The decline of vigor and of strength is an ill that man inflicts upon himself; old age is but an idle prejudice, an ugly fruit of the mad¹ delusion that the spirit is dependent on the body! But I know this madness, and its evil fruit shall not succeed in poisoning my healthy life. Does the spirit inhabit the fibres of my flesh, or are the two identical, that it needs must stiffen like a mummy when they are petrified? Let the body have its due. If the senses grow dull, and our impressions of reality’s earthly images grow faint, then surely memory too will be dimmed, and many pleasures and delights will fade. But is this the life of the spirit? Is this the everlasting youth that I worship? If such things had power to weaken the spirit, how long had I already been old age’s slave!³ How long ago should I have bade my youth a last farewell! But nothing that has hitherto been unable to disturb my energetic life, shall ever succeed in doing so. Am I not surrounded by others who have sharper senses and stronger bodies? Will they not always be about me as they are now to offer the service of their love?

To lament my physical decline is of all things furthest from my mind! Why should that trouble me? Would it be such a misfortune, if I did forget the events of yesterday? Are the day’s minutia the world in which I live? Is the sphere of my inner life limited to the impressions I get of those particular things that happen to exist within the narrow confines of my immediate physical environment? Whoever has loved youth only because it excelled in these immediate physical advantages, and whose inferior perception cannot grasp a higher calling, may justly complain of old age and its misery. But who will dare maintain that the presence of those great and sublime thoughts which the spirit produces out of its own depths is dependent on the body, and that a sense for true reality hinges on the functioning of one’s frame? In order to contemplate humanity do I need this eye, the nerve of which already begins to weaken when my life is but half over?⁴ Or must my blood, which even now begins to flow slowly, rush more impetuously through my narrow veins, if I am to love all who deserve my love? Does the power of my will depend on the strength of my muscles, or on the marrow of my bones? Does courage depend upon my feeling in good health? Those who are thus physically favored are often enough deceived; death lurks in hidden corners, and suddenly springs upon them with sardonic laughter. What harm, then, if I already know, where my own death lies waiting? But perhaps repeated pain, or manifold sufferings, can so depress the spirit as to incapacitate it for its own unique and proper functions? Why! to resist such pains is also a function of the spirit; they too call forth sublime thoughts for their relief. And the spirit can find no evil in anything that merely changes its activity from one form to another.

Yes, in my advanced years I shall still have the same strength of spirit, and I shall never lose my keen zest for life. That which now rejoices me, shall ever give me joy; my will shall remain strong, and my imagination active, and nothing shall wrest from me the magic key which opens the mysterious portals of the higher world; nor shall love’s ardent flame ever be quenched. I will not see the dread infirmities of old age; I vow a mighty scorn of all adversity that does not touch the aim of my existence, and I pledge myself to an eternal Youth.⁵

But am I not repudiating good along with evil? Is old age sheer weakness when compared with youth? Why then is it that mankind honors a grey head, even though it shows no trace of this eternal youth, freedom’s finest fruit? Alas, often it is only because some people lead their lives in an atmosphere like that of a cellar, which will for a long time preserve a corpse from decay, and such men are popularly venerated as sacred bodies. People think of the soul as like a grape-vine; be it even of poor quality, it improves and is more highly prized when it grows old. Nay more! they talk much of virtues peculiar to life’s riper years, of sober wisdom, cool self-possession, a rich experience, a poised and unassailable perfection in one’s understanding of this variegated world. Youth’s charm, they say, is only the evanescent blossom of human nature, but the mature fruit is old age and what it brings the soul. Then only are the innermost depths of human nature ripe for enjoyment when they have been completely purified by air and sun, and brought to some significant and beautiful perfection. O ye northern barbarians, who do not know the happier clime, where fruit and blossom burst forth together, and race side by side in all their glory to a joint fulfillment!⁶ Is the world so cold and unfriendly that the human spirit may not emulate this higher beauty and perfection? Of course, everyone cannot have all that is good and beautiful, but diverse gifts are given to diverse persons and not apportioned to the different seasons of life. Each man is a plant of unique growth, but he can continually bear fruit and flower at the same time according to his kind. Whatever can be harmoniously realized in a single individual, he can cultivate simultaneously and possess permanently; he not only can but should.

