The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Knowledge and Action in the Light of Goethe's way of Thinking

1. Methodology

[ 1 ] We have established the relationship between the world of ideas gained through scientific thinking and directly given experience. We have come to know the beginning and end of a process: experience stripped of ideas and a conception of reality filled with ideas. Between the two, however, lies human activity. Man must actively allow the end to emerge from the beginning. The way how he does this is the method. It is now self-evident that our conception of the relationship between the beginning and the end of science will also require a peculiar method. What will we have to start from when developing it? Scientific thinking must arise step by step as an overcoming of that dark form of reality which we have described as the immediately given, and an elevation of it into the light clarity of the idea. The method will therefore have to consist in answering the question for each thing: What part does it play in the unified world of ideas; what place does it occupy in the ideal picture I form of the world? When I have seen this, when I have recognized how a thing is connected to my ideas, then my need for knowledge is satisfied. There is only one unsatisfactory aspect of the latter: when I am confronted with a thing that does not want to connect anywhere with the view I hold. The ideal uneasiness must be overcome which flows from the fact that there is something of which I should say to myself: I see that it is there; when I confront it, it looks at me like a question mark; but nowhere in the harmony of my thoughts do I find the point where I could place it; the questions which I must ask in regard to it remain unanswered; I may turn and turn my system of thought as I please. From this we see what we need in regard to each thing. When I face it, it stares at me as a single thing. The world of thought in me pushes towards that point where the concept of the thing lies. I do not rest until that which first confronted me as a single thing appears as a member within the world of thought. Thus the individual as such dissolves and appears in a larger context. Now it is illuminated by the other mass of thoughts, now it is a serving member; and it is completely clear to me what it has to mean within the great harmony. This is what happens in us when we look at an object of experience. All progress in science is based on the realization of the point where any phenomenon can be integrated into the harmony of the world of thought. This must not be misunderstood. It cannot be meant as if every phenomenon had to be explainable by the traditional concepts; as if our world of ideas were closed and everything new to be experienced had to coincide with some concept that we already possess. This urging of the world of ideas can also lead to a point that has not yet been thought of by anyone. And the ideational progress of the history of science is based precisely on the fact that thought throws new ideas to the surface. Each such idea is connected by a thousand threads with all other possible ideas. With this concept in this way, with another in a different way. And therein consists the scientific method, that we show the concept of an individual phenomenon in its connection with the rest of the world of ideas. We call this process: deduction (proof) of the concept. All scientific thinking, however, consists only in finding the existing transitions from concept to concept, consists in allowing one concept to emerge from another. The back and forth movement of our thinking from concept to concept is the scientific method. It will be said that this is the old story of the correspondence between the world of concepts and the world of experience. We would have to presuppose that the world outside us (the trans-subjective) corresponds to our conceptual world if we are to believe that the back and forth movement from concept to concept leads to a picture of reality. But this is only a misconception of the relationship between individual entity and concept. When I confront an entity of the world of experience, I do not even know what it is. Only when I have overcome it, when its concept has become clear to me, do I know what I have before me. But this does not mean that the individual entity and the concept are two different things. No, they are the same thing; and what confronts me in particular is nothing but the concept. The reason why I see that entity as a separate piece, separated from the other reality, is precisely that I do not yet recognize its essence, that it does not yet confront me as what it is. This provides the means to further characterize our scientific method. Each individual entity of reality represents a certain content within the system of ideas. It is grounded in the universality of the world of ideas and can only be understood in connection with it. Thus every thing must necessarily call for a twofold thought process. First, the thought that corresponds to it must be clearly defined, and then all the threads that lead from this thought to the world of ideas as a whole must be identified. Clarity in detail and depth as a whole are the two most important requirements of reality. The former is a matter for the intellect, the latter for reason. The intellect creates thought-formations for the individual things of reality. The more precisely it delineates them, the sharper the contours it draws, the more it fulfills its task. Reason then has to integrate these formations into the harmony of the entire world of ideas. This, of course, presupposes the following: In the content of the thought-formations that the intellect creates, that unity already exists, already lives one and the same life; only the intellect artificially keeps everything apart. Reason, without blurring the clarity, only removes the separation again. The mind distances us from reality, reason leads us back to it. Graphically, this will look like this:

[ 2 ] Everything is connected in the surrounding structure; the same principle lives in all parts. The mind creates the separation of the individual entities because they confront us in the given as individuals, ^{91this separation is characterized by the separating, completely drawn-out lines,} and reason recognizes the unity. ^{92The same is sensualized by the dotted lines.}

[ 3 ] If we have the following two perceptions: 1. the incident rays of the sun and 2. a heated stone, the mind keeps the two things apart, because they confront us as two; it holds the one as cause, the other as effect; then reason comes in, tears down the partition and recognizes the unity in the two. All the concepts that the intellect creates: cause and effect, substance and property, body and soul, idea and reality, God and world etc. are only there to artificially keep the unified reality apart; and reason, without blurring the content thus created, without mystically obscuring the clarity of the intellect, has to seek out the inner unity in the multiplicity. It thus returns to that from which the intellect has distanced itself, to the unified reality. If one wants to have a precise nomenclature, then one calls the mental formations concepts, the creations of reason ideas. And you can see that the path of science is: to rise to the idea through the concept. And here is the place where the subjective and objective elements of our cognition are separated in the clearest way. It is obvious that the separation is only subjective, created only by our intellect. It cannot prevent me from dividing one and the same objective unity into thought-formations which are different from those of my fellow-man; this does not prevent my reason from arriving again at the same objective unity in the connection from which we both started. The unified entity of reality is represented symbolically [Figure 1]. I separate it intellectually, as in Fig. 2; another separates it differently, as in Fig. 3.

