That is
the true meaning of the historical method. The more we broaden our
vision, the less is our danger of confounding poetry, which is the
divine genius of the whole world, with the imperfect, if not misshapen
idols of the tribe, the market-place and the cave.
Of this conquest Carlyle must in justice be reckoned as the pioneer.
For many years he stood almost single-handed as the champion of German
thought and German art against the scorn or neglect of his countrymen.
But he knew that he was right, and was fully conscious whither the
path he had chosen was to lead. Aware that much in the work of Goethe
would seem "faulty" to many, he forestalls the objection at the outset.
"To see rightly into this matter, to determine with any infallibility
whether what we call a fault _is_ in very deed a fault, we must
previously have settled two points, neither of which may be so readily
settled. First, we must have made plain to ourselves what the poet's
aim really and truly was, how the task he had to do stood before his
own eye, and how far, with such means as it afforded him, he has
fulfilled it.
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