From the moment when he catches sight
of the light of the world a man seeks to find out himself
and get hold of himself out of its confusion, in which
he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture.
But everything that comes in contact
with the child defends itself in turn against his attacks, and
asserts its own persistence.
Accordingly, because each thing
cares for itself at the same time comes into constant collision
with other things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable.
Victory or defeat -- between
the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor
becomes the lord, the vanquished one the subject:
the former exercises supremacy and "rights of supremacy,"
the latter fulfills in awe and deference the "duties of a
subject.
But both remain enemies,
and always lie in wait: they watch for each other's weaknesses
-- children for those of their parents and parents for those of
their children (e.g., their fear); either the stick conquers
the man, or the man conquers the stick.
In childhood liberation takes the
direction of trying to get to the bottom of things, to get at
what is "back
of" things; therefore we spy out the weak points of everybody,
for which, it is well known, children have a sure instinct; therefore
we like to smash things, like to rummage through hidden corners,
pry after what is covered up or out of the way, and try what we
can do with everything. When we once get at what is back of the
things, we know we are safe; when, e.g., we have got
at the fact that the rod is too weak against our obduracy, then
we no longer fear it, "have out-grown it."
Back of the rod, mightier than it,
stands our -- obduracy, our obdurate courage. By degrees we get
at what is back of everything that was mysterious and uncanny
to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father's
stern look, etc., and back of all we find our ataraxia, i.
e. imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our
odds of strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly
inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly,
but take courage. Back of everything we find our courage,
our superiority; back of the sharp command of parents and authorities
stands, after all, our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness.
And the more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which
before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewdness,
courage, obduracy? What else but -- mind!1
Through a considerable time we are
spared a fight that is so exhausting later -- the fight against
reason. The fairest part of childhood passes without
the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all
about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to
be persuaded to anything by conviction, and are deaf
to good arguments, principles, etc.; on the other hand, coaxing,
punishment, etc. are hard for us to resist.
This stern life-and-death combat
with reason enters later, and begins a new phase; in
childhood we scamper about without racking our brains much.
Mind is the name of the
first self-discovery, the first self-discovery, the first
undeification of the divine; i. e., of the uncanny, the
spooks, the "powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth,
this feeling of self, now defers to nothing; the world is discredited,
for we are above it, we are mind.
Now for the first time we see that
hitherto we have not looked at the world intelligently
at all, but only stared at it.
We exercise the beginnings of our
strength on natural powers. We defer to parents as a
natural power; later we say: Father and mother are to be forsaken,
all natural power to be counted as riven. They are vanquished.
For the rational, i.e. the "intellectual" man,
there is no family as a natural power; a renunciation of parents,
brothers, etc., makes its appearance. If these are "born
again" as intellectual, rational powers, they are
no longer at all what they were before.
And not only parents, but men
in general, are conquered by the young man; they are no hindrance
to him, and are no longer regarded; for now he says: One must
obey God rather than men.
From this high standpoint everything
"earthly"
recedes into contemptible remoteness; for the standpoint is --
the heavenly.
The attitude is now altogether reversed;
the youth takes up an intellectual position, while the
boy, who did not yet feel himself as mind, grew up on mindless
learning. The former does not try to get hold of things
(e.g. to get into his head the data of history),
but of the thoughts that lie hidden in things, and so,
e.g., of the spirit of history. On the other
hand, the boy understands connections no doubt, but not
ideas, the spirit; therefore he strings together whatever can
be learned, without proceeding a priori and theoretically,
i.e. without looking for ideas.
As in childhood one had to overcome
the resistance of the laws of the world, so now in everything
that he proposes he is met by an objection of the mind, of reason,
of his own conscience. "That is unreasonable, unchristian,
unpatriotic," etc., cries conscience to us, and -- frightens
us away from it. Not the might of the avenging Eumenides, not
Poseidon's wrath, not God, far as he sees the hidden, not the
father's rod of punishment, do we fear, but -- conscience.
We "run after our thoughts"
now, and follow their commands just as before we followed parental,
human ones. Our course of action is determined by our thoughts
(ideas, conceptions, faith) as it is in childhood by
the commands of our parents.
