NIETZSCHE: Die rückwirkende Kraft (German Edition)

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Fertile in suggestions, and rioting in results, it is a chaos in which the sug- gestions, though original, do not always connect themselves clearly with first principles, and in which the results, though valuable, are reft of half their importance by the lack of scientific arrangement. A fair example oflfers itself in the criticism of Shakespeare. In England we are most struck with Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature, and power of embodying it in the characters of the drama.

We rank this above all his gifts, even ubove his wondrous gift of speech. Pass over to Germany and note. Instead of the truth of the characters, what has he to show?

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He shows the doctrine of the Atonement preached in one play, the difference between equity and law set forth in another, and in all the plays a shower of pims that continually remind us of the Original Sin of our nature, the radical antithesis between thought and action, idea and reality, produced by the FaU. He is, they declare, the creator of Lear,the creator of Hamlet, the creator of Othello. He has created none of these. Why this conflict of opinion where there ought to be no room for doubt?

Why this Babel of voices where all are animated by a common aim? And where the good of criticism if it cannot prevent such misunder- standings? We can get prize oxen and prize pigs that come up to our expectations; but prize essays, prize poems, prize monuments, prize de- Prize de- signs of any kind, are notoriously poor in this fenT country, however high we bid.

On the other hand, when prizes were offered for the designs of a Foreign Office and an India Office, some admirable drawings were exhibited, but there followed this odd jarring of opinions, that the design to which the judges allotted the. Now, what is the meaning of this? Why are prize essays glittering on the surface, and worthlesB below it? Why is a prize play so notoriously Kul that mauacers have lontr ceased to offer ivwarxls tor the inevitable damnation?

Cor- inna, it will be remembered, won the prize for lyric verse from Pindar himself. Whether it be a fact or not about the poetical contest between Homer and Hesiod, and the prize of a tripod won by the latter, the tradition of such a contest is a voucher for the custom and for the honour in which it was held.

To realize such a state of things in our time, we must imagine poete, painters, and musicians assembled on Epsom Downs to contend for the honours of the games with colts, the sons of Touchstone and Stockwell, and fillies, the descendants of Pocahontas and Beeswing. Why should that be possible in Greece which is impossible now? Why do we draw the line between jockeys who ride racehorses, and poets who ride their Pegasus— offer prizes for the grosser animals and produce results that have made English horses the first in the world, while the most magnificent offers cannot get a fit monument for the greatest Englishman of the present century?

If there were any doubtfulness about the test the owners of the best Horses would never allow their favourites to run. But in any contest between painters or sculptors, poets or essayists, there is just that dubiety as to the standard of measure- ment which would prevent the best men from competing. In Greek art, in Greek poems, in Greek prose, there is this uniformity, a uniformity that bespeaks, if not clear science, yet, at any rate, a system of.

Not that these laws will ever enable an inferior artist to produce another Parthenon or another Venus to enchant the world, but that like the laws of harmony in music, they ought to keep the artist within the lines of beauty. Whatever be the practical value of the rules, we see that to every work of Greek art they give the character of a school, iand the imity of aim and of habit produced by a school gives us a standard of measurement about iniiaeoce of which there need be little ambiguity.

Frenchmen are surprised at the individuality of English art Every artist among us seems to be standing on his own dais, and working out of his own head. CHAPTER in a country where the influence of school is so —1 apparent, the prize system should be more suo- cessful than among us who assert the right of private judgment and our contempt of authority, in no mincing terms. The nation that has three dozen religions and only one sauce, is not likely to have common standards in philosophy, in literature, or in art.

Wanting these standards, what faith can we have in our judges? And what wonder that criticism, no matter how deep it goes, should be a byword? Matthew Arnold, who has come forward to denounce our criticism -as folly, and to call upon the critics to mend their ways.

In many most important points it is impossible to agree with this delightful writer. Especially when he attempts to reason and to generalize, he rouses in his readers the instincts of war, and makes them wish to break a lance with him. He is a suggestive writer, but not a convincing one. He starts many ideas, but does not carry out his conclusions. It would be unjust so to charac- terize his robust scholarship, and his keen bio- graphical insight.

But when he comes to what is more especially called an idea, then his merits and his defects alike are those of youthfulness. We learn as we read him to have so much sympathy with the fine purpose, the fine taste, the fine temper of his writing, that we forget, or we are loth to express, how much we diflfer with him whenever he attempts to generalize. In the next chapter I shall have occasion to mention some of his errors. Here the great point to be noticed is, that his outcry against English criticism for its want of science though that is not the phrase by which Tie would describe its deficiency has been received with the greatest favour.

