The German Romantic Friedrich Holderlin developed a unique perspective on the relationship between humankind and the rest of nature. He believed that humanity has a positive role to play in cosmic evolution, and that modernity is the crucial stage in fulfilling this role. In this book the author views Holderlin"s ideas from the perspective of the environmental crisis of modernity. From this perspective the environmental crisis has a purpose. This perspective involves an inversion of the traditional notion of causality in the environmental crisis - instead of humans harming nature, it is nature which causes human suffering.