[ 4 ] it rationally together and get the same structure. This explains to us how people can have such different concepts, such different views of reality, even though it can only be one. The difference lies in the difference of our intellectual worlds. This sheds light for us on the development of different scientific viewpoints. We understand where the multiple philosophical points of view come from and do not need to concede the palm of truth to just one. We also know what standpoint we ourselves have to adopt in relation to the multiplicity of human views. We will not ask exclusively: What is true, what is false? We will always examine the way in which the intellectual world of a thinker emerges from the harmony of the world; we will seek to understand and not judge and immediately regard as error what does not agree with our own view. This source of difference in our scientific points of view is supplemented by the fact that every individual has a different field of experience. Each person is confronted, as it were, with a section of the whole of reality. This is processed by his intellect, which is his mediator on the way to the idea. So even if we all perceive the same idea, this is always the case in other areas. Therefore, only the end result to which we arrive can be the same; the paths, on the other hand, can be different. It is not at all important that the individual judgments and concepts of which our knowledge is composed agree, but only that they ultimately lead us that we swim in the waters of the idea. And all people must ultimately find themselves in this fairway if energetic thinking leads them beyond their particular point of view. It may be possible that a limited experience or an unproductive mind leads us to a one-sided, incomplete view; but even the smallest sum of what we experience must ultimately lead us to the idea; for we do not rise to the latter through a greater or lesser experience, but solely through our abilities as human personalities. A limited experience can only have the consequence that we express the idea in a one-sided way, that we have few means at our disposal to express the light that shines within us; but it cannot prevent us from letting that light arise within us at all. Whether our scientific or even world view is complete is a completely different question from that of its spiritual depth. If one now approaches Goethe again, one will recognize many of his statements, held together with our remarks in this chapter, as simple consequences of the latter. We consider this relationship to be the only correct one between author and interpreter. When Goethe says: "If I know my relationship to myself and to the outside world, I call it truth. And so everyone can have his own truth, and yet it is always the same" ("Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd ab., p. 349), this can only be understood on the assumption of what we have developed here.

2. Dogmatic and immanent method

[ 5 ] A scientific judgment is arrived at by combining either two concepts or a perception and a concept. Of the former kind, the judgment is: No effect without cause; of the latter: The tulip is a plant. Everyday life then also recognizes judgments where perception is connected with perception, e.g: The rose is red. When we make a judgment, we do so for this or that reason. Now there can be two different views about this reason. One assumes that the objective reasons why the judgment we make is true lie beyond what is given to us in the concepts or perceptions that enter into the judgment. The reason why a judgment is true does not, according to this view, coincide with the subjective reasons for which we make this judgment. Our logical reasons, according to this view, have nothing to do with the objective reasons. It may be that this view proposes some way of arriving at the objective grounds of our insight; the means that our cognitive thinking has are not sufficient for this. For cognition, the objective entity conditioning my assertions lies in a world unknown to me; the assertion with its formal grounds (lack of contradiction, support by various axioms, etc.) lies solely in my own. A science based on this view is a dogmatic one. Such a dogmatic science is both the theologizing philosophy, which is based on the belief in revelation, and the modern science of experience; for there is not only a dogma of revelation, there is also a dogma of experience. The dogma of revelation hands down to man truths about things that are completely beyond the scope of his vision. He does not know the world about which he is told to believe the finished assertions. He cannot get at the reasons for the latter. He can therefore never gain an insight into why they are true. He cannot gain knowledge, only faith. On the other hand, the assertions of that empirical science are also mere dogmas, which believes that one should stop at mere, pure experience and only observe, describe and systematically compile its changes, without rising to the conditions not yet given in mere direct experience. In this case, too, we do not gain the truth through insight into the matter, but it is imposed on us from outside. I see what is going on and what is there, and register it; why this is so lies in the object. I only see the consequence, not the reason. The dogma of revelation once dominated science; today it is the dogma of experience. In the past, it was considered presumptuous to think about the reasons of revealed truths; today it is considered impossible to know anything other than what the facts say. The "Why they speak this way and not otherwise" is considered unknowable and therefore unattainable.

[ 6 ] Our explanations have shown that the assumption of a reason why a judgment is true, apart from the reason why we accept it as true, is an absurdity. If we penetrate to the point where the essence of a thing becomes apparent to us as an idea, we see in the latter something completely self-contained, something self-supporting and self-sustaining, which no longer requires any explanation from outside, so that we can stop there. We see in the idea - if only we have the ability to do so - that it has everything that constitutes it in itself, that with it we have everything that can be asked about. The entire ground of being has merged into the idea, has poured itself into it unreservedly, so that we have nowhere to look for it but in it. In the idea we do not have an image of what we are looking for in things; we have this thing we are looking for ourselves. As the parts of our world of ideas flow together in our judgments, it is their own content that brings this about, not reasons that lie outside. The factual and not merely the formal reasons for our assertions are directly present in our thinking.

[ 7 ] This rejects the view that assumes an extra-ideal absolute reality by which all things, including thought itself, are sustained. For this view of the world, the reason for what exists cannot be found at all in what is accessible to us. It is not innate to the world before us, it exists outside it; a being in its own right that exists alongside it. This view can be called realism. It appears in two forms. It either assumes a multiplicity of real beings underlying the world (Leibniz, Herbart), or a unified real (Schopenhauer). Such a being can never be recognized as identical with the idea; it is already presupposed as different in essence from it. Anyone who realizes the clear meaning of the question of the essence of phenomena cannot be an adherent of this realism. What sense does it make to ask about the being of the world ? It has no other meaning than that, when I confront a thing, a voice asserts itself in me that tells me that the thing is ultimately still something quite different from what I perceive in a meaningful way. That which it still is is already at work in me, pressing towards appearance in me, while I see the thing outside me. It is only because the world of ideas working within me urges me to explain the world around me from it that I demand such an explanation. For a being in which no ideas are working their way up, the urge to explain things even further is not there; they are fully satisfied with the obvious appearance. The demand for an explanation of the world arises from the need of thinking to merge the content accessible to the latter with the appearing reality into one, to penetrate everything conceptually; to make what we see, hear, etc., into something that we understand. Whoever considers the full implications of these propositions cannot possibly be a supporter of the realism characterized above. To want to explain the world through a real that is not an idea is such a contradiction that one cannot understand how it is even possible for it to gain adherents. We can neither have the need to explain the real that we perceive by something that does not assert itself within thought at all, nor is such a beginning possible. Firstly, where should we get the need to explain the world through something that does not impose itself on us anywhere, that hides itself from us? And if we assume that it does confront us, then the question arises again: in what form and where? It cannot be in our thoughts. And even in outer or inner perception? What is the point then of explaining the sensory world by something qualitatively the same? There remains only a third: the assumption that we have the ability to reach the non-thought and most real being by means other than thought and perception. Anyone who makes this assumption has fallen into mysticism. We do not have to deal with it; for we are only concerned with the relationship between thought and being, between idea and reality. For mysticism, a mystic must write a theory of knowledge. The viewpoint of the later Schelling, according to which we can only develop the what of the content of the world with the help of our reason, but not the that, appears to us to be the greatest absurdity. For for us the that is the precondition of the what, and we would not know how to arrive at the what of a thing whose that was not already assured beforehand. The that is already inherent in the content of my reason by grasping its what . Schelling's assumption that we can have a positive world content without the conviction that it exists, and that we must first gain this that through higher experience, seems so incomprehensible to us before self-understanding thought that we must assume that Schelling in his later period no longer understood the viewpoint of his youth, which made such a powerful impression on Goethe.