All alike fall short of science. Arnold would have been much nearer. We may take it for a sure proof that the tide is on the turn, and that a change is working. Arnold is too sympathetic for a solitary thinker. When such a man complains of the lack of idea in English criti- cism, we may be satisfied that he is giving form to an opinion which, if it has not before been expressed with equal force, has been widely felt, and has often been at the point of utterance. We may be satisfied also that things are mend- ing.

There is not one of these lines of comparison which criticism can afford to neglect. Accordingly that is the main course of inquiry which, in the present instal- ment of this work, an attempt will be made to follow. We want, first of all, to know what a watchmaker would call the movement in art — the movement of the mind, the movement of ideas. Why does the mind move in that way? Some of these questions are among the most abstruse in philosophy, and so well known to be abstruse, that the mere suggestion of them may be a terror to many readers.

I may seem to be calmly inviting them to cross with me the arid sands of a On thfi dui- Sahara, and to meet the hot blasts of a simoom. There is a curious picture in the Arabian Nights of a little turbaned fellow sitting cross- legged on the ground, with pistachio nuts and dates in his lap. He cracks the nuts, munches the kernels and throws the shells to the left, while by a judicious alternation he sucks the delicate pulp of the dates and throws the stones to his right.

The philosopher looks on with a mild interest and speculates on the moral that sometimes the insides of things are best and sometimes the outsides. Now, most of the dis- cussions on mind with which we are familiar are like the pistachio nuts of the gentleman of Bag- dad: That is quite fair and natural. The doubt is, whether the science be approachable by any son of man. It is a doubt that cleaves just now to any science which baa the mind and will of man for its theme. I therefore desire, in this chapter, to make a few. Kingsley, who has written one book to show that a science of history is impossible, has written another to show the great and religious advantage at water- ing-places of studying science in the works of God — that is, in sea-jellies and cockle-shells.

Tlie AftUthefcfa popular science of the day makes an antithesis worknof between God and man. Animals, vegetables, and minerals — these are the works of God. Kingsley, " one more thought of the divine mind from Hela and the realms of the unknown. Or if he goes to some quiet inland village, plucks flowers, dries them in blotting-paper, and writes a name of twenty syllables under each — that is studying the works of God. Or if he analyzes a quantity of earthy can tell what are its ingredients, whether it is better for turnips or for wheat, and whether it should be manured with lime or with guano — that is studying the works of God.

As though He, whose glory it is to conceal a thing, left finger-marks on his work, the exponents of popular science are always finding the fcager of God' and by so doing extol their favourite pursuit, while they tacitly rebut the maxim of Pope, that the proper study of The proper mankind is man. Amid all this cant of finding God in the mate- rial and not in the moral world, and of thence. Mimn- This antithesis between the works of Gk d and. Byron, of all our recent poets,would be most easily accused of this misanthropy; but it is not of wonb- BjTon that we have to complain: It was from Wordsworth's region of thought that the petty controversy arose, many years ago, as to the materials of poetry.

We can trace this chapter misanthropy downwards to Mr. What more stimulating to curiosity than the researches of Goethe, Cuvier, and Owen? What more enticing to the adventurer than the geological prediction of the gold fields of Australia? In chemistry we have well-nigh. In meteorology, the wind has been tracked, storms and tornados have been reduced to law. In electricity we seem to be hovering on the verge of some grand discovery, and already the electric spark has been trained to feats more marvellous than any recorded of Ariel or Puck. Optics now enables us to discover the composition of the sun, and to detect the presence of minerals to the millionth part of a grain.

A thousand years hereafter poets and historians may write of our 'great en- gineers and scientific discoverers, as we now speak of Arthur and liis Paladins, Faust and the Devil, Cortes and Pizarro. Why should not those who figure in " the fairy tales of science " obtain the renown which is rightfully theirs? The results they have achieved are all the more. None of the foimders of the Royal Society had then emerged from obscurity, and the Royal Society was a small club that met in secret and called itself the Invisible College.

Two centuries have brought a marvellous change. It has so commended itself by great achievements that at length eveiy one of the sciences has a society for itself, all the great cities of the United Kingdom have scientific societies, and there is such a rage for science throughout the country and in every class, that, not unlike the tailors of Laputa, who, abjuring tape, took altitudes and longitudes with a quadrant, the London tailors profess to cut. Mif dirtfcticni, it fares ill with men- uti scu'Utv: Let me say a few words upon each of these passages of despair.

Lewes has written a very clever and learned book on the history of philosophy, in which he always insists that the chief problems of metaphysics are insoluble. Does it follow that because meta- physical methods have failed, therefore scientific methods must 'fail also? Now the despair of a mental science which Mr. Lewes entertains he also entertains, as it would seem, for all the what Mr. We all find the greatest diflSculty. Thev are afraid to be clear, lest thev be Jeemeil shallow; or thev love to think themselves protV-und, because they are unable to plimib their own ideas.

