Professor Tyndall concluded his lecture by a passage on the development theory, in which he contended that if our traditional view of matter had been Goethe’s view, that matter is ‘the living garment of God,’ instead of Young’s, who looked upon it as foreign to mind, and taking all its laws from outside itself, the development theory would not seem to us what we now mean by materialistic. The ‘Pall Mall’ falls severely on Professor Tyndall for misquoting Goethe, and shows that the passage in ‘Faust’ probably referred to, where the Erdgeist speaks of weaving a ‘living garment for the Divinity,’ did not refer to external nature at all. No doubt the special quotation was a little wide of the mark, but does the critic in the ‘Pall Mall’ doubt that Professor Tyndall was interpreting quite accurately Goethe’s conception, as elsewhere expressed with sufficient elaboration? If he does not, his criticism is a cavil. If he does, let him study Goethe more thoroughly--‘Gott und Welt,’ for example, of the proem to which a friend has sent us a faithful version to-day, which we print in another column. What can be stronger than this?-- Was wär’ ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse! Ihm ziemt’s, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen. _A Translation of Goethe’s Proemium to ‘Gott und Welt.’_ To Him who from eternity, self-stirred, Himself hath made by His creative Word! To him, supreme, who causeth Faith to be, Trust, Hope, Love, Power, and endless Energy! To Him, who, seek to name Him as we will, Unknown within Himself abideth still! Strain ear and eye, till sight and sense be dim; Thou’lt find but faint similitudes of Him: Yea, and thy spirit in her flight of flame Still strives to gauge the symbol and the name: Charmed and compelled thou climb’st from height to height, And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright; Time, Space, and Size, and Distance cease to be, And every step is fresh infinity. What were the God who sat outside to scan The spheres that ’neath his finger circling ran? God dwells within, and moves the world and moulds, Himself and Nature in one form enfolds: Thus all that lives in Him and breathes and is, Shall ne’er His puissance, ne’er His spirit miss. The soul of man, too, is an universe: Whence follows it that race with race concurs In naming all it knows of good and true God,--yea, its own God; and with homage due Surrenders to His sway both earth and heaven; Fears Him, and loves, where place for love is given. J. A. S. From the SPECTATOR, September 24. _From the_ TIMES, _October_ 3, 1870.