Dialectics and Nihilism: Essays on Lessing, Nietzsche, Mann and Kafka

Citation preview

DIALECTICS and N IH ILISM

DIALECTICS and NIHILISM Essays on Lessing Nietzsche Mann and Kafka

BY

PETER

H ELLER

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A S S A C H U S E T T S P R E S S . 1966

Copyright © 1966 by T h e University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-26240 Printed in the United States of America Second printing, 1969

for Christiane and Hans

FOREWORD

Each of the follow ing studies considers dialectic and the problems inherent in Faustian striving. Each concerns the story of the dialectical quest as reflected in the rise and fall of German literature from the age of idealism to the age of nihilism. Inasmuch as this literature has always been characterized by a religious or quasi-religious striving for infinity revealed in finite symbols, for absolutes in the heart of the contingent, this story exceeds, of course, the scope of this volume. T h e follow ing studies illustrate an initial stage, represented by Lessing, in order to set off against the promise of progressive and unending enlightenm ent the final act of the tragedy as represented by Nietzsche, M ann and Kafka. Certain scenes of the drama, such as G oethe’s Faust or the H egelian tradition, could not be fitted into this book. Yet the rationale which underlies the development of its theme should be readily apparent. Lessing conceived “ pure striving” as a dialectic sustained in its direction by a divine and infinitely distant goal. T h e increasing em ancipation of dynam ic striving from the faith in this or in any objective goal led to Nietzsche’s frantic attempt to embrace a boundless and autonomous dialectic. Nietzsche’s endeavor established the context for the pervasive ambivalence and perennial oscillations of Thom as M ann. Finally, the levelling and neutralizing despair of K afka demonstrated that dialectical striving, w ithout a goal, is futile. T h e studies combine a historical perspective w ith an “ intrinsic” approach to the interpretation of texts. T h e y represent systematic endeavors to reveal correspondencies between form and content and to appreciate a given work in terms of such correspondencies. T h e principle of this method is contained in Kierkegaard s observation that “ the reduplication of content in form ” is essential to all literary art (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Swenson, Lowrie [Princeton, 1941], .297). T h e assumption of the “ unity” of a text suggests the presence of unifying features, of a dom inant impulse which finds expression on all levels or in all aspects of a work. A t the same time, these levels or aspects, e.g., of style and philosophical content, rem ain distinct, and the assertion that a stylistic feature

vii /

V iii /

FOREWORD

reduplicates an idea can be true only in a m etaphorical sense. A n approach designed to reveal the underlying spirit or logos of a work in a variety of spheres may therefore be termed a m ethod of analogy. T h e manner in which a unifying tendency may find expression in a literary work of art, how it may shape micro-units of style, the nexus between sentences, the imagery, the segments and the entire structure of a text, the character portrayal, the plot and the ideational content remain to be demonstrated with sufficient thoroughness. It is one thing to suggest that the dialectical arguments of Lessing correspond to his faith in a progressive dialectic as the providential evolution of mankind. It is quite another thing to demonstrate how the principle of this dialectic manifests itself in all aspects of Lessing’s Nathan. Similarly, conjectures concerning a general affinity between Nietzsche’s doctrines and his strategy of antithesis and reversal must be applied and worked out in detail if they are to serve the purpose of inter­ pretation and analysis. It may be obvious that M ann’s verbal leit­ motifs correspond to his philosophy of varied recurrence or to his conception of life in the myth. Y et only a close reading in terms of this correspondency w ill reveal its significance as a key to the inter­ pretation of the Joseph Novels. A n d the same considerations apply to the attempt to read Kafka on all levels in terms of a single configura­ tion which defines despair as incongruity, alienation or non-arrival. So much for thesis and method. T h e critical bias of these studies is im plicit in the diagnosis of decline. For what could justify concern with this condition unless it were the hope of com prehending the contemporary crisis of literature and of overcom ing it from w ithin rather than by a reliance on traditional models which is necessarily ineffectual? Nietzsche’s proclam ation of the death of God initiated a phase in German literary and intellectual history which is about to be concluded. Given this perspective — and a disbelief in Nietzsche’s anti-credo — one is compelled to register a reaction against the moderns. In criticism these moderns were, typically, in search of am biguities and liberal to the point of preferring even chaos to an inhibitive order. W e, on the other hand, have no choice but to be concerned w ith reintegration. Nietzsche, Mann, K afka managed to preserve an ever more tenuous coherence in spite of violent disunity, radical doubt and the final threat of decomposition. T h e follow ing studies trace the unraveling of coherence. T h e m ethodological quest is, in this sense, a descent in to hell. Yet there, too, are the gods.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my enduring gratitude and sense of obligation to Erich H eller and to the late Franz R. Sommerfeld. I am deeply indebted to colleagues, teachers and friends, and, in particular, to Frederick C. Ellert, A ndre von Gronicka and Herm ann J. W eigand. T h e suggestions and criticisms of Leone A. Barron, M ark Boulby, Peter Salm, and R ene W ellek guided my revisions of the manuscript. T h ro u gh o u t the years, the University of Massachusetts generously supported my work on this book. I am indebted to S. Fischer for permission to quote from German editions of the works of T hom as M ann, notably from Joseph und seine Briider, copyright © 1964, S. Fischer V erlag Gm bH , Frankfurt/M ain. For kindly perm itting me to adapt from their copyrighted editions, especially from Joseph and His Brothers (New York: A lfred A. Knopf, 1944), I am grateful to the estate of Thom as M ann and to A lfred A. Knopf, Inc., the publishers of the writings of Thom as M ann, trans­ lated by H. T . Lowe-Porter. T h e English version of “ A u f der G alerie,” slightly adapted, is reprinted by permission from T h e Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, copyright @ 1948 by Schocken Books, Inc., New York, translated by W illa and Edw in M uir. I am also indebted to Schocken Books for permission to quote from their Germ an editions of K afka s works. Q uotations from previously published articles are by permission of T h e Germanic Review, T h e Journal of Aesthetics, and T h e Modern Language Association of America.

CONTENTS

FOREW ORD

L E S S IN G :

T h e Virtuoso of Dialectic

T

he

D

ia l o g u e

C

ontroversy

T

L

vii

etter and th e

he

L

o g ic a l

L

o g ic o f

18 Im

T

he

on cept and

E

n l ig h t e n m e n t , f in it y

Su m

3 11

C

In

1

Sp ir it

and

22

pulse

P r o v id e n c e Im

27 31

age

P

u r if ic a t io n

, Sy n t h e s is

37

S e l f -S u r r e n d e r

44

ir e

59

50

m ary

P o s t s c r ip t : F

N IE T Z S C H E : Antithesis and Reversal

69

T

he

B

a s ic

Pattern

71

T

he

B

ir t h

of

T

82

th e

ragedy

82

d iv id e d o n e

TH E DIALECTIC O F SOCRATISM

A

89

TH E PROBLEM O F PESSIMISM /

IO I

M

i

ajo r

R

eversal

13

BIOGRAPH ICAL ASPECTS

113

ANTI-W AGNERIANISM

119

PO IN T AND COUNTERPOINT

123

AGAINST THE ABSOLUTES OF PESSIMISTIC IDEALISM

lg l

REVERSAL AS DOCTRINE, M ETH OD, AND SY M PTO M

P o s ts c r ip t

13 8 14 4

xi

/

M ANN: T

he

A

149

Spheres of Ambiguity L

m b iv a l e n t

moon

151

e it m o t if

t

gram m ar

CORROSIVE DOUBT

*5 ^ 16 3

TH E M ARGINAL BALANCE

,

16 8

73

T h e L e itm o tif as U n ifie r

i

C

18 8

R

ontrasts an d

TH E

DUAL

e c o n c il ia t io n s

SP H E R E

l8 8

SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF CONTRAST E v o l u t io n

ecurrence

205

TH E DEVELOPING LEITM O TIF

205

and

R

195

SPIRITUALIZATION AND DECADENCE, SYNTHESIS AND NEGATION P o s t s c r ip t

222

K A F K A : T h e Futility of Striving I n c o n g r u it y

211

and

A

l ie n a t io n

227 229

TH E CROWS AND TH E M ETA PH YSICA L HEAVENS

22 g

SOCIAL ASPECTS

238

p s y c h o l o g ic a l a sp e c t s

244

/ " n ih il is t ic

249

aspects

t h e a e s t h e t ic s o f

INCONGRUITY AND A LIEN ATION D

e s p a ir

and

A

257 267

m b ig u it y

TH E BASIC DILEMMAS

267

THE AM BIGU ITY OF DESPAIR

276

P o s t s c r ip t

289

th e quest for th e sym bo l

289

d ia l e c t ic a n d

297

s t r iv in g

NOTES

307

IN D E X

337

xii

LESSING The Virtuoso o f Dialectic

The Letter and the Spirit

Modern Germ an prose and drama were born from the spirit of dialectic. T h e essay of a schoolboy,1 the earliest of Lessing’s extant writings, reveals that dialectic was his peculiar endowment long before he turned critic and playwright. It took, nonetheless, a lifetim e of effort devoted, in particular, to the theatre, before the founding father of a literary tradition which still bears his mark could express the essence of his conception of dialectic. T h is he accomplished in Nathan the Wise, a play on wisdom as the dialectical way of life. In spite o f its weaknesses as a work of art, a live spirit animates Nathan the Wise. Great writers are heirs to ancient traditions and anticipators of the future. Y et they are of their own age. Lessing, spiritual kinsman of Socrates, at home in a remote community of ideas, was a child of the eighteenth century. T h e controversial spirit of the Enlightenm ent provided the stimulus for Nathan. W hile librarian at W olfenbiittel, Lessing had published and commented upon several excerpts from the posthumous work of Professor Samuel Reim arus, a well-known scholar and representative of deism, w ithholding the name of the author. T h e Fragments (22) contained a radical and closely reasoned attack on revealed religion, aimed particularly at Christian­ ity. As editor, Lessing merely claim ed the right to bring a discussion into the open. Somewhat ambiguously, he suggested as his own position an attitude apart from, between, or perhaps above the pros and cons in the m atter proposed for debate. Yet it was hardly an accident that he him self became the chief target o f the conservative counter­ attack provoked by this publication. Lessing, to use his own terms, did not wish to exchange the “ unclean w ater” of Lutheran orthodoxy for the “ liqu id m anure” of a new­ fangled theology.2 However, as far as his present opponents were concerned, he was inclined to treat them not as genuine representatives of orthodoxy but as dishonest, pedantic, or foolish “ orthodoxists” who, in trying to save and justify the evangelists “ in every syllable,” merely served to render the word of God an object of ridicule in the eyes of reasonable men (25, 15, 62, 93). Lessing claimed that a term such as bibliolatry was not intended to refer to idolatrous worship of the book 3 /

4 / LESSING of books nor, still less, to suggest that in his own time there was anyone left to indulge in idolatry of the Bible (23, 307 f.). However, through­ out his polemic, he was at pains to prove that the early Christians could not and did not rely prim arily on a book or codified text but rather on oral tradition and, particularly, on the “ confession of faith,” the regula fidei (23, 260 ff.). A t the heart of the dispute between Lessing and his Lutheran opponents was the question of what authority was to be accorded to the text of the scriptures. T h e quarrel w ith Pastor Goeze hinged on the question “ whether there could be a Christian religion, even if the Bible in its entirety were lost, if it had long been lost, if it had never existed” (23, 258). Before the twelfth “ Anti-Goeze” could appear in print, a decree issued by the Duke of Braunschweig put a stop to Lessing’s polemics. He thereupon turned to his “ old pulpit . . . the theatre” 3 to continue the feud with different weapons. Nathan the Wise is thus a disguised thesis against Lutheran literalism. As K uno Fischer suggested, the play is to show once more that “ the letter is not the spirit, and the Bible is not religion.” 4 T h e illiteracy of the Friar (the only true Christian in the play), the semi-literacy of Recha (the pure in heart), and N athan’s Socratic indifference or aversion to cold book learning, which is approved by Sittah (Act V, sc. 6), stand in contrast to the Patriarch’s invocation of the letter, the “ signature,” the “ seal” of codified law (Act IV, sc. 2). T h e significance of this antiliteralism , both with respect to Lessing and to the age of German classicism, has long been recognized.5 According to Lessing, the letter kills, or at the very least, the letter is recalcitrant to progress, and the sects of Christianity in general or of Lutheranism in particular must not be allowed to substitute the letter of religious observance for the spirit of religion. Christianity takes its eternal gradual course, and eclipses do not move the planets out of orbit. But the sects of Christianity are its phases and not to be preserved except by a stagnation of all nature with sun and planet and observer at a standstill in their same position. God keep us from such terrible stagnation! (23, 156)

T h e adherence to the letter is unnatural, a perversion of the cosmic order. T h e opposite of such terrible stagnation is that live transmis­ sion of ideas which requires them to be received by the m ind and permits their modification, change, and growth through the ages, that is, the discursive movement, the spiritual dialectic, the perennial dia­ logue in the most comprehensive sense of the term.

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT /

5

So m uch for the function of Nathan in one of the historic disputes of the age. B ut the conflict between letter and spirit also had its roots in Lessing’s intim ately personal experience as a conflict between dead or asocial book learning and the live com m unity of men. Lessing was em inently a bookworm. T h e precocious six-year-old chose to sit for his portrait on a pile of tomes (/, xiv). A n ardent and independent reader, he lived as a schoolboy happily enclosed in a universe of letters and learning, and he continued in similar seclusion during his initial period at the University of L eipzig where, he claimed, he was always in the company of books and exclusively occupied w ith himself "w ith as little thought of the rest of hum anity as, perhaps, of G od” (/, x v i i ) . Deeply hum iliated, perhaps even by “ vices” (/, 188, 191 f.) which life w ith books did little to eradicate, he realized now that books, though they would make him learned, would not make him human. H e resolved to leave his study and to meet the world. “ Ich lernte tanzen, fechten, voltigieren . . .” (1, x v i i f.). In the satire on the Young Scholar he turned prim arily upon himself. But learning to dance and to fence had not made him abandon his former love. He came to form lasting friendships, and enjoyed the lively community of kindred spirits, most of whom were, like him, men of letters. But these were the counterweights to his abiding and dom inant passion for reading and writing, from which he would also relax in games and gam bling, or, as Goethe put it, “ in einem zerstreuten Wirtshaus- und W eltleben ” (7, xxxm ). Lessing’s life was singularly untroubled by love affairs. T h e tender and sober com panionship w ith Eva Koenig, culm i­ nating in a year of marriage cut short by her death in childbed, again approxim ated the condition of friendship. A nd he also avoided pro­ fessional ties in order to remain free. B ut free for what, if not for reading and writing? Alm ost any career, including academic teaching for which he had a dislike (1, xxxv), would have taken him away from his literary pursuits. Destined to be a pastor like his father, he had shifted to the study o f m edicine at W ittenberg, which he abandoned to become one of the first free-lance authors kept on record in the annals of German literature. A nd w hile he served in the years of the Silesian W ar as secretary to General Tauentzien, this job, which was scarcely half-time, offered relief from the drudgery an age w ithout copyright imposed on a w riter ever short of money. Nonetheless he left this em ploym ent after less than four years. Even during this period, spent mostly at Breslau, he had grown as fam iliar with the libraries there as

6 /

LESSING

he had been w ith those at W ittenberg; and he had used his consider­ able salary to increase his personal collection to about six thousand volumes. Even Lessing’s travels were devoted to explorations of book collections and authors. T h e diary of his Italian journey reads largely like an annotated bibliography. Apparently the only employm ent which he eagerly applied for — and sought, perhaps, even through intrigue — and which he was bitterly disappointed not to obtain, was the position of librarian to Frederick the Great in Berlin (/, xxxvi). And the only position which he finally accepted was that of librarian at the celebrated book collection in W olfenbiittel. Known even at school as a “horse that needs a double ration ” (I, x v i) , Lessing commanded in his early twenties an astonishing knowledge of books. In several of his early years he wrote as many as one hundred twenty book reviews. He came to survey the specialized literature in a variety of fields. His additions to Jocher’s Gelehrtenlexicon (8, 191-250) and his enduring predilection for the m icrology of literary research, productive of an abundance of intriguing foot­ notes,6 were nothing if not bookish. Nearly a fifth of the most complete edition of Lessing’s works is devoted to explanatory materials. For his writings im plied and demanded this far-flung network of cross references, and the editors were proud to announce that their “ Personenregister” was itself a biographical encyclopedia of learned men, representing not merely “ an overwhelm ing testimony” to Lessing’s erudition but a bibliographical aid to those concerned w ith the history of learning.7 Moreover, Lessing, though by no means lacking in a capacity for immediate experience, was in approach and method the most literary author imaginable. W hatever his experience of sculpture and painting, he chose to write on the visual arts m ainly by way of criticizing and of commenting upon secondary sources. T h e topic of Laocoon is introduced by way of a disagreement w ith W inckelm ann’s observations (4, 294). W hen he writes about precious stones and gems, he does so by quarreling with other authors on the subject «and by treating of lapidaries.8 A nd whatever the source of his religious experience, he similarly develops his views by way of learned disputes w ith theologi­ cal authors and by a historical or philological exposition and critique of scriptural or patristic texts. . T h e pre-eminence of book learning, of literary scholarship, of the exegesis and discussion of texts as the royal road to all knowledge, is part of a tradition m aintained over many centuries. Y et Lessing’s

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT /

7

attitude toward this tradition remains to be determined. His manner, one m ight argue, was dictated by his chief concern, which was not w ith literary learning or scholarship, but with literary criticism. H ow ­ ever, if Lessing’s activities in all other fields were but extensions of his literary criticism, he w ould appear to be all the more bookish. For surely no one is more intim ately connected w ith the letter of a text than a literary critic. W hatever the genesis of Lessing’s literacy, the extent to which this author thought and worked w ithin a universe of letters is documented by his constant exploitation of and reference to literary sources. Lessing’s mottoes invariably enrich and extend the immediate occasion by the evocation of far-flung literary traditions and contexts. In the Duplik, for example, the metaphors of war and combat, the comparison of the senile theologian Ress with the aged Nestor, of the Fragmentist w ith the challenging Hector, and of Lessing him self with the im partial observer o f the contest between the attacker and the defender of Christian dogma, are intim ately connected with the introductory dic­ tum. T h e motto, “ For the sake of the good fight, rather than of any result to be realized by means of the contest,” 9 derives from a spurious diary of the T ro ja n W ar whose author, Dictys Cretensis, claimed to be the companion of Idomeneus. It is thus from a source which raises the question of forged texts, of historical docum entation, of historical truth — the very issues which are essential to the Duplik.10 A n d while there is more to be said concerning Lessing’s method of literary al­ lusion (the m otto to Nathan, “ Come, enter! For here too are the gods” w ill be dealt with in its season), the perplexing literacy of the author’s artistic technique has long received its measure of both devout and hostile attention. Lessing him self suggested the treatment of Emilia Galotti as a modern transcription of the V irginia theme, much as he encouraged the treatment of Nathan as the dram atic elaboration of the parable found in Boccaccio. Scholars traced, in particular, the parable’s literary antecedents, variants, relations, some of which were undoubtedly know n to Lessing. A n d yet these commonplaces of Lessing scholarship are at this point less pertinent than A lbrech t’s prodigious if slightly insane efforts to prove Lessing’s utter lack of artistic originality. For A lbrecht sought to demonstrate that every work of Lessing consisted of nothing but quotations, or rather that every line in his plays was a plagiarism .11 H ow unfortunate that this ingenious crank and fanati­ cal pedant did not live long enough to p u ll Nathan the Wise apart,

8 /

LESSING

that he was stopped short after having demolished Minnal Even so, there can be little doubt that Lessing’s methpd not merely of literary criticism, but of artistic composition, entailed the incessant use of literary sources. T here may be something o f deliberate under­ statement in his well-known confession that he was not ^ poet, that he lacked the spontaneous force of creative genius, that his early dram atic efforts were but a product of youthful zest and facility, and that his later plays owed all their merit to criticism. A nd yet Lessing, though not immodest, had a contempt for polite lies, and he also confessed that he flattered himself that “ criticism” — though adm ittedly the crutch of the cripple — had given to him something that m ight come "very close to genius” and, certainly, something better than any one of his talents could have produced w ithout its aid. He him self describes his procedure as a dramatist as a m ethod of borrowing “ m odestly” and judiciously from the treasures of other authors, of warm ing his own spirit by the fire of original genius, and of strengthening his powers of perception, the m ind’s eye, with the ready-made spectacles provided by art. W e see him at work on his plays much like a scholar who, in order to succeed in his labor, must bring to bear on his topic all the knowledge acquired by extensive reading (meine game Belesenheit), and who must sum up all notes and observations he has col­ lected in years of study (5, 407 f.). Clearly, Lessing him self looked upon his own dramatic production as an extension of his critical activity. A nd in view of the historical importance accorded to Lessing in his capacity as a critic and dramatist, this rem arkable disclaimer of poetic inspiration m ight suggest the birth of modern German literature from the spirit of literary criticism and erudition. T o leave the matter here w ould amount to a misrepresentation. For Lessing’s plays are not learned literary exercises, nor did he produce his criticism in pursuit of learning. H e was neither a polyhistor in the baroque tradition nor the author of a Germ an Dictionnaire (much as he admired Bayle), nor even an encyclopediste of the Enlightenm ent. “ I am not learned,” he claimed in another of his rare self-reflections, I have never had the intention to become learned, I should not like to be learned even if I could become so in a dream. What I have been striv­ ing for a little, is but to know how to use a learned book if need be. . . .

For learning, he thought, referred “ to the wealth of other people’s experience acquired through books,” while “one’s own experience is

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT /

9

wisdom. T h e smallest capital of the latter is w orth more than millions of the form er” (25, 156). Strangely at odds with the record established by Lessing’s own work, these observations point to an apparent paradox. However, the comparison of learning to wealth is for once appropriate. T h e men who exert themselves in the pursuit of wealth are usually of a different kind from those who wish to have the use of money to spend on whatever they may enjoy. Lessing wanted learning to be at his service. H e wanted and had its use, but for his own purposes. He did not wish to serve learning. T h is qualified rejection of learning is closely associated with Lessing’s character as an author. Herder, his critical successor, praised Lessing for w riting the style of a poet. He justified this deliberate contradiction of the master’s self-estimate by alluding to the derivation of “ poet” from poietes, “ a m aker.” 12 T h a t is, Herder attributed the poetic quality of Lessing’s m anner to the fact that it was expressive of a dynam ic mental activity, “ a m aking,” rather than of the fixed and inert result of mental labor. A nd if we were now to conclude that Lessing was not a scholar but a poet, we should have come full circle. H owever, there is no need to make a fetish of words. It is the dialectical spirit of his mind, his heart, his work, which distinguishes Lessing from the mere scholar. It is this spirit which prompted both H erder and Friedrich Schlegel to accord Lessing the status of the m ental creator, the Socratic genius.13 A nd if there remains something paradoxical about Lessing’s activity, something of knight-errantry in the service of Dame Dialectic, it is only because he preferred to assert the live spirit against the recalcitrant letter of texts. In honor of the live spirit, Lessing set out on the remotest literary excursions, including rescues of forgotten or m aligned authors and works. He brought them back. He resuscitated them in the here and now of discursive dialogue. A nd this reanim ation of text and letter, this rebirth of learning in the perennially present moment of live discussion, he evidently considered the larger purpose to which all scholarship, as the mere auxiliary of the spirit, was to be subordinated. T h e same paradox of Lessing, if paradox it is, expresses itself in the fact that, unlike Socrates, he would rather write than speak in dialogue, that he did not seek conversation nearly so eagerly as he sought to compose a spoken style. Perhaps w riting is only a substitute for the fullness of the word that is spoken and heard. Lessing tended toward

10 /

LESSING

the theatre and its promise of the realization of perfect speech. In his private life, though convivial and disputatious, he was no Dr. Johnson. T ru e, there were in Germ any during his time no circles com parable to those of Periclean Athens or even o f London. N o doubt Lessing was frequently misunderstood even by his closest and most perceptive friends, and, given less than ideal conditions, a dialogue w ith texts and authors is frequently a more enlightening and vital experience than the conversation with dullards. Still, there are other considera­ tions. T h ere is the somewhat asocial tradition of privacy, of inw ard­ ness, of sublime egocentricity, characteristic of Germ an literature, though not fu lly established in Lessing’s time. A nd there is in Lessing’s personality a core of loneliness and, despite the eager pursuit of in tel­ lectual communication, a final resistance to the intim acy of personal contact. But, whatever the circumstances and traits which made Lessing pre-eminently a writer, and, indeed, a litterateur, his goal was not the letter. His goal was the transcendence of the letter. A nd thus this discussion leads to Nathan. Lessing asserted the dom inant principle of his mind in the attempt to conquer for it the tradition of literary learning and scholarly science which was prevalent in his youth and in which he him self had been trained. T h e spirit can­ not be fed in a vacuum. But if Lessing fed the flame of spirit on texts, on learning and letters, the wisdom to which he aspired and of w hich one ounce was worth more than all the wealth of erudition was of the Socratic kind, a “ dear delight,” an unburdened and serene awareness of one’s ignorance, a readiness to enter at every m om ent and to participate forever in the eternally enlightening process of live dis­ cursive clarification.

Dialogue

T h e principle of dialectic is omnipresent in the style, the plot, the character portrayal and the message of Lessing’s didactic drama, Nathan the Wise. It is the constant assertion of this principle which unifies Lessing’s work. A nd yet it should be acknowledged that the unity o f this “ dram atic poem ” is at least open to question. “ T hree types of religion,” as Robertson has it, “ are represented by the M oham m edan Saladin, Nathan the Jew and a young Tem plar; Recha, the adopted daughter of the Jew, ultim ately turns out to be a Christian and the T em p la r’s sister. T h e characters are artificially brought into relations w ith one another; there is little plot and what there is turns upon im probabilities. . . 14 T o be sure, there is always the central parable: the power of the opal to render its possessor pleasing to God and to men if he but have faith in its magic; the loving father’s pious fraud: three equal rings of dubious value left to three equally beloved sons; the ensuing dispute, and the judge who, failing to resolve the issues, advises each plaintiff to have faith in his own ring. L et each of you, the ignorant wise man tells the bewildered brothers, emulate your father’s uncor­ rupted and unprejudiced love. L et each compete in striving to bring to light, to prove the m agic power of the stone in your own ring. Let each assist this power w ith gentleness and peace, with cheerful heart­ felt tolerance, w ith active charity, with hum ble dedication to the w ill of God (vv. 2043-2048). H owever, the parable is not the play. A n d while the reader may be prepared to endorse the commonplace that Nathan is the epitome of Germ an Enlightenm ent and at the same time a beginning, a basic statement in the literary movement known as German Classicism, he may w ell doubt whether this thesis play is likely to prove a suitable object for aesthetic analysis. T h e rationale for the aesthetic integration of the play is nonetheless fam iliar. T h e term dialectic has long been applied to Lessing’s thought and art.15 It w ill provide a controlling m etaphor to summarize the corresponding phenomena on all levels o f his work. D ialectic, according to Adler, most generally designates a process 11

/

\

12 /

LESSING

of discursive thinking which is intrinsically “ conversational,” and hence “ the refinement of conversation,” the art of dialogue (Ad, 6, 9, 12). T h e affinity between dialectic and drama is readily apparent. For drama is the representation of an action through dialogue. T h e form al characteristic carries such weight that any exhibition of dia­ logue as an art or any representation of dialogue may be termed dramatic. T h e drama, however, was Lessing’s -chief artistic medium. He won his early success with a spirited farce aimed at the fool of pedantic book learning (Der junge Gelehrte [ i 747/4®])- ^ e came into his own with a melodram atic bourgeois tragedy (Miss Sarah Sampson [ 1 7 5 5 ] ) . His reputation as a literary artist rests to this day chiefly on the serious comedy of Minna von Barnhelm (1767), the all too im pec­ cable tragedy of Emilia Galotti (1772), and the discussion piece, Nathan der Weise (1779). M oreover, Lessing’s achievements as a critic are usually described in terms of the drama: of his brilliant, if excessive, cam paign against the neoclassical tragedy of the French and their German imitators; of his reinterpretation of the Aristotelian theory of tragedy, particu­ larly of the catharsis; of his recommendation of Shakespeare. Lessing’s m ajor piece of literary criticism is Die Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1767, 1769). A n d to shift for a m oment from the emphasis on dialogue to the distinct, though related, emphasis on plot: even Laocoon (1766), his essay on the respective limits of poetry and the visual arts, conceives prim arily of the dram atic aspect of poetry. For action, or the sequence of events in time, is to Lessing the essential object of literary art. B u t dialectic, although a necessary ingredient in all dram atic art, need not predominate in drama. Even in his plays, Goethe’s m anner is predom inantly lyrical and narrative. In Schiller’s tragedies, a declamatory and rhetorical elan remains pre-eminent. T h e term dialec­ tic should therefore apply in a more rigorous sense to Lessing. Lessing, it has been remarked, wrote conversations even in his expository prose,16 and unlike the lyrical soliloquy and confession at the opening of Goethe’s Iphigenie, even the monologues in Nathan (e.g., A ct III, sc. 6, sc. 8; A ct V, sc. 3) are debates between the voices of the self. T h e general characteristics of Lessing’s style can best be summarized in terms of his dram atization of dialogue as discussion. L ike the chief protagonists of Nathan, Lessing compels his partner to enter into a conversation. He seeks to engage the attention of the other, to involve him, to m aintain his interest, and to clarify the pro­

DIALOGUE /

13

cess as w ell as the content of com m unication in order to achieve a progression, a developm ent in and through dialogue. T h e characteristics noted by various investigators illustrate this prim ary tendency. T h ere are the appeals to the listener or reader, the introductions of interlocutors, the frequent interjections, the interruptions and self-interruptions, the series of questions and an­ swers w hich draw the reader into the discussion, and the objections raised in the form of queries directed at the partner or at a voice w ithin the self. A ccording to W aldberg, Lessing’s conscientious de­ sire to elucidate every statement for the benefit of his audience accounts for almost all of his stylistic peculiarities, including his many similes, images, examples, his frequent parenthetical excursions, and his habit of giving explicit reasons for such excursions.17 Several of Lessing’s characteristics, e.g., the dialogue coupe so frequent in Nathan, also serve to accentuate the dynam ic of dialogue. Bodmer illustrated Lessing’s mastery of tempo, of the presto, of retardation, of alternation between the long period and the short paratactic sequence, and, generally, of conversational rhythms.18 In dialogue, discursive movements should be shared and realized by two or more voices. U sually the dynam ic impact is proportionate to the degree of cohesion between statement and response. In Lessing dialogue develops, typically, as a complete chain of interdependent and interlocking statements. T here are no loopholes. T h is constant and often relentless interaction between the speakers can be “ tor­ m enting.” 19 Y et the virtues of Lessing’s style also result from the tension between the discipline imposed by the adherence to a strict sequential order and the impetuous energy pressing forward rapidly, as a skier who moves through the turns in a slalom. Lessing’s foremost stylistic peculiarity is repetition. Even his early comedies exceed in this respect the exam ple set by his French masters (notably M arivaux). In his later plays he surpassed himself, using “ three repetitions where he had form erly been satisfied with one.” 20 Sim ilarly, the symmetrical repetition of entire sentences is a distinctive trait of his expository prose.21 Some of these repetitions are said to be imposed by Lessing’s characteristic avoidance of the relative clause. Y et the relative clause generally qualifies and delays; it complicates the structure of a sentence; it impairs the directness and weakens the im pact of a statement. A nd consequently Lessing’s avoidance of the relative clause serves the same function as his most typical manner of close-range repetition o f a word, phrase, or sentence, which em-