If this is what Mr. Lewes condemns, who in this country will contradict him? In point of fact, the great fault of criticism is its ignorance The great — at least its disregard of psychology. The most advanced of the sciences that relate specially to human conduct is the science of wealth, and political economy is but a century old.

Sir Edward Lytton expresses despair of a The despair diflFerent kind. Hence, in one of his most lively. Here is a view of poetry that survives, and that derives importance from the great name of Plato. He condemns art as false, because when a painter paints a flower he takes a copy not of the thing itself. The flower is not the thing itself, but the earthly copy of the thing which, according to his system, exists as an idea in the Divine mind.

The picture of the flower, therefore, is the copy of a copy, and must be imtrue. Nobody would now accept this reasoning, but people accept the conclusion. So, again, art is bad because pleasure is its cliief end, and, as the gods feel neither pleasure nor pain, the end of art is not godlike. Here, again, nobody would accept the reasoning,. Contemplating such a result, the essayist is inclined to ask what is the good of system, and suggests that it may be enough to put forth oracles in disjointed utter- ance. It is good not to overrate system; it is good to see that its use is but temporary.

Still in our time, in which, through the extension of The forms. Science is impossible without the order and method of system. It is not merely vaiae of knowledge: Yet these fragments would never have reached us if they had not at one time been built into a ship. When the voyager goes across the Atlan- tic he may be wrecked; he may get on shore only with a plank. But he will never cross the Atlantic at all if he starts on a plank, or on a few planks tied together as a raft.

There is a momentum in a system which does. Such men as Mr. Froude have so strong a sense of the freedom of the will, and of the incalculable waywardness with which it crosses and mars the best laid plans and the most symmetrical theories, that they will not hear of such a thing as a science of history. Its general conclusion, however, must be firmly re- sisted by those who, admitting the freedom of the. I quote the same passage, but with some slight differeuci's of omission and admission: If a system is not true, it will scarci'ly be con- vincing; and if it is not rea- soned, a man will bo little.

An unresr soned philosophy, even though true, curries no guarantee of its truth. It may be true, but it cannot be certain. In point of fact, however, we can predict a good deal in human history, as, for example, by the aid of political economy, a science which is barely a century old; and Mr.

John Stuart Mill points out that though the science of human nature falls far short of the exactness of astronomy as now imderstood, yet there is no reason why it should not be as much a science as astronomy was, when its methods had mastered only the main phenomena, but not the perturbations. But art is crystalline in its forms, and the first, the deepest, the most constant impression which we derive from it is that of its oneness.

I have already quoted the saying, that he who sees only one work of Greek art has seen none, and that he who sees all has seen but one. Far apart from each other, the one at Delos, the other at Ephesus, carved half of a wooden statue of tlie Pythian Apollo, and when the two were brought together, they tallied as if they had been wrought in one piece by one. Chemistry, with all its exactitude, does not save its professors from making a wrong analysis.

Why then should a critical science, if there is ever to be one, do more than all other sciences in leading its. If it be remembered that Euripides was Milton's favourite poet, the in- nocence of Scholefield's remark will appear all the more inimit- able. It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that any science can abolish all doubts and prevent all. Few sayings about art are more memorable than that of Mozart, who declared that he composed as he did because he could not help it, and who added, " You will never do anything if you have to think how you are to do it. Neverthe- less, it comes according to laws which it is possible to note and which imperatively demand our study.

It is not long since people regarded the weather as beyond the province of science, and treated the labours of Fitzroy either as useless, because they did not enable him to foretell but only to forecast, or as impious, because it was argued that if we can forecast the weather, it must be idle to pray for rain. Criticism is nought, people think, because it does not make poets perfect, and judges infallible. So it has happened that chemistry was despised when it failed to turn lead into gold, that astronomy was neglected when it failed to prognosticate, that the Bible is said to be in danger because we do not find in it the last new theory of science.

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, It helps not, it prevails not: Matthew Arnold, is also the most imperious in vaunting the office of the critic; and there is a danger lest from his unguarded expressions it should be supposed that criticism promises more than it can perform. What he means by this it is not easy to make out. Le first of living critics?

Arnold can pebbly mean? Is it a proof of our Englii-h want of insight that with all the vivacity of his Mondav chats, we on this side of the water fail to see in M. Once more we return to another form of the chapter statement that the intellectual movement of our — 1.

We Kve amid prescriptions and customs that have been crusted upon us from ages. When we become alive to the fact that the forms and institutions of our daily life — the life individual and the life national, are prescribed to us not by reason but only by custom, that, says Mr. Arnold, is the awakening of the modem spirit.

