30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Emile Rigolage
09 Apr 1898, |
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Emile Rigolage has just published the second volume of his carefully crafted excerpt from Auguste Comte's writings under the title "La Sociologie par Auguste Comte" (Bibliothöque de Philosophie contemporaine, Paris, Felix Alcan). |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Emile Rigolage
09 Apr 1898, |
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Emile Rigolage has just published the second volume of his carefully crafted excerpt from Auguste Comte's writings under the title "La Sociologie par Auguste Comte" (Bibliothöque de Philosophie contemporaine, Paris, Felix Alcan). The first edition of the book was published 15 years ago and has been translated into German by Kirchmann. Compte is a thinker who must be known as an example of a personality without ideas. Comte has no idea that the content of philosophy is ideas. No ideas flash through his mind when he contemplates the things of the world. That is why his so-called philosophy is the distorted image of all true and genuine philosophizing. The philosophers of all times have written down in their works what they have thought about the world: They have always gone beyond mere observation. This observation is a matter for the empirical sciences. Philosophy has no justification alongside these individual disciplines if it does not seek out the deeper, the ideal core of things. But Comte knows nothing of such a core. He is without any intuition or imagination. That is why he is of the opinion that philosophy has nothing of its own to add to the individual sciences, but merely to compile and bring into a systematic order what has been recognized by these individual sciences. To philosophize in Comte's sense would mean the bankruptcy of philosophy. Everything one needs to know in order to gain an insight into and overview of Comte's utterly barren and unfruitful "system" can be found in exemplary form in the above-mentioned excerpt. The author of the text has thoroughly familiarized himself with Comte's views and was therefore able to highlight the significant things that matter. It is particularly difficult to summarize Comte in this way. Because everything falls apart precisely because leading basic ideas are completely missing. I think that the book could be useful right now. Other philosophers are also striving more and more to give philosophy a character that makes it similar to the individual sciences. There is even talk of exact philosophy. We can learn from Comte where we end up when such exactitude is taken to extremes. The result is un- and counter-philosophy. And since the harmfulness of an activity is best recognized by following it to its extremes and observing its excesses, Comte's philosophizing is recommended to contemporaries as a cautionary example. They may learn from him how not to do it if something fruitful is to be achieved in this field. I believe that we are approaching a time in which philosophical endeavor will once again have the respect it deserves. The unfruitful attempts of Comte and others had to be made because one must first err in order to arrive at the truth later. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Karl Jentsch
11 Jun 1898, |
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Leipzig 1898 Under this title, Karl Jentsch has just published a book. The application of the scientific way of thinking of our time to the development of mankind leads to this concept. |
While others, such as Huxley, Alexander Tille and so on, understand the progress of mankind in the same way as the rest of nature in the sense of Darwinism, Jentsch does not believe he can do without the assumption of a purposeful arrangement of historical facts. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Karl Jentsch
11 Jun 1898, |
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Leipzig 1898 Under this title, Karl Jentsch has just published a book. The application of the scientific way of thinking of our time to the development of mankind leads to this concept. Just as in the rest of nature those forms are preserved which prove to be the stronger in the struggle for existence, this is also the case in the historical development of man. By applying this concept, one arrives at the overcoming of all purposive causes. In nature today only backward spirits will probably believe in purposive causes. In the views on human development, however, this idea seems to be less easy to eradicate. This is most clearly shown by the author of the above-mentioned book. While others, such as Huxley, Alexander Tille and so on, understand the progress of mankind in the same way as the rest of nature in the sense of Darwinism, Jentsch does not believe he can do without the assumption of a purposeful arrangement of historical facts. But it must be noted: Whoever assumes a purposeful arrangement in nature or the human world must also believe in a wise creator of this arrangement. And whoever does this falls back into old theological prejudices which should have been overcome by the Darwinian view of the world. But it will be a long time before the remnants of the old theological ideas have disappeared from people's minds. They will still haunt us in one form or another. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Paul Nikolaus Cossmann
30 Dec 1899, |
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Coßmann believes that organic natural science should incorporate teleology, he must be told that he does not understand the relationship of modern natural science to teleology. A locomotive is undoubtedly purpose-built, and Mr. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Paul Nikolaus Cossmann
30 Dec 1899, |
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Stuttgart 1899 This book is one of the literary phenomena that are unfortunately not at all rare in our time, whose authors bear a large part of the blame for the regrettable fact that philosophy is becoming increasingly discredited. A self-evident truth, which no reasonable person doubts, is dealt with in 129 pages of comfortable breadth. What is before everyone's eyes is clothed in the most abstract formulas, and the author has the misfortune of losing his footing in the world of his abstractions and not even suspecting that his "formulations" say nothing at all. He wants to show that in nature, in which everything is connected according to cause and effect, there are also phenomena that are connected in other ways. Cause and effect form a two-part connection. Coßmann seeks to demonstrate tripartite connections within the world of life. The retinal image of the eye arises as the effect of a light stimulus on the eye-gifted organism. We have a two-part connection. The light stimulus acts on the organism and the eyelid is closed to protect against the stimulus. We have a tripartite connection, a connection between the cause - the light stimulus - the effect - the closing of the eyelid - and the purpose, the protection of the organ. Bipartite connections should be called causal, tripartite teleological purposeful. The natural science of the present is reproached for wanting to explain everything from the connections between causes and effects; and the natural science of the future is dreamed of bringing teleology to bear in all its glory. What Mr. Coßmann broadly expounds on his 129 pages can be found in the following eight lines of the book "Die Welträtsel" by Ernst Haeckel, whom our author certainly counts among those who overlook teleological connections: "In the body structure and in the life activity of all organisms we are undeniably confronted with purposeful activity. Every plant and every animal, in its composition of individual parts, appears to be just as equipped for a certain purpose in life as the artificial machines invented and constructed by man, and as long as their life continues, the function of the individual organs is just as directed towards certain purposes as the work in the individual parts of the machine." Coßmann does nothing more than put this undeniable fact into unspeakably pedantic formulas. There is no need to object to such philosophical gimmickry. It should be dealt with by those who find nothing more sensible to do in the world. But if Mr. Coßmann believes that organic natural science should incorporate teleology, he must be told that he does not understand the relationship of modern natural science to teleology. A locomotive is undoubtedly purpose-built, and Mr. Coßmann could attribute its effectiveness to his neat tripartite formula. However, the person who is to build the locomotive is not served by describing its purpose to him in a pure way. He must know the causes by which the purpose is achieved. This is how the naturalist feels about nature. He determines the purposes; but he then seeks to explain the purposeful effects from the causes. As little as a machine can be built according to its purpose, so little can a living being be explained from its purposeful arrangement. But Mr. Coßmann faces an even more serious reproach. The purpose occurs in the time sequence after the cause. If we now disregard time and merely consider that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect, then we can also derive each cause from its effect just as well as, conversely, the effect from the cause. In a formula of mechanics that derives an effect from the cause, we only need to insert the time with a negative sign, then we have the possibility of deriving the earlier from the later. If the later then appears as a purpose, the causal connection becomes a purposeful one, and Mr. Coßmann's tripartite formula is not needed. Mr. Coßmann would now have a task if he really wanted to prove something. He would have to show that a fact valid within mechanics also corresponds to such a fact in the teleological field. For mechanics, this fact is that we can imagine a process regressing in our thoughts (through the negative sign before time), but that in reality this process cannot take place regressively. In teleology it would have to be shown that the retroactive effect of the purpose which we can imagine is really present. Mr. Coßmann is probably wary of this, because he would then have to come to the only way out that exists for the purpose theorist, to the statement of "wisdom and reason", which have first ordered the organisms as we imagine them afterwards. "Whether there are special final causes, causae finales, apart from, in addition to, beyond the causas efficientibus (forces of nature), which continue to work with blind, unintentional necessity, is a matter of scholastic dispute, and scholastic dispute is possible; but that there is in Natura naturata a purposefulness independent of man, infinitely superior to all his art, is not," says Otto Liebmann in "Gedanken und Tatsachen" (1st ed., 91). Coßmann contributed nothing, absolutely nothing, to the decision on the former; we did not need him to establish the latter. We have before us the work of a dilettante who has acquired the airs and graces of a philosopher. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Heinrich V. Schoeler
06 Jan 1900, |
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For a century, the proud-sounding word has been uttered again and again: Kant had liberated thinking humanity from the shackles of philosophical dogmatism, which made empty assertions about the essence of things without undertaking a critical investigation into whether the human mind was also capable of making out something absolutely valid about this essence. |
No supporter of the modern scientific world view need contradict this conclusion. For those who understand the modern theory of development, it is a necessary consequence of it. H. v. Schoeler would have found proof of this if he had added to the wealth of knowledge he has acquired the knowledge of my "Philosophy of Freedom" published five years ago. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Heinrich V. Schoeler
06 Jan 1900, |
