The Rudolf Steiner Archive

If we want to get a clear and complete picture of institutions that relate to the education of the individual, this can only be done if we relate them to our cultural life and its ideals. But what point of view should we take to understand our cultural life itself?

For a people as advanced as ours, it may seem pedantic to leave it to the inspiration of the moment to answer such questions, or to philosophize at length, deriving a few hollow phrases from mere abstract sentences, while spurning to ask our great ancestors. The high culture to which our people has risen has long since led it to gain clarity about its position in world history. The magnificent blossoms in art and science that our nation's classical era has produced have long made it clear to the unbiased and educated that the Greek spirit has been rejuvenated in the regions of Germania. Just as the more noble education poured out of Hellas through all the veins of the ancient world, so German education flows into the culture of all newer peoples in a fertilizing way. Seen in this light, it appears more than a mere figure of speech when Schiller connects his philosophical reflection to the Greek myth in the essay “On Grace and Dignity”. This prefigures the location of our reflection. If, with Fichte, we regard the Germans as the original or ancestral people of the modern world, they will be seen as representatives of modern culture, with whom we compare the Greeks, a people equal to all of them.

In this comparison, decisive contrasts emerge. The complex conditions of modern social life in our advanced culture have disrupted the disposition towards humanity that was originally present in every individual in its entirety, and no longer allow it to mature in the individual, but only in the whole of human society. In the individual Greek, the whole of humanity is reflected to us as in a mirror; with us, this disposition no longer develops in the individual, but only in the whole state. One person particularly develops this, the other that mental faculty, and in doing so neglects the others, so that one

would like to claim that the mental powers also express themselves in experience as separately as the psychologist separates them in the presentation, and we see not only individual subjects, but entire classes of people develop only a part of their abilities, while the rest, as with crippled growths, are barely hinted at with a faint trace.

You have to ask around from individual to individual to glean the totality of the species.

The entire culture of the Greeks is an expression of the harmonious activity of all forces. No part of human nature is neglected, none is particularly favored. No split has yet occurred in the forces at work, which is why they worked so harmoniously. That is why the Greeks were so happy, because they had no sense of lack in human nature. As the culture of the Greeks presents itself to us as complete in itself, it appears to us as an ideal.

But man could not remain standing on the standpoint of the Greeks. The culture of the Greeks formed a culminating point, and one could only rise to even higher spheres by splitting the forces. We would never have achieved our great intellectual accomplishments if individual mental faculties had not been particularly strongly developed in particular individuals. If we take a look at educated Europe, this soon becomes perfectly clear to us. The Italian is endowed with the most vivid imagination and the most lively sense of art, the Frenchman with dazzling rhetoric, the Englishman with a critical mind. We also find all these details in the ancient Greeks, but never developed separately by themselves. There, the contrasts only exist separately in our abstracting minds; in reality they do not exist separately. In the modern world, we are now dealing not with ideal contrasts, but with real ones. But while the peoples just mentioned, who were mainly from educated Europe, were content with their one-sided education, the Germans – and here they resemble the Greeks – had a longing when the brilliant epoch of their literature shone on the horizon of intellectual life: to reunite the contrasts that had arisen in reality in an ideal way. As in so many things, here too the stimulus proceeded from the Romance peoples. Rousseau set the conditions of natural life as an ideal in contrast to the unnatural conditions of modern state life. This was the fundamental idea which, purified by the profound thinking of Fichte and Schiller, was overcome and led to a really satisfactory solution. If we consider the prose writings of that time that leaned more towards the philosophical direction, such as Fichte's lectures on “the scholar”, Schiller's “aesthetic letters” or Jean Paul's “Levana”, we see the same idea recurring. The latter writer expresses it as follows:

Each of us has within him his ideal price-man, whom he secretly strives to set free or quiet from youth.

This whole view also comes across to us clearly and distinctly in Schiller's saying:

Always strive for the whole, and if you cannot become a whole, as a serving member, join a whole.

This whole quest becomes even clearer to us when we compare the way in which weaker, more narrow-minded spirits were divided by the split that occurred in the modern world with regard to intellectual forces, and how differently strong, far-sighted spirits sought to find an ideal way out. One of the former is now Hölderlin. Completely absorbed in Greek culture, which presents him with the whole of human nature in an indivisible unity, he feels the deepest pain at the fragmentation among Germans, a pain to which he gives a meaningful expression in the following words:

You see artisans among the Germans, but not human beings; thinkers, but not human beings; priests, but not human beings; masters, servants, boys, and set people.

Schiller and Fichte now confront this narrow-minded view in a truly magnificent way and find the way out of the error. I called Hölderlin's view narrow-minded because it neglects the members in relation to the whole. The individual spiritual power had to suffer, it had to remain at a certain level so that the harmony of the whole would not be destroyed. But a further look only arouses our interest in the whole if we see the whole in the perfection of each individual link and not in the neglect of them.

It was necessary to consider a means by which, despite the perfection of the individual power, the whole could still be seen in each individual power. And this task is solved in Schiller's “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of the Human Race.” —

Through the ideal human being that is active in each individual person, the potential for all of humanity is manifested in him. This ideal human being is now represented in the state as a “whole”.

