This is the truth that is closed to the contemplative element of the soul.
If we allow the whole poem to sink in, we can gain an insight into the great heroic longing for development of people like Goethe, and into that great modesty that does not believe in remaining at one level, that does not believe that once something has been achieved, there is no need to go beyond it. Goethe was an apprentice of life his entire life and therefore always admitted that when one has gained a new experience, one must overcome what one previously believed to be correct. As a young man, when he occasionally made some translations in the Bible during his first revisions of Faust, Goethe also found that the words “In the beginning was the Word!” should be different. He would translate it as: “In the beginning was the deed!” That was the young Goethe, who also wrote a fragment about Prometheus at that time. Here we see the merely active, the merely Promethean man, the young Goethe, who believed that mere development of strength, without being fertilized by worldly wisdom, could lead to progress. The mature Goethe, with all his life experience, realized that it would be wrong to underestimate the word, and that the word must be combined with action. In truth, Goethe also rewrote his “Faust” at the time when he wrote his “Pandora.” We must therefore understand Goethe in the maturity of his development; but we can only do so if we comprehend what truth is in all its forms.
It will always be good for people if they strive to understand how truth can only be grasped gradually. Therefore, it is also quite good for people to be more versatile, honest, and genuine seekers of truth, to admit to themselves, after they have found this or that truth and are now called upon to introduce their found truth into life in a powerful, overwhelming way: there are no reasons to insist on this once found truth. There is no reason to ever remain with a recognized thing, but what such knowledge, as we have found through today's and yesterday's contemplation, leads us to is that, even though man must stand firm on the ground of the truth he has attained and must stand up for the truth, he must at times withdraw into himself, as Goethe did. When human beings withdraw into themselves in this way, they will, through all the powers that arise from their awareness of the truth they have attained, once again have what gives them the right measure and leads them back to the standpoint they should actually take. From this heightened awareness of truth, we should always return to ourselves and say with Goethe: Much of what we once explored as truth is now only a dream and a dreamlike memory, and what we think today is something that cannot possibly stand up to deeper examination. Goethe repeatedly said to himself the words he uttered in relation to his own honest search for truth, and so every person should say to themselves in their lonely hours:
Completely and utterly
I am a poor wretch.
My dreams are not true,
And my thoughts do not come to fruition.
If we can feel this, we will be able to cope with our high ideals, with the truth.