Having thus acknowledged but in no way discharged a triple debt of
gratitude, it will be next in order if I briefly state the history of
the work which now appears in an English dress, before attempting to
speak of its nature and value.
The publication of the maxims belongs to the later, that is to say, the
last thirty, years of Goethe's life; and the greater number of them
appeared only in the last ten, while some are posthumous.
It is impossible to say with certainty at what period he began the
observations which were afterwards to come before the world in this
shape; nor is the question of any real interest except to pedantic
students of such matters. It is probable that, like most writers, Goethe
was in the habit of noting transient thoughts of his own, as well as
opinions of others that suggested more than they actually conveyed; and
of preserving for further use what he had thus, in his own words,
written himself and appropriated from elsewhere--_Eigenes and
Angeeignetes_. The maxims grew out of a collection of this character. It
was a habit formed probably in early life, for somewhere in the
_Lehrjahre_--a work of eighteen years' duration, but begun at the age of
twenty-seven--he makes Wilhelm Meister speak of the value of it. But
there are reasons for thinking that most of the maxims, as they now
stand, were not alone published but also composed in his last years. The
unity of meaning which stamps them with a common aim; the similarity of
the calm, dispassionate language in which they are written; the didactic
tone that colours them throughout, combine to show that they are among
the last and ripest fruits of his genius. Some were certainly composed
between the ages of fifty and sixty; more still between that and
seventy; while there is evidence, both internal and external, proving
that many and perhaps most of them were his final reflections on life
and the world. This it is that adds so much to their interest for as he
himself finely says in one of the last of them, "in a tranquil mind
thoughts rise up at the close of life hitherto unthinkable; like blessed
inward voices alighting in glory on the summits of the past."
But whenever all or any of them were written, and whatever revision they
may have undergone, none were published until 1809, when Goethe was
sixty years of age. It was then that he brought out _Die
Wahlverwandschaften_. A few of the maxims on Life and Character were
there inserted as forming two extracts from a journal often quoted in
the earlier part of the story. "About this time," writes Goethe, as he
introduces the first of these extracts, "outward events are seldomer
noted in Ottilie's diary, whilst maxims and sentences on life in
general, and drawn from it, become more frequent. But," he adds, "as
most of them can hardly be due to her own reflections, it is likely that
some one had given her a book or paper, from which she wrote out
anything that pleased her." A few more maxims appeared eight years later
in _Kunst and Alterthum_, a magazine founded by Goethe in 1816 and
devoted to the discussion of artistic questions; and a larger number
first saw the light in the same publication at various dates until its
extinction in 1828. Some of the observations on Science had meanwhile
been incorporated with two treatises on branches of that subject.
Eckermann tells a curious story of the way in which Goethe then
continued the publication of the maxims. _Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre_
had appeared in its first form in 1821. Afterwards, in 1829, Goethe
decided to remodel and lengthen it, and to make two volumes out of what
had originally been only one. His secretary was employed to copy it out
in its revised form. He wrote in a large hand, which gave the impression
that the story might well fill even three volumes; and directions to
this effect were sent to the publisher. But it was soon discovered that
the last two volumes would be very thin, and the publisher asked for
more manuscript. Goethe, in some perplexity, sent for Eckermann, and
producing two large bundles of unpublished papers, containing, as he
said, some very important things,--"opinions on life, literature,
science and art, all mingled together," proposed to him to lengthen out
the volumes by inserting selections from them. "You might," he
suggested, "fill the gaps in the _Wanderjahre_ by making up some six or
eight sheets from these detached pieces. Strictly speaking, they have
nothing to do with the story; but we may justify the proceeding by the
fact that I mention an archive in Makarie's house, in which such
miscellanies are preserved. In this way we shall not only get over our
difficulty, but find a good vehicle for giving much interesting matter
to the world." Eckermann approved the plan, and divided his selection
into two parts; and when the new edition of the _Wanderjahre_ appeared,
one of them was styled _Aus Makariens Archiv_, and the other
_Betrachtungen im Sinne der Wanderer: Kunst, Ethisches, Natur_. The
remainder of the unpublished maxims appeared posthumously, either in the
_Nachgelassene Werke_ in 1833, or in the quarto edition of 1836.
