Second Lecture

Goethe certainly did not tread all the different paths that can lead from the lowlands to the heights. Despite his greatness, he was in a certain sense extraordinarily modest inwardly; but that was not the point. The point was whether one could see in Goethe everywhere the tendency to ascend from the lowlands of scientific striving to the peaks of existence. And this tendency could be clearly seen. But in Goethe, one perceived something that could initially serve as a guide. I recall a statement Goethe made during his Italian journey in the 1780s, which can be found in his printed work “Italian Journey.” I recall that Goethe used this Italian journey not only to penetrate the essence of artistic creation in his own way, but also to gain a scientific worldview from his observations of the mineralogical and geognostic phenomena he encountered, and from his observations of the plant and animal world. And after he had already spent many months on this journey, after he had already developed all kinds of scientific principles—that is, those that he considered to be such—he wrote the meaningful words: “After what I have seen here in terms of plants and fish, I would like to... embark on a journey to India, not to discover something new, but to view what has been discovered in my own way.”