Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/286

 280 Goebel That the reflected glory (Abglanz) in which alone we have life is, in the last analysis, the reflex of the deity, finds expression in a remarkable stanza of the "Vorspiel zur Eroffnung des Weimarischen Theaters" 1807: So im Kleinen, ewig wie im Grossen Wirkt Natur, wirkt Menschengeist, und beide Sind ein Abglanz jenes Urlichts droben, Das unsichtbar alle Welt erleuchtet. 19 II The student of Plato who has followed the preceding dis- cussion may perhaps have noticed an inner agreement and spiritual relationship between the symbolism of Goethe's contemplation of the world and the fundamental principles of the thought of the Greek philosopher, even before I proceed to point them out in a specific and significant instance. Many as are the points of contact between the two master-minds it seems remarkable*that*a comprehensive study of their relation- ship has as yet not been made. Of all the biographers of Goethe it is only Houston Stewart Chamberlain who, in his masterly work, fully aware of the difference of character and of historical conditions which separates the two thinkers, has placed them side by side as the most powerful and influential intellectual forces which the world has witnessed. Judging from two of the letters which Goethe wrote to Herder shortly after his return from Strassburg, we shall not go amiss by assuming that the impulse to a deeper study of Plato was given him by the man to whom he owed the great awakening of his genius and who was one of the first to recognize that Plato's "ideas" were not mere abstract notions but " schaffend und wirkend. " Not until much later, however, during the period of his intense scientific studies, do we hear again that Plato's writings seriously engage Goethe's attention. In 19 It is a remarkable fact that a similar thought, resulting from similar experiences, occurs already in Heinrich Seuse, one of the German mystics of the 14th century: "Aber die gotes freund die meinend er, als sy sollend; und miigend sie der sunnen glancz nit ansechen, so gaff en sie dock an der sunnen widerglancz ujf den hohen bergen." See Wilhelm Preger, Die Briefe Heinrich Susos, Leipzig 1867; p. 40.