THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

Page 692
formation, of additional release and new formation in material. Thus Kant's aesthetic criterion, mutatis mutandis, more or less also holds good for the technological
genius, wherever it endeavours to advance beyond the mere technology of cunning, as a future­concrete genius. This is not controverted by the fact that Kant regards a
subject in nature (natura naturans) as something which can only be added to nature in the mind, like an immanent I technology of nature' itself, as Kant says. Even the
preponderance which the mere Newtonian mechanism of nature possesses in Kant cannot prevent in the ‘Critique of Judgement’ the — however reflexive or
hypothetical — interpretation which is able to refer to a natura naturans, indeed natura supernaturans. Certainly, a subject of nature (the not merely secularized ancient
Isis) remains problematic as long as no concrete mediation by man, as the youngest son of nature, has succeeded with it. Yet the possibility of this remains open and is
mapped out in the object, not just in our ability to interpret it, in an interpreting ability which would not even be possible as a problematic one without the penetrating
influence of natural material. To sum up, therefore, leaving aside all speculation: there is the predisposition, the real possibility of a subject of nature, by seizure it is
brought into Faust's relation to fire, which only overcomes nature in order to mediate it with the best that is latent within it in our best interests.
If fire is only controlled and guarded, then it remains alien. The separate track on which it moves along is then a downright dangerous one, even if its additional force
were to be better managed in social terms than it is now. In the society which is currently still continuing there is definitely nothing discernible of the related spirit who
has turned his countenance to us precisely in the fire. There is a specific anxiety of the engineer that he has advanced too far, too unsecured, he does not know what
forces he is dealing with. And from such non­mediation stems not least the most obvious effect of omitted content: the technological accident. This above all indicates
how the content of natural forces, which is still so little mediated with us, cannot be abstracted away without great harm. In fact, in all accidents which happen to human
beings, among one another and in their relation to nature, a strangely common factor which is most instructive emerges at the same time: the technological accident is not
wholly unrelated to the economic crisis, nor is the economic crisis wholly unrelated to the technological accident. Certainly, the differences between the two are more
apparent, and in places even greater than this relationship, and the comparison therefore sounds paradoxical. The technological accident appears as a coincidental
crossing of regular motions, as their outward, unforeseen point