500 GERMANIC LITERATURE 



Faust, in spite of its Catholic mythology, did not profess Catholicism, 

 might easily shed more light upon Euripides than it can receive from 

 him. At the very outset, then, one would think that a safe method 

 would find its firmest basis of support in modern literatures. Indeed, 

 I see the time coming when both classical and medieval philology 

 will no longer despise consulting modern philology. It must surely be 

 admitted that a critical method will be developed most highly and 

 keenly where there is the greatest need, that is, where, compared with 

 the large masses of material of modern literatures, a more meagre and 

 incomplete material requires supplementing. Experience appears to 

 me already to confirm two different facts. In the first place, the 

 correct method, as well as the choice of the cleverest means always 

 depend upon the subject, and any one simply deceives himself if he 

 believes that he can attack huge masses of material of modern liter- 

 ature in exactly the same way as the older philology. And sec- 

 ondly, that the method, which is, after all, only a means to an end, 

 must not unawares become the chief end in itself, so that the work 

 is finally less a matter of investigation of the subject than of clever 

 experimentation with the method. It cannot be denied that in our 

 science opposite the left wing, composed of those that simply rum- 

 mage about stupidly and thoughtlessly in the masses of paper, there 

 stands a little band descended, for the most part, from the older 

 school of literature, that feels so secure in possession of the one 

 and only method, that it believes it can guess the exact knowledge 

 of a subject. A method, however, without a subject is just as incon- 

 ceivable as form without content. Every subject demands its own 

 peculiar method of treatment. Accordingly , a method cannot be trans- 

 ferred any more from one subject to another than from a teacher to 

 his pupil, except in so far as it belongs simply to the mechanism of 

 the science or mere technique. It is correctly stated in the ten rules 

 formerly laid down by Lehrs and Ritschl for classical scholars : " Thou 

 shalt not speak the name method vainly." And Feuerbach cried to 

 the Hegelians who had become fossilized in the method of their 

 master: " What is method? Method is genius. Whoever does not 

 possess genius has no method. To have a method means never to 

 let the subject become master, but always be its master, to be in the 

 subject above the subject. What is Hegel's method? Hegel's spirit, 

 Hegel's individuality. To adopt Hegel's method means, strictly 

 .speaking, aping Hegel. The true method must be one's innermost, 

 most real .self. " 



One of the chief means of philological criticism is the parallel 

 passage, which in itself always deserves consideration and always 

 proves something. The question is only, what and how much does it 

 prove? If one wishes to read into Schiller's verse, " Das Leben ist der 

 Outer hochstes nicht " (Life is not the highest of possessions), the 



