From the moment when he catches sight of the light of the world a man
seeks to find out _himself_ and get hold of _himself_ out of its
confusion, in which he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley
mixture.
But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself in
turn against his attacks, and asserts its own persistence.
Accordingly, because each thing _cares for itself_ and at the same time
comes into constant collision with other things, the _combat_ of
self-assertion is unavoidable.
_Victory_ or _defeat_--between the two alternatives the fate of the
combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the
_subject_: the former exercises _supremacy_ and "rights of supremacy,"
the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject."
But both remain _enemies_, and always lie in wait: they watch for each
other's _weaknesses_--children for those of their parents and parents
for those of their children (_e. g._ their fear); either the stick
conquers the man, or the man conquers the stick.
In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying to get to the
bottom of things, to get at what is "back of" things; therefore we spy
out the weak points of everybody, for which, it is well known, children
have a sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to rummage
through hidden corners, pry after what is covered up or out of the way,
and try what we can do with everything. When we once get at what is back
of the things, we know we are safe; when, _e. g._, we have got at the
fact that the rod is too weak against our obduracy, then we no longer
fear it, "have outgrown it."
Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our--obduracy, our obdurate
courage. By degrees we get at what is back of everything that was
mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod,
the father's stern look, etc., and back of all we find our--ataraxy,
_i. e._ imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our odds of
strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us
fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take _courage_. Back
of everything we find our _courage_, our superiority; back of the sharp
command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous
choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the
smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our
trickery, shrewdness, courage, obduracy? What else but--_mind!_[6]
Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that is so exhausting
later--the fight against _reason_. The fairest part of childhood passes
without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing
at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to
be persuaded to anything by _conviction_, and are deaf to good
arguments, principles, etc.; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment, and
the like are hard for us to resist.
This stern life-and-death combat with _reason_ enter later, and begins a
new phase; in childhood we scamper about without racking our brains
much.
_Mind_ is the name of the _first_ self-discovery, the first
undeification of the divine, _i. e._ of the uncanny, the spooks, the
"powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth, this feeling of self, now
defers to nothing; the world is discredited, for we are above it, we are
_mind_.
Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have not looked at the
world _intelligently_ at all, but only stared at it.
We exercise the beginnings of our strength on _natural powers_. We defer
to parents as a natural power; later we say: Father and mother are to be
forsaken, all natural power to be counted as riven. They are vanquished.
For the rational, _i. e._ "intellectual" man there is no family as a
natural power; a renunciation of parents, brothers, etc., makes its
appearance. If these are "born again" as _intellectual, rational
powers_, they are no longer at all what they were before.
And not only parents, but _men in general_, are conquered by the young
man; they are no hindrance to him, and are no longer regarded; for now
he says: One must obey God rather than men.
From this high standpoint everything "_earthly_" recedes into
contemptible remoteness; for the standby point is--the _heavenly_.
The attitude is now altogether reversed; the youth takes up an
_intellectual_ position, while the boy, who did not yet feel himself as
mind, grew up in mindless learning. The former does not try to get hold
of _things_ (_e. g._ to get into his head the _data_ of history), but of
the _thoughts_ that lie hidden in things, and so, _e. g._, of the
_spirit_ of history. On the other hand, the boy understands
_connections_ no doubt, but not ideas, the spirit; therefore he strings
together whatever can be learned, without proceeding _a priori_ and
theoretically, _i. e._ without looking for ideas.
As in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of the _laws of the
world_, so now in everything that he proposes he is met by an objection
of the mind, of reason, of his _own conscience_. "That is unreasonable,
unchristian, unpatriotic," and the like, cries conscience to us,
and--frightens us away from it. Not the might of the avenging Eumenides,
not Poseidon's wrath, not God, far as he sees the hidden, not the
father's rod of punishment, do we fear, but--_conscience_.
We "run after our thoughts" now, and follow their commands just as
before we followed parental, human ones. Our course of action is
determined by our thoughts (ideas, conceptions, _faith_) as it is in
childhood by the commands of our parents.
