Individualism in Philosophy
GA 30
Individualism in Philosophy
[ 1 ] If the human being were a mere creature of nature and not a creator at the same time, he would not stand questioningly before the phenomena of the world and would also not seek to fathom their essential being and laws. He would satisfy his drive to eat and to propagate in accordance with the inborn laws of his organism and otherwise allow the events of the world to take the course they happen to take. It would not occur to him at all to address a question to nature. Content and happy he would go through life like the rose of which Angelus Silesius says:
The rose has no “wherefore?”; it blooms because it blooms.
It pays itself no mind, asks not if it is seen.
[ 2 ] The rose can just be like this. What it is it is because nature has made it this way. But the human being cannot just be like this. There is a drive within him to add to the world lying before him yet another world that springs forth from him. He does not want to live with his fellowmen in the chance proximity into which nature has placed him; he seeks to regulate the way he lives with others in accordance with his reason. The form in which nature has shaped man and woman does not suffice for him; he creates the ideal1Throughout this essay, “ideal” usually means “in the form of ideas.” –Ed. figures of Greek sculpture. To the natural course of events in daily life he adds the course of events springing from his imagination as tragedy and comedy. In architecture and music, creations spring from his spirit that are hardly reminiscent at all of anything created by nature. In his sciences he draws up conceptual pictures through which the chaos of world phenomena passing daily before our senses appears to us as a harmoniously governed whole, as a structured organism. In the world of his own deeds, he creates a particular realm—that of historical happenings—which is essentially different from nature's course of events.
[ 3 ] The human being feels that everything he creates is only a continuation of the workings of nature. He also knows that he is called upon to add something higher to what nature can do out of itself. He is conscious of the fact that he gives birth out of himself to another, higher nature in addition to outer nature.
[ 4 ] Thus the human being stands between two worlds; between the world that presses in upon him from outside and the world that he brings forth out of himself. His effort is to bring these two worlds into harmony. For, his whole being aims at harmony. He would like to live like the rose that does not ask about the whys and wherefores but rather blooms because it blooms. Schiller demands this of the human being in the words:
Are you seeking the highest, the greatest?
The plant can teach it to you.
What it is will-lessly, you must be will-fully—that's it!
[ 5 ] The plant can just be what it is. For no new realm springs forth from it, and therefore the fearful longing can also not arise in it: How am I to bring the two realms into harmony with each other?
[ 6 ] The goal for which man has striven throughout all the ages of history is to bring what lies within him into harmony with what nature creates out of itself. The fact that he himself is fruitful becomes the starting point for his coming to terms with nature; this coming to terms forms the content of his spiritual striving.
[ 7 ] There are two ways of coming to terms with nature. The human being either allows outer nature to become master over his inner nature, or he subjects this outer nature to himself. In the first case, he seeks to submit his own willing and existence to the outer course of events. In the second case, he draws the goal and direction of his willing and existence from himself and seeks to deal in some way or other with the events of nature that still go their own way.
[ 8 ] Let us speak about the first case first. It is in accordance with his essential being for man, above and beyond the realm of nature, to create yet another realm that in his sense is a higher one. He can do no other. How he relates to the outer world will depend upon the feelings and emotions he has with respect to this his own realm. Now he can have the same feelings with respect to his own realm as he has with respect to the facts of nature. He then allows the creations of his spirit to approach him in the same way he allows an event of the outer world, wind and weather, for example, to approach him. He perceives no difference in kind between what occurs in the outer world and what occurs within his soul. He therefore believes that they are only one realm, i.e., governed by one kind of law. But he does feel that the creations of his spirit are of a higher sort. He therefore places them above the creations of mere nature. Thus he transfers his own creations into the outer world and lets nature be governed by them. Consequently he knows only an outer world. For he transfers his own inner world outside himself. No wonder then that for him even his own self becomes a subordinate part of this outer world.
[ 9 ] One way man comes to terms with the outer world consists, therefore, in his regarding his inner being as something outer; he sets this inner being, which he has transferred into the outer world, both over nature and over himself as ruler and lawgiver.
[ 10 ] This characterizes the standpoint of the religious person. A divine world order is a creation of the human spirit. But the human being is not clear about the fact that the content of this world order has sprung from his own spirit. He therefore transfers it outside himself and subordinates himself to his own creation.
[ 11 ] The acting human being is not content simply to act. The flower blooms because it blooms. It does not ask about whys and wherefores. The human being relates to what he does. He connects feelings to what he does. He is either satisfied or dissatisfied with what he does. He makes value judgments about his actions. He regards one action as pleasing to him, and another as displeasing. The moment he feels this, the harmony of the world is disturbed for him. He believes that the pleasing action must bring about different consequences than one which evokes his displeasure. Now if he is not clear about the fact that, out of himself, he has attached the value judgments to his actions, he will believe that these values are attached to his actions by some outer power. He believes that an outer power differentiates the happenings of this world into ones that are pleasing and therefore good, and ones that are displeasing and therefore bad, evil. A person who feels this way makes no distinction between the facts of nature and the actions of the human being. He judges both from the same point of view. For him the whole cosmos is one realm, and the laws governing this realm correspond entirely to those which the human spirit brings forth out of itself.
[ 12 ] This way of coming to terms with the world reveals a basic characteristic of human nature. No matter how unclear the human being might be about his relationship to the world, he nevertheless seeks within himself the yardstick by which to measure all things. Out of a kind of unconscious feeling of sovereignty he decides on the absolute value of all happenings. No matter how one studies this, one finds that there are countless people who believe themselves governed by gods; there are none who do not independently, over the heads of the gods, judge what pleases or displeases these gods. The religious person cannot set himself up as the lord of the world; but he does indeed determine, out of his own absolute power, the likes and dislikes of the ruler of the world.
[ 13 ] One need only look at religious natures and one will find my assertions confirmed. What proclaimer of gods has not at the same time determined quite exactly what pleases these gods and what is repugnant to them? Every religion has its wise teachings about the cosmos, and each also asserts that its wisdom stems from one or more gods.
[ 14 ] If one wants to characterize the standpoint of the religious person one must say: He seeks to judge the world out of himself, but he does not have the courage also to ascribe to himself the responsibility for this judgment; therefore he invents beings for himself in the outer world that he can saddle with this responsibility.
[ 15 ] Such considerations seem to me to answer the question:
What is religion? The content of religion springs from the human spirit. But the human spirit does not want to acknowledge this origin to itself. The human being submits himself to his own laws, but he regards these laws as foreign. He establishes himself as ruler over himself. Every religion establishes the human “I” as regent of the world. Religion's being consists precisely in this, that it is not conscious of this fact. It regards as revelation from outside what it actually reveals to itself.
[ 16 ] The human being wishes to stand at the topmost place in the world. But he does not dare to pronounce himself the pinnacle of creation. Therefore he invents gods in his own image and lets the world be ruled by them. When he thinks this way, he is thinking religiously.
[ 17 ] Philosophical thinking replaces religious thinking. Wherever and whenever this occurs, human nature reveals itself to us in a very particular way.
[ 18 ] For the development of Western thinking, the transition from the mythological thinking of the Greeks into philosophical thinking is particularly interesting. I would now like to present three thinkers from that time of transition: Anaximander, Thales, and Parmenides. They represent three stages leading from religion to philosophy.
[ 19 ] It is characteristic of the first stage of this path that divine beings, from whom the content taken from the human “I” supposedly stems, are no longer acknowledged. But from habit one still holds fast to the view that this content stems from the outer world. Anaximander stands at this stage. He no longer speaks of gods as his Greek ancestors did. For him the highest principle, which rules the world, is not a being pictured in man's image. It is an impersonal being, the apeiron, the indefinite. It develops out of itself everything occurring in nature, not in the way a person creates, but rather out of natural necessity. But Anaximander always conceives this natural necessity to be analogous to actions that proceed according to human principles of reason. He pictures to himself, so to speak, a moral, natural lawfulness, a highest being, that treats the world like a human, moral judge without actually being one. For Anaximander, everything in the world occurs just as necessarily as a magnet attracts iron, but does so according to moral, i.e., human laws. Only from this point of view could he say: “Whence things arise, hence must they also pass away, in accordance with justice, for they must do penance and recompense because of unrighteousness in a way corresponding to the order of time.”
[ 20 ] This is the stage at which a thinker begins to judge philosophically. He lets go of the gods. He therefore no longer ascribes to the gods what comes from man. But he actually does nothing more than transfer onto something impersonal the characteristics formerly attributed to divine, i.e., personal beings.
[ 21 ] Thales approaches the world in an entirely free way. Even though he is a few years older than Anaximander, he is philosophically much more mature. His way of thinking is no longer religious at all.
[ 22 ] Within Western thinking Thales is the first to come to terms with the world in the second of the two ways mentioned above. Hegel has so often emphasized that thinking is the trait which distinguishes man from the animal. Thales is the first Western personality who dared to assign to thinking its sovereign position. He no longer bothered about whether gods have arranged the world in accordance with the order of thought or whether an apeiron directs the world in accordance with thinking. He only knew that he thought, and assumed that, because he thought, he also had a right to explain the world to himself in accordance with his thinking. Do not underestimate this standpoint of Thales! It represents an immense disregard for all religious preconceptions. For it was the declaration of the absoluteness of human thinking. Religious people say: The world is arranged the way we think it to be because God exists. And since they conceive of God in the image of man, it is obvious that the order of the world corresponds to the order of the human head. All that is a matter of complete indifference to Thales. He thinks about the world. And by virtue of his thinking he ascribes to himself the power to judge the world. He already has a feeling that thinking is only a human action; and accordingly he undertakes to explain the world with the help of this purely human thinking. With Thales the activity of knowing (das Erkennen) now enters into a completely new stage of its development. It ceases to draw its justification from the fact that it only copies what the gods have already sketched out. It takes from out of itself the right to decide upon the lawfulness of the world. What matters, to begin with, is not at all whether Thales believed water or anything else to be the principle of the world; what matters is that he said to himself: What the principle is, this I will decide by my thinking. He assumed it to be obvious that thinking has the power in such things. And therein lies his greatness.
[ 23 ] Just consider what was accomplished. No less an event than that spiritual power over world phenomena was given to man. Whoever trusts in his thinking says to himself: No matter how violently the waves of life may rage, no matter that the world seems a chaos: I am at peace, for all this mad commotion does not disquiet me, because I comprehend it.
[ 24 ] Heraclitus did not comprehend this divine peacefulness of the thinker who understands himself. He was of the view that all things are in eternal flux. That becoming is the essential beings of things. When I step into a river, it is no longer the same one as in the moment of my deciding to enter it. But Heraclitus overlooks just one thing. Thinking preserves what the river bears along with itself and finds that in the next moment something passes before my senses that is essentially the same as what was already there before.
[ 25 ] Like Thales, with his firm belief in the power of human thinking, Heraclitus is a typical phenomenon in the realm of those personalities who come to terms with the most significant questions of existence. He does not feel within himself the power to master by thinking the eternal flux of sense-perceptible becoming. Heraclitus looks into the world and it dissolves for him into momentary phenomena upon which one has no hold. If Heraclitus were right, then everything in the world would flutter away, and in the general chaos the human personality would also have to disintegrate. I would not be the same today as I was yesterday, and tomorrow I would be different than today. At every moment, the human being would face something totally new and would be powerless. For, it is doubtful that the experiences he has acquired up to a certain day can guide him in dealing with the totally new experiences that the next day will bring.
[ 26 ] Parmenides therefore sets himself in absolute opposition to Heraclitus. With all the one-sidedness possible only to a keen philosophical nature, he rejected all testimony brought by sense perception. For, it is precisely this ever-changing sense world that leads one astray into the view of Heraclitus. Parmenides therefore regarded those revelations as the only source of all truth which well forth from the innermost core of the human personality: the revelations of thinking. In his view the real being of things is not what flows past the senses; it is the thoughts, the ideas, that thinking discovers within this stream and to which it holds fast!
[ 27 ] Like so many things that arise in opposition to a particular one-sidedness, Parmenides's way of thinking also became disastrous. It ruined European thinking for centuries. It undermined man's confidence in his sense perception. Whereas an unprejudiced, naive look at the sense world draws from this world itself the thought-content that satisfies the human drive for knowledge, the philosophical movement developing in the sense of Parmenides believed it had to draw real truth only out of pure, abstract thinking.
[ 28 ] The thoughts we gain in living intercourse with the sense world have an individual character; they have within themselves the warmth of something experienced. We unfold our own personality by extracting ideas from the world. We feel ourselves as conquerors of the sense world when we capture it in the world of thoughts. Abstract, pure thinking has something impersonal and cold about it. We always feel a compulsion when we spin forth ideas out of pure thinking. Our feeling of self cannot be heightened through such thinking. For we must simply submit to the necessities of thought.
[ 29 ] Parmenides did not take into account that thinking is an activity of the human personality. He took it to be impersonal, as the eternal content of existence. What is thought is what exists, he once said.
[ 30 ] In the place of the old gods he thus set a new one. Whereas the older religious way of picturing things had set the whole feeling, willing, and thinking man as God at the pinnacle of the world, Parmenides took one single human activity, one part, out of the human personality and made a divine being out of it.
[ 31 ] In the realm of views about the moral life of man Parmenides is complemented by Socrates. His statement that virtue is teachable is the ethical consequence of Parmenides's view that thinking is equitable with being. If this is true, then human action can claim to have raised itself to something worthily existing only when human action flows from thinking, from that abstract, logical thinking to which man must simply yield himself, i.e., which he has to acquire for himself as learner.
[ 32 ] It is clear that a common thread can be traced through the development of Greek thought. The human being seeks to transfer into the outer world what belongs to him, what springs from his own being, and in this way to subordinate himself to his own being. At first he takes the whole fullness of his nature and sets likenesses of it as gods over himself; then he takes one single human activity, thinking, and sets it over himself as a necessity to which he must yield. That is what is so remarkable in the development of man, that he unfolds his powers, that he fights for the existence and unfolding of these powers in the world, but that he is far from being able to acknowledge these powers as his own.
[ 33 ] One of the greatest philosophers of all time has made this great, human self-deception into a bold and wonderful system. This philosopher is Plato. The ideal world, the inner representations that arise around man within his spirit while his gaze is directed at the multiplicity of outer things, this becomes for Plato a higher world of existence of which that multiplicity is only a copy. “The things of this world which our senses perceive have no true being at all: they are always becoming but never are. They have only a relative existence; they are, in their totality, only in and through their relationship to each other; one can therefore just as well call their whole existence a non-existence. They are consequently also not objects of any actual knowledge. For, only about what is, in and for itself and always in the same way, can there be such knowledge; they, on the other hand, are only the object of what we, through sensation, take them to be. As long as we are limited only to our perception of them, we are like people who sit in a dark cave so firmly bound that they cannot even turn their heads and who see nothing, except, on the wall facing them, by the light of a fire burning behind them, the shadow images of real things which are led across between them and the fire, and who in fact also see of each other, yes each of himself, only the shadows on that wall. Their wisdom, however, would be to predict the sequence of those shadows which they have learned to know from experience.” The tree that I see and touch, whose flowers I smell, is therefore the shadow of the idea of the tree. And this idea is what is truly real. The idea, however, is what lights up within my spirit when I look at the tree. What I perceive with my senses is thus made into a copy of what my spirit shapes through the perception.
[ 34 ] Everything that Plato believes to be present as the world of ideas in the beyond, outside things, is man's inner world. The content of the human spirit, torn out of man and pictured as a world unto itself, as a higher, true world lying in the beyond: that is Platonic philosophy.
[ 35 ] I consider Ralph Waldo Emerson to be right when he says: “Among books, Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he said, ‘Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book.’ These sentences contain the culture of nations; these are the cornerstone of schools; these are the fountain-head of literatures. A discipline it is in logic, arithmetic, taste, symmetry, poetry, language, rhetoric, ontology, morals, or practical wisdom. There was never such range of speculation. Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought.”2Second Chapter of Representative Men, “Plato; or the Philosopher” Let me express the last sentence somewhat more exactly in the following form. The way Plato felt about the relationship of the human spirit to the world, this is how the overwhelming majority of people still feel about it today. They feel that the content of the human spirit—human feeling, willing, and thinking—does stand at the top of the ladder of phenomena; but they know what to do with this spiritual content only when they conceive of it as existing outside of man as a divinity or as some other kind of higher being such as a necessary natural order, or as a moral world order—or as any of the other names that man has given to what he himself brings forth.
[ 36 ] One can understand why the human being does this. Sense impressions press in upon him from outside. He sees colors and hears sounds. His feelings and thoughts arise in him as he sees the colors and hears the sounds. These stem from his own nature. He asks himself: How can I, out of myself, add anything to what the world gives me? It seems to him completely arbitrary to draw something out of himself to complement the outer world.
[ 37 ] But the moment he says to himself: What I am feeling and thinking, this I do not bring to the world out of myself; another, higher being has laid this into the world, and I only draw it forth from the world—at this moment he feels relieved. One only has to tell the human being: Your opinions and thoughts do not come from yourself; a god has revealed them to you—then he is reconciled with himself. And if he has divested himself of his belief in God, he then sets in His place the natural order of things, eternal laws. The fact that he cannot find this God, these eternal laws, anywhere outside in the world, that he must rather first create them for the world if they are to be there—this he does not want to admit to himself at first. It is difficult for him to say to himself: The world outside me is not divine; by virtue of my essential being, however, I assume the right to project the divine into the outer world.
[ 38 ] What do the laws of the pendulum that arose in Galileo's spirit as he watched the swinging church lamp matter to the lamp? But man himself cannot exist without establishing a relationship between the outer world and the world of his inner being. His spiritual life is a continuous projecting of his spirit into the sense world. Through his own work, in the course of historical life, there occurs the interpenetration of nature and spirit. The Greek thinkers wanted nothing more than to believe that man was already born into a relationship which actually can come about only through himself. They did not want it to be man who first consummates the marriage of spirit and nature; they wanted to confront this as a marriage already consummated, to regard it as an accomplished fact.
[ 39 ] Aristotle saw what is so contradictory in transferring the ideas—arising in man's spirit from the things of the world—into some supersensible world in the beyond. But even he did not recognize that things first receive their ideal aspect when man confronts them and creatively adds this aspect to them. Rather, he assumed that this ideal element, as entelechy, is itself at work in things as their actual principle. The natural consequence of this basic view of his was that he traced the moral activity of man back to his original, moral, natural potential. The physical drives ennoble themselves in the course of human evolution and then appear as willing guided by reason. Virtue consists in this reasonable willing.
[ 40 ] Taken at face value, this seems to indicate that Aristotle believed that moral activity, at least, has its source in man's own personality, that man himself gives himself the direction and goal of his actions out of his own being and does not allow these to be prescribed for him from outside. But even Aristotle does not dare to stay with this picture of a human being who determines his own destiny for himself. What appears in man as individual, reasonable activity is, after all, only the imprint of a general world reason existing outside of him. This world reason does realize itself within the individual person, but has its own independent, higher existence over and above him. .
[ 41 ] Even Aristotle pushes outside of man what he finds present only within man. The tendency of Greek thinking from Thales to Aristotle is to think that what is encountered within the inner life of man is an independent being existing for itself and to trace the things of the world back to this being.
[ 42 ] Man's knowledge must pay the consequences when he thinks that the mediating of spirit with nature, which he himself is meant to accomplish, is accomplished by outer powers. He should immerse himself in his own inner being and seek there the point of connection between the sense world and the ideal world. If, instead of this, he looks into the outer world to find this point, then, because he cannot find it there, he must necessarily arrive eventually at the doubt in any reconciliation between the two powers. The period of Greek thought that follows Aristotle presents us with this stage of doubt. It announces itself with the Stoics and Epicureans and reaches its high-point with the Skeptics.
[ 43 ] The Stoics and Epicureans feel instinctively that one cannot find the essential being of things along the path taken by their predecessors. They leave this path without bothering very much about finding a new one. For the older philosophers, the main thing was the world as a whole. They wanted to discover the laws of the world and believed that knowledge of man must result all by itself from knowledge of the world, because for them man was a part of the world-whole like all other things. The Stoics and Epicureans made man the main object of their reflections. They wanted to give his life its appropriate content. They thought about how man should live his life. Everything else was only a means to this end. The Stoics considered all philosophy to be worthwhile only to the extent that through it man could know how he is to live his life. They considered the right life for man to be one that is in harmony with nature. In order to realize this harmony with nature in one's own actions, one must first know what is in harmony with nature.
[ 44 ] In the Stoics' teachings there lies an important admission about the human personality. Namely, that the human personality can be its own purpose and goal and that everything else, even knowledge, is there only for the sake of this personality.
[ 45 ] The Epicureans went even further in this direction. Their striving consisted in shaping life in such a way that man would feel as content as possible in it or that it would afford him the greatest possible pleasure. One's own life stood so much in the foreground for them that they practiced knowledge only for the purpose of freeing man from superstitious fear and from the discomfort that befalls him when he does not understand nature.
[ 46 ] A heightened human feeling of oneself runs through the views of the Stoics and Epicureans compared to those of older Greek thinkers.
[ 47 ] This view appears in a finer, more spiritual way in the Skeptics. They said to themselves: When a person is forming ideas about things, he can form them only out of himself. And only out of himself can he draw the conviction that an idea corresponds to some thing. They saw nothing in the outer world that would provide a basis for connecting thing and idea. And they regarded as delusion and combated what anyone before them had said about any such bases.
[ 48 ] The basic characteristic of the Skeptical view is modesty. Its adherents did not dare to deny that there is a connection in the outer world between idea and thing; they merely denied that man could know of any such connection. Therefore they did indeed make man the source of his knowing, but they did not regard this knowing as the expression of true wisdom.
[ 49 ] Basically, Skepticism represents human knowing's declaration of bankruptcy. The human being succumbs to the preconception he has created for himself—that the truth is present outside him in a finished form—through the conviction he has gained that his truth is only an inner one, and therefore cannot be the right one at all.
[ 50 ] Thales begins to reflect upon the world with utter confidence in the power of the human spirit. The doubt—that what human pondering must regard as the ground of the world could not actually be this ground—lay very far from his naive belief in man's cognitive ability. With the Skeptics a complete renunciation of real truth has taken the place of this belief.
[ 51 ] The course of development taken by Greek thinking lies between the two extremes of naive, blissful confidence in man's cognitive ability and absolute lack of confidence in it. One can understand this course of development if one considers how man's mental pictures of the causes of the world have changed. What the oldest Greek philosophers thought these causes to be had sense-perceptible characteristics. Through this, one had a right to transfer these causes into the outer world. Like every other object in the sense world, the primal water of Thales belongs to outer reality. The matter became quite different when Parmenides stated that true existence lies in thinking. For, this thinking, in accordance with its true existence, is to be perceived only within man's inner being. Through Parmenides there first arose the great question: How does thought-existence, spiritual existence, relate to the outer existence that our senses perceive? One was accustomed then to picturing the relationship of the highest existence to that existence which surrounds us in daily life in the same way that Thales had thought the relationship to be between his sense-perceptible primal thing and the things that surround us. It is altogether possible to picture to oneself the emergence of all things out of the water that Thales presents as the primal source of all existence, to picture it as analogous to certain sense-perceptible processes that occur daily before our very eyes. And the urge to picture relations in the world surrounding us in the sense of such an analogy still remained even when, through Parmenides and his followers, pure thinking and its content, the world of ideas, were made into the primal source of all existence. Men were indeed ready to see that the spiritual world is a higher one than the sense world, that the deepest world-content reveals itself within the inner being of man, but they were not ready at the same time to picture the relationship between the sense world and the ideal world as an ideal one. They pictured it as a sense-perceptible relationship, as a factual emergence. If they had thought of it as spiritual, then they could peacefully have acknowledged that the content of the world of ideas is present only in the inner being of man. For then what is higher would not need to precede in time what is derivative. A sense-perceptible thing can reveal a spiritual content, but this content can first be born out of the sense-perceptible thing at the moment of revelation. This content is a later product of evolution than the sense world. But if one pictures the relationship to be one of emergence, then that from which the other emerges must also precede it in time. In this way the child—the spiritual world born of the sense world—was made into the mother of the sense world. This is the psychological reason why the human being transfers his world out into outer reality and declares—with reference to this his possession and product—that it has an objective existence in and for itself, and that he has to subordinate himself to it, or, as the case may be, that he can take possession of it only through revelation or in some other way by which the already finished truth can make its entry into his inner being.
[ 52 ] This interpretation which man gives to his striving for truth, to his activity of knowing, corresponds with a profound inclination of his nature. Goethe characterized this inclination in his Aphorisms in Prose in the following words: “The human being never realizes just how anthropomorphic he is.” And: “Fall and propulsion. To want to declare the movement of the heavenly bodies by these is actually a hidden anthropomorphism; it is the way a walker goes across a field. The lifted foot sinks down, the foot left behind strives forward and falls; and so on continuously from departing until arriving.” All explanation of nature, indeed, consists in the fact that experiences man has of himself are interpreted into the object. Even the simplest phenomena are explained in this way. When we explain the propulsion of one body by another, we do so by picturing to ourselves that the one body exerts upon the other the same effect as we do when we propel a body. In the same way as we do this with something trivial, the religious person does it with his picture of God. He takes human ways of thinking and acting and interprets them into nature; and the philosophers we have presented, from Parmenides to Aristotle, also interpreted human thought-processes into nature. [ 53 ] Max Stirner has this human need in mind when he says: “What haunts the universe and carries on its mysterious, ‘incomprehensible’ doings is, in fact, the arcane ghost that we call the highest being. And fathoming this ghost, understanding it, discovering reality in it (proving the ‘existence of God’)—this is the task men have set themselves for thousands of years; they tormented themselves with the horrible impossibility, with the endless work of the Danaides, of transforming the ghost into a nonghost, the unreal into a real, the spirit into a whole and embodied person. Behind the existing world they sought the ‘thing-in-itself,’ the essential being; they sought the non-thing behind the thing.”
[ 54 ] The last phase of Greek philosophy, Neo-Platonism, offers a splendid proof of how inclined the human spirit is to misconstrue its own being and therefore its relationship to the world. This teaching, whose most significant proponent is Plotin, broke with the tendency to transfer the content of the human spirit into a realm outside the living reality within which man himself stands. The Neo-Platonist seeks within his own soul the place at which the highest object of knowledge is to be found. Through that intensification of cognitive forces which one calls ecstasy, he seeks within himself to behold the essential being of world phenomena. The heightening of the inner powers of perception is meant to lift the human spirit onto a level of life at which he feels directly the revelation of this essential being. This teaching is a kind of mysticism. It is based on a truth that is to be found in every kind of mysticism. Immersion into one's own inner being yields the deepest human wisdom. But man must first prepare himself for this immersion. He must accustom himself to behold a reality that is free of everything the senses communicate to us. People who have brought their powers of knowledge to this height speak of an inner light that has dawned for them. Jakob Böhme, the Christian mystic of the seventeenth century, regarded himself as inwardly illumined in this way. He sees within himself the realm he must designate as the highest one knowable to man. He says: “Within the human heart (Gemüt) there lie the indications (Signatur), quite artfully set forth, of the being of all being.”
[ 55 ] Neo-Platonism sets the contemplation of the human inner world in the place of speculation about an outer world in the beyond. As a result, the highly characteristic phenomenon appears that the Neo-Platonist regards his own inner being as something foreign. One has taken things all the way to knowledge of the place at which the ultimate part of the world is to be sought; but one has wrongly interpreted what is to be found in this place. The Neo-Platonist therefore describes the inner experiences of his ecstasy like Plato describes the being of his supersensible world.
[ 56 ] It is characteristic that Neo-Platonism excludes from the essential being of the inner world precisely that which constitutes its actual core. The state of ecstasy is supposed to occur only when self-consciousness is silent. It was therefore only natural that in Neo-Platonism the human spirit could not behold itself, its own being, in its true light.
[ 57 ] The courses taken by the ideas that form the content of Greek philosophy found their conclusion in this view. They represent the longing of man to recognize, to behold, and to worship his own essential being as something foreign.
[ 58 ] In the normal course of development within the spiritual evolution of the West, the discovery of egoism would have to have followed upon Neo-Platonism. That means, man would have to have recognized as his own being what he had considered to be a foreign being. He would have to have said to himself: The highest thing there is in the world given to man is his individual “I” whose being comes to manifestation within the inner life of the personality.
[ 59 ] This natural course of Western spiritual development was held up by the spread of Christian teachings. Christianity presents, in popular pictures that are almost tangible, what Greek philosophy expressed in the language of sages. When one considers how deeply rooted in human nature the urge is to renounce one's own being, it seems understandable that this teaching has gained such incomparable power over human hearts. A high level of spiritual development is needed to satisfy this urge in a philosophical way. The most naive heart suffices to satisfy this urge in the form of Christian faith. Christianity does not present—as the highest being of the world—a finely spiritual content like Plato's world of ideas, nor an experience streaming forth from an inner light which must first be kindled; instead, it presents processes with attributes of reality that can be grasped by the senses. It goes so far, in fact, as to revere the highest being in a single historical person. The philosophical spirit of Greece could not present us with such palpable mental pictures. Such mental pictures lay in its past, in its folk mythology. Hamann, Herder's predecessor in the realm of theology, commented one time that Plato had never been a philosopher for children. But that it was for childish spirits that “the holy spirit had had the ambition to become a writer.”
[ 60 ] And for centuries this childish form of human self-estrangement has had the greatest conceivable influence upon the philosophical development of thought. Like fog the Christian teachings have hung before the light from which knowledge of man's own being should have gone forth. Through all kinds of philosophical concepts, the church fathers of the first Christian centuries seek to give a form to their popular mental pictures that would make them acceptable also to an educated consciousness. And the later teachers in the church, of whom Saint Augustine is the most significant, continue these efforts in the same spirit. The content of Christian faith had such a fascinating effect that there could be no question of doubt as to its truth, but only of lifting up of this truth into a more spiritual, more ideal sphere. The philosophy of the teachers within the church is a transforming of the content of Christian faith into an edifice of ideas. The general character of this thought-edifice could therefore be no other than that of Christianity: the transferring of man's being out into the world, self-renunciation. Thus it came about that Augustine again arrives at the right place, where the essential being of the world is to be found, and that he again finds something foreign in this place. Within man's own being he seeks the source of all truth; he declares the inner experiences of the soul to be the foundations of knowledge. But the teachings of Christian faith have set an extra-human content at the place where he was seeking. Therefore, at the right place, he found the wrong beings.
[ 61 ] There now follows a centuries-long exertion of human thinking whose sole purpose, by expending all the power of the human spirit, was to bring proof that the content of this spirit is not to be sought within this spirit but rather at that place to which Christian faith has transferred this content. The movement in thought that grew up out of these efforts is called Scholasticism. All the hair-splittings of the Schoolmen can be of no interest in the context of the present essay. For that movement in ideas does not represent in the least a development in the direction of knowledge of the personal “I.”
[ 62 ] The thickness of the fog in which Christianity enshrouded human self-knowledge becomes most evident through the fact that the Western spirit, out of itself, could not take even one step on the path to this self-knowledge. The Western spirit needed a decisive push from outside. It could not find upon the ground of the soul what it had sought so long in the outer world. But it was presented with proof that this outer world could not be constituted in such a way that the human spirit could find there the essential being it sought. This push was given by the blossoming of the natural sciences in the sixteenth century. As long as man had only an imperfect picture of how natural processes are constituted, there was room in the outer world for divine beings and for the working of a personal divine will. But there was no longer a place, in the natural picture of the world sketched out by Copernicus and Kepler, for the Christian picture. And as Galileo laid the foundations for an explanation of natural processes through natural laws, the belief in divine laws had to be shaken.
[ 63 ] Now one had to seek in a new way the being that man recognizes as the highest and that had been pushed out of the external world for him.
[ 64 ] Francis Bacon drew the philosophical conclusions from the presuppositions given by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. His service to the Western world view is basically a negative one. He called upon man in a powerful way to direct his gaze freely and without bias upon reality, upon life. As obvious as this call seems, there is no denying that the development of Western thought has sinned heavily against it for centuries. Man's own “I” also belongs within the category of real things. And does it not almost seem as though man's natural predisposition makes him unable to look at this “I” without bias? Only the development of a completely unbiased sense, directed immediately upon what is real, can lead to self-knowledge. The path of knowledge of nature is also the path of knowledge of the “I.”
[ 65 ] Two streams now entered into the development of Western thought that tended, by different paths, in the direction of the new goals of knowledge necessitated by the natural sciences. One goes back to Jakob Böhme, the other to René Descartes.
[ 66 ] Jakob Böhme and Descartes no longer stood under the influence of Scholasticism. Böhme saw that nowhere in cosmic space was there a place for heaven; he therefore became a mystic. He sought heaven within the inner being of man. Descartes recognized that the adherence of the Schoolmen to Christian teachings was only a matter of centuries-long habituation to these pictures. Therefore he considered it necessary first of all to doubt these habitual pictures and to seek a way of knowledge by which man can arrive at a kind of knowing whose certainty he does not assert out of habit, but which can be guaranteed at every, moment through his own spiritual powers.
[ 67 ] Those are therefore strong initial steps which—both with Böhme and with Descartes—the human “I” takes to know itself. Both were nevertheless overpowered by the old preconceptions in what they brought forth later. It has already been indicated that Jakob Böhme has a certain spiritual kinship with the Neo-Platonists. His knowledge is an entering into his own inner being. But what confronts him within this inner being is not the “I” of man but rather only the Christian God again. He becomes aware that within his own heart (Gemüt) there lies what the person who needs knowledge is craving. Fulfillment of the greatest human longings streams toward him from there. But this does not lead him to the view that the “I,” by intensifying its cognitive powers, is also able out of itself to satisfy its demands. This brings him, rather, to the belief that, on the path of knowledge into the human heart, he had truly found the God whom Christianity had sought upon a false path. Instead of self-knowledge, Jakob Böhme seeks union with God; instead of life with the treasures of his own inner being, he seeks a life in God.
[ 68 ] It is obvious that the way man thinks about his actions, about his moral life, will also depend upon human self-knowledge or self-misapprehension. The realm of morality does in fact establish itself as a kind of upper story above the purely natural processes. Christian belief, which already regards these natural processes as flowing from the divine will, seeks this will all the more within morality. Christian moral teachings show more clearly than almost anything else the distortedness of this world view. No matter how enormous the sophistry is that theology has applied to this realm: questions remain which, from the standpoint of Christianity, show definite features of considerable contradiction. If a primal being like the Christian God is assumed, it is incomprehensible how the sphere of human action can fall into two realms: into that of the good and into that of the evil. For, all human actions would have to flow from the primal being and consequently bear traits homogeneous with their origin. Human actions would in fact have to be divine. Just as little can human responsibility be explained on this basis. Man is after all directed by the divine will. He can therefore give himself up only to this will; he can let happen through him only what God brings about.
[ 69 ] In the views one held about morality, precisely the same thing occurred as in one's views about knowledge. Man followed his inclination to tear his own self out of himself and to set it up as something foreign. And just as in the realm of knowledge no other content could be given to the primal being—regarded as lying outside man—than the content drawn from his own inner being, so no moral aims and impulses for action could be found in this primal being except those belonging to the human soul. What man, in his deepest inner being, was convinced should happen, this he regarded as something willed by the primal being of the world. In this way a duality in the ethical realm was created. Over against the self that one had within oneself and out of which one had to act, one set one's own content as something morally determinative. And through this, moral demands could arise. Man's self was not allowed to follow itself; it had to follow something foreign. Selflessness in one's actions in the moral field corresponds to self-estrangement in the realm of knowledge. Those actions are good in which the “I” follows something foreign; those actions are bad, on the other hand, in which it follows itself. In self-will Christianity sees the source of all evil. That could never have happened if one had seen that everything moral can draw its content only out of one's own self. One can sum up all the Christian moral teachings in one sentence:
If man admits to himself that he can follow only the commandments of his own being and if he acts according to them, then he is evil; if this truth is hidden from him and if he sets—or allows to be set—his own commandments as foreign ones over himself in order to act according to them, then he is good.
