OF THE ACQUIRED CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.-We are easily led astray by the renowned Greek clearness, transparency, simplicity, and order, by their crystal-like naturalness and crystal-like art, into believing that all these gifts were bestowed on the Greeks-for instance, that they could not but write well, as Lichtenberg expressed it on one occasion. Yet no statement could be more hasty and more untenable. The history of prose from Gorgias to Demosthenes shows a course of toiling and wrestling towards light from the obscure, overloaded, and tasteless, reminding one of the labour of heroes who had to construct the first roads through forest and bog. The dialogue of tragedy was the real achievement of the dramatist, owing to its uncommon clearness and precision, whereas the national tendency was to riot in symbolism and innuendo, a tendency expressly fostered by the great choral lyric. Similarly it was the achievement of Homer to liberate the Greeks from Asiatic pomp and gloom, and to have attained the clearness of architecture in details great and small. Nor was it by any means thought easy to say anything in a pure and illuminating style. How else should we account for the great admiration for the epigram of Simonides, which shows itself so simple, with no gilded points or arabesques of wit, but says all that it has to say plainly and with the calm of the sun, not with the straining after effect of the lightning. Since the struggle towards light from an almost native twilight is Greek, a thrill of jubilation runs through the people when they hear a laconic sentence, the language of elegy or the maxims of the Seven Wise Men. Hence they were so fond of giving precepts in verse, a practice that we find objectionable. This was the true Apolline task of the h.e.l.lenic spirit, with the aim of rising superior to the perils of metre and the obscurity which is otherwise characteristic of poetry. Simplicity, flexibility, and sobriety were wrestled for and not given by nature to this people. The danger of a relapse into Asianism constantly hovered over the Greeks, and really overtook them from time to time like a murky, overflowing tide of mystical impulses, primitive savagery and darkness. We see them plunge in; we see Europe, as it were, flooded, washed away-for Europe was very small then; but they always emerge once more to the light, good swimmers and divers that they are, those fellow-countrymen of Odysseus.
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THE PAGAN CHARACTERISTIC.-Perhaps there is nothing more astonishing to the observer of the Greek world than to discover that the Greeks from time to time held festivals, as it were, for all their pa.s.sions and evil tendencies alike, and in fact even established a kind of series of festivals, by order of the State, for their "all-too-human." This is the pagan characteristic of their world, which Christianity has never understood and never can understand, and has always combated and despised.-They accepted this all-too-human as unavoidable, and preferred, instead of railing at it, to give it a kind of secondary right by grafting it on to the usages of society and religion. All in man that has power they called divine, and wrote it on the walls of their heaven. They do not deny this natural instinct that expresses itself in evil characteristics, but regulate and limit it to definite cults and days, so as to turn those turbulent streams into as harmless a course as possible, after devising sufficient precautionary measures. That is the root of all the moral broad-mindedness of antiquity. To the wicked, the dubious, the backward, the animal element, as to the barbaric, pre-h.e.l.lenic and Asiatic, which still lived in the depths of Greek nature, they allowed a moderate outflow, and did not strive to destroy it utterly. The whole system was under the domain of the State, which was built up not on individuals or castes, but on common human qualities. In the structure of the State the Greeks show that wonderful sense for typical facts which later on enabled them to become investigators of Nature, historians, geographers, and philosophers. It was not a limited moral law of priests or castes, which had to decide about the const.i.tution of the State and State worship, but the most comprehensive view of the reality of all that is human. Whence do the Greeks derive this freedom, this sense of reality? Perhaps from Homer and the poets who preceded him. For just those poets whose nature is generally not the most wise or just possess, in compensation, that delight in reality and activity of every kind, and prefer not to deny even evil.
It suffices for them if evil moderates itself, does not kill or inwardly poison everything-in other words, they have similar ideas to those of the founders of Greek const.i.tutions, and were their teachers and forerunners.
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EXCEPTIONAL GREEKS.-In Greece, deep, thorough, serious minds were the exception. The national instinct tended rather to regard the serious and thorough as a kind of grimace. To borrow forms from a foreign source, not to create but to transform into the fairest shapes-that is Greek. To imitate, not for utility but for artistic illusion, ever and anon to gain the mastery over forced seriousness, to arrange, beautify, simplify-that is the continual task from Homer to the Sophists of the third and fourth centuries of our era, who are all outward show, pompous speech, declamatory gestures, and address themselves to shallow souls that care only for appearance, sound, and effect. And now let us estimate the greatness of those exceptional Greeks, who created science! Whoever tells of them, tells the most heroic story of the human mind!
