IV.

The history of the development of culture since the time of the Greeks

is short enough, when we take into consideration the actual ground it

covers, and ignore the periods during which man stood still, went

backwards, hesitated or strayed. The Hellenising of the world--and to

make this possible, the Orientalising of Hellenism--that double

mission of Alexander the Great, still remains the most important

event: the old question whether a foreign civilisation may be

transplanted is still the problem that the peoples of modern times are

vainly endeavouring to solve. The rhythmic play of those two factors

against each other is the force that has determined the course of

history heretofore. Thus Christianity appears, for instance, as a

product of Oriental antiquity, which was thought out and pursued to

its ultimate conclusions by men, with almost intemperate thoroughness.

As its influence began to decay, the power of Hellenic culture was

revived, and we are now experiencing phenomena so strange that they

would hang in the air as unsolved problems, if it were not possible,

by spanning an enormous gulf of time, to show their relation to

analogous phenomena in Hellenistic culture. Thus, between Kant and the

Eleatics, Schopenhauer and Empedocles, AEschylus and Wagner, there is

so much relationship, so many things in common, that one is vividly

impressed with the very relative nature of all notions of time. It

would even seem as if a whole diversity of things were really all of a

piece, and that time is only a cloud which makes it hard for our eyes

to perceive the oneness of them. In the history of the exact sciences

we are perhaps most impressed by the close bond uniting us with the

days of Alexander and ancient Greece. The pendulum of history seems

merely to have swung back to that point from which it started when it

plunged forth into unknown and mysterious distance. The picture

represented by our own times is by no means a new one: to the student

of history it must always seem as though he were merely in the

presence of an old familiar face, the features of which he recognises.

In our time the spirit of Greek culture is scattered broadcast. While

forces of all kinds are pressing one upon the other, and the fruits of

modern art and science are offering themselves as a means of exchange,

the pale outline of Hellenism is beginning to dawn faintly in the

distance. The earth which, up to the present, has been more than

adequately Orientalised, begins to yearn once more for Hellenism. He

who wishes to help her in this respect will certainly need to be

gifted for speedy action and to have wings on his heels, in order to

synthetise the multitudinous and still undiscovered facts of science

and the many conflicting divisions of talent so as to reconnoitre and

rule the whole enormous field. It is now necessary that a generation

of anti-Alexanders should arise, endowed with the supreme strength

necessary for gathering up, binding together, and joining the

individual threads of the fabric, so as to prevent their being

scattered to the four winds. The object is not to cut the Gordian knot

of Greek culture after the manner adopted by Alexander, and then to

leave its frayed ends fluttering in all directions; it is rather to

bind it after it has been loosed. That is our task to-day. In the

person of Wagner I recognise one of these anti-Alexanders: he rivets

and locks together all that is isolated, weak, or in any way

defective; if I may be allowed to use a medical expression, he has an

astringent power. And in this respect he is one of the greatest

civilising forces of his age. He dominates art, religion, and

folklore, yet he is the reverse of a polyhistor or of a mere

collecting and classifying spirit; for he constructs with the

collected material, and breathes life into it, and is a Simplifier of

the Universe. We must not be led away from this idea by comparing the

general mission which his genius imposed upon him with the much

narrower and more immediate one which we are at present in the habit

of associating with the name of Wagner. He is expected to effect a

reform in the theatre world; but even supposing he should succeed in

doing this, what would then have been done towards the accomplishment

of that higher, more distant mission?

But even with this lesser theatrical reform, modern man would also be

altered and reformed; for everything is so intimately related in this

world, that he who removes even so small a thing as a rivet from the

framework shatters and destroys the whole edifice. And what we here

assert, with perhaps seeming exaggeration, of Wagner's activity would

hold equally good of any other genuine reform. It is quite impossible

to reinstate the art of drama in its purest and highest form without

effecting changes everywhere in the customs of the people, in the

State, in education, and in social intercourse. When love and justice

have become powerful in one department of life, namely in art, they

must, in accordance with the law of their inner being, spread their

influence around them, and can no more return to the stiff stillness

of their former pupal condition. In order even to realise how far the

attitude of the arts towards life is a sign of their decline, and how

far our theatres are a disgrace to those who build and visit them,

everything must be learnt over again, and that which is usual and

commonplace should be regarded as something unusual and complicated.

