Goethean Science
GA 1
11. Relationship of the Goethean Way of Thinking to Other Views
[ 1 ] When one speaks of the influence of earlier or contemporary thinkers upon the development of Goethe's spirit, this cannot be done out of the assumption that he formed his views on the basis of their teachings. The way he had to think, the way he saw the world, were inherent in the whole predisposition of his nature. And it lay in his being, indeed, from his earliest youth. In this respect he then also remained the same his whole life long. It is principally two significant character traits that come into consideration here. The first is his pressing urge to find the sources, the depths of all existence. This is, ultimately, his belief in the idea. Goethe is always filled with an intimation of something higher, better. One would like to call this a deep religious impulse of his spirit. What so many people need to do—to strip things of everything holy and pull them down to their own level—is unknown to him. But he does have the other need: to sense something higher and to work his way up to it. He sought to gain from everything an aspect by which it becomes holy to us. K. J. Schröer has shown this in the most brilliant way with respect to Goethe's attitude toward love. Goethe divests love of everything frivolous, careless, and it becomes for him a devout state. This fundamental trait of his being is expressed most beautifully in his words:
Within our bosom's pureness swells a striving,
To give oneself, in thankful, free devotion,
To something higher, purer, as yet unknown.
We call it: being devout!
[ 2 ] This side of his being, now, is inseparably connected with another one. He never seeks to approach this higher something directly; he always seeks to draw near to it through nature. “The true is like God; it does not appear directly; we must guess it from its manifestations” (Aphorisms in Prose). Besides his belief in the idea Goethe also has the other one: that we can gain the idea by contemplating reality; it does not occur to him to seek the divinity anywhere else than in the works of nature, but he seeks everywhere to gain from them their divine aspect. When, in his youth, he erects an altar to the great God who “stands in direct connection with nature” (Poetry and Truth), this ritual definitely springs already out of a belief that we gain the highest that we can attain by a faithful fostering of our interrelationship with nature. Thus, that way of looking at things which we have validated epistemologically is innate in Goethe. He approaches reality with the conviction that everything is only a manifestation of the idea, and that we can attain this idea only when we raise sense experience into a spiritual beholding. This conviction was inherent in him, and from his youth up, he looked at the world on the basis of this presupposition. No philosopher could give him this conviction. This is therefore not what Goethe sought from the philosophers. It was something else. Even though his way of looking at things lay deep in his nature, still he needed a language in which to express it. His nature worked in a philosophical way, i.e., in such a way that it can be expressed only in philosophical formulations and can be validated only by philosophical presuppositions. And he looked into the philosophers in order also to bring clearly to consciousness for himself what he was, in order also to know what lay in him as living activity. He sought in them an explanation and validation of his own being. That is his relationship to the philosophers. To this end, he studies Spinoza in his youth and entered later into scientific discourse with his philosophical contemporaries. In his early years, Spinoza and Giordano Bruno seemed to the poet to best express his own nature. It is remarkable that he first learned to know both thinkers from books hostile to them, and, in spite of this fact, recognized how their teachings relate to his nature. We see this substantiated especially in his relationship to Giordano Bruno's teachings. He becomes acquainted with him in Bayle's dictionary, where he is vehemently attacked. And Goethe receives such a deep impression from him that, in those parts of Faust which in their conception stem from the period around 1770 when he was reading Bayle, the language echoes sentences of Bruno. In his daily and yearly notebooks the poet relates that he again occupied himself with Giordano Bruno in 1812. This time also the impression is a powerful one, and in many of the poems written after this year we can recognize echoes of the philosopher of Nola. But all this should not be taken to mean that Goethe borrowed or learned anything from Bruno; he only found in him the formulations in which to express what had lain in his own nature for a long time. He found that he could most clearly present his own inner life if he did so in the words of that thinker. Bruno regarded universal reason as the creator and director of the universe. He calls it the inner artist that forms matter and shapes it from within outward. It is the cause of everything that exists, and there is no being in whose existence it does not take a loving interest. “However small and trifling a thing may be, it still has within it a portion of spiritual substance”, (Giordano Bruno, About the Cause, etc.). That was also Goethe's view, that we first know how to judge a thing when we see how it has been set in its place by universal reason, how it has come to be precisely that which confronts us. Perceiving with the senses does not suffice, for the senses do not tell us how a thing relates to the general world idea, what it means for the great whole. There we must look in such a way that our reason creates an ideal basis on which there can then appear to us what the senses convey to us; we must, as Goethe expresses it, look with the eyes of the spirit. Even for expressing this conviction he found a formulation in Bruno: “For, just as we do not recognize colours and sounds with one and the same sense, so also we do not recognize the substratum of the arts and that of nature with one and the same eye,” because we “see the first with the physical eye and the second with the eye of reason.” And with Spinoza it is no different. Spinoza's teachings are indeed based on the fact that the divinity has merged with the world. Human knowing can therefore aim only to penetrate into the world in order to know God. Any other way of arriving at God must seem impossible to anyone thinking consistently according to Spinoza's way of thinking. For God has given up all existence of His own; outside the world He exists nowhere. But we must seek Him where He is. Any actual knowing must therefore be of such a kind that, in every piece of world knowledge, it conveys to us a piece of divine knowledge. Knowing, at its highest level, is therefore a coming together with the divinity. There we call it knowing in beholding (anschauliches Wissen). We know things “sub specie æternitatis,” that is, as flowing from the divinity. The laws that our spirit recognizes in nature are therefore God in His very being; they are not only made by Him. What we recognize as logical necessity is so because the being of the divinity, i.e., the eternal lawfulness, dwells within it. That was a view which is in accordance with the Goethean spirit. His own firm belief that nature, in all its doings, reveals something divine to us lay before him in Spinoza's writings in the clearest statements. “I am holding firmly and ever more firmly to the atheist's (Spinoza) way of revering God,” he writes to Jacobi when the latter wanted to put the teachings of Spinoza in another light. Therein lies the relatedness of Goethe to Spinoza. And it indicates a superficial judgment of the matter when, with respect to this deep inner harmony between Goethe's nature and Spinoza's teachings, one ever and again emphasizes something purely external by saying that Goethe was drawn to Spinoza because he, like Spinoza, would not tolerate a final cause in explaining the world. The fact that Goethe, like Spinoza, rejected final causes was only one result of their views. But let us put the theory of final causes clearly before us. A thing is explained, in its existence and nature, by the fact that one demonstrates its necessity for something else. One shows that this thing is of such and such a nature because that other thing is like this or that. This presupposes that a world ground exists which stands over and above both beings and arranges them in such a way that they match each other. But if the world ground is inherent in every single thing, then this kind of explanation makes no sense. For then the nature of a thing must appear to us as the result of the principle at work within it. We will seek, within the nature of a thing, the reason why it is as it is and not different than it is. If we hold the belief that something divine is inherent in each thing, then it will not in fact occur to us to seek to explain its lawfulness by any outer principle. The relationship of Goethe to Spinoza should also not be grasped in any other way than that he found in Spinoza the formulations, the scientific language, for expressing the world lying within him.
[ 3 ] When we now pass on to Goethe's connection to contemporary philosophers, we must speak above all about Kant. Kant is generally regarded as the founder of present-day philosophy. In his time he called forth such a powerful movement that every educated person needed to come to terms with it. It was also necessary for Goethe to do so. But this did not prove to be a fruitful undertaking for him. For there is a deep antithesis between what the Kantian philosophy teaches and what we have recognized as the Goethean way of thinking. In fact, one can even say that all German thinking runs it course in two parallel streams: one permeated by the Kantian way of thinking and another that is close to Goethean thinking. But as philosophy today draws ever closer to Kant, it is distancing itself from Goethe, and through this the possibility for our age of grasping and appreciating the Goethean world view is being lost more and more. Let us set before us the main postulates of Kant's teachings insofar as they are of interest with respect to Goethe's views. For Kant, the starting point for human thinking is experience, i.e., the world given to the senses (among which is included the inner sense that conveys to us such facts as the psychic, historical, and the like). This world is a manifoldness of things in space and of processes in time. The fact that precisely this thing confronts me or that I experience precisely that process is of no consequence; it could also be different. I can think away the whole manifoldness of things and processes altogether. What I cannot think away, however, are space and time. For me, there can be nothing that is not spatial or temporal. Even if there were some non-spatial or non-temporal thing, I can know nothing about it, for I can picture nothing to myself without space and time. I do not know whether the things themselves partake of space and time; I only know that the things must appear to me in these forms. Space and time are therefore the prerequisites of my sense perception. I know nothing of any thing-in-itself; I only know how it must appear to me if it is to be there for me. With these postulates Kant introduces a new problem. He appears in science with a new way of asking questions. Instead of asking, as earlier philosophers did: What is the nature of things?, he asks: How must things appear to us in such a way that they can become the object of our knowing? For Kant, philosophy is the science of the factors that determine the possibility of the world as a manifestation for human beings. We know nothing about the thing-in-itself. We have not yet fulfilled our task when we arrive at a sense perception of a manifoldness in time and space. We strive to draw this manifoldness together into a unity. This is a matter for the intellect. The intellect is to be understood as a sum of activities whose purpose is to draw the sense world together according to certain forms already sketched out in the intellect. It draws together two sense perceptions by, for example, designating one as the cause and the other as the effect, or the one as substance and the other as attribute, etc. Here also it is the task of the science of philosophy to show under which conditions the intellect succeeds in forming a system of the world. Thus the world, according to Kant, is actually a subjective phenomenon arising in the forms of the sense world and of the intellect. Only one thing is certain: that there is a thing-in-itself; how it appears to us depends upon our organization. It is also obvious now that it makes no sense to ascribe to that world which the intellect has formed in association with the senses any significance other than what it has for our ability to know. This becomes clearest of all where Kant speaks of the significance of the world of ideas. Ideas for him are nothing other than the higher points of view of reason from which the lower entities, which the intellect has created, are understood. The intellect brings soul phenomena, for example, into a relationship; reason, as the faculty for ideas, then grasps this relationship as though everything went forth from one soul. But this has no significance for the thing itself; it is only a means of orientation for our cognitive faculty. This is the content of Kant's theoretical philosophy insofar as it can be of interest to us here. One sees at once that it is the polar opposite of the Goethean philosophy. Given reality is determined, according to Kant, by us ourselves; it is as it is because we picture it that way. Kant skips over the real epistemological question. At the beginning of his Critique of Reason he takes two steps that he does not justify, and his whole edifice of philosophical teachings suffers from this mistake. He right away sets up a distinction between object and subject, without asking at all what significance it has then for the intellect to undertake the separation of two regions of reality (in this case the knowing subject and the object to be known). Then he seeks to establish conceptually the reciprocal relationship of these two regions, again without asking what it means to establish something like that. If his view of the main epistemological question had not been all askew, he would have seen that the holding apart of subject and object is only a transitional point in our knowing, that a deeper unity, which reason can grasp, underlies them both, and that what is attributed to a thing as a trait, when considered in connection with a knowing subject, by no means has only subjective validity. A thing is a unity for our reason and the separation into “thing-in-itself” and “thing-for-us” is a product of our intellect. It will not do, therefore, to say that what is attributed to a thing in one connection can be denied it in other connections. For, whether I look at the same thing one time from this point of view and another time from that: it is after all still a unified whole.
[ 4 ] It is an error, running through Kant's entire edifice of teachings, for him to regard the sense-perceptible manifoldness as something fixed, and for him to believe that science consists in bringing this manifoldness into a system. He has no inkling at all that the manifoldness is not something ultimate, that one must overcome it if one wants to comprehend it; and therefore all theory becomes for him merely a supplement that the intellect and reason add onto experience. For him, the idea is not what appears to reason as the deeper ground of the given world when reason has overcome the manifoldness lying on the surface, but rather the idea is only a methodological principle by which reason orders the phenomena in order to have a better overview of them. According to the Kantian view, we would be going totally amiss if we were to regard things as traceable back to the idea; in his opinion, we can only order our experiences as though they stemmed from a unity. According to Kant, we have no inkling of the ground of things, of the “in-itself.” Our knowing of things is only there in connection with us; it is valid only for our individuality. Goethe could not gain much from this view of the world. The contemplation of things in their connection to us always remained for him a quite subordinate one, having to do with the effect of objects upon our feelings of pleasure and pain; he demands more of science than a mere statement as to how things are in their connection to us. In the essay The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object, he determines what the task of the researcher is: He should take his yardstick for knowledge, the data for his judgment, not from himself, but rather from the sphere of the things he observes. This one statement characterizes the deep antithesis between the Kantian and the Goethean way of thinking. Whereas with Kant, all judgments about things are only a product of subject and object, and only provide a knowing about how the subject beholds the object, with Goethe, the subject merges selflessly into the object and draws the data for his judgment from the sphere of the things. Goethe himself says therefore of Kant's adherents: “They certainly heard me but had no answer for me nor could be in any way helpful.” The poet believed that he gained more from Kant's critique of the power of judgment.
[ 5 ] Philosophically, Goethe benefited far more from Schiller than from Kant. Through him, namely, Goethe was really brought one stage further in the recognition of his own way of viewing things. Up to the time of that first famous conversation with Schiller, Goethe had practiced a certain way of viewing the world. He had observed plants, found that an archetypal plant underlies them, and derived the individual forms from it. This archetypal plant (and also a corresponding archetypal animal) had taken shape in his spirit, was useful to him in explaining the relevant phenomena. But he had never reflected upon what this archetypal plant was in its essential nature. Schiller opened his eyes by saying to him: It is an idea. Only from then on is Goethe aware of his idealism. Up until that conversation, he calls the archetypal plant an experience for he believed he saw it with his eyes. But in the introduction that he later added to his essay on the metamorphosis of the plants he says: “So from now on, I undertook to find the archetypal animal, which means, ultimately, the concept, the idea of the animal.” But we must bear in mind here that Schiller did not provide Goethe with something foreign to him, but rather Schiller, by observing the Goethean spirit, struggled through for the first time to a knowledge of objective idealism. He only found the right term for the way of viewing things that he recognized and marveled at in Goethe.
