Goethe's Conception of the World
GA 6
The Position of Goethe in the Evolution of Western Thought
V. Personality and View of the World
[ 1 ] Man learns to know the external side of Nature through perception; her more deeply lying forces are revealed in his own inner being as subjective experiences. In philosophical observation of the world, and in artistic feeling and production, the subjective experiences permeate the objective perceptions. What had to divide into two in order to penetrate into the human spirit becomes again one Whole. Man satisfies his highest spiritual needs when he incorporates into the objectively perceived world what that world reveals to him in his inner being as its deeper Mysteries. Knowledge and the productions of Art are nothing else than perceptions filled with man's inner experiences. An inner union of a human soul-experience and an external perception can be discovered in the simplest judgment of an object or an event of the external world. When I say, ‘one body strikes the other,’ I have already carried over an inner experience to the external world. I see a body in motion; it comes into contact with another body, and as a result this second body is also set in motion. With these words the content of the perception is exhausted. This, however, does not satisfy me, for I feel that in the whole phenomenon there is more than what is yielded by mere perception. I seek for an inner experience that will explain the perception. I know that I myself can set a body in movement by the application of force, by pushing it. I carry this experience over into the phenomenon and say: the one body pushes the other. “Man never realises how anthropomorphic he is” (Goethes Sprüche in Prosa. Bd. 36, 2. S. 353. National-Literatur: Goethes Werke.). There are men who conclude from the presence of this subjective element in every judgment of the external world that the objective essence of reality is inaccessible to man. They believe that man falsifies the immediate, objective facts of reality when he introduces his subjective experiences into it. They say: because man is only able to form a conception of the world through the spectacles of his subjective life, therefore all his knowledge is only a subjective, limited human knowledge. Those, however, who become conscious of what reveals itself in the inner being of man will not want to have anything to do with such unfruitful statements. They know that Truth results from the interpenetration of perception and idea in the cognitional process. They realise that in the subjective there lives the truest and deepest objective. “When the healthy nature of man works as one Whole, when he feels himself to exist in the world as in a great and beautiful Whole, when the harmonious sense of well-being imparts to him a pure, free delight, the Universe—if it could be conscious of itself—having attained its goal, would shout for joy and admire the summit of its own becoming and being” (National-Literatur. 27 Bd. S. 42.). The reality accessible to mere perception is only the one half of the whole reality; the content of the human spirit is the other half. If a man had never confronted the world, this second half would never come to living manifestation, to full existence. It would work, of course, as a hidden world of forces, but it would be deprived of the possibility of manifesting itself in its essential form. It may be said that without man the world would display a false countenance. It would exist as it does, by virtue of its deeper forces, but these deeper forces would remain veiled by what they themselves are bringing about. In the spirit of man they are released from their enchantment. Man is not only there in order to form for himself a picture of the finished world; nay, he himself co-operates in bringing the world into existence.
[ 2 ] Subjective experiences assume different forms in different men. For those who do not believe in the objective nature of the inner world this is another reason for denying that man has the capacity to penetrate to the true essence of things. For how can that be the essence of things which appears in one way to one man and in another way to another man? For those who penetrate to the true nature of the inner world the only consequence of the diversity of inner experiences is that Nature is able to express her abundant content in different ways. Truth appears to the individual man in an individual garb. It adapts itself to the particular nature of his personality. More especially is this the case with the highest truths, truths that are of the greatest significance for man. In order to acquire these truths man carries over his most intimate spiritual experiences and with them at the same time the particular nature of his personality, to the world he has perceived. There are also truths of general validity which every man accepts without imparting to them any individual colouring. But these are the most superficial, the most trivial. They correspond to the common generic character of men, which is the same in them all. Certain attributes which are similar in all men give rise to similar judgments about objects. The way in which men view phenomena according to measure and number is the same in everyone—therefore all find the same mathematical truths. In the attributes, however, which distinguish the single personality from the common generic character, there also lies the foundation for the individual formulation of truth. The essential point is not that the truth appears in one man in a different form than in another, but that all the individual forms that make their appearance belong to one single Whole, the uniform ideal world. In the inner being of individual men truth speaks in different tongues and dialects; in every great man it speaks a particular language communicated to this one personality alone. But it is always the one truth that is speaking. “If I know my relationship to myself and to the external world, I call it truth. And so each one can have his own truth, and it is nevertheless always the same.”—This is Goethe's view. Truth is not a rigid, dead system of concepts that is only capable of assuming one single form; truth is a living ocean in which the spirit of man dwells, and it is able to display on its surface waves of the most diverse form. “Theory per se is useless except in so far as it makes us believe in the connection of phenomena,” says Goethe. A theory that is supposed to be conclusive once and for all and purports in this form to represent an eternal truth, has no value for Goethe. He wants living concepts by means of which the spirit of the single man can connect the perceptions together in accordance with his individual nature. To know the truth, means, to Goethe, to live in the truth. And to live in the truth means nothing else than that in the consideration of each single object man perceives what particular inner experience comes into play when he confronts this object. Such a view of human cognition cannot speak of boundaries to knowledge, nor of a limitation to knowledge consequential upon the nature of man. For the questions which, according to this view, man raises in knowledge, are not derived from the objects; neither are they imposed upon man by some other power outside his personality. They are derived from the nature of the personality itself. When man directs his gaze to an object there arises within him the urge to see more than confronts him in the perception. And so far as this urge extends, so far does he feel the need for knowledge. Whence does this urge originate? It can indeed only originate from the fact that an inner experience feels itself impelled within the soul to enter into union with the perception. As soon as the union is accomplished the need for knowledge is also satisfied. The will-to-know is a demand of human nature and not of the objects. They can impart to man no more of their being than he demands from them. Those who speak of a limitation of the faculty of cognition do not know whence the need for knowledge is derived. They believe that the content of truth is lying preserved somewhere or other and that there lives in man nothing but the vague wish to discover the way to the place where it is preserved. But it is the being of the things itself that works itself out in the inner being of man and passes on to where it belongs: to the perception. Man does not strive in the cognitive process for some hidden element but for the equilibration of two forces that work upon him from two sides. One may well say that without man there would be no knowledge of the inner being of things, for without man there would exist nothing through which this inner being could express itself. But it cannot be said that there is something in the inner being of things that is inaccessible to man. Man only knows that there exists something more in the things than perception gives, because this other element lives in his own inner being. To speak of a further unknown element in objects is to spin words about something that does not exist.