Full text of the Eneas Sweetland Dallas translation

The truth is, however, that what he describes as the peculiar spirit of modem thought— that is, nineteenth-century thought — is the spirit of every reforming age. It was, for example, the spirit of Christianity as it showed itself at first in the midst of surrounding Judaism. It was the spirit that actuated the protest against the mummeries of Eomanism in the sixteenth century.

Prom these and other illustrations of what he The wrong understands by criticism, it would seem that whicTmay Mr. Arnold makes out his case or not. They will but carry away the general impression, that here is a man of genius and of strong conviction, who speaks of criti- cism as just now the greatest power upon earth. They will, therefore, expect from it the mightiest eflFects; and grievous will be their disappointment at the modesty of its actual exploits.

If men will criticise, it is desirable that their judgments should be based on scientific groimds. This is so obvious, that instead of dwelling on the worth of critical science in and for itself, I would here rather insist on its value from another On the in- point of vicw — as a historical instrument. They believe that the history of philosophy yields the phi- losophy of history. They may be right, though it is awkward for the facts, or at least for our power of dealing with them, that the philosopher is ever represented as before his age.

While he lives his thought is peculiar to himself, and his. There is this wide difference between philosophy and art, that whereas the former is the result of conscious effort, the latter comes unconsciously, and is the spontaneous growth of the time, ifow, supposing we had a critical science, and knew somewhat of the orbits and order of the arts, their times and seasons, we should have a guide to history so much safer than that fur- nished by the course of philosophy, as a spon- taneous growth is less likely to deviate from nature than any conscious effort.

In their shady retreate they reflect upon the world the light from on high, as I have seen an eclipse of the sun exquisitely pictured on the ground, while the crowds in Hyde Park were painfully looking for it in the heavens with darkened glasses. There were myriads of eclipses on the ground for the one that was passing in the sky. But I can scarcely imagine that when putting in a word for a science of human nature, and for criticism as part of it, and when claiming for that science the place of honour, I am fairly open to the charge of jrielding to private partiality.

At all events, in mitigation of such a charge, let it be remem- bered that man too has the credit of being a worm, and that he may be entitled to some of the regard of science, were it only as belonging to the subject of helminthology. We may give up any claims which the science of hiunan nature has to precedence over all the other knowledges, if we can get it recognised in popular opinion as a science at all, were it but as a science of worms. And for criticism, as a part of the science of human nature, it may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott was pleased to describe the critics as caterpillars, and that, therefore, they suinnwiy may have a special claim to be regarded in this mont.

There are men like lago, who think that they are nothing if not critical, but the critic is nothing if not scientific. Of the following attempt I am not able toAimofUie think so bravely as to challenge for it the 5!

Any one, indeed, who will read this volume through, will see that it is a fight for the first principles and grounds of the Not a. I have the greater confi- dence, however, in laying the present theory before the reader, inasmuch as gUmpses and. HOUGH foundation stonee are laidc: It embodies the dull hard labour of laying down truisms — heavy blocks which are not to he handled in sport, but which it is essential that we should in the outset fix in their places.

What is here maintained to be the only safe foundation of the science of criti- cism, however obvious it may appear to be, has never yet been fully accepted as such, and has never yet been built npon. The donkey will not go round two sides of a field to get to his fodder if, peradventure, he can go in a straight line. The object of this chapter is to uphold the wisdom of the ass. No critical canon has a wider and more undoubting acceptance than that which jissumes the sisterhood of the arts.

Terence, iu one of his prologues Phor- iiid j refers to the j cts as musicians. Christopher Tye, defined poetry as music in words, and music as poetry in sounds. Other writers dwell on the similarity of the poet and the Umner. Simonides, among the Greeks, is the author of the famous saying which comes down to us through Plutarch, that poetry is a speaking picture, and painting a mute poetry.

What is the bond of unity which knits poetry and the fine arts together? What is the com- mon ground upon which they rest? What are we to understand by the sisterhood of the muses? Whenever the philosopher has encountered these questions, as the first step to a science of criti-. All the accredited systems of criticism therefore take their rise either in theories of imitation or theories of the And both beautiful. It is not difficult, however, to show that both of the suppositions on which these.

Poetry is an imitation, said the philosopher. Imitation is the grand achievement which gives to the arts their form and prescribes their law. It is the mani- fold ways and means of imitation that we are to study, if we are to elevate criticism into a science. It is the comer stone of ancient criticism: It was accepted in the last century with undoubting faith as an axiom, and the most astonishing conclusions were built upon it, as some divines draw the. Hence the plcsiKure of verse, because it throws difficulties in the way of imitating speech.

