product, not
of learning, but of work: if we are to know and realise what there is in
us, and make the best of it, our aim must be practical and creative.
"Let every man," he urges, "ask himself with which of his faculties he
can and will somehow influence his age." And again: "From this time
forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he
will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no
longer a furtherance. By the time a man has taken note of everything, he
has lost himself." The culture of which he speaks is not mainly
intellectual. We use the word in a way that is apt to limit and conceal
its meaning, and we often apply it to a strange form of mental growth,
at once stunted and overfed, to which, if we may judge by its fruits,
any breath of real culture would be fatal. It has nothing to do with
learning in the general and narrow sense of the word, or with the often
pernicious effects of mere learning. In the language of the hour we are
wont to give the exclusive name of culture to a wide acquaintance with
books and languages; whether or not it results, as it has before now
resulted, in a want of culture in character and outward demeanour, in
airs of conceit, in foolish arrogance, in malice and acrimony.

A uniform activity with a moral aim--that, in Goethe's view, is the
highest we can achieve in life. "Character in matters great and small
consists," he says, "in a man steadily pursuing the things of which he
feels himself capable." It is the gospel of work: our endeavour must be
to realise our best self in deed and action; to strive until our
personality attains, in Aristotle's word, its entelechy; its full
development. By this alone can we resolve all the doubts and hesitations
and conflicts within that undermine and destroy the soul. "Try to do
your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth." And with all
our doing, what should be the goal of our activity? In no wise our own
self, our own weal. "A man is happy only when he delights in the
good-will of others," and we must of a truth "give up existence in order
to exist"; we must never suppose that happiness is identical with
personal welfare. In the moral sphere we need, as Kant taught, a
categorical imperative; but, says Goethe, that is not the end of the
matter; it is only the beginning. We must widen our conception of duty
and recognise a perfect morality only "where a man loves what he
commands himself t