Philosophy as a way of life

The eternal adornment,

And since it pleases me,

I please myself as well.

You, my happy eyes: ·

Whatever you have seen,

Be it what it may,

It certainly was beautiful.71•

In his work on Winckelmann, Goethe presents this wonderstruck consent to being - to the being of the entire cosmos - as characteristic of the ancient soul.

If man feels at home in the world as within an All, an All which is great, beautiful, noble and precious; if the pleasure of living in harmony with this All gives him a pure, free delight, then the universe - if it could be conscious of itself - would exult with joy; it would have attained its goal, and would be amazed at this summit of its becoming and its being. After all, what good is all this profligate abundance of suns, planets, moons, stars, Milky Ways, comets, nebula, worlds in the process of becoming and which have come to be, if, when all is said and done, one happy man does not rejoice, unconsciously, in his own existence?77

When Goethe says "unconsciously," he means that the reasons why people may be happy, and may be in harmony with the universe, arc unknown and completely incomprehensible to them. Here we come across another case of the "unexplorable," 78 to use one of Goethe's favorite expressions. Y ct the innocent joy of existing, and the spontaneous, unrcflccting pleasure which living beings take in existence, arc an original phenomenon which reveals the presence of 1m uncxplorahlc my11tcry: "The child iN plcni;cd by l ht• cnkc,

"Only the Present is our Happiness "

235

without knowing anything about the pastry-cook; and starlings like cherries, without them stopping to think about where they came from." 79

We again find this "yes" to the world and consent to being in the following passage from Nietzsche, whatever reservations about it he himself may have had: Let us assume we say "Yes!" to one single, unique moment: we have thus said yes, not only to ourselves, but to the whole of existence. For nothing is isolated, neither in ourselves nor in things. And if, even once, our soul has vibrated and resounded like a string with happiness, all eternity was necessary to create the conditions for this one event; and all eternity has been approved, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.80

Not long ago, Georges Friedmann courageously denounced the tragic lack of balance which has come about in the modern world between "power" and

"wisdom." 81 If we have chosen here to present some aspects of one of the fundamental themes of the European spiritual tradition, it was not in order to satisfy some historical or literary curiosity, but to describe a spiritual attitude: an attitude which, for ourselves and for modern man in general, hypnotized as we arc by language, images, information, and the myth of the future, seemed to us to provide one of the best means of access to this wisdom, so misunderstood and yet so necessary. The call of Socrates speaks to us more now than ever before: "Take care for yourself." 82 This call is echoed by Nietzsche's remark: "Is it not the case that all human institutions"

- to which we might add: "as well as the whole of modern life'' - are intended to prevent mankind from feeling their life, by means of the constant dispersion of their thoughts?" 83

NOTES

I Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, 938 1 .

2 Ibid, 4685.

3 Ibid, 6487-500.

4 Ibid, 9370.

5 Ibid, 94 1 9.

6 Ibid, 9377-84.

7 Ibid, 941 1 - 1 8.

8 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to Zclter of October 19, I 829, in Goethes Briefe, ed. K.R. Mandelkow, Munich 1 967, vol. 4, p. 346.

9 "Book of the Cup-Bearer" ("Das Schenkenbuch"), in Goethes Werke, Hamburger Ausgabe (hereafter HA), vol. 2, p. 94.

10 0. Spengler, Der Unterga11g des Abendlandes, Munich 1 923, vol. I, p. 1 1 .

1 1 J . I lin1 ikka, Timr a11tl Necessity, Oxford, 1 973, p. 86.

1 2 S. Mon•ni, /Jir 7.t111ber_/liite, M unster, 1 952, p. 89.

236

Themes

13 Cicero, Dt finibus, I, 18, S9.

14 Ibid, I, 18, 60.

15 Seneca, Letters to Lu,ilius, I S, 9.

16 Epicurus, fr. 240, p. S67 Arrighetti = Stobaeus vol. ill, 17, 22 Hense.

17 Cicero, Dt finibus, I, 19, 63.

18 Epicurus, Ratat Smtentiat, 1 9, p. 1 27 Arrighetti.

19 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 14, 27.

20 Aristotle, Ni,homa,hean Ethfrs, 10, 3, 1 1 74a1 7ff; cf. H.-J. Kramer, Platonismus und hel/misti1'he Philosoph�, Berlin/New York 1 97 1 , pp. 1 88fT.

2 1 J.M. Guyau, La morale d'Epfrure, Paris 1 927, pp. l 12fT.

22 Horace, Otks, 2, 16, 2Sf.

23 Epicurus, Gnomologi,um Vatfranum §14, p. 1 43 Arrighetti.

24 Horace, Otks, I, 1 1 , 7.

2S Horace, Lt11er, I, 4, 1 3.

26 Cf. M. Gigante, Rfrhmhe Filodemee, Naples 1 983, pp. 181, 2 1 S-16.

27 Lucretius, On the Nature of T/1ings, 1033-6.