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conditions, and which require a special education. The sense of life" to a certain extent comes within this category. In some persons it develops very imperfectly, generally revealing itself only late in life, but sometimes a disease or the danger of losing life stimulates its earlier development. Occasionally in persons who have tried to commit suicide, a strong instinct of life wakens suddenly, and impels them to make frantic efforts to escape.

It happens, therefore, that the sense of life develops sometimes in healthy people, sometimes in those who suffer from acute or chronic disease. These variations are parallel with the development of the sexual instinct, which in some women is completely absent and in others develops only very late. In certain cases, it is awakened only by special conditions, such as child-birth, or even some defect of health.

As the sense of life can be developed, special pains ought to be taken with it, just as with the making perfect of the other senses in the blind. Young people who are inclined to pessimism ought to be informed that their condition of mind is only temporary, and that according to the laws of human nature it will later on be replaced by optimism.

PART VIII

GOETHE AND FAUST

I

GOETHE'S YOUTH

Goethe's youth-Pessimism of youth-Werther-Tendency to suicide-Work and love-Goethe's conception of life in his maturity

THERE can be drawn from analysis of the lives of great men information that is very important in the study of the constitution of man. I have chosen Goethe for several reasons. He was a man of genius distinguished by the comprehensive character of his ability. He was a poet and dramatist of the highest rank, his mind was stored with the most varied knowledge, and he contributed to the advancement of natural science. As minister of state and as the director of a theatre, he was occupied with practical affairs. He reached the age of eighty-three years, and he passed through the phases of life in relatively normal circumstances; in his many writings there are most valuable facts which throw a keen light on his life and nature. The Goethe cult in Germany has brought about the existence of fuller biographical details than exist regarding any other great man. He aspired to lead "the higher life," and, throughout his existence, he occupied himself with the most serious problems of humanity.

It is not surprising that Goethe became a subject of

investigation for me, but as the main facts as to his history are widely known I need not elaborate them here.

Goethe was reared in circumstances that were favourable in every respect, and from his earliest years showed remarkable traits. As his memory was good and his imagination vast, the study of ancient and modern languages and the routine curriculum of a classical education were little more than an amusement to him. The rich library of his father placed all sorts of books at his disposal, and whilst he was still young he devoted himself to reading with the enthusiasm and passion that were the chief qualities of his character. When he was fifteen years old he began to write verses, although he was still unconscious of his destiny as a poet. He intended to be a learned man, and looked forward to the career of a professor.

At the age of sixteen, he entered the University of Leipzig with the intention of studying natural science seriously. Law and philosophy interested him but little; he turned to natural science and medicine, although his actual study was rather superficial. His disposition was lively and restless; he made many friends, frequented the theatre and plunged into all kinds of gaiety. Extracts from letters he wrote during this period show the kind of life he led. When he was a student, eighteen years old, he wrote to a friend, "And so good-night; I am drunk as a hog." A month later, to the same friend, he summed up his life as a "delirium in the arms of Jetty."

He graduated in law at Strassburg, and became a barrister, but realising that such a career was unsuitable, he became a man of letters, encouraged by the success of his first literary efforts.

From the point of view of a writer, he sought all kinds of experiences. He devoted himself to literature and science,

including even the occult sciences, and frequented the theatre and society. He was specially attracted by the imaginative side and gave little thought to the problems of science. "I must have movement," he wrote in one of

his note-books.

When he was young, his temper was violent and he fell into fits of passionate rage. His contemporaries have related that when he was in such a condition he would destroy the illustrations and tear up the books on his work-table. These experiences have been vividly described in his famous romance, The Sorrows of Werther. I shall give a few extracts to show the exact state of mind of the young pessimist. "It is the fate of some men not to be understood." "Human life is a dream; I am not the first to say that, but the idea haunts me. When I reflect on the narrow limits which circumscribe the powers of man, his activities and intelligence; when I see how we exhaust our forces in satisfying our wants and that these wants are for no more than the prolongation of a miserable existence; that our acquiescence in so much is merely resignation engendered by dreams, like that of a prisoner who has covered the walls of his cell with pictures and new landscapes; such things, my friend, plunge me into silence." "Our learned teachers all agree that children do not know why they have desires; but that grown men should move on the earth like children, and, like these, be ignorant whence they have come and whither they go, like these strive little for real things, but be ruled by cakes and sweets and rods; no one will believe such things, though their truth is patent. I admit readily (for I know what you will say) that they are the happiest men who live from day to day like children, who play with their dolls, dress them and undress them, who reverence the cupboard where mamma keeps the

gingerbread, and who, when they have got what they wish, cry, with their mouths full, 'How happy we are!'"'

Werther proclaimed his pessimism before his romance. with Charlotte, and it was his view of life that made his love-affair turn out unhappily. But the fame of Goethe's Werther was due, not to the tragic fate of the young lover, but to the general views which were in harmony with the conception of the world held by the best minds of the time. Byronism was born before Byron.

Werther affords a good illustration of the disharmonies in the development of man's psychical nature. Inclination and desires develop extremely strongly and before will. Just as in the development of the reproductive functions, as I showed in The Nature of Man, the different factors develop unequally and unharmoniously, so there is inequality and disharmony in the order of the appearance of the higher psychical faculties. Sexual appreciation and a vague attraction to the other sex appear at a time when there can be no possibility of the normal physical side of sex, with the result that many evils come about in the long period of youth. The precocious development of sensibility brings about a kind of diffused hyperæsthesia which may lead to trouble. The infant wishes to lay hold of everything he sees before him; he stretches out his arms to grasp the moon and suffers from his inability to gratify his desires. In youth there is still well-marked disharmony. Young people cannot realise the true relations of things, and formulate their desires before they understand that their willpower is not strong enough to gratify them, as will is the latest of the human powers to develop.

Werther fell in love with a kindred spirit and gave way to his passion without consideration of the difficulties, Charlotte being already betrothed to another. This is the