an original unity indeed occurs between what is in the ground and what is prefigured in the understanding, and the process of creation involves only an inner transmutation or transfiguration of the initial principle of darkness into the light (because the understanding or the light placed in nature genuinely seeks in the ground only the light that is related to it and turned inward), the—by its nature—dark principle SW | 361–362 31 is exactly what is transfigured in the light, and both are, though only to a certain point, | one in each natural being. The principle, to the extent that it comes from the ground and is dark, is the self-will of creatures which, however, to the extent that it has not yet been raised to (does not grasp) complete unity with the light (as principle of understanding), is pure craving or desire, that is, blind will. The understanding as universal will stands against this self-will of creatures, using and subordinating the latter to itself as a mere instrument. But, if through advancing mutation and division of all forces, the deepest and most inner point of initial darkness in a being is finally transfigured wholly into the light, then the will of this same being is indeed, to the extent it is individual, also a truly particular will, yet, in itself or as the centrum of all other particular wills, one with the primal will or the understanding, so that now from both a single whole comes into being. This raising of the deepest centrum into light occurs in none of the creatures visible to us other than man. In man there is the whole power of the dark principle and at the same time the whole strength of the light. In him there is the deepest abyss consonantconsonance [Konsonanz] due to the deficiency of that which has been raised out of the ground. Only in man, therefore, | is the word fully proclaimed which in all other things is held back and incomplete. But spirit, that is, God as existing actu, reveals itself in the proclaimed word. In so far as the soul is now the living identity of both principles, it is spirit; and spirit is in God. Were now the identity of both principles in the spirit of 32 OA 437–439 man exactly as indissoluble as in God, then there would be no distinction, that is, God as spirit would not be revealed. The same unity that is inseverable in God must therefore be severable in man—and this is the possibility of good and evil.51 We say expressly: the possibility of evil. And we are seeking at the moment to make intelligible only the severability of the principles. The reality of evil is the object of a whole other investigation. The principle raised up from the ground of nature whereby man is separated from God is the selfhood in him which, however, through its unity with the ideal principle, becomes spirit. Selfhood as such is spirit; or man is spirit as a selfish [selbstisch], particular being (separated from God)—precisely this connection constitutes personality. Since selfhood is spirit, however, it is at the same time raised from the creaturely into what is above the creaturely; it is will that beholds itself in complete freedom, being no longer an instrument of the productive [schaffenden] universal will in nature, but rather above and outside of all nature. Spirit is above the light as in nature it raises itself above the unity of the light and the dark principle. Since it is spirit, selfhood is therefore free from both principles. Now selfhood or self-will is, however, only spirit and thus free or above nature by virtue of the fact that it is actually transformed in the primal will (the light) so that it (as self-will) indeed remains in the ground (because there must always be a ground)—just as in a transparent body the matter which has been raised to identity with the light does not for that reason cease being matter (the dark principle)—yet, it does so merely as a carrier and, as it were, receptacle of the higher principle of light. Since, however, selfhood has spirit (because this reigns over light and darkness)—if it is in fact not the spirit | of eternal love— selfhood can separate itself from the light; or self-will can strive to be as a particular will that which it only is through identity with the universal will; to be that which it only is, in so far as it remains in the centrum (just as the calm will in the quiet ground of nature is universal will precisely because it remains in the ground), also on the periphery; or as created being (for the will of creatures is admittedly outside of the ground, but it is then also mere particular will, not free but bound). For this reason there thus emerges in the will of man a separation of selfhood having become animated by spirit (since spirit is above the light) from the light, that is, a dissolution of the principles which are indissoluble in God. If, to the contrary, the self-will of man SW | 363–365 33 remains as central will in the ground so that the divine relation of the principles persists (as, namely, the will in the centrum of nature never elevates itself over the light but remains under the latter as a base in the ground), and if, instead of the spirit of dissension that wants to separate the particular from the general principle, the spirit of love prevails in it, then the will is in divine form [Art] and order. But that precisely this elevation