[ 70 ] The moral teaching of selflessness is elaborated perhaps more completely than anywhere else in a book from the fourteenth century, German Theology. The author of this book is unknown to us. He carried self-renunciation far enough to be sure that his name did not come down to posterity. In this book it is stated: “That is no true being and has no being which does not exist within the perfect; rather it is by chance or it is a radiance and a shining that is no being or has no being except in the fire from which the radiance flows, or in the sun, or in the light. The Bible speaks of faith and the truth: sin is nothing other than the fact that the creature turns himself away from the unchangeable good and toward the changeable good, which means that he turns from the perfect to the divided and to the imperfect and most of all to himself. Now mark. If the creature assumes something good—such as being, living, knowing, recognizing, capability, and everything in short that one should call good—and believes that he is this good, or that it is his or belongs to him, or that it is of him, no matter how often nor how much results from this, then he is going astray. What else did the devil do or what else was his fall and estrangement than that he assumed that he was also something and something would be his and something would also belong to him? That assumption and his “I” and his “me,” his “for me” and his “mine,” that was his estrangement and his fall. That is how it still is. For, everything that one considers good or should call good belongs to no one, but only to the eternal true good which God is alone, and whoever assumes it of himself acts wrongly and against God.”
[ 71 ] A change in moral views from the old Christian ones is also connected with the turn that Jakob Böhme gave to man's relationship to God. God still works as something higher in the human soul to effect the good, but He does at least work within this self and not from outside upon the self. An internalizing of moral action occurs thereby. The rest of Christianity demanded only an outer obedience to the divine will. With Jakob Böhme the previously separated entities—the really personal and the personal that was made into God—enter into a living relationship. Through this, the source of the moral is indeed now transferred into man's inner being, but the moral principle of selflessness seems to be even more strongly emphasized. If God is regarded as an outer power, then the human self is the one actually acting. It acts either in God's sense or against it. But if God is transferred into man's inner being, then man himself no longer acts, but rather God in him. God expresses himself directly in human life. Man foregoes any life of his own; he makes himself a part of the divine life. He feels himself in God, God in himself; he grows into the primal being; he becomes an organ of it.
[ 72 ] In this German mysticism man has therefore paid for his participation in the divine life with the most complete extinguishing of his personality, of his “I.” Jakob Böhme and the mystics who were of his view did not feel the loss of the personal element. On the contrary: they experienced something particularly uplifting in the thought that they were directly participating in the divine life, that they were members in a divine organism. An organism cannot exist, after all, without its members. The mystic therefore felt himself to be something necessary within the world-whole, as a being that is indispensable to God. Angelus Silesius, the mystic who felt things in the same spirit as Jakob Böhme, expresses this in a beautiful statement:
I know that without me God cannot live an instant,
Came I to naught, he needs must yield the spirit.
And even more characteristically in another one:
Without me God cannot a single worm create;
Do I not co-maintain it, it must at once crack open.
[ 73 ] The human “I” asserts its rights here in the most powerful way vis-à-vis its own image which it has transferred into the outer world. To be sure, the supposed primal being is not yet told that it is man's own being set over against himself, but at least man's own being is considered to be the maintainer of the divine primal ground.
[ 74 ] Descartes had a strong feeling for the fact that man, through his thought-development, had brought himself into a warped relationship with the world. Therefore, to begin with, he met everything that had come forth from this thought-development with doubt. Only when one doubts everything that the centuries have developed as truths can one—in his opinion—gain the necessary objectivity for a new point of departure. It lay in the nature of things that this doubt would lead Descartes to the human “I.” For, the more a person regards everything else as something that he still must seek, the more he will have an intense feeling of his own seeking personality. He can say to himself: Perhaps I am erring on the paths of existence; then the erring one is thrown all the more clearly back upon himself. Descartes' Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) indicates this. Descartes presses even further. He is aware that the way man arrives at knowledge of himself should be a model for any other knowledge he means to acquire. Clarity and definiteness seem to Descartes to be the most prominent characteristics of self-knowledge. Therefore he also demands these two characteristics of all other knowledge. Whatever man can distinguish just as clearly and definitely as his own existence: only that can stand as certain.
[ 75 ] With this, the absolutely central place of the “I” in the world-whole is at least recognized in the area of cognitive methodology. Man determines the how of his knowledge of the world according to the how of his knowledge of himself, and no longer asks for any outer being to justify this how. Man does not want to think in the way a god prescribes knowing activity to be, but rather in the way he determines this for himself. From now on, with respect to the world, man draws the power of his wisdom from himself.
[ 76 ] In connection with the what, Descartes did not take the same step. He set to work to gain mental pictures about the world, and—in accordance with the cognitive principle just presented—searched through his own inner being for such mental pictures. There he found the mental picture of God. It was of course nothing more than the mental picture of the human “I.” But Descartes did not recognize this. The idea of God as the altogether most perfect being » brought his thinking onto a completely wrong path. This one characteristic, that of the altogether greatest perfection, outshone for him all the other characteristics of the central being. He said to himself: Man, who is himself imperfect, cannot out of himself create the mental picture of an altogether most perfect being. Consequently this altogether most perfect being exists. If Descartes had investigated the true content of his mental picture of God, he would have found that it is exactly the same as the mental picture of the “I,” and that perfection is only a conceptual enhancement of this content. The essential content of an ivory ball is not changed by my thinking of it as infinitely large. Just as little does the mental picture of the “I” become something else through such an enhancement.
[ 77 ] The proof that Descartes brings for the existence of God is therefore again nothing other than a paraphrasing of the human need to make one's own “I,” in the form of a being outside man, into the ground of the world. But here indeed the fact presents itself with full clarity that man can find no content of its own for this primal being existing outside man, but rather can only lend this being the content of his mental picture of the “I” in a form that has not been significantly changed.
[ 78 ] Spinoza took no step forward on the path that must lead to the conquest of the mental picture of the “I”; he took a step backward. For Spinoza has no feeling of the unique position of the human “I.” For him the stream of world processes consists only in a system of natural necessity, just as for the Christian philosophers it consisted only in a system of divine acts of will. Here as there the human “I” is only a part within this system. For the Christian, man is in the hands of God; for Spinoza he is in those of natural world happenings. With Spinoza the Christian God received a different character. A philosopher who has grown up in a time when natural-scientific insights are blooming cannot acknowledge a God who directs the world arbitrarily; he can acknowledge only a primal being who exists because his existence, through itself, is a necessity, and who guides the course of the world according to the unchangeable laws that flow from his own absolutely necessary being. Spinoza has no consciousness of the fact that man takes the image in which he pictures this necessity from his own content. For this reason Spinoza's moral ideal also becomes something impersonal, unindividual. In accordance with his presuppositions he cannot indeed see his ideal to be in the perfecting of the “I,” in the enhancement of man's own powers, but rather in the permeating of the “I” with the divine world content, with the highest knowledge of the objective God. To lose oneself in this God should be the goal of human striving.
[ 79 ] The path Descartes took—to start with the “I” and press forward to world knowledge—is extended from now on by the philosophers of modern times. The Christian theological method, which had no confidence in the power of the human “I” as an organ of knowledge, at least was overcome. One thing was recognized: that the “I” itself must find the highest being. The path from there to the other point—to the insight that the content lying within the “I” is also the highest being—is, to be sure, a long one.
[ 80 ] Less thoughtfully than Descartes did the two English philosophers Locke and Hume approach their investigation of the paths that the human “I” takes to arrive at enlightenment about itself and the world. One thing above all was lacking in both of them: a healthy, free gaze into man's inner being. Therefore they could also gain no mental picture of the great difference that exists between knowledge of outer things and knowledge of the human “I.” Everything they say relates only to the acquisition of outer knowledge. Locke entirely overlooks the fact that man, by enlightening himself about outer things, sheds a light upon them that streams from his own inner being. He believes therefore that all knowledge stems from experience. But what is experience? Galileo sees a swinging church lamp. It leads him to find the laws by which a body swings. He has experienced two things: firstly, through his senses, outer processes; secondly, from out of himself, the mental picture of a law that enlightens him about these processes, that makes them comprehensible. One can now of course call both of these experience. But then one fails to recognize the difference, in fact, that exists between the two parts of this cognitive process. A being that could not draw upon the content of his being could stand eternally before the swinging church lamp: the sense perception would never complement itself with a conceptual law. Locke and all who think like him allow themselves to be deceived by something—namely by the way the content of what is to be known approaches us. It simply rises up, in fact, upon the horizon of our consciousness. Experience consists in what thus arises. But the fact must be recognized that the content of the laws of experience is developed by the “I” in its encounter with experience. Two things reveal themselves in Hume. One is that, as already mentioned, he does not recognize the nature of the “I,” and therefore, exactly like Locke, derives the content of the laws from experience. The other thing is that this content, by being separated from the “I,” loses itself completely in indefiniteness, hangs freely in the air without support or foundation. Hume recognizes that outer experience communicates only unconnected processes, that it does not at the same time, along with these processes, provide the laws by which they are connected. Since Hume knows nothing about the being of the “I,” he also cannot derive from it any justification for connecting the processes. He therefore derives these laws from the vaguest source one could possibly imagine: from habit. A person sees that a certain process always follows upon another; the fall of a stone is followed by the indentation of the ground on which it falls. As a result man habituates himself to thinking of such processes as connected. All knowledge loses its significance if one takes one's start from such presuppositions. The connection between the processes and their laws acquires something of a purely chance nature.
[ 81 ] We see in George Berkeley a person for whom the creative being of the “I” has come fully to consciousness. He had a clear picture of the “I's” own activity in the coming about of all knowledge. When I see an object, he said to himself, I am active. I create my perception for myself. The object of my perception would remain forever beyond my consciousness, it would not be there for me, if I did not continuously enliven its dead existence by my activity. I perceive only my enlivening activity, and not what precedes it objectively as the dead thing. No matter where I look within the sphere of my consciousness: everywhere I see myself as the active one, as the creative one. In Berkeley's thinking, the “I” acquires a universal life. What do I know of any existence of things, if I do not picture this existence?
[ 82 ] For Berkeley the world consists of creative spirits who out of themselves form a world. But at this level of knowledge there again appeared, even with him, the old preconception. He indeed lets the “I” create its world for itself, but he does not give it at the same time the power to create itself out of itself. It must again proffer a mental picture of God. The creative principle in the “I” is God, even for Berkeley.
[ 83 ] But this philosopher does show us one thing. Whoever really immerses himself into the essential being of the creative “I” does not come back out of it again to an outer being except by forcible means. And Berkeley does proceed forcibly. Under no compelling necessity he traces the creativity of the “I” back to God. Earlier philosophers emptied the “I” of its content and through this gained a content for their God. Berkeley does not do this. Therefore he can do nothing other than set, beside the creative spirits, yet one more particular spirit that basically is of exactly the same kind as they and therefore completely unnecessary, after all.
[ 84 ] This is even more striking in the German philosopher Leibniz. He also recognized the creative activity of the “I.” He had a very clear overview of the scope of this activity; he saw that it was inwardly consistent, that it was founded upon itself. The “I” therefore became for him a world in itself, a monad. And everything that has existence can have it only through the fact that it gives itself a self-enclosed content. Only monads, i.e., beings creating out of and within themselves, exist: separate worlds in themselves that do not have to rely on anything outside themselves. Worlds exist, no world. Each person is a world, a monad, in himself. If now these worlds are after all in accord with one another, if they know of each other and think the contents of their knowledge, then this can only stem from the fact that a predestined accord (pre-established harmony) exists. The world, in fact, is arranged in such a way that the one monad creates out of itself something which corresponds to the activity in the others. To bring about this accord Leibniz of course again needs the old God. He has recognized that the “I” is active, creative, within his inner being, that it gives its content to itself; the fact that the “I” itself also brings this content into relationship with the other content of the world remained hidden to him. Therefore he did not free himself from the mental picture of God. Of the two demands that lie in the Goethean statement—“If I know my relationship to myself and to the outer world, then I call it truth”—Leibniz understood only the one.
[ 85 ] This development of European thought manifests a very definite character. Man must draw out of himself the best that he can know. He in fact practices self-knowledge. But he always shrinks back again from the thought of also recognizing that what he has created is in fact self-created. He feels himself to be too weak to carry the world. Therefore he saddles someone else with this burden. And the goals he sets for himself would lose their weight for him if he acknowledged their origin to himself; therefore he burdens his goals with powers that he believes he takes from outside. Man glorifies his child but without wanting to acknowledge his own fatherhood.
[ 86 ] In spite of the currents opposing it, human self-knowledge made steady progress. At the point where this self-knowledge began to threaten man's belief in the beyond, it met Kant. Insight into the nature of human knowing had shaken the power of those proofs which people had thought up to support belief in the beyond. One had gradually gained a picture of real knowledge and therefore saw through the artificiality and tortured nature of the seeming ideas that were supposed to give enlightenment about other-worldly powers. A devout, believing man like Kant could fear that a further development along this path would lead to the disintegration of all faith. This must have seemed to his deeply religious sense like a great, impending misfortune for mankind. Out of his fear of the destruction of religious mental pictures there arose for him the need to investigate thoroughly the relationship of human knowing to matters of faith. How is knowing possible and over what can it extend itself? That is the question Kant posed himself, with the hope, right from the beginning, of being able to gain from his answer the firmest possible support for faith.
[ 87 ] Kant took up two things from his predecessors. Firstly, that there is a knowledge in some areas that is indubitable. The truths of pure mathematics and the general teachings of logic and physics seem to him to be in this category. Secondly, he based himself upon Hume in his assertion that no absolutely sure truths can come from experience. Experience teaches only that we have so and so often observed certain connections; nothing can be determined by experience as to whether these connections are also necessary ones. If there are indubitable, necessary truths and if they cannot stem from experience: then from what do they stem? They must be present in the human soul before experience. Now it becomes a matter of distinguishing between the part of knowledge that stems from experience and the part that cannot be drawn from this source of knowledge. Experience occurs through the fact that I receive impressions. These impressions are given through sensations. The content of these sensations cannot be given us in any other way than through experience. But these sensations, such as light, color, tone, warmth, hardness, etc., would present only a chaotic tangle if they were not brought into certain interconnections. In these interconnections the contents of sensation first constitute the objects of experience. An object is composed of a definitely ordered group of the contents of sensation. In Kant's opinion, the human soul accomplishes the ordering of these contents of sensation into groups. Within the human soul there are certain principles present by which the manifoldness of sensations is brought into objective unities. Such principles are space, time, and certain connections such as cause and effect. The contents of sensation are given me, but not their spatial interrelationships nor temporal sequence. Man first brings these to the contents of sensation. One content of sensation is given and another one also, but not the fact that one is the cause of the other. The intellect first makes this connection. Thus there lie within the human soul, ready once and for all, the ways in which the contents of sensation can be connected. Thus, even though we can take possession of the contents of sensation only through experience, we can, nevertheless, before all experience, set up laws as to how these contents of sensation are to be connected. For, these laws are the ones given us within our own souls.
We have, therefore, necessary kinds of knowledge. But these do not relate to a content, but only to ways of connecting contents. In Kant's opinion, we will therefore never draw knowledge with any content out of the human soul's own laws. The content must come through experience. But the otherworldly objects of faith can never become the object of any experience. Therefore they also cannot be attained through our necessary knowledge. We have a knowledge from experience and another, necessary, experience-free knowledge as to how the contents of experience can be connected. But we have no knowledge that goes beyond experience. The world of objects surrounding us is as it must be in accordance with the laws of connection lying ready in our soul. Aside from these laws we do not know how this world is “in-itself.” The world to which our knowledge relates itself is no such “in-itselfness” but rather is an appearance for us.
[ 88 ] Obvious objections to these Kantian views force themselves upon the unbiased person. The difference in principle between the particulars (the contents of sensation) and the way of connecting these particulars does not consist, with respect to knowledge, in the way we connect things as Kant assumes it to. Even though one element presents itself to us from outside and the other comes forth from our inner being, both elements of knowledge nevertheless form an undivided unity. Only the abstracting intellect can separate light, warmth, hardness, etc., from spatial order, causal relationship, etc. In reality, they document, with respect to every single object, their necessary belonging together. Even the designation of the one element as “content” in contrast to the other element as a merely “connecting” principle is all warped. In truth, the knowledge that something is the cause of something else is a knowledge with just as much content as the knowledge that it is yellow. If the object is composed of two elements, one of which is given from outside and the other from within, it follows that, for our knowing activity, elements which actually belong together are communicated along two different paths. It does not follow, however, that we are dealing with two things that are different from each other and that are artificially coupled together.
Only by forcibly separating what belongs together can Kant therefore support his view. The belonging together of the two elements is most striking in knowledge of the human “I.” Here one element does not come from outside and the other from within; both arise from within. And here both are not only one content but also one completely homogeneous content.
[ 89 ] What mattered to Kant—his heart's wish that guided his thoughts far more than any unbiased observation of the real factors—was to rescue the teachings relative to the beyond. What knowledge had brought about as support for these teachings in the course of long ages had decayed. Kant believed he had now shown that it is anyway not for knowledge to support such teachings, because knowledge has to rely on experience, and the things of faith in the beyond cannot become the object of any experience. Kant believed he had thereby created a free space where knowledge could not get in his way and disrupt him as he built up there a faith in the beyond. And he demands, as a support for moral life, that one believe in the things in the beyond. Out of that realm from which no knowledge comes to us, there sounds the despotic voice of the categorical imperative which demands of us that we do the good. And in order to establish a moral realm we would in fact need all that about which knowledge can tell us nothing. Kant believed he had achieved what he wanted: “I therefore had to set knowledge aside in order to make room for faith.”
[ 90 ] The great philosopher in the development of Western thought who set out in direct pursuit of a knowledge of human self-awareness is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It is characteristic of him that he approaches this knowledge without any presuppositions, with complete lack of bias. He has the clear, sharp awareness of the fact that nowhere in the world is a being to be found from which the “I” could be derived. It can therefore be derived only from itself. Nowhere is a power to be found from which the existence of the “I” flows. Everything the “I” needs, it can acquire only out of itself. Not only does it gain enlightenment about its own being through self-observation; it first posits this being into itself through an absolute, unconditional act. “The ‘I’ posits itself, and it is by virtue of this mere positing of itself; and conversely: The ‘I’ is, and posits its existence, by virtue of its mere existence. It is at the same time the one acting and the product of its action; the active one and what is brought forth by the activity; action and deed are one and the same; and therefore the ‘I am’ is the expression of an active deed.” Completely undisturbed by the fact that earlier philosophers have transferred the entity he is describing outside man, Fichte looks at the “I” naively. Therefore the “I” naturally becomes for him the highest being. “That whose existence (being) merely consists in the fact that it posits itself as existing is the ‘I’ as absolute subject. In the way that it posits itself, it is, and in the way that it is, it posits itself: and the ‘I’ exists accordingly for the ‘I,’ simply and necessarily. What does not exist for itself is no ‘I’ ... One certainly hears the question raised: What was I anyway, before I came to self-awareness? The obvious answer to that is: I was not at all; for I was not I... To posit oneself and to be are, for the ‘I,’ completely the same.” The complete, bright clarity about one's own “I,” the unreserved illumination of one's personal, human entity, becomes thereby the starting point of human thinking. The result of this must be that man, starting here, sets out to conquer the world. The second of the Goethean demands mentioned above, knowledge of my relationship to the world, follows upon the first—knowledge of the relationship that the “I” has to itself. This philosophy, built upon self-knowledge, will speak about both these relationships, and not about the derivation of the world from some primal being. One could now ask: Is man then supposed to set his own being in place of the primal being into which he transferred the world origins? Can man then actually make himself the starting point of the world? With respect to this it must be emphasized that this question as to the world origins stems from a lower sphere. In the sequence of the processes given us by reality, we seek the causes for the events, and then seek still other causes for the causes, and soon. We are now stretching the concept of causation. We are seeking a final cause for the whole world. And in this way the concept of the first, absolute primal being, necessary in itself, fuses for us with the idea of the world cause. But that is a mere conceptual construction. When man sets up such conceptual constructions, they do not necessarily have any justification. The concept of a flying dragon also has none. Fichte takes his start from the “I” as the primal being, and arrives at ideas that present the relationship of this primal being to the rest of the world in an unbiased way, but not under the guise of cause and effect. Starting from the “I,” Fichte now seeks to gain ideas for grasping the rest of the world. Whoever does not want to deceive himself about the nature of what one can call cognition or knowledge can proceed in no other way. Everything that man can say about the being of things is derived from the experiences of his inner being. “The human being never realizes just how anthropomorphic he is.” (Goethe) In the » explanation of the simplest phenomena, in the propulsion of one body by another, for example, there lies an anthropomorphism. The conclusion that the one body propels the other is already anthropomorphic. For, if one wants to go beyond what the senses tell us about the occurrence, one must transfer onto it the experience our body has when it sets a body in the outer world into motion. We transfer our experience of propelling something onto the occurrence in the outer world, and also speak there of propulsion when we roll one ball and as a result see a second ball go rolling. For we can observe only the movements of the two balls, and then in addition think the propulsion in the sense of our own experiences. All physical explanations are anthropomorphisms, attributing human characteristics to nature. But of course it does not follow from this what has so often been concluded from this: that these explanations have no objective significance for the things. A part of the objective content lying within the things, in fact, first appears when we shed that light upon it which we perceive in our own inner being.
[ 91 ] Whoever, in Fichte's sense, bases the being of the “I” entirely upon itself can also find the sources of moral action only within the “I” alone. The “I” cannot seek harmony with some other being, but only with itself. It does not allow its destiny to be prescribed, but rather gives any such destiny to itself. Act according to the basic principle that you can regard your actions as the most worthwhile possible. That is about how one would have to express the highest principle of Fichte's moral teachings. “The essential character of the ‘I,’ in which it distinguishes itself from everything that is outside it, consists in a tendency toward self-activity for the sake of self-activity; and it is this tendency that is thought when the ‘I,’ in and for itself, without any relationship to something outside it, is thought.” An action therefore stands on an ever higher level of moral value, the more purely it flows from the self-activity and self-determination of the “I.”
[ 92 ] In his later life Fichte changed his self-reliant, absolute “I” back into an external God again; he therefore sacrificed true self-knowledge, toward which he had taken so many important steps, to that self-renunciation which stems from human weakness. The last books of Fichte are therefore of no significance for the progress of this self-knowledge.
[ 93 ] The philosophical writings of Schiller, however, are important for this progress. Whereas Fichte expressed the self-reliant independence of the “I” as a general philosophical truth, Schiller was more concerned with answering the question as to how the particular “I” of the simple human individuality could live out this self-activity in the best way within itself.
Kant had expressly demanded the suppression of pleasure as a pre-condition for moral activity. Man should not carry out what brings him satisfaction; but rather what the categorical imperative demands of him. According to his view an action is all the more moral the more it is accomplished with the quelling of all feeling of pleasure, out of mere heed to strict moral law. For Schiller this diminishes human worth. Is man in his desire for pleasure really such a low being that he must first extinguish this base nature of his in order to be virtuous? Schiller criticizes any such degradation of man in the satirical epigram (Xenie):
Gladly I serve all my friends, but do so alas out of liking;
Therefore it rankles me often that I'm not a virtuous man.
No, says Schiller, human instincts are capable of such ennobling that it is a pleasure to do the good. The strict “ought to” transforms itself in the ennobled man into a free “wanting to.” And someone who with pleasure accomplishes what is moral stands higher on the moral world scale than someone who must first do violence to his own being in order to obey the categorical imperative.
[ 94 ] Schiller elaborated this view of his in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of the Human Race. There hovers before him the picture of a free individuality who can calmly give himself over to his egoistical drives because these drives, out of themselves, want what can be accomplished by the unfree, ignoble personality only when it suppresses its own needs. The human being, as Schiller expressed it, can be unfree in two respects: firstly, if he is able to follow only his blind, lower instincts. Then he acts out of necessity. His drives compel him; he is not free. Secondly, however, that person also acts unfreely who follows only his reason. For, reason sets up principles of behavior according to logical rules. A person who merely follows reason acts unfreely because he subjugates himself to logical necessity. Only that person acts freely out of himself for whom what is reasonable has united so deeply with his individuality , has gone over so fully into his flesh and blood, that he carries out with the greatest pleasure what someone standing morally less high can accomplish only through the most extreme self-renunciation and the strongest compulsion.
[ 95 ] Friedrich Joseph Schelling wanted to extend the path Fichte had taken. Schelling took his start from the unbiased knowledge of the “I” that his predecessor had achieved. The “I” was recognized as a being that draws its existence out of itself. The next task was to bring nature into a relationship with this self-reliant “I.” It is clear: If the “I” is not to transfer the actual higher being of things into the outer world again, then it must be shown that the “I,” out of itself, also creates what we call the laws of nature. The structure of nature must therefore be the material system, outside in space, of what the “I,” within its inner being, creates in a spiritual way. “Nature must be visible spirit, and spirit must be invisible nature. Here, therefore, in the absolute identity of the spirit in us and of nature outside of us, must the problem be solved as to how a nature outside of us is possible.” “The outer world lies open before us, in order for us to find in it again the history of our spirit.”
[ 96 ] Schelling, therefore, sharply illuminates the process that the philosophers have interpreted wrongly for so long. He shows that out of one being the clarifying light must fall upon all the processes of the world; that the “I” can recognize one being in all happenings; but he no longer sets forth this being as something lying outside the “I”; he sees it within the “I.” The “I” finally feels itself to be strong enough to enliven the content of world phenomena from out of itself. The way in which Schelling presented nature in detail as a material development out of the “I” does not need to be discussed here. The important thing in this essay is to show in what way the “I” has reconquered for itself the sphere of influence which, in the course of the development of Western thought, it had ceded to an entity that it had itself created. For this reason Schelling's other writings also do not need to be considered in this context. At best they add only details to the question we are examining. Exactly like Fichte, Schelling abandons clear self-knowledge again, and seeks then to trace the things flowing from the self back to other beings. The later teachings of both thinkers are reversions to views which they had completely overcome in an earlier period of life.
[ 97 ] The philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a further bold attempt to explain the world on the basis of a content lying within the “I.” Hegel sought, comprehensively and thoroughly, to investigate and present the whole content of what Fichte, in incomparable words to be sure, had characterized: the being of the human “I.” For Hegel also regards this being as the actual primal thing, as the “in-itselfness of things.” But Hegel does something peculiar. He divests the “I” of everything individual, personal. In spite of the fact that it is a genuine true “I” which Hegel takes as a basis for world phenomena, this “I” seems impersonal, unindividual, far from an intimate, familiar “I,” almost like a god. In just such an unapproachable, strictly abstract form does Hegel, in his logic, expound upon the content of the in-itselfness of the world. The most personal thinking is presented here in the most impersonal way. According to Hegel, nature is nothing other than the content of the “I” that has been spread out in space and time. Nature is this ideal content in a different state. “Nature is spirit estranged from itself.” Within the individual human spirit Hegel's stance toward the impersonal “I” is personal. Within self-consciousness, the being of the “I” is not an in-itself, it is also for-itself; the human spirit discovers that the highest world content is his own content.
Because Hegel seeks to grasp the being of the “I” at first impersonally, he also does not designate it as “I,” but rather as idea. But Hegel's idea is nothing other than the content of the human “I” freed of all personal character. This abstracting of everything personal manifests most strongly in Hegel's views about the spiritual life, the moral life. It is not the single, personal, individual “I” of man that can decide its own destiny, but rather it is the great, objective, impersonal world “I,” which is abstracted from man's individual “I”; it is the general world reason, the world idea. The individual “I” must submit to this abstraction drawn from its own being. The world idea has instilled the objective spirit into man's legal, state, and moral institutions, into the historical process. Relative to this objective spirit, the individual is inferior, coincidental. Hegel never tires of emphasizing again and again that the chance, individual “I” must incorporate itself into the general order, into the historical course of spiritual evolution. It is the despotism of the spirit over the bearer of this spirit that Hegel demands.
[ 98 ] It is a strange last remnant of the old belief in God and in the beyond that still appears here in Hegel. All the attributes with which the human “I,” turned into an outer ruler of the world, was once endowed have been dropped, and only the attribute of logical generality remains. The Hegelian world idea is the human “I,” and Hegel's teachings recognize this expressly, for at the pinnacle of culture man arrives at the point, according to this teaching, of feeling his full identity with this world “I.” In art, religion, and philosophy man seeks to incorporate into his particular existence what is most general; the individual spirit permeates itself with the general world reason. Hegel portrays the course of world history in the following way: “If we look at the destiny of world-historical individuals, they have had the good fortune to be the managing directors of a purpose that was one stage in the progress of the general spirit. One can call it a trick of world reason for it to use these human tools; for it allows them to carry out their own purposes with all the fury of their passion, and yet remains not only unharmed itself but even brings forth itself. The particular is usually too insignificant compared to the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. World history thus presents itself as the battle of individuals, and in the field of this particularization, things take their completely natural course. Just as in animal nature the preservation of life is the purpose and instinct of the individual creature, and just as here, after all, reason, the general, predominates and the individuals fall, thus so do things in the spiritual world also take their course. The passions mutually destroy each other; only reason is awake, pursues its purpose, and prevails.” But for Hegel, the highest level of development of human culture is also not presented in this sacrificing of the particular individuals to the good of general world reason, but rather in the complete interpenetration of the two. In art, religion, and philosophy, the individual works in such a way that his work is at the same time a content of the general world reason. With Hegel, through the factor of generality that he laid into the world “I,” the subordination of the separate human “I” to this world “I” still remained.
[ 99 ] Ludwig Feuerbach sought to put an end to this subordination by stating in powerful terms how man transfers the being of his “I” into the outer world in order then to place himself over against it, acknowledging, obeying, revering it as though it were a God. “God is the revealed inner being, the expressed self, of man; religion is the festive disclosing of the hidden treasures of man, the confessing of his innermost thoughts, the public declaration of his declarations of love.” But even Feuerbach has not yet cleansed the idea of this “I” of the factor of generality. For him the general human “I” is something higher than the individual, single “I.” And even though as a thinker he does not, like Hegel, objectify this general “I” into a cosmic being existing in itself, still, in the moral context, over against the single human being, he does set up the general concept of a generic man, and demands that the individual should raise himself above the limitations of his individuality.
[ 100 ] Max Stirner, in his book The Individual and What Is His (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), published in 1844, demanded of the “I” in a radical way that it finally recognize that all the beings it has set above itself in the course of time were cut by it from its own body and set up in the outer world as idols. Every god, every general world reason, is an image of the “I” and has no characteristics different from the human “I.” And even the concept of the general “I” was extracted from the completely individual “I” of every single person.
[ 101 ] Stirner calls upon man to throw off everything general about himself and to acknowledge to himself that he is an individual. “You are indeed more than a Jew, more than a Christian, etc., but you are also more than a man. Those are all ideas; you, however, are in the flesh. Do you really believe, therefore, that you can ever become ‘man as such’?” “I am man! I do not first have to produce man in myself, because he already belongs to me as all my characteristics do.” “Only I am not an abstraction alone; I am the all in all;... I am no mere thought, but I am at the same time full of thoughts, a thought-world. Hegel condemns what is one's own, what is mine ... ‘Absolute thinking’ is that thinking which forgets that it is my thinking, that I think, and that thinking exists only through me. As ‘I,’ however, I again swallow what is mine, am master over it; it is only my opinion that I can change at every moment, i.e., that I can destroy, that I can take back into myself and can devour.” “The thought is only my own when I can indeed subjugate it, but it can never subjugate me, never fanaticize me and make me the tool of its realization.” All the beings placed over the “I” finally shatter upon the knowledge that they have only been brought into the world by the “I.” “The beginning of my thinking, namely, is not a thought, but rather I, and therefore I am also its goal, just as its whole course is then only the course of my self-enjoyment.”
[ 102 ] In Stirner's sense, one should not want to define the individual “I” by a thought, by an idea. For, ideas are something general; and through any such definition, the individual—at least logically—would thus be subordinated at once to something general. One can define everything else in the world by ideas, but we must experience our own “I” as something individual within us. Everything that is expressed about the individual in thoughts cannot take up his content into itself; it can only point to it. One says: Look into yourself; there is something for which any concept, any idea, is too poor to encompass in all its incarnate wealth, something that brings forth the ideas out of itself, but that itself has an inexhaustible spring within itself whose content is infinitely more extensive than everything this something brings forth. Stirner's response is: “The individual is a word and with a word one would after all have to be able to think something; a word would after all have to have a thought-content. But the individual is a word without thought; it has no thought-content. But what is its content then if not thought? Its content is one that cannot be there a second time and that consequently can also not be expressed, for if it could be expressed, really and entirely expressed, then it would be there a second time, would be there in the ‘expression’... only when nothing of you is spoken out and you are only named, are you recognized as you. As long as something of you is spoken out, you will be recognized only as this something (man, spirit, Christian, etc.).” The individual “I” is therefore that which is everything it is only through itself, which draws the content of its existence out of itself and continuously expands this content from out of itself.
This individual “I” can acknowledge no ethical obligation that it does not lay upon itself. “Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane, or inhuman, unliberal, inhumane, I don't ask about that. If it only aims at what I want, if I satisfy only myself in it, then call it whatever you like: it's all the same to me ...” “Perhaps, in the very next moment I will turn against my previous thought; I also might very well change my behavior suddenly; but not because it does not correspond to what is Christian, not because it goes against eternal human rights, not because it hits the idea of mankind, humanity, humaneness in the face, but rather—because I am no longer involved, because I no longer enjoy it fully, because I doubt my earlier thought, or I am no longer happy with my recent behavior.” The way Stirner speaks about love from this point of view is characteristic. “I also love people, not merely some of them but everyone. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy; I love because loving is natural for me, because I like it. I know no ‘commandment of love’ ...” To this sovereign individual, all state, social, and church organizations are fetters. For, all organizations presuppose that the individual must be like this or like that so that it can fit into the community. But the individual will not let it be determined for him by the community how he should be. He wants to make himself into this or that. J. H. Mackay, in his book Max Stirner, His Life and Work, has expressed what matters to Stirner: “The annihilation, in the first place, of those foreign powers which seek in the most varied ways to suppress and destroy the “I”; and in the second place, the presentation of the relationships of our intercourse with each other, how they result from the conflict and harmony of our interests.” The individual cannot fulfill himself in an organized community, but only in free intercourse or association. He acknowledges no societal structure set over the individual as a power. In him everything occurs through the individual. There is nothing fixed within him. What occurs is always to be traced back to the will of the individual. No one and nothing represents a universal will. Stirner does not want society to care for the individual, to protect his rights, to foster his well-being, and so on. When the organization is taken away from people, then their intercourse regulates itself on its own. “I would rather have to rely on people's self-interest than on their ‘service of love,’ their compassion, their pity, etc. Self-interest demands reciprocity (as you are to me, thus I am to you), does nothing ‘for nothing,’ and lets itself be won and—bought.” Let human intercourse have its full freedom and it will unrestrictedly create that reciprocity which you could set up through a community after all, only in a restricted way. “Neither a natural nor a spiritual tie holds a society (Verein) together, and it is no natural nor spiritual association (Bund). It is not blood nor a belief (i.e., spirit) that brings it about. In a natural association—such as a family, a tribe, a nation; yes, even mankind—individuals have value only as specimens of a species or genus; in a spiritual association—such as a community or church—the individual is significant only as a part of the common spirit; in both cases, what you are as an individual must be suppressed. Only in a society can you assert yourself as an individual, because the society does not possess you, but rather you possess it or use it.”