By having to choose a particular station, each individual is no longer purely and simply human; he is a priest, a lawyer, a teacher, a technician, an artist, a physician, etc. Given the constant progress of civilization, there should be an infinite number of individual stations. The infinite isolation and specialization [illegible word] through the one-sided education of the individual [illegible word] is now contrasted with what we want to call the social sense; the interaction of individuals. The entire organism of a nation is moving towards a cultural ideal that consists in perfection and that has its roots in the spirit of the individual. When the powers and abilities of individuals combine to create an overall performance, we see a great ideal personality, embodied in society, striving towards a common goal. In this great personality, we encounter everything that the Greeks present to us in an undivided way in each individual. The ideal of their way of working is the harmonious interaction of all possible forces, and their product is a product of freedom. This latter magnificent manifestation of the purely human, of which we become more and more aware in the course of history, is the creator of the highest that man can achieve. But it is only possible through the harmonious interaction and lively interweaving of all possible human abilities and powers. The more one-sided our education is, the more we distance ourselves from this harmony of the powers of the mind. But the necessity of a one-sided education has already been repeatedly pointed out. In this case, the individual must seek what he does not find in himself in connection with his fellow human beings. And so he appears to society as a microcosm, in a different way than it was the case with the Greeks. By losing freedom through his one-sidedness, he gains as a serving member of the whole. From now on, his individual strength is no longer his property, but a link in the whole social activity. Thus, by giving himself completely to society and willingly receiving from it, he regains that state, which Schiller calls the aesthetic one, that is observed in the Greeks, that poor [breaks off]

On March 22, the anniversary of Goethe's death, Prof. Schröer gave a lecture at the local Goethe Society on the topic: “On Goethe's: ‘We call it piously’ (from the poem: ‘Trilogy of Passion’). The remarks were primarily about Goethe, the man. Popular judgments, which still endeavor to disparage Goethe in this or that respect, should be thoroughly countered. Goethe's love life, in particular, which a crude view would like to present as that of a life of debauchery, was put in its proper light as that of a highly developed, selfless idealist for whom love is the only passion free from selfishness. Goethe's love is the genuinely German love, imbued with the noblest view of feminine worth, not the selfish love that originates in base instincts. The frivolous jokes about platonic love do not catch on with Goethe, “he was not only acquainted with her, but intimate with her.” Schröer also thoroughly illuminated Goethe's position on religion. He was not pious in the sense of a positive religion; he could not make the god of any confession his own; but he was pious in the sense that he recognized a divine in all earthly things, in all reality, and revered it, even tried to embody it through poetry and to embody it through science. The much-discussed chapter “Goethe as a courtier” was also duly treated. Goethe's free nature towards the Duke of Weimar, as indeed towards the entire court, and his deeply sarcastic descriptions of court life in the second part of Faust were not known or understood by those who wanted to present Goethe as a courtier. Schröer finally showed how Goethe's poetry is only a reflection of his noble, elevated human nature, which the entire nation should endlessly honor and recognize instead of constantly trying to belittle and find fault with.

If one isolates the act of recognition and regards it as the activity of an outside observer of the world, then all the misleading philosophical questions arise: How is knowledge possible? Can we recognize things in themselves? Are there limits to knowledge? etc. All these questions lose their significance if we understand cognition as part of the process of life. Just as life expresses itself in plants as the production of leaves, flowers and fruits, so it expresses itself in humans as cognition. It makes just as little sense to ask: What are the limits of cognition? as it does to ask: What are the limits of flowering? The content of knowledge is a product of the world process, like the flower of the plant. The image of the world that man creates for himself is a fantasy content and toto genere different from what it depicts when it is merely considered in terms of its pictorial nature. When man speaks of the “essence of the world”, of the “thing in itself”, etc., he speaks of a need of his. We are not compelled by anything external to speak of the “essence of the world”. We are only pushed to do so by our nature. If I speak of the “essence of the world” and assert its unknowability, I am talking into the blue. There can be no other being for which there is anything that could be equated with knowledge. To speak of the existence of something that lies “beyond knowledge” is as foolish as to speak of something that lies beyond plant growth. Knowledge must remain within itself if it is to have any meaning. Kantian philosophy is the outpouring of a personality that does not know what it wants. Kant searches for something, but does not know what. Basically, he only talks about the unknowability of something, which he imagines as an indefinite goal in the blue. It is indicative of the boundless weakness of German philosophy that it cannot eliminate Kant's follies. World-negation, the beyond, etc., will only come into existence when man invents them. But it is the most empty, foolish invention there is.

Few of the fundamental aesthetic ideas have suffered more at the hands of the erroneous premises of German aesthetics than that of the “comic.” If, as German aestheticians do, you explain beauty by the idea (the divine) appearing in a sensual image, then insurmountable difficulties arise when it comes to defining the comic. For under this assumption, we have to distinguish two things in the art product (in the beautiful object): firstly, the sensual image, the material product made of marble, color, sound, words, and so on, and secondly, the idea that is brought to view through this image. Three cases can now arise: 1) The idea and the vivid image can be perfectly congruent, so that the idea is not too lofty, too spiritual, too sublime to be represented by this image, and the image can be worthy, significant, appropriate to the idea in the same way. In this case, there is perfect harmony between the idea and the perception; neither dominates the other, each is the equal of the other. Nowhere do we feel that something is missing, nowhere that something is lacking. When this occurs, German aestheticians believe that we are dealing with the “simply beautiful,” with the “beautiful in itself.” II.) it may happen that the idea appears more significant, greater than the perception, that it towers above it, goes beyond it, so that the perception appears too insignificant, small, inadequate to grasp the divine (the idea) in its full scope. The vessel is then not large enough to hold the content (the idea). While in the presence of the “simply beautiful” we feel satisfaction at the harmony between the divine (the ideal) and the earthly (the real), here we must stand in awe before the greatness of the idea, which seems so immense that we cannot find a picture adequate to it. In this case we are dealing with the sublime. III.) Now only the opposite case is possible; namely, that the image (the view) appears greater, more significant, more powerful than the idea. While in the [second] case the idea disturbs the harmony by its size, here the disharmony is due to the predominance of the sensory image. The latter imposes itself, rebels against the idea, revolts against the divine. Consequently, one can only find the ugly in this. If we now consider that the tragic is only a special case of the sublime, we find that the four concepts – beautiful, sublime, tragic, ugly – exhaust the inventory of aesthetics, with no room for the comic. For it is easy to see that a fourth case, distinct from the three listed, is no longer possible.

