Reflections on Ideal Science and Art: Schiller’s “Archimedes and the Student”

By David Gosselin

We’ll be publishing regular new translations and analysis for our subscribers, all of which will be appearing in my new book of Schiller translations. We begin this new year with reflections on the ideal of science and art, as explored in Schiller’s “Archimedes and the Student.”

In “Archimedes and the Student,” Friedrich Schiller offers a cautious reminder to all those living through times in which “Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers are supposed to be a slave and to which all talents are to pay homage.” For in these times, Schiller says, “The spiritual merit of art has no weight in this crude balance, and deprived of all encouragement, it disappears from the noisy market of the century.” While artists and scientists will always have to recognize and contend with the forces of utility, they need never worship it, or pay it homage, and they must ultimately serve as the creative bulwark against all such idol worship.

If artists and scientists are forced to worship utility and its many needy sisters, whether under the rule of some twenty-first century dystopian Technate[1] and its technocratic prelates or at the altar of “efficiency” and Scientism, the fruits of true science and art are bound to rot on the vine, if said vines even remain fruitful, or aren’t altogether uprooted in favor of simulated flavors.

Thus, in his second letter on aesthetic education Schiller describes the function of ideal art, as opposed to those forms of artistic expression which ultimately operate under “the pressing need of matter.” Rather than bow down under the “tyrannical yoke” of utility, ideal art is neither its hostage nor its pupil, but a guide and teacher for the age, to draw its pupils upwards, rather then downwards in the worship of idols.

Schiller identified how ideal art’s borders found themselves narrowed by the utilitarian concerns of his age, including by those interested in reaping the fruits of modern science and technological progress. In this way, he revisits his theme from a scientific perspective, in the person of Archimedes of Syracuse. Thus, “Archimedes and the Student” is a poem about ideal science.

Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes (1805) by Benjamin West

Archimedes was the last great living representative of the Classical Greek scientific tradition, until he was murdered by a Roman soldier during Rome’s siege of Syracuse in 212 0r 211 BCE. The murder of the great mathematician and inventor symbolized the death of the great Classical Greek scientific tradition stretching back to its early Ionian origins. While Rome would make use of many innovations and engineering feats to expand its empire later on, the spirit of pure science embodied by the likes of an Archimedes or Archytas had passed. It would not be until the time of the Italian Golden Renaissance that we would see this same creative spirit flourish with renewed fire, as we’ll see in our upcoming “Secrets of the Renaissance” series.

Notably, Archimedes was famous for his many mechanical innovations and visionary trinkets. However, the sagely architect was reputed to have only viewed his mechanical designs as the worldly incarnations of a more divine source.

A painting of the Claw of Archimedes by Giulio Parigi, taking the name "iron hand" literally, 1599-1600

Rather than echoing the crude mechanistic view of science as some kind of precise art aimed at generating immediate practical gains for oneself, the state, or business enterprise, Schiller adopts the Classical Greek spirit of science as typified by Archimedes the mathematician-architect-inventor. In him Schiller saw a sage whose inquiries and discoveries he never felt compelled to make under the threat of chains or demands of the world, but rather for the love of knowledge and desire to acquaint himself with the beauty of the kosmos itself. That higher love, in truth, is what made his many intricate designs possible in the first place.

Schiller’s poem reads as follows:

Archimedes and the Student

An inquisitive youth once met Archimedes the sage,
“Instruct me in the ways,” he said, “Of your most divine art,
which has borne so many a fruit for our own Syracuse,
And its great parapets and mighty battlements preserved!”
“You call this art divine? She is,” replied the master,
“But she was so, my son, before she served our fatherland.
If fruits are all you want from her, these mortals, too, afford;
But to court this goddess, seek not the woman in her.”

Translation © David B. Gosselin

Original.

Zu Archimedes kam ein wißbegieriger Jüngling,
»Weihe mich,« sprach er zu ihm, »ein in die göttliche Kunst,
Die so herrliche Frucht dem Vaterlande getragen
Und die Mauren der Stadt vor der Sambuca¹ beschützt!«
»Göttlich nennst du die Kunst? Sie ists,« versetzte der Weise,
»Aber das war sie, mein Sohn, eh sie dem Staat noch gedient,
Willst du nur Früchte von ihr, die kann auch die Sterbliche zeugen;
Wer um die Göttin freit, suche in ihr nicht das Weib.«