of self-will is evil is clarified by the following. The will that steps out from its being beyond nature [das Übernatürliche], in order as general will to make itself at once particular and creaturely, strives to reverse the relation of the principles, to elevate the ground over the cause, to use the spirit that it obtained only for the sake of the centrum outside the centrum and against creatures; from this results collapse [Zerrüttung] within the will itself and outside it. The human will is to be regarded as a bond of living forces; now, as long as it remains in unity with the universal will, these same forces exist in divine measure and balance. But no sooner than self-will itself moves from the centrum as its place, so does the bond of forces as well; in its stead rules a mere particular will that can no longer bring the forces to unity among themselves as the original will could and, thus, must strive to put together or form its own peculiar life from the forces that have moved apart from one another, an indignant host of desires and appetites (since each | individual force is also a craving and appetite), this being possible in so far as the first bond of forces, the first ground of nature itself, persists even in evil. But since there can indeed be no true life like that which could exist only in the original relation, a life emerges which, though individual, is, however, false, a life of mendacity, a growth of restlessness and decay. The most fitting comparison here is offered by disease which, as the disorder having arisen in nature through the misuse of freedom, is the true counterpart of evil or sin. Universal disease never exists without the hidden forces of the ground having broken out [sich auftun]: it emerges when the irritable principle, which is supposed to rule as the innermost bond of forces in the quiet of the depths, activates [aktuiert] itself; or when aroused Archaeus leaves his peaceful dwelling in the centrum and steps into his surroundings.52 Just as, by contrast, all original healing consists in the reconstruction of the relation of the periphery to the centrum, and the transition from disease to health can in fact only occur through its opposite, namely through restoration of the separate and individual life into the being’s inner glimpse of light, from which 34 OA 440–443 * In the treatise, “On the Assertion that There Can Be No Wicked Use of Reason,” in the Morgenblatt, 1807, No. 197, and in “On | Solids and Liquids,” in the Annuals of Medicine as Science, vol. III, No. 2. Let the relevant comment at the end of this latter treatise, at p. 203, be set out here for comparison and further explanation: “Here common fire (as wild, consuming, painful heat) provides instructive clarification [Aufschluß] as opposed to the socalled organic, beneficial heat of life; since in the latter fire and water come together in a (growing) ground or conjunction while in the former they disperse in discord. Now, neither fire nor water existed as such, however, i.e. as separate spheres in the organic process, rather the former existed as centrum (mysterium), the latter openly or as periphery in it, and precisely the unlocking, raising, igniting of the first together with the closing up of the second gave disease and death. Thus, in general, I-hood, individuality is now admittedly the basis, foundation or natural centrum of any creature’s life; but as soon as it ceases to be the serving centrum and enters as ruling into the periphery, it burns in I-hood as the selfish and egotistical rage (of enflamed I-hood) of Tantalus. From now comes —that is: in one single place of the planetary system this dark centrum of nature is closed up, latent, and for that very reason serves as a carrier of light for the entry of the higher system (illumination or revelation of the ideal). For that very reason this place is thus the open point (sun—heart—eye) in the system and, if the dark centrum of nature were also to raise or open itself there, then the light point would eo ipso close itself up, light would become darkness in the system or the sun would be extinguished!” restoration division [Krisis] once again proceeds. Even particular disease emerges only because that which has its freedom or life only so that it may remain in the whole strives to be for itself. As disease is admittedly nothing having inherent being [nichts Wesenhaftes], really only an apparent picture of life and merely a meteoric appearance of it—an oscillation between Being and non-Being—yet announces itself nevertheless as something very real to feeling, so it is with evil. In more recent times Franz Baader especially has emphasized this concept of evil, the only correct one, according to which evil resides in a positive perversion or reversal of the principles, and has explained this through profound analogies, in particular, that of disease.