Hermeneutics*

Friedrich Ast

All action has its own manner or method which proceeds

from its own essence; every activity of life has its own
principles, without whose guidance it will lose itself in
indeterminate directions. These principles become all the
more urgent when we move from our own spiritual [geistig]
1 and physical world into a foreign one, where no familiar
spirit [Genius] is guiding our uncertain steps, or is giving
direction to our undefined effort. If we are to construct
these principles ourselves, we shall apprehend the alien
phenomena, understand the world of the unfamiliar spirit
and surmise their deeper meaning only gradually and with
difficulty.
To the mind [Geist] there is nothing foreign as such, since it
constitutes the higher, infinite unity, the center of all life,
that is unbounded by any periphery.
Would it be otherwise possible for us to become capable of
comprehending the strangest, hitherto most unfamiliar
perceptions, sensations, and ideas, if that which exists and
can become were not originally comprised in the spirit, and
evolving from it, just as the One infinite light refracts into a
thousand colors which issue from one source, all being
merely different representations of the One, refracted into
the temporal, and all dissolving again into that One? For the
notion that things enter the mind from outside, through
images, through sense impressions or whatever other nonelucidating explanations have been devised, is a selfannulling and long-abandoned conception. Being cannot
transform itself into knowledge, or the corporeal into spirit,
without being akin to or fundamentally one with it.

All life is spirit and without the spirit there is no life, no

being, not even a sensory world; for the physical objects
that appear to the mechanically perceiving intelligence as
inert, lifeless and material, are to the more deeply inquiring
person only apparently dead beings [Geister], extinguished
in the product, petrified in their physical existence; he is
familiar with their power and knows that being, which was
originally life, can also never cease to be alive, and that it
will express its life-force the moment a congenial power
should stimulate the fluctuations of its life-forces
[Lebensgeister].
In general, all understanding and comprehension of not only
a foreign world but also of an "other" is altogether
impossible without the original unity and equality of
everything spiritual [Geistige] and without the original unity
of all objects within the spirit. For how can the One affect
the other, the latter absorb the influence of the former, if
they are not related to each other and the one is able to
approximate the other, to fashion itself in its likeness or,
conversely, the other to shape itself in a similar way? Thus
we would understand neither antiquity in general nor a
work of art or text, if our spirit were not, in itself and
fundamentally, one with the spirit of antiquity, so that it is
able to comprehend this spirit which is alien to it only
temporally and relatively. For it is only the temporal and
external (upbringing, education [Bildung], circumstances)
that postulate a difference of the spirit. If we disregard the
temporal and external as accidental differences in relation
to the pure spirit, then all spirits are alike. And this,
precisely, is the objective of philological education: the
cleansing of the spirit from the temporal, accidental, and
subjective, and the imparting of that originality and
universality which is essential for the higher and purer
human beings, for humanitarianism, that he may
comprehend the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in all its
form and representations, however alien, transforming it
into his own nature [Wesen], thus becoming again One with
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the original, purely human spirit from which he departed

owing to the limitations of his time, his education and his
circumstances.
This is not a mere idea, as it might appear to those who
contrast the actual as reality and only truth with the ideal,
without considering that there is only One true and original
life, which is neither ideal nor real, because both emerge
from it as only temporal opposites, and that it is the idea
which approximates this original life most closely and is
therefore the abundance of all reality itself; but higher
history (not mere fact-compiling history) manifests this
convincingly. In the same way, namely, in which humanity is
basically One, it had also been once temporally one in the
most magnificent profusion and purity of its life- forces: in
the Oriental world, which was mythical and religious only
because it did not yet know the temporal polarity of the real
and ideal form [Bildung].
For Paganism and Christianity are in the Indian world, for
example, still One: God is at once the fullness or totality
(Pantheismos) and the unity (Theismos) of all life. Only after
the disintegration of Orientalism did the individual elements
of its nature reveal themselves temporally (as periods of
human development): here is the beginning of the actual
so-called history, the temporally and successively evolving
life of mankind. The two poles of history are the Greek and
Christian worlds, both of which emerged, however, from one
center, Orientalism, and are striving by virtue of their
original unity for reunion in our own world. The triumph of
our development will then be the consciously created
harmony of the poetic (the plastic or Greek) and the
religious (the musical or Christian) life of mankind
[Menschenbildung]. Thus everything emerged from One
Spirit and everything is striving to return again to the One
Spirit. Without the knowledge of this original unity which
fled from itself (separating itself temporally) and is seeking
itself again, we are not only incapable of understanding
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antiquity but also of knowing anything at all of history and