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An unprejudiced view of the world. Leipzig 1898 In 1865, Otto Liebmann demanded in his essay "Kant and the Epigones" that we must return to Kant in philosophy. He saw the salvation of his science in the fulfillment of this demand. In doing so, he was merely expressing the view of the vast majority of philosophers of our time. And many natural scientists, insofar as they are still concerned with philosophical concepts, also see Kant's doctrine as the only possible form of central science. Starting with philosophers and naturalists, this opinion has also penetrated the wider circles of educated people with an interest in philosophy. Kant's view has thus become a driving force in our scientific thinking. Without ever having read a line from Kant or heard a sentence from his teachings, many of our contemporaries view world events in his way. For a century, the proud-sounding word has been uttered again and again: Kant had liberated thinking humanity from the shackles of philosophical dogmatism, which made empty assertions about the essence of things without undertaking a critical investigation into whether the human mind was also capable of making out something absolutely valid about this essence. For many who utter this word, however, the old dogma has been replaced by a new one, namely that of the irrefutable truth of Kant's fundamental views. These can be summarized in the following sentences: A thing can only be perceived by us if it makes an impression on us, exerts an effect. But then it is always only this effect that we perceive, never the thing itself. We cannot form any concept of the latter. The effects of things on us are our perceptions. What we know of the world is therefore not the things, but our ideas of the things. The world given to us is not a world of being, but a world of imagination or appearance. The laws according to which the details of this imaginary world are linked can of course not be the laws of the "things in themselves", but those of our subjective organism. What is to become an appearance for us must obey the laws of our subject. Things can only appear to us in a way that corresponds to our nature. We ourselves prescribe the laws of the world that appears to us - and this alone we know. What Kant thought he had gained for philosophy with these views becomes clear if we take a look at the scientific currents from which he grew and which he confronted. Before the Kantian reform, the teachings of the Leibniz-Wolff school were the only dominant ones in Germany. The followers of this school wanted to arrive at the fundamental truths about the nature of things by means of purely conceptual thinking. The knowledge gained in this way was regarded as clear and necessary as opposed to that gained through sensory experience, which was seen as confused and random. Only pure concepts were believed to lead to scientific insights into the deeper context of world events, the nature of the soul and God, i.e. to the so-called absolute truths. Kant was also a follower of this school in his pre-critical period. His first writings are entirely in its spirit. A change in his views occurred when he became acquainted with the explanations of the English philosopher Hume. The latter sought to prove that there was no evidence other than experience. We perceive the sunbeam, and then we notice that the stone on which it falls has warmed up. We perceive this again and again and get used to it. We therefore assume that the connection between the ray of sunlight and the warming of the stone will also manifest itself in the same way in the future. However, this is by no means a certain and necessary realization. Nothing guarantees us that an event which we are accustomed to seeing in a certain way will not take a completely different course at the next opportunity. All propositions in our sciences are only expressions established by habit for frequently noticed connections between things. Therefore, there can be no knowledge about those objects which philosophers strive for. Here we lack experience, which is the only source of our knowledge. About these things man must be content with mere belief. If science wants to deal with them, it degenerates into an empty game of concepts without content. These propositions apply, in the sense of Hume, not only to the last psychological and theological insights, but also to the simplest laws of nature, for example, to the proposition that every effect must have a cause. This judgment, too, is derived only from experience and established by habit. Hume only accepts as absolutely valid and necessary those propositions in which the predicate is basically already included in the subject, as is the case, in his view, with mathematical judgments. Kant seeks to save absolute knowledge by making it a component of the human mind. Man is organized in such a way that he sees processes in necessary contexts, for example of cause and effect. If they are to appear to man, all things must appear in these contexts. For this reason, however, the whole world of experience is only an appearance, that is, a world that may be as it wishes in itself; for us it appears according to the organization of our mind. We cannot know how it is in itself. Kant sought to save human knowledge from its necessity, its unconditional validity; therefore he gave up its applicability to "things in themselves". H. v. Schoeler stands on Kantian ground. He seeks to prove, with the expenditure of a wealth of knowledge, with a commendable knowledge of the details of the individual sciences, that our knowledge does not reach to the sources of being. Like Kant, he does not seek in knowledge the highest content of man's existence. Kant destroyed knowledge in order to make room for the world that he conjures up from the categorical imperative with the help of faith. Schoeler seeks to show that, independently of all knowledge, goals of existence arise in our souls that make life seem much more worth living than the contemplation of the "crude mechanism of nature" and the "physiological automatism of the body in which our desires are rooted". "The ideality of the emotional life is the saving remedy which preserves our bodily organs from degeneration and keeps our soul healthy and puts it in a position to develop all its powers harmoniously, in the lively activity of which alone, no matter in what field of charitable work, is the purpose of a humane existence. He who has lived the ideals of reason and the cultural aims of humanity has lived for all time; for ability is more important than knowledge - action is the highest." No supporter of the modern scientific world view need contradict this conclusion. For those who understand the modern theory of development, it is a necessary consequence of it. H. v. Schoeler would have found proof of this if he had added to the wealth of knowledge he has acquired the knowledge of my "Philosophy of Freedom" published five years ago. I do not resent him because he has not done so, but I also do not feel obliged to tell him here what he can better read in context in my book. |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Goethe and Medicine
13 Jan 1901, |
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Once again, it was the physicians from whom he drew his most important inspiration. He studied anatomy in depth under the guidance of Court Councillor Loder. A manuscript he left behind (now published in Volume VIII of the Weimar Goethe Edition) shows how he pursued this science entirely in the spirit of a rational comparative method. |
But this preoccupation also caused the poet to develop a deep understanding of medical science. The nature of this understanding is shown clearly enough by a description he gives in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" of the medical movement of the seventies of the last century. |
A part of the letter to him is printed in Goethe's works under the title "Plastic Anatomy". Here he mentions that this "plastic anatomy" has been practiced in Florence for many years and adds the remark: "But should one not immediately think of Berlin when calling for such a location, where everything - science, art, taste and technology - is together and therefore a highly important, admittedly complicated undertaking could be carried out immediately by word and will?" |
30. Collected Essays on Philosophy, Science, Aesthetics and Psychology 1884–1901: Goethe and Medicine
13 Jan 1901, |
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The rich literature that exists on this relationship proves that the great poet, to whom the capital of Austria has now also erected a monument, had a relationship with the natural sciences that is of profound interest to the natural scientist. A number of the most important natural scientists have endeavored to describe Goethe's significance for their science. One need only recall the relevant writings of Virchow ("Goethe as a natural scientist and in special relation to Schiller", 1861), Helmholtz ("Über Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten" and "Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen", 1892), Haeckel ("Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin", 1882) and Cohn ("Goethe as a Botanist", 1881) in order to bring to life the idea of the high value attached to the poet's scientific work by experts in the field. The author of this essay has himself attempted to explain the significance of Goethe's scientific ideas and their position within the scientific development of the nineteenth century in a series of works ("Einleitungen zu Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften" in the Kürschnersche Goethe-Ausgabe, 1883 to 1897, and "Goethes Weltanschauung", 1897). Whatever else one may think about this significance, one thing seems beyond doubt after the above-mentioned works: Goethe was right to say in a review of his scientific endeavors: "Not through an extraordinary gift of the spirit, not through a momentary inspiration, nor unexpectedly and all at once, but through a consequent effort have I finally arrived at such a gratifying result." In Goethe's scientific ideas, we have before us not just flashes of genius, but the results of strictly methodical work. And if we follow Goethe's efforts historically, it is particularly striking how close he was to the spirit of modern scientific methods in the way he worked. This has been shown particularly clearly in the notes published from Goethe's papers left behind (second section of the great Weimar Goethe edition, volumes 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12, edited by Steiner, volume 8, edited by Professor v. Bardeleben). To point out just one thing, let us mention Goethe's notes on the relationship between the bones of the skull and the vertebrae contained in these papers. We know that the natural philosopher Lorenz Oken was the first to draw public attention to this relationship; and anyone who has read Goethe's scientific writings is also aware that he was familiar with this fact, which is so significant in terms of evolutionary history, before Oken. However, it was not until Carl Gegenbaur's investigations "On the head skeleton of the Selachians", published in 1872, that it was given a firm foundation. The aforementioned records now prove that Goethe did not arrive at his theory suddenly, through a brilliant idea, like the naturalist Oken, but through continued methodical work, and indeed through such work that was already moving in the direction that later led Gegenbaur to his important results (cf. the essay by Professor Karl v. Bardeleben "Goethe als Anatom" in the XII. Bande des Goethe-Jahrbuches, 1892). The poet Goethe proceeded much more methodically than the natural scientist Oken. It can be observed in many cases with Goethe that a seemingly trivial remark in his writings has an enlightening effect on the whole nature of his work in the most eminent sense. One such remark can be found in the "Appendix" that he added in 1817 to the reprint of his work on the "Metamorphosis of Plants". There he considers certain pathological phenomena in the plant kingdom and speaks of them in the following way: "Nature forms normally when it gives countless details the rule, determines and conditions them; but the phenomena are abnormal when the details prevail and stand out in an arbitrary, even seemingly random way. But because the two are closely related and both the regulated and the irregular are animated by one spirit, there is a fluctuation between the normal and the abnormal, because formation and transformation always alternate, so that the abnormal appears to become normal and the normal abnormal. The shape of a plant part can be abolished or obliterated without us wanting to call it deformity... In the plant kingdom the normal in its completeness is rightly called healthy, physiologically pure; but the abnormal is not immediately to be regarded as diseased or pathological." Such a remark shows how Goethe thought about the pathological. He knew the value of considering the pathological for those who want to form an opinion about the laws of the healthy. It is certainly not wrong to link such a thought of Goethe's with the poet's relationship to medicine. For his scientific ideas were largely influenced by these relationships. One need only follow his own communications in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" to