[ 8 ] It is unacceptable to assume higher forms of existence than those that belong to the world of ideas. It is only because man is often unable to comprehend that the being of the idea is a far higher, fuller being than that of perceived reality that he seeks yet another reality. He considers the being of the idea to be a chimera-like being, lacking the saturation of reality, and is not satisfied with it. He cannot grasp the idea in its positivity, he only has it as something abstract; he has no idea of its fullness, its inner perfection and solidity. But we must demand of education that it work its way up to that higher standpoint where even a being that cannot be seen with the eyes, cannot be grasped with the hands, but must be grasped with reason, is seen as real. We have therefore actually founded an idealism which is realism at the same time. Our train of thought is: thinking urges for an explanation of reality from the idea. It conceals this urge in the question: What is the essence of reality? We only ask about the content of this essence itself at the end of science; we do not do it like realism, which presupposes a real in order to then derive reality from it. We differ from realism in that we are fully aware that we have a means of explaining the world only in the idea. Realism, too, has only this means, but it does not know it. It derives the world from ideas, but it believes that it derives it from another reality. Leibniz's world of monads is nothing but a world of ideas; but Leibniz believes to possess in it a higher reality than an ideal one. All realists make the same mistake: they conceive of beings and do not realize that they cannot get out of the idea. We have rejected this realism because it is mistaken about the idea-being of its world-ground; but we must also reject that false idealism which believes that because we cannot get beyond the idea, we cannot get beyond our consciousness, and that all the ideas given to us and all the world are only subjective appearances, only a dream which our consciousness dreams (Fichte). These idealists again fail to realize that, although we cannot get beyond the idea, we nevertheless have in the idea the objective, that which is founded in itself and not in the subject. They do not consider that, even if we do not get beyond the unity of thought, with rational thought we enter into full objectivity. The realists do not understand that the objective is idea, the idealists do not understand that the idea is objective.

[ 9 ] We still have to deal with the empiricists of the sensible, who regard any explanation of the real through the idea as an inadmissible philosophical deduction and demand that we stop at the sensible. Against this point of view we can simply say that his demand can only be a methodical, only a formal one. We should remain with the given, which only means: we should appropriate that which confronts us. This point of view can make very little difference about the what of it; for this what must come to it from the given itself. How, with the demand of pure experience, one can at the same time demand not to go beyond the sense world, since the idea can also fulfill the demand of the given, is completely incomprehensible to us. The positivist principle of experience must leave the question of what is given completely open, and thus unites itself quite well with an idealistic research result. But then this demand also coincides with ours. And we unite all points of view in our view, insofar as they have justification. Our standpoint is idealism, because it sees in the idea the ground of the world; it is realism, because it addresses the idea as the real; and it is positivism or empiricism, because it does not want to arrive at the content of the idea by a priori construction, but at it as a given. We have an empirical method that penetrates into the real and is ultimately satisfied in the idealistic result of research. We do not know of a conclusion from a given as a known to an underlying non-given, conditional. We reject a conclusion where any element of the conclusion is not given. Inference is only a transition from given elements to other equally given elements. In the conclusion we connect a with b through c; but all this must be given. When Volkelt says that our thinking urges us to make a presupposition of the given and to transcend it, we say: in our thinking we are already urged by what we want to add to the immediately given. We must therefore reject all metaphysics. Metaphysics wants to explain the given through a non-given, inferred (Wolff, Herbart). We see in reasoning only a formal activity that leads to nothing new, that only brings about transitions between the positive and the given.

3. system of science

[ 10 ] What form does finished science take in the light of Goethe's way of thinking? Above all, we must note that the entire content of science is a given; partly given as a world of the senses from without, partly as a world of ideas from within. All our scientific activity will therefore consist in overcoming the form in which this total content of the given confronts us and making it into one that satisfies us. This is necessary because the inner unity of the given remains hidden in the first form of appearance, where only the outer surface appears to us. Now this methodical activity, which establishes such a connection, turns out differently depending on the areas of appearance we are working on. The first case is as follows: we have a multiplicity of elements that are evident to the senses. These are interrelated. This interrelationship becomes clear to us when we immerse ourselves in the matter. Then one of the elements appears to us to be more or less determined by the others and in this or that way. The conditions of existence of the one become comprehensible to us through those of the other. We deduce one phenomenon from the other. We derive the appearance of the heated stone as an effect from the warming rays of the sun as the cause. We have explained what we perceive in one thing when we deduce it from another perceptible thing. We see in what way the ideal law appears in this field. It embraces the things of the sense world, stands above them. It determines the lawful operation of one thing by allowing it to be conditioned by another. Here we have the task of arranging the series of phenomena in such a way that one emerges from the other with necessity, that they all form a whole that is lawful through and through. The area to be explained in this way is inorganic nature. Now in experience the individual phenomena by no means confront us in such a way that the next thing in space and time is also the next thing in terms of inner essence. We must first pass from the spatially and temporally nearest to the conceptually nearest. We must look for an appearance that is immediately adjacent to it in essence. We must endeavor to assemble a self-complementary, mutually supporting series of facts. From this we gain a group of interacting sensory elements of reality; and the phenomenon that unfolds before us follows directly from the factors under consideration in a transparent, clear way. With Goethe, we call such a phenomenon a primordial phenomenon or basic fact. This primordial phenomenon is identical with the objective law of nature. The composition discussed here can either be done merely in thought, as when I think of the three conditioning factors that come into consideration with a horizontally thrown stone: 1. the force of impact, 2. the force of attraction of the earth and 3. the air resistance, and then deduce the path of the flying stone from these factors, or else: I can really bring the individual factors together and then wait for the phenomenon resulting from their interaction. This is the case with the experiment. While a phenomenon of the outside world is unclear to us because we only know the conditional (the appearance), not the condition, the phenomenon that the experiment provides is clear to us because we have put together the conditioning factors ourselves. This is the way of natural science, that it should start from experience to see what is real, proceed to observation to see why it is real, and then proceed to experiment to see what can be real. -