[ 3 ] Those natures who are not able to recognise that it is the speech of things that is uttered in the inner being of man, hold the view that all truth must penetrate into man from without. Such natures either adhere to mere perception and believe that only through sight, hearing and touch, through the gleaning of historical events and through comparing, reckoning, calculating and weighing what is received from the realm of facts, is truth able to be cognised; or else they hold the view that truth can only come to man when it is revealed to him through means lying beyond the scope of his cognitional activity; or, finally, they endeavour through forces of a special character, through ecstasy or mystical vision, to attain to the highest insight—insight which, in their view, cannot be afforded them by the world of ideas accessible to thought. A special class of metaphysicians also range themselves on the side of the Kantian School and of one-sided mystics. They, indeed, endeavour to form concepts of truth by means of thought, but they do not seek the content of these concepts in man's world of ideas; they seek it in a second reality lying behind the objects. They hold that by means of pure concepts they can either make out something definite about this content, or at least form conceptions of it through hypotheses. I am speaking here chiefly of the first mentioned category of men, the “fact-fanatics.” We sometimes find it entering into their consciousness that in reckoning and calculation there already exists, with the help of thought, an elaboration of the content of perception. But then, so they say, thought-activity is only the means whereby man endeavours to cognise the connection between the facts. What flows out of thought as it elaborates the external world is held by these men to be merely subjective; only what approaches them from outside with the help of thinking do they regard as the objective content of truth, the valuable content of knowledge. They imprison the facts within their web of thoughts, but only what is so imprisoned do they admit to be objective. They overlook the fact that what thought imprisons in this way undergoes an exegesis, an adjustment, and an interpretation that is not there in mere perception. Mathematics is a product of pure thought-processes; its content is mental, subjective. And the mechanician who conceives of natural processes in terms of mathematical relations can only do this on the assumption that the relations have their foundation in the essential nature of these processes. This, however, means nothing else than that a mathematical order lies hidden within the perception and is only seen by one who elaborates the mathematical laws within his mind. There is, however, no difference of kind but only of degree between the mathematical and mechanical perceptions and the most intimate spiritual experiences. Man can carry over other inner experiences, other regions of his world of ideas into his perceptions with the same right as the results of mathematical research. The “fact-fanatic” only apparently establishes purely external processes. He does not as a rule reflect upon the world of ideas and its character as subjective experience. And his inner experiences are poor in content, bloodless abstractions that are obscured by the powerful content of fact. The delusion to which he gives himself up can exist only so long as he remains stationary at the lowest stage of the interpretation of Nature, so long as he only counts, weights, calculates. At the higher stages the true character of knowledge soon makes itself apparent. It can, however, be observed in “fact-fanatics” that they prefer to remain at the lower stages. Because of this they are like an aesthete who wishes to judge a piece of music merely in accordance with what can be counted and calculated in it. They want to separate the phenomena of Nature off from man. No subjective element ought to flow into observation. Goethe condemns this mode of procedure in the words: “Man in himself, in so far as he uses his healthy senses, is the most powerful and exact physical apparatus there can be. The greatest mischief of modern physics is that the experiments have, as it were, been separated off from the human being. Man wishes to cognise Nature only by what artificial instruments show, and would thereby limit and prove what she can accomplish.” It is fear of the subjective—fear emanating from a false idea of the true nature of the subjective—that leads to this mode of procedure. “But in this connection man stands so high that what otherwise defies portrayal is portrayed in him. What is a string and all mechanical subdivisions of it compared with the ear of the musician? Yes, indeed, what are the elemental phenomena of Nature herself in comparison with man, who must first master and modify them in order in some degree to assimilate them” (Goethes Werke. Nat. Lit., Bd. 32, 2. S.351.). In Goethe's view the investigator of Nature should not only pay attention to the immediate appearance of objects, but what appearance they would have if all the ideal, moving forces active within them were also to come to actual, external manifestation. The phenomena do not disclose their inner being and constitution until the bodily and spiritual organism of man is there to confront them.
[ 4 ] Goethe's view is that the phenomena reveal themselves fully to a man who approaches them with a free, unbiased spirit of observation and with a developed inner life in which the ideas of things manifest themselves. Hence a world-conception in opposition to that of Goethe is one that does not seek for the true being of things within the reality given by experience but within a second kind of reality lying behind this. In Fr. H. Jacobi, Goethe encountered an adherent of such a world-conception. Goethe gives vent to his indignation in a remark in the Tag-und Jahresheft (1811): “Jacobi displeases me on the subject of divine things; how could I welcome the book of so cordially loved a friend in which I was to find this thesis worked out: Nature conceals God!—My pure, profound, inherent and practised mode of conception has taught me to see God within Nature and Nature within God, inviolably; it has constituted the basis of my whole existence; how then could I fail to be forever spiritually estranged from a man of such excellence, whose heart I used to love and honour, when he makes such a strange—and to my mind—such an extraordinary, one-sided statement.” Goethe's mode of conception affords him the certainty that he experiences Eternal Law in the penetration of Nature with ideas, and Eternal Law is to him identical with the Divine. If the Divine concealed itself behind the phenomena of Nature, although it is at the same time the creative element within them, it could not be perceived; man would have to believe in it. “God has afflicted you with the curse of Metaphysics and has put a thorn in your flesh. He has blessed me with Physics. I adhere to the Atheist's (Spinoza) worship of the Godhead and relinquish to you all that you call—or would like to call—religion. You adhere to belief in God, I to vision.” Where this vision ceases there is nothing for the human spirit to seek. In the Prose Aphorisms we read: “Man is in truth placed in the centre of a real world and endowed with organs enabling him to know and to bring forth the actual as well as the possible. All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of a state of existence around them. There is, however, a hollow spot in the brain, that is to say, a place where no object is reflected, just as in the eye itself there is a minute spot which does not see. If a man pays special attention to this hollow place, if he sinks into it, he falls victim to a mental disease, and begins to divine things of another world, chimeras, without form or limit, but which as empty nocturnal spaces alarm and follow the man who does not tear himself free from them, like spectres.” From the same sentiment comes the utterance: “The highest would be to realise that all ‘matters of fact’ are really theory. The blue of the heavens reveals to us the fundamental law of chromatics. Let man seek nothing behind the phenomena, for they themselves are the doctrine.”
[ 5 ] Kant denies that man has the capacity to penetrate that region of Nature wherein her creative forces become directly perceptible. In his view concepts are abstract units into which human understanding groups the manifold particulars of Nature, but which have nothing to do with the Living Unity, with the creating Whole of Nature out of which these perceptions actually proceed. In this grouping-together man experiences a subjective operation only. He can relate his general concepts to empirical perceptions, but these concepts are not in themselves living, productive, in such a way that it would ever be possible for man to perceive the emergence of the individual, the particular from them. A concept is to Kant a dead unit existing only in man. “Our understanding is a faculty of Concepts, i.e., a discursive understanding for which it obviously must be contingent of what kind and how very different the particular may be that can be given to it in Nature and brought under its concepts” (Para. 77. Kant's Critique of Judgment.). This is Kant's characterisation of the Understanding. The following is the necessary consequence : “It is infinitely important for Reason not to let slip the mechanism of Nature in its products and in their explanation not to pass it by, because without it no insight into the nature of things can be attained. Suppose it be admitted that a supreme Architect immediately created the forms of Nature as they have been from the beginning, or that he predetermined those which in the course of Nature continually form themselves in the same model—our knowledge of Nature is not thus in the least furthered, because we cannot know the mode of action of that Being and the Ideas which are to contain the principles of the possibility of natural beings, and we cannot by them explain Nature as from above downwards.” (Para. 78. Critique of Understanding.). Goethe is convinced that in his world of ideas man has direct experience of the mode of action of the creative being of Nature. “When in the sphere of the moral, through belief in God, Virtue and Immortality, we do indeed raise ourselves into a higher sphere where it is granted to us to approach the primordial Essence, so may it well be in the sphere of the Intellectual, that through the perception of an ever-creating Nature we make ourselves worthy for a spiritual participation in her productions.” Man's knowledge is, for Goethe, an actual “living into” the creative activity and sove-reignty of Nature. Knowledge is able “to investigate, to experience how Nature lives in creative activity.”
[ 6 ] It is contrary to the spirit of Goethe's world-conception to speak of Beings existing outside the world of experience and of ideas that is accessible to the human mind, who, nevertheless, are supposed to contain the foundations of this world. Every kind of Metaphysics is rejected by this world-conception. There are no questions of knowledge which, if rightly put, cannot also be answered. If science at any given time can make nothing of a certain region of phenomena, this is not due to the nature of the human spirit, but to the fortuitous circumstances that experience of this region is not yet complete. Hypotheses cannot be advanced in regard to things that lie outside the sphere of possible experience, but only in regard to such things as may at some time enter into this region. An hypothesis can never do more than assert: it is probable that within a region of phenomena this or that experience will be made. Objects and processes that do not he within the range of man's sense-perception or spiritual perception cannot be spoken of by this mode of thinking. The assumption of a “thing-in-itself” that brings about perceptions in man, but that can never itself be perceived, is an inadmissible hypothesis. “Hypotheses are scaffoldings erected around the building and are taken away when the building is completed; they are indispensable to the workman, only he must not take the scaffolding for the building.” In presence of a region of phenomena for which all the perceptions are given and which is permeated with ideas, the spirit of man declares itself satisfied. Man feels that a living harmony of idea and perception resounds within him.
