Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Autobiography of Goethe. Truth and Poetry: From my Own Life, tr. John Oxenford, bks. I-XX (London: George Bell and Sons, 1897), 478-9:
My capacity of giving life to things, and rendering them present to me out of their real connexion, put me in the position that I could be perfectly at home in a certain century or in a department of science, without being in any degree instructed as to what preceded or what followed. Thus a certain theoretico-practical sense had been awakened in me, by which I could give account of things, rather as they should be than as they were, without any proper philosophical connection, but by way of leaps. To this was added a very easy power of apprehension, and a friendly reception of the opinions of others, if they did not stand in direct opposition to my own convictions.
No comments:
Post a Comment