[ 11 ] Unfortunately, the very essay by Goethe that could best serve to support these views seems to have been lost. It was a continuation of the essay: "The experiment as mediator of subject and object". Starting from the latter, we will attempt to reconstruct the possible content of the former on the basis of the only source available to us, Goethe's and Schiller's correspondence. The essay: "The attempt etc. . . ." emerged from the studies Goethe undertook in order to justify his optical works. It then lay dormant until 1798, when the poet took up these studies with renewed vigor and, in collaboration with Schiller, subjected the basic principles of the scientific method to a thorough and serious scientific examination. On January 10, 1798 (see Goethe's correspondence with Schiller) he sent the above-mentioned essay to Schiller for consideration, and on January 13 he announced to his friend that he was willing to elaborate on the views expressed there in a new essay. He undertook this work, and on January 17 he sent Schiller a short essay containing a characterization of the methods of natural science. This essay is not to be found in the works. It would undoubtedly be the one that would provide the best clues for an appreciation of Goethe's basic views on the scientific method. However, we can recognize the thoughts set down in it from Schiller's detailed letter of 19 January 1798 (Goethe's correspondence with Schiller), taking into account the fact that we find multiple references and additions to what is indicated there in Goethe's "Sprüche in Prosa". ^{93Cf. Natw. Schr., 4th vol. 2nd dept, p. 593, note In my introduction p. XXXVIII to the 34th volume of this Goethe edition, I said: Unfortunately, the essay seems to have been lost, which could serve as the best support for Goethe's views on experience, experiment and scientific knowledge. However, it has not been lost, but has been found in the above form in the Goethe Archive. (Cf. Weim. Goethe-Ausgabe II. Abt. Vol. 11, p. 38ff.) It bears the date January 15, 1798 and was sent to Schiller on the 17th. It presents itself as a continuation of the essay: Der Versuch als Vermittler von Subjekt und Objekt˃. I have taken the train of thought of the essay from the Goethe-Schiller correspondence and stated it in the aforementioned introduction p. XXXIX f. exactly in the way it has now been found. In terms of content, the essay adds nothing to my remarks; however, my view of Goethe's method and mode of cognition gained from his other works is confirmed in all points."}

[ 12 ] Goethe distinguishes three methods of scientific research. These are based on three different conceptions of phenomena. The first method is common empiricism, which does not go beyond the empirical phenomenon, beyond the immediate facts. It stops at individual appearances. If common empiricism wants to be consistent, it must limit its entire activity to describing every phenomenon it encounters in detail, i.e. to recording the empirical facts. For him, science would only be the sum of all these individual descriptions of recorded facts. Compared to common empiricism, rationalism forms the next higher level. This is based on the scientific phenomenon. This view is no longer limited to the mere description of phenomena, but seeks to explain them by uncovering the causes, by formulating hypotheses and so on. It is the stage at which the mind infers the causes and connections from the phenomena. Goethe declares both the former and the latter method to be one-sided. Common empiricism is crude unscience, because it never emerges from the mere conception of coincidences; rationalism, on the other hand, interprets into the world of appearances causes and connections that are not in it. The former cannot rise from the abundance of phenomena to free thought; the latter loses it as the sure ground beneath its feet and falls prey to the arbitrariness of imagination and subjective fancy. Goethe rebukes the addiction of immediately connecting conclusions with phenomena through subjective effects with the sharpest words, thus "Sprüche in Prosa"; Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd Abt, p. 375: "It is a bad thing, which many an observer meets with, immediately to connect an inference with an observation, and to regard both as equally valid," and: "Theories are usually the precipitations of an impatient mind, which would like to be rid of phenomena, and therefore inserts images, concepts, indeed often only words, in their place. One suspects, one probably also sees, that it is only an expedient; but do not passion and party spirit love expedients at all times? And rightly so, since they need them so much." (ibid. p. 376) Goethe particularly criticizes the abuse that causal determination causes. Rationalism in its unbridled fantasy seeks causality where it is not required by the facts. In "Proverbs in Prose" (ibid. p. 371) it says: "The most innate concept, the most necessary, of cause and effect, becomes in its application the cause of innumerable ever-repeating errors." In particular, his search for simple connections leads him to think of the phenomena as the links of a chain of cause and effect strung together purely according to length; whereas the truth is that any phenomenon which is caused by an earlier causal effect depends at the same time on many other effects. In this case, only the length and not the breadth of nature is taken into account. For Goethe, both paths, common empiricism and rationalism, are indeed points of passage to the highest scientific method, but only points of passage that must be overcome. And this happens with rational empiricism, which deals with the pure phenomenon, which is identical with the objective law of nature. Common empiricism, direct experience, offers us only individual, unrelated things, an aggregate of phenomena. In other words, it does not offer us this as the final conclusion of scientific observation, but as the first experience. Our scientific need, however, only seeks coherence, only grasps the individual as a link in a connection. Thus the need to understand and the facts of nature seem to diverge. In the mind there is only connection, in nature only separation; the mind strives for genus, nature creates only individuals. The solution to this contradiction arises from the consideration that, on the one hand, the unifying power of the spirit is devoid of content, and can therefore, by itself, recognize nothing positive; that, on the other hand, the separation of natural objects is not founded in their essence itself, but in their spatial appearance; that, rather, in penetrating the essence of the individual, the particular, this itself points us to the genus. Because the objects of nature are separate in appearance, the summarizing power of the mind is needed to show their inner unity. Because the unity of the mind is empty in itself, it must fill it with the objects of nature. Thus on this third stage phenomenon and mental faculty come together and merge into one and the mind can only now be fully satisfied. -