[ 7 ] The satisfying fundamental note which runs for Goethe through his world-conception is similar to that which may be observed in the Mystics. Mysticism aims at finding the primordial principle of things, the Godhead within the human soul. Like Goethe, the Mystic is convinced that the essential being of the world will be made manifest to him in inner experiences. But many Mystics will not admit that penetration into the world of ideas constitutes the inner experience which is to them the essential thing. Many one-sided Mystics have practically the same view as Kant of the clear ideas of Reason. They consider that these clear Ideas of Reason lie outside the sphere of the creative Whole of Nature and that they belong exclusively to the human intellect. Such Mystics endeavour, therefore, to attain to the highest knowledge, to a higher kind of perception, by the development of abnormal conditions of perception, by the development of abnormal conditions, for example, by ecstasy. They deaden sense observation and rational thought within themselves and try to enhance their life of feeling. Then they think they directly feel active spirituality actually as the Godhead within themselves. When they achieve this they believe that God lives within them. The Goethean world-conception, however, does not derive its knowledge from experiences occurring when observation and thought have been deadened, but from these two functions themselves. It does not betake itself to abnormal conditions of man's mental life but is of the view that the normal, naive methods of procedure of the mind are capable of being perfected to such an extent that man may experience within himself the creative activity of Nature. “It seems to me that ultimately it is only a question of the practical, self-rectifying operations of the general human intellect that has the courage to exercise itself in a higher sphere” (2 Abt. Bd. 11. S.41. Weimar Edition of Goethe's Works). Many Mystics plunge into a world of indefinite sensations and feelings; Goethe plunges into the crystal-clear world of ideas. One-sided Mystics disdain clarity of ideas and think it superficial. They have no inkling of what is experienced by men who are endowed with the gift of entering profoundly into the living world of ideas. They are chilled when they give themselves up to the world of ideas. They seek a world-content that radiates warmth. But the world-content which they find does not explain the world. It consists only of subjective stimuli, of confused representations. A man who speaks of the coldness of the world of ideas can only think ideas, he cannot experience them. A man who lives the true life of the world of ideas feels within himself the being of the world working in a warmth that cannot be compared with anything else. He feels the fire of the World Mystery light up within him. This is what Goethe felt when the vision of weaving Nature dawned in him in Italy. He then realised how the yearning that in Frankfort he expressed in the words of Faust, can be appeased:
“Where shall I grasp thee, infinite Nature, where?
Ye breasts, ye fountains of all life whereon
Hang Heaven and Earth, from which the withered heart
For solace yearns...”
Persönlichkeit und Weltanschauung
[ 1 ] Die Außenseite der Natur lernt der Mensch durch die Anschauung kennen; ihre tiefer liegenden Triebkräfte enthüllen sich in seinem eigenen Innern als subjektive Erlebnisse. In der philosophischen Weltbetrachtung und im künstlerischen Empfinden und Hervorbringen durchdringen die subjektiven Erlebnisse die objektiven Anschauungen. Das wird wieder ein Ganzes, Was sich in zwei Teile spalten mußte, um in den menschlichen Geist einzudringen. Der Mensch befriedigt seine höchsten geistigen Bedürfnisse, wenn er der objektiv angeschauten Welt einverleibt, was sie in seinem Innern ihm als ihre tieferen Geheimnisse offenbart. Erkenntnisse und Kunsterzeugnisse sind nichts anderes, als von menschlichen inneren Erlebnissen erfüllte Anschauungen. In dem einfachsten Urteile über ein Ding oder Ereignis der Außenwelt können ein menschliches Seelenerlebnis und eine äußere Anschauung im innigen Bunde miteinander gefunden werden. Wenn ich sage: ein Körper stößt den andern, so habe ich bereits ein inneres Erlebnis auf die Außenwelt übertragen. Ich sehe einen Körper in Bewegung; er trifft auf einen andern; dieser kommt infolgedessen auch in Bewegung. Mit diesen Worten ist der Inhalt der Wahrnehmung erschöpft. Ich bin aber dabei nicht beruhigt. Denn ich fühle: es ist in der ganzen Erscheinung noch mehr vorhanden, als was die bloße Wahrnehmung liefert. Ich greife nach einem inneren Erlebnis, das mich über die Wahrnehmung aufklärt. Ich weiß, daß ich selbst durch Anwendung von Kraft, durch Stoßen, einen Körper in Bewegung versetzen kann. Dieses Erlebnis übertrage ich auf die Erscheinung und sage: der eine Körper stößt den andern. «Der Mensch begreift niemals, wie anthropomorphisch er ist» (Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa. Kürschner Band 36,2, S. 353). Es gibt Menschen, die aus dem Vorhandensein dieses subjektiven Bestandteiles in jedem Urteile über die Außenwelt die Folgerung ziehen, daß der objektive Wesenskern der Wirklichkeit dem Menschen unzugänglich sei. Sie glauben, der Mensch verfälsche den unmittelbaren, objektiven Tatbestand der Wirklichkeit, wenn er seine subjektiven Erlebnisse in diese hineinlegt. Sie sagen: weil der Mensch sich die Welt nur durch die Brille seines subjektiven Lebens vorstellen kann, ist alle seine Erkenntnis nur eine subjektive, beschränkt-menschliche. Wem es aber zum Bewußtsein kommt, was im Innern des Menschen sich offenbart, der wird nichts mit solchen unfruchtbaren Behauptungen zu tun haben wollen. Er weiß, daß Wahrheit eben dadurch zustande kommt, daß Wahrnehmung und Idee sich im menschlichen Erkentnisprozeß durchdringen. Ihm ist klar, daß in dem Subjektiven das eigentlichste und tiefste Objektive lebt. «Wenn die gesunde Natur des Menschen als ein Ganzes wirkt, wenn er sich in der Welt als in einem großen, schönen würdigen und werten Ganzen fühlt, wenn das harmonische Behagen ihm ein reines, freies Entzücken gewährt, dann würde das Weltall wenn es sich selbst empfinden könnte, als an sein Ziel gelangt, aufjauchzen und den Gipfel des eigenen Werdens und Wesens bewundern.» (Kürschner, Band 27, S. 42.) Die der bloßen Anschauung zugängliche Wirklichkeit ist nur die eine Hälfte der ganzen Wirklichkeit; der Inhalt des menschlichen Geistes ist die andere Hälfte. Träte nie ein Mensch der Welt gegenüber, so käme diese zweite Hälfte nie zur lebendigen Erscheinung, zum vollen Dasein. Sie wirkte zwar als verborgene Kräftewelt; aber es wäre ihr die Möglichkeit entzogen, sich in einer eigenen Gestalt zu zeigen. Man möchte sagen, ohne den Menschen würde die Welt ein unwahres Antlitz zeigen. Sie wäre so, wie sie ist, durch ihre tieferen Kräfte, aber diese tieferen Kräfte blieben selbst verhüllt durch das, was sie wirken. Im Menschengeiste werden sie aus ihrer Verzauberung erlöst. Der Mensch ist nicht bloß dazu da, um sich von der fertigen Welt ein Bild zu machen; nein, er wirkt selbst mit an dem Zustandekommen dieser Welt.
