"But surely one cannot put a rascal and an honest man on the same level!" Now, no human being does that oftener than you judges of morals; yes, still more than that, you imprison as a criminal an honest man who speaks openly against the existing constitution, against the hallowed institutions, etc., and you entrust portfolios and still more important things to a crafty rascal. Soin praxiyou have nothing to reproach me with. "But in theory!" Now there I do put both on the same level, as two opposite poles,—towit, both on the level of the moral law. Both have meaning only in the "moral" world, just as in the pre-Christian time a Jew who kept the law and one who broke it had meaning and significance only in respect to the Jewish law; before Jesus Christ, on the contrary, the Pharisee was no more than the "sinner and publican." So before self-ownership the moral Pharisee amounts to as much as the immoral sinner.
Nero became very inconvenient by his possessedness. But a self-owning man would not sillily oppose to him the "sacred," and whine if the tyrant does not regard the sacred; he would oppose to him his will. How often the sacredness of the inalienable rights of man has been held up to their foes, and some liberty or other shown and demonstrated to be a "sacred right of man"! Those who do that deserve to be laughed out of court—as they actually are,—were it not that in truth they do, even though unconsciously, take the road that leads to the goal. They have a presentiment that, if only the majority is once won for that liberty, it will also will the liberty, and will then take what itwillhave. The sacredness of the liberty, and all possible proofs of this sacredness, will never procure it; lamenting and petitioning only shows beggars.
The moral man is necessarily narrow in that he knows no other enemy than the "immoral" man. "He who is not moral is immoral!" and accordingly reprobate, despicable, etc. Therefore the moral man can never comprehend the egoist. Is not unwedded cohabitation an immorality? The moral man may turn as he pleases, he will have to stand by this verdict; Emilia Galotti gave up her life for this moraltruth. And it is true, it is an immorality. A virtuous girl may become an old maid; a virtuous man may pass the time in fighting his natural impulses till he has perhaps dulled them, he may castrate himself for the sake of virtue as St. Origen did for the sake of heaven: he thereby honors sacred wedlock, sacred chastity, as inviolable; he is—moral. Unchastity can never become a moral act. However indulgently the moral man may judge and excuse him who committed it, it remains a transgression, a sin against a moral commandment; there clings to it an indelible stain. As chastity once belonged to the monastic vow, so it does to moral conduct. Chastity is a—good.—For the egoist, on the contrary, even chastity is not a good without which he could not get along; he cares nothing at all about it. What now follows from this for the judgment of the moral man? This: that he throws the egoist into the only class of men that he knows besides moral men, into that of the—immoral. He cannot do otherwise; he must find the egoist immoral in everything in which the egoist disregards morality. If he did not find him so, then he would already have become an apostate from morality without confessing it to himself, he would already no longer be a truly moral man. One should not let himself be led astray by such phenomena, which at the present day are certainly no longer to be classed as rare, but should reflect that he who yields any point of morality can as little be counted among the truly moral as Lessing was a pious Christian when, in the well-known parable, he compared the Christian religion, as well as the Mohammedan and Jewish, to a"counterfeit ring." Often people are already further than they venture to confess to themselves. For Socrates, because in culture he stood on the level of morality, it would have been an immorality if he had been willing to follow Crito's seductive incitement and escape from the dungeon; to remain was the only moral thing. But it was solely because Socrates was—a moral man. The "unprincipled, sacrilegious" men of the Revolution, on the contrary, had sworn fidelity to Louis XVI, and decreed his deposition, yes, his death; but the act was an immoral one, at which moral persons will be horrified to all eternity.
Yet all this applies, more or less, only to "civic morality," on which the freer look down with contempt. For it (like civism, its native ground, in general) is still too little removed and free from the religious heaven not to transplant the latter's laws without criticism or further consideration to its domain instead of producing independent doctrines of its own. Morality cuts a quite different figure when it arrives at the consciousness of its dignity, and raises its principle, the essence of man, or "Man," to be the only regulative power. Those who have worked their way through to such a decided consciousness break entirely with religion, whose God no longer finds any place alongside their "Man," and, as they (see below) themselves scuttle the ship of State, so too they crumble away that "morality" which flourishes only in the State, and logically have no right to use even its name any further. For what this "critical" party calls morality is very positively distinguished from theso-called "civic or political morality," and must appear to the citizen like an "insensate and unbridled liberty." But at bottom it has only the advantage of the "purity of the principle," which, freed from its defilement with the religious, has now reached universal power in its clarified definiteness as "humanity." Therefore one should not wonder that the name "morality" is retained along with others, like freedom, benevolence, self-consciousness, etc., and is only garnished now and then with the addition, a "free" morality,—just as, though the civic State is abused, yet the State is to arise again as a "free State," or, if not even so, yet as a "free society."
Because this morality completed into humanity has fully settled its accounts with the religion out of which it historically came forth, nothing hinders it from becoming a religion on its own account. For a distinction prevails between religion and morality only so long as our dealings with the world of men are regulated and hallowed by our relation to a superhuman being, or so long as our doing is a doing "for God's sake." If, on the other hand, it comes to the point that "man is to man the supreme being," then that distinction vanishes, and morality, being removed from its subordinate position, is completed into—religion. For then the higher being who had hitherto been subordinated to the highest, Man, has ascended to absolute height, and we are related to him as one is related to the highest being,i. e.religiously. Morality and piety are now as synonymous as in the beginning of Christianity, and it is only because the supreme being has come to be a different one that a holy walk is nolonger called a "holy" one, but a "human" one. If morality has conquered, then a complete—change of mastershas taken place.
After the annihilation of faith Feuerbach thinks to put in to the supposedly safe harbor oflove. "The first and highest law must be the love of man to man.Homo homini Deus est—this is the supreme practical maxim, this the turning point of the world's history."[37]But, properly speaking, only the god is changed,—thedeus; love has remained: there love to the superhuman God, here love to the human God, tohomoasDeus. Therefore man is to me—sacred. And everything "truly human" is to me—sacred! "Marriage is sacred of itself. And so it is with all moral relations. Friendship is and must besacredfor you, and property, and marriage, and the good of every man, but sacredin and of itself."[38]Haven't we the priest again there? Who is his God? Man with a great M! What is the divine? The human! Then the predicate has indeed only been changed into the subject, and, instead of the sentence "God is love," they say "love is divine"; instead of "God has become man," "Man has become God," etc. It is nothing more or less than a new—religion. "All moral relations are ethical, are cultivated with a moral mind, only where of themselves (without religious consecration by the priest's blessing) they are countedreligious." Feuerbach's proposition, "Theology is anthropology," means only "religion must be ethics, ethics alone is religion."
