The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The book "Heine, Dostojewskij und Gorkij" by Dr. J. E. Poritzky (published by Richard Wöpke in Leipzig), which has just appeared, offers, among many other noteworthy remarks, an examination of Heine literature at the end of the nineteenth century. One is reminded of the fundamental evils of our literary present when reading Poritzky's thoughts. In particular, the independence of judgment of many literary figures of our time becomes questionable when one follows Heine's reflections. For what Poritzky points out is undoubtedly correct (p. 6): "The Germanic judgments of Julian Schmidt and Heintich v. Treitschke have still not been overcome; on the contrary, they continue their effect in silence." Unfortunately, there are many "writers" today who have neither the ability nor the will to examine such judgments impartially for their value. These "writers", who can sometimes occupy quite prestigious positions, certainly need to make a judgment; they are more likely to do without one. Heine's literature is a good basis for making observations in these directions.

You only need to follow things carefully and you will find that the phrases used by Heine's opponents are always the same. Now there is something quite special about Heine. There may be people who are otherwise not insignificant and who are denied an unbiased judgment of Heine. Poritzky aptly points out one such example (p. 6 fl.): "The otherwise witty Hehn calls Heine a Jewish slacker."

Victor Hehn wrote a book about Goethe that is highly regarded. The following sentences can be found in this book: "Heine has no mind, only a great talent for imitation. Just as some of his fellow tribesmen can click their tongues so artfully that one really believes one can hear a nightingale, just as another can accurately reproduce the manner and style of "famous patterns", just as in the long years of Kladderadatsch he indulged in all the Iyrian forms of all poets and schools of poetry, so Heine also knew the simple-minded fidelity of the folk song, the fantasies of E. Th. A. Hoffmann and E. Th. A. Hoffmann. Th. A. Hoffmann's and Romanticism's fantasies, Goethe's heartfelt lute and melodious song with such virtuoso art that one was deceived and thought the similes were genuine." Poritzky shows that such an accusation can, if one wishes, be leveled at any creative spirit; but that, on the other hand, nothing is said at all if one proves a model for this or that intellectual product.

But one wonders: how do such absurdities come among the many healthy, witty remarks that Hehn makes in his "Thoughts on Goethe"? One can find no other reason for this than that Hehn immediately lost his sound judgment when he came across the "Jew" Heine. He had a general judgment, which of course should better be called prejudice, about the "Jew", and that made it impossible for him to make a special examination of the individual personality of Heine. Now there is something in Victor Hehn that Poritzky could not emphasize according to the task he set himself, but which I would like to add here.

Goethe once speaks of the spirits who have exerted the greatest influence on his development and names them as such: Shakespeare, Spinoza and Linn. That Spinoza's Judaism is not only not indifferent to the whole structure of his world view, but has exerted a profound influence on it, has been proved by Lazarus in his excellent book on the "Ethics of Judaism". It is now beyond doubt that Spinoza's effect on Goethe was quite extraordinary. We can only understand some of Goethe's feelings and ideas if we realize that he immersed himself again and again in Spinoza's world of ideas, indeed that Goethe's stormy passions often found their inner balance by immersing himself in the philosophical calm of the Amsterdam sage. Goethe, and we with him, owe much of what Hehn admires in Goethe to Spinoza. And after passing through Goethe's mind, Victor Hehn also accepts the "Jewish" philosophy of Spinoza as something great. - But if he believes he can prove a very similar relationship to Goethe in Heine, then - Heine croaks like a nightingale.

In the face of such phenomena, isn't it glaringly obvious how non-judgmental even important personalities can become if they are more or less openly anti-Semitic? Incidentally, on page 7 of his pamphlet, Poritzky has provided a compilation of recent assessments of Heine, which shows in a truly delightful way how all sound judgment can cease in literature when the temptation arises to no longer apply the same yardstick.

Two strange books appeared in quick succession. The first was called "Law, Freedom and Morality of Artistic Creation". The author is Lothar von Kunowski. He has now followed up the first with a second book entitled "A Nation of Geniuses". Both volumes are intended to be only parts of an extensive complete work entitled: "Dutch Art for Life". In certain circles, Lothar von Kunowski is regarded as a prophet. One can hear expressions of the most unreserved admiration. What he says about the nature of art and the moral life is praised like a new gospel.

Although for those who really know the development of German intellectual life in the nineteenth century, there is no new thought contained therein, such a person can also agree with the judgment that has recently been passed on Kunowski from important quarters. His book is described as one in which "a serious man speaks out about questions that have tormented him for years: the cry of pain of an artist groping aimlessly in the dark; the jubilant cry of one who finally sees the goal".

There is certainly much that is immature in the two books; certainly everything Kunowski says has been said more thoroughly and comprehensively in the past: but there is something about the two books that is extremely refreshing, even for those who know the relevant literature. For decades, art and its relationship to life have not been discussed with the kind of idealism brought about by knowledge that Kunowski does.

Kunowski ascribes a great cultural mission to the German people. It should bring about a renewal of the moral worldview through a true understanding of art. "A new doctrine of art will have to be a new doctrine of life and vice versa, a new conception of life will have to be rooted in a rejuvenated doctrine of art... Few know what they are saying with the demand for a people's art, an art that makes every member of the people an artist in all acts of life." It could seem as if the way Kunowski talks about "art and the people" is to be exploited for their own purposes by those who want to spread all kinds of ethnic and racial antipathies under this slogan. And the first volume of the work, published a few months ago, has also been exploited in this sense - quite unjustifiably.

The second volume, which has now appeared, has thoroughly disappointed many who previously believed they could count Kunowski among their own. In many places, he speaks clearly and unambiguously about the "racial question". And what he says in such places shows how an idealistically-minded person must think about this "question". In particular, Kunowski rejects all anti-Semitism. He sharply rebukes the Englishman Chamberlain for his outbursts against the "Semites" in the book "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century." And from the same point of view, judgments are made that make it impossible for the anti-Semites to refer to Kunowski, whom they would otherwise certainly like to cite when they, in their sense, talk about the strong roots of education and culture in the "Volkstum". But Kunowski understands the term "Volk" in such a way that any anti-Semitism is incompatible with his view. "We Germans are determined," he said, "to reserve the form of the world to be remodeled for all peoples, to summon them all to carry out the work, especially the Romans and Semites, to whom we owe infinite things, with whom we, united in the infinite, will also jointly expand the finiteness of the earthly. In this loving justice lies the future of the German, lies its world empire, its rejuvenation into a new man, into a new people". Kunowski does not want a racial struggle; he wants to transfer what is significant about all races into the culture of the future: "The moral law of the Jew, the state of the Roman, the art of the Greek, the pyramid of the Egyptian" must be united in us so that we can "work independently in the world forge". This idea is expressed particularly beautifully in the following statement: "At our altars rest the cross, the crescent and the ark of the covenant, in our forests walk Zarathustra, Moses, Socrates, Dante, Rousseau, in our meadows grow anew Jerusalem, Athens, Sparta, Florence and Paris."

Kunowski contrasts this narrow-minded racial point of view with his own with the words: "The aim of world conquest is not to spread the unchanged German type, but rather to create a new cultural man who is neither Germanic, nor Romani, nor Semitic." This idea culminates in the sentence: "Peoples are created through the fusion of peoples in the embers of a new culture that burns racial hatred."

Kunowski's book can be seen as a significant symptom of the times. We want idealism again. Not a vague one that is only created by fantasy, but one that is based on knowledge and education. Kunowski makes himself the spokesman for such an idealism. It is significant that in doing so he automatically becomes an opponent of anti-Semitism, which is hostile to knowledge and education, of narrow-minded "Germanism".

With explanatory notes by Rudolf Steiner

Fichte wrote the first seven of the nine letters given here to Schiller during the first months of his work at the university entrusted to Goethe's care. Time is a circumstance that essentially determines their significance. They show us that Fichte's personal appearance and his way of approaching the teaching and philosophical profession had to give Goethe's relationship with him the character at the very beginning of their acquaintance that it subsequently retained. Fichte's way of working had something violent about it. A certain pathos of the idea, which accompanied his scientific as well as his political ideas, always led him to seek to achieve his goals by the straightest, shortest route. And if something stood in his way, his unyieldingness turned into brusqueness, his energy into ruthlessness. Fichte never learned to understand that old habits are stronger than new ideas, and thus constantly came into conflict with the people he had to deal with. The reason for most of these conflicts was that he alienated people through his personal nature before he had elevated them to his ideas. Fichte lacked the ability to come to terms with everyday life. All of this made it impossible for Goethe to always stand up for Fichte as energetically as he would have liked in recognition of his scientific achievements and abilities.

The book that Fichte sends to Goethe in Letter No. 1 is the first edition of the "Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre", which was published in sheets at the time (see J. G. Fichte's Life and Literary Correspondence, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1862, Volume I, p. 211).

The work in which Fichte hoped to be united with Goethe was Schiller's "Horen". On June 13, 1794, Schiller had invited Goethe to collaborate with him, noting at the same time that H. H. Fichte, Woltmann and von Humboldt had joined forces with him to publish this journal. Goethe only sent his acceptance to Schiller on June 24 (cf. correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, 4th ed., vol. I, p. I ff.).

