His task, regarded as a whole, was to do over again the work of the Renascence. But whereas the Renascence had been a large national or European movement, advancing towards its ends partly through popular passions and a new enthusiasm, the work which Goethe accomplished was more an affair of intelligence, criticism, conscious self-direction. It was less of a flood sweeping away old dikes and dams, and more of a dawn quietly and gradually drawing back the borders of darkness and widening the skirts of light. A completely developed human being, for the uses of the world,—this was the ideal in which Goethe's thoughts centred, and towards which his most important writings constantly tend. A completely developed State or commonwealth should follow, as an ideal arising out of the[Pg 6388] needs and demands of a complete individual. Goethe knew that growth comes not by self-observation and self-analysis, but by exercise. Therefore he turned himself and would turn his disciples to action, to the objective world; and in order that this action may be profitable, it must be definite and within a limited sphere. He preaches self-renunciation; but the self-renunciation he commends is not self-mortification; it is the active self-abandonment of devotion to our appropriate work. Such is the teaching of 'Wilhelm Meister': it traces the progress of a youth far from extraordinary, yet having within him the capacity for growth, progress through a thousand errors and illusions, from splendid dreams to modest reality. Life is discovered by Wilhelm to be a difficult piece of scholarship. The cry for freedom in 'Götz,' the limitless sigh of passion heard in 'Werther,' are heard no more. If freedom is to be attained, it can only be through obedience; if we are to "return to nature," it cannot be in Rousseau's way but through a wise art of living, an art not at odds with nature, but its complement:— "This is an art which does mend nature—but The art itself is nature."