Altogether Feuerbach accomplishes only a transposition of subject and predicate, a giving of preference to the latter. But, since he himself says, "Love is not (and has never been considered by men) sacred through being a predicate of God, but it is a predicate of God because it is divine in and of itself," he might judge that the fight against the predicates themselves, against love and all sanctities, must be commenced. How could he hope to turn men away from God when he left them the divine? And if, as Feuerbach says, God himself has never been the main thing to them, but only his predicates, then he might have gone on leaving them the tinsel longer yet, since the doll, the real kernel, was left at any rate. He recognizes, too, that with him it is "only a matter of annihilating an illusion";[39]he thinks, however, that the effect of the illusion on men is "downright ruinous, since even love, in itself the truest, most inward sentiment, becomes an obscure, illusory one through religiousness, since religious love loves man[40]only for God's sake, therefore loves man only apparently, but in truth God only." Is this different with moral love? Does it love the man,thisman forthisman's sake, or for morality's sake, forMan'ssake, and so—forhomo homini Deus—for God's sake?
The wheels in the head have a number of other formal aspects, some of which it may be useful to indicate here.
Thusself-renunciationis common to the holy withthe unholy, to the pure and the impure. The impure manrenouncesall "better feelings," all shame, even natural timidity, and follows only the appetite that rules him. The pure man renounces his natural relation to the world ("renounces the world") and follows only the "desire" which rules him. Driven by the thirst for money, the avaricious man renounces all admonitions of conscience, all feeling of honor, all gentleness and all compassion; he puts all considerations out of sight; the appetite drags him along. The holy man behaves similarly. He makes himself the "laughing-stock of the world," is hard-hearted and "strictly just"; for the desire drags him along. As the unholy man renounceshimselfbefore Mammon, so the holy man renounceshimselfbefore God and the divine laws. We are now living in a time when theshamelessnessof the holy is every day more and more felt and uncovered, whereby it is at the same time compelled to unveil itself, and lay itself bare, more and more every day. Have not the shamelessness and stupidity of the reasons with which men antagonize the "progress of the age" long surpassed all measure and all expectation? But it must be so. The self-renouncers must, as holy men, take the same course that they do as unholy men; as the latter little by little sink to the fullest measure of self-renouncing vulgarity andlowness, so the former must ascend to the most dishonorableexaltation. The mammon of the earth and theGodof heaven both demand exactly the same degree of—self-renunciation. The low man, like the exalted one, reaches out for a "good,"—the former for the material good, the latter for the ideal,the so-called "supreme good"; and at last both complete each other again too, as the "materially-minded" man sacrifices everything to an ideal phantasm, hisvanity, and the "spiritually-minded" man to a material gratification, thelife of enjoyment.
Those who exhort men to "unselfishness"[41]think they are saying an uncommon deal. What do they understand by it? Probably something like what they understand by "self-renunciation." But who is this self that is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems thatyouyourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again foryourbenefit and behoof, only that through unselfishness you are procuring your "true benefit."
You are to benefityourself, and yet you are not seekyourbenefit.
People regard as unselfish thebenefactorof men, a Franke who founded the orphan asylum, an O'Connell who works tirelessly for his Irish people; but also thefanaticwho, like St. Boniface, hazards his life for the conversion of the heathen, or, like Robespierre, sacrifices everything to virtue,—like Koerner, dies for God, king, and fatherland. Hence, among others, O'Connell's opponents try to trump up against him some selfishness or mercenariness, for which the O'Connell fund seemed to give them a foundation; for, if they were successful in casting suspicion on his "unselfishness," they would easily separate him from his adherents.
Yet what could they show further than that O'Connell was working for anotherendthan the ostensible one? But, whether he may aim at making money or at liberating the people, it still remains certain, in one case as in the other, that he is striving for an end, and thathisend; selfishness here as there, only that his national self-interest would be beneficial toothers too, and so would be for thecommoninterest.
Now, do you suppose unselfishness is unreal and nowhere extant? On the contrary, nothing is more ordinary! One may even call it an article of fashion in the civilized world, which is considered so indispensable that, if it costs too much in solid material, people at least adorn themselves with its tinsel counterfeit and feign it. Where does unselfishness begin? Right where an end ceases to beourend and ourproperty, which we, as owners, can dispose of at pleasure; where it becomes a fixed end or a—fixed idea; where it begins to inspire, enthuse, fanaticize us; in short, where it passes into ourstubbornnessand becomes our—master. One is not unselfish so long as he retains the end in his power; one becomes so only at that "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," the fundamental maxim of all the possessed; one becomes so in the case of asacredend, through the corresponding sacred zeal.—
I am not unselfish so long as the end remains myown, and I, instead of giving myself up to be the blind means of its fulfilment, leave it always an open question. My zeal need not on that account be slacker than the most fanatical, but at the same time I remain toward it frostily cold, unbelieving, and itsmost irreconcilable enemy; I remain itsjudge, because I am its owner.
Unselfishness grows rank as far as possessedness reaches, as much on possessions of the devil as on those of a good spirit: there vice, folly, etc.; here humility, devotion, etc.
Where could one look without meeting victims of self-renunciation? There sits a girl opposite me, who perhaps has been making bloody sacrifices to her soul for ten years already. Over the buxom form droops a deathly-tired head, and pale cheeks betray the slow bleeding away of her youth. Poor child, how often the passions may have beaten at your heart, and the rich powers of youth have demanded their right! When your head rolled in the soft pillow, how awakening nature quivered through your limbs, the blood swelled your veins, and fiery fancies poured the gleam of voluptuousness into your eyes! Then appeared the ghost of the soul and its eternal bliss. You were terrified, your hands folded themselves, your tormented eye turned its look upward, you—prayed. The storms of nature were hushed, a calm glided over the ocean of your appetites. Slowly the weary eyelids sank over the life extinguished under them, the tension crept out unperceived from the rounded limbs, the boisterous waves dried up in the heart, the folded hands themselves rested a powerless weight on the unresisting bosom, one last faint "Oh dear!" moaned itself away, and—the soul was at rest. You fell asleep, to awake in the morning to a new combat and a new—prayer. Now the habit of renunciation cools the heat of your desire, and the roses of your youth aregrowing pale in the—chlorosis of your heavenliness. The soul is saved, the body may perish! O Lais, O Ninon, how well you did to scorn this pale virtue! One freegrisetteagainst a thousand virgins grown gray in virtue!