An extraordinary lack of clear judgment, a badly-concealed lust of

pleasure, of entertainment at any cost, learned scruples, assumed airs

of importance, and trifling with the seriousness of art on the part of

those who represent it; brutality of appetite and money-grubbing on

the part of promoters; the empty-mindedness and thoughtlessness of

society, which only thinks of the people in so far as these serve or

thwart its purpose, and which attends theatres and concerts without

giving a thought to its duties,--all these things constitute the

stifling and deleterious atmosphere of our modern art conditions:

when, however, people like our men of culture have grown accustomed to

it, they imagine that it is a condition of their healthy existence,

and would immediately feel unwell if, for any reason, they were

compelled to dispense with it for a while. In point of fact, there is

but one speedy way of convincing oneself of the vulgarity, weirdness,

and confusion of our theatrical institutions, and that is to compare

them with those which once flourished in ancient Greece. If we knew

nothing about the Greeks, it would perhaps be impossible to assail our

present conditions at all, and objections made on the large scale

conceived for the first time by Wagner would have been regarded as the

dreams of people who could only be at home in outlandish places. "For

men as we now find them," people would have retorted, "art of this

modern kind answers the purpose and is fitting-- and men have never

been different." But they have been very different, and even now there

are men who are far from satisfied with the existing state of

affairs--the fact of Bayreuth alone demonstrates this point. Here you

will find prepared and initiated spectators, and the emotion of men

conscious of being at the very zenith of their happiness, who

concentrate their whole being on that happiness in order to strengthen

themselves for a higher and more far-reaching purpose. Here you will

find the most noble self-abnegation on the part of the artist, and the

finest of all spectacles --that of a triumphant creator of works which

are in themselves an overflowing treasury of artistic triumphs. Does

it not seem almost like a fairy tale, to be able to come face to face

with such a personality? Must not they who take any part whatsoever,

active or passive, in the proceedings at Bayreuth, already feel

altered and rejuvenated, and ready to introduce reforms and to effect

renovations in other spheres of life? Has not a haven been found for

all wanderers on high and desert seas, and has not peace settled over

the face of the waters? Must not he who leaves these spheres of ruling

profundity and loneliness for the very differently ordered world with

its plains and lower levels, cry continually like Isolde: "Oh, how

could I bear it? How can I still bear it?" And should he be unable to

endure his joy and his sorrow, or to keep them egotistically to

himself, he will avail himself from that time forward of every

opportunity of making them known to all. "Where are they who are

suffering under the yoke of modern institutions?" he will inquire.

"Where are my natural allies, with whom I may struggle against the

ever waxing and ever more oppressive pretensions of modern erudition?

For at present, at least, we have but one enemy--at present!--and it

is that band of aesthetes, to whom the word Bayreuth means the

completest rout--they have taken no share in the arrangements, they

were rather indignant at the whole movement, or else availed

themselves effectively of the deaf-ear policy, which has now become

the trusty weapon of all very superior opposition. But this proves

that their animosity and knavery were ineffectual in destroying

Wagner's spirit or in hindering the accomplishment of his plans; it

proves even more, for it betrays their weakness and the fact that all

those who are at present in possession of power will not be able to

withstand many more attacks. The time is at hand for those who would

conquer and triumph; the vastest empires lie at their mercy, a note of

interrogation hangs to the name of all present possessors of power, so

far as possession may be said to exist in this respect. Thus

educational institutions are said to be decaying, and everywhere

individuals are to be found who have secretly deserted them. If only

it were possible to invite those to open rebellion and public

utterances, who even now are thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of

affairs in this quarter! If only it were possible to deprive them of

their faint heart and lukewarmness! I am convinced that the whole

spirit of modern culture would receive its deadliest blow if the tacit

support which these natures give it could in any way be cancelled.

Among scholars, only those would remain loyal to the old order of

things who had been infected with the political mania or who were

literary hacks in any form whatever. The repulsive organisation which

derives its strength from the violence and injustice upon which it

relies--that is to say, from the State and Society--and which sees its

advantage in making the latter ever more evil and unscrupulous,--this

structure which without such support would be something feeble and

effete, only needs to be despised in order to perish. He who is

struggling to spread justice and love among mankind must regard this

organisation as the least significant of the obstacles in his way; for

he will only encounter his real opponents once he has successfully

stormed and conquered modern culture, which is nothing more than their

outworks.

