Chapter 26 fifteen

With these last foreboding questions in mind, it must now be elucidated how the influence of Socrates, like a growing shadow in the twilight, hangs over posterity, to this day and into the future; In the metaphysical sense, art innovates, and in this endless influence, it also guarantees the endless artistic innovation. To be able to understand this, to demonstrate convincingly the inner dependence of all art on the Greeks, from Homer to Socrates, we must feel the Greeks as the Athenians felt Socrates .Almost every epoch and stage of culture has at one time, irritatedly, tried to get rid of the Greeks, because the whole of their own works, which seem to be entirely original, sincerely amazing achievements, seem suddenly lost in color and vitality in comparison, Its visage shrinks into a failed imitation, even into a caricature.Thus resentment against that pompous little people who dared to regard as "barbaric" everything that was not native to all ages broke out again and again.One asks oneself, that a nation which has but a fleeting history, a ridiculous narrowness of public institutions, very dubious customs, and even a reputation for infamy and vice, should enjoy dignity and privileges among all nations, and be the patron saint of the arts among the multitude. , what exactly is it?It's a pity that people are not lucky enough to find a glass of wine to forget this kind of creature, and all the poisonous juices of envy, slander, and hatred are not enough to mar the natural magnificence.Therefore, people face the Greeks with shame and fear; unless one respects the truth above all else and has the courage to admit this truth: the Greeks run our culture and all cultures like horsemen, and poor chariots and horses are always unworthy. He rides them jokingly close to the abyss, and then jumps over the abyss himself with the leap of Achilles.

To prove that Socrates also enjoyed this royal dignity, it suffices to recognize that he was the type of a way of life unknown before him, the type of the theoretician, and our task now is to ascertain this The meaning and purpose of a theorist.Like the artist, the theoretician's infinite enjoyment of the present prevents him, like the artist, from a pessimistic practical ethics, from a pessimistic vision that only flickers in the dark.However, whenever the truth is revealed, the artist is always obsessed with the unrevealed veil, while the theorist appreciates and is satisfied with the unrevealed veil, and his greatest happiness is to rely on his own strength to continue In the process of successfully revealing the truth.If science had nothing but a naked goddess before it, there would be no science.For believers in science will therefore feel that they are like those who want to drill through the earth.Everyone knows that, with all his life's efforts, he can only excavate a small piece of the unfathomable earth, and the work of the second person is nothing more than filling this small piece of soil in front of him, so that the first The three had to pick a new site for themselves to dig in order to appear to be making a difference.If someone now proves convincingly that it is impossible to reach the antipodal point by this direct route, who will continue to work in the old cave, unless he is not now satisfied with finding treasures or discovering natural laws.Therefore, Lessing, the most honest theorist, dared to admit that he valued the search for truth more than the truth itself, and revealed the main secret of science in one sentence, which shocked and even angered scientists.Of course, beyond this empty talk, which would be excessive honesty, if not for the moment, lies a profound delusion, first expressed in the personality of Socrates, an unshakable belief that thought follows The clues of the law of causality can go directly to the abyss of existence, and it is also believed that thought can not only recognize existence, but also modify existence.This lofty metaphysical delusion has become the instinct of science, leading science to its own limit. When it reaches this limit, science must mutate into art—it turns out that art is the goal of this mechanical process.

Now, when we look at Socrates in the light of this thought, we find that he was the first man who could not only live by following the scientific instinct, but, what is more, die by following it.So the figure of Socrates who went to die, as a man freed from the fear of death by knowledge and reason, is a coat of arms above the gate of science, reminding everyone that the mission of science is to make life understandable and sufficient. reason.Of course, if the reason is not enough, there must be myths to serve it. I have even regarded myths as the inevitable result and even the ultimate goal of science.

We only need to see clearly how after Socrates, the disseminator of scientific mysteries, the schools of philosophy rose one after another; The mission is soaring, and it is irreversible from then on; due to the flood of curiosity, how does a universal thought net cover the whole world, and even hope to penetrate the laws of the entire solar system.As long as we clearly see all this and the frighteningly high pyramid of modern knowledge, we cannot help but regard Socrates as the turning point and whirlpool of the so-called world history.Let us just imagine, if the sum total of these innumerable forces were exhausted in another world trend, not for the service of knowledge, but for the practical purpose of individuals and nations, i. In successive migrations the instinct for survival is so weakened that the individual remains in the custom of suicide the last sliver of responsibility, like the barbarians on the island of Fiji who regard it as a duty for sons to kill their fathers and friends to kill their friends.A practical pessimism (der praktische Pessimismus) which, out of sympathy, has produced a cruel ethic of massacres—by the way, in the world, where no art of any kind has ever existed, and especially The pessimism of this practice is everywhere where art has not been used as religion and science to heal and prevent this plague.

Against this practical pessimism, Socrates is the archetype of the theoretical optimist (der theoretische Optimist), who believes that the nature of all things can be investigated, that knowledge and understanding have the power to cure all diseases, and that error itself is is a disaster.To go deep into the root of things, to distinguish true knowledge from false appearances, seems to the Socrates to be the noblest and even the only true mission of human beings.Hence, from Socrates onwards, the logical process of conception, judgment, and reasoning has been venerated as the highest activity and the most admirable gift above all other faculties.Even the noblest moral acts, the impulses of sympathy, sacrifice, heroism, and that rare peace of soul that the Apollinian Greeks called "wisdom" are seen by Socrates and his like-minded successors in modern times. It can all be deduced by the dialectics of knowledge, so it can be taught.Whoever experiences for himself the joy of a Socratic knowledge, of how it expands to encompass the entire world of phenomena, must henceforth feel that there is no such thing as the realization of this possession, the weaving of an unbreakable web of knowledge. A more intense desire to survive has been stimulated.For those who feel this way, Plato's Socrates seems to be the teacher of a new "Greek optimism" and a happy way of life. Midwifery and character formation, the purpose of which is the ultimate birth of genius.

Now, however, science, fueled by its violent delusions, runs without rest to its limits, where the optimism hidden in its logical nature runs aground and crumbles.Because there are countless points on the circumference of the scientific field, since it is impossible to imagine a day when this field can be thoroughly measured, then a wise person must encounter a point on the edge of the circle before he reaches the middle of his life, and stare at it in a daze.When he sees with horror how logic circles itself on this limit and finally bites its own tail, a new kind of recognition emerges, that of tragedy, which, just to be endurable, also requires artistic protection and treatment.

Let us look at the highest realms of the present world with the eyes that have been freshened by the Greeks, and we shall find that the insatiable, optimistic thirst for knowledge so vividly embodied by Socrates has been mutated. For tragic despair and artistic longing.Of course, at its low level, this thirst for knowledge must be hostile to art, and especially to Dionysian tragic art, as the example of Socraticism against the tragedy of Aeschylus shows. Now, let us knock on the door of the present and the future with great emotion.Could that "mutation" lead to creativity, or the rebirth of a musical Socrates?Will the web of art that envelops life, whether in the name of religion or science, be woven more and more supplely, or is it doomed to be torn to shreds by the tumultuous and savage haste and confusion that now calls itself "modern"? —we watched for a moment, worried but not without relief, as contemplatives entitled to bear witness to this great struggle and turning point.what!The struggle is so engrossing that even the spectators cannot help but join in!