For all that, we were already thinking
when we were children, only our thoughts were not fleshless, abstract,
absolute,
i. e., NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS, a heaven
in themselves, a pure world of thought, logical thoughts.
On the contrary, they had been only
thoughts that we had about a thing; we thought of the
thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God made the world
that we see there," but we did not think of ("search")
the "depths of the Godhead itself"; we may have thought
"that is the truth about the matter," but we do not
think of Truth itself, nor unite into one sentence "God is
truth." The "depths of the Godhead, who is truth,"
we did not touch. Over such purely logical, i.e. theological
questions, "What is truth?" Pilate does not stop, though
he does not therefore hesitate to ascertain in an individual case
"what truth there is in the thing," i.e. whether
the thing is true.
Any thought bound to a thing
is not yet nothing but a thought, absolute thought.
To bring to light the pure thought,
or to be of its party, is the delight of youth; and all the shapes
of light in the world of thought, like truth, freedom, humanity,
Man, etc., illumine and inspire the youthful soul.
But, when the spirit is recognized
as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the
spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich
in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire
-- an empire that is not of this world, the world just conquered.
Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; i.e.,
although I am spirit, I am not yet perfected spirit,
and must first seek the complete spirit.
But with that I, who had just now
found myself as spirit, lose myself again at once, bowing before
the
complete spirit as one not my own but supernal, and feeling
my emptiness.
Spirit is the essential point for
everything, to be sure; but then is every spirit the "right"
spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the
"Holy Spirit." It is not my or your spirit, but just
-- an ideal, supernal one, it is "God." "God is
spirit." And this supernal "Father in heaven gives it
to those that pray to him."2
The man is distinguished from the
youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of
everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, i.e.
model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with
the world according to his interest, not according to
his ideals, becomes confirmed.
So long as one knows himself only
as spirit, and feels that all the value of his existence
consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the youth to give
his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the
silliest point of honor), so long it is only thoughts
that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day
when he has found a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only
ideals, unexecuted ideas or thoughts.
Not till one has fallen in love
with his corporeal self, and takes a pleasure in himself
as a living flesh-and-blood person -- but it is in mature years,
in the man, that we find it so -- not till then has one a personal
or egoistic interest, i.e. an interest not only
of our spirit, e. g., but of total satisfaction, satisfaction
of the whole chap, a selfish interest. Just
compare a man with a youth, and see if he will not appear to you
harder, less magnanimous, more selfish. Is he therefore worse?
No, you say; he has only become more definite, or, as you also
call it, more "practical." But the main point is this,
that he makes himself more the center than does the youth,
who is infatuated about other things, e.g. God, fatherland,
etc.
Therefore the man shows a second
self-discovery. The youth found himself as spirit and
lost himself again in the general spirit, the complete,
holy spirit, Man, mankind -- in short, all ideals; the man finds
himself as embodied spirit.
Boys had only unintellectual
interests (i.e. interests devoid of thoughts and ideas),
youths only intellectual ones; the man has bodily, personal,
egoistic interests.
If the child has not an object
that it can occupy itself with, it feels ennui; for it
does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself. The
youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, because for him
thoughts arose out of the object; he occupies himself
with his thoughts, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually,
or "his mind is occupied."
The young man includes everything
not intellectual under the contemptuous name of "externalities."
If he nevertheless sticks to the most trivial externalities (e.g.
the customs of students' clubs and other formalities), it is because,
and when, he discovers mind in them, i.e. when
they are symbols to him.
As I find myself back of things,
and that as mind, so I must later find myself also back
of thoughts -- to wit, as their creator and owner. In
the time of spirits
thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they
yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies
-- an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal
on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. God, Emperor,
Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take
them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal."
And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine,
as my property; I refer all to myself.
If as spirit I had thrust away the
world in the deepest contempt, so as owner I thrust spirits or
ideas away into their "vanity." They have no longer
any power over me, as no "earthly might" has power over
the spirit.
The child was realistic, taken up
with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded
in getting at what was back of these very things; the youth was
idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to
where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with things
and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his personal
interest above everything. Finally, the old man? When I become
one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.