Instructions had been given to Eckermann to collect all the maxims,
arrange them under different heads, and include them in appropriate
volumes; but he resolved to deviate from his instructions to the extent
of publishing them all together; and the alteration is certainly an
advantage. A slight re-arrangement was made by von Loeper, who was
deterred from undertaking a more radical one, although he thought it
might be done with profit, by the consideration that when a literary
work of undesigned and fortuitous form has lived any number of years in
a certain shape, that fact alone is a weighty argument against any
change in it. In a translation, perhaps, where the work is presented
anew and to a fresh public, the change might be allowable; and I should
have undertaken it, had there not been a more serious reason, which von
Loeper also urges, against any attempt at systematic re-arrangement: the
further fact, namely, that many of the maxims have a mixed character,
placing them above our distinctions of scientific and ethical, and
making it difficult to decide under which heading they ought to fall. I
have, therefore, generally followed the traditional order; with this
exception, that, for obvious reasons, the maxims dealing with Literature
are here placed together; and as only a few of those on Art appear in
these pages, I have included them in the same section. In one or two
cases I have united closely connected maxims which are separated in the
original; and, for the sake of a short title, I have slightly narrowed
the meaning of the word _Spruch_, which applies to any kind of shrewd
saying, whether it be strictly a maxim or an aphorism. Some little
liberties of this kind may, I think, be taken by a translator anxious to
put the work before his own public in an orderly and convenient form.
The last section in this book requires a word of explanation. It is a
little essay on _Nature_ which is to be found with a variety of other
fragments in the last volume of Goethe's collected works. Too short to
stand by itself, if it appears at all, it must be in company with
kindred matter; and as a series of aphorisms, presenting a poetic view
of Nature unsurpassed in its union of beauty and insight, it is no
inappropriate appendage to the maxims on Science. It is little known,
and it deserves to be widely known. I venture to think that even in
Germany the ordinary reader is unaware of its existence. For us in
England it was, so to speak, discovered by Professor Huxley, who many
years ago gave a translation of it as a proem to a scientific
periodical. Perhaps that proem may yet be recovered as good salvage from
the waters of oblivion, which sooner or later overwhelm all magazines.
Meanwhile I put forward this version.
For sixty years this essay has stood unquestioned in Goethe's works; but
doubt has recently been cast on its authorship. The account hitherto
given rests upon the excellent ground of Goethe's own declaration. The
essay, it appears, was written about the year 1780, and offered to the
Duchess Amalia. Some time after her death it was found amongst her
papers, and sent to Goethe in May, 1828, when, as he wrote to his friend
the Chancellor von Müller, he could not remember having composed it;
although he recognised the writing as that of a person of whose services
he used to avail himself some forty years previously. That at so great a
distance of time a prolific author could not recall the composition of
so short a piece is not, indeed, improbable; but Goethe proceeded to say
that it agreed very well with the pantheistic ideas which occupied him
at the age of thirty, and that his insight then might be called a
comparative, which was thus forced to express its strife towards an as
yet unattained superlative. Notwithstanding this declaration, the essay
is now claimed as the production of a certain Swiss friend of Goethe's,
by name Tobler, on external evidence which need not be examined here,
and on the internal evidence afforded by the style, which is certainly
more pointed and antithetic than is usual with Goethe. But a master of
language who attempted every kind of composition may well have attempted
this; and even those who credit an otherwise unknown person with the
actual writing of the essay candidly admit that it is based upon
conversations with Goethe. It is so clearly inspired with his genius
that he can hardly be forced to yield the credit of it to another.