Section 23

Anyone wishing to examine himself very closely as to how far he is akin to the true aesthetic listener, or belongs to the community of Socratic-critical people, need only ask himself honestly what he feels when he encounters the miracle represented onstage: whether he perhaps feels that his historical sense, directed toward strict psychological causality, has been offended; whether, with a benevolent concession, he admits the miracle, as it were, as a phenomenon intelligible to childhood but alien to himself; or whether he undergoes something else entirely. For by this he will be able to measure how far he is capable of understanding myth at all—that concentrated image of the world which, as an abridgment of appearance, cannot dispense with the miracle. What is likely, however, is that on strict examination almost everyone will feel himself so disintegrated by the critical-historical spirit of our culture that only by scholarly means, through mediating abstractions, can he make the former existence of myth seem credible to himself. Yet without myth every culture forfeits its healthy, creative natural power: only a horizon ringed with myths rounds off an entire cultural movement into unity. Only through myth are all the powers of imagination and Apollonian dream rescued from their indiscriminate wandering. The images of myth must be the unnoticed, omnipresent demonic guardians under whose protection the young soul grows, whose signs the grown man uses to interpret his life and struggles; and even the state knows no more powerful unwritten laws than the mythical foundation that guarantees its connection with religion, its growth out of mythical ideas.

Now set beside this the abstract human being, guided by no myths, abstract education, abstract custom, abstract law, the abstract state: picture the unregulated roaming of the artistic imagination, unbridled by any native myth; imagine a culture that has no fixed and sacred original dwelling, but is condemned to exhaust every possibility and eke out its nourishment from every culture—that is the present, as the result of that Socratism directed toward the annihilation of myth. And now the mythless human being stands eternally hungry amid all the pasts, digging and rummaging for roots, even if he must dig for them in the remotest antiquities. What does the enormous historical need of unsatisfied modern culture point to—its gathering of countless other cultures around itself, its consuming desire to know—if not the loss of myth, the loss of the mythical home, the mythical mother’s womb? Let us ask whether the feverish and so uncanny agitation of this culture is anything but the hungry person’s greedy grasping and snatching after food—and who would still wish to give anything to a culture that cannot be sated by everything it devours, and at whose touch the strongest, most wholesome nourishment habitually turns into “history and criticism”?

We would have to despair painfully of our German nature, too, if it had already become in the same way inextricably entangled with its culture, indeed one with it, as we can observe to our horror in civilized France. And what was for so long France’s great advantage and the cause of its immense predominance, precisely that oneness of people and culture, might at this sight compel us to count it good fortune that this highly questionable culture of ours has so far had nothing in common with the noble core of our national character. Rather, all our hopes reach out longingly toward the perception that beneath this cultural life restlessly twitching up and down, beneath these spasms of cultivation, there lies hidden a magnificent, inwardly healthy, age-old power, which admittedly stirs with violence only at tremendous moments, and then dreams again toward a future awakening. From this abyss the German Reformation grew: in its chorale the future melody of German music sounded for the first time. So deep, bold, and soulful, so overflowingly good and tender, was the sound of Luther’s chorale, as the first Dionysian call of enticement issuing from dense undergrowth as spring approaches. It was answered, in an echo of rivalry, by that consecrated and exuberant procession of Dionysian enthusiasts to whom we owe German music—and to whom we shall owe the rebirth of German myth!

I know that I must now lead the friend who follows with sympathy to a high place of solitary contemplation, where he will have few companions, and I call to him in encouragement that we must hold fast to our radiant guides, the Greeks. Thus far, to purify our aesthetic knowledge, we have borrowed from them those two divine figures, each ruling a separate realm of art, and through Greek tragedy we gained an intimation of their mutual contact and intensification. The downfall of Greek tragedy had to appear to us as brought about by a remarkable tearing apart of the two primordial artistic drives; a degeneration and transformation of the Greek national character was in harmony with that event, urging us to reflect seriously on how necessarily and intimately art and people, myth and custom, tragedy and state, are intertwined at their foundations. That downfall of tragedy was at the same time the downfall of myth. Until then the Greeks had been involuntarily compelled to connect everything they experienced immediately with their myths, indeed to understand it only through this connection; thus even the most immediate present had to appear to them at once under the aspect of eternity, and in a certain sense as timeless. Into this current of the timeless the state as well as art immersed itself, to find in it rest from the burden and greed of the moment. And a people—like a human being, for that matter—is worth precisely as much as it is able to stamp its experiences with the seal of the eternal: for in doing so it is, as it were, lifted out of worldliness, and shows its unconscious inner conviction of the relativity of time and of life’s true, that is, metaphysical significance. The opposite occurs when a people begins to understand itself historically and to shatter the mythical bulwarks around it. This is usually accompanied by a decisive turn toward worldliness, a break, in all its ethical consequences, with the unconscious metaphysics of its earlier existence. Greek art, and Greek tragedy above all, held back the annihilation of myth more than anything else: it had to be annihilated too, so that people, severed from their native soil, could live unbridled in the wilderness of thought, custom, and deed. Even now that metaphysical drive attempts to create for itself a form of transfiguration, though a weakened one, in the Socratism of science pressing toward life; but at the lower levels the same drive led only to a feverish search that gradually lost itself in a pandemonium of myths and superstitions heaped together from everywhere. In its midst the Hellene nevertheless sat with his heart unsatisfied, until he learned to mask that fever with Greek serenity and Greek frivolity, as a petty Greek, or to numb himself completely in some dull Oriental superstition.

