No More Learning

2. Thus we compare it to a round sphere-wheel that moves on all sides as the wheel in Ezekiel indicates.
3. And the spirit-life is a complete fullness of the nature-life and it is yet not seized by the nature-life, and these are two principia in one united primal state since each has its mysterium and its effect. For the nature-life works toward the fire, and the spirit-life toward the light of gloria and magnificence. Since we then understand in the fire the fury of the consumption of nature's essence, and in the light the birth of the water that takes away the force from the fire as it is set out earlier in the Forty Questions on the Souls.
4. And thus is recognizable to us an eternal essence of nature, similar to water and fire that are thus equally mixed with each other, since it gives a light blue color similar to the flash of fire. Since it then has a shape as a ruby mixed with crystals in one being; or as yellow, white, red, blue mixed in dark water, since it is as blue in green, since each has therefore in fact its gloss and shines. And the water thus repels only their fire so that there is nowhere con- sumption but rather an eternal being in two mysteries within each other and still the difference of two principles as two different lives.
5. And thus we understand in this the being of all beings, and sub- sequently that it is a magical being since it can create a will in the es- sential life for itself, and it thus can enter into a birth and revive a source in the great mysterium, especially in the original condition of fire that was not revealed before but rather was hidden in the myste- rium as a gleam [Glast] in the plenitude of colors; we have from this a mirror of the devils and of malice and, thus, we also recognize whence all things, evil and good, originate, namely from the imagina- tion into the great mysterium, since a miraculous essentialistic [essen- tialistisch] life gives birth to itself.
90 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
6. As we have from this a sufficient knowledge about the creatures of this world, that the divine life once aroused and revived the nature- life, how it gave birth to such miraculous creatures from the essentia- listic mysterium, thus one understands, then, how every essentia has turned into a mysterium as into a life, and [one] also (understands fur- ther) how in the great mysterium there is thus a magical craving so that the craving of every essence makes a mirror in order to spot and recognize itself in the mirror.
7. And since the craving thereupon seizes it (understand here the mirror) and guides it into its imagination, and finds that it is not part of its life, thus arise repulsiveness and revulsion so that the craving wants to throw away the mirror but is also not able to do so. Thus the craving now seeks the purpose of the beginning and goes out from the mirror, thus the mirror is broken and the breaking is a turba [dis- ruption/discordance] as a dying of the seized life.
8. And it is known well to us how the imagination of the eternal nature has thus the turba in the craving, in the mysterium, but how it is impos- sible to wake it up unless the creature as the mirror of eternity should wake it up itself as the fury that lies hidden in eternity in the mysterium.
9. And we see here, as the eternal nature moved and aroused itself with the creation of the world, that the fury was aroused with it and revealed itself also in creatures, as one then finds many evil animals, also herbs and trees as well as worms, toads, snakes, and the like. Since eternal nature carries a revulsion for this, malice and poison are nurtured in the fury's essence alone.
10. And eternal nature seeks therefore also the purpose of malice and wants to leave it, since eternal nature falls then into turba as into dying, yet this is not a dying but rather a spewing out into the myste- rium, since malice with its life should reside separately as in a dark- ness. For nature abandons and overshadows it so that it therefore re- sides in itself as an evil, poisonous, and furious mysterium, and itself is its own magia as a craving of the poisonous fear [Angst].
The Sixth Text
Summaries
The repulsiveness is in the creature, para. 1, 2. Whence arises all vio- lence in this world, 3. The multiplicity seeks oneness, 4. For one Lord
BOEHME | MYSTERIUMPANSOPHICUM | 91
should govern the whole world, 5. then the driver will be sought out, 6. in the 6,000th year, 7. in the day of the accomplished creation, 8. namely, at noon on the sixth day, 9.
Whereas we recollect and come to know ourselves, we now find the repulsiveness of all beings since each one is the loathing of the other and hostile to the other.
2. For each will desires a purity in the other being without turba, but itself possesses the turba in itself and is also the loathing of the other. Now, the power of the larger being overcomes that of the smaller and constrains it, unless the latter then flees from the former; the strong oth- erwise rules over the weak, thus the weak runs and seeks the purpose of the driver and wants to be free from the constraint. And thus the pur- pose that stays hidden in the mysterium is sought by all creatures.
