f mechanics in short. And to bring into this domain and subordinate to
its laws everything that occurs in nature, all becoming, and passing away,
and changing, all development, growth, nutrition, reproduction, the origin
of the individual and of the species, of animals and of man, of the living
and the not living, even of sensation and perception, impulse, desire and
instinct, will and thought--this alone would really be to show that things
"happen naturally," that is, to explain everything in terms of natural
causes. And the conviction that this can be done is the only true
naturalism.

Naturalism of this type is fundamentally different in mood and character
from the naive and poetic form, and is, indeed, in sharp contrast to it.
It is working against the very motives which are most vital to the
latter--namely, reverence for and deification of nature. Where the two
types of naturalism really understand themselves nothing but sharp
antagonism can exist between them. Those on the one side must condemn this
unfeeling and irreverent, cold and mathematical dissection and analysis of
the "Great Goddess" as a sacrilege and outrage. And those on the other
side must utterly reject as romantic the view which is summed up in the
confession: "Ist nicht Kern der Natur Menschen im Herzen?" [Is not the
secret of nature in the human heart?]

Goethe's Attitude to Naturalism.

The most instructive example we can take is Goethe: his veneration for
nature on the one hand, and on the other his pronounced opposition to the
naturalism both of the materialists and of the mathematicians. Modern
naturalists are fond of seeking repose and mental refreshment in Goethe's
conception of the world, under the impression that it fits in best and
most closely with their own views. That they do this says much for their
mood and taste, but not quite so much for their powers of discrimination
or for their consistency. It is even more thoughtless than when the
empiricists and sensationalists acclaim as their hero, Spinoza, the
strict, pure rationalist, the despiser of empiricism and of knowledge
acquired through the senses. For to Goethe nature is far from being a
piece of mechanism which can be calculated on and summed up in
mathematical formulae, an everlasting "perpetuum mobile," a magnificent
all-powerful machine. In fact, all this and especially the word "machine"
expresses exactly what Goethe's conception was most directly opposed to.
To him