[ 2 ] Verschieden gestalten sich die subjektiven Erlebnisse bei verschiedenen Menschen. Für diejenigen, welche nicht an die objektive Natur der Innenwelt glauben, ist das ein Grund mehr, dem Menschen das Vermögen abzusprechen, in das Wesen der Dinge zu dringen. Denn wie kann Wesen der Dinge sein, was dem einen so, dem andern anders erscheint. Für denjenigen, der die wahre Natur der Innenwelt durchschaut, folgt aus der Verschiedenheit der Innenerlebnisse nur, daß die Natur ihren reichen Inhalt auf verschiedene Weise aussprechen kann. Dem einzelnen Menschen erscheint die Wahrheit in einem individuellen Kleide. Sie paßt sich der Eigenart seiner Persönlichkeit an. Besonders für die höchsten, dem Menschen wichtigsten Wahrheiten gilt dies. Um sie zu gewinnen, überträgt der Mensch seine geistigen, intimsten Erlebnisse auf die angeschaute Welt und mit ihnen zugleich das Eigenartigste seiner Persönlichkeit. Es gibt auch allgemeingültige Wahrheiten, die jeder Mensch aufnimmt, ohne ihnen eine individuelle Färbung zu geben. Dies sind aber die oberflächlichsten, die trivialsten. Sie entsprechen dem allgemeinen Gattungscharakter der Menschen, der bei allen der gleiche ist. Gewisse Eigenschaften, die in allen Menschen gleich sind, erzeugen über die Dinge auch gleiche Urteile. Die Art, wie die Menschen die Dinge nach Maß und Zahl ansehen, ist bei allen gleich. Daher finden alle die gleichen mathematischen Wahrheiten. In den Eigenschaften aber, in denen sich die Einzelpersönlichkeit von dem allgemeinen Gattungscharakter abhebt, liegt auch der Grund zu den individuellen Ausgestaltungen der Wahrheit. Nicht darauf kommt es an, daß in dem einen Menschen die Wahrheit anders erscheint als in dem andern, sondern darauf, daß alle zum Vorschein kommenden individuellen Gestalten einem einzigen Ganzen angehören, der einheitlichen ideellen Welt. Die Wahrheit spricht im Innern der einzelnen Menschen verschiedene Sprachen und Dialekte; in jedem großen Menschen spricht sie eine eigene Sprache, die nur dieser einen Persönlichkeit zukommt. Aber es ist immer die eine Wahrheit, die da spricht. «Kenne ich mein Verhältnis zu mir selbst und zur Außenwelt, so heiß' ich's Wahrheit. Und so kann jeder seine eigene Wahrheit haben, und es ist doch immer dieselbige.» Dies ist Goethes Meinung. Nicht ein starres, totes Begriffssystem ist die Wahrheit, das nur einer einzigen Gestalt fähig ist; sie ist ein lebendiges Meer, in welchem der Geist des Menschen lebt, und das Wellen der verschiedensten Gestalt an seiner Oberfläche zeigen kann. «Die Theorie an und für sich ist nichts nütze, als insofern sie uns an den Zusammenhang der Erscheinungen glauben macht», sagt Goethe. Er schätzt keine Theorie, die ein für allemal abgeschlossen sein will, und in dieser Gestalt eine ewige Wahrheit darstellen soll. Er will lebendige Begriffe, durch die der Geist des einzelnen nach seiner individuellen Eigenart die Anschauungen zusammenfaßt. Die Wahrheit erkennen heißt ihm in der Wahrheit leben. Und in der Wahrheit leben ist nichts anderes, als bei der Betrachtung jedes einzelnen Dinges hinzusehen, welches innere Erlebnis sich einstellt, wenn man diesem Dinge gegenübersteht. Eine solche Ansicht von dem menschlichen Erkennen kann nicht von Grenzen des Wissens, nicht von einer Eingeschränktheit desselben durch die Natur des Menschen sprechen. Denn die Fragen, die sich nach dieser Ansicht das Erkennen vorlegt, entspringen nicht aus den Dingen; sie sind dem Menschen auch nicht von irgend einer andern außerhalb seiner Persönlichkeit gelegenen Macht auferlegt. Sie entspringen aus der Natur der Persönlichkeit selbst. Wenn der Mensch den Blick auf ein Ding richtet, dann entsteht in ihm der Drang, mehr zu sehen, als ihm in der Wahrnehmung entgegentritt. Und so weit dieser Drang reicht, so weit reicht sein Erkenntnisbedürfnis. Woher stammt dieser Drang? Doch nur davon, daß ein inneres Erlebnis sich in der Seele angeregt fühlt, mit der Wahrnehmung eine Verbindung einzugehen. Sobald die Verbindung vollzogen ist, ist auch das Erkenntnisbedürfnis befriedigt. Erkennen wollen ist eine Forderung der menschlichen Natur und nicht der Dinge. Diese können dem Menschen nicht mehr über ihr Wesen sagen, als er ihnen abfordert. Wer von einer Beschränktheit des Erkenntnisvermögens spricht, der weiß nicht, woher das Erkenntnisbedürfnis stammt. Er glaubt, der Inhalt der Wahrheit liege irgendwo aufbewahrt, und in dem Menschen lebe nur der unbestimmte Wunsch, den Zugang zu dem Aufbewahrungsorte zu finden. Aber es ist das Wesen der Dinge selbst, das sich aus dem Innern des Menschen herausarbeitet und dahin strebt, wohin es gehört: zu der Wahrnehmung. Nicht nach einem Verborgenen strebt der Mensch im Erkenntnisprozeß, sondern nach der Ausgleichung zweier Kräfte, die von zwei Seiten auf ihn wirken. Man kann wohl sagen, ohne den Menschen gäbe es keine Erkenntnis des Innern der Dinge, denn ohne ihn wäre nichts da, wodurch dieses Innere sich aussprechen könnte. Aber man kann nicht sagen, es gibt im Innern der Dinge etwas, das dem Menschen unzugänglich ist. Daß an den Dingen noch etwas anderes vorhanden ist, als was die Wahrnehmung liefert, weiß der Mensch nur, weil dieses andere in seinem eigenen Innern lebt. Von einem weiteren unbekannten Etwas der Dinge sprechen, heißt Worte über etwas machen, was nicht vorhanden ist.
[ 3 ] Die Naturen, die nicht zu erkennen vermögen, daß es die Sprache der Dinge ist, die im Innern des Menschen gesprochen wird, sind der Ansicht, alle Wahrheit müsse von außen in den Menschen eindringen. Solche Naturen halten sich entweder an die bloße Wahrnehmung und glauben, allein durch Sehen, Hören, Tasten, durch Auflesung der geschichtlichen Vorkommnisse und durch Vergleichen, Zählen, Rechnen, Wägen des aus der Tatsachenwelt Aufgenommenen die Wahrheit erkennen zu können; oder sie sind der Ansicht, daß die Wahrheit nur zu dem Menschen kommen könne, wenn sie ihm auf eine außerhalb des Erkennens gelegene Art offenbart werde, oder endlich, sie wollen durch Kräfte besonderer Natur, durch Ekstase oder mystisches Schauen in den Besitz der höchsten Einsichten kommen, die ihnen, nach ihrer Ansicht, die dem Denken zugängliche Ideenwelt nicht darbieten kann. Den im Kantschen Sinne Denkenden und den einseitigen Mystikern reihen sich noch besonders geartete Metaphysiker an. Diese suchen zwar durch das Denken sich Begriffe von der Wahrheit zu bilden. Aber sie suchen den Inhalt für diese Begriffe nicht in der menschlichen Ideenwelt, sondern in einer hinter den Dingen liegenden zweiten Wirklichkeit. Sie meinen, durch reine Begriffe über einen solchen Inhalt entweder etwas Sicheres ausmachen zu können, oder wenigstens durch Hypothesen sich Vorstellungen von ihm bilden zu können. Ich spreche hier zunächst von der zuerst angeführten Art von Menschen, von den Tatsachenfanatikern. Ihnen kommt es zuweilen zum Bewußtsein, daß in dem Zählen und Rechnen bereits eine Verarbeitung des Anschauungsinhaltes mit Hilfe des