* | All other explanations of evil leave the understanding and moral consciousness equally unsatisfied. They all rest fundamentally on the annihilation of evil as a positive opposite and on the reduction SW | 366–367 35 * Tentam. Theod. Opp. T. I, p. 136. ¶ Ibid., p. 240. ‡ Ibid., p. 387. § In this connection it is remarkable that it was not first the scholastics but already several among the earlier fathers of the church, most notably, St. of evil to the so-called malum metaphysicum [metaphysical evil] or the negating concept of the imperfection of creatures. It was impossible, says Leibniz, that God conferred on man all perfections without making man himself into God. The same is valid for created beings in general; for that reason various degrees of perfection and all manner of limitation pertaining to them had to occur. If one asks from whence comes evil, the answer is: from the ideal nature of creatures to the extent that it depends on the eternal truths that are contained in the divine understanding, but not on the will of God. The region of the divine truths is the ideal cause of good and evil and must be posited in place of the | matter of the ancients.* Yet, there are, he says in another spot, two principles, both however in God; these are the understanding and will. The understanding yields the principle of evil, although it does not thereby become evil itself, for it represents natures as they are in accordance with the eternal truths: it contains in itself the ground that permits evil, but the will alone is directed toward the good.¶ God did not bring about this sole possibility since the understanding cannot be its own cause.‡,53 If this differentiation of the understanding and will as two principles in God, whereby the first possibility of evil is made independent of the divine will, accords with the richness of this man’s way of thinking, and if even the idea of understanding (of divine wisdom) as something in which God is passive rather than active alludes to something more profound, evil nonetheless—as can be derived from any purely ideal ground— amounts once again to something merely passive, to limitation, lack, deprivation, concepts that are in complete conflict with the actual nature of evil. For the simple reflection that only man, the most complete of all visible creatures, is capable of evil, shows already that the ground of evil could not in any way lie in lack or deprivation. The devil, according to the Christian point of view, was not the most limited creature, but rather the least limited one.§,54 Imperfection in the general | metaphysical sense is not the common character of evil, since evil often shows itself united with an excellence of individual 36 OA 444–446 Augustine, who posited evil as mere privation. Especially noteworthy is the passage in contr. Jul. L.I, C.III: Quaerunt ex nobis, unde sit malum? Respondemus ex bono, sed non summo, ex bonis igitur orta sunt mala. Mala enim omnia participant ex bono, merum enim et ex omni parte tali dari repugnat.—Haud vero difficulter omnia expediet, qui conceptum mali semel recte formaverit, eumque semper defectum aliquem involvere attenderit, perfectionem autem omnimodum incommunicabiliter possidere Deum; neque magis possibile | esse, creaturam illimitatam adeoque independentem creari, quam creari alium Deum. * Tentam. Theod. P. 242. forces, which far more rarely accompanies the good. The ground of evil must lie, therefore, not only in something generally positive but rather in that which is most positive in what nature contains, as is actually the case in our view, since it lies in the revealed centrum or primal will of the first ground. Leibniz tries in every way to make comprehensible how evil could arise from natural deficiency. The will, he says, strives for the good in general and must demand perfection whose highest measure is God; if the will remains entangled in sensual lust to the detriment of higher goods, precisely this deficiency of further striving is the privation in which evil consists. Otherwise, he thinks, evil requires a special principle as little as do cold or darkness. What is affirmative in evil comes to it only as accompaniment like force and causal efficacy come to cold: freezing water bursts the strongest containing vessel, and yet cold really consists in the reduction of movement.* Because, however, deprivation in itself is absolutely nothing and, in order to be noticeable, needs something positive in which it appears, the difficulty arises as to how to explain the positive that nevertheless must be assumed to exist in evil. Since Leibniz can derive the latter only from God, he sees himself compelled to make God the cause of the material aspect of sin and to ascribe only the formal aspect of sin to the original limitation of creatures. He seeks to explain this relation through the concept of the natural inertia of matter discovered by Kepler. He says that this is the complete picture of an original limitation in creatures (which precedes all action). If two different objects of unequal mass are set in | motion at unequal speeds by the same impetus, the ground for slowness of movement in one lies not in the impetus but in the tendency to inertia innate to, and characteristic of, matter, that is, in the inner SW | 368–370 37 * Ibid., P. I. § 30. ¶ For the same reason, every other explanation of finitude, for example, from the concept of relations, must be inadequate for the explanation of evil. Evil does not come from finitude in itself but from finitude raised up to Being as a self. limitation or imperfection of matter.*,55 But, in this regard, it is to be noted that inertia itself cannot be thought of as a mere deprivation, but actually as something positive, namely as expression of the internal selfhood of the body, the force whereby it seeks to assert its independence. We do not deny that metaphysical finitude can be made comprehensible in this way, but we deny that finitude for itself is evil.