[ 103 ] The path by which Stirner arrived at his view of the individual can be designated as a universal critique of all general powers that suppress the “I.” The churches, the political systems (political liberalism, social liberalism, humanistic liberalism), the philosophies—they have all set such general powers over the individual. Political liberalism establishes the “good citizen”; social liberalism establishes the worker who is like all the others in what they own in common; humanistic liberalism establishes the “human being as human being.” As he destroys all these powers, Stirner sets up in their ruins the sovereignty of the individual. “What all is not supposed to be my cause! Above all the good cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humaneness, of justice; furthermore the cause of my folk, of my prince, of my fatherland; finally, of course, the cause of the spirit and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never supposed to be my cause.—Let us look then at how those people handle their cause for whose cause we are supposed to work, to devote ourselves, and to wax enthusiastic. You know how to proclaim many basic things about God, and for thousands of years have investigated ‘the depths of the Divinity’ and looked into His heart, so that you are very well able to tell us how God Himself conducts ‘the cause of God’ that we are called to serve. And you also do not keep the Lord's conduct secret. What is His cause then? Has He, as is expected of us, made a foreign cause, the cause of truth and love, into His own? Such lack of understanding enrages you and you teach us that God's cause is, to be sure, the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called foreign to Him because God is Himself, in fact, truth and love; you are enraged by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in promoting a foreign cause as His own. ‘God is supposed to take on the cause of truth when He is not Himself the truth?’ He takes care only of His cause, but because He is the all in all, everything is also His cause; we, however, we are not the all in all, and our cause is small and contemptible indeed; therefore we must ‘serve a higher cause.’—Now, it is clear that God concerns Himself only with what is His, occupies Himself only with Himself, thinks only about Himself, and has His eye on Himself; woe to anything that is not well pleasing to Him. He serves nothing higher and satisfies only Himself. His cause is a purely egoistical cause. How do matters stand with mankind, whose cause we are supposed to make into our own? Is its cause perhaps that of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind looks only at itself, mankind wants to help only mankind, mankind is itself its cause. In order to develop itself, mankind lets peoples and individuals torment themselves in its service, and when they have accomplished what mankind needs, then, out of gratitude, they are thrown by it onto the manure pile of history. Is the cause of mankind not a purely egoistical cause?” Out of this kind of a critique of everything that man is supposed to make into his cause, there results for Stirner that “God and mankind have founded their cause on nothing but themselves. I will then likewise found my cause upon myself, I, who like God am nothing from anything else, I, who am my all, I who am the single one.”
[ 104 ] That is Stirner's path. One can also take another path to arrive at the nature of the “I.” One can observe the “I” in its cognitive activity. Direct your gaze upon a process of knowledge. Through a thinking contemplation of processes, the “I” seeks to become conscious of what actually underlies these processes. What does one want to achieve by this thinking contemplation? To answer this question we must observe: What would we possess of these processes without this contemplation, and what do we obtain through this contemplation? I must limit myself here to a meager sketch of these fundamental questions about world views, and can point only to the broader expositions in my books Truth and Science (Wahrheit und Wissenschaft) and The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Die Philosophie der Freiheit).
[ 105 ] Look at any process you please. I throw a stone in a horizontal direction. It moves in a curved line and falls to earth after a time. I see the stone at successive moments in different places, after it has first cost me a certain amount of effort to throw it. Through my thinking contemplation I gain the following. During its motion the stone is under the influence of several factors. If it were only under the influence of the propulsion I gave it in throwing it, it would go on forever, in a straight line, in fact, without changing its velocity. But now the earth exerts an influence upon it which one calls gravity. If, without propelling it away from me, I had simply let go of it, it would have fallen straight to the ground, and in doing so its velocity would have increased continuously. Out of the reciprocal workings of these two influences there arises what actually happens. Those are all thought-considerations that I bring to what would offer itself to me without any thinking contemplation.
[ 106 ] In this way we have in every cognitive process an element that would present itself to us even without any thinking contemplation, and another element that we can gain only through such thinking contemplation.
When we have then gained both elements, it is clear to us that they belong together. A process runs its course in accordance with the laws that I gain about it through my thinking. The fact that for me the two elements are separated and are joined together by my cognition is my affair. The process does not bother about this separation and joining. From this it follows, however, that the activity of knowing is altogether my affair. Something that I bring about solely for my own sake.
[ 107 ] Yet another factor enters in here now. The things and processes would never, out of themselves, give me what I gain about them through my thinking contemplation. Out of themselves they give me, in fact, what I possess without that contemplation. It has already been stated in this essay that I take out of myself what I see in the things as their deepest being. The thoughts I make for myself about the things, these I produce out of my own inner being. They nevertheless belong to the things, as has been shown. The essential being of the things does not therefore come to me from them, but rather from me. My content is their essential being. I would never come to ask about the essential being of the things at all if I did not find present within me something I designate as this essential being of the things, designate as what belongs to them, but designate as what they do not give me out of themselves, but rather what I can take only out of myself.
Within the cognitive process I receive the essential being of the things from out of myself. I therefore have the essential being of the world within myself. Consequently I also have my own essential being within myself. With other things two factors appear to me: a process without its essential being and the essential being through me. With myself, process and essential being are identical. I draw forth the essential being of all the rest of the world out of myself, and I also draw forth my own essential being from myself.
[ 108 ] Now my action is a part of the general world happening. It therefore has its essential being as much within me as all other happenings. To seek the laws of human action means, therefore, to draw them forth out of the content of the “I.” Just as the believer in God traces the laws of his actions back to the will of his God, so the person who has attained the insight that the essential being of all things lies within the “I” can also find the laws of his action only within the “I.” If the “I” has really penetrated into the essential nature of its action, it then feels itself to be the ruler of this action. As long as we believe in a world-being foreign to us, the laws of our action also stand over against us as foreign. They rule us; what we accomplish stands under the compulsion they exercise over us. If they are transformed from such foreign beings into our “I's” primally own doing, then this compulsion ceases. That which compels has become our own being. The lawfulness no longer rules over us, but rather rules within us over the happenings that issue from our “I.” To bring about a process by virtue of a lawfulness standing outside the doer is an act of inner unfreedom; to do so out of the doer himself is an act of inner freedom. To give oneself the laws of one's actions out of oneself means to act as a free individual. The consideration of the cognitive process shows the human being that he can find the laws of his action only within himself.
[ 109 ] To comprehend the “I” in thinking means to create the basis for founding everything that comes from the “I” also upon the “I” alone. The “I” that understands itself can make itself dependent upon nothing other than itself. And it can be answerable to no one but itself. After these expositions it seems almost superfluous to say that with this “I” only the incarnate real “I” of the individual person is meant and not any general “I” abstracted from it. For any such general “I” can indeed be gained from the real “I” only by abstraction. It is thus dependent upon the real individual. (Benj. R. Tucker and J. H. Mackay also advocate the same direction in thought and view of life out of which my two above-mentioned books have arisen. See Tucker's Instead of a Book and Mackay's The Anarchists.
[ 1110 ] In the eighteenth century and in the greater part of the nineteenth, man's thinking made every effort to win for the “I” its place in the universe. Two thinkers who are already keeping aloof from this direction are Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, who is still vigorously working among us. Neither any longer transfers the full being of our “I,” which we find present in our consciousness, as primal being into the outer world. Schopenhauer regarded one part of this “I,” the will, as the essential being of the world, and Hartmann sees the unconscious to be this being. Common to both of them is this striving to subordinate the “I” to their assumed general world-being. On the other hand, as the last of the strict individualists, Friedrich Nietzsche, taking his start from Schopenhauer, did arrive at views that definitely lead to the path of absolute appreciation of the individual “I.” In his opinion, genuine culture consists in fostering the individual in such a way that he has the strength out of himself to develop everything lying within him. Up until now it was only an accident if an individual was able to develop himself fully out of himself. “This more valuable type has already been there often enough: but as a happy chance, as an exception, never as willed. Rather he was precisely the one feared the most; formerly he was almost the fearful thing;—and out of fear, the opposite type was willed, bred, attained: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal man, the Christian ...” Nietzsche transfigured poetically, as his ideal, his type of man in his Zarathustra. He calls him the Superman (Übermensch). He is man freed from all norms, who no longer wants to be the mere image of God, a being in whom God is well pleased, a good citizen, and so on, but rather who wants to be himself and nothing more—the pure and absolute egoist.
Der Individualismus in der Philosophie
[ 1 ] Wäre der Mensch bloß Geschöpf der Natur und nicht zugleich Schaffender, so stände er nicht fragend vor den Erscheinungen der Welt und suchte auch nicht ihr Wesen und ihre Gesetze zu ergründen. Er befriedigte seinen Nahrungs- und Fortpflanzungstrieb gemäß den seinem Organismus eingeborenen Gesetzen und ließe im übrigen die Ereignisse der Welt laufen, wie sie eben laufen. Er käme gar nicht darauf, an die Natur eine Frage zu stellen. Zufrieden und glücklich wandelte er durchs Leben wie die Rose, von der Angelus Silesius sagt:
«Die Ros’ ist ohn warumb, sie blühet, weil sie blühet,
sie acht nicht ihrer selbst, fragt nicht, ob man sie sihet.»
[ 2 ] So kann die Rose sein. Was sie ist, ist sie, weil die Natur sie dazu gemacht hat. So kann aber der Mensch nicht sein. In ihm liegt der Trieb, zu der vorhandenen Welt noch eine aus ihm entsprungene hinzuzufügen. Er will mit seinen Mitmenschen nicht in dem zufälligen Nebeneinander leben, in das ihn die Natur gestellt hat, er sucht das Zusammenleben mit andern nach Maßgabe seines vernünftigen Denkens zu regeln. Die Gestalt, in welche die Natur den Mann und das Weib eingebildet, genügt ihm nicht; er schafft die idealen Figuren der griechischen Plastik. Dem natürlichen Gang der Ereignisse im täglichen Leben fügt er den seiner Phantasie entsprungenen in der Tragödie und Komödie hinzu. In der Architektur und Musik entspringen aus seinem Geiste Schöpfungen, die kaum noch an irgend etwas von der Natur Geschaffenes erinnern. In seinen Wissenschaften entwirft er begriffliche Bilder, durch die das Chaos der Welterscheinungen, das täglich vor unsern Sinnen vorüberzieht, als harmonisch geregeltes Ganzes, als in sich gegliederter Organismus erscheint. In der Welt seiner eigenen Taten schafft er ein besonderes Reich, das des historischen Geschehens, das wesentlich anderer Art ist als der Tatsachenverlauf der Natur.
[ 3 ] Daß alles, was er schafft, nur eine Fortsetzung des Wirkens der Natur ist, das fühlt der Mensch. Daß er berufen ist, zu dem, was die Natur aus sich selbst vermag, ein Höheres hinzuzufügen, das weiß er auch. Er ist sich dessen bewußt, daß er aus sich eine andere, höhere Natur zu der äußeren hinzugebärt.
[ 4 ] So steht der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten: derjenigen, die von außen auf ihn eindringt, und derjenigen, die er aus sich hervorbringt. Diese beiden Welten in Einklang zu bringen, ist er bemüht. Denn sein ganzes Wesen ist auf Harmonie gerichtet. Er möchte leben wie die Rose, die nicht fragt nach dem Warum und Weil, sondern die blühet, weil sie blühet. Schiller fordert das von dem Menschen mit den Worten:
«Suchst Du das Höchste, das Größte?
Die Pflanze kann es Dich lehren.
Was sie willenlos ist, sei Du es wollend — das ist’s! »
[ 5 ] Die Pflanze kann es sein. Denn aus ihr entspringt kein neues Reich, und die bange Sehnsucht kann daher in ihr auch nicht entstehen: wie bringe ich die beiden Reiche miteinander in Einklang?
[ 6 ] Das, was in ihm selbst liegt, mit dem, was die Natur aus sich erzeugt, in Harmonie zu bringen, das ist das Ziel, dem der Mensch durch alle Zeiten der Geschichte zustrebt. Die Tatsache, daß er fruchtbar ist, wird zum Ausgangspunkt einer Auseinandersetzung mit der Natur, die den Inhalt seines geistigen Strebens ausmacht.
[ 7 ] Es gibt zwei Wege für diese Auseinandersetzung. Entweder läßt der Mensch die äußere Natur über seine innere Herr werden, oder er unterwirft sich diese äußere Natur. In dem ersteren Fall sucht er sein eigenes Wollen und Sein dem äußeren Gang der Ereignisse unterzuordnen. In dem zweiten nimmt er Ziel und Richtung seines Wollens und Seins aus sich selbst und sucht mit den Ereignissen der Natur, die doch ihren eigenen Gang gehen, auf irgendeine Weise fertigzuwerden.
[ 8 ] Ich möchte zuerst von dem ersten Fall sprechen. Daß der Mensch über das Reich der Natur hinaus noch ein anderes, in seinem Sinne höheres erschafft, ist seinem Wesen gemäß. Er kann nicht anders. Welche Empfindungen und Gefühle er diesem seinem Reiche gegenüber hat, davon hängt es ab, wie er sich zu der Außenwelt stellt. Er kann nun seinem eigenen Reiche gegenüber dieselben Empfindungen haben wie den Tatsachen der Natur gegenüber. Dann läßt er die Geschöpfe seines Geistes an sich herankommen, wie er ein Ereignis der Außenwelt, zum Beispiel Wind und Wetter, an sich herankommen läßt. Er vernimmt keinen Artunterschied zwischen dem, was in der Außenwelt, und dem, was in seiner Seele vorgeht. Er ist deshalb der Ansicht, daß sie nur ein Reich sind, das von einer Art von Gesetzen beherrscht wird. Nur fühlt er, daß die Geschöpfe des Geistes höherer Art sind. Deshalb stellt er sie über die Geschöpfe der bloßen Natur. Er versetzt also seine eigenen Geschöpfe in die Außenwelt und läßt von ihnen die Natur beherrscht sein. Er kennt somit nur Außenwelt. Denn seine eigene innere Welt verlegt er nach außen. Kein Wunder, daß ihm auch sein eigenes Selbst zum untergeordneten Gliede dieser Außenwelt wird.
[ 9 ] Die eine Art der Auseinandersetzung des Menschen mit der Außenwelt besteht demnach darin, daß er sein Inneres als ein Äußeres ansieht und dieses nach außen versetzte Innere zugleich als den Herrscher und Gesetzgeber über die Natur und sich selbst setzt.
[ 10 ] Ich habe hiermit den Standpunkt des religiösen Menschen charakterisiert. Eine göttliche Weltordnung ist ein Geschöpf des menschlichen Geistes. Nur ist sich der Mensch nicht klar darüber, daß der Inhalt dieser Weltordnung aus seinem eigenen Geiste entsprungen ist. Er verlegt ihn daher nach außen- und ordnet sich seinem eigenen Erzeugnis unter.
[ 11 ] Der handelnde Mensch kann sich nicht dabei beruhigen, sein Handeln einfach gelten zu lassen. Die Blume blühet, weil sie blühet. Sie fragt nicht nach dem Warum und Weil. Der Mensch nimmt Stellung zu seinem Tun. Ein Gefühl knüpft sich an dieses Tun. Er ist entweder befriedigt oder nicht befriedigt von einer seiner Handlungen. Er unterscheidet das Tun nach seinem Werte. Das eine Tun betrachtet er als ein solches, das ihm gefällt, das andere als ein solches, das ihm mißfällt. In dem Augenblicke, in dem er so empfindet, ist für ihn die Harmonie der Welt gestört. Er ist der Ansicht, daß das wohlgefällige Tun andere Folgen nach sich ziehen muß als dasjenige, das sein Mißfallen hervorruft. Wenn er sich nun nicht klar darüber ist, daß er aus sich heraus zu den Handlungen das Werturteil hinzugefügt hat, so glaubt er, diese Wertbestimmung hänge den Handlungen durch eine äußere Macht an. Er ist der Ansicht, daß eine solche äußere Macht die Geschehnisse dieser Welt unterscheide in solche, die gefallen und daher gut sind, und in solche, die mißfallen, also schlecht, böse sind. Ein Mensch, der in dieser Weise empfindet, macht keinen Unterschied zwischen den Tatsachen der Natur und den Handlungen des Menschen. Er beurteilt beide von demselben Gesichtspunkte aus. Das ganze Weltall ist ihm ei» Reich, und die Gesetze, die dies Reich regieren, entsprechen ganz denen, die der menschliche Geist aus sich selbst hervorbringt.
[ 12 ] In dieser Art der Auseinandersetzung des Menschen mit der Welt tritt ein ursprünglicher Zug der menschlichen Natur zutage. Der Mensch mag sich noch so unklar über sein Verhältnis zur Welt sein: er sucht doch in sich den Maßstab, mit dem er alle Dinge messen kann. Aus einer Art unbewußten Souveränitätsgefühles heraus entscheidet er über den absoluten Wert alles Geschehens. Man kann forschen, wie man will: Menschen, die sich von Göttern regiert glauben, gibt es ohne Zahl; solche, die nicht selbständig, über den Kopf der Götter hinweg, ein Urteil fällen, was diesen Göttern gefallen kann oder mißfallen, gibt es nicht. Zum Herren der Welt vermag der religiöse Mensch sich nicht aufzuwerfen; wohl aber bestimmt er die Neigungen der Weltherrscher aus eigener Machtvollkommenheit.
[ 13 ] Man braucht die religiös empfindenden Naturen nur zu betrachten, und man wird meine Behauptungen bestätigt finden. Wo hat es je Verkündiger von Göttern gegeben, die nicht zugleich ganz genau festgestellt hätten, was diesen Göttern gefällt und was ihnen zuwider ist. Jede Religion hat ihre Weisheit über das Weltall, und jede behauptet auch, daß diese Weisheit von einem Gotte oder mehreren Göttern stamme.
[ 14 ] Will man den Standpunkt des religiösen Menschen charakterisieren, so muß man sagen: er versucht die Welt von sich aus zu beurteilen, aber er hat nicht den Mut, auch sich selbst die Verantwortung für dieses Urteil zuzuschreiben, deshalb erfindet er sich Wesen in. der Außenwelt, denen er diese Verantwortung aufbürdet.
[ 15 ] Durch diese Betrachtungen scheint mir die Frage beantwortet zu sein: was ist Religion? Der Inhalt der Religion entspringt aus dem menschlichen Geiste. Aber dieser Geist will sich diesen Ursprung nicht eingestehen. Der Mensch unterwirft sich seinen eigenen Gesetzen, aber er betrachtet diese Gesetze als fremde. Er setzt sich zum Herrscher über sich selbst ein. Jede Religion setzt das menschliche Ich zum Regenten der Welt ein. Ihr Wesen besteht eben darinnen, daß sie sich dieser Tatsache nicht bewußt ist. Sie betrachtet als Offenbarung von außen, was sie sich selber offenbart.
[ 16 ] Der Mensch wünscht, daß er in der Welt oben an erster Stelle stehe. Aber er wagt es nicht, sich als den Gipfel der Schöpfung hinzustellen. Deshalb erfindet er sich Götter nach seinem Bilde und läßt von ihnen die Welt regieren. Indem er so denkt, denkt er religiös.
[ 17 ] Das religiöse Denken wird von dem philosophischen Denken abgelöst. In den Zeiten und bei den Menschen, wo diese Ablösung geschieht, enthüllt sich uns die Menschennatur auf eine ganz besondere Weise.
[ 18 ] Für die Entwickelung des abendländischen Denkens ist besonders interessant der Übergang des mythologischen Denkens der Griechen zu dem philosophischen. Drei Denker möchte ich zunächst aus der Zeit dieses Übergangs hervorheben: Anaximander, Thales und Parmenides. Sie stellen drei Stufen dar, die von der Religion zur Philosophie führen.
[ 19 ] Die erste Stufe auf diesem Wege ist dadurch gekennzeichnet, daß die göttlichen Wesen nicht mehr anerkannt werden, aus denen der aus dem menschlichen Ich entnommene Inhalt stammen soll. Trotzdem wird aber — aus Gewohnheit — noch daran festgehalten, daß dieser Inhalt aus der Außenwelt stammt. Auf dieser Stufe steht Anaximander. Er redet nicht mehr von Göttern wie seine griechischen Vorfahren. Das höchste, die Welt regierende Prinzip ist ihm nicht ein Wesen, das nach dem Bilde des Menschen vorgestellt wird. Es ist ein unpersönliches Wesen, das Apeiron, das Unbestimmte. Es entwickelt alles in der Natur Vorkommende aus sich, aber nicht in der Art, wie ein Mensch schafft, sondern aus Naturnotwendigkeit. Aber diese Naturnotwendigkeit denkt sich Anaximander noch immer analog einem Handeln, das nach menschlichen Vernunftgrundsätzen verläuft. Er stellt sich sozusagen eine moralische Naturgesetzlichkeit vor, ein höchstes Wesen, das die Welt wie ein menschlicher Sittenrichter behandelt, ohne ein solcher zu sein. Nach Anaximander geschieht alles in der Welt so notwendig, wie der Magnet das Eisen anzieht, aber es geschieht nach moralischen, das heißt menschlichen Gesetzen. Nur von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus konnte er sagen: «Woraus die Dinge entstehen, in dasselbe müssen sie auch vergehen, wie es der Billigkeit gemäß ist, denn sie müssen Buße und Vergeltung tun, um der Ungerechtigkeit willen, wie es der Ordnung der Zeit entspricht.»
[ 20 ] Dies ist die Stufe, auf der ein Denker anfängt, philosophisch zu urteilen. Er läßt die Götter fallen. Er schreibt also das, was aus dem Menschen kommt, nicht mehr den Göttern zu. Aber er tut nichts weiter, als daß er die Eigenschaften, die vorher göttlichen, also persönlichen Wesen beigelegt worden sind, auf ein unpersönliches überträgt.
[ 21 ] In ganz freier Weise tritt Thales der Welt gegenüber. Wenn er auch um ein paar Jahre älter ist als Anaximander, er ist philosophisch viel reifer. Seine Denkungsweise ist gar nicht mehr religiös.
[ 22 ] Innerhalb des abendländischen Denkens ist erst Thales ein Mann, der sich in der zweiten oben genannten Art mit der Welt auseinandersetzt. Hegel hat es so oft betont, daß das Denken die Eigenschaft ist, die den Menschen vom Tiere unterscheidet. Thales ist die erste abendländische Persönlichkeit, die es wagte, dem Denken seine Souveränitätsstellung anzuweisen. Er kümmerte sich nicht mehr darum, ob Götter die Welt nach der Ordnung der Gedanken eingerichtet haben oder ob ein Apeiron die Welt nach Maßgabe des Denkens lenkt. Er wußte nur, daß er dachte, und nahm an, daß er deswegen, weil er dachte, auch ein Recht habe, sich die Welt nach Maßgabe seines Denkens zurechtzulegen. Man unterschätze diesen Standpunkt des Thales nicht! Er war eine ungeheure Rücksichtslosigkeit gegenüber allen religiösen Vorurteilen. Denn er war die Erklärung der Absolutheit des menschlichen Denkens. Die religiösen Menschen sagen: die Welt ist so eingerichtet, wie wir sie uns denken, denn Gott ist. Und da sie sich Gott nach dem Ebenbilde des Menschen denken, ist es selbstverständlich, daß die Ordnung der Welt der Ordnung des menschlichen Kopfes entspricht. Thales ist das alles ganz gleichgültig. Er denkt über die Welt. Und kraft seines Denkens schreibt er sich ein Urteil über die Welt zu. Er har bereits ein Gefühl davon, daß das Denken nur eine menschliche Handlung ist, und dennoch geht er daran, mit Hilfe dieses bloß menschlichen Denkens die Welt zu erklären. Das Erkennen selbst tritt mit Thales in ein ganz neues Stadium seiner Entwickelung. Es hört auf, seine Rechtfertigung aus dem Umstande zu ziehen, daß es nur nachzeichnet, was die Götter vorgezeichnet haben. Es entnimmt aus sich selbst das Recht, über die Gesetzmäßigkeit der Welt zu entscheiden. Es kommt zunächst gar nicht darauf an, ob Thales das Wasser oder irgend etwas anderes zum Prinzip der Welt gemacht hat, sondern darauf, daß er sich gesagt hat: was Prinzip ist, das will ich durch mein Denken entscheiden. Er hat es als selbstverständlich angenommen, daß das Denken in solchen Dingen die Macht hat. Und darin liegt seine Größe.
[ 23 ] Man vergegenwärtige sich nur einmal, was damit getan ist. Nichts Geringeres ist damit geschehen als dies, daß dem Menschen die geistige Macht über die Welterscheinungen gegeben ist. Wer auf sein Denken vertraut, der sagt sich: mögen die Wogen des Geschehens noch so stürmisch brausen, möge die Welt ein Chaos scheinen: ich bin ruhig, denn all dies tolle Getriebe beunruhigt mich nicht, weil ich es begreife.
[ 24 ] Diese göttliche Ruhe des Denkers, der sich selbst versteht, hat Heraklit nicht begriffen. Er war der Ansicht, daß alle Dinge in ewigem Flusse seien. Daß das Werden das Wesen der Dinge sei. Wenn ich in einen Fluß hineinsteige, so ist er nicht mehr derselbe wie in dem Momente, in dem ich mir vorgenommen, hineinzusteigen. Aber Heraklit übersieht nur eins. Was der Fluß mit sich fortträgt, das bewahrt das Denken, und es findet, daß im nächsten Momente ein Wesentliches von dem wieder vor die Sinne tritt, was schon vorher da war.
[ 25 ] So wie Thales mit seinem festen Glauben an die Macht des menschlichen Denkens, so ist auch Heraklit eine typische Erscheinung im Reiche derjenigen Persönlichkeiten, die sich mit den bedeutsamsten Fragen des Daseins auseinandersetzen. Er fühlt nicht in sich die Kraft, durch das Denken den ewigen Fluß des sinnlichen Werdens zu bezwingen. Heraklit sieht in die Welt, und sie zerfließt ihm in nicht festzuhaltende Augenblickserscheinungen. Hätte Heraklit recht, dann zerflatterte alles in der Welt, und im allgemeinen Chaos müßte auch die menschliche Persönlichkeit sich auflösen. Ich wäre heute nicht derselbe, der ich gestern war, und morgen wäre ich ein anderer als heute. Der Mensch stünde in jedem Augenblicke vor völlig Neuem und hätte keine Macht. Denn von den Erfahrungen, die er sich bis zu einem bestimmten Tage gesammelt hat, wäre es fraglich, ob sie ihm eine Richtschnur an die Hand geben zur Behandlung des völlig Neuen, das ihm ein junger Tag bringt.
[ 26 ] In schroffen Gegensatz zu Heraklit stellt sich deshalb Parmenides. Mit all der Einseitigkeit, die nur einer kühnen Philosophennatur möglich ist, verwarf er jegliches Zeugnis der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung. Denn eben diese in jedem Augenblick sich ändernde Sinnenwelt verführt zu der Ansicht des Heraklit. Dafür sprach er als den Quell aller Wahrheit einzig und allein die Offenbarungen an, die aus dem innersten Kern der menschlichen Persönlichkeit hervordringen, die Offenbarungen des Denkens. Nicht was vor den Sinnen vorüberfließt, ist das wirkliche Wesen der Dinge nach seiner Ansicht, sondern die Gedanken, die Ideen, welche das Denken in diesem Strome gewahr wird und festhält!
[ 27 ] Wie so vieles, was als Gegenschlag auf eine Einseitigkeit erfolgt, so wurde auch die Denkweise des Parmenides verhängnisvoll. Sie verdarb das europäische Denken auf Jahrhunderte hinaus. Sie untergrub das Vertrauen in die Sinneswahrnehmung. Während nämlich ein unbefangener, naiver Blick auf die Sinnenwelt aus dieser selbst den Gedankeninhalt schöpft, der den menschlichen Erkenntnistrieb befriedigt, glaubte die im Sinne des Parmenides sich fortentwickelnde philosophische Bewegung die rechte Wahrheit nur aus dem reinen, abstrakten Denken schöpfen zu sollen.
[ 28 ] Die Gedanken, die wir in lebendigem Verkehr mit der Sinnenwelt gewinnen, haben einen individuellen Charakter, sie haben die Wärme von etwas Erlebtem in sich. Wir exponieren unsere Person, indem wir Ideen aus der Welt herauslösen. Wir fühlen uns als Überwinder der Sinnenwelt, wenn wir sie in die Gedankenwelt einfangen. Das abstrakte, reine Denken hat etwas Unpersönliches, Kaltes. Wir fühlen immer einen Zwang, wenn wir die Ideen aus dem reinen Denken herausspinnen. Unser Selbstgefühl kann durch ein solches Denken nicht gehoben werden. Denn wir müssen uns der Gedankennotwendigkeit einfach unterwerfen.
[ 29 ] Parmenides hat nicht berücksichtigt, daß das Denken eine Tätigkeit der menschlichen Persönlichkeit ist. Er hat es unpersönlich, als ewigen Seinsinhalt, genommen. Das Gedachte ist das Seiende, hat er gesagt.
[ 30 ] Er hat dadurch an die Stelle der alten Götter einen neuen gesetzt. Während die ältere, religiöse Vorstellungsweise den ganzen, fühlenden, wollenden und denkenden Menschen als Gott an die Spitze der Welt gesetzt hatte, nahm Parmenides eine einzelne . menschliche Tätigkeit, einen Teil aus der Persönlichkeit heraus und machte daraus ein göttliches Wesen.
[ 31 ] Auf dem Gebiete der Anschauungen über das sittliche Leben des Menschen wird Parmenides durch Sokrates ergänzt. Der Satz: die Tugend ist lehrbar, den dieser ausgesprochen hat, ist die ethische Konsequenz der Anschauung des Parmenides, daß das Denken gleich dem Sein ist. Ist dies letztere eine Wahrheit, so kann das menschliche Handeln nur dann darauf Anspruch machen, sich zu einem wertvollen Seienden erhoben zu haben, wenn es aus dem Denken fließt. Aus dem abstrakten, logischen Denken, dem sich der Mensch einfach zu fügen, das heißt das er sich als Lernender anzueignen hat.
[ 32 ] Es ist klar: ein gemeinsamer Zug ist in der griechischen Gedankenentwickelung zu verfolgen. Der Mensch hat das Bestreben, das, was ihm angehört, was aus seinem eigenen Wesen entspringt, in die Außenwelt zu versetzen und auf diese Weise sich seinem eigenen Wesen unterzuordnen. Zunächst nimmt er sich in seiner ganzen vollen Breite und setzt seine Ebenbilder als Götter über sich; dann nimmt er eine einzelne menschliche Tätigkeit, das Denken, und setzt es als Notwendigkeit über sich, der er sich zu fügen hat. Das ist das Merkwürdige in der Entwickelung des Menschen, daß er seine Kräfte entfaltet, daß er für das Dasein und die Entfaltung dieser Kräfte in der Welt kämpft, daß er diese Kräfte aber lange nicht als seine eigenen anzuerkennen vermag.
[ 33 ] Diese große Täuschung des Menschen über sich selbst hat einer der größten Philosophen aller Zeiten in ein kühnes, wunderbares System gebracht. Dieser Philosoph ist Plato. Die ideale Welt, der Umkreis der Vorstellungen, die im Menschengeiste aufgehen, während der Blick auf die Vielheit der äußeren Dinge gerichtet ist, wird für Plato zu einer höheren Welt des Seins, von der jene Vielhbeit nur ein Abbild ist. «Die Dinge dieser Welt, welche unsere Sinne wahrnehmen, haben gar kein wahres Sein: sie werden immer, sind aber nie. Sie haben nur ein relatives Sein, sind insgesamt nur in und durch ihr Verhältnis zueinander; man kann daher ihr ganzes Dasein ebensowohl ein Nichtsein nennen. Sie sind folglich auch nicht Objekte einer eigentlichen Erkenntnis. Denn nur von dem, was an und für sich und immer auf gleiche Weise ist, kann es eine solche geben; sie hingegen sind nur das Objekt eines durch Empfindung veranlaßten Dafürhaltens. Solange wir auf ihre Wahrnehmung beschränkt sind, gleichen wir Menschen, die in einer finsteren Höhle so festgebunden säßen, daß sie auch den Kopf nicht drehen könnten und nichts sähen, als beim Lichte eines hinter ihnen brennenden Feuers, an der Wand ihnen gegenüber die Schattenbilder wirklicher Dinge, welche zwischen ihnen und dem Feuer vorübergeführt würden, und auch sogar voneinander und jeder von sich selbst, eben nur die Schatten an jener Wand. Ihre Weisheit aber wäre, die aus Erfahrung erlernte Reihenfolge jener Schatten vorherzusagen.» Der Baum, den ich sehe, betaste und dessen Blütenduft ich atme, ist also der Schatten der Idee des Baumes. Und diese Idee ist das wahrhaft Wirkliche. Die Idee aber ist das, was in meinem Geiste aufleuchter, wenn ich den Baum betrachte. Was ich mit den Sinnen wahrnehme, wird dadurch zum Abbild dessen gemacht, was mein Geist durch die Wahrnehmung ausbildet.
[ 34 ] Alles, was Plato als Ideenwelt jenseits der Dinge vorhanden glaubt, ist menschliche Innenwelt. Der Inhalt des menschlichen Geistes aus dem Menschen herausgerissen und als eine Welt für sich vorgestellt, als höhere, wahre, jenseitige Welt: das ist platonische Philosophie.
[ 35 ] Ich gebe Ralph Waldo Emerson recht, wenn er sagt: «Unter allen weltlichen Büchern hat nur Plato ein Recht auf das fanatische Lob, das Omar dem Koran erteilte, als er den Ausspruch tat: «Ihr mögt die Bibliotheken verbrennen, denn was sie Wertvolles enthalten, das steht in diesem Buche, Seine Sentenzen enthalten die Bildung der Nationen; sie sind der Eckstein aller Schulen, der Brunnenkopf aller Literaturen. Sie sind ein Lehrbuch und Kompendium der Logik, Arithmetik, Ästhetik, der Poesie und Sprachwissenschaft, der Rhetorik, Ontologie, der Ethik oder praktischen Weisheit. Niemals hat sich das Denken und Forschen eines Mannes über ein so ungeheures Gebiet erstreckt. Aus Plato kommen alle Dinge, die noch heute geschrieben und unter denkenden Menschen besprochen werden.» Den letzteren Satz möchte ich etwas genauer in folgender Form aussprechen. Wie Plato über das Verhältnis des menschlichen Geistes zur Welt empfunden hat, so empfindet auch heute die überwiegende Mehrheit der Menschen. Sie empfindet, daß der Inhalt des menschlichen Geistes, das menschliche Fühlen, Wollen und Denken auf der Stufenleiter der Erscheinungen oben zu stehen kommt, aber sie weiß mit diesem geistigen Inhalt nur etwas anzufangen, wenn er außerhalb des Menschen als göttliches oder irgendein anderes höheres Wesen: notwendige Naturordnung, moralische Weltordnung — und wie der Mensch sonst das, was er selbst hervorbringt, genannt hat — vorhanden gedacht wird.