The situation is quite different if we take as our starting point the idea of beauty that I have put forward (Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic). Art can never, ever have the task of representing the idea itself. That is the task of science. If the basic ideas of German aesthetics are correct, then in terms of content there is actually no difference between science and art. The latter would only have to present in a vivid form what the former expresses through words (thoughts). This simple consideration proves that art must have a completely different task. And this is the opposite of that of science. If science has to present the divine in the form of direct thinking, as it hovers over the sensual, in pure ideal form, then art has to lift the sensual, the vivid, the pictorial into the sphere of the divine. When we stand face to face with nature, with reality, we find it neither divine nor un-divine, neither full of ideas nor empty of ideas, but simply indifferent to divinity, to the idea. The thinker looks through this indifferent shell and sees the idea in the form of the thought. But for this purpose he must leap over immediate reality, must look through and beyond it. He who stops at mere reality cannot arrive at the idea. The artist approaches reality in a different way. He does not transcend reality, he lovingly takes it up, indeed he experiences and weaves in the sensual, material, real. What he represents are objects of direct nature, of real existence. In the creations of art, we do not encounter anything in terms of content (the “what”) that we cannot also find in nature. The artist only changes the form (the “how”). He presents objects of reality, but differently than we find them in the real world. He presents them as if they were as necessary, as full of law, as divine as the idea. In terms of content, art has to do with the sensual; in terms of form, with the ideal. If science presents the idea in terms of content and form, and nature presents the sensual in terms of form and content, then a new realm emerges with art: the realm of the sensual in the guise of the divine. If someone were to claim that it is also possible for someone to present the divine in the guise of the sensual, this is refuted by the fact that no one can have an interest in such a task. For one can certainly have the need to lift up what is lower and less valuable into the realm of what is higher and more valuable, but not to lift it up into the opposite. It is precisely from the dissatisfaction with reality in its very own form that the longing arises to make it divine. But why should one want to bring the divine, which in itself already grants the highest satisfaction, into another form?

The realm of the non-unified sensual is reality; the realm of the non-sensual ideal is science; that of the sensual-ideal is art. We encounter the first realm when we observe our surroundings with healthy senses; the second when we immerse ourselves in the realm of our thoughts; we find the third nowhere ready-made; we have to create it ourselves. If the realm of nature is a sensual reality and the realm of science is a purely intellectual one, the realm of art has no reality at all. Therefore, the sphere of art products is called that of aesthetic appearance.

Aesthetic appearance is the sensuality that has been made divine by the creative human spirit.

Now we must digress into subjective territory and examine the basic mood of the personality from which the longing for art and for the enjoyment of art arises. All higher striving of man is a striving for freedom. To rule freely over the instincts of nature, freely over the laws of sensuality, freely over passions and human statutes, that is the way and goal of the better man. To succumb less and less to what nature demands and to follow more and more what the spirit has recognized as an idea, that is what frees the spirit. Freedom is the domination of the spirit over nature, of the idea over reality. What I accomplish according to the laws of nature, I must do, just as a raindrop must fall to the earth according to an immutable law. If I act only out of such natural impulses, then I am not a true self, not a free personality, for I do not drive myself; I am driven; I do not will, I must. But the more I kindle the light of the spirit within me, the freer I become. Only now can I say: it is I who act, who accomplish something. At the same time, there is the fact that I know which light I am following, that I have the object at which my actions are aimed in a pure, transparent form in my mind. I do not follow for the sake of my individuality, but for the sake of the recognized object. Such action, although it truly arises only from the self, is completely selfless. For it is not done by the self for the sake of the self. Such an action is an action of love, that is, one that arises out of the full surrender of the self to the object. Thus, when understood at the deepest level, truly free actions are only those of love.

The artist's creations are now (among other things) such actions of love. For he seeks to overcome sensual reality by spiritualizing it. He wants to conjure up a work before our senses that, for all its sensuality, is not permeated by natural laws but by spiritual laws. Whatever is natural about the object should be stripped away, overcome and presented as if it were divine. Art is an ongoing process of liberation for the human spirit and at the same time an educator of humanity to act out of love. Those who are able to look into the full depth of a truly great work of art will feel it, that lofty upward pull that makes us forget space and time and our own personality for the duration of the contemplation and lose ourselves completely in the object we are looking at. Only those who know full, pure, unclouded love can fully understand this self-forgetful gaze. Those who do not know true love will always remain alien to true art.

If we now have to assume that in a work of art the human spirit divinizes the material, then it will depend on the spiritual faculty that it employs in the process to which genre the work of art belongs. We must keep in mind that what our spirit comes to last of all is the first and supreme in the world. The unity of ideas, the primal principle of things, certainly precedes all things in the world. But in our spiritual striving, we come to this primal principle last. The first thing we encounter in the world is the infinite variety of sensual things, which are in truth the final emanation of the primal principle. The senses perceive this diversity, the mind organizes and compares them, thereby forming concepts, and reason then sees the inner unity in this multiplicity. Sensuality, understanding and reason are the three faculties through which we comprehend the universe. Sensuality brings us nature stripped of spirit, understanding brings us the multiplicity of concepts, and reason brings us the divine idea that reigns over all.

If we now go one step further on the basis of our explanation of the beautiful, we must ask ourselves to what extent the sensible material can be reworked by the artist, given the above three abilities?

First of all, it is clear that the senses cannot undertake any reworking at all, because their task is to grasp reality as faithfully, as unchanged as possible. The intellect, which forms concepts of individual things, is already dealing with the spiritual. Although it still has a multiplicity, it is one that has been lifted out of sensuality. It is thus already possible for understanding to spiritualize nature. This hardly needs to be said of reason, for it grasps the quintessence of all spiritual reality. From this it follows directly: the artist can transform the material of immediate reality in such a way that it appears in a form as if it were permeated either by understanding or by reason itself. Art is therefore concerned with works: 1) that correspond in content to the life of reality and in form to the rational order of things; 2) and those that correspond in content to this real life but in form to the rational order and unity of the world.

When the artist, following the course of reason, transforms reality, we are filled with such great satisfaction by his works because he presents the things that came from his hand as if they had emerged directly from the original principle itself. Through the work, which is glowing with divine unity, the artist brings us closer to the spirit of the world. That is why Goethe, when he saw the works of Greek art, exclaimed in admiration: “There is necessity, there is God; it is as if these eternal things were conjured forth by creative nature itself.”

