Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/122

108 And thus will I also make mention of a work, which is indeed small, but which made an epoch in a remarkable manner, — I mean Rousseau's "Pygmalion." A great deal could be said upon it; for this strange production floats between nature and art, with the full endeavour of resolving the latter into the former. We see an artist who has produced what is most perfect, and yet does not find any satisfaction in having, according to art, represented his idea externally to himself, and given to it a higher life; no, it must also be drawn down to him into the earthly life. He will destroy the highest that mind and deed have produced, by the commonest act of sensuality.

All this and much else, right and foolish, true and half-true, operating upon us as it did, still more perplexed our notions: we were driven astray through many byways and roundabout ways; and thus on many sides was prepared that German literary revolution, of which we were witnesses, and to which, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, we unceasingly contributed.

We had neither impulse nor tendency to be illumined and advanced in a philosophical manner: on religious subjects we thought we had sufficiently enlightened ourselves, and therefore the violent contest of the French philosophers with the priesthood was tolerably indifferent to us. Prohibited books, condemned to the flames, which then made a great noise, produced no effect upon us. I mention as an instance, to serve for all, the "Système de la Nature," which we took in hand out of curiosity. We did not understand how such a book could be dangerous. It appeared to us so dark, so Cimmerian, so deathlike, that we found it a trouble to endure its presence, and shuddered at it as at a spectre. The author fancies he gives his book a peculiar recommendation, when he declares in his preface, that as a decrepit old man, just sinking into