Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 14.djvu/29

13 LIFE AND WORKS OF GOETHE 13

overshadowed it, until the priestly element of Lavater, formerly in abeyance, grew into offensive prominence. He clouded his intellect with superstitions, and aspired to be a prophet. He had believed in Cagliostro and his miracles, exclaiming, " Who would be so great as he, had he but a true sense of the Evangelists ? " He called upon that mystifier, in Strasburg, but was at once sent about his business. " When a great man," writes Goethe of Lavater, in 1782, "has a dark corner in him, it is terribly dark." And the dark corner in Lavater begins to make him uneasy. " I see the highest power of reason united in Lavater with the most odious superstition, and that by a knot of the finest and most inextricable kind." To the same effect he says in one of the Xenien :

«< Wie verfahrt die Natur um Hohes und Niedres im Menschen Zu verbinden ? sie stellt Eitelkeit zwischen hinein."

It was a perception of what he thought the hypo- critical nature of Lavater which thoroughly disgusted him, and put an end to their friendship ; mere differ- ence of opinion never separated him from a friend.

His scientific studies became enlarged by the addi- tion of a microscope, with which he followed the investigations of Gleichen, and gained some insight into the marvels of the world of Infusoria. His draw- ings of the animalcules seen by him were sent to the Frau von Stein ; and to Jacobi he wrote : " Botany and the microscope are now the chief enemies I have to contend against. But I live in perfect solitude apart from all the world, as dumb as a fish." Amid these multiform studies, — mineralogy, osteology, botany, and constant " dipping " into Spinoza, his poetic studies might seem to have fallen into the background, did we not know that " Wilhelm Meister " has reached the fifth book, the opera of " Scherz, List und Rache " is written, the great religious-scientific poem " Die Geheimnisse " is