Fichte had arrived in Jena on May 8, 1794, and on June 24 he was already forced to call upon Goethe's and the Duke's protection against slanderous rumors that had spread about his public lectures on "Morality for Scholars" (cf. letter no. 2). The energetic way in which Fichte confronted his slanderers and the firmness with which he asked the Duke to take care of him led, apparently through Goethe's mediation . (Letter No. 3), led to a temporary strengthening of his position, as the Duke did not allow his esteem for the philosopher to be dampened by the rumors. Fichte felt compelled to prove the inaccuracy of what was said about his lectures by having them printed word for word (cf. letter no. 2). They appeared under the title: "Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten" (Jena, Gabler 1794). Fichte's wish to be allowed to dedicate the reprint to the Duke was not carried out, but the latter praised the recently appointed teacher at every opportunity (cf. Fichte's Life I. 216 f.). Fichte's remarks about the Duke (Letter No. 2) are an important contribution to Karl August's characterization. One need only consider that this prince is admired in this way by a man who, a year earlier, wrote of the princes of Europe: "They, who are for the most part educated in indolence and ignorance, or, when they learn something, learn a truth expressly prepared for them; they, who are known not to continue their education once they reign, who read no new writing other than, at most, watery sophistries, and who are always behind their age at least by the years of their reign." This passage belongs to the anonymous writing mentioned in the first letter, namely Fichte's "Beiträge zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums über die französische Revolution." This and the other anonymous pamphlet, "The Reclaiming of Freedom of Thought from the Princes of Europe Who Hitherto Suppressed It (A Speech, Heliopolis in the Last Year of the Old Darkness)", had appeared before Fichte's appointment to Jena. And according to Fichte's statements in the second letter, it cannot be doubted that the people who worked for Fichte's appointment, including first and foremost the jurist Hufeland, knew of these writings. This also seems to be the case for Goethe, as he calls Fichte's appointment "an act of boldness, indeed audacity" (Tag- und Jahreshefte 1794). Fichte himself probably made no secret of his way of thinking to the people who mediated between him and the Weimar government; hence the irritated tone in which he speaks of the accusations relating to his anonymous writings.

It is clear from Letter No. 6 that Fichte attached particular importance to being understood by Goethe. Consistent with this is a communication by W. v. Humboldt (correspondence between Schiller and W. v. Humboldt, September 22, 1794) about a conversation with Fichte, in which the latter had stated that he wished to win Goethe over to speculation and that he had to explain his feeling as one that guided him correctly in philosophical matters: "The other day, he (Fichte) continued, he (Goethe) explained my system to me so succinctly and clearly that I could not have explained it more clearly myself." That Goethe had a lively interest in Fichte's philosophy and did not take a negative attitude towards it is proven not only by the passage in a letter to Fichte dated June 24, 1794 (Briefe W. A. X. p. 167), in which he says of the first sheets of the "Wissenschaftslehre": "What has been sent contains nothing that I did not understand or at least thought I understood, nothing that would not readily fit in with my usual way of thinking", but also the fact that Goethe made extensive extracts from this work, which are still preserved in the Goethe Archive.

Fichte had also announced public lectures similar to those mentioned above from the summer of 1794 for the winter of 1794/95. These lectures were among the most popular at the university and were received with great enthusiasm by the students. As Fichte could not find another suitable hour, he read on Sunday mornings from 9 to 10. The Jena Consistory took offense at this, and the Weimar High Consistory could not "deny unanimous approval" to the reasons of the former, "since it seems, however, that this undertaking is an intended step against the public national service, even if this intention were not the case, or that such an intention could not be achieved, such an unlawful and disorderly act would nevertheless always have very bad consequences, especially for the reputation of the Academy itself, because of the unpleasant impression it would reliably make on the Jena and neighboring public as well as abroad". These are the words of the submission from the Oberkonsistorium to the state government. Fichte wrote a detailed letter to the academic senate. He explained the reasons why he had to choose the hour in question and explained that the character of his public lectures made them very suitable to be held on Sundays, as they were not aimed at instruction through science, but at moral edification and character refinement. At the same time, Fichte also called on Goethe's assistance in this matter; and the letter in which he does so is the one reported here under no. 6. The Academic Senate reported to the Duke on this matter to the effect that "although Professor Fichte is not to be blamed for taking an appalling step against public worship, he should be instructed not to hold his moral lectures on Sundays; if, however, in the middle of the half-year, he could not find another suitable time, as we neither believe nor wish, he could be permitted to hold them on Sunday for the remainder of the current winter semester and without consequence, but in this case it must be made an absolute condition that he should not be permitted to do so before the afternoon service is completely finished". The Duke made the following decision: "We have therefore resolved, following your request, that the aforementioned Professor Fichte should only be permitted to continue his moral lectures on Sundays in the hours after the end of the afternoon service. However, it was only the fact that "something as unusual as the scheduling of lectures of this kind on Sunday during the hours designated for public worship" prompted Karl August to make his decision. Of the lectures themselves, the ducal decree addressed to the academic senate says: "We have gladly convinced ourselves that, if his (Fichte's) moral lectures are in accordance with the ... ... stapled trefflichen essay, they can be of excellent use". Fichte's opponents, on the other hand, intended to make the lectures completely impossible, as they were uncomfortable with their content. When Fichte resumed the lectures on February 3, which had been suspended since the beginning of November due to the incident, he scheduled them for Sunday afternoon at 3-4 p.m.

The Professor Woltmann mentioned in letter no. 7 was a historian and a favorite student of Spittler. He was appointed to Jena at the same time as Fichte, aged only 23, was one of the philosopher's most intimate friends and later also came into contact with Schiller.

It is perhaps not superfluous to note that Fichte's two letters to Schiller differ from those to Goethe in that they are written in German, while the latter are written in Fichte's more legible Latin script.

In July 1799, Fichte moved to Berlin. The well-known accusation of atheism led to his dismissal from Jena. He sought a new sphere of activity. Among the plans that emerged in him for the future was that of founding a scientific journal that would better meet the demands Fichte made of such an institute than the Jenaische Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, with which both he and Schelling were dissatisfied. During the winter of 1799/1800, Fichte again spent a short time in Jena, where he had temporarily left his family behind. Here he met Schelling. The two agreed to found and establish the journal, for which Goethe and Schiller were also to be recruited as contributors. The first of the two letters addressed to Schiller contains an invitation to become a contributor and at the same time a detailed discussion of the purpose and structure of the journal. This matter, for which, as the letter indicates, Cotta was to be won as publisher, came to nothing. The plan was then taken up again with J. F. G. Unger as publisher, who also sent a printed circular promising the publication of the "Jahrbücher der Kunst und der Wissenschaft" from New Year 1801. This time, too, the matter did not come to fruition. Goethe viewed such an undertaking on Fichte's part with suspicion. He wrote to Schiller on September 6, 1801, apparently referring to this (the circular is dated July 28, 1800): "The tone of the announcement is entirely Fichtian. I only fear that the gentlemen idealists and dynamists will soon appear as dogmatists and pedants and occasionally get into each other's hair." The document sent is: "The closed commercial state."

The first part of Fichte's second letter to Schiller, dated August 18, 1803, deals with a private matter concerning Fichte (sale of his house in Jena and other matters relating to the time of his stay in Jena), in which he had appealed to Goethe and Schiller for assistance. On August 29, Goethe wrote to Zelter about this (correspondence ı, 80): "Tell him (Fichte) that we are taking his matter to heart. Unfortunately, a curse so easily rests on what advocate's hands touch." The second part of the letter refers to the performance of Goethe's "Natural Daughter" in Berlin. The first performance of this play took place there on July 12, 1803. The letter was published in a form differing in many respects from the above in "Schillers und Fichtes Briefwechsel aus dem Nachlassen des Erstern" in 1847 by I. H. Fichte (pp. 70-75). This justifies the reprint. Schiller probably sent it to Goethe to read through, and it was neglected to be returned, so that it remained among Goethe's papers. Consequently, what is printed here is the final version, whereas what I. H. Fichte published can only have been taken from the brouillon, which the editor may have revised in a few places. What left the large audience cold about the play, indeed downright repulsed them: the fact that a high art form had eradicated all materiality attracted Fichte as well as Schiller (cf. his letter of August 18, ı803 to Wilhelm von Humboldt). What classical aesthetics (namely Schiller in his "aesthetic letters") demanded: The eradication of interest in the depicted event by elevating it to the pure enjoyment of what the artistic imagination has made of it, Fichte saw fulfilled here. He therefore also wanted to advise against any shortening of the play. On July 28, 1803 (correspondence I. p.67) Goethe writes to Zelter that he would like to "shorten some scenes which must seem long, even if they are excellently acted". To this Zelter replied on August 10: "Fichte does not agree with an abridgment of The Natural Daughter; he believes the play is whole, round and can only suffer by abbreviation." The philosopher regarded the art form as the only decisive factor, while the poet wanted to count on the taste of the audience. Fichte demanded to a far greater extent than Goethe that the public should be educated to enjoy the highest aesthetic productions. The fulfillment of ideal demands was his first priority. If the public did not exist for this, then in his opinion it had to be improved. Goethe was inclined to bring people closer to art; Fichte wanted to transform people according to the ideas he considered right.

I was commissioned to annotate these letters by Bernhard Suphan, who had already worked through them beforehand and provided me with his notes on the points of view from which the documents are to be viewed, as well as on various individual points.

Fichte to Goethe

I.

Honored man,

I looked for you soon after your departure to give you the first sheet I had just finished. I did not find you; and I am sending what I would have preferred to hand over.

Philosophy has not yet reached its goal as long as the results of reflective abstraction do not yet conform to the purest spirituality of feeling. I regard you, and have always regarded you, as the representative of the latter at the presently attained stage of humanity. Philosophy rightly turns to you: your feeling is the same touchstone.

The correctness of my system is vouched for, among other things, by the intimate concatenation of all with one, and one with all, which I have not produced, but which already exists; as well as the immense fertility, which surpasses all expectation, and which I have just as little introduced myself; so that it has very often astonished and enthralled me. Both are not discovered at the beginning of science, but only gradually, as one progresses in it.

