marked out with regard to unity of action, time and place, construction
of style, verse and sentence, selection of words and ideas, was
a school as important as that of counterpoint and fugue in the
development of modern music or that of the Gorgianic figures in Greek
oratory. Such a restriction may appear absurd; nevertheless there is
no means of getting out of naturalism except by confining ourselves
at first to the strongest (perhaps most arbitrary) means. Thus we
gradually learn to walk gracefully on the narrow paths that bridge
giddy abysses, and acquire great suppleness of movement as a result,
as the history of music proves to our living eyes. Here we see how,
step by step, the fetters get looser, until at last they may appear to
be altogether thrown off; this _appearance_ is the highest achievement
of a necessary development in art. In the art of modern poetry there
existed no such fortunate, gradual emerging from self-imposed fetters.
Lessing held up to scorn in Germany the French form, the only modern
form of art, and pointed to Shakespeare; and thus the steadiness of
that unfettering was lost and a spring was made into naturalism--that
is, back into the beginnings of art. From this Goethe endeavoured to
save himself, by always trying to limit himself anew in different ways;
but even the most gifted only succeeds by continuously experimenting,
if the thread of development has once been broken. It is to the
unconsciously revered, if also repudiated, model of French tragedy
that Schiller owes his comparative sureness of form, and he remained
fairly independent of Lessing (whose dramatic attempts he is well
known to have rejected). But after Voltaire the French themselves
suddenly lacked the great talents which would have led the development
of tragedy out of constraint to that apparent freedom; later on
they followed the German example and made a spring into a sort of
Rousseau-like state of nature and experiments. It is only necessary
to read Voltaire's "Mahomet" from time to time in order to perceive
clearly what European culture has lost through that breaking down of
tradition. Once for all, Voltaire was the last of the great dramatists
who with Greek proportion controlled his manifold soul, equal even to
the greatest storms of tragedy,--he was able to do what no German
could, because the French nature is much nearer akin to the Greek than
is the German; he was also the last great writer who in the wielding
of prose possessed the Greek ear, Greek artistic conscientiousness,
and Greek simplicity and grace; he was, also, one of the last men able
to combine in himself the greatest freedom of mind and an absolutely
unrevolutionary way of thinking without being inconsistent and
cowardly. Since that time the modern spirit, with its restlessness and
its hatred of moderation and restrictions, has obtained the mastery on
all sides, let loose at first by the fever of revolution, and then once
more putting a bridle on itself when it became filled with fear and
horror at itself,--but it was the bridle of rigid logic, no longer that
of artistic moderation. It is true that through that unfettering for a
time we are able to enjoy the poetry of all nations, everything that
has sprung up in hidden places, original, wild, wonderfully beautiful
and gigantically irregular, from folk-songs up to the "great barbarian"
Shakespeare; we taste the joys of local colour and costume, hitherto
unknown to all artistic nations; we make liberal use of the "barbaric
advantages" of our time, which Goethe accentuated against Schiller in
order to place the formlessness of his _Faust_ in the most favourable
light. But for how much longer? The encroaching flood of poetry of all
styles and all nations _must_ gradually sweep away that magic garden
upon which a quiet and hidden growth would still have been possible;
all poets _must_ become experimenting imitators, daring copyists,
however great their primary strength may be. Eventually, the public,
which has lost the habit of seeing the actual artistic fact in the
_controlling_ of depicting power, in the organising mastery over all
art-means, _must_ come ever more and more to value power for power's
sake, colour for colour's sake, idea for idea's sake, inspiration for
inspiration's sake; accordingly it will not enjoy the elements and
conditions of the work of art, unless _isolated,_ and finally will
make the very natural demand that the artist _must_ deliver it to them
isolated. True, the "senseless" fetters of Franco-Greek art have been
thrown off, but unconsciously we have grown accustomed to consider all
fetters, all restrictions as senseless;--and so art moves towards its
liberation, but, in so doing, it touches--which is certainly highly
edifying--upon all the phases of its beginning, its childhood, its
incompleteness, its sometime boldness and excesses,--in perishing
it interprets its origin and growth. One of the great ones, whose
instinct may be relied on and whose theory lacked nothing but thirty
years _more_ of practice, Lord Byron, once said: that with regard to
poetry in general, the more he thought about it the more convinced
he was that one and all we are entirely on a wrong track, that we are
following an inwardly false revolutionary system, and that either our
own generation or the next will yet arrive at this same conviction.