gain an insight into the significant stimuli that Goethe owed to medicine. At the two universities he attended, he felt more attracted to the medical sciences than to the representatives of other subjects. (An interesting clarification of Goethe's relationship to medicine was recently given by Dr. P.H. Gerber, Privatdozent at the University of Königsberg, in his work "Goethes Beziehungen zur Medizin", Berlin 1900). The poet tells us about his stay at the University of Leipzig: "In the manifold dispersion, indeed fragmentation of my being and my studies, it happened that I had lunch with Hofrat Ludwig. He was a physician, a botanist, and the company consisted, apart from Morus, of all aspiring doctors or doctors approaching perfection. During these hours I heard no other conversation than that of medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn into quite another field ... The subjects were entertaining and important and held my attention." And later, at the University of Strasbourg, Goethe spent a stimulating time in a circle of doctors. He reported: "Most of my dinner companions were physicians. As is well known, they are the only students who talk about their science, their profession, with liveliness even outside the lessons. This is in the nature of things. The objects of their endeavors are the most sensual and at the same time the highest, the simplest and the most complicated. Medicine deals with the whole person because it deals with the whole person. Everything that the young man learns immediately points to an important, albeit dangerous, but in many ways rewarding practice. He therefore throws himself with passion into what is to be recognized and done, partly because it interests him in itself, partly because it opens up to him the happy prospect of independence and prosperity." But Goethe did not confine himself to such external stimuli in Strasbourg; he also diligently pursued medical and scientific studies himself. He attended lectures on chemistry by Spielmann and on anatomy by one of the most important anatomists of the time, Lobstein. Special circumstances prompted him to take a further interest in certain branches of the medical art. Herder had come to Strasbourg to undergo an eye operation. Goethe, who had formed an intimate friendship with this outstanding mind, was present at the operation and showed himself to be "of service and assistance to his friend in many ways". We also learn from "Dichtung und Wahrheit" how intensely Goethe was interested in these things at the time. He describes an eye operation that was unsuccessful for his friend Jung-Stilling and includes the words: "Usually, and I had watched it myself several times in Strasbourg, nothing seemed easier in the world, as Stilling had also succeeded a hundred times. After a painless incision had been made through the insensitive cornea, the cloudy lens popped out by itself at the slightest pressure, the patient immediately saw the objects and only had to wait blindfolded until a completed cure allowed him to use the delicious organ at will and convenience." The interest Goethe took in medical studies in Strasbourg corresponded to a profound need of his nature. No external circumstances would have been necessary to awaken such an interest in him. For in a certain sense he came to the university well prepared in this direction. The time between his studies in Leipzig and Strasbourg was also filled with reading medical writings. He had studied Boerhave's Compendium and his aphorisms, which formed the basis of medical teaching at the time. When Goethe was then summoned to Weimar by Duke Karl August in 1775, he immediately entered into relations with the neighboring University of Jena. Once again, it was the physicians from whom he drew his most important inspiration. He studied anatomy in depth under the guidance of Court Councillor Loder. A manuscript he left behind (now published in Volume VIII of the Weimar Goethe Edition) shows how he pursued this science entirely in the spirit of a rational comparative method. One fruit of his studies is his important discovery that humans, like other vertebrates, have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw. These studies in Jenens enriched his anatomical knowledge to such an extent that he was able to give anatomical lessons to the students of the Weimar Academy of Drawing. The thoroughness of Goethe's studies is also evidenced by the fact that in the winter of 1781, he worked particularly diligently on the study of ligaments with Hofrat Loder, a subject that was "neglected by the medical youth" at the time. It was Goethe's need for a comprehensive view of nature that corresponded to the whole disposition of his mind that drove him to an energetic preoccupation with empirical natural science, which he found best in the circles of medical experts. But this preoccupation also caused the poet to develop a deep understanding of medical science. The nature of this understanding is shown clearly enough by a description he gives in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" of the medical movement of the seventies of the last century. "For a light had dawned on excellent, thinking and feeling minds that a direct, original view of nature and action based on it was the best that man could wish for, and not even difficult to attain. Experience, therefore, was again the general watchword, and every one opened his eyes as well as he could; but it was actually the physicians who had most reason to urge it, and opportunity to seek it.... Because some extraordinary people, such as Boerhave and Haller, had really achieved the unbelievable, it seemed justified to demand even more from their students and descendants. It was claimed that the course was broken, since in all earthly things there can seldom be any question of a course; for just as the water that is displaced by a ship immediately collapses again behind it, so also error, when excellent spirits have pushed it aside and made room for themselves, naturally closes up again very quickly behind them." In an important matter concerning medical teaching, Goethe even came up with a fruitful practical suggestion. He first presented it as a "semi-fiction" in chapter 3 of "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre". The difficulty of procuring the necessary objects for anatomical teaching led him to the idea of using plastic replicas for educational purposes instead of real organic bodies. He later approached Privy Councillor Beuth in Berlin with a proposal to this effect. A part of the letter to him is printed in Goethe's works under the title "Plastic Anatomy". Here he mentions that this "plastic anatomy" has been practiced in Florence for many years and adds the remark: "But should one not immediately think of Berlin when calling for such a location, where everything - science, art, taste and technology - is together and therefore a highly important, admittedly complicated undertaking could be carried out immediately by word and will?" Goethe has very specific suggestions in this direction: "Send an anatomist, a sculptor, a plaster casterer to Florence to be instructed in the special art in question. The anatomist learns to work out the specimens for his own purpose. The sculptor descends from the surface of the human body deeper and deeper into the interior and lends the higher style of his art to objects that would be repulsive and unpleasant without such ideal assistance. The caster, already accustomed to adapt his skill to more intricate cases, will find little difficulty in disposing of his task; he is no stranger to handling wax of various colors and all kinds of dimensions, and he will soon achieve what is desirable." The fact that such a suggestion for a pedagogical aid, which was later used in so many ways, came from Goethe proves how thoroughly he dealt with the requirements of medical teaching. When one considers Goethe's close relationship with medicine, it is not unreasonable to say that this spiritual field also plays an important role in his life's poetry, in "Faust". Faust's personality is reminiscent of Paracelsus and other medical scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Goethe put much of his own essence into this figure. And when we read Faust's reflections on his art as a physician, we may remember that similar thoughts often arose in Goethe's own soul. Questions about the significance of medicine for life certainly often occupied Goethe, as he had become acquainted with the art of healing from a more than merely theoretical perspective through his frequent illnesses. After all, it is entirely in the spirit of his world view to think of the physical in full unity with the spiritual. He, to whom everything human was so intimately familiar, had to be led back again and again to the science of which he had gained the conviction in Strasbourg that it deals with the whole human being, because it has to do with the whole human being. But there is also a branch of medical science to which Goethe was particularly close through his artistic work: psychiatry. Even if we cannot claim that Goethe dealt with this field theoretically in the same way as with the purely physical phenomena of the living organism, it is nevertheless extremely interesting to note his keen eye for psychological abnormalities. His Werther, Orest, the harpist in "Wilhelm Meister", his Lila, Mignon and finally Gretchen are exemplary achievements in the depiction of pathological psyches. Gerber ("Goethe's Relations with Medicine") has subtly pointed out that Goethe portrays Mignon's character as it must be due to the girl's descent from her siblings. Numerous paths led Goethe to medicine. He, who said that true art must be an expression of the highest laws of nature, that poetry rests on the foundations of knowledge, proved through his relationships with medicine that he knew how to assign this spiritual field its rightful place in the totality of the human spirit. |
30. Goethe as the Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics
09 Nov 1888, |
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He completely excluded the plastic arts from his sphere of research, thus showing clearly that he had no conception whatever of Art; and, besides, he knew no principle other than that of the imitation of Nature, which again shows that he never understood the task which the spirit of man sets itself in the creation of the work of art.1 [ 7 ] That the science of the Beautiful only came into existence so late is no accident. |
Goethe finds that ‘nothing in Nature is beautiful which is not also naturally true, in its underlying motive’ (Conversations with Eckermann, iii. 79). And the other side of appearance or semblance, when the being excels its own self, we find expressed as Goethe's view in the proverbs in prose, No. 978: ‘The law of vegetable growth appears in its highest manifestation in the blossom, and the rose is but the pinnacle of this manifestation. |
Only when this tendency becomes the common property of all who strive spiritually; when the belief becomes general that we have not only to understand Goethe's conception of the world, but that we must live in it and it must live in us—only then will Goethe have fulfilled his mission. |
30. Goethe as the Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics
09 Nov 1888, |