For us, Bayreuth is the consecration of the dawn of the combat. No

greater injustice could be done to us than to suppose that we are

concerned with art alone, as though it were merely a means of healing

or stupefying us, which we make use of in order to rid our

consciousness of all the misery that still remains in our midst. In

the image of this tragic art work at Bayreuth, we see, rather, the

struggle of individuals against everything which seems to oppose them

with invincible necessity, with power, law, tradition, conduct, and

the whole order of things established. Individuals cannot choose a

better life than that of holding themselves ready to sacrifice

themselves and to die in their fight for love and justice. The gaze

which the mysterious eye of tragedy vouchsafes us neither lulls nor

paralyses. Nevertheless, it demands silence of us as long as it keeps

us in view; for art does not serve the purposes of war, but is merely

with us to improve our hours of respite, before and during the course

of the contest,--to improve those few moments when, looking back, yet

dreaming of the future, we seem to understand the symbolical, and are

carried away into a refreshing reverie when fatigue overtakes us. Day

and battle dawn together, the sacred shadows vanish, and Art is once

more far away from us; but the comfort she dispenses is with men from

the earliest hour of day, and never leaves them. Wherever he turns,

the individual realises only too clearly his own shortcomings, his

insufficiency and his incompetence; what courage would he have left

were he not previously rendered impersonal by this consecration! The

greatest of all torments harassing him, the conflicting beliefs and

opinions among men, the unreliability of these beliefs and opinions,

and the unequal character of men's abilities--all these things make

him hanker after art. We cannot be happy so long as everything about

us suffers and causes suffering; we cannot be moral so long as the

course of human events is determined by violence, treachery, and

injustice; we cannot even be wise, so long as the whole of mankind

does not compete for wisdom, and does not lead the individual to the

most sober and reasonable form of life and knowledge. How, then, would

it be possible to endure this feeling of threefold insufficiency if

one were not able to recognise something sublime and valuable in one's

struggles, strivings, and defeats, if one did not learn from tragedy

how to delight in the rhythm of the great passions, and in their

victim? Art is certainly no teacher or educator of practical conduct:

the artist is never in this sense an instructor or adviser; the things

after which a tragic hero strives are not necessarily worth striving

after. As in a dream so in art, the valuation of things only holds

good while we are under its spell. What we, for the time being, regard

as so worthy of effort, and what makes us sympathise with the tragic

hero when he prefers death to renouncing the object of his desire,

this can seldom retain the same value and energy when transferred to

everyday life: that is why art is the business of the man who is

recreating himself. The strife it reveals to us is a simplification of

life's struggle; its problems are abbreviations of the infinitely

complicated phenomena of man's actions and volitions. But from this

very fact--that it is the reflection, so to speak, of a simpler world,

a more rapid solution of the riddle of life--art derives its greatness

and indispensability. No one who suffers from life can do without this

reflection, just as no one can exist without sleep. The more difficult

the science of natural laws becomes, the more fervently we yearn for

the image of this simplification, if only for an instant; and the

greater becomes the tension between each man's general knowledge of

things and his moral and spiritual faculties. Art is with us to

prevent the bow from snapping.

The individual must be consecrated to something impersonal--that is

the aim of tragedy: he must forget the terrible anxiety which death

and time tend to create in him; for at any moment of his life, at any

fraction of time in the whole of his span of years, something sacred

may cross his path which will amply compensate him for all his

struggles and privations. This means having a sense for the tragic.

And if all mankind must perish some day--and who could question this!

--it has been given its highest aim for the future, namely, to

increase and to live in such unity that it may confront its final

extermination as a whole, with one spirit-with a common sense of the

tragic: in this one aim all the ennobling influences of man lie

locked; its complete repudiation by humanity would be the saddest blow

which the soul of the philanthropist could receive. That is how I feel

in the matter! There is but one hope and guarantee for the future of

man, and that is that his sense for the tragic may not die out. If he

ever completely lost it, an agonised cry, the like of which has never

been heard, would have to be raised all over the world; for there is

no more blessed joy than that which consists in knowing what we

know--how tragic thought was born again on earth. For this joy is

thoroughly impersonal and general: it is the wild rejoicing of

humanity, anent the hidden relationship and progress of all that is

human.