I do not know whether I am still recommending a clearer presentation. This much I know, that I could raise it to a higher, and to any clarity, if the necessary time were given: - but I have, with my public lectures, at least three printed sheets a week to work with, other business accounted for; and therefore expect indulgence.

I hoped - perhaps because I longed for it - to see myself united with you in one work. I do not know whether I can still hope so. At least a few days ago Mr. Schiller had not yet made up his mind. Schiller had not yet made up his mind.

I am with true admiration

Your most devotedJ. G. Fichte
Jena, d. 2x. Jun. 1794

II

Most venerable patron and friend,

In my last letter I merely claimed the friendship of this noble man and great spirit; I believed

not to be able to claim your political reputation within a few days.

I was informed from Weimar that "there were disgraces (to be precise, only stupidities) being bandied about that I was supposed to have presented in my lectures. My position was dangerous. A certain class had formed a formal alliance against me. The Duke hears you, and what other men there are, less often than others who belong to that alliance; I should not be so sure, for the sake of the consequences, - in short, I could be deposed before I miss it, etc., etc." I am given advice that I would certainly follow if I were Parmenio. - "I should disavow a certain anonymous writing that is attributed to me." Let someone else take the liberty of doing so; I do not consider it permissible. I will not recognize an anonymous writing either. Whoever wants to acknowledge his writings does so as soon as they are published. Those who write anonymously do not want to acknowledge them.

"I should just be careful not to touch politics for at least half a year." I don't read politics and am not called to do so. I will, of course, read natural law when it is my turn in my course, according to my convictions, I am expressly forbidden to do so, and publicly; but it will certainly not be my turn in the first year. I am acting this half year according to rules that I will always act according to; and will always act as I am acting this half year. I have no particular summer and no particular winter morality.

"I should hide so that I can do all the more good." That is Jesuit morality. I am there to do good if I can; but I may not do evil under any condition, and not even under the condition of doing good in the future.

If I consider myself completely isolated in this, I would be the last among men if I were to fear anything with my principles and with the strength with which I have grasped them, and therefore wanted to deviate from my path even by a foot's breadth. Whoever does not fear death, what under the moon should he fear? - In any case, it would be ridiculous if I were to consider these things worthy of serious consideration.

But unfortunately I am no longer isolated. The fate of several people is tied to my fate. I'm not talking about my wife. She wouldn't be if I didn't trust her with the same principles. But a 74-year-old old man, her father, is inextricably linked to her. His age requires rest; he cannot expose himself to the danger of being driven about, to which I myself may well expose myself. So the question is, and it is necessary that this question be answered in good time: Can and will the prince to whom I have entrusted myself protect me? Will he do so under the following conditions?

I will come to Weimar next Saturday and put myself in the faces of people who might have something to say to me, to see if they have enough courage to tell me what they say about me to others. I will have the 4 lectures held in public in which I am supposed to have said these foolish things, and which I am writing down verbatim with good forethought and reading out verbatim, printed verbatim at the earliest. It would be the greatest favor to me if the duke would allow me to appropriate them to him. In all truth I could assure this prince of an unlimited veneration, which all I have ever heard of him, later that he entrusted me with a lectureship at his university in the opinion which the public has now formed of me, has founded in me, and which my personal acquaintance with him has increased infinitely. It would give me great pleasure to be able to show before the whole public that I can venerate a great man, even if he is a prince; and I should believe that this prince, who can place his highest value in his humanity, could not be displeased by the assurance of a veneration which applies to the man in him, and not to the prince. - In this case, I am willing to submit to you, or to the duke himself, the writing in proof form beforehand; as well as, if requested, the dedication: although, I confess, I would be even more pleased if I were trusted to know how to behave in such a delicate matter without a preliminary examination.

I will promise, if it is required, that a certain anonymous writing shall not be continued; nay, I will even promise not to write any anonymous writing on political subjects within any time (unless self-defense makes it necessary). - That I can easily promise this and yet do what I like afterwards, since I can hope to remain undiscovered - I do not expect this objection from anyone with whom I am to negotiate. What I promise, I keep, and even if no one but myself knows that I keep it.

But in my lectures I can change nothing; and if they are not approved, they must be forbidden to me in public. I shall, and will say what I consider to be true after my best investigation; I may err; I tell my hearers daily that I may err; but I can only yield reason. (At least no one has yet even pretended to be able to refute on principle what they consider to be my errors). I will say it in its place, and in its time, i.e. : when it comes to the science I teach. In my lectures, in its own time, there will also be talk of respect for established order, etc.; and these duties will be inculcated with no less emphasis.

Under these conditions I now expect protection, and peace in Jena, at least as long as my old father-in-law lives; and I ask for the word of the bland prince about this.

May I add a few observations to show the fairness of my request. I have made no move to obtain the reputation I have received. I was known when I was called; they knew what writings were attributed to me; they knew what opinion the public had formed of me; I wrote to the proper man, and the letter must still exist, "that I had been a man rather than an academic teacher, and hoped to remain so longer, and that I was not disposed to abandon the duties of the former, and that, if that were the opinion, I must renounce the reputation I had received"; I wrote this when certain principles were spoken of.

I was warned; I was told from various places in Switzerland that they were calling me simply to get me under their control. I despised these threats; I trusted the honor of the prince who called me. He will protect me; or if He cannot do so under the conditions mentioned, at least until the appointed time, He will tell me frankly. In that case, I will write to my friends, whom I have not without forethought left behind in Switzerland, to remain where they are; and after completing my six-month lecture, I will return to my quiet private life.

Pardon the decided tone in which I have spoken. I knew that I was speaking to a man, and to a man who was kindly disposed towards me. My request would be ridiculous if it were only about me; I must fear no danger: but my reason for moving excuses me before my heart, and will excuse me before yours.

With true warm esteem

Your most sincerely devoted Fichte
Jena, June 24, 1794

III.

I can now, Venerable Privy Councillor, only express my heartfelt thanks to you and accept your kind invitation for next Saturday.

I hope you will kindly provide me with a more detailed explanation of various things that are not entirely clear to me. - I cannot defend myself, for I am not accused; I am only deliberately slandered; and slandered behind my back, and I do not know whether anyone will tell me themselves what compelled me to defend myself.

III. My public lectures have often been attended by around 500 people. Last summer I requested the Griesbach Auditorium, which has always been used for numerous meetings. Mr. G. K. R. Griesbach has since found that the benches have been worn out and he is taking it away from me with his full rights. I, likewise with my full right, ask for a public philosophical auditorium; assuming that this must be a possible place for people to stay, I go there last Sunday at 9 o'clock in the morning in the heaviest rain. I find my audience at the door, who tell me that the windows are smashed in the auditorium, that it is full of rubbish, etc., and they ask me to go to my house and read there. I go back in this heavy rain because I find their request humane; and the troop of my listeners with me. If this has made a noise in the streets, where is the fault?

IV. It will be said that the hour from 9 to ı0 falls during church meetings. - 1) Just tell me another one. It would be most unhealthy for me to read at 9 o'clock, immediately after table; I also want the open mind of my listeners for my reflections in the morning hours; not their full bellies, which have no ears. In the late afternoon and evening hours there are also church meetings, concerts and clubs. - In the early morning hours the students are still asleep because they have this only day to sleep in. 2) The city church is not for the students, but the Colleagues' Church. This is from 11 to ı2 o'clock; and that is why I did not choose this most convenient hour. From now on, I myself will be attending my colleagues' church, and perhaps some of my listeners with me. 3) The Physical Society also has its meetings on Sundays during the afternoon sermon, and I would not know that anyone has done it a crime. No doubt it has had to move its meetings to this day for the same reason, because there is no time for numerous meetings on weekdays. At our university, thank God, all hours are occupied.

From the moral point of view, however, it would have to turn every intelligent man against me if he could believe that I wanted to afflict I know not what enlightenment through this undertaking; and indeed, many among the reproachful, according to the analogy of their own small-mindedness, might believe me capable of such a thing. Such a suspicion is so ridiculous to me that I have no patience to refute it. I went to school when I was already past such enlightenment. - I went to it with difficulty before I chose Sunday. This is proved by my postponement of the opening of these lectures, notwithstanding I was very often requested by the students to do so; because I still hoped to find out an hour in the week: this is proved by my diligent repeated inquiries to several.

6 These people are not interested in either real or imaginary religion. My real crime is that I have influence and respect among students and listeners. Would that I could always read on the highest holidays, if it were before empty benches! Therefore they take every pretext to hinder me; and out of mere odio academico become old-orthodox Christians even.

My profound and complete confidence in you, my most reverend Privy Councillor, prompted me to turn to you without further formality. Notwithstanding this, I request you to make every useful use of this letter, and to regard it, in so far as it can be, as official; or to let me know most graciously what course I have to pursue in order to achieve my purpose within here and Sunday.

My mind is quite made up, by the way. Without prejudice to my honor, I cannot, after these events, secretly and in silence give myself a denial; but I will obey the law without reluctance, without remarks, with joy, like a good citizen; now, as always. -- Except in the case of the law, however, I am prepared for the utmost.

With sincere and true respect

Your most obedient servant

J. G. Fichte, Prof.
Jena, November 19, 1794

Fichte to Schiller

VIII

Berlin, February 2, 1800

Thank you, my dear friend, for the prospects you have opened up for me and for literature.

Without being able to present a specific plan, my thoughts for a critical institute were as follows.

Science in general, it seems to me, must be taken under strict supervision as soon as possible, if the few good seeds that have been sown are not to perish in a short time among the abundant weeds that are springing up. In the field of the first science, philosophy, which should help all others out of their confusion, the old sermon is being chattered away as if nothing had ever been remembered against it, and the new is being twisted so that it is no longer at all like itself. Fortunately one is so cowardly that one is frightened and pulls oneself together as soon as someone seriously rebukes the mischief, but drives it away again as soon as the supervision seems to fall asleep. I think it very possible, by two or three years of continued severe criticism, to silence the babblers in the field of philosophy and make way for the better ones. Now that it is possible, it must be done.