of human development.
All interpretation and explication of a foreign work,
composed in a foreign form (language), presupposes
understanding not only of a particular part, but also of the
totality of this foreign world, which, in turn, presupposes the
understanding of the original unity of the spirit. For through
this unity, we are enabled not only to form an idea of the
totality of the foreign world, but also to comprehend each
individual phenomenon truthfully and correctly, i.e., in the
spirit of the whole.
Hermeneutics or exegesis ( also called enarratio auctorum
by Quintillian, De Institutione Oratoria Libri Duodecim I. 9,
1.) presupposes hence the understanding of antiquity in all
its external and internal elements, and bases upon it the
explication of the written works of antiquity. For only one
who has understood completely both its content and form
(language and representation) can explain a work, develop
its meaning and describe its internal as well as external
connection to other works or to antiquity as a whole.
The understanding of the works of antiquity is based upon
their content and form. For everything has a certain content
or subject matter and a corresponding form that expresses
and reveals it. The content is that which has been shaped,
and the form, the expression of its shaping.
As infinitely as antiquity in itself is formed in its entire
artistic and scientific, public, and particular life, so infinitely
varied is also the content of its work. Hence the
understanding of the works of antiquity in terms of their
content presupposes knowledge, in the widest sense of the
word, of the ancient arts and sciences and archeology.
Form in the written works of antiquity is the language, it
being the expression of the spirit. The understanding of the
works of antiquity consequently presupposes also
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knowledge of the old languages. Content (subject-matter)

and form are originally one: for everything that is formed is
originally a self forming, the form being the external
expression of this self-forming, and what is originally One, a
life forming itself, separates, after the self-forming has
become the formed into the inner (content or subject
matter) and the outer (form). The original unity of all being
we call spirit. Hence the spirit is the vantage point at which
all creation begins, to which everything that is created
[Gebildet] must be retraced, if it is to be comprehended not
in its mere appearance, but rather in its essence and
truthfulness. Just as the subject matter and form emanated
from the spirit, so they must both be retraced to it; only
then will we recognize what they were originally and in
themselves, and how they were formed.
We will comprehend the whole of antiquity's life through the
forms in which it represents itself only after we have
inquired into the original oneness of the whole, the spirit, as
the focal point from which emanated all phenomena of the
internal and external life. Without this higher unity, the
whole would disintegrate into a dark and lifeless mass of
atomistic fragments, of which none would have a
connection with the other, and thus none would have sense
or meaning. The idea that antiquity, viewed as a special
epoch in mankind's development [Menschenbildung],
represents poetry or the external, free and beautifully
formed life of humanity, may then best describe the spirit of
antiquity in general. If we are thus able to trace back
everything, even by recognizing the inner connection with
the spirit of the whole, then we will truly comprehend every
single work of antiquity not only in its appearance, but also
in its spirit (its higher relationship and tendency).
But the spirit of antiquity assumes in every individual again
a specific form, though not in its essence for it is One spirit
that is present in all but in direction and form. The
understanding of the text of antiquity requires therefore not
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only the comprehension of the ancient spirit as such, but

also especially the recognition of the author's unique spirit,
in order to examine not merely how the spirit expressed
itself in an author's work in this content and in this form in
order to reveal itself in its shaping, but also to see how an
author's particular spirit is itself again only a revelation of
the higher, universal spirit of the ancient world.
Accordingly, the understanding of the ancient authors is
threefold: (1) historical, in reference to the content of their
works, which is either artistic, scientific, or antiquarian in
the broadest sense of the word; (2) grammatical, in regard
to their form or language and their delivery; (3) spiritual
[geistig] in reference to the spirit of the individual author
and of antiquity as a whole.
The third or spiritual understanding is the true and higher
one, in which the historical and grammatical merge into one
life. Historical understanding recognizes what the spirit
formed, the grammatical how it formed it, and the spiritual
understanding traces the what and the how, the subject
matter and the form, back to their original, harmonious life
in the spirit. For even the public life of antiquity, which the
historical writer, for example, perceived and represented as
a given, was initially a product of the universal spirit of
antiquity. And the historical or antiquarian writer reproduces
in himself what is already produced, by comprehending it
with his spirit, according to his view and tendency. In other
words, in the historical and antiquarian texts of antiquity,
the content is a freely reconstructed reproduction, while in
the artistic and scientific works, it is a spontaneous and
voluntary creation [Gebildetes], produced autonomously by
the spirit of the poet or thinker.
The basic principle of all understanding and knowledge is to
find in the particular the spirit of the whole, and to
comprehend the particular through the whole; the former is
the analytical, the latter, the synthetic method of cognition.
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However, both are posited only with and through each