3. And all violence of the world originates due to and from this so that each one rules over the other; and violence was not called for or ordered by the highest good but rather grew from the turba, since it afterward recognized nature as its being that was born from nature and enacted the law to give birth to itself further within the estab- lished regime. Since, then, this giving birth thus ascended to royal status and thus sought further the abyss as oneness, until it became monarchia as empire. And thus it is still ascending and wants to be oneness and not multiple, and even if it is in [the] multiple the first growth--from which everything is born--it wants to rule everything and wants to be a lord over all regimes.
4. And while the same craving was one regime in the beginning but over time divided itself according to the essences into the multiple. Thus the multiplicity seeks again the ONE [das EINE] and is born for sure in the sixth number of crowns as in the 6,000th year of the figure. Not at the end but rather at that hour of the day when the creation of miracles was completed.
5. That is: since the miracles of the turba remain at the end, a lord is born who governs the whole world but with many functions.
6. And the self-grown authority and the driver will be sought every- where. For the smaller, which was inferior, reached the purpose with it. Now, each one divides itself; for it has reached its purpose and there is no staying or repealing.
7. Thus the turba as the fury of all creatures is also sought, for it also reached the purpose of the creatures together with the loathing,
92 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
and the turba is now revealed in the role of the purpose amid the crown-number, in the 6,000th year, a little over but not under.
8. On that day and hour when the creation was accomplished in the mysterium, and was posited into the mysterium (as a mirror of eternity) and into the miracles.
9. This happens on the sixth day at noon, there the mysterium with the miracles stands revealed and is seen and known [erkannt]. Then the purity will drive out the turba for a time until the beginning enters into the end, thereupon the mysterium is a miracle in figures.
The Seventh Text
Summaries
A magic awoke the other through lust, para. 1. where evil is revealed at the same time, 2. Everything grew without deliberation, the colors as well, 3. as blue, red, green, yellow; white belongs to God, 4, 5. Herein we find the tree of tongues with four alphabets, there lies the nature-language, 6. as the first alphabet and the root in all languages; ibid. thereafter the Hebrew, 7. the Greek, 8. and the Latin, 9. In all alphabets God's spirit is revealed, 10. They originate from the colors of the great mysterium and divide themselves in seventy-seven lan- guages, 11. as [it] is known from the tower of Babel, 12. where every language entered into itself within its own reason, 13. from this the turba has grown, 14, 15.
Whereas such an arcanum is laid within the mysterium of the eternal nature from which all creatures are born and created good and evil. Thus we recognize it as a magical being since each magia awoke the other through lust and brought it into being, as then everything raised itself and guided itself into the highest power. For the spirit of God is not a creator in nature but rather one who reveals and seeks the good.
2. Thus evil as by magical craving has always sought and found it- self in the mysterium, and it is revealed at the same time without God's intention. For the fury is a severity and reigns over foolishness.
3. Thus everything grew from its own tree without deliberation. For the first revealer, as God, did not command malice into the regime, but rather reason and intelligence, which were supposed to reveal the
BOEHME | MYSTERIUMPANSOPHICUM | 93
miracles and become a guide for life. And everywhere we encounter the great secret, as it has been laid in the mysterium for eternity, as the mysterium with its colors, which are four. And the fifth color is not property of the mysterium of nature but rather of the mysterum of the deity, which color shines in the mysterium of nature as a living light.
4. And these are the colors, since everything lies within: as (1) blue, (2) red, (3) green, and (4) yellow, and the fifth as white belongs to God, but also has its gleam in nature. But the latter is the fifth es- sentia, a pure immaculate child as it is devised in gold and silver, as well as in a white, bright crystal-stone that persists even in fire.
5. For the fire is the test [proba] of all colors in which none persists except for the white color because it is a gleam of God's majesty. (The black color does not belong to the mysterium but it is rather the cover as the darkness, since all lies within. )
6. Also, we find herein the tree of tongues as that of languages, with four alphabets, as one described with the characters of the myste- rium in which lies the nature-language that is the root in all languages. And, in the spawn of multiplicity (or of the many languages), it is yet not recognized except by its own children to whom the mysterium it- self gives understanding because it is a miracle of God. (This alpha- bet of the nature-language lies in the black color hidden under all oth- ers, for the black color does not belong to the number of colors, it is mysterium and not understood, except by him who possesses the nature-language, to whom it is revealed by the spirit of God. )
7. And the other alphabet is the Hebrew, which reveals the myste- rium and names the tree with the branches and twigs.
8. The third is the Greek, which names the tree with the fruit and all ornament, which first rightly proclaims intelligence [Witze].
