28 LECTURE II.
but the fortune to possess a nature wholly animal, it would then not be obliged laboriously to seek, by means of Experi- ence, its knowledge of the world,—that is, the means of its physical preservation,—but it would possess these a priort in the animal instinct; since in fact the ox grazing on the meadow leaves untouched those grasses which are hurtful to his nature, without ever having tasted them and discovered by experience their pernicious qualities; and in like man- ner takes to those which are healthful to him without previous trial; and consequently, if we were to ascribe knowledge to him, possesses a knowledge absolutely a priora and independent of all Experience. Only in the middle state between humanity and animalism is Experience,— that wherein our race ranks below the animals, and in its superiority to which the meanest insect may be an object of envy to man, if destitute of @ priort conceptions of an Eternal World,— only in this middle state, I say, is Experience elevated to be the crown and standard of hu- manity, and such an Age steps boldly forward and asks,— ‘Might it but know then how any knowledge whatever is possible except by Experience?’ as if by this question, in- deed, every one would be frightened, retreat within himself, and give no other answer than the desired one.
In so far as this Age admits the possibility of anything lying beyond the confines of the mere knowledge of the physical world, although it does so in a somewhat incon- sequential manner, and only because such things are also present in Experience, and on account of such Experience are taught in the Schools, it becomes its highest wisdom to doubt of everything, and in no matter to take a part either on the one side or the other. In this neutrality, this immoveable impartiality, this incorruptible indifference to all truth, it places its most excellent and perfect. wisdom; and the charge of having a system appears to it as a disgrace by which the reputation of a man is irretrievably destroyed. Such scientific cobwebs are only devised in order that young GENERAL DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE. 29 persons of the lower classes, who have no opportunity of seeing the great world, may, by amusing themselves with them, develop their capacities for active life. For this purpose every opinion and every proposition, affirmative as well as negative, are equally available; and it is a con- temptible blunder to mistake jest for earnest, and to in- terest oneself for any side of such a controversy as if it were something of importance.
With respect to the influence which it exerts upon Na- ture and its employment of her powers and products, such an Age looks everywhere only to the immediately and ma- terially useful,—to that, namely, which is serviceable for dwelling, clothing, and food,—to cheapness, convenience, and, where it attainsits highest point, to fashion; but that higher dominion over Nature whereby the majestic image of Man asa Race is stamped upon its opposing forces,—I mean the dominion of Ideas, in which the essential nature of Fine Art consists,—this is wholly unknown to such an Age; and even when the occasional appearance of men of more spiritual nature may remind it of this higher sove- reignty, it only laughs at such aspirations as mere visionary extravagance; and thus Art itself, reduced to its most me- chanical forms, is degraded into a new vehicle of fashion, the instrument of a capricious luxury, alien to the Eter- nities of the Ideal world. With respect to the legislative constitution of States and the government of Nations, such an Age either, impelled by its hatred to the old, con- structs political fabrics upon the most airyand unsubstantial abstractions, and attempts to govern degenerate men by means of high-sounding phrases without the aid of firm and inflexible power; or, impelled by its idol Experience, it hastens, on every emergency, whether of great or small im- portance,—being convinced beforehand of its own utter inability to determine upon a course of action for itself—to consult the chronicles of the Past, to read there how others have formerly acted under similar circumstances, and takes 30 LECTURE II.
from thence the law of its own conduct;—and in this way constructs its political existence out of a confused patchwork gathered from many different Ages long since dead, there- by openly displaying a clear consciousness of its own utter nothingness. With respect to Morality, it proclaims this as the only Virtue,—that we should pursue our own indi- vidual interests, at furthest adding thereto those of others (either as bound in honour so to do, or else from mere in- consequence) so far as they are not inconsistent with our own; and this as the only Vice,—to fail in the pursuit of our own advantage. It maintains, and—since it can have no difficulty in discovering an ignoble motive for every action, inasmuch as it is quite unacquainted with aught that par- takes of nobleness,—it even pretends to prove, that all men who live or have ever lived have actually thought and acted in this way, and that there is absolutely no other motive of action in man than Self-Interest;— compassion- ating those who assume the existence of any other as silly fools who are as yet ignorant of the world and of men. Lastly, with respect to Religion, it also is changed into a mere Doctrine of Happiness, designed to remind us that man must be temperate in enjoyment in order that his enjoyments may be lasting and varied; a God is deemed necessary only in order that he may care for our welfare, and it is our wants alone which have called him into existence and determined him to be. Whatever it may chance to retain of the super-sensual elements of any already existing system of Religion owes this forbearance only to the need there may be of a curb for the unbridled populace, which however the cultivated classes do not require; and to the want of a more efficient means of supplementing the deficiencies of the Police or of judicial Evidence. In short, —and to express the matter in one word,—such an Age has reached its highest point of development when it has attained a clear conviction that Reason, and with Reason all that lies beyond mere sensuous personal Existence, is GENERAL DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE, 3l only an invention of certain idle individuals called Philo- - sophers.