¶ This manner of explanation arises generally from the lifeless concept of the positive according to which only privation can oppose it. But there is still an intermediate concept that forms a real opposition to it and stands far removed from the concept of the merely negated. This concept arises from the relation of the whole to the individual, from unity to multiplicity, or however one wants to express it. The positive is always the whole or unity; that which opposes unity is severing of the whole, disharmony, ataxia of forces. The same elements are in the severed whole that were in the cohesive whole; that which is material in both is the same (from this perspective, evil is not more limited or worse than the good), but the formal aspect of the two is totally different, though this formal aspect still comes precisely from the essence or the positive itself. Hence it is necessary that a kind of being be in evil as well as in good, but in the former as that which is opposed to the good, that which perverts the temperance contained in the good into distemperance.56 To recognize this kind of being is impossible for dogmatic philosophy because it has no concept of personality, that is, of selfhood raised to spirit, but rather only | the abstract concepts of finite and infinite. If, for that reason, someone wished to reply that, indeed, precisely disharmony is privation, namely a deprivation of unity, then the concept in itself would be nonetheless inadequate, even if the general concept of deprivation included that of abolishment or division of unity. For it is not the division of forces that is in itself disharmony, but rather their false unity that can be called a division only in relation to true unity. If unity is totally abolished, then conflict is abolished along with it. Disease is ended by death; and no single tone in itself amounts to disharmony. 38 OA 447–450 But just to explain this false unity requires something positive that must thus necessarily be assumed in evil but will remain inexplicable as long as no root of freedom is recognized in the independent ground of nature. As far as we can judge, it will be better to speak of the question concerning the reality of evil from the Platonic viewpoint. The notions of our era, which treats this point far more lightly and pushes its philanthropism [Philanthropismus] to the brink of denying evil, have not the most distant connection to such ideas. According to these notions, the sole ground of evil lies in sensuality or animality, or in the earthly principle, as they do not oppose heaven with hell, as is fitting, but with the earth. This notion is a natural consequence of the doctrine according to which freedom consists in the mere rule of the intelligent principle over sensual desires and tendencies, and the good comes from pure reason; accordingly, it is understandable that there is no freedom for evil (in so far as sensual tendencies predominate)— to speak more correctly, however, evil is completely abolished. For the weakness or ineffectualness of the principle of understanding can indeed be a ground for the lack of good and virtuous actions, yet it cannot be a ground of positively evil ones and those adverse to virtue. But, on the supposition that sensuality or a passive attitude to external impressions | may bring forth evil actions with a sort of necessity, then man himself would surely only be passive in these actions; that is, evil viewed in relation to his own actions, thus subjectively, would have no meaning; and since that which follows from a determination of nature also cannot be objectively evil, evil would have no meaning at all. That it is said, however, that the rational principle is inactive in evil, is in itself also no argument [Grund]. For why does the rational principle then not exercise its power? If it wants to be inactive, the ground of evil lies in this volition and not in sensuality. Or if it cannot overcome the resisting power of sensuality in any way, then here is merely weakness and inadequacy but nowhere evil. In accordance with this explanation, there is hence only one will (if it can otherwise be called that), not a dual will; and, in this respect, since the names of the Arians, among others, have fortunately been introduced into philosophical criticism, one could name the adherents of this view Monotheletes, using a name also taken from church history, although in another sense. As it is, however, in no way the intelligent or light principle in itself that is active in the good, SW | 371–372 39 * In the treatise cited above in the Morgenblatt 1807, p. 786. ¶ St. Augustine says against emanation: nothing other than God can come from God’s substance; hence, creatures are created from nothingness, from whence comes their corruptibility and inadequacy (de lib. Arb. L. I, C. 2). This nothingness has been a crux for understanding for a long time now. A scriptural expression gives a hint: man is created ek t¯on m¯e ont¯on, from that which does not exist, just like the celebrated m¯e on of the ancients, which like the creation from nothingness, might receive for the first time a positive