[ 36 ] Es ist erklärlich, daß der Mensch so denkt. Die Eindrücke der Sinne dringen von außen auf ihn ein. Er sieht die Farben, hört die Töne. Seine Empfindungen, seine Gedanken entstehen in ihm, während er die Farben sieht, die Töne hört. Seiner eigenen Natur entstammen diese. Er fragt sich: wie komme ich dazu, aus Eigenem etwas zu dem hinzuzufügen, was die Welt mir überliefert. Es erscheint ihm ganz willkürlich, aus sich heraus etwas zur Ergänzung der Außenwelt zu holen.
[ 37 ] In dem Augenblicke aber, in dem er sich sagt: das, was ich da fühle und denke, das bringe ich nicht aus Eigenen zur Welt hinzu, das hat ein anderes, höheres Wesen in sie gelegt, und ich hole es nur aus ihr heraus: in diesem Augenblicke ist er beruhigt. Man braucht dem Menschen nur zu sagen: du hast deine Meinungen und Gedanken nicht aus dir selbst, sondern ein Gott hat sie dir geoffenbart: dann ist er versöhnt mit sich selbst. Und streift er den Glauben an Gott ab, dann setzt er an seine Stelle: die natürliche Ordnung der Dinge, die ewigen Gesetze. Daß er diesen Gott, diese ewigen Gesetze nirgends in der Welt draußen finden kann, daß er sie vielmehr erst zu der Welt hinzuerschaffen muß, wenn sie dasein sollen: das will er sich zunächst nicht eingestehen. Es wird ihm schwer, sich zu sagen: die Welt außer mir ist ungöttlich; ich aber nehme mir, kraft meines Wesens, das Recht, das Göttliche in sie hineinzuschauen.
[ 38 ] Was gehen die schwingende Kirchenlampe die Pendelgesetze an, die im Geiste Galleis erstanden sind, als er sie betrachtete? Aber der Mensch selbst kann nicht existieren, ohne einen Zusammenhang herzustellen zwischen der Außenwelt und der Welt seines Innern. Sein geistiges Leben ist ein fortwährendes Hineinarbeiten des Geistes in die Sinnenwelt. Durch seine eigene Arbeit vollzieht sich im Laufe des geschichtlichen Lebens die Durchdtingung von Natur und Geist. Die griechischen Denker wollten nichts anderes, als daß der Mensch in ein Verhältnis bereits hineingeboren sei, das erst durch ihn selbst werden kann. Sie wollten nicht, daß der Mensch erst die Ehe vollziehe zwischen Geist und Natur; sie wollten, daß er diese Ehe als vollzogen bereits antreffe und sie nur als fertige Tatsache betrachte.
[ 39 ] Aristoteles sah das Widerspruchsvolle, das darinnen liegt, die im Menschengeiste von den Dingen entstehenden Ideen in eine übersinnliche, jenseitige Welt zu versetzen. Aber auch er erkannte nicht, daß die Dinge erst ihre ideelle Seite erhalten, wenn der Mensch sich ihnen entgegenstellt und sie zu ihnen hinzu erschafft. Er nahm vielmehr an, daß dieses Ideelle als Entelechie in den Dingen als ihr eigentliches Prinzip selbst wirksam sei. Die natürliche Folge dieser seiner Grundansicht war, daß Aristoteles das sittliche Handeln des Menschen aus seiner ursprünglichen ethischen Naturanlage ableitete. Die physischen Triebe veredeln sich im Laufe der menschlichen Entwickelung und erscheinen dann als vernünftig geleitetes Wollen. In diesem vernünftigen Wollen besteht die Tugend.
[ 40 ] In dieser Unmittelbarkeit genommen, scheint es, als ob Aristoteles auf dem Standpunkt stände, daß wenigstens das sittliche Handeln seinen Quell in der Eigenpersönlichkeit des Menschen habe. Daß der Mensch selbst sich aus seinem Wesen heraus Richtung und Ziel seines Tuns gebe und sich dieselben nicht von außen vorschreiben lasse. Aber auch Aristoteles wagt es nicht, bei diesem sich selbst seine Bestimmung vorzeichnenden Menschen stehenzubleiben. Was in dem Menschen als einzelnes vernünftiges Tun auftritt, sei doch nur eine Ausprägung einer außer ihm existierenden allgemeinen Weltvernunft. Die letztere verwirkliche sich in dem Einzelmenschen, aber sie habe über ihn hinaus ihr selbständiges, höheres Dasein.
[ 41 ] Auch Aristoteles drängt aus dem Menschen hinaus, was er nur im Menschen vorfindet. Dasjenige, was im Inneren des Menschen angetroffen wird, als selbständiges, für sich bestehendes Wesen zu denken und von diesem Wesen die Dinge der Welt abzuleiten, ist die Tendenz des griechischen Denkens von Thales bis Aristoteles.
[ 42 ] Es muß sich an der Erkenntnis des Menschen rächen, wenn dieser die Vermittlung des Geistes mit der Natur, die er selbst vollziehen soll, durch äußere Mächte vollzogen denkt. Er sollte sich in sein Inneres versenken und da den Anknüpfungspunkt der Sinnenwelt an die ideelle suchen. Blickt er. statt dessen in die Außenwelt, um diesen Punkt zu finden, so wird er, weil er ihn da nicht finden kann, einmal notwendig zu dem Zweifel an aller Versöhnung der beiden Mächte kommen müssen. Dieses Stadium des Zweifels stellt uns die auf Aristoteles folgende Periode des griechischen Denkens dar. Es kündigt sich an bei den Stoikern und Epikureern und erreicht seinen Höhepunkt bei den Skeptikern.
[ 43 ] Die Stoiker und Epikureer fühlen instinktiv, daß man das Wesen der Dinge auf dem von ihren Vorgängern eingeschlagenen Wege nicht finden kann. Sie verlassen diesen Weg, ohne sich viel um einen neuen zu kümmern. Den älteren Philosophen war die Welt als Gesamtheit die Hauptsache. Sie wollten die Gesetze der Welt erforschen und glaubten, aus der Welterkenntnis müsse sich die Menschenerkenntnis von selbst ergeben, denn ihnen war der Mensch ein Glied des Weltganzen wie die andern Dinge. Die Stoiker und Epikureer machten den Menschen zur Hauptsache ihres Nachdenkens. Sie wollten seinem Leben den ihm entsprechenden Inhalt geben. Sie dachten nach, wie der Mensch leben solle. Alles übrige war ihnen nur ein Mittel zu diesem Zwecke. Alle Philosophie gilt den Stoikern nur insofern als etwas Wertvolles, als durch sie der Mensch erkennen könne, wie er zu leben habe. Als das richtige Leben des Menschen betrachteten sie dasjenige, welches der Natur gemäß ist. Um das Naturgemäße in seinem Handeln zu verwirklichen, muß man dieses Naturgemäße erst erkannt haben.
[ 44 ] In der stoischen Lehre liegt ein wichtiges Zugeständnis an die menschliche Persönlichkeit. Dasjenige, daß sie sich Zweck und Ziel sein darf und daß alles andere, selbst die Erkenntnis, nur um dieser Persönlichkeit willen da ist.
[ 45 ] Noch weiter in dieser Richtung gingen die Epikureer. Ihr Streben erschöpfte sich darin, das Leben so zu gestalten, daß der Mensch sich in demselben so zufrieden wie möglich fühle oder daß es ihm die möglichst große Lust gewähre. So sehr stand ihnen das Leben im Vordergrunde, daß sie die Erkenntnis nur zu dem Zwecke trieben, damit der Mensch von abergläubischer Furcht und von dem Unbehagen befreit werde, die ihn befallen, wenn er die Natur nicht durchschaur.
[ 46 ] Durch die Anschauungen der Stoiker und Epikureer zieht ein höheres menschliches Selbstgefühl als durch diejenigen der älteren griechischen Denker.
[ 47 ] In einer feineren, geistigeren Weise erscheint diese Anschauung bei den Skeptikern. Sie sagten sich: wenn der Mensch sich über die Dinge Ideen macht, so kann er sie nur aus sich heraus machen. Und nur aus sich heraus kann er die Überzeugung schöpfen, daß einem Dinge eine Idee entspreche. Sie sahen in der Außenwelt nichts, was einen Grund abgebe zu einer Verknüpfung von Ding und Idee. Und was vor ihnen von solchen Gründen gesagt worden war, betrachteten sie als Täuschung und bekämpften es.
[ 48 ] Der Grundzug der skeptischen Ansicht ist Bescheidenheit. Ihre Anhänger wagten nicht zu leugnen, daß es in der Außenwelt eine Verknüpfung von Idee und Ding gebe; sie leugneten bloß, daß der Mensch eine solche erkennen könne. Deshalb machten sie zwar den Menschen zum Quell seines Erkennens, aber sie sahen dieses Erkennen nicht als den Ausdruck der wahren Weisheit an.
[ 49 ] Im Grunde stellt der Skeptizismus die Bankerotterklärung des menschlichen Erkennens dar. Der Mensch unterliegt dem selbstgeschaffenen Vorurteil, daß die Wahrheit außen fertig vorhanden sei, durch die gewonnene Überzeugung, daß seine Wahrheit nur eine innere, also überhaupt nicht die rechte sein könne.
[ 50 ] Mit rückhaltlosem Vertrauen in die Kraft des menschlichen Geistes hat Thales begonnen, über die Welt nachzudenken. Ein Zweifel daran, daß dasjenige, was das Nachsinnen als Grund der Welt ansehen muß, nicht in Wirklichkeit dieser Grund sein könne, lag seinem naiven Glauben an die Erkenntnisfähigkeit des Menschen ganz ferne. Bei den Skeptikern ist an die Stelle dieses Glaubens ein vollständiges Verzichtleisten auf wirkliche Wahrheit getreten.
[ 51 ] Zwischen den beiden Extremen, der naiven Vertrauensseligkeit in die menschliche Erkenntnisfähigkeit und der absoluten Vertrauenslosigkeit, liegt der Entwickelungsgang des griechischen Denkens. Man kann diesen Entwickelungsgang begreifen, wenn man beachtet, wie sich die Vorstellungen über die Ursachen der Welt gewandelt haben. Was sich die ältesten griechischen Philosophen als solche Ursachen dachten, hatte sinnliche Eigenschaften. Dadurch hatte man ein Recht, diese Ursachen in die Außenwelt zu versetzen. Das Ur-Wasser des 'Thales gehört wie jeder andere Gegenstand der Sinnenwelt der äußeren Wirklichkeit an. Ganz anders wurde die Sache, als Parmenides im Denken das wahre Sein zu erkennen glaubte. Denn dieses Denken ist seinem wahren Dasein nach nur im menschlichen Innern wahrzunehmen. Durch Parmenides erst entstand die große Frage: wie verhält sich das gedankliche, geistige Sein zu dem äußeren, das die Sinne wahrnehmen. Man hatte sich nun gewöhnt, das Verhältnis des höchsten Seins zu demjenigen, das uns täglich umgibt, so vorzustellen, wie sich Thales das seines sinnlichen Urdings zu den uns umgebenden Dingen gedacht hat. Es ist durchaus möglich, sich das Hervorgehen aller Dinge aus dem Wasser, das Thales als Urquell alles Seins hinstellt, analog gewissen sinnenfälligen Prozessen vorzustellen, die sich täglich vor unsern Augen abspielen. Und der Trieb, sich das Verhältnis der uns umgebenden Welt im Sinne einer solchen Analogie vorzustellen, blieb auch noch vorhanden, als durch Parmenides und seine Nachfolger das reine Denken und sein Inhalt, die Ideenwelt, zum Urquell alles Seins gemacht worden sind. Die Menschen waren wohl reif, einzusehen, daß die geistige Welt höher steht als die sinnliche, daß sich der tiefste Weltgehalt im Innern des Menschen offenbart, aber sie waren nicht sogleich auch reif, sich das Verhältnis zwischen sinnlicher und ideeller Welt auch ideell vorzustellen. Sie stellten es sich sinnlich, als ein tatsächliches Hervorgehen vor. Hätten sie es sich geistig gedacht, so hätten sie ruhig zugestehen können, daß der Inhalt der Ideenwelt nur im Innern des Menschen vorhanden ist. Denn dann brauchte das Höhere dem Abgeleiteten nicht zeitlich voranzugehen. Ein Sinnending kann einen geistigen Inhalt offenbaren, aber dieser Inhalt kann im Momente der Offenbarung erst aus dem Sinnendinge heraus geboren werden. Er ist ein späteres Entwickelungsprodukt als die Sinnenwelt. Stellt man sich das Verhältnis aber als ein Hervorgehen vor, so muß dasjenige, woraus das andere hervorgeht, diesem letzteren auch in der Zeit vorangehen. Auf diese Weise wurde das Kind, die geistige Welt der Sinnenwelt, zur Mutter der letzteren gemacht. Dies ist der psychologische Grund, warum der Mensch seine Welt hinausversetzt in die äußere Wirklichkeit und von dem, was sein Eigentum und Produkt ist, behauptet: es habe ein für sich bestehendes, objektives Dasein, und er habe sich ihm unterzuordnen, beziehungsweise er könne sich nur in dessen Besitz setzen durch Offenbarung oder auf eine andere Weise, durch die die einmal fertige Wahrheit ihren Einzug in sein Inneres halte.
[ 52 ] Diese Deutung, die der Mensch seinem Streben nach Wahrheit, seinem Erkennen gibt, entspricht einem tiefen Hange seiner Natur. Goethe hat diesen Hang in seinen «Sprüchen in Prosa» mit folgenden Worten gekennzeichnet: «Der Mensch begreift niemals, wie anthropomorphisch er ist.» Und: «Fall und Stoß. Dadurch die Bewegung der Weltkörper erklären zu wollen, ist eigentlich ein versteckter Anthropomorphismus, es ist des Wanderers Gang über Feld. Der aufgehobene Fuß sinkt nieder, der zurückgebliebene strebt vorwärts und fällt; und immer so fort, vom Ausgehen bis zum Ankommen.» Alle Erklärung der Natur besteht eben darinnen, daß Erfahrungen, die der Mensch an sich selbst macht, in den Gegenstand hineingedeuter werden. Selbst die einfachsten Erscheinungen werden auf diese Weise erklärt. Wenn wir den Stoß zweier Körper erklären, so geschieht das dadurch, daß wir uns vorstellen, der eine Körper übe auf den anderen eine ähnliche Wirkung aus wie wir selbst, wenn wir einen Körper stoßen. So wie wir es hier mit erwas Untergeordnetem machen, so macht es der religiöse Mensch mit seiner Gottesvorstellung. Er deutet menschliche Denk- und Handlungsweise in die Natur hinein; und auch die angeführten Philosophen von Parmenides bis Aristoteles deuteten menschliche Denkvorgänge in die Natur hinein.
[ 53 ] Das hiermit angedeutete Bedürfnis des Menschen hat Max Stirner im Sinne, wenn er sagt: «Was in dem Weltall spukt und sein mysteriöses, «unbegreifliches Wesen treibt, das ist eben der geheimnisvolle Spuk, den Wir höchstes Wesen nennen. Und diesem Spuk auf den Grund zu kommen, ihn zu begreifen, in ihm die Wirklichkeit zu entdecken (das «Dasein Gottes zu beweisen), —- diese Aufgabe setzten sich Jahrtausende die Menschen; mit der gräßlichen Unmöglichkeit, der endlosen Danaidenarbeit, den Spuk in einen Nicht-Spuk, das Unwirkliche in ein Wirkliches, den Geist in eine ganze und leibhaftige Person zu verwandeln, — damit quälten sie sich ab. Hinter der daseienden Welt suchten sie das «Ding an sich», das Wesen, sie suchten hinter dem Ding das Unding .»
[ 54 ] Einen glänzenden Beweis dafür, wie der menschliche Geist geneigt ist, sein eigenes Wesen und deshalb sein Verhältnis zur Welt zu verkennen, bietet die letzte Phase der griechischen Philosophie: der Neuplatonismus. Diese Lehre, deren wichtigster Vertreter Plotin ist, hat mit der Tendenz gebrochen, den Inhalt des menschlichen Geistes in ein Reich außerhalb der lebendigen Wirklichkeit zu verlegen, in welcher der Mensch selbst steht. In der eigenen Seele sucht der Neuplatoniker den Ort, an dem der höchste Gegenstand des Erkennens zu finden ist. Durch jene Steigerung der Erkenntniskräfte, die man als Ekstase bezeichnet, sucht er in sich selbst das Wesen der Welterscheinungen anzuschauen. Die Erhöhung der inneren Wahrnehmungskräfte soll den Geist auf eine Stufe des Lebens heben, auf der er unmittelbar die Offenbarung dieses Wesens empfindet. Eine Art von Mystik ist diese Lehre. Es liegt ihr das Wahre zugrunde, das sich in jeder Mystik findet. Die Versenkung in das eigene Innere liefert die tiefste menschliche Weisheit. Aber zu dieser Versenkung muß sich der Mensch erst erziehen. Er muß sich gewöhnen, eine Wirklichkeit zu schauen, die frei von alledem ist, was uns die Sinne überliefern. Menschen, die ihre Erkenntniskräfte bis zu dieser Höhe gebracht haben, sprechen von einem inneren Licht, das ihnen aufgegangen ist. Jakob Böhme, der christliche Mystiker des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, betrachtete sich als einen solch innerlich Erleuchteten. Er sieht in sich das Reich, das er als das höchste dem Menschen erkennbare bezeichnen muß. Er sagt: «Im menschlichen Gemüte liegt die Signatur ganz künstlich zugerichtet, nach dem Wesen aller Wesen.»
[ 55 ] Das Anschauen der menschlichen Innenwelt setzt der Neuplatonismus an die Stelle der Spekulation über eine jenseitige Außenwelt. Dabei tritt die höchst charakteristische Erscheinung auf, daß der Neuplatoniker sein eigenes Inneres für ein Fremdes ansieht. Bis zur Erkenntnis des Ortes, an dem das letzte Glied der Welt zu suchen ist, hat man es gebracht; was an diesem Orte sich vorfindet, hat man falsch gedeutet. Der Neuplatoniker beschreibt deshalb die inneren Erlebnisse seiner Ekstase, wie Plato die Wesen seiner übersinnlichen Welt beschreibt.
[ 56 ] Bezeichnend ist, daß der Neuplatonismus gerade dasjenige aus dem Wesen der Innenwelt ausschließt, was den eigentlichen Kern derselben ausmacht. Der Zustand der Ekstase soll nur dann eintreten, wenn das Selbstbewußtsein schweigt. Es war deshalb nur natürlich, daß der Geist im Neuplatonismus sich selbst, seine eigene Wesenheit nicht in ihrem wahren Lichte schauen konnte.
[ 57 ] In dieser Anschauung haben die Ideengänge, die den Inhalt der griechischen Philosophie ausmachen, ihren Abschluß gefunden. Sie stellen sich dar als Sehnsucht des Menschen, sein eigenes Wesen als Fremdes zu erkennen, zu schauen, anzubeten.
[ 58 ] Nach der naturgemäßen Entwickelung hätte innerhalb der abendländischen Geistesentwickelung auf den Neuplatonismus die Entdeckung des Egoismus folgen müssen. Das heißt, der Mensch hätte das als fremd angesehene Wesen als sein eigenes erkennen müssen. Er hätte sich sagen müssen: das Höchste, was es in der dem Menschen gegebenen Welt gibt, ist das individuelle Ich, dessen Wesen in dem Inneren der Persönlichkeit zur Erscheinung kommt.
[ 59 ] Dieser natürliche Gang der abendländischen GeistesentwickeJung wurde aufgehalten durch die Ausbreitung der christlichen Lehre. Das Christentum bieter dasjenige, was die griechische Philosophie in der Sprache des Weltweisen zum Ausdruck bringt, in volkstümlichen, sozusagen mit Händen zu greifenden Vorstellungen dar. Wenn man sich vergegenwärtigt, wie tief eingewurzelt in der Menschennatur der Drang ist, sich der eigenen Wesenheit zu entäußern, so erscheint es begreiflich, daß diese Lehre eine so unvergleichliche Macht über die Gemüter gewonnen hat. Um diesen Drang auf philosophischem Wege zu befriedigen: dazu gehört eine hohe Entwickelungsstufe des Geistes. Ihn in der Form des christlichen Glaubens zu befriedigen, reicht das naivste Gemüt aus. Nicht einen feingeistigen Inhalt wie Platos Ideenwelt, nicht ein dem erst zu entfachenden inneren Lichte entströmendes Erleben stellt das Christentum als höchste Weltwesenheit dar, sondern Vorgänge mit den Attributen sinnlich-greifbarer Wirklichkeit. Ja es geht so weit, das höchste Wesen in einem einzelnen historischen Menschen zu verehren. Mit solchen greifbaren Vorstellungen konnte der philosophische Geist Griechenlands nicht dienen. Solche Vorstellungen lagen hinter ihm in der Mythologie des Volkes. Hamann, Herders Vorläufer auf dem Gebiete der Religionswissenschaft, bemerkt einmal: Ein Philosoph für Kinder sei Plato nie gewesen. Die Kindesgeister aber sind es, für die «der heilige Geist den Ehrgeiz gehabt hat, ein Schriftsteller zu werden».
[ 60 ] Und diese kindliche Form der menschlichen Selbstentfremdung ist für Jahrhunderte von dem denkbar größten Einflusse gewesen für die philosophische Gedankenentwickelung. Wie ein Nebel lagert sich die christliche Lehre vor das Licht, von dem die Erkenntnis des eigenen Wesens hätte ausgehen sollen. Die Kirchenväter der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte suchen durch allerlei philosophische Begriffe den volkstümlichen Vorstellungen eine Form zu geben, in der sie auch einem gebildeteren Bewußtsein annehmbar scheinen konnten. Und die späteren Kirchenlehrer, deren bedeutendster Vertreter der heilige Augustin ist, setzten diese Bestrebungen in demselben Geiste fort. Der Inhalt des christlichen Glaubens wirkte so faszinierend, daß von einem Zweifel an seiner Wahrheit nicht die Rede sein konnte, sondern nur von einem Heraufheben derselben in ein mehr geistiges, ideelleres Gebiet. Die Philosophie der Kirchenlehrer ist Umsetzung des christlichen Glaubensinhaltes in ein Ideengebäude. Der allgemeine Charakter dieses Ideengebäudes konnte aus diesem Grunde kein anderer sein als der des Christentums: Hinausversetzung der menschlichen Wesenheit in die Welt, Selbstentäußerung. So ist es gekommen, daß Augustin wieder an den richtigen Ort kommt, wo das Weltwesen zu finden ist, und daß er an diesem Orte wieder ein Fremdes findet. In dem eigenen Sein des Menschen sucht er den Quell aller Wahrheit, die inneren Erlebnisse der Seele erklärt er für das Fundament der Erkenntnis. Aber die christliche Glaubenslehre hat an den Ort, an dem er suchte, den außermenschlichen Inhalt gelegt. Deshalb fand er an dem rechten Orte die unrechten Wesenheiten.
[ 61 ] Es folgt nun eine jahrhundertelange Anstrengung des menschlichen Denkens, die keinen andern Zweck hatte, als mit Aufwendung aller Kraft des menschlichen Geistes den Beweis zu erbringen, daß der Inhalt dieses Geistes nicht in diesem Geiste, sondern an dem Orte zu suchen sei, wohin ihn der christliche Glaube versetzt hat. Die Gedankenbewegung, die aus dieser Anstrengung hervorwuchs, wird als Scholastik bezeichnet. In diesem Zusammenhange können all die Spitzfindigkeiten der Scholastiker nicht interessieren. Denn eine Entwickelung nach der Richtung hin, in der die Erkenntnis des persönlichen Ich liegt, bedeutet diese Ideenbewegung nicht im geringsten.
[ 62 ] Wie dicht die Nebelwolke war, welche das Christentum vor die menschliche Selbsterkenntnis geschoben hat, wird am offenbarsten durch die Tatsache, daß der abendländische Geist nun überhaupt unfähig wurde, rein aus sich heraus auch nur einen Schritt auf dem Wege zu dieser Selbsterkenntnis zu machen. Er bedurfte eines zwingenden Anstoßes von außen. Er konnte auf dem Grunde der Seele nicht finden, was er so lange in der Außenwelt gesucht hatte. Es wurde ihm aber der Beweis erbracht: diese Außenwelt kann gar nicht so geartet sein, daß er das Wesen, das er suchte, in ihr finden konnte. Dies geschah durch das Aufblühen der Naturwissenschaften im sechzehnten Jahrhundert. Solange der Mensch von der Beschaffenheit der natürlichen Vorgänge nur unvollkommene Vorstellungen hatte, war in der Außenwelt Raum für göttliche Wesenheiten und für das Wirken eines persönlichen, göttlichen Willens. Als aber Kopernikus und Kepler ein natürliches Bild der Welt entwarfen, war für ein christliches kein Platz mehr vorhanden. Und als Galilei die Fundamente zu einer Erklärung der natürlichen Vorgänge durch Naturgesetze legte, mußte der Glaube an die göttlichen Gesetze ins Wanken kommen.
[ 63 ] Nun mußte man das Wesen, das der Mensch als das höchste anerkennt und das ihm aus der Außenwelt herausgedrängt wurde, auf einem neuen Wege suchen.
[ 64 ] Die philosophischen Folgerungen der durch Kopernikus, Kepler und Galilei gegebenen Voraussetzungen zog Baco von Verulam. Sein Verdienst um die abendländische Weltanschauung ist im Grunde nur ein negatives. Er hat in kräftiger Weise dazu aufgefordert, den Blick frei und unbefangen auf die Wirklichkeit, auf das Leben zu richten. So banal diese Forderung erscheint: es ist doch nicht zu leugnen, daß die abendländische Gedankenentwickelung jahrhundertelang schwer gegen sie gesündigt hat. Unter die wirklichen Dinge gehört auch das eigene Ich des Menschen. Und sieht es nicht fast aus, als wenn es in der Naturanlage des Menschen läge, dieses Ich nicht unbefangen betrachten zu können? Nur die Ausbildung eines vollkommen unbefangenen, unmittelbar auf das Wirkliche gerichteten Sinnes kann zur Selbsterkenntnis führen. Der Weg der Naturerkenntnis ist auch der Weg der Ich-Erkenntnis.
[ 65 ] Es traten nun in der abendländischen Gedankenentwickelung zwei Strömungen auf, die auf verschiedenen Wegen den durch die Naturwissenschaften notwendig gemachten neuen Erkenntniszielen zustrebten. Die eine geht auf Jakob Böhme, die andere auf Rene Descartes zurück.
[ 66 ] Jakob Böhme und Descartes standen nicht mehr im Banne der Scholastik. Jener hat eingesehen, daß es im Weltenraume nirgends einen Platz für den Himmel gibt; deshalb wird er Mystiker. Er sucht den Himmel im Innern des Menschen. Dieser hat erkannt, daß das Haften der Scholastiker an der christlichen Lehre nur eine Sache der durch Jahrhunderte erzeugten Gewöhnung an diese Vorstellungen ist. Deshalb hielt er es für notwendig, zunächst an diesen gewohnten Vorstellungen zu zweifeln und eine Erkenntnisart zu suchen, durch die der Mensch zu einem solchen Wissen kommen kann, dessen Sicherheit er nicht aus Gewohnheit behauptet, sondern die ihm durch die eigenen Geisteskräfte in jedem Augenblick verbürgt werden kann.
[ 67 ] Es sind also starke Ansätze, welche, sowohl bei Böhme wie bei Descartes, das menschliche Ich macht, sich selbst zu erkennen. Dennoch sind beide in ihren weiteren Ausführungen von den alten Vorurteilen überwältigt worden. Es wurde schon angedeutet, daß Jakob Böhme eine gewisse geistige Verwandtschaft mit den Neuplatonikern hat. Seine Erkenntnis ist Einkehr in das eigene Innere. Was ihm aber in diesem Innern entgegentritt, ist nicht das Ich des Menschen, sondern doch wieder nur der Christengott. Er wird gewahr, daß im eigenen Gemüte dasjenige sitzt, wonach der erkenntnisbedürftige Mensch begehrt. Erfüllung der heißesten menschlichen Sehnsuchten strömt ihm von da aus entgegen. Das führt ihn aber nicht zu der Ansicht, daß das Ich durch Steigerung seiner Erkenntniskräfte imstande ist, seine Ansprüche aus sich selbst heraus auch zu befriedigen. Es bringt ihn vielmehr zu der Meinung, auf dem Erkenntniswege in das Gemüt den Gott wahrhaft gefunden zu haben, den das Christentum nur auf einem falschen Wege gesucht habe. Statt Selbsterkenntnis sucht Jakob Böhme Vereinigung mit Gott, statt Leben mit den Schätzen des eigenen Innern sucht er ein Leben in Gott.
[ 68 ] Es ist einleuchtend, daß von der menschlichen Selbsterkenntnis oder Selbstverkennung auch abhängen wird, wie der Mensch über sein Handeln, über sein sittliches Leben denkt. Das Gebiet des Sittlichen baut sich ja gleichsam als höheres Stockwerk über den rein natürlichen Vorgängen auf. Der christliche Glaube, der schon diese natürlichen Vorgänge als Ausfluß des göttlichen Willens ansieht, wird in dem Sittlichen um so mehr diesen Willen suchen. In der christlichen Sittenlehre zeigt sich fast noch klarer als sonst irgendwo das Schiefe dieser Weltanschauung. Welch ungeheure Sophistik auch die Theologie auf diesem Gebiete aufgewendet hat: es bleiben hier Fragen bestehen, die vom Standpunkte des Christentums aus in weithin deutlichen Zügen das Widerspruchsvolle zeigen. Wenn ein solches Urwesen wie der Christengott angenommen wird, so bleibt es unverständlich, wie das Gebiet des Handelns in zwei Reiche zerfallen kann: in das des Guten und das des Bösen. Denn alle Handlungen müßten aus dem Urwesen fließen und folglich die gleichartigen Züge ihres Ursprungs tragen. Sie müßten eben göttlich sein. Ebensowenig ist auf diesem Boden die menschliche Verantwortlichkeit zu erklären. Der Mensch wird ja von dem göttlichen Willen gelenkt. Er kann sich diesem also nur überlassen, er kann nur durch sich geschehen lassen, was Gott vollbringt.
[ 69 ] Genau dasselbe, was auf dem Gebiete der Erkenntnislehre eingetreten ist, hat sich auch innerhalb der Anschauungen über die Sittlichkeit vollzogen. Der Mensch kam seinem Hange entgegen, das eigene Selbst aus sich herauszureißen und als ein Fremdes hinzustellen. Und so wie auf dem Erkenntnisgebiete dem als außermenschlich angesehenen Urwesen kein anderer Inhalt gegeben werden konnte als der aus dem eigenen Innern geschöpfte, so konnten in diesem Wesen auch keine sittlichen Absichten und Antriebe zum Handeln gefunden werden als die eigenen der menschlichen Seele. Wovon der Mensch in seinem tiefsten Innern überzeugt war, daß es geschehen soll, das betrachtete er als das vom Welturwesen Gewollte. Auf diese Weise hatte man auf erhischem Gebiete eine Zweiheit geschaffen. Man stellte dem Selbst, das man in sich hatte und aus dem heraus man handeln mußte, den eigenen Inhalt als das Sittlich-Bestimmende gegenüber. Und dadurch konnten sittliche Forderungen entstehen. Das Selbst des Menschen durfte nicht sich, es mußte einem Fremden folgen. Der Selbstentfremdung auf dem Erkenntnisgebiet entspricht auf dem moralischen Felde die Selbstlosigkeit der Handlungen. Diejenigen Handlungen sind gut, bei denen das Ich dem Fremden folgt, diejenigen dagegen böse, bei denen es sich selbst folgt. In der Selbstsucht sieht das Christentum den Quell des Bösen. Nie hätte das geschehen können, wenn man eingesehen hätte, daß das gesamte Sittliche seinen Inhalt nur aus dem eigenen Selbst schöpfen kann. Man kann die ganze Summe der christlichen Sittenlehre in dem Satze zusammenfassen: Gesteht sich der Mensch ein, daß er nur den Geboten seines eigenen Wesens folgen kann, und handelt er darnach, so ist er böse; verbirgt sich ihm diese Wahrheit und setzt er — oder läßt setzen — die eigenen Gebote als fremde über sich, um ihnen gemäß zu handeln, so ist er gut.
[ 70 ] Vielleicht am vollkommensten durchgeführt ist die Morallehre der Selbstlosigkeit in einem Buche aus dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert: «Die deutsche Theologie». Der Verfasser des Buches ist uns unbekannt. Er hat die Selbstentäußerung so weit getrieben, dafür zu sorgen, daß sein Name nicht auf die Nachwelt komme. In dem Buche heißt es: «Das ist kein wahres Wesen und hat kein Wesen, anders denn in dem Vollkommenen, sondern es ist ein Zufall oder ein Glanz und ein Schein, der kein Wesen ist oder kein Wesen hat, anders als in dem Feuer, wo der Glanz ausfließt, oder in der Sonne, oder in dem Lichte, Die Schrift spricht und der Glaube und die Wahrheit: Sünde sei nichts anderes, denn daß sich die Kreatur abkehrt von dem unwandelbaren Gute und kehret sich zu dem wandelbaren, das ist: daß sie sich kehrt von dem Vollkommenen zu dem Geteilten und Unvollkommenen und allermeist zu sich selber. Nun merke. Wenn sich die Kreatur etwas Gutes annimmt, als Wesens, Lebens, Wissens, Erkennens, Vermögens und kürzlich alles dessen, was man gut nennen soll, und meint, daß sie das sei oder daß es das Ihre sei oder ihr zugehöre oder daß es von ihr sei: so oft und viel dabei geschieht, so kehrt sie sich ab. Was tat der Teufel anders oder was war sein Fall und Abkehren anders, als daß er sich annahm, er wäre auch etwas und etwas wäre sein und ihm gehörte auch etwas zu? Dies Annehmen und sein Ich und sein Mich, sein Mir und sein Mein, das war sein Abkehren und sein Fall. Also ist es noch. — Denn alles das, was man für gut hält oder gut nennen soll, das gehört niemand zu, denn allein dem ewigen, wahren Gut, das Gott allein ist, und wer sich dessen annimmt, der tut Unrecht und wider Gott.»
[ 71 ] Mit der Wendung, die Jakob Böhme dem Verhältnisse des Menschen zu Gott gegeben hat, hängt auch eine Änderung der Anschauungen über das Sittliche gegenüber den alten christlichen Vorstellungen zusammen. Gott wirkt als Veranlasser des Guten zwar noch immer als Höheres in dem menschlichen Selbst, aber er wirkt eben in diesem Selbst, nicht von außen auf dasselbe. Es entsteht dadurch eine Verinnerlichung des sittlichen Handelns. Das übrige Christentum hat nur eine äußere Befolgung des göttlichen Willens verlangt. Bei Jakob Böhme treten die früher getrennten Wesenheiten, das wirkliche Persönliche und das zum Gott gemachte, in einen lebendigen Zusammenhang. Dadurch wird nun wohl der Quell des Sittlichen in das menschliche Innere verlegt, aber das ethische Prinzip der Selbstlosigkeit erscheint noch stärker betont. Wird Gott als äußere Macht angesehen, so ist das menschliche Selbst das eigentlich Handelnde. Es handelt entweder im Sinne Gottes oder diesem entgegen. Wird aber Gott in das menschliche Innere verlegt, so handelt der Mensch nicht mehr selber, sondern Gott in ihm. Gott lebt sich unmittelbar in dem menschlichen Leben dar. Der Mensch verzichtet darauf, ein eigenes Leben zu haben, er macht sich zu einem Gliede des göttlichen Lebens. Er fühlt sich in Gott, Gott in sich, er wächst mit dem Urwesen zusammen, er wird ein Organ desselben.
