most perfect is the last and latest. Thus to make mind or spirit into the beginning, the origin, is to reverse the order of nature. But it pleases men, in their vanity, self-love, and ignorance, to believe that what is qualitatively first preceded everything else also in time.” [243F-LER: p. 155]
And, in another passage cited previously, but well worth remembering here, Wagner echoes Feuerbach’s thesis with particular reference to Wotan (and what is perhaps an implicit reference to Alberich as “the older Nature-god”):
“The quintessence of this constant motion, thus of Life, at last in ‘Wuotan’ (Zeus) found expression as the chiefest God, the Father and Pervader of the All. Though his nature marked him as the highest god, and as such he needs must take the place of father to the other deities, yet was he nowise an historically older god, but sprang into existence from man’s later, higher consciousness of self; consequently he is more abstract than the older Nature-god, whilst the latter is more corporeal and, so to phrase it, more personally inborn in man.” [368W-{6-8/48} The Wibelungen – Revised summer of 1849: PW Vol. VII, p. 275]
It is Alberich, not Wotan, who is Mother Nature’s, i.e., Erda’s, advocate, and so we can justifiably read “the older Nature-god” whom Wagner invokes above as Alberich.
[V.2.2: E]
Wotan describes how, after hearing Erda’s prophecy of the twilight of the gods, he sought out Erda to obtain more complete knowledge of the bitter end she foresaw (and presumably to learn whether the gods’ fate could be altered, or, if not, how their fate could be borne). To that end, prompted by fear and doubt, he entered - and planted the seed of his fear and doubt and hope for redemption in -the womb of the world (Erda), who gave birth to their daughter Bruennhilde:
Wotan: (#53) She who knows all that ever was, Erda, the awesomely all-wise Wala, told me to give up the ring and warned of an end everlasting. (somewhat more forcefully) Of that end I wanted to know yet more; (guardedly) but the woman vanished in silence. (more animated) (#81:) Then I lost all lightness of heart; the god desired knowledge (:#81): (#37 hint?: [note: the chromatic modulation of Wotan’s descent to Erda is reminiscent of the start of his descent to Nibelheim in R.2-3]) into the womb of the world I descended (:#37 hint?), mastered the Wala with love’s magic spell and broke her wisdom’s pride, that she gave account of herself. Knowledge I gained from her (#54?); from me though she gained [“empfing” – “hid”?] a pledge: [[ #88 embryo:]] the world’s wisest woman (:#88 foreshadowed) bore to me, bruennhilde, you. (#40?)
Bruennhilde, in other words, was born of the seed produced by Wotan’s self-doubt, and his two distinct intentions towards Erda. Wotan descended to Mother-Earth (Nature) to learn both the full
