Second Lecture

Out of this mood arose what I have called “The Theory of Knowledge of Goethe's Worldview.” For from all that contemporary philosophy had to offer at that time, one could only gain a certain perspective by attempting to grapple with a spirit that was, in essence, dead in the last third of the 19th century, one that was much talked about in terms of all kinds of externalities, but one that no one really wanted to penetrate spiritually: I mean Goethe. And what was striking about Goethe was that even when he dealt with a narrower field of scientific research, for example with plants, animals, or colors, there was always an underlying tendency to rise from individual human science to a comprehensive science of the mysteries of the world.