14 /

LESSING

phasizes the dynamic of dialogue and, generally, of discursive pro­ gression. , Bodmer claimed that Lessing held the record in the use of this figure among all German authors, and that he carried his mannerism to the point of eccentricity and excess in such works as Emilia and Nathan. He favored in particular a form of dramatic repetition characterized as “hinge,” 22 for the discussion usually turned upon the repeated word or phrase. However, such dynamic turns are im plied in the very term “ conversation.” T h e “hinge” indicates the point at which two statements interlock. In order to exhibit the movement, at­ tention is focussed on the point where it is confirmed, accelerated, retarded, or where it is subject to change in direction. For Lessing typically repeats in order to modify, and the repetition is the occasion or measure of such modification. It is true that Bodmer also recognizes refrain-like repetitions, e.g., the reiteration of the word Bruder (brother) in the last scene of Nathan where it serves to illum inate a com plex situation or rather to hint at its resolution.23 For the recognition of the young T em p lar as the brother of Recha and the son of Saladin’s brother resolves all rem aining conflicts. But if this is so, the large m ajority of the instances in which the word Bruder recurs do not, after all, serve prim arily as a refrain, but rather, as a method of keeping alive an anticipation, and thus again, the dynamic of dialogue. Sim ilar considerations apply to D aja’s repeated reference to her "conscience” in the first scene of Nathan. H er insistence raises a question and expectation, to be answered and satisfied only in the course of the play, which w ill uncover the secret troubling the old woman, namely the fact that Recha, though raised as the daughter of N athan the Jew, is in fact Christian by birth. A t the same time the stubbornness and the quality of stereotype, characteristic of D a ja ’s insistence on her Christian conscience, do produce an effect of refrain. Moreover, a similar and major instance of a refrain effect is to be found in the conclusion invariably reached by the Patriarch: the Jew must burn regardless of all arguments in his favor (Act IV , sc. 2). For in both instances the refrain effect is used to suggest an attitude recalcitrant or hostile to discursive development. T h ou gh eager to persuade others, D aja is too obtuse and self-righteous in her bigotry to yield to persuasion. T h e Patriarch remains inaccessibly dogmatic. T h e manner of repetition befitting him is static. It dramatizes re­ calcitrance „to the movement of genuine dialogue.24

DIALOGUE

/ 15

T h e consideration o f Lessing’s style has led to the principle under!ying his portrayal of character. In Nathan the protagonists are ranked according to their willingness or their ability to enter into a genuine conversation.25 Above and beyond his professional flair for rhetorical persuasion, the Patriarch may not lack a capacity for dialectic. However, he refuses the com m unity of dialogue, and this refusal is directly related to his cowardly vanity and brutal egotism. A n inflated and opinionated philistine, he speaks but to air and to advertise his inflexible prejudice. A scheming fanatic, he thinks and talks but to prom ote his self-aggrandizing and grossly destructive action. A practical man, bent on the serious business of murder, he has no patience w ith disinterested discourse. T h e theoretical con­ sideration o f principles and ideas, the hypothetical pro and con (Act IV , sc. 2) essential to the true dialectic, he treats as frivolity. D aja, R echa’s foster mother, ranks second lowest. T h e egotism of the old woman is reducible to her desire to return to her native country and to the elem ent of possesssiveness in her devotion to Recha, whom she tortures w ith her prejudiced love and her good intentions. D aja is foolish but does not speak foolishly. T h rou gh ou t his plays, Lessing’s intent to be intelligently com m unicative invests his characters w ith a more than generous share in their author’s reasoning power. N one­ theless, D aja s m ind is partly closed by prejudice; the pretention to a knowledge o f the exclusive road to salvation isolates her. She does not participate in the discursive m ovement of the drama. She cannot be reached. Sim ilarly, the flaws in the other characters point to a failure to realize to the fu ll the spirit of dialogue. Saladin’s sister, Sittah, is too cunning. H er scheme to trap the Jew is tantam ount to a perversion of dialogue. She proposes the question of questions not in order to receive and to share its answer but to embarrass, to intim idate, to silence, to trick, to break the victim of the interrogation. She proposes to use the disinterested quest for discursive enlightenm ent as a pre­ text for extortion. T h e Friar — a Lutheran in disguise — is too timid, too narrow in t his concern for his personal salvation. T o keep his conscience unburdened and to avoid involvem ent in worldly matters, he refuses to listen to the T em p la r’s urgent appeal to be heard. Even Al-Hafi, though next to N athan the most elevated spirit and dearest to the author’s heart,26 is too im patient w ith the pros and cons. T h e problem atic character of the T em p la r is expressed in alter­ nations between refusal and acceptance of dialogue. A victim of his

l6

/

L E SSIN G

youthful bitterness, aimless in his defiance, m elancholy and proud, suspicious of others as of himself, and yet arrogant in his. prejudice, he at first refuses to listen to Daja. H e w ill not speak to Recha. T h e attempt to overcome his resistance to conversation affords a central m otif to the exposition. He is won over to dialogue -by the art of N athan. But under the debilitating influence of erotic love, when mis­ guided passion impairs his reason, he is again- prone to escape from conversation, to betray the openness of discussion and to break off the dialogue im petuously when he should pursue it. Recha, the model of innocence, is the docile pupil and product of an education administered exclusively through conversation (Act V, sc. 6). She seeks dialogue as soon as she has been cured of her asocial delusion by the dialectical therapy of N athan (Act I, sc. 2). Saladin, though essentially a man of swift decisive action who quite heedlessly avails himself of any means that m ight serve his somewhat vain ­ glorious generosity, is m om entarily led astray by Sittah. B ut he is quickly redeemed by his readiness to set aside his own desires and to be N athan’s disciple in selfless inquiry. T h e enlightened Jew, the opposite of the Patriarch, is of course openm inded, ever ready to act the part of the Socratic dialectician. Analagous considerations apply to the analytic plot. T h e external physical events have been removed and form part of the background and prehistory. T h e y are treated as data in a dialectical argument, that is, as the basic facts or assumptions to be uncovered through a series of discursive encounters and probings in which m ind meets mind. T h e center and clim ax of the play is the series of scenes containing the parable of the three rings in which N athan persuades the dialectically capable and w illin g Sultan to renounce all pretensions to dogmatic finality in favor of the open horizon of m an’s eternal quest for G od ’s truth. T h e happy end of the drama occurs when the chief characters abandon all secret reservations, concealed assumptions and dogmatic prejudices, when under the influence of the virtuoso of the open dialogue, they are ready to recognize one another as kindred spirits. A nd the final recognition of fam ily relationships and the vows of friendship uniting the nom inal adherents of Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism are symbolic o f the grander kinship u niting all men as children of one God. In spirit and message Nathan the Wise is a dramatic conversation in praise of the principle of the Socratic dialogue, a sober panegyric to the essence of the academic mind. Lessing admired in Leibniz the

DIALOGUE /

17

large and undogm atic conception of truth (24, 173) which enabled him to act the Socratic m idwife, to cut through the externals of a specific term inology, and transcend in the act of interpretation the mere letter of doctrine. T h is was the purpose of the philosopher’s exoteric” discourse. For Leibniz gladly set aside his own — esoteric — system in order to meet a man on his own ground and to help him along his own road toward the truth (2/, 147). A ccording to his most celebrated dictum, Lessing valued not at all the fancied possession of truth but considered the striving after truth m an’s best part. Nathan the Wise, as Jacobi observed, is directed against all who im agine they have found the one and only way to G od and truth, including the dogmatists of liberalism or of a static doctrinal deism (Pa, 337 f.). A t the close of the play, none of the characters possesses the truth; all have begun to approxim ate the Socratic confession of ignorance. However, the play has illustrated a discursive m ovement which, as it takes place within the individual mind and the specific context of his tradition and perspective, assumes a necessarily unique form and therefore can never be substi­ tuted for by the impersonal letter of doctrine, however true or ortho­ dox. I f it is the purpose of Nathan the Wise to dramatize and glorify this movement, such purpose is strictly analogous to what has long been recognized as the chief characteristic of Lessing’s style. He does not write, as Herder put it, as a man who has thought but as a man who thinks.27 H e is an author engaged here and now in the discursive process, thus engaging his reader in the same discipline. Both the play as a whole and the microunits of style exh ib it the same discursive m ovem ent of dialectic which, exercised as striving after truth, Lessing considered the manifestation of m an’s noblest impulse.28

Controversy

O u r initial characterization of dialectic as dialogue or as the “ refine­ ment of conversation” has proved insufficient. As a discursive develop­ ment, dialetic requires the separation of elements in discourse. It is, in fact, “prim arily concerned w ith the opposition of . . . terms, propositions or systems” (Ad, 156). D ialectic is a m ethod of argum ent, disputation, controversy. Lessing’s genius for controversy requires no proof. H e instigated significant disputes in all the fields of his activity. In literature, upholding the authority of A ristotle’s Poetics and the models set by the Greek tragedians, as w ell as by Shakespeare, he was involved in controversy on all fronts: against Gottsched and the French neo­ classicists, against the abuse of pictorial poesy advocated by the Swiss, and (since he wanted neither the yoke of stifling rules — the “ letter” of misconceived laws — nor the anarchy of self-styled genius) against the rebels of Storm and Stress. H e was sim ilarly engaged in other directions, e.g., in respectful conflict w ith W inckelm ann. A nd whatever the im plications of the Laocoon controversy for the visual arts, its historical significance in the perennnial Germ an and W estern debate on the essence of the classical spirit is generally admitted. Lessing’s argument contained the seeds of future opposition against the restriction of the Greek spirit to calm grandeur and noble sim plic­ ity. In literature, at least, Laocoon may and w ill scream, the heroes may weep, and neither passion nor madness w ill be declared out of bounds. Lessing’s conception of classical harm ony was, perhaps, not so innocuous, not so smoothly A pollon ian as we are sometimes led to believe. A nd as for the dispute over the Fragments, the positions of Reim arus as precursor of the “higher criticism ” of the nineteenth century and of Lessing as the anticipator o f K ierkegaard’s problem of “subjectivity” 29 suggest that this controversy marked a m ajor phase in a crisis of religion w hich confronts us still. Moreover, controversy permeates the very texture of Lessing’s style and art, even beyond and apart from the general affinity between drama, dispute, and conflict. Scholars have long explored the "im ­ m easurable,w ealth” of images w hich Lessing derived from all m anner 18

\

CONTROVERSY

19

o f combat and struggle.30 Yet it is still of interest to observe his habit of proceeding by closely-knit debates both in expository prose and in dialogue. Even the lovers, M inna and T ellheim , must fight their way toward one another through neat controversy, and when the young T em p lar first meets the adolescent Recha, they are soon engaged in a quarrel and united through a dispute on revealed re­ ligion (Act III, sc. 2). It is curious how Lessing managed to construe a provocation and to derive a debate even from seemingly innocuous remarks. In Nathan the opening statement of D aja w ould appear to be no more than a conventional welcome extended to the returning head of the house­ hold. T h a n k G od,” she says to him, ’’you have at last come back again.” Yet w ithout as much as responding to the greeting, the old man, w ith the journey behind him, im m ediately takes D aja up on her assertion: Yes, Daja: thank God. B ut why at last? D id I want to come back earlier? Could I have come back earlier?” A nd now he argues that this w ould have been quite impossible. D aja must retort and justify her “ at last.” She points out to him that in his absence he m ight have lost his house to fire. N o matter, counters Nathan, for in that case he would simply have built a more comfortable home; whereupon D aja scores a victory in the debate by inform ing him that Recha, evidently an irreplaceable item, had almost perished in the flames. T h a t, it w ould seem, should settle the argument. For even in his extreme anxiety over Recha, Nathan remains sufficiently aware of the debate to concede that if Recha had been lost, he would indeed have had no need of a new house either. Y et he im mediately proceeds on a new bout of discussion by accusing D aja of concealing the fact that Recha had actually perished in the fire, forcing D aja again to defend herself. She does so by suggesting that if such had been the case she w ould not have remained alive to tell the news. Nathan, reassured, now reverts to his initial position by rebuking D aja for having alarmed him needlessly. For this charge is to be traced back to that contested “ at last” which presum ably first aroused the old m an’s suspicion (vv. 1-28). O bviously the machinery of debate is used here as a vehicle for the purpose of exposition. H owever, the seemingly natural use of what is in fact an artifice is highly characteristic of a play in which virtually every scene is conceived in terms of one or several controversies. M oreover, a dispute between Sultan and Jew is at the center of the play, and a dispute among three brothers is at the center of the central

20 / LESSING parable. Analogously, the work as a whole is a disguised disputation on the nature of true religion. A n d in point of origi/i and historical context, it w ill be recalled that this play, which Lessing called “ the child of his incipient old age which polem ic .helped to deliver,” 31 served the continuation of a theological feud. . T h e above-mentioned motto of the D u p lik 32 suggests Lessing’s passion for the good fight to the point of indifference to any tangible gain that m ight be realized by the victorious contestant. T h is over­ riding concern with the m ental skirmish is illustrated not only by the brilliant, if somewhat gratuitous, polemics of Lessing’s early phase, e.g., by his Vademecum for Mr. Lange (14, 49-84), but also, and in a deeper sense, by the polemics of his mature period. For both in the Anti-Goeze and in Nathan Lessing’s chief loyalty belonged not to a specific result but to the contest itself. His claim to a prim ary con­ cern with the good fight, with the quality of reasoning, the purity of spirit, the fairness in m ental combat, im plied his essential philosophy.33 Since a live dispute requires for its realization the engagement of the whole man, it should not lack em otional elements. Lessing com­ mented on his own pugnacity, that “ rascal irascibility” which he had inherited from his father and which he took to be of female gender (Spitzbiibin Iraszibilitat), perhaps because his anger was so unpre­ dictable and fickle that it often failed him on the very occasions when he should have most expected it — when, for instance, the censors put a stop to his Anti-Goeze (25, 155 f.). A n d yet, with Lessing as with his most characteristic figures (Odoardo, Orsina, T ellh eim , the T e m p la r), irascibility or, generally, passionate engagement are strange­ ly blended with a capacity for sober detachment and/or with a sense of humor. Lessing relished the “ high comedy of polem ic” (23, 12). W hat is more, Lessing and his protagonists display objectivity and ironical distance at the very height of fury (cf. the sententiousness of L ady Marwood) and at the nadir of despair (see Lessing’s letter on the death of his son34) . Hence, in his plays the objectifying epigram frequently marks the clim ax of tragic emotion. W hen, for exam ple, at E m ilia’s bidding, her father Odoardo stabs her to death, the dying girl answers her father’s anguished cry: O E

doardo: m il ia :

God, what have I done! Plucked a rose before the storm has stripped it of its petals. (2, 162 f .) 35

Em otion should not suspend but heighten the rational faculty,

CONTROVERSY

21

and whether the mood is calm or turbulent, Lessing’s m anner remains analytical. Ideally, emotion is to be fused w ith governing reason, and since these considerations also apply to Lessing’s diction, it is im ­ possible to distinguish, for example, between dialectical and emotional repetitions.36 Lessing and his characters are dialectical in their passion and increasingly passionate in the pursuit of dialectic. His most significant developm ent as a dramatist leads, in fact, from the attempt to portray the dialectic of passion in Miss Sarah Sampson to the attem pt to portray the passion of dialectic in Nathan the Wise. However, these observations suggest that all emotions, and especially those germ ane to controversy, should ultim ately be sublim ated in the pursuit of light. Aggression is to become pure dynam ic energy. Lessing s early polemics suggested the abuse of intellectual skill at the hands o f a pugnacious critic. Ideally, pugnacity in debate is a tactic subservient to the intellectual quest. Lessing explicitly recommended com bat as a means to the end of arriving at clearer insight. For “ the first degree o f knowledge is to recognize errors, the second to realize truths.” 37 H e followed this precept as a critic. He sought to illustrate it as a dramatist. It seemed natural to him that man should ascend toward the truth by struggling with his own misconceptions and those of others. A ccording to the Education of M ankind this critical progres­ sion was ordained by D ivine Providence, and it was to guide the entire course of hum an history. Surely God had a hand in our errors as in all else! (6, 63). For only by fighting errors could man progress on the ways of true faith.

The Logical Impulse

Dialectic implies not only opposition and dispute but intellectual analysis, an art of revealing the implications inherent in a set of prop­ ositions, and an art of synthesis. T o be dialectic, discourse must con­ form (or appear to conform) to the rules of logic. For dialectic is “ the logic of oppositions in discourse” (Ad, 157), or the art of logical argument. W h at is the Socratic method of teaching? “ W hat did Socrates do,” Lessing asked, “ but seek to bring out by questions and answers all the essential elements that belong to a definition, and finally to draw conclusions from the definition in the same manner?” (4, 42). Lessing’s manner is indebted to traditional devices for presentation and disposition, requiring a premeditated and conscientious advance through interrogation toward a set goal. In his reviews he w ould first state his m ain thought or theme, then open the debate w ith a quotation or objection, introduce reservations to define the central idea more closely, and proceed by an unobstrusive game of question and answer to annihilate his adversary's opinion or to demonstrate the validity of his own thesis.38 Generally, the dramatization of discursive logic is a prime character­ istic of Lessing’s style. Hence his reliance on the connectives of logic: “ even if,” “ if — then,” “ although,” “ for (because).” “ M ark this ‘as w ell as,’ ” he exclaims, “ this ‘although,’ this ‘because,’ and you w ill find that all but everything depends on these particlesl” (23, 57). Hence his addiction to syllogism, to repetitions which serve to dissect and analyze every statement, and to peculiarities related to the m an­ ner and rhythms of logic rather than to its essential activity, e.g., schematism, symmetry, and latent triad.39 Danzel, the most perceptive biographer of Lessing, attributed his merits chiefly to an art of division,40 of tracing conscientiously and neatly the border lines between adjacent spheres. Instances are Lessing’s concern with establishing the distinctive characteristics of pure literary genres, of fable and parable, comedy and tragedy, prose and poetry; his attempt to delim it poetry and m etaphysical philosophy in his and Mendelssohn's inquiry into Pope’s Essay on Man (24, 9622

THE LOGICAL IMPULSE /

2g

127), poetfy and the visual arts in Laocoon, and philosophy and re­ ligion as w ell as theology and faith in the dispute on the Reimarus fragments and throughout Nathan. Moreover, the sense of and relish for the critical juncture, the dividing line or point of intersection, or for the turning point, serve the purpose of the dramatist. T h e same impulse seems to have led Lessing to propose the choice of the fruit­ fu l moment as a law of visual art (Laocoon) or to invent for his Faust an ancillary spirit as rapid as the transition from good to evil (4, 60). T h e divisive impulse inherent in logic is illustrated, in particular, by Lessing’s pervasive use of antithesis as a stylistic device and by the intricate networks of antithetical relationships which obtain between his protagonists, lines of action, and ideas. In Nathan, Al-Hafi con­ trasts wealth, the “ smallest gift,” w ith wisdom, the “greatest gift.” H e marvels at the apparent fact that God gave both of these gifts to N athan. He is convinced that they are incom patible (vv. 1036-1041). Al-Hafi (“ T h e Barefoot” ) is conceived as an antithesis to the wealthy N athan. He belongs to the sect of the Parsees or Ghebers, dedicated to the purification of soul by physical mortification, specifically by w alking barefoot on the hot sands “ along the Ganges” (v. 450) and by contem pt for all possessions. By the antithetical tricks of fate the dervish (Persian for “ poor as a beggar” ) is turned into the defterdar (“ treasurer” ) of a sultan generous to the point of being a spendthrift. Dedicated to the joys of complete poverty, a “ naked m an” (v. 1437), he must appear in ornate clothing. By a sudden reversal, the “ richest beggar” is transformed into a “ poor rich m an” (v. 456 f.). Even though he has only accepted riches in order to give them away as only a true beggar can give, he finds that all human possessions, being lim ited and dependent on lim ited resources, entail such loss of free­ dom and such im purity that, being rich, a man must needs be reduced to a state of spiritual poverty. As his hurried exits suggest, T h e Barefoot is ever on the point of running away from an incurably contam inated world. By an instantaneous decision and reversal analogous to the sudden change w hich effects the movement from thesis to antithesis, Al-Hafi throws off the false garments of secular employm ent to disappear from the world and from the play. For him the antithesis between wealth and wisdom, world and spiritual salvation, can be solved only un i­ laterally. A nd N athan, left at this point in the harassed position of the “ poor rich m an,” frankly exclaims that the true beggar is the only true k in g (v. 1515 f.). T h e problem has been posed. However, in

24 /

LESSING

keeping w ith m an’s contradictory being as a creature placed between anim al and angel, Lessing’s hum anistic view calls for an attem pt to realize a further dialectical movement which w ill resolve the opposi­ tion. Contrary to Al-Hafi, who holds that spiritual wealth is predi­ cated upon the renunciation of riches, Lessing w ill suggest that the wise man retains the inward freedom of poverty even in his involve­ ment w ith worldly possessions (see Sum m ary). Generally Lessing’s antithetical relationships point to a synthesis which transcends them. In Nathan the false Christian father figure, the Patriarch, and the true Christian brother, Frater Bonafides, form an antithetical pair. H ypocritical and self-assertive authority in pur­ suit of wordly splendor is contrasted w ith meekness in pursuit of salva­ tion. T h o u g h clearly in favor of the Friar, the opposition points to an ideal of faith which requires of the faithful that they em ulate the Friar’s hum ility w ithout his loss of freedom and that they be as active for the benefit of their fellow men as the Patriarch is active for their undoing. Sim ilarly w ith the antithetical lines o f plot. As long as the enthusiastically deluded Recha pursues the T em plar, he remains cool. As soon as the T em p lar is set on fire by a deluded passion, R echa regains her sobriety. However, the true relationship between brother and sister remains to be realized in an intim acy and love w ithout erotic passion. A nd finally, patterns of antithesis and transcendence are evident also in the message of the play. T h e adherence to revealed religion is contrasted w ith the rejection of all “positive” (dogmatic) faith. T h e antithesis favors the anti-clerical party. Yet Lessing’s mes­ sage is an attempt to transcend both the defenders and the detractors of revealed religion. For he recommends not a system o f agnosticism or of “ natural religion” but the recognition of the revealed religions and of their traditions as inevitable, as divinely instituted phases on the road toward a truth which transcends infinitely both the contents of revelations and the tenets of a doctrinal deism. T h e tendency to move in antitheses may be related to further char­ acteristics o f Lessing’s plays, notably to the “highly dram atic device” of placing the resolution (or means o f resolution) in im m ediate proxim ity to the means serving the further entanglem ent and intensi­ fication of conflict. Lessing’s protagonists frequently miss the resolu­ tion by the closest possible m argin, but the deviation whereby they fail is at the same time a m ajor factor in increasing the dram atic complication. Frick analyzed Emilia Galotti in terms o f this device.41 In Nathan_the entire plot hinges on the fact that the T em p lar, even

THE

LOGICAL IMPULSE

/ 2§

in his confiding mood, shrinks back from his initial intention to reveal his true name to N athan (vv. 1374’ 37^1-37^°)* Correspondingly, N athan, despite his suspicion, fails to identify the Tem plar, and Saladin, though moved to spare the life o f a youth who resembles so closely his lost brother, likewise fails to realize the fam ily connection w hich he senses. T h e T em p lar him self comes close to solving the riddle of his descent (Act III, sc. 8), and yet he remains in a state of ignorance at the very moment when insight into his own status would save him from the greatest confusion. T h a t logic, in the large sense of the term, pervades Nathan is too obvious to bear much elaboration. Most of the significant develop­ ments in the attitudes of the protagonists and in the unfolding of the plot occur as a result of rational persuasion. In the first act N athan’s closely reasoned argum ent prevails upon Recha to abandon, as child­ ish error, her delusion of supernatural rescue. In the second act, N ath an ’s reasoning effects an “ antithetical” change in the T em p lar’s attitude, leading from hostility and prejudice to a vow of friendship. T h e surrender of the T em p lar, whose prejudice against the Jews was allegedly based upon his rejection of Jewish prejudice (vv. 1287-1295), takes place on the basis of ideological agreement. As soon as the T em ­ plar finds that they agree on the gospel of pure and undogm atic hu­ m anity, he w ill be N ath an ’s friend, and abandoning his former in­ difference to Recha, he is im m ediately seized by a burning desire to see the girl. Even before the young people have become acquainted w ith one another (for the T em p lar claims that he has quite forgotten the girl he saved from the flames [vv. 764—780]), both Nathan and the knight are quite ready to conceive of the possibility of marriage, as if such a union were but the natural consequence and consumma­ tion of the m eeting of minds which has just occurred. A n d if, later in the play, the T em p lar is estranged once more from Nathan, he again justifies this estrangement on ideological grounds by alleging that N athan paid only lip service to the rational ideals of hum anity and tolerance (vv. 2755—2782). T h e most illustrious instance occurs in the third act, where N ath an ’s power of logical reasoning is fully dis­ played and the philospher persuades the king to accept his philosophy o f religion. Characteristically, Lessing associated reasoning w ith invention (5, 391), and this suggests still another aspect of logic. For although logic is hardly inventive, it can be expansive as w ell as restrictive or divi­ sive. It serves to generate ideas by virtue of its capacity to reveal and

26

/

LESSING

to actualize the potential inherent in a given orbit of discourse. If Lessing succeeded in his intention of w riting plays v h ic h force the listener to think, he did so by developing, conscientiously and stub­ bornly, the implications of his data — whether statements or situations. In a rigorous sense the concept of logical derivation w ill scarcely apply to an entire work of dram atic fiction. In drama, the im agination extends the frames of reference, interferes w ith the lines of pure rea­ soning, and introduces, overtly or covertly, m atter to be adjudged extra­ neous from a merely theoretical point of view. However, in a larger sense, Lessing did derive his version of the parable as an im plication from his literary sources (e.g., Boccaccio’s novella), and he developed his entire play largely as a further im plication to be derived from his version of the parable. R epeating O tto L u dw ig’s apergu, Thom as M ann praised Lessing for his ability “ to swell out a single seedcorn so as to make of it a play of inexhaustible interest,” to give effectiveness and beauty to a m inim al plot, to sharpen the lines, accentuate the facets, illum inate the obscurest corner of a seemingly trivial theme until what would be dull if treated by another became genuinely entertaining.42 T h is stubborn capacity and compulsion to derive the utm ost from the exploitation of a narrow field (e.g., from a mere nothing of action in Minna or in Nathan) is both a characteristic gift and a lim i­ tation o f Lessing. It is related to his tendency to “ plagiarize,” that is, to exploit as his basic m aterial data already given in discourse by ac­ tivating their potential. However, it is also related to Lessing’s faith in a universal order that is im plied in every datum of existence.

The Logic o f Providence

Theoretically, the relation of im plication is all-pervasive. Term s and propositions occur in lim ited contexts. Yet these im ply more com­ prehensive systems of which they are part. A ny given argument has a beginning, a m iddle and an end; and the same dramatic quality is inherent in every process of reasoning when considered as a com­ plete entity. Y et given a thoroughly dialectical perspective, there can be no intellectual process which w ould be both complete in itself and less than all-embracing. As soon as it is “ completed,” the single movement of a single dialectical argument enters into further, unend­ ing hierarchies of discourse. For even assuming that the universe of discourse is finite when envisaged from the perspective of an all-com­ prehending intellect, this universe as given to any lim ited and finite intellectual consciousness appears as an inexhaustible and infinite ra­ tional order. T h is suggests, however, that a m ind immersed in the sphere of logical discourse or dialectic w ould easily conceive the cosmic order itself in the image of the order of discourse or m ight be inclined to look upon the order of discourse as the m ental — and incomplete — analogue of a universal order. T yp ically, the representatives of Enlightenm ent be­ lieved in a harm ony between hum an reason and cosmos. T h e y slighted or ignored the vast difference between causality and logic, Ursache and Grund, efficient or final causes and sufficient reasons. T o them the ra­ tional order of discourse was, in fact, the lim ited mental replica of an unlim ited cosmic order, of a providential logic of natural events which by the means of efficient and final causality, determined the shape and course of the universe. Lessing’s indebtedness to Leibniz is beyond question. He subscribed to a teleological determinism. W hatever happens in reality, he ob­ served, “ w ill have its good reason in the eternal and infinite nexus [.Zusammenhang] of all things.” In this unlim ited order there is “ wis­ dom and benevolence.” In the “ totality” which is the work of the “ eternal creator” all is “ for the best” 20, 49; 5, 829 f., 153). A nd thus Jacobi’s objection notwithstanding, Nathan is a poem in celebration of the providential logic of natural events, or, as Mendelssohn put it,

27

2 8 / LESSING in praise of divine providence and its natural and rational miracles. It is a play designed to justify G od ’s ways w ith man {see Pa, 34 ff.). In what way, then, is Nathan an exemplum, a didactic and neces­ sarily lim ited illustration of that unlim ited providential scheme w hich is the law of the universe? T h e author deliberately crowds his narrative w ith a concatenation of seemingly accidental circumstances and appa­ rent coincidences. T h e stage is set by a thoroughgoing separation o f the fam ily members. Saladin’s brother Assad, in love w ith a Christian, dis­ appears from the O rient to assume a new name (W olf von Filneck). H e has his son raised as a Christian by his brother-in-law (Kurt von Stauffen). In order to separate not only Assad from Saladin but Assad’s children from one another, Lessing has the Christianized Assad and his wife return to Palestine once more, presumably because they could not bear the northern climate. Back in Palestine a girl (Recha) is born, to be orphaned and to be raised as N ath an ’s daughter. She knows as little of her distant brother as he knows of her existence or name, and both are as unaware of their relationship to Saladin as Saladin is unaware of his to them. 43 T h e artificiality of the setting w ould seem to call for the type of comedy in which, to paraphrase N athan, the author plays w ith his own play (v. 1473). However, Lessing proposes to make light of his en­ tangled skein in a serene rather than in a comic spirit. T h e prehistory, passed over quickly and m ercifully, provides him w ith the opportunity to suggest the subtle ways of providence in guiding its children to their final reunion. T h e fanatic T em p lar who fights Saladin is captured and sentenced to certain death only in order that the unheard-of may come to pass. For never before has the Sultan spared a member o f the hostile order. A n d though the T em p lar is spared because he resembles Saladin’s lost brother, he is soon forgotten by his im pulsive benefactor, to cool off and to idle in the city of Jerusalem so that he may chance to pass by when Recha is in m ortal danger and save her. Even so, brother and sister w ould never recognize one another. A t best or worst they w ould commit incest if it were not for another series of accidents which, to be sure, still require N ath an’s sagacity. T h e Sul­ tan, in need of cash, stoops to a scheme whereby he w ould extort money from a wealthy Jew, gives N athan the chance to w in him over, to re­ mind him once more of the T em p lar and thereby to prepare, u n w it­ tingly, R echa’s reunion w ith her uncle. Even more im portant for the denouement is the ill-conceived and unreasonable anger of the enam ­ ored and frustrated Tem plar, who suddenly turns upon the Jew to

THE LOGIC OF PROVIDENCE /

29

wrest from him his adopted daughter. For only through the near be­ trayal of N athan to the Patriarch is the Friar set in motion. T h e soldier who had eighteen years before brought the infant Recha to Nathan, who subsequently became a hermit, whose herm itage was destroyed by robbers from whom he barely managed to escape, and who, in the hope of being assigned another retreat from the world, has become the un­ w illin g (and rather disloyal) personal servant of the scheming Patri­ arch, happens to be the very man who is p u t on N athan’s track. A nd though he cannot read himself, he happens to have retained the docu­ m ent w hich reveals to the wisely suspicious N athan the true relation­ ship am ong Recha, the T em p lar and Saladin. T h ere are also exp licit statements o f faith in providence which point to the author’s religion.44 W hen D aja attributes the T em p lar’s love for a “Jewess” to Christ’s subtle governm ent over the ways of the world, the T em p lar, substituting “ Providence” for “ Saviour,” translates her notion of fate into his own deistic term inology (vv. 2279—2286). N athan him self vows to obey if Providence — which had placed Recha under his protection — should “redem and” her (v. 3076 f.), and he specifically attributes to divine guidance a predilection for working “ m iracles” by way of seemingly trivial causes and chance events. His im plication is that the deity makes sport o f m an’s ambitious schemes and resolutions by guiding him w ith “feeblest threads,” presumably to teach him a lesson in hum ility (vv. 284-286, 272-275). Lessing d id not fail to distinguish between the providential logic of events and the hum an logic o f discourse. T h e rationalistic determinism w hich governs his conception of drama and dramatic genius is pat­ terned nonetheless on the m odel of discursive logic. Mere human beings, he observed, can survey only a few segments in the infinite chain of being. T h e poet must therefore fashion out of these few links a rounded whole wherein each part is grounded on, and completely explained by, the other. No difficulty should be raised and left unanswered which would force us to seek our satisfaction not in his but in the universal scheme of things. (5, 329 f.) T h e dram atist is not to include in his “small circle [the] incompre­ hensible path of providence.” O nly the grand design of the best pos­ sible world w ill ju stify all torment and apparent evil. W ithin a lim ited context the “ confusing examples of unm erited terrible fates” can serve only to depress and intim idate us. “Aw ay w ith them from the stage! A n d if it could be, from all books!” (5, 330).

