Academics From Germany

"The heart and soul of Mainländer’s philosophy lies in its gospel of redemption. That gospel is very simple, and it can be summarized in two propositions: (1) that redemption or deliverance comes only with death; and (2) that death consists in nothingness, complete annihilation. All of Mainländer’s philosophy is devoted to the explanation and defence of this gospel."

"Mainländer has a worldview of his own about the origin of the universe: God, saturated with his own over-being, decides that non-existence is better than existence; accordingly, like the Big Bang at the beginning of time, he commits suicide, desirous of non-being. Thus, the universe has not arisen out of a divine desire for creation, but is the result of a depletion of divine will. The philosophy of the decomposition or disintegration of the universe means that everything, organic and inorganic, is subordinated to the law of the weakening of power, that is, that the human being is also in the universe to die and cease to be. The death of God has generated life, but the course of life is not different from the slow process of divine disintegration. It is a will that can be verified daily in cemeteries, and is part of a cosmological telos."

"Pessimistic philosophy will be for the historical period that is now beginning, what the pessimistic religion of Christianity was for the one that has passed. The symbol of our flag is not the crucified redeemer but the angel of death with large, placid and clement eyes, supported by the dove of the idea of redemption; in essence, it is the same symbol."

"He who is not afraid of death, enters a house engulfed in flames; he who is not afraid of death, jumps without hesitation into a turbulent flood; he who is not afraid of death, charges into a dense hail of bullets; he who is not afraid of death, fights unarmed against thousands of armored titans; in summary, he who does not fear death is the only one who can do something for others, bleed for others, and has, at the same time, the only happiness, the only desirable good in this world: undisturbed peace of heart."

"The plant grows, reproduces (in some way) and dies (after living for some time). Disregarding any particularity, the great and actual fact of death, which could not appear on the scene anywhere in the inorganic realm, comes to light first and clearly. Could the plant die if it did not want to die in the depths of its essence? It follows only its fundamental impulse, which drew all its desire from God's longing for non-being."

"The first movement and the origin of the universe are one and the same. The transformation of the simple unity into the world of multiplicity, the transition from the transcendent to the immanent realm, was precisely the first movement; all subsequent movements were only continuations of the first, that is, they could not have been anything else than a new disintegration or further fragmentation of ideas. This further disintegration could manifest itself in the early periods of the universe only through the actual division of simple matter and its connections. Each simple chemical force had the urge to expand its individuality, i.e., to change its motion; however, it clashed with all others possessing the same urge, and thus arose the most fearsome struggles of the ideas with each other, in states of maximum impetus and agitation. The result was always a chemical bond, i.e., the victory of the stronger force over a weaker one and the entry of the new idea into the endless struggle."

"The animal basically follows its impulses, which are limited to hunger, thirst, the need to sleep and everything related to mating; it lives in a narrow sphere. To the human being, on the other hand, life comes to him through reason, in the form of wealth, women, honor, power, fame, etc., which fuels his will to live, his yearning to live. Reason makes satisfaction, artificially, a refined enjoyment. Thus death is detested with all one's soul and the mere mention of such a word tormentingly contracts the hearts of the majority, and the fear of death turns into anguish of death and despair, when human beings cast their eyes upon it. On the contrary, life is loved with passion. Accordingly, in the human being the will to death - the innermost impulse of his essence - is no longer concealed by the will to live as simply as in the animal, but disappears completely into the depths, from where it only manifests itself, from time to time, as a deep longing for tranquility."

"1. God willed to no longer be; 2. God's essence was the obstacle to his immediate entry into non-being; 3. God's essence had to disintegrate in a world of multiplicity, whose individuals all have the desire to no longer be; 4. in this striving they hinder each other, fight against each other and thus weaken each other's strength; 5. the complete essence of God passed into the world in a transformed form, as a certain sum of power; 6. the whole world, the universe, has one goal, the non-being, and achieves it through the continuous weakening of the sum of its forces; 7. each individual will be carried through the weakening of his strength, in his evolutionary process, to the point where his desire to achieve extermination can be fulfilled."

