GOETHE'S ' FAKBENLEHEE.' 75 



the fundamental identity which often exists among 

 apparently diverse and unrelated things — so far, in 

 short, as it is observational, descriptive, and imagi- 

 native, Goethe, had he chosen to make his culture ex- 

 clusively scientific, might have been without a master, 

 perhaps even without a rival. The instincts and ca- 

 pacities of the poet lend themselves freely to the 

 natural-history sciences. But when we have to deal 

 with stringently physical and mechanical conceptions, 

 such instincts and capacities are out of place. It was 

 in this region of mechanical conceptions that Goethe 

 failed. It was on this side that his sphere of endow- 

 ment was sliced away. He probably was not the only 

 great man who possessed a spirit thus antithetically 

 mixed. Aristotle himself was a mighty classifier, but 

 not a stringent physical reasoner. And had Newton 

 attempted to produce a Faust, the poverty of his in- 

 tellect on the poetic and dramatic side might have been 

 rendered equally manifest. But here, if not always, 

 Newton abstained from attempting that for which he 

 had no gift, while the exuberance of Goethe's nature 

 caused him to undertake a task for which he had 

 neither ordination nor vocation, and in the attempted 

 execution of which his deficiencies became revealed. 



One task among many — one defeat amid a hundred 

 triumphs. But any recognition on my part of Goethe's 

 achievements in other realms of intellectual action 

 would justly be regarded as impertinent. You re- 

 member the story of the first Napoleon when the 

 Austrian plenipotentiary, in arranging a treaty of peace, 

 began by formally recognising the French Eepublic. 

 ' Efface that,' said the First Consul ; ' the French Re- 

 public is like the sun ; he is blind who fails to recog- 

 nise it.' And were I to speak of recognising Goethe's 

 merits, my etTacement would be equally well deserved. 

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