So much for the general delineation of the Third Age, the individual features of which we shall set forth and ex- amine in detail in our future addresses. Only one other characteristic we shall notice at present, which inasmuch as it affects the form of the whole Epoch, cannot be passed over here;—this, namely,—that this Age, in its best repre- sentatives, is so confident, so firmly assured of the truth of its views, that in this respect it is not surpassed even by the certainty of scientific conviction. It looks down with unspeakable pity and compassion upon those earlier Ages in which men were still so weak-minded as to allow themselves to be seduced from pleasures which were offered totheirimmediate enjoymentbya spectre which they named Virtue, and by a dream of a super-sensual world;—upon those Ages of darkness and superstition, when they, the re- presentatives of a new Age, had not yet appeared,—had not yet fathomed and thoroughly laid open the depths of the human heart,—had not yet made the great and astounding discovery, and loudly proclaimed and universally promul- gated it,—that this heart is at bottom nothing but a base puddle. It does not oppose, but only compassionates and good-naturedly smiles at those who, living in it, yet reject its opinions; and calmly settles itself in the philanthropic hope that they too may one day raise themselves to the same point of view, when they shall have been matured by age and experience; or when they shall have ‘studied, as thoroughly as its own representatives have done, that which it calls History. But here, although this is lost upon those representatives, Knowledge is their master, inasmuch as the latter perfectly comprehends its oppo- nents’ mode of thought, can reconstruct it from its separate parts, is able to restore it, should it unfortunately be lost to the world, and even finds it to be perfectly just when considered from its proper point of view. Thus, were we 3.4 LECTURE II.
to speak in the name of Knowledge, the supposed im- pregnability of the mode of thought which we have now described arises precisely in this way;—that, considered from the point of view where its advocates are placed, it is perfectly just; and however frequently they may re- examine the chain of their conclusions they will never discover any break in its sequence. If there be absolutely nothing but the sensuous existence of Individuality, without any higher life of the Race; then there can be no other source of knowledge but Experience, for we are obviously informed concerning this sensuous existence only by Ex- perience; and just on that account every other pretended source of knowledge,and whatever may flow therefrom, must of necessity be a mere dream and phantom of the brain;— whereby indeed is left unexplained the actual possibility of such dreaming, and of so conjuring out of the brain’ what in reality the brain does not contain; from which explana- nation, however, our representatives wisely abstain, satisfied with the experience that such dreamsare. And that there actually isnothing except this sensuous individual existence, they know very well from this;—that however often and deeply they have fathomed the abysses of their own being, they have never been able to discover therein aught but the feeling of their own personal and sensuous existence.
And thus it follows from all that has been said, that this manner of thinking is by no means founded upon an error of reasoning or of judgment, which may be remedied by pointing out to the Age the mistake into which it has fallen, and reminding it of the rules of logic which it has transgressed; but it is founded upon the altogether defec- tive character of the Age itself, and of those in whom this character most distinctly shows itself. While it and they are what they are, they must necessarily think as they now think; and if they are to think otherwise than they do think, they must first of all become something different from what they are.
GENERAL DELINEATION OF THE THIRD AGE. 33 To close our lecture with the only consoling view which the subject affords:—It is a happiness that even the most inveterate champions of this manner of thinking are al- ways, against their own thought and will, something better than their speech proclaims them; and that the spark of a higher life in Man, however it may be concealed, is yet never extinguished, but gleams on with silent and secret power until material is presented to it at which it may kindle and burst forth into bright and steady flame, To fan this spark of a higher life, and as far as possible to furnish it with materials for its activity, is also one of the objects of these lectures.
— .
(35 ) LECTURE III.
THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON.
It is only by degrees that clearness can spread itself over our inquiry;—only step by step can light penetrate its deeper recesses; until at length the end reveal itself before us in unclouded brightness. This condition of our inquiry lies, as we said in our first lecture, in the unchangeable laws which regulate all communication of thought. Beyond the duty incumbent on the speaker to arrange his thoughts - in their proper order, and to set each in its proper place, his art can do nothing to modify the condition of which we have spoken, except this,—heedfully to pause at each brighter point which presents itself in the course of his communication, and from thence to send forth rays of light upon what has gone before and what is to follow.