"Why did God not immediately disappear into nothingness, if he wished to no longer be? One must ascribe omnipotence to God, for his power was unlimited; consequently, if he had willed to no longer be, he would have exterminated himself at once; instead, the universe of multiplicity arose, a universe of struggle, which is a manifest contradiction. How does one explain this? ... God existed alone, in absolute solitude and, consequently, it is correct to maintain that he was not limited by anything external; his power was, in this sense, omnipotent, since nothing outside of him limited it. However, his power was not omnipotent regarding himself, or in other words: his power could not destroy itself; the simple unity could not cease to exist by itself. God had the freedom to be as he willed; however, he was not free from his determinate essence."

"The movement of the cosmos is the movement from over-being to non-being. The universe, however, is the disintegration into multiplicity, that is, into egoistic individualities arrayed against each other. Only in this struggle of essences, which before were a simple unity, can the original essence itself be destroyed."

"Let us suppose that, in the future, the birth of a human being occurs without pain, and that science succeeds in protecting humans from every disease: in short, that the old age of these protected beings is fresh and vigorous, ending suddenly with a gentle and painless death (euthanasia). Death is the only thing we cannot take away and, consequently, we have before us a short and painless life. Is this a happy life? Let us examine it carefully. The citizens of our ideal state are human beings of gentle character and developed intelligence. They have, so to speak, been inculcated with a complete knowledge - free from absurdity and error - and however they reflect upon it, they will always consider it to be right. There are no more effects whose causes are enigmatic. Science has indeed reached its pinnacle and every citizen is satisfied with its achievements. The sense of beauty is powerfully displayed in everything. We cannot suppose that all are artists, yet everyone indeed possesses the capacity to enter easily into an aesthetic relation. They have been freed from all worries, for their work has been organized in an unprecedented manner and everyone is self-governing. Are they happy? They would be if they did not feel in themselves a terrible monotony and emptiness. Their needs have been taken away from them; they truly have neither worry nor suffering, but instead they have been seized by tedium. They have paradise on earth, but its atmosphere is stifling and suffocating. If they still had enough energy to endure such an existence until natural death, they would surely not have the heart to go through it again as rejuvenated beings."

"And who is and should be a pessimist? He who is mature for death and is in no condition to love life, just as the optimist cannot turn away from it. If he does not realize that he will live on in his children, his procreation loses its horrible character; but if he does realize it, he will recoil in horror from it, just like Humboldt when he noticed that the torments that another being must endure for perhaps eighty years are too high a price to pay for a few minutes of pleasure, and will consider the procreation of children, and rightly so, as a crime."

"But at the bottom, the immanent philosopher sees in the entire universe only the deepest longing for absolute annihilation, and it is as if he clearly hears the call that permeates all spheres of heaven: Redemption! Redemption! Death to our life! And the comforting answer: you will all find annihilation and be redeemed."

"The kingdom of heaven after death, nirvana and absolute nothingness are one and the same."