Milton is, in this rcsj oct, p: I do not give these illustrations of the theory of imitation as proofs of its fallacy. It would fare ill with most doctrines if they were to be j'udged by the manner in which the imwary have applied them.

It was a good thing of which the critics could not have How it. But it died hard, and held its ground so lustily, that, even in our own time, critics whom we should not reckon as belonging to the school of the Renaissance, but to the more original schools of Germany, have given their adhesion to it. Music, for example, is not imitative. When Haydn stole the melody to which he set the eighth commandment, the force of musical imitation could no further go. As music is not imitative, so neither is narration.

Words represent or stand for, but cannot be said to hiniiti of imitate ideas. Thus the foundation of critical science is laid in a definition which is not the peculiar property of art. He declared that the principle of imitation lies at the root not merely of the fine arts, but also of thought itself. In a word, it is not peculiar to art, and is incapable of supplying the defini- tion of it. For in truth, although imitation bulks so large in Aristotle's definition of poetry, it sinks into insignificance, and even passes out of sight, in the body of his work.

Notvrith- Btanding Richter's, notwithstanding Coleridge's adliesion to it, the theory of imitation is now utterly exploded. The Aristotelian theory ruled absolute in literature for two millenniums. No other theory was put forward to take its place, as TheoUicr thc fouiidatiou of critical science, till within wStii.

There came a time, how- ever, when the need of a deeper criticism began to be felt.

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The old criticism that through the Renaissance traced a descent from Aristotle, dealt chiefly with the forms of art. It is always an idea. I repeat from Goethe:. As all nature's thousand changes But one changeless God proclaim. So in art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same.

In the meantimfe it may be enough to point out that whereas innumerable attempts have been made to analyze the grand idea of art which is generally supposed to be the idea of the beautiful, and out of this analysis to trace the laws and the development of arty it cannot be said that in following such a Kne. It is for this very reason that the theory of the beautiful, as the common theme of art, subsists. If it were less vague, it would be more oppoeed.

With all its vagueness, however, two facts may be discovered which are fatal to it as a founda-.

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Two faitH tion for the science of criticism. The first is the more fatal, namely, that it does not cover the whole ground of art. The worship and manifes- tation of the beautiful is not, for example, the province of comedy, and comedy is as much a part of art as tragedy. Moreover, on the other hand the second fact I have referred to , is it to be supposed that to display beauty is to produce II work of art? La belle chme qile la philosophie 1 sjivs M.

Horace, long ago, in a verse wliich lias become proverbial, expressed the truth about the position of beauty in art. TiiataiiiM Convinced that the idea of the beautiful is. Music is an art, but in what sense are we to say that its theme is eternal truth, or that Mendels- sohn's concerto in D minor is a reflex of the ab- solute idea? In what sense are the arabesques of the Alhambra eternal truths or reflections of the eternal essence?

The idea of the true is not the theme of all art, and it is not peculiar to works of art to take the true for a theme. Still the same objections apply to yet another defini- tion of the artistic theme. Ideas of power, ideas of truth, ideas of beauty — it will not do to bind art as a whole, or poetry as a part of it, to the.

If the unity of the arts does not lie in the possession either of a common method which they pursue, or of a common theme which they set forth, wherein does it consist? Even if poetry and the arts could boast of a common method and a common theme, still every question of method and the choice of tlieme must be subordinate to the end in view. The end determines the means, and must there- fore be the principal point of inquiry. If, then, we inquire what is the end of poetry and the poeticiil arts, we shall find among critics of all countries and all ages a singular unanimity of opinion — a unanimity which is all the more remarkable, when we discover that, admitting tlie fact with scarcely a dissentient voice, they have never turned it to account — they have.

It is admitted that the im- chapter mediate end of art is to give pleasure. The dreamer and the thinker, the singer and the sayer, at war on many another point, are here at one. Here, however, care must be taken that the some expia- reader is not misled by a word. There is in pleasure so little of conscious thought, and in pain so much, that it is natural for all who pride them- selves on the possession of thought to make light of pleasure.

It is possible, however, in magnifying the worth of conscious thought, to underrate the worth of unconscious life. We cannot say that it is ignorance, because tliat is a pure negation. But there is no objection to our saying — life ignorant of itself, unconscious life, pleasure. I do not give this explanation as sufficient — it is very insufficient — but as indicating a point of view from which it will be seen that the establisliment of pleasure as the end of art may involve larger issues, and convey a larger meaning than is commonly sup- see Chapter poscd.

What that larger meaning is may in due course lie shown. In the ninth chapter of this work I attempt to state it, and stating it to give a remodelled definition of art. In the mean- time, one fiiils to see how, bv anv of the new- fangled expressions of German philosophy, we. But if this be granted, and it is all but univer- sally granted, it entails the inevitable inference that criticism is the science of the laws andTheneoes- conditions under which pleasure is produced.