[ 72 ] In dieser deutschen Mystik hat der Mensch also seine Teilnahme am göttlichen Leben mit der vollständigsten Auslöschung seiner Persönlichkeit, seines Ich erkauft. Den Verlust des Persönlichen fühlten Jakob Böhme und die Mystiker, die seiner Anschauung waren, nicht. Im Gegenteil: sie empfanden etwas besonders Erhebendes bei dem Gedanken, daß sie des göttlichen Lebens unmittelbar teilhaftig seien, daß sie Glieder am göttlichen Organismus seien. Der Organismus kann ja nicht bestehen, ohne seine Glieder. Der Mystiker fühlte sich deshalb als ein Notwendiges innerhalb des Weltganzen, als ein Wesen, das Gott unentbehrlich ist. — Angelus Silesius, der in demselben Geiste wie Jakob Böhme empfindende Mystiker, spricht das in einem schönen Satze aus:
«Ich weiß, daß ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nu kann leben,
Werd’ ich zu nicht, er muß von Not den Geist aufgeben.»
Und noch charakteristischer in einem andern:
«Gott mag nicht ohne mich ein einzigs Würmlein machen,
Erhalt’ ich’s nicht mit ihm, so muß es stracks zerkrachen.»
[ 73 ] Das menschliche Ich macht hier in kräftigster Weise sein Recht geltend gegenüber seinem in die Außenwelt versetzten Bilde. Dem vermeintlichen Urwesen wird zwar auch hier nicht gesagt, daß es die von dem Menschen sich gegenübergestellte eigene menschliche Wesenheit ist, aber die letztere wird zum Erhalter des göttlichen Urgrundes gemacht.
[ 74 ] Eine starke Empfindung davon, daß der Mensch sich durch seine Gedankenentwickelung in ein schiefes Verhältnis zur Welt gebracht hat, hatte Descartes. Deshalb setzte er zunächst allem, was aus dieser Gedankenentwickelung hervorgegangen war, den Zweifel entgegen. Nur wenn man an allem zweifelt, was die Jahrhunderte als Wahrheiten entwickelt haben, kann man — nach seiner Meinung — die notwendige Unbefangenheit gewinnen für einen neuen Ausgangspunkt. Es lag in der Natur der Sache, daß Descartes durch diesen seinen Zweifel auf das menschliche Ich geführt wurde. Denn je mehr der Mensch alles übrige als ein noch zu Suchendes hinstellt, ein desto intensiveres Gefühl muß er von seiner eigenen suchenden Persönlichkeit erhalten. Er kann sich sagen: vielleicht irre ich auf den Wegen des Daseins; um so deutlicher nur wird er auf sich selbst, den Irrenden, gewiesen. Das «Cogito, ergo sum» (ich denke, also bin ich) des Descartes ist ein solcher Hinweis. Descartes dringt auch noch weiter. Er hat ein Bewußtsein davon, daß die Art, wie der Mensch über sich selbst zur Erkenntnis kommt, vorbildlich für alle anderen Erkenntnisse sein soll, die er zu erwerben trachtet. Als hervorstechendste Eigenschaften der Selbsterkenntnis erscheinen Descartes die Klarheit und die Deutlichkeit, Diese beiden Eigenschaften fordert er deshalb auch von allen übrigen Erkenntnissen. Was der Mensch ebenso klar und deutlich einsieht wie sein eigenes Sein: das kann allein als gewiß gelten.
[ 75 ] Damit ist wenigstens nach einer Richtung hin die absolut zentrale Stellung des Ich im Weltganzen anerkannt, nach der Richtung der Methode des Erkennens. Der Mensch richtet das Wie seiner Welterkenntnis nach dem Wie seiner Selbsterkenntnis ein und fragt nicht mehr nach einem äußeren Wesen, um dieses Wie zu rechtfertigen. Nicht wie ein Gott das Erkennen vorschreibt, will der Mensch denken, sondern wie er es sich selbst einrichtet. Hinsichtlich des Wie zieht der Mensch die Kraft seiner Weisheit nunmehr aus sich selbst.
[ 76 ] In bezug auf das Was tat Descartes nicht den gleichen Schritt. Er ging daran, Vorstellungen über die Welt zu gewinnen, und durchsuchte — dem eben angeführten Erkenntnisprinzip gemäß — das eigene Innere nach solchen Vorstellungen. Da fand er die Gottesvorstellung. Sie war natürlich nichts weiter als die Vorstellung des menschlichen Ich. Das erkannte Descartes nicht. Er wurde dadurch getäuscht, daß die Idee von Gott als dem allervollkommensten Wesen sein Denken in eine ganz falsche Bahn brachte. Die eine Eigenschaft, die der allergrößten Vollkommenheit, überstrahlte für ihn alle übrigen des zentralen Wesens. Er sagte sich: die Vorstellung eines allervollkommensten Wesens kann der Mensch, der selbst unvollkommen ist, nicht aus sich selbst schöpfen, also kann sie ihm nur von außen, von dem allervollkommensten Wesen selbst kommen. Somit existiert dieses allervollkommenste Wesen. Hätte Descartes den wahren Inhalt der Gottesvorstellung untersucht, so hätte er gefunden, daß dieser vollkommen gleich der Ich-Vorstellung und die Vollkommenheit nur eine im Gedanken vollzogene Steigerung dieses Inhalts ist. Der wesentliche Inhalt einer Elfenbeinkugel wird dadurch nicht geändert, daß ich sie mir unendlich groß denke. Ebensowenig wird aus der Ich-Vorstellung durch eine solche Steigerung etwas anderes.
[ 77 ] Der von Descartes geführte Beweis des Daseins Gottes ist also wieder nichts als eine Umschreibung des menschlichen Bedürfnisses, das eigene Ich als außermenschliches Wesen zum Weltengrunde zu machen. Hier zeigt es sich aber gerade mit voller Deutlichkeit, daß der Mensch für dies außermenschliche Urwesen keinen eigenen Inhalt gewinnen, sondern ihm nur denjenigen seiner Ich-Vorstellung in unwesentlich geänderter Form leihen kann.
[ 78 ] Mit Spinoza ist auf dem Wege, der zur Eroberung der Ich-Vorstellung führen muß, kein Schritt vorwärts, sondern einer zurück getan worden. Denn Spinoza hat kein Gefühl von der einzigartigen Stellung des menschlichen Ich. Für ihn erschöpft sich der Strom der Weltvorgänge in einem System von natürlichen Notwendigkeiten, wie er sich für die christlichen Philosophen in einem System von göttlichen Willensakten erschöpft. Hier wie dort ist das menschliche Ich nur ein Glied in diesem System. Für den Christen ist der Mensch in der Hand Gottes, für Spinoza in derjenigen des natürlichen Weltgeschehens. Der Christengott hat bei Spinoza einen anderen Charakter erhalten. Der in der Zeit des Aufblühens naturwissenschaftlicher Einsichten herangewachsene Philosoph kann keinen Gott anerkennen, der nach Willkür die Welt lenkt, sondern nur ein Urwesen, das existiert, weil seine Existenz durch es selbst eine Notwendigkeit ist, und das den Weltenlauf nach den unabänderlichen Gesetzen leitet, die aus seiner eigenen absolut notwendigen Wesenheit fließen. Daß der Mensch das Bild, unter dem er sich diese Notwendigkeit vorstellt, seinem eigenen Inhalte entnimmt, davon hat Spinoza kein Bewußtsein. Aus diesem Grunde wird auch das sittliche Ideal Spinozas ein unpersönliches, unindividuelles. Nach seinen Voraussetzungen kann er ja nicht in der Vervollkommnung des Ich, in der Steigerung der eigenen Kräfte des Menschen ein Ideal erblicken, sondern in der Durchdringung des Ich mit dem göttlichen Weltinhalte, mit der höchsten Erkenntnis des objektiven Gottes. Sich an diesen Gott zu verlieren, soll Ziel des menschlichen Strebens sein.
[ 79 ] Der Weg, den Descartes eingeschlagen hatte: vom Ich aus zur Welterkenntnis vorzudringen, wird nunmehr von den Philosophen der Neuzeit fortgesetzt. Die christlich-theologische Methode, die kein Vertrauen in die Kraft des menschlichen Ichs als Erkenntnisorgan hatte, war wenigstens überwunden. Das eine wurde anerkannt, daß das Ich selbst das höchste Wesen finden müsse. Von da bis zu dem anderen Punkte, bis zu der Einsicht, daß der im Ich liegende Inhalt auch das höchste Wesen ist, ist freilich ein weiter Weg.
[ 80 ] Weniger tiefsinnig als Descartes gingen die englischen Philosophen Locke und Hume an die Untersuchung der Wege, die das menschliche Ich einschlägt, um zu einer Aufklärung über sich und die Welt zu kommen. Beiden ging vor allen Dingen eines ab: der gesunde, freie Blick in das menschliche Innere. Sie konnten daher auch keine Vorstellung von dem großen Unterschied bekommen, der besteht zwischen der Erkenntnis äußerer Dinge und derjenigen des menschlichen Ich. Alles, was sie sagen, bezieht sich nur auf die Erwerbung äußerer Erkenntnisse. Locke übersieht vollständig, daß der Mensch, indem er sich über die äußeren Dinge aufklärt, über diese ein Licht verbreitet, das seinem eigenen Innern entströmt. Er glaubt daher, daß alle Erkenntnisse aus der Erfahrung stammen. Aber was ist Erfahrung? Galilei sieht eine schwingende Kirchenlampe. Sie führt ihn dazu, die Gesetze zu finden, nach denen ein Körper schwingt. Er hat zweierlei erfahren: erstens durch seine Sinne äußere Vorgänge. Zweitens aus sich heraus die Vorstellung eines Gesetzes, das über diese Vorgänge aufklärt, sie begreiflich macht. Man kann nun natürlich das eine wie das andere Erfahrung nennen. Aber dann verkennt man eben den Unterschied, der zwischen den beiden Teilen des Erkenntnisvorganges besteht. Ein Wesen, das nicht aus dem Inhalt seines Wesens heraus schöpfen könnte, würde ewig vor der schwingenden Kirchenlampe stehen: die sinnliche Wahrnehmung würde sich nie durch ein begriffliches Gesetz ergänzen. Locke und alle, die so denken wie er, lassen sich durch etwas täuschen — nämlich durch die Art, wie die Erkenntnisinhalte an uns herankommen. Sie steigen eben einfach auf dem Horizonte unseres Bewußtseins auf. Dieses Aufsteigen bildet die Erfahrung. Aber anerkannt werden muß, daß der Inhalt der Erfahrungsgesetze von dem Ich an den Erfahrungen entwickelt wird. Bei Hume zeigt sich zweierlei. Einmal, daß dieser Mann, wie schon erwähnt, die Natur des Ich nicht erkennt und deshalb gerade so wie Locke den Inhalt der Gesetze aus der Erfahrung ableitet. Und dann, daß dieser Inhalt durch Loslösung von dem Ich völlig sich ins Ungewisse verliert, frei in der Luft ohne Halt und Grundlage hängt. Hume erkennt, daß die äußere Erfahrung nur unzusammenhängende Vorgänge überliefert; sie bietet mit diesen Vorgängen zusammen nicht zugleich die Gesetze, nach denen sie verknüpft sind. Da von dem Wesen des Ich Hume nichts weiß, kann er aus ihm auch nicht die Berechtigung zu solcher Verknüpfung ableiten. Er leitet sie daher aus dem vagsten Ursprung her, der sich denken läßt, aus der Gewöhnung. Der Mensch sieht, daß auf einen gewissen Vorgang immer ein anderer folgt; auf den Fall des Steines folgt die Aushöhlung des Bodens, auf den er fällt. Folglich gewöhnt sich der Mensch daran, solche Vorgänge in einer Verknüpfung zu denken. Alle Erkenntnis verliert ihre Bedeutung, wenn man von solchen Voraussetzungen ausgeht. Die Verbindung der Vorgänge und ihrer Gesetze gewinnt etwas rein Zufälliges.
[ 81 ] Einen Mann, dem das schöpferische Wesen des Ich voll zum Bewußtsein gekommen ist, sehen wir in George Berkeley. Er hatte eine deutliche Vorstellung von der eigenen Tätigkeit des Ich beim Zustandekommen aller Erkenntnis. Wenn ich einen Gegenstand sche, sagte er sich, so bin ich tätig. Ich schaffe mir meine Wahrnehmung. Der Gegenstand einer Wahrnehmung bliebe immer jenseits meines Bewußtseins, er wäre für mich nicht da, wenn ich sein totes Dasein nicht fortwährend durch meine Tätigkeit belebte. Nur diese meine belebende Tätigkeit nehme ich wahr, nicht das, was ihr objektiv als toter Gegenstand vorangeht. Wohin ich in meiner Bewußtseinssphäre blicke: überall sehe ich mich selbst als 'Tätiges, als Schaffendes. In Berkeleys Denken gewinnt das Ich ein universelles Leben. Was weiß ich von einem Sein der Dinge, wenn ich dieses Sein nicht vorstelle?
[ 82 ] Aus schaffenden Geistern, die aus sich heraus eine Welt bilden, besteht für Berkeley die Welt. Aber auf dieser Stufe der Erkenntnis trat auch bei ihm das alte Vorurteil wieder auf. Er läßt das Ich sich zwar seine Welt schaffen, aber er gibt ihm nicht zugleich die Kraft, aus sich selbst zu schaffen. Es muß doch wieder eine Gottesvorstellung herhalten. Das schaffende Prinzip im Ich ist Gott, auch bei ihm.
[ 83 ] Dieser Philosoph aber zeigt uns eines. Wer sich wirklich in das Wesen des schaffenden Ichs versenkt, der kommt aus demselben nicht wieder heraus zu einem äußeren Wesen, es sei denn auf gewaltsame Weise. Und gewaltsam geht Berkeley vor. Er führt ohne zwingende Notwendigkeit das Schaffen des Ich auf Gott zurück. Frühere Philosophen entleerten das Ich seines Inhaltes, und dadurch hatten sie für ihren Gott einen solchen. Berkeley tut das nicht. Deshalb vermag er nichts anderes, als neben die schöpferischen Geister noch einen besonderen zu setzen, der im Grunde mit ihnen völlig gleichartig, das heißt also doch wohl unnötig ist.
[ 84 ] Noch auffälliger wird das bei dem deutschen Philosophen Leibniz. Auch er hatte Einblick in die schöpferische Tätigkeit des Ich. Er überblickte den Umfang dieser Tätigkeit ganz deutlich und sah ihre innere Geschlossenheit, ihr Beruhen auf sich selbst. Eine Welt für sich, eine Monade wurde ihm deshalb das Ich. Und alles, was Dasein hat, kann es nur dadurch haben, daß es sich selbst einen geschlossenen Inhalt gibt. Nur Monaden, das heißt aus sich und in sich schaffende Wesen existieren. Abgetrennte Welten für sich, die auf nichts außer ihnen angewiesen sind. Welten bestehen, keine Welt. Jeder Mensch ist eine Welt, eine Monade für sich. Wenn nun diese Welten doch miteinander übereinstimmen, wenn sie voneinander wissen und die Inhalte ihres Wissens sich denken, so kann das nur davon herrühren, daß eine vorherbestimmte Übereinstimmung (prästabilierte Harmonie) besteht. Die Welt ist eben so eingerichtet, daß die eine Monade aus sich schafft, was der Tätigkeit in der andern entspricht. Zur Herbeiführung dieser Übereinstimmung braucht Leibniz natürlich wieder den alten Gott. Er hat erkannt, daß das Ich in seinem Innern tätig, schöpferisch ist, daß es sich selbst seinen Inhalt gibt; daß es selbst auch diesen Inhalt zu dem anderen Weltinhalt in Beziehung setzt, ist ihm verborgen geblieben. Dadurch ist er von der Gottesvorstellung nicht losgekommen. Von den zwei Forderungen, die in dem Goetheschen Satze liegen: «Kenne ich mein Verhältnis zu mir selbst und zur Außenwelt, so heiß’ ich’s Wahrheit», hat er nur die eine eingesehen.
[ 85 ] Ein ganz bestimmtes Gepräge zeigt diese europäische Gedankenentwickelung. Das Beste, was der Mensch erkennen kann, muß er aus sich schöpfen. Er übt in der Tat Selbsterkenntnis. Aber er schreckt immer wieder vor dem Gedanken zurück, das Selbstgeschaffene auch als solches anzuerkennen. Er fühlt sich zu schwach, um die Welt zu tragen. Deshalb lädt er diese Bürde einem andern auf. Und die Ziele, die er sich selbst steckt, würden für ihn von ihrem Gewichte verlieren, wenn er sich ihren Ursprung eingestünde, deshalb belastet er sie mit Kräften, die er von außerhalb zu nehmen glaubt. Der Mensch verherrlicht sein Kind, ohne doch die Vaterschaft zugestehen zu wollen.
[ 86 ] Trotz der entgegengesetzten Strömungen ist die menschliche Selbsterkenntnis stetig fortgeschritten. Auf dem Punkte, wo sie anfing, für allen Jenseitsglauben recht bedenklich zu werden, traf sie Kant. Die Einsicht in die Natur des menschlichen Erkennens hat die Überzeugungskraft aller Beweise erschüttert, die ersonnen worden sind, um einen solchen Glauben zu stützen. Man hat allmählich eine Vorstellung von wirklichen Erkenntnissen bekommen und durchschaute deshalb das Gekünstelte, Gequälte der Scheinideen, welche über die außerweltlichen Mächte Aufklärung geben sollten. Ein frommer, gläubiger Mann wie Kant konnte befürchten, daß die Fortentwickelung auf dieser Bahn zur Auflösung alles Glaubens führen werde. Seinem tiefen religiösen Sinn mußte das als ein bevorstehendes großes Unglück für die Menschheit erscheinen. Aus der Angst vor der Zerstörung der religiösen Vorstellungen heraus entstand für ihn das Bedürfnis, einmal gründlich zu untersuchen: wie es mit dem Verhältnisse des menschlichen Erkennens zu den Gegenständen des Glaubens stehe. Wie ist Erkennen möglich, und auf was kann es sich erstrecken? Das ist die Frage, die Kant sich stellte, wohl vom Anfang an in der Hoffnung, aus seiner Antwort eine der festesten Stützen für den Glauben gewinnen zu können.
[ 87 ] Zweierlei nahm Kant von seinen Vorgängern auf. Erstens, daß es unbezweifelbare Erkenntnisse gebe. Die Wahrheiten der reinen Mathematik und die allgemeinen Lehren der Logik und Physik erschienen ihm als solche. Zweitens stützte er sich auf Hume mit der Behauptung, daß aus der Erfahrung keine unbedingt sicheren Wahrheiten kommen können. Die Erfahrung lehrt nur, daß wir gewisse Zusammenhänge soundso oft beobachtet haben, ob diese Zusammenhänge auch notwendige seien, darüber kann durch Erfahrung nichts ausgemacht werden. Wenn es, wie unzweifelhaft, notwendige Wahrheiten gibt und sie nicht aus der Erfahrung stammen können: woher stammen sie denn? Sie müssen in der menschlichen Seele vor der Erfahrung vorhanden sein. Nun kommt es darauf an, zu unterscheiden, was von den Erkenntnissen aus der Erfahrung stammt und was dieser Erkenntnisquelle nicht entnommen werden kann. Die Erfahrung geschieht dadurch, daß ich Eindrücke erhalte. Diese Eindrücke sind durch die Empfindungen gegeben. Der Inhalt dieser Empfindungen kann uns auf keine andere Weise als durch Erfahrung gegeben werden. Aber diese Empfindungen, wie Licht, Farbe, Klang, Wärme, Härte und so weiter, böten ein chaotisches Durcheinander, wenn sie nicht in gewisse Zusammenhänge gebracht würden. In diesen Zusammenhängen bilden die Empfindungsinhalte erst die Gegenstände der Erfahrung. Ein Gegenstand setzt sich aus einer bestimmt geordneten Gruppe von Empfindungsinhalten zusammen. Die Empfindungsinhalte in Gruppen zu ordnen, das vollzieht nach Kants Meinung die menschliche Seele. In ihr sind gewisse Prinzipien vorhanden, durch welche die Mannigfaltigkeit der Empfindungen in gegenständliche Einheiten gebracht werden. Solche Prinzipien sind der Raum, die Zeit und Verknüpfungsweisen, wie zum Beispiel die nach Ursache und Wirkung. Die Empfindungsinhalte sind mir gegeben, nicht aber ihre räumliche Aneinanderreihung oder zeitliche Folge. Diese beiden bringt erst der Mensch hinzu. Ebenso ist ein Empfindungsinhalt gegeben und ein anderer, nicht aber das, daß der eine die Ursache des andern ist. Dazu macht sie erst der Verstand. So liegen in der menschlichen Seele die Verknüpfungsweisen der Empfindungsinhalte ein für allemal bereit. Können wir also nur durch Erfahrung uns in den Besitz von Empfindungsinhalten setzen, so können wir doch vor aller Erfahrung Gesetze darüber aufstellen, wie diese Empfindungsinhalte verknüpft sein werden. Denn diese Gesetze sind die in unserer eigenen Seele gegebenen. — Wir haben also notwendige Erkenntnisse. Aber diese beziehen sich nicht auf einen Inhalt, sondern nur auf die Verknüpfungsweise von Inhalten. Nimmermehr werden wir daher nach Kants Meinung aus den eigenen Gesetzen der menschlichen Seele inhaltvolle Erkenntnisse herausschöpfen. Der Inhalt muß durch die Erfahrung kommen. Nun können die Gegenstände des Jenseitsglaubens aber nie Gegenstand einer Erfahrung werden. Sie können daher auch nicht durch unsere notwendigen Erkenntnisse erreicht werden. Wir haben ein Erfahrungswissen und ein anderes notwendiges erfahrungsfreies Wissen darüber, wie die Inhalte der Erfahrung verknüpft sein können. Aber wir haben kein Wissen, das über die Erfahrung hinausgeht. Die uns umgebende Welt der Gegenstände ist, wie sie nach den in unserer Seele bereitliegenden Verknüpfungsgesetzen sein muß. Wie sie, abgesehen von diesen Gesetzen, «an sich» ist, wissen wir nicht. Die Welt, auf die sich unser Wissen bezieht, ist kein solches «An-sich», sondern eine Erscheinung für uns.
[ 88 ] Natürliche Einwände gegen diese Kantschen Ausführungen drängen sich dem Unbefangenen auf. Der prinzipielle Unterschied zwischen den Einzelheiten (Empfindungsinhalten) und der Verknüpfungsweise dieser Einzelheiten besteht in bezug auf die Erkenntnis nicht in der Weise, wie Kant es annimmt. Wenn auch das eine von außen sich uns darbietet, das andere aus unserem Innern herauskommt, so bilden beide Elemente der Erkenntnis doch eine ungetrennte Einheit. Nur der abstrahierende Verstand kann Licht, Wärme, Härte und so weiter von räumlicher Anordnung, ursächlichem Zusammenhang und so weiter abtrennen. In Wirklichkeit dokumentieren sie an jedem einzelnen Gegenstande ihre notwendige Zusammengehörigkeit. Auch die Bezeichnung des einen Elementes als Inhalt gegenüber dem andern als bloß verknüpfenden Prinzips ist schief. In Wahrheit ist die Erkenntnis, daß etwas eine Ursache von einem andern ist, eine ebenso inhaltliche wie die, daß es gelb ist. Wenn sich der Gegenstand aus zwei Elementen zusammensetzt, von denen das eine von außen, das andere von innen gegeben ist, so folgt daraus, daß für das Erkennen auf zwei Wegen vermittelt wird, was der Sache nach zusammengehört. Nicht aber, daß man es mit zwei voneinander verschiedenen, künstlich zusammengekoppelten Sachen zu tun hat. — Nur durch eine gewaltsame Trennung von Zusammengehörigem kann also Kant seine Ansicht stützen. Am auffälligsten ist die Zusammengehörigkeit der beiden Elemente bei der Erkenntnis des menschlichen Ich. Hier kommt nicht das eine von außen, das andere von innen, sondern beide gehen aus dem Innern hervor. Und beide sind hier nicht nur ein Inhalt, sondern auch ein völlig gleichgearteter Inhalt.
[ 89 ] Worauf es Kant ankam, was als Herzenswunsch seine Gedanken mehr lenkte als ein unbefangenes Beobachten der wirklichen Wesenheiten, war die Rettung der auf das Jenseits bezüglichen Lehren. Was das Wissen im Laufe einer langen Zeit als Stütze dieser Lehren zustande gebracht hatte, war morsch geworden. Kant glaubte nun gezeigt zu haben, daß ein solcher Beweis der Erkenntnis überhaupt nicht zukomme, weil sie auf die Erfahrung angewiesen ist und die Dinge des Jenseitsglaubens nicht Gegenstand einer Erfahrung werden können. Kant meinte damit ein freies Feld geschaffen zu haben, auf dem ihm die Erkenntnis nicht störend in die Wege tritt, wenn er auf demselben den Jenseitsglauben aufbaut. Und er verlangt, daß als Stütze des sittlichen Lebens an die Dinge des Jenseits geglaubt werde. Aus dem Reiche, aus dem uns kein Wissen kommt, tönt zu uns die Despotenstimme des kategorischen Imperativs, der von uns verlangt, daß wir das Gute tun sollen. Und zur Aufrichtung des moralischen Reiches brauchten wir eben alles das, worüber das Wissen nichts sagen kann. Kant glaubte erreicht zu haben, was er wollte: «Ich mußte also das Wissen aufheben, um zum Glauben Platz zu bekommen.»
[ 90 ] Der große Philosoph der abendländischen Gedankenentwickelung, der in unmittelbarer Weise auf eine Erkenntnis des menschlichen Selbstbewußtseins ausging, ist Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Für ihn ist es bezeichnend, daß er ohne alle Voraussetzung mit völliger Unbefangenheit an diese Erkenntnis herangeht. Er hat das klare, scharfe Bewußtsein davon, daß nirgends in der Welt ein Wesen zu entdecken ist, von dem das Ich abgeleitet werden könnte. Es kann deshalb nur aus sich selbst abgeleitet werden. Nirgends ist eine Kraft zu entdecken, aus der das Sein des Ich fließt. Alles, was das Ich braucht, kann es nur aus sich selbst gewinnen. Nicht bloß gewinnt es durch Selbstbeobachtung Aufschluß über sein eigenes Wesen, es setzt erst durch eine unbedingte, voraussetzungslose Handlung dieses Wesen in sich hinein. «Das Ich setzt sich selbst, und es ist, vermöge dieses bloßen Setzens durch sich selbst; und umgekehrt: das Ich ist, und setzt sein Sein, vermöge seines bloßen Seins. Es ist zugleich das Handelnde und das Produkt seiner Handlung; das Tätige, und das, was durch die Tätigkeit hervorgebracht wird; Handlung und Tat sind ein und dasselbe; und daher ist das: Ich bin, Ausdruck einer Tathandlung.» Völlig unbeirrt durch den Umstand, daß frühere Philosophen das Wesen, das er da beschreibt, außer den Menschen versetzt haben, naiv betrachtet Fichte das Ich. Deshalb wird das Ich ihm naturgemäß zum höchsten Wesen. «Dasjenige, dessen Sein (Wesen) bloß darin besteht, daß es sich selbst als seiend setzt, ist das Ich, als absolutes Subjekt. So wie es sich setzt, ist es, und so wie es ist, setzt es sich: und das Ich ist demnach für das Ich schlechthin und notwendig. Was für sich selbst nicht ist, ist kein Ich... Man hört wohl die Frage aufwerfen: was war ich wohl, ehe ich zum Selbstbewußtsein kam? Die natürliche Antwort darauf ist: ich war gar nicht; denn ich war nicht Ich... Sich selbst setzen und Sein sind, vom Ich gebraucht, völlig gleich.» Die vollständige, lichte Klarheit über das eigene Ich, die rücksichtslose Aufhellung des persönlichen, menschlichen Wesens tritt damit an den Anfang des menschlichen Denkens. Die Folge davon muß sein, daß von hier aus der Mensch an die Eroberung der Welt geht. Die zweite der oben genannten Goetheschen Forderungen: Erkenntnis meines Verhältnisses zur Welt, schließt sich an die erste: Erkenntnis des Verhältnisses, das das Ich zu sich selbst hat. Von diesen beiden Verhältnissen wird diese auf Selbsterkenntnis gebaute Philosophie sprechen. Nicht von der Herleitung der Welt aus einem Urwesen. Man kann nun fragen: soll denn der Mensch sein eigenes Wesen an die Stelle des Urwesens setzen, in das er den Weltursprung verlegt? Kann sich denn gar der Mensch selbst zum Ausgangspunkte der Welt machen? Demgegenüber muß betont werden, daß diese Frage nach dem Weltursprung aus einer niederen Sphäre stammt. Im Verlauf der Vorgänge, die uns von der Wirklichkeit gegeben sind, suchen wir zu den Ereignissen die Ursachen, zu den Ursachen wieder andere Ursachen und so weiter. Wir dehnen nun den Begriff der Verursachung aus. Wir suchen nach einer letzten Ursache der ganzen Welt. Und auf diese Weise verschmilzt für uns der Begriff des ersten, absoluten, durch sich selbst notwendigen Urwesens mit der Idee der Weltursache. Doch ist das eine bloße Begriffskonstruktion. Wenn der Mensch solche Begriffskonstruktionen aufstellt, brauchen sie nicht auch eine Berechtigung zu haben. Der Begriff des fliegenden Drachen hat auch keine. Fichte geht von dem Ich als Urwesen aus, und er gelangt zu Ideen, die das Verhältnis dieses Urwesens zur übrigen Welt unbefangen, aber nicht unter dem Bilde von Ursache und Wirkung darstellen. Von dem Ich aus sucht nun Fichte die Ideen zum Begreifen der übrigen Welt zu gewinnen. Wer sich über die Natur dessen, was man Wissen oder Erkenntnis nennen kann, nicht täuschen will, kann nicht anders verfahren. Alles, was der Mensch über das Wesen der Dinge sagen kann, ist den Erlebnissen seines Innern entlehnt. «Der Mensch begreift niemals, wie anthropomorphisch er ist» (Goethe). In der Erklärung einfachster Erscheinungen, zum Beispiel in derjenigen des Stoßes zweier Körper, liegt ein Anthropomorphismus. Das Urteil: der eine Körper stößt den andern, ist bereits anthropomorphistisch. Denn man muß, wenn man über das hinauskommen will, was die Sinne über den Vorgang aussagen, das Erlebnis auf ihn übertragen, das unser Körper hat, wenn er einen Körper der Außenwelt in Bewegung setzt. Wir übertragen unser Erlebnis des Stoßens auf den Vorgang der Außenwelt und sprechen auch da von Stoß, wo wir eine Kugel heranrollen und in der Folge eine zweite weiterrollen sehen. Denn nur die Bewegungen der beiden Kugeln können wir beobachten, den Stoß denken wir im Sinne der eigenen Erlebnisse hinzu. Alle physikalischen Erklärungen sind Anthropomorphismen, Vermenschlichungen der Natur. Daraus folgt natürlich aber nicht, was so oft daraus gefolgert wird, daß diese Erklärungen keine objektive Bedeutung für die Dinge haben. Ein Teil des objektiven, in den Dingen liegenden Gehalts kommt eben erst zum Vorschein, wenn wir über sie das Licht verbreiten, das wir in unserm eigenen Innern wahrnehmen.
[ 91 ] Wer im Sinne Fichtes das Wesen des Ich ganz auf sich selbst stellt, kann auch die Quellen des sittlichen Handelns nur in dem Ich allein finden. Nicht mit einem andern Wesen kann das Ich die Übereinstimmung suchen, sondern nur mit sich selbst. Es läßt sich seine Bestimmung nicht vorschreiben, sondern gibt sich selbst eine solche. Handle nach dem Grundsatze, daß du dein Handeln als das möglichst wertvolle ansehen kannst. So etwa müßte man den obersten Satz der Fichteschen Sittenlehre aussprechen. «Der wesentliche Charakter des Ich, wodurch es sich von allem, was außer ihm ist, unterscheidet, besteht in einer Tendenz zur Selbsttätigkeit um der Selbsttätigkeit willen; und diese Tendenz ist es, was gedacht wird, wenn das Ich an und für sich, ohne alle Beziehung auf etwas außer ihm gedacht wird.» Eine Handlung steht also auf einer um so höheren Stufe der sittlichen Wertschätzung, je reiner sie aus der Selbsttätigkeit und Selbstbestimmung des Ich fließt.
[ 92 ] Fichte hat in seinem späteren Leben sein auf sich gestelltes, absolutes Ich wieder in den äußeren Gott zurückverwandelt und dadurch der aus der menschlichen Schwäche stammenden Selbstentäußerung die wahre Selbsterkenntnis, zu der er so wichtige Schritte getan, zum Opfer gebracht. Für den Fortschritt dieser Selbsterkenntnis sind daher die letzten Schriften Fichtes ohne Bedeutung.
[ 93 ] Wichtig aber für diesen Fortschritt sind die philosophischen Schriften Schillers. Hat Fichte die auf sich gebaute Selbständigkeit des Ich als allgemeine philosophische Wahrheit ausgesprochen, so war es Schiller mehr um die Beantwortung der Frage zu tun: wie das besondere Ich der einzelnen menschlichen Individualität diese Selbsttätigkeit im besten Sinne in sich ausleben könne. — Kant hatte ausdrücklich die Unterdrückung der Lust als Voraussetzung des sittlichen Handelns gefordert. Nicht, was dem Menschen Befriedigung gewährt, soll er vollbtingen, sondern dasjenige, was der kategorische Imperativ von ihm fordert. Eine Handlung ist nach seiner Ansicht um so moralischer, je mehr sie mit Niederschlagung aller Lustgefühle aus bloßer Achtung vor dem strengen Sittengesetz vollzogen ist. In dieser Forderung scheint für Schiller etwas zu liegen, was die menschliche Würde herabsetzt. Ist denn der Mensch in seinem Lustverlangen wirklich ein so niedriges Wesen, daß er diese seine niedere Natur erst ausschalten muß, wenn er tugendhaft sein will? Schiller tadelt eine solche Herabwürdigung des Menschen in der Xenie:
«Gerne dien ich den Freunden, doch tu ich es leider mit Neigung,
Und so wurmt es mir oft, daß ich nicht tugendhaft bin.»
Nein, sagt Schiller, die menschlichen Instinkte sind einer solchen Veredlung fähig, daß es Lust macht, das Gute zu tun. Das strenge Sollen verwandelt sich bei dem veredelten Menschen in ein freies Wollen. Und höher steht der Mensch auf der moralischen Weltleiter, der aus Lust das Sittliche vollbringt, als derjenige, der seinem Wesen erst Gewalt antun muß, um dem kategorischen Imperativ zu gehorchen.
