The following chapter reproduces, in all essentials, the pages
which stood as a sort of "Introduction" in the first edition of this
book. Inasmuch as it rather reflects the mood out of which I composed
this book twenty-five years ago, than has any direct bearing on its
contents, I print it here as an "Appendix." I do not want to omit it
altogether, because the suggestion keeps cropping up that I want to
suppress some of my earlier writings on account of my later works on
spiritual matters.
Our age is one which is unwilling to seek truth anywhere but in the
depths of human nature. [62] Of the following two well-known paths
described by Schiller, it is the second which will to-day be found
most useful:
Wahrheit suchen wir beide, du aussen im Leben, ich innen
In dem Herzen, und so findet sie jeder gewiss.
Ist das Auge gesund, so begegnet es aussen dem Schöpfer
Ist es das Herz, dann gewiss spiegelt es innen die Welt. [63]
A truth which comes to us from without bears ever the stamp of
uncertainty. Conviction attaches only to what appears as truth to
each of us in our own hearts.
Truth alone can give us confidence in developing our powers. He who
is tortured by doubts finds his powers lamed. In a world the riddle
of which baffles him, he can find no aim for his activity.
We no longer want to believe; we want to know. Belief demands the
acceptance of truths which we do not wholly comprehend. But the
individuality which seeks to experience everything in the depths of
its own being, is repelled by what it cannot understand. Only that
knowledge will satisfy us which springs from the inner life of the
personality, and submits itself to no external norm.
Again, we do not want any knowledge which has encased itself once and
for all in hide-bound formulas, and which is preserved in Encyclopædias
valid for all time. Each of us claims the right to start from the
facts that lie nearest to hand, from his own immediate experiences,
and thence to ascend to a knowledge of the whole universe. We strive
after certainty in knowledge, but each in his own way.
Our scientific theories, too, are no longer to be formulated as if we
were unconditionally compelled to accept them. None of us would wish to
give a scientific work a title like Fichte's A Pellucid Account for the
General Public concerning the Real Nature of the Newest Philosophy. An
Attempt to Compel the Readers to Understand. Nowadays there is no
attempt to compel anyone to understand. We claim no agreement from
anyone whom a distinct individual need does not drive to a certain
view. We do not seek nowadays to cram facts of knowledge even into
the immature human being, the child. We seek rather to develop his
faculties in such a way that his understanding may depend no longer on
our compulsion, but on his will. I am under no illusion concerning the
characteristics of the present age. I know how many flaunt a manner
of life which lacks all individuality and follows only the prevailing
fashion. But I know also that many of my contemporaries strive to order
their lives in the direction of the principles I have indicated. To
them I would dedicate this book. It does not pretend to offer the
"only possible" way to Truth, it only describes the path chosen by
one whose heart is set upon Truth.
The reader will be led at first into somewhat abstract regions,
where thought must draw sharp outlines, if it is to reach secure
conclusions. But he will also be led out of these arid concepts into
concrete life. I am fully convinced that one cannot do without soaring
into the ethereal realm of abstraction, if one's experience is to
penetrate life in all directions. He who is limited to the pleasures
of the senses misses the sweetest enjoyments of life. The Oriental
sages make their disciples live for years a life of resignation and
asceticism before they impart to them their own wisdom. The Western
world no longer demands pious exercises and ascetic practices as a
preparation for science, but it does require a sincere willingness
to withdraw oneself awhile from the immediate impressions of life,
and to betake oneself into the realm of pure thought.
The spheres of life are many and for each there develops a special
science. But life itself is one, and the more the sciences strive to
penetrate deeply into their separate spheres, the more they withdraw
themselves from the vision of the world as a living whole. There
must be one supreme science which seeks in the separate sciences the
elements for leading men back once more to the fullness of life. The
scientific specialist seeks in his studies to gain a knowledge of the
world and its workings. This book has a philosophical aim: science
itself is here infused with the life of an organic whole. The special
sciences are stages on the way to this all-inclusive science. A similar
relation is found in the arts. The composer in his work employs the
rules of the theory of composition. This latter is an accumulation
of principles, knowledge of which is a necessary presupposition for
composing. In the act of composing, the rules of theory become the
servants of life, of reality. In exactly the same way philosophy is
an art. All genuine philosophers have been artists in concepts. Human
ideas have been the medium of their art, and scientific method their
artistic technique. Abstract thinking thus gains concrete individual
life. Ideas turn into life-forces. We have no longer merely a knowledge
about things, but we have now made knowledge a real, self-determining
organism. Our consciousness, alive and active, has risen beyond a
mere passive reception of truths.
How philosophy, as an art, is related to freedom; what freedom is;
and whether we do, or can, participate in it--these are the principal
problems of my book. All other scientific discussions are put in only
because they ultimately throw light on these questions which are,
in my opinion, the most intimate that concern mankind. These pages
offer a "Philosophy of Freedom."
All science would be nothing but the satisfaction of idle curiosity
did it not strive to enhance the existential value of human
personality. The true value of the sciences is seen only when we
are shown the importance of their results for humanity. The final
aim of an individuality can never be the cultivation of any single
faculty, but only the development of all capacities which slumber
within us. Knowledge has value only in so far as it contributes to
the all-round unfolding of the whole nature of man.
This book, therefore, does not conceive the relation between science
and life in such a way that man must bow down before the world of
ideas and devote his powers to its service. On the contrary, it shows
that he takes possession of the world of ideas in order to use them
for his human aims, which transcend those of mere science.
Man must confront ideas as master, lest he become their slave.