"The man who has known clearly and distinctly that all life is suffering; that, whatever the way in which it may appear is essentially unhappy and full of pain (even in the ideal state), so that he, like the Christ Child on the arms of Sistine Madonna, can only look into the world with eyes filled with horror, and who then contemplates the deep tranquility, the inexpressible happiness in aesthetic contemplation and, in contrast to the waking state, the happiness of dreamless sleep, whose elevation into eternity is only absolute death, - such a man has to be kindled by the advantage offered, - he cannot do otherwise. The thought of resuscitating in his unhappy children, that is, having to follow his way through the streets of existence, full of thorns and hard stones, without rest or repose, is, on the one hand, the most shocking and exasperating he can have; and, on the other hand, it must be the sweetest and most refreshing thought to be able to break the long course of the process, in which he was forced to walk by, with bloody feet, beaten, tormented and martyred, languishing in search of quietude. And once he is on the right track, the sexual instinct worries him less with every step, little by little becoming easier for his heart, until at last his inner being stands in the same joyfulness, blessed serenity and complete immobility as the true Christian saint. He feels in harmony with the movement of humanity from being into non-being, out of the agony of life into absolute death; he gladly enters into this movement of the whole, he acts eminently morally, and his reward is the undisturbed peace of heart, the "calmness of the sea of the mind," the peace that is higher than all reason. And all this can take place without the belief in a unity in, above or beyond the world, without fear of a hell or hope for a kingdom of heaven after death, without any mystical intellectual view, without incomprehensible effect of grace, without contradiction with nature and our awareness of our own self: the only sources from which we can draw with certainty, - merely as a result of an unprejudiced, pure, cold realization of our reason, "man's supreme power"."

"Life is hell, and the sweet still night of absolute death is the annihilation of hell."

"What is the ideal state? It will be the historical form that encompasses all mankind. However, we will not define this form in more detail, because it is quite a minor matter: the main thing is the citizen of the ideal state. He will be what individuals have been since the beginning of history: a thoroughly free man. He has completely outgrown the taskmaster of historical laws and forms and stands above the law, free from all political, economic and spiritual fetters. All external forms are fragmented: man is completely emancipated. All driving forces have gradually disappeared from the life of mankind: Power, property, fame, marriage; all emotional ties have gradually been torn: man is weary. His spirit now judges life correctly and his will is kindled by this judgment. Now the heart is filled with only one longing: to be blotted out forever from the great book of life. And the will reaches its goal: absolute death."

"I felt serene that I had forged a good sword, but at the same time I felt a cold dread in me for starting on a course more dangerous than any other philosopher before me. I attacked giants and dragons, everything existing, holy and honourable in state and science: God, the monster of ‘the infinite’, the species, the powers of nature, and the modern state; and in my stark naked atheism I validated only the individual and egoism. Nevertheless, above them both lay the splendour of the preworldly unity, of God . . . the holy spirit, the greatest and most significant of the three divine beings. Yes, it lay ‘brooding with wings of the dove’ over the only real things in the world, the individual and its egoism, until it was extinguished in eternal peace, in absolute nothingness."

"And this unhappiness - which corrodes and shakes the heart - is the driving force in the lives of the lower groups of the population, which whips them toward the path of redemption. The poor are consumed with the burning desire to possess the houses, the gardens, the goods, the saddle horses, the carriages, the champagne, the jewels and daughters of the wealthy. Well, then give them all these trifling possessions. Rise and descend from the luminous heights, from where you have seen with intoxicated gaze the promised land of eternal tranquility, where you had to recognize that life is essentially unfortunate, where the blindfold had to fall from your eyes; descend into the dark valley through which the turbid stream of the dispossessed creeps, and place your delicate, but loyal, pure and courageous hands in the calloused hands of your brothers. "They are brutes." Then give them motives that will ennoble them. "Their manners disgust." Then change them. "They believe that life has value. They consider the rich happier, for they eat and drink better, because they feast and make noise. They think the heart beats more peacefully under silk than under the coarse garb of toil." Then disillusion them, but not with sayings, but with deeds. Let them experience, let them prove for themselves that neither wealth, nor honor, nor fame, nor a pleasant life makes for happiness. Break down the barriers that separate those deceived by supposed happiness and they will be perplexed. Then they will complain: "We had thought we could be happy like this, and it turns out that, deep down, nothing has changed in us". All human beings must first of all be fed up with all the pleasures that the world can offer, before mankind can be ripe for redemption. Since their redemption is their destiny, they must be satiated, and such satisfaction is only brought about when the social question is resolved."

