when Man recognises the essence of Nature as his very own, and perceives the same Necessity in all the elements and lives around him, and therefore in his own existence no less [P. 71] than in Nature’s being; thus not only recognising the mutual bond of union between all natural phenomena, but also his own community with Nature. [414W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 70-71]
[415W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 71]
[P. 71] {FEUER} If Nature then, by her solidarity with Man, attains in Man her consciousness, and if Man’s life is the very activation of this consciousness – as it were, the portraiture in brief of Nature, -- so does man’s Life itself gain understanding by means of Science, which makes this human life in turn an object of experience. But the activation of the consciousness attained by Science, the portrayal of the Life that it has learnt to know, the impress of this life’s Necessity and Truth, is – Art. [415W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 71]
[416W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 71-72]
[P. 71] “… only in the joyous [P. 72] consciousness of his oneness with Nature does Man subdue his dependence on her … .” [416W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 71-72]
[417W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 72]
[P. 72] {FEUER} Whilst Man involuntarily moulds his Life according to the notions he has gathered from his arbitrary views of Nature, and embalms their intuitive expression in Religion: these notions become for him in Science the subject of conscious, intentional review and scrutiny.
{FEUER} The path of Science lies from error to knowledge, from fancy {‘Vorstellung’) to reality, from Religion to Nature. [417W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 72]
[418W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 72-73]
[P. 72] {FEUER} {anti-FEUER} Science takes over the arbitrary concepts of the human brain, in their totality; while, by her side, Life follows in its totality the instinctive evolution of Necessity. Science thus bears the burden of the sins of Life, and expiates them by her own self-abrogation; she ends in her direct antithesis, in the knowledge of Nature, in the recognition of the unconscious, instinctive, and therefore real, inevitable, and physical. (…)
{FEUER} {anti-FEUER} The end of Science is the justifying of the Unconscious, the giving of self-consciousness to Life, the re-instatement of the Senses in their perceptive rights, the sinking of [P. 73] Caprice in the world-Will (‘Wollen’) of Necessity [i.e., the willing of Necessity; Ellis had no justification for translating ‘Wollen’ as ‘world-Will’]. Science is therefore the vehicle of Knowledge … ; but Life is the great ultimate, a law unto itself. As Science melts away into the recognition of the ultimate and self-determinate reality, of actual Life itself: so does this avowal win its frankest, most direct expression in Art, or rather in the Work of Art.
{FEUER} The actual Art-work, i.e., its immediate physical portrayal, in the moment of its liveliest embodiment, is therefore the only true redemption of the artist; the uprootal of the final trace of busy, purposed choice; the confident determination of what was hitherto a mere imagining; the enfranchisement of thought in sense … .
