And he defines that as being
the soul of the Christian religion--the highest of all religions; a
height, as Goethe says--and that is very true, even to the letter, as
I consider--a height to which the human species was fated and enabled
to attain, and from which, having once attained it, it can never
retrograde. It cannot descend down below that permanently, Goethe's
idea is.
Often one thinks it was good to have a faith of that kind--that
always, even in the most degraded, sunken, and unbelieving times, he
calculates there will be found some few souls who will recognise what
that meant; and that the world, having once received it, there is no
fear of its retrograding. He goes on then to tell us the way in which
they seek to teach boys, in the sciences particularly, whatever the
boy is fit for. Wilhelm left his own boy there, expecting they would
make him a Master of Arts, or something of that kind; and when he came
back for him he saw a thundering cloud of dust coming over the plain,
of which he could make nothing. It turned out to be a tempest of wild
horses, managed by young lads who had a turn for hunting with their
grooms.
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