The fixed idea may also be perceived as "maxim," "principle," "standpoint," and the like. Archimedes, to move the earth, asked for a standpointoutsideit. Men sought continually for this standpoint, and every one seized upon it as well as he was able. This foreign standpoint is theworld of mind, of ideas, thoughts, concepts, essences, etc.; it isheaven. Heaven is the "standpoint" from which the earth is moved, earthly doings surveyed and—despised. To assure to themselves heaven, to occupy the heavenly standpoint firmly and for ever,—how painfully and tirelessly humanity struggled for this!
Christianity has aimed to deliver us from a life determined by nature, from the appetites as actuating us, and so has meant that man should not let himself be determined by his appetites. This does not involve the idea thathewas not tohaveappetites, but that the appetites were not to have him, that they were not to becomefixed, uncontrollable, indissoluble. Now, could not what Christianity (religion) contrived against the appetites be applied by us to its own precept thatmind(thought, conceptions, ideas, faith, etc.) must determine us; could we not ask that neither should mind, or the conception, the idea, be allowed to determine us, to becomefixedand inviolable or "sacred"? Then it would end in thedissolution of mind, the dissolution of all thoughts, of all conceptions. As we there had to say "We are indeed to have appetites, but the appetites are not to have us," so we should now say "We are indeed to havemind, but mind is not to have us." If the latter seems lacking in sense, thinke. g.of the fact that with so many a man a thought becomes a "maxim," whereby he himself is made prisoner to it, so that it is not he that has the maxim, but rather it that has him. And with the maxim he has a "permanent standpoint" again. The doctrines of the catechism become ourprinciplesbefore we find it out, and no longer brook rejection. Their thought, or—mind, has the sole power, and no protest of the "flesh" is further listened to. Nevertheless it is only through the "flesh" that I can break the tyranny of mind; for it is only when a man hears his flesh along with the rest of him that he hears himself wholly, and it is only when he wholly hearshimselfthat he is a hearing or rational[42]being. The Christian does not hear the agony of his enthralled nature, but lives in "humility"; therefore he does not grumble at the wrong which befalls hisperson; he thinks himself satisfied with the "freedom of the spirit." But, if the flesh once takes the floor, and its tone is "passionate," "indecorous," "not well-disposed," "spiteful," etc. (as it cannot be otherwise), then he thinks he hears voices of devils, voicesagainst the spirit(for decorum, passionlessness, kindly disposition, and the like, is—spirit), and is justly zealous against them. He could not be a Christian if he were willing to endure them. He listens only to morality,and slaps immorality in the mouth; he listens only to legality, and gags the lawless word. Thespiritof morality and legality holds him a prisoner; a rigid, unbendingmaster. They call that the "mastery of the spirit,"—it is at the same time thestandpointof the spirit.
And now whom do the ordinary liberal gentlemen mean to make free? Whose freedom is it that they cry out and thirst for? Thespirit's! That of the spirit of morality, legality, piety, the fear of God, etc. That is what the anti-liberal gentlemen also want, and the whole contention between the two turns on a matter of advantage,—whether the latter are to be the only speakers, or the former are to receive a "share in the enjoyment of the same advantage." Thespiritremains the absolutelordfor both, and their only quarrel is over who shall occupy the hierarchical throne that pertains to the "Vicegerent of the Lord." The best of it is that one can calmly look upon the stir with the certainty that the wild beasts of history will tear each other to pieces just like those of nature; their putrefying corpses fertilize the ground for—our crops.
We shall come back later to many another wheel in the head,—for instance, those of vocation, truthfulness, love, etc.
When one's own is contrasted with what isimpartedto him, there is no use in objecting that we cannot have anything isolated, but receive everything as a part of the universal order, and therefore through the impression of what is around us, and that consequentlywe have it as something "imparted"; for there is a great difference between the feelings and thoughts which arearousedin me by other things and those which aregivento me. God, immortality, freedom, humanity, etc., are drilled into us from childhood as thoughts and feelings which move our inner being more or less strongly, either ruling us without our knowing it, or sometimes in richer natures manifesting themselves in systems and works of art; but are always not aroused, but imparted, feelings, because we must believe in them and cling to them. That an Absolute existed, and that it must be taken in, felt, and thought by us, was settled as a faith in the minds of those who spent all the strength of their mind on recognizing it and setting it forth. Thefeelingfor the Absolute exists there as an imparted one, and thenceforth results only in the most manifold revelations of its own self. So in Klopstock the religious feeling was an imparted one, which in the "Messiad" simply found artistic expression. If, on the other hand, the religion with which he was confronted had been for him only an incitation to feeling and thought, and if he had known how to take an attitude completelyhis owntoward it, then there would have resulted, instead of religious inspiration, a dissolution and consumption of the religion itself. Instead of that, he only continued in mature years his childish feelings received in childhood, and squandered the powers of his manhood in decking out his childish trifles.
The difference is, then, whether feelings are imparted to me or only aroused. Those which arearoused are my own, egoistic, because they are notas feelingsdrilled into me, dictated to me, and pressed upon me; but those which are imparted to me I receive, with open arms,—I cherish them in me as a heritage, cultivate them, and ampossessedby them. Who is there that has never, more or less consciously, noticed that our whole education is calculated to producefeelingsin us,i. e.impart them to us, instead of leaving their production to ourselves however they may turn out? If we hear thee name of God, we are to feel veneration; if we hear that of the prince's majesty, it is to be received with reverence, deference, submission; if we hear that of morality, we are to think that we hear something inviolable; if we hear of the Evil One or evil ones, we are to shudder; etc. The intention is directed to thesefeelings, and he whoe. g.should hear with pleasure the deeds of the "bad" would have to be "taught what's what" with the rod of discipline. Thus stuffed withimparted feelings, we appear before the bar of majority and are "pronounced of age." Our equipment consists of "elevating feelings, lofty thoughts, inspiring maxims, eternal principles," etc. The young are of age when they twitter like the old; they are driven through school to learn the old song, and, when they have this by heart, they are declared of age.
Wemust notfeel at every thing and every name that comes before us what we could and would like to feel thereat;e. g., at the name of God we must think of nothing laughable, feel nothing disrespectful, it being prescribed and imparted to us what and how we are to feel and think at mention of that name.
