Youth's Search in Nature

Just think how in an earlier time—today we call it the time of Rousseau (we have a parallel back-to-nature movement in Germany in the Sturm und Drang period[^1] that preceded Goethe and Schiller, though much wider circles than merely literary ones were involved)—let us think back to how the call to nature in this time sounded in an abstract, literary sort of way through broad areas of civilization. Just think of those warm, intense calls to nature issuing from the soul of Rousseau. Yes, many today will still be gripped if they listen to these calls. What has followed these calls to nature, however? "Nature, we want nature again," these young people were calling.