In order to have a firm point, I am currently working on a new exposition of the doctrine of science, which I hope will be so clear that anyone with a scientific mind will be able to understand it. I will continue to observe and report on what it does in the scientific literature. I shall spread myself over the whole field of science as far as my own ability and collaborators, whom a similar attitude will gradually bring to us, allow, without claiming universality. What cannot be done thoroughly must rather be omitted.

I am thinking of beginning with a report on the present state of German literature, in which I would like to highlight the rotten

spots of it, - the factory-like operation of writing by booksellers and authors, the ridiculousness of the reviewing institutes, the miserable motives for writing, etc., and make suggestions for improvement. In this report, I will state the critical measures of our institute from a scientific point of view. I will submit it in manuscript to your and Goethe's judgment.

I do not presume to judge what can be done from the side of criticism in art, in which we now know what is important through Goethe's and your example and through some quite good philosophers of modern philosophy. It falls to you both to decide what the most necessary lessons are for the art disciples of our time, and how these must be illustrated by the phenomena of the time. Goethe, in his Propylaea and other of his latest writings, has also set up models in this respect. Universality, I believe, should not be the intention here either, but only to say what is necessary now.

Schelling insists that a scientific journal by both of us should begin at Easter next year and, as I cannot deliver anything by then, has offered to provide the first part himself. Since, however, I am also of the opinion that immediately after the appearance of an elementary philosophy, which claims to be generally comprehensible, the supervision must begin and one must observe the first statements, I will join in immediately afterwards. If it is not possible for you and Goethe to join so soon, let us at least hope for a later union. The former will then only be allowed to enter into a scientific institute, will be given a different title, etc.

I have no doubt that Cotta should not eagerly accept the proposal. Would you not have the kindness to suggest to me what conditions I should demand for you and Goethe

if you would not prefer to negotiate with him directly in his own time.

I enclose two copies of my latest writing for you and Goethe, both in Cotta's name and mine. This writing makes no pretensions at all and was prompted by the occasional silly conversations that I had to listen to around me about the subject in question.

I beg your pardon for including the destiny of man, which is no longer a novelty.

Live well with yours, enjoy the best of health and keep me dear.

All yours, Fichte

IX.

Berlin, August 18, 1803

One point of this letter to you, my venerable friend, was addressed by Hr. Zelter in a letter to Hırrr. G. R. Goethe, and I hastily accepted the commission, although I suspect that Goethe was more concerned with Zeiters judgment than with a judgment at all. The second concerns my affair; and I beg your pardon for interrupting you with it. I would have written about it either to the Government Councillor (not Privy Councillor, as Z. wrote to Goethe by mistake) Voigt, who has already been kind in the matter, or to D. Niethammer, if I did not doubt whether the former was already back from his journey to Dresden, and suspected that the latter was also absent. I am writing about this on a separate sheet so that it can be communicated to Mr. Voigt or, in the event of his absence, to another legal friend whom you or Goethe are interested in my matter; I am only asking and imploring you and Goethe here not to let your interest in this matter tire yet, so that what has happened so far does not merely accelerate the loss of it, as Mr. Salzmann's reply suggests. The matter seems fair to me, it seems to me to be of general example, and I would like you and Goethe to find an hour to read through my enclosed instructions together, which are of course initially calculated for the comprehension of an advocate and are therefore somewhat too clear.

I have seen Goethe's "Natural Daughter" twice, since it was performed here, with all my attention, and I believe that I have risen to every possible view of the work through this medium. As much as I have revered and loved Goethe's Iphigenia, Tasso and, from another subject, Hermann and D., and have hardly thought anything higher possible, I prefer this work to all his others and consider it the master's highest masterpiece to date. It is as clear as light and just as unfathomable, drawing itself together vividly in each of its parts into absolute unity, at the same time melting into infinity, like the latter. This strictly organic connection makes it quite impossible for me to think of or want to do without any part of it. What is not yet fully explained in the first part, as the mysterious hints of a hidden relationship between the duke and his son, both of them, and still other, secret machinations, undoubtedly prepare the future and already fill the mind with a wonderful shiver.

There is no doubt that a work of this depth and simplicity at the same time should be grasped and represented in its inner spirit by any existing company of actors. But the right spectator should see the ideal of the representation through the limitations of the representation and the work through this. This is the path I have had to take, and it seems to me the right one for dramatic works of art. Hence it may be that Zelter, who began by reading and from this formed his own idealized representation, was less frugal in seeing the real than I, who otherwise cannot boast of great frugality. - Now to the common spectator this elevation above the narrowness of the representation is first of all expected - in the case of common works he is relieved of it, where the representation and the matter, because both are common and shallow, coincide very properly - furthermore, he is expected to pay strict attention for 2 to 3 hours, because the whole is a whole, and he does not understand any part if he does not understand all - whereas in the case of common plays he can be absent, if he wants to, and again pay attention if he wants to, and yet always a whole grain of sand, - happily encounters - finally, he is suspected of a completely lacking sense for the internal in man, and the plot that takes place on this stage - therefore the management, city and court believe that there is no plot in the last two acts of this work, and indeed Goethe would have had no plot for these two acts, through the simple narration: Eugenia gives her hand to a councillor of justice, could have spared - all these graces, it is understandable with what faces they are received. For my part, however, the older I grow, and the more some stupidity presses me here every day, and the more masterpieces they send us from there, the more I am strengthened in the merciless opinion that the highest, and only the highest, should be brought before the eyes of the public, without all pity for boredom, and discomfort of uneducation, that one should not patch up the bad and attach the good to it, God willing, but destroy it purely and create the good purely, and that it will never get better with the bad until one takes no further notice of the fact that the bad exists.

Among the actors, in my opinion, Madame Fleck as Eugenie won the prize by far. Her acting was particularly enthusiastic and inspiring in the second act, in the expression of joyful expectation in the sonnet, in the poetic fantasy that followed - then when she put on the jewels, when her aristocratic, generous disposition came to the fore, and so on. She did not actually spoil anything that I remember. Ifland portrayed the tender father very well, especially in the third act, the one melting in the thought of the believed loss, and made a powerful impression on his audience: but it always remained a tender father from one of his mountain family plays: the nobility of the first vassal, secret husband of the proud princess, father of the high daughter, the importance of the darkly threatening star on the political horizon of this realm, were lost - not to the detriment of the play, as it seems to me, with the true spectator; for whoever knows Ifflanden besides, will not take him for identical with such a person, and at the poet's hint will gladly supplant dignity, and majesty, and depth. Mattausch, as king, was quite handsome. Bessel (who otherwise plays insignificant roles) also deserves mention as a clergyman. He did not play without strength; and the favorable spectator might attribute some roughness in his behavior to the village life of the spiritual lord. Bethmann, as a court physician, did not play carelessly, as he has been accused of, but what can be made of this clumsy, monotonous organ? Herdt, as a monk, did not allow his nature to set the accents as natural breathing requires; yet one understood him completely, and one could now speak the role differently and correctly. Beschart played the Governor smoothly and gallantly, as is his manner; and this did the role no harm. The part of the court mistress was given to a singer, Madame Schiel, who, out of a very laudable caution for the time when her singing voice might come to an end, wanted to concentrate on recitation. She brought the gesticulation from the opera theater, but she was not allowed to sing, and she could not speak. I think I have guessed the intention and meaning of this role, but I did not hear the words either time; therefore, there is a gap in my knowledge. No Goethean character can be made out of Schwadke's - who played the secretary - thorough shallowness. This man would have to be exiled entirely to the English conversation pieces.

Another anecdote that was very edifying and instructive for me. The role of the nun was played the first day by Madame Herdt, who behaved in such a way that the audience burst out laughing - and this time with perfect justification. How does the management help itself on the second day? Well, it leaves out this role completely - only one of the useless characters, it might think, who appear in the last two acts - (how first, in increasing fear, all means of salvation must be tried before the last strange one is resorted to, and how, in addition, all the estates of the kingdom approaching its downfall are to be passed before the spectator's eyes according to their least spirit, such judges certainly do not realize), - but leaves the role of Eugenia unchanged; in such a way that now the daring glance into the companion's violent letter takes place without an intermediary and directly upon the refusal to see it, for fear of seeing one of the two beloved names. Let Goethe now learn from this how to do it in order to make the plot, so often hesitant in his works, proceed more quickly!

One question: how does the author conceive the external representation of the nation in the group, this chorus, from which its individual representatives wriggle free and intertwine themselves in the plot? (which, in passing, local people do not grasp either, and in the Ungersche Zeitung, for example, it is said that they come and disappear like idle strollers). Should at least a beginning of the immeasurable life and activity really be visible, which the imagination now continues into the infinite; or should the spectator see this heap as if with the eye of fantasy? In the performance here, it was only towards the end of the fourth act, when Eugenia was preparing to call the people, that two or three ragged fellows suddenly carried a suitcase of student's goods and a few small bales decorated with merchant's signs to the back of the stage, which remained empty of living beings for the rest of the time. This seemed to me either too much or too little. Am I right or wrong?

Since I mentioned in my last letter that the "Auspochen" were at the first performance, I would like to correct this - for I myself would not like to accuse the Berlin crowd of more evil than is true - the following: it is quite notorious that Schadow ordered the "Auspocher", properly recruited and organized them beforehand. I am writing this to you for any use, if you do not already know it, for it is common knowledge; only I would not like to be the one who would have written it to you. It is also claimed that Ifland, not Woltmann, is the author of the recently mentioned assessment in the Ungersche Zeitung. Similarly, both historical partisanship for good and bad.