In our last lecture we arrived at one of these brighter points in the inquiry which we have undertaken; and it is fit and proper that we should to-day more fully develop this point. That the Human Race should order all its re- lations with Freedom according to Reason;—this was set forth as the end and purpose of the Earthly Life of our Race; and the characteristic peculiarity of the Third Age, which it is our business to describe, was declared to be, that it had thrown off the yoke of Reason in every shape, But what Reason itself is, and in what a Life according 36 LECTURE III.
36 LECTURE III.
to Reason consists, and what are the relations which are ordered by Reason in a life so governed by it;—these things have been indeed indicated in many ways, but not yet anywhere placed in a clear light. In our last lecture, however, we said— Reason embraces only the OnE Life, which manifests itself as the Life of the Race. Were Reason taken away from human life, there would remain only Individuality and the love of Individuality. Hence the Life according to Reason consists herein,—that the Indi- vidual forget himself in the Race, place his own life in the life of the Race and dedicate it thereto;—the Life opposed to Reason, on the contrary, consists in this,—that the In- dividual think of nothing but himself, love nothing but himself and in relation to himself, and set his whole ex- istence in his own personal well-being alone:—and since we may briefly call that which is according to Reason good, and that which is opposed to Reason evil, so there is but One Virtue,-—to forget one’s own personality;—and but One Vice,—to make self the object of our thoughts. Hence the view of Morality depicted in our last lecture as that of the Third Age here as everywhere precisely reverses the fact, and makes that its only Virtue which is in reality the only Vice, and that its only Vice which is in truth the only Virtue.
These words are to be understood strictly as we have spoken them, in their most rigorous sense. The mitigation of our principle which might be attempted here, namely— that it is only our duty not to think of ourselves exclusively, but also upon others,—is precisely the same Morality as that which we have represented as belonging to the Third Age, only that here it is inconsequential, and seeks to disguise itself, not having yet altogether triumphed over shame. He who but thinks aé all of his own personality, and desires any kind of life or being, or any joy of life, ex- cept zn the Race and for the Race, with whatever vesture of good deeds he may seek to hide his deformity, is THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON. 37 nevertheless, at bottom, only a mean, base, and therefore unhappy man. Hence our principle, as we ourselves have expressed it in all its rigour,—it and nothing else,— is our meaning, against which it is, and always will be, impossible to bring forward any essential objection.
Whatever has been urged against this principle hitherto since mankind had a being, or can be urged so long as it shall have a being, is grounded upon the bold assertion that man cannot forget himself, and that personal self-love has grown up in such intimate union with his nature that it is now inextricably interwoven with it. I ask such assertors, Whence then have they obtained their knowledge of what man can do, and what he cannot? Obviously this assertion of theirs can be founded on nothing else than observation of themselves;—and it may indeed be true that they for themselves, since they have become what they are and wish to remain so, may never be able to forget their own personal welfare. But by what right do they make the standard of their ability or non-ability the measure of the capacity of the Race? The noble mind can indeed understand the thought of the ignoble, for we are all born and fashioned in Egoism, and have all lived in it, and it needs struggle and effort to destroy this old nature within us; but the ig- noble cannot know the thoughts of the noble, because he has never entered the world to which they belong, nor traversed it as his world has of necessity been traversed in all its extent by the noble. The latter surveys both worlds, the former only that which holds him captive;— as the Waker may in his waking understand the Dream, and the Seer conceive of Darkness; but the Dreamer cannot in his dream comprehend the Waking, nor the Blind-born imagine Light. Only when they have attained to this higher world, and have taken possession of it, shall they be able to do that which they now declare they can- not do, and only by acquiring this ability for themselves can they learn that Man is capable of acquiring it.
