EFFECT UPON HIS PHILOSOPHY 297 "My wisdom has been, never to think about thinking." If he had thought more about thinking, he might possibly have scrutinized more sharply the system which he accepted, might have perceived its incongruity with the facts of human life, might have seen its utter inability to explain such things as sin and guilt, remorse and retribution. But Goethe did not accept the views of Spinoza upon rational grounds; he accepted them rather because they fitted in with a previous moral decision of his own. He has himself well said, "As are the inclinations, so are the opinions." And Fichte, whom he ridiculed, uttered the same truth in the aphorism, "Men do not will according to their reason, but reason according to their will." He read Spinoza in 1774, when he was twenty-five years of age. "I well remember," he writes, "what peace and serenity came over me when I first glanced over the surviving works of that remarkable man. This sensation was still quite distinct to me, though I could not have recalled any particular point. But I hastened forthwith to the works to which I was so much indebted, and the same sense of peace took possession of me. I gave myself up to reading them, and thought when I scrutinized myself that the world had never looked so clear." Far be it from me to deny that in the works of Spinoza there is this charm for the mere intellect. His system is a system of Monism. There is but one Substance, one aspect of which is extension, and the other aspect is thought. All the events of the universe follow from the nature of this one Substance, as the nature of the diameter follows from the nature of the circle. Hegel was right when he declared the superiority of his system to Spinozism to lie in his substitution of Subject' for 'Substance.' "The true Absolute," says Seth, "must contain, instead of abolishing, relations; the true Monism must include, instead of excluding, Pluralism." And this true Absolute, I may add, is a Personal Intelligence and Will, not bound to the Universe by necessity, but freely originating the Universe, and expressing in his relations to free moral beings not only his wisdom and power, but also his holiness and love. Such a God as this Spinoza knew nothing of, and Goethe knew the true God quite as little as Spinoza. Hutton tells us that Goethe combined the pantheistic view of God with the personal view of man. But I think it is clear that whatever personality is left to man becomes distinctly unmoral. If there is no freedom in God, there can be none in man, and a personality without freedom is entirely illusory. Man is only a part of the all-embracing Spirit of the Universe, a Universe eternally changing indeed, but changing according to unchangeable laws. No attributes can be ascribed to God-in fact, we can have no definite thought of him. No special revelation can come from him. He is deaf AND UPON HIS THEOLOGY 299 It is im to our entreaties. He speaks only in us. possible to make God an object of love, for love goes out only toward persons. Or, if we say that love to God becomes love for Nature, this means no more than that we love the highest expression of God, namely ourselves. All tends to the exaltation of self and the weakening of the sense of obligation. God is within, not without. There, in the desires and aspirations of the individual soul, is to be found the only standard of morality. As Goethe had no definite thought of God, so he had no definite expectation of immortality-at least it was no present aid to him. "Such incomprehensible subjects lie too far off," he said, "and only disturb our thoughts if made the theme of daily meditation. An able man who has something to do here, and must toil and strive day by day to accomplish it, leaves the future world till it comes, and contents himself with being active and useful in this." And Faust's words only express the poet's own view: The sphere of earth is known enough to me, Here he acquires what he can comprehend. Which simply means: Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. no arm to save. There is no eye to pity, and It is a proof of the blinding influence of sin, that Goethe maintained this plan of life to be unselfish. Because he surrendered himself to self, to toil and learn, to enjoy and to describe, he conceived himself as subject to the invisible Spirit of the Universe, and as working for humanity. But the real nature of that invisible Spirit he persistently ignored; the moral law which expresses his nature he put beneath his feet; the revelation of his will in Christ and in Scripture he contemned. He describes his religion as one of self-confidence, attention to the present, admiration of gods only as works of art, submission to irresistible fate, future hope confined to this world, the preciousness of posthumous fame. This he considered to be the religion of health and joy, religion not of the word, but of the deed the acting out of man's nature. It was, alas, only a maimed and stunted nature which Goethe had in mind-a nature in which both the ethical and spiritual elements were wholly lacking. And yet there were grains of truth even in this pantheistic view which gave it a hold both upon the poet himself and upon his readers. The immanence of God was a great truth, exaggerated and perverted though it was by being held in isolation and unqualified by the complementary truth of the divine transcendence. Even the Christian can see the sublimity of the words: Was wär ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse, "Sprüche in Reimen: Gott, Gemüth, und Welt." GOETHE A NON-ETHICAL EVOLUTIONIST What God would outwardly alone control, So that what in him works, and is, and lives, The measure of his strength, his spirit, gives.1 301 As Goethe was a monist, so he was an evolutionist. He believed that man is an outgrowth of the animal creation, even as animals have come from plants. There is a blood relationship, he thought, between all organic beings. The oneness of things deeply impressed him. In his conception of the leaf as the typical form of the plant, and of all other organs as modifications of the leaf, he made one of those sage guesses into the meaning of nature, which are possible only to a genius. Nor were his utterances mere guesses. They were insights into truth, based upon large knowledge of facts. It was the intermaxillary bone, that taught him the kinship of man to the lower forms of life. But it was just in proportion as he turned his thoughts away from the higher ranges of human life and experience, that he seemed to utter truth. To the facts of the ethical world he became increasingly insensitive. He lost even the moral predilections of his early days, and became a cold and calculating egoist. His aim was to throw off every yoke and to be arbiter of his own destiny. His old age was that of a self-absorbed and fastidious Lothario, who sought continually, but sought in vain, to renew the raptures of his passionate youth. Since all men are victims of circumstance, and great men are great only because a certain 1"Proverbs in Rhyme: God, Soul, and World.” |