30 /

LESSING

T h e genius, Lessing believed, always proceeds according to a consist­ ent and benevolent purpose. M uch as “ intentional action raises man above the lesser creatures, intentional composition distinguishes the genius from the m inor artists who compose only for the sake of com­ position, who im itate only for the sake of im itation.” He imparts ethi­ cal instruction by revealing the characteristics of virtue and vice, or of the fitting and of the ridiculous (5, 155). H e fashions a perfectly con­ trolled and coherent microcosm determ ined by chains of causality which exclude the accidental (5, 138), and by an all-pervading pu r­ pose aim ing at the general effect of good. In his small way, he imitates the “highest genius” of God. He attempts to “shift, exchange, dim inish, and increase the parts of the present w orld” (5, 153) in order to pro­ vide us with a limited, surveyable and em otionally viable analogue to the macrocosm. 40 The whole fashioned by the mortal creator should, as a sketch or silhouette, reflect the universe of the eternal creator. It should accustom us to the thought that just as all will be resolved to the best within its own confines, so it will be resolved in the infinite scheme of the universe. (5, 329 f.) O bjecting to the m echanical effect of Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, the young Goethe observed disparagingly that one could assign a reason for every statement made by the characters in the play.40 Sim ilar ob­ jections have been raised ever since the age of Storm and Stress against all the manifestations o f the logical impulse and of the kind o f panlogism which, as the preceding discussion suggested, are inherent in Les­ sing’s artistic practice and perspective. A n d yet Lessing’s art is not the mere function or extension of logic. H e “ elevated the organ of logic to an organ of the heart.” 47 H e developed the im plications of a given theme not only in terms of reason but also w ith the aid of a vivid aesthetic im agination. T h e decisive relationship between reason and im agination, or between concept and image, remains to be considered.

Concept and Image

The idea [Begriff] is the man, its sensuous image the woman; the words are their children. Only a coward will fight images and words and pretend all the while that he does not see the idea. (23, 236)

If the image represented the fem inine elem ent in language, Lessing insisted on the masculine prerogative of the intellectual concept. And perhaps one should agree w ith his refusal to be considered a poet, not because his process of creation was prosaic (above, p. 8) but because its product conforms to a perennial tradition of true prose. T h e true poet subordinates discursive logic to the order of the im agination, to a prim ary vision in terms of images. Lessing subordinated his wealth of images to the discursive order of logic. T h e poet prim arily expresses and communicates what he sees or senses. T h e writer, the ecrivain, prim arily elucidates and illustrates w hat he understands. Lessing’s (and Baum garten’s) definition of a poem as “ perfect sensuous discourse” (24, gg)48 suggests the definition of prose as “ perfect rational discourse.” Y et Lessing ascribed w ith good reason a sensuous as w ell as a conceptual character to all words. He conceived language in the image of the rational anim al in whom the sensory functions are not abolished but perfected and transcended by reason. Sim ilarly, in his works the tension between intellectual concept and sensuous image, or between reasoned and rationally persuasive dis­ course and the order of im agistic association, is never resolved, even though as a rule the imagery follows the lead of his intellectual dia­ lectic. In the course of their feud Goeze accused his opponent of obscuring the m ajor issues and of evading the crucial question of his own faith. Lessing, the patriarch charged, was guilty of incessant equivocation, of sophistry,49 of deliberate fallacies, and generally of a theatrical pseudo­ logic to be tolerated at best on stage. Lessing, he said, was inexhaust­ ible in proliferating “ images and similes ’ because he was incapable of arguing soberly, of treating an issue on its own proper terms w ithout shifting the grounds by means of rhetorical tricks, chiefly by the con­ stant introduction of metaphor. As far as their theological dispute was

31

32

/

LESSING

concerned, Goeze acknowledged Lessing’s superiority only in the dia­ bolic art of lying. # These were reckless exaggerations, yet Goeze knew the ground on which he stood. T here was a grain of truth in what he said. Lessing, in his defense and rejoinder, did not of course concede the “ logic of the theatre.” “ For say what you w ill! Good logic is ever the same, to whatever it may be applied.” However, he did. appear to concede that the theatre m ight have corrupted his style “ a little.” He was aware, he claimed, o f its “ m ain fault” - and its distinction. (“ Everything that is too marked a distinction is a fau lt.” ) A n d yet, he went on, he was tempted to implore the critics who w ould purge him of all his faults “ to spare this particular one.” For it is not just the fault, it is the original sin of my style to linger over metaphors, to spin them out to similes, to be all too prone, at times, to elaborate a simile into an allegory and thus . . . to get involved in remote tertia comparationis which can be readily transformed. M y dramatic labors may have helped to intensify this fault. The concern for dialogue accustoms us to keep a sharp look-out for every figurative expression. For surely in actual live conversations the course of which is rarely determined by reason and almost always by fancy and imagination, most of the transitions from one point to another are induced by the metaphors used by one or another of the speakers. It is this phenomenon alone which, properly imitated, gives flexibility and truth to dialogue. (23, 199 f.)

Once more in the Anti-Goeze, Lessing returned to his “ m anner of disputation” and to the charge that “ instead of convincing the intellect of [his] readers, [he] sought to gain a hold over their im agination by means of startling images and allusions.” It is true that I try to affect the intellect of my readers also by way of the imagination. I consider it not only useful but necessary to cast and to clothe reasons in images and to allude to the subsidiary ideas suggested by either reasons or images. Whoever knows nothing of this and does not understand it should not want to become a writer at all, for all good writers succeeded only by proceeding in this manner. (23, 234)

Lessing, then, admits the seductiveness of m etaphor. T h e entire fam ­ ily plot of Nathan is a spun out tertium comparationis, an extended m etaphor on the relationship between men, their religions, and divine providence. Lessing concedes that m etaphor may have often led him astray. B ut he vindicates this yielding of the male concept to the power of metaphor or female image by calling it not a fault, but the “ original sin.” Even as he applies the story of A dam ’s fall to the analysis o f his own style, he claims that his flaw is, in truth, a virtue.

CONCEPT

AND

IM A G E

/

33

In Lessing’s view, hum an language mirrors the hum an condition after the fall. However, even after the original sin or original union of male concept and fem ale image in the creation of language, there w ill be further linguistic fusions and creations which w ill reflect in varying degrees the interdependent and polar forces of intellect and im agination. Lessing him self defined the difference between poetry and prose by claim ing the use o f metaphors to be a chief means of poetry and by assigning to poetry as a chief aim the creation o f vital, em otional illusion ( Tduschung). T h e preponderant purpose of poetry was to entertain and arouse enthusiasm rather than to teach and to ex­ plain (^, 502 f.), which is what prose should do. A nd given Lessing’s unquestionable adm iration for sensuous poetry, these judgm ents sug­ gest that man is meant to perpetuate and perfect his “fallen state” rather than to return to a purely spiritual condition outside the sphere of tem poral change — a speculation in keeping with Lessing’s notion of m an’s destiny as eternally tem poral and eternally progressive recurrence on earth ( see 6, 81 ff.). But quite apart from this parallelism between Lessing’s experience and metaphysic of language and the larger ex­ perience and speculations which characterize his metaphysical hum an­ ism, his own remarks on his style raise once more the perennial ques­ tion concerning the status of his writings. For if, according to his own admission, the chief characteristic or original sin o f his own style is to be found in the special affinity with the poetic image, the sensuous symbol, the metaphor, and its extension in the simile (4, 503), it would seem that, despite his disclaimer, there was after all something of the poet and o f poetry in his prose. Nevertheless, the rationalizing force dominates even in the spheres of Lessing’s im agination. A n infusion of logical reasoning im pelled him toward allegorical exem plification and allegorizing genres. His fables and parables, including N ath an’s doctrinal “ fairy tale” (cf. v. 1889 f.), serve to illustrate generalizations, axioms, abstractions. In his plays, particularly in Nathan, his figures tend to stand for types or generic attitudes such as wisdom (Nathan), generosity (Saladin), purity of heart (Recha), pious sim plicity and simple-minded faith (the Friar), bigotry (Daja), or scheming dogmatism (Patriarch). Even the episodic details invite allegorical exegesis. It can be argued that N athan’s house, the house of wisdom and consequently of true religion, was endangered by his — wisdom ’s — absence. For m eanwhile the fanciful superstition of D aja gained ascendancy over R echa’s enthusiasm, and fem inine exu­ berance of sentiment established a giddy rule. Recha (the modified

34 /

LESSING

“ R ahel,” the “ ewe lam b,” the true Israel, the personification of tender­ ness and the true soul) must not be left unattended by, the protecting masculine spirit (see also v. 365 f.).50 A n d sim ilarly it can be argued that R echa’s rescue by the T em p lar is symbolic. Lessing, it is true, had little use for the orthodox knights of an order sworn to defend the temple, the true house of faith. However, he thought all the more of those esoterically heretical T em plars who, transcending the mere ex­ ternals and exoteric rules, had discarded trinitarian C hristianity and refused to act as the fanatical protagonists of a dogm atic sect. For they were, according to Lessing, the historical representatives in the M iddle Ages of the true, the ever present freemasonry of the hum an spirit, destined to act — by their very unorthodoxy — as true protectors of the true masonic temple of man and the vanguard of hum an prog­ ress in faith (6, 49 ff., Anmerkungen, 298 f.). Consequently, it is hardly accidental that a wayward T em p lar is instrum ental in bringing about the final denouement of the drama. Even so, it is one thing to claim allegorical elements and quite another to press the interpretation of the play into a strict allegorical framework. Sim ilarly, the “ sym bolic” protagonists, the paraphernalia and incidents of plot invite and adm it rationalization, but do not encourage, require, or even perm it a com­ plete resolution in allegorical terms. Conceivably, the most unam biguously allegorical work m ight also qualify as great poetry.51 However, the point to be made here is that the skeletal form, the allegorical structure as used by Lessing, ex­ hibits clearly the subjection of image to concept. T h e m ain p lot of Nathan, the tale of the fam ily reunion, is in fact an allegory. B ut w ith reference to other aspects and even in toto, the impression remains ambiguous. T h e figures and events in the play are neither so rounded nor so self-contained as to create the full-blow n illusion of their presence and self-sufficiency nor so transparent as to point beyond themselves to a generalized and conceptualized meaning. T h o u g h far from denying the preponderance of the didactic and conceptual element in Nathan, we find w rit large in the play the same precarious relationship between sensuously realized image and dom inating concept which characterizes Lessing’s treatm ent of language. Furthermore, the play is seen at its best only when viewed in the light of this peculiar relationship. Otherwise we are either disappointed by the relative pallor and dependence of its p lot and figures on mere concepts or irked by what w ill seem to be mere

CONCEPT

AND

IM A G E

/

35

inconclusiveness and incompleteness or superfluous interference with the presumed allegorical intent. T o postulate such special conditions for the appreciation of Nathan is not to deny that the play is open to criticism but rather to suggest one line o f attack a critic m ight pursue. However, the appreciation of Lessing’s interm ediary position between poetry and prose, or between image and concept, may also suggest the function and merit of the literary type w hich he represents. For it is not only a lim ita­ tion but also an advantage of this type of writer that he w ill never let us come to rest in a sensuous dimension or, to use the term originally restricted to the sensuousness o f the im agination, in the purely “ aesthetic” realm. N or w ill he let us come to a terminal satis­ faction on a purely conceptual level. Lessing did not create any work of art that is entirely satisfactory nor did he achieve any systematic philosophical synthesis which could satisfy the intellect. B ut neither is it accidental that he seems and that he is greater than any single work of his. For Lessing con­ veys a dynam ic of m ind and heart which is intim ately connected with the incompleteness of his achievement. T h e subjection of sensuous image to conceptualizing intellect and the relating of conceptualizing intellect to sensuous image are infinite tasks coextensive w ith the hum an condition. T o introduce an aesthetic stasis is to provide a rest, but such perfection is truly of the im agination only. It is, in more than one sense, imaginary. O n the other hand, to absorb sensory images into a conceptual synthesis is again to permit an abstraction from the unfinished business of reality. By perform ing and dem onstrating in his w riting the incessant m ediatory activity which, though constantly asserting the prerogative of the active in­ tellect, never ceases to involve us w ith the sensory images, Lessing furnished a literary model for m an’s perennial encounter w ith reality. In avoiding both the aesthetic stasis and a terminal perspective on the strength of intellectual abstraction, Lessing conveys through his work, not a completed image or a completed theory of reality, but a mode o f experiencing reality dynam ically and dialectically. T h e very openness and inchoateness which deprive the work o f the ecrivain of both aesthetic perfection and theoretical completeness point straight away beyond the text to the texture of the reality that lies “ outside.” His works are designed for the purpose of enter­ ing into the life cycle of the reader; they speak to, they are intended

36 /

LESSING

as dialogue with, the reader in a more immediate sense than either the self-contained work of art or the self-contained edifice of con­ templation. Hence they cannot afford to rise too far above the m ingled sphere of experience by way of abstraction nor separate themselves absolutely by way of an aesthetic autonomy. A n d it is this directness and realism, not merely in the content but, above all, in the mode of com m unication w hich we appreciate and value in the great w riter who may, in all other respects, differ from others as w idely as Plato differs from Nietzsche, or Lessing from Kierkegaard. T h e ir essential appeal, their intent and their very technique aim directly at existential communication.

Enlightenment, Purification, Synthesis

B y a transcendence of the divergent positions, by advancing to their common denom inator, by translating divergent spheres of discourse into one comprehensive system, ascending from the particular toward the universal, dialectic is to effect a resolution of opposition. T h e function of the true dialectic is both the clarification and the dis­ cursive reconciliation of opposites. T h e combat is to effect a harmony, and we should now look upon the various phases of dialectic as aspects o f the same movement of intellect which, to be sure, is never concluded since the harmonies effected by the synthetic function are always incom plete. T h e central scenes of Nathan illustrate the typical sequence. T h e opposition between the religions is first asserted as basic proposition, then elaborated upon and analyzed. In the disguise of the parable N athan establishes points of intersection between the com peting systems — above all, the reliance on historical tradition as a common denom inator — and he proceeds to suggest the synthesis or “super­ system” (Ad, 167) w hich is to include, to reconcile and to transcend the opposing claims. T h is achievem ent of synthesis is said to require not an “ act of logical analysis” but “ insight,” “ intellectual im agination,” an “ a-logical leap or intu ition (Ad, 157 f., 161, 166). T h e question of mental creativity, of poetry in the largest and loosest sense of the term, recurs even w ithin a consideration of pure dialectic. A n d it is fitting that the most significant demonstration of N ath an’s power o f syn­ thetic reasoning should also represent his closest approxim ation to a poetic vision. However, it should also be noted that this poetic synthesis is less than complete. It excludes the divergent rites, cults, myths, and thus, in a sense, the concreta of revealed religions as their m erely exoteric aspect. Inevitably in the dialectical process, the inter­ section between the opposing entities is “ only p artial” and conse­ q uently “ re-solution w ill also be p artial” (Ad, 169). As N athan’s tale suggests, the ultim ate and all-com prehending synthesis must needs be relegated to a judge and judgm ent at the end of time. Nonetheless, w ith respect to a given cycle of dialectic the synthesis 37

38

/

LESSING

does suspend the process of opposition and analysis. In the first act of Nathan, Recha states, elaborates, and defends the theory that her rescue was a miracle since she was saved by an angel. Daja, though responsible for the angelic fiction, does not dare to m aintain it in N athan’s presence (see vv. 142, 1576-1580). From the conversation between the two we infer inevitably an opposing interpretation: R echa’s rescue was not a miracle since her. rescuer was a natural agent. So far “ definition and analysis” have effected “ the systematic opposition of propositions.” However, N athan now proceeds to effect a “systematic resolution of that opposition” (Ad, 163) on a higher plane: the rescue was a miracle and the rescuer was a hum an being. For it required a chain of im probable events, including Saladin s pardon of a T em plar, to bring the young man from Europe to Jerusalem in order that he m ight rescue Recha. T h e natural is the miraculous, the causally determined sequence is the miracle of p rovi­ dence, the miracle is human, the hum an m iraculous. T h e ideal of synthesis as reconciliation and resolution of conflict by way of clarification is at the heart of Nathan. In a figurative manner the play dramatizes Plato’s notion of the true dialectic as an intellectual activity ascending to the idea through the conjunction of the particular and the universal in the act of judgm ent and by way of the union of opposites.52 T h e movement toward the final synthesis is inspired by an ideal of enlightenm ent which includes something more than the fairly prosaic aims usually associated w ith eighteenth-century rationalism . A ccording to Lessing, the ultim ate and essential aim of Christianity is not our external bliss, salvation, or beatitude, no matter how and whence derived, but our bliss by means of our illumina­ tion. And not only as necessary condition but as ingredient of our bliss, is this illumination required. Indeed, all our bliss may ultimately consist but in our illum ination. (23, 212)

Q uite apart from its conception of Christianity, this passage de­ fines Lessing’s own notion of enlightenm ent as blissful illum ination (.Erleuchtung). A nd this intellectual concept which aspires to a mystical vision corresponds to the synthetic phase of dialectic as a process leading forever toward the ultim ate enlightened state. In his Education of Mankind Lessing described essentially the same process as the providential law of m an’s progress, that is, as the path of purification and increasing perfection ordained for each in d i­

ENLIGHTENMENT,

PURIFICATION, SYNTHESIS /

39

vidual and for all hum anity throughout the eternal sequence of heightened recurrences which constitute history. Adm ittedly, the perfect state or final synthesis would suspend all dialectical activity. D ialectic is a technique and a progressive process designed to improve and purify the im perfect and im pure human mind; and in keeping with the form ula, “ unsere Seligkeit vermittelst unsrer E rleuchtung,” dialectical enlightenm ent is, in turn, a means of purifyin g the heart. T h e polem icist Lessing recommends the laconic “ Testam ent Johannis” : “ Children, love one another!” as the conclusive and sufficient message (23, 51-55). Once more one may recall the apparent paradox that dialectic entails a form of hostility which leads to love, that separation and opposition are to serve the purpose of reconciliation and reunion. T h e labor of disinterested speculation is to be justified as an exercise for the attainm ent of virtue. In view of the “selfishness of the hum an heart” which, even at best, w ill only love virtue for its "blessed consequences,” it is impera­ tive that the hum an intellect should be directed to matters other than those pertaining to animal needs. For only by being exercised on spiritual subjects w ill the intellect be capable of producing that further “ purification of the heart” which w ill make man “ capable of loving virtue for its own sake” (6, 80). D ialectic is thus conceived as an exercise subservient to the aim of attaining wisdom, a state of harm ony produced by the enlighten­ ment of both mind and heart. N athan the W ise has achieved harm onious self-development by way of self-knowledge. A nd indeed, according to the Socratic tradition, wisdom is nothing but the realization of the D elphic “ Know T h yself!” However, this Socratic conception has ever exceeded the limits customarily assigned to cog­ nition. It is far from being a merely intellectual attainment. It slights the encyclopedic, the possessive aspect o f knowledge; it culminates in the insight into one’s own ignorance. A n d yet such insight and ignorance adm it of degrees; hence Socratic knowledge is conceived as the ever renewed and ever incomplete realization of enlightened self-awareness and self-mastery. Lessing’s play attempts to suggest sym bolically and allegorically the process w hereby a num ber of individuals guided by divine Providence approxim ate true self-knowledge. T h is is done in a literal m anner by having the chief objects of the educational or formative process, Recha and the T em p lar, find out who they are. T h e m ain plot cul­ minates in the revelation that they are brother and sister. In finding

40 / LESSING one another they discover their true identity. Sim ilarly, w ith the Sultan and (to a small degree) w ith Sittah: the enlightenm ent as to their identity, the discovery that the ru lin g representatives of the M ohammedan empire are closely related to a Christian T em p la r and to the adopted “daughter” of a Jew, im m ediately assumes sym bolic relevance. As uncle, Saladin takes the place o f the deceased father of Recha and the T em plar. T h e Sultan’s recognition of his “ch ild ren ” contains the existential realization of a truth which Saladin him self had dim ly sensed when, sparing the T em p la r’s life, he had avoided becoming his “m urderer” (v. 3849). B ut w ith the Sultan, who is far advanced in life, such realization assumes rather the form of a con­ firmation than the form of a revelation. W h ile the T em p lar must undergo a laborious and dram atic developm ent, leading through doubts, hesitations, prejudices, and relapses toward final wholehearted acceptance; w hile Recha must at least undergo an in itial and some­ what radical cure to be freed from delusion, N athan m erely needs to rem ind the Sultan of what Saladin already knew. T h e Socratic m ethod has always been considered to be chiefly such m idw ifery w hich helps the disciple’s soul to remember its innate knowledge. T h e play as a whole serves, of course, to dramatize and convey enlightenm ent concerning the nature of true religion and thus to promote m an’s self-knowledge. For m an’s question, “W ho and w hat am I?” is answered dialectically and dram atically by representing the progressive realization o f hum an beings that they are related to one another and essentially united in universal kinship as the children of one father, that they are equally beloved and equally guided by the paternally benevolent law of providence. In an absolute sense, m an’s question concerning his identity can only be answered in terms of his relation to a supraordinate and absolute entity — in terms of religion. Essential self-knowledge is enlightenm ent concerning m an’s relation to the divine, and the play attempts to dram atize such en­ lightenm ent not as final attainm ent of the beatific vision, as in D an te’s comedy, but as an ever incomplete m ovement in the direction toward the ineffable unity. T h e conventional comedy frame b u ilt around the standard solution of happy rediscovery, recognition and reunion of fam ily members, is adopted by Lessing only to be sublim ated in the kind o f serious and serene comedy which is not conventional. For though anticipated in spirit in the figure of Socrates and in the dialogues of Plato, and though apparently a contribution to belles-lettres peculiar to the

ENLIGHTENMENT, PURIFICATION, SYNTHESIS /

41

Christian era, this genre is still a rarity. A distant affinity between D ante’s comedy and Lessing’s play need not be denied: in both works the dram atic movement and the ultim ate solution are looking toward the divine light which is incom patible with, and does not tolerate, a final tragedy. A n d m uch as in the case of Goethe’s Iphigenie, the avoidance of tragedy and the happy ending symbolize a purified and enlightened state of hum anity.53 Purification is a prerequisite for the approxim ation to true bliss. T h e ideals of synthesis: the reconciliation among the three faiths, the brotherhood of man, the union between the hum an and the divine, are postulated in N ath an’s parable. T h e ir approxim ation is realised — to a modest degree and in an almost bashful manner — in the final scene of recognition and reunion. T h e idea of reconciliation among the three religions is anticipated by Saladin’s enlightened, if ambitious, project o f u n itin g the foremost families of Christendom and Islam through interm arriage. T h e plan is said to have been wrecked by the fanaticism , the self-infatuation, the selfishness of the Christians and, particularly, by the Tem plars (w . 855-897). A nd perhaps Saladin’s scheme is also too grossly physical and too contaminated by the secular motifs of power politics to be in keeping w ith Lessing’s ideal. For the play requires a fusion on the basis of a spiritualized and selfless love. Consequently, various stages of spiritualization and concom itant reduction of possessiveness are shown to be realized in the final scene. E rotic love must be sublim ated, neutralized and transformed into an affection on the basis o f physical and mental kinship. N either gross gain nor appeasement of gross appetites is to be the final reward. In N athan, the most exalted instance, the bonds o f fatherhood (with Recha and the T em plar) and o f friendship which unites philosopher and king are beyond and above erotic attraction and blood relation. Sim ilarly, the synthesis envisaged on an intellectual plane must be free from all im purity of self-indulgence. A t an early stage in the play, there is a reference to the faith in the existence and intervention of angels as a common denom inator among the three religions (vv. 142­ 154). However, in the context of Nathan this belief is treated as “ sweet delusion” or rather as infantile, as a superstition contaminated by selfishness and inadequate to the divinely ordained scheme which operates through natural rather than supernatural agents. Hence it cannot lead to a true synthesis. Suspension of conflict and peaceful reconciliation is possible only on the strength of mature insight and

42

/

LESSING

unpossessive devotion claim ing no gain or special consideration from the ruling power on high. A t the same time a figure such as Al-Hafi serves as rem inder that the highest conception of wisdom is not to be sought in a spiritualiza­ tion which simply denies, or seeks escape from, the grosser spheres. For in renouncing all worldly employm ent for the sake of purity of heart and mind, Al-Hafi himself appears to be guilty of a sublim e egotism which is akin to the Friar’s exclusive concern w ith his own happiness and salvation. It is true that Lessing does not criticize the dervish’s decision to live for himself alone. Perhaps Al-Hafi is right in accusing N athan, in pointing out to him that he w ill rem ain forever the slave o f others (vv. 1504-1509). However, Lessing’s gospel of doing the good for its own sake and of vying in selfless love with one’s fellow men implies that the freedom of hum an perfection is attainable only through a seeming slavery which is a love freely given to one’s fellow men. And Lessing’s conception of hum ility or obedience to G od implies accept­ ance of one’s role in the world. Just as the conditions of opposition and antagonism are required for the intellectual movement of dialectic and its consummation in reconciliation and synthesis, the grosser egotistic impulses and affec­ tions seem to be required to produce a m ovement of em otional sublim ation. In the Erziehung Lessing compares the stages and methods of religious education as administered by divine providence to the stages and methods of education as administered by hum an pedagogues: The flattering prospects opened up to the youth, the vistas of honor and prosperity held out to him, what else are they but means of raising him to be a man who, even when these prospects of honor and prosperity have vanished, should be capable of doing his duty. (6, 80)

T h e parable and the Erziehung recommend a purification and transcendence of particular bodies of traditional revealed religion by way of their most thoroughgoing absorption and by a m ovement issuing from the specific orbits of native tradition. T h e intellectual dialectic requires of us thoroughgoing engagement in order that we may rise beyond the lim itations of conflict. Sim ilarly, the em otional movement is to be realized by way of a thorough immersion in and a w orking out of the specific tensions and attachments developed initially w jth the help of the very impulses and concerns w hich are to

ENLIGHTENMENT, PURIFICATION, SYNTHESIS /

43

be transcended at a later stage. T h e impetus must be generated at the level of intellectual or em otional lim itation in order to produce at the level of intellectual and em otional self-transcendence the energy of liberated insight or love. Even so, these considerations fail to establish sufficiently the inter­ action between the intellectual and the emotional aspects of dialectic. L essings claim that the proper exercise of speculation serves the purification of the heart suggests that the intellect has a mission to sublim ate or spiritualize the soul, that disinterested speculation even­ tually w ill be conducive to disinterested emotion, and that both will issue, finally, in disinterested action, that is, in activity consonant with selfless love and true (or selfless) insight. In the triunity of such speculation, emotion and action we see the triumph of the wise man as represented by N athan. But as for the connection between self­ lessness in speculation and selflessness in love, a further characteristic of dialectic remains to be examined.