[ 6 ] Goethe experienced but little benefit from Fichte. Fichte moved in a sphere that was much too foreign to Goethean thinking to be of much possible benefit. Fichte founded the science of consciousness in the most brilliant way. In a unique and exemplary way, he traced the activity by which the “I” transforms the world that is given, into a world that is thought. But in doing so, he made the mistake of not merely regarding this activity of the “I” as one that brings the given content into a satisfactory form, that brings the unrelated given into the appropriate relationships; he saw this activity as a creating of everything which takes place within the “I.” Therefore his teachings appear as a one-sided idealism that takes its whole content from consciousness. Goethe, who always devoted himself wholly to what is objective, could find very little to attract him in Fichte's philosophy of consciousness. Goethe lacked understanding for the region where that philosophy is valid; but the lengths to which Fichte carried it (he saw it as the universal science) could only appear to the poet as an error.
[ 7 ] Goethe had many more points of contact with the young Schelling. Schelling was a student of Fichte. He did not only carry further the analysis of the activity of the “I,” however, but also investigated this activity within the consciousness by which nature is grasped. What takes place in the “I” when it is knowing nature seemed to Schelling to be at the same time that which is objective about nature, the actual principle within it. External nature was for him only a form of our nature concepts that has become fixed. What lives in us as a view of nature appears to us again outside, only spread out, spatial-temporally. What confronts us from outside as nature is a finished product, is only something already determined, the form of a living principle that has become rigid. We cannot gain this principle through experience from outside. We must first create it within our inner being. “To philosophize about nature means to create nature,” our philosopher says therefore. “We call nature, as a mere product (natura naturata), ‘nature as object’ (all empiricism devotes itself to this alone). We call nature, as productivity (natura naturans), ‘nature as subject’ (all theory devotes itself to this alone).” (Introduction to Schelling's First Sketch of a System of Natural Philosophy)63Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie “The contrast between empiricism and science rests, indeed, on the fact that empiricism studies its object in existence as something finished and already brought about, whereas science, on the other hand, studies the object in its becoming and as something still to be brought about.” (Ibid.) Through these teachings, with which Goethe became acquainted partly from Schelling's writings and partly from personal encounters with the philosopher, the poet was again brought a stage higher. He now developed the view that his tendency was to proceed from what is finished, the product, to what is becoming, the productive. And, with a definite echo of Schelling, he writes in his essay The Power to Judge in Beholding that his striving was to make himself “worthy, through beholding an ever-creating nature, of participating spiritually in its productions.”
[ 8 ] And through Hegel, finally, Goethe received his last help from the side of philosophy. Through him he gained clarity, namely, as to how what he called the archetypal phenomenon fitted into philosophy. Hegel understood the significance of the archetypal phenomenon more deeply than anyone else and characterized it aptly in a letter to Goethe on February 20, 1821 with the words: “The simple and abstract, what you quite aptly call the archetypal phenomenon, this you put first, and then show the concrete phenomena as arising through the participation of yet other influences and circumstances; and you direct the whole process in such a way that the sequence proceeds from the simple, determining factors to the composite ones, and, thus arranged, something complex appears in all its clarity through this decomposition. To seek out the archetypal phenomenon, to free it from other extraneous chance surroundings—to grasp it abstractly, as we call it—this I consider to be the task for a great spiritual sense for nature, just as I consider that procedure altogether to be what is truly scientific in gaining knowledge in this field.” ... “But may I now also speak to you about the particular interest which the archetypal phenomenon, lifted out in this way, has for us philosophers; namely, that we can put something prepared in this way precisely to philosophical use! If, in spite of everything, we have finally led our initially oysterlike, grey, or completely black absolute out toward the air and light, so that it desires them, then we need windows in order to lead it out fully into the light of day; our schemata would disperse into mist if we were to transfer them directly into the colourful, confused society of a resistant world. Here is where your archetypal phenomena now stand us in excellent stead; in this twilight—spiritual and comprehensible through its simplicity, visible or graspable through its sense-perceptibility—the two worlds greet each other: our abstruse existence and the manifest one.” In this way, through Hegel, the thought becomes clear to Goethe that the empirical researcher has to go as far as the archetypal phenomena and that the paths of the philosopher lead on from there. But from this it is also clear that the basic thought of Hegelian philosophy follows from the Goethean way of thinking. The overcoming of human nature, the entering deeply into it in order to ascend from the created to the creating, from the determined to the determining, is fundamental to Goethe, but also to Hegel. Hegel, indeed, wants to present nothing other in philosophy than the eternal process from which everything finite emerges. He wants to know the given as a result of that to which he can grant validity as something undetermined.
[ 9 ] Thus for Goethe, acquainting himself with philosophers and with directions in philosophy means an ongoing clarification of what already lay in him. He gained nothing new for his views; he was only given the means of speaking about what he did, about what was going on in his soul.
[ 10 ] Thus the Goethean world view offers many points of reference for philosophical elaboration. But these were initially taken up only by the pupils of Hegel. The rest of philosophy took a stand of dignified rejection toward the Goethean view. Only Schopenhauer bases himself in many respects upon the poet, whom he values highly. We will speak in a later chapter about his apologetic of the colour theory. Here it is a matter of describing the general relationship of Schopenhauer's teachings to Goethe.64An essay suite worth reading is Dr. Adolf Harpf's Goethe and Schopenhauer (Philosophische Monatshefte, 1885). Harpf, who has also already written an excellent treatise on Goethe's Principle of Knowledge (Goethes Erkenntnisprinzip, Philos. Monatshefte, 1884), shows the agreement between the “immanent dogmatism” of Schopenhauer and the objective knowledge of Goethe. Harpf, who is himself a follower of Schopenhauer, did not discover the principle difference between Goethe and Schopenhauer that we characterized above. Nevertheless, his reflections are quite worthy of attention. In one point the Frankfurt philosopher comes close to Goethe. Schopenhauer rejects, namely, any deriving from outer causes of the phenomena given us and admits the validity only of an inner lawfulness, of a deriving of one phenomenon from another. This seems to be the same as the Goethean principle of taking the data for an explanation from the things themselves; but only seemingly. Schopenhauer wants to remain in the realm of phenomena because he believes we cannot attain in knowledge the “in-itself” lying outside this realm, since all the phenomena given us are only mental pictures65Usually translated as “representations” in English versions of Schopenhauer's work—Ed. and our ability to make mental pictures never takes us outside our consciousness; Goethe, on the other hand, wants to remain within the phenomena, because he in fact seeks within the phenomena themselves the data needed for their explanation.
[ 11 ] In conclusion, let us still compare the Goethean world view with the most significant scientific phenomenon of our time, with the views of Eduard von Hartmann. This thinker's Philosophy of the Unconscious66Philosophie des Unbewussten is a work of the greatest historical significance. Taken together with the other writings of Hartmann (which elaborate in all directions what he there sketched out and in fact bring new points of view to that main work in many respects), this book mirrors the entire spiritual content of our age. Hartmann demonstrates a remarkable profundity and an amazing mastery of the material of the individual sciences. He stands today in the vanguard of culture. One does not need to be an adherent of his to have to acknowledge this unreservedly.
[ 12 ] His view is not so far from Goethe's as one might believe at first glance. Someone who has access only to the Philosophy of the Unconscious will not, to be sure, be able to see this. For, one sees the definite points of contact between these two thinkers only when one goes into the consequences that Hartmann drew from his principles and which he set down in his later writings.
[ 13 ] Hartmann's philosophy is idealism. He does not want to be a mere idealist, it is true. But where, for the purpose of explaining the world, he needs something positive, he does after all seek help from ideas. And the most important thing is that he thinks of the idea as the underlying principle everywhere. His assumption of an unconscious means nothing other, in fact, than that what is present in our consciousness as idea is not necessarily bound to this form of manifestation within our consciousness. The idea is not only present (active), where it becomes conscious, but also in another form. The idea is more than a merely subjective phenomenon; it has a significance founded within itself. It is not merely present within the subject; it is the objective world principle. Even though Hartmann includes will, in addition to the idea, among the principles constituting the world, it is nevertheless incomprehensible that there are still philosophers who regard him as an adherent of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer carried to extremes the view that all conceptual content is only subjective, is only a phenomenon of consciousness. With him, it is absolutely out of the question for the idea to have participated as a real principle in the constitution of the world. For him, will is the exclusive world ground. Therefore Schopenhauer could never find a way, with any content, of handling the specialized branches of philosophy, whereas Hartmann followed up his principles into all the particular sciences. Whereas Schopenhauer can say nothing more about the extremely rich content of history than that it is a manifestation of will, Eduard von Hartmann knows how to find the ideal core of every single historical phenomenon, and how to incorporate each phenomenon into the total historical development of mankind. The individual entity, the individual phenomenon, cannot be of interest to Schopenhauer, for he knows only one essential thing to say about it: that it is a manifestation of the will. Hartmann takes up each particular entity and shows how the idea is everywhere perceptible. The basic character of Schopenhauer's world view is uniformity; that of von Hartmann is unity. Schopenhauer bases the world upon an empty uniform urge; Hartmann bases it upon the rich content of the idea. Schopenhauer sets an abstract unity as a basis; with Hartmann, we find the concrete idea as principle, whose unity—or rather unifiedness—is only one characteristic of the idea. Schopenhauer would never have been able, as Hartmann was, to create a philosophy of history or a science of religion. When Hartmann says that “reason is the logical form principle of the idea—of the idea that is inseparably united with the will—and as such altogether governs and determines the content of the world process” (Philosophical Questions of the Present Day67Philosophische Fragen der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1885)), then this presupposition makes it possible for him, in every phenomenon that confronts us in nature and in history, to seek out its logical core, which, although not graspable by the senses, is quite graspable by thinking, and in this way to explain the phenomenon. Whoever does not make this presupposition will never be able to justify his wanting to determine anything at all about the world by reflection in the medium of ideas.
[ 14 ] In his objective idealism Eduard von Hartmann stands entirely upon the ground of the Goethean world view. When Goethe says that “everything of which we become aware and about which we are able to speak is only a manifestation of the idea” (Aphorisms in Prose), and when he states that the human being must develop within himself a capacity for knowledge of such a kind that the idea becomes just as observable to him as an outer perception is to his senses, then he stands upon that ground where the idea is not merely a phenomenon of consciousness but is an objective world principle; thinking is the flashing up in consciousness of that which objectively constitutes the world. The essential thing about the idea, therefore, is not what it is for us, for our consciousness, but rather what it is in itself. For, through its own particular being it underlies the world as principle. Therefore thinking is a becoming aware of what exists in and of itself. Therefore, although the idea would not come to manifestation at all if there were no consciousness, still the idea must be grasped in such a way that its characteristic feature consists not of its being conscious but rather of what it is in itself, of what lies within the idea itself; and this is not affected by its becoming conscious. Therefore, according to Eduard von Hartmann, we must base the world upon the idea—without regard to its becoming conscious—as something working and unconscious. That is what is essential for Hartmann: that we must seek the idea in everything unconscious.
[ 15 ] But not much is accomplished by this distinguishing between what is conscious and what is unconscious. For that is, after all, only a distinction for my consciousness. But one must grapple with the idea in all its objectivity, in all its fullness of content; one must consider not only that the idea is at work unconsciously, but also what this working element is. If Hartmann had stopped at the fact that the idea is unconscious and if he had explained the world out of this unconscious element—that is, out of a one-sided characteristic of the idea—then he would have added a new uniform system to the many systems that derive the world from some abstract formal principle or other. And one cannot declare his first main work to be entirely free of this uniformity. But Eduard von Hartmann's spirit works too intensively, too comprehensively and penetratingly, for him not to have recognized that the idea cannot be grasped merely as something unconscious; rather, one must in fact go deeply into what one has to address as unconscious, must go beyond this characteristic to its concrete content and derive from it the world of individual phenomena. In this way, Hartmann transformed himself from the abstract monist, which he still is in his Philosophy of the Unconscious, into a concrete monist. And it is the concrete idea that Goethe addresses in the three forms: archetypal phenomenon, typus, and “idea in the narrower sense.”
[ 16 ] What we find of Goethe's world view in Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy is the becoming aware of something objective within our world of ideas, and the devotion, arising from this becoming aware, to this objective element. Hartmann was led by his philosophy of the unconscious to this merging with the objective idea. Since he recognized that the being of the idea does not lie in its being conscious, he had to recognize the idea also as something existing in and of itself, as something objective. The fact that he also includes the will among the principles constituting the world does make him differ again from Goethe, to be sure. Nevertheless, where Hartmann is really fruitful, the will motif does not come into consideration at all. That he assumes this motif at all comes from the fact that he regards the ideas as something static which, in order to begin working, needs the impetus of will. According to Hartmann, the will alone can never achieve the creation of the world, for it is the empty, blind urge for existence. If the will is to bring forth something, then the idea must enter in, because only the idea gives the will a content for its working. But what are we to make of this will? It slips away from us when we want to grasp it; for we cannot after all grasp an empty urging that has no content. And so it turns out after all that everything which we actually grasp of the world principle is idea, because what is graspable must in fact have content. We can only grasp what is full of content, not what is empty of content. If therefore we are to grasp the concept will, it must after all arise in the content of the idea; it can appear only in and along with the idea, as the form in which it arises, never independently. What exists must have content; there can only be existence which is full; there cannot be an empty one. Therefore, Goethe pictures the idea as active, as something working, which needs no further impetus. For, something full of content may not and cannot first receive from something empty of content, the impetus to come into existence. The idea therefore, according to Goethe, is to be grasped as entelechy, i.e., as an already active existence; and one must first draw an abstraction from its form as an active existence if one then wants to bring it back again under the name will. The will motif also has no value at all for positive science. Hartmann also does not need it when he confronts the concrete phenomenon.
