given back to man. He fulfils the tasks that are set him in the
feeling of an external necessity. He says to himself: Through this iron
necessity it is given into thy hand to withdraw from this very iron
necessity the link which has been allotted to thee. “Ye men, learn but
from the meadow flower: how ye shall please God and be beautiful as
well.”--“The rose exists without why and because, she blooms because
she blooms; she takes no heed of herself, asks not if men see her.” The
man who has arisen upon the higher level feels in himself the eternal,
necessary pressure of the All, as does the meadow flower; he acts,
as the meadow flower blooms. The feeling of his moral responsibility
grows in all his doing into the immeasurable. For that which he does
not do is withdrawn from the All, is a slaying of that All, so far as
the possibility of such a slaying lies with him. “What is it, not to
sin? Thou need’st not question long: go, the dumb flowers will tell it
thee.”--“All must be slain. If thou slayest not thyself for God, then
at last eternal death shall slay thee for the enemy.”
AFTERWORD
Nearly two and a half centuries have passed since Angelus Silesius
gathered up the profound wisdom of his predecessors in his _Cherubinean
Wanderer_. These centuries have brought rich insights into Nature.
Goethe opened a vast perspective to natural science. He sought to
follow up the eternal, unchangeable laws of Nature’s working, to that
summit where, with like necessity, they cause man to come into being,
just as on a lower level they bring forth the stone.[21] Lamarck,
Darwin, Haeckel, and others, have laboured further in the direction
of this way of conceiving things. The “question of all questions,”
that in regard to the natural origin of man, found its answer in the
nineteenth century; and other related problems in the realm of natural
events have also found their solutions. To-day men comprehend that it
is not necessary to step outside of the realm of the actual and the
sensible in order to understand the serial succession of beings, right
up to man, in its development in a purely natural manner.
[21] Cp. my book: _Goethe’s Weltanschauung_, Weimar, 1897.
And, further, J. G. Fichte’s penetration has thrown light into the
being of the human ego, and shown the soul of man where to seek itself
and what it is.[22] Hegel has extended the realm of thought over all
the provinces of being, and striven to grasp in thought the entire
sensible existence of Nature, as also the loftiest creations of the
human spirit.[23]
[22] Cp. ante, and the section upon Fichte in my book: _Welt- und
Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, vol. i., Berlin, S.
Cronbach.
[23] Cp. my presentation of Hegel in _Welt- und Lebensanschauungen
im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, vol. i.
How, then, do those men of genius whose thoughts have been traced in
the preceding pages, appear in the light of a world-conception which
takes into account the scientific achievements of the centuries that
followed their epoch? They still believed in a “supernatural” story of
creation. How do their thoughts appear when confronted with a “natural”
history of creation, which the science of the nineteenth century has
built up?
This natural science has given to Nature naught that did not belong
to her; it has only taken from her what did not belong to her. It has
banished from Nature all that is not to be sought in her, but is to be
found only in man’s inner being. It sees no longer any being in Nature
that is like unto the human soul, and that creates after the manner of
man. It no longer makes the organic forms to be created by a man-like
God; it follows up their development in the sense-world according to
purely natural laws. Meister Eckhart, as well as Tauler, and also Jacob
Boehme with Angelus Silesius, would needs feel the deepest satisfaction
in contemplating this natural science. The spirit in which they desired
to behold the world has passed over in the fullest sense to this view
of Nature, when it is rightly understood. What they were still unable
to do, _viz._: to bring the facts of Nature themselves into the light
which had risen for them, that, undoubtedly, would have been their
longing, if this same natural science had been laid before them. They
could not do it; for no geology, no “natural history of creation” told
them about the processes in Nature. The Bible alone told them in its
own way about such processes. Therefore they sought, so far as they
could, for the spiritual where alone it is to be found: in the inner
nature of man.
At the present time, they would have quite other aids at hand than
in their own time, to show that an actually existing Spirit is to be
found only in man. They would to-day agree unreservedly with those who
seek Spirit as a fact not in the root of Nature, but in her fruit.
They would admit that Spirit as perceivable is a result of evolution,
and that upon lower levels of evolution such Spirit must not be sought
for. They would understand that no “creative thought” ruled in the
forthcoming of the Spirit in the organism, any more than such a
“creative thought” caused the ape to evolve from the marsupials.