How does man acquire discreet wisdom and ripe experience? Are they granted him from on high. and is it foreordained that he shall not receive them until he can prove that youth is passed? I am conscious of acquiring them at this very moment; it is precisely the urge of youth and the quickened life of the spirit that brings them forth. To inspect all things, to absorb them in the innermost sense, to master the force of random emotions lest tears either of joy or grief dim the spirit’s vision or cloud its impressions, to proceed readily from one thing to another, and being of insatiable energy to assimilate even the experience of others by rehearsing their deeds in imagination, such is the active life of youth, and such too is the process by which wisdom and experience come into being. The livelier the imagination, the more active the spirit, the more is their growth hastened and prospered. And when they have been acquired, is the vigorous life that produced them no longer appropriate? Are then these supreme virtues ever perfected? If they were born in youth and by reason of youth, will they not always require the same energy to maintain and further their growth? Mankind, however, is deceived by a hypocritical vanity in respect to this its greatest blessing, and its hypocrisy is rooted in depths of narrowest ignorance. Youth’s restlessness is supposed to imply the urge of a seeker, and seeking is not thought becoming to one who has reached the end of life; such a one should clothe himself in the repose of idleness,² that respected symbol of life’s fulfillment, and in emptiness of desire,³ the sign of complete understanding. Such should be the deportment of old age, they say, lest seeming still to be a seeker, man descend into the grave amid laughter mocking his vain efforts.⁴ But only those who have sought what is cheap and vulgar may pride themselves on having found all they desire! What I aspire to know and make my own is infinite, and only in an infinite series of attempts can I completely fashion my own being. The spirit that drives man forward, and the constant appeal of new goals, that can never be satisfied by past achievements, shall never depart from me. It is man’s⁵ peculiar pride, to know that his goal is infinite, and yet never to halt on his way, to know that at some point on his journey he will be engulfed, and yet when he sees that point, to make no change either in himself or in his circumstances, nor in any wise to slacken his pace. Hence it is fitting that he should ever pursue his way in the carefree buoyancy of youth. I shall never consider myself old until I am perfect, and I shall never be perfect, because I know and desire what I should. Furthermore, the excellences of old age cannot conflict with those of youth, for not only do the qualities esteemed in old age develop in youth, but old age in its turn nourishes the young and tender life. It is generally conceded that youth fares better when ripe old age takes an interest in it, and in the same way a man’s own inner youth is enhanced, if he acquires in early life the spiritual qualities of maturity. A practiced eye surveys its field more quickly, and a person of experience grasps a situation⁶ more readily, and that love which springs from a higher level of self-development must needs be more intense. Wherefore I shall preserve my youthful vigor and I shall enjoy its zest unto the last. Unto the last I shall gain in strength and in vitality with every act, and with each step in my self-development I shall become more capable of love. I shall marry my youth to my old age, that the latter too may enjoy exuberance and be permeated with vivifying warmth. For what is it, after all, of which men complain in old age? not of consequences that necessarily follow from experience, wisdom, and self-development. Does a treasury of accumulated ideas make a man less sensitive, so that nothing either old or new interests him? Do established words of wisdom at last give way to disquieting doubts that vitiate all action? Is self-development a consuming fire that leaves the soul an inert mass? The general complaint is only that youth has fled. And why does youth fail man? Because in his youth he has lacked maturity. Let there be a double marriage. Let the strength of years enter into your robust spirit at once to preserve its youth, that in later years youth may protect you against the weakness of old age. The usual division of life into youth and age ought never to be made. He debases himself who wishes first to be young, and then old, who allows himself to be controlled first by what is called the spirit of youth, and only afterwards wishes to follow what is considered the counsel of maturity. Life cannot bear this separation of its elements. There is a two-fold activity of the spirit that should exist in its entirety at every time of life, and it is the perfection of human development ever to become more intimately and more clearly conscious of both its aspects, assigning to each its own peculiar and proper function.

The individual existence of a plant is perfected in its blossom, but the world attaches supreme value to its fruit, which serves as protection to the seed of future generations, and is a gift which every creature must offer in order that the rest of nature may receive his life. So too, the supreme thing for a human being is the spirited life of youth, and woe to him whom it forsakes, but the world desires him to grow old, that his life may bear fruit, the sooner the better. Wherefore set your life in accord with this fact once and for all. It is a lesson which old age teaches men all too late, when time has dragged them thither in its chains, but by a firm resolution of your free will you may at once make it your rule in all matters upon which the world has a claim. Wherever fruit appears as the spontaneous result of your life’s free flowering, let it develop to the world’s advantage, and may there be hidden in it a fertile seed destined to unfold one day into a new life of its own. But let whatever you offer to the world be fruit.⁷ Do not sacrifice the least part of your being itself in mistaken generosity! Let no bud be broken off, nor the smallest leaf plucked, through which you receive nourishment from the surrounding world! On the other hand, do not put forth mere foliage,⁸ unpruned and unpleasing, in which some poisonous insect may hide and sting you. If it is not part of your own proper development, or the growth of new members, let it be genuine fruit, engendered within the heart of the spirit, a free act testifying to its youthful creative energy.⁷ But when it is once conceived, such fruit should emerge from the province of the inner life; then let its further development conform to the laws of outward behavior. Then let shrewdness and sober wisdom and cool discretion take it in charge, that what your love generously intended for the world may actually prove to its benefit. Then weigh means and end with care, take heed and be circumspect with cautious misgiving, seek counsel of work and power, despise no pains, and wait for propitious moments with untiring patience.