Thus, we see no contradiction in the aesthetic appearance that the work of art provides us with, but only with the depths of reality, only with its surface. It is precisely a higher reality that art presents to us.

But how does this relate when the artist does not allow reason but understanding to prevail in him when transforming reality?

Understanding is something between sense perception and reason. It moves away from the former and does not reach the latter. It no longer has the superficial truth that lies in a simple copy of sensory reality, but it also does not yet have the truth that lies in the depths of the rational view. The concept that the mind forms of the individual thing is in fact the most unreal thing in the world. For in the order of the world there is no single thing by itself; everything is necessarily grounded in the context and flow of things. He who does not have the whole in mind and measures the individual thing by it can never know the truth. I can form a concept of an individual thing in an understanding way: Truth is not in this concept as long as the light of reason does not illuminate it. If I form two concepts, they may be in an inner unity in the depths of the world order, but the intellect has only the individual concepts, which in this separateness do not have to agree at all, but go side by side.

The things perceived by the senses, which the human mind thus transforms as if they were permeated by understanding, will thus stand in stark contradiction to any reality. Of course, the mind itself does not notice the incongruity of its concepts because it allows them to stand as separate entities. But when they appear in this inner contradiction side by side in an object, then the same immediately comes to the fore. I can form a concept of a person's mind intellectually. For example, I imagine the mind to be exalted and great. Alongside this, I also form a concept of his outward appearance. This is small, inconspicuous, awkward, perhaps clumsy. I can think of these two concepts quite well side by side. But when they come to me in the flesh, united in one person on the stage, then I perceive the contradiction with what is possible according to natural law.

How large I imagine a person's head is completely irrelevant; as long as I do not go beyond the head. But if I put together a large head with a small body and present this together in a real picture, I perceive the contradiction to what is possible.

The realization of such a contradiction between a created object and its inner possibility causes in us the sensation of the comic.

The comic is therefore a reality in the form of an intellectual contradiction. The “what” is sensuality, the “how” is intellect with its content not grounded in the nature of the whole.

Wherever you examine something as being funny, you will find that what the creative human being has made out of his material contradicts the deeper, inner nature, the fundamental laws of being. And whoever is able to see through this contradiction perceives it as being funny.

The liberating effect that lies in laughing at a comical object is based on the fact that the person who sees the contradiction feels superior to the object; he believes he understands the matter better than it appears before him in the presentation. Those who do not see the contradiction also miss out on the effect of the comic. Therefore, one and the same object can appear comical to one person but not to another. Those who have no understanding of the contradiction also have no understanding of comedy. Of course, it may happen that the perception of such a contradiction even puts us in a gloomy mood. But then we also look at the matter differently. We no longer look at the intellectual contradiction, but at the disharmony between the individual and the whole. But this already has its basis in a rational view. And here the comedy stops. This is particularly the case when we perceive something incongruous in nature itself, for example, something deformed or crippled. Here we no longer understand the individual parts rationally, but we see the contrast between what has become and what should and could have become, and this leads us deeper than a mere rational understanding.

This is why there is actually little that is directly comical in nature itself. The comic is mostly man-made.

In presenting the comic, man may even have the direct intention of achieving through the pictorial, the demonstrative, that which cannot be achieved by the presentation of mere, contradictory concepts: to lead to the recognition of the contradiction. What does not make the necessary impression in thought is done by the visual presentation. This is the purpose of irony, of comic satire. Parody and travesty also aim to ridicule the paradox of the one by juxtaposing the opposite.

It is in the nature of the comic that it finds a far larger circle of connoisseurs than the other art forms. For man needs only grasp the contradictory details with the mind; the contemplation of the contradiction itself provides him with the image, the representation. It is not necessary here to elevate it to the level of rational contemplation.

Furthermore, it is also in the nature of the comic that it serves excellently to demonstrate human folly. After all, folly consists in taking the wrong, the contradictory, for reality. If the fool's delusions were presented to him externally in a vivid way, he might be more easily convinced of his folly than in any other way.

The serious artist who does not create from the whole, but instead assembles his work from individual parts, can easily inadvertently create something comic. Likewise, we present ourselves as a comic object to our fellow human beings when we commit acts in which nothing but the contradiction we are experiencing comes to light for the audience.

The effect of the comic always depends, of course, on how far the observer is above the comic object, that is, in other words, to what extent he is able to grasp the contradiction in its full depth. To the wise man, for example, it will seem comical when he sees so many people striving, cherishing and worshiping something in life that does not seem worthy of cherishing or worshiping to him. From what has been said earlier, it is clear that he can only remain with the impression of the comical as long as he stops at grasping the contradiction with his mind. If he penetrates deeper and considers the effort that mankind puts into empty vanity, then he must, of course, take the matter more seriously.

On the other hand, many things will make a comical impression on the fool that will not make the wise laugh at all. If the latter regards a thing only from its outward appearance and does not see its inner depth, he may well laugh at the contradictions of this surface. Precisely what better-laid natures do is so often laughed at, because it is not understood, but the contradiction is seen in which these actions stand with what is ordinary in life.

Those who have a sense for finding contradictions in life and for linking together what is contradictory, only to be brought together artificially by the mind, will be particularly suited to depict the comic. The joke is nothing more than the play of the mind, which seeks out similarities in things that are very far apart and, by juxtaposing them, creates an obvious contradiction.

The effect of the comic also depends on the degree to which the contradiction outweighs the harmony, which is always present, even if it is slight. The realm of the comic also excludes anything that is completely alien. We can say that the comic corresponds to understanding, but it contradicts both sensuality and reason.