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[ 3 ] The number of works and treatises that are appearing in our time, with the object of determining Goethe's relation to the most divergent branches of modern Science and modern intellectual life generally, is overwhelming. The mere list of the titles would fill a portly volume. This feature may be ascribed to the fact that we are ever more clearly realising how, in the person of Goethe, a cultural factor confronts us, with which everything that would participate in the intellectual life of the present day must necessarily come to terms. To pass by would mean, in this case, to reject the foundation of our civilisation, to flounder in the depths, with no will to mount to the luminous heights from which all the light of our culture shines forth. It is only on condition that we attach ourselves, at some point or other, to Goethe and his epoch that we can acquire a clear view of the path our civilisation is treading, and realise the goal which humanity, in modern times, must pursue: failure to find this point of contact with the greatest spirit of latter times means simply being led like the blind, or dragged along by our fellowmen. All things appear to us in a different setting, when viewed with vision quickened at this fountain-head of civilisation. [ 4 ] However gratifying may be the efforts of our contemporaries to find some point of contact with Goethe, the way they set about it is admittedly not very felicitous. Only too often is that necessary quality absent—an open mind—permitting us to sink into and fathom the uttermost depths of Goethe's genius, before mounting the pulpit of criticism. The only reason for believing Goethe to have been superseded in many respects is due to the failure to recognise his full significance. We think we have gone far beyond Goethe, whereas, in most cases, the right thing would be for us to apply his comprehensive principles and magnificent way of looking at things to our own now more perfect scientific appliances and scientific facts. Whether the results of his investigations correspond, more or less, with the results of modern Science is, with regard to Goethe, never of so much importance as the way he sets to work. His results bear the stamp of their epoch, that is, they extend only so far as the scientific appliances and experience of his age allowed: his way of thinking, his way of posing the problems is, however, a permanent achievement, and no greater injustice can be committed than to treat it with contempt. But it is a peculiarity of our day that the spiritual productive force of Genius is considered to be almost without significance. How could it be otherwise in a time when any attempt to reach out beyond the limits of physical experience is tabooed. For mere observation in the world of the senses, all that is necessary are healthy organs of sense, and Genius can, for this purpose, be fairly dispensed with. [ 5 ] But true progress in Science, as also in Art, has never been the product of such methods of observation or servile imitation of Nature. What thousands observe and pass by is then observed by one who, as the result of this same observation, discovers a magnificent scientific law. Many before Galileo had seen a lamp swinging in a church, and yet this man of genius had to come and discover from it the laws of the pendulum, which are of so great importance in Physics. ‘Were not the eye of the nature of the sun, how could it behold the sun,’ exclaims Goethe; he means that none can glance into the depths of Nature who lack the necessary disposition and productive force to see more in the realm of fact than the mere outward facts. This is not accepted. The mighty achievements for which we have to thank Goethe's genius should not be confounded with the deficiencies inherent in his investigations, owing to the lower level of scientific experience at that time. How his own scientific results stand in relation to the progress of scientific research has been aptly characterised by Goethe in a picture: he describes them as pawns which he has perhaps moved forward too daringly on the board, but which should allow the plan of the player to be recognised. If we take these words to heart, then the following great task accrues to us in the field of Goethean research: to revert in each case to Goethe's own tendencies. The results which he himself gives us may stand as examples showing how he attempted to solve his great problems with limited means. It must be our aim to solve them in his spirit, but with the greater means at our disposal, and on the strength of our richer experience. In this way a fructification of all the branches of research to which Goethe devoted his attention will be possible, and, what is more, they will all bear the same uniform stamp, and form links within a great uniform conception of the world. Mere philological and critical research, the justification of which it were folly to deny, must await extension and completion along these lines. We must gain possession of the rich store of thoughts and ideas that are in Goethe, and, making this our starting-point, scientifically carry on the work. [ 6 ] It will at this point be incumbent on me to show to what extent the principles just explained may be applied to one of the youngest and most discussed of sciences—the science of Aesthetics. This science, which is devoted to Art and artistic creation, is barely 160 years old. It was with the conscious intention of opening a new field of scientific research that Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten came forward with it in 1750. To this same epoch belong the efforts of Winckelmann and Lessing to attain a basis for judging the fundamental questions in Art. All former attempts in the direction of this science cannot even be described as a most elementary tendency. Even the great Aristotle, that intellectual giant, whose influence on all branches of science was so decisive, remained quite unproductive in Aesthetics. He completely excluded the plastic arts from his sphere of research, thus showing clearly that he had no conception whatever of Art; and, besides, he knew no principle other than that of the imitation of Nature, which again shows that he never understood the task which the spirit of man sets itself in the creation of the work of art.1 [ 7 ] That the science of the Beautiful only came into existence so late is no accident. It could not exist earlier, simply because the necessary conditions were absent. What are these conditions? The desire for Art is as old as man himself, but the desire to grasp the nature of its task only came into evidence much later. The Greek spirit, so happily constituted as to find satisfaction in the reality that immediately surrounds us, brought forth an epoch of Art which stands for a highest culmination; but it was the work of primitive ingenuousness, and the need was not felt to create in Art a world that should offer satisfaction such as could not come to us from any other source. The Greeks found in reality all that they sought; all that their hearts yearned and their spirits thirsted for, Nature supplied to them in abundance. It was never to go so far with them, that a yearning should be born in their heart for a Something which we seek in vain in the world that surrounds us. The Greek did not grow out of and away from Nature, therefore all his needs could be satisfied through Nature. With his whole being he was inseparably united and interwoven with Nature; Nature creates in him and knows quite well what she may implant in him, so as to be able again to satisfy his needs. Art, then, with this ingenuous people, was only a continuation of what lives and surges within Nature; it grew directly out of Nature; Nature satisfied the same needs as a mother, only in a higher sense. Aristotle knew no higher principle of Art than the imitation of Nature. There was no need to go farther than Nature, because in Nature was to be found the source of all satisfaction. The mere imitation of Nature, which, to us, would appear empty and insignificant, was, in this case, fully sufficient. We have forgotten how to see in mere Nature the highest that our spirit craves for; for this reason mere realism, which offers us reality devoid of that highest, could never satisfy us. This epoch had to come. It was a necessity for mankind, as it develops to an ever higher level of perfection. Man could only remain completely within Nature so long as he was unconscious of this fact. The instant he gained full and clear knowledge of his own self, the instant he became aware of a kingdom within his inner self, which was of at least equal standing with that outer world—in that instant he had to break away from the shackles of Nature. [ 8 ] He could now no longer surrender himself to her, for her to bear absolute sway over him, so that she should give rise to his needs and moreover satisfy them. Now he had to confront her, and this meant, in fact, that he had broken away from her, that he had created a new world within himself, and it is in this world that the source must now be sought from which his yearning and his desires flow. Whether these desires, now produced apart from Mother Nature, can also be satisfied by her is left to chance. At any rate, a deep chasm now separates man from reality, and he must restore the harmony formerly existing in its original perfection. Hence all the conflicts of the ideal with reality, of purpose with attainment—in short, everything that leads the soul of man into a veritable spiritual labyrinth. Nature stands there bereft of soul, devoid of everything our inner self tells us is divine. The next consequence is estrangement from everything which is Nature—a flight from direct reality. This is the exact opposite of the Greek spirit, which found everything in Nature.2 The subsequent conception of the world finds nothing at all in Nature. The Christian Middle Ages must appear to us in this light. Just as little as the Greeks could gain a knowledge of the essence of Art, in their inability to grasp how Art reaches out beyond Nature, creating a higher Nature side by side with actual Nature, so little could mediaeval science attain a science of Art, for Art could only work with means offered by Nature, and the scholars could not grasp how works could be created within the pale of godless reality, which could satisfy the spirit striving to attain the divine. But the helplessness of Science did not injure the development of Art. While the scholars did not know just what to think, the most glorious works of Christian Art came into existence. Philosophy, which in those days had Theology in tow, was as incapable as the great idealist of the Greeks, the ‘divine Plato,’ had been, of conceding to Art a place within the progress of civilisation. Plato declared the plastic and dramatic arts to be harmful. He could so little conceive of an independent mission of Art, that he only mercifully spares music, because music promotes courage in war. [ 9 ] At a time when Spirit and Nature were so closely joined, a science of Art could not come into existence, nor was this possible at a time when they faced each other in unreconciled opposition. For the genesis of Aesthetics a time was necessary when man, in freedom and independence from the shackles of Nature, perceived the spirit in its undimmed purity, but a time, also, when a reunion with Nature is again possible. That the standpoint of the Greeks should be superseded, is not without good reason. For in the sum total of accidents constituting the world in which we feel ourselves placed, we can never find the divine, the necessary; we see nothing around us but facts that might equally well be different; we see nothing but individuals, and our spirit strives for the expression of the species, for the archetype; we see nothing but the finite, the perishable, and our spirit strives for the infinite, the imperishable, the eternal. And so if man's spirit, once estranged from Nature, is to return to Nature, it must be to something different from that sum total of accidents. It is for this return that Goethe stands; a return to Nature, but with the rich abundance of a developed spirit, with the level of culture of modern times.3 [ 10 ] The fundamental separation of Spirit and Nature does not correspond with Goethe's views. He sees in the world one great whole—a uniformly progressive chain of beings, within which man is a link, even though the highest. ‘Nature! we are surrounded and embraced by her, unable to withdraw from her and unable to advance more deeply into her. She lifts us unasked and unwarned, into the gyrations of her dance, and whirls with us away, until we are exhausted and fall from her arms.’ (Cp. Goethe's Scientific Works edited by Rudolf Steiner, vol. 2, p. 5.) And in the book on Winckelmann: ‘When man's healthy nature works as a whole, when the harmonious pleasure affords him a pure instinctive joy—then the Universe, if it could feel its own self, would cry out in exultation, as having reached its goal, and admire the pinnacle of its own growth and being.’ Here we have Goethe's characteristic way of reaching out far beyond the immediate in Nature, though without in the least losing sight of what constitutes the inner being of Nature. He is a stranger to a quality he finds in many especially gifted men, ‘of feeling a kind of shyness before real life, of drawing back into oneself, of creating one's own inner world, and in this way of giving the most excellent accomplishments an inward direction.’ Goethe does not fly from reality in order to create an abstract thought-world, having nothing in common with reality; he plunges deep into reality, in its eternal mutation, its genesis and movement, to find its laws that are immutable: he confronts the individual to behold the archetype. Thus were born in his spirit the plant-type and the animal-type, which are nothing but the Ideas of the plant and the animal. These are no empty general ideas that are part of a dry theory; they are the essential foundation of organisms—substantial and concrete, animated and distinguishable. Distinguishable, to be sure, not for the outer senses, but only for that higher contemplative capacity that Goethe discusses in his essay on ‘Contemplative Discernment.’ In the Goethean sense, ideas are just as objective as the colours and the forms of things, but they are only perceivable for those whose perceptive faculty is regulated for this purpose; just as colours and forms are only there for those who see, and not for the blind. If we approach the objective world with a non-receptive spirit, it does not disclose itself to us. Without the instinctive capacity for apprehending ideas, the latter remain an ever-sealed book. Here none saw as deeply as Schiller into the structure of Goethe's genius. [ 11 ] On 23rd August, 1794, he enlightens Goethe, in the following words, on the fundamental qualities of his nature: ‘You gather together the whole of Nature in order to gain light on the single detail; where the forms of the phenomena merge into the universal, there you seek the explanation and the reason for the individual. From the simple organisation you mount, step by step, to the more complicated, in order finally to build up the most complicated of all—Man—genetically, and from the materials of Nature's whole edifice. While thus creating him afresh after Nature's pattern, you seek to penetrate the secret of his construction.’ This re-creation provides a key for the understanding of Goethe's conception of the world. If we wish really to rise to the primal types of things, to the immutable in the general mutation, we must revert to the genesis, we must witness Nature create; we must not consider what has reached completion, for this no longer corresponds wholly to the Idea which comes to expression in it.4 This is the meaning of Goethe's words in his essay on ‘Contemplative Discernment:’ ‘If, in the sphere of morality, through belief in God, virtue and immortality, we seek to raise ourselves to a higher region and draw near to the first Being, the same should be the case in the sphere of the intellect—that, through the contemplation of an ever-creating Nature, we should make ourselves worthy of spiritual participation in her production. So did I press on untiringly to that original primal type.’ Thus Goethe's archetypes are no empty forms; they are the productive forces behind the phenomena. [ 12 ] This is the ‘Higher Nature’ in Nature over which Goethe wished to gain control. We gather from this that the reality spread out before our senses in no case represents something on the level of which a man who has attained a higher standard of culture can remain stationary. Only when man transcends this reality—breaks the shell and makes for the kernel—is that revealed to him, which the world holds together in its innermost recess. Nevermore can we find satisfaction in the isolated event in nature, but only in the law of nature; nevermore in the single and the particular, but only in the general and the universal. With Goethe this fact comes into evidence in the most perfect imaginable form. With him also the fact is established that, to the modern intellect, reality, as the single and the particular, can afford no satisfaction, because not in it but beyond it do we find that in which we recognise the highest, which we can revere as divine, which, in Science, we express as Idea. While mere observation cannot reconcile the opposing extremes, if it has reality but has not yet the Idea, so also is Science unable to effect this reconciliation, if it has the Idea, but no longer the reality. Between both, man needs a new kingdom; a kingdom in which the Idea is represented by the individual and not only by the whole; a kingdom in which the particular appears gifted with the character of the universal and the necessary. Such a world, however, is not present within sense reality; such a world must first be created by man, and this world is the world of Art—a necessary third kingdom by the side of the kingdoms of the senses and of reason. [ 13 ] The comprehension of Art as this third kingdom is the task which the Science of Aesthetics must regard as its own. The divinity which the objects in Nature have lost must be implanted in them by man himself, and therein lies a noble task which accrues to the artist. He has, so to speak, to bring the kingdom of God on to this earth. This religious mission of Art, as it may well be called, is expressed by Goethe (in the book on Winckelmann) in the following glorious words: [ 14 ] ‘In that Man is placed on Nature's pinnacle, he regards himself as another whole Nature, whose task is to bring forth inwardly yet another pinnacle. For this purpose, he heightens his powers, imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, calling on choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art, which takes a pre-eminent place by the side of his other actions and works. Once it is brought forth, once it stands before the world in its ideal reality, it produces a permanent effect—it produces the highest effect—for as it develops itself spiritually out of a unison of forces, it gathers into itself all that is glorious and worthy of devotion and love, and thus, breathing life into the human form, uplifts man above himself, completes the circle of his life and activity, deifies him for the present, in which the past and the future are included. Such were the feelings of those who beheld the Olympian Jupiter, as we can gather from the descriptions, narratives, and testimonies of the Ancients. The god had become man, in order to uplift man to a god. They beheld the highest dignity and were filled with enthusiasm for the highest beauty.’ [ 15 ] In these words, the significance of Art for the progress of civilisation was recognised. And it is characteristic of the mighty German Ethos, that it was the first to whom the recognition of this fact occurred; it is characteristic that all German philosophers, for the last hundred years, have struggled to find the most suitable scientific form for the peculiar way in which, in the work of art, spirit and object, idea and reality, melt into each other. The task of Aesthetics is none other than to comprehend the nature of this interpenetration, and to study it in detail, in the single forms in which it asserts itself, in the various branches of Art. The merit of having given a stimulus to this problem in the way indicated, and thereby to have set the ball rolling in connection with the chief, central questions of Aesthetics, must be ascribed to Kant's Critique of Judgment which appeared in 1790, and at once created a favourable impression on Goethe. In spite, however, of particularly serious work devoted to this subject, we are bound to admit to-day that an all-round satisfactory solution to these aesthetical problems is not forthcoming. The grand master of Aesthetics, that keen thinker and critic, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, held firmly to the end of his life, to his expressed conviction that the science of Aesthetics was still in its infancy. This amounts to an admission that all efforts in this field, including his own five volumes on Aesthetics, were in a more or less false direction. This is indeed the case, and if I may here express my own conviction, it can only be traced back to the circumstance that the fruitful seeds planted by Goethe were passed over unnoticed, and that he was not regarded as being scientifically competent. Had he, on the contrary, been so regarded, those ideas would merely have received a final development, with which Schiller was inspired in the contemplation of Goethe's genius, and which he set down in his letters on Aesthetical education. These letters, too, are held by writers intent on systems, to be insufficiently scientific, and yet they can be counted among the most important works ever produced in the field of Aesthetics. Schiller sets out from Kant, who determined the nature of the Beautiful in more than one respect. Kant first examines the reason of the pleasure we feel in the beautiful works of art. He finds this feeling of pleasure quite different from any other. Comparing it to the pleasure we feel when concerned with an object to which we owe an element of utility to ourselves, it is quite different. This pleasure is closely bound up with the desire for the existence of the object. Pleasure in the useful disappears when the useful is no longer there. Not so with the pleasure in the Beautiful. This pleasure has nothing to do with the possession, with the existence of the object, for it is not attached to the object but to the idea of the object. Whereas with the expedient and the useful, the need is felt to translate the idea into reality: we are content, in the case of the Beautiful, with the mere image. For this reason, Kant calls the feeling of delight in the Beautiful a feeling that is uninfluenced by any actual interest—a disinterested delight. It would, however, be quite erroneous to hold that conformity to purpose is thereby excluded from the Beautiful; this applies only to an exterior purpose. Hence is derived the second explanation of the Beautiful: It is something formed in itself in conformity to purpose, without, however, serving an exterior purpose. When we perceive an object in Nature, or a product of human skill, our intellect comes and inquires for its use and purpose, and is not satisfied until its question as to the ‘wherefore’ is answered. With the Beautiful, the ‘wherefore’ lies in the object itself, and the intellect does not need to reach out beyond it. At this point Schiller sets in, weaving the idea of Freedom into the sequence of thought in a way that does the greatest honour to human nature. To begin with, Schiller sets in opposition two human instincts which ceaselessly assert themselves. The first is the so-called material impulse, or the need to keep our senses open to the inpouring outer world. A rich gift presses in upon us, but without our being able to exert any determining influence on its nature. Here everything takes place with unconditional necessity. What we apprehend is determined from outside; here we are unfree, in subjection; we must simply obey the commands of physical (natural) necessity. The second is the formative impulse; that is none other than Reason, which brings law and order into the chaotic confusion of sense perceptions (external impressions). Through its work, system is introduced into experience. Here too, Schiller finds, we are not free; for in this work Reason is subjected to the unchanging laws of logic. We submit, in the first case, to necessity as imposed by Nature, and, in the second case, as imposed by Reason. Freedom seeks a haven of refuge from both. Schiller, emphasising the analogy between Art and the play of a child, assigns to Freedom the domain of Art. What is essentially the nature of play? Things possessed of reality are taken, and their general bearing altered at will. In this transformation of reality no law of logical necessity decides the issue—as, for instance, in the construction of a machine, where we must strictly conform to the laws of Reason; here everything is in the service of subjective necessity. The player connects things in a way that gives him pleasure; he imposes on himself no constraint. He pays no heed to physical, natural necessity, for he overcomes this constraint by putting to quite arbitrary use whatever passes into his hands. From Reason, too, and its necessity, he feels independent, for the order he introduces into things is his own invention. Thus the player impresses on reality the stamp of his own subjectivity and endows the latter with objective value. The separation of the activity of the two instincts comes to an end; they become united and thereby gain freedom: in the object is spirit, and the spirit is objective. Schiller, the poet of Freedom, sees in Art a free instinctive play, on a higher level, and exclaims with enthusiasm: ‘Man is fully Man only where he plays, and he only plays where he is Man in the fullest sense of the word.’ Schiller calls the basic instinct in Art, the play-instinct or impulse to play. It produces in the artist works, which, while existing for our senses, satisfy our reason; while the reason of which they partake, is simultaneously present for our senses in objective existence. And man's nature, at this stage, shows such activity, that his physical nature acts spiritually, while his spiritual nature acts physically. Physical nature is raised to the spirit, while the spirit sinks into physical nature. The former is thereby ennobled, and the latter is brought down from its clear height into the visible world. The works which thus come to existence are, to be sure, not fully true to Nature, because, in reality, spirit and object are never fully coincident; therefore when we compare the works of Art with the works of Nature, the former appear to us as mere semblance (appearance). But they must be semblance, because they would otherwise not be true works of Art. With his conception of semblance, in this connection, Schiller occupies a unique position among the writers on Aesthetics: he is unsurpassed and unrivalled. This is where the work should have continued. The one-sided solution to the problem of the Beautiful should have been extended with the help of Goethe's reflections on Art. Instead of this, Schelling appeared on the scene with a completely false theory, and inaugurated an error from which the science of Aesthetics in Germany never recovered. As all modern philosophers, Schelling finds that the highest task human effort can set itself, lies in the perception of the eternal, primal types of things. The spirit sweeps beyond the world of physical reality and rises to the heights where the divine is enthroned. There all truth and all beauty is revealed to him. Only the eternal is true and also beautiful. Thus, according to Schelling, no man can behold actual beauty who does not raise himself to the highest truth, for they are one and the same. All sensuous beauty is merely a weak reflection of that endless beauty which we can never perceive with our senses. We see where this leads to: the work of Art is not beautiful for its own sake and through its own self, but because it reproduces the Idea of Beauty. It follows, then, from this theory, that the purport of Art and Science is the same, since they both adopt as a basis eternal truth, which is also beauty. For Schelling, Art is only Science that has become objective. The important question now is: On what does our feeling of pleasure in the work of Art rest? In this case it rests merely on the expression of the Idea. The sensuous image is only a means of expression, the form in which a super-sensible purport expresses itself. In this respect, all the writers on Aesthetics follow the direction of Schelling's idealism. I cannot agree with the latest writer on this subject, E. von Hartmann, when he says that Hegel essentially improved on Schelling on this point. I say on this point, for in many other respects he towered above him. Hegel says actually: ‘The beautiful is the sensuous appearance of the idea.’ This amounts to an admission that, for him, the essential in Art was the expressed idea. This stands out still more clearly in the following words: ‘The hard crust of Nature and of the ordinary world make it more difficult for the spirit to penetrate to the idea, than is the case with works of Art.’ This is surely a clear statement that the goal of Art is the same as the goal of Science, namely, to penetrate to the Idea: Art seeks only to illustrate what Science expresses directly in forms of thought. Vischer calls beauty the appearance of the Idea, and likewise identifies the purport of Art with truth. In spite of all objections, beauty can never be separated from truth, if its essence is found in the expression of the Idea. But then it is not clear what independent mission Art is to have by the side of Science. What Art offers us, we can attain by way of thought, in a purer, clearer form, with no physical veil to shroud it. If this standpoint in Aesthetics be adopted, there is no escape, except through sophistry, from the compromising conclusion that allegory in the plastic arts, and didactic poetry in the poetic art, are the highest artistic forms. The independent significance of Art cannot be grasped, and Aesthetics, from this standpoint, have proved unproductive. It would be a mistake, however, to go too far, and, in consequence, abandon every attempt to attain a science of Aesthetics that is free from contradiction. They go too far in this direction, who would have Aesthetics assimilated by the history of the fine arts. If unsupported by authentic principles, this science merely becomes a storehouse for collections of notes on artists and their works, to which more or less clever remarks are appended; these, however, originating from arbitrary and subjective reasoning, are without value. On the other hand, a kind of physiology of taste has been set up in opposition to Aesthetics. The simplest and most elementary cases in which pleasure is felt are examined; then, mounting from these to more and more complicated cases, ‘Aesthetics from below’ are set up against ‘Aesthetics from above.’ This is the plan adopted by Fechner in his Introduction to Aesthetics. It is incomprehensible that such a work should have found adherents in a country which produced a Kant. Aesthetics should start from the examination of the feeling of pleasure; as though every feeling of pleasure were aesthetical, and as though the nature of the various feelings of pleasure could be distinguished by any other means than through the object itself which caused them. We only know that pleasure is an aesthetic feeling when we recognise the object to be beautiful, for, physiologically, there is nothing to distinguish aesthetic pleasure from any other. It is always a question of ascertaining the object. By virtue of what does an object become beautiful? This is the basic question in all Aesthetics. [ 13 ] We come much nearer to solving this question if we follow Goethe's lead. Merck describes Goethe's creative activity in the following words: ‘You create quite differently from the rest; they seek to embody the so-called imaginative—this produces only rubbish; you, however, seek to endow reality with a poetic form.’ These words convey about the same meaning as Goethe's own words in the second part of Faust: ‘Consider what thou will'st; still more consider how thou will'st.’ It is clearly stated what Art stands for. Not for the embodiment of the super-sensible, but for the transformation of the physical and the actual. Reality is not to be lowered to a means of expression: no, it is to be maintained in its full independence; only it must receive a new form, a form in which it satisfies us. If we remove any single being from its surroundings and observe it in this isolated condition, much in connection with it will appear incomprehensible. We cannot make it harmonise with the idea, the conception we necessarily apply to it. Its formation within reality is, in fact, not only the consequence of its own conformity to law; surrounding reality had a direct determining influence as well. Had it been able to develop itself independently, and free from external influence, only then would it have become a living presentment of its own Idea. The artist must grasp and develop this Idea on which the object is based, but whose free expansion within reality has been hampered. He must find within reality the point, starting from which, an object can be developed in its most perfect form. Nature falls short of her intention in every single instance; by the side of one plant she creates a second, a third, and so on; in no single plant is the whole Idea represented in concrete life; in one plant one side, in another plant another side is given, as circumstances permit. The artist must revert to Nature's tendency, as this appears to him. This is what Goethe means when he declares of his own creative activity: ‘I seek in everything a point from which much may be developed.’ In the artist's work the whole exterior must express the whole interior; in Nature's product the exterior falls short of the interior, and man's inquiring spirit must first ascertain it. Thus the laws in accordance with which the artist goes to work are none other than the eternal laws of Nature, pure, uninfluenced and unhampered. Artistic creation rests not on what is, but on what might be; not on the actual, but on the possible. The artist creates according to the same principles as Nature, but applies these principles to the individual, whereas, to use Goethe's own words, Nature pays no heed to the individual, ‘She ever builds and ever destroys,’ because her aim is perfection, not in the unit but in the totality. The content of any work of Art is any physical reality—this is what the artist wills; in giving it its form, he directs his efforts so as to excel Nature in her own tendency, and to achieve to a still higher degree than she is capable of, the results possible within her laws and means. [ 18 ] The object which the artist sets before us is more perfect than it is in its natural state, but it contains none other than its own inherent perfection. Where the object excels its own self—though on the basis of what is already concealed within it—there beauty is found. Beauty is therefore nothing unnatural: Goethe can say with good reason, ‘Beauty is a manifestation of secret laws, which, failing beauty, would have ever remained concealed;’ or, in another passage: ‘He to whom Nature reveals her manifest secret, yearns for Art, Nature's worthiest interpreter.’ If it may be said that beauty is unreal, since it represents something which can never be found within Nature in such perfection, so, too, can it be said in the same sense, that beauty is truer than Nature, since it represents what Nature intends to be but cannot be. On this question of reality in Art, Goethe says—and we may extend his words to apply to the whole of Art: ‘The poet's province is representation. This reaches its highest level when it competes with reality, that is, when the descriptions are so lifelike, through the spirit, that they may stand as present for all men.’ Goethe finds that ‘nothing in Nature is beautiful which is not also naturally true, in its underlying motive’ (Conversations with Eckermann, iii. 79). And the other side of appearance or semblance, when the being excels its own self, we find expressed as Goethe's view in the proverbs in prose, No. 978: ‘The law of vegetable growth appears in its highest manifestation in the blossom, and the rose is but the pinnacle of this manifestation. The fruit can never be beautiful, for there the vegetable law reverts to its own self—back to the mere law.’ Here we surely have it plainly stated: Where the Idea develops and unfolds, there beauty sets in—where we perceive the law directly in the outward phenomenon; where, on the other hand, as in the fruit, the outward phenomenon appears formless and gross, because there is no sign in it of the fundamental law underlying vegetable growth—there beauty in the natural product ceases. For this reason the same proverb goes on to say: ‘The law, as it engages itself in the phenomenon with the greatest freedom and according to its own inherent conditions, produces the objective-beautiful, which, to be sure, must find a worthy subject by which to be perceived.’ This view of Goethe's we find most definitely stated in a passage in the Conversations with Eckermann (ii. 106). ‘The artist, to be sure, must faithfully and devotedly follow Nature's pattern in the detail ... only in the higher regions of artistic activity, where actually a picture becomes a picture—there he has free play and may even proceed to fiction.’ Goethe gives as the highest goal of Art: ‘Through semblance to give the illusion of a higher reality. It were, however, a false effort to retain the semblance so long within reality, that finally a common reality were left.’ [ 19 ] Let us now ask ourselves what is the reason of pleasure felt in works of Art. We must realise that pleasure and satisfaction in the object of beauty are in no way inferior to the purely intellectual pleasure which we feel in the purely spiritual. It always points to a distinct decadence in Art when its province is sought in mere amusement and in the satisfaction of lower inclinations. The reason for pleasure in works of Art is none other than the reason for the joyful exultation which we feel in view of the world of Ideas generally, uplifting man out of himself. What is it, then, that gives us such satisfaction in the world of Ideas? Nought else than the heavenly inner tranquillity and perfection which it harbours. No contradiction, no dissonance stirs in the thought-world which rises within our inner self, for it is itself an infinite. Inherent in this picture is everything which makes it perfect. This native perfection of the world of Ideas—this is the reason of our exultation when we stand before it. If beauty is to exalt us in the like manner, then it must be fashioned after the pattern of the Idea. This is quite a different thing from what the German writers on Aesthetics of the idealist school would have. This is not the Idea in the form of a phenomenon; it is just the contrary; it is a phenomenon in the form of the Idea. The content of Beauty, the material basis on which it rests, is thus always an actual positive reality, and the form in which it is presented is the form of the Idea. We see exactly the contrary is true to what German Aesthetics say; the latter simply turned things upside down. Beauty is not the divine in a cloak of physical reality; no, it is physical reality in a cloak that is divine. The artist does not bring the divine on to the earth by letting it flow into the world; he raises the world into the sphere of the divine. Beauty is semblance, because it conjures before our senses a reality which, as such, appears as an ideal world. Consider what thou will'st, still more consider how thou will'st—for on the latter everything turns. What is given remains physical, but the manner of its appearance is ideal. Where the ideal form appears in the physical to best advantage, there Art is seen to reach its highest dignity. Goethe says here: ‘The dignity of Art appears perhaps most eminently in music, because in music there is no material factor to be discounted. Music is all form and figure, exalting and ennobling everything it expresses.’ A science of Aesthetics starting from this definition: ‘Beauty is a physical reality appearing as though it were Idea’—such a science does not exist: it must be created. It can be called straight away the ‘Aesthetics of Goethe's world-conception.’ And this is the science of Aesthetics of the future. E. von Hartmann, one of the latest writers on this subject and the author of an excellent ‘Philosophy of Beauty,’ also cherishes the old error, that the content of Beauty is the Idea. He says quite rightly that the basic conception from which the science of the beautiful should proceed, is the conception of aesthetic semblance. Yes, but how can the manifestation of the world of Ideas, as such, ever be regarded as semblance. The Idea is surely the highest truth: when the Idea appears, it does so out of truth, and not as semblance. It is a real semblance, however, when the natural (physical) and the individual, arrayed in the imperishable raiment of eternity, appear with the character of the Idea; for reality falls short of this. [ 20 ] Taken in this sense, the artist appears as the continuator of the cosmic Spirit. The former pursues creation where the latter relinquishes it. The closest tie of kinship seems to unite the artist with the cosmic Spirit, and Art appears as the continuation of Nature's process. Thus the artist raises himself above the life of common reality, and he raises us with him when we devote ourselves to his work. He does not create for the finite world, he expands beyond it. This conception we find expressed by Goethe in his poem, ‘The Artist's Apotheosis,’ where he makes the Muse call to the Poet in the following words:
[ 21 ] In this poem, Goethe's thoughts on what I may call the cosmic mission of the artist are most aptly expressed. [ 22 ] Who, like Goethe, ever grasped in Art such deep significance? Who ever endowed Art with such dignity? It speaks sufficiently for the whole depth of his conceptions, when he says: ‘The great works of art are brought into existence by men, as are the great works of Nature, in accordance with true and natural laws; all arbitrary phantasy falls to the ground; there is Necessity, there is God.’ A science of Aesthetics in his spirit were certainly no bad thing. And this might apply also to other departments of modern science. [ 23 ] When, at the death of the poet's last heir, Walter von Goethe, 15th April, 1885, the treasures of the Goethe House became accessible to the nation, many, no doubt, shrugged their shoulders at the zeal of the scholars as they seized on the smallest posthumous remnant and handled it as a precious relic—the value of which, in connection with research should by no means be despised. But Goethe's genius is unfathomable; it cannot be taken in at a glance; we can only draw near to it gradually from different sides. And for this purpose we must welcome everything; what appears a worthless detail, gains significance when we consider it in connection with the poet's comprehensive view of the world. Only when we traverse the whole gamut of expressive activity in which this universal spirit gave vent to his life—only then does the essential in him, his own tendency, from which everything with him originated, and which represents a culmination of humanity, appear before our soul. Only when this tendency becomes the common property of all who strive spiritually; when the belief becomes general that we have not only to understand Goethe's conception of the world, but that we must live in it and it must live in us—only then will Goethe have fulfilled his mission. This conception of the world must be a sign for all members of the German people and far beyond it, in which they can meet and know each other in a life of common endeavour.
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30. Truth and Verisimilitude in a Work of Art
27 Aug 1898, |
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Why is the greatest fame gained by the actor who most perfectly expresses the feelings, who comes closest to truth in dialogue, posture, gesticulation, who cheats me into believing that what I am beholding is not an imitation but the thing itself?” The attorney for the artist undertakes to argue that all this is far from justifying the spectator in demanding that persons and events on the stage must be so presented as to seem actual. |
If one could succeed to the extent of showing the ape that pictures of beetles are not to be eaten, the ape would never understand why pictured beetles exist at all—since they cannot be eaten. So it is with the aesthetically uncultivated. It may be possible to bring him to the point of seeing that a work of art is not to be treated like something for sale in the market. But, since he would still understand only such a relationship as he can acquire to things he finds in the market, he will fail to see the reason for the existence of a work of art. |
30. Truth and Verisimilitude in a Work of Art
27 Aug 1898, |
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The question “What kind of truth should be demanded of a work of art?” is discussed comprehensively by Goethe in the form of a very interesting imaginary conversation. What is there presented outweighs whole volumes more recently written on this topic. Since the interest in the question at present prevailing is as vivid as the confusion is great, it may not be amiss to recall here the principal ideas expressed by Goethe. His point of departure is the representation of “a theatre in a theatre.” “On a German stage,” he says, “there was represented an oval structure of a somewhat amphitheatrical form with many spectators painted in the boxes as if they were witnessing what took place below them. Many members of the actual audience seated in the parquet and the boxes were dissatisfied with this, offended at the idea that anyone could impose upon them something so untrue and improbable. In this connection there occurred a conversation of which the approximate content is here recorded.” The conversation takes place between an attorney, representing the artist, who considers that he solved his problem correctly in producing the picture of the spectators, and an actual member of the audience, who is not satisfied with the painted spectators, because he demands the truth of nature. This spectator requires that “everything shall at least seem to be true and real.” “Otherwise,” he asks, “why would a decorator take such pains to draw every line with the utmost precision according to the laws of perspective, to paint every object strictly in accordance with the principles of light and shade? Why is study devoted to costumes? Why such heavy expenditure permitted for the sake of accuracy, in order to transport me back into those times? Why is the greatest fame gained by the actor who most perfectly expresses the feelings, who comes closest to truth in dialogue, posture, gesticulation, who cheats me into believing that what I am beholding is not an imitation but the thing itself?” The attorney for the artist undertakes to argue that all this is far from justifying the spectator in demanding that persons and events on the stage must be so presented as to seem actual. On the contrary, what he ought to demand is that he shall never for one moment have the impression of beholding reality, but always that of semblance, though a semblance of reality. At first the spectator thinks the attorney is indulging in a mere quibble. To this impression Goethe very admirably has the attorney reply: “And I may respond that, when the subject of discussion is the action of our minds, there are no words delicate and subtle enough for the purpose, so that such word play indicates an actual necessity of the mind, which, since we cannot express directly what takes place within us, seeks to achieve this by means of antitheses, by answering the question from two sides, getting hold of the thing, as it were, in the middle between the two.” Persons accustomed to the crass and crude concepts produced by every-day existence often see nothing but needless quibbling in the delicate differentiations among concepts that must be made by one who desires to grasp the subtle and infinitely complicated relationships within reality. Certainly it is true that clever battling with words may enable one to establish a system based upon words alone, but the person who establishes the system is not always responsible for the fact that words are void of concepts. It may frequently happen that one who hears the word simply fails to associate a concept with it. Very often does it become a matter for amusement when people complain that they cannot connect any ideas with the words of some philosopher. They always assume that the blame belongs to the philosopher—but it is often the fault of the readers, who simply possess no capacity for thinking, whereas the philosopher has thought a very great deal. There is a marked difference between “seeming real” arid “having the appearance of reality.” Representation on the stage is obviously an appearance. One may hold the opinion that the appearance must have such a character as to create the illusion of reality. Or one may be convinced that the appearance should truly indicate: “I am no reality; I am appearance only.” When appearance possesses this honest character, it cannot derive its laws from reality; it must possess laws of its own, not identical with those belonging to reality. The person who desires an artistic appearance which apes reality will say everything in a theatrical representation must proceed just as it would if the process had actually occurred. He who wishes a theatrical appearance which shows itself truly as an appearance will say, on the contrary, that much within a stage representation must proceed in a manner different from that of reality; that the laws of interrelationship within a dramatic occurrence are different from those in real life. In other words, one who holds such a conviction must admit that there exist in art laws of interrelationship among facts for which no model is found in nature. Such laws are mediated by fantasy. Fantasy does not create on the model of nature; it creates, side by side with the truth of nature, a higher truth of art. This conviction Goethe causes the attorney for the artist to affirm. “The true in art and the true in nature,” he declares, “are wholly dissimilar, and the artist is neither required nor permitted to make his work seem an actual work of nature.” Only those artists will seek to provide the truth of nature in their works who are deficient in fantasy and for this reason are unable to create anything artistically true, but must borrow from nature if they are to bring anything into existence. And only those spectators will demand the truth of nature in works of art who do not possess a sufficient degree of aesthetic culture to rise to the level of demanding a special truth in art side by side with the truth of nature. They know only the true which they experience in daily life; and, when confronted by art, they ask: “Does this artistic thing correspond with the reality with which we are acquainted?” The person of artistic cultivation is aware of something true in a different sense from that pertaining to ordinary reality. This other aspect of truth lie seeks in art. Goethe causes the attorney for the artist to clarify the difference between a person with artistic culture and one devoid of this by means of a homely but highly pertinent example, as follows: “A great scientist possessed among his domestic animals an ape. He once missed the ape and found him, after long search, in his library. The animal was seated on the floor, surrounded by scattered etchings from an unbound work on natural history. Astonished at this zealous study on the part of this friend of the family, the gentleman approached