That is the meaning of thecare of souls,—that my soul or my mind be tuned as others think right, not as I myself would like it. How much trouble does it not cost one, finally to secure to oneself a feeling of one'sownat the mention of at least this or that name, and to laugh in the face of many who expect from us a holy face and a composed expression at their speeches. What is imparted isaliento us, is not our own, and therefore is "sacred," and it is hard work to lay aside the "sacred dread of it."
To-day one again hears "seriousness" praised, "seriousness in the presence of highly important subjects and discussions," "German seriousness," etc. This sort of seriousness proclaims clearly how old and grave lunacy and possession have already become. For there is nothing more serious than a lunatic when he comes to the central point of his lunacy; then his great earnestness incapacitates him for taking a joke. (See madhouses.)
The historical reflections on our Mongolism which I propose to insert episodically at this place are not given with the claim of thoroughness, or even of approved soundness, but solely because it seems to me that they may contribute toward making the rest clear.
The history of the world, whose shaping properly belongs altogether to the Caucasian race, seems till now to have run through two Caucasian ages, in the first of which we had to work out and work off ourinnatenegroidity; this was followed in the second byMongoloidity(Chineseness), which must likewise be terribly made an end of. Negroidity representsantiquity, the time of dependence onthings(on cocks' eating, birds' flight, on sneezing, on thunder and lightning, on the rustling of sacred trees, etc.); Mongoloidity the time of dependence on thoughts, theChristiantime. Reserved for the future are the words "I am owner of the world of things, and I am owner of the world of mind."
In the negroid age fall the campaigns of Sesostris and the importance of Egypt and of northern Africa in general. To the Mongoloid age belong the invasions of the Huns and Mongols, up to the Russians.
The value ofmecannot possibly be rated high so long as the hard diamond of thenot-mebears so enormous a price as was the case both with God and with the world. The not-me is still too stony and indomitable to be consumed and absorbed by me; rather, men only creep about with extraordinarybustleon thisimmovableentity,i. e.on thissubstance, like parasitic animals on a body from whose juices they draw nourishment, yet without consuming it. It is the bustle of vermin, the assiduity of Mongolians. Among the Chinese, we know, everything remains as it used to be, and nothing "essential" or "substantial" suffers a change; all the more actively do they work awayatthat which remains, which bears the name of the "old," "ancestors," etc.
Accordingly, in our Mongolian age all change has been only reformatory or ameliorative, not destructive or consuming and annihilating. The substance, theobject,remains. All our assiduity was only the activity of ants and the hopping of fleas, jugglers' tricks on the immovable tight-rope of the objective,corvée-service under the lordship of the unchangeable or "eternal." The Chinese are doubtless the mostpositivenation, because totally buried in precepts; but neither has the Christian age come out from thepositive, i. e.from "limited freedom," freedom "within certain limits." In the most advanced stage of civilization this activity earns the name ofscientificactivity, of working on a motionless presupposition, ahypothesisthat is not to be upset.
In its first and most unintelligible form morality shows itself ashabit. To act according to the habit and usage (morem) of one's country—is to be moral there. Therefore pure moral action, clear, unadulterated morality, is most straightforwardly practised in China; they keep to the old habit and usage, and hate each innovation as a crime worthy of death. Forinnovationis the deadly enemy ofhabit, of theold, ofpermanence. In fact, too, it admits of no doubt that through habit man secures himself against the obtrusiveness of things, of the world, and founds a world of his own in which alone he is and feels at home,i. e.builds himself aheaven. Why, heaven has no other meaning than that it is man's proper home, in which nothing alien regulates and rules him any longer, no influence of the earthly any longer makes him himself alien; in short, in which the dross of the earthly is thrown off, and the combat against the world has found an end,—in which, therefore, nothing is any longerdeniedhim. Heaven is the end ofabnegation,it isfree enjoyment. There man no longer denies himself anything, because nothing is any longer alien and hostile to him. But now habit is a "second nature," which detaches and frees man from his first and original natural condition, in securing him against every casualty of it. The fully elaborated habit of the Chinese has provided for all emergencies, and everything is "looked out for"; whatever may come, the Chinaman always knows how he has to behave, and does not need to decide first according to the circumstances; no unforeseen case throws him down from the heaven of his rest. The morally habituated and inured Chinaman is not surprised and taken off his guard; he behaves with equanimity (i. e. with equal spirit or temper) toward everything, because his temper, protected by the precaution of his traditional usage, does not lose its balance. Hence, on the ladder of culture or civilization humanity mounts the first round through habit; and, as it conceives that, in climbing to culture, it is at the same time climbing to heaven, the realm of culture or second nature, it really mounts the first round of the—ladder to heaven.
If Mongoldom has settled the existence of spiritual beings,—if it has created a world of spirits, a heaven,—the Caucasians have wrestled for thousands of years with these spiritual beings, to get to the bottom of them. What were they doing, then, but building on Mongolian ground? They have not built on sand, but in the air; they have wrestled with Mongolism, stormed the Mongolian heaven, Tien. When will they at last annihilate this heaven? When will they at last becomereally Caucasians, and find themselves?When will the "immortality of the soul," which in these latter days thought it was giving itself still more security if it presented itself as "immortality of mind," at last change to themortality of mind?
It was when, in the industrious struggle of the Mongolian race, men hadbuilt a heaven, that those of the Caucasian race, since in their Mongolian complexion they have to do with heaven, took upon themselves the opposite task, the task of storming that heaven of custom,heaven-storming[43]activity. To dig under all human ordinance, in order to set up a new and—better one on the cleared site, to wreck all customs in order to put new and better customs in their place, etc.,—their act is limited to this. But is it thus already purely and really what it aspires to be, and does it reach its final aim? No, in this creation of a "better" it is tainted with Mongolism. It storms heaven only to make a heaven again, it overthrows an old power only to legitimate a new power, it only—improves. Nevertheless the point aimed at, often as it may vanish from the eyes at every new attempt, is the real, complete downfall of heaven, customs, etc.,—in short, of man secured only against the world, of theisolationorinwardnessof man. Through the heaven of culture man seeks to isolate himself from the world, to break its hostile power. But this isolation of heaven must likewise be broken, and the true end of heaven-storming is the—downfall of heaven, the annihilation of heaven.Improvingandreformingis the Mongolism of the Caucasian, because thereby he is always setting up again what already existed,—to wit, aprecept, a generality, a heaven. He harbors the most irreconcilable enmity to heaven, and yet builds new heavens daily; piling heaven on heaven, he only crushes one by another; the Jews' heaven destroys the Greeks', the Christians' the Jews', the Protestants' the Catholics', etc.—If theheaven-stormingmen of Caucasian blood throw on their Mongolian skin, they will bury the emotional man under the ruins of the monstrous world of emotion, the isolated man under his isolated world, the paradisiacal man under his heaven. And heaven is therealm of spirits, the realmof freedom of the spirit.
