and not suffer themselves to be guided by external authority. That authority is fictitious. They make it by their own unfolding energy, and it but marks a point in their limitless progress, beyond which they have already passed when it rises into notice. The elements of authority in modern times. I do not say that there was none of this revolutionary spirit in ancient times. There was much of it. But it wrought, for the most part, in a blind and aimless way, so that the theory of human culture, which appears most conspicuous to us as we look far back, is the one which rests on external standards. Nor do I mean to imply that this law of culture has at length been abandoned. It was never more loyally obeyed, or thoroughly and clearly expounded, than at the present moment. In this case, as in all others, truth has been cleared up and strengthened by conflict with error. The doctrine of spontaneity in morals no doubt did good by correcting certain exaggerations, and calling attention to certain elements which had been neglected by the friends of truth. That doctrine has been thoroughly canvassed, however, and ably refuted, under the various New theory forms it has taken since the revival of Spinozism. Whether known as Agrarianism, Communism, Chartism, or simply as "the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century," when it has clamored for the abolition of the laws of property, for free marriage and free religion, its hostility to our noblest convictions has been clearly pointed out. It assumes an inborn purity in all men, and an absence of evil tendencies, which their own honest consciousness sadly denies them. It shuts them away from those heavenly ideals which they did not originate, and untenable. from that holy God, whose authority checks the evil and helps the good in their natures. Its liberty is anarchy; its spontaneity means civil convulsions, social chaos, the axe, the knife, the torch, every man's hand against every man. These disorders are defended on the ground that the whole fabric of society has been wrongly organized, on a basis of external rules; and it is claimed that all would have gone forward smoothly, if nothing had ever been put in the way of the spontaneous tendencies of men. Relation to pantheism. We can see the fallacy of the reasoning easily enough, knowing as we do what many of the tendencies of human nature are; yet we are sometimes amazed, and half persuaded into belief of the theory, amid the dazzling and bewildering sophistries which its advocates throw around us. We need, therefore, to know the source of their power. They must be forced back to a point which even they themselves, perhaps, have not yet found out. The ethical doctrines, which they would apply to man and society, have the same parentage as the theories of Strauss, Baur, and Renan. Pantheism is the universal solvent, We saw how all the facts of the Scriptures disappeared in it; we are now to see how the established regulations of society, as soon as they touch it, melt out of sight. That social lawlessness seething in certain quarters, which gets itself more or less fiercely spoken now and then, may find in Hegel its legitimate source. His philosophy is its real major premise. The spontaneous culture, which it would substitute for that of positive precept, begins there; and this its philosophical origin we must clearly see, if we would dissolve its charm and expose its intrinsic ugliness. It puts on many captivating disguises. The most pure-hearted feel the fascination of some of its partial statements. Only in its source, and its relation to moral evil, do its repulsive features come out. Goethe. There are many recent writers, whose names might represent more or less this doctrine of spontaneous culture. Of these I select, as best suited to my purpose, the name of Goethe. The nature and influence of the new movement, and its relation to Spinozism, can be traced in him as perhaps in no other popular writer. It is evident, as I shall hope to show, that he ranges himself with the pantheistic school of thinkers; and it will not be denied that in variety of topics, originality, and beauty of style, he stands pre-eminent. There is a charm in nearly all that he has written, felt even by the best minds at times, the secret of which needs to be uncovered. It is for these reasons that I now Why chosen. call attention to him. I do not attempt a comprehensive treatment, either of the man or his writings. Those who look for this will no doubt be disappointed, N and disposed to accuse me of injustice. I am concerned with a single phase of his character and influence. This Cl is all that my purpose contemplates. I am not about to tr give an estimate of Goethe, but to show how a pantheistic un philosophy affected him as a man and a writer. Unfortunately for me, it will be my duty to dwell on that aspect of Goethe's character which is least honorable to him. I crave only such indulgence as is fair, while doing this ungracious work, knowing as I do the great merits of Goethe, which it would be Viewed only in one as pect. out of place for me here to consider. It is as a disciple of Spinoza, carrying the principles of pantheism out logically into his theory of literature and life, in these relations and no other, that we have now any special concern with him. He was one of the earliest and foremost of those who hold that the laws of duty are not objective, but subjective; who reject outward authority, and fall back on spontaneous impulse as the true guide of human conduct. Relation to thinkers of his own age. Goethe was enough younger than Kant and Lessing to have been moulded somewhat by their writings. From Jacobi and Herder, also, he may have received hints which gave a pantheistic turn to his thinking. But he was the senior of Schelling, and had become a famous author before Fichte and Hegel were known to the public. From this we infer that he did not take his speculative views from the German successors of Spinoza, so much as from the more original source. He wrote for the many, and they for the few, yet they and he alike followed the same master. of his speculative It may surprise some to hear Goethe's name thus joined to Spinoza's. They have never regarded him as a pantheist. He has had multitudes of read- Ignorance ers, and still has not a few, whom his superb views. sentences charm, but who do not perceive his underlying theory of God and the world. What that theory was we need first of all to know; and that our fairness may be above suspicion, it shall be given chiefly in his own words. He has given us an account of the early working of his ticism. 1 mind on religious subjects. Referring to the Early scep- Lisbon earthquake, which occurred in his sixth year, he says, "The boy who was forced to put up with frequent recitals of the whole matter, was not a little staggered. God, the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, whom the explanation of the first article of the creed declared so wise and benignant, having given both the just and the unjust a prey to the same destruction, had not manifested himself, by any means, in a fatherly character. In vain the young mind strove to resist these impressions." This sceptical bent, he adds, was strengthened by the ravages of a hail-storm at Frankfort the year after. He had a boy's enthusiasm for Frederick the Great, which his friends, wickedly, as he thought, did not share. "In this way," he says, "I was thrown back upon myself; and as, in my sixth year, after the earthquake at Lisbon, the goodness of God had become to me in some measure suspicious, so I began now, on account of Frederick the Second, to doubt the justice of the world." It would seem that, with his faith in God, his reverence also declined. For he says, referring to a later period in his life, “I had believed, from my youth upwards, that I stood on very good terms with my God; nay, I even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and I was daring enough to think that I had something to forgive him. The presumption was founded on my infinite good-will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance." 3 These admissions are certainly enough to show that 1 Autobiography (Bohn's edition), Vol. I., p. 19. 3 Ibid., p. 291. 2 |