Denkens stattfindet. Dann aber sagen sie, die Gedankenarbeit sei bloß das Mittel, durch das der Mensch den Zusammenhang der Tatsachen zu erkennen bestrebt ist. Was aus dem Denken bei Bearbeitung der Außenwelt fließt, gilt ihnen als bloß subjektiv; als objektiven Wahrheitsgehalt, als wertvollen Erkenntnisinhalt sehen sie nur das an, was mit Hilfe des Denkens von außen an sie herankommt. Sie fangen zwar die Tatsachen in ihre Gedankennetze ein, lassen aber nur das Eingefangene als objektiv gelten. Sie übersehen, daß dieses Eingefangene durch das Denken eine Auslegung, Zurechtrückung, eine Interpretation erfährt, die es in der bloßen Anschauung nicht hat. Die Mathematik ist ein Ergebnis reiner Gedankenprozesse, ihr Inhalt ist ein geistiger, subjektiver. Und der Mechaniker, der die Naturvorgänge in mathematischen Zusammenhängen vorstellt, kann dies nur unter der Voraussetzung, daß diese Zusammenhänge in dem Wesen dieser Vorgänge begründet sind. Das heißt aber nichts anderes als: in der Anschauung ist eine mathematische Ordnung verborgen, die nur derjenige sieht, der die mathematischen Gesetze in seinem Geiste ausbildet. Zwischen den mathematischen und mechanischen Anschauungen und den intimsten geistigen Erlebnissen ist aber kein Art-, sondern nur ein Gradunterschied. Und mit demselben Rechte wie die Ergebnisse der mathematischen Forschung kann der Mensch andere innere Erlebnisse, andere Gebiete seiner Ideenwelt auf die Anschauungen übertragen. Nur scheinbar stellt der Tatsachenfanatiker rein äußere Vorgänge fest. Er denkt zumeist über die Ideenwelt und ihren Charakter, als subjektives Erlebnis, nicht nach. Auch sind seine inneren Erlebnisse inhaltsame, blutleere Abstraktionen, die von dem kraftvollen Tatsacheninhalt verdunkelt werden. Die Täuschung, der er sich hingibt, kann nur so lange bestehen, als er auf der untersten Stufe der Naturinterpretation stehen bleibt, solange er bloß zählt, wägt, berechnet. Auf den höheren Stufen drängt sich die wahre Natur der Erkenntnis bald auf. Man kann es aber an den Tatsachenfanatikern beobachten, daß sie sich vorzüglich an die unteren Stufen halten. Sie gleichen dadurch einem Ästhetiker, der ein Musikstück bloß danach beurteilen will, was an ihm berechnet und gezählt werden kann. Sie wollen die Erscheinungen der Natur von dem Menschen absondern. Nichts Subjektives soll in die Beobachtung einfließen. Goethe verurteilt dieses Verfahren mit den Worten: «Der Mensch an sich selbst, insofern er sich seiner gesunden Sinne bedient, ist der größte und genaueste physikalische Apparat, den es geben kann, und das ist eben das größte Unheil der neueren Physik, daß man die Experimente gleichsam vom Menschen abgesondert hat, und bloß in dem, was künstliche Instrumente zeigen, die Natur erkennen, ja, was sie leisten kann, dadurch beschränken und beweisen will.» Es ist die Angst vor dem Subjektiven, die zu solcher Verfahrungsweise führt, und die aus einer Verkennung der wahrhaften Natur desselben herrührt. «Dafür steht ja aber der Mensch so hoch, daß sich das sonst Undarstellbare in ihm darstellt. Was ist denn eine Saite und alle mechanische Teilung derselben gegen das Ohr des Musikers? Ja man kann sagen, was sind die elementarischen Erscheinungen der Natur selbst gegen den Menschen, der sie alle erst bändigen und modifizieren muß, um sie sich einigermaßen assimilieren zu können?» (Kürschner, Band 36, 2, S.351) Nach Goethes Ansicht soll der Naturforscher nicht allein darauf aufmerksam sein, wie die Dinge erscheinen, sondern wie sie erscheinen würden, wenn alles, was in ihnen als ideelle Triebkräfte wirkt, auch wirklich zur äußeren Erscheinung käme. Erst wenn sich der leibliche und geistige Organismus des Menschen den Erscheinungen gegenüberstellt, dann enthüllen sie ihr Inneres.
[ 4 ] Wer mit freiem, offenem Beobachtungsgeist und mit einem entwickelten Innenleben, in dem die Ideen der Dinge sich offenbaren, an die Erscheinungen herantritt, dem enthüllen diese, nach Goethes Meinung, alles, was an ihnen ist. Goethes Weltanschauung entgegengesetzt ist daher diejenige, welche das Wesen der Dinge nicht innerhalb der Erfahrungswirklichkeit, sondern in einer hinter derselben liegenden zweiten Wirklichkeit sucht. Ein Bekenner einer solchen Weltanschauung trat Goethe in Fr. H. Jacobi entgegen. Goethe macht seinem Unwillen in einer Bemerkung der Tag- und Jahreshefte (zum Jahre 1811) Luft: « Jacobi ˂Von den göttlichen Dingen˃ machte mir nicht wohl; wie konnte mir das Buch eines so herzlich geliebten Freundes willkommen sein, worin ich die These durchgeführt sehen sollte: die Natur verberge Gott. Mußte, bei meiner reinen, tiefen, angebotenen und geübten Anschauungsweise, die mich Gott in der Natur, die Natur in Gott zu sehen unverbrüchlich gelehrt hatte, so daß diese Vorstellungsart den Grund meiner ganzen Existenz machte, mußte nicht ein so seltsamer, einseitig-beschränkter Ausspruch mich dem Geiste nach von dem edelsten Manne, dessen Herz ich verehrend liebte, für ewig entfernen?» Goethes Anschauungsweise gibt ihm die Sicherheit, daß er in der ideellen Durchdringung der Natur ein ewig Gesetzmäßiges erlebe, und das ewig Gesetzmäßige ist ihm mit dem Göttlichen identisch. Wenn das Göttliche hinter den Naturdingen sich verbergen würde und doch das schöpferische Element in ihnen bildete, könnte es nicht angeschaut werden; der Mensch müßte an dasselbe glauben. In einem Briefe an Jacobi nimmt Goethe sein Schauen gegenüber dem Glauben in Schutz:
[ 5 ] «Gott hat Dich mit der Metaphysik gestraft und dir einen Pfahl ins Fleisch gesetzt, mich mit der Physik gesegnet. Ich halte mich an die Gottesverehrung des Atheisten (Spinoza) und überlasse Euch alles, was ihr Religion heißt und heißen mögt. Du hältst aufs Glauben an Gott; ich aufs Schauen.» Wo dieses Schauen aufhört, da hat der menschliche Geist nichts zu suchen. In den Sprüchen in Prosa lesen wir: «Der Mensch ist wirklich in die Mitte einer wirklichen Welt gesetzt und mit solchen Organen begabt, daß er das Wirkliche und nebenbei das Mögliche erkennen und hervorbringen kann. Alle gesunden Menschen haben die Überzeugung ihres Daseins und eines Daseienden um sich her. Indessen gibt es auch einen hohlen Fleck im Gehirn, d.h. eine Stelle, wo sich kein Gegenstand ab spiegelt, wie denn auch im Auge selbst ein Fleckchen ist, das nicht sieht. Wird der Mensch auf diese Stelle besonders aufmerksam, vertieft er sich darin, so verfällt er in eine Geisteskrankheit, ahnet hier Dinge einer andern Welt, die aber eigentlich Undinge sind und weder Gestalt noch Begrenzung haben, sondern als leere Nacht-Räumlichkeit ängstigen und den, der sich nicht losreißt, mehr als gespensterhaft verfolgen.» (Kürschner, Band 36, 2, S. 458.) Aus derselben Gesinnung heraus ist der Ausspruch: «Das Höchste wäre, zu begreifen, daß alles Faktische schon Theorie ist. Die Bläue des Himmels offenbart uns das Grundgesetz der Chromatik. Man suche nur nichts hinter den Phänomenen; sie selbst sind die Lehre.»
