GOETHE: THE MAN AND THE MYTH
1073
Mter
Italy his productiveness was reduced and remained so for a
period of years. The argument that Goethe managed his life as a
whole by means of poetry is demonstrably wrong. Poetry was one of
his resources, a major resource, but not the only one.
What makes him so significant is precisely that his days were not
rounded and fulfilled in song, as in view of the continuance of
his
poetic gift they well might have been, but that he had also in equal
measure and in equal strength the philosophical impulse to understand
life and to regulate it. No one not possessed of this impulse could
have conceived the great
Faust
monologue, written at the age of
twenty-five or thereabouts, in which the passion for final knowledge
compels Faust to leave the beaten track and to strike out a path for
hnnself in the hope of discovering what it is that holds the world
together. The persistence of this impulse in Goethe could be demon–
strated stage by stage like the persistence in him of the lyrical cry.
The little
Philosophische Studie
that he wrote at thirty-five is perhaps
the first clear indication of his power to formulate his thoughts in the
abstract; another landmark is the essay on experimentation that he
wrote at forty-three. Either of these might serve as proof of his
philosophical independence. But
if
something more extended is needed
there is his almost lifelong concern with science, more especially with
organic science, which grew out of or along with his philosophical
impulse and was guided by it throughout. It was chiefly, though not
wholly, in the course of his scientific studies that his philosophical
thought developed and this gives them an importance not always
recognized by earlier critics, though fully recognized now.
This is not the place to expound or to assess his philosophy. Suf–
fice it to say that, being .deeply rooted in his scientific studies, it
partakes of their character and revolves about nature and natural law,
as he understood the terms. It is not in every respect close to today,
but it is and remains important because he held it, or rather because
he held it with such tact and subtlety and variety of observation. We
should have to value it, if only for the wealth of maxims and reflec–
tions that it threw off. Here are a few samples to set beside the lyrics
and to show something of the quality of his reflective mind:
A note on causality: A great mistake that we make is to think that
the cause is always close
t~
the effect, like the bowstring to the arrow that
