WEIMAR AND JENA. 193 



Mathematics are uncongenial to a poetic mind. As the bee 

 constructs its cell without knowledge of number or propor- 

 tion, and leaves it to the mathematician, to demonstrate that 

 the form it has selected is that most consonant with reason, 

 and best adapted to the purpose it has in view, so the poet 

 dictates in lofty inspiration the smoothly-flowing verse, and 

 leaves it to the philologist to discover the laws of measure and 

 to form by rule and number the theory of the metre which has 

 often flowed from him unconsciously. 



Even Goethe, who, according to his own admission, valued 

 mathematics more highly than any other branch of study, 

 because it could accomplish that which came not within the 

 province of his art, inveighed against ' the whole physico- 

 mathematical guild ' in these terms : 



Your sin is not a modern one, forsooth, 

 To deem that theory may pass for truth ; 

 And since exactness is the soul of science, 

 To all who differ you present defiance. 1 



And in another place in ' Faust ' : 



By that, I know the learned lord you are ! 

 What you don'fc touch is lying leagues afar; 

 What you don't grasp is wholly lost to you ; 

 What you don't reckon, think you, can't be true ; 

 What you don't weigh, it has no weight, alas ! 

 What you don't coin, you're sure it will not pass. 2 



In Schiller there existed a boundless subjectivity, an ideal 

 world, in which the facts of experience were thrown aside as 

 ballast in order that he might, with the wings of a cherub, fly 







1 Das ist eine von den alten Siinden, 

 Sie meinen, Rechnen, das sei Erfinden, 

 Und weil ihre Wissenschaft exact, 

 So sei keiner von ihnen vertrackt.' 



' Daran erkenn' ich den gelehrten Herrn ! 

 Was ihr nicht tastet, steht euch meilenfern ; 

 Was ihr nicht fasst, das fehlt euch ganz und gar ; 

 Was ihr nicht rechnet, glaubt ihr, sei nicht wahr ; 

 Was ihr nicht wagt, hat fur euch kein Gewicht ; 

 Was ihr nicht miinzt, das meint ihr, gelte nicht.' 

 VOL. I. O 