[ 6 ] Kant spricht dem Menschen die Fähigkeit ab, in das Gebiet der Natur einzudringen, in dem ihre schöpferischen Kräfte unmittelbar anschaulich werden. Nach seiner Meinung sind die Begriffe abstrakte Einheiten, in die der menschliche Verstand die mannigfaltigen Einzelheiten der Natur zusammenfaßt, die aber nichts zu tun haben mit der lebendigen Einheit, mit dem schaffenden Ganzen der Natur, aus der diese Einzelheiten wirklich hervorgehen. Der Mensch erlebt in dem Zusammenfassen nur eine subjektive Operation. Er kann seine allgemeinen Begriffe auf die empirische Anschauung beziehen; aber diese Begriffe sind nicht in sich lebendig, produktiv, so daß der Mensch das Hervorgehen des Individuellen aus ihnen anschauen könnte. Eine tote, bloß im Menschen vorhandene Einheit sind für Kant die Begriffe. «Unser Verstand ist ein Vermögen der Begriffe, d. i. ein diskursiver Verstand, für den es freilich zufällig sein muß, welcherlei und wie verschieden das Besondere sein mag, das ihm in der Natur gegeben werden, und was unter seine Begriffe gebracht werden kann.» Dies ist Kants Charakteristik des Verstandes (§ 77 der «Kritik der Urteilskraft»). Aus ihr ergibt sich folgendes mit Notwendigkeit: «Es liegt der Vernunft unendlich viel daran, den Mechanismus der Natur in ihren Erzeugungen nicht fallen zu lassen und in der Erklärung derselben nicht vorbei zu gehen. weil ohne diesen keine Einsicht in die Natur der Dinge erlangt werden kann. Wenn man uns gleich einräumt: daß ein höchster Architekt die Formen der Natur, so wie sie von je her da sind, unmittelbar geschaffen, oder die, so sich in ihrem Laufe kontinuierlich nach eben demselben Muster bilden, prädeterminiert habe, so ist doch dadurch unsere Erkenntnis der Natur nicht im mindesten gefördert; weil wir jenes Wesens Handlungsart und die Ideen desselben, welche die Prinzipien der Möglichkeit der Naturwesen enthalten sollen, gar nicht kennen, und von demselben als von oben herab (apriori) die Natur nicht erklären können» (§ 78 der «Kritik der Urteilskraft»). Goethe ist der Überzeugung, daß der Mensch in seiner Ideenwelt die Handlungsart des schöpferischen Naturwesens unmittelbar erlebt. «Wenn wir ja im Sittlichen, durch Glauben an Gott, Tugend und Unsterblichkeit uns in eine obere Region erheben und an das erste Wesen annähern sollen: so dürfte es wohl im Intellektuellen derselbe Fall sein, daß wir uns durch das Anschauen einer immer schaffenden Natur zur geistigen Teilnahme an ihren Produktionen würdig machten.» Ein wirkliches Hineinleben in das Schaffen und Walten der Natur ist für Goethe die Erkenntnis des Menschen. Ihr ist es gegeben: «zu erforschen, zu erfahren, wie Natur im Schaffen lebt.»
[ 7 ] Es widerspricht dem Geist der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, von Wesenheiten zu sprechen, die außerhalb der dem menschlichen Geiste zugänglichen Erfahrungs- und Ideenwelt liegen und die doch die Gründe dieser Welt enthalten sollen. Alle Metaphysik wird von dieser Weltanschauung abgelehnt. Es gibt keine Fragen der Erkenntnis, die, richtig gestellt, nicht auch beantwortet werden können. Wenn die Wissenschaft zu irgend einer Zeit über ein gewisses Erscheinungsgebiet nichts ausmachen kann, so liegt das nicht an der Natur des menschlichen Geistes, sondern an dem zufälligen Umstande, daß die Erfahrung über dieses Gebiet zu dieser Zeit noch nicht vollständig vorliegt. Hypothesen können nicht über Dinge aufgestellt werden, die außerhalb des Gebietes möglicher Erfahrung liegen, sondern nur über solche, die einmal in dieses Gebiet eintreten können. Eine Hypothese kann immer nur besagen: es ist wahrscheinlich, daß innerhalb eines Erscheinungsgebietes diese oder jene Erfahrung gemacht werden wird. Über die Dinge und Vorgänge, die nicht innerhalb der menschlichen sinnlichen oder geistigen Anschauung liegen, kann innerhalb dieser Denkungsart gar nicht gesprochen werden. Die Annahme eines «Dinges an sich», das die Wahrnehmungen in dem Menschen bewirkt, aber nie selbst wahrgenommen werden kann, ist eine unstatthafte Hypothese. «Hypothesen sind Gerüste, die man vor dem Gebäude aufführt, und die man abträgt, wenn das Gebäude fertig ist; sie sind dem Arbeiter unentbehrlich; nur muß er das Gerüste nicht für das Gebäude ansehen.» Einem Erscheinungsgebiete gegenüber, für das alle Wahrnehmungen vorliegen und das ideell durchdrungen ist, erklärt sich der menschliche Geist befriedigt. Er fühlt, daß sich in ihm ein lebendiges Zusammenklingen von Idee und Wahrnehmung abspielt. Die befriedigende Grundstimmung, die Goethes Weltanschauung für ihn hat, ist derjenigen ähnlich, die man bei den Mystikern beobachten kann. Die Mystik geht darauf aus, in der menschlichen Seele den Urgrund der Dinge, die Gottheit zu finden. Der Mystiker ist gerade so wie Goethe davon überzeugt, daß ihm in inneren Erlebnissen das Wesen der Welt offenbar werde. Nur gilt manchem Mystiker die Versenkung in die Ideenwelt nicht als das innere Erlebnis, auf das es ihm ankommt. Über die klaren Ideen der Vernunft hat mancher einseitige Mystiker ungefähr dieselbe Ansicht wie Kant. Sie stehen für ihn außerhalb des schaffenden Ganzen der Natur und gehören nur dem menschlichen Verstande an. Ein solcher Mystiker sucht deshalb zu den höchsten Erkenntnissen durch Entwicklung ungewöhnlicher Zustände, z. B. durch Ekstase, zu einem Schauen höherer Art zu gelangen. Er tötet die sinnliche Beobachtung und das vernunftgemäße Denken in sich ab, und sucht sein Gefühlsleben zu steigern. Dann meint er in sich die wirkende Geistigkeit sogar als Gottheit unmittelbar zu fühlen. Er glaubt in Augenblicken, in denen ihm das gelingt, Gott lebe in ihm. Eine ähnliche Empfindung ruft auch die Goethesche Weltanschauung in dem hervor, der sich zu ihr bekennt. Nur schöpft sie ihre Erkenntnisse nicht aus Erlebnissen, die nach Ertötung von Beobachtung und Denken eintreten, sondern eben aus diesen beiden Tätigkeiten. Sie flüchtet nicht zu abnormen Zuständen des menschlichen Geisteslebens, sondern sie ist der Ansicht, daß die gewöhnlichen naiven Verfahrungsarten des Geistes einer solchen Vervollkommnung fähig sind, daß der Mensch das Schaffen der Natur in sich erleben kann. «Es sind am Ende doch nur, wie mich dünkt, die praktischen und sich selbst rektifizierenden Operationen des gemeinen Menschenverstandes, der sich in einer höheren Sphäre zu üben wagt.» (Vgl. Goethes Werke in der Sophien-Ausgabe. z. Abt., Band II, S. 41) In eine Welt unklarer Empfindungen und Gefühle versenkt sich mancher Mystiker; in die klare Ideenwelt versenkt sich Goethe. Die einseitigen Mystiker verachten die Klarheit der Ideen. Sie halten diese Klarheit für oberflächlich. Sie ahnen nicht, was Menschen empfinden, welche die Gabe haben, sich in die belebte Welt der Ideen zu vertiefen. Es friert einen solchen Mystiker, wenn er sich der Ideenwelt hingibt. Er sucht einen Weltinhalt, der Wärme ausströmt. Aber der, welchen er findet, klärt über die Welt nicht auf. Er besteht nur in subjektiven Erregungen, in verworrenen Vorstellungen. Wer von der Kälte der Ideenwelt spricht, der kann Ideen nur denken, nicht erleben. Wer das wahrhafte Leben in der Ideenwelt lebt, der fühlt in sich das Wesen der Welt in einer Wärme wirken, die mit nichts zu vergleichen ist. Er fühlt das Feuer des Weltgeheimnisses in sich auflodern. So hat Goethe empfunden, als ihm die Anschauung der wirkenden Natur in Italien aufging. Damals wußte er, wie jene Sehnsucht zu stillen ist, die er in Frankfurt seinen Faust mit den Worten aussprechen läßt:
Wo faß' ich dich, unendliche Natur?
Euch Brüste, wo? Ihr Quellen alles Lebens,
An denen Himmel und Erde hängt,
Dahin die welke Brust sich drängt...
