compatible with the fact that in the course of history the individual
has often fallen into utter uncertainty; has felt destitute and lonely,
and has passionately sought a support in society. For the individual may
cut himself adrift from the invisible connections in which his greatness
is rooted; he may base himself on his own isolated power and groping
intellect. When he has indeed done this, he has soon perceived and
experienced his insufficiency; after such experience he has longed for
the building up of a new society by spiritual activity, and when this
has been attained he has fled to it as to a sure haven. Men strove for
such a society in the later period of Antiquity; one such was founded by
Early Christianity, by which the centre of life was transferred from the
individual to the society. But in this transition the individual did not
again become simply a member of society. For the new union that was
sought could not come to men from without, but could proceed only as a
result of spiritual endeavour; for its origin and in the early stages
of its life it required great creative personalities of the kind of
Augustine; for its preservation it needed appropriation by individuals,
who unless they made an independent decision could not come to a
complete knowledge of the truth. Wherever such individual activity
languished, the inwardness of life at once became weak; the whole
threatened to lose its spiritual nature and to be transformed into mere
mechanism. But after, in the course of history, the individual has
developed so far as experience shows him to have done; after that, as
microcosm, he has found an immediate relation to reality and to himself,
his transcendence may for a time be obscured, but he can never be
deprived of it. As the individual has grown strong only as the
representative and champion of a culture that is spiritual, as opposed
to one that is merely human, so at the same time that spiritual culture
asserts itself and criticises all which limits man to his own sphere.
After having attained a greater comprehensiveness, a pure
self-existence, and other standards toilsomely enough, a narrowly social
culture must be absolutely intolerable to us.
This assertion is valid especially in regard to the social culture of
the present. That culture, as we saw, makes significant and justifiable
demands which have arisen from historical conditions; but its right
gives place to error, if these demands are made the central point of
life as a whole, and everything else subordinated to them. The
unsatisfactoriness of this system of culture and the impossibility of
achieving its aims would be still more manifest if it did not constantly
supplement its own results out of the other organisations of life, and
did not boldly and unjustifiably idealise the man of experience.
This social culture may be shortly described in some of its tendencies:
(1) Work for society was the compelling motive in the shaping of this
life of social utility. Some such social principle may suffice for the
distribution of goods; it never suffices for their original production.
We saw how spiritual experience can arise only from the compulsion of an
inner self-preservation, in which man does not think in the least of
the effects on others, but of himself and the object. Only that effort
which has sprung up without regard to its mere utility has been able to
achieve great things. If, therefore, merely social culture rigidly binds
up vital energy with the direction of all thoughts on the effect, in the
long run it must seriously degrade life. Can we deny that in the chief
departments of the spiritual life the present already clearly shows
tendencies to such a degradation? And can this be otherwise when we only
more widely diffuse the inherited possession, but are unable to increase
it through our own activity?
(2) Social culture makes the judgment of the society the test of all
truth and requires from the individual a complete subordination. It can
do this, as we saw, only under the assumption that reason is summed in a
judgment by the people as a whole; but, in face of the experiences of
history and the impressions of the present time, can this assumption be
ratified? Upon its emergence, truth has nearly always been championed by
a minority so small as to be hardly discernible; and what in its case is
called victory is usually nothing else than the transforming of the
struggle from an external into an internal one. He who continues firm in
his faith in the victory of truth does so because he trusts, not so much
in the wisdom of the majority as in a reason transcending all that is
empirically human, and which begets a truth with power to constrain. The
present gives us the opportunity of testing this assertion by an
example. We see movements of the masses in plenty, but where do we see
great spiritual creations arise from the resulting chaos? Even Socialism
in the narrower sense has to thank but a few men for its vital power and
character, as, for example, Marx; the masses are indeed a condition and
an environment, but never as such the bearers of creative activity.
(3) Where man, as he is, governs all thought, his well-being, his
complacency, an existence as free from care as possible, and as rich as
possible in pleasure, will become the highest of all aims. But would not
one find an inner emptiness, a monotony, even more intolerable than any
suffering if this aim were reached and life were freed from all pain
and necessity? Intelligible as it is that, to the classes whose life is
spent in hard struggle against necessity and care, the deliverance from
these appears the highest good and an assurance of complete happiness,
it is just as unintelligible that anyone who is conscious of the work of
universal history and the inner movement of humanity can share such a
belief. For that movement has given rise to difficult problems and
severe conflicts within the soul of man; a wrestling for a truth and a
content of life, where we now drift hither and thither on the surface of
appearance; a longing for infinity and eternity, where now a finitude
and a past fascinate and charm us; a clashing together of freedom and
destiny, of nature and spirit. The tendencies and tasks which this
movement produces may for a time be thrust into the background, but they
continually reappear and claim their right. It is a foolish undertaking
to try to make man happy by directing him to give up what is distinctive
in him, and to give his striving a less worthy character.
