Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/149

Rh me, or had arisen from my own reflection. It was this: that in anything which is handed down to us, especially in writing, the real point is the ground, the interior, the sense, the tendency of the work; that here lies the original, the divine, the effective, the intact, the indestructible; and that no time, no external operation or condition, can in any degree affect this internal primeval nature, at least no more than the sickness of the body affects a well-cultivated soul. Thus, according to my view, the language, the dialect, the peculiarity, the style, and finally the writing, were to be regarded as the body of every work of mind; this body, although nearly enough akin to the internal, was yet exposed to deterioration and corruption; as, indeed, altogether no tradition can be given quite pure, according to its nature; nor indeed, if one were given pure, could it be perfectly intelligible at every following period,—the former on account of the insufficiency of the organs through which the tradition is made; the latter on account of the difference of time and place, but especially the diversity of human capacities and modes of thought; for which reason the interpreters themselves never agree.

Hence it is everybody's duty to inquire into what is internal and peculiar in a book which particularly interests us, and at the same time, above all things, to weigh in what relation it stands to our own inner nature, and how far, by that vitality, our own is excited and rendered fruitful. On the other hand, everything external that is ineffective with respect to ourselves, or is subject to a doubt, is to be consigned over to criticism, which, even if it should be able to dislocate and dismember the whole, would never succeed in depriving us of the only ground to which we hold fast, nor even in perplexing us for a moment with respect to our once-formed confidence.

This conviction, sprung from faith and sight, which