38 LECTURE Ul.
Herein, therefore, have we placed the True Life—the Life according to Reason,—that the personal life of Man be dedicated to that of his Race,—that the one be forgotten in the other. To forget oneself in others:—not in others regarded likewise in a personal character, where there is still nothing but Individuality;—but in others regarded as the Race. Understand me:—the sympathy which prompts us to mitigate the sorrows of others, and to share and exalt their joys; the attachment which binds us to friends and relatives; the love that entwines us with our families;—all these, being frequently attended with considerable sacrifices of our own personal convenience and enjoyment, are the first secret and silent movements of Reason as Instinct, gently breaking down the harshest and coarsest forms of Egoism, and so laying the foundation for the development of a wider and more comprehensive love. But as yet this love, far from comprehending Humanityasa whole, without distinction of person and considered as the Race, embraces only individual persons; and although it is thus assuredly the vestibule to the higher Life, and no one can obtain entrance to the latter who has not first been consecrated thereto in this realm of gentler impulses,—still it is not in itself that higher Life. That embraces the Race itself, asa Race. But the Life of the Race is expressed only in Ideas;—the fundamental character of which, as well as their various forms, we shall come to understand sufficiently in the course of these lectures. Thus the formula which we laid down,—‘ That the life of Man be dedicated to that of his Race,-—may also be expressed thus,—‘ That the life of Man be dedicated to Ideas;;—for Ideas embrace the Race as such, and its Life; and thus the Life according to Reason, or the only good and true Life, consists in this,—that Man forget himself in Ideas, and neither seek nor know any enjoyment save in Ideas, and in sacrificing all other enjoy- ments for them.—Thus far for our explanation. Let us now proceed to another matter.
THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON. 39 This, namely:-—If you yourselves, compelled by an inward power, should feel it impossible to withhold your approval, your admiration, and your reverence from a Life such as we have described, and were even compelled to reverence it more profoundly the greater and more evident the sacrifices made at the shrine of Ideas,—so surely, I say, would it be obvious, from this your approval, that there is a principle, indestructibly rooted in your minds, which proclaims that the personal life ought to be brought a sacrifice to the Idea, and that the Life in which it is so offered up is the only true and upright Life;—hence, if we regard the matter strictly, — that the individual life has no real existence, since it has no value of itself, but must and should sink to nothing; while, on the contrary, the Race alone exists, since it alone ought to be looked upon as really living. In this way we should keep the promise we gave in our former lecture, to show you, in a popular way and by your own knowledge of yourselves, that the principle which we then announced, and which at first sight seemed so paradoxical, was in truth already well known and admitted by you, and indeed was the constant director and guide of your judgment, although you imight not be clearly conscious of it;—and we should thus attain both the objects which I had in view in the present lecture.
That you should actually be necessitated to approve, ad- mire, and reverence such a Life as we have described, was the first step in our argument, upon which all else depended, and from which all else necessarily followed;—and this we must commit entirely to your own reflection, without interference on our part. Hence it is only my task to make an experiment on you and within you, and should this succeed, as I expect it will, then we shall have proved our position.
I shall make this experinient upon your minds, unques- tionably with the view of exciting a certain feeling in you; but not so as to take you unawares, or to excite this feel- 40 LECTURE III.
ing merely for the sake of exciting it, and that so J may be enabled to make a momentary use of it to aid my pur- pose, as the orator does; but, on the contrary, that this fecling may be excited in you with your own clear and distinct consciousness and concurrence, not exerting a mere passive influence on you, but to the end that its existence may be clearly recognised by you, and that it may thus be more fully and completely understood.
The philosopher is compelled, by the rules of his art, to deal with perfect openness and honesty; and in return he acquires a power which lies far beyond the sophistries of mere eloquence;—he is able to declare to his hearers before- hand the emotion which he desires to excite within them, and, provided they rightly understand him, to attain his object notwithstanding the disclosure.
This free and open announcement of the purpose which we have in view, lays me under an obligation to describe more particularly the nature of the effect which I shall at- tempt to produce within you; and in order to maintain the clear, intelligible position which we have now attained, I shall at once proceed to this description. I have only to ask you to fix in your mind a few expressions and phrases. which may not as yet be entirely distinct to you, but which shall be made perfectly clear in the sequel.
The Life according to Reason must necessarily love itself; for every form of life, as its own perfect result and fulfil- ment, is enjoyment of itself. Assurely as Reason can never be entirely extinguished among men, so surely can this love of Reason for itself never be utterly destroyed; nay, this love, as the deepest root of all rational existence, and as the sole remaining tie which keeps men within the circle of rational existence, is precisely that whereby we may most surely recognise and attain the Life according to Reason, if we will only be honest and unprejudiced.
Now the Life opposed to Reason,—that of mere Indivi- duality,—hkewise loves itself; since it too is life, and all THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON. AY life necessarily loves itself. But as these two forms of life are thoroughly opposed to each other, so also are the kinds of love and satisfaction which they have in themselves quite opposed to each other,—wholly and specifically different;— and in this specific difference they are easily recognised and distinguished from each other.
