Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/123

Rh the grave, he wishes to announce the truth to his contemporaries and to posterity.

We laughed at him; for we thought we had observed, that by old people nothing in the world that is lovable and good is, in fact, appreciated. "Old churches have dark windows: to know how cherries and berries taste, we must ask children and sparrows." These were our gibes and maxims; and thus that book, as the very quintessence of senility, appeared to us as unsavoury, nay, absurd. "All was to be of necessity," so said the book, "and therefore there was no God." But might not there be a God by necessity too? asked we. We indeed confessed, at the same time, that we could not withdraw ourselves from the necessities of day and night, the seasons, the influence of climate, physical and animal condition: we nevertheless felt within us something that appeared like perfect freedom of will, and again something which endeavoured to counterbalance this freedom.

The hope of becoming more and more rational, of making ourselves more and more independent of external things, nay, of ourselves, we could not give up. The word freedom sounds so beautiful, that we cannot do without it, even though it should designate an error.

Not one of us had read the book through, for we found ourselves deceived in the expectations with which we had opened it. A system of nature was announced; and therefore we hoped to learn really something of nature,—our idol. Physics and chemistry, descriptions of heaven and earth, natural history and anatomy, with much else, had now for years, and up to the last day, constantly directed us to the great, adorned world; and we would willingly have heard both particulars and generals about suns and stars, planets and moons, mountains, valleys, rivers and seas, with all that live and move in them. That, in the