Woe unto me, if my youth, with its vitality that brooks no restraint and its restless imagination, should ever meddle with the affairs of old age, and failing to succeed in the realm of action, which is not its proper province, should thereby waste the strength of its inner life! Only such as are ignorant of inner energies⁹ may perish thus, those who, misunderstanding the spiritual urge, wish to be young in their outward behavior. They expect fruit to ripen in a moment even as a blossom opens in a night; each of their projects crowds upon the heels of another, and none matures. Every enterprise, which they commence, is destroyed in the rapid alternation of their conflicting plans. And when they have thus wasted the loveliest half of life in vain attempts, doing and achieving nought, because to do and to accomplish was their only aim, then they condemn the free imagination and the youthful life. Nought but old age is left them, weak and miserable as it must be, wherever youth has been used up and driven out. Lest it flee from me also, I shall not abuse it; I shall not expect its service in matters that are not its proper sphere; I shall keep it within the limits of its own domain, that it may meet with no injury. But there in truth it shall have full sway, now and forever in unmolested freedom, nor shall any law, the proper sphere of which is to govern external actions, cram my inner life.

May my inner activity and all that affects it, in so far as the world has no claim upon it and it concerns only my own growth, bear youth’s colors everlastingly, and may it proceed wholly from an inner impulse with a gracious and perfect joy. O my soul, let no rule be imposed on your coming in and going out, your hours of meditation and reflection! Heartily despise such alien legislation and banish the thought which would put the free movement of your life under the sign of a dead letter. Let no one persuade you that one thing must wait upon the completion of another! Proceed, if you like, with buoyant step; what you have done lives on in you, and you will find it again when you return. Do not anxiously ponder what to begin and what will come of it! You alone are in the making, and whatever you can will, is also part of you.¹⁰ Shun frugal behavior! Let life be unconfined: no power is ever lost, unless you repress it within yourself, and leave it unused. Let not your will for today be determined by your wish for tomorrow! Take shame, free spirit that you are, if ought within you should become subservient to the rest; no part of your being may be mere means to an end, for one is as precious as another. Wherefore whatever you become, let it be for its own sake. A stupid self-deception to think that you ought to want what you do not want! Let not the world tell you how you should serve it and when! Laugh to scorn its silly pretensions, spirited youth, and do not brook restraint. Whatever you give is a gift of your freedom, for the resolve to benefit the world must issue from within you. Attempt nothing unless it proceeds freely from a love and desire within your soul. And let no limit be set upon your love, no measure whether of kind or of duration! If it is your own, who can demand it of you? Is not its law entirely within you? Then who may command it in any respect? Be ashamed to depend on other’s opinions in such matters of holiest import. Blush for that false shame which fears lest people may not understand you when you reply to the questioner: “Such is the reason of my love.” Let not yourself be troubled in the fullness and joy of your inner life by anything external whatsoever! Who would choose to combine within himself elements that are incompatible, and thus be soured in his soul? Grieve not for what you cannot be or do! Who would be ever gazing toward the impossible in empty aspiration and turning covetous eyes upon goods that are not his?

Thus is my inner life joyous and untrammelled! And how should time and destiny ever teach me another philosophy? I give the world its due; in my outward behavior I strive for order and wisdom, discretion and proportion. Indeed, what reason have I to disdain anything that proceeds so readily and freely and happily from my inner being and its activity? By observing the world one will gain all this in rich measure without effort. But in beholding himself, man triumphs over discouragement and weakness, for from the consciousness of inner freedom there blossoms eternal youth and joy. On these have I laid hold, nor shall I ever give them up, and so I can see with a smile my eyes growing dim, and my blond locks turning white. Nought can happen to affright my heart, and the pulse of my inner life will beat with vigor until death.

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Footnotes

1. Cf. Briefe, v. 4, pp. 16-42, for the personal experiences referred to. ↩

2. Cf. Briefe, v. 4, p. 39 in re suicide. ↩

3. Schleiermacher in fact had to contend with certain physical handicaps, and was of the opinion he could not possibly live a long life. See Letters, v. 1, p. 183-184 and elsewhere. Reference is made further on to his weak eyesight. ↩

4. See note p. 92. ↩

5. F. Schlegel wrote to Schleiermacher: “Youth is fleeting.” (Briefe, v. 3, p. 84.) The latter answers, “Youth may be eternal.” (Ibid., p. 89.) (Cf. Schiele, p. 110.) ↩

6. The appeal of Italy! Cf. Goethe’s Mignon, and Faust; also Nietzsche’s treatment of the antithesis between northern and Mediterranean culture that runs through German history and thought. ↩

7. Adopting Schleiermacher’s distinction between fruit and blossom, one may say that his Speeches on Religion were fruit of his life, the Soliloquies blossom. And they appeared almost simultaneously, as in that “happy clime” (see p. 95 above)! See also Introduction, p. xlvi. ↩