portions of the work to the level of definiteness with which I now feel able to speak, and with that I take leave of this book with its hopes and disappointments, its merits and its faults.
The result has in the meantime justified itself as far as I myself am concerned and — judging by the effect that it is slowly beginning to exercise upon extensive fields of learning — as far as others are concerned also. Let no one expect to find everything set forth here. It is but one side of what I see before me, a new outlook on history and the philosophy of destiny — the first indeed of its kind. It is intuitive and depictive through and through, written in a language which seeks to present objects and relations illustratively instead of offering an army of ranked concepts. It addresses itself solely to readers who are capable of living themselves into the word-sounds and pictures as they read. Difficult this undoubtedly is, particularly as our awe in face of mystery — the respect that Goethe felt — denies us the satisfaction of thinking that dissections are the same as penetrations.
Of course, the cry of “pessimism” was raised at once by those who live eternally in yesterday (Ewiggestrigen) and greet every idea that is intended for the pathfinder of to-morrow only. But I have not written for people who imagine that delving for the springs of action is the same as action itself, those who make definitions do not know destiny.
By understanding the world I mean being equal[1] to the world. It is the hard reality of living[2] that is the essential, not the concept of life, that the ostrich-philosophy of idealism propounds. Those who refuse to be bluffed by enunciations will not regard this as pessimism, and the rest do not matter. For the benefit of serious readers who are seeking a glimpse at life and not a definition, I have — in view of the far too great concentration of the text — mentioned in my notes a number of works which will carry that glance into more distant realms of knowledge.
And now, finally, I feel urged to name once more those to whom I owe practically everything: Goethe and Nietzsche. Goethe gave me method, Nietzsche the questioning faculty — and if I were asked to find a formula for my relation to the latter I should say that I had made of his “outlook” (Ausblick) an “overlook” (Überblick). But Goethe was, without knowing it, a disciple of Leibniz in his whole mode of thought. And, therefore, that which has at last (and to my own astonishment) taken shape in my hands I am able to regard and, despite the misery and disgust of these years, proud to call a German philosophy.
Blankenburg am Harz,
December, 1922