Criticism, however, is built anywhere but upon the rock. Instead of taking a straight line, like the venerable ass which was praised by the Eleatic philosopher, they went off zigzag, to right, to left, in every One and aii. So they bounced off to the left. So they bounced off to the right. Why does not the critic take the one plain path before him, proceeding instantly to inquire into the nature of pleasure, its laws, its conditions, its requirements, its causes, its effects, its whole history?

Whenever I have insisted with my friends on this point, as to the necessity of recog- nising criticism as the science of pleasure, the invariable rejoinder has been that there is no use in attempting such a science, because the nature of pleasure eludes our scrutiny, and there is no accounting for tastes.

But the rejoinder is irre- levant. Chemistry was at one time a diCBcult study, and seemed to be a useless one. The question is simply this: If there is such a thing as criticism at all, what is its object? If art be the minister, criticism must be the science of pleasure, is so obvious a truth, that since in the history of literature and art the inference has never been drawn except once in a faint way, to be mentioned by and by , a doubt may arise in some minds as to the extent to which the production of pleasure has been admitted in criticism as the first principle of art.

I proceed, accordingly, to take a rapid survey of the chief schools of criticism that have ruled in the repuUic of letters, with express reference to their opinion of pleasure and the end of art. Speaking ronndly, there are but two "f great systems of criticism. But these divided systems may be subdivided, and perhaps the plainest method of arranging the critical opinions of paist ages is to take them by countries. It will be convenient to glance in succession at the critical schools of Greece,ltaly, Spain, France, Germany, and England. And from this survey,. In our old Anglo-Saxon poetry, the harp is de- scribed as " the wood of pleasure," and that is the universal conception of art.

Homer, Plato, and Aristotle are the leaders of Greek thought, and their word may be taken for what constitutes the Greek idea of the end of poetry. The uppermost thought in Homer's mind, when he speaks of Phemius and Demo- docus, is that their duty is to delight, to charm, to soothe. When the strain of the bard makes Ulysses weep, it is hushed, because its object is defeak'd, and it is desired that all should rejoice togotlier.

Wherever the minstrel is referred to, his chief business is described in the Greek verb to delight. What the great poet of Greece thus indicated, the great philosophers expressed in logical fonn. That pleasure is the end of poetry, is the pervading idea of Aristotle's treatise on the subject. To Plato's view I have already more than once referred. He excluded the poets from his republic for tin's, as a cliief reason, that poetry has pleasure for its leading aim. In another of his works he defines the pleasure, which poetry aims at, to be that which a man of virtue.

The argument is, that because pleasure is a be- coming — that is, a state not of being, but of going to be — it is unbecoming. He starts with the Cyrenaic definition of pleasure as a state not of being, but of change, and he argues that the gods are unchangeable, therefore not capable of pleasure.

Pleasure which is a becoming, is imbecoming to their nature; and man seeking pleasure seeks that which is unseemly and un- godlike. Think of this argument what we will, the very fact of its being urged against poetry in this way, brings into a very strong light the conviction of Plato as to the meaning of classical art.

And what was Plato's, what was Aristotle's view of the object of art, we find consistently maintained in Greek literature while it pre- served any vitality. In the Greek mind the ';': Is it a tme or a faJ. But is it tnie? Is the pleasure which it affords, the pleasure of a truth or that of a lie? The question naturally arose from their critical jx int of view, which led them to look for tlie definition of art in its form. They defined art as an imitation, which is hut a nar- rower name for fiction.

It will he found, indeed, tliroughout the history of criticism, that so long as it started from the Greek point of view, followed tlu? Greek metliod, and accepted the Greek definition of art, that this question as to the truth of fiction was a constant trouble. Greek raised liis doubt as to the truth of art, let it be rememl ered that he had in his mind something very different from what we should now be thinking of were we to question the truthfulness of this or that particular work of art.

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Nur glaube ich nicht mehr , dass er zur Schopenhauerschen Philosophie erziehen soll. Das bist du alles nicht, was du jetzt tust, meinst, begehrst. That man who does not want to belong to the mass only has to stop being lazy against himself, he has to follow his conscience that calls out to him: That what you do, think and strive for, is not you! Frage nicht, gehe ihn. While there are numerous paths and bridges and demi-gods that want to carry you across the river, but only for the price of yourself, you would pledge yourself and lose yourself thus.

There is only one path in this world that only you can walk on and no-one else: Do not ask, walk on it…]. Aber wie finden wir uns selbst wieder? Wie kann sich der Mensch kennen? How can man know himself? And already in the preface, Nietzsche delivers his description as to what the first step along this unknown path might look like:. What have you truly loved, thus far, what has attracted your soul, what has governed it and at the same time brought happiness to it?