[ 17 ] If we have recognized in Hartmann's view of nature an echo of Goethe's world view, we find an even more significant one in that philosopher's ethics. Eduard von Hartmann finds that all striving for happiness, all pursuing of egoism, is ethically worthless, because we can, after all, never achieve contentment on this path. Hartmann considers acting out of egoism, and trying to satisfy it, to be illusory. We should grasp the task we are set in the world, and act purely for the sake of this task itself, with self-renunciation. We should find our goal in our devotion to the object, without demanding that our subject profit from it in some way. But this forms the basic impulse of Goethe's ethics. Hartmann should not have suppressed the word that expresses the character of his teachings on morality: love.68This does not mean to say that the concept of love receives no attention in Hartmann's ethics. He dealt with this concept both phenomenologically and metaphysically (see The Moral Consciousness, Das sittliche Bewusstsein). But he does not consider love to be the last word in ethics. Self-sacrificing, loving devotion to the world process does not seem to Hartmann as something ultimate but rather only as a means of deliverance from the unrest of existence and of regaining our lost, blissful peace. Where we claim nothing personally, where we act only because something objective moves us, where we find in the act itself the motive for our action, there we are acting morally. But there we are acting out of love. All self-will, everything personal, must disappear there. It is characteristic of the way Hartmann's powerful and healthy spirit works, that in spite of the fact that he first grasped the idea one-sidedly as unconscious, he still pressed forward to concrete idealism; and that in spite of the fact that he took his start in ethics from pessimism, he was still led by this mistaken standpoint to the ethical teaching of love. Hartmann's pessimism, in fact, does not mean what those people interpret it to mean who like to lament about the fruitlessness of our activity because they hope to find themselves justified by this in folding their hands in their laps and accomplishing nothing. Hartmann does not stop at such lamenting; he raises himself above any such impulse to a pure ethics. He shows the worthlessness of the pursuit of happiness by revealing its fruitlessness. He directs us thereby to our own activity. That he is a pessimist at all is his error. That is perhaps still a remnant from earlier stages of his thinking. From where he stands now, he would have to realize that the empirical demonstration that in the world of reality what is unsatisfying outweighs what is satisfying cannot establish pessimism. For the higher human being cannot wish for anything else at all than that he must achieve his happiness for himself. He does not want it as a gift from outside. He wants his happiness to consist only in his action. Hartmann's pessimism dissolves before (Hartmann's own) higher thinking. Because the world leaves us dissatisfied, we create for ourselves the most beautiful happiness in our own activity.
[ 18 ] Thus Hartmann's philosophy is yet another proof of how people starting from different points of departure arrive at the same goal; Hartmann takes his start from different presuppositions than Goethe does, but in his development of them, the Goethean train of thought confronts us at every turn. We have presented this here because we wanted to show the deep inner soundness of the Goethean world view. It lies so deeply founded in the being of the world that we must meet its basic features wherever energetic thinking penetrates to the sources of knowledge. Within Goethe everything was so very original, so totally free from the incidental, fashionable views of the time, that even his opponent must think in his sense. The eternal riddle of the world expresses itself, in fact, in single individuals; in Goethe most significantly of all in recent time; therefore one can even say that the level of a person's view can be measured today by the relationship in which it stands to the Goethean view.
11. Verhältnis der Goetheschen Denkweise zu anderen Ansichten
[ 1 ] Wenn von dem Einflusse älterer oder gleichzeitiger Denker auf die Entwicklung des Goetheschen Geistes gesprochen wird, so kann das nicht in dem Sinne geschehen, als ob er seine Ansichten auf Grund von deren Lehren gebildet hätte. Die Art und Weise, wie er denken mußte, wie er die Welt ansah, lag in der ganzen Anlage seiner Natur vorgebildet. Und zwar lag sie von frühester Jugend an in seinem Wesen. In bezug darauf blieb er sich dann auch sein ganzes Leben lang gleich. Es sind vornehmlich zwei bedeutsame Charakterzüge, die hier in Betracht kommen. Der erste ist der Drang nach den Quellen, nach der Tiefe alles Seins. Es ist im letzten Grunde der Glaube an die Idee. Die Ahnung eines Höheren, Besseren erfüllt Goethe stets. Man möchte das einen tief religiösen Zug seines Geistes nennen. Was so vielen ein Bedürfnis ist: die Dinge unter Abstreifung eines jeglichen Heiligen zu sich herabzuziehen, das kennt er nicht. Er hat aber das andere Bedürfnis, ein Höheres zu ahnen und sich zu ihm emporzuarbeiten. Jedem Dinge sucht er eine Seite abzugewinnen, wodurch es uns heilig wird. K. J. Schröer hat das in geistvollster Weise in bezug auf Goethes Verhalten in der Liebe gezeigt. Alles Frivole, Leichtfertige wird abgestreift und die Liebe wird für Goethe ein Frommsein. Dieser Grundzug seines Wesens ist am schönsten in seinen Worten ausgesprochen:
«In unsers Busens Reine wogt ein Streben,
Sich einem Höhern, Reinem, Unbekannten
Aus Dankbarkeit freiwillig hinzugeben.
Wir heißen's: fromm sein!»
[ 2 ] Diese Seite seines Wesens ist nun [Trilogie der Leidenschaft 1 Elegie] unzertrennlich mit einer andern in Verbindung. Er sucht an dieses Höhere nie unmittelbar heranzutreten; er sucht sich ihm immer durch die Natur zu nähern. «Das Wahre ist gottähnlich; es erscheint nicht unmittelbar, wir müssen es aus seinen Manifestationen erraten» («Sprüche in Prosa»; Natw. Schr., 4. Bd., 2. Abt.., S. 378). Neben dem Glauben an die Idee hat Goethe auch den andern, daß wir die Idee durch Betrachtung der Wirklichkeit gewinnen; es fällt ihm nicht ein, die Gottheit anderswo zu suchen als in den Werken der Natur, aber diesen sucht er überall ihre göttliche Seite abzugewinnen. Wenn er in sein er Knabenzeit dem großen Gotte, der «mit der Natur in unmittelbarer Verbindung steht» («Dichtung und Wahrheit», 1. Teil, 1. Buch), einen Altar errichtet, so entspringt dieser Kultus schon entschieden aus dem Glauben, daß wir das Höchste, zu dem wir gelangen können, durch treues Pflegen des Verkehres mit der Natur gewinnen. So ist denn Goethe jene Betrachtungsweise angeboren, die wir erkenntnistheoretisch gerechtfertigt haben. Er tritt an die Wirklichkeit heran in der Überzeugung, daß alles nur eine Manifestation der Idee ist, die wir erst gewinnen, wenn wir die Sinneserfahrung in geistiges Anschauen hinaufheben. Diese Überzeugung lag in ihm, und er betrachtete von Jugend auf die Welt auf Grund dieser Voraussetzung. Kein Philosoph konnte ihm diese Überzeugung geben. Nicht das ist es also, was Goethe bei den Philosophen suchte. Es war etwas anderes. Wenn seine Weise die Dinge zu betrachten auch tief in seinem Wesen lag, so brauchte er doch eine Sprache sie auszudrücken. Sein Wesen wirkte philosophisch, d. h. so, daß es sich nur in philosophischen Formeln aussprechen, nur von philosophischen Voraussetzungen aus rechtfertigen läßt. Und um das, was er war, auch sich deutlich zum Bewußtsein zu bringen, um das, was bei ihm lebendiges Tun war, auch zu wissen, sah er sich bei den Philosophen um. Er suchte bei ihnen eine Erklärung und Rechtfertigung seines Wesens. Das ist sein Verhältnis zu den Philosophen. Zu diesem Zwecke studierte er in der Jugend Spinoza und ließ sich später mit den philosophischen Zeitgenossen in wissenschaftliche Verhandlungen ein. In seinen Jünglingsjahren schienen dem Dichter am meisten Spinoza und Giordano Bruno sein eigenes Wesen auszusprechen. Es ist merkwürdig, daß er beide Denker zuerst aus gegnerischen Schriften kennen lernte und trotz dieses Umstandes erkannte, wie ihre Lehren zu seiner Natur stehen. Besonders an seinem Verhältnis zu Giordano Brunos Lehren sehen wir das Gesagte erhärtet. Er lernt ihn aus Bayles Wörterbuch, wo er heftig angegriffen wird, kennen. Und er erhält von ihm einen so tiefen Eindruck, daß wir in jenen Teilen des «Faust», die, der Konzeption nach, aus der Zeit um 1770 stammen, wo er Bayle las, sprachliche Anklänge an Sätze von Bruno finden (s. Goethe-Jahrbuch Bd..VII, Frankfurt/M. 1886). In den Tag- und Jahres-Heften erzählt der Dichter, daß er sich wieder 1812 mit Giordano Bruno beschäftigt habe. Auch diesmal ist der Eindruck ein gewaltiger, und in vielen der nach diesem Jahre entstandenen Gedichte erkennen wir Anklänge an den Philosophen von Nola. Das alles ist aber nicht so zu nehmen, als ob Goethe von Bruno irgend etwas entlehnt oder gelernt hätte; er fand bei ihm nur die Formel, das, was längst in seiner Natur lag, auszusprechen. Er fand, daß er sein eigenes Innere am klarsten darlege, wenn er es mit den Worten jenes Denkers tat. Bruno betrachtet die universelle Vernunft als die Erzeugerin und Lenkerin des Weltalls. Er nennt sie den inneren Künstler, der die Materie formt und von innen heraus gestaltet. Sie ist die Ursache von allem Bestehenden, und es gibt kein Wesen, an dessen Sein sie nicht liebevoll Anteil nähme. «Das Ding sei noch so klein und winzig, es hat in sich einen Teil von geistiger Substanz» (Giordano Bruno, Von der Ursache usw.., hg. v. A. Lasson, Heidelberg 1882). Das war ja auch Goethes Ansicht, daß wir ein Ding erst zu beurteilen wissen, wenn wir sehen, wie es von der allgemeinen Vernunft an seinen Ort gestellt worden ist, wie es gerade zu dem geworden ist, als was es uns gegenübertritt. Wenn wir mit den Sinnen wahrnehmen, so genügt das nicht, denn die Sinne sagen uns nicht, wie ein Ding mit der allgemeinen Weltidee zusammenhängt, was es für das große Ganze zu bedeuten hat. Da müssen wir so schauen, daß uns unsere Vernunft einen ideellen Untergrund schafft, auf dem uns dann das erscheint, was uns die Sinne überliefern; wir müssen, wie es Goethe ausdrückt, mit den Augen des Geistes schauen. Auch um diese Überzeugung auszusprechen, fand er bei Bruno eine Formel: «Denn wie wir nicht mit einem und demselben Sinn Farben und Töne erkennen, so sehen wir auch nicht mit einem und demselben Auge das Substrat der Künste und das Substrat der Natur», weil wir «mit den sinnlichen Augen jenes und mit dem Auge der Vernunft dieses sehen» (s. Lasson S. 77). Und mit Spinoza ist es nicht anders. Spinozas Lehre beruht ja darauf, daß die Gottheit in der Welt aufgegangen ist. Das menschliche Wissen kann also nur bezwecken, sich in die Welt zu vertiefen, um Gott zu erkennen. Jeder andere Weg, zu Gott zu gelangen, muß für einen konsequent im- Sinne des Spinozismus denkenden Menschen unmöglich erscheinen. Denn Gott hat jede eigene Existenz aufgegeben; außer der Welt ist er nirgends. Wir müssen ihn aber da aufsuchen, wo er ist. Jedes eigentliche Wissen muß also so beschaffen sein, daß es uns in jedem Stücke Welterkenntnis ein Stück Gotteserkenntnis überliefert. Das Erkennen auf seiner höchsten Stufe ist also ein Zusammengehen mit der Gottheit. Wir nennen es da anschauliches Wissen. Wir erkennen die Dinge «sub specie aeternitatis», d. h. als Ausflüsse der Gottheit. Die Gesetze, die unser Geist in der Natur erkennt, sind also Gott in seiner Wesenheit, nicht nur von ihm gemacht. Was wir als logische Notwendigkeit erkennen, ist so, weil ihm das Wesen der Gottheit, d. i. die ewige Gesetzlichkeit innewohnt. Das war eine dem Goetheschen Geist gemäße Anschauung. Sein fester Glaube, daß uns die Natur in all ihrem Treiben ein Göttliches offenbare, lag ihm hier in klarsten Sätzen vor. «Ich halte mich fest und fester an die Gottesverehrung des Atheisten (Spinoza)», schreibt er an Jacobi, als dieser die Lehre Spinozas in einem anderen Lichte erscheinen lassen wollte. [WA 7, 214] Darinnen liegt das Verwandtschaftliche mit Spinoza bei Goethe. Und wenn man gegenüber dieser tiefen, inneren Harmonie zwischen Goethes Wesen und Spinozas Lehre immer und immer das rein Äußerliche hervorhebt: Goethe wurde von Spinoza angezogen, weil er wie dieser die Endursachen in der Welterklärung nicht dulden wollte, so zeugt das von einer oberflächlichen Beurteilung der Sachlage. Daß Goethe wie Spinoza die Endursachen verwarfen, war nur eine Folge ihrer Ansichten. Man lege sich doch nur die Theorie von den Endursachen klar vor. Es wird ein Ding nach Dasein und Beschaffenheit dadurch erklärt, daß man seine Notwendigkeit für ein anderes dartut. Man zeigt, dieses Ding ist so und so beschaffen, weil jenes andere so und so ist. Das setzt voraus, daß ein Weltengrund existiere, der über den beiden Wesen stehe und sie so einrichte, daß sie füreinander passen. Wenn aber der Weltengrund einem jeden Dinge innewohnt, dann hat diese Erklärungsweise keinen Sinn. Denn dann muß uns die Beschaffenheit eines Dinges als Folge des in ihm wirksamen Prinzipes erscheinen. Wir werden in der Natur eines Dinges den Grund suchen, warum es so und nicht anders ist. Wenn wir den Glauben haben, daß Göttliches einem jeden Dinge innewohnt, dann wird es uns doch nicht einfallen, zur Erklärung seiner Gesetzlichkeit nach einem äußerlichen Prinzip zu suchen. Auch das Verhältnis Goethes zu Spinoza ist nicht anders zu fassen, denn so, daß er bei ihm die Formeln, die wissenschaftliche Sprache fand, um die in ihm liegende Welt auszusprechen..
