358 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



country these writings have formed a turning point 

 in their mental development, imparting to their 

 life and thought a stedfastness and tone which has 

 never been forgotten, but has made it unnecessary for 

 them to peruse or assimilate the voluminous abstract 

 and systematic literature in which German philosophers 

 have, as we have seen, grappled with the spiritual 

 problem. 

 so. In the attempt to characterise the difference which 



The British 



and the exists in the treatment of this problem in the two 



German 



mind. countries we may perhaps be allowed to state that, 

 speaking broadly, that very spirit which Goethe found 

 it so necessary to impart, and which he made the 

 highest object of his educational system, the spirit of 

 Reverence, has all through retained a greater hold on 

 the British mind than either on the French or the 

 German mind. In France the writings of Voltaire had, 

 even before the Eevolution, added a tone of flippancy 

 and insincerity to that of impurity ; and the Revolution 

 itself had finally destroyed, among a large section of 

 the middle and higher classes, the respect not only 



is remarkable essay appeared as 

 the introduction to a book called 

 ' German Romance, ' published in 

 Edinburgh in 1827. It is reprinted 

 in the 6th volume of the collected 

 works (p. 366 sqq.), filling only a 

 few pages. In these, the few lines 

 (p. 375) containing the characterisa- 

 tion of Goethe, have probably not 

 yet been surpassed, even in the 

 enormous pertinent literature, Ger- 

 man and foreign, which has ap- 

 peared during this last eighty years 

 since the death of Goethe, and 

 which has had the advantage of 



much wider knowledge of the sub- 

 ject than Carlyle could possibly 

 possess. Especially in this country 

 the appearance of Lewes' ' Life of 

 Goethe' (Isted., 1855), though add- 

 ing no doubt very largely to the 

 popular interest of the subject, has 

 rather spoiled the impression af- 

 forded by Carlyle's characterisa- 

 tion as it dwelt much more upon 

 the romance of Goethe's life than 

 on the seriousness of his mind and 

 the intrinsic value of his works and 

 his thought. 