Those who perceive the contradiction but mistake understanding for reason, and instead of laughing are saddened by the disharmony, have no sense of humor. They will see only contradictions everywhere and mistake them for the “one and only” of the world. This leads to the melancholic mood. On the other hand, anyone who is convinced that reason prevails behind understanding, and that inner, higher unity prevails behind contradiction, can laugh at the disharmony. Indeed, they can even go so far as to believe that where there is contradiction, only understanding is at play; when viewed rationally and more deeply, one always arrives at harmony. Such a person lives in the belief that contradiction is always superficial, never deep; he therefore always takes it lightly; as something that frees life from uniformity and monotony, but which immediately disappears when one penetrates deeper. This person laughs at the contradictory and becomes serious about the divine harmony of things. In him we find the basic tenor of humor.

A third case is also possible. A person may have an organ for perceiving contradictions, but none for perceiving unity and ideality. Such a person can understand what is perverse, petty, and unreasonable, but this understanding is not supported by a sense of depth. This person can laugh, but cannot be truly earnest and pious. This is the basic mood of frivolity. The melancholic does have a need for deep harmony, but he does not have the spiritual strength to grasp it. Therefore, he also lacks the sense to laugh at the absurdities. What he should take seriously is missing; therefore, he takes seriously what cannot be considered as such. The humorist can laugh at the wrong without worry, because he knows that it lies on the surface rather than at the bottom, and he has a sense for the things at the bottom of the world's existence. The frivolous person has only a sense for the superficial, but even that is the only need he has. He does not know the depths and does not want to know them. He lives on the surface.

And so we have come full circle of our journey. We have shown the idea of the comic as a form of aesthetic appearance and characterized the position that this idea has in relation to life. The comic is not just an arbitrary creation of man, it is the only way to look at and represent the in many ways contradictory outer side of life.

Rudolf Steiner.

I was never able to describe the sum of ideas through which I sought to get closer to the universe and its creatures with one of the common expressions such as idealism, realism, Spinozism, pantheism, theism, etc., because I could not admit that the overfull inner life of nature could be measured by one-sided definitions. I did not want to see nature harnessed to abstractions, but to wait and listen until it spoke to me and revealed its secret to me in the form that was appropriate to it.

In the highest form of knowledge, all predetermined methods must give way because nature does not want to be determined by the way in which it reaches us. In any case, however, in that higher listening, space and time cease to play a role; these two lead man astray the longest. For even if we succeed in detaching from the other sensory properties of things and penetrating deeper into their essence, space and time still seem inseparable from things. But anyone who has not made this separation can never come to higher insights. For it is only through ideas that space and time acquire a true meaning. The idea allows everything extended to grow out of its spiritual womb; without idea, a perception of space is impossible. But it is inadmissible to think of the idea itself as temporal/spatial; the idea is a non-spatial and non-temporal, and therefore eternal, reality. So I can very well call my view of things idealism, because I am always trying to grasp the ideas that are only accessible to intuitive, time- and spaceless vision. When I grasp the idea, I feel as if I had immersed myself in the world spirit. A higher life in the world speaks to me. But it does not speak to everyone in this way; those who have not ceased to perceive only with the outer senses and to process only this perceptual material with the mind cannot hear that voice of nature. There is a higher sensuality to which we must first educate ourselves. There is a personality that first comes into being in us and suddenly shows us everything in a new light. We then cease to live in a particular place and at any given time. We live the higher infinite being. But we also cease to be an individual because we are one with the universal spirit. Thus, by working our way up to the highest level of individuality, we transcend it and perceive as with the senses of the world soul. Of course, we do not achieve this through abstract studies or logical rules, but only through constant inner perfection. “Know thyself” is a saying that I have always distrusted. I do not want to know myself, at least not as a finished product; because every dead point in my soul blocks the way for me to open the gates of the universe. As long as I merely recognize myself, I am not willing to approach the higher state of being. I must recreate myself to become perfect; to recognize is to live within nature: we must co-create spiritually if we want to recognize in the higher sense. The metamorphosis is intended to be an example of this. Those who cling to the externals of life and are atomistically minded cannot understand it. In the higher sense, there is nothing in nature that is separate; the divine spark of the infinite lives in everything, and for those who have not seen a thing in its light, it does not exist. You can apply all your efforts to something; if you have not awakened within yourself the gift of listening to that word, through which our intuition suddenly opens up to the inner essence and everything becomes bright, then all knowledge is dead. People believe that they recognize what they only understand; they believe that they understand what they only know.

It seems to me that all previous interpretations of the fairy tale suffer from the mistake of not taking into account one word that is explicitly mentioned in the fairy tale. When the old man with the lamp is asked which of the three secrets he knows is the most important, he answers: the revealed one. And when asked if he does not want to reveal it, he replies: as soon as I know the fourth. But the snake knows this fourth secret and whispers it to the old man. There can be no doubt that the secret that is revealed is the most important secret, for it brings about the state longed for by all the characters in the fairy tale. But since this state of affairs is described to us in great detail at the end, we must see the disclosure of the actual secret in the presentation of the circumstances at the end of the fairy tale. However, we must assume that the old man knows this secret very well, because he is, after all, the only person who is always above the circumstances, who directs and guides everything. And so the question arises, what can the old man learn from the snake? How to achieve what he and everyone else most urgently desire, the snake does not need to tell him, because he knows that himself. But we have seen that the snake is the most important being in the whole process, because only by sacrificing itself can everything be achieved. But it must come to the realization that this is necessary. And the old man cannot know when the time will come when the snake will come to this realization. Because that is up to the snake. The fourth secret is therefore when the snake wants to bring about the salvation of all the other figures through its sacrificial death. That she is willing to do this, she apparently whispers into the old man's ear. And now the latter can speak the word: “The time has come.”

What is now coming to light is the secret hidden in the fairy tale. And we just have to know how to find the crux of the matter, where the solution presents itself within the riddle. The desired goal is achieved in the revival of the youth, his union with the beautiful lily, and then through the fact that both realms, this side and the other side of the river, are connected by the magnificent bridge, on which all people can move freely back and forth as they please. Even though the snake is the originator of it all, she alone could not give the youth the gifts by which he can rule the newly established kingdom. These he receives from the three kings. From the brazen one he receives the sword with the order: “the sword on the left, the right free.”

