282 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 



XII. 



Man. 



When Goethe declares, " We are eternally in contact 

 with problems. Man is an obscure being; he knows 

 little of the world, and of himself least of all," ^* — he 

 almost repeats what J. J. Rousseau says in Emile,^' 

 " We have no measure for this huge machine (the 

 world); we cannot calculate its relations; we know 

 neither its primary laws nor its final cause; we do not 

 know ourselves; we know neither our nature nor our 

 active principle." 



Such and such-like quotations are wont to be made 

 to us as justifying and confirming assertions of the nar- 

 rowness of our powers of understanding, and of the limits 

 of science. But in Anthropology we cannot possibly at- 

 tribute any greater authority to the worthy J. J. Rous- 

 seau than to a Father of the Church; and to the Goethe, 

 whose casual utterances are transmitted to posterity by 

 Eckermann, we oppose the other Goethe, who in the 

 fu]ness of youthful vigour, exclaims — 



Joy, supreme Creation of Nature, feeling the power 



All sublimest thoughts, which lifted her as she made thee. 



In thyself to re-echo * 



and who conceives the most beautiful organization, as he 



* Freue dich, hochstes Geschopf der Natur, du fuhlest dich fahig 

 Ihr den hochsten Gedanken, zu dem sie schaffend sich aufschwang, 



Nachzudenken- ™ 



