constitutes/affords him an/the introduction

just to say something different

Noli, naturally "introduction" was the first thing that came to mind. But doesn't it sound rather weird in English in this context?

the other words which came first to mind were key, base, basis, foundation etc.

a first step

provides the opening
shows the route

Thx, Noli, for your thoughtful suggestions! I like "provides the opening" best so far.

Ferenczi, you know I always enjoy responding to your posts when I can, so forgive me for a) responding to more than you asked for, and b) for making more changes than you will be happy with; and c) why on earth have you translated "Bewusstsein" as "becoming conscious" (and "das Erkennen" as "knowing") here (they both give, for my taste, very awkward English; and "The highest a man can attain is becoming conscious of" is syntactically incorrect - an infinitive construction, i.e. "is to become", is grammatically okay, but as far as I'm concerned not desirable)?

My attempt at your sentence:

"The highest man can attain to is consciousness of his own sentiments and thoughts, that knowledge of self that also opens the way to intimate acquaintance with temperaments that are different from his own."

(OED gives "to attain to" as "archaic", but for the Old Codger this is just the kind of thing one needs imo.)

@ Phillipp (# 7), with excuses for the belated response. All points taken and gratefully acknowledged. And I enjoy learning from and thinking about your answers. Still: the "to" in "can attain to" is not correct here, or is it?

BTW, there is a problem with "das Erkennen," which can be a process as opposed to the "Erkenntnis" (perhaps like "to realize" vs. "realization" or "knowledge," as it is usually translated in the philosophical context). But that's OT.

Ferenczi #8, your question about "attain to" ("the 'to' in 'attain to' is not correct here, or is it") -- I don't think it's incorrect (in the OED it's listed as meaning #10) but, as I mentioned at #7, the OED does classify it as "archaic".

Arguably there's a slight shift of nuance from "attain" to "attain to":

(A) "to attain consciousness of his own sentiments"
(B) "to attain to consciousness of his own sentiments"

Although the meaning of "arriving at consciousness of" is contained in (A), it also has the sense of "acquiring consciousness of" or "getting consciousness of" -- for my feel in fact it's the dominant sense.

In the case of (B) only the sense of "arriving at consciousness of" is involved. And for that reason it seems to me preferable to (A), even at the price of its being a mild archaism (which, given the fact that it's Goethe, I would think is defensible).

[On top of that, just to make things nice and complicated ;-), if you were to use "attain" on its own, I don't think it would fit in with the remainder of the beginning of the sentence as I've given it:

"The highest man can attain is consciousness of his, etc."

I would be inclined then to jettison "attain" entirely and use, say, "achieve":

"The highest man can achieve is consciousness of his, etc."

But, imo the version with "attaining to" is far preferable to this, simply because of the notion of arriving at, of reaching, rather than that of acquiring, of getting, or achieving. But now I'm repeating myself.]

*Stöhn*, Phillipp #9, englische Sprache schwere Sprache. Thanks for your help.