"Every action of man, the highest as well as the lowest, is egoistic; for it flows from a certain individuality, a certain I, with a sufficient motive, and can in no way be omitted. To go into the reason of the difference of characters is not the place here; we have simply to accept it as a fact. Now it is just as impossible for the merciful man to let his neighbor starve as it is for the hard-hearted man to help the poor. Each of the two acts according to his character, his nature, his ego, his happiness, consequently egoistically; for if the merciful one did not dry the tears of others, would he be happy? And if the hard-hearted one relieved the suffering of others, would he be satisfied?"

"The will must not only despise death, it must love it; for chastity is the love of death."

"God has died and His death was the life of the world."

"The immanent philosophy does not recognize any miracle and does not know how to account for events in another unknown world, which would be a consequence of the actions of this world. Therefore, there is for it only a completely certain negation of the will to live, which is expressed by virginity. As we have seen in physics, the human being finds absolute annihilation in death; nevertheless, he is only apparently extinguished if he continues to live in his children, for in these children he has already risen from the dead: he has embraced life in them anew and affirmed it for an indeterminate time. This everyone feels instinctively. The insurmountable aversion of the genders after copulation in the animal kingdom manifests itself in the human being as a profound sadness."

"How easy it is to throw stones on the suicide's grave, and how difficult it was, on the other hand, the struggle of that poor man who had prepared his deathbed so well. First, he cast a fearful glance from afar towards death and turned away in fright; then he avoided it, trembling and going around it in wide circles which, however, became smaller and smaller every day until, at last, he clasped death's neck with his weary arms and looked directly into its eyes: and then there was peace, sweet peace."

"Everything in the universe is unconsciously a will to death. This will to death is, above all in the human being, hidden in its entirety by the will to live, because life is a means to death, which presents itself clearly for even the most feeble-minded individual: we die unceasingly, our life is a slow agony, death daily overpowers every human being until, finally, it extinguishes with a breath the light of life in each one of us."

"My real profession is namely the science of India, specifically of Indian philosophies and religions. In contrast to nearly all of my colleagues, however, during my thirteen-month stay in India, I established connections with the mission, primarily the Catholic mission, but also the Protestant mission. I wanted to place my science in the service of the Church."

"Acting on Hacker's wishes, the editor of his collected works excluded the author's polemical Christian writings from the compilation... Many such polemical writings also appeared in fringe religious pamphlets and propaganda literature which are unknown to most scholars. Hacker's suppression of this material compromised his integrity as an objective scholar, as it misled readers into thinking his writings on Hinduism were objective evaluations when in fact they were, in Andrew Nicholson's words, the work of a 'Christian polemicist'. In his posthumously published writings, Hacker is as explicit in his support for Christianity as he is in his attack on contemporary Hinduism."

"Good art inspires; Good design motivates."

"Person, in a moral context, is a practical ascription by which I identify myself and other as amoral subject. This identification implies the respect for the dignity of the moral subject, i.e. an acknowledgement of its inviolability. The immediate grounds for this inviolability are not certain biological or metaphysical traits, but its status as a subject, capable of determining its own ends and of taking responsibility for them, i.e. its freedom as the condition of the possibility for binding itself to the good. Because being such a subject is part of every moral demand, moral philosophy does not depend on prior metaphysical insight. The question, how far the acknowledgment of personhood can be extended, is also primarily a question of one's moral point of view. If we recognize those as persons that are actually able to reciprocate, we may able to explain morality as fairness and justify a basic level of generalisation, but we will not be able [...] to justify morality and solidarity. Solidarity which comprises even the weakest members of society implies a level of generalisation which shuns all special attributes and ascribes inviolability only to the human being as human being. This makes it clear that the dignity of the person needs to be related to the notion of specific nature, if the two aspects of the notion of human rights: inviolability and the prohibition to restrict its application, are to be retained. Every interpretation of the concept of a person which restricts the reference to nature is therefore taking the onus of proof."

