As we
have seen him, he was in mind distracted by uncertainty regarding the
special function for which nature intended him; and in his affections
the victim of emotions which by their very nature could not receive
their full gratification. Nor can we say that his relations to his
father, to Kestner, or Brentano were characterised by that
"disinterestedness" which he claims to have attained from his study of
Spinoza. As we shall presently see, Goethe was so far accurate in his
retrospect that at the period before us he was already attracted by
the figure of Spinoza, but it was not till many years later that a
close acquaintance with Spinoza's writings resulted in that
indebtedness to which he gave expression when he said that, with
Linnaeus and Shakespeare, the Jewish thinker was one of the great
formative influences in his development.
[Footnote 172: An entry in his _Ephemerides_, the diary which he kept
in his 21st year (see above, p. 102), shows that Spinoza's philosophy,
as he conceived it, was then repugnant to him. The passage is as
follows: "Testimonio enim mihi est virorum tantorum sententia, rectae
rationi quam convenientissimum fuisse systema emanativum (he is
thinking specially of Giordano Bruno); licet nulli subscribere velim
sectae, valdeque doleam Spinozismum, teterrimis erroribus ex eodem
fonte manantibus, doctrinae huic purissimae, iniquissimum fratrem
natum esse.
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