Personality and worldview
[ 1 ] Man gets to know the outside of nature through contemplation; its underlying driving forces are revealed within himself as subjective experiences. In the philosophical contemplation of the world and in artistic perception and production, subjective experiences permeate objective views. This again becomes a whole, which had to split into two parts in order to penetrate the human spirit. Man satisfies his highest spiritual needs when he incorporates into the objectively observed world what it reveals to him inwardly as its deeper secrets. Insights and artistic products are nothing other than views filled with human inner experiences. In the simplest judgment about a thing or event in the external world, a human soul experience and an external perception can be found in intimate union with each other. When I say: one body pushes another, I have already transferred an inner experience to the outer world. I see a body in motion; it encounters another body, which consequently also begins to move. With these words the content of perception is exhausted. But I am not reassured. For I feel that there is still more present in the whole phenomenon than what mere perception provides. I reach for an inner experience that enlightens me about perception. I know that I myself can set a body in motion by applying force, by pushing. I transfer this experience to the phenomenon and say: one body pushes the other. "Man never realizes how anthropomorphic he is" (Goethe, Proverbs in Prose. Kürschner Vol. 36,2, p. 353). There are people who draw the conclusion from the presence of this subjective component in every judgment of the external world that the objective essence of reality is inaccessible to man. They believe that man falsifies the immediate, objective facts of reality when he puts his subjective experiences into them. They say: because man can only imagine the world through the lens of his subjective life, all his knowledge is only subjective, limited-human knowledge. But anyone who becomes aware of what is revealed within man will want nothing to do with such unfruitful assertions. He knows that truth comes about precisely through the interpenetration of perception and idea in the human process of cognition. It is clear to him that the most real and profound objective lives in the subjective. "If the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, if he feels himself in the world as in a great, beautiful, worthy and valuable whole, if the harmonious pleasure grants him a pure, free delight, then the universe, if it could feel itself as having reached its goal, would rejoice and admire the summit of its own becoming and being. " (Kürschner, vol. 27, p. 42.) The reality accessible to mere contemplation is only one half of the whole reality; the content of the human spirit is the other half. If a human being never confronted the world, this second half would never come to a living appearance, to full existence. It would work as a hidden world of forces, but it would be deprived of the opportunity to show itself in its own form. One might say that without man the world would show an untrue face. It would be as it is because of its deeper forces, but these deeper forces themselves would remain concealed by what they do. In the human spirit they are released from their enchantment. Man is not merely there to form an image of the finished world; no, he himself participates in the creation of this world.
[ 2 ] The subjective experiences of different people are different. For those who do not believe in the objective nature of the inner world, this is one more reason to deny man the ability to penetrate the essence of things. For how can the essence of things be what appears one way to one person and another way to another? For those who see through the true nature of the inner world, it only follows from the diversity of inner experiences that nature can express its rich content in different ways. Truth appears to the individual in an individual guise. It adapts itself to the characteristics of his personality. This is especially true for the highest truths that are most important to man. In order to gain them, man transfers his spiritual, most intimate experiences to the world he sees and with them the most unique aspects of his personality. There are also universally valid truths that every person absorbs without giving them an individual coloring. But these are the most superficial, the most trivial. They correspond to the general generic character of human beings, which is the same for everyone. Certain characteristics that are the same in all people also produce the same judgments about things. The way people look at things in terms of measure and number is the same for everyone. Therefore they all find the same mathematical truths. But in the qualities in which the individual personality stands out from the general generic character lies the reason for the individual formations of truth. What matters is not that truth appears differently in one person than in another, but that all the individual forms that come to light belong to a single whole, the unified ideal world. Truth speaks different languages and dialects within each individual person; in every great person it speaks a language of its own, which belongs only to that one personality. But it is always the one truth that speaks. "If I know my relationship to myself and to the outside world, I call it truth. And so everyone can have their own truth, but it is always the same." This is Goethe's opinion. Truth is not a rigid, dead conceptual system that is only capable of a single form; it is a living sea in which the spirit of man lives and which can show waves of the most diverse forms on its surface. "Theory in and of itself is of no use except in so far as it makes us believe in the connection of phenomena," says Goethe. He does not appreciate a theory that wants to be completed once and for all, and in this form is supposed to represent an eternal truth. He wants living concepts through which the spirit of the individual summarizes the views according to his individual characteristics. To him, recognizing the truth means living in the truth. And living in the truth is nothing other than looking at each individual thing to see what inner experience arises when one confronts this thing. Such a view of human cognition cannot speak of the limits of knowledge, of its being restricted by the nature of man. For the questions which, according to this view, cognition poses to itself do not arise from things; nor are they imposed on man by any other power outside his personality. They arise from the nature of the personality itself. When man directs his gaze towards an object, the urge arises in him to see more than he perceives. And as far as this urge extends, so far does his need for knowledge. Where does this urge come from? But only from the fact that an inner experience in the soul feels stimulated to enter into a connection with perception. As soon as the connection is made, the need for knowledge is satisfied. The desire to recognize is a demand of human nature and not of things. These cannot tell man more about their nature than he demands of them. Anyone who speaks of a limitation of the faculty of knowledge does not know where the need for knowledge comes from. He believes that the content of truth is stored somewhere and that there is only a vague desire in man to find access to the place where it is stored. But it is the essence of things itself that works its way out from within man and strives to where it belongs: to perception. It is not something hidden that man strives for in the process of cognition, but the balancing of two forces that act on him from two sides. One can certainly say that without man there would be no knowledge of the interior of things, for without him there would be nothing through which this interior could express itself. But one cannot say that there is something within things that is inaccessible to man. Man only knows that there is something else in things than what perception provides because this something else lives within himself. To speak of another unknown something of things is to make words about something that is not there.
[ 3 ] Natures who are unable to recognize that it is the language of things that is spoken within man are of the opinion that all truth must penetrate man from without. Such natures either cling to mere perception and believe that they can recognize the truth solely by seeing, hearing, touching, by reading historical events and by comparing, counting, calculating and weighing what they perceive from the world of facts; or they are of the opinion that truth can only come to man if it is revealed to him in a way that lies outside of cognition, or finally, they want to come into possession of the highest insights through powers of a special nature, through ecstasy or mystical vision, which, in their view, the world of ideas accessible to thinking cannot offer them. The thinkers in the Kantian sense and the one-sided mystics are joined by metaphysicians of a special kind. These seek to form concepts of truth through thinking. But they do not seek the content for these concepts in the human world of ideas, but in a second reality lying behind things. They believe that they can either make out something certain about such a content through pure concepts, or at least form ideas about it through hypotheses. I am speaking here of the first type of people mentioned, the factual fanatics. They sometimes realize that in counting and calculating a processing of the visual content already takes place with the help of thinking. But then they say that thought-work is merely the means by which man endeavours to recognize the connection of facts. What flows out of thinking when processing the external world is considered merely subjective; they only regard as objective truth content, as valuable cognitive content, what comes to them from outside with the help of thinking. Although they capture the facts in their networks of thought, they only allow what they capture to be considered objective. They overlook the fact that this captured information is given an interpretation, an adjustment, an interpretation through thinking that it does not have in mere observation. Mathematics is a result of pure thought processes, its content is a mental, subjective one. And the mechanic who presents natural processes in mathematical contexts can only do so on the condition that these contexts are grounded in the nature of these processes. But this means nothing other than: a mathematical order is concealed in the perception, which can only be seen by those who form the mathematical laws in their minds. Between mathematical and mechanical views and the most intimate spiritual experiences, however, there is no difference of kind, but only of degree. And with the same right as the results of mathematical research, man can transfer other inner experiences, other areas of his world of ideas to his views. Only apparently does the factual fanatic establish purely external processes. For the most part, he does not think about the world of ideas and its character as a subjective experience. His inner experiences are also contentless, bloodless abstractions that are obscured by the powerful factual content. The illusion he indulges in can only exist as long as he remains at the lowest level of interpreting nature, as long as he merely counts, weighs and calculates. At the higher levels, the true nature of knowledge soon becomes apparent. But one can observe in the fanatics of facts that they prefer to stick to the lower levels. They thus resemble an aesthete who only wants to judge a piece of music according to what can be calculated and counted in it. They want to separate the phenomena of nature from man. Nothing subjective should flow into the observation. Goethe condemns this procedure with the words: "Man in himself, in so far as he makes use of his healthy senses, is the greatest and most exact physical apparatus that can exist, and that is precisely the greatest misfortune of modern physics, that one has, as it were, separated experiments from man, and merely wants to recognize nature in what artificial instruments show, indeed, to limit and prove what it can achieve." It is the fear of the subjective that leads to this approach, and which stems from a misjudgment of its true nature. "But man stands so high that the otherwise unrepresentable is represented in him. What is a string and all its mechanical divisions compared to the musician's ear? Indeed, one could say, what are the elementary phenomena of nature itself compared to man, who must first tame and modify them all in order to be able to assimilate them to some extent?" (Kürschner, vol. 36, 2, p.351) In Goethe's view, the natural scientist should not only be attentive to how things appear, but how they would appear if everything that works in them as ideal driving forces actually came to external manifestation. Only when the bodily and spiritual organism of man confronts the phenomena do they reveal their inner being.