Infinity and Self-surrender

T h e dynamic o f dialectic knows of no resting place. It im plies an unending process of enlightenm ent and purification of mind. A n d this infinitely progressive, if eternally inconclusive, m ovem ent of dialectic is at the same time the infinitely progressive and eternally incon­ clusive striving toward divine truth and perfection w hich Lessing considers the supreme attribute of man (23, 58 f.; 10, 218); and it is equivalent to the idea of infinite and inconclusive progress w hich dominates Lessing’s conception of hum an history as eternal progressive recurrence of the individual and as the education of m ankind (6, 82 f . ) . However, since Lessing conceives of man prim arily as an anim al capable of striving rationally after the truth, the all-im portant relation between man and truth in Lessing’s work requires some further scrutiny. For evidently there are at least two movements that must be considered: one ascending, leading upward over the innum erable steps o f the infinite hierarchy of dialectic, a m ovement according to the true dialectic, leading out of deception, a m ovem ent of u n ­ deceiving; the other descending on the infinite ladder, a m ovem ent according to a false dialectic, and leading into deception, a m ovement of deceiving and self-deceit. In the course of western civilization, the term dialectic has frequently been used as a pejorative to designate the art of discursive deception, o f pseudologic.54 Moreover, if even the positive dialectical m ovem ent is forever incom plete and if, as Lessing sees it, man never arrives at the one and only truth which is T h e T ru th , one feels obligated to conclude that even at best, man moves from greater to lesser error. Every position taken in and by itself, every position as position, is a deception, and at any and every point the claim to possess the truth is only a pious fraud. For even the undeceiving produces only a new phase of deceptions.55 T o Lessing, particularly in the context o f his Nathan, the truth is one. Lessing and Nathan are concerned w ith m an’s relationship w ith the ultim ate and eternal truth, the whole truth, and hence w ith religion. B ut if the truth is one, and yet man never possesses it, what then is th^ status of all positive religion? A ll positive religious dogmas 44

\

INFINITY AND SELF-SURRENDER /

45

attach themselves to specific and lim ited historical events, to single points in time and space. A ll of them claim that then and there the truth was revealed in its fullness. B u t is not every positive religious dogma of this kind a pious fraud? T h is question Lessing raised in his theological feud and in his play, and he answered it in the affirmative, though in a m anner which allow ed him both to discard and to justify the assertions of positive religion. M an proceeds but from error to error; every hum an claim to possess essential truth is a pious fraud. It is the universality of this condition which compels man not only to be hum ble and tolerant of his own errors and the errors of his fellow men, but, to put it para­ doxically, to assign, after all, some positive truth-value to the hierarchy of errors. Lessing, it seems, believed quite sim ply and uncritically in an ultim ate providential scheme of infinite progress toward the ultim ate absolute truth. H e believed in a benevolent divinity or in a divine law transcending our concept of personality and thus of a personal God. H e could not but believe that this divinity w ould guide or order its creation and creatures according to a benevolent scheme of im­ provement. A nd since the universe is in positive progress, he denies, at least by im plication, the negative movement of progressive descent.56 H e argues that the pious frauds of revealed religion are necessary as moments or phases of m an’s dialectical movement. He establishes the historicity of hum an truths, at least in the sphere of religion (that is, vis-a-vis absolute and whole truth), and since no position has absolute value in itself, only the movement of transcend­ ence, the striving after the truth, has intrinsic value. Every step is justified as a transitory foothold, but none is absolutely and finally justified. T h e man who clings to the positive assertion of revealed truth as if it were something given to him once and for all is as m uch a deceived deceiver as each of the claimants in the ring parable. T h e syntheses, resolutions, “ truths” at the term inal points of specific dialectical reconciliations must enter as partial elements and partial errors into a new and higher dialectical phase. If, however, these dialectic resolutions are taken out of the movement and set up as static dogma impervious to modification, then they do become pious frauds in the pejorative sense of the term: they become lies and impediments to further progress.57 T ru th is perfect, truth is perfection, but the hum an being is essentially imperfect. T hu s the only approxi­ mation to truth attainable to man lies in his self-dedication to the

46

/

LESSING

ever inconclusive, im perfect and progressive dynam ic of the dialectical process. For hum an beings, the truth rests only in the movement. T h e essential value of this movement is not to be sought in extrinsic or objective terms. T h ou gh some individuals are-far ahead of others, even the most advanced is at an infinite remove from G od ’s truth. T h e road ahead is still eternal. N or is com petitive status the object of the quest. T h e goal is not to excel nor to -gain reward, power or admiration. T h e essential value of the movement is intrasubjective. It purifies the individual seeker. Every hum an approxim ation to the truth, however puny in absolute terms, must be achieved w ithin the thinking subject, w ithin a mental context that is inalienably his own. Hence Lessing’s constant emphasis on the value of dialectic as a sub­ lime gymnastic, his relative indifference to the premises and presup­ positions which provide the framework for such exercise, his deprecia­ tion of the value of any and all specific results, his seemingly para­ doxical statement that a man attempting to establish a falsehood, though convinced of its truth, and arguing with both sagacity and modesty, is worth infinitely more than a man who defends the best and noblest truth but in a mediocre fashion, out of mere prejudice, and by slandering his opponents. (23, 58) For it is one thing to believe in truth out of prejudice, and another to believe in it for its own sake. (23, 182)

T h e connection between Lessing’s conception of the dialectical quest and his ethical ideal of self-surrender is intimate. T h e infinite process of thought which must transcend forever its own boundaries requires of the dialectician a constant movement of self-transcendence. In one sense dialectic is frustrating. T h e inevitable inconclusiveness of any intellectual synthesis dramatizes the tragedy of hum an thought. Ideally, dialectic is motivated by the desire for truth, yet the truth is unattainable. Dialectic dramatizes and brings home to the dialec­ tician the inevitable lim itation of the hum an intellect and thus of man. B ut this frustration of thought affects not only the intellect. It affects the entire man. Therefore dialectic is em inently fit to teach men not only hum an tolerance b u t hum ility before God, who alone possesses or is the truth. It is supremely capable of purifying the hum an heart of its boundless and selfish aspiration. Moreover, corres­ ponding to the incompleteness of intellectual synthesis, the em otional union between man and man or man and God w ill also be incom plete. Again the lim itation of man w ill assert itself. T h e desires, even of enthusiastic love, w ill be left unsatisfied. B ut again the wise man w ill

INFINITY AND SELF-SURRENDER /

47

prove capable of sublim ating the experience of frustration and of discovering fulfillm ent in the very act of renunciation. T h e message of self-realization through self-abnegation and self­ surrender is conveyed on various levels throughout Nathan. It is im plied at the outset when Recha is led to abandon her dream of supernatural rescue. For vanity has inspired this pretension to a special dispensation and intervention contravening the course of nature for the benefit of one insignificant creature (vv. 293—296). A nd as N athan points out, a selfish indifference toward the real needs of her fellow man, a failure to act charitably or even decently, would be the consequence of R echa’s selfish delusion, since an angel, unlike a hum an being, w ould not require active help (vv. 360—364). O n a grander scale, this message of self-surrender is conveyed in the story o f N ath an ’s life. For in order to practice what he has long known to be true (v. 3055), in order to experience his true relation to God and man, to be what he is meant to be and thus to achieve true selfhood and wisdom, N athan must accept the surrender of all that is dearest to him: the loss of his wife and his sons. O nly thereafter is he N athan the W ise. A n d this message of self-surrender is also im plicit in the surrender of Saladin’s and Sittah’s relatively selfish scheme to procure m oney for the empire by extortion in favor of a pure and unpossessive gain: the insight into m an’s true identity communicated in N ath an ’s parable. Instead of an increase in m aterial possession, Saladin gladly accepts the revelation of m an’s essential spiritual poverty, the message of his ignorance of truth. As suggested above, the im perative of self-surrender, particularly of an em otional renunciation and purification, is conveyed above all at the conclusion o f the play. Even N athan, though he has long learned to possess w ithout possessing, to live for others and not for himself, and to yield at any moment to the decree of providence, is now com pelled to prove his pre-eminence in hum ility by one more act of self-abnegation, the surrender of Recha. A residuum of decep­ tion is still attached to his ambiguous position as her “ father.” W ith the rem oval of, this last rem nant of fraud and possessive attachment, he gains the external freedom before the world and his fellow men as confirm ation o f his long-won inner freedom. T h e Sultan, as he him self w ell knows (v. 3176), has reached the end of his life,58 and however happy the compensation for his beloved and long-lost brother, the modified fulfillm ent cannot undo the lived sorrow nor restore a loss suffered long ago. However, the element of

48 /

LESSING

renunciation is most pronounced in the T em p la r’s relation to Recha. T h e sister is restored to him at the price of losing his bride. H e is united with Recha, but the vehemence of possessive passion is denied. T h e fulfillm ent is both deprivation and reward:- deprivation in the reward and reward in the deprivation (vv. 3794—3806). Indeed, if obedience to God and hum ility are the message of the play (and these virtues are the positive expressions of • self-transcendence and selflessness in love) no other fulfillm ent could be appropriate. Once more, Nathan should be considered in its dual relationship to tragedy and comedy. T h e providential scheme includes not only the eternally incomplete intellectual progression toward the truth but equally the eternally incom plete em otional agon of love, the infinite com petition in purification, the never consummated journey toward the union with divine love. For every man is m eant to vie w ith his fellow man in brotherly love and love o f God until the end of time (see v. 2050). Hence Lessing’s “ comedy” and, in fact, the spirit o f all positive dialectic appears to include and to transcend tragedy. For the frustration inherent in the very incompleteness of dialectical resolu­ tion is at the same time the condition and cause of the movement transcending the condition of frustration. T h e frustration is itself an aspect of the movement which, though it leads to new frustration in any specific instance, is nevertheless, as movement, forever tran­ scending its moments of frustration. T h e consolation of Nathan does not lie in the momentary balance attained at the end but in the illustration of m an’s capacity to achieve here and forever this m ove­ ment of self-transcendence, of the transcendence of lim iting boundaries and conflicts, and, indeed, of all specific factors of alienation, even though the movement is never fu lly consummated. A ccording to Jacobi the idea of a perfect Being enjoying its own unchangeable and complete perfection was repellent to Lessing: “ He associated with it a notion of such infinite boredom that he felt sick at the very thought of it” (24, 37). B ut if static heavenly perfection seemed tedious to Lessing, if he preferred instead an eternally pro­ gressive history of the individual and the species, this suggests again that he conceived the dialectical movement as a condition to be joyously affirmed. A nd he did not do so because the m ethod and procedure of hum an thought, experience and action seemed to him the most perfect of all possible modes. H e thought, on the contrary, that there must be for the Highest Being a more encompassing mode o f being and of enjoym ent and awareness in being which w ould

INFINITY AND SELF-SURRENDER /

49

transcend unim aginably any existential form we could conceive, in­ cluding our “ m iserable” m anner of acting according to “ intentions,” that is, according to goals envisaged by lim ited desires and by the lim ited notions of our conscious thought {24, 172 f.). Lessing’s affirmation, then, concerned not merely the intellectual aspect of dialectic but a far more comprehensive dynamic. T h ou gh in many ways an intellectualist, he did not desire omniscience. H e was more optim istic about the hum an heart than about the hum an intellect. T h e intellect served only as the guide or instigator in a larger m ovement o f purification. A n d if he enjoined upon man the unpossessive quest for truth or the love of truth for its own sake, this love was only part of his ideal o f doing the good w ithout a thought o f the happy consequences attendant upon its realization. Initially and basically Lessing experienced and understood dialectic as infinite intellectual quest. H owever, this intellectual dialectic is translated into larger em otional terms and practical ethics. Self-surrender to the intellectual love o f truth culminates in self-surrender to an infinite contest in the love of G od and fellow men, and in the selfless love and pursuit o f the good for its own sake.

Summary

T h e dialectician is a "naked m an/’ a gymnastikos. He owns nothing. O r he owns what he owns but to give it away. H e knows that since his essential task, and the law of hum an existence, is the transcending movement, he owns no truth. He knows that he is ignorant, that his nakedness is his only advantage. H e knows that he knows nothing. A n d if he is but the protagonist of a movement, and if this m ovement is all-pervasive, his only true distinction is that he is aware of this movement, that he affirms it in his conscious intellectual life and, ideally, in his entire existence. H e is not merely the object of a universal law but, being in its movement, he affirms the movement. He affirms the law. It w ill be recalled that separation and opposition are necessary conditions for this movement. A nd since "dialectical thinking is actual only when it is at once both a psychological event and an event of logical character” (Ad, 145), dialectic requires not merely the defini­ tion of opposition but, as its em otional concom itant, an active antag­ onism and a passion. In Nathan all characters are engaged. In his encounter with Saladin, N athan assumes im m ediately and exp licitly the position of the Jew (“ Sultan, / ‘Ich bin ein Jud’.” [v. 1842] ). Saladin, committed to m ilitant leadership of the Moslem world, is sim ilarly pitted against Nathan. Even the gentle Recha is never beyond points of view and em otional involvem ent, nor is the ascetic Al-Hafi shown to be indifferent to the world, but rather fighting it off to free himself. Lessing had little use for all too immaculate saints and undram atic stoics.50 His characters interest us because they are themselves in­ terested parties. T h e y do not aspire to the aloof and majestic dignity, commonly considered a mark of superiority in classic art, w hich frequently produces a tedious academic coldness and smoothness. T h e ir dignity does not lie in im perial pronouncements or in the orator’s m agniloquence but in their performance in the arena of discourse or on the stage of active life.60 B u t if there must be engagement and that readiness for engage­ m ent demonstrated to perfection by N athan, it should not be in the

50

SUMMARY /

51

spirit of obstinacy. D ialectic requires the capacity for self-criticism. Partisanship is both emphasized and m itigated by being made explicit. In being brought out into the open and subjected to critical self­ awareness, a given position should become accessible to change, m odification or reorientation. T h e stage is set for the intellectual and em otional act of reconciliation and synthesis. Since in the right kind of dialectic the agon is undertaken for the sake of union, partisanship w ill be counterbalanced and contained by an attitude of im partiality and tolerance (Ad, 127). T h e struggle, even if carried on w ith passion, should be qualified by an emotion distantly related to Christian love of one’s enemy. A ccording to N ath an ’s shrewd and benevolent argument, his ex­ p licit partisanship requires the extension of the privilege of similar partisanship to the adherents of other religions: are not all revealed religions founded upon historical tradition? A n d since one cannot relive the past in order to verify the facts, what else is there to do but give credit to a historical tradition accepted on faith? . . . whose good faith do we doubt least? Our people’s surely? Those of whose blood we are? Who, ever since our childhood, gave us proofs of love? Never deceived us unless it was for our good to be deceived? How can I have less faith in my own fathers than you in yours? O r vice versa. Can I demand of you to give the lie to your own ancestors in order not to gainsay mine? Or vice versa, (w . 1979-1989)

T h e attitudes of im partiality even in the moment of partisanship, of critical self-surveillance and self-suspicion, are illustrated through­ out Lessing s work. T h e conjunction of anger and detachment which he attributed to him self (25, 155 f.) is sublim ated in his attempt to act as im partial umpire between the fragmentist and his detractors even in a polem ic against these detractors. In Nathan, the Sultan, resistant to prejudice even in hostility, proves his superiority to Sittah by the fairness with which he analyzes and judges the motives o f his enemies (vv. 866-goo). In his crucial encounter with Nathan he realizes the passionate and selfless, the ardent and im partial spirit o f the dialectical quest by the serenity w ith which he accepts defeat if only the truth is victorious.61 Sim ilarly, R echa’s willingness to abandon her error (see also v. 276), the interior debates which are characteristic of Lessing’s monologues, and the self-suspicion and self-reversals of the T em p la r indicate, not instability or lack of character, but the capacity for self-correction, self-surrender and self-transcendence required of all who w ould attain to a degree of

52

/

LESSING

wisdom. Al-Hafi commands adm iration. H owever deluded, he em inent in his freedom, that is, in his dedication to that movement in which the former self is shed for the sake of stage of self-realization. For the w orth of a m an is measured effort to approxim ate the truth (23, 58). A ccording to Lessing, even love must not exclude sobriety.

is pre­ radical a new by his

. . . I am not cold. In truth, I see with no less pleasure what I see with calm. (v. 1730 f.; see v. 1718 ff.)

His ideal requires that the “ cold” philosophical head (24, 147 f.) and the warm th of the heart should form an alliance which is the opposite of confusion. N athan’s love is untainted by intellectual prejudice, his intellect unclouded by promptings o f emotion. Pro­ found emotion and detachment of intellect are characteristic of Al-Hafi, of M inna, of Philotas. It is by virtue of this conjunction that Lessing achieves an effect of inner tension and vital balance which lends enduring charm to his characters as w ell as to his style. H e and they arrive simultaneously at the heights of em otion and at the heights o f lucidity; they are profoundly w itty and wise even in the extrem ity of engagement. Lessing’s ideal of objectivity is not to be confused w ith neutrality or w ith that useful species of indifference w hich is due to the habitual exclusion of value judgments. N athan the Jew is not called upon to be objective on a matter that is indifferent to him, but on his being a Jew. T h e Sultan does not accept N ath an ’s conclusion as bearing upon a subject o f indifference but as a challenge to overcome his own residual prejudice. T h e T em p lar’s prejudice against the Jews in general and N athan in particular is suddenly transformed into the treacherous enthusiasm of friendship and love, which, under the im pact of erotic attachment, gives way to a relapse into prejudice before the final purgation is achieved. As purification from selfish em otional bias, objectivity entails an arduous discipline to be im ­ posed upon the emotions activated in partisanship. It is the m ark of victory over oneself. B u t could there be such victory if the self were not truly involved in the world? Lessing’s and N ath an ’s ideal of wisdom is to be realized w ithin the world, in engagement in w orldly matters, not in the ascetic retreat represented by Al-Hafi. Lessing’s ideal protagonist should not simply be poor. L ike N athan, he should possess w ithout possessing in order to remain, even in wealth, as poor as a "true kin g” (v. 1516).

SUMMARY /

53

His love should not be impersonal or transpersonal or enthusiastically diffuse. L ik e N athan in his love for Recha, he should be committed to one person in order to prove this specific and nontransferable affection to be w ithout desire for self-gratification. A n d even in his know ledge and faith he should be bound to a concrete and personal tradition, in close touch w ith practical life and practical decisions and concerned w ith the law of his earthbound existence. He is to prove w ithin — and in spite of — such lim itation the capacity to retain the liberating realization of his ignorance. T h e conjunction of an earnest pursuit w ith the qualifying know l­ edge that this pursuit is not to yield us anything which we are to have and to hold w ould seem to require the spirit of a serious game or of high comedy, a sense of play and of “ balanced inconclusiveness” (Ad 131, 138, f.). Drama as exhibition and objective presentation of dialec­ tic in play serves w ell to illustrate this spirit. Specifically, in Lessing’s plays the etiquette of dialectic, its rules of engagement and restraint, are represented by a chivalry of m ind and heart which in its sincerity and directness is quite the opposite of mere politeness.62 T h is chivalry is illustrated by T ellh eim and by Odoardo as w ell as by the chief protagonists of Nathan, notably the knight-tem plar and Saladin. T h e play-character of dialectic makes it akin to art. Dialectic is concerned w ith the realm of possibility rather than of actuality. T h e “ freedom from the exigencies of practice”— and thus from “special pleading” — are a source of happiness to the theoretical mind. Such a m ind w ould not miss the “ moments o f quiet laughter” in which the very inconclusiveness of dialectical insight is experienced as a “ dear d elight” (Ad 132 ff.). A nd there is more to this dear delight. T h e disinterested spirit required to appreciate the hypothetical and in­ conclusive game of controversy may prove capable of entering the stage of life itself. Friedrich Schlegel adm ired the higher “cynicism ” of Nathan.63 T h e play dramatizes the illusory nature of all hum an attainments, the desirability of ow ning nothing and the freedom that is in laughter. It intimates that all hum an commitment is hypothetical and inconclusive: the inchoate, the transitory, the tentative super­ vene on all hum an positions. N ot only the antithetical arguments, not only the ‘‘high comedy of polem ic,” but all our struggles are in their apparent finality an object of dialectical humor. It w ill be recalled that Lessing disbelieved in the finality of any hum an assertion of truth. Even when pressed to commitment by his opponent Goeze, Lessing spoke far more w illingly as gymnastikos

54 /

LESSING

than as dogmatikos. 64 It was his friend Mendelssohn who claim ed that “ nothing counted with him but the spirit of, investigation” (Pa, 38), that “ the gymnastics of the intellect were frequently more im portant to him than the pure truth” and worse: that “ the new and striking carried more weight w ith him than truth and sim plicity” (24, 13). Nonetheless, this dialectical cynicism or hum or has its serious aspects. In an ideal sense dialectic may be conceived as a sacred game that approxim ates religion or as an exercise of purification antecedent and ancillary to the worship of truth. Lessing suggested this in quoting — with a difference — “ H ow beau­ tiful, O Christ, is the service I practice in front of your house, de­ voutly honoring the abode of the seers.” For these lines, though not addressed to Christ, are spoken, as Lessing remarks, by the Ion of Euripides as he sweeps the steps in front of A p o llo ’s temple. “ I, too [Lessing adds] consider it no inglorious labor to sweep at least the threshold of divine inspirations” (23, 307). I too am employed not in the temple but at the temple. I too clean but the steps onto which the holy priests are content to sweep the dust from the inner sanctum. I too am proud of this mean task, for I know best in whose honor I do this work. (23, 311)

In its irony, in its sarcasm even, the passage is reminiscent of that proud hum ility which Saladin notes as characteristic of N athan (v. 1909 f.; cf. v. 1817). For w hile the ideal dialectician claims nothing, he knows that he serves the All-Highest. T h e inner sanctum is perhaps the enlightenm ent of the heart which is beyond words. T h e dialecti­ cian, however, keeps the access free from dust, and the m otto to Nathan, “ Introite nam et heic dii sunt,” suggests that he may even lead us into the temple. Perhaps it is an intellectual delight in the inconclusiveness of dialec­ tic which imposes upon the enlightened dialectician his virtue of hum ility, his sense of hum or, his spirit of serene poverty. However, this im practical or contem plative attitude should itself have practical consequences for the conduct of life. T h e lesson inherent in the acceptance of intellectual dialectic should lead to more than in tel­ lectual realization and acceptance of hum an lim itations in all spheres of life. L ik e Socrates, Lessing preferred to start the discursive circle on some seemingly small, remote or trivial m atter as if to prove how quickly dialectic w ould lead toward the center (cf. 23, 146). B u t all

SUMMARY /

55

specific hum an occasions are, in fact, somewhat peripheral; any hum an occasion w ill do to initiate the essential movement. A nd translated into positively practical, that is, into ethical terms, the dialectic awareness of lim itation, as Lessing sees it, means a capacity to serve hum bly in any given and inevitably lim ited hum an context, a readiness to lead the self and the other upward and on in the direc­ tion of infinite goodness.65 T h e positive realization of lim itation as the universal human condition is put into practice in N ath an ’s readiness to participate joy­ fu lly and selflessly at any point in a transcendent movement of hum an activity. T h e seemingly negative awareness of human ignorance frees man for selfless love of G od and for utter obedience to the divine scheme which, in fact, requires of lim ited hum an beings the whole­ hearted participation w ithin ascending orders of ever lim ited contexts. If man knew God, he w ould not love G od as selflessly as he must — not for the sake of G od but for the sake of his self-development. T h e infinite distance between man and G od gives man the blessed chance of true hum ility. In his Christenthum der Vernunft Lessing maintains that God repre­ sented His perfections in His creation by dividing them according to infinitesim al and ascending degrees, that is, by creating an infinite series of beings which together constitute the w orld (20, 107). Hence the creation approxim ates and adequates G od only in toto. A n d this applies again in a particular sense to man as the rational creature eter­ nally ascending toward God. M an and m ankind do not realize the fu ll­ ness of the approxim ation possible to them at any given point or in any one individuation but only in the complete course of their eternal history. T oleran ce is therefore engendered as more than passive recognition that man is fallible, that both I and the other are infinitely distant from the fullness of truth, and that intrahum an differences, however considerable in relative terms, are insignificant if taken in an absolute sense. T oleran ce is made active. For in order to be realized, the providential ascent, of which every phase is merely an infinitesimal part, requires that all men vie with one another in love o f God and fellow man and that every man identify with his fellow man as an essentially coequal member in that single and indivisible dimension of creation that is hum anity. T h e translation of the dialectical attitude into practical terms also affects the in d ivid u al’s relation to himself. It means freedom to live intensely in the agon and love of engagement and yet not to

/

56

/

LESSING

cling, to be able to leave off, to die as w illin gly as one engages in other modes of self-transcendence, in the serene realization that there can be, ultim ately and absolutely, no loss. A gain NatKan exemplifies a Socratic ideal of man. Since the wise man clings to nothing and is ever ready to participate in the deeply serious game of life and death and rebirth, he commands both the art of livin g and the art of dying. Indeed he gains both by w inning and by the loss of what is after all only another lim itation.66 “ N ath an” is H ebrew for “given of G od,” a name appropriate to the figure who is simply given as the positive center o f the play and as the m ain agent for the realization o f the providential design to unite the separated members of the hum an fam ily. For unlike the other positive protagonists, who are blood relations, N athan, the gift of God, remains outside this physical nexus. However, his name also suggests that N athan is the recipient of G od ’s smallest and greatest gifts. Moreover, the additional H ebrew m eaning “ H e gave” or “ the giver” applies to the function to be perform ed by N athan and to his essential character. For N athan has been given G od’s gifts not in order to possess them but to become the giver of the given, to sur­ render all he has. He learns his decisive lesson in giving when he learns to accept the loss of his entire natural fam ily (Act IV , sc. 7) as a deprivation w illed by God. In the course o f the play he is ever put in the role o f the giver. Daja, to whom he has brought gifts from Babylon and Damascus, comments on his fondness for giving presents (vv. 42, 50, 52). Subsequently, N athan wants to repay, and to give to, the Tem plar. A fter in itial refusals m otivated by an unwillingness to give foolishly, N athan offers both his wisdom and his w ealth to the Sultan; and finally he gives Recha, his dearest possession, to the T em p lar and to Saladin. For it is he who, as giver of the given, re­ stores the family. A n d as N athan surrenders and gives w hat has been entrusted to him, he and we learn that hum an wisdom itself, being the realization of a perennially self-transcending dialectical m ove­ ment, is a capacity and willingness to give. In relation to N athan we are to bear in m ind the central tenet w hich Lessing shares w ith the Christian heritage, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, that the true imitatio D ei requires giving even as self-sacrifice and that consequently the man who is truly a gift o f God w ill be foremost in giving. Indeed, the name “ N athan,” according to the theological tradition, recalls the Hebrew prophet N athan, of the line of Christ: the eighth son o f Jesse.

SUMMARY /

57

In considering dialectic as a purification of both m ind and heart, we came to the conclusion that the stage represented by Nathan com­ pletes and supersedes Lessing’s earlier concern with tragedy. T h e purgation or catharsis of the psyche which, in Lessing’s interpretation of the Aristotelian concept, is the chief function of tragedy, is not abandoned but aufgehoben in the H egelian sense, that is, contained and transcended in the “ comedy” o f total — not merely intellectual — dialectic. For this comedy o f serene self-transcendence through and beyond deprivation and death passes through and beyond the tragic spirit — a phenom enon represented figuratively (though perhaps some­ w hat feebly) in N ath an ’s biography w ith its emphasis on personal tragedy transcended by a serene affirmation. Lessing’s intellectualism and the predom inance of mental dialectic notwithstanding, his ideal hum an type must ultim ately prove himself in ethical action, in the exercise of heart and w ill rather than in reflec­ tion w hich, particularly as “ W ahnen iiber G ott” is occasionally even depreciated (v. 1590 ff.), though upheld elsewhere as a means of puri­ fying man (6, 79 f.). Nathan the sage is wise, above all, by virtue of the fact that he lives and acts wisely. H e not m erely invents the ingenious parable, he translates its message into practice. Lessing’s humanism does not result in m an’s worship of himself as the p in ­ nacle of the universe. M an is to fulfill his ever self-transcending nature and role by spending him self physically, em otionally and m entally in the com m unity and com m union with his fellow men, and for the greater glory of God. T h is notion of self-realization through self-dedication implies that the perfection attainable to any and all individuals lies only in the fulfillm ent of the actual God-given cycle in the here and now, even though this cycle w ill lead in turn to another to be fulfilled either in this life or in the future lives envisaged for each hum an monad or soul. Lessing disparages the enthusiast’s fitful, im patient and imprac­ tical anticipations of a higher future elevation much as N athan dis­ parages R ech a’s initial state of rapturous clairvoyance and delusion.67 A nd this applies even to that esoteric freemasonry of the spirit which is destined to" transcend the given social or religious conventions which at any given historical period are representative of the needs and “ truths” of the m any.68 For the m ovem ent o f progress must be engendered from w ithin each tradition or orbit, and the specific stage at which a group or individual has arrived must be respected (6, 77). T h o u g h Lessing enjoins upon each hum an being to “ act according to

58 /

LESSING

[his] individual perfections” (20, 109) — an im perative which reveals once more the concern with the specific phase of the in dividu al’s evolu­ tion — his ideal of truly enlightened action requires of the advanced in ­ dividual that he should help his fellow men along their way and reserve his higher insights for the few who are capable of acting in accordance with them. T h e requirem ent of moral action issuing as the third stage in N athan’s life from the first stage of insight and the second stage of emotional experience (see vv. 3025-3071) is an expres­ sion of Lessing’s faith in ethical practice as the most valid form of self-realization. A n d such insistence on existential realization, on ethical doing and being, is im plicit in the pursuit of dialectic, not as a mere exercise of intellect but as a way of life.

Postscript: Fire

In projecting dialectic beyond the confines of discourse, Lessing approaches a metaphysic of Realdialektik, a conception notably of hum an history in terms of a progressive process and of human exist­ ence in ever renewed sequences of oppositions and syntheses. Hence it is permissible to expand the inquiry to a consideration of an archetypal form of total experience manifest in Lessing’s work. H ow ­ ever, the object of such speculation is mythical, and the manner in which one may approach it w ill hardly satisfy the requirements of scholarly demonstration. T h e contrast between Lessing and Goethe, or rather, between Lessing and one aspect of Goethe, may provide a convenient starting point. T h e search for archetypes of experience repeated throughout G oethe’s works leads back to maternal nature as a process of organic and gradual growth and, even though the great mother can turn into a devouring monster, to a manner and style patterned on biological processes of copulation, pregnancy and birth, to an atmosphere of tempered moisture, warm th and light, to light diffused in air and color and to water. Goethe, the N eptunist, is not sympathetic to fire. Lessing (with due allowance for the simplification and exaggeration) is by comparison a fire-worshipper like the Parsee Al-Hafi. Perhaps to an adept of hermetic learning, the esoteric response to Lessing’s Con­ versations for Freemasons, which included “ a trium phant reference to the first part of Zoroaster, to certain microcosmic preludes and to the mystery of the disintegration of all things and their being con­ sumed by fire,” 69 w ould not appear as the gibberish it is usually said to be. Even in despair G oethe’s W erther referred to him self as the darling of Nature. O f Lessing one recalls the disgust at the monotonous recurrence of spring.70 Lessing’s early self-criticism consists of a satire on a pedant who judges the world by books. W ith Goethe the love of the w orld is a prim ary phenomenon; w ith Lessing it is secondary. G oethe’s prim ary experience is in terms of visual objects in space, Lessing’s in terms of time. Goethe was distrustful of mathematics, of philosophy, and generally of the abstracted im agination and of 59

60 /

LESSING

abstract thought. Lessing was in sympathy with mathematics (see for example, i , xvi; 14, 249-264), metaphysics, abstraction. Beyond litera­ ture and the arts, the natural sciences were Goethe’s m ain field of study. Lessing’s m ain concerns beyond literature and the arts were theology and philosophy. A nd biographical data likewise reflect a contrast: Lessing was usually in straitened circumstance's, never securely attached, and finally, though reluctantly, a librarian. Goethe was by comparison worldly and rooted, attached and a courtier. O ne is tempted to claim that Goethe was inspired prim arily by the eros of the eternal feminine, Lessing by the eros of intellect, by the eternal masculine. Generalizations of this sort are too facile and too undifferentiated. Nonetheless they suggest a basic difference. T h e 'd ia lectica l m ovement was shown to be all-pervasive in Lessing’s style. One may recall the antitheses, the close conjunction between entanglem ent of plot and means of resolution (a proxim ity which w ould need but a spark to consume the entire structure) and the movement through the typical triad, the habit of starting the process or conflagration w ith a trivial detail to reveal, as it were, the capacity of its consum ing activity at any point, or rather, its omnipresence. U nlike Goethe, Lessing com ­ manded in his prose the presto and brio which Nietzsche otherwise missed in German literature.71 B ut there is no need to discuss once more the consuming and purifyin g process of dialectic which was found to be operative in Lessing’s w orld as the law of m an’s and m an­ kin d ’s eternally temporal existence. According to Lessing’s metaphysics, all things human, including religious faiths, are subject to historical change. T h e individual — an im m aterial m onad — is defined by an eternal series of transmutations in which not only the body is entirely ephemeral but the soul and mind as well are definable only in terms of the process undergone. T h e movement is com parable to a fire w hich purifies as it consumes, and the same comparison is appropriate to the law of the hum an truth-movement in which every phase is consumed by the next so that nothing remains of the specific stages of “ error” and the only intellectual reality is the consuming and aspiring process or fire of intellect. L ife itself is a process of burning, of self­ consumption, self-transcendence and purification in trial ad infinitum. T h e affinity with fire as essence and symbol may not be equ ally relevant to all representatives of dialectic. It is unquestionably relevant to Lessing as w ell as to Heraclitus, the ancestor of dialectic, of Nietzsche and, indeed, of a central tradition in the literature and

p o s ts c r ip t:

philosophy of modern Germ any. Fire symbols Al-H afi, who owns nothing and whose notion of barefoot on the hot sands of the desert, venerates and by contrast money is associated in the play

4 1 3~4 1 7>

fir e

/

61

abound in Nathan: happiness is to walk the purifying flame; with water (see vv.