9. The fourth is the Latin, which benefits many peoples and tongues and proclaims the tree with its strength and virtue.
10. And the fifth is God's spirit, which is the revealer of all alpha- bets. And no man may learn this same alphabet, [until] it reveal itself in the human-spirit.
11. Thus these alphabets originate from the colors of the great mysterium and divide themselves further into seventy-seven lan- guages in all, since we only recognize five as the main languages and seventy-two for the miracles in which Babel is understood, as a mouth of a confounded being. Hence rationality abandoned its guide and wanted to go alone and ascend to the mysterium.
94 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
12. Such is recognized through the children of Nimrod in the tower of Babel, since they fell from God's obedience into their own reason. Thus they lost their guide and confounded reason so that they did not grasp their own language.
13. Thus many languages grew as seventy-two from the con- founded Babel, and each entered into itself and sought intelligence: each into its own reason and malice. For they left God and became pa- gans; and God allowed them to go in their miracles, for they did not want to follow Him, but rather wanted to be their own growth, and their own reason (which was yet mixed with all colors) was supposed to govern them.
14. Now the turba was born so that they were not of one mind. For each wanted to live from his color but these were not the right main colors, but rather their evil, self-hatched children who hatched themselves in reason. And they wandered without the true guide who created everything in one tongue and did not reveal more than one; one tree with the branches and strength together with the fruit.
15. Then the four alphabets lie in one tree and proceed the one from the other, but the multitude of languages must use their charac- ters as occupants, but also want to be their own and all sprout against the tree.
The Eighth Text
Summaries
Thus there are two different religions, para. 1. and Babel is in both, 2. They mouth hypocritical flattery of God, 3. the magus is plenitude, a de- vourer, 4. and does not stand in the free will of God; 5. it is an idol and gives birth to falsity, 6. from which a parting from God, 7, 8. Thus were two different kinds of pagans: (1) that remained in their magia, 9. and (2) that lived in the flesh and sought war, 10, 11. The Jews were also the same, 12. and precisely thus is the antichrist's birth, since two empires dwell in one people at the same time that do not allow themselves to mix with each other in the inner spirit, 13. The antichrist is in all houses; the worst is, however, the crowned whore and her baptismal fathers, 14. The other part of God's free will are the righteous children of God, 15. and they are free from Babel and antichrist, 16.
BOEHME | MYSTERIUMPANSOPHICUM | 95
Thus we now see the origin of two different religions from which Babel was born an idol, and that in the pagans and Jews.
2. For Babel is in both, and they are two races in one. One that pro- ceeds by reason (as from the nature-life and spirit) and strives to raise itself. This makes for it a path in its being, for its will emanates from its own craving and seeks its magia as a large number for its re- gime, a multiplicity, and it proceeds simply from itself. Its will remains in its multiplicity and is its multiplicity's god and guide.
3. And if the free will of God confronts and punishes it, the idol only mouths hypocritical flattery of the free will as the spirit of God, and honors its own will in the number of multiplicity. For the same will is born from its treasure as from its magia. It does not gasp the free will of God and for that reason it is born from flesh and blood, from its own nature, and is a child of this world, and takes its treasure for its love. Thus it is now a hypocrite and a confounded Babel. For the num- bers of the multiplicity as its own magia confound it so that it pro- ceeds from one number into many. Now this multiplicity is a con- founded Babel and its mouth hypocritical so that it offers good words to the spirit of unity and praises often, but is an antichrist and a liar. For it speaks differently and acts differently, its heart is a craving and its heart's spirit has turned into the craving.
4. Thus the magus of the multiplicity is a proud, malignant, cove- tous, malicious devourer and a spirit from the desiring multiplicity, and is a false idol. It does not follow the free will of nature--the one who controls the power of the miracles--and has no understanding in the divine mysterium. For it does not follow the same spirit with its will: thus, its will would otherwise be turned into freedom, God's spirit would reveal its magical mysterium and its miracles and works would stand with its will in God.
