Preface

Preface.Vorrede.

In the following pages the author has not meant to give a theory of the dream proper; rather, even in the physiological part of this little work, he has been content to draw attention to a certain partie honteuse of human nature, which, at least in the ordinary course of life, is seldom recognized for what it really is. This sleeping and dreaming part of our being, which knows so well how to hide from the unpractised eye, will as surely pass over the dark border with us as the waking part; and the education of the former ought, for more than one reason, to be a chief concern for us: an education about whose method, to be sure, only a very old, but highest, pedagogical system of all peoples and times gives information.

For several reasons the author thought it fitting to give even this treatise the turn of a light conversational tone. The time seems to have come when even the spiritually deaf begin to hear again, and when at last science, especially the science of nature, will be in a position to pay off a part of its old debt. Besides, it did not seem unfitting, in the very days in which the victory over an outward destroyer and usurper has been celebrated, to draw attention to a destroyer and usurper within us.^†I This one, who on the whole thrives best in outward sunshine and peace, still remains for us to fight, and this fight, which only a complete victory, and no negotiating for an armistice, can end, may well, for more than one reason, become more serious in our age than formerly. Therefore the short time of remission and receptiveness should be well used, all the more since, when the attack of fever returns, it might be too late to give medicine.

For the rest, this Symbolism was meant to be a light forerunner of a fairly extensive section in the next volume of my Ahndungen etc., which the author will write as soon as the necessary soil, nourishment, and sun from above come to him for it.^†II

Nuremberg, on the 17th of April 1814.

The Author.