Philosophy as a way of life

Here, I believe, we have the reason why Goethe, in the passage quoted above, considered true poetry as an exercise consisting in spiritually elevating oneself high above the earth. For Goethe, poetry in the truest sense is a kind of physics, in the sense we have defined above: it is a spiritual exercise, which consists in looking down at things from above, from the point of view of the nature or the all, and the great laws of nature. By "laws of nature" we are to understand not only the all-embracing metamorphosis and unity of all things, but also the two universal principles Goethe refers to as "polarity" and

"increase," and which he loved to observe bo1 h in nature and in individual human life.32 We can detect the inspiration of 1 heHe idens not only in Goethe's youthful poetic cycle "God and the Wor l ll , 11 h111 11hm in lhc more modcsl 1111d

The View from Above

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unassuming poems of the older Goethe. Like the physics of antiquity, poetry thus conceived is intended to bring about in its readers or listeners greatness of soul and inner peace.

We now move on to another aspect of this spiritual exercise. The view from above can also be directed pitilessly upon mankind's weaknesses and shortcomings. All the philosophical schools dealt with this theme at length, but, as we shall see, it was treated with particular relish by the Cynic tradition. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, we find a Nee-Pythagorean version of the theme: "It is a delight to travel along the starry firmament and, leaving the earth and its dull regions behind, to ride on the clouds, to stand upon stout Atlas' shoulders and see, far below, men wandering aimlessly, devoid of reason, anxious and in fear of the hereafter, thus to exhort them and unroll the book of fate!" 33 We encounter an Epicurean version of it at the beginning of book 2 of Lucretius' On the Nawre of Things: "nothing is more delightful than to possess well-fortified sanctuaries serene, built up by the teachings of the wise, whence you may look down from on high upon others and behold them all astray, wandering abroad and seeking the paths of life." 34

The theme takes on a Stoic coloration in Seneca's Natural QJlestions.35 Here the soul of the philosopher, looking down from the heights of the heavens, becomes aware of the puniness of the earth, and the ridiculousness of the wars fought by human armies - which resemble swarms of ants - over minuscule stretches of territory. In Marcus Aurelius, the theme appears in a particularly realistic form: "look upon earthly things below as if from some place above them - herds, armies, farms, weddings, divorces, births, deaths, the noise of law courts, lonely places, various foreign nations, festivals, mournings, market places: a mixture of everything and an order composed of contraries." 36

Elsewhere, Marcus enjoins us to: " 'Look from above' at the spectacle of myriad herds, myriad rites, and manifold journeyings in storm and calm; diversities of creatures who are being born, coming together, passing away." 37

The view from above thus leads us to consider the whole of human reality, in all its social, geographical, and emotional aspects, as an anonymous, swarming mass, and it teaches us to relocate human existence within the immeasurable dimensions of the cosmos. Everything that does not depend on us, which the Stoics called indifferent (indiflerentia) - such as health, fame, wealth, and even death - is reduced to its true dimensions when considered from the point of view of the nature of the all.

When the view from above takes on this specific form of observing human beings on earth, it seems more than ever to belong to the Cynic tradition. We find it being used with particular effectiveness by Lucian, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius who was strongly influenced by Cynic doctrines. In Lucian's dialogue entitled lcaromenippus, or the Sky-man, the Cynic Menippus confides to a friend thnt he was so disillusioned by the contradictory teachings of the philusuplll'n• l"onct•rning tht• ultimate principles and the universe that he

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Themes