The realm of heaven, the realm of spirits and ghosts, has found its right standing in the speculative philosophy. Here it was stated as the realm of thoughts, concepts, and ideas; heaven is peopled with thoughts and ideas, and this "realm of spirits" is then the true reality.
To want to win freedom for thespiritis Mongolism; freedom of the spirit is Mongolian freedom, freedom of feeling, moral freedom, etc.
We may find the word "morality" taken as synonymous with spontaneity, self-determination. But that is not involved in it; rather has the Caucasian shown himself spontaneous onlyin spite ofhis Mongolian morality. The Mongolian heaven, or morals,[44]remained the strong castle, and only by storming incessantly at this castle did the Caucasian show himself moral; if he had not had to do with morals at allany longer, if he had not had therein his indomitable, continual enemy, the relation to morals would cease, and consequently morality would cease. That his spontaneity is still a moral spontaneity, therefore, is just the Mongoloidity of it,—is a sign that in it he has not arrived at himself. "Moral spontaneity" corresponds entirely with "religious and orthodox philosophy," "constitutional monarchy," "the Christian State," "freedom within certain limits," "the limited freedom of the press," or, in a figure, to the hero fettered to a sick-bed.
Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its spooks till he possesses the strength to lay aside not only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, but also the belief in the spirit.
He who believes in a spook no more assumes the "introduction of a higher world" than he who believes in the spirit, and both seek behind the sensual world a supersensual one; in short, they produce and believeanotherworld, and this otherworld, the product of their mind, is a spiritual world; for their senses grasp and know nothing of another, a non-sensual world, only their spirit lives in it. Going on from this Mongolian belief in theexistence of spiritual beingsto the point that theproper beingof man too is hisspirit, and that all care must be directed to this alone, to the "welfare of his soul," is not hard. Influence on the spirit, so-called "moral influence," is hereby assured.
Hence it is manifest that Mongolism represents utter absence of any rights of the sensuous, represents non-sensuousness and unnature, and that sin and theconsciousness of sin was our Mongolian torment that lasted thousands of years.
But who, then, will dissolve the spirit into itsnothing? He who by means of the spirit set forth nature as thenull, finite, transitory, he alone can bring down the spirit too to like nullity.Ican; each one among you can, who does his will as an absolute I; in a word, theegoistcan.
Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy apowerlessandhumbleattitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by mydeclaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my—conscience.
Sacred is everything which for the egoist is to be unapproachable, not to be touched, outside hispower,—i. e.abovehim; sacred, in a word, is everymatter of conscience, for "this is a matter of conscience to me" means simply "I hold this sacred."
For little children, just as for animals, nothing sacred exists, because, in order to make room for this conception, one must already have progressed so far in understanding that he can make distinctions like "good and bad," "warranted and unwarranted," etc.; only at such a level of reflection or intelligence—the proper standpoint of religion—can unnatural (i. e.brought into existence by thinking)reverence, "sacred dread," step into the place of naturalfear. To this sacred dread belongs holding something outside oneself for mightier, greater, better warranted, better, etc.;i. e.the attitude in which one acknowledges the might of something alien—not merely feels it, then, but expressly acknowledges it,i. e.admits it, yields, surrenders, lets himself be tied (devotion, humility, servility, submission, etc.) Here walks the whole ghostly troop of the "Christian virtues."
Everything toward which you cherish any respect or reverence deserves the name of sacred; you yourselves, too, say that you would feel a "sacred dread" of laying hands on it. And you give this tinge even to the unholy (gallows, crime, etc.) You have a horror of touching it. There lies in it something uncanny,i. e.unfamiliar ornot your own.
"If something or other did not rank as sacred in a man's mind, why, then all bars would be let down to self-will, to unlimited subjectivity!" Fear makes the beginning, and one can make himself fearful to the coarsest man; already, therefore, a barrier against his insolence. But in fear there always remains the attempt to liberate oneself from what is feared, by guile, deception, tricks, etc. In reverence,[45]on the contrary, it is quite otherwise. Here something is not only feared,[46]but also honored[47]: what is feared has become an inward power which I can no longer get clear of; I honor it, am captivated by it and devoted to it, belong to it; by the honor which I pay it I am completely in its power, and do not even attempt liberation any longer. Now I am attached to it with all the strength of faith; Ibelieve. I and what I fear are one; "not I live, but the respected lives in me!" Because the spirit, the infinite, does not allow of coming to any end, therefore it is stationary; it fearsdying, it cannot let go its dear Jesus, the greatness of finiteness is no longer recognized by its blinded eye; the object of fear, now raised to veneration, may no longer be handled; reverence is made eternal, the respected is deified. The man is now no longer employed in creating, but inlearning(knowing, investigating, etc.),i. e.occupied with a fixedobject, losing himself in its depths, without return to himself. The relation to this object is that of knowing, fathoming, basing, etc., not that ofdissolution(abrogation, etc.) "Man is to be religious," that is settled; therefore people busy themselves only with the question how this is to be attained, what is the right meaning of religiousness, etc. Quite otherwise when one makes the axiom itself doubtful and calls it in question, even though it should go to smash. Morality too is such sacred conception; one must be moral, and must look only for the right "how," the right way to be so. One dares not go at morality itself with the question whether it is not itself an illusion; it remains exalted above all doubt, unchangeable. And so we go on with the sacred, grade after grade, from the "holy" to the "holy of holies."
Men are sometimes divided into two classes,culturedanduncultured. The former, so far as they were worthy of their name, occupied themselves with thoughts, with mind, and (because in the time since Christ, of which the very principle is thought, they were the ruling ones) demanded a servile respect for the thoughts recognized by them. State, emperor,church, God, morality, order, etc., are such thoughts or spirits, that exist only for the mind. A merely living being, an animal, cares as little for them as a child. But the uncultured are really nothing but children, and he who attends only to the necessities of his life is indifferent to those spirits; but, because he is also weak before them, he succumbs to their power, and is ruled by—thoughts. This is the meaning of hierarchy.
Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind!
We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who are supported by thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred.
