ought, as the moralists are forever preaching, but because we can do what we will do, if we will and in so far as we will. Goethe's splendid conception of the duty and destiny of man finds its most beautiful expression in the above mentioned scene from Faust. What Goethe himself experienced early in life dawns upon the dying Faust like a revelation - that the supreme duty and privilege of man lies in moral action, in working toward a realization of the worldpurpose, not for our own enjoyment but for the wellbeing of our fellow-men. Laboring untiringly he succeeded in laying the foundation for millions. And now he sees in spirit these millions, active and free, working out the good according to his conception through endless ages and extending in this way his own personality until it finally passes over and is merged into a free people, devoted to the service of the good. This is the supreme moment in the long life of the erring, striving wanderer. And with truth he exclaims: Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdentagen It was but a few weeks before his death that Goethe wrote these last words and in them he summed up as it were his own life and creative activity. For we may well say of Goethe himself: the traces of his life on earth cannot pass away in endless ages. For poetry has never ceased to be its own justification, and even in the world of to-day it still maintains its imperishable worth, its divine power. It was Goethe who directed it into its new and proper path, and all modern attempts to depart from this path must be characterized as failures. While the endeavor of the natural sciences since the close of the Middle Ages has been to conceive of nature as a great mechanism, poetry still remains the abode of life—that inner, vital consciousness of whose existence we are convinced by individual experience even though science may never be able to explain it. And no poet has given such adequate expression to this feeling of inner life in our hearts and in nature as Goethe. While scientific investigation strives to wrest from nature its great secret with levers and screws, the poet sings: Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles, Wie in den Busen eines Freunds zu schauen, Vor mir vorbei, und lehrst mich meine Brüder Im stillen Busch, in Luft und Wasser kennen. To Goethe, then, we must turn if we would seek that which is holy, eternal and inviolable in the human breast, that which science can neither give nor explain nor take from us - to Goethe who knew life most profoundly, who interpreted it most clearly. I. Leipzig IN the autumn of 1765 Goethe, as a boy of sixteen years, entered the University of Leipzig. It must be admitted that Leipzig was not the proper place for a youth of Goethe's sensuous and passionate nature and his wonderful susceptibility to all impressions. The social and moral corruption which at that time, emanating from Paris, was noticeable in every part of Europe, had extended to Germany also, where numerous princes, secular as well as ecclesiastical, set the example by imitating the vices of the French court. Similar conditions were found in the larger cities like Frankfurt and Leipzig, where colonies of French emigrants had settled after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685. Among these cities Leipzig. enjoyed the unenviable reputation of comparing most favorably with Paris as far as the laxity of public morals was concerned. Goethe himself describes these conditions in his early comedy Die Mitschuldigen, and it is worth noticing that in this drama he appears a mere observer of the social evils which Schiller so unmercifully condemns in his tragedy Kabale und Liebe. One of the most pernicious effects of French influence upon the social life of Germany manifested itself in the frivolity and superficial levity with which the theme of love was treated in literature. Indeed, little else but petty love affairs was deemed worthy the thoughts and the life of a man. While the deep and truly Germanic conception of love which Klopstock proclaimed in his 1 poetry was gradually winning back the better element of the nation, the majority of the educated still admired shallow rhymsters of the type of C. F. Weisse, who says in one of his Scherzhafte Lieder: Das wenigste hab ich gefühlet, Das meiste sang ich blos aus Scherz. A knowledge of the social conditions which form the background of Goethe's earliest lyrics is indispensable for their full appreciation. How Goethe was affected by the poisonous atmosphere surrounding him can be seen from these songs as well as from his contemporary letters. But these lyrics will show also how he, who was called to become the great leader of his nation, triumphed over the surrounding influences. His powerful instinct. for truth, together with the awakening in him of true feeling, was the compass which guided him in the struggles of his better nature. A remarkable document of his struggling is the poem Wahrer Genuss, in which the young poet-philosopher discovers that 'true enjoyment' of love is found in sentiment and not in mere gratification of sensuality, the current French conception of the enjoyment of love. In the following poems we have the first intuitive expression of a number of important ideas which, afterwards developed, form essential parts of Goethe's world of thought. Thus in No. 5 he discovers the process of idealisation (unmerkliche Bethörung) by which we add from within what makes the object dear to us, and the enjoyment of the moment is transformed in the same poem into eternal love. In No. 6 unconsciousness as the true source of happiness is touched upon, and in No. 7 the deepest of these early songs, he finds the great truth that illusion (Schein) alone produces the beautiful. |