I commend myself to your benevolence.

Yours sincerely, Fichte

There are two requirements that the creations of the human spirit must satisfy, like flowers, if they are to give us pleasure: they must be genuine and fresh. Fake truth, i.e. baseless assertion, and fake beauty, i.e. unnatural, elaborate art, are as repugnant to us as an artificial rose. But even if they are genuine, truth and beauty, they lose their appeal as soon as they have grown old and approval and recognition are only paid to them out of habit. The reasons for truth have the best effect on us when the psychological process by which they have found their way into our minds is still like a present experience in us. We not only want to have the truths in our consciousness, but our convictions should also have the after-effects of the difficulties through which they were acquired. A beautiful work of art that does not affect us with immediate, elemental power, but to which our sense has been directed for a long time, loses the gripping effect that a creation has when we first confront it with our eyes and open our ears.

Therefore, from time to time, our whole being needs refreshing. Our spiritual stock must be thrown back into chaos. What has been considered truth for centuries must be doubted and proven anew. What has been admired as beauty for ages must put up with blasé indifference. Nothing can be done about it; that is the fate of the human spirit. Radical destroyers of cultural achievements, spirits who want to start again in all things, will inevitably appear from time to time.

One of the most radical of these spirits is Friedrich Nietzsche. What he had printed makes the face of every logical and conscientious philistine soul red with shame. You can boldly take one of his books and write down the opposite of every sentence; then you will come up with roughly what most people besides Nietzsche call "true" and "right". The current followers of the daring doubter may not hold this assertion against me. After all, they would never have arrived at Nietzsche's views of their own accord; they speak and write after him; so they need not feel hurt in their deepest self. After all, many would be quite good philistines if they were not Nietzscheans.

Friedrich Nietzsche questions everything. He not only doubts whether this or that is true, but also asks whether truth is a goal worth striving for at all. He declares war not only on moral prejudices, but on morality as a whole. He not only wants to educate people to live out the purest, most absolute human personality; no, he wants to overcome the prejudice of "man" himself and lead them to the "superman", who has stripped away everything that limits and restricts "man". Nietzsche did not arrive at a vivid image of this "superman". In his "Zarathustra", he fantasized about the superman in sometimes poetically glorious images and aphorisms; he said a lot about what the "superman" would not be and what he would not have in himself: but the thinker-Icaros was not able to bring it to the positive establishment of this future ideal. Anyone who surveys the many variations in which Nietzsche elaborated his theme will find that the supreme law emerges from them all: man has only the single task of ruthlessly bringing the sum of his personality to bear as strongly as possible and as far as possible. Live as you can best and most fully assert yourself. That is Nietzsche's first basic rule. What you can do, do. The "will to power" is therefore the leitmotif of all life. Nietzsche calls slave morality anything that allows itself to be restricted by any moral principles in the development of its sovereign ego. Only the master morality that says "yes" in moral matters, not because it thinks it is "good", but because it wants to, because it can best assert its individual power in this way, is worthy of humanity. These "yes-men" are Nietzsche's ideal people. All the other slave souls, who have no purpose of their own, are there for their sake. They are the "good ones" and they have the right to call the actions of others "bad" because they want to and because they have the right master consciousness. But these others are too weak to say an equally forceful "yes". They withdraw from the scene of action to that of conscience; they judge men's actions not by the power they bring, but by their moral feelings. Nietzsche believes that this reverses all moral standards. Only weak, mentally crippled people accept such a point of view. They have to suffer a lot in life because they do not have enough strength to enjoy the pleasures of action. They therefore also feel for the suffering of their fellow human beings. Compassion enters their souls. The man with the master consciousness does not know compassion, he has only contempt for the weak and the sick. They are the "bad" to him, while he is the strong, the healthy, the good. Those who are weak, however, turn the tables. They call an action "good" if it causes as little suffering and as much good as possible for their fellow human beings. Where an action impairs the well-being of another person, where it is intended to bring its bearer to power at the expense of another, they call it "evil". "Good" and "evil" are the basic concepts of slave morality, just as "good" and "bad" are those of master morality. Selflessness wants the former, ruthless assertion of the latter. Nietzsche sees it as the basic characteristic and the main deficiency of Western culture that, through the spread of Christianity with its glorification of compassion and selflessness, all master consciousness has disappeared, that slave morality has become the general attitude. "Beyond good and evil" is therefore what Nietzsche wants to fix the moral standpoint of the future; the compassionate rabble with its poor man's odor and the selfless mob with its morally sour attitude are to be thoroughly put a stop to. A true Nietzschean does not like to go where there are many people, because it smells of conscience. That is why Zarathustra-Nietzsche flees from people and goes into solitude. Nietzsche recommends that people grow moral calluses so that they can confidently step on the suffering of their fellow brothers without being tormented by compassion. That those without such calluses are crushed underneath: what does it matter to the oppressors. After all, their master tells them: "Become hard".

Truly, one must not be slow of mind if one is to follow such trains of thought. Anyone who still feels a little discipline in his consciousness will soon fall behind Nietzsche. I felt it was a matter of theoretical honor to follow him everywhere. Sometimes I felt as if my brain were detaching itself from its ground, sometimes the finest fibers of it began to fidget; I thought I could feel them resisting having to leave the positions inherited from all the forefathers so suddenly. But perhaps the primordial ground of things is so difficult to reach that we cannot get to it at all if we do not want to put our brains at risk! Of course, Dr. Hermann Türck, who explains Nietzsche's "hyper-morality" simply in terms of moral madness, does not think this way. To presuppose perverse moral instincts in order to explain the erroneous nature of a moral standpoint objectively from its bearer is a little too Nietzschean for me. Nietzsche, however, explains the moral doctrines of the individual philosophers as merely a paraphrase, a cloaking and dressing up of the instincts that reign in their organic depths. But one should not pay this man with his own coins. He covers them with a very thin layer of an elusive precious metal. If we take them in our "poor man's" smelling hands, the magic layer immediately disappears. Türck is therefore not satisfied with this refutation; he shows the necessity of selfless action, the moral necessity of compassion. He proves how necessary both are for the foundation of a true state and the social coexistence of people. But why all this? Anyone who reads Nietzsche and seriously immerses themselves in him does not need a theoretical refutation to get back on track, but several weeks of healthy mountain air and many cold baths. Those who do not read it do not need to be refuted. But those who only half-read it and then repeat it cannot be refuted. It's not even necessary, they will remain healthy cultural giants and their environment will have something to laugh about.

However, Nietzsche should not be bottled. All flavor is lost on this occasion and stale stuff remains. Nietzsche's creations evaporate quickly. That is why we cannot like the book: "Die Weltanschauung Friedrich Nietzsches" by Dr. Hugo Kaatz. Who is to be served by such compilations of Nietzsche's sayings? At most the third category of people just mentioned. But one should not write books to promote Nietzschegigerltum. Enough of Nietzsche's own views and those of those whose heads he seriously twisted in order to turn up the intellectual pants of the interested parties seeps through. We have had enough of Nietzsche himself. So no more of excerpts from his works.

The latest publication from Nietzsche's estate.

Nietzsche's students eagerly awaited the fourth part of the master's magnum opus: "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". Now it has been published: the conclusion of the most profound of all superficial books. Forgive me, you followers of a new idol, for uttering such sacrilegious words! But you also become too ponderous when Nietzsche is mentioned. Where are the light legs, the dancing legs that Nietzsche wanted to cultivate in you! Dance before this Zarathustra instead of kneeling before him! I have no incense for Nietzsche. I also know that he doesn't like the smell of sacrifice. He prefers smiling faces to praying ones. And I often had to laugh while reading this Zarathustra. For what is this fourth part talking about? Zarathustra wants to overcome man. It is not this or that weakness, not this or that vice of mankind that Zarathustra wants to overcome, but mankind itself is to be stripped away so that the age of the superhuman may appear. Zarathustra's deed, however, which the fourth part of the book tells us about, is an utter stupidity. Hasn't this hermit, who lives in a cave, far from human prejudice and rabble-rousing, in good air with pure smells, even forgotten so much that he falls into the trap of an old soothsayer who wants to teach him the belief that all those who today call themselves "higher men" thirst for the realm of which Zarathustra dreams. It is a cry of distress that Zarathustra hears as he sits outside his cave, and the old soothsayer has arrived, whose wisdom is: "Everything is the same, nothing is worthwhile, the world is without meaning, knowledge strangles." He interprets the cry of distress as that of the higher man who wants to seek redemption from Zarathustra. And Zarathustra sets off in search of the higher man from whom the cry of distress came. He finds them one by one, all the people who consider themselves higher, better than their fellow human beings, who are disgusted by the activities of the latter, who long for something new, something better. And he invites them all to go into his cave. There they are to wait until he returns and pours new life into them. These are deep, meaningful words that Zarathustra speaks at every new encounter with a candidate for superhumanity, words: wise to the point of madness, deep to the bottom of the sea, where there is also unclean, muddy soil. The candidates are: two kings, the conscientious of spirit, the sorcerer, the pope out of office, the ugliest man, the voluntary beggar and Zarathustra's own shadow. Each of these figures represents a distorted image of some bearer of a one-sided cultural endeavor within which man can find no satisfaction. They have all broken with their past, with the views and habits of their surroundings and are searching for a new salvation. They did not find it on their way. So they set out on their journey to Zarathustra's dwelling, so that the great longing within them might be satisfied. After the many encounters (eight "higher people" had come, these make with the donkey that the two kings had brought with them and with the soothsayer ten) and especially after the many spiritual conversations, Zarathustra feels tired and he falls asleep just at noon. He lies under a tree entwined with a vine. And as he sleeps, it passes by him in a dream, the great moment in which he sees the world perfect, he revels in bliss. "What happened to me: Listen! Did time fly away? Did I not fall? Did I not fall - hark! into the fountain of eternity?