[ 3 ] Wenn wir nun auf Goethes Beziehung zu den gleichzeitigen Philosophen übergehen, so haben wir vor allem von Kant zu sprechen. Kant wird allgemein als der Begründer der heutigen Philosophie angesehen. Zu seiner Zeit rief er eine so mächtige Bewegung hervor, daß es für jeden Gebildeten Bedürfnis war, sich mit ihm auseinanderzusetzen. Auch für Goethe wurde diese Auseinandersetzung eine Notwendigkeit. Sie konnte aber für ihn nicht fruchtbar sein. Denn es besteht ein tiefer Gegensatz zwischen dem, was die Kantsche Philosophie lehrt, und dem, was wir als Goethesche Denkweise erkennen. Ja, man kann geradezu sagen, daß das gesamte deutsche Denken in zwei parallelen Richtungen abläuft, einer von der Kantschen Denkweise durchtränkten und einer andern, die dem Goetheschen Denken nahesteht. Indem sich aber heute die Philosophie immer mehr Kant nähert, entfernt sie sich von Goethe und damit geht für unsere Zeit immer mehr die Möglichkeit verloren, die Goethesche Weltanschauung zu begreifen und zu würdigen. Wir wollen die Hauptsätze der Kantschen Lehre insoweit hierhersetzen, als sie Interesse für die Ansichten Goethes haben. Der Ausgangspunkt für das menschliche Denken ist für Kant die Erfahrung, d. h. die den Sinnen (worinnen der innere Sinn, der uns die psychischen, historischen usw. Tatsachen übermittelt, inbegriffen ist) gegebene Welt. Diese ist eine Mannigfaltigkeit von Dingen im Raume und von Prozessen in der Zeit. Daß mir gerade dieses Ding gegenübertritt, daß ich gerade jenen Prozeß erlebe, ist gleichgültig; es könnte auch anders sein. Ich kann mir überhaupt die ganze Mannigfaltigkeit von Dingen und Prozessen wegdenken. Was ich mir aber nicht wegdenken kann, das ist Raum und Zeit. Es kann für mich nichts geben, was nicht räumlich oder zeitlich wäre. Selbst, wenn es ein raumloses oder zeitloses Ding gibt, kann ich nichts davon wissen, denn ich kann mir ohne Raum und Zeit nichts vorstellen. Ob den Dingen selbst Raum und Zeit zukomme, weiß ich nicht; ich weiß nur, daß die Dinge für mich in diesen Formen auftreten müssen. Raum und Zeit sind somit die Vorbedingungen meiner sinnlichen Wahrnehmung. Ich weiß von dem Ding an sich nichts; ich weiß nur, wie es mir erscheinen muß, wenn es für mich da sein soll. Kant leitet mit diesen Sätzen ein neues Problem ein. Er tritt mit einer neuen Fragestellung in der Wissenschaft auf. Statt wie die früheren Philosophen zu fragen: Wie sind die Dinge beschaffen, fragt er: wie müssen uns die Dinge erscheinen, damit sie Gegenstand unseres Wissens werden können? Die Philosophie ist für Kant die Wissenschaft von den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Welt als einer menschlichen Erscheinung. Von dem Ding an sich wissen wir nichts. Wir haben unsere Aufgabe noch nicht erfüllt, wenn wir bis zur sinnlichen Anschauung einer Mannigfaltigkeit in Zeit und Raum kommen. Wir streben darnach, diese Mannigfaltigkeit in eine Einheit zusammenzufassen. Und das ist Sache des Verstandes. Der Verstand ist als eine Summe von Tätigkeiten aufzufassen, die den Zweck haben, die Sinnenwelt nach gewissen in ihm vorgezeichneten Formen zusammenzufassen. Er faßt zwei sinnenfällige Wahrnehmungen zusammen, indem er z. B. die eine als Ursache, die andere als Wirkung bezeichnet oder die eine als Substanz, die andere als Eigenschaft usw. Auch hier ist es die Aufgabe der philosophischen Wissenschaft, zu zeigen, unter welchen Bedingungen es dem Verstande gelingt, sich ein System der Welt zu bilden. So ist die Welt eigentlich im Sinne Kants eine in den Formen der Sinnenwelt und des Verstandes auftretende subjektive Erscheinung. Es ist nur das Eine gewiß, daß es ein Ding an sich gibt; wie es uns erscheint, das hängt von unserer Organisation ab. Es ist nun auch natürlich, daß es keinen Sinn hat, jener Welt, die der Verstand im Verein mit den Sinnen geformt hat, eine andere als eine Bedeutung für unser Erkenntnisvermögen zuzuschreiben. Am klarsten wird das da, wo Kant von der Bedeutung der Ideenwelt spricht. Die Ideen sind für ihn nichts als höhere Gesichtspunkte der Vernunft, unter denen die niederen Einheiten, die der Verstand geschaffen, begriffen werden. Der Verstand bringt z. B. die Seelenerscheinungen in einen Zusammenhang; die Vernunft, als das Ideenvermögen, faßt dann diesen Zusammenhang so, als wenn alles von einer Seele ausginge. Das hat aber für die Sache selbst keine Bedeutung, ist nur Orientierungsmittel für unser Erkenntnisvermögen. Dies der Inhalt von Kants theoretischer Philosophie, soweit er uns hier interessieren kann. Man sieht in ihr sofort den entgegengesetzten Pol der Goetheschen. Die gegebene Wirklichkeit wird von Kant nach uns selbst bestimmt; sie ist so, weil wir sie so vorstellen. Kant überspringt die eigentliche erkenntnistheoretische Frage. Er macht am Eingange seiner Vernunftkritik zwei Schritte, die er nicht rechtfertigt, und an diesem Fehler krankt sein ganzes philosophisches Lehrgebäude. Er stellt sogleich die Unterscheidung von Objekt und Subjekt auf, ohne zu fragen, was für eine Bedeutung es denn überhaupt hat, wenn der Verstand die Trennung zweier Wirklichkeitsgebiete (hier erkennendes Subjekt und zu erkennendes Objekt) vornimmt. Dann sucht er das gegenseitige Verhältnis dieser beiden Gebiete begrifflich herzustellen, wieder ohne zu fragen, welchen Sinn eine solche Feststellung hat. Hätte er die erkenntnistheoretische Hauptfrage nicht schief gesehen, so hätte er bemerkt, daß die Auseinanderhaltung von Subjekt und Objekt nur ein Durchgangspunkt unseres Erkennens ist, daß beiden eine tiefere, der Vernunft erfaßbare Einheit zugrunde liegt und daß dasjenige, was einem Dinge als Eigenschaft zuerkannt wird, insofern es in bezug auf ein erkennendes Subjekt gedacht wird, keineswegs nur subjektive Gültigkeit hat. Das Ding ist eine Vernunfteinheit und die Trennung in ein «Ding an sich» und «Ding für uns» ist Verstandesprodukt. Es geht also nicht an, zu sagen, was dem Dinge in einer Beziehung zuerkannt wird, kann ihm in anderer abgesprochen werden. Denn ob ich dasselbe Ding einmal unter diesem, ein andermal unter jenem Gesichtspunkte betrachte: es ist ja doch ein einheitliches Ganzes.
[ 4 ] Es ist ein Fehler, der sich durch Kants ganzes Lehrgebäude durchzieht, daß er die sinnenfällige Mannigfaltigkeit als etwas Festes ansieht, und daß er glaubt, Wissenschaft bestehe darinnen, diese Mannigfaltigkeit in ein System zu bringen. Er vermutet gar nicht, daß das Mannigfaltige kein Letztes ist, das man überwinden muß, wenn man es begreifen will; und deshalb wird ihm alle Theorie bloß eine Zutat, die Verstand und Vernunft zur Erfahrung hinzubringen. Die Idee ist ihm nicht das, was der Vernunft als der tiefere Grund der gegebenen Welt erscheint, wenn sie die an der Oberfläche gelegene Mannigfaltigkeit überwunden hat, sondern nur ein methodisches Prinzip, nach dem dieselbe die Erscheinungen behufs ihrer leichteren Übersicht anordnet. Wir gingen nach Kantscher Anschauung ganz fehl, wenn wir die Dinge als aus der Idee ableitbar betrachteten; wir können nach seiner Meinung unsere Erfahrungen nur so anordnen, als ob sie aus einer Einheit stammten. Von dem Grund der Dinge, von dem «An sich» haben wir nach Kant keine Ahnung. Unser Wissen von den Dingen ist nur in bezug auf uns da, ist nur für unsere Individualität gültig. Aus dieser Ansicht über die Welt konnte Goethe nicht viel gewinnen. Ihm blieb die Betrachtung der Dinge in bezug auf uns immer die ganz untergeordnete, welche die Wirkung der Gegenstände auf unser Gefühl der Lust und Unlust betrifft; von der Wissenschaft fordert er mehr als bloß die Angabe, wie die Dinge in bezug auf uns sind. In dem Aufsatz: «Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt» (Natw. Schr., 2. Bd.., S. 10ff.) wird die Aufgabe des Forschers bestimmt: Er soll den Maßstab zur Erkenntnis, die Data zur Beurteilung nicht aus sich, sondern aus dem Kreise der Dinge nehmen, die er beobachtet. Mit diesem einzigen Satz ist der tiefe Gegensatz Kantischer und Goethescher Denkweise gekennzeichnet. Während bei Kant alles Urteilen über die Dinge nur ein Produkt aus Subjekt und Objekt ist und nur ein Wissen darüber liefert, wie das Subjekt das Objekt anschaut, geht das Subjekt bei Goethe selbstlos in dem Objekte auf und entnimmt die Data zur Beurteilung aus dem Kreise der Dinge. Goethe sagt daher von Kants Schülern selbst: «Sie hörten mich wohl, konnten mir aber nichts erwidern, noch irgend förderlich sein.» [Natw. Schr.., 2. Bd., S. 29] Mehr glaubte der Dichter aus Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft gewonnen zu haben..
[ 5 ] Ungleich mehr als durch Kant wurde Goethe in philosophischer Beziehung durch Schiller gefördert. Durch ihn wurde er nämlich wirklich um eine Stufe weiter in der Erkenntnis seiner eigenen Anschauungsweise gebracht. Bis zu jenem berühmten ersten Gespräch mit Schiller hatte Goethe* eine gewisse Weise, die Welt anzuschauen, geübt. Er hatte Pflanzen betrachtet, ihnen eine Urpflanze zugrunde gelegt und die einzelnen Formen daraus abgeleitet. Diese Urpflanze (und auch ein entsprechendes Urtier) hatte sich in seinem Geiste gestaltet, war ihm bei der Erklärung der einschlägigen Erscheinungen dienlich. Er hatte aber nie darüber nachgedacht, was denn diese Urpflanze ihrem Wesen nach sei. Schiller öffnete ihm die Augen, indem er ihm sagte: sie ist eine Idee. Von jetzt ab ist sich Goethe seines Idealismus erst bewußt. Er nennt die Urpflanze daher bis zu jenem Gespräch eine Erfahrung, denn er glaubte sie mit Augen zu sehen. In der später zu dem Aufsatz über die Metamorphose der Pflanze hinzugekommenen Einleitung aber sagt er: «So trachtete ich nunmehr das Urtier zu finden, das heißt denn doch zuletzt, den Begriff, die Idee des Tieres..» [Natw. Schr., 1. Bd.., S. 15] Dabei ist aber festzuhalten, daß Schiller Goethen nichts diesem Fremdes überlieferte, sondern vielmehr sich selbst erst durch die Betrachtung des Goetheschen Geistes zur Erkenntnis des objektiven Idealismus durchrang. Er fand nur den Terminus für die Anschauungsweise, die er an Goethe erkannte und bewunderte.
