1. The World View Of German Idealism. A Consideration Regarding Our Fateful Times

Fichte's greatness is German willpower. Schelling's greatness is the German mind, which lovingly wants to engage with the smallest and the greatest phenomena of nature, with that which pours gloriously through space, that which spreads out in time. But while he wants to penetrate into every detail with a loving mind, he is also clear about one thing: certainty, security, true reality can only be found where you immerse yourself in yourself, where you can find the union of the human soul with the world soul in your own self. What you seek there and [...] find, you find because you experience it directly, because you experience it in such a way that, by being, you are at the same time with you [...] as that which, as true reality, pulses through life. What you can find in yourself, you will never find in outer nature. Therefore, fill yourself with that within you which can be a reflection of that which is most profound in this external nature as well. And so, what Schelling experienced within grew to such an extent that when he observed nature, he merged with the external existence of nature. Thus, nature itself became soul-like and spiritual to him. So Schelling looks into nature and says to himself: the essence of the human soul rests within it. But when I look out into nature, it is the same essence. I look at the stone: it has something, is connected with something, which is like the essence of the human soul; it only has it enchanted in form, in external nature; it has brought it into forms. And so the plant world in all its diversity. And so the animal world. And so also the outer physical human world. If I want to express myself figuratively: for Schelling it becomes as if - before the human soul entered this physical existence - a world spirit soul deeply related to the human soul... that which the human soul only and feels within itself, had first spread out before itself in forms, so that the human soul can see itself here twice..., and its essence poured out, magically poured out in space and in time, as it lives outside in nature.