Since the revival of Alexandrian-Roman antiquity in the fifteenth century, after a long interlude difficult to describe, we have approached this condition in the most striking way. On the heights, the same overflowing delight in knowledge, the same insatiable happiness in discovery, the same enormous turn toward worldliness; beside them, a homeless wandering, a greedy crowding around foreign tables, a frivolous deification of the present or a dully numbed turning away—all under the aspect of the age, the “present day.” These identical symptoms suggest an identical lack at the heart of this culture: the annihilation of myth. It seems scarcely possible to transplant a foreign myth with lasting success without doing irreparable damage to the tree through this transplanting. The tree may occasionally be strong and healthy enough to expel that foreign element again in a terrible struggle, but usually it must waste away, sickly and stunted or in pathological overgrowth. We think so highly of the pure and vigorous core of the German nature that we dare to expect precisely from it that expulsion of forcibly implanted foreign elements, and consider it possible that the German spirit will return to an awareness of itself. Perhaps many will think that this spirit must begin its struggle by expelling the Romance element: for this it may recognize an outward preparation and encouragement in the victorious valor and bloody glory of the last war, but it must seek the inward necessity in the emulation that strives always to be worthy of the sublime pioneers on this path, Luther as well as our great artists and poets. But let it never believe that it can fight such battles without its household gods, without its mythical home, without a “restoration” of all things German! And if the German should look about timidly for a guide to lead him back into the homeland long since lost, whose roads and paths he scarcely knows anymore—let him only listen to the blissfully enticing call of the Dionysian bird that sways above him and wishes to show him the way there.

Anyone who wants to examine closely whether he is related to the true aesthetic listener or belongs among Socratic, critical people need only ask himself honestly what he feels when he encounters a miracle represented onstage. Does it offend his historical sense, with its insistence on strict psychological cause and effect? Does he allow the miracle through a kindly concession, as something understandable to children but foreign to himself? Or does he experience something else? This lets him measure how far he is capable of understanding myth at all: the concentrated picture of the world which, as a shortened expression of appearance, cannot do without miracles. On close examination, however, almost everyone will probably feel so broken down by the critical and historical spirit of our education that he can only make the former existence of myth believable to himself through scholarship and the help of abstract ideas. But without myth, every culture loses its healthy, creative natural power. Only a horizon enclosed by myths brings an entire cultural movement together as a unity. Only myth saves all the powers of imagination and the Apollonian dream from aimless wandering. Myth’s images must be the unseen, ever-present guardian spirits under whose protection the young soul grows up, and through whose signs the grown man interprets his life and struggles. Even the state knows no unwritten laws more powerful than its mythical foundation, which guarantees its connection to religion and its growth out of mythical ideas.

Now place beside this the abstract human being, guided by no myths, abstract education, abstract customs, abstract law, and the abstract state. Bring to mind the artistic imagination’s lawless wandering, restrained by no native myth. Imagine a culture with no fixed and sacred original home, condemned instead to exhaust every possibility and feed poorly on every culture. That is the present, the outcome of the Socratic impulse directed toward destroying myth. The person without myth now stands forever hungry among all the pasts, digging and burrowing for roots, even if he must dig for them in the most remote ancient worlds. What do our dissatisfied modern culture’s immense historical need, its gathering of countless other cultures around itself, and its consuming desire for knowledge point to, if not the loss of myth, of its mythical home and mythical mother’s womb? Ask whether this culture’s feverish and deeply disturbing activity is anything other than a hungry person’s greedy grabbing and hunting for food. Who would still want to give anything to such a culture? Nothing it swallows can satisfy it, and at its touch even the strongest, healthiest food usually turns into “history and criticism.”