[ 6 ] Wenig Förderung hat Goethe von Fichte erfahren. Fichte bewegte sich in einer dem Goetheschen Denken viel zu fremden Sphäre, als daß eine solche möglich gewesen wäre. Fichte hat die Wissenschaft des Bewußtseins in der scharfsinnigsten Weise begründet. Er hat die Tätigkeit, durch welche das «Ich» die gegebene Welt in eine gedachte verwandelt, in einzig musterhafter Weise abgeleitet. Dabei hat er aber den Fehler gemacht, daß er diese Tätigkeit des Ich nicht bloß als eine solche auffaßte, die den gegebenen Inhalt in eine befriedigende Form bringt, die zusammenhanglos Gegebenes in die entsprechenden Zusammenhänge bringt; er hat sie als ein Erschaffen alles dessen angesehen, was innerhalb des «Ich» sich abspielt. Dadurch erscheint seine Lehre als ein einseitiger Idealismus, der seinen ganzen Inhalt aus dem Bewußtsein nimmt. Goethe, der stets auf das Objektive ging, konnte wohl wenig Anziehendes in Fichtes Bewußtseinsphilosophie finden. Für das Gebiet, wo sie gilt, fehlte Goethe das Verständnis; die Ausdehnung aber, die ihr Fichte gab er sah sie als Universalwissenschaft an -, konnte dem Dichter nur als ein Irrtum erscheinen..*
[ 7 ] Viel mehr Berührungspunkte hatte Goethe mit dem jungen Schelling. Dieser war ein Schüler Fichtes. Er führte aber nicht nur die Analyse der Tätigkeit des «Ich» weiter, sondern er verfolgte auch jene Tätigkeit innerhalb des Bewußtseins, durch welches das letztere die Natur erfaßt. Das, was sich im Ich beim Erkennen der Natur abspielt, schien Schelling zugleich das Objektive der Natur, das eigentliche Prinzip in ihr zu sein. Die Natur draußen war ihm nur eine festgewordene Form unserer Naturbegriffe. Was in uns als Naturanschauung lebt, das erscheint uns außen wieder, nur auseinandergezogen, räumlichzeitlich. Was uns von außen her als Natur entgegentritt, ist fertiges Produkt, ist nur das Bedingte, die starr gewordene Form eines lebendigen Prinzips. Dieses Prinzip können wir nicht durch Erfahrung von außen her gewinnen. Wir müssen es in unserem Innern erst schaffen. «Über die Natur philosophieren heißt die Natur schaffen,» sagt deshalb unser Philosoph. 94Schelling, Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie; Jena u.Leipzig 1799, S. 6. «Die Natur als bloßes Produkt (natura naturata) nennen wir Natur als Objekt (auf diese allein geht alle Empirie). Die Natur als Produktivität (natura naturans) nennen wir Natur als Subjekt (auf diese allein geht alle Theorie).» (Einleitung zu seinem Entwurf. ,Jena u. Leipzig 1799, S. 22..) «Der Gegensatz zwischen Empirie und Wissenschaft beruht nun eben darauf, daß jene ihr Objekt im Sein als etwas Fertiges und zustande Gebrachtes; die Wissenschaft dagegen das Objekt im Werden und als ein erst zustande zu Bringendes betrachtet.» (Ebenda S. 20) Durch diese Lehre, die Goethe teils aus Schellings Schriften, teils aus persönlichem Umgange mit dem Philosophen kennen lernte, wurde der Dichter wieder um eine Stufe höher gebracht. Jetzt entwickelte sich bei ihm die Ansicht, daß seine Tendenz darauf gehe, von dem Fertigen, dem Produkte zu dem Werdenden, Produzierenden fortzuschreiten. Und mit entschiedenem Anklang an Schelling schreibt er im Aufsatz «Anschauende Urteilskraft», daß sein Streben war, sich «durch das Anschauen einer immer schaffenden Natur zur geistigen Teilnahme an ihren Produktionen würdig zu machen» (Natw. Schr., 1..Bd., S. 116).
[ 8 ] Durch Hegel endlich erhielt Goethe die letzte Förderung von seiten der Philosophie. Durch ihn erlangte er nämlich Klarheit darüber, wie sich das, was er Urphänomen nannte, in die Philosophie einreiht. Hegel hat die Bedeutung des Urphänomens am tiefsten begriffen und in seinem Briefe an Goethe vom 20. Februar 1821 trefflich charakterisiert mit den Worten: «Das Einfache und Abstrakte, das Sie sehr treffend das Urphänomen nennen, stellen Sie an die Spitze, zeigen dann die konkreteren Erscheinungen auf, als entstehend durch das Hinzukommen weiterer Einwirkungsweisen und Umstände und regieren den ganzen Verlauf so, daß die Reihenfolge von den einfachen Bedingungen zu den zusammengesetzteren fortschreitet, und so rangiert, das Verwickelte nun, durch diese Dekomposition, in seiner Klarheit erscheint. Das Urphänomen auszuspüren, es von den andern ihm selbst zufälligen Umgebungen zu befreien, - es abstrakt, wie wir dies heißen, aufzufassen, dies halte ich für eine Sache des großen geistigen Natursinns, sowie jenen Gang überhaupt für das wahrhaft Wissenschaftliche der Erkenntnis in diesem Felde..» ... «Darf ich Ew. etc. aber nun auch noch von dem besonderen Interesse sprechen, welches ein so herausgehobenes Urphänomen für uns Philosophen hat, daß wir nämlich ein solches Präparat geradezu in den philosophischen Nutzen verwenden können! Haben wir nämlich unser zunächst austernhaftes, graues, oder ganz schwarzes Absolutes, doch gegen Luft und Licht hingearbeitet, daß es derselben begehrlich geworden, so brauchen wir Fensterstellen, um es vollends an das Licht des Tages herauszuführen; unsere Schemen würden zu Dunst verschweben, wenn wir sie so geradezu in die bunte, verworrene Gesellschaft der widerwärtigen Welt versetzen wollten. Hier kommen uns nun Ew. Wohlgeboren Urphänomene vortrefflich zustatten; in diesem Zwielichte, geistig und begreiflich durch seine Einfachheit, sichtlich und greiflich durch seine Sinnlichkeit - begrüßen sich die beiden Welten, unser Abstruses, und das erscheinende Dasein, einander..» So wird durch Hegel für Goethe der Gedanke klar, daß der empirische Forscher bis zu den Urphänomenen zu gehen hat, und daß von da aus die Wege des Philosophen weiterführen. Daraus geht aber auch hervor, daß der Grundgedanke der Hegelschen Philosophie eine Konsequenz der Goetheschen Denkweise ist. Die Überwindung der Menschlichkeit, die Vertiefung in dieselbe, um vom Geschaffenen zum Schaffen, vom Bedingten zur Bedingung aufzusteigen, liegt bei Goethe, aber auch bei Hegel zugrunde. Hegel will ja in der Philosophie nichts anderes bieten als den ewigen Prozeß, aus dem alles, was endlich ist, hervorgeht. Er will das Gegebene als eine Folge dessen erkennen, was er als Unbedingtes gelten lassen kann.
[ 9 ] So bedeutet für Goethe das Bekanntwerden mit Philosophen und philosophischen Richtungen eine fortschreitende Aufklärung darüber, was schon in ihm lag. Er hat für seine Anschauung nichts gewonnen; ihm wurden nur die Mittel an die Hand gegeben, darüber zu reden, was er tat, was in seiner Seele vorging.
[ 10 ] So bietet denn die Goethesche Weltansicht genugsam Anhaltspunkte zur philosophischen Ausgestaltung. Diese sind aber zunächst nur von den Schülern Hegels aufgegriffen worden. Die übrige Philosophie steht der Goetheschen Anschauung vornehm ablehnend gegenüber. Nur Schopenhauer stützt sich in manchen Punkten auf den von ihm hochgeschätzten Dichter. Von seiner Apologetik der Farbenlehre werden wir in einem späteren Kapitel sprechen. Hier kommt es auf das allgemeine Verhältnis von Schopenhauers Lehre zu Goethe an. 95 Sehr lesenswert ist Dr. Adolf Harpis Aufsatz Goethe und Schopenhauer (Philos. Monatshefte 1885). Harpf, der auch schon eine treffliche Abhandlung über «Goethes Erkenntnisprinzip» (Philos. Monatshefte 1884) geschrieben hat, zeigt die Übereinstimmung des ˂immanenten Dogmatismus Schopenhauers mit dem gegenständlichen Wissen Goethes. Den prinzipiellen Unterschied zwischen Goethe und Schopenhauer, wie wir ihn oben charakterisierten, findet Harpf, der selbst Schopenhauerianer ist, nicht heraus. Dennoch verdienen die Ausführungen Harpfs alle Aufmerksamkeit. In einem Punkte kommt der Frankfurter Philosoph an Goethe heran. Schopenhauer weist nämlich alles Herleiten der uns gegebenen Phänomene aus äußeren Ursachen ab und läßt nur eine innere Gesetzmäßigkeit gelten, nur ein Herleiten einer Erscheinung aus der andern. Das kommt scheinbar dem Goetheschen Prinzip gleich, die Data der Erklärung aus den Dingen selbst zu nehmen; aber eben nur scheinbar. Denn während Schopenhauer innerhalb des Phänomenalen bleiben will, weil wir das außer demselben liegende «An sich» im Erkennen nicht erreichen können, da alle uns gegebenen Erscheinungen nur Vorstellungen sind und unser Vorstellungsvermögen uns nie über unser Bewußtsein hinausführt, will Goethe innerhalb der Phänomene bleiben, weil er eben in ihnen selbst die Data zu ihrer Erklärung sucht..
[ 11 ] Zum Schlusse wollen wir noch die Goethesche Weltansicht mit der bedeutsamsten wissenschaftlichen Erscheinung unserer Zeit, mit den Anschauungen Eduard v. Hartmanns zusammenhalten. Die «Philosophie des Unbewußten» dieses Denkers ist ein Werk von größter geschichtlicher Bedeutung. Mit den übrigen Schriften Hartmanns, die das dort Skizzierte nach allen Seiten ausbauen, ja wohl in vieler Hinsicht neue Gesichtspunkte zu jenem Hauptwerke hinzubringen, zusammen, spiegelt sich in ihr der gesamte geistige Inhalt unserer Zeit. Hartmann zeichnet ein bewunderungswerter Tiefsinn und eine erstaunliche Beherrschung des Materiales der einzelnen Wissenschaften aus. Er steht heute auf der Hochwacht der Bildung. Man braucht nicht sein Anhänger zu sein, und man wird ihm das rückhaltlos zuerkennen müssen.
[ 12 ] Seine Anschauung steht der Goetheschen nicht so ferne, als man auf den ersten Blick glauben möchte. Wem nichts anderes vorliegt als die «Philosophie des Unbewußten», der wird das freilich nicht einsehen können. Denn die entschiedenen Berührungspunkte beider Denker sieht man erst, wenn man auf die Konsequenzen geht, die Hartmann aus seinen Prinzipien gezogen und die er in seinen späteren Schriften niedergelegt hat..
[ 13 ] Hartmanns Philosophie ist Idealismus. Er will zwar kein bloßer Idealist sein. Allein, wo er behufs der Welterklärung etwas Positives braucht, ruft er doch die Idee zu Hilfe. Und das Wichtigste ist, daß er die Idee überall zu- grunde liegend denkt. Denn seine Annahme eines Unbewußten hat ja keinen andern Sinn, als daß jenes, das in unserem Bewußtsein als Idee vorhanden ist, nicht notwendig an diese Erscheinungsform - innerhalb des Bewußtseins -gebunden ist. Die Idee ist nicht nur vorhanden (wirksam), wo sie bewußt wird, sondern auch in anderer Form. Sie ist mehr denn bloßes subjektives Phänomen; sie hat eine in sich selbst gegründete Bedeutung. Sie ist nicht bloß im Subjekte gegenwärtig, sie ist objektives Weltprinzip. Wenn auch Hartmann neben der Idee noch den Willen unter die die Welt konstituierenden Prinzipien aufnimmt, so ist es doch unbegreiflich, wie es noch immer Philosophen gibt, die ihn für einen Schopenhauerianer ansehen. Schopenhauer hat die Ansicht, daß aller Begriffsinhalt nur subjektiv, nur Bewußtseinsphänomen sei, auf die Spitze getrieben. Bei ihm kann davon gar nicht die Rede sein, daß die Idee an der Konstitution der Welt als reales Prinzip teilgenommen hat. Bei ihm ist der Wille ausschließlicher Weltgrund. Deswegen konnte es Schopenhauer nie zu einer inhaltsvollen Behandlung der philosophischen Spezialwissenschaften bringen, während Hartmann seine Prinzipien schon in alle besonderen Wissenschaften hinein verfolgt hat. Während Schopenhauer über den ganzen reichen Inhalt der Geschichte nichts zu sagen weiß, als daß er eine Manifestation des Willens ist, weiß Ed. v. Hartmann von jeder einzelnen historischen Erscheinung den ideellen Kern zu finden und sie der gesamten geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Menschheit einzugliedern. Schopenhauer kann das Einzelwesen, die Einzelerscheinung nicht interessieren, denn er weiß von ihr nur das eine Wesentliche zu sagen, daß sie eine Ausgestaltung des Willens ist. Hartmann greift jedes Sonderdasein auf und zeigt, wie überall die Idee wahrzunehmen ist. Der Grundcharakter von Schopenhauers Weltanschauung ist Einförmigkeit, der v. Hartmanns Einheitlichkeit. Schopenhauer legt einen inhaltsleeren, einförmigen Drang der Welt zugrunde, Hartmann den reichen Inhalt der Idee. Schopenhauer legt die abstrakte Einheit zugrunde, bei Hartmann finden wir die konkrete Idee als Prinzip, bei der die Einheit - besser Einheitlichkeit - nur eine Eigenschaft ist. Schopenhauer hätte nie wie Hartmann eine Geschichtsphilosophie, nie eine Religionswissenschaft schaffen können. Wenn Hartmann sagt: «Die Vernunft ist das logische Formalprinzip der mit dem Willen untrennbar geeinten Idee und regelt und bestimmt als solches den Inhalt des Weltprozesses ohne Rest» (Philosophische Fragen der Gegenwart»; Leipzig 1885, S. 27), so macht ihm diese Voraussetzung möglich, in jeder Erscheinung, die uns in Natur und Geschichte gegenübertritt, den logischen Kern, der zwar für die Sinne nicht, wohl aber für das Denken erfaßbar ist, aufzusuchen und sie so zu erklären. Wer diese Voraussetzung nicht macht, wird nie rechtfertigen können, warum er überhaupt über die Welt durch Nachdenken vermittelst Ideen etwas ausmachen will..