To begin with the love which the Life according to Reason entertains for itself. Towards this Life we may stand in a double relation:—either, we may possess it only in concep- tion, in a feeble and imperfect representation, and only as received from others;—or, we may ourselves truly and in reality be and live this Life. That mankind cannot at the present day stand in the latter relation,—since, in that case, there would be not only no Egoism, and no Third Age of the world, but also no true Freedom,—this has already been admitted; nay more,—that we have been all fashioned and born outside of this relation, and can only by labour and toil place ourselves therein. Hence it must be the first relation, namely the possession, or the capacity of possessing, the Life according to Reason in conception, which is never wholly extinguished among men, which all have the power to attain, and by which all may at least comprehend the Life according to Reason.
The love which the Life opposed to Reason bears to itself, with which indeed we are all better acquainted, and to which our language more easily accommodates itself, manifests itself in its specific character, both in general and in parti- culars,—as delight in its own sagacity, petty pride in its own cleverness and penetration, and,—to designate an ignoble thing by a befitting ignoble expression,—as self-satisfied chuckling over its own cunning. Thus in the former lecture it was represented as a fundamental characteristic of the Third Age, that it looked down with haughty self-compla- cency on those who suffer themselves to be defrauded of pre- sent enjoyment by a dream of Virtue, congratulating itself that it isfar above such delusions, and therefore secure from i ‘42 LECTURE lI.
being imposed upon;—its true character being admirably expressed in a single phrase,—would-be-Enlightenment. Thus the highest and most refined enjoyment which he who cares best for his own advantage, and successfully pursues it through many difficulties, can attain, is the satisfaction he must feel in his own shrewdness and skill. On the contrary, the love which the Life according to Reason bears to itself, as a legitimate and well-ordered existence, manifests itself in its specific character, not as unexpected gratification, but in the dignified form of approval, esteem, and reverence.
In sofar as we have attained the Life according to Reason, in the first way, namely, in conception, and as a picture of a Life removed from our own, in so far will this conception lovingly welcome and dwell upon itself in delighted compla- cency;—for, in that case, we shall at least have entered so far into the sphere of the Life of Reason, as to possess a worthy and adequate image of it. (We may add here, for the benefit of those who are acquainted with the scientific language of philosophy, that the feeling thus produced is an esthetic pleasure, and indeed the highest zsthetic pleasure.)
This pleasure, however,—this approbation of something foreign to us,—something which we ourselves are not,—in- spires us with respect and reverence, combined, in the best of our race, with silent unsatisfied regards thrown back upon themselves, and a secret longing to assimilate their own life to the object of their love; out of which longing the higher Life gradually unfolds itself. In so far as, in the second way, the Life according to Reason actually becomes conscious of itself as a real and present existence, it flows forth in un- speakable enjoyment and satisfaction, before the thought of which the Egoist must retreat in envy could he entertain the thought;—in this love to itself, it becomes pure Blessed- ness. For all feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction, as well as those of desire and insufficiency, are nothing else THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON. 43 than the birth-pains of the higher Life struggling towards its perfect development. Isit developed?—then is it tho- roughly satisfied with itself, and sufficient for itself, needing nothing more, but possessing the most perfect Freedom within itself and in the consciousness of its own inherent power. Let us in the present lecture test the first con- dition by ourselves; in the next I shall attempt to present to you a feeble description of the second.
For our present purpose, I shall maintain the following proposition:—Everything great and good upon which our present existence rests, from which it has proceeded, and on the supposition of which alone our Age can order itself in the way it actually does, has an existence only because noble and powerful men have resigned all the enjoyments of life for the sake of Ideas; and we ourselves, and all that we are, are the result of the sacrifices of all previous genera- tions, and especially of their worthiest members. I have, however, no thought of making use of this remark to bribe you into toleration towards our predecessors by con- templation of the advantages which we have derived from their sacrifices; for in that case I should excite in you, and make use of for my present purpose, precisely that mode of thought which, had I the power, J would extirpate from the world; and then I might justly expect this answer,—‘ It is well for us that these fools have lived, who, in the sweat of their brow, gathered together the treasures we now enjoy; we shall, so far as in us lies, avoid similar folly:—let other generations look to their own prosperity when we shall be no more; ’—and I should not be able to avoid commending this answer as, at least, consistent. It has even been seen, that with regard to efforts for the sake of Humanity which, provided they were otherwise conducted with pro- priety, have deserved no blame in this respect, men have lifted up their voices and asked,—‘Is it right that this generation should make such sacrifices for the future?’ and thereupon looked around with triumph, as if they had