meaning through the above-noted distinction. but rather this principle connected to selfhood, that is, having been raised to spirit, then, in the very same way, evil does not follow from the principle of finitude for itself but rather from the selfish or dark principle having been brought into intimacy with the centrum; and, just as there is an enthusiasm for the good, there is a spiritedness [Begeisterung] of evil.57 Indeed, this dark principle is active in animals as well as in all other natural beings, yet it is still not born into the light in them as it is in man: it is not spirit and understanding but blind craving and desire; in short, no fall, no separation of principles is possible here where there is still no absolute or personal unity. The conscious and not conscious are unified in animal instinct only in a certain and determinate way which for that very reason is unalterable. For just on that account, because they are only relative expressions of unity, they are subject to it, and the force active in the ground retains the unity of principles befitting them always in the same proportion. Animals are never able to emerge | from unity, whereas man can voluntarily tear apart the eternal bond of forces. Hence, Fr. Baader is right to say it would be desirable that the corruption in man were only to go as far as his becoming animal [Tierwerdung]; unfortunately, however, man can stand only below or above animals.* We have sought to derive the concept and possibility of evil from first principles and to discover the general foundation of this doctrine, which lies in the distinction between that which exists and that which is the ground for existence.¶ But the possibility does not yet include the reality, and this is in fact the main object in question. And, indeed, what needs to be explained is not, for instance, how evil becomes actual in individuals, but rather its universal activity [Wirksamkeit] or how it was able to break out of creation as an unmistakably general principle everywhere locked in struggle with the good. 40 OA 451–453 * Would that this be elucidated by the incisive exegete of Plato or still sooner by the sturdy Bockh who has already given rise to the best hopes in this respect through his occasional comments on Platonic harmonics and through the announcement of his edition of the Timaeus. Since it is undeniably real, at least as general opposite, there can indeed be no doubt from the outset that it was necessary for the revelation of God; exactly this results from what has been previously said as well. For, if God as spirit is the inseverable unity of both principles, and this same unity is only real in the spirit of man, then, if the principles were just as indissoluble in him as in God, man would not be distinguishable from God at all; he would disappear in God, and there would be no revelation and motility of love. For every essence can only reveal itself in its opposite, love only in hate, unity in conflict. Were there no severing of principles, unity could not prove | its omnipotence; were there no discord, love could not become real [wirklich]. Man is placed on that summit where he has in himself the source of self-movement toward good or evil in equal portions: the bond of principles in him is not a necessary but rather a free one. Man stands on the threshold [Scheidepunkt]; whatever he chooses, it will be his act: but he cannot remain undecided because God must necessarily reveal himself and because nothing at all can remain ambiguous in creation. Nonetheless, it seems that he also may not be able to step out of his indecision exactly because this is what it is. That is why there must be a general ground of solicitation, of temptation to evil, even if it were only to make both principles come to life in man, that is, to make him aware of the principles. Now it appears that the solicitation to evil itself can only come from an evil fundamental being [Grundwesen], and the assumption that there is such a being seems nonetheless unavoidable; it also appears that that interpretation of Platonic matter is completely correct according to which matter is originally a kind of being that resists God and for that reason is an evil being in itself.58 As long as this part of the Platonic teaching remains in darkness, as it has until now,* a definite judgment about this issue is, however, impossible. The preceding reflections clarify in which sense, nonetheless, one could say of the irrational principle that it resists the understanding or unity and order without supposing it to be an evil fundamental being on that account. In this way one is likely able to explain the Platonic phrase that evil comes from SW | 373–374 41 ancient nature. For all evil strives back into chaos, that is, back into that state in which the initial centrum had not yet been subordinated to the light and is a welling up in the centrum of a yearning still without understanding. Yet we have proven once and for all that evil as such could only arise in creatures in so far as light and darkness or | both principles can be unified in a severable manner only in them. The initial fundamental being can never be evil in itself because there is no duality of principles in it. But we also cannot presuppose something like a created spirit which, having fallen itself, tempted man to