The 'organic concept' as developed in the writings of the early German romantics is perhaps not as well known as it might be. In brief, the concept, a fusion of the philosophies of Fichte and Spinoza, sought to unify the natural, physical world and the mental world into an organic whole (see Beiser, 2003). In this model, nature is the absolute and the mind is one part, the most highly developed part, of that whole. There is only a difference in degree and not a distinction in kind, between the mental and the physical. According to this theory, the mental activity of the genius (the artist or the philosopher) is but nature coming to its self awareness. Nature remains indeterminate and inchoate without humanity. But as plenty of Romantic poets have demonstrated through their work, it may also be true that humans can discover or reflect on their own self through exposure to nature.
There can be little doubt that humans have transformed their environment to a far greater degree than other species. This capacity for transformation and rapid change lend to humankind a somewhat precarious destiny. We may use our extraordinary capacities of imagination and love to live in friendship with and amongst human and nonhuman others, or we may continue to believe that the earth serves man and remain 'masters of the mystery that the earth breathes'. As the most complex manifestation of nature, the romantics understood quite well that humans bore a heavy burden. With the benefit of an aesthetic and moral education that taught the individual how to truly love what is not of themselves as a family, as community, we might at least approach wholeness. Friedrich Schlegel once wrote that to 'follow nature' is the only precept of a moral education. (See Beiser, 1996: 152) Why did he say this? Because Schlegel thought that despite humanity's elevated position, nature may remain the best teacher of all. Nature can teach us how to live well…
"Follow nature therefore means: just as nature is organized, so organize yourself."
If humans are only a part of nature, albeit a uniquely complex part of it, can humans also be free? The romantics certainly thought so, though they could not allow freedom in the radical sense posited by Kant's spontaneous freedom or Fichte's concept of self-positing, in which the self acts without any determination by a prior cause. The romantic conception of freedom was one in which the self was free only in its identification with nature. Freedom and necessity are not opposed but are truthfully one. As part of divine and absolute nature, which is indubitably free, true human freedom arises from "sharing or participating in divine necessity, in seeing that in all my actions the divine acts through me." (Beiser, 2003: 151) To put this another way; considered as merely an isolated part, the human being (or any other being) may seem determined, but because the whole is free, all of us as parts share in this universal freedom. Because we share in this freedom, ethical actions make sense in so much as they tend towards preserving and indeed advancing that freedom. By acting ethically we not only respect other beings but we are respecting that whole of which we are an expression.
Although the German romantics did not explicitly have an environmental ethics in the sense that we recognise today, there is no harm in thinking through what all this might mean from an environmental perspective. As we know, the Earth has been likened by many ecologists to an organism in itself, as is the case in James Lovelock's Gaia theory. This organism is itself comprised of many parts of varying sizes and complexity. Considered as a part, a single human being seems hopelessly determined, dwarfed by the Earth and leading a tiny existence that is little more noteworthy than that of a blade of grass. When the whole is taken into account, however, in place of determinism we find a glorious and creative and imaginative freedom. Considered in gargantuan time scales, the Earth has continually thrown up surprises; forests, oceans, entire species and other expressions that were once not there and someday will cease to be. We humans are an expression and manifestation of nature that happens to display remarkable aptitude in the acts of imagination and love, as well as in acts of incomparable cruelty, and as such our acts are neither spontaneously free nor utterly determined.
In a sense, all of our actions, including the development of technologies, the enclosing of the land and the extraction of minerals for our buildings, could be seen as an extension of nature's freedom. Nature is here simply throwing up even newer surprises, via us as intermediaries. This is really a consistent view if one accepts the premises of the organic concept. However, as lovers, as well as creators and destructors, it surely behooves us to preserve those human and nonhuman others that accompany us and share our great journey; our beloveds, who suffer pain or even die as a result of our actions. To do this, we should probably do as Schlegel says and 'follow nature'. This isn't the same thing as submitting to nature or returning to a primitive, 'natural' state. Rather it means to look to the rest of nature as a teacher, as a propaedeutic for our correct and healthy development, and to organize ourselves accordingly. Shelley, in his wonderful text, A Defence of Poetry, penned the following lines:
"The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action or person, not our own. A man to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."
In the quote, Shelley seems to restrict this 'great secret', this act of imagination and love, to members of our own species. An even more daring act of imagination might extend this gesture of love and empathy to members of other species. That Shelley specifically mentions the word 'place' here is significant. To put ourselves in the place of another we must first know what it is to be placed. But as I hope that I have begun to show elsewhere in this blog, this is a basic experience we can all relate to.
References
Frederick Beiser is a highly knowledgeable and reliable author on the German romantics. Here are two of his books:
Beiser, F. C. (2003) The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press
Beiser, F. C. (1996) The Early Political Writings of The German Romantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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