[ 13 ] A further area of research is that in which the individual in its mode of existence does not appear to us as the consequence of another existing alongside it, where we therefore also do not comprehend it by calling another, similar thing to our aid. Here a series of sensuous phenomenal elements appears to us as the direct manifestation of a unified principle, and we must penetrate to this principle if we wish to comprehend the individual phenomenon. In this field we cannot explain the phenomenon from external influence, we must derive it from within. What was previously determining is now merely causative. Whereas in the former field I understood everything when I succeeded in seeing it as the consequence of something else, in deriving it from an external condition, here I am forced to ask a different question. If I know the external influence, I have not yet gained any insight into the fact that the phenomenon takes place in this and no other way. I must deduce it from the central principle of the thing on which the external influence has taken place. I cannot say: this external influence has this effect; but only: to this determined external influence the inner principle of action responds in this determined way. What happens is the result of an inner legality. I must therefore know this inner lawfulness. I must investigate what is formed from within. This forming principle, which underlies every phenomenon in this field, which I have to seek in everything, is the type. We are in the realm of organic nature. What in inorganic nature is primordial phenomenon is type in organic nature. The type is a general image of the organism: the idea of it; the animality in the animal. We had to repeat here the main points of what we have already said in an earlier section on the "type" because of the connection between them. In the ethical and historical sciences we have to do with the idea in the narrower sense. Ethics and history are ideal sciences. Their realities are ideas. - It is up to the individual science to process the given to such an extent that it brings it to the primal phenomenon, type and the leading ideas in history. "If... the physicist can reach the realization of that which we have called a primal phenomenon, he is safe and the philosopher with him; he, for he convinces himself that he has reached the limit of his science, that he is at the empirical height where he can look backwards over experience in all its stages and look forwards into the realm of theory, if not enter it, at least see into it. The philosopher is safe, for he takes from the physicist's hand an ultimate that now becomes a primary with him" ("Entwurf einer Farbenlehre" 720 [Natw. Schr., 3rd vol., p. 275 f.]) - For here the philosopher appears with his work. He grasps the primal phenomena and brings them into a satisfying ideal context. We see what is to replace metaphysics in the sense of Goethe's world view: through an observation, compilation and derivation of the primal phenomena in accordance with ideas. In this sense, Goethe repeatedly speaks about the relationship between empirical science and philosophy, particularly clearly in his letters to Hegel. In the Annals, Goethe repeatedly speaks of a scheme of natural science. If this were to be found, we would see from it how he himself conceived the relationship of the individual primal phenomena to one another; how he put them together in a necessary chain. We also gain an idea of this if we take into account the table he gives of all possible modes of action in Vol. 1, H. 4 "On Natural Science":

Accidental
Mechanical
Physical
Chemical
Organic
Psychic
Ethical
Religious
Ingenious

[ 14 ] This ascending series should be followed when arranging the primordial phenomena*

4. on the limits of knowledge and hypothesis formation

[ 15 ] Today, we talk a lot about the limits of our knowledge. Our ability to explain what exists should only extend to a certain point, at which we should stop. We believe we are doing the right thing with regard to this question if we ask it correctly. After all, in so many cases it only depends on asking the right question. Such a question dispels a whole host of errors. If we consider that the object in relation to which a need for explanation arises in us must be given, it is clear that the given itself cannot set us a limit. For in order to claim to be explained, to be understood, it must confront us within the given reality. What does not enter the horizon of the given does not need to be explained. The limit could therefore only lie in the fact that we lack the means to explain a given reality. But our need for explanation comes precisely from the fact that what we want to regard a given as, what we want to explain it by, intrudes into the horizon of what is mentally given to us. Far from the explanatory being of a thing being unknown to us, it is rather itself that which, through its appearance in the mind, makes the explanation necessary. What is to be explained and by what it is to be explained are present. It is only a matter of connecting the two. Explaining is not a search for an unknown, only a discussion about the mutual relationship between two knowns. It should never occur to us to explain a given by something of which we have no knowledge. There can therefore be no question of any fundamental limits to explanation. Now, of course, something comes into consideration that gives the theory of a limit of knowledge a semblance of right. It may be that although we have an inkling that something real is there, it is nevertheless removed from our perception. We can perceive some traces, some effects of a thing and then make the assumption that this thing exists. And here we can speak of a limit of knowledge. But what we presuppose as unattainable is not something from which anything can be explained in principle; it is something that can be perceived, even if it is not perceived. The obstacles as to why I do not perceive it are not principled limits of cognition, but purely accidental, external ones. Indeed, they can even be overcome. What I merely suspect today, I can experience tomorrow. But this is not the case with a principle; there are no external obstacles, which are usually only to be found in place and time; the principle is given to me internally. I do not sense it from another if I do not see it myself.

[ 16 ] The theory of the hypothesis is now related to this. A hypothesis is an assumption that we make and of whose truth we cannot convince ourselves directly, but only through its effects. We see a series of phenomena. It can only be explained to us if we base it on something that we do not directly perceive. Can such an assumption be extended to a principle? Obviously not. For an interior that I presuppose without becoming aware of it is a complete contradiction. The hypothesis can only assume something that I do not perceive but would perceive immediately if I removed the external obstacles. The hypothesis cannot assume what is perceived, but it must presuppose what is perceivable. So is every hypothesis in the case that its content can be directly confirmed by a future experience. Only hypotheses that could cease to be so have any justification. Hypotheses about central scientific principles have no value. What is not explained by a positively given principle that is known to us is not capable of an explanation at all and is also not in need of one.

5 Ethical and historical sciences

[ 17 ] The answer to the question: "What is cognition?" has enlightened us about the position of man in the universe. It cannot fail that the view we have developed for this question also sheds light on the value and significance of human action. What we accomplish in the world, we must attach greater or lesser importance to, depending on whether we consider our purpose to be more or less significant.