(4) From a radical improvement of the conditions of life, the
socialistic way of thinking expects a continuous advance of culture and
an increasing ennoblement of man. To some extent this expectation would
be justified if a strong spiritual impulse and a sure tendency towards
the good were found everywhere; if it were only a matter of opening the
door to an inner striving that was everywhere operative; only a matter
of removing restrictions. The actual picture of human conditions
corresponds but little to such an optimism. How small a place spiritual
impulse has in human conduct and effort! How wearisome to the
indifferent and reluctant average man any thought of spiritual goods
becomes, and what severe restrictions moral development meets with in
selfishness, avarice, and jealousy! The impressions which reality gives
speak too plainly in regard to this for even the believers in
socialistic culture to be able to hide the facts from themselves; but it
is noteworthy enough that not that which they see with their eyes and
grasp with their hands determines their judgment, but that which,
unconsciously, they add to it: an invisible humanity, a greatness and a
dignity of human nature, a nobility in the depths of the soul;
conceptions for which, in this context, there is not the least
justification.
All these considerations show clearly enough the limits of simply
socialistic culture, and the sharp contradictions of its adherents. This
culture only throws man back increasingly upon the merely human, and
unmercifully holds him firmly fixed in it. It chains him to his own
appearance and suppresses all tendencies towards depth. It knows nothing
of life's consciousness of itself; it knows no inner problems, no
infinite development of the soul; it cannot acknowledge a common life of
an inner kind, but must derive all from external relations. At the same
time it excludes all understanding of the movement of universal history;
for the chief content of this movement constitutes just those problems
which Socialism regards as foolish delusions. To be sure, the striving
after an inner independence of life has brought much error with it, and
it may involve much that is problematical. But that a longing after such
independence should arise at all and prove itself able to call forth so
much endeavour sufficiently demonstrates that man is more than a mere
being of society; more than a member of a social organism.
Ultimately, socialistic culture presupposes, in its own development, a
greater depth of life than it is itself able to produce. It can make so
much out of its data only because it assumes in them a more
comprehensive and a deeper world of thought. Like Naturalism, Socialism
reaches a tolerable conclusion only by much plagiarism from the old
Idealism, before the principal conceptions of which it crosses itself as
before something atrocious.
This inner inconsistency of socialistic culture, its remaining bound up
with something which inwardly it contradicts, is most plainly shown by
the historical experience of the Modern Age. Men were at first led to
take up the movements towards the strengthening of society chiefly by
the expectation that the invisible forces in human existence would be
invigorated, and by the hope that the inner life of men would be raised.
The more they have cut themselves adrift from these invisible
connections and have placed themselves simply on the basis of experience
the more have they lost in spiritual content.
The movement towards the modern free State arose in association with
religious strivings; the desire for political independence attached
itself to and inwardly grew from the longing for more complete equality
before God. The more this relation to Religion and, further, to an
invisible realm receded into the background, the more difficult did it
become to guard the striving for freedom from being diverted in the
interests of individuals, classes, and parties; the more did the
movement inwardly lose by external expansion. We saw that the idea of
nationality acquired power from the conviction that there results in an
independent people an individualisation of the spiritual and divine
which is the first thing to ensure to existence a definite character and
a firm support. So long as this conviction predominated, each people had
a great inner task in reaching the highest point of development of its
nature, and, what is more important, did not need to direct its energies
upon externals. With the obscuring or the complete surrender of this
spiritual foundation, a blind adoration of one's own country, an
increase of unfruitful pride of race, a passionate struggle for external
expansion and power, inevitably accompanied by the surrender of humanity
and justice, threatens us.
When in the nineteenth century the modern idea of the State again came
into currency, the State came to be regarded--as, for example, in the
system of Hegel--as the realisation of an absolute reason, and desired
to be honoured as something "earthly divine." Its leading
administrators, however, men of the kind of Altenstein, were imbued with
the philosophic spirit; were men who could be regarded as philosophers
in Plato's sense. To-day we still hear of such spiritual bases of the
State, in syllabuses of courses of study; but we count so little on a
philosophical training that when anyone gives any sign of such a
training he is regarded with astonishment as a rare exception. Even the
socialistic movement in the narrower sense, the longing for an economic
revolution, at first stood in close connection with philosophical
endeavours, and the hope of an inner ennobling of humanity, the hope of
raising the whole of culture, worked in it as a powerful motive force.
More and more, out of this a mere desire for power and enjoyment has
developed, a passionate struggle of class against class, of interest
against interest, and how this might lead to an inner elevation of
humanity is not apparent. The more socialistic culture, in its pressing
forward, has cut itself loose from a richer and more inward culture and
has trusted solely to its own resources, the more distinct have its
limitations become, the more has its incapacity to include the whole of
human existence been made evident.