5. But now they proceed from themselves in this manner, the be- ginning seeks the end, and the midpoint is the turba. For it does not stand in the free will of God, but rather it grows from itself and raises itself as a proud tree.
6. And thus God is then only united in the will and is united in the eternal desire as in the eternal magia, so that the craving of the eter- nal magia thus surrenders itself then into the eternal will and draws its life from it. Thus the will (which originates from birth as one who is a rebel) is a perjured whore. For then it is a bearer of the falsehood and does not follow the free will.
96 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
7. And we understand in all of this a parting from God, since Luci- fer--who made the magia of nature false-craving--is a cause of all of this. And thus in this, two eternal lives will be born, one in God's will and the other in the will of the devil and fury. And that is Babel with the antichrist on earth.
8. Everything proceeding from God's will into its own will belongs to Babel, you see that in the Jews and pagans, as well as in all peoples. 9. The pagans remained in their own magia. But those that went out from the craving for decay into the light of nature, because they did not know God and lived in purity, those were the children of free will, and the spirit of freedom revealed in them great miracles in their
mysterium as is to be seen from the wisdom they left behind.
10. The others, however, as they lived only in their own magical will, lived from their own flesh and blood, their will drowned in the turba; and the turba poured forth in its will and provided them a spirit according to the essences of covetousness and furiousness. They only
sought the number of multiplicity as lordly fiefdoms and kingdoms. 11. And when the turba could not advance further because of force, it thus became furious and started strife and war, and from this origi- nates war as from the arrogance and covetousness of the multiplicity.
And it belongs with its number to the mysterium of fury.
12. The Jews were the same. God revealed himself to them but they also followed two wills: one part followed the commandment to be judged with their will in God's will and as the patriarchs and all the hopefully devout [Hoffer] of Israel, the others did [tha? ten] with their hands the works of the law and followed with their wills their poisoned magia as their covetousness and they sought only their number in multiplicity. Their mouth was a Jew and the heart a whore of Babel, a hypocrite and antichrist with good words and a false, covetous heart. 13. And thus the whore of Babel resides in Christianity and in all peoples with the antichrist, since two empires exist at the same time in one people. And both do not allow themselves to be mixed in the inner spirit so that they would become one, like clay and iron do not mix. They mix surely in the body but their spirits are two races as the
prophet Daniel said in 2:43.
14. For that reason, he who wants to know the antichrist should in-
deed seek him: he will find the antichrist in all houses. But the worst is the crowned whore; and her baptismal fathers, who lifted her from
BOEHME | MYSTERIUMPANSOPHICUM | 97
the baptism in prostitution (so that they might also live in the num- ber of the multiplicity), are the barkers [Schreyer] who bring about many wills from the united will of God so that only they may inherit the number of the multiplicity and fatten their earthly bellies.
15. And the other part of God's free will proceeds with its magical will from itself into freedom as into the united ungraspable will of God--they stand turned backward in the magical figure. Their life seeks bread and goes forward, and their will is not in bread, but rather proceeds from itself, from the craving, into God. And they live with the will in God, in one number; they are the children of the eter- nal, true magia. For God's spirit lives in their will and reveals the eternal miracles of God and their life-spirit reveals the miracles of this world.
16. And they are free from Babel and antichrist, even if they were to fall into his lap. For the true image of God remains in the will-spirit that is born from the soul-spirit.
The Ninth Test
Summaries
How there are two magiae: thus there are also two spirits that lead them, para. 1. It must be in earnest to tame the astral-spirit, for it is not an easy thing to become a child of God, 2. that is what antichrist presents himself falsely as being, 3. Therefore the world may see itself in these writings, 4, 5.
For Babel already burns and its empire goes toward its end, hallelujah! 6.
Whereas two magiae exist in one another thus there are also two magi that guide them as two spirits. One is God's spirit and the other is the reason-spirit in which the devil exerts himself, and in God's spirit the love of unity exerts itself. And man cannot test himself bet- ter than when he notices earnestly where his desire and lust drive him. Man has this earnestness as his guide, and he is also its child. Thus he has nevertheless the power to break and change the same will, because he is magical and has the power to do so.