"[The concept of a person] designates a human individual to which an open-ended list of mental and material predicates, which mutually imply each other, can be applied. This shows an original relation from the concept of a person to the notion of nature, which makes it justifiable, and indeed mandatory, to respect as a person any individual which has the active potency to develop the traits which justify a human individual’s claim for personal protection."

"It is unhappy enough that the unavoidable consequence of all our voyages of discovery, has always been the loss of a number of innocent lives; but this heavy injury done to the little uncivilized communities which Europeans have visited, is trifling when compared to the irretrievable harm entailed upon them by corrupting their morals. If these evils were in some measure compensated by the introduction of some real benefit in these countries, or by the abolition of some other immoral customs among their inhabitants, we might at least comfort ourselves, that what they lost on one hand, they gained on the other; but I fear that hitherto our intercourse has been wholly disadvantageous to the nations of the South Seas; and that those communities have been the least injured, who have always kept aloof from us, and whose jealous disposition did not suffer our sailors to become too familiar among them, as if they had perceived in their countenances that levity of disposition, and that spirit of debauchery, with which they are generally reproached."

"It is the natural fault of young people to think too well of mankind [...]."

"A man wholly destitute of philanthropy is a monster, justly detested by all mankind; but another, entirely incapable of anger, is a sheepish wretch, liable to be insulted by every mean-spirited villain."

"When we saw the most beautiful fishes of the sea, the dolphin and bonito, in pursuit of the flying fish, and when these forsook their native element to seek for shelter in air, the application to human nature was obvious. What empire is not like a tumultuous ocean, where the great in all the magnificence and pomp of power, continually persecute and contrive the destruction of the defenceless? - Sometimes we saw this picture continued still farther, when the poor fugitives met with another set of enemies in the air, and became the prey of birds, by endeavouring to escape the jaws of fishes."

"It is very natural to overlook that which is near home, and as it were within our reach, especially when the mind looks forward, on discoveries which it reckons more important, in proportion as they are more remote."

"[...] each vulgar opinion, proved to be erroneous, is an approximation to truth [...]."

"Born to live our stated time on this globe, every one who puts a premature period to our existence here, offends the laws of the Creator. The passions are wisely implanted in our breast for our preservation; and revenge, in particular, guards us against the encroachments of others. Savages do not give up the right of retaliating injuries; but civilized societies confer on certain individuals the power and the duty to revenge their wrongs. Still, even in the most polished countries of Europe, this method of administring justice is not sufficient in all cases. Such is the imperfection of human institutions, that the public avenger of wrongs oft lifts his hand against the sacred rights of the whole community. On that occasion all civil agreements are dissolved, every man assumes his rights, and give free course to the passions. Even in private life there are occasions where this sacred principle of revenge is of infinite service in the best regulated community. Nothing is more common than oppressions, affronts, and injuries against which the law provides no remedy; nothing more frequent, than that a set men are powerful enough to wrest the laws to the disadvantage of the wretched and friendless. These instances would be still more numerous, and be carried to the most detestable pitch of tyranny, if this dread did not with-hold them, that the injured party may resume that power of redressing his wrongs, which he sees so inadequately exercised by his representative. He that attempts another's property, runs the risk of being killed without a trial by the person whom he robs; and the fear of the sword or the cane, hath often kept villains within bounds, who are invulnerable to the attacks of the law."

"The degree of pleasure which may result from the perusal of a work, depends not only upon the variety of the subject, but likewise upon the purity and graces of style. We must resign all pretensions to taste and sentiment, if we did not prefer a well-told tale to a lame and tedious narration. Of late, however, the just esteem in which an elegant diction is held, has been so far abused, that authors, relying on the fluency of their language, have paid no attention to the matter which they proposed, but deceived the public with a dry and uninstructive performance."

