1  an ethics. Because in the future all of metaphysics will be subsumed in morality - of which

2  Kant with his two practical postulates only gave an

3  exhausting nothing) therefore this ethics will be <contain> nothing other than a complete system

4  of all ideas, or, what amounts to the same, of all practical postulates.

5  the first idea is of course the image of myself, as an absolutely

6  free being. Along with the free, self-conscious being

7  a whole world emerges - out of nothingness - the only true and

8  conceivable creatio ex nihilo - here I will descend onto the fields of physics;

9  the question is as follows: how does a world have to be created to suit a moral being?

10  I would like to give wings once again to our slow physics,

11  which labors along, supported by experiments.

12  So - if philosophy supplies the ideas and experience the data,

13  then we can finally obtain the physics on a grand scale, which I expect

14  from future ages. It does not seem as if physics nowadays

15  can satisfy a creative spirit like ours, or like ours should be.

16  From nature I proceed to what is created by human beings. the idea of mankind

17  assumed - I want to show that there is no idea of the state, because

18  the state is something mechanical, just like there is no idea of a machine.

19  Only that which is an object of freedom is called idea. Therefore we also have to

20  transcend the state ! - For every state must treat free human beings

21  like mechanical cogwheels; and it should not; therefore it has to cease to exist.

22  You see on your own that here all ideas, of an eternal peace etc.

23  are only subordinate ideas of a higher idea. At the same time I want to

24  lay down here the principles for a history of mankind, and expose unto the skin all of the decrepit

25  creations of human beings, the state, constitution, government.

26  Finally I get to the ideas of a moral world,

27  a godhead, immortality - to toppling all  <superstition> credulity, to persecuting

28  the priesthood, which recently has started to feign a belief in reason, with the means of reason itself.

29  - <the> absolute freedom of all spirits, who carry the intellectual world in themselves,

30/31  and who must not seek either god or immortality outside of themselves.

32  Last the idea which unites all others, the idea of beauty, the word

33  understood in a higher platonic sense. I am now convinced that

34  the highest act of reason, that in which [reason] comprises all ideas,

35  is an aesthetic act, and that truth and benevolence (1) are related only in beauty -

36  The philosopher has to have just as much aesthetic power
 
 
 

(verso)
 

1  as the poet. those human beings who lack aesthetic sense are our LetterPhilosophers.

2  The philosophy of spirit is an aesthetic philosophy [.] <M> In nothing

3  can one be rich in spirit < , > even about history one cannot

4  reason rich in spirit - without aesthetic sense. Here shall be revealed,

5  what these people properly are missing, who don't understand ideas, - and who

6  confess ingenuously enough that for them whatever goes beyond tables

7  and registers remains in the dark.

8  Due to this, poetry attains a higher dignity, in the end

9  it becomes again what it was in the beginning - teacher of <the history of> mankind:

10  for there is no more philosophy, no more history, poetry alone

11  will survive all other sciences and arts.

12  At the same time we hear so often that the populace has to have a religion of the senses.

13  Not only the populace, the philosopher, too, needs it.

14  Monotheism of reason and the heart, polytheism of the imagination

15  and art, that is what we need!

16  First I will here speak of an idea, which, as far as I know,

17  has not occurred to anyone - we must have a new mythology,

18  but this mythology has to serve ideas, it has

19  to become a mythology of reason.

20  Before we make ideas aesthetic, i.e. mythological, they are of no interest to

21  the people and conversely the philosopher has to be

22  ashamed of mythology before it has become reasonable. So the enlightened and the unenlightened finally

23  have to shake hands, mythology has to become philosophical, and

24  the people reasonable, and philosophy has to become mythological

25  to give senses to the philosophers. then eternal unity will rule among us.

26  Nevermore the disdainful look, nevermore the blind trembling of the people in front of its

27  sages and priests. then only we can expect equal development

28  of all powers, [the powers of] the individual as well as of all beings (2)< , >.  No power

29  will then be suppressed any more, then general freedom and equality

30  of spirits will rule ! - A higher spirit, sent from heaven, has to

31  found this new religion among us, it will be the last, greatest creation

32 of mankind.
--

Notes:

(1) 'truth and benevolence': or goodness (though not 'the good', even though this is clearly drawing on the Platonic triad of the good, the true, and the beautiful).

(2) 'beings': "Individuen" - would include animals, but also carries the sense of an individual human being as linked to other individuals in a state; the formal, bureaucratic use of the word 'Individuum' in reference to a person as a legal entity has resulted in an almost completely negative connotation of the word in present - day German.

Mythologie der Vernunft.  Hegels >ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus<.
Ed. Christoph Jamme and Helmut Schneider.  Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1984.