It is the same Lord Byron who said that he "looked upon Shakespeare
as the very worst model, although the most extraordinary poet." And
does not Goethe's mature artistic insight in the second half of his
life say practically the same thing?--that insight by means of which
he made such a bound in advance of whole generations that, generally
speaking, it may be said that Goethe's influence has not yet begun,
that his time has still to come. Just because his nature held him fast
for a long time in the path of the poetical revolution, just because
he drank to the dregs of whatsoever new sources, views and expedients
had been indirectly discovered through that breaking down of tradition,
of all that had been unearthed from under the ruins of art, his later
transformation and conversion carries so much weight; it shows that
he felt the deepest longing to win back the traditions of art, and to
give in fancy the ancient perfection and completeness to the abandoned
ruins and colonnades of the temple, with the imagination of the eye at
least, should the strength of the arm be found too weak to build where
such tremendous powers were needed even to destroy. Thus he lived in
art as in the remembrance of the true art, his poetry had become an
aid to remembrance, to the understanding of old and long-departed ages
of art. With respect to the strength of the new age, his demands could
not be satisfied; but the pain this occasioned was amply balanced by
the joy that they have _been_ satisfied once, and that we ourselves can
still participate in this satisfaction. Not individuals, but more or
less ideal masks; no reality, but an allegorical generality; topical
characters, local colours toned down and rendered mythical almost to
the point of invisibility; contemporary feeling and the problems of
contemporary society reduced to the simplest forms, stripped of their
attractive, interesting pathological qualities, made _ineffective_ in
every other but the artistic sense; no new materials and characters,
but the old, long-accustomed ones in constant new animation and
transformation; that is art, as Goethe _understood_ it later, as the
Greeks and even the French _practised_ it.
222.
WHAT REMAINS OF ART.--It is true that art has a much greater value in
the case of certain metaphysical hypotheses, for instance when the
belief obtains that the character is unchangeable and that the essence
of the world manifests itself continually in all character and action;
thus the artist's work becomes the symbol of the _eternally constant,_
while according to our views the artist can only endow his picture with
temporary value, because man on the whole has developed and is mutable,
and even the individual man has nothing fixed and constant. The same
thing holds good with another metaphysical hypothesis: assuming that
our visible world were only a delusion, as metaphysicians declare,
then art would come very near to the real world, for there would then
be far too much similarity between the world of appearance and the
dream-world of the artist; and the remaining difference would place
the meaning of art higher even than the meaning of nature, because
art would represent the same forms, the types and models of nature.
But those suppositions are false; and what position does art retain
after this acknowledgment? Above all, for centuries it has taught us
to look upon life in every shape with interest and pleasure and to
carry our feelings so far that at last we exclaim, "Whatever it may
be, life is good." This teaching of art, to take pleasure in existence
and to regard human life as a piece of nature, without too vigorous
movement, as an object of regular development,--this teaching has grown
into us; it reappears as an all-powerful need of knowledge. We could
renounce art, but we should not therewith forfeit the ability it has
taught us,--just as we have given up religion, but not the exalting and
intensifying of temperament acquired through religion. As the plastic
arts and music are the standards of that wealth of feeling really
acquired and obtained through religion, so also, after a disappearance
of art, the intensity and multiplicity of the joys of life which it had
implanted in us would still demand satisfaction. The scientific man is
the further development of the artistic man.
223.