473 ®-)- T h e T em p lar rescues Recha from the fire only

to be set on fire him self in the very same house (Da brennt’s, v. 2224) by falling in love with Recha. T h e incendiaries, however, are the Christians who, as persecutors, caused by fire the death o f N athan’s family. A gain, the Patriarch would like nothing better than to burn the Jew (Act IV , sc. 2). In the “ Parabel” the palace of religion is rumored to be on fire; and the later title, “der Palast im Feuer” (23, *53 297, Anmerkungen, 904, 916) suggests the possibility that Lessing wanted to show religion and faith to be indeed a palace in the fire, nam ely the ever transmuted, ever burning and never ex­ tinguished house of truth. A nd who could inhabit this burning house of faith but God? A n d who w ould be G od but the fire? T h e m otto to Nathan, “ Come, enter! For here too are the gods,” w ould seem to contain something more than a reference to the gods of revealed religion and to the enlightened faith which unites and transcends them or to a play which invites the spectators to worship even in the stalls of the theatre, be they ever so inferior in dignity to the temples of dogm atic theology. T h e reference “ A p u d Gellium ” points to the A ttic Nights,12 a book m uch appreciated by Lessing, where his m otto used to occur — by dint of error — in the context of a learned disclaim er of book learning quite in Lessing’s own manner. A n d from Gellius the m otto leads us still further to its original place in the work of an author whom Lessing, in deliberate im itation of the scholastics, frequently called “ the philosopher” and revered as the teacher o f truth, at least in the realm of poetic and dram atic art, that is, to A ristotle’s D e Partibus Animalium (I 5.645 a 17). T h e lines occur in the context of A ristotle’s argum ent that the knowledge of the perishable and temporal phenom ena of nature, though lower in kind than the knowledge of the divine and unchanging manifestations, affords to us creatures o f the earth more abundance and certainty. U nfortunately, our grasp of eternal things is but slight. O n the other hand, in all natural things there is something of the marvellous: Here too are the gods. A n d if we study this earth w ith its animals and plants, we find that here too is beauty. For even more evident than in hum an artifacts, “purpose,” “ not accident,” is predom inant in all works of nature. W e need only realize the larger design of which

62

/

LESSING

the lowly and seemingly mean objects of observation are part. A n d hence the parallel to the natural and providential cosmic order, praised in Nathan and revealed in the play through seemingly mean and low ly chance occurrence, readily suggests itself. B u t finally we meet the originator o f the motto, the philosopher H eraclitus, w ho invited his hesitant friends to jo in him and, presumably, to worship in the hum ble stable where he was w arm ing him self at the fire. Fire, it w ill be recalled, the father of dialectical philosophy revered as the purest expression of the universal principle of m otion and change and transformation which, according to him, was the one and all, the hen kai pan, of the universe.73 As conceived by H eraclitus, fire is a male symbol. T h e moist and dark soul is contrasted invidiously with the bright and dry soul, a fitting description of Lessing’s ideal. Fire is intim ately connected with strife and w ith movement, and in fire the opposites, as H eraclitus knew, become one. For there is no distinction between a part that actively does the burning and a part that passively burns. T h e sole reality is the fire. Correspondingly, the dialectical process w ith its sharp turns from antagonisms to union and to further conflicts and syntheses is one. God him self is conceived in the image of fire. G od changes as fire does which, according to its m ixture, yields the fragrance of each thing. A n d since to Heraclitus fire is the essence of all things, there is no reality beyond fire, and G od is the Being of the universe. As eternal Being, H e and only He has absolute reality w hile every­ thing else is consumed in His Being but is, at the same time, part of His Being. If Lessing was a pantheist toward the end of his life, or if, at the very least, he sympathized w ith pantheism ,74 this sympathy w ould again seem to flow naturally from a central conception of the universe in terms of one eternal consuming process. T h is process w ould be endowed, perhaps, w ith supreme self-awareness as w ell as w ith physical attributes. O r it m ight transcend all such hum an divisions in an in ­ finity o f dimensions of which we know only “ intellect” and res extensa. U nder the aspect of eternity — though the im agination w ill not fo l­ low at this point — this process w ould be G od and thus, perhaps, not a process but ever complete and unm oving, a standing flame. W hen considered under the aspect of tem poral m otion, this nunc stans w ould appear as, or indeed w ould be, a process. It w ould be this w orld of which we know only a fraction. It is curious to speculate on the similarities between the father

p o s t s c r ip t :

f ir e

/

63

of dialectic and Lessing — similarities which, incidentally, are hardly attributable to direct influence. T h e formal principle of the identity of opposites, characteristic of H eraclitus’ thought, is a consequence of the attem pt to make dialectic the one and absolute power which can and does transform itself into everything: in the m anifold of his names G od reveals him self as one. In turn, this all-pervasiveness and eternal identity of what is figuratively or physically fire and in a spiritual dimension the Logos eternally proving and consuming itself would seem to suggest that all that is, is good. A n all-wise and providential divine scheme rules over even the least things. Man in his lim itation and foolishness fails to recognize this scheme, except the sage who — in the saying ascribed to Heraclitus and used by Lessing as the motto to Nathan — is distinguished, it seems, by his capacity to find the “gods” everywhere, even in the lowly fire of the stable. L ike Lessing, Heraclitus disparages mere quantity of learning. T h e only distinction of the wise man is his awareness of the universal law to w hich all men are subject. Being in fire and being itself of fire, his fiery soul has attained such brightness that in it fire - the law of eternal becom ing achieves a degree of self-consciousness, a re­ duplication of spirit in spirit, of the movement o f transcendence in the self-transcending soul. B u t perhaps there is also another and less happy aspect to the H eraclitean comparison or at least to the archetypal affinity with fire. Lessing once compared him self-h u m orou sly, it se e m s-to Erisichthon who, according to O v id ’s version of the legend (.Metamorphoses V III, 749 ff-)> had offended the sacred grove of Ceres, the goddess of the earth, and was punished for his transgression by a terrible hunger which he could not satiate w ith any food. Like a flame he devoured everything. A n inextinguishable fire burned in his palace. A ll his inheritance was wasted. T h en , w ith his own teeth, he tore him self up. Lessing does not carry his reference to such length. He merely compares his own insatiable hunger in matters pertaining to religion with Erisichthon’s condition (23, 45). T h ere is no need to surmise an uneasy sense of guilt, as if he, Lessing, the emancipated and absolute intellect, were punished for some failure or some transgression against nature by his in ab ility to find a satisfying spiritual nourishment. However, the im plication of the comparison is, after all, that he did not find any food that could satisfy him. And there are Lessing’s repeated requests to help him find the truth of religion. If only historical truth, the historical tradition o f revealed religion,

64 /

LESSING

the words of the allegedly inspired apostles (whose state of inspiration is, alas, in turn but an historical tradition), if only the apostles’ re­ ports concerning Christ and his miracles and, above all, concerning his divinity, had the same cogency as the truths of reasonX “ Das ist der garstige breite Graben. . . That, that is the broad and ugly ditch I cannot cross, as often and as earnestly as I have tried the leap. If anyone can help me to the other side, let him do it, I beg him, I adjure him. He will do a charity to me; he will earn a reward of heaven. (23, 49)

T h e same simile of the leap into faith recurs (no doubt as intentional allusion) in the conversation between Lessing and Jacobi, as a “ m ortal leap,” a Salto mortale, and the same request is made: “ T ake me along, if possible” (Nehm en Sie mich mit, wenn es angeht) — delivered, to be sure, in Lessing’s usual hum orous and even ironical m anner (24, 177). O r again, in the polem ic against Goeze: “Argernis hin, Argernis her! N ot bricht Eisen . . .” (Never m ind all the talk of scandal and offence. Necessity brooks no prescription [23, 245]). One reason why I pushed the anonymous [Fragmentist] out into the world was that I did not want to live alone with him under one roof any longer. He kept dinning into my ears, and I confess I did not always have as much to oppose to his insinuations as I wished I had. (23, 252) 75

In view of Lessing’s temperament, the evident mockery in such remarks does not argue a lack of seriousness. Perhaps there is in these repeated exclamations after all a dissatisfaction w ith the inconclusive­ ness of the dialectic intellect 76 and even a trace of despair. A Faustian urge inspired Lessing’s quest. Yet the negative aspects of this Faustian urge find expression in a dialectic w ithout hum ility, a self-tran­ scendence for the sake of self-satisfaction, a vying w ith fellow men and G od for power. T h is striving w ith all its disastrous consequences is in its unm itigated extrem ity much like Erisichthon’s insatiable h u n ­ ger — a curse and symptom of a radical offense against the contain ing harm ony of Ceres, of the earth, of m aternal nature. It is a com pulsion to overpower and to destroy in overpowering, an impulse to consume in fire and heat, in the excess of disproportionate and irresponsible release of Promethean energy, the earth and w ith it hum anity and itself. It is a boundless rage. • T o be sure, Lessing was neither an Erisichthon nor a Prometheus. W ith Lessing, the containing power, the stores and nourishm ent of faith were not exhausted. His acknowledgm ent of an unquestionable

p o s t s c r ip t :

f ir e

/

65

law inherent in the order of the universe is im plicit in his faith in dialectic as an exercise for the purpose o f attaining not omniscience but purity of heart and mind. H e rem ained true to the mainstream of a tradition established by the most celebrated originators of dialectic. H e did not subscribe to the relativism associated with some of the Sophists but rather to the spirit of Socrates and his predecessors. As generally in Germ an Classicism, the absolutes of Lessing’s faith are to be found, not in the sphere o f pure reason but in the sphere of ethics, o f practical reason. A n d his very faith in dialectic was defined and lim ited by his conception of dialectic as an eternal progress toward God. T h e desperate m ythical model of Erisichthon was yet to come into its own. It was destined to govern the fate of Nietzsche, in many ways the nineteenth-century successor to Lessing, though a successor via Friedrich Schlegel and the Germ an Romantics, and Hegel, and Schopenhauer, and W agner. W ith Nietzsche the ever renewed engage­ m ent in an em otional and intellectual dialectic lost all serenity. For there was no assured direction, and the inconclusiveness was not compensated by temporary satiation in the assurance that the light was there — even though at infinite distance — and to be approached forever. Given this basic faith, the “ inconclusiveness” of dialectic may be indeed “ the symbol of infinite possibility” (Ad, 247). W ithout this faith, such inconclusiveness w ill soon be regarded as the last intelligible evidence of a chaos in which man is lost. Once the guarantee of faith is surrendered, namely, that there is truth and that, even though the whole truth is not attainable, dialectic serves the approxim ation to the truth, dialectic is doomed to dis­ integration. A n d this disintegration w ill be the more pernicious and catastrophic in proportion to the degree of completeness in the chosen dialectical practice. A purely intellectual dialectic may still survive as a subordinate type of m ental gymnastics, merely aesthetic in function or ancillary to rhetoric. O r it may become a craft of m anipulating ideas for predetermined practical ends subservient to the aim of gaining power. Intellectual dialectic w ill disintegrate into sophistry w hich is cynical in the popular sense o f the term or into the parlor games and relative futilities of debating societies. However, when dialectic is conceived of as an exercise of m ind and heart, as a discipline o f the entire feeling and thinking being, the lack of dis­ cernible aim, the bottomlessness of the undertaking w ill render it desperate. Such practice of dialectic w ill then produce increasingly a

66 /

LESSING

thoroughgoing and excruciating ambivalence. It w ill show all positions to be merely illusions, that is, illusions which are in no sense ordered toward a distant goal. In proportion to its em ancipation from all commitment, dialectic w ill generate nihilism as an ideology and insanity as an existential state. More precisely, the tragedy and the debasement w ill result not from completely discarding the ideal of truth (such complete sur­ render would, perhaps, be the end of man, his return to the anim al world) but from a gradual weakening of spirit. W hile still retaining some confidence in the procedures of intellectual and em otional exer­ cises developed in support of the aspirations that have been sur­ rendered, the spirit w ill lose its grip on essential spiritual realities. One of the resulting states of mind is characterized by the presum ption that dialectic ought to be a w holly autonomous activity capable of perform ing the job the Baron of M iinchhausen had accomplished when he pulled him self out of the mire by tugging at his own pig-tail. But the relation to reality, that is, to objective truth is necessarily assumed in m eaningful discourse. T h e ensuing disappointm ent in dialectic is itself prepared by the m entality which originally discon­ nected the intellectual exercise from the intellectual faith in whose framework it must operate. T h e disintegration of dialectic by way o f its total em ancipation and the attempts to find the support of a Weltanschauung exclusively in the more immediate contexts — the arts, secular progress and welfare, business, money, m aterial goods, power, sex, blood, soil, and the like — are therefore intim ately connected with the modern debility of the spirit. N or can even the goddess of the earth be rediscovered and conciliated w ithout faith in the hum an spirit as the only faculty capable — not of “ creating” but of revealing “ objective” m eaning, that is, truth. For the goddess of the earth is not earth but spirit and must be recognized by a faculty capable of receiving her essence. A nd piety, even with regard to the earth, is a spiritual attunem ent of the sensory psyche. Nietzsche, ever haunted by the sense o f his own disease, sought to correct what he took to be an excess of veracity — that is, his own intellectual and emotional hubris, his compulsive urge to follow nothing but a w holly emancipated, self-creative and self-destructive dialectic — by a return to the earth, zu den nachsten Dingen. T h is attempt was doomed since instead o f attuning the lim ited power to the unlim ited power, he could not but recommend the subjection of

p o s t s c r ip t :

f ir e

/

67

the earth and of the universe to the fictitious, the helpless and aim­ lessly dynam ic autonom y of a wholly emancipated creature which he called upon to act, in contradiction to its own condition, as its own creator. T h ere are only intim ations of this developm ent in Lessing. N one­ theless, his legacy, the Pantheismusstreit (see Pa, xi-cxxviii), which he caused but did not live to witness, points the way. It was Jacobi who, on the strength of his m em orable discussion with Lessing, published the news that Lessing had ended his days as a Spinozist, a pantheist, a denier of a personal deity, or, indeed, as an atheist. Lessing’s old friend, the philosopher Mendelssohn, an acknowledged model for the figure of N athan, vigorously defended the deceased against w hat he took to be Jacobi’s accusation. In the course of a controversy which from its inception had im plicated Goethe — by reference to his poem “ Prom etheus” (see Pa, 75 f., 299 f.) — and which was to engage in varying degrees the leading German spirits of the period (e.g., Kant, Herder, Hamann), one of the crucial issues of the age of idealism was brought into the open. For in arguing against and for Lessing, Jacobi came to question the basic metaphysical trend of the German movement. T h is metaphysic, Jacobi felt, was neither bold enough to shatter the idol of rationalism nor strong enough to renounce religious aspirations. Hence it created the mere ghost of a religion, dem anding of hum an consciousness that it recognize and acknowledge the absurd and inconceivable concepts of a blind providence, of an unintentional intention and of a free necessity as the legitim ate expression of m an’s religious and spiritual experience (Pa, xxv). Jacobi considered Spinozism to be the only consistent form of pantheism, and he m aintained that a fu lly developed pantheism must lead to and term inate in atheism. A ll attempts to console the hum an m ind for a loss of faith in "supernatural theism” by deriving new religious content from a pantheistic view of the universe and deity were therefore doomed to failure. However, the rebirth of religious consciousness from the spirit of pantheism was the “ meta­ physical aim of Germ an idealism ” (Scholz; Pa, xxv). Jacobi’s u n­ compromising attack raised the crucial question concerning the intense if tenuous relationship w ith the absolutes of faith and religion entertained by the m ajor representatives of the age of Goethe. T h e increasing secularization of the divine, the concomitant em ancipation of dialectic from an absolute goal and safeguard of

68 /

LESSING

m eaning and the ensuing disintegration of dialectic into illusions of infinite materialistic progress and, finally, into nihilism , are fore­ shadowed in Lessing’s notion that w ith God, thought, w ill and creativity are necessarily one (20, 106). God, he claimed, cannot th in k an object w ithout creating it. He wills into being all that He con­ ceives. T h is renunciation of the primacy of spirit 'in favor o f a seemingly richer, more tangible dynamism, a more dram atically ethical and concrete activity, is conducive to a worship of em pirical reality and its determinism, of natural and hum an activity, of the w orld and, in fact, of worldliness. T h e apparent increase in the creative vitality o f the divine principle is to be purchased at the price of the freedom and independence of divine thought and being. Lessing’s conception is symptomatic o f the m entality w hich leads via dynamic pantheism to dialectical materialism and atheism, and which moved Faust to mistranslate: “ In the beginning was the D eed.” If w ill, creativity and thought are “ one,” God is, perhaps, His creation. Lessing’s pantheistic tendency suggests the attrition of the concept of divinity in the direction o f a conception which recognizes only the impersonal reality of a creative-and-destructive process, though this process is still called, and felt to be, divine. T h ere are in Lessing indications of a decrease in spiritual certainty. A n d hence there are indications of an unappeased hunger in the fire and m ovement of dialectic. But these are mere flickers compared to the later condition when, as w ith Nietzsche, the unappeased hunger for the nourishing food — whether of heaven or of earth — w ill turn the protagonist of the flame to self-immolation. Nietzsche knew him self to be but flame (Flamme bin ich sicherlich). Dialectic engulfed him as a delicious and finally fierce and unbearable torture, to be appeased only by earthmade fictions of self-appointed self-transcendence to the fata morgana of superman until, like Erisichthon, he was forced to turn upon him self and in a brief and hopeless orgy o f self-deification to consume and destroy himself.

NIETZSCHE Antithesis and Reversal

The Basic Pattern

Nietzsche’s basic Dionysian experience and insight involves a unity of opposites which he described in his early philosophy as the primal contradiction in the prim al One (Urwiderspurch [im\ Ur-einen, 70, 76). A n d though he soon discarded the traditional metaphysics from w hich these terms were derived, he remained loyal to the ex­ perience itself. In the late Nietzsche, Dionysus is the m ythical form ula for the affirmation of the creatively destructive and destructively creative unity of radical negation and radical affirmation (77, 381). T h is u nity includes yea and nay, supreme evil and supreme good (77, 401), pleasure and pain, truth and illusion, and truth as illusion and illusion as truth. It is eternal becom ing (Werderi), the unity of growth and decay, and the eternal delight of Werden which includes the delight in destruction (77, 182). Characteristically, this affirmation of the unity of opposites does not perm it the assumption that the positive terms could in any sense prevail over the negative terms. If a positive aspect is to be derived at all, it must be derived from the affirmation of opposition. T here can be no m axim um of creation w ithout a concomitant m axim um of destruction, no supreme goodness w ithout supreme evil. Nietzsche rarely recommends any m ediation w hich would result in a toning down or neutralization of opposites. H e is hostile to a balance achieved at the expense of intensity and adverse to adjustment or compromise. T h e affirmative act should prove itself in the capacity to embrace the opposites in their most comprehensive and radical terms. W hile, for example, the works and the ideology of Thom as M ann are charac­ terized by a system of ironical checks and balances and by a cautious, am bivalent equilibrium , Nietzsche generally demands a pervasive existential awareness of antithetical m axim a. T h e essential experience stated exp licitly in the works of Nietzsche s initial and final phases and im plicit in all of his writings is describable in terms of a capacity for the orgiastic or ecstatic realization of the unity of such opposites. Form ulated as cosmic principle, this unity of opposites appears in the late Nietzsche as the will to power, that is, as the all-encompassing 71

72 /

NIETZSCHE

force of self-increase, self-transcendence and self-annihilation which constitutes every and all concatenations of energy. Form ulated under the aspect of unending time or infinity, it appears as* eternal recur­ rence, as the perennial cycle of creation and destruction. For Nietzsche assumes a vast if lim ited and ever undim inished-force feeding upon itself and expending itself in eternal duration (j8 , 431 f., 693 f.), ever running through all available combinations. Similarly, this basic conception appears, • under the aspect of personality, in the guise of superman, as the personified capacity to realize, in terms of instinctive and conscious experience, the all pervading process of creative-destructive self-transcendence and thus to affirm the eternally recurrent drama of the universe in the very texture of individual existence. T h e superman is superior to known hum anity by virtue of his capacity to dispense w ith com forting lies and to face the essential truth. N ot merely by way of intellect but through his entire existence he w ill affirm the dynam ic unity of opposites which he him self represents. He w ill bear the orgiastic extremes of pleasure-pain, sensibility-ruthlessness, evil-goodness. He w ill create and see through the illusions which are required' by and im plicit in all creative perspectives. He w ill sustain the tension between illusion and the awareness o f illusion, between vital fiction and the knowledge of the illusory character o f all vital fiction. These key terms of the late Nietzsche represent and summarize his perennial experience in the form of conceptualization. However, Nietzsche also dramatizes this experience in sequences of ideas and arguments. He communicates it in the language of emotion and, generally, through his manner of thought and expression. Such enactments of m axim al opposition and of the identity of opposites are represented in Nietzsche’s works by dynam ic antitheses, particular­ ly by movements of reversal in which top becomes bottom , and bottom, top. Insofar as logical opposition and reversal are always im plicit in Nietzsche’s writings, a characteristic phase of dialectic in the lim ited sense of the term is expressed. However, lyricisms and rhetorics are integral elements o f Nietzsche’s m ental dynamic, and they are intim ately fused w ith the logical impulse. In view of Nietzsche’s practice of dialectic there is every reason to appeal to ample prece­ dent for the extension of this term to translogical domains. T h e fo l­ low ing investigations are predicated upon this extended notion of dialectic. T h e ir purpose is to reveal a single configuration which underlies intellectual as w ell as emotive manifestations, aesthetic

THE BASIC PATTERN /

73

structures as w ell as philosophical concepts, in two divergent phases of Nietzsche’s early development. W hat, then, are the peculiarities of Nietzsche’s practice of dialectic? He conceived m ental activity and dramatized it in his work as something far more comprehensive than an exercise of the intellect. W ith a characteristic conjunction of opposites Nietzsche spoke of the “ bliss of unhappiness” that he had found in cognition (82, 337 )* Every one of his works had claimed his entire body and life. “ I have no conception,” he said, “ of purely intellectual problems.” A ll his truths had drawn blood. His thoughts were the record of his own vital experience (82, 335 f.). T h is suggests that Nietzsche made a habit of em otional thinking; that he confused the em otional states w hich motivate or accompany a given process of reasoning w ith the results of this m ental activity. One m ight argue that the turm oil of creative m ental labor should give rise to intellectual discoveries which bear no trace of their turbulent origins. Before launching on the form idable cycle of dialectical rea­ soning recorded in P lato’s dialogue, Parmenides recalls the aged Ibycus who, upon fallin g in love against his w ill, “ compared him self to an old racehorse, who was about to run in a chariot race, shaking w ith fear at the course he knew so w ell.” 1 T h e im plications of physical and em otional strain are obvious. Yet the product of the m ental effort recorded in the Parmenides seems to be a neutral and pre-em inently intellectual exposition. Nietzsche, though equally engaged in fighting his way through the rounds of a m ental race and com bat, is unlike P lato’s Parmenides in that his manner of presentation and the substance of his thoughts seem to defy the distinction between em otional and discursive communication. W hether this is a virtue or a fault, every work of Nietzsche repre­ sents a configuration of problems w hich is unified organically, as a definite phase or sphere of hum an experience rather than in terms of purely intellectual coherence. T h e consistency of Nietzsche’s dialectic is predicated on the conviction that to think through is to live through a stage of m ental experience. His prim ary allegiance belonged to the dialectic of a*.Dionysian sensibility which he knew to be his distinctive trait am ong the philosophers. H e experienced w ithin him self the perennial strife between opposing forces of the psyche and the syn­ thesis between these forces givin g rise to further cycles of antitheses and syntheses. He came to conceive the universe itself in the image of this activity, of w hich logical reasoning was m erely one feeble and

74 /

NIETZSCHE

inadequate reflection. He therefore opposed the restriction of dialectic to a theoretical plane. In his early and in his late works Nietzsche used the’ term dialectic as a pejorative to designate the discursive strategy of a rationalistic mentality. Its symbol was the slanted image of Socrates introduced in T h e Birth of Tragedy and refurbished in Twilight o f' the Idols (77, 87-93). H e knew, at the same time, that the dialectic of Socrates ex­ ceeded the domain of a narrow “ Socratism.’' He him self was fre­ quently a protagonist and occasionally an apologist of w hat he else­ where disparaged as Socratic dialectic. However, such distortions and self-contradictions were perhaps consistent w ith an apparent paradox which Nietzsche represented: the intellectual as a protagonist of anti-intellectualism. ' In this capacity he opposed the excess of reason, the attem pt to establish its dictates and criteria in permanence over against the promptings of instincts. T h o u g h designed as a cure against that anarchy of impulses which was the defining characteristic o f deca­ dence, this rationalistic attempt was itself a symptom o f decadence since health and positive vitality consisted precisely in the reliance on powerful and healthy instincts (77, 87-93). However, Nietzsche did not confine him self to a critique of excessive rationalism . H is m ental struggle compelled him to practice a Socratic dialectic in order to lead it ad absurdum. A ll great things,” Nietzsche claimed, "must destroy themselves” (76, 410). According to Nietzsche, his attack on W estern ethics was a consequence of these ethics, the self-destruction and self-transcend­ ence o f these ethics (73, 8 f.; j6 , 44; 77, 402; 78, 11, 276 f.). H e considered his attack on Christianity to be the consequence of the radical application o f Christian veracity to Christian doctrine. T h e final act of Christianity w ould be Christianity turning upon itself, the self-destructon or self-suspension o f Christianity (j6, 409 f.; 74, 263). A nd similarly, Nietzsche interpreted his attack on logic as a conse­ quence of the refinement of logical thought, m uch as he considered his attack upon all the assumed entities and structures o f alleged truth in the light of a self-destruction and self-transcendence o f the quest for truth. T h e notion and the dramatizations of a rational dialectic turn­ ing upon itself in order to destroy itself and to transcend its lim ita­ tions afford therefore prime examples of Nietzsche’s basic pattern of antithesis and reversal. T h e phenomenon o f self-devouring Socratism is a m ajor topic and

THE BASIC PATTERN /

75

target of T h e Birth of Tragedy. T h e emancipated intellect bent on destroying the fictions of the intellect appears as a major protagonist in the series of aphoristic works which extend from the first section of Human A ll Too Human to Gay Science. A nd the later Nietzsche insists even more strenuously on his conviction that a logical critique of logic w ill culm inate in the destruction of the principle of identity and in the discovery o f a translogical principle o f contradiction. He argues that the structures inherent in language, e.g., the relationships between subject and object or between subject and predicate, are (unavoidable) illusions in no way indicative of substantive realities or of w hat is truly true. A n d finally he attacks the notion of truth in the name of a perspectivism which allows, at best, for a hierarchy of nobler and less noble, of life-giving and life-denying (or decadent) illusions. T h e quest for the true and the good, he claims, must result in skepticism concerning the value judgm ents inherent in every affirmative logical judgm ent. It w ill uncover and deny the “moral phenom enon” which underlies the confidence in the fictions of logic (73> 7 £•)• U ltim ately it w ill suspend all value judgments whether they affirm an alleged truth or the (fictitious) distinction between moral good and moral evil. According to the later Nietzsche, this radical nihilism is, in fact, the necessary condition for the transvaluation of values and for the creative superm orality and transmoral ethos of the superman. However, these considerations suggest once more that Nietzsche’s own procedure m ight be describable in terms o f a Socratic dialectic which, by its very consistency, must come to explode the pretentions of Socratic dialectic, much as his immoralism might be conceived o f as a pursuit o f moralism to the point o f the self-defeat and self-transcendence o f m orality. Even so, the code of an anti-Socratic Socratism2 is perhaps too nar­ row to fit entirely the desperate and awe-inspiring game to which Nietzsche dedicated his life. It is true that he was always at pains to relate his procedure to the ground rules o f common logic. However, in view of his prim e experience of m ental activity in the image of a D ionysian orgy and ecstasy, he had every inducem ent to suggest that this relation was one of freedom. Since Nietzsche did not accept the assumptions of logic (72 I, 23) or rather, since he considered logical thought the model of a perfect fiction (83, 78), he felt justified in m aking a play of logic even w hile he exhibited the mastery over its rules. H e did not deny the u tility or even the inevitability of logical fictions. However, consistency in terms of these fictions was not

76 /

NIETZSCHE

for him an ultim ate criterion. H e felt at liberty to move now in unison and now in counterpoint to the dictates of so-called reason, now to convince and now to shock, now to reveal his insights by way of “ sound” argum ent and now to present his truths in the form of paradox. It is no accident that Nietzsche’s works became the source o f inspir­ ation for a type of vital thinking characterized by glaring inconsisten­ cies and even by a pride in contradictions as the symptom of vitality — a school of thought that can be traced on its vital descent through Italian Fascism into the depths of N ational Socialism or via H ouston Stewart Cham berlain to the irrationalism of'R osenberg,3 or from the contem pt for a system to the pride in the lack of a program. If the ideal of logical consistency merely reflected obedience to codified illu ­ sions of identity or a timid and slavish acceptance of the idols of abstraction, the virtuous observance of the illusory conventions of reason could be counted a weakness, w hile the courage to sustain con­ tradiction and the bold cham pionship of the illogical prom ptings of instinct could be considered a m ark of creative freedom and of strength If the spheres of verbalization and the perspectives of thought were ultim ately to be judged as signs and symptoms of the entire psychosomatic character of an individual, or if states of con­ sciousness, e.g., a faith, an ideology, “ ein Fiir-wahr-halten” were a matter of utter indifference compared to the decisive relevance o f a m an’s basic drives — a claim advanced in T h e Antichrist (77, 237) — the mere freedom from self-contradiction required by logical dis­ course would hardly deserve high priority am ong the desiderata of philosophical utterance. Even so, there is a core of straight logical reasoning in all o f N ietz­ sche’s work. O n occasion he obscures it. T h e speeches of Zarathustra, for example, present closely knit arguments in the disguise of a poetic style. T h e inspirational and desultory manner of T h e Birth of Tragedy sim ilarly disguises the structure of an essay which, in spite of its inconsistencies, is more persistently systematic than the author cares to reveal. However, whether im plicitly or explicitly, there is usually also a counterm ovem ent or counterpoint to the logical se­ quence. T h e logical nexus between interlocking arguments does not represent the final perspective on the subject under discussion. T h is counterpoint is frequently suggested by seemingly paradoxical conjunctions of opposites or by the fact that a logical argum ent is led ad absurdum. T h u s the argum ent against Socrates and Socratism ad­