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SIMPLICITY NOT THE FIRST NOR THE LAST THING IN POINT OF TIME.-In the history of religious ideas many errors about development and false gradations are made in matters which in reality are not consecutive outgrowths but contemporary yet separate phenomena. In particular, simplicity has still far too much the reputation of being the oldest, the initial thing. Much that is human arises by subtraction and division, and not merely by doubling, addition, and unification.-For instance, men still believe in a gradual development of the idea of G.o.d from those unwieldy stones and blocks of wood up to the highest forms of anthropomorphism. Yet the fact is that so long as divinity was attributed to and felt in trees, logs of wood, stones, and beasts, people shrank from humanising their forms as from an act of G.o.dlessness. First of all, poets, apart from all considerations of cult and the ban of religious shame, have had to make the inner imagination of man accustomed and compliant to this notion.
Wherever more pious periods and phases of thought gained the upper hand, this liberating influence of poets fell into the background, and sanct.i.ty remained, after as before, on the side of the monstrous, uncanny, quite peculiarly inhuman. And then, much of what the inner imagination ventures to picture to itself would exert a painful influence if externally and corporeally represented. The inner eye is far bolder and more shameless than the outer (whence the well-known difficulty and, to some extent, impossibility, of working epic material into dramatic form). The religious imagination for a long time entirely refuses to believe in the ident.i.ty of G.o.d with an image: the image is meant to fix the _numen_ of the Deity, actually and specifically, although in a mysterious and not altogether intelligible way. The oldest image of the G.o.ds is meant to shelter and at the same time to hide(14) the G.o.d-to indicate him but not to expose him to view. No Greek really looked upon his Apollo as a pointed pillar of wood, his Eros as a lump of stone. These were symbols, which were intended to inspire dread of the manifestation of the G.o.d. It was the same with those blocks of wood out of which individual limbs, generally in excessive number, were fashioned with the scantiest of carving-as, for instance, a Laconian Apollo with four hands and four ears. In the incomplete, symbolical, or excessive lies a terrible sanct.i.ty, which is meant to prevent us from thinking of anything human or similar to humanity. It is not an embryonic stage of art in which such things are made-as if they were not _able_ to speak more plainly and portray more sensibly in the age when such images were honoured! Rather, men are afraid of just one thing-direct speaking out. Just as the cella hides and conceals in a mysterious twilight, yet not completely, the holy of holies, the real _numen_ of the Deity; just as, again, the peripteric temple hides the cella, protecting it from indiscreet eyes as with a screen and a veil, yet not completely-so it is with the image of the Deity, and at the same time the concealment of the Deity.-Only when outside the cult, in the profane world of athletic contest, the joy in the victor had risen so high that the ripples thus started reacted upon the lake of religious emotion, was the statue of the victor set up before the temple. Then the pious pilgrim had to accustom his eye and his soul, whether he would or no, to the inevitable sight of human beauty and super-strength, so that the worship of men and G.o.ds melted into each other from physical and spiritual contact. Then too for the first time the fear of really humanising the figures of the G.o.ds is lost, and the mighty arena for great plastic art is opened-even now with the limitation that wherever there is to be adoration the primitive form and ugliness are carefully preserved and copied. But the h.e.l.lene, as he dedicates and makes offerings, may now with religious sanction indulge in his delight in making G.o.d become a man.
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WHITHER WE MUST TRAVEL.-Immediate self-observation is not enough, by a long way, to enable us to learn to know ourselves. We need history, for the past continues to flow through us in a hundred channels. We ourselves are, after all, nothing but our own sensation at every moment of this continued flow. Even here, when we wish to step down into the stream of our apparently most peculiar and personal development, Herac.l.i.tus"
aphorism, "You cannot step twice into the same river," holds good.-This is a piece of wisdom which has, indeed, gradually become trite, but nevertheless has remained as strong and true as it ever was. It is the same with the saying that, in order to understand history, we must scrutinise the living remains of historical periods; that we must travel, as old Herodotus travelled, to other nations, especially to those so-called savage or half-savage races in regions where man has doffed or not yet donned European garb. For they are ancient and firmly established steps of culture on which we can stand. There is, however, a more subtle art and aim in travelling, which does not always necessitate our pa.s.sing from place to place and going thousands of miles away. Very probably the last three centuries, in all their colourings and refractions of culture, survive even in our vicinity, only they have to be discovered. In some families, or even in individuals, the strata are still superimposed on each other, beautifully and perceptibly; in other places there are dispersions and displacements of the structure which are harder to understand. Certainly in remote districts, in less known mountain valleys, circ.u.mscribed communities have been able more easily to maintain an admirable pattern of a far older sentiment, a pattern that must here be investigated. On the other hand, it is improbable that such discoveries will be made in Berlin, where man comes into the world washed-out and sapless. He who after long practice of this art of travel has become a hundred-eyed Argus will accompany his Io-I mean his ego-everywhere, and in Egypt and Greece, Byzantium and Rome, France and Germany, in the age of wandering or settled races, in Renaissance or Reformation, at home and abroad, in sea, forest, plant, and mountain, will again light upon the travel-adventure of this ever-growing, ever-altered ego.-Thus self-knowledge becomes universal knowledge as regards the entire past, and, by another chain of observation, which can only be indicated here, self-direction and self-training in the freest and most far-seeing spirits might become universal direction as regards all future humanity.