2. But this must be in earnest, for man must tame the astral-spirit that rules in him. To this belongs a soberly calm life with constant reim- mersion [Einwerfung] into God's will. For neither wisdom nor art is able
98 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
to restrain the astral-source, but rather the moderation of life with con- stant withdrawal from influence. The elementa always thrust the astral- craving into will for them. Thus it is not an easy thing to become a child of God. It takes great labor with much effort and suffering.
3. And still the antichrist is allowed to call himself God's child. But Christ says: Not everyone will enter into the kingdom of heaven who says to me, Lord, Lord, have we not through your name cast out de- mons, and through your name done many deeds? But He says to them: Go away from me, you stinking goats, I do not know you, Matt. 7:22. You did it from the false magia and were never recognized in my spirit and will. You are goats, tyrants, misers, courtiers, and voluptu- aries in your spiritual figure; you called out my name but sacrificed your heart to voluptuousness and to the flesh, and you were born in the turba. You must be proven by fire; thus in every empire, its fruit comes home.
4. Therefore, you beautiful world, observe yourself in these writ- ings that have provided the eternal ground for you, and thus consider the ground deeper and further; or you will be caught in your turba. Hence, you should walk with your being through God's fire and every- thing that is a work outside of God's will should remain in the fire.
5. However, what is born in God's will should honor God and stand for his miraculous deed and for the human-image as eternal joy.
6. Now mind what you do! Because Babel is already in flames and catching fire; there is no putting out the fire [kein Lo? schen] anymore and also no medicine. She has been recognized as evil and her empire is going toward its end. Hallelujah!
END
FRANZ XAVER VON BAADER
"ON THE ASSERTION THAT THERE CAN BE NO WICKED USE OF REASON"1
Le mal n'est pas une histoire,c'est une puissance. 2
Every drive already possesses its own wisdom, its own understanding or, as the ancients said, its wit (every craving has its own cunning) and is therefore an artistic drive. This applies in fact just as well to the drive of animals as to the drive of man as a living creature superior to animals. Now, if one wished to designate the understanding of animals as understanding purely in terms of their self-understanding in regard to their animal-purpose [Thierzweck] and wished to designate reason as the understanding of animals or their self-understanding toward their higher purpose, then this might pass muster only insofar as, on the one hand, one did not have the use of language against oneself-- which however certainly seems to be the case here where, for exam- ple, "a reasoning Christian in conflict with an unreasoning devil" would be expressions that (language use) would in no way sanction--and in- sofar as, on the other hand, one reminded oneself that the genuine and original (autonomous) driving and leading force of animals does not reside in but rather within, that is, above, them. This is not the case for man of whom one says just because of this--namely because the understanding resides in him--that only he, and not the animal, has understanding. Now, if one wished further, and through applying the preceding limitation of both words' meaning (understanding and rea- son), to describe by them the essence or non-essence of human cor- ruptness at its root, so that one might say: man in giving up reason would become merely the understanding animal and come en niveau with the latter, whereas reason is something incorruptible in him, and
100 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
of reason itself there can be no wicked use,* then, through these asser- tions, one would not merely have language use but also the matter's nature itself against oneself. Admittedly, it would be desirable that the corruptness in man would only go so far, namely to pure--guilt-free-- becoming-animal. But this is not the case. Man can unfortunately only stand above or under animals and, even after having fallen below ani- mals, he strives nonetheless to rule them from bottom up according to his disposition and for his purpose--as he actually should rule them from top down--and to misuse them. ? Also, the animal in or about
* See "On Learned Societies, their Character and Purpose. Read During the Ceremonial Renewal of the Royal Academy of the Sciences at Munich in 1807," p. 51 of Jacobi's Works VI, 59. The author expressed himself differ- ently on this subject in his earlier writings, asserting that reason was abso- lutely not light but rather no more than the eye. As a matter of fact, one could speak in such a way of the health in man that would never become sick in him and would therefore be incorruptible.
