d
towards which his most important writings constantly tend. A completely
developed State or commonwealth should follow, as an ideal arising out
of the needs and demands of a complete individual. Goethe knew that
growth comes not by self-observation and self-analysis, but by exercise.
Therefore he turned himself and would turn his disciples to action, to
the objective world; and in order that this action may be profitable, it
must be definite and within a limited sphere. He preaches
self-renunciation; but the self-renunciation he commends is not
self-mortification; it is the active self-abandonment of devotion to our
appropriate work. Such is the teaching of 'Wilhelm Meister': it traces
the progress of a youth far from extraordinary, yet having within him
the capacity for growth, progress through a thousand errors and
illusions, from splendid dreams to modest reality. Life is discovered by
Wilhelm to be a difficult piece of scholarship. The cry for freedom in
'Goetz,' the limitless sigh of passion heard in 'Werther,' are heard no
more. If freedom is to be attained, it can only be through obedience; if
we are to "return to nature," it cannot be in Rousseau's way but through
a wise art of living, an art not at odds with nature, but its
complement:--

"This is an art which does mend nature--but
The art itself is nature."

If we ask,--for this, after all, is the capital question of
criticism,--What has Goethe done to make us better? the answer is: He
has made each of us aspire and endeavor to be no fragment of manhood,
but a man; he has taught us that to squander ourselves in vain desires
is the road to spiritual poverty; that to discover our appropriate work,
and to embody our passion in such work, is the way to true wealth; that
such passion and such toil must be not servile, but glad and free; that
the use of our intelligence is not chiefly to destroy, but to guide our
activity in construction; and that in doing our best work we incorporate
ourselves in the best possible way in the life of our fellows. Such
lessons may seem obvious; but they had not been taught by Goethe's great
predecessors, Voltaire and Rousseau. Goethe, unlike Voltaire, inculcates
reverence and love; unlike Rousseau, he teaches us to see objects
clearly as they are, he trains us to sanity. And Europe needed sanity in
the days of Revolution and in the days which followed of Reaction.

Sanity for the imagination Goethe found in classical art. The