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BALM AND POISON.-We cannot ponder too deeply on this fact: Christianity is the religion of antiquity grown old; it presupposes degenerate old culture-stocks, and on them it had, and still has, power to work like balm. There are periods when ears and eyes are full of slime, so that they can no longer hear the voice of reason and philosophy or see the wisdom that walks in bodily shape, whether it bears the name of Epictetus or of Epicurus. Then, perhaps, the erection of the martyr"s cross and the "trumpet of the last judgment" may have the effect of still inspiring such races to end their lives decently. If we think of Juvenal"s Rome, of that poisonous toad with the eyes of Venus, we understand what it means to make the sign of the Cross before the world, we honour the silent Christian community and are grateful for its having stifled the Greco-Roman Empire.
If, indeed, most men were then born in spiritual slavery, with the sensuality of old men, what a pleasure to meet beings who were more soul than body, and who seemed to realise the Greek idea of the shades of the under-world-shy, scurrying, chirping, kindly creatures, with a reversion on the "better life," and therefore so una.s.suming, so secretly scornful, so proudly patient!-This Christianity, as the evening chime of the _good_ antiquity, with cracked, weary and yet melodious bell, is balm in the ears even to one who only now traverses those centuries historically. What must it have been to those men themselves!-To young and fresh barbarian nations, on the other hand, Christianity is a poison. For to implant the teaching of sinfulness and d.a.m.nation in the heroic, childlike, and animal soul of the old Germans is nothing but poisoning. An enormous chemical fermentation and decomposition, a medley of sentiments and judgments, a rank growth of adventurous legend, and hence in the long run a fundamental weakening of such barbarian peoples, was the inevitable result. True, without this weakening what should we have left of Greek culture, of the whole cultured past of the human race? For the barbarians untouched by Christianity knew very well how to make a clean sweep of old cultures, as was only too clearly shown by the heathen conquerors of Romanised Britain.
Thus Christianity, against its will, was compelled to aid in making "the antique world" immortal.-There remains, however, a counter-question and the possibility of a counter-reckoning. Without this weakening through the poisoning referred to, would any of those fresh stocks-the Germans, for instance-have been in a position gradually to find by themselves a higher, a peculiar, a new culture, of which the most distant conception would therefore have been lost to humanity?-In this, as in every case, we do not know, Christianly speaking, whether G.o.d owes the devil or the devil G.o.d more thanks for everything having turned out as it has.
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FAITH MAKES HOLY AND CONDEMNS.-A Christian who happened upon forbidden paths of thought might well ask himself on some occasion whether it is really necessary that there should be a G.o.d, side by side with a representative Lamb, if faith in the existence of these beings suffices to produce the same influences? If they do exist after all, are they not superfluous beings? For all that is given by the Christian religion to the human soul, all that is beneficent, consoling, and edifying, just as much as all that depresses and crushes, emanates from that faith and not from the objects of that faith. It is here as in another well-known case-there were indeed no witches, but the terrible effects of the belief in witches were the same as if they really had existed. For all occasions where the Christian awaits the immediate intervention of a G.o.d, though in vain (for there is no G.o.d), his religion is inventive enough to find subterfuges and reasons for tranquillity. In so far Christianity is an ingenious religion.-Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains, although I do not know who a.s.sumed that it could. But it can put mountains where there are none.
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THE TRAGI-COMEDY OF REGENSBURG.-Here and there we see with terrible clearness the harlequinade of Fortune, how she fastens the rope, on which she wills that succeeding centuries should dance, on to a few days, one place, the condition and opinions of one brain. Thus the fate of modern German history lies in the days of that disputation at Regensburg: the peaceful settlement of ecclesiastical and moral affairs, without religious wars or a counter-reformation, and also the unity of the German nation, seemed a.s.sured: the deep, gentle spirit of Contarini hovered for one moment over the theological squabble, victorious, as representative of the riper Italian piety, reflecting the morning glory of intellectual freedom.