? Exactly here lies the source of the very old misunderstanding. Namely, that according to which one noticed that the spirit that turned evil comes to stand under the animal and loses its freedom with respect to the animal. Therefore, one immediately drew the conclusion that this service to the an- imal itself was evil. Now, shackles and prisons do not turn the criminal into one and are only consequences and witnesses of his wrongdoing. All the beautiful and edifying admonitions and sermons of most of the older and newer moral philosophers to man, "that he, in view of his dignity, should never serve the animal" and so on, seem to me for that reason often no dif- ferent than as if I were to hear the wrongdoers that are imprisoned under lock and key shouting to each other that they should not like to serve their prison guards so slavishly, and so forth. The same is true of the declama- tions on bourgeois slavery, because this outward slavery presupposes that inward, earlier, slavery already and by rights accompanies it. The freedom howl of every outrage is also for that reason nothing other than the call of fools who got loose [losgewordenen] in a madhouse, or of animals that got free [losgekommenen] in a menagerie that one should, after all, confine them better. Like those, however, who were entrusted with the power of the keys, abase [materialisiren] themselves so much that they--no longer be- lieving in their own power (potestas or authority)--mistake mere force (vis) for that power, they must naturally, as being incapable of excitement and enthusiasm for right and virtue, surrender to excitement for wrongdoing.
VONBAADER | ONTHEASSERTIONTHERECANBENOWICKEDUSEOFREASON | 101
man is indeed indifferent toward good and evil, as it is ignorant toward the former and toward the latter, and it likely hinders malice just as often from its own eruption as one says that it would be a hindrance to good. Evil men would announce themselves without doubt as more evil, they would announce themselves as devils if that which is animal- istic were still to give them a kind of (heteronomic) goodness that one surely can no longer call bonhomie, but that is often considered as such and as a "good heart" in common and in noble life, and that really is the only goodness one can still count on with some certainty in rela- tion to these possessed animals. Thus, there is nonetheless evil--an evil spirit--in man, the recognition of which is independent of all theo- ries and histories: How did this evil spirit come into man or arise in him? And this evil spirit is independent of all direction as to how to expel it again from him, and so forth; but also to the same degree [it] is independent of all theories and systems of those philosophers who would like to deny this evil just because they are not able to explain it. Whereas this evil is by no means neither so dumb nor of so bad [and] common ancestry as they would like to make us believe; and they may only do this to conceal the gap in their system. It is admittedly certain and undeniable that with the divine drive--inasmuch as man silences it in himself little by little--also the divine art (the talent for art) disap- pears, and that man becomes more unskilled, more inept, also more in- comprehensible, more unreasonable or less insightful in respect to the good to the same extent that he becomes tired with it. But then, on the one hand, the insight into that which leads to good still remains with man and that which leads away from it (to evil), and the misuse of this insight to advance good, which falls together with the use of the same insight to advance evil, is exactly this misuse of this insight and of rea- son; and, on the other hand, however, we observe how reason in such a man admittedly turns into unreason [zu einer Unvernunft] but only in that positive sense of a perversity and corruption in which one says that that which is human turns into that which is inhuman [zum Un- menschlichen], nature turns into unnature [zur Unnatur], form and shape turns into that which is unshaped [zur Ungestalt]. Indeed! Man cannot even devote and surrender himself to the animal, cannot turn himself into a beast without first denying something positive--that which is truly human--in himself. But this denial--this "hindrance of truth by means of injustice and lie"--is not, for instance, a merely pas- sive ignoring but rather a positive, dynamic, and (as the rake of vice
102 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
sometimes proves) violent act of the mind, by which the no less posi- tive solicitation of that which is human toward revelation is for itself repelled and struck down. And exactly in this considered suicide of the more noble life and [in] the base selfhood's own wanting-to-raise itself to its place and site (of the divinization of the latter) consist the sin that has by no means a simple distraction or absence of reason as its source and yields to no simple, rational discourse. *
* One recalls here that bon mot by Goethe who, when the question was asked, how would the line of Adam have continued if he had not fallen, an- swered this would then have happened without doubt by means of a ra- tional discourse.
EPHRAIM GOTTHOLD LESSING "The Parable"1
A wise and energetic king of a great, great empire had a palace in his capital of quite vast circumference and of quite exceptional architecture.
The circumference was vast because he had gathered around him- self within it all whom he needed as aides or instruments [Werk- zeuge] of his government.
The architecture was unusual because it was at odds with virtually all accepted rules; yet it was pleasing, and yet it was fitting.
The architecture was pleasing primarily because of the admiration that simplicity and greatness arouse when they seem to disdain rich- ness and decoration more than to manage without them.