The silver one gives him the scepter with the remark: “Feed the sheep.” Finally, the golden one places the oak wreath on his head with the words: “Recognize the highest.” Let us try to penetrate the meaning of these symbolic acts. The sword can only signify the power, the physical strength and violence that is given to the new ruler with it. However, he should not wield it in his right hand, where it always indicated a willingness to fight and war, but should hold it in his left hand, thus using it for protection, to ward off evil. The right hand, however, should be free for deeds of genuine humanity. What does the sceptre represent to the youth? The words: feed my sheep, remind us of Christ's command to the apostle: “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep”. Thus, piety and religious purity of heart emanate from this king and are imparted to the youth. Finally, from the third king, the youth is given the oak wreath and the gift of knowing the highest. The three kings are thus the three fundamental powers of the human mind: the will as the founder of power and physical strength and violence; the mind as the promoter of piety; and reason as the source of wisdom. Thus, it is not force, piety and wisdom themselves that are symbolized by the three kings, but the powers from which the latter emanate. Therefore, when the old man calls out the words, “There are three that rule on earth: wisdom, appearance and force,” the three kings each rise when their names are mentioned. There seems to be some ambiguity here in that the second king, the silver one, is presented as the ruler of the realm of appearances, whereas, judging by his words, we can only see in him the guardian spirit of piety. However, this contradiction is immediately resolved when we recall the close relationship that Goethe establishes between aesthetic and religious feelings. We need only think of words such as these: “There are only two true religions: one that recognizes the sacred that dwells in and around us in a completely formless way, and the other that recognizes and worships it in the most beautiful form.” Goethe sees art as only a different form of religion, and that is why he has the bearer of religion called upon here with the words: appearance, that is beautiful appearance. Now that we know the meaning of the kings, it will be possible to draw conclusions about other things that appear in the fairy tale. Above all, we are interested in the king of wisdom. He is made of gold. So we will have to see in gold a symbol of wisdom and everywhere we encounter this metal in the fairy tale, we will have to recognize this highest power of the human soul.

We now encounter gold in the form of the will-o'-the-wisp and the snake. Both relate to it quite differently. While the will-o'-the-wisps know how to acquire it easily everywhere and then throw it around wastefully and arrogantly, the snake only acquires it with difficulty and absorbs it organically, processing it in its body so that it permeates its entire being. So, without doubt, the will-o'-the-wisps are a symbol for all those personalities who gather their wisdom from all sides and then give it out lightly, without permeating themselves with it inwardly. In short, the will-o'-the-wisps represent all unproductive minds that can teach but not create. What they teach is therefore always more or less empty phrases. If these phrases fall on fertile ground, they can still achieve the very best.

A person can communicate a word to another that he does not understand at all and in which the person who hears it recognizes a deep meaning. The truth is expressed by the fact that this gold, which the will-o'-the-wisps only know how to flaunt, is processed by the serpent in the best way. The snake embodies the solid human striving, the strict progression on the path of wisdom, supported by honest work.

[Seven manuscript pages are missing here.]

Goethe expresses this by having them translated in the time of twilight on the shadow of the giant. The giant is thus at the same time the symbol of violence, of blind arbitrariness, and his shadow that of the senseless works of this arbitrariness. Arbitrariness acts unconsciously, it is powerless to create things that are preconscious and planned, just as the giant's shadow is not his own work, just as he accompanies it without his conscious intervention. Once we are familiar with the realm of the lily, that on the other side of the river will also be clear to us. It is, of course, that of mere natural, sensual life, where man gives in to his natural instincts, pursues every desire, every passion, and so the realm where not freedom but natural necessity reigns. The river is now what separates the two. What seizes it in its hand becomes arbitrary and that means spiritual death. We are all born to freedom, it is our original home. We all come from the same place, but we cannot return to it without a fundamental transformation of our personality. That is why the ferryman can take any traveler across, but cannot bring anyone across. Everyone can only cross over in the already characterized way. Only when that ideal state has truly been reached, when perfect wisdom, perfect piety and power prevail, then everyone can cross over and back at will, at any moment. That we are right in our assertion that the river is the symbol of the state and of society is proved by the fact that the temple of the ruler is erected above it.

There is also other evidence for this. The ferryman demands fruit of the earth from every traveler he ferries as a reward. These fruits of the earth are simply the duties that the state and society impose on people in return for their legal benefits and protection. When the ferryman rejects the gold pieces of the will-o'-the-wisps, it means that the state can only recognize real services, and will even become displeased if you try to fob it off with mere words. When the old woman has to confess to the river that she owes it by dipping her hand into the water, this also corresponds to reality. Those who refuse to provide the state with the services it prescribes are held liable for it with body and property.

Now let us consider the old man with the lamp. The lamp has the property of shining only where another light is brought to it. Here we must remember how Goethe expresses his own view through the saying of an old mystic: “Were the eye not solar, the sun could never behold it; were not the power of the God within us, how could we be enraptured by the Divine!” Just as the lamp does not shine in the dark, so the higher light of truth does not shine for those who do not have the appropriate organs from which the inner light flows towards the outer. But this higher light of enlightenment is the power that guides everything towards the ultimate goal. Wherever this light shines, everything radiates the gold of truth again. This means that all beings reveal their inner, nobler nature to us. The light of the lamp turns stone into gold, wood into silver, and dead animals into precious stones. It is the higher light that ultimately establishes the right harmony in the work of the three kings. In the past, the fourth king ruled and he was not influenced by the lamp. In him, the three elements, which can only be perfected separately, are in disorderly, chaotic confusion. He does not possess these elements properly, but has only usurped them. He was able to rule as long as there was darkness. When the light appears, his figure disintegrates into nothing. The will-o'-the-wisps lick up all the gold that he has inside him. This means that this unproductive science feeds on the past. It absorbs everything without selection or any sense of inner meaning. Who does not remember those historians and literary historians who absorbed every worthless trifle with [three manuscript pages missing here]

not consumed in activities that befit only the free human spirit, but brought to bear in the development of their powers within strict natural regularity. Man, who is inwardly unfree, will, if his activity[ies] run quite mechanically like clockwork, still prove himself best. —

Thus Goethe embodied his views on the relationship between a person's inner and outer development in this fairy tale.

