Albert Schweitzer
At the time of his death Goethe was famous, but not known. His own people had little comprehension of his work. Abroad he was admired in certain quarters as the author of Werther and of Faust, but his work as a whole was not appreciated. How little devotion for Goethe there was in his native city of Frankfurt a few years after his death is shown by the fact that the centenary of his birth was not celebrated there because the masses, animated by the revolutionary sentiments of 1848, did not feel inclined to pay homage to one they misjudged as having been the lackey of a prince.
Even he had to admit to himself that his works were not popular. Only Gotz von Berlichingen and Werther had been successes. The others found no large audience. To Eckermann, the devoted companion who was with him from 1823, he expressed his conviction that his writings were not popular and could never become so.
In this he was mistaken. They have become so. With the years they have found their way to the hearts of men. More and more, not only in his country but throughout the world, he had become a chosen one among poets. Why? Because this great poet is at the same time a great master of the natural sciences, a great thinker, a great man. This many-sidedness commands respect and strikes people as something quite special.
And thus it is that in this year 1949 the bicentenary of his birth is a date for the whole world, whereas the centenary had not roused even his native town.
How an individual by himself and through his own study can arrive at conviction capable of guiding him on the right road throughout his existence: that to Goethe is the question that matters. He feels that he cannot reach these simple and sound convictions except by starting from reality, from the knowledge he gains by observing nature and by observing himself. To be a realist in order to win through to true spirituality–this is Goethe’s keynote.
The fundamental idea which is of the utmost import is that in nature there is matter and spirit, the two together. The spirit acts upon matter as an organizing and perfecting force. It manifests itself in the evolution that is taking place and that we are able to document in nature.
Looking with the eyes of the spirit upon nature, as it is within ourselves, we find that in us also there is matter and spirit. Searching into the phenomena of the spirit in us, we realize that we belong to the world of the spirit, and that we must let ourselves be guided by it. The whole philosophy of Goethe consists in the observation of material and spiritual phenomena outside and within ourselves, and in the conclusions that can be drawn from this. The spirit is light, which struggles with matter, which represents darkness. What happens in the world and within ourselves is the result of this encounter.
Such is Goethe, the poet, the scientist, the philosopher, and the man, towards whom our thoughts are particularly directed at this time. Among us here and among those who are afar off there are those who think of him with gratitude for what he has given them in his so ethical and religious wisdom, so simple and so deep. With joy I acknowledge myself to be one of their number.
Lecture delivered in the United States in 1949
About Johann Wolfgang von Goethe