[ 18 ] The first task we must now undertake will be to examine the character of human activity. How does what we have to understand as an effect of human activity relate to other effects within the world process? Let us consider two things: a natural product and a creature of human activity, the crystal form and, for example, a wagon wheel. In both cases the object in question appears to us as the result of laws expressible in concepts. The difference lies only in the fact that we must regard the crystal as the immediate product of the laws of nature that determine it, whereas in the case of the cartwheel man steps into the middle between concept and object. What we think of as underlying the real in the natural product is what we introduce into reality in our actions. In cognition we learn what the ideal conditions of sense experience are; we bring to light the world of ideas that already lies in reality; we thus complete the world process in the sense that we call to appearance the producer who eternally brings forth the products, but without our thinking would remain eternally hidden in them. In action, however, we complete this process by transforming the world of ideas, insofar as it is not yet reality, into such. Now we have recognized the idea as that which underlies all that is real, as the conditional, the intention of nature. Our cognition leads us to find the tendency of the world process, the intention of creation from the intimations contained in the nature surrounding us. Once we have achieved this, our actions are assigned the task of working independently towards the realization of that intention. And so our actions appear to us directly as a continuation of the kind of effectiveness that nature also fulfills. It appears to us as a direct outflow of the world's reason. But what a difference there is to the other (natural) activity! The natural product by no means has in itself the ideal lawfulness by which it appears to be governed. It requires the confrontation of a higher, human thought; then this appears to it that by which it is governed. It is different with human action. Here the idea dwells directly in the active object; and if a higher being were to confront it, it could find nothing else in its activity than what this being itself has put into its action. For perfect human action is the result of our intentions and only this. If we look at a natural product that has an effect on another, the situation is like this: We see an effect; this effect is conditioned by laws that can be conceptualized. But if we want to understand the effect, it is not enough that we hold it together with laws of some kind; we must have a second thing to be perceived - though again one that can be completely resolved into concepts. When we see an impression in the ground, we look for the object that made it. This leads to the concept of such an effect, where the cause of a phenomenon appears again in the form of an external perception, i.e. around concepts of force. Force can only confront us where the idea first appears on an object of perception and only under this form acts on another object. The contrast to this is when this mediation is omitted, when the idea directly approaches the sense world. Then the idea itself appears to be causative. And this is where we speak of will. Will is thus the idea itself conceived as a force. To speak of an independent will is completely inadmissible. When man accomplishes anything, it cannot be said that will is added to the idea. If one speaks in this way, one has not clearly grasped the concepts, for what is the human personality if one disregards the world of ideas that fills it? But an active existence. He who conceived it otherwise, as a dead, inactive product of nature, equated it with a stone in the street. But this active existence is an abstraction, it is nothing real. It cannot be grasped, it is without content. If you want to grasp it, if you want a content, then you get the world of ideas in action. E. v. Hartmann makes this abstract a second world-constituting principle alongside the idea. However, it is nothing other than the idea itself, only in a form of appearance. Will without idea would be nothing. The same cannot be said of the idea, for activity is an element of it, while it is the self-sustaining entity.*

[ 19 ] This is the characteristic of human activity. We proceed to a further essential characteristic of it, which necessarily follows from what has been said so far. The explanation of a process in nature is a going back to the conditions of the same: a search for the producer of the given product. If I perceive an effect and look for the cause, these two perceptions are by no means sufficient for my need of explanation. I must go back to the laws according to which this cause produces this effect. It is different with human action. Here the lawfulness that determines an appearance itself comes into action; what constitutes a product itself enters the scene of action. We are dealing with an appearing existence in which we can stand still, in which we do not need to ask about the underlying conditions. We have grasped a work of art when we know the idea that is embodied in it; we do not need to ask about any further lawful connection between idea (cause) and work (effect). We understand the actions of a statesman when we know his intentions (ideas); we do not need to go further than what appears. Thus processes of nature differ from actions of man in that in the latter the law is to be regarded as the conditional background of the appearing existence, while in the latter the existence itself is law and appears conditioned by nothing but itself. Thus every natural process is divided into a conditional and a conditioned, and the latter follows with necessity from the former, while human action only conditions itself. When the intentions of nature, which are behind the phenomena and condition them, enter into man, they themselves become manifestations; but they are now, as it were, free. If all natural processes are only manifestations of the idea, then human activity is the acting idea itself.

[ 20 ] Inasmuch as our theory of knowledge has come to the conclusion that the content of our consciousness is not merely a means of forming an image of the world ground, but that this world ground itself emerges in its very own form in our thinking, we cannot help but recognize in human action also directly the unconditioned action of that primal ground itself. We do not know a world leader who, outside of ourselves, sets the goal and direction of our actions. The world ruler has relinquished his power, has handed everything over to man, with the destruction of his special existence, and has given man the task of continuing to act. Man finds himself in the world, sees nature, in it the intimation of a deeper, conditional, an intention. His thinking enables him to recognize this intention. It becomes his spiritual possession. He has penetrated the world; he acts to continue those intentions. Thus the philosophy presented here is the true philosophy of freedom. It allows neither the necessity of nature nor the influence of an otherworldly creator or world ruler to apply to human actions. In the one case, as in the other, man would be unfree. If natural necessity acted in him as it does in other beings, then he would carry out his deeds out of compulsion, then it would also be necessary for him to go back to conditions that underlie his apparent existence and there would be no question of freedom. It is, of course, not impossible that there are innumerable human activities which fall under this aspect alone; but these are not considered here. Man, in so far as he is a natural being, is also to be understood according to the laws governing the workings of nature. But neither as a cognizing nor as a truly ethical being can his appearance be understood from mere natural laws. He steps out of the sphere of natural realities. And for this highest potency of his existence, which is more ideal than reality, what has been established here applies. Man's path through life consists in developing from a natural being into such a being as we have come to know here; he is to free himself from all natural laws and become his own lawgiver.

[ 21 ] But we must also reject the influence of an otherworldly controller of human destiny. Even where such an influence is assumed, there can be no question of true freedom. There he determines the direction of human action and man has to carry out what he is told to do. He does not perceive the impulse for his actions as an ideal that he sets for himself, but as a command of that ruler; again, his actions are not unconditional, but conditional. The human being then does not feel free, but dependent, merely a means for the intentions of a higher power.