[ 14 ] Mit seinem objektiven Idealismus steht Ed. v. Hartmann ganz auf dem Boden Goethescher Weltanschauung. Wenn Goethe sagt: «Alles, was wir gewahr werden und wovon wir reden können, sind nur Manifestationen der Idee» («Sprüche in Prosa»; Natw. Schr., 4. Bd.., 2. Abt.., S. 379), und wenn er fordert, der Mensch müsse in sich ein solches Erkenntnisvermögen ausbilden, daß ihm die Idee so anschaulich wird, wie den Sinnen die äußere Wahrnehmung, so steht er auf jenem Boden, wo die Idee nicht bloß Bewußtseinsphänomen, sondern objektives Weltprinzip ist; das Denken ist das Aufblitzen dessen im Bewußtsein, was objektiv die Welt konstituiert. Das Wesentliche an der Idee ist also nicht das, was sie für uns, für unser Bewußtsein, ist, sondern was sie an sich selbst ist. Denn durch die ihr eigene Wesenheit liegt sie der Welt als Prinzip zugrunde. Deshalb ist das Denken ein Gewahrwerden dessen, was an und für sich ist. Obwohl also die Idee gar nicht zur Erscheinung kommen würde, wenn es kein Bewußtsein gäbe, so muß sie doch so erfaßt werden, daß nicht die Bewußtheit ihr Charakteristikon ausmacht, sondern das, was sie an sich ist, was in ihr selbst liegt, wozu das Bewußtwerden nichts tut. Deshalb müssen wir nach Ed. v. Hartmann die Idee, abgesehen von dem Bewußtwerden, als wirkendes Unbewußtes der Welt zugrunde legen. Das ist das Wesentliche bei Hartmann, daß wir die Idee in allem Bewußtlosen zu suchen haben..
[ 15 ] Mit der Unterscheidung von Bewußtem und Unbewußtem ist aber nicht viel getan. Denn das ist ja doch nur ein Unterschied für mein Bewußtsein. Man muß aber der Idee in ihrer Objektivität, in ihrer vollen Inhaltlichkeit zu Leibe gehen, man muß nicht nur darauf sehen, daß die Idee unbewußt wirksam ist, sondern was dieses Wirksame ist. Wäre Hartmann dabei stehen geblieben, daß die Idee unbewußt ist, und hätte er aus diesem Unbewußten - also aus einem einseitigen Merkmal der Idee - die Welt erklärt, er hätte zu den vielen Systemen, die die Welt aus irgendeinem abstrakten Formelprinzip ableiten, ein neues einförmiges System geschaffen. Und man kann sein erstes Hauptwerk nicht ganz von dieser Einförmigkeit freisprechen. Aber Ed. v. Hartmanns Geist wirkt zu intensiv, zu umfassend und tief dringend, als daß er nicht erkannt hätte: die Idee darf nicht bloß als Unbewußtes gefaßt werden; man muß sich vielmehr eben in das vertiefen, was man als unbewußt anzusprechen hat, muß über diese Eigenschaft hinaus auf dessen konkreten Inhalt gehen und daraus die Welt der Einzelerscheinungen ableiten. So hat sich Hartmann vom abstrakten Monisten, der er in seiner «Philosophie des Unbewußten» noch ist, zum konkreten Monisten herausgebildet. Und die konkrete Idee ist es, was Goethe unter den drei Formen: Urphänomen, Typus und «Idee im engeren Sinne» anspricht..
[ 16 ] Das Gewahrwerden eines Objektiven in unserer Ideenwelt und die aus diesem Gewahrwerden folgende Hingabe an dasselbe ist es, was wir von Goethes Weltanschauung in Ed.v. Hartmanns Philosophie wiederfinden. Hartmann ist durch seine Philosophie des Unbewußten zu diesem Aufgehen in der objektiven Idee geführt worden. Da er erkannte, daß in der Bewußtheit nicht das Wesen der Idee liegt, hatte er die letztere auch als an und für sich Bestehendes, als Objektives anerkennen müssen. Daß er daneben noch den Willen in die konstitutiven Weltprinzipien aufnimmt, unterscheidet ihn freilich wieder von Goethe. Jedoch wo Hartmann wirklich fruchtbringend ist, da kommt das Willensmotiv gar nicht in Betracht. Daß er es überhaupt annimmt, kommt daher, weil er die Idee als Ruhendes ansieht, das, um zur Wirkung zu kommen, vom Willen den Anstoß braucht. Nach Hartmann kann der Wille allein nie zur Schöpfung der Welt kommen, denn er ist der leere blinde Drang zum Dasein. Soll er etwas hervorbringen, so muß die Idee hinzutreten, denn nur diese gibt ihm den Inhalt seines Wirkens. Allein was sollen wir mit jenem Willen anfangen? Er entschlüpft uns, indem wir ihn erfassen wollen; denn wir können ja doch das inhaltslose, leere Drängen nicht erfassen. Und so kommt es, daß doch alles das, was wir wirklich von dem Weltprinzip erfassen, Idee ist, denn das Erfaßbare muß eben Inhalt haben. Wir können nur das Inhaltsvolle begreifen, nicht das Inhaltsleere. Sollen wir also den Begriff Willen erfassen, so muß er ja doch am Inhalt der Idee auftreten; er kann nur an und mit der Idee, als die Form ihres Auftretens, erscheinen, niemals selbständig. Was existiert, muß Inhalt haben, es kann nur ein erfülltes, kein leeres Sein geben. Deshalb stellt Goethe die Idee als tätig vor, als Wirksames, das keines Anstoßes mehr bedarf. Denn das Inhaltsvolle darf und kann nicht von einem Inhaltsleeren erst den Anstoß bekommen, ins Dasein zu treten. Die Idee ist deshalb im Sinne Goethes als Entelechie, d. i. schon als tätiges Dasein zu fassen; und man muß von seiner Form als einem Tätigen zuerst abstrahieren, wenn man es dann wieder unter dem Namen Wille hinzubringen will. Das Willensmotiv ist auch für die positive Wissenschaft ganz wertlos. Auch Hartmann braucht es nicht, wo er an die konkrete Erscheinung herantritt..
[ 17 ] Haben wir in der Naturansicht Hartmanns ein Anklingen an Goethes Weltansicht erkannt, so finden wir es in der Ethik jenes Philosophen noch bedeutsamer. Eduard v. Hartmann findet, daß alles Streben nach Glück, alles Jagen des Egoismus ethisch wertlos ist, weil wir ja doch auf diesem Wege nie zur Befriedigung kommen können. Das Handeln aus Egoismus und zur Befriedigung desselben hält Hartmann für ein illusorisches. Wir sollen unsere Aufgabe, die uns in der Welt gestellt ist, erfassen und rein um dieser selbst willen, mit Entäußerung unseres Selbst, wirken. Wir sollen in der Hingabe an das Objekt, ohne Anspruch, für unser Subjekt etwas herauszuschlagen, unser Ziel finden. Dieses letztere macht aber den Grundzug der Ethik Goethes aus. Hartmann hätte das Wort nicht unterdrücken sollen, das den Charakter seiner Sittenlehre ausdrückt: die Liebe. 96 Damit soll nicht behauptet werden, daß in Hartmanns Ethik der Begriff der Liebe nicht seine Berücksichtigung finde. H. hat denselben in phänomenaler und metaphysischer Beziehung behandelt (siehe Das sittliche Bewußtsein 2. Aufl., S. 223-247, 629-631, 641, 638-641). Nur läßt er die Liebe nicht als das letzte Wort der Ethik gelten. Die opferwillige, liebevolle Hingabe an den Weltprozeß scheint ihm kein Letztes zu sein, sondern nur das Mitte! zur Erlösung von der Unruhe des Daseins und zur Wiedergewinnung der verlorenen seligen Ruhe. Wo wir keinen persönlichen Anspruch machen, wo wir nur handeln, weil uns das Objektive treibt, wo wir in der Tat selbst die Motive der Tätigkeit finden, da handeln wir sittlich. Da aber handeln wir aus Liebe. Aller Eigenwille, alles Persönliche muß da schwinden. Es ist für Hartmanns mächtig und gesund wirkenden Geist charakteristisch, daß er in der Theorie, trotzdem er die Idee zuerst in der einseitigen Weise des Unbewußten gefaßt hat, doch zum konkreten Idealismus vorgedrungen ist und daß, trotzdem er in der Ethik vom Pessimismus ausgegangen, ihn dieser verfehlte Standpunkt zur Sittenlehre der Liebe geführt hat. Der Pessimismus Hartmanns hat ja nicht den Sinn, den jene Menschen in ihn legen, die gerne über die Fruchtlosigkeit unseres Wirkens klagen, weil sie darin eine Berechtigung abzuleiten hoffen dafür, daß sie die Hände in den Schoß legen und nichts vollbringen. Hartmann bleibt nicht bei der Klage stehen; er erhebt sich über jede solche Anwandlung zu einer reinen Ethik. Er zeigt die Wertlosigkeit des Jagens nach dem Glück, indem er dessen Fruchtlosigkeit enthüllt. Er weist uns damit auf unsere Tätigkeit. Daß er überhaupt Pessimist ist, das ist sein Irrtum. Das ist vielleicht noch ein Anhängsel aus früheren Stadien seines Denkens. Da, wo er jetzt steht, müßte er einsehen, daß der empirische Nachweis, daß in der Welt des Wirklichen das Nicht-Befriedigende überwiegt, den Pessimismus nicht begründen kann. Denn der höhere Mensch kann gar nichts anderes wünschen, als daß er sich sein Glück selbst erringen muß. Er will es nicht als Geschenk von außen. Er will das Glück bloß in seiner Tat haben. Hartmanns Pessimismus löst sich vor (Hartmanns eigenem) höherem Denken auf. Will uns die Welt unbefriedigt läßt, schaffen wir uns selbst das schönste Glück in unserem Wirken..
[ 18 ] So ist uns Hartmanns Philosophie wieder ein Beweis dafür, wie man, von verschiedenen Ausgangspunkten ausgehend, zu dem gleichen Ziele kommt. Hartmann geht von anderen Voraussetzungen aus als Goethe; aber in der Ausführung tritt uns auf Schritt und Tritt Goethescher Ideengang gegenüber. Wir haben das hier ausgeführt, weil uns darum zu tun war, die tiefe, innere Gediegenheit der Goetheschen Weltansicht zu zeigen. Sie liegt so tief im Weltwesen begründet, daß wir ihren Grundzügen überall da begegnen müssen, wo energisches Denken zu den Quellen des Wissens vordringt. In diesem Goethe war so sehr alles ursprünglich, so gar nichts nebensächliche Modeansicht der Zeit, daß auch der Widerstrebende in seinem Sinne denken muß. In einzelnen Individuen spricht sich eben das ewige Welträtsel aus; in der Neuzeit in Goethe am bedeutungsvollsten, deshalb kann man geradezu sagen, die Höhe der Anschauung eines Menschen kann heute an dem Verhältnisse gemessen werden, in welchem sie zur Goetheschen steht."
11. Relationship of Goethe's way of thinking to other views
[ 1 ] When we speak of the influence of older or contemporaneous thinkers on the development of Goethe's mind, we cannot do so in the sense that he formed his views on the basis of their teachings. The way he had to think, the way he saw the world, was predetermined in the whole disposition of his nature. It was in his nature from his earliest youth. In this respect he remained the same throughout his life. There are primarily two significant character traits that come into consideration here. The first is the urge for the sources, for the depth of all being. Ultimately, it is the belief in the idea. Goethe is always filled with the premonition of something higher and better. One might call this a deeply religious trait of his spirit. He does not know what so many people need: to draw things down to themselves, stripping them of any sacredness. But he has the other need to sense something higher and to work his way up to it. He seeks to gain a side to every thing that makes it sacred to us. K. J. Schröer has shown this in the most ingenious way with regard to Goethe's behavior in love. Everything frivolous and frivolous is stripped away and love for Goethe becomes piety. This fundamental trait of his nature is most beautifully expressed in his words:
"A striving surges in the purity of our bosom,
To a higher, purer, unknown
To give ourselves voluntarily out of gratitude.
We call it: being pious!"
