38 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



archetypes which, in the real world, found only an im- 

 perfect expression ; how he for a long time sought for 

 the " Urpflanze," for the original or typical plant from 

 which all other plants are ideally or actually derived ; 

 how he sought in his optical theories for the " Urphano- 

 men " or ground-phenomenon, which would lead him to 

 an artistic understanding of the world of colour. To 

 others, again, the word characteristic implied unity and 

 consistency, and, lastly, the character of a creation of 

 art or nature places itself, as it were, between the idea 

 which is too general and the individual object which is 

 too particular, being only one of many representations 

 of it. Kant had already emphasised the necessity of 

 finding a middle term between reason, as the faculty of 

 ideas, and the world of the senses which contains many 

 tilings and examples. 



In a charming essay which Goethe wrote for an art 



journal entitled ' The Collector and his Friends' (1799) 



he gives, not without some quiet irony, a description of 



the different views on art which were at that time 



25. current and much discussed. Without referring specially 



Goethe on 



erjowmess to Schiller s Play-theory, he finds two indispensable 

 elements in every work of art, the element of serious- 

 ness and the element of play. Neither alone will 

 produce either beauty or perfection or truth in art. 

 The serious element alone leads only to imitation, to 

 faithfulness in detail, or, on a higher level, to character ; 

 Play alone leads only to fancy or to ornamentation or to 

 sketchiness ; but, united, these different extremes pro- 

 duce the attributes of a true work of art; imitation 

 joined with fancy produces artistic truth ; character with 



