APHORISMS BY GOETHE (Translated by the Right Hon. T. H. Huxley) powerless to NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her. Without asking or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on, until we are tired and drop from her arms. She is ever shaping new forms: what is, has never yet been; what has been, comes not again. Everything is new, and yet nought but the old. We live in her midst, and know her not. She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her. Quietude is inconceivable to her, and she has laid her curse upon rest. She wraps man in darkness, and makes him for ever long for light. She creates him dependent upon the earth, dull and heavy; and yet is always shaking him until he attempts to soar above it. Everyone sees her in his own fashion. She hides under a thousand names and phrases, and is always the same. She has brought me here, and will also lead me away. I trust her. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. Nature, vol. i., pp. 9-10. |