DUAI^ISM 



influence on his transcendental idealism, in which the 

 ethical-aesthetic element preponderated. On the other 

 hand, Goethe's empirical realism was profoundly in- 

 fluenced by his medical studies at Strasburg, and 

 especially by his later comparative anatomical and bo- 

 tanical investigations at Jena and Weimar. 



The philosophic antithesis which we thus find in the 

 biological foundations of the views of Goethe and Schil- 

 ler represents to an extent the Janus face that the philo- 

 sophic genius of the German people bears to our own 

 day. Goethe, the realist, penetrated deep into the em- 

 pirical study of the material world, and sought, with 

 Spinoza, to establish the unity of the universe. Schiller, 

 the idealist, lives rather in the spirit- world, and seeks, 

 with Kant, to utilize its ethical ideals — God, freedom, 

 and immortality — ^for the education of the human race. 

 Both tendencies of thought have led the genius of Ger- 

 many — ^like the genius of Greece, two thousand years 

 ago — ^to a great number of vast intellectual achieve- 

 ments. Goethe wrought the ideal in his practical life, 

 Kant discovered it, Schiller proclaimed it to be the 

 fittest aim of the future. 



It is wrong to conclude from isolated quotations from 

 Goethe that he occasionally betrayed the dualism of 

 Schiller in his opinions. Some of the remarks in this 

 connection that Eckermann has left us from his con- 

 versations with Goethe must be taken very carefully. 

 Generally speaking, this source is not reliable ; many of 

 the observations that the mediocre Eckermann puts into 

 the mouth of the great Goethe are quite inconsistent 

 with his character, and are more or less perverted. 

 Hence, when recent high-placed orators declare at Ber- 

 lin that Goethe saved the high ideals of God, freedom, 

 and immortality, like Schiller, and thus borrow a certain 

 support for their Christian belief, they only show how 

 little they have grasped the profound antithesis of the 



441 