Imagine the array of these revered objects passing by in front of you and perhaps they, through their essence and their sequence, provide you with a law, the basic law of your own self. Compare these objects, see how one compliments, widens, outdoes, explains, the other, how they form a stepladder on which you have climbed up to yourself, thus far, for your true essence does not lie deeply hidden within yourself, but immeasurably high above yourself! Your true teachers and formers reveal to you what the true original meaning and basic material of your nature is, something entirely un-educable and un-formable, but in any event something that is difficult to reach, that is bound, immovable—your teachers can be nothing else than your liberators.

And therefore, today, I want to remember the one teacher and task master that I can call my own, Arthur Schopenhauer. In such peril, need and desire, I came across Schopenhauer. However, this path can only be prepared by philosophy, and therefore, he looked at the manner in which philosophy was practiced and taught in his time:. Das war die erste Gefahr, in deren Schatten Schopenhauer heranwuchs: Verzweiflung an der Wahrheit.

The second danger is: Well…it appears to me that Kant has had a lively influence on the fewest of men whose blood and juices he would have re-vitalized and re-shaped. While it is said that, based on the work of this quiet scientist, a revolution has broken out in all intellectual disciplines. I can not believe that, for I do not see this revolution to have affected men, at all, after which only entire disciplines could be affected.

Well, today, these relativistic effects that began with Kant seem to have become reality: Man muss den Maler errathen, um das Bild zu verstehen, — das wusste Schopenhauer. One has to understand the painter in order to understand the painting—-Schopenhauer knew that. Now, however, all of science is out to try to understand the canvas and the paint but not the painting, well, one could say that only he who takes a good look at the entire image of life will be able to use particular sciences without coming to any harm, himself, for, without such a regulatory overall image, there are ties that do not lead to an end anywhere and make our lives even more complicated and labyrinth-like.

This is a stage of encrustation and hardening, equal in its value to that unreal, cold and self-proud virtue that is the farthest removed and keeps itself the farthest removed from true sacredness. Wenn er jetzt nun sein furchtloses Auge der Frage zuwandte: Denn nur ein einziges wahrhaftiges Ja! He knew very well that there could still be achieved something purer and cleaner on this earth than his contemporary life and that everyone is doing bitter injustice to this existence if he would just know and evaluate it from this ugly form.

No, genius, itself is called upon now in order to hear as to whether it, the highest fruit of life, could, perhaps, justify life as such; wonderful, creative man shall answer the question: Is it enough for you?

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Will you be its advocate, its redeemer? Here, we recognize one of the clearest statements of how Nietzsche takes on the role of his teacher, himself: Since the existence of the world, states have been formed, here and there, that is nothing new. How should a political change suffice to turn man, for once and for all, into a happy inhabitant of earth? Should someone sincerely believe that this could be possible, he should come forth: Wie sieht nun der Philosoph die Cultur in unserer Zeit an?

Alles dient der kommenden Barbarei, die jetzige Kunst und Wissenschaft mit einbegriffen. It may be that such a man who sees his highest duty in his service to the state, actually does not know any higher duties; however, beyond that, there are still men and duties—and one of these duties that, at least to me, seem to rank higher than the service to the state, demands that stupidity in every form be destroyed, thus also this stupidity….

How does the philosopher look at the culture of our times: Certainly quite differently than those philosophy professors who are content in their state. It almost appears to him as if he is seeing the symptoms of the complete annihilation and uprooting of culture, when he thinks of the general haste and the increasing speed of occurrences , of the end of all contemplation and simplicity. The waters of religion are draining off and leave behind swamps, and sloughs; nations separate again in a most hostile spirit and yearn to tear each other apart.

Sciences, conducted without any restraints and in the blindest lassez-faire-style, split off from each other, and dissolve all firm beliefs; the educated classes and states are swept up by the large-scale, despicable monetary economy. Never was the world more world, never was it lacking more in love and goodness. The academic establishments no longer serve as lighthouses or asylums in the midst of all this current worldliness, day by day, they, themselves, become more restless, more thoughtless, more un-loving.

Everything serves the emerging barbarism, present art and science included. Wir leben die Periode der Atome, des atomistischen Chaos. There are certainly forces, incredible forces, however, wild ones, primordial ones, and quite merciless ones. We live in the area of atoms, of the atomic chaos. Und wenn er ruft: Of these, the first has the greatest fire and can be certain of its most popular effect; the second is made for only a few, namely for those that are contemplative natures in a great style and it is misunderstood by the masses.