But the two are always clashing, now one and now the other giving the offence; and this clash occurs, not only in the collision of two men, but in one and the same man. For no cultured man is so cultured as not to find enjoyment in things too, and so be uncultured; and no uncultured man is totally without thoughts. In Hegel it comes to light at last what a longing forthingseven the most cultured man has, and what a horror of every "hollow theory" he harbors. With him reality, the world of things, is altogether to correspond to the thought, and no concept to be without reality. This caused Hegel's system to be known as the most objective, as if in it thought and thing celebrated their union. But this was simply the extremest case of violence on the part of thought, its highest pitch of despotism and sole dominion, the triumph of mind, and with it the triumph ofphilosophy. Philosophy cannot hereafter achieve anything higher, for itshighest is theomnipotence of mind, the almightiness of mind.[48]
Spiritual men havetaken into their headsomething that is to be realized. They haveconceptsof love, goodness, and the like, which they would like to seerealized; therefore they want to set up a kingdom of love on earth, in which no one any longer acts from selfishness, but each one "from love." Love is torule. What they have taken into their head, what shall we call it but—fixed idea? Why, "their head ishaunted." The most oppressive spook isMan. Think of the proverb, "The road to ruin is paved with good intentions." The intention to realize humanity altogether in oneself, to become altogether man, is of such ruinous kind; here belong the intentions to become good, noble, loving, etc.
In the sixth part of the "Denkwuerdigkeiten"p. 7, Bruno Bauer says: "That middle class, which was to receive such a terrible importance for modern history is capable of no self-sacrificing action, no enthusiasm for an idea, no exaltation; it devotes itself to nothing but the interests of its mediocrity;i. e.it remains always limited to itself, and conquers at last only through its bulk, with which it has succeeded in tiring out the efforts of passion, enthusiasm, consistency,—through its surface, into which it absorbs a part of the new ideas." And (p. 6) "It has turned the revolutionary ideas, for which not it, but unselfish or impassioned men sacrificed themselves, solely to its own profit, has turned spirit into money.—That is, to be sure, after it had taken away from those ideas their point, their consistency, their destructive seriousness, fanatical against all egoism." These people, then, are not self-sacrificing, not enthusiastic, not idealistic, not consistent, not zealots; they are egoists in the usual sense, selfish people, looking out for their advantage, sober, calculating, etc.
Who, then, is "self-sacrificing"?[49]In the full sense, surely, he who ventures everything else forone thing, one object, one will, one passion, etc. Is not the lover self-sacrificing who forsakes father and mother, endures all dangers and privations, to reach his goal? Or the ambitious man, who offers up all his desires, wishes, and satisfactions to the single passion, or the avaricious man who denies himself everything to gather treasures, or the pleasure-seeker, etc.? He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices.
And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not selfish, not egoists? As they have only one ruling passion, so they provide for only one satisfaction, but for this the more strenuously; they are wholly absorbed in it. Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism; it is possessedness.
"Why, those are petty passions, by which, on the contrary, man must not let himself be enthralled. Man must make sacrifices for a great idea, a great cause!" A "great idea," a "good cause," is, it maybe, the honor of God, for which innumerable people have met death; Christianity, which has found its willing martyrs; the Holy Catholic Church, which has greedily demanded sacrifices of heretics; liberty and equality, which were waited on by bloody guillotines.
He who lives for a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling, may not let any worldly lusts, any self-seeking interest, spring up in him. Here we have the concept ofclericalism, or, as it may also be called in its pedagogic activity, school-masterliness; for the idealists play the schoolmaster over us. The clergyman is especially called to live to the idea and to work for the idea, the truly good cause. Therefore the people feel how little it befits him to show worldly haughtiness, to desire good living, to join in such pleasures as dancing and gaming,—in short, to have any other than a "sacred interest." Hence too, doubtless, is derived the scanty salary of teachers, who are to feel themselves repaid by the sacredness of their calling alone, and to "renounce" other enjoyments.
Even a directory of the sacred ideas, one or more of which man is to look upon as his calling, is not lacking. Family, fatherland, science, etc., may find in man a servant faithful to his calling.
Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world which has not yet learned to do without clericalism,—that to live and workfor an ideais man's calling, and according to the faithfulness of its fulfilment hishumanworth is measured.
This is the dominion of the idea; in other words, itis clericalism.E. g., Robespierre, St. Just, etc., were priests through and through, inspired by the idea, enthusiasts, consistent instruments of this idea, idealistic men. So St. Just exclaims in a speech, "There is something terrible in the sacred love of country; it is so exclusive that it sacrifices everything to the public interest without mercy, without fear, without human consideration. It hurls Manlius down the precipice; it sacrifices its private inclinations; it leads Regulus to Carthage, throws a Roman into the chasm, and sets Marat, as a victim of his devotion, in the Pantheon."
Now, over against these representatives of ideal or sacred interests stands a world of innumerable "personal" profane interests. No idea, no system, no sacred cause is so great as never to be outrivaled and modified by these personal interests. Even if they are silent momentarily, and in times of rage and fanaticism, yet they soon come uppermost again through "the sound sense of the people." Those ideas do not completely conquer till they are no longer hostile to personal interests,i. e.till they satisfy egoism.
The man who is just now crying herrings in front of my window has a personal interest in good sales, and, if his wife or anybody else wishes him the like, this remains a personal interest all the same. If, on the other hand, a thief deprived him of his basket, then there would at once arise an interest of many, of the whole city, of the whole country, or, in a word, of all who abhor theft; an interest in which the herring-seller's person would become indifferent, and in its place the category of the "robbed man" would comeinto the foreground. But even here all might yet resolve itself into a personal interest, each of the partakers reflecting that he must concur in the punishment of the thief because unpunished stealing might otherwise become general and cause him too to lose his own. Such a calculation, however, can hardly be assumed on the part of many, and we shall rather hear the cry that the thief is a "criminal." Here we have before us a judgment, the thief's action receiving its expression in the concept "crime." Now the matter stands thus: even if a crime did not cause the slightest damage either to me or to any of those in whom I take an interest, I should neverthelessdenounceit. Why? Because I am enthusiastic formorality, filled with theideaof morality; what is hostile to it I everywhere assail. Because in his mind theft ranks as abominable without any question, Proudhon,e. g., thinks that with the sentence "Property is theft" he has at once put a brand on property. In the sense of the priestly, theft is always acrime, or at least a misdeed.
