Notes.
[1] Page 30, Note 1.--The name “Huss” means “goose.” When Huss was
condemned to die at the stake he said:
_“Nach mir wird kommen ein Schwan, Den sollen sie ungebraten lah’n.”_
[After me a swan will rise, Whom they will not roast likewise.]
This doggerel with its grim humor on so tragic an occasion is commonly
and naturally regarded as foretelling the coming of Martin Luther.
[2] Page 55, Note 2.--Professor Wolf was the first to prove that the
Iliad and the Odyssey consisted of a number of epic poems by different
poets, which were collected under the name of Homer. For Goethe’s
feeling with regard to criticism see the translator’s book _Goethe_,
page 273.
[3] Page 60, Note 3.--This distich is addressed to Karl Philip Moritz,
author of an interesting novel in the form of an autobiography, _Anton
Reiser_.
[4] Page 61, Note 4.--This is addressed to F. H. Jacobi, who had
written two philosophical novels, _Woldemar_ and _Allwill_. The
difference between him and Moritz is sufficiently characterized in this
and the preceding distich.
[5] Page 63, Note 5.--This satirizes the sensuous novels of Timotheus
Hermes.
[6] Page 64, Note 6.--Directed against Platner, whose philosophy was
a declamation of platitudes. The distich is true of almost all the
debates that take place in literary clubs after the reading of a paper.
[7] Page 71, Note 7.--Goethe wrote this in criticism of Reichardt’s
praise of the French Revolution.
[8] Page 77, Note 8.--This and the following three distichs
are directed against Nicolai, who was the owner of a large
publishing-house, but at the same time a mediocre author, shallow and
conceited.
[9] Page 85, Note 9.--The Stolberg brothers had been liberal, but
suddenly turned Roman Catholic.
[10] Page 86, Note 10.--The pious Count Leopold Stolberg, exaggerating
the value of Christian art while deprecating classic taste, said that
he would give a whole collection of Greek urns for one Faience vase
painted in the manner of Raphael.
[11] Page 87, Note 11.--The censure is true in its general application;
but the Xenion is aimed at a man (Johann Heinrich Jung, whose _nom de
plume_ was Heinrich Stilling) who did not deserve this castigation. See
_Goethe_, page 16.
[12] Page 88, Note 12.--A severe description of Johann Caspar Lavater.
See _Goethe_, page 28.
[13] Page 89, Note 13.--Also directed against Reichardt. (See Note 7.)
[14] Pages 94 and 102, Note 14.--Schiller renders “Hades” by “Hell”
which here retains the classical meaning and does not imply the idea of
punishment.
[15] Page 104, Note 15.--Karl Leonard Reinhold (born in Vienna October
26, 1758) was educated as a Jesuit and became professor of philosophy
in the Jesuit college of the Barnabites, but renounced the faith of
his youth in 1783 and left Vienna for Weimar, where he married the
daughter of the poet Wieland. He became professor of philosophy at the
University of Jena in 1787 and 1794 in Kiel, where he died April 10,
1823. He was a Kantian and wrote much on Kantian philosophy.
[16] Page 112, Note 16.--Very good as a general criticism. Goethe,
however, was on the wrong track, in directing this distich against
Newton’s theory of color.
[17] Page 116, Note 17.--Kant called his philosophy transcendental
idealism, and his followers insisted upon the importance of
transcendentalism. They were opposed by naturalists, who scorned theory
and insisted on the facts of experience.
For the meaning of the word “transcendental” see the translator’s
_Fundamental Problems_, p. 30 _et passim_, and _Primer of Philosophy_,
p. 66. “Transcendent” means what transcends human knowledge, i. e.,
what is unknowable, but “transcendental” is in Kantian terminology
non-sensory or formal knowledge such as pure logic and arithmetic,
involving the principles of theory or systematic abstract thought.
[18] Page 120, Note 18.--Here the term “natural law” does not mean laws
of nature but the juridical principle based upon primitive natural
conditions.
[19] Page 121, Note 19.--Samuel von Puffendorf (1632-1694) was a famous
jurist and professor of natural law in Berlin. (See previous note.)
[20] Pages 122 and 123, Note 20.--Kant declared that the man who
performed his duty because it gave him pleasure was less moral than he
who did it against his own inclinations.
[21] Page 124, Note 21.--Schiller was a disciple and follower of Kant,
who finds the conditions of knowledge in the thinking subject, not in
the object that is thought. Since a thinking being does not acquire an
insight into the laws of form by experience, but establishes them _a
priori_, Kant believes that things have to conform to cognition and
not cognition to things. Man thus produces truth out of his own being,
and imports it into the objective world. Now it is true that truth and
the criterion of truth, namely reason, develop together with mind; for
indeed reason is the characteristic feature of mind. Things are real,
not true, and truth can dwell in mental representations only. But
considering the fact that mind develops from and by experience which
originates by a contact with objects, and that reason is but the formal
element extracted from experience and systematized--a consideration
which Kant did not make because he never proposed the problem of the
origin of mind--we shall find that the nature of reason and truth
are not purely subjective. Reason is not an arbitrary classification
of things (as the nominalists believe), but a formula that describes
the necessary and universal relations of the objective world.--For
a critical exposition of the problem see the translator’s books on
Kant: _The Surd of Metaphysics_ and _Kant’s Prolegomena_ in which
the question “Are there things in themselves?” is answered in the
negative, but the existence of forms in themselves is insisted upon.
See also the chapters on the “_A Priori_ and the Formal” in his _Primer
of Philosophy_; “The Origin of the _A Priori_” in his _Fundamental
Problems_; and “The Origin of Mind” in _The Soul of Man_.
[22] Page 134, Note 22.--The caesura has here been placed contrary to
the classical rule.
[23] Page 158, Note 23.--Truth cannot directly be taken from reality
but is the product of work, for facts must be observed, stated, and
systematized so as to become truth.