fall, for the question here is exactly how evil first arose in creatures. Hence, we are given nothing else toward an explanation of evil aside from both principles in God. God as spirit (the eternal bond of both) is the purest love: there can never be a will to evil in love just as little as in the ideal principle. But God himself requires a ground so that he can exist; but only a ground that is not outside but inside him and has in itself a nature which, although belonging to him, is yet also different from him. The will of love and the will of the ground are two different wills, of which each exists for itself; but the will of love cannot withstand the will of the ground, nor abolish it because it would then have to oppose itself. For the ground must be active so that love may exist, and it must be active independently of love so that love may really exist. If love now wanted to break the will of the ground, it would be struggling against itself, would be at odds with itself and would no longer be love. This letting the ground be active is the only conceivable concept of permission that in the usual reference to man is completely unacceptable. Thus the will of the ground admittedly also cannot break love nor does it demand this, although it often seems to; for it must be particular and a will of its own, one turned away from love, so that love, when it nonetheless breaks through the will of the ground, as light through darkness, may now appear in its omnipotence. The ground is only a will to revelation, but precisely in order for the latter to exist, it must call forth particularity and opposition. The will of love and that of the ground become one, therefore, exactly because they are separate and each acts for itself from the beginning on. That is why the will of the ground already arouses the self-will of creatures in the first creation, so that when spirit now appears as the will of | love, the latter finds something resistant in which it can realize itself. The sight of nature as a whole convinces us that this arousal has occurred by which means alone all life first reached the final degree 42 OA 454–456 * Thus the close connection that the imagination of all peoples, especially all fables and religions of the east, makes between the snake and evil is certainly not an idle one. The complete development of the auxiliary organs, which has reached its highest point in man, indeed already suggests the will’s independence from desires or a relation of centrum and periphery that is really the only healthy one, since the former has stepped back into its freedom and sobriety, having removed itself from what is simply (peripheral or) instrumental. Where, to the contrary, the auxiliary organs are not developed | or completely lacking, there the centrum has walked into the periphery; or it is the circle without a middle point in the comment to the above-mentioned citation from Fr. Baader. of distinctiveness and definiteness. The irrational and contingent, which show themselves to be bound to that which is necessary in the formation of beings, especially the organic ones, prove that it is not merely a geometric necessity that has been active here, but rather that freedom, spirit and self-will were also in play. Indeed, everywhere where there is appetite and desire, there is already in itself a sort of freedom; and no one will believe that desire, which determines the ground of every particular natural being, and the drive to preserve oneself not in general but in this defined existence, are added on to an already created being, but rather that they are themselves that which creates. The empirically discovered concept of the basis [Basis], which will assume a significant role for the entire science of nature, [if] acknowledged scientifically, also must lead to a concept of selfhood and I-hood.59 But in nature there are contingent determinations only explicable in terms of an arousal of the irrational or dark principle in creatures—in terms of activated selfhood—having occurred already in the first creation. Whence unmistakable signs of evil in nature, alongside preformed moral relationships, if the power of evil was only aroused by man; whence appearances which, even without regard to their dangerousness for man, nonetheless arouse a general, natural abhorrence?* That all organic beings advance toward | dissolution absolutely cannot appear to be an original necessity; the bond of forces that defines life could be just as indissoluble according to its nature, and if anything, a created being, which has restored what has become lacking in it through its own strength, appears destined to be a perpetuum mobile. Evil, in the meantime, announces itself in nature only through its effects; it can SW | 375–377 43 itself break through only in its immediate appearance at the endpoint [am Ziel] of nature. For, as in the initial creation, which is nothing other than the birth of light, the dark principle had to be as ground so that the light could be raised out of it (as from mere potency to actuality), 60 so there must be another ground of the birth of spirit and, hence, a second principle of darkness that must be just as much higher than the first as spirit is higher than the light. This principle is the very spirit of evil that has been awoken in creation by arousal of the