Philosophical Letters of Frederich Schiller by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
page 49 of 79 (62%)
page 49 of 79 (62%)
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pain. That was the first touch, the first ray to light up the night of
slumbering powers, a touch as from a golden finger upon nature's lute. Now is sensation there, and sensation only was it that before we missed. This kind of sensation seems to have been made on purpose to remove all these difficulties. In the first case none could be produced because we were not allowed to presuppose an idea; here a modification of the bodily organs becomes a substitute for the ideas that were lacking, and thus does animal sensation come to the help of the spirits inward mechanism, if I may so call it, and puts the same in motion. The will is active, and the action of a single power is sufficient to set all the rest to work. The following operations are self-developed and do not belong to this chapter. S 10.-Out of the History of the Individual. Let us follow now the growth of the soul in the individual man in relation to what I am trying to demonstrate, and let us observe how all his spiritual capacities grow out of motive powers of sense. a. The child. Still quite animal; or, rather more and at the same time less than animal--human animal (for that being which at some time shall be called man can at no time have been only animal). More wretched than an animal, because he has not even instinct--the animal-mother may with less danger leave her young than the mother abandon her child. Pain may force from him a cry, but will never direct him to the source from which it comes. The milk may give him pleasure, but he does not seek it. He is altogether passive. |
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