[ 22 ] We have seen that dogmatism consists in the fact that the reason why something is true is sought in something beyond, inaccessible to our consciousness (trans-subjective), in contrast to our view, which only allows a judgment to be true because the reason for it lies in the concepts that lie in consciousness and flow into the judgment. Whoever thinks of a world ground outside our world of ideas thinks that the ideal reason why something is recognized by us as true is different from why it is objectively true. Thus truth is conceived as dogma. And in the field of ethics, the commandment is what the dogma is in science. When man seeks the impetus for his actions in commandments, he acts according to laws whose justification does not depend on him; he thinks of a norm that is externally prescribed for his actions. He acts out of duty. To speak of duty only makes sense with this view. We must feel the impulse from outside and recognize the necessity to follow it, then we act out of duty. Our epistemology cannot accept such action where man appears in his moral perfection. We know that the world of ideas is infinite perfection itself; we know that with it lie the impulses of our actions within us; and we must therefore only accept as ethical such actions in which the deed flows only from the idea of it that lies within us. From this point of view, man only performs an action because its reality is a need for him. He acts because he is driven by an inner (personal) urge, not an external force. The object of his action, as soon as he forms a concept of it, fulfils him in such a way that he strives to realize it. In the need for the realization of an idea, in the urge to form an intention, should also be the sole motivation for our actions. Everything that urges us to act should be expressed in the idea. We then do not act out of duty, we do not act following an instinct, we act out of love for the object to which our action is to extend. The object, as we imagine it, evokes in us the urge to act appropriately. Such action alone is free. For if, in addition to the interest we take in the object, there had to be a second, different cause, then we would not want this object for its own sake, we would want another and perform this, which we do not want; we would perform an action against our will. This would be the case when acting out of egoism. We have no interest in the action itself; it is not a need for us, but the benefit it brings us is. But then we also feel compelled to perform the action for the sake of this purpose alone. It is not itself a need for us; for we would refrain from it if it did not entail the benefit. But an action that we do not perform for its own sake is an unfree one. Egoism acts unfree. Any person who performs an action for a reason that does not follow from the objective content of the action itself is acting unfree. Performing an action for its own sake means acting out of love. Only those who are guided by love of action, by devotion to objectivity, act truly freely. He who is not capable of this selfless devotion will never be able to regard his activity as free.

[ 23 ] If man's action is to be nothing other than the realization of his own content of ideas, then it is natural that such content must lie within him. His spirit must work productively. For what should fill him with the urge to accomplish something if not an idea working itself up in his spirit? This idea will prove all the more fruitful the more definite its outlines, the clearer its content in the mind. For only that which is fully determined in its entire "what" can forcefully urge us towards realization. The ideal that is only vaguely imagined, left undefined, is unsuitable as a driving force for action. What is to inspire us about it, since its content is not openly and clearly visible? The impetus for our actions must therefore always take the form of individual intentions. Everything that man accomplishes that bears fruit owes its origin to such individual impulses. General moral laws, ethical norms, etc., which are supposed to apply to all people, are completely worthless. If Kant only accepts as moral that which is suitable as a law for all people, so in contrast, it must be said that all positive action would have to cease, all greatness would have to disappear from the world, if everyone were only to do what is suitable for everyone. No, not such vague, general ethical norms, but the most individual ideals should guide our actions. Not everything is to be accomplished equally worthily for all, but this for this, that for that, depending on how one feels the call to a cause. J. Kreyenbühl has said excellent words about this in his essay "Die ethische Freiheit bei Kant" (Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. XVIII, 3rd ed. [Berlin etc. 1882, pp. 129ff. ]) said: "If indeed freedom my freedom, the moral act my act, if the good and the right are to be realized by me, by the act of this particular individual personality, then a general law cannot possibly suffice for me, which disregards all individuality and particularity of the circumstances competing in the action and commands me before every action to examine whether the motive underlying it corresponds to the abstract norm of the general human nature, whether it can become a generally valid maxim as it lives and works in me. " ... "Such an adaptation to what is common and customary would make any individual freedom, any progress beyond the ordinary and homely, any significant, outstanding and groundbreaking ethical achievement impossible."

[ 24 ] These remarks shed light on the questions that general ethics has to answer. The latter is often treated as whether it is a sum of norms according to which human action must be guided. From this point of view, ethics is contrasted with natural science and the science of being in general. While the latter is supposed to teach us the laws of what exists, what is, ethics is supposed to teach us the laws of what ought to be. Ethics should be a code of all human ideals, a detailed answer to the question: What is good? But such a science is impossible. There can be no general answer to this question. After all, ethical action is a product of what asserts itself in the individual; it is always given in individual cases, never in general. There are no general laws about what one should and should not do. Just don't look at the individual laws of different peoples as such. They are nothing more than the expression of individual intentions. What this or that personality has perceived as a moral motive has been communicated to an entire people, has become the "law of this people" . A general natural law that applies to all people and all times is an absurdity. Legal views and concepts of morality come and go with peoples, and even with individuals. Individuality is always decisive. It is therefore inadmissible to speak of ethics in the above sense. But there are other questions that need to be answered in this science, questions that have been briefly examined in these discussions. I mention only: the determination of the difference between human action and natural action, the question of the nature of will and freedom, etc. All these individual tasks can be subsumed under one: To what extent is man an ethical being? But this aims at nothing other than recognizing the moral nature of man. The question is not: What should man do? What is what he does according to his inner nature? And thus the dividing wall that separates all science into two spheres comes down: a doctrine of what is and one of what ought to be. Ethics, like all other sciences, is a doctrine of being. In this respect, the uniform trait that runs through all sciences is that they start from a given and progress to its conditions. But there can be no science of human action itself; for that is unconditional, productive, creative. Jurisprudence is not a science, but only a collection of notes of those legal habits which are peculiar to an individuality of a people.*