dark ground of nature, that is, the turning against each other [Entzweiung] of light and darkness, to which the spirit of love opposes now a higher ideal, just as the light had done previously in regard to the anarchic movement of initial nature. For, just as selfhood in evil had made the light or the word its own and for that reason appears precisely as a higher ground of darkness, so must the word spoken in the world in opposition to evil assume humanity or selfhood and become personal itself. This occurs alone through revelation, in the most definitive meaning of the word, which must have the same stages as the first manifestation in nature; namely so that here too the highest summit of revelation is man, but the archetypical [urbildlich] and divine man who was with God in the beginning and in whom all other things and man himself are created. The birth of spirit is the realm of history as the birth of light is the realm of nature. The same periods of creation | which are in the latter are also in the former; and one is the likeness and explanation of the other. The same principle, which was the ground in the first creation, only in a higher form, is here also the germ and seed from which a higher world is developed. For evil is surely nothing other than the primal ground [Urgrund] of existence to the extent this ground strives toward actuality in created beings and therefore is in fact only the higher potency of the ground active in nature. But, just as the latter is forever only ground, without being itself, precisely on this account evil can never become real and serves only as ground so that the good, developing out of the ground on its own strength, may be through its ground independent and separate from God who has and recognizes himself in this good which, as such (as independent), is in him. But, as the undivided power of the initial ground comes to be recognized only in man as the inner aspect (basis or centrum) of an individual, so in history as well evil at first remains latent in the ground, and an era of innocence 44 OA 457–460 or unconsciousness about sin precedes the era of guilt and sin. In the same way, namely, as the initial ground of nature was active alone perhaps for a long time and attempted a creation for itself with the divine powers it contained, a creation which, however, again and again (because the bond of love was missing) sank back into chaos (perhaps indicated by the series of species that perished and did not return prior to the present creation), until the word of love issued forth [erging]61 and with it enduring creation made its beginning, likewise, the spirit of love also did not immediately reveal itself in history, but rather, because God perceived the will of the ground as the will for his revelation and, according to his providential vision, recognized that a ground independent from him (as spirit) would have to be the ground for his existence, he let the ground be active in its independence; or, expressed in another way, he set himself in motion only in accordance with his nature and not in accordance with his heart or with love. Because the ground now held the whole of the divine being in itself as well, only not as unity, only individual divine | beings could preside over this being-active-for-itself [Für-sich-wirken] of the ground. This primeval [uralt] time begins thus with the golden age of which only a frail memory in legend remains for modern mankind, a time of blessed indecision in which there was neither good nor evil; then there followed the time of the presiding gods and heroes or the omnipotence of nature in which the ground showed what for itself it had the capacity to do.62 At that time understanding and wisdom came to men only from the depths; the power of oracles flowing forth from the earth led and shaped their lives; all divine forces of the ground dominated the earth and sat as powerful princes on secure thrones. This appeared to be the time of the greatest exaltation of nature in the visible beauty of the gods and in all the brilliance of art and profound [sinnreich] science until the principle active in the ground finally emerged as a world-conquering principle to subordinate everything to itself and establish a stable and enduring world empire. Because, however, the being of the ground can never generate for itself true and complete unity, there comes the time when all this magnificence dissolves and, as if by a terrible sickness, the beautiful body of the previous world collapses and chaos finally emerges once again. Already prior to this, and before complete collapse has set in, the presiding powers in this whole assume the nature of evil spirits SW | 378–379 45 just as the same forces, which in healthy times were beneficial guardians of life, become malignant and poisonous in nature as dissolution approaches; the belief in gods vanishes and a false magic, complete with incantations and theurgic formulas, strives to call the fleeing ones back and to mollify the evil spirits. The attractive force of the ground shows itself ever more determinately; anticipating [vorempfindend] the coming light, the ground in advance thrusts all forces out of indecision to meet the light in full conflict. As a thunderstorm is caused in a mediated way by the sun but immediately by an opposing force of the earth, so