THE AFTER-GLOW OF ART.--Just as in old age we remember our youth and
celebrate festivals of memory, so in a short time mankind will stand
towards art: its relation will be that of a _touching memory_ of the
joys of youth. Never, perhaps, in former ages was art dealt with so
seriously and thoughtfully as now when it appears to be surrounded
by the magic influence of death. We call to mind that Greek city in
southern Italy, which once a year still celebrates its Greek feasts,
amidst tears and mourning, that foreign barbarism triumphs ever more
and more over the customs its people brought with them into the land;
and never has Hellenism been so much appreciated, nowhere has this
golden nectar been drunk with so great delight, as amongst these fast
disappearing Hellenes. The artist will soon come to be regarded as a
splendid relic, and to him, as to a wonderful stranger on whose power
and beauty depended the happiness of former ages, there will be paid
such honour as is not often enjoyed by one of our race. The best in us
is perhaps inherited from the sentiments of former times, to which it
is hardly possible for us now to return by direct ways; the sun has
already disappeared, but the heavens of our life are still glowing and
illumined by it, although we can behold it no longer.
[Footnote 1: The allusion is to Goethe's lines:
_Die Sterne, die begehrt man nicht,_
_Man freut sich ihrer Pracht._
We do not want the stars themselves,
Their brilliancy delights our hearts.--J.M.K.
]
FIFTH DIVISION.
THE SIGNS OF HIGHER AND LOWER CULTURE.
224.
ENNOBLEMENT THROUGH DEGENERATION.--History teaches that a race of
people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common
spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and
indisputable principles: in consequence, therefore, of their common
faith. Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough customs, thus
is learnt the subjection of the individual, and strenuousness of
character becomes a birth gift and afterwards is fostered as a habit.
The danger to these communities founded on individuals of strong and
similar character is that gradually increasing stupidity through
transmission, which follows all stability like its shadow. It is on
the more unrestricted, more uncertain and morally weaker individuals
that depends the _intellectual progress_ of such communities, it is
they who attempt all that is new and manifold. Numbers of these perish
on account of their weakness, without having achieved any specially
visible effect; but generally, particularly when they have descendants,
they flare up and from time to time inflict a wound on the stable
element of the community. Precisely in this sore and weakened place the
community is _inoculated_ with something new; but its general strength
must be great enough to absorb and assimilate this new thing into its
blood. Deviating natures are of the utmost importance wherever there
is to be progress. Every wholesale progress must be preceded by a
partial weakening. The strongest natures _retain_ the type, the weaker
ones help it to _develop._ Something similar happens in the case of
individuals;'a deterioration, a mutilation, even a vice and, above all,
a physical or moral loss is seldom without its advantage. For instance,
a sickly man in the midst of a warlike and restless race will perhaps
have more chance of being alone and thereby growing quieter and wiser,
the one-eyed man will possess a stronger eye, the blind man will have a
deeper inward sight and will certainly have a keener sense of hearing.
In so far it appears to me that the famous Struggle for Existence is
not the only point of view from which an explanation can be given of
the progress or strengthening of an individual or a race. Rather must
two different things converge: firstly, the multiplying of stable
strength through mental binding in faith and common feeling; secondly,
the possibility of attaining to higher aims, through the fact that
there are deviating natures and, in consequence, partial weakening and
wounding of the stable strength; it is precisely the weaker nature, as
the more delicate and free, that makes all progress at all possible.
A people that is crumbling and weak in any one part, but as a whole
still strong and healthy, is able to absorb the infection of what is
new and incorporate it to its advantage. The task of education in a
single individual is this: to plant him so firmly and surely that, as
a whole, he can no longer be diverted from his path. Then, however,
the educator must wound him, or else make use of the wounds which fate
inflicts, and when pain and need have thus arisen, something new and
noble can be inoculated into the wounded places. With regard to the
State, Machiavelli says that, "the form of Government is of very small
importance, although halfeducated people think otherwise. The great aim
of State-craft should be duration, which out-weighs all else, inasmuch
as it is more valuable than liberty." It is only with securely founded
and guaranteed duration that continual development and ennobling
inoculation are at all possible. As a rule, however, authority, the
dangerous companion of all duration, will rise in opposition to this.
225.