other. Just as the whole cannot be thought of apart from the
particular as its member, so the particular cannot be viewed
apart from the whole as the sphere in which it lives. Thus
neither precedes the other because both condition each
other reciprocally, and constitute a harmonious life.
Similarly, the spirit of collective antiquity also cannot truly
be comprehended unless we grasp it in its particular
manifestations in the works of the authors of antiquity.
If we are able then to recognize the spirit of antiquity only
through its manifestations in the works of its authors, and
yet these themselves presuppose in turn the cognition of
the universal spirit, how is it possible to understand the
particular when it presupposes knowledge of the whole,
while we can understand always only successively and are
unable to comprehend the whole simultaneously?
The circle, namely that I understand a, b, c, etc. only
through A, but this A itself again only through a, b, c, etc.,
cannot be broken if both A and a, b, c, etc. are seen as
opposites that mutually condition and presuppose each
other, and if A does not just emerge from a, b, c, etc., and is
not generated by them, but does, rather, precede and
permeate them all in the same manner, so that a, b, c are
nothing but the individual representations of the one A. In A
are contained then a, b, c in their original manner. These
parts themselves are the individual developments of the
one A; each contains A already in a particular mode, and I
will not need first to go through the infinite succession of
particulars in order to find their unity.
Only in this manner is it possible that I will comprehend the
particular through the whole and, conversely, the whole
through the particular; for both are simultaneously given in
all their particularity. Together with a is also posited A, for
the former is only a manifestation of the latter, i.e., the
whole is posited simultaneously with the particular. And the
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further I progress in the comprehension of the particular,

passing through the line a, b, c, etc., the more evident and
alive the spirit becomes to me, the more does the idea of
the whole unfold which already arose in me with the first
link in the series. For the spirit is nowhere a composite of
individual parts, but an original, simple, undivided essence.
It is as simple, whole, and undivided in every particular as it
is undivided in itself, i.e., every individual part is only a
unique, manifested form of the One spirit; the particular
does not produce then the spirit or idea, creating it through
synthesis, but rather it stimulates and arouses the idea.
Consequently, all authors of antiquity, but especially those
whose works are the free product of the spirit, represent
that One spirit, but each according to his own way, by his
era, his individuality, his education, and the external
circumstances of life. The idea and spirit of all antiquity is
mediated to us through every particular poet and author of
antiquity. But we understand the author fully only when we
comprehend the spirit of all antiquity, which manifests itself
in the author in union with his own individual spirit.
The cognition of the latter includes insight into the
particular spirit of the age in which the author lived, into the
individual spirit of the author himself, as well as knowledge
of the education and of the external circumstances which
influenced his development.
Pindar, for example, is with regard to subject matter, form,
and spirit, a truly ancient poet. Hence his poetry reveals to
us in these three respects the spirit of all antiquity. The
athletic contests which he celebrates, the pictorial, native,
and pure form of his representation, the spirit of his hymns,
burning with patriotism, pride of contest, and heroic virtue,
evoke in us the glorified image of a truly classical world in
which man not only cultivated within himself noble
sentiments and praiseworthy aspirations, but moreover
delighted in great deeds for the fatherland and its gods. For
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the prize in the contests was not only an honorary

decoration of the winner and of his fatherland, but also a
glorification of the god in whose honor the games were
celebrated. This is the general connection that Pindar's
poems have to the spirit of antiquity as a whole. In and of
themselves, however, they reveal his spirit in a unique way,
for not only does the spirit of antiquity speak in them, but
also the spirit of the author. This gives rise to the questions:
In which age did Pindar live? What was his particular spirit
[Genius]? How did he develop [bilden] and in what
circumstances did he live? It is necessary to answer all
these questions as completely as possible if we want to
sketch a true and live picture of the spirit and character of
Pindar's poetry. This is what understanding a poet of
antiquity means.
The development of understanding and its exposition is
called explication. Explication, of course, presupposes
understanding, and is based on it. For only what has been
truly grasped and comprehended, i.e., understood, can be
communicated and made clear to others.
Understanding contains two elements: comprehension of
the particular and summation of the particular into the
totality of One perception, feeling, or idea, i.e., the
dissecting of its elements or characteristics and the joining
of the dissected parts into the unity of the perception of the
concept. Hence explication is also based upon the
development of the particular or individual and the
summary of the particular into a unity. Understanding and
explication are accordingly cognition and comprehension.
The above mentioned circle applies here also, namely, in
that the particular can be understood only through the
whole, and conversely, the whole, only through the
particular, and in that the perception or concept precedes
cognition of the particular, even though perception and
concept seem to develop only through these. Here too, as
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above, this circle can be resolved only by acknowledging