and perceived—to his amazement and vexation—that the epicurean ape had bitten out all pictures of beetles he had found scattered through the book.” The ape is acquainted only with beetles true according to nature, and the manner in which he conducts himself in ordinary life toward such beetles is that of eating them. In the illustrations, he was confronted not by reality but only by appearance. He takes appearance for reality, and behaves toward it accordingly. Those persons who take artistic appearance as a reality are in the situation of the ape. When they witness on the stage a scene of abduction or of love-making, they wish to derive from such things just what they derive from similar scenes in actuality. In Goethe's conversation the spectator is led through the example of the ape to a more correct view of artistic enjoyment. He asks: “Does not the uncultivated devotee inevitably demand that the work of art should be naturalistic for the very reason that he may thus enjoy it in a natural way—often crude and commonplace?” A work of art requires enjoyment on a higher level than a work of nature. One who has not implanted this higher form of enjoyment in himself through aesthetic cultivation is like the ape that eats the pictured beetles instead of observing them and thereby gaining scientific knowledge. The lawyer voices this truth in the statement: “A perfect work of art is a work of the human spirit, and in this sense also a work of nature. But the fact that the scattered objects are grasped as a unity, and even the most commonplace of these included according to its significance and worth, lifts it above the level of nature. It requires for its comprehension a spirit harmonious through innate character and through discipline, and such a spirit finds the excellent, the perfect, likewise, in accordance with his own nature. The ordinary dilettante has no conception of this; he deals with a work of art as with something for sale in the market, but the true connoisseur sees not only the correctness of the imitation but also the special excellence of the matter chosen, the brilliance of the composition, the super- earthly character of the miniature world of art. He feels that he must raise himself to the level of the artist in order to enjoy the work of art; that he must gather himself together out of his distracted life, must live with the work of art, viewing it again and again, thereby bestowing upon himself a new level of existence.” Art that strives to attain only the truth of nature, the mere aping of the commonplace every-day actuality, is discredited the moment one senses within oneself the possibility of attaining the higher existence 'mentioned above as a prerequisite. This possibility can be sensed in its reality by each person only with respect to himself. For this reason, a universally convincing refutation of naturalism is an impossibility. One who knows only the every-day commonplace actuality will always cling to naturalism. One who discovers in himself the capacity for perceiving above the entity of nature a special entity of art will feel that naturalism constitutes the aesthetic philosophy of Philistines. When this becomes clear, one will not battle against naturalism with the weapons of logic or any other weapons. For such a conflict would be like an attempt to prove to the ape that pictures of. beetles are to be observed and not to be eaten. If one could succeed to the extent of showing the ape that pictures of beetles are not to be eaten, the ape would never understand why pictured beetles exist at all—since they cannot be eaten. So it is with the aesthetically uncultivated. It may be possible to bring him to the point of seeing that a work of art is not to be treated like something for sale in the market. But, since he would still understand only such a relationship as he can acquire to things he finds in the market, he will fail to see the reason for the existence of a work of art. This is the approximate content of Goethe's conversation to which we are referring. It is clear that we have here a treatment on a high level of questions which are today being probed into afresh by many persons. The investigation of these and other matters would be needless if people would take the trouble to assimilate the ideas of those who have already dealt with these things against the background of a culture of unparalleled elevation. |
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 220. Letter to Rudolf Steiner
03 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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I firmly believe that your thoughts helped us. It was a daring undertaking. — I also wanted to collect reviews for you and couldn't manage it. Tomorrow morning we'll continue our journey and today there is still so much to be done. |
Warmest Marie 39. Was later performed at the Goetheanum, but not under Marie Steiner's direction. |
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 220. Letter to Rudolf Steiner
03 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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220To Rudolf Steiner in Dornach Friday evening, October 24, 1924 Dear E., thank you very much for your long letter, which I hope did not take too much effort on your part, and for all your contributions. Now we have everything we need for the Johannisnachtstraum, even more, because we won't have enough time for the scenes with Zettel 39. We will save that for when we work with the actors. Incidentally, not much is missing now to complete the ghost scenes. And I thought that since you now know what you want yourself, you might like me to send you all the scenes in which something is still missing. I am attaching them here. I have indicated the pages and marked the places where something still needs to be done. What is left mostly refers to the adventures of the Athenians. I have also left that out in the speeches that we are now presenting. But that would be necessary if we were to work together with the actors. So I am sending them to you in any case for you to review. Now our first matinee is behind us. It went extremely well, and there was no sign of any negative sentiment – only applause. What the press will say could be different. They say there was a scathing article in the Berliner Tageblatt on Friday. In any case, it had no effect on the matinee; the Lessing Theater was sold out and the audience was completely behind it. In general, the press treated us well this time. Sometimes reluctantly, as in the Hamburger Nachrichten, but precisely because of that, it is said, it was impressive. Only I was occasionally scolded, or found poems useless. My voice obeyed me quite well on this trip. Only in the members' performance in Stuttgart was I a little embarrassed, and in the second performance in Hamburg I felt the cold from Lübeck a little. (Not yet in Lübeck itself.) The Kammerspiel Theater in Hamburg is also acoustically unfavorable; the Thalia Theater is very good. The Lessing Theater here is also acoustically favorable. However, I now have a somewhat daunting task with the Johannisnacht scenes; after all, I have a few clumsy people for the choir and little time. Every day, I have rehearsals in addition to the performance, rehearsed the elf scenes, and that was a great effort. (We were allowed to stay at the Lessing Theater quite extensively.) Now this morning, before the matinee, I woke up with a severe migraine and foaming at the mouth. But since that was already happening at 5 a.m., I was able to get myself together until 11:30, and nobody noticed anything. But talking to people is also what unsettles me, I hardly have the strength for it anymore. So unfortunately I couldn't fulfill your wish to participate actively in the conference. Yesterday I had too much to do with the two rehearsals, and today I have to make a considerable effort to keep myself going. Tomorrow I have to rehearse a lot: the Michaeli program for Tuesday and Wednesday, and the new one. 3rd Nov. Dear E., it's terrible: I wanted to write you a long, detailed letter and not just ask for forms, so I didn't send this and the texts already put in an envelope. Every time I sat down to write, I was called away, and I got so caught up in the whirlwind that I no longer had control over myself. I was unable to attend any lectures. But I experienced all too much that was human and social. So I must speak of gratitude and good fortune that the performance went well yesterday. It was received with enthusiasm. I firmly believe that your thoughts helped us. It was a daring undertaking. — I also wanted to collect reviews for you and couldn't manage it. Tomorrow morning we'll continue our journey and today there is still so much to be done. So I have to close so that this letter can be sent. I couldn't write another one anyway. Only more intensely and lovingly I want to think of you. It gave me courage when I received another letter from you yesterday before the performance, and I want to trust that you are feeling better. We have performances in Stuttgart on November 9 and 11. —- I received the first “Goetheanum” that came in the mail yesterday. Warmest Marie
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262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 221. Telegram to Marie Steiner in Kassel
05 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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Show German 221 Telegram from Dornachbrugg to Marie Steiner in Kassel Postscript: recorded on 5/11 1924 Kind thoughts for further activity, here satisfying under the circumstances, sincerely Rudolf Steiner |
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 221. Telegram to Marie Steiner in Kassel
05 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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221Telegram from Dornachbrugg to Marie Steiner in Kassel Kind thoughts for further activity, here satisfying under the circumstances, sincerely Rudolf Steiner |
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 222. Letter to Rudolf Steiner
08 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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It is a focal point of the highest interest - in terms of cultural history. I don't understand how people can come from there and never say anything about it. It is as if all the paths of German development lead back there. |
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 222. Letter to Rudolf Steiner
08 Nov 1924, Dornach |
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222To Rudolf Steiner in Dornach Nov. 8, 1924, Stuttgart Dear E., Now we have arrived at our last stage, here in Stuttgart. Schuurmans have already gone to Dornach because of their move, and Stuten is taking care of the work with the musicians here. In Kassel we had an overcrowded hall (it holds 1000 people). Our ushers counted 50 people who were turned away. This astonished my dentist, for example, who said that the greatest artists now had empty halls. I also believe that if we had continued to travel as we did then, we would have become the current sensation or attraction. By the time of the next journey, we might have been forgotten again. The journey from Kassel here was wonderful again. You have no idea what interesting places there are in Germany if you don't travel by car. We only have a lunch break, usually in a place where there is a beautiful cathedral. The other day it was Magdeburg. This time Fulda. It is a focal point of the highest interest - in terms of cultural history. I don't understand how people can come from there and never say anything about it. It is as if all the paths of German development lead back there. And geographically, it feels like the heart too. But now Catholicism is tightening its net there the strongest. I was interested in copying out the text of the indulgence offers at the grave of St. Boniface, which is posted there. This was the longest trip Meyer had made. He learned as much on this journey as eurythmists do on their travels. He has become very safe and skillful. Today I have not seen him. What about him and the car now? Can I find out from you how we should all make our way home? I wanted to stay here until the 14th or 15th to sort out various things at the Eurythmy School. I am almost afraid to come back to Dornach and perhaps tire you out. I think I have served you best through my work outside the School. Now I have to go to rehearsal – we are staging the Oberon scenes with some choristers from here. All my warmest regards. Hopefully you are already spending more time in an armchair than in bed. Frieda Noll 40 She was lovely and caring and sweet to us. Goodbye Marie
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