[ 94 ] Schiller hat diese seine Ansicht in seinen «Briefen über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes» ausgeführt. Ihm schwebt die Vorstellung einer freien Individualität vor, die sich ihren egoistischen Trieben ruhig überlassen darf, weil diese Triebe dasjenige aus sich selbst wollen, was von der unfreien, unedlen Persönlichkeit nur vollbracht werden kann, wenn sie ihre eigenen Bedürfnisse unterdrückt. Der Mensch, so führt Schiller aus, kann in zweifacher Hinsicht unfrei sein: erstens, wenn er nur seinen blinden, untergeordneten Instinkten zu folgen fähig ist. Dann handelt er aus Notdurft. Die Triebe zwingen ihn; er ist nicht frei. Zweitens aber handelt auch der Mensch unfrei, der nur seiner Vernunft folgt. Denn die Vernunft stellt die Prinzipien des Handelns nach logischen Regeln auf. Ein bloß der Vernunft folgender Mensch handelt unfrei, weil er sich der logischen Notwendigkeit unterwirft. Frei aus sich selbst heraus handelt nur derjenige, bei dem das Vernünftige so mit seiner Individualität verwachsen ist, ihm so in Fleisch und Blut übergegangen ist, daß er mit größter Lust vollbringt, was der minder sittlich Hochstehende nur durch die äußerste Selbstentäußerung und durch den stärksten Zwang vollziehen kann.
[ 95 ] Den Weg, den Fichte genommen hat, wollte Friedrich Joseph Schelling weiter fortsetzen. Von der unbefangenen Erkenntnis des Ich, die sein Vorgänger erlangt, ging dieser Denker aus. Das Ich war als Wesen erkannt, das sein Dasein aus sich selbst schöpft. Die nächste Aufgabe war, zu diesem auf sich selbst gebauten Ich die Natur in ein Verhältnis zu bringen. Es ist klar: Sollte das Ich nicht wieder das eigentliche höhere Wesen der Dinge in die Außenwelt verlegen, so mußte gezeigt werden, daß es aus sich selbst auch dasjenige schafft, was wir die Gesetze der Natur nennen. Der Bau der Natur mußte also draußen im Raume das materielle System dessen sein, was das Ich in seinem Innern auf geistige Weise erschafft. «Die Natur soll der sichtbare Geist, der Geist die unsichtbare Natur sein. Hier also, in der absoluten Identität des Geistes in uns und der Natur außer uns, muß sich das Problem, wie eine Natur außer uns möglich sei, auflösen.» «Die äußere Welt liegt vor uns aufgeschlagen, um in ihr die Geschichte unseres Geistes wieder zu finden.»
[ 96 ] Schelling beleuchtet also scharf den Vorgang, den die Philosophen so lange falsch gedeutet haben. Er zeigt, daß aus einem Wesen heraus das erklärende Licht auf alle Weltvorgänge fallen muß, daß das Ich ein Wesen in allem Geschehen erkennen kann, aber er stellt dieses Wesen nicht mehr als ein außer dem Ich liegendes hin, er sieht es in dem Ich selbst. Das Ich fühlt sich endlich stark genug, den Inhalt der Welterscheinungen aus sich heraus zu beleben. In welcher Weise Schelling die Natur als eine materielle Ausgestaltung des Ich im einzelnen dargestellt hat, braucht hier nicht ausgeführt zu werden. Darauf kommt es in dieser Darstellung an, zu zeigen, in welcher Weise sich das Ich den Machtbereich wieder zurückerobert, den es im Verlauf der abendländischen Gedankenentwickelung an ein selbstgezeugtes Geschöpf abgetreten hat. Deswegen können in diesem Zusammenhange auch die übrigen Schöpfungen Schellings nicht berücksichtigt werden. Sie bringen höchstens noch Einzelheiten zu der berührten Frage bei. — Gleich wie Fichte kommt auch Schelling von der klaren Selbsterkenntnis wieder ab und sucht die aus dem Selbst fließenden Dinge dann aus anderen Wesenheiten abzuleiten. Die späteren Lehren der beiden Denker sind Rückfälle in Anschauungen, die sie in einem früheren Lebensalter vollkommen überwunden hatten.
[ 97 ] Ein weiterer kühner Versuch, die ganze Welt auf Grund des im Ich liegenden Inhalts zu erklären, ist die Philosophie Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels. Was Fichte mit allerdings unvergleichlichen Worten charakterisiert hat, das Wesen des menschlichen Ich: Hegel suchte seinen ganzen Inhalt allseitig zu durchforschen und darzustellen. Denn auch er sieht dieses Wesen als das eigentliche Urding, als das «An-sich der Dinge» an. Nur macht Hegel ein Eigentümliches. Er entkleidet das Ich alles Individuellen, Persönlichen. Trotzdem es ein echtes, wahres Ich ist, was Hegel den Welterscheinungen zugrunde legt, wirkt es unpersönlich, unindividuell, fern dem intimen, vertrauten Ich, fast wie ein Gott. In solch unnahbarer, streng abstrakter Form legt Hegel das An-sich der Welt, seinem Inhalte nach, in seiner Logik auseinander. Das persönlichste Denken wird hier auf die unpersönlichste Art dargestellt. Die Natur ist nun nach Hegel nichts anderes als der in Raum und Zeit auseinandergelegte Inhalt des Ich. Dieser ideelle Inhalt in seinem Anderssein. «Die Natur ist der sich entfremdete Geist.» Im individuellen Menschengeiste wird Hegels Aufstellung nach das unpersönliche Ich persönlich. Im Selbstbewußtsein ist das Ichwesen nicht nur an sich, es ist auch für sich; der Geist entdeckt, daß der höchste Weltinhalt sein eigener Inhalt ist. — Weil Hegel das Wesen des Ich zunächst unpersönlich zu fassen sucht, bezeichnet er es auch nicht als Ich, sondern als Idee. Hegels Idee ist aber nichts anderes als der von allem persönlichen Charakter freigemachte Inhalt des menschlichen Ich. Dieses Abstrahieren von allem Persönlichen zeigt sich am kräftigsten in Hegels Ansichten über das geistige, das sittliche Leben. Nicht das einzelne persönliche, individuelle Ich des Menschen darf sich seine Bestimmung vorsetzen, sondern das von diesem abstrahierte große, objektive, unpersönliche Welt-Ich, die allgemeine Welt-Vernunft, die Welt-Idee. Dieser aus seinem eigenen Wesen geholten Abstraktion hat sich das individuelle Ich zu fügen. In den rechtlichen, staatlichen, sittlichen Institutionen, in dem geschichtlichen Prozesse hat die Weltidee den objektiven Geist niedergelegt. Diesem objektiven Geiste gegenüber ist der Einzelne minderwertig, zufällig. Hegel wird nicht müde, immer wieder und wieder zu betonen, daß das zufällige Einzel-Ich sich den allgemeinen Ordnungen, dem geschichtlichen Verlauf der geistigen Entwickelung eingliedern müsse. Es ist die Despotie des Geistes über die Träger dieses Geistes, was Hegel verlangt.
[ 98 ] Es ist ein merkwürdiger letzter Rest des alten Gottes- und Jenseitsglaubens, der hier bei Hegel noch auftritt. Alle die Attribute, womit das zum äußeren Weltenherrscher gewordene menschliche Ich einst ausgestattet worden ist, sind fallengelassen, und lediglich das der logischen Allgemeinheit ist geblieben. Die Hegelsche Weltidee ist das menschliche Ich, und Hegels Lehre erkennt das ausdrücklich an, denn auf der Spitze der Kultur gelangt der Mensch nach dieser Lehre dazu, seine volle Identität mit diesem Welt-Ich zu fühlen. In Kunst, Religion und Philosophie sucht der Mensch das Allgemeinste seinem besonderen Sein einzuverleiben, der Einzelgeist durchdringt sich mit der allgemeinen Weltvernunft. Den Verlauf der Weltgeschichte schildert Hegel folgendermaßen: «Werfen wir einen Blick auf das Schicksal der welthistorischen Individuen, so haben sie das Glück gehabt, die Geschäftsführer eines Zweckes zu sein, der eine Stufe in dem Fortschreiten des allgemeinen Geistes war. Indem sich die Vernunft dieser Werkzeuge bedient, können wir es eine List derselben nennen, denn sie läßt sie mit aller Wut der Leidenschaft ihre eigenen Zwecke vollführen und erhält sich nicht nur unbeschädigt, sondern bringt sich selbst hervor. Das Partikulare ist meistens zu gering gegen das Allgemeine: die Individuen werden geopfert und preisgegeben. Die Weltgeschichte stellt sich somit als der Kampf der Individuen dar, und in dem Felde dieser Besonderheit geht es ganz natürlich zu. Wie in der tierischen Natur die Erhaltung des Lebens Zweck und Instinkt des Einzelnen ist, wie aber doch hier die Vernunft, das Allgemeine, vorherrscht und die Einzelnen fallen, so geht es auch in der geistigen Welt zu. Die Leidenschaften zerstören sich gegenseitig; die Vernunft allein wacht, verfolgt ihren Zweck und macht sich geltend.» Die höchste Entwickelungsstufe der Menschenbildung stellt sich aber auch für Hegel nicht dar in dieser Opferung des partikularen Individuums zugunsten der allgemeinen Weltvernunft, sondern in der vollständigen Durchdringung beider. In der Kunst, Religion und Philosophie wirkt das Individuum so, daß sein Wirken zugleich Inhalt der allgemeinen Weltvernunft ist. — Bei Hegel ist durch das Moment der Allgemeinheit, das er in das Welt-Ich legte, auch die Unterordnung des menschlichen Sonder-Ichs unter dieses WeltIch noch geblieben.
[ 99 ] Dieser Unterordnung suchte Ludwig Feuerbach dadurch ein Ende zu machen, daß er mit kräftigen Worten aussprach, wie der Mensch das Wesen seines Ich in die Außenwelt versetzt, um sich ihm dann als einem Gotte erkennend, gehorchend, verehrend gegenüberzustellen. «Gott ist das offenbare Innere, das ausgesprochene Selbst des Menschen, die Religion ist die feierliche Enthüllung der verborgenen Schätze des Menschen, das Eingeständnis seiner innersten Gedanken, das öffentliche Bekenntnis seiner Liebesbekenntnisse.» Aber auch Feuerbach hat die Idee dieses Ich von dem Momente der Allgemeinheit noch nicht gereinigt. Ihm ist das allgemeine Menschen-Ich ein höheres als das individuelle Einzel-Ich. Und obwohl er als Denker dieses allgemeine Ich nicht gleich Hegel zu einem an sich seienden Weltwesen vergegenständlicht, so stellt er doch in sittlicher Beziehung dem menschlichen Einzelwesen den allgemeinen Begriff des gattungsmäßigen. Menschen gegenüber und fordert, daß der Einzelne sich über die Schranken seiner Individualität erheben soll.
[ 100 ] Erst Max Stirner hat in seinem 1844 erschienenen Buche «Der Einzige und sein Eigentum» in radikaler Weise von dem Ich gefordert, es sollte endlich einsehen, daß es alle Wesen, die es im Laufe der Zeit über sich gesetzt hat, aus seinem eigenen Leibe geschnitten und als Götzen in die Außenwelt versetzt hat. Jeder Gott, jede allgemeine Weltvernunft ist ein Ebenbild des Ich und hat keine anderen Eigenschaften als das menschliche Ich. Und auch der Begriff des allgemeinen Ich ist aus dem ganz individuellen Ich jedes Einzelnen herausgeschält.
[ 101 ] Stirner fordert den Menschen auf, alles Allgemeine von sich abzuwerfen und sich zu gestehen, daß er ein Einzelner ist. «Du bist zwar mehr als Jude, mehr als Christ usw., aber Du bist auch mehr als Mensch. Das sind alles Ideen, Du aber bist leibhaftig. Meinst Du denn, jemals «Mensch als solcher» werden zu können?» «Ich bin Mensch! Ich brauche den Menschen nicht erst in Mir herzustellen, denn er gehört mir schon wie alle meine Eigenschaften.» «Nur Ich bin nicht Abstraktion allein, Ich bin Alles in Allem; ...Ich bin kein bloßer Gedanke, aber Ich bin zugleich voller Gedanken, eine Gedankenwelt. Hegel verurteilt das Eigene, das Meinige...Das «absolute Denken ist dasjenige Denken, welches vergißt, daß es mein Denken ist, daß Ich denke, und daß es nur durch Mich ist. Als Ich aber verschlinge Ich das Meinige wieder, bin Herr desselben, es ist nur meine Meinung, die Ich in jedem Augenblicke ändern, das heißt vernichten, in Mich zurücknehmen und aufzehren kann.» «Mein eigen ist der Gedanke erst dann, wenn Ich zwar ihn, er aber niemals Mich unterjochen kann, nie Mich fanatisiert, zum Werkzeug seiner Realisation macht.» Alle über das Ich gestellten Wesen zerschellen zuletzt an der Erkenntnis, daß sie nur durch das Ich in die Welt gebracht worden sind. «Für mein Denken ist nämlich der Anfang nicht ein Gedanke, sondern Ich, und darum bin Ich auch sein Ziel, wie denn sein ganzer Verlauf nur ein Verlauf meines Selbstgenusses ist.»
[ 102 ] Das einzelne Ich im Sinne Stirners soll man nicht durch einen Gedanken, eine Idee definieren wollen. Denn Ideen sind etwas Aligemeines; und durch eine solche Definition würde somit der Einzelne — wenigstens logisch — sofort wieder einem Allgemeinen untergeordnet. Alle übrigen Dinge der Welt kann man durch Ideen definieren, das eigene Ich aber müssen wir als Einzelnes in uns erleben. Alles, was über den Einzelnen in Gedanken ausgesprochen wird, kann seinen Inhalt nicht in sich aufnehmen; es kann nur auf denselben hindeuten. Man sagt: sehe hin in dich; da ist etwas, für das jeder Begriff, jede Idee zu arm ist, um es in seinem leibhaftigen Reichtum zu umspannen, das aus sich heraus die Ideen hervorbringt, selbst aber einen unerschöpflichen Brunnen in sich hat, dessen Inhalt unendlich umfangreicher ist als alles, was es hervorbringt. In einer von Stirner verfaßten Entgegnung sagt dieser: «Der Einzige ist ein Wort, und bei einem Worte müßte man sich doch etwas denken können, ein Wort müßte doch einen Gedankeninhalt haben. Aber der Einzige ist ein gedankenloses Wort, es hat keinen Gedankeninhalt. Was ist aber dann sein Inhalt, wenn der Gedanke es nicht ist? Einer, der nicht zum zweiten Male da sein, folglich auch nicht awsgedrückt werden kann, denn könnte er ausgedrückt, wirklich und ganz ausgedrückt werden, so wäre er zum zweiten Male da, wäre im «Ausdruck» da...Erst dann, wenn Nichts von Dir ausgesagt und Du nur genannt wirst, wirst Du anerkannt als Du. Solange Etwas von Dir ausgesagt wird, wirst Du nur als dieses Etwas (Mensch, Geist, Christ usf.) anerkannt.» Das einzelne Ich ist also dasjenige, das alles, was es ist, nur durch sich selber ist, das den Inhalt seines Daseins aus sich selbst holt und ihn fortwährend aus sich heraus erweitert. — Dieses einzelne Ich kann keine ethische Verbindlichkeit anerkennen, die es sich nicht selbst auferlegt. «Ob, was Ich denke und tue, christlich sei, was kümmert’s Mich? Ob es menschlich, liberal, human, ob unmenschlich, illiberal, inhuman, was frag’ Ich darnach? Wenn es nur bezweckt, was Ich will, wenn Ich nur Mich darin befriedige, dann belegt es mit Prädikaten wie Ihr wollt: es gilt Mir gleich...» «Auch Ich wehre Mich vielleicht schon im nächsten Augenblicke gegen meine vorigen Gedanken, auch Ich ändere wohl plötzlich meine Handlungsweise; aber nicht darum, weil sie der Christlichkeit nicht entspricht, nicht darum, weil sie gegen die ewigen Menschenrechte läuft, nicht darum, weil sie der Idee der Menschheit, Menschlichkeit und Humanität ins Gesicht schlägt, sondern — weil Ich nicht mehr ganz dabei bin, weil sie Mir keinen vollen Genuß mehr bereitet, weil Ich an dem früheren Gedanken zweifle oder in der eben geübten Handlungsweise Mir nicht mehr gefalle.» Charakteristisch ist, wie sich Stirner von diesem seinem Gesichtspunkte aus über die Liebe ausspricht. «Ich liebe die Menschen auch, nicht bloß einzelne, sondern jeden. Aber Ich liebe sie mit dem Bewußtsein des Egoismus; Ich liebe sie, weil die Liebe Mich glücklich macht, Ich liebe, weil Mir das Lieben natürlich ist, weil Mir’'s gefällt. Ich kenne kein «Gebot der Liebe...» Diesem souveränen Individuum gegenüber sind alle staatlichen, gesellschaftlichen, kirchlichen Organisationen eine Fessel. Denn alle Organisationen setzen voraus, daß das Individuum so oder so sein müsse, damit es sich in die Gemeinschaft eingliedern lasse. Aber das Individuum will sich nicht von der Gemeinschaft bestimmen lassen, wie es sein soll; es will sich selbst so oder so machen. Worauf es Stirner ankommt, hat J. H. Mackay in seinem Buche «Max Stirner, sein Leben und sein Werk» ausgesprochen, auf die «Vernichtung jener fremden Mächte, die das Ich in den verschiedensten Formen zu unterdrücken und zu vernichten suchen, in erster Linie; und der Darlegung der Beziehungen unseres Verkehrs untereinander, wie sie sich aus dem Widerstreit und der Harmonie unserer Interessen ergeben, in zweiter». Sich selbst genügen kann der Einzelne nicht in einer organisierten Gemeinschaft, sondern nur in dem freien Verkehr oder Verein. Dieser kennt keine als Macht über den Einzelnen gesetzte gesellschaftliche Struktur. In ihm geschieht alles durch den Einzelnen. Es ist in ihm nichts festgelegt. Was geschieht, ist immer auf den Willen des Einzelnen zurückzuführen. Einen Gesamtwillen repräsentiert niemand und nichts. Stirner will nicht, daß die Gesellschaft für den Einzelnen sorgt, seine Rechte schützt, sein Wohl fördert und so weiter. Wenn von den Menschen die Organisation genommen ist, dann regelt sich ihr Verkehr von selbst. «Ich will lieber auf den Eigennutz der Menschen angewiesen sein, als auf ihre «Liebesdienste, ihre Barmherzigkeit, Erbarmen usw. Jener fordert Gegenseitigkeit (wie Du Mir, so Ich Dir), tut nichts «umsonst, und läßt sich gewinnen und — erkaufen.» Lasset dem Verkehr seine völlige Freiheit, und er schafft unbeschränkt jene Gegenseitigkeit, die ihr durch eine Gemeinschaft doch nur beschränkt herstellen könnt. «Den Verein hält weder ein natürliches noch ein geistiges Band zusammen, und er ist kein natürlicher, kein geistiger Bund, Nicht Ein Blut, nicht Ein Glaube (das heißt Geist) bringt ihn zustande. In einem natürlichen Bunde — wie einer Familie, einem Stamme, einer Nation, ja der Menschheit — haben die Einzelnen nur den Wert von Exemplaren derselben Art oder Gattung; in einem geistigen Bunde — wie einer Gemeinde, einer Kirche — bedeutet der Einzelne nur ein Glied desselbigen Geistes; was Du in beiden Fällen als Einziger bist, das muß — unterdrückt werden. Als Einzigen kannst Du Dich bloß im Vereine behaupten, weil der Verein nicht Dich besitzt, sondern Du ihn besitzest oder Dir zumutze machest.»
[ 103 ] Der Weg, auf dem Stirner zu seiner Anschauung des Einzelnen gelangt ist, kann als universale Kritik aller das Ich unterdrückenden allgemeinen Mächte bezeichnet werden. Die Kirchen, die politischen Systeme (der politische Liberalismus, der soziale Liberalismus, der humane Liberalismus), die Philosophien, sie alle haben solche allgemeine Mächte über den Einzelnen gesetzt. Der politische Liberalismus fixiert den «guten Bürger», der soziale Liberalismus den an Gemeinbesitz mit allen andern gleichen Arbeiter, der humane Liberalismus den «Menschen als Menschen». Indem er alle diese Mächte zerstört, richtet Stirner auf den Trümmern die Souveränität des Einzelnen auf. «Was soll nicht alles Meine Sache sein! Vor allem die gute Sache, dann die Sache Gottes, die Sache der Menschheit, der Wahrheit, der Freiheit, der Humanität, der Gerechtigkeit; ferner die Sache Meines Volkes, Meines Fürsten, Meines Vaterlandes; endlich gar die Sache des Geistes und tausend andere Sachen. Nur Meine Sache soll niemals Meine Sache sein. — Sehen Wir denn zu, wie diejenigen es mit ihrer Sache machen, für deren Sache Wir arbeiten, Uns hingeben und begeistern sollen. Ihr wißt von Gott viel Gründliches zu verkünden und habt jahrtausendelang «die Tiefen der Gottheit erforsch und ihr ins Herz geschaut, so daß Ihr Uns wohl sagen könnt, wie Gott die «Sache Gottes, der wir zu dienen berufen sind, selber betreibt. Und ihr verhehlt es auch nicht, das Treiben des Herrn. Was ist nun seine Sache? Hat er, wie es Uns zugemutet wird, eine fremde Sache, hat er die Sache der Wahrheit, der Liebe zur seinigen gemacht? Euch empört dies Mißverständnis und ihr belehrt uns, daß Gottes Sache allerdings die Sache der Wahrheit und Liebe sei, daß aber diese Sache keine ihm fremde genannt werden könne, weil Gott ja selbst die Wahrheit und Liebe sei; Euch empört die Annahme, daß Gott Uns armen Würmern gleichen könnte, indem er eine fremde Sache als eigene beförderte. «Gott sollte der Sache der Wahrheit sich annehmen, wenn er nicht selbst die Wahrheit wäre?» Er sorgt nur für seine Sache, aber weil er alles in allem ist, darum ist auch alles seine Sache; Wir aber, Wir sind nicht alles in allem, und unsere Sache ist gar klein und verächtlich; darum müssen wir einer «höheren Sache dienen. — Nun, ist es klar, Gott bekümmert sich nur ums Seine, beschäftigt sich nur mit sich, denkt nur an sich und hat sich im Auge; wehe allem, was ihm nicht wohlgefällig ist. Er dient keinem Höhern und befriedigt nur sich. Seine Sache ist eine — rein egoistische Sache. Wie steht es mit der Menschheit, deren Sache Wir zur unsrigen machen sollen? Ist ihre Sache etwa die eines andern und dient die Menschheit einer höhern Sache? Nein, die Menschheit sieht nur auf sich, die Menschheit will nur die Menschheit fördern, die Menschheit ist sich selber ihre Sache. Damit sie sich entwickle, läßt sie Völker und Individuen in ihrem Dienste sich abquälen, und wenn diese geleistet haben, was die Menschheit braucht, dann werden sie von ihr aus Dankbarkeit auf den Mist der Geschichte geworfen. Ist die Sache der Menschheit nicht eine — rein egoistische Sache?» Aus einer solchen Kritik alles dessen, was der Mensch zu seiner Sache machen soll, ergibt sich für Stirner: «Gott und die Menschheit haben ihre Sache auf Nichts gestellt als auf sich. Stelle Ich denn meine Sache gleichfalls auf Mich, der Ich so gut wie Gott das Nichts von allem andern, der Ich mein Alles, der Ich der Einzige bin.»
[ 104 ] Dies ist Stirners Weg. Man kann auch einen andern gehen, um zur Natur des Ich zu gelangen. Man kann es bei seiner Erkenntnistätigkeit beobachten. Man richte seinen Blick auf einen Erkenntnisvorgang. Durch denkende Betrachtung der Vorgänge sucht das Ich gewahr zu werden, was eigentlich diesen Vorgängen zum. Grunde liegt. Was will man durch diese denkende Betrachtung erreichen? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage muß man beobachten: was würden wir ohne diese Betrachtung von den Vorgängen besitzen, und was erlangen wir durch dieselbe? — Ich muß mich hier auf eine dürftige Skizze dieser grundlegenden Weltanschauungsfragen beschränken und kann nur auf die weiteren Ausführungen in meinen Schriften «Wahrheit und Wissenschaft» und «Philosophie der Freiheit» verweisen.
[ 105 ] Man betrachte einen beliebigen Vorgang. Ich werfe einen Stein in horizontaler Richtung von mir. Er bewegt sich in einer krummen Linie und fällt nach einiger Zeit zu Boden. Ich sehe den Stein in aufeinanderfolgenden Zeitpunkten an verschiedenen Orten, nachdem es mich erst eine gewisse Anstrengung gekostet hart, ihn wegzuwerfen. Durch meine denkende Betrachtung gewinne ich folgendes. Der Stein steht während seiner Bewegung unter mehreren Einflüssen. Wenn er nur unter der Folge des Stoßes, den ich ihm beim Wegwerfen erteilt habe, stände, würde er ewig fortfliegen, und zwar in gerader Richtung, ohne die Geschwindigkeit zu ändern. Nun aber übt die Erde einen Einfluß auf ihn aus, den man als Anziehungskraft bezeichnet. Hätte ich ihn, ohne ihn wegzustoßen, einfach losgelassen, wäre er senkrecht zur Erde gefallen, und dabei hätte seine Geschwindigkeit fortwährend zugenommen. Aus der Wechselwirkung dieser beiden Einflüsse entsteht das, was wirklich geschieht. Das alles sind Gedankenerwägungen, die ich zu dem hinzubringe, was sich mir ohne denkende Betrachtung bieten würde.
[ 106 ] Auf diese Weise haben wir in jedem Erkenntnisprozeß ein Element, das sich uns auch ohne denkende Betrachtung darstellen würde, und ein anderes, das wir nur durch diese gewinnen können. — Wenn wir dann beide gewonnen haben, ist es uns klar, daß sie zusammengehören. Ein Vorgang verläuft im Sinne der Gesetze, die ich durch mein Denken über ihn gewinne. Daß für mich beide Elemente getrennt sind und durch meinen Erkenntnisvorgang ineinander gefügt werden, ist meine Sache. Der Vorgang kümmert sich um diese Trennung und Zusammenfügung nicht. Daraus folgt aber, daß das Erkennen überhaupt meine Sache ist. Etwas, das ich lediglich um meiner selbst willen vollbringe.
[ 107 ] Nun kommt aber noch etwas anderes hinzu. Die Dinge und Vorgänge würden mir aus sich selbst nie das geben, was ich durch meine denkende Betrachtung über sie gewinne. Aus sich selbst geben sie mir eben das, was ich ohne diese Betrachtung besitze. Es ist innerhalb dieser Ausführungen schon gesagt worden, daß ich dasjenige aus mir selbst nehme, was ich in den Dingen als deren tiefstes Wesen sehe. Die Gedanken, die ich mir über die Dinge mache, produziere ich aus meinem Innern heraus. Sie gehören, wie gezeigt worden ist, trotzdem zu den Dingen. Das Wesen der Dinge kommt mir also nicht aus ihnen, sondern aus mir zu. Mein Inhalt ist ihr Wesen. Ich käme gar nicht dazu, zu fragen, was das Wesen der Dinge ist, wenn ich nicht in mir etwas vorfände, was ich als dieses Wesen der Dinge bezeichne, als dasjenige, was zu ihnen gehört, was sie mir aber nicht aus sich geben, sondern was ich nur aus mir nehmen kann. — Im Erkenntnisprozeß entnehme ich aus mir das Wesen der Dinge. Ich habe also das Wesen der Welt in mir. Folglich habe ich auch mein eigenes Wesen in mir. Bei den andern Dingen erscheint mir zweierlei: ein Vorgang ohne das Wesen und das Wesen durch mich. Bei mir selbst sind Vorgang und Wesen identisch. Das Wesen der ganzen übrigen Welt schöpfte ich aus mir, und mein eigenes Wesen schöpfe ich auch aus mir.1Sinngemäß muß es heißen: «schöpfe ich aus mir». Vermutlich ich die Imperfektform durch einen Druckfehler entstanden.
[ 108 ] Mein Handeln ist nun ein Teil des allgemeinen Weltgeschehens. Es hat somit ebenso sein Wesen in mir wie alles andere Geschehen. Für das menschliche Handeln die Gesetze suchen heißt somit, sie aus dem Inhalte des Ich schöpfen. Wie der Gottgläubige die Gesetze seines Handelns aus dem Willen seines Gottes ableitet, so kann derjenige, der eingesehen hat, daß im Ich das Wesen aller Dinge liegt, die Gesetze des Handelns auch nur im Ich finden. Hat das Ich sein Handeln dem Wesen nach wirklich durchdrungen, dann fühlt es sich als den Beherrscher desselben. Solange wir an ein uns fremdes Weltwesen glauben, stehen uns auch die Gesetze unseres Handelns fremd gegenüber. Sie beherrschen uns; was wir vollbringen, steht unter dem Zwange, den sie auf uns ausüben. Sind sie aus solcher fremden Wesenheit in das ureigene Tun unseres Ich verwandelt, dann hört dieser Zwang auf. Das Zwingende ist unser eigenes Wesen geworden. Die Gesetzmäßigkeit herrscht nicht mehr über uns, sondern in uns über das von unserem Ich ausgehende Geschehen. Die Verwirklichung eines Vorganges vermöge einer außer dem Verwirklicher stehenden Gesetzmäßigkeit ist ein Akt der Unfreiheit, jene durch den Verwirklicher selbst ein Akt der Freiheit. Die Gesetze seines Handelns sich aus sich geben, heißt als freier Einzelner handeln. Die Betrachtung des Erkenntnisprozesses zeigt dem Menschen, daß er die Gesetze seines Handelns nur in sich finden kann.
[ 109 ] Das Ich denkend begreifen heißt die Grundlage schaffen, um alles, was aus dem Ich kommt, allein auch auf das Ich zu begründen. Das Ich, das sich selbst versteht, kann sich von nichts als von sich selbst abhängig machen. Und es kann niemandem verantwortlich sein als sich. Es erscheint nach diesen Ausführungen fast überflüssig, zu sagen, daß mit dem Ich nur das leibhaftige, reale Ich des Einzelnen und nicht ein allgemeines, von diesem abgezogenes gemeint sein kann. Denn ein solches kann ja nur aus dem realen durch Abstraktion gewonnen sein. Es ist somit abhängig von dem wirklich Einzelnen. (Dieselbe Ideenrichtung und Lebensanschauung, aus der meine oben genannten Schriften entsprungen sind, vertreten auch Benj. R. Tucker und J. H. Mackay. Vergleiche des ersteren «Instead of a Book» und des letzteren Kulturgemälde «Die Anarchisten».)
[ 110 ] Im vorigen und dem größten Teile unseres Jahrhunderts war das Denken bemüht, dem Ich seine Stellung im Weltganzen zu erobern. Geister, welche dieser Tendenz bereits fremd gegenüberstehen, sind Arthur Schopenhauer und Eduard von Hartmann, der noch rüstig unter uns Wirkende. Beide haben nicht mehr das volle Wesen unseres Ich, das wir in unserem Bewußtsein vorfinden, als Urweltwesen in die Außenwelt verlegt. Schopenhauer hat einen Teil dieses Ich, den Willen als Weltwesen angesehen, und Hartmann sieht das Unbewußte als solches an. Beiden gemeinsam ist dies Streben, das Ich dem von ihnen angenommenen allgemeinen Weltwesen unterzuordnen. Dagegen ist als letzter der strengen Individualisten noch Friedrich Nietzsche von Schopenhauer ausgehend zu Anschauungen gelangt, welche durchaus auf dem Wege der absoluten Würdigung des einzelnen Ich führen. Seiner Meinung nach besteht die echte Kultur darinnen, den Einzelnen zu pflegen, damit er die Kraft habe, aus sich heraus alles das zu entwickeln, was in ihm gelegen ist. Bisher war es nur ein Zufall, wenn ein Einzelner sich voll aus sich heraus hat entwickeln können. «Dieser höherwertigere Typus ist oft genug schon dagewesen: aber als ein Glücksfall, als eine Ausnahme, niemals als gewollt. Vielmehr ist er gerade am besten gefürchtet worden, er war bisher beinahe das Furchtbare; — und aus der Furcht heraus wurde der umgekehrte Typus gewollt, gezüchtet, erreicht: das Haustier, das Herdentier, das kranke Tier Mensch, — der Christ...». Seinen Typus Mensch als Ideal hat Nietzsche poetisch verklärt in seinem Zarathustra. Er nennt ihn den Übermenschen. Dieser ist der von allen Normen befreite Mensch, der nicht mehr Ebenbild Gottes, Gott wohlgefälliges Wesen, guter Bürger und so weiter, sondern er selber und nichts weiter sein will — der reine und absolute Egoist.
5. Individualism in Philosophy
[ 1 ] If man were merely a creature of nature and not at the same time a creator, he would not stand questioning before the phenomena of the world and would not seek to fathom its nature and its laws. He would satisfy his food and reproductive instincts according to the laws innate to his organism and otherwise let the events of the world unfold as they do. He would not even think of asking nature a question. Satisfied and happy, he would walk through life like the rose of which Angelus Silesius says:
"The rose is without care, it blooms because it blooms,
it does not care for itself, does not ask whether it is seen."
[ 2 ] The rose can be like this. It is what it is because nature has made it that way. But man cannot be like that. He has the urge to add to the existing world a world that has arisen from him. He does not want to live with his fellow human beings in the accidental coexistence in which nature has placed him; he seeks to regulate his coexistence with others in accordance with his rational thinking. He is not satisfied with the form in which nature has imagined man and woman; he creates the ideal figures of Greek sculpture. To the natural course of events in daily life, he adds that which springs from his imagination in tragedy and comedy. In architecture and music, creations spring from his mind that hardly resemble anything created by nature. In his sciences, he designs conceptual images through which the chaos of world phenomena that passes before our senses every day appears as a harmoniously regulated whole, as a self-organized organism. In the world of his own deeds, he creates a special realm, that of historical events, which is essentially of a different kind than the factual course of nature.
[ 3 ] Man feels that everything he creates is only a continuation of the workings of nature. He also knows that he is called to add something higher to what nature is capable of by itself. He is aware of the fact that he is adding another, higher nature to the external one.
[ 4 ] So man stands between two worlds: the one that penetrates him from outside and the one that he produces from within. He strives to bring these two worlds into harmony. For his whole being is directed towards harmony. He wants to live like the rose, which does not ask why or because, but blooms because it blooms. Schiller demands this of man with the words:
"Do you seek the highest, the greatest? The plant can teach you.
What it is without will, be willing - that's it!"
[ 5 ] It can be the plant. For no new realm springs from it, and the anxious longing can therefore not arise in it either: how do I bring the two realms into harmony with each other?
[ 6 ] To bring that which lies within himself into harmony with that which nature produces from itself, that is the goal towards which man strives throughout all ages of history. The fact that he is fertile becomes the starting point of a confrontation with nature, which constitutes the content of his spiritual striving.
[ 7 ] There are two ways for this confrontation. Either man allows his outer nature to dominate his inner nature, or he subjugates this outer nature. In the former case, he seeks to subordinate his own will and being to the external course of events. In the second case, he takes the goal and direction of his will and being from himself and tries to come to terms in some way with the events of nature, which nevertheless take their own course.
[ 8 ] I would like to speak first of the first case. It is in accordance with his nature that man creates another, in his sense higher, realm beyond the realm of nature. He cannot do otherwise. What feelings and sentiments he has towards this realm of his depends on how he relates to the outside world. He can now have the same feelings towards his own kingdom as towards the facts of nature. Then he allows the creatures of his spirit to approach him, just as he allows an event of the outer world, for example wind and weather, to approach him. He perceives no difference of kind between what happens in the outside world and what happens in his soul. He is therefore of the opinion that they are only one realm governed by one kind of law. But he feels that the creatures of the spirit are of a higher order. That is why he places them above the creatures of mere nature. He thus places his own creatures in the external world and lets nature be ruled by them. He thus knows only the outer world. For he transfers his own inner world to the outside. No wonder that his own self also becomes a subordinate member of this outer world.