The architecture was fitting because of permanence and comfort. The entire palace stood after many, many years still in the same cleanness and completeness with which the builders had added the finishing touches; from the outside a bit incomprehensible; from the inside light and coherence everywhere.
Those who claimed to be knowledgeable in architecture were par- ticularly offended by its exterior, which was disrupted with few win- dows, scattered to and fro, large and small, round and square; in- stead, however, it had all the more doors and gates of various shapes and sizes.
One did not grasp how enough light could come into so many rooms through so few windows. For it occurred to the fewest that the most elegant rooms received their light from above.
One did not grasp for what reason so many and varied kinds of en- trances would be necessary since a great portal on each side would be likely more becoming and would provide exactly this service. For it occurred to the fewest that anyone who may be called into the pal- ace should arrive precisely where one needed him in the shortest and most fail-safe way.
104 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
And thus among the allegedly knowledgeable arose much contro- versy that was normally promoted most heatedly by those who had had the least chance to see much of the inside.
Also, there was something of which, at first sight, one would have believed that it necessarily would have to make the controversy very effortless and short, which, nevertheless, precisely most compli- cated the controversy, which provided precisely the richest nourish- ment for the most stubborn continuation of it. Namely, one was thought to have various old plans which were supposed to be de- scended [herschreiben] from the initial builders of the palace; and these plans were found to be annotated with words and characters whose language and characteristics were as good as lost.
Thus everyone explained these words and characters to them- selves as they saw fit. Everyone thus composed from these plans an arbitrary new one; by which new one someone or other not infre- quently let himself become so intoxicated that he not only himself swore by it but also had others swear by it, now by persuasion, now by force.
Only a few said, "What do your plans have to do with me? " This and that one said, "They are all the same to us. It is enough that we hear every moment that the most beneficial wisdom fills the whole palace and that from it nothing but beauty and order and prosperity are spreading themselves over the whole country. "
They were often poorly received, these few! For, sometimes, when they paid a bit closer attention to one of the specific plans in a hu- morous spirit, they themselves were denounced as murderous incen- diaries of the palace by those who had sworn by this plan.
But they did not care much about this, and they became, exactly because of this, most capable of associating with those who worked within the palace and had neither the time nor the desire to get in- volved in controversies that were not controversies for them.
Once--when the controversy about the plans was not so much set- tled as in a quiescent phase--once at midnight the guards' voice sud- denly echoed: Fire! Fire in the palace!
And what happened? Then, everyone got up from his bed; and everyone, as if the fire were not in the palace but in his own house, dashed toward the most valuable thing that he believed he had: to- ward his plan. "Let us only save it! " thought everyone, "The palace can- not be more truly burning up there than it is standing here! "
And thus everyone ran with his plan into the street where, instead of hurrying to protect the palace, each wanted to show the other where the palace presumably was on fire. "Look, neighbor! It's burn- ing here! Here is the best place to cope with the fire. " "Or rather here, neighbor; here! " "What are you both thinking? The palace is burning here! " "What kind of an emergency would it be if it were on fire there? But it is certainly burning here! " "Put it out here whoever wants to. I will not put it out here. " "And I will not put it out here! " "And I will not put it out here! "
Because of these busy disputants, it could actually have burned down, the palace, if it had been on fire. But the horrified guards had taken the northern lights for the blaze of a fire.
LESSING | "THE PARABLE" | 105
FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI
From On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters To Mr. Moses Mendelssohn1
[. . . ]
The following morning, when I returned to my room after breakfast to get dressed, Lessing followed me after a while. I was sitting having my hair done, and meanwhile Lessing settled himself quietly at a table at the end of the room. As soon as we were alone, and I sat down at the other side of the table on which Lessing had his arms propped, he began: I came to talk to you about my hen kai pan [one and all]. You
were distressed yesterday.
I. You surprised me, and I may indeed have blushed and turned
pale, for I felt my bewilderment. It was not distress. Of course, noth- ing had I assumed less than to find a Spinozist or a pantheist in you. And you told me that so bluntly. I had come mainly to get help from you against Spinoza.
Lessing. Then you do in fact know him?
I. I believe I do as well as very few have known him.
Lessing. Then you are not to be helped. You should rather become
entirely his friend. There is no other philosophy than the philosophy of Spinoza.
I. This might be true. For the determinist, if he wants to cut to the heart of the matter [bu? ndig sein], has to become a fatalist. From this the rest follows by itself.
