It was the first practical commencement of those
scientific studies which were subsequently to occupy such a large part
of his life. Along with his chemical experiments went the study of
such visionaries in science as Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and others,
but also of the great Boerhaave, whose _Institutes of Medicine and
Aphorisms_, containing all that was then known of medical theory, he
"gladly stamped on his mind and memory."
To what extent are we to infer that Goethe really shared the religious
views of the circle of pious persons with whom he was now living in
daily contact? His own account we can only regard as half jesting,
half serious. He would never have spiritual peace, Fraeulein von
Klettenberg told him till he had a "reconciled God." Goethe's
rejoinder was that it should be put the other way. Considering his
recent sufferings and his own good intentions, it was God who was in
arrears to him and who had something to be forgiven. The Fraeulein
charitably condoned the blasphemy, but she and her fellow-believers
were assuredly in the right when they denied the blasphemer the name
of _Christian_. Yet, as has been said, Goethe in his own way was
seriously in search of a faith that would satisfy both his intellect
and his heart, and he even attempted to construct one.
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