Seht da den Menschen! Aus dem Franzoesischen: Ecce homo

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In fact, our material tools materiellen Werkzeuge deliver to our animal and sensory soul thierischen und sinnlichen Seele the impression of the forms and images of all objects presented to them, as well as the feeling of the various characteristics with which these objects are clothed. Then, our thinking soul denkende Seele has the obligation and power to analyze all those characteristics: to consider what the purpose of the existence of all these different objects is, if this purpose is unknown to her. That is: she has the right to investigate in these objects what the idea Idee is of which they are the expression, what the facts are that they witness, or what the reality is that they make known. We all must confess that we are now truly and completely satisfied when our thinking enjoys the knowledge of the ultimate purpose Endzweck, which it receives through the various characteristics of these very objects. This is a new reason to convince ourselves that all objects are the expression

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of an idea! For how could they lead our reason Vernunft to the satisfying and illuminating goal if they had not themselves come down, as it were, from that light or realm of ideas Ideenbereich?

Moreover, do not even the most common customs among men lead us to the great truth that all objects surrounding us are expressions of an idea? Do not all inventions Erfindungen that they use daily for their needs, their joys, and their comforts, bear the stamp of the idea Gepräge der Idee from which they spring? Is a book not an expression of the intention to collect one's thoughts as if in one and the same whole? A carriage, is it not an expression of the endeavor to move quickly and without fatigue? A house, to provide oneself with a comfortable life secured against bad weather?

Let us therefore believe that the highest wisdom höchste Weisheit also had ideas and designs in its...