Lessing. I see we understand each other. I am all the more eager to hear from you what you consider the spirit of Spinozism to be; I mean the one that had made its way into Spinoza himself.
I. This is likely no other than the very ancient [uralt] a nihilo nihil fit [nothing comes from nothing] that Spinoza took into consideration
JACOBI | FROM ON THE DOCTRINE OF SPINOZA | 107
according to more abstract concepts than the philosophizing Kabbal- ists and others before him. In accord with these more abstract con- cepts, he found that, through each single coming into being in the infi- nite, and through each single change in the infinite, something is posited from nothing, regardless of the kind of images with which one also disguises it. He rejected thus every transition of the infinite to the finite; generally all causae transitoriae, secundariae, or re- motae, and he posited, instead of the emanating, an immanent En- Sof2; an in-dwelling, in itself eternally unchanging, cause for the world that, taken together with all its consequences, would be one and the same . . . *
This indwelling infinite cause has, as such, explicite, neither under- standing nor will, because it cannot have an object of thinking and willing, according to its transcendental unity and thoroughly [durchga? ngig] absolute infinity; and a capacity to generate a concept before the concept or a concept that would precede its object and be the complete cause of itself, just like the will that would act on the willing and fully determine itself, are nothing but inconsistencies. . .
. . . The objection, that an infinite series of effects is impossible (they are not mere effects because the immanent cause exists al- ways and everywhere), refutes itself, because every series that should not arise from nothing must simply be infinite. And from this it follows once more, since every individual concept must arise from another individual concept and must relate immediately to an actually present object, that neither individual thoughts nor indi- vidual determinations of the will can be found in the first cause, whose nature is infinite, but rather only their inner, first general pri- mal matter [Urstoff]. . . The first cause is exactly no more likely to be able to act on intentions or final causes as it exists because of a cer- tain intention or final cause; a beginning-ground or final end are ex- actly no more likely to achieve something as beginning or end exist
* I am continuing with this presentation and summarize what I can without writing down the conversations that took place in between, because I would then have to digress too much. What immediately follows here came about because Lessing mentioned as the darkest in Spinoza what Leibniz also found to be so and had not understood completely (Theod. ? 173).
I provide this reminder here once and for all and will not repeat it in the following when I take similar liberties.
108 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
in the first cause itself . . . Fundamentally, what we call consequence or duration is, however, pure delusion, because, since the real ef- fect is coextensive with its complete real cause and only different from it with respect to [its] representation, then consequence or duration must be, in truth, only a certain way to intuit the manifold in the infinite.
Lessing. . . . We will not turn against each other on account of our credo.
I. We definitely do not want that. But my credo is not written in Spinoza.
Lessing. I am hoping it is not written in any book.
I. Not only that. I believe in an intelligible, personal cause of the world.
Lessing. Oh, so much the better! In that case, I shall have some- thing utterly new to hear.
I. Don't expect too much. I extricate myself from the matter with a salto mortale,3 and you usually don't exactly take particular pleasure in leaping with your head down.
Lessing. Don't say that; as long as I don't have to imitate it. And you will surely come to stand on your feet again. Thus--if it is not a secret--I want to ask for it.
I. You can pick it up from me. The entire matter consists in the fact that from fatalism I conclude immediately against fatalism, and against everything that is connected with it. If there are only efficient and no final causes, then the capacity to think in the whole of nature merely acts as an observer; its only business is to accompany the mechanism of the efficient forces. The conversation that we are pres- ently having with each other is only a concern of our bodies, and the entire content of this conversation is resolved in their elements: ex- tension, movement, degrees of velocity, along with their concepts, and the concepts of these concepts. The inventor of the clock did not actually invent it; he only observed its emergence from forces that were blindly developing themselves. So too Raphael, when he drew the school of Athens; and Lessing, when he wrote his Nathan. The same is valid of all philosophies, arts, forms of government, naval and ground warfare, in short, of all that is possible. For the affects and pas- sions also have no effect in so far as they are sensations and thoughts; or, more correctly, in so far as the affects and passions carry sensa- tions and thoughts with themselves. We only believe that we acted
JACOBI | FROM ON THE DOCTRINE OF SPINOZA | 109
out of rage, love, generosity, or out of rational decision.