Ring), is what grants man actual power. This is one of the most important metaphors in the Ring, for many of the subsequent plot developments depend upon grasping this perhaps difficult concept early on.
The documentary record, in both Feuerbachs’ and Wagner’s writings, is particularly rich in backing up our perhaps counter-intuitive metaphorical reading of Alberich’s and Wotan’s (Light-Alberich’s) hoards. For instance, a basis for Alberich’s insatiable need to accumulate an ever larger and larger hoard can be found in Feuerbach’s remark that man’s desire for knowledge is infinite:
“The desire of knowledge is infinite; reason then is infinite.” [153F-EOC: p. 287]
Having read – following Feuerbach’s lead – Wotan (Light-Alberich) and Alberich as metaphors for collective, historical man instead of individual characters, we can see how Alberich’s and Wotan’s slow accumulation of their respective hoards of treasure and knowledge finds its basis in Feuerbach’s observation that though each individual man’s knowledge and power is limited, collective human knowledge and power is unlimited and infinite, since many contribute and all new knowledge incorporates, and therefore builds on, the old:
“In isolation human power is limited, in combination it is infinite. The knowledge of a single man is limited, but reason, science, is unlimited, for it is a common act of mankind, and it is so, not only because innumerable men co-operate in the construction of science, but also in the more profound sense, that the scientific genius of a particular age comprehends in itself the thinking powers of the preceding age … .” [77F-EOC: p. 83]
As one reads this one can’t help recalling that the Rhinedaughters told Alberich that through the Ring (which in our interpretation represents the human mind, through whose power Alberich is able to accumulate his Hoard of treasure) he could obtain limitless power.
Significantly, Alberich’s Ring does not grant him immediate world-power just by virtue of possessing it. Rather, thanks to the power of the Ring Alberich can compel all men to contribute, over time, to the gradual accumulation of his hoard of treasure which will eventually grant Alberich, i.e. man’s quest for objective knowledge, world domination. This, according to Feuerbach, is the distinction between what religion (Wotan) promises, a hyperbolic, fantastic, allegedly supernaturally infinite satisfaction of all desires and alleviation of all fears, and what man himself, i.e., scientific and technological man, can reasonably and practically gain for himself, from nature, by virtue of his labor:
“ … unlike religious faith or religious imagination, civilization is not all-powerful. No more than nature can make gold out of leather after the manner of God, can civilization, which masters nature only through nature – that is, by natural means, perform miracles.” [276F-LER: p. 208]
After Wotan co-opts Alberich’s Ring-power, the Tarnhelm’s (imagination’s) wonder, and Alberich’s Hoard, Wotan will carry on Alberich’s acquisition of power by obtaining knowledge from Mother Nature (Erda) in the course of his historical experience, as the Wanderer. But Wotan’s acquisition of knowledge will be subject to censorship by religious man’s fear of the truth (Fafner,