[ 9 ] The one way in which man deals with the outside world is therefore that he sees his inner self as an outer world and at the same time sets this outerized inner self as the ruler and legislator over nature and himself.
[ 10 ] I have hereby characterized the point of view of the religious man. A divine world order is a creature of the human spirit. But man does not realize that the content of this world order has arisen from his own spirit. He therefore externalizes it and subordinates himself to his own product.
[ 11 ] The acting man cannot reassure himself by simply accepting his actions. The flower blooms because it blooms. It does not ask why and because. Man takes a stand on his actions. A feeling is attached to this action. He is either satisfied or not satisfied by one of his actions. He distinguishes the action according to its value. He regards one action as one that pleases him, the other as one that displeases him. The moment he feels this way, the harmony of the world is disturbed for him. He is of the opinion that the pleasing action must have other consequences than the one that causes his displeasure. If he is not clear about the fact that he has added the value judgment to the actions of his own accord, he believes that this value judgment is attached to the actions by an external power. He is of the opinion that such an external power divides the events of this world into those that please and are therefore good, and those that displease and are therefore bad, evil. A man who feels in this way makes no distinction between the facts of nature and the actions of man. He judges both from the same point of view. The whole universe is a realm to him, and the laws that govern this realm correspond entirely to those that the human spirit produces from itself.
[ 12 ] In this kind of human interaction with the world, an original trait of human nature comes to light. However unclear man may be about his relationship to the world, he nevertheless seeks within himself the standard by which he can measure all things. From a kind of unconscious sense of sovereignty, he decides on the absolute value of everything that happens. You can investigate as you like: there are no end of people who believe themselves to be governed by gods; there are none who do not independently, over the heads of the gods, pass judgment on what these gods may or may not like. The religious man is not able to set himself up as master of the world; but he determines the inclinations of the world rulers by his own power.
[ 13 ] One need only look at the religiously sensitive natures and one will find my assertions confirmed. Where have there ever been preachers of gods who have not at the same time determined exactly what these gods like and what they dislike? Every religion has its wisdom about the universe, and each also claims that this wisdom comes from a god or gods.
[ 14 ] If one wants to characterize the point of view of the religious man, one must say: he tries to judge the world by himself, but he does not have the courage to ascribe the responsibility for this judgment to himself, so he invents beings in the outside world on whom he imposes this responsibility.
[ 15 ] These considerations seem to me to answer the question: what is religion? The content of religion arises from the human spirit. But this spirit does not want to admit this origin to itself. Man submits to his own laws, but he regards these laws as alien. He sets himself up as ruler over himself. Every religion makes the human ego the ruler of the world. Its essence consists precisely in the fact that it is not aware of this fact. It regards as a revelation from outside what it reveals to itself.
[ 16 ] Man wishes that he were at the top of the world. But he does not dare to present himself as the pinnacle of creation. That is why he invents gods in his own image and lets them rule the world. By thinking this way, he is thinking religiously.
[ 17 ] Religious thinking is replaced by philosophical thinking. In the times and among the people where this detachment occurs, human nature reveals itself to us in a very special way.
[ 18 ] The transition from the mythological thinking of the Greeks to philosophical thinking is particularly interesting for the development of Western thought. I would first like to highlight three thinkers from the time of this transition: Anaximander, Thales and Parmenides. They represent three stages that lead from religion to philosophy.
[ 19 ] The first stage on this path is characterized by the fact that the divine beings from which the content taken from the human ego is supposed to originate are no longer recognized. Nevertheless, out of habit, it is still held that this content originates from the outside world. Anaximander stands on this level. He no longer speaks of gods like his Greek ancestors. For him, the highest principle governing the world is not a being imagined in the image of man. It is an impersonal being, the Apeiron, the indeterminate. It develops everything that occurs in nature out of itself, but not in the way that a human being creates, but out of natural necessity. But Anaximander still thinks of this natural necessity as analogous to an action that proceeds according to human principles of reason. He imagines, so to speak, a moral natural law, a supreme being that treats the world like a human moral judge without being one. According to Anaximander, everything in the world happens as necessarily as a magnet attracts iron, but it happens according to moral, i.e. human, laws. Only from this point of view could he say: "From what things arise, they must also pass into the same, as is just, for they must do penance and retribution for the sake of injustice, according to the order of time."
[ 20 ] This is the stage at which a thinker begins to judge philosophically. He drops the gods. He no longer attributes what comes from man to the gods. But he does nothing more than transfer the qualities that were previously attributed to divine, i.e. personal beings, to an impersonal one.
[ 21 ] Thales confronts the world in a completely free manner. Even though he is a few years older than Anaximander, he is philosophically much more mature. His way of thinking is no longer religious at all.
[ 22 ] Within Western thought, only Thales is a man who deals with the world in the second way mentioned above. Hegel has so often emphasized that thinking is the quality that distinguishes man from animals. Thales is the first occidental personality who dared to assign thinking its position of sovereignty. He was no longer concerned with whether gods had arranged the world according to the order of thought or whether an Apeiron governed the world according to thought. He only knew that he thought, and assumed that because he thought, he also had the right to arrange the world according to his thinking. Do not underestimate this point of view of Thales! It was a tremendous ruthlessness against all religious prejudices. For it was the declaration of the absoluteness of human thought. Religious people say: the world is arranged as we think it is, because God is. And since they think of God in the image of man, it is self-evident that the order of the world corresponds to the order of the human mind. Thales is completely indifferent to all this. He thinks about the world. And by virtue of his thinking he attributes to himself a judgment about the world. He already has a feeling that thinking is only a human action, and yet he sets out to explain the world with the help of this merely human thinking. With Thales, cognition itself enters a completely new stage in its development. It ceases to derive its justification from the fact that it only traces out what the gods have traced out. It takes from itself the right to decide on the lawfulness of the world. It is not at all important whether Thales made water or anything else the principle of the world, but that he said to himself: what is principle, I will decide by my thinking. He took it for granted that thinking has the power in such matters. And therein lies his greatness.
[ 23 ] Just think about what has been done. Nothing less has been done than that man has been given spiritual power over world phenomena. He who trusts in his thinking says to himself: however stormy the waves of events may roar, however chaotic the world may seem: I am calm, for all this great activity does not worry me, because I understand it.
[ 24 ] This divine calm of the thinker who understands himself was not understood by Heraclitus. He was of the opinion that all things were in eternal flux. That becoming was the essence of things. When I step into a river, it is no longer the same as it was at the moment I decided to step into it. But Heraclitus overlooks only one thing. What the river carries away with it is preserved by thought, and it finds that in the next moment an essential part of what was there before reappears before the senses.
[ 25 ] Like Thales with his firm belief in the power of human thought, Heraclitus is also a typical figure in the realm of those personalities who deal with the most important questions of existence. He does not feel within himself the power to conquer the eternal flow of sensual becoming through thinking. Heraclitus looks into the world, and it melts away for him into momentary phenomena that cannot be captured. If Heraclitus were right, then everything in the world would dissolve, and the human personality would also have to dissolve in the general chaos. I would not be the same today as I was yesterday, and tomorrow I would be different from today. Man would be faced with something completely new every moment and would have no power. For it is doubtful whether the experiences he has gathered up to a certain day would provide him with a guideline for dealing with the completely new things that a new day brings him.
[ 26 ] This is why Parmenides stands in sharp contrast to Heraclitus. With all the one-sidedness that is only possible for a bold philosopher, he rejected all evidence of sensory perception. For it is precisely this world of the senses, which changes at every moment, that seduces us into Heraclitus' view. Instead, he spoke of the revelations that emerge from the innermost core of the human personality, the revelations of thought, as the sole source of all truth. In his view, it is not what flows before the senses that is the real essence of things, but the thoughts, the ideas, which the mind perceives and holds in this stream!
[ 27 ] Like so many things that are a counter-attack to one-sidedness, Parmenides' way of thinking was also disastrous. It corrupted European thinking for centuries to come. It undermined confidence in sensory perception. While an unbiased, naive view of the world of the senses draws from it the content of thought that satisfies the human instinct for knowledge, the philosophical movement that developed along the lines of Parmenides believed that the right truth could only be drawn from pure, abstract thinking.
[ 28 ] The thoughts that we gain in living contact with the sensory world have an individual character, they have the warmth of something experienced in them. We expose our person by detaching ideas from the world. We feel that we have overcome the world of the senses when we capture it in the world of thought. There is something impersonal and cold about abstract, pure thinking. We always feel a compulsion when we spin ideas out of pure thinking. Our sense of self cannot be elevated by such thinking. Because we simply have to submit to the necessity of thought.
[ 29 ] Parmenides did not take into account that thinking is an activity of the human personality. He took it impersonally, as the eternal content of being. What is thought is what exists, he said.
[ 30 ] He thereby replaced the old gods with a new one. While the older, religious conception had placed the whole, feeling, willing and thinking human being as God at the top of the world, Parmenides took a single human activity, a part of the personality, and made a divine being out of it.
[ 31 ] In the area of views on the moral life of man, Parmenides is supplemented by Socrates. The proposition that virtue is teachable, which the latter pronounced, is the ethical consequence of Parmenides' view that thinking is equal to being. If the latter is a truth, then human action can only claim to have elevated itself to a valuable being if it flows from thinking. From abstract, logical thinking, which man simply has to submit to, that is, which he has to appropriate as a learner.
[ 32 ] It is clear that a common trait can be traced in the development of Greek thought. Man strives to transfer what belongs to him, what springs from his own being, into the outside world and in this way to subordinate himself to his own being. First he takes himself in his full breadth and places his images above him as gods; then he takes a single human activity, thinking, and places it above him as a necessity to which he must submit. That is the strange thing in the development of man, that he unfolds his powers, that he fights for the existence and the unfolding of these powers in the world, but that for a long time he is not able to recognize these powers as his own.
[ 33 ] This great deception of man about himself has been brought into a bold, marvelous system by one of the greatest philosophers of all time. This philosopher is Plato. For Plato, the ideal world, the circle of ideas that arise in the human mind while the gaze is directed towards the multiplicity of external things, becomes a higher world of being, of which this multiplicity is only an image. "The things of this world, which our senses perceive, have no true being at all: they are always becoming, but never are. They have only a relative being, are altogether only in and through their relation to one another; one can therefore just as well call their entire existence a non-being. Consequently, they are also not objects of actual cognition. For there can only be such knowledge of that which is in and of itself and always in the same way; they, on the other hand, are only the object of a perception induced by sensation. As long as we are limited to their perception, we resemble people who would be so tightly bound in a dark cave that they could not even turn their heads and see nothing but by the light of a fire burning behind them, on the wall opposite them, the shadow images of real things that would pass between them and the fire, and even of each other and each of themselves, just the shadows on that wall. But their wisdom would be to predict the order of those shadows learned from experience." The tree that I see, touch and whose flower scent I breathe is therefore the shadow of the idea of the tree. And this idea is what is truly real. But the idea is what lights up in my mind when I look at the tree. What I perceive with my senses is thereby made into an image of what my mind forms through perception.
[ 34 ] All that Plato believes to exist as a world of ideas beyond things is the human inner world. The content of the human mind torn out of the human being and presented as a world for itself, as a higher, true, otherworldly world: that is Platonic philosophy.
[ 35 ] I agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson when he says: "Among all secular books, only Plato has a right to the fanatical praise that Omar bestowed on the Koran when he said: "You may burn the libraries, for what they contain of value is in this book; its aphorisms contain the education of nations; they are the cornerstone of all schools, the fountainhead of all literature. They are a textbook and compendium of logic, arithmetic, aesthetics, poetry and linguistics, rhetoric, ontology, ethics and practical wisdom. Never has the thought and research of one man covered such an immense area. All things that are still written and discussed among thinking people today come from Plato." I would like to express the latter sentence a little more precisely in the following form. The way Plato felt about the relationship of the human spirit to the world is how the vast majority of people feel today. They feel that the content of the human spirit, human feeling, willing and thinking is at the top of the ladder of phenomena, but they only know what to do with this spiritual content if it is thought to exist outside man as a divine or some other higher being: necessary natural order, moral world order - and whatever else man has called that which he himself produces.
[ 36 ] It is understandable that man thinks in this way. The impressions of the senses penetrate him from the outside. He sees the colors, he hears the sounds. His sensations, his thoughts arise in him while he sees the colors, hears the sounds. These come from his own nature. He asks himself: how do I come to add something of my own to what the world has handed down to me? It seems completely arbitrary to him to draw something from himself to supplement the outside world.
[ 37 ] But the moment he says to himself: what I am feeling and thinking, I am not adding to the world out of my own, another, higher being has put it into it, and I am only taking it out of it: at that moment he is reassured. You only need to say to man: you have not brought your opinions and thoughts from yourself, but a God has revealed them to you: then he is reconciled with himself. And if he casts off his belief in God, he puts in his place the natural order of things, the eternal laws. That he cannot find this God, these eternal laws, anywhere outside in the world, that he must first create them in the world if they are to exist: he does not want to admit this to himself at first. It becomes difficult for him to say to himself: the world outside of me is ungodly; but I, by virtue of my being, take the right to see the divine into it.
[ 38 ] What concern is the swinging church lamp with the laws of the pendulum, which arose in the mind of Gallei as he contemplated them? But man himself cannot exist without establishing a connection between the outside world and the world of his inner being. His spiritual life is a continual working of the spirit into the world of the senses. Through its own work, the interpenetration of nature and spirit takes place in the course of historical life. The Greek thinkers wanted nothing other than that man was already born into a relationship that could only become through himself. They did not want man to first consummate the marriage between spirit and nature; they wanted him to encounter this marriage as already consummated and to regard it only as a finished fact.
[ 39 ] Aristotle saw the contradictory nature of transferring the ideas of things that arise in the human mind to a supersensible, otherworldly world. But even he did not recognize that things only acquire their ideal side when man confronts them and creates them in addition to them. Rather, he assumed that this ideal as entelechy was effective in the things themselves as their actual principle. The natural consequence of this basic view of his was that Aristotle derived man's moral actions from his original ethical natural disposition. The physical instincts refine themselves in the course of human development and then appear as rationally guided volition. Virtue consists in this rational volition.
[ 40 ] Taken in this directness, it seems as if Aristotle stood on the viewpoint that at least moral action has its source in man's own personality. That man gives himself the direction and goal of his actions out of his own nature and does not allow them to be dictated to him from outside. But even Aristotle does not dare to stop at this man who defines his own destiny. What appears in man as individual rational action is only a manifestation of a general world reason that exists outside him. The latter realizes itself in the individual human being, but it has its independent, higher existence beyond him.
[ 41 ] Aristotle also pushes out of man what he finds only in man. The tendency of Greek thought from Thales to Aristotle is to think of that which is found within man as an independent being existing for itself and to derive the things of the world from this being.
[ 42 ] It must take its revenge on man's knowledge if he thinks the mediation of the spirit with nature, which he himself is to accomplish, is accomplished by external powers. He should immerse himself in his inner self and there seek the point of connection between the sense world and the ideal world. If, instead, he looks to the external world to find this point, he will, because he cannot find it there, necessarily come to doubt all reconciliation of the two powers. This stage of doubt represents the period of Greek thought following Aristotle. It is heralded by the Stoics and Epicureans and reaches its climax with the Sceptics.
[ 43 ] The Sceptics and Epicureans instinctively feel that the essence of things cannot be found on the path taken by their predecessors. They abandon this path without much concern for a new one. For the older philosophers, the world as a whole was the main thing. They wanted to investigate the laws of the world and believed that knowledge of the world must automatically lead to knowledge of man, for to them man was a part of the world as a whole like the other things. The Stoics and Epicureans made man the main focus of their thinking. They wanted to give his life the appropriate content. They thought about how man should live. Everything else was merely a means to this end. The Stoics considered all philosophy to be of value only insofar as it enabled man to recognize how he should live. They considered the right life of man to be that which is in accordance with nature. In order to realize what is natural in one's actions, one must first have recognized what is natural.
[ 44 ] In the Stoic doctrine lies an important concession to the human personality. That it may be its own purpose and goal and that everything else, even knowledge, exists only for the sake of this personality.
[ 45 ] The Epicureans went even further in this direction. Their aspiration was to shape life in such a way that people felt as content as possible in it or that it gave them the greatest possible pleasure. Life was so important to them that they pursued knowledge for the sole purpose of freeing man from superstitious fear and the unease that afflicts him when he fails to understand nature.
[ 46 ] A higher human sense of self runs through the views of the Stoics and Epicureans than through those of the older Greek thinkers.
[ 47 ] This view appears in a finer, more spiritual way among the Sceptics. They said to themselves: if man forms ideas about things, he can only form them out of himself. And only out of himself can he form the conviction that an idea corresponds to a thing. They saw nothing in the external world that gave a reason for a connection between thing and idea. And what had been said before them about such reasons, they regarded as deception and fought against it.
[ 48 ] The basic feature of the skeptical view is modesty. Its adherents did not dare to deny that there was a connection between idea and thing in the external world; they merely denied that man could recognize such a connection. Therefore, although they made man the source of his cognition, they did not regard this cognition as the expression of true wisdom.
[ 49 ] In essence, skepticism represents the banker's explanation of human cognition. The human being is subject to the self-created prejudice that the truth is available on the outside, through the conviction that his truth can only be an inner one, i.e. not the right one at all.
[ 50 ] With unreserved confidence in the power of the human mind, Thales began to think about the world. His naïve belief in man's capacity for knowledge was far removed from any doubt that what contemplation must regard as the ground of the world could not in reality be this ground. For the skeptics, this belief has been replaced by a complete renunciation of real truth.
[ 51 ] The development of Greek thought lies between the two extremes of naïve trust in the human capacity for knowledge and absolute lack of trust. This development can be understood by observing how the ideas about the causes of the world have changed. What the oldest Greek philosophers thought of as such causes had sensual properties. This gave them the right to place these causes in the external world. The primordial water of 'Thales, like every other object in the world of the senses, belongs to external reality. Things became quite different when Parmenides believed to recognize true existence in thinking. For according to its true existence, this thinking can only be perceived within the human being. Only through Parmenides did the great question arise: how does the mental, spiritual being relate to the external being perceived by the senses? We had now become accustomed to conceive of the relationship of the highest being to that which surrounds us daily in the same way as Thales conceived of the relationship of his sensory primal being to the things that surround us. It is quite possible to imagine the emergence of all things from the water, which Thales presents as the primordial source of all being, analogous to certain sensory processes that take place before our eyes every day. And the urge to imagine the relationship of the world around us in terms of such an analogy still remained when Parmenides and his successors made pure thought and its content, the world of ideas, the primal source of all being. People were certainly mature enough to recognize that the spiritual world is higher than the sensual world, that the deepest content of the world is revealed within the human being, but they were not immediately mature enough to imagine the relationship between the sensual and ideal worlds in ideal terms. They imagined it sensually, as an actual emergence. If they had conceived of it spiritually, they could easily have conceded that the content of the world of ideas exists only within man. For then the higher did not need to precede the derivative in time. A sense thing can reveal a spiritual content, but this content can only be born out of the sense thing at the moment of revelation. It is a later product of development than the sense world. But if we imagine the relationship as an emergence, then that from which the other emerges must also precede the latter in time. In this way the child, the spiritual world of the sense world, was made the mother of the latter. This is the psychological reason why man puts his world out into external reality and claims of that which is his property and product: it has an objective existence existing for itself, and he has to subordinate himself to it, or rather he can only take possession of it through revelation or in some other way through which the truth, once finished, finds its way into his inner being.
[ 52 ] This interpretation that man gives to his striving for truth, his cognition, corresponds to a deep inclination of his nature. Goethe characterized this inclination in his "Proverbs in Prose" with the following words: "Man never grasps how anthropomorphic he is." And: "Fall and impact. To want to explain the movement of the world's bodies in this way is actually a hidden anthropomorphism; it is the wanderer's walk across a field. The foot that is lifted sinks down, the foot that is left behind strives forward and falls; and so on, from departure to arrival." All explanation of nature consists precisely in the fact that experiences which man has of himself are interpreted into the object. Even the simplest phenomena are explained in this way. When we explain the impact of two bodies, we do so by imagining that one body exerts a similar effect on the other as we ourselves do when we push a body. Just as we do here with something subordinate, so does the religious person with his concept of God. He interprets human thought and action into nature; and the philosophers mentioned, from Parmenides to Aristotle, also interpreted human thought processes into nature.
[ 53 ] The human need indicated here is what Max Stirner has in mind when he says: "What haunts the universe and drives its mysterious, "incomprehensible being is precisely the mysterious spook that we call the highest being. And to get to the bottom of this spook, to comprehend it, to discover the reality in it (to prove the "existence of God), -- this was the task that men set themselves for millennia; with the dreadful impossibility, the endless Danaid work, to transform the spook into a non-spook, the unreal into a real, the spirit into a whole and corporeal person, - with this they tormented themselves. Behind the existing world, they sought the "thing in itself", the essence, they sought the thing behind the thing, the thing."
[ 54 ] The last phase of Greek philosophy offers brilliant proof of how the human mind is inclined to misjudge its own essence and therefore its relationship to the world: Neoplatonism. This doctrine, whose most important representative is Plotinus, broke with the tendency to transfer the content of the human spirit to a realm outside of living reality, in which man himself stands. In his own soul, the Neoplatonist seeks the place where the highest object of cognition can be found. Through that heightening of the powers of cognition known as ecstasy, he seeks to see the essence of world phenomena within himself. The elevation of the inner powers of perception is intended to raise the spirit to a level of life at which it directly experiences the revelation of this essence. This teaching is a kind of mysticism. It is based on the truth that is found in all mysticism. Immersion in one's own inner being provides the deepest human wisdom. But man must first educate himself to this contemplation. He must become accustomed to seeing a reality that is free from all that the senses convey to us. People who have brought their powers of cognition to this height speak of an inner light that has dawned upon them. Jakob Böhme, the Christian mystic of the seventeenth century, regarded himself as such an inwardly enlightened person. He sees in himself the realm that he must describe as the highest recognizable to man. He says: "In the human mind, the signature is entirely artificial, according to the nature of all beings."
[ 55 ] Neoplatonism puts the contemplation of the human inner world in the place of speculation about an otherworldly outer world. In doing so, the highly characteristic phenomenon occurs that the Neoplatonist regards his own inner world as something alien. One has come as far as recognizing the place where the last link of the world is to be sought; what is found in this place has been misinterpreted. The Neoplatonist therefore describes the inner experiences of his ecstasy, just as Plato describes the beings of his supersensible world.
[ 56 ] It is significant that Neoplatonism excludes from the essence of the inner world precisely that which constitutes its actual core. The state of ecstasy should only occur when self-consciousness is silent. It was therefore only natural that the mind in Neoplatonism could not see itself, its own essence, in its true light.
[ 57 ] In this view, the ideas that make up the content of Greek philosophy have found their conclusion. They present themselves as man's longing to recognize, see and worship his own being as something alien.
[ 58 ] According to the natural development, the discovery of egoism should have followed Neoplatonism within the development of the Western mind. In other words, man would have had to recognize the being regarded as alien as his own. He should have said to himself: the highest thing that exists in the world given to man is the individual ego, whose essence appears within the personality.
[ 59 ] This natural course of Western intellectual development was halted by the spread of Christian doctrine. Christianity offers what Greek philosophy expresses in the language of the worldly wise in popular, so to speak tangible ideas. When one realizes how deeply rooted in human nature is the urge to divest oneself of one's own being, it seems understandable that this teaching has gained such incomparable power over the minds. To satisfy this urge philosophically requires a high level of spiritual development. To satisfy it in the form of Christian faith is enough for the most naive mind. Christianity does not present a subtle spiritual content such as Plato's world of ideas, nor an experience flowing from the inner light that is yet to be kindled, but processes with the attributes of sensual, tangible reality. Indeed, it goes so far as to venerate the supreme being in an individual historical person. The philosophical spirit of Greece could not serve with such tangible ideas. Such ideas lay behind him in the mythology of the people. Hamann, Herder's forerunner in the field of religious studies, once remarked that Plato was never a philosopher for children. But it is the spirits of children for whom "the holy spirit had the ambition to become a writer".
[ 60 ] And this childlike form of human self-alienation has had the greatest conceivable influence on the development of philosophical thought for centuries. Christian doctrine lies like a mist before the light from which the knowledge of one's own being should have emanated. The church fathers of the first Christian centuries tried to give the popular ideas a form through all kinds of philosophical concepts in which they could also appear acceptable to a more educated consciousness. And the later teachers of the Church, whose most important representative is St. Augustine, continued these efforts in the same spirit. The content of the Christian faith was so fascinating that there could be no question of doubting its truth, but only of raising it to a more spiritual, more idealistic realm. The philosophy of the Doctors of the Church is the transformation of the content of the Christian faith into a system of ideas. For this reason, the general character of this structure of ideas could be no other than that of Christianity: the transfer of the human being into the world, self-emptying. Thus it came about that Augustin again came to the right place, where the being of the world is to be found, and that in this place he again found a stranger. In man's own being he seeks the source of all truth; he declares the inner experiences of the soul to be the foundation of knowledge. But the Christian doctrine of faith placed the extra-human content in the place where he was searching. That is why he found the wrong entities in the right place.
[ 61 ] There now follows a centuries-long effort of human thought, which had no other purpose than to prove with all the power of the human spirit that the content of this spirit was not to be sought in this spirit, but in the place where the Christian faith had placed it. The movement of thought that grew out of this endeavor is called scholasticism. In this context, all the sophistry of the scholastics is of no interest. For this movement of ideas does not in the least signify a development in the direction in which the knowledge of the personal ego lies.
[ 62 ] How thick the cloud of fog was that Christianity pushed in front of human self-knowledge is most evident in the fact that the occidental mind now became incapable of taking even one step on the path to this self-knowledge purely of its own accord. It needed a compelling impulse from outside. It could not find at the bottom of the soul what it had sought for so long in the outside world. But he was given proof that this outer world could not be of such a nature that he could find the being he was looking for in it. This came about through the flourishing of the natural sciences in the sixteenth century. As long as man had only imperfect ideas of the nature of natural processes, there was room in the external world for divine entities and for the workings of a personal, divine will. But when Copernicus and Kepler created a natural picture of the world, there was no longer any room for a Christian one. And when Galilei laid the foundations for an explanation of natural processes through natural laws, belief in divine laws was bound to falter.
[ 63 ] Now one had to search for a new way to find the being that man recognizes as the highest and that has been forced out of the outside world.
[ 64 ] The philosophical conclusions of the assumptions made by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo were drawn by Baco of Verulam. His contribution to the Western world view is basically only a negative one. He made a powerful call to look freely and impartially at reality, at life. As banal as this demand may seem, it cannot be denied that the development of Western thought has sinned against it for centuries. Man's own ego also belongs among the real things. And does it not almost seem as if it were in man's natural disposition not to be able to regard this ego impartially? Only the development of a completely unbiased sense that is directly directed towards the real can lead to self-knowledge. The path to knowledge of nature is also the path to knowledge of the self.
[ 65 ] Two currents now emerged in the development of Western thought, which strove in different ways towards the new goals of knowledge made necessary by the natural sciences. One goes back to Jakob Böhme, the other to Rene Descartes.
[ 66 ] Jakob Böhme and Descartes were no longer under the spell of scholasticism. The latter realized that there was no place for heaven anywhere in the universe; that is why he became a mystic. He seeks heaven within man. He recognized that the scholastics' adherence to Christian doctrine was merely a matter of centuries of habituation to these ideas. He therefore considered it necessary first to doubt these habitual ideas and to seek a way of knowing through which man can arrive at such knowledge, the certainty of which he does not claim out of habit, but which can be guaranteed to him at any moment by his own spiritual powers.
[ 67 ] Thus, both Böhme and Descartes make strong attempts to make the human ego recognize itself. Nevertheless, both were overwhelmed by the old prejudices in their further explanations. It has already been indicated that Jakob Böhme has a certain spiritual affinity with the Neoplatonists. His insight is a contemplation of his own inner self. But what confronts him in this inner being is not the ego of man, but again only the Christian God. He realizes that in his own mind there is that which man in need of knowledge desires. Fulfillment of the most ardent human longings flows towards him from there. But this does not lead him to the view that the ego, by increasing its powers of cognition, is also capable of satisfying its demands out of itself. Rather, it leads him to the opinion that he has truly found God through the path of knowledge in the mind, which Christianity had only sought in a false way. Instead of self-knowledge, Jakob Böhme seeks union with God, instead of life with the treasures of his own inner being, he seeks a life in God.
[ 68 ] It is obvious that how man thinks about his actions, about his moral life, will also depend on human self-knowledge or self-recognition. The realm of morality is built up, as it were, as a higher floor above the purely natural processes. The Christian faith, which already regards these natural processes as an outflow of the divine will, will seek this will all the more in the moral. In the Christian doctrine of morals the crookedness of this world view is shown almost more clearly than anywhere else. No matter how much sophistry theology has expended in this area, questions remain here which, from the point of view of Christianity, show the contradictory nature of this view in very clear terms. If such a primordial being as the Christian God is assumed, it remains incomprehensible how the realm of action can be divided into two realms: that of good and that of evil. For all actions would have to flow from the primordial being and consequently bear the similar traits of their origin. They would have to be divine. Nor can human responsibility be explained on this basis. After all, man is guided by the divine will. He can therefore only abandon himself to it, he can only allow what God accomplishes to happen through him.
[ 69 ] Exactly the same thing that has occurred in the field of cognition has also taken place within the views on morality. Man met his inclination to tear his own self out of himself and present it as an alien. And just as in the field of cognition no other content could be given to the primordial being regarded as extra-human than that drawn from within oneself, so no moral intentions and impulses for action could be found in this being other than the human soul's own. What man was convinced in his innermost being that it should happen, he regarded as the will of the world being. In this way a duality was created in the sublime realm. The self, which one had within oneself and from which one had to act, was contrasted with one's own content as the morally determining factor. And this allowed moral demands to arise. The self of man was not allowed to follow itself, it had to follow a stranger. Self-alienation in the field of knowledge corresponds to the selflessness of actions in the moral field. Those actions are good in which the ego follows the stranger, while those in which it follows itself are evil. Christianity sees selfishness as the source of evil. This could never have happened if it had been recognized that all morality can only draw its content from the self. The whole sum of Christian moral teaching can be summarized in the following sentence: If a man admits to himself that he can only follow the commandments of his own nature and acts accordingly, he is evil; if this truth is hidden from him and he places - or allows to be placed - his own commandments as foreign ones above himself in order to act in accordance with them, he is good.
[ 70 ] Perhaps the moral doctrine of selflessness is most perfectly realized in a book from the fourteenth century: "The German Theology". The author of the book is unknown to us. He took self-denial so far as to ensure that his name would not go down to posterity. In the book it says: "This is not a true being and has no being, other than in the perfect, but it is an accident or a splendor and an appearance, which is no being or has no being, other than in the fire, where the splendor flows out, or in the sun, or in the light, the Scripture speaks and the faith and the truth: Sin is nothing else than that the creature turns away from the unchangeable good and turns to the changeable, that is: that it turns from the perfect to the divided and imperfect, and most of all to itself. Now notice. When the creature assumes something good, as being, life, knowledge, cognition, faculty, and lately all that is to be called good, and thinks that it is so, or that it is its own, or that it belongs to it, or that it is of it: as often and as much as this happens, it turns away. What else did the devil do, or what else was his fall and turning away, but that he assumed that he was also something and that something was his and that something belonged to him? This assumption and his I and his me, his me and his mine, that was his turning away and his fall. So it still is. - For everything that is considered good or should be called good belongs to no one, but only to the eternal, true good, which is God alone, and whoever accepts it does wrong and against God."
[ 71 ] The turn that Jakob Böhme gave to the relationship between man and God is also connected with a change in the views on morality compared to the old Christian ideas. God as the initiator of the good still works as a higher being in the human self, but he works in this self, not from outside on it. This results in an internalization of moral action. The rest of Christianity only demanded an external compliance with the divine will. With Jakob Böhme, the previously separate entities, the real personal and that which has been made into God, enter into a living connection. As a result, the source of morality is now shifted to the human interior, but the ethical principle of selflessness appears even more strongly emphasized. If God is seen as an external power, then the human self is the actual agent. It either acts in accordance with God or in opposition to him. However, if God is relocated to the human interior, then man no longer acts himself, but God acts in him. God lives Himself directly in human life. Man renounces having a life of his own, he makes himself a member of divine life. He feels himself in God, God in him, he grows together with the primordial being, he becomes an organ of it.
[ 72 ] In this German mysticism, man has thus bought his participation in the divine life with the most complete obliteration of his personality, his ego. Jakob Böhme and the mystics who held his view did not feel the loss of the personal. On the contrary, they felt something particularly uplifting at the thought that they were direct participants in the divine life, that they were members of the divine organism. The organism cannot exist without its members. The mystic therefore felt himself to be a necessary part of the world as a whole, a being that is indispensable to God. - Angelus Silesius, the mystic who felt in the same spirit as Jakob Böhme, expresses this in a beautiful sentence:
"I know that without me God cannot live for a moment,
I will not, he must give up the ghost from need."
And even more characteristically in another:
"God may not make a single worm without me,
If I don't receive it with him, it must crumble straight away."
[ 73 ] The human ego here asserts its right in the strongest way against its image transposed into the outside world. The supposed primordial being is not told here either that it is the human entity placed opposite itself by the human being, but the latter is made the upholder of the divine primordial ground.
[ 74 ] Descartes had a strong sense that man had brought himself into a skewed relationship with the world through his development of thought. That is why he initially opposed everything that emerged from this development of thought with doubt. Only if one doubts everything that the centuries have developed as truths can one - in his opinion - gain the necessary impartiality for a new starting point. It was in the nature of things that Descartes was led by this doubt to the human ego. For the more man regards everything else as something still to be sought, the more intense a feeling he must have of his own searching personality. He can say to himself: perhaps I am going astray on the paths of existence; but he is pointed all the more clearly to himself, the erring one. Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is one such indication. Descartes also goes further. He is aware that the way in which man comes to knowledge about himself should be exemplary for all other knowledge that he seeks to acquire. Descartes considers clarity and distinctness to be the most prominent characteristics of self-knowledge, and he therefore also demands these two characteristics of all other knowledge. What man understands as clearly and clearly as his own being: that alone can be considered certain.
[ 75 ] Thus, at least in one direction, the absolutely central position of the I in the world as a whole is recognized, in the direction of the method of cognition. Man orients the how of his knowledge of the world according to the how of his self-knowledge and no longer asks for an external being to justify this how. Man does not want to think how a god prescribes knowledge, but how he arranges it for himself. With regard to the how, man now draws the power of his wisdom from himself.
[ 76 ] Descartes did not take the same step with regard to the what. He set about gaining ideas about the world and - in accordance with the principle of knowledge just mentioned - searched his own inner being for such ideas. There he found the idea of God. It was, of course, nothing more than the idea of the human ego. Descartes did not realize this. He was deceived by the fact that the idea of God as the most perfect being led his thinking in a completely wrong direction. For him, the one quality, that of the greatest perfection, outshone all other qualities of the central being. He said to himself: man, who is himself imperfect, cannot draw the idea of a most perfect being from himself, so it can only come to him from outside, from the most perfect being itself. Thus this most perfect being exists. If Descartes had investigated the true content of the idea of God, he would have found that it is completely equal to the idea of the self and that perfection is only an intensification of this content carried out in thought. The essential content of an ivory sphere is not changed by the fact that I imagine it to be infinitely large. Just as little does the I-conception become something else through such an increase.
