The nearer it approaches, with its more facile treatment, to faithful imitation and on the other side, the more earnestly it endeavors to seize and comprehensibly express the character of objects, the more it strives, by means of a pure, lively, and active individuality, to combine the two, the higher, greater, and more worthy of respect it will become. But if such an artist ceases to hold fast by and reflect upon nature, he will soon lose sight of the true principles of art, and his manner will become more and more empty and insignificant in proportion as he leaves behind simple imitation and style. We need not here repeat that we use the word Manner in a high and honorable sense, so that artists who, according to our definition, would be termed Mannerists have nothing to complain of. It is only incumbent upon us to preserve the word Style in the highest honor, in order to have an expression for the highest point art has attained or ever can attain. To be aware of this point is in itself a great good fortune, and to enter upon its consideration in company with sensible people, a noble pleasure, for which we hope to have many opportunities in the sequel. ANCIENT AND MODERN (1818) I have been obliged, in what precedes, to say so much in favor of antiquity, and particularly of the plastic artists of those times, that I may possibly be misunderstood, which so often happens where the reader, instead of preserving a just balance, throws himself at once into the opposite scale. I therefore seize the present opportunity to explain my meaning, using plastic art as a symbol of the never-ceasing life of human actions and affairs. A young friend, Karl Ernst Schubarth, in his pamphlet, _A Critique on Goethe_, which in every respect calls for my esteem and thanks, says: “I do not agree with those worshipers of the ancients, among whom is Goethe himself, who maintain that in high and complete development of humanity nothing has ever been arrived at to compare with the Greeks.” Fortunately, Schubarth’s own words give us an opportunity to adjust this difference, where he says, “As to our Goethe, let me say that I prefer Shakespeare to him, for this reason,--that in Shakespeare I seem to find a strong, unconscious man, who is able, with perfect certainty, and without reasoning, reflecting, subtilizing and classifying, to seize with never-failing hand the true and false in man, and express it quite naturally; whilst in Goethe, though I recognize the same ultimate aim, I am always fighting with obstacles, and must be always taking heed lest I accept for plain truth what is only an exhibition of plain error.”