[ 25 ] Man does not now belong to himself alone; as a member he belongs to two higher totalities. First, he is a member of his people, with whom he is united by common customs, a common cultural life, a common language and a common outlook. Secondly, however, he is also a citizen of history, the individual link in the great historical process of human development. His free action seems to be impaired by this double belonging to a whole. What he does does not seem to be solely an expression of his own individual ego; he appears conditioned by the similarities he has with his people, his individuality seems destroyed by the character of the people. Am I then still free if my actions are explained not only by my nature but also essentially by the nature of my people? Do I not act that way because nature has made me a member of this national community? And it is no different with the second affiliation. History shows me the place of my work. I am dependent on the cultural epoch in which I was born; I am a child of my time. But if you understand man as a cognizing and acting being at the same time, then this contradiction is resolved. Through his cognitive faculty, man penetrates into the character of his national individuality; it becomes clear to him where his fellow citizens are heading. He overcomes what he appears so conditioned by and takes it into himself as a fully recognized conception; it becomes individual in him and acquires entirely the personal character that the work of freedom has. It is the same with the historical development within which man appears. He rises to the recognition of the guiding ideas, the moral forces that rule there; and then they no longer act as conditioning forces, but become individual driving forces in him. Man must work his way up so that he is not led, but leads himself. He must not allow himself to be blindly led by his national character, but must rise to a knowledge of it, so that he may act consciously in the spirit of his people. He must not allow himself to be carried along by the progress of culture, but must make the ideas of his time his own. To do this, it is above all necessary for man to understand his time. Then he will fulfill his task with freedom, then he will start his own work in the right place. This is where the humanities (history, cultural and literary history, etc.) must act as mediators. In the humanities, man has to deal with his own achievements, with the creations of culture, literature, art, and so on. The spiritual is grasped through the spirit. And the purpose of the humanities should be none other than that man should recognize where he has been placed by chance; he should recognize what has already been achieved, what is incumbent upon him to do. Through the spiritual sciences he must find the right point to participate with his personality in the workings of the world. Man must know the spiritual world and determine his part in it according to this knowledge.

[ 26 ] Gustav Freytag says in the preface to the first volume of his "Pictures from the German Past" [Leipzig 1859]: "All great creations of national power, ancestral religion, custom, law, state formation are no longer for us the results of individual men, they are organic creations of a high life, which at all times only comes to manifestation through the individual, and at all times combines the spiritual content of the individuals in itself into a powerful whole. .. Thus one may well, without saying anything mystical, speak of a folk soul. ... But the life of a people no longer works consciously, like the willpower of a man. The free and intelligent in history is represented by man, the power of the people works incessantly with the dark compulsion of primal force." If Freytag had examined this life of the people, he would probably have found that it dissolves into the work of a sum of individuals who overcome that dark compulsion, who raise the unconscious into their consciousness, and he would have seen how that emerges from the individual impulses of will, from the free action of man, which he refers to as the people's soul, as dark compulsion.

[ 27 ] But something else comes into consideration with regard to the work of man within his people. Every personality represents a spiritual potency, a sum of forces that seek the opportunity to work. Everyone must therefore find the place where his work can be integrated into his national organism in the most appropriate way. It must not be left to chance whether he finds this place. The constitution of the state has no other purpose than to ensure that everyone finds an appropriate sphere of activity. The state is the form in which the organism of a people lives itself out.

[ 28 ] People's studies and political science must investigate the way in which the individual personality can achieve a corresponding validity within the state. The constitution must emerge from the innermost essence of a people. The character of the people expressed in individual sentences is the best state constitution. The statesman cannot impose a constitution on the people. The leader of the state must investigate the deep peculiarities of his people and give the tendencies that lie dormant in them the appropriate direction through the constitution. It can happen that the majority of the people want to steer a course that goes against their own nature. Goethe thinks that in this case the statesman must be guided by the latter and not by the random demands of the majority; he must represent the people against the people in this case ("Proverbs in Prose", Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd Abt., p. 480f.).

[ 29 ] To this we must add a word about the method of history. History must always bear in mind that the causes of historical events are to be sought in the individual intentions, plans, etc. of men. All deduction of historical facts from plans underlying history is a mistake. It is always only a question of what goals this or that personality set for themselves, what paths they took and so on. History must certainly be based on human nature. Their will, their tendencies are to be fathomed.

[ 30 ] We can now again substantiate what has been said here about ethical science with statements by Goethe. When he says: "The rational world is to be regarded as a great immortal individual, which inexorably brings about what is necessary and thereby makes itself master even over the accidental" ["Proverbs in Prose", ibid. p. 482], this can only be explained by the relationship in which we see man with the development of history. - The reference to a positive individual substrate of action lies in the words: "Unconditional activity, whatever its nature, ultimately makes us bankrupt" (ibid. p. 463). The same in: "The least human being can be complete if he moves within the limits of his abilities and skills." (ibid. p. 443) -The necessity for man to elevate himself to the leading ideas of his people and his time is expressed in (ibid. p. 487): "Let every man ask himself by what means he can and will influence his time", and (ibid. p. 455): "One must know where one stands and where the others want to go." Our view of duty can be recognized in (ibid. p. 460): "Duty, where one loves what one commands oneself."

[ 31 ] We have placed man as a cognizing and acting being entirely on his own. We have described his world of ideas as coinciding with the foundation of the world and have recognized that everything he does can only be regarded as the outflow of his own individuality. We seek the core of existence in man himself. No one reveals a dogmatic truth to him, no one drives him to act. He is enough for himself. He must be everything through himself, nothing through another being. He must draw everything from himself. Thus also the source of his bliss. We have already recognized that there can be no question of a power that directs man, that determines the direction and content of his existence, that condemns him to lack of freedom. Therefore, if man is to become happy, this can only happen through himself. As little as an external power prescribes the norms of our actions, so little will such a power give things the ability to arouse the feeling of satisfaction in us if we do not do it ourselves. Pleasure and displeasure are only there for man if he himself first gives objects the ability to arouse these feelings in him. A creator who determined from outside what should give us pleasure and what should make us displeasure would lead us by the reins.*

[ 32 ] This refutes all optimism and pessimism. Optimism assumes that the world is perfect, that it must be the source of the greatest satisfaction for man. However, if this were the case, man would first have to develop those needs within himself that would give him this satisfaction. He would have to extract from objects what he desires. Pessimism believes that the world is set up in such a way that it leaves man eternally unsatisfied, that he can never be happy. What a pitiful creature man would be if nature offered him satisfaction from outside! All lamentation over an existence that does not satisfy us, over this hard world, must vanish in the face of the thought that no power in the world could satisfy us if we ourselves did not first give it that magic power by which it elevates and delights us. Satisfaction must come to us from what we make things into, from our own creations. Only this is worthy of free beings.