THE BASIC PATTERN /

77

vanced in T h e Birth of Tragedy culminates in the ideal of a superSocrates w ho w ould com bine the opposites of rational dialectic and music. O r in the first section of Human A l l T o o Human, the argu­ ment for a strict adherence to the procedures and the ethos of a w holly emancipated spirit of scientific inquiry culminates in the real­ ization that unscientific illusions and prejudices constitute the prime requirem ents and the worth and value of the hum an universe. M oreover, under this same heading one m ight subsume most of the examples o f radical reversal and of unity of opposites, e.g., the treatment of the moralism of the antim oralist or the conjunctions between extremes of nihilism and affirmation, the definition of health in terms of the capacity to assimilate disease, of truth as insight into the inevitability of illusion, or of m axim al creativity as m aximal destructiveness. A nd finally there are, as the result of both the logical m ovement and the counterpoint, intim ations of the identity of oppo­ sites, of the translogical flux, of the unity o f the ineffable and indivisi­ ble truth w hich can only be suggested. For the means and devices of antithetical language are unfit to express this reality of essential being (j i , 608) or, as the later Nietzsche has it, of becoming (y8, 483). T h e most ancient traditions of dialectic sanction the use of reason to illustrate the irrationality of some postulates of reason, the para­ doxes resulting from this procedure, and, generally, the attempt to prove that dialectic is not dialectical enough if it stops short of a cri­ tique of the very assumptions which underlie its exercise.4 However, w hile Nietzsche’s bent toward a self-destructive self-transcendence of dialectic is itself a legitim ate expression of dialectic, it also creates occasions for the introduction of criteria other than those sanctioned by the faculty of pure reason which Nietzsche considers, after all, to be a faculty for im pure illusion. T h e attem pt to use logic in order to go beyond logic should lead ultim ately to transrational criteria of insight. B u t these cannot be said to occur in a sphere which is strictly separate or separable from the range of rational dialectic. For they occur or appear to occur as a result of the consistent application of a rational dialectic. It is a thin ‘line which separates Nietzsche from the Germ an irrationalists w ho im itated his manner. B ut it is one thing to be uncon­ cerned w ith contradiction and another to thrive on contradiction. It is one thing to slight paradox and another to develop paradox. T h e unconcern is a trait which is alien to the dialectical temper. T h e elaboration of contradiction and paradox as illustrated by Nietzsche’s

78 /

NIETZSCHE

post-Hegelian concern w ith the unity of opposites is a trait quite in keeping w ith the dialectical temper. Adm ittedly, the extremes meet. For, as noted above, the propensity to use paradoxes arid conjunctions of opposites may engender and constitute a m ental attitude intim ately related to the contempt and disregard o f Widefspruchslosigkeit and to the positive appreciation of contradiction as the prferogative of the greatest strength of mind. However, Nietzsche generally bases his claim to irrationalism on the exercise of reason. His gestures of con­ tempt for the proprieties of reasoning are derived from exp licit dram a­ tizations of reasoning. W henever a contradiction occurs w ithout being made exp licit or w ithout being advertized as reason transcended, it points to a dilemma which w ill preoccupy Nietzsche at a future point. For he is ever bent on new engagements in dialectical adventure. T o give an exam ple: Gay Science is ostensibly written in praise of the desperadoes of truly free and emancipated thought. However, since the book deals largely with the self-destruction of the striving for truth, it suggests that emancipation from the illusions of all term inal assurances provided by intellectual constructs rests, after all, on an unexam ined and quasi­ religious faith in the value of the rigorous (if self-destructive) intel­ lectual quest. A nd hence both the Genealogy and the fifth book of Gay Science (which Nietzsche added at a later date) deal w ith the concealed and subtle asceticism inherent in the enterprise of the anti­ illusionists and protagonists of free thought. T o give another exam ple: the late Nietzsche considers the incapacity to resist any and all impulses to be a defining characteristic of decadence (77, 102, 128; 78, 495). A t the same time, he considers what is ostensibly the same open­ ness to impulse to be a defining characteristic of the Dionysian ecstasy, that is, the epitome of affirmative power (77, 136 f., 173). T h e con­ tradiction in this apparent identity of opposites is never resolved. Y et one may surmise that it was about to engage the anti-Christian dialec­ tician when he succumbed to insanity and signed his letters as D ion y­ sus and T h e Crucified. For much as Dionysus was to Nietzsche the symbol of boundless, all-assimilating health and self-realization, Christ (as distinct from Paulinian Christianity) was to him the symbol of sublime, of infinitely yielding and non-resistant decadence and self-abandonment.5 W h at characterizes. Nietzsche, then, is not unconcern but, on the contrary, a passionate concern w ith dialectical opposites, even and precisely in the form of the unity of opposites. A nd w hat he attempts

THE BASIC PATTERN /

79

to uncover and to illustrate in his writings is perhaps that “ antithesis in its eternal progression” which Herm ann Hesse, an attenuated Nietzschean, revered both as ineffable truth and as his stylistic ideal. For, to quote Hesse’s self-estimate, he always desired and he always failed to reveal that beauty and ugliness, light and darkness, sin and saintliness were opposites only for one brief moment, that they merged into one another, and that all the great contrasts of the world were at the same time a necessity and an illusion.6 Evidently sub- or translogical elements entered into Nietzsche’s dialectic and codeterm ined its distinctive quality. Nietzsche would not have achieved his unique and massive impact, he would not have dom inated the literature and the thought of Germ any in the twen­ tieth century, he w ould not have appealed to both the semiliterate and the literary sophisticates, to the philosophers, to the poets, to the professors, to the novelists, the journalists, the demogogues, if it had not been for his experience of m ental activity as an excruciating and sensational enterprise affecting every fibre of the sentient human being and for his literary capacity to convey this experience. Thom as M ann, w ho w illy-nilly remained his life-long disciple, called Nietzsche the "lyricist of cognition.” 7 B ut Nietzsche was equally the musician, the dramatist and the rhetorician of thought in process, and it is this function which defies in his case, as in the (incomparably greater) instance of Plato, all summaries in terms of doctrine. Nietzsche fasci­ nated his readers by offering them the opportunity and the excitement of vicarious participation in an interlocking series of well-defined and radical and com pelling m ental adventures. W hatever they thought of the m erit o f the positions or counterpositions in these engagements, the readers of Nietzsche were convinced that the intensity and the rigor o f the protagonist were beyond doubt. If the reasons of the heart are fused with the reasons of reason, the result w ill still be a kind of logic. Even if the persuasiveness of Nietzsche’s works was reducible to the com pelling coherence of a psychological syndrome rather than to the coherence of a theorem, these impassioned debates between the selves of the author would still belong to the; genre of dialectic. However, to argue that Nietzsche was more, rather than less, a dialectician than the pre-eminently intellectual practitioners of the art is not to claim that he was a better dialectician than they. T h o u g h t infused and possibly infected w ith sentim ent and im pulse may disqualify a thinker from the higher reaches o f dialectic. T hese may require restriction, sobriety and the

/

80 /

NIETZSCHE

relative purity of procedure illustrated by the classics o f philosophy in w hich thought is all the more pow erful for having retained its proper province and its supreme command over the tributaries. Nietzsche composed each of his works as a symphony of affective and intellectual spheres. He did not merely orchestrate his ideas. T o him at least, his emotional and his intellectual dialectic were one. T h e effect he achieved is comparable to that of W agner’s highly sea­ soned Gesamtkunstwerk. By in vitin g total participation, he realized a gain in intensity. However, this gain is offset not only by a loss in purity but by the fact that the composite im pact does, after all, ob­ scure the intellectual substance. T h e sim ultaneity in the motions and countermotions of intellectual and em otional spheres interferes w ith the neat presentation of a progressive rational sequence. Nietzsche’s literary personality is many-layered. T h e m ultiplicity of participating selves tends to disturb a linear continuity. Nietzsche’s affective investment of thought ultim ately produces a frenzied effect. In his final phase he grew less and less discrim inating with respect to the promptings, impulses, sentiments that were allowed to speak out. However, the high pitch of ecstasy and fury which he maintained in these excessive performances served only to make all the more explicit the perennial source of his inspiration. T h e dynam ic conjunction of antitheses under which all voices and countervoices are subsumed conveys the orgiastic fusion o f creativity and destruction which constitutes the universe. T h e final vision of Dionysus is a vital projection of Nietzsche’s intense experience of thought as an ascetic orgy, as procreatively destructive activity, as Dionysian mystery forever enacting and revealing the antithetical struggle and the unity of opposites. However unaccustomed the dram atization o f this mystery m ight have been to Nietzsche’s contemporaries, his basic experience, though it m ight be contained in stricter boundaries and concealed in esoteric doctrine, is not so unique as it appeared to be on first sight. It is in fact an experience shared, if not by all initiates to philosophy, at least by many impassioned followers of truth. One need not appeal to Heraclitus. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the logic of a develop­ ment which led from Lessing to H egel would lead, at a further stage, to the emergence of a H egel w ithout H egel’s absolute, or rather to a more than H egelian addiction to dialectic which was deprived of all faith in an enduring and harm onious condition of being. A ccording to the Phenomenology, the goddess of truth is strangely akin to, and

THE BASIC PATTERN /

8l

quite as strange as, Nietzsche’s Dionysus. T o Hegel, “ appearance is the process of arising into being and passing away again, a process that itself does not arise and does not pass away, but is per se, and constitutes reality and the life-movement of truth.” B u t when he adds: “ In this way truth is the bacchanalian revel, where not a soul is sober,” he seems to anticipate Nietzsche’s form ula though Nietzsche could hardly have added: “ and because every member no sooner gets detached than it eo ipso collapses straightway, the revel is just as much a state of transparent unbroken calm.” 8

The Birth o f Tragedy T H E D IV I D E D O N E

According to Nietzsche’s early p h ilosop h y,’ the underlying essence of all things is an ineffable creatively destructive and destructively creative tension which he calls the prim al O ne (das Ur-Eine) and de­ fines as suffering and contradiction. T h is being of beings is defined equally by the fact that it perennially seeks and achieves its redem p­ tion in the creation and destruction o f its antithesis, the insubstantial spheres which constitute the temporal w orld of individuation and be­ com ing (Werden).9 T h e O ne is a contradiction perennially resolved and unresolved, and the suffering (Schmerz) w hich Nietzsche at­ tributes to his archentity is delight (Lust). T h e creative pain which constantly engenders and devours the illusory universe of individua­ tion is at one with the creative pleasure constantly satiated in an eternal orgy of creation and destruction. T h e self-conscious paradox which underlies Nietzsche’s early system is often overlooked. Contradiction, he suggests, is the father of all things, and the world has its cause and foundation exclusively in the prim e reality o f eternal suffering (70, 62). But opposed to this prim al suffering and contradiction in the heart of the O ne (70, 76), there is the realm o f "art,” change and “ m u ltip licity” as a sphere o f semblance or appearance (82, 8). For the eternally suffering and contradictory essence of true Being requires for its “ constant redem ption” the “ rav­ ishing vision,” “ the pleasurable illusion,” the sphere of non-entity which, delightful from the vantage point o f the tormented absolute, is to us insubstantial beings, sim ply the realm of em pirical reality (70, 62; see also 82, 38). A n d yet the O ne glories in the destruction o f the very spheres of illusory individuation which it creates for its solace. For this annihilation proclaims the eternal life beyond appearance and despite all destruction. A nd now the O ne is indeed all delight and eternal satisfaction w ith itself — the Great M other, creative w ithin and beyond incessant change, com pelling new worlds into being, satisfying herself in this change and flux of transient phenomena (70, 138). It is our greatest happiness if, for some brief moments, we may shed our illusory individuality and become the prim al being (das Urwesen

'

82

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

8g

selbst) so as to feel the O ne’s unbounded appetite and its joy in exist­ ence. For now the torments, the struggle, the destruction of individu­ ated phenom ena appear to us as a necessity. T h e exuberant pro­ ductivity of the cosmic W ill gives birth to innum erable shapes that press forward, seek life, crowd out one another, and must fall prey to destruction. B u t as we behold these spectacles and are pierced by the furious sting of these torments, we are fused w ith the infinite prim al delight in existence and realize in a Dionysian ecstasy that this delight is im perishable and eternal. Despite fear and pity, we are blissfully alive — not as individuals but as the single vital Being. For we are now at one w ith its procreative desire and joy (70, 139). W ith this reversal of suffering into bliss and curse into blessing, the circle is complete: the extrem ity of creative torture is the extrem ity of cre­ ative delight, the extrem ity of tension is the extrem ity of release, the eternal antithesis is its eternal resolution, and the dynamic contradic­ tion is the unity beyond contradiction. Such is Nietzsche’s paradoxical scheme adum brated in its most comprehensive metaphysical dimension. T h e same pattern is repeated in many variations and on various levels throughout T h e Birth of Tragedy. M an him self is the “ incarnation of dissonance.” In order that his life may be worth living, he requires for his relief and re­ dem ption the artistic illusions of beautiful appearance (des schonen Scheins, 70, 189 f.). A t their clim ax, however, the arts reveal the cosmic D ionysian truth. In music and tragedy the A pollon ian illu ­ sion of harm ony is suspended by an illusion all the more sublime for being sim ultaneously the revelation of essence, of the unbearably pain ful and pleasurable O ne with its prim al delight, pain and contra­ diction. It m ight be objected that Nietzsche’s youthful metaphysics provide a hazy background for what is essentially a treatise on aesthetics. Nietzsche him self suggested at a later stage that these dubious specu­ lations m erely translated the central thesis of T h e Birth of Tragedy into the alien metaphysical idiom o f Schopenhauer (70, 38). He was to speak of them h a lf disparagingly as Artistenmetaphysik (70, 36) since they attributed to the hypothetical O ne the conditions and the activity experienced by the creative artistic psyche. T h e central sphere of the essay is constituted by the dynam ic opposition and pre­ carious synthesis between two aesthetic drives (Kunsttriebe, 70, 47, 190). T hese are the Apollonian tendency predom inant in the visual and plastic arts as w ell as in the epic narrative of the Greeks and the

84 /

NIETZSCHE

Dionysian tendency to be associated, above all, with music but also with lyrical poetry and w ith Greek tragedy which represents the con­ junction or synthesis o f the opposites. However, the conflict between Dionysus and A p ollo is not restricted to aesthetics in a lim ited sense of the term nor to ancient Greece, although the creative phases o f Greek cultural history are determ ined by the productive strife be­ tween the two principles and characterized by recurrent partial de­ feats, partial victories, m utual challenges and compromises between the two m ythical entities (70, 65, 99 f.). T h e polarities are interrelated and interdependent. Man can stand the Dionysian substratum only to the extent that he can assimilate it by virtue of the A pollonian spirit. T h e stronger the prim al force o f the Dionysian, the more magnificent w ill be the manifestations of the A pollon ian tendency. For both must unfold their powers in strict and m utual proportion to one another (70, 190). A nd at the apex of the human, that is, of the artistic potential, the two w ill join. U nder the dominance of Dionysus, they w ill merge in a synthesis of the arts (70, 88) represented first by Greek tragedy (notably Aeschy­ lus; j o , 191) and realized once again in the tragic Gesamtkunstwerk of Richard W agner (70, 161, i 63 ff.).10 H ow, then, does Nietzsche conceive the unity of opposites achieved in tragedy? H e derives tragedy from the spirit o f music. M usic is the aesthetic correlative of the ecstatic condition of the Dionysian orgiasts. T h e Dionysian ecstasy annihilates and transcends the principle of individuation represented by A p ollo, and thus the boundaries and the illusions of measure and order w hich are the achievement o f A p o llo n ­ ian civilization (70, 51). Surrendering the illusory lim its of his own ego, the reveller experiences in his enlightened state the all-pervading unity. T h is Dionysian state has variations, modes, degrees, depending on the stage in human developm ent at which it is experienced. It w ill deliver the Barbarian to an orgy of lust and cruelty (70, 55). B u t those who, presumably by virtue o f the civilizing efforts o f A p ollo, have at­ tained to a more elevated condition, may be inspired by Dionysus to sublime artistic productivity. O n the basis of his experience o f union w ith the One, the Dionysian artist is capable o f producing its image (Abbild) in music (70, 67). T h is form of art, according to Nietzsche (and Schopenhauer), sym­ bolizes “ in the most comprehensive m anner and w ith universal va­ lid ity” the prim al contradiction and suffering of the prim al entity and, consequently, a sphere o f the W ill which is beyond and prior to

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

85

all appearance (70, 75 f.). Music, then, offers the closest approxim a­ tion to the dynam ic arch-antithesis, whereas nature, conceived as a universe of concrete and individuated appearance, represents a more distant and deceptive reflection of the One. It is this deceptive sphere of concrete and enduring shapes which inspires the A pollon ian genius, whose art of Plastik and of sensuous vision akin to the dream and to its wish fulfillm ent, is the antithesis of D ionysian frenzy. A pollon ian art is dedicated to the appearance of appearance, to the semblance of semblance; it is art immersed in the pure intu ition of images (70, 68). It imitates and idealizes not the One but the appearance and fragmented reflection of the One, and it seeks to im part to these fragments the semblance of perennial being. W hile music represents the prim al antithesis in perennially painful and pleasurable m otion, the visual and epic intuition is inspired by the need to deny the truth of the One in favor of tangible appearance and to take comfort in the soothing fiction of serene and static beauty. However, some ingredient of A p ollon ian illusion is present in all art, including Dionysian music which is not, after all, the W ill itself but only its aesthetic representation in the sphere of appearance, its most im mediate sensuous reflection and symbol (70, 75, 135). T h e lyrical poet, in turn, interprets Dionysian music in terms of A p ollon ­ ian images of the w orld of appearance w hich are nonetheless subject to the im pact of Dionysian dynamism (70, 72-76). Music is related to image as the W ill is related to the w orld of appearance (70, 142 f.). L yrical poetry as interpretation of the W ill (or of its immediate aesthetic reflection) in terms o f dynamic and individuated imagery corresponds to nature conceived as a sphere of dynamic appearance, of individuation and of Werden as eternal creation-and-destruction. In w hat sense, then, does Greek tragedy, w ith its com bination of music, lyrical poetry and epic narrative represent the ultim ate Diony­ sian synthesis between A pollon ian and Dionysian arts? T h e dramatic action is the artistic realization of A pollon ian vision, of a dreamworld of appearance or individuation. A t the same time it is the “objectivation of a D ionysian state” representing, not A pollon ian redem ption in the sphere of individuated appearance, but the annihilation of the individual as he becomes one w ith the prim al being. Greek tragedy is the sensuous A p ollon ian em bodim ent of Dionysian insights, realiza­ tions, experiences and effects (die apollinische Versinnlichung dionysischer Erkenntnisse und Wirkungen, 70, 87). It symbolizes the syn­ thesis between (Apollonian) appearance and (Dionysian) essence.

86 /

NIETZSCHE

T raged y is the most comprehensive image of the arch-contradiction. Apollonian beauty celebrates its victory over suffering by concealing the torments inherent in life. A p ollo is a liar. However, the tragic imagery, for all its A pollonian splendor, is transparent for the D iony­ sian essence. It represents and glorifies the sphere of individuation to inspire us with joy in the destruction of the individual. T h e single in ­ stances of tragedy exem plify the Dionysian phenom enon which music expresses in universal terms, nam ely the om nipotent W ill beyond the principle of individuation. T h e tragic hero, the most sublim e in d i­ viduation of the W ill, suffers denial and is doomed to perish. W e delight in this for even he is an illusory creature of appearance, and the eternal surge and force of life is not affected by his doom. T raged y expresses faith in the eternity of life itself. In the tragic symbols of Dionysian art, nature is not conceived as the mere universe of appear­ ance but speaks with her true voice as the Great M other, the principle of creative destruction described above (70, 138). T o compel identification with this principle is the object of tragedy. In its final and total effect, tragedy reflects the essential metaphysical condition of the universe, i.e., the One or W i l l 11 which gives rise to illusory spheres of individuation only to devour and to recreate them. T h o u g h in the sphere of dramatic illusion Dionysus speaks the lan­ guage of A pollo, A pollo finally speaks the language of Dionysus, for in the tragic cataclysm A pollonian appearance is recognized to be the illusory veil of the Dionysian T h in g in Itself (70, 172 f.; see also 87). T ragedy is thus like a magnificent scaffold erected and decorated w ith great splendor to be consumed by an even more splendid con­ flagration. However, this comparison fails insofar as the conflagration, in turn, reveals the Dionysian force which gave rise to the edifice. For tragedy and the very idea of the tragic are born from the im pact of the Dionysian spirit of music upon the A pollon ian capability and artistic intuition (70, 137). A t its m axim al intensity, the Dionysian spirit of music is im pelled to create a symbolic image and expression of its own essence.12 T h e basic relationship between Nietzsche’s antithetical entities also recurs in his conception of the technical aspects of Greek tragedy. In keeping w ith the central thesis concerning the birth of tragedy from the Dionysian spirit of music, drama proper, the representation of a specific action by individuated protagonists and through their dialogue, is conceived as having been born from the “ Dionysian chorus” which is essentially musical, lyrical and beyond dram atic

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

87

individuation. Analogous to the O ne intent upon release and redemp­ tion in A pollon ian spheres of tem poral illusion, Greek tragedy is the Dionysian chorus discharging its musical tension or lyrical frenzy in A pollon ian spheres of distinct imagery (70, 87). Precise, lucid, A p o l­ lonian,* the dialogue in particular represents the antithesis to the im­ passioned, m elodious and ecstatic manner of the dithyram bic chorus. T h e same contrast recurs, however, within the dram atic sphere as distinct from the chorus, namely in the m ythical action or plot repre­ sented in the guise of A pollonian masks. For the myths are subject to antithetical interpretations in A pollon ian and Dionysian terms. On the A pollon ian level, Sophocles’ Oedipus represents the redemptive transfiguration of suffering, the high-minded and noble individual who transcends his transgression and transforms his curse into a blessing, the sinner transfigured into a saint (70, 94). However, this A pollonian interpretation o f the m yth is the illusory A pollonian transfiguration of the m yth’s profounder message. T h e pessimistic and Dionysian conclusion is that wisdom, as the knowledge of the u lti­ mate, is an atrocity com m itted against (individuated) nature. For the deepest insight — the gift and curse of Oedipus suspends the sphere of individuation, and consequently wisdom must turn its edge against its own individuated protagonist. In a movement of reversal which is the opposite of the m ovement of transfiguration, knowledge w ill undo the sage. H e who solved the riddle of the sphinx, the m ythical symbol of nature, causing the monster to throw herself into the abyss, must experience in his own fate the dissolution of nature and the destruc­ tion of his individuated self. H e turns monstrously against the bonds of nature in parricide and in incest. ^ A sim ilar treatment is accorded to Prometheus, the active hero in contradistinction to the passive Oedipus (70, 93)* T ranscending his own lim its by raising him self to the stature of a T ita n , Promethean man achieves in relentless struggle the conquest of the (Apollonian) arts of civilization. A t the price of suffering, he compels and over­ comes even the w ill of the gods. In its A pollon ian aspects the tragedy of Aeschylus celebrates the autonomous power of the godlike artist. It proclaims that the m agnificent capability of creative genius vindicates even eternal pain. Beyond the suffering of the bold individual and beyond the distress of the gods, the power of Moira rules as eternal justice. However, on a profounder, Dionysian level, the myth drama­ tizes the lofty, if pessimistic, Aryan conception of active sin in con­ trast to the Semitic conception o f passive sin as a yielding to seduction.

88 /

NIETZSCHE

For if the fire stolen by the T ita n symbolizes culture, the greatest gift attainable to man, and if this gift cannot be won except by a sacri­ lege against the gods which entails eternal suffering, the m yth in ti­ mates that in transcending his boundaries and in deifying himself, man must necessarily experience evil and calamity. T h e heroic in d i­ vidual is im pelled to exceed the limits of his narrow individuation and to attain the divine sphere o f the universal. However, in conse­ quence of this very heroism, he w ill inevitably com m it a crime and become subject to torment. Creative achievement, transgression and suffering are one. T h e hero is doomed to be crucified on the rock of that contradiction which is at the heart of the universe (70, 94 ff). According to this conception, m an’s greatness lies in his striving beyond all boundaries, in his capacity for a T ita n ic excess counter to the spirit of A pollo which demands self-limitation on the basis of self-knowledge (Know Thyself!). A gain the unity of Nietzsche's dynam ic antithesis, the experience of trium phant delight and of endless suffering, of highest evil and of highest good, o f divine self­ creation and of self-annihilation, is restated in order to be revealed as essence of the Promethean m yth (70, 96 f.). A ll tragic heroes are but masks of Dionysus who in turn is b u t the m ythical incarnation of the arch-contradiction and tension which perennially seeks release in a pleasurable and painful time- and spacebound sphere of becoming and individuation. As a mangled and dismembered god, Dionysus experiences the sufferings o f in dividua­ tion only to be saved once m ore.13 H e is restored to unity by w hat is, from the vantage point of individuation, the tragic annihilation or suspension o f individuation. T h e archetype o f tragic myth (Urmythus) contains the basic realization of the unity of all things, o f in­ dividuation as the prim al cause of all evil and of art as joyous hope that the bondage of individuation may be broken, of art as intim ation of the unity restored (70, 97 ff.). T h is esoteric doctrine of tragedy concerning the mysteries of the universe, “ die Mysterienlehre der T rag o d ie,” is called profound and/ or m elancholy (tiefsinnig) as well as pessimistic (70, 99). In keeping w ith Schopenhauer’s philosophy o f the W ill, it suggests the w orld ’s yearning for self-annihilation and self-suspension. B ut according to Nietzsche, the world is itself the illusory creation of the One or unity in search of redemptive relief from its own inherent suffering. In terms of Nietzsche's system, the arch-contradiction w ithin the peren­ nial One, (70, 76) may be said to im ply or to generate this vicious

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

89

circle. In terms of Nietzsche s personality, this same circle is represent­ ative of the arch-contradiction w ithin the author: his incapacity to resolve the conflict between pessimistic nihilism and ecstatic affirma­ tion.14 T H E D IA L E C T IC OF SO C R A TISM In Ecce H om o Nietzsche pointed out the H egelian structure of his early essay, the idea of opposition between the A pollon ian and the D ionysian tendency, its translation into metaphysical terms, the con­ ception of history as its development, and the suspension of opposi­ tion in the synthesis of tragedy (yj, 348). However, the network of antithetical relationships is complicated by the problem of Socratism. T h e productive struggle between A p ollo and Dionysus character­ ized the earlier stages of Greek culture and its culm ination point under the dom inance of Dionysus in the art of tragedy. T h is precari­ ous synthesis was destroyed by a new anatagonist of Dionysus, the Socratic tendency, which forced the Dionysian spirit to go under­ ground in a secret cult destined to spread over the entire world (70, 116).15 T h e new conflict between the Socratic and the Dionysian principle doomed the art of tragedy (70, 110). T h e form er opposition entailed the organic and aesthetic principles of Rausch and Traum (70, 48-52; 82, 390), a state of intoxication, of erotic and aggressive agitation, of frenzy and ecstasy on the one side, and on the other a state of calm vision and the pleasure in visual per­ ception and the shaping o f distinct forms (82, 390). Both of these conditions played on the entire range of hum an sensibility. T h e Soc­ ratic tendency, however, is essentially hostile to art and to life, because it exalts as true knowledge the dialectical intellect and its schematism of logic which abstracts from the sphere of vital experience. Nietzsche suggests that this logical schematism is itself a derivative o f the A p ol­ lonian tendency (70, 122). B ut, unlike the A pollonian beholder who delights in revealed appearance, the Socratic man seeks satisfaction in the act of uncovering further and further husks o f appearance. T h e Socratic or theoretical man delights, as Lessing had admitted, in the search for truth, not in truth itself (70, 127). T h is quest, however, is doomed to miss forever the essentials of life, and its anti-artistic elan perverts hum an nature. $ 3°- 34)- A t same time, T h e Birth of Tragedy w ill not fit into a m ould of unam biguous negation. Perhaps the author considered it quite legitim ate that his system of contradiction should contradict itself. Perhaps he thought its contradictory spirit should not be pressed to conform to puny fictions o f Socratic logic.32 However, since his irrationalism generally took the form o f a rationalizing dialectic running itself into the ground, it is equally conceivable that further and other rationalizations are possible w hich w ould ap p roxi­

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

107

mate an essential system which the author may have obscured deliberately. Yet under all circumstances, one can neither dismiss the radical pessimism and nihilism im plicit in Nietzsche’s essay nor reduce the spirit and message of this work to this denominator. T h e later Nietzsche blam ed Schopenhauer for having spoiled his concep­ tion of Dionysus. B u t in fact, Nietzsche’s pathos was inspired then as always by the conjunction of opposites which includes both pes­ simistic negation and optim istic affirmation. T h e evidence on this point is conclusive. T h e unam biguous solutions are treated w ith neglect. As a disciple o f Schopenhauer, Nietzsche may have rejected suicide as a solution since it would not constitute a suspension of, but rather a fusion with, the suffering W ill. And generally, death m ight be only a return to, rather than a release from, the prim al condition. However, Nietzsche does not state this ex­ p licitly nor does he deal adequately w ith the denial of W ill in a life of resignation or of preparation for the final redemption. He does not recommend the lethargy of Buddhism or India. He scarcely hints at Christianity as a pessimistic and mystical cult. O n the other hand, he treats Rome or the Rom an Empire as an extreme instance of A pollon ian tendencies (70, 165 f.), but only to warn of the pursuit of secular glories and illusions. Yet if fictions could rescue us from pessimistic insight and if optimism were the thing, there w ould be some inducem ent in recommending not only Rom e or unalloyed A pollon ian serenity in the plastic arts of vision, but even the illusions of Socratic reason. None of these alternatives commands Nietzsche’s loyalty. He ascribes to Greek culture as a whole an A p ollon ian character but only to point out that this A pollonian splendor owed its origin to the opposite Dionysian force and to concentrate on the transcendent achievement of Greek tragedy in w hich A pollon ian appearance is, in fact, subjected to the greater power of Dionysus.. A nd while he considers the Germans to be essentially Dionysian, Greek tragedy is to guide them on the way to a new conjunction and synthesis of the opposing principles. It could be argued that Nietzsche’s enthusiastic concern with the interaction of the opposite principles constitutes per se the affirmation of a vital solution. For in facing and assimilating the Dionysian force of suffering and of delight, of creation and of annihilation, the A p ollon ian illusion and life itself achieve their m axim al intensity. If Nietzsche had been in favor of mere negation, why should he have wished to see men detained by intricate com binations of insubstantial