FREE-THINKER A RELATIVE TERM.--We call that man a free-thinker who
thinks otherwise than is expected of him in consideration of his
origin, surroundings, position, and office, or by reason of the
prevailing contemporary views. He is the exception, fettered minds are
the rule; these latter reproach him, saying that his free principles
either have their origin in a desire to be remarkable or else cause
free actions to inferred,--that is to say, actions which are not
compatible with fettered morality. Sometimes it is also said that
the cause of such and such free principles may be traced to mental
perversity and extravagance; but only malice speaks thus, nor does
it believe what it says, but wishes thereby to do an injury, for the
free-thinker; usually bears the proof of his greater goodness and
keenness of intellect written in his face so plainly that the fettered
spirits understand it well enough. But the two other derivations
of free-thought are honestly intended; as a matter of fact, many
free-thinkers are created in one or other of these ways. For this
reason, however, the tenets to which they attain in this manner might
be truer and more reliable than those of the fettered spirits. In the
knowledge of truth, what really matters is the _possession_ of it,
not the impulse under which it was sought, the way in which it was
found. If the free-thinkers are right then the fettered spirits are
wrong, and it is a matter of indifference whether the former have
reached truth through immorality or the latter hitherto retained hold
of untruths through morality. Moreover, it is not essential to the
free-thinker that he should hold more correct views, but that he should
have liberated himself from what was customary, be it successfully or
disastrously. As a rule, however, he will have truth, or at least the
spirit of truth-investigation, on his side; he demands reasons, the
others demand faith.
226.
THE ORIGIN OF FAITH.--The fettered spirit does not take up his position
from conviction, but from habit; he is a Christian, for instance, not
because he had a comprehension of different creeds and could take
his choice; he is an Englishman, not because he decided for England,
but he found Christianity and England ready-made and accepted them
without any reason, just as one who is born in a wine-country becomes
a wine-drinker. Later on, perhaps, as he was a Christian and an
Englishman, he discovered a few reasons in favour of his habit; these
reasons may be upset, but he is not therefore upset in his whole
position. For instance, let a fettered spirit be obliged to bring
forward his reasons against bigamy and then it will be seen whether his
holy zeal in favour of monogamy is based upon reason or upon custom.
The adoption of guiding principles without reasons is called _faith._
227.
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE CONSEQUENCES AND TRACED BACK TO REASON AND
UN-REASON.--All states and orders of society, professions, matrimony,
education, law: all these find strength and duration only in the faith
which the fettered spirits repose in them,--that is, in the absence of
reasons, or at least in the averting of inquiries as to reasons. The
restricted spirits do not willingly acknowledge this, and feel that
it is a _pudendum._ Christianity, however, which was very simple in
its intellectual ideas, remarked nothing of this _pudendum,_ required
faith and nothing but faith, and passionately repulsed the demand
for reasons; it pointed to the success of faith: "You will soon feel
the advantages of faith," it suggested, "and through faith shall ye
be saved." As an actual fact, the State pursues the same course, and
every father brings up his son in the same way: "Only believe this,"
he says, "and you will soon feel the good it does." This implies,
however, that the truth of an opinion is proved by its personal
usefulness; the wholesomeness of a doctrine must be a guarantee for
its intellectual surety and solidity. It is exactly as if an accused
person in a court of law were to say, "My counsel speaks the whole
truth, for only see what is the result of his speech: I shall be
acquitted." Because the fettered spirits retain their principles on
account of their usefulness, they suppose that the free spirit also
seeks his own advantage in his views and only holds that to be true
which is profitable to him. But as he appears to find profitable just
the contrary of that which his compatriots or equals find profitable,
these latter assume that his principles are dangerous to them; they say
or feel, "He must not be right, for he is injurious to us."
228.
THE STRONG, GOOD CHARACTER.--The restriction of views, which habit has
made instinct, leads to what is called strength of character. When
any one acts from few but always from the same motives, his actions
acquire great energy; if these actions accord with the principles of
the fettered spirits they are recognised, and they produce, moreover,
in those who perform them the sensation of a good conscience. Few
motives, energetic action, and a good conscience compose what is called
strength of character. The man of strong character lacks a knowledge
of the many possibilities and directions of action; his intellect is
fettered and restricted, because in a given case it shows him, perhaps,
only two possibilities; between these two he must now of necessity
choose, in accordance with his whole nature, and he does this easily
and quickly because he has not to choose between fifty possibilities.
