If we accept the testimony of his Autobiography, his attention was
mainly turned to religion and to chemical and cabbalistical studies;
from his correspondence, on the other hand, it would appear that his
thoughts at least occasionally ran on subjects that had little to do
with his spiritual welfare. At the same time, the apparent discrepancy
need not imply self-contradiction. The correspondents to whom his
letters were addressed were not persons specially interested in
religion or chemistry or the cabbala, and, of all men, Goethe was
least likely to be obsessed by any set of ideas to the exclusion of
all others. There can be little doubt, indeed, that during his year
and a half in Frankfort religion was a more predominant interest in
his life than at any other period; and the fact is sufficiently
explained by the circumstances in which he then found himself. From
the condition both of his mind and body he was disposed to
self-searching. Regret for the past was foreign to his nature; in his
mature judgment, indeed, such a feeling was resolutely to be checked
in the interest of healthy self-development. Yet in the retrospect of
his Leipzig days it seems to have crossed his mind that he might have
spent them more wisely.
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