Here the personal interest is at an end. This particular person who has stolen the basket is perfectly indifferent to my person; it is only the thief, this concept of which that person presents a specimen, that I take an interest in. The thief and man are in my mind irreconcilable opposites; for one is not truly man when one is a thief; one degradesManor "humanity" in himself when one steals. Dropping out of personal concern, one gets intophilanthropism, friendliness to man, which is usually misunderstood as if it was a love to men, to each individual, while it isnothing but a love of Man, the unreal concept, the spook. It is not τους ανθρώπους, men, but τον ανθρωπον, Man, that the philanthropist carries in his heart. To be sure, he cares for each individual, but only because he wants to see his beloved ideal realized everywhere.
So there is nothing said here of care for me, you, us; that would be personal interest, and belongs under the head of "worldly love." Philanthropism is a heavenly, spiritual, a—priestly love.Manmust be restored in us, even if thereby we poor devils should come to grief. It is the same priestly principle as that famousfiat justitia, pereat mundus; man and justice are ideas, ghosts, for love of which everything is sacrificed; therefore the priestly spirits are the "self-sacrificing" ones.
He who is infatuated withManleaves persons out of account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest.Man, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.
Now, things as different as possible can belong toManand be so regarded. If one finds Man's chief requirement in piety, there arises religious clericalism; if one sees it in morality, then moral clericalism raises its head. On this account the priestly spirits of our day want to make a "religion" of everything, a "religion of liberty," "religion of equality," etc., and for them every idea becomes a "sacred cause,"e. g.even citizenship, politics, publicity, freedom of the press, trial by jury, etc.
Now, what does "unselfishness" mean in this sense? Having only an ideal interest, before whichno respect of persons avails!
The stiff head of the worldly man opposes this, but for centuries has always been worsted at least so far as to have to bend the unruly neck and "honor the higher power"; clericalism pressed it down. When the worldly egoist had shaken off a higher power (e. g.the Old Testament law, the Roman pope, etc.), then at once a seven times higher one was over him again,e. g.faith in the place of the law, the transformation of all laymen into divines in place of the limited body of clergy, etc. His experience was like that of the possessed man into whom seven devils passed when he thought he had freed himself from one.
In the passage quoted above all ideality, etc., is denied to the middle class. It certainly schemed against the ideal consistency with which Robespierre wanted to carry out the principle. The instinct of its interest told it that this consistency harmonized too little with what its mind was set on, and that it would be acting against itself if it were willing to further the enthusiasm for principle. Was it to behave so unselfishly as to abandon all its aims in order to bring a harsh theory to its triumph? It suits the priests admirably, to be sure, when people listen to their summons, "Cast away everything and follow me," or "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Some decided idealists obey this call; but most act like Ananias and Sapphira, maintaining a behavior half clerical or religious and half worldly, serving God and Mammon.
I do not blame the middle class for not wanting to let its aims be frustrated by Robespierre,i. e.for inquiring of its egoism how far it might give the revolutionary idea a chance. But one might blame (if blame were in place here anyhow) those who let their own interests be frustrated by the interests of the middle class. However, will not they likewise sooner or later learn to understand what is to their advantage? August Becker says:[50]"To win the producers (proletarians) a negation of the traditional conception of right is by no means enough. Folks unfortunately care little for the theoretical victory of the idea. One must demonstrate to themad oculoshow this victory can be practically utilized in life." And (p. 32): "You must get hold of folks by their real interests if you want to work upon them." Immediately after this he shows how a fine looseness of morals is already spreading among our peasants, because they prefer to follow their real interests rather than the commands of morality.
Because the revolutionary priests or schoolmasters servedMan, they cut off the heads ofmen. The revolutionary laymen, those outside the sacred circle, did not feel any greater horror of cutting off heads, but were less anxious about the rights of Man than about their own.
How comes it, though, that the egoism of those who affirm personal interest, and always inquire of it, is nevertheless forever succumbing to a priestly or schoolmasterly (i. e.an ideal) interest? Their person seems to them too small, too insignificant,—and is so in fact,—to lay claim to everything and be able to put itself completely in force. There is a sure sign of this in their dividing themselves into two persons, an eternal and a temporal, and always caring either only for the one or only for the other, on Sunday for the eternal, on the work-day for the temporal, in prayer for the former, in work for the latter. They have the priest in themselves, therefore they do not get rid of him, but hear themselves lectured inwardly every Sunday.
How men have struggled and calculated to get at a solution regarding these dualistic essences! Idea followed upon idea, principle upon principle, system upon system, and none knew how to keep down permanently the contradiction of the "worldly" man, the so-called "egoist." Does not this prove that all those ideas were too feeble to take up my whole will into themselves and satisfy it? They were and remained hostile to me, even if the hostility lay concealed for a considerable time. Will it be the same withself-ownership? Is it too only an attempt at mediation? Whatever principle I turned to, it might be to that ofreason, I always had to turn away from it again. Or can I always be rational, arrange my life according to reason in everything? I can, no doubt,striveafter rationality, I canloveit, just as I can also love God and every other idea. I can be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, as I love God. But what I love, what I strive for, is only in my idea, my conception, my thoughts; it is in my heart, my head, it is in me like the heart, but it is not I, I am not it.
To the activity of priestly minds belongs especially what one often hears called "moral influence."
Moral influence takes its start wherehumiliationbegins; yes, it is nothing else than this humiliation itself, the breaking and bending of the temper[51]down tohumility.[52]If I call to some one to run away when a rock is to be blasted, I exert no moral influence by this demand; if I say to a child "You will go hungry if you will not eat what is put on the table," this is not moral influence. But, if I say to it "You will pray, honor your parents, respect the crucifix, speak the truth, etc., for this belongs to man and is man's calling," or even "this is God's will," then moral influence is complete; then a man is to bend before thecallingof man, be tractable, become humble, give up his will for an alien one which is set up as rule and law; he is toabasehimself before somethinghigher: self-abasement. "He that abaseth himself shall be exalted." Yes, yes, children must early bemadeto practise piety, godliness, and propriety; a person of good breeding is one into whom "good maxims" have beeninstilledandimpressed, poured in through a funnel, thrashed in and preached in.