[ 4 ] Those who approach phenomena with a free, open spirit of observation and with a developed inner life, in which the ideas of things reveal themselves, reveal to them, in Goethe's opinion, everything that is in them. Goethe's world view is therefore opposed to that which seeks the essence of things not within the reality of experience but in a second reality lying behind it. Goethe encountered a confessor of such a world view in Fr. Goethe expressed his displeasure in a comment in the Tag- und Jahreshefte (for the year 1811): "Jacobi ˂Von den göttlichen Dingen˃ made me uncomfortable; how could I welcome the book of such a warmly beloved friend in which I was to see the thesis realized that nature conceals God. With my pure, profound, proffered and practiced way of looking at things, which had taught me to see God in nature and nature in God without fail, so that this way of looking at things formed the basis of my entire existence, did not such a strange, one-sided and limited statement have to distance me in spirit from the noblest man, whose heart I adoringly loved, forever?" Goethe's way of looking at things gives him the certainty that he experiences an eternal lawfulness in the ideal interpenetration of nature, and for him the eternal lawfulness is identical with the divine. If the divine were concealed behind natural things and yet formed the creative element in them, it could not be looked at; man would have to believe in it. In a letter to Jacobi, Goethe defends his looking against belief:
[ 5 ] "God has punished you with metaphysics and put a stake in your flesh, blessed me with physics. I adhere to the worship of the atheist (Spinoza) and leave to you whatever you may call and call religion. You hold to believing in God; I hold to looking." Where this looking ceases, the human spirit has no place. In the Proverbs in prose we read: "Man is really placed in the midst of a real world and endowed with such organs that he can recognize and produce the real and, incidentally, the possible. All healthy people have the conviction of their existence and of a Being around them. However, there is also a hollow spot in the brain, i.e. a place where no object is reflected, just as there is a spot in the eye itself that does not see. If man becomes particularly attentive to this spot, if he immerses himself in it, he falls into a mental illness, senses here things of another world, but which are actually non-things and have neither form nor boundary, but frighten as empty night-spatiality and haunt the one who does not tear himself away more than ghost-like." (Kürschner, vol. 36, 2, p. 458.) From the same mindset comes the statement: "The highest thing would be to realize that everything factual is already theory. The blueness of the sky reveals to us the fundamental law of chromatics. Just don't look for anything behind the phenomena; they themselves are the teaching."
[ 6 ] Kant denies man the ability to penetrate the realm of nature in which its creative forces become immediately visible. In his opinion, concepts are abstract units into which the human mind summarizes the manifold details of nature, but which have nothing to do with the living unity, with the creative whole of nature, from which these details really emerge. In summarizing, man experiences only a subjective operation. He can relate his general concepts to the empirical view; but these concepts are not alive in themselves, productive, so that man could see the emergence of the individual from them. For Kant, the concepts are a dead unity existing only in man. "Our understanding is a faculty of concepts, i.e. a discursive understanding, for which it must of course be accidental what and how different the particular may be that is given to it in nature, and what can be brought under its concepts." This is Kant's characterization of the intellect (§ 77 of the Critique of Judgment). From it the following necessarily follows: "It is infinitely important to reason not to abandon the mechanism of nature in its productions and not to pass it by in its explanation, because without it no insight into the nature of things can be gained. If we concede at once that a supreme architect has directly created the forms of nature as they have always existed, or has predetermined those that are continuously formed in their course according to the same pattern, our knowledge of nature is not in the least furthered by this; because we do not know at all that being's mode of action and its ideas, which are supposed to contain the principles of the possibility of natural beings, and cannot explain nature from it as from above (a priori)" (§ 78 of "Critique of Judgment"). Goethe is convinced that man directly experiences the mode of action of the creative natural being in his world of ideas. "If in the moral realm, through faith in God, virtue and immortality, we are to elevate ourselves to an upper region and approach the first being: so it should probably be the same case in the intellectual realm that we make ourselves worthy of spiritual participation in its productions through the contemplation of an ever-creating nature." For Goethe, a real immersion in the creation and activity of nature is the knowledge of man. It is given to her: "to explore, to experience how nature lives in creation."
[ 7 ] It contradicts the spirit of Goethe's worldview to speak of entities that lie outside the world of experience and ideas accessible to the human mind and yet are supposed to contain the reasons for this world. All metaphysics is rejected by this world view. There are no questions of knowledge which, if asked correctly, cannot be answered. If at any time science cannot make out anything about a certain field of phenomena, this is not due to the nature of the human mind, but to the accidental circumstance that experience of this field is not yet complete at that time. Hypotheses cannot be made about things that lie outside the realm of possible experience, but only about things that can enter this realm. A hypothesis can only ever say: it is probable that this or that experience will be made within a field of phenomena. Things and processes that are not within human sensory or mental perception cannot be discussed within this way of thinking. The assumption of a "thing in itself" that causes perceptions in the human being but can never be perceived itself is an inadmissible hypothesis. "Hypotheses are scaffolds which are erected in front of the building and which are taken down when the building is finished; they are indispensable to the worker, but he need not regard the scaffolding as the building." The human mind declares itself satisfied with a field of appearance for which all perceptions are available and which is permeated with ideas. It feels that a living harmony of idea and perception is taking place within it. The satisfying basic mood that Goethe's world view has for him is similar to that which can be observed among mystics. Mysticism aims to find the source of things, the Godhead, in the human soul. The mystic, like Goethe, is convinced that the essence of the world is revealed to him in inner experiences. But for some mystics, immersion in the world of ideas is not the inner experience that matters to them. Some one-sided mystics have roughly the same view of the clear ideas of reason as Kant. For him they stand outside the creative whole of nature and belong only to the human mind. Such a mystic therefore seeks to attain the highest knowledge through the development of unusual states, e.g. through ecstasy, to a higher kind of seeing. He kills sensual observation and rational thinking within himself and seeks to increase his emotional life. Then he even thinks he can directly feel the working spirituality within himself as a deity. In moments when he succeeds in this, he believes that God lives in him. Goethe's world view also evokes a similar feeling in those who profess it. Only it does not draw its insights from experiences that occur after the extinction of observation and thinking, but precisely from these two activities. It does not take refuge in abnormal states of human spiritual life, but is of the opinion that the ordinary naive modes of the spirit are capable of such perfection that man can experience the workings of nature within himself. "In the end, it is only, it seems to me, the practical and self-rectifying operations of common sense that dare to exercise themselves in a higher sphere." (Cf. Goethe's works in the Sophien edition. z. Abt., Vol. II, p. 41) Many a mystic immerses himself in a world of unclear sensations and feelings; Goethe immerses himself in the clear world of ideas. The one-sided mystics despise the clarity of ideas. They regard this clarity as superficial. They have no idea what people feel who have the gift of immersing themselves in the living world of ideas. Such a mystic feels cold when he devotes himself to the world of ideas. He seeks a world content that radiates warmth. But the one he finds does not shed light on the world. It consists only in subjective excitements, in confused ideas. He who speaks of the coldness of the world of ideas can only think ideas, not experience them. He who lives the true life in the world of ideas feels the essence of the world working within him in a warmth that is incomparable to anything else. He feels the fire of the mystery of the world flaring up within him. This is how Goethe felt when he was struck by the contemplation of nature at work in Italy. At that time he knew how to satisfy the longing that he expresses in his Faust in Frankfurt with the words:
Where do I grasp you, infinite nature?
You breasts, where? You sources of all life,
On which heaven and earth hang,
Towards which the withered breast presses...