Our present age cannot speak about the facts of Nature as Jacob Boehme
spoke of them. But there exists a point of view, even in this present
day, which brings Jacob Boehme’s way of regarding things near to a view
of the world that takes account of modern natural science. There is no
need to lose the Spirit, when one finds in Nature only the natural.
Many do, indeed, believe to-day that one must needs lose oneself in
a shallow and prosaic materialism, if one simply accepts the “facts”
which natural science has discovered. I myself stand fully upon the
ground of this same natural science. I have, through and through, the
feeling that, in a view of Nature such as Ernst Haeckel’s, only he can
lose himself amid shallows who himself approaches it with a shallow
thought-world. I feel something higher, more glorious, when I let the
revelations of the “natural history of creation” work upon me, than
when the supernatural miracle stories of the confessions of faith force
themselves upon me. In no “holy book” do I know aught that unveils for
me anything as lofty as the “sober” fact, that every human germ in
the mother’s womb repeats in brief, one after the other, those animal
types which its animal ancestors have passed through. If only we fill
our hearts with the glory of the facts that our senses behold, then
we shall have little left over for “wonders” which do not lie in the
course of Nature. If we experience the Spirit in ourselves, then we
have no need of such in external Nature.
In my _Philosophy of Freedom_, (Berlin, 1894) I have described my
view of the world, which has no thought of driving out the Spirit,
because it beholds Nature as Darwin and Haeckel beheld her. A plant,
an animal, gains nothing for me if I people it with souls of which my
senses give me no information. I do not seek in the external world for
a “deeper,” “more soulful” being of things; nay, I do not even assume
it, because I believe that the insight which shines forth for me in
my inner being guards me against it. I believe that the things of
the sense-world are, in fact, just as they present themselves to us,
because I see that a right self-knowledge leads us to this: that in
Nature we should seek nothing but natural processes. I seek no Spirit
of God in Nature, because I believe that I perceive the nature of the
human spirit in myself. I calmly admit my animal ancestry, because I
believe myself to know that there, where these animal ancestors have
their origin, no spirit of like nature with soul can work. I can only
agree with Ernst Haeckel when he prefers the “eternal rest of the
grave” to an immortality such as is taught by some religions.[24] For I
find a dishonouring of Spirit, an ugly sin against the Spirit, in the
conception of a soul continuing to exist after the manner of a sensible
being.
[24] Cp. Haeckel’s _Riddle of the Universe_.
I hear a shrill discord when the scientific facts in Haeckel’s
presentation come up against the “piety” of the confessions of some
of our contemporaries. But for me there rings out from confessions of
faith, which give a discord with natural facts, naught of the spirit
of the higher piety which I find in Jacob Boehme and Angelus Silesius.
This higher piety stands far more in full harmony with the working
of the natural. There lies no contradiction in the fact of saturating
oneself with the knowledge of the most recent natural science, and at
the same time treading the path which Jacob Boehme and Angelus Silesius
have sought. He who enters on that path in the sense of those thinkers
has no need to fear losing himself in a shallow materialism when he
lets the secrets of Nature be laid before him by a “natural history
of creation.” Whoever has grasped my thoughts in this sense will
understand with me in like manner the last saying of the _Cherubinean
Wanderer_, with which also this book shall close: “Friend, it is even
enough. In case thou more wilt read, go forth, and thyself become the
book, thyself the reading.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBERS’ NOTES
All obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, while
original spellings and inconsistent hyphenation have been preserved to
maintain the authenticity of the original text.
In the text version of this book, underscores were used to indicate
a word originally printed in _italics_. All words/phrases originally
printed as small caps have been converted to capital letters.
The following changes have been implemented to improve the clarity and
flow of the text:
Page 105: “uncreate” changed to “uncreated”: _but he must look forward
upon the uncreated: his knowledge must be a beginning_
Page 155: “less” changed to “lesser”: _To a greater or lesser extent
this illumination_
Page 173: “of” added: _I should in reality and in truth be trying to
think of something not unlike_
Page 181: “to” added: _which leads back once more to the knowledge_
Page 254: “of” added: _Instead of thinking of the Root-Being of the
world as Spirit_
The chapter headings have been synchronized with the Table of Contents
for consistency.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.