OF NATURE. 559 



mathematical physics and chemistry would create in 

 the minds of those who wielded these powerful weapons 

 of attack a feeling of triumph and exultation, and the 

 consequent conviction that the means were at last dis- 

 covered by which all the intricacies of natural pheno- 

 mena would be ultimately unravelled. The human mind 

 felt for a moment as if it had become or would eventually 

 become the master of nature. This mastery was indeed 

 something quite different from that understanding of 

 nature's ways, from that fathoming of her secrets,^ which 

 Goethe in the very age and in the home of some 

 of the greatest mathematical intellects prophetically 

 declared to be unattainable by scientific methods. To his 

 poetical soul the mathematical aspect was not only 

 repugnant, but unintelligible : it remained one of the few 

 human achievements which Goethe never appreciated. 



A knowledge of higher mathematics and skill in its 

 application will, however, always remain the property of 

 a very limited number, even among the highest in- 

 tellects ; nor is it likely that from this quarter a great 

 revolution in popular thought would have emanated 

 had it not been for the indirect influence which it 

 exerted upon the problems of practical life. And it did 

 this as much by enabling older and well-known modes 

 of practice to be reformed and improved — such was, for 

 instance, the case with the practice of medicine and 

 agriculture, — as also by the creation of a large number 



^ " Gebeimnissvoll am liehten Tag 

 Lasst sich Natur des Schleiers nicht berauben. 

 Und was sie deinem Geist nicht offenbaren mag 

 Das zwingst du ihr nicht ab mit Hebeln und mit Schrauben." 



— 'Fau3t,' First Part. 