the original unity of the particular and the general as the
true life of both. Then the spirit of the whole is contained in
every single element, and the further the development of
the particular progresses, the clearer and livelier the idea of
the whole becomes. Here too, the spirit does not generate
itself through the connection of the particular, but lives
already and originally in the particular, wherefore the
particular is indeed the manifestation of the spirit in its
totality.
In the explication of a work or of a particular part, the idea
of the whole is not generated by the combination of all its
individual parts, but is rather evoked in the person who is
capable of comprehending the idea in the first place with
the comprehension of the first particular, and becomes ever
clearer and livelier, the further the explication of the
particular progresses. The first comprehension of the idea of
the whole through the particular is conjecture, i.e., as yet
still indefinite and undeveloped foreknowledge of the spirit,
which turns into vivid and clear cognition through growing
comprehension of the particular. Upon exploration of the
sphere of the particular, the idea, which was still conjecture
at the point of first comprehension, emerges now as a clear
and conscious unity of the manifold presented in the
individual. Understanding and explication are complete.
Thus the understanding and explication of a work is a true
reproduction or recreation [Nachbilden] of that which is
already formed. For every creation begins with a mythical,
still concealed starting point, from which, as factors of that
creation, develop the elements of life. They are the actually
forming, mutually limiting forces which become united into
One
whole
through
the
process
of
reciprocal
interpenetration. The idea, still undeveloped at the
beginning, yet giving to the life-factors their direction, is
represented completely and objectively in the created
product. The aim of all creation is consequently the
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manifestation of the spirit, the harmonious forming of the

external (the elements that separated from the original
unity) and the inner (spiritual [geistig]) life. The beginning
of creation is unity; the creation itself is multiplicity (the
contrast of the elements); the completion of the creation or
the created [Gebildete] is the permeation of the unity and
multiplicity, i.e., totality.
Consequently, not only the whole of a work, but also its
specific parts and even its single passages, can be
understood and explained only in the following manner: that
as one comprehends the first particular, one is
comprehending also the spirit and idea of the whole. Next,
one explains the single parts and elements to gain an
insight into the individual nature of the whole. Upon the
cognition of all the particulars, the next step is to
summarize everything into a unity which, with the cognition
of all the elements, is now a clear, conscious, and in all its
particulars, a live one.
The explication of a Horation ode, for example, will proceed
from the originating point of the poet's production. In it, the
idea of the whole is already intimated, as surely as the
starting point of the poetic creation itself originated in the
inspired idea of the whole. Having been given its first
direction at the starting point, the idea of the whole evolves
through all elements throughout the poem; and the
explication must comprehend these single moments, each
in its individual life, until the circle of the developing
elements is complete, until the whole, made up of parts,
flows back into the idea in which the production originated;
until the manifold life, having evolved into many individual
parts, becomes one again with the original unity, which the
first represented moment of the production only intimated,
and the unity, at first only indefinite, emerges as a vivid,
living harmony.

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Every individual passage emanates also from one

perception or idea. The representation and development of
this idea is the multiplicity of its life; its completion is the
harmony of the unity from which this multiple life unfolds,
and with the multiplicity, the real life. Every passage which
is complete in itself can serve as proof and example.
The particular presupposes the idea of the whole, the spirit,
which shapes itself throughout the whole scheme of
particulars into vivid life, returning finally into itself again.
With this returning of the spirit into its original being
[Wesen], the circle of explication is closed. Every particular,
then, intimates the spirit, because it emanated from it and
is permeated by it. Consequently, every particularity
contains also its own life, because it reveals the spirit in a
unique way. In itself, in its merely external, empirical life,
the unique is the letter; taken in its inner being, in its
significance and relationship to the spirit of the whole,
which represents itself in a unique mode, it is the meaning;
the consummate comprehension of the letter and the
meaning in their harmonious unity is the spirit. The letter is
the body or cloak of the spirit, through which the invisible
spirit enters into the outer, visible life. Meaning is the
harbinger and interpreter of the spirit; the spirit itself is true
life.
For every passage that needs explication, one must first ask
what the letter is stating; secondly, how it is stating it, what
meaning the statement has, what significance it occupies in
the text; thirdly, what the idea of the whole or of the spirit
is, as that unity from which the letter emanated and into
which it seeks to return. Without the meaning, the letter is
dead and unintelligible. To be sure, the meaning without the
spirit is in itself intelligible, but it has an individual or
atomistic meaning which has no basis and no purpose
without the spirit. For only through the spirit do we come to
perceive the why, the where-from, and whereto of every
object.
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The letter, meaning, and spirit are therefore the three

