ethics are: know thyself and reverence thyself. Such were the
"conjectures on original composition," expounded to him by Herder
which led Goethe to regard poetry in "another sense" from that in
which he had hitherto understood it. And in confirmation of his views
Herder directed him to the exemplars where he would find their
illustration--to the Bible, to Homer and Pindar, to Shakespeare and
Ossian, and, above all, to the primitive poetry of all peoples.

As we shall see, Goethe laid these counsels even too faithfully to
heart; the first composition[79] in which he attempted to realise them
drew upon him Herder's characteristic censure. And it is in this
connection that we have to note the reserves which Goethe makes in the
acknowledgment of his debt to Herder, "Had Herder been more methodical
in his mental habit," he says, "he would have afforded the most
valuable guidance for the permanent direction of my culture; but he
was more disposed to probe and to stimulate than to give guidance and
leading." So it was, as Goethe adds elsewhere, that the result of
Herder's influence on him was a mental confusion and tumult, plainly
visible in another of his early writings,[80] where "quite simple
thoughts and observations are veiled in a dust-cloud of unusual words
and phrases."

[Footnote 79: _Goetz von Berlichingen._]

[Footnote 80: Von deutcher Baukunst.]

The homage which Goethe pays to Herder in the retrospect of his
Strassburg days is equally emphasised in his contemporary letters.
"Herder, Herder," he writes in one place, "remain to me what you are.
If I am destined to be your planet I will be it; be it willingly,
faithfully."[81] Yet we may doubt whether Herder's influence was, in
truth, so determining a factor in his life as Goethe himself
represents it. Herder, he tells us, first taught him a wise
self-distrust, but we have seen that one of the lessons he professes
to have learned from Oeser was "to be modest without self-depreciation,
and to be proud without presumption." Before he saw Herder, also, he
had already divined the greatness of Shakespeare and the futility of
Voltaire's criticisms of him. Herder's ideas regarding the human
spirit and its possibilities were in the air, and, had the two men
never met, the probability is that Goethe's development would not have
been different from what it actually was. Herder's general views were
already incipient in him; and what Herder did was to deepen and
intensify