[ 2 ] This side of his nature is now [Trilogy of Passion 1 Elegy] inseparably connected with another. He never seeks to approach this higher thing directly; he always seeks to approach it through nature. "The true is God-like; it does not appear directly, we have to guess it from its manifestations" ("Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd dept., p. 378). In addition to the belief in the idea, Goethe also has the other belief that we gain the idea through the contemplation of reality; it does not occur to him to seek the divinity elsewhere than in the works of nature, but he seeks to extract their divine side everywhere. When in his boyhood he erects an altar to the great God who "stands in direct connection with nature" ("Poetry and Truth", Part 1, Book 1), this cult already springs decisively from the belief that we can attain the highest we can reach by faithfully cultivating our contact with nature. Thus Goethe's way of looking at things, which we have justified in terms of epistemology, is innate. He approaches reality with the conviction that everything is only a manifestation of the idea, which we only gain when we elevate sense experience into spiritual contemplation. This conviction lay within him, and from his youth he viewed the world on the basis of this presupposition. No philosopher could give him this conviction. So that is not what Goethe was looking for in the philosophers. It was something else. Even if his way of looking at things lay deep in his being, he still needed a language to express it. His nature was philosophical, i.e. such that it could only be expressed in philosophical formulae, could only be justified from philosophical premises. And in order to make himself clearly aware of what he was, in order to know what was his living doing, he looked to the philosophers. He looked to them for an explanation and justification of his being. This is his relationship with the philosophers. To this end, he studied Spinoza in his youth and later entered into scientific negotiations with his philosophical contemporaries. In his youth, Spinoza and Giordano Bruno seemed to the poet to express his own nature most of all. It is curious that he first became acquainted with both thinkers from opposing writings and, despite this circumstance, recognized how their teachings related to his nature. His relationship to Giordano Bruno's teachings in particular confirms this. He gets to know him from Bayle's dictionary, where he is fiercely attacked. And he receives such a deep impression from him that we find linguistic echoes of Bruno's sentences in those parts of "Faust" which, according to the conception, date from around 1770, when he read Bayle (see Goethe-Jahrbuch Bd..VII, Frankfurt/M. 1886). In the Tag- und Jahres-Hefte, the poet tells us that he had again studied Giordano Bruno in 1812. This time, too, the impression is a powerful one, and in many of the poems written after this year we recognize echoes of the philosopher of Nola. But all this is not to be taken as if Goethe had borrowed or learned anything from Bruno; he only found in him the formula for expressing what had long been in his nature. He found that he expressed his own inner self most clearly when he did so in the words of that thinker. Bruno regarded universal reason as the creator and director of the universe. He calls it the inner artist who forms matter and shapes it from within. It is the cause of everything that exists, and there is no being in whose existence it would not lovingly take part. "Be the thing ever so small and tiny, it has in itself a part of spiritual substance" (Giordano Bruno, Von der Ursache etc., ed. by A. Lasson, Heidelberg 1882). This was also Goethe's view, that we only know how to judge a thing when we see how it has been placed in its place by common reason, how it has become precisely what it appears to us as. If we perceive with the senses, that is not enough, for the senses do not tell us how a thing is connected with the general idea of the world, what it has to mean for the great whole. We must look in such a way that our reason creates an ideal ground for us, on which then appears to us what the senses deliver to us; we must, as Goethe puts it, look with the eyes of the spirit. He also found a formula in Bruno to express this conviction: "For just as we do not recognize colors and sounds with one and the same sense, so we also do not see the substrate of the arts and the substrate of nature with one and the same eye", because we "see this with the sensory eyes and that with the eye of reason" (see Lasson p. 77). And with Spinoza it is no different. Spinoza's teaching is based on the fact that the Godhead has merged into the world. Human knowledge can therefore only aim to immerse itself in the world in order to recognize God. Any other way of reaching God must appear impossible to a person who thinks consistently in the sense of Spinozism. For God has given up all existence of his own; he is nowhere apart from the world. But we must seek him where he is. Every actual knowledge must therefore be such that it gives us a piece of knowledge of God in every piece of knowledge of the world. Cognition at its highest level is therefore a union with the Godhead. We call it conceptual knowledge. We recognize things "sub specie aeternitatis", i.e. as emanations of the Godhead. The laws that our spirit recognizes in nature are therefore God in his essence, not just made by him. What we recognize as logical necessity is so because the essence of the Godhead, i.e. the eternal lawfulness, is inherent in it. This was a view in keeping with Goethe's spirit. His firm belief that nature, in all its activity, reveals a divinity to us, was expressed to him here in the clearest sentences. "I hold firmly and more firmly to the atheist's (Spinoza's) worship of God," he wrote to Jacobi when the latter wanted to present Spinoza's teaching in a different light. [WA 7, 214] Therein lies the affinity with Spinoza in Goethe. And if, in contrast to this deep, inner harmony between Goethe's nature and Spinoza's teaching, one always and forever emphasizes the purely external: Goethe was attracted to Spinoza because, like the latter, he did not want to tolerate final causes in the explanation of the world, this testifies to a superficial assessment of the facts. The fact that Goethe, like Spinoza, rejected final causes was only a consequence of their views. Just consider the theory of final causes. One thing is explained in terms of its existence and nature by demonstrating its necessity for another. One shows that this thing is such and such because that other thing is such and such. This presupposes the existence of a world-ground which stands above the two beings and arranges them in such a way that they fit each other. But if the ground of the world is inherent in every thing, then this explanation makes no sense. For then the nature of a thing must appear to us as a consequence of the principle at work in it. We will look in the nature of a thing for the reason why it is this way and not otherwise. If we have the belief that divinity is inherent in every thing, then it will not occur to us to look for an external principle to explain its lawfulness. Nor can Goethe's relationship to Spinoza be understood in any other way than that he found in him the formulas, the scientific language, to express the world that lies within him.
[ 3 ] If we now turn to Goethe's relationship to the philosophers of his time, we must speak above all of Kant. Kant is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. In his time, he provoked such a powerful movement that every educated person felt the need to engage with him. For Goethe, too, this debate became a necessity. But it could not be fruitful for him. For there is a profound contrast between what Kant's philosophy teaches and what we recognize as Goethe's way of thinking. Indeed, one could almost say that the whole of German thought runs in two parallel directions, one steeped in the Kantian way of thinking and the other close to the Goethean way of thinking. But as philosophy today moves ever closer to Kant, it moves further and further away from Goethe, and thus the possibility of understanding and appreciating Goethe's world view is increasingly lost for our time. We want to set out the main propositions of Kant's teaching here in so far as they are of interest to Goethe's views. For Kant, the starting point for human thought is experience, i.e. that which is available to the senses (which includes the inner sense that conveys psychological, historical, etc. facts to us). facts). This is a multiplicity of things in space and of processes in time. That this particular thing confronts me, that I experience this particular process, is indifferent; it could also be otherwise. I can think away the whole multiplicity of things and processes. But what I cannot think away is space and time. For me, there can be nothing that is not spatial or temporal. Even if there is a spaceless or timeless thing, I cannot know anything about it, because I cannot imagine anything without space and time. I do not know whether things themselves have space and time; I only know that things must appear to me in these forms. Space and time are therefore the preconditions of my sensory perception. I know nothing of the thing in itself; I only know how it must appear to me if it is to be there for me. Kant introduces a new problem with these sentences. He poses a new question in science. Instead of asking, like the earlier philosophers, how things are constituted, he asks: how must things appear to us so that they can become the object of our knowledge? For Kant, philosophy is the science of the conditions of the possibility of the world as a human phenomenon. We know nothing of the thing in itself. We have not yet fulfilled our task when we arrive at the sensory perception of a multiplicity in time and space. We strive to summarize this multiplicity into a unity. And that is a matter for the intellect. The intellect is to be understood as a sum of activities which have the purpose of summarizing the world of the senses according to certain forms predetermined in it. It summarizes two sensory perceptions, for example, by calling one a cause and the other an effect, or by calling one a substance and the other a property, and so on. Here, too, it is the task of philosophical science to show under what conditions the intellect succeeds in forming a system of the world. Thus, in Kant's sense, the world is actually a subjective phenomenon occurring in the forms of the sense world and the understanding. Only one thing is certain, that there is a thing in itself; how it appears to us depends on our organization. It is now also natural that it makes no sense to ascribe to that world, which the intellect has formed in conjunction with the senses, any meaning other than a meaning for our cognitive faculty. This becomes clearest when Kant speaks of the significance of the world of ideas. For him, ideas are nothing but higher points of view of reason, under which the lower units created by the intellect are understood. The intellect, for example, brings the phenomena of the soul into a context; reason, as the faculty of ideas, then conceives this context as if everything proceeded from one soul. But this has no significance for the matter itself; it is only a means of orientation for our cognitive faculty. This is the content of Kant's theoretical philosophy, insofar as it can interest us here. One immediately sees in it the opposite pole of Goethe's. The given reality is determined by Kant according to ourselves; it is so because we imagine it to be so. Kant skips the actual epistemological question. At the beginning of his critique of reason, he takes two steps that he does not justify, and his entire philosophical doctrine suffers from this error. He immediately establishes the distinction between object and subject without asking what significance it has at all when the mind makes the separation of two realms of reality (here the cognizing subject and the object to be cognized). It then seeks to establish the mutual relationship between these two areas conceptually, again without asking what meaning such a statement has. If he had not seen the main epistemological question askew, he would have noticed that the separation of subject and object is only a transit point of our cognition, that both are based on a deeper unity that can be grasped by reason, and that what is attributed to a thing as a property, insofar as it is thought in relation to a cognizing subject, is by no means only subjectively valid. The thing is a unit of reason and the separation into a "thing in itself" and a "thing for us" is a product of reason. It is therefore unacceptable to say that what is attributed to a thing in one respect can be denied to it in another. For whether I look at the same thing once from this point of view and another time from that point of view, it is still a unified whole.
[ 4 ] It is a mistake that runs through Kant's entire doctrinal structure that he regards sensory diversity as something fixed, and that he believes that science consists in bringing this diversity into a system. He does not even suspect that the manifold is not an ultimate thing that must be overcome if it is to be grasped; and therefore all theory becomes to him merely an ingredient that brings understanding and reason to experience. The idea is not for him that which appears to reason as the deeper ground of the given world when it has overcome the multiplicity lying on the surface, but only a methodical principle according to which it arranges the phenomena for the sake of an easier overview. According to Kant's view, we would be quite mistaken if we regarded things as derivable from the idea; in his opinion, we can only arrange our experiences as if they stem from a unity. According to Kant, we have no idea of the ground of things, of the "in itself". Our knowledge of things is only there in relation to us, is only valid for our individuality. Goethe could not gain much from this view of the world. For him, the contemplation of things in relation to us always remained entirely subordinate, concerning the effect of objects on our feelings of pleasure and displeasure; he demands more from science than merely an indication of how things are in relation to us. In the essay: "Der Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt" (Natw. Schr., 2nd vol., p. 10ff.) the task of the researcher is defined: He is to take the standard for knowledge, the data for judgment, not from himself, but from the circle of things he observes. This single sentence characterizes the profound contrast between Kant's and Goethe's way of thinking. Whereas with Kant all judgment of things is only a product of subject and object and only provides knowledge of how the subject looks at the object, with Goethe the subject is selflessly absorbed in the object and takes the data for judgment from the circle of things. Goethe therefore says of Kant's students themselves: "They heard me well, but could answer me nothing, nor be of any help to me." [Natw. Schr., 2nd vol., p. 29] The poet believed he had gained more from Kant's Critique of Judgment.
[ 5 ] Although Goethe was furthered philosophically by Schiller more than by Kant. It was through him that he was really brought a step further in the realization of his own way of looking at things. Up until that famous first conversation with Schiller, Goethe* had practiced a certain way of looking at the world. He had looked at plants, based them on an original plant and derived the individual forms from it. This primordial plant (and also a corresponding primordial animal) had formed itself in his mind and was useful to him in explaining the relevant phenomena. However, he had never thought about what this primordial plant was in essence. Schiller opened his eyes by telling him: it is an idea. From then on, Goethe was aware of his idealism. Until that conversation, he therefore called the original plant an experience, because he believed he saw it with his eyes. However, in the introduction to the essay on the metamorphosis of the plant, which was added later, he says: "Thus I now sought to find the primordial animal, that is, ultimately, the concept, the idea of the animal." [Natw. Schr., 1st vol., p. 15] It should be noted, however, that Schiller did not pass on anything foreign to Goethe, but rather only penetrated himself to the realization of objective idealism through the contemplation of Goethe's spirit. He only found the term for the way of looking at things that he recognized and admired in Goethe.
[ 6 ] Goethe received little support from Fichte. Fichte moved in a sphere that was far too foreign to Goethe's thinking for this to have been possible. Fichte founded the science of consciousness in the most astute way. He deduced the activity by which the "I" transforms the given world into an imagined one in a uniquely exemplary way. In doing so, however, he made the mistake of conceiving this activity of the "I" not merely as one that brings the given content into a satisfactory form, that brings the incoherently given into the appropriate contexts; he regarded it as a creation of everything that takes place within the "I". Thus his doctrine appears as a one-sided idealism that takes all its content from consciousness. Goethe, who always focused on the objective, could probably find little to attract him in Fichte's philosophy of consciousness. Goethe lacked understanding for the area in which it applies; but the extension that Fichte gave it - he saw it as a universal science - could only appear to the poet as an error.
[ 7 ] Goethe had many more points of contact with the young Schelling. The latter was a student of Fichte. However, he not only continued the analysis of the activity of the "I", but also pursued that activity within consciousness through which the latter grasps nature. That which takes place in the ego in the cognition of nature seemed to Schelling to be at the same time the objective of nature, the actual principle within it. For him, nature outside was only a fixed form of our concepts of nature. What lives within us as a view of nature appears to us again on the outside, only in a dispersed, spatio-temporal way. What confronts us from outside as nature is a finished product, is only the conditioned, the rigidized form of a living principle. We cannot gain this principle through experience from the outside. We must first create it within ourselves. "To philosophize about nature is to create nature," says our philosopher. 94Schelling, Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie; Jena and Leipzig 1799, p. 6. "We call nature as mere product (natura naturata) nature as object (this alone is the object of all empiricism). Nature as productivity (natura naturans) we call nature as subject (to this alone goes all theory)." (Einleitung zu seinem Entwurf. ,Jena u. Leipzig 1799, p. 22..) "The contrast between empiricism and science now rests precisely on the fact that the latter regards its object in being as something finished and brought about; science, on the other hand, regards the object in becoming and as something first to be brought about." (ibid. p. 20) Through this doctrine, which Goethe learned partly from Schelling's writings and partly from personal contact with the philosopher, the poet was brought up another level. Now the view developed in him that his tendency was to progress from the finished, the product to the becoming, the producing. And with a decided echo of Schelling, he writes in the essay "Anschauende Urteilskraft" (Viewing Power of Judgment) that his aspiration was "to make himself worthy of spiritual participation in the productions of an ever-creating nature" (Natw. Schr., 1st vol., p. 116).