- What is happening to me? Silence! It stabs me - woe - in the heart? In the heart! Oh break, break, heart, after such happiness, after such a sting!

-- How? Was the world not just perfect?"

The Lord gives it to his own in sleep, otherwise it applies only to bare innocence. The fact that the superman also has such innocent tendencies may be a comfort to all the simple-minded and poor in spirit, for they will not be excluded from his kingdom. Since Zarathustra has had a good night's sleep, he sets off home to greet his guests. What takes place here is a kind of Zarathustra banquet. The host makes the main toast. He speaks only of "higher people", what they are and what they are not. They must not believe that they are already citizens of the new kingdom. They could never become such. They could only form the bridge, the transition to the realm of the superhuman. Again, these are beautiful words that Zarathustra speaks before he toasts with his friends to the good of the superman. One would like some of his sayings to become proverbs: "What the mob has learned to believe without reasons, who could overthrow it with reasons?

And on the market one convinces with gestures. But reasons make the mob suspicious.

And once the truth has triumphed, ask yourselves with good suspicion: "What strong error has fought for them?"

Beware of the scholars! They hate you: for they are barren! They have cold withered eyes, before them every bird lies unfeathered."

Or: "Want nothing over your wealth: there is a terrible falsity in those who want over their wealth.

Especially when they want great things! For they arouse mistrust of great things, these fine counterfeiters and actors:

- until at last they are false to themselves, shifty-eyed, whitewashed worm-eating, disguised by strong words, by displaying virtues, by shining false works."

Or: "Powerlessness to lie is far from love for the truth." - When Zarathustra had finished, he went outside. He longed for purer smells. These "higher people" obviously still brought with them much of the smell of poor people that Nietzsche hated so much. The guests remained alone and discussed Zarathustra's table and future wisdom. After a while, a noise arose in the cave. Zarathustra heard it from outside and was delighted. For now, he thought, all the heavy and sultry outlook on life had gone from these transitional people; they had learned to laugh. Laughter - in the sense of Zarathustra - means that one has shed the ideals of humanity, that one has overcome them and is no longer saddened by their unattainability. Faust, as Goethe portrayed him, is still deeply rooted in human prejudices. The main prejudice is Faust's basic idea: "never will I say to the moment: linger, you are so beautiful". Zarathustra wants to hold on to every moment, to squeeze as much pleasure and bliss out of it as there is in it. For Zarathustra considers it folly to want to buy the bliss of the future through deprivation in the present. Zarathustra is also a Faust, but one transformed into his opposite. Zarathustra would have to say to Mephistopheles: could the moment ever come that I do not fully enjoy, to which I do not say: bloom eternally, for you are so beautiful, then you have already made me unconditional. Full of this wisdom, Zarathustra believes his transitional people when he hears the cry from the cave; and he goes in. But what must he see! The most abominable, most ridiculous idolatry. All the enlightened spirits worship the donkey that the two kings brought with them! Zarathustra has taken away their ideals; they can no longer lie in the dust before them. But their spirits have forgotten how to stand upright; they are too much like dust. So instead of their ideals, they worship the donkey. This is Zarathustra's great folly. He believed these people to be ripe for his transitional stage, and they have become idolaters because they should not be idealists. But they are now happy. That is enough for Zarathustra. He prefers it when people laugh and dance in front of a donkey than when they become melancholy over unattainable ideals. Also a taste!

But I find it distasteful that Zarathustra has not yet overcome even the most petty vanity, that his ear is still open to words of flattery such as the ugliest man speaks: "Was this - life? For Zarathustra's sake, well and good! One more time!" - -

Because now Zarathustra feels so flattered that he interprets to his guests the profound night-walker song that expresses the sum of his wisdom. And the same people who have just worshipped the donkey are now to grasp the profound meaning of the following words:

O, man! Take heed! What does the deep midnight speak?
"I slept, I slept -,
From a deep dream I have awakened:
The world is deep,
And deeper than the day thought.
Deep is its woe,
Lust - deeper even than heartache:
Sorrow speaks: Pass away! But all lust wants eternity -,
- wants deep, deep eternity!"

They didn't understand, of course. For they had fallen asleep and were still asleep when Zarathustra had long since risen to enjoy the new morning. At last he finds: "Well, they are still asleep, these higher men, while I am awake: these are not my true companions; I do not wait for them in my mountains." He called his animals: the eagle and the snake. Then a wonderful thing happens: Zarathustra is surrounded by a flock of birds and a lion lies at his feet, a laughing lion. "To all of them Zarathustra spoke only one word: "My children are near, my children -." Only now did Zarathustra realize that he had been taken in by the soothsayer. The same had tempted him to his last sin: to pity the higher man!" - "and his face turned to ore".

So Zarathustra had sat up.

A mind of such bold, grotesque thought as Friedrich Nietzsche's must necessarily evoke contradictory feelings in those who study it closely and lovingly. His unconditional admirers certainly understand the least of his proud ideas. But Kurt Eisner does not belong in this category. His admiration does not silence the contradiction that arises from his own significant individuality; not even the irony that Nietzsche's one-sidedness provokes. Alongside ruthlessly approving sentences such as: "Nietzsche's Zarathustra is only a work of art like Faust", or: "The songs of Zarathustra flow broadly and powerfully like Wagner's streams of music. Philosophy is here set to music, thought to sound, not evaporated, no, reheated", others say: "Nietzsche is a true reactionary, because his forward is a backward. And because he is a reactionary, the future will spurn him", or: "Nietzsche's doctrine rests on rotten ground, through his own fault". Eisner is quite sympathetic to Nietzsche's noble way of thinking, but not to its anti-democratic character. The development of the select few should not be bought at the price of the oppression and stultification of large masses. Eisner wanted to aristocratize the masses. "True aristocratism is only possible with true altruism." "Democracy must become a pan-aristocracy." In contrast to Nietzsche, Eisner wanted the community to be placed above the individual. "The herd instinct is health, the ego instinct is degeneration." Eisner counters Nietzsche's motto: "Get tough!" with "Get soft!". The former corresponds to the ruthless "through" of the individual's power content, the latter to the selfless striving of the personality, which also respects the person in the other individual as an equal.

With such a penetrating understanding of Nietzsche, with such an unbiased critique of the thinker-poet, Eisner's judgment of the "Nietzsche-affinity" can of course only be a completely devastating one. Nowhere has the herd-like nature of a following taken on such a characteristic character as in the Nietzsche herd. The contempt for the herd-like has become a wild herd roar. There has never been a more droll following than Nietzsche's. They, these howlers, do not know what the value of the master's works lies in. The secret lies in the fact that illnesses and deformities stimulate thought more than full, fresh health. The diseases of the mind make important contributions to psychology. The charm of Nietzsche's ideas lies in the abnormal guise in which they appear. Through outward appearances one becomes aware of many things that one would otherwise pass by. This is what happened to me with Nietzsche's ideas. Most of their content did not seem new to me. I had already formed it in me before I got to know Nietzsche. But as I went through Nietzsche's mind, these ideas seemed to me distorted, caricatured. A flow of thought that was healthy in itself had to force its way through a rocky cliff that did violence to its calm course. Nietzsche was never a philosophical problem for me, but always a psychological one.

Because this is my position on the strangest spirit of modern times, I must describe Kurt Eisner's writing as very sympathetic to me and recommend it to the widest circle of readers, even if I cannot agree with some of what it contains.

"They also want to improve mankind in their own way, in their own image; they would make an irreconcilable war against what I am, what I want, provided that they understood." Such words were directed by Friedrich Nietzsche against the army of staid philistines who, like the backward intellectual theologian David Strauss, wanted to preach a new gospel to the flat-headed free spirits. Now, however, they have also come up against him, the "philistines of education", and are measuring him by their own standards. No sooner have we choked down one of the writings that bring us a philistine opinion about Nietzsche than a new one appears - and we can't get out of our stomach upset. And if we can't get into the habit of simply skimming over all the stuff that is printed in our newspapers and magazines about Nietzsche: then - woe betide our stomachs.

We, who are brave enough to say "yes" to Nietzsche's desire to purify psychology, history and nature, social institutions and sanctions from the thousand-year-old prejudices and old wives' feelings of theology - we suffer from the current Nietzsche literature.

To all the Nietzsche interpreters who have told us their wisdom about the great anti-mystic, anti-idealist and immoralist in short or long arguments, to the brave woman Lou Salome, to the critical muddlehead Franz Servaes, to Zerbst, who would like to make Nietzsche a seeker of God, and to all the others who talk about Nietzsche without ever having felt a whiff of his spirit, has now been joined by Mr. Hans Gallwitz. "Friedrich Nietzsche, a portrait of his life" is the title of a book that appears in a "series" with other books. Heinrich von Stephan, Alfred Krupp and Fridtjof Nansen have also been described in biographical writings belonging to this series.

Mr. Hans Gallwitz talks about Nietzsche in many ways. He prefers to move in those areas of the immoralist's teachings in which he can find a echoing of Nietzsche's sentences with those of the Apostle Paul; and then he says something like this: what a pity that Nietzsche did not understand the Apostle Paul; he could then have expressed so many things better with the words of this teacher of faith than with his own. Mr. Hans Gallwitz would prefer to make Nietzsche a follower of the Apostle Paul altogether... But what is it to me that Mr. Hans Gallwitz has such an attachment to the Apostle Paul!

I don't want to fight the Apostle Paul; I just want to point out some of Mr. Hans Gallwitz's heartfelt convictions to show how far removed this Nietzsche interpreter is from the teachings of the one he wants to describe.