We would also have to despair painfully of our German nature if it had already become as inseparably entangled with its culture, indeed as completely one with it, as we can observe to our horror in civilized France. For a long time that unity of people and culture was France’s great advantage and the cause of its enormous predominance. Looking at it now, however, we may be forced to count ourselves fortunate that our own deeply questionable culture has so far had nothing in common with the noble core of our national character. All our hopes instead reach longingly toward this perception: beneath this restless cultural life, jerking up and down, and these educational convulsions, a splendid, inwardly healthy, ancient power lies hidden. Only in momentous times does it stir with tremendous force, then it dreams again toward a future awakening. The German Reformation grew out of this depth. In its chorale the future melody of German music first sounded. Luther’s chorale sounded so deep, brave, and full of soul, so overwhelmingly good and tender, like the first beckoning Dionysian call emerging from a densely overgrown thicket as spring approaches. In an answering, competing echo came that festive procession of Dionysian enthusiasts, consecrated and exuberant. We owe German music to them—and we will owe them the rebirth of German myth!

I know that I must now lead the friend who follows sympathetically to a high place of solitary reflection, where he will have few companions. I call out to encourage him: we must hold fast to our radiant guides, the Greeks. To purify our aesthetic understanding, we have so far borrowed from them those images of two gods, each ruling a separate artistic realm. Greek tragedy has given us a sense of how they touch and strengthen each other. We had to see the destruction of Greek tragedy as caused by a remarkable tearing apart of these two original artistic drives. This process went together with a degeneration and transformation of the Greek national character, calling us to think seriously about how necessarily and closely art and the people, myth and custom, tragedy and the state, are joined at their foundations. That destruction of tragedy was also the destruction of myth. Until then the Greeks were involuntarily compelled to connect everything they experienced immediately with their myths, and indeed to understand it only through that connection. Even the immediate present therefore had to appear to them at once in the light of eternity and, in a certain sense, timeless. The state and art both immersed themselves in this stream of the timeless to find relief from the burden and greed of the moment. A people, like an individual, is worth exactly as much as its ability to stamp its experiences with eternity. In this way it is, so to speak, removed from worldliness and shows its unconscious inner conviction that time is relative and that life’s true meaning is metaphysical. The opposite happens when a people starts understanding itself historically and smashing the mythical fortifications around it. This is usually linked to a decisive turn toward worldliness, a break with the unconscious metaphysics of its former existence, with all the ethical consequences involved. Greek art, especially Greek tragedy, held back the destruction of myth above all. Art had to be destroyed too before people could cut themselves off from their native soil and live without restraint in the wilderness of thought, custom, and action. Even now, that metaphysical drive tries to create a form of transfiguration for itself, though a weakened one, in the Socratic character of science that urges people to live. But on lower levels, the same drive led only to a feverish search that gradually lost itself in a pandemonium of myths and superstitions piled up from everywhere. The Greek sat in the middle of it with his heart still unsatisfied, until he learned either to mask that fever with Greek cheerfulness and Greek frivolity, as a little Greek, or to numb himself completely in some dully stupefying Oriental superstition.

Since the reawakening of Alexandrian-Roman antiquity in the fifteenth century, after a long interlude that is hard to describe, we have come strikingly close to that condition. At the heights we find the same overflowing desire for knowledge, the same unsatisfied happiness in discovery, the same immense worldliness. Alongside it are homeless wandering, a greedy pushing toward foreign tables, a frivolous worship of the present or a dully numbed withdrawal: everything viewed from the standpoint of the age, of the “present day.” These matching symptoms suggest a matching lack at the heart of this culture: the destruction of myth. It seems almost impossible to transplant a foreign myth with lasting success without doing disastrous damage to the tree through that transplanting. Perhaps the tree may someday be strong and healthy enough to cast out that foreign element again through a terrible struggle. Usually, however, it must waste away in sickness and stunted growth, or consume itself in diseased overgrowth. We think so highly of the pure and vigorous core of German nature that we dare to expect precisely this casting out of forcibly implanted foreign elements from it, and consider it possible that the German mind will return to itself. Some may think that this mind must begin its struggle by casting out the Romance influence. They might see outward preparation and encouragement for this in the victorious bravery and bloody glory of the last war. But they must seek the inner necessity in an effort always to remain worthy of the sublime pioneers on this path: Luther as well as our great artists and poets. Yet they must never believe that they can fight such battles without their household gods, without their mythical home, without a “restoration” of everything German! If the German looks around timidly for a guide to take him back to the home long lost, whose roads and paths he hardly knows anymore, he need only listen to the delightfully beckoning call of the Dionysian bird swaying above him, wanting to show him the way there.