Need, this need of Luxury … is sovereign of the world. It is the soul of that Industry which deadens men, to turn them to [P. 77] machines; the soul of our State which swears away men’s honour … ; the soul of our deistic Science, which hurls men down before an immaterial God, the product of the sum of intellectual luxury, for its consumption.” [421W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 76-77]
[422W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 77]
[P. 77] {FEUER} “Everything is rooted in one unending and harmonious whole; and therewith likewise the capricious, unnecessary, and harmful.” [422W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 77]
[423W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 78]
[P. 78] “… the force of Necessity shows its living rule even as the sole and ground condition of the continuance of the arbitrary. Thus the luxury of the rich is built upon the penury of the poor; and it is the very want of the poorer classes that hurls unceasingly fresh fodder to the luxury of the rich; while the poor man, from very need of food and his life-forces, thus offers up his life-strength unto the rich.” [423W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 78]
[424W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 79]
[P. 79] {FEUER} It is in the reproduction of this great evolutionary process of Nature in Man himself, that the human race, from the time of its first self-severance from Nature, is thus involved. The same necessity is the mainspring of the great revolution of mankind; the same assuagement will bring this revolution to a close.
{FEUER} But that impelling force, the plain and innate force of Life which vindicates itself in life-needs, is unconscious and instinctive by its very nature; and where it is this – in the Folk – it also is the only true, conclusive might. [424W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 79]
[425W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 79-80]
[P. 79] {FEUER} “Thought is arbitrary so long as it cannot picture to itself the physical present and that which has passed away from sense, with the completest unconditional perception of their necessary coherence (‘Zusammenhang’); for the consciousness of this conception (‘Vorstellung’) is the essence of all reasonable Knowledge (‘vernuenftiges Wissen’). (…) But so soon as Thought abstracts from actuality, and would fain construct the concrete future, it can no longer bring forth Knowledge; but utters [P. 80] itself as Fancy (‘Waehnen’), which forcibly dissevers itself from the Unconscious.” [425W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 79-80]
[426W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 80]
[P. 80] {FEUER} “… the march of human evolution is the rational and natural progress from the unconscious to the conscious, from un-knowledge to knowledge, from need to satisfying … .” [426W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 80]