In essence, Mr. Hans Gallwitz is most annoyed by the godlessness of Friedrich Nietzsche. He cannot help but admit this quite openly: "Nietzsche opposes his doctrine of the creative to any world view based on belief in God. Belief in God and free creation are mutually exclusive. "What would there be to create if there were gods?" " We, those who agree with Nietzsche's teachings, know quite well that God can only be a noble being, and that a noble being does not place unfree children, but free people into the world, who are called to create as masters in the world into which they are born. But Mr. Hans Gallwitz has a different opinion. He does not believe that God has placed the earth at the free disposal of men so that they create on it in his image. He believes that God has created a race of bunglers whom he has to help back on their feet again and again if they are to achieve anything decent. "The limited son of earth, whose thinking and willing only come to fruition in the orders of this earth, can only take the impulses and purposes presented to him a little further and clarify them; he cannot create anything new out of himself, cannot make a new beginning. His activity is only ever like that of the gardener who, through selfless, faithful care, extracts some new forces and values from the plants; this is not done by forcibly forcing his way in, but the creator must make himself dependent on the material that is given to him, he must also know how to reckon with its shortcomings if he wants to finish something differently." Mr. Hans Gallwitz wants to be a gardener, but Friedrich Nietzsche wants to be a creator. How could I be a gardener if the good Lord had not given me a garden to tend: says Hans Gallwitz humbly. -- "What would there be to create if there were gods?" says Friedrich Nietzsche. The gods have created a world; but they also wanted to create a being like themselves; and there they created man, who now continues to create. But they have withdrawn, and only when man wants to create a supreme ideal for himself does he call it God, because he finds the only God in himself, says Nietzsche. The gods have created henchmen for themselves, who go astray every moment, and who cannot create, but can only extract some new powers and values from the plants "through selfless, faithful care", says Mr. Hans Gallwitz.

All that is divine in man, Friedrich Nietzsche wanted to awaken in man, so that he might become a creator, just as God himself is a creator; Mr. Hans Gallwitz wants to squeeze all that is divine out of man, so that he might become a gardener, "who through selfless, faithful care extracts some new powers and values from the plants".

Mr. Hans Gallwitz opposes his view of "man as gardener" to Nietzsche, who proclaimed the doctrine of "man as creator". With his book, Mr. Hans Gallwitz has only shown that he would have done better to read the letters of the Apostle Paul than the writings of Nietzsche. Yet - he knows the former! He could well have occupied himself with some work more useful to him in the time he was reading Nietzsche's works; and if, instead of giving us a book on Nietzsche, he had planted fruit or turnips - then he would have been a better gardener.

I bid farewell to the gardener Hans Gallwitz. He may take comfort from my mockery. He has been praised in the "Preußische Jahrbücher". And the "Preußische Jahrbücher" are a respected organ. The same gentleman praised him there who, in a previous issue, could not refrain from mocking Nietzsche himself. In the same Jahrbücher whose editor accompanied the insipid drivel of Hertn "Brand" with the words that he was only interested in Nietzsche as a literary phenomenon.

Today there will only be a few people who are in Friedrich Nietzsche's camp: People who stand by him because they can understand him. It will be up to them to keep a faithful watch against the advances of all those who want to exploit him in the service of some traditional views. For Friedrich Nietzsche is the most modern spirit we have. But we guardians of Nietzsche will perhaps need sharp weapons. We will have them and know how to wield them. For we have learned to fence from Nietzsche; and he is a good fencing master.

Friedrich Nietzsche is currently staying in Weimar. No wonder that in this "educated" city a brave citizen feels the need to immerse himself in the philosopher's teachings. He wants to know in which order he should read his writings. What does he do? He turns to the "Berliner Tageblatt". The paper gave him the following information in its January 28, 1900 issue: "You ask in which order you should read the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche in order to gain a deeper understanding of this not exactly easy-to-understand leading mind. We advise you to start with the biography of Nietzsche by Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, as his tragic life is the best key to his world of thought. Then read some of the "Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtungen" (on Schopenhauer, on the benefits and disadvantages of history, on the origin of tragedy, on Richard Wagner); and then the two complementary major studies: Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil. After these systematic works by the healthy Friedrich Nietzsche, you may turn to the volumes of aphorisms by the ailing and sick philosopher, roughly in the following order: Dawn, The Human-All Too Human, Joyful Science, Antichrist and last but not least his greatest creation, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the understanding of which presupposes an exact familiarity with the intellectual structure of the man. Once you have traveled this arduous but certainly rewarding path, let all the impressions you have received come to an end by reading his "Collected Poems."

These lines are symptomatic of the bottomless illiteracy and ignorance with which the makers of our newspapers are endowed, and at the same time of the boundless carelessness with which they view their profession. For anyone with their eyes open, this is of course a fact as well known as the fact that the sun rises every morning. It seems, however, that there are still many naive people who think it possible to appeal to the superficiality of newspapermen on such an important question as the above. The gentleman who wrote the above note talks like someone who knows something about Nietzsche. He does not know the slightest thing about him. For he does not even know in what order Nietzsche wrote his books. The person in Weimar in need of knowledge should first read: some untimely reflections and then the great studies: Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil, because in these systematic writings the healthy Nietzsche still speaks; then the volumes of aphorisms of the sick Nietzsche should follow: Dawn, Human-All Too Human, etc. Now "Menschliches-Allzumenschliches" was published in 1878, "Morgenröte" in 1881, "Genealogie der Moral" in 1887 and "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" in 1888. The scholar of the "Berliner Tageblatt" considers the works published in the last year before his illness to be the earlier ones; he considers the collection of aphorisms "Menschliches-Allzumenschliches", published in 1878, i.e. 6 years after the beginning of Nietzsche's writing career, to be a work by Nietzsche who was already ill. Poor questioner in Weimar! In the end, you are naïve enough to stick with your newspaper editor. Why don't you ask him how you should study mathematics? He will answer: First you have to learn integral calculus, then differential calculus, then trigonometry, then you will be sufficiently prepared to learn the multiplication tables. That's what it looks like in the minds of newspaper publishers!!!

Open Letter to Herr Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Editor of the Magazine for Literature

Dear Herr Dr. Steiner!

More urgently than ever in the last years, the request of my friends reaches me in these days to take a position anew against the “tactics of violence,” so as not to see my name thrown together with those “anarchists” who are — no anarchists, but one and all revolutionary communists. People are pointing out to me that as a foreigner I am running a danger, in the event of the international measure of an interment of the “anarchists,” of being dismissed from Germany.

I refuse to follow the advice of my friends. No government is so blind and so foolish as to proceed against a person who participates in public life solely through his writings and does so in the sense of a reshaping of conditions without bloodshed. Besides, for years I have unfortunately lost almost all outer contact with the social movement in Europe, whose outer development, by the way, no longer claims my interest in the same degree as the spiritual progress of the idea of equal freedom in the heads of individuals, which is the only thing all hope for the future still rests upon.

In 1891, in my work The Anarchists (in both editions now published by K. Henckell & Co. in Zurich and Leipzig), in the 8th chapter, entitled “The Propaganda of Communism,” I took a position with Auban against the “propaganda of the deed,” so sharply and unambiguously that there cannot be the slightest doubt as to how I think about it. I just reread the chapter for the first time in five years and have nothing to add to it; I could not today say better and more clearly what I think of the tactics of the communists, and their dangerousness in every respect. If since then a portion of the German communists has been convinced of the harmfulness and pointlessness of every violent proceeding, then I claim an essential part in this service of enlightenment.

Also, I am not in the habit of repeating myself, and moreover, for years I have been occupied with an extensive project, in which I am trying to approach psychologically all questions pertaining to the individual and his position toward the state.

Finally, in the seven years since the appearance of my work, the situation has, after all, changed drastically, and one knows today, wherever one wants to know it, and not only in the circles of experts, that not only in respect of tactics but also in all fundamental questions of world view, there are unbridgeable contrasts between the anarchists who are anarchists and those who falsely so call themselves and are called, and that apart from the wish for an improvement and reshaping of social conditions, the two have nothing, but nothing whatsoever, in common.

Whoever still doesn’t know it can learn it from the leaflet by Benj. R. Tucker State Socialism and Anarchism, which he can get for 20 pfennig from the publisher B. Zack, Berlin SE, Oppelnerstraße 45, and in which he will also find a list of all the writings of individual anarchism an incomparable opportunity to increase his knowledge in an invaluable way for the price of a glass of beer.

To be sure, there is a dirty press (it strangely prefers to call itself the decent press), which continues to falsify ever anew even established facts that have become a matter of history. But any battle against it is not only pointless but degrading. It lies because it wants to lie.

With friendly greetings, your devoted

John Henry Mackay
for now, Saarbrucken, Rhine Province, Pesterstr. 4
15 September 1898.

Answer to John Henry Mackay

Dear Herr Mackay!

Four years ago, after the appearance of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, you expressed to me your agreement with my direction of ideas. I openly admit that this gave me deeply felt joy. For I have the conviction that we agree, with respect to our views, every bit as far as two natures fully independent of one another can agree. We have the same goals, even though we have worked our way through to our world of thought on quite different paths. You too feel this. A proof of this is the fact that you chose me to address the above letter to. I value being addressed by you as like-minded.

Hitherto I have always avoided using even the term “individualist anarchism” or “theoretical anarchism” for my world view. For I put very little stock in such designations. If one states one’s views clearly and positively in one’s writings: what is then the need of also designating these views with a convenient word? After all, everyone connects quite definite traditional notions with such a word, which reproduce only imprecisely what the particular personality has to say. I speak my thoughts; I characterize my goals. I myself have no need to name my way of thinking with a customary word.