If one shrugs his shoulders at this, at once the good wring their hands despairingly, and cry: "But, for heaven's sake, if one is to give children no good instruction, why, then they will run straight into the jaws of sin, and become good-for-nothing hoodlums!" Gently, you prophets of evil. Good-for-nothing in your sense they certainly will become; but your sensehappens to be a very good-for-nothing sense. The impudent lads will no longer let anything be whined and chattered into them by you, and will have no sympathy for all the follies for which you have been raving and driveling since the memory of man began; they will abolish the law of inheritance,i. e.they will not be willing toinherityour stupidities as you inherited them from your fathers; they destroyinherited sin.[53]If you command them, "Bend before the Most High," they will answer: "If he wants to bend us, let him come himself and do it; we, at least, will not bend of our own accord." And, if you threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, they will take it like being threatened with the bogie-man. If you are no longer successful in making them afraid of ghosts, then the dominion of ghosts is at an end, and nurses' tales find no—faith.
And is it not precisely the liberals again that press for good education and improvement of the educational system? For how could their liberalism, their "liberty within the bounds of law," come about without discipline? Even if they do not exactly educate to the fear of God, yet they demand thefear of Manall the more strictly, and awaken "enthusiasm for the truly human calling" by discipline.
A long time passed away, in which people were satisfied with the fancy that they had thetruth, without thinking seriously whether perhaps they themselves must be true to possess the truth. This timewas theMiddle Ages. With the common consciousness—i. e.the consciousness which deals with things, that consciousness which has receptivity only for things, or for what is sensuous and sense-moving—they thought to grasp what did not deal with things and was not perceptible by the senses. As one does indeed also exert his eye to see the remote, or laboriously exercise his hand till its fingers have become dexterous enough to press the keys correctly, so they chastened themselves in the most manifold ways, in order to become capable of receiving the supersensual wholly into themselves. But what they chastened was, after all, only the sensual man, the common consciousness, so-called finite or objective thought. Yet as this thought, this understanding, which Luther decries under the name of reason, is incapable of comprehending the divine, its chastening contributed just as much to the understanding of the truth as if one exercised the feet year in and year out in dancing, and hoped that in this way they would finally learn to play the flute. Luther, with whom the so-called Middle Ages end, was the first who understood that the man himself must become other than he was if he wanted to comprehend truth,—must become as true as truth itself. Only he who already has truth in his belief, only he whobelievesin it, can become a partaker of it;i. e., only the believer finds it accessible and sounds its depths. Only that organ of man which is able to blow can attain the further capacity of flute-playing, and only that man can become a partaker of truth who has the right organ for it. He who is capable of thinking only what is sensuous, objective,pertaining to things, figures to himself in truth only what pertains to things. But truth is spirit, stuff altogether inappreciable by the senses, and therefore only for the "higher consciousness," not for that which is "earthly-minded."
With Luther, accordingly, dawns the perception that truth, because it is athought, is only for thethinkingman. And this is to say that man must henceforth take an utterly different standpoint, viz., the heavenly, believing, scientific standpoint, or that ofthoughtin relation to its object, the—thought,—that of mind in relation to mind. Consequently: only the like apprehend the like. "You are like the spirit that you understand."[54]
Because Protestantism broke the mediæval hierarchy, the opinion could take root that hierarchy in general had been shattered by it, and it could be wholly overlooked that it was precisely a "reformation," and so a reinvigoration of the antiquated hierarchy. That mediæval hierarchy had been only a weakly one, as it had to let all possible barbarism of unsanctified things run on uncoerced beside it, and it was the Reformation that first steeled the power of hierarchy. If Bruno Bauer thinks:[55]"As the Reformation was mainly the abstract rending of the religious principle from art, State, and science, and so its liberation from those powers with which it had joined itself in the antiquity of the church and in the hierarchy of the Middle Ages, so too the theological and ecclesiastical movements which proceeded from theReformation are only the consistent carrying out of this abstraction of the religious principle from the other powers of humanity," I regard precisely the opposite as correct, and think that the dominion of spirits, or freedom of mind (which comes to the same thing), was never before so all-embracing and all-powerful, because the present one, instead of rending the religious principle from art, State, and science, lifted the latter altogether out of secularity into the "realm of spirit" and made them religious.
Luther and Descartes have been appropriately put side by side in their "He who believes is a God" and "I think, therefore I am" (cogito, ergo sum). Man's heaven isthought,—mind. Everything can be wrested from him, except thought, except faith.Particularfaith, like faith in Zeus, Astarte, Jehovah, Allah, etc., may be destroyed, but faith itself is indestructible. In thought is freedom. What I need and what I hunger for is no longer granted to me by anygrace, by the Virgin Mary, by intercession of the saints, or by the binding and loosing church, but I procure it for myself. In short, my being (thesum) is a living in the heaven of thought, of mind, acogitare. But I myself am nothing else than mind, thinking mind (according to Descartes), believing mind (according to Luther). My body I am not; my flesh maysufferfrom appetites or pains. I am not my flesh, butIammind, only mind.
This thought runs through the history of the Reformation till to-day.
Only by the more modern philosophy since Descartes has a serious effort been made to bringChristianity to complete efficacy, by exalting the "scientific consciousness" to be the only true and valid one. Hence it begins with absolutedoubt,dubitare, with grinding common consciousness to atoms, with turning away from everything that "mind," "thought," does not legitimate. To itNaturecounts for nothing; the opinion of men, their "human precepts," for nothing: and it does not rest till it has brought reason into everything, and can say "The real is the rational, and only the rational is the real." Thus it has at last brought mind, reason, to victory; and everything is mind, because everything is rational, because all nature, as well as even the perversest opinions of men, contains reason; for "all must serve for the best,"i. e.lead to the victory of reason.
Descartes'sdubitarecontains the decided statement that onlycogitare, thought, mind—is. A complete break with "common" consciousness, which ascribes reality toirrationalthings! Only the rational is, only mind is! This is the principle of modern philosophy, the genuine Christian principle. Descartes in his own time discriminated the body sharply from the mind, and "the spirit 'tis that builds itself the body," says Goethe.
But this philosophy itself, Christian philosophy, still does not get rid of the rational, and therefore inveighs against the "merely subjective," against "fancies, fortuities, arbitrariness," etc. What it wants is that thedivineshould become visible in everything, and all consciousness become a knowing of the divine, and man behold God everywhere; but God never is, without thedevil.
For this very reason the name of philosopher is not to be given to him who has indeed open eyes for the things of the world, a clear and undazzled gaze, a correct judgment about the world, but who sees in the world just the world, in objects only objects, and, in short, everything prosaically as it is; but he alone is a philosopher who sees, and points out or demonstrates, heaven in the world, the supernal in the earthly, the—divinein the mundane. The former may be ever so wise, there is no getting away from this: