The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 07: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
Philosophy
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 07: Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
I will endeavor to make what has been said more vivid and clear by
examples. The building of a house is, in the first instance, a
subjective aim and design. On the other hand we have, as means, the
several substances required for the work--iron, wood, stones. The
elements are made use of in working up this material--fire to melt the
iron, wind to blow the fire, water to set the wheels in motion in order
to cut the wood, etc. The result is that the wind, which has helped to
build the house, is shut out by the house; so also are the violence of
rains and floods and the destructive powers of fire, so far as the house
is made fire-proof. The stones and beams obey the law of gravity--press
downward--and so high walls are carried up. Thus the elements are made
use of in accordance with their nature, and yet are made to coöperate
for a product by which their operation is limited. It is thus that the
passions of men are gratified; they develop themselves and their aims in
accordance with their natural tendencies and build up the edifice of
human society, thus fortifying a position for Right and Order _against
themselves_.
The connection of events above indicated involves also the fact that, in
history, an additional result is commonly produced by human actions
beyond what they aim at and obtain what they immediately recognize and
desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is
thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not
present to their consciousness and not included in their design. An
analogous example is offered in the case of a man who, from a feeling of
revenge--perhaps not an unjust one, but produced by injury on the
other's part--burns that other man's house. A connection is immediately
established between the deed itself, taken abstractly, and a train of
circumstances not directly included in it. In itself it consisted in
merely bringing a small flame into contact with a small portion of a
beam. Events not involved in that simple act follow of themselves. The
part of the beam which was set afire is connected with its remote
portions, the beam itself is united with the woodwork of the house
generally, and this with other houses, so that a wide conflagration
ensues which destroys the goods and chattels of many other persons
besides those belonging to the person against whom the act of revenge
was first directed, perhaps even costs not a few men their lives. This
lay neither in the deed intrinsically nor in the design of the man who
committed it. But the action has a further general bearing. In the
design of the doer it was only revenge executed against an individual in
the destruction of his property, but it is, moreover, a crime, and that
involves punishment also. This may not have been present to the mind of
the perpetrator, still less in his intention; but his deed itself, the
general principles it calls into play, its substantial content, entail
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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