If, however, I were to say, in the sense in which such things can be decided, whether the term “individualist anarchist” is applicable to me, I would have to answer with an unconditional “Yes.” And because I lay claim to this designation for myself, I too would like to say, just at this moment, with a few words, exactly what distinguishes “us,” the “individualist anarchists,” from the devotees of the so-called “propaganda of the deed.” I do know that for rational people I shall be saying nothing new. But I am not as optimistic as you, dear Herr Mackay, who simply say, “No government is so blind and foolish as to proceed against a person who participates in public life solely through his writings and does so in the sense of a reshaping of conditions without bloodshed.” You have, take no offense at me for this my only objection, not considered with how little rationality the world is governed.

Thus I would indeed like to speak once distinctly. The “individualist anarchist” wants no person to be hindered by anything in being able to bring to unfolding the abilities and forces that lie in him. Individuals should assert themselves in a fully free battle of competition. The present state has no sense for this battle of competition. It hinders the individual at every step in the unfolding of his abilities. It hates the individual. It says: I can only use a person who behaves thus and thus. Whoever is different, I shall force him to become the way I want. Now the state believes people can only get along if one tells them: you must be like this. And if you are not like that, then you’ll just have to be like that anyway. The individualist anarchist, on the other hand, holds that the best situation would result if one would give people free way. He has the trust that they would find their direction themselves. Naturally he does not believe that the day after tomorrow there would be no more pickpockets if one would abolish the state tomorrow. But he knows that one cannot by authority and force educate people to freeness. He knows this one thing: one clears the way for the most independent people by doing away with all force and authority.

But it is upon force and authority that the present states are founded. The individualist anarchist stands in enmity toward them, because they suppress liberty. He wants nothing but the free, unhindered unfolding of powers. He wants to eliminate force, which oppresses the free unfolding. He knows that at the final moment, when social democracy draws its consequences, the state will have its cannons work. The individualist anarchist knows that the representatives of authority will always reach for measures of force in the end. But he is of the conviction that everything of force suppresses liberty. That is why he battles against the state, which rests upon force and that is why he battles just as energetically against the “propaganda of the deed,” which no less rests upon measures of force. When a state has a person beheaded or locked up one can call it what one will on account of his opinion, that appears abominable to the individualist anarchist. It naturally appears no less abominable to him when a Luccheni stabs a woman to death who happens to be the Empress of Austria. It belongs to the very first principles of individualist anarchism to battle against things of that kind. If he wanted to condone the like, then he would have to admit that he does not know why he is battling against the state. He battles against force, which suppresses liberty, and he battles against it just the same when the state does violence to an idealist of the idea of freedom, as when a stupid vain youngster treacherously murders the likeable romantic on the imperial throne of Austria.

To our opponents it cannot be said distinctly enough that the “individualist anarchists” energetically battle against the so-called “propaganda of the deed.” There is, apart from the measures of force used by states, perhaps nothing as disgusting to these anarchists as these Caserios and Lucchenis. But I am not as optimistic as you, dear Herr Mackay. For I cannot usually find that speck of rationality that is, after all, required for such crude distinctions as that between “individualist anarchism” and “propaganda of the deed,” where I would like to seek it.

In friendly inclination, yours
Rudolf Steiner

Correction

One of the chiefs of the Communists, Mr. Gustav Landauer, replies in number 41 of the "Sozialisten" to John Henry Mackay's letter contained in number 39 of the "Magazin für Literatur" like someone who can do nothing but parrot his party platitudes and who regards every dissenter as a bad fellow. In Landauer's opinion, Mackay is not an opponent of violence out of principle, but because he lacks courage. Landauer betrays an intimate lack of understanding and unreserved ignorance. Thus he claims that Mackay will replace the verse "Return over the mountains, mother of freedom, revolution!" in the new edition of his "Sturm": "Stay just over the mountains, stepmother of freedom, revolution!" Now the third and fourth editions of the "Sturm" have recently been published (by K. Henckell & Co. in Zurich), enlarged but otherwise completely unchanged and unabridged. I would like to ask Mr. Landauer whether he is brazenly asserting untruths despite knowing the truth, or whether he is just blatantly disparaging people in public opinion without taking the trouble to first check whether his assertions are correct. And what the "courageous" gentleman goes on to write, with complete concealment of everything important in Mackay's letter, only shows that he also edits the "Socialist" in the way that is characterized in Mackay's letters as the most common in the press today.

This translation is Volume 31 of the Complete Edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner and from Bn 31.2.21. This is a first English translation, revised as of June, 2016.

We are now living in the time of reformation. The “people” want, from the bottom up, to bring about new conditions of governance from above down. Therefore, one should not be surprised when thoughts of reformation emerge from various quarters regarding the most conservative institutions of our public life: the universities. I am not speaking of such superfluous things as the so-called “Lex Arons.” It will be a harmless law, if not abused. But what law does not give rise to abuse! If one abuses this law, then it will be harmful; if one does not abuse it, then it is unnecessary. But it is futile constantly to pose the question to the legislative assemblies: “Toward what end?” After all, one also had the wish to do something, to speak about something, and ... to need to reform something. I would like to speak about something else, which appears to me important because it originates from a man who has experience in the relevant area, and whose occupation it is to generate improvement in one sphere to which he has devoted himself with all his powers. Ernst Bernheim has just published a pamphlet that deals with the theme of University Education and the Demands of the Present Time. The author knows how to uncover deeply-seated detrimental tendencies. Detrimental tendencies that are known. For he proceeds from the notion that “today” students skip class more often than was the case in any previous time, and that this, measured by the most modest of standards, is desirable. And—certainly in contrast to many of his colleagues—the author does not seek for the cause of this in the students themselves, but rather in the peculiarities of university education. He discovers that the lecture courses for the students have become too uninteresting. He finds the reason for this fact in the trend toward specialization in the sciences, which currently necessitates that the lecturers compose their so-called private lectures from narrow areas of study involving the elaboration of infinite details.

Earlier, such a course would cover, for example, general world history, general history of ancient times, of the Middle Ages, and of more recent times; now hardly anyone undertakes to provide such courses of study; one lectures on the history of the Middle Ages, for example, in particular fragments, such as the history of the migrations of peoples, of the time of the German Caesar, from the Interregnum until the Reformation—indeed, in still shorter fragments; in addition, constitutional history, economic history, church and art history are studied in separate colleges. Now this is very well and good for one who wants to train as a researcher and—to stay with our example—has chosen to take something of the Middle Ages into his field of work; but one who intends to become a teacher and wants to take his state examination in history sees himself so overwhelmed with this kind of lecture course—in which he must get to know antiquity, the modern era, etc., in the same manner—that he does not know which way to turn. At first, he sets out with the confidence of a newcomer—boldly taking on five, six, seven private lectures; but soon his strength does not suffice to be attentive and taking notes for so many hours a day. In the best case, one will be so sensible as to abandon several of the courses completely and limit oneself to the regular attendance of only a few—and thereby hold as a top priority the commitment not to allow the task originally taken up to fall into such complete lawlessness that one ultimately ends up disgusted with the whole thing, discouraged and indifferent.

Bernheim raises these conditions in relation to the question of whether it is at all justified to maintain the establishment of private lectures, considering the now sweeping specialization of the sciences. Today, if the teacher intends to bring forward all the details of his area of expertise, then he has to lose himself to such a great extent in the specific that he has no time left to offer the great, essential vantage-points according to his personal understanding. In addition to this is the fact that it is no longer even necessary to provide this sum of details in the lecture courses. For we currently possess compendiums of these details, which are excellent, and whose current level of comprehensiveness would earlier have been inconceivable to us. On the basis of these considerations, Bernheim comes to the conclusion that one should structure the private lectures differently. They should comprise much shorter periods of time. In them, one should renounce the enumeration and critical evaluation of the particular details, and instead set oneself the task of holding orientation lectures in which one develops an overall understanding of a certain subject, a general point of view. By contrast, [the author further proposes that] the practical exercises at the universities, the work in seminars, should see a greater expansion. Such work should not, as is currently the case, begin only in later semesters, but already at the beginning of university studies. Here the students should learn the methods of scientific investigation; here one should concretely train oneself to become a researcher.

I do not fail to see the benefits to be had from a college education established in the sense of these suggestions. In particular, it seems to me very advantageous to reformulate the private lectures in the sense envisioned by the author. For it cannot be denied that much of what is said today at the lectern is actually easier and more convenient to gain from the existing manuals. And most importantly, such a reform will better allow the personality of the university professor to emerge into the foreground. And nothing works on people more than precisely the personality. A receptive spirit will be more inspired by a peculiar, even if ever so subjectively colored perspective, than by a myriad of “objective” facts.

In contrast, I would not so readily agree with Bernheim's proposal concerning the practical exercises. It may be beneficial for the average student if, under the guidance of a professor, he or she were to learn the method of research, down into the details. But one should not always concern oneself with the average person.One could do so if it were true that the gifted spirit breaks through no matter what, even against all fettering hindrances. But that is not in fact true.The things one does to help the average person hinder the gifted spirit in the unfolding of his individuality. They cause his originality to atrophy. And if the institutional examinations require one to have proof—as is the case for the present writer—of having taken part in a certain number of practical exercises, then for the one who intends to go his own way, such a measure becomes a shackle. The focal point of university education must consist in the personal inspiration brought about through the professor. Thus we see the value of lectures on general themes that are furthermore delivered from a personally-won point of view. As for the exercises, let those partake in them who have the need. But at the time of examination, do not ask someone what he has pushed himself through during his time of study, but rather what he is now able to achieve. How he has attained his competence must be a matter of indifference. One can offer practical exercises for those who need them, but one should not make them into an obligation for those who are able to meet the requirements of the examination without them.