[ 8 ] Through Hegel, Goethe finally received the last encouragement from the side of philosophy. It was through him that he gained clarity about how what he called the original phenomenon fits into philosophy. Hegel grasped the significance of the primordial phenomenon most profoundly and characterized it aptly in his letter to Goethe of 20 February 1821. February 1821 with the words: "You place the simple and abstract, which you very aptly call the primal phenomenon, at the top, then point out the more concrete phenomena as arising through the addition of further modes of action and circumstances and govern the whole course in such a way that the sequence progresses from the simple conditions to the more composite ones, and thus ranked, the complex now appears in its clarity through this decomposition. To trace out the original phenomenon, to free it from the other surroundings which are accidental to it, - to conceive it abstractly, as we call it, this I regard as a matter of the great spiritual sense of nature, as well as that course in general as the truly scientific aspect of knowledge in this field..." ... "May I now also speak to you, etc., of the special interest that such an outstanding primordial phenomenon has for us philosophers, namely that we can use such a preparation for philosophical purposes! For once we have worked our initially oyster-like, gray, or completely black absolute towards air and light, so that it has become desirous of them, we need windows in order to bring it fully out into the light of day; our schemas would float away into a haze if we wanted to place them in the colorful, confused company of the repulsive world. Here, then, Your Grace's primordial phenomena are of excellent service to us; in this twilight, spiritual and comprehensible through its simplicity, visible and tangible through its sensuality - the two worlds, our abstruse, and the appearing existence, greet each other." Thus, through Hegel, the idea becomes clear to Goethe that the empirical researcher must go as far as the primal phenomena, and that from there the philosopher's path leads further. From this, however, it is also clear that the basic idea of Hegel's philosophy is a consequence of Goethe's way of thinking. The overcoming of humanity, the immersion in it in order to ascend from the created to the creative, from the conditional to the conditional, is the basis of Goethe's, but also of Hegel's, philosophy. In philosophy, Hegel wants to offer nothing other than the eternal process from which everything that is finite emerges. He wants to recognize the given as a consequence of what he can accept as unconditional.
[ 9 ] So for Goethe, becoming acquainted with philosophers and philosophical schools of thought meant a progressive enlightenment about what already lay within him. He gained nothing for his view; he was only given the means to talk about what he was doing, what was going on in his soul.
[ 10 ] Thus, Goethe's view of the world offers enough clues for philosophical development. However, these were initially only taken up by Hegel's students. The rest of philosophy is nobly opposed to Goethe's view. Only Schopenhauer relied in some respects on the poet, whom he held in high esteem. We will discuss his apologetics of the theory of colors in a later chapter. What matters here is the general relationship of Schopenhauer's teaching to Goethe. 95 Dr. Adolf Harpf's essay Goethe and Schopenhauer (Philos. Monatshefte 1885) is well worth reading. Harpf, who has already written an excellent essay on "Goethe's Principle of Knowledge" (Philos. Monatshefte 1884), shows the correspondence between Schopenhauer's inherent dogmatism and Goethe's objective knowledge. Harpf, who is himself a Schopenhauerian, does not find the fundamental difference between Goethe and Schopenhauer, as we characterized it above. Nevertheless, Harpf's remarks deserve our full attention. The Frankfurt philosopher comes close to Goethe in one respect. Schopenhauer rejects all derivation of the phenomena given to us from external causes and only accepts an inner lawfulness, only a derivation of one phenomenon from another. This is apparently equivalent to Goethe's principle of taking the data of explanation from the things themselves; but only apparently. For while Schopenhauer wants to remain within the phenomenal, because we cannot reach the "in itself" lying outside it in cognition, since all phenomena given to us are only ideas and our imagination never leads us beyond our consciousness, Goethe wants to remain within the phenomena, because he seeks the data for their explanation in them themselves.
[ 11 ] Finally, we want to link Goethe's view of the world with the most significant scientific phenomenon of our time, with the views of Eduard v. Hartmann. This thinker's "Philosophy of the Unconscious" is a work of the greatest historical significance. Together with Hartmann's other writings, which expand on all sides of what is outlined there, indeed in many respects bring new points of view to that main work, it reflects the entire intellectual content of our time. Hartmann is characterized by an admirable profundity and an astonishing mastery of the material of the individual sciences. Today he stands on the high guard of education. It is not necessary to be his follower, and this must be acknowledged without reservation.
[ 12 ] His view is not as far removed from Goethe's as one might think at first glance. Those who have nothing other than the "Philosophy of the Unconscious" will, of course, not be able to see this. For the decisive points of contact between the two thinkers can only be seen when one considers the consequences that Hartmann drew from his principles and which he set down in his later writings.
[ 13 ] Hartmann's philosophy is idealism. He does not want to be a mere idealist. However, where he needs something positive in order to explain the world, he does call upon the idea for help. And the most important thing is that he thinks the idea is the basis of everything. For his assumption of an unconscious has no other meaning than that what is present in our consciousness as an idea is not necessarily bound to this form of appearance - within consciousness. The idea is not only present (effective) where it becomes conscious, but also in another form. It is more than a mere subjective phenomenon; it has a meaning founded in itself. It is not merely present in the subject, it is an objective world principle. Even if Hartmann in addition to the idea also includes the will among the principles constituting the world, it is incomprehensible how there are still philosophers who regard him as a Schopenhauerian. Schopenhauer took the view that all conceptual content is only subjective, only a phenomenon of consciousness, to the extreme. With him there can be no question of the idea having participated in the constitution of the world as a real principle. For him, the will is the exclusive ground of the world. This is why Schopenhauer was never able to achieve a substantive treatment of the special philosophical sciences, whereas Hartmann had already pursued his principles into all the special sciences. While Schopenhauer knows nothing to say about the whole rich content of history except that it is a manifestation of the will, Ed. v. Hartmann knows how to find the ideal core of every single historical phenomenon and to integrate it into the whole historical development of mankind. Schopenhauer cannot be interested in the individual being, the individual phenomenon, for he only knows how to say the one essential thing about it, that it is a manifestation of the will. Hartmann takes up every special existence and shows how the idea is to be perceived everywhere. The basic character of Schopenhauer's view of the world is uniformity, that of Hartmann is unity. Schopenhauer bases his view of the world on an empty, monotonous urge, Hartmann on the rich content of the idea. Schopenhauer takes abstract unity as his basis; in Hartmann we find the concrete idea as a principle in which unity - or rather uniformity - is only a property. Schopenhauer could never have created a philosophy of history like Hartmann, never a science of religion. When Hartmann says: "Reason is the logical formal principle of the idea inseparably united with the will and as such regulates and determines the content of the world process without remainder" ("Philosophische Fragen der Gegenwart"; Leipzig 1885, p. 27), this presupposition makes it possible for him to seek out the logical core in every phenomenon that confronts us in nature and history, which is not comprehensible to the senses, but nevertheless comprehensible to thought, and thus to explain it. Anyone who does not make this assumption will never be able to justify why he wants to make something out about the world at all through thinking by means of ideas.
[ 14 ] With his objective idealism, Ed. v. Hartmann stands entirely on the ground of Goethe's worldview. When Goethe says: "All that we become aware of and can speak of are only manifestations of the idea" ("Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr, 4, 2nd vol., p. 379), and when he demands that man must develop in himself such a faculty of cognition that the idea becomes as vivid to him as external perception is to the senses, he is standing on that ground where the idea is not merely a phenomenon of consciousness but an objective world principle; thinking is the flashing forth in consciousness of that which objectively constitutes the world. The essential thing about the idea is therefore not what it is for us, for our consciousness, but what it is in itself. For through its own essence it underlies the world as a principle. Therefore, thinking is an awareness of what is in and of itself. Although, therefore, the idea would not appear at all if there were no consciousness, it must nevertheless be grasped in such a way that it is not consciousness that constitutes its characteristic, but what it is in itself, what lies in itself, to which becoming conscious does nothing. Therefore, according to Ed. v. Hartmann, we must take the idea, apart from becoming conscious, as the active unconscious of the world. This is the essential point in Hartmann's work, that we have to look for the idea in everything that is unconscious.
[ 15 ] But the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious does not do much. For that is after all only a difference for my consciousness. But one must approach the idea in its objectivity, in its full content; one must not only see that the idea is unconsciously effective, but what this effectiveness is. If Hartmann had stopped at the fact that the idea is unconscious and had explained the world from this unconsciousness - that is, from a one-sided characteristic of the idea - he would have created a new monotonous system in addition to the many systems that derive the world from some abstract formula principle. And one cannot completely absolve his first major work of this uniformity. But Ed. v. Hartmann's spirit is too intense, too comprehensive and deeply urgent for him not to have recognized that the idea must not be grasped merely as the unconscious; rather, one must delve into that which one has to address as unconscious, go beyond this quality to its concrete content and derive the world of individual phenomena from it. Thus Hartmann has developed from the abstract monist, which he still is in his "Philosophy of the Unconscious", into a concrete monist. And it is the concrete idea that Goethe defines under the three forms: Urphänomen, Typus and "idea in the narrower sense".
[ 16 ] The realization of an objective in our world of ideas and the devotion to it that follows from this realization is what we find of Goethe's worldview in Ed. v. Hartmann's philosophy. Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious led him to this absorption in the objective idea. Since he recognized that the essence of the idea does not lie in consciousness, he had to acknowledge the latter as something existing in and of itself, as something objective. The fact that he also includes the will in the constitutive principles of the world, of course, distinguishes him again from Goethe. However, where Hartmann is really fruitful, the motive of will does not come into consideration at all. That he accepts it at all is because he regards the idea as a dormant thing that, in order to come into effect, needs the impulse of the will. According to Hartmann, the will alone can never come to create the world, for it is the empty, blind urge to exist. If it is to bring something into being, the idea must be added, for only this gives it the content of its activity. But what are we to do with this will? It slips away from us when we want to grasp it; for we cannot grasp the empty, meaningless urge. And so it is that everything we really grasp of the world principle is an idea, because what can be grasped must have content. We can only grasp what is full of content, not what is empty of content. If we are to grasp the concept of will, it must appear in the content of the idea; it can only appear in and with the idea, as the form of its appearance, never independently. What exists must have content; there can only be a fulfilled, not an empty being. This is why Goethe presents the idea as active, as something effective that no longer requires any impetus. For that which is full of content must not and cannot be given the impetus to come into existence by an empty content. The idea is therefore to be grasped in Goethe's sense as entelechy, i.e. already as active existence; and one must first abstract from its form as an active thing if one then wants to bring it back under the name will. The motive of will is also completely worthless for positive science. Hartmann does not need it either, where he approaches the concrete phenomenon.
[ 17 ] If we have recognized an echo of Goethe's world view in Hartmann's view of nature, we find it even more significant in the ethics of that philosopher. Eduard v. Hartmann finds that all striving for happiness, all pursuit of egoism is ethically worthless, because we can never achieve satisfaction in this way. Hartmann considers acting out of egoism and to satisfy it to be illusory. We should grasp the task we have been given in the world and work purely for the sake of this, with self-emptying. We should find our goal in devotion to the object, without claiming to gain anything for our subject. The latter, however, is the basic feature of Goethe's ethics. Hartmann should not have suppressed the word that expresses the character of his moral doctrine: love. 96 This is not to claim that the concept of love is not taken into account in Hartmann's ethics. H. has treated it in phenomenal and metaphysical terms (see Das sittliche Bewußtsein 2nd ed., pp. 223-247, 629-631, 641, 638-641). But he does not regard love as the last word in ethics. Sacrificial, loving devotion to the world process does not seem to him to be a last thing, but only the means! for redemption from the restlessness of existence and for regaining the lost blissful peace. Where we make no personal claim, where we act only because we are driven by the objective, where we find the motives for action in the deed itself, there we act morally. But there we act out of love. All self-will, everything personal must disappear there. It is characteristic of Hartmann's powerful and healthy mind that in theory, although he first grasped the idea in the one-sided manner of the unconscious, he nevertheless advanced to concrete idealism and that, although he started from pessimism in ethics, this erroneous standpoint led him to the moral doctrine of love. Hartmann's pessimism does not have the meaning that those people put into it who like to complain about the fruitlessness of our work because they hope to derive justification from it for laying their hands in their laps and accomplishing nothing. Hartmann does not stop at lamentation; he rises above any such sentiment to a pure ethic. He shows the worthlessness of the pursuit of happiness by revealing its fruitlessness. He thus points us to our activity. That he is a pessimist at all is his error. This is perhaps still an appendage from earlier stages of his thinking. Where he stands now, he would have to realize that the empirical proof that the non-satisfactory predominates in the world of reality cannot justify pessimism. For the higher man can desire nothing other than that he must achieve his own happiness. He does not want it as a gift from outside. He only wants happiness in his deeds. Hartmann's pessimism dissolves before (Hartmann's own) higher thinking. If the world leaves us unsatisfied, we create the most beautiful happiness for ourselves in our actions.
[ 18 ] So Hartmann's philosophy is once again proof for us of how, starting from different points of departure, one arrives at the same goal. Hartmann starts from different premises than Goethe; but in the execution we are confronted with Goethean ideas at every turn. We have explained this here because we wanted to show the deep, inner solidity of Goethe's view of the world. It is so deeply rooted in the nature of the world that we must encounter its basic features wherever energetic thinking penetrates to the sources of knowledge. In this Goethe, everything was so original, so nothing at all an incidental fashionable view of the time, that even the reluctant must think in his sense. The eternal riddle of the world is expressed in individuals; in modern times, it is most meaningful in Goethe, which is why one can almost say that the height of a person's view today can be measured by the relationship in which it stands to Goethe's."