108 /

NIETZSCHE

dreamworlds and revelations of a metaphysical predicament? H ow ­ ever, the moment of synthesis is also the m oment in w hich the question of questions is posed. If life is to be lived at all, Nietzsche seems to say, let it be under the dual unity of the tragic and the artistic spirit. However, in the experience o f tragic art both the force of life and the force of death, the affirmative and the negative powers, move toward their greatest intensity. A n d hence the tragic experience, though the most vital phenom enon, represents the most pow erful existential restatement o f the problem atic nature of existence, of the question of life-and-death rather than an answer which w ould either refute or confirm the pessimistic wisdom of Silenus. T o summarize: the “ only legitim ate function of art” is to save us by means of an illusion from both the convulsions of the W ill and the horror of true insight (70, 157). A pollon ian art delights in appear­ ance. Dionysian art delights in the essence of life that underlies the phantasmagoria of transient appearance (70, 138). A n d yet, even Dionysian art affords an aesthetic illusion. It is still art insofar as it transfigures the ultim ate suffering w hich is existentially and m etaphysically prior even to the cosmic arch-delight. T h e aesthetic pleasure transcending the A pollon ian pleasure in the beauty of appearance (70, 190; 185 f.) derives from “ ugliness and disharm ony.” T h e aesthetic experience of the tragic and musical dissonance per­ suades us that ugliness and disharmony are part of an artistic game w hich the W ill plays with itself {70, 187). T h e “ worst of all possible worlds” is thus justified as an aesthetic phenom enon by Dionysian art, which plays with the irritant of pain ([mit dem] Stachel der Unlust) much as the Dionysian O ne plays w ith its own suffering to its ow n de­ light (70, 189). However, the affirmation and the negation, the pleas­ ure and the pain, the ecstasy and the suffering are inseparable both in the case of man, the dissonance incarnate enjoying its own suffering, and in the case of the metaphysical dissonance or One. T h e desperate and ecstatic am biguity of Nietzsche’s prim al ex­ perience constitutes the true content and message of the essay on tragedy. T h e persistence and force with which its expression per­ meates all of the author’s deliberations accounts for the unity as w ell as for the underlying m onotony o f his work, and it goes far to explain why this dubious potpourri of such incompatibles as G reek tragedy and W agnerian opera should have continued to enjoy a favorite place among Nietzsche’s compositions. T h e reader is tempted to feel that it hardly matters whether Nietzsche’s thoughts add u p

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

IO9

to a system, whether their turns and counterturns, their revolutions and reversals, can be unravelled. T h e ir truth seems to lie in the m ovem ent itself. Nietzsche, it is true, came to deplore his ‘‘tim idity” which, he claimed, had made him speak in the language of theoreti­ cal learning on a subject which he could have presented in terms of vital experience (82, 389).33 His readers, however, became accustomed to the assumption that the intellectual dynamics themselves were meant to convey the truth of this vital experience which could be neither dim inished nor augmented by a rational calculus since it lay, presumably, beyond the orbits of intellectual analysis. T h is sentiment invited the abuse of rational dialectic for the sole purpose of non-discursive com m unication and, consequently, the perversion of reason. B u t this perversion itself was experienced as an added attraction by certain dedicated Nietzscheans.34 A nd even beyond this consideration, it m ight have to be granted that the experience of the absurd — for surely this term is applicable to the revelation of the existential identity of existential opposites — could hardly be ex­ pressed more convincingly than by reason being led ad absurdum. A symbol from the close of the essay may serve to indicate the rationale underlying Nietzsche’s essential paradox. Once more he speaks in this passage of music, tragedy, tragic myth, of the “ striving into the infinite,” the “wing-beat of yearning” engendered at the very clim ax o f our pleasure in circumscribed A pollonian illusion. T h is D ionysian phenom enon reveals to us “ again and again” the “ playful build ing and shattering of the individuated world as the expression of an arch-delight.” A n d he proceeds to explain this revelation by introducing an image of “ H eraclitus the Obscure [who] compares the world-creating power of the universe to a child playing with pebbles and b u ild in g sandpiles and destroying them again” (yo, 187 f.). T h is cosmic child of Heraclitus, a decisive symbol of Nietzsche’s philosophy,35 recurs at various stages of his work, and particularly in the writings which belong w ith the essay on tragedy, notably in the book on the pre-Socratics which culminates in the passages on H eracli­ tus (yo, 288, 291 ff., 296 f., 316, 338). Evidently this child is a metaphor for the etern al and sole reality or essence w hich manifests and spends itself in endless cycles of illusory creation and destruction. T h is crea­ tive and destructive activity is essentially I’ art pour I’art. It is w ithout purpose unless it could be said that the com pulsion satisfied in crea­ tion and destruction constitutes both cause and purpose. Seen as a whole, this cosmic instinct to play an eternal game is Dionysian. T h e

110 /

NIETZSCHE

cosmic movement is creation-and-destruction. It is becoming as being and as negation of being. Arrested in the instant of the erected sandpile it is Apollonian. For this arrested instant is illusory. It is the illusion of static being while in truth there is nothing but the building-and-shattering. Since the return to nothingness is envisaged as de­ struction, it is again a Dionysian movement. Yet the condition of non­ entity or nothingness, the inversion of the erected sandpile, w ould be presumably neither A pollon ian nor Dionysian: For nothing is nothing even though the destructive-creative force m ight conceive of itself as everything and nothing. T h e positive creative Sian, however, is again part of the Dionysian see-saw. T h e notion that the perennial rise and fall of the Dionysian force is pointless and self-sufficient, that the cosmos is a game or artistic activity, that it is justified only and eternally as an aesthetic pheno­ menon, bears directly on the question whether the young Nietzsche is a pessimist. For given the eternal conjunction of torture and bliss, given delight engendered and engulfed by pain (yo, 187), it is as im ­ possible to answer this question as it is impossible to say whether the constant antithesis and existential contradiction between supreme creation and supreme annihilation can be considered, under the aspect of eternity, as adding u p to a fu ll or to an empty chaos, to the sum of sums or to zero. However, the impossibility of arriving at its resolution does not remove the problem. Nietzsche him self constantly raises the question whether it is possible to affirm the universal game of affirmation-andnegation, whether life can be justified, whether it is possible to live. His ecstasies are engendered by despair, his ideals of health are in­ spired by the experience of disease, his vital transports arise from a constant auto-erotic intercourse w ith death. N o answer w ill be forth­ com ing to Nietzsche’s question since neither the self-consuming and self-creating universe nor its self-consuming and self-creative hum an analogue w ill point to any condition of being beyond the pale of radical ambiguity. M eaning or meaninglessness, a positive or a nega­ tive verdict, an adm onition to being or non-being cannot inhere in Nietzsche’s essential experience of the world and of man. T h e negative and the positive forces are ever pitted furiously against one another. A decision in favor of one or the other is the result merely of a momentary perspective. W hat is from one vantage point a gloriously tragic game is from another vantage point a self-perpetuating and self-devouring machine. Affirmation and/or negation are a m atter of

THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY /

111

mood. Nonetheless Nietzsche persists in confronting his own experi­ ence of an absurd and unfathom able universe with the relentless demand for an unam biguous and positive inspiration. T h e basic condition and experience reflected in the essay on tragedy eventually enables Nietzsche to pose the question of nihilism but renders him incapable of answering it. H e considers the capacity for the vital affirmation of the unity of radical opposites the defining characteristic of superman. T h e superman w ill justify all life by virtue of his ability to shape and to live his own life as an aesthetic phenomenon. He w ill justify life by virtue of his all-encompassing artistic and destructive creativity. By Nietzsche’s decree the most highly sensitized being w ill have the iron stomach to affirm life supremely and unam biguously in the face of his supreme experience of life as a conjunction of radical negation and radical affirmation. By Nietzsche’s decree the superman w ill be firm in self-created hori­ zons even though supremely aware of the fictitiousness of all horizons. B u t all o f this w ill appear as gratuitous act, as affirmation w ithout cause, w illed out of nowhere. T h e definition of superman merely restates the problem in the form of a postulate. T h e shadowy utopia o f superhum anity is inspired by Nietzsche’s conviction of m an’s in­ ability to solve the problem of problems. T o be sure, at the stage of Zarathustra, Nietzsche becomes even less inclined to restrict himself to mere reasoning than in his essay on tragedy. For his positive vision and ideal, he now claims the pre­ rogative of intuition and indeed the prerogative not merely of genius but of an inspired prophet. B ut since a prophet, especially if he dis­ dains to give mere reasons, must bear witness to the living truth by his own life, it w ill not do to forget that this bible of affirmation was the work o f a man who kept prom ising him self that he w ould not commit suicide until he had finished his books. O verbeck attributed to Nietzsche the optim ism of a desperado,36 but Nietzsche w ould have been as untrue to his basic experience if he had taught a radical negation as he belied it whenever he attempted to stylize Zarathustra into a pure gospel of vital transcendence. A ll of his works, down to paragraph and phrase, reveal his sense for the con­ junction of radical opposites and for radical alternation. N ailed to the cross of vital antithesis and contradiction, he was forced to express continually the tension between polar forces or to proceed by way of violent reversals. T h e Birth of Tragedy, then, is the first significant if confused and

112 /

NIETZSCHE

confusing poem which Nietzsche created in honor of extremes con­ joined. He accomplished this not only by virtue of the conjunctions postulated between antithetical pairs — Dionysus and A pollo, Dionysus and Socrates — but above all by virtue o f the am biguous homage which he paid to the form idable dual-unity of Dionysus himself. For Dionysus was the incarnation o f Nietzsche’s basic' experience and the true image of that prim e inspiration which, from the first to the last, was to actuate and to organize the resources of his fertile intellect and the responses of his literary sensibility.

A Major Reversal B IO G R A P H IC A L ASPECTS

T h e decisive shift from metaphysics to skepticism which separates T h e Birth of Tragedy and Thoughts out of Season from the spheres of Human A l l T o o Human, Dawn, and Gay Science, reveals Nietzsche in the process of turning upon his former self. Some of the gestures w hich accompany this reversal of previous tenets are misleading. T h ey obscure the subtler continuities of development. However, even these surface effects indicate Nietzsche’s w ill to antithetical self-dramatiza­ tion and his intent to impose upon him self an intellectual and emo­ tional regim e diam etrically opposed to his former habits of thought and feeling. Moreover, the mental revolution coincides with a radical break in Nietzsche’s m anner of living. Even the earlier Nietzsche had spared neither him self nor his con­ temporaries. T h e Birth of Tragedy had been an affront to the spirit and to the approved techniques of scholarship37 w hich Nietzsche had assimilated w ith prodigious ease and success as a student at Bonn and Leipzig. T h e reward of his scholarly labors, the respected position of a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel, had impressed even the twenty-four-year-old as a burden rather than as an achievem ent.38 His Thoughts out of Season was largely an attack upon the academic com m unity of learned philistines. However, beginning w ith Hum an A ll T o o Human, Nietzsche began to break the m ould of the idealistic tradition which had so far contained his spirit, and only now did he become a perennial m igrant who would live out of his suitcase in rented rooms, preferably in Italy or in the Swiss Alps, and whose visits to his fatherland w ould only confirm his sense of alienation. N ow as ever, he was provided w ith the necessities for sub­ sistence. Before long, his modest private means were supplemented by a pension from the University. Y et m his external habit, he assumed increasingly the character of an odd and ailing if genteel and exceed­ ingly polite outsider, and he appeared, even in his own writings, as a restless and pathetic wanderer — though he w ould proclaim his heroism and strength all the more insistently the less he could com­ mand the attention of an audience. For w hile his former opposition

^3

114 /

NIETZSCHE

to the spirit of the age had been sustained by his sense of intim acy w ith friends and kindred minds and by a sense of identification w ith w hat he took to be the intellectual and artistic vanguard of the German spirit, he now increasingly isolated him self to be tormented by the longing for hum an contact and approval, and yet to glory in his solitude. ' According to Nietzsche’s retrospect in 1888, the shift was initiated by his feeling that his deepest impulse had been led astray. H e was overcome, he claims, with im patience to return to his true self. If the hindsight of Ecce Hom o is to be trusted, he realized now that his professorship was only a symptom of his general delusion: his gradual withdrawal from Basel and his break with philology as a profession and discipline was, consequently, a sign of essential health even if the cure took on the form of disease. For as Nietzsche came to see it, his sickness, which, on this occasion, he claims to have inherited from his father, was not simply the cause of his leaves of absence and final retirement from the University. It was positive aid which he perm itted to come to his rescue, to release him w ithout im propriety or violence from crippling normalcy, from a sterile life of self-alienation and shameful selflessness (77, 362 f.; 72 II, 336 f.). It allowed, or rather, it forced him, to forget, to be still, to wait patiently. T h e weakness of his eyes put an end to his enslavement to books and thus to the compulsion to listen to other voices instead of to his own. N ever had he presented himself w ith a greater gift! For at last he was free to think. Never had he been as happy w ith him self as in the years when he was desperately ill and suffered most (77, 363 f.). Nietzsche’s conception of his disease as a sublim e mode of recovery or his claim that his further progress to the heights of vitality was the consequence of his self-discovery in the shadow of affliction (77, 363 f.), again indicates his tendency to represent his experience in terms of unities of opposites.39 He probably realized that there was something ironical or even farcical about a sick man setting him self up as a model of health. Perhaps he relished his disguise all the more for this reason. But he was also convinced that although the claim to health was belied by his actual physical and psychological condition, a third dimension belied the contradiction. A quintessential and ideal self which he did believe to be vital and strong justified the bravado of his disguise in the light of a higher truth. Most of the experts nowadays attribute Nietzsche’s afflictions chiefly to an early syphilitic infection as the cause of an atypical

A M A JO R REVERSAL /

1 15

paralysis.40 In none of Nietzsche’s writings published to date, does the author indicate awareness of this possibility. Nietzsche was, in fact, inconsistent in his self-diagnosis. In a letter of 1877 when he was hesitant and undecided about his future, he blamed his sickness upon his previous unhealthy attempt to coerce himself into con­ form ity.41 In a note of the eighties, he claimed on the contrary that the im patience of his intellectual curiosity, the daring, the reckless­ ness w ith which, subsequent to 1876, he had engaged in the quest for new horizons, had ruined his health for years to come (82, 404). But whether he considered his sickness the cause, the symptom or the consequence of his self-emancipation, Nietzsche was justified in stressing his own initiative in bringing about his liberation from settled respectability. For it was his own w ill rather than external circumstances that turned the ailing professor into a fugitivus errans who sought out the very loneliness under which he suffered. O n ly a final reversal and breakdown was to bring about Nietzsche’s return to a sheltered life, to the protected existence of a demented patient restricted to m ental clinics or committed to the safekeeping of mother and sister.42 T h e w ithdraw al from Basel, or rather the extended fugue and increasing isolation initiated by the intensification of Nietzsche’s disease, is perhaps more significant than the other symptom of self­ recovery m entioned in the autobiography. However, Nietzsche’s break w ith W agner was not m erely an integral part of his most intense experi­ ence in the realm of interpersonal relationships. One can summarize his entire m ental evolution in the phase of Human A ll T oo Human by tracing the im plications of his em ancipation from W agner and a W agnerian ideology. In retrospect, Nietzsche stressed the m om ent of crisis, his disillu­ sionment on the occasion of the first celebration of the Bayreuth festi­ vals in the summer of 1876 (77, 360 f.). It was then, shortly after the com pletion of the hym nic essay in praise of W agner and Bayreuth (see Baum ler in 71, 631; 72 II, 334 f.; Schlechta III, 1368 f.), that he was seized by a sudden contem pt and by a new insight into himself. W ith o u t mercy for his own affections, he claims, he now discarded the confining daydreams and aesthetic ideals of his youth to continue on his own way to seek out the truth at any cost (82, 404). But if the dis­ ciple defected from the cause in the hour of his master’s trium ph in order to leave for a retreat in the Bavarian forests and to jo t down some h ardhitting “Psychologika” (77, 361) w hich eventually found

1 16 /

NIETZSCHE

their way into Human A l l T o o Human, he nonetheless returned to Bayreuth in the same summer. He apparently hoped to m aintain his friendship w ith W agner even after he had published his essentially anti-W agnerian book until, in 1878, he him self was attacked by his former idol.43 N or did Nietzsche ever abandon this friendship entirely. He is said to have commemorated it in the aphorism '“ Sternenfreundschaft” (74, 183 f., 325). Even the author of Zarathustra and Ecce H om o spoke o f the “ sacred hour” o f W agner’s death’ (77, 371). A t the height of his polem ic against the deceased he could still declare his love o f his enemy (e.g., 77, 325, 392). Was Nietzsche’s relationship to W agner then sim ply one o f disap­ pointed friendship? Hardly. For while he still loved W agner when he hated him, he had begun to hate him even while he still loved him. Nietzsche’s critique of W agner antedates the reversal of 1876. He kept a record of his criticisms and of his am bivalent sentiments even durin g the period of his allegiance, e.g., in the year of 1874 (82, 97 ff.). He had good reason to claim that his homage to “ R ichard W agner in Bayreuth” had been a farewell to the “ most beautiful” and the “ most danger­ ous” calm and lu ll he had encountered on his odyssey (72 II, 4), and to refer to a passage in the W agner essay which suggested that the por­ trayal of W agner’s greatness im plied a veiled opposition since it required detachment, a counterposition vis-^-vis the object of contem ­ plation (72 II, 4; see 7/, 342). A n d what is more, at the very height of his association w ith W agner, Nietzsche apparently entertained the fantastic notion that he m ight “reverse” the relationship between disciple and master by replacing W agner at the side of his wife, Cosima 44 For W agner, he thought, would not be capable of achiev­ ing the rebirth of a tragic Germ an culture from the spirit o f his own music, and consequently the insufficient demi-god or hero, Theseus-W agner, should content him self with the part of the third, the subordinate member of the triad and yield the “divine bride,” CosimaAriadne, to the superior claims of Nietzsche-Dionysus. A t the time, this phantasy concerned only a reversal within the hierarchy R ichard Wagner-Cosima-Nietzsche. However, many years later, Nietzsche en­ joyed the imaginary fulfillm ent of a more radical version o f his dream. In his insanity he sent “D ionysian” declarations of love to W agn er’s widow. N ow only he, the emerald god, the sum and quintessence of creative m ankind, constituted w ith Cosima-Ariadne the “golden b al­ ance” of the universe. By that time, W agner’s spirit had long been de­ moted. For notwithstanding the fact that W agner was still the object

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

1 17

of Nietzsche’s love and hate, he appeared both in the fourth book of Zarathustra and in Nietzsche’s polemics predom inantly in the guise of a diseased and im potent Klingsor, a m agician deprived of his manhood, a spiteful high priest of emasculation and poisonous decadence. Still, the earlier and the later version were only two variations on the main theme of Nietzsche’s private myth. T h e young W agnerian had not relinquished the am bition to encompass the spirit and to master even the craft of music. It was W agner who had to remind him that he was a mere dilettante. Nietzsche’s erotic and aggressive fantasy concerning his role in a W agnerian triangle reflected as in a distorting mirror the sublim e aspirations expressed in T h e Birth of Tragedy on behalf of the m usical Socrates or Nietzsche or proto-Zarathustra, who was destined to bring about and to rule the new era of culture. W h at then was the nature of Nietzsche’s relationship w ith Wagner? In keeping w ith Nietzsche’s experience of the unity of m axim al op­ posites, intense opposition did not exclude identification with the opponent. In fact, opposition m ight w ell suggest that the antithesis included the expression of identification. By im plication, the young Nietzsche had claim ed to be both Anti-Socrates and Socrates redivivus m uch as the later Nietzsche claim ed that he was a decadent as w ell as the opposite of a decadent, Anti-W agner as w ell as W agner (77, 3, 301), Dionysus-Antichrist as w ell as — to follow this tendency beyond the threshold o f sanity — the incarnation of Dionysus-Christ. Nietzsche him self came to be aware of the am biguity of his polemics. In Ecce H om o he claim ed that his attacks were an expression of his sympathy or even of his gratitude, that he honored and distinguished his opponents by associating his name w ith theirs or with their causes (77, 311). H ow ever, if manifest opposition did not exclude a sense of identification, loyalty, eulogy or identification d id not exclude a sense o f opposition. Even so, if the am bivalence of yea and nay is to be expressed at all, it must be expressed in a tem poral sequence. Nietzsche m aintained his positive intim acy w ith W agner under the m ounting pressure o f a nega­ tive countercurrent u n til the latter became dom inant, to be accom­ panied, in turn, by a positive countercurrent. T h is shift and reversal in the balance of forces is characteristic of the m ajority of Nietzsche’s more intense relationships.45 T h e dram atic story of Nietzsche’s passion for and against W agner therefore reveals the archetype of Nietzsche’s interpersonal experiences. A n d this archetype suggests that Nietzsche needed his loneliness and his fanatical egocentricity in order to protect

1 18 /

NIETZSCHE

him self from hum an intimacy. His extreme surface sensitivity in terms of both positive and negative responses, forced upon him, it seems, an agonizing conflict of emotions in all intim ate hum an contacts. T h e hardness, the restraint from pity (by which he meant empathy), the isolation, and the egotism which he came to preach, can be understood in psychological terms as protective measures against 'a desperate and uncontrollable impressionability. However, it may be equally justified to consider this im pressionability and sensitivity as the correlative o f a state of isolation. T h e drastic reduction in the give-and-take of hum an relations is likely to generate in the insulated ego a super-charge, an excess of unrelieved responsiveness, a w ealth o f tensions caused by a lack rather than an abundance of life. Nonetheless, these considerations w ill not do justice to the power of Nietzsche, who evidently, was capable of putting his egocentric isola­ tion and his hypersensitivity to prodigious use in m ental activity, and who obviously would not be today an object even of psychological curiosity if it had not been for this capability. His m ental activity and its exigencies so dominated Nietzsche that it is quite as conceivable that this function could have shaped both egocentric isolation and hyper­ sensitivity as its very instruments as it is that this function was conditioned by these personality traits. T h e readers of Nietzsche have always been tempted to ask whether his distinctive capacity stemmed from scarcity or from abundance, from weakness or from strength, from disease or from health. For Nietzsche him self was prone to force such issues, particularly in his later philos­ ophy w ith its sharp distinctions between the productions of positive vitality and the symptoms o f decadence. Y et Nietzsche also stressed the interaction between such opposites, to the point where it became obvi­ ous that the subtle and m ultiple interplay of external and internal factors and forces could not be encompassed w ithin the fram ework of his easy metaphors. B ut even if the question were to be put in these simplistic categories, it could not be answered in terms of Nietzsche’s interpersonal relationships. These constituted only a m inor aspect of a life dedicated to the most personal relationships in the seemingly impersonal realm of ideas. A nd consequently, Nietzsche’s break w ith W agner should be considered, above all, in its ideological im plica­ tions. For this event signified a radical change in the alignm ent of Nietzsche’s positions and value judgm ents.

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

1 19

A N T I -W A G N E R IA N IS M T h e extent of this realignm ent can only be suggested by examples. As always w ith Nietzsche, the entire system of his sensibility, taste, and thought was affected on all levels, ranging from reactions to specific works or men to judgments on genres of art or intellectual pursuits, to a revaluation of mores, m orality, society, politics, history, and to the most general hypotheses on the nature o f man and o f his universe. T o illustrate this nexus between specific verdicts and gen­ eralizations: form erly Nietzsche had praised W agner’s musical drama in particular and music and tragedy in general for their power to effect a release from the principle of individuation even w hile they preserved the individual from self-destruction (e.g., yo, 81, 166-170). N ow he accused W agner of catering to those who, being conscious of a failure in their conduct of life, desired escape from the world and from themselves (82, 140). However, he also disparaged music in general, e.g., as an art that flourished where society was nonexistent or fragmented and where the arts of free discussion and criticism were unknow n or prohibited (72 II, 248). A n d he suggested that the effect of tragedy was to make men fearful and sentimental or dissolute and prone to excesses (72 I, 168). Form erly Nietzsche had thought that Germ an art culm inated in the genius of Bayreuth and that W agner’s music revealed the H eraclitean in tuition of the universe as a harm ony born of strife (7/, 371 Even Beethoven had been relegated to the position of a precursor, as the uncertain initiator of a language of passion whose later (and greater) works suffered from an inner contradiction between form and sub­ stance, between the means of com m unication and the composer’s true intent concerning which he him self had never attained sufficient clarity (yi, 369 f.; 82, 95). Beethoven’s “Jubellied der ‘Freude’ ” had always been Nietzsche’s favorite, and he had praised its Dionysian power in T h e Birth of Tragedy (yo, 52). B ut if he now defended the truly festive spirit o f the “ H ym n to Joy” against W agnerian attempts to denigrate this work (82, 147), he attacked at the same time the false festivity of Bayreuth, and he objected, by im plication, quite generally to W agnerian festivities o f pessimism. Form erly he had admonished Brahms to relinquish his petty and futile attempts to m aintain his independence from W agner (yi, 375).

120 /

NIETZSCHE

N ow he took the side o f W agner’s opponent. H e com m ended his music for being truer to the Germ an spirit than the music of W agner. A nd though he qualified this praise by h in tin g -» against his own former conviction — that the virtue o f being truly Germ an was not w ithout some drawbacks, he praised B rahm s'as “ the most salutary phenom enon” (82, 142). ' W ith Nietzsche, musical criticism always im plied a critique of culture. For music (and all the other arts)‘expressed and symbolized phases in hum an history and aspects of the hum an condition.46 In Thoughts out of Season, the history of W estern civilization had been treated in terms of the polarity between the H ellenic and the O riental spirit, the latter being represented by Christianity. Since the world had been sufficiently orientalized, it now yearned for H ellenization. A n d W agner, the "Counter-Alexander” (Gegen-Alexander, y i, 320 f.), the chief emissary of the H ellenic spirit, had entered the stage as the reintegrator of a civilization threatened by aimless eclecticism, de­ cadence, disintegration. According to the new version, W agn er’s excessively ambitious and exacting Gesamtkunstwerk, form erly the re­ incarnation of Greek tragedy, was sim ply a failure deficient in the classical virtue of moderation and measure (82, 137). Its protagonists were “ w ild animals” lacking the hum anity of the tragic heroes of the Greeks (e.g., of Philoctetes, 82, 138). Formerly, W agner had been destined to initiate a post-modern era. It was the unique achievement o f his art to suspend the opposition between the educated classes and the untutored folk spirit, a dichot­ omy characteristic of the modern civilization initiated by Renaissance Humanism. Even Goethe and Leopardi had been but the "last great stragglers” in a tradition established by the learned Italian “ philologist-poets” (Philologen-Poeten, y i, 381 f., also 592). Even G oethe’s L ied had been but an im itation of the true folk song (y i , 382). A nd the problem of Faust, o f the despairing Socratic yearning for deliver­ ance from the curse of knowledge by the grace of vital experience, was utterly alien to the life of the people. T h e Germ an classics, it w ill be recalled, had failed to resuscitate the essence of the Greek spirit; Hellas had yielded its mysteries only to the magic o f W agner’s musical tragedy (yo, 163, 168 f., 188 f.). Now, however, Nietzsche discovered that W agner’s art fell far below G oethe’s ideal. W agner’s concern was essentially w ith theatrical effect; the conflict of passion and m orality served him only to produce stimulants; his sensationalism was em inently o f our m odern age and

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

121

characteristic o f its deficiency in aesthetic sensibility (82, 129). W agner, form erly the model o f firmness and clarity, never vague (7/, 371), ever the H ellenic simplifier (7/, 321), was now found guilty of unclassical vagueness w ith respect to his ultim ate aims and characterized as the exponent o f a "baroque style” (82, 130). His art, though it served w ell to challenge the cold, smug, and frivolous Philistines (82, 140), denied the harm ony of existence by projecting a harmony beyond this world. As all seekers of a beyond (alle diese Hinterweltler und Metaphysiker, 82, 129), W agner offended against the spirit of the just and moderate who delighted in this world, as Goethe did (82, 140). According to Nietzsche’s revised self-estimate, it was only now, after he had abandoned W agner, W agnerian pessimism, Schopenhauer, and the unjust expectations of idealism, that classical antiquity could dawn upon him. O n ly now could he share Goethe’s insight into art and appreciate in all sim plicity the realities o f human existence (82, 147). T h e reversal preceding Human A ll Too Human shows Nietzsche in process of establishing the basis for his later view o f W agner as the decadent artist par excellence. He now attributes W agner’s universal appeal to a cunning m ixture of coarse and subtle ingredients designed to act upon the "nerves” rather than to achieve an artistic impact (82, 140 f.). Instead of praising W agner’s “ opus metaphysicum” (no­ tably Tristan und Isolde, 7/, 356; see jo, 168 ff., 82, 71) or W agner’s D ionysian descent to the "m others” and his contem plation of the archetypes o f experience (Wahn, Wille, Wehe, 70, 164), instead of speaking of the A pollon ian representation and Dionysian revelation of the ultim ate (70, 170-173), Nietzsche now claim ed that W agner’s art was an intoxicant for scholars (Gelehrte) who lacked the courage to become philosophers. Sluggish and dissatisfied w ith themselves, these people had occasional need of some violent stim ulation. T h ey would "bathe in the opposite,” they w ould indulge in W agnerian hyper­ excitements in order to compensate for the tepid and dull condition in w hich they spent their days (82, 140). T ire d of W agner’s rhetorics, Nietzsche now indicted the composer’s lack o f "dialectic” and "logic” (82, 130-133). A nd these terms, formerly associated w ith sterile Socra­ tism, now assumed a positive status. Nietzsche’s revaluation o f W agner and his rejection of Bayreuth as symptomatic of the final doom and collapse o f all art (82, 138) are inseparable from his new conception o f cultural history. I f he had con­ ceived o f the Germ an mission in terms of a reversal of the Greek

122 /

NIETZSCHE

descent from the tragic to the Socratic age, that is, in terms o f a pro­ ductive retrogression and gradual em ancipation of the H erculean and tragic German spirit from the luxurian t and lascivious “ O m phale” of Rom ance civilization (yo, 158, 161), his faith in such a developm ent had rested on his faith in W agner. If he had disparaged the R enais­ sance of the fifteenth century as echo and revival .of ancient Alexandrianism (yo, 182 f.), if he had recognized in the Germ an Reform ation a countermovement and first announcem ent o f a Dionysian “ spring” (yo, 181) which had come to flourish in the choirs of German music, it was because of his conviction that this counter­ movement had come to full fruition in W agner, the recreator of the German myth (yo, 159, 181). T h e reversal of this conception in Human A l l Too Hum an suggests that Nietzsche, aware o f W agner’s leanings toward Catholicism , now revised his notion of musical history to fit the case of W agner. T h e master of Bayreuth was to become, in Nietzsche’s eyes, a slavish con­ vert to the spirit of the Rom an Church. H e now claimed that modern music, though indebted to the learned craftsmanship and the scientific delight in harm onic and contrapuntal virtuosity which characterized the practice of the art in “ the age of the Renaissance and the pre­ Renaissance,” derived from Catholicism as restored after the C ouncil of T ren t. Die seelenvolle Musik, ’ the em otional expressiveness and the animated spirit of modern music was, he now asserted, “ the spirit of the Counter-Reform ation” 47 akin to the style of Baroque but alien to both Renaissance and Classical A n tiq u ity (72 I, 174). M ore­ over, Nietzsche now suggested that modern man could no longer share in the religious sentiments and misconceptions which had inspired the development of modern music. A n d finally, he claim ed that m an­ kind was about to enter a phase of evolution which would be related to all traditions and manifestations of art as age is related to the touching memories of youth (72 I, 181 f., also 173-180). In T h e Birth of Tragedy music had been conceived as the m irror of the W ill (yo, 75, 135), a revelation of the m etaphysical ultim ate, w hile all other arts had been relegated to a secondary rank since they revealed or interpreted only the phenom enal world. In Hum an A ll Too Human there was no room for metaphysical explanations. Moreover, Nietzsche now proceeded to reverse the hierarchy of the arts. M usic was not the immediate language of emotion.” Its im pact was due to a poetic literary interpretation investing rhythm ical movement and sound with symbolic meaning. In and o f itself no music was profound

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

123

or significant. T h e misconception of music as revelation of the W ill or T h in g in Itself could only arise after the entire range of inner experiences as interpreted by the conceptual and emotive signs of language had been subjected to a secondary elaboration in terms of m usical sound. In the final analysis, the intellect was the originator and creator of the significance attributed to musical sound (72 I, 169 f.).48 # # E xit W agner, exit the metaphysical artist and “ [die] metaphysisch kiinstlerischen Ansichten” (72 II, 337)> the inspirational and artistic­ ally conceived metaphysics of art which had dominated Nietzsche s earlier writings. T o the ideal of the artist-musician he now opposed the ideal of the intellectual, the philosopher, the striving and liberat­ ing spirit. It is true that the earlier Nietzsche had been preoccupied w ith both the artist and the intellectual, the musician and the philosopher. A nd it is equally true that the later Nietzsche remained sim ilarly preoccupied. But the emphases had shifted.