To assert this does not mean to depreciate the significance of the facts
which the social tendency has made us conscious of and the tasks which
it has imposed upon us. Not only do the advance into prominence of the
economic side of life, and the desire for a more energetic realisation
of a social organisation in this direction, remain unimpeached, but
there are demands of an imperative kind which extend beyond the scope of
this narrow conception. The increasing isolation and separation of
individuals make us feel the desire for reunion more and more strongly.
Man, with that which is near him and in him, acquires an ever greater
significance for the shaping of our life and our world; from no other
point of departure than from him can we attempt to reach the depths of
reality and from these to build up a realm of reason.
Socialistic culture, however, treats these problems, to which it gives
rise, far too externally and too meanly to hold out any hope that its
method can lead to their solution; and so, as we see it immediately
before us, it brings truth and error into a melancholy mixture. Only a
broader conception of life could bring about a differentiation and give
to each factor its right. In this case also the promised solution of the
problem is seen to be itself a problem.
3. THE SYSTEM OF ÆSTHETIC INDIVIDUALISM
The naturalistic and socialistic tendencies unite in the modern life of
culture for action in common. How near they stand to each other,
notwithstanding all their differences, our accounts of them will have
shown. Not only do both make the world of sense the sole world of man,
but both also find life entirely in the relation to the environment, be
it nature or society. Again, both maintain that all happiness arises
from work upon this environment, whether the work be in the main
scientific and technical, or practical and political. Thus the culture
of both systems bears throughout the character of a culture of work; in
one as in the other great complexes of work arise, and draw the
individual to themselves; all trouble and effort are for the sake of the
result; in both a restless progressive movement surrounds us and directs
all reflection and thought to a better future. With such a tendency we
have grown closer to the environment and we have ascribed more value to
the world and to life. With an ever-increasing activity, a proud
self-consciousness has developed in humanity.
But the limitations and defects of such a culture, centred as it is upon
results, could not remain concealed. The age, alert and fond of
reflecting upon its own nature, has been compelled more and more to
perceive the negation that accompanied the assertion made in that
system. The striving for results alone made care for the soul
impossible; the being fitted into a complex whole impaired the
development to complete individuality. The more industrial and social
activities have become specialised, the less significant has that part
of human existence become which is embodied in the individual as such,
the more have all aspects of his nature other than those involved in
his work degenerated. The continual thought of the future, the impetuous
movement ever onward and onward, also threatens to destroy all
appreciation of the present, all self-consciousness and independence of
life. If we exist merely in order to serve as means and instruments to a
soulless process of culture, does not the whole enormous movement
finally amount to nothing, if it is not experienced and appropriated?
Once such questions arise and make man concerned about the meaning and
the happiness of his life, a sudden change must soon take place. Man may
at all times fall into error concerning the aims of the culture of work;
indeed, concerning work itself. It may appear to him as something which,
originally his own creation, has broken loose from him, placed itself in
opposition to him, enslaved him, and finally, like a gigantic spider,
threatens to suck his life's blood. From this point of view it may be
regarded as the most important of all tasks again to become master of
work, and to preserve a life inwardly conscious of itself, in contrast
with the tendency of work to occupy itself solely with externals; to
realise a true present in contrast with the restless hurry onward and
onward; a quietness and a depth of the soul in contrast with work's
bustle and agitation. To those with such a conviction the culture of
work must seem sordid, secular, profane, and in contrast a longing for
more inspiration, more soul, more permanent splendour of life will
arise.
Many movements of this kind make themselves apparent in the present; the
longing for a return of life to itself, for more joy and more depth in
life, grows ever stronger and stronger. Of all these movements, however,
one stands out with definite achievement--one which, upon the basis of
the present and with the means of sense experience, seeks a remedy
which, while in these two aspects it shares the general initial
assumption of the culture of work, within the limits of this assumption
is entirely opposed to this culture of work. We mean the system of
Subjectivism and Individualism. In that this system is blended with a
kind of art of its own, and gains strength from this, it boldly
undertakes to govern and shape our whole existence.
He who wishes to rise above the culture of work without transcending the
region of experience will scarcely discover any other basis than the
individual with his self-consciousness, his "being-for-self." For,
however far work with its influences may penetrate into the innermost
recesses of the soul, there always remains something which is able to
resist it. Something original seems to spring up here, which fits into
no scheme and bows down to no external power.
If, therefore, a newly aroused longing for greater immediacy and
happiness in life drives man once more to the subjective and to the
individual, he can emphasise this factor conceptually in order to
depreciate the other systems of life. For, whether the individual
belongs to an invisible world of thought or to a visible structure, his
task and his worth is then assigned to him by the whole; his activity
will have a definite direction determined by the whole, and his power
will be called into play only so far as it fitted into the framework of
the whole organisation. If all such relation to the whole is discarded,
and the individual becomes bold enough to place himself simply upon his
own capacity, and to acknowledge no other standard than his own
decision, an infinite course seems to open up before him. What lies in
him is now able to develop with complete freedom, and he need take
neither a visible nor an invisible order into anxious consideration. The
individual, raised to such sovereignty, will make far more out of
himself, and will mean far more than the narrow and often over-awed
individual of earlier ages. True, even in earlier times opposition from
the individual was not lacking, but the circumstances of the Modern Age
are especially conducive to his development and recognition. We know how
the modern man extricated himself from the ties which bound him, and how
he boldly placed himself in opposition to the world. We know how much
more freely thought rules in modern life; how much more deeply an
over-subtle reflection penetrates everywhere and takes all stability
from things. We know, too, how the external form of civilisation, with
its acceleration of intercourse, and its development in a thousand
directions, sets the individual more free. Is it to be wondered at if
the modern individual regards himself as the centre and undertakes to
shape the whole of life from himself?
The individual can attain complete independence only when he liberates
his soul from all external connections, from every objective relation,
and, as a free subject, simply lives his own states of consciousness.
This is achieved above all in the disposition--transcending all form and
shape and bound to no particular object--which has obtained an
independent position chiefly as a result of the Romantic movement. In
this a complete detachment of life, an inward infinity, and a complete
independence seem attained; every individual has his own course and his
own truth; no limit is set to life, no command given, but he can with
the utmost freedom develop every impulse and exhaust its possibilities
according to its nature. Thus a life arises, profuse and extremely
active: a life fine and delicate in nature; a life which is in no way
directed beyond itself.
But all agitation, profuseness, and refinement could hardly have
prevented this emotional life from becoming hollow, if, when it turned
to the individual, it had not united to itself another movement, which
is flowing with a powerful current through the age. We mean the movement
towards art, and beyond that towards an æsthetic conception of life.
From ancient times there has always been an antithesis of an ethical and
an æsthetical fashioning of life: of a preponderance on the one hand of
the active, on the other hand of the contemplative relation to reality.
Emphasis on the activity of man has led to the formation in modern
systems of life of a culture of work and utility. An æsthetical,
contemplative mode of thought can with good reason feel itself superior
to that culture. In contrast to utility, it promises beauty; over
against the heaviness and weariness of the way of life of a culture of
work, it promises a joy and a lightness; in opposition to effort,
hurriedly and continually striving further and further, it promises an
independent self-consciousness, and an inward calm. But, as this
movement towards art blends with that towards the subject it lapses into
a narrow course and assumes a distinctive character. Here, art has less
to comprehend the object than to stimulate and please the subject; it
will strive less after content and a further construction than with
lyrical cadences, to give expression to changing moods. It has a
difficult task given to it which can only approximately be solved--the
task of expressing something fundamentally inexpressible and resisting
all attempts to give it form. But in that art undertakes such an
impossibility, and exerts its power to the uttermost, it brings about a
refinement of the soul as well as an enrichment of expression. It
enables much to be grasped and comprehended which, without it, passes
like a fleeting shadow. It permits the observation of the most delicate
vibrations of the soul, and throws light into depths which would
otherwise be inaccessible.
A distinctive type of life is thus formed from the side of literature
and art, and this feels securely supreme over all the embarrassments of
the culture of work and of the masses. The centre of life is transferred
into the inner tissue of self-consciousness. With the development of
this self-consciousness, life appears to be placed entirely on its own
resources and directed simply towards itself. Through all change of
circumstances and conditions it remains undisturbed; in all the infinity
of that which happens to it, it feels that it is supreme. All external
manifestation is valuable to it as an unfolding of its own being; it
never experiences things, but only itself--that is, its own passive
states of consciousness--in the things.
A life of such a kind gives rise, in different directions, to
distinctive tendencies, which, through their antithesis to the
traditional forms, are sharply accentuated. This system thinks
especially to turn the whole of human existence into something
positive, to limit it on none of its sides, to raise it everywhere to
activity, joy, and pleasure. In the older systems of life, especially in
the religious, it finds far too much feeble renunciation, far too much
sad negation: such a depreciation of life is henceforth to give way to a
complete and joyful affirmation. But an affirmation appears to be
possible because in this system, through that reference to and
excitement of subjectivity, all that in any way affects man is
transformed in activity and advance; because before all else the subject
feels its own life in every experience and takes pleasure in this. It
must be added that the self-refinement of life, its mobility and
delicacy, free it from all the heaviness of existence, and that the free
play of forces which exist here transforms the whole of existence into
something lightly poised. We find this to be especially the case when we
turn to art, which joins beauty to power, or, rather, strengthens life
in itself through its embodiment in the beautiful.