is the spirit of evil (whose meteoric nature we have already explained earlier) aroused by the approach of the good not through a sharing but rather by a spreading out of forces. Hence, only in connection with the decisive | emergence of the good, does evil also emerge quite decisively and as itself [als dieses] (not as if it only first arose then, but rather because the opposition is now first given in which it alone can appear complete and as such), [just] as, in turn, the very moment when the earth becomes for the second time desolate and empty becomes the moment of birth for the higher light of the spirit that was in the world from the very beginning, but not comprehended by the darkness acting for itself, and in a yet closed and limited revelation; and, in order to counter personal and spiritual evil, the light of the spirit in fact appears likewise in the shape of a human person and as a mediator in order to reestablish the rapport between God and creation at the highest level. For only what is personal can heal what is personal, and God must become man so that man may return to God.63 The possibility of being saved (of salvation) is restored only through the reestablished relation of the ground to God. Its beginning is a condition of clairvoyance which, through divine imposition, befalls individuals (as the organs chosen for this purpose), a time of signs and miracles in which divine forces counteract everywhere emergent demonic ones and mollifying unity counteracts the dispersion of forces. Finally a crisis ensues in the turba gentium [tumult of peoples] that overflows the foundations of the ancient world, just as once the waters of the beginning covered the creations of the primeval time [Urzeit] again in order to make a second creation possible—a new division of peoples and tongues, a new empire in which the living word enters as a stable and constant centrum in the struggle against chaos, and a conflict declared between 46 OA 461–463 * One should compare this whole section with the author’s Lectures on the Method of Academic Study, VIII. “Lecture on the Historical Construction of Christianity.” good and evil begins, continuing on to the end of the present time, in which God reveals himself as spirit, that is, as actu real.* Hence, there is a general evil which, if not exactly of the beginning, is first awoken in the original revelation of God by the reaction | of the ground; a general evil which, though it never becomes real, yet continually strives toward that end. Only after coming to know general evil is it possible to grasp good and evil in man. If, namely, evil already has been aroused in the first creation, and through the ground’s being-active-for-itself was developed finally into a general principle, then a natural propensity [Hang] of man to do evil seems to be explicable on that basis because the disorder of forces engaged by awakening of self-will in creatures already communicates itself to them at birth. Yet the ground continues to be incessantly active in individuals as well and arouses individuality [Eigenart] and the particular will precisely so that the will of love may appear in contrast. God’s will is to universalize everything, to raise everything up toward unity with the light or keep it there; the will of the ground, however, is to particularize everything or to make it creaturely. The will wants difference [Ungleichheit] only so that identity [Gleichheit] can become perceptible to itself and to the will. For that reason the will reacts necessarily against freedom as that which is above the creaturely and awakes in freedom the appetite for what is creaturely just as he who is seized by dizziness on a high and steep summit seems to be beckoned to plunge downward by a hidden voice; or, according to the ancient legend, the irresistible song of the sirens reverberates from the depths in order to drag the passing sailor into the maelstrom. The connection of the general will with a particular will in man seems already in itself a contradiction, the unification of which is difficult if not impossible. The fear of life itself drives man out of the centrum into which he was created64: for this centrum, as the purest essence of all willing, is for each particular will a consuming fire; in order to be able to live within it the man of all particularity must become extinct [absterben], which is why the attempt to step out of this center into the periphery is almost necessary in order to seek there some calm SW | 380–381 47 for his selfhood. Hence, the general necessity of sin and death as the actual extinction of particularity through which all human will as a fire must cross in order to be purified.65 Notwithstanding this general | necessity, evil remains always an individual’s own choice; the ground cannot make evil as such, and every creature falls due to its own guilt. But just how in each individual the decision for good or evil might now proceed—this is still shrouded in complete darkness and seems to demand a specific investigation. We have generally focused up to this point less on the formal essence of freedom, although insight into it seems to be strapped with no less difficulty than explication of the real concept of freedom. For the common concept of freedom, according
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