nfortunate position, since for
the comprehension of the varied objects of nature a division of powers
and capabilities, a disintegration of unity (so to speak) is almost
unavoidable. In a like case the modern scholar encounters an even
greater danger, because in the detailed investigation of manifold
subjects, he runs the risk of scattering his energies and of losing
himself in disconnected knowledge, without supplementing the incomplete,
as the ancients succeeded in doing, by the completeness of his own
personality.

However much Winckelmann wandered about in the fields of possible and
profitable knowledge, guided partly by pleasure and inclination, partly
by necessity, he always came back sooner or later to antiquity,
especially to Greek antiquity, with which he felt himself most closely
related, and with which he was destined so happily to be united in his
best days.

PAGANISM

The description of the ancient point of view, concerned only with this
world and its assets, leads us directly to the observation that such
advantages are conceivable only in a pagan mind. That confidence in
oneself, that activity in the present, the pure worship of the gods as
ancestors and the admiration of them _quasi_ as artistic creations only,
resignation to an all-powerful fate, the yearning for future fame,
itself dependent upon activities in this world--all these belonging
necessarily together, constitute such an inseparable whole that they
form a condition of human existence planned by Nature herself. In the
highest moment of happiness, as well as in the deepest of sacrifice,
even of destruction, we are always conscious of an indestructible
well-being.

This pagan point of view pervades Winckelmann's deeds and writings, and
is expressed especially in his early letters, where he is still wearing
himself out in the conflict with more modern religious opinions. This
mode of thought, this remoteness from the Christian point of view,
indeed his repugnance of it, must be remembered in judging his so-called
change of religion. The churches into which the Christian religion is
divided were a matter of complete indifference to him, because in his
inmost nature he never belonged to any of them.

FRIENDSHIP

Since the ancients, as we boast, were really entire men, they must, as
they found all happiness in themselves and the world, have learned to
know the relations of human beings in the widest sense; they could not
therefore be lackin