12. In Place of Homunculism and Mephistophelianism

This is just what is so distressing, my dear friends, that in the recent development of mankind culture has been brought to such a high pitch as, for instance, we see in Schiller's Aesthetic Letters, and this has all been forgotten. Imagine how Schiller believed that in these letters, written in the first place to the Duke of Augustonburg, he had brought about a deed of political significance. Whoever grasps the following two facts in their true depth learns much concerning the evolution of mankind. First he learns that Schiller's Aesthetic Letters were the outcome of his conception of Goethe's urge towards becoming; and, secondly, that this could be forgotten, that this forgetting has largely contributed to the present human catastrophe. Those who keep these two facts before them indeed learn much about the evolution of humanity.