The educating surroundings aim at fettering every individual, by always
placing before him the smallest number of possibilities. The individual
is always treated by his educators as if he were, indeed, something
new, but should become a _duplicate._ If he makes his first appearance
as something unknown, unprecedented, he must be turned into something
known and precedented. In a child, the familiar manifestation of
restriction is called a good character; in placing itself on the side
of the fettered spirits the child first discloses its awakening common
feeling; with this foundation of common sentiment, he will eventually
become useful to his State or rank.
229.
THE STANDARDS AND VALUES OF THE FETTERED SPIRITS.--There are four
species of things concerning which the restricted spirits say they
are in the right. Firstly: all things that last are right; secondly:
all things that are not burdens to us are right; thirdly: all things
that are advantageous for us are right; fourthly: all things for which
we have made sacrifices are right. The last sentence, for instance,
explains why a war that was begun in opposition to popular feeling
is carried on with enthusiasm directly a sacrifice has been made for
it. The free spirits, who bring their case before the forum of the
fettered spirits, must prove that free spirits always existed, that
free-spiritism is therefore enduring, that it will not become a burden,
and, finally, that on the whole they are an advantage to the fettered
spirits. It is because they cannot convince the restricted spirits on
this last point that they profit nothing by having proved the first and
second propositions.
230.
_ESPRIT FORT._--Compared with him who has tradition on his side and
requires no reasons for his actions, the free spirit is always weak,
especially in action; for he is acquainted with too many motives and
points of view, and has, therefore, an uncertain and unpractised hand.
What means exist of making him _strong in spite of this,_ so that he
will, at least, manage to survive, and will not perish ineffectually?
What is the source of the strong spirit (_esprit fort_)! This is
especially the question as to the production of genius. Whence comes
the energy, the unbending strength, the endurance with which the one,
in opposition to accepted ideas, endeavours to obtain an entirely
individual knowledge of the world?
231.
THE RISE OF GENIUS.--The ingenuity with which a prisoner seeks the
means of freedom, the most cold-blooded and patient employment of every
smallest advantage, can teach us of what tools Nature sometimes makes
use in order to produce Genius,--a word which I beg will be understood
without any mythological and religious flavour; she, Nature, begins it
in a dungeon and excites to the utmost its desire to free itself. Or
to give another picture: some one who has completely _lost his way_
in a wood, but who with unusual energy strives to reach the open in
one direction or another, will sometimes discover a new path which
nobody knew previously, thus arise geniuses, who are credited with
originality. It has already been said that mutilation, crippling,
or the loss of some important organ, is frequently the cause of the
unusual development of another organ, because this one has to fulfil
its own and also another function. This explains the source of many a
brilliant talent. These general remarks on the origin of genius may be
applied to the special case, the origin of the perfect free spirit.
232.
CONJECTURE AS TO THE ORIGIN OF FREE-SPIRITISM.--Just as the glaciers
increase when in equatorial regions the sun shines upon the seas
with greater force than hitherto, so may a very strong and spreading
free-spiritism be a proof that somewhere or other the force of feeling
has grown extraordinarily.
233.
THE VOICE OF HISTORY.--In general, history _appears_ to teach the
following about the production of genius: it ill-treats and torments
mankind--calls to the passions of envy, hatred, and rivalry--drives
them to desperation, people against people, throughout whole centuries!
Then, perhaps, like a stray spark from the terrible energy thereby
aroused, there flames up suddenly the light of genius; the will, like
a horse maddened by the rider's spur, thereupon breaks out and leaps
over into another domain. He who could attain to a comprehension of the
production of genius, and desires to carry out practically the manner
in which Nature usually goes to work, would have to be just as evil and
regardless as Nature itself. But perhaps we have not heard rightly.
234.
THE VALUE OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.--It is possible that the
production of genius is reserved to a limited period of mankind's
history. For we must not expect from the future everything that
very defined conditions were able to produce; for instance, not the
astounding effects of religious feeling. This has had its day, and
much that is very? good can never grow again, because it could grow
out of that alone. There will never again be a horizon of life and
culture that is bounded by religion. Perhaps even the type of the
saint is only possible with that certain narrowness of intellect,
which apparently has completely disappeared. And thus the greatest
height of intelligence has perhaps been reserved for a single age;
it appeared--and appears, for we are still in that age--when an
extraordinary, long-accumulated energy of will concentrates itself,
as an exceptional case, upon _intellectual_ aims. That height will no
longer exist when this wildness and energy cease to be cultivated.