The third requires the most active men as its observers and only those will look at it without coming to any harm, since it tires out the contemplative ones and it scares off the masses. All realms of life and of nature, all events of the past, all arts, mythologies, all sciences see the unsatiable onlooker fly by themselves, the deepest yearning is aroused and calmed down, even Helena holds him no longer--and then, the moment must arrive, which his scornful travel companion has been waiting for, at any random location on earth, the flight ends, the wings fall down.

Mephistopheles is on hand. When the German will stop to be Faust, no danger is greater than that he will turn into a hypocrite and fall prey to the devil—and only heavenly forces can save him from that…]. Und hierzu soll uns das Bild des Schopenhauerischen Menschen ermuthigen. Dabei muss sein Thun zu einem andauernden Leiden werden, aber er weiss, was auch Meister Eckhard weiss: This admission and shouting out of the truth appears to others as the embodiment of evil, for they consider the consecration of their half-truths and chimaeras a duty of humanity and think that one has to do evil if one destroys their playthings in this way….

However, there exists a kind of negation and descruction that is the outpouring of that powerful longing for sanctification and salvation, as the first teacher of which Schopenhauer stepped among us unholy and truly worldly people. All evidence that can be negated also derserves to be negated, and to be truthful means to believe in an existence that could not be negated, at all and that is truthful and without lies, itself.

Therfore, the truthful man considers the meaning of his activity to be metaphysical, explainable out of the laws of another and higher life that, in its deepest meaning, is positive: In the course of this, his actions must turn into perpetual suffering, but he knows what also Meister Eckhart knows: I should think that the heart of everyone who puts such a direction of life before his soul must widen, and a fervent longing must arise in him, to be such a Schopenhauerian man: It is the heroic genius that negates all that exists, however, contrary to Schopenhauer, this negation does not lead to a silencing of the will, but to actual activity: Jener Mensch, an dem allein der Natur gelegen ist!

Aber es giebt Augenblicke, wo wir dies begreifen: With that man for whom nature alone cares! As long as someone yearns for life as he does for some happiness, he has not lifted his eyes beyond the horizon of an animal, he only yearns with more awareness for that which the animal searches for in blind instinct. However, this is the lot of all of us, for the greater part of life, we can not move beyond our animal existence, we, ourselves, are the animal that appears to be suffering senselessly. However, there are moments in which we understand this; in such moments, the clouds disappear before us, and we see how we, with all of nature, move towards man as towards something that his high above us.

It is transformed at the point of this realization, and a mild tiredness of the evening, that which men call beautiful, rests on its face. What it now, in its transformed appearance, expresses, that is the great enlightenment with respect to existence, and the highest wish that mortals can wish is to constantly and with open ears take part in this enlightenment.

Es ist dies der Grundgedanke der Kultur , in sofern diese jedem Einzelnen von uns nur Eine Aufgabe zu stellen weiss: Denn wir wissen, was die Kultur ist. This is the basic concept of culture , insofar as it only knows how to assign one task to each one of us: For, as nature needs the philosopher, it needs the artist, for a metaphysical purpose, namely for its own self-enlightenment, so that, finally, that will be put before it as pure and complete creation that it, in the unrest of its becoming, never gets to clearly see—thus, to its self-realization…And thus, ultimately, nature is in need of the saint whose self has completely melted and whose suffering life is not or almost not felt personally, anymore, but rather, as the deepest feeling of equality, compassion and oneness, with all that is alive: Since we know what that culture is.

In order to practically apply this to Schopenhauerian man, it asks that we continually prepare and further his new education by our getting to know enmity and that we clear the path off it—in short, that we ceaselessly fight against that which brought us the highest fulfillment of our existence in that it prevented us from becoming such Schopenhauerian men, ourselves. Due to this, here, he also touches the evolutionary concept of Darwin, whom he already interprets in a one-sided manner, in that he is only interested in accelerating mutation that he does not consider to be a coincidence but rather a teleology of nature, contrary to which he sui generis completely disregards the nature of selection through the existing and its right s:.

Actually, it is easy to understand there, where a species arrives at the boundaries and at its transformation into a higher species, is where its goal lies and not in the mass of the species and its well-being or even in those specimens that are, according to chronology, it oldest ones, but rather in the apparently scattered and coincidental existences that emerge here and there under fortunate circumstances; and equally easily, the demand should be understood that mankind, since it can arrive at the awareness of its purpose, it has to create those favourable conditions in which those great redeeming men can emerge.

Jeder, der sich zu ihr bekennt, spricht damit aus: Everyone who acknowledges it, in doing so, expresses with it: Man fragt sich erstaunt: Denn es giebt eine Art von missbrauchter und in Dienste genommener Kultur — man sehe sich nur um! One asks oneself in amazement: Will nature reach its goal, nevertheless, even if most determine the purpose of their striving wrongly?

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