"We pass at once into the magnificent edifice which bears the name of Panini as its architect and which Justly commands the wonder and admiration of everyone who enters, and which, by the very fact of its sufficing for all the phenomenon which language presents, bespeaks at once the marvelous ingenUity of its inventor and his profound penetration of the entire material of the language."

"When we compare the doctrines, aims, orgamzation of this (Pythagorean) brotherhood with Buddhistic monarchism, we are almost tempted to regards Pythagoras as the pupil of the Brahmins ... Dualism, Pessimism, metempsychosis, celibacy, a common life according to the rigorous rules, frequent self- examination, meditation, devotion, prohibitions against bloody sacrifices, kindliness towards all men, truthfulness, fidelity, justice, and all these elements are common to both."

""The Sanscrit is the language which has retained the most primeval form and has adhered the most tenaciously to that parent ground. . . . [It] has preserved a great number of roots which have been lost in the other languages (Weber 1857, 6)"

"Yes, This government half of which consists of men who once inspired to serve the arts is conscious of the artist role as an intermediary, this government borne out of the opposition of rationalism knows the people's inner longings, their boundless dreams to which only the artist can give form."

"I ask you: were the Nazis right-wing? I think that is a fundamental mistake, by the way, also by you. The Nazis were not right, the Nazis were a left party. National-socialist!"

"Of course it is perfectly clear that the twelve years of Hitler will be with us as long as there are Germans. Even if we ourselves would be inclined to draw a line, this twelve-year period will always cling to us. It has been a disaster and the crimes have continued to damage us. But it is also true that these twelve years and the criminal traits of that time do not make up the whole of our history, that this has been a deplorable derailment, that we basically only think back with sadness about this phase, that this is just a past that does not want to pass, that German history does not accumulate in this phase, but that there were centuries of German efficiency and German peacefulness before.[...] This, too, is part of this story that we should acknowledge."

"Germany is on the way to a western ‘GDR light’. . . . Citizens, on the barricades! We must not allow everything to go further downhill, helpless politicians let the country rot. All Germans should be our fellow Leipzigers Discover role models, adopt their slogan of autumn thirteen years ago: We are the people!"

"The current situation in the former GDR is in fact completely different than it was in our country after 1945. The regime dwarfed people for almost half a century, ruined their upbringing, their training. Whether someone calls himself a lawyer or an economist, pedagogue, psychologist, sociologist, even a doctor or engineer, it doesn't matter. His knowledge is largely useless. In most cases, there is no professional perspective today in the areas in which one has been trained. We can forgive the politically and characteristically burdened their sins, forgive and forget everything. It will be of no use, because many people are no longer usable because of their lack of specialist knowledge. They simply have not learned anything that they could bring into a free-market society."

"Multi-cultural has failed - because foreigners do not accept or even tolerate German culture alongside their own. That was foreseeable for years, but it was deliberately kept quiet and belittled. It is not the Germans who are the idiots, but those politicians and do-gooders who have indulged in multicultural dreams for decades."

"Since we Germans have low self-esteem, we didn't dare ask immigrants to make efforts to integrate. In this respect, we have guided the Isolation Trend Advancement. Many politicians hoped that foreigners who “remained authentic” would stir up Germany in a positive way."

"Many politicians, but also church leaders and do-gooders who are blind to the facts, played down the problem of a lack of integration for a long time, some even glossed it over. All camps have ignored the risk of integration, and to a large extent they still do - very often against their better judgment. Anyone who speaks truths too early is discredited and may experience a wave of indignation - like Jörg Schönbohm in the 1990s when he pointed out the danger of ghettos… We have to work hard to ensure that emigrants become Germans, that is, not only master our language, but also make our culture, history and general manners our own. This is much more than just living together multicultural."

"The exemplary researches of [Egon] von Eickstedt, now evaluated in Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menschheit.... [demonstrates] that even today primarily in northwest India, indeed all the way to Bengal and further into the mountains of south India, a type of human close to the northern type is to be found, which von Eickstedt calls the north Indios [Indiden]."