Mankind probably approaches nearer to its actual aim in the middle of
its road, in the middle time of its existence than at the end. It may
be that powers with which, for instance, art is a condition, die out
altogether; the pleasure in lying, in the undefined, the symbolical,
in intoxication, in ecstasy might fall into disrepute. For certainly,
when life is ordered in the perfect State, the present will provide
no more motive for poetry, and it would only be those persons who had
remained behind who would ask for poetical unreality. These, then,
would assuredly look longingly backwards to the times of the imperfect
State, of half-barbaric society, to _our_ times.
235.
GENIUS AND THE IDEAL STATE IN CONFLICT.--The Socialists demand a
comfortable life for the greatest possible number. If the lasting house
of this life of comfort, the perfect State, had really been attained,
then this life of comfort would have destroyed the ground out of which
grow the great intellect and the mighty individual generally, 11 mean
powerful energy. Were this State reached, mankind would have grown too
weary to be still capable of producing genius. Must we not hence wish
that life should retain its forcible character, and that wild forces
and energies should continue, to be called forth afresh? But warm and
sympathetic hearts desire precisely the _removal_ of that wild and
forcible character, and the warmest hearts we can imagine desire it
the most passionately of all, whilst all the time its passion derived
its fire, its warmth, its very existence precisely from that wild
and forcible character; the warmest heart, therefore, desires the
removal of its own foundation, the destruction of itself,--that is,
it desires something illogical, it is not intelligent. The highest
intelligence and the warmest heart cannot exist together in one
person, and the wise man who passes judgment upon life looks beyond
goodness and only regards it as something which is not without value
in the general summing-up of life. The wise man must _oppose_ those
digressive wishes of unintelligent goodness, because he has an interest
in the continuance of his type and in the eventual appearance of the
highest intellect; at least, he will not advance the founding of the
"perfect State," inasmuch as there is only room in it for wearied
individuals. Christ, on the contrary, he whom we may consider to have
had the warmest heart, advanced the process of making man stupid,
placed himself on the side of the intellectually poor, and retarded
the production of the greatest intellect, and this was consistent.
His opposite, the man of perfect wisdom,--this may be safely
prophesied--will just as necessarily hinder the production of a Christ.
The State is a wise arrangement for the protection of one individual
against another; if its ennobling is exaggerated the individual will at
last be weakened by it, even effaced, --thus the original purpose of
the State will be most completely frustrated.
236.
THE ZONES OF CULTURE.--It may be figuratively said that the ages of
culture correspond to the zones of the various climates, only that they
lie one behind another and not beside each other like the geographical
zones. In comparison with the temperate zone of culture, which it
is our object to enter, the past, speaking generally, gives the
impression of a _tropical_ climate. Violent contrasts, sudden changes
between day and night, heat and colour-splendour, the reverence of
all that was sudden, mysterious, terrible, the rapidity with which
storms broke: everywhere that lavish abundance of the provisions of
nature; and opposed to this, in our culture, a clear but by no means
bright sky, pure but fairly unchanging air, sharpness, even cold at
times; thus the two zones are contrasts to each other. When we see
how in that former zone the most raging passions are suppressed and
broken down with mysterious force by metaphysical representations,
we feel as if wild tigers were being crushed before our very eyes in
the coils of mighty serpents; our mental climate lacks such episodes,
our imagination is temperate, even in dreams there does not happen
to us what former peoples saw waking. But should we not rejoice at
this change, even granted that artists are essentially spoiled by the
disappearance of the tropical culture and find us non-artists a little
too timid? In so far artists are certainly right to deny "progress,"
for indeed it is doubtful whether the last three thousand years show an
advance in the arts. In the same way, a metaphysical philosopher like
Schopenhauer would have no cause to acknowledge progress with a regard
to metaphysical philosophy and religion if he glanced back over the
last four thousand years. For us, however, the _existence_ even of the
temperate zones of culture is progress.
237.