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predate the validity of the objection . The same class of persons , even in Germany , and to a greater degree in England , object altogether to Goethe ' s mode of considering the intercourse of the sexes . Not that there is an indecorous expression in the book ; not that licentiousness is justified in argument , or represented as innocuous in fact ; but that though the union of the sexes , and
especially the paternal relation , is represented as that above all others by which the character is fixed , and the good and evil of life determined , yet marriage as a social institution is never adverted to as a necessary incident in the connexion . Not only is the passionate Lydia shown in the agonies of despair , but the deeply affecting Aurelia dies the victim of Lothario ' s desertion , who is , nevertheless , exhibited , unreproved , as the model of every excellence .
The incidents also have been as vehemently objected to as the characters ; and a want of probability is alleged as destructive of all interest in the individuals . In the chateau of the Count , as well as of Lothario , are introduced a set of mysterious persons , who get up a sort of show in a secret apartment . Personages from a stage make speeches to and at Wilheim . They read to him from a roll of parchment his lehr-brief—a set of admonitions for his
conduct in life . They recommend themselves to his favour by the solemn assurance that the child Felix is his son ; otherwise they would have appeared as troublesome and impertinent to him as they doubtless do to the English reader , to whom , however , we have to offer this apology , that the actual existence of secret societies in Germany is a fact of no small importance in the history of that country during the last age . *
The objection made to the Lehrjahre on the ground of its too met a physic character is still more applicable to the second part , * It is notorious ' that the late King of Prussia was , to a great degree , governed by some religious fanatics and impostors , who had obtained the mastery of his weak and obstinate head . Schiller made this set of people the subject of his popular novel , * The Ghost Seer / which , when translated , ought to have been accompanied by an historical commentary . The want of secret societies in a country which had no free press , or
other legal organ for free and public instruction , was so universally felt , that they were resorted to both b y Catholics and Protestants , the religious and the anti-religious . Our readers are acquainted probabl y with the Scotch Professor Robi son ' s ' History of the Conspiracy against Church and State on the Continent , ' and of the Abb 6 Baruel ' s ' History of Jacobinism , * written with like design . Now , in both of these works there is a great deal of * malignant truth , ' which , because the malice was apparent , was deemed unjustly a lie . Both of the authors erred in giving unity of design and
combination to unconnected elements—and , indeed , hostile purposes are strangely brought together as pursued in concert . There is , however , no doubt that the order oixllumxnaii founded by fVeithaupt in Germany just before the French Revolution broke out , contributed greatly to prepare the Bavarian * for the degree of liberty and political power that was given them b y the late king . That king , and his able minister Mongetat , ( the man of whom , and of Talleyrand , Buonaparte declared that they were the onlr perfect minister * and diplomatists he had ever known , ) were both among the early pupils of Weishatipt , who ended his days but a few years since at Gotha , having lived to witness the establishment of a representative constitution by his own royal pupil , in the country where his first labours were performed , and where Jemit ism was most effectually opposed by a Jesuitical contrivance .
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183 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 188, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/44/
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