elements of explication. The hermeneutics of the letter is
the explication of the word and subject matter of the
particular; the hermeneutics of meaning [Sinn] is the
explication of its significance [Bedeutung] in connection
with the given passage; and the hermeneutics of the spirit
is the explication of its higher relation to the idea of the
whole in which the particular dissolves into the unity of the
whole.
The explication of the word and subject matter presupposes
knowledge of language and archeology, in other words,
grammatical and historical knowledge of antiquity. With
regard to language, the various stages of its development
must be determined as well as its different forms and
dialects, for every writer writes in the language of his age
and in the dialect of his people.
Homer's language differs from the language of later epic
and lyric poets, dramatists, etc., not only with respect to its
genius but also with respect to its outer and formal
development. Every particular passage and every word in it
must be specifically understood if a meaning is to emerge.
Wherever the meaning of words that are unknown or
employed in an unusual or metaphorical way is not
immediately clear, these words must be investigated with
regard to their etymology, analogy, and various usage
during different periods by different authors, in order to
establish the meaning which corresponds to the meaning of
the passage and the spirit (i.e., to the genius and the
tendency) of the whole. The explication of the subject
matter presupposes knowledge of antiquity as such, and
especially of that subject which the author in question
treated. In fact, we must investigate the level of
development occupied at that time by the art, science, etc.,
chosen by a given author for the object of his
representation, how antiquity in general, and particularly
the author in question, viewed these disciplines, so that we
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do not confer upon an earlier author the achievements of a

later development and knowledge, or conversely, attribute
to him ideas and views that were older and as yet
undeveloped.
The explication of the meaning is based on the insight into
the spirit [Genius] and tendency of antiquity as such and of
the particular author who is the subject of the explication.
For without having surmised or recognized the spirit of
antiquity, it is impossible truly to comprehend the meaning
of even a single passage. If the modern sentimental or
logical mind [Geist] does not rise to pure perception of the
life and spirit of antiquity, it will easily run the risk of
understanding and interpreting falsely, not only the Greek
or Roman work as a whole, but also its individual passages.
The meaning of a work and of a particular passage is
deduced from the spirit and tendency of the author. Only
the interpreter who has comprehended these and
familiarized himself with these is in the position to
understand every passage in the spirit of its author and to
reveal its correct meaning. A passage by Plato, for example,
will often have a different meaning from one almost similar
in meaning and words by Aristotle. For what is in the
former, concrete perception and free life, is in the latter
frequently only logical concept and national reflection. But if
we look at a single work on its own, then the meaning of
every particular passage and every word is determined by
its relationship to the other most closely related words and
passages and to the work as a whole.
Consequently, not only one and the same word, but also
individual, similar passages, carry in a different context,
different meanings. But, in order to grasp the meaning of
the whole on which the understanding of the part depends,
one must have explored the spirit, the intention, the time
and conditions of the public and private life in which the
work in question was written. The history of literature, of
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the individual education, of the life of the author, is

therefore necessary for the understanding of every
particular work.
It is necessary, furthermore, to distinguish between the
simple and the allegorical meaning. In passages that are
doubtful, that meaning is generally the most correct which
corresponds most closely to the spirit of antiquity and
especially to the spirit, the tendency, and character of the
author.
Explication of the spirit of a text or of an individual passage
means the exposition of the idea which the author had in
mind or was unconsciously guided by. For the idea is the
higher, living unity from which all life evolves, and to which
it returns again spiritually transfigured. The elements of the
idea are the multiplicity, the perceptual, developed life, and
the unity as the form of multiplicity or of life, i.e., perception
and concept. The harmonious interpenetration of the two
produces the idea. Now in many authors, the idea as such
does not emerge, but only its elements, either the
perception or the concept: perception in the case of
empirical, historical writers; the mere concept in the logical
philosophical ones. Only in the case of the truly artistic or
philosophical authors is everything developed from the idea
and is everything striving back to it, so that not only the
whole of a text, but also the individual passages, have their
life in the idea.

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