[ 77 ] Thus, Descartes' proof of the existence of God is again nothing but a paraphrase of the human need to make one's own ego as an extra-human being the foundation of the world. Here, however, it is shown with complete clarity that man cannot gain any content of his own for this extra-human primordial being, but can only lend it the content of his ego conception in an insignificantly altered form.
[ 78 ] With Spinoza, no step forward has been taken on the path that must lead to the conquest of the concept of the ego, but rather a step backwards. For Spinoza has no sense of the unique position of the human ego. For him the stream of world processes is exhausted in a system of natural necessities, just as for the Christian philosophers it is exhausted in a system of divine acts of will. Here, as there, the human ego is only a link in this system. For the Christian, man is in the hands of God, for Spinoza in those of natural world events. For Spinoza, the Christian God has taken on a different character. The philosopher, who grew up in the age of the blossoming of scientific insights, cannot recognize a God who controls the world arbitrarily, but only a primordial being who exists because his existence is a necessity through himself, and who guides the course of the world according to the unchangeable laws that flow from his own absolutely necessary being. Spinoza has no awareness of the fact that man takes the image under which he imagines this necessity from his own content. For this reason, Spinoza's moral ideal is also an impersonal, non-individual one. According to his presuppositions, he cannot see an ideal in the perfection of the ego, in the increase of man's own powers, but rather in the penetration of the ego with the divine content of the world, with the highest knowledge of the objective God. Losing oneself to this God should be the goal of human endeavor.
[ 79 ] The path taken by Descartes: to advance from the ego to knowledge of the world, is now continued by the philosophers of modern times. The Christian theological method, which had no confidence in the power of the human ego as an organ of knowledge, was at least overcome. One thing was recognized, that the ego itself must find the highest being. From there to the other point, to the insight that the content lying in the ego is also the highest being, is admittedly a long way off.
[ 80 ] The English philosophers Locke and Hume were less profound than Descartes in their investigation of the paths taken by the human ego in order to arrive at an explanation of itself and the world. Both lacked one thing above all: a healthy, free view of the human inner self. They were therefore also unable to get an idea of the great difference that exists between the knowledge of external things and that of the human ego. Everything they say refers only to the acquisition of external knowledge. Locke completely overlooks the fact that man, by enlightening himself about external things, spreads over them a light that flows from within himself. He therefore believes that all knowledge comes from experience. But what is experience? Galileo sees an oscillating church lamp. It leads him to find the laws according to which a body vibrates. He experienced two things: firstly, external processes through his senses. Secondly, the idea of a law that explains these processes and makes them comprehensible. One can of course call the one and the other experience. But then one fails to recognize the difference that exists between the two parts of the cognitive process. A being that could not draw from the content of its being would stand eternally before the swinging church lamp: sensory perception would never be supplemented by a conceptual law. Locke and all those who think like him are deceived by something - namely, by the way in which the contents of knowledge come to us. They simply rise to the horizon of our consciousness. This ascent is formed by experience. But it must be recognized that the content of the laws of experience is developed by the ego through experience. With Hume two things become apparent. First, that this man, as already mentioned, does not recognize the nature of the ego, and therefore, like Locke, derives the content of the laws from experience. And then that this content, by detaching itself from the ego, loses itself completely into the unknown, hangs freely in the air without support or foundation. Hume recognizes that external experience only transmits incoherent processes; it does not at the same time offer with these processes the laws according to which they are connected. Since Hume knows nothing of the nature of the ego, he cannot derive from it the justification for such a connection. He therefore derives it from the vaguest origin imaginable, from habituation. Man sees that a certain process is always followed by another; the fall of the stone is followed by the erosion of the ground on which it falls. Consequently, man becomes accustomed to thinking of such processes as being linked. All knowledge loses its meaning if one starts from such premises. The connection between the processes and their laws takes on something purely coincidental.
[ 81 ] We see in George Berkeley a man who became fully aware of the creative nature of the ego. He had a clear idea of the I's own activity in the creation of all knowledge. When I perceive an object, he said to himself, I am active. I create my perception. The object of a perception would always remain beyond my consciousness, it would not be there for me if I did not continually animate its dead existence through my activity. I only perceive this enlivening activity of mine, not what objectively precedes it as a dead object. Wherever I look in my sphere of consciousness: everywhere I see myself as 'active, as creative. In Berkeley's thinking, the ego takes on a universal life. What do I know of the being of things if I do not imagine this being?
[ 82 ] For Berkeley, the world consists of creating spirits that form a world out of themselves. But at this stage of cognition, the old prejudice also reappeared for him. He allows the ego to create its own world, but he does not at the same time give it the power to create from itself. A concept of God has to be used again. The creating principle in the ego is God, even in him.
[ 83 ] But this philosopher shows us one thing. Whoever really immerses himself in the essence of the creative ego will not come out of it again to an external being, except by force. And Berkeley proceeds violently. He traces the creation of the ego back to God without compelling necessity. Earlier philosophers emptied the ego of its content, and thus they had one for their God. Berkeley does not do this. Therefore, he can do nothing other than place a special one next to the creative spirits, which is basically completely similar to them, i.e. probably unnecessary.
[ 84 ] This becomes even more striking with the German philosopher Leibniz. He too had insight into the creative activity of the ego. He had a very clear view of the scope of this activity and saw its inner unity, its reliance on itself. The ego therefore became a world in itself, a monad for him. And everything that has existence can only have it by giving itself a closed content. Only monads, that is, beings that create from and within themselves, exist. Separate worlds for themselves, dependent on nothing but themselves. Worlds exist, not a world. Every person is a world, a monad in itself. If these worlds agree with each other, if they know of each other and think of the contents of their knowledge, then this can only be due to the fact that a predetermined agreement (pre-stabilized harmony) exists. The world is set up in such a way that one monad creates from itself what corresponds to the activity in the other. To bring about this harmony, Leibniz naturally needs the old God again. He recognized that the ego is active and creative within itself, that it gives itself its content; the fact that it also relates this content to the other world content remained hidden from him. As a result, he has not gotten away from the concept of God. Of the two requirements that lie in Goethe's sentence: "If I know my relationship to myself and to the outside world, then I call it truth", he only recognized one.
[ 85 ] This European development of thought has a very specific character. The best that man can recognize, he must draw from himself. He does indeed practise self-knowledge. But again and again he shrinks back from the thought of recognizing what he has created himself as such. He feels too weak to carry the world. That is why he places this burden on someone else. And the goals he sets for himself would lose their weight for him if he acknowledged their origin, which is why he burdens them with forces that he believes he takes from outside. Man glorifies his child without wanting to concede fatherhood.
[ 86 ] Despite the opposing currents, human self-knowledge has progressed steadily. At the point where it began to become quite questionable for all belief in the hereafter, it met Kant. The insight into the nature of human cognition has shaken the persuasiveness of all the evidence that has been devised to support such a belief. Gradually, people gained an idea of real knowledge and therefore saw through the fake, tortured nature of the illusory ideas that were supposed to provide information about the powers beyond the world. A pious, devout man like Kant could fear that further development on this path would lead to the dissolution of all faith. To his deeply religious mind, this must have seemed like an imminent great misfortune for mankind. Out of his fear of the destruction of religious ideas arose the need for him to thoroughly investigate the relationship of human cognition to the objects of faith. How is cognition possible, and to what can it extend? This is the question that Kant asked himself, probably from the outset in the hope of being able to gain one of the firmest supports for faith from his answer.
[ 87 ] Kant learned two things from his predecessors. Firstly, that there are indisputable findings. The truths of pure mathematics and the general doctrines of logic and physics appeared to him as such. Secondly, he drew on Hume's assertion that no absolutely certain truths can come from experience. Experience only teaches us that we have observed certain correlations so-and-so often; whether these correlations are also necessary cannot be determined by experience. If, as is undoubted, there are necessary truths and they cannot come from experience, where do they come from? They must be present in the human soul before experience. Now it is important to distinguish between what knowledge comes from experience and what cannot be taken from this source of knowledge. Experience happens through the fact that I receive impressions. These impressions are given by the sensations. The content of these sensations cannot be given to us in any other way than through experience. But these sensations, such as light, color, sound, warmth, hardness and so on, would be a chaotic mess if they were not brought into certain contexts. It is in these contexts that the sensory contents form the objects of experience. An object is made up of a certain ordered group of sensory contents. According to Kant, it is the human soul that organizes the contents of sensation into groups. It contains certain principles by which the diversity of sensations is brought into objective units. Such principles are space, time, and the way things are linked, such as cause and effect. The contents of sensation are given to me, but not their spatial juxtaposition or temporal sequence. These two are only added by the human being. Likewise, one sensory content is given and another, but not the fact that one is the cause of the other. Only the intellect makes them so. Thus in the human soul the ways in which the contents of sensation are connected are ready once and for all. If we can only come into possession of sensory contents through experience, we can nevertheless establish laws about how these sensory contents will be linked before all experience. For these laws are those given in our own soul. - We therefore have necessary cognitions. But these do not refer to a content, but only to the way in which contents are linked. Therefore, according to Kant, we will never draw contentful knowledge from the human soul's own laws. The content must come through experience. But the objects of the belief in the hereafter can never become the object of experience. They can therefore also not be reached through our necessary knowledge. We have an experiential knowledge and another necessary non-experiential knowledge of how the contents of experience can be linked. But we have no knowledge that goes beyond experience. The world of objects that surrounds us is as it must be according to the laws of connection present in our soul. How it is "in itself", apart from these laws, we do not know. The world to which our knowledge refers is not such an "in itself", but an appearance for us.
[ 88 ] Natural objections to these Kantian statements impose themselves on the unbiased. The difference in principle between the particulars (contents of sensation) and the way in which these particulars are connected does not exist in relation to knowledge in the way Kant assumes. Even if the one presents itself to us from the outside and the other emerges from within us, the two elements of cognition nevertheless form an inseparable unity. Only the abstracting mind can separate light, warmth, hardness and so on from spatial arrangement, causal connection and so on. In reality, they document their necessary unity in each individual object. The designation of one element as content as opposed to the other as a merely connecting principle is also skewed. In truth, the realization that something is a cause of another is just as much a realization of content as the realization that it is yellow. If the object is composed of two elements, one of which is given from without, the other from within, then it follows that what belongs together according to the matter is conveyed for cognition in two ways. Not, however, that we are dealing with two things that are different from each other and artificially coupled together. - Thus Kant can only support his view by forcibly separating things that belong together. The most conspicuous connection between the two elements is in the cognition of the human ego. Here, one does not come from without, the other from within, but both emerge from within. And both are not only one content here, but also a completely similar content.
[ 89 ] What mattered to Kant, what guided his thoughts as a heart's desire more than an unbiased observation of the real entities, was the salvation of the teachings relating to the hereafter. What knowledge had achieved over a long period of time as a support for these doctrines had become rotten. Kant now believed that he had shown that such a proof could not be given to knowledge at all, because it is dependent on experience and the things of the belief in the hereafter cannot become the object of experience. Kant thought he had thus created a free field in which knowledge would not interfere with him when he built his belief in the hereafter on it. And he demands that the things of the hereafter be believed in as the support of moral life. The despotic voice of the categorical imperative sounds to us from the realm from which we have no knowledge, demanding that we should do what is good. And in order to establish the moral kingdom, we need everything about which knowledge can say nothing. Kant believed he had achieved what he wanted: "I therefore had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith."
[ 90 ] The great philosopher in the development of Western thought who directly aimed at a realization of human self-consciousness is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It is characteristic of him that he approaches this knowledge without any presuppositions and with complete impartiality. He has the clear, sharp awareness that nowhere in the world can a being be discovered from which the ego could be derived. It can therefore only be derived from itself. Nowhere can a force be discovered from which the being of the I flows. Everything that the ego needs, it can only gain from itself. It does not merely gain information about its own being through self-observation, it only places this being within itself through an unconditional, unconditional action. "The ego posits itself, and it is, by virtue of this mere positing through itself; and vice versa: the ego is, and posits its being, by virtue of its mere being. It is at once the doer and the product of its action; the active, and that which is produced by the activity; action and deed are one and the same; and therefore: I am, is the expression of an act of deed." Completely unperturbed by the fact that earlier philosophers have placed the being he is describing outside of man, Fichte naively considers the ego. Therefore, the ego naturally becomes the highest being for him. "That whose being (essence) consists merely in the fact that it posits itself as being is the ego, as absolute subject. As it posits itself, it is, and as it is, it posits itself: and the ego is therefore absolutely and necessarily for the ego. What is not for itself is not an I... One may well hear the question raised: what was I before I came to self-consciousness? The natural answer to this is: I was not at all; for I was not I... Self-positioning and being, used by the I, are completely the same." The complete, bright clarity about one's own ego, the ruthless illumination of the personal, human being thus comes at the beginning of human thinking. The consequence of this must be that it is from here that man sets out to conquer the world. The second of Goethe's demands mentioned above: Knowledge of my relation to the world, follows on from the first: knowledge of the relation that the ego has to itself. This philosophy based on self-knowledge will speak of these two relationships. Not of the derivation of the world from a primordial being. One can now ask: should man put his own being in the place of the primordial being in which he places the origin of the world? Can man even make himself the starting point of the world? On the other hand, it must be emphasized that this question about the origin of the world comes from a lower sphere. In the course of the processes that are given to us by reality, we seek the causes for the events, other causes for the causes, and so on. We now extend the concept of causation. We are looking for an ultimate cause of the whole world. And in this way, the concept of the first, absolute, primordial being, necessary in itself, merges for us with the idea of the cause of the world. But this is a mere conceptual construction. If man creates such conceptual constructions, they need not also have a justification. The concept of the flying dragon has none either. Fichte starts from the ego as a primal being, and he arrives at ideas that present the relationship of this primal being to the rest of the world in an unbiased way, but not under the image of cause and effect. From the ego, Fichte now seeks to gain the ideas for understanding the rest of the world. Whoever does not want to deceive himself about the nature of what can be called knowledge or cognition cannot proceed in any other way. Everything that man can say about the nature of things is borrowed from the experiences of his inner being. "Man never realizes how anthropomorphic he is" (Goethe). There is an anthropomorphism in the explanation of the simplest phenomena, for example the impact of two bodies. The judgment that one body pushes the other is already anthropomorphic. For if we want to go beyond what the senses say about the process, we must transfer to it the experience that our body has when it sets a body in the outside world in motion. We transfer our experience of impact to the process of the external world and also speak of impact where we see a ball rolling towards us and subsequently a second ball rolling on. For we can only observe the movements of the two balls, we think of the impact in terms of our own experiences. All physical explanations are anthropomorphisms, humanizations of nature. Of course, it does not follow from this, as is so often inferred, that these explanations have no objective meaning for things. Part of the objective content of things only comes to light when we shed the light on them that we perceive within ourselves.
[ 91 ] Whoever, in the sense of Fichte, places the essence of the I entirely on itself, can also only find the sources of moral action in the I alone. The ego cannot seek agreement with another being, but only with itself. It does not allow its destiny to be dictated to it, but gives itself one. Act according to the principle that you can regard your actions as the most valuable possible. The supreme sentence of Fichte's moral doctrine should be expressed in something like this way. "The essential character of the ego, by which it differs from all that is outside it, consists in a tendency to self-activity for the sake of self-activity; and this tendency is what is thought when the ego is thought in and for itself, without all relation to anything outside it." An action is therefore on a higher level of moral appreciation the purer it flows from the self-activity and self-determination of the ego.
[ 92 ] In his later life, Fichte transformed his self-sufficient, absolute ego back into the external God and thereby sacrificed the true self-knowledge to which he had taken such important steps, to the self-emptying that stems from human weakness. Fichte's last writings are therefore of no significance for the progress of this self-knowledge.
[ 93 ] But the philosophical writings of Schiller are important for this progress. If Fichte expressed the self-reliance of the ego as a general philosophical truth, Schiller was more concerned with answering the question of how the particular ego of the single human individuality could live out this self-activity in itself in the best sense. - Kant had explicitly demanded the suppression of pleasure as a prerequisite for moral action. It is not what gives man satisfaction that he should accomplish, but what the categorical imperative demands of him. In his view, an action is all the more moral the more it is carried out with the suppression of all feelings of pleasure out of mere respect for the strict moral law. For Schiller, there seems to be something in this demand that diminishes human dignity. Is man really such a low being in his desire for pleasure that he must first eliminate this lower nature if he wants to be virtuous? Schiller rebukes such a degradation of man in Xenia:
"I gladly serve my friends, but unfortunately I do it with reluctance,
And so it often bothers me that I am not virtuous."
No, says Schiller, human instincts are capable of such refinement that it is a pleasure to do what is good. In the ennobled human being, the strict ought is transformed into a free will. And the human being who accomplishes the moral out of pleasure stands higher on the moral ladder than the one who must first do violence to his being in order to obey the categorical imperative.
[ 94 ] Schiller elaborated on this view in his "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of the Human Race". He had in mind the idea of a free individuality, which may calmly abandon itself to its egoistic drives, because these drives want that of themselves which can only be achieved by the unfree, ignoble personality if it suppresses its own needs. According to Schiller, man can be unfree in two respects: firstly, if he is only capable of following his blind, subordinate instincts. Then he acts out of necessity. The instincts compel him; he is not free. Secondly, however, man also acts unfree if he only follows his reason. For reason establishes the principles of action according to logical rules. A person who merely follows reason acts unfree because he submits to logical necessity. Only those in whom reason is so interwoven with their individuality, so ingrained in their flesh and blood, that they can accomplish with the greatest pleasure what the less morally superior person can only accomplish through the utmost self-emptying and through the strongest compulsion, act freely of their own accord.
[ 95 ] Friedrich Joseph Schelling wanted to continue on the path that Fichte had taken. This thinker took as his starting point the unbiased knowledge of the ego achieved by his predecessor. The ego was recognized as a being that draws its existence from itself. The next task was to bring nature into a relationship with this self-based ego. It is clear that if the ego was not to transfer the actual higher essence of things into the outside world, it had to be shown that it also creates from itself that which we call the laws of nature. The structure of nature outside in space therefore had to be the material system of that which the ego creates in a spiritual way within itself. "Nature should be the visible spirit, the spirit the invisible nature. Here, then, in the absolute identity of the spirit within us and of nature outside us, the problem of how a nature outside us is possible must be resolved." "The external world lies open before us in order to find in it the history of our spirit."
[ 96 ] Schelling thus sheds light on the process that philosophers have misinterpreted for so long. He shows that the explanatory light must fall on all world processes from a being, that the ego can recognize a being in all events, but he no longer presents this being as lying outside the ego, he sees it in the ego itself. The ego finally feels strong enough to animate the content of world phenomena out of itself. The way in which Schelling presented nature as a material embodiment of the ego in detail does not need to be explained here. What matters in this account is to show how the ego reclaims the sphere of power that it ceded to a self-generated creature in the course of the development of Western thought. For this reason, Schelling's other creations cannot be considered in this context. At most, they contribute details to the question touched upon. - Like Fichte, Schelling also departs from clear self-knowledge and then seeks to derive the things flowing from the self from other entities. The later teachings of both thinkers are relapses into views that they had completely overcome at an earlier age.
[ 97 ] Another bold attempt to explain the whole world on the basis of the content of the ego is the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. What Fichte characterized in his incomparable words, the essence of the human ego: Hegel sought to explore and describe its entire content from all sides. For he, too, sees this essence as the actual primordial thing, as the "in itself of things". But Hegel does something peculiar. He strips the ego of everything individual and personal. Although it is a real, true ego that Hegel bases world phenomena on, it seems impersonal, unindividual, far removed from the intimate, familiar ego, almost like a god. In such an unapproachable, strictly abstract form, Hegel dissects the 'I-ness' of the world according to its content in his logic. The most personal thinking is presented here in the most impersonal way. According to Hegel, nature is now nothing other than the content of the ego laid apart in space and time. This ideal content in its otherness. "Nature is the alienated spirit." In the individual human spirit, the impersonal ego becomes personal according to Hegel's constellation. In self-consciousness, the ego being is not only in itself, it is also for itself; the spirit discovers that the highest world content is its own content. - Because Hegel initially seeks to grasp the essence of the ego impersonally, he does not refer to it as an ego, but as an idea. Hegel's idea, however, is nothing other than the content of the human ego freed from all personal character. This abstraction from everything personal is most strongly evident in Hegel's views on the spiritual, the moral life. It is not the single personal, individual ego of man that is allowed to set itself its destiny, but the great, objective, impersonal world-ego, the general world-reason, the world-idea, abstracted from it. The individual ego must submit to this abstraction taken from its own being. In the legal, state and moral institutions, in the historical process, the world-idea has laid down the objective spirit. Compared to this objective spirit, the individual is inferior, accidental. Hegel never tires of emphasizing again and again that the accidental individual ego must integrate itself into the general orders, into the historical course of spiritual development. It is the despotism of the spirit over the bearers of this spirit that Hegel demands.
[ 98 ] It is a strange last remnant of the old belief in God and the afterlife that still appears here in Hegel. All the attributes with which the human ego, which has become the external ruler of the world, was once endowed have been dropped, and only that of logical generality remains. The Hegelian world-idea is the human ego, and Hegel's doctrine expressly recognizes this, for at the pinnacle of culture, according to this doctrine, man comes to feel his full identity with this world-ego. In art, religion and philosophy, man seeks to incorporate the most general into his particular being; the individual spirit permeates itself with the general world reason. Hegel describes the course of world history as follows: "If we take a look at the fate of world-historical individuals, they have had the good fortune to be the managers of a purpose that was a stage in the progress of the general spirit. In that reason makes use of these instruments, we may call it cunning, for it lets them accomplish their own ends with all the fury of passion, and not only preserves itself undamaged, but produces itself. The particular is usually too small in comparison with the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. World history thus presents itself as the struggle of individuals, and in the field of this particularity things proceed quite naturally. Just as in animal nature the preservation of life is the purpose and instinct of the individual, but just as here reason, the general, prevails and the individual falls, so it is in the spiritual world. The passions destroy each other; reason alone keeps watch, pursues its purpose and asserts itself." For Hegel, however, the highest stage in the development of human education is not represented in this sacrifice of the particular individual in favor of the general world reason, but in the complete interpenetration of both. In art, religion and philosophy, the individual works in such a way that his work is at the same time the content of the general world reason. - With Hegel, the subordination of the human particular ego to this world ego has also remained through the moment of generality that he placed in the world ego.
[ 99 ] Ludwig Feuerbach sought to put an end to this subordination by expressing with powerful words how man transfers the essence of his ego into the external world in order to then confront it as recognizing, obeying and worshipping a god. "God is the revealed inner being, the expressed self of man; religion is the solemn revelation of man's hidden treasures, the confession of his innermost thoughts, the public avowal of his professions of love." But even Feuerbach has not yet purified the idea of this ego from the moment of generality. For him, the general human ego is higher than the individual single ego. And although, as a thinker, he does not, like Hegel, objectify this general ego into a world being that exists in itself, he nevertheless juxtaposes the human individual being with the general concept of the generic. human being and demands that the individual should rise above the limits of his individuality.
[ 100 ] It was Max Stirner who, in his 1844 book "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" ("The One and His Property"), radically demanded of the ego that it should finally realize that it has cut all the beings it has placed above itself in the course of time out of its own body and transferred them into the outside world as idols. Every god, every general world reason is an image of the ego and has no other qualities than the human ego. And the concept of the general ego is also peeled out of the completely individual ego of each individual.
[ 101 ] Stirner calls on man to throw off everything general and to confess to himself that he is an individual. "You are more than a Jew, more than a Christian, etc., but you are also more than a human being. These are all ideas, but you are a real person. Do you think you can ever become 'human as such'?" "I am human! I don't need to create the human being in myself, because he already belongs to me like all my qualities." "Only I am not abstraction alone, I am everything in everything; ... I am not a mere thought, but at the same time I am full of thoughts, a world of thoughts. Hegel condemns what is my own, what is mine...Absolute thinking is that thinking which forgets that it is my thinking, that I think, and that it is only through me. As I, however, I devour what is mine again, I am master of it, it is only my opinion, which I can change at any moment, that is, destroy, take back into myself and consume." "Thought is only my own when I can subjugate it, but it can never subjugate me, never fanatize me, never make me the instrument of its realization." All beings placed above the ego are ultimately shattered by the realization that they have only been brought into the world through the ego. "For my thinking, the beginning is not a thought, but I, and therefore I am also its goal, just as its entire course is only a course of my self-indulgence."
[ 102 ] The individual I in Stirner's sense should not be defined by a thought, an idea. For ideas are something alien; and such a definition would immediately subordinate the individual - at least logically - to a general. All other things in the world can be defined by ideas, but we must experience our own self as an individual within ourselves. Everything that is said about the individual in thought cannot absorb its content; it can only point to it. One says: look into yourself; there is something for which every concept, every idea is too poor to encompass it in its corporeal richness, which produces the ideas out of itself, but which itself has an inexhaustible well within itself, the content of which is infinitely more extensive than everything it produces. In a reply written by Stirner, he says: "The only one is a word, and with a word one ought to be able to think something, a word ought to have a thought content. But the only one is a thoughtless word, it has no thought content. But then what is its content if the thought is not? One that cannot be there for the second time, consequently also cannot be expressed, for if it could be expressed, really and completely expressed, it would be there for the second time, would be there in "expression"...Only then, when nothing is said of you and you are only named, are you recognized as you. As long as something is said about you, you are only recognized as this something (human being, spirit, Christian, etc.)." The individual ego is therefore that which is everything that it is only through itself, which draws the content of its existence from itself and continually expands it out of itself. - This individual I cannot recognize any ethical obligation that it does not impose on itself. "Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane, whether inhuman, illiberal, inhumane, what do I ask about it? If it only aims at what I want, if I only satisfy Myself in it, then put whatever predicates you like on it: it is all the same to Me..." "I, too, may already resist my previous thoughts in the next moment, I, too, may suddenly change my way of acting; but not because it does not correspond to Christianity, not because it runs against eternal human rights, not because it strikes the idea of humanity, humanity and humaneness in the face, but - because I am no longer completely with it, because it no longer gives me full pleasure, because I doubt the former thought or no longer like the way of acting I have just practiced." It is characteristic how Stirner talks about love from this point of view. "I also love people, not just individuals, but everyone. But I love them with the awareness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because I like it. I know no "commandment of love..." All state, social and church organizations are a shackle to this sovereign individual. For all organizations presuppose that the individual must be one way or another in order to be integrated into the community. But the individual does not want to be determined by the community as to how it should be; it wants to make itself this way or that. In his book "Max Stirner, his life and work", J. H. Mackay expressed what matters to Stirner: the "destruction of those alien powers which seek to suppress and destroy the ego in the most diverse forms, in the first place; and the exposition of the relations of our intercourse with one another, as they result from the conflict and harmony of our interests, in the second". The individual cannot satisfy himself in an organized community, but only in free intercourse or association. This knows no social structure set as power over the individual. In it, everything happens through the individual. Nothing is fixed in it. What happens can always be traced back to the will of the individual. No one and nothing represents an overall will. Stirner does not want society to take care of the individual, protect his rights, promote his welfare and so on. If the organization is taken away from people, then their intercourse regulates itself. I would rather be dependent on people's self-interest than on their "services of love, mercy, compassion, etc.". The latter demands reciprocity (as you do to me, so I do to you), does nothing "for nothing, and can be won and - bought." Let intercourse have its complete freedom, and it will create that unlimited reciprocity which you can only produce to a limited extent through a community. "Neither a natural nor a spiritual bond holds the association together, and it is not a natural, not a spiritual union; not one blood, not one faith (that is, spirit) brings it about. In a natural bond - like a family, a tribe, a nation, even humanity - the individuals have only the value of examples of the same species or genus; in a spiritual bond - like a community, a church - the individual means only a member of the same spirit; what you are in both cases as the only one, that must - be suppressed. As the only one, you can only assert yourself in the association, because the association does not possess you, but you possess it or make it your own."
[ 103 ] The path by which Stirner arrived at his view of the individual can be described as a universal critique of all general powers that oppress the ego. The churches, the political systems (political liberalism, social liberalism, humane liberalism), the philosophies, they have all placed such general powers above the individual. Political liberalism fixes the "good citizen", social liberalism the worker equal in common property with all others, humane liberalism the "man as man". By destroying all these powers, Stirner erects the sovereignty of the individual on the ruins. "What should not everything be my cause! Above all the good cause, then the cause of God, the cause of humanity, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; furthermore the cause of My people, of My prince, of My fatherland; finally even the cause of the spirit and a thousand other things. Only My cause shall never be My cause. - Let us then see how those do it with their cause, for whose cause we should work, devote ourselves and be enthusiastic. You know much to proclaim about God and have for millennia "explored the depths of the Godhead and looked into its heart, so that you can well tell Us how God Himself pursues the "cause of God, which we are called to serve. Nor do you conceal the Lord's doings. What is his business now? Has he, as we are expected to believe, made a foreign cause, has he made the cause of truth, of love, his own? This misunderstanding outrages you and you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called a cause alien to him, because God himself is truth and love; you are outraged by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms by promoting an alien cause as his own. "God should take up the cause of truth if he were not truth himself?" He cares only for his cause, but because he is all in all, therefore all is also his cause; we, however, We are not all in all, and our cause is even small and contemptible; therefore we must serve a "higher cause. - Now, it is clear that God is only concerned with His own, is only concerned with Himself, thinks only of Himself and has Himself in mind; woe to everything that is not pleasing to Him. He serves no one higher and only satisfies himself. His cause is a purely selfish one. What about humanity, whose cause we are to make ours? Is their cause someone else's and does humanity serve a higher cause? No, humanity looks only to itself, humanity wants only to further humanity, humanity is its own cause. In order that it may develop, it lets peoples and individuals toil in its service, and when they have accomplished what humanity needs, it throws them into the dustbin of history out of gratitude. Isn't the cause of humanity a purely selfish cause?" From such a critique of everything that man should make his cause, Stirner concludes: "God and mankind have made their cause based on nothing but themselves. Do I then likewise place my cause on me, I who am as good as God the nothing of everything else, I who am my everything, I who am the only one."
[ 104 ] This is Stirner's way. One can also take a different path to arrive at the nature of the ego. One can observe it in its cognitive activity. Focus your gaze on a process of cognition. Through thoughtful observation of the processes, the ego seeks to become aware of what actually underlies these processes. underlying these processes. What does one want to achieve through this thinking observation? To answer this question we must observe: what would we possess of the processes without this contemplation, and what do we attain through it? - I must limit myself here to a meagre sketch of these fundamental worldview questions and can only refer to the further explanations in my writings "Truth and Science" and "Philosophy of Freedom".
[ 105 ] Consider an arbitrary process. I throw a stone in a horizontal direction away from me. It moves in a crooked line and falls to the ground after a while. I see the stone in successive moments at different places after it has taken me a certain amount of effort to throw it away. Through my thoughtful contemplation I gain the following. The stone is under several influences during its movement. If it were only under the effect of the push I gave it when I threw it away, it would fly away forever, in a straight line, without changing speed. But now the earth exerts an influence on it which is called the force of attraction. If I had simply let go of it without pushing it away, it would have fallen perpendicular to the earth and its speed would have continued to increase. The interaction of these two influences is what really happens. These are all considerations that I add to what I would see without thinking.
[ 106 ] In this way, in every process of cognition we have one element that would present itself to us even without thoughtful contemplation, and another that we can only gain through it. - Once we have gained both, it is clear to us that they belong together. A process proceeds according to the laws that I gain about it through my thinking. The fact that for me the two elements are separate and are joined together through my cognitive process is my business. The process is not concerned with this separation and combination. It follows from this, however, that cognition is my business at all. Something that I accomplish merely for my own sake.
[ 107 ] But now something else is added. The things and processes would never give me out of themselves what I gain through my thinking observation of them. Out of themselves they give me precisely what I possess without this contemplation. It has already been said in these explanations that I take from myself that which I see in things as their deepest essence. I produce the thoughts I have about things from within myself. As has been shown, they nevertheless belong to the things. The essence of things therefore does not come to me from them, but from me. My content is their essence. I would not even be able to ask what the essence of things is if I did not find something in myself that I call this essence of things, that which belongs to them, but which they do not give me from themselves, but which I can only take from myself. - In the process of cognition I take the essence of things from myself. I therefore have the essence of the world within me. Consequently, I also have my own essence within me. With the other things two things appear to me: a process without the essence and the essence through me. In myself, process and essence are identical. I created the essence of the whole rest of the world out of myself, and I also create my own essence out of myself.1It should read: "I create out of myself". I probably made the imperfect tense due to a printing error.
[ 108 ] My actions are now part of the general world events. It therefore has its essence in me just like everything else that happens. Seeking the laws for human action therefore means drawing them from the content of the self. Just as the believer in God derives the laws of his actions from the will of his God, so the person who has realized that the essence of all things lies in the ego can only find the laws of action in the ego. If the ego has really penetrated the essence of its actions, then it feels itself to be the master of them. As long as we believe in a world being that is alien to us, the laws of our actions are also alien to us. They dominate us; what we accomplish is under the compulsion they exert on us. Once they have been transformed from such an alien entity into the very own actions of our ego, this compulsion ceases. What compels us has become our own being. Lawfulness no longer rules over us, but in us over the events emanating from our ego. The realization of a process by means of a lawfulness that is external to the realizer is an act of bondage; the realization of a process by the realizer himself is an act of freedom. To give oneself the laws of one's actions means to act as a free individual. Observation of the process of cognition shows man that he can only find the laws of his actions within himself.
[ 109 ] Comprehending the ego through thinking means creating the foundation for basing everything that comes from the ego on the ego alone. The ego that understands itself can make itself dependent on nothing but itself. And it can be responsible to no one but itself. After these explanations it seems almost superfluous to say that the ego can only mean the bodily, real ego of the individual and not a general ego that is detached from it. For such an ego can only be derived from the real one through abstraction. It is therefore dependent on the truly individual. (The same direction of ideas and view of life from which my above-mentioned writings have arisen is also represented by Benj. R. Tucker and J. H. Mackay. Compare the former's "Instead of a Book" and the latter's cultural painting "The Anarchists.")
[ 110 ] In the previous and the greater part of our century, thought endeavored to conquer the ego's position in the world as a whole. Spirits who are already alien to this tendency are Arthur Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, who is still active among us. Both have no longer transferred the full essence of our ego, which we find in our consciousness, into the outside world as a primordial being. Schopenhauer regarded a part of this ego, the will, as a world being, and Hartmann sees the unconscious as such. What both have in common is this striving to subordinate the ego to the general world being assumed by them. In contrast, the last of the strict individualists, Friedrich Nietzsche, based on Schopenhauer, arrived at views that lead to the absolute appreciation of the individual ego. In his opinion, true culture consists of cultivating the individual so that he has the strength to develop everything that lies within him. Until now, it was only by chance that an individual was able to develop fully out of himself. "This superior type has already existed often enough: but as a stroke of luck, as an exception, never as intended. Rather, it has been feared the most, it has almost been the fearful; - and out of fear, the opposite type was wanted, bred, achieved: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick human animal, - the Christian...". Nietzsche poetically transfigured his type of human being as an ideal in his Zarathustra. He calls him the superman. This is the human being liberated from all norms, who no longer wants to be the image of God, a being pleasing to God, a good citizen and so on, but himself and nothing more - the pure and absolute egoist.