Why don't people get along in this world? I can tell you so far what I've learned about human nature. Why is there hatred, war, oppression and poverty? Learn from goethe! Every person's mind and body is almost exactly like a universe unto itself with it's own laws and regulations, and each person will follow that usually against everything else.
From wikipedia (a portion of the article on goethe)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Influence
Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was a transition in European sensibilities, an increasing focus on sense, the indescribable, and the emotional. This is not to say that he was emotionalistic or excessive; on the contrary, he lauded personal restraint and felt that excess was a disease: "There is nothing worse than imagination without taste". He argued in his scientific works that a "formative impulse", which he said is operative in every organism, causes an organism to form itself according to its own distinct laws, and therefore rational laws or fiats could not be imposed at all from a higher, transcendent sphere; this placed him in direct opposition to those who attempted to form "enlightened" monarchies based on "rational" laws by, for example, Joseph II of Austria or, the subsequent Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. A quotation from his Scientific Studies will suffice:
Goethe wrote:
"We conceive of the individual animal as a small world, existing for its own sake, by its own means. Every creature is its own reason to be. All its parts have a direct effect on one another, a relationship to one another, thereby constantly renewing the circle of life; thus we are justified in considering every animal physiologically perfect. Viewed from within, no part of the animal is a useless or arbitrary product of the formative impulse (as so often thought). Externally, some parts may seem useless because the inner coherence of the animal nature has given them this form without regard to outer circumstance. Thus...[not] the question, What are they for? but rather, Where do they come from?"
– Suhrkamp ed., vol 12, p. 121; trans. Douglas Miller, Scientific Studies
27 Oct 2007, 2:04 pm