P O IN T AND C O U N T E R PO IN T T h e m ultiplicity, the contrapuntal quality o f Nietzsche’s thought, presents a m ajor obstacle to any attempt to summarize the distinct phases of Nietzsche’s intellectual development. T here is always room for conflicting interpretation. On the basis of Nietzsche s early plans and in agreement w ith his later sentiments, Baumler, for example, m aintained that the young Nietzsche had spoiled his intended book on the Greeks by yielding to W agner’s music and to W agner’s lack of appreciation for his beloved pre-Socratics.49 Consequently, according to Baum ler, Nietzsche now felt compelled to turn away from music in order to devote him self entirely to philosophy (72 II, 337 f.). H ow­ ever, w hile this perspective agrees with some of Nietzsche s self­ estimates, the young Nietzsche had, in fact, found W agner and his music to be quite com patible with some modes of philosophy, e.g., w ith Heraclitus, Schopenhauer, pessimism, idealism, and metaphysics in general. Nietzsche’s subsequent shift cannot be explained merely in terms of his attempt to reinstate “ philosophy” as his prim ary con­ cern. M oreover, Baum ler felt obliged to make apologies for Nietzsche s intellectualism , for his m odicum of rationalism , for his positivistic critique of idealistic illusions, and for his antim etaphysical skepticism. H e spoke o f “ die Maske des A ufklarers” (72 II, 338) to suggest that

/

124 /

NIETZSCHE

in speaking as the cham pion of Enlightenm ent or as the "free spirit” or “ freethinker” o f Human A ll T o o Hum an (subtitle: “ Ein Buch fur freie Geister” ), Nietzsche was w earing a deliberate disguise. H ow ­ ever, w hile Nietzsche’s retrospective preface of 1886 seemed to lend support to this view (72 I, 4 ff.), the fact is that all of Nietzsche’s published works are characterized by attempts at self-stylization, and none are free from ambiguities. T h e W agnerian, the Free Spirit, Zarathustra, the Anti-Christ can all be interpreted as masks of Nietzsche and were, in a sense, interpreted by Nietzsche him self as A pollon ian "Scheinbilder,” as fleeting appearances, individuated modes and masks of — Dionysus.50 Baum ler was quite aware of this. He even claimed that the true Nietzsche was fully revealed only in his unpublished notes and m anu­ scripts (82, ix ff.) where he showed him self as he was, w ithout armor or provocative disguise. Yet if he discrim inated between the public masks of Nietzsche and belittled as merely "tendentious” those ten­ dencies of Nietzsche which were at odds w ith his own, e.g., Nietzsche’s attacks upon German culture in Hum an A l l T o o Human (see 72 II, 339)> this was not because Nietzsche’s unpublished manuscripts lacked altogether the same ingredients. A pparently Baum ler felt entitled or compelled to select one of several ideological impersonations of Nietzsche. N o doubt the exam ple of such arbitrary procedure should serve as a warning. Moreover, sim ilar considerations apply to readings of Nietzsche which are slanted in the opposite direction and w hich are predicated, for exam ple, on the conviction that the proto-Nazi fea­ tures of the early and of the late Nietzsche are somehow irrelevant.51 T o neglect the surface aspects of a text or author, or, in the present case, to neglect or to belittle the obvious aspects o f Nietzsche’s shift from the early phase to Human A l l T o o Human, w ould be to offend against a basic principle of sound interpretation. A n d yet the attem pt to apply this principle is likely to compound rather than to remove the difficulties confronting a conscientious reading o f Nietzsche. For in view of Nietzsche’s polyphonic m anner it w ould be equally unjustified to neglect the less apparent counterpoint. T h e fact that Nietzsche inspired radically divergent schools of thought is itself indicative not of mere misreadings of Nietzsche but o f a m ultiplicity w ithin Nietzsche or, perhaps, of Nietzsche as a "dividuum .” 52 T h is author, who is rarely neutral or im partial even in his manner, always seems to elicit a partisan spirit and to play upon

A MAJOR REVERSAL /

125

antithetical affective and ideological commitments. He seems to com­ pel the reader to make his own choice. Evidently Nietzsche conceived m any of his positions to be in qualified opposition to his own counter­ positions. H e was continually engaged in reversals and in reversals of reversals and, indeed, in reversals of reversals of reversals. It is ques­ tionable whether a faithful reading which w ould require the reader to surrender him self entirely to all of Nietzsche’s own exercises in radical intellectual and em otional dynamics w ould produce a definable set of assertions or attitudes. T here may be, after all, some merit to the selective and biased readings of Nietzsche. T h e y at least yield some tangible results. A faithful reading of Nietzsche would perhaps ter­ m inate in the realization that to Nietzsche nothing is true but the awareness of shifting hierachies of illusory and m utually contradictory perspectives, and that to Nietzsche the wisest man is “ the richest in contradictions” (j8 , 186). These com plexities are illustrated by the change in Nietzsche’s atti­ tude toward art and toward science. He him self observed the fact, both obvious and significant, that in Human A ll Too Human he had repudiated his form er infatuation w ith art and the artist. He had conceived all things and indeed the universe in the image of art and artistic genius (82, 143, 334). Now, however, he pointed out that by inducing a regression to the archaic perspectives of ages which had been favorable to artistic production, art was a danger even to the artist. T h e artist, he observed, was inclined to worship sensations of sudden impulse, to believe in gods and demons, to animate nature, to be as prone to sudden reversals in mood as the ancients had been, and to desire, w ith the violent injustice of a child, the revolutionary overthrow of all conditions unfavorable to art. T h e artist was essen­ tially infantile because he was arrested in his development at the stage of play (zveil er beim Spiel stehen bleibt). Moreover, his regres­ sion to the m entality of earlier stages of history and to prehistorical phases of hum anity alienated him from his more advanced contem­ poraries and predestined him to end his life in a state of m elancholy (72 1, 143). O n the face of it, Nietzsche’s rejection of art appeared to be due to his positive turn to science. Man, he now claim ed, approxim ated truth by way of science, not by way o f art (72 I, 42). In the course of human development, the scientist superseded the artist (72 I, 181). Had Nietzsche then simply discarded his former view? In the early seventies he had argued that the intellect was destructive of life. “ Perfect cogni­

126 /

NIETZSCHE

tion,” he had noted, “ kills action,” for inevitably this “endless screw” initiates an infinite process which must postpone action into infinity. T h e purpose of science was to annihilate the world,* which m ust be recreated and restored through the reinforcem ent of the unconscious. B u t while the realization of the absolutely illogical or alogical order of the universe led to pessimistic negation, the temp6ral power o f art did afford the one and only antidote to the “ desirable N irvan a.” Science would only destroy illusion. Logic was of no avail. A rtistic illusion was not subject to the criteria of logic and consequently beyond the reach of its destructive power (82, 31-33). In fact, art owed its origin to the need for a balm that would heal the wound of cognition, and consequently the only mode of existence left to man was the artistic life. A t one point, the young Nietzsche therefore pronounced his philosophy a Platonism in reverse. T h e further re­ moved from the truth of being, the purer, the better, the more beauti­ ful life would be. His goal, he claimed, was to be a life w ithin the sphere of semblance or mere appearance (82, 38). These notes of 1870/71 certainly suggest a position hostile to science and favorable to art. However, the reader of T h e Birth of Tragedy (1871) w ill recall that the early Nietzsche had not been necessarily committed to unqualified praise o f pure artistic or A pollon ian illu ­ sion. N or had he necessarily associated science w ith pessimistic insight into the Dionysian depths, though he had claimed that Socratic optimism was destined to turn into Socratic despair, giving way to a new artistic era. O n the other hand, the later Nietzsche o f Human A ll Too Human was not so unam biguous in his cham pionship of science as he m ight appear to be. M ankind was now said to be destined to develop to a stage of m aturity at which art w ould be no more than a touching memory. Y et Nietzsche added that art was perhaps never experienced more deeply than now, when it was enhanced by the m agic of death. T h e artist would soon impress us only as a precious relic, but we w ould admire and honor him as we would scarcely admire our true contem ­ poraries. T h e best in us was perhaps the remembrance o f bygone ages that were no longer accessible to us. T h e sun o f art had set, but the skies were still aglow with its light (72 I, 181 f.). A rt and religion, Nietzsche suggests, are archaic illusions, b u t as such they may w ell be our most valuable possession, or even our only treasure. For these illusions had rendered our world significant; they alone had ennobled man beyond the level of other animals. T h e depth,

A M A JO R REVERSAL /

127

the refinement o f sensibility, the creative inventiveness of religion and art, and thus the flower o f hum an culture, were the result of m an’s error, his self-deception. Pure intellect or cognition (das reine Erkennen) w ould never have accomplished these results. T o be unde­ ceived, to have the true essence of the w orld revealed to us, would cause us the most pain ful disappointm ent. For the world that is mean­ ingful, profound, miraculous, the source o f our happiness and of our suffering, is not the w orld as it is in and of itself, but the realm of our experience, the world as our conception, the world as our illusion and erroneous fiction (die Welt als Vorstellung [als Irrtum]). A nd this insight, Nietzsche now claim ed, led to a philosophy asserting the logical denial of the w orld,” which, he ventured to hope, was never­ theless quite as com patible w ith an affirmative attitude toward life as it was com patible w ith a nihilistic frame of mind (72 I, 42 f.). In retrospect, Nietzsche considered this position to be the essence of Human A l l T o o Human. T h e world that concerns us, he sum­ marized, is an illusion. Metaphysics, here conceived as a body of posi­ tive doctrine purporting to refer not to the world of illusion, but to the w orld as T h in g in Itself, belonged to a stage in human evolution which must be overcome. However, as soon as this em ancipation from the stage dom inated by metaphysics as w ell as by religious and artistic im agination was accomplished, the next step in human development required a qualified reversal. For m ankind was to preserve a sense of profound and grateful appreciation for the vanquished metaphysical (artistic, religious) illusions which had been foremost in prom oting the advancem ent of man (82, 406; 72 I, 34). Since Nietzsche now denied the pseudo-solutions offered by art, religion, metaphysics, and arrived at a logical denial of the only world that is accessible to us, it is questionable whether his position could be considered anything but a desperate or resigned skepticism. Instead of recom m ending art as redeem ing illusion, Nietzsche now tended to recommend the w holly em ancipated intellect, the adventure of the world-and-self-annihilating Freigeist. But inevitably, the radical conclu­ sion of the critique of illusion could be nothing but the self-destruction of the illusions o f the free spirit. T h e illusions of science and intellect, the protagonist and the instrum ent o f the critique o f illusions, were doomed. In fact, the critical Nietzsche turned immediately upon the fictions inherent in the essence of language, logic, mathematics, in the structure o f empirical sensory observation, and in the pursuit of science. A n d consequently, beginning w ith the first section of Human

128 /

NIETZSCHE

A l l T o o Hum an,53 this self-critique and self-destruction of the free spirit became a m ajor theme and it furnished the clim ax of Gay Science. ' However, in view of the fact that the Freigeist is destined to turn upon himself, the relationships between Hum an A l l T o o Hum an and Nietzsche’s previous modes of thought are by no means unequivocal. It is tem pting to sim plify these relationships, e.g., to claim that the earlier Nietzsche was the adherent of art even though he considered the power of art to be essentially the power of vital illusion; that the Nietzsche of Human A l l T o o Hum an was the disciple of truth even though he believed that the power of truth destroyed vital illusion; that the earlier Nietzsche conceived a precarious synthesis between vital illusion and essential insight in the image of Dionysian and A pollonian tragedy, and that the Nietzsche of H um an A l l T o o Hum an conceived of a synthesis still more precarious in the image of the detached philosopher who sees through all the illusions that constitute the essence of hum an life and thought but remains nonetheless sufficiently attached to life and its spheres o f error to enjoy the illusory spectacle (e.g., 72 I, 47 f.). However, the most significant aspects of Nietzsche’s thought are not describable in terms o f results or in terms of any given position or counterposition b u t only in terms of the process of thought which leads at each stage through a circular sequence of positions and counterpositions. T h is consideration leads back once more to Lessing’s conception o f pure striving, to the observation that for the dialectician the truth, or at least a goodly portion of it, lies in striving for it, and to the fact that the experience of dialectics is not to be had apart from the engagem ent in the dialectical enterprise. However, all of this applies to Nietzsche in a more dram atic and desperate sense than to Lessing. For w ith Nietzsche thought includes more em phatically the entire range of sensitive awareness. A nd, unlike Lessing, he does not conceive an in ­ finite God-given progress toward the given, if never attainable, absolute of divine truth. Instead he is im pelled to approxim ate by his mental effort an essentially ineffable, aimless, autonomous flux or, in terms of the earlier phase, a dynam ic arch-contradiction which is the essence of all being. Perhaps the relationship between the two phases of Nietzsche’s thought could be described in terms of two m utually opposite m ove­ ments each of which w ould lead, in turn, through circles of opposition. In both stages, one m ight claim, Nietzsche recorded movements be­

A M A JO R REVERSAL /

129

tween radical opposites. T h e antithetical movements performed at the earlier stage are, furtherm ore, related antithetically to the movements performed at the later stage. However, in both stages the circular movements of thought lead through the same positions and counter­ positions even though these are envisaged and approached from opposite directions. T h e W agnerian and the free thinker w ould now appear as antipodes starting out from opposite extremes but destined to run through the same course though in reverse order and under reversed signs. T h e two movements w ould now seem to occur on the same plane and to cover, at least approxim ately, the same area. T h e cham pion o f the metaphysical artist w ould be led from his initial posi­ tion to the starting point of his antipode, but he w ould return to his own base; and the same w ould apply to the champion of the emanci­ pated intellect, whose circle w ould likewise encompass the initial position of his opponent but lead back to a reassertion of his own counterposition. However, w hile this perspective would account for both the opposi­ tion and the congruence between the antithetical movements, it would lack the third and fourth dimensions characteristic o f the endless spiral m otion which Nietzsche attributed to the process of cognition. In w orking his way through m ultiple reversals o f former positions and counterpositions, Nietzsche attempted, after all, not merely to contra­ dict but to include and transcend the earlier stages of thought. A nd consequently the com plexities in the relationships between Nietzsche’s phases or enactments of thought in process are likely to exceed any summary presentation. For while some of these com plexities could be illustrated by way of a close reading of samples of text, these samples w ould necessarily be restricted to what is scarcely more than one step in the entire movement of Nietzsche’s thought. T h e more comprehen­ sive treatments, on the other hand, w ill always sim plify the relation­ ships. T h is is not to deny the usefulness of summaries nor to attribute all inadequacies of such summaries to the dynam ic character of Nietzsche’s thought. However, insofar as this dynamism mirrors Nietzsche’s es­ sential experience of substantive truth as an ineffable tension, move­ m ent or flux, it inevitably imposes a lim itation on all attempts to offer a conspectus of the essential Nietzsche. T h e naive readings of Nietzsche are based on the assumption that the essentials of his works can be represented apart from the actual experience of involvem ent in the antithetical dynamism of his thought. But whatever their ideological

1^0 /

NIETZSCHE

emphases may be, these interpretations ignore at least that aspect of Nietzsche which was referred to above as his use and abuse of discur­ sive reasoning for the purpose of non-discursive com m unication. It m ight be objected that all substantive hum an thought is subject to some such use and abuse, for no statement could be w holly adequate to a reality. T his, however, is not the point. Even a rationalist m ight concede that reality exceeds his reason; but he could be expected to build the structure of his discourse and reasoning as consistently, as firmly, as unam biguously as possible, in order to approxim ate the truth. Nietzsche, on the other hand, uses and abuses the conflict be­ tween statement and counterstatement in order to suggest the nature of reality. T o some extent at least, he proceeds as an artist w ho imitates what he conceives to be the dynam ic flux of reality (or nature or truth) by dramatizing a dynamic of contrapuntal statements. A nd while both the single statements to which Nietzsche is or seems committed, as w ell as his entire procedure, remain subject to criticism, an enlightened interpretation — as distinct from a critique — must take this contra­ puntal quality into account. A n d while it cannot avoid the inadequate isolation of particular aspects of Nietzsche’s works or their provisional misrepresentation in the form of static assertions, such an interpreta­ tion should prove its worth by revealing its own inadequacy and by helping the reader to participate in the movement of Nietzsche’s own thought.54 In the light of these observations, it is hardly surprising if the ap­ parent “ rationalism ,” “ im piricism ,” or “ scientism” of Hum an A l l Too Human are revealed by Nietzsche him self as aspects of a radical skep­ ticism and if this skepticism is reinterpreted by the later Nietzsche as the initial phase of a new and supremely affirmative gospel. In retro­ spect, Nietzsche claimed that the experiments of the liberated spirit were animated by the w ill to accomplish a reversal of all values (82, 406). However, even if this perspective were to be adopted as final — a questionable assumption at best, since to Nietzsche no perspective could claim finality — it would still hold that the Nietzsche of Hum an A ll T o o Human did not as yet claim to offer a positive transvaluation. T a k en at face value, the work was characterized by the attem pt to reconcile a scientific perspective denying the archaic values and per­ spectives of metaphysics and art w ith the attachm ent to, and preserva­ tion of, the very values represented by these archaic perspectives. Nietzsche attempted to reconcile the radical pursuit of truth w ith the

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

13 1

insight that life is founded upon and sustained by nothing but illusion (cf. 72 I, 34-48). T h e fact of Nietzsche’s perennial addiction to reversals suggests, however, a constant beyond change. It is generally true, and it applies specifically to the transition from the early phase of Human A ll Too Human, that Nietzsche’s reversals scarcely affected his central dilemma. N or could this be otherwise. For all of Nietzsche’s specific movements and shifts serve only to illustrate and to dramatize this dilemma. A ll terms, all accents change, everything, in fact, is subject to a movement of contradiction except the essential experience of irresolvable tension. For the heart of contradiction is, necessarily, the enduring m otivating power rather than the object of reversal. B ut having recognized this, one should also recognize the relevance of the peripheral movement. Quite apart from its vagueness, the claim that Nietzsche had now turned into a positivist w ould require extensive qualifications and reservations. Yet this tag is at least descriptive of one distinct aspect of the new phase, w hile the statement that Nietzsche continued to adhere to the Dionysian archetype of creative destruction and destructive creativity, though true enough as far as the perennial impulse of his thought is concerned, does not do justice to a new quality in ideologi­ cal texture. T h is quality distinguishes the anti-metaphysical Dionysian from his former metaphysical self, a distinction epitom ized in Nietzs­ che’s claim that ever since the reversal recorded in Human A ll Too Hum an he had concerned him self w ith “ nothing but physiology, m edi­ cine and the natural sciences” (77, 362). A G A IN S T T H E A BSO LU TES OF P E S S IM IS T IC ID E A L IS M In the absence of any work of Nietzsche’s w hich deals specifically w ith natural science, his claim to an exclusive preoccupation with the physical universe has the ring of paradox and provocation. It nonethe­ less indicates the shift from the interpretation of life in terms of traditional metaphysics (and morality) to an interpretation of life as a phenom enon of nature or physis. A n d since Nietzsche came to consider all problems in terms of health and disease or of an ascendent or deca­ dent vital force, he was perhaps justified in stressing his concern w ith the physiology of the hum an animal, w ith the proper raising, breeding,

1g 2 /

NIETZSCHE

strengthening of its psychosomatic potential. H e was now determ ined to pursue the science of natural and terrestrial hum an experience rather than the disembodied fictions associated with* the Thing-inItself or w ith a world beyond this world. H e had slandered and denied the terrestrial realities (82, 394). H e now found that he lacked all knowledge of them, that’ his "idealities” were worthless (77, 362). A nd yet he did not, at the stage of Hum an A ll T o o Human, deny the distinction between the world as Thing-inItself and the world as our illusion. T h e opening section of Hum an A ll T o o Human suggests rather that the Thing-in-Itself is unknown, that it is perhaps unknowable, and that it is, certainly, irrelevant to us. A ll knowledge w ithin our reach can do no more than provide us w ith a negative insight into the genesis of our own misconceptions of the world and with the realization that all value judgm ents, all of our positive insights and, consequently, our very lives, are founded upon illusion. T h e case against a metaphysical and em otional pessimism is sim ilar­ ly complex. T h e early Nietzsche had asserted that “ suffering” was the "m eaning of existence” (82, 89) and the metaphysical essence of the universe. N ow he began to suspect pessimism as a disease. In retrospect, he claimed that he had discovered the antidote against this "cancer of idealists and habitual liars,” a remedy which, by a Nietzschean twist, turned out to be none other than a physical affliction (72 I, 9 f.). For, as he wrote in 1887, he had forced him self to concede that a sick and suffering individual had not earned the right to pessimism. H e had compelled him self to wage a long and patient cam paign against his own Rom antic malaise. N ow he realized that all R om antic pessimists had been guilty of uncritical ("unscientific” ) generalizations on the basis of isolated personal experiences, that they had inflated and projected their personal afflictions into the form o f universal ju d g ­ ments and condemnations of the world. He now "reversed” his perspec­ tive; he became an optim ist in order to restore his health and to earn the right to a future return to “ that courageous pessimism” which was the “ opposite of Rom antic hypocrisy” (72 II, 7, g). A gain the reversal turns upon itself; for pessimism overcome by “ optim ism ” calls for a reversal from optimism to a pessimism born not of weakness but of strength.58 Such retrospective self-interpretations should be distinguished from the statements which Nietzsche m ade at the stage of Hum an A l l T o o Human. Here he rejects, on occasion, both optimism and pessimism

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

13 3

as being unjustified generalizations on the basis of metaphysical and ultim ately theological prejudices concerning the nature and value of the world. He argues that verdicts concerning the value of life and of the world as a whole are necessarily unjustified (72 1, 41 f., 44 ff.). W hat is more, he suggests that all value judgm ents (and even all judgments of fact) are invalid since the realms of experience accessible to us are founded upon illusion. However, w ithin the spheres of illusion, value judgm ents are inevitably part of our existence. Hence Nietzsche ap­ parently readmits even such comprehensive terms as optimism and pessimism to designate vital symptoms of positive or negative illusion. T h u s, in Hum an A ll T o o Human, he stresses not his optimism, but rather his antipessimism. A nd although the free spirit is sorely tempted by the solution of suicide, his ideal and utopia w ould appear to be an em otional state of somehow benevolent indifference corresponding to intellectual indifference and abstention from value judgments, a wis­ dom beyond love and hate, beyond delight and suffering, almost be­ yond pleasure and pain (72 I, 47 f., 98). However, before long, Nietzsche came to suspect that this condition of suspended vitality was a characteristic of sickness, a hovering between life and death, or at best a symptom of the first stage of enfeebled convalescence (72 I, 8 f.). A gain the m ultiple counterpoint does not yield to the demand for unilinear consistency. As antipessimist, Nietzsche now upholds the merits of em pathetic joy, of Mitfreude, against the claims made in favor of the alleged virtue of pity. H e now argues against Schopenhauer that pity (M itleid , M itleiden) is a pathological condition of empathetic suffering or pain, a weakness, or else a disguise for self-enjoyment, sense of power, sensual gratification, envy, and the like.56 As antipessimist, Nietzsche claims now that pessimistic discontent and denigration of the world are the legacy of poor descent, the inheritance from enslaved and poorly fed forbears. Greek culture, formerly associated w ith pro­ found pessimistic wisdom and noble suffering, is now said to have been the expression of an aristocracy who had long enjoyed the prerogatives of power and the good life, notably a simple and healthy regime in food and drink, until finally their blood circulated rapidly through their rich and subtle brains as a joyous and spicy wine. A n d conse­ quently their highest values and attainments, their “good and their best,” no longer assumed sombre, ecstatic or violent aspects but emerged in beauty and w ith a sunlike radiance (72 II, 259 f.). O r again, in a note of the same period, pessimism is treated as the ideological superstructure of an upset stomach. For the pessimists are “ clever

134 / NIETZSCHE people” w ho use their head to take revenge on their poor digestion.67 A t the same time, Human A l l Too Hum an not only points ahead to the positive recommendation of a pessimism of strength, it also dramatizes the pathos of an affirmative attitude m aintained despite the experience of excruciating suffering. T h rou gh o u t these books, Nietzsche intimates that his antipessimism must not bfe confused w ith shallow optimism but should be appreciated as the result of his in­ timacy with, and m arginal victory over, the abyss. Playing, as it does, with the wound and grief of cognition (“ Sorrow is know ledge,” 72 I, 100), the work implies the contrast between the depth of suffering and pessimistic insight and the overt gestures m aintained in spite of suicidal yearnings and nihilistic truth. A nd this contrast is part of the aesthetic effect intended by the author (see 72 II, 8). ' T h e instances of reversal considered so far are sufficient to indicate characteristic aspects of the process recorded in Hum an A ll Too Human. T h e y do not encompass or even suggest the scope and variety of the reversals which lead from the orbits of idealism to the skep­ tical phase. Since all the aphorisms in Hum an A ll Too Hum an occur in larger contexts that are directly related to Nietzsche’s m ajor themes, the consideration of any given topic or detail should lead the reader into the center of the w hirlpool. T hu s, to give an illustration, the original dedication of Human A ll Too Human to the memory of Voltaire as the liberator and grandseigneur of the spirit (72 II, 336; 77, 359) was not, of course, occasioned merely by the centennial of V oltaire’s death in 1878 but designed to advertise Nietzsche’s polem ic against Rom antic idealism and to indicate the reversal of his form er program to “ annihilate” the spirit of the Enlightenm ent (82, go). He had denounced the Socratic Hum anism of an essentially R om anic (Latinate) civilization. N ow he endorsed a tradition which he asso­ ciated with the names of Petrarch, Erasmus, and V oltaire (72 I, 40), and he advocated the need for the intensification of enlightened H u ­ manism. Yet this intensified and radical enlightenm ent w ould include also the enlightenm ent concerning the prejudices of reason and m or­ ality, in short, the enlightenm ent concerning the Enlightenm ent. It w ould entail the dialectical reversal of ideologies associated w ith the earlier stages of the enlightened dialectic. However, in its im m ediate im plications, Nietzsche’s turn to the Enlightenm ent did, after all, signify a marked change in style and mood. In turning against the speculative enthusiasm and the m oral sub­ limities o f German idealism as w ell as against the obscure and quasi-

A M AJOR REVERSAL /

13 5

mystical style of Rom antic irrationalism , Nietzsche turned in particular to the French moralistes. He adm ired them as masters of the clear, polished, and pointed sentence (e.g., 72 I, 50, 164). T h e y appealed to him as psychologists. T h e y unmasked the ideal pretentions by reveal­ ing the low m otivating force behind lofty gestures, and, specifically, they traced, in the manner o f L a Rochefoucauld, the promptings of egotism. In this connection Nietzsche also acknowledged indebtedness to the work of his German-Jewish friend Paul Ree, notably to R£e's thesis that the "m oral man,” or man in his capacity as a moral being, did not approxim ate the metaphysical essence of the world to any greater extent than the "physical m an.” 58 T h is insight, Nietzsche thought, m ight serve to eradicate the "need for metaphysics,” pre­ sumably because it closed the door to the metaphysics of Practical Reason w hich K ant had left open after having denied speculative metaphysics its place in the sphere of Pure Reason (72 I, 53). A gain the issues raised are complex. In keeping with Schopenhauer, the earlier Nietzsche had affirmed on occasion the annihilation of the individual, i.e., the suspension o f individuation, as the goal (82, 88). N ow he accused W agner of prom oting an escape from the ego (82, 140). M oreover, he resented self-abnegation, which in his own case had led into the foreign servitude to Bayreuth and Basel. Still later he w ould preach integral self-fulfillment and self-seeking. Evidently Nietzsche was not prepared to stop at a psychological reduction of moral idealism to im moral egotism. H e was ready to recognize a posi­ tive value in egocentricity. T h is issue was to be made explicit in Dawn (1880-1881; e.g., 73, 132 ff.). However, insofar as Nietzsche’s positions in Hum an A ll T o o Hum an anticipated the subsequent vindication of egocentricity and of evil, he was at variance not only with the explana­ tion or interpretation but, above all, w ith the moral evaluation of moral phenom ena as advanced by either the altruist Paul R£e or the French. Nietzsche had some way to go before he w ould exclaim: "O Voltaire! O H um anitat! O Blodsinn!” (76, 47). B u t even now his positions were not to be identified w ith models recommended prim arily insofar as they fitted the program of deflating moral and metaphysical pretentions of idealism by means of psychological analysis. H e had wanted to cling to, or to restore, the metaphysical m eaning of existence (82, 89 f.). He w ould now destroy moral and intellectual absolutes. "H um an, all too hum an” — the phrase and title — referred not only to psychology (72 I, 49), but specifically to the claim that “ where you see ideals I see fab­

Ig6

/

NIETZSCHE

rications and fictions” (77, 359) produced by motives sym ptom atic of human weakness rather than of hum an strength or, at best, the dis­ guised and refined expressions of anim al impulse. H owever, by a further reversal, he would suggest that the disguise was more repre­ hensible than the hidden m otivating power. A nd beyond the program of deflation, he wanted to show that apparent opposites derived from one another, to prove, once again, the unity