The parallelism with the ideas that Schiller was actively pursuing at the time and that found expression in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man is striking. Schiller also asked himself how freedom and natural necessity can coexist. And Schiller finds the bridge between the two in beauty and in artistic creation.

When the artist creates his works, he acts freely, but at the same time he unconsciously creates like a “dreamer, like a sleepwalker. In this respect, he is again subject to natural necessity. He is free and at the same time obeys the laws of nature. Indeed, he completely forgets his free self and creates under an irresistible compulsion, like nature. And so Schiller comes to the same conclusion by a completely different route. He also finds that only through an act of complete self-denial, through the sacrifice of the conscious self, can the realm of natural necessity be reconciled with that of freedom. The subject was certainly discussed at length between the two poets, for immediately after the first half of the fairy tale is received, Schiller refers to a conversation he had with Goethe, from which he reports that Goethe wants the highest to emerge from the interaction of all forces. Schiller solved the problem scientifically, Goethe poetically.

Perhaps my explanation will not be shared by many, perhaps it will be corrected or supplemented in some details. But I believe I have shown one thing: that Goethe's deep spirit, borne by the most perfect ideals and the most significant truths, also shines forth from this poem. And it is refreshing to see the two greatest minds of our nation working together in a joint intellectual endeavor on a task that should bring nothing less than the solution to the most serious question of conscience for humanity: How do we achieve perfect, unrestricted freedom? And for this reason, my observation that Goethe understood the realm of freedom to be on the other side of the river seemed to me not unworthy of mention.

Given that Goethe's Gretchen is by no means a dramatic figure, clearly defined by the poet in all her parts, every stage portrayal of Gretchen will have to include something that is not provided for in the poetry itself. Ms. Wiecke-Halberstedt's Gretchen is such a performance that the spectator has to say to himself: those traits of the characterization that come from the actress and not from the poet are so eminently in the spirit of the latter that the whole can only be described as a figure without contradictions. This must be said first, because in our opinion it is the greatest theatrical achievement to round off Goethe's Gretchen, whose entire being the poet only allows to shine through in individual images, into a whole. If we were asked which Gretchen we prefer: the one created by Wessely, who from the outset presented her in a way that bordered on the rapturous, or the one we saw here recently, which initially seemed to us like a meaningfully posed question to the human mind, which only comes to life through its own deep inwardness at Faust's side, we would find it difficult to say. Both views are possible and convincing. Perhaps the second, however, only for Ms. Wiecke, given the depth of her very unique instrument. In any case, Wessely's portrayal would be preferable for those artists who do not have such an instrument at their disposal, one that is capable of imprinting the tone of the meaningful on the naive and simple.

With consummate mastery, we found in Ms. Wiecke's portrayal: the prayer before the Mater Dolorosa and the dungeon scene. If the loud exclamations in the latter, which sometimes sounded unpleasant, could be improved, then we would have no reason, even with the greatest conscientiousness, to find fault with these two scenes, which we have seen as among the greatest artistic achievements. We also feel that the scene with Lieschen at the well and the first one in Martha's garden are happy ones. When the shrine is opened and she sees the casket, it must be made very clear, in our opinion, that Gretchen is filled with astonishment and curiosity and not a trace of fright. At the end of the monologue spoken at this point, it must not be overlooked that a certain resigned tone softens Gretchen's words: “Oh, we poor things!” so that the spectator is not left with the impression that she is truly overcome by envy of those blessed with happiness. In the fifth line from the end, I think the correct emphasis is:

“But one leaves it all too.”

It seems important to us to give the scene in the garden shed such a character that one recognizes from Gretchen's expressions exactly: she sees the story with the sleeping draught as a wrong, but she cannot refuse Faust even that which seems wrong to her. The passage in the second part, “die sich einmal nur vergangen” (she who once committed a transgression), points to this. It cannot be the surrender that took place in full love that is this wrong, but the offense against the mother.

But it seems even more significant to me that the religious conversation on Gretchen's part is conducted in such a way that it shows that in this case she, in her positive faith, is superior to Faust. This scene in particular is misunderstood everywhere. Faust's words: “Who may call him?” to: “Umnebelnd Himmelsglut.” everywhere as something particularly profound, while they are nothing but phrases spoken with beautiful words, hollow and shallow. This is the language of the man who has cast off scholasticism and has exchanged nothing better for it in the realm of ideas. The words are beautiful, but shallow. Gretchen senses this and therefore she says:

That is all very well and good;
the parson says something similar,
only with a few different words.

She does not know it quite, but she stands with her positive Christianity much higher than Faust with his phrases, which “seem tolerable”, but with which it is nevertheless “crooked”.

We must not forget that the Faust who stands before Gretchen here is a thoroughly worthless and wicked fellow, and that it is only the pain of the wrong he has done to her and his own healing nature that raise him to a higher plane in the second part. What attracts Gretchen to Faust is the rest of the significant human being that Faust always was, and which comes gloriously to the fore when Faust is completely absorbed in his love for the girl. In all other respects, however, Faust has been degraded during the tragedy of Gretchen, has become unhealthy and degenerate. Gretchen does not know what to make of Faust's hollow talk about God. In her innocence she sees something momentous in it, because she assumes that only the momentous can be in Faust; but in all of it she must be utterly amazed at the words, which are unconvincing to her in the face of her ideas about God. And in her correct instinct, she attributes them to the influence of the evil spirit. Gretchen must act throughout the scene in such a way that it is clear that she senses something special about Faust that she cannot explain rationally, but which makes her uncomfortable because it seems wrong to her. This trait sheds a very unique light on all the following scenes, preparing the mood that the audience must have at the end of the first part: Faust alone is to blame for Gretchen's moral and physical downfall, but this guilt is his fate. It is a psychologically profound trait in Gretchen's nature that after the fall, and in the knowledge of her wrongdoing, something like faith takes root in her soul, that something must not be right after all, and so she searches Faust's mind; this is how the religious conversation is motivated. From the words, “If one hears it that way, it seems tolerable,” the mood must already be announced in Gretchen's soul, which leads her from

doubt through guilt to madness. I would just like to emphasize in closing that I am far from believing that these objections must be binding. There is even a general lack of clarity regarding the religious dialogue, and the commentators on Faust – with the exception of Vischer – are completely wrong in their interpretation. But an excellent actress like Mrs. Wiecke could contribute a great deal to a better understanding of Faust by taking these objections into account. R. Steiner.