But Luther"s hard head, full of suspicions and strange misgivings, showed resistance. Because justification by grace appeared to him _his_ greatest motto and discovery, he did not believe the phrase in the mouth of Italians; whereas, in point of fact, as is well known, they had invented it much earlier and spread it throughout Italy in deep silence. In this apparent agreement Luther saw the tricks of the devil, and hindered the work of peace as well as he could, thereby advancing to a great extent the aims of the Empire"s foes.-And now, in order to have a still stronger idea of the dreadful farcicality of it all, let us add that none of the principles about which men then disputed in Regensburg-neither that of original sin, nor that of redemption by proxy, nor that of justification by faith-is in any way true or even has any connection with truth: that they are now all recognised as incapable of being discussed. Yet on this account the world was set on fire-that is to say, by opinions which correspond to no things or realities; whereas as regards purely philological questions-as, for instance, that of the sacramental words in the Eucharist-discussion at any rate is permitted, because in this case the truth can be said. But "where nothing is, even truth has lost her right."(15)-Lastly, it only remains to be said that it is true these principles give rise to sources of power so mighty that without them all the mills of the modern world could not be driven with such force. And it is primarily a matter of force, only secondarily of truth (and perhaps not even secondarily)-is it not so, my dear up-to-date friends?
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GOETHE"S ERRORS.-Goethe is a signal exception among great artists in that he did not live within the limited confines of his real capacity, as if that must be the essential, the distinctive, the unconditional, and the last thing in him and for all the world. Twice he intended to possess something higher than he really possessed-and went astray in the second half of his life, where he seems quite convinced that he is one of the great scientific discoverers and illuminators. So too in the first half of his life he demanded of himself something higher than the poetic art seemed to him-and here already he made a mistake. That nature wished to make him a plastic artist,-_this_ was his inwardly glowing and scorching secret, which finally drove him to Italy, that he might give vent to his mania in this direction and make to it every possible sacrifice. At last, shrewd as he was, and honestly averse to any mental perversion in himself, he discovered that a tricksy elf of desire had attracted him to the belief in this calling, and that he must free himself of the greatest pa.s.sion of his heart and bid it farewell. The painful conviction, tearing and gnawing at his vitals, that it was necessary to bid farewell, finds full expression in the character of Ta.s.so. Over Ta.s.so, that Werther intensified, hovers the premonition of something worse than death, as when one says: "Now it is over, after this farewell: how shall I go on living without going mad?" These two fundamental errors of his life gave Goethe, in face of a purely literary att.i.tude towards poetry (the only att.i.tude then known to the world), such an unembarra.s.sed and apparently almost arbitrary position. Not to speak of the period when Schiller (poor Schiller, who had no time himself and left no time to others) drove away his shy dread of poetry, his fear of all literary life and craftsmanship, Goethe appears like a Greek who now and then visits his beloved, doubting whether she be not a G.o.ddess to whom he can give no proper name. In all his poetry one notices the inspiring neighbourhood of plastic art and Nature. The features of these figures that floated before him-and perhaps he always thought he was on the track of the metamorphoses of one G.o.ddess-became, without his will or knowledge, the features of all the children of his art. Without the extravagances of error he would not have been Goethe-that is, the only German artist in writing who has not yet become out of date-just because he desired as little to be a writer as a German by vocation.
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TRAVELLERS AND THEIR GRADES.-Among travellers we may distinguish five grades. The first and lowest grade is of those who travel and are seen-they become really travelled and are, as it were, blind. Next come those who really see the world. The third cla.s.s experience the results of their seeing. The fourth weave their experience into their life and carry it with them henceforth. Lastly, there are some men of the highest strength who, as soon as they have returned home, must finally and necessarily work out in their lives and productions all the things seen that they have experienced and incorporated in themselves.-Like these five species of travellers, all mankind goes through the whole pilgrimage of life, the lowest as purely pa.s.sive, the highest as those who act and live out their lives without keeping back any residue of inner experiences.
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IN CLIMBING HIGHER.-So soon as we climb higher than those who hitherto admired us, we appear to them as sunken and fallen. For they imagined that under all circ.u.mstances they were on the heights in our company (maybe also through our agency).
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MEASURE AND MODERATION.-Of two quite lofty things, measure and moderation, it is best never to speak. A few know their force and significance, from the mysterious paths of inner experiences and conversions: they honour in them something quite G.o.dlike, and are afraid to speak aloud. All the rest hardly listen when they are spoken about, and think the subjects under discussion are tedium and mediocrity. We must perhaps except those who have once heard a warning note from that realm but have stopped their ears against the sound. The recollection of it makes them angry and exasperated.