For all that, we were already thinking when we were children, only our
thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, _absolute, i. e._ NOTHING BUT
THOUGHTS, a heaven in themselves, a pure world of thought, _logical_
thoughts.
On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we had about a
_thing_; we thought of the thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God
made the world that we see there," but we did not think of ("search")
the "depths of the Godhead itself"; we may have thought "that is the
truth about the matter," but we did not think of Truth itself, nor unite
into one sentence "God is truth." The "depths of the Godhead, who is
truth," we did not touch. Over such purely logical, _i. e._ theological
questions, "What is truth?" Pilate does not stop, though he does not
therefore hesitate to ascertain in an individual case "what truth there
is in the thing," _i. e._ whether the _thing_ is true.
Any thought bound to a _thing_ is not yet _nothing but a thought_,
absolute thought.
To bring to light _the pure thought_, or to be of its party, is the
delight of youth; and all the shapes of light in the world of thought,
like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, etc., illumine and inspire the
youthful soul.
But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still
makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one
seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to
found its empire--an empire that is not of this world, the world just
conquered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; _i. e._,
although I am spirit, I am not yet _perfected_ spirit, and must first
seek the complete spirit.
But with that I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose myself
again at once, bowing before the complete spirit as one not my own but
_supernal_, and feeling my emptiness.
Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure; but then is
every spirit the "right" spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal
of spirit, the "Holy Spirit." It is not my or your spirit, but just--an
ideal, supernal one, it is "God." "God is spirit." And this supernal
"Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."[7]
The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the
world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to
improve it, _i. e_. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one
must deal with the world according to his _interest_, not according to
his _ideals_, becomes confirmed.
So long as one knows himself only as _spirit_, and feels that all the
value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the
youth to give his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the
silliest point of honor), so long it is only _thoughts_ that one has,
ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a
sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only _ideals_, unexecuted ideas
or thoughts.
Not till one has fallen in love with his _corporeal_ self, and takes a
pleasure in himself as a living flesh-and-blood person,--but it is in
mature years, in the man, that we find it so,--not till then has one a
personal or _egoistic_ interest, _i. e._ an interest not only of our
spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the
whole chap, a _selfish_ interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and
see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, more selfish.
Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he has only become more definite,
or, as you also call it, more "practical." But the main point is this,
that he makes _himself_ more the centre than does the youth, who is
infatuated about other things, _e. g._ God, fatherland, and so on.
Therefore the man shows a _second_ self-discovery. The youth found
himself as _spirit_ and lost himself again in the _general_ spirit, the
complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind,--in short, all ideals; the man
finds himself as _embodied_ spirit.
Boys had only _unintellectual_ interests (_i. e._ interests devoid of
thoughts and ideas), youths only _intellectual_ ones; the man has
bodily, personal, egoistic interests.
If the child has not an _object_ that it can occupy itself with, it
feels _ennui_; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with
_itself_. The youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, because
for him _thoughts_ arose out of the object; he occupies himself with his
_thoughts_, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually, or "his mind is
occupied."
The young man includes everything not intellectual under the
contemptuous name of "externalities." If he nevertheless sticks to the
most trivial externalities (_e. g._ the customs of students' clubs and
other formalities), it is because, and when, he discovers _mind_ in
them, _i. e._ when they are _symbols_ to him.
As I find myself back of things, and that as mind, so I must later find
_myself_ also back of _thoughts_,--to wit, as their creator and _owner_.
In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head,
whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me
like fever-phantasies--an awful power. The thoughts had become
_corporeal_ on their own account, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor,
Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them
back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the
world as what it is to me, as _mine_, as my property; I refer all to
myself.
If as spirit I had thrust away the world in the deepest contempt, so as
owner I thrust spirits or ideas away into their "vanity." They have no
longer any power over me, as no "earthly might" has power over the
spirit.
The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till
little by little he succeeded in getting at what was back of these very
things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked
his way up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with
things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his
personal interest above everything. Finally, the old man? When I become
one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.