We have found the completion of the world process in knowledge. All events are expressions of the laws that operate in the things of the world. But it would remain forever a mere appearance if human consciousness did not confront things and in it the laws would enter into existence in their very own form.

At the beginning of the process of knowledge, we feel ourselves to be outside of things, alien to them; at the end of it, we have lived ourselves into them.

Our own actions are only a special case of general world events. When we have recognized their lawfulness, then our actions are also our work. We have become one with world lawfulness. It is not outside of us, but within us. The end of knowledge is identical with merging into the world's lawfulness. But this merging also means at the same time that we have mastered the process that we ourselves have initiated. As long as the world's lawfulness is something outside of us, it rules us; what we accomplish happens under its compulsion. If it is within us, then this compulsion ceases. For what was compelling has become our own nature. It no longer rules over us, but in us over everything else. The realization of an event by virtue of a law external to the realizer is an act of unfreedom; that by the realizer is an act of freedom. The process of knowledge is the development of the human personality towards freedom.

Where is the psychology here? The author addresses anthropological, ethical and metaphysical questions. His style is critical. This essay is not psychological like, for example, Saitschick's treatment of Dostoyevsky. Despite many apt remarks, it does not do justice to Nietzsche because the author shows only a limited understanding of him. From many parts of the book, I would conclude that Weigand was highly talented. But a series of trivialities astonishes me. Anyone who wants to understand Nietzsche psychologically must realize that in this man certain intuitions appear through the medium of a grotesquely distorting mind. A Nietzschean psychology would have the task of laying bare those intuitions and then showing the way in which Nietzsche's mind distorts them.

General discouragement in the field of philosophy – cowardice of thought – Volkelt as an example -—. It was he who, in the introduction to his “Traumphantasie” (1875), sharply criticized the only apparent resignation, but in truth half-heartedness and discouragement of thought, which no longer wants to boldly tackle the central problems of existence. (1884), Basel inaugural address: On the Possibility of Metaphysics. The expression of this despondency is the emergence of the many epistemologies - Lotze's saying about sharpening knives - but the knives have remained blunt - epistemology has not grasped the actual fundamental philosophical task - Lasalle's saying: “Philosophy can be nothing but the consciousness that the empirical sciences attain of themselves.”

All our philosophical science is under the spell of Kantianism. Since Otto Liebmann (1865) proclaimed the motto “back to Kant”, it has not been abandoned by research. Our most important natural scientists are subject to it.

All higher thinking of our nation is based on the fundamental tone of Kant's world view. We believe that with Kantianism we have now overcome dogmatism; in truth, we have exchanged nothing but a bad dogma, an article of faith: the belief in Kant's infallibility. Before Kant, there were dualists, monists, and pluralists. There was a limit to science, but not a limit to knowledge. It was Kant who first drew limits to our knowledge. Kant established a dualism, a two-worlds theory, which has forever blocked our access to the foundations of existence. Kant exchanged the certainty and security of our knowledge for its absoluteness.

He examines our cognitive faculty in order to gain an understanding of its capabilities. He finds two roots: sensuality and reason. Our mental organization creates our experience with the material of sensations. Therefore, cognition is limited to the latter. Skimming over experience is impossible because of the nature of the cognitive faculty. The In-Itself is forever unknowable. Theoretical reason only as a regulative. Surrogate practical reason. Ethics of the categorical imperative. Should. Kantianism perfect dualism. Two worlds: the world of the self and the world of experience. Two principles of knowledge: knowledge and belief. The subjectivism that this entails has not been abandoned.

As long as the trick of looking around the corner, i.e. 'without imagining, is not invented, Kant's proud self-modesty will have it that of the being, its that can be recognized, but never its what.

This dogma is the rock on which every opposing opinion is dashed. Otto Liebmann calls the sentence a sacrosanct principle. Hartmann's transcendental realism is based on it. Necessary consequences, e.g. spiritism. Du Bois-Reymond's view. Ignorabism. Subjectivism in modern science a consequence of Kantianism.

But how did the world of ideas come to be indicated? The split into subject and object is a product of our organization. Not a manifold is given to us, but we split the one into a manifold. Not unity is an illusion, but multiplicity. The task of science must therefore be: to overcome the multiplicity in the mind that is caused by our organization and to reshape it into unity. An element of science is only justified if it is split off from the whole of reality somewhere. Science is therefore only ever an association of the elements of reality that have been split up by our organization. The nature of the association must arise from the nature of the elements themselves. Immanent theories. They are contrasted with the transcendent theories. Atomism and metaphysical theories. The hypothesis is justified only insofar as it presupposes things that are relatively inaccessible to us only because of their remoteness in space and time. Metaphysical hypotheses are a non-starter. What matters is not that the consequences of a hypothesis are confirmed, but that the content of a hypothesis can be proven as a fact if the empirical possibility were present. Extension of this principle to inorganic and organic natural sciences. Haeckel's monism is therefore correct in principle. If we understand ourselves correctly, the world does not lead us out of itself. It must be explainable from within itself. There is only one world of experience, but it contains all the elements for its explanation and comprehensibility. There is nothing inexplicable in nature. The things that are supposed to be inexplicable to us must first be invented. Nothing truly real is incomprehensible; only the fantastic entities that humanity has created as reality and beyond that, are incomprehensible. We always remain only before the self-created barriers of knowledge.