81. Max Müller

On October 28, 1900, one of the most popular scholars of our time died. The way Max Müller was spoken about after the death notice was received was reminiscent of the words of esteem that could be heard a few years ago when Hermann Helmholtz passed away. Today, the names of both scholars are associated with similar ideas by those who lay claim to a certain general education. And yet it is not the same thing that goes on in the minds of contemporaries when they mention one name as the other. In the case of Hermann Helmholtz, people knew that he was one of the greatest physicists. He was one of those who, according to an old saying, are more praised than read. Many people still remember that we had to see the monument to the great physicist on the Potsdamer Bridge in Berlin adorned with the incorrect title of one of his books. The situation is different with Max Müller. He really is read. Countless of the ideas he set down in his charmingly written works on the development of language, mythology and religion have become an integral part of contemporary education. He conveyed the intellectual development of the Oriental peoples to the general education of the Occident. He knew how to do this in such a way that even those who were not part of a scholarly profession were interested in his work. He was one of the most important intellectual stimulators of the present day. His peers, the linguists and religious scholars, did not value his work as highly as the others. As a Sanskrit scholar and Sanskrit mythologist, he is not even regarded as a scholar who should be mentioned first and foremost. They say that hardly any of his basic ideas can hold their own against the current state of scholarship. Anyone who is not an expert in the field of linguistic research should not presume to pass any judgment on this.

However, the non-expert can say one thing about Max Müller: what he has achieved for our western cultural life is, purely in terms of the scope of his work, as significant as the creations of very few writers. He has published the oldest monument of Indian intellectual life (Rigveda) in six large volumes (London 1849-1874); he has arranged for the publication of one of the most monumental works of our time, the complete "Holy Books of the East", on which scholars of almost all cultural nations are working, and to which he himself has made important contributions. And while he was so incessantly endeavoring to present the educational treasures of the Orient to Europeans, in his lectures on "The Science of Language" (published in German in 1875), in his "Essays" and in a large number of other works and treatises, he sought to explain the laws of the spiritual development of mankind.

The way in which Max Müller did all this corresponded to a large extent to the needs and inclinations of the second half of the century. The historical approach was congenial to this period. It differed significantly from the age that preceded it. The latter believed that it could arrive at conclusions about human nature, about the laws of language, morality and religion by observing the nature of the present human being as a finished individual being. This changed as the century progressed. People wanted to explain the man of the present from the man of the past. It was no longer believed that the observation of the fully developed human being could, for example, provide information on how religious needs arise, from which moral concepts spring.

They wanted to get to know the first beginnings of such ideas and gradually ascend from the understanding of undeveloped cultures to that of the present. They also wanted to learn how different civilizations came to be formed in order to be able to fathom the laws of human development through comparison. People increasingly moved away from viewing man as an individual; they learned to see him as a member of humanity as a whole. Max Müller's thoughts lie entirely within such a conceptual direction. He opened up the Orient to us in order to show the similarities and differences between the various cultures and in this way to arrive at an understanding of the great laws that govern them all.

It was only towards the end of the century that people began to realize that this approach was also one-sided. One of Friedrich Nietzsche's most inspiring writings is "Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung: Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben". He sought to show how man spoils his life in the present by always looking at historical development. It is Nietzsche's opinion that life is higher than the knowledge of life. If I ask myself with every one of my ideas how it has become, I paralyze my free, go-it-alone life. I believe that with every step I take, I must first think about whether it is in line with the previous lawful development. We have heard so often in recent decades that when a new impulse wanted to assert itself somewhere, the advocates of the historical approach immediately came and said that it was unhistorical. The philosophical approach has gradually been lost to us above the historical approach. We have experienced this in the worst possible way in philosophy itself. Our time has become poor in new philosophical ideas. Indeed, those who still want to put forward such ideas are looked down upon with contempt. Our time has even been denied the ability to create new laws before we have fully penetrated the process of legal development.

The spread of such an attitude is the dark side of the work of Max Müller. And here we have reached the point where this important writer leaves the forward-looking among our contemporaries unsatisfied. To what extent he has been overtaken by contemporary linguistics and religious research is something we can leave to the experts to decide. The fact that his philosophical dispositions were not very significant is what must disturb those who look for elements in the literary achievements of the present that are relevant to the great questions of worldview. Max Müller could not understand why Ernest Renan regretted that he had become a historian and not a naturalist. This has to do with Max Müller's characteristic philosophical disposition. He always remained very distant from the natural sciences. He could not decide to cross the "Rubicon of the spirit", which leads from man to the rest of nature. He pursued the historical development of language as far as history, the science of man, can do. If one wants to learn about the emergence of language from lower faculties, one must abandon the historical approach and move on to the scientific one. Müller lists 121 linguistic roots on which the language of the Aryans is based. They are supposed to express just as many original terms. This is as far as the historian gets. The natural scientist goes further. He looks for the origin of everything that occurs in humans in animal abilities. Those who reject everything that is not accessible to history will never arrive at such origins. The natural scientist examines the laws of nature in the present. He illuminates the past from the present. The historical way of looking at things will gradually have to expand into the scientific way if it is to be fruitful for our world view. We can never understand the present merely from its becoming; rather, we must also understand the becoming, the development, from the present. The geologist researches the causes that are still changing the surface of the earth today. From there, a perspective into the past opens up for him. A shift in this direction will also have to be made in our view of mankind. However, there is little evidence of such an insight in Max Müller's writings. This separated him from the way natural scientists thought. It will be increasingly recognized as a shortcoming of his work.